Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey states, in Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, that some fifty per cent of the females in his sample had experienced pre-marital relationships. Though Karen Dunken was far too young to have supplied any of those statistics, she would have made an excellent subject for study. She had already engaged in several private surveys before she won the contest ... two weeks' vacation in luxurious, sinful Las Vegas. But once there, basking under the shameless sun, Karen was ready for anything ... even the bellhops. But Mathew Kent wanted to teach her better things, to instill a fine sense of shame and degradation for her baser emotions, as they rushed from casino to casino, from bedroom to bedroom in an endless round of sin. Then Sam Wisner, the smooth-talking stud with the fancy line, led Karen down the rosy pathway to ecstasy, abandoning her to struggle out of the hell-trap alone ...
Chapter One
Her long naked legs were outstretched, the muscles were taut and jumping. The rounded shell of her rib cage rose and fell rapidly with each gasping breath. Her milk-white breasts, berry tipped, bobbled about crazily on her chest.
The bedclothes were crumpled uncomfortably beneath the small of her back but she was too busy to say anything. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut and every fiber of her being was concentrated on the pleasure flooding over her.
Kneeling beside her on the bed, and quite as naked as she was a slender and handsome young man. He rested his buttocks on his heels and let his hands roam at will over the exposed wonders of her flesh. Her body was like a maze, with each twist and turn bringing new secrets and delights.
His hands were at her hips, the fingers under her to press the contours of her buttocks. He eased his hands upward to her waist, then higher still along her sides nearly up to her armpits. His fingers were pointed down and the heels of his hands were up on the top of her breasts, pressing against the side curves of her bosom.
She sighed with desire, caught his wrists, and pulled his hands fully onto her breasts. She moved her shoulders until her nipples were resting squarely under his palms, then sighed again with extreme pleasure.
He caught the nipples with thumbs and forefingers and pinched and rolled them until she could stand that no longer. Her hands reached out, fastened behind his head and pulled his face to her body.
"Kiss me!" she breathed, directing her breast to his thin lips.
The young man did as she wanted. Her flesh became feverish and soon there appeared a light film of perspiration everywhere - in the valley of the mounds of her breasts, on the trembling and sensitive surfaces of her legs, on her forehead and upper lip, beneath her arms and behind her knees.
Assured that his lips would continue to worship at the altar of her breasts she moved her hands down from his neck to his shoulders, thence to the flat and hard planes of his chest, lower to the washboard of his abdominal muscles.
Her nails scratched lightly against his skin and her hands sought. She stroked the tops of his legs and sighed. Now that was his turn to gasp with pleasure, for her hands were skillful indeed, but he would not be distracted from his obvious and pleasurable duty to her breasts.
"Now," she whined, pleading. "Oh, baby, I can't wait any more. Now! Please! I want you so badly. I need you now!"
The young man stretched out beside her and turned her to her side to face him. He crushed her against him, his chest flattening her breasts, and his hands reached over to hold her by her hips.
"Oh," she said softly as she knew his need.
"Aargh," she growled as he continued.
For a moment they were both absolutely still, each one savoring the delight of this first moment. Then he began very slowly, doing the oldest dance step in the world. But that was slow and wonderful, at the same pace as slow motion in a news reel.
She didn't move at all for a while. She just lay there while he held her snugly. And each fraction of an inch that he moved brought her closer to the wonderful ecstasy she sought.
The fire leaped for her. Her skin burned and tingled. Dizzying colors played across the insides of her tightly closed eyelids. Her heart raced and thudded in her chest and her blood roared in her ears.
Finally she could hold back no longer.
She began to move with him - or rather, against him.
There was no more slow motion. Now that was like the projector had gone wild. They worked for one another as though to destroy. Her nails dug at the flesh of his back. And his hands gripped her so tightly she was sure he would leave permanent fingerprints.
Their mouths were mashed together and when she bit him lightly, he pinched her hip to make her stop. She pulled her head back and arched her back to raise her breasts to his face in offering.
He accepted the offering and his lips touched lightly, bending the nipple.
Now there was too much for any human being to bear. The most sensitive areas of her body were being caressed simultaneously.
Her arms, wrapped around him, went rigid, the muscles locking and holding him firmly. She gasped and shuddered and bit so hard at her own lips that blood flowed.
But she didn't taste the blood or feel the pain. She only knew the wild ecstasy of completion and the gentle floating back to earth.
A few seconds later the young man stiffened, gasped, and slumped away. But she didn't release him from her grasp. She held him and floated listlessly on the gentle waves of after-pleasure.
Only when the weight of him against her became a burden did she release him. He rolled away and sighed with relief. She turned onto her back, threw her forearm across her eyes, and stretched to ease the cramps in her long arms.
* * *
Karen Dunken rose slowly from the depths of her sleep. Her dream mind grudgingly relinquished control and her conscious mind assumed the responsibility for her life once again. She came fully awake, blinked her eyes rapidly several times, and sat up on the bed.
The sheet with which she'd been covered dropped to her waist, baring the pear-shaped mounds of her breasts with their corrugated nubs. She could see herself in the mirror on the closet door and she smiled at her own reflection.
Except for a little stiffness here and there she felt wonderful, relaxed and at peace with herself and the rest of the world. Her hair was a fright and there were a few small bruises here and there on her soft white body, but those things were of no great moment. A brush would take care of the hair, and clothes would cover the bruises.
Not that she was ashamed of the bruises. Not at all. To Karen those bruises were badges of honor, wounds received on the field of battle. She would have liked very much to show them to the entire world. But, alas, they were located in rather indiscreet places. She couldn't show her wounds without shocking ninety-five per cent o the people she might meet, and also running the risk of being arrested for indecent exposure.
She rose from the bed and went close to the mirror for a more accurate inspection of her body. Her fingers pressed as she twisted and turned. Yes, everything that had been there the last time she'd looked was still there. And all seemed to be in good condition.
Her breasts, with the faint circles of bruises about the nipples, inflicted by over-eager teeth, did not sag. They were not the breasts of a thirteen-year-old virgin, naturally, but they were highly acceptable.
She cupped them in her hands and squeezed them lovingly then swept her hands down to her almost flat middle. Her fingers pushed here, testing the resiliency and muscle tone. Her muscles were springy and firm.
From there her hands went down to her upper legs. She tensed her leg muscles and prodded her fingers against them. No, there was no thickening, and when she struck a fist against a tightened leg there was no nasty jiggling of flesh.
Now she turned her back to the mirror and inspected herself by looking over her shoulder. Her buttocks showed the most signs of battle. There were several angry and purpling bruises on each side, and they were sore to the touch. She would be sitting down gingerly for the next day or two, but there was no one to blame but herself. She'd asked for that when, close to the height of her ecstasy she'd screamed for her partner to hurt her, to give her pain. He'd answered her request by biting at her breasts and cruelly pinching her. What else was there for him to do?
Thank God he hadn't marked her anywhere from the shoulders up. For the next few days Karen bad to make the best possible appearance. Prospective employers thought twice about hiring pretty young secretaries when they showed up for job interviews with love bites all over them.
She finished with the inspection and walked away from the mirror. A subtle anxiety had been relieved. Everything was all right. She wouldn't feel the need for further reassurance for another day or two, and then she would go through the ritual once again.
Her body was sticky with dried perspiration and she felt soiled and used up. In the bathroom of the deluxe suite she opened the door to the shower stall and adjusted the faucets until she had the temperature just right. From the towel rack she grabbed a shower cap, donned it, and tucked in a few stray strands. Then she stepped inside, sighing with pleasure as the hot water splashed down over her.
She stood so the stream from the shower head struck her just at the base of her neck. Some of the water cascaded over her shoulders and down the front of her body, the rest of it ran down her back. In front twin waterfalls dropped from the ends of her breasts. Water bubbled over the dimple of her navel and flowed down along her legs.
She stood for a long time beneath the shower stream, then stepped to one side, picked up the washcloth and soap, and went to work She worked up a good lather on the washcloth and applied the cloth lightly and delicately to her flesh. The cloth left behind it a frothy wake of bubbly suds. When she was covered with suds from neck to knees she stepped back under the water and rinsed off.
Karen wasn't nearly so gentle with herself when she applied the thick, rough towel. No, with the towel she scrubbed vigorously until her flesh tingled and shone pink. Then she went back into the bedroom and got out fresh clothing.
As she combed and dressed and primped she went over in her mind the events of the past few days. Entering the contest had been an impulsive thing. Karen usually didn't bother with things like that because she never expected to win anything. But it had been so easy - nothing to buy, nothing to mail, nothing to write. All that had been necessary was that she fill out the slip of paper and drop it into the box.
And then, ten days ago, had come the letter informing her that she'd won second prize - a one week vacation for two at the world famous health spa and vacation resort.
At first she'd thought about taking someone along with her, then it had occurred to her that she might be able to make the one week for two into a two week for one thing. She'd made the necessary phone calls and asked the necessary questions, and to her delight and amazement it had been relatively easy.
The air line that supplied the transportation didn't mind. They'd promised two seats and now had to supply only one. The hotel didn't mind either. It was the slow season for them. The room would most probably have been empty anyway, and two weeks of meals for one person was the same as one week of meals for two.
Next there was the problem of wangling two weeks of vacation time from the office manager of the Provincial Insurance Company. She'd only been working there seven months, and so was only entitled to one week of vacation with pay, but they would extend themselves and allow her a second week without pay since she'd been lucky enough to win the prize.
And that was all there'd been to it. A few last minute arrangements about her small apartment and she was off. Two weeks and nothing to do but have fun. No bills to worry about, everything was free. And she had enough money to cover any incidental expenses.
On the plane she'd got to talking to a married couple who were also on vacation. They'd been to the resort before and told her many things. It sounded like a great place, an entire city dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure. Then were gambling casinos and night clubs and hotels. There were golf links and swimming pools and anything else a happy-go-lucky vacationer might want.
It occurred to her that if the town was such a good place to visit it might also be a good place to live. She had two weeks, all expenses paid. It would not be impossible in that time to find herself a job. And if she could get herself a good job she would have to be crazy to go back to New York.
And then the plane had landed and she'd been immediately dazzled by the lights and the frantic pace of the town. The entire city seemed to throb with one exciting pulse, as though right beneath the center of town there was a giant drum beating a measured time.
She was so sensitive to this aura of excitement and pleasure that by the time she'd been on her way to her room her body was already vibrating in sympathetic tune.
The elevator hadn't been at all crowded, yet the handsome young bellhop had accidentally brushed against her several times. And when she looked at him she could see the intense interest in his eyes.
When he let her into her room he stalled around even after she'd over-tipped him. He'd informed her that he was available to fulfill her slightest wish. If she wanted anything, anything at all, she was to call for him.
The way he'd stared at her breasts that was impossible not to catch his meaning. And Karen was surprised to find her desire rising. She was there to have a good time, so why not?
"There is something I want," she told him.
"Yes, ma'am. Anything."
"That's the same thing you want," she said boldly. "What time do you finish work?"
He smiled and stepped closer to her. "Not for another three hours yet. But don't let that worry you."
He slipped one arm around her waist and crushed her against his body as their mouths met. His hands roamed over her throughout the kiss, stroking and cupping her buttocks, constantly squeezing her breasts.
Karen responded quickly, moved her body against him, and was aware of his quickening excitement. They were both naked before she remembered to lock the door. And then that had been sheer heaven.
The bellhop wasn't the best lover she'd ever had, but what he lacked in skill he more than made up for in vigor. Karen didn't let him go until he'd satisfied her four times. The first three times he'd also satisfied himself. The fourth time had been all for her.
It was almost midnight now and Karen was dressed and ready. She wore a daringly cut cocktail dress with a short, tight skirt. She'd debated about a bra and had decided, at the last minute to wear one, at least this first time out. If she saw that most of the other women dispensed with the uncomfortable harness affairs she could always come back up and take hers off.
It was midnight and she was dressed and primed and ready for fun and excitement. She turned off the lights and left rite suite.
Chapter Two
The public areas of the hotel had been designed by an expert. From outside one could see great sweeping expanses of glass two stories high. There were spacious lawns and well-trimmed walks and the modernistic diving tower of the swimming pool could be seen from the road.
Inside the lobby doors was a completely different world, a world where time had no meaning. The various rooms were set up so that it was impossible to notice whether it was day or night outside. There were no clocks anywhere. The lighting was constant - dim enough so that if you came in during the day you got the same feeling as night, and yet bright enough so that if you came in late at night you were not disturbed by the coming of dawn.
Of course the entire hotel operation was designed around the casino. Gambling was the life blood of the hotel and of the entire city The state itself could not have afforded to pay its public officials so well without the gambling revenues.
The sounds from the casino, the shrill cries of the winners, the rattle of chips, the shuffle of cards, and the clicking of the roulette ball, all these sounds were piped from the casino to all the other public rooms. There were speakers in the three bars, in the lobby, in the restaurant and snack bar, and even out beside the pool. These sounds were supposed subliminally to summon the sucker to the tables. And, on the off chance there lived a man too lazy to make it all the way to die casino, the management had placed about the hotel in strategic locations slot machines. They were in all the corridors, in the public rest rooms, everywhere.
And the subtle seduction was not limited only to the appointments of the buildings themselves. Even the uniforms of the employees promoted gambling. The ties for the male employees held deftly painted representations of gambling layouts and the same was true for the skirts of the females.
Most subtle of all, however, was the dress of the waitresses who scurried about the casino itself. Those costumes were so brief as to be almost nonexistent. The costumes were sculptured one-piece bathing suit type things, cut high at the hips to expose the buttocks, and cut low at the bodice to provide acres of visible breast flesh for further distraction. And as though this were not enough, swatches of cloth had been cut out of various places in the suits.
Diamonds were cut out to expose the navels, squares were cut out at the sides of the cups of the built-in brassieres. The girls were all seductive and attractive, looking somehow more naked in these uniforms than they would have looked had they been truly nude.
And they seemed to be under orders to twist and pose themselves to best advantage at every opportunity.
Now, the purpose of this distraction was not to afford the dealers a chance for any skullduggery - not at all. The house was honest. With the normal percentages running in their favor they didn't have to take a chance with cheating.
But it did help if a crapshooter was distracted long enough to leave a bet that should have been removed, or to miss the opportunity for taking advantage of a favorable set of circumstances.
Also, there was a sophisticated nighttime air about the place twenty-four hours a day with a bunch of half naked girls always running about.
The waitresses served the gamblers. As long as one was actively engaged in gambling everything was on the house - drinks, cigarettes, meals. The establishment was more than happy to supply a gambler with two quarts of booze, if he took it one drink at a time and kept on playing the game. And if you didn't like liquor they would supply fruit juice, soda pop, or just plain water.
Anything and everything was available free at the tables. You could even get your shoes shined and your hair cut while you played if that was your desire.
Karen stepped out of the elevator and into the plushly carpeted casino. She stepped to one side and paused to take her bearings. It was curious how you couldn't get anywhere in the hotel without going through the casino.
From the lobby to the elevators was right smack across the center of the huge, always crowded room. The bars, the restaurant, the various shops, even the night club, all had to be entered from the casino. The house didn't miss a trick.
The casino seemed to beat with a throbbing rhythm that had nothing to do with music. The rattle of the dice, the slap of the cards, the whir of the slot machines kept the time.
One side of the tremendous room was set apart from the rest by a low railing. Behind that railing were the slot machines - four hundred of them in four rows of one hundred each. And behind the slot machines, raised four steps from the casino floor, was a small sitting area large enough to hold perhaps ten people. There were chairs and sofas and ash trays, all arranged so that anyone sitting down for a few moments had to look out over the casino and watch the action.
Karen spotted the sitting area and headed over to it. She dropped down into one of the chairs and sat back to light a cigarette. She didn't know too much about gambling and didn't want to rush into anything. She fully intended to test her luck, but there was no hurry about it. She'd rather be lucky enough to get a good job than to win anything at the tables.
She spotted an old, white-haired man standing before a slot machine. But the old man had his back toward the machine and was staring intently at Karen. She was puzzled for a moment until she realized that from his lower position the old man was staring straight under her skirt.
She clapped her knees together and tugged the hem of the short skirt down as far as that would go. The old man gave her a disappointed look and turned away.
Karen couldn't help smiling to herself.
Too bad, old man, she thought. If you were a few years younger I might be interested in giving you more than just a free peek.
She crossed her legs and securely tucked the sides of her skirt down. The slot machine players fascinated her. She could see all types. There were men in dirty pants and leather jackets, there were college boys in crew cuts, sneakers, and sweaters. There were men in business suits, and men in evening dress.
Old women played the slots, some of them with barely enough mobility in their arthritic arms to reach up and tug the handle down. There were women in evening dresses with bared shoulders and bosoms. There were women in slacks and halters
All the players fed the machines and yanked the handles with a hypnotic rhythm. The more experienced carried around paper cups full of coins. The whirring of the machines was a constant sound. Some of the players even fed two machines at the same time, feeding into one a coin and yanking the handle, then turning to the second even before the wheels of the first had stopped spinning.
And the dedicated slot players were loners. They spoke to no one and looked at nothing. No two of them played neighboring machines. They were well spaced out.
In the center of the room, beyond the railing, were the big gambling tables. There were ten dice layouts, and ten roulette wheels in the center. And around them, like the rim of a wheel, were the blackjack tables.
Off to one side, roped off with velvet plush, was a large round table with a cutout for a dealer and a dozen chairs. The table was empty and unused at the moment and Karen wondered what game it was for. She intended to stroll over there and find out.
All the way on the far side of the room were the poker tables. There were ten of them, too. At each table there was room for ten players and a dealer. Seven of the tables were in use.
The dice tables were getting the most action. Here again there seemed to be all types of gamblers, from the rich ones in evening dress to the poor ones in work clothes.
The roulette layouts seemed to attract only one type. For the most part the roulette players were the better dressed people. And they were a quiet, studious bunch. Karen could see at least three roulette players making careful notes after each spin of the wheel and she was surprised that the house would allow this.
The blackjack players were also quiet and reserved. There were no exhortations to the goddess of luck as at the crap tables. The blackjack players watched the cards in stone faced silence. They placed their bets and signaled for cards without speaking a word.
Karen finished her cigarette, crushed it out in the metal ash tray and rose to her feet. She walked slowly down the four steps to the casino floor and began a casual stroll around the room. She bypassed the crowded tables and stopped at a few of the ones where the action was slower.
Roulette was the simplest game of all, she knew. All one had to do was put a chip on the number one expected to come up when the wheel stopped spinning. But she also knew that the player had the worst percentage at the roulette tables.
At one roulette table she saw a middle-aged blonde woman in an evening dress who was so intent on the spin of the wheel that she didn't notice her fat breasts were threatening to spill out of the skimpy bodice of her gown. But the croupier noticed, and so did a couple of the other players.
The dice tables seemed to offer the fastest action on the floor. But they were all so crowded with players and watchers that it was impossible even to get close enough to see the layout. At each crap table there were four housemen to handle all the action. The dice rolled and bounced, hands flew across the green baize, piles of chips and silver dollars flowed back and forth.
Four of the fifteen blackjack tables had little signs advising that those tables had a five dollar minimum. There was at least one empty seat at each of those tables. The rest of the tables were one dollar minimums and most of those seats were taken.
Blackjack was the only layout game at which the gambler sat down. There seemed to be as many women players as there were men and around the tables were a profusion of jutting, milk-white breasts in low cut bodices. One woman was sitting turned half away from the table She was staring at the cards with an intense, feverish expression.
She had the look of a loser and cared for nothing in the world but the turn of the next card. In her immediate vicinity were at least four men who were staring at her with the same expression she directed toward the cards and the dealer. The men were staring at her crossed legs.
The hem of her short, tight skirt had crawled halfway up above her knees, baring the tops of her stockings, her garters, and several inches of smooth, creamy upper leg.
On her stroll Karen managed to draw several admiring glances and a few smiles. She returned the smiles but continued walking. At the moment she wasn't interested in being picked up.
At the poker tables she drew no attention at all. The players were all concentrating far too intently on the cards to notice a mere pretty girl. If she'd been a straight flush, however, they would have stared hard enough.
Karen came finally to the table set off by the plush rope. There was still no one at that table and there wasn't the slightest indication of the game played. She looked around and saw, a few steps away, one of the uniformed casino guards. She'd noticed the guards before and had been deeply impressed by them.
The guards were all of a type. They looked like ex-football players, the lot of them. They were big - none under six feet - with massive shoulders, thick necks, and heavy arms. They all had flat stomachs, narrow waists and ramrod stiff posture. Any one of them looked fierce enough to handle half a dozen thieves without the help of the gun strapped to his waist.
Karen approached him and tapped him on the arm. The huge young man turned, looked down at her, and smiled professionally.
"Yes, ma'am," he said.
She gave him an embarrassed grin. "I've been wondering about this table here. No one seems to be using it and I wondered what game it was used for."
"Oh, that's the shimmy table ma'am."
"Shimmy?"
"Chemin de fer."
Karen shrugged. "Never heard of it."
"Neither did I until I came to work here. I've been here almost two years and I still don't know how it's played. They use three or four decks of cards and it's something like blackjack is about all I can tell you."
"Thank you."
"Not at all. That's what we're here for. Anyone will be glad to explain any of the games to you at any time."
He was giving her a standard spiel but his eyes were undressing her. She could almost feel them probing the contours of her breasts and she got a loose, warm feeling in the pit of her stomach. True, she was well satisfied after her bout with the bellhop, but no woman was immune to the appeal of this nearly perfect specimen. If he was half as good as he looked he was wasting his time standing around this casino. He belonged on some hungry woman's bed.
Karen could still feel his eyes upon her when she turned and walked away. And she walked slowly to give full sway to her rounded hips and curved buttocks.
There was a cocktail lounge close by and she went there. The lounge was set into a large alcove off the main room and it was almost empty. She was surprised to discover on the bandstand a very famous and popular jazz quartet
Karen took a seat at the bar, ordered a drink, and listened to a few bars of the music. It astonished her that the bar was so empty. In any other city in the world people would have been lined up around the block to listen to these four musicians, but here they were almost totally ignored
Someone slid onto the stool next to her but she didn't turn until a deep masculine voice spoke.
"May I join you?" the voice asked.
She turned slowly and found herself looking into a smiling, handsome face. He was tall, and slender, with straight black hair and dark eyes. He had a big, solid jaw and the flat planes of his face looked as though they'd just been chiseled from a piece of dark brown marble.
"You're a newcomer, aren't you?" the man said.
Now Karen allowed herself a small smile. "How did you know?"
"I saw you out there and noticed the wide-eyed stare. You looked a little lost, almost like a little girl with her face pressed against the window of a toy store."
"Oh, it wasn't that bad," she said quickly.
"Not really. Most people wouldn't have spotted you. But I've been here, long enough to be an expert. Can I buy you a drink?"
She nodded and he raised a hand to signal the bartender. "I'm Mathew Kent."
"Karen Dunken."
"Vacation, Miss Dunken?"
She nodded. "Yes. I won a contest. Two glorious weeks, all expenses paid. And what do you do, Mr. Kent?"
"Not very much, I assure you. And please call me Matt. I have pieces of several businesses around town. Nothing big, mind you. Just enough to keep me comfortable and yet not enough to require too much of my time. My main interest is gambling."
Karen smiled more broadly. "I never met a gambler before."
"Well, I'm not sure I really qualify. A real gambler usually depends upon luck and skill for his income. I get my money elsewhere."
"But you do play regularly don't you?"
"Yes. Almost every night."
"Then, in my book you're a gambler. Do you win all the time?"
Mathew Kent chuckled. "No honest gambler wins all the time. But I do win often enough to keep me coming back."
The drinks came and they stopped the conversation long enough to sip.
"Which game do you play?" Karen asked a sweep of her hand taking in all of the tables in the casino.
"My game is poker, but I don't play it here," he told her. "It's mathematically impossible to play against the house for any extended period of time and come out winning any money. I play in private games with rich visitors who think they're better poker players than they really are. I only come here for a little recreation. Do you intend to try your luck while you're here?"
"I want to. But I'm afraid. I don't know enough about any of the games. I'd like to find someone to teach me."
"You've found Him." he said. "I'm just your man. Where would you like to begin?"
Karen shrugged.
"Do you play cards at all?"
"A little"
"Then blackjack would be a good bet for you. Let's go."
He helped her down from her stool and they carried their drinks to the nearest blackjack table. There were spaces for six players at each table and they found one at which there were only two players. They took seats and waited until the dealer was finished with the hand in progress.
"Do you know the object of the game?" he asked.
"I think so. It's to get closest to twenty-one points without going over and still have more than the dealer, right?"
He nodded and smiled. "See, you know more than you think. The bask rules are fairly simple. Each player gets two cards face down. The dealer takes one face down and one face up. The player has the option of drawing additional cards, one at a time, until he either goes over twenty-one or elects to stop."
The dealer was finished then and he turned toward the new players as he shuffled the cards.
"Evening, Mister Kent," he said.
"Good evening."
Kent took out his wallet, removed a hundred dollar bill, and slid it across to the dealer. The dealer picked it up, rapped on the table with his knuckles to get the attention of the pit boss, and held the one hundred dollar bill up for the other man to see.
The pit boss took note of the large denomination and nodded to the dealer, then he waved and smiled at Kent. The dealer removed from a slot in the table a small wooden paddle. He laic the bill across the slot, and used the paddle to shove it down into the table. Then he counted out one hundred dollars in chips.
"What was that all about?" Karen asked.
"The dealers are required to check all bills larger than a twenty with the pit boss - that's the man who waved. Under that slot is the lock box where all the cash goes. At regular intervals the guards come around, remove the full boxes and replace them with empty ones. That way there's no cash around to tempt anyone with quick hands. Except for silver dollars all gambling is done with chips. And the chips are good almost everywhere in town. You can change the chips from this casino for chips at any other casino and most stores will accept them like regular money."
Karen shook her head slowly from side to side. "It gets crazier and crazier," she said. "Even money doesn't count in this town."
"It does," he said, "but in a different way."
The dealer interrupted "Ready. Mister Kent?"
Kent nodded. He took two five dollar chips from his stack and put one in front of Karen and the other in front of himself.
The dealer deals, one card at a time face down to each player and one to himself, then another face down card to each player. He dealt his own second card face up and it was a three of hearts.
Karen picked up her two cards and looked at them. She held a queen and a nine. "I think I'm good," she said.
Kent looked over her shoulder and nodded. His two cards were an ace and a four. He signaled for a card from the dealer by scraping his cards across the table top. The next care was a five. Now Kent slid his two down cards beneath his lone five dollar chip and the dealer turned to the next player.
Karen noticed Kent's eyes straying to the tops of her breasts and she leaned forward slightly to give him a better look. From his position beside her he could probably see almost to her nipples.
The other two players at the table went over twenty-one and the dealer raked in their bets. Then he turned up his down card to show a nine of clubs. He had a total of twelve.
"In the casinos here," Kent told her, "the dealer must take a card if he has less than seventeen, and is not allowed to take a card if he has seventeen or more."
The dealer took one card - a deuce. He took another - an ace. His third card was an eight and he smiled as he placed live dollar chips before Karen and Matt Kent.
Chapter Three
It was four in the morning when matt escorted Karen to her room. They'd spent an hour and a half at the tables, during which time he taught her some of the strategy of the game. At the end of that time Karen was a fifty dollar winner and they'd been drinking slowly but steadily.
When they'd finished gambling Matt had suggested a little dancing in the cocktail lounge and that was where they spent the rest of the time. He was a good dancer and she felt wonderful when he held her close in his arms.
They had more drinks, and sandwiches, and suddenly it was four in the morning and Karen was yawning.
"Whew," she snorted, slightly unsteady on her feet from all the liquor "I've just about had it. I think it's time little Karen went to bed."
When the door of the self-service elevator closed Kent took her in his arms and kissed her soundly. After a moment her lips relaxed beneath his.
His firm, lean body pressed against her. His chest flattened her breasts beneath her dress. She closed her eyes and accepted his embrace, enjoying the knowledge of his excitement.
He kissed her again right outside her door and this time one of his hands slid down her back to cup a buttock. She murmured softly and her hands trembled with excitement when she withdrew from his embrace and handed him the room key.
He opened the door and followed her into the room, then closed the door.
"Don't turn on the light," she whispered, turning to him once again.
They kissed and the fire of passion leaped high for both of them. His hands wandered over her body and settled on her breasts. She sighed and slid her lips from his mouth to his ear.
"You're going to think I'm a tramp," she whispered softly, her lips tracing the ridges of his ear lobe. "But I don't care. I want you! I want to feel your hands on me. And your lips! I want you to make love to me." As she spoke her hands pressed against him.
"I understand," he answered softly.
"No you don't. But that doesn't matter. Just love me!"
With one groping hand she found the light switch and turned the light on. He released her from his arms and she walked quickly to the bed, her hands opening the zipper of her dress as she moved.
She pulled the dress up over her head and cast that carelessly aside before sitting down on the edge of the mattress. She twisted her arms up behind her and fumbled with the hooks of her bra.
"Come help me, darling," she whispered. "I'm shaking so badly I can't do this myself."
He got to her just as she opened the bra. Her breasts spilled out, big and white, soft yet firm. The nut-brown nipples were tautening even before he touched them. And when he covered them with his hands she could feel the sweet ache of desire begin and she could feel her breasts swell and enlarge.
He dropped to his knees before her and kneaded the flesh of her bosom, squeezing hard, then relaxing, then squeezing again. She slipped her hands beneath the globes and leaned down toward his face.
"Kiss them, darling," she whispered passionately.
He removed his hands and leaned forward to bury his face against them. She held her breasts at the outsides, squeezing them together. His lips fluttered against the sensitive softness and found their way to one aching peak.
She closed her eyes and sighed deeply as his lips worked. He moved his mouth back and forth from one breast to the other until she was dizzy with desire.
She shoved his face away and panted, "Make me naked, darling. Strip me!"
He rocked back on his heels and reached with both hands to unhook her garters from the tops of her stockings. He rolled one silken wisp down the smooth column of her leg, his fingers stroking against her bare skin. And he repeated the action with the other stocking on the other leg.
Now all she wore were her panties and the garter belt with dangling garters. He unhooked the garter belt, tossed that aside, and slid his hands beneath the elastic waistband of her panties.
She flopped onto her back and raised her hips from the bed to make that easier for him to slip the panties off.
Her eyes were closed and she was completely naked now. She heard the quick, sharp intake of his breath at the first sight of her and then, for a long trembling moment, there was nothing.
Her eyes opened and she raised her head to look at him. He was staring hard, eyes wide and glazed.
She touched herself with one hand. Their gazes locked for a breathless moment.
"Please, darling," she pleaded softly. "Once just for me. Please."
His hands touched lightly against the sensitive surfaces of her legs as he leaned forward. She ran the fingers of both hands through his long hair.
The first touch of his lips sent a heavenly thrill coursing through her body. His firm lips worked lightly. But she could wait no longer and her hands pulled his face firmly against her.
Her ecstasy was immediate and complete. She screamed softly, trembling and twisting, yanking hard on the strands of his hair, her long legs kicking and shaking as the tremors of completion flooded through her.
When that was over she released him. He moved back, his lips bruised from the brutal contact.
"Oh God, lover," she sighed. "That was so wonderful. You don't know how much I love that."
He smiled gently as he began to strip off his clothes. He dropped them to the floor as he took them off and was soon quite as naked as she.
She stared at him and reached for him as he stood there beside the bed looking down at the wonders of her naked body.
"You're beautiful," she breathed as she twisted around to lean forward to kiss him.
Then she was roiling onto her back again and holding her arms open to him. He moved to her and she wrapped her arms around his lean, firm body.
"Aargh!" she shouted as he began.
Chapter Four
A muffled sound, repeated several times, penetrated the lazy state of half sleep in which Karen had been drifting. It was just enough to rouse her completely. She'd come partly awake some time ago but had been relaxing in the muzzy warmth of the state.
Now she opened her eyes in the totally dark room and fumbled about on the night stand beside the head of the bed for her watch. She found the watch and brought it close to her face to read the luminous dial.
It was twelve-fifteen!
She brushed her hair back out of her face and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The muffled sound came again and now she identified it as the sound of a vacuum cleaner bumping against the corridor wall of her room. It was the chambermaid at work in the corridor.
When she stood up the sheet dropped away from her naked body and her breasts swung heavily from her chest. The rooms in the hotel had been designed especially for night people. With the drapes drawn across the window it was as dark as midnight in a mausoleum, and the rooms were virtually soundproof. If a guest had spent most of the night sampling the entertainment offering of the hotel he could sleep through the day without being disturbed.
But Karen didn't want to sleep through the day. She had things to do. She pulled back the drapes and opened the blinds, then blinked rapidly in the bright light of the desert sun. For a moment she was blinded and she stood there nude, blinking, feeling the rays of the sun warming the flesh of her breasts and midriff.
After a moment her vision cleared and she looked out the window. Her room was in a corner, the meeting place of two wings, and just to the right, a few feet away, was the window of another room.
When she looked there she saw behind the window the grinning face of a handsome young man. The man was staring at her body in open admiration. Karen resisted the impulse to jump back or to cover herself with her hands. She stretched her arms wide to the sun and rose to tiptoes, pretending not to have seen the man, thinking to herself, "Suffer, you Peeping Tom. You can look but you'll never touch."
She finished her stretching and turned her back, giving the Peeping Tom a look at the lush curves of her jutting buttocks. She reached behind and gave her buttocks an impudent squeeze, then strolled slowly away from the window.
A smile stole across her lips as she went to the bathroom to prepare her shower. It wasn't really fair of her to tease like that. The guy in the other room had probably seen her only accidentally. And she couldn't blame him for staring. Any man in his right mind would stare at a naked and beautiful girl. She was pleased that she should attract such attention.
She started the shower running, adjusted the temperature of the water mixture, and went back into the bedroom for a moment. There she picked up the telephone and called down to room service for breakfast. She also told them to send up copies of the local newspapers.
Karen was drying herself with a thick, fluffy towel when she heard the knock at her door. She wrapped the towel around her body, tucking in one corner just beneath her right arm. The towel barely covered her from the tops of her legs to her nipples.
"Who's there?" she called as she approached the door.
"Room service, ma'am." It was a masculine voice.
She hesitated. The towel was hardly adequate covering. It left the bottom halves of the rich curves of her buttocks bare, and her breasts were almost totally exposed. But then, that wasn't any more revealing than a bikini.
She opened the door. Standing outside with a wheeled cart was the bellhop from the day before.
He smiled at her, his eyes flicking over her body, and said, "Good morning."
"Come in," Karen said, turning and walking away from the door.
While her back was still turned she heard the cart rattle in and then the closing of the door. When she sat down on the easy chair the bottom of the towel pulled up, exposing a great deal more of her. But after the session with this particular bellhop the day before what did that matter?
She made no effort to pull the towel down. The bellhop couldn't take his eyes off her and he almost tripped over his own feet as he wheeled the cart across the room. His eyes were wide and staring.
He stopped the cart right in front of her and removed the domed metal covers from the dishes. He turned her cup right side up and poured her coffee. Karen pretended to ignore her exposed body and his reaction to that but she could not avoid noticing the clumsiness of his motions.
She sipped from her juice glass and smacked her lips at the tartness of the grapefruit juice. Then she set the glass down.
"My purse is on the dresser there," she said to him. "Would you get it, please?"
He brought the purse, his eyes never leaving her. She took out her cigarettes, and lighter.
"Do you have the check for me to sign?"
"Uh ... yeah. Right here." He put the check in front of her. She added exactly fifteen per cent as a tip and signed her name at the bottom, then handed back the check with a wave of dismissal.
The movement of her arm caused the towel to come loose and drop away, baring her breasts completely before his staring eyes. His hand was shaking when he took the check from her.
"Uh, I don't have to go right back. They won't miss me for a half hour or so."
Now Karen looked him full in the face for the first time. She knew what he was hinting around for but she wasn't in the mood. She didn't mind teasing him a little but a full night of love with Mathew Kent had drained her of all desire.
She smiled softly and shook her head slowly. "You'd better go now. I'll put the cart in the corridor when I'm finished."
"I don't mind waiting. Really!" He spoke quickly and his voice was hoarse.
She decided to give him the full treatment. Her hands cupped her breasts and lifted them. Her face turned down and was close to her nipples, which were semi-taut.
"What do you say, babies?" she asked her breasts. "Should we give him some fun?" She appeared to listen for a moment, then raised her head and said, "No, they're not interested right now. You'd better run along." She let them swing back against her chest and they bounced crazily.
The bellhop groaned with frustration and didn't move. Karen reached out and pressed her hand against him. Now she laughed aloud, her eyes twinkling merrily.
Then she let her hand drop.
A look of anger went across his face and he started to reach for her.
"Now, now," she said quickly and softly. "You don't want me to call for help."
"You teasing witch!" he spat.
"I didn't tease you yesterday," she told him. "And maybe I won't tease you tomorrow. But right now I'm not interested. Go on now, get out of here."
He left, and when the door was closed Karen fell to eating with a voracious appetite. She downed the rest of her juice in one long gulp and started on her pancakes and sausages, alternating mouthfuls with sips of rich, hot coffee.
The food was excellent and it made her feel immensely wealthy to be sitting nude in such luxurious surroundings eating breakfast after noon on a bright and sunny day.
When she finished she poured a second cup of coffee from the small pot and lit a cigarette. She moved the cart around to the side of the chair, removed the towel from her hips and leaned back to stretch her long, naked legs out before her.
There was something exciting about being in a strange city where no one knew you, where you had none of the normal every day cares of life. Karen was no innocent virgin. She'd had her share of lovers in her twenty-nine years - even more than her share. But in her wildest dreams she would never have contemplated such promiscuous behavior as that in which she'd engaged during the past two days.
She'd slept with men before, but never with bellhops and never with men she'd met only ten minutes before. Also she'd never slept with total strangers the way she'd done with Mathew Kent. Also she'd never flaunted her nakedness at open windows, or before helpless servants.
She'd never done any of these things before. And yet, now she did them without the slightest hesitation. She enjoyed doing these things. It was as though she'd left behind her in New York all her inhibitions and morals. She was in a new place, ready to start a new life, and she was going to be a new woman.
Karen finished her coffee and cigarette and picked up one of the three morning newspapers which were on the cart. She turned immediately to the classified section and let her eyes scan the columns for anything that might prove interesting.
It was now more important than ever that she find a job here in this city. The thought of returning to New York and becoming the old Karen Dunken again was repulsive. She'd tasted delightful and forbidden fruits and had developed an insatiable appetite for them. This sort of thing was addictive, like narcotics, and she was hooked.
There were plenty of ads for waitresses - all kinds of waitresses. There were ads for restaurant waitresses, and cocktail waitresses, and counter waitresses in diners.
There were also plenty of ads for counter girls in various shops and for salesgirls in three department store.
But she wasn't looking for work like that. She didn't want to be a waitress or a shop girl. She didn't want to be a casino girl either. She didn't want to sit behind a change booth in a casino and feed people coins to play the slot machines. She didn't want to be a cashier in a cafeteria.
There were damned few ads for secretaries but the salaries offered were quite good. She circled those ads which looked most promising and went on. There were two entire pages of advertisements for show girls. And those jobs paid best of all.
Karen toyed with the idea. She certainly had the face and figure for a show girl. Her only problem was a lack of experience. Yet, many of the ads stated no experience was required.
She put the papers to one side and rose from the chair. She chose carefully her outfit for the day - a lime green, two-piece suit of light cotton. The jacket had three-quarter sleeves and a deep plunging neckline and was meant to be worn without a blouse beneath.
She chose black underwear - diaphanous panties like light smoke which emphasized her charms, a garter belt and wisps of stockings, a black strapless bra which was little more than a shelf to support her breasts from underneath. The bra left the curves of her breasts almost wholly exposed. It forced them up and tight together, yet left them loose enough to move invitingly with each breath. Even the top halves of the circles of her aureoles were left exposed.
The skirt of the two-piece suit was exceedingly tight, fitting snugly at the hips, and pulled tautly across her flat midriff and across her curved rear. The skirt was so tight that the lines of her panties could plainly be seen. The skirt made it evident she was not wearing a silly girdle beneath.
The jacket was held across the front of her breasts by only two buttons - one right smack between her breasts and the other a little lower. When she checked her appearance in the mirror she was pleased to see that a good bit of bosom was exposed and yet she managed not to appear cheap and tawdry.
Karen applied make-up sparingly, grabbed her purse and the newspapers, and left the room. She stopped at the hotel desk to drop off her room key and asked the clerk about transportation into the business district. There were cabs right at the door of the hotel, but there was also a bus which stopped out beside the highway every fifteen minutes.
Karen took a bus. It only cost a quarter. A ride to town in a taxi would have cost a dollar and a half at the least. She got off the bus at what seemed to be the center of town and looked around. Most of the establishments in sight were gambling casinos. The sidewalks were filled with people in sports clothes strolling slowly, or entering and leaving the various casinos.
Answering the ads was going to be difficult. She didn't know the locations of any of the streets. Then she spotted a small luncheonette on the corner. Inside she found a counter which offered sandwiches and drinks and a magazine stand.
The girl behind the counter was only too glad to sell her a street map of the town and then to point out their present location on that map. Karen ordered a cup of coffee and studied the map. Three of the jobs were within a five block radius of the luncheonette.
She finished her coffee and started walking. On the next block she thought she saw Mathew Kent entering one of the casinos, but she wasn't sure it was him. And she wondered idly whether she would see him again.
They'd made love for several hours in the darkness of the night and she'd heard him dress and leave as she was drifting off to sleep. But he hadn't said anything about seeing her again. In fact, now that she thought about that, neither of them had said much of anything that was meaningful. He'd been vague about himself and she hadn't told him anything important about herself. She hadn't even confided that she would like to find a job and stay in town.
That might have been a mistake - not mentioning that to him. He'd said he had several business interests. He might have been able to arrange a job for her.
But, then again, it might be for the best. It would be difficult and awkward working for a man with whom she'd slept. Still, if nothing else worked out, and if she could find him again, it wouldn't be too late to ask for his help. That would be the least he could do after all the pleasure she'd given him.
That wasn't fair, though. She'd received at least as much pleasure as she'd given, and far more than she'd ever had with any other man. Mathew Kent was the most experienced and perfect lover she'd known. He was willing and eager to supply any kiss or caress she might desire. She had only to indicate the slightest wish for any touch or kiss and he was giving that to her.
And his uninhibited attitude was contagious. She'd found herself kissing and caressing him ways she'd never done before. The mere idea of doing many of the things she'd enjoyed doing with Matt would have thoroughly revolted her back in New York.
Karen realized with a start that she was daydreaming as she walked along. She'd passed the address and she turned back. The block held a row of attached three-story buildings. There were stores and shops at street level and two stories of offices above.
She found the right door and entered. There was a narrow hallway with a staircase leading up. On the second floor there were four offices and another stairway to the third floor. The names of the businesses were listed on a small directory at the head of the first flight of stairs.
She found the Jeramyn Corporation listing. It was on the third floor. Up she went, then down the corridor to the right office. When she entered she found herself in a small, windowless anteroom divided by a low wooden railing, behind which was a small receptionist's desk.
A blonde with impossibly large breasts sat behind the desk. She was reading a magazine and looked up when Karen entered. The blonde was built like a cow - big, soft breasts almost spilling out of her sheer blouse; wide, rounded hips; and heavy legs beneath her short, tight skirt.
"Yes?" she asked without smiling.
"I'm here about the advertisement in the paper this morning," Karen told the girl.
The blonde looked her up and down slowly and insolently, then said, "The job's been taken." She turned back to her magazine.
"Oh," Karen said, feeling like a fool standing there with her mouth hanging open.
She turned on her heel and left the place. She was disappointed, naturally; but she would have hated working with that fat blonde.
There was another place one block further out and two blocks over. Karen found the place locked up when she arrived there and she was disappointed again. And now her feet were beginning to hurt. High heels had not been designed for hiking.
Although the temperature of the air wasn't particularly hot, the bright rays of the sun were .exceedingly warming. Karen could feel perspiration beginning to flow beneath her clothing.
She stopped into another luncheonette for a cold drink and a short rest, and she used the time to locate another firm advertising for a secretary. This one was four blocks away and she gathered her strength for the trek.
It was a quarter to three in the afternoon when she found the address. It was a real estate office located in a private house on one of the side streets. The entire house had been converted to offices, she discovered when she entered the downstairs hallway and found an office directory.
She was in luck this time. The one she wanted was on the main floor. She walked back along the corridor until she came to the office, and she went in.
Again she found herself in an anteroom. But this one was empty and another door, marked PRIVATE, was closed. Karen sank into a chair, kicked off her shoes, and leaned forward to massage her aching feet.
When she'd rubbed away the pain she leaned back in the chair and looked around. There were several other chairs and two sofas. There were also several tables and lamps and two piles of old magazines.
It was very quiet in the anteroom and then Karen heard a peculiar noise. That was a muffled thump. A moment later she heard the noise again.
Then she heard that twice in succession. There was a pause, and then the noise began rhythmically and steadily.
That sounded like someone was knocking lightly against something. She wondered if someone inside the private office was in trouble and needed help. Maybe the person inside was having a heart attack!
She rose from her chair and walked to the door. But she hesitated. The noise might be nothing at all and she didn't want to go bursting in there. She put her ear to the door and heard other sounds. There were several gasps and a low cry.
She dropped to her knees and put her eye to the keyhole.
The sight which greeted her made her gasp.
Though the keyhole she could see a big desk. On top of the desk was sprawled a woman, bared to the waist, with her skirt around her hips. One of the woman's legs was dangling over the edge of the desk and swinging. The thumping sound was made each time the woman's heel hit the side of the desk.
The woman was not alone.
She was on her back on top of the desk and there was a man there with her. The man was completely naked. He was old and bald and skinny, with stringy arms .and legs and gray hair.
His face was buried against the bulging breasts of the woman. Her hands were holding the back of his head. Her face was a mask of passion. They were working frantically. And the old man's face, when he raised that from the woman's breasts for a moment, was reddened with effort.
After the first shock of discovery had passed Karen watched with interest. This was the first time in her life she'd ever watched another couple loving. Oh, she'd seen a couple of stag films in her time. But a movie was nothing like this.
If that old man didn't watch out, she thought, he would really have a heart attack, the way he was going.
She saw the woman's arms lock about the man's body and the thumping noise stopped. Whoever that girl was, either she was the finest actress in the world or she was really getting her jollies from that old man.
The woman stiffened and trembled. So powerful were the shudders that the old man was shaken like a rag doll in the grip of the woman's powerful arms.
A moment later the old man grunted and went rigid, then slumped. Karen watched them extricate themselves from the embrace. The old man slid off the desk and reached to touch the woman's leg. He smiled at her, nodded, and said something Karen couldn't hear.
The woman swung her legs over the side of the desk and sat up. She returned the old man's smile and idly toyed with one breast. The old man disappeared from sight for a moment and when he returned he was wearing underwear and trousers.
He walked over to the woman and leaned forward to kiss each breast in turn. She grabbed for his head and laughed but he managed to avoid her.
Karen rose from her knees when they were dressing and went back to her chair. A few moments later the door opened and the man and the woman came out. Now Karen could see that the woman was in her middle forties. She looked far less attractive standing up and fully dressed. In fact, she looked almost dumpy.
The old man saw Karen, blinked his eyes several times, and said, "Yes, can I help you?"
"I'm here about the job in the newspaper," Karen told him.
"I'm sorry," he said, turning to smile quickly at the other woman. "But the job is already filled. You're just a little bit too late. If you'd been here an hour ago you might have the job."
Karen shrugged and rose to her feet. If I'd been here an hour ago, she thought, that might have been me on that desk. But you wouldn't be standing there right now. I'd have killed you.
She left the office and walked slowly to the main street. She'd been surprised, but not shocked, at the scene in the inner office. Things like that were supposed to happen quite frequently in show business when a good-looking girl was being considered for a part in a play or picture, but she'd never heard of secretaries being hired that way.
She decided to give up for the day and headed for the nearest casino. It was time for a drink and a snack and there was no point in paying for them when you could get them free if you were gambling.
This downtown casino was far different from the places out on the hotel strip. Here there was less luxury. The gamblers were more intense, quieter, and seemed to be mostly lower income people.
She found a seat at a blackjack table, changed a twenty dollar bill into chips, and started gambling. At this casino there were chips for fractions of dollars. Out at the big places the smallest bet was a dollar, except at the roulette games.
She made a few fifty cents bets, won them, and increased her wagers. A waitress came by, in a less revealing uniform and far less pretty than the girls out on the strip, and she ordered a sandwich and drink.
By the time the girl returned with her order Karen was fifteen dollars ahead and she was betting five dollars each time.
Chapter Five
Time passes magically when one is completely engrossed in the exciting mechanics of gambling. And it passes even more quickly when one seems to be winning.
Karen was winning!
And she seemed to have lost all consciousness of time and place. She was not aware of her surroundings. Only the deck of cards and the piles of chips existed for her.
She won large bets. She won small bets. She varied her bets with no seeming pattern, depending almost entirely on vague feelings she had whenever it was time to place another wager on the table before her.
As the hours were consumed changes took place about her. The crowd thinned and the action slowed around dinner time. And after dinner the gamblers were at least slightly more formally dressed - but she didn't notice.
One change of which she was aware was the hourly change of dealers at the blackjack table. They came in assorted sizes and types - tall, slender, short, fat, friendly, stone faced, young and middle-aged and old. It didn't matter in the slightest - she won from them all.
Which is not to say she won every bet. If such had been the case the management of the casino would have closed the table and seriously investigated its dealers. But she did win far more often than she lost, and she seemed to lose only the small bets, while winning almost all the larger ones.
And the dealers liked her. She played quickly and without hesitation, and made none of the idiotic small talk to which women seem to be addicted. And when a dealer's turn at the table was over he was rewarded with a five dollar chip dropped into the breast pocket of his shirt. The tipping was standard winner's procedure in most casinos but few women followed the practice.
At a quarter to eight in the evening, for no apparent reason, Karen suddenly snapped out of her trance-like state. She straightened suddenly on her stool and glanced about for a moment as though she didn't know where she was.
So abrupt and startling was the movement that the dealer stopped in mid-shuffle and asked, "Are you all right, ma'am?"
"What? Oh ... Yes, I'm fine."
She looked down at the pile of chips before her and her brow furrowed with puzzlement. There were five stacks of chips surrounded by a scattering of silver dollars. Three of the chips were white, with the legend 100 printed in gold in the circle in the center. The rest of the chips were multi-colored and varied in denomination from five to twenty-five dollars.
The dealer had begun a new hand and he paused when he came to her to give her a chance to make another bet. She looked up when she heard him clear his throat.
"Your bet," he said.
"No," Karen said quickly. "Pass me."
She arranged the chips in piles according to denomination, her hands shaking slightly with excitement.
Six hundred and seventy-eight dollars!
She glanced at her watch. In approximately four hours she'd won nearly seven hundred dollars. She'd begun the gambling with twenty dollars. That left her a profit of six hundred and fifty-eight dollars.
It was almost a hundred and eighty-eight dollars an hour!
A voice beside her spoke. "You've done quite well, miss!"
She looked up at the speaker, a man, about thirty-five, dressed in slacks, a shirt open at the throat and without a tie, and a sports jacket. His brown curly hair was cropped close to his head and he had brown eyes. His face was neither handsome nor repulsive and had no single outstanding feature. He wore a warm smile.
She laughed shrilly as she answered him. "Yes, I have. I've been very lucky."
Her voice sounded odd in her ears and she became aware of an unsteadiness in her body. She was drunk! Now that she thought about it she remembered having had at least six drinks.
"Are you going to continue to play?" the man beside her asked.
She shook her head. "Where do I cash these in?"
He pointed across the room to the cashier's window. "Over there."
She began to gather the chips into her hands, but there were too many for her to carry. The man beside her spoke to the dealer.
"The lady would like to cash in," he said.
The dealer summoned one of the waitresses and spoke to her. The girl hurried off and returned with a leather drawstring bag. Karen and the girl dumped the chips into the bag together and started for the window.
While the cashier was making a tally Karen tipped the girl with a silver dollar and kept out a five dollar chip. She took the money in six one hundred dollar bills, seven tens, and two silver dollars. One dollar bills are not used in the town, the feeling being that people are unconsciously more liberal with coins than with paper money.
Karen stuffed the money carelessly into her purse and returned to the table. She tipped the dealer with the five dollar chip and turned to leave. The man who'd spoken to her was still there and he put a gentle hand on her arm. She turned back to face him.
"Wait just a minute, will you?" he asked pleasantly. "I'd like to talk to you for a moment."
She waited. The man had twenty-five dollars bet on the hand and he won. He tipped the dealer a silver dollar and gathered his chips and coins into two fistfuls, which he dropped into the pockets of his jacket as he slid off the stool.
The man smiled again. "I'd like to buy you dinner," he said.
"Why?"
"Well, you've been very lucky. Maybe some of it will rub off on me."
She nodded toward the bulging pockets of the jacket. "You certainly don't look like you've done too badly."
"This?" he said with a shrug of his shoulders. "This is chicken feed. I did win a little when I was sitting next to you. But I'm still about four hundred behind. Besides, what man in his right mind wouldn't want to buy a pretty girl like you dinner?"
Karen felt her knees wobble and shrugged her shoulders. "All right. I guess so. And I do need something to eat. I drank a little more than I should have. Where'll we eat?"
"I know a great restaurant out on the highway."
She shook her head quickly. "I don't think so. We'd better eat somewhere here in town."
He looked hurt. "You don't trust me."
"It's not that, exactly," she said quickly, sorry for having hurt his feelings. "But you are a total stranger, after all."
"Well, there is a decent enough restaurant down the street. Will that suit you?"
She nodded and gave him her best smile. He took her arm and escorted her out of the casino. Darkness had fallen and there was a slight chill in the air. Her clothing had been selected for the heat of the day and she shivered.
"You're cold," the man said.
"Yes!"
"It's only a block from here, but we can take a cab if you wish."
"No. That's all right. I need the fresh air, anyway."
By the time they reached the restaurant Karen felt considerably better. She was steadier on her feet and her tongue was less thick in her mouth. She was grateful for the warmth of the quiet little restaurant and her mouth watered when her nose picked up the savory smells issuing from the kitchen.
A waiter in an apron led them to a small booth in a corner. He set menus before them and disappeared. The man pushed the menus to one side and smiled at her again.
"I'm Sam Wisner," he said. "Please call me Sam."
"I'm Karen ... Karen Dunken."
"Now that the introductions are over we can order."
Karen went for a steak with all the trimmings and Sam ordered brook trout. They had shrimp cocktails, then salads, before the entree arrived. And Karen was too hungry to do much talking. She wolfed her food and listened to Sam.
He told her he was from Los Angeles and had come here on business, then had decided to stay over for a short vacation. He'd been there four days so far, and was staying at a small motel just outside of town. He didn't know anyone and except for the gambling was having a terribly dull time. He seemed to make a point of telling her that he was divorced from his wife.
Karen smiled when she heard that. She saw through his line. Probably much of it was true. But just as probably he had a wife back in Los Angeles and was trying to set her up for a seduction. He was pretty good at that, too. The way he'd picked her up had been very smooth. What gave him away now was the way his eyes kept returning to the neckline of her jacket. He stared at her breasts whenever he thought she wasn't looking at him.
Karen finished the last bit of steak and baked potato and leaned back with a satisfied sigh. She was sober now, and happy and content. She'd won a lot of money, she'd had a good meal, and she had pleasant company - even if he was a little obvious about it.
Sam was attractive and pleasant, and if he made just the right moves at the right time she might go to bed with him. After all, she had far more reason to allow him the pleasures of her body than she'd had with that bellhop - though, in his own way, the bellhop had been fun, too.
The coffee came and they lit cigarettes. And now it was Karen's turn. She told Sam a little about herself, about winning the contest, and about her plan to try to get a job.
"Though," she said, "if I can win money like I just did once or twice a month I won't have to work at all."
Sam laughed. "I wouldn't count on it if I were you," he told her. "These casinos aren't charity organizations. They stay in business because they make money. And they make money because almost everyone loses."
"You mean they're dishonest?"
"Not at all. They don't have to be. They have the percentages in their favor."
"But people do win," she said. "And some of them win fantastic sums. You hear about it all the time."
"Yes, some people do win, and some people do win a lot of money. But not very many of them keep the money they won."
"Why not?"
"Because they continue to play. The longer you buck the house the greater the odds against you. That's a mathematical fact that has nothing to do with luck or cheating or anything like that. The only way to come out ahead is to quit while you're winning."
"You mean I shouldn't gamble any more at all because from now on I have to lose?"
"Well, not exactly. That's probably the best way. I know you won't do it. Not many people will. Hell, even I won't do it that way. But there is a sane way to gamble."
"How?"
"First you set yourself a losing limit for any one day. You pick a sum of money you want to risk. Just enough to test your luck so if it's bad you won't be too badly hurt. Let's say fifty dollars."
"Isn't that a lot?"
"Not really. Then you set yourself a winning limit for the same time period. You say to yourself you'll start with fifty dollars and when you lose that you'll quit for the day. Or, you tell yourself, you'll quit when you've won ... say ... two hundred."
"That sounds stupid. To quit when you're winning."
"Not at all. Remember, nobody wins all the time."
"The house seems to win all the time. That's what you just told me."
"Yes, but they're playing three or four hundred people at the same time. They win from fifteen or twenty and lose to three or four. And then too, they're the ones who set the payoffs and percentages. You have to play their game. And they always keep an edge."
"I thought you said they don't cheat?"
"No. I mean a mathematical edge. Take roulette for example. There are thirty-six numbers to play and if your number comes up they pay off at thirty-five to one."
"That sounds fair. I know enough math to know that the odds in a case like that are thirty-five to one."
"But it doesn't quite work out that way because there are two more slots on the wheel than there are numbers. There's a zero and a double zero. That makes the real odds thirty-seven to one. But the house only pays thirty-five to one. The two percentages points difference is the house edge."
"It doesn't sound like much."
"Not much? That little edge keeps this whole town going. I mean from all the games - not just roulette. It pays the millions of dollars it costs to build and operate these casinos. It pays the salaries of all the show business stars who work here to draw the suckers from all over the country. How do you think they can afford to give away all the food and drinks and cigarettes at the tables? Why, the amount you pay for your room is probably only half what it costs the hotel to supply that room for you."
Karen leaned forward and for a moment Sam's eyes fell to her bosom.
"I thought I understood everything," she said. "But now you've got me confused about odds and percentages and edges."
"Let me give you another example. Take a slot machine. Let's say that mathematically a winning combination should come up in the little windows every fifty times. But the machine is set up so it only pays off every sixty times. Suppose it's a dollar machine. It will pay off fifty dollars. But, it will have taken in sixty dollars. That's ten dollars clear profit for the house."
"I think I see."
"That's not the way it actually works, but the theory is the same. And it works the same way with all the games. Sure, if you're lucky you'll win. But all luck means is that all the wins seem to come in a group."
"Now you've got me confused again. What's this about luck?"
His knees pressed against hers under the table for a moment before he answered. "The law of averages says that if I flip a coin twice it should come up heads once and tails once. So, if I flip a coin ten times and it comes up heads all ten times, then, theoretically, the next ten times it should come up tails. And it works that way, too. Oh, not for twenty flips. But if you flip the coin a thousand times you're almost sure to have five hundred heads and five hundred tails.
"Now, if you're betting on flips of the coin, suppose you pick heads. If heads comes up a lot more than tails in the first twenty or thirty flips then you've won and you're lucky. If tails comes up more often then you're unlucky and of course you've lost."
"That makes sense."
"Good. Now, let's say you were lucky and you won twenty-five out of the first thirty flips. That's the time to quit. Because, if you stay around for the whole one thousand flips of the coin you're going to break even."
"All right, but if I lose at first then I should continue to play because I'll win back my losing's in the long run."
Sam laughed and shook his head. "That's the way it works in theory. But you're forgetting about the house edge. They never pay off at true odds. They always pay out less than they take in. If the house was running a coin flipping game they would only pay off like ninety-eight cents every time you bet a dollar and won. So, if you made a thousand one-dollar bets and won five hundred of them you'd still be two cents behind for every bet you won.
"That's where the luck comes in. If your winners come in a group at the beginning and you quit before the complete sample is played you stay a winner. If you stay around for the whole sample you must lose. And if you lose in the beginning you can't ever get even."
"Wow," Karen said softly. "It sounds like legalized stealing."
"That's almost what it is. The only way to guarantee winning is to be the house."
"But what about the people who break the bank? You know, like at Monte Carlo."
"That means the winner had an unusually long streak of luck, like all five hundred winners out of a thousand coming up in a row. It happens so very rarely that no casino really has to worry about it and that's the kind of thing that keeps the suckers coming back and makes then stay too long when they're winning. I guess the real luck is being able to tell when the streak is ended."
Karen leaned back and lit another cigarette. "This dinner has been an education."
Sam smiled. "Class is over for the night. Now how about some fun?"
"What did you have in mind?"
"There are some good shows in town. Sammy Davis Junior is playing at one of the big hotels out on the strip."
Karen glanced at her watch. It was almost ten o'clock. "Isn't it a bit late?"
"No. There's a midnight show every night of the week."
"Won't it be crowded?"
"Not very," Sam said, smiling. "You'd be surprised how many people would rather gamble than watch a talented entertainer. And besides, in this town you can get anything for the right amount of money. For five or ten dollars the head waiter will be glad to give us a ringside table."
"All right," Karen said. "But we'll have to go to my hotel first. I must change my clothes or I'll freeze to death."
"Let's go," said Sam. "I have my car right outside."
He paid for the dinner and escorted her out to the car. It was a big Chrysler convertible and she was glad to see that the top was up.
Chapter Six
When Sam pulled up in front of Karen's hotel she spoke again.
"How about you?" she asked. "Don't you have to change?"
"You mean a dark suit and tie?" She nodded.
"Not in this town. They're not very formal here. No one has to wear diamonds and mink. But I have a tie in the glove compartment if it will make you happier."
He took the tie out and stuffed it into his pocket. Then he got out of the car and went around to open her door. A carhop beat him to it, but he was standing in place for a good look when she slid out of the seat and her skirt hiked high on her legs.
The carhop gave Sam a check for the car and took it away. Sam and Karen went into the hotel and picked up her room key at the desk.
"Maybe you'd better wait for me down here," Karen said when they were standing at the elevator in the lobby.
"Oh, you don't trust me again," he kidded. "I'll have you know I was a Boy Scout."
Karen laughed. "All right. Come on up, then if you want."
"How about a drink?" he suggested when they were up in her room.
"Yes. Please. Make mine a Scotch and water, with plenty of ice."
Sam phoned the order down to room service while Karen was busy selecting her change of clothing. She gathered her things together and carried them into the bathroom.
"I'm going to take a quick shower," she told him. "I won't be long."
She made sure to lock the bathroom door, then stripped off her clothing and started the shower. When the water was adjusted just right she stepped into the shower stall.
Before she was quite finished there was a knock at the bathroom door. "Your drink is here," Sam called out to her.
"Just a minute," she answered.
She finished rinsing, turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, and unclicked the door. She grabbed a towel, held that up in front of her body, and opened the door to accept her drink.
Sam handed her the glass and grinned as his eyes roamed over her. "You are pretty," he said.
"Just so you don't do anything but look," she told him.
He looked hurt again. "It's un-American not to trust a Boy Scout."
"You be a good Boy Scout out there," she told him, "and let me get dressed."
"All right," he said reluctantly. "But I think I should tell you you're standing right in front of a mirror and you've got the prettiest rear I've ever seen." With that he stepped back out of the bathroom and pulled the door closed.
Karen looked over her shoulder. He'd been telling the truth. She was standing right in front of her mirror and her entire naked back was reflected there. She grinned. He'd certainly gotten an eyeful.
She sipped from her drink, dried herself, and dressed. She donned panties, garter belt and stockings, and a low cut short-skirted cocktail dress. She'd brought a half slip and a bra into the bathroom with her but had decided against wearing them.
She would give Sam a thrill. And she was pretty sure she was going to sleep with him anyway.
She combed her hair and put on make-up before she went out of the bathroom, and she took the remainder of her drink with her. Sam was sitting quietly in the easy chair. He had it turned toward the window and was staring straight out into the desert night.
"See anything worth-while?" she asked as she walked up behind him.
"Nope. All the rooms where there's any action have the blinds drawn. Can't see a thing."
He swallowed the last of his drink in one gulp and stood up. Karen finished her drink and grabbed her purse as they headed for the door.
"Wait a minute," she said as he opened the door. "I'm going to need a jacket or something."
She chose a brocaded evening coat from the closet and followed him into the corridor. In five minutes they were roaring down the highway toward the hotel where Sammy Davis was presently appearing.
In general design the hotel was almost identical to her own. The casino was still the main feature. The differences lay in the particulars of the decor. Karen's hotel was styled and furnished with modern and contemporary stuff. This new place was done in western style.
The employees wore boots and riding pants and fancy shirts with string ties. The waitresses in the casino wore short fringed skirts and cowboy hats. There were steer heads and rifles mounted on the walls.
The trimmings were different but the basic machinery was the same.
Sam turned the car over to a parking attendant and they checked their coats at the checkroom in the lobby, then entered the casino. Sam glanced at his watch.
"There's still plenty of time before the show. Want to try your luck again?"
"I don't think I should," Karen told him. "Not after the lesson you gave me in the restaurant. I've made my money for the day. I'll try again some other time."
"Good girl," Sam said. "I wanted to see if any of that stuff sank in. You remember what I taught you and you'll do all right in this town."
"I hope so."
He took her arm and steered her across the center of the casino to the cocktail lounge. They took a table instead of seats at the bar and passed the time drinking slowly and dancing.
At a quarter to midnight Sam paid the check in the lounge and led her to the doors of the dinner theater. There was already a long line there but he didn't waste time joining that line. Sam led her right up to the head of the line.
The head waiter eyed them coldly. There was no tuxedo, no mink, no spray of diamonds to impress him. "Sir?"
"We're special friends of Mr. Davis'," Sam said smoothly. "He said he left a reservation for us. The name is Wisner."
"I don't remember anything like that," the head waiter said coldly.
"You'd better check your reservation list," Sam told him.
The head waiter raised his clipboard with its list of names and Sam moved to look over his shoulder. Then he reached across the man's shoulder as though to point out the name.
The head waiter's manner changed completely. "Ah yes," he said unctuously. "Here we are: Mr. Wisner and party. If you'll follow me please. I have a nice table reserved for you right down front at ringside."
There were some murmurs from behind as Sam and Karen followed the head waiter through the door and down to a choice table.
"Is this the best you can do?" Sam asked.
The waiter was startled. This was one of the best tables in the house. "If you would prefer another table, sir, take your pick."
"No. I guess it will be all right."
They sat down and the head waiter returned to the door.
"I didn't know you knew Sammy Davis," Karen whispered when the man was gone.
"I don't," Sam said with a smile.
"But then, how ... I mean ..."
He laughed. "I told you money talks in this town. When I reached over his shoulder I handed him a twenty dollar bill."
Karen smiled and shook her head. A table waiter appeared beside them as if by magic. They placed their orders and the waiter started away. Sam called him back.
"Would you send a bus boy over here right away?" Sam requested.
The waiter disappeared again and a moment later there was a bus boy standing beside Sam's shoulder. Sam reached into the side pockets of his jacket and brought out the chips he still had from the downtown casino. He counted them and gave them to the bus boy.
"Would you cash these in for me? I forgot all about them. They make an awful bulge in my pockets."
"I'm sorry, sir. They won't cash chips from other casinos. But if you wish, I can get you house chips for them."
"All right, but make it large denominations please."
The drinks came, then the bus boy returned. Sam tipped him and put the new chips in his pocket. A few minutes later the show began.
It was an hour and a half show and during that time Karen and Sam managed to put away four drinks apiece. When the show was over Karen was giddy again but Sam appeared perfectly sober.
They went back out to the casino and Sam led her to a dice table. He shouldered his way through the crowd around the table and made room for them both at the railing. His chips lasted forty minutes and in that span of time they had two more drinks apiece.
"Well, that's it for tonight," Sam said when the last chip was gone. "I've had it."
"You dropped over three hundred dollars there," Karen said.
"You can't win if you don't take a chance. Let's get out of here."
Karen was eager to leave. Standing beside Sam at the crap table had been an uncomfortable experience. Every man who'd stood behind her had taken advantage of his position and had pressed against her buttocks. Once one man even slipped a hand around in front and pressed that against her. She'd shifted uncomfortably but had not wanted to distract Sam by making a protest.
From the hotel they went to a small quiet road-house, which was dimly lit and had a dance band. They drank some more and danced the slow tunes, Karen sinking into Sam's arms, pressing against him, feeling his hands stroke the contours of her hip under cover of the darkness.
After dancing they returned to their booth. A half nude waitress brought fresh drinks and disappeared. Sam put his arm around her, crowded her into a corner, and kissed her soundly.
She was dizzy with drink and desire and his deep kiss lit little fires. When his hand slipped to the bodice of her dress she groaned and arched her back.
He toyed with her breasts until they ached with sweet pain, then he dropped the hand to her knee and thrust that under her skirt. His hand traced the quaking contours of her legs, moving until he was pressing against the sheer silk of her panties.
Karen gasped and moved one of her hands to his, trapping his, keeping him at his pleasure-giving work. And she returned the pleasure. She moved her other hand to him and smiled against his mouth.
They tore apart with frustrated gasps.
"We're wasting time here," Sam whispered. "Let's go to my place."
"Oh, honey," Karen breathed. "I thought you'd never ask."
He slid out of the booth and helped her up, then dropped a couple- of bills on the table and hurried her out of the place. They got into his car and set out down the highway at approximately seventy miles an hour.
But before they got to the motel Sam pulled the car into a shopping center. He parked in front of a liquor store. "I'll be right out," he told her. "There's no booze back at the place."
He was in the liquor store only a few moments, then back in the car and it was seventy miles an hour down the highway again. The tires squealed with protest when he swung across the highway. Gravel sprayed up under the wheel wells of the convertible as he skidded to a stop before his cabin.
It was a modest little motel. The furniture in Sam's cabin was serviceable, but certainly not sumptuous. Karen didn't care if the place had only an old army cot. All she cared about was that there was a bed.
"Make yourself comfortable," he told her as he locked the door and turned on the small bedside lamp. "I'll go and mix a couple of drinks."
He went into the bathroom while Karen removed her coat and kicked off her shoes. She opened the zipper of her dress and was wriggling out of that when he came out of the bathroom again with two glasses in his hands.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, staring at her naked and hobbling breasts.
Karen raised her hands high over her head to pull her breasts into a pretty pose. "You like?"
"Do I?"
He set the glasses down and walked over to her. His hands hefted her breasts and squeezed them ever so lightly.
Her nipples stirred and swelled against his palms.
"You act like you ought to be pretty good yourself."
"I should hope so," he quipped.
They kissed and his hands slid down along her bare back to the elastic of her panties. His fingers slid beneath and his hands were cupping her bare bottom.
Karen was on fire. That was as though there was a live volcano bubbling inside her and she couldn't wait. She locked her arms around him and squeezed with all her strength.
Sam groaned. "Easy, baby. Easy," he whispered. "Let's make this nice and slow."
He guided her to the bed and sat her down on the edge of the mattress. Then he turned away to get their drinks. "There's no ice," he told her. "But if you want some for your drink I'll get a bucket from the machine at the office."
"To hell with ice," she said. "I don't want you to leave me now."
He sat down beside her, held his drink in one hand, and toyed with one of her breasts with the other. She too, held her drink in one hand and used the other for caressing. With only one hand that was awkward, but she managed.
Her hand slipped over him and he gasped. When the drinks were finished she looped an arm about his neck, fell back onto the bed, and drew him down with her. His chest crushed her breasts and she moved her shoulders to make her nipples press against the front of his shirt.
He kissed her mouth and moved his lips to her ear, then down along the column of her neck, over her collarbone, and onto the slope of one breast. His lips fluttered against her smooth warm flesh, climbing slowly to the trembling peak.
Her breast seemed to swell under his careful attentions and she was trembling with aching need when his mouth finally claimed the nipple.
"Oh, baby," she breathed. "That's so good."
He used his hands to push her breasts together and his mouth moved back and forth from one to the other. His lips were living flames, working at her, inciting her, raising her to the heights of passion.
She twisted and groaned and trembled against him. Her hand found him again and she squeezed him with all her strength. His head moved over her body.
Karen thought she would go out of her mind with pleasure. Incoherent sounds bubbled from her lips.
She groaned with disappointment when his weight eased away and his lips left her flesh. Her eyes opened and she saw him slide off the edge of the bed.
His hands reached for her garters and one by one opened them to release the tops of her hose. He peeled the wisps of nylon off her legs and kissed the trembling surfaces of her legs. Then he removed her panties, and finally her garter belt.
His hands touched at the sides of her knees, then slid slowly and tantalizingly. But he stopped short of touching against her body and she cried out again.
She felt his hands tighten on the soft warm flesh of her legs and then his face was against her.
That was an indescribable sensation. Her body lurched and she screamed with lust. She'd had other men do this for her, but that had never been quite as good before. Sam was an expert.
His attentions fluttered against her. Then he moved his face from side to side, up and down, around in circles. Karen tangled her fingers in his hair, and yanked with all her might as the wonderful pleasure coursed through her.
He kept at her until the last tremblings had died away, then rose to his feet and began to remove his clothes. When he was naked Karen rolled over onto her side and reached out to him.
He stepped close to the edge of the bed. She raised her head and leaned toward him to kiss. Her lips touched him, worked.
He gasped and swayed and with an agonized cry, tore himself away. Karen moved over on the bed to make room for him. He stretched out beside her and took her in his arms. The mat of hair on his chest set the flesh of her breasts to tingling delightfully.
His hands wandered over her, touching, exploring every bit of flesh. She groaned and shuddered when he found what pleased her and he stroked her for a long wonderful time, while his kiss roamed back and forth over her breasts.
Finally Karen could stand that no longer. "Now, lover," she groaned. "I want you now! Now! Now! Now!"
He moved away and then touched lightly against her for a moment.
She held her breath, waiting. And then, at last, she exhaled with a scream of passion. Immediately her body began to work with wild response to the sensations of love.
"Wait!" he gasped, putting his lips to the shell of her ear. "Stop, damn it. Stop!"
"I can't. I can't," she panted. "Oh lover, I'm on fire. I've got to go. Go, go."
He slid one hand around and pinched cruelly at one breast until the pain penetrated her blanket of passion. Her wild movements slowed and then stopped.
"I want to teach you something new," he whispered. "Do what I tell you."
"All right. All right. Just hurry. I'm going out of my mind."
"Straighten out on the bed first," he instructed her.
She did as she was told.
"Good." He continued telling her exactly what to do.
She followed his instructions.
Followed them strictly.
"Yes," he whispered. "That's right." He continued his directions.
She moved as he directed, and a new sensation built for her.
"A little faster," he panted.
She increased the tempo slightly, then a little more without being told. Sam didn't move at all. He simply lay there and let the movements of her body do all the work. She was aware of what was happening and that was magnificent.
Doing what he wanted was hard work, but well worth the effort. The action forced her to use muscles she didn't know she had. That made her body work with a crazy motion that drove them both quickly to the heights of desire.
And the more excited she got the faster she worked.
And the faster she worked the greater was the sensation.
Until, at the end, searing the very essence of her soul with blinding fire, she was blind, deaf, and dumb to all sensations but the ecstatic pleasure. At the peak she screamed, raked his back with her nails, and chomped down hard on his shoulder with her teeth.
There was one instant of flash in her brain, and then nothing.
Chapter Seven
"Lady, lady, wake up, lady." A hand was shaking Karen's shoulder and someone seemed to be talking to her. Slowly she came out of the fog of alcoholic slumber. Her eyes opened and focused slowly on the wizened face above her.
"Who are you? What do you want?" she mumbled.
"Wake up, lady. Wake up."
She blinked her eyes and looked at the face again. That was an old man's face, leering down at her. She looked down at her naked and exposed body, screamed and sat bolt upright as her hands grasped for something with which to cover herself.
She found a corner of the sheet and pulled that up over her. Now she was wide awake but completely confused. "Who are you?" she asked shrilly. "What do you want in here? Get out before I call the police."
The old man reluctantly removed his hand from her shoulder and stepped back a pace from the bed. "I own this motel, lady. And I'm the one's gonna call the cops if you ain't up and out of here in five minutes flat. It's after one o'clock and check-out time's eleven-fifteen."
"Check-out time? What are you talking about? Nobody's checking out."
"You ain't, that's for sure. You ain't even registered here. But the guy who was registered in this cabin checked out before nine this morning. He didn't tell me he was leaving nothing behind. I got to get this cabin cleaned up and ready for the next customers. The check-ins'll start in another hour or two."
"Wait a minute," Karen said. "Let me get this straight. You mean Sam Wisner checked out of this room?"
"That wasn't the name he used," the old man said, grinning, his eyes tracing the lush contours of her body beneath the thin sheet. "But if you mean the guy who rented this cabin, he's long gone."
All at once Karen understood. The knowledge washed over her and she was nauseated. She threw back the sheet, staggered from the bed, and rushed into the bathroom where she was sick. The old man followed and stood in the doorway watching her, his eyes gleefully exploring every exposed glimpse of her naked body. Karen was too sick to care about being seen like that.
She knelt in front of the bathroom bowl and heaved until her stomach was empty. She was dizzy when she stood up again, but felt a little better when she splashed cold water on her face and the back of her neck. When she turned around the old man was still there.
"Get out of here, you dirty old man!" she screamed.
"Don't get your steam up, girlie," he said. "I'm going. But if you ain't out of here in ten minutes I'm calling the cops." He backed slowly out of the cabin so as not to miss a second of looking at her naked body.
When he was gone Karen stumbled back to the bed and dropped down on it. She was dizzy and sick from too much to drink. Her body was sore in a hundred places. Her head ached. Her mouth felt like a herd of cattle had grazed there all night.
Light streaming in the window hurt her eyes. She fought the pain as she looked around the room. The place was a mess-a real mess. Her clothes were scattered across the floor. Dresser drawers hung open and empty. The ash trays overflowed with cigarette butts. The liquor bottle lay in the center of the floor, a stain spreading around it. The air in the room was hot and stuffy and there were lingering odors of perspiration and stale tobacco and alcohol.
The odors made her gag again but there was nothing left in her stomach to throw up. She rose to her feet and moved slowly around the room, gathering up her clothing. On top of the dresser she found the note.
"Karen, I'm turning in my merit badges and resigning from the Boy Scouts. Remember what I taught you and chalk this up as another lesson.
"Thanks for the money.
-Love, Sam."
The dirty louse!
Karen looked around for her purse, spotted it on the floor just beside the door, and went over to pick it up. Her wallet and keys and things were still inside, but the money was gone - the six hundred and fifty-eight dollars from her winnings and the fifty dollars she'd had in her purse at the start of the day.
It was all gone. The dirty louse!
She cursed herself for a fool as she slipped into her wrinkled clothing. Sam Wisner, and that wasn't even his real name, had been a smart operator. He'd seen her win a considerable sum of money. He'd picked her up, wined her and dined her, romanced her, and all along he'd been planning to steal her money.
What a damn fool she was. It. didn't have to be that way. She could have left the money behind in her room. Though, in that case, he probably would have suggested they go to her room instead of here to this motel. But she could have stopped at the hotel desk and put the money in the safe.
Damn, damn, she thought as she donned her panties and pulled her dress on over her head. She stuffed her stockings and garter belt into her purse, slipped into her shoes, and went into the bathroom to make temporary repairs to her ravaged appearance.
Her eyeballs looked like road maps with crisscrossed red lines running across them. There were dark circles and puffy pouches beneath her eyes. She managed to get her hair into some semblance of order, wincing with pain each time she pulled the comb through the long strands. She washed the smeared make-up from her face and managed to keep one trembling hand still long enough to spread on a light layer of lipstick.
Her knees were wobbly as she stepped out of the cabin and the hot sun hit her like a fist in the pit of her stomach. She wavered for a moment, caught herself, and staggered toward the office.
The old man was sitting behind the desk ogling a pinup picture in a girlie magazine. He looked up when she came in, and said, "It's all right, girlie. I didn't call the cops."
She slumped into a chair, not bothering to pull the hem of her skirt down over her knees. The old man had seen more than that a little while ago.
"How do I get back to town from here?" she asked him.
"I could call you a cab."
She shook her head and winced. Even that hurt. "That rat took all my money. Is there a bus, or something?"
"Nah, we don't get no bus on this side of town. That guy robbed you, huh?"
"Yes."
"You want I should call the cops?"
"No. Don't do that. It's bad enough now. The whole world doesn't have to know what happened here. Would you lend me cab fare to get back to my hotel?"
"Not me, girlie. I don't even know you. You walk out of here with my money and that's the last I'll ever see of it. Don't you know somebody you can call?"
"No. I'm here on vacation. I don't know anybody. I met that louse last night in a casino in town."
"Hee, hee." The old man thought it was very funny. "First time I ever heard of a good-looking gal like you paying for her loving. The guys ought to be paying you. I was fifteen years younger I'd take you on myself."
Karen looked up at the leering old man. "You couldn't make out with me on the best day of your life," she growled. "You're really getting your kicks with this, aren't you?"
"It is funny, girlie. You got to admit that. And it didn't cost me nothin'."
"How far is it to town? I guess I'll have to walk."
"It's six miles in and in this sun you wouldn't last a mile and a half. Specially not in them shoes. You're really in a pickle, girlie. And ain't no way out unless I help you."
"Will you help me?"
He let his evil old eyes run over her body for a moment. "Maybe," he said. "You come in the back with me for about twenty minutes and you could earn your cab fare." His eyes fastened on her half exposed breasts and stayed there. "Yes sir, be worthwhile with a looker like you."
"I wouldn't let you make love to me if you had all the food in the world and I was starving to death."
The old man giggled again. "I ain't talking 'bout that," he said. "I'm too old now. But I still like to look and I got me one of them polarized cameras. You strip down buck naked and let me take a bunch of pictures and I'll give you ten dollars for cab fare."
Karen pulled herself up out of the chair, crossed to the counter, and leaned across it. In this position the old man could look right down the front of her dress and see her fully exposed breasts. He stared. She let him look for a moment, then hawked and spat right in his face.
He stumbled backward, yelling curses and wiping at his face with the sleeve of his shirt. Karen spun on her heel and marched out of the little office. She crossed to the highway and started walking slowly toward town.
In less than five minutes she was drenched with sweat. Her dress stuck to her body in damp patches and she knew what kind of appearance she made. But she didn't care.
Behind her she heard the high speed whine of an approaching vehicle. She stopped, turned to face the oncoming car, and raised her thumb in the time old gesture. The car whizzed by and the backwash of air tugged at the hem of her skirt. The car was out of sight even before she turned around again.
Three more cars passed her and then she heard the deeper growl of a big truck. She turned and raised her thumb again and was rewarded by the gnashing of gears, the hiss of air brakes, and the screech of heavy tires.
The truck bounced to a stop and. she looked up at the high door of the cab. The door opened and the driver leaned out. He grinned down at her. "Want a ride, baby?"
"No," she snapped. "I'm standing here collecting for charity."
He laughed. "Hop on up here. I'll take you into town."
The cab of the truck was quite high off the ground. Karen tried to step up, but her tight skirt prevented her from making it. She handed her purse and evening coat up to the driver and put her hands to the sides of the skirt. She hiked the skirt high above her knees, aware that the driver was ogling her legs, and climbed up into the cab.
She settled herself in the seat and the driver leaned across her to yank the door closed. His arm dragged across her sore breasts and she winced. He slammed the door, put the truck in gear, and slowly picked up speed.
Once they were rolling he turned to look at her. His eyes traveled over her, taking in every detail. "Looks like you had a bad night," he said.
"That's none of your business," she snapped.
"Come on, honey. That's no way to treat a guy who's doing you a favor. What have I ever done to you?"
"The way you're looking at me is enough," she told him. "I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong."
"Then I apologize," he said, surprising her. "But you can't blame me. Do you know how you look?"
"I know," she said. "And I'm lucky I got off this easily."
She looked at the driver closely for the first time. He was young, in his twenties, and big, with broad shoulders and heavy arms, but slim hips and legs. He had a big square head and a rock jawed and reasonably handsome face. His black hair was curled tightly against his skull. His work shirt was open to the waist to bare a broad, flat, muscular chest, covered with thick curly hair. And the sleeves of the shirt were rolled back to reveal tattooed arms which writhed with muscle as he controlled the heavy truck.
He was glancing at her out of the corner of his eye every few seconds and she knew he was staring at the way her unfettered and sweaty breasts bounced with the jouncing of the truck. He looked at her where the dress was stuck to her body.
But she didn't mind. This was not the same look the old man had given her. This was the normal and healthy interest of one attractive young human being for another. There was nothing evil or nasty in his look.
"You feel like telling me what happened?" he asked.
"Not really," she told him. "Let's just say I ran into a rat and got robbed. That's why I'm hitchhiking back to town. The louse took every cent I had except for some loose change."
"Where are you going?"
"Any place in town where I can catch a bus out to my hotel."
"You staying out at one of the places on the strip?"
"Yes."
"You're in luck. I got to drop this load out there. I'll take you right to your door."
"But that's as far as you take me."
"There you go again. I thought we were going to be friends."
"The last time something like this happened I got in trouble. The other guy started out doing me a favor, too."
"You can trust me."
"I've heard that song before. Let's keep this on an impersonal basis."
"Any way you want. Look, I'm going to stop up ahead for a bite to eat. You can wait in the truck, or you can come in with me. It's up to you."
"I could use about a gallon of coffee, if you're buying."
He grinned at her. "That's better. Of course I'll buy."
"Oh," Karen said. "I can't go in any place looking like this."
"Sure you can. What do you care what a bunch of idiots think? Let them stare at you. They'll think I'm the luckiest guy in the world."
It was a compliment of sorts and it brightened Karen's spirits. "All right," she said.
He pulled the truck in alongside a diner, hopped down, and ran around to help her down from her side. When he opened the door she swung her legs out. For a moment he stared, then turned his eyes away.
She leaned down and let his strong hands grasp her and lift her down from the cab. Inside they found a booth and he insisted that she order food with her coffee. Her stomach wasn't in the best shape in the world, but it was empty, too. So she ended up ordering ham and eggs and toast with her coffee.
Karen was surprised at how good the food tasted and at how easily she kept it down. She ate hungrily and in silence. The young man on the other side of the booth watched her with an amused smile. He didn't speak until she was drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette.
Then he said, "Well, whatever happened to you wasn't fatal. You've got a healthy appetite this morning."
Karen returned his smile. "I feel much better now. And a shower will really hit the spot. I can't wait to get back to my room."
"I kind of like you the way you are," he said, looking down where the dress outlined her sweaty breasts.
"I thought you weren't going to be like that."
"I'm sorry. But you can't really blame me. Finding a gal like you walking along the road is a truck driver's dream."
She laughed. "You're forgiven."
"Would you like another cup of coffee?" he asked.
She nodded, noticing that her headache was gone, and he signaled to the waitress.
"Hey look," he said after the coffee came. "I'm going to be in town for a couple of days before I pick up another load. I'd like to see you again."
Karen looked at him for a long time before answering. "It wouldn't be a good idea. What you have in mind is out of the question."
"Wait a minute. How do you know what I have in mind? Forget what happened to you last night for a minute. All I know is you're a girl who needed a lift and I stopped for you. I like you and I'd like to see you again. There's nothing more to it. There's a lot to do in this town, but none of its any fun unless you have somebody with you. It's no good when you're alone."
"Well," she hesitated, "let me think about it. Call me at my hotel late this afternoon and we'll see."
"I'll call you if you'll tell me your name. I'll know the hotel when I drop you off."
Karen smiled. "The name's Karen Dunken."
"I'm Jack Higgins."
"Well, Jack Higgins, shall we go?"
He paid the check and they went back out to the truck. This time he stood on the ground and boosted her up into the cab of the truck. And one of his hands slid lightly across her buttocks as he pushed.
He ran around to the other side, climbed up, started the engine, and pulled out into traffic. Maneuvering the big vehicle through the heavy mid-day downtown traffic was quite a feat and she couldn't help but admire his skill.
Once they were through the downtown area and out on the highway again the truck picked up speed and it was only a matter of minutes before he was wheeling into the hotel driveway.
As Jack pulled to a stop before the front door a bellhop came running out waving his arms.
Chapter Eight
All deliveries in the rear," the bellhop shouted. "You can't park that thing there."
"Hold your noise, sonny boy," Jack shouted back. "And help the lady down. She's the only delivery I'm making here."
The bellhop opened the cab door on Karen's side and stood waiting to help her down. She swung her legs out, then leaned back for a moment.
"I don't know how to thank you," she said. "If you hadn't stopped for me I'd still be out there in that sun."
"No trouble at all," he told her quickly. "And if you really want to thank me you can go out with me tonight."
"I still haven't made up my mind. Call me this afternoon."
"I'll call. Enjoy your bath and think of me."
She turned back out of the cab and looked down. The bellhop was standing there with hands upraised. He was staring with bulging eyes and hanging jaw.
"Easy junior," she snapped as he helped her down. "You'll give yourself a heart attack."
He blushed and turned his eyes downward. Karen reached up to close the door and the movement nearly pulled her breast out of the open bodice of her dress. She waved to Jack as he drove away and he waved back. When she turned around again the bellhop was still standing there, his bulging eyes tracing the curves of her legs and buttocks beneath the dress.
"Look," she said, "I don't want to go through the lobby dressed like this. Is there some other way I can get up to my room?"
He thought for a moment, then shook his head. "The only way to the elevator is straight through the lobby and casino."
"Isn't there a stairway?"
"Well, yes. But we'd have to go through the back door of the kitchen, then through the dining room. And right now there are more people in the kitchen than there are in the lobby and casino."
Karen shrugged her shoulders and the movement caused her unfettered breasts to bounce crazily, the nipples sliding against the inside of the bodice of the dress.
"Oh well," she said, resignedly. "Let's give them all a free show."
"If you want you could go straight to the elevator and I could pick up your key for you. That way you wouldn't have to stand around very long."
"All right."
Karen threw her head back, squared her shoulders, and strolled into the hotel. She walked quickly across the lobby and through the casino, keeping her eyes straight forward. She heard a couple of whispers and noticed several stares, but did her best to ignore them.
The bellhop came trotting up just as she reached the elevator. They stepped in, Karen pressed the button, the doors closed, the elevator rose, the doors opened again, and they stepped out.
The bellhop opened the door of her room for her and stepped aside. Karen stepped into the open doorway and turned to face him. She reached out and plucked the key from his hand.
He looked disappointed when she said, "That'll be all. I won't need you anymore."
She closed the door, walked across the room, and threw herself down on the bed. After a moment or two she stood up again and stripped off her clothes. In the bathroom she plugged the tub and turned on the water. A shower wouldn't do her right then. Only a long lazy soak in a hot tub would make her feel clean.
While the tub was filling she went to the phone and ordered a big pot of coffee from room service. When the tub was full she tested the water temperature with her toe, stepped in, and settled slowly down.
She sighed, leaned back and closed her eyes. The bath was heavenly. The hot water lapped against her flesh, soothing her. The heat seeped into her muscles and she could feel the tension flowing out.
It had been quite an experience but it could have been worse. She might have been killed or injured. Or she could have lost everything. As it was, most of the money she'd brought with her was still in her suitcase in the form of traveler's checks. All she'd really lost was the money she'd won at the gaming tables and a few dollars of her own. She wasn't really much worse off than when she'd arrived in this town.
The worst part of the whole thing was the feeling of having been used, the feeling of having been a stupid fool. Sam Wisner, or whatever his name really was, was a smooth operator and she'd fallen for his line like some innocent lamb.
And Sam wasn't the only louse in the world. That old man out at the motel ran him a pretty good second the way he had tried to take advantage of her when she needed help. She shuddered to think how close she'd come to accepting his filthy proposition. If she'd hesitated for two seconds she would have gone, into that back room with him and let him take his dirty pictures. And she knew the kinds of pictures he would want. He would have wanted her to bend and stretch and posture and to expose her most delightful charms to the all-seeing lens.
And for the rest of her life she would have known that somewhere there was a dirty old man staring at pictures of her with helpless and perverted lust.
Yes, the old man, in his way, had done as much to her as had Sam Wisner. The single factor which hurt deepest was their attitude toward her. To them she wasn't a female human being. She was only so much meat hung in the butcher shop window. They didn't care about her as a person, but only as so many pounds of flesh arranged in a particularly attractive way.
A soft knock at the outer door brought her out of the depths of her thoughts. "Who is it?" she called.
"Room service," came the answer.
She had started to rise from the tub and reach for a towel when she recognized the voice. It was her old friend the bellhop. Not the one from a few minutes ago, but the original one, the one she'd made love with that first day and the one she'd teased yesterday.
She sank back into the tub and called out, "Come in. The door's open."
She heard him enter and said, "I'm in the bathroom." They'd been lovers. False modesty seemed foolish and stupid.
He came into the bathroom, looked at her, and his hands began to shake. The coffee pot and cup rattled on the tray.
"Don't stand there, stupid. Put it down and pour."
He set the tray down and filled the cup with coffee.
"One sugar and a little cream," she told him.
He followed her directions and brought the cup to her. She took a sip and set the cup down on the rim of the tub. He was staring at her with an expression of open and helpless lust.
"You don't give up trying, do you?" she asked.
He said nothing.
"Well, as long as you're here you can wash my back." She picked up the washcloth and soap and handed them up to him.
He dropped to his knees beside the tub, pulled back his cuffs, and dipped the cloth and soap into the water. Karen shifted in the water, turning her back to him.
His hands shook as he pressed the cloth to the nape of her neck and smoothed that out over her shoulders. He washed her back slowly and gently, evidently enjoying every moment of the contact.
Karen could see his face in the mirror and she was astonished at the expression. He looked exactly like a hound dog, licking his master's feet. She liked that look of abject and total servility. He was a slave and she was the princess.
"That's enough there," she said, turning slowly. "Now this side."
Excitement gleamed in his eyes as he reached for her breasts. And here he was rougher, rubbing the cloth hard against her sensitive skin. She could feel a tingling beginning and she liked that. Her nipples tensed beneath his touch and he concentrated his attentions on them.
He washed her throat, her shoulders, and her breasts, then cast the washcloth aside and used his bare hand to cup up fresh water to rinse her off. And with his bare hand he clutched one of her breasts, his fingers digging at the soft flesh.
"Easy," she whispered. "Easy, baby. Not now. Not yet. I'll tell you when. There's still more to wash."
She lifted one long, smooth naked leg out of the water. He picked up the washcloth and set to work again. He washed her toes, the sole of her foot, her instep, her ankle. Then the calf all the way to the knee. His hands strayed along the side of her upper leg and she made no protest.
His adoring devotion thrilled her even more than the actual sensation of his touch. He washed her entire leg and the warmth of desire built for her. But this was not the usual desire for a man. This was a highly specialized desire. She didn't want to make love with him. She wanted him to make love to her. And a very special way.
He washed the other leg and she rose to her knees in the tub. In that position the water came only halfway above her knees. Now he washed her buttocks lovingly and tenderly, then her waist.
And after he had her rinsed off she stood up, unplugged the tub, and let him dry her. When she was dry she went into the bedroom and stretched out on the bed.
"Bring the coffee in here," she told him.
The first cup was cold now and she had him pour a second. She lay on her back with the saucer resting on her stomach. Her knees were bent. The soles of her feet were flat on the mattress with the heels up near the undercurves of her buttocks.
He sat near the foot of the bed and stared at her. She could feel his eyes upon her and that was thrilling. She finished the coffee and took out a cigarette. He scrambled up to the head of the bed to give her a light, then returned to his former position.
She wanted something from him now. She needed that. To subjugate him to her special desires would be to deny the subtle assertions of Sam Wisner and the old man of the motel.
She touched herself. "You want some of this, don't you?" she asked in a whisper.
He nodded,
"Would you do this my way? And only for me?"
He nodded quickly. "You know what that means, now? You don't even open your collar."
"I don't care," he said, speaking for the first time since he'd entered the room. "You're beautiful and I want to do that for you. I love you." His voice was a harsh whisper.
She doubted the last part of his statement, but didn't want to make an issue of that. She slid along the bed until her buttocks were resting on the very edge of the mattress.
He moved around to the side, perched there, and leaned over her breasts. His face descended very slowly toward her breasts. She felt the warm fanning of his breath long before she felt the touch of his lips.
Karen sighed and closed her eyes. His hand closed over the other breast and she gave a soft groan of pleasure. Her hands locked behind his head but there was no need to exert any pressure. He knew what she wanted and was ready to do that.
For a long while he played about her breasts. And each kiss raised the temperature of her desire another notch. He was quite skilled in the use of his lips and teeth.
For a long time he would kiss gently. Then he would startle her with a nip of his teeth, causing her to gasp for breath. Then, quickly, before she had a chance to adjust to the new sensation, he would kiss gently again.
She never knew when he would bite and when he would kiss. Her breasts heaved with every breath. Her nostrils flared. She wailed continuously with desire now, a high keening cry issuing forth from her throat.
He moved his face lower on her body. His lips traced the bumps of her ribs there just beneath her fine skin.
Then his mouth was pressed down hard against her and all her muscles flexed convulsively.
He left her for a moment and she cried out frustration and disappointment. Then he was at work again. While his lips were busy, the tips of his fingers were busy elsewhere, touching. He was touching her the same way she'd touched herself, only that was so much better when he was doing that.
Finally she could stand no more.
"Now!" she cried. "Now!"
His face, slid against her.
She gasped and groaned and whimpered. His attack was savage in its intensity and there was as much pain as there was pleasure, but she liked the pain, too, lashing her to the heights of desire. His face twisted from side to side.
The muscles in her legs tensed. Her body began to quiver and quake. He sensed her state and his hands tightened on her, digging painfully at the passion-taut muscles. His struggles grew wilder until he was brutally punishing her.
The end was swift and devastating. Her entire body tensed, her brain exploded, and joy flooded through her.
She didn't let him stop all at once. Instead she made him slow gently from the frantic peak of activity. Then all her muscles relaxed. She slumped. Her eyes were closed and a dreamy smile played about her lips.
She heard him rise and go into the bathroom. Then there was the sound of water running in the sink. Then silence for a long time.
Finally he came out of the bathroom again and she opened her eyes. His face was flushed and his eyes were glazed over. He looked down at her nakedness for a long time.
She smiled at him. "Thank you," she said softly. "You were wonderful." She touched herself with a wanton gesture. "That was just what I needed."
"I ... I love you," he said, his voice cracking.
"You're sweet," she told him, still touching herself and still smiling. "If I want you again I'll call you. Now get out of here and let me sleep."
"Any time," he said breathlessly and intensely. "Call me any time. I don't care if there's never any more than what I just did. I'll settle for that."
He left and Karen rolled over on her side, curled up, and went to sleep.
Chapter Nine
The telephone rang four times before Karen got to it. The first ring barely penetrated her deep relaxed sleep. It took two more rings to wake her up fully, and a fourth ring while she rolled to the side of the bed and fumbled about for the receiver.
"Hi," a voice said brightly as soon as she lifted the phone to her ear. "It's me - Jack."
"What time is it?" she asked in a thick, sleepy voice.
"Six o'clock. Did I wake you up?"
"Yes. But it's all right. I slept enough."
She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, brushed her hair back from her face, and rubbed at her eyes.
"Look, I'm all finished for the day. Got myself a place to stay and I won't have a load out of here until day after tomorrow. How about dinner?"
"Not tonight, Jack."
"Okay. I get it. I'll see you around sometime."
"No, Jack, wait! This isn't a brush-off."
"It sure sounds like it. What's the matter? Isn't an ordinary truck driver good enough for you?"
"Jack, please. It's not that at all. I just don't feel like going out tonight. I'm tired and I'm depressed and I wouldn't be good company, anyway."
"But you have to eat and so do I. Eating alone will only make both of us more depressed. Suppose we make it just for dinner? Then after we eat I'll take you right back to your hotel and say good night. I promise."
"Don't promise anything. I've had enough promises in the last couple of days to last me a lifetime."
"All right, I won't promise. But how about it?"
"I'll accept on one condition."
"What's that?"
"We make it a very simple meal someplace. I don't feel like getting dressed up tonight. I want to go some place where I can wear slacks and a sweater."
"It's a deal," he said quickly. "Besides, I'll bet you look great in a sweater."
"Don't get your hopes up," she told him. "I'm going to wear a bra."
"You'll still look great. I'll pick you up in half an hour. What's your room number?"
"Call up from the desk. I'll meet you in the lobby."
"Okay, if that's the way you want it."
"That's the way. I want it."
"Half an hour, then."
Karen replaced the receiver and stood up. The blinds were open and the room was lit only by the last feeble rays of the sunset. Outside, night was falling. She crossed to the window, lowered the blinds and closed the drapes, then turned on the light in the room.
She went over to stand before the mirror and inspect her naked body. The bruises she'd received her first day in town were gone now, but there were others in their place. These new bruises were reminders of Sam Wisner. The bellhop had left no marks that showed.
Her breasts and upper legs seemed a little puffy and she resolved too decrease her intake of alcohol. A girl who drank too much too often got too fat too quickly. Except for the puffiness, which would disappear, she looked pretty good.
She hefted her breasts, testing them for sag. They didn't sag, but they did seem somehow larger. Well, with all the attention they'd been getting in the last few days that was no wonder.
Her hands smoothed down over her body from her breasts, pressing for a moment at her waist, then gliding down to her legs. Everything was still in relatively good condition. Her skin was still smooth and warm and resilient.
When she turned her back and looked over her shoulder she noticed one bite mark on the under curve of her left buttock. That damned bellhop had done that to her. And she'd been too excited even to notice. She shivered with remembered ecstasy when she thought about the afternoon performance.
That had been magnificent. If the bellhop remained satisfied only to please her that way she would continue seeing him. Receiving such magnificent pleasure without the obligation to give any pleasure gave her a feeling of power and dominance. If he enjoyed doing that she'd have to be an idiot not to take advantage. He would be something on the side to cheer her up when she was feeling blue, and he didn't necessarily have to have anything to do with any of her other activities.
She tore herself away from her reflection and went into the bathroom. There she washed her face in cold water and brushed and combed her hair into a pony tail. Then she went back into the bedroom and selected her clothes for the evening.
She chose dark blue stretch slacks, a powder blue sweater, and the necessary under things. Wearing slacks meant she could do with only a bra and panties beneath her outer clothing. She selected plain white cotton undergarments with no lace and no frills. She didn't plan on anyone seeing the underwear so she didn't have to worry about being fancy.
She donned the clothes and slipped her feet into a pair of low-heeled shoes, then got a short jacket from the closet She knew she would need a jacket when they left the hotel.
The phone rang again just as she was finishing with her make-up. Jack was waiting downstairs. She grabbed her things, locked the door, and took the elevator downstairs.
She left her key at the desk and tried to cash a fifty dollar traveler's check. The clerk told her the only place she could cash a check was at the casino cashier's booth.
Jack accompanied her into the casino and waited while she cashed the check. Then he whisked her out to a waiting cab and they were off. The taxi took them to a quiet roadside spot halfway to town.
As in any other public place in this town there were slot machines along the walls of the bar. But inside the dining room there were only small tables and quiet booths. There was no live orchestra or juke box, but soft violin music was piped into the room through speakers up near the ceiling. It was a pleasant place which emphasized food and service rather than gambling.
Jack ordered a steak and Karen decided on the chicken. The waitress suggested cocktails but Karen refused. Jack ordered a martini. When his drink came he sipped and leaned back in his seat.
"How did a nice girl like you ever get into trouble?" he asked.
"It's a long story."
"We've got plenty of time, if you feel like talking."
To her surprise Karen found herself telling Jack much of what had happened. She left out the intimate details. She told him about winning the contest and deciding to look for a job here. She told him about her fruitless walk around town and about what she'd seen through the keyhole in the real estate office.
He smiled at the last and said, "I guess I'm in the wrong business. My women aren't that easy." He realized the double meaning of his statement. "Uh ..." he stammered. "I mean, I don't find them ... You know what I mean."
"Yes, I do. But you don't look like you should have any trouble - a big handsome guy like you."
He blushed and Karen couldn't stifle a giggle. Then she went on to tell him about winning all that money at the casino and being picked up by Wisner.
"He took me to dinner. Then we went out to a show and dancing. I had quite a bit to drink, but I still don't understand why I passed out when we got to his motel." She didn't mention the love-making.
"It sounds like he put something in your drink. He wouldn't depend on just getting you drunk."
"I never thought of that," she told him. "That louse probably did put something in my drink. Oooh, if I had him here right now I d kill him."
Jack laughed. "You wouldn't have to. I'd do it for you. And I'd enjoy doing it. I have no use for a guy who takes advantage of beautiful and helpless women."
She went on to tell him about waking up in the nude with the old man standing there, and about the things the old man had wanted her to do to earn her cab fare. Now, in the retelling it was more humorous than serious and they both had a good laugh.
The food came then and for a while there was no conversation. When Jack finished his steak he leaned back with a pleased sigh and lit a cigarette. Karen was still nibbling at the bones of her chicken. She'd been hungrier than she thought.
"I'd say you were pretty lucky," Jack told her. "You didn't lose much money of your own and you weren't seriously hurt. He could have smacked you over the head instead of putting something in your drink."
"You're right," she said around a mouthful of chicken. "But do you think I should have called the police?"
"It wouldn't have done much good," he told her. "With the head start he had he would have been out of the state. And besides, the police might have given you a hard time about going to his motel room with him. They might have figured you for a hustler who got cheated by a customer. It would have been a humiliating experience. You're better off letting it go and forgetting it."
"You're right again. And now you know all about me but I still don't know anything about you."
"What's to know? I'm a truck driver, I'm twenty-five years old, and I'm single. What else is there?"
"There's a lot more. In the first place you're more than just a truck driver. You've had some education. I can tell that much."
"Yes. I've been to college. I have a degree in history. But I'm still a truck driver."
"But why, with a college degree?"
"Because I can make more driving a truck than I can going to work for some big company. There's nothing wrong with trucks. I like them, driving them, fixing them. When I get enough money saved I want to go into business for myself. I won't be a wage slave all my life."
He went on talking about himself and she learned that he had no family and kept a small inexpensive apartment in Los Angeles. He was interested in skiing, skin diving, and flying, and he had a pilot's license. He enjoyed cross country trucking because he liked new places and new things.
And he was a man of his word. When they were finished eating he took her straight back to her hotel and didn't even try to get her to change her mind about going out with him.
Just before he left her in the lobby he asked for a date for the following night. Karen didn't want to commit herself and told him to call her the next afternoon. He left and she retrieved her key and went up to her room.
There were no television sets in any of the rooms. The management didn't want anything to keep the guests from the casino. And after a few minutes alone Karen began to be sorry she hadn't changed her mind. She no longer felt like being alone. Dinner had been pleasant and had dispelled her depression.
She went out again, leaving her jacket behind, and taking only her room key and her purse. The action at the casino was at a peak when she got down there but she did find a seat at a blackjack table.
She changed twenty-five dollars into chips and remembered Sam Wisner's advice. He might have been an unprincipled thief but what he'd told her about gambling made sense.
She set herself a fifty dollar limit and settled down to play. For the first hour she won about as often as she lost. Then, for a while, she lost steadily. During that losing streak she bet only the one dollar minimum but she lost the whole twenty-five anyway.
Most of the second twenty-five disappeared quickly, too, and she had only four dollars out of fifty left when her luck took a turn for the better. She won three hands in a row and doubled her bets. Then came two blackjacks and she was paid three dollars each time for her two-dollar bets.
She risked five dollars on the next hand. Won, and bet ten on the following hand. She won the ten dollar bet also. Now she had thirty-two dollars and seemed well on her way to winning back her money.
She bet ten dollars again, but the hand was a tie and she neither won nor lost. On the next hand she bet five dollars, lost, and went back to ten dollar bets. She won two hands in a row, which gave her a total of forty-seven dollars.
She was just about even and she hesitated, thinking perhaps she ought to call it square and quit for the night. But she'd had her bad luck already and she'd have to be a damned fool to quit while she was winning. She cautioned herself against betting too much. That way, when she began to lose, she could quit before she lost too much.
Ten dollars, however, seemed to be a lucky wager for her. She bet the ten and looked at her cards when they were dealt to her. She had a seven and a four and this was the first hand after a shuffle. She decided to double down on her bet, pushed out another ten dollars in chips, and watched the dealer give her one more card face down, then go on to the next player.
She didn't even look at the card and excitement thumped in the pit of her stomach while she waited for the dealer to finish with the other players and show his own hand. He had a nine showing and she hoped he had a seven or under underneath.
He didn't have a seven. He had a king. Her heart stopped beating as he reached to turn over her cards. He turned them over one at a time, revealing first the seven, then the four, and finally the jack of clubs.
She'd won!
The dealer smiled when she let her breath out with an explosive gasp. He paid her twenty dollars, swept up her cards, and went on to the next player.
Now she had sixty-seven dollars.
Karen bet ten dollars on the next hand, got blackjack, and won fifteen. This gave her a total of eighty-two dollars and she settled down to play in earnest.
By midnight she was one hundred and eighty-eight dollars ahead and she felt on top of the world. She'd increased her bets from ten to twenty dollars and had continued to win. But she didn't bet twenty dollars every time and she was lucky enough to lose only when she had small wagers before her.
By one o'clock she was over the two hundred mark - a hundred and fifty dollar profit for the evening. Then she remembered Sam Wisner's advice again and decided she'd had enough.
She carried her chips over to the cashier's window. There were two people ahead of her, one waiting to cash a check, and she got on the end of the line.
A hand on her shoulder made her turn around and she found herself looking into the smiling face of Mathew Kent.
"Looks like you did all right for yourself," he said, indicating the chips in her hand.
"Yes. I won. But I'm not so sure I want to talk to you. You didn't even bother to call me since the other evening."
"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I would have called, but I've been busy."
"Too busy to make a lousy phone call?"
"Yes, I've been playing poker for the last thirty-odd hours. Don't I look it?"
She looked at him more closely and noticed the fatigue lines in his face and the circles under his eyes. The collar of his shirt, beneath his jacket, was wrinkled and stained, and he smelled like he needed a shower.
"I guess I'll forgive you, then. How did you do?"
"I won a little. About five thousand. But I worked hard for it, let me tell you. It wasn't easy. How about a drink with me?"
"I should think the only thing you'd want right now would be sleep."
He shook his head. "I couldn't go to sleep right now if I wanted to. It'll take me a couple of hours to unwind. Let's celebrate our both winning."
"All right," she said smiling. "And if you fall on your face I'll put you to bed."
"It's a deal," he said. "But if I don't fall on my face I get the chance to put you to bed, okay?"
"We'll see," she told him. "I'm not making any promises."
She turned back to the window, cashed her chips, and went with him to the cocktail lounge.
"How did you find me here?" she asked when they were seated.
"I didn't. We were playing in a suite upstairs and I noticed you when I got out of the elevator. I was on my way over to the desk to call your room. But I didn't expect to find you in. I guess my luck is still running."
Their drinks came and Karen noticed Matt had a nervous tick pulling at the corner of his mouth. He really was tensed up and when a nearby slot machine paid off a jackpot he nearly jumped out of his pants.
He swallowed his drink in three long gulps, and said, "Look, I'll never unwind around here. The sound of chips sets my teeth on edge. I want to forget all about gambling for the next few hours. What do you say we go out to my house? It's not far from here and my car is right outside."
"All right," she said. "But I'll drive. Right now you're worse than if you were drunk."
"It's a deal. Let's go."
"Wait a minute. I'll need a jacket. Stay here. I'll be right back."
She hurried up to her room, grabbed her jacket, and hurried back to him. They went out to his car, she drove, and he gave directions.
He lived in small ranch-style house on a pleasant side street in a tract close to town. He sat quite close to her in the car as she drove, one hand resting on her leg. She was aware of the pleasant warmth of that hand penetrating the several layers of cloth covering her skin but she concentrated on her driving.
The houses in the tract were all very similar to one another but in the moonlight they looked quite pleasant. The lots were large enough so that one neighbor was not staring down another's throat. Attempts at landscaping had failed. The blazing desert sun was a formidable opponent.
Matt pointed out the house and Karen pulled into the driveway. She shut off the engine and gave him the keys, and didn't wait for him to come around to open her door. He unlocked the front door of the house, ushered her in, and turned on a light.
Karen found herself in a large, comfortably furnished living room. The heavy pieces of furniture were solid, comfortable looking, and entirely masculine. There was a fireplace with a gas log, a hi-fi console, a bar; and several floor-to-ceiling bookcases were jammed with books.
Matt waved her to a seat and went directly to the bar to mix drinks. Karen strolled slowly around the room, looking at things, touching things as though she were leaving her spoor as proof of presence.
He came back with the drinks, handed her one, and lifted his own in silent toast. She clinked her glass against his and sipped from it.
"Well, what do you think of my place?" he asked, waving his arm to take in the entire room.
"It's charming, really. I'd like to see the whole house."
"One fifty cent tour coming up."
He took her arm and guided her through an archway into a dining room. The furniture here was older, scarred, and mismatched. "I don't use this room much," he said by way of explanation.
The kitchen was modern and clean with no dishes in the sink and no garbage scattered about. She commented on that and he explained that he had a housekeeper come in three days a week to keep the garbage from piling up to the ceiling.
Beyond the kitchen were the two bedrooms. One of the bedrooms was furnished as an office, with a desk and chair and several filing cabinets. The desk was littered with papers and the waste basket was filled to overflowing. The other bedroom was neat and furnished in the same quiet but effective taste as the living room.
"I like your house," she told him as they walked back to the living room. "Of course, it lacks a woman's touch."
He grinned. "That's the way I like it - lacking a woman's touch. When a girl becomes too interested in redecorating I start looking for another girl."
He sat her down on the sofa, went over to turn on the hi-fi, and came back to join her.
"You're a confirmed bachelor, then?"
"Confirmed, and blessed, and the last rites have been pronounced. I like the way I live and wouldn't change it for anything."
"But what about love?"
"If it doesn't fit into the existing conditions I won't have it."
The conversation was light and relatively unimportant. They said the kinds of things two people who didn't know one another too well might be expected to say. But Karen noticed Matt was speaking too quickly, and with a thin edge of something like panic in his voice. She finished her drink and suggested he light the fire, then sent him to the bar to mix fresh drinks.
When he came back to her she was no longer seated on the sofa. Instead she was lying on her back on the rug before the fireplace: He dropped down beside her and handed her the drink. His hand trembled.
She took that trembling hand and held that in her own, her small slim fingers pressing firmly. The firelight flickered on her smoothly rounded legs in the tight slacks. She pressed the hand lightly to her bosom and sighed.
"Why do you do that?" she asked.
"Do what?"
"Stay up for thirty hours straight? Get yourself in this condition?"
"Don't let my being strung out like this bother you. I'll be all right by tomorrow. I guess I play poker for the same reason other men climb mountains. And at least I have the chance to win money. But there's more to it than just the money. Poker requires a lot of skill - more than most people imagine. Luck is really only a secondary factor. A good poker player is a combination psychologist and mathematician. There are many subtleties to the game."
He pressed his hand more firmly against her bosom and leaned over to kiss her lightly on the lips. That was a friendly kiss, without urgency or desire, and they both kept the kiss that way.
Karen could almost feel the tension vibrating through him and that touched a peculiar cord in her. He needed her. He needed soothing and relaxing. She could draw that tension from him, relieve him of that.
She could take him unto herself, fulfill her womanhood in the manner of women since the beginning of time. Her breasts would soothe him, her arms would comfort him. He was a warrior home from the battlefield and she was his woman.
He eased himself down beside her and she rolled against him. Her breasts flattened against his chest.
He kissed her lightly on the lips once again, then slid his mouth to the pink shell of her ear. "Mmm," he said softly. "This is nice. You're so soft and warm."
"Hush," she said, putting her fingers lightly to his lips. "Don't talk."
He stroked his hand down from her shoulder, down to the narrowness of her waist, then up to the flaring curve of her hip, and finally around behind to cup her buttocks.
There was no grasping, driving need. That was understood between them what was to follow and there was no need to rush to completion before she might change her mind.
He cupped her buttocks lightly, squeezing and relaxing with a slow tempo. She kissed him again.
He closed his eyes, sighed, and rolled to his back. She moved closer to him, to kiss his closed eyelids, his nose, the line of his jaw, the strong column of his neck.
They toyed with one another, letting the need build ever so slowly. And finally the time arrived to strip away the clothing. When she leaned back from him he struggled to rise. She put her hand flat against his chest and shoved him back.
"No," she said softly. "Don't move. Just lie there and let me do everything."
She rose and crossed the room to turn off the lights. Now the only light in the room came from the dancing flames of the fire. Flickering shadows were cast on the opposite wall.
She went back to stand towering over him. He was smiling and his eyes danced as he watched her cross her arms over her breasts and grasp the bottom of her sweater.
She pulled the sweater over her head, tossed that aside, and tucked her arms up behind her back to unfasten her bra. The hooks opened, her big breasts sprang free of their confinement. She tossed the bra away and cupped her naked breasts, her fingers gently rubbing away the red lines left by the elastic.
She was close enough to the fireplace to feel the warmth of the flames and her nipples stirred, raising their dainty tips.
"Lovely," she heard him whisper softly. "So lovely."
Karen kicked out of her shoes and found the zipper which ran down her buttocks at the back of the stretch slacks. She pulled the zipper down and peeled the tight slacks over the widest part of her hips, then shoved them down to her ankles.
Daintily she stepped out of the trousers and kicked them away. Now she was clad only in the plain cotton panties and the firelight was reflected on her rosy flesh in dancing flickering highlights.
He was staring more intently now, his eyes wider. She hooked her thumbs under the waistband of the panties and yanked them quickly down, raising first one leg, then the other to step out of her last garment.
Completely naked, she stood on widespread feet facing the fire. She pressed her palms against the fronts of her legs and smoothed her hands slowly upward along her body. Her hands caressed the curves of her hips, swept inward at her tiny waist, then flared outward again as they rose toward her shoulders.
She slid her hands beneath her breasts, lifting and squeezing for a moment, then raised her arms high in the air. She turned her back to the fire now to let some of the warmth penetrate her back.
"You're so damned beautiful that makes me ache to look at you," he whispered with awe in his voice.
She smiled as she knelt beside him and reached for the top button of his shirt. She was leaning forward and her breasts hung away from her body. He reached out with one hand, held one for a moment, then swung that against its twin.
The breasts swung together with a soft smack, then bounced and bobbled crazily, like two silent bells, the nipples weaving invisible patterns in the firelight.
He captured them again, this time reaching with both hands. He squeezed them, hefting their considerable weight, and grasped the tingling nipples with thumbs and forefingers.
Karen giggled, moved her shoulders, and leaned back. Her breasts pulled out of his hands and fell back against her chest with a soft sound.
"Don't!" she gasped softly. "Don't touch me or I'll never get you undressed."
He dropped his hands and she returned to her work. She got the shirt open, pulled the tails out of the top of his trousers, and pulled off one sleeve at a time. The undershirt came off more quickly and he was bare to the waist.
Karen crawled down to his feet, untied his laces, and removed his shoes and socks. Then she crawled up to his waist to open his belt and trousers; He raised his hips off the floor to aid her as she drew his trousers and shorts down and off. And, finally, he was naked, too.
She knelt at his hip again and put her hands on his shoulders. He started to reach for her but she shook her head.
"Not yet," she whispered. "Just lie there. I want to do everything for you."
She drew her hands along his body. Her sensitive and thrilling fingers traced the flat hard ridges of muscle on his chest and the indentations of his ribs.
She bent forward quickly and pressed her lips to his chest. He sighed. She grated lightly with her teeth and he groaned softly.
Her hands moved over his body. His stomach muscles were knotted and coiled with tension until his skin looked like a washboard. She stroked lightly there until he relaxed, then kissed him again.
Her hands moved again, to the strong columns of his hairy legs. She kneaded the muscles of his legs until they relaxed. He sighed and smiled.
"You're wonderful," he whispered.
"Turn over," she told him.
He rolled onto his front and she attacked the tensed muscles of his neck and shoulders and back, kneading and prodding until the tension was gone. She worked down the narrowing vee to his waist and continued on to his hips. There she pinched and kneaded and slapped for a few moments, then continued on down along the backs of his legs.
He was sighing regularly now and when she was finished he rolled to his back without being told. His body was more relaxed.
"That was the best massage I ever had," he told her softly.
"That's not over yet," she answered. Now her hands reached for him again, alternately massaged and stroked.
While she was doing this he reached for her. One hand touched a breast and the other curved around her hip to stroke her buttocks.
For the first time Karen realized how excited she was. She'd been concentrating only on him and had not noticed her own reactions. Desire pounded through her body like a jungle drum, answering the rhythm of the music from the hi-fi. Her breasts were swollen and aching. The muscles of her legs were quivering.
She stared long and hard at the brutal strength of him. Then with an agonized cry she threw herself forward, lips pursed for a kiss. His breath whistled in when she pressed her lips against him. He reached to stroke her face and twine his fingers in her long hair.
Her lips worked. This was not the first time she'd bestowed this particular caress, but this was the first time she'd ever wanted to do that so badly. He was the Warrior God and she was worshipping him.
"Stop!" he cried out when he could stand no more. And when she continued despite his plea he pulled hard on her hair, slowly forcing her face away from his body.
She threw herself down full length beside him and mashed her mouth on his. She kissed him deeply, crushing her breasts to him. Her taut nipples dug at his chest. He stroked his hands over her back from her shoulders to the shadowed hollows behind her knees, settling them finally on the tops of the backs of her legs just below her buttocks.
She gasped and bit hard at the corner of his mouth. His hands attacked cruelly and she dragged her breasts against his face, smothering him with soft flesh. His hands moved around to the front of her body to still the swaying quivering of her breasts.
He pinched the nipples and squeezed the spheres of flesh and rubbed his face against them.
They caressed one another with hands and lips, their bodies quivering as they mumbled inarticulate sounds of love. Each touch of his mouth, each touch of his hands, drove her wilder, pushed her higher on the mountain of her passion. She passed one craggy plateau after another until only the ultimate peak lay above her. And with an agonized cry, she tore herself from him.
She rose to her feet, looked down at his straining body, and then slowly, ever so slowly, she lowered herself.
She stopped briefly, held her breath, gathered herself for the terrible wonder and, with a muted cry of anguish and desire, let herself fall.
For a long, breathless moment neither of them moved. The ache of desire was gone from her breasts. This was her purpose in life. This was her total fulfillment as a woman and as a human being and she gloried in the concept.
He reached with his hands and lightly stroked the taut shadowed hollows of her legs, then reached from those legs to her waiting breasts.
She let her breath explode from her lungs and began to move, slowly at first, and with no particular tempo, then faster and more rhythmically. She could tell from the movements of his body and the expressions which flitted across his face his reaction to each of the different movements of her body.
She worked faster and faster, wrenching herself harder and harder. There were two fires in the room now - the one in the fireplace still burned brightly and she had an even better flame of her own.
The warmth of that second fire spread throughout her and got higher and higher. A fine film of sweat covered her naked flesh. That gathered into beads, and then ran in a tiny river between her breasts. His hands were gripping her with cruel strength. She gasped and cried out with each movement of her body.
Still faster she moved ...
Still harder she threw herself against him, tearing at him as though she wanted to destroy him.
Her culmination began as a light tingling and grew rapidly in intensity until there was a vibrating of her entire network of nerves. Electric sparks were shooting up and down her spine. Her brain was throwing off particles of energy like an atomic pile with all the safety rods removed.
The explosion was a tiny replica of the Hiroshima blast. There was a blinding flash of white light inside her skull, then an instant of nothingness, and finally the violent firestorm of sensation.
Muscles twitched and trembled as though with lives of their own. For a moment she was in fear of being torn apart by the violent wrenching of her body. The incredible blast blistered and seared her flesh and seemed to melt her bones.
She flopped down, falling forward and lying stretched out along the length of him for a long time while the quaking and quivering slowly receded.
She remained in that position for a long time, enjoying the stillness and wonder of the after-pleasure. Her lips nuzzled against the hollow of his throat and she kissed softly and with gratitude.
Finally she rolled away, rose on aching, trembling legs, and went to look for cigarettes. When she returned to his side with two lit cigarettes she saw that he had fallen asleep, a look of peace spread over his face.
She smiled at him, threw one of the cigarettes into the fireplace, and went into the bedroom to get a couple of pillows and a light blanket.
Back in the living room she slipped one pillow under his head and put her own head on the other beside him. She covered them both with the blanket, took one last drag on the cigarette, threw it into the fireplace, curled up against him, and quickly dropped off to sleep.
Chapter Ten
Karen came away slowly, puzzling over the hissing of the gas log in the fire place. She opened her eyes and groaned, then sat up. Mathew Kent snored on beside her.
Her back was stiff and sore from sleeping on the floor. She'd spent a restless night, tossing and turning often, and had repeatedly banged elbow or knee or shoulder against the hard surface beneath her.
Through the space between the blind and the window frame she could see it was light outside. She threw back the blanket and rose to her feet. She was tired and sore and aching, her skin felt dry and crackly. The fire heat had added no humidity to the normally dry desert atmosphere and her nose and sinuses were packed.
Karen felt ninety years old as she stretched, and she fully expected to hear the creak and pop of bone joints and sinews. She rubbed at her sleepy face with her hands as she went in search of the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face and the back of her neck, and used the tip of her finger to brush her teeth.
She felt slightly more human, then, and went into the kitchen. In the refrigerator there was a pitcher of orange juice. A glass of the tangy liquid finished the job of awakening her. She took several swallows and carried it with her into the living room.
There she stood towering nakedly over Matt's sleeping form. He lay on his back with his head turned to one side and his mouth hanging open. The blanket was kicked down to his knees and she let herself examine him in minute detail.
Without his clothes he didn't look so slender. There was depth and solid breadth to his chest. The pectoral muscles were flat and hard. The biceps and forearms appeared to have thick ropes coiled beneath the skin. The waist was narrow and the stomach flat, rising and falling with each sleeping breath, the muscles there rippling softly.
He had a forest of hair spread across his chest, dark, curly, thick hair. The hair was wide across his chest and narrowed to a pointing arrow along the length of his body. There was only a thin strip across his middle that curled in luxuriant growth around his navel.
His upper legs were solid, massive muscles bunched, and his calves were generously rounded. His bare feet looked pink and helpless and she couldn't suppress a smile when she looked at them.
Karen drained off the rest of her juice and set the glass down. She stepped closer to him, lifted one foot, and placed that squarely on the center of his abdomen. Her toes wriggled, coiling in the thick tufts of hair, pulling lightly on them.
Still asleep his face twisted up and his body moved slightly. She stepped down harder and pulled more firmly on the hair with her toes. Still he did not awaken. Now she moved her foot, placing the heel and ball at the top of one leg.
The toes wriggled again, prodding him. He came awake suddenly, one hand grabbing her ankle as he sat up. She tottered, balanced on one leg, and screamed a little giggle.
He grinned, released her ankle, and patted the floor beside him. "Good morning," he said, his voice deep and relaxed.
"Good morning, yourself," she returned as she dropped down beside him. "How do you feel this morning?"
"Wonderful. Exactly like a man who's just won a lot of money."
He reached out to cup one of her hanging breasts, his thumb sliding over the nipple. She eeled away, twisted to her hands and knees and crawled out of range of his reach.
"What time is it?" he asked.
"I don't know. I just got up myself. But it's light outside."
"I should hope so," he said, rising and walking to the window to peer out. "I don't mind going to sleep when it's dark, but I sure as hell hate to get up then."
He pulled down one blind slat and looked outside. "God!" he exclaimed. "It can't be nine o'clock yet. I never get up this early. Why did you wake me?"
"I couldn't take another two minutes on that floor. I feel like I'm falling apart. My tender bones weren't designed for that kind of sleeping."
"You didn't seem to mind last night," he said, turning from the window and grinning at her. He went to her, took her in his arms, and held her gently against his naked body. The wiry hair on his chest and legs tickled her skin and she wriggled against him. He put his lips softly to the side of her neck and nibbled there.
Karen could feel her nipples tingling and her breasts swelling. She uttered a tremulous sigh at the pleasure of the contact of their bodies. But when one of his hands reached behind her to cup a buttock and squeeze firmly she pushed away from him.
"Take it easy," she cautioned, laughing and skipping out of reach. "It's too early in the morning. And I'm too tired for what you have in mind."
He laughed and lit a cigarette. "Since you don't seem to want to function as my lover this morning how about acting like my cook and making breakfast?"
"I'd be delighted. After I've had my shower. Do you have a robe or something I could wear?"
He shook his head. "That would be criminal to cover up that body of yours. And the last thing I want to do is break the law. You don't need anything. No one will disturb us. My housekeeper doesn't come today and the milk has already been delivered."
"I wasn't worried about anyone else disturbing me. But I'm afraid if I don't cover up I won't get much cooking done."
"I'll be a good little boy," he told her. "Go on. Take your shower."
She was standing under the spray of hot water in the large shower stall when the glass door opened. She spun about and saw him grinning wickedly as he stepped in with her. But she made no protest when he took the soap and washcloth from her hands and proceeded to wash her body for her.
He missed not one square inch of her flesh. His clever hands and fingers lingered now and then. And by the time he was finished she was aware of the heightened beating of her heart and the warmth of her blood in her veins.
But she was determined not to succumb to his caresses and she fought every reaction. And then that was her turn to tease. She took the cloth and soap away from him and washed his body, lingering even longer than had he. And when she finished with him his excitement was inescapably obvious.
He sought to take her right there. His arms twined about her and pulled her against him. For a moment her slick, water-cooled flesh slid excitingly against his body. He pushed her back against the wall of the shower stall and moved his hands beneath her buttocks to lift her feet off the floor.
She almost lost the battle with herself and with him. She came within one breath of acquiescing, of wrapping her arms around his shoulders and letting him take her.
But, somewhere, she found the strength to resist. She held him off and pleaded. "No! No, don't. Please don't. Please."
With a sigh he eased her back down to the floor, released her, and stepped away. He was both disappointed and puzzled.
"Why not? What's wrong?"
She gave him a nervous smile as she stepped past him and out of the shower stall.
"It's too dangerous to talk about here," she said. "Before I finished telling you why not that would be too late."
He turned off the shower and followed her out of the stall. She grabbed a thick towel, flung that at him, and took another for herself. When she was dry she stepped out of the bathroom.
"You stay here and shave and do whatever you have to do. When you come into the kitchen I'll have your breakfast ready. How do you like your eggs?"
"Fried and over," he told her. "I can't stand those things staring up at me. And you'll find some bacon in the tray beneath the freezer."
Karen was pretty good in the kitchen. She was quick and efficient. She got the coffee going first, then slapped half a pound of bacon into a frying pan. She let the bacon cook over a low flame while she set the table and poured juice. She put two slices of bread in the toaster but didn't push them down.
The bacon was beginning to sizzle and pop in the frying pan and she looked around for some kind of apron to wear to protect her bare midsection from the spattering grease.
But all she could find was a large dish towel. It was long enough to be tucked in, but hardly wide enough to fully protect her body. She wrapped the towel around high up, just beneath her breasts, but the bottom didn't reach all the way to the tops of her legs.
She heard his bare feet padding from the bathroom, pushed down the toast, turned up the flame under the bacon, and broke four eggs into another pan.
"Sit down," she said over her shoulder, when she heard him come to the kitchen door and stop there.
He pulled a chair back from the table and sat down. "I must say, that's a charming outfit you're wearing. Is it the latest style from France?"
She giggled. "It's a variation on the topless bathing suit."
"Yes. I see. Topless and bottomless. Thank goodness you're not."
"I'm not what?"
"Bottomless!"
"Oh you! You're some kind of fiend."
"Yeah! And ain't that grand though."
"If you don't stop bothering me I'm going to ruin this breakfast."
Within a few moments she set two plates of bacon and eggs on the table and turned back to the - stove to get the percolator. When the coffee cups were filled with steaming brew she returned the percolator and sat down across the table from him.
They ate in near silence, except for his comments on her cooking. Then, over second cups of coffee they lit cigarettes. Their eyes met across the rims of their cups and he stared at her for a long moment.
"I'm trying to think of some easy way to say thank you for last night," he said softly. "I guess I was in pretty bad shape and you were wonderful about everything."
Karen looked away. She felt embarrassed and uncomfortable. This was the first time in her life a man had ever thanked her for the favors of her body. Oh, other men had joked with her about that, some of them had even tried to pay her with money or gifts. But Matt was the first man who ever simply and seriously thanked her.
She didn't know what to say, what to do.
"There, damn it, I said that wrong anyway. I knew this would be awkward but I wanted to let you know how I felt. Let's forget all about this."
She nodded.
"Did you have any special plans for the day?" he asked.
"No."
"How about spending the day with me? We'll go out to Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. A friend of mine has a boat out there and we can take it out. Then, tonight, we'll hit a few of the casinos and have a ball."
She smiled at him. "It sounds perfect."
A few minutes later Karen was clearing the table and stacking the dishes in the sink. Matt was sitting at the table over another cup of coffee and a second cigarette and watching the delightful swing of her naked buttocks as she moved back and forth from the sink to the table.
The telephone rang and he went out to answer it. Karen could hear the murmur of his half of the conversation as she washed the dishes. When he came back into the kitchen he was frowning.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to postpone our afternoon," he said. "Something has come up and I've got to take care of it right away. Leave those things and get into your clothes. I'll run you back to the hotel."
He came into the living room, dressed in a light silk suit, just as she was finishing dressing. "Look," he told her as they went out to the car. "I may be free in a couple of hours. Or, I could get hung up till midnight. We'd better not make any definite plans. I'll call you at your hotel when I'm finished. If you're not there that'll be my hard luck."
They got into the car and he backed out of the driveway. "I'm sorry about this," he said as he drove to the highway.
"It's all right," she told him. "Really. There's something I should be doing, anyway. I've decided to look for a job here. If I can find one before my two weeks at the hotel are up I won't have to go back."
"Hey, that's wonderful. What kind of job are you looking for?"
She laughed. "Anything that pays a decent wage and isn't too hard. Back home I'm a secretary - and a pretty good one. But I'll take anything really interesting."
"Hmmmm," he said, half aloud. "Let me think about it. Maybe I can find something for you. I'll ask around."
For the rest of the trip they talked about various aspects of living in the town, about apartments and other accommodations, about wage scales in several fields. By the time Matt dropped her off he had a pretty good idea what she could do and what she couldn't, and he assured her it wouldn't be at all difficult for her to find employment.
Karen went up to her room, undressed, and crawled into bed. It felt wonderful to be stretched out on a soft mattress. The bed eased the ache from her bones and she quickly dropped off to sleep.
She came awake slowly several hours later and saw by her travel clock on the night table that it was one-thirty in the afternoon. There was still time for her to do a little job hunting but the effort hardly seemed worth-while.
Matt had indicated he might be able to do something for her and she was sure he could do better along that line than if she were to go out herself.
Hunger pangs stirred in her stomach and she toyed with the idea of getting out of bed and going down to eat. There was an alternative, however. She could call down to room service for a meal. The food would almost certainly be delivered by her friendly bellhop.
The thought of him and his groveling attentions warmed her, made her feel wickedly luxurious. She smiled to herself as she remembered the sensations. She cupped and squeezed her breasts, toying idly as she contemplated.
There was no other thrill on earth like that, she thought. What a wonderful way to pass the deadly dull hours of the afternoon. That was the kind of thing that made a girl feel like a queen. That gave her a sense of power to subjugate a man like that - even a man like the bellhop.
Her hand was on the phone when it rang. She had the receiver to her ear before the first ring was over.
"Hello," she said.
"Hi. This is Jack. I didn't disturb you or anything, did I?"
"No, not at all."
"I just discovered I could rent a plane out here at the airport and I thought you might like to go flying with me."
"You're kidding," she said.
"Not at all. I told you I had a license. I'll rent the plane for a couple of hours and we'll go up."
"I've never been in a little plane before. I'd be scared to death."
"No sweat," he told her. "It's the simplest thing in the world. Five minutes after we take off I guarantee you'll love it. Come on, take a chance. What have you got to lose?"
"My life, for one thing," she retorted quickly. "I've been flying light planes since I was fifteen years old and I haven't been killed yet. It's a perfect day for flying. Visibility is unlimited and there isn't a cloud in the sky for a thousand miles."
"Well ..."
He didn't give her a chance to think about it. "I'll pick you up in twenty minutes."
"All right," she said, hesitantly. "Meet me down in the coffee shop. I have to get a bite of lunch."
After she hung up she slipped into her clothes and went downstairs. There was an anxious feeling in the pit of her stomach as she sat in the coffee shop and she ordered a light lunch.
She was just finishing her sandwich and coffee when he came strolling in.
"Hi," he said brightly as he slipped onto the next stool at the counter.
"I'm having second thoughts," she warned him.
"Just don't think about it. Tell you what, we'll give it fifteen minutes in the air and if you still don't like it we'll come right back down again. What could be fairer?"
"Okay. What do I have to take with me?"
"Nothing. You're fine just the way you are. Let's go."
They went out to his rented car and headed for the airport. On the drive he explained a little about light plane flying. Her nervousness increased. But once they were at the airfield there was no chance for her to back out.
She waited outside while he went into a small office in a hangar on the far side of the runway. Then he was back and herding her toward a tiny little airplane.
The plane had one high wing set atop the cabin and the landing gear was fixed. He unlocked the door, helped her into her seat and buckled her seat belt, taking the opportunity to press the backs of his hands against the softness of her waist.
He left her strapped in the seat while he walked slowly around the plane. She saw him stop and inspect several things. He looked in at the engine and did something in there and let a little gasoline flow from the tanks in each wing.
For a moment he was out of sight behind her, then he was climbing into the other seat in the plane. He warned her about keeping her feet off the pedals and her hands off the wheel. Then he started the engine.
For a while he was too busy turning knobs and watching gauges to speak to her. Then, suddenly and without warning, the plane was rolling slowly forward. He had the window on his side open and the noise from the engine was deafening. He turned, flashed her a quick smile, and closed his window. He reached forward to turn a knob and the engine slowed down.
"Wow," she said, reaching into her purse and taking out her cigarettes. "Is it always that noisy?"
"No. Once we get into the air it's much better. I had the engines revved all the way up. Everything checks out perfectly. Oh, and there's no smoking until we get into the air."
She slipped the cigarette back into her purse and watched him make another minor adjustment before he picked up the radio microphone. He said some incomprehensible things into it - a series of numbers and letters and strange abbreviations. A moment later a voice crackled out of the speaker and he set the plane in motion again.
They rolled slowly from the parking area to the end of the runway. He spoke into the microphone again and waited for an answer. When the answer came he gave her another grin, swung the plane out on the runway, and accelerated rapidly.
The engine howled. They sped a hundred yards or so down the runway and the plane lifted into the air at a steep angle. There was a sickening lurch in her stomach when the ground dropped away beneath them.
They circle around the airport once. Jack had another radio conversation and turned the plane out of the circle. He had slowed the engine almost the moment they were in the air and now the noise was bearable.
Now he made several adjustments on something down between the seats, taking his hands off the wheel tentatively several times. When he was satisfied he reached to make other adjustments on the dash panel, then leaned back with a sigh and a smile.
Conversation could be carried on if the speakers spoke just slightly louder than normal.
"You can smoke now," he told her, letting go of the wheel and taking out his lighter and cigarettes.
She was scared to death when he let go like that and he could read it in her face. He explained that the plane could fly itself for several minutes at a stretch as he lit her cigarette.
Her feeling of nausea was gone and now she was beginning to look around with interest. Far below she could see the highway and the antlike cars. She couldn't see the city because it was behind them. But ahead it seemed she could see for a hundred and fifty miles.
He explained several of the gauges for her - the altimeter, which read two thousand feet; the air speed indicator, which read almost exactly a hundred miles an hour, the turn and bank indicator, which told them when they were flying straight and level; the omnidirectional radio, which received a radio signal used for navigational purposes.
He made it all sound very safe and simple. She could tell from the compass that they were heading north and east. Pretty soon the bare brownness of the desert disappeared from beneath them and was replaced with rolling green.
This was farm and cattle land now. She could see the ribbon of the highway and the occasional ranch buildings in clusters. There were a couple of very tiny towns and one small lake.
She was comfortable and having a wonderful time until she felt a pain in her ears. She shook her head several times and frowned.
Jack laughed. "We're going up higher," he told her over the sound of the engine. "Just keep swallowing. Your ears will clear."
She swallowed half a dozen times and the pain disappeared. "How high are we going?" she asked him.
"About seven thousand feet."
"Won't we need oxygen or something?"
"No. You don't need oxygen until seventeen or eighteen thousand."
The plane flew on and he began to explain other things to her He'd been right. Flying in a light plane was marvelous. It made her feel immense and all powerful to be high in the air and all alone except for him.
After a while he let her take the controls to see what happened to the aircraft when she moved the wheel or depressed one or the other of the pedals. Doing the actual flying was a tremendous thrill, and she became very excited.
When he took over the controls once again she noticed the almost imperceptible vibrations running through the plane. These were not bumps, but light and steady vibrations which must have come from the engine. The seat vibrating beneath her rump like that set her buttocks to tingling. Slowly the tingling spread through her body.
Her ears reacted to a change in the pressure again. She looked at the altimeter and saw that they were going down. She tapped his shoulder and furrowed her brow when he looked at her.
"We've been up over an hour," he explained. "I thought we'd land and stretch our legs."
An hour? It seemed like five minutes. And where was he going to land? She looked down but could not see anything remotely resembling an airfield.
"Where are you going to land?" she shouted.
"Down there on that road," he said, pointing. "There's no traffic and there's a nice big field right there where we can park the plane."
She saw the place he'd indicated. There was a narrow, two lane concrete strip of road running beside an open field. Fifty yards from the road was a thick grove of trees.
Her heart was in her mouth until the wheels touched the roadway and she didn't relax until he'd directed the plane off the roadway and had turned off the engine. The sudden silence was loud in her ears.
"What would have happened if a car had come along?" she asked.
"Not much chance of that," he told her. "But I'll bet you really would have been scared if you'd known this sort of thing was against all the rules and regulations." He was smiling broadly.
"You dirty louse," she said. "Why did you land if you're not supposed to?"
"Don't worry about it," he told her. "We've done it now and nothing happened. It was safe. There was no cross wind and there are no telephone poles along the road here. Out in this part of the country it's done quite often, even though it's against the rules. Let's get out."
He unbuckled his seat belt and walked around to help her. He lifted her down to the ground, took her hand, and began to walk slowly toward the trees. When he sat down and pulled her down beside him they were out of sight of the highway, though he could still see the plane.
He lit two cigarettes and handed her one. "Well, how did you like it?"
"It was wonderful," she told him, and went on to describe her reactions. She even told him about the vibrations.
"A lot of girls say that," he told her. "Now if I were the wrong kind of guy I could take advantage of you."
She returned his broad grin. "What makes you think you'd have to take advantage? With the plane getting me started like that I might want you to make love to me."
"I certainly hope so," he answered. "I've been planning on that. But if you didn't want to I could always pull the 'come across, baby, or walk back home' routine. I wouldn't do that to you, but there are lots of guys who would. And the girl really has no choice. She's a hundred miles or so from home and usually hasn't got the slightest idea where she is."
"Well," she said lightly, stretching out full length on her back, "if you're going to try and force me maybe I'll be stubborn."
"I told you I wouldn't do that to you. If you don't want to just say so."
"I didn't say that either," she said quickly.
She had her hands behind her head and now he leaned over her and slowly touched his mouth to hers. He kissed her lightly at first and without passion. There was a unique tenderness to the touch of his lips that set off a pang inside her chest - a kind of softly sweet feeling of gentleness.
When she offered him the opportunity to deepen the kiss, however, he was quick to take passionate advantage in the battle of love.
When he finally put his hand down on the thrust of one of her breasts, she sighed against his mouth and looped one arm around his neck to pull him tighter against her.
He squeezed that breast, molding and kneading until the nipple was on fire beneath her bra.
"Now the other one," she cried softly, taking his wrist and moving his hand to her other breast.
Her desire mounted quickly. Soon both her breasts were swollen and aching, the nipples like points of flame.
"Wait!" she gasped, pushing him away. "Let me get these things off."
She yanked her sweater over her head and tore the bra off. The afternoon air was cool against the feverish flesh of her breasts and made the aching longing increase.
The touch of his hands and then his lips was a soothing balm. She sighed and relaxed again as he touched and kissed. He was kneeling beside her now, bent over her, and both his hands were free to manipulate the fastenings of her slacks.
He worked her slacks and panties down over her hips and then off her long legs and she was fully naked. His eyes and hands roamed freely over the hills and valleys, forests and deserts of her body.
Her own hands were not idle. She'd gotten his shirt open and the tails pulled out of his trousers so she could caress his bare, hairy chest. And now she opened his trousers.
He groaned and trembled as she caressed him and with an agonized cry of suppressed desire he let his face drop to the promising swell of her ribs. His lips flashed over her navel and she hunched her body with convulsive pleasure, her hands gripping him harder.
She twisted and gasped as his lips fluttered over her bare and sensitive skin. And he missed nothing, covering every square inch of her white flesh. For a moment she thought he was even going to give her that special caress but he held back at the last moment.
Their mutual desire was a roaring, pounding thing for them. Karen could feel the rough grass against her soft, naked buttocks. Her long white legs kicked into the air.
"Darling," she murmured, rising on one elbow to mash her face against his bare chest. "Make yourself naked for me. Hurry, darling, I can't wait much longer!"
He pulled back from her, rose to his feet, kicked off his shoes, and quickly stripped. Then he was beside her on the ground again and they lay on their sides facing one another.
His hand reached over the high curve of her hip to stroke her buttocks while his lips nuzzled against her breast. Her own hands were caressing him most appealingly.
There was a frightened and helpless quality to his love-making which made her want to help him, to give him pleasure even more than she wanted to receive. The warmth of passion suffused her body and desire was a roaring sound in her ears.
With a sudden movement she threw him onto his back and knelt beside him.
"Please, darling," she pleaded in a whisper. "Don't stop me. I want to do this for you. I have to do this."
Her hands held him gently and she bent toward him. Her long hair dropped down to tickle against the bare flesh of his abdomen and for a moment she twisted her head violently back and forth, whipping him with the ends of her hair.
He groaned lasciviously when she kissed him and she could feel him shudder. She opened her eyes for a moment and saw him lying with his head jammed back against the soft earth, an expression of delightful anguish on his face.
He didn't open his eyes until she drew back from him and straightened on her knees.
"You're marvelous," he breathed as he rose to his knees to face her.
"I want you, darling," she whispered. "But I want you my way."
"Any way at all."
She turned her back toward him, moving around on her knees and leaning forward to support the weight of her upper body on her hands. In that position the curve of her behind was pulled taut and her breasts hung down from her body, the nipples pointing at the earth like divining rods.
He put his hands on her and bent forward to kiss her. She shivered as his lips fluttered.
Then he was against her, fitting himself to the curve of her body. His hands cupped the weight of her breasts and squeezed firmly. And the thrill was like nothing she'd ever experienced before. When he began to work, sweet ecstasy flooded her being.
Naked like this, out here in the open air, and making love this way, all those things combined to make her feel like some pagan goddess of some long forgotten tribe of savages. She forgot all pretense of daintiness or womanliness and became only a member of a species of animal and this increased her thrill.
That was as though all her life she'd been holding something back when she made love and now for the first time she was letting everything go.
She moved with him. Her passion was like a flower, the petals opening until the blossom was almost to full beauty.
She twisted around and looked at him. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut and his face was a mask of desire, twisted and contorted. His nostrils were flared and his mouth hung open and each time he gasped for breath she could sense his movement.
"Hurry, darling," she gasped. "I can't wait any longer. Hurry! Hurry!"
"Don't wait," he grunted, increasing the tempo. "I'm there! I'm there!"
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" she screamed.
Violent explosions rocked her to the core of her being from the intensity of her sensations, which turned her arms and legs to water.
He was still beating brutally. His hands were gripping her breasts with all their strength.
That didn't end all at once for either of them. Instead they reached the apogee of an arc with a long, slowly-descending reverse curve. Only gradually did their movements slow and stop and they slumped to the ground. Quickly he took her in his arms and she nestled against him.
Later they lay naked in the sun and talked, then made love again before dressing and going back to the plane. The flight back to the airport was uneventful.
They went up to her room and made love again, then took showers. She dressed for the evening, went with him to his motel room so he could change his clothes, then went out to spend the evening on the town with him.
Chapter Eleven
Karen and Jack had a sumptuous dinner at a fine restaurant. They enjoyed a wonderful show with a star entertainer, and spent the rest of the evening alternating their time between gambling and dancing.
It was as though the whole world had conspired to make it a perfect night for lovers. At the tables they could do no wrong. They won almost every bet. And each time they won they hugged one another with glee. On the dance floor they were perfectly matched in size and skill. They made a striking couple. The band played all the right tunes at the right tempos. And they seemed to dance together perfectly.
In the wee small hours they rushed to Jack's motel to make love rapturously and to fall asleep in one another's arms. Around dawn Karen came awake to a wondrous delight. For the first few moments she knew only magnificent pleasure. Then she became aware of Jack's lips making love to her.
They slept again and awakened again and loved again. And the hours flew by on the wings of love. All too soon it was time to dress and go back to Karen's hotel. Jack had to return the rental car to the agency and pick up his truck with a cargo bound for St. Louis.
She said good-bye to him in the car, knowing full well that if he went up to her room with her it would be hours before he would leave. And she stood before the hotel and watched the car drive off into the afternoon sun.
When the car finally disappeared from view she felt a sudden emptiness, an incompleteness she'd never felt before. She'd parted with lovers before but that had never been like this.
And she was suddenly saddened that they'd treated this thing between them as nothing more than a brief liaison. Now, when he was gone, there were things she wanted to say to him, things she wanted to hear him say to her
She turned and entered the hotel, walking slowly, her mind completely absorbed. She didn't see the casino action as she passed through. She didn't hear the rattle of chips and the imprecations of the gamblers.
In her mind she was comparing Jack to all the other men she'd known. There was a difference - something indefinable, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. Love with Jack had been better somehow. Yet he had done nothing that the others hadn't done, and he did things the same way.
That was the times between the torrid love sessions that were better. He was nicer to cuddle against and fall asleep with. He was easier to be with in understanding silence. Somehow he was quicker to grasp the meanings of her little gestures, and more eager to fulfill her slightest wish. Time and time again they'd found themselves saying exactly the same thing at precisely the same time.
But now he was gone.
With all the important things left unsaid.
He was gone forever.
Up in her room Karen stripped off her clothes, bathed, and crawled into bed. Funny, but when she had been with him she wasn't the least bit tired. And now she was sad and utterly exhausted. She felt as though he'd taken an important part of her along with him, something she needed but would never have again.
She stared up at the ceiling of her darkened room, a light blanket covering her naked body all the way up to her chin, and twin tears rolled down her cheeks. Just two tears, one from each eye, and she " didn't really cry. With a deep, lung-shaking sigh, she turned on her side and went to sleep.
It was after midnight when she awakened and she didn't feel at all refreshed. Her sleep had been more escape than rest. But she was hungry and she called down to room service for a light meal.
Without thinking about it she slipped into a light robe before the bellhop arrived with her food. She admitted him to the room, signed the check, and immediately dismissed him, telling him she would leave the cart in the corridor.
She ate automatically, hardly tasting the food at all. And when she was finished she put the cart in the corridor, locked her door, crawled back into bed, and turned off the light.
She began to think about Jack again, but almost immediately fell asleep. She awakened several times through the night, but each time she dropped right off to sleep again.
And in the morning, when she pushed herself out of bed, she was as tired as ever. There was a vacuum in her brain and an emptiness in her heart. She was numb, lethargic, totally without spirit.
She couldn't remain in the room, though she would have preferred to. The very walls were beginning to close in on her and the silence was lonely and deafening. She found herself listening to the beat of her own heart.
So, she dressed in slacks and a blouse, took her purse and a light jacket, and left the room. She had breakfast in the coffee shop and set out for a walk before the desert sun reached its zenith.
She walked along the highway, refusing several offers of rides. Her step was slow and listless and she walked with her shoulders bent and her eyes fixed on the ground just ahead of her.
Arbitrarily she turned in at one of the other hotels. This was a larger hotel with a bigger casino, but at, that early hour there was little activity. She strolled through the public rooms of the hotel for perhaps half an hour then had a cup of coffee in the coffee shop.
No place to go. Nothing to do. The greatest fun city in the entire world, the playground of millionaires and clerks alike and there she was with nothing to do.
When she left the building the doorman offered her a taxi and she accepted. Walking her legs off wouldn't improve the situation any. And back at her own hotel there was the same lost feeling.
She went out to sit beside the pool. The weather was a mite cool for swimming but the pool was filled. She sat in a chair, stared at the water with dull eyes, and turned her mind off completely.
Other people came out to the poolside, too. There were several pairs of tourists busy snapping pictures of one another with the pool and the hotel sign in the background. There were two couples who could be only honeymooners.
Karen saw them come and pause and go again and she didn't move.
The first time she reacted was when she heard the sound of another lounge chair being drawn up next to her. She turned and discovered a smiling feminine face. The woman appeared to be in her late thirties. She was a dyed blonde with a generous body and a kind face.
"I saw you sitting out here more than an hour ago," the woman said. "You'd better be careful. This sun can fool you. You can get a terrible burn."
Karen didn't return the smile. She didn't feel like talking and she turned her face away.
"What's the matter, honey, lose all your money at the tables?"
Karen shook her head.
"Somebody die? Your boy friend run off with another girl? You lose your job?"
Karen shook her head after each question.
The blonde woman laughed. "The only other thing I can think of bad enough to make you look like that is you have some inside information the Russians are gonna bomb us in an hour."
Karen couldn't help it when the corners of her mouth turned up slightly.
"There, that's better," the woman said. "Look, if I'm bothering you just say so and I'll be on my merry way."
"No," Karen said quickly. "You're not bothering me. I'm just blue, I guess."
"I know how you feel, honey. Sometimes I get that way, too. But when I do, I find that talking helps. If you want somebody to talk to I'm right here. I got a nasty old husband around here somewhere and I'm not sure whether he's throwing his money away in some gambling game or risking a heart attack with some pretty young girl." She laughed long and loud.
"I don't know," Karen said. "There's nothing to talk about. But I am enjoying your company."
"Then why don't we get off our rears and go get us some lunch? It's about that time."
"Is it really? I had no idea it was so late."
"Sure thing, honey. It's almost one o'clock in the afternoon." The woman rose to her feet. "The name's Maxine Jarret," she said. "Two R's and one T. But all my friends call me Max."
Karen laughed aloud for the first time and extended her hand. "I'm Karen Dunken."
The older woman's handshake was surprisingly firm and vigorous. "We got us a little old suite on the top floor," she said. "Why don't we have 'em send some lunch up there?"
The little old suite turned out to be a four room penthouse apartment which was by far the most luxurious thing Karen had ever seen. There was a magnificent view through the picture window in the living room and the carpet was thick enough to need mowing.
The penthouse was the first surprise and in the next few minutes there were several more. Karen noticed the woman was older than she'd first appeared - probably in her middle forties. Yet her body was in marvelous condition. She was wearing skin-tight stretch pants which showed no line of undergarment but there was no wobble of fat in her legs and rear when she walked. And her breasts, viewed through the neckline of her blouse when she leaned forward for a cigarette, appeared to be quite firm and smooth.
The twangy accent and abundance of colloquialisms seemed to indicate a poorly educated Texas woman The surprise here came when Maxine ordered the lunch. She chose several gourmet delights and ordered the wine by name and year.
When she finished ordering she returned the phone to its cradle and leaned back in her chair. "What do you think of this little old place?" she asked.
"It's fabulous," Karen said honestly. "It must cost a fortune."
Maxine grinned. "It does, sure enough. But old Bill likes it and we got the money now. A couple years back they found a few itty bitty oil wells on some land of ours. Old Bill made himself some pretty good deals with the money we made and now we're on easy street. But every year he has to come here and throw away fifty thousand or so. It never fails but he loses, and he keeps coming back. Writes the whole thing off on his taxes; anyway, that's what he claims."
Karen found herself smiling at the animated and friendly woman who spewed forth words at such an amazing rate, who was telling such intimate things to a complete stranger.
Her spirits brightened.
The lunch was marvelous and the two women finished two bottles of wine before they had their coffee. After the dishes had been cleared away Karen found herself doing most of the talking. She was more than a little drunk and it was much better than feeling sad and lonely.
She told Maxine about winning the contest and about her decision to seek a job here in town. When the coffee was finished they went down to the casino and gambled for a while. The older woman pulled out of her purse a sheaf of bills which would have looked large if seen in a bank. She peeled five one hundred dollar bills off the top and changed them into chips, nothing smaller than a twenty-five dollar chip. She split the stack in half, gave one half to Karen, and dragged her over to the nearest dice table.
It took the two women almost an hour and a half to lose the five hundred dollars. And when it was all gone Maxine took Karen's arm and led her back up to the penthouse suite.
"I never go into my pocket a second time," she explained. "I start out with what I figure I want to lose, and when I lose it that's it. I guess I don't get the same kick out of it as most folks."
Back up in the suite they had highballs and cigarettes and conversation. Maxine and her husband had done quite a bit of traveling in the years since they'd made their money and there were a hundred stories to tell.
Karen was embarrassed at first because the stories were all of an intimate nature. Maxine insisted on regaling her with tales of her many lovers in the major cities of the world. She went on from there to describe some of her husband's experiences. And she managed not to leave out the smallest or the most lurid detail.
It was easy to form a mental picture of the marriage. They were two mature adults who'd learned to take separate pleasures and yet to share those pleasures with one another by repeating the experiences.
Karen's embarrassment passed quickly and she wasn't at all shocked at the final tale of Maxine's engaging three Turkish gigolos for a night of wild passion.
When the older woman stopped talking Karen felt she could do no less than supply equally candid experience for her new-found friend's listening pleasure. She told several stories out of her more distant past, but soon found herself enumerating her experiences since arriving in town.
Maxine seemed most interested in the developments between Karen and the bellhop. When Karen described the bellhop's groveling attentions, the older woman listened with rapt fascination.
It was so easy to talk. And when she talked she didn't have to think. But suddenly she was talking about Jack and the tone of her voice changed. And then tears were streaming down her cheeks and she was sobbing quietly.
The older woman moved over beside her, took her in her arms, and clutched her to her ample bosom. Karen buried her head against Maxine's shoulder and cried her heart out. The tears were only partly caused by sadness. The rest were the result of all the liquor she'd consumed since lunch.
There'd been almost a full bottle of wine. There'd been three drinks while they were at the gaming tables. And there'd been at least five more drinks up here in the penthouse again.
The older woman patted and soothed Karen until the sobbing stopped, then led her through a darkened bedroom to a bathroom where she could wash her face. She washed away the tears and went into the bedroom with Maxine.
"Stretch out here on the bed, honey. Rest your eyes a little."
Karen stretched out. When she leaned her head back and closed her eyes the whole world seemed to spin inside her skull. She felt the older woman lie down beside her but thought nothing of that.
She was drunk, far too drunk, and the liquor seemed to be having a stronger and stronger effect on her.
A hand touched her bosom and with her eyes still closed she smiled. In her drunken mind she thought her lover was back with her. "Oh Jack," she said softly, mumbling. "I thought you were gone."
There was no verbal answer. But the hand opened the buttons of her blouse and slipped beneath her bra.
That was so wonderful to have him back again, to have his hands at her body again.
She sighed and turned so he could open and remove her bra.
His lips were strangely gentle on her breasts as they rolled her burgeoning nipples. She stretched luxuriously and twisted her shoulders to offer him the other breast.
"Oh, yes, Jack. I love that when you use your lips like that," she murmured.
Now his hands were opening her slacks. She lifted her hips from the mattress to make that easier for him to slide her slacks and panties down and off.
And now she was naked!
And he was kissing her everywhere!
He left her for a moment and she heard him removing his own clothes. Then there was the pleasant shock of bare warm flesh against her own naked body.
But there was something wrong!
She could feel two breasts pressing against her body, soft and warm and smooth. And when her hands went to his head she discovered there was long silken hair there.
She came partially to her senses and her eyes shot open to see Maxine naked beside her on the bed, the older woman's face bent to her body.
"No! Wait! What are you doing?" she said in protest
She attempted to roll away, but the older woman grasped her in a strong grip and held her flat on her back.
"Just relax, honey," Maxine crooned.
"Get away! Leave me alone! You disgust me!"
"Oh, come on now," the older woman said softly, raising her head to stare into Karen's eyes. "This is something new. Not really dirty or sick or anything. I had my first time a few months back in San Francisco. I didn't think I'd like this, either."
"Please let me go," Karen pleaded in a small voice, afraid of the beginning tinglings of pleasure in her body.
"Oh now, honey. I can't do that. I let you go and I'm left high and dry. You just relax and let things happen. After a while you'll like this same as me."
Maxine's hand crept along to touch while her kiss returned to Karen's breasts. Karen held herself stiff and unyielding for a long time, but she could not forever deny the sensations of pleasure which arose despite the disgust in her mind.
And when she let her body go limp Maxine raised her head again and smiled. "There," the older woman whispered. "I told you you'd like this. I'm not going to do anything different than that bellhop did. This is just a mouth against your body. What's the difference if that's a man's mouth or if it's a woman's?"
The statement made some sort of sense to Karen's drunken mind and she let the pleasure flood through her. The older woman spent a long time raising her to just the right level of desire and Karen was helpless.
She couldn't deny herself when Maxine's breasts were offered to her lips. This was the first time she'd kissed another woman's breasts and was surprisingly good.
The caresses seemed to go on for an eternity. Karen's body was bathed in sweet sweat. Her drunken brain was aflame with perverted lust. She forgot everything but the pleasure of kissing and being kissed. That no longer mattered that her partner was another woman. Only the pleasure encountered seemed to matter.
Maxine moved around on the bed. The older woman's mouth was gentle and lovely yet demanding against Karen. And there, right next to Karen, was a body demanding to be kissed and caressed. Wanting love.
Karen's hands reached to stroke the curves of the older woman's buttocks, then pulled her even closer.
She kissed as she was being kissed.
When the mutual contact was made that was as though a circuit had been formed and a single current coursed through both their bodies.
The mutual finish was deep and thrilling, swift and powerful and devastating. When the exquisite agony had gone, she was left completely limp and very shattered.
Maxine dropped off to sleep and Karen slipped quietly from the bed. A wave of vertigo washed over her when she stood up and she had difficulty finding and donning her clothing.
When she was dressed she left the penthouse suite and staggered back to her own room on drunken legs.
She closed the door behind her, fell across the bed, and passed out.
Chapter Twelve
Karen slept without moving from early evening to early morning. She awakened in her sweat-stiffened clothes, in precisely the position she'd fallen on the bed.
She was nauseous. Her stomach was painfully knotted. There was a little man inside her skull with a hammer and anvil and each time he smote the anvil the pain shot all the way down her spinal cord. Her eyeballs hurt. The roots of her hair hurt. And her mouth tasted like a platoon of infantry had marched through.
She groaned as she sat up and she fought back the bile rising in her throat. Even the sound of her own voice was painful in her ears. She managed to get to her feet and remove her slacks and blouse. Beneath them she was naked. Her under things had disappeared somewhere.
The memory of the experience of the previous afternoon was buried somewhere in her brain, but just then she was too sick to look for it. Her missing underclothes could be easily replaced. It took too much effort to try to remember where she'd lost them.
The urge to vomit was stronger now and she hurried to the bathroom on tottering legs. She managed to make it without soiling the bathroom floor. She threw up into the toilet bowl, gagging and retching until her stomach was empty. Each convulsive heave of her stomach and throat brought new pain and anguish.
When she was finished she felt a little steadier on her feet. She pulled herself up at the bathroom sink and soaked her head under cold running water. This helped, too, though the sound of the water in the sink made her head hurt worse. And when she straightened the water dripped down in cold droplets from her hair onto her naked body.
Karen reached for a towel, then thought better of it. To try and rub her head was madness indeed. Instead she opened the shower door, turned on the water, and stepped inside.
The first shock of cold was almost unbearable. She gasped and stiffened and shivered, but she forced herself to remain. By the time her lips were turning blue and her teeth were chattering her head was almost clear.
Now she adjusted the water, adding a little of the hot, then a little more. The feel of the soapy washcloth against her skin was wonderful. She finished her shower and gently patted herself dry.
It was when she went back into the bedroom that the memory returned to her. And she was so shocked she staggered to a seat on the edge of the bed. The memory was full and vivid.
And most shocking of all was that she felt not the slightest twinge of guilt or pang of disgust.
That had happened and was over and that really hadn't been that bad. She was too honest with herself to deny she'd felt pleasure. And having been drunk was no excuse at all. Since she had enjoyed the episode, however slightly and for whatever reason, she couldn't be disgusted with herself or her partner.
There was only the shock.
And that passed quickly away.
When the shock was gone Karen was surprised to find herself in amazingly good spirits. It was as though she'd needed the experience as a cathartic to purge herself of the melancholy she'd felt the day before.
Now she could dismiss both experiences from her mind. There was, however, still the physical sickness. Her head hurt like fury and her stomach was terrible. But that was a plain old hangover and she knew how to deal with it.
She slipped into fresh clothing and left her room. Downstairs there were only half a dozen stubborn gamblers in the entire casino. The carpeted floor was being vacuumed and the slot machines were being dusted.
It was seven a.m. and the waitress in the coffee shop was bright and cheerful and fresh. She gave Karen a sympathetic nod, recognizing the symptoms of a hangover.
Karen slid onto a stool.
"Yes, ma'am?" the waitress asked.
"Give me a Bromo and two aspirins before I die," Karen said with a sheepish grin.
"Tough night?" the waitress asked as she prepared the Bromo.
"What night? I passed out before the sun went down," Karen told her before she gulped the fizzing liquid.
She gagged, but managed to keep the stuff in her empty stomach. Then she took the two aspirins and waited for them to take effect. The waitress watched her.
"Help any?"
Karen shrugged. "A little, I guess. I wish somebody would invent a cure for the common hangover."
"I always take tomato juice with Worcestershire sauce."
"I'll try anything."
The waitress brought the noxious mixture and Karen drank it down. She held her breath to see if it would stay down. It stayed and she smiled at the woman across the counter.
"The next thing, I guess," said Karen. "Is coffee."
The hangover ritual required that the coffee be consumed black and sweet. But Karen could not abide black coffee. The few times she'd forced herself to drink it black she hadn't noticed any particularly good effect. So now she added only one spoon of sugar and some cream.
By the time she finished that first cup of coffee she felt well enough to order a light breakfast. She had a bowl of flakes with sliced bananas and strawberries and milk, and another cup of coffee. Then she went back up to her room to take a nap and let the meal and medicine do their work.
When she awakened again she felt quite good. No headache, no nausea, and only a slight weakness in the legs. It was ten in the morning and she felt too restless to stay in bed or in her room.
She went downstairs again and out to sit beside the pool. Sun-glasses protected her eyes from the sun and prevented anyone from seeing how bloodshot they were. A while after she sat down she saw Maxine come out of the building and stroll toward her.
"Hi," the older woman said, smiling, as she pulled up a lounge and sat down.
Karen said nothing.
"Hey, you're not mad at me, are you?"
Still Karen said nothing.
"What happened to you? I looked for you when I woke up but you were gone."
"And I intend to stay that way," Karen snapped.
"Oh, come on, honey. That wasn't that bad. Look me square in the eye and tell me you didn't get your kicks."
"I did. But they weren't kicks I particularly wanted. And I don't want them again."
Maxine laughed. "You got your mind all made up, honey. But there's no reason we can't be friends. Have this any way you want."
"If you don't mind, I'd rather not have this at all. And if you do mind it's just too bad. Now are you going to leave, or am I?"
"Shoot, honey, don't get all het up. It's bad for the nervous system. I'll go. but first I want to tell you how good you were. I've had a couple of women since my first time. And one of them was a real dedicated expert, if you know what I mean. She wouldn't go any other way. But, honey, you top them all. You were better than all the rest of them put together. If you change your mind and want to try me again you know where you can find me."
Maxine rose and walked away. Karen turned her eyes away from the sway of those svelte buttocks. The encounter had been a disappointment. She'd wanted to destroy the older woman with her words, but it would have been dishonest to pretend outrage she didn't feel.
Karen remained in her chair for ten minutes longer, then rose and stalked away. She was filled with nervous energy and needed some activity to release it.
There was a car rental desk in the lobby of the hotel. She noticed the sign and gave in to an impulse. They gave her a convertible and the attendant put the top down before he turned it over to her.
She slipped behind the wheel and drove out to the highway. With no conscious thought she turned toward town and drove slowly along. Automatically she made the turn into the section where Matt lived.
This was where she'd been heading all along. She drove more slowly now, a little unsure of the last few turns. But she recognized his car in the driveway of the house. She stopped at the curb and got out.
At the front door she hesitated. There was only silence inside the house. If he was asleep she really shouldn't wake him. She walked around to the kitchen door. The milk and newspaper were on the back step. He was still asleep.
Again she hesitated, then made up her mind. In her purse she found a scrap of paper and a pencil and she scribbled a note asking him to call her at the hotel in the afternoon.
She left the note on top of the milk bottles and returned to the car. Once back on the highway she accelerated to eighty and held it there. Her hotel whizzed by and she continued on. Further down the road she passed the airfield and still she continued.
The air rushed over the windshield of the open car and whipped her hair out behind her in a long spray. It was exhilarating to speed along in the bright morning sunshine. She drove for forty minutes, turned the car around and drove back again at the same speed.
Back at the hotel she had lunch, notified the desk that she would be in the casino if a call came for her, and went into the gaming room to try her luck.
Matt's call came an hour later and they brought the phone right to her at the blackjack table. She was forty dollars ahead.
"Hi," he said brightly when she answered. "Where have you been for the past two days?"
"Busy," she told him. "You really didn't expect me to lock myself in my room and wait for your call, did you?"
He was silent for a moment. "No. I guess not. Say, is there something wrong?"
"Nothing at all. Why do you ask?"
"You sound funny ... different."
"I'm still the same gal," she told him. "Were you able to do anything for me about a job?"
"Not yet," he told her. "But don't worry about it. I'm sure something will turn up soon."
"I'm not worried. I'm having a ball."
"What are you doing?"
"I'm playing blackjack and I'm winning."
"That's always good. I'm free this afternoon. How about that boat ride?"
"Let's not make any plans. Why don't you come over here to the hotel and pick me up? We'll make plans then."
"All right. I'll see you in about an hour."
"Good."
She hung up, handed the phone back, and returned her attention to the game. During the conversation she'd won an additional twenty dollars.
Matt was there in less than an hour. He took her away from the table and into the coffee shop.
"You look like hell," he told her.
"Thank you," she said, acidly. "Are you always this polite with all your women?"
"What have you been doing for the last two days? You've got bags under your eyes big enough to ship by Railway Express. And your face looks hollow."
"I got drunk," she explained. "But I'm all right now."
"You sure?"
She nodded.
"Good. I called my friend and the boat's mine for the day if you want to use it."
Karen shrugged. "I don't care."
"Let's go then."
It was three-quarters of an hour's drive out to the lake. The boat turned out to be a thirty foot cabin cruiser with twin Diesel engines. It was a luxury craft and Matt handled it expertly.
He loaded her aboard, untied from the dock, started the engines, and sped out into the lake. The hull veed through the water, leaving behind a foaming bubbling wake. Once they were well out from shore Matt let Karen take the wheel for a while.
The lake, actually a reservoir created by the dam, was sixty-odd miles long and soon they were far from the sight of any man-made object. In places the shoreline was thick with trees and in other places it was bare.
After a while Matt throttled back the engines, slowing the boat to a crawl. Karen stretched out in the stern, her face turned up to the sun. She stirred when the engines stopped and Matt threw over a light anchor.
"This is marvelous," she told him when he came back to sit beside her. "Out here, away from everything it's so quiet and peaceful. It's as though the rest of the world didn't exist right now."
He smiled at her. "I like it, too."
"Do they allow swimming here?" she asked.
"They allow it, but it's a little cold for swimming this time of year."
"I don't care about that. If I had a suit I'd jump in."
"You don't need a suit. We're all alone, remember? No one's going to come along at this time of day. Most people don't use their boats except on weekends."
"You mean that?" she asked, scrambling to her feet.
He nodded.
She was out of her clothes in a flash and he was grinning as he eyed her naked body. She climbed over the railing, stood poised for a moment, then launched herself into the water.
It was cold. It was freezing cold! She came up gasping and spluttering as the cold numbed her muscles.
"Wow!" she yelled, rolling over onto her stomach and swimming away with all her strength.
The exertion warmed her and she cavorted about for ten minutes, diving and splashing like a porpoise. Matt was waiting to help her up when she swam back to the boat.
"You're turning blue all over," he said, putting a towel across her shoulders. "I told you it was cold."
"You weren't kidding, either. But it was worth it. It was wonderful. I haven't gone swimming in the nude for years and it was better than I remembered it."
Jewel-like droplets of water shimmered on her heaving breasts as she dried her hair. Matt lit two cigarettes and handed one to her as she leaned back. After the shocking cold of the water the warmth of the sun on her bare flesh felt wonderful. She could feel the heat drying her, seeping deep into the pores of her skin.
"Mmm, this is nice," she murmured.
"I know something nicer," he said beside her.
"I can guess what you're talking about," she answered, without opening her eyes.
She sighed when he put his hand to her waist and groaned lightly when he slid that hand up to one of her breasts. His mouth came down over hers and their lips met in the passion ritual.
Quickly and expertly he excited her to the fullest. This had been her plan all along. She wanted him to make love to her. She needed him to prove to her that she was not a Lesbian.
From forehead to toes his lips covered every square inch of the front of her body. Then he turned her over and kissed up from the heels of her feet to the nape of her neck, stopping awhile to linger at the swell of her buttocks.
When she started to roll back to him he stopped her. "No. Stay just like that," he told her.
She heard him rise and strip off his clothes. Then he was beside her again and his lips were fluttering at the small of her back before they slid to her buttocks once again.
He fitted against the curve of her body, and that was the same as she had been with Jack, but that was different, too. Then she forgot about Jack, the thoughts replaced by a new kind of pleasure.
And he added to the pleasure. One hand toyed with her breasts; the other hand was busy too.
That was magnificent.
He worked tirelessly and brutally, gasping with each move and simultaneously squeezing with his hands. The extreme force of his final movements brought some pain, but that only increased her pleasure.
At the end, when he was having his pleasure, she screamed with animal lust. She was swept up in the whirling wind, lifted high in the air, and dashed back against the earth.
Even after that was over and she lay slumped on the deck she could still hear the angry buzzing in her ears. A shadow flitted across the boat but she felt too languorous to raise her head.
"What was that?" she asked.
"Just some damned Peeping Tom in a plane. He spotted us down here and flew down for a closer look. He must have gotten quite an eyeful."
Later they made love again, and Karen took the opportunity to demonstrate to Matt the trick that Sam Wisner had showed her. The thrill drove him nearly out of his mind.
When he took her back to the hotel he told her, "There's a new sucker in town. I can't see you tonight. But I'll call you as soon as I'm through with the game. It should be sometime tomorrow afternoon."
"That's not fair," she said. "I thought we were going to be together tonight."
"I've got a game, honey. I can't make it."
"Wouldn't you pass up a game to be with me?"
He smiled gently. "You know me and you know the rules. It wouldn't be any good between us if you became possessive."
She got out of the car with an angry snort and slammed the door behind her. He called out something after her, but she didn't hear it.
Karen went straight up to her room. She locked the door, stripped and showered, and stretched out on the bed. It was time for her to do some heavy thinking.
She reviewed her activity since leaving home and was amazed at the number of different partners and the sum total of love sessions. Was there something wrong with her? She was behaving like a nymphomaniac. In the past several days she had made love more times with more men than in the entire previous year.
And these were all total strangers!
It was as though she'd been bitten by some bug carrying the infectious disease called lust. That was fun. That was kicks. But she realized she was on the long road to nowhere. She might be able to continue at this killing pace for a year or two. But then what?
She'd be worn out, drained, broken. There'd be nothing left and no way to go but deeper down.
Normalcy reared its painful head.
Perhaps it might be better not to stay here. It might be much better to go back home instead. But what was waiting for her back there? There was only a job, little different from any job she might find here.
She could, however, see a difference. In her mind she took a long second look at all the people she'd seen here in this town. Each in his own way was on the same downward road. There was nothing here but lust and degradation. People were seduced by the magic of the lights and the gaming tables.
They were all sick, every one of them. Except for Jack. He'd been different. But he didn't live here and he didn't stay here long. It would have been different if she could have met him in another place at another time. But he was gone from her life now, gone forever.
She lay awake in her room for hours, tossing and turning, struggling with the decision. And finally she reached it. Having made the decision, a great weight was lifted from her shoulders.
She picked up the phone and made a reservation for her return flight on the first plane in the morning, then rose and packed most of her things away in the suitcases.
Karen was pleased with herself when she finally turned out the light and crawled into bed. Just as she was dropping off to sleep the jangling of the phone jarred her awake. She fumbled for the receiver in the darkness and lifted it to her ear.
"Yes? Who is it?"
There was a drunken mumbling at the other end, then a voice said, "You like boats as well as you like planes, you dirty witch."
For a moment she was confused. She recognized the voice, but didn't understand what it was saying.
"Jack? Jack, is that you?"
"Yeah. It's me, Jack the idiot, Jack the jerk."
"Oh, Jack!" she exclaimed, joy rising within her. "Where are you?"
"Right downstairs in the lobby," he said thickly. "I should be in Chicago right now and I wish I was. But I had to come back to you. I quit my job to come back to you."
"Jack, what are you talking about? Please come up to my room, darling."
"I'll come up, all right. I want to tell you exactly what I think of you, you dirty pig."
The receiver was slammed down at the other end. Karen rose from bed, turned on the light, and dug hurriedly in her suitcase for a robe. She was belting it about her waist when a fist pounded on her door.
She ran across the room, threw the door open, and launched herself into his arms. But she didn't quite make it. He hurled her from him and she staggered backward across the room as he walked in and slammed the door.
He stood staring at her for a long time. "I must have been crazy," he said at last. "I must have been crazy to fall in love with you. You're nothing but a pig and a tramp."
"Jack!" she wailed. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, don't pull that on me. I saw you with my own eyes."
He was quite drunk, she could see now. And he staggered across the room to drop into the chair.
"I thought about you all the way to St. Louis," he told her. "And the more I thought the more I knew I loved you. So I quit my job and hurried back to you. You weren't here, but they told me you'd been in the casino. I talked to the dealer and then to the girl in the coffee shop. She remembered you and your boy friend talking about a boat ride. I rented a plane and flew over Lake Mead looking for you."
He rubbed a hand over his face. "I found you, all right. I saw you! Only two days I was gone and already you were making out with another guy. What we did together didn't mean anything at all to you, did that? Well, that meant something special to me."
"Oh God!" she cried, sinking down to her knees. "That was you." She buried her face in her hands.
"You were looking for a job," he said. "Is that the kind of job you found? How much do you charge, baby? How much for a quickie right there on the bed?"
"Jack!" she sobbed. "Jack! Please, Jack."
"That's a pretty good act, baby. The tears look almost real."
"You don't understand," she wailed.
"What's there to understand? I saw everything."
"Not everything. You didn't see the two days when I thought you were gone. You didn't see what I went through when I realized I loved you and you weren't there anymore."
"Sure you saw me making love with another man. But that was because I was trying to forget you. Did you think I was an innocent virgin? Didn't you remember how you met me? I'm not an angel. I never claimed I was. But I did love you, and, God help me, I still do."
"What are you saying?"
"It was a mistake. All of it. Everything. Coming here in the first place was a mistake. I realized that tonight. I was going back home in the morning. Look, my bags are all packed. I've got a reservation on the morning plane."
"That doesn't make up for what I saw this afternoon."
"Can't you forget that? I couldn't help that. I thought you weren't coming back. Oh, Jack, if only you were sober you'd listen to me."
"Yeah," he mumbled. "Gotta get sober. Gotta listen to you." He started to struggle to his feet but couldn't make it.
"Wait, darling," she said, getting up from the floor.
He sat back in the chair and closed his eyes.
Karen phoned down to room service for a big pot of black coffee and a container of ice cubes. While she waited for the things to arrive she stripped off his jacket and shirt, baring him to the waist. She wiped his face and chest with a cold towel and when the ice came, applied it to the back of his neck.
She put ice on his bare skin and forced cup after cup of black coffee down his throat until he could hold no more. By then he was well on his way to being completely sober. She helped him into the bathroom and let him take a shower, then fed him more coffee.
When he was fully sober they went through everything again. And this time he understood. They embraced and she sobbed away her heartache in his arms. And slowly the misery disappeared.
They kissed and he touched her body tentatively.
"Yes," she hissed at his ear. "Yes, darling. Make love to me."
He removed her robe and his own clothing, carried her to the bed, and turned out the light. In the darkness he was slow and gentle. They caressed one another with their mouths and their hands until they reached a fever pitch.
She wrapped her arms tightly around him when he stretched out and once again she knew the unique bliss of his love-making. At dawn they crept from the bed, went to the window, drew back the drapes, and stood facing the rising sun with their arms about one another's bodies.