Caught up in sexual frenzy, blind to any reality but this sensual one, I opened my lips, took in the hard nipples one by one, my hands cupping and squeezing them, guiding and preparing them. This Paul must have been quite an innovator, because now Bobbie began to moan, her words unintelligible for a moment. "Both of them," she sighed thickly. "Both of them at once."
CHAPTER ONE
MY TERRITORY AS A MERCHANDISING pitch man covers the whole country. I made the request to travel directly to the front office. They needed me or else they needed the big billing I always seem to get. I've been lucky with money from all sources and I can't complain about the long hours. I've always had a woman at the end of my day. I'm married now but I never thought it could happen. Well there's a couple of reasons for this. First of all for all bachetlor intents and purposes I wasn't going to let any woman throw a lariat around me. I went through all the gyrations of hit and run romance. Make 'em and break 'em that was me, Pinky Mercer, the small bundle of salesmanship and sex prowness. On the other hand these abilities led to my marriage in the wierdest manner possible. I'm glad I was able to recognize love when I saw it. Otherwise the oversexed type of events that occurred to me would have smothered my life out. It started when I was being chased, for the only time in my life, by a distraught brother of a gal I was shacked up with that weekend. I knew she didn't have a husband but who could have imagined a two hundred fifty pounder was her brother. He tore through the bedroom door right after his sister and I had become happy, don't' you know.
I was forced to scoot out of there in my birthday suit. Luckily it was a country home and no one was further aroused by the bare facts. I got a chance to get my suit on and luckily I had a pair of work shoes in the car. So before long I managed to shake him off as I approached the state line. Actually I saw a motorcycle cop flag him down and I vowed no more women like that for me. From now I figured they're going to have to sign an overnight love pact with me. No husbands, no brothers, one lover allowed.
Before I had finished that pattern of escapist thinking, I found myself stopping my car in some small burg in the backwoods. It was evening time as I got out of the car.
Few people milled about the deserted dusty village. The breezes made me feel a strange sensation of cold longing for warmer happier places. I should have jumped right back into my little old sedan and gunned that motor right out of there. How did I know that by not leaving right now I was actually remaining in a town called Hell.
This particular night I was sitting in what passed for a filthy bar as I ever hope to see. It was dank, gloomy, the walls paneled in dark, discolored plywood.
Belly up to the bar, I was nursing a double jolt, vainly trying to discourage the over-friendly bartender, the unnumbed part of my brain pondering how to dispose of what was left of the evening.
I'd just come from the hotel dining room, where I'd gamely hacked my way through a steak that only shoe leather could match for toughness. Being the last person in the dining room, I'd wanted to send my compliments to the chef, but the waiter informed me that he'd already left.
Dalesville. Brother, what a place I landed in.
So, I sat. Drinking and thinking. Mercifully the fat bartender had padded off, leaving me to my dark reflections. Letting me case the dismal lounge, take in the sparse collection of early drinkers.
The two guys down at the far end of the bar had all the shadings of fags, one of them obviously the aggressor, shooting me a look now and then, but mostly concentrating on trying to talk his buddy into going to the men's room with him.
There was a foursome at one of the tables, the women chubby, over vivacious, their husbands struggling to make conversation with each other over drinks. Big night out. One of the twitches, a puffy-faced blonde caught me eyeing her, began playing "footsie" with me. Only with her eyes.
Which left only the couple at my left( a youngish pair, about twenty-five, who were all cuddled up over warm martinis. The girl was a stunner for Dalesville, that is a natural redhead with fair, glowing completion, her legs a dream of sensuous promise, her white nylon cocktail gown all but splitting from the pressure of her pent-up, cannon-ball boobs.
Wouldn't I love to run barefoot on that terrain?
But at that moment my apraisal was abruptly aborted, as my eyes slid up from her panoramic cleavage, and locked with those of her boy friend. I quickly interpreted the anger there; the fact that he didn't particularly enjoy having a stranger ogle his sweetie.
A suspicion immediately confirmed as the brute snarled a terse challenge at me; "Sect anything green, pal?"
I immediately became very interested in my drink, I wasn't about to have my nose put on upside down. Like I said, I'm not a very big guy. And the lad with the redhead was. So what're the odds?
Fighting's always been a touchy thing with me. Being such a lightweight has always put me at a disadvantage. All through school I was the class runt. Even so, I usually managed to hold my own. Somewhere along the line I got my height, but the weight and muscles never quite materialized.
I've had fights, plenty of them. A guy couldn't have been on the drift as long as I have and not run into some scab-nose louses spoiling for a fight. But I don't go out of my way to look one up, if you know what I mean. And when I'm in one I don't fool around; I play nasty and finish it up in one helluva hurry.
If I don't-hell, what chance has a hundred-forty pounder got against a two-hundred pound six-footer? Especially if one of those six-footers is a screaming mad husband who's come home a day early to surprise the wife, and gets a naughty little surprise himself instead? Finds the little dear sharing herself.
Giant or not, I still couldn't resist sneaking one more glance at her. She was leaning further over the bar, the glasses almost forming pedestals for those gorgeous boobs. And I couldn't' help but wonder how she ever got those two melons to stand still long enough to strap them into a brassiere.
Then, suddenly, my attention was diverted as a solitray blonde ankled into the bar, took a stool not more than four feet to my left. Not a chance choice either. I'd seen her eyes slither over everyone in the barroom, finally fall on me. It was a look I'd seen plenty of times before. A look that said stuff in inch high letters. The doll was out looking and no mistake.
All at once the evening came alive, turned into a bauble. That turned ever so slowly before my eyes, glittering, dazzling.
All I had to do was reach out and take it. She peeled off her white gloves.
"I'll get the tab," I said with a casual air as the bartender came back with her drink. The barman did a quick double take, looked at the woman, saw, she wasn't protesting, and smilingly lifted a bill from my stack.
There was no coyness, no pretense about the slim blonde. She turned toward me, nodded and smiled, took a pretty sip of her drink. There was no mark of novice about her; she'd gone the route many times before.
I smelled married from a block off. And when I zeroed in on her ring finger, saw it bare, saw the indentations that don't suddenly disappear, I was sure.
With a swift, smooth motion I slid myself down the bar, took the stool beside her. It all happened so quickly that the other patrons must have been positive that ours was a prearranged meeting.
She sent a strained smile in my direction, held her drink meditatively with both hands. "Hi," she said. "Thanks for the drink."
"My pleasure," I said. "Maybe you'll let me buy you another."
She flexed her shoulders with a feline movement, smiled more warmly. "Yes," she breathed, hre eyes apraising me quickly, indicating they liked what they saw, "maybe I will at that."
We made small talk, sparring and feinting, she trying hard to conceal the sexual disturbance smoldering deep inside her, trying to sugar-coat the fact that she was a tramp, thrill hungry and unprincipled, blatantly on the make. But it didn't come off.
While we went through a second drink my eyes roved over her, taking her apart piece by piece, knowing full well she was aware of my assessment, seeing the jitters my frank staring engendered within her. The kid was hot and no mistake.
She was perhaps thirty, tired-eyed, the lines around her eyes and mouth telling me all I needed to know about how her marriage was going. Telling me that she was fed up, bored, just going through the motions.
And now that he was gone, for whatever reason, she was out to at least briefly reinvigorate her life. Do something magic, something exciting. To enter into a world where she would be the desired as well as the desiring. For a few brief hours she'd sparkle, become femme fatale.
She wasn't a beautiful woman, but she wasn't a dog either. She had money to do with; her coiffure and facial attested to that. Also the expensive, silk suit she wore, the matching satin pumps, sexy sheer stockings, grey in the dim light.
Her body was still firm and trim, a matter of apparent pride to her. As the jacket fell open revealing the deep dark valley of her breasts, she sneaked a deep breath, brought her breasts to full bloom savoring my hungry fascination with them.
Her nails were done in a light pink, as were her lips. It was a provocative touch, and I felt my heart hammer, imagining her naked on a bed, her lips, her fingers and her toes all glistening with the vivid pink coloring. Contrasted to her blonde hair, it would be a maddening sight.
Her name was Laura Tuley; I had no doubt but that the latter was fictitious. Still I wondered about her husband. But then as the whiskey cut in with more vengeful force, I jettisoned the doubts There'd be time enough for that later. Plenty of time.
I came awake to Laura's self-conscious laugh. "Well," she asked. "Do I pass?"
I came to immediately, grinned with intimate insolence. "Forgive me. Was I that obvious? Yes, Laura," I let my voice drop, grope for conviction. "You do pass."
"Thank you," she mimed, flushing with pleasure.
"I'm not just snowing you," I said. "I mean it. You're a lovely woman."
"Why, thank you Pinky," she said. " And suddenly she was sitting closer to me, her knee subtly sliding up and down against mine. "Your'e a real gentleman."
"Only when there's due cause," I grinned.
"I think I'm going to enjoy you," she said, letting a little more sultry innuendo creep into her voice than was necessary. "You look like a man who likes to have a good time. Nothing stick-in-the-mud about you."
Immediately I diagnosed what was wrong with Mr. Tuley.
"There a fun club about four miles down the road," she suggested. "Do you have a car? We can kick up our heels a little. Do you like to dance?"
"I love it," I said. "My car's right outside."
Suddenly giddy and elated, Laura slid her hand on my leg, squeezed my knee. "Lets' go," she breathed.
We danced but later on the better finale was now at hand. As Laura, carrying her shoes in her hand, hurried me up a short alley, then across the back lawn toward her dark house, cautioning me to silence as we came up on the porch.
Once inside she gripped my hand, dragged me through the darkness. Upstairs, to a room I recognized immediately, clued by the mysterious catch in her voice, as the bedroom she shared with her absent husband.
A tiny hooded night-light on the bed stand plinked to life, and suddenly Laura was twisting her legs in mine, working her silken knee high and mooring it to me. "Oooh," she sighed visciously, "you're ready, baby. All ready. I can feel it."
"You little devil," I laughed. She squirmed up, began pulling at my tie. "Oh, hurry, Pinky. Get undressed. I want to see you. All of you."
"Haven't you got that a little mixed up?" I said "Isn't that supposed to be the other way around?"
"My," she mocked. "Aren't we getting stuffy and conventional all of a sudden?" Her manner became arch. "Are you going to do as you're told? Or do I rip this shirt to ribbons?"
I didn't really mind. I was at that irresponsible point of intoxication where nothing really mattered. Only that final and glorious moment of conquest. "Aren't you going to turn out the light?"
"No," she smirked lewdly. "I wanna watch."
I pulled off the shirt, struggled to my feet, "Okay, your the boss." Then I was tugging at my belt. I turned my back to her as my undershirt and shorts came off, ignoring her vulgar comments. Slowly I wheeled....
Her eyes glistened and I saw her jaw go tense. "Oh, baby," she purred. "You're marvelous, simply marvelous. I'm gonna like you." She fell on her back, folded her arms behind her head, went completely limp.
"Aren't you going to undress?" I said.
"You do it?" she asked, her eyes pure pixie. "Please, Pinkey?"
I took a quick glance at the picture on the top of the dresser, saw a younger version of Laura and a man in a conventional studio pose. "That Dave?" I asked. "Where is he tonight?"
"He won't be back until next week Saturday. Ten days from now." Her lashes fluttered. "If that means anything to you."
I gulped, "I'm game if you are."
"Maybe you'd better let me sample your wares," she slurred, "before I decide. Maybe once'd be enough."
"I doubt that," I gritted, sitting on the bed beside her, begining to stroke her beautiful silken legs.
"Oooh, that feels good baby." Her body went taut, and she arched her back in sensual delight. "Undress me now, Pinkey. Love me, make it exciting. Dave never has any new ideas. He just hops on, takes care of it like it was a chore. He only comes around once a week. I could use it every night." Her voice cracked beneath the weight of her passion. "Please, darling, undress me, make mad love to me...."
Laura was like a voluptuous, sensuous cat, enjoying every moment of my artful undressing, savoring every touch, every kiss I conferred as I peeled down her stockings, as I undid the dress, pulled it over her head. Then the pink slip, the lace heavy pink panties and brassiere. She was a dazzling rhapsody in pink. Time and time again she held my hands, retfused to let me go until I'd caressed her to her utter satisfaction.
Then finally she was naked, her glowing body displayed in drunken relaxation; I saw her boobs, the nipples hard and erect, rise and fall with delight, I saw her stomach spasmed by desire. She nearly went out of her mind as I arranged her on the bed, sat back to adore her, let my hands rove up her legs and thighs.
It was as I'd expected. Her toenails were done the same as her fingers, and arranged in the wanton pose as she was, she made a devastating picture. "Wow, doll," I gasped, "that nail polish and lipstick gets me. You don't know what you're doing to me."
Her laugh was a musical tinkling. "I've got eyes, too, baby." She squirmed up on the bed. "My bag, Pinky. I can't reach it. Hand it over, will you?"
I threw the white handbag to her. Instantly she scrabbled inside, withdrew her lipstick. She held a mirror, carefully redid her mouth. "So long as you like me in pink you might as well enjoy yourself." She finished, handed me the tube, the cap still off. "Here Pinky, you can paint my nipples."
I hesitated a moment too long. "What's the matter?" she teased. "You afraid of after?? It won't poison you. You kiss me, don't you? C'mon, baby, please. It'll be a cute trick"
Dumbly I took the lipstick, leaned over her, began to paint her dark nipples with it, turning 'them to a sparkling metallic pink. A shocking contrast to her normal coloring. Laura giggled. "Oh, that tickles. But a good tickle." She lapsed into a self-indulgent monologue. "Keep it up, baby. Once Dave told me about a woman who liked to have her husband pour creme de menthe on her breasts. And afterward she had a little stunt she pulled on him."
Laura sighed wistfully, "I wanted to try it with Dave, but he thought I was being naughty. If he could only see me now. What a gorgeous way to get a jag on." She came partially upright. "How about it, Pinky? Will you buy me some creme de menthe tomorrow? Can we play naughty like that.
I felt my hair stand on end; a tremor zig-zagged down my spine, I thought, the woman's buggy. There's no telling what lengths she'll go to for kicks. A wicked curiosity and hunger for debauch went through me suddenly. "Sure thing, baby," I said, applying finishing touches to her left nipple. "You got a volunteer. I'll buy some first thing in the morning. We can play creep games to your heart's content."
"Oh, Pinky," she puffed, reaching up, drawing me close. "I feel so wild inside. All puckery. Hurry, come do me before it's too late. Kiss my breasts." Her voice came in a shrill wheeze. Do me! Before I explode right here."
"Right away?" I questioned. "I just got you prettied up."
Laura wasn't listening. She was twisting viciously away, extinguishing the light. "Baby, baby," she moaned. "Hurry!"
Moments later, even this attention became intolerable.
The lipstick on her nipples was fragrant, had a pleasant if tart taste. It was when my hand found her in the darkness, opened her, that she caved in completely. Instantly she was squeezing her body beneath mine, her hands clawing and guiding me, her hips jutting up, welcoming and grinding at me until I was finally enveloped. Her nails clawed my back, she moaned without stop; sent pleasurable, delirious entreaties and encouragements.
The keening mounted, erupted into a siren wail of passionate release. "Oh, you're good. Darling it's here again. Oooh, doll. Go, go, go...."
Laura writhed with moving frantically with passions only dreamed of. Each separate moment she kept whispering encouragements in his ears, urging him onward.
What's a man to do with encouragement like that? When pagan enjoyment's practically oozing out of every pore of the wanton's body? I clung to her in a death-like grip. As the miraculous inevitability occurred.
"Too soon.' 'she moaned. "Too soon. You're just like Dave. Just a darned jack rabbit."
I stiffenetd. She felt my anger, and sought to appease it. "I'm sorry, honey," she kissed me, her tongue snaking into my mouth, probing deeply. "It's all right. I'm just selfish. We've got the first one out of the way, now we can really work on it, really enjoy it."
"Aren't we working this Dave thing into the ground?"
She giggled, pulled my head down to her boobs. "I'm sorry, baby. To hell with Dave. It's just us from now on. Oh, kiss me, darling. That's magnificent. Kiss, kiss." Her tone grew even more coarse. "This one's gonna last forever."
I did as I was told, already sensing the eternal stirrings rebuilding deep in me. And beyond that-anticipation of the marathon bout we'd have in the days forthcoming.
If only I could have dreamed the nightmare that was to transpire during the following days.
CHAPTER TWO
NOT THAT I HADN'T DONE ALL RIGHT SO far that day, the distracting, nagging thoughts of Laura and the four-alarm sex we'd pounded away at all night long, notwithstanding. There were four juicy orders in my book this afternoon, the results of some twenty calls, total commissions on which would amount to something like a hundred twenty five. A good day's work.
Then I'd deserve that shower and that drink. I'd deserve all the libertine tricks dear Laura had tucked up her sleeve for us tonight.
I'd really have earned it.
I had no idea of how far I was from Dalesville. I'd been twisting and twining my way through the County's back country. I had a vague idea that Dalesville was west, and that was about it. When that last order was safely tucked away from the night I'd head toward 'the sun, find a main highway, zip on down to Dalesville town.
But for now. Another victim.
I saw dust jittering on the gleaming, gun-metal blue of the car's hood, and felt minor irritation. It would mean another quick wash job, the second for the week.
Big cars, top shelf booze and a different chippy in every town. That was my way of life.
If anything, the road got worse with every mile, the clients more scarce. But now I came into a marshy, desolate stretch, the road overgrown with tall weeds and encroaching trees. I began to despair of making that last sale.
Then, when I'd all but given up hope, I saw it. Back off the road about a quarter-mile, only the peak of the barn extending above the tops of the trees in the dense woodlot fronting the property, was what had once been a paying farm. A rough, weed-humped lane wound into the woods toward the place. It was a perfect place for my pitch. If ever there was a place that needed plastic tough this was it.
T. King the faded letters on the mail box read. Well, Mr. King, I thought, look out. Here I come. Carefully I edged the car into the pot-holed road, started in. It was rough going every foot of the way.
" Just going into that dark, underbrush hedged tunnel gave me the shudders. But that was nothing compared to the eerie, chilling sense of isolation that hit me when I came into the open, approached the house itself. It seemed for that brief instant, that it was cut off, had been forgotten by the rest of the world.
The lawn around the house was carefully mowed and edged, there were lovely stands of flowers bordering the drive and the house foundation itself. But beyond the lawn there was nothing else done. The barns stood in knee high grass, a junk-yard tangle of farm machinery was almost completely obscured by weeds.
Behind the buildings I saw the woodlot extend to the top of a distant hill, traces of what had once been dairy herd pasture. But nowhere did I see any sign of any fields under cultivation.
If I'd have had any sense I'd have bolted, torn back down that washboard road as fast as the car would take me.
But my flight was forestalled as, at that moment, I saw movement in the distance, and out of the woods to the north came a tractor pulling a mower. And seeing the large, bulky shape perched in the tractor seat, I revised my opinion of the farm. Somewhere, some fields were being worked on. And I got out of the car, waited for Mr. King to reach the farm yard.
You can imagine my surprise, when, the tractor drawing closer, I saw that it wasn't a man on the tractor, but a woman. A large, hefty specimen at least six feet tall, who must have weighed one-seventy easy. And yet, as she drew the tractor into a space behind one of the storage sheds, climbed down, I saw she wasn't a quivering blob of fat. She was a brunette, about forty, dressed in denim jeans, a grey cotton work shirt.
She saw me standing in the yard, pulled off her floppy straw Hat, jerked the twisted bandana from her throat, shook out her hair. She was big and mannish, her face coarse, tanned and lined by the sun, scant indentation where her waist should have been, but she was still a woman. Her breasts were prominent, straining against the grey material of her shirt, her hips rounded and firm, her buttocks all but bursting the denim pants.
I couldn't help imagining what the amazon would look like in a dress, her monumental attributes graced by feminine clothes. For despite her structure she was nonetheless still comely. I remember thinking what a hell on earth she must make of her poor husband's life. Especially if she was passionate.
There was no smile, no pretense at amenities. She faced me squarely. "What can I do for you, mister?"
"I'd like to speak to Mr. King if I might. Is he around the place somewhere?"
"There ain't no Mr. King," she snapped, her bluntness almost child-like. "He ran off about seven, eight years ago. We ain't seen hide nor hair of him since."
"Oh," I said, at sudden loss for words, "I'm sorry to hear that, Mrs. King."
"No need for being sorry. He was a bastard. Good riddance. And I ain't Mrs. King. She's in the house."
"Well. . maybe I could talk to her."
The woman fixed me with a suspicious glance. "What're you selling?"
"It's in relation to the equipment...." I started.
"Yeah, she interrupted, chewing on the word for a long time ."Maybe she'd be interested. "We could use some. But you'll have to talk to Kathrine. She decides on things like that. She decides on everything. There was no particular rancor in her voice. "I just do the bull work around here."
She turned toward the house. "I'll go fetch her."
"If you would,' 'I said, feeling the perpetual excitement mount within me, all but smelling a sale, meeting the challenge of clinching it halfway. "I'm quite sure I have a proposition here that would interest...."
"Save it, mister," she said, going away.
I waited by the car, mentally estimating the size of the sale.
Then the side door opened, and a younger, smaller woman stepped out onto the porch. Briefly I saw the curtains at one of the windows flutter, and caught a fleeting glimpse of still another woman, a pale brunette, a remarkable copy of the others, peering out at me. Then she was gone. But in that instant I read something in that expression I didn't like. An unsettling intensity, a stare almost demented.
And when Mrs. King neared me, it became an undeniable fact that this woman, perhaps five-six, her figure trim and attractive in every sense of the word. She was dressed in a cotton housedress. Her feet were in scuffed flats, her legs stockingless. I figured age at thirty-seven.
She was a pretty enough woman, and had once been, without a doubt, a beautiful woman. But years of farm work, of being cut off from society, an over-supply of responsibility had taken their toll, had made her tired before her time. Until now her face was lined, her mouth drooped, her personal grooming left something to be desired. And also, deep in her gaze a wild light, like a candle.
"Kathrine," the big woman started, "this man wants to sell you some...."
"That'll do, Eleanor," the younger sister snapped, cutting her off with off-handed brutality, a shortness that had been going on for a long, long time. She faced me. "What is it, mister? Spit it out fast. We're just sitting down to supper."
Again I was caught off guard, forgot my spiel. "I'm handling a product called...."
It rang phony somehwo like they were just leading me on, going through the motions. Several times I looked up from the brochures and samples, caught the two looking at me with a look of almost coquettish appraisal. Then I dug out my price list, I could have sworn I saw Eleanor send a mute question to Kathrine, I saw Kathrine smile and nod.
If only I'd have been able to interpret the meaning of that. If I hadn't been blinded by the thought of a big commission!
But, then, as suddenly as it had started, the deal turned cold. The sisters were all at once undecided, luke warm about the entire thing. They'd have to have time to think it over. Maybe I could come back tomorrow?
I didn't want to come back tomorrow. I wanted to close right now, I wanted them to sign at the bottom of the juiciest order I'd sold in two weeks. "Perhaps, Mrs. King," I said, fighting to hide my irritation, "I could drop back after dinner, we could talk this over further then.
"Oh?" she said, "Where are you staying, Mr. Mercer?"
"In Dalesville. At the hotel."
"Oh, that's a terrible distance. Almost forty miles." Her eyes narrowed, and she smiled, displaying even, white teeth. "I have a better idea, Mr. Mercer. Why don't you stay here and eat supper with us? We're having a simple fare, but if you don't mind...."
I did some lightning fast figuring. It was almost five now. We'd eat, and most likely I'd nail things down by eight. I'd high-tail it to town, shower and change, still meet Laura at our pre-arranged nine-thirty.
"We could talk some more about the paint and stuff while we eat," Eleanor suggested.
"That's very kind of you," I smiled. "Thank you very much. I'd like to have dinner with you fine folks."
I regarded it as a masterful stroke of luck. I was in. Give me another hour and I'd have these rube biddies eating out of my hand. They'd sign or I'd sure's hell know the reason why.
The inside of the house was modern, but still a helluva lot nicer than I'd expected. Kathrine led me down a long hall to a modern, sparkling bathroom, said, "Perhaps you'd like to wash up. We'll be eating shortly."
Instantly new doubts were born. What was with these kooks anyway? A farm that looks like a horror movie reject on the outside, and then, inside modern. What kind of corn were the dears pulling anyway?
Now I noticed that five places were set at the table, and looked around quickly to see who was still missing. As if in answer to curiosity the job named Eleanor bustled into the kitchen, freshly scrubbed, her hair carelessly brushed, adjusting the belt of a flower-patterned house dress.
Abruptly Kathrine left, returned with the pale faced woman I'd caught staring at me from the house. At close view she was evetn more strikingly like Kathrine, close to her in height and slightness. There was a strangeness about her; she gave the impression of fragility. But even as wan as she was, her complexion was finer, her features were more delicate than those of either of her sisters. Obviously the baby of the family. And also very obviously she was a wee bit touched. As was evidenced by the way she acknowledged our introduction, executing an overdone curtsy, averting her eyes in an over-genteel way.
"Mr. Metrcer," Kathrine said matter-of-factly, "this is my youngest sister Bobbie. You'll have to excuse her, her mind tends to wander sometimes. We have to watch her all the time. Bobbie, this is Mr. Mercer. He'll have supper with us tonight."
"How do you do?" Bobbie said in an affected tone. "So pleased to know you." Whereupon she sat down to the table, began to wipe her knife, fork and spoon on the skirt of her dress, completely unaware that her sanitary efforts were displaying acres of milk white thigh.
"Bobbie," Kathrine snapped. "Pull down your dress."
"Oh," Bobbie giggled. "I didn't know." The dress came down, and instantly she was furtively hiding her knife and spoon under the edge of her plate. While Kathrine sent me a pleading look.
We all sat down. Still a vacant place stared us in the face. "Eleanor," Kathrine ordered, "I think you'll have to go up after Judy. I don't know what's got into that child lately. She just sits up in her room and reads those books of Paul's. Or else she looks out the window for hours."
Bobbie looked up, the utensils all secreted. "Is Paul back? I liked Paul." The plaintive shine in her voice sent shivers up and down my back.
Moments later Eleanor hurried back into the room, sat down. "She's coming," she announced.
There was a soft tread on the stairs, and then Judy made her entrance. Looking neither right nor left, desperately shy, she slid into her place without even once looking at anyone in the room. I almost dropped my fork as I saw her.
She was a young girl, perhaps twenty at the outside, a breathtaking blonde who resembled the sisters only very remotely. Her body wasn't a child's body, however. She was a mature woman in every sense of the word. She wore a faded skirt, a sleeveless blouse, the latter garment crammed full of the msot luscious curves and bulges you'd evetr want to see. She was smaller than any of the others, but what she lacked in height, she more than compensated for in sexiness.
Judy was mouth-wattering perfection-from her wide, lovely eyes, her full, pale lips, her narrow nose, her graceful throat and shoulders, to the flaere of her hips, the narrowing spear of her ankles, the small pedestal of her feet.
Beyond this beauty there was the supreme loveliness-the all pervading aura of innocence that clung to her like expensive perfume, that gave her eyes magic, secret luster. Suddenly, I felt my heart catch in my throat.
What was a beautiful girl like this doing stuck away on a rattletrap farm way out on the butt end of nowhere?
"This is Judy," Kathrine King was saying when I came out of my trance enough to hear her speaking to me. "She's my daughter. She gets the blondeness from her no-good, shiftless father." She disregarded the obvious pain the statement inflicted on Judy. "Judy, this is Mr. Mercer."
The girl looked up with a quick, haunted glance. A glance that was somehow a warning. As quickly she averted her eyes, studied her plate. "Pleased to know you, Mr. Mercer," she said. These were the only words I was to hear from her throughout the meal.
If I thought I was going to do any promoting during that meal I was sadly mistaken. In the first place, I found it hard to keep my eyes off Judy King. In the second place, the three sisters gave me no chance to sneak in a commercial; they were much more interested in me.
At eight o'clock we were no closer to closing the sale than we'd been at the start. Panic gathered within me and I thought of how Laura would take to being stood up. Sale or no sale, I had to get out of here. By then Kathrine had produced a quart of whiskey from somewhere, real rot-gut stuff, and was mixing stiff highballs all around.
And the talk was getting farther and farther away from sales all the time.
Then, at long last, it dawned on me as to what the dodge was. These were the venerable old maids of song and fable, starved for company. They were the stringing me along, playing with me; they'd never intended to buy anything in the first place. They just wanted someone to talk to. I was different, I'd been around, I'd had lots of interesting experiences. One more thing; I was a man.
Kathrine played it smart. Whenever I made strong, "I've got to go now," noises, she was suddenly interested in my product again. And my hopes were revived.
It was nine-fifteen, all thought of meeting Laura gone by the board, when I finally got Kathrine King to sign a four barrel, thirty gallon order. By then I'd had three drinks, and rotten as the booze was, it still cut in, made me less sharp than I thought I was. I hadn't even seen Eleanor leave the room. I vaguely remembered hearing a car start up somewhere, but it never really registered.
Finally I rose to go, thanked them all for dinner, and also for the order. Even if I missed Laura tonight, the commission would help soothe my hurt. "Your sure you won't stay a little longer?" Kathrine asked, subtle trace of mockery in her tone. "We've enjoyed talking to you so much. Perhaps you'd like to stay over tonight. We've got an empty room upstairs."
My stomach heeled over hard, and my brain boggled. Had I heard right? Were they actually asking me to spend the night with them? And I snorted inwardly.
"No, I couldn't," I said, trying to cover my embarrassment as best I could, "I'm afraid not. I'd best be getting along. Morning comes early, and I've got lots of calls to make tomorrow. You don't mind if I go out the front, do you?"
"Not at all," Kathrine said. "Here, I'll put on the yard light for you." She went to the wall, flicked a switch. I saw the yard brighten. "Are you sure you won't reconsider?"
"Please do," Bobbie said, her laugh on a verge of a cackle. "We've enjoyed you so much. I like you the best of any so far."
"Hush, Bobbie," Eleanor chastened.
"Well, I want to thank you again...." Suddenly my words died in my throat, as I stared past Eleanor out into the yard. Instantly my heart froze, and my pulse made an eerie singing in my brain.
"My car!" I gasped. "It's gone," I turned around, my face white, regarded the foolishly smiling women. "What did you do with my car?"
Kathrine regarded me coolly. "I sent Eleanor out to put it away for you. You were kind enough to leave the keys in it for her. We weren't fooling when we asked you to spend the night." Her smile became ugly, taunting smear. "You'll reconsider now, won't you?"
I went right out of the top of my head. "I want my car! I want my keys! I'm not staying her another second longer. Let me out of here! Do you hear, I want my keys...."
I started for the door. Only to have Eleanor deftly sidestep, block my way. "You're gonna stay honey," she said, her voice thick and bubbly. "We've all taken a liking to you. Even poor Bobbie there ."
I lunged at her. "Let me out, damn you!"
I guess it was the fact that I wasn't expecting it, or else the fact that I'd never had believed a woman could be that strong. For suddenly Eleanor shifted her position, assumed a widespread stance, her shoulders up like a boxer's. And all at once, setemingly from nowhere, she clobbered me.
The next thing I knew I was groveling on the floor, my hands on Eleanor's legs, trying to pull myself up. But there was no need, for as effortlessly as though she was handling a rag doll, Eleanor jammed her hands into my armpits, dragged me up.
I yelled in outrage, knowing the real meaning of boundless fear for the first time in my life. As Eleanor twisted my wrist, jammed my arm up behind me.
The combination of the blow and the arm lock made everything swim before my eyes. Kathrine's leering, goading face seemed a yard long. In the distance I heard Bobbie laughing in a sick, hysterical giggle. Then Eleanor was pushing me forward, the pain tearing through me, numbing me, making me howl again.
As we came upstairs I saw a door open along the hall, and a stricken-faced Judy looked out at me. As suddenly it was slammed shut in my face.
In one fleeting moment I saw the door at the far end of the hall, I saw the heavy oak two-by-four resting in steel arms, a throw bar to form a prison.
And I knew.
Then the door was opened, I was being plunged into darkness. The door closed behind me, the bar slammed home dully.
Driven out of my senses by the sudden and mindless terror, I hugged myself to the floor, and screamed and screamed.
CHAPTER THREE
I BEGAN TO KICK THE DOOR, THE FORCE of my blows carrying through my legs, jarring my spine. Incoherent profanities, dissolving to near gibberish, poured from my lips.
Until finally I heard someone mounting the steps. "Let me out, damn you! Let me out!" I rasped agian.
The peep-hole opened, and Eleanor stared in at me. "Better shut up, dearie," she chuckled. "Save your strength. You're gonna need it later. Go to sleep. Unless you want me to come in there and really clean up on you." She snickered again, the lewd innuendo nearly driving me out of my mind. "Sleep now lover boy."
The panel was slammed shut. I heard Eleanor's retreating footsteps. Then only silence.
And I turned out the light, fell back on the bed, my mind swarming, trying to figure a way to escape. My mind swam as I tried to conceive of some possible weapon I might wrench from the room. But there were none. Either experience or innate wiliness had taught Eleanor and Kathrine well.
I realized that my only chance was to be awake, waiting in the darkness, feigning sleep when Eleanor or Kathrine peered in, moving quickly to a new vantage point when they entered, to jump them, knee and gouge and kick until I'd knocked the woman senseless, to fight my way out of the rest of the house.
Seemingly hours passed. But glancing at the luminous face of my watch, I saw it wasn't so. It was only eleven-thirty. Fleeting thought of Laura hit me, and I wondered what she was doing now. Or better still, who.
Then I heard the hushed sound of movement in the hall, fell back, closed my eyes. I heard the peep-hole's panel being slid aside. Through half closed lashes I saw the rectangle of light cut a tunnel in the blackness. Then darkness again, the sound of the bar being moved. Instantly I was up, padded toward the door, stood waiting for whoever was about to enter.
I clenched my hands in a blow. The second the door opened and the woman sidled into the room I slammed down with all my strength, hoping to catch her behind the head. But I was too slow; the light flicked on to reveal Eleanor. Reflexively she twisted as she saw me, caught the full impact of the sweep on her shoulder.
I felt hot pain shoot up my arms like a thousand volts of electricity, and I scrambled to avoid her counterblow. Again I was too slow. Eleanor's fist careneed down, connected with the side of my head, sent me spinning across the room, where I banged into the wall, and slid limply to the floor.
While Eleanor leaned against the door, laughing softly to herself. Vaguely I remember the peephole opening, hearing Kathrine's voice. "Everything all right, Eleanor?"
"All under control, Kathrine."
Then Kathrine's voice again, cold as ice. "Give him enough, Eleanor. So we won't have to go through it again. But don't put him out of commission." Then the panel banged shut and Kathrine was gone.
Leaving me to the sadistic woman's mercy. Ten minutes later I struggled to my feet. Only to have Eleanor push me backward, toying with me like some rubber-legged animal. I clawed the wall, fought to keep my legs under me.
Then the quiet, cocksure command cut the air, "Undress, Pinky, baby," she smirked. "I wanna see just what kind of prize rooster we won this time."
I must have been completely out of my head by then. Otherwise I would have known better. "No, you pig," I gritted. "Not for you. Not for anybody. You gotta kill me first."
She smiled scathingly, advanced slowly, her legs spread in stalking stance, her fists at ready. "Okay, if you want it that way, honey. Nothing personal, understand? Kathrine says to tame you down, I have to tame you down. What good's a stud if all he does is kick his stall?"
There was no particular rancor in her eyes as she openhanded me, flooring me with one punch. I heaved my guts out.
We were in the bedroom, she was tormenting me again, saying, "Naughty, naughty Pinky. You've gone and got the sheet all bloody. Naughty boy." Once more she was open handing me, my head jolting back into the pillows like it was about to come off. "You're getting the sheets all bloody."
Then she was undressing me, taking off my clothes carefully, putting them aside in a neat pile. I awoke to see her standing over me, her eyes glittering as she looked down at my nude body. She was keening something about a guy, "Don't feel bad, baby. He liked to fight, too. But he never had a chance with me. Just like you never had a chance."
Her hands began to go over me, to stroke and manipulate me everywhere. "But then I do what Kathrine says. She wanted you. Said you reminded her of her husband, she giggled. "That's not good. I pity you."
I must have passed out then, because when I came around again it was dark, and Eleanor was naked and in bed with me. She was half sitting up, her hands still roving determinedly over me."
"Well, you're a man after all baby," she gloated. "Even after the whaling I gave you. I'll be damned. Maybe Eleanor'll get hers tonight after all. She needs it. It's been months since Ben was here. He was prime stuff. But, who's gonna be fussy at a time like this? I need a planking. Even if I have to do it all myself."
Sometime later I came alive again, felt a heavy, thrusting, twisting weight on me. And sensed momentary panic, like that you feel when you come up from a nightmare. Then I heard Eleanor's thick, guttural groans, her depraved encouragements. I realized it was worse than any nightmare.
"C'mon, baby," she pleaded, "keep it, keep it. I'm almost there again. Stay, honey, stay." Her body went wild above mine. "It's my third, lover,' she gloried, "my third. It's wonderful, just wonderful."
Her body was a torturing vessel, her legs like iron clamps around my thighs. Then she began to groan and shriek, her legs almost breaking me in half.
It was then that I passed out for good.
CHAPTER FOUR
I DON'T REMEMBER HOW I GOT BACK TO the bed. But somehow I must have made it. For when I next awoke my body was wound in the sheet, and bright splashes of sun were dancing on the floor. Somewhere in the distance I heard the cocky belligerence of a banty rooster. Then I conked out again.
All through that day I kept waking up, staring at the ceiling, vaguely realizing where I was. Weak as a kitten, still out of my head to some degree, I was no match for the overpowering convulsions that inevitably hit me, and I was conscious only for moments at a time. Then it was back to the nightmare world of my subconscious.
Perhaps it was noon, perhaps it was mid-afternoon-I had lost all track of time-when they started sticking the needles into my face. I came awake with a gasping oath, found Eleanor and the girl called Judy hovering over me. I was aware that I was totally naked before their gaze, and in my agony couldn't have cared less. Then I saw what they were doing. Judy had a swab soaked in iodine, she was painting the cuts on my cheek, ther face white with concern and sympathy.
I saw the wash basin on a chair beside the bed, the other first aid supplies. My face and neck felt cool and I realized they must have washed me. In fact Eleanor was still washing me, roughly raising my legs, running the soaped washcloth over my feet and legs. "You stink," she muttered.
While Judy sent her a vengeful look. "Be careful, can't you, Eleanor?" she said. "I'm getting this stuff all over him." Her voice dropped. "Why did you have to be so mean with him? You know Kathrine warned you about hurting him too much."
-"I didn't mean to," Eleanor alibied. "Once I got started, I just couldn't stop." Her tone became belligerent. "What does it matter to you? He's just another guy, ain't he?"
Blotto as I was I still saw how Judy cringed before the challenge. I saw how she lived in deathly fear of her aunt. "It's just that he's smaller than the others.
"Smaller?" Eleanor snorted. "So what? The smaller the better. They give you less trouble." She snickered between her teeth, the sound an ugly wheeze. I felt Judy's cool fingers tremble on my face.
Then Eleanor was shifting me on the bed, pulling the bloodstained sheets from under me, putting fresh down. I groaned loudly, my leg suddenly, twitching. "Be careful, will you?" Judy protested again.
"You won't get away with this," I mumbled weakly, letting them know I was among the living again. I groaned, realizing my lip was split in a dozen places.
Eleanor said, "He's back on that again."
"Don't torment him," Judy's voice broke. "Haven't you done enough to him already?"
Eleanor squeezed out the ugly laugh again. "Not compared to what we're gonna do with him."
"You're awful," Judy quaked, "all of you. Awful...."
"Don't knock it, baby. Not until you know what it's all about yourself."
"I don't want to know."
"Good enough. Just keep your nose out of our business then. Just do as you're told." She came behind Judy dug her fingers into the soft flesh of her upper arm, bore down. "And you won't get hurt. Understand?"
Judy writhed in pain, tried to shake off the punishing clutch. Her face contorted, and a small, subervient "Oh!" escaped her lips. She made no effort to fight her aunt.
Eleanor released her, went back to her bedmaking chores.
Finally, satisfied with her nursely ministrations, Judy moved back from the bed. Her face was frightened, still reflecting the pain just inflicted upon her. "The rest...." she said hesitantly, "aren't you going to do the rest? You can't just wash his face and legs."
Eleanor's grin was mocking, "I just thought Yd leave that for you. You like to play nursey-nursey so much. That's part of it, too, you know."
Judy's face went pale, her jaw constricted. "No ... I couldn't...?
"I couldn't," Eleanor mimicked her, and threw the washcloth to Judy. She approached the girl threateningly, ready to slap her, a cruel light in her eyes. "Take that soap," she ordered,. "Do as you're told."
Dumbly she took the bar of soap, began to lather the washcloth, her lips moved, but no words came out. Eleanor was spreading a large towel underneath me, the pain of being moved making red spots glisten before my eyes. I grew faint, and my eyelids dropped shut. From far away I heard the sharp sound of a slap, a stifled gasp of pain. Then Eleanor's voice. "Wash him, I said. And I mean everywhere."
Then I felt Eleanor's hot breath on my cheek, heard her mutter, "That's one way to learn what a man's like." She cruelly rammed her arms under me, raised me to a semi-sitting position. I felt the washcloth begin to glide over my chest and shoulders, down onto my belly. Then Eleanor shifted me, twisted my body slightly.
It felt like someone had hit me across the back of my head with a baseball bat. There was a deafening roaring in my head, and I passed out once more.
When I awoke this time I was aware of several significant changes. In the first place I was dressed in a pair of cotton pajamas, lying uncovered, my head propped on two pillows. At the window the air conditioner hummed softly, and the room temperature was comfortable. Thirdly, Judy was back. She stood just inside the closed door, looked at me with a burning, pitying glance.
"Are you awake?" she said. "Do you hear me?"
"I hear you," I murmured, wincing at the pain that numbed my face with the least exertion, surprised at how thick my words sounded. "I'm awake."
"Do you think you can eat something? Are you hungry?"
"I don't know. All I can think of now is something cold to drink. My mouth tastes awful."
She came closer, and my eyes focused more clearly on her lovely, sympathetic face. She looked like an angel in the muted dusk. "Will you try to eat if I bring you something?"
"Yes," I said, feeling faint gnawings of hunger despite the queasiness in my stomach. "But not very much. Water is what I want most."
"All right. Wait." She tapped on the door and it was opened from the outside. I thought I caught sight of Bobbie out there, peeking in with a silly smirk on her lips.
I dozed again, awoke to find Judy leaning over me, trying to slide another pillow under my back. There was a faint, clean woman smell about her, her breasts almost brushing my face. On the stand was a small tray bearing a bowl of vegetable soup, a scoop of mashed potatoes, one small pork chop. A glass of water, a cup of steaming coffee. Suddenly I was famished.
"Can you do it yourself?" Judy asked, spreading a thick napkin over my chest. "Or do you want me to help?" She ventured a smile, but it didn't come off. She was still afraid of me, of what my presence in this house meant.
"I can do it myself," I said. But they were brave words, for I could hardly move my arm. I spilled more than I got into my mouth.
Judy finally took pity, took the spoon herself. She gave me a sip of water. "Drink slowly. Give me some warning if it isn't going to stick. I've got the basin right here." Then, gravely and patiently, she brought up the bowl, fed me spoonful by spoonful. I was suddenly very tired again. And beyond that, there was a' sleepy, warm gratitude I felt toward this fear-ridden child. How did she figure in all this? I wondered. But I couldn't keep my thoughts clear.
"You're tired, aren't you?" she smiled. "Well, that's enough for tonight. I'll go now, let you rest some more." She briskly began to gather dishes, arrange them on the tray.
Nwo she stood upright, looked around the room for some last thing to do. "And about the bathroom? Can you make it alone? Do you want me to help you?" Though it cost her dearly to say it.
I blushed for her. "No, thank you. You've done enough. I'm sure I can take care of it myself."
Suddenly she was brusque and efficient. "Try," she ordered. "I want to see if you can get out of bed."
Gamely, my face contorted with pain, I struggled up, managed to stand. I started toward the John, stumbled.
Instantly Judy was beside me, her hands gently supporting me, forcing me to lean on her. "Just as I thought," she said. "Here, let me help you."
She saw me to the bathroom, waited outside while I took care of things. Then she put her arm around my waist, my other arm over her shoulder, brought me back to the bed. Where she pulled up the covers, plumped up the pillows. "You'll feel better tomorrow," she breathed, her lips close to my face, her eyes seemingly enormously large and dark all of a sudden.
I wanted to ask her to stay, not to leave me. It was a crazy impulse. If she would stay with me everything would be all right-none of the torture would have really happened.
But I said nothing of the kind. Instead I murmured a fervent, "Thank you, Judy."
She smiled looking at me directly for the first time. Our gaze caught and held. There seemed to be a newborn confidence in her expression all at once.
Then she was lifting the tray and the stand, and she was tapping on the door.
And I was left to the darkness, to an oppressive maddening loneliness.
And I drew a perfect blank.
"What happened to my clothes?" I asked Judy when she brought my dinner. "I'm getting tired of running around in these all the time."
"They have been put away downstairs," she replied.
"And my wallet and stuff?"
"Put away."
"What for? Are they keeping them for souvenirs? Or do they stuff their victims and stand them up behind a secret panel somewhere?"
Judy's eyes smoldered with sudden uncertainty, exposing a tainted knowldege. "I don't know ... I don't know...." She quailed before my fierce gaze.
"What about my sales portfolio? My order books?" I made a wry joke. "The least they could do is mail on those last orders for me...."
Judy took me seriously, blurted out the damning information. "Mom made Eleanor burn them. I saw her taking them out to the trash burner yesterday."
And that was evidence destroyed.
Judy left thoroughly shaken after I'd finished eating, too preoccupied to even say good-bye.
And the natives were definitely getting restless, for that night, as I sat in the darkness expecting all hell to pop loose at any minute, I heard Kathrine's enraged voice rise, her words carry up to my snug aerie, almost as clearly as if she'd given me a jingle on the phone; I warned you not to be so rough, Eleanor. You dumb witch! Here we wait for months for someone to turn up, and then you go and queer everything. What good is he to us all banged up like that?"
An abject whine followed, delivered so subserviently that I couldn't make it out. Eleanor's voice. I wondered what hold Kathrine had over that she'd sit still for abuse like that.
And sitting in the hushed, gloomy room, only the hum of the air conditinoer for company, I knew that the nympho trio wouldn't be put off much longer.
That was on Thursday night. I'd been in the King menage for three nights now. And every night had been the same. With Kathrine sneaking in after I was asleep, looking me over appraisingly. I was used to it now. It would have been a perfect time to jump her, but then I was in no condition to jump anything.
And finally, late Saturday afternoon, when I was about to go out of my mind with boredom, Judy came in with my clothes over her arm. "Mom says you're well enough to come downstairs for your meals now." She put the clothes down on the end of the bed. "Knock on the door when you're ready."
It was almost like a reception committee as I came into the kitchen behind Judy. Kathrine, Eleanor and Bobbie were gathered at the table, their eyes scheming, over-bright as I entered. If I had felt well enough to make any kind of break for freedom, I now suffered a sudden relapse upon seeing the revolver sitting on the table beside Kathrine's coffee cup. The woman was hedging her bet. This boy was going nowhere, but nowhere.
"Sit down, Pinky," Kathrine said with an over fervid geniality. "Have a bite to eat. We've missed you. Hear you had a little accident."
"That's one way of putting it," I muttered, sitting. "But you look in the pink now, Pinky," Eleanor added. "Hardly any marks on your face any more."
Kathrine giggled, "No business at the table. Eat now. We can talk afterward."
Afterward turned out to be a four-handed poker game I was forced to join in. A game that was made all the more jovial by the fact that the whiskey bottle was out again. That everyone, with the exception of Kathrine, was drinking pretty heavy. And the more every one drank, the looser the talk became. Judy, of course, was excluded from the festivities.
"You look in mighty good shape," Kathrine grinned, nothing subtle in her suggestive stare. "I wouldn't be one bit surprised if you had a visitor tonight, Pinky. I always say every farm should have at least one good ram on it."
"You sure believe in laying it right on the line, don't you?" I bristled. "Nothing delicate about you."
"No sense in beating around the bush," she replied.
"Suppose I decide I don't want to entertain any visitors tonight?" I said, fighting hard to put conviction behind the words, and failing miserably.
"You will," Kathrine stated. "I just have that feeling, Pinky, dear. I'd sure hate to sic Elly on you again. I think she's about the best convincer there is. If you think what you got the other night was bad, you should see her when she really gets mad. Isn't that right, Elly?"
"Anything you say, Kathrine."
"See?" Kathrine smirked. "Eleanor does as she's told. Do I make myself clear?"
A rugged tremor went through me. It was an incredible concept. A built-in stud, that's what I was. Whenever one of these three got the eternal itch. I was there, waiting and supposedly ready. The trembling became more severe.
Things like this just don't happen.
Bobbie was laughing to herself, a flirty dirtiness in her eyes as she appraised me. I swear she was squirming in her chair in anticipation. "Paul was nice," she said. "I'll bet you'll be nice, too...."
"Hush now, Bobbie," Kathrine said.
The evening went on. Ten o'clock came and went. Then eleven. Still Kathrine kept putting up drinks. And I kept drinking them, hoping to murder conscience, to annihilate revulsion. If I drank enough, then-
Now it was eleven-thirty. The cards were gathered in a last time. The party was over. It was time for a party of quite another kind to begin.
Kathrine took up the shiny pistol, saw me upstairs herself. "Get undressed, Pinky," she muttered at the last as she locked me in. "Be ready. We won't be long."
But I didn't undress. I merely sat on the bed, smiling grimly, my head spinning. Still not believing what was going to happen.
Fifteen minutes later I heard the voices outside the door, heard the two by four being removed. The door swung partially open and Bobbie sidled in, a foolish, self conscious smile on her face.
But a different Bobbie freshly scrubbed and primped, a ribbon in her hair, lipstick crudely applied. She was dressed ridiculously-trumped up in what passed for a sexy get-up in her addled mind.
Now, moving in a sex fantasy all her own, Bobbie smiled, leaned to pull up the skirt of the housecoat, made butterfly wings with it, bent one knee inward, exposed the jet black panties beneath. Then, teasingly, the matching black brassiere.
"You'll be good to me, won't you?" she intoned eerily, out of her head but good. "Like Paul was?" She moved closer. "You will. I know you will."
CHAPTER FIVE
"JUST THINK ABOUT US. ABOUT THE FUN we're gonna have." She dropped the dancing around, vacantly rubbed her hands along her thighs. "Kathrine brings me these books and magazines from town. All about love and such. They're wonderful. Sometimes I read them over and over. You'll make it like that for me, won't you? You'll work me up? You'll ... seduce me, won't you?" the word was alien on her lips. "Paul was real good at ... seducing me...."
"Let's knock off this Paul jazz, shall we?" I growled, assuming a toughness I didn't feel, trying to shut out the growing lust that burgeoning inside my stomach. Squirrelly she might have been, but she was still a woman. Young enough, pretty enough, with her full complement of female accessories. And when you're full of booze, when you've got a him talking to you like this one was, running her hands restlessly all over your body, certain things are bound to happen.
The alcoholic irresponsibility grew, and almost instinctively, I began to do a little feeling and pinching of my own.
Until I found Bobbie sitting on the bed beside me, cuddling her head coyly into my shoulder.
It was a golden opportunity, and hazy as I was I still didn't let it go by. "Who was this Paul you're talking about? And this Don? Where are they? What happened to them?"
But like so many people who are a wee bit daffy, Bobbie was cunning and quick. Even with five whiskeys under her belt. She smiled slyly. "That would be telling, wouldn't it? They're just gone."
I pulled in my horns. Just wait, witch, I thought.
She swayed her head back and forth, as if in time to unheard music. Her hands were poised before her like she was ready for a game of paddy-cake. A rain of goose pimples splashed my back and arms. "Don't talk at all," she said hollowly. "Only about us. About what we'll do for each other. About love...?"
And I found my stomach suddenly queasy, wondering whether I could go through with it after all.
Bobbie must have sensed the hesitation-those nuts are psychic sometimes-for her eyes darkened. "You will love me, won't you, Pinky? You have to. You know that. If you don't, I'll call Eleanor."
I tensed my muscles, shook off the spook chills skiing all over me, decided to get with things. Bobbie had a good point there. Just the mention of that monster's name, was enough to make a believer out of me.
"Don't you...?" I started. "Shouldn't we turn out the lights?"
"Later," Bobbie simpered, falling back on the bed.
"Right now I wanna sec you. I want you to see me." And dreamily her hands crept up to the tie at her throat, opened the ribbons. Slowly and deliberately she opened the garment, flared it open to expose herself. A cloying fragrance arose from her body, and I knew she'd doused herself with perfume before coming in. Bobbie began sliding her hips on the bed.
"Come and play with me," she sighed. "Make me want you."
"Give it time, kid," I husked, feeling a stab of desire hit home, the sight of that ivory white body, still taut and firm-and so avid for sex-making my vision blurred over for a second. "I wanna take in the goods for a bit."
"Mmmm," she sighed, and flexed her thin, supple legs, kicked off her shoes.
Without a doubt she was the prettiest of the sisters. Her body was still compact and trim, her breasts holding their own against time, her hips and buttocks prominent and sensuous. Her thighs were a little spongly, but her legs were thin and exciting. Her face, even with the botched up lipstick and rouge on it, was attractive, her lips inviting.
But the most remarkable thing of all was that skin of hers. Contrasted to her black lingerie it looked like white marble. Gingerly I slid my hand along her legs, wallowed in the silky softness of her flesh. My hand spiraled over her belly, stopping when it came to the polished smoothness of her diaphragm. There I lingered, savoring Bobbie's quick intake of breath, the way her tummy heaved and fell as the excitement mounted inside her.
"Oh, oh," she seethed, her hips twisting slowly, "that feels good, Paul. That feels good."
"Pinky," I corrected.
"Pinky," She opened her eyes, smiled wanly. "I'm sorry, dear...."
Little by little my own self-consciousness, my feelings of shame for giving in to this enforced debauch, began to fade.
"Take the panties off," Bobbie was sighing. "Please, Pinky rub me all over not just there."
Dumbly I complied with her demand, marveling at the practiced ease with which she raised her fanny and let me slide the wispy rag off. The wanton way she opened her legs to me, bringing up her knees, granting access to anything and everything. "You are a lover, you are, you are," she was chanting.
Until finally: "The bra, baby," she gasped. "Take it away, too. I want to be all bare for you."
And immediately, when she was completely nude, she turned on me, began undoing my buttons, her eyes glittering. "I want to see you now, baby," she said, her breath snagging.
When I was naked, she sat beside me on the bed, her breasts hanging down like perfect, spherical melons, her hands slowly, revetrently stroking my chest. While my fingers walked up her hips, across her belly, came to the stone tipped nibs of her breasts. Teased, pinched and twirled them. Eventually her hands froze on my body, and she smiled down on me, her eyes glowing, savoring my gentle ministrations to the utmost. Until violent tremors began racing down her arms. And she began to toss her head about.
Suddenly she pulled away, fought my hands. Leaped from the bed, dashed for the light switch, slapped it to sullen, brooding blackness. "Lover," she wailed, as she streaked back to the bed, threw herself on me, her legs twining and locking in mine, her belly slithering, grinding.
When my hands found her nipples again she slid away, allowed me right-of-way. Abruptly, tiring of the abuse, she sought gender sport, released me, came upward, her legs straddling me, her crisp belly climbing up on mine. Her arms formed supporting girders, cranes which lowered the heavy cargo of her bosom to my mouth.
And caught up in sexual frenzy, blind to any reality but this sensual one, I opened my lips, took in the hard nipples one by one, my hands cupping and squeezing them, guiding and preparing them. This Paul must have been quite an innovator, because now Bobbie began to. moan, her words unintelligible for a moment. "Both of them," she sighed thickly. "Both of them at once."
And she balanced, gathered her breasts with her own hands, brought them to me, the nipples taut and close. "Hold them," she hissed. "Kiss them together like that."
My hands took the double-barreled burden from her, held them compressed, brought the rivet-circled rosettes to my mouth. Let my tongue spear and swirl at them.
Which all but drove Bobbie out of her senses, what was left of them. Her knees tightened about my hips, she began to wriggle and slide herself on my quaking belly, the motion and sensation driving her to greater frenzy.
Until, at long last, she pulled away completely, and crouched over me in the darkness, let her hands rove my body unashamedly. I reached for her breasts, but she shook me away. "My turn," she sighed. "My turn. Just me...." Then I felt her lips gnawing at me. While her hands had gone totally wild.
Then her lips deserted my chest, were going their way down my stomach. Relentlessly, heedlessly going on. I should have expected the aberration from a woman like Bobbie, and yet, like every time it had ever happened before, there was that same initial shock and dismay. The eternal prude, willing to go just so far-
I started involuntarily, tried to hold her head, "No," I muttered, "Not that. You don't have to...."
"Let me," she gritted, twisting loose. "I won't hurt you. Paul always let me." She giggled thickly. "He liked it. That's how I won him from the others."
That Paul, I thought, a bitter taste in my mouth.
"Please?" she whispered a last time. "Say you'll let me."
A bone-freezing chill shot through me. I went tense as her hands positioned me. Then suddenly it was a swarming, overpowering blood-lust. "Yes," I gasped.
I endured it as long as I could, the sweet yet painful sufferance seemingly tying a knot in me, but at last a swimming blur of white formed. I had to yell. "Please, Bobbie," I begged. "No more. Unless ... you want to spoil things."
She trembled, recognized the implication of my plea, quickly abandoned her sensual game. She fell beside me, quickly opened her legs, guided my hand to her most intimate self. "Please, please," she choked. "Soon...."
It was soon alright. Too soon where Bobbie was concerned. But she was satisfied, and held me to her, afterward, clenching her legs around mine, her nails a barbed wire barrier that held me to her body.
"You stay right here, lover," she snickered in lazy, satisfied comfort. "Keep Bobbie warm." A trace of threat honed her voice. "You don't get away. Not for a minute. Not until you're ready again."
And she talked to me, her singsong recitation, her terminology for things sexual a revelation to me. She had no inhibitions whatsoever, her litany of lust was intended to do just one thing; to inflame, to prepare me for another storming of the hill.
And not very much later it was attack all over again. A delightful glorious battle that went on and on. Until Bobbie had shrilled her fourth victory on me.
It was the brightest part of the day when I awoke and found Bobbie upended in the bed, attempting to revive me in her cute way. Her success was almost immediate. However, it took considerable coaxing to get the wooly-brained vixen to relinquish her beach head. Finally she did, only to insist on a more usual way to state her needs.
Which finalization-I was still in an uncontrollable sexual trance-we were frantically engaged in when Eleanor arrived to release her sister from sweet bondage. It was a most inopportune arrival.
It was an embarrassment Eleanor didn't mind at all. Her eyes framed in the peephole, she was delighted by the scene before her. "Damned if the bastard ain't back in shape," she gloated. Her voice rose. "Do it, you stud! Give it to her, do her to a turn. Go, go!"
A minute later the unfazed Bobbie was yelling back enthusiastically at our audience of one, giving a blow-by-blow account of how things were going.
Later that morning, remembering the erotic session, the perverted excesses I'd lent myself to with Bobbie, I felt like I'd need a ladder to touch the underside of a door mat. And if this wasn't bad enough, the sisters sent Judy up with my breakfast tray. The reproachful glance she sent me, a look that all the timid impassivity in the world couldn't conceal, was the last thing in the world I needed at that moment.
As I tried forcing food down, she moved about the room with stolid silence, rearranging things, hanging up my clothes, dusting the scanty furnishings, waiting to change the sheets and pillow case. A voiceless automation. While I knew exactly what was going on in her brain. She knew what had happened in this room last night, she had known all along what would happen. And last night-all those other nights with her room almost directly across the hall-hadn't she heard everything?
The hatred almost choked me. How could these perverts force her to live in their midst?
"All right," I said finally, turning on her, "why don't you say it? Why don't you call me a contemptible anima'? You're thinking it, aren't you?"
She averted her eyes. "I'm not thinking anything, Pinky," she said quietly.
"Yes, you are," I challenged. "You know what happened here last night."
"It's none of my concern, really."
"Isn't it? Those are your relatives. One of them is your mother." My voice shattered. "Do you think I wanted to do what I did? I had to, can't you understand that? You saw what Eleanor did to me the other night. That sadistic, animal."
Judy looked at me directly, and I saw that I'd misjudged her. "Yes, I know, Pinky. I understand. I'm not blaming you at all."
Well, then won't you help me? Won't you tell me what's going on here? What they intend to do with me? Won't you help me get away from this hell-hole?"
Judy went stiff, held the pillow tightly against her stomach. The crazed fear was back in her gaze. "Help you, Pinky? I can't Don't ask me, I just can't. They'll kill me. Maybe even worse. Don't you think she's hurt me? Don't you think that I'm afraid of Elly, too? You think I can't' see what's happening to all of them?"
The hysterical, desperate terror in her eyes caused my flesh to creep. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"No more questions, Pinky." She turned away, began to plump up the pillows.
"Don't ask me anything. I can't ... I won't tell you anything." Her voice was almost ghostly. "You'll have to find out for yourself."
"Judy, what are you getting at? You've got to tell me."
But suddenly she was at the door, banging loudly. "Don't ask. I don't want to talk to you." She was on the verge of tears. Then Eleanor was opening the door. Judy turned back a last time. "I'll pick up the rest in a little while."
Then I was left alone. Just me and a host of unholy fears and questions.
An innovation was introduced that Sunday afternoon as Eleanor marched me downstairs where Kathrine and Bobbie were awaiting me in the kitchen. Kathrine and Eleanor were dressed in faded work clothes. Bobbie in a cotton dress, looking slatternly after last night. Still, Bobbie's eyes brightened, and she smiled with intense jubilance when I came into the spacious room.
"What's up?" I said, feigning an indifference I didn't really feel. "Are you vultures gonna let me go?"
Kathrine smiled cruelly, and I saw vengeance deep in her gaze. She was holding a lifetime vendetta with the world, with men and there was no telling where her lust for revenge would end. A man had rejected her, had deserted her. Hence, all men were now her enemies. "Let you go?" she sneered. "Not yet we aren't. You're just getting started."
"Then what?"
"You need some exercise. You been cooped up too much. We wouldn't .want you getting stale on us." Her voice dropped. "Come here. You, too, Bobbie." When I reached the table Eleanor took my right hand, held out to Kathrine. Whereupon Kathrine fished up a pair of worn, regulation, police handcuffs from her lap. Who knows where she'd acquired them, but there they were. Clamped on my right wrist and Bobbie's left.
"Ain't they cute?" Eleanor snuffled. "Birds of a feather."
"Shut y'r stupid mouth," Kathrine snarled. Instantly Eleanor went silent.
"Me and Elly are working up in the north pasture. Red Jones's threshing for us." She smirked. "You look surprised, Pinky. How'd you think we earned a living anyway? Did you think we sat around on our cans all the time?"
I didn't answer.
"You'll get your turn to earn your keep around here, never fear. One of these days. But in the meantime, Bobbies' gonna take you for a little walk, get the kinks out." Her eyes turned venal A good stallion needs lots of exercise."
"Don't think you're gonna try anything, either. You won't get far with Bobbie hanging on your arm. I'll send Elly down every hour or so to check. And you better be near by."
She turned on Bobbie. "Walk him good, honey. Get him in shape. Maybe tonight...." She left the speculation unfinished. "Don't take him anywhere near the road, hear?"
"Yes, Kathrine," Bobbie said. "I'll take good care of him. He won't try anything." She took up a twelve inch length of pipe from the table, hefted it. "If he does...." she cackled. "I still remember how to use this."
We walked out into the yard, the bright, hot sun, after five days of confinement, tearing mercilessly at my eyes. Instantly I was sweating, felt weak. Bobbie and I stood there watching the two tractors disappear up the lane toward the woodlot, pepper shakings of dust settling on my damp face, starting to itch.
Now Bobbie was impatiently shaking the handcuffs.
"C'mon, Pinky, sweet. We'll go this way." And she struck out to the south making me lead, she hanging back. We came upon a well-trodden path, a path leading toward the woods. The path went on for perhaps a mile and a half, made a crooked circle through the woods, made a turn, led back to the farmhouse via the tractor trail. Weak as I was, and considering the fact that I hadn't walked more than three, four blocks at a time in the past eight years, I was sweating profusely by the time we got back to the barns.
I couldn't help but wonder as we walked, how many others had walked this prescribed route. How many other studs in training? And where had the itinerent stallions gone to?
I noticed, as we got closer to the house that Bobbie's mind was wandering again. It was the same last night, after our second event, when she's been tired out. Minute by minute she became quieter, withdrew into herself. I toyed briefly with the idea of jumping her. But I knew it was a futile thought. In my condition I coudln't run any distance at all.
She was humming a pointless, unresolved tune, mumbling to herself when we reached the barn. It was then that I took a stab at prying information from her. From out of a clear blue sky I asked, "Where's my car, Bobbie? What did Eleanor do with it?"
The same sly smile again. But there was a difference somehow. A cog had momentarily slipped in that scrambled brain, and she was caught unawares. "The car? I'll show you where the car is. I'll show you where all the cars are...." And she hurried before me to a storage shed opposite the main barn, put her shoulder against a sliding door. With a low rumble it opened.
It revealed a murky, long tunnel. In which four cars stood like tired phantoms. They were all draped in concealing canvasses. "That's one," Bobbie said "belongs to Kathrine. Yours is right there. Next to Kathrine's. There was another, but we needed room. Eleanor drove it to the quarry one night, and dropped it in."
"And the owners? Where are they?"
For a moment the question didn't register. Bobbie looked at me vacantly. "The owners? Where are they?" Then a gear meshed, moved thought. "Follow me."
There was a damp, rotten smell in the dark, subterranean room into which Bobbie led me. The room was beneath the barn's main floor, a room crowded with discarded harnesses and mechanical gear of all description. She pointed, and said tersely, "There." Instantly I recognized the three long rectangles in the dirt floor, where the ground had been disturbed.
I was frozen in my tracks. For a moment I thought I'd fall. "How?" I gasped, "How did you kill them?"
"I don't know," Bobbie said with an unsettling gaiety. "Kathrine told Elly. She took them out. They never came back. I begged and begged them to keep one."
She looked away, her eyes sad. "But they were right after all, I guess. Toward the end it was no man at all."
Suddenly I realized what it was that Judy had been getting at only that mroning. Her words echeoed in my brain: "You think I can't see what's been happening to all of them? They were all heading for the insane asylum."
CHAPTER SIX
TWO MORE DAYS AND NIGHTS PASSED. Judy continued to bring me my meals, saying little, avoiding my eyes. While, ill-concealed behind the studied impersonality of her gaze, I saw the stuff of which nightmares are made. She knew what was going to happen-now and eventually-and she lived in fear of the grotesque version of life which was being forced upon her.
I tried joshing her that Sunday night. "What, no gilt-edged invitation to dinner with the grownups tonight? How come? Are my table manners that bad?"
"I ... I don't know. They want to eat alone, I guess."
"Or are they simmering up a witches brew?"
"Don't...." Her glance was piteous. "Just don't...." I attempted once more to cut through her single minded resistance, "why don't you get out of here? While you still have the chance? Before they turn on you? Before they do to you what they did to those poor saps buried out in the barn? What they're going to do to me."
She spun around, her eyes wide staring. "How ... how did you find out? About that...?"
Bobbie. Her mind was wandering this afternoon. She took me down in that room." Desperation gathered within me. "Judy, I've got to stay here, they've got me caged like an animal. But you can get away. You can sneak out, go down that road, hitch a ride to town, tell the police what's going on here...."
Her gaze went stony. "I can't. You don't understand. I ... they'll find me. Somehow they'll catch me, they'll hurt me." Her lips began to tremble; her eyes were wild. Again I pondered the horrible power these zombies held over Judy.
"Judy, listen if you're that afraid, why won't you help me? Open my door some night, get me the key to those handcuffs? I'll get away, I'll bring the police myself. I'll have them put where they'll never get their hands on you again. I'll help take care of you, I swear it."
And suddenly it seemed the most important thing in the world that I keep this promise. It seemed dedication. I wanted to help this beautiful, terrorized child. I wanted to take care of her.
Her mind was closed. "I can't, I just can't." She began to gather the dishes.
"Judy," I said gravely, touching her hand.
She drew away as if she'd been burned. "Yes?"
"You won't tell them what I told you. That I know about the graves under the barn? I shouldn't have told you but somehow it just came out. Bobbie's forgotten already You'll forget, too? Maybe I can use the knowledge to my advantage somehow. Will you promise?"
"Yes," she said softly and I knew she meant it. won't tell them anything." She stood at the door, knocked loudly to be let out.
There, in that awkward, strange silence, it seemed that a new relationship had been established. A bond of shaky trust and confidence had been forged. Perhaps because, for once in my life, I had thought of someone else's welfare besides my own.
Her expression was haggard, her shoulders slumped as she heard Eleanor coming up the stairs. Her lip quivered again, her voice almost a sob as she spoke. "If only you hadn't come. Why did you come? They were all right for the longest time. Everything was going fine until you...."
The bar rattled outside and she froze. She scurried past Eleanor. But the other woman was in no big hurry to depart. She stood in the doorway, hip shot, smirking lewdly at me. For long moments she said nothing. Then finally, with an idiotic jumping of eyebrows: "Tonight, lover doll?"
Then she was closing the door.
But there was no "tonight," Kathrine saw to that. For as I sat in my room that night, reading a book Judy had brought me, I heard the murmur of voices downstairs. A murmur that exploded into a full fledged fight. I tuned in, heard Kathrine's shrill voice.
"No!" she shrieked. "You don't go up there tonight. You had your turn and you muffed it. Now he's mine." I felt my blood run cold at the deranged intensity in her voice. "Nobody goes up there tonight. Or any night until I've had a crack at him. I told you I want him in top shape when I go up there. I want him strong, understand? Real strong. Now forget it. Both of you. Forget it."
There was some more arguing, some whining protests, but finally things quieted down.
I came back to my book, found my hands shaking un controllably, acres of goose bumps parading over my body. There was no more reading for me that night.
So I turned out the light and went to bed. I lay in the darkness, brain whirling, trying to assimilate this weird turn my life had taken, trying to formulate a plan whereby I could escape these vampires.
Another cackle-Kathrine again-carried up the stairs again, hovered outside my door like a gliding bat, and I shuddered under my covers. Something was building up this horror chamber. Something ugly and depraved. Something I could do absolutely nothing about.
Except to wait, to be ready for it when it tame. I was thinking about those abused, drained bastards lying out in the barn when at last I drifted off into a haunted, fitful sleep. I wondered how Eleanor had killed them.
There was no chance to talk to Judy the next day as she delivered my meals, tidied the room, brought me a new book to read. For Kathrine accompanied her, stood just inside the door, staring, saying nothing all the while I ate. Her eyes were wild, the inroads of lunacy now more prominent than ever. She assessed me, trying to determine whether or not I was ready for her for whatever new savagery was rampant in her.
Three times she came that day, standing mute, forcing Judy to identical dumbness, ignoring my every effort to bait her into committing herself.
Those twenty-four hours seemed like twenty-four days. Something disastrous was brewing, something I couldn't have imagined even in my wildest dreams. There was no reading, no listening to the small table radio they'd now seen fit to place in my room. There was only staring into space, the eternal brooding and wondering.
And when I finally went to sleep that night I was more tired than if I'd put in a day sledging a rock pile. Numbed now I slept a deep sleep of bitter dreams.
I didn't hear them as they entered my room long after midnight that night, as they closed in on my bed. Only when the light flashed on, when I heard the maniac chuckle escape Kathrine's lips, did I come awake. Too late I dodged, Whirling away to avoid the blurring chop of Eleanor's stone-hard hand. The blow slammed down at the base of my skull.
After what seemed like centuries I was revived. I groaned dully, my mouth full of pillow, still not completely conscious. I turned my head, the pain as I moved making me nauseous, caught a glimpse of the woman standing beside the bed, even at that moment swinging her arm with all her strength. The flat, concussive slap rang in the room, stung my back. As my body arched, writhed to escape the more withering pain the whip conferred a knife-like stab in the small of my back.
I sprang up, fought to escape the hissing whip, and immediately was flung down. Shrieking and cursing I looked to my wrists, saw the cotton rope twisted around them, tied to a steel joint in the bedspring. Instantly I kicked, fighting to retaliate in any way possible, and found my legs tied securely, also.
Until finally, clear-headed at last, I was aware of what had happened to me. I was spread-eagled, completely naked and face down on the bed. Victim to a torturer of the most demented kind.
I screamed and gasped, fought the rope savagely, clawing the sheets for leverage so I might twist my body, escape the cruel kiss of that whip as it inexorably, ruthlessly rose and fell to a predetermined cadence.
In the distance, I heard my involuntary, uncontrollable howls of agony. Strangely they grew fainter. Then I passed out, remembered nothing more of the session.
Eleanor was leaning over me, her squat face swimming before my eyes, a mocking leer stitched on her lips. She was pressing a cold, wet cloth to my forehead, running it over my face. I groaned, struck out, as she turned me over, my back feeling like someone had dumped hot coals on it. Then she was pressing the cold cloth to my swollen, welted back, moving it with what passed for gentleness.
As I swam to full consciousness, I became aware of two things. One I was no longer tied. Two, that Eleanor was humming softly to me, now washing my back with a soothing oil. "We gotta take good care of our baby," she chuckled. "We gotta make him last. For the next time Kathrine wants him. Does that feel better now, honey?"
In a blind, uncomprehending rage, I tried to shake her away. But she dug her nails into my shoulder, pushed me screaming back down onto the bed. I was weaker than an hour old kitten. "Be a good boy, Pinky," she chanted. "Let me finish. Kathrine told me to get you ready. She's not done with you yet."
"Not done?" I gasped, still woozy. "Kathrine? Where is she?"
"In the bathroom," Eleanor said. "She got all sweated up. She's getting herself clean for you. Getting herself ready for you. For when you make love to her. Can't you hear the shower going?"
I couldn't hear the shower. There was only the maddening buzzing in my ears, the small golden flecks that still shimmered before my eyes. I started as Eleanor applied the lotion too hard. "Don't ... you're killing me."
"Almost done, babe, almost done," she cooed. Now Eleanor moved away, I heard her screwing the cap on the bottle. I lay on my stomach, my shoulders heaving with pain and galling, frustrated anger. How that women could use a man like this! And I vowed vengeance, prayed for a day to come. If only I'd been born stronger, if I'd been a big man.
I didn't hear Kathrine re-enter the room. The first I was conscious of her return was when she sat on the edge of the bed, slid her naked flanks closer to me. I opened my eyes, looked up, saw the crooked smile on her lips. "Hello, Tim," she said, her gaze still opaque, clouded. "Did you miss Kathrine?"
I felt my flesh crawl. She was still living her revenge-induced phantasmagoris. I was still whipping boy for a man who'd been smart enough to get out while he still had the chance. Before this maniac had devoured him also. Goat, goat, I thought bitterly.
"Get away from me, witch," I said, my voice cracking beneath the weight of my hatred.
"Still tough, are you, Tim?" she said plaintively, squinting, as though to recollect her thoughts. "Should I get my whip again, Tim?"
"Should I spank my naughty boy?"
I lurched, tried to move away, but Eleanor came up, twisted my wrist, held me immobile. "You dirty, rotten...." An oath was squeezed from me as Eleanor bore down, nearly broke my arm.
My heart leaped up, jammed in my throat, as the naked, prefumed woman let herself lazily float back on the bed. Languorously, pleased with herself, she brought up her knees. Did she expect-? After what she'd just done to me?
I tried to fight away from Elenaor, but she was too strong for me. Now her hand slid down my wrist, caught my right hand in hers. Deftly she opened it, curled my fingers in on themselves, bore down hard, sending a shrieking bolt of fire through my hand, up my arm. I almost fainted again on the spot.
"Be good," Eleanor taunted. "I'll give you some more if you don't." Instantly, my nerves tingling and shredded from the newly conferred pain, I went limp.
Kathrine's voice was silky, an eerie singsong of self indulgence. "Come Tim," she cooed, "come show Kathrine you're sorry. Show her you're really sorry, that you're glad to be home again. Show Kathrine the way she likes to be showed." .
Still I stood, dumbly staring, wondering what was expected of me now.
"Tim?" Kathrine raised her head, irritation blazing in her eyes, angered at being roused from her warm trance. "Are you coming?" she glared at Eleanor. "Show him, Elly. Show Tim what I mean."
Eleanor laughed, put pressure on my fingers. "On your knees, honey. Right beside the bed. Kiss Kathrine. Make her feel good. You know where."
I groaned, flung myself against her once more, realizing instantly why Kathrine had positioned herself on the bed in such a blatant manner, why I must kneel. I wouldn't endure this vilification; I'd die first. "No, no...." I groaned. "I can't, I can't...."
Eleanor only smiled at my puny onslaught, pushed me back, letting the full weight of my body provide ballast for the excruciating hurt in my hand. I shrieked, fell to my knees, lay in a thrashing crouch at her feet. "Please, please...." I howled.
"Be a good boy," Eleanor said. The terrible pressure was back, and out of my head with agony, I crawled toward the bed, clung to the edge of the mattress with my free hand.
Death I could stand. But this slow death. There is just so much a man can endure.
My head was spinning madly. "Yes, yes," I gasped. Only don't hurt my hand' any more...." Great beads of sweat rolled down my face.
"Good, Tim," Kathrine was sighing, wriggling herself on the bed, sliding closer to where I knelt. "You are sorry, aren't you?"
"Kiss her," Eleanor glowered. "Her legs, her...." She used a vulgar term.
I fought to control my stomach. Eleanor's hand fidgeted in mine. And finally, beside myself at the torture, I let my head drop.
It seemed to go on forever, Kathrine as each peak approached, holding my head herself, closing her legs tightly on me, screaming her delight proudly, ecstatically. While Eleanor's sick sighs and throaty laughter formed a grisly background to the defilement.
"Oh, again, Tim," Kathrine sighed raggedly, "so good. Do it again. Again, again."
I pulled away, on the verge of gaging. "No, damn you, no!"
Until Eleanor pulled my arm high behind my beak, nearly broke my fingers. "Kathrine says again." I screamed, fell forward. And again.
Now Eleanor was gone. Kathrine and I are alone in the darkness. The mere threat of her calling the waiting Eleanor back into the room being impetus enough to make me go through with the sordid finale to this orgiastic parody of love.
"Do it, Tim," she moaned. "Regular now, do it. Pump, damn you, pump!"
Her hand came up, raked my raw, burning back. "Do it, before I tear you up!"
I writhed, groaned a thick almost sobbing plea for mercy. "No," she hissed. "You perform. If it takes you all night, you'll perform."
Seemingly it did take all night. Each new thrust was a torturesome thing, a monumental hill to climb. But somehow I prevailed, kept my legs jack-knifing, kept my balance over her, wincing and gasping every time the wanton witch touched my back. My body was bathed with sweat.
As a storm of passion shook her finally, and her belly came alive, slammed and ground itself to mine, her frenetic efforts taking care of it for both of us. She screamed without end, proclaimed her climax, begged for mine.
And when it was done, she lay back laughing, her breath catching, nearly choking with delight at the humiliation she had conferred upon her phantom lover.
Then she leaped from the bed, and cackling jubilantly, began beating on the door for Eleanor to let her out. They bolted the door, went giggling down the hall. It seemed the sound hung in the air for an interminable time.
Finally my stomach rebelled, and I staggered toward the bathroom.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I VOWED THAT IF I LIVED THROUGH THIS I would work to make something meaningful of my life. I would return to the world some of the things I'd so greedily and callously taken for granted.
These thoughts brought me full circle. Made me think of Judy. Here was a starting place. If I could escape, if I could take her with me-I'd devote my life to making up to her all the things the devil trio had denied her. I'd help her forget, I'd show her the peaceful and normal face of life.
I was realizing little by little that Judy meant more to me than a mere confidante, a reluctant ally, I cared what happened to her. If I died now it would be too late to save her. Rejecting the handy tag-name of love for my feeling toward her, I declared it affection-duty, even.
Times when I let my mind wander into even more horrible depths than those I'd encountered at her mother's hands, I wondered if Judy had ever been forced to participate in their degenerate orgies, perhaps to watch. And more chilling: did they intend that I should use and abuse her?
Provide an evil circus for their enjoyment?
Heartless and fantastic as it seemed, it was still within the realm of possibility for we were dealing with lunatics. There was no excess at which they'd draw the line.
Which consideration froze me to even more desperate efforts to come up with an escape plan. One scheme had suggested itself. This came when I remembered an extra key in a secret place beneath my car's dashboard. If I could get to the car, assuming the engine would start after all this time-make a break for it, I could bring help, free Judy once and for all.
Frustrated anger boiled within me.
Kathrine and company weren't giving me out number one. I wasn't out of their sight one minute of the day. And, come night, when we'd terminate what had become a ritualized, marathon rummy game, I was tucked away in my room accompanied by whichever of the sisters had won me for that night-locked in until the next morning. There was no way for me to get loose, to get at the car.
There was a modicum of free movement during the day Bobbie still took me out for my daily walk, and lately Eleanor had taken to marching me out into the woodlot, sans handcuffs, letting her help her saw, split and rack wood for the upcoming winter. A modern oil or gas furnace had been the next thing in Tim King's modernization problem when he'd taken it into his head to run away.
Otherwise, I sat around the house, handcuffed to a chair. Those days when Kathrine and Eleanor went into town for essential supplies I was invariably locked in my room.
They weren't missing a single bet.
And if my days weren't overly busy, my nights were. One thing I could say for the sisters was that they were democratic. They all took turns with me. Nobody tried sneaking to the head of the line.
Eleanor was a free thinker when it came to sex, was perpetually attempting new positions, was not adverse to experimentation of any kind. Her temperament was so primitive and basic, there was nothing she wouldn't try, one charming evening even insisting that I use her in a manner legally defined as sodomy, deriving a terrific charge out of the deviation. But generally she was a take-charge kid, getting a special kick out of assuming the dominant position, guiding her release herself. On the bed, sitting in a chair, even once even insisting on a unique session in the bathroom. She enjoyed forcing me to kiss her intimately. But by the same token, she enjoyed reciprocation just as much.
It was all one big blast to Eleanor. But even more, she enjoyed little sadistic tricks, pinching, hitting, twisting my arms, making me yell.
Bobbie was a pushover. In reality there was only one thing she really wanted. The normal sex act was secondary to her. Give her what she craved and she was as happy as a lark. Of the three she was the only one who ever tried to sneak extras. Often on our walks she used to coax me into the bushes, open me up, take care of things then and there.
Several times when Kathrine and Eleanor had gone to town, Bobbie had made Judy lock her into the bedroom with me. Then, stripping, doing an idiot dance for me, she'd come on for a blissful matinee. Maybe Paul learned to like her style, but I never did. I tolerated it because I knew Eleanor would rough me up if I didn't. I was still nursing dead fingers on my right hand from that first session with Kathrine. One good thing to be said for Bobbie: it took the onus of failure off me. If she couldn't bring it off it was nobody's fault but her own.
And finally: Kathrine. She had only repeated that hair-raising flogging exhibition once since my inauguration into her illusory revenge world. There was a thing with Kathrine; you always knew when she was building up to such a session. It started in the day, when she began to mention Tim excessively. The next day she'd get all broody. And that night, watch out. Eleanor told me how she'd really blown her stack one night with Ben, had left him more dead than alive. It had been ten days before he'd been any good to anybody.
I was living on borrowed time at the moment, because her second week of ration was drawing to a close, and was coming up.
Otherwise Kathrine dug things regular. Or as close to regular as she'd ever be. There was always that ugly bit where she has to humiliate her male partner before she could enjoy him the other way. In a way I'd learned to be somewhat stoic about the whole rotten thing. After all, things could be worse. I knew from bitter experience.
But also I knew that besides Kathrine's "bad time" something else was building up in the house. Something involving all three of the degenerates.
They'd all been acting strangely the past few days, whispering and giggling among themselves, and I knew I was in for something special. A spectacular to end all spectaculars.
I got an unmistakable whiff of it that Wednesday afternoon, when Eleanor and Kathrine pranced home from town with some of that rotten liquor under their arms. Besides that-something that I'm positive Kathrine let me see accidentally on purpose-a king size tube of that jelly stuff the girls liked to use above all other contraceptives.
And the final, definitive clue was the fact that Bobbie had given my room wide berth that afternoon. She was saving up for something, make no mistake.
The smell of orgy was so thick that night as we sat in the living room, finishing our usual rummy tournament. We were two thirds through that first quart of mule urine, and nobody was feeling the least bit of pain whatsoever.
At first I'd decided to lay off, to see if maybe the gals would get so bagged I might pull something, maybe check out, but Kathrine saw through me immediately. Out came the manacles, and I was plugged in to the nearest chair. Then she gently suggested that I drink along, drink for drink. "I'll get a funnel," she threatened. "Elly and I'll pour the stuff down your throat. Party, honey," she slurred. "We wan' you in a real party mood. We got something special planned for later."
"So I've gathered," . I smiled. And downed my drink in one swallow. If it was to be a circus, I wanted to remember as little of it as possible.
"You're smart, Pinky," Kathrine mocked. "Real smart. If you're so damned smart, I wonder how you ever got into a situation like this."
A real show stopper, that. I had no answer at all. Instead, I banged my glass. "Gimme a drink, will you? You said something about a party, didn't you?"
And Eleanor chuckled, poured a double shot into about three ounces of soda. America could use more bartenders like that, I thought, the booze cutting in with a vengeance.
And finally: "Go get Judy, will you, Bobbie?" Kathrine said. "Tell 'er to wait by the door." Then she was up, unlocking the handcuffs.
"Upstairs, honey," she leered. "Party's about t'begin."
Eleanor was stumbling slightly as we started up the stairs, she was carrying the tray with the bottles of booze on it, ice cubes and mix. Briefly I considered making a break, but from somewhere gathered enough wisdom to hold off. I was too drunk to carry it off tonight.
Judy was waiting at the door, a tired, timid look on her face, dressed in her pajamas and robe, her hair tied up in a scarf. We trooped into the bedroom, Kathrine bringing up the rear.
She turned on Judy. "Lock us in, dear," she ordered, a menacing edge on her voice, "an' no matter what happens, you don't let any of us out until morning." In a rare moment of frivolity she reached out, touched Judy's nose. "An' if you close your door tight, close your ears ... you won't hear anything you ain't supposed to." , Judy looked befuddled, saw her mother into the room. Then the two-by-four was dropped into place. We were all committed to a night of Bacchanalian excess.
No bright lights burned tonight. Instead there was a single lamp which Kathrine had provided, its colored glass doing its best to muffle the flickering yellow flame. Deliberately she placed it atop the dresser, alongside the liquor and glasses.
Then she turned on me. "First off, Pinky," she smiled demonically, "Anything goes, you understand'? Otherwise I'll turn Eleanor loose on you. You never saw her when she really gets loaded. She gets real mean. So watch it."
Her warning fell on deaf ears. I was so loaded I didn't care what happened. They couldn't do any worse to me than they'd already done, I was immune to degredation now. "You said party," I maundered. "Party it is...."
"That's a good boy, Pinky," Kathrine said, falling into my arms. "Me first. You have t' undress Kathrine first."
"Me next," Bobbie was squealing. "Me next."
The sisters had dressed up specially for the occasion, wearing their best dresses, what passed for their newest shoes. They'd even gone so far as to put on stockings. They seemed to take special delight in having their clothes removed, each of them laying on the bed while I clumsily undressed them, the others standing by, drinking and shouting the bawdiest of encouragement.
And then they were all over me, hastily taking my clothes off, their hands everywhere, fondling, stroking, pinching, the trio caught up in sexual hysteria the likes of which I'd thought impossible. I was barely naked before Bobbie was throwing herself on me.
"Let me, let me," she squealed, fighting off her sisters' attempts to dislodge her. Until finally, because she was the baby sister, they indulged her.
But only up to a point. Kathrine nodded, and Eleanor gently but firmly pulled the protesting Bobbie away from me. "Not so soon," Kathrine chuckled. "You wanna ruin it for all of us?"
Now she went to where her rumpled clothing lay, came back with two articles. An instrument, and a tube. Both of which she slyly pressed into my hand. "Before we go overboard," she muttered, "n" wake up sorry. Here, baby, you c'n play doctor." She turned on Bobbie and Eleanor. "Lay down on the bed, girls. Pinky's gonna play doctor."
And while the threesome sprawled docilely on my bed, I played doctor.
Then things went wild, the women were drinking too much and too fast, and forcing drinks on me just as often. But I held off, let them take the brunt of the booze. But even so, it wasn't long before I was all but blind.
There aren't too many things I remember about that party. I remember what happened later, as I returned to the living, but the aberrations that took place through those early hours have mercifully slipped into an impenetrable abysms. Impressions and sensations I have. Of these I can sketch in a few.
The vague remembrance of me on the bed with Eleanor, she proudly displaying her prowess at bringing about her own orgasm, her body sliding and thrusting above me, my hands gathering her boobs, bringing them down to my lips, compressing them, kissing them. Kathrine gritting, "Do that to me, please ... to me." I remember Eleanor crying hoarsely, announcing climax, my fingers twisting her nipples like the dials. While Kathrine squeezed between us, holding her breasts herself, feeding both nipples to me simultaneously.
I have a faint recollection of tumbling each of the girls at least twice during that revel, rarely achieving a climax myself, but inducing the continuous exctasy among Kathrine, Eleanor and Bobbie.
In a scattered, knotted tumble of bodies on the floor, I see myself catering to Kathrine's demented whims. While further down the line, Bobbie was back at her old stand. With Eleanor, frustrated beyond control, twisting her body, guiding my hands to herself, and mechanically inducing release, manipulating my fingers herself, making them instruments of that release.
And finally, on the bed, with Bobbie and Kathrine admiringly watching, Eleanor on all fours, adamantly insisting on a very unorthodox position. "Just like the sheep," I can still hear her screaming as I entered her.
I can't remember concluding the act. Somewhere in mid-event I must have conked out.
When I awoke sometime around four a. m., I was on the floor, Kathrine half lying over me, all the women sleeping a drugged sleep. I glanced around, feeling nausea hammer me, saw Eleanor and Bobbie on the bed, Bobbie sprawled upside down on Eleanor, her head on Eleanor's large belly, damning testament to what her last improvisation had been.
The light was flickering erratically, on the verge of sputtering out, casting weird, licking shadows on the naked, sprawling bodies about the room, painting it in ochre shadows, the debacle suggesting nightmarish things.
Physically and spiritually sick, a morbid self-disgust impaling me, withering my soul, I crawled away from Kathrine's foul touch. And not caring what the consequences might be, I rose, went to the door. Began to knock upon it. Kept at it until my knuckles became numb.
Seeting that the noise wasn't about to rouse Kathrine and Eleanor, I pounded even harder. If I couldn't escape I wanted to die. "Judy, Judy," I began calling. "Please, Judy!"
Finally she appeared, her eyes sleep puffed, squinting as she slid aside the panel, peered into the hellish darkness. "Mon?" she muttered. "Is that you, Mom?"
"It's me, Judy. Pinky. Please, you've got to let me out of here. They're all out cold, they won't stop us. Don't you see, it's our only chance. I know where my car key is. We can get away from these vultures. Once and for all. Judy, don't you understand? It's the last chance we'll have." And the frustrating, mind hollowing situation ganged up on me, forced broken sobs from my throat.
"I can't, Pinky," she cried, confusion now by my hysterical pleadings, "I just can't. Mom told me not to open this door until morning. They'll kill me if I let you out."
"It's morning now," I groaned. "The only morning we'll ever know. I'm begging you, Judy, let me out. They won't touch you. I'll take you with me."
A blazing fear erupted in her eyes. "No, Pinky," she wailed, "don't ask me. I can't. I'm afraid. You can't know how afraid I am." She started to close the peephole.
"Don't, Judy," I implored raggedly, "Please don't. Listen to me, please listen to me. Let me out of here. I swear to you it'll be all right."
"No, Pinky, no," she singsonged, her own voice cracking as she was beset by a wild tangle of emotions. "I can't, I just can't. Don't ask me...."
Then the panel went closed, and the darkness came.
And like a mindless dog, I scratched on the door.
While, on the other side of the door, Judy sobbed. Until, finally, I heard her footsteps padding away.
Silence then, hounds hadn't done all those things to me-
No! my mind shrieked. Not now. You can't faint now! Get that bottle! Kill those vampires! Kill, kill!
But the exhortations were in vain. I couldn't move. I heard a noise, looked up, saw Bbobie gliding toward me, she reached me, fell at my feet, began crawling over me. I mercifully passed out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SINCE I COULDN'T BATTER DOWN JUDY'S fears, enlist her as an ally, everything was thrown back on my shoulders. Either I made it, either I convinced Kathrine that I was as happy here that I was perfectly pleased to be spending the summer with her and her chums, or else I could fill out the grave on the farm floor.
And so I became a nympho's plaything. It was a role I played to the hilt, doing my damnedest to convince the gals that I was wild about their ugly games. There were times there, when it took some real doing, when I'd just as soon have goaded Eleanor into killing me. But viewing the picture in broad perspective, calming down, I knew that no matter what the cost in terms of self-defilement, I was doing the only thing left to me. If I could trade one more stomach-turning session for another day of being alive, if I could convince them I was too much of a swinger to be planted for fertilizer.
It paid dividends in more ways than one. Coming to trust me more, as the sisters kid, they allowed me a little more free rein around the house, they got just a mite careless about watching me when I was out in the yard. Granted, there were still the handcuffs, Bobbie still toted to the length of pipe from time to time. But the feeling was gradually getting different.
Another thing, I wasn't doing such a debilitating land office business up in the bedroom these days. The terrible three, getting the impression that I was going to be around for many and many a day, weren't rushing to cash in. They had time, they figured.
And brother, after that last round-robin fiasco up in Pinky's room, I needed all the nights off I could get.
How I'd recovered, I'll never know.
It was mid-Fall now, still holding hot for the season. On nice days Eleanor herded me out to the woodlot to make kindling, and in spite of myself, I found I was getting stronger. I could whale away at the wedge for longer and longer periods.
My walks with Bobbie had become a ritual I worked to perpetuate. For I realized that besides the fact that she got a charge out of them, out of getting me all to herself, those walks were still my only chance at getting away from the house, my only possible chance for someday making my break. If I could once get hold of the key to those cuffs-get Bobbie deep among those trees-
But a week after the big orgy, things were back to normal again. Eleanor paid a call, then Bobbie, and finally Kathrine. Until by now, there had been two Eleanor's, two Bobbie's, two Kathrine's. At times there, I thought I'd die. But still I did my best, gave them a flashy smile.
There was only one debit in the ledger, and that was the fact that Kathrine had been back with her belt and her sadistic hallucinations only two days ago. She had forced me to endure such a vicious session that I'd been laid up in bed for two days. No walks, no work. Judy came in three times a day to feed me, to tenderly work ointment into my back.
A wanly confused Judy, suffering herself from a bad case of conscience and soul searching. The thing that had happened at the door the other night had been unsettling enough to her youthful psyche, that it had sent her into a deep depression. But now this recurrence of what to her must have seemed pointless brutality, proved to be a turning point of sorts.
I could almost feel the sympathy radiating from her in waves as she tended me, cooing and pitying me as I sucked in my breath, went stiff with pain when her touch was too heavy. It was a feeling not too hard to take at all.
"I'm sorry, Pinky," she said, "I didn't mean to hurt, you. It's just that one welt. Just be brave...."
I laughed softly. Be brave. Wasn't that just how a kid like Judy would say it? "Okay, Judy," I breathed. "I'll be ready this time. Go ahead."
And the smooth, gentle fingers coursed across the twentieth stripe, left a trail of ungent upon it. While I gripped the edge of the bed, hung on for dear life.
"There," she said, replacing the cap on the bottle. "You're finished." She turned away quickly. But not quickly enough to prevent me from seeing the tears poised in the corner of each eye.
"Judy," I said, greatly moved. "You're crying."
She brushed the tears away with the side of her fist. "Why?" she said, her voice catching. "Why does she do it? Over and over again. What pleasure does she get out of it? I just can't understand."
"That's something you'll have to discuss with her,' I said. "She thinks she's getting even with the world I guess."
"She was all right," Judy said to nobody in particular, "until Dad went away. She nagged him sometimes, she was too sharp with him. Then there was Bobbie to take care of...." She lapsed into brief reverie. "Sometimes I don't blame him though. If that girl looked up to him, treated him like he was something special ... like a man...."
She went on, looking down at the floor. "He ... never had anything like that at home. But even so, there were some good times. Mom changed so much after though." Her lip trembled. "She's getting worse all the time. She's taking Bobbie and Eleanor right along with her."
Seeing her standing there, her face a mask of despair, I had the craziest impulse to reach out for her, to take her into my arms and comfort her, to erase the ugly picture from her mind. In that instant I almost called to her. But the words didn't quite come out.
"Don't you see then, Judy," I said softly, a pained weariness giving my words emphasis, "why you have to get away from here? Why you have to tell the police what's going on here? They're not responsible, really they aren't. One of these days your number'll come up. Are you just going to wait until that happens?"
"I can't turn on her," Judy said, her face reflecting tragic inner conflict between logic and inherent loyalty. "She's my mother."
"No, Judy" I said gently, "she's not your mother. She was your mother. But not now. She's not anything any more."
"That ... isn't true...." Judy said. But there was very little conviction left in her tone.
"What are you waiting for, Judy?" I bore down. "Are you waiting for your mother to kill someone else? How many men will she have to kill before you realize that it's up to you to stop her. Or at least give me a chance to stop her." I paused for effect. "When they kill me, will that make you see? When Eleanor marches me out there and does whatever it is she does?"
Judy blanched, her entire face collapsing. "Oh, Pinky, don't say that. They won't kill you. They won't. They like you...."
The panic grew in Judy's eyes, a concern that warmed me through and through. "They won't, Pinky."
"One of these mornings, Judy, honey," I said in a stagey voice of doom, "you're gonna wake up and old Pinky won't be here any more. He'll be worm food."
She seemed to sway before my eyes. "Oh, no, Pinky."
"Isn't that what you thought about those others?"
The riposte hit home, Judy's face twisting into twenty versions of confusion all at once. "Yes ... I...."
I filled the vacuum of silence with my most fervent, most desperate pitch. "Then you'll help me, Judy? Say you will. If you can just find the key to those handcuffs, slip it to me just before I take off for my daily constitutional with Bobbie. I'll take care of the rest. I know where there's a key to the car. I'll blast it out of that garage, get to town so fast. I'll turn the road signs hind side to."
For long moments Judy stood there, her face screwed up in monumental indecision. Then her shoulders straightened, she looked at me squarely. "Yes, Pinky," she sighed. "I'll help you. I'll get the key for you. But you've got to promise you'll come back for me."
"When?" I hissed, barely able to believe my ears.
"Next week. When you're stronger. I'll tell you what day." Then she whirled at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Looked back a last time.
It happened late Thursday afternoon of that following week. A beautiful, hot, autumn day. There was no advance warning, other than that I noticed Judy was on pins and needles all that afternoon. Bobbie was all wound up with some television program, and I couldn't get her off her can to save my soul. Kathrine was puttering in the kitchen. And finally-
Bobbie rose, stretched lazily. Yawned. "You ready to go for a little walk, Pinky dear?" she smirked, a peculiar kittenishness in her gaze. She took the handcuffs from the table, waggled them at me.
"I'm ready if you are," I said.
She put the cuffs on my wrist, then hers. "You know I don't like to do this, Pinky," she simpered. "But Kathrine insists. You understand, don't you?"
"Yeah, I understand."
It was as Bobbie pulled away from me to reach for her strong purse that Judy sidled against me, dropped the key into my hand. There was no time for words. No one saw the secret exchange.
"Have fun,' Kathrine said with an indulgent good humor as Bobbie pulled me through the kitchen.
Bobbie's eyes glistened evilly. "We will," she said.
Bobbie's idea of fun that warm, dry afternoon was to find us a nice secret place in the woods, a little cove-like depression, grassy and protected from the breeze. Where she coaxed me to let her undress me. "Please, honey," she implored, her whine sick sounding. "You know how much I like seeing you naked. I enjoy it so much more that way."
Seizing upon this as a good way to catch her off-guard, I agreed to her proposition. Minutes later I was lying on my back in the sweet smelling grass, my clothes scattered around me. The work out in the sun with Eleanor had given me a healthy, golden tan, had sprinkled a muscle or two here and there over my arms and shoulders. And seeing me spread out for her, Bobbie went into a semi-trance.
Humming and sighing, she went over me with her hands, stroking the hard planes of my chest with large spiraling motions, moving on to my belly. Then to other interesting areas. Then suddenly she stopped, remembered something. Rummaging in her purse she brought out some suntan oil, began to rub it into my flesh, seemingly savoring the task to the utmost. She turned me over, worked it into my still-tender back, all the while commiserating with me that Kathrine should be so cruel, promising that she'd make it up to me, just wait and see if she wouldn't.
My nervtes jangling, I could hardly wait for her to make her move. Patience, I told myself again and again. Don't rush things. You won't get another chance. Give the witch enough rope. Once she takes charge you'll be able to take her by complete surprise.
It wasn't a very long wait. The act of rubbing the oil into my skin, the sight of my naked body, of the extent of my excitement, did things to poor Bobbie, and before many more minutes had passed she was plying her particular sexual idiosyncrasies upon me.
While I lay back, fighting to keep my arms from trembling, waiting for her to get completely involved.
Until finally, when she was way out, I warily sat up, spread my legs for balance. A move whitch poor Bobbie mistook for generous accommodation. Then slowly, deliberately, I raised my free arm, aimed the point of my elbow at the base of her skull. I took a deep breath.
Then I suddenly closed my knees on her, held her body in a vise-like grip.
While simultaneously, my elbow whipped down, slammed her head with a murderous thump. Bobbie choked, gagged once. Then following with a small moan, her eyes fluttering.
It was easy as that. Instantly I was groping in my clothes for the key, opening the handcuffs. Then I cast a furtive look about to see that Eleanor was nowhere in the neighborhood, rose, tremblingly began to pull on my clothes.
I left the still blissfully sleeping Bobbie with her wrists shackled about the trunk of a small tree, struck out into the woods.
What I should have done was to hoof it into town. But again, to a dude like me, twelve miles seemed like a thousand without a car. Hitch a ride then. Surely someone would come by, give me a lift.
But I couldn't see even that.
So I made tracks deep into those woods, found a hiding place nobody-unless they had a bloodhound-would ever uncover. Still, a place from which I could range out, catch a distant view of the King farm. I broke myself off a branch to use as a club just in case Eleanor got too close for comfort.
And I sat.
About six o'clock Eleanor came storming up the path toward the woodlot, found Bobbie easily, following the shrieks that even I could hear from my vantage point. Then Bobbie was running and stumbling down the hill, sobbing and screaming all the way.
While Eleanor cast about, began to stalk me the best way she knew how. By guess and by golly. Twice she came within fifty feet of my hideout, passed by without even glancing in my direction.
And when she was gone, I crept out, looked down on the farm again. Saw a boil of dust along the access road, Kathrine's car out in front of it, heading for a headlong rendezvous with the highway. She was going to patrol, to see to it that I didn't get too far down that road. I settled back, gloating a little. Maybe I'd chosen the right way after all.
Wait them out.
It got dark around seven-thirty. And bit by bit my legs trembling with tension, I started down, working my way closer to the farm house ... So I could sneak into the yard about bedtime. Eleanor had given up her search at seven, not once coming close to where I was hidden. Kathrine had given up even sooner, and from the looks of her car when she'd driven in, she'd covered every dirt road in the country.
So all the dears were safely tucked in for the night. I crawled in closer to the house. I saw Kathrine come out of the house, the screen door banging loudly, she looked out into the dark. Moments later she went back in. I strained to read the face of my watch. Few minutes to ten.
Obviously they'd given up the search, I gloated. Anyway, if I was to judge by the beddy-bye preparations inside, they'd given up. A short time later all the lights went out downstairs, I saw the upstairs windows light up briefly. Then they too went dark.
Inch by inch I crept toward the shed. By then my nerves had got the best of me; I was soaked through and through with sweat.
Finally I reached the shed, was elated to find that Kathrine had left her share of the door open. Which meant that if I could roll the door eight feet further without being heard-
I got an unexpected break at that moment. As I heard a freight train, perhaps a mile long, rumbling through the night, blowing its whistle at each truck crossing. My ears out on strings, my eyes darting everywhere at once, put my shoulder to the door, waited for another crossing to come up. And a minute later-
The door rumbled open, and I approached my car, with excruciating pain and care I slid the tarp, inch by inch off it. Then I was just readying myself to pull open the driver's door when I remembered the automatic dome lights. I drew my hand back as if I'd been stung. That was close!
Instead I jimmied my arm through the opening where the window hadn't been completely closed, touched the electric window wind button. The hum sounded like a burglar alarm to me, but I forced myself to keep my finger down. Then I waited to see if anyone had heard. At least the battery was still up, I thought, vastly encouraged.
Awkwardly, grunting and panting, I squeezed myself through the window, fell onto the broad seat. Then I righted myself, slid behind the wheel, instinctively adjusted the neutral lever.
And at last I leaned forward, reached my hand up under the dash, twisted it high. Ran it along the radio casing, touched the small shelf where I'd taped the key.
Instantly I froze, my blood congealing in my veins. Groped and groped again.
The key was missing, it was gone!
I felt weak, suddenly defeated. I wanted to fall forward on that wheel, to bellow my frustration.
But there was no time for self pity. For that moment a rushing movement to my side turned me to stone. Someone was here!
A familiar voice cut the darkness, rang jarringly in the empty tin-can of my brain. "Looking for something, honey?" Eleanor taunted. "A key maybe? Forget it. Kathrine's got it. She found it weeks ago."
Then a light exploded in my eyes as she flung open the door. Her hands closed on my throat, dragged me from the car. The dome light went dead as she kicked the door. She landed a crushing blow to my head.
CHAPTER NINE
DESPITE THE SEARING PAIN IN MY ARM and in my brain, I realized how it had happened, how easily I'd been gulled. Judy had betrayed me either willingly or under torture. They'd been waiting for me, probably watching from those darkened windows as I'd crept foot by foot from the field toward the shed.
Even this fleeting thought of Judy was enough to jerk me to acute alertness. I was being unfair to prejudge her; she hadn't betrayed me. Not Judy. Then I felt a thunderbolt of hate and anger split my brain. If they'd hurt the poor kid! Oh no!
The enraged thought stumbled, fell. What, tough guy! I mocked. What will you do? A stupe who hasn't even got sense enough to hit the road when he's got the chance? If you'd scooted for town, you wouldn't be all jammed up like this now. You would've charged back by now, a whole carload of cops to back you up.
The scathing, self-disgust almost broke me.
Behind me Eleanor was giggling, enjoying her master's role to the fullest, getting a huge charge out of slamming my hand high, watching me curl up in agony as she shoved me forward. "You were gonna run away, were you, Pinky?" she seethed. "Didn't you like things here? You didn't like the way we treated you? Kathrine's mad, Pinky. You're gonna be real sorry you tried to run away."
A light burned in the living room and in the kitchen, but as Eleanor shoved me into the house, I saw the rooms were empty. "Upstairs," Eleanor spat. "That's where everybody is. Move, damn you!"
I groaned, cursed gutturally as she gave emphasis to her order by wrenching my arm again, nearly pulling my arm from its socket. I stumbled my way up the steps. If anything, Eleanor's punishing grip became all the more murderous as she pushed me into my prison bedroom.
For an instant I stood stock still, took fleeting inventory of the room. Bobbie and Kathrine were poised there, Kathrine with the belt in her hand. And on the bed, lying on her stomach, her arms tied to the corners of the bed, her ankles bound together, her back lined in red welts-Judy!
"You whores!" I gritted, lurching, trying to get at Kathrine, my face aching from the hateful grimace that must have twisted it. "You filthy, inhuman sluts."
Summarily, the words were swallowed up in an unearthly scream as Eleanor went crazy with my arm, I landed on my knees, thrashed and writhed to escape, my supreme helplessness as maddening as the hurt.
In that same instant, I saw Judy weakly turn her head, I saw the look of burning compassionate pity and concern she sent me. "Don't, Pinky," she said, "Don't fight. They'll only hurt you all the more."
Which warning Kathrine seconded. "Take it easy, Elly, don't put him out of commission."
"You gonna calm down?" Eleanor gritted.
"Yes," I seethed. "Yes...."
"That's a good boy," she laughed, and let me come upright on my knees.
I wanted to cry, to scream my fury at the top of my lungs as I saw what they'd done to Judy's beautiful, buttocks and legs. But I held off, sensing almost instinctively that if I once started, I'd go over the edge myself.
I'd be like Kathrine and Bobbie and Eleanor.
And where would Judy be then?
"You gave him that key, didn't you?" she screamed, her voice rising. "Didn't you? You filthy child." The whip rose again and again.
"No, no," Judy shrilled, protecting me to the last. "I didn't, I didn't."
"Tell me, bastard how you planned to help him escape."
"No, no," Judy cried, her words cutting through the sobs. "I won't tell you anything."
Suddenly a greater hope, a greater rage was born within me. I strained against Eleanor's arms, tried to get between Judy and that whistling belt. Judy hadn't betrayed me; her loyalty transcended my own puny trust. Kathrine had found the cached car key all by herself. They had kept a chance vigil, just hoping that I would blunder into my own trap. And thetir gamble had paid off. Mine hadn't.
"Stop," I groaned. I sprang forward again. "No, no," I shouted. "It was all my fault, can't you feel for her, she's just a kid?"
Momentarily Kathrine ran out of steam. Her arm stopped in mid-air, fell listlessly to her side. Her shoulders sagged. "What does it matter?" she said tiredly, "who helped who or what? We got you back, didn't we? That's the important thing...."
There was an almost disinterested tone to her voice. "Undress him, Elly."
She turned to Bobbie. "Untie Judy, get her off that bed, keep her out of the way."
Her eyes never left me as Eleanor roughly tore off my clothes. Finally I stood before the leering trio, totally naked. "On the bed," Kathrine snapped. "On your belly. You know what you're gonna get. You hurt Bobbie this afternoon. Bobbie didn't like that one bit...."
It seemed an eternity passed while I waited for the first blow to fall. I glanced toward Judy, saw the glory of her breasts, the roll of soft flesh at her waist as she huddled on the corner, her body trembling in great spasms. And more than the beauty of that abused body I saw the tragic confusion in her eyes, the deep, low-burning pity that darkened her gaze. Even after suffering all this on my account, she could still forgive, still feel compassion.
I stiffled an outcry, grabbed two handfuls of bedspread, my legs pistoning involuntarily. "Again," Eleanor gloated from somewhere off in space, "hit him again. Again, Bobbie."
"I can't," Bobbie whimpered. "It's enough, it's enough." I heard the sounds of a scuffle, but couldn't raise my head to look up. "Kathrine, make Elly stop."
"Give her that belt," Kathrine said coldly.
Then I heard Eleanor's victorious tones. "Now I'll show you how it should be done."
After Eleanor's back-breaking blows I finally passed out cold.
When I next came around I found myself still on the bed, everything the same as it had been. Or almost, anyway. Now I was on my back, looking up, the hovering faces above me going in and out of focus. A cold, wet cloth was being passed along my forehead, down over my eyes. I heard Bobbie's cooing voice very close.
And I saw Eleanor dragging Judy forward, her hands yanking back her elbows, and brutality causing Judy's breasts to stretch to devastating tautness, pressing the pink nipples out. Judy hissed her pain as Eleanor's rough clothing touched her back. "C'mon, miss lovey dove," Eleanor was chuckling. "Here's where you find out what it's all about."
"Put her on the bed," Kathrine said, "right next to Pinky."
And much as I fought to disbelieve the immoral look, the total breakdown in Kathrine's eyes, I could not. The fiend's intention was obvious, unmistakable. In her short circuited philosophy there could be no, greater punishment than this.
My mind boggled at the concept. No mother-no mother living-could force her only daughter to this debasement-could hold her, force her, have a hand in it all the way.
As quickly I amended the incredulous thought. No mother? Just one. And she was at that moment slapping her daughter's face, forcing her down onto her back beside me.
"No, no, no...." Judy was crying, half in pain, half in blind, addled confusion, suspicioning, not daring to really imagine what would happen now.
"Yes, yes...." Kathrine mocked, moving away, looking down at Judy, arms akimbo, a vicious snarl painted on her lips. "Maybe once you've had it, once you've seen what it's all about, you won't be so damned naxious to let it get away from us the next time.
She turned on me, her eyes looking in mine. Condemning me to death, should I dare refuse.
I twisted away from Judy, tried to scramble from the bed, but Eleanor blocked my way. "No," I groaned, "you can't. She's your daughter, you can't ... not like this."
Kathrine shunted Eleanor aside, shifted the leather belt in her hand. "Can't I? Who are you to tell me what I can't do?" The belt cut my buttocks. "Do it damn you! Take Judy! Climb on, damn you! Before I kill you."
My stomach kicked over, and for an instant I thought I was going to pass out again.
"Pinky," I heard Judy cry behind me. Then I felt her hand on my wrist, pulling me back to the bed. "Please, Pinky, do as she says. She'll kill you."
"Judy," I quaked, "you don't mean it...."
"I do," she breathed, cole high in her cheeks. "It's all right. It doesn't matter now. Nothing matters now. Nothing matters now." Her eyes welled with tears. "Do what she says, Pinky. I don't want to see her hurt you any more. I couldn't stand it. Please, Pinky...."
A heavy silence enveloped the room. I heard the bed creek, then the sound of Kathrine's breathing. And finally Eleanor's crude encouragement; "Go ahead, Pinky. Show her what a prize stud you are."
Judy fell back on the bed, stared frightenedly at the ceiling. "Pinky...." she breathed. "Yes...."
"Here?" I faced Kathrine. "Just like this? With all of you watching?"
Kathrine snickered. "Yes just like this. We all want to watch. Go ahead."
Crushed by disbelief, by an oppressive pity and remorse, I turned, moved toward Judy. Pity that she should be forced to this.
Inch by inch, my stomach constricting, my heart beating a wild tattoo, I came closer to Judy. Until at last I was trembling hovering over her. She looked up at me, a sad, yet forgiving expression on her face. "It's all right, Pinky," she murmured. "It's all right."
Eleanor chuckled loudly as Judy's hands captured me again. "Please, Pinky," Judy whispered, "I don't mind. Anything ... only just do it. Get it over with...."
I dropped my head, closed my eyes against the sight of that tragic, lovely face. Permitted the arousing attentions. Until at last:
"There," Judy breathed. "You're ready now."
"Damn you", Kathrine snarled, "Get going, will you?"
Slowly, tenderly, fighting to close my ears to the ugly, erotic encouragements Eleanor and Bobbie were sending to me, I closed the gap between our bodies. I shifted my knees until they were inside of Judy's. Gently I put my hands down, prepared her for me.
She started at my mouth, a hot rush of air breaking from her throat, trembled. Then she regained control.
Painstakingly I came to her, pressed myself to the outer portals. My heart leaped into my throat, and I froze as the realization hit me. For I was repulsed, she was a virgin.
I felt my soul shift and warmth and love as Judy said "It's all right, Pinky. Go ahead. I'll be brave for you.
"Oh, please," she whispered. Don't give them any more than you have to."
I let myself sink down, my legs tensing. And slowly, I drove myself to her. Her resistance seemed endless and I heard her whine deep in her throat, I opened my eyes, saw her teeth clenched to stifle her outcry, I saw small droplets of perspiration forming on her forehead.
When it was over. She sighed my name, let one ragged sob escape her. But still her body was tense, unresponsive, and I realized she must be suffering.
"C'mon", Eleanor called. "Go Pinky. You know how I taught you all I know. Lay into it, damn you!"
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kathrine's frozen grin. I saw Bobbie rocking slightly back and forth.
"Please," Judy whispered again, "hurry, Nash. Get it over with. It hurts, it hurts so badly.
And then, hating myself as I'd never hated myself before, I gathered my resources. Deliberately, unflinchingly, I drove myself to Judy. Heedless of her tense stiffenings, the searing pain that must have been sand-papering her back, I slammed my belly to hers. Again and again.
I felt my deliverance building, at the same time sensing that Judy was sensing nothing at all. And fearing that the harpies would insist on continued defilement until Pam would reach fulfillment, I whispered into her ear. "Scream, moan or something. Make them think it's happening."
Judy managed to choke up three small, agonized yelps, authentic enough to convince the lecher audience. Which yelps triggered a precipitous increase in my own buildup. Within seconds, I froze over her body, wracking tremors, possessing me. I was moaning with Judy, letting my body rise and fall to hers with four final strokes.
Then I was rolling away from her, glaring, weak as I was, at Kathrine, daring her to force further excess. "Satisfied?", I challenged.
She only snickered, wheeled away from me. "Eleanor", she ordered, "carry Judy to her room, take care of her room, take care of her. Lock her in. You, Bobbie, attend to Pinky."
Eleanor lifted Judy, heedless of the pain she inflicted. At the last I tried catching Judy's eye, but she purposely averted her gaze. Then Bobbie and I were alone in the room; I heard the bar fall outside my door.
Now I lay on my stomach, feeling an awesome streng-throbbing despair. What was the point? Why didn't I just stop breathing?
CHAPTER TEN
I WAS DEFINITELY SLATED FOR DISCARD, and soon.
If there had been a scant chance for escape before, there was no chance at all now. Through I might not be the apple of anyone's eye any more, they were all still careful to see that I stayed housebroken.
They all appeared at my door at staggered intervals to partake of that unique delight only a man can impart to a woman. And in normal cases, vice-versa.
As mentioned previously, the rush-hour traffic had all but dried up; there were no triple features any more. For even though I was glad for those solitary, commotionless nights, I still worried. For the less desirable I became-the more expendable.
A strange impasse had developed between Judy and me. An impasse which bothered me tremetndously.
During the week following her brutal defloration I didn't see Judy at all. She was kept to her room whenever I was at large in the house, emerging-insofar as I could determine from listening for her footsteps-only when I was locked in my quaint cell. She never brought me meals any more; this task was left to Bobbie.
It was an incomprehensible turn. One minute Kathrine had bestialized the girl as few girls had ever been mistreated, the next she was keeping her cooped up.
I was despetrate to see Judy, to talk to her. I wanted to win some sort of forgiveness from her. For the thing I'd been forced to do to her that night, for the fact that I'd got her involved in the first place and had failed to make good my bid for freedom. Instead of bringing the police and taking her away from this snakepit, I'd brought her only greater humiliation and pain.
For I realized now that I was in love with Judy, impossible as that love might be. And I was frantic to have a chance to declare that love to her, to try to formulate some new plan whereby we might somehow escape, give that love a chance to flower under normal circumstances. I wanted to rededicate myself to the task of showing her the true meaning of life. I wanted to marry her, to live with her in newfound decency, perhaps one day, to have her bear my children.
These were fanciful dreams at best. Because I loved Judy, that was not an ironclad guarantee that my love would be returned. If the look she'd given me at the last was any indication, she hated me with all her. heart.
Another change: even though I was continually trying to formulate some escape plan, it seemed I was just going through the motions; my heart wasn't in it. This despite the fact that I was fcaing a ghastly death. It was obvious that the beatings, the too-frequent sex-bouts had left their mark, had seriously sapped my determination to live.
Every feeble escape plan I came up with was immediately demolished. It was almost as if, in some insane visions they were able to read my mind, plug up loopholes as soon as I could find them. Thus I was determined that whatever my next move might be, it would be an impromptu thing, done on the spur of the moment.
All I could do was to mark time, hope and pray that I could come up with something before time ran out on me.
On Tuesday afternoon of the following week a strange, unexpected thing happened. Judy came to call.
I was sitting on my bed reading when all of a sudden, I heard furtive movement in the hall, voices whispering. Then the bar lifted, the door opened, and Judy scurried in, a hesitant smile on her lips. Immetdiately the bar was dropped and we were locked in together.
I rose, went to her immediately, holding my arms out to her. "Judy, darling" I called, my heart suddenly paining me, finding it hard to get my breath. "How in the world ... who let you in here?"
"Bobbie," she breathed, standing stiffly in my embrace, making no move to return it, nor no move to evade it either. "Mom and Eleanor went to town. They gave her orders to keep me locked up. But I begged and begged, and finally she gave in. She's coming back in an hour ... before they get back."
"But, how come?"
"Bobbie's always been easy for me. I could always coax her to see things my way."
I leaped on the words immediately. "Could you coax her to let us out of here? We could be long gone before...."
Apprehension shone in her gaze. "No, Pinky. It wouldn't work. She's deathly afraid of Mom. Just like me. She'll go so far and that's all, even as mixed up as she is upstairs."
I sighed, held Judy even closer, put my lips into her hair. "Judy, Judy," I said, "I'm so glad you've come. I almost went bats wondering what happened to you, why I haven't seen you."
"They haven't let me out except to eat." Gradually she was becoming limper in my arms, her warm body fitting itself to mine. "Mom doesn't want you near me, ever again. She thinks I'll help you escape."
"And will you?"
She waited a long time, a small shudder taking her for a moment. "Yes," she answered gravely. "I will."
Then, all at once, I couldn't hold the words in my heart any longer, hysterical and out of place as they might seem at that moment. "Judy, I've missed you terribly, I never realized until I couldn't see you any more. Judy, I think I ... I'm in love with you. I haven't been able to get you out of my mind. Ever since.
Her eyes were dark, probing. "You don't know, Pinky. You can't be in love with me. It's just this house ... all the things that've been happening. You ... both of us ... are grabbing at straws."
"No, Judy, no. It's true. I've had all the time in the world to think about it. I'm sure. I love you, I want to marry you: If we can ever get away from here...."
"No, Pinky. You don't know what you're saying."
I rushed to shut off her protest. "There was a girl once, Judy. Her name was Edna. I was in love with her, I was going to marry her. But believe this, baby, the feeling I had for her was nothing compared to how I feel about you. Why, after the other day. ."
She hushed me. "Pinky, don't. Don't ever talk about that again...."
"But I have to, Judy. It was then that I was sure. If I hadn't cared, I wouldn't have felt so awful afterward ... after they forced us to-...."
"Please, Pinky!" Her voice broke, and her arms came around me, held me tightly. "Don't ... never. Hold me, hold me. I don't want to remember...." She was trembling all over at once. Now she winced, pulled away slightly. "Oh!"
"What is it, baby?"
"My back ... that one spot. . it's still sore."
"Baby," I whispered into her hair, "my poor baby. I'm sorry. I do love you. You must believe that."
Her body seemed to send up waves of heat, seemed to have been made to fit into mine. "Hold me," she sighed. "Just hold me." Then a sob broke from her. "Oh, Pinky, what's going to happen to us?"
A new resolve seemed to be suddenly forged within me. If Judy was willing to let me love her, if she could learn to someday love me in return-I'd find some way to break away from this place. And this time I'd take Judy with me; there'd be no coming back for her.
"We're going to get out of this," I vowed. "I swear we are. I'll find a way." I paused. "And this time if some way ... you can help me...."
"I will," her eyes sparked with hope, "I will. Anything I can do. But can I do?"
I drew her toward the bed, sat her down, my arm still around her. "I don't know right now. But surely something's got to turn up. What about that gun of your mother's? Does she ever leave it laying around?"
"She used to. But not now. She watches it like a hawk. She doesn't trust me at all anymore. Sometimes. . the way she looks at me ... I think she'd just as soon kill me, too."
"What about a knife? Can you sneak something from the kitchen for me?"
"No, that's out. They watch my every move."
"Could you get a letter out of here? A note?"
She shook her head slowly. "I don't know, I don't even get out of the house any more." She collapsed into my arms, began to cry again. "Pinky, we're trapped. There's nothing we can do."
"Something'll turn up," I reassured her, feeling an awesome warmth well up in me as the full significance of our interdependence stamped me. "I know it will. We have to string along with them. Make them thipk we're licked for once and for all."
Her eyes were liquid as she looked up at me. "You're sure, Pinky? I'll die if anything happens to you."
Then the eyes went wide, a combination of surprise and delight appearing in them. As I slowly let my lips glide down to hers, let them collapse to softness, melting and caressing, consuming hers. It was a totally new experience for her; I could tell by the sweett awkwardness of the kiss, by the way she let me take total initiative.
Her lips were hot, indescribably soft and moist, forming a delicate cushion. Still I held the locked contact, slowly moving my mouth, my arms holding her gently but firmly, not letting her retreat for an instant.
When finally I released her she loosed a long, deep sigh, said, "That's the first time a boy ... a man's ever kissed me."
"You're putting me on, baby," I said. "A beautiful girl like you and no boy friends?"
"It's the truth," she said shyly, plainly embarrassed by the closeness of our lips. "Mom would never let any boys come here. All through high school. There were some, but she scared them away."
"And what about at school itself?"
"A girl getts a reputation fast. Stories get around in a hurry. About my mother, I mean."
"And the boys left you alone then?"
"Yes."
"I'm glad. That makes me the first and only man who'll ever have you. That brought you to me a virgin."
The effect of the words was instantaneous. Judy stiffened in my arms, tried to draw away. "I'm sorry, darling," I said. "I didn't mean to say anything like that. It just slipped out. I'm sorry, please forgive it."
"Never again, Pinky," she intoned. "Please...."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Again I kissed her, bringing up one hand, caressing her small ear, the line of her jaw. And Judy relaxed even more, let her lips so even softer.
"I feel so strange," she said upon parting this time. "A nice strange, but it makes me all jittery inside." She huddled to me. "Like bumble bees are flying around inside me. Oh, Pinky, is that how it feels when you're in love?"
"It affects people differently," I said, my voice reverent. "With me I find it hard to breathe. Like right now."
She giggled self-consciously. "Kiss me again, Pinky. Make the bees start again. Please?"
Again our lips locked, our breathing was partially suspended. And as we held the kiss of what seemed an interminable time, I felt desire of the wildest sort rise within me. Instantly I was disgusted with myself for thinking such a thing, remembering my remorse after that ugly first session. It could wait. Until later, when we'd fled the farm. When there was peace, and unlimited time to build up to a sublime peak of ecstasy and fulfillment.
Then a cold dread innundated me. Suppose that there was no second chance? Suppose we never escaped from Kathrine and her maniac sisters? I withered inside unable to bear the bitter injustice of it. If I should die before-
Coldly, deliberatetly I decided that I should have Judy. Right now, I had to convince her that we should enjoy our love while we had the chance, that we should have this moment as insurance against our uncertain tomorrows.
And I kissed her even more passionately, aroused as I hadn't been aroused in a long time, lettting the tip of my tongue sally forth, slide teasingly in the crack of her lips.
Shortly, Judy began to tremble also. We parted, and her eyes were glassy, her breath was coming in quick, shallow gasps. "Pinky, darling, I feel all wild, all caged up inside. What is it?"
"You want me," I said, looking deep into her confused eyes. "Exactly as I want you."
"You mean?" A worried frown flitted across her features. "Pinky, you promised...."
I kissed her eyes closed. "What would happen ... how would you feel ... if I were to die, if they killed me ... before we...."
"Pinky, don't say that. You won't die...."
"How do we know? Would you feel sorry, though? If Eleanor marched me out to that barn tonight, came back alone? And you knew we'd passed up this magic moment?"
Her eyes opened and she looked at me in panic. "No, Pinky. Don't talk like that. It makes me feel empty all desperate. I'd die, I know it. I'd die." She fought back tears. "I'd die killing them, fighting them."
Softly, persuasively I said. "don't you see, Judy? That we have to grab our happiness when we can?" I opened her hand, kissed her palm. "Please darling."
Her eyes were afire. "I don't know, darling. I don't know.
Again I buried my lips in hers, let my tongue creep forth. Judy shuddered, seized with a stronger spate of desire, pressed hetr body closer to mine. Her lips came away. "Teach me, Pinky," she sighed. "Should I, too? Kiss you like that, I mean?"
"Whatever you want, baby."
Her tongue came to mine, and while our mouths were so engaged, I slowly lowered her to the bed, lay with my body half over hers. She made no move, no word of protest. Tenderly, I placed my left hand over her right breast, began to caress and squeeze. A wracking spasm went through her, and involuntarily her hips began to twist.
"Oh, darling," she said thickly, "I can't help myself. I feel so warm all of a sudden."
"I love you, Judy," I muttered. "Say you love me, too. You know you do."
Her free hand came up, closed on mine, held it tightly to her breast. I could feel the hardened nipple in the center of my palm, burning, burning. "Yes, Pinky," she hissed. "Oh, yes. I do love you. I must've loved you for a long time."
Then I rolled over, poured kiss after kiss into those sweet, hot lips. Not because I was seducing her, not because I was planning it. But because I was so wild in love and adoration for her. While my hands went frantic, bold, possessed both breasts, my fingers caressing her nipples.
I felt awe and sorrow and wonder at the uncomprehending frenzy that gripped her, at the way her body throbbed and came involuntarily alive under mine. The poor kid, the adorable, magnificent kid, I thought. Lovely, hot-blooded woman. Who was learning what love was for the first time in her life.
Suddenly she was very still. "Pinky?" she quavered. "Yes, baby?"
"Anything you want," she said in a tiny, lost voice. "I'll want it, too, I know I will. Be patient wih me, teach me to love...." Her hands came up, fumbled with the button of her blouse. "Help me, darling. Undress me, do what you want. But hurry, there's so little time...."
My heart swelled and my breath came in thick gasps. The wonder was magnified a hundred-fold. That I could learn to love again-even in the midst of degradation.
I kissed her now, my hands worked busily, skipping from button to button.
For a long time I lay betside Judy, looking at and adoring her naked, beautiful body. If I'd thought my heart pained me before, it was nothing compared to the agony ballooning within me now.
"You're the most magnificent woman I've ever seen in my life," I groaned. "I never dreamed there could be a woman so lovely."
In the sunlight, her body was haloed in gold, a subtle patina of fuzzy gilt on her arms, her legs, her shoulders. She was svelte and vibrant, her breasts bursting with passion, her belly heaving, the entity of herself an unspoken promise of incredible delight.
"Don't look at me like that," she murmured. "You make me feel so funny."
"Please," I sucked in my breath, "let me. You're so pretty, baby. So breath-taking.
She shivered, took her hands from her breasts. "Oh, I love you, Pinky. Yes, look at me. Look at me all you want."
Finally I could look no more. I rose swiftly, peeled off my clothes. Then I came to her, began to kiss and stroke her body. Her breasts, her arms, her belly, her legs. I kissed her everywhere. If Kathrine could force me to this by way of pagan excess, I could just as well do it in the name of true love.
"Oh Pinky," she quivered. "That makes me feel all crazy inside. Like I'm going to jump out of my skin."
"You like it though, don't you?"
"Yes, yes. This is so different ... from the other night. It makes me want you. It makes me want to scream for wanting you. No matter how much it hurts."
"It won't hurt today, Judy. Not so much anyway. The first is always the worst."
"Promise, darling?"
"Promise."
"Stop now, Pinky. Please stop that. I can't stand any more of it."
I was aware that our time was running out. So I rose to her nipples, let my lips and tongue wander over them uninhibitedly. While Judy surrendered in trembling delight, her hands slipped to my waist. Until finally, in the boldest of ministrations, she let her hands follow my waist, found me. Did some tactile adoration of her own.
"Hurry, hurry," she chanted. "I can't wait."
I barely touched her belly and she opened her legs to me, she hugged me close as I crawled between them. Her hands were waiting to pilot me when I arrived in port. A throaty, drawn out whimpering sigh broke from her as I slowly started to take her. Her hands came up on the small of my back, stroked wildly, urging me to her unashamedly.
And I thought of the difficulty I'd had only yesterday accommodating Kathrine. It had seemed to last forever, and Kathrine had been disappointed in my lack of real ardor. Love did make a difference. It made it spiritual and meaningful, the most sublime act of self-sacrifice possible between man and woman.
"Oooh, oooh," Judy groaned, wriggling her hips in impatience, waiting for me to begin. "It hurts, but it hurts good. Not a all like...." She caught herself in time.
Then I began to move my hips, to slide myself to her with metronome ebb and flow. With rare instinct, wanting to achieve the utmost tin gratification and contact, Judy shifted her hips, brought up her knees, constricted herself in even more delightful manner.
"Judy," I groaned, "You're gorgeous, you're gorgeous. There's never been a woman like you."
"Oh, please,' she quaked, her voice chocking and breathing. "Oh, please, please...." Her body arched in the experienced motions of a woman, and she fought to trap me, to hold me. And finally, staccatto bursts of breath escaping her, her words over-loud in my ear: "I love you, Pinky darling. There'll never be another man for me. Only you...." She stiffened her body, slid her ankles up and down on my legs, held me compressed. "Now, baby, make it happen again and again. Oh, again."
And her belly was trip-hammering against mine with new, liberated enthusiasm.
While inside me an excruciating pressure was building. A pressure funneled from every vein, every muscle of my body that was channeled, detoured, to nuture, to deliver new superhuman strength. Until all at once I was every man who had ever lustily enjoyed a woman, had had a woman enjoy him. I was every man and all men in one.
I groaned like someone had just hit me with a rabbit punch, jack-knifed my body. Then I went still.
Judy was sighing pleasurably beneath me, exhalling quaking moans of gratitude and joy. This was the meaning, this was the glory of true love.
We were dressed and waiting when we heard Bobbie on the stairs. Quickly I glanced out the window, checked to see that Kathrine's car was still gone. They hadn't returned from town as yet. And though Judy didn't know it, my mind was elsewhere than on our parting kisses. I was driven beyond the bounds of reason by desire to escape, to take Judy with me and never be seen again. And there would be no time like the present.
Bobbie would be a pushvoer. If I could just jam my way through the door, before she dropped the bar-I was poised and waiting.
"Good-bye sweetheart," Judy whispered as Bobbie stopped outside the door. "I'll try to coax Bobbie into letting me come again as soon as I can. In the meantime, be careful. Don't do anything rash."
"No, Judy, I won't." While even as I said the words, my muscles were tensing, preparing to spring. But my slapdash, improvised plan went by the board completely. For as the peephole come open, I saw the gleaming revolver in Bobbie's hand.
"Are you ready, Judy?" she asked. "You'd better be getting back to your room. They'll be back any minute now."
Hetr eyes shifted, fixed me in place. "Against the wall, Pinky," she ordered sternly. "So you won't be tempted to try anything. I'd hate to shoot you." She snickered through her nose. "Eleanor would never forgive me."
Wanting to scream my frustration, I fell against the wall, put a whole room between me and the door. I watched a sad-faced Judy being ushered out. The door was locked and Bobbie glanced in a last time.
Then I was alone, possessed of a maddening resurgence of hope and purpose. For the first time in my life I had a devastating valid reason for living. I had to plan our escape.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS A SWELTERING DAY, I'D PULLED off my shirt-a too-large shirt belonging to the fugitive, Tim King-was working bare chested, sweat glisttening on my skin as I raised and slammed the maul down on the steel wedges.
Several times, I caught Eleanor casting unmistakably hungry looks at me, her eyes lustful as they swept over my bare torso. She was dressed in a baggy sweat-shirt and jeans, her hair tied back with a ribbon. Her face was red as a beet and she was sweating up a storm. I imagine to some extent she must have envied me, must have wished she could follow my lead. But that was done.
Or was it?
I knew what was building up. Eleanor had been going through a stage lately. A stage wherein she didn't care whose turn she usurped. The cozy, sadistic sessions in my bedroom weren't eough; she'd been forcing me to do it under the clear sky besides. And today, before we went down to the house, she'd come on again. I didn't doubt it for an instant.
But in the meantime there was no talk. Just the whump of the sledges on steel and the chatter of chunks seiling up against the backboard. And now and then, pauses commonly known as pregnant, when she'd smile that thin smile of hers, let her eyes devour me.
I don't know where I got the idea to cache the branch ends. I really had no immediate plans for them. There was absolutely no chance at all that I could sneak up behind Eleanor and club her with one of them, for she always worked facing me, giving me terse warning whenever I got out of sight. Single-minded Eleanor might be fuzzy or vacant in various cerebral compartments, but nobody was about to catch her napping.
Anyway, there they were, five or six elm branches, slash trimmed, but into handy two-foot lengths, intended for kindling, hefty enough to bash in almost any convenient skull. Idly, thinking there might be a time when they'd come in handy, I surreptitiously retrieved the sticks, threw them out into the sere grass, saw them tumble out of sight. I did this when Eleanor was preoccupied with placing wedges for the next split.
Then, only one club left, I evaluated the squat, densely foliated vince maple close to the spot where a number of our extemporaneous sex bouts had been held. Perhaps in the branches of the bush itself, I thought.
Furtively I picked up the end, tucked it into the band of my trousers, turning my back on Eleanor as I did so. Then I started walking toward the bush.
"Where'n hell you going?" Eleanor challenged.
"It's getting to be that time," I said. "If you don't mind looking the other way a minute.
She laughed. "Oh, that. Be my guest."
While I took care of things, my back to her, I stole a look over my shoulder, saw her leaning over, picking up a wedge. Deftly I leaned to my right, deposited the stick, like an upright spear into the foliage. Felt a fleeting satisfaction as it was swallowed completely by the bush.
Then, back to work.
The wagon was filled. Lunch was at twelve-thirty, which gave us time-time that Eleanor wasn't going to let go to waste.
"Tired?" she asked, moving to a large ash log we hadn't sawed into sections yet and sitting down. It was a smooth barked trunk, perhaps fifteen feet long.
"Kinda," I said. "You drove me pretty hard."
She snickerted viciously. "Not so hard as I'm gonna drive you." She patted the log beside her. "C'mere."
"Eleanor, I took care of you yesterday."
Her smile was twisted. "That was yesterday. Over here, I said, Move it."
Docilely I stood before her, trembling despite the hot sun on my back, letting her run her hands over my sweat stained chest, the odor of her body carrying up to me with pungent, acid impact. Then casually she opened my clothes and began snaking them from my body.
"Nice," she grunted, sliding her hands along my back, compressing my buttocks. "Small, but nice. Big where it counts." She squinted against the sun, looking up at me. "Think you can get it for me today?"
"I know better than that, don't I? You got ways.
"That's right, honey." She balanced on my hips, pulled herself up. "Stand right there, Pinky."
With a sudden swipe she brought up the sweater, tugged it over her head, revealing her breasts in a cotton brassiere, the squarish hardness of her waist and stomach. Then she was running the fly of her jeans, stepping out of them. "The rest, Pinky," she ordered. "Peel old Eleanor down. Hurry. I got something different I wanna try today."
Then she unabashedly naked before me, stretching, her large, firm hips. "Mmmm, that sun feels good."
She walked gingerly on the grass, barefooted, reached the log again. "Lay down, Pinky, she said. "I'll take the upper berth today."
"Lay down?" I said. "Where?"
"On that log. Where'n hell do you think?"
"On the log? What ...?"
"Here," she said disgustedly, pushing me back, ignoring my winces as the burls and scars in the bark dug into my back. "On the log, just like that. Put your hands down for balance. I'll balance the rest of you...."
Then she squatted beside me, began to run her hands over me.
At that moment the naked woman raised one leg, straddled my body. Eagerly she slid upward to me, her feet flat on the ground, her thighs tacking me to the tree holding me immovable. I couldn't have teetered off had I wanted. Swiftly her hands found me, positioned me. "Oh, Pinky," she breathed, "this is gonna be real good. You'll like it too, I know."
Then she was slowly, carefully lowering herself over me. "Oh, she breathed, "that's good, real good. You just lay there, baby. You just let Eleanor take care of everything."
I didn't see that I had any choice.
As Eleanor put her fingertips on the outer escarpment of my pelvis, used it for balance. Then, like a jockey in the saddle, she leaned forward, adjusting her feet on the ground, laughing throatily at my discomfort, she began to flex her knees, to raise and lower her body in steady, smooth rhythm. Posting it's called among those in the horsey set.
And finally, as the race picked up tempo, as Eleanor came down the stretch-I opened my eyes, fetlt my stomach flipflop dangerously as I saw the way her head was held so proudly, the way her lips were curled into a sublime, blissful smile.
Then Eleanor began to gargle screams in her throat.
There was little time for much thought of Judy during those days, desperately as I wanted to dwell in the magnificent ecstasy of our recent self-sacrifice and love-making. I was looking forward to the time when we'd be able to rededicate ourselves to that sacred love. But thus far, no opportunity for an encore had presented itself.
When the weather permitted, Kathrine and Eleanor had me perpetually busy about the farm. There was still a mountain of wood to be split, brought in and racked. It seemed that all of a sudden there were a hundred things to be done on the place. In the barns and sheds, around the house, on the machinery. Times there, I suspicioned that perhaps I wouldn't be destroyed before snowfall, that they'd keep me around for a workhorse now, a plaything during those snowbound days and nights.
Spring would be time enough to look for a summer replacement.
But these times, there was always Kathrine, a vastly changed Kathrine, to convince me otherwise. For she, too, like Eleanor, was going through a spell also. Seemingly insatiable now, at times totally incomprehensivle, she was in my room every moment she could. The last three nights, in fact, had been spent in deranged amorous sport, Kathrine staying with me, sleeping and waking, sleeping and waking. Coaxing, in flaming, commanding.
Almost as if she were storing up sensation against a time when I would be gone.
Now, instead of wallowing in sadism, getting psychotic a charge out of inflicting pain, she wanted to be the victim, not the tormentor.
Which was even more appalling symptom of her retrogression into the deepest abysses of madness. It became a chilling portent of impending disaster.
I almost went over the brink myself that first night she manifested the abrupt transformation. For as Eleanor had let her into my room and I'd steeled myself for another torture session.
But there'd been a new emptiness in her eyes, a calm lethargy and resignation about her as she stripped herself out of her clothes. All part of a day's work, her demeanor read.
"Undress," she'd commanded, looking up, almost as if surprised to find me there. "Hurry now...."
Dutifully, knowing that Eleanor was only a knock away, I did as I was told. And had promptly fallen belly down on the bed. Tensed myself and waited.
Kathrine had stood there for a long time, motionless, saying nothing. Finally an eerie sigh, wrenched from the depths fo her being, had filled the room. I'd broken into a fit of shakes upon seeing the glazed expression on her face, each hair on my scalp standing individually. "No, Pinky," she sighed. "Not you. Me...."
She'd come to bed, ritualistically put the whip into my hand, closed my fingers on it. "You, Pinky," she intoned. "I want you to punish me. I've been evil, very evil. You must punish me now...."
My body was instantly awash with goose pimples, my arms jerked convulsively. What did this mean "Kathrine." I gasped. "Do you really mean I should...?"
"Yes, Pinky, yes." The urgency exploded behind her eyes, and she was crawling over me, arranging herself on the bed. "You must, you must...."
"No" I qualied, "I can't. I'm not made that way."
For the first time she'd become impatient. Her eyes flashed. "You can't, Pinky? Are you telling me, no? I'm tired. Don't irritate me. Do as you're told." She smirked menacingly, fell back upon the bed.
My shoulders heaving, I stood beside the whip, limp in my hands. "Kathrine," I'd questioned, "what's happened to you?"
"I've been evil, so evil," she chanted, squirming, adjusting her body. "You must punish me. Whip me, Pinky.' Her voice rose in agonized fury. "Now!"
Fighting for control, I raised the whip, let it fall lightly over her back. She jerked, writhed. "Harder, damn you! Harder! As hard as you can."
Moments later I'd been caught up myself in her insane trance, had flayed her with increasing savagery, gradually getting more of a charge out of the aberration, savoring her yelps and jerkings, feeling a delicious hotness in my brain. Then I was exacting vengeance, vengeance for all the times she'd tortured me thusly.
A haze had filmed my eyes, and I'd gone out of my mind. There'd been only the hissing, smacking whip the writhing, screaming white body on the bed.
At last Kathrine could endure no more, and she'd struggled up from the bed, charged me, the last blow catching her across her bobbing breasts. She'd clung to the whip fallen to the floor, torn it from my hands. "No more, no more," she'd sobbed.
When I'd relinquished it, she'd groveled at my feet, wound her arms about my knees, pressed her face to me. "Thank you, thank you." she'd intoned eerily. "It was good, so very good."
Finally, she'd led me to the bed, spread me before her, made a choral suite of her gratitude, flung herself on my body, begun to kiss me. Everywhere. "Oh, thank you, lover," she sighed and sobbed, "thank you. I needed that. So much."
Then the most unsettling segment of the self-debasement had commenced, as she'd gone to my feet and ankles, had begun to kiss and caress. Weak and incoherent as she was, she'd gone upward on the outside of my leg, to my hips, to my waist, to my armpits. Whimpering and trembling, she'd veritably outlined my body with kisses, bathed me in an erotic, unhinged manner.
Until finally she was moving downward again, working no the outer periphery of my other leg. Then my feet. And at last, she'd started upward on the inner regions, had come to my thighs. And still, caught up in a trance of self-humiliation and obeisance, she'd continued to climb upward.
Somewhere in the course of things-I'd been given the whip again. And as the vile deed was culminated, as she lingered in that warm cove for what seemed hours, her liquid voice had said, "Hit me, darling. Again. When I'm not good enough to you."
I barely had to hit her and she jerked viciously, hissed in her breath, attacked me with new vigor.
And afterward, as she'd pulled me atop her-she'd been embodiment of all the ammoral wantons the world had ever known.
Until, upon awakening the next day, I'd felt like I'd gone through a corn chopper.
And still there was another change within Kathrine. One morning she took me down into the living room, and leading me to a locked drawer in the antique desk there, revealed a very disturbing treasure trove. Opening a cardboard box, she showed me a weird collection of personal effects. Wallets, combs, keys of every description.
Mine among them.
My blood ran cold as I realized what the ghoulish collection meant. For the grissly souvenirs were remains of what had once been living, breathing men. Men who had been bled with savage proficiency by these vampires, and when they were withered and useless, had been put out of their misery.
Instantly I realized the significance of this preening revelation. It was an incontestable signal that my time above ground was very limited indeed. For only if Kathrine was ready to murder me, would she tip her hand like this. In bloodthirsty glee, she could draw a vicarious thrill from these last desperate days of my life. She could live through my terror with me.
"Pretty, aren't they?" she mocked. She sorted through the conglomeration, found my car keys, my wallet. She glanced at my wrist. "All we lack now is your watch."
"You witches!" I gasped. "Why? Why are you showing me this?"
"Figure it out for yourself, Pinky. Maybe it's a warning. That you'd better watch yourself."
"How much do you want from me?" I groaned. "I've done everything you've asked of me. You want blood?"
Her eyes glistened. "Maybe we do at that. You just be a good boy, understand?"
In panic I asked her, "How long?"
"That'd be telling, wouldn't it?" Her grin was mocking and sly. "One of these days...."
She dumped the box on the desk top. "Maybe you'd like to look through those things?"
Then she sat back, smiling her enjoymnet of terror, as I riffled through the wallets, seeing who my hapless predecessors had been. The money was gone, of course; only the identification, the wallets themselves remained. Feverishly my eyes skimmed through the cards, my interest in the dead men's identity as ghoulish as that with which Kathrine watched me.
I was sick all at once. Woodenly I replaced the souvenirs into the box, the vision of my own epitaph swimming before my eyes. I stood up abruptly, my head hot all at once. "Is there anything I'm supposed to do around here today?"
"In the rain?"
"Then, if you don't mind, I'd like to go up to my room."
Kathrine picked up the gun from the table. "Okay, honey. Anything you say."
I was left in Bobbie's care again that afternoon. The car had barely driven out of the. yard when I heard Judy banging on her door. Minutes later Bobbie was shuffling upstairs. Shortly thereafter the pistol warned me to stand against the wall of my room. And Judy was hurrying into my arms.
I held her brutally rocking her in a death-like embrace, recognizing she was my last tie with sanity. If it wasn't for her, I'd have gone stark raving mad long before now. My lips consumed hers, slid all over her face.
Premonition of death had never been so strong within me as it was at that moment. It was an almost visible spectre, gleefully snickering at me, goading. The love I felt for Judy threatened to crush me. I kissed and kissed, held her as close as I dared. "Judy, Judy," I groaned incoherently.
Then the spectre became more prominent, more mocking. You can't escape now, it seemed to taunt. Not after what Kathrine showed you this morning. They'll be watching you like a hawk, just begging you to make a break.
Frustration and unholy fear choked me. If I should die, have to leave Judy, forever and ever-
I groaned, flung her onto the bed. Viciously I pulled off her sweater, saw the heaving cones of her breasts in the brassiere. Suddenly there wasn't time for snaps, no time for anything. I dug my fingers into the cleft of her bosom, ripped the brassiere apart. Flung it back, dropped my head on those shimmering white globes, my lips instantly surrounding one nipple, caressing it with insane urgency.
"Love me, Judy, I groaned, a tidal wave of self-pity flooding me. "Oh, love me, love me...."
"Yes, darling,' 'she cried. "I will, I will."
I felt her hips twisting. She was undoing her skirt, pulling off her panties. Then she was naked, her hands scrabbling in my hair.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I DON'T THINK I SLEPT MORE THAN A few hours that first night under the new regime. Even those hours were fitful and tormented, as I dreamed that Eleanor had come for me, had taken me for that last long walk to the barn.
The days dragged miserably, turned into an endless nightmare.
The pressure was getting me, as every waking minute of every hour was devoted to the thought of escape. Only there was no escape. Kathrine eternally had the pistol within reach, Eleanor was always a few feet from me, ready to floor me if I should try anything at all. Bobbie was entrusted with nothing. When she brought me meals, when she came to tidy up my room, Kathrine always came with her, the revolver ready.
Of course, the weakest link of all, Judy, was kept out of my sight entirely, and was hurried up to her room, locked in, whenever I came downstairs, or whenever I came in from the woodlot.
And I grew more and more frantic. I could now appreciate how a prisoner in "death row" must feel as his hours slowly, irretrievably slipped away from him. But even here, that prisoner was one up on me. For he knew how he'd get his. My method of execution was a bizarre, unknown factor. My executioner was possessed of the wildest sort of ideas.
By the third day, I could hardly force any food down. I was so jittery that day that the slightest noise set me off. All of which Kahrine and company must have enjoyed immensely. For all I knew, it was part of the treatment. They'd get me so wrought up that when the end did come, I'd almost be glad to have it happen. I'd welcome being put out of my misery.
And beyond this; the omnipresent, nagging thoughts of Judy. Of what would happen to her. After-
A monumental, mind-frenzying rage would gather within me, and I'd want to bellow and curse my frustration. Wasn't there a way? Wasn't there a way at all?
The foul weather hadn't quite managed to rout the tenacious Indian summer. The hot days crept back, dry and clear, making the sky roar with color, drying the grass, setting the trees on fire, filling the observer with a haunted feeling, reminding him that another year of life had been plucked from his scanty pile.
And for me, the loss was the more intense. For now we'd come to the bottom of the stack.
Eleanor and I were in the woodlot again that afternoon, hacking away at the woodpile, both of us silent and meditative. I was stripped to the waist again, reveling in the hot sun on my back, wondering if perhaps this would be the last time Ed ever feel it this way. Again there was that hungry look in Eleanor's eyes, a look compounded of lust of somehow-quizzical regret. It was all I needed, and I interpreted the look easily, felt the dread balloon inside my chest.
She'd miss me, the glance said. But Kathrine was still boss, what she said went.
Even so, it was going to be a long, long winter.
Time and again, as I lifted the maul I glanced to Eleanor to see if, perhaps, there was a chance of catching her off guard. Wouldn't I love to lay this flat head of steel between her shoulders.
But it was no dice, for every time I looked up, she was returning my stare, that small, "dare you" smile curving her lips.
It was almost four. In a little while we'd be through for the day. And as usual, when she saw me bare chested. Eleanor was getting itchy. Often I caught her watching me, her eyes glowing darkly.
Until finally she gave in to her base impulses. After freezing, staring at me for the longest time, she dropped her sledge, and moved toward me. "Over there, Pinky," she said, her voice small. "In the grass. We'll work up an appetite for supper." She began to unbutton her grey shirt, and herd me to the slight incline where the sun was still hitting.
"Undress, honey," she said. "We only have a short time." The words suddenly took on a newly ominous note. "Man, I need it today."
All at once my hands were trembling so that I could hardly unbuckle my belt, I'd concealed the club-if I could just get close enough to-I forced myself to walk toward the bush. "How about right here?" I asked.
Eleanor grinned. "You pick it, Pinky."
I sat down as close to the bush as I dared, my heart pounding and pulled off my shoes. Then my pants ... It seemed at that moment that Eleanor surely must be able to read my mind.
Now I looked up to see Eleanor stripping out of her panties, barefoot, wearing only her bra. She grinned at me eagerly. "You need help. Pinky?" she said.
Then I was naked, I fell back on the grass, waited for her. If things went as usual, she'd want to take charge again this afternoon.
"I could squash you without half trying." Her eyes flickered down my body. "But you're not small where it really counts. You're man size. You're Eleanor size." She fell on her knees beside me. Then she lowered herself to the ground, rolled beside me.
"You on top today, sonny," she laughed. "Mount up. Let me give you a ride today. I'll show you a good time." She became impatient. "C'mon, Pinky. Climb on, I said."
It was a stroke of luck I hadn't counted on. An incredible break. I'd hoped that afterward, as Eleanor had slipped off me, had lain in a puffing swoon, I'd be able to dart for the bush, and club her before she could move to stop me. But this was even better.
Furtively I estimated the distance between us and the bush. It was still a pretty far reach. Did I dare-? I scrambled over Eleanor, lay on top of her, felt her legs come up, herd me into the old corral, her fingers met me, helping me herself. She sighed thickly, wriggled her hips. "Eleanor size," she crooned.
When I hesitated she snapped, "C'mon, honey. Do something."
"I can't...." I started, barely trusting my voice. "There's some rocks here, they're cutting my knees. Can you slide up a little ways? Closer to that bush? That way we don't get sun on us and in our eyes."
Eleanor was too bemused by her mounting sexuality to be suspicious. She grumbled, "surely you are getting to be a pansy all of a sudden." Then she was flexing her legs, pushing herself up the incline. "Hang on, baby. Eleanor'll give you a ride," she giggled.
When she stopped I could almost touch the coveted bush; I caught a glimpse of the club in the foliage.
"Okay, now," she ordered, "get with it, boy. We ain't got all day."
I got with it, plunging myself against her, feeling her legs almost crush mine as her initial climax built to a peak. She groaned, held me in a painful bear hug momentarily, then went on.
While I was fighting to keep my own drive in abeyance.
So I waited, mocked desire, watching for my chance. While Eleanor went on, her feet sliding in the grass, her amazon hips slamming me like huge fists. "You louse," she groaned, "you wonderful louse. Here it comes, here it...."
I seconded it. With a sudden quick move I plunged my hand into the bush, gripped the club. The eortic rhythm aborted, sensation forestalled. Eleanor's glazed eyes rolled over, fought to focus. Made it just in time to see the black club descending.
Panic numbed me for the brief instant. As the club bounced off her wide forehead, left a gash. As Eleanor, seemingly oblivious to the blow, came alive, began to struggle with me for the club. She screamed as I darted aside, brought the branch down a second time. And a third.
Still she straggled to rise, her mouth a giant, red O, her eyes fluttering wildly. How could any woman be that hard headed? The club came down a fourth time. With all the heft I could put on the end of it.
Eleanor finally sighed, fell back. Sank into a deep coma.
Instantly I was up, seeking a rope, anything at all to tie Eleanor. But there was nothing. Usually a farm wagon's crawling with binder twine if nothing else. But not this wagon. Terrified that Eleanor would be up in a minute, that she'd be after me, I seized an axe, looked about wildly.
Then, grabbing at straws, I saw the barb-wire fence about twenty feet away. I loped toward it, my feet torn by wood chips and stones, and hacked off two four-foot lengths. I would have to do. Anything. I was beyond the point of playing games now.
I tied Eleanor's hands first, winding the partially rusted wire 'round and 'round her wrists, exulting in the blood the barbs drew as they pressed into her flesh. Next I tied her feet, again drawing blood twisting it a dozen times at the end.
I rolled the limp figure into a depression, where she wouldn't be easily found. She was coming around, her eyes wild, thrashing and screaming against her bonds. "Yell, damn you," I goaded, wishing I had time to stick around and watch the monster suffer. "Fight and yell. Cut yourself to ribbons."
Now I dressed, my hands feeling like they were made of wood, stiff and cdlumsy, doing nothing right. I jammed my shoes on viciously, tied them tight. After taking a last look at Eleanor I was ready.
Ready to go down to the house, to rescue Judy, no matter what desperate measures I'd be forced to take. I was in a high fever, my dedication blinding me to caution and danger. I was a man, if I had to die to save Judy, die I would. At least I'd go down fighting, not cringing and crawling as I had these past months.
I ran at full tilt down the edge of the racor path, keeping myself behind he bushes and trees, nearing the farmhouse from its blind side. Kathrine would have had to be purposely watching to observe my approach.
I skulked toward the tractor shed, fell on my belly, crawled the last hundred-fifty feet. Then, my breath cauterizing the lining of my throat, I rested, took stock of the situation. Tried to figure a way to smoke them out. From my lookout I could see the house clearly. There was no movement anywhere; obviously Kathrine and Bobbie were busy with supper. And Judy, of course, was locked in her room.
It was as I bellied my way closer to the tractor shed that I thought of a way to distract Kathrine and Bobbie.
There were matches; I knew where they were. Hadn't been forced to do trash burning detail more than once? And in .that tractor shed, beside the two tractors, drums of gasoline. I'd go them one better. I'd burn them out.
Waiting for my chance, I sidled around the edge of the shed, darted in through the half open door. Once inside, I spent the next five minutes dumping gasoline all over the floor, I opened the filler cap on the gasoline drums.
Then I took a five gallon can of gasoline, opened the air-flo. For long moments I watched the house, looking for movement of any kind. And finally, after taking a deep breath, fighting to keep my legs under me, I ran across the path, splashing gasoline as I went, hoping and praying that Kathrine or Bobbie wouldn't choose that moment to look up from their domestic chores, and see me darting across the opening.
I threw myself against the barn wall, fully out of sight once more. No matter if they had seen me. I was committed now. The second match took, and I dropped it into the dark splash at my feet.
Saw the gasoline ignite, saw the flames sweep across the road with lightning speed. Then doubts died. As a mad inferno erupted in the shed. I fled madly, ran behind the barn, straight south, as far from the holocaust as I could, but closer to the house, closer to my car.
I heard the double explosion.
Then I reached the end of the storage shed, peeked carefully around the corner.
To see Kathrine and Bobbie barge out of the house in headlong panic, face the fire, move toward it. Had Kathrine been unarmed, I would have charged her then and there. But the pistol was tucked into her belt, and I decided against it.
"Go get Eleanor! Do you hear! Run, damn you!"
I saw Bobbie scurry off, veering right, going into the field to avoid the searing blaze. Kathrine went out of sight, and I worked up beside the shed, looked to see what futile measures she was taking to combat the raging fire. Warily I exposed one eye, almost broke out laughing to see her with a pail in her hand, throwing water at the flame engulfed shed.
Until finally, unable to get close enough, she despaired, and began to throw water on the barn across the way, on the dry grass that was afire around the barn, hoping at least to save that.
Her back was directly to me, and I decided that this was the ideal chance to gain the house. Again I sucked in deep breaths, fought to firm my disjointed legs. Then, when she'd just filled her pail, was running toward the spreading fire, I broke concealment. I aimed for the front door, knowing full well if I tried the side, Kathrine would see me. Viciously I wrenched at it until the hook latch snapped off.
There was no time for sorting. I grasped my keys on the desk, jammed them into my pocket. Then I closed the box, and took it with me.
Upstairs. The steel bolt was thrown outside Judy's door. I opened it. She looked about, her eyes wild, deserted her stand at the window. "Pinky!" she wailed. "What's happening?'
"Never mind, Judy. Get your shoes. C'mon, follow me." feeling like someone was repeatedly stabbing it with a dagger. "Hurry, we've got to get out of here."
"That box? What is it?"
"Never mind, Judy. Get your shose. C'mon, follow me."
We hurtled downstairs, bolted through the house. Out onto the front lawn. I held Judy back, took a quick looksee.
My blood ran cold, at the sight of Kathrine, sitting in the middle of the graveled drive, her skirt high above her knees. Screaming her helpless frustration in an endless, insane shriek. Watching the fire devour the shed, turn the costly tractors to so much junk.
And then, a rebirth of energy gripping her, she rose again, retrieved her pail, went back to her pointless chore of filling it with water, throwing it into the thirsy inferno's maw. Screaming all the while. I noticed that the flames near the barn were extinguished, that the building would endure.
"Now!" I gritted, and pulled Judy behind me. We ran with all our strength toward the storage shed. Once Judy tripped, almost fell. But I wrenched her up, kept her moving. The shed door was slammed aside, the rumble drowned out by the crackling, sizzling fire, and by Kathrine's wails.
We piled into the car, I inserted the key. Flipped the control switches ,ground the motor. My heart sank as the motor snick-snick-snickered without end. And no ignition took place. Still I kept the starter-whining, knowing that if it didn't spark soon, Kahrine would certainly hear the shrill sound.
"Oh, Pinky," Judy cried, "it won't go! It isn't going to start!"
At that exact moment the engine kicked, stuttered. Died instantly. Again I hit the starter, pumped gas to her. The motor coughed, caught, thrummed. I rode the throttle as long as I dared. Then, praying that everything was operative, I pushed the drive lever, slammed down on the accelerator.
"Down!" I bellowed as we shot out of the shed. As I simultaneously caught peripheral vision of a figure running toward the car, as I saw the flash of silver, heard the shattering report of Kathrine's gun. "Keep down!"
I ducked, lost sight of the drive for a second. As a second bullet whined past the automobile. I glanced up, saw the car headed for the ditch to my left, spun the wheel wildly, straightened the car. Headed toward the road.
When I dared look into the rear view mirror, I caught sight of Kathrine running down the road after us, the pistol glistening in the sun. I heard the muffled sound of gunshots. Then she stopped, stood still.
It was the last I ever saw of the deranged woman. For at that moment the car veered right and she was out of sight.
When we hit the county trunk road, I disregarded the dust, I disregarded the ruts and potholes. My eyes were on the road, on the speedometer.
Beside me Judy was crumpled into a small ball on the seat, sobbing hysterically. I gunned the car further.
The people on Huntleys main drag turned to stare as the dust filthy car slid to a screeching halt before the mail drop-off box. As they saw me scrabbled on the seat beside me, sort out certain personal oddments from a green box. Which box I promptly closed. Lurching from my car, feeling a sudden strangeness at the seemingly immense number of people walking around, at the building appeared to close in on me, I went to the relay box, slid the package into it.
"Hey, fella," a man started "that box isn't for mail delivery, it's for...."
"Skip it," I snapped, climbing back into my car. "What's the name of this street anyway?"
"Stuart Avenue. But...."
"Thanks," I threw back, then gunned the car hard, got back into traffic.
I stopped at a public telephone booth on the town's outskirts, made a hasty call to what passed for a police department.
"Listen," I said sharply as the desk segreant answered "and listen carefully. Get a pencil and paper. I've only got time to say this once."
"What?" the guy said. "Who is this anyway?"
"Never mind. Just a friend. Now get this." I talked in a rivet gun stacatto, told him everything. "I just this minute dropped a package in the mail relay box. In that package you'll find three wallets and a lot of other personal things. Wallets belonging to three guys who've been missing for a long time. Three guys who are dead. Now if you want to find those guys, here's what you do...."
Moments later my rapid-fire briefing was done. "That's right," I said. "I know it sounds screwy, but it's the truth. No, I'm not going to give my name. I just happen to know, that's all. It's the King farm, about ten, twelve miles south. Corral those gals, then start digging in the barn. Yeah, the room in the northeast corner. And watch out, one of those gals has a gun she's crazy about shooting...."
And on that happy note I hung up on the bewildered, gulping cop.
It was dark, nine o'clock or so, and the car hummed down the highway. Leaving Dalesville far behind.
I headed for a new life with Judy. My bank account would keep us happy and as Judy said, "we really are lucky to have each other after all dear. Teach me what it's all about Pinky, I'm so overdue."
