Linda Micheals' father knew it was about that time for his daughter, for she had reached an age where her body had burgeoned into full beauty and where her natural desires showed in her wide eyes, where her body sang out for love to quench the fires that burned within her. He knew it, and yet he had to leave her alone to run their roadside motel, for Linda's mother was dead and her father had business out of town. So he left Linda in charge, and that was the beginning of the wildest summer Linda and her friends had ever imagined. For now they had a place to meet, a place to let themselves go with all the privacy of a discreet hotel. And that's just what they wanted. A place to have their orgies, a place to do all the shameful things they could think of, from boozing to wild sexcapades, to drowning their sanity in the evil pleasures of dope. It was a ball, all right. A great big kick of a sex-drenched summer holiday. It was also something that was bound to explode, bound to send them all blazing down the low road to hell-on a one-way ride....
CHAPTER ONE
Harry Micheals had a motel.
He also bad a daughter named Linda.
Linda Micheals was seventeen-a dangerous age. Any age, after twelve, is a dangerous age for a young healthy girl. Linda Micheals was a young healthy girl. There is little more to be said for that, except to describe her physically.
Linda Micheals was five feet seven inches tall. She weighed a hundred and five pounds stripped-the way she preferred to be. Clothes make the man, it is said. Conversely, the absence of clothes makes the woman, and Linda was no exception. But let's take a look at the five foot seven, one hundred and and five pound female frame which belongs to Linda Micheals.
It is a good frame. It is a frame sturdy and pliable as a sapling, capable of supporting petite breasts and trim buttocks which, when put in motion, are as enticingly alive as breasts and buttocks can be. Linda has a way of putting them in motion when she walks that makes older men wish they were younger and younger men wish they were braver. Breasts do not have to be large if they are shaped right. Linda's were. They were two perfect little hemispheres, about the size and shape of good sized beer goblets, and as smooth and firm to the hand that dared cup them. The rosy nipples and aureoles popped forth merrily like the abbreviated stems of picked melons fresh off the vine.
Linda has two legs, lovely to look at from any angle. The unmarked flesh curves roundly from her hips, tapering gracefully to the knees, then out again to softly rounded calves. Her ankles are trim, her feet small.
Linda does not have an ounce on her that does not contribute to defining her young womanhood. And there is nothing left over to mar the effect.
Add to this a shock of curly black hair, close cropped around a pretty oval face with two smiling red lips, which she had a habit of licking when excited, clear brown eyes and a pert nose, and you had-Linda, Harry Micheals had a motel, a daughter, and two problems.
Somehow, both these problems had combined in a way that made them equally immediate.
In the first place, he had to go away for most of the summer. A promise to his brother in Akron to help him get set up in business could not easily be broken. It would take most of a summer to do it, if Harry knew his kid brother. Carl had no patience with details, but details were what he was going to have to deal with; lots of them, while getting started. Harry well knew. It had taken him a year to get his own motel on its feet. Even now, when the profits were really starting to show, he was making plans to expand, to pay off the loan which he had obtained from the FHA to get started.
He didn't want to throw it all away. True, a motel practically ran itself, once it got started but an irresponsible person could easily throw a monkey wrench into the whole deal. And he would have to leave the management of Harry's Hideaway in someone else's hand during the time he was away....
Which brought him to the problem of Linda.
Harry realized Linda had grown considerably in the last couple of years. This worried him. With the absence of a mother-his wife had died ten years ago-she had been left to do most of this growing by herself.
Harry tried to be a good father. But he had a business now, a new business that had required a lot of attention during the period of its inception His attentions were absorbed in it, for the most part. This plus the knowledge that no matter how good a father he tried to be, his efforts couldn't compensate for the lack of a mother, often gave him cause for concern.
It was tough, raising a daughter alone. You forgot about her growing. You kept thinking of her as a little girl in pigtails. Then one day, you caught a look at her diving into the motel swimming pool, her wet body flashing silver in the sun, and you were suddenly amazed at what you saw.
He didn't recognize her at first, that time looking through the window out toward the pool. He thought it was one of the female guests. For a brief second, the manhood was stirred in him as he looked, admiring the trim curves in motion as she swam with graceful strokes to the other end of the pool. Her body did that to him.
And then she climbed out and pulled off her cap and he felt suddenly ashamed of the thoughts he had been thinking.
It was his daughter.
And he recognized that he had a new problem. His little girl had grown a woman's body.
Other men would be looking at it just the way he had....
"Dad, I just have to make some money this summer," she was saying. It was June. She had just come back from her first year in college in Binghamton. As he looked at her across the breakfast table, he caught a glimpse of the girl in a bathing suit. He played with his toast nervously, trying to think of something else. He cleared his throat.
"Well, Linda, since you brought it up, there was something I wanted to talk to you about...."
"What is it, Dad?" Her eyebrows shot up with curiosity. She sensed his anxiety, which meant he had something serious to get off his chest. He was always so easy to read....
Harry decided to dump it all out at once. "Well, you see, I have to go away a couple of months, to Akron. Carl wants me to help him out. He doesn't have much sense yet about business, and its going to take a while ... I have to have someone here to run things while I'm gone...."
"Dad!" she exclaimed, jumping up, "That's super! When do I start?"
"Whoa there," he said, holding his hand up, "Not so fast! I was thinking of hiring Frank Nedra to run things...."
Her pretty face dropped visibly. "But Dad," she said, putting on a calculated pout, "that's not fair! I mean, after all, I'm not a kid anymore. We both have a problem. I need money for school and you need a motel manager. Don't you see? The solution's obvious."
"Well, I don't know...."
Then she plunked herself in his lap, putting her arms around his neck. "Aw, come on, daddykins. I'd just love to run things for you. It will only be a short time, and I'll be cheaper than anyone else. I know everything that has to be done, anyway I'll even make the beds and clean the rooms if you want me to. I can do it dad, you know I can!"
It was hard for him to argue with her at this point. He was uncomfortably conscious of her soft, firm body in his lap. All the arguments he had been ready to present her with fled from his mind in confusion as the stranger that was his daughter persisted in her arguments.
"Well, I...."
"Listen, daddy, you know Jane Sommers, that girl I brought home Easter Vacation you thought was so nice and mature and everything? Well I can get her to help me. She's with an aunt in Syracuse for the summer. She'll do it for practically nothing. We're good friends and it'll be fun anyway. Between the two of us you'll have the best run motel in New York State."
"Listen, Linda, I ... Well, all right."
She took his head in her hands and kissed him full on the mouth, an affectionate gesture which took him by surprise, leaving a lump in his throat.
"You won't regret it, Dad; you'll see! Thanks a million!"
And she kissed him again and then got up from his lap and began making a big display of clearing the breakfast dishes.
Harry Micheals watched his daughter, his mind recovering from the intimate physical contact with her. He had not held her on his lap in years. Now he felt really remote from her; a stranger.
Who could tell what went on in that pretty little head of hers? He realized that she belonged to him only by the most tenuous bonds of filial relationship now; that actually, she was another person. A person capable of outwitting him. A person who had just won an easy victory from him, exercising a female art with the unconscious ease of a grown woman.
Hell, he had been had.
"Just a minute, Linda."
She stopped, turning, on her way to the sink with a handful of breakfast dishes. "Dad?"
"There's something else I want to talk to you about."
"Go ahead; shoot, Dad!"
He felt a sudden embarrassment come over him. Dammit, if only Martha were here to do this....
"Linda," he began again, "What I want to say is ... Well, you're a-a young lady now and...."
She smiled disarmingly. "Go ahead, Dad. I'm all ears."
"What I mean is, running this motel can be a big responsibility. Sometimes you get guests that aren't quite-savory. And well, you're old enough now I guess to know that some men like to ... have trouble keeping their hands off...."
"Why Dad," she twinkled, "What are you trying to say?"
"Goddammit, what I'm trying to say is I don't want you getting into any trouble with boys or merit You know damn well there's a lot of opportunity for things to happen around a motel. Heavens know, I can't personally investigate everybody that comes here. I see young people come here that look like they were just out of school. They say they're married, and if they have a ring I have to give them a room. But some of the things that go on-well, I just can't be responsible for everybody's morals But I am responsible for yours!"
She walked over to him and put her hand on his arm tenderly, leaving the dishes in the sink. "Dad, I love you. You're precious. But you shouldn't worry about such things. Besides, I'm going steady, practically, with Larry-remember?"
"Yes, but...."
"Don't worry, Dad. Nobody's going to steal your little girl's virginity!"
This time Harry Micheals really blushed, turning away from the steady gaze of his daughter.
There was nothing more to be said.
He felt like a fool. He had skirted around the issue, mustering all the fatherly tact he could find.
And then she laid it right on the line, in the plain simple words he'd been unable to find.
Forcing his embarrassment down, Harry had to admit an admiration for this younger generation represented by his daughter. They knew the score, all right. Yes, he had to admire his daughter's openness and honesty.
He got up from his chair abruptly.
"Well, honey, I guess that's it then. I'm going upstairs and pack. No sense delaying things any longer. I'll leave today."
"I'll write twice a week, Dad. Everything's going to be fine."
That evening, Linda Micheals kissed her father goodbye at the train station and watched his face in the window disappear into the night.
Her spirits lifted with a new sense of freedom and excitement as she turned and walked down the platform to reenter the station again.
Everything was going to be fine, she thought.
Everything was going to be just super. Peachy keen and hunky dorry and all that jazz.
She was alone.
But not for long.
Larry was waiting for her in the station, draped lazily on one of the wooden benches.
"Jesus," , he said, spotting her trim figure approaching, "I thought the old geezer would never leave!"
"Hey, that's my father you're talking about!"
"Yeah, well like I didn't think it was your grandmother, doll."
"Dad's okay."
"Yeah, a sweet guy."
"You better say nice things about Mm. After all, it's his motel you're sleeping at tonight."
"Uh huh. And his daughter I'm sleeping with."
"Don't be so sure!"
He got up from the bench and pulled her close to him.
"Honey, I'm going to lay you in every bed in that motel before this summer's over!" His dark eyes blazed from his thin face as he looked into hers. He gripped her arm tightly for emphasis.
"Let's get into the car," she said, pulling away.
Larry drove. His thin, long fingered hands on the wheel spoke of the dark intensity with which he did things-an air he seemed to carry with him.
"You know," he said, "your father's a real kook. He thinks I'm a 'nice young man', doesn't he? I bet he thinks all we've been doing for the last year is holding hands, too." He snickered as he watched her expression. "The way I figure, we got a real good thing going now. I mean with the motel. How'd you con him into that?"
"I didn't con him. He thinks I've reached the age where I should accept responsibility."
Larry laughed. "Responsibility! The only thing you should accept is about eight...."
"Shut up!" she snapped. "If you're going to talk disgusting tonight, I'm not going through with it. You can just park the car and get out."
Larry saw her anger was serious. "Aw, Linda, came on now, I didn't mean anything! Jesus, you know how anxious I am to get at that body of yours-it makes me nervous just thinking about it. All I meant was, we should let the other kids in on this deal. Invite 'em over-have parties and like that."
Linda seemed pacified at his words. "Well, I don't know, Larry. We ought to take it easy at first. Dad has friends in this town, you know. We ought to wait a while."
"Sure, whatever you say. Only I can't wait to get to the Hideaway."
"Neither can I, darling." She nestled closer to him in the front seat. Her body pressed against his and he could feel those curvy little things under her blouse rubbing against him.
He stepped harder on the accelerator.
When they reached the motel, Larry turned off the highway and pulled up in front of the entrance. They got out.
Linda paused at the entrance.
"Darn it, I forgot something! How am I going to watch the desk? I mean, we don't want to be interrupted...."
"Look," Larry frowned, "You got a No Vacancy sign, haven't you? Every motel does."
"Yes, but...."
"Hell with it, then. We'll fix it up." They fixed the sign so it read No Vacancy. Then they went back inside, closed the office, and went upstairs.
"C'mere, doll," Larry breathed. She did.
It was very exciting. It was the first time she had had a boy in her bedroom, and the sense of forbiddenness it gave her made her feel a wild abandon. She was heady with the excitement that spread through her body.
Larry reached under her blouse and grabbed her breasts.
"God, they're hard," he breathed. "It's like I never touched them before."
"Touch them now, Larry! Touch them good!"
He did. He pulled the blouse over her head and unfastened her brassiere. Then he cupped her breasts in his hands and squeezed them.
The nipples rose stiff and erect in his fingers.
He cupped the palms of his hands on the undersides of her breasts and rubbed them, rhythmically pressing upwards, lifting the soft flesh. His fingers clasped her large, dark red nipples and he pulled and twisted on them as his palms continued rubbing and lifting. Then he also began to press the mounds of soft flesh toward her body, forcing it around the edges of his hands. Suddenly, he let his hands slip off her breasts, down to the gentle curve of her stomach, and he lowered his head.
"I'll bite them off," Larry said, and pretended to do it, taking them in his teeth and nipping them playfully.
Linda's legs began to tremble, the way they always did when Larry played with her breasts.
"Oh, no more, Larry, I can't stand it! Do it to me now!"
But Larry kept it up and her body squirmed beneath him, forcing her breasts to rub wildly against him. Her excitement increased now and her legs began to jerk, and then began to thrash into the air, trying to clutch Larry's body. Then he stopped.
"Now, baby. We'll do it now," Larry said.
"Hurry. Hurry. Hurry," she panted rhythmically, her voice weak, drained by the desires consuming her.
Larry ran his hand up her leg first, feeling her thigh, and then pulled her skirt off. He pushed her back on the bed and played with her a while, teasing up the hot passion that was setting her on fire.
She began to pull at his clothing, first attempting to undo the buttons and then simply trying to rip it off. But she could do nothing. The passions that enveloped her, left her mind on only one thing, left her so that there was only one thing she could think of and could act toward.
So Larry paused. Then he took off his own clothing.
She groaned for him as he met her on the bed. He hesitated a second, looking down at her face, contorted with desire.
"I wonder what your father would say if he saw you now," he laughed.
CHAPTER TWO
Jane Sommers was nineteen and a redhead. Her bust measured thirty-seven inches. She was proud of this statistic. So proud, she kept a tape measure in her purse. She liked the boys she went out with to measure her breasts before they played with them.
It was fun.
When you have big breasts, it is fun to have a boy put his arms around you there and circle you with the tape and then watch his eyes as he reads the measurement. Somehow, doing this excited them more. They get a certain respect for your breasts that way. Jane figured it was sort of like receiving a door prize or something. Once they knew the actual size of them in inches, they treated her breasts with much more ardor.
Jane was proud of her thirty-seven inch bust. It made her glad she was a girl. When she was younger and her breasts were just beginning-two ridiculous hard little lumps-she used to think she would rather have been a boy. But once her breasts began to develop into the proud rising beauties they were, she was glad she was a girl.
Once, she had been with a man who was exceptionally skilled in the business of exciting women's breasts. He had teased hers for more than an hour, never touching any other part of her. She had gone out of her mind.
Sometimes she thought about this man, wishing she could find him again. But she didn't even know his name. And it's pretty hard to find somebody when that somebody is just a man hitchhiking along a highway. Which is what she had done; picked him up on her way back from Harton College at the end of one semester.
Well, too bad. But there were other men. And she'd find one as good, sooner or later.
One who could do that to her breasts.
It was just a matter of meeting enough men. And giving them the tape measure.
Funny how men are fascinated with statistics.
She wondered how Larry Hunter was going to like hers.
He'd like them, she decided. Of course. Larry didn't know about her measuring tape yet. But he would before the summer was over.
That was her reason for visiting her aunt m Syracuse.
Her summer project.
Jane first met Larry at Harton. She was well aware of the affair between him and Linda Micheals that had been going on. She had caught them one day in the rain making love behind the bushes right on the Harton campus. It could have been a very embarrassing situation for Linda, who was then running for president of the freshman class. But Jane had kept her mouth shut. As a consequence, Linda felt deeply indebted to her. She had gone out of her way to be friends with Jane.
Which was fine with Jane. As far as Jane was concerned, Linda could feel all the indebtedness to her she wanted to. Because pretty soon, she was going to be indebted to Linda.
Jane knew a good stud when she saw one.
The way Larry had been making love that day in the rain had made a deep impression on Jane.
She figured to get her turn with him.
But there had been plenty of time. She had other things going for her that year. The girls in her sorority had formed a kind of club; a club of the older upper-class girls on campus. It was a club. Only the best looking girls in the sorority were in it. The object of the club was to sew up all the most eligible elates on campus. The method of achieving this object was simple: they threw pajama parties for the boys on their list. At these parties, the boys got everything they wanted: free liquor, free food, and free love. Providing they pledged never to take out any other girls but the ones in the club. The pledges were not hard to obtain. The boys kept their mouths shut.
It was like having a license to make love.
The club had worked very well. It had made Jane's junior year her best one at Harton.
But with the end of the spring semester the club had broken up and the whole summer stretched before Jane. She did not want to go back to Leeksville, the boring home town she came from. For a while, she couldn't make up her mind what to do.
Then she thought of her friend Linda. Which naturally made her think again of Larry. Larry came from Syracuse and Linda lived just outside of Syracuse. And Jane remembered her aunt Mildred who also lived in Syracuse....
It would be fun taking Larry away from Linda.
Lots of fun.
And it wouldn't be any problem.
Not with a thirty-seven inch bust.
All she had to do was pick up the phone....
Her hand reached out for it. She almost jumped as it rang, the minute her hand touched it, like a thing alive.
It was Linda.
"Joan?"
"That's me honey. What's happening?"
"How would you like to help me run a motel this summer?"
Joan met Linda and Larry in the office of Harry's Hideaway.
"What's the scoop?" she questioned Linda, swinging a well rounded hip up on a corner of the desk. Linda sat behind the desk. Larry lounged in a chair, eyeing them both.
"Sensational news," Linda smiled. "Dad's gone for the summer. He left me in charge of the whole shebang."
Joan whistled. "Whew! You mean you've got all those lovely cabins and a swimming pool at your disposal?"
"Not exactly. I have to keep the business in the black, too, you know."
"What a drag." Joan looked out toward the swimming pool admiringly. "We could have made this into one of the coziest little resorts in the state. Bill and Brenda are in town, and Sue Breckenford...."
Larry got up suddenly, butting in. "Wait a minute! Why don't we do it anyway? Who says we can't make a profit for your old man and still have a big old summertime ball doing it?"
Both the girls stared at him.
"How?" they both asked.
The question stopped him a moment. His gaunt face and narrow eyes looked reflective as he watched Joan swing her legs which dangled nicely from the desk. They were very good legs. Joan had on a very short skirt, and she wasn't bothering to pull it down to her knees. The way she was swinging her legs left a very interesting space between them which Larry couldn't help noticing.
Linda couldn't help noticing Larry was noticing. If Joan weren't her friend, she'd almost think she was doing it on purpose.
"Listen," Linda said hurriedly, "we ought to be able to come up with something. We've all been to college, haven't we?"
Larry laughed. "Yeah. Ideasville. Didn't they have classes there, or something like that?"
"Oh, come on," Joan said impatiently. "Why try to make complicated things out of simple ones? We'll do both. We'll make sure the motel has enough customers so your father can't complain and we'll have fun at the same time."
"Yeah! Have fun while earning money on your summer vacation," Larry snickered. "What do we do
-push dope or something?"
"Knock it off!" Joan retorted. "Look, Linda
-your old man has twelve cabins, right?"
Linda nodded.
"Well, they don't all have to be filled with paying customers, do they? I mean to keep a monthly profit going."
"Well, no...."
"Then it's easy. All we do is reserve three or four of them for ourselves."
Linda and Larry both whistled. "You mean for the whole summer!" Linda said.
"Sure. We'll have our group here. Form a club, if you like. Boys and girls together. We'll have one of the craziest summers in history."
"Sounds great-when do we start?" Larry said, looking at Joan with new found admiration.
"I don't know," Linda frowned, biting her Bp. "It sounds pretty daring to me. We could get into trouble."
Joan sensed she had an airy for her scheme in Larry, who was obviously excited over her proposition. She decided to play it for all it was worth. They didn't know half of her plans yet, but this was the crucial moment. Simpy little Linda had to be sold on the basic idea, and she had to be sold on it now or never.
Joan gave Larry an intimate wink, unobserved by Linda. "Gee, Larry, I guess the idea's a real flop. I guess all us juveniles would get into big trouble from the mean old cops if we tried to have a little run this summer, wouldn't we? Are you afraid of the big mean old cops, Larry, huh?"
Larry caught the play perfectly. His full lips twisted into a sneer and he pretended to spit.
"Cops! What the hell are a bunch of dumb cops going to know?" He turned to Linda. "Come on, Linda-you're not going to toady out on us, are you?"
It was a direct challenge. Linda was aware of the looks Larry had been giving Joan. She was aware that if she didn't go along with Joan's idea, it meant losing prestige among her friends. It might even mean losing Larry.
She didn't want that.
There was only one answer she could give. She stood up, her pretty face set in the angry lines of defeat.
"Okay. I'll go along with it."
Larry jumped up and threw his arms around her. "Hurray! Here that, Joan? We've got our own juvie country club, pool and all!" He danced Linda around the office while she pretended to struggle against his rough pawing. Joan watched them smilingly.
There was a little twist of mockery in her smile as she looked at Linda.
Out of breath, Linda panted, "B-but we've got to be careful. We've got to plan it right, so that everything looks natural."
"Don't worry about a thing, honey," Joan assured her. "I've had a little bit of experience in organizing private clubs. There won't be a hitch."
Joan got into Larry's red Ford convertible. It was already hot this early in the summer and the top was down. Larry turned the key and the roar of duals rattled against the macadam pavement of the motel driveway. They both waved to Linda in the office as the car rolled out to the highway.
"Nice of you to drive me home," Joan said once they were out on the highway. The short black skirt she had on had crept up over her shapely knees again. She left it there.
"Yeah. Too bad Linda's got to watch the desk tonight. But I guess we can fix that situation up when the rest of the kids get in on the deal." Larry drove earnestly, as if it were one of the few things in life worthy of being taken seriously. He drove fast but he drove expertly, and the machine became an extension of him in his hands.
After a while, Joan said casually, "I'm not so sorry Linda has to watch the desk tonight."
Larry turned his attention to her for a brief minute, his eyes raking her curvacious body from the full woman's breasts which pushed out her sweater to the legs bared by the hiked up skirt from the middle of her thighs down. It was a lot to look at, in a brief minute.
"Why's that?" he said finally.
Joan smiled at him from the corners of her eyes. "Now, why do you think, big man?"
She threw her shoulders back and her breasts jerked forward. The material of her sweater stretched and strained and became thin so that he could see the pale white of her bare breasts beneath, and could see the large dark nipples all but sticking through the now net-like material. Then she let her left knee flop to the side and touch Larry leg. Her skirt quickly slid up her thighs from the fast movement.
Larry knew why.
He braked the car in time to make a turnoff on a secondary road that twisted its way from the highway.
Joan didn't waste any time. She slid over in the seat, nestling her body against his arm. "I can show you a lot better time than Linda would have," she whispered in his ear.
"I'll bet," he said, "Only keep those boobs off me till we can park."
It wasn't long until Larry found the place he was looking for. There was another turn off, a dirt road which ran over a small bridge. On the other side of the bridge, Larry pulled the Ford off the dirt road between two tall trees. A hidden path just wide enough for a car revealed itself. The path wound down under the bridge beside a creek. When Larry finally parked, the car was completely hidden from view from the highway. It was dark under there, but not so dark he couldn't see the bulging sweater Joan was wearing.
He slid his hands up under it, contacting bare flesh all the way. She gasped at his swift action, then pressed his hands harder against her breasts.
He never saw anything like it. The way she jumped as soon as his hands touched her nipples-it was like grabbing the bare ends of a plugged in electric cord.
And they were so big!
"Larry, Larry-wait!" she begged.
He took his hands out and waited to see what she would do. She pulled her sweater up over her red hair and there they were-two glorious globes. He reached for them again but she stopped him.
"Wait, Larry-wouldn't you like to measure them?"
"Huh?" The question stopped him for a minute. "What do you mean?"
She answered by reaching into hear purse and taking out the tape measure.
She stretched it out in front of her, emphasizing its length. It was long but she knew that when it was wrapped around her chest it would barely be long enough. If her breasts grew any more, she thought, she'd have to go and buy an extra long tape measure.
"Put it around me, Larry. See what large breasts I have-go ahead, measure me."
It was crazy. But he did what she said. He reached the yellow calibrated tape around her, around her back, and drew it across the nipples. The tape strained with the bulky loveliness it encompassed. Larry looked at the figures where it met and whistled softly.
"You've got prize boobs, honey !"
"All the better for you to play with."
"And play with boobs like those, I never have," he gasped.
"They're bigger than Linda's, aren't they?"
"Yeah. A lot bigger." He let the tape fall and cupped them in his hands, feeling the nipples in the palms.
"Play with them, Larry. It excites me more than anything in the world."
She wasn't lying. The liquid sounds from her throat became moans, then cries as he caressed her breasts and then kissed the nipples. They were like rocks. He kissed them and bit them and loved them until she couldn't stand it anymore.
Then he ran his hand up her skirt. His hand traveled the soft road up her thighs.
Both his hands were busy now; one on her breasts, the other under her skirt.
He could feel her throbbing with the pleasure he was giving her.
Her cries became delirious, squeezing his hands as if she wanted to crush them.
Then he pulled her skirt down.
It was a new bit. Usually, in a car where somebody might come along, he just pulled a girl's skirt up and took her that way. But Joan didn't seem to mind at all being naked out in the open. She wiggled and soon he had the skirt down over her ankles and off.
She didn't even have any panties on.
"The back seat," he said, opening the door.
She climbed over the seat and he watched her lovely flesh ripple as she moved. Her breasts were dragged over the top of the seat and suddenly burst free as they passed over the top. Then her lovely rear was in the air and he reached for it, both for pleasure and to help her into the back. Then he leaped into the rear.
"Hurry!"
In the back seat, he embraced her all over again, until she was begging him to take her. He didn't need any begging. He was ready.
The leather seat groaned as he threw himself down on her.
Locked in passion, their bodies tore at each other like two animals bent on destruction.
Again and again they bounced the seat, until both of them rode the trembling wave of crisis about to engulf them. But at the last moment, she screamed at him.
"No! On my breasts, Larry-on my breasts!" Her hands went to her breasts, cupping and lifting them toward him.
It was a new bit. But he managed to do what she wanted.
And then some. For she squirmed with even more excitement.
He knew that this was going to be the longest ride he ever had in his car.
CHAPTER THREE
Lovely Linda Micheals was furious. She sat behind the desk in the office of the Hideaway, stewing over the recent turn of affairs. The phone sat on the desk in front of her, black and silent.
Larry was supposed to call her at nine o'clock.
It was now ten o'clock. The phone had rung only once that evening-a man inquiring about the rates. The rest of the evening it had been silent. Silent as death.
She wished Joan Sommers was dead.
The witch. Joan had tricked her, she was sure. Her best friend. She had come to Syracuse to visit her "dear old aunt." Only it looked like she wasn't spending much time at her "dear old aunt's." She hadn't been there all evening. Linda knew. She had called three times.
Joan wasn't home. And Larry hadn't called her.
These two facts went around and around in her mind like the little fruits and bells in a slot machine. And each time they stopped, they said the same thing.
Linda loses.
Because the two facts added up to one very obvious thing.
Joan and Larry were together.
Of course, she had no way of being sure. Sitting there in the office with nothing to do but chew her nails and smoke cigarettes, there were moments when she almost believed she was wrong.
How could Joan do such a thing to her? Joan had been her best friend in school, taking her under her wing when Linda came in as a freshman, helping her meet people and even promising that next year, when Linda was a sophomore, she would get her into her sorority.
Big deal.
Linda didn't give a damn about Joan's sorority now. All she wanted was a phone call from Larry.
But it was too late. If Larry were going to call, he would have done so by then. And no matter what he said, she wouldn't believe him anyway. And she wasn't going to reach for the phone again and call Joan's aunt's. Hearing her voice, if she was in by now, was a humiliation she wasn't going to suffer.
She would claw Joan's eyes out when she saw her again, that's what she would do.
And as for Larry....
But she couldn't bear to think about that. It hurt her too much. Larry had been the first boy ever to do it to her. The first, and the last. She remembered the first time she saw him, at school. Her voice had trembled when she talked to him-he had that lean, tall, thin good looks that could do that to a girl-and when he'd asked her out, she'd been almost afraid to say yes, afraid of what might happen.
It happened.
It happened during the first week of school, at Freshman orientation camp. The Student Leaders took all the freshmen and split them up into groups. They went on buses to Camp Crosett, a summer girl scout camp in the woods, where they were supposed to listen to speeches about Scholarship and Striving and Honor and all that gaff. Hot dogs and hamburgs were cooked over an open fire and songs were sung. It was a real toady affair.
Or would have been, if they had stayed to hear the speeches and eat the hot dogs and sing songs about dear old Harton.
Larry was in her group. They had a date for the coming weekend and it was natural for the two of them to stick together. At first they hung back from the fire, in the shadows, and talked.
"I hate this jazz," Larry said.
"It's kind of boring," Linda agreed. It was. The student leaders all said the same things in their speeches, and it was so cornball, it made you want to gag. It was just like being in high school all over again. Worse. This was supposed to be college, where they treated you like adults. Instead, they fed you the same old garbage.
"Let's cut out of this group," Larry suggested after a while.
Linda was a little bit frightened. The way Larry held her hand and stroked her arm excited her, making her feel very unsure of herself.
"Do you think it would be noticed?"
"Nah. They're too busy making speeches. Let's go for a walk."
And she had gone with him, against her better instincts, because ... because it was exciting to be with him.
It got even more exciting. When they were away off in the woods, where nobody could see them. Larry stopped and kissed her. He had to lean down to do it, he was so tall, and when his mouth met hers she felt a weak feeling. She had never been kissed the way he was kissing her.
He was sure of himself. When he had her feeling like she was drunk, he began running his hands all over her, inside her bra and under her dress, as if he owned her. She couldn't stop him.
And then, before she knew what was happening, he was taking her clothes off.
She tried to protest, but her protests were feeble before his passionate determination.
"Come on, Linda honey," he said. "Don't be scared. We can make it right here and nobody'll know. You're going to be my girl."
His girl. The words rang in her ears. They were all she could think of as he removed her panties and bra.
And then he was taking his clothes off.
She was scared then. She had petted and necked, but this was going too far. Things were out of hand.
And then they weren't. He made her touch him there, and it was an excitement such as she had never known before.
And then he was forcing her down, down into the dry grass that crackled under her weight. With one sudden stab of fear she protested.
"But I'm a virgin!"
"God, Linda-why didn't you tell me?" he panted. "It's too late now-I can't stop."
It hurt. It hurt like she was being torn apart, and she smothered her screams against his shoulder.
And then it didn't hurt anymore. She felt him with her and she knew that it was what she had been waiting for, all her life. She relaxed and let her body do what it demanded, and it was good. The stars shone through the trees overhead and blended into white fire and she soared up to them on wings of passion.
She was a mess afterward. But Larry gave her his handkerchief and they made it back to their group just in time to catch the buses.
It had been a very successful Freshman Orientation.
After that they made love many times together throughout the school year, in about as many places. They even did it once in the rain, in the woods behind the dorm on the Harton campus. Larry had been the only one....
Such galling thoughts made the time crawl as Linda sat in the motel office. She looked at the clock again. It was eleven-thirty. At twelve she would go up to her room to bed. If any customers came after then, they could ring the night bell for service. She would have to get up out bed to take their money and give them the key, but it was better than waiting up in that dreary old office. Things were very slow. It was a lonely place.
She yawned and decided to start closing up anyway. Tears of angry frustration came to her eyes as she thought of Joan and Larry together while she had to sit alone in that prison....
She got up and was about to lock up when lights flashed in the driveway.
A car pulled up in front of the office. There was silence for a minute as the engine died, and then a door slammed and a man's footsteps came up the walk.
Carmine Crager was a salesman.
He was thirty-three and had been around. As a traveling salesman, he had run into quite a few interesting situations. Enough to know that there was a good reason why there were so many traveling salesmen jokes.
A lot of them were true.
Well, not in all their specifics. But you take a few of the situations he had been in with women, married and single, old and young, dress them up a little, give them a good punch line, and you had some of the best jokes in the world.
There was the time, in Tennessee, when he had sold three gross of Ex Lax to a backwoods farm family.
It had been old stock that would have been thrown away when he brought it in. But one of the kids had got hold of some, tasted it, and thought it was candy. Then they all wanted some-about eight or nine of them. And no matter how hard he tried to explain to the old folks, they thought it was candy also, after they had tasted it.
So he sold it to them for three dollars.
He wondered what that family was doing today. With all that Ex Lax, he had a pretty good idea.
Then there was the time he had gone to bed with four housewives in Knoxville.
In one apartment.
It had been a regular field day in the way of going to bed with housewives. He had plowed that field well that day. It seemed their husbands had all gone to some kind of convention in Cleveland Their wives had become a little tired of those conventions. They knew perfectly well just how their husbands were living it up, and they were determined to get back at them one way or another.
Carmine provided them with a way.
Things like that seemed to happen to Carmine. Perhaps it had something to do with his looks-he was tall, muscular in a lean way which made suits off a plain pipe rack look tailor made on him. well tanned, and had a face that often caused him to be mistaken for Gregory Peck. He probably could have been a movie star if he wanted to.
But he found sales game to be very interesting. He was quite contented with it. He stayed single He had seen too many married women to want to marry one himself.
He had slept with too many of them.
No, marriage was out of the question as far as Carmine Crager was concerned. He pitied the poor slobs who worked their heads off every day to support a woman who was handing it out to everyone who came around for some, from the milkman to the paper boy.
Shove marriage. Right up.
Carmine stood holding the door in his hand in surprise as he looked at the pretty young thing sitting at the desk in the motel office He took in her dark hair, wide eyes, and curvy little figure. Somebody's girl, he thought. Somebody's girl who has grown up in a very nice way. pert as a partridge.
"Hello," he said.
"Hi," Linda answered. "I was just closing. Looking for a place to stay?"
And how, he thought. "That's right." he said. "You're not full up, are you? I came a long way today and brought most of the road with me."
"Oh, no I You can have number six. if you'd like, sir."
That wasn't the number he'd like at all. The number he'd like had black hair and licked her lips in a hell of an enticing way.
"I'll take it," he said.
"I'll give you the key," she said.
As she stretched up to reach the key. high on the board behind the desk, he noted the tight curve of her buttocks, the trim legs and neat little breasts. She wore a white summer dress of loose material which hid just enough to make him want to see all of it. The more he looked, the more he wanted to see.
She handed him the key. "Are you staying just for the night or will you be here longer?"
"That depends. I have business in the city. I don't know how long it will be till tomorrow. Tell you what, I'll pay you for tonight and then let you know tomorrow, okay?"
"Sure, it's okay." She shrugged her shoulders in an it-doesn't-matter manner. And it didn't matter to her, she was so sick of the whole mess.
"Fine," he smiled at her.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a new, expensive-looking wallet, and withdrew some bills from it. He casually set them on the counter-top and smoothly replaced his wallet.
She took the money and he signed the register
"Thank you, sir."
He grinned, trying hard as hell to look like Gregory Peck. "Please don't call me sir. Makes me feel too old. My friends call me Crag."
"Okay Crag."
"That's better."
"Can you find it by yourself?"
"I think so. Only I thought it would be nice if you had a coffee with me first. There's a place up the road...." His tone was just right-a combination of innocence and friendliness that was part of his calculated arsenal of charm.
"Oh, I don't think I could leave
"But you said you were closing up. I'm not trying to seduce you, honey," he laughed. "I'm just a tired man who would like a pretty girl to share a cup of coffee with him before he rests his weary bones. How about it?"
"Well...." It was hard for Linda to refuse such a friendly invitation from such a handsome man. And hell, she'd been cooped up in that damn office all night while they were out....
"Okay. But I've got to lock up first"
"We won't be gone long. Just time enough for a cup of coffee ... and maybe a piece of pie too."
He watched her lock up attentively. He had made his play; a casual one, the kind that either worked or didn't, depending on what was on the girl's mind. He sensed that something was on hers. Something that had made her decide suddenly to go have a coffee with him when she wasn't especially interested. She was annoyed over something; that was it. He could see it in her quick movements, the way she slammed things around as if taking it out on them because of some secret frustration. Carmine stored this information in his mind, deciding then and there he wasn't going to spend the night alone in number six.
"Look, Linda, maybe we ought to get back to the motel." She'd told him her name after the first drink. This was her fourth, and she was beginning to show it.
As he'd hoped, the diner hadn't been open. He simply had driven further up the road, to a road house he knew of from previous visits to the suburbs of Syracuse. And she'd gone in with him for a drink, of course. Once you get them in the car, there's no problem. After that, getting them in bed was a simple matter of procedure. The only real barriers went crashing down as soon as you got them in the car. You had to make a stupid mistake after that not to score. Carmine knew.
Carmine never failed to score.
He'd been politely sympathetic when she began telling him about her boyfriend Larry. Then he'd danced with her a few times to the music of the juke box. Right now she'd eat sugar out of his hand.
The injured woman.
The injured girl.
The injured female. It was all the same. You talked to them nice, played just enough of the gentleman, and pretty soon they began to see a good way to get back at the slob who had done them dirty.
Then you walked off with them.
Linda wove slightly as she walked off with Carmine Crager.
"Whooppee!" She flung her arms into the air. "I feel great."
"You look great."
"Crag," she said, "I think I'm drunk."
"No," he smiled-Gregory Peck again. "No, I don't think you are."
"Really." She stumbled around and faced him.
"Really. You're just happy and want to enjoy yourself. Just as I'm happy and want to enjoy myself."
"No," she protested "I still think I'm drunk-too drunk. Real drunk. Very drunk. Extra drunk." She continued to babble.
"It's all right. I'll get you back safe and sound."
"Don't want to get back safe and sound. Hate safe and sound. Hate that motel, too."
"We'll fix that up."
"Will you Crag? Will you fix it up."
"Yes, I will. I'll fix it up."
"What will you fix up," she said, as if suddenly because of her drunkenness she had forgotten what they were talking about.
"I'll fix it. I'll fix it so that you won't hate that motel anymore. In fact, I'll fix it so that you'll love that motel."
"You'll fix it?" she asked in a daze.
"Sure. Don't worry."
"How?"
"By making love to you."
"Oh."
The thought must have sobered her a little. She sat in the car not saying anything as he drove the short distance back. Then, when they pulled into the motel parking lot, she looked at him oddly.
He pulled her to him. She stiffened in his arms first, recoiling. But then his mouth ground against hers, forcing her lips open, and there was tongue play between them. She felt his mature male power, his strong arms holding her like she was a doll, and her knees began to tremble.
"Oooh, oooh." she began to moan. "Let's go and do it."
"Don't worry." he assured her, "I'm not going to hurt you."
"You know what, Crag? I don't care if you do. Let's get into that cabin and get our clothes off."
CHAPTER FOUR
Linda didn't have to ask him twice. They walked swiftly up the path toward cabin number six.
It was a nice setup. The name Hideaway was very apt in describing the motel Harry Micheals had built. Only the first few cabins and the main building where Harry and Linda lived could be seen from the road. The rest curved off along a grassy, well kept path with plenty of trees. It had been a combination trailer camp and tourist cabin area before Harry had bought it and converted the run-down structure into modern motel units. The trailer area now a macadamized parking lot off to the left. The units, off to the right, some of them hidden by trees and shrubs, were little miniature white clapboard houses. They looked neat and functional. Harry had built well, with the aid of a government loan.
Now his daughter, was going to use one of those functional units.
Each one had a very functional bed.
Linda giggled as she thought about it. Her father said that pleasing customers was the first rule of good busineses. Well, she'd take his words to heart. She'd be the best little business woman in the motel business.
She stumbled at the doorway of number six and Crag put his arm around her to steady her.
"You're looped," he commented.
She giggled again. "I don't care. I like being looped."
Crag took the key out of his pocket and opened the door. They went inside. There were two rooms, one of them a bedroom. Linda headed straight for the bed and collapsed on it, laughing.
Crag took off his suit jacket, folded it over the back of a chair, and looked at her.
"What's so funny?"
"D-Don't you get it? My father's motel! I'm going to make love in my father's motel-with a customer!"
Crag stepped over to the bed and slapped her across the face. Her eyes grew wide with the surprise of his sudden, stunning action.
"I don't like women laughing when I'm about to make love to them," he snarled.
"I-I'm sorry." The blow had sobered her. Now she felt a sudden fear of this strange man. She hadn't realized what she was doing before-it was a lark, a way of getting back at Larry and Joan. But suddenly it had become something more serious. She was going to bed with a man she didn't even know; a man who was incredibly handsome, but so ... brutal. The dead serious look on his face scared her.
"How old are you?" he said, unbuttoning his shirt.
"Eighteen."
"You sure?"
"Y-yes."
"Okay. You must be telling the truth, or your father wouldn't have left you in charge of things. Pretty careless of him. I'm not interested in a twenty-year rap, Linda. You ever been pregnant?"
"N-no, never!"
"Okay." He took something out of his pocket.
She knew what it was for. She had used them with Larry. But now, the way he was showing it to her, so coldly, it seemed like an evil thing With Larry, it had been fun, kick. But now the way he was going about it, it made her feel cheap.
Like a cheap tramp.
She sat up on the bed.
"Maybe I ought to go...."
He pushed her back down roughly. "The hell with that. You came here for something and you're going to get it-all the way. Let's have a look at that little body of yours-"
His hands undressed her roughly. The summer dress came off with a zip and a tug, and then she was sitting there in her bra and panties.
He whistled softly. "You've got a neat little figure. That kid, Larry-he must be sick or something."
He unclasped her bra and looked at her pink tipped breasts, running his hands over them, touching them gently to test their firmness.
"Lovely little breasts, Linda. You're a little nymph. A perfect little nymph."
And then he squeezed one of them, hard, and she felt her head spin.
His fingers went down into her panties, clasping the cloth. With a quick tug, he tore them off.
He looked at her hungrily as he removed the rest of his clothing.
And then he was ready. She could see his big man's body standing over her, and then it came down to hers.
It was like nothing she had ever felt before. He was big and strong and powerful, and everything he did to her was direct and effective. His experienced hands excited her, and sent thrills through her whole body.
And she wanted it. She wanted everything he was doing to her, and more. It was as if she were being made love to for the first time by a man, a real man. By the time he was ready to take her, she was straining, offering herself to him with desire-wracked shudders.
She forgot then about everything, about Larry, her father, the motel, the room they were in.
There was only him, rocking her to the roots of her soul.
When it was over, they rested.
She lay back, desire receding from her muscles slowly, leaving a warm, sensuous glow.
"Crag," she said meekly, "was I good?"
"Very good, Linda."
"It made me feel good, better than I've ever felt. Like a-a tramp."
"You're a woman."
"Yes."
"And all women are tramps." He reached for her again. "You just happen to be an eighteen-year-old one."
She didn't have much time to think about that. His hands were grabbing her again.
Joan Sommers woke up the next morning in the house of her aunt in East Syracuse. It was a lovely old home in a quiet residential section where the streets were lined with trees and the houses were spaced far enough apart to afford a kind of privacy long since gone out of style. The architecture of each dwelling, while not elaborate, was distinctive. Dormer windows, wide front porches, functional storm shutters, high peaked roofs-all these vestigial marks of peaceful ease could be found along a street grown old with grace, seemingly removed from the cares and anxieties of modern living. Jane's aunt, Mildred Esselstine, lived in a quiet white screened-in-porched two storied house, alone except for the company of three rather old and fat cats who provided her with companionship in her declining years. Of late, visitors to the old house had become infrequent. In her late sixties, she found most of her friends to be dying off, or at least too ailment ridden to be traveling about on visits. Mildred herself, although she had become somewhat hard of hearing-she absolutely refused to use one of those "newfangled contraptions they plug in your ear"-was remarkably spry and well-informed, in her own way. She was still able to tend the morning glorys and zinnias and hydrangeas that grew rather haphazardly around the base of the front porch and in the back yard. Spry enough to do the house cleaning by herself. And alert enough to wonder what kept her niece in her bed upstairs half the morning. Not that she didn't appreciate having her young niece as company. Lord knew, she didn't have much anymore, not since her nearest kin had moved from the city. But she was a strange young critter, always seeming to be up to something. Young people. She didn't understand them anymore. Why, when she was a girl....
Jane was lying in her bed, watching the sunlight flood the room. It played over her body, making her skin look golden and glowing. Her head propped on the pillow, she examined the pink nipples of her breasts, her soft belly with the deep indentation formed by the navel. She raised one leg, admiring its firm, trim outline.
It was fun to be lying in bed like this. Occasionally, she heard sounds of her aunt moving around downstairs, but she ignored them. Old people. She didn't understand them. They were like creatures from Mars or some other planet, with their strange ways, their disapproving notions of young people like herself. She tried to imagine how it would be to be old, but the thought was distasteful and she let go of it. Old people didn't have any fun. When you were old, you couldn't do things; the things she had been doing with Larry last night, under the bridge....
This new thought made her tingle with a recaptured excitement. She could feel it in the tips of her breasts, the way he had touched them, squeezed them and kissed them. It had been fun.
It was going to be fun again. A whole summer full of fun. Coming to Syracuse had been a gamble. Her main reason for coming had been Larry, but if that hadn't worked out, it could have been horrible. In this house, like a musty old museum, living with her aunt. A perfectly dull summer, except for Larry.
But now all that was changed. With an unbelievable stroke of luck, her prospects for the summer had brightened beyond her wildest dreams. Linda's father had gone to Cleveland, leaving the motel in Linda's hands. And Linda had asked her to help. Well, she was going to help all right. She had lots of ideas about what could be done with a motel for a whole summer. And she had already, with Larry's help, taken charge.
There was a lot she had to do this morning. The anticipation of it was delightful, and she felt no hurry to get up out of bed.
She could feel some of the desire returning to her, just thinking about it.
Larry, Larry, Larry, she thought, vivid pictures of the night before flashing through her mind. She saw him taking his clothes off, quivering at her like a frightening animal....
The thought was too intense. It sent a spasm of desire through her, and her body began to roll slowly. Her hand went down.
No, she shouldn't do this. It was silly; but she couldn't help it-desire coursed through her like a heady wine, making her feel giddy.
Suddenly a picture of Larry, naked and closeup, leaning over her, flooded through her mind.
She writhed furiously, the muscles of her legs straining with effort.
And then she felt it, a moment of unbearable tension.
And just as suddenly, her muscles relaxed all at once and a warm golden glow spread through her It was a very peaceful feeling. It was as if sunlight had entered her body, making it relax completely.
She removed her hand and rubbed it on the sheet. She felt a little guilty She hadn't done that lately; not in a long time. It was not supposed to be good, psychologically, she'd heard in college But that was silly. All the girls did it anyway They did it at night, in bed in the dorms when they thought no one would hear them. Especially the ones who couldn't get dates. They did it all the time and nothing ever happened to them. She had had a girl for a roommate once, a fat, ugly girl who did it every night just about the same time. She waited until she thought Jane was asleep, and then Jane would hear her, moving in the bed, breathing hard.
At first it had been funny, listening. But then it became an annoyance. It got so she would lie awake, listening for it. She didn't want to say anything at first-Sue was a good girl to room with otherwise. And what the hell, she'd done it enough times, before she started having boys. But it was ruining her sleep. Finally, one night she became exasperated.
"God, Sue, why don't you get yourself a guy to do that!"
There was silence. Jane could almost feel Sue's humiliation, and she was sorry she'd opened her mouth for a minute.
"I-I'm sorry. I didn't know you could hear...." And then her voice had trailed off into low sobs.
Jane felt very guilty then. "Look, Sue honey. I'm sorry, really. But there's lots of guys around Harton who are dying for it. You don't have to do that."
"But, but they don't want me...."
"Nonsense. A guy's a guy. They all want to do it."
"I'm afraid."
"Don't be silly. There's nothing to be afraid of, if you use the proper protection."
"Doesn't it ... hurt?"
Jane laughed. "Maybe, the first time. But just for a little while. Then it's good, Sue. You've never felt anything so good in your whole life. Honest Sue.
There's nothing as good as having a guy. "What should I do?"
"Listen. I'll tell you. Find yourself a nice quiet one, one who looks like he can keep his mouth shut. There's lots of them, all over campus, and they're just dying for some loving. Only they're too shy to ask. So you've got to encourage them. When you get them alone, on a date, let them put their hands on you a little if they want to."
"You mean ... on my breasts?"
"Sure. What do you think they're for? They're not going to melt!"
"I never let a boy play with my breasts before, Jane."
"Well you better start doing it now, before it's too late. When you find out how good it is. You'll want them to do it all the time. You'll want them to put their hands on your breasts, and other places, too."
"What places, Jane?"
"Well, like the place you just had your hand."
"There?"
"Oh. don't act so shocked. Do you think it's any worse to have them touching you than for you to touch yourself?"
"Well I guess not."
"Of course it's not. If he tries to run his hand up your leg. you let him, see? And then when he gets to home base, you'll know how right it is Once he gets there, Sue, you'll be ready to do anything else he wants you to-you'll see."
Sue was quiet for a minute, thinking about what Jane had said. Then she said, "Thanks for talking to me, Jane. I won't disturb you again."
Jane had figured Sue was pretty dumb, but the talk must have done her some good. A couple of nights later, Jane saw her out with a boy; a fat, shy one, like herself, but still a boy. And then later, back in their room in the dorm, Sue had looked at her with a flushed, happy expression on her face and said, "You know what? You were right. It's the greatest thing in the world. I don't know how to thank you, Jane."
Jane shrugged. "It's nothing. Have a good time." '"Wonderful."
They went to bed. Jane giggled to herself as she imagined the fat couple making love in the woods. It would be a sight worth seeing, like two elephants. Then she went to sleep.
Jane finally got out of bed. threw a robe over her pink body, and went downstairs.
"See you've finally made it," her aunt snorted, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "I got to go outside and tend the flowers. There's bacon and eggs in the ice box."
"Thanks, I won't have any trouble," Jane smiled back.
Jane turned the heat on under the frying pan on the stove and went to the refrigerator. She got out the bacon and eggs and set them on the counter top next to the stove. She peeled off a couple strips of bacon with a knife. The bacon was warm, evidently her aunt had just put it back in the refrigerator, so the slices separated easily. She folded them into the now warm pan and they began to sizzle and darken and the warm, clear, grease began to ooze out. Then she broke open an egg with the knife and dropped it in the pan. Then she broke a second. She dumped the shells in the can at the side of the stove. She stared at the two round yolks sticking up in the center of the pan. Their roundness made her think of her breasts and then of last night with Larry's hands on her breasts and again she felt a twinge of desire rise within her.
"What's happening to me, again?" she muttered to herself.
"What did you say, Jane?" her aunt called from the living room.
"Nothing, nothing. I was just talking to myself."
"Well, I'm going outside now. So in case you want anything, I'll be out in the garden."
"All right!" Jane shouted back. Then she looked back into the pan. The yolks were still sitting there. Suddenly, Jane raised the knife into the ait and brought it down into the pan in two quick shots, smashing both yolks. She watched the yellow spill out and run over the white and pour into the pan. Then she flipped the eggs over, took the bacon out of the pan, and turned off the heat.
When her aunt had gone outside Jane sat down at the phone stand. She found a paper and pencil and began writing down names of boys and girls she knew around the city. When she was finished, she considered each name carefully, crossing some off with her pencil after much deliberation.
Then, with the phone book on her lap, she began to call the first number.
CHAPTER FIVE
A motel is not a home.
It's not a hotel, either. Functionally, perhaps, but there the similarity ends. A motel is a much more casual setup. The air of impermanence is intensified by the all too obvious parking lot in front Thus the contradiction: what has become a billion dollar business is still a fly-by-night affair.
The motel business is a sure thing. It can't miss. All it needs is a highway in front of it. Spawned by the automobile age, motels cluster around the highways leading in and out of cities, like growths around an artery. They're there for a number of reasons. They make money for their owners. The maintenance cost is very low and the customer turnover very high. America travels on wheels and doesn't like to stop long. Businessmen, salesmen, tourists on the run; all of them prefer a place close to the city but not in it, a place where there is no parking problem to put up with, a place of quiet and privacy. Honey-mooners find a motel useful, too. The quiet and privacy are very useful, as are clean beds. They provide a good testing ground, away from family and friends. Marriages are made or broken there, right at the start, on that snow white cushioned proving ground of love.
Other people use motels too. A motel owner with a social conscience, a feeling of responsibility for public morals, might be highly concerned about the other people using his motel. Fortunately, this kind of motel owner is about as scarce as an ASPCA member working in a slaughterhouse. He wouldn't last very long in the business. Once you give them the key, they've bought a night of privacy, and if she's wearing any kind of a ring, you don't question. If she's not wearing any kind of a ring, it means she's stupid or doesn't care, so you don't question either. When they start to come in looking thirteen or fourteen years old, then you start to question.
After all, there's a limit to everything.
There are many uses for a motel, and all things considered and toted up, it is a very happy arrangement for the users. For profit and fun, you can't beat a motel, unless you build a whorehouse. Which is perhaps somewhat close to what Linda Micheal's group had in mind that afternoon as they met in the office of Harry's Hideaway.
"Wow!" said Jack Trevor as he looked at Linda with astonished respect "You mean you've got this whole shack for the summer?"
"Take it easy," Jane interceded. "Let's not go jumping off bridges before we come to them." Jane had a natural inclination for apt metaphor "We don't want to mess things up right at the start. Let's get organized."
Organized. The word rang dully in Linda's ears. It seemed as if the whole thing were being taken out of her hands. Though she sat in her usual position, behind the desk, it was Jane who was the center of attraction, the "organizer." Mixed with her fears over what was going to happen was a certain relief however. Her mind was only half aware of what was going on. She tried to concentrate, to assert herself but her mind kept wandering back to the night before. She felt different; an inexplicable distance from these friends of hers now What Crag had accomplished with her in bed had changed her It hadn't been just the drink either It was the first time she had really been drunk, and if that was what had caused her to take the first step to let his arm slip around her waist possessively it wasn't what caused what had happened after that. Crag had touched something in her something she was now afraid of, and once he had touched it she had participated fully and willingly in all the things he asked her to do. It had been demanding, left her senses weak and reeling, but she knew that if he asked her again that night, she would do them all over again. His touches, caresses, and more brutal advances had somehow changed her whole body chemistry, awakening deep seated desires that she had been unaware existed in her, that both terrified and excited her uncontrollably. In it all, Larry was forgotten. It was as if she had never been with him. Even as he spoke now, he was like a stranger, his once familiar voice exciting no response of recognition.
"Way I see it, we've got to have an election; you know, officers and everything. That'll make our club official."
"Wait a minute," Art Plotniki spoke up, "We've got to have a name first or we're not even a club. How about a name?"
"The Daredevils?" Larry suggested.
"The Deadly Dozen?" another voice piped up. It was Jeanne Langtree, a soft-looking blonde coed.
"No, let's have something more sophisticated," a thin girl with glasses spoke up. "Those names sound like a teen-age street gang. After all, we're young men and women, aren't we?"
Laughter rippled. "Sure, let's call it the Latin Quarter." More laughter followed and other names came from the floor, until at last Jane raised an authoritative hand and silenced them all.
"Quiet! Cripes, you're all acting like a bunch of babies. Let's not get started off like this!"
"Okay, Jane," Larry said, clapping his hands for silence. "Make a speech. Give us all the scoop."
Jane gave Linda a glance and then stood up. "All right, I will, if you bunch of monkeys won't settle down any other way." She shot Linda a deferential smile. "Here's the deal. Linda's father won't be back until Labor Day-is that right, Linda?"
Linda nodded.
"Okay. So we've all got a summer vacation to spend, right?" There was general assent. "Well, here's what I-and Linda, of course-thought we could do. We figured it out that we could make part of the motel into kind of a club; a place for all of us to come. Sort of like a summer resort. Since some of us are under eighteen, we can't get served in bars and things. And it's more fun to drink in a group anyway, as far as I'm concerned. So if we used two or three of the cabins, we could run the motel and make a profit and have a good time-all at the same time. We could have swimming parties and drinks and everything, including a nice private place to ... socialize."
"Hey Jane," Art burst out, "that's a gas! Can I get to socialize with you first?"
Everyone burst into laughter and Jane felt herself blushing a little. It was going to be difficult she saw. They were such babies. She'd have to control things pretty much. She could see that some of the girls looked nervous; probably they were guessing already the kind of parties she had in mind.
"Maybe you can when you turn eighteen," she shot back. "Right now I'm too busy to baby sit."
The laughter was directed to Art, who rolled his eyes and began to imitate a baby crying.
Larry laughed and pulled a pint bottle with some whisky out of his pocket. Art clutched at it and made sucking sounds and the whole room broke up again.
Jane took command of the situation again, stamping her foot loudly on the floor. "All right! Let's get some order here. First of all, we're going to have elections. I think Linda ought to be president. Who seconds it?"
"Ayes" came from all comers of the room.
"Well, I don't think...." Linda began, realizing vaguely that Jane's motives were less than altruistic.
"There's no question about it, Linda," Jane said quickly. "You're the one they all want. And you deserve it anyway."
There was no sense arguing. Linda shrugged her shoulders and let herself be nominated and then elected by voice vote.
After that it was decided they would need a vice president and a treasurer. The vice-president would "help run things and assign desk duty" (It was remembered in time that someone would have to be on hand to take care of the guests). The treasurer would collect dues, which would go toward a liquor fund. There was no problem deciding about the vice president. Jane won it, hands down. It took more time to pick a treasurer, but at last Ruth Ginsberg, the quiet, intellectual looking girl who had complained about the suggested names before, was the one they settled on to handle the money.
After it was over, Jane stood up again and motioned for silence. "Now I think we ought to decide about a name. It really isn't necessary, except that it might come in handy when we want to talk about the club in front of others. Let's remember that, and pick one accordingly."
Several names were suggested, and at last they decided on one.
They called it the Triangle Club.
The name sounded innocent enough.
Afterward they all went for a swim in the pool. It was a hot, sultry afternoon, the sun a giant blob of fire in the sky which burned down through a haze, baking macadam pavements and singeing grass and scorching concrete in the motor court. But the cool green pool was an oasis which invited them to wet their bodies, and they did, stripping down to their swim suits and diving into the water, their young bodies wet and flashing in arcs like fish in a mountain lake. The few guests who had stayed around the motel that afternoon were surprised to see the sudden invasion of teenagers, but they remembered Linda at the desk and guessed they were school friends of hers. Gradually, the older ones forsook the pool for the shade and relief of their air conditioned cabins, thinking no more about it. Perhaps some of them retreated more reluctantly, feeling somewhat intimidated by the garrulous group of younger people But they made no complaint, there being no one to complain to.
There were eight of them splashing around in the pool at one time or another. A sense of daringness added to their natural enthusiasm for what promised to be a great summer vacation. As they splashed and shouted, each of them considered the prospects of the summer which stretched ahead of them like a long, hot dream. The boys stole covetous looks at the girls, comparing their figures as they played, sizing them up, thinking about which of them they would like to get alone later.
Art Plotniki was splashing water into the face of Ellen Croft. He noticed as she laughed and splashed back, the roundness of her shoulders and the shapeliness of her arms. Ellen had brown hair and a few freckles on her face. She was the youngest of the group, only sixteen, but her face had an impudent cast to it when she smiled that made her seem much older. Art had never seen her in a bathing suit before, and now he was noticing what he had been missing. She had just been a kid on the block to him before, and he had asked her to come on the spur of the moment after Jane had called him that morning. Now, as he looked at her, he wasn't sorry.
She wasn't a kid anymore. If her breasts had looked small, it was a deception. They looked much larger now, encased in the top of a strapless bathing suit. A hell of a lot larger. He couldn't understand how he'd failed to notice them before.
He decided to find out if they were real.
They were in the shallow end of the pool. Art stepped closer, splashing as he advanced, while she screamed with mock fright. Slowly, he was backing her into the deeper water.
"Don't! Oh, Art, come on!" she screamed, backing away. She had given up returning his attack and was covering her face with her hands.
"What's the matter, Ellen-afraid to get wet?" He took a couple steps forward and splashed again. His eyes were riveted to the top of her bathing suit. She stumbled backward and he lunged, catching her around the waist and pulling her with him under the water. She just had time to let out a yelp and then they were both under.
The pool water was crystal clear and he opened his eyes, looking. But she wiggled free and was up again and he was staring at her legs. His hand went out and reached for her plump thigh, but she turned and instead it met her buttocks. He grabbed and pulled, his fingers slipping under the edge of the bathing suit, and he could hear her scream even under the water. He wanted to explore more, but he had to go up for air. He used her body as a ladder and soon they were floating, face to face, treading water.
"Fresh!" she yelled, frowning, and raised her hand to slap him. But he caught her by the wrist, turned her around and dragged her under again.
This time her breasts were right in front of his face. He could have bitten one if he wanted to Instead, he clamped his legs around her, still holding her arm behind her back so she was helpless, and reached out with his other hand. He didn't mean to pull it off. But when the top of the suit was in his fingers, she jerked, and the whole top came away.
They were real.
They were nice little hand-sized lumps of pink-tipped flesh, and he put both hands around them. They were very, very real, and very nice to hold, and he held them, feeling the little nipples stiffen in his palms, until he thought his lungs would burst.
When he surfaced he saw her face was red as a beet. "Arthur Plotniki, just you wait...." she said to him in a choked voice, and then, clasping the top of her suit to her, she kicked away from him.
He laughed to himself. I can wait, he thought, but not too long. He began to swim in lazy strokes toward the other side of the pool, where she was just pulling her little body over the edge.
Linda lay very still at the edge of the pool.
The sun felt very good on her limbs, warm and lazy. She was enjoying the feeling of lassitude coming over her. She had been watching Larry swim with Jane, putting his hands all over her in a very obvious way, and then she had lost interest. She realized the scene didn't have any meaning to her. She should have felt jealous, or at least angry, but she felt neither. Let them have their fun, she thought. The others were having theirs, too: Art and Ellen, Dave Case and Ruth Ginsberg, all of them. Billy Bluto had asked her to swim with him but she'd sidestepped the issue neatly by leaving him in charge of the desk. There were advantages to being president. She didn't feel like playing the kind of fun-in-the-water games he would have insisted on after a while, the kind the others were playing now.
It was more fun just to lie in the sun and think about nothing.
Only her thoughts kept wandering back to Crag. He had left in the morning, smiling and refreshed as if he'd been sleeping all night, winking at her as if he'd just met her and was flirting. "I'll be back around ten," he'd said, and that was all.
Was that all? He had a habit of treating things so casually, but maybe all older men were like that. She realized that, despite a year of making love with Larry, she was just an emotionally inexperienced girl. Inexperienced in other ways, too, as Crag had clearly shown her. And now she was wanting him back already, wanting him to teach her more.
She wanted him to teach her everything.
Everything there was to know.
Everything there was to know about one subject, that is.
Her eyes had been closed. It seemed as if a shadow came over them, and she opened them to see Larry standing over her. He had an evasive look on his face and he shifted from one foot to the other, uneasily.
"Hi, Linda, uh, how's it going?"
"Fine," she said.
He stood there in silence for several moments, trying to think of how to say what he had to say.
"Uh, listen-I'm sorry about last night...."
"What's there to be sorry about?"
Larry didn't know what to say again. He just stood there with his mouth open. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other several times then he stopped. Then he began to shift his weight again. Finally he stopped and began to speak.
"Well, I mean I was supposed to call you and I...."
"And you were busy making it with Jane." She kept her voice cold, disinterested.
"Aw, Linda, look now...."
"How were her breasts, Larry?"
Linda's brutal frankness was more than he could handle. It caught him unawares and he didn't know what to do or say.
"What?"
"Her breasts. How were they? She has very large ones, doesn't she?"
Larry tried to speak but no sounds came out of his mouth. He began to grip his hands together and then relax them, then tighten them. Suddenly he became aware that here they were talking about breasts and here he was squeezing his hands as if he were tightening them around someone's breasts. He quickly stopped.
He grinned sheepishly. "Hell, Linda, I guess there's no hiding it from you, is there?"
"No there isn't. And I'll bet Jane didn't hide her breasts from you."
"You're right Linda. Jane didn't hide her breasts. She let them come right into the open. I'll admit that."
"Why hide it? You had fun in the rack with her, didn't you? Or was it in the back seat of the Ford?"
Larry blushed despite himself. It made him angry. "Yeah, you guessed it. I drilled her in the Ford. And it was good. She's got boobs the size of watermelons," he sneered.
"I guess you like them better than mine." she said matter-of-factly.
He looked a little puzzled by her tone, then smiled. "Hell, Linda, yours are just as good, in their own way. Better. I couldn't help it with Jane. I mean like she threw it right at me...."
"I know," Linda said, bored. She turned on one shapely hip. "And you don't have to tell me how good I am. A man told me last night."
CHAPTER SIX
Billy Bluto had a sneaking suspicion he was being left out of things. The idea didn't seize hold of his mind right away, but at length it began to creep in, insinuating itself into his brain.
It wasn't the best brain in the world, he realized. He was the only one in the group who hadn't even finished high school. At times, he was very conscious of this fact, and he would watch his friends very carefully as they talked to see if they were slipping him sneaky insults or digs. Sometimes the talk got over his head, he had to admit. Quite a few times, as a matter-of-fact. But he didn't admit that.
In the beginning, he'd been glad to get in on this deal. Art and Dave Case were friends of his and they'd brought him along. He liked Dave. He liked Art too, except when he got wise and started in with all that hip talk or college-learned stuff. Then it seemed to Billy that Art was laughing at him. But nevertheless, they were buddies, and he was sure they both liked him. He wasn't sure why. He guessed secretly it had something to do with the size of his muscles. They admired him; that was it. They'd trade punches with him playfully and then back away in mock terror when he accidently threw one harder than he meant to. The terror wasn't entirely put on, though. Billy had an arm like most people have a leg-
People respected that. Because of it, they didn't laugh at him openly, and he'd always gotten by in school because of it. Socially, that is. Academically, he had busted out during his senior year. It cut him that all his friends had gone on to college or joined the army while he had to work to support his mother, but he was pleased when his old buddies remembered him. And they did. Whenever Art and Dave were in town, for instance, it was always a celebration. The three of them would go find a place where they could all get served and get plastered, and if there was any trouble, well, Billy would see that neither of them got the dirty end of it. He'd picked a guy up once in a tavern parking lot and thrown him clean over a parked car. Art and Dave, they'd been so pleased they'd bought a bottle of liquor and made him drink most of it. They were real friends.
But right now, Billy was bugged. There wasn't a thing happening in the motel office and he'd been there an hour. He could hear the voices drifting in through the window, the sounds and splashes coming from the swimming pool. And it made him keep thinking about Linda.
There was a broad. It made him warm all over just to think about her, and when he'd seen her in a swim suit, he got an ache. Nuts, he thought, there ain't nothing going to happen in this damn office.
He tried to make up his mind whether to leave it or not. He didn't want to be kicked out of the club already. It looked like great things were going to happen before the summer was over, and he wanted to be in on them. The job at the garage left his evenings and Sundays free, and this would be a lot better way to spend his time than getting soused in a rathole Syracuse bar.
On the other hand, the image of Linda in a bathing suit kept torturing his brain periodically. It was a persistent image which increased in detail the more he became bored with sitting at the desk waiting for a customer to come along. Parts of her anatomy would come to him in isolated detail-her tight little breasts, encased roundly in her halter, her browned thighs, sleek and streamlined and smooth as velvet, her narrow waist and round hips, dimpled knees ...
There seemed to be no limit to his imaginative powers where Linda Micheals was concerned. He could even imagine how her nipples would look sharp and pointed, with small red aureoles. He could tell from the way they seemed to be poking holes through the knit material of her suit.
Linda Micheals. A swell little dish, if only he could get close enough to her. He dreamed of chasing her through the water, heard her laughter as he caught her and copped a quick feel of those lovely breasts, or caught her below, under the water, where nobody would see what he was doing....
Outrageous fantasies began to form in his mind. He was giving her a good feel job, under the water, and she was laughing and twisting in his arms and liking it. And then he was stripping her, peeling off her knit bathing suit right there in the water, baring all that brown lovely flesh to his eyes.
And then he was bending her lithe body over. He imagined her squealing with surprise and delight at what he was dong.
Goddamn her, she snubbed me!
The thought shot through his brain, exploding for a minute the wild fantasy he had carefully built up.
She had snubbed him and was out there having fun with the other guys. And in a minute, Billy had convinced himself that she was doing exactly what he had pictured her doing-with somebody else.
The squeal of tires on the macadam driveway outside the office interrupted his thoughts. Billy glanced out the window, surprised at the intrusion, and saw a big Chrysler Imperial pull up into the parking lot. A man and a woman got out of it and strode toward the office door.
They were both young. The man was thin, sandy haired, and rather too neatly dressed for the weather. He wore a light summer suit and tie and looked uncomfortable in them-he was sweating from carrying two suitcases. His face was sallow and thin and had a certain air of studiousness about it. He might have been a teacher or a graduate student, from his appearance.
The woman was younger-twenty-one or twenty-two. Despite the fact that she seemed agitated, biting her lips nervously and casting her eyes about as if everything were terribly strange to her, she was very pretty. She had light blonde hair with a touch of red in it and the kind of fair skin that is apt to turn very red in the sun unless proper precautions are taken. Aside from that, she was well built, the formal suit-dress she had on looking rather too stuffy for her ample frame. But her clothes didn't hide the fact that she had good breasts and legs, and when she turned around and bent over to smooth a rumpled nylon, Billy could see she was well stacked in the lower deck also. The man walked up to the desk where Billy sat, put the suitcases down and gave Billy a foolish grin.
"Er, the sign says you have a vacancy...."
"Yes sir."
"Ah, what are your rates?"
"Seven dollars a night, sir."
"Hm." He turned to the woman. "Well, what do you think, Lenore? It seems like a nice place, doesn't it? We could go on into the city, but I'd rather prefer the privacy...."
Lenore blushed slightly. She addressed Billy quickly, as if to recover her confidence. "Are all the rooms air conditioned?"
"Yes ma'am, they are." Billy was beginning to notice how nervous she was, how nervous they both were. It made him a little nervous himself. He felt the uncomfortable nub of an idea rubbing his brain, an explanation for their nervousness, but it didn't quite come through.
The woman was looking at the man again and the man was looking at the woman. It seemed like a stalemate, as if each one were waiting for the other to make a final decision.
Something worked instinctively in Billy. "Shall I take your bags out to number five, sir?" he blurted. He was impatient.
They both looked immediately relieved. Somebody had made the decision for them.
"Yes, please. I'll pay you now in advance." The man took several bills out of his wallet and handed them to Billy. "Ah, we'll be staying a couple of nights, anyway."
After he had made change, Billy found the right key, picked up the bags, and led the couple to unit number five. On the way he could see the swimming pool in the rear. It was quiet now. Couples were lying in the grass, sunning themselves and probably doing other things, like necking, Billy guessed. He had another pang of anger as he went on to the cabin, carrying the suitcases easily with his strong hands. They had left him out of it. He thought he saw Linda with a boy but he wasn't sure. But his anger faded as he became absorbed in the procedure of installing new guests in the unit. It was new to him. He rather liked the idea of running a motel. It was much cleaner than working in a garage and you met a different class of people. Billy was impressed with the polite manners of the couple, even if they did seem kind of nervous about the whole thing.
"This is it, sir," he said, pushing the door in.
"Very satisfactory, I think," the man said, handing Billy a fifty-cent piece.
Billy looked at it in surprise, wondering if tips were a regular part of the deal. "Anything else, sir?" he asked.
"No. Er, my wife and I wish not to be disturbed."
Billy thanked him again, closing the door, and then it hit him. Suddenly he knew why they acted so strange.
They were newlyweds.
The thought, once it entered his mind, excited him as he walked back to the office. Newlyweds, he thought. Just married-probably that very morning. As he passed the parking lot he saw the Binghamton plates on the car and guessed they had just driven the seventy miles up to Syracuse. They were probably heading north, to Canada or Niagara Falls or something like that. Only maybe they couldn't wait that long. Maybe they'd gotten all excited on the way and had to stop, only now they were all nervous and on edge about it.
He thought that the woman Lenore, probably hadn't ever had it before.
Jeez, a dish like that, he thought. No wonder the guy was shook up. He probably wasn't even sure he could take care of her. And she was probably scared as a sick rabbit.
An overpowering curiosity came over him. He decided to go back to cabin number five.
There was a clump of bushes right under the bedroom window of number five. Billy circled the cabin cautiously and knelt in these, raising his head just enough so he could see in the window. It was open a crack. He could not only see in, he could hear everything they were saying. For a moment, panic overtook him and he felt like running away from there. It was none of his business and if they found him, they might make trouble, and then he'd have to explain to Linda and the others ... But their voices caught his attention and he soon forgot his fears.
"Well, darling, it's rather a nice place, don't you think?" the man was saying. His voice sounded very tense.
"Yes, Henry." Then, "Henry ... are you going to . kiss me?"
"Ah, why of course, Lenore darling. Come here."
Billy peeked in the window crack. They came to each other at the foot of the bed and embraced clumsily. The girl seemed very conscious of the bed, stealing glances at it while Henry kissed her. When they finished the kiss, she pushed away from him
"I've got to go, uh, fix myself first, Henry.
Can you waif?"
"Of course darling," he nodded eagerly, looking momentarily relieved. "There's no hurry I mean, after all, we shouldn't be in a rush about this-should we?"
"No, I guess not. We want to do it right."
"Yes, that's it," he agreed. "Take our time and do things right."
She left the room and Henry collapsed into a chair, mopping his wet face with a handkerchief. Now that he was alone, he seemed a complete bundle of nerves. His hands shook visibly and lines of worry appeared on his face. He took off his suit jacket, loosened his tie, and looked at the bed apprehensively. As Billy watched, he reached out a hand tentatively and touched the clean sheeted mattress. His hand drew back upon contact as if bitten by a snake. He got up from his chair abruptly and started walking around the room. He pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket, lit it, took a few puffs, and put it out again.
Billy, watching it all, almost forgot himself and laughed at the scene. This was real fun, watching a wedding night in the afternoon. He couldn't wait to see what was going to happen when the woman came back.
Finally, she did. She had freshened herself up and fixed her makeup, and her pretty face wore an expectant look. The little jacket of her suit dress was gone, and the bodice strained with the pressure of her full breasts.
Henry almost jumped when she came back in.
"Say darling," he said hurriedly, "I was just thinking."
"What dear?"
"Well, like we were just saying before you went to the ... Women's Room. There's no rush about this."
Her face showed a note of disappointment, but she smiled up at him bravely, hiding it. "Well, what do you have in mind, dear?"
"It's awfully hot and we've come a long way. You must be tired. Why don't I go out and get that radiator checked while you take a little nap?" His voice was falsetto as he said it and his face reddened visibly.
Her eyes dropped so as not to look on his shame. "All right, dear. If you say so."
"Yes, I think it would be a good idea," he continued hastily, fixing his tie again and putting on his jacket. "I'll be back in an hour or two By that time you'll be nice and rested. And I'll pick up a ... a bottle of champagne or something."
"All right Henry." She kissed him and he left.
Billy's disappointment was almost as great as he imagined the woman's was. He waited till the man had left in the Chrysler and then he sneaked away from the cabin window and started walking toward the office.
Her voice stopped him. "Oh, boy!" He froze in his tracks, thinking he had been detected. But she was standing in the doorway with a smile on her face.
"Would you come here a minute-there's something I'd like you to help me with, if you could."
Billy did as she asked. He went with her inside the cabin, relieved that she hadn't seen him sneaking away from the window. She seemed very distressed when he asked her what she wanted.
"I, uh, can't get this strap on my suitcase undone. Could you do it for me?"
"Sure." He pulled the strap off easily, wondering why it should bother her. A child could have done it. He got the suitcase open and started to leave.
"Please don't go," she pleaded, putting a hand on his shoulder.
He turned and looked at her.
She seemed flustered, but then her face took on a determined look, as if she had just made a decision. After that, her voice was calm and steady.
"What's your name?"
"Billy."
"You don't mind talking to me a while, do you Billy? My husband had to go to town and I'm kind of lonely."
"No, I don't mind, Mrs...."
"Call me Lenore, Billy."
"Okay. Lenore." He licked his lips nervously. He couldn't understand what she was getting at and it made him uneasy to be in the same room with her after watching the scene through the window. He was very conscious of her soft body next to him and the perfume she wore.
"Thank you, Billy." She sat down on the bed and looked at him. "My, you have big muscles, Billy. I bet the girls really go for you, don't they?"
He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so." What the hell was she getting at?
Her smile looked very sweet and sincere. "You're too modest. J bet you've been with lots of girls, haven't you?"
"A few," he admitted.
She looked out the window now, avoiding his eyes. He sensed something was coming and waited, shifting his feet nervously.
What the hell did she want, he thought. Why couldn't she get to the point. He couldn't stand this silence, this standing here and doing nothing He didn't know just what to do-and obviously she didn't know what to do. Or at least she didn't know what to say. Finally she began to speak again.
"Billy," she continued presently, "I suppose you think it's strange my talking to you like this, but I just had to talk to somebody. My husband and I ... we were just married this morning, you know."
"No kidding?" He was looking at her legs now, noting the roundness of her calves. They looked very smooth and white.
"Yes. Have you ever thought of getting married?"
"I guess so."
"Only I bet you don't want to hurry about it, do you? I mean, I could tell when I first saw you in the office that you were the kind of boy that doesn't have any trouble with the girls ... that can take his time about marriage."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Billy replied. It sounded like the right answer to give, but he wasn't sure. He still didn't know what she was talking about.
"How many girls have you had, Billy? Have you had many?"
Billy replied with a nervous look.
His look made her freeze-up again and she was silent. She nervously rubbed the sides of her dress with her hands and Billy noticed the nice curves her hands followed.
"Ah, I mean, do you have girls often?"
Billy was even more ill at ease now. What did she want? What did she want?
"When was the last time, Billy? I know it couldn't have been long," she said quietly, half to herself. Suddenly she shouted, "But at least there's been a first time for you!"
Billy shrugged again nervously. Her talk sounded crazy to him but he listened, contented with staring at her legs and hips. The more he looked at them, the better they looked to him.
"My husband's not like that, Billy. He's a ... teacher and he's always led a quiet life. It's funny," she continued, as if she were talking to herself now, "It's really funny how things work out different than you expected. We're both alike in that respect-quiet people. We've been engaged since high school and neither of us ever went out with anyone else. We figured we were two of a kind. Four years, we've been engaged, until Henry could get the job teaching at the University so we could have security. Only now...." Her voice had dwindled off to a bare whisper and Billy had to strain to catch all her words. Finally, she looked at him in the eye and blurted it out. "We're both virgins!"
Billy was shocked for a minute. Not because she'd told him anything he hadn't guessed, but at her abrupt, factual way of tossing it at him. He didn't know what to say.
But her face looked suddenly relieved, as if her words had banished all her fears and hesitancy. Her nervousness vanished. She reached out a hand and touched his arm.
"How would you like to make love to me, Billy? Now."
He almost choked with surprise. "Y-you want me to...."
"I want you to, Billy. You'll be doing me a favor. You'll be doing us both a favor-me and my husband. You see. neither one of us knows what to do and. well frankly, we're both scared. I've heard of marriages starting out this way and being seriously damaged because of it. One of us has got to know, Billy, and I guess it's going to have to be me. Will you do it?"
He couldn't believe his ears. She was asking him to-to provide stud service for her. It was unbelievable, something outside the realm of his previous experience. But there was no mistaking the sincerity of her question. Her hand squeezed his insistently, imploringly.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'll do it, Lenore."
There was gratitude in her eyes, and he noticed for the first time they were yellow, almost like a cat's. "Thank you, Billy. We've got an hour a least before he gets back. You just show me what to do and I'll do it."
CHAPTER SEVEN
There wasn't a damn thing wrong with the radiator.
Henry Lindstrom knew this as he pulled the Chrysler into the gas station on South Salina Street. There wasn't a damn thing wrong with the radiator, but there were plenty of things wrong with him.
There had to be a lot of things wrong with a guy who leaves a beautiful woman alone in a motel bedroom after he has just gone to all the trouble of marrying her. Driving up from Binghamton, acutely conscious of the pressure of her soft body next to him in the front seat of the Chrysler, he had been full of a hot, painful need for that body, more powerful now that it was at last available to him than in all the uncountable sessions of hot necking and petting he had spent with Lenore Breight during their interminable engagement. And it had been this need, hot and choking in his throat, that had made him pull off the road into the motel just before they got into Syracuse. The fantasies that had fevered his brain as he held the wheel had finally become unbearable.
And then had come the fear. It was something he hadn't calculated on, and Henry Lindstrom, professor of Mathematics at State U, prided himself on being a methodical man who sized up things with a cool head before he went into them. That had been the way of his courtship, and then marriage. He knew Lenore, knew the kind of people she came from, knew her likes and dislikes and tastes and quirks as well as he knew his own. The saying "Love Is Blind" had no meaning for him. Love, the way Henry figured, had to be very open-eyed, if it was going to result in successful marriage. So he had extended his engagement with Lenore to a period of four years, despite her protests, and in four years, there is very little you don't learn about a girl. And after four years, he had decided the two of them were perfectly compatible. So they got married, after he landed the job, and he tucked his bride in the seat next to him and headed for Canada There wasn't a goddamned thing he didn't know about the woman next to him, the one who was now his wife.
The hell there wasn't.
In the two minutes it had taken to park the car in the motel lot and register for the night his whole careful world was atomized. Boom. Like that.
He'd married a stranger.
The woman he'd been going with all this time, had seemed almost like a sister. But the woman next to him in the motel bedroom he didn't know at all. He'd panicked. And then he'd taken off like a bird with a tail full of buckshot.
And now. sweating in the front seat of the Chrysler while the attendant filled the gas tank, he had plenty of time to think about what had gone wrong. It took no time at all to figure it out actually, and he felt like a damn fool sitting there.
He'd known everything about Lenore except her body.
That had been an issue they'd carefully avoided during the whole period of their courtship. Her body. Oh yes, he'd felt it and teased it and wondered at it; felt the softness of her breasts against him and tasted the wine of her Dps, but always they had known with a mutual knowledge the instant they had gone too far, and in mute agreement, they'd disengaged themselves from each other, filling in the gap left, in their desire with words, words, words. Intellectual words; intelligent, knowing words, which now seemed meaningless. He couldn't remember one of them; not a shard of their conversations was left in his head.
He'd learned everything about her but the one important inescapable inexorable fact: the fact of her female body.
He didn't know a damned thing about women.
So he'd panicked. It had been a stall and she'd seen through it, of course, graciously ignoring, preferring not to notice his dilemma. Well, she was as innocent as he was. Only the knowledge of that didn't help now. Because he was the man; he was supposed to assume the dominant role on their wedding night, to show her what to do and to do it in a way that would consecrate their wedding more than the words of any man in a black suit reading from a book with gilt edged pages ever could.
Henry Lindstrom felt like a complete fool.
The thing was, he still had it to go through. He had avoided the issue successfully, gaining a few hours perhaps, but it was still there, ahead of him, like a yawning pit.
He lit a cigarette and thought about it. Maybe running had been a good thing. Maybe with time to collect his wits, he could make a better go of it. Here or Canada, it didn't make any difference. It might as well be here.
But what the hell did you do?
The question hit him like a sledge hammer. Sure, he'd heard all the male bull sessions where they talked about women, where all they ever talked about was women; how you got them to do it, what you did with them once you got them to do it, how many times you did it with them after that. He'd listened and felt superior to the whole thing, superior to his friend Byran Fone who, if you believed him. had had more women than the Sultan of Mardpor. He'd listened and felt superior because he was saving himself. Saving it for Lenore.
Christ, he must have ten barrels of the stuff for her now, he thought hysterically.
What the hell good was it. A kid knew more about knocking off a good piece than he did. Like the kid wiping the window of his car....
The idea occurred to him in a flash. It occurred, grew, and cemented itself firmly in his brain as he watched the kid, a handsome Italian boy with curly locks, whistling to himself with a kind of conceited aplomb as he cleaned the windshield.
He leaned out the window and called him.
"Hey, buddy !"
The boy came over and leaned on the door, his spotted coveralls smelling of gasoline and grease. "Yeah, mister?"
Henry knew he had the courage to do this thing It was born of necessity. He wouldn't go back to that motel as ignorant as he'd left it. "Look," he said in a low, man-to-man tone, pulling out his billfold, "I'm a salesman and it's my first time up here. I've got an afternoon to kill and I'm looking for a good place to kill it, if you know what I mean...." He let a five edge out of his billfold. The kid looked knowledgeable. It was worth a try.
"Well. I don't know, mister," the kid hesitated.
He let another five peek out. The kid's eyes widened and his sober face turned into a wide grin.
"You go all the way down Salina to James-other side of the business district. Four thirty-five James. It's a brownstone. Tell 'em Julio sent you."
Henry thanked him with the bills, started the engine and left in a squeal of tires.
It was farther down Salina than he thought, and he almost missed the turn at James. But he finally found the place; a quiet looking brownstone removed from the street and protected by two stately elms. He parked the Imperial up the street a ways, got out, and walked back to the place, up the flagstone walk and the steps to the front door. It had an old pull bell with a porcelain handle. He pulled it and waited.
He'd expected a woman. The little old man who answered the door looked like somebody's uncle who might have been drinking a little too heavily in his declining years.
"Yes?"
"Julio said I might find...."
The door widened and he was motioned in. Inside it was dark in the anteroom. He was led through this into what looked like an old fashioned drawing room, except there was a bar there and some tables. The men who sat at them looked like respectable businessmen on a coffee break.
"Wait here," the man directed. "Have a drink if you like."
He ordered a Scotch and soda, double, from the waiter, a young blond boy. The Scotch settled his nerves as he downed it, spreading a relaxing warmth through his limbs. He began to feel a little adventurous, even. It occurred to him he should be feeling guilt about this. If Lenore ever suspected ... But hell, she was sleeping comfortably back in the motel. And he was doing this for her....
Presently a matronly looking woman came over and sat at the table with him.
"Do you have identification?"
He showed her his wallet, which contained a license and various other cards.
She smiled sweetly. "We have to be careful, you know, especially with new customers. You can go upstairs whenever you want to. Room six. But leave twenty dollars on the tray." She pointed to a silver tray on the bar counter. "It will take care of everything. You have forty minutes."
The woman left. He finished his drink, some of his nervousness returning, and then headed for the stairs. A curiously abstracted feeling came over him as he climbed them. It was as if he were detached from his body, watching it go through strange motions in an unfamiliar setting. Room six was three doors down the hall. He didn't know whether to knock or not. He decided to walk in.
"Oh! You surprised me!" she said, turning. She was standing at a dresser, and she was dressed or rather undressed, in the filmiest shortie negligee he had ever seen. Her low slung breasts showed white and beautiful through the gown, and the dark nipples caused pleats in the cloth as they pushed it away from the rest of her body. Her buttocks were amazingly large, but were not at all slack fleshed despite this. And her legs were very neat. He noticed she had black hair, in both places.
"I am Mimi," she said smiling. "We will have great fun together, yes?" Her face had a saucy, foreign look, and he guessed from her accent that she was originally French. A French whore.
He stammered something incoherent. He realized hopelessly he was in a state, not knowing how to go about this.
She sensed his unease. She came over to him, still smiling, and took both his hands in hers. She was short, but stood very erect, and the wings of her frock separated to display lovely dark tipped breasts, like twin ski jumps. He stared at them.
"You are bashful," she said in a charming, high pitched voice. "Don't worry, Mimi will take care." Removing his tie, she glanced up at him coyly. "Is it the first time in such a place?" she said soothingly.
"Yes," he blurted. "I just got married and . .-" He stopped, wondering why he'd said it. But it didn't make any difference now. He decided to be honest; maybe that was the best approach. "I, uh, I'm not very experienced, I'm afraid."
"You need not be afraid. I'll take care of you," she began rubbing his chest with her hands, "good care. Mimi will calm all of your fears."
Her hands were soothing and he began to breathe easier.
"See. Mimi is making you feel better already."
Her fingertips slipped inside his shirt and she began running them up and down, along the inside edge of the shirt.
Henry was trying to decide what to do with his own hands.
Her hands had slid entirely inside his shirt now and she was gently rubbing it over the flesh, matting down the hair as her hand passed over it.
His hands went to her back and buttocks and somewhat clumsily he began to rub his hand over her.
Mimi just giggled. She was removing his shirt now, her hands cool and exciting when they touched his skin.
"These Americans. They wait so long to learn the art of love. La, la, nev' mind-you have come to the best instructor."
He was grateful for her attitude, but his nervousness didn't subside all at once. Her hands tickled and excited him skillfully as she undid his clothing, and when his trousers fell to the floor he had a moment of extreme panic. But Mimi took the situation in hand, and when she was finished, she had it straightened out.
"There-does that not feel good? You'll have no trouble, now." She turned teasingly, wiggling at him, and went to the bed. "Come," she whispered.
He realized he still had his shoes on. He bent over to untie them, experiencing an acute awareness of his nakedness as he performed the familiar act. When he straightened, he was afraid he was going to disappoint her.
But she didn't seem concerned. "Come." she urged again, and he went to her.
He stood at the side of her bed, painfully aware of his nakedness, not knowing what to do. He looked down at her beautiful body. He wanted it so bad.
But how should he go about taking her? His mind went back to all of those bull sessions, trying to remember someone else's experience he could follow. But his mind was one mad whirl. And as he stood there it was as if his mind suddenly left him and all thought and sensation and feeling became centered elsewhere.
"Oh, you are so modest," she said, reaching out from the bed and touching him. "I like modest men. They are really the best kind for love, once they are ready."
Mimi, with her pleasant hands, was making him very ready. Suddenly he wasn't embarrassed any longer. He felt very secure in her hands, and he wanted her to look at him.
She looked at him, her pretty face wearing an expression of pleased admiration, and then her lips drew near him.
And touched him.
And kissed him.
The kiss did it. The contact of her lips was an unbearable pleasure, an act of female submission which set the deepest sources of his male being buzzing. He strained toward her, letting her kiss and caress him, feeling a throbbing that was an agony of desire.
"Careful," she cautioned, drawing back. "You will finish before we have started, ma cheri!"
She let her body settle back on the bed with slow, relaxing muscles. Her knees raised and she smiled at him invitingly.
He felt calm, confident.
He eased himself on the bed. She received him, accepting him, a soft pillow which surrounded and cradled him.
There was another moment of panic as he moved fruitlessly, but then he felt her direct him, felt the first wonder of her secrets, and he knew it was going to be all right.
It was like sinking into a cloud, but better than that.
It was like walking on air and being on fire and stretching after a good dream and being born and dying and many other things he could not think of at the moment.
All he could think of was the soft cushion of her breasts under him, the sea of her body tossing him, urging him, encompassing him. She said no words but with her body she told him everything to do, and he responded automatically, discovering a knowledge in himself he had never been aware of before. Conscious of her intimate contact with him, he rolled in the surf-like undulating seashore of love, experiencing in minutes the whole history of man's first primordial awareness of life, and more than that, the first amoebic twitching of irritated protoplasm as it climbed from the sea to know the sun and the air.
Up, up, up, the waves of passion tossed him.
And then the tidal wave, the peak, and it was over.
It had only taken five minutes. He lay back, exhausted in the knowledge of his success, the heat of his passion-spent body mixed with hers as the throbbing after-waves of receding desire left them in love's backwash.
Rested, he lay back in pleasant new awareness of his body. And then he felt warm lips on his ear and she was whispering to him again.
"That was ver' good hon. Now I show you new trick to take home to the wife, okay?"
As she began, it occurred to Henry Lindstrom that he had quite forgotten he had a wife.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Billy Bluto acted by instinct rather than rea-son. Of reason he had little, but of instinct he had plenty. His instincts now were sending little alarms through his head, warning him to be cautious and consider. But there were other, larger, more powerful instincts which he had no control over. Those instincts sent nothing to his head. They were located in quite another place, a place where he was feeling an acute physical pressure at the moment, as he looked down at the soft, tempting form of Mrs.
Lindstrom on the bed.
It was a battle of instincts, and the battle was one-sided, to say the least.
He had a brief vision of a man with a double barreled shotgun as he stepped to the door of cabin number five and locked it. He felt better after it was locked. He would at least have time to get out the window. The vision consequently disappeared.
Mrs. Lindstrom didn't. She was still on the bed, and he could almost feel her tension as she waited for him. He saw that he was going to have to make all the moves. She wasn't even bothering to undress herself. She just stared at him like a somewhat frightened animal making a good attempt to control itself Or like a person standing in line for a tetanus shot for the first time, knowing it is going to do him good, but wondering whether or not he is going to flinch at the jab of the needle. Good soldiers have fainted from this kind of suspense.
Lenore didn't faint, but she trembled visibly as Billy approached her and touched her. If Billy could have thought of soothing words to say, he would have said them, but he had one idea in mind now and he was concentrating on that. There was nothing subtle in his expression.
She had a lot of clothes on. The works. It didn't make things any easier for Billy. He wanted to rip them all off and be done with it, but he knew, again instinctively, that the game would all be up if he did so.
Instead, he lifted her legs gently and swung them on the bed. He could feel her tensing like a spring, but there was nothing he could do about it. She wanted him to do this job for her and he was going to do it and that was all there was to it. The sound of her heavy breathing seemed to fill the whole room.
He took off her shoes and placed them on the floor beside the bed.
She raised her head slightly, an imploring look on her face. "Billy-you'll be gentle, won't you?" she said.
"Yeah," he answered annoyed. "I'll take it easy, Mrs. Lindstrom."
"Thank you."
It annoyed him all the more, the way she kept thanking him. Jeez, was she so dumb she didn't know she was doing hint the favor? This was going to be better than going to a house on Saturday night, the way he figured. Only, Christ, he'd never had to do it like this before. She must have put the whole Women's Department of Sears Roebuck on her back. A hell of a way to start a marriage. The girls he'd always gone out with didn't bother wearing this much junk. You slipped your hand up under their skirt and you were home. You knew in advance just what was there and there wasn't any kidding around about it. Or else you took them for a moonlight swim and they took their own clothes off and you got them in the water that way. He didn't go for this subtle stuff. But Mrs. Lindstrom was different from most of the girls he'd taken out. She was class. He'd have to do it her way and that was all there was to it.
He pondered her stockings and decided to leave them till later. They were hooked on to something up underneath there, probably a damn girdle or something. It was a shame; he wanted to touch her legs right away-they were all he had been looking at since he'd come into the cabin with her. They were swell legs, like the ones you saw in the stocking advertisement in women's magazines-long and slender but round in the right places. Class.
"Uh, Mrs. Lindstrom-we've got to get the dress off first . .
She turned on the bed, exposing a zipper on the side of the dress to him. She looked at the wall, biting her lips as he worked it down by the tab. It stuck twice, and he wanted to curse, but he kept it to himself. There was another damn zipper in back, and he undid that too.
The problem was, did it go up over the head or down over the legs? He hesitated a minute, thinking, then decided to pull it up. He wanted a better look at those legs.
Why couldn't she quit breathing like that?
He took the hem in his hand and worked the skirt up over her thighs. His hands grew sweaty with excitement as he saw what he was uncovering. Jeez, he thought, she could of been a model with legs like that, instead of marrying a sap who didn't even appreciate them. He had trouble getting the dress over her hips, but she squirmed the right way and then raised herself on one elbow and pretty soon he was pulling it up over her breasts and then over her head.
Should have had her stand up, he thought quickly, but the thought disappeared in a mute flush of excitement as he looked down at her, dropping the dress from his hands.
She did have a girdle on. He couldn't see why, but she had one on, pink, like her bra, with rubber dinguses suspended from it, to which the tops of her nylon hose were attached. He'd never seen a rig like this one, outside of magazines.
And yet, it was exciting. She still looked at the wall and her breasts heaved from hard breathing, but it was somehow exciting as hell to look at her partially uncovered body in a girdle and bra and stockings. He whistled softly. She was a dream; a real dreamboat. The tops of her nylons made dark bands around her white thighs, and encased in their sheerness, her legs had that soft shining glow that was probably the reason women wore nylons. Billy didn't think about this. He just looked and admired and suddenly the desire to just grab and plunder receded.
It was like being touched by a work of art for the first time.
Something happened to him; something like a respect for physical beauty, or at least a new awareness of things subtler than the crude grabbing of flesh like meat in a butcher's shop, and suddenly he found himself enjoying his task. Suddenly he had the desire to do it right, to lavish all the care on the rest of the act of undressing her you would lavish on unwrapping an expensive Christmas present from a rich aunt.
He touched the hem of her nylons gingerly. She seemed to jump at his touch, but then lay still, as if sensing the new respect in his fingers. He felt his way around them to the hooks which fastened them to the girdle, and bending over her with concentration, unfastened them, one by one. At last the tops of her stockings were free. But, like a craftsman or an artist working by improvisation and instinct, he left them that way, knowing that the joy of rolling them down slowly over those smooth lovely legs would be all the greater through waiting.
He went instead to the brassiere.
Oh no, she thought, I can't do this thing, I can't, I can't! But yes, I can, I've got to do it now, it's too late to stop, he's touching me and oh, oh, oh! I won't look. I'll look at the wall and pretend I'm someplace else and then he'll do it and it will be all over and I can show Henry....
He's so strong.
His muscles are like ropes and he's a good looking boy ... I won't look at him when he's undressed. I'll think of Henry and then it'll be Henry doing it, Henry, Henry, Henry ... ifs his fault. He shouldn't have left. He should have tried it anyway, we could have done it, found out by ourselves the way to do it, but no, he had to run out on me just when I was getting ready to, getting all worked up....
Oh God, he's touching me there!
Think about something else. Think about when you were a little girl and went out in a sailboat for the first time and the wind was so good and the water so blue and the sun on the water turning it silver here and there and Dad and Mom laughing at you when you tried to catch it in your hand....
Oh!
But he's being nice about it, he isn't ripping my clothes of J, he's taking them off very carefully, only God, I've never been naked in front of a man before-why doesn't he take my stockings off?-how does it feel? In school they said it hurt you terribly and you were never the same afterward. Will I change? Will I look different afterward? Maybe it will show in my face; oh no, it can't, I can't let Henry know, but Henry doesn't know the difference anyway....
Oh, oh, oh!
Hurry up, hurry, hurry, get it over with, oh, he's taking so long with it, just getting me undressed, that I'm starting to get scared again but....
It feels good! The way he's looking at me, can't take his eyes off me, I can feel his eyes on me. I never thought it would be so good to have a man looking at me like that, but he can't take his eyes off me and I love it ... No, I mustn't think that. Think about Henry, Henry, Henry....
Oh!
Oh, what's he doing now? God, Ms hands are warm on me, it makes me feel so weak, Henry's never touched me that way before-no, it's not Henry, it's him, that strong young man-no, it's Henry, Henry, Henry....
I'll faint. If he touches me there again, I'll faint, I can't stand it.
Yes, that's it, I'll faint and then I won't know what he's doing, I won't feel anything....
No. No, I've got to know how it's done.
Oh God, I feel silly now, like I'm going to giggle-no, I mustn't. But it's funny after all, he's so clumsy undoing things, he doesn't know what to do about my garter belt, it's so funny, I'm going to laugh....
Oh no, that's not the way, don't put your hand THERE ... Ohhhh!
Billy finally found what he was looking for. It was like giving her an electric shock, the way she twisted and jumped, and he had to let go. He removed the belt he'd mistaken for a girdle and her torso was naked to his eyes. When he touched her there again he could feel the mucles jerk tight in her stomach as if she'd been hit by a fist. Her eyes opened in a wild-eyed expression for a moment and then closed again.
She was going to go through with it. The fact that she had no choice now made little difference; she was so frightened by what was going to happen to her that her fright had itself become an excitement, making her warmer than any of his caresses could have by themselves. In a sense, her fright was helping him.
She was naked now except for her stockings. She had the shapeliest legs he'd ever seen, and the mood cast over him by this strange method of seduction plus the knowledge that he was the first acted on him in a way that made him want to savor every little step in the preliminaries. It was a completely new experience for him. He had never realized before how exciting it was to undress a woman. It was like peeling back the petals of a flower, one by one.
He leaned over and kissed her thigh through the hem of the stocking. The warmth and perfume of her came through it, exciting his senses like opium. Then he took the filmy material gingerly in his fingers and began to roll it down. Inch by inch he uncovered the lovely length of her leg, kissing it all the way down as the stocking rolled ahead of his lips. When he finally lifted the rolled fluff of nylon off her foot, he leaned over on a sudden impulse and took her toes in his lips. Her response was electric. She yelped like a stuck pig and her whole body jerked, flopping completely over on the bed so that her buttocks were turned up at him.
He did the same with her other stocking, leaving a trail of kisses down the back of her leg as his fingers rolled the material.
She sighed and rolled beneath him.
Now she was naked. Her whole body was a quiver as she lay face down on the bed, biting the pillow. Her smooth sloped shoulders trembled uncontrollably, the wings of her shoulder blades making two quivering points on her back. He leaned over and kissed the soft flesh between them. It seemed to calm her. Then he let his lips travel down the route of her curved spine, where her buttocks rose magnificently into twin hills. He kissed them too, recalling everything he had heard about Latin lovers and their art and imagining himself now to be one. He was feeling a new and subtle kind of mastery of a woman's body, much different from back-seat grabbing in drive-ins and country lanes, much completer and more carefully evoked. These things were not clearly thought out in his mind, but he felt them. As he looked at and touched and kissed her virgin flesh, there was the satisfying feeling of invading a private sanctuary. He realized his hands and lips were going where no other man's yet had. The crude yearning he had felt on other occasions was nothing to this.
And because of this, of the unthought-out knowledge which guided his actions, he was effective. The fear in her exhausted itself, melted into waves of responding desire, and instead of cringing, she began to offer herself. She began to turn and shift herself in open offering to his lips and hands. There began to be a rhythm to their love making, delicate and tenuous at first, then increasingly bolder. Where before she had been locked in herself, in her fear and apprehensions, now the portals of her were opening to him, offering him gifts sweeter then frankincense and myrrh. Her own desire reached out in tentacles to him, seeking the knowledge of his masculinity. He had never taken a woman like this, and probably never would again.
When she felt his body against her, she turned of her own volition to meet him.
"I'm ready," she said in a small, calm voice.
And she was ready. For the first time in her life, she was ready. And she was going to give herself completely to someone for the first time too. It was twenty-two years of warmth and softness. Twenty-two years of gentleness and unfulfilled passions. A twenty-two year growth of desire that was now going to suddenly burst forth and envelope her partner and bring him within her, bring him with his own passion, and their passions, the old and experienced, the new and inexperienced, would first clash and then meet, join and intermingle, traveling throughout the entirety of her body.
The soft doors of her, gave to his demanding pressure, rolling back and around him tremblingly like the petals of a small flower to the morning dew.
There were difficulties. She felt the pain but she fought off the panic.
"Help me," he urged.
She did as he wished. She knew now that this was the flowering moment for her, that it would never come again, and in a red dull consciousness of pleasure-pain she offered up the last sacrifice that would ever be required of her, and in another acute moment of pain she became a woman, giving way to the age-old rhythm of love.
After that, it went well. It was good beyond belief and she knew at last the mission of her role on earth.
She had found her mission and she knew that she would never have to find it again, for she would never lose it. She would stay with it, offering it forever and ever to Henry. Offering it for him to enjoy-for both of them to enjoy, together. And she would do it, now and always, with all the involvement, passion and fervor of a convert. The glow within her had become a flashing, quivering light that tore and burned and ignited her passions.
In a few brief minutes her life-long accretion of inhibitions were torn away and she scaled the heights of emotion to a bursting, corruscating climax. She was a natural.
Afterward, there was a shyness. She looked at him next to her in the bed and tried to think of the words that would convey the measure of her gratitude, but couldn't. There were no words and she felt painfully shy, pulling the sheet over her breasts in misplaced remembrance of modesty. She knew he was a complete stranger and they would never do this thing again, though they would both carry the experience with them the rest of their lives, perhaps with different connotations of meaning, but undeniably real, because it had happened. It was no more complicated than that.
"I guess you better go now," she said finally.
Billy sat up on the bed, the tried conqueror contemplating his victory.
"Yeah," he said, scratching his chin, "I guess so. I guess it's been an hour at least...."
They both looked at the clock on the dresser. They had been in the room only forty minutes.
Billy looked at her again speculatively. "Listen, you want me to-"
"No," she said quickly, guessing his meaning. She blushed slightly. "I'm going to be married now."
Billy shrugged and got up, reaching for his clothes. "Okay," he said, "But you better let me get you some clean sheets."
She nodded, not looking at him.
When she got up and went to the bathroom, Billy pulled the sheets off the bed and balled them up. He finished dressing and left the cabin before she came back.
What a screwy dame, he thought on his way to the office. What a dish.
CHAPTER NINE
They decided to have a party that very night. The afternoon swim had been fun, a good way to launch things. Combined with the gay spirits which bubbled forth from the pool was the feeling of being pioneers, a cementing of group feelings among the members of the newly founded Triangle Club which made them reluctant to part for home and supper.
"Let's have a party," someone said, and almost before the words had been finished they were making plans. A liquor fund was required, and they all donated their dimes, quarters and dollars to it cheerfully. The contributions were uneven, some giving more than their share to compensate for others, but there were no complaints. A regular collection of dues would correct such discrepancies in the future. Right now, their only desire was to get things going. In the back of their minds was the constant knowledge that at least two of the cabins were available for their disposal, and already they were composing in their minds the lies they would tell their parents in order to stay the night, if the party worked out that way. They were sure it would. The swim, in a sense, had been a testing of group emotions, a feeling of each other out as to how far they were going to go with this thing. The fears a few of the girls had felt initially subsided as they saw the increasing boldness of the others.
Ellen Croft had watched with acute interest the way Jane Sommers allowed Larry's hand to slip into her bathing suit-so casually, and right where everyone could see it. She had a pang of regret over running away from Art the way she had when really she'd liked what he'd done. She decided mentally to make up for it later. She didn't want to look like a stiff in this crowd. It was going to be too exciting to be a drag.
Linda had been alone most of the afternoon, but then she had swam with Dave and Ruth, and it was hard to tell which girl he was being the most familiar with. If Ruth had acted a little shy, the jealousy she felt at the casual way Linda allowed Dave's hand to roam on her buttocks had made her join in the fun more determinedly.
Before they left the motel they discussed how they would bring in new members, who they would select and how they would initiate them. They felt proud of being the original group and consequently jealous of extending the privilege to others.
"We ought to make 'em eat cow's dung," Art suggested.
"I'll initiate the girls personally," Dave smirked.
"How about an ounce of blood?" Ellen laughed.
"Or a pound of flesh," Larry countered.
"Seriously, we've got to be careful," Jane cautioned. "We don't want a bunch of blabber mouths and we don't want any drags. I think we ought to vote on every new member. We can invite someone over we know and observe them, and if all the rest of the members like him, we'll let him in."
"Hey-what's it going to be, Jane? Three boys to every girl? Let's let in some broads, too!"
"Don't be silly, you know perfectly well what I mean. We'll try to balance it out. For every fellow admitted, there'll have to be a girl next time."
They all agreed it was a good procedure. That question settled, they took up the problem of obtaining the liquor.
"I got contacts," Dave Casen exclaimed. "My brother-in-law runs a liquor store." He was promptly elected alcohol procurer for the Triangle Club by unanimous vote.
"Okay, we'll split for chow then," Jane commanded authoritatively. "Everyone be back here at eight o'clock. Ruth, you better go with Dave to get the liquor, since you're the treasurer."
They piled into two cars after that, Larry's Ford and Dave's chopped and channeled antique hot rod, and roared out of the motel lot.
When Art and Dave had left the others off, they parked outside Dave's house on Gilgord Street and talked.
"Hey, what do you think of Ellen?" Art asked his older friend. Dave was almost nineteen and could get served in any tavern; a fact which gave Art a respect for his opinion on almost everything.
"Little old freckle face?" Dave drawled with a superior smile on his face. "She's all right I guess. Real jailbait, though-only sixteen."
"Aaah! If they're old enough to bleed, they're old enough to slaughter."
"Yeah."
"Sure. Did you see the way she jumped out of that pool when I goosed her though?"
"Don't mean anything. She liked it. They all like it. They like you to make them scream and yell."
"You should have seen her boobs."
"Nice, huh? Get a good feel of jailbait?"
"I almost had one in my mouth, man!"
"What stopped you?"
"Well, she got scared like and ran away."
Dave snickered. "Probably her first time."
Art looked worried. "Hey, you think she'll go down, don't you?"
"Hell man, they're all going down. What you think were getting the booze for?"
Art thought about it with open pleasure. "Boy! Think of it! Jeez, I'd like to see that Jane Sommers getting it. I bet she's a mean one."
"She knows how too, I'll bet."
"Think Larry's gotten into that?"
Dave waved his hand disdainfully. "Hell, man, didn't you see the way he was copping feels right in front of everybody?"
"Yeah, I guess you're right. Man, those boobs! I wish I was Larry. She's got the biggest boobs of any girl I've ever seen."
"That's because you ain't seen nothing."
Art took the riding good naturedly: He'd had his share, but he knew there was no comparing what he'd had with Dave's list of conquests.
"You're right though," Dave continued, "they're giants all right. And I'm going to get my hands on them yet, you wait and see."
"I believe you, man. What you fooling around with Ruth for, anyway? She's a bookworm."
"Don't be stupid. They make the best. They've read so much about love in books that they're all hot as a furnace inside. They go around looking like intellectuals but they're aching for somebody to take them."
Art's eyes widened. "I never thought about that."
"Sure. That's why they have to act so cold on the outside, to hide it. But once you crack that shell, it's all there, baby-and I'm not putting you on about it." He enjoyed talking to his younger friend this way, letting him in on all his worldly knowledge.
"Tell you what," he said, leaning closer, his eyes mirthful at the thought taking shape in his mind. "After I nail her once I'll let you get on. That way you'll see for yourself."
"Really?" Art's face shone with gratitude.
"Sure."
They sat in silence for a minute, smoking, enjoying each other's company as they contemplated the night ahead of them and the other nights that stretched the length of the summer before them.
Art spoke finally. "Boy, this club's going to be a gas."
"Yeah, I'll say. And I'll let you in on something."
"What's that?" Art asked eagerly.
"I got me a project this summer."
"What?"
"Linda."
"Larry's girl?"
"Nah, not Larry's girl anymore. Didn't you see the way she turned him off? She knows he's plugging Jane and she's cut him. She's a cool one."
"You got the hots for her, huh?"
"Son, I'll tell you something. That's girl's got more than all the others rolled into one mattress. She's it."
"She's a looker, all right."
Dave spat over the side of the car. "She's more than that. She doesn't even need boobs like Jane's. All she has to do is wiggle at me and I'll come running. I hate to call a girl pretty, because I never look at their face, but she's got that, too. A doll with a body like a sex machine."
"Who's cutting it with her, then?"
"I don't know. I think she's cooling it, looking around. She knows she can pick her stud. If she ever gives me the eye...."
"You sound like you're hung, man."
Dave looked annoyed. "Don't sound me with that bull, man. It's dumb to get hung on any of them. "It's just that if I could get my hands on Linda...."
"What would you do?" Art was excited. He'd given Linda the once-over several times that afternoon, without getting a bite. He figured she was out of his reach, something from another planet. It excited him now to hear his friend talking about her like this.
"Ever hear of a handkerchief with a knot?"
Art hadn't. He was ashamed to admit it, but he was too excited now, picturing himself alone with Linda, and as Dave went into a detail description, he built up an elaborate fantasy in his mind, a fantasy in which Linda Micheals was the center of attraction. He couldn't wait till the party started.
That evening they all met at the edge of the motel swimming pool. Dave brought Mel Foley with him. Mel was a tall, blond, athletic looking boy, the captain of the South Syracuse High football team. The girls looked at him approvingly, but it was decided he would have to earn his membership by working the desk for the night. He accepted his banishment with outward good humor, concealing his disappointment. When Jane suggested that one of the boys could relieve him later, he was relieved. It looked as if real big things were going on tonight and he didn't want to miss all of them.
There was an air of self-consciousness about the group at first. They eyed each other nervously, making halting conversation, until Dave brought the liquor from his car. Then there was a burst of applause and shouts of "Hurray for Dave!" as he broke out the bottles.
They drank rum and Coke. Dave brought up the idea of drinking it out of Coke bottles as a precaution. Staying among the trees at one end of the pool in case guests showed up for a swim, they drank from Coke bottles until there was room enough to fill them up with rum. As an added precaution, they stashed the rum supply some distance away in the bushes. "We can take it inside the cabin later after we've had our evening swim," Dave suggested He was basking in the new popularity and authority his ability to provide the group with alcoholic beverages had brought him. He noticed Jane looked at him too, and he took a long pull at his bottle to show her how easily he handled the stuff. Her smile was worth the burning sensation the potent drink brought to his chest.
"You know what?" Art said, standing up and facing them, "It's a damn shame we can't isolate this pool for ourselves. That way we could have a moonlight swim."
The danger in the idea appealed to them the more they drank.
"Why can't we?" Larry suggested after a while.
"We could put up a sign saying OFF LIMITS FOR GUESTS or something like that, where they could see it before they got out this far." The pool was some distance from the cabins, due to the peculiar shape of the lot Harry Micheal's had purchased from the city. It lay between two irregular farms, and he been unable to purchase the adjacent areas, or the pieces of them he would have needed to form a rectangular layout, from the private owners on either side of him. As a result, his lot was squeezed in the middle like a dressmaker's dummy, the cabin areas situated in the front area near the highway and the pool in the area curving off toward the rear. There was plenty of land between. Harry was keeping it in reserve for the day when he could afford to build more cabins. In the meantime, the pool was rather isolated, being partially hidden from view of the cabins by a row of trees.
The idea gained impetus the more they realized it was possible, and the more they drank, the more they realized it was possible.
"Hell, let's do it!" Dave said finally.
"No, let's not," Ruth said sharply, trying to conceal her fright. "I don't care for swimming-that way." And then she blushed because Dave's hand was already on her hip and his fingers pinching her flesh and she hadn't even bothered to remove it.
Jane turned to her, eyes flashing. "Look, you're not afraid, are you? We don't want weak sisters in the club!"
"No, but-"
"But, hell. I say we all go for a swim-bare."
She took another pull at her Coke bottle, showing her defiance of Ruth's primness. "If you don't want to, you can go sit at the desk. That goes for anyone else, too."
"Atta girl, Jane," Larry applauded. "Let's separate the Triangle from the squares. Who's for a swim?"
They all stood up, some sheepishly and some boldly, and at last Ruth stood up with the others Her heart was all a flutter at the idea. The truth was, she wasn't a virgin, but it was a secret she kept well hidden. She had been seduced when she was thirteen, by a hired hand on her uncle's farm. It had hurt and she had cried with shame for days afterward but when she had seen finally that it was going to have no consequences, she'd gradually put the incident out of her mind. Now it came back to her and she was afraid, not so much at the thought, which secretly excited her, but at the irrationally persistent notion that when it came time, her secret would be found out. Only there was no helping it now. Her desire to be accepted by the group was stronger than any other emotion at that minute. She felt Dave put his arm around her waist as he whispered into her ear. "Don't worry, baby, it'll be fun. Old Dave will see that nobody else touches you."
The excitement of the daring idea spread like wildfire through their brains. Billy went to the main office for a can of paint and a piece of cardboard to make a sign with while the others finished their drinks. When he came back they helped him string it up along the row of trees by the cabins and then they split up into two groups, and went into the woods to undress.
That same evening, just as it was getting dark, Henry Lindstrom drove into the parking lot of Harry's Hideaway.
He was pretty drunk. He was not so drunk he couldn't handle the big car, but he was drunk enough. He was not so drunk he couldn't handle other things, too, he thought to himself as he slammed the car door and locked it.
No, he would be able to handle other things. And handle them for the first time in his life-unless one counted his afternoon bout with Mimi. But that was something else. This time he wouldn't need any help or directing. He would handle it entirely by himself. And how he would handle it! Mimi had not only given him confidence, she had also taught him many a trick.
He walked up the path to his cabin, weaving just a bit as he went, but walking otherwise very erect and with a confident step.
She'll be nervous, he thought. She'll be nervous and won't know what to do, but it doesn't matter now.
He felt a glow of anticipation in his stomach as he unlocked the cabin door and walked in.
She was lying on the bed, asleep. She had put on her new nightgown, the new one she had bought just for this occasion, the one made of translucent nylon which clung to her curves and dips and which now lay partially open, exposing her legs up the insides of her white thighs.
He noticed as if for the first time how beautiful her legs were. He sat down on the bed and ran his hand up her leg, all the way up the inside, feeling its soft, delicious warmth.
She started, raising her head. "Henry?"
"Yes, dear. I've got a nice surprise for you tonight."
CHAPTER TEN
Linda burst from the woods first, running to the edge of the pool where she poised in breathless sweet abandon as the keen night air loved her naked lovely skin, then jumped. Her nude form poised a brief second, a graceful moon-gilded arc suspended dramatically against the night, then clove the now dark water of the pool below with scarcely a splash. Scarcely a ripple was left in her wake.
Larry, coming from the other side, trotting, pulled up short in his tracks at the sight. For a brief moment his mind was touched with awe. He couldn't know it was Linda; she dove from the far side of the pool. Her dive was spectacular in its perfection. Framed by the moonlight she might have been a creature of the woods, a water sprite disappearing into her natural habitat. Larry sucked in his breath, forgetting for the moment his object of finding Jane in the group that now appeared at the pool's edge, and dove in after her. His dive was shallow and swift, carrying him far under water to where the pale form of Linda swam lazily.
The contact of their bodies in the water was electric. They both gasped in surprise and squirmed against each other, feeling the delicious contact of cool bare flesh in various places. Larry reached his arms around her and for a moment she didn't resist. But it was impossible to stay afloat that way. They started to sink, clinging to each other, and he had to let go. He let go reluctantly, feeling her push away from him, her taut nippled breast grazing his chest as she did so.
"Hey! Come back!" he yelled after her. He was dimly aware of the sounds of other bodies entering the water.
"Come get me!" she yelled over her shoulder, quickening her strokes.
He caught her near the edge of the pool, just as she was climbing out. His hands reached up and went around her legs, high on her thighs, and pulled her backward. Her hands slipped from the rungs of the ladder and she fell back against him, her naked buttocks landing in his midsection as they both went under again.
Larry was determined not to lose her this time. The feel of her against him as they floundered in the water was deliriously exciting; it was as if he had never been with her before, never felt her firm-fleshed thighs and legs against his. She might have been a stranger.
At last they managed to stand up. The water came to their armpits in that part of the pool, and they both stood gasping a minute, catching their breaths.
"I caught you," Larry said uncertainly, now that he could see her face. "So what? Let go!"
"No. I caught you, and that means you're mine.' He felt there was some kind of vague justification for this type of argument, and the feeling made him tighten his grip on Linda's upper arm.
"We didn't make any rules about that, did we?" she cried, trying fruitlessly to jerk herself free of his grip. It was too strong.
Larry decided to brazen it with this girl he had made love to so many times but who now, in the moonlight, inspired an emotion close to fear in him. His mind was confused by the idea he might have made a mistake, might have lost the rights to her body which he now desired so much to claim again. "Listen," he laughed harshly, covering up his confusion, "it's finders keepers. I caught the prize and now I'm going to take it home with me."
"Oh no you're not!" She jerked away violently and scrambled up the ladder.
He was after her in a flash, all other thoughts fleeing his mind but the one overwhelming desire to catch her and claim her for the night. She ran toward the cabins, her bare flesh flickering among the shadows, and he pursued her. He caught her just before they reached the row of trees, stumbling and crashing into her. They both went down in a tangle of arms and legs, into the grass among the low bushes. Larry heaved himself on top of her, straddling her with his legs, pinning her squirming body beneath him. At last she lay still and he panted, catching his breath while he leaned his weight against her arms. Her body was hot and soft and unresistant under him, and a painfully acute desire began to spread through him.
"I want you now, Linda!" He said hoarse-voiced, looking at her expressionless face, framed among the shadows in the grass.
"I don't want to."
"Why?" he said angrily.
"You don't do it as good...."
"As good as who I"
She turned her face away from him. "As good as somebody else I know."
He slapped her, snapping her face back toward him. "Who?" he repeated, infuriated now.
"I'm not going to tell you. You can hit me all you want, but I won't tell you."
He could see she meant it, and it infuriated him all the more. "Goddamn it, I'll show you...." he snarled, and then began to force her knees apart.
She responded automatically. There was little else she could do. His advances were insistant unremitted, and her best defense was to go along with them, responding no more than she had to. She had never seen him this angry. The knowledge that she could hurt him, make a fool of him by doing this thing, gave her a kind of satisfaction.
Larry became savage. He thrust himself at her viciously, again and again against her, seeking desperately to arouse her by his ruthless attack.
And at last, when he heard her scream, he felt a glow of satisfaction.
The four of them wound up in the same cabin: Art and Ellen, Dave and Ruth.
Ellen was drunk and giggling and Ruth was drunk and scared. Ruth couldn't quite believe what was happening to her. If she could have believed it, she would have run away from there, but the rum and Coke worked on her to make the whole thing unreal, and she was participating in it with only part of her mind, the other part detached and observing and not a little frightened. But the part that was frightened was not the part that had any ability to affect her actions. She watched what was happening to her, and when Dave locked the door she knew that her last chance to make any decision about it was gone.
It's going to happen now, she thought, it's going to happen and I don't care. Everybody's got their clothes off and I can see them there and they can see me and it's too late, so I don't care. Maybe it will be all right, fun, only oh God, I hope I don't get pregnant from this!
There was only one bed in the cabin. But there were two rooms and each room had a floor, so they didn't actually need beds. There was an awkward moment when they both looked at each other. Art and Dave, to see who was going to take the bedroom, but the issue was decided when Art turned his eyes away from his older friend.
Dave and Ruth would get the bed. They went into the bedroom and closed the door after them.
Art was left with Ellen. She sat in a chair, smiling at him, her legs crossed casually. There wasn't a trace left of the self-consciousness that had caused Art to worry about her that afternoon.
"Shall we do it on the floor?" she said boldly.
"Say, you're really hot for it, aren't you?" Art said, a little surprised.
She shrugged, placing a hand on her breast. "What did you think? When you grabbed me there this afternoon it sent things all through me. I had to run away from you or else I would have made you do it right there in the pool with everybody watching." She uncrossed her legs slowly. They were the legs of a sixteen-year-old girl, well developed for her age and promising to become even better. Her breasts were the same way. They were wide spread, with the nipples pointing out proudly in either direction, small neat, round globes which looked as if they might have been growing that very minute.
Art was highly excited. He was thinking about what was going on in the next room and what Dave had said to him that afternoon. These thoughts floated sensuously in the back of his brain as he went to the chair and pulled Ellen up to him.
She came eagerly. He put his arms around her and cupped her buttocks. She thrust her thighs at him boldly and he could feel the excitement in her. Her hands clutched at his back like two excited animals, raking him with her nails, and she began to twist and squirm and moan against him.
"Ohh, I've been waiting for you, wanting you for so long. You never noticed me before. I used to see you all the time walking down the street and then I'd have dreams about you in my bedroom and I'd get all excited, like now...."
"You're a sexy one," Art whispered, delighted a! her confession. "I've got something for you."
"I know," she moaned. "Oh, give it to me now, don't make me wait!"
But it was fun teasing her and he made her wait. He played with her until she was shaking against him. Then he bent down and kissed her and he felt her body go taut, and then turn to jelly in his arms. She sank to the floor like a flower wilting, grasping at him on the way down. Then she was at his feet, moaning softly, her eyes closed, rocking back and forth.
He went to her and soon the room was filled with the sound of their ragged breathing.
Ruth thought it might be the end of the world. Once in the bedroom, a weakness spread through her legs that left her hardly able to stand. She fairly collapsed on to the bed before Dave even had the chance to touch her.
She had thought about this moment a long time, secretly, decorating it in her dream with all the scenes of passion she had ever read in literature. She was mentally prepared to be elevated to the clouds and beyond, to be transported by an unearthly rapture such as is known to the gods of Olympus only Mixed with this in a very incongruous manner were the few brief, crude moments in the barn at her uncle's farm where she had been caught and cornered by the hired man. She remembered his rough hands raising her skirt and pulling down her panties and then his huge sweaty body against her, heaving, stabbing, giving her pain. But the whole thing had been so quick she had had no time to recover from the shock of it, so that the particular sensations she had felt during the incident were lost to her.
Now, it was quite different. The sheets were cool on her back and she felt almost sleepy as she lay there, feeling Dave's hands on her legs.
"Like that?" he said, smiling.
"Yes," she admitted, and she did. It was a warm, lazy feeling his hands were sending, and it felt good to have someone controlling her like this. A warm lassitude came over her, setting her a quiver, as his hands worked. As her fears subsided, she began to enjoy the act of giving up the responsibility for her body to a man. The sight of Dave's nude body was at first terrifying-bringing back memories of the hired hand. But Dave was different, and once she became used to seeing him, she felt a choking tightness in her throat at what he might be able to do for her.
"I'm going to work it up nice and slow, Ruthie," he drawled, "so you'll get the most out of it. That's the way ol' Dave works."
"Nice and slow," she repeated, like a hypnotist's patient.
And she was being hypnotized. It was as if he were slowly, degree by degree, taking command of her, sensitizing every nerve end, causing the blood to course throbbingly through her veins. His hands were very skilled at their work. The warmth that spread through her came in waves, each one of them a little larger than the last, until she felt as if she were drowning in them. She had not imagined she could give herself up to this so completely, but now she resigned herself to everything he did, looked forward to it.
His hands traveled further up, twining in her hair.
"I like that," she said.
"How about this?" His hand made a quick motion and a seizure of heat convulsed her. She groaned.
"Oh, yes, I like that too. I love it!"
Dave smiled with self-satisfaction. It was just as he'd figured. Ruth, the least pretty of all the girls in the club, was going to turn out to be the best. He bent over and kissed her breasts, taking one in each hand as she did so. His thumbs pushed in at each nipple.
"Oh God!" she said. She was immediately shocked at the loudness with which she'd said it. It had almost been a scream.
The next time, it was a scream.
And then he was on her, and she fought, fought desperately with him. With him, to get at him, not against him. She grabbed and squirmed and kicked against his back to get at him.
She felt suddenly like a vast void, wanting to be filled up. She was an aching, throbbing cavity that urgently needed filling.
"Christ, take it easy!" he cursed between his teeth, feeling her heaving body clamped to him.
But she couldn't take it easy. Strangled sounds came from her throat, sounds of anguish as she lost her mind in the vast craving ache.
"Rip me! Kill me!" she screamed.
And then he was there, palpably there, throbbingly there, and they teetered on the peak of a giant wave for a brief tense moment, and then they shot shoreward in a frenzy.
The magnificent release left her rarely conscious. The sound of her breathing, roaring in her ears, was her only connection with the word for a few minutes after.
And then it started again. She began to move on the bed, moving his great weight on her with the sheer strength of her passion seeking body.
But he drew back from her.
"The hell," he said. "Give me a minute, will you? I'm not ready yet."
"But I need you now!" she pleaded.
Dave got up from the bed, looking down on her with a crooked smile on his face. "Okay. But I have to prove a point to a friend first. I'll be right back."
When he went into the next room, Art and Ellen were laying on the floor and smoking, passing a butt between them.
"Girl next door wants to see you," he said to Art, grinning.
Art scrambled to his feet, giving the cigarette back to Ellen. She watched him with a puzzled expression as he went through the door and into the bedroom. Then she looked a Dave.
"Put out that butt," he commanded.
"Why?"
"Because it's not polite to smoke when you're watching other people make love." He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to her feet and they followed Art into the bedroom.
Lenore's nightgown was a balled heap on the floor. She was at first surprised and then a little frightened at the way her husband ripped it off her and tossed it there, the way you would the cellophane from a cigarette pack.
He's trying to brazen it, she thought. Guilt about what she had done that afternoon came and left by the same door in her mind. She knew what to do. She'd let him think he was the master the initiator, and then he'd never know the difference.
While she looked ready to receive him, she was actually ready to help him, help him do all that he wanted to do and all that she wanted him to do. They were not only going to be doing it. but it was going to be good, that she knew She was confident with herself and Henry was acting confident and they could rise to meet each other, instead of both of them cringing back and withdrawing into themselves. They would rise to each other and join triumphantly in their first complete act of passionate love.
She let his hands wander over her body, shivering as he aroused her. He was good for a beginner, she thought. He must have been really working himself up for this, drinking and thinking about it and preparing himself. Because he was doing such a good job of it she hardly knew him as the man who had fumbled with her so clumsily earlier that day. Yes. he was doing fine, and she'd give him all the help he needed. When it came to that, she knew just what to do.
She helped him undress, unbuttoning his shirt. She wondered at how all the tension there had been between them seemed to have vanished. Perhaps it was the drinks, she thought. There was nothing hesitant about him now. His hands gripped her breasts and his lips plunged to her throat and she felt the need in him for her body as he threw himself against her commandingly.
A brief moment of panic seized her brain. But then the moment vanished because he was there, throbbingly there, without any trouble at all, her husband at last.
He was more than Billy to her and she was more than Mimi to him as they discovered, explored and joined each other. And though this was the second time for each of them, it was really her first, his first and their first-something that was new and exciting and would always remain that way.
Neither of them knew which of them had effected the ease of their conjunction.
Neither of them cared, at that point.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The ineffable doings of the Triangle Club progressed along with the heat of summer. Within a week, the membership had increased by four, Mel Foley, the blond football captain bringing in two more members, and they in turn another. The aftermath of the moonlight swim had been productive. They all now shared in an experience which demanded the utmost secrecy, which they could talk about only among themselves, and even then only in places that were private, without running the risk of discovery. Furthermore, after the night of the. moonlight swim, the club began to take on a new complexion. Where originally most of the members had thought of the club as a good means of having continuous parties and a place to make out with a girl, it became no longer the object just to make out with one particular girl or boy. It began to be a free-for-all. Several of the members, Art and Dave and Jane at first, encouraged this, and as the idea took hold, there was a new excitement added to their meetings; the excitement of wondering who would end up with who before the evening was over. The boys and girls began to see each other as community property rather than as individuals. Membership in the Triangle Club became a license for free love.
To say that a lot of parents would have been shocked at the goings on at the motel would be an understatement. They would have been aghast. They would have been, that is, if they were not too busy enjoying their own summer fun at resorts and various places, or just plain disinterested. The ones who were aware that their offspring were going to meetings of some kind of teen-age club did nothing to probe into the nature of these meetings. To them, to the ones who knew, it seemed like a godsend. It served the double purpose of keeping their sons and daughters away from home while at the same time keeping them off the streets. They approved highly of what looked to them like a healthy outlet for the social instincts of their children. After all, as every parent in America knows, the most important thing a young person learns in school is how to get along with others. Social clubs are a preparation for adult life, for satisfying human relations, than which there is nothing more important for the building of character and social poise. Thus, as Mrs. Croft spied her young daughter about to leave the house on a hot summer evening, she might ask casually, "Where are you going, dear?" and of course Ellen would answer, "To the Triangle Club, Mother. We're having a special meeting to approve new members," upon which Mrs. Croft might reply, "That's nice, dear. Have a good time and don't come in too late." And the good woman would smile inwardly at the figure of her young daughter receding down the street, thinking something like "Thank God Ellen's not going to be a wallflower. It's so important for young people to get along these days," and then she would open her copy of Women's Life to survey the latest fashions.
It was a warm, lazy summer, cicadas buzzed in the elms and lawns lay drowsily in the sun, waiting for the evening lawn mower. Working husbands returned from work and watered them and vacationing husbands lay in hammocks and thought about watering them. Wives sipped lemonade on porches and gossiped with other wives. Moths beat their wings against doors in the evening while mosquitoes whined their way around the house, looking for an entrance and a meal. It was one of the hottest summers Syracuse and surrounding areas had seen in years.
Linda tossed in her bed in her room above the motel office. It was impossible for her to sleep in the heat, but even more than that in the mental state she found herself in a week after Crag had left the motel. Thoughts of him kept her from plunging over the edge of consciousness into the sought after land of dreams.
He hadn't come back that night as he'd promised. She'd checked his cabin three times just to make sure. There was no suitcase there or anything. He'd just left, as mysteriously as he had appeared-walked into and out of her life with that same casual, confident air.
And during the next week, Linda had thought about nothing else. It was as if Crag had taken away part of her identity with him-the part that he had made a woman. The other part, the part that was left at the motel, was just a child. Like the rest of them, seeking a thrill when she could but, unlike them not really participating in it when she found one. She'd done it with Larry twice that week. The first time, she hadn't felt anything except distaste for his callow clumsiness, except when he'd hurt her, and then she'd been angry. But her anger afterward had switched itself to Crag, and since he wasn't there to fight back at, she'd taken it out on him another way-by doing it with Larry again. The second time had been better than the first. She'd shown Larry she knew things he never dreamed she knew, and his surprise and subsequent awkwardness had given her a kind of satisfaction that his love making hadn't. She felt superior to him after that. Larry was, after all, a little boy. Fun to play with now and then, but nothing to get serious about. She resisted his advances after that.
It was funny. Here she was, president of the club, and yet she felt herself drawing away from it as it grew and became more active. All the boys looked at her body with obvious hunger. They would have given anything to get her alone in one of the eabins. Dave had been making attempts lately to isolate her with himself, stealing covetous glances and letting his hand slip over her when they were next to each other. He tried flattering her and he tried making her jealous and neither method got him anything for all his trouble. She just wasn't interested.
If she had been any other girl in the club, she would have been kicked out by now. The way things were going, a girl had no rights any more. She had to go to a cabin with any boy who wanted her to; if she didn't, she risked expulsion from the club. But Linda had the advantage of being president as well as being the owner's daughter. If she wanted to, she could end the whole thing, and everybody knew it. But she didn't care one way or another. She let Jane run things the way she wanted to. And Linda used her advantage in the meantime to shy away from the crude activities that were developing to a fantastic pitch as the summer wore on. She kept aloof, and there was nothing they could do about it. She was glad to volunteer for desk duty. She often made excuses, as she had tonight, of feeling ill in order to avoid the group. She had a good idea of what was going on out there in the cabins, and the knowledge, though it excited her in a vicarious way, did nothing to make her want to join in. She had the irrational notion that if she worked at the desk long enough, one day Crag would come walking in again....
But that night had been as fruitless as the others preceding it. It was a hot, sultry night, the kind of night that seemed to threaten a storm any minute, until the suspense becomes unbearable. But the storm never breaks. Linda wished ferverently for rain. The rain would make it cooler and there would be the steady reassuring rhythm of it on the roof to lull her to sleep. She had given up the desk early, and now, as she tossed and turned, she felt the wetness of the sheet under her sweaty body. The sweat had soaked right through her shortie nightgown, twisted now around her waist. She decided to take it off; it wasn't doing any good. She got up from the bed and shed the thin wrapper, leaving it in a pale heap on the floor.
Still it was hot. Too hot. She felt the dampness of her breasts with her hands, went to the mirror and looked at her naked form in the dim glow of the night light. The sight of her slim, well-proportioned body surprised her at first glance. She felt so sticky and uncomfortable that when she looked at the willowy young figure in the glass she couldn't believe it was herself. But it was. She touched her flat stomach and let her hand slide along her thighs and the girl in the mirror did the same, mimicing her motions. Yes, it was all her; the smooth muscled hips, the tanned thighs, white above where the bathing suit covered her during the day; the pretty little breasts. She turned slightly to enjoy the sight of the smooth, curving musculature of her buttocks, softened now in the dim light. Yes, she had a nice body. A very nice body and a pretty face. No wonder the boys all wanted to make love to her.
But it was too hot. She turned from the mirror. It would never rain; it would be this hot for the rest of the night and the rest of the summer.
She decided to take a shower.
She could see the luminous hands of the clock on the dresser: ten after one. It was late. Most of the club members would have left by now, except the ones who had managed to wrangle an overnight from their parents. There probably wouldn't be anyone ringing the night bell at this hour, either. The idea of cool water running over her body appealed to her. She would take a shower.
She went to the bathroom and snapped on the light. Its glare made her wince momentarily as she searched for her shower cap, found it, and tucked her dark handsome locks into its protective clear plastic. The tile floor of the stall felt cool to the soles of her bare feet as she stepped inside, closing the frosted glass door after her.
She turned the cold tap. Too cold. The icy rivulets made her shudder. She jumped back, goose bumps raising on her flesh, and adjusted the water to luke. When the edge had been taken off its coldness, she stepped under again, this time luxuriating in the cool relief the water gave her as it pounded over her bare shoulders and buttocks. Her fingers sought and found the soap well in the wall, and taking the eroded cake out, she stepped from under the direct spray and began to soap herself up thoroughly. Her hands spread the creamy lather all over her body, in each nook and crevice. It felt delicious to her to have this temporary reprieve from the night's heat. It was like cleansing away all the dross left by the humid day. an act of purification, a ritual of renewal. Her body responded to her solicitous hands with a glow of physical well-being, spreading up through her limbs. It was her best moment of the day and she reveled in the sheer physical satisfaction of it, stepping back under the spray, adjusting it to a fine needle-like torrent which washed away the lather and turned her skin pink. She cupped her breasts under the water, letting its coldness stiffen her pink nipples as if they were being touched by a man's hand. It was a delicious feeling. She let the water run colder on them.
She admired her breasts. They were good breasts, firm and high, and as she caressed them under the water she had the illusion they were swelling, growing. She laughed at her private little joke; the water was her lover, her solitary lover in the middle of the hot summer night. It ran over her entire body, wetting every part of it in a steady, moving, intimate embrace, down over her breasts and down over her hips and thighs. But at last she turned it off. It was only water after all. Feeling a little ashamed at the fantasies she had been indulging in, she stepped out of the shower stall.
Dave Casen was tired of waiting. At first he figured he had plenty of time; the whole summer if it was necessary.
The whole summer in which to get Linda Micheals.
The way Dave figured, it was a sure thing. After all. he was Dave Casen. That meant something. It meant, to be precise, that no girl could long look upon his god-like form without desiring it. He was well if not athletically built, with good shoulders and chest, narrow waist, and well muscled legs. And he had regular good looks which he set off to good advantage with a thin, neatly trimmed moustache-the kind Errol Flynn used to wear. He felt certain other affinities with the deceased actor as a matter-of-fact. Women, Dave had learned very early in life, liked him. He planned some day to use this natural attraction for the opposite sex to good advantage. A young man with his looks and sex appeal shouldn't have to work very hard. Women would provide a means of living for him, if he worked it right. And Dave planned to work it right, when the time came. Until then, he was biding his time, feeling things out. relaxing. There was no rush.
There hadn't seemed any need to rush with Linda. From the first time he laid eyes on her. he knew that she would have to become one of Casen's conquests. A major one. Linda breathed the kind of sex appeal found in cigarette and soap ads-a young, glowing, healthy animal kind of sex appeal. She radiated it without having to twitch a finger, and when she wore a bathing suit, it was hard to keep your eyes off her. It was even harder to keep your hands off her. Dave had managed to get his hands on her three different times since the first meeting of the Triangle Club, and each time it had been as delicious as it had been disappointing. He couldn't figure it out.
Linda wasn't giving him a tumble.
Neither was she giving anyone else a tumble, as far as he could see. That was what perplexed him as he left the cabin where Art and Ruth and Jane were playing games on the floor. He'd been participating in the games heartily a few minutes before. And then, through the cabin window, he'd seen the light go on upstairs in Linda's house. It had been like a signal to him, a reminder of all the rebuffs she'd given him that week. A sudden anger had overcome him. Who did she think she was-a damn queen or something? He'd noticed the way she had been begging off from the parties and excusing herself from the meetings. He'd noticed it and thought about it and arrived at the inevitable conclusion: Linda Micheals thought she was just too damned good for any of them. Which would have been all right, except that "any of them" happened to include one Dave Casen. That thought was intolerable.
Something would have to be done about that.
Dave had a pretty good idea of what it was that would have to be done as he walked toward the building which served as a home for Harry Micheals and his daughter and as an office for the motel. The girl who had shunned the Casen frame, so generously offered, would have to be shown the folly of her ways. The goddess in the upstairs window would have to be made mortal again. At any rate, she would have to be made.
Dave swayed drunkenly along the path, brushing against the low bushes bordering it. He stopped midway to the office, pulled a half empty pint bottle from his hip pocket, and took a long swig. The fiery liquid coursed through his system, strengthening his determination and adding fresh enthusiasm for the mission he was about to embark on. He would know Linda Lovely's lovely frame, know it tonight, in her own bed, on her own lily white sheets.
Caution restored his equilibrium as he tested the front door which led into the office and upstairs. It was locked. He cursed his luck and went around the building again to the back. He had to find a way to get upstairs. He cast his eyes about desperately for a way. Overhead, he could see the light coming from an upstairs window, and the sound of running water came down to his ears clearly through the night air. There had to be a way....
There was a tree. It grew up close to the building, right next to a darkened window, where it branched off conveniently. If the window was unlocked, he could get in....
He started to climb. It was harder than he thought and he began to pant with the effort. It was hot. He began to sweat freely, his hands sliding and slipping on the smooth tree trunk. But at last he gained the crotch where the thick branch reached out toward the window. He could see now in the window, the dim interior of a bedroom. The sight of the bed, Linda's bed. spurred him on with fresh vigor He straddled the branch and slid out toward the window.
There was a screen in it. He clawed at the sill, raised it an inch, and took out the screen. It dropped inside the room with a thump, but the sound of running water was enough to cover it. He leaned out. grasping the edge of the window frame, and pulled himself through.
Inside, on the floor, he rested a few minutes, catching his breath. He could hear her moving around in the shower. The sound excited him in the thick heat of the room. He stood up and began to remove his clothes.
The bed was next to him. It was rumpled the sheets twisted and half off. He saw her nightgown in a heap on the floor beside it. He picked it up and wiped his glistening body with it, wiping away the sweat and dirt from climbing, and tossed it into a corner. She wouldn't be needing that again tonight, he thought, smiling to himself. If he waited right where he was, he could surprise her when she came into the room. He felt a hot, pleasant glow of excitement as he anticipated the expression on her face when, she walked into the room and discovered him. It was going to be good. The best. The two of them would be all alone and there wasn't a damn thing she could do.
But the sound of water continued and he grew impatient. Hell, he thought, she must be planning on spending the night in there. He crept silently across the carpet, through the door and across the hall to the ballroom. The door was slightly ajar. He looked in. He could see her form silhouetted through the glass door of the shower stall. The sight quickened his pulse as he stared, fascinated.
And then the water turned off and the door opened and she stepped out, the daughter of Venus, naked from her shower.
"Hello, Linda," he smiled.
CHAPTER TWELVE
She stepped back quickly. It was an impulse born of shock, useless. There was no place to go. "Get out of here!" she snapped, recovering from her surprise. Her eyes blazed anger at the naked figure in front of her.
"The hell," Dave grinned. "Is that any way to treat a guest?"
She inched along the wall, her face red with fury. "How did you get in here?"
"I had to use the window. You forgot to give me a key, honey." He watched her try to circle past him, amused, and then stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
She trembled with impotent anger, covering her breasts with her arm. "You've got no business in here, Dave Casen Get out, or I'll...."
"You'll what?" he laughed, refraining from touching her. This was even better than he'd expect. As he watched her angry figure, desire licked up at him. But it was fun to bait her like this He stood with arms folded, moving to block her path each time she tried to edge past him "Hey you've got no right to talk to me that way, honey-I'm in the club, remember?"
"To hell with the club!"
"Oh, now that's real bad talk," he clucked "Especially coming from our esteemed president Why, I'm just shocked all to little old pieces, Linda honey. What'll the others think when I tell them you've been talking like this?"
"I don't care. Let me out of here!"
Dave backed to the doorway and raised one arm. blocking the exit as he leaned against it. "Why sure, now, baby. Ol' Dave'll let you go. Don't you worry about that none. He's going to let you go right into that big old bed with him, the one right across the hall. Won't that be just fine, now?"
Linda could see he was serious. With an effort, she held back the curses her tongue wanted to form. Instead, she addressed him in forcedly cooler tone. "Look, Dave, you win. I'll do it with you if you want. But not tonight. I feel awful tonight, honest. I wouldn't be any good for you. Tomorrow night, Dave. Tomorrow night I'll let you spend the whole night."
"The whole night?"
"Sure!"
"Good. I accept. Tomorrow night well make it together the whole night long then, baby. Just you and me." He let his arm slip down from the door jamb. But as she started to rush past, it came up again, circling her waist and drawing her to him. "Only tonight's going to be just as good." He trapped her against the jamb, leaning hard into her petite body. "Tonight's going to be a preview of tomorrow night, okay?"
She started to beat her fists against him, but he crushed her to the wall. She felt his powerful naked body against hers, his strong hips grinding into her and, outraged, she began to scream curses at him. But it was no use. There was no one to hear them. He twisted her roughly in his arms, slamming her buttocks against him, and lifting her off her feet that way, carried her into the bedroom.
She let herself go limp in his arms. When he dumped her on her bed roughly, she stared up at him, mute in her outrage.
Then he started to make love to her. He started slowly at first, caressing her up and down her body. She stiffened at his touch, hating him. But he was good at it. He was taking his time and he knew what he was doing, and in the hot darkness of her bedroom she began to accept what was happening, accept and respond to his clever caresses. And then he was there, on the bed with her, and as she felt him against her she forgot who he was or where they were. Lost in the lust of two bodies meeting again and again, she abandoned herself to her own desire. Somewhere a bell was ringing....
Crag couldn't understand why the hell no one answered. He jabbed at the night bell several times more, then gave it up.
He looked at his watch. It was two-thirty. Too late to go looking for another place now. No, not really; you could always find another place, another motel Only he didn't want another motel.
He'd been a week upstate, in Waterville. A week in one of the lousiest, crummiest towns he'd ever been in since he'd been in the sales racket. A week wasted.
He'd gotten hung. He'd gotten doubly hung. No sale and no girl. It was an unusual experience for him. It was, he decided, what you'd call a sobering experience. He'd finally found one town in the whole country where he couldn't make it.
That was something to think about, like finding God on a mountain top. An experience, earth-shaking type. It was something to think about and ponder and then forget, and the only way he could think of to forget it was to get a girl as quickly and as beautifully as possible. It was going to take a hell of a lot of good loving to wash the taste of Waterville out of his mouth. Waterville. where every woman was over fifty and had six kids and every man was on relief. It was worse than being stuck in the middle of the Sahara Desert with nothing to eat but a box of Spanish Fly. Almost.
It was enough to make a man religious. For a whole week he'd sweated it out in a two-bit hotel, not making one contact. Seven nights in a hotel room with nothing to look at but a picture of Jenny Lind on the wall, an old and faded picture.
Well, his company had told him to "exhaust the possibilities of the area," and he sure as hell had. Or rather, the area had exhausted him. For seven nights he'd had nothing to look at but a daugeurrotype of Jenny Lind and nothing to think about but a lovely young girl he had spent a night with back in Syracuse. A lovely young girl who looked like she'd just climbed out of a toothpaste ad; a girl with dark hair and a fresh face and pretty lips and a body like a young thoroughbred filly. A girl who knew about half the score and wanted to learn more, who was ready for him to teach her more, but who he'd instead called a whore and run out on, figuring she could wait for the next lesson till she was eighteen.
A girl named Linda Micheals.
It had been a long ride back from Waterville. He'd driven over seventy all the way, not stopping, spurred on both by the desire to flee the area, get as far away from it as fast as he could, and the desire to look again at those neat little breasts of the lovely dark haired girl he'd seduced so casually the week before. The more distance he put between himself and Waterville, the stronger the second desire became, until he could almost feel her smooth buttocks in his hands. Until he could almost see her eyes before him, half shut with desire, waiting for him....
It had been a long ride and now he was tired and angry at the frustration of not finding her Where could she be? She'd told him her father wouldn't be back until the end of summer, so she couldn't have just locked up the place and left She had to be inside that house. He decided to check the back entrance. He walked around the house quickly. The back door was locked, but he could see a light coming from one of the rooms upstairs. It meant she was there.
The lock was easy. He'd had experiences with locks before. On the road, opportunities come up opportunities which only a fool would refuse to take advantage of. And he was no fool. Once, in a small Pennsylvania farming town, he'd taken seven-hundred dollars out of a store cash box. He'd had to break open a door to do it, jimmy the lock but it had been a setup too beautiful to resist. And there'd been the time he'd broken into a gas station the evening of the same day he'd sold the owner a burglar alarm system. It had been a good joke. The owner, a tight-fisted New England Yankee, had been a hard man to sell, but an easy man to rob. He had very graciously shown Crag how to open his safe that afternoon That evening, when Crag opened it by himself, he found well over five bills in it. He took them figuring a guy that careless needed a burglar alarm. He'd done him a service.
Crag flipped the screen door hook back with his pen knife. The inside door took a little more time, but in a few minutes he had that open also. He closed it after him and walked into the dark kitchen. He flipped on the fluorescent overhead. If she was so sound a sleeper she couldn't hear the night bell the light sure as hell wasn't going to wake her up. He'd wake her up in his own way.
It was pleasant just thinking about it. Linda was just a kid who didn't realize half of what she had. She was giving out for free what she could have been making good money with, if she knew the score. Damn good money. Hell, what she needed was a manager-like himself, for instance. He could sell anything, and there would be no problem selling Linda. No problem at all. It was just a damn shame a girl with her talent didn't know what to do with it. Maybe she could be talked into something....
He opened the refrigerator and found a can of beer. He put it on the table, found an opener, opened it, and sat down to drink it. The beer tasted icy cold, like it had been there a long time. He took a long draught, letting the liquid cool his parched mouth and throat, dusty from travel. It felt good to be sitting there, drinking beer, relaxing. It felt very good to sit there and drink and relax and think about Linda upstairs, sleeping. He wondered how many boys she'd let do it to her before he'd met her. Not too many, he guessed, from the way she'd been-inexperienced and eager. That was the way he liked them; young tight-fleshed, recent virgins who thought they knew a hell of a lot more than they did. Girls like Linda, who were used to grabbing quickies behind the bushes or in cars with some hot shot kid they thought they were stuck on for at least eternity, who had a hell of an itch and liked to think of it as true love, who were really all the time aching for a man to give them the business the way they needed it. Not in bushes or back seats but flat on their backs in bed, by a man who knew what he was doing and had plenty of time to do it in. And once they got it, got a good taste of it, they forgot all about those "From here to Fraternity Forever Yours" college girl dreams. They forgot about them pretty damn quick. After that, they'd give you any damn thing you wanted. They'd serve it to you on a platter, their young bodies eager as five-penny pistols. And after you did it, they'd love you for it.
He knew. He'd had them before. Had them in small sick hick towns they couldn't get out of horizontally; had them on college campuses they were bored stiff with, tired of nervous boy friends tickling their boobs; had them in cheap hotel rooms in big cities where he'd find them in bus stations, just getting off, clutching their saved-up allowances to their neat little bosoms. They were all the same They were all bored with life and looking for a man It was a laugh when you thought about how easy it was. They were all pushovers. They were all waiting for him to come along and scratch that little itch for them. It was easy as picking cherries. He'd had them.
But none of them had been as good as Linda.
Linda filled out the stereotype in every point except one: she was better than any of them.
Crag finished the beer, belched, and got up. He stretched lazily, then went to the foot of the stairs in the hall and listened. He wasn't sure, but be thought he could hear someone moving around upstairs. He imagined her tossing around in bed, unable to sleep in the hot sultry night. He began to climb.
The bedroom door wasn't closed. It should have been, but it wasn't. It was wide open, and enough light came from the bathroom across the hall to make the little tableau in the bedroom quite visible.
Quite visible indeed.
It was a very interesting tableau. As Crag watched it, he was reminded of a movie a housewife had insisted on showing him one day; a very interesting home movie in which she and her next door neighbor starred. Only this wasn't a movie. This was real life, full dimensional stereophonic sex.
The kid was good. A real comer, Crag thought as he watched, admiring Dave's technique. A kid with a future. He was doing so good, that Crag thought it would be a shame to disturb them.
He disturbed them anyway.
"Excuse me, but round one's over-didn't you hear the bell?"
The rhythm of the bed springs came to an abrupt halt. Two faces stared at Crag from the sweaty mattress, aghast.
Dave spoke first, his voice a snarl. "Who the hell are you?"
"Crag!" Linda moaned, looking sick.
"Hearthstone of the morals squad," Crag shot back at Dave, not looking at Linda. "What are you doing in bed with my kid sister?"
Dave leaped back, twisting the sheet around him. "Who you kidding, mister? Beat it ox we'll call the cops."
"Crap. Get out of that bed like a good little man or I'll pin your ears back."
Dave flushed angry, grabbing for his pants and getting into them hastily. He turned to Linda, who was doing her best to hide behind the pillow. "Hey, who is this guy, anyway?"
"He's-a friend of my father's."
"Oh yeah? Well he's got a hell of a nerve busting in here like this. I ought to...." Dave advanced on Crag threateningly. Crag shot out a hand, thrusting him backward. Dave stood glowering at him, flustered, sizing up the older man.
"Take it easy, son," Crag said levelly. "I don't want to bust your chops if I don't have to. I'm afraid old Harry isn't going to like this, though."
Dave felt an enraged impotence in the face of the older man's calm assurance. The fact that Crag had shoved him made angry, but he sensed a calm power in the larger man that was dangerous His bottled up anger spilled over into words instead.
"Yeah?" he sneered. "Well let me tell you something mister; what you saw ain't nothing! She's been doing it with every guy in the club!"
Crag's eyebrows raised in surprise. "What club?"
"The Triangle Club. She's the president If you don't believe it. ask any of the guys. Ask Art-he's out in number ten right now making it with her best friend. He'll tell you." Dave had no time to consider what he was saying. His fury had turned to Linda; all he could think of was injuring her.
Crag rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Hm, this could be serious. You better grab your shirt and beat it, fella. I'll have to talk this over with Linda."
Dave looked relieved. The idea was beginning to dawn on him that he had spilled the beans, that he might be getting himself in a bigger fix than he was getting Linda. He remember with terror the fact that she wasn't eighteen yet.
"Uh, look, mister," he said, fumbling nervously with his shirt, "Don't get me wrong-I mean, about the club. I-I was exaggerating at little. It's just like a recreation club-you know, parties and like that. I didn't mean...."
"Run along!" Crag snapped. "We'll talk about that later."
"But...." Dave began to protest, not quite knowing how to protest. What could he say to this man who had so suddenly gotten the upper-hand?
"Go on. Get going!" Crag shouted. "Or do you want me to tell everything to Linda's father?"
Dave scooted out the door, shirttails flying, and ran down the stairs. The front door slammed and then the two of them were alone, Linda and himself.
Crag looked at her, but she avoided his eyes. He walked over to the bed and sat down next to her. "Now how about telling me what this is all about?" he said, turning her face toward him.
She began to cry. Her eyes filled with tears and she bit her lips, fighting them. But they spilled over anyway, and soon her shoulders were shaking with sobs. Her voice shook when she finally spoke.
"I-I didn't think you were coming back."
"I'm back. Tell me about the club. Tell me everything, from the beginning, unless you want me to write a very long and very nasty letter to your father. You don't want that, do you?"
"N-No!"
"Then talk, Linda."
"N-No! I can't."
"Okay. It'll be easy for me to write that letter-except for all the details that of course need filling in." He smiled at her.
She began to tremble.
"You wouldn't write that letter, would you? You can't do that. You can'tl Whatever happens, you mustn't tell my father."
"Start talking then."
She did. She began, haltingly, starting with the day her father went away, and as she talked the seriousness of what had seemed originally so innocent began to impress her. It sounded much worse now that she was telling it to someone. Her voice shook and she had to stop several times, but at last she got it all out.
Crag's mind spun as her words hit him. He couldn't believe his ears at first.
But as he questioned her repeatedly, he saw that she was telling the truth.
They were having an organized, summer long teen-age orgy!
When she finished, she looked up at him humbly, her shoulders still shaking.
"Crag, you-you don't hate me for this, do you?"
He looked at her a minute, the question not registering. Then he reached down and touched her breast. "Hate you? Hell. Linda, I'm just beginning to really admire you!"
Her breast in his hand felt every bit as good as he'd remembered it to be.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The summer days wore on. They became weeks. and then a month, and then the summer was half over. It was one of the hottest summers people in central New York State could remember The air hung heavy against the earth, saturated with humidity, but it seldom rained. Temperatures soared up into the high nineties, broke records as they edged a couple of times over the one-hundred mark. People began to look at every vagrant cloud hopefully, hoping for the rain they'd cursed all spring. Topics of conversation alternated between the heat and the growing fear of a water shortage. It was too hot for livelier conversation. People no longer complained about the heat; they simply noted it, lived with it, forgot for the time there .had ever been such a thing as winter. They lolled in hammocks and sat on porches and did as little as possible, waiting for the sun to go down for the small reprieve that came with an occasional evening breeze. If it came, they immediately thought of rain again.
When it did rain, it was sudden. The sky would darken in a matter of minutes, and people would scurry about in a delirious madness, their brains temporarily addled by the prospect of cooling breezes. But the cooling breezes came with gale force, sending them inside as the storm broke with mighty crashes and bizzare displays of forked flashing light and the rain pelted pavements and roofs, thick, heavy globes of water that grew even thicker as the storm progressed, turning into continuous streams. And then, as suddenly as it had come, the storm would be over, and the night would be thick with heat again.
The Fourth of July was taken out, dusted off, celebrated to the tune of brass horns and zealously pounded drums, and put away again. July melted into August like a dish of butter left out too long.
It was hot in Akron, too. Harry Micheals sat in the office of his brother's motel, wiping the sweat from his hands with a handkerchief before opening the letter from his daughter. It was the first one in almost three weeks, three long weeks in which he'd written four times and thought about the motel with increasing anger and apprehension as he helped his brother organize auditing and accounting procedures. A tedious, dull business, but quite necessary, as he had soon convinced his brother. But the job had gone smoothly and it looked as though they were going to be done ahead of schedule. Maybe he'd have time for a vacation, out here in Ohio, or maybe he'd go back to Syracuse and reward his daughter with one. She deserved it, taking on all that responsibility when her friends were probably just lazing around, flitting their vacations away with idle amusements. Yes, he'd have to do something to show Linda his appreciation.
He tore open the envelope, unfolded the letter and read.
Dear Dad, It's been awfully hot here. The business is going well; never more than one or two cabins vacant at a time. Am having lots of fun in my spare time and hope you are doing same. Will be glad to see you again in September. Don't worry about a thing. P. S. And kisses. Don't forget the kisses.
Harry folded the letter up again and smiled to himself. A good girl, he thought, a fine, reliable girl.
He returned to the ledger in front of him, deciding he'd have to give her a special surprise when he returned to Syracuse. He had lots of time to figure out what it would be. Something real nice.
Jane Sommers strolled up to the office door of Harry's Hideaway Motel. The door was open. She leaned her curvy frame against it and smiled. Her smile was meaningful. As meaningful as the outfit she wore: lemon yellow shorts which clung nicely to her tanned bare thighs; a halter of the same color which held her ample breasts loosely, showing an amazing amount of cleavage; canvas shoes, low cuts, which nobody was going to notice unless she took them off and held them up in front of the two sharp points which punctuated the center of each cup of the halter. She didn't. She just stood there smiling meaningfully at the man seated behind the desk. "Hello," she said.
Carmine Crager looked up, returning the smile automatically at the sound of her voice. "Hello, Jane. Come in."
"Can I close the door after me?"
"Good idea."
She came in, closing the door after her. She walked to the desk, hips swaying seductively, and sat on the edge of it, in front of Crag. The hard top of the desk flattened the soft bare flesh of her shapely thigh where she leaned her weight on it. Crag noticed this. He also noticed the way she kicked off her canvas shoes, lazily, showing him a lot of leg as she did it. She had a lot of leg to show. He put his hand on her knee as she leaned over toward him, practically spilling her breasts in his face. She closed her knees together, pretending to capture his hand. He left it there.
"What can I do for you?" he said. "You know," she said meaningfully. "Business hours."
"Always business before pleasure, hub?"
"Not always." He let his hand slide down the back of her leg, to her calf. It was a well defined calf, plump in his hand. She lifted her leg to his lap and he began massaging it for her.
"That feels good, Crag."
"I know." He showed her how good it felt by squeezing the loose tanned flesh in his hand. "But I'm pretty busy right now, Jane-what's on your mind?"
Her lips turned downward in a pretty pout. "I just came over to-talk a while. I wanted to tell you how nice I think it is-what you've done with the club."
He grinned widely. "And profitable, too. Don't forget that."
"Oh, I'm not! I couldn't have earned this much money in the summers at a good resort."
"You'll make more."
"I know. I'm really glad you took over the club. It's so much better now-so organized. The girls bring in the money and we have a blast once a week. But Crag, I...."
"Well?"
She put her leg up in his lap and looked down at them.
"Don't you think I have nice legs, Crag?"
"Fine legs, Jane. Lovely legs. A joy to run your hand over." He showed her.
"What about my breasts?"
"You know they're good. There's nothing more to be said. You've got all the girls outclassed in the breast department."
"You haven't touched them lately."
"I've been busy."
"Would you touch them now?"
"Well...."
"Now, Crag-please."
She leaned closer. He looked down into her halter, reached in and freed one from the yellow cloth. The strap slid down over her shoulder as he did so.
"Kiss it, Crag."
He looked up at her first. "You know you've got to work tonight, don't you Jane?"
"Yes. I'll work. I'll work real good if you do this first. Jesus, I just had to have you touch my breasts, Crag. I was crazy to have your hands on them. Don't stop, please!"
He reached around her and untied the halter. It fell to her lap, leaving her breasts bare to him, her wide spreading pink nipple trembling for him. He took a large mound in each hand and squeezed, feeling their delicious warmth. Her eyes narrowed to slits and her lips parted as he played with them.
"Ooooh! Like it, I like that!"
"You've got lovely breasts, Jane. Those breasts are bringing in good money."
"Crag-would you measure them for me?" She reached into a pocket of her shorts and pulled out a tape measure. He took it from her, circled her chest with it, and drew it taut over her nipples.
He whistled softly. "You're raising beauties, Jane. You've got one hell of a dairy hanging there already."
"Try them."
"Jane," he said, "Don't you want me to...."
"No, this way!" she managed to say, her words sounding strangled.
The hell with it, he thought. He stood up and jerked her roughly off the desk, slipping his hands inside her shorts as she fell against him. There was nothing in there but bare flesh. There was plenty of that. All he could hold, and some left over.
"Listen Jane; breasts are nice, but there are other things. Now let's get those shorts off and get down to business."
She didn't have time to object, even if she'd wanted to. His hand in her shorts twisted, popping the side button, and then they were sliding down over her legs and he was pushing her back over the desk.
But before he started, he picked up the tape measure that had fallen to the floor. He handed it to her.
"Here," he said, "I've got something you ought to measure, Jane."
She took it, learning a new use for it.
After Jane had left, Crag fixed his clothes, straightened his tie. and returned to what he had been doing: figuring the receipts.
It looked to be a profitable summer. A very profitable summer indeed The way the money was coming in, it was a damn shame it wasn't going to last longer than a few weeks more.
But even so, he couldn't complain. He was getting his kicks with his choice of the girls and raking in lots of money. And he didn't even have to do any work. The girls were doing the work-only it wasn't work to them, it was kicks, something they had been doing and enjoying all summer. Now they were also making some extra money, for themselves and for the motel. Or so they thought.
Crag smiled to himself. It was a cool setup. The coolest. He couldn't believe it at first; it had sounded too fantastic the way Linda told it. But it had been happening, going on that very night he'd first come to the motel. A motel sex club. A teen-age sex orgy, owned and operated by teen-agers. A refuge from parked cars and drive-ins, where love was free and easy.
Only it wasn't free anymore, not since Crag had stepped in. And it wasn't run by teen-agers anymore, either. It was run by one Carmine Crager, free-lance salesman, grifter, wayfaring hustler. And it wasn't just a club anymore, either. It was a very profitable little business.
It had been easy to push Linda into it. She'd been so hot for him he could have talked her into going down for a battalion of Mongolian sexfiends. And she was the key, the wedge. It was her motel-or rather, her father's. Once he'd got her to fall in line with the idea-it hadn't taken more than two nights of steady loving and then a threat to leave-the others had to follow suit. Or else get out of the club. They'd stayed, all of them. The hell, what they'd been doing hadn't been much different than what he had in mind anyway-for pay. The guys didn't like it at first, of course. They had a gripe.
But when they saw that they weren't actually being put off, that only one or two girls, maybe three, were needed per night to keep the business going, when they saw this and the amount of money it was pouring into the treasury, they quit grumbling and went along. It had made it a little easier too, telling them he knew Harry Micheals and would spill the beans to him if they didn't go along. And the suckers believed it. They had to. They were eager for steady love on the one hand and afraid of him on the other, so they went along.
And the money poured in.
Crag liked being head of an organization. It gave him a feeling of control, of power. All his life he had been more or less part of other organizations, working on commission, selling anything and everything, pocketing the nickels while the big men raked in the bucks. There were angles to it and he did better than most, knowing all the tricks plus a few grifts of his own-but he was still the little man with the suitcase.
This was much better. Now he had people working for him.
First of all, there was Linda. Lovely Linda, who'd do anything he told her to do; who was doing it right now, as a matter-of-fact, in cabin number three, with a middle-aged man who'd looked lonely when he came to the desk for a room. A lonely looking sucker. He'd looked surprised, then pleased as punch when Crag began his pitch-a slow easy pitch, the kind you could turn off right away if the sucker looked like he was going to raise a moral kick; the kind you could turn off before he understood what you were getting at.
There was Jane. Jane, the hot, big busted kid who'd have a ball if you played with her boobs long enough. The sexy blonde college girl who liked to play games with a tape measure, who'd just learned a few new ones. Those boobs would bring in good money tonight. Once a guy got a good look at them, he wasn't going to want her for just one trick. It would be an all night shack job for sure, worth three times the price of the cabin.
There was Ruth. A little skinny, maybe, but a good looker just the same. That thin frame of hers ached for it; she burned up in bed. She was good for five or six tricks at night. A lean, hot cash box, Ruth.
And there were the others. Ellen, who looked like a young virgin, freckle-faced and innocent, but who was ready to try anything in bed. Sweet little Ellen, a human catalogue of the perversions. Sometimes she even liked it lying down. And the others, Sandra and Mickey and Jean.
His girls. Fine girls, real pros, they were shaping up to be. Each one of them a little gold mine. Each one of them talented as hell. He knew. He'd tried them all first himself.
And then there were the suckers with the money. Dozens of them came by every night-and they paid highly and willingly for the specialized and wide variety of thrills he would offer them.
It was a natural setup, the motel. The. suckers came to you. You just sat there and they came to you; the lonely ones, the traveling salesmen, the truck drivers, the businessmen from another city.
They came to you and you pitched them about the extra added attractions of Harry's Hideaway and they shelled out their good greenbacks eagerly. And left satisfied, with closed mouths.
It wouldn't last of course, but right now it was his stand. Right now he was raking it in piles of it, taking a vacation while the suckers came to him for a change. And the kids loved it.
They thought it was fun.
Kicks.
Hell, they had been doing it all summer, doing it because they wanted to and enjoyed it. This gave them a chance to extend their activities, with new and different experiences awaiting them every night instead of the same ones.
When they went back to school, they'd have plenty of material to write essays on "What I Did Last Summer." Hell, they could write best sellers.
Well, he'd have to throw the party like he'd promised They expected it. "The biggest blast the Triangle Club's ever had I" Art had said enthusiastically at the last meeting He'd throw it for them, show them the kind of party they never dreamed of. And he wouldn't have to take much money from the till Enough to buy a couple of ounces that was all A couple ounces of Pot wouldn't be hard to get in a city like Syracuse He knew where to go He'd get it and give it to them at the party and they could blow the tops off their heads with it. Because the way he figured, that was about all they sere going to get out of this whole deal.
There was a wall safe in the office, behind a picture of Grant. In that wall safe were two envelopes; one of them the receipts from the "activities" of the Triangle Club girls, the other the receipts from rented cabins.
The way he figured, when he left there wasn't going to be anything in that wall safe.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Party.
The big blast. Crag had promised them a new kick, the big kick, the one they'd been looking for all summer, building up to. Crag had promised, and Crag would come through. He always came through. Crag was the Big Man, the Stud, the Man-Who-Had-Been-There-And-Back and who was going to show them the way, the Leader. He was the Messiah, Santa Claus, Zen, Antichrist and the Big Bopper, all rolled into one.
He was It. The girls loved him and the boys awed him. He was going to show them how to make it.
Tonight.
Dave and Art called him the Cool One. Jane called him the Lovely Stud. Linda didn't call him anything, except in bed, and she never remembered afterward what it was she'd called him. He called her America's Sweetwhore, and she loved him for it. Much, and whenever she could.
Crag thought they were all good kids. He was almost sorry he had to run out on them so soon. Almost. However, his going away present to them was going to be a good one. He made a connection that afternoon in Syracuse and left with two ounces of guage. Making the connection was easy; he simply went to the University section and nosed around, pretending to be a pusher. That way he found out who was really handling it. It took him less than two hours to make the connection. Wherever you find college kids, you'll find Pot, sooner or later.
He brought it back to the motel and stashed it in the safe, making a third envelope.
The party started three hours later.
It was decided the best scene would be Linda's house. It was big, it was away from the guests, and it had a lot of bedroom. It was the ideal place for a set. It had a lot of bedrooms.
They started on sour red wine. It was cheap, it came in big gallon jugs, and you could get high on it almost as quick as with something more expensive. It was only a preliminary, anyway. The group all sensed that something big was going to happen; something groovier than drinking red wine and copping feels here and there as they wandered from the kitchen, where the wine was, to the living room, paper cups in hand, sloshing wine on the floor as they bumped into each other and not thinking anything about it. The phono blared pulsating jazz rhythms, adding to the illusion of a Village Hippie blast. They all felt hip and cool and wine-ready for action.
Dave knew about the Pot. He'd seen Crag, the Big Man, bring it back with him that afternoon, asked him if he could help roll joints for the upcoming gig, and Crag had said yes, but keep it a secret. He kept it a secret, although he was bursting to tell someone all day. Pot! Golden brown marijuana, the real stuff-it was too good to be true.
He played with his cup impatiently as he watched Art thread his way through the sprawled bodies on the living room floor to the kitchen doorway, where he stood.
"Say, man, it's boss, ain't it? Let me at that wine-Ellen's getting hotter than a boiled hen."
"Cool it, man."
"Huh?"
"Forget the wine. Something better's about to make the scene."
"What?"
"Pot."
Art's eyebrows hit the ceiling, then lowered. "I'm hip. When?"
"Just a minute, I think the Cool One's here now. Let's go ask." They both went to the office, where Crag was opening the safe.
Of all the club members, only Dave and Art had smoked Pot. It was up to them to show the others how to turn on. They delighted in the new prestige the role was giving them. As they circulated among the group handing out joints and lighting them and giving whispered instructions, there was a suspenseful silence as the others watched them. One stick was handed out per couple. They dragged on it alternately, Dave and Art showing them how to hold it down, suck it in and hold it down in their lungs. The sticks would burn with a long hot orange ash down to a roach, and as, one by one, the couples turned on together, the party began to take on a completely new tone.
The kids, turned on for the first time, blew up fast. At first they waited around, looking at each other to see what would happen. When nothing happened immediately, they began to giggle. The giggles became snickers, then laughs. It was an uproar. They felt good, tall and fine, in control and yet somehow laughing and falling all over each other at the same time. Their initiation to Pot amounted to group hysteria. Not sure how to react, they reacted the way the person next to them reacted. Nervous laughter spread like wildfire; it soon became the craziest kind of ball they had ever experienced.
"Hey, look at Art," someone yelled. "He's chewing Ellen's leg!"
Billy, lying on the floor, rolled over and grabbed Linda's leg and began imitating what Art was doing with Ellen. And the other guys began imitating Billy.
It was a chain reaction. Each couple began to try to outdo the others in the way of sexual embraces; it became a challenge resulting in some of the wildest, un-likeliest tangles of arms and legs any of them had ever seen.
Crag watched from the doorway, withdrawn from it, an amused smile on his lips. Let them ball it, he thought. Let them turn on so high they blow their silly little brains out. Let them pull each other on the carpet till they wear holes through it. He didn't care. It was their blast and he wasn't going to horn in.
It was a hell of a lot more fun just watching.
He watched Linda and Billy rolled in a ball on the floor. Billy had Linda's clothes half off and he wasn't bothering with the other half. He didn't have to. He had enough of them off to get at what he wanted, and he was going about getting it, right there in the middle of the floor. Linda had an expression on her face that told him she was out of this world, hanging onto a star in another galaxy. Hanging onto it and holding it and loving it like it was the thick hot bridge to heaven, to the never never land of Pot blown Nirvana. They rocked that way; a ball, a human ball balling it up in a room full of people.
Jane. Jane was with Dave on the couch, only her face was where her feet were supposed to be Ditto for Dave. It didn't make any difference to either of them. Love had found them a way, and their mutually pleased expressions showed that they like the number you got by multiplying twenty-three by three. Bright kids, college trained.
In the corner of the room there was a cluster of people. Three, to be exact: Ruth and Mel and Larry. Crag had a hard time figuring out what they were doing, except that Ruth seemed to be in the middle and enjoying the hell out of being there. It looked something like a human hamburger, with Ruth providing the meat.
And there was one girl alone by herself. She had her skirt hiked up and her blouse off and was writhing on the floor. She was so high she thought somebody was making love to her. But nobody was. It didn't make any difference though. Crag could see she was going to make it there by herself.
It was crazy, the things Pot was doing to these kids. Crag had never seen anything like it.
He had no desire to participate, though.
He just kept watching and grinding his camera.
Detective Sergeant Bill Bartholomew just wanted a room, that was all. He was damn tired, sleepy from having driven most of the night. His eyes ached and his head kept nodding as he clutched the wheel of the black Chewy, watching the double lanes of the Interstate Expressway flow past him like a gray monotonous dream. He could have stopped back in Cortland. He should have. But he'd passed up the chance; it seemed like a short distance to drive. It was actually less than fifty miles from Cortland to Syracuse. He had actually slowed down at a couple of motels outside Cortland, but then he had stepped on the gas again and soon he was on the open highway, highballing it for home.
Home. Syracuse. The job. Bartholomew envied the married men on the force. They were the ones who really had homes to go to; nice homes in the suburbs with neat lawns and flowers around them, the works. Bartholomew knew how nice that could be, because he'd had the same deal once. And then his wife had been killed in an automobile crash and the dream had ended. All he had left was a fifteen year old daughter; a daughter he left with his sister most of the time because he couldn't stand looking at her, couldn't stand the resemblance between her and Mary, his deceased wife. Funny thing was. he loved his daughter dearly. Maybe it was because of that he couldn't stand being around her long; because of the fear that she, too, might just as suddenly be taken away from him.
No, he shouldn't think such thoughts. He cursed softly as he swerved the wheel, seeing the car had crept to the edge of the highway. Should have gotten some sleep in Cortland. Shouldn't take vacations and then drive all night to get back.
Up ahead, he saw the neon sign of Harry's Hideaway Motel beckoning in the night. He took his foot off the gas and let the car slow down as he neared the motel. It was inviting. He could get a good night's sleep in a cool, quiet place. The sign said AIR CONDITIONED CABINS. There was no air conditioning in his tiny apartment in the city. If he stopped at the Hideaway, he would get a good night's sleep for work in the morning. Up at the Hideaway.
He turned the car into the driveway silently and parked it back in the lot. It was good to turn the damn thing off. It was damn good to get outside the car, away from the heat of the engine. He locked the Chewy and headed for the main building.
Maybe it was cop intuition. Maybe it was just that Detective Sergeant Bill Bartholomew of the Syracuse Police Department was overtired and his nerves were raw edged from lack of sleep. It might have been either of these reasons, or something else again. It didn't make much difference.
Detective Sergeant Bartholomew smelled something wrong with the setup.
The office door was locked. The shades of the house were drawn, but light peeped around the edges of them. Something, he couldn't figure out what, was going on inside.
Something very private.
Ostensibly, it was none of his business. The little sign in the door said NO VACANCY. And right now, he was a private citizen looking for a room. He was supposed to read the sign and forget about the room, go on about his business.:
Which is what he should have done.
But he didn't. The something else, call it cop sense or what you want, made him go around the building and try the back door.
It was unlocked.
Linda and Billy were sharing their second Joint. Linda looked at Billy, admiring him as if she was seeing him for the first time. He was cute, in an ugly sort of way. His broken nose leaped slightly to one side of his face and he wore a perennially blank expression, but he had curly brown hair and nice eyes and he was sort of cute.
It was fun smoking Pot with Billy.
After the first jolt from the Pot her inexperience diminished rapidly She had gone wild with it at first, not knowing what to expect She had overreacted. When Billy had done that thing to her leg, she had simply gone wild, lost her head, and when she lost her pants also, the whole thing was deliriously funny and good and serious and wonderful all at the same time The whole room had spun around her, a sea of laughing faces and nude bodies and Billy was there, there, and it had been great.
Now she felt controlled. She felt in complete possession of her body, inside and out, a total awareness of herself such as she had never felt before She imagined she could feel each corpuscle humming through her veins and arteries. It was crazy and it was kicks and she was glad to be sitting here next to Billy, smoking and feeling superior to everyone else. And he had such nice, large biceps.
She reached out and stroked his arm tenderly.
"Billy," she giggled, "tell me a story!"
Billy looked confused. This was something that had never been required of him before, and he didn't know what he was supposed to say, whether she was serious or just teasing him. "What kind of a story?" he asked finally.
"You know-a sexy story."
Billy thought a minute, frowning, and then his face lit up. "Okay, I know a good one. But you'll have to go upstairs with me first." The stick in his hand had burned down to a roach. He butted it on the floor.
"No. Tell me the story first and then I'll go upstairs with you."
"You really want to hear it?"
"Yes."
"Okay; I'll tell you one. A true story about a man and a woman who just got married and went to a motel for their honeymoon." He told her the story and she laughed and giggled and felt his muscles as he talked, and then they went upstairs to a bedroom, where he told her another, better story She didn't laugh or giggle at the story he told her upstairs because she couldn't. Under the circumstances, it was impossible for her to make much of any kind of sound.
Carmine Crager figured it was as good a time as any to leave the scene. The party had gotten wilder than ever, than even he had expected. And he had caught most of it on film. That film would bring a good price in another town, he figured. One hell of a good price, it would bring.
It was time to head for another town.
He emptied the drawers of his dresser into his suitcase, then swept the top clean with one stroke, dumping everything there into the same place He looked around, making sure he hadn't left anything, then went downstairs.
There was no one in the office. He went directly to the safe, spun the combination lock a few times, and opened it. He took out the envelopes inside and dropped them in the suitcase. Then, hesitating, he took them out again.
He couldn't resist counting. He locked the inner door to the office and went back to the desk, dumping the content of the envelopes on the desk top. There was no hurry. Hell, those kids weren't the least bit interested in him right now. He might as well be on the moon, as far as they were concerned.
He counted the money, separating the larger bills from the smaller ones as he did so.
Then he counted them all again, this time turning all of the bills green side up. Then he went through them one last time, turning them so that they all faced the same way. He paused with each bill to look admiringly at the pictures. George Washington. Eh. Abraham Lincoln. Okay. Alexander Hamilton. It would do. Andrew Jackson. Now this was better. Benjamin Franklin. This was more like it. Ulysses S. Grant. His face lit up and he smiled He lifted the stack of bills and straightened them by tapping them on the counter top.
Those bills are beautiful, he thought. They came to over a thousand dollars. He whistled.
A cool grand. A thou, and he wouldn't have to split it up into little pieces, either. It was all his, just for the taking. It was like-like taking candy away from babies. He laughed aloud at his own joke. That's what it was, taking candy from babies-real babies! He'd miss them, especially Linda. Not a hell of a lot, with a thou in his pocket, but he'd miss them. He'd miss the sweet loving Linda had given him. A damn shame she wasn't a year or two older. They might have made it together, real sweet, in Vegas or Palm Beach or someplace.
A thou. It was a good stake. He could kick the sales business for a while, maybe for good. He could set up his own stand somewhere, and if things worked out right, he could be his own boss for keepsville. No more small time grifting, no more pushing over hot pants housewives for amusements. He could play the real stuff now, the Florida rich widows and divorcees, the Vegas between-marriages queens. Play them for all the loving and sweet gelt he could get his hands on. With a thou he could set up a good front.
With a thou, there were all kinds of possibilities opening up for him. His brain reeled just thinking about him.
The women he could get now. he thought. Not that he wasn't getting any now, or hadn't gotten any before. It was just that now he could take his pick. The number and variety of women he would be able to get would be endless. And he wouldn't have to worry about paying for it, even if the pay was in the form of a good night out. Hell, he wouldn't even have to worry about working for his income. These women would all be paying him. He and that thousand dollars would see to that. He thought of what it would be like.
Later for that. Right now he had to bust out, split, blow, without anyone seeing him do it. The back door would be the safest way, He snapped the suitcase shut, lifted it in his arm, and peeked out the inner dsor. The coast was clear.
He sauntered out casually through the hall and kitchen to the back door, opened it, and walked out....
And into the arms of half the Syracuse police force.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
He couldn't believe it.
He really couldn't believe it.
The first thing he said was "Excuse me," and tried to brush his way past them. But a large man in a pin-stripped suit put out a hand and before he knew it he was being pushed back inside.
"Where you going, fella?"
"What's your business here?"
"What's in that suitcase?"
"You Henry Micheals?"
"Where's the girl?"
They were shooting questions at him so fast he couldn't think. And then they had the suitcase on the table, opening it, dumping everything out into the harsh white light from the overhead fluorescent.
The game was up.
They held him in a chair while they went through the suitcase. He felt the steel bracelets go around his wrists numbly as he watched them count the money, watched them tear open the other envelope and dump what was left of the marijuana on the table.
"It's a holding rap," one of the detectives said.
The other nodded. "Yeah, and when we round up those kids upstairs, its going to be a hell of a lot more than that. The way I figure, he'll get about nine-hundred and ninety-nine years."
"What about the kids?"
"That's going to be bad. Very bad. Nothing we can do about it though. Looks like they were running one of them clubs. A lot of parent's hair is going to turn white before this is over."
Carmine Crager couldn't believe it. All those years, and never a scrape with the law. Never the slightest scrape. And now he was going to get booked.
He felt suddenly very old as they started bringing the surprised and sheepish club members into the zoom. Very old and very scared.
Harry Micheals caught a plane from Cleveland. It was a non-stop flight and got him in Syracuse in a couple of hours.
The airport looked gray and dismal. It was raining at last. An unseasonably cool spell had set in, accompanying the rain, and he shivered as he walked from the plane, through the terminal and up to the cab stand. The rain was a steady drizzle, wetting him thoroughly, but he hardly noticed it.
He acted mechanically, giving the driver instructions in a dull voice. The driver looked at him oddly, shrugged, and started the cab. He was used to seeing people airsick. Only this guy really looked like he'd had it.
The first stop was the police station, where he picked up his daughter. She was being remanded to his custody, on probation for a year.
Lucky. She probably didn't know how lucky she was. Another month, and she wouldn't have been remanded to his custody at all. Another month and she'd have been going to the place where Jane Sommers and two of the other girls were inevitably going. To the girl's reformatory in Hudson. Another month and she would be eighteen.
Maybe it would have been better, he thought, as he accompanied his daughter silently through the gray doors of the downtown police station. Maybe it would have been better for her, because now she was going to have to pay a greater price than ever. Now she was going to have to live with it, to live with the shame of the headlines and gossip and looks and sneers. Now every boy who laid eyes on her was going to think one thing: an easy make, a hot broad, a sure shack job. She was going to have to live with that.
And he was going to have to live with it too.
Harry Micheals tried to understand, but he couldn't. It just didn't make any sense. Next to him, sitting in the far corner of the cab, was the girl who was his daughter. The pretty, dark-haired, bright eyed little girl who looked so much like her mother.
His daughter.
A complete stranger.
His mind felt the weight of an omnipresent mystery-how two people could be joined by the insoluble bonds of filial relationship, yet not know each other at all. How one of them could commit flagrant transgressions against that sacred relationship, wounding it, killing it, as surely as with a knife. He couldn't believe that it had happened. She looked no different-a little paler, perhaps, a little red-eyed from crying. But otherwise just a little girl, huddled in the back seat of a taxi, staring at her feet. As he looked at her, covertly, quick stolen nervous glances, he knew the sorrow of fatherhood.
Harry Micheals tried hard to understand.
But he couldn't. It was beyond him.
He sighed hopelessly and settled back in the cab, looking out the window at the rain which fell over everything, which filled the sky, the universe. Rain.
When they got to the motel, a strange feeling came over him. He looked at the familiar surroundings, the neon sign, the parking lot, the cabins, empty now-he looked at them and felt for the first time their strangeness. It was as if this bond, too, had been dissolved, forever, immutably.
They went inside.
For a brief minute they stood looking at each other, no words passing between them. And then, even that tenuous contact was broken as her eyes dropped to the floor and she turned and walked into the kitchen-a shapely, pretty, dark-haired little girl; a girl with a womanly figure he had never noticed before.
His daughter.
Harry sat down on the couch and put his head in his hands, trying to think. But his brain refused to work. Thoughts came and departed without leading to anything, to some conclusion he felt was needed, to some key which would dispel the hopelessness of the whole situation. He found none. He heard his daughter moving around in the kitchen, making coffee. His ears recorded automatically all the familiar sounds of that little act of domesticity, so intimate, and yet now so out of place.
He could send her away. He had a sister in New York, a widow with no children of her own, who might take her in. Well, he'd see if she would go for the idea.
She brought him the coffee and he drank it slowly, not tasting it.
"I'm sorry Dad ... she began and then gave it up. She fled upstairs to her room.
That night, Harry sat down and wrote a letter to his sister. He took a bottle from the desk drawer and drank as he wrote. By the time the letter was finished, the bottle was also.
After that, he took a long ride in his car, alone. When he got to where he was going, which was nowhere, he parked the car near a deserted field, sat behind the wheel, and smoked a cigarette.
Then he reached in the glove compartment, took out a revolver.
