Lee Marks pushed herself even tighter against the small, metal post. The cold steel invaded her warmth, shooting through the thin fabric of her bathrobe. Underneath the robe, the tall, lovely blonde was naked.
No one in the large crowd noticed her pushing evenly up against the pole; nor, did they notice the unmistakable curves underneath her thin covering. Instead, all heads were turned towards the large flames leaping into the night sky of Seaside. It was one of the few times during the past three years that the appearance of Lee Marks did not divert all attention.
The fire raged through an old, wooden barn which had sometime in the past been part and parcel of the Browning farm. Since the departure of the farming family to greener acres, the structure had become a retreat for the small boys of the town and sometimes even the scene of virginal sacrifice of some of the small town's most desirable females. Tonight it's purpose and function was that of a Saturday night diversion; an event that would be discussed throughout the town for the next few weeks or until some other event of greater drama unfolded.
The arrival of the Seaside Fire Department caused great excitement with the crowd. A wave of energy passed through the men and women as they struggled to get closer.
"Allright, folks!" Shouted the Captain Ben Grant, "Clear the area ... give us a chance, folks!"
His heavy, resonant voice resounded through the crackling sounds of the fire and the people obeyed. The townspeople always obeyed Ben Grant because he was that kind of man. His tall, rugged appearance, his friendly smile, his darting blue eyes gave him the appearance of a Roman warrior. As Neil Strong, the town toastmaster general said of Ben Grant during the presentation of the Seaside Memorial Man of the Year Award, "Ben Grant has a presence and a character which even the Gods respect and bow down to." The women of Seaside, a hearty and good-looking bunch who retained much of their naturalness and youthful energy all agreed with Neil Strong's accolade.
So, as it always happened whenever Ben Grant issued a command, the townspeople obeyed. The path between them was used as a roadway for the old hook and ladder while the department's water pump truck drove around to the other side of the barn and hooked up to the well.
The steel rod between her thighs seemed to melt into a soft, pulsating organism. Lee now had her legs wrapped around the object and was riding up and down the tube with short, even strokes. Watching Ben Grant as he strode with animal-like grace towards the flaming building drove the woman into even greater heights of ecstasy.
The barn had burned in such a manner as to leave one half still untouched by the flames. This was the section to which Captain Ben Grant directed his energies. Lugging the heavy hose which had been brought to him from the hidden pumper, the tall, burly man stalked towards the death giving flames.
The crowd 'ooed' and 'ahhhd' as the water hit the flames and a great burst of steam rose. Their excitement grew as Captain Grant moved in even closer, trying to get to the base of the flames.
The bathrobe fell open just enough so that the cold metal rested directly against Lee's moist pubis. She moved her hands down and spread her warm, tingling lips manipulating herself so that her erect pearl was touched directly. One breast fell free from the bonds of the robe, but Lee did not bother to cover it. The heat of the fire combined with the cold, ocean night combined to raise her nipple to a hard, aching erection.
The first cry from within the barn went almost unnoticed by eveyone. The wood and the frame had been screeching like an animal as it dissolved into ashes and the structure itself bended and swayed with its' changing geometry. No one could have ever heard the small cry of terror coming from within the Hellish roar of the fire.
But Ben Grant heard it. For fifteen years Ben Grant had been fighting fires and for fifteen years Ben Grant had trained his senses to such a fine pitch that he could 'feel' what a fire was doing. His ability to give himself completely to the energy, draw the power into himself and understand its moods gave the man an extraordinary sense. Some people even went so far as to say that Ben was always sad when a fire had finally been crushed to burning embers because it was only during the height of the fire that Ben Grant really lived. It was this feeling, then, this extra grain of involvement; which pulled Ben from the expected into the realm of the unknown.
The Captain dropped his end of the hose to the ground and turned to Jimmy Blackburn, "Jim," Ben said, trying to speak in a voice that only Jim could hear, "I believe there's someone inside. Cover me!"
Jimmy Blackburn had worked beside the Captain for all of his eight years on the force. Both men respected each other greatly. Jimmy was aware of his bosses' talents. He had a keen eye to developing his own abilities in accordance with Ben Grant's. Together, they made a fine team, sometimes reacting and acting with just a word or a nod between them.
Lee stopped moving her naked body against the post. Ben Grant was going inside! The crowd became hushed and Lee began to falter. She had worked herself to a higher pitch than ever, she had become more abandoned than ever but now that surge, that drive towards that unknown place was fleeing her. Once again, she was divided into two, separate women. One part of her began to worry, to care for Ben Grant and whoever was inside the barn. The other half wanted desperately to throw off the robe which now hung open in front, throw herself into the crown and wait for Ben Grant to extinguish the fire that raged in her loins. But as Ben disappeared into the flaming Hell, Lee Marks knew that her evening was over. She drew her robe tightly around her body and leaned, exhausted and nervous, against the steel post.
Jimmy Blackburn counted to himself. He knew that Ben had only another minute before he would be consumed by the smoke. If the smoke didn't get him then the fire would. The crowd was silent, waiting for the return of the man who was their hero.
It seemed an eternity but finally the Captain of the Seaside Fire Department emerged from the barn. In his arms he carried the crumpled figure of a small boy. A tall, thin woman shrieked and ripped through the crowd to get to her son.
"Billy! Billy!" she cried.
"The kid's going to be alright, Mrs. Samuels...."
Ben smiled as he handed the frightened child to his mother. He could see the outline of her bra against her thin blouse and remembered those high, pointed breasts that he had loved to touch.
"Thank you, Ben" she said, seeing his eyes resting on her aching and relieved chest, "you make a woman love you in every way...."
And she turned and ran through the crowd. By this time her husband was driving up the dirt road, swerving into the pasture and beating his horn. As usual, Jack Samuels had spent the night 'with the boys' playing poker and drinking. As the plump man constantly reminded his wife: "Those nights are the only times I really ever feel alive...."Mrs. Samuels had learned to laugh at that, feeling the irony of her life and the need for something more ripping at her insides.
Ben watched the lithe, often pretty woman jump into her husband's car. It did not seem as though Jack would make it out of the pasture ruts and back onto the road. But after a lot of dust and a lot of wasted tire revolutions the short, plump man finally managed to gain control of his machine. If the kid had been in worse shape Ben Grant could not have afforded to laugh as loud as he did now.
His laughter reached her and made her feel even lonlier. At once she was relieved and ashamed. She watched the crowd begin to disperse, the people talking in excited voices as they headed back to resume their Saturday Night in Seaside. Their happiness, their willingness to accept the excitement of the fire and than turn their backs on the charred embers somehow struck a bad note in the woman. Her mind created images of everyone dancing naked around what once was the Browning barn, and Lee Marks had to laugh. Her laughter drew the looks of a few of the man who smiled and winked at her. She had been the object of many fantasies in this small town, but she had never allowed reality to invade her loins. It was this dream-like quality, the unreality of the winks and the people themselves that the voluptuous woman carried back to her small motel which overlooked the Pacific Ocean.
The Seaside Motel was owned and operated by Lee Marks. She had bought the rambling, eight cottage affair when she first came to Seaside. Business had never been that good because Seaside found itself somewhere in that limbo which exists between a resort town and an industrial town. But the small motel made enough money to keep Lee alive, and to provide a college education for her seventeen year old son Robert.
The house was dark and warm. Lee always left the heat on in order to prevent the mould and rot from winning their almost continual fight against the residents of the beach.
The nude woman knew what she would have to do. Her night had become one of torture and frustration. She padded naked from the small kitchen, through the living room with its fireplace and dark red wallpaper and into her small bedroom.
The room was only large enough for a single bed and a dresser. Lee had liked it this way, feeling comfortable and cozy within the snug little square. As she lay down on the bed, not bothering to cover herself, she allowed herself to drift back in time to the fire ... to the image of Ben Grant and to the eventuality of her own satisfaction.
The glass fell to the floor. Lee threw her legs apart and touched herself with her hand. Her lips were moist and enlarged, her vagina a seething well of juices and heat. Her breasts reached skyward with every heaving breath and the nipples ached with the accumulation of the night's energies. Lee Marks was on her way, going to that place which she could only reach alone.
The images began flowing freely through her mind. Her state was one of half sleep, half wakefulness. At first her mind seethed in an orange glow. The pulsating heat of the color then formed itself into a tight little ball and began moving slowly down the length of her body.
Her hands rested on her thighs. Her fingers vibrated with anticipation. The ball moved steadily. It rode across the mound of her breast, striking at her nipple and setting that dollar of pink skin aflame. Lee gasped, clicking her tongue outwards and maintaining the image of her pleasure.
The further the ball moved down her naked body the more intense its' light grew. It shimmered and pulsated as it crossed her flat stomach than lifted and rolled smoothly across her rounded belly. She began to breathe more heavily now, needing to control her every movement, needing to concentrate now on just one thing.
Her tuft of blonde pubic hair was set afire by the orange ball. It rode the mound and then began etching its way into her vagina. Lee struggled to keep her hands on her thighs away from the consuming ball of fire.
And then it reached home. She moved her hands quickly into her cunt, spreading her lips and drawing her legs together tightly around her hands. She had the flame! And her loins were on fire.
The naked woman rocked and thrust, feeling the energy and heat between her widespread thighs. The fire was getting large, it was destined to consume her entire being ... to mould her into its private playground of destruction. Lee began to panic, knowing the feeling well and yet still panicking.
The battle was being lost. The fire raged onwards. But then she heard it, heard that welcome sound of metal beating against wood. The room was filled with smoke but she could see the edge of the axe slicing through the splintering wood of her bedroom door. He had come!
The tall, burly man moved with grace and a certain fury. Lee watched him as he bashed down the rest of the door and stepped inside. He wore only a pair of boots, a helmet and a broad grin. His prick was erect and huge, so large in fact that he had to hold it with both hands.
Lee waited, throbbing with pain and pleasure as the man stood above her and began masturbating over her. His hands moved smoothly up and down his shaft, and Lee could tell, as she always did, that he was confident.
Finally, his prick began throbbing. The white stuff shot from his head onto her flaming pussy. The steam rose as the liquid came in contact with the fire. Lee felt herself giving way to the relief, falling backwards and releasing her hold completely.
When he had finished, the man left the room. The fire had been extinguished. Lee was allowed now to sleep for the night ... to sleep as though she had made it with a man ... as though she were a real woman capable of loving instead of a woman possessed by fire.
CHAPTER TWO
Elaine Samuels drank her coffee slowly, inhaling deeply on her fifth cigarette in a row. She was at once relieved and depressed. Her son Billy was now asleep in his bedroom, scared and tired after his near miss in the burning barn. That caused Elaine much relief. But Jack had not seen fit to lose any more time 'with the boys' and had returned to the game. After taking their son to the doctor, Jack had told his desperate wife that the only reason he had come to the fire in the first place was due to the fact that the other boys had gone also.
But at least the house was quiet and that was the way she liked it. Except for an occassional moment of fleeting happiness, Elaine's life had moulded itself into a pattern of intense and mind throbbing boredom. If it hadn't been for Billy she would have gone crazy a long time ago; and her fears of the time when Billy would leave her were based in the reality of her own life.
The knock at the front door was soft and friendly. Elaine puched out her cigarette nervously, anticipating company-even if it was Mrs. Bernard from next door. Mrs. Bernard was on of those women who always managed to show up in time of tragedy and to make those .useless attempts to console the victim. When things were going well, however, Mrs. Bernard was nowhere to be seen.
Ben Grant stood in the soft glow of the porch light. His eyes sparkled with the remains of the excitement he had felt while doing battle with the destructive flames.
"Hello, Ben ... won't you come in?"
Elaine watched him for a moment then closed the door. Suddenly her evening had changed. She could feel the night around her, the stillness and the sense of anticipation which the young teenagers of the town must feel on those Saturday nights. She also became acutely aware that she was naked beneath her thin bathrobe.
"I just thought I'd drop by and see how Billy was doing. That was one Hell of a close call!"
"Would you like some coffee?"
"Yes, that would be nice." Ben watched her move beneath the cloth material of her robe. He remembered with amazing clarity the bodies of every woman he had ever had. Elaine had never been of the starlet quality because she was small all over. But still, thought Ben to himself, she was about as sexy as a woman could get.
"Billy's asleep now," Elaine called out from the kitchen. "We took him to Doc Manson's. All he needs is a lot of rest ... and to stay away from fires for a while."
She appeared in the doorway with two steaming cups of coffee. "Jack's gone. He went back to his game." She said the latter in a very soft voice.
Elaine handed the cup to Ben and sat down on the floor directly in front of his knees. It was a habit she had developed when they had been lovers, and now, she reverted into that mode of behavior.
"I'm glad everything's all right, Elaine ... I mean, with Billy." Ben took a long swig of his coffee and watched her blue eyes intensely.
Suddenly, her face lit up and she smiled up towards the man she had once slept with. "You remember the time we went down to the lake together?"
"Fifty degrees outside and you wanted to go swimming!" Ben laughed softly at the memory of this woman who had been so animated and child-like.
"I just wanted to see what you looked like without any clothes on ... it certainly wasn't to go into the water!"
Ben dropped his eyes and fiddled with his cup, turning it around over and over again in his hands. It was always difficult to start again, no matter how strong or good the experience had been. It was becoming apparent to both of them that they were, indeed, about to start again and it was churning like a molten piece of steel inside.
Then Elaine did something which was very much in character with how she used to act. Her eyes alighted with a mischievous fire as she stood up directly in front of Ben. Slowly, she untied the knot on her robe and slid the garment off her shoulders. "Do I still look any good?"
She was a very bony girl. Her shoulders were a little too wide. But her body was long and lean, the kind that could tie a man into knots. Her brown hair hung down across her shoulders and were the hair stopped her breasts began. They were small, pointed and the nipples still came up at a fine angle. Even though Elaine was not large there Ben had always felt that her breasts were the best he had ever seen.
"You still look great," Ben commented softly.
"Why thank you, Mr. Grant!"
It always made her feel better when he looked at her in the way he was looking now. His head was cocked a little to the side and a smile worked its way slowly across his mouth. His eyes remained steady, taking in every inch of her naked flesh-her nipples, her long flowing hair and the patch of hair which now tingled beneath her rounded belly. Elaine began to grow excited and she knew that even through Jack might return home while they were doing it she would still go through with it nonetheless.
"Come here, you little bitch!"
Elaine giggled softly and with relief. She sat down on his lap, feeling the bulge against her ass and squirming so that his meat would fit snugly between her cheeks.
"Getting closer, eh?"
"Always wanted to," replied Ben, remembering how she liked it two years ago. They had developed a system, a manner of making love whereby Elaine would always reach orgasm. It would start with her on top, playing with Ben as though he were her personal slave. But after a little of this, Ben would turn the situation around and become the dominant factor. By the time the final thrusts were made he would be humping her from the back and she would be squealing like an inflamed animal. That had been their method. And it had worked for both of them with astounding regularity.
The old couch in the small living room began to squeak as Ben pulled the naked woman down on top. She allowed her leg to hangover the edge and pushed her mound snugly against his groin.
They kissed long and hard. Their tongues traded blows in a manner long practiced and now remembered. Elaine became loose and felt herself swimming as her body seemed to mould into Bens'.
"I've missed it terribly," she moaned as they broke their kiss. "What about Jack?"
"Never! I mean, once in a while he'll roll me over, stick it inside and shoot his wad. But he never makes love to me."
"That's a shame," Ben whispered, resting his hand on her smooth, firm ass, "he doesn't know what he's missing!"
Ben then moved his hand underneath her belly and brought it down into the jungle of her warm cunt. Elaine lifted herself so that his fingers could work easily into her crack. She kissed him exitedly on his neck, then blew warm air into his ear and flicked her tongue into the hole.
"You remember my mouth around you?" She breathed.
"Yes," Ben moaned, feeling her moist, juicy cunt vibrating against his hand. "You planning another attack?"
"Elaine sucked hard on his earlobe, then drew her hand down between their bodies and grasped his sex firmly. "Yes," she moaned.
She rolled off of him and fell to her knees beside the couch. Ben lay back and waited. She had always liked to play with him and he enjoyed it. His secret had been that he could digit both ways from a woman and, because of this, Ben Grant always got the best of both worlds.
"They never get smaller, do they?" She had his pants down to his knees and was staring at his prick. The hard, heavy organ lay straight up against his belly and twitched every time Elaine blew onto it.
"Nope. Unless they fall off."
"Good." And then she lowered her mouth to him.
Her tongue was warm and smooth as she moved it up and down his flaming skin. She moved his legs apart and followed his ridge which led to his balls. Her mouth opened wide as she took one sac and sucked softly then repeated the gesture with the other.
"Oh, baby," Ben moaned, "you haven't lost your touch!"
Elaine held his cock in one hand and masturbated with easy strokes. Her eyes were wide open and slightly glazed. Ben knew that she was terribly excited, that she would be unable to sit through the kind of extended foreplay that they had practiced with each other during less needy times.
"Put your mouth to me, Ben...."
While Elaine lay herself down on the ugly green carpet-, Ben removed the rest of his clothes. He stood above her, and watched as she pushed her thighs together then spread them ... moving all the time.
He knelt down between her legs and she opened herself to him. Her pink lips were swollen and wet. He puched apart the smooth shiny skin and saw her pearl, throbbing and erect. Flicking his tongue at the clit, he reached underneath and pulled her cheeks apart. He liked it this way-wide open and vulnerable.
Elaine moaned and sighed while Ben drove his tongue deeply into her vagina then pulled back and stroked her pearl. She was moving wildly now, her hips thrusting into his face with intense energy and direction. Ben knew it was time.
She watched him through half closed eyes as he hovered above her. His prick found her immediately. She moaned loudly as he entered her easily.
"Oh my God, Ben!" she cried, pulling his body tightly into hers. "I've missed you so!"
"Easy, baby, easy...."
Ben worked her slowly and evenly. She was a rhythmic lover, a woman who through her own sense of self-possession had developed a concerted manner of moving which could provide her with the ultimate release. Ben had learned long ago just how to play with her movements, to extract the most from her and thus control her.
Their breathing was heavy but smooth as Ben shifted into high gear. With each thrust inside she grew closer and closer until finally she hit it. Her body vibrated under his as he came one second afterwards. Finally, they were both at rest ... their bodies having merged into one, their souls having united in a flight of supreme ecstasy.
"What the Hell do you do, Ben, keep a chart or something?"
Elaine knew that Ben was the kind of man who loved many women and could never be devoted to just one. She realized that if she was to gain any pleasure at all from him that she could claim no hold. There would never be room for jealousy in a relationship with Ben Grant.
Ben got up from the floor, lit two cigarettes and handed one to Elaine. She lay back on the floor, still naked, and her legs spread just slightly. Modestly had never been one of her hang-ups.
"You look distressed, Ben. Wasn't I good enough?"
"You were terrific! I don't know why I stayed away so long."
But he was upset. Something was eating at him and Elaine had to know what it was.
"The fire?" She asked, leaning up on her elbows and drawing her thighs together.
"Yeah," replied Ben, throwing her a quick look then letting his eyes move down to her patch, "we think it was arson. Jimmy found an empty gas can in the pasture behind the barn. He traced it down and found that it was from Ernie's station."
"Who bought it, then?"
"Don't know. Except that it was the kind of can that Ernie used for only a year ... and that year ended about six months ago."
Elaine could not decide what he was driving at. It was always difficult for her to think clearly when she was sitting around in the nude with a naked man sitting next to her. She had to laugh.
"What the Hell's so funny?" Grinned Ben, remembering how she was after a good lay.
"I just can't figure out what the fuck you're talking about!"
But Ben became very serious again. Fire was his business and the crime of arson to him was one of the most serious he could imagine. He was also somewhat irked with Elaine. She had almost lost her only son because of this fire, and yet she could laugh at his attempt to explain his theory of arson. He decided for the millionth time that women were strange after they fucked.
"It's simple, Elaine," he persisted, "that barn has been vacant for at least five years. When the Brownings moved, they cleaned up the place because I made them. That place was a hazard to the kids who always play there. So, that gas can couldn't have gotten there as a leftover ... besides which Ernie didn't have that type of can until a year ago. So, whoever set that fire had to buy it from Ernie somewhere between a year and a half and six months ago."
"Why would someone want to set a fire like that? It doesn't make any sense!"
Ben lit another two smokes. He watched Elaine's breast rise as she reached over to accept her cigarette.
"I don't know. Some people get kind of sick about these things. I mean, sometimes it's a sexual thing with them and they do it for no other reason than that."
Elaine rose and walked over to him. She arched her stomach towards him and pulled apart her sex lips. "Well look at you...." she chided, "you do both! you start 'em and you put 'em out!"
Ben pulled her to him and kissed her tuft of brown hair. He had become disturbed by the thought that possibly a sick and dangerous arsonist might be lurking within his territory. The idea was a direct threat to his own power, to his ability to protect those people who lived within Seaside. Without that power he would be rendered impotent-unable to affect anything.
"You look tired, Ben...." Elaine was kind and unconcerned. Ben looked down to her hand. She was holding his soft prick delicately.
CHAPTER THREE
There was an urgent sound to the ring of the telephone which startled Lee Marks. She had sensed the same sound once a long time ago when her parent's house had burned to the ground in Chicago. The call had come from a hysterical neighbor who had told Lee that both her parents were in the burning building and had not been seen. The drive into town that night had been the most fearful three hours she had ever spent. It had been only her first month away from home. She had been seventeen years old and she had left in the heat of an argument over dating with her parents.
When Lee finally arrived in Chicago her childhood home had been burned to the ground. No one had seen either of her parents and Lee knew that they must have been killed. She mourned their death for three days until one evening there was a knock at her door. In the downpour stood both her parents, smiling but with worried expressions on their faces.
"We had gone away for the weekend," explained her father, knowing that Lee was thinking she had seen a couple of ghosts.
"We didn't know until just a few hours ago," added her Mother.
It had been the utmost in ironies ... something which had taken the young girl through the trauma of losing her entire family and then suddenly dropping her back again into reality. Lee had felt that she was going insane. The fear, the confusion of those weeks led her to the West Coast where she met Jim Marks.
Jim Marks had been a traveling salesman. They met on the bus. It had been a cold, cloudy night as the giant vehicle plunged through the wastes of the Mojave Desert towards California. She was young, beautiful and terribly frightened. Jim Marks, on the other hand, was somewhat older, good looking and very confident in his manner.
He had taken the seat next to her at the back of the bus. In the darkness he could see her fine, long legs stretched out beneath her skirt. He liked what he saw.
"Going to California?" Jim Marks had asked.
Lee didn't know where she was going to live. As a matter-of-fact, she had only planned to ride the bus until it stopped and wherever that was she would get off and begin her hew life.
"Very warm climate ... it's nice after the cold winters you get back East...."
She liked the man who spoke so easily and so smoothly. She enjoyed listening to tones of his voice, feeling herself lulled like a small child by his glibness.
They had talked for over an hour. The darkness of the bus, the stranger who was so handsome, the adventure of going to anew place served to create within the teenager a sense of daring which she had never known. She let him kiss her.
The kiss was remarkable for a girl who had only necked a little in the back of theaters but had never gone any farther than that. His mouth had been soft and warm as he pried her open and smoothly entered her mouth with his tongue.
Then Jim had poured them each a glass of scotch from a small flask he carried. "Try some of this" he said. "It'll loosen you up a little."
"I don't know," replied Lee, "if I want to loosen up."
"Why, of course you do, Lee. Everyone wants to loosen up. I mean, after all, what else is there to live for?"
The man was right. He was beginning to make sense to the girl who did not know where she was going or what she would be doing. She took the drink, gagged it down and began to loosen up.
In the darkness of the back no one could see the man slide his hand beneath the girl's blouse. And no one saw her rest her hand high on his thigh and squeeze.
"That's the way!" Jim moaned as he pushed her trembling fingers onto his cock which was now hard and pulsating beneath his slacks.
"I don't know about this...."
"Oh, come on, baby, you only live once!"
Lee was confused. There were a multitude of various feelings running through her at the time. She knew what she was doing, and just how far it all could go, but somehow her body was directing her to continue. Her mind reeled and cried out against it ... but after a while the liquor helped quiet the rage which grew there. Soon, the torment moved down to that place between her thighs where her panties were soaked and her sex burned for fulfillment.
Jim's hand roamed steadily along her smooth skin. He reached the edge of her silk panties and went underneath. It was difficult for him to get anywhere, so he withdrew his hand and began pulling down her panties. Lee moaned softly as the silk slid across her buttocks and down onto her thighs. Acting quickly, and feeling outrageously daring, she pulled them down the rest of the way herself, picked them off the cold floor of the bus and stuffed them inside her purse. She knew she had gone beyond the point of no return.
"Oh, baby, you're wet like a woman! Beautiful!!!"
His hand worked in and out of her moist vagina. Lee felt like screaming out but silence had to be maintained at all costs. The deeper his fingers went inside her, though, the greater was her urge to yell or scream.
Instead, Lee unzipped his pants and drew his penis from within the fabric. It was long, hard and the white skin flashed like a sceptre in the moonlight of the night ride. She held the staff with a certain amount of disbelief, searching it with her eyes, trying to maintain its reality.
"Go ahead," urged Jim, "put your lips to it. It doesn't bite!"
Lee obeyed, she lowered her head onto his lap and placed her mouth fully around the circumference of his prick. The salty, warm meat throbbed between her moist lips. It suddenly occurred to her that she was giving a man a blow job-something which the girls at school only talked about in giggles.
Then she felt him at her. His mouth was on her mound. She opened her legs and allowed him to push her lips apart and suck hard on the juices that were pouring from within. It was almost unbearable to have him flicking his tongue in and out of her vagina and Lee began to squirm like crazy on his cock.
"Let's do it! moaned Jim. He pulled her up from his lap, kissed her hard on the mouth and began to push himself underneath her. When she felt his full staff stabbing at the underside of her thigh, she stopped him. "What're you doing?"
"We're going to make love, Lee, just like grownup people!"
Jim lifted her dress to her belly. Then, throwing each of her legs on either side of his hips, he manipulated her until her sweet little cunt rested just above the tip of his prick. Slowly, he entered her.
"Oooooh ... my God ... Oooooh...." Lee felt as though her entire being were being split into two, separate parts. She had never imagined that anything could have felt so large inside her. When he had finally made it all the way inside, he began pumping very slowly up and down. It was all that Lee could do to maintain her balance on his lap-she felt like fainting.
Jim had come inside her that first night without making any effort to protect her from pregnancy. They had traveled to California together, set themselves up in an apartment and married two months after that. One month into their young marriage Lee discovered that she was pregnant.
Her husband had not said a word, just nodded dumbly. The young girl was scared to death and needed someone to lean on. Jim had just backed away from her, had gone to the kitchen and poured himself a drink.
Lee had run into the bedroom in tears. She had never in her life felt so alone. When she heard the front door slam she knew that Jim had left her forever. It was at that moment that the young girl of seventeen made the decision to have her baby. At least she would have someone in the world who could love her and who she could love back.
The phone had stopped ringing. Lee realized that she had been drifting through the memory of her life, Something she had been doing with alarming frequency lately. She stood above the now silent phone and lit a cigarette". When her son, Jim Jr. had left to go North to college Lee had promised herself that she would not bother him. Her intelligence had revolted against the demands she had made upon her only child for love and attention-she knew that if these patterns were not broken that Jim would turn out wrong. Everything else in her life had turned out so badly.
But the phone had rung with an urgency which Lee could not explain. She picked up the reciver and dialed the number of the franternity house where Jim lived.
"Hello...." The girl's voice was cloudy and sleepy. It was already twelve noon and Lee realized that she was stoned.
"This is Mrs. Marks, I wonder if Jim Marks is there?"
"Okay...." The voice grew timid and afraid, Lee felt that something was being hidden from her.
"Hello, Mom?" It was Jim. His voice was trembling and weak. He spoke for ten minutes straight in a series of half sentences and almost pure idiocy. 'Yes,' he had called earlier because he had suddenly become worried and just wanted to find out if everything was allright.
Lee became firm with her boy, knowing that his mind was running wild with whatever he had taken. She had heard about dope-LSD, grass, cocaine and now feared that she was speaking with another person-someone she did not know.
Finally, Jim spoke with sudden and unexpected clarity.
"Mom," he said, his voice firm and resonant, "I'm coming home to work the motel. This place is one big drag, there's nothin' I want to do here."
He waited for his answer. Lee felt her excitement rising. Having her son back with her would once again make life bearable, something that could be endured. But the promise of 'handsoff' which she made to herself long ago was still firm in her mind. It took one last plea from Jim himself to motivate her into a decision.
"Please, Lee, I've got to!" His voice twanged with desperation, the use of her first name as though they were good, old friends rather than mother and son drove her into acceptance.
"I'll send you the money. You can be home by tonight ... if you wish."
"Far out."
And that was that.
The rest of the day was spent in cleaning the house, sending the money one hundred miles up the coast, and trying to relax in anticiption of seeing her boy once again. She felt better, more alive than she had felt in a long time. The memories of the fire a few nights before, the memories of Ben Grand running through the flames like a swift, life-giving animal now faded into a dream. Her reality, the life to which she had devoted herself for the past seventeen years was returning. And with it came her own sense of sanity and purpose.
* * *
Anne sat nude by the phone watching Jim pack his small duffle bag. She was small bodied with coal black hair that hung straight down her back. Her blue eyes were alive and intent, her breasts very large for a girl with her structure and her skin an almost bleached white.
"So," Anne said in her clipped, almost cynical voice, "going home to mother...."
Jim grunted, feeling a surge of pain. Their lovemaking had been an almost frightening thing to him. She had been one of the most passionate girls he had ever known, and had not subjected herself to making it whenever he felt like it, but instead Anne would instigate the session many times herself.
"You were a trip in bed, Jim. I thought we would be able to keep balling at least through the rest of the year. As a matter-of-fact, I dropped everything else so that we could fuck whenever we wanted to. What the Hell happened?"
"I don't know, Anne," replied Jim, trying to get away as quickly as he could, "something wrong with the whole thing. You know, I just can't make it in school...."
Anne stood up, revealing herself to him in her nudity. He rested his eyes momentarily on the fine triangle between her legs and remembered the sweet juices which flowed there so readily. The girl was desperate and did not want to lose her semester lover. She had fallen in love with him but the love was a physical attraction more than anything else. "You know," she continued, "I love your bod madly."
"That's shit!" complained Jim. They had argued constantly about this one point. Anne was intelligent and cynical and determined to make a success of herself and her painting. She was of the mind that physical attraction was the only thing that mattered between two people, and that later, maybe, love and understanding would come. Jim had wanted more ... even though Anne was the most beautiful girl he had ever known.
The naked girl leaned back against the wall, her blue eyes mocking the man who was preparing to leave her. She pushed her belly out and cupped one of her large, white breasts and pouted. "Is this really shit?" she asked, stroking her fine tuft of hair.
"Of course not ... you know that's not what I mean!"
He could not look at her. He had made up his mind and by allowing his eyes to rest on her finely tuned body for more than a second his resolution would be broken. Actually, the decision which Jim had made was one which had come more from objective analysis than from any overriding emotional feelings. He had been a lousy student, had found the rigors of academic life unbearable and found the people boring. He knew his future did not lay within the hard bound covers of books, but out in the open somewhere. He felt that his Mother's Motel, if developed properly, would eventually turn into a successful business. He knew that all he really wanted from life was a little security ... something for his Mother and for himself.
Anne had come between that dream and its reality. She had invaded his mind and body with a presence he could not fully understand and thus could not deal with. He never understood why such an intelligent girl with a body like hers would have fallen for him. At first, he had enjoyed every moment of their scorching affair. But as time wore on, and eveything that was not Anne began to disturb him, Jim knew he must decide and that his decision would leave Anne out in the cold.
Anne was still naked as Jim walked out the door of the small room, down the hall and out into the street below. From there, he saw her standing immodestly at the open window, unafraid that anyone would see her nude torso through the opening. She was smiling in the half-cocked grin of hers, a smile that revealed something unkown within her. Her eyes seemed to traverse the distance between them and continue to mock him.
Jim waved.
"We'll be together again ... after your mother.
Her voice, the words, her smile, her breasts and her eyes stayed with him during the two and half hours journey from the small town to his home in Seaside. He hadn't understood Anne's final words but their ring clouded his mind and made him very jumpy.
* * *
Lee and Jim stood across the threshold of the door, staring at each other as though seeing one another for the first time. She wore a thin blouse, and revealing and sexy bra and tight skirt. Her hair was long and natural and her eyes clear and blue. There was none of the mockery there he had come to know with Anne. "Hello, Lee."
"Hello, Jim."
He had come home. He was her son. She had opened her legs once to conceive him and had opened them again to give him life. But neither Mother nor Son, as they sat together in the darkening living room, felt that they were tied together in any way but through a mutual sense of physical attraction.
It was uncommonly warm on the small beach. Lee and Jim walked silently the hundred yards to the spot next to the rocks where they would be sheltered from the light breeze which blew in from the sea.
Jim's arrival home the night before had begun a strained and uncomfortable evening for both of them. When he had left for college he had still been a boy. Lee had looked at him through the same eyes she had for the past seventeen years. She worried about him catching cold, about whether he had enough money and whether he would become involved in the many wayward practises which college students found themselves these days. As they had said goodbye to each other for the first time in their lives both had cried. It was the last time Lee would see her son as a child, as something tied to her by birth.
They had talked of Jim's reasons for leaving school. His voice was low and even, his words chosen carefully. The spark which had seemed to guide him as a youth had disappeared and had been replaced by a sullen, almost animal-like quickness. His eyes darted around the room, then to his Mother then back to the walls and pictures of boats that hung everywhere.
"You look different, Lee." He had spoken with some assurance. Calling each other by their first names had only been a joking affair before. Now there was a touch of serious communication through the use of the names.
Lee had mixed drinks, given one to her son, and talked about the financial condition in which she found herself. This became a topic for discussion which eventually freed them both from the nervousness they felt. Jim felt that with a little promotion and a little 'fixing up' that the Motel could be turned into a money making proposition. Lee was happy with his enthusiasm. She had wanted Jim to become something through school. It was a martyrd feeling which drove Lee to send him away ... a feeling that he would become an engineer, leave her to her own misery and strike out on his own. Now, though, she had to admit to herself that she had not realized just how much she had missed him.
Jim spread the blanket out on the sand and watched his mother carefully as she stripped off her robe. Underneath, she wore a small, pink bikini. The young man was suprised at just how good her body was. The bra of the swimming suit was netted and just barely covered the woman's full breasts. The panties, also netted, provided a view of strong thighs and a flat, young belly. Lee knew that he was watching her and it made her shiver with a strange kind of excitement.
"Remember when we used to do this every summer?"
Jim smiled. "Yeah, you would cook fried chicken and make potato salad. I used to really dig those days."
"Yes," she replied sadly, thinking of those long summers when business had been good and they had been happy together.
"Well, I don't need a fucking tan to be good-looking ... I'm going swimming!"
Before she could make any comment on his foul language, Jim was running down towards the shore. His figure was silhouetted against the sun, but Lee could tell that he was stripping down to nothing. She hunched over her knees, squinting her eyes and trying to focus on his naked body. But she could see nothing.
When he returned, Jim held a towel in front of his naked body and smiled down at his mother
"Have a nice swim?" She asked, a little embarrassed with his nudity.
"Far out! The water must be seventy ... that's pretty warm for this time of year!"
He bent over and began drying his legs. Lee could not help but glance up his thigh and see his balls and prick dangling there with the full presence of his young manhood. The strange and almost uncomfortable feeling of excitement surged through her. She did not know how to handle this situation but that did not mean she wasn't enjoying it.
"Put some lotion on me, Jim, I'm frying out here...."
She rolled over onto her stomach, relieved that she did not have to look at her son's penis. She unfastened her strap and allowed the sides of her bra to fall to the sand on either side. She could feel her nipples tense and ache as he began rubbing the warm cream across her naked back.
"You've really kept yourself up," he said, his breath shortening his words into short, almost excited thrusts.
"Baby," she replied, beginning to smile, "there's nothing wrong with a thirty-five year old woman. I mean I'm not dead, you know!"
"For god's sakes, Lee, I never thought you were!"
Then Lee did something which she would never forget. A sudden feeling of strong emotion had come over her, swept her away from the reality of the situation and resulted in her rolling over onto her back.
Jim stared down at her naked breasts and his mouth fell open. Her nipples were taut and pink, and the tan lines accentuated their largeness.
"You think," she said, her voice cracking with excitement, "that I'm really that old?"
Her eyes traveled down to where his cock hung. She smiled at the sight of his pink flesh and grinned broadly when it began to rise in an even pattern. Jim was noticably embarrassed by the whole thing and drew his legs together as if to suck his entire sex back into his belly.
"There's nothing to be ashamed of, Jim, all men react that way."
"But not with their Mothers!"
"I'm now a woman, first, and your Mother second. You broke the tie when you went away to school...."
His face became contorted with agony. He could not understand the moment even though he had toyed with and flaunted his manhood in front of her. It had gone too far, however, and he began to feel strangled.
"No, Mother, we can't even think like this!"
Lee did not try to stop him. She watched him run naked back to the house. Her mind raced against the reality, trying to determine what she had done. If Jim's reaction was permanent, then he would leave her again and she could resume her own martyrdom. If, however, his mood changed, then she could have the man she needed.
But while she thought of these things, another, more forceful surge was pouring through her. Her panties were dripping with the juices of her excitement. Her breasts were aching to be touched. There was no one around who could do that except herself. So, dropping her concern over her son's reaction, Lee stripped off her panties and went after herself.
The breeze and sun added much to her usual fantasy as she played and toyed with her clit. The excitement of laying naked and spreadeagled on a beach where anyone might see her added strongly to the excitement.
The explosion of her mind, the naked and erect fireman jacking off above her, squelching the flames which rose from her seething cunt were more vivid and thus more realistic than she had ever known.
But Ben Grant could not see what lay in the naked woman's teeming mind. What he could see, however, from his perch above the cliff was her luscious naked body writhing in the throes of self-induced ecstasy. His prick throbbed and his breath shortened as he watched her shudder, throw her hands to her side and lift her-belly to the sky then finally collapse.
Her nude body was shining with sweat, golden with tan and spread wide as though open to the universe. Ben thought that he had never seen a more beautiful or desirable sight in his entire life. As he shakily lit a cigarette he made up his mind that Lee Marks would become his.
CHAPTER FOUR
North Beach was not the same as it had been during the days of Kerouac and Ginsberg. The beats were no longer there, the easy life of the Bohemians no longer dominating the scene. Instead, large buses with well kept tourists from somewhere in the middle-of America stopped in front of the bars and clubs, disposing of the quiet and apprehensive crowd. They all looked like plain and simple people, their eyes were wide as they glanced at the signs advertising naked girls and sexual arts performed live. They had paid well to get their guided tour through sin, and they knew that they could get back on the bus afterward and return home. Ben Grant watched them and felt kind of silly.
But his plan of action had been set firmly in his mind and there was no way that Ben Grant would divert himself from that route. As he walked along Broadway, one barker after another came out to greet him with words of invitation.
"Come on in, man" they would yell, their pinstriped suits adding a touch of the comical, "got more and better pussy in here than anywhere. Just for you, my friend, no cover...! How' bout that?"
Ben walked past two or three clubs until finally settling on one that advertised 'Thoroughly Naked Millie'. He walked through the red satin curtain and stood at the end of a long bar trying to focus his eyes.
The bar was crowded with men, couples and a few hookers. At the far end of the room, a large platform rose almost to the ceiling. Lit from beneath, thoroughly 'Naked Millie' danced vacantly and without interest.
Ben took a seat beneath the platform and ordered a double scotch from a waitress with large breasts that were hanging free from above her small skirt. She smiled at Ben, and he smiled back-determined to let himself go and enjoy everything around him.
Millie stood eight feet above him. She was a small blonde girl with Mammoth Breasts. Her hips were almost boyish and with her breasts she looked way out of proportion. But her little tuft of hair between her legs was shining and open. Ben immediately liked her cunt best of all-it was her one redeeming factor.
After three doubles, Ben got to his feet, smiled up at Millie and made his way to the front door. The waitress with the naked breasts stopped him halfway along the bar.
"Leaving so soon?" She asked, lowering her eyes modestly to her own breasts as though she were embarrassed. Ben liked her immediately. She had long, straight black hair that hung naturally down to her waist. Her eyes were a shining green, and she seemed intelligent and likeable. Among other things, her breasts were large and white, with perfectly shaped nipples topping each one. In the land of silicone, it was nice to look upon the real thing, no matter how imperfect they might be.
"Just have to keep moving" replied Ben, noticing that she wore a choker with a name tag hanging halfway down her chest. Her name was Anne.
I'm sorry about that ... come back anytime. I'm here 'till three...." And then she turned and made her way back to the Men sitting near the stage. Ben watched her ass shimmy beneath the short skirt and the fall of her breasts as she walked. He began to feel much better about things.
* * *
The outer office of the massage parlour was red. Everything from the desk to the windows were red, and subtle, Victorian red that aroused images of the turn of the century houses that had once dominated San Francisco.
"Can I do something for you?" Asked the small, red-haired receptionist.
"Yes...." replied Ben, looking about him and wondering just what it was that he had walked into.
"We have one-half hour for twenty and an hour for thirty...."
She waited. Her smile was set from years of smiling at men standing nervously before her desk. "I'll take the hour...." Ben said, fishing a twenty and ten from his wallet.
"Regular or nude?" She asked, waiting patiently for the shock to set in.
"Nude?"
"Yes, the masseuse will massage you with both of you nude ... or you can have it done with a toga...."
"How much more?"
"Another ten."
Ben fished out another ten. The girl smiled again, asked him a few questions about where he lived and what he did for a living. Then she led Ben through the red velvet curtains and down a red, wall-papered hallway. A small room with a medical table lay at the end, and she took Ben inside, "Take off your clothes ... the shower is at the end of the hall."
He stripped, wrapped the towel around him and walked out into the hallway and down to the shower. He soaped himself, feeling somewhat silly about standing in this strange place taking a shower all by himself. He thought about Lee, her long blonde hair, her fine body and her strange temperament. He wondered if ever he would be standing in a shower with her; if he would ever touch her breasts, and if she would ever touch him. But he called himself back. After all, he had come to this city for one purpose, and he either had to stick to that purpose or return to Seaside with the frustration of knowing that he had not seen it through.
He was still wet when he sat down on the table. He lit a cigarette and waited. There were sounds of women talking softly outside his room, and then finally a tall blonde girl entered.
"Hi! I'm Susie and I'll be your masseuse this evening. Is there anything I can get you?"
Ben stared at the girl. She was so cheerful, almost business-like and he immediately felt confined. "No" he replied, taking a long drag on his smoke, "Nothing that I can think of at the moment."
"An hour nude massage, right?"
"Right...."
She turned her back and pulled the thin material from her shoulders. She had a nice, long body. Her legs were smooth, like a little girls, and her back arched nicely to extend to a sexy, long neck. When she turned around, her small breasts accentuated her thinness and her tuft of blonde pubic hair seemed all out of alignment because it was so thick and bushy. "There! Now if you'll just lay on your stomach."
Ben rolled onto his stomach. She took the towel and threw it on the small bureau in the corner. She reached between his legs and spread them.
"You just visiting our city?" She asked as she kneaded his calves.
"Yup ... I'm from Seaside ... down South."
"That's nice...."
Everything was nice. This was a professional massage parlour and everything had to be nice. There couldn't be serious talk or serious emotion here because all was accomplished through a certain sense of the professional, or, one who divided themselves from their work. Ben had forgotten what it was like.
It had been almost fifteen years. He had been a roamer, hitchhiking out of Texas towards the west coast where he would become a movie actor ... His parents had divorced when he was three, so he wasn't leaving much behind. After a week on the road, he had found himself in Vegas. His luck was running high there and he won eight hundred dollars shooting craps. That money went into a cab fare and a drive through the dawn towards Myrna's Ranch.
It had looked like a used car lot at first. Garishly lit light bulbs strung across a dirt parking lot. In the center was a modern farmhouse with Hamm's signs in the window. A huge, Negro Madam had met him, introduced him to the line of waiting girls. The one he had chosen was blonde, pretty and very quiet. She had washed him off, stroking his penis with warm suds until he was hard, then had blown him. He dropped another twenty onto the table and she had taken off her clothes. She washed herself and lay down on the bed. "Come on, man...." She had said impatiently. Ben had fallen between her spread legs and she had guided him inside. Her cunt had been dry and tight. He had come almost instantly, feeling nothing inside. Quickly, she had risen and dressed than led him out through the lobby where a couple of tired looking men sat around drinking and smoking. It had been so unreal, so unsatisfying to the young traveler that he had broken out laughing as he stepped out and stood in the cool desert morning. He had vowed then that he would never pay for it again.
Susie was humming softly. Her soft, nimble hands were moving steadily up the inside of Ben's legs. She would lightly come up to his crouch, go underneath and touch his balls then pull out again. Each time, Ben flinched.
"You don't like that?" She asked cheerfully after he pulled his legs together out of pure instinct.
"It's okay...." he replied. But it wasn't She was playing with him, waiting for him to make an offer, some kind of move that would begin their 'real' session. Ben was not used to being played with. He had always prided himself on his ability to take a woman, drive her home and let her down with some amount of ability. Now, he felt helpless, half enjoying the feeling but yet unable to go all the way with
"Okay, Mr. Grant, roll over...." The way she said it, the song in her voice, made Ben remember the nurses who had taken care of him one night after a brawl. He had caught a few good ones in a bar after trying to pick up a girl. Unfortunately, the girl was a tease who enjoyed watching her mammoth husband beat up innocent prey. Ben had been one of his best victims. The nurses had treated him like a child. The night had not been one of the best of his life.
He rolled over. Susie stood above him and stared down at his erection. She ran her tongue across her upper lip as though she were going to devour him.
"You're very excited, Mr. Grant ... I thought I was supposed to relax you!" Her voice was still sing-song, but at least she was talking about the right things.
"Sorry about that" replied Ben, "but you ... I mean, standing there naked and everything, turned me on.
"I'm glad. If I didn't, I would have been worried."
And then she began on his chest. But her breathing had grown more strained, more husky. She massaged his flat stomach and then moved her fingers lightly across his flesh. His prick twitched and she moaned.
"No ... no! Mr. Grant. No touching!"
His hand was between her legs. Her thighs were warm and smooth. Grant left it there and smiled up at her. "How much?"
"Why, for what, Mr. Grant?"
"For a sixty-nine...."
Susie smiled, bent over and wrapped her lips around his cock. She pulled her mouth up the length than rest her head against it. "Fifty dollars...."
"Take it out of my wallet."
She fished out his billfold, pulled out a fifty and stuffed the bill into a small drawer in the bureau. "How do you want it?"
Ben thought about it a minute then decided he had better get himself on top. He had had enough of this happy woman playing with him.
"You lay down." Susie lowered herself onto the table and brought her thighs together. Ben stood above her, examining her as she looked up at him, watching, waiting and looking more vulnerable.
"Much better" He said as he began kissing her breasts. The nipples hardened as he clenched the firm little buds between his teeth. She began moaning, but there was nothing behind it. Ben decided to concentrate on the smooth skin and let the woman herself drift as she pleased.
She held his penis and moved her hand back and forth along the shaft. When he reached her cunt, she spread her legs and raised her hips.
Inside, she was wet enough. But there was still something about the way she moved that bothered him. It wasn't a smooth thrust, but more of a restrained, co-coordinated gesture. While he licked and sucked her pearl, Ben had to remind himself that she was just a whore, someone who took money hundreds of times a week to have the same thing done to her that he was doing now.
"Bring it here, baby, you're only getting half!" Ben swung himself around and lifted his leg over her head. She held his balls lightly, then guided his prick into her mouth. He had to admit that she did it very well. Her tongue knew all the right places and her lips were smooth as silk. He thought that she had a better mouth than a vagina and was glad he had settled for a blow job.
When he came, Susie took all of his steamy liquid into her mouth then licked him clean. Her tongue worked well, she knew how to make it an extension of herself and to dive and touch with definite refinement.
"You may take another shower if you like." She was pulling on her toga, getting ready to grab another customer and pay another pusher for a dose or maybe make another installment on her fiery sports car that was her opiate. Whatever it was that drove her, there was no doubt that was motivated by things other than love.
"No thanks ... I'll just be going."
She turned as she was about to leave. Ben thought maybe she would show some interest, perhaps invite him out after wards as he had already proposed. He was beginning to feel lonely, much more than horny. Instead, she asked him to hurry because Friday night was a big night and there were other customers. Ben dressed quickly, he had finished with the place and the place was finished with him. He bolted out the front door, nodding to the sweet little redhead who was signing up another customer. Once again, as he had done fifteen years earlier, Ben vowed that he would never pay for it again.
San Francisco had become very quiet during the hour he had spent in the massage parlour. The fog was moving in quickly, dampening everything beneath its heavy shroud. The lights of the city filtered through the dense mass, but there were no signs of life anywhere. Ben listened to his footsteps as he walked along Columbus Avenue. He had never felt so alone in his life. The trip was not working for him, instead, it was deepening the desire he had for Lee. Her image flooded his mind, and through the dense fog he saw only her.
The bar where thoroughly naked Mille' danced was still opened. Even though the rest of the city was asleep, or at least intwined within bedrooms and soft, warm beds, Broadway and the sale of sex was still in action. For those who had no one to make it with, it was like the last outpost of humanity left. Instinctively, Ben wandered into the dark place.
Anne saw him immediately. She glided to where he stood, her fine breasts bouncing and swaying with every movement. She seemed very happy.
"I was hoping you'd come back." She said, taking his hand and leading him to one of her tables.
The bar was filled with college students from Berkeley, a few businessmen and a few wanderers like Ben. Millie was no longer showing her wares on stage. Instead, there was a black girl, also naked, writhing on the uplifted floor. Her beaver shots got great applause from the men watching. But Ben was only interested in Annie.
"Where'd you go?" She asked cheerfully, sitting down a double scotch in front of him.
"Just walked ... I've never seen the city before. Thought I'd take it in."
"Beautiful when the fog rolls in, isn't it? I mean, makes you want to make love, if you know what I mean."
She waited for his reply. Her eyes were glistening, her breasts heaving slightly ... Ben began to feel like his old self again. There was the element of love between them, the realness of knowing the other person and something for the future.
"What time do you get out of here?"
"In an hour ... can we go eat?" She looked like a little girl. She had a way of pouting, of making her face totally innocent in appearance so that she would be irresistable. Ben agreed and settled back to get a little drunk before they left.
The small cafe was just around the block from Millie's. It was crowded now with bearded types, tall blond girls with short curly hairdos and a few long hairs. They all seemed to have the rear portion reserved especially for them. So Ben and Anne took a seat up front near the window. They ordered sandwiches and after looking the place over, began to talk.
Their conversation was light and friendly. Anne asked Ben about the town of Seaside and what he did there. Talking about the place made him feel like a small town boy in the big city for the first time. But Anne's enthusiasm and charm allowed him to enjoy himself. When their sandwiches had been eaten, there was a tricky moment in which neither knew exactly what to do.
"Come to my place" Anne said finally, holding Ben's hand and looking openly at him.
She lived near the wharf in a large, third floor apartment. Obviously, her stint as a barmaid paid well. The furnishings were Victorian, and the moment they stepped inside Ben felt as though he had been thrown back in time one hundred years.
"I like it like this" She said, moving to the kitchen to fix drinks, "it makes me feel even more evil than I am. I mean, that's half the fun of it, isn't it?"
Ben knew what she was saying but had never thought about it in those terms. He had never felt particularly evil about fucking, and enjoyed it for other reasons. But if this beautiful, large busted woman wanted to feel guilty about it, it was okay with him.
She returned with two large scotches. "I'll be right back." She ran into the bedroom, emerged a second later wearing a very long dress. Her hair hung long and she looked, indeed, like a Victorian Woman.
"It's just my fantasy, I guess" she said as she sat down next to Ben on the couch. "I was born at the wrong time. Should have made the old scene...."
"You're doing fine right here!"
"Yeah, working as a barmaid with my boobs hanging out for all the world to see. I don't know, but there's something a little shady about that." Her eyebrows furrowed a little as she thought about it. Ben stroked her leg. He could feel the warmth of her skin beneath the thin, silken fabric.
"It's the way things are these days" he said, not really knowing what, if anything, he should have said. Instead, he related to the feel of her legs and warmth which she exude just being close to him.
Anne was also responding to his touch. Her eyes were softening and her parting slightly. She watched his hand move higher and higher up her leg. When he reached the place where her panties should have been, she held him back. "I'm naked beneath this thing."
"Good"
He forced her hand away and pushed the material down between her thighs. She opened herself easily and slowly. He could feel the tight curls as he moved slowly up and down her crack.
Anne put her drink on the table and slid back on the couch. She pulled Ben down upon her and they kissed. Her mouth was sweeter than he could remember any woman's, and her tongue seemed lush and strong. She played with his tongue, then his teeth and finally gently bit his lower lip.
"It's been a long time...." She moaned, pushing her pelvis up against him.
"I can't believe that, Anne, not from a girl as beautiful as you!"
"I scare them away. They're all afraid of me. I must look hardened and worldly or something...." She was profoundly sad about herself and her self image. Obviously, she had wanted more out of life and had been a little too successful with what she had been doing to ever get it.
Ben kissed her lightly on the forehead. She closed her eyes and he blew warm air onto her lids while they fluttered gently. Ben loved this in women, and many times a woman would turn him off if her face did not react to his caresses. He had always believed that a woman with an expressive face was a woman who was capable of loving a man.
"I want you" She whispered as he stabbed gently inside her ear. Her body lifted to him, her warm, seeking flesh pulling him down into herself, opening itself for him and poising itself for his entry.
He reached down and pulled the hem of her dress upwards. He watched as her small, black traingle revealed itself then her breasts which he stared at all night. She was much more beautiful naked than she was half-dressed. He had thought that the costumes which the girls wore in the clubs always made them look much worse. He liked them naked and hot.
When she was naked, Ben stood up and removed his clothes. She watched his from half-closed eyes. Her eyes were alive though, and rested firmly on his erect cock. She reached out from the couch and held him firmly.
"I love to touch them." She sighed, feeling all parts of his flesh from his tip down to the ridge between his balls.
He moved between her legs and lowered himself gently upon her. She opened herself with a kind of softness and tenderness he had not known in a woman. There was almost a reluctance on her part to take him, to expose herself and her vagina to him. But behind this gentle kind of subtlety, Ben sensed an urgency and desire. One that would make her one of the best lays he had ever had.
"Ahhh ...!!!Nooooo...." She cried as he entered her. She was holding back, fearful of something inside. He began pumping her and she responded with slight movements of her pelvis. He tried to go easy, thinking that maybe she needed time, plenty of slow and easy movements before she would finally make it. But that was not the case either.
Her body gave in soft, every movement. But her mind and soul would not budge. She would not be dominated and Ben sensed it as he drove his prick deeper and deeper into her. Finally, he came. The shudder was evident and she squeezed his gently between her thighs. When he had finished, he pulled out and sat at the edge of the couch. His mind was wandering, his eyes focused somewhere behind his eyes. And then he heard her.
The sound was low, almost like a soothing roar. Anne's head was thrown back and her legs spread wide. Between her lush, white thighs, in that wet and warm land that he had just entered, her hand now roamed, She rubbed outside her vagina, stroking her clit and pumping slowly and evenly against her fingers.
Ben watched the action with a growing feeling of despair. He wondered if ever again a woman would be his. The ones he had back in Seaside were all waiting for him, but that was just the point. The challange was gone, there was no more conquest, no more separation of the roles. His lovemaking had become a routine thing which was becomming no more than a casual way of assesing time. Once again his mind conjured the image of Lee. She was the last frontier. She rubbed her wet skin hard now, her face contorting under the waves of her private orgasm. When she had finally died down, Anne smiled at Ben with a curious mixture of satisfaction and some secret contempt. He wondered where she had failed, or where he had failed, not quite knowing which it was.
"It's the only way for me ... I hope you didn't mind?"
It was plainly obvious that he did mind. He threw his clothes on and poured himself another drink. Anne, still naked and sprawled on the couch watched him with growing amusement.
"Sex is your thing, right? I mean, without you, women would have a fucking hard time getting off, right? without you Women would have fucking hard time getting off, right? Well, that may be the way for those little bitches down in that hole of a place you call Seaside, but here in the big City we've found other, more practical ways of getting it together!" She shouted angrily. There was her real frustration eating at her combined with the knowledge and the near belief of her contention. She waited anxiously for Ben to do something.
He knew what was needed but no longer had the strength. She was a bitch, knew it of herself, and desperately wanted someone to punish her for it. She would never allow a man to give her pleasure until he was able to provide the proper amount of justice for whatever crime she felt she was committing. Ben smiled at his thought then turned to her.
He had to turn away from her pleading eyes. He actually pitied her. But that sense of feeling could not hold him there. He grabbed his coat, opened the front door and looked out into the empty hallway. He realized what a miserable existence she must have been leading.
"If you ever want to try for real, Anne, you know where to find me."
"Get out, you Bastard!"
He closed the door and left. He had seen enough, had failed enough for one day, or week, or lifetime even. It was time to go back to what he did second best, putting out fires. At least there the fire held itself within certain laws. They were rules that both man and nature had to respect, and they would never be changed, no matter how strange and unorthodox the world became.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lee Marks stared out at her son and wondered about what she had done. He walked alone, at all, gaunt figure on the white, shining beach. She worried about her affect; and the fact that he did not respond to her gave her much to worry about. The whole thing had been a horrible, tragic mistake, one which she could never change.
It had begun during the first days of Jim's return home. The day on the beach when Lee had tried in vain to seduce her own son had begun in her a string of uncontrollable urges and desires that she would soon explore within the realm of reality instead of her own mind. It had been one of the many bridges which she had imagined between herself and 'something.' It was a crossing, one that she had enjoyed during the travel yet had suffered for once the other side and been reached. The concern was not unfounded.
The days following the incident on the beach had been highly tense. Jim and his Mother walked through their own home as strangers. They did not speak, nor did they allow their eyes to meet one another's. It seemed as though the stage had been set but the actors were unwilling to utter the first lines. But the desire to begin was there; an ever present clutch within Lee, an intense confusion within Jim. Neither knew how or what to do and this is exactly what led to their eventual sexual relationship.
The night had been cold. Lee sat in front of the fire, drinking a brandy and attenpting with little success to relieve herself of the intense desire that flooded her being. Staring at the flames and sipping the warm liquid did not help much but at least it was distracting.
Jim had come into the room without making a sound. Lee felt his presence behind her, like some kind of stalking animal and a chill had invaded her body. She continued to stare into the fire, waiting for something to happen.
Silently, as though involved in a ritual during which all rules were already extablished long ago by unknown participants, Jim sat down next to his mother. His eyes were wide, his breathing smooth and controlled. Lee clutched her brandy sifter, and dared not look at her son.
It's time...." He had said in a voice that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside his body. Lee choked, swallowed hard and felt a tenseness developing between her legs. She straightened herself and put the glass aside.
"We've been coming to this ... it had to happen. I hope we don't get hung up about it." He continued to look at the fire, avoiding his Mother who waited next to him.
After a short period which seemed like hours to Lee, her son had turned to her and they had fallen into each others' arms. They had undressed quickly and when they were naked, Lee had spread her legs and opened herself to receive Jim. He had been hard and tense and had invaded her vagina with such force and urgency that Lee had screamed. Jim did not apologize but rammed his hard meat violently, almost seeking to break through her and return whole to the where he had developed as an embryo.
They had made love violently and ruthlessly that night. When they had finished, both were quiet and worn down, emotionally and physically. There seemed to be nothing left. No words were spoken, no kisses exchanged or even body contact. They had sat there naked and spent in front of the fire for three hours-wondering what it was that they had done to each other.
Lee turned away from the window and lit a cigartte. Now her son was out of view on his lonely walk. It had been one week since that night but it felt more like a year to her. Afterwards, in the days that followed, she had run through her daily chores around the Motel with a sense of despair and depression that never left her. Everything seemed blown out of her system; she found even the most meaningless of tasks something of a project. She knew what the effect had been upon her and wondered how Jim had felt, and what he planned to do about it.
The young man had wandered into a land that was as stark and unknown to him as any strange battlefield had ever been to a frightened soldier. He was dealing with the most basic emotions within himself and could not seem to separate them any more. His past with Anne, his life as a student were all gone from his memory. What had formerly driven him, had made him alive and a participant in things around him had left him the moment he had taken his place next to his Mother. It seemed now that all that remained was impulse and desire. His ability to decide things and to act out of reason or ambition had all but left him.
The day after he had invaded his Mother, Jim had thought briefly that his life was manageable. Feeling somewhat strange, but not all that strange, he had wandered into town seeking some turn back to normalcy. His feeling at the time was that if he could re-establish himself with some girl, any girl, then he would be able to drive out the feelings of suffocation he was feeling. On the initial stages, he succeded.
Her name was Sally. She worked in the only hamburger stand open after midnight. Blonde, blue-eyed and very skinny she seemed the perfect tool to Jim. He had stayed inside this small restaurant long after the other people had left.
"You must be really bored!" She had and with a smile.
"Yeah" replied Jim, watching her long, tanned legs move with athletic grace beneath her white dress, "nothing to do in this place."
"The older people got all their affairs and little trips going ... but we've got to be off the streets by ten. Just isn't very fair." She was angry. Sally had always been bothered by the fact that she would never lead a normal life. Her parents had thrown her out of the house after catching her naked with her boyfriend. And with that discovery, Sally's chances for college, marriage and a home went out the door with her.
"It's a shitty life" replied Jim, knowing that his sometimes glowering look combined with some heavy insight into life was attractive to girls. He had used the same approach to nab Anne. He felt it would work again with Sally.
"Sometimes...." he continued, stirring his coffee thoughtfully, "sometimes we've got to establish ourselves into some other kind of mould. You know, make it without their little placemats and plastic houses. If we can do that, I mean transcend the whole trip, then we've got a chance. But to do that their old rules have to be broken. I mean, really broken."
He seemed to have her. Sally's blue eyes were large and open, she was digesting his words, trying to come up with something appropriate.
"I can dig that" was what she finally come up with.
"You know, like their sex trip."
"What do you mean?" asked Sally, thoughtlessly pouring him another cup of coffee. "You like that song?"
"What song?"
Sally grimaced. She was disappointed that someone with the words and heavy thoughts of Jim wouldn't just know every song the Beatles had ever recorded. "Why the-Beatles 'Why Don't We Do It in the Road!'
"Oh yeah ... but I'm more into classical scenes. That's where it's all heading anyway."
This got him off the hook. Sally admired him even more now. He wasn't the typical beach rat who just wanted a piece of ass. He was a guy with high ideals, a real thinker.
"Come home with me." She was always this way when she felt like being hip. To Sally, the world was changing and she had to change with it. She wanted desperately to be the hip Mother of the year. She would never have a chance for Prom Queen, so she had to try for 'something."
When they entered Sally's small cabin, the tall girl locked the door behind them. The room was small and cluttered with records, posters and a record player that took up almost all of one wall. She turned on the machine, delicately placed a Leon Russell album on the turntable and threw the volume switch on 'high."
"Want to make love?" She asked, slipping casually out of her white dress. Underneath, she wore pantyhose and a bra. The bra fell to the floor and her small, white breasts popped out. Then, she slid off her pantyhose and stood naked and smiling.
"Come here you little devil!" She walked into Jim's arms and pressed herself tightly against his belly. She reached down between their bodies and grabbed his balls, rubbing them hard and with uneven motions. Jim felt inclined to remove himself from the grasp, but knew that he must follow it through instead.
"Get naked with me...." She was already on her knees and pulling down his pants. She was the most eager chick he had ever seen. She pulled out his prick and held it firmly in her hand. Just before she put her lips to it, she looked up at him with her blue eyes ... they were empty.
"Easy ... Easy...."Warned Jim. But she was a tiger. Her mouth moved quickly and forcefully up and down his prick. Her tongue lashed out at his hard staff during each retreat then smothered the skin during the advance. Finally, she pulled her mouth away.
"Let's fuck!"
She threw herself onto the bed, raised her legs and spread them out into a V-shape. She rubbed herself with one finger while licking her lips seductively. Jim was reminded of his collection of girlie magazines and the poses the models always struck.
He climed between her legs and she immediately fell into the throes of passionate embrace. Sally wanted to do everything for the height of experience. She desperately wanted to be completely and totally involved. It was probably her one tragedy that she never would.
She was pumping him like a machine. Her cunt wasn't as wet as it should have been. Her motions were jerky, unbalanced and without any sensitive rhythym. Jim was doing his best just to hang on.
But then it happened. Until that moment, Jim had had a vague, undefined feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was something like fear, but more in line with a premonition. Now he realized what that premonition had been. His prick had gone soft.
Sally didn't even notice it because she was so deeply rooted within the throes of her own passion that the world was closed to her. Even after he had withdrawn, she still pumped madly against his belly, calling out to him. And then she came, she threw her body high off the bed, cried out and sobbed, then finally collapsed with the sweetest, most content smile she could produce.
"How was it for you?" She asked, stroking his back gently like she had seen a woman do in a movie once.
"Just wonderful, Sally. It was a great fuck!"
It had been a great fuck, thought Jim, if only somone had been there to film the damn thing. He dressed quickly and started to leave, knowing that he could never repeat the 'great fuck."
"You're far out" smiled Sally as he was about to leave.
"Why?" He asked, not really knowing why he wanted to hear any more idiocies from her. "Because you're not pissed off...."
"See you around."
He walked out, leaving Sally sitting naked on her bed thinking that he was a good cat because her antics didn't make him feel uncomfortable. Jim knew that she didn't know about his going soft. But that fact wasn't enough because he knew, and would remember with a sting. He tried to imagine what she would have said had she been normal and he had gone soft on her. His mind couldn't come up with an image of her relating to anyone's problems and he felt reassured.
Jim stood on the sand and looked back at the motel. He wasn't feeling anymore, there seemed no association with his home or with his life that mattered. A seagull landed in front of him, and he threw a rock at it. The bird took off in fright and disappeared behind the cliff. Jim laughed.
The water was cold. It was still early spring and winter still remained in the surf, even if the coastal weather was warming up. But the freezing cold felt good against his naked body. Somehow, the ocean nullified him, and he allowed himself to be swept back and forth by the turbulent surf.
When he ran from the crushing wave that followed him onto the beach, he stopped short. Laying in a blanket, wearing nothing but a large smile was Lee.
"Looks cold...." Those were the first words either had said to each other in weeks. After watching her son drift aimlessly down the beach, Lee had decided that she had better move. She had realized that the forces which were affecting both of them were now beyond control. She had followed him down the white sand, had taken off her clothes and had waited for him to emerge from the surf.
Jim did not speak. He gazed for a moment at his mother's large, white breasts with their hardened nipples glowing in the sun. Her legs seemed longer than he could remember them, and her pubic hair glistened. She seemed turned on, already wet with her strange desire.
"Come over here, Jim. We've been ridiculous with each other."
She patted the spot next to her. Jim walked over silently, and fell onto his back next to her. Lee stroked his chest gently, and felt herself growing in need once again.
"After 'our night' she said, now looking down at his rising prick, "we should have talked. I don't know what you feel, or even if you feel anything.
I'm just trying to straighten things out ... work this thing out between us so we can go on living."
Jim heard her voice from far away. He felt her hand on his penis and he felt her stroking him. He remembered the night before with Sally and groaned. His strength and returned, he was burning and hard as a rock; but it was with his Mother that he was being a Man. With Sally, he had failed.
"You're beautiful. I'm sorry that I felt so funny about it." Lee was breathing hard now. Her skin was shining with moisture. As she leaned over him, he felt her large breasts dangle against his chest. Almost involuntarily, he reached up and took her nipple between his fingers. Lee moaned.
She held his penis upright from his stomach. She blew warm currents of air onto the tip. Jim felt himself being taken away by her, felt his body and mind drifting in the same way he had done while in the ocean. He was going there again, to what seemed like the only place left to him.
Her tongue worked slowly and evenly. She licked the inside of his thighs, then licked each of his sacs. She opened her mouth wide and took one sac then another between her lips. Cooing softly, she sucked on them and then watched as they fell back between his legs. She moved his penis to her, ran her tongue along the underside where his ridge was then took the tip between her lips.
Jim groaned and pushed his belly up when he felt himself entering her warm mouth. She took all of him inside, then slid her lips up and down. Jim grabbed her buttocks and pulled her flesh towards him. She lifted her leg and spread herself above his mouth.
As he began licking her warm, moist crack, Jim sensed a knowledge that he had felt the night they had first made love. He was home again, the territory was familiar, warm and dark. He drifted even further.
Finally, he felt himself shudder and felt the juices being drained from his body. Lee took it all, sucked up everything her son gave to her. She pumped hard on his mouth while she licked him off gently. She would not come, but she had given him the utmost in pleasure.
When they had finished, Jim still did not talk. He lay on his back, watching the sky above him with the soft blanket of fog moving in towards the coast. The grey stuff, feathery light and silent, made him feel good. He hoped that the day would be completely fogged in, that everything would be covered with the colorless murk and disappear from the reality of sight.
Lee watched her son and fought her own perceptions of him. His tranquility pleased her and she was at once willing to believe that he had been totally satisfied with her cock sucking. But again, she knew better. It was not like Jim to lay inanimate. He was not a negative, or rather, a person who allowed himself to fall. She had completely dominated him on this warm day. With her lush mouth and warm vagina she had taken over his senses, had compelled him into action as forcefully as if she had had a revolver and had threatened him with death. She was giving herself life through his sex, yet in a strange way, he now seemed to seek death. Lee once again felt the strain of their actions, but this time, she knew she would have to continue.
As the fog now covered the sun and turned the ocean, sand and mountains behind them into shades of grey, Jim's Mother leaned over her naked Son and played with his penis. When he was hard again, she would straddle him and push his erect staff deep inside her vagina. She would rock and thrust, pump and sway until she could take no more. Jim would not move during the entire time. But it would be one step closer for her, and that was all that counted anymore.
CHAPTER SIX
"How was it?" Jimmy Blackburn grinned over his coffee cup. He watched Ben unpack his duffle bag and waited for the details; he had been waiting expectantly since Ben had left to hear the story of Ben's orgy in San Francisco.
"The usual...." Ben smiled, knowing that Jimmy was always hanging onto every word. He knew that he supplied Jimmy with a great deal of fantasy. Jimmy was a full-blooded Cherokee and because of that, he wasn't paricularly inclined to the social scene in Seaside. He was a lonely man, one who wandered aimlessly through the woods around Seaside when he was off duty. Ben Grant had never worked with a more trustworthy or able man, and he respected the fact that Jimmy used his sexual realities, failings or victories, as an insight into what the 'normal' people of Seaside went through. '
"Well?" Jimmy asked, lighting a cigarette.
"I did everything a man could in a city like that...." Began Ben, sitting down across from his man and lighting a cigar. Jimmy knew that when Ben lit a cigar he would be preparing himself for a long session; a story that would probably last long into the night.
Ben told Jimmy about everything he had done. He was grateful to be able to sort out his experiences with someone, to get some kind of reaction to his adventures. It had been a long time since Ben had felt so shaken, so disjointed by an experience. All that he did in the city had seemed to leave him empty. He did not feel fulfilled nor satisfied by his 'time.' He told Jimmy this and was very truthful.
"Sounds like a weird place, Ben ... the cities are getting strange." Jimmy was always a prophet of doom. He had studied his ancestors' religion and edicts and had surmised that white man's society was doomed. He had said more than once that the 'white man did not respect the Earth, that they floated above it and would kick the ground out from beneath them.' Ben had thought at first that he was joking. But as time wore on, and Ben was able to adjudge the perspective which Jimmy held, he realized that the young man was very serious.
Jimmy continued after Ben had told him all. "In the cities, they can buy anything. Because of that, everything loses its value and now nothing remains as a prize. There is no more up or down, just a level sense of pleasure. But most of your people are not prepared to handle that pleasure. You were not prepared, were you?"
"It wasn't the pleasure that got to me," replied Ben, sifting Jimmy's words through his mind, "it was the damn money, I mean, the business-like thing. It was like going to a market and buying a head of lettuce."
"Of course," smiled Jimmy, seeing a relationship which he had not considered before, "the white man has enslaved everyone in the past and has set his slaves free. Now, there are no more people to be enslaved so he must enslave himself."
It was getting a little too heavy for Ben. He could never keep up with Jimmy when he began. He got up from his chair and began stalking back and forth across the station floor.
In the corner where the coat rack was, lay the gas can which had been found at the sight of the Browning fire. That had been months in the past, had occurred on Saturday night somewhere in the distant land by the sea. Ben remembered the night well. His saving of the boy, his lovemaking with Elaine ... that had all seemed so long ago. Yet, the feeling which began to plague him then still remained. It seemed that no matter where he went or what he did that same, importent feeling still raged through him. He had lost his focus of the problem, of his ability to eliminate the feeling from his own spirit. Now, as he gazed down at the red can, the focus returned.
"Still no trace?" He asked quietly, almost to himself.
"That was a long time ago, Ben. We haven't had a major blaze since ... I'm sure whoever did it was just a crank operator. Probably moved on to another town by now."
Ben picked up the can and fondled it. He could not define the feeling he had as he touched the cool metal. But there was something about it that told him of it's place within his life. There was some connection between the can and what bothered him. He decided that he would take the metal container home with him.
"What the Hell you want that for, anyway?" Jimmy chided as Ben started out the door with the can under his arm.
"Not sure, Jimmy. I guess it just interests me."
Jimmy laughed. His laughter was catching and soon Ben was laughing. "Frisco must have been a real winner for you!"
Ben jabbed at Jimmy. The Indian backed away, crouched as though holding a tomahawk and swung for Ben's scalp. "Warrior no have reservation ... want white man's land now!!!"
Ben laughed some more. It felt good to be laughing-like this with Jimmy. They had not been this loose with each other for a long time. "Injun speak with fucked tongue!"
Jimmy did a war yell and began dancing around Ben. Soon, he was giving the big man a large bear hug, trying to pull him down from behind. Ben raised the slight young man over his shoulder, held him aloft for a second, then dropped him on the floor.
"Ah, white man have strength of three thousand flies!!!"
They both laughed. They played around a little while longer and finally Ben left. Jimmy would man the station for the night and masturbate with Ben's fantasies firmly illuminated in his mind. Ben, on the other hand, would return home unable to sleep and unable to think.
* * *
Ben did not see her until he had parked his car in the driveway of his small, wood-framed cottage. Carrying the gas can under one arm and his coat under the other, he walked in the darkness along the sidwalk towards his front porch.
"Hello Ben."
"Who's there?" Ben stopped, searched into the dark shadows of the porch.
"I decided to take you up on your offer." Her voice was light and cheery. Anne stepped out of the darkness into the glare of the streetlight. She wore levis, a tee-shirt and an old suede jacket. She carried a duffle bag with a Berkeley tag on it.
"My God!" Ben said, half startled and half jubilant over having her standing on his porch. "I never expected to see you again!"
"Well, here I am! But I'm not a bitch anymore. Your offer made sense to me. I quit my job, put on some clothes and hitched down ... are you glad to see me?"
"Yes, dammit I mean, I hope you're serious!"
He looked at the young girl with her green eyes and straight black hair. She looked almost angelic in the white light. Her breasts were hanging free beneath her thin tee-shirt. She looked almost lost but nonetheless very sexy. He wondered if her presence would cause another scene, if she had changed from that night in her apartment in San Francisco.
"I've changed," she said softly, reading his concern. "I mean, I'm willing to try. If you're willing. But just one thing...."
"Okay, what is it?"
"Just tell me right now if you want me or not. If there's someone else ... or whatever, I'll just split right now and we won't hassle this at all."
She was giving him a chance to escape. Obviously, Anne had thought that he possibly could have been a married man on a weekend, a man who made promises inspired by liquor but who could never keep them. She watched him carefully.
"What I said to you then I meant. There's no hassle....""
Anne smiled brightly. She seemed very happy, and different from the girl he had known up North. "Well" she grinned, "aren't you even going to ask a homeless waif inside?"
Ben opened the front door and watched her tight little ass as she moved gracefully inside. His heart was beating hard and he could feel for the first time in a long while the blood surge without hindrance to his prick. As he walked into his little house where Anne was already busy looking around, Ben dropped the gas can onto the front porch, paying it no more notice than if it were a piece of wasted metal for which he had no more use.
"This place is a groove!" Anne wondered through the small living room into the kitchen then back down the hallway to the bedroom. Ben watched her with amusement, happy for the diversion.
"I just love these small cottages ... I mean, they're so cozy!"
She stood in the hallway, smiling out at Ben. He mixed a drink and watched her as she lifted the tee-shirt above her breasts then dropped the garment into the floor. He had forgotten how large and shapely her breasts were.
"Mind if I take a shower? I'm filthy from the road...."
She was already pulling her worn levis down across her hips. She stepped out of them and stood naked, her black cunt looking more inviting than Ben had remembered. When she turned and ran towards the bathroom, Ben had the tremendous urge to run after her, throw her face down on the carpet, and ram his already hard cock straight up her ass. Instead, he mixed himself a drink and listened to Anne as she sung off-key in the shower.
Anne's voice carried throughout the small house. Ben enjoyed the sound of her singing, it had been a long time since he had been with a girl long enough to really respond to her presence as a female. He sipped slowly on his drink, feeling the tension dissolve.
"I feel like a new woman!" She stood in the doorway, the wet towel draped around her hips. From the waist up she was naked. Her tits shone with cleanliness, and she seemed much younger than Ben had remembered her.
"How old are you?" He asked, now realizing that she was not as old as he had first thought.
"Does it make any difference?" She asked, sitting on the couch across from him.
"No ... I'm just curious, that's all."
She took her hair and held it outwards, then ran a comb slowly through it. The way her breasts moved upwards when she stroked herself made Ben seethe with desire. "I'm nineteen."
She waited, expecting a reaction from Ben. Instead, he sipped slowly on his drink and watched her naked breasts.
"Well?" She asked, suspending her movements in mid-air.
"Well what? I told you it doesn't make any difference and I meant it!"
But there was something strange about her being there, sitting half-nude across from him. They hadn't made it well enough in Frisco for her to be in love with him. She had watched him leave her apartment in a blaze of anger. But now, she was here. And there was no apparent reason for it. Ben decided to let the question ride, knowing that he would throw her into herself if he began prying.
"You want to fuck me?"
"Ben was taken back by her directness. She dropped her comb and stood up. The towel fell from her hips. Her naked body was even more finely put together than he had remembered. Her belly was hard and flat, and her little triangle of black hair was shining with cleanliness. She walked the space between them and pushed her belly towards him. She brought her hands down and spread her lips. Ben stared into the pink flesh there.
"You're gorgeous ... perfect!" He said, grabbing her buttocks and pulling her close to him. She moved easily this time beneath his grasp. She did seem more willing to let herself be taken than she was last time.
"I want you to teach me, Ben, just teach me everything you know...." She held his head against her belly. Her legs were spread, and when she lifted one and placed her foot on the couch, Ben was ready to begin the lesson.
She ran her fingers through his hair as he licked at her clit. The skin was warm and moist, and Ben began to feel that possibly the only motivation for her journey was him. He allowed that feeling to motivate him now, and dove into her young, well-formed cunt with vigor.
"Oh yeah ... that feels nice. It's right!" She was pushing herself hard against him. She had thrust herself outwards and was now wide open. Ben licked and searched inside her.
He stood above her. His nudity was emphasized by his prick which stood out hard and erect. Anne lay sprawled on the bed, her thighs moving rapidly against one another. She was in heat, her eyes were alive and penetrating. Her lips were moist and slightly parted. She was ready to be taken.
But as Ben felt himself slip between her lips, as he felt the warmth of her vagina surround his hot flesh, he knew that he still wasn't taking her. There was something left out, some element that just wasn't present. He pushed hard into her, and moved with an easy rhythym. But it still did not work.
Anne went through all the proper motions. She wrapped her young, white legs around his back. She arched herself high so that he could have all of her. She ran her fingers along the crack of his ass, plunging in an out at the right moments. Everything was done that should have been done to make it a good session, but there was something which didn't work.
When they had finished, and Ben lay smoking a cigarette while Anne lay against his shoulder, the thought once again entered his mind. There was something too contrived, too controlled about her appearance. Her change in sex, the way she had this time allowed him to ravage her, then had confessed that she had come for the first time seemed unreal to him. No one could change that quickly.
"You planning to stay here?" He asked, watching her reaction with interest.
"As long as you want me to...."
"Why did you come back here?" He did not really expect an honest answer, but he wanted to find out if her own story would change.
"I told you, dear, I wanted to take you up on your offer. I thought maybe you could help me." She did not look at him, but played with the little bush of pubic hairs from which emerged his cock.
"I don't understand you...."
"You will," she smiled, now looking him directly in the eyes, "you'll know me someday."
Ben ran his hand through her long hair. It felt silky and smoothe. She responded by reaching down and holding his penis in her hand. Her smile was wide and inviting. She threw her legs across his belly and rubbed the head of his prick against her crack.
"I can't seem to get enough of you!" She moaned, squeezing his prick up between her pink lips.
"Yeah ... right...."
But her manner, her smile and the feelings which Ben possessed towards her did not allow him to make it. He wanted to sleep, to allow his subconcious time to sift through the events of the past few days. Maybe there, in the uncensored dream images of sleep he would find the origin of the vague, slowly developing feelings of ominousness that seemed to be overtaking him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jim Marks wandered aimlessly along the beach. He carried a large, burlap sack into which he threw old beer cans, the candy wrappers, and an occasional piece of woman's underwear. The summer season was approaching; one more week and it would officially begin with the 'Welcome to Summer Dance' at the Seaside High School Auditorium. As with everyone else in the small town, Jim and his Mother were preparing.
The chore of cleaning the beach had once been a fascination one for the young man. The old junk he found there told a story; once he found a pair of women's panties and a bra. The cups were a 'C and his imagination had gone wild with the visions of a hugh breasted girl wandering into the Pacific Ocean. But today, in another season and at the beginning of another summer, Jim felt no interest in the rotting garbage he lifted from the sand.
The past months had given Jim if nothing else a tremendous sense of his own failure. His lovemaking seemed to make Lee happy but it destroyed him. Each time they met, each time they undressed and began their search for satisfaction, Jim had felt more and more unable to face it. He felt trapped, caught in a gigantic spider web woven with the skillfull hands of Lee.
Jim leaned over and began picking up one beer can after another from a stack of twenty. He thought for a moment about the day the drinkers of the beer must have had. He tried to imagine what kinds of lives they led; if, after gorging themselves with the stuff they had returned to their homes where their lives were being lived. It angered him now that he did not have a life anymore. It frustrated him deeply, but there was nothing he could do about it. Running was his only alternative. But that would mean failure in the highest sense. And Jim had no desire to brand himself a failure at the young age of twenty-two. Once again, as he had done countless times over the past winter, Jim Marks decided to resign himself to the Motel. And with that choice, he would also accept his mother, his relationship with her, and the possible consequences of that relationship. At least, though, he would have the Motel ... and no one could label him a failure for that.
THE END of the beach lay ahead. It was here, in the small cove protected by the small palisades that Jim had first encountered his Mother. It was here, also, that they had come many times since to explore the daring relationship that had developed between them. Jim felt tired as he gazed down at the grey sand. The June fog was rolling in again, and the sky along with the land was shaded in tones of grey. It felt much like that day when Jim and Lee had lay naked together.
The sand felt cool and comforting. Jim closed his eyes and listened to the waves breaking gently on the shore, the wind seemed muffled, and very few seaguls could be heard. He slept for an hour, peacefully dreaming of his adventures as a small boy on this same beach. But then he was awakened by the presence of another human being.
"Hello there!"
Jim shaded his eyes, struggled to his feet and gazed into the lively face of Anne.
"My God! where the Hell did you come from?"
Anne flopped herself down on the sand. She wore her old faded levis and her tee-shirt. Her breasts were visible, outlined against her shirt with clarity.
"Well," she began, playing with sand at her feet, "I went up to the Motel and tried to see you there. Your Mother seemed awfully upset, like I was a bummer wind blowing in or something. Any reason for that?"
She eyed Jim curiously. The reaction she had gotten from Lee had startled her. She had never expected an open arm reception, but the icy stare and crisp answers from Jim's Mother had been quite surprising.
"Yeah," replied Jim, suddenly seeing his life complicated by the appearance of Anne, "I guess she has her reasons."
Jim seated himself next to her. They were afraid to touch, to begin anything that might trigger the old passions. Both sat in silence, sifting the sand through their fingers.
"You leave school?" Asked Jim, beginning to sense a strange thud at the pit of his stomach.
"Oh yeah, a longtime ago. I left after you did. Then I moved into 'Frisco and worked in a bar."
"A bar? What the Hell did you do in a bar?"
"Walked around half naked and served drinks...." Anne was pleased with herself. She was feeling like a jaded woman coming home after a life of perversity and recklessness.
"What about you?" She asked after another brief silence.
Jim stared out towards the middle of the ocean. He wanted to be there but instead was sitting next to the only girl he had ever really cared about. Suddenly, his resignation to his life with Lee had taken on very bad ramafications. "Oh nothing much, just running the Motel like I said I would...."
Anne waited for a sign, some indication that his interest was still alive. But Jim absracted himself from the situation, seemingly drifting out to sea. She wondered if all of this hadn't been some gioantic mistake.
"Where are you staying?" He asked finally, trying to relieve the tension with small talk.
"With a friend...." Anne had decided that she would tell Jim who that 'friend' was. He seemed very unreceptive to her, and she wanted to do something that might possibly evoke a reaction in him. She had realized, after the first second of the meeting, that she still wanted him.
"Ben Grant!!!" He was plainly shocked by her description of her present state, and who was involved in that state. "Jesus, baby, the town stud! I mean, every chick in this shitty place is after him. And you wind up living with him!"
"Is your Mother after him, Jim?" The tone of her question tightened him up immediately. His outrage and shock was replaced by a deeply settled sense of depression and fear.
"Shit if I know, Anne, my Mother keeps pretty well to herself. You know that."
"And to you, doesn't she?" She was shooting her arrows now. Anne had never been a girl to waste much time in throwing her arms at the enemy. When she wanted something she would discharge everything she had and blatantly go after it. If she missed, then not much time would have been wasted in the effort.
Jim kicked at the sand. She had touched a nerve. She watched him carefully, his anger now becomming visible in his neck and cheeks.
"Goddammit, Anne, you don't call, you don't write and suddenly you show up making all kinds of fucked up stories. And besides that, you're living with Ben Grant! Why the Hell don't you go back to that damn school where everything's put into books so that you won't get hurt!!!" He was standing above her, his eyes flashing with anger. For a moment, Anne was frightened. She had never seen his body tense up like this, or had she ever been yelled at by a man like this.
"Go to Hell little girl ... go play your fucking whore games with someone else!!!" He turned and ran back down the beach towards the Motel.
Anne watched him until he disappeared up the shallow ciff and into the courtyard. She had been right, but her weapons had started a war instead of getting them both into a potential treaty. It astounded her that a Mother could have such a holdover her son, but she knew that to be the fact with Jim and his Mother. She was keeping him there, probably feeding him cookies and milk before bedtime and making everything just simply wonderful. As she started back up the hill, Anne became more determined than ever to snag him from the trap into which he had fallen. She felt that she was the only person Jim knew who could help him before it was too late. As she moved quickly along the highway towards town, Anne tried to imagine just how far things had gone with Jim and Lee, but couldn't. She laughed at the thought that possibly they were lovers.
Anne walked alone through the small town for over an hour. She tried to think of someway to reach Jim, some approach that would not immediately pit her against his Mother. That would be a fatal move on her part, and one she could ill afford at this particular time.
By the time she reached Ben's house other matters were being considered. She had told Ben earlier that she was going down to the beach for a walk. She hoped that he did not mistrust her because that would mean the end of her stay in the town. She hurried to the front door, and barged through in her old, exhuberant way.
Ben was sitting on the couch with Elaine. They were not touching, but their faces showed that Anne had invaded a very intricate moment between them.
"I'm sorry" Anne said, feeling the sting of Elaine.
"That's allright. Anne, I'd like you to meet Elaine...."
The tall, thin woman nodded. Her eyes were on fire, she was trying to burn a hole through Anne.
"So this is your scene ... very well done, Ben. She's beautiful.
Ben was at a loss. He moved around the living room, poured another round of drinks and offered one to Anne. She took it gratefully.
"Well, well," Elaine said, "the little girl drinks big people's drinks!"
Anne was getting a little weary of being called a 'little girl.' Once from Jim, and now from this woman who was obviously a former lover of Ben's.
"She's not a little girl, Elaine," said Ben, a touch of humor in his voice. He had obviously relaxed himself enough to enjoy the scene. Anne wondered if he cared for either of them enough to even get angry or upset.
"Yes," replied Elaine, her eyes firmly planted on Anne's breasts beneath the tee-shirt, "I supose she isn't. At least her body seems slightly developed."
"Oh, come, ladies. There's nothing to get upset about! I mean, life must go on and everything." Ben smiled to himself. He hadn't the slightest idea of what to do, or how to rectify the situation and his total impotence in the situation was almost amusing.
"Well, I'll be on my way," said Elaine, standing up strongly and straight, trying to impose her lifetime of manners and culture as a way of hiding what she felt. As she opened the door, she turned towards Ben, after first looking Anne up and down as a Man would and said, "I've got to meet Helen."
She slammed the door behind her. Ben stood in the center of the room, astounded by this revelation. She had taken up with the town lesbian, after all. His leaving had caused her to seek it with another woman. Suddenly, Ben was more angry with Elaine's husband than he had been with any man in a longtime. "That bastard!" He shouted.
"Who?" Asked, Anne, not really knowing if she should involve herself any further in the day's events.
"No one...."He turned from her and went into the bedroom. Anne suddenly felt very small, as though the events which she had witnessed were taking place in another realm of understanding.
She felt as though she were invading another land, a country reserved only for those who passed some secret kind of initiation and were admitted for life. She didn't even know what the ceremony consisted of, and therefore would never be a member.
With Ben's penis in her mouth, though, Anne began re-establishing her own presence. As she sucked and licked on his prick, she knew that her identity and her being were once again a part of someone's life; once again she was having some effect on another human being.
"What brought that on?" Asked Ben after she had finished by licking him dry.
"Just felt like it, that's all."
"I didn't till you started, then I really felt like it. You do everything well...." He was being complimentary. His sincerity was real. After the scene with Elaine, even before Anne arrived, Ben had found himself apologizing for things which he had no business feeling bad about. After all, it wasn't his fault that she would not get a divorce. Yet, talking with Elaine had brought him to the point of feeling that everything was his fault. It had done one other thing, also, and that was to reinstill the images of Lee Grant in his mind. He had felt that with Anne present the desire he held for the woman would have left him a long time ago. Instead, Elaine managed through her self-pity and accusations to rekindill the desire even more.
Anne laughed because she felt the same way. If anyone had asked her the same question, she would have replied with the same bitterness and sense of despair with which Ben had. When she started laughing, Ben also began to laugh. In a sense, both knew deep down inside what was causing the laughter. But it was not yet time for either to admit that they were after the same family; she, the Son and Ben and the Mother.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Seaside Armory was decorated with a banner that extended across the old facade of the building. It read 'Beginning of the End Dance Tonight.' It was the town council's way of providing some humor into what was considered a very joyful and inspiring occassion.
Each year, the town of Seaside celebrated the beginning of summer, and with it the coming of the tourists and money, with a dance in the old armory building. It was a time for friends who had not seen each other all winter to get together and discuss the upcoming season. It was a time for plans to be made for beach parties and other events that might inspire more people to come to the small beach town for their vacations. But underneath the surface, it acted as a convenient summit meeting for those who meant to acquire new lovers, or those Who meant to drop the old ones.
Lee Marks stood behind the serving counter, pouring whisky into sodas and keeping a careful eye on Jim. She had not wanted to come but Jim had convinced her that it would be good if she established herself as a community minded businesswoman. Tending bar, thus avoiding the lecherous propositions to dance from the men of the town was one way in which she could handle the evening.
But Jim had seen the promise of the dance under another light altogether. He sensed that his attendance might provide him with some outlet, some way of at least breaking out of the mould into which he had set for one night. If he could just manage to deliver himself into another area for four or five hours, he thought, then maybe he would be able to see something. He had no idea what he was trying to see, but knew there was something which he must look for.
The hall was crowded with the townspeople. Elaine was with Helen, standing off in a corner and talking softly. Lee watched her with something akin to envy. At least, she thought, there was no mistaking what her scene was. Everyone who passed by the female couple nodded abruptly and moved on. Some Men stared at them, fascinated by the thought of the two of them naked in each others' arms. The women were equally fascinated, sometimes even jealous of what they felt must be uninhibited sex. Lee watched these people carefully because she still felt them to be enemies.
When Ben Grant arrived with the little beauty from the North on his arm everyone turned to look. Anne wore white bell bottom pants wrapped snugly around her hips, not more than an inch above the line of her pubic hair. Her hair was piled high on her head, and her tanned body was revealed almost completely above her waist. She wore a simple shirt that was open so that her cleavage was revealed and tied in a knot just below her breasts. Aside from Lee's sultry and mysterious good looks, Anne was the most remarkable looking woman there.
"Why hello Lee!" Ben's voice was loud and Lee detected something akin to overacting. She remembered well the confession he had uttered to her that day at her Motel.
"Mr. Grant" she said, handing him a whiskey and soda, "it's nice to see you here." Her voice did not reveal a thing. Ben took the drink, handed it to Anne and turned back to Lee for another.
"I'm sorry" said Lee, quickly pouring another, "I didn't think she was old enough to drink...."
Ben searched her eyes. They were blank except for one small twinkle. Ben could not tell whether it was humor or what. But at least she had reacted to him, even if it had been in a very sarcastic manner.
"Thank you, Lee." He took the drink. Their eyes lingered for a second too long. Suddenly, Anne understood what had been ailing Ben. She took notice of Jim's Mother now. She realized just how beautiful and strange the older woman was. Now, Anne had reason to be doubly jealous.
"She's quite a beautiful woman...." Anne admitted as they walked across the wood floor. "Always has been ... every guy in this town's been chasing after her for years. Her hubbie left her and I guess she's never forgotten. Won't have a thing to do with any man."
"That's a shame," replied Anne, "seems like quite a waste."
From the way Ben shrugged off her statement, she knew that she was right. Their eyes had lingered there for reasons other than pure laziness or slowness. Ben was definitely desirous of her, and Anne knew that her time with him was limited.
When she spotted Jim, though, Anne knew that the tables were reversed. "Excuse me a minute...."Ben stood silently watching as Anne walked briskly to where Jim stood.
The record player blasted a Rolling Stones tune. Most of the people looked silly dancing. But Anne and Jim made a great looking couple. They seemed to know each others' rhythyms as they writhed and shook on the floor. Ben watched the other Men as they stared with wide open eyes at Anne's breasts bobbing beneath her thin shirt.
The people made a semi-circle around the couple and clapped as they moved back and forth in that small area. Anne smiled brightly, and Jim began to grin also. It had been the first time Lee had seen her son smile all winter. She felt the cold chill of greyness invading her body as she watched the couple. She poured herself a double and leaned back against the wall.
"That's a pretty strong drink for this early." Ben stood against the bar, smiling at Lee. He had seen her from across the room, falling quickly when her son had begun dancing with his young lover. He had decided that his moment had come.
"Like to get myself off as soon as possible. Pretty boring crowd here...." Her voice was high-pitched and defensive. She held her cup tightly.
"Well, there's nothing wrong with that! I mean, there's really not much else people around here do except drink and make love anyway. When they get together they tend to get pretty damn bored ... no one can cheat."
"Some people like to, though, don't they?" She talked away from Ben, staring out onto the dance floor where the music had stopped. Ben looked where she was looking and saw Anne and Jim walking off together.
"Oh" explained Ben, "she doesn't mean that much to me. I'm just kind of taking care of her."
Lee looked at him intently. She seemed confused for a moment then pulled herself together. "I wasn't talking about...."
But then she stopped. She had almost revealed what she knew could never be talked about. Suddenly, she felt very alone and very withdrawn. She realized that her affair with Jim had split her apart. She could hardly talk with anyone without giving her secret away; it had been so long since she had to deal with anyone.
"Well" drawled Ben, grinning broadly "it really doesn't matter, does it? I mean, you're a Woman and I'm a Man. We can understand these things, can't we?"
He looked intensely in her eyes. Lee caught his look for a second, then dropped her eyes to the floor. "Yes" she whispered, "I suppose we can."
"Care to dance?"
They were playing a slow ballad. For some reason which she could not explain to herself, she accepted his invitation.
He held her tightly, He felt her breasts pushing against his chest and allowed his hand to roam down to where the flesh of her buttocks pushed out beneath her dress. He had never held such a good feeling woman before in his life. His excitement over holding her and breathing her fragrance grew completely out of control.
Lee felt the strong, almost animalistic Man holding her grow hard between them. She pulled her belly away from his. She became frightened with the way he held her, with the strange presence he exuded. She felt that if she let herself go at all that she would be swept away into some ravaged land where her body would serve only as the ground he would tread upon. It was so much different for her now. Jim had always been light and gentle, hardly a physical thing at all. Now, she was in the arms of someone who demanded physical control. It was a very unsettled feeling. "Your Mother looks like she's grooving along."
Jim looked at Anne, the beads of sweat shining off her forehead, then turned his gaze back to Ben and his Mother. It was hard for him to imagine ever holding her naked in his arms; or rather, she holding him in her arms. That was the way it had gone. Jim hardly felt anymore that any participation on his part was necessary for sex. His Mother had done everything for him.
Anne held his hand and tightened her grip. But Jim did not respond. She squeezed a little harder, but still no Jim. Finally, she brought his hand to her mouth and bit him on the side.
"Goddammit! What the Hell ...!!!"
Anne smiled, happy that she had at least gotten something from him. "Just wanted to see if you were still alive. I thought maybe you had become catatonic...."
Jim took her hand, squeezed her fingers until Anne thought the bones would crush against one another. When he finally released the pressure, there were tears in her eyes.
"God, I'm sorry!" He really meant it, he was startled by his own reaction.
"Don't be" said Anne, trying to understand something that was just out of reach, "maybe you needed to do that...."
Her eyes moved down to his groin. Beneath his tight fitting double knits, it was obvious that he had a giant hard-on. He only noticed his condition after Anne had made the discovery first.
"Jesus!" He muttered, looking at Anne staring at him with curious and understanding eyes.
"Maybe that's become your scene, Jim."
It was a stark and uncomfortable realization. But that feeling he had had earlier about coming and maybe finding himself a way out was with him again. Only this time, the way out was visible, hinted at maybe, but still somewhere within his reach. It was obvious that Anne was offering him the chance to get out, to work this thing out in himself.
"If it is...?" He asked, not sure how to say what had become so vague within him.
"If it is" she was completing the thought for him, " ... that way for you, then it's the other way for me. I mean, you can use me if you like. It really doesn't matter in the end anyway."
"I'm scared." Jim said, looking at all the people whom he new would detest him for what he had done before this night and what he was now contemplating doing after this night.
"Don't be," replied Anne, smiling, "we'll work it all out."
Jim looked across the crowded room to where his Mother stood. The dance had ended and she was talking with Ben. At least, Ben was talking with her. He remembered the nights with her, the feelings of frustration and pain that he had suffered at her hands. The control that she had exercised over him. And suddenly he felt angry, angry enough to hit anyone or anything that would ever get in his way again.
"Let's get the fuck out of here!" He took the most beautiful girl in the Armory and led her out the back doors. A few of the older Men watched her ass shimmy beneath the white pants as she walked out into the night with Jim Marks.
"Lucky son-of-a-bitch" they said, almost in unison.
Lee ignored the comments from the men around her. She lit a cigarette and turned her back on Ben.
"Young love, Lee, makes the world go around." Ben was trying, it had not occurred to him what the full extent of Lee's relationship with her son might have been.
"Yeah" she said bitterly, "a truly beautiful thing."
"Come out with me ... we'll go have some drinks."
"No ... thank you ... I can't...." Her voice was trembeling. Ben withdrew, thinking he had decided, one who would have to be courted with dignity and grace. Ben realized that he must change in some way if he was ever to get her. But Ben never changed for a Woman, and now was not the time.
"You sure?"
"Listen," said Lee, turning to Ben with a vacant look in her eyes, "you would make anyone with a little hair between her legs. And maybe a few without it! So lay off, you're a little too obvious for my blood. Go spit on fires or something!!!"
She was almost hysterical. She threw her drink onto the bar and stormed out of the Armory. Ben watched her leave, wondering what the Hell he had said.
"What's wrong baby, the bitch getting to you?" Elaine stood behind him. Helen was glaring at her from across the room.
"Have a drink?" He handed one to Elaine and took one more for himself.
"Maybe you should try the other side" she continued, looking at him with a penetration and hatred he had never seen before. "You know, a lot of Men around here would be honored by your cock."
"You're pressing, Elaine, just lay off!" Ben was barely able to listen to her. Her presence was off his limit, she was barely in his field of vision.
"So are you, honey. You know she's just a dyke ... like all the rest of us!"
"Elaine, please shut up, okay?"
Elaine laughed, thinking she had struck him where it hurt. Ben turned to her, ready to strike her across the mouth. Instead, he ran his hand up between her legs and grabbed her mound with such force that she almost fell over backwards.
"Goddamn you," she moaned, "you bastard!"
"Listen dear," Ben warned, his hand still firmly planted between her thighs, "it's not my fucking fault you married some goddamn fruit nor is it my fault you make it with Women. So get the fuck out of my way!!!"
But Elaine was soft now. That fiery hatred had vanished from her eyes. Instead, they watered now and there was a distinct warmth and moistness coming from her panties. Ben smiled.
"That's better, baby...."
"Take me outside, Ben, and hurry!!"
Ben looked over his shoulder as they left the building. Helen the bull stood in the corner, ready to destroy the entire building with her hatred.
* * *
The highway back to her house was empty of all traffic. Everyone was still back at the armory, joyfully bringing in the summer season. Lee Marks walked without thinking along the deserted road, staring only in the direction that lay ahead of her.
When she came upon the small beach that preceded her Motel, she stopped and wandered over to the cliff's edge. The full moon hung precariously over the horizon, illumination a wide belt of water towards the shore. She listened for the soft summer wind and heard it. She looked up and down the beach, trying to imagine the fat tourists baking themselves into a lobster color over the next few months and she saw them. Then, she tried to see herself during those months. She would play the casual, gay hostess, the woman whose chic and sense of the good time was the sole recommendation for anyone to come to her Motel. But this she could not imagine.
Her mind wandered aimlessly over the past few months. It had been like a dream to her. everything that had happened with Jim was still clear, but it all seemed to have happened 'out there' someplace, and not within her. She felt less involved with herself and with her own life than she had in a long time. It was as though she were standing outside, looking in and seeing nothing.
And then she heard the sound. It wasn't a bird shrieking after his prey, nor was it the wind whistling through the gorges in the mountains behind her. It was kind of a low moan ... a cry of pain that at once sounded child-like and sinister. She had heard much the same sound from cats when they were in heat, and it had always terrified her.
Lee stared intently down onto the beach but the noise had fallen away. When she heard it again, she looked down towards the cove where she and Jim had first entered their strange land. The sound was louder now, more intense and filled with more pain.
As she walked down the road towards the spot above the cove. Lee wondered why she was going there. If someone was in trouble there would be little she could do. But the pained sound seemed to draw her anyway, seemed to reflect what she felt inside.
The two figures were naked beneath the moonlight. The Boy held a branch of seaweed. He stood above the writhing figure of the nude girl. Her legs were spread widely and she was crying out into the wind. As her voice pitched itself, the Boy brought the branch high over his head and slashed the Girl across the thighs mightily. Her cry died down as she took the whip, then rose again as the pain of the strike shot through her body.
Lee stood transfixed above the cove. She had never seen anything like this, had never encountered pain in such brutal fashion. It was almost like a game, the way the Boy stood above the Girl striking poses of God-like stature. But the fantasy image of the action was broken by the real cries of the sufferer and by the real sounds of the whip as it struck the young Woman's flesh. .
"You bitch ... you bitch!!!" The Man cried, bringing the whip down across the girl's body.
"My God ... stop ... stop ... stopp!!!" She cried, then silence, then the moan of intense pain.
Lee shuddered and wavered on the cliffside. The blood pumped through her temples, drained itself from her body and left her helplessly weak. She fell to her knees and held onto the ground in front of her for support. The darkness, the moon's shaft of light across the sea, the sounds of the crying girl down below on the beach all swam together in her mind. She was losing control ... reeling into a vast pit of swirling pain and images. She had realized that the couple down on the beach were Jim and Anne.
"Nooooo ...!!!!" Lee screamed, dragging herself away from the spot where she had bore witness to the events below. But her voice was lost to the wind. She began running, the tears blinding her and the pain building inside her without mercy. In another moment, she would be overtaken completely. She must run fast.
The Motel was dark. There were no cars in the lot, and hers was in the garage. She unlocked the door, pulled open the door and walked inside. She knew exactly where to go in the darkened corners of the garage. There, laying beneath a blanket, was a five gallon gas can. Lee took the can, pulled a long tube from inside, and stuffed the tube down into the gas tank of her own car. She sucked wildly on the tube until she felt the gas coming from within the bowels of her car. She drained the car, transfering the liquid into the can. The car came for a full five minutes and then the gas can was filled. Lee closed the garage door, snapped the small lock shut and began walking purposefully towards Wilson's Grove.
* * *
The dance music could be heard from where Ben and Elaine lay. They had both raised such a heat in themselves that where or how they satisfied that passion did not matter. After leaving the hall, they had run through the brush outside, had found a bare spot amongst the bushes and had fallen to the ground in each others' arms.
They had undressed each other quickly. And when they were naked, Ben had plunged deep inside Elaine. She had met him with screams and moans of passion. They had both come while thrusting wildly into each other, and then had rested.
"I guess I'm a little AC/DC now...." Elaine said, stroking Ben's thigh and smoking a cigarette.
Ben turned towards her, raised an eyebrow and frowned. "What the Hell does that mean?"
Elaine shifted her body, and threw one long leg across Ben's groin. She massaged his penis with her knee, moving it in small circles around and around. "It means, my love, that I can go either way. A Man or a Woman ... the best of both worlds."
As he was growing hard, Ben felt a tinge of guilt. But then he realized that Elaine's problems were not specifically his. Her husband had neglected her, he was the one who had turned her into what she was. "I guess we all have our problems...."
"I'm not complaining, Ben. It's just that sometimes I wonder what the Hell happened along the way. I mean, I never really wanted that much. Just a home, a Man to sleep with and some kids ... so look what happens!"
"I'm sorry I didn't meet you earlier, Elaine. You're about all a man could ask for in a Woman
...." The phrase worked. Elaine smiled broadly.
"Thanks" she whispered, kissing Ben's ear and working her tongue slowly around inside. She knew that when she was with Ben she could feel like a woman. She had long ago discounted any pride as a factor in her relationship with him. It was enough for her to just be able to feel wet and moist, to feel the blood of both their bodies surging together in unison like a man and a woman's should. It was during these moments with Ben that she reclaimed herself to the world of the living.
Ben watched her naked body move beneath the moonlight. Her skin shone as she moved lower and lower on his.
Helen stood above them for a full minute before speaking. She was angry, and she looked like an outraged Mother ready to scold her little boy after catching him playing with himself. The two naked bodies were spread wide on top of the other, and the mouths were giving pleasure to the others sex. This was an act that Helen would never experience with a man.
"I hate to interupt this little fucking orgy!" She said finally, enjoying the sight of Elaine and Ben pulling away from each other's sex and trying to cover themselves.
"What the Hell!" Ben shouted, seeing the huge bulk of woman standing above them.
Helen stared at Ben's groin. He was hard and there was no way to cover himself properly. "You're not all that big, junior, I've got a dildo at home that makes you look like a Pan!"
"Shut-up, you bitch!" Elaine was outraged. She stood up without bothering to dress and Ben wondered if he was about to see a woman's wrestling match.
"You let him use you like that, you little fool, and you tell me to shut-up?"
"Helen " Ben said, pulling on his pants and standing up to the woman, "get the Hell out of here before I clobber you!"
Helen stared first at Ben then at Elaine. Her eyes were on fire, she towered above Elaine and was exactly Ben's height. "I've got a message for the fucking stud fire chief" she admitted finally, her voice a little soothed now, "Jimmy sent it. Wilson's Grove is on fire...."
Ben could not decide whether or not to believe her. The combination of her arrival and the announcement that possibly arson was on the rampage again struck him hard. Elaine watched him, waiting for him to move. She was still naked.
"Go ahead" Elaine said, "I can take care of Helen...."
There was no choice. Ben was almost afraid to leave Elaine in the hands of her lover. The huge Woman was much sadder now then frightening, but still her presence was ominous.
"Okay ... but you two behave yourselves!"
Ben pulled on his clothes, kissed Elaine quickly, then disappeared into the bush. Elaine watched him leave in silence, then felt Helen's hand moving slowly up between her naked thighs. She was still warm there, still wet from the scene with Ben.
"You want to apolgize?" Helen asked, her fingers playing at Elaine's vagina.
"Yes" moaned the naked girl, spreading herself so that Helen would have better access to her moist cunt.
Wilson's Grove was located ten miles from Seaside at the end of a riverbed that flowed to the ocean. Hundreds of tall, straight Sequoia trees stood proudly in the small grove, planted over fifty years in the past by Harold Wilson, after whom the grove was named. Harold Wilson had been a prosperous farmer who worked the land on the other side of the mountains in the fertile inland valleys. His one desire was to be immortal through the act of planting the immortal trees. Until the warm June night when the town of Seaside celebrated its summer season, that dream had been realized.
The road leading into the grove was a one lane affair. As Ben grant moved his hook and ladder through the crowds, his anger flared as high and strong as did the flames leaping hundreds of feet into the sky before him.
Once again, the townspeople had gotten there before him. Cars were lined up along the road, and the people milled about excited and turned on by the fire. Finally, with the help of the Sheriff's cars, Ben and Jimmy were able to edge their way to the grove.
The sight was spectacular. The tall, stately trees were still standing straight and proud. But at least a third of them, the orange fingers crept steadily towards the tops. The huge poles were doomed unless a miracle occurred.
Ben realized that what water there was, was limited to the amount that his pumper carried in the tank. After that, he supposed, they would have to begin chopping down the trees in the rear of the grove and thus hope to prevent a major forest fire. He directed Jimmy around to the rear and they began fighting the rushing blaze from there. If they could push the flame s seaward, out through the river bed where the people were lined up, then they might save the mountains.
The townspeople realized what was happening. The sheriff's, now numbering fifteen cars and thirty men, began driving the people back out through the bed and onto the highway. Within ten minutes, the needed ground was cleared.
On one of the mountainsides which flanked the grove, Lee Marks watched. She was naked, and the heat from the flames a hundred feet below warmed her already seething skin. She lay spreadeagled on the side of the incline, her fingers working feverishly indside her vagina, driving her strongly towards her 'place."
Her eyes were riveted on the small, almost miniscule figure of Ben Grant down in the center of the grove. His presence there seemed futile. He was a man alone battling the tremendous flames and the winds. She laughed and cried as she sucked on her nipple, and clenched her thighs tightly around her hand.
The sound of the sirens, a glorious and ominous sound, relieved Ben almost to tears. The message he had sent just before his departure had been heeded. The trucks, pumpers, hooks and ladders would be coming from as far away as Los Angeles and San Diego. There would be more than what was needed because the threat of a massive forest fire was iminent. And each of the cities who sent their men and equiptment fully realized the implications of this realtively small fire in Wilson's Grove.
Ben Grant had held off the enemy long enough. The tall, straight trees, their dark presence now illuminated and out in the open, would be saved. Lee felt herself retreat, she pulled her hand from between her legs and slowly began to dress. She remembered the evening. The dark trees looming above her like some threat to her own existence; the quiet, hot winds blowing softly through the grove. And finally, the way the liquid gas fell from her can to the base of the trees. She remembered her anger when she had finally thrown the match to the ring of gasoline, and the relief she felt when the flames leaped high onto the hulking mass of the trees. She had started the battle, and would retreat to the hillside to watch Ben in battle with the destructive flames. She remembered thinking that it would be like watching a Man fighting to save his own sex. And she remembered laughing when she had first seen Ben enter the grove, a small and helpless creature doing battle with the tremendous forces that she herself had unleashed.
* * *
The grove was scarred, but not destroyed. Ben stood at the edge, drinking a cup of scalding coffee and watching the units pulling slowly out of the battleground. Before him, the embers seethed and sometimes sparkled, emanating their last blast of energy before dying.
The dawn was breaking. The morning clouds hung over the little riverbed and gave the scene an eerie, unreal feeling. Jimmy Blackburn walked quickly along the banks of the dry river, carrying a five gallon gas can.
"Oh Jesus!" Moaned Ben when presented with the can.
"It's insane, Ben, I mean, we're dealing with some kind of pervert...."
Ben fondled the can, hoping to feel something from its presence, to gather some insight into where it came from. "Any analysis possible?"
Jimmy sighed. He had already handed the evidence over to the mobile arson unit from the Los Angeles company.
"Goddammit, Jimmy, I thought we were dealing with a one-shot arsonist. The summer's here ... it's going to be Hell!"
Jimmy nodded. The summer meant strong winds blowing in from the desert. They would dry out everything in sight, and by the end of the season the land extending inward from the sea would be a veritable tinder box, ready to erupt with only the slightest provocation. It was bad enough as a situation in itself; but now there was someone who set fires to contend with.
"We've got to find the bastard!" Ben was solemn, was fixing himself a goal which Jimmy knew he would not waver from until completed.
"We've got three months 'till the real bad time, Ben, I hope we can do it...."Jimmy surveyed the land he loved so well. He would commit himself to the problem with as much force as Ben would, but for entirely different reasons.
"We've got to do it, Jimmy. It'll be the end of everything if we don't!" Ben knew that his words carried more than just surface meaning. He knew that he was not only trying to save the land, but to save himself. He gulped his coffee down hard, felt the tension and worry drain from him. He felt more tired than he could ever remember.
CHAPTER NINE
The grey dawn hovered over the calm ocean. The distinct line between the sky and water had all but disappeared. There were no more breaks of boundaries, all things had merged into one.
The two lone figures huddled against the cold just beneath the rocky cliff. Around their bodies they had put an old army blanket. There was a calm that existed between them that matched the silence of the grey sea.
Anne moved her naked leg away from Jim's. She had been awake now for an hour and had spent that hour staring without thought into the bleakness which lay before them. Her body ached with the bruises she had suffered at the hands of Jim the night before. But as much as the welts brought her flesh pain, her mind remained passive and silent. The screams which had invaded her thoughts were distinctly absent.
"Wake up, Jim ... it's almost daylight...."
Jim moaned. His naked body was welded with hers. He Slept with his head on her breast, and Anne enjoyed the feeling.
"Come on ... get up...." She moved his shoulder. Finally, his eyes opened and he smiled up at her. "You want to sleep here all day?"
"No...." He answered, now becomming aware of his own nudity and her body pressed against his. His thoughts traveled back to the evening as he tried to sort out the events which had led them to this place.
They had each felt the strange presence of the other at the dance the crushing grip of their hands had foretold of what lay ahead, yet each of them had proceeded without over verbalizing what they knew to be the future. At least the future of that particular night.
Together, feeling the excitement rising, they had walked along the moonlit road to the beach. The soft winds had been blowing and the night had been shining.
"You left Ben" Jim had said, looking out at the gently rolling surf.
"Yes, but it doesn't matter. He just tolerated me anyway."
"Is that why you came to him?"
Anne had looked down at the sand. Her black hair, hanging down across her thinly concealed breasts had looked beautiful in the soft light of the moon. Jim had felt a surge of love and affection for her.
"I didn't come here for him...." She said, now looking directly at Jim with her shining green eyes. Those eyes still mocked him, still exuded intelligence and a certain kind of dare. Jim had realized what she had been asking him for. It had been the first time that her eyes had not made him retreat.
"Jim" she began, her body straightening into a statue-like pose, "I want you. I want you any way I can ... it doesn't matter anymore."
The dance had flooded his mind as he remembered her telling him that maybe the scene he was into was 'strange.' Jim felt a throb in his throat, and his limbs suddenly felt weak. He didn't know if he could make it.
"I've got to go swimming" He said, pulling at his clothes.
"But the water must be freezing!" Anne complained, not wanting to be left alone on the sand.
"Dammit! I've got to ... first!"
"Okay, Jim, I'll wait...."
She sat on the sand and watched him as he ran into the water.
"My God!" Anne cried as he walked shivering and blue towards her, "you look like something from the ice age!"
"I love you!" He said, dropping into her lap.
She held him against her chest, rubbing his naked flesh vigorously, trying to get his blood moving again. Jim shook wildly, feeling as though his entire body would dissove with the shaking.
Anne reached down between his legs and held his penis. She rubbed the organ slowly, breathing heavily into his ear. "Maybe this'll help start the circulation...."
"Goddamit ... it's not working!!!"
Anne did not speak. Her eyes shone into his. She seemed ready to accept anything, to become a partner to him in any way that he wanted.
"Do what you have to, Jim, it's alright...."
This time, Jim sensed strongly what she was saying. He pushed her back onto the sand. She lay still as he ripped at her shirt and finally stripped it from her body. Her white breasts heaved with excitement as he took the nipples strongly between his fingers and ground them firmly.
"Oh yessss...." She moaned, pushing his hand tighter against her flesh.
Jim pulled her pants apart, then struggled to get the white material down accross her hips. Anne lay passive, not moving and not offering any help. Finally, he managed to rip the material from her. He stood up, panting and beginning to feel again.
He stared down at her white body. Her pubis was just a small, darkened triangle which hovered between closed thighs. Her stomach was flat and her waist narrow. In every way, she was perfect.
Anne held his eyes firmly locked into her own. As he reached down and picked up the seaweed. She barely felt the blow. She knew she could bear it as long as their eyes remained fixed together. If that was taken away, she knew that she would panic.
He stood above her and whipped her mercilessly. She spread her legs and arched herself up to him. Her pink lips were swollen and her cunt shone with her juices. She gripped the sand on either side of her and rocked her head back and forth.
"You Goddamn ... bitch ... bitch ...!!!" He cried over and over again as he brought the whip harder and harder against her smooth skin. The welts began to show, the bruises were becoming reality. Finally, the images of Lee began disappearing and the image of Anne, laying naked and spreadeagled filled his mind. He dropped the whip and fell between her legs.
Anne took him inside with more gratitude than she had ever felt for anything. Her hot lips parted as his cock slid deeply inside her teething vagina. As he pumped and stroked furiously over her, Anne finally closed her eyes and let herself go.
There was no more need for the eye contact which had been so important before.
They had fallen asleep in each others' arms, their bodies covered only by the old army blanket. Anne had been the first to hear the sirens. She had awakened Jim.
"Sounds Big!" She had said, looking out along the beach for some signs of a blaze.
"Leave it alone" he had said, "I don't give a damn if this whole fucking place burns to the ground."
He had brought her to him and they had gone peacefully to sleep. Jim would never know about the raging fire ten miles away in Wilson's Grove. Nor, would he know that his Mother had seen him as he had tried to eliminate her image from his mind. All Jim had wanted to know was that he was in the arms of someone he loved, and that the feelings were the first real ones he had had in nine months.
Jim had recovered from his thoughts of the night before. Anne was looking at him curiously, waiting for him to rejoin her.
"Welcome back to the land of the living ... I thought maybe you were going to wander all day
"Was I that bad?" Jim asked sheepishly.
"You looked worried and very serious. I don't know if I can take that kind of mood."
When she dropped the blanket from her shoulders, Jim gazed upon her breasts. She looked even more beautiful now than she had the night before. "You're gorgeous!"
"And I'm also stark naked! Shouldn't we get dressed?"
She threw the blanket off her body and began pulling on her clothes.
"What the Hell are we going to do?" He moaned, suddenly feeling the depression slipping around him like an unwanted coat.
Anne grinned broadly. She was lifting her blouse over her head and her breasts moved in perfect unison. "Don't worry about a thing, Jim. I've got it all figured out!"
"What do you mean you've got it all figured out? What about me?"
"Well," she said, reaching down and clasping his prick, "I mean you're included also ... if you want to be."
The scene was not working out properly. Anne was taking the lead, and would direct them. He resented it strongly, but did not know if he could manage without her. "Yes, I want to, you know that!"
Anne held his hand against her hair. She softened, because she knew what she was saying to him. "Let's get the Hell out of this trap.
She led Jim up the cliff and out towards the highway. Down the road, Jim could see the lights of the Motel.
But Anne held his hand tightly in hers. As they stood on the asphalt, waiting for the kind person who would take them North, They were both silent.
A new sedan finally stopped and a middle-aged Man with wire rim glasses and flowered bell bottoms opened the door for the young couple. He punched the accelerator to the floor, jammed another 'Stone's' cartridge into the tape deck and drove Jim away from the town of Seaside.
CHAPTER TEN
The days that followed the fire and Jim's departure left Lee wandering aimlessly in a cold, grey world. She felt nothing, and preferred it that way. The many hours in the day which she had to fill were taken with cleaning the Motel and tending to the one or two traveling salesman who wandered into the depressing looking overnight stop.
Lee thought that because she was feeling nothing that she had finally made her way into a land which would accommodate her. If there was no feeling, she surmised, then there would be no anxiety, no pulsating feelings of being left behind. The daily chores, the routine provided her with the sense of a condemned prisoner. But at least the absolute absence of pleasure, or even the potential of pleasure, allowed her to suffer what she felt to be her own destiny and punishment in peace.
The days were growing warmer, and soon more and more people began arriving at the Motel. Most were families whose plans to stay in the larger resort towns up the coast had been thwarted due to the crowded conditions. Making due with what was available, having promised their children a vacation by the sea, they had to settle on Seaside. At least the town had an ocean, and mostly for the kids, that was enough.
Lee took one family after another into her Motel without either emotion or pretention. The wives looked at their husbands who stared wide-eyed at the beautiful blond as she walked them to the cabins. Lee always wore white slacks, and a cashmier sweater. Even though she felt empty inside, she remained ravishing on the surface. Most Men decided to stay at her place not because of the location or the rooms, but because they thought that possibly they had one chance in a thousand to make it with this lovely young Woman who lived alone. The Motel was not, therefore, the most popular spot with the Women.
One couple, in the their mid-forties, named Ed and Sue Jackson arrived near the end of July with their deck chairs and umbrellas. He was a tall, skinny Man with a shock of hair that stood out from his skull as though he had set it by plugging himself into an electric socket. His eyes were wild and darting, as though he was constantly on guard because if he let himself down for one second he might miss something. Sue was short and plump, with large brown eyes that remained passive and withdrawn. Lee thought she looked like a cow, or a dog, when she first met her. She was also afraid of her. There was something about Sue that foretold of hatred and bitterness that lay at rest like the molten lava of a volcano ... and once the eruption began, no one within her reach would be safe.
"Yes?" She asked, looking at the Mutt and Jeff couple. They seemed to be nothing more than a continuation of her own dream.
"We'd like a room, y'know? Something groovy over the water, like." Ed spoke in a slowly delivered staccato. At some point in his life he had been told that he spoke too fast, and only through elocution lessons would he regain some control.
"Well, I've got number ten, at the end of the row ... it's fifteen a night...." Lee lit a cigarette, finding this incongruous couple stimulating her interest in people more so than anyone had since Jim had left with Anne.
"We'll take it!" Ed said, fishing out the money with trembeling fingers.
Lee watched his mousy little wife, standing there glaring first at her husband then at Lee. Lee wondered what the small Woman thought was happening. Her eyes were on fire, and the sparks shot evenly between herself and Ed.
"Thank you...." Lee said, taking the money. "Check out time is two in the afternoon. If you want to swim, the path to the beach is at this end of the building. The afternoon, around three or so is good because of the tide...."
Ed watched her move to the key rack pull off the clanging metal, and throw it onto the counter. He took the key slowly, his eyes never leaving Lee.
"Is there anything else?" Lee said, smiling and not knowing why she suddenly felt like flirting.
"We'll see about that...."
"Let's go Edgar, I need a drink." Sue was pulling her husband by the hand. She was firm in the jaw, determined once again, thought Lee, to get her own way. As she watched the unusual couple walk through the door, Lee felt a great amount of pity for the tall, lanky Man. At least not everyone's normal or happy, she thought to herself.
That night, Lee sat alone in her living room, working on her fifth scotch and water. She was beginning to feel the effects of the liquor. Her system began to smoothe itself out, she began to have the almost constant illusion that maybe things would eventually work themselves out.
This was a feeling she always had when she managed to numb her mind. It allowed her other emotions, her hopes to reclaim some hold on her life. Each night, through at least a fifth of a gallon, Lee would manage to arrive at this point. The aura would remain with her for an hour, and on rare occassion even longer. Tonight, it settled in nicely, and she felt a good night coming on.
The beach outside her window was dark. She stared out into the blackness, and her mind did not move back to the times she spent with her Son because she could not see the empty cove. She was relieved at this, knowing that at least the usual thoughts were to be avoided.
The first flash went almost unnoticed. But when the second flare appeared like a huge match being struck somewhere on the beach, Lee jumped. She glided across the room, planted her face against the cool glass of her window, and waited. Soon, down near the cove, a huge bonfire exploded into the night air.
The two figures hunched around the leaping flames were indistinguishable to her blurry eyes. After staring at the powerful flames, even those became nonexistent. The only visual phenomena she saw was the energy, the surging pulse of the fire itself. Even though she knew that no firemen would come to fight the blaze, Lee felt her thighs warming up and her prickly pubic hairs rubbing against the silken lining of her panties.
She walked through the darkness towards the inferno. The alcohol had invaded her completely now, and her senses swarmed as she came closer and closer to the flames. The orange glow became a blur, the heat stretched itself and penetrated her light clothing. Lee no longer wondered why she was heading in this direction or even what she would encounter once she arrived. The pull, the invitation which the fire itself had issued to her was enough. Anything more than that was not needed on this warm summer night.
Ed and Sue Jackson knelt quietly before the fire, staring into the teething inferno and looking like savages from an uncivilized tribe seeking warmth and security. Neither one spoke, and the drinks they held in their hands teetered on the brink. Lee stood fifteen feet from them and watched. They had become as much a part of the fire as she had. Their eyes glowed with the reflected orange light, and their skin darkened and shone according to the pulse which ebbed and flowed before them.
Lee took her place next to Sue. The small woman glanced cruiously at her, then returned her stare towards the center of the bonfire. The heat was terrific, but it felt more real than anything she had felt in a long time.
"Welcome...." Ed did not turn away from the center of the pit. He took a long, hard swallow from his glass and shifted position.
"Thank you" replied Lee, feeling as though she had walked into some private ritual. But she did not feel as though she was invading their domain. Instead, a vague feeling swarmed through her, one that told her that she belonged. Lee knew that these people were infected with the same disease that had plagued her throughout her life. It suddenly occurred to her that throughout the world there were people who held the same infatuations as she did with fire; people who were brought to a strange kind of life through the pulsating energy of flame. She felt closer to home than she had ever felt in her lifetime.
"We knew you were...." Sue said, still holding firm in her coldness.
"I've always been this way ... had it analyzed, talked about and even cured ... or so I thought. "Lee had never discussed herself with anyone before, and she felt a little ashamed revealing this to a Woman whom she had disliked on first sight.
"It's never cured, only transferred into another realm. Most firemen are pyros by nature. They just fight it off and use it."
Ed turned to his wife and glared. He took another swallow then softened when he looked at the beauty which sat next to her. "My wife was about to tell you that I was once a fireman. It held me together until I couldn't stop myself anymore. I guess it's like any narcotic."
Lee looked more closely at the gangly man. It seemed impossible that at one time he had run through the fires of Men like Ben Grant had. The image of his tall, skinny frame leaping through fire, trying to control the burning force, almost made her laugh.
"I know the idea seems idiotic" He said, looking back into the fire with a lost gaze, "but it worked. And I was good."
Sue fell back onto herself, resting on her elbows and watching the conversation that swelled around her. She seemed to relax a little now, and Lee felt a tinge of friendship grow between them.
"What do you do with this?" Lee asked, now wondering what the ritual was. It was not like her own private scene where the fantasies played the major role. This was a realistic fire which remained under control. There was no submission to the ability of the local fire departmmnt here. No test of her creation against the forces of society who would fight to their death to attempt to put it out. The fire remained a link between them, but after the initial surge caused by its presence, there seemed nowhere to go.
"I don't think you'd be interested ... let's just leave it at the fire, okay?"
Sue was trying to warn Lee of something with her eyes. Lee took the hint and back to the flames. But the existence of Ed began to grow on her awareness.
"My wife exagerates, Lee. You see, when the fire has completed its cycle within us, then we engage with each other. It works wonders...." He smiled know, not sure he had made his point.
"I see...." Lee said.
"No you don't" continued Sue, "you don't see."
"Sue, shut-up!" Ed was angry, and his mood struck Lee with a certain apprehension.
"No, she has a right to know." Sue turned her back on her husband, and began playing with the sand as she spoke. "You see, normally, Ed and I take off our clothes and dance around the dumb ass fire like a bunch of savages. When we're really hot, then we do whatever comes naturally.
Sue was grinning up at Lee. Her teeth were straight and slightly pointed. Lee was reminded of a wild animal inviting the tame to engage in battle.
"That sounds like it may work...." The invitation, combined with the challenge from Sue had made her decide to go along with them.
"I knew she would, Sue ... I knew it!!!" Ed was on his feet now, tearing the shirt from his chest.
In a moment, he was naked. Lee let her eyes roam to his cock, which stood out hard and erect from his body.
"He has no class" moaned Sue, now feeling something akin to jealousy surging through her, "he's always hard before anything ever happens. Never gives a Woman the chance to show what she can do...."
"Take off your clothes, Lee...."Ed stood above her now, his eyes glowing with expectation. He had wanted to see Lee in the nude since the first moment he had laid eyes upon her luscious curves.
"Okay...." Lee stood up with her back to both Ed and Sue, and began taking off her clothes. As she slid her panties down across her thighs and then off, she shook with feelings of excitement that shot through her like electric currents.
Sue lay on her back and slid all her clothing off from that position. When she was naked, she spread her legs and began rubbing her dark triangle vigorously. Her body was fleshy and plump, but Lee could see where she was sensual. She had no tan lines, and obviously sunbathed in the nude. Her breasts were almost all nipple, and were very small. It was something about her softness, her total seething sensuality, Lee supposed, that probably made her desirable to Men.
Ed stood no more than a foot away from Lee. His eyes moved up and down her body, from her erect nipples to the blond tuft of hair between her thighs. Lee waited and watched, feeling his stare on her skin like a thousand little hands touching every inch of her.
"You're perfect!" He said, taking his penis and moving close enough to her so that he could rub the head against her belly.
"Your wife, Ed, she's doing it to herself...." He grinned at Lee, then forced his prick up along her crack. Lee did not, would not move. She let Ed move his cock up and down through the jungle of her cunt, but kept her thighs tightly closed.
"Open up baby ... I'm ready for you...."
"I can see that!" There was something about the Man which Lee detested. She looked at his wild eyes, his open mouth and then down at his pink rod moving slowly up and down against her. She had first assumed that fire was the ingrediant of the evening, the force which each of them would use to get off on. But Ed was not playing the same game. Lee now knew that Sue was her real counterpart, the only one who really understood what it was like. Ed was nothing more than a sex fiend who had learned to use fire as the old alchemists had to stir the emotions of his potential victims.
"Dance for us" Lee suddenly ordered, feeling a strange kind of playfulness overtaking her, "I want to see your sex in all its glory. Your're so big and strong...."
"Yes darling," Sue added bitterly, awakening from her private domain of pleasure, "dance for us. We'll both sit here and watch you ... watch until we can't stand not having you inside us anymore!"
Sue grinned up at Lee, and returnd the secret signal with a wink. Ed withdrew his penis from Lee's pubis and began walking slowly around the burning pit.
"Yeah baby" shouted Sue, taking Lee's hand as she lay down beside her, "start real slow and then give it all you've got!"
As Ed roamed around and around the circle o fire, Sue reached over and took Lee's nipple between her fingers. She squeezed the ripe bud gently, and smiled. "We both know ... when you let someone into your fantasy make sure he's for real."
"Is that what happened with you and Ed?" Asked Lee, feeling her breasts being moved around in small circles.
"Yes ... but it's too late for me to change." Then Sue brought her mouth down onto the large, milky white breast. Lee felt her sharp, pointed teeth bite her nipples, then felt her tongue stab and encircle her round, silver dollar tissue.
"What about Ed?" Lee asked, as Sue pulled her head away from Lee's naked chest.
"He'll wander around for awhile, then we'll get him, too."
Sue pushed Lee back so that she was lying flat on the sand. She kissed the area between her breasts, licking each piece of skin lavishly and with great smoothness. Then, she followed the ridge down to Lee's belly, and when she arrived at the soft blond hair, she puched Lee's thighs apart.
"Oooooh...." Moaned Lee as she felt Sue's tongue dive between her pink, warm lips and deep inside her vagina. Lee brought her thighs together around Sue's head and tried to pull the girl even deeper inside.
"What the Hell!" Shouted Ed, bringing Lee suddenly back to the reality of the moment. He stood holding his prick in his hand above the two girls. Sweat poured down his chest, and his whole body glistened.
"Let me in ...!!" He knelt behind Sue, drew her legs apart and guided himself up into his wife's anus. Lee felt Sue flinch as he began stroking her, pushing further and further inside her.
Lee reached down and held Sue tightly against her cunt, trying to keep her from panicking and then withdrawing. Sue continued to lick and suck on her moist cunt, while Lee watched Ed's contorted face as he drove his prick deep inside his wife's ass.
Finally, he groaned and shook. Sue rested her mouth against Lee's vagina while Ed shot his load. Then, he pulled out and walked down to the water to wash himself.
"Is he always like this?" Asked Lee when Sue had finally stopped and rested her head on Lee's chest.
"Yes ... always in the same place. I haven't been screwed in the right place for so long I can't even remember what it's like!"
"Okay, little girl, you're next!" Ed stood above Lee, his cock rejeuvenated. He held the rod in his hand, waving the head around and around to make sure Lee would take notice.
Lee felt the surge of panic rush through her. She drew her thighs together, suddenly regretting the fact that she was naked.
"Oh come on, baby, uncle Ed won't hurt you. Bet you never even had it there, right?"
Sue lifted herself into a standing position. Lee watched her little naked body, the way she tried to stand but leaned forward just a little because of the pain she had suffered. It would be the same pain that Lee would encounter if she allowed Ed to penetrate her.
"No, you bastard! Leave her alone!" Sue was furious.
"You bitch! you've had your fun, now it's my turn!!!"
Lee began to shake. She felt as though she were in the presence of crazy people, a husband and wife who were using her body for their own particular perversity.
"I won't let you touch her! Sue screamed.
"Yeah and just how are you going to stop me, you fat little whore?"
"Goddamn you!!!" And then Sue reached down and took Ed's prick. She held the long staff firmly, then began squeezing harder and harder. Ed tried in vain to slap her, but she twisted her grip during the flight of his hand and halted him in mid-air.
"You little slut ... oh Christ, stop it!!!" He was red in the face, clenching his teeth tightly as the anger swelled along with the pain. There was no defense for him against the stronghold Sue now possessed.
Lee realized that her moment had come. She gathered up her clothing and began running down the beach. She stopped once and looked back. The fire was dying, the shadowy figures of Ed and Sue were silhouetted against the soft glow. Lee could tell that they were naked, and almost laughed at the thought that anyone looking at them from this distance would think that they were young lovers caressing each others' naked body.
When her house was securely locked and bolted, Lee managed to settle down enough to pour herself a drink. As the alcohol spread its soothing arms across her trembeling flesh, Lee began to relax. Out there, on the dark sand, she had felt momentarily on the verge of something. She didn't know what it was, or even if she had gotten closer than the night of the fire. But that edge, that feeling of the end of a journey had been there. She wondered what would have happened out there if Ed hadn't been such a bastard. If he had really been there, Lee mused, would she have made it?
She listened with fear as she heard Ed and Sue walk past her front door towards their cabin. She wondered about Sue, what kind of life she would live. Then, she heard their car engine turn over. The screech of the tires told her that Ed had given up on her as a potential victim. Sue, on the other hand, thought Lee, was just going along for another ride to another place and another time. Lee wondered if the small, spiteful girl would ever turn on Ed and murder him. Or, if she would be content to just cut his balls off.
As Lee moved her hand between her thighs, she remembered the pleasure she had felt when Sue had licked her there. As she relived the moment in her mind, she tried to emulate the movements of Sue's kind and knowledgeable mouth with her own fingers.
But as she pulled apart her lips, and felt herself, the image of a naked Sue working feverishly between her spread thighs disappeared. Instead, the same glow, the same pulsating ball of energy invaded her skull and replaced all images. And once again, as it had done so many times, the orange, fiery ball began moving steadily down her body.
She was working intensely inside her vagina now as the ball moved into her pubic hair and slid down into her spread crack. The energy erupted and set her on fire. The flames leaped wildly within her mind, and her cunt burned with a pulsating fever.
The banging at her door came as usual. The axe splintered the wood and Ben Grant walked through the shattered wood into her room He held his prick in his hand and slid his hand up and down the length with a slow and easy motion. He smiled.
Lee waited for him to come. She waited for the white, soothing liquid to spurt from his penis and extinguish the flames which burned so violently between her thighs. But this time, the fireman just stopped. He withdrew his hand and allowed his erect penis to droop into a state of flaccidity.
"This time" he said in the slow manner of speech familiar to all dreamers, "you must ask. You must show me...."
And then he turned and walked from the room. Lee awoke with her hand between her thighs, trying to call her dream back again. But only the bare darkness of her bedroom remained.
Lee began pacing, and continued through the rest of the night. Only when the dawn broke, and the two empty fifths lay on the floor of the bedroom was she able to sleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ben Grant watched the short, plump Man pace back and forth across the cement floor of the station. Aaron Manning smoked a small, American cigar, blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth like a steam engine.
"I know you don't want us in on this, Ben, but after the call you put out on that last one, I almost have no choice!"
Ben drew in a deep breath. It had been going on for hours now, this debate over whether the F.B.I, should be called into Seaside for an investigation. They had been alerted when the call for reinforcements had gone to L.A. and San Diego. Now, Agent Manning stood as the arson investigator for the Western States arguing with the stubborn chief of Seaside.
"Dammit, Mr. Manning," Ben moaned, trying to make his point for the twentieth time, "if you bring a bunch of agents in here we'll drive whoever it is away. They'll just go someplace else, start bigger fires and probably wipeout an entire forest!"
Manning stared at the two gas cans sitting on the shelf. They were the only lead, and the analyzation which his department had made revealed nothing more than Ben had told them over the telephone. The stocky agent relit his cigar.
"What makes you think you can stop him?"
"I know this town," Ben began, trying to figure out himself why he had made such a claim in the first place, "and I know the people in it. The whole place is like a second body to me....I can feel it."
Manning took a seat across from Ben. They both turned their heads and watched Jimmy Blacburn wander in through the large double doors, then disappear into the small living quarters.
"Listen Ben," Manning said, leaning close across the table, "I haven't contacted the agency yet. I mean, the things' unknown as far as they're concerned. I really can't see what a full investigation would serve, anyway. So, you can take the ball . ... but ... "
"If there's another fire," Ben continued, "I've got a lot of explaining to do, right?"
"We have no jurisdiction here because the last one didn't reach the national forest. On the assumption that the next one will, however, we can offer our assistance ... which, by the way, I have officially done here today with you. So, if you don't accept it, I'm afraid the burden goes directly on those fucking stubborn shoulders of yours!"
Manning had liked Ben Grant from the first moment they had met, the day after the big fire at Wilson's Grove. He had found in the fire chief, the burning dedication and firm conviction of duty which he himself had felt when he had first become a federal agent. The years had worn his conviction and sense of duty down; and to see it revived again in Ben Grant had made him enthusiastic about himself and his choice of his life's work.
Ben played with the wooden spoon in his coffee cup. His eyes darkened as he thought deeply about the consequences of taking the position he was about to. There had been something different about this series of fires than any Ben had confronted before. It was an instinctual thing with him, something deep inside that told him to keep the thing completely within his control. If he could beat the arson out before the pyro set the whole state on fire, he would win his private game. But if he couldn't?
"I don't know if I can really explain it," Ben said finally, throwing the spoon into a trash can, "but there's something about this one that I feel. I mean, no reason for it, nor any evidence. It's just there, inside me...."
Manning smiled. "Every agent has the one case, the one criminal who gets under his skin, Ben. Psychiatrists call it a meeting with your 'alter' ... Captain Ahab met his when he met the great whale Moby Dick. Maybe this is your private Moby Dick."
Ben laughed. "I just hope I'm not pulled under by him, that's all."
"You won't be," Manning said, picking up his coat and tucking his briefcase underneath his arm, "but you had better be careful."
"I will."
Manning threw him a wave, then truned and walked through the garage doors, got into his late model sedan and started his hour's drive back to Los Angeles. Ben watched his car turn the corner and was happy that once again he was alone. It was his thing again, his problem and his crisis. Without the reasonableness of agencies and law enforcement people, he could solve it through his own sense of survival and savvy. It was a country which Ben loved, the land of the wordless instinct, and one which was usually in direct conflict with the super-forces of modern sociey.
Ben was grateful for Manning's understanding that left him alone to walk through his country unmolested.
* * *
Ben waited impatiently for Elaine to answer the door. He knew that she knew it was he who had knocked loudly this Monday morning. His mind traveled back to the night when Helen had broken up their session the night of the fire. He figured that Helen had probably reclaimed Elaine, making her suffer for her infedelity to her. Ben hated the big woman more than ever. He also hated the fact that he had come back here, trying to get himself involved again with Elaine could be a big mistake.
"Why hello, Ben!" She was neither happy nor angry. She stood behind the screen, wearing a white tee shirt that revealed the fact that she was naked beneath.
"We were interrupted that night...." Ben smiled. Her thin body, her small pointed breasts beneath the thin mateial of the shirt made him tingle with anticipation.
"You want to fuck me?" Elaine was very serious. She lifted the bottom edge of her shirt above her black pubis and arched her belly into the screen. Ben stroked the wire, feeling her hairs as they penetrated through the small squares.
"Yes" he replied, seeing no reason not to be angry. He needed sex now, needed the 'clear' he received when he came inside a woman. He knew that he could get it with Elaine.
"I'm ready for anything, Ben. Come in." She stood back and watched him. Her eyes were set and empty of feeling. He had thought at first that her mood was ironic, which was a common one with Elaine. It startled him a little to discover that she had no mood at all, just a kind of stoic presence.
"Sit down, I'll fix you a drink." He watched her small buttocks shimmy beneath the shirt as she walked into the kitchen. He remembered that night after the fire, when she had almost lost her only child. She had been a different woman then; but that had been before Helen.
"What's been happening with the town arsonists?" Her voice rang through the house, seemed harsher than Ben had remembered.
"Nothing much," he replied, lighting a cigarette, "about the same as last year. Only I expect more action from him. A common pattern with pyro's, they go faster and more frequently once they discover it works for them."
"You mean like sex?"
"The more you get the more you want!"
Elaine stood at the kitchen door, holding two drinks and leaning against the doorjamb. The teeshirt rode up above her pubic hair, and her pink lips were visibly protruding. "Except" she said bitterly, "pyros always have matches."
Ben caught her meaning. Once again, he had to remind himself that her situation with regard to her husband and to Helen had not been his doing. He played the game with her again, as he always did.
"You look horny...." she said casually, sitting down on the couch next to him instead of taking her usual seat on the floor.
"I guess I'm a little uptight...."
"That's too bad" she laughed, "no one should get uptight not in this, the best of all possible worlds!"
"Don't talk like that, Elaine." Ben had seen this coming with her, had witnessed the growing bitterness inside her. He didn't want her this way, but her long, slim legs were almost entirely revealed and he could feel the warmth that came from between them.
"You want to ball me, right? well, then, there's no reason I can't say exactly what I want to say, allright?"
"Let's just drink and make love, Elaine...." His mind wandered. He could not stand to talk this way, could not tolerate this kind of cynical approach. He thought again of Lee and wondered if she was as cynical as Elaine had become.
Elaine rested her head on his shoulder. Her hand moved up his leg. She held his balls, and then stroked his penis. Ben grew hard immediately. He felt his blood surge through him, and remembered why he had come here.
Ben moved his hand up between her naked thighs. She parted her legs and pushed her belly out to meet his probing finger. He spread her lips, they were already moist and hot. Elaine moaned as he pushed first one, then two fingers inside.
"Oh God" she wispered, "I've missed that!"
She drew his face to hers and they kissed. Her sweet mouth opened as their tongues clashed. She roamed across his teeth, then penetrated deep inside his mouth. She was drawing him into her, opening herself with every once of strength she possessed. Ben felt himself growing strong in her arms, knew that his orgasm would clear him and forgot about Lee, about Elaine's cyncism and about the world in which he lived.
"Oh yes...."She moaned as she pulled his cock from inside his pants and rubbed its' length evenly. She withdrew her mouth from his and bent down to him. She licked at the tip, prying open the hole with her tongue. Her warm breath swelled around his hot staff as she opened her mouth and took his meat inside. Her lips rode up and down him, smoothly and expertly. Ben had never known a woman who enjoyed giving head as much as Elaine did.
He reached down to her firm buttocks and pushed her over. She squirmed under him and spread her legs. Still holding himself inside her mouth, Ben twisted his body around until he hovered over her open cunt.
The skin was shiny and pink, open and warm. The lips throbbed and seemed to beckon to him with their soft and delicious fragrance. He put his mouth to her, pushed his tongue against the skin and stabbed at her clit. He felt her body tense beneath his as he poked and stroked the small pearl. Her legs closed tightly around his head, and he became a captive of her womanhood.
The muffled groans grew in intensity as Ben licked and drove deep inside her. Elaine began twisting and writhing beneath him. He felt her thigh muscles tense then release then tense again. He pushed his way further and further inside her wet hole, trying to bury himself in her warm skin. Then her body began working into a frenzy and Ben held on. He felt her lips pulsate and throb, could feel the ripples of ecstasy flowing through her cunt. She was coming harder than he had ever known her to.
Elaine stretched and pushed as her body shuddered with the pulse of her orgasm. She reached up and pulled Ben from behind, trying to suck all of his penis into her mouth. She leaned her back so that her throat would be clear and allow all of his meat inside. He began pumping harder and harder into her, and Elaine was greatful for the fulfilling presence of him. When he finally came, she took all of his hot semen into her throat and pushed the stuff down so that she could take more. When he had finished, she continued to suck him. She licked his skin, moved her lips back and forth along his length until she had taken all of his juices into her mouth. She wanted to hold him there between her lips forever. But suddenly Ben withdrew.
"What's wrong?" She asked, feeling the emptiness return as he pulled his head from between her burning thighs.
"Nothing ... it was beautiful!"
She watched him walk naked to the kitchen and return with two more drinks. He stood above her naked body and smiled at the sight of her thin frame stretched so invitingly out on the couch.
"You embarass me that way" She said, taking the drink and modestly closing her thighs. Her black hair shone between her thighs, and Ben felt the excitement growing again.
He sat down on the floor and kissed her gently on the cheek. "I'm sorry I never married you ... it would have been different."
"What would have been different?" She did not look at him, but stared at the ceiling. She didn't want to think about it, to become involved in an idea that she took so seriously.
"Everything," Ben said, stroking her hair then letting his hand roam down across her small breast, "everything would have been different. I mean; I think I can't continue like I have been."
Elaine looked directly into his eyes. He had changed. The year which began with the fire at the old barn had warn heavily on Ben. She wondered if it was age, or boredom, or the presence of a woman who he had tried for and failed with. Lee Marks, Elaine knew, was still on his mind. A woman like that never left a Man's mind, and all other women only served to relieve the feelings of frustration during the interims. Elaine laughed once again at the absurdity of her existence.
"What's so funny?"
"You're like a little boy. You can't make up your mind about anything. You play with people, with nature and with yourself. But when someone refuses to play your games, you suddenly become very serious and very depressed!"
Ben stood up. He felt Elaine's laughter biting at him. He was suddenly aware of his nudity, and the fact that his prick hung directly in front of her eyes. She stopped laughing and gazed longingly at his manhood.
"But you're not a little boy, are you?" She moved her hand slowly up his thigh. She held his balls lightly, then wrapped her fingers delicately around his prick.
"Again?" Ben asked, wanting to come again. His head had been clear after their last session, but Elaine's laughter, her incisive remarks had thrown him off. She was a good fuck, thought Ben, but she always managed to fuck the head along with the body.
Elaine kissed the tip of his prick, and he was suddenly hard again. "I guess there's no choice. Put it inside me, Ben!"
Even though she was trying to be cold and abstract, Ben could tell that she was hot. He lay between her legs, and she threw them around his back. In one slow thrust, Ben was inside her moist vagina.
"Just use it, Ben, I don't think I can move anymore...." She smiled not from bitterness she felt towards him but from a complete sense of satisfaction. Ben loved her when he was inside her or when they were playing with each other. The other times, she seemed like a crazed woman bent on making the world angry with her.
He rode her slowly, with each stroke feeling the walls of her cunt closing softly around his prick. She moved just barely, inching her pelvis up against him, shuddering every other moment with soreness. She was wasted, had been taken and Ben loved her intensely. She was now a woman who had been ravaged and because of that all of her bitterness, her lousy memories of her lousy life, and her own guilt towards the relationship with Helen had been drained from her. The only thing remaining was the sweet movements of her aching body and minute pulsations of her swollen sex. Ben came hard and with ease. He throbbed inside her and Elaine moaned loudly. When he had finished, he collapsed on top and felt the room around him, her warm body beneath him and the clarity of mind he knew only after making love.
* * *
The phone rang three or four times before Ben realized what it was. He had been sleeping peacefully after his day with Elaine. The warm winds had been blowing through the canyons from the deserts. They had made a racket as they rattled windows and moved the vegetation with a steady hand. The phone's ringing finally brought Ben around. He picked up the reciver, beginning to fear the worst.
"Hello?" He said, waiting to hear the voice of Jimmy excitedly calling him into action. But there was nothing at the other end.
"Hello, who's there?" Ben waited, heard someone breathing at the other end.
"Goddammit!" He shouted, anger swelling through him. "Why the Hell don't you say something?"
Then came the click, and the phone went dead. He held the receiver in his hand for a moment longer, then lowered it onto the cradle. The wind whipped against his small cottage and shook the frame. Ben sat on the side of his bed, lit a cigarette and realized that sleep would not be his for the remainder of the night.
He dressed quickly, grabbed a couple of packs of cigarettes and walked quickly to his car. He had never received a prank call before, and to have gotten one at three-thirty in the morning sent his mind working. Something was up, there was that intangible in the air, that indescribible something that drove him on. As he drove out onto the highway, now deserted and spotted with some loose vegetation blown there by the wind, he felt possessed.
The streets of Seaside were empty. The wind whipped through the main thoroughfare as though bringing with it the void which now existed. The old theater, playing a movie about a Man who befriends wolves and raises them, looked strangely silent. The drugstore seemed like a play house full of strange toys and artifacts of another civilization. He drove slowly, looking at everything, taking in the town as though he were seeing it for the first time. It occurred to him that Seaside was a strange place, built on nothing concrete, existing only because the ocean was near. That, he thought to himself, did not seem reason enough for anything to exist.
After driving up and down the main street three times, Ben pulled off onto the side streets. The small, white houses stood quietly perched on their little tufts of grass. Ben watched one house then another as he passed by, thinking about the people inside, sleeping and comfortable in their own small worlds. He wondered why he was special, why this world of people had been something which he could never have. He thought about what he had said to Elaine earlier that day. He felt alone, afraid of his own future. There would be no children for him, no woman to care for. There would only be women for him to screw, and until now, that had been enough.
He turned from the residential section and drove back through town to the coast. The small fishing pier stretched out like a dark arm into the black ocean. A few small craft lingered in the protected waters of the bay, small and incomplete against the huge mass of ocean out beyond the breakwater.
A chill invaded his body. His eyes seemed unable to focus. He pulled into Myrna's Cafe, the only all nighter on the coast within twenty miles of Seaside.
The brightly lit cafe seemed garish. Myrna, a fat woman with broomstick hair smiled at him from behind her newspaper as he entered and took a seat at the counter.
"Looking for fires, Ben?" She was a gabber, a basically lonely woman who had learned the fine art of small talk.
"Coffee please...."
Myrna poured the black stuff from a fresh pot. Ben drank slowly, letting the warmth dispel his cold feeling.
Myrna stood behind the counter watching him. Her eyes were bright, and seemed out of place with the rest of her sluggish and fleshy body.
"What's troubling you, Ben?" She seemed to look through him. Ben had heard that she practiced the occult sciences, that she felt herself to be blessed with some kind of divine ability to read deeply into others. Tonight, he took those rumors without laughter.
"Why do you ask?" He watched her closely.
"You look troubled. Deeply troubled. Maybe it's the damn winds, through. People change when the hot winds blow, they become ... different. You know, the old moon lunacy thing, but near the deserts where the coyotes howl, the winds take the place of the moon."
Ben stirred his coffee slowly. She was talking nonsense, sure, but there was a certain amount of truth to her reaction towards the winds. After all, he thought, he wasn't just cruising around in the middle of the night for nothing. He had fully expected to deal with fire before the sun came up.
"But" she continued, "we live near the sea and the protects us. It does battle with the winds from behind us. Still, they affect us all."
"And you think I've become affected by the damn winds?"
Myrna smiled, poured some more coffee into his mug and patted his hand. "We both know that you have, don't we?"
Ben looked at her. There was something more to the woman than just her comical appearance or her strange ways. She actually could read into him. This fact made him very uncomfortable.
"There's no need to run away from me," she called after him as he quickly made his way to the door, "whatever it is will catch up to you sooner or later!!!"
Ben was grateful for the breaking dawn as he walked hurridely across the gravel parking lot. The sound of his shoes mixing with the small pebbles plus the oncoming light from the East renewed his sense of himself. He got into his car and headed down the coast, toward Lee Mark's Motel.
There was no fog or low clouds this morning. The sun rose brightly above the mountains behind him. Ben welcomed the warmth of its rays on the back of his neck. He had been sitting in his car, across the street from the Motel, for over an hour.
He had smoked cigarette after cigarette. His mind had worked feverishly, reaching for something 'out there' that he could neither pinpoint or understand. Coming to this place, sitting in silence across the street from where she lived seemed to allow him some sense of completion. Whatever it was that he had felt during the long night, Ben knew that somewhere the feeling had to do with Lee Marks.
He watched as a short couple, in their sixties, walked hand in hand from the their cabin from the end. They looked happy together, cheerful because they were on vacation and seemingly enjoying every minute of it. He watched them as they carefully placed their suitcases in the trunk of their Buick, then got inside and pulled out onto the highway. As they drove North, Ben saw the little woman slide across the seat and sit right next to her husband.
Theirs was the only car in the parking lot. The Motel was now empty except for Lee Marks. Ben tried to imagine what she would be doing now. He envisioned her walking naked into the bathroom, turning on the shower and rubbing her large breasts as the water cascaded down her body, swirling and dripping as it made it way like a river through the splendid curves. He became erect and suddenly felt foolish. It was like the time when he was seventeen years old and had stayed out all night, parked in front of Carol McCormick's house, waiting. When the morning had come, he had the great opportunity of watching the luscious redhead walk naked in her bedroom He had jacked himslef off, right there in his car in broad daylight. Ben laughed to himself and lit another cigarette. He had not thought of Carol McCormick for many years.
When the front door of Lee's house opened, Ben felt his heart beating wildly. It was a warm morning, and the day would be uncommonly hot. Lee emerged from the house wearing a small bikini. Her blond hair hung straight down her back, her tanned legs shimmied slightly as she made her way towards the cabin where the old people had stayed.
Ben leaned forward, mentally stripping Lee of her clothing. Her breasts seemed larger than he remembered, and her stomach was much flatter. The same air of distance existed in the way she walked, with her head held high and her back arched slightly. He started his car, pulled out onto the highway and then into the parking lot itself. Lee stopped in her tracks when she saw him driving towards her. Her startled gaze threw him off.
'Hello Ben." She was trying to smile, but seemed irritated and nervous.
"Hello Lee. I was just passing by and thought I'd drop in to see you."
Lee held an arm load of clean sheets and towels. She disappeared without saying a word into the room, plopped the stuff on the messy bed where the old couple had slept and maybe had even made love then emerged again out into the bright sunlight. Her blue eyes darted across the hillside behind Ben, then to his car and finally came to rest upon him.
"Why?" She asked, pulling up the small panties which boasted colorful flowers.
Ben's eyes roamed down to her navel, the blond streak of hair dipped gently underneath the cotton panties and he knew emerged into her full tuft of hair. He felt his prick throbbing again.
"I just wanted to talk, you know, see if you're okay...."
"Want some coffee?"
He followed her back along the wooden walkway towards the main house. He watched her back, the tight muscles rippling beneath her brown skin. Her buttocks swayed and shook as she moved quickly and with a certain lack of confidence. He had never seen her so vulnerale before. It gave rise to hopes within him.
When she had finished making the instant coffee, Lee threw a small terry cloth robe around her partially clad body. Ben's eyes had made her uncomfortable. He had looked at her with a penetration she had never felt before.
"I sat outside your place for over an hour this morning...."
"I know" Lee said matter-of-factly. She had awakened early noticing the familiar car parked across the street. Being naked in her bed, the thought of walking out into the morning wearing nothing ran through her mind. It was the first thought she had had this morning, and Lee realized that it was meaningless for this reason.
"I hope it didn't bother you." Ben felt relaxed with her. She wasn't as defensive as he had seen her before. He desperately wanted to communicate, to speak with her about what he felt. But he knew he must tread carefully, and at least she was allowing the formalities a chance to be exhusted.
"No, I guess it didn't. I wasn't sure it was you at first. Why did you come here?"
"I think you know why, Lee."
She became very withdrawn. There could be two reasons why he had come. Either because of his suspicions or because of his passion. Lee believed that it was his suspicion that had led him to her home.
The previous night had been a horrible one. She had drank until she could barely stand, but it had not stopped the burning desire she felt between her thighs. The anxiety clutched at her throat and the loins burned with their private fury. She had made it with herself, had even gone naked onto the beach and let the cool waters run into her spread cunt. But nothing had worked. Finally, she had called Ben's home. When he had answered the phone, she had her hands firmly planted between her legs. The sound of his voice had allowed her to satisfy herself. She had then fallen asleep, unaware that she had awakened something inside Ben that had kept him up all night.
"What do you think?" She asked finally, watching him closely.
"I'm not sure ... it's driving me crazy, that's all I know."
Lee suddenly felt that there was no more reason for her to be cautious. The possibility of being found out appealed to her. She decided to play with it.
"Well, you know now, don't you?" Her smile worked. Ben softened, then reached across the table and held her hand. They both remained suspended for a moment, feeling their blood running together through their palms.
"I've known for a longtime. I just let it work on me until I had to act on it...."Ben lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her smooth skin.
Lee watched him with astonishment. He had not been talking about the same thing that she had. His thoughts, his words were all directed in another direction. She felt herself grow tense at this revelation.
Ben reached across the table, took the top of Lee's bra and pulled the material down over her breast. She was so startled by his action that she did nothing to cover her nakedness.
"You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen Lee. I need you...."
Ben felt himself acting and speaking as he had never done before. He stroked Lee's breast, feeling her nipple rise into an erection. He pinched the tip and looked into her accepting face.
But he did not realize that Lee was not accepting him. Instead, she was retreating into herself with a fear she had never known before. Each touch, each feel from Ben sent, her deeper and deeper. She wanted to scream, but like in a dream when the voice does not materialize, she remained silent. Ben took her silence as an invitation.
Ben got up from the table, walked to Lee, and stood her on her feet. Her body began to tremble.
"Don't be afraid, I'll be gentle...."
He removed her bra. Her large breasts beckoned to him and he lowered his mouth to the nipple. He ground the bud slowly between his teeth, tasting the sweetness which he had so long desired to have.
Ben felt her body in his as he pulled her close. She was like a small child. He held her firmly, feeling her breasts flatten against his chest. He puched himself gently against her belly. He moved his hand down her back, and went underneath her panties. Lee gasped as his fingers followed her crack down under and touched her furry sex.
"It's been all I've ever dreamed about Lee. Touching you, breathing you, being with you ... everything...."
He pulled the panties down across her hips. His mind reeled as he gazed upon her perfectly formed blond pubis. The golden hairs shone in the early morning light. She was so new, so young to him. He was never happier as he lowered his mouth down across her smooth, warm belly and dove into the jungle of her cunt.
Lee felt his tongue working in her slit as though her sex belonged to another. She stood perfectly still, staring out the window into the hillside across the highway. The images of the highway, the trees and the rolling greens were blurred in her mind. She could not bring them into focus. Then, she felt something warm and hard punching in between her thighs. Suddenly, the room seemed to snap into her mind. She looked down and saw Ben with his pants around his ankles and his pink dick between her legs. She screamed.
Ben shuddered and pulled himself away. He watched with amazement as Lee began shaking. Her eyes turned cold, and her mouth pursed into a permanent utterance of a cruse.
"Get out ... get out ... get out!!!"
Ben was destroyed. He had let himself go, had allowed himself that vulnerable state where feelings are most intense. And now, he was being completely rejected, almost spat upon. He pulled up his pants.
"Lee, it's me, Ben! Dammit, don't do this!!!"
But Lee was becomming hysterical. She picked up the coffee cup and threw the liquid into his face. Fortunately, the coffee was lukewarm. Ben could not react, he could not stop her nor could he strike her.
"You bastard! Get out of here!!!" Her naked body shook with the rage that had taken her over. Ben began backing away, not knowing whether to run or stay and fight. He had been so close, closer than he would ever get again.
The hysterical woman, however, forced Ben back into the living room then to the front door. He opened it and stood on the threshold. Lee was still naked, and even through her hysteria the sight of her strong loins and breasts still worked their magic.
She was like a wild animal. And Ben was not right for taking her by force. He had come to her softly and in a state of confusion. He had not come to conqueor out of strength. He had wanted to communicate with her, to begin a firm relationship. There was no place left to go now except out the door.
He shuddered as the door slammed behind him. He walked in a daze to his car, got in and drove blindly out into the highway. He had never felt so lost in his entire life. Ben Grant desperately wanted a fire. A fire would be his only salvation.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The morning traffic was picking up as Ben drove up the coast away from Lee Marks. His gut was tense, almost to the point of aching. His knuckles were red with the tightness with which he held the wheel. His mind was blank, he could not think nor did he care to.
The town of Seaside, with the scantily dressed women roaming from shops to shops passed through Ben's vision without notice. During the summer, Ben had always enjoyed cruising through the tiny shopping center, judging the bodies of the tanned women who were spending their vacations here. Sometimes, he would try to make one of them, and more times than not, he was successful. But on this morning, the long legged women passed by him.
Ben tried to gather his thoughts long enough to figure out what he was doing. It hadn't been so much Lee's rejection of him, he had expected that. Instead, he'd gotten closer than he had dreamed he ever would, had actually felt what it would be like to plunge firmly between her legs. Her body had been better than he had imagined it, and her manner during his attempted seduction had thrown him off balance. Finally, her hysteria had driven him completely out of himself, he was absolutely unable to deal with her. As Ben turned his car onto the shady quiet street towards Elaine's, the thought occurred to him that he had become infatuated with a crazy woman.
Suddenly, he was sitting out in front of the small white house.
He knocked on the door softly, almost begging for a chance to establish the thing he had with Elaine. He waited and knocked again. Finally, Elaine opened the door and smiled at him.
"I was hoping you'd come by today. You really did me in yesterday!"
She was bright and cheerful. Ben should have felt more happy to see her, more relaxed at regaining her favor. But the tension was taking him ... moving him away even from this.
"Come on in, Ben, I was just about to bathe."
He followed Elaine into the bathroom. She dropped her robe to the floor and stood naked over the tub. When she bent over to feel the water, Ben gazed vacantly at the tuft of hair that appeared between her long, thin legs. The sight from the rear had always excited him, but today he felt nothing.
"It's not that I'm an exhibitionist or anything...." She grinned as she slid in to the tub. She was unaware of his mood, was speaking to some other part of Ben. A part that was no longer alive inside.
"Yesterday," she said, falling into some kind of private reverie, "it was good ... I mean, better than it has been for such a long time. I made a decision."
"What was it?" Ben asked, still standing above the tub and staring down at her naked flesh like a man watching his own death.
"Well," Elaine explained, now looking at him, "I decided to keep you no matter what the conditions. I was getting possessive and bitchy, blaming you for everything that's wrong with my life. I realized that it was because of you that I saw the shitty way things are going with me. So, dear Ben, there's no reason to fear me ... okay?"
She waited, holding the soap up against her wet cunt. Ben looked through the rippling water, saw the small black tuft wriggling seductively beneath the surface, and once again could not feel anything.
"What's wrong, Ben?" Elaine had finally noticed the straight and withdrawn manner of her visitor. She removed the soap, lost her sense of the erotic and stood up. The water fell from her breasts, dripped down across her flat stomach and seemed to gather on her shiny mound.
Ben looked at her. There was nothing left inside that he could recall or draw on now. His relativity to her was swimming around in his mind. What had made her, and her whole life so appealing to him was now gone.
"Oh boy," Elaine said, stroking his cheek, "you are in some kind of a state! What the hell happened?"
She was naked, and the tips of her breast made small wet marks on his shirt. But she was not using sex with him. She had reached her decision, and she was determined to make it work.
"Nothing's happened, Elaine ... I'm just a little weary, that's all." His voice seemed to come from another body. His eyes rested on her nude body, but he did not really see her.
"Do you want to make love?"
"No, I don't think I could right now."
"Don't worry about it, everybody goes through those kinds of things. And even though you don't think it, you're still a human being."
The wind from outside beat against the house with a sudden force. Ben's mind reeled back to the night before, the phone call and the drive through this unknown place called Seaside. He felt the pull again, the force drawing him to something far beyond his own control.
"I've got to go, now." His voice was flat. His eyes looked through Elaine. She stepped backwards, pulled the towel around her naked body and tried to determine what was happening. It became apparent to her that whatever was going on with Ben, it was far out of her realm to know.
"Okay, Ben," she said cautiously, "but come whenever you want to . ... or have to. I'll be here. I've dropped Helen, so there's no need for any more hassles."
Without speaking, Ben turned and walked out of the small house. Elaine stood dripping on the living room carpet. She dropped her towel to the floor and felt her own naked body. She began shaking, suddenly feeling very cold and wanting nothing more than to be fully dressed. Elaine thought maybe she would call a friend and go to the new restaurant in Balboa, the place where women wore minks, silks and high heels.
* * *
Ben walked between the two fire trucks in the old barn-like station. The hot wind whipped through the open doors and whistled loudly as it found escape routes through the old wooden walls. The bright colors of the machines, their dark, looming hoses and the quiet of the engines at rest had always soothed Ben.
Jimmy Blackburn leaned against the metal doors, smoking a cigarette and watching the empty street outside. "Looks like Hell has finally arrived."
Ben was not listening. He had found a defective nozzle on the large hose and was in the process of replacing it. But the work did not take his mind off his feelings. He dropped the nozzle, bent down slowly, and like a very tired Man, strained to stand again facing the hose.
"You sick or something?" Jimmy grinned widely. His mouth was almost sardonic, his white teeth slightly menacing. Ben felt his coal black eyes piercing him, driving daggers into his skin. It was like seeing him for the first time, a Man who had long ago lost his civilization, lost his people and lost his foothold in history. Ben knew that because of that, he was capable of doing anything.
"I'm fine, Jimmy, just a little anxious...."
"When do you think it'll come? I'll give you odds it comes after the sun goes down."
"Bullshit, you redneck redskin!" Ben was trying to sound loose and jovial, but he was not with his own words. They escaped him as he uttered them, made him feel almost out of control.
"Okay, white Man, me consult gods, me find truth. Me know no fire till chariot of sun cross sky, many crickets from now." Jimmy laughed at his own parody, then held up his hand in the traditional Indian greeting he had seen so many times in Western films.
"What do your oracles say about these?" Ben held the gas can found at Wilson's Grove. The first can still held its perch on the shelf above, the beginning of a collection.
Jimmy was silent. He became very serious. "The gods reserve the right to withhold any information which they feel might be harmful or injurious to the parties concerned."
"What the Hell does that mean?"
"It means that we both know why and what. We both know why whoever started those fires did it. And we both want to see him strike again. But being firemen, hired and respected by the city of Seaside in the great state of California, we arne't supposed to talk this way."
"You surprise me, Jimmy. It's been bothering you, too?"
"Not as much as it has been you" Jimmy lit another cigarette, his eyes penetrating the puff of smoke that rose in front of his face.
"You really think he'll strike soon?" Ben waited anxiously for Jimmy's answer. He had felt somewhat restored after discussing the situation with his partner. There was, indeed, some meeting of the minds.
"Very soon," Jimmy mused, pawing at a grease stain on the cement floor, "if it was me, I'd go tonight. Everything considered."
"The wind?"
"Yeah" replied Jimmy, "and other things. Felings, I guess."
"If you're right, the whole fucking mountain will go up!"
"Maybe it won't be the mountains this time...."
He threw Ben a nervous glance, smiled broadly to reinstate his friendly image. "I'll be around...."
Ben watched him walk through the large doors into the bright street. When the wind hit him, he struggled for a moment then regained his balance as he moved with difficulty towards Elmo's Bar. The idea of a drink suddenly appealed to Ben, it would be the first time in his career that he had ever had a drink on the job.
He poured himself at all glassful, added a touch of water and laughed at his small tribute to propriety. After two large shots, his system began to feel alive again. The room became real to him, the night he spent was lost as his memory became numb, and his morning with Elaine became something other than what it had been. Even his experience with Lee, only six or seven hours before was lost in the swirl of his senses.
The day would turn out okay, he mused, draining his glass and pouring another, there would be a fire soon. And because of that, he would once again be granted his own meaning. He let his tensions flow from him like a blocked river suddenly released into the stream and rocked back and forth on his old wooden chair.
* * *
Lee Marks was still shaking. The morning had left her exhausted and nervous. Ben had come close, and she had felt more desire for him than she had ever felt for another Man. She had numbed that part of her long enough to allow him to remove her clothing. He had touched her with his penis, had come very close to invading her. She had tightened herself, had withheld the panic she felt but then had finally broken down. It had been somone else who had driven the confused Man from her house that morning.
She walked around her small cottage, hoping that no one would knock and demand a room. She was still naked, and her body replayed the scene with Ben over and over again. She still could feel the touch of prick against her smooth skin. The hardness, the potential explosion ... everything was still within her, trying to burn itself out.
But the fires within raged and would not die. Somehow, she would have to externalize them ... again. It was not a concious thought that allowed her to arrive at this conclusion, but a feeling deep inside that sought to burst through. Lee quickly put on her small bikini and, with bottle in hand, walked out onto the beach.
* * *
Ben was up and at the coat rack when he realized the ringing was from the telephone and not an alarm. He let it ring twice more, gathering his wits about him. The clock showed that it was five after five. He had slept for over four hours, whacked into unconciousness by the liquor.
"Ben Grant, Seaside Fire Department...."
Agent Manning's voice was calm and controlled. "Ben, just wanted to let you know we have a Santa Ana watch on tonight. There are two small fires in the Santa Monicas north of Malibu."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because, Ben, when we talked there was mention of the winds. You seemed to feel at that time that the Santa Anas might inspire your joker down there to start playing with matches again."
"Yes" Ben said softly, trying to avoid involving himself with Manning or with any other forces, "but nothing's happened. It was just speculation."
"Okay," Manning replied. "But if something does go down there you should be advised of our situation here. You people are the hottest spot between here and San Diego, so we've been watching you very carefully. But now we've got our own fires to handle, so you should call the departments south of you and use their facilities."
"Okay, Mr. Manning. But I doubt if anything'll go here ... at least for a while."
"Never can tell, Ben, you should know that If it does, call us anyway so we can plan an investigation. That last one you had down there could have easily turned into a major disaster."
Manning wished Ben luck and hung up. Ben remembered the report that Manning had filed with the U.S. Department of National Parks. In it, he had warned of the increasing dangers of forest fires in the mountains behind Seaside. This, according to tests, was the result of depleted soil. The rains had been light, and all that there was instead of being absorbed was washed down the dry hillside. Manning had written that Seaside, and the area surrounding it was on a 'yellow alert.' The presence of a probable arsonsist was mentioned in the forty page report; and Ben's theories of arson and motivations behind arson were included in this section. Ben had thought at the time that it seemed as though Manning had a better idea of what kind of person the arsonsist was than he did.
That report had given Ben a sense of wariness. He did not like the presence of the Federal Men, nor did he like the strict analysis of the situation which the scientists and professionals had compiled. It had taken the problem away from him and dumped it into a manila folder where a bunch of desk jockeys would sit around and try to determine a mass of irrelevant points concerning the situation.
Now, Manning's call had given a strange kind of reality to the conversation he had had earlier with Jimmy. There was something about his feelings and instincts coming into conjuction with computerized analysis that bothered him severely. He was relieved that the men from the North would have to busy themselves with fires closer to home. He and Jimmy would be left to handle the situation in Seaside ... if, that is, a situation did arise.
* * *
Jim Marks watched the young woman driving intensely nest to him. They were passing through the town of Santa Barbara which meant another three hours before they arrived in Seaside.
The girl, in her twenties and very lean, had offered to take Jim all the way down. She was going to San Diego for a three day vacation and would be more than happy to drop him off.
As she drove, her miniskirt rode high on her thigh. Her legs were thin and brown, and she kept them further apart than was needed. Her arms and hands were bony, and she held the wheel lightly. Jim tried to imagine what it would be like to make love with her, but his mind was directed into other channels.
He had awakened that morning in the small apartment in San Francisco that he and Anne had rented. She had gone to work in a bar, walking around half naked serving drinks and making good money. Jim had gone to the place once, and noticed that her manner of serving the customers was what made the money in tips so good. When she would bring a drink to a table, she would lean further over the table than necessary. Her breast would practically rest in the cusomers face, and the men loved it. They would reach into their pockets, pull out a ten, and Anne would wink at them. They never got to her, though.
For months, they had stayed together, making love and just living. But this morning, Jim had awakened with a sense of impending disaster.
"What is it?" Anne asked, pulling the sheet up to her chin and moving her naked body languidly underneath.
Jim had been perplexed and worried. "I don't know, Anne. Something's really bugging the Hell out of me."
Anne watched him wander naked into the bathroom. When he returned, she had all but accepted the fact that he would be leaving her.
"I think I should go south for a few days." He stood above her, replaying the scene that had taken place a year ago when he had first left her.
"Your Mother's fine, Jim." Anne knew where the feeling had come from.
"I don't know. It's been a long time. I think I should hitch down."
Anne smiled up at him. She drew the sheet aside, playing the same game she had played a year ago. Her naked body looked warm and open on the bed. Jim looked at her, then felt his mind wander.
"Last summer" Anne said, bringing her thighs together, "I told you I'd get you back from her. I offered you this for life." And then she spread her legs, arched her belly and showed him everything she had. "Now, if you leave, you'll never have me again."
Jim could see that she was serious. Her eyes were clear and unmoving, her mouth pursed into a faint hint of scorn.
"I've got to, Anne. I'm sorry you feel that way...." Jim was being pulled by forces larger than himself. There was something happening down there, and if he missed it or tried to avoid it he knew that he would be affected for life.
"You look uptight." She was driving now through the hills and valleys North of Los Angeles. Jim leaned against the window watching the orange glow of the two large fires pulsating in the late afternoon sky. Three units from the L.A. department rumbled underneath the freeway and Jim watched them disappear into the hills.
"Hey, wake up!" Her name was Mary, and she was a horny secretary. Picking up Jim had been one way of starting her weekend with a bang. She had been disappointed in his ignorance of her, especially after all the trouble she had gone to, to hike her skirt up her thighs.
"Sorry...."Jim was becoming more tense with every mile. He felt as though he were approaching something that would change his whole life. Just the initial decision to go had already changed his whole life.
"I thought maybe we could get to know each othr better...." Mary smiled ascross the seat at him. She took his hand and placed it on her thighs. As she moved his fingers up between her legs, she let them fall apart. She wore no panties.
Jim felt her cunt. She was moist and seemed rather tight for a girl her age. She pulled her thighs tightly around his hand, and once again Jim was captured inside a warm cunt. While her Vagina pulsated beneath the force of his hand, Jim was staring out the windew, watching the fires far off in the mountains towards the West. As fire will, it drew him forcefully towards it's center.
* * *
The cove was shelter against the blazing winds., The ocean in front of her was ripped with white caps, a seething moving inferno of deep waters. Lee watched it all with an unsettling calm, having gone through a fifth of whiskey and a day full of emotional stress.
On the horizon, she watched as a low bank of clouds tried to push their way into shore. They were doing battle with the hot winds from the inland. As the two forces met, the hot winds began showing their strength. Slowly, evenly, the low bank began stacking upon itself until it stood as an arched wall fair out in the sea.
The, pathway of the winds from the desert was blocked. Lee tensed as the wind died and silence reigned heavily all around her. She did not see seagulls, and the white caps folded back into the blue ocean. She gripped the sand around her, feeling that something very ominous was coming.
She was barely breathing when she saw the split. The grey wall tore in the center like a piece of cotton. She felt herself being lifted and pulled out as the desert winds ripped at the bank and tore a hugh whole into its side. The sound was like the roar of a jet airplane engine as the wind drove a hugh tunnel into the cloud bank. In another moment, the cloud bank, once so finely set and blocking the pathway of the fiery winds became nothing more than memory. The hot winds reigned once again. The cooling bank of clouds had been thoroughly destroyed.
Lee felt a tremendous sense of relief at seeing this sight, even though she was not positive that it had really taken place. She lay back on the sand, felt herself gliding within the new air tunnel so recently created, and laughed softly to herself, the sun was setting, and she lifted her head so that she could forge the image of the brilliant red ball into her mind forever.
* * *
The old hook and ladder never looked better. Its' red paint was shining, the metal gleaming and the hoses in perfect working order. Ben had spent the better part of three hours stroking the cool metal fondly, preparing his weapons for the fight he knew was coming.
Ben turned the shower on, having decided to prepare himself as he had prepared the machinery around him. He soaped himself carefully, making sure each portion of his body received a double lathering. After drying himself carefully, he applied talcum powder and his favorite after shave lotion. He walked naked to the dressing room, pulled out his newly laundered uniform and slowly dressed.
"You going to the fireman's ball?"
Jimmy leaned against the doorjamb, smiling wickedly after five beers at Elmo's.
"Just dressing, that's all...." Ben was a little upset that his private ritual had been interrupted. He had wanted to take time, to make sure that everything was in its proper place. He buttoned his shirt slowly, left the collar op en, and set himself before the mirror. "Man" Jimmy continued, being as sassy as he ever was after a few drinks, "you look like you're ready for the burning bush! One between a woman's legs!" Ben had to laugh. "Not a bad idea, baby."
"Yeah...." Jimmy mused, being horny as Hell. He was always horny during the summer when the white women walked around half naked.
"Why don't you get yourself laid?" Ben was digging a little and both men knew it.
"Why don't you go to Hell?"
"No, man," Ben replied, pulling out a fifty dollar bill from his billfold, "take this, drive into L.A. and make yourself one of those masseuses."
Jimmy stared at his boss wide-eyed. "You're crazy! Here we are sitting on one of the hottest fucking nights ever and you tell me to go get myself blown a hundred miles away in L.A.!"
"Nothing's going to happen, Jimmy...."Ben stared into the mirror again, making some final adjustments on his uniform. He felt good being dressed well in the clean, pressed khaki suit. The uniform still fit well, still made him feel strong and invulnerable.
"You don't stop loving yourself," Jimmy chided, his voice a little weaker now, "I'll take you up on your offer."
"According to patterns, our boy doesn't light his wad until well after eleven. It's not seven o'clock. It'll take you and hour and a half to drive, an hour with the broad and another one and a half returning. You'll be back before any kind of excitement even starts...." Ben held the fifty out to his partner.
"Well I'll be a shit!"
"You are already!"
Jimmy took the money. The logic had penetrated. Ben would never make him an offer like this again.
"Take my sedan, Jimmy boy, I'll use the captain's car...."
"Thanks, man."
"Don't Mention it!"
Jimmy turned back to Ben just as he was about ready to step into his car. "I'll have a few better stories than you did, you old motherfucker!"
"I hope so...."
Ben watched his partner drive off. He felt he had done the right thing. The logic of his argument was correct, and, if things got out of control, there were there were the voulnteers. Ben would never really know why he had sent his most trusted aide away on a night when the fire hazard in Seaside was greater than it had been for years.
The blackened pieces of wood still lay where they had burned over a year ago. No one had bothered to clear out the area of the Browning farm. The land had been turned over to the state because no deed had existed, there were plans to build an honor farm for the troublemaking kids from the city. But no work had begun.
Ben walked through the rubble. He remembered the night well, as well as he did every fire that he had ever fought. The crowd came back to his memory. The bored people of Seaside out on a Saturday night, standing around with each other for one of the few times in a year. It was a happening for them, the young and the old, the rich and the poor. They had all watched Ben Grant fight the kind of fight he knew best. He remembered feeling the eyes of the Women on him, and the egos of the Men burning into his battle.
Where the barn had stood, the loft where Elaine's kid had been hiding frightened and silent, there now was empty space. Ben remembered pulling the kid out, running through the flames and handing him to Elaine, knowing that he would begin fucking her again. Her eyes had invited him as she had taken her only child from his arms.
Then, Ben remembered something which he had not payed enough attention to that night. The image of Lee Marks standing apart from the crowd, leaning against one of the steel posts that once were to be used for a new fence. Her hair had been blowing in the wind, and the white negligee she wore made her seem almost ghost-like. He walked to the spot where she had been that night.
He touched the post, the tall, hard cylinder which did not give. He remembered her standing with her belly against it. The thought turned him on. He had an erection, then decided to drive to wilson's Grove. He felt that he was on to something.
* * *
It was almost dark by the time Lee reached her home. She had sat on the beach watching the battle in the sky, and now, there was only one thing left to do. She walked through her darkened house as though in a trance, the room and furnishings being things from a dream.
She went into the living room, threw on an old Door's album left behind by her son. There was a fifth standing on the kitchen counter, and she poured herself a large glassful without bothering to add ice or water.
Fumbling through the garage, she found her five gallon gas can. It was the last one she had, and she laughed at the coincidence. Once again, she sucked hard on the tube, and for a moment envisioned the cool plastic as a penis ... the burning sensation began again between her thighs. When she had finished filling can, she did not bother to screw the cap back onto the gas tank.
Lee placed the can carefully down next to the record player. She walked to the full length mirror on the door of the bathroom and stared at herself.
Her body looked tense, but she was pleased with what she saw. She felt more uninhibited with herself than she had ever felt before. She cupped her hands beneath her breasts and pushed them up. They barely remained trapped behind the cloth of her bikini bra. Quickly, she unsnapped the garment and slowly pulled it from her tits.
The nipples were already erect. She rubbed each bud slowly, feeling the shock waved dig deeply into her chest. Her breasts were not yet sagging, and she thought that, that was nice.
Then, with a slow, sensuous movement, she pulled the elastic of her panties down lower and lower. She held the garment down beneath the full bloom of her pubis. She turned sideways to the mirror and pulled the panties down to her ankles. As in a private dance, Lee stepped out of them and faced herself naked in the glass.
She smiled broadly. Her eyes seemed to penetrate through the reflection, to separate themselves from her image. She brought her hand slowly up between her thighs and spread her lips. Arching herself into the glass, she rubbed her pubis slowly against the cool mirror. She found herself watching her own eyes, and the image of her body began to quiver.
And then something very strange happened. The intense reflection of her eyes dominated everytling. Soon, her body became a blur, and her eyes stood alone, suspended in space and time. She held the frightening image for as long as possible, with a student-like curiousity to see where it would take her.
The panic, the sudden rush of fear made her draw back into herself. Her shoulders suddenly dropped and her tits hung low. She grimaced at herself, and truned away from the mirror. She was unable to think of anything else she wanted to do. She decided she would drink all of the fifth. She laughed at herself for thinking of dealing with a hangover.
* * *
"You sure?" Mary looked at Jim with longing. She had jacked him off somewhere between L.A. and Balboa. He had come hard, his come shooting into the windshield where it now held its own crystalized state.
"I'm sure," Jim replied, feeling the acid he had dropped a half hour before beginning to work its magic. "Maybe I'll catch up with you in San Diego ... I don't know."
Mary pulled her short skirt modestly down her thighs. She was a little em harassed. She had been more aggresive with him than she had a right to be. It had given her a strange feeling of power, but now it made her feel cheap.
"We never really ... you know...."
"Fucked?" Replied Jim, watching the highway leading towards his Mother's Motel begin to shimmy in the darkness.
"Yeah, I really wanted to. But fuck it...."
"Yeah, fuck it."
The secretary became furious. She had heard about people like Jim, had heard they were wierd and different. She longed for the martinis and candle-lit dinners she was used to. San Diego, with its orgainzed swimming and pleasure seemed very attractive to her now.
Jim did not look at her as he opened the door and climed out. Mary watched him, thinking maybe she would call the police and charge him with rape. But then, she decided, that would ruin her weekend.
Jim leaned back in the window on the passenger side. He was smiling now, his eyes were wide and his face flushed. "Listen you're okay. I mean, I'd really like to ball you. If I ever see you again...."
"Get the Hell out of my way!!!" She threw the automatic into 'drive,' bolted forward and then stalled. She was furious. Her entire life had been devoted to turning Men down, playing the game that all the girls in her 'singles only' apartment had played, were now playing and would be playing when she returned. This bastard had turned down her gift. Well, she thought, finally getting the engine turning again, there will be a lot of nice guys in San Diego who will do anything just to get close to me!
"Don't bum on it!" Jim called out as she drove out onto the highway. He watched her tail lights wiggle and merge into one as the car disappeared into the distance. The acid was really coming on strong, it would be a far out night.
He walked along down the highway. His legs were wobbly and his mind was shooting outwards in every direction. The Earth seemed to vibrate beneath him; to pulsate and throb with its own secret rhythym that he alone understood.
When the young, hippie-type reached his Mother's Motel, he stood across the street staring into the melting buildings. He climbed the hill behind him, perched himself in its bank and waited. It would be at least another hour before he 'peaked."
The feeling became stronger in Wilson's Grove. The evidence of fire here was still on the charred trees. But the desolation of the Browing farm was not.
Ben walked slowly through the dark grove, feeling the presence of the quiet trees around him. They stood like hugh watchful monoliths, waiting for someone to tap their secret. Ben knew there was a truth here, something that would be gathered from the silent trees.
And then he found it.
At first, it appeared as the rest of the junk around the grove. Papers, beer cans and an occasional piece of underwear dotted the landscape. Ben shone his flashlight on each of these items, looking for his clue. He stopped at one point, lifted an old whiskey bottle off a small pile of garbage and saw the matchbook.
Its ends were frayed. The five sticks left in the book were useless, their sulfur tips having been burned a long time ago. He fondled the paper with trembeling fingers. Then he saw the inscription, blackened by wear but still readable.
"Oh shit...."
The matchbook read 'Mark's Motel ... by the sea in Seaside."
Ben stuffed the book into his pocked, stumbled out of the grove and ran as fast as he could to his car.
* * *
The 'peak' on an LSD trip is that point when all energy, natural and chemical reachs a height. Jim was at his peak now, and the acid was very strong stuff.
He tripped back and forth in his mind between a distorted reality and images of the past. He thought of his Mother as a young woman, and saw himself being held by her. He remembered the days on the beach with her, the pleasure of those summers they had spent together.
Then he pulled out and felt the Earth moving beneath him. The dark void across the highway emptied itself of all barriers and he flew into it, then returned again. The Motel down below shimmered and stood nakedly plain. There was nothing there, he decided, the wood was all. And, even that was not alive.
And then he lay naked on a beach. The ocean screamed at him, pulling him out. The waves became hands with long fingers that caressed his body, tugging and ripping at his skin. Jim tried to fight off the vision, but when he returned to what lay beneath him, the empty, dead Motel, he fell immediately back into his vision.
The ocean was now rising above him. His body screamed, but the screams of the sea overshadowed his own. The hands were all around him, and he felt his inside being pulled through his own body. At the moment everything inside him flew out into darkness, the image of his Mother appeared. She was laughing sardonically, a Woman possessed.
The final snap came when his energy left him and was replaced by a vacant sound of wind. Jim shook as he pulled himself free of the 'trip' and concentrated once again on the Motel.
For a moment, the acid seemed to disappear. He felt the warm summer winds and firm ground beneath him.
Then it came. The Motel exploded into blues, greens and oranges. The fiery hands caressed the building where his Mother lived. The energy pulsated and provided an excellent visual effect.
"Oh wow!" He shouted, now happy that he had taken such good acid.
* * *
Lee was naked and spreadeagled on her bed. She listened to the rumble of the fire that worked its way from the living room towards her. Her hand gripped the sides of the mattress, she was waiting to be consumed.
The pulsating orange ball of energy was in her mind, and it began working its way down her body. Through her breasts, across her stomach and onto her belly. She smiled to herself as the fiery ball once again invaded her cunt. It would be the last time, she thought with relief, that she would suffer through the invasion.
The heat of the flames reached her. There was a battle raging between the fire in her vagina and the one which was seeking more fuel through the walls of her small bedroom. The smoke poured through underneath the door, and Lee watched it from a distance as it rose gently to the ceiling.
Then, as usual, she heard it. The sound of an axe being slung against her bedroom door was one she had known before. She waited patiently, her fantasy was working.
Ben Grant hammered away at the locked barrier, the flames searing his back. The entire living room was in flames when he had reached the house, and he had run through them. Now, he tried to reach Lee.
The axe broke through, the door shattering into hundreds of pieces. The smoke poured in, and the fingers of fire jumped across the room outside and began working through the opening. He reached in through the hole he had just made, unlocked the bedroom door and ran towards her.
Lee saw Ben Grant and became terrified. She realized that this was not her fantasy. His appearance gave her fear. The fire was raging through every part of the house, and it would be only a matter of seconds before she would have been dead. Suddenly, as she felt him lifting her from her bed, she did not want to die.
"You crazy woman!" He muttered, his voice filled with exhilaration.
"Take me," she moaned. And this time, she meant it.
* * *
Jimmy watched the pulsating light show with joy. It had been a real treat, being consumed visually by the spectacular sight. Sitting by himself, he had shouted and screamed for joy as each new burst of fire exploded in the motel below him.
Then he saw his mother being carried by a man from the burning building. The dark figures moved swiftly and easily from the danger and disappeared down onto the beach below. Jim knew that the figure was his Mother, and he knew that this was her Motel that was on fire.
The figures glowed as they moved away from him. Jim felt his heart leap. He saw them as one, saw them as the perfect pair in universe filled with imperfection. "Out of sight!" he shouted.
It would be a couple of days before the young Man realized what had really taken place that night. As he would walk through the charred remains of his Mother's house, he would not be sure if, indeed, he had seen the glowing couple during the height of his acid trip. He would be afraid to tell anyone that he had been on acid and that he had sat on a hillside watching his own house burn to the ground without doing anything about it.
An act that had cost Lee Marks and Ben Grant their lives.
* * *
By the time Ben heard the sirens, he was far down the beach. No one would come looking for him out here, and he was alone with Lee.
He had carried her from certain death out onto the cool and deserted sand. Her naked body in his arms was all that he wanted now.
He lay her down on the sand. She looked up at him with eyes that were soft. He kissed her hard on the mouth, and their tongues met and melted.
He kissed her neck, then moved down to her breasts. Lee held his head lightly against her as he stabbed at her nipples, then ground the erect buds firmly between his teeth.
Ben stood above her, dropped his pants and knelt down between her legs. Lee watched him and moaned as she felt his prick working slowly up inside her. Ben hovered over, breathing softly as he stroked evenly into her.
The momentum picked up and Lee, too, began to move. She thrust her pelvis up, then relaxed with a sigh. She knew she was coming, and wanted to prolong the moment. Ben stroked her harder now, pushing his cock far up inside her. Lee took him all the way, clutching the sand as hm came forcefully and violently.
Ben lifted his woman into his arms and walked another hundred yards down the beach. When he had finally managed to walk around to the other side of the cove, he lay her down once again on the sand.
"Again?" She moaned. "Again!"
She let him pull her thighs apart. She rubbed her soreness lightly, anticipating the moment when he would enter again.
He bent over her, pulled her legs far back against her shoulders and slid inside. Her cunt was still wet, and Ben rocked back forth into her with ease. She was becomming his woman.
Lee cried out as Ben struggled, then held himself firmly inside her and came. She reached down between their bodies and touched his cock. Her fingers trembeled as she held him inside her.
"Let's go...."
He lifted her again and walked with her in his arms. Behind them, the fire was being fought by other Men.
On the highway above them, they could hear the cars and people moving like a swarm of ants towards the blaze. The entire town was moving against them, and they were glad that they were heading in the opposite direction.
When she lay naked on the sand for the third time, Ben kissed her sore lips and drove his tongue inside her vagina. Lee groaned loudly, she was taken completely.
She held him again, feeling his cock as it grew hard in her hand. She kissed the head, and licked him all over. Her tongue moved slowly, there was no hurry.
He entered her for the third time that night. She threw herself up in supplication, wrapping her thighs around his back.
They worked feverishly against each other. Their bellies slapped, the sound being diminished by the pounding surf. Lee pulled at his back, digging her nails into his warm skin. She was getting there, it wouldn't be long now.
Finally, she felt herself weaken, then a surge of energy passed through. She shuddered, threw her belly against his and fell back. A second later, Ben came as strongly as he had the first time. He fell into her waiting arms, knowing that the warm body beneath his would be there forever.
"We won't go back there, will we?" Her voice was soft and lovely.
"No. Never." Ben replied, knowing that his day had finally come.
