IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, DR. OSWALD SCHWARZ WRITES: "HOWEVER MUCH ONE MAY agree that purity is an essential element of every woman's character, it must be admitted that there is a large group of women in whose personality structure purity is no criterion ... the question of whether they are pure or not docs not arise. Their moral value rests in the opposite of purity: in richness of experience. They have set out to embrace the inexhaustible variety of life and love ... There is also a kind of purity in the way such women live and love, but it is not so much purity of the soul as a purity of purpose." Honey Thye had such a purity of purpose. She was a purely sexual creature.
1
HONEY THYE WAS NINETEEN, AND SHE NEEDED A man in the worst way.
It had been four long years since she'd felt firm flesh between her legs, and having once had good loving, she wanted it again. Riding her huge roan stallion around Gomorrah Ranch helped her work off some surplus sex energy, but it was hardly equal to the other thing. And for that she needed a partner.
Fat chance she had of finding one, the way her grandpa imprisoned her on the place!
It wasn't that life was so bad on the ranch; quite the contrary, most of the time it was a most enjoyable place to pass the time. But Honey was tired of passing time; what she wanted was some passion. A big, healthy girl like her naturally had a big, healthy appetite for the spicier things in life-especially ever since a mulatto stable boy had given her a sample in back of the barn when she was fifteen. Closing her eyes, she could still see his brown hands cupping her ice-cream-scoop boobs just before her grandpa blew his head off with a thirty-ought-six, covering her naked cleavage with gore.
"That'll teach him to mess with white girls!" Gramps Thye had screamed, running over to examine his handiwork. Ever since, Honey hadn't gotten along with her grandpa, though he tried to make it up to her with gifts like the huge stallion she now spurred on furiously as she recalled the episode. It seemed like only yesterday that she'd seen the buzzards eating LeRoy's fetid flesh, for granddad had decreed that no one was to touch the remains, or they would be tainted for life.
"Satan is among us, and we must resist temptation at all costs!" he had screamed at the hired hands, most of whom left for parts unknown on seeing their festering ex-co-worker being fought over by the black birds. Dropping everything, they ran for the front gate at breakneck speed, never to return.
"Mess of mollycoddles!" Cramps had yelled after them, taking Honey by the arm and laying her derriere bare. Then, seizing his cat o' nine tails, he flogged her flesh until her blood mingled with the dead mulatto's sperm. But she didn't cry, and never had since that day. She had to remain tough, hard and hopeful that the old goat would kick off in the near future.
The few ranch hands who had remained, either out of fear or unfounded loyalty, did their best to put the matter out of their minds. After all, the old fellow was perfectly within his rights to shoot the swarthy lecher, especially under Texas law. Black boys, even if they are mostly white, don't force their attentions on attentive young girls if they want to keep drawing breath in this world. LeRoy knew this, but the charms of young Honey Thye had been too much temptation, and it had been only a matter of time before he answered the call of her cuddly flesh, sealing his fate as he entered her sweet loins. Just before his head was blown off, he had whispered in her ear, "You know what? No matter what happens, it's worth it. You're the most dee-lectable piece of tail I've ever had, be she black or white."
Needless to say, Honey hated to waste her assets during her prime years, but what could she do? How could she leave, when she didn't have a dime to her name, and was deathly afraid of falling headlong into the abyss her granddad so often warned her about.
For Honey, like her granddad, was a religious creature, and having sampled Satan's offerings, she knew how hard it was to resist temptation. It had taken everything she had to keep from running away to the pleasures of a life of sin. Many were the times she was ready to backslide, and she wasn't sure she could continue to resist. The Devil is a devious sort, and found myriad ways to tempt the young girl. It had gotten so she was beginning to wonder if it was worth it to store up her treasures in heaven. She didn't know if she could wait that long. If only the right man would come along and rescue her from this life of frustration...
Riding pell-mell up the side of a promontory, Honey dug her spurs into the stallion's side, forcing him up the steep slope until they reached the top. The horse whinnied with relief, and Honey patted his mane in appreciation of his supreme effort. But it was worth it, for the view was magnificent. Honey loved being up high; it was so elevating, made her feel in the company of gods. Gazing down on her granddad's ranch, she could see how small it was by comparison to the rest of the world. A thousand acres wasn't much, when measured against the vastness of the universe; but for the present, at least, it was her universe. Not until a man came to get her, or her grandpa died, could she leave the place. She had been told that by her granddad shortly after she'd lost her virtue on the haystack four years ago.
Dismounting from the tired stallion, Honey tied him to a clump of cypress and sat down on a rock outcropping to view the scenery below. It was a beautiful sight, East Texas in the spring: flowers blooming everywhere, the trees all green from April showers, birds singing as they flew about ... an occasional moo from the cattle. God's creatures were everywhere, and up here she could see that He was a God of beauty as well as wrath, and she prayed that He would be merciful in her case.
The warm sun made her want to shed her clothes, to feel completely free. Why not? No one was around, and her horse wouldn't mind. Unbuttoning her blouse, she arched her back, exposing proud breasts to the sun, their nipples hard from rubbing against the coarse fabric. The wool blouse falling to the ground, she next unsnapped the fly of her Levi's, and pulled them earthward to her ankles. Sitting down on the sun-warmed rock, she kicked off her boots, then finished the job of removing the Levi's. Only her panties remained, and these soon joined the pile of clothes that lay alongside her grazing horse.
Honey stood up, raising outstretched arms to the sky, bowing her blonde head in the presence of the Lord, begging forgiveness for the simple pagan pleasure of nude sunbathing.
The warm rock felt good to her naked underside, as did the sun's rays raining down on her front. She felt at peace with the world, totally alone, but not lonely. It was a wonderful feeling, and she savored every sweet moment of it before falling asleep from the fatigue of the long ride.
She dreamed of tall strangers in tight pants pressing their private parts, taking her in their strong arms and manfully making love to her. It was too beautiful to be true, and when the first raindrop hit her, she realized it was only imagination that had caused her loins to moisten. But it felt fine, just the same. Then, when it started to pour, she really woke up. Was the Lord washing away her sins? She stood up, enjoying the drops beating on her heated flesh, and begged forgiveness for her sensual excesses, subconscious though they had been.
"If I have sinned, O Lord, strike me dead here and now!"
A bolt of lightning shot out, hitting a distant tree, which fell in the forest below. Honey took this as a sign that the Lord had answered. By striking the tree rather than her, He forgave her, as He had forgiven his only begotten Son a long time ago.
Vindicated, she raised her face to heaven and whispered a silent prayer of appreciation. Another bolt of lightning struck and in the same place! Honey was doubly impressed, for such things just didn't happen. She pinched herself on the pussy to make sure she wasn't dreaming. She wasn't.
"WOW!" she roared in approval. The Lord had answered her not once but twice, and who else could say that? Not many folks had a direct line to the Lord, and she felt mighty proud of her accomplishment. Her head starting to swell, she remembered suddenly that all is vanity, and tried to be humble, but it was hard. She felt at one with Moses, Christ and Billy Graham, and it was a jim-dandy feeling.
Her head bowed, she chanced to open her eyes, and saw what looked like a truck driving onto her granddad's property. Squinting through the rain, she saw that it wasn't one of his. Too new; all his were at least thirty years old. A third sign from the Lord!
Deciding to return at once to the ranch house with the news of her Divine conversation, Honey looked about for her clothes. Whatever had happened to them? Had the rain washed them down the hillside? No; it wasn't raining that hard. Then she saw an indigo shred hanging from her horse's mouth, and laughed out loud.
"You naughty stud, eating my duds! You ought to be ashamed!"
He had consumed every stitch of her clothing, and strangely, she didn't even care-not after the Lord had showed such concern for her well-being. She knew now that nothing could harm her. She felt like Eve, all of a sudden, and she wasn't ashamed of her nakedness.
Mounting the big brown stallion, she said, "If it was good enough for Lady Godiva, I guess it's good enough for me," and rode off down the slope. Halfway down, she realized why Lady Godiva rode side-saddle, and did accordingly on reaching level ground.
All the way back, she sang gospel songs, praising the glory of the Lord. The horse's ears would perk up whenever she hit a high note, and once he reared when she got carried away with her zeal. Nearly sliding off, Honey grabbed frantically for the reins, and henceforth lowered her treble. Just the same, by the time she reached the ranch house, she was hoarse.
And then she saw HIM, and HE saw her! Standing there on the front porch was a tall stranger, talking to her granddad! Just like in her dream! She rode faster, spurring her mount to a gallop as she approached them. Even through the downpour, she could see the looks of consternation on their faces.
Her grandpa was so shocked at the sight of his naked Honey that he was unable to move. Worried that he might be having a seizure, the tall stranger sought to comfort him, but the old gentleman, on being touched, leaped back to life.
"Bitchery and abomination!" he screamed waving his fist at the naked girl in front of him. "May the curse of Satan be upon Ye!"
He got down on his knees and prayed. "Forgive her, for she knows not what she does. And forgive me for what I am about to do." Then, seizing his horsewhip, he lashed out at Honey's heathen skin, raising a welt on her buttock. She winced, but said nothing. The stranger, when he saw what the old man was doing, seized the whip and hurled it a hundred feet away.
"How dare you butt in here!"
"A gentleman doesn't flog a young girl like he would an ass!"
"So you want to be whipped too, do ye?" "Just try it, you old goat, and your days are over, pronto!"
"Please don't hurt him, mister! He's the only grandpa I got!"
"If you say so, Miss..." "Honey. Honey Thye."
"That sure is a sweet name for a sweet girl," he said, dipping his cowboy hat in her direction.
On seeing this act of chivalry, Cramps Thye turned purple with rage. "How dare you gaze with lust on my granddaughter, you interloper!"
"You should talk," the cowboy said contemptuously. "You child-beater!"
"She's nineteen years old, I'll have you know!"
'Tast the age of consent, is she?"
"I caught that! I know what evil is in your mind, mister whateveryernameis, and if you know what's good for you, you'll get off my land in a hurry!"
"Mister Slim Harpoon, at your service, miss," said the tall stranger, bowing toward Honey.
Quivering in near frenzy, Gramps Thye shook his fist at both of them, warning them that he could not, under the circumstances, be responsible for his actions.
Ignoring him, the stranger named Slim sashayed over to help Honey dismount, but before he could, the old man had interposed himself between them. "Not with my grandchild, you won't!"
"I was just trying to be civil."
"I know what you were trying to do, you corrupter of young girls!"
"But I've already been corrupted, Grandpa!"
"You shut up, girl! How dare you be impertinent with me! Cover your nakedness! Can't you see this man is gazing on you with lust in his eyes?"
"He is?" she said excitedly. "How marvelous!"
Instantly, the old man fell to his knees and began praying. "O Lord, may you strike her dead, rather than let her live the life of sin she seems destined for!"
Meanwhile, Slim helped Honey out of the saddle and into his arms, a task each completely enjoyed.
"You're so strong!" she said, pursing her lips to kiss him on the chin.
"You're kinda cute, yourself," he said, keeping his work-callused palms on her bottom. On seeing this brazen act of wantonness, the old man's eyes bulged out and he leaped full force on the sinful couple, flailing blows on them, with Old Testament fury, and bloodying his fists as well as their bodies. In the face of his madness, the young couple knew not how to protect themselves, and both received the brunt of his onslaught full-force.
"I smite ye in the name of the Lord!"
"Then you take His name in vain!" answered Slim, struggling to defend himself against Honey's crazed grandfather. Although the old fellow wasn't a large man, he was all sinew from seventy years of hard work, and possessed as he was, Slim had a difficult time subduing him. He would get him on the ground and have both knees on his chest, and the old guy would rise up in spite of it, raining blows like a windmill, unstoppable by any mortal force. All his stoppers were out, and his unleashed adrenalin was more than a match for Slim, who struggled to avoid certain death. The old coot was that crazy.
Seeing that he was starting to fade, Slim decided to make a run for it while he was able. Grabbing Honey, he sprinted toward his pickup, and the old man was right behind, bellowing threats as he beat on their bodies.
"Sinners! Profligates! Sodomites!" he screamed, now using his boots to kick their calves. Slim turned and caught him with a judo chop on the back of his neck that brought him to his knees. Unfortunately, this put him in biting range, and in an instant he had sunk his false teeth into Slim's sinful calf, bringing blood to the surface before Slim could drop-kick him with his free foot. Even then, he held on like a bulldog, and it was only with Honey's help that Slim succeeded in dislodging the old fellow, if not his teeth, which remained clamped onto Slim's leg. Toothless, the ancient adversary flapped his gums in anger at being de-fanged.
Limping toward the pickup, Slim staggered along, beating off the bewildered septuagenarian, Honey helping him escape, but declining to strike her own flesh, and blood.
"Family," she explained as they were driving off, leaving the demented old man in a cloud of dust. They could see him foaming at the mouth as he rolled about on the road.
"Does your granddad suffer from hydrophobia?" asked Slim, who had once seen a rabid dog.
"Don't think so, Slim; though he is prone to fits of conniption now and then."
"I think he's just a mite upset at your leaving. Especially with me."
"Say, who are you, anyway? I mean aside from your name?"
"I'm a horse-trainer. Hail from Muleshoe, Texas. Ride rodeos most of the time, but I broke my leg a while back, and it's still a mite stiff, so I've been pickin' up a mite of coin training horses."
"Then you came to the wrong place. All ours are work horses, except for my roan stallion."
"I can break most any kind of horse, though I must say, race horses are my specialty. Dam Clydesdales and Morgans are a mite more difficult to train."
"You sure say 'mite' a lot; you know it?"
"Yeah, I guess I do. It's one of my words, you might say."
"You might a mite, eh?" "Yeah," he replied bashfully.
Returning to the subject, Honey said, "Broke that big stud of mine myself." "You didn't!"
"Sure did. Even broke one of the workhorses, after gramps showed me how to do it." She spoke proudly, puffing out her bare chest, embarrassing her traveling companion, who until now-what with the excitement-had forgotten that she was nude.
"Gosh, we'd best cover you up with something, or the locals may get a mite excited!" he said, looking about the cab for a suitable aritcle of clothing. "Look back of the seat, sweetie. There might be a work shirt there."
"Nope," she said, pulling out a filthy sleeveless undershirt. "But there's this."
"Put it on. Can't have you parading around with all those protuberances hanging out, can we?"
"I need some pants, too," she said poutingly.
"Got some chaps in the bed."
"You do? Oh, please get them."
He stopped the truck just outside the gate to Gomorrah Ranch, and as he got out to fetch the chaps, he noticed for the first time that they were being followed. Perhaps a quarter of a mile away, he could see a cloud of dust proceeding in their direction. Studying it, he exclaimed, "Your grandpa's after us!"
"Really? How exciting!"
Due to the fact that the truck bed was chockfull of saddles, stirrups, horsewhips, boots, horseshoes and whatnot, Slim had a difficult time locating the leather chaps, but finally finding them, he hoisted them up so Honey could see them through the rear window. Nodding her approval, she gestured wildly that her grandpa was closing the gap. Turning around, Slim saw his old stake truck only twenty yards away, and vaulted out of the bed and back on the ground, spraining his leg in the process. Honey rushed to his side, half-nude, but wanting to help.
"Get back in the truck!" he ordered her, but she rushed to aid him anyway. Just then, he felt the lash of a horsewhip on his neck, and cried out in pain.
"That'll learn ya, ya scrofulous bounder!"
Somewhat mystified by the strange epithet, Slim failed to move before the second stroke struck him, this time on the cheek.
"You better not do that again; understand?" he said as he rose unsteadily to his feet, leaning on Honey's arm for support.
"You better smile when you say that, mister, if you know what's good for you," answered Gramps Thye, waving the whip menacingly.
"Get back in the cab, Honey. I've got somethin' to settle with your granddad."
Reluctantly, she moved away, as Slim stared down the old geezer, who was starting to shake again, quivering with rage. Seeing this, Honey stopped before getting in the truck, and turned around to watch. Slim limped slowly toward the driver's seat, using the old man's temporary immobility to stage a tactical retreat.
After perhaps a minute of frozen trembling, Grandpa Thye shook off his fit and began to scream. At first he uttered sounds that could best be described as animal-like, then switched to something more like early caveman, and finally settled on a mixture of Old Testament and East Texas expressions to castigate the sinful couple, who stood spellbound before him.
"May the earth open up and swallow you sinful Sodomites, you Jezebel and Onan! Steal my Honey Thye from me, mister, and ye shall burn in Hades for eternity! And the dogs in the streets shall eat Jezebel."
"What are you calling me, Grandpa?" screamed Honey, anxious to find out what he was getting at.
"How dare you speak to me in that tone, harlot! I shall whip thee, O fallen female, in the service of the Lord!" He now looked skyward for help. But none coming, he decided to do it himself.
"Get back in the pickup, Honey, or he'll hurt you!" Slim warned.
"My own granddad?"
A lash across her neck answered that question. 'Take that, you Dimebox dirtyleg!"
"Nobody calls me that and gets away with it! Even if he is my own flesh and blood! I maybe a lot of things, but I'm not a cheap slut, and you know it!"
Seizing Slim's horsewhip, which she spied in the truck bed, Honey, who knew how to use it, did. With one mighty crack, she knocked her nemesis off his feet, laughing loudly as she watched him fall.
"Damn you, dirtyleg!" he screamed, slowly picking himself off the ground.
"Get in, Honey!" said Slim, who now had the engine started.
"Just a minute," she said. "Nobody calls me a dirtyleg; understand?" And with one last snap of the horsewhip, she tore off her grandpa's shirt. "Not even you, Grandpa."
"Dirtyleg dirtyleg dirtyleg dirtyleg dirtyleg!" he yelled as he rolled in the dirt, sounding for all the world like a kid who'd just learned to swear.
All the way to Dimebox, Honey, who now wore both undershirt and leather chaps, complained about being called a dirtyleg.
'That old goat! He sure knows how to hurt a girl. Boy, that burns me up! I sure am glad I'm getting away from that place. Not until now did I realize how crazy he really is!"
"Because he called you a dirtyleg?" asked Slim, puzzled by her behavior.
"Yes, because he called me a dirtyleg! You wouldn't understand, because you aren't a member of the Thye family, but with us that's the worst thing you can call a girl. He used to call my mother that before she died. Even after." She started to cry, and Slim handed her his handkerchief to wipe away the tears. Diplomatically, he said nothing.
"You see, my mother, being a healthy girl like me, liked a good screw as much as anyone. Only the man she married wasn't worth beans in bed, so my mon went elsewhere. That's where she got me. I don't really know who my daddy was, though Gramps said he must have been an evil man to so brazenly commit adultery."
"As they say, love children are the loveliest. You sure do prove that."
'Thanks. Granddad always said I took after my mom, at least looks-wise. She died when I was three, so I can't remember her too well, but everybody says she was a real pretty woman."
"How'd she die, if you don't mind my asking?"
"Run over by a train. She and some man got drunk one night and were out driving his car-I think it was a Tucker Torpedo-on the railroad tracks. Some cars fit on 'em just right."
"Yeah; I know. Used to do some rail-riding myself, out inWestTexax."
"Really? I've never done it, but I hear it's fun. Anyway, they were riding on what they thought was an abandoned track of the Texas and Western, when what should they see but the Super Chief roaring down on 'em. Never had a chance. Smashed 'em both to smithereens."
"I'm sorry."
"It wasn't your fault."
"What about your dad? I mean your mother's husband?"
"Cuckolded as he was, he had to do something. Shot hisself in the head at the funeral. Fell right on top of Mom's casket. Shook up people around here for quite a while after."
"Imagine it would."
"So my grandpa, an off-the-deep-end Baptist, swooped down and spirited me away to Gomorrah Ranch, where I've lived ever since. And if I ever referred to my mother, he always answered with, 'Don't mention that dirtyleg's name in front of me!"
"I think I understand now why you dislike being called a dirtyleg."
"I can stand being called just about anything else, but that particular term sends me into a tizzy."
At the Dimebox Motel, they registered as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, though Slim, a mite flustered, first wrote down Mr. and Mrs. Dirtyleg, and had to ink it out and start over. The proprietor, who had a heart of lucre, smiled at this but said nothing.
All night long, Slim did his best to satisfy Honey, who hankered after loving with a passion such as he had never encountered before.
"You sure do like to do it!" he said, doing it again.
"I sure do," she answered, enjoying the full feeling he gave her.
His callused hands cupping her dewy derriere, he set about doing his manly chore once more, charging into her wet snatch with an animal fury that soon had the fully excited female moaning with passion.
"Drive it home, Slim! Drive it home hard!" she begged, the nearness of satisfaction making it almost unbearable for her.
"What's the hurry, Honey? I think I'll just linger a bit afore I make my finale," he chuckled, his stallion striking to a halt.
"Did you have to do that? Especially when I was so close? Darn you anyway! Now I have to work myself up to the verge again." She pouted, silently cursing men for their orneriness.
"Sorry about that. Guess I'll have to mount up again and show you how it is," Slim said, spitting out tobacco juice and jumping into her aching void again. Moving with the manliness she had longed for, for so long, he soon had her in the upper reaches of sexual excitement, driving his hardness home with a hardness not heretofore known by either of them. Something about the need to arrive together made his prick grow and grow and grow until ...
"Oh! Please let it go, Slim! Please!" She moaned, her fingernails drawing blood from his arching back.
"If you say so," he said, increasing his internal oscillations to a frenzy until finally his huge love prod poured forth the hot, sticky stuff that Honey's dreams were made of.
Then, the fun over, they fell asleep on the damp sheets.
2
THE FIRST RAYS OF THE RISING SUN STRIKING Honey in the face, she awoke instantly. Farm girl that she was, getting up at dawn seemed almost her duty. Yawning herself into cognizance, she saw the somnolent figure of Slim by her side, and realized that the wonderful dreams of the night before had been reality. She leaned over and kissed him good morning on the lips.
His eyes squinting against the sun, he smiled and said, "Now that's the way a man should wake up: With a pretty girl's lips instead of a noisy alarm clock." He laughed. "You know, when I was a kid, I used to have this hound dog who used to wake me up every morning; and you know how he'd do it?"
"How?" she asked, now nuzzling his ear.
"Same way you did. Only difference was, he used to lick me all over until I got up. I tell you, nothing like a slobbering dogspittle to get you out of bed in a hurry."
"Compare me to a cur, do you?" she kidded, continuing to lather up his ear.
"Cut that out, will you? It makes my earwax run."
"Sorry, Slim. I didn't know it bothered you."
"Ordinarily it wouldn't, Honey, but there's a time and place for everything."
"And what's wrong with right now?"
"Well, for one thing, old Slim's got a full bladder that's about to burst."
"Land sakes, don't tell me a big lad like you is bashful about a thing like that! Go ahead and drain your kidneys, partner. Any girl what grew up with animals ain't the least big upset by seein' a boy pass water."
"Thank you, Miss Honey, for the invitation, which I shall take up pronto," he said, leaping out of bed and heading for the bathroom. A few seconds later, Honey heard an enormous outpouring, corresponding simultaneously with an equally large sigh of relief. She giggled to herself.
"What's so funny?" he called, flushing.
"You," she replied, giggling again.
"I don't see anything funny about someone performing normal bodily functions, unless one takes a perverse pleasure in that sort of thing," he said, his voice taking on priggish overtones.
"Gee! You're so smart!"
"Don't put me on, Honey. I've been around a mite; I know what's goin' on."
"And I don't?" she said, sounding hurt.
"Precisely, my dear; precisely," he answered, pausing to brush his teeth.
"Please teach me. I didn't know I was so ignorant! Do city girls do it different than I? Huh?"
"Oh, I don't mean that, Honey. You do that just fine. It's just that most girls your age don't laugh about a man going to the bathroom; that's all."
"Well, maybe they should. Nothing wrong with makin' fun of someone, long as you do it in the right spirit."
Looking down at her like a bored daddy, he laughed. "I guess, little girl, there's a bit of a generation gap between us."
"How old are you, anyway?" 'Twenty-six."
"Really? You don't look a day over twenty-one."
"Clean living is what does it," he said, sliding back in bed beside her.
"Kiss me, mister twenty-six-year-old stud, and see if I respond in the normal way." He did, and she did.
"Any other reflexes you want checked?" he said, his right hand now cupping her breast.
"Just keep it up. I'm doing fine finding out about this one." She' kissed him back, hard, on the lips. Soon their naked bodies were pressing close against one another, and
Slim was spreading her eager legs apart. But before he could do more, Honey had broken free of his embrace and started off on one of her own. Moving down toward the wellspring of his desire, she continued kissing everything in sight. First his strong neck, the blood vessels of which now stood out prominently as she bit into his flesh.
"You little tigress, you!" he exclaimed, returning her bite with one of his.
"What big teeth you have, grandma!"
"Better to eat you with, my dear," he laughed.
She was now down to his clavicle, on a trail of teeth marks starting just south of his ear. Down she went, nibbling away at his abdomen until she stopped just shy of his skewer.
Surveying its strange swaying action, she studied it, then seized it in both hands as she beheld its one-eyed splendor.
"Cyclops, what wonderful sights you must see!" she said, bussing it briefly until a pearl of wisdom appeared on its crown. She could feel Slim tremble as her lips licked around it, completely enveloping the tip of his cock. Then she sank her teeth in, and he screamed, bashing her on the side of the head until she let go.
"Can't you wait till breakfast? I'll buy you a sausage," he said, obviously upset. "Look: You left a tooth mark on me!"
"Let me kiss it and make it well," she said, doing just that. "Feel any better?"
"I think the circulation's coming back, but you'd better not do that again, or I'll have to thrash you."
"Really?" she said excitedly, nearly choking on him. He could feel the vibrations of her voice surge through his loins, and it wasn't something he had felt before. Girls ordinarily were so shy about doing such a thing that they closed their eyes and pretended they were doing something else. And interrupting the act to try and speak--never!
"You're quite a gal, Honey; you really are," he said, patting her bobbing head between his legs. "Boy, that feels good, baby! Keep it up."
"You seem to be doing a pretty good job of that yourself," she said, stopping for a moment to let him appreciate her doings.
"Please don't stop, Honey, and I'll buy you a great big breakfast." He began to shake all over.
"How about breakfast for you? like a little Honey on your stinger?"
"Yes, ma'am; don't mind if I do," he said, placing her lovely triangle of fur on his face. Now both of them had something to munch on, and it made them feel mighty good.
"I can't hold it much longer," Slim said, worried that she would arrive at the same time he did.
"Don't worry, baby. Just let 'er rip whenever you feel like it. If anything, that'll speed me on my way to satisfaction," she said, her lips moving even more furiously than before. Unable to stop the onslaught, he gave in to it, moaning as the enormous outpouring inundated Honey's loveliness. As if to thank her, he kissed her salty sweetness with a passion that soon had her too in the promised land.
"Boy! That was sure something!" she exclaimed, wiping the sticky residue from her cheeks with the sheet. "Never did do that before, you know."
"Can't prove it by me," he said, disentangling himself from her loins. "You sure do that thing about as good as I've seen it done."
"Must be beginner's luck," she laughed.
"No. Seriously, sweetie, you're made for lovemaking. Do the whole shebang in a super-dooper way. Not many gals you can say that about. I bet guys'd pay plenty to have you; that is, if I'd let 'em, and I won't."
"You're so strong!" she said, feeling his bicep.
"Beat hell out of any man that tries to touch you, I will," he said, meaning it.
"I'll always be true," Honey said, embracing his shoulder.
"You better be, or I'll thrash you to within an inch of your life; and don't think I won't, either."
"You mean I can't do what we just did with other guys?" she asked, showing her child-like innocence.
"If you do, I might just shoot you and whoever I catch you doing it with."
"But you said I was such a good lover, guys'd pay me to do it with 'em."
"Are you tetched or somethin', sweetie? I said you're going to be my gal, and nobody else's. Can't you understand plain English?"
"You mean you're going to marry me?"
"Now, I didn't say that. Honey, though maybe I might, ifn you prove yourself to be an upstandin' woman. Can't take a chance on your turning tart on me, though. It'd make me the laughing stock of Muleshoe if I brought home a dirtyleg for a bride."
"Please don't call me a dirtyleg, Slim. You don't know how that hurts me."
"Just keep your nose clean and your legs together, and we won't have any trouble. But cross me once by doin' it with someone else, and believe me, it's all over. I mean that, Honey; I really do."
"I shall always be true, Slim. I shall. I am affectionate, aren't I?"
"That's precisely what I'm afraid of, princess. What if I should leave for a while-and I will have to ride the rodeo circuit when my leg heals. What will you do for loving when I'm away?"
"You mean you won't take me with you?" she said, almost in tears.
"Rodeo circuit's no place for a girl. Riffraff hangin' about, living in motels or a camper. No. No woman of mine is going to live that way."
"Maybe you can buy me a puppy or something."
"Sounds like a swell idea. Get you your own horse, too."
She began to cry.
"Whatsamatter?" asked Slim, sounding anxious. "It's just that I miss my stud," she sobbed.
"Don't worry, dearie; I'D get you a better horse."
"Ain't no horse better'n my stud!" she wailed.
"Well," he answered diplomatically, "we'll get you one almost as good."
"Best darn horse in the whole world, my stud is! And don't you forget it, Mister Slim Harpoon! "
"Okay, okay. Now will you hush up, before the management complains?"
"I'm sorry, Slim. It's just that I miss my horse; that's all."
"Would you rather go back to living with your grandpa?"
"Never! For a moment there, I forgot how awful it was with him. Ran the darn place like a prison. Do you know, I haven't been allowed off the place in over four years!"
"Really? Well, you're off it now, and big Slim will take care of you as long as you want. That is, if you want."
"But I do!" she exclaimed, hugging him all the harder.
"Don't fret, my affectionate friend, for we shall have a good life together in Muleshoe."
"You mean you're going to take me home with you? Oh, goodie!"
"Just as soon as you get ready, we can bug out of here and be on our way."
"I'm ready now, Slim. Let's go!"
"I think you'd best wipe off your face a bit more. Missed a bit on your chin."
"I did?" she said, feeling with a forefinger. "Guess I did, didn't I;" They laughed together, basking in the afterglow of shared perversion. It was sure some way to start the day.
"Say," she said, freeing herself from his hug. "How far is this Muleshoe place, anyway?"
"A little over seven hundred miles."
'That's a long way. We'd better get moving, if we're ever going to make it. Especially in that old pickup of yours."
"That old pickup has taken me a hundred thousand miles across this country, and she'll take me another, long as I continue to believe in her."
"Believe in a pickup?" Honey asked, incredulous that anyone would believe in something mechanical.
"Baby, that truck has taken me everywhere I've ever wanted to go. Never balked once, except maybe when she thinks I don't appreciate her. Then I treat her to an oil change and a lube job, and she thanks me by running like a top and starting like she was brand-new, which she hasn't been for twenty years."
"Gee! I didn't realize you had so much feeling for your truck."
"Truck's a part of me. Always has been, always will be. A man's only as good as what he's got under him, be it a horse or a piece of machinery. If my Bessie don't run right, neither do I. So don't go making fun of somethin' that's a part of me. Please don't."
"I'm sorry, Slim. I really am."
"Apologies accepted, Miss Honey. Now let's get a move on. Got to get on the open road, or we won't make it before nightfall."
"That's an awful lot of miles to go," she said, mentally computing the average speed they would have to travel, and finally giving up when he interrupted her with a belch, and failed to apologize for it.
"That was certainly well brought up; why weren't you?"
"Sorry about that. I apologize for my boorish behavior," he said, taking her in his arms and waltzing her toward the bathroom. "And now we shall wash up, preparatory to our imminent peregrination."
"Where'd you ever learn such big words?" asked Honey, reaching for a washcloth to remove the hardening stain on her chin.
"Once read a dictionary from cover to cover. Bound to remember a few big words now and then." "You're so smart!"
"Say," he said, sniffing his armpit. "I'm pretty gamy, myself. How about the two of us getting in the tub?" "Together?" He nodded.
"How thrilling! Never did do that before. Not with anyone but my grandpa."
"You used to take baths with your grandpa?" "Sure. Doesn't everyone?"
"Not when they're grown up as you are, sweetie. No wonder he didn't want you to leave. He wanted you all to himself. Ever sleep with him?"
"Off and on," she answered, casually continuing to scrape the sticky residue on her face.
"What do you mean by that? Anything incestuous go on between you two?"
"Incestuous?"
"You make it with him?"
"Make what?"
"Love."
"Nah. He smells too bad, bein' around pigs all day, and all."
"But ifn he got cleaned up, would you have done it with him?"
"Well, since he never got cleaned up, and never will, that's sort of an....academic question, is it not?"
"But aside from his odor, you would be prepared to commit incest with the old goat?"
"Maybe. Say, what are you driving at, anyway?"
"That your granddad was a dirty old man."
"like I don't already know? You ought to catch a whiff of him up close! His smell darn near put me to sleep every night. That's one of the reasons I'm so glad to be free of him."
"I give up, Honey. I guess I never will understand you. It's as if you grew up in a different world than I did. You just think different than most folks do; that's all."
"That something to be ashamed of?"
"Now, I didn't say that, did I? Just because you're different doesn't mean you're not as good as the rest of us. It just means you're going to have to adapt to the customs of the outside world."
"You mean like only sleeping with one man at a time?"
"I mean like sleeping with only one man all the time." "But who'll I sleep with when you're away?" "Nobody." "How dull!"
"Dear, that's the way we do things in the outside world. Understand?"
"Seems like such a waste."
"You just save it up for when I get home, and see if that don't make it worth more."
"If you say so, Slim. But I still don't know why."
" 'Cause that's the way it is, Honey, and you better learn pronto, or Slim'll find himself another sweetie. Don't want no dirtyleg drawing in strays around my place; understand?"
"Yessah, boss."
"Good. Now, if you'll kindly finish packing, we'll get out of here."
"As I have nothing to pack, I guess you could say I'm ready, willing and able to perform my part of the agreement. How about you, Massa Slim?"
"Er, just hold on a minute while I gather up my duds and shave off a few whiskers. Seen my straight razor anywhere?"
"Yeah," she said, withdrawing it from a saddlebag and pointing it menacingly in his direction. "How'd you like a real treat?"
"What's that, a free circumcision?"
"Nah, stupid; a free shave by a sexy female. Richard Burton says being shaved by a woman is one of the best things there is."
"If she knows what she's doing. Some scatterbrained broads I know would lop off an ear before you knew it. And as for getting a decent shave, I'm from Missouri."
"Funny, I thought you were from Muleshoe."
"You're a real sharpie; you know it?"
"And so's my razor," she said, swinging it a few times toward his midsection.
"Say! Watch that, kiddo, or you'll cut off more than you can chew. Slim's only got one set of 'em, you know, and if you slice 'em off, ole Honey's going to miss out on all that action."
"With you," she kidded.
"Waddaya mean by that crack, eh? Maybe you are cut out to be a dirtyleg, after all."
"Please don't say things like that, Slim! You know I love you more than anyone in the world."
"But you don't know anyone else, save for your grandpa. Loving me more than, him isn't saying much."
"Are you attacking my kinfolk?" she yelled, family pride welling up in her veins. She took another swing at him with the razor, severing a button from his shirt.
"Yipes! You almost sliced off my navel! I'm sorry if I said something to offend you. If I did, I didn't mean it. Now if you will please calm down enough to lather me up, we can commence this little exercise in absurdity."
Whipping up a lather in his horse-adorned shaving cup, Honey applied copious amounts of the stuff to his leathery good looks. "Looks like you've been outside a bit," she remarked, getting ready to remove some whiskers.
"Spent most of my life under the West Texas sun," he said proudly.
"How's that different from spending it under the East Texas sun," she said chauvinistically.
"Hotter. And drier. And the air's better, too. Wind always blowin'. Easy to get a tan out there. And if you're a rancher, you're bound to spend a good deal of time outside. Naturally, one's skin turns to leather after a while."
"Will mine?"
"Probably."
"But I don't want to look like an old Indian! Isn't there something I can do?"
"Yeah. Be careful not to chop off my sideburns."
"I mean about keeping my skin soft. You don't want my face to turn as rough as sandpiper, do you?"
"Well, then I could light a match on it now and then." He laughed.
"Very funny. Now, will you quit moving around, or do you want to get cut?"
"Okay, okay. I'll stay still ifn you'll speed things up. Way things are going, we won't get out of here before noon."
"Oh, hush up, Slim Harpoon! I'm doing the best I can, and if you don't like it, you know what you can do about it."
He shut up until she was finished. The risk of his saying the wrong thing wasn't worth losing an ear-or worse, a sideburn. Ever since Elvis Presley was the rage, Slim had had sideburns, though Elvis himself had shed them. Those were the days, before button-down dollars made it impossible to turn your collar up. The fabulous fifties. Slim getting his first taste of adult pleasures-smoking, drinking, and making it with some cutie atop a haystack. He smiled as he remembered the wild things he'd done. Playing chicken with patrol cars, drag racing down dry arroyos in his daddy's truck, taking girls out for midnight rides in the buckboard, and getting splinters in their behinds, hearing 'em moan about it all the way home. Once they got laid by Slim Harpoon, they knew it; and so did everybody else, just by watching the way they walked. He missed the early days of his manhood, when everything was an adventure, and he didn't have to worry about making a living, like he did now. Or about supporting Honey Thye, besides himself. But he knew he could never go back; those days and nights were long gone.
"How you like it?" she asked, holding a mirror up to his face.
"like what?" he said, snapping out of the daydream. "Your shave, stupid."
"Oh, I like it just fine," he said, feeling his face with his hand. "Cut it real close. Haven't had such a good shave since I was fourteen."
"Who did it then, some jailbait hussy?"
He laughed. "As a matter-of-fact, you're right, kinda. It was my thirteen-year-old sister what done it. Did a bang-up job, too. I think that was about my first shave. She never did shave me again, though. Got kicked in the head by her horse. Never regained consciousness. Was in a coma for almost a month before she died. Hurt Papa harder than anyone. He'd already lost Mama in childbirth of my kid brother, who's in Viet Nam now, and the shock of losing Elly was something he never recovered from. Two years later, he had joined his wife and daughter in the graveyard."
"So sadness has touched you too, Slim. Do you realize we're both orphans?"
"I guess we have something in common," he said, taking Honey in his sturdy arms. Looking soulfully into one another's orphaned eyes, they embraced. It felt good to be wanted again, to have someone to love.
"I guess you're all the family I got," he said, almost bursting into tears, so strong was the emotion.
"What about your brother in Viet Nam?"
"He's buried there, Honey. Got shot up with shrapnel six months ago. What there was left of him, they buried at the base of Hill 881."
"That's too bad, Slim; it really is," she said, hugging him even harder.
"You're telling me? When I heard the news, I was just about to ride this Brahma bull in a rodeo. Did it anyway. Had to take it out on something. Rode that darn bull longer than anyone, but finally fell off and fractured my leg in four places. Only recently been able to walk without crutches."
"You sure have had a string of bad luck. Hope I can bring you some good for a change."
"So do I. It'a about time for things to perk up, and if you can cause it to happen, more power to you."
She kissed him to show she cared, and he returned the favor, the two of them falling back onto their bed of rapture, where they resumed their earlier display of mutual affection. It looked like they wouldn't leave before noon after all, and neither of them really cared.
"You did it even better that time," Honey said, digging her fingernails into his back as she continued to come.
"So did you," he said, starting to bleed.
"So why not let's do it again?" she asked, a naughty smile on her sweaty face.
"Owing to a certain male problem, I shall have to wait a brief span before attempting the task," he said, covering his limpness with his hand.
"Whatsamatter? Has liddle boy's glands gone small on him, hey?"
"Cut that out, will you? I'll be back up to normal in a very short while."
Ten minutes later he was still small, so Honey decided to do something about it. Moving downward on his lean, hard torso, she let her tongue titillate the inside of his thigh until something big and warm and gooey suddenly poked her in the ear and she knew she had done her job well.
"I think I'm ready," Slim crowed, glad to have his virility back. Nothing worse than impotence to make a man feel something less than one.
"Well then, do something with it," she said, flopping onto her back and spreading her long legs to greet him.
"At last I'm coming out of my cocoon," he said, beating his chest as he showed off his new-found stiffness.
"Or else you're going back into it," she purred, writhing about below him. "Come on, Slim; put it in."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Say!" she shrieked. "What kind of man are you, anyway, standing there admiring yourself when there's a naked wench waiting to be taken? Next thing you know, you'll be fondling young boys for fun."
"I beg your pardon," he said, his gaze shifting from himself to her. "I may be a lot of things, Miss Honey Thye, but I am not a nancy boy and never will be. Get that straight."
"Guess I touched a sensitive spot, huh?" "Can I touch one of yours?" He giggled, his hands zeroing in on her tufted triangle.
"Only if I can touch yours."
Fondling each other's respective fun spots, they soon found themselves too turned on to continue, and mutually deciding to do something about it, they went on to more normal forms of entertainment, Slim rutting atop the tall girl in a West Texas tornado of passion that had Honey sinking her teeth into his neck so she could hold on when they got to the good parts.
"Would you mind letting go for a moment?" Slim gasped. "I think you're cutting off the blood to my brain."
"Couldn't be that. All I'm biting into is your nape. Think I know why you feel that way, though. All your blood's in that big thingy of yours. How else could it get so huge?"
"If it gets any bigger, it'll explode," he said, exploding.
3
THEY ATE BREAKFAST AT THE DIMEBOX CAFE, where a slatternly waitress with a ready smile for Slim sidled up to serve them.
"I saw the way she looked at you!" said Honey after the girl had taken their orders-his for hominy grits, corn fritters, buckwheat pancakes and half a dozen eggs, and hers for chickory coffee and fried catfish.
"But you didn't see the way I looked back," he said, a naughty-boy smile on his face.
"So she's one of your conquests too, huh?"
"Yup," he said, sounding like Gary Cooper.
"You're too much; you know it?"
"Yup."
"Cut that out!" "Flustered?"
"You bet. I get jealous when another girl looks at you like she did!"
"She was just eyeballing. How could a skinny gal like that steal me away from a cuddly thing like you?"
"Just for that, I'm not sure whether I should eat anything. Before I know it, my baby fat will turn to lard and you won't even want to look at me."
"Now, did I say you were fat?"
"No, but by calling me cuddly, you implied that I'm on my way."
"I did no such thing. As a matter-of-fact, I was attempting to compliment you when I called you cuddly. Said that was better than being skinny."
"Who you calling skinny, Slim?" asked the willowly waitress as she brought him his pancakes.
"Er ... no one, Mayella."
"Couldn't be referring to me, could you? liked me well enough last Saturday night after the square dance. Said you preferred 'em lean; made for better eatin'. "
"Wha!" exclaimed Honey, staring daggers at Slim.
"That's what he said; so help me die," said the waitress as she rolled her eyes and smiled as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
"Balling tarts like this, are you?" screamed Honey at the top of her voice.
"Better than diddling dimwit giants like you!" answered the waitress.
"Ladies, please!" interjected Slim, fearing for his safety.
"Shut up!" they both told him.
"Whore!"
"Slut!"
"Dirtyleg!"
"Nobody calls me that!" yelled Honey, hitting the girl with the side of her hand. The girl slapped back, and Slim, stepping in to break them up, got clouted on both sides of the head by both participants.
The cook waddled over, all three hundred and two pounds of him, waving a spatula wildly over his head and bellowing incoherently, half in English, half in Polish. A lot of Poles lived around Dimebox, and judging from his bulk, he'd been there a long time.
"Cut this garbage out!" he screamed, just as Honey kicked off his chefs hat and started wrestling on the floor with the wiry waitress.
Slim seized the cook by his flabby forearm and said, "Let 'em fight. I'll pay for any damage they do."
"You're darn tootin' you will!"
"Sock it to her!" called a young Negro, only recently allowed to eat at the counter.
"Give her hell!" yelled an old man who looked not unlike John Nance Garner.
The girls bit and clawed and scratched one another, knocking over tables as they rolled madly across the catsup and coffee-stained linoleum of the floor. Cafe patrons took bets on the outcome, the portly cook holding the money until it could be ascertained who won. Honey was the larger of the two, but Mayella, in the words of Slim, "had a lotta spunk," so the odds were just about even, wavering back and forth during the course of the melee.
Spunky Mayella pulled the cloth off a table and, covering Honey's head with it, pummeled her mercilessly. Outraged, Honey seized a salt shaker and threw salt in her opponent's eyes. Screaming, "I can't see! You've blinded me, you bitch!" Mayella lost.
Slim spent most of his spending cash paying for the damage, but won an equal amount from the cook, who had bet on the local favorite.
"Still think your filly fought dirty," said the Pole, sadly paying off.
"Didn't yours?" answered Slim, happily accepting the cash.
Outside, Honey hosed herself off at a gas station, glad to have pleased Slim with her prowess.
"Maybe I ought to campaign you across the country, like I would a fighting cock, eh?"
'Think I'm an old hen, do you?" she said, squirting him with water.
"Hey! Cut that out!"
"Don't be such a candy ass," she said, squirting him some more.
Dripping wet, the two walked off down the street, holding hands and laughing about the fight.
"You know," said Honey, probing down her shirt (which was actually Slim's, but fit fine, what with Honey's ample breasts filling it out), "I think your friend Mayella bit me on the boob. Look."
"Believe you have got a little red badge of courage there. Just like the ones I got leading from my ear to..."
'To your ear of com."
"That was in rather bad taste."
"Did taste sort of oatmeally, now that I think of it," she laughed.
"Say, that reminds me! We never did get to finish breakfast before you mixed it up with Mayella Butinski."
"Is that her name?"
"Yup. Polack, just like the cook."
"Spunky kid. Would have won, but, for her putting that tablecloth over my head. Can't stand being covered up."
"Claustrophobia."
"What?"
'Technical word for being afraid of being closed in."
"Learn that from the dictionary too?"
"Yup."
"You know so much, mister! I'm so proud of you. Girl'd do anything to keep a stud like you." "Guess you proved that, eh?"
"Yipes! Don't look now, but I think my grandpa's coming out of the cafe. Mean look on his face, too."
Ignoring her warning, Slim turned around to look, and his gaze met that of the granddad, who nearly had a fit when he saw them together.
Waving a fist, he yelled, "So you spent the night with my dirtyleg granddaughter, you cradle robber!" It was then that Slim saw he was carrying a shotgun, which he was cocking.
"Egad!" exclaimed Honey. "He's going to shoot us!"
"You're better off dead!" howled Gramps, sighting on the sinful couple. He was about to pull both triggers when out of nowhere came Mayella, who smashed a plateful of fried eggs over his head. Slim and Honey breathed a mutual sigh of relief, running over to thank their red-eyed savior.
"You saved our lives!" said Slim, putting his arms around the heroic waitress. Honey felt a tinge of jealousy, but suppressed it, in view of the circumstances.
Her granddad was starting to come to, but before he could, Honey removed the shotgun from his grasp and handed it to the ever-present Polish cook, who unloaded it on the spot. A cop came running up, as did a crowd of onlookers.
"That was a grand thing you did, Mayella," said Slim. "If there's anything you want, just ask."
She smiled and Honey frowned. "Well, almost anything," said Slim. "Honey might get upset if ... "
"Lotta thanks I get for saving your skins! You cheap cowboy! Didn't even leave me a tip after busting up the place."
"Yeah, that's right!" said the cook, threatening Slim with the empty shotgun.
"Sore losers!" yelled Honey and Slim together, deciding it was time to quit Dimebox.
Noon had come and gone before they left town, and then Slim's pickup gave up early in the afternoon.
"Thought it never failed you," said Honey.
"It never did, till now. Wonder what could be the matter."
"Maybe it's out of gas."
It was.
"Nearest gas station's five miles back," said Honey, who remembered seeing it.
"Guess we'll have to walk." "What do you mean, we?"
"What kind of fair-weather friend are you, anyway?" asked Slim, obviously upset. "I was just kidding; honest."
"You mean you carry an empty gas can around with you?"
"Used to be full, but good Samaritan that I am, I gave the gas to a pair of nigras that had run out."
"Boy, I guess you are a good Samaritan! Ain't many folks around here'd do that, aside from the Polacks."
"The Polacks? I thought they didn't cotton to blacks."
"They don't, but sentimental slobs that they are, they sorta feel for 'em. Besides, they like a bit of black ass as much as the next man."
"How do you know?"
"I got ears, don't I? Listening to farmhands all my life, I naturally pick up a few pertinent facts of life."
"What else they teach you?" he asked sarcastically, still angry at running out of gas.
"Nothing. Not after they saw what Cramps did to that uppity stable boy."
They walked in silence for several miles, Honey upset because Slim had implied that she'd had relations with the hired hands, and Slim by his failure to watch the gas gauge. If only he hadn't been drinking...
"Told you, you shouldn't toddy it before eating," Honey said, sounding like everybody's big sister.
"For Gawd's sake, it's a hot day, and if I can't drink something I'll go crazy behind the wheel! What makes you think you're such an expert on things you know nothing about?"
"You took the Lord's name in vain!" "What, Grandpa Thye?"
"I guess I did sorta sound like him. Hard to break a lifetime habit like fundamentalist religion."
"Now, don't get me wrong, Honey; I'm not against religion. What I'm against is someone tryin' to tell me how to live my life, when they've made a mess outa theirs. Nothing grinds me more than some ne'er-do-well preachin' to me about the benefits of leading the good life he never led."
"What are you talking about?" "Just sounding off, I guess."
"You mean you're still mad about running out of gas."
"Among other things. Say, doesn't anyone ever drive down this road?"
"How should I know? I haven't been off the ranch in four years."
"I forgot about that. Sure am getting tired of walking."
"A big, strong cowboy like you?"
"I'm used to riding horses, not hoofing it myself. Besides, my leg bothers me."
"I'm sorry. I forgot about your breaking it and all."
"Sure wish a car would come along," he said, stopping to rest his sore leg.
"Certainly is a beautiful spring day," said Honey, sitting down with him.
"Sort of makes you glad to be alive, a day like this. You know, if we hadn't of run out of gas, we might never have appreciated the beauty of an East Texas spring."
"Sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways," Honey answered solemnly.
"Will you get off that religion kick? I'm tired of hearing your pious inanities', especially when I know they're hand-me-downs from that lecherous grandpa of yours."
"Lecherous! How dare you!"
"Listen, Pollyana, I know the truth may hurt, but before I decided to train horses for your grandpa, I stopped in town for a while."
"And seduced that cheap waitress in the cafe."
"Actually, I didn't exactly seduce her in the cafe, but out back, in the bed of my pickup."
"How romantic!" she said sarcastically.
"Convenient, anyway. But that isn't the point I'm trying to make, dear. What I'm getting at is that while we were in the throes of fornication, so to speak, she said something."
"Please spare me the details, or I may have to go back and finish the job on that slut."
"No reason to be bitter, Honey. She was but a passing imagine, if you know what I mean."
"And what am I?"
"Something more, I assure you."
"How much more? How do I know you won't drop me, when the time comes? That you won't take up with some hussy-some Jezebel; some unclean harlot!"
"Calm down, sweetie. I assure you that as long as I draw breath, and you remain faithful, I shall take up with no other dirtyleg."
"So I'm a dirtyleg am I? You men are all alike! I'm getting away from you while I still can!"
"Please, Honey! Reconsider!" he said, attempting to stop her from running out on the road. "You might get hit by a car."
"Unhand me, you swinish sodomite! Fat chance I got of getting struck by a car when we haven't seen one for half an hour!" And with that, she ran from the copse in which they had been arguing, to step directly into the path of a 1947 Packard Clipper, which, swerving to avoid her, impaled itself on a boxelder tree. Within minutes, boxelder bugs, mistaking the mud-colored car for a fat new limb, covered its entire surface. The outraged owner escaped unhurt, chastising a badly shaken Honey with phrases that would have made a sailor blush.
"How dare you talk to my Honey Thye like that, you reckless redneck!" screamed Slim, hobbling from the bushes.
"You saw what she did! Jumped right in front of my Clipper! Caused me to smash it up on that damn tree! Just look at all those bugs on her, and tell me if I don't have a right to be mad!"
"But you might have hit Honey and even killed her!"
"That's right; you might have hit me!"
"Would've served you right, too, fer leapin' out like that. How do I know mister, that you weren't chasing her?"
"How dare you accuse me of such a thing!" said Slim, socking his antagonist square in the jaw.
"That's the spirit, Slim! Hit him again!"
Soon the two men were swinging freely, and even hitting one another once in a while, but mostly missing. Slim was too excited for accuracy, and the redneck was t jo fat to move fast. Finally Honey stepped in and called t a draw, the two shaking hands and promising to help on: another.
"I'll help fix your car," said Slim.
"And I'll give you some gas," said the redneck.
"Say, what's your name?" asked the redneck.
"Slim. And yours?"
"Johnson. Just like the President."
"Okay, Mister President, let's see if we can free your car from the bugs. I think if we can just disconnect it from the tree, the critters will flee your vehicle. They only like trees, and once they see it's only a Packard they're squatting on, they'll make tracks for the tree."
"Anything wrong with a Packard, buster?"
"The name's Slim, in case you forgot. And if you think Packards are so great, why aren't they making them any more?"
"Precisely because they were so great. Ignorant masses prefer to drive dull old Big Three lookalikes. Not me; not on your life. The only car I'll drive is a Packard Clipper."
"Well, you won't be driving anything unless we can rescue her from the bugs. Honey, you can help too. Get up front and brace yourself against the grille. Push against the tree with those long legs of yorn, while Mister Johnson and myself shoo away these here bugs."
"She sure do have a nice pair of legs," said Johnson, his beady eyes taking in her charms intently.
"Nice of you gentlemen to do the easy stuff while letting a lady do the work," she said, resigning herself to doing it anyway.
"We'd like to," said Slim, "but I've got this gimpy leg of mine, and Johnson here isn't what you'd call agile, so you're the only one strong enough for the job."
"Workhorse, am I?" she said, huffing and puffing until the Packard was free of the tree. But then, just as they were about to rejoice at their success, something strange occurred. Boxelder bugs by the thousands started to swarm up Honey's legs, until she was completely enveloped by them.
"Yipes! The plague of insects is on me!" she screamed. "Do something, Slim! Don't just stand there! It's driving me crazy!"
"Just a minute, Honey; I'll think of somethin'. What do you think, Johnson, got any solutions?"
"Boy, she sure do squirm nice, don't she? Haven't seen a dance like that since I saw Little Egypt do the hootchie-coochie."
"It is sort of sexy, now that you mention it-all the them critters crawlin' over her cuddle. How's it feel, Honey?"
"Awful! Gives me the creeps. But I'm afraid if I try and brush 'em off they'll start to bite."
"Do boxelder bugs bite?" asked Slim.
"Darned if I know," answered the redneck.
"I think one just bit me!" screamed Honey, now writhing wildly as her two comrades stood by helpless.
"How'd it feel?" asked the redneck, his eyes lighting up as he saw a hurt look come over her face. It was almost like seeing a living cover of men's adventure magazine like he read at the barbershop in Dimebox.
"Are you suffering?" inquired Slim, somehow also enjoying the spectacle.
"What are you two, a pair of voyeuristic sadists?"
They looked at each other, puzzlement on their faces, then laughed and went back to gazing at the shaking body of Honey Thye, who was about to throw a fit right in front of them.
"Mayhe she caught it from her grandpa," joked Slim. "I hear he's an eppy."
"That Gramps Thye's grandchile?" asked the redneck, openly salivating at tire sight of Honey's undulating torso. "She sure is something, eh? You know, she's a spittin' image of her mother. Now, there was a real piece if there ever was one! Boy, you should have seen that girl do the jitterbug! Almost like young Honey there doing the boxelder bug. Say, hear that? I think I made a funny!"
"Very funny!" said Honey, now rolling on the ground, seeing if she couldn't crush a few of the little beasties before they drove her mad.
"Shake it, sweetie!" yelled the redneck. "Boy, this is more fun than going to the burleyque! Ain't never seen a girl do that in all my born days!"
Frantic, Honey began ripping off her clothes, thinking maybe it was the fabric they were after. And sure enough, she got rid of some of them, but those that remained quickly developed a taste for her skin, chomping away until she shook uncontrollably.
"Wow!" screamed the redneck. "This has got to be the wildest thing I ever have saw! Boy, she sure do have a built, eh?"
Torn between his devotion to Honey and his enjoyment as a spectator, Slim reluctantly chose the former. Leaping into action, he popped open the hood of the Packard and yanked loose a radiator hose. Turning to the redneck, he ordered him to get in and turn the key.
"Don't use a key; use a starter button," corrected the redneck.
"This is no time to be technical. Get in there and turn that motor over, before Honey loses her mind."
"She's already lost her clothes," said the redneck, not wanting to leave his vantage point.
As the huge straight eight turned over and eventually started, the radiator water squirted onto Honey. Slim noticed that its color was similar to that of wine, and was almost tempted to drink it. At first, he thought the reddish tint derived from rust deposits, but then as he saw it turn nearly blue, he realized that the owner had added anti-freeze.
"I think it's doin' the trick," said Slim.
"How much longer? I don't want to overheat my mill."
"Okay; that'll do it. Turn 'er off."
Looking at Honey, the owner remarked, "I think I've turned her on."
"How do you feel, sweetie," said Slim brushing the last of the pesky bugs from her body. The redneck leered, offering his services in the matter.
"Boy, you sure do have a body! Even better'n your mom's," he said, continuing to ogle her charms.
"I am not a boy, for your information. And if you have anything disparaging to say about my dear sweet mother, I wish you'd refrain from doing so."
"Her mother was the biggest dirtyleg around here, twenty-odd years ago. Had her once myself," whispered the redneck in his ear. Slim socked him good, knocking him on his tail.
"I didn't mean nothin', " he said, rubbing his sore jaw as he sat leaning against his Packard. "Say, how am I going to drive home without any water?"
"I thought you were headed for town."
"By gum, I guess I was! Still don't alter the fact that I need water. Otherwise, won't get more'n a few miles before the motor'll be too hot to run."
"Isn't there a creek around here somewhere?" asked Slim.
"By golly, I think there is! Got anything to carry water in?"
"Take this here gas can."
By the time they got into town, Honey had recovered sufficiently to thank them for the help they'd rendered her.
"I shall always be grateful, though I fear I may be having nightmares about boxelder bugs for the rest of my born days."
"Don't worry," said the redneck. "They won't hurt you none. Not a one of 'em's poisonous, far's I know."
'That doesn't alter the fact that I'm afraid of 'em, and probably always will be." I
"You've been through a terrible experience, dear," said Slim, holding her hand, which still shook.
"It was mighty entertaining, though," said the redneck. "Almost like when her mom used to strip for the boys on top of the bar. Boy, that was a show if there ever was one! For a finale, she used to let the boys take turns having a lick of her-"
"Will you cut that out?" yelled Slim, once again on the verge of striking the dim-witted devil. "How would you like it if I was to go on about what a hot piece your mother was?"
"I see what you mean. I'm sorry if I was getting offensive. It's just that her mom was sort of a folk hero around these parts, as is her grandpa. Boy! He's fucked more pieces of black ass than anyone else around, including one hell of a lot of black bucks whose kids he fathered."
"So that's why he never wanted me to do it with a colored boy!" exclaimed Honey, her eyes lighting up.
"Probably so," said the redneck, spitting tobacco juice. "Might have been bangin' it with a half-brother. And the old goat may have his faults, but he sure isn't one to hold with incest."
"I sure do have one hell of a heritage to live up to!" said Honey, starting to cry on Slim's shoulder.
"Better not say any more," he advised the Packard owner, placing both arms around his sad companion.
4
HONEY SNAPPED OUT OF IT ONCE THEY GOT OUT on the open road. Bessie, on the contrary, continued to break down with alarmed regularity.
"Can't understand 'er," said Slim, sadly contemplating the second flat tire of the day. "She's never done anything like this before. Always been dependable as the day is long."
"Maybe she's jealous," said Honey, helping Slim jack up Bessie's front end. "Of what?"
"Of me, stupid!" she said, prying off the hubcap. "Could be. Ain't never took a gal for such a long trip as I'm taking you."
"That is, if we ever make it."
"We will. Bessie ain't never failed me yet."
"Before today?"
"Do you have to nib it in?" he said, pulling off the flat tire. "Lucky I carry a couple of spares around with me, or we'd be hoofin' it by now."
"Better knock on wood; we might have another," she kidded, climbing back in the cab while he finished the job. Escape, which at the outset had seemed exciting, was now growing tedious.
It was fifty miles more before the radiator sprung a leak, a hundred before the oil pump went out, and three hundred before Bessie's motor froze up and they had to hitch-hike.
"I'm sorry it had to happen like this," apologized Slim, removing his saddle and chaps from the bed.
"It's all one big adventure to me, Slim," said Honey, kissing him affectionately on the nape. He tasted of sweat and grime from the long journey, but to her his odor was far sexier than any artificial scent could be. He smelled like a man, and she loved him for it.
"It's almost dark," said Slim, slinging a sleeping bag over his free shoulder. "What do you say to putting off thumbing it until morning! Awful pretty place to camp out just up the road a piece. Secluded, and alongside a stream. Idyllic place to spend the night. I got some grub we can cook, and if you help, we can carry everything we're going to need. What do you say?"
"I'm with you, Slim; all the way. Here; let me give you a hand with some of that stuff. I may be a girl, but living on a farm for most of my life, I've developed a few muscles most gals don't have."
Slim was right: The place was secluded, except from the animals. All during their supper of fried catfish caught in the creek, a pair of raccoons, possum and an armadillo watched them eat.
"Slim, I feel guilty, eatin' while those creatures don't have a thing. Can't you rustle up some grub for them too?"
"If you say so, sweetie," he said, tossing some scraps to the spectators, who devoured them with relish.
"See how happy you made them? You're a good, great man, Mister Slim Harpoon, and I consider myself lucky being associated with you."
"If that's the case, Miss Honey Thye, why not crawl in that there sleeping bag and show me how you care?"
"Naw. I'd rather do it out here, the way the animals do," she said poetically.
"You mean you want it dog-style?" he laughed.
"No, but now that you mention it, that might not be a bad idea. After all, the dogs seem to like it."
"You know," he said, unbuttoning his Western shirt, "it's been a long time since I've run into as curious a gal as you. Most girls want you to do everything expected of you, but nothing peculiar or they'll call you a pervert. On the other hand, gals like you, Honey, ain't afraid to try out a new variation on a time-honored scheme, and I for one appreciate it."
"What are you getting at?"
"Bend over and I'll show you," he said, pulling down his pants.
"You naughty boy!" she said, complying with the bestial request.
"Say!" she said, entering her from behind. "This is all right!"
"Just watch the way you're poking, Fido, or you'll hurt little Fifi," she said, adjusting her abdomen to find a suitable angle.
"How's that, Honey?" he said, getting into the rhythm of things.
"Bow-wow!"
"Bowowowowowow!" he yelped, achieving his canine pleasure as she squeezed on him until he came, gushing forth awesome amounts as he climaxed with Rin Tin Tin fury.
"Lassie, you're somethin' else!" he exclaimed, attempting to get unstuck, but finding it somewhat difficult due to the oblique angle at which he had entered, plus the normal adhesive power of his home-made stickum.
"Now you see why dogs wag their tails so much," she said, squeezing the last few drops of pleasure from his love gland.
"Good to the last drop, eh?"
"Sure does feel good."
"Well, Rover, do you want to roll over?"
"Bow-wow!"
And they went at it again, this time in the more normal male-superior fashion, finding it to their liking as much as the other.
"Slim, you are one find stud; you know it?" "No, but judging from the smile on your face, I could guess such was the case."
"My kidding aside, where'd you learn to do it so good?" "From my dog," he said with apparent seriousness. "You're putting me on!"
"Nope, it's the gospel truth. Used to, when I was a kid, watch him bang away on all the bitches in the neighborhood. Noticed he had a cocky way of sniffing and humping, prancing about with an air of confidence that had 'em all flockin' to him. Soon he had his pick of the pack, though you wouldn't think he was playing any favorites, the way he machine-gunned his way through those bitches."
"Quite a stud, was he?"
"Fathered over four hundred pups in his lifetime. Almost every dog in Muleshoe's got some of him in 'em." "Or wish they had, eh?"
"Boy, I sure miss the old boy! Grew up with him-the two of us teachin' one another tricks, roamin' across the prairie, raisin' hell together, outrunnin' fathers of gals we'd diddled, doin' everything a boy and his dog can do."
"What happened to him?"
"Got old, but still had the old spark in him. Tried to take on this Great Dane bitch, and she had such a powerful sex drive, she screwed 'im to death."
"What a way to go!"
"Yeah, except for rigor set in while they were stuck tight to one another. I finally had to call a vet, who put the Dane bitch to sleep and buried them together."
"Just like they buried those Egyptian Pharaohs and their slaves."
"You might say he died doing what he liked best, and it was only fitting that we intern him with the female who was his final choice-though the Dane's owner wasn't too happy about it. But it was utterly impossible to extricate Skippy without performing a hysterectomy on the bitch. Besides, she had a smile on her face when she went, as did he."
"It must have been a beautiful death, to say the least."
"I only hope that when my time comes, I can go the same way," he said, spreading out the sleeping bag for them to crawl into.
"Bow-wow!" said Honey, falling asleep.
The next morning, promptly at dawn, they stationed themselves by the road, both with thumbs outstretched and innocent earnest looks on their faces-which evidently had some effect, for the very first passing car slowed down and picked them up.
"Sure do appreciate this, mister," said Slim, stopping to pick up his stuff.
"Been here long?" asked the driver as he opened the door for them.
"All night," answered Honey, stepping into the flamingo-colored Cadillac. "You sure do have a nice car. Say, look at this, Slim! Calf-skin upholstery!"
"Unborn calfskin," corrected the driver.
"Boy, it sure is soft!" she said, rubbing her palms across the seat.
"If you think that's soft, sweetie, cop a feel off my shirt-cuff," said the driver in a high, folksy voice, extending a thin, apparently fragile wrist to her.
Touching it, she exclaimed, "Oh, how positively swishy!"
The driver giggled, and Slim wondered what sort of fellow it was who'd picked them up. Despite his reservations, he too felt the satin cuff, but only for an instant, politely derring any further exploration of his host's outer garments.
"Oh, don't be afraid, Mister ... ? "
"Slim Harpoon."
"What a lovely name!" Their benefactor gushed, rolling his roving eyes in Slim's direction. And just to be polite, he also asked Honey too, though it was obvious it wasn't she he was interested in, but Slim, who didn't know what to make of the situation.
"And what's your name?"
"Oh, how forgetful of me! You dears must think me an absolute boor, not even having the courtesy to introduce myself!" He extended his svelte hand again, almost as if he expected Slim to kiss it, and pursing his lips said, "Swish Velour. Ever so glad to meet you."
They said nothing, and he looked hurt. "You mean you haven't heard of me?"
"Not really," answered Slim, trying not to be impolite.
"Should we have?" asked Honey, anxious to know where he knew her from.
"Does the name Swish Velour and his Velvetine Cowpokes ring a bell?"
"By gum!" said Slim, slapping his Levi's. "I believe it does, though I've always heard of 'em as The Texas Sissies. Don't you know, Honey, they's that new hillbilly singing group."
"Country-Western, if you please!" corrected Swish.
"Same difference," said Slim, continuing to talk to Honey. "They's the ones what dresses sorta queer, compared to other cowboys."
"What do you mean by that crack, buddy?"
"Er, I mean they wear oddball outfits-different duds than your run-of-the-mill ranch hand; that's all. Didn't mean no insult, Mister Swish; not me. Say, if you don't mind my changin' the subject, aren't you going to put this baby in gear and swish off, so to speak?"
"Oh, how remiss of me!" said Swish, shoving the Caddie into gear and taking off in a huff. "Care for some music? A little Mantovani?"
"I thought you was a Western singer?" said Slim, puzzled by the request.
"I am, but personally I find that type of music rather abrasive, if you know what I mean."
"I'm not sure, but if you like to play Mantovani, go ahead. You're the boss of this outfit, mister, and we're just along for the ride. Right, Honey?"
"Kee-rect. And we sure do appreciate it, too."
"And I'm charmed to have such a genteel pair of traveling companions. Most hitchikers I pick up are such rough, rude louts. Why, do you know, I've been accosted numerous times in the last year by people I've picked up! Some gratitude I get for my generosity!"
"J. Edgar Hoover says you should never pick up a hitchiker, though I can't say I agree, considering my present straits."
"But that isn't very big of him; now is it? What if he needed a ride? Wouldn't he be glad if someone stopped to give him a lift? It's toughies like him that are the cause of wars. If people would only love one another ... Why, I love everybody; even those big handsome brutes who beat me up," he said, sensuously flooring the accelerator.
"It excites me-the wind blowing in my face, the feel of unleashed horsepower at my command, the thrill of racing along the road."
"It is sort of fun," said Honey, who had never even been in a Cadillac before, let alone a pink one.
"Yeah, I guess it is," concurred Slim, stuffing a chaw in his mouth to drain off some of his nervous energy. Not really sure what was going on, he decided to do something familiar until he found out.
"Oh, I feel so good!" said Swish, turning up the stereo tape unit and continuing to increase speed. He reached over to rub Slim's thigh, but Slim jerked it away.
"Don't be afraid, Slim sweetheart; old Swish will take good care of you."
Returning to himself, whom he was obviously in love with, Swish felt himself all over, his anxious fingertips unsnapping his French cuffs and soon removing his satin shirt, cut Western-style, and tossing it to Honey in the back seat.
"I find that if we remove our superfluous outer garments, we get a better sense of speed on our bodies. Do remove your shirt, Slim, and see if you don't agree. Please. For me."
"Can't see nothin' wrong with that. It is sorta warm today," he said, unbuttoning his work shirt.
"Oh, what a lovely build you have!" gushed Swish, reaching over to stroke Slim's hirsute nipples. "You have very nice skin; did you know that?"
"He sure does. All over, too," Honey giggled from in back.
"Really?"
"Did you have to say that, Honey? You'll only encourage him."
"Oh, please do! It's so rare to find a female who understands fellows like us."
"What do you mean, us?"
"I guess I mean me," he said, a supercilious smile on his face.
He slowed down. "I just don't know what's gotten into me," he apologized, reaching over to console Slim with a touch, and causing him to start instead. "Don't fret, my friend; Swish won't hurt you."
"Sorry. Didn't mean nothin', mister. Guess you sorta startled me. My mind was elsewhere."
"like in the back seat?"
"I'm not a sissy, if you savvy," said Slim, putting his shirt back on and sticking out his chest. If he hadn't needed the ride, he would have punched out the creep long ago, but as long as he had Honey with him, he had to act civil to Swish or they'd be out of a ride.
"I never said you were, you big, strong, sexy, thing, you."
"My sentiments exactly," said Honey, wondering why a man would think like she did. Living in isolation from the outside world, she'd never learned about gal-boys, as they were known around Dimebox. She sure did like Swish's clothes, though, and wished she had some like them for herself. Feeling the satin with her fingers, she began to realize there were finer fabrics than denim, the only thing she'd ever worn, aside from her work shirts and burlap underwear. Strange, Grandpa never gave her none of that imagine stuff such as Swish wore.
Slim pressed as close up against the door as he could without being outside, but Swish continued to molest him, and despite himself, Slim soon found himself sexually excited. Ashamed of his condition, he looked out the window in hopes it would subside. But it didn't. Indeed, it grew under the urgings of Swish's frantic fingers, which Slim found even more expert at their endeavor than most females'; or than his own, for that matter. Things were about to reach a head, and Swish, finding it hard to keep even one hand on the wheel, was weaving all over the road.
Honey, sitting behind the big pink headrests, couldn't quite see what was going on up front, but noticed that Slim seemed rather rude to Swish, and wondered why. He seemed like such a friendly fellow, though a bit girlish. She wished she could be up front with Slim.
Slim didn't. Never before in his life had he been so ashamed by his lack of self-control. On the verge of orgasm, he could do nothing to stop it, Swish's slippery fingers having found their way into his pants and around his swelling organ. The results were predictable.
"Feels good, doesn't it, Slim?"
"No comment. Do you absolutely have to do this?"
"But you seem to like it. See how happy he looks, standing up so tall, his eye winking at me? Why, he's even in style-wearing a turtleneck. How cute!"
Slim struggled to regain his self-control, but just then Swish's index finger found his prostate, and he came, covering the fragile fingers with he-man sperm. He was so disgusted he almost barfed.
Wondering whatever was going on in the front seat, Honey considered having a looksee, but hesitated, not wanting to interfere with the menfolk's business.
Slim hoped Honey hadn't seen his downfall. Why hadn't he socked the guy the moment he laid a pinkie on him? Was he too a nancy boy? Otherwise, why would he have done as he had, and what was more, derived pleasure-blatantly perverted, to be sure-from it? Perhaps it was because Swish was so effeminate, almost girlish, in his behavior. He certainly did smell pretty, and he was good-looking, in a gay sort of way.
Swish smiled as he licked his fingers, knowing that Slim wouldn't hit him after all that had gone on between them, and that if his girl friend hadn't complained yet, she wouldn't do so now. It had been a long time since he'd felt one so big.
"Mister Harpoon, you certainly do live up to your name, I must say," said Swish, giggling as he sucked on his thumb.
Slim girded his loins against a renewed assault, but none came, and neither did he. What a way to start out the day! Was he on the road to perdition? Would God punish him for what he'd done, or rather for what he'd allowed done to him? Now he was thinking like Honey's grandpa, and that wasn't good, he thought.
"I'm hungry," said Honey, her stomach growling.
"We just had a ten-inch round steak, up here," laughed Swish. "But it's gone now."
"So that's what you two were doing! While I was starving back here! Some gentlemen you are, not sharing your goodies with a ravenous girl!"
"You sure do fill out those clothes, for one who's underfed," said Slim, regaining his heterosexuality as he turned to look at her. From the innocent look on her face, it was apparent that she'd neither seen nor suspected what had gone on, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Do you have to rub it in that you guys had breakfast while I didn't?"
"And such a sweet repast, at that!" simpered Swish, still licking his fingers.
"You pair of swine, why don't you share what you've got?"
Slim hastily did up his Levi's, glad that she was angry for the wrong reason.
"I'm sorry, sweetie. We thought you were asleep. Right, Swish?"
"Yes, dear."
"Don't call me dear!"
"Okay, lover."
"Sometimes I wonder about you two," said Honey, a quizzical look on her famished face. "You sure do behave queerishly."
Slim started. Maybe she had seen them! No; she couldn't have. Maybe in the rear view mirror? No; the angle was wrong. Could she have heard it? No; it doesn't make that much noise. But could she be smarter than she let on? That was a good question, as Richard Nixon used to say; though Slim wasn't glad he'd asked it of himself.
"Why won't you speak to me, Mister Slim Harpoon? You deaf or something?"
"Or something," giggled Swish, licking the dregs of his doings and exclaiming, "Ah! Good to the last drop!" Slim, who had heard that expression before, winced at Swish's perversity.
"Slim, why aren't you talking to me?"
"I'm sorry, Honey. What did you say?"
"You've been ignoring me, haven't you?"
"Er, yes, dear. I'm sorry," he said, sounding like a browbeaten husband.
"I said, Slim, that I'm hungry. And I want you to do something about it."
"I would, Honey, but for the fact that we're traveling courtesy of Mister Velour here, and it's up to him whether we stop and eat."
'That's right, Slim-din," oozed Swish.
"Oh, cut that out!" yelled Slim, beginning to get upset.
Honey was more puzzled than ever, and began to wonder what was going on between those two. "I'm hungry," she repeated. "And I want something to eat. Now, are either of you blowhards going to do something about it, or do you mean to let me starve?"
Swish giggled again, while Slim, struggling to regain both his composure and self-respect, cleared his throat with a cough.
"Mock me, will you?" she screamed, her empty stomach barking orders to her brain.
"Swish, do you think you could stop for a little bite to eat?" asked Slim, pleading.
"So you'd like me to continue in my efforts, eh?"
"I mean for her benefit; not mine," he said angrily.
"I don't know your bag, man, but if she wants to watch, I don't mind. After all, I am in show business," he said, smiling gaily.
"You've got me all wrong, Swish. Honey wants something to put in her mouth. Do you understand?"
"Not while I'm around, she won't! I don't go in for those perverted heterosexual things. Not in my Cadillac! Why, you might stain the calfskin!"
"I'll eat outside!" she screamed. "But just let me eat!"
Confused, but cautious lest Slim punch him out, Swish agreed to the proposal, though not hungry himself, save for new assaults on Slim's quivering flesh, which he relished as a rare delicacy.
Pulling into a country drive-in, he ordered steerburgers for his companions, a banana split for himself.
"I just love bananas," he said, his lips covered with whipped cream. Slim looked away, trying desperately to forget his moral lapse, while Honey agreed with Swish that she liked a good banana now and then herself, though Slim thought them fattening.
"Shut up, dear; please."
"What's wrong with you, anyway?"
"I'm sorry. It's just that I've got dyspepsia, dear."
"You do? Whatever gave you that?"
"I'm afraid I get carsick."
"A big, strong man like you?" kidded Swish.
"What I need is some clean air," said Slim, stalking outside.
"I think he's upset," said Swish, winking at Honey. On seeing her breasts thrust against her blouse, he pondered the pleasure of going straight again. Not since he'd been a pimp in Amarillo (before McNamara closed the base there) had he trafficked in tried-and-true sex, normal-style. He sure could have sold Honey for a good price, back in the good old days. Ever since, it had been the constant traveling of showbiz, and while it had enabled him to meet lots of eager young boys, it had also given him his share of lumps from bullies who didn't appreciate his affections. He hoped Slim wouldn't hate him for what he'd done, even though it was obvious he would rebuff all further overtures, and it saddened Swish that he'd failed. Perhaps it was his breath; or maybe it was his too-brash behavior. He really shouldn't have moved so swiftly.
In the outdoor washroom of the drive-in, Slim genuflected and emptied his innards down the right side of a two-holer. He felt wretched, but barfing helped relieve some of the sickness he'd sustained as a result of his failure to act in the face of evil. Why did he just sit there and let Swish do it? He barfed again, this time more than before, but it couldn't erase the awful blot on his manhood.
Walking back to the car, he cursed himself for having given in to the weakness, and wondered what had ever happened to manly country singers like Ernest Tubb and his Texas Troubadors.
5
ALL THE WAY TO AMARILLO, SLIM SNUGGLED UP in back with his beloved Honey Thye, while Swish silently pouted up front. Occasionally he would ask, "Sure you don't want to sit up here with me, Slim? The view's much better than back there."
"Are you kidding?" laughed Slim, his blue eyes comparing Honey's magnificent cleavage to Swish's sadly gay flamboyance. "I find it far more comfortable here," he said, resting his weary head on Honey's lap. Seeing this blatant display of heterosexuality on Slim's part, Swish floored the accelerator, speeding them on their way at a truly alarming rate. Slim, for a while, was a mite concerned about the awesome rate of speed, but Honey, who had never gone so fast in her life, loved it.
"How fast we going now, Swish?"
"One hundred twenty and still climbing, sugah."
"Wow! This baby really rolls!"
"You bet, Honey. I got this big blower under the hood that really puts out," he said proudly.
"And one in the front seat that doesn't know when to shut up," interjected Slim, a sly smile on his face.
'That's about enough out of you, wise guy! I could give you such a smack, making fun of something beautiful! You big studs don't know what you're missing, when you dismiss us as a bunch of fairies. We know where it's at, and we aren't afraid to indulge in what we like."
"But that doesn't mean you have to force your attentions on us decent folk. What if Honey here was to throw herself on you and force you to submit to her desires? Would that be right?"
Swish began to shake all over, just thinking about the possibility.
"What are you talking about, Slim?" asked Honey, whose homespun education had skirted the subject of queers.
"Nothing dear. Just man talk."
Swish started giggling when he heard that. "You're too much, Mister Slim Harpoon. You and Honey are really made for each other. You really are."
"Want to make something of it, buster?"
Swish slowed down, sulking because of Slim's bellicose manner. Was he like all the rest? He seemed such a gentle sort, but maybe underneath he was the typical Texan, who when accosted by a gay blade, beats the crap out of him in the parking lot after apparently giving encouragement in the bar. Why did they have to be so cruel to someone so sensitive? Surely they must know how much that hurt. Or did they? Probably not; the thick-headed nincompoops. Dim-witted dunderheads with buffalo chips for brains. Only Slim had seemed different-at least at first. Maybe he still was. Maybe.
But when Swish looked in his rear mirror after this cerebral interlude, he gazed on something so blatantly carnal it caused him to have a fit. Honey and Slim were making love, or their version of it, right on his precious upholstery. How dare they do such a thing?
"Baby, you're too much!" growled Slim, feeling like a man again.
"Stick it in more, Slim! Fill me up all the way! That's the spirit! Oh, that feels good!"
Swish's stomach was about to turn. How could they do such a thing to him, when he, the good Samaritan, had given them succor and good company which they now spumed and threw back in his perfumed face? It was almost more than he could stand. He began to get sick when he heard Honey moan as she approached the pinnacle of excitement. And when she started to scream, he pulled off the road and tossed his cookies all over the vermilion dashboard.
"Are you all right up there?" Slim asked, attempting to disentangle himself from Honey's Cleopatra clinch so he could see over the headrest.
"What's the hurry, Slim? Didn't you like it?"
"Loved it, Honey. It's just that I think something's the matter with Swish; so unlock your loins so I can have a look, huh?"
"Say please."
"Please."
"Pretty please."
"Pretty please. Now will you please release me?" "Sure, Slim; anything at all, for the man that made me come eight times in a row." "Eight?"
"Yeah. Bet you didn't know you were that good, eh?"
"Usually I get a girl to ten. Guess I must be slipping."
"You conceited butt! Get out of me!" she chided, spreading her legs to allow him egress.
"Are you all right, Swish?" asked Slim, seeing the slouched figure up front. Answering his question with a retch, Swish earned his antagonist's sympathy.
"Honey, Swish's sick. I don't think you ought to look. Please just stay right where you are."
"I may have to, the way I'm stuck to the upholstery," she laughed.
"This is no laughing matter. Maybe he's had a heart attack."
"At his age? Are you kidding?"
"It's possible, his being such a high-strung individual and all," said Slim excitedly, trying to climb over the headrest to the front seat.
"Now, don't hurt yourself, Slim. Remember your rodeo injury. You don't want to make it any worse."
"How can I worry about myself when Swish may be dying?" he yelled, sliding into the mess of miasma.
"I thought you didn't like him."
"I didn't. But that doesn't mean I'm going to let him die without rendering aid. There is such a thing as the code of the West, and I for one intend to abide by it."
"I think you're exaggerating, Slim. The poor fellow's probably just carsick; that's all."
"She's right," said Swish, speaking for the first time since he'd gotten ill. "It's just that all that motion got to me."
'The motion of us two in the back seat, you mean," said Slim, who now understood Swish's sickness, which was not unlike his own back at the drive-in.
"Please don't talk about it!" pleaded Swish, feeling vomit well up in his throat again.
"Okay, if you say so, Swish. But you know somethin'? The same thing happened to me back at the drive-in; after our little episode in the front seat; so I guess we're sort of in the same boat, in a way. You're a confirmed queer, and..."
"Please don't use that term. It's so undignified." "Homosexual?"
'Try gay," he said, a simpering smile on his pukey face. "A confirmed gay? That doesn't sound right." "It isn't a noun, moron; it's an adjective. One is gay, not one is a gay."
"Now I see! Well, anyway, as I was saying, we're confirmed opposites, and always will be. In a way, though, we're alike. It makes me sick to see perverted stuff and..."
"You 're the one that's perverted, not me!"
"Well, that's a matter of opinion, mister," said Slim, sounding not unlike John Wayne about to belt a bad guy.
"No it isn't!" screamed Swish shrilly. "We are the right ones, while you are all wrong!"
"Since neither of us are experts, I don't think we ought to argue the point further. Now, if you will please shut up for a minute, I'll tell you what I'm getting at."
"What, smartie-pants?"
"That it makes you physically ill when you see normal sex between two people not of the same sex."
"However did you know?" Swish asked sarcastically. "Look at your face."
Swish surveyed his sickly countenance in the rear-view mirror, at the same time seeing a naked Honey Thye in back. She reminded him of his mother, the time he had walked in on her when she was being attacked by an oilfield roughneck. What perfect animals they looked, giving in to bestial passion in the worst possible way. What pigs they were! He felt himself getting sick again.
This time Slim helped him outside, where he barfed at the base of a speed sign, groveling in the gravel. Then, unexplainably, he attacked Slim's boot like a rabid dog.
"What's going on out there?" Honey inquired as she oozed back into her Levi's and blouse.
"Nothin', Honey," Slim remarked casually. "It was like you said: He got carsick; that's all."
Looking out the window, Honey saw Swish's teeth sinking into Slim's cowboy boot. "I think he's hungry. Look at the way he's trying to eat your foot," she said, pointing at him.
"And that's not all of me he wants to eat, either."
But Swish was in no condition to imbibe anything, organic or inorganic. On the verge of passion out, he bit harder into the leather, not daring to lose a grip on something-anything around which to center his spinning world.
"Better stick him in back," said Honey, getting out to look at the limp figure Slim was attempting to dislodge from his foot.
"Be careful with him, now; he's one sick nancy," said Slim as he picked up one end of Swish.
"Make sure he isn't aimed your way, or he may whoops all over you," she warned, picking up his feet. Darned if she'd have him throw up on her. As it was, she was messy enough, both from being on the road, and from having a go with Slim on the seat. Underneath her Levi's, she itched something fierce.
"Whatsamatter? Pick up some fleas somewhere?"
"Naw; it's a female problem, if you know what I mean."
"If I had a bidet, I'd lend it to you; honest."
"That's certainly white of you, Slim. Now if you will kindly hold up your end of this sissy, we can be on our way."
On the outskirts of Amarillo, Swish began coming to, moaning like a madman as his nose caught the familiar odor of the semen splayed across the seat. Was he in heaven? It certainly smelled like it!
"I think he's coming out of it," said Slim, turning to see.
Swish opened his eyes for an instant, and seeing Slim's face, went into ecstasy. Slim, watching him writhe about, wondered if he was going to have, another fit. "Do you think he's an eppy?" he asked Honey.
She gave him a blank look, and then said, "Eppy?"
"Never mind, dear. I'll tell you later. Right now, I think he needs me."
"More than I do?" she said bitchily.
"At the present, yes. Now, you tend to your driving and let me take care of our host. After all, if it weren't for him, we might still be back in East Texas."
"Where things are green and in bloom. Why are things so dry and dusty out here, Slim?"
"Don't bother me right now, sweetie. Can't you see I've got a patient to attend to?"
"Aw, let the creep suffer! What does he care about us, anyway?"
"He loves me."
"He what?" she exclaimed, slamming on the brakes, thereby bringing Swish to his senses as he was thrown against the ash tray on the back of the front seat.
"You woke him up! How do you feel, Swish old boy?"
"What is this, Be Kind To Sissies Week?"
"Do you have to be such a bitch, Honey? Can't you see he's in pain?"
Seeing the dent she'd put in Swish's forehead by stopping so suddenly, Honey shut up and started the car moving again. Slim was right; she was being a bitch. But then, it was almost time for her monthlies to start. A few more days, and she'd really turn into a bitch; always had.
Swish was overjoyed at the treatment he was receiving from Slim, whom he had misjudged as a bully. The man had compassion-even compared to a fag; and that was saying something.
It was no wonder Honey was jealous. Slim was the kind of stud girls went crazy for-strong and silent, yet also gentle, in a truly masculine way. These were also the qualities Swish went for, but rarely found, in a conquest. Somehow whenever he encountered the stud of his dreams, the fellow was always spoken for by some comely female. Why was he always on the losing end in these situations? Well, maybe in this one he wouldn't be.
But he was, for as soon as he showed signs of improvement, Swish saw that Slim's paramount concern was for Honey, and whatever concern he had for was only collateral to this main one. A loser again! C'est la vie. Can't win 'em all. Not with gals like Honey Thye around to give him competition. Maybe he should move to a mining camp. At least there he would be appreciated.
"Amarillo!" Swish exclaimed as he looked outside and saw a city-limits sign. "I've got a show to do here tonight. Yipes! I'd better get gussied up, or my fans won't know who I am."
"Your fans?" inquired Slim, wondering what kind of cowboy would pay to see the-likes of Swish. He sure wouldn't be caught dead doing such a thing.
But others would; lots of them. Among students of nearby Texas Tech, Swish Velour was a sort of folk hero. Weary of run-of-the-mill Western singers, they'd cottoned to Swish the first time he dared put on a concert in the land of the tough hombre. Only after he'd packed them in night after night did people realize how many lavender cowpokes lived among them. And besides, attracting the usual number of deviates, Swish and his group garnered the affection of offbeat engineering students en masse, so that his trips to Amarillo proved amazingly profitable.
That night, Swish saw that Honey and Slim were provided with complimentary tickets to his show, and they even showed up.
"What else is there to do?" Slim asked rhetorically.
"Not much," answered Honey, who really didn't know.
The show Swish put on was sort of a burlesque of Western singers. Out lie would strut like the typical West Texas cowboy, walking as though he had a silver dollar between his cheeks, as he liked to put it. Placing his lips to the mike, he said, "How y' doin', big boy?" in a voice that is best described as flat-chested Mae West. This little maneuver never failed to bring down the house. The fags loved him for his sense of humor, the straights because he was so camp. More than a few of the normal cowpunchers had been tempted by the gay things that went on in bunkhouses during the long spells between visits to Juarez.
After his act, Swish mingled with the crowd while his group continued playing so people could dance. Slim was shocked to see so many cowboys dancing with one another, and wondered what kind of place Amarillo had turned into.
"No different than any other place," Swish answered, putting his arm around Slim, who brushed it away. "There's nancy boys everywhere, even in Muleshoe."
"Them's fighting words, mister; and I use that word loosely. My home town may have a lotta things wrong with it, but I'll bet my bottom dollar it ain't infested with perverts."
"You will?"
"You damn betcha, I will."
"Okay, I'll just take you up on that," said Swish, motioning to one of his hangers-on, who quickly scurried through the crowd to fetch a hulking figure of a man who, when he arrived, made Slim shudder at the sight.
"You're not telling me that Tommy Titan, who I used to play football with, is..."
"Gay," tittered Tommy, embracing his boyhood chum, who nearly went into conniptions at his ponderously gentle touch.
"What caused you to go wrong?"
"I got married; and by the time it broke up, I was so sick of bitches I began to hanker after the companionship of a chum. And before long, I made the discovery that doing it with a guy was much more rewarding than wasting myself on some selfish bitch. And unlike a lot of guys that turn gay, I'm big enough to take care of myself in case there's trouble. Why, you'd be amazed how many Muleshoe boys is thinking my way. Why, there's-"
"I don't want to hear!" screamed Slim, covering his ears.
Tommy roared with laughter on seeing his friend's reaction, embracing him again with his orangutan arms until Slim shook with revulsion at what his boyhood chum had become. Swish interceded, as he wanted Slim for himself, and Tommy, not wanting to offend his hero, acceded and, bowed out bowleggedly to dance with a handsome young engineering student who should have known better-or so Slim thought as he told Honey all that had happened.
"But I was standing right next to you," she said.
"You were?"
"Yup. Now what do you say we have ourselves a little dance?"
"Why, that's one fine idea you got there, Miss Honey," said Slim, glad to get away from the gay riders of the purple sage. "Don't mind if I do." And with that they sashayed out onto the floor, and like everyone else present, danced that West Texas favorite, the Hogshit Shuffle.
"Boy! I ain't had such a time since before I broke my leg!" Slim yelled, almost breaking another as he gyrated about the ballroom.
Honey enjoyed herself too, shaking her big Texas-gal body until Slim was ready to mount her on the spot. "You sure are a lot of woman; you know it?" he said, guzzling down another Lone Star Beer. Ever since he'd seen Tommy, he'd felt the urge to drink. The mere thought of one of his pals turning pervert made him run for the bar.
"Don't fret so about your friend," Honey cautioned, not wanting Slim to get so drunk he couldn't dance. She hadn't had such a good time since she could remember, for her grandpa didn't hold with dancing, nor any such devices dreamed up by the evil to seduce young girls.
Honey was such a hit with everyone present that Swish finally asked her to get up on stage. Slim hesitated, not sure what Tommy and his ilk had planned for him in Honey's absence, but Honey pleaded with him until he allowed her to "make an butt of yerself," as he put it.
"How about singing us a little song?" asked Swish, who realized Honey could lure in a lot of studs he might otherwise not get to see.
"But I don't know any songs," she said, blushing before everybody.
"Come on, now, Honey! Surely you know The Yellow Rose of Texas, or When Texas Tfiighs Are Smiling!"
"What about, Deep in the Crotch of Texas?" called a wag in the audience.
She finally sang The Yellow Rose of Texas, and with everybody joining in, it didn't really matter that she didn't know the words. All she had to do was stand up there and show off her boobies, and that was enough. She even had the gay ones wondering if they hadn't made a wrong decision in giving up the-likes of her for a string of sweaty cowhands.
Slim applauded louder than anyone when she finished her repertoire, which consisted of The Yellow Rose of Texas twenty-six times in succession. A bit hoarse from her effort, she still found voice enough to ask him if he liked her singing. "Goldarn best songstress I ever did hear!" he said, picking her up and hugging her until she gasped in agony.
"Boy, you sure do smell of beer!" she said, turning her head away.
"Nothin' wrong with a West Texas cowboy having a toddy or two, is there?" he said, slurping down another. "Before, I drank because I was worried; now I drink because I'm happy. Honey, I never felt prouder in all my born days than when I saw you up there singing. I want you to know that. Just being associated with you makes me feel ten feet tall. You're a lotta woman, and I consider myself more than a mite lucky I own you."
"Own me, do you?" she said quizzically, wondering if she shouldn't break into show business and ditch this drunk forever. But then she remembered how good he'd been to her, and gave him a big hug in return.
"By gum, you sure do squeeze hard, for a mere slip of a girl," he yelped struggling to free himself from her grasp. Succeeding at last, he burped himself by hitting his stomach, then said, "And as I recall, you've got a pretty fine grip elsewhere, too."
"Do you have to embarrass me in front of strangers, Slim?"
"The trouble with you, Honey, is that you don't drink," he said, seizing another can of Lone Star.
"My grandpa didn't hold with drinking, neither."
"Land sakes, I don't think there's anything he did hold with! Except maybe knocking off some dirtyleg when he felt the urge, eh?"
"You shut up about my kinfolk; hear? Gramps may have had his failings, but he's still my granddad, and don't you forget it."
"How can I, when there's so much of him in you?"
Honey stopped in her tracks. Was she really like her grandpa? Living with him most of her life, it would be sort of natural for her to sound like him and so forth, but she'd always prided herself on being his exact opposite. Now here was Slim telling her she was just like him. Did that much rub off on her? She shook just thinking about it, and asked Slim to get her a drink.
"Well, like the man who tied his wife's tits together said, 'If you can't lick 'em, join 'em!' " yelled Slim, giving her his own half-empty can.
"It taste sort a bitter-like pecan shells," Honey said, drinking it just the same.
The simile had Slim grimacing as he remembered the awful taste of a pecan shell. "Did you have to say that, Honey? Please don't talk about pecan sheels, or I may bring up the subject of Boxelder bugs."
"Don't!" she cried, almost spilling her beer.
"How about another, eh?" he said, slapping her on the back and ordering more toddies.
"Well, I suppose one more won't hurt," she said, accepting the second cold cylinder of sin juice, as her granddad used to call it.
This was followed by a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth and even a seventh before Honey asked for directions to the ladies room. "Sure does make you pee, that stuff!" she giggled on returning to her soused companion, whom she had to prop up so he could drink.
It was only after her eighteenth beer that Honey joined Slim on the floor, the two of them passing out in a heap by the bandstand. It was long past closing, and nobody really cared, so they were left undisturbed until sunrise, when an engineering student wearing horn-rimmed spectacles returned to look for a watch he'd lost, and awoke them to ask if they'd seen it.
"Can't say as I have," yawned Slim, making his way to the men's room.
"What was it you lost?" asked Honey, wondering where she was. "Boy, that sun is sure bright!" she said, shading her eyes with both hands.
"A watch. You know: the kind one wears on his wrist."
"I don't," she said, showing him her bare wrist.
"Neither do I, now, but see the white spot there where I used to?"
"Don't you ever wash, young man?"
"That's the only clean part on me, where the watchband was. You see..."
"Not very well," she said, covering her eyes again.
He laughed, then resumed his story. "I work in the oilfields on weekends, and it's awful hard to wash off the dirt. Matter of fact, I'm going up to Muleshoe this morning to do just that, after I find my watch. You see, I'm lost without it."
"Is it something special-an heirloom or something?" Honey asked, getting to her feet to tower over him.
"Boy! You sure are big! Say, weren't you the one that sang The Yellow Rose of Texas' last night? I sure did think that was somethin' else."
"Yeah, sonny boy; that was me up on that stage," she said with feigned modesty, gesturing in its direction. "Now what was this you said about a watch?"
"Oh, it's just a Mickey Mouse watch, but I'm sort of attached to it. Or was until last night. You see it anywhere?"
"As I said before, at the present I can't see anything. Maybe ole eagle-eye Slim, when he returns from the men's room, will assist you in your endeavor," she said, plummeting back onto the floor in slumber.
Slim walked out of the restroom, holding up, as he would a snapping turtle, a dripping watchband and watch that he'd fished out of the urinal. 'This yours?"
"Sure is!" yelled the student, nearly shattering Slim's sore eardrums as he ran to have a look.
"He's going to Muleshoe, too," said Honey to Slim as she got up again to go to the ladies' room.
"Think you could give a couple drunks a ride?" asked Slim.
"Sure can," answered the engineering student, doing his best not to sound like one.
6
"SAY," SAID HONEY WHEN SHE RETURNED FROM the John. "You look kinda familiar. Take off those specs, and you look a lot like the lad that was dancing with that friend of yours, Slim. Whatsisname?" "Tommy Titan?"
"Yeah; that's the one. Weren't you dosey-doeing with him last night, boy?"
Blushing, the youngster admitted doing so, but "did it for a lark," he said. "The big fella grabbed me, and before I knew it we were doing the Hogshit Shuffle all over the place. I'd have done something, but Tommy's one big boy, and besides, he didn't try to get fresh. And if he did, I'd just slap his face and he'd stop."
"Don't be so sure. Those perverts will stop at nothing to get a pretty young boy like you; so don't say you weren't warned if they try and sock it to you."
"I guess the gay set can get pretty violent sometimes," he said solemnly, glad that nothing had transpired between himself and Tommy to sully his reputation.
"Ever hear of how a pervert murders? Their victims are sometimes found with hundreds of stab wounds."
"From spike heels," kidded Honey, stretching her long arms in an attempt to get her blood going again. "You know, I think I'm suffering from my very first hangover."
"I'll remember what you said, Mister..."
"Just y'all call me Slim. What they call you, four-eyes?"
'That, mostly. Though I prefer my real name, which is Percy."
"Boy! With a name like that, you got to know how to fight!"
"I do. That's why my Dad named me that. Said anyone named Percy would learn how to scrap soon as he got sick of people making fun of him. And you know what? He was absolutely right. I bet I'm one of the toughest engineering students there is, thanks to my Dad's calling me Percy."
"I think it's a pretty name," said Honey.
"It is; but how many boys like to be thought of as pretty?"
"I see what you mean," she said. "Though you must admit, you are a very pretty boy. Don't you think so, Slim?"
"So, evidently, did Tommy." "Will you two quit bugging me about that?" "Did you say buggering, Percy baby?" kidded Slim. "Keep that up, and you're going to have to hoof it to Muleshoe."
"I'm sorry, Percy. I didn't mean anything. We really do need a ride, and our appreciation is complete at your offering one. It really is. Right, Honey?"
"Righto, daddy-o."
"What did you say?"
"Oh, that? It's just an expression that-"
"I haven't heard that in ten years. Not since Elvis was the rage."
"So that's where you got the sideburns, eh?" asked Percy.
"He was my hero, you might say. Still is, as a matter-of-fact."
"I thought you wanted to know where I learned that phrase."
"I did. Where'd you learn that phrase, Miss Honey Thye? For sixty-four thousand dollars, can you tell me the answer?"
"What is this, arrested development time?" asked Percy.
"I have only fond memories of the fifties," said Slim, closing his eyes and visualizing himself as Elvis.
"Hey, old timer, are you going to let me answer the question or not?"
"Oh, sorry, Honey. It's just that my head's so chockfull of memories from the Eisenhower era, and your saying daddy-o brought 'em all back."
"Sort of like a catalyst causing a chemical reaction," explained Percy, doing his best to sound coolly professional, which he was not.
"Anyway," said Honey, trying to drown them out with increased volume, "I learned it from one of the guys in Swish's band."
"What'd he look like?" asked Percy, who was familiar with the Velvetine Cowpokes, at least from afar.
"Hair combed back on the sides, flat on top."
"Chicago Boxcar!" yelled Slim, slapping his leg. "I haven't seen one of those in years! Used to have one myself, before they went out of style."
"They're still big among demolition derby drivers," said Percy, whose Dad used to be one.
"Really? Maybe I ought to grow mine back. To look like a demo derby driver would be quite an honor. Might even set the style for rodeo riders, eh, Honey?"
"After your leg mends a mite more."
"Shucks, I'm ready to ride a brahma right now. Sit tin' around doing nothing isn't my idea of a man's work, if you know what I mean. Can't stand it indoors any longer'n I have to. Darn near went insane in that hospital. Nurses had to inject me with calmatives just to keep me from goin' crazy. Broke out in a rash and everything from not being able to go outside. You can't keep a West Texas cowboy down, I always say. Right, Percy?"
"Right, podnuh. Put 'er there!"
'The Panhandle may present a bleak landscape to you, Honey," said Slim as they drove northward in Percy's Volkswagen, "but good people live here, and that's enough for me."
"It sure is empty, save for an occasional steer or maybe a pumping station," added Percy. "I work for the Punt Oil Company. Tend to about twenty of their pumps in my spare time-mostly on weekends. The pay's not much, but along with my scholarship from Punt Oil, it meets expenses; and I like being outdoors."
"Doesn't everyone?" said Slim, scratching his head. "Say, is that Punt Oil any relation to Yucan Punt, the famous Independent Oil Operator from Big D?"
"Sure is, Slim, and I'm mighty proud to be working for him. Why, he's made himself into a near billionaire by hard work and-"
"Luck," added Honey, who had heard tell how hard it was to find oil.
"That's true, Miss Honey. Luck did pay a pretty big part in his success story, as it did in success stories of other operators in the oil game. It's just that he was luckier than most, and he knows it."
"I hear he's a right nice fella; real natcheral and all," said Slim, appearing to be knowledgable on the subject. "I didn't know he was movin' in on Muleshoe, though. When'd he start that?"
"From what I hear, he's been planning it a long time. Believes there's a big oil deposit around here, though nobody else does. But then, that's his way of operating. Back in East Texas, he struck oil in spots where everybody else ended up with dry holes. His luck is something else, and that's one reason I like working for him, even in a nominal position. After I get my degree, I plan to Horatio Alger my way to the top; so you see I don't mind starting at the bottom as long as I have something to strive for."
"You sound like the kind of fella this country could use a lot more of," said Slim, sounding positively Rotarian. "Instead of those dirty draft-card burners."
'Those are almost the same words Mister Punt used when he presented me with my scholarship," Percy said proudly, his head full of capitalistic thoughts. "Ever since, I've strived for the clean-cut image you see before you."
'That Tommy liked so much, eh?" kidded Honey, bringing a frown to his face.
"Why'd you have to dredge up something like that, Honey? Percy here is working hard to pay his way through school so's he can become something, and you do nothin' 'cept detract from his success. What are you, anyway, 'cept for an uppitty dirtyleg'. '"
"Stop the car, Percy! I will not ride another mile with a man who calls me that! Slim Harpoon, you are the most ungrateful bastard I ever did lay eyes on, and I don't care if I ever see you again; understand?" she said, attempting to get out of the back seat but finding her way blocked by an apologetic Slim, who did his level best to calm her.
"She's a mite excitable," he explained to Percy. "Gets upset if I call her a dirtyleg. Really rubs her the wrong way, I guess."
"Youguess?" she screamed.
"Step on it, Percy; I can take care of her. Now, Dirtyleg ... er, I mean Honey, please calm down. It won't do you a bit of good to yell, 'cause Percy isn't about to stop unless I give the order, and I'm not-not till we reach the ranch. So shut up and quit bugging us; you hear?"
"Boy, was I wrong about you! You're just like all the rest-all peaches and cream on the outside, and pure sonuvabitch underneath!"
"Turn on the radio, Percy, so's I won't have to listen to TrashMouth back there," said Slim, yawning as he turned to face front again.
"Okay, Slim; anything you say. You're the boss," said Percy, switching on the Blaupunkt. "By the way, I sure did appreciate your finding my watch for me. You know, wet and all, the fool thing still works. Got it out of a garbage can five years ago, and it's never let me down. So you see, I have sort of a sentimental attachment for it."
"like you did for Tommy?" sneered Honey, whose face was soon slapped by Slim, bringing blood from her beestung lips.
"Texas Standard Time, six fifty-nine. News is one minute away, and brought to you by the Punt Oil Corporation, which exists solely to serve you, the public," blared the radio, until Percy rushed to turn down the volume.
"Serve the public, my eye! Screw the public, is more like it! Goddamn Yucan Punt screwed my grandpa out of a fortune back in the thirties!"
"How'd he do that, TrashMouth?" "Played poker with him."
"With grandpa Thye? Why, I didn't know he indulged in such heathen sports!"
"He don't. But that doesn't mean he didn't. Back before I was born, he used to be one red-hot player at five-card stud."
"Was this when your mama was a dirtyleg and used to let the drunks line up for a lick?"
"One more crack like that, and I'll bleed on you," hissed Honey, wiping blood from her lip with the sleeve of her Western shirt.
"Anyway, to get back to the tale: Yucan Punt got my Gramps into a game. Played him for the oil leases on his property, and darned if he didn't win! You know how much money he made off those leases?"
"How much?"
"Too much; that's how much. Why, they made him a wealthy man! If my grandpa hadn't played honest, he might have all that loot!"
"Are you implying that Mister Punt cheated?" asked Percy, slowing down to better hear her allegations.
"Implying nothing; I'm telling you! He cheated my grandpa outa one helluva lot of oil; that's what he done!"
Slim didn't know what to say, for no matter what he ventured, it would surely alienate one of them. So he listened, Honey continuing to lambaste Punt, and Percy doing his best to defend him.
"He's a great man."
"Who got that way by trampling on the rights of others, that veritable scoundrel!"
"Have you ever met him? He's absolutely the most gentle, kind, generous individual I've ever encountered."
"He queer for you too?"
"I'll ignore that insult, dirtyleg. But you better watch it, or else."
"Or else what?" asked Slim as he looked down his nose at this college punk who had called his girl a dirtyleg.
"Nobody can talk to me like that and get away with it," protested Percy. "Even if she is a girl."
"But you think you can get away with calling my Honey Thye a dirtyleg, do you?"
"Well, you called her that yourself, didn't you?"
"What if I did? That's not the same as some faggot calling her one!"
"Look, I told you before that I was attacked; I wouldn't have gone along with him unless he forced me."
"Ah-hah! So you did do somethin' naughty!"
"Well," he said, blushing, "I happened to know a historical statistic that I knew would be of interest to the big fairy, and aside from my relating it to him, we did nothing besides dance, and only that once."
Her appetite whetted, Honey asked, "What historical statistic?"
Blushing crimson, Percy said, "I don't know whether I ought to tell it in mixed company."
"For land's sake, this is no time to be bashful! Anyway, ole dirtyleg back there ain't going to be shocked. Are you?"
"Slim, will you please stop calling me that?"
"Okay, Percy baby, tell us that hysterical fact that Tommy the tall fag found so interesting."
"Well," he started slowly, "you remember John Dillinger, the bank robber?"
"Heard about him. Wasn't he that yankee fella that got gunned down at the Biograph Theater 'cause his woman ratted on him?"
"That's the one."
"What about him?"
"Yeah, what about him?" asked Honey, still nursing her cut lip.
"Well," gulped Percy, "he was rather unusual in one respect, aside from being a bank robber. One reason he was so popular with the ladies was his enormous ... love prod. It measured twenty-two inches in length."
"Wow!" exclaimed Honey. "He could show a girl quite a time, with a crank of that magnitude!"
"As welt he did. Dillinger was well known as a ladies' man, so I guess he knew how to use that thing of his."
"Just carrying it around must have been quite a task," said Slim, mentally comparing the weight of his with one the size of Dillinger's.
"He's the sort of guy Tommy has wet dreams about; eh, Slim?"
"Or you, Honey."
"Well a girl could have a lot of fun with a fellow what had a thing like that. Why, I bet even when he was soft, ole Dillinger could give satisfaction, which is what a girl wants most in life."
"Judging by yourself?"
"What makes you think I'm any different than other girls? If anything, I'm probably more receptive than the average."
"I'll vouch for that," said Slim, remembering the ardor with which she made love. A smile came to his face, and he knew if she but touched him he would grow to near-Dillinger dimensions.
"I can see why Tommy would like that tale," said Honey. "Did he?"
"You know what he said, the snob? He said, 'Quality's what I'm interested in; not mere quantity.' How's that for a hot one, hey?"
"I guess they think different than we do," said Slim pensively.
"Yeah," said Percy. "They do think sorta queer, don't they?"
"Wonder what makes 'em that way. Must be their upbringin'; though Tommy and me were raised pretty near the same way, except for his mama spoiled him more than mine did me."
"But yours died when you were young, didn't she, Slim?"
'Tup; she did at that. Can't see where that makes much of a difference, though, Honev."
"Well, as I see it, Tommy had his mama to take after, and you your pa, so why should it seem unusual that he'd turn out a gal boy and you a genuine stud?"
"You may have something there, sweetie. I guess I do take after my pa, just like you do after your grandpa."
"My, aren't you two perceptive, though!" chided the college man.
"Listen, punk, and listen good, for it might just help you get along in this world. Honey and I may never have gone to college, but that don't mean we're dumb."
"I never said you were, Slim."
"But with your snide insinuations you implied it. I know how you college types like to condescend to country folk like they're so many cattle. I know. Get it all the time in Big D and Houston when I'm there with the rodeo. Treat me like dirt, even when I leave 'em a big tip."
"What college people do you tip, if I may be so bold as to ask?"
"Don't confuse me with questions like that, dimwit. I know what I mean, and if you're so smart, you can just figure it out."
"What he's trying to say," interjected Honey, "is that he doesn't like being low-rated by city folk just because he's a West Texas cowboy. Right, Slim?"
"Right, podnuh!"
"So how does this involve me?" asked Percy.
"Well ... " said Slim, pausing for a moment to give dramatic impact to what he was about to say. "If'n you're ever going to make a pile, you got to learn how to handle people. For instance, suppose you want to get an oil lease from me or some other rancher. You got to know how to handle 'em-talk their lingo. Come on with that I'm a college boy, I know everything attitude, and they'll as soon run you off their place as speak to you. A man's home is his castle and he doesn't have to put up with no uppity college kid talking down to him, even if he is offerin' him an oil lease."
"Slim, I think you're absolutely right, and I intend to put what you just said into practice. Did you say you were a rancher?"
"Still am, as far as I know. Of course I haven't been there in a fortnite, but I suppose it's still there."
"How big a spread you got?"
"Just a little one. About two thousand acres."
"Same size as the LBJ ranch; did you know that?"
"You don't say! Hear that, Honey? My ranch is the same size as Lyndon's!"
"Got any oil leases on it?"
"My Dad did, back in Depression days, but the oil operators gave up after drilling some dry holes. Geologists said there weren't no oil there, never was and never could be."
"Well, you never know. Those geologists have been wrong before. Some of the richest men in Texas wouldn't be that way if they'd followed their advice."
"What you gettin' at, podnuh?"
'That I'd be mighty obliged if n you'd sign an oil lease for your land with my company. Of course if we strike any oil, you'll get the usual fifteen per cent."
"And you'd get the other eighty-five; right?"
"My company would; not me. Though I suppose they might raise my salary some. And of course the government would take its share, too."
"That ain't much; not with the depletion allowance, eh?"
"Our lobby has done a good job in the halls of Congress in protecting the oil interest." "And in the White House, too."
"Can't say it hurts to have a Texan in the White House; especially when he got there with a lot of help from oilmen. But that helps you as much as it helps Yucan Punt, if you're in the oil game too. So what do you say about the lease?"
"What do you think, Honey?"
"Well, Slim, even though I don't really trust that old codger Punt, I've got to admit, anybody that could put one over on my grandpa must be some sharp operator, ana it anybody can find oil on your land, it'd probably be him. So I think you best take Percy up on his offer. After all, he's bein' nice enough to give us a ride to the ranch."
"like any good Texan would, my dear," said Percy modestly.
"Okay, podnuh, it's a deal. Put her there!" said Slim, extending his work callused hand and grasping Percy's soft one. After shaking vigorously, they joined in a chorus of The Yellow Rose of Texas and drank to their deal with some corn liquor Percy had stuck underneath the seat for a rainy day.
"Since it don't hardly ever rain out here, we may as well put it to good use wetting our whistles, eh?" he said, passing the jug around.
'That stuff sure has a kick to it!" said Honey after taking a Texas-sized swallow. Though still recovering from her hangover, she drank more than he due of the mountain dew.
"Hey, let's save a little for the front-seat crowd!" yelled Slim, grabbing the jug from the chug-a-lugging Honey, who didn't give up without a fight.
By the time they reached the ranch gates, all three of them were completely pie-eyed, and caterwauling their way through Home on the Range, Roll Me Over in the Clover, and a host of other homey tunes such as are usually sung around all-male campfires. But Honey didn't mind when the songs got a bit spicy; she liked 'em that way. She'd had her fill of boredom back in East Texas, and now that she was out in the wide-open spaces, she was going to have herself a good time.
It was mid-afternoon before they made the ranch house, where the first thing done, aside from Slim and Percy's watering up the grass, was to sign the oil lease on the hood of the Volkswagen.
"Darn thing keeps slippin', " Slim complained as he sought to steady both the paper and his hand on the car's sloping hood. Honey helped him with it, at the same time asking if he might be so kind as to point the way to the outhouse.
"Who takes care of this place when you're gone?" Percy asked as he looked at the expanse of land that was Slim's ranch.
"Got a Tex-Mex couple that live about a mile up the road. Say, I just thought of something, Percy. What am I going to do about my cattle if n you find oil over yonder?" He pointed to where hundreds of cattle were grazing.
"Guess you'll just have to move 'em; unless of course your cows like the taste of petroleum."
"I dunno, Percy. I'm sort of attached to those cows, and you must admit, they're a whole lot prettier than a bunch of oil derricks."
"You can't have everything, Slim. Progress is never a bargain."
"Well, I guess you're right. Someday, I'd like to have me a little ole horse ranch where I could train rodeo ponies and quarterhorses; but up until now I never thought I'd have the money."
"Don't count your chickens before they're hatched, my friend-and you are my friend. Just because someone's got an oil lease doesn't mean they'll hit oil. I'm just sort of doing this as a favor to you, Slim."
"Course you won't be the least bit unhappy if n you find you some oil. Now will you?"
"Can't say it'll grieve me any if we get lucky. Well, Slim, I got to get going. It's been real," he said, extending his hand, and thereby imbalancing himself so he fell to the ground.
"No need to grovel, fella. I ain't Christ. You don't have to kiss my toes to show your appreciation. Handshake'll do," said Slim, helping Percy to his feet.
"You're all heart, Slim," said Percy, brushing himself off.
They bid one another good-bye, and as Slim waved after the departing dust cloud of the Volkswaeon. Honey was doing-likewise from the open door of the outhouse.
That night they made love like never before, on the big double bed that Slim had been born in. At first Honey felt sort of funny about this, but when Slim started to show her how really good he could be, she forgot everything else.
"It's like you and I are the only ones in the world," she sighed as he lay on and still in her; resting momentarily. "You really are too much, Slim. You really are."
"Not for you," he said, kissing her lips lightly before falling asleep beside her.
And that night, strangely, Honey knew she loved Slim; but she dreamed of Dillinger, and knew not why.
Just before dawn, he awoke her with a kiss in her sleeping ear, whispering sweet nothings that made her want to wake up in a hurry. His firm hand on her pussy, she yawned languidly as he licked her nipples into erect little frog-eyes, then moved down to the lush meadow below.
"Isn't it a little early for this?" she asked, wrapping her legs around his head anyway.
Coming up for a snatch of air, he smiled, then said, "Nothin' like breakfast in bed!"
"I think I have to go to the bathroom."
"Did you have to spoil it?" he protested.
"I'm sorry, Slim, but I got to crap just like anyone else now and then," she said, rising and making her way to the outhouse.
When she came back, he was asleep, and she decided to rouse him in much the same way he'd roused her. Lying next to him in the huge double bed, she pressed her boobies against his arm, then bussed him briefly on the cheek before wrapping her hand around his sleeping cock.
In ten seconds it was saluting her. "Up and at 'em, hey?" Slim said, opening groggy eyes to regret the day.
"Up and in 'em, if I've got anything to say about it," she said, pointing his prick in her direction.
Rolling onto her, Slim forced his attentions on her and had his way with the responsive girl, whose furry funnel reached out and snatched rum until, quivering with excitement, he unleashed a flood of fun into her female parts.
"Now that's what I call the way to start the day," Honey said, before going back to sleep. (What was it Dillinger had been doing just before Slim woke her up?)
7
WHEN SHE AWOKE LATER IN THE MORNING, SLIM was gone. In place of his warm body, she found a note:
Sorry, sweetie, but I got to get back on the rodeo circuit.
Be back by Labor Day. Love, Slim. He'd left her! Why, that so and so! What would she do for money?
As she slipped into Slim's shirt, she noticed five hundred-dollar bills lying on the bed. Was he attempting to buy her off-pay her for the pleasure she had given him-or merely offering sustenance until September? She hoped it was the latter, sticking the crisp new bills down the shirt front, and scratching her boobs in the process. Darn him anyway! Why couldn't he use old bills?
Making herself coffee, she pondered the future. The place needed fixing up, and maybe she was the one to do it. Slim sure had let it run down since he'd inherited it; but then, he didn't have anyone to clean for him. Of course there was that Mexican couple, but they mostly tended to running the ranch, and Slim probably didn't want 'em bothering him around the house. Yes, the place sure could stand some elbow grease.
A loud series of knocks on the back door shook Honey out of her reverie, and nearly caused her to spill the coffee, which was piping hot. A few drops did splash on her hand.
"Drat! Just a minute; I'm coming, whoever you are!"
The knocks continued, increasing in loudness, and she ran to answer her early morning nemesis.
It was a hulking figure dressed entirely in black, who proffered a leather Bible to the totally peeved Honey. She was on the verge of throwing coffee in his face when he proclaimed, "God is love, madame!"
"Miss, if you don't mind!" "I don't."
"Please excuse the way I look," she apologized, pulling her shirt more tightly around her as she opened the door for the portly fellow to enter.
"Let me introduce myself. I am, as you may have guessed a purveyor of the Good Book, and am giving you an opportunity to purchase, at an amazingly low price, a splendid illustrated edition of the King James Version of God's Word in print."
"Listen, Mister Whateveryernameis..."
"Onan Lot Job, at your service, miss," he said, bowing deeply to reveal a tumorous swelling on his neck.
"Ugh! What's that thing on your neck?" she asked, taken aback by the deformity.
"This," he said, pointing to it with his Bible, "is an example of God's almighty wrath."
"But I thought you said God was love."
"He is, save for when he gets perturbed. Then he can get mighty ornery. That's how I got this goiter you see before you in all its hideousness. I used to be a terrible sinner, I'll have you know. Did all kinds of heathen things, until one day the Lord got fed up to here with me," he said, fingering his deformity. "And ever since, I've been plagued by it."
"How awful!" Honey said, pouring him a cup of coffee just the same. Her grandpa had taught her to be nice to freaks, for you never knew but what they might be angels in disguise, come to test your goodness.
Handing him a cup, she said, "Is there no way to rid yourself of this terrible thing!"
"Ah, my dear, indeed there is! After first being afflicted by this malady, which I at once knew to be God's work, I-"
"Why not the Devil's? Isn't he behind everything bad?"
'Too true, my young friend-and you are my friend-Satan's influence is everywhere. But it would not be he who would saddle me with this malady for being bad; he would have rewarded me. Only God would dare punish me so cruelly. 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord. In that maxim I am now a firm believer."
"You certainly have a reason. But that doesn't answer my first question. Which is: What can you do about this thing on your neck?"
"I'm glad you asked me that!" he exclaimed, his dark eyes lighting up as her shirt momentarily parted, revealing the Jezebel body beneath. "You see, after I got this thing, as you so kindly call it, I went out into the desert to pray for guidance, much as Moses went up on Mount Sinai to wait for God to give him the Ten Commantiments."
"At least you were in good company," she chided, buttoning the shirt all the way, so it wouldn't fall open again.
"Aye; I was, my dear. And after staying in the desert for several days, I began to see why all the great religions, including the only true one, have sprung from the parched reaches of the desert. Not only Moses but Mohammed and a host of others went into the desert to seek guidance. Out there it's just you and Him; there's no need to go through an intermediary, such as the misguided Papists pay to do. Not that I'm low-rating them for doing so, mind you, but we Baptists know better, don't we?"
"I'm an Adventist, myself."
"Just so long as you're a Protestant, eh? Well, anyway, to get back to my story: I sat out in that Godawful place for almost a month before He spoke to me."
"Who spoke to you? I thought you said you were alone all the time, except for your thing."
"You're absolutely right, my dear; that's exactly what I said. But as you must know, being a Christian, we are never really alone. The Lord is always with us, and this was something I had forgotten until this bump appeared on my flesh. But when I was near death from exposure and starvation, out there under the burning sun, my throat parched, my hands bleeding, I heard Him speak to me, in the course of which he detailed the way for me to save myself and get rid of this goiter."
"What'd he prescribe, iodized salt?"
"Nothing so simple, my child. Rather, he decreed that I must sell one thousand Bibles before He would cure me. Overjoyed at his offer-for I am a natural-born salesman-I prostrated myself on the sand and vowed to fulfill his order. Ever since, I have been doing just that. And you know how many Bibles I have sold, you lucky lady?"
"How many?"
"Nine hundred and ninety-nine! And if you buy this one, for the mere price of four dollars and ninety-eight cents, you can forever rid me of this terrible burden I carry." Falling to his knees, he pleaded, tears welling up in his eyes, for her to buy the Good Book that would set him free of his affliction.
Finally she agreed, saying, "Well, I'll say one thing: You certainly are one helluva salesman. Never heard a spiel like that, I must say. Now if I heard you right, all I have to do it hand you the money and that thing'll disappear?" She produced one of Slim's hundreds.
'That's right, my dear," he said, grabbing the money. "Except for-"
"I get ninety-four dollars and two cents change, right?"
"Of course, my dear, of course!" he said, reaching into a pocket to extract the necessary cash, which he ceremoniously counted into her outstretched hand.
"Isn't there something you've forgot, mister?"
"Whatever could you mean, my dear?"
"How about handing over the Bible I just bought?"
"How remiss of me! Of course I shall give you your Bible. But first you must participate with me in purging this evil growth from my flesh."
"And how do I do that, if I may be so bold?"
"First, fair-haired female with emerald eyes, we must retire to a room with a bed in it."
"Such as a bedroom?" she asked gullibly.
"How astute you are! Now, if you will lead the way, we shall soon be driving the devils from my flesh. And perhaps a few from yours, too!"
"Well," she yawned, "it's a little early for me, but I hope I can help you. Besides, I guess I've got to if I'm ever to get my Bible, though God knows what I'll do with it."
"Do not take the Lord's name in vain, my child, else he might give you a goiter too!"
Shuddering at the thought-for Honey feared that the Man above might have reservations about her recent behavior-she shut up. Who could know but what this Bible salesman might indeed be God's messenger, come to test her devotion? Maybe she'd better follow his requests, or she might spend an afterlife in Hades, just as her Grandpa said had happened to her mom. "The Devil has a special place in Hell for dirtylegs like her," he had declared soon after her death.
"First," the salesman said slowly, like a minister instructing a bride to be, "we must remove our superfluous garments and get down to bare essentials, so to speak."
"You mean get bare-butt naked?"
'Though you use the vernacular, we understand each other. I mean that we should, for this solemn occasion, dress in the way in which we arrived on this earth-the way Adam and Eve dressed when they delved and span: In the altogether, and unashamed!"
"If you say so, I guess."
"It's not me saying so, but God himself, my child!"
"If it'll help me get my Bible, I'm game. Can't take too long, though. I've got to get to my housework."
"How can you be so mundane! This episode may well prove to be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life! I must caution you against the levity you have heretofore displayed."
She took off her clothes, almost like a maiden about to be sacrificed by the high priest. Onan Lot Job did-likewise, until his hirsute flesh bristled from corns to crown with lust for the naked creature across from him.
Gazing at his swelling gland, Honey exclaimed, "My God, but you're big!" Visions of Dillinger danced in her head, and her quim began to quiver with excitement.
Whatever was he going to do with her?
Laughing, Job said, "Some call this the root of all evil, but I prefer to think of it as a rod and staff to comfort thee when we lie down beside the still waters."
"Dirty old man," she said, shielding her erogenous zone with both hands as she cowered before him.
"Kiss it!" he commanded.
"That dirty thing?" she asked anxiously, backing away from his outsized organ.
"No, my child; though it's easy to see where your mind is. I mean kiss my affliction-my goiter."
"But it looks so lumpy!"
"Here; have a feel. See? It isn't so bad now, is it?" "Why, it's warm!"
"Why shouldn't it be? It's part of me. Blood flows through it, just as it does through the rest of me."
"I can see one place where-judging from the ruddy color-the circulation must be awful good."
Looking down at his crimson cock, he agreed with her, saying, "Perhaps we ought to lie on the bed, so as better to get blood into my goiter and all."
"What do you mean by and all, hey?"
"Please purge your mind of lecherous thoughts, young lady! The service you are about to perform is an example of Divine, not carnal love, and you don't forget it!" And with that, he spread her legs apart and buried his goiter between her thighs.
"Boy, is that thing big!" she said, feeling his throaty protuberance pummeling her pussy. His other big thingy kept twanging her in the face, but she continued to cuddle up to the melon-shaped object below, which gave her a curious sort of satisfaction, as well-amazingly-as causing it to diminish in size, which made her wonder where all that blood went. It wasn't long before she found out, for within moments of the goiter's disappearance, she noticed the occurence of another strange phenomenon.
Feeling his goiter grow smaller, Job started to cackle, not unlike a chicken, and Honey-who had closed her eyes, as girls arc prone to do during such moments opened them in time to see his already mighty penis grow by leaps and bounds, until Dillinger's grew dim by comparison. All the blood from his bump was being pumped into his prick!
Transfixed by this turn of events, Honey stared at the towering object, wondering what strange thing would happen next. Job continued to cackle, as Honey, momentarily alert, struggled to disentangle herself from his various appendages.
"It's gone! It's gone!" he yelled, his body racked by convulsions of unmitigated glee. "Before, God knows how many times I've pulled the same old trick-get 'em in bed, saying it'd get rid of my malady ... but never did it work. But this time, thanks to you, my child, I'm cured!"
Incensed at his trickery, Honey flailed furiously at his naked flesh with her long nails, slashing the hair skin until he bled freely on the bedspread.
"Now look what you've done!" she shrieked, pointing an accusatory index finger at the stained fabric.
"What I've done? I was but the unwitting victim of your claws, ye cat creature, ye Jezebel!" he proclaimed, mopping himself up with her shirttail.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Honey yelled, ripping it out of his hands. And as it tore in half, she burst into tears, while Job did his best to pacify her with his heavy palm. Gulping, she said, "Slim left that for me. It's the onliest shirt I own."
"I'm sorry, Miss Honey. If'n I'd known that, I'd not have held on so fierce. I thought you were just playing-right up till I heard the material rip."
"It had sentimental value, too," she sobbed, prostrating her naked self on the stained bed.
Gazing on her handsome backside, Job began to rise again, and in a trice he was on her, forcing his churlish attentions on the nether regions of her anatomy, rousing her private parts to passion as he lathered her up for the ultimate assault with his leathery appendage.
like the Red Sea, Honey's thighs were parted by a power from above, and Job announced that he was about to take her.
"I'm not sure I can handle that big thingy of yours," she protested vainly as he offered it to her touch. It glowed crimson, radiating a fiery light, that mesmerized the quivering girl into receiving it.
Belching phrases of fire and brimstone as he brought her to him, Job became possessed, as by a demon, as he drove his immense staff toward the inmost reaches of the amazon. She yelped with pain as he pushed past her furry portals, clawing him with renewed strength as he sought to violate what had heretofore been Slim's private property.
Despite her contrary efforts, he had his way with her, bestially boring deeper into her womb than even Slim had, and that was saying something, for Slim was a large man, and large all over. But the Bible salesman, once freed of his goiter, had grown to such enormous proportions that he would have killed an ordinary girl, had he attempted to mount her in the mad way he was Honey, who, being a large girl, was large all over, and able-though just barely, and with extreme pain-to endure his penetration.
It was big, and it had endurance, but it had no style. Still, it brought her satisfaction, though the price in pain was high, and she knew it would be some time before her wounds healed, hidden though they were. Of course, he had a few too, though most of his were on his back, and when he bent over to tie his brogans, she could see the scars she'd etched in his hairy flesh, which caused him to look not unlike a mutinous sailor off the Bounty, who, once having incurred the wrath of Capt. Bligh, would bear the scars of his flogging forever. So it was with Job, who, try as he might, would never erase the marks Honey had made down both sides of his spine.
Moaning from the madness that had thrust itself inside her, Honey clasped her newly bought Bible to her bosom in hope that it might offer protection against further attacks by her new-found nemesis, who in one fell swoop had taught her the difference between love and lust if not between love and religion. Whereas with Slim it was the real thing, and something to be enjoyed for a lifetime, with Job it was something one might do once, and then avoid forever.
"Did you like it, Honey? Did you like it?" he asked anxiously, awaiting her verdict as to his virility.
Speechless with fatigue, Honey found herself unable to answer, but lapsed into near-unconsciousness as with weary eyes she watched him dress.
"Can't find words enough to describe it, hey?" He smiled, buttoning his vest as he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. "Gals tell me I'm too much for most of 'em. But for you I think I was just right," he said, tying his shoestring tie.
The room started to spin for Honey, and she realized that even if she had wanted, she couldn't have gotten up. Watching the broad backside of the Bible salesman as he pulled on his pleated pants, she wondered whatever had gotten into her to let such a creature get into her. If only Slim had been there ... No, that would have been worse. He might have grabbed his gun.
"So long, tootie pie. See you next month," Job said merrily, bending to plant a kiss on both of her pairs of lips as a parting gesture of perversity. Writhing under his residual embrace, she tried to pretend it was a bad dream, until she realized he was actually pinching her boob.
"Ow! That hurts!" she said.
"Just wanted to see if you were still A-okay, sweetie; that's all. And maybe make you join the PTA," he laughed. "PTA?" she asked feebly.
"Purple Teats of America!" He guffawed until his nose ran, and he wiped it with a snot-hardened handkerchief. Seeing the slimy habits he had, Honey looked away, though she found it hard to turn her head, she hurt so.
"Sorry, if I was hard on ya, sweetie; but better a bull than a fairy, what?" he snorted, sticking the handkerchief into his breast pocket.
"Well, got to be on my way," he said, his right hand feeling the place where his goiter had been. "And thanks a million for helping me get rid of that noxious thing on my neck. I appreciate that; I really do." After putting a fresh crease in his black Stetson, he was on his way.
Gasping a sigh of relief, Honey lay contemplating her future on the lust-stained bed. Peering about at the complete wreck they had made of the room, she hoped she would be strong enough to clean it up before she left. For leave she must; how could Slim accept her as his woman when she had let another man nozzle her nookie in the bed where Slim was born?
Just thinking of how she had soiled the altar of Slim's departed mother made Honey seriously contemplate suicide. But that would only make things worse, for Slim would think his leaving had somehow caused her to kill herself; and that was the last thing she wanted. No; she had to quit this house, though it was obvious it would be some time before she would be strong enough to do so.
Watching a horsefly lazily circling about near the ceiling, Honey found her attention diverted for a moment from the madness that had made her sick. Her tears began to dry as she gazed upon one of God's creatures, which, though doomed to delving in garbage cans, also had been granted the magnificent gift of flight. Out of every bit of bad, there came some good, Honey realized. She had to look on the brighter side of things, or she would surely go mad. Or, as Gramps used to say, "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone."
But what could she do after she left? Well, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it. The only thing she knew right then was that she had to leave Slim's place. To remain would dishonor his memory, for he'd left fully expecting her to be faithful, and before one day had past, here she'd up and done it with another man-though he was more a beast.
Honey sobbed herself to sleep, and didn't awaken until dawn the next day, when, realizing that what she had taken for a bad dream had actually happened, she commenced sobbing again.
"How could I have done such a terrible thing?" she cried out loud, but only the horsefly heard her, and he didn't care. Alone and forlorn, Honey Thye wondered what to do. To remain longer on these premises was the same as rutting on them, and not wanting to be considered a field animal, Honey decided to get up.
Pain of an intensity she had never before known welled up from her loins as she attempted to rise, and she collapsed back onto the bed. The effort required was too great a strain on her weary body. But she had to do it. What had happened to her spunk?
Looking at herself in the mirror, Honey saw a girl who had lost her innocence. Even after her seduction by Slim, she had remained essentially an innocent who saw sex as something that was fun and good. Now she saw it also as something evil and loathsome. It could be the best thing in the world, as it had been with Slim, or it could be frightful, as it had with Onan Lot Job. Whereas what she did with Slim made her love, what she did with Job had made her hate.
The reflection Honey saw was that of an extremely attractive young woman-the kind men would gladly pay plenty to bed down with. And it was at this moment that Honey realized she was cursed from the grave. What was it her grandpa used to say? Ah, yes: "The sins of the parent are visited upon the child." Apples don't fall far from the tree, she thought, suddenly realizing she was born to be a dirtyleg.
Studying her blonde countenance in the bathroom mirror, Honey played with her hair, holding it up to see what it'd look like.
"Not bad, eh, Jezebel?" she said to her reflection, a wicked smile on her face. "Well, why not?"
Painting her face into a caricature of a whore, Honey worked to achieve an alter ego. If she was going to be a pickup, why not look like one? Lots of rouge, lipstick and powder, plus copious amounts of cheap perfume she poured on herself, pausing occasionally to laugh, or to cry.
Sure, she had to leave Slim, as he had to leave her, and for basically the same reason: to seek work. He worked at what he did best, rodeos, so why shouldn't she work in the one field-aside from the hayfield-that she had experience in? So what if such an occupation was socially scorned? It paid well; and besides, she'd get to meet lots of nice, respectable people. Maybe she'd even graduate to the ranks of high-priced call girls. . . maybe.
She was glad Slim had left her the money; otherwise, leaving might present more of a difficulty. As it was, all she had to do was get her things packed and walk out the front door.
Should she leave a note? Well, yes. Best not leave him in the dark, on his feelings might be hurt when he returned; she didn't want to make it any worse for him than she had to. So she wrote a note: which went:
Sorry, Slim, but due to circumstances beyond my control, I had to leave. Love, Honey.
Concise and to the point it was. But tactful? No.
Sniffling as she walked toward the gate, Honey tried not to look back, but found it difficult. Finally, just before reaching the road, she turned around to wave good-bye to Slim's memory. Fighting back tears, she blew him a kiss, wherever he might be, and hiked off toward the horizon.
She would go to Galveston. She'd heard Gramps say once that it was the sin city of East Texas. At least she'd be in the company of fellow dirtylegs, and justifying her existence in the best way she knew how. Goodness knew, after making it with that mad Bible salesman, she was ready to take on John Dillinger himself!
8
HONEY HADN'T WALKED TEN MILES-A SHORT distance by Texas standards-before the double blast of an air horn scared her out of her sadness. Turning around, after sufficiently recovering her wits, to determine the cause of her fright, she espied a huge truck with an immense football painted on its side. Behind the wheel sat the driver, a husky, blue-eyed fellow who opened the door and asked, "Care for a lift, Miss?"
"I sure do, mister," she said, stepping up to his outstretched hand, which lifted her onto the leather seat.
Shutting the door, she said, "Say, this cab sure does smell nice! This real leather I'm sittin' on?"
"You betcha," beamed the driver. "My boss, Mister Yucan Punt, believes in only the best for his drivers. Says the smell of leather's a lot better'n the smell of plastic. Makes a man feel a whole lot better to sit on genuine cowhide. Almost like being back in the saddle again, if you'll pardon the pun. By the way, as long as we're traveling companions, I might as well introduce myself. My name's Derek Crane. And yours?"
"Honey Thye," she said, shaking his hand, which was as big and strong as its owner.
"Miss Honey Thye?"
"That's right, Derek baby," she answered boldly, mindful of her new role.
"Well, this is a pleasure, transporting such a pretty thing. Sure brightens up my day, I'll have you know," he said, his eyes undressing her.
"I saw that look, buster!" she said, pulling down the short smock she'd made from Slim's pillowcase.
"Just proves I'm a normal, healthy West Texas male, Miss Honey. Any girl what's got the assets you do has to got to expects others to appreciate 'em now and then." "I'm sorry, Slim ... er, I mean Derek, but ... " "Now I see your trouble. Broken romance; right?" "How'd you know?"
"It's written all over your beautiful sad face. What did this Slim fella do to make you so unhappy? Leave you for another gal?"
"No; though he did leave me. If you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it. At least not just now; okay?"
"Nothin' like a little music to make you forget," said Derek, clicking on his radio. But country music isn't exactly the best sort to cheer one up. Most of the songs are a bit on the sad side. After listening to twenty straight songs about unhappy love affairs, Honey started to cry again. Derek handed her the rag he used to wipe off the windshield, apologizing for not having a handkerchief.
"Have a good cry, now. Get the sadness out of your system, for it's a whole lot better than keeping it inside, where it'll eat away at you-even give you an ulcer, maybe."
For four stright hours she sobbed, as night fell and the truck rolled steadily eastward, Derek authoritatively at the helm, guiding the huge vehicle across the flatlands.
"You wanna try driving this rig," he asked when Honey was somewhat calmer.
"But I don't have a license," she protested.
"Don't worry about that, Honey. There ain't many cops around here, and they pretty much leave us truckers alone. And this baby's easy as pie to drive. Got power steering and everything. Just turn the key, give her some gas and away we go."
"Okay, I'll try it if you say so." "I say so."
He stopped, and they traded seats. Shoving the huge gnarled shift lever into first, Honey popped the clutch and they were off-jerkily to be sure, but moving just the same.
She liked the feel of controlling something larger than herself, of being an essential part in the immense creature that was interstate commerce, and of being able to assist Derek in his time of need. For, laying his head in her lap, he soon slept like a baby, snoring between her legs. She liked the feel of his flattop, which stimulated her circulation.
After driving for perhaps a hundred miles this way, she decided to wake him up so they could find a place for the night.
"What do you mean, find a place? Why, I've got a cabin right in back of us," Derek said, opening a door behind their seats. "Just pull off one of these side roads, and we can sleep for nothing in the same comfort you'd have to pay for in a motel."
"What won't they think of next?" she said, her eyes searching ahead for a side road.
"There's one!" he said, helping her turn the wheel, but finding his palm pushed away. She made the turn at breakneck speed, but did a beautiful job of fourteen-wheel drifting her way onto the dirt shoulder.
"Wow!" said Derek, his mouth open in disbelief. "You sure do know how to drive this thing! Even I couldn't have pulled off a maneuver like that!"
Turning off the engine, Honey said, "I bet there's one maneuver you do know how to do, as soon as we get back there on that bunk."
"You sure you want to? I mean, we hardly know one another."
"Listen; I feel I know you at least as well as I've known any other man; and what I see, I like. You're strong yet gentle, and a man of feeling. What I'm saying is that your head bouncing between my legs for the past hundred miles has done one heck of a job of turning me on, so let's get on with it!" she said, slipping out of her dress.
"Whoopee!" Derek yelled, tearing off his sweat-stained workshirt to reveal a stout chest covered with hair and a taut tummy, leading down to a pair of workpants that soon joined the shirt and Honey's dress on the floor. Completely nude, they nuzzled one another as they lolled on the bunk.
"Where'd you get such a classy chassis, Miss Honey?" he said, his big tongue licking away at her pert brown nipples.
"Doing my chores, I suppose," she answered, fully enjoying the attentions he was giving her. Her body racked by desire, she needed little in the way of foreplay to arouse her, and so pulling him close, she whispered in his ear, "put it in now, please." But he continued for a while longer to titillate her torso, causing her to entwine herself about him in a vain attempt to suck him into her. Suddenly, he broke out laughing, and she was not amused.
"What's so funny, eh?"
"Oh, it's nothing to do with you, Honey. It's just that the way you were trying to get me into you reminded me of something that happened back on the ranch."
"And what, pray tell, was that? Though I don't know why you insist on telling it now, when I was at the very point of climax before you started laughing. Nothing turns a girl off like a fella laughing right in the middle of it; you know that?"
"I'm sorry if I offended you, Honey, but as I was saying, you reminded me of this story."
"I'm all ears," she said sarcastically.
"Well, anyway, there was this Mexican back on my dad's ranch who was in charge of milking the cows, and being a Latin and all, he naturally got a mite horny out there all by himself. But there not being a Mex chick for fifty miles-we were that isolated-he had to find some way of getting satisfaction, and out there in the cow barn he evidently found it. We'd never have known if Pa hadn't thought the milk tasted kind of funny, and decided to have a looksee around milking time. And you know what he saw?"
"Not really," she said, biding her time until the punchline.
"Well, he saw Pedro hooked up to the electric milking machine, having himself a good old time. But instead of chastising him on the spot, my Pa decided to do something to break him of that habit. That night, when Pedro was asleep, he went down and tinkered with that machine, and the next day we all waited for Pedro to show up for milking time. Sure enough, he was all aroused, and socked it to that milking machine. Only difference was, when he turned on the switch, he got a shock that sent him on his butt, and when he saw us all laughing at him, he took off running and never came back. Funniest thing I ever did see! The look on his face was worth having to get another Mex to milk for us."
'Takes all kinds, I guess," Honey said. "But how's about us getting tight?"
"Why, I got a pint right here somewhere. So you want a little nip, do you?"
"I didn't mean that way. But now that you ask, I guess I will. Maybe it'll calm me down some until you get in the mood, if ever."
"Nothin' like a little nip to ease the pain," he said, passing her the bottle.
"Whew! That stuff sure packs a wallop!" she said, shaking her head several times to clear it.
"Let's not hog the stuff, Miss Honey. How about letting the hired hand have a snort too?" he said, grabbing it away from her and pouring the remaining liquor down his gullet. "Boy, that tastes good!" he exclaimed, tossing the empty bottle outside to break on a rock outcropping.
Taking Honey's naked flesh in his sturdy arms again, Derek did his best to make her comfortable before inserting his fair-sized cock in the wildly squirming female. "Quit movin' for a moment, will ya, Honey? I'm only half in!" he said, trying to subdue her gyrations as best he could.
"I just got stung by something!" she said, arching her back so he slipped out. Lifting her off the bunkspread, he saw a Texas-sized scorpion in the spot where a moment before had rested Honey's bottom. Seizing a handy shoe, he smashed the bug to smithereens while Honey nursed her sore behind.
Brushing the bug's remnants off the bunk, Derek turned to Honey. "How's your bottom, baby?" he asked, turning her over to see the swelling chancre. "Better put something on it. Luckily, I got another bottle, or you might get an infection."
Pouring on some Old Crow, he asked her how it felt.
"All right, except when some slips into my crack; that stings worse than the scorpion did," she answered, doing her best to keep her legs together.
Watching the rapid accumulation of pus in the chancre, Derek knew something had to be done, or Honey's misfortune might lead to serious complications. Swallowing his pride, he bent over and began sucking out the poison, as Honey wondered what was going on.
"What are you, some kind of wierdo?" she asked anxiously, twisting her head to see what he was up to. Just then she accidentally broke wind, right in his face. Getting up, he spat out the pus and said, "What are you trying to do, make me sick?"
"What were you doing back there?"
"Sucking out poison, so you wouldn't die. Texas scorpions pack more of a wallop than others. Got to get the poison out or it'll kill you," he said, returning to his task. And in the interest of makeshift medicine, Honey held back any further gas she had.
After drinking themselves into forgetting the episode, they returned to where they'd left off, nuzzling each naked other into a fine fit of lust, and then turning into the two-backed beast as they achieved repeated satisfaction.
"You do it so good!" Honey gushed afterward. "You're some stud, Derek Crane. Any girl would be glad to do it with you any time, anywhere."
"Even in the back bunk of an oil truck, eh?" he chided.
"As many times as you want," she offered.
"As many times as I can," he corrected, feeling the need for some oysters all of a sudden. "Maybe we'd best call it a night, Honey. Don't want to spoil the memory of our madness. And besides, I've got to get back on the road by sunrise."
"If you say so. But I'm ready for all you can dish out, big boy," She pressed her tender flesh against his bristling barrel chest, only to have him push her away with a terse, "Enough is enough."
Not knowing whether she had been insulted or not, Honey looked at his face to see if he was angry, but all she saw was that he had fallen asleep; so she decided to join him, hoping with all her might that there were no more scorpions around.
They were awakened in the morning by the sound of a roadrunner beep-beeping his way across the plain. Honey pressed her face to the tiny side window to watch the strange bird running through the sage. Then she tried to wake Derek, but by the time she did, the bird was long gone, and he didn't really care. "Seen one, you've seen 'em all," he said, going back to sleep.
"Well, I'm going outside," she said, crawling over his hulking carcass, "to commune with God's creatures."
'Take a whiz for me too," he mumbled, opening one eye enough to watch her go.
"How'd you know what I'm gonna do?" she asked, stepping down from the cab onto the gravel.
"Figures," he said, slipping back to sleep.
Squatting over a sagebrush, Honey let loose a welcome outpouring of warm piss, some of which slid down her legs. Ignoring the inconvenience of doing it outdoors, Honey instead basked in the beauty of the beginning of a spring day in the desert. All around her, flowers were in bloom, birds sang and animals played; it was the best of all possible places to piss.
By the time she got back in the cab, Derek was outside and greening up the grass that grew out of the gravel.
"Must be water around here somewhere," he said, waving to Honey with his free hand. "Else there wouldn't be grass growing here."
"Sure is nice out here," she said, ignoring his actions.
"Sure is," he said, looking up for a moment and accidentally dousing himself. "Darn!" he said, looking at the stain on his work pants. 'That'll teach me to watch the scenery when I should be watching the road."
"Say, hadn't we better get going pretty soon?" she said, climbing up into the cab.
"That's right, Miss Honey," he said, tucking himself in and ambling after her. "Say, where did you say you were going?"
"I didn't.".
"Well, where are you going?"
"Galveston."
"So am I!"
"How long you going to stay?" "Just overnight. You?"
"Don't know, Derek. I'm going there to try to get a job."
"Maybe I can help you. I've got a few connections there. Well, let's get this show on the road!" he said, bringing the huge diesel to life with the twist of a key.
"Boy!" she said. "This thing sure does make the noise."
"What did you say?" he kidded. "Can't hear over the sound of the motor."
The road to Galveston was a long one, as most trips are in Texas, and Derek leadfooted it most of the way, blasting along the blacktop at eighty-five when traffic was light, and throttling back to seventy or so when it got congested.
"Unloaded, this baby'll do close to a hundred," Derek boasted once.
"Downhill?" Honey asked doubtfully.
"Do closer to a hundred and twenty downhill. Gawd knows I've done it too, though I must say I'd been drinking at the time."
"Ever worry about accidents?"
"Not with other cars; I outweigh 'em too much. Mostly I worry about jacknifing on curves, or falling asleep at the wheel. One of the reasons Yucan lets us pick up riders is that they help you stay awake at night."
"So that's why you picked me up, was it? Guess I could have done better at keeping you up last night, though, eh?"
"That was the booze's fault, not yours. Anyway, I gave you a few good ones."
"And sucked off my scorpion bite," she chuckled.
"Do you have to remind me of that?"
"Wonder what's ahead for us?" Honey asked, a pensive look on her face.
"The east half of Texas," said Derek, looking at the long road in front of them.
"The best half, eh?"
"That's a matter of opinion, little one."
"I ain't so little!"
"So I see," he said, looking down at her in a strange way.
9
AFTER SPENDING ANOTHER AMOROUS NIGHT WITH Derek-this time in a motel in Galveston-Honey awoke to find him gone. Were all men alike, after all? In his place she found a note which read: Sorry, Honey, but had to go. If you want work, go to address on the back and ask for Rose. Love, Derek.
Stretching like a lioness, Honey slipped out of bed and made her way to the bathroom, where, after performing her ablutions, she brushed her teeth and combed her long blonde hair until every strand stayed in place. She was proud of her hair; goodness knows it took long enough to grow, and unlike most blondes these days, it was her natural color. Applying a bit of eyeshadow around her emerald orbs, Honey wondered how many green-eyed natural blondes there were in Galveston. Not many, she guessed, though she had no facts on which to base the assumption. There not being an abundance of her kind, she naturally figured she would be as much an anomaly here as anywhere, except maybe Harlem. And besides being a green-eyed blonde, she was also six feet tall and carried herself extremely well, or so she had heard. Honey was beautiful and she knew it.
Momentarily departing from her ego-bolstering, she sat down and thought out the pros and cons of being a dirtyleg. Was she really one? Yes; or at least she could be, at the rate she was going. Was it doing her any good? Well, it was better than living with her grandpa, though she did miss her horse. What were the benefits? Occasional satisfaction of the sex drive, and near-constant companionship with an assortment of males. But was that what she wanted? Well, it was what she got, as she presently attracted males like a bitch in heat. She was ripe, and the pluckers were there, so what was she going to do about it? She liked doing it enough that she didn't want to stop, but she didn't, on the other hand, want to end up like her mom. Maybe she could learn from Mom's mistakes and somehow make her life good out of being a dirtyleg.
She looked at the card Derek had left her, and decided to go see this Rose woman. She wished she had something besides her pillowcase dress to wear, but what the heck-they wouldn't hire her on the basis of what she has on, but on how she moved in it. A girl's body was her most important asset, and Honey was A-okay in that department. Sucking in her stomach, she looked at herself in the motel mirro. Not bad; not bad at all. Any man that wouldn't wait to get next to me must be crazy, she thought.
She took a cab to the address Derek had given her. It was an old Victorian house that overlooked the waterfront. Standing three stories high and built on a rise, it offered a splendid view of both Galveston and the Gulf of Mexico, which Honey had never seen before. The beach spread wide and pure white along the water, and on seeing it she wanted to doff her dress and dive in. It sure looked inviting-especially with the temperature as high as it was.
A black butler answered the doorbell and his eyes bulged out at the sight of Honey's bosom thrusting against her dress.
"Wow! I sure-likes the looks of you, Miss..."
"Honey Thye. I was sent here by a Meter Derek Crane, to see someone named Rose about a possible job."
"Did you say possible? From the looks of you, I'd say you already got the job. Hey, Missy Rose!" he shouted, "I got one here that'll bring in business clear from Big D!"
Enter Rose, a massive, amiable woman of middle age and authoritarian bearing, whose hand reached out to clasp Honey's with a capitalistic eagerness not unlike Onan Lot Job's, which the girl found slightly overbearing.
"As you must have guessed, I'm Rose. I run this place."
"And this is Miss Honey Thye," said the black butler just before being swept out of the way by Rose's gesturing ring linger, followed by her scented, fleshy arm, which quivered against his thick features.
"Ever so glad to meet you, Miss Honey. We hope you shall be happy here."
"How do I know if I'm going to stay, when you don't even know why I'm here?"
"Well," she laughed loudly, "you could hardly be a customer."
"Why not?" Honey asked innocently.
"Because you don't look like any man I've ever seen. Right, Amos?"
"That's right, Missy Rose; she sure don't look like no man to me, neither. Nosiree!"
"You mean I've got the job?"
"Well, first let's see who recommended you," said Rose, putting her glasses to read the note handed her by Honey. "Hmmm. Derek Crane, eh? Why, he's one of my best customers. Any girl he recommends has at least been broken in right. And you sure got the other assets a girl needs to succeed in this business, so I guess you're hired."
"When do I start?"
"Not until tonight, I'm afraid. No business during the day. And I've got to get another bed moved in here by nightfall, or we might miss the booty boat. And we wouldn't want to do that, would we? Need any spending cash? Here's a hundred. Go buy yourself some sexy clothes, including black bra and panties. And don't forget a garter belt, though you don't really need one; some of our customers seem to prefer 'em. And be back here by eight so I can familiarize you with the operation here. I'd do it know, but I've got a very important meeting with the landlord, who's threatening to raise the rent on us. And we wouldn't want that, or our prices might have to go up, and the competition being what it is in this town, we'd lose a lot of Johns to those damn greaser places."
A bit baffled by Rose's barrage of words, Honey took the proffered bill and promised to return by eight. Taking another cab downtown, she bought some sexy slips and bras, and lace panties and a black garter belt.
Wanting a little rest before beginning work, Honey check into a downtown hotel, where she rented a two-dollar room and plopped down on the sagging matress for a nap, telling the desk clerk to wake her by seven. She hadn't realized how tired she was until she lay down, and it wasn't more than a minute before she fell asleep in the musty room.
"Ah, there you are, Honey!" exclaimed Rose as she greeted her new girl at the front door. "Come see your room. I'm sure you'll like it!"
"My own room?"
"You betcha. Nothin' too good for a girl as pretty as you are. Why, I'm counting on you to make this the number-one cathouse in town, so spending a little money to set you off right is well worth it. And besides, it's deductible as an ordinary and necessary business expense."
"You sure think of everything, Rose. I consider myself lucky to be able to work for you," said Honey as she followed her employer up the spiral staircase to her third-story "appointment room."
"How do you like it?" asked Rose, opening the door to a velvet-lined room, replete with canopied bed and marble bidet.
"Wow! You sure outdid yourself fixing up this room! Are you sure I'm worth it? I mean, I hardly know the business."
"Honey, if you haven't guessed it by now, this place if no ordinary bawdyhouse. Our customers demand something different in the way of a dirtyleg. No jaded tramps for them. What they want are fresh young girls who resemble their daughters. You see, Babbits have an incestuous streak that runs deep, and almost all of them would like nothing better than to make the kind of girls that, when they themselves were young, they could never get dates with. You fill the bill on that count, Honey. You're young, fresh, vital, attractive, enthusiastic, naive and yet just a little bit naughty. Such a sexy package is hard to resist, especially when found in such luxurious surroundings as these," she gestured grandiosely about the baroque splendor of the room.
"You know what?" said Honey slowly, tears forming in her eyes. "I'm so proud I think I'm going to cry."
"If only you could do that every night! Why, with the aid of a disreputable doctor I know, we could rig you up with an ersatz maidenhead and sell you as a virgin umpteen times over. And if you could cry like that with every customer, we'd be millionaires in no time."
"Are virgins that hard to find?"
"In Galveston they are; believe me. Last year they were going to have a march of virgins, and you know what happened?"
"What?"
"They had to cancel it, one had the colic and the other broke his leg," said the madam, breaking into a chortle that set her ample avoir depois to shaking like freshly poured jelly.
"Now, first," she went on, "I'll point out for you the tools of your trade, most of which are located right in this very room, though a few specialized items are kept in the downstairs vault. The largest and easily the most important of your tools is this," she said, placing her fleshy palm on the bed.
"You know, I've never seen a bed that big!"
"Custom-made to handle the wildest of entanglements. It measures eight by ten feet, and cost-like most of the other furnishings around here-a small fortune. Notice the satin bedsheets. Have to be changed after every customer and sent out to be dry-cleaned. Notice the silk bedspread and canopy. Feel that, Honey; it's imported from Red China via Cuba, and it's the finest there is. The pillows as well as the mattress are stuffed with authentic eiderdown, and believe me, that's something you just don't see any more. Notice the real Tiffany lamp by your bedside, in case you should want to read, in between appointments. Why, some of our girls have gotten a good education perusing paperbacks during such interims, and in this business, as in any other, it doesn't hurt to improve your mind. For one thing, it helps you communicate with the lawyers and doctors who seek your services. They don't want to bang away at some numbskull slut. No, they want to be able to talk with the girl they go to bed with. That's why they come here, usually, because they can't communicate in a meaningful way with their wives, who are often beautiful but far below them intellectually. You should do well in the professional field, Honey, for besides having spunk, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders."
"Thank you, Miss Rose. But I'm afraid I ain't had much of a chance to get an education. Being raised on the ranch, I never did go to school or anything."
"Even better, my dear. We'll bill you as the broad with a mind uncluttered by the trivialities of modern life-one who grew up in sylvan surroundings and exudes a primeval aroma of musk that will drive any man wild with desire. What you've got to realize, Honey, is that, in the words of Thoreau, 'The majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation.' Or in the words of the layman, they're bored stiff by the sterile lives they lead. That's why we're here: to brighten up their otherwise boring lives-provide 'em with a little spicey entertainment, if you know what I mean. They're uniformly tired of ordinary girls, and that's why they'll pay through the nose to get into one of mine."
"Gee, Miss Rose, I hope I can live up to your expectations. The truth is, I never thought of myself as something special before, but simply as me."
"How beautifully you phrase it, Honey! That is truly your greatest asset-that you aren't affected and false; that you're a real person instead of a phony. Customers want someone they can open up with in an outpouring of pent-up feelings-talk to as well as fondle. To improve relationships of this nature, we provide not only sanctuary for our customers, but privileged communication with whatever girl they happen to purchase."
"Could you explain that for me, Rose? I'm not sure I know what you mean."
"Gladly, girl; gladly. That's what I'm here for, to orient you with the business-or should I say, profession. Privilege is something which ensures that whatever is said by the customer goes no farther than your ears; it isn't to be repeated even to the other girls. Anyone breaking this privilege is liable to immediate expulsion and blacklisting for the rest of her life. So you see how seriously we hold our work here. The only other people to have such an ethic are priests, lawyers, doctors and spouses, though the other groups are inclined to breach it now and then. It's an awesome responsibility, keeping all those secrets to yourself, but it's also a most rewarding thing, being able to listen to someone tell you what they really think without fear of your repeating it. One gains a rear insight into human nature after a few months here, and that's something that will help you the rest of your life, even if you should decide to get married or some such idiocy. I see a look of surprise in your eyes. Yes, many of our girls get married-most often to clients. Someday I'll show you pictures of our illustrous alumni and the magnificent husbands they have. And you know what? Not one of our girls has ever gotten divorced. How's that for a fact to be proud of. You're in good company, my dear, when you work here."
"When do I start? I'm anxious to get going, I can hardly wait!" said Honey as she bounced on the eiderdown mattress. "Boy, it'll sure be a pleasure to get planked on this.'"
"That's another fringe benefit you'll have. Un-like most brothels, ours is frequented by men who know how to make love as well as money. Not only will you earn more than the ordinary dirtyleg, but you'll have more fun making it. Instead of twenty-seven guys a day, each taking an average of eight point five seconds to achieve orgasm, you'll have perhaps half a dozen gentlemen, taking their time to satisfy not only themselves but you as well. You'll never suffer from a lack of satisfaction; of that you can be sure. I don't know whether you're aware of it or not, but a goodly number of girls who sell themselves are in the habit of hating men. Lots of 'em are out-and-out Lesbians. But not our girls. Nosiree; not on your life! None of that perverted stuff around here, or out they go. All our girls are normal heterosexuals, and not one is frigid. Nothing wrong with combining business and pleasure, is there?"
"Well, if you don't mind my asking, what kind of girls are here?"
"Girls who like to have a go at it. Girls who like to make money. Girls who ... well, let me put it this way: There are only two kinds of girls: those who have a sense of humor, and those who don't. Ours do. You've got to in this business, if you want to build up a steady clientele. A man-likes to laugh with a woman as well as hump her. Gives an added dimension to the act if you have a good belly laugh before, after or during the good thing. You see, Honey, around here we don't go in for rudimentary rutting. All our girls are trained to put out in the best possible way. Every one of them is accomplished some special area, and all have enormous elan, or zest for life!"
"I don't mean to pry, but ... "
"But you are anyway, hey?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"
"Don't worry; I was just playing with your mind, my dear. Learn to do that: Titillate your customer's brain as well as his body. It'll heighten the satisfaction he feels when he leaves; and after all, isn't that what we're here for-to help men achieve satisfaction? But excuse me for digressing again. It's just that we don't get many new girls, and I love to ramble on about the profession. You were saying?"
"Do you ever participate, or is your work confined to overseeing us?"
"Of course I do! Don't think I'd be left out of all the fun just because I'm the boss lady! Only difference between you and me is that my appointments get it for free, as sort of a bonus for being good customers."
"You're a great, good woman, Rose, and I'm proud to be able to serve you," said Honey, sounding like a high school valedictorian.
"Flattery will get you everywhere, my dear. I'm vain and I know it. But aren't we all?"
" 'All is vanity,' my grandpa used to say."
"And once you realize that, it makes it a whole lot easier to get along in this world; I'll clue you. Make a man feel ten feet tall, and hell think the world of you. Make him feel like dirt, and hell think the same of you. This may sound like something out of the Protestant ethic, but the golden rule is really good for business-especially ours."
"You mean I can really be a good Christian as well as a dirtyleg?" asked Honey excitedly.
"I don't see why not. Are you not loving your neighbor as you would yourself, and playing the part of the good Samaritan to those in need? Have you never heard of Mary Magdelene, a dirtyleg of old who was tight with Christ and always ready to meet her Maker? Of course you can be a good Christian as well as a dirtyleg! You'll get more soul working here than you ever will going to church on Sundays. Why, we even keep a Bible in the nightstand here," she said proudly, pulling open the drawer and extracting a Gideon edition of the Good Book.
Genuflecting, Honey bent down and kissed Rose's feet. "By just drawing breath, Miss Rose, you make this world a better place to live in. You know that?"
"I do now. Now will you please quit groveling and get back on your feet so we can finish orientation?"
"I'm sorry, Miss Rose. I didn't mean to offend thee," said Honey piously as she got up.
"And quit calling me that! Just because we've got Bibles around, it don't make us a church. After all, most motels are similarly equipped, and even J. Edgar Hoover refers to 'em as roadside brothels. Snap out of this religious trance so we can get on with the real world."
"Well," said Honey, holding her arms akimbo, "when do they start socking it to me?"
"Sooner than you think," said Rose.
10
AFTER SIX STRAIGHT WEEKS OF SATISFYING various wants of countless cunt-customers, Honey gladly accepted Rose's offer of a few days' rest. "Don't worry about where to go," the madam said. "We keep a beach house down on the Gulf for rest and recreation for girls suffering from mattress fatigue. You'll love it there. Stay as long as you like, and please remember that everything's on the house. Get yourself a suntan and laze around until you're ready to return. The Rolls is out front waiting, so you'd best get a move on."
"Oh, thank you, Miss Rose! I sure do appreciate this!" Honey exclaimed as she spruced herself up a bit before dashing downstairs.
"See you, Rose! Thanks for everything!" she yelled as she slid down three stories of spiral banister to the ground floor.
Sure enough, there was a great big Rolls Royce sitting out front with a uniformed chauffeur in it. Honey had never seen either before, and stopped to stare for a moment.
"That sure is a humdinger of a car, mister," she said, waking up the chauffeur, who was half passed-out from too much wine.
"Whuh? Oh, yes; certainly is, isn't it?" He rubbed the side of his head to get it working again.
"Well!" she said, feigning indignation. "Aren't you going to open the door for me?"
"Why sure, my dear; certainly will. Glad to be of service and all," he said, doffing his hat and staggering back to serve her. After fumbling a few moments to locate the door handle, he succeeded in latching onto, opened the massive black door with madcap flourish, and bowed in her direction. As he did so, a loud ripping sound emitted from his backside.
"I think you've torn your uniform," said Honey, stepping into the antique splendor of the limousine.
"Guess I've put on a few pounds since Depression days," he said, feeling the tear and waxing nostalgic all of a sudden. "Those were the days. Of course I was poor as a churchmouse, then, but that didn't mean I wasn't happy. Had just enough to get drunk once a week. Boy, did I love it when Saturday night came around! Always spent my entire bankroll at once. Made for quite an effect with the ladies. And my oh my did they take to me! Women were all women then; not all hair-spray and make-up like now. No, siree-bob, they wasn't! Had natural beauty, they did. Milk-white skin and rosy cheeks, cuddlin' up next to you all chipper and itchin' to go. My, but I had me some times! Oh, guess I better get us goin', what?" he said, falling into the front seat.
'This is sure some car, eh?" said Honey from the back. He didn't answer her, so she said louder. She got the same cold shoulder, and wondered why. Then she realized there was a glass partition between them. She tapped on it with her fingers until he rolled it down.
"What you want, dearie?" he said, his aged head spinning around like an agile turtle's.
"I like your car," she said, settling back into the broadcloth seat and raising a cloud of dust. "Though it's a bit dusty."
"It's not mine, you understand," he said, turning full-force to see her better, "but Rose's. Now there's a woman! You should have seen her in her prime. Not that she's bad now, 'cause she's still something else, but in her heyday, she was a real looker. Boy, did she knock 'em dead in the burleque! Wow, but could she shake it!"
"You seem to know her pretty well, Mister ... "
"Bilbo. Ben Bilbo. I'm a distant relative of Governor Bilbo, who was before your time, but not mine. Used to see that Mississippians stayed in their respective places, if you know what I mean."
"I don't," she said, dusting off the seat with her hand.
"Well, you might say he was for civil rights for whites, and that was about all. Kind of guy like you meet in bars everywhere, that wants to keep the colored down and gets into office promising to do just that. You know the type-tells Rastus jokes in private and says things like 'Now don't get me wrong; I'm not against Nigras, mind you. I own several of 'em myself, and find 'em jes' wonderful. Hah-hah-hah!' Excuse me for getting political, but that's one of the reasons I'm a wino."
"What happened? Get caught with a colored gal or something?"
"Are you kidding? Everybody I know has got some colored honey on the side. You know the old saying: 'Jes' give me some black ass and some Johnson grass, and that's home sweet home to me!' I've had my share of ebony tail, and I like it as much as the next man, but that ain't the reason I drink; no siree-bob it ain't. Reason I drink is the same reason Dr. Manure, who you'll meet later, drinks. We is anarchists, and we has got to drink."
"Say, speaking of sauce, you got any up there? Sure could use a snort to wet my whistle."
"Why'd you wait so long to ask?" he said, passing her back a gallon jug wine. 'This may not come from the Rothschild vineyards, but it'll get you a buzz on fast."
'Tastes pretty good, if you ask me!" she said, sucking down the stuff like it was water.
"Just save some for me. I need it more than you." He said, pushing the start button on the instrument panel. "And away we go!"
Ten miles and half a wine jug later, Honey asked Biblo how he came to work for Rose. "I think you've got it mixed up, miss," he said, straightening up in his seat. "You see, Rose used to work for me, before prosperity turned me into a lush. I used to run the burlesque house here, and she was my star stripper. Boy oh boy, did she pack 'em in! We made us a pile of cash during the war, I'll tell you. It was then that she decided to get out of show business and open up the place you work in. So we sold out the hurley and she picked out that big house and set to work fixing it up. Me, I didn't have nothing to do except drink, and it weren't long before I went downhill. You see, I was her first husband; that is, before she up and divorced me down in Mexico. Said I was an incurable alky and she was sick of cleaning up after me, and also said I scared off customers. You'll find she's more of a capitalist than me, even though I used to run that strip joint. Anyway, after shedding me she took up with some oil stud. Lemme see ... what's his name? Cunt. Somethin' like that."
"You don't mean Mister Yucan Punt?"
"Yeah; that's it! She's been his mistress for years. How do you think she could afford to furnish her place so imagine? He gives her anything she wants. You see, his wife died, and just before she did, she made him promise he'd never marry again. And he hasn't; but that doesn't stop him from bangin' Rose all he wants. Pretty spry old goat, too, even if he is past seventy." Bilbo took another drink from the jug.
"What an amazing tale you tell," said Honey, leaning forward so she could share the wine. "But how did Rose happen to hire you as her chauffeur?"
"Pity, I guess. One day she and Punt were driving down the street and saw me lying in the gutter. He stopped the car and said somethin' like, 'Look at that unfortunate fellow there, Rose. Don't you think we ought to help him?' And then Rose really shakes him with 'Know who that is, Yucan? That's my first husband.' So after slapping her face and telling her she should be ashamed for ruining me, old Punt helped me into his Dusenberg and proceeded to drive me to this place just outside Dallas where the big rich pay plenty to get dried out. Gave 'em instructions that I was not to be released until they'd cured me of my affliction. Then he drove off in a cloud of dust, and I've never seen him since."
"And did they cure you?"
A
"Does it look like it?" he said, hoisting the jug to his wizened lips.
"Not really, now that I think of it," she said, thinking of all the money Punt had spent in vain.
"Well, actually they did cure me for a while. And to tell the truth, I never felt better. Only time in my life the world looked good while I was sober. The old boy also had provided me with a new set of clothes, a Cadillac car and spending cash until I found a job. Naturally, the first job I found was being a bartender, and from then on it was strictly downhill, until I reached my present nadir."
"Maybe it's not so bad after all. You do have security in this position, and you get to drive this big car and carry pretty girls around. Isn't that better than wallowing around in the gutter?"
"Theoretically, yes, but the plain fact is that I miss the easy camaraderie of the lumpenproles who live in the lower depths of depravity. What you've got to realize, Miss Honey, is that there is no love like that of one drunk for another; and believe me, I miss it. The plainest of Janes looks like Mansfield when your snockered, and the ugliest dive suddenly becomes the Taj Mahal before your bleary eyes. A good drunk is something to strive for, and once attained to enjoy. Many's the time I've made it, in the old days when I was on my own instead of on the dole."
Bilbo turned off the main road onto a gravel driveway, and Honey asked, "Is this the place?" She powdered her nose a bit in case there were other guests about.
"This is it; the summer palace of the Czar!" he proclaimed, as he sped down the narrow drive at breakneck speed.
Seeing the enormous edifice at the driveway's end, Honey exclaimed, "Wow! What a place!"
"like her, do you? Yes, she's quite a place. like the hilltop house, she was built back in the nineties, before the turn of the century brought us income taxes and the middle-class ethic. Unfashionable to build big houses anymore. Besides property taxes, there's the help problem, and increased labor costs. Enjoy the place while you can; they'll not be building any more of 'em till after the revolution," he said, skidding to a stop in front of the huge portico of the front porch.
Getting out to open the door for Honey, Bilbo tossed his empty wine jug into the bushes where it smashed on making contact with the shards of countless others he'd hurled there. Another day, another demijohn, he thought, shaking his head and almost falling down. Tired of waiting for him, Honey opened her own door and stepped out onto the terrazzo turnaround.
"Pretty imagine place to park your car, eh?" she said, looking down at the mosaic on which she stood.
"All imported from Italy, back in the days when the wops were still wops instead of Italian-Americans," he said, spitting out a big oyster that landed just shy of Honey's foot.
"Now, was that a nice thing to do?" she asked, avoiding the mess as she made her way to the house.
"Sorry about that. Must have thought I was back in The Bowery, where everybody spits where they want. What freedom I had then! like many a man before me, I've sold my soul for security, and now I stand before you stripped of my self-respect, a mere shell of my former self when I was known as the King of Skid Row. At least then I could look myself in the mirror, even if my eyes didn't focus so good."
"Well, thanks for the ride, Ben," said Honey.
"Glad to be of service," he said, doing a burlesque of a bow that caused dust to ascend into his nose and made him sneeze, then wheeze as his wizened torso shook with convulsions. Slapping him on the back, she succeeded in bringing him out of it, only to have him throw up on her. Wiping the residue off, she began to see why women divorced drunken husbands. Whereas for a while they might seem colorful, after one too many scenes such as this, they got to be a bore. By now he had passed out completely, and, finding she could rouse him in no earthly way, she lugged his somnolent body into the house, to a coucn in tne foyer, and left him, to explore the house on her own.
It was beyond her wildest dreams of what a beach house should be. Completely secluded on three hundred beautifully landscaped acres, the place had fifty-seven rooms, an Olympic-sized swimming pool in multi-colored marble, a huge servants' quarters, stables for perhaps a hundred horses, and a host of art treasures gathering dust in the empty hallways and bedrooms. And the only humans present were she and Ben. Sitting down on a twenty-foot davenport, Honey stretched out and relaxed. She was sure tired. Yawning one echoing yawn, she fell asleep.
She was awakened by the night wind blowing in through the still-open front door. At first she thought it was a winter wind, as she was then dreaming of a wild party in the palace of the Czar, but as she opened her eyes and saw a bat circling overhead, she realized it was not Rasputin but Ben she heard fumbling about in the foyer. Slowly she got to her feet and stumbled through the darkened house in the direction of the noise. "Is that you, Ben?" she called. But no one answered. It had to be him, she thought. Who else would refuse to reply?
And it was, for when she reached the foyer, she found Ben hanging from an overhead chandelier, a rope around his broken neck. The pendulum action of his expired body banging the open door had made the noise which awakened her.
Honey had never seen what a man looks like when he's hanged himself. Besides the fact that Ben was dead, he was also horribly disfigured. He'd even begun to bloat, and the mess he'd made in his pants smelled like an outhouse. Honey ran outside and vomited on a rhododendron bush, retching until she could retch no more. How could she ever go back in that house? She had to do something. Wiping the vomit from her quivering lips, she decided to get help.
Driving the vintage Rolls wasn't an easy chore, but Honey was used to old vehicles. It drove not unlike her Grandpa's Reo truck. Same sort of gearshift and spark advance; even sounded like it, except maybe quieter. She wondered what her Grandpa was up to these days. It was the first time she realized she really missed him. She hoped he hadn't gone and done something stupid, like Ben had. No; he wasn't the man for that. Suicide, he'd always said, was the coward's way out. And maybe he was right. Ben, being afraid of facing life, had chosen death, where he would have no worries and could rest in peace. And yet it took a kind of mad courage, plus imagination, to string oneself up to a crystal chandelier.
She hadn't driven five miles before, due mostly to luck, she encountered a Texas Ranger parked beside the road. Pulling up beside him, she saw that he was asleep, and beeped her horn to stir him. "Waiting for Bonnie and Clyde to ride by?" she kidded, thereby causing him to cast her his most official frown and ask what she wanted. "It'd better be something big, or a Ranger can't touch it," he forewarned as he picked his nose and flicked it out the window.
"It is. Man hanged himself in that big beach house back the road a piece. Starting to bloat, and I'm afraid he might burst all over the expensive furnishings."
"Whose place is it?"
"I'm not sure, but I think a Mr. Punt has something to do with it."
"Yucan Punt?"
"Yeah. I think it's his place; or at least he paid for it. Actually may be in the name of Miss Rose, my boss." "What were you doing there?"
"Went there with the dead man. You see, he was her chauffeur, and he drove me out here from Galveston, where I work for Miss Rose-who, come to find out, used to be the dead fellow's wife."
"So how come you call her Miss Rose?" he said, starting to write things down.
"All the girls call her that."
"Are you sure they don't call her Madam?" he asked, looking the large girl up and down with you-know-what on his mind.
Honey laughed nervously, not wanting him to think she might be trying to hide something. "So I'm a dirtyleg. Lots of girls are. Got to make a living somehow, and that particular occupation pays better than most."
"Just don't forget to file your federal income tax returns; that's all. Now, where is this here body I'm suppose to investigate?"
"Wait a minute while I turn this big heap around and I'll lead you there," she said, stepping back into the Rolls.
Driving at her usual mad pace, Honey arrived several minutes sooner than the Ranger. She parked in front of the portico and waited for him to arrive. When he did: "Where's this here body you want to show me?" he asked, sticking a stogie in his mouth so he'd look tough.
"Up the front stairs. If you don't mind, I'd rather wait here, as the sight of him makes me ill."
Drawing his gun, the giant ranger advanced, his senses alert for any sign of life. Suddenly a small figure stepped out the door, and he fired several warning shots at him.
"Halt, in the name of God and Texas!" yelled the Ranger. The fellow hadn't moved since his first shot rang out. Running pell mell toward the small suspect, the Ranger barked out, "Stick those hands up, stranger, or get drilled in the belly! Who are you, wetback? Speaka da English, eh?"
"Dr. Jesus Maria Manure, at your service, sir," he said, bowing deeply.
"Keep those hands up till I tell you to do otherwise; understand? And don't give me a wise-ass answer like that again, or I'll beat the crap out of you! Now give me your right name, and it'll go a lot easier on you."
'That's what they all say-Hitler, Franco, Mussolini, Castro..."
"What did you say, pinko? You just answer my questions, and you might get off with your life, maybe. If you aren't gonna give me your right name, you can at least tell me how and why you did it. Killers always like to brag about such things. Go ahead: Give me the whole story. I've got all night, and nothing else to do."
"My, my! Aren't you being remiss, Ranger, not even giving me the Miranda warning? For shame! How do you ever expect to convict me?"
"Oh, a wise one, are you?" said the Ranger as he put cuffs on him and threw the good doctor down the stairs, where Honey caught him at the bottom.
Emerging from the house with the corpse in tow, the Ranger asked Honey what she wanted done with the body. "How should I know? He doesn't belong to me. As far as I'm concerned, you may as well burn him. He stinks too much for a funeral home."
"Good idea! I just happen to have some gasoline in the trunk. You bring it to me, and well burn him out back in that open area."
'There's an incinerator out the other way," said the Doctor, who had a big lump on his head from falling down the stairs.
"Who asked you, Nazi? like to burn him up in an oven, just like you did the Jews, eh? We'll do things our own way, Texas-style. Give him a little barbecue send-off; right, Honey?"
"If you say so, Ranger," said Honey, holding her nose as she poured gasoline over Ben's bloated remains. Then, after pushing Honey out of the way, the Ranger threw a lighted match, and Ben began to blaze.
"Guess he's going out in a blaze of glory, eh?" said the Ranger, elbowing Honey in the side.
"Ha-ha. Very funny," she said before she began to cry.
As she stood bawling from grief at the loss of Ben, a car roared up the driveway, red lights flashing. Who could it be?
A shot rang out, and within seconds they were surrounded by four-for-real Texas rangers who arrested Honey's fake one, who, they informed her, had shot and killed the man whose uniform he wore.
"Did he do this, too?" asked one of the real Rangers, pointing to Ben's barbecue. "Sure did," she answered. "And he also beat up that poor fellow in the back seat."
Stripping the imposter of his uniform, the Rangers fought to hold back their temper, every one of them wanting to kill him on the spot. But, adhering to their secret code, they merely stripped him to his undershorts and unceremoniously tossed him in the car.
"I thought it was kind of strange, his sleeping beside the road and all," she told them. "But I needed help in a hurry, and he was only too glad to come."
"You're lucky he didn't rape you, Miss. Or worse. If you haven't guessed, he's a psychopathic killer, and desperate as they come."
"Golly gee willickers! I never knew that, though I did think him a bit rude, for a Ranger."
"Well, we got to be going," said one handsome Ranger as he looked her in th eye and wished he were off duty.
"Thanks ever so," she said waving good-bye to them all, then turning to assist the good doctor, whose mind was boggling at all that had gone on around him.
But Honey's voluptuous attentions soon cheered him up. In fact, she so wanned his Spanish blood that he was soon astride her, his wizened lips pursed against hers, his surgeon's hands helping themselves to all she had.
"You certainly are an oldie but a goodie," she giggled, letting him stick his venerable stiff self into her young loins, squeezing him with all her might to see if he could take it. He could, but the question quickly changed. Could she take him? For underneath all those wrinkles lurked some secret source of sexual strength-a super potency Honey had never before sampled. He screwed and screwed and screwed until she cried out for a recess.
"So soon?" he asked, sounding hurt. "I'm sorry, Doc, but I've gone dry. Every time you poke, I get perforated."
"You do? Well, why didn't you speak up earlier? I've got just what the doctor ordered in my little black bag," he said, fumbling about in search of the answer to her problem. "Ah! Here it is, my dear. Now, if you'll be so kind as to spread your legs and say ah, well fix you up in no time at all."
"If you say so," she muttered, wondering what was in store for her.
A mad grin on his face, the old doctor twisted the top off an opaque bottle and poured its murky contents into her raw sex cavity.
"Yipes! What is that stuff, anyway?" she yelled. For all she knew, he could be pouring Drano down her. Her grandpa had always said never to trust a furriner.
"Just a little STP to fight the friction," he laughed, lunging at her with his Toledo blade.
11
ALL NIGHT LONG, THE GOOD DOCTOR MINISTERED to Honey's needs, making love with an intensity only an aged anarchist could muster; as he put it after she showered him with post-orgasmic compliments. "Knowing that I've only a few years left, I've got to make every mad moment count before being cast into that capitalist heaven where revolution is impossible. You see, like every rebel, I must keep rebelling, else I may end up like friend Ben, who suddenly, finding himself at the end of his tether, hanged himself. No, Honey my sweet; I must never sell out to the Medicare barons, or I shall surely go to seed. Only my unjustified faith in the anarchist cause has kept me potent, and should I ever backslide into the bourgeois abyss of bland oatmeal, I will drown in dullness and never be able to rise again to the amorous challenge of creatures such as thee!"
"Why must you always fight against society?"
"You mean when I can milk it, waxing fat off the well-heeled hypochondriacs of the upper middle class?" He sneered, his dander rising to the fever pitch of an embattled firebrand.
"Well, there are certain benefits wealth can bring," said Honey. "Such as fine clothes, and Rolls Royce automobiles, and-"
"Stop right there, my dear, for I see we agree on one thing: The pursuit of quality."
"That's a relief. For a momoment there I thought you were going to assassinate me as a decadent member of the old order."
"Honey," he said, putting a grandfatherly hand on her nipple, "like most Americans, you misunderstand the European mind-especially when it is radically disposed. I am not against the finer things in life. Quite the contrary, I revel in them. Do you not consider our passion the most noble achievement man and woman can aim at?"
"You did a lot of fine shootin', I must admit, with that sexy caduceus of yours, Doc. You sure got the surgeon's touch. Or is it simply that you're one of those Latin lovers I hear so much about?"
"Just a courtly member of the old school," he said, bowing deeply as if before royalty.
"You know . . .just then, with your cute little curtsey, and that aristocratic beard you affect, you look not unlike a Spanish grandee bowing before Queen Isabella."
"She, I would bow before; but Franco, never!"
"So underneath you're nothing but a frustrated royalist, right?"
"Maybe so, my dearest. At least Kings had class; not like the self-made megalomaniac that rules your country, and who has risen to the top like scum!"
"Aren't you being a little hard on the benefits of social mobility?"
"In the old days..."
"Now you sound like a reactionary," she chided.
"Pinning labels on me will never deter me from speaking my mind. If I take something old and add something new, I've come up with another something new, which is the combination of the two."
"I think a fellow name of Marx stumbled onto the same idea about a hundred and fifty years ago."
"Ah, so you've heard of the dialectic!"
"Well, I came across it in this pamphlet against fluoridation that Rose gave me to read. Said something about this plan to poison us originated with the Marx brothers."
"No, my dear; it was not the brothels Marx, but the singular Karl Marx, or Carlos Marx, as they call him in my country, to which that specious tract was referring."
"And what was your nationality before you came to he land of the brave and the home of the free?"
"Spanish. I come from Catalonia, where I went to the University of Barcelona to emerge with my medical degree. Later I served with the anarchist brigades as a medical officer, until the war's end, and then I went into seclusion in Andora, where I perfected my process of transplanting maidenheads into wayward girls who had somehow lost theirs."
"How fascinating! But who would request such an operation?"
"More girls than you could imagine! You see, in Spain it is very important for a girl to be cherry when she is married, and it is not unknown for the husband-to-be to call in a midwife to make sure his betrothed has one. But Spanish girls, being of hot blood, yearn for sexual adventure at an early age, and many young ladies of the upper classes backslide a bit from the strict chastity they are supposed to observe. In my country, a girl of good family must never be seen in public alone with an eligible man. Always she must be accompanied by her chaperone."
"So how does she get a chance to make it with anyone, then?"
"Ah! You notice that I said in public, and did I not? In private, it is another matter entirely. Balconies are built to be climbed, and haystacks to be romped upon, and the Mediterranean blood being what it is, many girls of good family find themselves minus a maidenhead before their wedding day. Enter me, to save them from lives of celibacy. They come by the thousands-or rather came, until Franco found out about it-to my laboratory in the remote hinterlands of Andora, where I had paid off the authorities so I could conduct my experiments unmolested by constituted prejudice. Due to the heavy work load, I had to assign them numbers, as some of your American barber shops do, so that I would know who was to be next, and not play favorites. Needless to say, many of the numbers passed hands due to bidding by the more anxious brides-to-be, but I never charged one girl more than the next, idealist that I am."
"Where did you get all the maidenheads?"
"Un-like my Japenese contemporaries, who manufacture artifical ones, I actually transplanted them from other virgins. Once again, the Spanish tradition helped me out. You see, Honey, while half the girls must be virgo intacto when they marry, the other half must lose their cherries so they can become courtesans, or as Americans know them, whores. Those girls desirous of losing their innocence also wore a path to my door, where, after greeting them with a peck on the cheek, I placed them on the operating table and extracted their precious cherries."
"Whatever did you do with them?"
'The girls, or the cherries?"
"Both."
"Well, the cherries I froze. Did you know there are over eighteen different kinds of maidenheads? Of every shape and description, they were, and I had to be most careful to install the right style in the right girl, or the midwives would notice something amiss and call off the marriage."
"You mean they could tell a transplant from the real thing?"
"Only if the job were botched in some way. Everything had to be just so, and that was where my professional expertise came in. Not one of my doubtless cherries was ever found out, though I imagine there were a few husbands who were amazed at their supposedly virgin brides' abilities in bed."
"And what did you do with the girls?"
"The newly cherried ones, I sent home. The newly fallen ones I fell upon, teaching them the tricks of the trade, so to speak, and perfecting my technique as well. The number of girls I've initiated into the wondrous ways of amour must run into the thousands. Only Farouk can have had more women than I, and he had to pay for most of his five thousand conquests, while I got mine gratis." '
"You modest man, you!"
"Anyway, everything was going along just fine until Franco, having heard about my illicit practice via the grapevine, started to put the pressure on the Andoran authorities to run me out of business. One day a bunch of Basque bullies did just that, stoning me all the way across the border into France, where I found myself without a market, and decided to migrate to America; just to see what it was like, you see."
"Sure you did, you wily old stud. Wanted to make a pile of cash like every other immigrant; right?"
"Wrong. I just wanted to get away from the super-civilized society of Europe and see the wide-open spaces of the American West. That's why I came to Texas."
"But East Texas? There aren't no wide open spaces here."
"How was I to know that when I disembarked from a tramp steamer in Houston? I was not unlike Jack London's father, who, having another boy who suffered from tuberculosis, and so told by the doctor to go to California, went to the only place he had heard of there, San Francisco. Needless to say, the fog and dampness killed the boy inside a month's tune. But if he hadn't of gone, we might never have had all those wonderful Jack London books to read. So anyway, to get back to the story, I settled down not far from Dimebox, and-"
"Did you say Dimebox? Why, that's where I come from!"
"Good place to be from, eh?"
'To tell the truth, I sort of miss it. Say, how come I never heard about you?"
"Probably because I quit the place before you were born. Maybe I knew some of your family. What did you say your surname was?"
"I didn't; but it's Thye."
Turning crimson, the doctor got a funny look on his face before saying, "I think I new your mother. In fact, intimately. And I must say, you are the spitting image of her, even down to the way you do it."
"Really? I've always heard she was a hot lay, and to be placed on the same level with her ... I never thought I'd make it. Thanks, mister. You know, I think you're the first man to have made it with both of us." "Whatever happened to her?"
"I'd rather not talk about it, if you don't mind. Let's just say she's in a better place," Honey said solemnly.
"You mean she finally left Dimebox! Where is she? Houston, Big D, Galveston?"
"You got me wrong, Doc. What I'm trying to say is that she's dead."
"That's too bad. But at least she lives on in you. And anyway, now that I think of it, I like you better. Somehow you seem fresher than she was. Not that she wasn't something else, understand; it's just that you're here, and she's not," he said, bussing her affectionately on the right buttock.
"I don't know whether you've insulted her memory or not, but it's good to talk with someone who evidently considered her more than just a dirtyleg. You see, all my life that's all I've heard from my grandpa-about what a slut my old lady was. And up until now, I believed she was the personification of everything bad in the world."
"I assure you she was not! In fact, I don't think I ever met a female I liked more. And if I hadn't of been ridden out of town on a rail for running an abortion mill, I might have married her. That's how much I thought of your mom, Honey."
"Just think," she said, her eyes lighting up. "You might have been my daddy!"
"Highly unlikely, but who knows?" he said, scratching the silvery goatee.
Hugging his sinewy body, Honey nearly snapped it in two, so enthusiastic was her embrace. "You're the first person to make me feel pride in my parentage! For that I shall always be thankful."
"Down, girl, down, or you'll snap my sternum!" said Manure, trying desperately to free himself from her bear hug. Eventually she released him, but continued to cover his leathery skin with countless kisses that soon had him quivering with desire.
"You know," she said, looking at his naked flesh, "you've got the hide of an elephant."
"And the trunk as well," he said, pointing it at her.
"How did a little man like you get one so big?"
"Well, I bet when you were small you had toys to play with. In my family, we were poor. We had to make do with ourselves, if you know what I mean."
"Sounds like you've had a few dates with Mother Thumb and her four daughters, if I'm not mistaken," she said, studying his swollen member. She found a few battle scars from the beauties he'd bayoneted, including one or two sets of teeth marks from the more perverse, but no finger-grooves. They must have worn off in the ensuing amours after puberty.
"What do you say, old timer? Shall we have another go at it before the grim reaper comes to take you away?" she asked, her fingernails digging into his abdomen.
"Hail Mary, Mother of God, for giving me the opportunity to love you one last time before turning you into a virgin," he said, clasping his hands together like a good backsliding atheist.
"What did you just say about turning me into a virgin?" she asked, a bit shaken at what he had said.
"Why, didn't you know? That's why Rose sent me down here-to fix you up with a maidenhead so she can sell you to this Sugar Daddy who craves virgins. Nothing to worry about, though; you're in good hands," he said, extending his surgeon's hand to her breasts. Pulling her onto him, he pressed his wizened lips wickedly against her nipples until they hardened and he knew she would be unable to resist. Rolling on top of her, he bit into her neck, and down below, his huge probe prepared her for the unorthodox operation he was about to perform. In the middle of his womb-stretching, who should walk in the room but a beautiful young nun, who coughed to get his attention.
"Aha! She is here!"
"Who?" said Honey, who couldn't believe her eyes, but covered herself just in case they had really not played tricks on her.
"The donor!" exclaimed Dr. Manure, as he wrapped his naked old body around the nun's, who grimaced as though the Devil himself had embraced her. Pushing him politely away, she said, "I would not be here but for orders from my Mother Superior, who says I must submit to your heathen machinations so we can have a new wing on the convent. Just how the two are connected, I was not told; but having taken the vow to obey, obey I must."
"Marvelous! Simply marvelous!" said the doctor, beside himself with glee at the girl's dilemma. "Now if you will kindly get out of your habit, I shall proceed with this delicate operation. In the other room I have set up my special device for the unfastening of maidenheads," he said, leading both nude young women through a door. "As you can see, it is a combination of a gynecologist's stirrup and an exercycle. The object is to hold the operator down while she is being jostled about. Okay, Sister, just get up on that thing and gallop your cherry away!"
A martyr's look on her face, the nude nun ascended the device, and was barely strapped in when the doctor turned it on. Instantly she began to shake like she'd never shaken before, while the doctor turned his attention to Honey, who was utterly baffled by what was going on.
Assembling his gear in on the area in between the two girls, Manure whistled while he worked-an old anarchist battle hymn, the words of which escaped him, while the tune remained. Then he began singing the Internationale in Spanish, until Honey told him to shut up unless he could sing something in English.
"I wasn't aware that it bothered you," he said, blossoming into the Star Spangled Banner and then Ava Maria, She's My Baby until both Honey and the nun ordered him to stop.
Spreading Honey's legs as far as humanly possible, Manure tied her feet to opposite ends of the long davenport, and left her like that as he went back to attend to the oscillating nun, who despite the exercycle, had not yet had her maidenhead dislodged. "I'm beginning to believe that old saying about nothing tighter than a nun's cunt," he jested, turning up the machine's shaking intensity. Still the cherry refused to fall to the ground.
"Are you sure you've got one?" he asked sarcastically, shutting down the device.
"I beg your pardon!" said the nun, vainly attempting to cover her alabaster nakedness.
"You sure are white; you know it? Don't you ever get out in the sun?"
"I am a nun, not a nudist!" she protested, about to call the whole thing off.
"And now you're both," he said, breaking into a big belly laugh that shook the loose skin around his middle.
"Do you perform all your operations in the altogether?" she asked, giving him a holier-than-thou look that made him remember his Catholic upbringing.
"I wasn't aware that it bothered you," he said, pulling on his pleated pants.
"How long are you going to keep me tied up this way?" complained Honey, who until now had kept quiet in the face of frightful pain.
"Hurts, does it?" he said, reaching into his black bag for a hypodermic. "Guess well just have to inject some novocaine until it's over. There-there, don't worry; everything's going to be all right." he said, sticking the needle into her thigh.
Unable to look, the nun covered her eyes instead of her nakedness, until the doctor's tickling of her clit forced her to look. Giggling in spite of herself, she writhed under his touch, which succeeded in turning her on to a sinful degree. Knowing this, he continued until she was ready to lose her cherry in the orthodox way.
"I wouldn't want you to do anything unnatural, sister. Using a machine is no way to get that devilish device out of you, is it?"
"Oh! I never realized what desire raged inside me!" she moaned, again covering her eyes so she couldn't see the ruination of her self-respect.
"Don't worry, dearie," said Manure, pulling off his pants again, "You'll love every heathen moment of it. You're not the first nun I've had, and you won't be the last," he informed her as he prepared to loosen the barrier to their coupling. "Clean your teeth, sweetie, 'cause this might just hurt," he suggested, using a pair of forceps to frey the maidenly membrane between her legs. Luckily, it came right out, and the surgeon dipped it in a bucket of dry ice, and then inserted it forcefully into Honey's gaping crevice. "Perfect fit!" he proclaimed, dropping the forceps to return to satisfying the nun, who, just as he had expected, loved every moment of it.
"What am I going to do?" she asked when it was over. "I can't go back to the convent, if only because I prefer it outside."
"You're much too pretty to stay cooped up in a place like that," he said, putting his tools back in the bag. "And besides, I sort of like you. I need a new assistant, and what's more, a wife. Would you," he asked, assuming the classic kneeling position, "deign to marry me?"
"This is so unexpected! What can I say?"
"Yes, if it pleases you; for it will me. All my life I've been looking for a girl who is ready to make sacrifices, and in you I think I've found her. How many other nuns would submit to such an operation so that their sisters could benefit? Not many, I'll tell you. Consider yourself something special, for you are. If you will only consent to marry me, I'll give up this illicit practice, join the AMA and settle down as a respectable country doctor, bilking the poor and so forth."
"Underneath that dinosaur exterior, you're a good man, Doctor, and it is with great honor that I accept your offer. That is, on one condition," she said, fingering her beads.
"And that?"
"You go to Confession, first."
"But it'd take years for me to confess all the sins, mortal alone, that I've commited since I gave up the faith in 1939."
"Then you shall be in the booth for years. Only if you submit to so cleansing yourself will I marry you, let it be understood!"
"Okay, okay. But that's asking a lot of a man who's been getting along without God for the past thirty-odd years."
"You only think you've been getting along without Him. He's always been there, even if you haven't acknowledged His presence."
"Yeah, I guess you're right, nunnie," he said, placing a gnarled hand on her shoulder to signify his return to the fold. "As they say, Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, eh? Truer words were never spoken," he added, sounding like a choir boy.
"So you've finally sold out, Doctor. Next thing, you'll be kissing the Pope's ring and paying him off to absolve you of your sins," said Honey from the sidelines.
"Keep that up, redneck, and I'll forget to untie you!" he retorted, seeking to protect his bride-to-be's ears from such blasphemy by covering them with his hands.
"Guess I'm just a sore loser. Or, as they say, 'Once a dirtyleg, always a dirtyleg.' "
'That's not necessarily so," said the now unfrocked nun, rushing to her side to assist the doctor in untying Honey's feet.
"Maybe not," said Honey, breathing a sigh of relief at being able to keep her legs together. "But I'm resigned to being one for the rest of my born days."
"Who knows? Maye the right man will come along."
"He already has, but I let him slip away. Now I'm afraid I'm doomed to dirtylegdom."
"At least you're not starving," said the doctor as he examined her new maidenhead. "And thanks to my operation, you are technically a virgin."
"But I don't feel like one."
"That's because the novocaine hasn't worn off. Wait a few hours, and you'll really begin to hurt. Luckily, from what Rose tells me, your appointment is for sometime tonight, so the pain will be of brief duration. These operations are meant to be only temporary things, and I usually perform them within a few hours of the wedding ceremony."
"Speaking of nuptials," said the former nun, "when are we going to have ours?"
"Soon as I purge myself of the past, as you've requested."
"I hope you live that long, you old goat. I'm only nineteen, and you must be past sixty..." "Hell, I'm past seventy!"
"And you've got to quit using cuss words like that!"
"Why, even the Bible uses words like hell," he protested.
"There you went and said it again! The Devil can quote scripture to suit his ends, they tell us; and you, Beelzebub, are beginning to make me believe it."
"So I've a bit of the Devil in me. Doesn't everybody?"
"Yes, we all have an affinity for evil, but we also have a capacity you have siphoned off the bad in you."
"Maybe you're right. I have been committed to the crepuscular side of life a wee bit long; maybe I ought to look on the brighter side of things. Nunnie, you may be the salvation of this sinner yet!"
Honey, who was beginning to feel left out of things, had dressed herself during their discussion, and was about to leave when accosted by the doctor at the door.
"Please," he said, extending his hand to her in apology, "let me drive you back to Rose's. That's the least I can do, and besides, I don't think you should be behind the wheel in your condition, post-operative recovery being an unpredicable thing."
"Thanks, Doctor Manure. I appreciate your concern for me, and I also wish you and your bride-to-be all the happiness in the world. I mean that from the bottom of my dirtyleg heart."
"Which is made of pure gold," he added.
'Though it also hankers alter silver, and even printed currency," Honey quipped, though with an uncharacteristic sad look in her eyes.
They got into the limousine and drove down the primrose path that led out of the place where Honey had regained her innocence.
12
BEFORE HONEY MET HER CUSTOMER FOR THE evening, Rose made sure she was dressed appropriately, in a virginal white top such as is frequently worn by junior high school girls. Looking at herself in the madam's mirror, Honey exclaimed, "Why, I look thirteen again!"
"We hope so, my dear, for that is what the dirty old man upstairs is paying for. So try and act the part. It's only by consistently pleasing our customers that we get the repeat business that keeps us in the black."
"Oh, by the way, Rose: Your first husband hanged himself at the beach house," Honey remarked casually as she applied a fake freckle to her cheek.
"That sounds like him; trying to embarrass me even in death. Well, you won't see any tears out of this girl," she said, starting to cry in spite of herself, and finally breaking into uncontrolled sobbing of such intensity that Honey had to cease her freckling to comfort her.
"In spite of his faults-which were legion, I assure you-I did love him; though I must say his alcoholic antics spawned as much hate as love in me. Not until now did I realize the magnitude of my feelings for him. You see, even though he was a no good lush and all, underneath, he was a good man. I kept telling myself different ever since the divorce, but deep inside, I knew. I'd never have married him if he weren't. Now please run along upstairs and let poor old Rose have her cry. Don't worry; I won't do anything rash. Old Ben might, but not me. I'm too dull for that. Anarchists are prone to mad acts, but not we middle class capitalists; it might hurt business."
"You sure you'll be all right? I mean, that old coot upstairs can wait," said Honey reluctant to leave Rose in her hour of need.
"No, my dear; you must never keep the customer waiting. And no matter what, remember that the customer is always right!" she said, lapsing into sobs again.
"Okay, Rose; I'll go," said Honey, adjusting her sunbonnet so as to enhance her innocent look. "But if you need me, don't hesitate to ring."
Upstairs, she saw for the first time what type of person purchases the services of a young virgin. Fat as a hogshead and pink as a piglet, he plodded around the room, starting when he saw her staring at him from the half-open door. Turning to her, he spoke with an avuncular inflection in his voice, saying, "Don't be afraid, little one. We shall not hurt you. Come in; have some candy." He extracted a lollipop from his breast pocket and held it out for her to take.
Grabbing it, as a young girl would, Honey quickly unwrapped it and began sucking with unmitigated glee. It had been a long time since she'd enjoyed an all-day sucker.
"like it, do you?" he said patronizingly, as if he had bought her services with the lollipop alone, instead of plunking down a thousand dollars, plus an undisclosed tax-deductible sum to the Sisters of Mercy.
Wondering how he was going to get around to asking her to unzip him, Honey studied her customer while feeding her sweet tooth. He was a big man, though smiling a sheepish grin. Though probably a lion in the arena of business, in her bedroom he was behaving, so far, like a reluctant lamb. So far.
When would he make his move? she wondered, watching him pace the floor like a sailor about to meet his first Tijuana whore. Yes, there was a certain similarity in the situations. Whereas the sailor was paying to lose his innocence, this old goat was doing the same to try and buy his back-hoping some of her supposed purity would rub off on him, probably.
"And what is your name, little girl?" he asked from across the room.
"What's it to ya, huh?"
"I ... I just wanted to know, before we..."
"Before we what?" "You know, don't you?"
"Know what?" she asked innocently, taking another lick of the lollipop, while her customer blushed crimson. "Something bothering you, mister?" "No-no."
'Then why are you blushing so much?"
"Guess it's hot in here; that's all."
"The bathroom's down at the end of the hall," she said, looking away as he ran out the door to relieve himself. Nervous Nellie, that's what he was. Bladder probably near bursting from excitement. Do him good to drain.
Returning, semi-self-assured, he strutted back into the room, only to find Honey stretched out on the bed, a saucy smile on her face as she swung one naked calf back and forth, mesmerizing him with its sensual motion. She knew it wouldn't be long before he'd come charging across the room to take her, and she was right. Ripping off his seersucker suit, he bellowed a few shrill cries, and in a trice was standing before her in striped undershorts, begging her riot to hate him for what he was about to do.
"What are you going to do?"
"You mean you honestly don't know?"
"Not really," she fibbed.
"Oh, goodie!" he chortled, leaping onto the bed beside her, his hamhock hand suddenly up her dress.
"How's that feel, tootie-pie?"
"Jes' fine, mister. Please keep it up."
"Want me to kiss it?" he asked with the excitement of a pubescent boy.
"Not yet," she answered like an old tart.
"Boy, you sure are built, for a thirteen-year-old!" He was now fondling her undeniably big breasts.
"Whaddaya mean?"
"You sure are all female," he exclaimed, ripping off the Jest of her brand-new top.
"What you got on your mind, hot pants?" she asked, her right hand wrapping itself about his venerable prick, the wizened head of which now protruded through the slit in his boxer shorts.
"You, sugar, you!" he said, bending to pull her panties off with his false teeth.
"I hope you use Poly Dent," Honey kidded as he began chomping in the vicinity of her new maidenhead.
"Course I do," he protested, sounding hurt that she should ask.
"I was just kidding; honest," she said, pulling him back onto her.
"I even gargled with Listerine," he said, like a small boy trying to impress his mother. "Ever try Sen Sen?"
"Sure. Use it all the time; though I wasn't aware your generation even knew about it."
"Sure. Use it to cover up after smoking out back of school."
"But smoking is bad for you! Bad-bad-bad!"
"Don't you smoke?" she asked, looking at the smoldering cigar butt he'd left in the figurine ash tray.
'That's different! When I grew up, we didn't know smoking was unhealthy. But kids today know better."
"Are you calling me a kid, mister? Don't you know kids are baby goats?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean any offense."
"Now that you've got me naked and all goosepimply, why don't you do something about warming me up?"
"Shall I turn up the heat?" he asked naively.
"What are you, afraid of girls or sump'in? Why don't you just drop your undershorts and show me a good ole time?"
"Are you sure you're a virgin?"
"Yeah, I'm sure. And I'm beginning to think you're one too, the way you act."
"I assure you, my dear," he said, puffing out his hirsute chest like a banty rooster, "that I am quite experienced in these affairs, though being a gentleman, I speak not of past conquests."
"Whatsamatter? Afraid you'll bore me?" she asked, sticking some bubble gum in her mouth.
"Do you absolutely have to do that?"
"Do what?" she teased, blowing a big bubble that exploded in his face.
"You know what!" he said, starting to lose his temper.
"No, I don't. You tell me, mister know-it-all."
"Spit that bubble gum out before I tan your backside, you impudent young hussy!"
"Meanie!" she said, spitting it out.
"Did you have to spit on me?" he said angrily, trying to remove the sticky substance from his chest hairs.
"Serves you right for treating me mean!" she taunted, sticking her tongue out at him.
"You're impossible!"
"You're old!"
"Touche."
"Wanna touch me, do ya?"
"Only if you want me to."
"I sorta like ya. Yer kinda cute;ya know it?"
"Really?" he asked rhetorically, giving her a Barrymore profile, even if it featured a double chin.
Wrapping her legs around his vain head, Honey soon felt her new maidenhead dislodging, and what's more, heard him munching away at it with is false teeth, swallowing it after breaking it down into digestible tidbits. Well, she thought, it takes all kinds.
Soon he was inside her, his ancient appendage moving up and down with the agility of a teenager's and with about the same degree of style. She'd felt first-timers who'd moved better than this madman, though she had to admit that what he lacked in style, he made up in enthusiasm. Despite herself, she began to get turned on, digging her longs nails into her pink flesh as he pushed them toward their respective climaxes.
"How'd you like it?" he said, asking the classic question of the first-timer.
"Just swell. It really was."
"Wanna do it again?"
"Maybe later. I'm a little sore, though."
"Forgot it was your first time, sweetie; though I must say, with a little practice you'll do just fine. How's it feel to be a woman?"
"I like it; I really do. For a moment there, just before you ... What do you call it?"
"Came. That's what they call it in the trade. Also, got my rocks off, although personally I consider that phrase vulgar rather than poetic!"
"Yes. Just before you came, and I was in the midst of doing my thing."
"You mean you made it before I did?" he asked, his baby-blue eyes lighting up with pride.
"Well, I sorta overlapped. Anyway, for a moment there it seemed like we were the only two people in the world, and it felt wonderful."
"I'm glad I could assist you, girl," he said, feigning modesty.
"You did just fine. I'm glad I got to do it with someone experienced in these matters, rather than have to submit to a sixteen-year-old kid who's only interested in making himself happy."
"You mean doing it with a young goat?" he kidded.
"You're a real card, fatso!"
"Please don't call me that. That's what they used to call me as a kid, and believe it or not, I've still got my baby fat."
"Aw, my cuddly butterball, we don't want you to get hurt by what the other kids say. Mama will protect you. Mustn't fear those rude fellows," she said, cradling his head in her arms, as he began to suckle her breasts.
"Isn't that going a bit far?" Honey chided, attempting to disentangle his tongue from her hardened nipple.
"But it tastes so good!" he protested.
"Mustn't pout, little boy, or Santa Claus won't fill your stocking!"
"Have I slipped that many cogs?" he asked, struggling to get back on his feet again, a wild-eyed look on his haggard face. "Oh, the wages of sin! Look at me: I'm a spent man! What have you done to me, child, to make me regress so far?"
"Come off it, fatso. You enjoyed every moment of it; don't kid me. I could see that smile on your face when you got your jollies. And don't forget, it was you who corrupted me, not vice-versa; though watching you now, I'm not so sure."
"You did make me feel like I was doing it the first time, and yet I wasn't. Strange as it seems, I feel like I just lost my virginity."
"So I was worth it. Right?"
"You were indeed; if only for the unmitigated pleasure you gave me!" he said, heaping praise on her in hopes that she might speak well of him too.
"So you liked it, did you?"
"Ever so much, my sweet. In fact, I'm so taken with you," he said, slipping into his oversize pants, "that I want to make you my protege. So, if you will kindly get dressed, we can ride to Big D in the back of my chauffeur-driven Duesenberg."
"Did you say Duesenberg? Why, the only person around here that has one of those is..."
"Yucan Punt, at your service," he said, bowing before her.
"Wow! This is an honor! All along, I thought you were something special, but to be Yucan Punt himself! I'm sorry I said all those things. Please forgive me, for I knew not what I did."
"Never mind what you said. I'm sure it all came right from the heart. I appreciate candor, after years of listening to yes-men and obsequious syncophants. Your honesty is refreshing to one like me, who has not heard the naked truth in too long a time. For that I give you thanks, little girl."
"In case your interested, Mister Punt-" "You must call me Yucan, dear."
"Thank you. Anyway, what I was about to say..."
"Is that your name is Honey Thye; right?"
"How'd you know that?"
"I know everything."
"What modesty!" she mocked.
"How else do you think I could amass half a billion dollars in the oil game?" "Luck."
"Touche again. You're right, my dear Honey, but only partly right. Took lots of hard work, besides, plus an equal amount of effective lobbying to keep the oil depletion allowance on the books. But I don't deny that my first big strike-which tapped an oil reservoir the size of Spindeltop-was largely a matter of luck, though I prefer to think it was partly because God was on my side."
"That's certainly big of you, to allow as how you might have had help in getting rich."
"You'll find that most wealthy men believe the Almighty helped them, in some obscure but effective way, to attain their position atop the economic pyramid. Why should I be any different?"
"Is it not also true?" asked Honey, squatting over the bidet, "that there are an equal number of rich men who believe themselves rich because they sold out to Beelzebub?"
"Maybe; but I do not number myself among their ilk. You see, in making myself rich, I also made many others improve their lot, and helped this part of the country work an economic miracle, uplifting the living standard of the entire state. I am proud of my accomplishments, and justifiably so," he said pompously.
"Okay, okay," said Honey, getting off the bidet. "We've heard the graduation speech; now where are the broads, eh?"
"I guess I was getting a little carried away, Honey. Thanks for bringing me back to earth."
"You got to remember, Yucan, that you, like everyone else, gets your strength from the earth as much as you do from the heavens, and it doesn't hurt a bit to keep your feet firmly rooted to it," Honey lectured.
"Good thinking, my dear. If it were not for the oil that flows up from the bowels of the earth, I would be just another man, not the titan I am today."
"So much for sermons. Shall we be off?" said Honey, slipping into her torn top.
"Why, I've ripped your dress! But don't worry: When we get to Dallas, I'll buy you a complete wardrobe at Neiman-Marcus. Anything your little heart desires, just ask for it and it shall be yours."
'Think you can buy my friendship? Well, you can, Yucan," she laughed, leading him by the hand to the three-story banister. "And now," she said, shoving him down it, "you're going to do something you haven't done in a long time."
Watching his ample weight descend the spiral at an alarming rate, she broke into hysterical laughter.
All the way to Big D, Yucan Punt regaled Honey with tales of his youth, when he had to fight for a place in the sun with the roughest of roughnecks-even kill, to protect his precious oil derricks. "But it was worth it, dear," he said, reaching into the bar to pour himself another drink. "For today I have attained the most elusive of goals, true peace of mind. Here's looking at you, kid!"
"Don't call me kid!" she complained facetiously, taking the wind out of his sails.
"Boy, you're always one step ahead of me; you know it?" he said, sipping on his pinkish drink.
"In case you haven't noticed yet, Yucan, I'm not a boy. Say, what's that stuff you're drinking?"
"This, my dear, is the secret of my eternal youth. Want a taste before I tell you what it is?"
"Sure. I'm game for anything," she said, grabbing the mug from his hand. "Tastes a lot like buttermilk. But what makes it pink?"
"You're right, my dear; it does consist largely of buttermilk. The reddish hue derives from an added ingredient, the addition of which turns the most depleted of men into virile lovers."
"Tell me, tell me! What is it?"
"You'll never believe me, but the additive consists of the juice from crushed boxelder bugs."
"Arrrrrgh!" Honey yelled, rolling down the window to retch her guts out on the passing pavement. Aghast at the reaction his words had caused, Yucan ordered the chauffeur to stop the car, hoping against hope that she had missed the rosewood running board with her colossal outpouring. Running around to her side, he saw that somehow she had, and this endeared her to him even more.
"How do you feel, Honey?"
"How do you think I feel?" she screamed before barfing again, this time hitting the rosewood running board. Bending over to mop up the mess, Yucan was hit by another barrage of barf, and decided it was time to drag the girl away from his priceless automobile. Sputtering obscenities as she went, Honey beat on his body and threatened never to speak to him for the outrage he had wrought on her.
"Do you have any idea of how much I hate those bugs?" she yelled with such intensity her voice broke. "The very thought of having drunk them makes my stomach turn!"
"So I see," Punt said patronizingly, waiting for her to cool down so they could resume their journey.
Seeing the look of concern on his face, Honey apologized for her outburst, hugging him with all her might as he tried to avoid stepping in her vomit.
In Big D, at Yucan's mansion, which he said had been called a mixture of Dogpatch and Versailles, he expounded on why he liked that description. "It sort of sums up the way I wanted the place. I'd like to think both Li'l Abner and Louie the Fourteenth would feel right at home here. Of course it's grandiose, but it's also earthy, as you can tell by the combination of chandeliers and cockroaches in the same room. In a short while you'll see the full gamut of humanity file in here for the annual meeting of The Matimen, as we call ourselves."
"An apt name, if you're head of it." "As of course I am! All of us believe that the only way o be truly free in this frightful world is to be slightly tched, daft, crazy, looney, or as we prefer to put it, mad. ot neurotic; that's too petit bourgeois. But mad: That's the thing that unites the lower depths of the power elite. Why, our country was formed on the mad idea that we should be free from England, and look how the rabble-rousing Tom Paines and Patrick Henrys worked in league with the Rum merchants to foist the revolution upon an apathetic middle class. This strange attraction between opposites still exists today. Look at he way privates and generals get along, for instance, or the way a down-at-the heels Negro will vote for a Kennedy. Right now in India, the most popular politico is a former Maharini, who commands the greatest loyalty from people such as the untouchables. You'll always find the rabble supporting royalty instead of the bourgeoise. And so, today, you will see the subtypes of our society supporting me in my plan to transform American into something more approximating the American Dream than the drab welfare-warfare state it has come to be."
"And how do you propose to unite all these malcontents?"
"By the one thing that makes them similar-boredom! How do you think Generals recruit privates to fight their wars for them? Why, they simply spread the idea that war is more exciting than peace, and men scramble for a chance to get slaughtered. So do I offer to the weirdoes, the losers, the crazy, a chance to flee the ennui of their humdrum lives and serve a cause greater than themselves. Today you will see file in here the antivivisectionists, antifluoride freaks, antirabies-shot crackpots, every form of anti-group that seeks to make itself whole by giving in to the creative urge of destruction."
"But how can you be part of such a negative movement? Did you not build a mighty industrial empire with your own two hands?"
'True, I did; but in doing so, I began to see that the trouble with this country lay in the fact that it has become too complex for anybody to feel a part of it any more. What I aim to do, with the help of my following, is to eliminate the chaff of this country while keeping the kernel. Getting rid of something bad is a positive step."
"But who's to decide what's bad?"
"Why, me, of course!" he bellowed, his voice echoing through the huge room.
"Well, I guess if you want to get something done, you've got to do it yourself," mumbled Honey, puzzled by Yucan's confiding in her his plan to purge America of its baleful elements.
"Of course," he said, his voice assuming a more relaxed tone, "as in years past, we shall storm out of our annual meeting filled with revolutionary zeal, only to go home, and a few weeks later, 'drink our ale and let the neighbors vote,' as Keats put it. You see, Honey, we only give in to our madness once a year, and that does a world of good to get rid of pent-up frustration. I give 'em roughly the same speech I just gave you, they give me a standing ovation, and then we have a wild party and the next morning everybody wakes up with a headache and wondrous memories of the night before. It's so much better, I've found, than backing candidates for office or trying to educate the public. All the public wants to do is escape, and for a couple hundred of their number, I let them do just that during our annual meeting."
'This sounds like something I'll have to see," exclaimed Honey, glad to see that Yucan was a right guy after all. "I'm so glad you're a dull old right-winger like some oil operators, but a real swinging nut just the same. You're all right in my book, Yucan baby!" she said, planting a big kiss on his ruddy right cheek.
That night, Yucan threw his annual fete, and who should Honey find attending but her old sweetheart, Slim Harpoon!
"Slim!" she yelled across the crowded room.
"Honey Thye! Where have you been, baby?" he called back, already on his way to embrace her.
"You'd never believe me if I told you, Slim," she said before he kissed her full on the lips and pressed his robust body against hers.
"Guess what, Honey ... Mister Punt found oil on my property! Not a whole lot-maybe only a couple million dollars worth-but enough for you and me to get married and buy us that horse ranch I've always wanted!"
"It is the best of all possible worlds, Slim," said Honey. 'Thanks to the grace of God and the pluck of Punt Oil Company."
"It sure am," agreed Slim, pushing Honey into a dimly lit corner of Yucan's mansion.
"How long has it been?" she asked, unbuttoning her blouse.
"Too long," he said, thrusting his hand up her skirt.
Bending her over one of Yucan's Texas-sized couches, Slim rubbed her inner thighs with his palm, pressing up toward the wellspring of her desire, which almost reached out and grabbed him.
"like it, do you?" he said, probing ever so gently with his index finger.
"You know I do, Slim, or else I wouldn't allow you to do such things."
In a trice, he tore off her clothes and set about satisfying the love of his life, putting everything he had into her in a warm and human outpouring of passion.
"You don't know how good that feels!" Honey moaned, wrapping wanton legs around his waist.
"And pretty soon it's going to feel a whole lot better," he said, increasing the speed of his stroke.
"Deeper! Drive it home, Slim! Show me your stuff!"
"Ah, home sweet home!" he kidded, continuing to sock it to her in the best way he knew how, and hoping he could hold off until she made it.
"I sure does like this thing we're doing, massa Slim! It sure do make me feel so fine! Oh, I do believe I'm about to!"
"You are?" he said, bursting forth in a frenzy of pleasure.
"I sure am!" she exclaimed, her abdomen shaking with the power of their mutual orgasm. Never before had she felt so good. She was home at last.
