Archive Note: There was no section in the original pocketbook labeled "CHAPTER NINE." That discrepancy has been carried over into this electronic version.
CHAPTER ONE
I have to admit, I'm not too good at planning my life.
When I was sixteen I got a girl pregnant. Fortunately she was twenty-one and so I didn't have any irate parents on my neck. I guess that's one of my big problems. I never liked to masturbate and so most of my younger years were spent trying to figure out how to score.
I found out early women are pretty much the same. If you admire them from a distance they get heated up in a hurry. Especially if you let your eyes roam around their rotating loins and catch the shake of their full buttocks. They love it. First they try to act indignant about the whole thing. Like they never in the world would like a hot cock full and center in their precious little cunts. But you know better. You know they want the next step to be taken and in a hurry.
Now it's that next step that can always be the stumbling block When I was in my teens I usually grabbed the bull by the horns. Or maybe I should say grab the boob by the stiff nipple. That was the way it could be done. The surprise always was in my favor. Not that I was purposefully rough, but you have to let them know you're serious and you don't want to waste a lot of time oogling around.
Up to the age of eighteen I was strictly a leg man. Not that I didn't like what was in between but those wild smooth thighs drove me bananas! I would think of all different kinds of ways to have a good look at any prize pack that happened to be passing. Later I developed a hip worship and I could work at it a lot better than with the legs. It was very easy to brush by a wide pair of firm hips and let my hands drop down for a quick feel. I was generally after the ones with no girdle. You could tell who that was by the lines on the side of her dress. Also the ones who were walking 'free' had an entirely different sway from those bound up with elastic.
And so I guess you could call me a genuine cunt hound. Why not? It's always been on my mind and I can't admit anything else. Except now that I'm of age I've been forced to think about something else. My career! Actually it all works together. The more money I have the better I'll be able to round up the right kind of pussy. And the right kind of pussy is the kind that wants to swing day and night, around the clock. If I had my way I'd have three of them working for me on a constant swing shift Maybe each one would like it a little different, but it would all add up to the same thing. I'd be the stud of studs with the hardest cock in town. I've already got that, now I need the cash to get my hands on the right nesting place.
If you have any kind of ambition you have to expect to give up a lot of freedom. That's exactly what happened to me when I entered the gates of Stanton's Department store. I became a robot along with all the others. All waiting for that moment when someone drops dead and you can clean out their desk fast and stick your own name plate up for everyone to droll over. Nevertheless I willingly gave up my liberty to become one with the rat race.
However, not every hour of every day at work is a barrage of misery. I must admit that these stoic department stores attract their share of cute pussy. And that makes up for a lot of pressure and brown-nosing.
For instances, there is this little one who waltzes around the counters as if she were selling it. And if she was I'd be the first one in line. I'd not only but it, I'd eat it alive! Jan Nader was her name. A little doll. She wasn't more than five feet four inches tall. She had a pretty, heart shaped face, with curly dark brown hair arranged to form a halo around it, and huge brown eyes that gave her a look of utter innocence. But I wasn't interested in her face, or her innocence. After five weeks of ten hour days, with constant pressure and no opportunity to relax, the only thing I was interested in was her figure. That was fabulous, with round buttocks that swayed enticingly, and full breasts that thrust themselves against the front of her low necked red dress as though they were aching for the touch of a man's hands.
She had a pretty, heart shaped face, with curly dark brown hair arranged to form a halo around it, and huge brown eyes that gave her a look of utter innocence. But I wasn't interested in her face, or her innocence. After five weeks of ten hour days, with constant pressure and no opportunity to relax, the only thing I was interested in was her figure. That was fabulous, with round buttocks that swayed enticingly, and full breasts that thrust themselves against the front of her low necked red dress as though they were aching for the touch of a man's hands.
I leaned back against a counter and glued my eyes on those big soft breasts, trying to imagine, what they would feel like when I had her naked. Then someone pulled my attention away from them, and I found myself staring into the face of the President of Stanton's Department Store.
My paper work was finished for the morning and I had come out on the floor to check over the counters and the clerks and see if both were ready for the customers when the doors opened. Everything was as it should be and I felt a vague resentment at the accusation I read in the cold, blue eyes that glared at me.
Instead of apologizing for not being busy, or trying to feign I was, I simply nodded and said, "Good morning, Mr. Stanton."
"It's Walker, isn't it?" he demanded.
"That's right, Jim Walker. I'm in your executive training program."
He grunted and looked at Jan's round plump jelly-like buttocks and licked his lips. His eyes traced the loose outline of her young cunt. Then his eyes shifted to my right, into the department nearby, and he walked away, a tall man who was much taller than Jan and managed somehow to give the impression that he was nine feet high as he plowed across the floor, ignoring the clerks who bobbed their heads meekly, but taking time to look over the floor for dust and the customers for stock piled incorrectly.
Before he was out of sight, Jan rushed toward me. "Wow, Mr. Walker," she exclaimed. "Was that die big boss?"
"That was the big one, all right."
"I thought sure you would get hollered at, standing here and not doing anything when he came by."
"I was doing something," I said. "I was wondering how long it would take to get in bed with you."
Her big brown eyes opened wider, to make her face appear more innocent than ever. "How you talk!" she told me. "If you keep letting that other man who is in the training program with you look as though he has more on the ball, you won't be here long enough to find out"
She turned and walked away, putting an extra shake to her rear to show that my chances of making use of them soon were good. I watched them until they were out of sight, then looked to my right toward where John Weston was still making a pretense of working on the stock in his department.
John was the other person in the training program with me. A semi-Good looking guy with thin brown hair, a smirking grin that he kept constantly glued to his thick lipped mouth, and an irritating habit of slapping me on the shoulder and calling me, "Sonny Boy" every time he saw me, he had a highly developed mental radar that warned him in advance when anyone of importance was approaching.
He had put that radar to work the first day he came to Stanton's managing always to look busy if someone of importance was watching and doing nothing whenever he was unobserved. I was from a county seat town named Brownsville where my dad owned a shoe store. My degree was in retailing, from the State college, but I was still enough of a hick to think that when I had a job to do, I should do it as quickly and as thoroughly as possible whether I was being watched or not. After spending five weeks in the program, and getting caught over a dozen times in situations where John managed to make himself look like a much better worker, I was beginning to wonder if I had the right approach.
We had started together as clerks on the main floor, both putting six hour days behind a counter and another four hours every night in the accounting department watching the day's sales being tallied and recorded. One day a week day; we had both worked ten full hours in the warehouse, becoming acquainted with the stock and how it was handled before it reached the floor. During all that time John had goofed off at every opportunity and I had worked when there was something to be done and then rested. But it seemed as though every time I relaxed a supervisor would come along, to find me relaxing and John working.
After five weeks of that, I reached the point where I hated the sight of him. We were both in the basement now, as assistant buyers. He was in the Shoe Department, and I was next to it, in Men's and Boys' Clothing. And still he managed to do less work than I did but made a better impression.
The one area in which it appeared I was better off now was where women were concerned. There were three clerks and one head clerk in his department, the most attractive of the four being a brittle looking divorcee close to fifty. My department, had a head clerk and five clerks, with two of them young enough to offer possibilities.
Jan was one of those. According to the records in our office her full name was Janice Boluare, her age was eighteen. The other girl was short and slender, with blonde hair which she wore brushed back loosely, and blue eyes that seemed much older than her years. The records gave her name as Faith Kemper and her age and her present residence, all the same as Jan's.
Both girls were new to the store. They had started the clerk's training program a week ago today and had been assigned to the department on Wednesday same day I was. I was kept too busy that day, and on Thursday and Friday as well, to say much more than hello to either of them. During that time Faith had stayed aloof from me. She wasn't unfriendly, but merely behaved as though she didn't know the score yet, and didn't want to make a false move before she learned it. Jan acted like a tease, smiling, fluttering her long eye-lashes whenever she saw me watching her.
Now that I was on a regular schedule and would have my evening opened, I wanted to get my hands on a woman as quickly as possible. Faith impressed me as being much more likely to come across once she made up her mind that it was the clever thing to do. But I couldn't wait any longer. I decided to start on Jan immediately.
Before I could move toward her, a tall woman with a cold face came into the department, clutching one of our sweaters in her hand. It was the wrong size, and we didn't have one exactly like it in the size she wanted. That meant a refund which I had to okay.
I took the abuse without letting her know the resentment churning inside me, and gave her a refund slip for five dollars and ninety-eight cents. And before she was out of sight, I heard Mr. Sterling, the department buyer, snarling at my back.
"Where's the wheels that was supposed to be here?"
He was referring to the four wheeled metal box used to transport merchandise from the warehouse next to the store to the different departments. "Hasn't it come yet?" I asked.
"Of course it hasn't come. Would I be asking about it if it had?"
He would. Before my first day with him was over I had learned that he would be happy to ask any questions he thought would vex someone working under him.
A tall, very thin man, with a narrow, purse lipped face and white hair. He was always quick to nod in agreement with the insults of the customers, and then expressed his feelings by snarling and snapping and hollering at the employees now, and I had learned the kind of treatment to expect from him. But this time the wheels weren't in sight, and it should have come on before the doors opened.
"I'll get it," I said.
"Hurry up," he ordered. "Get it and take care of it" I choked back the anger that boiled inside me and hurried. Without waiting for a porter I wheeled it up to the sock counter and opened it and looked at the price tags.
Then I opened the drawers beneath the counter and found the stock for both prices, and glanced at the counter.
The counter was only partly filled, so I started filling it with socks. Mr. Sterling stood at the far side of the department for a minute, watching. Then he rushed to me.
"Don't put the fresh stock on the counter!" he told me. "Fill the counter with socks from the drawers, and then fill the drawers from die wheels."
"The socks in the drawers don't look old," I said. "And they're all duplicates of the ones on the counter. These in the wheels are different patterns, and I thought it would be better to put a wider variety on display."
"You aren't paid to think," he shouted. "Do as you're told!"
I felt the anger inside me again, and swallowed it as meekly as I could. He stared at me for a minute, waiting for me to argue with him, or to make a mistake by mixing up the socks as I put them away. I didn't argue with him, and I didn't make any mistakes.
When he saw that I wasn't going to give him another reason to complain, he turned around and walked toward his office at the rear of the department, next to the stock rooms. I cussed to myself as I watched him walk away, and kept on working until I heard someone speaking impatiently a few feet from me.
I saw a girl there with red hair, a full breasted and narrow waisted and round hipped figure in a green colored dress, and green eyes set wide apart in a small featured face that was flushed with anger. "You're making that receipt out all wrong!" she exclaimed. "I told you I want to pay for these things and just to use father's plate to get the discount You aren't doing it right. Let me do it!"
I recognized that angry face immediately, and cussed again. This week had started out wrong, and was getting worse fast, and I couldn't take any more. Faith was the clerk who was being yelled at, and by now she was so upset the couldn't do anything except hold onto her sales book as the other girl tried to pull it away.
"Let me do it!" die girl said again, pulling at the sales book. "You're just making a mess of everything! If you want to work here, why don't you learn how to do things the right way?"
My patience was completely gone now and everything else except the anger in me. "You spoiled brat!" I said. "What's the point of being fresh to a girl who is new on the job, and afraid she'll lose it?"
Both girls gasped at the same time, and both of them turned to look at me. The redhead recovered first "Do you know who I am?" she asked.
"You're Helen Stanton," I said. "And my name is Jim Walker, in case you want to have your father fire me."
She was astonished for a long moment as her green eyes probed into mine. Then she smiled. "I was fresh," she said to Faith. "I'm sorry. I've had troubles lately, but that's no excuse. Please forgive me."
Faith nodded, and fumbled for the right words and couldn't find them and just nodded again. She continued in a low pitched, slightly husky voice. "And you are making that receipt out wrong. If you ring it up that way and this goof here finds it in your drawer tonight he'll probably holler at you."
She indicated the receipt in Faith's sales book. Faith had taken the charge plate, and had stamped "J.J. Stanton," in the place where she should have written, "Paid."
I took the sales book and marked that receipt void and started to make out another one. " Do you want these items delivered to your home?" I asked.
"No. Send them to the orphanage on Carlton Street."
That was to show that this was some sort of charity, and the Stanton's thought the basement was good enough for orphans while they bought their own things upstairs. My anger turned into contempt, and I didn't try to conceal it as I scribbled out the receipt
"Mr. Know-it-all!" Helen's voice was sharp with anger. " These same items are sold on the second floor, with different labels and higher prices. I'm buying them for a club, and the money is limited, so I thought the boys would rather have clothes than labels."
I stared at her, and felt a tingling sensation in my wrists as I noticed the exciting tips of her breasts thrust against the green cloth of her dress, and caught just a hint of an elusive and very feminine perfume. "Are they really the same?" I asked.
"They certainly are, except for the labels and the prices. I don't see any point in buying them upstairs instead of here just so father gets a bigger bonus. Do you?"
"I don't give a darn if he gets any bonus at all."
She laughed unexpectedly. "I never thought I would hear an employee of Stanton's being that honest," she said. " Now, do you have the authority to okay a check?"
"Yes. And I have to make it good it bounces."
"It would serve you right if it did," she answered back.
She smiled and I waited while she wrote out the check for the amount of the sale. I put my initials on the check and caught the scent of her perfume again as I handed it back. She smiled at me again, the followed faith to the cash register.
I let my eyes roam over the two women as they stood together. Faith was a bit taller, but Helen had a more exciting figure, with that small waist and full, jutting boobs a cute round belly and sleek round hips that tapered into long legs. Her skirt was short, and beneath it I saw the nicest pair of neatly curved meat I had ever seen.
I was wondering what the rest of those legs looked like when she looked back, and saw where I was looking. A mischievous smile appeared on her face. With a complete lack of concern for what anyone might think of her, she reached down and raised the hem of her skirt and held one leg out as she tugged at the top of her nylon stocking. The legs she displayed was probably the most beautiful I had ever seen, with smooth full thighs and the neatly curved calves I had noticed before. The boss' daughter or not, I wanted to get those legs spread around me in my own bed.
Still smiling, she looked up at me again. Then her face changed quickly, and a look of fright appeared on it As though she had just realized what she was doing, she put her skirt down hastily and turned away.
I let my eyes follow the swing of her hips as she walked across the floor. John Weston walked toward her, and she stopped and chatted with him. She nodded once, and smiled, and continued walking, and I swore as I watched.
He was a jump ahead of me in two departments. One with Helen and two with the job.
CHAPTER TWO
In a matter of minutes I left the department and went upstairs.
I found the sweaters and the socks Helen had bought The material and the workmanship were the same, and they came from the same manufacturers. Only the labels and the prices were different, a dollar apiece more for the sweaters and twenty-five cents more for the socks.
For some reason that I couldn't figure out I felt relieved to learn she had told me the truth. I went into the men's cafeteria and sat at the counter to eat my lunch. As I looked around I saw buyers eating with other buyers, and assistants eating with other assistants, and that annoyed me, making me forget the relief I had felt a minute ago and bringing back the feeling of being under pressure again.
There were a lot of things I didn't care for, the rigidly stratified class lines that only attractive girls seemed able" to cross, the stiff formality, and the very tight organization in which all orders came from the top to be obeyed without question. The one thing I did like was the opportunity it offered to make big money. Stanton's was the biggest store in the city, with the best financial rating. The president, J.J. Stanton made over two hundred fifty thousand dollars in salary and bonuses, although store gossips claimed he owed the job to the fact that his wife was the daughter of the founder of the business. Under him there were two vice presidents and the store merchandise manager, all of whom received over thirty-five grand a year, several buyers, floor managers, and similar officials who were paid twenty-five thousand or more, and even more employees who earned between ten and twenty-five thousand.
Those figures were the reason I had applied for the store's executive training program instead of going into my father's store as partner as he had wanted. The money I earned now wasn't any more than my father was willing to pay. But the twenty-five thousand a year or better that I could earn after I worked my way up in Stanton's was twice as much as I could hope to get out of my father's.
The thing I disliked most about the store was the pressure. It had kept building up from the first day, and instead of slacking off now that I was an assistant buyer, it was increasing. Mr. Sterling, the cut-throat competition from John because we had been told that in the near future one of us would be dropped and the other kept on and the effort of trying to be polite to customers when I wanted to tell them to go to blazes, all added to it.
Since I couldn't escape the pressure, I knew I would have to do something about it. That meant a woman. Our encounter in the basement was enough for me to know that the one I really wanted was Helen Stanton.
Since I didn't think there was a chance of getting anywhere with her, Jan left as a poor second. I had my doubts about her too. She seemed too much of a tease, and too innocent in spite of the soft, cuddly body that made my fingers itch whenever I was near it. But, with Faith still playing aloof, she was the only one available.
I decided to ask her for a date as soon as I got back to the department, and start working on her tonight But when I went back she was on her lunch hour. Before she returned Mr. Sterling sent me up to the manager's office to straighten out some orders for some merchandise that had gotten mixed up. When I came back to the basement she was busy with a customer. She smiled at me from across the counter, and fluttered her eyelashes when she saw me staring down into the deep hollow between her plump boobs that the low neck of her dress revealed. Then Mr. Sterling sent me to the stockroom to check in an order. By the time I finished the store was closing for the day.
The only thing I saw of Jan was her thrusting buttocks bobbing as she and Faith ran for the time clock to punch out I cussed and went into the office and attacked the paper work that had to be done, hating the sight of it.
When I left the store, the streets were deserted and my old Buick was the last car left in the parking lot. I drove to a little restaurant and ate my supper alone. I went to a little bar from there and had three beers that made my depression and anger at this business I was trying to conquer both seem worse. By ten o'clock I gave up and went to the apartment building where I lived.
My apartment was on the third floor. It was one big room, with dingy grey walls and dingy furniture, and a dingy grey carpet on the floor. Just inside the doorway there was a sofa that opened out into a bed. On each side of that there were two end tables. Across the room there was another table and an armchair and four straight backed chairs along the sides completed the furniture. I had an efficiency kitchen that contained a gas stove, a refrigerator, a few cabinets containing dishes and pots and pans and the canned goods I had bought, and other chairs and another table.
I had bought the evening paper and I walked across the room to the window and turned on the exhaust fan to draw the hot summer air out of the room. I then walked to the kitchen to get a cold beer from the refrigerator. I went back into the living room and pulled off my clothes and put on a pair of pajamas. While I was there I opened the sofa out into a bed and tugged a sheet into place and dropped two pillows at the head. Then I picked up the paper again and my beer and headed for the easy chair to read until the room got cool enough to let me sleep.
The phone rang before I sat down. I dropped the paper. I picked the phone up and grunted, 'Hello."
"Jim Walker?" A voice asked hesitantly.
It was a feminine voice and I tried to place it and couldn't. "Yes, this is Jim Walker."
"This is Helen Stanton," she said, the words tumbling out in a rush as though to make sure I didn't interrupt. "If you're going to be home for a while, I'd like to drop in to see you. Okay?"
I looked at the clock on the table next to the sofa bed. It was a quarter past ten, a strange time for a woman I didn't know to want to see me. While I hesitated, she continued, still talking hurriedly. "I won't stay long, really. But there is something very important that I want to talk to you about. Please say it is okay."
I frowned at the clock and at the untidy room and at the phone in my hand. "Okay you can come." I said. "But my place is a mess. I wasn't expecting company."
She sighed with relief. "That's okay. I know it's late but I just have to talk with you. I'll be up in a couple of minutes, and it doesn't matter what your apartment looks like. It's apartment thirty-three, isn't it?"
"Yes," I said.
I let the phone drop into its cradle, puzzled. If it had been Faith who called I would be pretty sure of what she wanted, after the preliminary spatting was done. Even Jan, with her innocent face and teasing tricks would be a more likely candidate for a late date that would end up in bed. But it didn't make sense for the boss' attractive daughter to be so hard up that she had to call and invite herself into my apartment at this hour.
I tried to figure it out and couldn't so I gave up and took off my pajamas and put on a pair of trousers and a shirt and a pair of loafers. I thought about folding the bed back into a sofa again, but that was a lot of work and I didn't see any point in it. If, by some strange chance, she did want to go there, it would be easier to leave it as it was. If she didn't, as I was sure she wouldn't, then leaving it opened couldn't do anything except hint to her that one of her father's hired hands needed his rest if he was going to put in a full day's work tomorrow.
I grinned at that thought, and picked up my beer again and took another sip and then walked to the door when the bell rang. Helen stood in the hallway, wearing a tan blouse and a tan bottom skirt now, and with her eyes very grave as she looked up at me. "I had to talk with you, Jim," she said quickly. "I just had to talk with someone and there wasn't anyone else so it had to be you."
I shrugged and moved back. "Come on in, Miss Stanton."
She smiled. "It isn't Miss Stanton, it's Helen."
She walked past me into the room and stopped. "Good heavens," she said. "I've heard of a bachelor's woman trap, but I never thought I'd see one as blunt as this. As soon as you get the woman inside your door she's practically in your bed!"
"It's usually a sofa," I explained. "But it opens into a bed and I opened it because I was getting ready to go to sleep."
"Oh."
She looked around the room, a funny expression on her face. I closed the door and motioned toward the kitchen. "We can sit in there, it isn't very comfortable, but at least it doesn't have a bed."
She nodded, and walked through the doorway into the tiny kitchen. She sat in one of the chairs at the table there, and opened her purse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. "Would you like a soda?" I asked. "I think there's some in the refrigerator."
"I'd rather have a beer, if you have another. If you don't, a soda will do fine."
"Beer I always have," I said.
I took out a cold bottle and looked at the cabinet over my head where I kept glasses. If I were trying to screw her I would have gotten one down. But I didn't think there was any chance in succeeding and some obstinate refusal to cater to the boss' daughter made me pull the cap off and hold the bottle toward her. She took it without anything to indicate she thought that unusual, and drank as naturally as if that was the way she always took her beer.
"Thanks," she smiled. "It tastes good."
She waited until I sat down, then puffed at her cigarette nervously and looked down at the table. "I was upset this morning when I went in the store." She continued. "That's why I was so fresh with that clerk. I'm sorry, about that. But I do have real troubles, Jim. I had to talk about them with some man I knew was completely honest. When you hollered at me I thought you might be the man so after I left you I went upstairs and checked with Big Boy to find out. You're the one I want to talk with, all right."
"Who's Big Boy?"
"The files in the personnel department. Since you're at Stanton's in the executive training program they haven't missed a thing on you. All the information is there. I wanted to find out about you, so that's where I looked."
Anger churned inside me at the thought of the information that was supposed to be secret and was opened by anyone who asked to see it "It isn't open to everyone," she said quickly. "But Miss Barber who keeps the files has worked there for years, and I've known her all my life, and she lets me peek when I tell her it is real important."
I looked at her. "Did you read my mind?"
"I didn't have to. Your face told me what you were thinking. And I don't blame you at all. I'd hate to have someone check up on me and put all that had turned up on records for other people to read. But that's the way business works I guess."
I shrugged and said, " I guess it is. Now what is so important that you want to talk to me about it?"
"I have one sister, Laura," she said suddenly. "She's seven years older than I am and has made a mess of her life. She is now divorcing her third husband, and tried to end everything a week ago by attempting suicide. She wasn't even able to do that right. She took too many pills and regurgitated and when the maid went in to turn the bed down for the night she found her and called the doctor and he called me. I'm worried that she might try it again and I want to help her and I don't know how. That's what I came to talk to you about."
"Why me?"
"According to your files, you're honest and able to make up your own mind about things. You don't have the right kind of a personality to work in a store like Stanton's, and I haven't the slightest idea why father hired you. From what I saw, you don't have a chance of going anywhere there unless you get me pregnant so I have to marry you. But the things that make it difficult for you to fit in the store are just what I need now. I want to talk with a man who will be sincere with me. I'd like to help my sister, but maybe I'll just make things worse for her. Please advise me what to do."
Everything about her appeared completely sincere. "It seems ridiculous to me to expect a stranger to be able to help you," I said. "But if I can, I'm willing to try."
"Thanks," she sipped at her beer. "It isn't really ridiculous, Jim. There isn't anyone I know well enough to talk with about this that I can trust And since we are strangers, I feel more like talking about things with you than I would with someone I knew real well." I shrugged. "Start talking."
She took another drink of beer, and lighted another cigarette. She told me a story that seemed incredible, of a home where the parents were alcoholics who despised each other but stayed together because of the money involved. She told me about her sister being raped at the age of sixteen at a party in her parent's home, and running wild for two years, until she married a man from a family like her own, with too much money and too little love. That marriage broke up after four months and then she ran wild again for a couple more years, until she met a man who was a nobody as far as family or money went. She lived with him for thirteen months simply following him from one town to another as his mistress, and then married him because that was what he wanted. But after the marriage he had become reckloj and Nancy had left him, getting a divorce and mar ying again. After her third marriage the second husband had gone completely wild and it was because of this that she had tried to commit suicide, not because of anything connected with her third husband, or her third divorce."
"That sounds like a novel," I said when she finished. "Is there any truth to it at all?"
"Every word of it is true."
She met my eyes and! reached into her refrigerator for two more beers. She took her bottle and drank from it. "What do you want me to do about it?" I asked defensively.
"I want you to tell me what to do," she said. "Tom Mason is the only man Judi loves, or ever did. All she really wants is to live with him, and have a home and children like normal people do. I think he loved her, and still does. But neither of them have a big mouth like I do. They're both the kind who suffer in silence. I want to call Tom up and tell him about Nancy and tell him she really loves him and the only thing to do is go back together again. But I'm afraid I'll just make things worse. That's why I want you to help me."
"How old are they?"
"Tom is thirty-two and Nancy is twenty-seven."
"They're old enough to make up their own minds without being helped."
She stared at me again. "If you were very much in love with a woman who came from a family where there was lots of money, and you married her, what would you want to do?"
I thought about that "Probably make lots of money so I could give her the things she was used to."
She nodded. "I'm sure that's why he took all those chances after they were married. So he could earn more money for her.
"If that was the case, why did she leave him?"
"She ran around a lot before she met him. She went to bed with at least seventy-five different men, maybe more. When she fell in love with him, she felt guilty about the things she had done. She thought he married her just because he was a nice man and felt he had to after they had slept together so much the other men were talking about it Then when he started to become reckless she thought it was because he was ashamed to be married to a girl who had been a whore. That's why she left him."
"What about her third marriage?"
"She married a broken down man who never was anything to begin with, if you know what I mean. The reason she married him was because he was a queer and she knew he would never want to touch her. She couldn't stand the thought of any man touching her after Tom, and marrying a queer was the best way she could think of to make sure of it. But Tom was going wild, and that was all she ever thought about, so she talked father into buying her third husband and tried to end her life to get things over with."
"Your whole story is hard to believe."
"It's a lot harder to live with."
I nodded. "I guess it is."
She frowned at me thoughtfully. "If you were Tom, and you loved her, wouldn't you want to know why she left you and married the other man?"
"I think I would."
"Then should I call him and tell him to stop being a darned fool and give her another chance?"
"How well do you know him?"
"Very well. I've seen him numerous times since Nancy left him. He always seems glad to hear from me, and he always asks about Nancy. But he isn't the kind of man to say much."
"Just what kind of a man is he?"
"He's quiet, but aside from that he's very much like you. Sincere, and independent, and obstinate as a mule. If he thinks something is right he will stay with it no matter what happens."
I drank more beer, and took another cigarette from her pack and tapped it idly against my hand. "If he's like me, you don't want to tell him to do anything," I said. "If I were in love with a woman, and things were messed up even half as badly as you say this is, I would like to be told the truth. But I wouldn't want anyone to tell me what to do about it. I'd have to make up my own mind about that."
"May I please call him from here? I can have the charges transferred to my own phone, and if I start to say the wrong thing you can stop me."
"Do you know where he is?"
"In a hospital in Massachusetts. He was in an accident. That's why Nancy tried to kill herself His last accident was a bad one."
"Go ahead and call him. If I think you're saying something I wouldn't want to hear if I were Tom, I'll put my hand on the phone to stop you."
Without giving herself time to think, she turned around to reach through the doorway into the living room for the phone on a table. I was very much aware of those bustling boobs which exploded against her blouse. When her skirt hiked itself above her knees I could see creamy flesh above the stocking tops and could just imagine how those thighs must be stacked, guarding that fuzz topped cunt. Then she had the phone on the table between us, and was dialing and her face was so worried I forgot about her body and tried to make myself believe that some of the things she had told me were true.
The hospital was on the line, and she asked to speak with Tom Mason.
The words came out of her mouth in a rush again, just as they had when she spoke to me on the phone, and later in the hallway. She repeated what she had told me about her sister and her feelings about the marriage, and her reasons for the divorce and the attempted suicide. I laid my hand on the phone twice to stop her when it sounded as though she were about to tell him what to do. And when she finally finished, she listened for a moment, then looked at me.
"He asked me what I want him to do about it?" she said.
"You don't want him to do anything-" I remarked. "You're just giving him lit facts. It's up to him to do what be pleases."
She fro :ed and repeated that into the phone. Then she listened for a moment, and laughed. " Sure I have a man here telling me what to say. You know my big mouth, and the way it goes off. I had to have someone around to stop it"
He said something else, and her face became faintly flushed and her eyes brightened as they looked at me. "I hadn't thought of it until just now," she said gravely. "But I might do that You're putting ideas in my head, and they sound interesting."
I felt a quick, tingling wave of excitement ran through me as her eyes probed at my face. Then she laughed again, and said goodbye and hung up the phone. I reached into the refrigerator for two more beers. She raised her second bottle and looked at the beer left in it and finished it.
"I will take another," she said. "As a rule, I'm a one beer woman, with two the limit. But if Tom and Nancy get themselves straightened out I have a good reason for celebrating. And if I follow his advice, I know I'll need that third beer."
She took the bottle from me and placed it on the table and looked at the small calendar hanging on the wall. "What was the advice?" I inquired.
She shook her head. "Oh, no. I don't know you well enough yet to tell you things like that"
"Can you tell me why you're looking at the calendar?"
"Good heavens, no!" she exclaimed.
She fluffed her hair out nervously and reached for the beer. I saw her nipples squeeze forward then flatten against the thin tan cloth of her blouse. A quick shiver of excitement joggled my cock. She looked at me while she drank, then asked suddenly, "Why on earth did you come to work at Stantons?"
"Money."
"You could have earned as much going in with your father as his partner."
"Was that in the file?"
"Yes."
I frowned, and picked up my own beer and looked at it. "I could earn as much as I'm getting now," I said. "But I could never make any real big money there. I can do that here. And this is a city, not a quiet country town."
"What do you want to make a lot of money for? I could understand it if your parents were very poor, but according to the records they weren't Your father owns a business and makes good money out of it and provided you with a nice home and an education. It doesn't make sense for you to turn your back on that kind of a life to come here and get caught in the rat race."
"I suppose it's partly because of my mother," I admitted. "She died years ago, but I can recall her all the time I was growing up. She married dad before he got his degree and he went into the shoe business. He made out all right, and bought out old man Barlow who owned it, but she wasn't satisfied. She wanted him to sell the business and come to the city and get a job where he could make a lot of money, and she always told me that was what I should do. I guess that's one reason why I'm here. The other is that I want to make it on my own, and not ride along on my dad's coattails."
She smiled at me and started to question me about my home town. I told her about the store, and the town streets shaded by huge old trees, and the first aid squad and volunteer fire company and other organizations my father and I belonged to, and about the new factory being built on the outskirts to bring the town back to life after sleeping for a generation with nothing except farms to bring money into the businesses.
We talked for two hours before she looked at the watch on her wrist and finished her beer and stood up gracefully. "It's late," she said, "I've kept you up too long. But I did enjoy talking with you, Jim, I hope you enjoyed it too, enough to ask for a date sometime. I really would like that."
I was surprised at the complete lack of pretence about her. I hadn't expected the boss' daughter to be so direct and honest. Then I noticed her fabulous figure, and caught the scent of her perfume, and I forgot everything except the fact that she was a very desirable young woman and I wanted her.
Something of what I felt must have shown in my fact. Her own face looked frightened for a moment and she walked hurriedly toward the doorway. Then she stopped suddenly and turned back, reaching for the purse she had left on the table. She stumbled and I put out my arm to catch her, and her jiggling curves scorched me when I touched her.
She made a strange, whimpering sound and swayed toward me, her arms reaching around me to hold me tightly, and her hot softness melting into my body. We kissed and I became excited between my legs. She sighed and moved her face against my shoulder. I ran my lips over the side of her throat and up to her tiny ear and she moaned again, and clutched my arms.
After a minute she raised her face, and her lips went over my cheek like warm and very gentle butterfly wings. She kissed me, her tongue jabbed into my mouth while her fingers tangled themselves in my hair. Through the wild torrent of excitement that surged through me I was dimly aware of her beautiful body pressing against mine and the strange whimpering noises that broke out of her.
She pulled herself back suddenly, and looked from me to the bed in the room behind her. She looked down at the calendar on the wall. "It's all right, do you want to?" she asked, her throaty voice very soft. "No promises, no lies, and no strings. Just for tonight, and nothing more. Are you willing, Jim?"
For a moment I didn't know what she meant Then I saw the excited flush on her face, and the full bosoms that rose and fell rapidly under the hand she held to her throat, and a wild sense of exultation roared over me.
I kissed her gently and answered. "Yes doll, I'm will tag"
CHAPTER THREE
She moved away from me and quickly unbuttoned her blouse and took it off, and unfastened the waistband of her skirt and opened the zipper at the side and pulled it down off her legs and stepped out of it I was surprised to discover she wore a plain white cotton bra and simple pink panties, both of them practical rather than pretty. I didn't associate that kind of underwear with tramps and she obviously was one because no other kind of a woman would be driven by such haste in getting screwed by a man who was still a stranger to her. Then the bra came off and the boobs were free. The panties were lying on the floor beside the bed and I realized her figure was absolutely perfect. The big hefty bobbing boobs swelled the air, and a smooth cute rounded belly flowed out and her legs were long and round and very lovely.
I caught her eyes on me and I took my own clothes off. I had the feeling that she was begging me to understand, and I didn't know what it was that disturbed her, and the question pounded at me as I reached for her. Then we were on the bed together, her body hot, yielding and incredibly smooth skinned under my hands, and the only thing I knew was my need for a willing pussy with the know-how to soothe a bronco cock.
"Please!" I heard her voice. "Please, Jim, take it easy. I'm kind of out of practice!"
I stared down at her flushed face. And she had her lower Up caught between her teeth, and her head rolled from side to side as her fingers reached and cupped my manhood awkwardly.
"There!" she opened her eyes and laughed. "That's better. It's almost too good!"
I felt her lips, and her fingertips that roamed over my skin as lightly as her mouth, and the hard swollen nipples that touched my chest, and the thighs and smooth belly that were warm against my own loins. Then a whimpering noise broke out of her, and her body rose to engulf my stiff need with a strength that was surprising and everything disappeared again, leaving nothing but my hot wet thrill and this stunning woman's body that was lunging up, eager to drain the hunger away.
For a long time there was nothing except a physical pleasure, intense. Then the excitement broke in a hot gush that left me weak and I heard her husky voice crying out with wordless little sounds of happiness, and I became aware of her again, as a warm body snuggled as close to me as she could get while we were still connected.
"You think I'm a tramp," she said. "I don't blame you for it And I'm not making any excuses or explanations. When I touched you in the kitchen all kinds of crazy things happened to me and I couldn't keep myself from wanting to do this, so I did it."
She laughed lightly. " Even my mouth isn't big enough to explain what happened, and for once I have sense enough not to try. But at least now you know what my brother-in-law advised me. The last time I saw him he said this was what I needed, to get into bed with a real man. I guess he was right because I haven't felt so good in ages."
I ran my hand over the smooth globes of her boobs. "You do feel good," I agreed. "And I needed it every bit as much if not more than you did. This is the first time I've felt relaxed since I started to work at Stanton's. Thank you."
"Thank you," she kissed me. "Now maybe you'll let me stay here tonight I want to sleep with you, and cook your breakfast in the morning."
"Won't your parents be worried?"
"By this time they will both be so drunk they won't know where I am, or care," she said, coldly. "But Nor ma will worry if I'm not home. I'd better call her and tell her I won't be in tonight"
"Who is she?"
"Our cook. She has been with the family a long time, since before my sister was born. She was more like a mother to both of us than our real mother was."
She kissed me again. "Are you going to let me stay?"
"Yes."
"Good." She pulled herself away, and I became aware of the perspiration that had poured off me to make both our bodies so wet. She smiled and crawled off the bed and looked around. Then she went into the bathroom and came out with a towel, rubbing it over her body.
"You have a beautiful body," I said.
"I'm glad you like it" She turned and I saw the marks of my hands in her round quivering buttocks. Then she turned to face me again, and threw the towel to me. "Dry yourself off," she said. "I'll call Norma and tell her I won't be home, and if you have any food I'd like to cook something for us. I don't know about you, but I worked up a real appetite just now."
"I did too," I said.
She laughed, and picked my pajamas off the chair where I had tossed them. "How about sharing these with me?" she asked. "For some odd reason, I don't in the least mind walking around naked in front of you. But I do think you might be more interested in my goodies if I keep them hidden while I do the cooking."
"You can have whichever half you want."
She put her arms into the pajama top and rolled up the sleeves and fastened one button, so it managed to make me more aware of her neatly curved figure than I was when she was naked. Flashes of bare skin appeared through gaps in the front of the jacket as she leaned down to pick the clothes off the floor, then vanished and other flashes came into view as she straightened up again. "Do you keep a skirt hanger handy for the use of your visiting women friends?" she asked.
"I don't have a skirt hanger, but you can find some trouser hangers in that closet. Maybe you can make out with one of them."
She opened the closet door and took two trouser hangers off the bar. She reached for my trousers first, and tried to fasten them on a hanger by the waistband. "That's the wrong end," I said. "You hang them by the cuffs."
"I should know that I've watched Nancy hanging up Tom's things often enough to know how it's done."
I felt very uncomfortable as I recalled the clumsiness she had shown when we came together in the bed. A woman who went to bed with a man whenever she felt in the mood should know more about some things than she did.
She looked at me as she finished hanging up her clothes and closed the closet door. "It wasn't the first time, Jim," she said. "You know that, don't you?"
"I know that. But a lot of things about you don't add up. You've got me befuddled."
"That puts you and me in the same boat," she said easily. "Don't worry about it."
She went into the kitchen and made a telephone call while I got out of bed and put on the pajama pants. When I got there, she was looking through the cabinets so I helped her find a frying pan and meat wrapped in foil out of the refrigerator and watched while she cook ed hamburgers. When they were ready, we sat down at the table and she draped her legs across my lap while we ate and shared a bottle of beer.
I stroked her legs absently, enjoying the smooth feel of the skin against my palm. "They're really nice," I said.
"My legs?" she smiled. "I'm glad you like them, but that was a crazy thing I did this morning, showing them to you like that."
"Why did you do it?"
"I'm the impulsive type, I guess. I saw you looking at them and did it just like a child would stick out his tongue at somebody, to show that I didn't care if you looked at my legs or not. Then I saw the expression on your face, and got a warm tingly feeling in my stomach, and that frightened me so I shoved my skirt down just as fast as I could, and wished I had something to wrap around me."
"Didn't you like to have me look at your legs?"
She took the beer from me and sipped at it, then handed it back. "Too much," she admitted. "That's what frightened me."
She finished eating and stretched. " Now it really is bed time," she said. "Are you coming?"
"Not yet, but I probably will in a couple of minutes."
She looked confused for a moment, then laughed and looked at the calendar. "It's a good thing we timed this right," she said. "It would be kind of odd to have a baby by some man I hardly know." Neither of us had taken any precautions.
"Are you safe?"
She checked the calendar again, and nodded. "I'm safe as I can be. But aren't you going to sleep tonight?"
"I hate to waste the time."
She pulled her legs off my lap and leaned over to kiss me. "Then don't waste any more of it," she said. "Come on, let's go to bed."
It seemed very right as I turned off the light and walked into the next room with her. We turned off the lights there, and took off our pajamas we shared and got into bed, with everything still seeming completely right, as though we had been doing it for years. To kiss her, and touch and tweak her nipples until they stood up, hot and swollen from her breasts, seemed natural too, and so did stroking her smooth belly and between her warm thighs until she began to whimper with delicious hunger and gently stroke the underside of my now fully swollen cock. The pads of her fingers were softer than the skin she was caressing. I didn't think I could grow any larger but she discovered a new dimension. I wanted to feel the new size myself but didn't want to interrupt her beautiful probing. The way her slender fingers could make a funnel and pull up from my heated balls was not to be believed. Usually I can make suggestions to a girl when she wants to grope me, especially if I have my clothes on. But being nude and with an obvious expert, what could I say. All I could do was pull my head back and breathe in as much air as I could.
She didn't allow me to glide along like that very long. She decided to change positions and roll over on her side, facing away from me. Actually this is my favorite position. First, I can explore those full breasts in any angle I chose. From up above I can come down to the hard nipples and gently squeeze her boobs together to make one fabulous hot mound of flesh. Then I can dive in and around and kiss that deep belly button. Usually I tongue if for a couple of seconds to get her squirming and that little round belly heaving heavy. There's nothing like a smooth contoured belly to work from, especially when it jumps around and wants to be nipped on the sides.
Now it was my turn to change positions. I was comfortable enough but my cock was out of reach of its target Not that I couldn't have fucked her in this position, but when I really start pumping I need room to swing my own rear end and pushing up against the side of a sweaty mattress doesn't work too well.
I swallowed one stiff nipple and brushing the top of my wet lip against the lower ridges. For a minute I could almost imagine I could peel it back and tumble inside that satin pillar and never come up for air.
She didn't want to torn over on her back, not that her cunt wasn't throbbing and waiting for a determined cock to part those dark pussy curtains, but she liked what I was doing to her boobs. Perhaps she had never been loved in this way. I like to explore. Under arm pits.
Below cupped boobs. Beneath the creases of folded thighs.
Even between toes, although this is the most sensitive of all and I have to give warning before I open up in that direction.
She giggled a lot when I grabbed her arms and pulled her flat. Her nipples were straight up like a peacocks' ass now and I dropped my head down flat so I could feel the beveled end inside my ear. With her hands over her head, her belly was stretched out like she was on the rack. The inner lines of her stomach folded down into the short curly hairs below. I glided myself directly over her thighs. Without letting go of her hands I rotated my hips until I felt the end of my cock touch the swollen lips of her cunt. She began to squirm again. I could have taken my hands away and directed my rod into her waiting channel, but I liked the look of her stretched out like that and I didn't want to blurr the picture too early.
On the third time over the head of my cock parted her lips. I waited for a second, allowing her shivers to build. Then she lifted her legs and clamped them on my rear. She wasn't going to wait any longer. She thought she could shove me forward, but I held on to my position. I was the one who was going to make the decision! I wiggled the head a little deeper. Her loud groan surprised me. I didn't think she would let out a yell like that, then I realized she wasn't in control any longer. Her hands were limp; her head was tossing back and forth and so I lowered myself, still rotating the head, and let her have the full shaft. The groan turned into a piercing scream. I laid my head between her breasts and tongued my way up to one rock coated nipple. She murmured something I couldn't understand. Then I realized she had come. Then warm fluid gurgled up from below. I was holding back. I needed some action and I wasn't going to let go without a good piston job all the way up to that damn cute belly button.
I came twice and she wanted me to ring the bell for number three.
"Go to sleep," I moaned.
"O.K.," she whispered back, "but I know what I'll be dreaming about."
I grunt. Her hand was on my limp cock, gently massaging.
"I'll cook you breakfast in the morning," she said before finally giving up and turning over.
I didn't answer. Who the hell wanted to think about bacon and eggs now? Maybe later when my stomach wasn't shaking the way it was now.
Then it was morning and my eyes were still closed. I could hear someone talking to me-or I think it was me-but I couldn't make out what was being said. It was only after the second or third time that the words truly came to me
"How do you want your eggs?" she asked.
"Can you cook?"
"Sure I can cook. Do you want them scrambled, boiled, fried, poached, or in an omelet?"
"Boiled."
"Hard or soft?"
"I don't care, just so they are filling."
"Two orders of boiled eggs and bacon coming up," she said." Now hurry up, lazy bones. Your breakfast will be ready before you are."
I groaned, and climbed unhappily off the bed, and watched as she put on the pajama tops again, and buttoned one button so it left those interesting flashes of her naked flesh. "If I'm going to make a habit of sleeping with you, I'll have to bring a robe from home and leave it here," she said. "This thing isn't a very good fit"
"What size do you wear?"
"Twelve."
"I'll buy you one."
She thought about that as she fluffed out her red hair, then nodded. "If you want to, you can. But get something practical not those sexy jobs they sell upstairs."
"Do you get every thing from the basement?"
"Not everything, but I do buy a lot of things there. Some of the merchandise is just junk, but some of it is exactly the same as that sold upstairs, with only the labels and the prices different I don't like to be made to feel like a sucker, and that's just the way I feel when I find I've paid for nothing but a label."
I watched as she took her make-up out of her purse and put on fresh lipstick and comb her tangled hair. "I'd like to get you something sexy if you're coming back here."
"I'm coming back, if you want me. And maybe it would be good to have a real sexy nightgown, and sexy undies. You've kind of got me in that sort of a mood, in case you didn't know. But let me get them, as a surprise to you. And I'll buy a pair of slippers too. You can buy the robe. Is that okay?"
"It's okay with me."
"Then hurry up and shower or shave or whatever it is you do in the morning. I'll fix your breakfast"
I was usually a slow starter, dragging myself into the shower and then trying to wake up while I slowly shaved. But this morning there was the smell of fresh coffee in the air, and cooking bacon and eggs, and the sound of Helen's light footsteps in the kitchenette just beyond the wall. I hurried, and walked in there completely dressed just as she took the eggs from the pot, I tasted them, and smiled at her. "Damned if you can't cook."
"Sure I can. I'm a woman of many talents, Jim. You'll have to get to know some of them."
"I intend to."
She smiled and sat down. "Don't bother about the apartment," I told her. "I'll clean it up when I get home tonight."
"Is there any way I can lock your door without a key when I leave?"
"You'll need a key, and I have an extra one I can give you. You don't have to leave when I do."
"Then I'll clean the place up before I go. If I have a key I can come back to visit you any time I want."
"Right," I said. "You can do that"
She frowned. "But if I do, I'll probably find you already in bed with other woman. I think I'd better call before I visit you again. Or you could call me and make a date. Do you think you could do that?"
"I'll be sure to."
I looked at my watch and finished eating and walked towards the front door. She came with me and kissed me. "Now be a good boy until I see you again," she whispered.
"I will," I promised.
I walked out into the hot early morning air, happy. I got into my car and drove to the store. As I walked inside I was whistling, and smiling happily at everybody I saw. Even the snarl Mr. Sterling gave me when I went into his office didn't seem worth noticing, and the paper work that had to be finished before the doors opened wasn't any trouble at all, for the first time since I came on the job.
I was still happy when the bell rang to announce that the doors were being opened, and I left the department immediately, rushing across the basement to the woman's department I knew just what color robe I wanted for Helen, a shade of light green that I saw in my mind as I walked. I went through the racks carefully, looking for it among the size twelves. When I found the right color, I picked out a robe made of good quality light weight cotton that would be cool, with a wide full skirt, and a collar that could be brought up against her pretty red hair, and a sash to tie around her waist.
I checked to make sure the sash could be opened quickly, then looked at the price tag. It was ten ninety-eight, which meant nine forty-eight when my fifteen percent discount was taken off. I used my charge plate for identification to get the discount, but paid cash for the robe. I gave the clerk some change to have it gift wrapped, and had it sent to myself, at my apartment Then, jingling the loose change in my pocket and whistling happily under my breath, I went back to my department.
The good feeling stayed with me until ten when I took my morning coffee break. John Weston sat on the stool beside me at the lunch counter, and that was enough to throw a dark cloud over me. "Are you getting enough of what every man needs, Sonny boy?" he asked.
I felt the pleasant glow of a man who had been fucking for half the night, and loving every minute of it. But I didn't trust him enough to let him know anything about my personal life. "I'm getting a little," I said. "How about you?"
"I haven't had enough lately, but I do have a real good piece of it lined up for tonight."
I drank the coffee in the cup the waitress slid across the counter to me. "That's good," I said. "Someone from the store?"
He smoothed back his hair and let the smug grin on his face grow broader. "She isn't from the store," he said. "She is it"
The hair on the back of my neck prickled as I turned and stared at him. "You aren't talking about Helen Stanton are you?"
"Nobody else, Sonny boy. I've taken her out a few times, and when I saw her arguing with you yesterday morning, I stopped and asked her for another date. The first two were just a build up, but this one is for real. I'm going to have her tonight, and with a woman stacked like she is it's bound to be good."
The good feeling that had surrounded me ever since I left the apartment vanished and made my stomach lurch as it put me back into the cold, bleak reality of Gershwin's basement. My fists clenched, and I wanted to hit his soft, grinning face.
Then I realized what a fool I had been. Stanton's store was Helen's stud grounds. It had been my turn to keep her happy last night, tonight it would be John's. Everything, her tenderness, when we made love, her pretense of honesty, even preparing breakfast this morning, had been just part of a game she was playing. I had made that game into what I realized was an idealized version of marriage, with a beautiful and very loving wife who took care of the home while her spouse went off to work.
The game was over now, and I knew it for what it was.
I finished my coffee and left him sitting alone and rushed back to the department.
CHAPTER FOUR
We were having a sale on sport shirts today, at two for three dollars. None of the customers had paid any attention to them at first, but just before I went off for coffee I saw a woman pawing through a heap of them on a counter. Another woman joined her, digging in r hopes of finding a bargain before the first woman did. Other women soon joined those two, all of them working frantically at the pile of shirts in search of bargains.
It was a kind of mob hysteria I had noticed before. Once a woman showed that she thought she might find a bargain, other women joined in to beat her to it, all of them more interested in bargains than in the merchandise that was for sale. That was what had happened by the time I returned to the department. The womenwere gathered around the counter, elbowing each other, and clawing at the shirts as they looked for bargains.
They were buying now, rapidly. The clerks were busy, and the pile had gone down to the half empty mark. I looked at it, and headed for the stock room to bring out more merchandise.
When I opened the door I saw that Faith Kemper was ahead of me, but instead of reaching up on a shelf for an armful of sport shirts she was leaning down, putting something into her shoe. I looked at her legs out of habit, and saw that although they weren't too bad they weren't anything like the perfect pair Helen had. Then I saw her jump nervously, and put her foot into the shoe, and I caught a glimpse of green paper sticking out of it.
I waited and she turned and made a little gesture of surrender, "You caught me," she admitted. "What are you going to do about it?"
"How much is it?"
"Five dollars."
She stared at me defiantly for a second with her hands on her hips. Then she seemed to crumple as she turned away. "We're flat broke," she said. "We don't even have bus fare back to where we live tonight, or money for food, and we won't get paid for a week yet. A customer gave me the five dollars and I gave her the change and then realized I still had the money in my hand when I closed the drawer. Nobody saw me and I thought I could get away with it. I was going to put it back when I got paid. Really I was."
"That wouldn't do you any good. The tape from your cash register would show that your drawer was short five dollars tonight. How could you explain it?"
"I could say I must have made a mistake and given someone too much change."
"A five dollar mistake before your first week was out, wouldn't look good on your record."
"I know." Her shoulders slumped, in defeat. "What are you going to do, fire me?"
I frowned at her lithe body in a plaid dress, and at her thin, high cheek-boned face that looked thoroughly frightened now. "Are you and Jan here on your own?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "Our home town was a heck of a place to live so we worked in a little store there until we saved up a hundred dollars between us. We took that and came here, but it took us longer than we anticipated to find jobs. Now our money is gone and we have to live through this week somehow, until we get paid. Even then we'll only get paid for one week each, but at least that will be something. Right now we don't have a cent."
"Can you make out if I okay a ten dollar advance on your salary today, and another ten on Jan's next week?"
"Yes," she sighed with relief. "We can make out just fine if you'll do that"
I reached into my wallet and took out some bills and handed her three ones. "Here's lunch money for you and Jan for today," I said. "I'll call the payroll office and tell them to advance you the ten. You can pick it up at noon. But put that money you swiped back right away. If your drawer is short tonight you're going to be fired tomorrow."
She took the bills from me. "I'm not crazy, Mr. Walker," she said. "Don't worry. Jobs are too hard to find."
She let her hand linger on my arm. "I want to thank you for this," she went on. "Really. All you have to do is let me know how I can."
Everything about her, the touch of her hand as she ran it lightly over my arm, the pressure of her thighs as she came close to me, and that look in her heavy lidded blue eyes, told me that all I had to do was hint that I would be interested and she would come across right now. Then die door to the stock room opened behind me and she moved back as one of the older women clerks came in.
"This isn't the time or the place," Faith said. "But I will thank you, Mr. Walker. You can be sure of that"
She picked up an armful of sport shirts and hurried out. The clerk who had interrupted us looked after her, then turned to pick up another armful, her lined face completely blank of expression but her eyes amused as she looked at me. I smiled at her and went next door into the department office and called the payroll department to approve the advance on her salary I had promised Doris. Then I went back into the stock room and picked up the sport shirts I had been after when I went in there the first time, and carried them out to the counter.
The short burst in interest in sport shirts was over, and some women were gathered around another counter where boys' socks were on sale. That was normal for a day in the basement Interest would build up quickly around one item, and that counter would be crowded as the women fought to get a bargain before all of them were gone. Then the interest would fade out, and they would move to another counter and go through the scramble again for another bargain.
I put the sport shirts where they belonged, and straightened the counter and then moved over to the mob around the boys' socks to help the clerks there. The anger I had felt for Helen a few minutes earlier was gone. Faith had taken the edge off it when she let me know she was willing to come across to pay me for keeping her out of trouble. I was able to think rationally about Helen now. I knew that she hadn't said a single thing to make me believe what we were doing meant more to her than a game to be played for one night, with repeats when she was in the mood, but without any promises in advance. I had merely lost myself in a dream world that didn't exist. I was out of it now, and angry only with myself because I had fallen into it, and determined to use Faith and anyone else I had to use to make sure I stayed out of it.
I saw Faith several times during the morning, as she worked around the counters. She had changed from the creature she had been the first few days. She didn't tease me, or make any effort to get my attention. But her coolness was gone, and when her blue eyes met mine there was an acceptance in them of the debt she owed me, and intended to pay.
I was busy through the balance of the day, moving mechanically through the crowds of women that swirled around the counters. The constant backdrop of noise wouldn't let me think about anything other than my work.
It was a strange mixture of excited women's voices, and the tapping of pumps on the hard floor, and the scraping of counter drawers as they were being opened and closed, punctuated by the ringing of the call bells for the store detectives and executives, and the noise from the cash registers as the money was being rung up.
These sounds were all so familiar to me now that I didn't really notice them. I just heard them, vaguely, as I worked and let my attention wander to Doris' lithe figure whenever she was near, and wonder idly how soon she would pay the debt she owed me. Would that teasing pussy be ready when I needed it?
John left me alone until just before closing time, when he walked over to where I was checking out a cash register, preparing to take the day's receipts. "Don't you wish you were going to be in my place tonight, Sonny boy?" he whispered.
I had an impulse to tell that I had been there three times last night and had enjoyed it completely, but I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he irritated me. "Have a good time," I said.
"I will." He slapped me on the shoulder. "I'm going to have a very good time, and a very good piece."
I felt the blind rage come back as I watched him walk away. I knew I had no reason to be sore. Helen hadn't made any promises to me, and was free to do anything she desired with whomever she chose. But a mental picture of her slender, beautiful figure in bed with Carl's big soft belly on top of it, his cock up to the hilt and his tongue hanging out for what it could get.
I couldn't see straight as I started to take the daily classification totals off the register. I made four mistakes on one register, and had to start over to get what I was doing right Then, swearing at John and Helen and the store that I hated at that moment, I took the figures into the office and started to put them down on the forms for the upstairs office to check.
I heard the bell ringing to announce that the doors were closing for the day, and the cash registers jingle as the clerks rang out, and the hurrying of feet on the floor as they rushed to the time clock to punch their cards. I cussed again as I realized that I had let Faith go without making a date to see her, and stopped to light a cigarette.
A light noise in the doorway made me turn. Faith stood there, her figure poised against the wall, and her freshly lipsticked mouth twisted into a sardonic smile as she raised one hand to smooth back her blonde hair. I waited, and she moved toward me. "You didn't save my job and hand over a couple of dollars of your own just to be kind," she told me. "Tell me where and when you want it and I'll pay for it."
The rage I had for Helen boiled through me as I stared at her figure. I wanted a woman right now, to work off the rage. And I wanted her in such a way that I could express my anger for all the women in the world.
She stood quiet under my eyes for a minute. Then she started to fuss nervously with her hair, and an expression of uncertainty appeared on her face. That made me feel better because it showed me there was at least one woman over whom I had some power.
I pushed my chair back and looked from her to the desk in front of me, and felt excitement up in me. "Lock the door and slip off your panties," I said.
She hesitated, and for a moment I thought she was going to refuse. Then she closed the door and locked it and reached under her skirt to pull a handful of silken cloth down off her long legs. "At least you don't fool around," she told me with an attempt at a smile. I stared at her nudeness. "Where do you want it, and how?"
I pointed toward the desk and she looked at it dubiously as she walked forward. " That doesn't look like the most comfortable place in the world," she said. "And it will be a new one for me although from what I've heard since I started to work here it sure won't be the first time a desk has been used for this."
She picked her skirt up to her waist and perched on the edge of the desk, facing me. She reached down to unfasten the garters that held up her nylon stockings and I saw the long pink strips of naked flesh appearing as the straps fell away. "I can't afford to get a run," she said.
I reached out and touched the smooth skin of her inner thigh. She was trying to act at ease and couldn't quite manage it. I felt cold for an instant, then the rage I had felt for Helen came back to me and I moved in between her legs. She wasn't back fully against the desk and she almost tripped attempting to sidestep me. I didn't say I was sorry because I didn't want any sentimentality involved with this. I wanted to get my rocks off fast and she was the closest receptacle I could find. I didn't really bother to inspect her waiting cunt until I had my cock haly way down her funnel. I had to admit she was nice and tight. There was no sloppiness about her hole. And when I pumped my full speed she didn't give off any of these breathy grunts which usually blow my ear drums. Still I was hurting I knew that. She couldn't be that tight without feeling the vibrations all the way down to that cute little firm ass. She took it all the way which also surprised me a little. Although she was little she was able to take a full cock without any trouble.
I came so fast I couldn't believe it. I wanted to leave my cock in the holster for a few seconds just to let it rest against those heaven walls, but I didn't want her to get the idea that I enjoyed it that much.
When I was through I moved back and looked at her flushed face and her dishevelled clothes which were twisted around her panting body. She groaned and shook her head. One hand reached out to push her skirt down.
"That was fast," she moaned.
"I was in a fast mood."
"So I noticed."
She got off the desk and leaned against it, shaking her head. "That's the last time I try to swipe five dollars from this store," she exclaimed. "It isn't worth it."
She shook her head again, then reached for the panties she had just laid on the desk beside her and pulled it up over her long legs, raising her dress and showing me her smooth, pale skinned belly as she smoothed it out. Then she fastened her garters and pulled her skirt down and tried to smile. "It wasn't too bad," she said. "I've been fucked worse than that How about using a bed the next time? It's more comfortable."
"Maybe we will," I said.
She nodded and opened her purse and took out her compact and fixed her makeup and combed her blonde hair. "Can I talk you into buying my supper?" she asked. " I could sure use a free meal."
I shrugged. "Wait until I get through and I will."
"I'll wait."
She sat down in the corner of the office and quietly smoked a cigarette while I filled out the forms and slipped them into an envelope. Then I reached for the jacket and turned to her. "Let's go."
She put her cigarette out in an ash tray and followed me from the office. "Would they really have spotted that five bucks?" she asked.
"They sure would," I said. "Come here."
I used one of the keys on my ring to unlock her cash register and pulled out the tape, "What's your drawer?" I asked.
"K."
I unrolled the tape and pointed to the figures on it. "Here you are," I said. "You have to hit that key to open your drawer when you ring up a sale. It prints on the tape beside the figure for the amount of the sale, and the cash or charge symbol. See?"
She frowned at the marks I showed her on the tape. " Does anyone ever look at this?"
"Every night when the bell rings all the clerks count the cash in their drawers, put ten dollars in the small bag to use for change the next day, and the rest in the big bag, along with the tickets they rang in on in the morning and out on at night. That money goes upstairs, where it is counted every night These tapes go upstairs every night too. The amount of the cash sales is checked against the money turned in by every clerk in the store every night Every charge ticket is checked against every tape too. If you're off even one cent it shows up right away. You can't beat this system, so don't try it again."
She rubbed her hand over her aching belly. "I won't," she promised.
I smiled and led her up the esculator to the first floor. I dropped the envelope with our department's daily report into the chute where it would be collected by a messenger from the upstairs office, then took her out to where my car was parked in the lot behind the building.
"Is Italian food all right?" I asked.
"I can't afford to be fussy right now, and I love it, Jim," she said. "It is all right to call you that when we aren't working, isn't it?"
"Call me anything you please."
"Then it will be Jim, except during business hours. According to that training course we had last week before we started, every employee must call every other employee Mr. or Mrs. or Miss while on the job."
"I know," I said. "I think it's a lot of nonsense, but it's obviously the way the boss wants things done, and that's what we have to do."
She nodded, and got into the car. She didn't speak to me while I drove to the restaurant where I had eaten before, but every time I looked at her I noticed that she was staring at me with a thoughtful expression on her face.
That thoughtful expression stayed in place when we went into the restaurant and sat down and ordered our supper. "I told you today how broke Jan and I are," she said suddenly. "We want to earn some moeny. Would you be interested?"
I looked at her, puzzled. "Interested in what?"
"In what you got this evening but a lot better."
"You mean you want me to pay for it?"
"I don't see why not," she said defensively. "If you take a girl out on a date and romance her it will cost more, and you won't be sure you'll get anything after you spend the money, or that it's worth what you pay. This way you would know what you're getting, and exactly what it will cost."
I shook my head. " There wouldn't be any fun in that"
"I could promise you loads of fun," she said. "A man moved into my home town four years ago and bought a restaurant. He had been in the army for twenty years, with most of the time in the Pacific. He learned a lot of tricks there, and he liked them, and he taught them to me. He used to pay me four dollars a time, or sometimes eight if the trick was real raw. I learned a lot from him, things that you probably never even heard of."
"Why didn't you stay there and keep earning money from him?"
"He got married," she said. "He told me she was the only girl in town who was willing to do all his tricks for free."
I shrugged. "I don't think I would be interested. I never bought any in my life and I'm not about to start now."
"You've bought it," she said. "Maybe not like this, but you've bought it or else you haven't had very much."
"I have like hell!"
"Did you ever buy a woman a present and then have her? Or take her someplace she wanted to go first, and spend money on her?"
I grunted. "That isn't the same thing."
"The only difference is that it's not so honest, that's all."
"Have you really earned money that way?"
"From that man, yes. From other men, it was just a date, for the movies, or a hamburger, or a cheap necklace. From the first one it was candy."
"That was cheap enough."
"Yes," she laughed bitterly. "We were poor. My Dad was always drunk. He seldom worked and when he did it was to earn money for booze and not food for mom and me. Candy was something I only saw other kids eat when I was small, and when I was eleven and a fresh thirteen year old boy offered me some candy if I would let him put his pony into my stable, I wanted the candy enough to let him do it When I was older I was skinny and too tall, and too plain looking to interest the boys, so I had to come across to get dates and I did what I had to do. Then I met the soldier and found out I could get paid for it so I did that too. It's the only way I know of for Jan and me to get our hands on some money in a hurry."
"It's a good way to get you in a cell also."
"I know," she said seriously. "We aren't stupid enough to try to peddle it on the streets. But there must be some men in a city this size who want it badly enough to pay for it, and who will pay good for tricks."
"Maybe," I said. "But I don't know where you'll find any of them."
"We'll find them."
She was eating her spaghetti as though she was starved, just cramming it into her mouth. "Is Jan in this with you?" I asked.
"Yes." She stopped for another quick mouthful, dien looked up at me. "Maybe you'd be interested in that How much would you pay to be first?"
"If she's willing to sell it, I don't see how I could be the first"
"She'll sell it, and it will be the first time, too. We lived in the same house back home. She and her mom had the first floor, and my folks were upstairs. Her dad ran off before she was born, and her mom didn't have anything to live on except relief checks and what she could earn doing housework in town. She never let Jan wear makeup, or fuss with her hair, or go out with boys and she dressed her in baggy clothes that frightened the boys off so they wouldn't ask her for a date if she was able to go out All she had for a friend was me, and we were both so miserable that when we graduated from high school we went to work together in the store and saved every cent we could until we had enough to come here. We're both out for money now, so we can have things like nice clothes and cars and a nice place to live, and we're going to get them."
Her voice was so intense that I looked at her again. "Will you pay twenty-five bucks to be first with Jan?" she asked gravely. "She knows what to do. I've taught her."
"No."
She frowned. "Are you going to mat parry at the Stanton's house for the junior executives?"
"I suppose I will. I'm on some kind of a committee about it, why?"
"How about fifteen and a date to take her to that party?"
"What's so important about that parry?"
"She's never been to anything like that and would get a big thrill out of it"
I shook my head. "I don't think so," I said. "I'd be willing to take her to the party. But I don't like the idea of paying for it"
"Will you give me an opportunity to show you what I know?" she asked. "I'm not kidding about that I know a lot of things you probably never even heard of, things that soldiers learned in those crazy foreign places. And we both need money real bad. These jobs don't pay enough to give us a decent living, and we want a lot more than that If you give me an opportunity tonight to show you some of the things I know, maybe you'll be willing to pay for it. You can't say no until you get an idea of what I can do. What do you say?" she asked.
CHAPTER FIVE
I said nothing for a moment, I just looked at her, wondering how I could have gone so long with nothing to do but work and now found myself involved with two women who were oddballs, to say the least. Then I shrugged. "Not tonight" I said. "I'm not even in the mood for a free sample tonight"
"What's wrong?" she asked. "Are you getting too much of it from the amateurs?"
"That could be the answer."
"I know I could show you a better time, and it wouldn't cost as much when you take everything into consideration. And that proposition I made you about Jan is a good one. She's got a crush on you, and it would be a lot easier for her to do it the first time with you than with some old tomcat like Mr. Sterling."
"Sterling?"
"Sure," she said. "He's had his hand up under her skirt three times already. She's scared to death of him, scared he'll fire her if she doesn't come across, and scared to let him do it when she doesn't know what it is he'll be doing. You'll do her a favor if you take care of her."
"I'll be darned," I said. "I didn't know Sterling was like that"
"All the old morons in the store are. They have a bunch of women working under them, and a good word from the boss means a raise and a bad one means no job, so they have all they want. Especially the big man."
"Stanton?"
"That's right I was in the employee's lounge yesterday and two of the models from the Longerie Department and his secretary were talking. They're three good looking young chicks and the things they were discussing about the boss would have melted the ears off an ape. He has the real power over all the women in the store, a thousand or more. From what those chicks said, he takes advantage of it."
"I'll be darned," I said again.
We finished eating without talking after that, and I took her to her place, in a rundown old mansion that had been turned into a rooming house. I left her there, promising to think about the propositions she had made me about herself and about Jan and drove back to where my apartment was located.
My own place was so hot it seemed filled with steam when I opened the door, and the odor of sausage cooked meat from next door was so strong I hurried across to the window and turned on the fan.
When I turned back to look at the room, it appeared different. I looked around for a few minutes, trying to understand it. The furniture was in the same order and the rug, and even the clock on the table beside the sofa bed, and the old refrigerator still wheezed in the kitchenette. Then I knew that everything, the rug and the furniture and the curtains and even the windows and walls, was spodess. Helen had cleaned the whole place before she left, not just straightening it but giving it a thorough cleaning.
I shrugged and lighted a cigarette and picked up a note lying on a table. "I cleaned your place up a bit before I left," it said. "But for once I did not snoop. I didn't even look in your bureau drawers!"
It was signed, "Helen," and a P.S. was added-"I'll return your key whenever you call and ask for it If that sounds like a hint, it is. Last night was great-H"
I cussed and tore up the note and dropped it into a waste basket I could understand Faith and Jan wanting money badly chough to go to bed with men to get it And I could understand a woman with the wealthy background of Helen Stainon picking up strange men in a search for excitement Bui it didn't make any sense at all for her to go to bed with me the first time she had the opportunity, and then to spend the next day cleaning my apartment.
I looked at the clock and saw that it was five to ten. She was out with John tonight, either being laid or groped by that horny nut. I knew I didn't have any hold over her. But I still despised the idea of her giving that flabby chunk of fat the same combination of excitement and deep satisfaction that she had given me.
The cigarette I had lighted didn't taste good so I went into the kitchen and took a beer from the refrigerator. That didn't taste good either, because the beer and the kitchenette that looked cleaner than it had on any day since I first saw it both reminded me of Helen Stanton and what she was doing tonight.
I downed the beer and went back into the living room and pulled out the sofa turning it into a bed. I looked at the phone, and felt a numb ache inside me when I realized she would be too busy with John to call me. I looked at the door, remembering the half frightened expression on her face when I opened it last night and the words started to tumble breathlessly out of her mouth. I knew she wouldn't be here tonight, and the numb ache inside me grew worse, and I got into bed, it seemed lonely without her and tried to make myself go to sleep.
I didn't succeed very well. The one night we had spent together was enough to make me wake up during the night and reach for her, and feel a dull ache inside me when I realized she wasn't there. By morning, when I got out of the bed into an apartment that seemed lonlier than any place I had ever seen in my life, I knew I was being silly.
Helen was only a slut who had played games with me for one night, and might be willing to play them again, but who needed to play with other men because the variety was part of the excitement I just had to get her out of my system, and the only way I could think of to do that was with another woman, so I made up my mind to get that other woman as quickly as possible.
On my way to the store I thought about Faith and Jan, and the propositions Faith had made me. I didn't like the idea of paying a woman. Half of the enjoyment was in the idea that I could get her hot enough to give out fast. But, as Faith had pointed out, many times it would have been both cheaper and more honest to come right out and put it on a business basis. The woman had wanted presents, and good times, and both cost money. They had paid for them by coming across, but it was only a pretense to claim that they hadn't sold themselves. And the way they had done it often made me feel that the whole game was awful and rotten and dishonest, and more than once I had ended up feeling cheated without being able to complain about it If I paid Faith and Jan, I could get what I paid for without wasting time in the preliminaries, and I could make sure I got everything I paid for.
The whole thing began to seem better as I parked the car in the store lot and walked towards the employees' entrance. Just as I reached the store, John fell into step beside me, a smug, well satisfied smile plastered to his fat lipped face. "Wow, that was a real piece I had last night," he told me. "You should get some of it too, Jim. I can recommend it highly. And it's easy. All you have to do is call her up and putit to her bluntly. Don't waste time fooling around like I did."
I frowned at him. "Why tell me about it?"
"It's great," he said. "That's why. It was the best I ever had, but she's a nympho and wants a lot more than any one man can give her. I don't mind if you get some, too. She has plenty for both of us, and some to spare. Why don't you call her up today and ask her?"
Anger surged inside me. I wanted to pound my fist into his face and tell him I knew Helen was good because I had already slept with her. But a fight with another employee just inside the doorway of Stanton's wouldn't do anything to help my chances of staying in the training program and getting into the big money brackets.
I shrugged and held my feelings under control as best I could, and walked away from him. "Maybe I will," I said.
Still burning with anger, I went into the office and started to work. I finished quickly, and went out on thr floor to make sure the clerks were in their places, and saw Jan's big boobs bouncing in unison as she rushed across the floor to ring in on her register. If Helen could use her father's hired help to provide her with excitement, I decided I could use the money her father paid me for the same thing and headed straight for Jan.
"I was talking to Faith about you last night," I said. "She made me an interesting proposition. Do you know about it?"
She looked scared and looked over to where Faith was watching us carefully as she straightened the stock on a counter. "Yes." She uttered the word so softly I barely heard her. "I know what it is, Mr. Walker."
"How about tonight?"
She swallowed, and looked more scared than ever, and a deep blush spread over her lovely face as she looked at Faith again. She hesitated, then saw Mr. Sterling coming across the floor, and nodded quickly. "Well, yes, Mr. Walker," she said. "Yes, I guess so. Tonight will be all right."
"Are you sure?"
She took a deep breath and raised her head. "I'm sure," she said. "I've got to start some time and it might as well be tonight. And I won't be as frightened with you as I would with some man I didn't know at all."
A little shiver of excitement came through me as I realized just what she had agreed to do. I looked at her pretty face with the innocent dark eyes, and the full breasts that bulged out against the front of her low necked dress. "Then it's tonight," I said. "I'll take you out to supper first. And I'll pay fifteen dollars if what Faith told me is the truth."
She swallowed nervously. "It's the truth," she said. "Honest, Mr. Walker. It's the truth."
I felt better as I turned away from her. If Helen could play games with other men, I could play them with other women. The lush curves of Jan's figure had aroused me from the first time I saw them, and if I missed out on the fun of feeling that I was working her up to it, at least I wouldn't have to worry about whether I was going to get it or not.
The good feeling stayed with me as the bell rang to announce that the doors were open, and the customers walked into our department Among the first of them was a woman with a worried face, a very clean but cheap dress, and two boys, about nine and eleven walking beside her. She stopped in the boys' clothing section and looked through the coats on the racks and I went over to her, the words, "May I help you?" sliding out of my mouth from the habit I had formed in the past month whenever I saw a customer.
She smiled nervously, and nodded. "Yes you can. My boys need new coats, but I don't have much money. My husband has been laid off, and just went back to work again. He got his first pay check last week, and all I can spend today is eighteen dollars. I thought perhaps I could open a budget charge account I saw Stanton's advertisement in the papers. If I pick them out now I should be able to have a good choice and they'll be paid for before school opens."
"You want two coats for them to wear to school this winter, is that right?"
"That's right There were some advertised in last night's paper that you bought from a store that went bankrupt and are selling real cheap."
I looked at her, and at the two boys, and at the coats on the racks. "You can open a charge account if you wish," I said. "But if you have eighteen dollars to spend, why don't you just pick out two coats and put them in our lay-away department? You can pay the balance when your husband gets his next pay check. If you open a budget account it will cost you one percent a month interest, which comes to twelve percent a year. And the minimum charge is a dollar a month, so it really comes to a lot more than twelve percent interest if you owe under a hundred dollars."
She looked at me amazed. "Are you from the country?" she asked.
"A small town."
"That explains it," she said. "Most of the clerks in the stores here in town try to get a person to spend as much money as possible. I'm not used to one who tries to save money for me. Are the coats any good?"
"Some of them are very good, and some are not," I told her. "We did buy out a store that went bankrupt, and we can sell those coats for less than the first store paid for them. But a lot of the coats on the same rack were made to sell cheap, and they aren't very good."
She hesitated, then nodded, "I trust you," she said. "Pick out a coat for each of these boys and tell me how I can put them in your lay-away plan."
I checked the coats in their size ranges carefully, selecting the ones made of good material, and leaving the others behind. After I had the coats with good material out of the racks I checked the seams and the linings and the collars and button holes to see how they were made, and ended up with seven that were really bargains.
"Why can't I have that one?" the older boy asked.
"It's made of rayon and the seams are crooked," I said. "It will look real nice for the first time you wear it, but after that the coat will hang crooked, and the whole thing will start to fall apart. That's a coat made to sell at a low price. This one was made to sell for ten dollars more, and it's worth the difference. And right now it will cost you a dollar less than the other."
"Go ahead and try that coat on," his mother urged. "This man is being honest with us and he knows more about clothes than we do."
The boy smiled and tried on the coat While I was doing that I also offered coats to the younger boy, not hurrying either of them and not trying any of the standard basement tricks such as pulling a coat in at the back to make it look better when he stood in front of a mirror.
Thirty minutes later the woman had two good coats for her sons, at fifteen dollars apiece, plus the twenty-five cent service charge for putting them in lay-away.
I felt good as I watched her take the boys out, smiling. Then I turned and saw Mr. Sterling glaring at me from a few feet away. "For your sake, Walker, I hope she wasn't a professional shopper sent around by the store to rate the clerks," he told me."
"Why? That's a satisfied customer if lever saw one."
"Who cares if she is satisfied? This is the basement. Sell the customers the big profit items and get them on charge accounts so they have to come back. Keep the big accounts happy, but when they come into the basement take them for as much as you can. They shop here one time, and at a discount house the next. We have to get all we can out of them when we have the opportunity."
"I don't think much of that idea."
"I told you before, you aren't paid to think. You're paid to make money for the stockholders. Mr. Stanton's the one who decides how you should do that. You do what you're told. In the future, when a woman comes in with eighteen dollars to spend I want you to talk her into a charge account if you can, and to get as much out of her as you can. I don't want you to waste any more time like this. We won't make enough profit on those two coats to pay for the time you spent selling them."
He brought his hands up piously in front of his chest and touched the fingertips together as though he were praying. Then he turned and walked away. "Remember that Walker," he called back.
I shook my head as I watched him leave. The idea of taking customers for every cent we could get out of them was another of the many things I didn't like about my job. I knew there wouldn't be big money for me when I got upstairs unless we did make it from the customers, but the mere thought of how I would make that big money was one more point of pressure added to all the others which I worked under.
Then I saw Jan's big delectable boobs waving at me as she hurried from her cash register to a counter where a man waited for a package, and smiled.
The sight of her made me forget my anger and think about tonight
CHAPTER SIX
The routine was the same as usual, the same noise, the usual women coming to me with complaints the rest of the day, some of them justified, but most of them not In addition, John came over from his department at every opportunity to needle me about his date with Helen, and to suggest that I call her. And Mr. Sterling was around to snap and snarl and holler at me whenever he could find an excuse.
All these things added up to the almost untolerable feeling of pressure that I had felt ever since I started to work in the store. But I did have thoughts about Jan to balance it today. She smiled whenever she caught my eyes on her, and blushed, and stammered when I talked with her, and acted uneasy whenever I came near. I hadn't believed Faith when she told me Jan was a virgin, and I was doubtful about it when I talked with her today. Although the way she was acting almost convinced me that she really was one, and I started to wonder what it would be like tonight.
I'd only had one virgin in my life. I was in my early teens then, in high school, and going steady with a girl my own age. I'd had three girls before her, all of them experienced but not very good teachers. For three months I went around with this girl, necking with her every night, and going a little farther every time, but not going all the way because she was afraid.
When I finally talked her into it, I learned that I didn't know much more about it than she did. I had the proper equipment, including a jar of vasoline and we tried, and didn't succeed, she was so snug and unused, and then tried and did succeed, only to learn that it was a rather messy situation that pained the girl. She cried while I attempted to quiet her and didn't give me much pleasure. Then after I had come, I had decided I never wanted to see her again, she decided she liked it and for the next couple of months I found myself in the position where I didn't really want her but had her just about every night because she made me feel obligated and I had to do it to keep her happy.
Things would be different now. I knew a lot more about hot pussy than I did when I was younger. And if I paid Jan I wouldn't be under any obligation to her. If I like it and wanted it again, all I had to do was pay her more money. If I didn't like it, she couldn't make me feel as though I owed her anything else.
Gradually, as the day crept along toward evening, I realized that Faith was right when she told me it would be better for me to buy it than to go through a big seduction campaign. With nothing but money involved, I didn't have to worry about a thing except getting the most enjoyment that I could out of it.
I caught Faith watching me whenever she had a chance, her bright eyes veiled and a satisfied msile on her heavily lipsticked mouth. "You're going to have yourself an interesting time tonight, Mr. Walker," she told me when she came back to the department after lunch. "Jan is all shook up about this. She told me you are going to take her out for supper first so she spent the five bucks I gave her yesterday on some black undies to look good to you. She changed into them in the lounge this noon"
I looked at Jan and tried to picture her lushly curved body in black lace with a yearning cunt hidden in the folds. "That does sound interesting," I said.
"It will be." She nodded. "You'll start her on everything tonight Her first date and her first man and her first lay. You're really getting a bargain at fifteen bucks and a date for the party."
"This is where I'm supposed to get bargins," I told her. "It's the basement you know."
"I know," she said. "But you have to look for most of the bargains here or get stuck. You don't have to look for that bargain, and you're the one who will do the sticking."
I smiled after her as she walked away to wait on a customer. She had a tough way of talking that was almost masculine, and now that I was getting used to it I liked it. I wondered what the tricks were that she had offered to teach me last night. After thinking about them, I decided to find out as soon as possible. If Helen was going to play with men like John, I might as well get all the excitement I could, any place I could find it.
I didn't have a chance to talk to Faith again that afternoon. But I saw Jan looking at me with her big eyes several times, and blushing when she caught my eyes on her, and smiling timidly. That combination of her pretty, innocent looking face, her timidity, and the big boobs, soft looking body that swayed so invitingly when she walked and proud little ass all summed up to make the evening seem better every time I thought about it.
I couldn't keep my mind on my work after that, but kept looking at my watch and hoping the time would move faster, and cussing because it didn't. And at last the bell rang to announce that the doors were closing for the day, and the clerks hurried around the cash registers as they rang out, and I moved in with them, anxious to get the daily totals on the forms and the forms in the chute upstairs.
When I had the totals I went into the office and laid the forms out on the desk and a few minutes later I saw Jan standing in the doorway, fingering a small purse nervously. "Can I help you, Mr. Walker?" she asked.
"No, thanks. Just sit down and make yourself comfortable until I'm through. It won't take long. And my name is Jim, not Mr. Walker."
"Oh, yes, Jim. I know."
She smiled again, then looked dubiously at the desk and kept her distance as she made her way across the office to the chair. "Has Faith been talking about that desk?" I asked.
"She told me all about it last night, as soon as she came in. She thought it was funny."
"I guess it was at that," I said.
I turned back to the papers in front of me, and finished the work, and reached for my jacket "Is there any special place you want to go eat?"
"I don't know anything about the places in town. Faith and I have only been here a few weeks, and we didn't know anyone. And we didn't have any money to go out by ourselves."
I looked at the lush curves that appeared to be trying to burst out of her dress. I wanted to get that dress off, and the black underwear Faith had told me about. Then I saw the real fright in her face and decided to take it easy..This was one time when I knew what I was going to get, and there wasn't any point in rushing.
"The upstairs," is supposed to be the best place in town," I said. "I haven't been there yet, but this seems like a good time to go. How about it?"
"That would be just great!" she exclaimed. "I'd love it!"
"Then that's what we'll do first."
She smiled and walked out of the office with me, and looked up and smiled again. There was a strange mixture of fright and obstinate determination and excitement in her face, all three blended together. That mixture stayed there until we walked into the upstairs, and then the excitement took over, making her eyes sparkle as she looked curiously around.
It was just an ordinary night club, with dim lights and the soft hum of conversation punctuated by the tinkling of glasses and a band that played a latin beat beyond the dance floor. But it was enough for Jan. She grabbed my arm and hung to it tightly and walked along at my side as the headwaiter directed us to a table. "Wow!" she said breathlessly. "This is too great for words!"
I laughed. But I did like the way she made no effort to hide her pleasure. It made me feel very sophisticated and important to be able to show her something she hadn't seen before, and I felt the anticipation building up inside me as I realized that tonight I would initiate her to a lot of things she didn't know now.
I ordered lobsters from the waiter, and a scotch and water for myself and a whiskey sour for Jan, because she liked the name. " I can drink whiskey," she told me, confidentially. "But I don't now anything about these fancy drinks. I never had one before."
"Do you dance?"
"Oh, yes. Faith taught me."
"Did she teach you how to drink whiskey too?"
"Yes, she taught me a lot of things. As much as one girl can teach another, I guess. But naturally there were some things she couldn't teach me"
She stopped abruptly, and in the dim light I saw a deep blush spread over her face. Laughing I got out of my chair and held my hand toward her and directed her out to the dance floor. She was a good dancer, snuggling her soft body close to mine while her feet kept time with the beat of the music. When we went back to our table she was smiling happily, and her eyes were even brighter than before, and she laughed and licked her lips when she tasted the whiskey sour the waiter had left at her place.
"It is good," she said. "Gee but I've been missing a lot. I'm not going to miss out on anything more."
"You'll find out just how much you've been missing later," I said.
She looked scared for just an instant Then she nodded. " I know," she said.
The lobsters came then, and we ate, and finished our drinks and ordered more, and drank them while we watched the floor show. It didn't look like much to me, a six girl dancing chorus in brief red costumes, a singer who sang off color songs in a low pitched voice, and a belly dancer who put her body through seemingly impossible contortions while the band pounded out a wild beat behind her. But Jan was wide eyed with excitement as she watched, and squeezed my hand while she laughed at the dirty jokes rattled out be a bored looking middle-aged comic who acted as master of ceremonies.
When the floor show was over and I suggested we leave, she looked scared again. But she didn't hesitate. "Let's," she said. "I'm really having fun Jim."
I took her out to my car, and kissed her when we got in, and felt surprised as her tongue slid into my mouth to return the kiss expertly. "Did Faith teach you that too," I asked.
"Yes." She nodded, and wriggled happily beside me. "I told you Jim. She taught me a lot of things, as much as one girl can teach another. Like any other girl my age, I was just dying with curiosity and my mother wouldn't let me so much as look at a boy so I used to go upstairs in the afternoon to see Faith. She knew a lot of things I was curious about, and told me about them and we danced and drank whiskey if her dad had left any around, and made plans for how we would come here as soon as we could and have the things we wanted."
I put my hand on her shoulder and pushed it down inside the front of her dress to play with her nipple. She twisted around so there was more room for my hand, and laughed. "That feels good," she said. "Are we going to your place now?"
"That's where we're going."
She reached up and blew lightly in my ear. "Then hurry up," she whispered.
A shock of anticipation came over me and I started the car and swung it out into the street, driving fast to the street where my apartment was. I parked there and kiss her again, then took her hand and walked into the building. A package from Stanton's was leaning against my door when we reached it, and I felt puzzled as I leaned down to pick it up. Then I recalled that it was the robe I had bought for Helen yesterday morning, while I still floated on the cloud she had tossed around me. I was a little sad for a moment as I thought about her, and I wished she were the one with me now. Then I looked at Jan's well curved figure and decided that was what I needed to forget Helen and unlocked the door.
I brought Jan into my apartment, with the bed still spread out and messed as I had left it this morning. I turned on the light beside the door, went across the room to the closet and put Helen's robe inside, then turned to look at Jan, trying to concentrate on her enough to forget Helen.
She looked at the bed, and around the room, and then her big brown eyes met mine timidly. She waited expectantly for a moment Then she looked down at the handbag she was fingering nervously. "Faith said I should get the money from you first," she told me, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I forgot all about it."
I took out my wallet and handed her a ten dollar bill and a five. She folded them and put them away carefully in her purse. "You probably think we're terrible, she said defensively. "But we don't care. It's terrible to be as poor as we were, and to want things and not have them, and to have all your pals laugh at you when you go to school, and not even have enough to e a t. We both want pretty clothes and things like that, and if this is the way we can get them, we're willing to do it"
I shrugged. "I'm not positive you'll get what you want this way, but I'm not going to say you're wrong to try it. I'm not good enough to say anyone else is wrong for doing anything."
She smiled. "You're nice," she said. "You really are, Jim. I'm glad you're going to be the first one, and I wish I could do it for nothing. But we do need every cent we can get."
I smiled at her. "Well, you're paid now. When are you going to start earning it?"
She laughed and looked around the room. "I don't know how to go about it, but I guess I should take my clothes off first Is that what you want me to do?"
I felt suddenly self conscious as I watched her moving toward the closet. Now that I had given her the money, I knew I didn't know anything more about doing this on a business basis than she did. To cover my ignorance I turned on the lamp on the table beside the bed and turned off the light by the door. When I looked back I saw that she stood in front of the closet, her pretty face turned away so she couldn't look at me while her fingers nervously opened the buttons at the front of her dress.
A thrill of excitement came over me as I watched. She opened the dress down to her waist, and reached for the zipper at the side, and opened that slowly. Then her hand went to the hem and she lifted it, pulling the dress off over her head and shaking her hair as she took a hanger from the closet and hung up her dress and carefully placed it in the closet. She wore a slip beneath it and I saw her soft buttocks puffing out clearly against the sheer cloth.
Keeping her back to me, she leaned down and caught the bottom of her slip and pulled that up now, laughing nervously as it caught in her full plump breasts so she had to wriggle to one side to free it. Then the slip was off and she turned toward the bed, wearing a black lace bra and black lacy panties.
Without looking at me, she laid down on the bed and shifted to make herself comfortable. The light from the lamp beside her fell over her body with the big breasts that threatened to burst out of the tight bra, and pale skinned waist and the full hips covered by the panties and her soft thighs that looked very white with garter straps reaching down them from her belt to the tops of her sheer nylon stockings.
After a moment she turned her head and looked up at me. There was an expression of fear on her face when her eyes met mine. Then she smiled, and the fear vanished and she arched her body so her big breasts pushed themselves towards me. "Why don't you join me?" she said, softly.
Excitement flowed through me as I moved toward the bed. Standing beside it, I removed my own clothes and let them fall to the floor. Her eyes moved over me and I saw them widen at the sight of my wavering cock slightly wet from anticipation. She was fascinated by the gentle quivering motion.
"Could you please turn the light out?" she whispered. "I'm awful self-conscious right now, Jim." Even though she wanted darkness, her eyes never left the dead center of my lurching cock.
I turned off the light and waited a brief second in the darkness before brushing my hand against her now excited nipples. They were half hard and half soft and I thought that must be the condition she was in at that very moment.
She started to imitate me, moving her hands over me in the same area. Two fingers lightly brushed against the hair on my chest, then when she was sure it wouldn't wrap around her and choke her little pussy, she went deeper and on her own. My balls ached against her touch. I leaned on one elbow and raised my leg so my cock would be obliquely directed at the ceiling. There was just enough light for her to see it leaning out and gently pant a new kind of rhythm. She followed the line down to the quivering tip.
For one brief moment I thought about Helen and wished she were beside me instead of this inexperienced shop girl. But that was a hell of a way to think. Jan didn't exactly have Helen's build, but she was a lot more sincere and that meant something when it was all over.
She liked to use her tongue on me like a little puppy dog. One time she tried for my ear and I whipped her head back and shoved my tongue down her throat.
"Don't do that," I warned. My ear was off limits unless I was all darined out and needed an extra shot to keep going. Otherwise a wet tongue sets me up on end.
She needed her bra and panties to begin with, but now they were getting in the way. I fumbled with the double clasp on the bra, then I decided to reach underneath and squeeze her boobs out by themselves. She let out a short yelp when I started, then when I had both hands on top she squirmed the top of her body to make those ivory muzzles rotate in my hands.
Her panties came off much easier. She raised her hips to let me slide them from her firm hips. Before her bush was exposed she placed one hand down to cover her cunt I let her play this Utile game because it was making me all hot. like taking veils off the forbidden cavern. I knew I was going all the way in, but holding back made it that much more interesting.
I pushed her raised knees gently apart and at the same time lifted her nervous wet hands. An oval of sweat was left on the gleaming sheath and in the half light I imagined her cunt to be on fire, or at least smoldering from anxiety.
Before I could zero in on her dark triangle, she took hold of my pulsating cock and shoved the head between her moist lips. It was a surprise to move that fast but I caught hold of myself and knew the next move was all mine. Her cunt invited every inch to make itself at home. I could feel my head open up inside as though it had discovered an entirely new passageway. She grunted loud when this happened, but I wasn't listening or seeing anything. My pumping accelerated. I even forgot I had paid for it!
For the first time since the days in the service I gave out with a double shot. It was hot sperm and she tried to squirm away from it But when her own tepid seed met mine half way, the joining together produced a soft limpid liquid which soothed her aching joints.
I kissed her again, and let my Bps slide over her skin to the huge soft pillow of her breasts. She sighed as I played with her nipples and brought her head down until her tongue slid in to touch my nose. I winced, and she laughed. "You must like that too," she said. "I do."
She kissed my nose again and sent sparks through my gut while I nibbled on her breasts gently. I worked on her for a while stroking her soft belly and inner thighs. She squirmed and her hands started to move over my cock. "Could you rough me up a little?" she whispered. "I think I would like that."
I bit her harder and she moaned, but it was with pleasure more than pain. "That's right," she urged. "Rough me a little."
I dug my hand into the soft flesh of her belly, kneading it between my fingers and she squirmed. "That's good," she whispered. "That's good, Jim." My hand slid lower and found the moist tunnel of her.
She pretended to fight, pushing me away and biting while the hunger for her built up inside me again and I let my hands and my mouth discover her secrets. Then I was above her and within her and her lips were hot as they moved across my chest. "Relax," I whispered. "Relax now. I won't hurt you. Just relax."
I heard her panting, and the window fan hummed and the old refrigerator clanked. Then she started to sigh again, but this was a sound of pleasure not of pain, and her belly rubbed against mine as her hips swung in a slow circle.
"Relax," I said again. "That's it, honey. Just relax."
She had her hands on my back, rubbing them over my skin, and her thighs were warm against my hips while her soft body continued to move against mine. "You're doing good honey," I whispered. "Just fine. "That's it, relax, honey, relax."
CHAPTER SEVEN
We both lay silently for a while, resting. The first thing I was aware of as I parted from her and pulled myself away was the perspiration that had poured off me to make Jan's body feel oily. That reminded me of Helen, and the night we had spent together, and a sense of guilt settled over me. Then Jan laughed. "I'm no longer a virgin," she said.
She was silent for a moment then went on. "That was fun. Faith told me it would be, and she was right It wasn't like I anticipated at all, but it was fun."
She rolled over until her face was next to mine. "I won't be afraid the next time, Jim," she whispered. "Not even the least little bit There will be a next time soon, won't there?"
I stared up at the ceiling, thinking. At last I had learned why men were willing to pay. I had bought Jan, and paid for her, and now she was the one who was anxious for the next time. I didn't have to tell her lies, or buy her any gifts or make promises to keep her happy. All I had to do was offer her money and she was anxious to earn it.
"There won't be a next time if I have to pay fifteen bucks," I said.
"Oh, gosh no. We talked it over last night after Faith came home. Five dollars is what we'll charge you, for all night That's for either of us, or tricks and then it will be an additional five. We need the money real bad, and you're nice. It isn't as if we didn't like you."
"Thanks," I said. "For five bucks I might consider it But just one of you at a time. I don't see how I could handle two women at once."
"You should try it. We talked that over too, and we could have a real blast, the two of us and you. We could have something to drink, and play games and it would be loads of fun."
I was silent, trying to visualize what a man did with two women that he couldn't do better with one. I couldn't think of anything, so I shrugged.
She was silent for a minute. Then the bed creaked as she moved again and she turned the light on and I saw her reaching for the trousers I had dropped on the floor. She took my handkerchief out of the pocket and used it to wipe her thighs and belly.
She dropped the handkerchief to the floor and looked at the clock. "It's early yet," she said. "It's only eleven. Do you have any liquor we could drink?"
She had her hands up fixing her hair and I stared at her heavy boobs as they swung down from her chest My tooth marks were plain in the soft flesh, and on her belly, and her skin was red where my fingers had dug into it "I think I can find some," I said. "What do you want to drink with it?"
"Ginger ale, if you have it."
"I think I have some of that, too."
I climbed off the bed and went into the kitchenette and looked through the closets for a bottle of whiskey and got some ginger ale out of the refrigerator. I heard her moving around in the bathroom while I did that, but when I went back into the living room I found her in the bed, with her hair brushed and fresh lipstick on and the sheet tucked up under her chin.
The sheet fell away to disclose one of her pendulous breasts as she reached for the glass of ginger ale I held out. She waited while I poured whiskey into it and stirred it with her finger. Then she pointed to the bed beside her. "You might as well come on back," she said. "Just so I get to my room in time to put on clean clothes before I go to work. I don't have to be in any special time you know."
I raised the bottle and took a drink and felt the liquor burn through me as I got in beside her. She turned out the light and kicked the sheet away and I saw her body glowing in the light that came through the living window where the fan hummed noisely. I saw her arm move as she drank the highball. Then I heard her laugh.
"You can't imagine how many times I've wanted to do this," she said. "Faith probably told you how she ran around back home, and she always told me all about it the next day, and I wanted to do it too, but my mother would have murdered me if she ever caught me at it And some nights when Faith's parents were out she would bring her date home and they would go into her room. It was right above mine and I heard the bed up there squeaking and bouncing, and I heard them laughing, and I used to lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling and try to visualize what it would be like. And then Faith got some pictures from a man she was doing things for, and she showed them to me, and that made it worse. I would just lie there and stare up at the ceiling and know what they were doing and feel a strange hungry feeling burn all through me."
She stopped to drink again. "My mom was really odd," she said. "If she saw me smile at a boy she would take me home and make me strip bare naked and lie down on the bed and then she would spank me. She did that too when she caught me staring up at the ceiling when Faith was upstairs with a boy, and after a while I got real excited just from her spankings."
"If your mother was so scared of you getting involved with boys, why did she let you run around with Faith?"
"She didn't let me run around with her. If there wasn't anybody upstairs except Faith, mom would let me go up and wouldn't bother us, so we could fool around, looking at those pictures Faith had or dancing, or drinking some of her pop's liquor, and it was all right But the minute a boy or a man came around, mom would run right upstairs and pull me back down. She was just queer about men but I don't know if she got that way after pop ran off and left her, or if he ran off because she was that way before. All I know is that I couldn't stand it, living like I did."
"Where is she now?"
"She's still back home. When Faith and I left with our suitcases packed she told me she didn't want to see me again if I was going to run away. I told her the feeling was mutual, so I left"
"I'll be darned," I said.
I took another drink of whisky and felt a pleasant glow inside me. She finished her drink in silence. Then she slipped over to my side and her moist hand roamed over me. "Faith said you ought to be able to do it more than once in a night," she whispered. "Can you?"
Her touch was clumsy, but I felt it build up a hunger for her body. I took another drink of the whisky and put the bottle on the floor and laid out flat on my back, staring at the curved shadow that was her figure. "I might be able to," I said.
She came closer to me, and her breasts felt heavy as they rested loosely on my chest " Tell me what you like," she whispered. "I've got an awful lot to learn."
"You're learning fast."
She laughed and touched her tongue to my lips. I shivered and she laughed again and started to work on me clumsily. For the next few minutes all I heard was the refrigerator and the fan and the faintly whispered questions. "Do you like this?" or "Am I doing this right?" Then I found myself above her, looking down into her face and felt her breath warm against my chest as she sighed.
The excitement of taking a virgin was gone now, and the only thing left was the need to get as much pleasure from her body as I could. I made myself move slowly, not caring about her but merely using her for my own enjoyment She accepted that as the normal way of a man with a woman, and let me use her body as I pleased, but always without caring.
I went about what I was doing deliberately, and it was a long time before I moved myself away from her exhausted, panting, body. "Wow!" she exclaimed. "That was really something!"
"That's what I paid for."
She didn't object. "You sure got your money's worth, Jim. That was darned near as hard as a full day's work at the store."
I smiled and crawled over her and reached for my clothes. "Speaking of the store," I said. "We both have to go to work tomorrow."
"Don't talk about work," she groaned. "The next time I come here I want to bring fresh clothes with me so I don't have to go back to my own room."
Without saying anything I dressed and watched as she dragged herself off the bed. " That was some workout," she said. "I ache all over."
"I thought you liked it rough."
She frowned at me as she pulled her panties up over her garter belt. "I do," she said. "I was kind of frightened that it would hurt, but once I start to get hot I wanted it to hurt. I don't know why, unless it's all those spankings mom gave me. I just sort of like what we were doing and hurting together, but the hurting feels good, if that makes any sense to you."
"Not really."
"It doesn't make much sense to me either," she agreed. "I guess that's just the way I am."
She finished dressing, and smiled at me as she picked up the purse where she had put the fifteen dollars. "I'm going to use the money to buy a dress to wear to the party," she said. "And maybe Faith and I can earn some more from you before then, so I'll look real pretty. I don't want to go unless I look good so you won't be ashamed of me."
"Don't worry about it," I said. "I don't pay much attention to clothes."
"Maybe you don't, but there are bound to be a lot of women at the party from the store, and they won't miss a trick where clothes are concerned."
I shrugged and opened die door for her and she walked out to the corridor. We didn't speak again until I stopped in front of the house where she lived. She kissed me then, jabbing her tongue into my mouth, and whispered, "Good night, Jim. Thanks for the lesson. I had fun."
I felt completely exhausted as I drove back to my place. I didn't even think of a thing as I went into the room and fell down on the bed without even trying to straighten it I didn't even think about Helen until morning when the alarm clock woke me abruptly out of a sound sleep and I looked at the next pillow and saw that it was empty and felt the little knot of loneliness eating at me.
She was the person who was on my mind when I got to the store. I said hello to both Jan and Faith, but casually, as though they were strangers. I went about my work as usual, getting things ready to start the day. But I went about my work as usual, getting things ready to start the day. But I was still thinking about Helen, feeling guilty because of what I had done last night, and angry with her at the same time because she had done the same thing with John. Then, less than ten minutes after the doors opened, I saw a red head bobbing through the crowd toward me and I recognized it immediately.
I waited, watching as the face appeared through the crowd, and the slender high-breasted figure, and the perfect legs that carried her straight to me. "I'm not proud," she said. "If you won't call and ask me to return your key back and let me model the nightie I bought for you, then I can come and ask for an appointment When can I see you?"
"You're the boss' daughter," I said. "I want to keep my job so I have to make myself available any time convenient for you."
"Just what does that mean?"
"It means I found out about you."
"I didn't make any attempt to hide the anger in my voice. "Stanton's is your private stud farm. Whenever you're in the mood for a man you order one sent out special delivery."
Her face was pale white, and she made a move to walk away. Then she stopped herself and looked up at me. "I'm not going to be like my sister and suffer in silence," she said. "If anyone told you that, he lied. I go out with men from the store a lot, but for just the opposite reason. There isn't one man here except you who would dare put his hands on me if I tell him to keep his hands off. And I have told every man who made anything even remotely like a pass to do that. Except you. Do you believe me?"
A sick feeling hit my stomach as I looked from her grave face to where John was working, and then back at her again. "So that's who it was," she told me. "I should have known, after the big build up he gave you as some kind of a sex fiend."
"He did what?"
"He didn't come right out and say it, but he hinted that you were the worst chaser in the store, raping the women in the stock room while there were customers on the floor, and things like that. If I hadn't known you, I would be scared to walk into your department"
She asked. "When he talked about me, did you believe him?"
I tried to think of some way to put it that wouldn't hurt her, and couldn't find one. "Yes," I simply answered.
Quick anger flared in her eyes, and vanished just as quickly. "I don't really blame you," she said. "The way I acted the other night was enough to make anyone think the worst of me. Just what did he say?"
"Never mind what he said, "I told her. "He tried to arrange things so I would get kicked out. of here in a hurry. He didn't know I knew you and worked on me to call and proposition you cold, and he worked on you to expect something like that That would have been the end of my job here, when your father found out about it"
"You don't have to worry about that now."
"I know I don't I'm going to take care of that creep the minute you leave."
She looked at my clenched fists, and shook her head. "That would get you kicked out of here," she said. "If you're going to hit him, let's work out a way you can do it without losing your job."
"How can we do that?"
"Did anyone hear him talking about me?"
I thought about it carefully, and shook my head. " No. The only time he talked about you was when no one else was around to hear."
"Then maybe we could get him to say something now that I could hear. For one employee to get in a fight with another during store hours wouldn't work. It wouldn't look too good to father. But if the fight was because one of those employees insulted his daughter, and his daughter overheard it, and told him about it, he might even give him a raise. Are you willing to try to trick him?"
She smiled at me mischievously. "Sure," I remarked. "What were you supposed to do if you followed his advice, just call up and ask me to go to bed with you?"
"That says it, yes."
She frowned. "Nancy liked motels," she said. "There was one she went to most of all, just outside the city. Let's use it to give him an excuse to make a crack about me. If he does, you can smear him from one end of the basement to the other and I'll stand around the corner and cheer. Are you game?"
"Yes."
"But before we do it, how about a date? I'm not the bashful type, in case you didn't find that out the other night"
"I found it out," I said. "Just name the time and the place"
"Can you make it tonight?"
"Yes."
"Then can you come to the house to get me, as though I'm a normal human being? I want you to see the way I live. If you do, maybe you can understand me a little."
"What time?"
"Come over when you get through work. I'll be ready. You do know where I live, don't you?"
"Everybody in town knows that, the old Stanton mansion out on Bellview Place. I've never seen it, but I've heard plenty about it"
She said, "There's a sign out front by the gate. You won't miss it Now let's see what we can do with John."
She directed me to the far side of the rack of men's suits beside John. She led me there, and stopped when she was just across the rack from him, but hidden where he couldn't see either of us. "Then it's tonight at the Clover Motel?" she said clearly. " It sounds wonderful, Jim. You make the arrangements for the room and I'll bring some liquor. We'll have a real blast."
She winked at me, then walked around the rack and stopped suddenly. "Why, John!" she exclaimed. "I didn't know you were there. But now that I have the opportunity, I want to thank you for the advice you gave Jim. It was excellent advice, and I'm sure we'll have a most exciting evening."
She turned back to me. "Don't forget," she said. "The Clover Motel, tonight"
She walked off, as though headed for the street, then stopped as soon as she was out of John's line of vision and came quietly back toward him. He looked at me, his eyes enormous and his face drained of color. His mouth worked as though he were trying to speak and was so bewildered he couldn't Then he looked back and saw Helen standing close enough so she could have heard him, and he looked from her angry face to my clenched fists and a look of comprehension showed on his own fat face.
"You liar!" she exclaimed. "This is one time when I wish I were a tattle tale who carried stories to my father!"
"I don't know what you can possibly be referring to, Miss Stanton," he said innocently. "I have never mentioned your name to Mr. Walker and if he said I did he was mistaken."
"You're a dirty liar!" I hollered.
I moved toward him, my fists swinging. He looked at them and tried desperately to cling to his dignity as he turned around and lumbered away. "Please excuse me," he said to Helen. "I have work to do."
Her lips formed a word she couldn't bring herself to say as she stared after him. Then she turned to me. "I hope we arrange it better the next time. He doesn't even have courage enough to stand up for himself, and I really want to see him get it now."
"There will be a next time," I said. "Either with or without your help."
She smiled and took another step towards me, and cupped my chin in the palm of her hand as she raised! herself on the dps of her toes to put her soft lips very; tenderly against mine. "Please don't go chasing after him tonight," she whispered. "We have a date, you know. That's more important to me."
"It's more important to me, too," I agreed.
She smiled again, and walked away. I felt a cloud rising up gently around me as I watched her. Through it I saw Mr. Sterling standing a few feet away, his fingertips pressed together and his thin-lipped mouth pursed as he looked at me. For a moment I thought he was going to snap another order at me. Then he frowned thoughtfully after Helen, and left me without saying a word.
Then I caught one more glimpse of Helen's pretty legs as she went up the escalator, and all I could think about now was our very exciting date for tonight
CHAPTER EIGHT
In a few minutes my thoughts were interrupted when Jan came up to me, smiling and blushing at the same time. "That was really fun last night," she told me. "Will I see you again tonight?"
"Not tonight," I remarked.
She pouted. "Faith and I were talking this morning, and we would like to have a party, just the three of us. It would really be something!"
I looked at her lovely face, and at the big, soft boobs I had squeezed so nicely the night before and I realized another of the advantages of paying a woman. If I had worked Jan into my bed with presents and sweet talk and money spent entertaining her, I couldn't help feeling obligated to her. As it was, I didn't owe her a thing, and my conscience was clear.
"It probably would be interesting," I said, "But I have another date this evening."
"Oh."
She looked disappointed as she walked away and I smiled as I watched her round hips swinging. I was sure her disappointment was for the money she and Faith might have earned with their party, not because they wanted my company so desperately.
I was in a good mood after that. I whistled happily as I went about my work, and kept my good humor with complaining customers, no matter how absurd their complaints, and did my job so thoroughly, that Mr. Sterling couldn't have found a reason to holler at me even if he had wanted to after seeing the boss' daughter kiss me in public.
The only thing wrong with the day was that it seemed to drag on. I thought the bell would never ring to announce that it was over. But it did ring, finally, and I finished my work as soon as possible and drove fast back to my apartment I showered and shaved for the second time that day, and put my best sport coat and a new pair of trousers and straightened the room hurriedly before I left.
It was just after seven when I turned into a curving blacktop driveway.
I parked in front of four tall white columns that faced a very formal portico, and felt like an unwanted stranger as I looked around. This was Helen's house, and for the first time since I saw her in the basement I realized just i how wealthy her family was, and how poor I was by comparison.
I had to force myself to walk up the stone steps and across the porch to the huge front door. I rang the door-i bell, and heard nothing to indicate that a bell rang in the house, and reached out to ring it again just as the door swung open silently. A tall man wearing a pair of black trousers and a black coat stood there looking at me solemnly out of a sharp-featured, arrogant face.
I looked back at him, and dimly realized that I was seeing my first live butler, and said, "Miss Stanton, please."
He managed to express complete disapproval of me as his cold brown eyes examined my clothes. "Who is calling, Sir?" he asked.
"James Walker."
His face told me very plainly that he wasn't at all impressed by me, but he nodded and stepped back. " The drawing room is this way, Mr. Walker. Miss Stanton expects you and will be down shortly."
He showed me into a room that seemed only a little smaller than the main floor at Stanton's. I sat down and watched as he went out, still managing to express his complete disapproval of me. When the door closed behind him I shifted uncomfortably in the chair and wished that I hadn't come. Then I heard the quick tapping of pumps on the tiled floor just beyond the door, and the cloud rose up around me again even before Helen appeared.
"Hi!" she said. "I didn't warn you about the man at the door because I was afraid you would change your mind about coming if you know you would have to fight your way past him."
She was wearing a very simple white dress that emphasized the perfection of her sharp breasted and narrow waisted figure, with gold earrings, and spike heeled black shoes. I let my eyes slide over her, and then they went back to her small featured face.
"For a date with a woman as beautiful as you are tonight, even that man couldn't keep me away," I said.
"Thank you!" she kissed me and turned in front of me. "After I left you today I bought this for our date. I'm glad you like it."
"I do," I said. "I like it so much I don't care if your butler despises me."
"Harold despises everybody," she said. He earns eight hundred dollars a month plus his room and board, and managed to steal more than his share in kickbacks from grocery stores and places like that. And he despises the whole world. Sometimes I think that is why he's a butler. So he can show how much he despises everybody."
"I didn't even know there was such a thing anymore."
"Oh, yes. There are three of them in town, all of them working under the same arrangement as Harold. This house is used for business entertaining and there is some kind of a tax break that makes a butler a business employee. It doesn't cost my parents any more to live here than it would in a normal house, and they get a chance to put on the dog at the expense of other taxpayers."
There was bitterness in her voice that annoyed me as she led me into the hallway. An attractive woman with a mature figure was coming down a flight of curving stairs at the far end, and Helen stopped, waiting. As the woman came closer, I noticed that her eyes just flicked over everything around her, including us, as though she didn't really see them.
"Mother, " Helen said. "This is Jim Walker."
The woman's smooth, unlined face smiled momentarily, and her eyes looked me over so quickly I was positive she had no idea what I looked like. "How do you do, Mr. Walker," she said in a cultured voice. "I'd love to stop and talk with you, but I'm late and really must hurry. Have fun, you two."
She waved and went on to the door the butler held open, and I felt disappointed as I looked after her. Helen was twenty years old and her mother hadn't made any attempt to find out who I was or where we were going or what we intended to do. That was not the way I expected a mother to act
"She's looped," Helen told me.
"Looped?"
"Crocked to the ears. Drunk. Or in just plain English, plastered."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive," she said. "She and father both stay drunk all the time. She is at the calm on the outside and numb on the inside stage now. When we get back she and father will both be home. She'll be at the raving stage then, and he'll be out on his feet, and I'll show them to you. Maybe after you've seen them you will understand me."
"It's hard to believe," I said. "I know."
She made an attempt at smiling and took my arm. "Would you like to see the house? It's on the gaudy side, but you night find it interesting."
"It makes me feel as though I were in a museum."
"It makes me feel like that also, and I've lived here all my life. This place is anything but a home."
She directed me into a room that opened off the corridor, and beyond that there was another, and then another. All of them were huge, and filled with ornate furniture, with crystal chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings with big paintings on the paneled walls. "Grandfather obviously gave a decorator a check and told him to buy as many square feet of art as he could for the price," she waved her hand around. "There are only a few that are valuable. The rest are worthless, worth about thirty dollars apiece."
"I like them," I said. "That obviously proves I have a terrible taste in art."
She laughed happily for the first time since I had entered the house. "It proves you're honest, Jim. I like them too, but most people praise them until they learn how much they're worth and then they say they are terrible."
"It's the house that is terrible. It's overpowering."
"That's the truth. Grandfather wanted to show everyone in town how wealthy he was and that's what this is, a display of too much money."
"Let's get out of her," I said. "I've had all I want of this place. I don't see how you can live here without going beserk."
"Who says I'm not?"
"I do."
"Gosh, thanks." She reached up on her toes and kissed me tenderly. " That makes me feel better. And as for living here, I have an apartment of my own in the west wing of the house cut off from everybody else. We'll go there when we get back."
"I thought we were going to my place."
"We can go there tomorrow night, if you don't have another date. I want you to see mother and father when they're in their glory, and tonight is one of the very few when both of them will be home. After I show them to you we can go up to my apartment and do the same thing we would at your place. No one will disturb us. But let's go eat now."
She took my hand and directed me back through the house to the front door and then out to my old Buick that looked very much out of place parked in front of the imposing portico. "I like you car," she told me as she got in. "Especially the front seat because I can sit close to you. Cars with bucket seats may be comfortable, but they sure don't do anything for romance."
She moved over close to my side and laid her hand on my leg. There was a stirring between my thighs. "Where do you want to eat?" I asked.
"How about the Vtila Capri? They have wonderful Italian food, if you like it."
"I do."
"Then I'll tell you how to get there."
I caught the subtle scent of her perfume as her lips ran over the side of my throat with a gentle touch that sent shivers through me. Then she laughed and stopped teasing me while I started the car. She gave me the directions as I drove across town to a small restaurant. We had ravioli and split a large salad with a vinegar and oil dressing, and I drank three bottles of beer while she drank one.
The soft candlelight on the table touched her face very gently, making her look more beautiful than any other woman I had ever seen.
Sharp tingling strings of spark shot through me just from being close to her, and the pulse in my wrists pounded with excitement as I thought of what would come later. But neither of us felt like hurrying. We talked for a long while, about things that weren't important but seemed as though they were because I was talking about them with her. She smiled often, and laughed at my jokes with a happy, carefree air. Then she looked at her watch and deep lines of strain showed in her face.
"Let's go home," she said tonelessly. "Mother and father will both be in top form by the time we get there. I want you to see them."
I was puzzled by the sudden change in her manner. She was quiet when we walked out to the car, and sat beside me all the way to her home without saying a word. When we got there she told me to park at the side of the house instead of in front.
"This is my private entrance." She tried to smile as she handed me a key. "It lets me go straight up to my apartif I want. That's where we're going now."
Still trying to keep the smile on her face, she held my hand and moved off along a narrow corridor. That corridor came out on another. I heard what sounded like several voices coming from a room, and thought there was a party. Then Helen stopped at a doorway and waved her hand into the library and I stood behind her, looking over her shoulder.
There were only two people in sight, a red-faced man who sat slumped in an arm chair at the far end, behind a huge desk, and a woman who staggered in drunken circles in front of him, her arms waving and her head thrown back.
It took me a moment to realize that she was the only person talking. She cursed steadily in a low pitched monotone, then shouted obscene curses, and screamed, and dropped her voice to a hoarse tone that sounded like a man's, and quickly raised it again to a high pitched wail. I shuddered when I caught the words she was using. This was the beautifully dressed woman with the young figure who had been in too much of a hurry to ask where her daughter was going when I met her in the front hallway. Now she was shouting obscene curses at her husband who just sat back in his chair, his arms moving occasionally as he poured liquor from a bottle into a glass he had and drank it. The only times she stopped cursing was when she filled her own glass from another bottle sitting on the table, and drank that
"They're my mother and father!" she told me. "That's all they've ever done as long as I've known them, a pathetic pair of drunks!"
She turned toward me, and I put my arms around her and stroked her soft red hair clumsily while she cried. "I hate it, Jim," she cried. "I hate it! I hate it! They're my parents, and all they have is money and liquor!"
I felt completely useless as I stood there with my arm around her, trying to comfort her. Then she took the handkerchief I offered her, and smiled as she wiped the tears away. " Now you know what's wrong with me," she said. "Come on. Let's go up to my place and have a beer or something."
She showed me back along the way we had come to the side entrance. She turned there, and went up a flight of stairs, and unlocked another door with a key and waved her hand. "My apartment."
She had a regular apartment there, shut off entirely from the rest of the house. There was one large room fitted up as a sitting room, two bedrooms, and a kitchen that contained a stove and a refrigerator and even a washing machine.
"I forgot that you would need fresh clothes to wear to work tomorrow," she said. "But that's all right. I can wash your shirt now, and your underwear and socks, too. Everything will be fresh and ready in the morning."
"Do you mean that you expect me to spend the night here?"
"I certainly hope so. It's too lonely to wake up in the mornings and not find you next to me."
I frowned at the kitchen. I knew what she meant about being lonely in the mornings, but I couldn't bring myself to accept the idea of spending the night with a girl in her own home, with her parents under the same roof.
"If you're thinking that my parents might object, forget it," she said, coldly. "You saw them downstairs. They're both so plastered they aren't really aware of anything. And no one will disturb us. The only door to this apartment is the one we used, and that's locked."
I hesitated, and she looked up at me. "What's the matter?" she asked. "Are you afraid?"
She left me abruptly and went into the bathroom. I heard water running and when she came out she had washed the tear stains from her face and put on fresh lipstick that made me very much aware of the nervous smile she gave me. Still smiling, she went into the living room. I followed her, and noticed that she was very tense, fighting to keep her nervousness under control.
She walked across the room to me, and turned so her back was within eash reach of my hands. "If you're too bashful to take your clothes off first, I'm not," she said. "Undo me, Jim."
Excitement pounded through me as I felt the zipper in my fingers, sliding down to her hips as the dress opened to reveal a band of white lace across her back, and more white lace over her hips, and the smooth white flesh of her back.
"There's a hook at the top," she whispered.
I unhooked it, and she turned to face me, trembling. "This comes down," she indicated the shoulders of her white dress. "Please take it off me, Jim."
The excitement was a wild torrent as I pulled her dress off her beautiful body. I saw it fall to the floor, and she stepped out of it, a very lovely person wearing a lacy white bra and half slip, both so sheer her flesh glowed through the cloth. For a moment we looked at each other. Then she cried out happily, and my arms were around her, my hands worked fast as they stripped off the rest of her clothes. Dimly, I realized that we were on the floor, her body quivering with eagerness as she helped me remove my clothes. A wild hunger exploded through both of us at the same time, and her firm, smooth body lunged up to accept my straining cock.
She didn't waste any time with what she was fondling in her hand. Her hips arched forward like a dancer about to make a huge leap. I was surprised at how firm her stomach could become when her legs were spread apart like that with her breasts elevated straight up. I wanted to tongue one of those stiff little nipples. It needed a little lubrication, standing at such rigid attention. But she was suddenly directing the show and working at even a faster pace than when I was unzipping her clothes. One leg wrapped around my thigh as she pulled my pants down and jerked at my shorts. She didn't want any obstruction between the plug and the socket. There was enough electricity to burn through any kind of covering, but still it felt great to feel hot flesh cringing up against my palpitating balls.
I was inside her heaving cunt several seconds before I was aware of what happened. She pumped for me and it was delicious to feel my head rotate evenly between those wet velvet walls. I squeezed her jogging buttocks until small pockets of firm white flesh were secreted in each hand. For some mad reason I wanted to bring them forward and munch on the delectable smoothness. But then I popped, streaming deep into her pulsating cavern.
I her the whimpering little cries of happiness below me. She was gradually pulling me down to the thick oriental rug. We lay together, still fantastically hooked. I wanted to roll over on top and perhaps pump a little on my own, but neither of us had that change-over energy yet
"That's what I needed," she whispered. "I was practically jumping out of my skin when we came up here."
She kissed me, her lips went tenderly over my face and shoulders. Then she laughed. "Now all I have to do is put your clothes in the washing machine and you'll have to stay. I got them off you, anyway."
She got up and stood above me, brushing her curly red hair back, the pink tipped breasts moving with the motion of her arm. She reached for the tiny bits of white lace on the floor and pulled one piece up over her hips and the other over her full breasts. "Some new undies I bought today," she said. " Do you like them?"
They were two tiny bits of white lace, so sheer her pale skinned body showed right through them. "I love them," I said.
"That's good. I bought a new negligee too, that I'll put on. But I want to get your clothes in the washing machine first, to make sure you don't leave."
She leaned down for the clothes I had removed, and laughed at me as she straightened up with them in her hands. "This is going to be some night, Jim!" she told me.
I stayed where I was for a couple of seconds, just lolling in the feeling of complete relaxation in every muscle. Then I heard the washing machine going in the kitchen and got to my feet and stretched. My trousers were in a tangled heap on the floor so I pulled them on and walked out to join Helen.
She stood by the kitchen sink, a pink and white cotton apron tied over her negligee that clung lovingly to every beautiful curve of her figure. "That's some combination you're wearing," I said.
"Isn't it?" She rinsed out my socks. "Sexy and practical at the same time. That's me."
She took two bottles of beer out of the refrigerator. She pulled the caps off the bottles of beer, handed one to me, set the other on the table, and untied her apron and put that on another table before she sat down.
I sat down across from her. "You're a strange kind of woman," I said.
"I know," she nodded. "I'm the poor, little rich girl, and I detest it."
She sipped at her beer. "I'd like to talk to you, Jim. May I?"
"Go ahead."
She put the bottle down on the table. "How much do you know about the financial affairs of the Stanton's?"
"I know it has a very good credit rating, and gross sales of over twenty-five mdlion a year. That's all."
"My grandfather," she said," started eighty-one years ago with a little hole-in-the-wall dry goods store that he built up until it was the biggest store in the city when he died. My father was just an ordinary boy from an ordinary family here in town. He went to work as a clerk in Stanton's when he graduated from high school, and worked his way up to department buyer when he was twenty-eight"
She stopped and took a pack of cigarettes out of a drawer and lighted one, pushing the pack across the table toward me. "My mother was twenty when she married father," she said. "As far as I can find out they were actually in love with each other then. But it didn't last."
"Mother was an only child and grandmother died when she was born, and my grandfather was already fifty years old and more interested in the store than his own daughter, so she grew up without any real home life. When grandfather died he left this house to father, but he left his stock in the store to mother. Some stock had already been sold to other people to raise money to enlarge the business and there were a lot of taxes to pay so they sold more stock to get money for that. Now mother owns about twenty-five percent of it, father owns about ten percent, and my sister and I each have a hundred shares, which makes about another two percent That means father has to get the votes of almost twenty-five percent of the stock held by people outside the family when he makes an important decision about the store. That isn't easy to do and problems are always coming up, like when the shopping centers were built in the suburbs and Stanton's had to open branches in them to keep up the volume."
She put out her cigarette. "I think it's the pressure brought on by all these problems that make father drink, and play around with other women," she said. "It's to escape the pressures, and because he has money and women want to get their hands on it badly enough to chase after him. And I think it's the women that makes mother drink. Every time she is in one of her drunken stages like tonight, it's the women she yells about, and nothing else. I'm sure they are what bothers her."
"How long has it been going on?"
"As long as I can recall. Nancy told me that when she was a very little girl they didn't drink so much and used to spend a lot of time together. But father was already president of the store when grandfather died, and from what I've been able to find out he started drinking heavily then, and has continued ever since. Both my folks have been alcoholics as long as I've known them, and that's why I've gone in for this way of living. Nancy turned herself into a tramp, and I saw her cry her heart out too many times to want to go through that myself. And I don't want to start on the big money and big drink road my folks have taken. The only other thing I could think of was to concentrate on being domestic, like a girl playing house. I like it I actually enjoy cooking and cleaning. It give me all kinds of little problems I can handle one at a time. I'd never be able to handle the big problems Nancy had, or my folks."
"How did you get started?"
"Norma started me, the cook who has been here so long."
"Did your father fix up this apartment for you?"
"No, grandfather had this made as a nursery for mother. She lived her with a governess when she was little, out of his way. And this is where Nancy and I lived, too. When Nancy left, I just took it over."
"Did you have a governess?"
"A dozen. Each one worked for a year or so, then left to get married. I would just get used to one when she would leave. It wasn't like having a real mother at all."
"Didn't your mother look after you?"
"Not really. She would come in to say hello, and then have to go right to a party or a meeting or something, like she did tonight in the hall. She never had any time for us."
"At least you didn't have to go without things," I said.
"Things are all I've ever had," she told me. "Like my birthday present this year. Father gave me a Jaguar sports car, with red upholstery. It's beautiful. The card on it said, 'Happy Birthday from father'. I loved it as soon as I saw it, but when I went into the breakfast room to thank him, he asked me what it was."
"I don't understand," I said.
"He didn't really give it to me. His secretary keeps a list of things like birthdays and holidays and buys the presents for him to give. When I went back to look at the card again, I saw that he hadn't even written it His secretary had. He could afford to give me the kind of a present most girls would consider perfect, but he couldn't take the time to write, 'Happy Birthday' on a card. Both he and mother give us everything money can buy, but they can't be bothered actually doing anything for us."
"Are you sure they actually drink as much as you've told me?"
"They both start the day with straight whiskey before breakfast. They both keep on drinking all day long. And they drink more every night, li they go to a party it's usually just enough to keep them going, but if there isn't any party, like tonight, they both drink themselves unconscious."
I thought about the hard-faced domineering man I had seen in the basement the morning I first spoke to Helen. "I don't see how any man can drink that much for years and continue to run a business like Gershwin's."
"I don't see how he does it either," she said. "But he does. And there are a lot of businessmen in town like him. They're under a lot of pressure and they have to drink and run around with women to escape it, and they aren't really aware of things like this big house that they're taking the pressure to have."
"It must be something more than the pressure," I said. "I can't believe that just because a man has a hard job he has to drink. I know I won't."
"I hope not," she said gravely.
I shrugged. She went to the now quiet washing machine and took my clothes out of it. " Not everything is bad," she told me from the utility room. " Nancy called this evening, just before you came. Tom called her and told her what I said on die phone and asked her if it was all true. When she said it was he told her to come and see him. She did. She's with him now, and they're going to get married again and start over. Maybe this time it'll work out."
"I hope so," I said.
I shivered, and looked up at her as she came back into the kitchen. "It's cold in here."
She smiled mischievously. "I was wondering when you would notice that. I turned the thermostat on the air conditioner way down on purpose. We'll have to go to bed to keep warm."
I ran my eyes over her body in the filmy negligee. Her smile turned into a happy laugh and she posed for me, one hand on her hip and her foot thrust out through the front of the skirt, so the thin cloth fell away to reveal one long, beautiful leg, naked to the lacy bit of cloth at her hip.
"I feel warmer already," I said.
She took hold of my hand and said, "I'm not just warm, I'm hot Come cool me off."
CHAPTER TEN
So we both went to bed and made love, with everything we did seeming completely natural and at the same time giving me a deeper satisfaction than I had ever achieved from any other woman. Then we went to sleep with Helen's head on my shoulder and her soft hair brushing against my face and the subtle scent of her perfume hovering over me.
When morning came she woke me with a gentle kiss. We made love again and then she pulled on a pair of black Bermuda shorts and a white blouse and hurried into her kitchen while I went into her very feminine bathroom. I found a razor, a package of blades, shaving cream, and a brush waiting for me there, each of them tied with a pretty blue ribbon and a card, 'Compliments of the house'.
The odor of freshly made coffee was strong in the air, and frying bacon, and I went out to the kitchen where she had breakfast, including scrambled eggs, waiting for me. "Darned if you can't cook," I said. "You're quite a gal."
"Don't brag too much until I've cooked something for you besides breakfast. How about supper at your apartment tonight?"
"That will be okay with me, if you want to do it."
"I want to. What do you have in the way of cooking utensils?"
"I'm not too sure. The only cooking utensils I've used are the frying pan and a couple of pots."
"Maybe I'd better see what you have first and then decide what to cook."
I pulled out my wallet and handed her a ten dollar bill. "Is this enough to buy the food?"
"For one meal, gosh, yes. You'll even get some change back."
I looked at my watch and kissed her hurriedly and went out to my car. I didn't mind when Mr. Sterling snarled at me, or when Jan and Faith tried to attract my attention by teasing me, or even when John came over from the next department to slap my shoulder and call me 'Sonny', just as though we hadn't come close to fighting yesterday. The only thing I really thought about was Helen, and the fact that she would be waiting for me when I went home tonight.
I was happy as I rushed up the stairway and fitting my key in the door. Then I was in the front room, and she was coming toward me from the kitchen. There was an odor of steak in the fire and her face was flushed from the heat of the stove, and her red hair was mussed. She wore the green robe I had bought her, and the front of it flared open as she walked, displaying her long, round legs. Without a word I kissed her and picked her up and carried her to the bed.
She bounced when I dropped her, untying the sash around her tiny waist and rolling her over, shucking the housecoat off like a corn husk as I did.
"Hey!" she commented. "You must be in a hurry!"
"I am," I said. "Supper smells so good I don't want to waste any time working up my appetite."
She laughed again, and her fingers helped me take off the tiny bits of green lace she wore, and my own clodies, and then her body was arching up to receive mine. Her beautiful box was spread open to take my work-weary cock. It suddenly became alert and took the first lunge halfway down to the bottom of the well.
It was over in a minute, and she laughed as she combed her fingers through my hair. " That was a quick one," she said. "Quick, but nice. Perhaps if I feed you real well you'll want to try it again after supper."
"I'll want to try it again after supper even if I have to take you out to a diner to eat."
She kissed me, then reached for the bra and panties I had pulled off her. "How did you happen to pick out just this shade of green?" she asked, indicating the robe.
"I don't know," I said. "It just seemed as though that shade would look good on you. Why?"
"It's exactly the shade of green I wanted. After you left I stretched out here on the bed and stared up at the ceiling and listened to your refrigerator and thought about what color undies to get. I thought of black right away, and then this shade of green, and when I did I hoped you would get the same shade in the robe. We must be psychic and can read each other's thoughts."
"It was probably a coincidence."
"Maybe," she said. "But when you looked at my legs that day in the store I knew right away that you wanted to go to bed with me. I could feel it in my tummy."
"Any man who looked at your legs would want to take you to bed."
She raised first one and then the other, looking at them critically. "Are they really that nice?"
"They're downright beautiful."
"Thanks," she kissed me. "You'll get a second helping for that."
"A second helping of what?"
"Of steak first. If that builds up your strength you can have a second helping of me, too, if you want it"
"I'll want it."
She smiled and rolled out of bed and wrapped the robe around her, tying the sash. "Come," she said. "Supper is ready."
I rolled to my feet, grabbing my shirt and trousers and putting them on I followed her. She had steak and trench fried potatoes and corn on the cob and a tossed salad, all waiting for me and a cold bottle of beer at my place.
"Aren't you going to drink anything?" I asked.
"I don't need anything to make me drunk when I'm with you. Just being near you is enough."
"Now it's my turn to thank you," I said. "You're welcome."
Her face was anxious as she watched me taste the meat. "It's good," I said. "You thought of everything."
"Not everything. I forgot dessert."
"That's okay. I can have you."
She smiled mischievously. "That's why I forgot it I was hoping you would say that"
I laughed and went on eating hungrily. She asked, "Why do you stay at Stanton's when you have a chance to go into partnership with your father? I was through there the other day and it looked like a very nice town to me."
"It's okay," I said. "A little crass maybe, but not too bad as towns go."
"Then why stay in town and get caught in the rat race when you don't have to?"
I shrugged. " I told you before, there's more money for me in Stanton's after I work my way up than there ever would be in Dad's shoe business."
"Money isn't everything. Look what too much of it has done for my mother and father."
"It may not be everything, but it is the symbol of success and every man wants to feel he is successful. I'd rather work my way up and get to the top strictly on my own."
"Like my father did?"
I frowned. " No. Marrying a woman to get a hold on a business is even worse than for a man to go in with his father. I want to work my way up without using someone else to help me."
"You're obstinate," she told me.
I smiled. "That's what my dad says."
She picked up the plates and carried them to the sink to wash them. I climbed out of my chair and took a dish towell off the rack and started to dry.
"I still don't see why you think there wouldn't be a good future in the shoe business," she said, suddenly.
"Now who's being obstinate?"
"I am," she admitted. "There's even a new shopping center going up , where a modern shoe stores would be handy for the people in the town."
I stared at her suspiciously. "I know all about the shopping center and the new business and everything else. My dad bought the land where a development is going up, about fifteen years ago, and he's had the land where the shopping center is being built almost as long. He leased that to an investment company that is putting up the buildings with an arrangement so he can put in a shoe store himself if he wants. That's the one he wanted me to take over."
"Really?" After bringing up the subject herself she looked so completely unconcerned that I was puzzled. "I think I'll get ready for bed now. It's almost eight-thirty, and that is bed time for a couple of hard working people like us."
"Yeah," I said. "Can I help you?"
"No." She wrinkled her nose at me. "You won't appreciate my new nightie if you help me put it on. I want to take a shower anyway, and I'll change in the bathroom. Why don't you read the paper or something while I'm doing that?"
"Okay."
I followed her into the living room. She had brought the paper in earlier and left it on a chair so I sat down and picked it up.
Soon I heard the bathroom door open and looked towards it She stood in the doorway, wearing a night gown the very same shade of very pale green as the robe I had bought for her. Very simply made, it was only a thin film of nylon that fell smoothly down her body. Her full breasts were projected toward me, with the pink nipples clearly visible through the transparent cloth, and every beautiful curve of her figure was revealed as she stepped into the room.
"Not bad," I said. " Not bad at all."
She smiled and pulled back the top sheet and slid gracefully into the bed. "If it isn't bad, then you might be willing to put on a pair of pajamas and join me."
"Do I have to wear pajamas?"
"Well, you probably will take this nightie off me before the night is over and it would be more fun for me if I can take the pajamas off you. That way we'll come out even."
I smiled. "It sounds interesting, too."
I went to the bureau and pulled out a pair of pajamas that were almost the same shade of green as her gown. I carried them into the bedroom and showered and shaved hurriedly, and put them on. When I came back she was sitting up in bed. Her curly red hair caught the light from the lamp beside her, and glowed softly, and she smiled at me, and her full, sharp tipped breasts were clearly visible beneath the filmy gown.
I saw her boobs moving as she reached for the sheet at her side and lifted it, motioning for me to slide in beside her. Her tongue jabbed into my mouth to send sharp stings of sparks through me when I kissed her, and her boobs felt firm and very smooth beneath the cloth as I stroked them.
She shivered and rubbed her cheek against the side of my face. "You shaved again," she whispered. "Now you feel real good."
My hands were exploring her breasts, twisting her nipples gently until they grew hard and swollen and were warm to the touch. "You feel good, too," I said.
She moved closer to me while her fingers worked at the buttons of my pajama jacket. "There's a tiny bow on each shoulder strap of my nightie," she whispered. And another one at the side of the waist."
Her hand went to my unbuttoned jacked to trail lightly across my chest while I fumbled with the bows. "That's right," she whispered. "Now for the other one. That's it." I traced the straight smooth line from between her breasts down to the soft hairs surrounding her cunt. She traced a similar line on me only her find was much harder to handle.
"Oh, Jimmy, it feels so good with your hands on me. Oh, don't move them away."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We bodi slept soundly during the night. Helen awakened me with the butterfly wing touch of her lips. We made love, then she went into the kitchen to cook breakfast while I showered and shaved. I ate and kissed her hurriedly, and started for the door. Just as I was about to open it she stopped me with one word, "Jim!"
I turned and saw her standing in the kitchen doorway one hand holding the green robe close around her throat while her eyes looked at me unhappily. She paused, and her lips moved without saying a word, and then an expression of determination came over her and she asked, "Have you thought of marrying me?"
I didn't think I had heard her right. "What?"
"Have you thought of marrying me?"
I looked from her pale face to the rumpled bed and back to her face again. "I can't," I said. "You're the boss's daughter."
"You don't have to work at Stanton's."
"I applied for that training program because it was a chance to go up fast," I said. "It's the best opportunity I could possibly have. If I leave and go to another store looking for a job it will look as though I quit here because I was scared I couldn't make it. That will put two strikes against me before I start."
"You could go in with your father, in Coleville. He won't care why you left Stanton's."
"That isn't any good," I said, impatiently. "Riding on his coattails would be almost as bad as marrying the daughter of the president here. I have to make it on my own."
She nodded unhappily. " Then I'll send your key back to you by a messenger."
"Aren't you going to be here tonight?"
"No."
A numb feeling came over me. I understood what was happening, and had anticipated it, but it happened sooner than I thought it would. "Do you want me to go to your place?"
"No."
A quick anger burned in me. "Are you telling me that if I want to go on seeing you I have to marry you?"
"I'm not telling you to do anything." She shook her head slowly. "I just can't continue like this, that's all. I have to stop while I can."
"Why?"
She hesitated and then she spoke. "When I was a youngster I had a horror of being raped, like Nancy was. To make sure that couldn't happen to me, when I was fifteen I put on a lot of makeup to look grown up one night when there was a parry at the house and went down to it. I found a man who was older, maybe twenty-nine, and so inebriated he didn't know what he was doing, and got him to go up to a bedroom with me and seduced him. Actually, it didn't amount to anything, it just hurt a little and that was all. But it took the fear of sex away from me, and the curiosity that girls have, too. I truthfully never really wanted another man until the night I came here, and no man touched me from that first time until you and I went to bed. I wasn't virgin, but I was a long ways from being a whore. I don't regret what we did. It was wonderful. But it won't be wonderful if we continue. I'll either get pregnant and then you'll feel you have to marry me when you don't want to, or we'll have an affair that gets messy and breaks up and after that there'll be other men and I'll wind up a tramp like my sister. I don't want either of those things to happen and the only way to make sure they don't is to call it quits right now."
I looked at the room and saw the ugliness of its dingy walls and furniture, and then I looked at her face and saw misery written on it. I wanted to say something that would make her change her mind because I didn't want the agony of not having her with me. But I knew she had been hurt, deeply, by her parents, with too much money and too little love, and I also knew I could hurt her too. I didn't want to do that.
. I kept silent, looking at her, not wanting to believe any of this was even real, though I knew it was. "I'll miss you," I said finally. "It's going to be lonely without you."
"I'll miss you too, Jim." She tried to smile and could not quite make it. "I'd like to hear from you from time to time, to make sure you're all right. But please don't call me right away and ask to see me. If you do, I'll give in and then I'll have to go through this again. It's taken all the courage I have to do it once. It would be harder the next time, but it has to be done."
"Why did you ask me if I ever thought about marrying you?"
"It would be different if you were. We could take the time to get to know each other, and if we went to bed now and then it wouldn't be really bad. There isn't any point to this. It's just something that was wonderful, but could develop into a real mess if we let it continue too long."
"Are you in love with me?"
"I don't even know that. It was a mixture of things that started this, the strange way I felt when you looked at me in the basement, and the funny feeling I got in my tummy when we were talking in your kitchen, and that remark Tom made on the phone, and the third beer when I never drink more than two. And then all those sparks shot through me when you touched me. They all added up to something that's merely physical. Love would have to be more than that to mean anything."
I was numb. Everything about her told me that she had made up her mind to do this, and had thought it out completely in advance. But it had taken me so thoroughly by surprise that I just searched my mind for the right words and couldn't find any at all. She looked at me, then raised her hand to straighten out her hair nervously. That brought the tips of her breasts up against the front of her robe, oudining them clearly, and a hunger for her drove me toward her. She moved away, her long bare leg flashing into view through the front of her robe and disappearing again.
"Don't," she pleaded. "Please don't touch me, Jim, I couldn't bear it if you did."
I stopped and looked at her, and she tried to smile.
"You'll be late for work," she said. "You'd better hurry."
"Yes," I said stupidly. "I'd better."
I couldn't move and she couldn't move either and for a long minute we looked at each other silently. Her lips trembled and her eyes filled with tears. That told me more than any words just how much I could hurt her if I tried to hold on to her. "I'd better go," I said. "I'll call you sometime.'"
Somehow I walked away and stumbled down the stairway and out to my car. I had dimly realized all along that anything she and I had would have to come to an end some time, but I hadn't really faced up to that fact, and now that the end had come it just didn't seem possible. The hurt was strong inside me. I got into my car and pulled out into the street.
I was hardly aware of the traffic as I drove away. The only person I thought about was Helen. Gradually, a feeling of surprise came over me as I realized what the trouble was. For years I had taken women as I found them. If they were easy I took them to bed and if they weren't I found others. I had never actually thought about love, or what it might be like. And now I was afraid I was in love, with a strange and rather forlorn creature who was the worst choice I could have made out of the thousands of girls in town.
Erasing her from my mind was impossible. The color green reminded me of her. Women walking past me made me think of her because none of them had legs that even came close to hers. And the store itself made me aware of her because it was both die place where we me and the reason why we had to stay apart. And then at one p.m. a messenger came into the department with my key in an envelope. It was just a key, with no note or message of r any kind, and when I had it in my hand the finality of what she had done came through to me, hurdng more than ever.
Faith saw me open the envelope and take out the key. She frowned, and her eyes moved over my face. "Would you be interested in some entertainment tonight?" she asked.
I considered that because she offered me something that might make me forget Helen. But it didn't seem right to go to another woman so soon. " Not tonight," I said.
"Do you think you might change your mind?"
My eyes roamed over her slender figure and up to the mouth that always seemed on the verge of a sardonic smile and the thin high-cheekboned face, and the eyes that looked much too clever for her twenty years. "What's wrong?" I asked. "Are you having trouble getting business?"
"If we start off wrong, we'll get in real trouble," she said frankly. "We won't get in trouble with you, and Jan can use you to practice on. It's a sort of earn while she learns proposition."
"I thought you were building up business for yourself."
"For both of us. Tonight is Saturday night and we can go to your place and have a ball. All you have to put up is five dollars apiece and plenty of liquor."
I shrulged. "I don't see any point in both of you. What can a man do with two women that he can't do with one?"
"You're looking at it from the wrong angle. It isn't what the man can do with die two women, it's what the two women can do with the man that's exciting."
I tried to imagine what she meant and couldn't. "How would you know so much about it?" I asked.
"The soldier I told you about. After he married, he used to bring me to their house and pay me and get his wife and me both drunk and have a ball. I learned a lot from him."
"I guess you did," I said. "What happened to him?"
"He is still married and has two kids, and third on the way, and his wife's kid sister has taken my place. And he still looked fat and happy."
"I'll be darned," I said.
She waited. "What about tonight? Make it ten dollars and a bottle of liquor apiece and anything goes. And I can guarantee that you'll learn a lot of things you don't know now."
"I'll think about it and let you know."
She nodded and walked over to the counter where Jan was arranging the stock. They talked and Jan looked at me and smiled timidly and blushed, and I let my eyes play with her big breasted figure before I moved away. If anydiing could get my thoughts off Helen, what Faith had suggested should be it But it didn't seem right to me so I turned and went into the department office.
The phone rang as I sat down at the desk, It was Mrs. Clark, a buyer from one of the departments who was chairwoman of the committee set up to plan a party for junior executives at the Stanton house in a week, and she was calling to tell me she expected me at the committee meeting she was holding Monday morning to make the final arrangements.
I cussed as I put the phone down. Hearing about the party in her home brought Helen back to my mind again, the perfect legs and red hair and the sad face I had seen this morning. Hoping to find something that would make me forget her, I reached for the department correspondence. The first thing I picked up was a memo to all our co-workers in Stanton's signed by her father.
I put that down angrily and went back to the floor.
Cussing again, I told the head clerk I was going on my coffee break. I went to a small bar a block from the store and had three quick shots of scotch and water to see if they would help. On my way back I saw two girls with pretty legs dressed in green, and the two of them were redheads.
That was too much. I knew I was being ridiculous, but I had a free Saturday night ahead of me, and all day Sunday, and Sunday night, and Monday morning, before I would even have my job to keep my mind occupied, and it seemed as though some clever kind of a conspiracy was at work to remind me of Helen. I didn't see how I could get through the weekend alone the way I felt, so as soon as I returned to the department I went directly to Faith.
"I'll take you up on that deal you offered me," I said. "Ten dollars apiece for the two of you tonight, and anything goes."
She didn't hesitate. "You'll get your money's worth. I can guarantee that"
"I'd better get my money's worth," I remarked.
I was on edge after that obsessed by a sense of guilt and at the same time anxious for the store to close so I could take Jan and Faith to my place and use them to get the vision of the red-haired little dope with pretty legs named Helen Stanton out of my mind. When it did close I hurried through the paperwork and took them to the Italian restauarant for supper, stopping on the way to buy three bottles of liquor and drinking steadily while I ate in the hope that would make what I was doing seem right.
Jan was obviously very excited. She squirmed and wriggled and laughed and talked incessently while she ate. Faith was very quiet, watching me, and drinking as much as I did, but not saying anything. I thought about her for a moment, then took another drink and turned my attention back to the big soft breasts that seemed about to spill out the front of Jan's low necked dress, remembering how those big soft boobs had felt when I had them in my hands and anxious to get my hands on them again.
I hurried the girls. Jan made it plain that she wanted to hurry too. "I really want it tonight," she told me. "It's going to be a lot different than it was the first time. Now I know it's fun. And I want to try those things Faith used to tell me about that she did with her boyfriend and his wife. They sound very exciting!"
Faith turned her head away, as though she was ashamed. "Come on," she said softly. "Let's get this over with."
She refused to meet my eyes after that, and she didn't speak again until we were at my place and Jan was hastily stripping her low necked dress off and giggling excitedly as she walked towards the bed. Faith watched her, then held her hand toward me. "The money," she said. "In this business, they say you have to collect in advance to make sure you get paid." .
Inertly, because I was already half drunk, I took out my wallet and gave her four five's. She put two of them in her purse and the other two in the purse Jan had placed on the table beside the bed, then opened a bottle of liquor and drank from it. She swayed slightly as she gave the bottle to me, then stood in the center of the room and watched as Jan sat on the edge of the bed to take off the sheer nylon hose that were the only pieces of clothing left on her soft body.
When she was completely naked Jan giggled and turned down the top sheet and climbed under it. "Come on," she urged. "Hurry up now, you two, we've got a lot of things to do tonight!"
I turned to Faith and saw the bitterness on her face as her hands went to the zipper at the side of her dress. She caught me watching her and smiled wryly.
"You're a bit puzzled about what two women could do to a man, and now, lover boy, you're going to learn something."
CHAPTER TWELVE
I quickly undressed and threw my clothes down. Then I found myself in bed with two naked women and a bottle of liquor. The lights were almost all out. They undressed me and then I was aware of their nakedness against mine. Jan's soft and awkward and eager, and Faith's lithe and experienced. She knew more than I thought any woman could know about a man's cock and balls and how to send wild waves of excitement through them both at the same time. She drank continuously, sharing the bottle of liquor with me, and laughed drunkenly as she drove one thrill after the other through me, teaching Jan to do the same thing. They loved with their hands and lips and body. It didn't matter which came first. Time after time they worked me over, tonguing and touching my body. They each knew the tender spots and how to heat them up.
Jan was the one who amazed me. Long after the lights were out I remembered her face, framed by brown hair and the big brown eyes that looked at me with a strange mixture of innocence and eagerness. That innocense was just a memory now, and only the eagerness remained. She was the one who wanted to experiment, trying things Faith had learned from the soldier and told her about. She brought the wildest excitement I had ever known in a shabby apartment.
I loved in that world of excitement for what seemed like forever. But the time came when I was exhausted and fell back limp on the bed. The first bottle of liquor was gone and I wanted another drink so I opened the second bottle and sipped at that, passing it to Faith and Jan to share with me. Jan took a drink and stumbled out of the bed and switched on the light She was obscene, dishevelled, as she staggered to her huge purse and took out a thick paper envelope.
Faith made a sound of protest when she saw that Jan had in her hand, and took the bottle from me and sucked at it greedily. I was too plastered to care very much about either of them so I just watched curiously while Jan staggered back to the bed.
"If you really want to see something, just look at these pictures," she told me. "Faith's boyfriend brought them from the far east or someplace. She told me about them so I asked her to borrow them for me and I kept them."
"You told me you lost them," Faith shouted.
"I lied to you," Jan said easily. "I wasn't going to give these back to you or anyone else."
I noticed her face first, not innocent now but sensual looking. Her eyes were unusually bright as she opened the envelope. She moved so one heavy boob was lying on my chest, and licked her lips as she took out the pictures.
I shuddered with disgust as I realized what the people in the pictures were doing.
"There's a lot of different ways to do it here," she said. "Plain and fancy, take your choice. But most of them took out the pictures.
I shuddered with disgust as I realized what the people in the pictures were doing.
"There's a lot of different ways to do it here," she said. "Plain and fancy, take your choice. But most of them are very fancy. Look at this."
She showed me a picture of two people. It took a second to realize what they were doing. The girl was down on her knees before this half nude soldier. She had her hands cupped about his cheeks and her hair was scattered over her face. You couldn't see her features too well except the area where his stiff cock was buried between her lips. I glanced up at Jan's face as she waved the picture before me and for a brief second I thought she was the one in the picture. But no, this girl had red hair and her swaying boobs were not as full near the nipples.
Then I realized how much Jan was enjoying this display. She wanted to see my reaction to these series of pictures. She had confessed once that her mother had delighted in just such an activity. Perhaps mother had taught the daughter the dame identical game and what stood before me know the result. I turned away not wanting to gaze into her lustful face any longer. Then as I rolled over on my side I realized the bed had become heavy beside me. Jan had suddenly left my side and was laying with Faith. My brain didn't seem to be functioning right and I took another drink. I took a side glance and saw their mixed up bodies. Arms, legs, all jumbled together. I needed a better look. Then when I kept my heavy head from swaying I saw the scene in its full depravity. Jan was working on Faith's naked body, biting her uplifted breast and smooth belly and inner thighs, kissing her throat and stroking her loins gently. I saw all of it through a drunken stupor and it was like watching a dozen different girls at once through a pane of misty glass.
The lenses of my eyes adjusted further to the scene. I saw Faith shake her head and heard Jan's softly uttered plea, then her hand moved more demandingly over Faith's body, down between her thighs until dainty eager fingers were on the bridge of her swollen box. At this point, as if it were a special cue, Faith parted the lips of her cunt, the hairs gently separating like a silken fan. After a brief moment Jan laughed triumphantly, then moved her head down and rubbed her wet cheek against Faith's loins. I swallowed hard. For some reason my tongue was becoming fat inside my mouth.
Faith raised the upper half of her body, arching her hips even more severe than before. Jan tipped her head for a better angle and in the darkness her tongue darted out like silver shots from a miniature fountain. Only this fountain was drinking in rather than giving out.
Then the inevitable glass between us smashed! Jan suddenly had her hands on my hips and moved from a cavern to a stiff pole in-one second. Her wet lips touched the lip of my cock and I grunted like I had been stabbed in the groin. The touch of Jan's mouth aroused a wild hunger in me, swirling up in a crazy mixture of passion and drunkenness. Reality vanished completely for me after that. The pictures Jan had shown became back into my mind more vividly than before. We were going to experience every position together and my mind was blowing its top from expectation.
Faith was by her side now giving her both encouragement and advice. Sometimes she even came in and demonstrated a new approach herself. One time both tongues and lips surround my aching cock and balls, each at a different level, each with a different rhythm.
Through it all, the wild drunken hunger kept increasing inside of me, demanding more and more of Jan. She finally fell limp with exhaustion, but not before receiving the full load beneath her throbbing tongue.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
We continued through most of the night. Then we all fell asleep from exhaustion.
I didn't wake up until one p.m., and the first thing I was aware of then was the sharp knife of a hangover that stabbed deep into my skull. I groaned, and looked around, and saw Faith curled up at my side, asleep, and Jan on the other side of the bed, sitting up and laughing at me as she stretched her arms over her head. Her eyes were alert and her face was happy, and every inch of her lush little body throbbed with an animal vitality.
"That was really something!" she commented. "Just like I always dreamed it would be. You were a lot of man once I got you wound up, Jim."
"I'm not much of a man now," I said. "I've had it."
"Have a drink and maybe you'll come back to-life again. I'm ready for another round."
"I'll have that drink," I said. "But you'll have to find some other man for this round. There isn't a woman in the world who could interest me right now."
She let the disappointment show clearly on her face as she watched me drink from the bottle. "Don't you want some more tonight?" she asked.
"Hell, no!"
Faith stirred at my side, and groaned, and opened her eyes enough to see the bottle in my hand and groaned again as she reached for it. She took a sip and handed it back and rolled over, closing her eyes once more. I shrugged, and stretched out with my back to hers, not really sleeping but shutting out most of the world around me.
I was dimly aware of Jan as she got Faith off the bed a couple of hours later and dressed. She asked me again if I didn't want them to stay and when I said no she went out, pulling Faith by the hand. I was relieved when they left and staggered into the kitchen to have a sandwich. Then I went back to bed and slept.
It was midnight when I woke up again. I took another drink to kill the throbbing pain of the hangover in my head, and now I was hungry. It seemed easier to pull on some clothes and go out to a diner to eat, so I did. I was awake when I returned to the apartment, and saw an untidy mess everywhere I looked. I straightened the place a bit, and put clean sheets on the bed and got back into it I took another drink, and spent the rest of the night dozing and waking and dozing off again, with the familiar sense of loneliness that I had known ever since Helen left coming back stronger every time I woke up.
I felt irritable the next morning when I went to the store. Mrs. Clark's meeting was just an opportunity she had arranged to make 'suggestions' which were actually thinly veiled orders for the rest of us to the work required for the parry at the Stanton house, with most of the work given to John and me as the most junior of all the junior executives involved. John agreed obsequiously with every suggestion she made, while I sat in her office and smoked a cigarette and felt the annoyance rising inside me until it was difficult to sit still.
A few times, when John jumped to his feet to agree with some 'suggestion' she had just made, she looked toward me and paused, waiting for me to second him. I kept obstinately silent until she asked me for my opinion. I knew she really wanted me to praise the way she was handling everything, but the annoyance that had been building up in me ever since I woke up this morning wouldn't let me.
"There isn't any point in voicing my opinion, Mrs. Clark," I told her. "You've already made all the decisions. The only thing left is for the rest of us to do the work."
She looked at me, and I felt the pressure I didn't like closing in tightly as I realized I had just given her a reason to put another mark against me on the score sheet the personnel department was keeping on John and me. But it was too late to do anything about it now that my words were out so I just lit another cigarette and waited until the meeting was closed.
John kept himself cautiously apart from me until we filed into the elevator. Then he slapped me on the shoulder. "That's the way to do it, Sonny," he told me. "Don't let them push you around. You did the right thing, telling that old jerk off."
"The right thing for you," I said. "If I don't let them push me around, I go out on my rear and you get the job."
"That isn't the way I see it at all," he remarked. "We're just working for the same company, and they'll probably keep both of us on."
"If they don't, you'd better hope that you're the one who is canned, not me."
"I don't know if I could go that far." He put the smirking grin I hated on his lips. "I would like to see you stay here, Sonny. But I don't think I want that enough to be willing to give up my job just so you have one. That would be going pretty far."
"You'd better consider going that far because the day I get fired is the day I smear you from one end of this city to the other."
"You're a great joker, Sonny. A great joker," he said. "Keep on knifing me and you'll find out just how great a joker I am."
The elevator stopped for the basement, and he looked at my clenched fists as he stepped out "I still say you're joking."
"Would you like to find out?"
He glanced at my fists again, and then at my face. "Not right now," he said, worriedly. "Some other time will do."
I watched him rush off in the direction of his department. Then I saw Mr. Sterling's face glaring at me. "The ties that were to go on sale this morning didn't come from the warehouse!" he hollered. "Did you forget to make out the order for them?"
I didn't try to keep the anger out of my voice. "No. I didn't forget it!"
"Prove it!"
"Come with me and I will."
I took him into the office and looked through the files until I found the carbon copy of the order I had made out last week. He looked it over and tossed it on the desk contemptuously. "So you made the order out," he said. " That doesn't prove you sent it in."
"It proves that I made it out. That's what you asked me to prove!"
His thin face reddened. "Don't speak to me in that tone of voice!" he said. "I'm the head of this department. I don't take impertinence from anyone!"
I ignored him as I looked at the carbon copy. While I looked at it, I went over in my mind everything I had done in connection with it. "I gave the order to you," I said. "There were three that I made out at the same time, this one, and orders for the sweater and dress shirts that were to go on sale tomorrow. You were on your way to the warehouse and told me you would take all three of them with you. Did the other two get there?"
His face changed, showing disappointment for a moment, and then anger again. "I'll call and find out," he said.
Now I knew what had happened. The orders for the sweater and dress shirts had been cancelled because a new shipment was due in today and he decided to put them on sale instead of the stock on hand. He must have cancelled all three orders instead of only two, or else had cancelled the order for the wrong shirts.
I went out on the floor and headed directly for the counter where the tie sale sign stood. He had put some ties from our regular stock on sale in place of the ones that hadn't come from the warehouse. The ones we had bought for the sale cost three dollars and a half and we had advertised them at a dollar and a half each. The special lot of ties that had been bought for the sale was still in the warehouse behind the store, giving Sterling an excuse to charge the loss to me because I hadn't sent the order through proper channels."
Two of our clerks were at the counter, straightening the stock. "Get as many of these as you can out of sight right away," I said. "And stall any customers who want to buy. I'm going to the warehouse to get the ties that should be here."
By working fast I had the trucks loaded with the ties that should have been on sale, and the trucks down in our department, half an hour after Mr. Sterling had met me with his complaint.
The only thing he did was grunt and press his fingertips together piously as he watched me unload the trucks. "Remember tonight," he said. "I want you back in the department thirty minutes after the store closes."
"Who's going to handle the reports?"
"You are."
As he left, I felt the pressure that I hated closing in on me again and looked around. Jan stood a few feet away. "You girls have a steady after hours job for the time being," I said. "I have to work late tonight, and I want to find one of you in my bed when I get back to my place. The other one can be there tomorrow night, and after that you can take turns. But all I'm paying is five dollars a night."
"That isn't very much."
"I'm adding in the date with you for the party Saturday night And I'm the one who fills out the reports every week for the personnel department on the clerks here. A good report should be worth something."
She posed so those big breasts seemed to demand the touch of my hands. "Wow," she said, playfully. "You're mean, Mr. Walker. But we don't have any choice about it so just give me your key and some money for liquor and one of us will be there."
I took out the spare key Helen had returned and a five dollar bills, and handed both of them to her. She fluttered her eyelashes at me as she took them, and managed to make her face look more innocent than ever as she moved off. I felt ashamed of myself as I watched her. I didn't like what I was doing. But the pressure kept increasing so I felt I had to do something to burn it away. And I couldn't stand the loneliness I had known this morning when I woke up and reached for Helen and then realized the apartment was empty. By using Faith and Jan I thought I could take care of both problems at the same time.
I was still on edge, and when I went off the floor for lunch I went to a small restaurant a block away. I ordered a scotch and water with my meal, and took a second afterward instead of dessert, and felt better as I headed back to the store.
I stopped at the store to get some cigarettes. As I turned away I saw a red head bobbing up in a crowd of customers jammed around a cosmetic counter. My heart skipped a beat, and without thinking about what I was doing, I hurried toward it.
Before I reached the edge of the crowd it parted and the girl stepped off to the side. Her back was toward me but I saw her legs and realized right away that she wasn't Helen. Disappointed, I headed toward the escalator and rode it down to my department.
All the clerks on the floor were busy and customers stood around waiting for someone to take their money so I pitched in, ringing up the cash sales and writing the charge tickets until the mob eddied away to other parts of the store.
I worked steadily all through the afternoon, until the doors closed and the clerks rang out. Both Faith and Jan smiled at me as they left, and I wondered idly which of them would be in my bed when I got to my apartment Finding a funny amusement at the thought of knowing a female would be there, but not knowing which one it would be, I turned back to the cash register and started on the daily classification totals.
All the paper work was out of the way. Mr. Sterling came back to the department He glanced around hastily, to see who was watching then held a sheet of paper toward me.
"I want you to make these price changes," he said, testily. "Write the new price on the tag above the old one, and cut the old price off. And don't leave the cuttings on the floor. Put them in your pocket."
I frowned when I saw that his list called for price rises, and worked out a rough mental total of almost one thousand dollars for the one he wanted me to make. "What's this for?" I asked.
"You aren't paid to ask questions, you're paid to do what you're told. Now hurry. We have to get out of here tonight."
I looked at his list again and shrugged and went to work.
Mr. Sterling's insistence that we get out of the store fast increased my suspicions because anyone in the building very late would have to sign out at the door. When I looked toward the department where John worked, I saw that he and his buyer were doing the same thing I was, changing the prices on the tags. And when I looked across the floor I noticed the buyers and assistants of three more departments were also doing it.
Convinced that padding the inventory was a big practice in the basement, I tried to figure how much money was involved. I finished what I was doing and went over to watch Mr. Sterling. He was almost through, and I looked at the prices he had changed. Deducting the usual markup brought the figure down to around nine hundred dollars wholesale cost, a lot of money if every department in the store padded its inventory the same amount, but still a small amount for a man making almost twenty-five thousand a year to steal. , I was puzzled as I watched him work hurriedly. Then he finished, and asked, "Have you got the pieces you cut off the price tags?"
"Here they are," I answered.
He took them and dropped them into his pocket and checked what he had done against the list in his hand. When he finished he hurried over to inspect the changes I had made. "The list I gave you," he said. "Where is it?"
I gave it to him and he checked it over. Then he nodded curtly. "Let's go," he said.
I looked at his list again and shrugged and went to work.
I looked around curiously as I followed him out the side door. It appeared as though every buyer and assistant buyer was leaving at the same time, to get out just before the guards started to collect signatures.
Padding the inventory was obviously a big practice in Stanton's. But it was dishonest, and I knew it, and now I realized that I had taken part in it without even thinking about what I was doing. I didn't like that idea, and the feeling of pressure started to build up in me once more as I thought about it.
I was somewhat happy enough to know a woman was awaiting for me. She would help burn that feeling of pressure away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
On my way home I stopped at a small restaurant for supper. Then went home. Faith was there in my bed, and a bottle of liquor on the table, her naked body covered by a sheet. "I hope you aren't disappointed in find me here," she said, defensively. "We tossed a coin, and I won."
"Did you win or lose?"
She smiled faintly. "We just decided that if it came up heads Jan would come tonight, and if it came up tails, I would. It came up tails."
I nodded and took off my clothes and walked over to the bed, sitting on the edge of it with the bottle of liquor in one hand while I stroked her body with the other. It didn't matter to me which of the women I had tonight, or any other night All I wanted was a woman's body I could use to burn the feeling of pressure out of my own, and a woman in my bed next morning, so I wouldn't reach for Helen and then come fully awake only to discover I was alone.
I drank for a while, until the liquor sent a relaxing glow through me. While I did that I continued to stroke her body, drawing the sheet down from her breast first so I could play with her nipples until they grew hard and tight Then I pulled the sheet down father, so I could kiss her flat belly and stroke her thighs, working on her gently. Her cunt was closed tight, but that was only one of her familiar teases.
On the night I had spent in bed with the two of them, I noticed that gentleness was what Faith wanted, and she responded to it quickly. She did again tonight After a couple of minutes she took the liquor away from me and drank from it and laughed. Then she brought her experienced hands and lips into play to build up a hunger in me, and used her body that knew so much about a man to satisfy it.
Afterward, I slept without dreaming until the alarm clock woke me up the next morning. I felt one brief moment of disappointment when I realized that the woman beside me wasn't Helen. Then I used the body that was there to make myself forget the red haired girl I wanted, and took a drink to give myself an ' all's-well-with-the-world' feeling as I climbed out of the bed and got dressed to go to work.
Because of the scheduled inventory the pressure at die store was even worse than usual today. Mr. Sterling was nervous, and he tried to hide that fact by continuously hollering and snarling at the clerks, and at me. I was in the middle, between him and the clerks, and had his yelling and their resentment both to contend with. In addition, I had the usual run of dissatisfied customers to deal with, and my own conscience.
When I made the changes on the price tags I didn't think about anything except Mr. Sterling's probable reason for it. Today I had the customers to deal with, and I found myself in the difficult position of discouraging women from buying things. In addition, I didn't like the idea of being involved in something I was sure was dishonest.
When the store closed, half an hour earlier than usual, I was as much on edge as anyone else in the building. I wanted a drink, and wondered if I had time to go out and get one and come back before the inventory started. Then the extras who had been hired to help came into the basement, and I saw it was too late.
Each of the regular clerks was given an extra to help and assigned to a counter, to count the stock on it and fill out a form giving the number of pieces in each classification and the price. When the counter was finished each team was moved on to another to repeat the process, and then into the stock room, so that every item we had in our department was counted and the totals written on a form.
Since everyone who took part in the inventory, was paid for four hours no matter how quickly it was over, the teams worked fast.
Jan smiled at me, and waved her hand so I saw the key to my apartment in her palm while her face and innocent brown eyes made what she was promising seem impossible. I waved back, and turned to Mr. Sterling. His face was red, and he wiped sweat nervously from his forehead as he watched a team of checkers stop at the merchandise where I had marked the prices up last night.
I felt perspiration pouring down my sides, and wiped the palms of my hands nervously against my shirt as I watched. I resented the fact that I had been used in something dishonest, with no attempt at an explanation or opportunity to refuse. And now I saw the trick I had been told to pull go into the official records of the store. I didn't like either my part in it or the way I had been involved.
A dull anger burned inside me. I waited impatiently until the checking crews were finished and the forms were ready to be carried to the accounting department. Then I had a quick meal at the restaurant that was becoming a regular night time stop for me, and hurried to my apartment to use Jan's groovy body to work out my anger.
The first time we went to bed together I learned that she liked it rough, and I was rough with her tonight. I slapped her tight little ass until it was ruby red. When I was through I reached for the bottle of liquor she had brought, and drank from it until the wild anger started to burn inside me again. Then I threw myself at her once more and banged her silly. The little bitch didn't have chance to give out with her usual grunts and groans.
When I woke up the following morning, sick with a hangover, I realized what a complete darn fool I was. I made up my mind to leave these two women and liquor alone and use my will power to get over the way I felt about Helen. Then I went to the store and found that John and I were scheduled to spend the afternoon at the Stanton house, helping Mrs. Clark with her preparations for the party, and I cussed because things still seemed to be conspiring against me.
It was John's day off, and I didn't expect to find him at the big mansion when I arrived, but he was there ahead of me, working hard to make a good impression on Mrs. Clark. I worked too, moving furniture and helping with the decorations. But I didn't care what kind of an impression I made on anyone. I just wanted to keep myself occupied so as not to think about Helen. I felt her close to me everywhere I turned.
The strain of being in her home was too much for my nerves. When we finished all the work that could be done that day, Mrs. Clark looked at me and said, "You will be here to help again tomorrow, won't you, Mr. Walker?"
"Not tomorrow," I said. " That's my day off."
John made a quick gesture to show Mrs. Clark what he thought of any man so selfish that he wouldn't come on his day off to help with her pet project. She nodded, to show that she agreed with him. "Surely," she said, "this affair must be more important than anything you have planned?"
I looked around at the mansion where every breath of air was an agonizing reminder of a red haired woman with fabulous legs and a personality that seemed to mesh perfectly with mine. "I'm sorry," I said. "I just can't make it."
She sniffed her disapproval and looked to John. I shrugged and turned away and headed toward where my car was parked in front.
I was hoping that I wouldn't meet Helen on the way, and then very disappointed when I didn't. I saw her sports car parked at the end of the house, near the doorway that led to her apartment. I looked at it, and wanted to talk to her. But just talking to her wouldn't be enough and anything that I might do could only hurt her.
I knew she was just another woman, and that the world was full of them. But I missed her and wanted her and wanted to do whatever I could to see that she wasn't hurt any more than she had been, all at the same time.
It was closing time for the store when I got back so I took care of the paper work and then brought Faith out for supper, and to dance afterward. I drank a lot and later we went to my apartment. Then I sobered up enough to realize I was still being a fool. I drank more to make me forget that for a little while, and made love to Faith, and knew I was being a fool again as I fell asleep.
Since the next day was the day off for both Faith and me, we slept until eleven-thirty. I took her to a small restaurant for lunch, and took her home. I felt better now, and thought I could get through the rest of the week all right But as I pulled out of the parking lot at her place, a sports car cut in front of me. I knew it couldn't be Helen, but it reminded me of her place, a sports car cut in front of me. I knew it couldn't be Helen, but it reminded me of her and I started to cuss again and drove to the store to pick up Jan.
I used her body to work off my anger and tension, just as I had before. And I took Faith home with me the following night to repeat the process. In all the time I had used these two women, I hadn't really thought about either of them as human beings. They were simply bodies I could use because I needed them, but without caring about them. But tonight Faith shook her head when I held out the usual five dollar bill.
"Have you ever gone to bed starving, Jim?" she asked, suddenly.
"Yes, lots of times."
"Really starving, I mean, because" there is nothing in the house to eat, and no money to buy food with?"
"When you put it that way, I know I haven't" I answered.
"I have," she said bitterly. "Too many times. When my pa went on a binge he drank up every cent he could find, and he forced ma and me to make us hand over anything we had hidden away. Then he went out and got drunk and we went to bed starving."
I felt very uncomfortable as she turned and stared at me with her big eyes. "Why are you telling me about it?" I asked.
"You don't think much of Jan and me, and you haven't tried to hide it," she said. "I don't blame you in a way, because what we're doing isn't anything to brag about. But there is a reason for the way we are. I just want you to know that's all."
She paused, and turned to the window. "I hated that soldier who paid me to do those tricks," she said vehemently. "It made me nauseous to feel his hand on me when I was sober. But I was fifteen, hungry for food, not steak and champagne kind of food but hot dogs and bread. He gave me money for that and liquor to drink so I didn't care what I did, and I learned all those tricks just so ma and I could eat. And Jan was as bad off as I was, with her crazy mom who made her dress so all the kids in town ridiculed her, and no normal life. That's why we're out for money, all of it that we can get. And we'll get it any way we know how."
"Then why don't you want this five dollars?"
"I just don't want it," she said. "Tonight is on the house."
She smiled at me, and walked across the room. "Don't ask me to explain it," she said. "It's just one of the things that a female can't explain to a male. You've been nice to me, and Jan's dress for the party is all paid for, and today was pay day and I collected thirty-five dollars from the store so I don't need that five. Is that all right for an explanation?"
She stopped in front of me, and started to open the buttons that ran down the front of her dress, and I saw her black slip appear through the opening, with her lithe body visible beneath the thin cloth.
A quick shiver of excitement came over me as I looked at her body. She looked up at my face, and laughed, and removed the dress and stepped out of it "It's on the house tonight," she said softly. "Don't you want it for free, Jim?"
I felt the shiver of excitement again, so strong this time that it made my fingers clumsy as they fumbled with my own clothes.
I stripped the rest of her clothes off quickly, and said, "You know I want it"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The time was finally here to get ready for the big party. I realized that what I was trying to do wouldn't work. I had spent a week using two women and all the liquor I could drink to forget one woman with beautiful legs and an impulsive nature, and now that I was going to a party in her home I found my mind confused. Half the time I was worried that she wouldn't be there and I would miss out on a chance to see her, and the other half I was scared that she would be there and I didn't know what I would say to her if she was.
I looked at the bottle of liquor on the table beside the bed, and shook my head. All the liquor had really done during the past week was make me act like a stupid fool, and I was able to act that way well enough without help. I made myself a cup of coffee instead, and cussed because of the way Helen had affected me and went down to my car.
Jan was waiting for me outside of the rooming house where she lived with Faith, too excited about the party to stand still. "Do I look okay?" she asked anxiously.
I was surprised as I let my eyes roam over her. She wore a blue dress that was exactly right, a little fancy to go with the innocent young girl look of her pretty face and big eyes, but cut low enough at the neck to display the deep hollow between her smooth skinned breasts, and cling to her body so that it displayed her lush curves clearly. It was the combination of an innocent appearing face framed by a halo of brown hair and a sexy body that made her stand out from other women in a crowd, and she dressed emphasize that contrast.
"You look nice," I said.
"Thanks." She said, and fluttered her long eye lashes at me. " This parry is very important to me, Jim. I wanted to look my best for it. We paid forty dollars for this dress."
"That sounds to me like a waste of money."
"No it isn't, not really. A woman has to have nice clothes if she wants to get anywhere."
"At least that will get you to the party tonight," I said. "Let's go."
She sat nervously beside me on the seat of the car. When I parked there she stared up at the big white columned pile of stone, and touched her hair and fixed her dress, and looked around with the air of a child who had suddenly found herself in fairyland.
"Wow!" she said. "This is just like something out of the movies!"
I shrugged and led her toward the imposing portico. "Yeah," I said. "I hadn't thought of it that way, but it is more like a movie set than a real home."
"Have you been here, Jim?"
I felt uncomfortable as I recalled the night I had spent in Helen's apartment "I've been here," I said.
She looked up at me with her big brown eyes, then fell into step beside me as I went toward the big front door. The butler opened it, and took the invitation card I handed him, and moved back to let us enter.
She stared at him, amazed, and I smiled as I watched her. Then I saw J.J. Stanton, so imposing as he stood between his wife and Helen that I didn't really notice that he was shorter than either of them. I led Jan to him, and told him our names. He nodded once, and used his eyes to strip the clothes from Jan's lush little body.
"You've got good taste in women, Walker," he said, frankly.
She laughed nervously, but he ignored her as he introduced us to his wife and Margaret with a careless wave of his hand. Mrs. Stanton's eyes roamed over me so quickly I had the impression she really didn't see us and didn't recall seeing me before. Her face was completely blank as she smiled, and spoke with a politeness she had obviously learned so long ago it was only an automatic response to a situation now.
I smiled at her, and turned to Helen. There wasn't a trace of emotion showing in her face, but her eyes looked into mine, questioning me. There were a million things that I wanted to say, but all of them seemed so silly to put into words, so I simply returned her nod and let my eyes flick over her body, wanting to put my arm around her but unable to move. She wore a very simple green dress, exactly the same shade as the robe I had bought her, and the nightgown she had worn to bed the last night we slept together, and the memories that color brought back sent a dagger of pain through me.
I looked at the dress, and at her face, and shifted my weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. Then, somehow, I found the strength to move and turned, leading Jan toward the room on the left where I heard a band playing, and the clinking of glasses, and the humming of several people talking at once.
When we reached the doorway I looked back and saw that Helen was examining every detail of Jan's dress and figure, a frown on her face. Then she noticed that I was watching and turned her head away quickly, reaching up on hand to smooth down her hair nervously as she did.
I looked from her to her father, and saw him lick his lips as his cold eyes played with Jan's swaying hips. I shrugged and directed her across the big room to where a buffet supper was laid out. There was champagne in ice buckets and bottles of numerous kinds of whisky, and a barman behind the table to mix drinks. Jan accepted a glass of champagne from him, but I didn't want anything to drink.
Jan ate a sandwich, and drank another glass of champagne, and looked around inquisitively. Several couples were dancing in the center of the huge room so I danced with her until a buyer from some department upstairs cut in. Feeling relieved, I walked away from her and looked at the scene.
Helen's red head was visible at the doorway where she stood beside her father, welcoming the employees as they arrived. Good looking women were all over the room, talking and laughing and dancing with the men. John was there too, dancing with a girl with black hair, too much makeup on her hard face, and a shiny yellow dress so tight the flesh of her buttocks appeared to quiver just beneath the cloth with every move she took.
She looked cheap, and I wondered why he had brought her. Then I realized I was standing at the side of the room, looking around as though I had never seen a party before. I looked at the women, and for some reason that I didn't understand decided I didn't want to dance with any who were attractive. Off to my right I saw a group of about ten middle aged men. They were assistant buyers and assistant department managers, and others very minor executives, just talking among themselves and feigning to be having a good time while they watched the more important or more attractive people receive all the attention.
I moved up to one of those wallflowers and asked the nearest female for a dance. She looked shocked, but accepted quickly, and for the next forty-five minutes I passed the time just dancing with one of them after the other, taking them to the buffet table for something to eat or drink, and using them to keep my mind of Helen. Then I caught a subtle scent of a very familiar perfume in the air, and felt my pulse pounding, and turned to see her smiling at me gently.
"As you know, I'm not the bashful type," she said. "Since you won't ask me to dance with you, I'll have to ask you. Will you please dance with me, Jim?"
I held out my arms without even thinking, and she came into them, and for a long moment I wasn't aware of anything except the simple pleasure of having her close to me.
"Nancy called me," she said after a minute. "She and Tom were married again yesterday, and they're on their second honeymoon. She told me that while she has him helpless with two broken arms and a broken leg, she's going to start a family. They're probably working on it right now."
A feeling of hurt came over me. I wanted to start a family with Helen, and I didn't have anything to offer her except the probability that if I married her I would be put into the position of using that marriage as a way of getting to the top of the business her grandfather had founded, and her father now ran.
I couldn't think of anything to say for a minute. Then I managed to say, " That's good."
She was leaning back to look up at me while we danced, and there was a hopeful expectant expression on her face. Then she sighed softly and put her head back on my shoulder and her fine hair brushed lightly against my cheek. "Obstinate," she whispered. "Just as obstinate as a jackass. That's you, Jim Walker."
I smiled, and tightened my arm around her, and we., danced silently until the music stopped. Then she looked up at me again, and said. "Thank you for the dance, Mr. Walker," with a touch of annoyance in her voice, and turned abruptly away from me.
I watched her leave, and wanted to run after her and knew I couldn't because I didn't have anything to offer her except trouble. I shrugged and walked back to the wallflowers and asked the nearest one to dance again.
It was over an hour before I even thought of Jan. Then I saw her in the middle of the room, dancing the twist with J.J. Stanton. The innocent expression was still" in place on her lovely face, but her lustily curved body was writhing and squirming to the hot beat of the music, as though it were acting of its own accord to arouse him.
Anger came over me as I watched. A lot of things that I hadn't understood became clear to me. Jan and Faith must have noticed the way Stanton looked ,at Jan's body the day he first saw her in the store, and-they had the store gossip grapevine to tell them the type of man he was. They had obviously decided to head straight for the top, and to use me as a means of getting there. That would explain the reason why they had been so eager to cater to me, and it would also explain Faith's strange behavior last night, as though some last tattered remnant of her conscience bothered her.
Now Jan was in the spot where she and Faith had worked for to put her. She had a body that would attract any man's attention, and only she and the women John had brought were shorter than Stanton. She had cut the other woman out somehow, and was working hard to make Stanton want her body while she took advantage of her shortness to help him boost his already badly Swollen ego.
While I watched her she fell against him, pretending an exhaustion she didn't feel as an excuse to rub her soft breast against his chest. My anger turned from cold to hot at that, and I stepped out to grab her arm.
"Come on!" I said. "We're leaving!"
"No!" she protested. "Let go of me, Jim. You'll spoil everything!"
She blinked her enormous eyes at me, fighting to hold back real tears. "Please," she begged. "Please don't make a scene."
"Nuts with the scene," I said. "Let's go."
She shook her head helplessly and tried to pull away as I dragged her toward the door. John stood a couple of feet from us, snickering. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Are you afraid your idea of playing pimp for the boss won't be enough to help you hang on to your job?"
I realized that was the reason why he had brought the short woman as his date, and his bitterness was caused by the fact that Jan had proved more attractive to Stanton. But all the frustration and tension and anger that had built inside me since I started to work at Stanton's boiled to the surface in a flaming red wave of hate that made me let go of Jan and step toward him with my fists clenched. I brought my left in low and hard against his belly. He grunted, and bent double, and I felt a wild delight.
A sense of satisfaction came over me as I stared at him. Then I heard a noise and looked up. Helen stood there, smiling, as she raised her hands over her head and clasped them together in a sign of victory.
I smiled back. Then her father came up behind her and the smile slid off my face as his cold eyes bored into mine.
He didn't upset me at all. I really didn't care anymore.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Stanton raised his voice and said, "Mr. Walker, I want a word with you."
He turned around and walked away, so impressive when he hunched his shoulders and plowed ahead that he still managed to look nine feet tall as the men and women in the room moved out of his way. Helen brought her hands up to her lips and blew a kiss toward me. I shrugged and followed her dad into the library.
J.J. Stanton seated himself behind the walnut desk on one corner of the room. He motioned for me to take a chair beside the desk, and opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of whisky and poured some into both of the glasses and shoved one toward me. He drank his quickly and refilled it before he opened another drawer to get out two cigars. He pushed one of the cigars at me.
During all this time he remained completely silent, examining me carefully with his cold eyes, but not making any attempt to talk. I took the chair he had indicated, picked up the cigar and light it. I knew my chances of getting anywhere in the store ended when I socked Johns smirking face. But I didn't care. I was satisfied with what I had done, and felt completely calm as I drew the rich cigar smoke into my lungs.
"A store the size of Stanton's has to be run on a team basis," Stanton said, finally. "When the gross gets up to over twenty-four million a year, we have to cut the competitions' throat before they can cut ours. The only way for us to do that is for the entire store to stick together as a team. When the employees are more interested in fighting each other than the competition, we're helpless. It's time you realized that, Walker?"
I nodded, and waited, and he went on. "I've got nothing but yes men in that store. I made sure of that a long time ago, and I've made a point of keeping it that way. Ten years ago everybody said we would either go out of business or drop back to a specialty field. Instead, we're bigger than we ever were."
I was confused, wondering why he was taking so long to reach his point. All he had to do was tell me I was canned, and I couldn't figure out why he was going about this in this manner.
"Having nothing but ye men around has its disadvantages," he said suddenly. "There isn't anyone to tell me when things go wrong, and a lot of things are going wrong in Stanton's. Nothing important, just petty chiselling on the part of the buyers and in the warehouse, and some carelessness about orders that has cost us money. It's small stuff, but it will build up if I don't stop it."
"This training program is an idea I had to find a man who could straighten things out before they become too bad," he told me. "I picked you and Weston because you're two extremes. According to the information I got before I took you two on, he plays all the angles and you play things strictly straight. I thought the angle player might be best, but he seems too interested in the little angles that are under his nose, and hasn't gotten the complete picture. That means I'm stuck with you."
I was completely befuddled now, and just managed to grunt, "What do you mean, stuck with me?"
"Just what I said. This training program leads to an opening as special assistant to the president. You'll have to stay in it and take all the crap anyone wants to throw at you. But while you're in it, I want you to keep your eyes open, and to start figuring out ways to put the store back together again. After some months are up you should have a pretty good idea of what is needed. If you show me you can do the job you'll have the authority you will need, and the responsibility, and the pay that goes with it You'll be working ten hours a day, six days a week and everybody in the store will call you a moron. But die pay scale I have in mind will start you at better than eighteen thousand a year, between salary and bonus. And you'll have a darn good chance of climbing into my spot in the future. A yes man can't run that store. The only thing he can do is play on the team."
It took a while for his words to sink into my brain so I could completely understand them. I was under the impression I was going to be fired, and instead it was to learn I had a very good opportunity at working my way into the big money bracket much faster than I had dared to hope. It was so different from what I had anticipated that I couldn't really comprehend it.
"That chick you brought tonight?" he said suddenly. "Are you interested in her or is she up for grabs?"
"I think you can say she's up for grabs," I told him. "I'm not interested in her, that's for sure."
"Is she a good piece?"
I shrugged, not wanting to answer that question. I remembered Helen telling me that both her folks appeared normal as long as they kept a certain level of alcohol in their blood, but once they passed that level they both became drunk immediately. J.J. Stanton had been a quick thinking, alert business executive when I followed him into the room. Now, he was just another drunk.
"I have a daughter," he said, the words slurred. "Helen. I saw you dancing with her tonight. Take her out a couple of times and get acquainted. She's going to inherit a nice block of stock in the store some day if she married the right man."
I resented his inference. Then I saw him for what he was, a pathetic man who had reached the top and achieved it although he still had to keep constantly reminding himself that it was worth the climb. If he could get another man to follow the route he had taken, marrying into the family was a way to get a hold on the business, he could reassure himself about his own course.
I shrugged and stood up and watched as he filled his glass again. He looked up at me, and made an impatient gesture with the hand that held the cigar. "You didn't tell me if that tramp you brought is a good piece," he said. "Send her in and I'll find out for myself."
"No," I said. "If I have to be a pimp to earn big money, I don't want any part of it"
He grunted and swallowed the whisky in his glass. "There's such a thing as being too independent," he muttered. "But that's what I need, a man who has the nerve to say no to the boss. That's why I'm picking you for the job. You've been saying no to every moron in the store ever since you came I might as will get used to it You'll have to say it to me often after you get the hang of your job."
"I haven't told you yet that I'll take it"
"You'll take it Where else can you make that kind of money?"
I turned toward the door. "Send Brian in," he called after me. "He's that butler who walks around showing everybody he's too good for his job."
I grunted and looked back. He was on his feet, staggering around the desk.
I found Brian and told him he was wanted in the library. Then I stood in the hall, blinking my eyes and trying to tell myself that everything around me was real, including the interview with J.J. Stanton. Before I could move I saw Brian walk out of the library, his cold face lined with contempt. He went into the big room where most of the employees were still dancing and drinking and trying too hard to have a good time Jan was there sitting miserably in a corner out of everyone else's way. Brian picked a bottle of good Scotch off the table at the end of the room and went over and spoke to her. I saw her face brighten, and she hissed nervously with her hair and pulled a compact out of her purse and checked over her makeup quickly.
Smiling, she followed him to the library door. He stopped there, and handed her the bottle of Scotch. She checked her face in the mirror of her compact once more, and pulled the front of her dress down lower over her big boobs. Then she took the bottle from Brian and went into the library.
I saw her outlined in the doorway for a moment as she hesitated. Then her shoulders came back and her little chin lifted with a gesture that was almost triumphant, and the door closed behind her, hiding her from view.
I grunted and looked around the hallway. Helen stood at the far end, talking with three of the wallflowers I had danced with. Her eyes met mine, and I realized that I had a lot of things I wanted to talk over with her. I didn't want to talk about them where others could overhear us however, so I turned through a doorway on my right and stepped out on a terrace that ran along the back of the house, hoping she would come out to join me.
I sat on the edge of the terrace, looking across a stretch of carefully mowed lawn that looked black in the faint starlight.
My mind was busy with the details of the work that would be involved in the job Mr. Stanton had told me about. Too many people were involved to run any complete inventory of the store without giving the executives an opportunity to pad their figures as Sterling had padded his. But it should be possible to set up a special unit that could go into two or three departments without warning after the store was closed for the night, and make an accurate count of the stock on hand. That would show up any padding in that department, and after some of the buyers were caught and fired, the others would probably make up the shortages out of their own pockets.
I was smiling at the idea of catching Mr. Sterling short when light footsteps sounded behind me, and Helen sat down next to me. "Hello!" she exclaimed. "What happened? Did you go charging in on your horse to rescue the miaden in distress, and end up flat on your back with your lance broken and the maiden in the hands of the villain?"
"That's one way of saying it," I said. "But the maiden didn't really ant to be rescued. Before she gets through I'm afraid the villain will need to be rescued from her."
"He won't need any rescuing. He's got enough money to take care of himself."
"That's what he'll need," I said.
She looked at me, and I saw the determined expression that had been on her face the night she faced me at the door of my apartment. And words spilled out of her mouth now. "Let's get married, Jim," she said.
I frowned at the expensive cigar I still held in my hand. The job that would be open in Stanton's would mean a lot of money, enough so that if I had it most people would consider me a success. But this past week I had used liquor and women to relieve my tensions, just as J.J. Stanton did. After my interview with him, added to what I had learned about him from Helen, I was sure that no matter how successful he was in business, he was a failure as a man. I didn't want to be like him. I wanted the honesty and easy going informality of the life I was used to back home, and I wanted to be able to face when I was sober.
I knew there were drawbacks to going into the shoe store with my dad. He was as obstinate as I was, and used to doing things as he always had. The town was changing, and the store would have to change with it to be successful. Making those changes offered me a challenge that I was sure I could handle, without the terrific pressures that would be in effect on me in Stanton's. And living with Helen would be a lot better than living with her here in town.
"A small town isn't so wonderful," I warned her. "People talk about each other, and get in arguments, and steal, and commit adultery, and drink, and do everything else people do here in the city. And the life might turn out to be dull for you."
"Dull?" she looked at me shocked. "Won't we have a bed?"
I laughed. " That's the girl I love. I'll tell your father Monday that I'm quitting. I don't see any point in disturbing him right now."
"I don't see any reason in us wasting time either," she said. "Let's find a quiet spot and make up for lost time."
I threw the cigar away and took her hand and she led me to a hidden corner of the lawn where the grass was soft and a clump of shrubbery closed us off from the party in the huge house. I heard cloth rustling as she stopped there, and then she reached for me, a very beautiful woman who was completely naked in the starlight.
Her hand touched me once, hesitantly, and then grew bolder.
She was quiet for a minute. Then her lips were on my throat. She whispered, "You still haven't told me if you will marry me."
"I think I'd better," I said. "If I don't, you might decide to take your goodies away from me again and to have that happen once was enough."
"Then for heaven's sake, if you really like my goodies, please stop fooling around and prove it!"
With that remark I pulled her close to me and held her tight, so tight our heartbeats became one. I kissed her hard and long. When finally I broke the kiss, I said, "Oh, I do love you, darling." Then quickly I made, love to her.
