"I want your body, Gail," Pete said, as the party blasted on around them.
"Is that all?" she asked, snuggling closer to him on the couch and feeling his hand press into her lap, where she held it tightly.
Eighteen years old and just out of high school, Gail Andrews was in the first full, seductive bloom of young womanhood, and she knew and felt it, wanted to make the very most of it while the making was good.
"It's enough, isn't it?" Pete said. "As a starter?" He rubbed his hand ever so slightly in her lap.
"Maybe you'll do," she laughed, "as a starter." She stood up before him, stretching her long, shapely legs and arching her back. Clad in a skintight sleeveless sweater and a short skirt that rose to mid-thigh, she displayed her opulent curves to the fullest advantage. As Pete rose to press her to him and kiss her lightly and hotly on the ear, she could feel that he was already raring to go.
Weaving their way through the crowd, they managed to make it out the back door without being spotted or heckled. They made a dash for Pete's convertible and once he'd put up the top he pulled Gail to him, his fluid, active mouth covering hers. She felt his hand slide up her side to cup and squeeze one breast, and she broke the kiss and pushed him away.
"Hold your horses, Pete! Let's wait till we're out of sight."
"Anything you say, baby," he said. He revved up the car and spun out of the driveway in a cloud of gravel.
Gail touched the car lighter to her cigarette, half the tobacco sticking to the coils, and wondered how she was going to tell Pete. He'd been expecting a summer of uninhibited, inseparable fun before they both went their separate ways to college in the autumn. But Gail had made other plans.
Pete was okay, she thought, puffing away on her filter, but a drag. He was as handsome as they come, with long black hair that hung around his eyes; bright, strange amber eyes that made her melt, made her do what he wanted when she was with him; a full, heavy mouth that aroused her instantly when it went into action against hers. Yes, he was handsome, but after all-there's more than one tiger in the jungle.
And Gail was determined to tame as many of those cats as she could, for this would be her last season of freedom before entering the nunnery-like girls' college her parents had selected for her. There'd be nothing up there but a bunch of old maids and aspiring spinsters, like her cousin Sharon.
And so she'd finally gotten her parents to agree-after long, heated battles, cajolery, tears, threats, protests, whining pleas and outright demands-that she could spend most of the summer at Sunup Shores, a beach resort which was known to the teenagers as being one of the wildest in the country. To Gail's parents, however, it was just another seaside resort. Thus, their only condition was that she be accompanied by Cousin Sharon, a prudish, seemingly frigid, professional virgin, about to enter her Junior year at Heather College for Women.
She'd been putting off telling Pete for two weeks now, not wanting to ruin their last days together. But the time had come now-she was leaving tomorrow. She'd have to tell him now, there was no way around it. She couldn't just walk out on him, as much as she might have been inclined to. The sudden news would have to come now or never.
As Pete swung the car off the highway onto the half-hidden dirt road, Gail felt herself suddenly pressed into his hard young body by the momentum of the turn. Her full breasts squeezed against his strong, bare arm, and she made no move to pull away from him.
Travelling over a mile into the woods, Pete stopped the car under a large weeping willow, where they had often parked before. He turned off the headlights and took Gail into his arms.
"Let's get into the back seat," he whispered in her ear, biting it lightly and letting his lips run down her neck.
"Pete," she said, caressing his muscular back, "there's something I have to talk to you about-something I've been meaning to tell you for a long time. But I've been putting it off."
"Don't tell me you're pregnant?" he said, stiffening for a moment.
"No, silly! Nothing like that! It's about this summer."
"It's going to be very hot this summer," he said, and moved his mouth into hers the way a bee moves into a flower.
She broke the kiss. "Pete, listen. I'm going to-"
"Listen to me, Gail. I love you. I want you. I want your body. I'm crazy about you." So saying, he pressed her to him and kissed her even more hotly on the mouth. His hand moved to her hip, pushing her away from him slightly, and he tugged the sweater out from her skirt. He caressed the naked flesh of her smooth back, moving up, up, up to her full breasts. She felt her nipples go hard as he pinched them through the sheer fabric of her bra.
"Pete," she said, "you're going to ruin my sweater."
"You better take it off, then," he said, tugging it free in the back.
"First I wanted to tell you-" she began, but Pete had begun to raise the sweater and all she could do was lift her arms above her head as he pulled it off and tossed it onto the back seat.
Her jutting breasts had almost burst free of the skimpy, see-through bra. He cupped them "with his hands, squeezing them together, his fingers rubbing and pinching the erect nipples through the transparent fabric.
"You're fantastic, Gail!" he said, kissing the soft valley between her breasts as she closed her eyes, her breath coming in deep gasps. Her heavy breathing, which made her nearly-naked breasts heave up and down, combined with Pete's passionate, squeezing caresses, pulled the bra further and further down until one of her pink, erect nipples popped into view. Pete seized it with his mouth and began sucking and biting and kissing it, as his hands caressed her naked back, fumbling with her bra strap. He unhooked the clasp and pulled the bra from her completely.
Naked from the waist up now, her firm, full, young breasts exposed to Pete's hungry gaze, she felt his mouth seize one red nipple, sucking and licking and grazing it with his teeth as he unbuttoned his own shirt. When he had tossed it onto the back seat he pulled her to him, and Gail loved the feel of his hard, muscular chest crushing her naked breasts. He kissed her soft neck with a heat and intensity that would leave an embarrassing mark the next day. But Gail didn't care now; it felt much too good.
"I want you," he whispered hotly into her ear.
"Take me," she answered. "I'm all yours."
Pete vaulted into the back seat and then pulled her over after him and on top of him. Their mouths sought and seized each other, tongues thrashing furiously. His hands slid all the way down her back, unzipping and discarding her skirt as he went along. He caressed the backs of her naked thighs and up, upward until he slid his fingers under the elastic of her sheer bikini panties and caressed the incredibly smooth, soft skin of her buttocks, all the while sliding the garment off. She pushed herself up to help him undress her, sliding forward as she did, so that one of her breasts pushed into his mouth. He seized it viciously and she cried out with pain and pleasure as he bit the nipple.
As she kicked her panties off altogether, leaving her completely naked now, they rolled over together and she fumbled with his belt, saying, "I want you naked too. I want your naked body on mine."
And with lightning speed, Pete complied.
He covered her naked body with his, covered her breasts and throat and ears and mouth with kisses. She could feel his aggressive, insistent manhood on her thighs, rubbing against her, closing in.
Ah! They both sighed as they became one body and one joined desire, their hot, naked young flesh thrashing and writhing together in the cramped back seat.
Savage, like a wild animal at first, Pete slowly moved into a more tantalizing rhythm, probing Gail's depths, bringing her with a rising intensity all the way-"
"Pete! Oh Pete!" she cried, digging her nails into his back and arching herself up to meet him as he too screamed out her name, pumping himself down into her, convulsed with, blacked out with, collapsed with ecstatic pleasure.
They lay a long time together in the back seat, cuddling like babes in the woods, exchanging playful kisses and innocent caresses.
At last Pete said, "What was it you were going to say before? It must have been important the way you kept interrupting me. I hope it's good news."
"Well, Pete, I-" she started, and couldn't think of how to put it. She lay her head on the dark, matted hair of his chest and ran her hand all the way down to his lean, smooth hips and muscular thighs.
"What was it?" he insisted. "I'm sure it must be good news, or you wouldn't have been so anxious to tell me. What is it? I know! Your parents are going away, and I'll be able to stay with you every night-that's it, isn't it?"
"Not exactly, Pete. You see-well, my parents are going away, but-"
"Wonderful!" he cried, pulling her soft, satisfied body to him and kissing her throat. "How long will we have together?"
That's it! she thought. I'll tell him they're sending me away because of that, because they wouldn't trust me with him. That will explain everything-make them the goats!
"Well, Pete, I'm afraid we won't have any time together."
"What do you mean? Are they taking you with them? When are they leaving, anyway? Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"Don't get excited. I found out about it a few days ago, but I didn't know how to tell you; I didn't know what to say. They're sending me away. They want to have a vacation by themselves and they don't trust me at home. They know damn well if I were there alone you'd be with me all night, every night."
"Oh, those rotten bastards!" Pete cried.
It worked! He believed it!
"They just don't trust me," she said.
"Well, where are you going-where are they sending you? To a convent?"
"No, Pete, I'll be going to Sunup Shores."
"Sunup Shores!" Pete sat up and lit a cigarette, furious. "Do you know what that place is like? Do they know what it's like? Sunup Shores is just about the wildest place in the country, that's all! It's like one long orgy from the Fourth to Labor Day. Do they know what they're doing? Hell, you'd be safer in a harem!"
Gail had to force herself from breaking out with a man-eating smile as Pete related the dangerous temptations of Sunup Shores. That was exactly what she was after-exactly what she'd been fighting her parents for-a summer of uninhibited abandon! But she couldn't very well tell Pete this.
"Oh, you don't have to worry about me," she said. "I'll have my cousin Sharon along."
"So? What difference will that make?"
"You've never seen Sharon? She's the most sexless thing this side of Queen Victoria. It'll be her job to see my chastity belt stays locked up all the time."
"Umm," Pete sighed, "let me be your chastity belt."
"Now take your hand off me, Pete! You'll get me all worked up again-and you wouldn't want that to happen, would you?"
Pete lay alongside her again, putting out his cigarette.
Gail could feel him beginning to stir against her once more.
"So, little Sharon is going to guard my interests, eh? How nice of her."
Not if I can help it, thought Gail. Yes, Sharon would be along, but maybe the little prude wouldn't be all that effective in guarding her chastity. Gail suspected that Sharon, for all her aversion to sex, wasn't entirely opposed to the possibility of getting married to a "nice" boy, and if Gail could arrange an up-and-up romance for Sharon, with entirely honorable intentions on the "nice" boy's part, it would tie up Sharon and leave Gail free to carry out her own wild designs.
"What are you thinking about?" Pete asked, cradling her in his arms.
Gail sighed. "I'm thinking about how much I'm going to miss you when I'm away, and how I'm ever going to get to sleep at night when I start thinking of you."
"Oh, Gail," he said, fondling her breasts, "I'm going to miss you so much. I don't know what it's going to be like without you."
"Oh, you'll have plenty to do. A dozen girls in this town have the hots for you, and by tomorrow night you'll probably have had at least six of them."
"That's not true, Gail. I love you, and I'm not interested in any other girls. They all turn me off. I love you, Gail; don't you know what that means?"
No, thought Gail. "Yes," she said. "Love me."
And Pete moved into her again, slowly and gently. She felt new desire and excitement building on the sustained ecstasy of the evening as Pete's hands dug into her buttocks and slid up her back, his mouth on hers in a languorous kiss and his thighs caressing hers as they thrust and twisted.
It seemed like hours of suspended pleasure that intensified and grew more delicious as the pace inevitably mounted and the golden goal drew near.
Pete grew wild, and she did too. His thrusts mounted and dug deeper and deeper. Gail raised herself off the seat, both of them convulsed, yelping with joy, biting, scratching, and finally collapsing tiredly into each other's arms.
"I love you," Pete breathed, panting into her ear. "I love you, too," she said.
But they were just words, a reflex action. She was thinking about Sunup Shores, and what a ball she was going to have!
CHAPTER TWO
"Gail Andrews, that bathing suit is a scandal! I refuse to be seen with you on the beach in it!" Sharon's mouth was puckered up, her face was red with rage and embarrassment, and she wrung her hands furiously.
Gail smiled and said, "Well, then, I'll meet you back here later. I'm dying for a swim." She turned again to the mirror to give her hair a final primping.
The bikini was pretty daring, Gail thought, even for her. She examined herself in the mirror and got a kick out of thinking what all those hot-pants boys would do when they got a load of her.
The bottoms were little more than a g-string, and when she spun around to get a glimpse of herself from the rear she could tell that once she'd taken a few steps, she'd appear completely naked from the rear. The bra was held up in the back and around the neck by thin strings, and it covered her in the front only nominally, with small strips of cloth that only succeeded in revealing and enhancing, rather than concealing, her jutting young breasts. The suit was flesh-colored, and of a thin nylon that clearly out-lined her nipples. She knew that once wet, it would be completely transparent.
"How can you wear such a thing?" demanded Sharon. "It's perfectly disgusting! Why if your parents knew you owned such a suit they'd give you the thrashing you deserve."
"Now, now, Sharon. This was a Christmas present from Grandma. And I don't want you to go insulting Grandma's taste! After all, she's your Grandma, too."
"Oh! I don't believe that for a moment! If I had had any inkling you were going to dress like such a brazen slut, I never would have agreed to come here."
"Come on, Sharon, don't be such a prude. We're on our own for once; let's live it up. Nobody's looking."
"They'll be looking, all right. With you dressed like a nudist, every boy on that beach will be leering and ogling and wanting to rape you."
Exactly, thought Gail. That's just what I want; that's why I'm showing it off. To Sharon she said testily, "Well, that's one thing you won't have to worry about. You'll be left alone. Nobody's going to bother you."
Sharon bit her lips and shut her eyes, as if to shut off the outside world. She wrung her hands and said, "Why did I ever let you talk me into this? I should never have come."
Gail studied her for a moment. Sharon was not an unattractive girl, in spite of everything she did to hide it. Although she wore her long black hair straight down in bangs on her forehead, and tied in a severe bun in the back, and wore heavy, ill-fitting horn-rimmed glasses, she could not altogether suppress a certain sensuality. Her features were fine, her mouth was full and with a touch of lipstick-which she never wore-would have been seductive. Her skin was clear and the coloring was not pallid but rich and rosy. Her body, which she tried to hide inside a baggy, one-piece suit that showed no cleavage whatsoever and featured one of those ridiculous little skirts that old ladies wear to hide their blubbery legs, could have been shown to much better advantage in a skimpy bikini such as Gail was more or less wearing. And Sharon wouldn't have suffered by comparison. Her breasts were full, as full as Gail's, and her torso tapered off into a slender waist, flaring out again to full hips and buttocks and firm, full thighs.
Gail wondered why Sharon had such a compulsion to hide herself, to transform herself from the basically attractive, well-endowed female specimen she was, into a prim, horn-rimmed, sexless monster-bent only on denying all pleasure for herself, but ruining others' as well. Gail's snide crack about Sharon not being able to attract boys had obviously struck home. She was interested in attracting them, but how she expected to do it in a get up like she had on was beyond Gail.
She was sorry for the remark and walked over to Sharon, putting her arm around her.
"Oh, Sharon, I didn't mean that. Let's not start fighting so soon. We've got the whole summer for that. Let's make a truce and go for a swim."
Sharon was still pouting. "I think I'll just stay here and read."
Gail was tempted to say, All right, stay here, and good riddance! But she knew that wouldn't work. Sharon would either pick up the fight where they left off or start packing, and it would be the end of the summer.
"Come on, Sharon, don't spoil everything. If you won't come with me, I won't go either. We'll just wind up spending the whole summer in this stuffy old room."
Sharon, her good nature coming momentarily to the fore, took Gail's hand and said, "Okay, truce. But you better not go in the water in that thing or you'll be arrested when you come out!"
Gail giggled and Sharon humphed and they marched out of the room together toward the beach.
The sun was blisteringly hot, and Gail felt her pores open to its irresistible rays as they walked along the stinging sand. The sky was clear blue and the sea sparkled with a million spangles of bright gold. In the water and on the beach nearby Gail could see the lithe, muscular, deeply-tanned and nearly-naked bodies of young men and their girls, the fast-living, fun-loving crowd that had given Sunup Shores its notorious reputation.
"This looks like a good spot," Sharon said, stopping at a deserted patch of sand at least a hundred yards from where the young crowd was.
"Oh, come on, Sharon!" Gail protested. "Let's go closer to the water."
"Closer to the boys you mean," Sharon corrected.
"Come on, don't be such a poop."
They strolled on down nearly to the water's edge and spread out their blanket on the hot sand. A dozen or so yards away a transistor radio blasted out rock music and several couples were vigorously dancing in the sand, their young, perspiring bodies glistening in the sun. The girls were dressed in bikinis as brief as Gail's and with each thrust of the dance their barely-encumbered breasts threatened to bounce free altogether. Gail felt a surge of excitement as she watched one of the boys, a tall, deeply-tanned blond, wearing one of those skimpy pos mg straps of a bathing suit in which his endowments were clearly evident. She felt like rushing over to the dancers, elbowing the other girl aside and getting some action going. Instead, she lay on her belly on the blanket, chin in her hands, ogling the dancers.
"I'm going in for a dip," Sharon said, pulling on her heavy rubber bathing cap.
"I don't feel like it yet, Sharon. You go ahead and I'll cheer from the sidelines."
Sharon bounded down toward the water and Gail turned back to the dancers. The song had ended and the little group was temporarily breaking up. Gail's blood ran faster when she saw that the blond boy she'd been watching was coming directly toward her with one of the other boys who'd been dancing.
They seemed to be heading for the empty blanket stretched out directly alongside hers, and when they were nearly there, the blond boy spotted Gail.
She still lay on her belly, her head resting in her hands. Her arms were spread out to expose the full cleavage of her nearly-naked breasts.
Gail watched the boy taking her in as he approached. She could feel his eyes all over her exposed breasts and her naked, arched back and her round, jutting buttocks. She did a little taking in of her own as he approached, and could easily tell that her charms weren't going unappreciated, that she'd already begun to excite him manfully.
"Get a load of this one, Curt," the boy said to his friend, as they neared the blanket and flopped down on it. The blond boy lay facing her, only a foot or two away.
"What's your name, honey bunch?" he said.
"Gail," she said. "What's yours?"
"My friends call me Steve. This is Curt over here."
"When'd you get here, Gail?" Curt asked.
"Just this afternoon. Just now, in fact."
"All by your little old self?" asked Steve.
"No, I'm sorry to say. My cousin's with me."
"Where is she?" asked Curt, looking dumbly around.
"In the water right now. She'll be back in a few minutes to protect me from you guys."
"Well, we better enjoy you while the going's good! Let's go, Curt!" and they both roared at her.
When the brief laughter had subsided Steve said, "What is she, an old maid?"
"Hell no! She's only a year older than I am, but she acts like she was a hundred."
"Sounds great," Steve said, bored.
After a moment of awkward silence in which Gail racked her brain for something to say and came up with nothing, Steve piped in with, Hey! You're going to get sunburned lying around like that your first day. Don't you have any suntan cream?"
Gail had some in her purse, but said, "Damn it, I knew I forgot something. You don't have any, do you? That I could borrow?"
Steve smiled. "I've got plenty of cream, Gail. You can have all you want of it."
"Ummmm, I'd love some," Gail said, "but you better make it quick. I'm burning up already."
Steve rose and took the tube of suntan cream out of his pants. Excitedly, he moved over to her blanket and kneeled over her body, one knee between her legs, pressing up and into her, both of his hard calves squeezing her unresisting thighs as she lay down her head.
"I better undo this," he said, unhooking the bikini bra strap before she realized what was happening. "Don't want to get it all scummed up."
He held the tube in his hand and squeezed. The cream spurted out onto his other hand and he quickly smeared it onto her back. His hands were strong and made her muscles give. They were gentle, too, and made her nerves all come to life with tingling desire. He worked the cream into the smooth skin of her neck, her shoulders, and moved down her spine. His firm, tingling touch strayed under her arms to the sides of her breasts, moved back to her spine, then back again to the exposed sides of her bulging breasts, while all the while his knee did another massage at the most sensitive center of her body.
Gail wanted him to flip her over on her back and really have a go at massaging her breasts-and anything else he might be ready to do. Instead, she settled for another spurt of cream, his hands now working in the small of her back, her hips, and down still further, jumping nimbly over the one small part of her body not exposed. Gail really began to burn as his hands worked on the backs of her thighs and up the high rise of her exposed buttocks-massaging, feeling, moving up and down and probing, squeezing, rubbing.
When he had finished creaming her body Gail was so worked up she could hardly contain herself. Steve lay down alongside her, putting his arm around her. His hand sought out and gently caressed the side of her naked breast. They faced each other on the blanket, their mouths inches apart, flushed and ready for the kiss. He lay sideways, pressing his hard body into her buttock, his long leg dallying between hers.
"How was that?" he asked.
In a voice that was part whisper and part purr she said, "I don't think it's going to work."
"What do you mean, Gail?"
"Your cream-it's supposed to stop me from burning.
But I'm a hundred times worse now than I was before you smeared it all over me!"
Steve's lascivious laugh was interrupted by a shrill voice from above. "What's this? What's going on here? Gail! What in heaven's name are you doing?" Sharon screeched.
It must have looked pretty awful to Sharon, all right. There lay Gail, the top of her bikini off, with a boy more naked than she fondling the exposed part of one of her breasts, his leg between hers and his mouth just about to join with hers in an uninhibited kiss.
"Oh hi, Sharon. This is Steve," Gail said, with all the nonchalance she could muster. "Over there's Curt. Say hello to Sharon, guys. She's my cousin and bosom companion."
"Hi, Sharon," they said in chorus. "You've got a nice companion," Steve added. He rolled away from Gail, onto his back, and his display of himself made Sharon blush. She turned away, and sat demurely on a comer of the blanket, removing her bathing cap.
"How's the water, Sharon?" Gail asked, turning on her side and leaning on her arm.
Steve turned to her, looked down, and gasped, his face flushing red. For a second she wondered why his hot eyes were fixed on her breasts. She looked down and saw those creamy red-nipple, tipped expanses, completely exposed to the hot sun and to Steve. She'd forgotten the strap! Steve eased himself between her and Sharon-without taking his eyes off her-while she frantically tried to get the bra back on. She accomplished this in record time, without Sharon being any the wiser.
Sharon, still embarrassed at Steve's manly display, was rambling on about the water: " ... a little cold at first, but you get used to it after a while. Pretty nice, actually, once you get in."
"Is she describing the water, or herself?" Steve whispered in Gail's ear.
"Steve!" Gail said, amused and shocked at the same time. "Let's go in. I'm hot as hell."
"Great idea," he said, and bounded up, grabbing her hands and pulling her to her feet. "Curt, entertain Sharon," he said.
Once they were clear of the blanket he said, "Race you into the water," and took off. Gail ran alongside him, her breasts jiggling and the bikini threatening to come off again.
They splashed into the surf and dove into a wave, coming up sputtering salt. The freezing water hit Gail's nerves like a million tingling pinpricks. She looked down. The impact of the wave had pulled her bra down over the erected nipples and her full breasts themselves had pulled free of the garment. Yet they were held up from underneath by it, framed and accentuated. Her first girlish impulse was automatic-cover them up. But she caught herself in time, realizing she wanted to be half-naked with Steve; she wanted him to see her ripe breasts, she wanted him to be excited by them....
As they swam out beyond the other bathers, Gail felt Steve's arm go around her and felt his hand close on her naked breast, pinching the nipple with his fingers. He slid his other hand down her belly-down, down, slipping between her skin and the cloth of her bikini. His fingers rubbed and probed her until she shuddered with pure pleasure.
"Take a deep breath," he said, and they went underwater. Now his mouth was at her nipple, sucking and biting, rubbing it with his lips and grazing it with his teeth. Gail caressed his hard thighs and felt the intensity and power and throbbing desire of his aroused manhood.
They surfaced, facing each other, only their heads above water, their hands exploring each other with a desperate abandon.
"I want you, Gail. I want you so bad."
"I want you just as much," she moaned.
"Tonight. Come down to the beach tonight. Our crowd is having a little party. They're always pretty wild-and we can slip away."
"I want to. I will. But there's my cousin. I don't know how...."
"Bring her along. Tell her it's a wienie roast. She'll come. After that, you won't have to worry about her."
"What time?" Gail asked. "Right after dark."
"I'll come."
"So will I," Steve said, his hands inside the bottom of her bikini. "Am I between you and her?"
"What do you mean?"
"Can your cousin see you? Am I blocking you from her sight?"
"Wait a minute. Stand up more. Okay."
Steve took her mouth with his and kissed her as if she were booze and prohibition began in five minutes. Then he adjusted her bra with long, lingering caresses and they swain in to shore.
CHAPTER THREE
Gail pulled off her bra and wriggled out of the bikini panties. She ran her hands up her thighs and belly and clasped her breasts with both hands. The nipples, fresh from the memory of Steve's active sucking and nibbling, were still erected, and her imagination slipped forward to the kicks that lay in wait for her within a few hours-if only she could persuade Sharon to come along too.
She padded into the bathroom, where Sharon had already taken possession of the shower.
"How's the water?" Gail asked, and without waiting for an answer, joined her cousin under the hot spray.
"Gail! Why can't you wait until I'm finished? It's too small in here for two people."
They stood facing each other, their large, naked breasts nearly touching.
"Oh, it is not, Sharon," Gail said. "Just move back a little."
"I can't move back. There's no room. Why can't you wait a few minutes?"
"I'm all hot and sticky," Gail said. "Come on, Sharon, don't be such an old fuddy-duddy," and without warning she reached out and tweaked her cousin's nipples.
Sharon squealed and Gail giggled. "You're terrible, Gail! Terrible! Everything about you is revolting!"
"I know it, Sharon," Gail said, reaching for a bar of soap. "But I guess you'll just have to put up with me for the rest of the summer, seeing how we've been plopped together like this." She began soaping her shoulders and armpits and breasts, while at the same time studying her cousin's body. Sharon really was stacked,' Gail decided. In a way her body was even more tantalizing and voluptuous than Gail's. Rose-red nipples tipped the large, swelling breasts that bobbed and shook as Sharon soaped them.
"You've really got a great body, Sharon," Gail remarked coolly. "Why do you try to hide it?"
"If the alternative is to make a gross, lascivious public display, the way you did this afternoon, I'd rather keep it under wraps until the right time comes."
"Oh! Then you admit there might be a right time, after all, for the unveiling? You don't see yourself as the great white virgin for all time to come?"
"I don't think in those terms at all. When the right man comes along and we're properly married, there will be ample time to think about sex. Until then, there are much more interesting and important things to think about."
"Like what?" Gail thought. She had begun to soap her lower abdomen and the upper part of her thighs, working up a rich lather, and couldn't help noticing that Sharon had reached the same spot on her own body. Sharon's hand was perhaps lingering there a little longer and more lovingly than befitted someone who completely disavowed all thought of sex.
"Don't you ever-" Gail began, "when you're in the shower, or alone in bed at night-don't you ever think about boys, or what they might be able to do to satisfy you? And maybe, while you're thinking about it, do a few things yourself that kind of suggest what the boys might be able to do for you?"
Gail gazed at the spot where Sharon's hand still caressingly lathered, and Sharon, realizing all of a sudden the connection between her own action and Gail's words, hastily withdrew the hand and, blushing, rinsed herself off under the stinging jets.
"You have the dirtiest mind I've ever seen in anyone in my life," Sharon said, and stepped dripping from the shower.
"But Sharon," Gail called, as her cousin pulled the curtain closed behind her, "whatever could you be reading into my words? You must have a guilty conscience or-"
Slam! went the door behind Sharon. Gail had no doubt now that Sharon would be susceptible-if she could find the "right" boy to provide a nice, innocent, summer romance with the vague possibility of marriage. If she could hitch Sharon up to some such "nice" boy, she'd have her out of her hair and be free to have the wild time she'd planned for herself.
Or was Sharon ready for even more adventurous exploits-with a lot of priming, of course? Gail doubted it. The girl was just too much a coward and prude to have anything but the most conventional up-and-up relationships with boys. Sharon, Gail felt, just wasn't in her league.
When Gail had finished her shower and dried herself, she padded naked back into the bedroom. Sharon, dressed in bra and panties, was stepping into a dress as Gail entered.
"What time do they serve dinner around here?" Gail asked, as she slipped into a low-cut black bra and then, squatting before her suitcase, searched for the matching panties.
"I think they've already started," Sharon said.
Gail wiggled into her panties and picked out a short, tight, red dress. "We don't want to eat too much at dinner," she said.
"Why not?" Sharon asked. "You on a diet?"
"Me?" she laughed, hugging her tiny waist. "I don't have to worry about things like that."
"Why did you say that about dinner, then?"
"We've been invited to a wienie roast."
"A wienie roast! Who invited us?" Sharon's eyes narrowed.
"Steve did."
"You mean that thing you were practically having intercourse with on the beach?"
"Oh, Sharon, I was not. And he's a very nice boy."
"Any party that he'd invite you to is bound to be an orgy. You're not going. I promised your mother I'd watch out for you, and that's just what I'm going to do."
"Don't be stupid, Sharon. It's just a bunch of kids like us. We're just going to sit around the campfire and toast marshmallows, sing folk songs and stuff like that."
"That's a laugh! The way you two were carrying on at the beach I wouldn't trust you near him for five minutes."
"Come on, Sharon-"
"I don't want to argue about it. It's final. Now let's go, unless you don't want to have dinner."
Stern Sharon walked out the door, followed-after a short, sulky delay-by Gail. They moved silently through the hotel corridors and descended to the dining room. The room was nearly full and Cora Henley, a tall, extremely attractive widow in her early thirties, who owned the hotel and served as hostess, escorted the girls to their table. It was in the far comer of the dining room, near the kitchen, and Gail didn't care for it at all.
"Don't you have a better table than this? It's a pretty lousy spot," Gail said to the hostess. With a contempt that all but seethed beneath her gracious hostess facade, Mrs. Henley said, "I'm afraid the better tables were reserved months in advance. It's a little late for you to be giving me your preference now." The girls sat down, Gail glaring at Mrs. Henley, Sharon glaring at Gail for complaining.
"However, since I always make every effort to please every guest, I'll see what I can do for you. There's a couple checking out tomorrow morning who have a spot closer to the door. I'll see if I can arrange for you to move into their table." She smiled frozenly at Gail, who said, "Thanks," and returned the frozen smile. Mrs. Henley took their order and retreated.
"You certainly have a way with people," Sharon said.
"We got a better table, didn't we? If I hadn't spoken up we'd have been stuck back here all summer."
Gail, still mad about the beach party but determined she'd go anyway, regardless of what Sharon did or said, looked around the room, her eyes glancing over the young, tanned faces and lively, animated, well-formed, well-dressed bodies of the couples and single men and women around her.
A pleasant, mildly erotic sensation came over her as she scanned the faces of the young men and wondered how many of them would be her lovers before the summer was over.
This sensation was jolted into something infinitely more powerful and mysterious when she caught sight of one of the waiters emerging from the kitchen. As she caught his eyes for a fraction of a second-they looked right through her-and then watched his tall, powerful, utterly self-contained body glide by, saw the flawless profile, his mouth full, silently sensuous, his hair dark and long, swept across his forehead, she felt a shiver run through her loins-a joy such as she had never felt before in her life, except at the highest peaks of sexual fulfillment. If it was like this to look at him, just to be aware of his presence, Gail thought, what must it be like to have him make love to you?
She watched every move he made-all quick, sure, forceful, yet somehow gentle-and saw the way he treated the customers he served-polite, condescending, deferential, glad to be of use, yet wholly aloof, noble.
She couldn't take her eyes off him, was absolutely fascinated and enthralled with him. When his broad back and slender hips disappeared into the kitchen, she glued her eyes to the door, waiting for him to reappear.
Gail didn't know what was happening to her. She guessed it was what they called love at first sight. Her heart beat thunderously and her cheeks were burning up.
"You feel all right?" Sharon said, a look of concern on her face.
"Oh yeah, sure. I feel fine," Gail said hastily, without looking at her cousin. To Gail's despair, their order appeared but it was carried by the wrong waiter-a nonentity, a nothing, a nobody. She doodled with the food, scarcely eating anything, concerned only with the various entrances and exits of the stunning boy, trying in vain to catch his glance.
When, reluctantly, she followed Sharon from the dining room, she was still in a daze. She scarcely heard her cousin when they stopped outside their hotel room. "Look, Gail, I'm sorry I was so stubborn before about the beach party," Sharon said, as she opened the door and they went inside. "I didn't think it would affect you like that. I give in. Let's go."
"Oh, that's all right," Gail said, stretching out on her bed. "I'd just as soon stay around the hotel tonight anyway."
"Now you know you don't mean that. I know how much you wanted to go and I'm not going to ruin your fun. Not only will I go, I'm determined to have a good time." Sharon said this with all the force of her strong-willed character. Her mind was made up.
"Okay, Sharon," Gail said, snapping out of her reverie at the opportunity this change of heart afforded her.
They changed clothes again, Gail into a skintight teeshirt and short-shorts, Sharon into a baggy sweatshirt and Bermudas. Together they headed for the shore.
A big fire was blazing on the beach as they arrived, and around it clustered the same crowd they'd seen there earlier in the day. As they neared the fire, Steve materialized out of the crowd and approached them with a friend. Steve wore nothing but a pair of ripped-off levis and at the sight of his tanned, powerful body Gail felt herself go hot with desire.
"Sharon, this is Mike," Steve said, introducing his friend. "He's been dying to meet you ever since you showed your luscious body on the beach today."
Sharon, not sure if the remark were a joke, an insult, or a harmless compliment, took it as the last and smiled at Mike. Like her, he seemed a little shy, a little quiet, but Gail sensed he wouldn't be with this crowd if he weren't a swinger. Maybe he'd be able to warm up Sharon a little, make her forget a few of her inhibitions.
"Come on, let's get something to drink," Steve said, and moved to the other side of the fire, where an enormous pile of beer cases lay waiting to be drunk.
Gail and Sharon spread out the blanket they'd brought and the two couples sat down with beers handed around.
As Mike began plying Sharon with small talk, Gail racked her brain for a way of ditching them and making off with Steve. The feel of his hard, naked chest against her shoulder, his arm around her, fingers slyly grazing the side of her breast, fired her desire for him to the melting point.
"I want a hot dog," Gail said to Steve, and he popped up, pulling her to her feet.
"Let's go," he said, and added to Sharon and Mike, "Keep the blanket warm for us," as he ran alongside Gail toward the fire.
CHAPTER FOUR
When Gail and Steve had reached the large bonfire they crossed behind it and continued down the beach. In darkness, away from the crowd, Steve halted and pulled Gail into his hard body, encircling her with his powerful arms. His mouth took hers and she moved avidly into his hot kiss, as his hands roved her back, pulling her buttocks into him. His hands slid in under her shirt and up between their bodies to grab her jutting breasts. He caressed her hard, hot nipples through the sheer fabric of the bra as his mouth moved across the skin of her cheek down to her neck, planting hungry kisses on her tingling flesh.
"I want you now," he breathed into her ear.
"Where can we go?" she asked.
"Gome on," he said, and led her down the beach toward a smaller fire around which several couples sat smoking. As they neared this fire they surprised a couple stretched out on a blanket, locked in a furious embrace.
The girl was completely naked and was in the process of helping the boy tug off his underpants. Startled for a moment, they simply smiled up at Steve and Gail, who had stopped before the blanket, then went back to their passionate lovemaking. The girl pulled the garment from the boy's hips, leaving him free and unencumbered. He slipped it off altogether, locking his body with hers amid moans and sighs, as they writhed away on the blanket.
"This looks like a fun party," Gail said, pressing closer to Steve as they moved on. They halted at a blanket only twenty or thirty feet from the fire, but while they could see the few couples in the flickering light, the darkness protected them from being seen by anyone.
Steve sat alongside her on the blanket, put his arms around her and kissed her, his hands caressing her breasts and belly and thighs. They roved behind, sliding under the shirt and tugging it up over her breasts. She raised her arms and he pulled it off altogether. Her breasts had nearly burst free of the skimpy bra, and he pushed her back on the blanket. He squeezed the hard red nipples up and out into the open, taking one passionately with his mouth and sucking the soft flesh of her breast, nibbling and biting the erected nipple until she squealed with pleasure. He unhooked the bra and pulled it off. They were both naked from the waist up, and he crushed her breasts into his hard chest as his hands unzipped and unloosened her shorts. She arched herself up into him as his hands wriggled in under the shorts, under her panties and grasped the smooth soft skin of her rounded buttocks. He slid both shorts and panties down over her hips and thighs. Gail felt a sudden thrill as her body, completely naked now, was caressed by the cool sea air and Steve's hot breath.
Steve unzipped his shorts and began to wriggle out of them. A few dozen feet away Gail heard the calm surf smash coolly onto the sand, foam and hiss up the beach and hiss back into the crack of an oncoming wave. Suddenly Gail was taken with an uncontrollable impulse to swim nude in the ocean with Steve.
He pressed his naked body to hers. He moved to kiss her and she said, "Steve, let's go for a swim."
"Not now, Gail! I want you. After. Not now."
"Now, Steve. It'll be better. Come on," she said, disengaging herself from him and bouncing to her feet. Steve lay on the blanket for a moment, confused, his manhood throbbing with desire for her. She could feel his eyes on her naked body, turned sideways to him, silhouetted by the sea. He rose to his knees and wrapped his arms around her thighs, turning her to him and burying his mouth in her body. He tried to pull her back down onto the blanket, but she wriggled free, laughing.
"You'll have to catch me first!" she yelled, and took off in the direction of the water. She looked back for a moment and saw Steve's naked form racing to catch up to her. She could feel his eyes on her bare backside as she neared the water, then plunged in with Steve only a few feet behind her.
Her whole body tingled as the cold, whirling water penetrated every pore of her flesh, surrounding her. And then it was Steve who surrounded her, pressing against her back, his arms crushing her breasts, his mouth sunk into her neck like a wild beast.
They thrashed and rolled in the water, playing the way that young animals do, just on the threshold of drawing blood. Their naked bodies came together and parted, were washed to the shallow ocean floor in the surf. Steve had Gail's breast in his mouth when a large wave came and knocked them over under it. They clung together and Gail suddenly felt her whole body boil with excitement as Steve's fullness entered her. She gasped and took in a mouthful of seawater and they rose to the surface, disengaging.
He clung to her. "Let's go out."
She nodded her head, hardly able to speak.
They headed for the shore again, holding hands, and Steve pulled her hand close to him to remind her of the extent of his need for her. As her fingers grazed over his aroused maleness she felt herself tingle with anticipation. His other hand cupped one of her naked breasts, and as they walked he bent over to kiss the nipple.
"The blanket's just up ahead," he said.
Gail, however, wasn't looking for the blanket and had suddenly become only half-conscious of Steve. She had her eyes fixed on a figure who sat at the fire, smoking. His hair was black and he was dressed in white-white shirt, white pants, white sneakers. Gail couldn't be sure-then the boy stood up, said something to one of the couples, moved a few steps from the fire, and Gail's heart beat even faster than her desire for Steve and the stimulation of the sea had made it do. It was the waiter whom she'd seen earlier in the evening!
He picked up a log from a small pile near the fire and then paused, seeming to look directly at her. Could he see her in this darkness? She wished he could, and she wished that Steve and all the others were gone, had never shown up at all, and she could be alone with this mysterious god of a man.
When they reached the blanket, Steve pulled her down with him and pressed his hard body onto hers, covering her breasts with kisses. Gail twisted her head to watch the boy at the fire. He was still standing there, chatting with the others. Would he leave? She wanted to meet him now. Steve's hot hands and active mouth probed her breasts and throat and belly and thighs, but she had lost all desire for him-just as suddenly as he had fired it in her that afternoon. She felt terribly impatient. She wanted to get up and go to the fire.
"Steve, I'm freezing. That water!"
"I'll warm you up. I have plenty of heat to spare."
"No, really, Steve, that water I swallowed-it-it did something to my lungs. Let's go to the fire a minute. Please. I'm shivering." She faked chattering her teeth.
"Geezus, Gail, you're too much! First you want to go for a swim, then you get cold. What kind of a game are you playing, anyway?"
"Come on, Steve, don't be mean. I'll only take a minute for me to get all heated up again."
"I can think of a better way."
"Come on," she said, slipping her shirt and shorts over her wet body without bothering about her bra or panties. As the water soaked through the garments they became transparent and clung to her body like a second skin, outlining every curve and revealing every bump and crevice. Steve reluctantly pulled on his shorts and they walked to the fire.
The dark-haired boy looked up as they approached, and smiled as he recognized Steve.
"Well, the lothario of the high school set! How you doing, Steve?" he said, laughing.
"All right, Mark, I guess," Steve said, not laughing.
"Is this your latest conquest?" Mark said, looking over Gail. She blushed and had to avert her eyes as she felt his eyes examining her. In the wet, skintight, transparent shirt and shorts, she might as well have been naked.
"Well, I wouldn't exactly put it that way," Steve said, turning up the comer of his mouth in a slight grimace of disgust.
"What's the matter, Steve? You losing your appeal?" Mark said, taunting him.
"Give me a cigarette," Steve said, ignoring the remark and flopping down on the blanket. Mark tossed him the pack and he lit up.
"You two must know each other," Gail said.
"Mark and I are old friends from way back," Steve said dully.
"We sure are, Steve, aren't we?" Mark said, sitting on the blanket. Gail dropped between them, letting her thigh rest against Mark's.
"Well you don't sound very enthusiastic about it," Gail said. Both looked at her and said nothing.
At last Mark broke the silence. "Who are you, by the way?"
"My name is Gail."
"Just got here, huh?"
"How did you know?" Gail asked, expecting him to say that he'd seen her in the restaurant.
"Well, Stevie here always picks out the most desirable new girl on the beach every day, and does ... well, you get the picture. And he picked you today."
"Do you agree with him?" she asked, breathing a little more deeply so that her unconfined breasts rose and fell in the transparent shirt. Steve shot her an angry look which she felt but ignored.
"Well, it's hard to say," Mark said coolly. "I don't make the rounds the way he does. I have to work."
"Yes, I know. I saw you at the hotel."
"Oh, really? Are you staying there?"
Gail nodded.
"Then we'll have to get together sometime," he said, with a strange smile on his face which puzzled Gail. But his voice was deep and smooth and Gail felt she could have been seduced by that alone-even if he weren't the most handsome boy she'd ever seen.
"We'll have to," she said, smiling her most sexy smile and looking into his eyes so that he would know-he would have to know-that she was his for the asking.
"You all heated up now, Gail?" Steve asked, putting his arm around her and pulling her toward him.
"Not altogether," she said, "but with two strong, warm bodies like you two I couldn't stay cold for too long." With this she clasped Mark's arm with her hand and pressed her breast against it.
"What happened?" Mark asked.
"We were swimming," Steve said. "Gail got a chill."
"Oh, was that you two coming out of the water before? I wondered who the girl was. Steve, I've got to compliment you on your taste in female bodies. You always pick the ripe ones."
This sent a thrill of excitement running through Gail's blood. So he had seen her, and he was aroused! Gail pressed closer to Mark.
"What are you doing later on tonight?" Mark asked, as if to Gail, and she began to say that she'd be free, but Steve butted in as though he thought the words were addressed to him.
"I don't know, Mark. I think I'll just hit the sack," he said.
"I thought you'd be going to the party at Bernie's place. Promises to be quite a blast."
"You going?" Steve said. "No, I have to meet somebody."
Gail looked at the little twinkle in Mark's eyes. He wants me, she thought. This is his sly way of telling me without Steve knowing.
"May I ask who you're meeting?" Steve said.
"I'm afraid that's a state secret. She doesn't wish her identity to be known by the likes of you!"
Gail's heart pounded. She was right! He did want her. There was no doubt of itl
"Well, I've got to be going," Mark said. "I've got to meet her up on the boardwalk in about ten minutes." He rose, letting his hand graze across Gail's protruding breast. "Nice meeting you, Gail. I hope I'll see you again very soon."
"Very soon," Gail said, with a conspiratorial wink. "So long, Steve," Mark said. "I hope Gail doesn't stay cold!"
"Get going, you bastard," Steve said, and turned to Gail. The fire had sunk down to embers and the other couples had departed the scene.
"He's a real snide guy. I hope he didn't bother you," Steve said, kissing her throat and nibbling at her ear, while his hands strayed across her breasts and into her lap.
"He did, in a way," Gail said.
"But he's finally left us alone," Steve said, and gently pushed her shoulders back. Gail resisted, sitting up straight.
"Let's lie down," Steve said, pushing her with more force.
"I can't, Steve. I've got to go."
"What!" he said, his temper fully exploding at last. "You can't leave now!"
"I'm afraid I'll have to, Steve. We wasted so much time talking to Mark that I'm already late. My cousin is probably home by now, on the long distance phone to my mother. If I don't get back now, they'll probably send me home."
"Come on, Gail, please! Just a few minutes more won't make any difference. We've come too close to it for you to leave now."
"There'll be other times," she said, wriggling out of his grip and getting to her feet. "I've really got to run now."
Steve got to his feet, his hands on his hips. Gail walked up to him and pecked him lightly on the mouth, which was set in a frown.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Steve," she said.
"Not if I can help it," he said angrily, and stormed away in the other direction.
Gail now began to run toward the boardwalk, where Mark had headed. She didn't see him anywhere on the beach, and as she neared the boardwalk she scanned the thinning crowd for a sign of him. Breathless, she mounted the stairs onto the wooden pavement and looked desperately for him. He was nowhere to be seen.
Perhaps he wouldn't wait for her, she thought. Perhaps she'd taken too long making up a story for Steve. Maybe he thought she didn't get his veiled invitation and had stayed on the beach to make love to Steve. Maybe she should have left with Mark at the beginning.
All these thoughts were blasted out of her mind by the delicious sight of Mark emerging from a bar across the street. She was about to call out his name and wave, let him know she was there, when a car pulled up on his side of the street, blocking him from her view. She started across the street, but when the car pulled away, he was gone. With a sinking feeling in her heart, she looked at the disappearing car and saw the back of Mark's head. A woman sat next to him behind the wheel.
A woman! So that was the mysterious date he didn't want Steve to know about. Not Gail at all I She felt like a fool, an outcast, rejected, trampled over, laughed at, scorned, washed up, as good as dead. She'd given up a perfectly wonderful boy who had really gotten her excited for the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow-only to see her golden boy whisked away at the last minute by some undeserving bitch!
Gail wandered from the boardwalk back onto the beach. What could she do? She wondered what would happen if she went back to Steve. She'd teased him and led him to the boiling point. Even further. While they were swimming in the nude, she had begun to make love to him. Then as coolly as if she'd never seen him in her life, she dropped him like a wet cigarette butt. Would he want to come back for another try?
Damn! Who cared what Steve wanted anyway?
She didn't want to go back to him, not right now. She didn't want to think about any other boys except Mark. She'd gone so far out on a limb for him already that even though she'd fallen flat on her rump, she felt she might as well keep right on going after him. Right now, however, since he was with that bitch, all Gail could do was watch the sea and think about him.
CHAPTER FIVE
Gail wandered along the beach to a deserted spot well away from the fires and the crowds of drinkers, the nude swimmers and the lovers on the blankets, and sat on the top of a dune, close to the sea's edge.
She thought about Mark. She wondered what his body looked like, how well he was endowed as a man, what he was like in bed. She imagined herself stripping off her clothes and lying on her back on the sand. Mark would come dripping from the sea like some Greek god, spot her, come running to her and take her, over and over and over-all night they would roll on the beach in each other's arms, propelled by the motions of their love. Maybe they would be washed out to sea as they fell asleep making love, and wake up on some South Sea island where they would spend the rest of their lives making love and basking in the sun to the music of Hawaiian guitars.
Her reverie was interrupted by the muffled sound of voices coming her way. So she wasn't to be left alone after all! Well, maybe if she-just sat there and didn't make any noise they'd pass by her and go their own way.
The voices got louder and louder, and she could make out, distinctly, two voices: a girl's and a boy's. The girl's voice sounded oddly familiar, very familiar, and Gail perked up her ears and listened intently.
"Let's stop here, right between these dunes. Nobody will ever come here," the boy said.
"This is all wrong, Mike. I can't help feeling this is all wrong." Gail had to suppress a gasp of surprise and shriek of delight at her discovery: the girl's voice was unmistakably Sharon's!
"Oh, come on, Sharon, sit down. Here, help me spread out the blanket."
Gail, without making a sound, peered behind her in an effort to make out Sharon and her friend, but they were hidden behind the dunes.
"I shouldn't have had so many of those beers," Sharon said, with more than a little slur in her voice. "I'm not used to drinking like that."
"Beer can't make you drunk," the boy said. "It just loosens you up a little bit. Makes you unscrew some of your inhibitions."
"I'm not so sure I want to unscrew any of my inhibitions! Why did you want to come out here, Mike? It's so deserted."
"Who wants to stay with all those creepy people? You said yourself you didn't have any use for them."
"That didn't mean we should come way off here in the dark, as if we were going to do something nasty."
"What's nasty about this, Sharon?" Mike said, and there was a long silence, punctuated by heavy breathing. Finally Gail heard the sound of lips parting, and Sharon sighed. Gail felt maybe she ought to make a run for it, or at least let Sharon know she was there and make a graceful exit. But it was already too late for that. Besides, Gail had to admit to herself that she was fascinated by the scene and couldn't wait to hear what would happen to her cousin next.
"You shouldn't do that," Gail heard Sharon say. "Itit does strange things to me."
"Haven't you ever kissed a boy before, Sharon?"
"What makes you say that? Of course I've kissed boys before. As much as any normal girl."
Gail knew this was a lie. Sharon had often bragged that she'd never been kissed by any boy except in a polite, public fashion, and would smash any mouth that attempted it.
"Like this?" Mike said, and again there was a long silence, heavier breathing. Clothes began to rustle, and Sharon let out a mild moan of protest.
"Stop that!" she said. "What do you think I am?"
"I think you're a very attractive girl. Or could be, if you'd let yourself. Why do you have to wear those glasses all the time? They get in the way when we kiss. That's better."
Again, the heavy breathing, the silence, the rustle of clothing, the moan, and Sharon's voice whimpering, "Please, don't."
"And your hair," Mike said. "Why do you wear it like that? You must have beautiful hair. How long is it?"
"Down below my shoulders."
"Here, let me take it down." There was a pause, and the light rustle of hair, then the sound of a kiss which Gail thought must have been implanted on Sharon's neck.
"You are beautiful, you know it? I didn't realize it. I suspected it, but you are. You're the most sensual girl I've ever seen in my life. You were made to love, and especially to be loved. Did you know that? Did you ever think that? Or did you always suspect the opposite?"
"I don't know. No, I never thought it. I never dared think it. Maybe I suspected someone might feel that way, and was afraid of it."
"Afraid of yourself?"
"Yes, maybe."
"Don't be afraid of yourself or what you feel. Feel it. Do you feel my hand there on your breast?"
"Don't!"
"Don't push it away. There. Do you feel that?"
"Don't," Sharon said, but her voice sounded considerably weaker.
"It feels good, doesn't it? Doesn't it please you?"
"I don't know. It feels funny."
"It would feel better if there were no cloth, no confinements there at all. Just our two bloodstreams, coming together with only the tiniest membrane between them."
"Don't talk like that."
"Take off your sweater."
"No! I can't."
"Take it off, Sharon. You must have a beautiful body."
"I don't. Leave it be."
"Come on-that's it. Just lift your arms-there! My God, Sharon, your body is gorgeous!"
"It's not, and besides-please! Leave me be, please! Not the bra, no!" But Mike was evidently too much for her, for all that Gail could hear after that was the sound of her sighs and the sound of Mike's active mouth, sucking and kissing her naked breasts.
"You're lovely, Sharon," Mike finally said. "And I want you. You excite me more than any girl I've ever known."
"You're just saying that," Sharon said, her voice softened considerably, but still stiff with resistance. "You're just saying that because you want me to do that awful thing with you. Then you'll ditch me the way all sluts get ditched. I know all about boys like you."
"You don't know anything about me, Sharon."
"Then that's good enough reason not to let you do it. And-don't-keep your hands above the waist!" Evidently Mike had thoroughly captured that part of the sacred territory.
"Do you like me, Sharon?"
"I guess I must. I've let you go farther with me than any boy ever has." Or any boy has ever tried, Gail thought.
"And I aim to go farther, Sharon. I've got to. I'll go stark raving mad and stew in my own juice if I don't have you tonight."
"So stew. It's not my concern."
Mike abandoned the verbal assault, and Sharon's defenses took another defeat. A zipper unzipped, zipped, unzipped again, and stayed unzipped. More kisses, and the sound of Mike's mouth as it sucked avidly on Sharon's breasts. Sharon moaned and cried, "Mike!"
Another rustle of clothing, and evidently a tug-o'-war. "No, Mike, please! You're going too far! No, please, leave the panties on! I can't."
The harsh sound of sheer cloth ripping pierced the air.
"Now look what you've done! Oh, you beast!"
"I'm looking, Sharon, and it's lovely. Every inch of you is lovely."
"Please, let me have them back. Please don't look at me like that."
"Sharon, relax. Enjoy my desire. You have a fantastic body. You have a body most girls would sell their souls to get. It's beautiful. You're beautiful."
"You ruined my panties."
"Here, you can wear mine."
"What are you doing?"
"I'm taking off my clothes, so you'll have something to wear."
"Oh, God! What have I done to deserve this?"
More clothing rustling, and then Sharon went "Ooh!"
"It won't work," she said. "No, I can't! You're too big! Get away from me."
Mike replied with more kisses, and Sharon responded with further moans. She began to sound more and more ready. Everything was set. Mike had somehow removed her glasses, let down her hair, peeled off her sweater and bra, pulled off her shorts and ripped off her panties. He had removed all his own clothes and was on top of her, covering her body with kisses. She was moaning with de sire, and whatever her mind and will were urging, her body, joined with Mike's, stood a good chance of gaining the upper hand. The moment of truth was at hand.
"Please, no, it hurts," Sharon almost screamed, genuinely in pain.
"Are you really a virgin," Mike said tenderly.
"Of course I'm a virgin! And I intend to stay that way! Get off me, you beast."
"It's all right, Sharon. It will be all right. It will hurt for a minute, but that will only increase the pleasure you'll feel later on. Bear with me; bear with yourself. If you run out on this now you'll never be able to enjoy sex for the rest of your life." "Kiss me, Mike," Sharon said, and for the first time, her voice sounded utterly female, utterly yielding, with all the harshness and shrewishness gone out of it, hungry for pleasure.
Gail watched the smash and wash of surf and heard Sharon's muffled cries of pain and Mike's reassurances. Then the thrash of their bodies together seemed louder than the surf itself and Sharon's cries of pain began to sound like moans of pleasure, her pleas for restraint became cries of more! more! and Mike stopped reassuring her and started unleashing the moans of his own hot joy. The thrashing of their thighs sounded more and more furious and their cries too came out with mounting passion, until the thrashing suddenly stopped and their cries pierced the night with the gratified yelping of each others' names.
Then, silence. Heavy breathing almost in rhythm with the pulsating sea. Gail sat with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, her head bent. What had begun as idle curiosity had ended, for her, in despair and a deepening of her own frustration. She sat there a long time, listening to her cousin and her lover breathe deeply their sighs of gratification, and she was ready to cry about what had happened with Mark.
Finally Sharon said: "I'd better be getting back, Mike. My cousin is going to wonder what happened to me."
"What are you worrying about her for? She's off on the beach somewhere with Steve."
"No, I saw Steve with another girl as we were coming down here. She must have gone home."
"Well, what are you worrying about her for? She's not your keeper. What do you have to worry about what she thinks?"
"I'd better go back," Sharon said, with her usual firmness.
"Wait a while," Mike said. "I have something for you."
When Gail heard Sharon moan and murmur, "It feels so beautiful, Mike. Oh!" she decided that the contrast between Sharon's pleasure and her miserable discomfort was too much to bear. Ducking down, she headed toward the sea and ran as quickly as she could away from the scene.
Avoiding the small groups of partiers and lovemakers on the beach, she returned to the boardwalk, looked again at the street comer of her humiliation, and headed back to the hotel.
Alone in bed with her fierce desire and her fantasies of Mark, she cried herself to sleep.
CHAPTER SIX
Gail woke up the next morning clutching a wadded sheet to her naked body. She turned her head to see if Sharon had made it back.
Sharon lay sleeping peacefully, a soft smile radiating from her face. Ordinarily she wore baggy pajamas, but this morning she was nude. She had covered herself with a sheet, but either it had worked itself or she had pulled it during her sleep, down about her thighs. Her voluptuous body lay naked to the bright morning sunlight filtering through the blinds.
Sharon looked altogether changed, as if another person, long pent up inside her, had suddenly seized her flesh and driven out the inhibited prude who had dwelt there dominating for so long. The tint of her flesh had changed from a pasty, drab white to a soft rose color, brimming with life and sensuality. Her breasts seemed to have grown even larger than they had been, and the nipples stood erect and cherry-colored, still titillated from the workout they had gotten the night before.
Her long black hair lay loosely on her shoulders, rich and glowing, in deep contrast with the creamy smoothness of her breasts, which rose and fell with her deep breathing.
Gail could hardly believe her eyes.
Sharon began to stir on the bed, as if in a dream, twisting her body and arching her back. "Oh, Mike, yes," she moaned in her sleep, as one hand went to her thighs, probing and fondling herself, while the other grabbed and squeezed her heavy breasts.
Gail watched in fascination while Sharon's breathing mounted and her hips thrashed and bucked in the morning air. She moaned Mike's name again and again, reaching a tremendous peak of intensity-then froze, gasping with joy, her legs thrown out, her back arched up, her hard-nippled breasts thrust high. Sighing profusely, she slowly relaxed her body, wriggling onto her side, facing Gail.
Sharon opened her eyes. Her face was radiant. She looked at Gail a moment, hardly recognizing her at first, still half in her dream.
"That dream must have been something!" Gail said, half-admiringly, half-enviously.
Sharon laughed. "It was terrific. But it can't touch the real thing."
Gail was about to agree with her on this point, then remembered that she wasn't supposed to know about Sharon's coming out. "Why Sharon," she said, "what's gotten into you? A nice girl like you, talking that way? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
Sharon giggled, stretching her arms up over her head in the most lascivious way. "I guess I should be ashamed of myself," she said, "but I feel much too good right now to be ashamed. Maybe when it all wears off I'll have time to feel guilty."
"Guilty about what?" Gail said, playing dumb. "What are you talking about, anyway?"
"Well, Gail, it looks like the old prude will be giving you a little competition this summer after all."
"What do you mean?" Gail asked, a little worried about this last remark.
Sharon swung her legs around and got off her bed, padding across the room to Gail. She lay down on the bed alongside her cousin, and took her in her arms.
"I have a confession to make," Sharon whispered into Gail's ear. They lay facing each other, locked in a loose, innocent embrace, their young bodies mingling at the breasts and thighs.
"Well, tell me, Sharon. What is it?" Gail said, anxious to see how Sharon's story would match with what Gail had overheard the night before.
"I'm not a virgin anymore, Gail. I've had it done to me."
"Had what done?" Gail asked with mock innocence.
"What boys do to you, silly. With their thing."
"Why Sharon, I'm surprised at you! A nice girl like you, falling to sin at such a young age! What would your mother say?"
"I can imagine what she'd say! But she's not going to find out. Anyway, it's about time I stopped worrying what the old bitch would say. It's about time I started leading my own life."
"Hurray for you!" Gail said, and kissed her cousin on the mouth with a loud smack. "I've been waiting for years to hear you say that! Isn't it great to feel free? You must feel like a brand new person."
"I do, I do," Sharon said. "I feel wonderful."
"Well, tell me about what happened. All the juicy details. Who was he?"
"It was Mike, that boy that Steve introduced to me. What happened to Steve, by the way? I saw him with another girl."
"Oh, never mind about that. Go on," Gail said, a momentary cloud passing over her happy mood.
"Well, Mike was wonderful. I liked him right off the bat. He reminded me of-oh, I don't know-but I felt I'd known him for a long time, I felt I could trust him. We started talking-and drinking. Well you know how I am, Gail. Even a little beer makes me giddy. Between the beer, and Mike's closeness, and his voice, and the sea and everything, I could feel something deep inside me begin to melt and warm me up. Mike had his arm around me pretty soon and he kept on rubbing my neck and my back, which warmed me up even more, and every once in a while he'd try to kiss me, and I let him once or twice. Then he started to touch me and tried to push me back on the blanket. I resisted. I pushed him away and told him there were people watching us. He protested for a while and then he stopped. He sat there and sulked. I got embarrassed and for something to say I suggested we go for a walk. He perked up at this and we started along the beach. When we were way off, by some sand dunes, he stopped and laid out the blanket. I didn't know why at the time, but my heart was beating like a drum roll, and I felt weak and woozy all over. We sat down, and he kissed me. For the first time, I kissed back, and I got so hot and excited then and there-it was the first time I'd ever kissed a boy like that, the first time-I knew that my resistance was shot to hell."
Sharon smiled and sighed, hugging Gail closer to her. "I don't remember how it all happened, but somehow he stripped off all my clothes-he even ripped off my panties. I was so scared, and then when he took off his clothes and I saw him nude, so hard and excited, and so big, I really got scared. I couldn't see how it would work, how it would fit. But he was so nice to me, and so gentle, and even though it hurt at first-God, it hurt something awful-pretty soon the pain all turned to pleasure and I just let myself go, and oh, Gail, you can't imagine how good it was!"
"Yes I can," Gail said.
"Afterwards, I wanted to leave, but he wanted to do it again, so I let him. And it was even better the second time. Then, after that, he wanted to go, but I had to have more, and so we stayed. But after the fourth time, he was just too tired. So I gave him my ripped-up panties as a souvenir, and we got dressed and came back."
"You really made up for lost time, didn't you?" Gail said, truly amazed at her cousin's avidity.
"I sure did," Sharon said, "and I intend to go on making up for it."
"You said yesterday you were saving it all for the right man and the right time."
"That's right, Gail, and the right time was last night."
"I suppose you're going to marry Mike now?" Gail said.
"Don't be silly, Gail! I wouldn't dream of getting married until I finish college."
"You've really changed, Sharon. I'm amazed."
"Not really, Gail. I've only become myself. I've thrown away the mask."
"Even your body seems changed," Gail said, running a hand up Sharon's belly and fondling one of her breasts. She hit a sensitive spot and Sharon began to giggle. She intensified the playful attack with her other hand, and Sharon retaliated by tickling Gail around the breasts. Both girls began laughing uncontrollably, their naked bodies wrestling on the bed, rolling over and over on top of one another until, exhausted, they declared a truce and lay panting in each other's arms.
For a split second Gail wondered what it would be like to make love to Sharon, but she dismissed the thought as ludicrous. She bounded out of bed and into the shower, where her thoughts returned to Mark as she massaged her soapy body.
When Sharon and Gail entered the restaurant for breakfast they were met by Cora Henley. "You're the girls who wanted your table changed, is that right?"
"We're the ones, all right," Gail said.
"This way, please."
They followed her to a spot much closer to the front of the dining room, with a window overlooking the sea.
"I trust this is the sort of thing you had in mind?" Mrs. Henley said.
Gail was delighted with the change, and thanked the hostess.
"I always want my guests to be happy," she said, smiling. Gail looked at her closely for the first time. She really was an attractive woman, Gail decided. A beautiful woman. Gail guessed her age to be in the early thirties, but she could have been much younger. She was a tall, statuesque woman with auburn hair and deep brown eyes. She had the aura of a completely ripe woman, who was aware of her ripeness, and knew how to use it.
"Do you own this place?" Gail asked.
"Yes, I do. My late husband left it to me, and I like to spend my summers managing the place. It's as much a hobby to me as a business." Catching herself suddenly, as if she didn't want to carry on the conversation, she changed her tone, saying, "Enjoy your breakfast," and breezed off.
"That was nice of her," Sharon said.
"She seems like quite a woman. I wouldn't want to have her for competition," Gail said.
"Oh, she's too old for that ever to happen," Sharon said.
Gail was about to reply when she saw Mark emerging from the kitchen, and she lost all interest in the conversation. She watched him as he headed for their table, and caught his eye as he came up to them.
"Hi, Mark!" she said. "Looks like you're our waiter! I can't think of anyone I'd rather have service me than you." She looked up into his eyes, smiling, but he avoided her gaze, staring at his little pad.
"What'll you have?" he said, without looking up.
What's wrong? Gail thought. What am I doing wrong? Why is he so cold this morning? Sharon ordered eggs and bacon; Gail wanted only toast and coffee.
"Did you have a good time last night after you left?" she asked him, as he wrote out their orders.
"Yes, I did, as a matter-of-fact." Without saying anything further or giving Gail a chance to pursue the issue, he whisked away the menus and turned back for the kitchen.
Gail's face, which had flushed scarlet at his approach and broken into a radiant smile, now dropped a mile.
"Who's that?" Sharon asked, puzzled by Gail's reaction.
"Oh, just a boy I met last night on the beach. His name is Mark. I'll introduce you to him when he comes back."
"You seem to be quite taken with him," Sharon said. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, I don't know, just the way you reacted to him."
"Maybe I am, I don't know," Gail said casually, not wanting Sharon to know how totally hooked on Mark she was.
A few minutes later Mark appeared with their breakfast, still unsmiling, avoiding Gail's eyes.
"Mark, I'd like you to meet my cousin, Sharon," Gail said, as he began setting down the plates and cups.
Mark smiled at Sharon without saying anything. Gail racked her brain for something to say. "Are you-have you worked here before?"
"Why do you ask?" he said.
"I don't know-you seem like such a good waiter."
"No, this is the first time I've worked here."
"They must keep you pretty busy," Gail said. "Do you have any time off?"
Mark had finished serving the breakfast and stood at the table, slightly on edge. "Oh, I have most of the day off. I only serve breakfast and dinner."
"Your nights are free, then?" she said, smiling at him as if to say, So am I.
"Yes, they are," he said, shooting a nervous glance over his shoulder. She followed his gaze to the comer of the dining room. There, standing with her arms folded, was Cora Henley, glaring.
"I've got to get back to work," Mark said, and withdrew, strolling over to where Mrs. Henley stood. She began speaking to him in a low voice, her features and gestures animated. Gail couldn't understand why Mark had been so cold and uncommunicative, and why he had departed so suddenly when he saw Mrs. Henley looking at them. It must be some hotel rule, Gail guessed, about waiters talking to customers above and beyond the call of duty.
Gail decided that the dining room wasn't the place to strike up a beautiful friendship with Mark, and hungrily hoped he'd be at the beach that afternoon.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Gail, don't you have another bathing suit I can wear?" Sharon said, after they'd returned to their room and begun to get ready for the beach. Gail had already wriggled into the bottom half of her bikini and was putting on the bra, but Sharon had taken one look at herself in her own suit and took it off immediately.
"I'm afraid not, Sharon. This is the only wearable one I brought."
"Don't you have anything I could wear? I can't wear that stuffy old thing," she said, pointing to her old suit, which lay in a pile in the comer.
"I'm sorry, Sharon, but the only other bathing suit I have I bought as a joke. You couldn't wear it at the beach."
"Why not?" Sharon asked.
"It's a topless suit. I only bought it as a joke. It's not intended to wear on a public beach."
"Let me see it," Sharon said.
"There's no point in your looking at it, you couldn't wear it. It's indecent."
"Let me see it at least. You've aroused my curiosity."
Gail hunted through her suitcase and came up with a small handful of black cloth, which she tossed at Sharon. Sharon shook the suit open, finding the holes for her legs, and stepped into it. There were straps like suspenders, and she pulled these onto her shoulders and looked in the mirror while Gail cast a cold eye on her. The bottoms were larger than a bikini, coming above her hipbone, but were cut sharply in the rear to expose most of her backside. The two straps came up and across her breasts, but since they were only a little more than an inch wide, they only covered her nipples and part of her aureoles. The pink rims of these were visible at the edges of the cloth no matter how she adjusted the straps. From the sides, the firm fullness of her breasts was completely visible, and she might as well have been completely stripped.
"Sharon, you can't possibly wear that suit! You'll be arrested."
"That's what I thought about your suit yesterday, and nothing happened."
"But this is different," Gail said. "They don't allow topless suits on the beach."
"Who says they don't? I saw a girl with one on yesterday. Besides, this isn't really topless. It's got these straps."
"Those straps won't cover a thing. You won't be able to take a step or even breathe without their sliding off."
"Oh, that's not true, Gail."
"It is too. Just walk over to me and see what happens."
Sharon took several steps in Gail's direction, and looked down. As she took the first step one strap slid off the nipple, then the other.
"See what I mean?" Gail said.
"I'll take my chances," Sharon said. "And if you're ashamed to come with me, you can always stay in the room, as you said to me yesterday."
Gail remembered, and with a twinge of embarrassment, realized how their roles had shifted. Now she was the prude, and Sharon the swinger.
"Okay, Sharon, you win. Let's get going."
They both slipped on short robes and headed for the beach. Along the way, Sharon's slipped open, and the valley between her naked breasts, and much of the breasts themselves, became exposed, exciting the admiring stares and smiles of the boys along the way, as well as the horrified glares of the elderly.
Once on the beach, they spread out a blanket and removed their robes. No sooner had Sharon removed hers, than the eyes of every virile boy on the beach were fixed on her. Within a minute, Mike, Steve and a third, strikingly-handsome boy, had come over to the blanket and were joking and talking with Sharon.
"Hi Steve," Gail said rather loudly, after Steve had failed to say hello to her or even look at her. Now his eyes met hers for a brief moment. The smile that had animated his face a moment before disappeared like the sun behind a cloud, and he glared at her without saying anything.
The joking and laughing with Sharon continued as the boys sat down around her, ignoring Gail whenever she made a feeble attempt to join the fun.
Then Mike suggested that Sharon join them on another blanket, where they had some beer. Everyone started to get up, and the strange boy said, "What about your friend here? Doesn't she want to come?"
"No," Steve said, with all the contempt he could muster. "She doesn't want to come. Do you, kid?"
In answer, Gail turned over on her belly and buried her face in her arms. She lay that way a long time, feeling lonely and frustrated and sorry for herself. Finally she began to feel very hot, and realized the blanket was soaked with perspiration.
She got up and trotted down to the water's edge. Out of the comer of her eye she caught a glimpse of Sharon, seated on a blanket, surrounded by a half-dozen boys and a few girls. She could see her adjusting the strap of her suit, which no doubt had slipped off to expose one of her nipples for the hundreth time. How could she bare herself to all those boys in public like that, thought Gail, with a twinge of envy.
Gail shut her eyes and plunged into the sea. The water was cool and refreshing on her body and she gave herself up to its tingling pressure. She recalled her nude swim with Steve the night before, and wished she could repeat the experience-only this time with Mark. She abandoned herself to this fantasy, floating on her back in the buoyant sea, her arms outstretched and her eyes gazing up into the brilliant, clear blue sky.
She was startled out of her fantasy by a muffled sound that vaguely resembled her name. Her ears still underwater, she heard it again, louder this time, so she rolled over in the shallow water and stood up. She had to suppress a gasp of delight when she saw Mark standing no more than two feet away from her in the water.
"Mark!" she said, beaming. "You scared me."
"You looked like you were in some sort of a daze. Didn't you hear me?"
"I guess my ears were underwater," she said, letting the natural wash of the waves push her closer to him until they were nearly touching. "You usually come here this time of day?" she asked.
"Sometimes. It depends."
"On what?" she asked.
"Oh, you know. Sometimes I have some work to do around the hotel. Other times, other things."
They continued to chat in the water, which was beginning to get a little rougher as the breeze picked up. Gail and Mark stood beyond where the waves were breaking, and each time one of the waves came in they were buoyed up and their bodies mingled. Gail loved to feel his naked thighs slide between hers, and pressed her breasts against his hard chest at every opportunity.
Then a large wave came in and broke on top of them before they could get out of the way. Gail clutched frantically to Mark as the wave hit them. She felt the water peel down the top of her suit and felt her breasts burst free of the bra. Her arms were around Mark's broad back, her fingers digging into his powerful muscles, her naked breasts and hard nipples crushed into his chest.
The wave washed by and they surfaced in its foamy wake, arms still entwined, their lips inches apart. Kiss me, Gail wanted to say, please kiss me. She looked deeply into his eyes, but her longing met only with his scrutiny.
"I feel like I've lost part of my suit," she said, smiling, and subtly letting the water bob her body so that her nipples lightly grazed across his chest.
"It does feel that way," he said, still scrutinizing her without expression, without love or hate or longing or lust or embarrassment or fear or self-consciousness or even indifference. He just looked at her, and Gail felt that no man had ever looked at her quite like that in her life. She melted into his arms.
His hand went to one of her naked breasts, cupping it lightly and caressing the hard, hot nipple with his thumb. Gail thought she was going to explode then and there. She wanted him to grab it harder and pinch the nipple. She wanted him to take it with his mouth and suck, bite, lick, kiss. She wanted him to rip off her suit, and his, and have him take her right there in the water without waiting another second.
Still cupping her breast and now lightly pinching the nipple with his thumb and forefinger, he looked from her eyes to her mouth, and moved as if to kiss her. She closed her eyes and offered her half-open mouth for him to take, pushing her naked breast into his hand and slowly rotating her shoulder.
He put an index finger to her lower lip, pulled it down slightly, then let it go, so that it plopped softly against her upper lip. Gail opened her eyes, surprised, not sure what was happening. He had let go of her breast, but still held her loosely at the hips.
"Steve tells me you're quite a tease. Now I see what he means." For the first time, there was a trace of expression on his face, the slightest hint of a sly smile.
"No, I-I'm not a tease. Why should he say that? He has no business-"
"Well, I've got to say one thing for you," Mark said, "you've certainly got a lot to tease with." They were at arm's length now, and his eyes were on her breasts, completely exposed and bobbing with the rise and fall of the water. In a belated gesture of modesty, Gail hastily pulled up the bra so that at least the nipples were covered.
"My, my, aren't we the prude all of a sudden?" Mark said, with almost a straight face.
"I am not, Mark! How can you say that?"
"Come on, let's get out of the water. You'll get waterlogged," he said, and began swimming in to shore.
Gail, still burning with desire and frustration and stupefaction and embarrassment and rage, and finally, even more infatuated with Mark, in spite of herself, than she had been before, followed him, swimming as fast as she could.
She caught up to him as they emerged dripping from the surf. She looked at his nearly-naked body, clad in the skimpiest silk trunks, and thought she'd never seen anything so perfect in her life. If only he cared about her, if only she could make him care!
She walked alongside him in the sand to where he had a blanket stretched out, and sat down beside him.
"Why do you think I'm a tease?" she said. "Why should you believe anything Steve says?" She was pulling the bra straps from her shoulders and wriggling out of them. The bra slipped down slightly, revealing the fullest expanse of her breasts, barely covering the nip pies and leaving the upper rims of her aureoles exposed. Through the skimpy fabric, the contours of her still-erected nipples were visible, and their rosy color, through the nearly-transparent fabric, stood in vivid contrast to the creamy whiteness surrounding them.
Before he answered, Mark cast a slow, admiring glance up and down her body that made her blush. "It's none of my business," he said. "The way you treat some guy and the way he reacts to it is about as interesting to me as the price of pigs ears in Tel-Aviv." He rolled over onto his flat belly. "Put some lotion on my back," he said.
Gail gladly complied, working the cream slowly and lovingly into every meaty muscle of his broad back. When she had finished she lay down alongside him, looking into his peaceful, half-sleeping face.
"Why were you so cold to me this morning?" she asked.
Mark muttered something unintelligible without opening his eyes.
"Did it have anything to do with that woman-Mrs. Henley?" Gail said.
Mark opened his eyes. "What do you mean?" he said.
"Aren't you supposed to talk to young female guests?" she said suggestively.
"Not supposed to talk to any guests; not supposed to fraternize with them, either. If she knew I was here with you I'd probably be fired."
"So? Big deal. What's a job?"
"To you it may be nothing. To me it's not only existence right now, but my future also."
"How come?"
"If I'm fired, I can't get another job for the summer. It's too late now; all the jobs are taken. So I starve. Not only do I starve, I don't have enough to go back to college in the fall. See?"
"Oh," Gail said, impressed by this logic.
"And speaking of my job, I think it's about time I got back there. I've got to get ready for dinner." He stood up, stretching his tall, muscular body as Gail inconspicuously gaped at him.
"Okay, up, up!" he said to her, about to pull the blanket out from under her body. Gail rose and he tossed the blanket over his shoulder, giving her a little goodbye wave as he left.
"See you at dinner," Gail called after him. He didn't look back.
So that's it, Gail thought as she headed back to where she and Sharon had left their things. The job! That's why he's so cold, so standoffish with me. There must be a way of getting around a stupid thing like that, she thought. There must be!
Gail sat on the blanket and looked around for Sharon. Nowhere in sight. Not on the beach, not in the water. She must have taken off with some boys. Well, good riddance to her, Gail thought, then realized that maybe it was the other way around-that Sharon had gotten rid of her.
Right now Gail couldn't worry about things like that. She was concentrating on Mark and his job. And his thinking she was a tease. She couldn't tell him why she'd ditched Steve after swimming nude with him and actually getting started right there in the water-couldn't come right out and say she'd ditched Steve to chase after him. Then there was that woman. Who could she be? If only she'd had the sense, she could have seen the woman's face, then looked for her today and scratched her eyes out. The bitch! What right did she have to Mark when Gail wanted him? It was too much for her. Too confusing. One thing was clear: she wanted Mark more than anything else in the world, and she was going to get him-no matter what it cost.
Her mind settled by this thought, she leaned back and tried to imagine where the hell Sharon could have gone in that topless bathing suit of hers.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sharon didn't get back that night, nor the next morning. Gail went to dinner alone, with Mark hardly saying more than, hello, or here's your pot roast. She sat alone in her room that night as well, reading confession magazines until she got completely disgusted and chucked the magazine in the wastebasket.
She looked and felt so terrible the next morning she didn't go to breakfast, afraid of the adverse reaction Mark might have. She slept late and slipped out early in the afternoon. Not to the beach, but to the town's small business section, buying a few items in the shops and getting a hamburger with French fries and a malted at the local greasy spoon.
Then she took in a movie by herself. It was a light, bright comedy about people with no problems whatsoever, and she found herself crying through the whole picture-sobbing in those places that were supposed to be the most hilarious. But the second picture was a horror film about a monster who comes and eats up most of the world. This made her feel much better.
When she got back to the hotel room Sharon was lying on her back in bed, her naked body greased with baby oil. The whole upper half of her body, save for two slim strips running down across her nipples from her shoulders to her hips, was scarlet.
Gail slammed the door behind her and after glaring briefly at Sharon, turned her back on her and set down her packages.
"Where you been?" Sharon said casually.
Gail wheeled on her. "Where have you been? That question seems a little more appropriate."
Sharon shrugged her shoulders. "I don't really care where you've been; I wasn't really asking. I was just saying it, you know, for openers."
"Well I'm asking. Where the hell were you?"
"Calm down, Gail. Remember, I'm the chaperon, not you. I'm your keeper, but you're not mine. I'm automatically free to do anything I want. And as far as I'm concerned, so are you. You should be overjoyed to hear me say something like that. You'd have kissed my beast of burden to get a statement out of me like that two days ago. Come on, cheer up. What's eating you? I'm sure you wouldn't grudge me a good time. What's the matter?"
Gail relaxed, realizing her moral outrage was merely envy. She sat on her bed and lit a cigarette.
"Oh, I don't know, Sharon," she said, puffing away. She didn't want to tell her cousin about it. She couldn't help her anyway. "I guess I'm just down in the dumps. Maybe I miss Pete. I guess that's it," she lied.
"Well forget about him for a while," Sharon said. "Live it up! Have a ball!" Gail stared at her incredulously for a moment, having trouble reconciling her former image of Sharon to this anointed sexpot on the bed. "You're going to be up in Heather College next fall, and believe me, that school is everything its name implies. It's like you're in a briar patch and if you try to get out they'll rip your body to shreds. You better make the most of your time while the making is good. Let me have one of your cigarettes."
"I didn't know you smoked," Gail said, handing Sharon the pack and lighter.
"I didn't, until last night. I guess I'm picking up all sorts of new habits," Sharon said, lighting up and handling the cigarette with practiced finesse.
"Where were you last night, if you don't mind my asking?"
"A party. It was quite a party!"
"Where was it? I didn't see you at the beach when I left, either."
"No, we took off right after you went in the water. Steve and Mike and some guys and a bunch of girls are renting a house down the beach a ways. It's got like a private beach and a whole cellar full of gin."
"And that's what you wore to the party-that topless suit? That's all?"
"It's a very informal crowd. I was wearing a lot more than some of the girls-and guys!"
"Thanks a lot for inviting me," Gail said.
"It wasn't up to me to invite you. I begged them to let you come along because I knew you'd enjoy it, but Steve absolutely refused. What did you do to him, anyway?"
"I didn't do anything to him. That's the trouble. He's mad at me because I wouldn't go all the way with him at that beach party."
"Why not? The way you two were going at it on the blanket and in the water that first day, I was convinced when you came out of the water you'd already made like salmon and spawned!"
"Almost, but not quite. I don't want to talk about it. How's Mike?"
"He's all right, I guess."
"You guess? Didn't you spend the night with him?"
"I wanted to," Sharon said, "but he was previously committed and that other boy-the one that was with him and Steve when they came over to us yesterday seemed very interested in me."
"And you slept with him?"
"I didn't get much sleep. Oh, Gail, he's so wonderfull You can't imagine!"
"Yes I can," Gail said with a little envious grunt.
"After the first time, the first night with Mike, I didn't think it could get any better. But it can! It has."
"Wasn't it a little cramped, with all those people?"
"There were a few other couples around the room, but after a certain point I wasn't really aware of them."
"Sharon, you're going crazy! Even I wouldn't do a thing like that! With all those people around you? How can you have changed so much in two days? It's almost as if you were an entirely different person."
"I know it, Gail. For the first time in my life I feel like I'm living-like I'm really doing the things I always wanted to do-that every girl wants to do-but never had the guts to go through with. In a way, you gave me the courage. I imagined you as completely uninhibited, and that first night, with Mike, deep down I wanted him from the beginning. I was determined to bust out of my shell. I'm still busting out, Gail, and, damn it, I'm going to have the time of my life this summer!"
These last words echoed in Gail's ears. That had been her phrase, her idea. Now, Sharon was way ahead of her, was carrying out her plan to the hilt-and then some. And where was she, Gail? Madly obsessed with a boy she couldn't get to first base with-an aloof, mysterious, unattainable and damn frustrating Adonis! Barred from meeting other boys now because she'd stood up Steve, in the very act of chasing foolishly after Mark, she had to keep trying. He was her last hope.
"I guess we better get ready for dinner," Sharon said, waking Gail from her maudlin reverie.
"I guess so," Gail said absently, thinking of the delicious thrill of seeing Mark, and the awful torture of having him treat her as though she were a part of the crockery.
As the days drifted by, those dinners and breakfasts became the center of her life. She never saw him down at the beach anymore, nor anywhere else. Sometimes he was frighteningly cold, sometimes he would smile at her unexpectedly and it would make her day. She knew she would have to make some kind of a move, however desperate, but she could think of nothing. The longer she put off doing something about Mark, the more stumped she became, and the more frightened of it, fearing to lose forever the chance of having him even once.
With Mark not going to the beach, Gail stopped going as well. She slept twelve and fourteen hours a day, spent her afternoons going to movies and her evenings reading magazines and brooding.
She hardly saw anything of Sharon. When her cousin came home at all it was at four or five in the morning, spending most of her nights at the perpetual party to which Gail was not invited.
They had been there ten days when a second letter arrived from Pete. She had not answered and had hardly read the first one, which had arrived the day after she got there, but she seized the second one eagerly.
She read it with anxious eyes.
Dear Gail, I can't begin to say how much I miss you and how much it hurts me that you haven't answered my letter. I've waited and waited for an answer and every morning I can't think about anything except what you're going to say in it as I sit there waiting for the mailman. Then he comes and-I'm ruined for the rest of the day.
Why don't you write? (Maybe our letters are crossing in the mail and if so please rip this up and you can also give me twenty lashes and I'll kiss your feet!) But somehow I doubt it.
I think you've forgotten me. You're down there with all those hot shots and I'm stuck up here with all these drips. I know damn well because you're so gorgeous and sexy that every boy on that beach has got the hots for you and (kill me if I'm wrong) you've probably got the hots for some of them and are making it, often.
My only consolation is Sharon, and knowing she's watching you.
It hurts me to drive my car, because when I get in it, I think of you. Your sweetness is all over it. I remember that first night in the back seat, a year and a half ago. We were parked out at our spot, and it was early spring and all the damp sweet flowers were in the air. You fought me every step of the way, like the sweet virgin you were; it must have taken me a half hour to get your clothes off. But I got mine off in two seconds flat. Remember that night? Remember how we came together, so slow and painful at first, and so crazy finally?
It was always like that. I can remember a million nights like that, there are so many I can't remember them all. Every one better than the last.
Are you there, Gail? Did you read this far? If you have, let me say, I love you. I miss you. I need you.
I'm going crazy without you. Maybe I never showed it or appreciated you enough, but now I'm telling you: I love you something awful.
Please write to me, Gail, give me a little bit of yourself. Even tell me about some of the boys you've been carrying on with. (No, I take that back, never mind about that, I don't want to hear about it.)
So look, Gail, drop me a line, okay? I'll be waiting to hear from you.
I love you, Pete
Gail read the letter over time and time again, and couldn't think of anything to say. She had already broken off with Pete in her own mind and had all but ceased to think about him. Now, this. She hadn't thought he felt all that strongly about her. Maybe it was just his frustration or loneliness. She didn't know.
She tried writing several short notes along the lines of Having a Wonderful Time, Wish You Were Here, but they didn't seem to work. On the other hand, she didn't want to write him a gushy love letter. It wouldn't make sense-leading him on like that, when all she really wanted was Mark.
In the end, she decided to put off writing him altogether until her mind cleared up. Everything was too foggy now; nothing really made any sense except her desire for Mark-growing more and more intense and uncontrollable every day.
The next morning Gail awoke and saw, to her surprise, Sharon, lying fast asleep in her bed. It was the first time in two days she'd shown up. Gail got up and lit a cigarette, and this woke up Sharon, "Where have you been the last couple of days?" Gail asked.
"Oh, God, what a hangover!" Sharon said, holding her head in her hands. "Give me a cigarette." Gail handed her the pack.
"I think I'm finally ashamed of myself," Sharon said, lighting up. "How come?"
"Oh," she moaned, "I don't even think I can remember. It was last night. We'd been drinking all day, and most of us were pretty sloshed. Not that most of those guys aren't always sloshed! Anyway, I don't know what time it was, but it was dark, and somebody had the bright idea of going out on the beach and building a fire. Somebody else brought a radio and we got out there and built this fire. Then this couple, Rick and Sandy, sort of snuck off together, but everybody knew where they were going. So we waited until they were pretty well on their way, and then snuck up on them and gathered around in a circle. There must have been about ten guys and about the same number of girls. Well, they didn't stop. They just kept right on going, with everybody around them, cheering them on and blasting the radio way up and keeping time. Then they were done; they had made it. Everybody cheered. But Rick-I don't know whether or not you've seen him on the beach?"
"No," Gail said.
"Anyway, he's very husky, very virile, and he got up and looked around. Then he walked over to Jane, who has one of the most fantastic figures I've ever seen, and points his finger at her, then wiggles it toward himself as if to say 'Come Hither.' Jane doesn't want to do it, but everybody pushes her into the middle of the circle. She was wearing a sweater and shorts, and Rick doesn't waste any time in peeling off her sweater and bra, and by this time I guess she'd figured there was no way out, so she began taking off her shorts. He helps her and peels off her panties. She lies down on the blanket, with plenty of rooters, and Rick doesn't hesitate. I mean he went after her like his life depended on it.
"When they had finished having their fun, it was Jane's turn. She looked around the circle, and you know whom she picked?"
"No, who?" Gail said, trying to seem bored, but fascinated by the scene.
"Your friend, Steve. She practically ripped off his pants and was he ready! In practically no time at all, maybe a little too soon, so far as Jane was concerned, he was through. Then it was his turn." Sharon paused, puffing on her cigarette.
"And?" Gail said. "What happened then?"
"Well, unfortunately he had the good taste to pick me!"
"Sharon! How could you? That's disgusting! Oh, Sharon, that's awful!"
"I know, I know. It's a shame I'll have to bear for the rest of my life," she said with mock seriousness. "I actually did try to get out of it, but there just wasn't any way. I had watched the others, so I had to join the show myself. That's life."
"How was he?" Gail said, and immediately bit her lip. "I didn't mean that," she said hastily.
"Yes, you did. He was good. Jane had taken the edge off of him and he was really grooving. I felt a little self-conscious at first, with all those people watching, but I got used to it after a while, and actually, Gail-well, frankly I got a kick out of them, yelling and screaming and cheering me on."
Sharon, I'm really shocked at you I Really shocked!" Gail said. "What did you do next?"
"It was my turn to choose when Steve and I were done. I looked around, and whom do you think I picked?"
"I don't know any of those people," Gail said. "And I'm glad I don't."
"You know this one."
"I told you, I don't know any of that crowd."
"This guy isn't a part of that crowd. I've only seen him there once or twice. It was our waiter. Mark."
Gail's face turned purple with rage, fury, frustration, disbelief, despair, and the hot tears got ready to flow.
"He was great, Gail!" Sharon went on, without looking at her cousin. God, was he terrific! And built! I've never felt anything like it! He's like a god, with those arms and those powerful legs of his and that back-"
"Shut up!" Gail yelled, the tears starting to flow. "Will you please shut the hell up!" She was bawling like a baby and heading for the bathroom. At the door, she turned and shouted angrily, "I don't want to hear any more of that filth, do you understand? You're a festering, filthy slut, and I hate every slimy pore of your disgusting body. You're the most obnoxious bitch I ever want to see in my life and if I ever have to hear another word from your decayed mouth I'm going to call the exterminators and have you put to sleep! Now I think I'll just puke!" She stormed into the bathroom, smashing the door shut with such a fury it knocked the ash off Sharon's cigarette.
Gail curled up in a little ball on the floor. She bawled and sobbed and moaned, cursing Sharon and Mark and Steve and the hotel and the sea and the beach and her own miserable life and everybody and everything that popped into her tormented mind.
Sharon, meanwhile, had put one and one together and came softly into the bathroom. She put her hand lightly on Gail's shoulder and said, "I'm sorry, Gail, I didn't-"
"Get away from me, you slut," Gail said, shaking off the hand.
"I didn't know you were in love with Mark."
Gail abruptly stopped crying. She sat up, looked at Sharon with blurry, bleary, tearstained eyes and said, "I'm not in love with Mark." But the sound of his name set off a new torrent of tears, and she leaned on Sharon's shoulder for support.
"If I had known, I wouldn't have done it. I'm sorry, Gail. You should have told me before."
"He treats me like dirt," Gail said through her sobs, finally acknowledging to Sharon the cause of her torment.
"You ought to just forget about him," Sharon said. "There are plenty of other boys around. I've been very selfish, keeping them all to myself. I'll introduce you to some of them."
"That's easy for you to say-forget about him," Gail sobbed. "How am I supposed to forget about him? I see him every day. It's easy for you to say; you've never loved anybody. You just go to bed with anybody who looks at you. I can't do that."
"It seems to me you had other ideas in your head when we arrived down here. What's changed you so much?"
"Mark has," Gail bawled, and gave way to another fit of convulsive tears.
"Come on, Gail, don't act so silly. You're being just like a thirteen-year-old in love with some football hero. Grow up and be yourself. I'm going to talk to Steve tonight and force him to let you come to the parties with me. He's not that much of a stubborn fool that he'd hold a grudge against you this long. We're having a big blast this weekend; people are coming from all over. Even if Steve still wants to hold his grudge, you can crash the party with me."
This piece of news cheered Gail up considerably, and still sniffling, she got up and went back to bed.
CHAPTER NINE
"Mark's a funny guy," Sharon said, as they were getting ready for dinner that night, and the conversation had turned back to him, "the way he keeps to himself all the time. There are a lot of rumors about him, you know."
"Like what?" Gail asked.
"Well, you know how people are. If somebody is popular with a group, but he keeps to himself all the time and never really takes part except when he wants to, and on his terms, everybody starts buzzing about him."
"What do they say?"
"The usual things. Some say he's a dope fiend, others say he's queer, still others think he's having an affair with Cora Henley."
"You mean that woman who runs this place? That's crazy! She's old enough to be his mother!" Gail said.
"You know how people are. They'll believe anything."
Maybe there was some truth to it, Gail thought. She remembered that first morning, and how Mark had constantly been looking over his shoulder at Cora; the heated discussion between them that followed; and how Mark had said, on the beach that afternoon, that he'd be fired if he were to be seen with Gail.
Then she remembered that he'd already explained it all-a matter of policy, of not fraternizing with the guests, a rule that most hotels enforce anyway. Just because this hotel happened to be owned by. an attractive, rich widow....
As she entered the dining room with Sharon, Gail looked around for Cora, to take another look at her in this light. But Cora was nowhere to be seen.
They took their table and were soon attended to by Mark. He had a big smile for Sharon as he approached the table. "You're looking very chipper today," Mark said to her.
Sharon returned the knowing grin, saying, "You're looking pretty good yourself."
Gail stared at her empty plate.
"It was a great party," he said.
"It did have its points," Sharon replied.
"How come you weren't there?" Mark asked Gail.
It took her a moment before she realized he was talking to her, then she looked up at him suddenly and began muttering, "Well, I-er-I don't know-I...."
"It's too bad you weren't there. I was looking for you," he said.
Gail saw herself in the circle. Mark had finished with Sharon. He stood in the center of the ring, looking for her I He found her and drew her in with him, his desire visibly mounting as he began stripping her. But he was so excited he couldn't wait and ripped off her bra and panties and pushed her down on the blanket, pouncing on top of her. The crowd cheered, the music blasted, they were in orbit!
"Gail hasn't been feeling well lately," Sharon explained. "She's been staying in her room for the last few days, haven't you, Gail?"
"Nothing serious I trust," Mark said.
"Oh, no," Gail said, "at least I hope not. Anyway it's all over now."
"What'll you have?" Mark said, and it was a split second before Gail realized he was talking about the food, not himself. She also realized that he had been much more friendly to her than he had ever been before, excepting maybe the first night at the beach with Steve. She looked around. Still no sign of Cora. Was that the reason?
He remained friendly throughout the meal, and all Gail's resolves to forget about him went up in smoke. She wanted him more than ever now, but as she and Sharon left the dining room her prospects seemed just as dismal as ever.
"I wish you could come to the party tonight, Gail," Sharon said, as she got ready to leave, "but I don't think I can swing it. This weekend for sure."
"That's all right, Sharon. I don't feel up to much tonight anyway. Do you want to take my car? The thing isn't doing any good, just sitting there collecting rust."
"No, that's all right. Jim is picking me up."
"Jim?"
"Yeah, he's my new boy friend," Sharon said. "When did you meet him?"
"Last night."
"Have you slept with him yet?"
"Well, last night was sort of a communal thing. Tonight ought to be a little more private."
After Sharon had gone, Gail tried to read, but the room was so stiflingly hot she couldn't concentrate. Besides, she'd already read everything in the magazine two or three times. She felt claustrophobic and had to get outside.
She left the hotel and strolled around on the grounds in the hot night air. It wasn't until she had almost stumbled over Mark that she realized she had been gravitating in the direction of the hotel annex where he slept. He was sitting on the ground, alone, a drink in his hand and a bottle alongside him. He had removed his shirt and shoes, and wore only a pair of dungarees. His halfnaked body glistened in the night.
"Oh, Mark!" she said, somewhat startled when she saw him. "Am I interrupting something?"
"No, no, not at all," he said, looking interrupted. "Have a seat."
She sat down alongside him, wishing she had worn something more sexy than a baggy shirt and faded Bermudas.
"What's the matter, don't you and Sharon get along together?"
"Sure we do. Why do you ask?"
"You never seem to be together at all. She's out partying all the time and you stay in your room."
"I didn't realize you kept track of my whereabouts."
"It's automatic when you work in a place like this. You can't help noticing what the guests do."
"How come you're not out partying tonight?" Gail asked. "I understand you were quite a hit last night."
Mark laughed. "Sharon tell you that?"
Gail cursed herself for bringing up the subject.
"I can only take so much of that crowd," Mark explained. "A little bit of them goes a long way."
Mark offered her a drink, which she accepted, but there was only one glass, so she drank from his.
"Maybe I should have gone to that party," Gail said, as the liquor flowed through her blood. "I feel like doing something tonight."
"What did you have in mind?" Mark asked.
Gail felt like blurting out exactly what she had in mind but decided against it. Don't be over anxious, Gail, she warned herself. She said, "Oh, I don't know. Now that I'm over this little sickness I feel like living it up a little-doing some dancing and having a little fun."
"Maybe I can fix you up with some nice boy who'll take you to the Direction."
"What's the Direction?" Gail asked.
"It's a little discotheque down the beach a ways. Really a swinging place."
"I can think of somebody I'd like to go with. He's sitting right next to me."
"No, the guy you're thinking of doesn't have any money to spend. He doesn't have any wheels either."
"That's no problem," Gail said. "I've got plenty of money, and a car. Come on, Mark, let's go. It'll be fun."
"You're irresistible," he said. "I accept."
"Let me change my clothes," Gail said, getting up. "I'll be down in five minutes."
"I'll meet you right here," he said, finishing his drink and watching her scurry back to the hotel.
In her room, Gail stripped off all her clothes and let down her hair, brushing it as quickly as she could. She rummaged through her suitcase and came up with a bright print dress. She looked for some sexy underthings, then decided, "The hell with them. I don't need them," and slipped the dress on over her head.
It was extremely short, coming more than halfway up her thighs. She'd have to remember not to lift her arms over her head or she'd be exposed from the waist down! The dress was cinched at the waist and very low cut. The thin silky fabric clung tightly to her breasts and clearly out-lined her nipples, which were already beginning to harden at the thought of the excitement that lay ahead for her. She slipped on a pair of pumps, grabbed her bag and fumbled for lipstick, which she applied hastily but expertly, and dashed for the door.
Mark was waiting for her when she emerged, and he took her hot hand as they headed for her car. Mark began to get in on the passenger side, but she said, "You drive," and handed him the keys. They got in. She snuggled next to him, her breast resting against his bare arm, and they sped off.
Gail was so overjoyed she could hardly contain herself. It had finally come! The long-awaited night was here, and she was going to make the most of it, come hell or high water. She crossed her legs, pressing them against Mark and feeling the dress slide up almost to the tops of her thighs. His hand rested on her knee, lightly. She wanted him to slide it up, all the way. But that could wait. They were at the Direction already.
The place was jammed, and they were lucky to get a table-a small one in a comer. They were crammed so tightly Gail was practically sitting on Mark's lap, which was fine with her.
They ordered drinks and moved out onto the dance floor. The band blasted away and their enormous sound reverberated into every comer of the smoke-filled, strobe-lit room. Gail danced with abandon, letting herself go completely, plunging herself into the hot beat and letting it take possession of her body. She was dizzy; she was in love with Mark; she was dancing with him; he was right there, inches away; and she was going to have him-he was going to be hers.
The band played a slow number. Mark had both his arms around Gail, and she clung tightly to him. They were hardly dancing at all, but their bodies, crushed together, undulated slowly. Gail could feel Mark through the thin dress. She could feel his hands slide slowly down to rest on her buttocks, naked beneath the silky dress. The dance floor was dark, crowded. Mark's hand slipped over her buttocks to where the dress ended and the legs began. Then one hand moved in under the dress, caressing the rounded flesh, the soft, smooth skin. His hot hand slid across the inside of her thighs and then up, up until Gail thought she was going to burst with heat and desire.
The music ended, and the couples moved off the floor. Gail and Mark drifted slowly back to their table.
"This place is getting awfully hot," Mark said.
"It sure is," Gail said. "Why don't we leave?"
"All right with me." They finished their drinks and got the check. Gail slipped Mark a ten under the table and he paid the waiter and pocketed the change.
They hopped into the car and Gail pressed herself against Mark, thinking, It's going to happen now. It's finally going to happen!
Mark started the car and sped back to the hotel.
CHAPTER TEN
Mark ground to a halt in the hotel parking lot and turned off the ignition. He slid his arm around Gail and pulled her into him. He cupped her face with his hand, took one look at her mouth and kissed her. Gail met his tongue with her own and their mouths intermingled furiously. Already burning with desire, Gail felt herself begin to melt in his arms. No mere kiss had ever done that to her before.
His other hand slid down to cup and squeeze her breast, pinching the nipple through the thin silky fabric. Gail was glad she hadn't worn a bra. She could practically feel the lifelines of his hand through the dress. He slid his hand up and slipped it inside the low neckline, pulling the dress down and her throbbing breast up and out of the dress.
He withdrew his mouth from hers and lowered it to her breast as she ran her fingers through his hair, pulling him to her. His mouth opened wide and seized the breast, sucking and biting into its fullness. Gail moaned. Mark's mouth narrowed onto the hard, erected, pulsating nipple and seized it with his sucking lips. Gail squealed with pleasure as his teeth closed on her nipple and his hand moved all the way up the inside of her thighs, as far as it could go.
Mark raised his head" again, pressing his forehead to hers. "Let's go inside. To my room. I have something for you."
"I want it, Mark," Gail said, breathless. "I want it bad."
Gail hastily pulled up her dress to cover the exposed breast, pulled down her hemline which was up around her navel, and they walked arm-in-arm through the darkness to Mark's room.
He flicked on a small bed lamp as they entered.
"It's kind of small in here," he said.
"Good. The more cramped the better. I don't want you to get away from me now. Not after all this time."
Mark laughed and began unbuttoning his shirt.
"It's true, Mark," Gail said, stepping up to him and rubbing her outstretched hands on his broad, hard chest. "I've been waiting for this for so long, for this night. I haven't been able to think about anything, anybody, but you. I've wanted you so much," she said, throwing her arms around his bare back as he thrust his shirt into a comer.
Mark said nothing, sliding his hand under her dress and squeezing her bare buttocks into his body. With his other hand he unzipped the dress.
Gail stepped back and he slipped the dress from her shoulders. He pulled it down slowly, exposing the creamy expanses of her jutting breasts. The hard, cherry-red, erected nipples popped into view and the dress slipped down to her hips. She was breathing heavily, and her big breasts rose and fell with each breath. Her face was flushed, even her lips had the firmness and redness and hardness of erected flesh. He pulled the dress down further, over her hips and buttocks. It fell to the floor. She stepped out of it, toward him, completely naked now, and desperate for his body. She moved into him, crushing her breasts against him as his powerful arms encircled her. Gail's hands caressed his back and squeezed between their flattened bellies, fumbling with his pants. She unbuttoned and unzipped him and tugged away at his pants until they fell to the floor and he stood hard and naked against her.
Mark rolled over onto the bed, pulling her with him. Gail was going out of her mind. It wasn't only Mark there on the bed with her, his hard, throbbing, passionate body on the verge of taking her completely, but all her dreams and fantasies and desires were there too, in the flesh.
Mark was on top of her, his mouth biting and sucking, ravenously taking her breast. His hands, his electric hands, sent showers of sparks all over her flesh, her thighs, her sides, her buttocks, her breasts. His hot mouth sucked at her neck, and his thighs pressed hard against hers, moving up and up, up and up.
"Take me, Mark!" she all but screamed. "I need every inch of you!"
Mark took her, his vibrant excitement sending blood-boiling waves of ecstasy throughout her body. His mouth was planted firmly on hers in a hot, fluid kiss and his hands were all over her. But it was his hips and thighs, which she pulled into her with digging fingers, that sent shock after shock of pleasure through her incredibly excited organism.
The shocks jolted her more and more intensely, and their bodies writhed with more and more force and speed. The bed squeaked and creaked, threatening to collapse altogether under the joined, wrestling weight of their pleasure-hungry bodies.
Then Gail screamed out with the most blinding pleasure she had ever felt in her life, arching her body stiffly up into Mark's violent abdomen. Mark still thrashed and thrashed, and Gail felt, all of a sudden, a whole new wave of pleasure shock through her body, twice as powerful as the first.
Mark moaned, and thrust himself all the way up into her, crushing her torso in a bear hug and biting his teeth into her neck. Gail felt him stiffen and stop at the peak, then felt his joy course through her own body, multiplying her pleasure again, and again, until it was infinite.
They relaxed on the bed, their smooth, wet, satisfied bodies interlocked. Gail kissed Mark tenderly on the mouth.
"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever experienced in my life," she whispered. "We were made for each other, Mark. I know it."
Mark leaned across her and fumbled in his shirt for a cigarette. He lit up and leaned back on the pillow.
Gail kissed his shoulder. "I love you, Mark. I didn't know what that meant until I met you. You've taken over my whole body, everything about me. I want to live for you; I am living for you."
"You're nice, Gail," he said, taking a long drag on his cigarette. "But don't get too carried away. It would be a mistake."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Just what I said. Tonight has been fun. It's been great, in its own way. But there's really nothing between us. And I don't think I'm going to be able to see you again."
Gail panicked. "What are you saying, Mark? You can't mean itl It's only just begun!" Her torso rested on his, her hands on his shoulders, her breasts on his chest. "Say you love me, Mark. You do, don't you? You must!"
"Grow up, Gail. You're a great chick, and I'm sure you could make somebody very happy, but you can't expect every guy you go to bed with to love you."
"I don't. I don't want anybody to love me but you. It's you I love."
"Come on, Gail, relax. This will probably be the only night we'll spend together in our lives. Why ruin it?"
"Is it true what they're saying about you?"
"What are you talking about now?" Mark said, snuffing out his cigarette and returning his hand to the soft flesh around her spine.
"About your having an affair with Cora Henley?"
Mark laughed briefly and insidiously. "Where did you hear that?"
"I don't know. I just heard it around."
"Well, if you want to know the truth, if it will put your little mind at ease-yes, I am her lover."
"Mark, how could you?" Gail asked, distressed and shocked, her body going a little tight.
"What are you talking about, how could I? What's that supposed to mean?"
"But she's so old!"
"She's in the prime of life. A full-grown woman. She's all there. You say she's too old. She'd say you're just a kid, still wet behind the ears."
"What makes her so important to you? Is it the money she gives you?"
"I can't ignore that part of it."
"Oh, please, Mark. Why can't you forget her? Why can't we go off somewhere together? Just the two of us."
"You're sounding like a bad movie, Gail. I have other plans. I'm very happy with Cora, and I need the job if I want to go back to school next year. I already told you that."
"I want you so badly, Mark," she said, raising herself and grazing her nipples across his. "Isn't there any way I can win you from that fat old hag?"
"She's not a fat old hag," Mark snapped. "She's a beautiful woman, and if you ever become as much of a woman as she is, you'll be very lucky."
"I want you all to myself," Gail said, and kissed him on the mouth, caressing him as if their roles were reversed. Her hands were all over him, and she kissed his neck, his shoulders. She showered his body with kisses as she lay on top of him. She bit his hard brown nipples and kissed his flat belly and abdomen, undulating her body down along his.
Then she took him into her mouth and he sighed with pleasure, arching his body up into her. Her mouth moved along the length of him, and she breathed deeply through it, savoring the throb and thrust of his excitement with her active tongue.
He reached the peak of throbbing excitement and stiffened, moaning with pleasure. Gail held onto him until his body had relaxed and sunk down on the bed. She slid herself back along him and pressed her head into the hot crook of his neck.
Mark leaned over and lit another cigarette.
Gail lay on top of him, feeling more happy than she ever had in her life, and at the same time more desperate, afraid that this night would be the first and last night of happiness for her.
"When will we be seeing each other again, Mark?" she asked.
"Tomorrow morning at breakfast, I guess. If you get up."
"I mean like this," she said, rotating her thighs on his.
"Gail, I just don't think we're going to be able to. Cora's been back in New York the last few days, but she's on her way here now, and she'll be here for the rest of the summer. I don't want to do anything foolish, especially with the summer halfway over. There's no reason for me to take any chances, especially with you being a guest."
"What could she do?"
"Fire me and send you packing home to your parents, explaining that you've been sleeping with one of her waiters. Besides, as I told you, I have no reason to carry on any extra-curricular activities when she's around."
"What's that supposed to mean?" .
"Cora more than satisfies me. Certainly more than anyone around here ever could."
"Including me?" Gail asked. She had already done more for him than she had for any other boy, and she couldn't, or wouldn't believe him.
"I said what I said. You can draw any conclusions you want," he replied.
She felt him solid beneath her, his legs touching hers, her breasts crushed into him, his shoulders firm under her hands, his throat hot at her mouth. And yet she felt him slipping away from her like a wet bar of soap. The more she tried to grasp at it, the more it slipped away.
If only there were some way to make him dependent on me, she thought. If only Cora weren't coming back! She tried to think of what she could offer him, but there was nothing.
But what was wrong with her in bed? What could Cora do that she couldn't? She raised her torso slightly so that her naked breasts just touched him, the nipples more hard and erect than ever. She began twisting and rotating her shoulders so that her breasts undulated on Mark's chest, her nipples tracing spirals on his flesh. She could feel Mark against her soft thighs, rapidly becoming hard and excited again. He began to throb with desire. She lifted and twisted her hips until she felt his peak brushing against her, inside her thighs. She lowered herself and felt him thrust himself into her. Gail began to writhe and thrash like a wild beast, her claws dug into his back, her mouth sunken into his throat. She felt new shocks of pleasure rack her body, again and again, and then Mark, howling and groaning with joy, thrust himself all the way up into her and stiffened at the peak of pleasure.
She lay with him a long while until the pleasure began to subside, then rolled on her side next to him, nuzzling her face into his shoulder.
"Is Cora so much better than I am, Mark?" she said. If Mark felt even a fraction of the ecstasy she felt, she knew the answer would have to be no.
"Comparisons like that don't work, Gail," he said. "Everybody's different."
"I love you, Mark."
He kissed her hair to acknowledge that he appreciated this, but said nothing. "Don't you love me, just a little?"
"I like you very much, Gail, and I'll always remember this night."
These words sounded like funeral bells to Gail. A post mortem. What to her was the most tremendous experience of her life was to be reduced to a trivial memento of a roll in the hay.
"Can I stay here with you tonight?" Gail asked.
"Sure. I wish you would-except-Cora's due back early this morning, and she's bound to stop in here the first thing. Maybe it would be better if you left now, before we fall asleep."
"All right," she said. "I'll go." She looked at Mark, brushing the hair from his eyes and holding his head with her hands. She felt such a rising swell of emotion that she knew she was going to burst out crying and threw her arms around him once more, kissing him passionately on the mouth as if she would fall to her death if she let go.
She let go, and did feel as if she were dying as she got up and picked her crumpled dress from the floor. She slipped it on and brushed her hair, then had Mark zip up the dress for her.
He held her shoulders and kissed her tenderly on the neck from behind. "It was fun," he said.
Gail, who had no words for what it was to her, smiled as best she could and walked out of his room, closing the door behind her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Gail didn't go down to breakfast the next morning, afraid of what her reaction might be when she saw Mark. Sharon hadn't returned, and Gail lay in bed remembering every detail of the previous night, gleefully recreating every delicious moment and then relapsing into tears over the fact that it was the beginning and the end of her relationship with Mark.
Sharon returned early in the afternoon and found Gail still in her bed.
"You're going to turn into a persimmon if you lie in bed all day," Sharon said breezily. "Why don't you get up and do something? It's a beautiful day!"
"Cut the inspirational horse manure, Sharon. I don't feel good."
"What's the matter?"
Gail didn't want to go into it. There was no point in telling Sharon about Mark; she'd rather keep her suffering private and not expose it to Sharon's cheerful banalities.
"I just don't feel good, that's all," Gail said. "That's too bad. But I've got something to cheer you up. I've arranged everything and you'll be able to come to the party this weekend. There'll be loads of boys and tons of booze. It's going to be a ball!"
Gail still couldn't get over Sharon's transformation. Every time her cousin talked this way Gail inwardly shook her head in disbelief.
"I'm not sure I'm going to feel up to it," Gail said. "Not if I feel the way I feel now."
"Nonsense. Whatever's wrong with you can be cured by a few strong drinks and a little love."
"That's what you think," Gail said.
They went down to dinner together that evening. Mark was pleasant and polite, and as impersonal as if they had been total strangers, Gail avoided looking at him. Cora was hovering in the background, and Gail watched her with slitted, jealous eyes.
When the weekend came, Gail was still reluctant to go to the party with Sharon. She found herself listening to all the arguments and accusations that she had used against Sharon the night of the first beach party, when Sharon was the stay-at-home wallflower and Gail was the swinger.
Finally, and reluctantly, she accepted. When they arrived, the party was just getting into full swing. The large house was lit up and filled with scores of young males and females already beginning to have a riotously good time. Sharon led the way to one of the bars, and once she had gotten a couple of drinks in her, Gail began to loosen up and feel like her old self again.
Gail heard a squeal over the loud music and voices and turned to see a tall blonde, wearing only a skimpy lace bra and panties, come dashing into the room, with a tall, well-built boy right at her heels, chasing her. The boy was completely naked, in a state of excitement that was more than evident. He almost caught the girl, but succeeded only in grabbing onto her bra. It snapped, and the girl's full, jutting breasts came tumbling out. She did her best to cover them, but when the boy caught hold of her at the hips and she pulled away again, her panties came off with a loud rip and she was as naked as he was. Disconcerted, she slowed her pace, and he caught up with her, grabbing her around the waist and naked breasts from behind, to the delight and applause of the crowd. He lifted her up and carried her off into the next room.
"Where are they going?" Gail asked, somewhat excited by the spectacle.
"In the dormitory in there. We keep it dark. It's handy. There's plenty of beds."
"Who are they? Do you know them?"
"I don't know the girl. She must have just arrived. The guy's name is Wib."
"Wib?"
"I know it's a funny name, but he always manages to get things warmed up early."
Gail looked around the room for familiar faces. She didn't recognize anyone. Everyone seemed to be in their late teens and early twenties. Some were dressed in casual summer clothes-shorts, slacks, sweaters and shirts-and some were dressed more casually. One girl, obviously a resident of the house, seemed to have just gotten out of bed. All she wore was a shortie, see-through nightie that left nothing to the imagination. Her large breasts with their rosy nipples were completely visible through the transparent fabric, as well as every other pore of her body. Some wore bathing suits, and one girl had on a topless suit like Sharon's, with the straps about to fall from her shoulders. One boy wore only a jockstrap, and Gail noticed a couple, locked in an embrace on a couch in the comer of the room, who wore nothing at all.
Sharon was talking with three boys whom she had failed to introduce to Gail. Gail felt left out and awkward, so she had another drink. As she was pouring it, someone came up behind her and cupped her breasts, squeezing them almost violently. She whirled around, furious, and then relaxed into a smile. It was Steve.
"What brings you here?" he said.
"Sharon asked me to come along," Gail said, as if to present her credentials.
"It's awful stuffy in here. Why don't you come outside and get a breath of fresh air?"
That seemed like a good idea to Gail, so she took Steve's hand and squeezed through the crowd. Maybe she'd have a chance to redeem herself with Steve tonight. She wanted to. She wanted to turn back the clock to that first night before she met Mark-to pick up with Steve where she left off. Tonight would be the turning point, she decided. She'd show Mark! She'd show him how many boys she could have at the nod of her head-boys who would beg her to do for them what she had done so expertly for Mark.
The summer is beginning again, she thought. I'm going to do what I set out to do. I'm going to make even the new Sharon blush for shame!
She looked up once or twice at Steve. He seemed to have a strange look in his eye. She was sorry for having run off that night. She had never dreamed he would have taken it so much to heart. I'll make it up to him tonight, Gail thought. I'll do anything he wants, for as long as he wants.
They stepped outside into the cool night air. The stars were out, and a full moon. They seemed to be heading toward a cluster of people by a stake. There were four or five boys, all of them built like football players, and they were all naked! With them were two girls who looked like Amazons. The girls wore nothing whatsoever.
Steve led Gail up to the group and introduced her to them.
"Take off your clothes, Gail," Steve said, stripping off his shirt and lowering his pants. Now he was naked too, and unlike the others, very much aroused.
Gail hesitated a moment, and blushed. Everyone was watching her. She felt afraid. She wanted to go away, off with Steve, or back inside.
"Come on, Gail, don't be a party pooper," Steve said.
"Well, I-Steve, let's take a walk. All these people ... come on," she urged.
"Same old story," Steve said menacingly. "You never learn, do you?" He slapped her hard in the face. She was grabbed from behind. Powerful hands fastened on her arms and squeezed them like tourniquets. Steve stepped in front of her. He grabbed her blouse by the collar and ripped it off, hurling it onto the ground as the others watched with cruel grins on their faces. He grabbed her bra and ripped that off.
Then he bent over and pulled a knife from the pocket of his shorts. Gail gasped in terror.
"What's the matter, Gail?" he said, seizing one of her bare breasts in his hand and pinching the nipple hard. "Think I'm going to cut it off? I wouldn't do a thing like that, would I, Matt?" He turned to one of the other boys.
"Naw," Matt said, chuckling.
Steve grabbed the waistline of her shorts and slit them down the front, cutting her panties as well. He dropped the knife and ripped the garments off altogether.
Gail stood naked before all eight of them, her body trembling with fear.
"Tie her up," Steve said.
The men who held her led her squirming body to the stake and bound her wrists with rope, fixing them to the crossbar. Then they bound her ankles and tied her spread-eagled to the crossbar at the bottom of the stake.
Gail began to scream and a gag was placed in her mouth. A blindfold was placed across her eyes.
She heard mumbling in the background, and then felt a rough, heavy hand seize her between the legs and begin to probe-roughly-deeply. She wiggled, but her back scraped against the wooden post when she did. She tried to buckle her knees to fend off the insistent finger, but she could not escape it. She heard giggling from the crowd around her, then heard a deep male voice that she knew as Steve's approach. The prying finger disappeared.
Gail breathed heavily, feeling as though her heart would burst in dread anticipation of what would happen next. Again she heard the voice she believed was Steve's, and then a female voice.
"Awh, I don't want to," the girl moaned. "Must I?"
Gail heard a sharp crack of flesh against flesh, then heard the girl whimper. A moment later she felt two cold hands seize her waist and jumped in surprise as she knew what was about to happen. She tried to wiggle away again, but it was no use. The girl's fingers dug into the soft skin of her sides and stomach as she pressed her head forward, then her tongue flicked hotly against Gail's thighs. Gail began to whimper deep in her throat, trying to fight away the girl. After a while, when it became ap parent that there was no way of avoiding it, she relaxed limply against the post as the girl's head bobbed against her, the tongue darting like a flaming sword-in and out, in and out-until Gail thought she would lose her mind.
She began rocking her legs in a different way now, trying to open them wider-to admit the girl's eager mouth even closer. Wave after wave of feeling swept up and down Gail's legs and she thrashed in response to each loving stroke. Just as she felt herself begin to melt-so close to the point of completion that she could almost taste it-the girl's mouth suddenly was jerked away.
"That's enough," Steve barked. "She might start enjoying herself."
Gail gurgled in her throat, trying to beg Steve to let the girl finish. It had been so near....
Suddenly her eyes felt as though they would rip out of her head as a terrific shock slammed into Gail's thighs. After the girl's tender, soft ministrations, this impalement nearly split Gail apart in its unexpectedness. Even though she could not see him, Gail could tell by the aroma of his after-shave, by the hardness of his body, and by the heavy breathing as he pounded against her, that her assailant was Steve.
How different it all was now! Here there was no chance to pull away, to change her mind, to put him oil until a later time. She was his captive, and he was taking full advantage of her. Her thighs began to ache as Steve thrust again and again, ruthlessly driving into her with such force, such speed in his withdrawal and renewed attack, that she wondered how he could be getting any pleasure out of it. And then she knew; Steve wasn't out for pleasure-he wanted revenge. And he was getting every inch he thought he deserved.
Gail screamed a silent scream through the gag in her mouth as she felt Steve grab her even harder on the hips and thrust so violently she thought the pole behind her would split. His arched body remained tightly pressed against her, throbbing all of his hatred out and into her. Then, as brutally as he had entered, he withdrew. Gail . felt as though half her insides were ripped out at the same time.
"All right, she's yours," Steve muttered. "I'm finished with her."
Gail trembled as she heard the wild cheers from the other boys, then felt their hands ruthlessly pawing her. Someone untied her hands and feet from the stake, but kept them bound with the coarse rope. She was thrown violently to the sand, so that she lay on her side. Immediately she felt a body press tightly against her stomach, and then felt the sharp stabbing pain she had just experienced with Steve. She had no idea who this boy was. His breath reeked of beer and his body was cruel, hard, demanding. She was jolted by his first thrust, and had barely gotten over that shock when she felt a simultaneous one behind her. This pain was worse-something she had never experienced in her life. She felt like a helpless animal, caught in the jaws of a trap made of flesh-squeezed tighter and tighter from both sides until she was nearly suffocated.
As the two rough male bodies lashed against her, she felt someone grab her by the hair and jerk back her head. The boy attacking her from the front laughed and shifted his body slightly, just as the gag was removed from her mouth. Gail was too terrified to scream; doubted she could, even if she wanted to.
She felt two hands grab her head and twist it upwards, then nearly gagged as this third attacker thrust full and deep into her mouth.
Gail felt her head spinning, her body reeling with sensations from every point. Never in her life had she felt this way. It was as though an atom bomb of sex had just been dropped on her, and she was fragmented into trillions of tiny pieces-each of them alive with desire, with need, with an unbearable mixture of ecstasy and pain.
Far above her, beyond the three attacking bodies, she heard Steve's roaring laughter. It was the last sound she heard before the world spun one final time, then plunged into complete blackness.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Three days later Sharon returned to the hotel. Gail was in bed, where she had spent all her time since the debacle, with occasional meals in the dining room or at the local greasy spoon.
Gail had never felt worse in her life, and never expected to feel any worse. Everything had collapsed around her. The one boy in her whole life whom she had ever loved had treated her like a quaint curio, to be had once, and that reluctantly, and then discarded and ignored. The fast-living crowd that had been her reason for coming to Sunup Shores in the first place, had not only rejected her, but had savagely attacked and used her in a most brutal way. And her seemingly prudish cousin, to whom she had felt so superior and condescending at the beginning of the summer, was proving to be far more of a swinger than Gail had ever been.
"How did you like the party?" Sharon asked. "I didn't see you around at all after the first hour or so. Where'd you disappear to?"
Gail wanted to tell her just what those people had done to her, but she was ashamed. "Oh, I got kind of bored, so I left."
"I'm ashamed of you Gail. For so many years I looked up to you; I envied you as someone who really knew how to live. I hated myself for being such a jerk and wanted more than anything else to be like you. That's why I came down here with you, to tell you the truth-to let you show me the way, as scared as I was. And you did show me the way. I became just like you, or what I thought you were like. And what happens? You turn out to be like I was! It just doesn't make any sense!"
"There are other things involved, Sharon. It's not as simple as that."
"Like what's involved?"
"I'd rather not talk about them."
"Why not?" Sharon asked.
"It's too depressing."
"Well, anyway, I had a good time."
"What did you do?"
"I'd rather not talk about it," Sharon said.
"Why not?"
"It's too exciting."
"Sharon," Gail said, changing her tone, "I know what you're going to say to this, but I've got to say it anyway."
"What?"
"I want to go home. I want to get out of here. This summer has turned out to be a disaster."
Sharon sat down on Gail's bed, assuming her best sisterly manner. "I know things haven't worked out for you as well as they might have, Gail. But the summer's more than half over. Don't spoil my fun. It's the first time in my life I've ever had any. Don't ruin it for me. We'll both be up in that God awful college this fall, and there'll be plenty of time to sit and sulk."
"That's all I have to do here is sit and sulk," Gail moaned.
"If you leave," Sharon continued, as if Gail hadn't said anything, "I'll have to leave to. My parents would never let me stay here alone. Don't ruin it for me, Gail."
Gail gave way. She had no real arguments except her own boredom, frustration and misery. "Okay, Sharon. I won't press the point. We'll stay. Only you could at least keep me company a little bit instead of spending all your time over at that orgy."
"It's not always an orgy. We have a lot of other fun besides."
"I'm sure you do."
"But I will keep you company more."
During the next week, Sharon did spend more time with Gail, but Gail began to feel that she'd have been better off by herself. Sharon talked only of the latest boys she'd been sleeping with, of the parties and outings and orgies, and all this only fired Gail's frustration. Since her wildly ecstatic night with Mark, which in its delirious satisfactions had created a ravenous appetite for sexual pleasure, she had not been with a boy. The hideous night of the party had given very little pleasure-and that in a way Gail did not care to repeat. Listening to Sharon rattle off her latest exploits was almost more than Gail could bear.
The following Saturday night Gail sat alone in her room. Sharon had gone off to another orgy, and would probably be gone for the weekend. From her window Gail had watched Mark speed off with Cora in her car, to points unknown.
Gail was alone, bored, frustrated and disgusted with herself. There was a knock at the door. Who could it possibly be at this time of night? She wondered. Somebody must have made a mistake; unless it was Steve, back for another round of fun and pains.
"Who is it?" Gail said.
"Gail?" the voice answered.
Her heart beat faster. She couldn't place the voice, but it was familiar-a male voice. For her! She opened the door.
"Pete!" she screamed, throwing herself into his arms and lifting her mouth to his hungry kiss. "Oh, Pete, I'm so glad to see you!" she said, leading him into the room and locking the door.
"Gail," he said, squeezing her body into his and planting a hot kiss on her neck. "I've been going crazy. Why didn't you write?"
"I don't know-I-how come you're here? What made you come?" she asked hastily.
"Shouldn't I have come here? Are you expecting somebody?"
"No, no, I'm not expecting anybody. Do I look dressed for visitors?"
Gail stepped back, and Pete's face flushed with desire as he took in the contours of her body. She had on the same skimpy black bra and panties that she had been wearing all day, and the bra had slipped down so far that her nipples nearly stuck out from above the low-cut seam. The panties had worked themselves down almost to the tops of her thighs. Pete was ready to explode.
He pulled her to him and planted a kiss on the soft flesh of her neck, a kiss so hot and biting and sucking that Gail squealed with pleasure. His hands pulled the bra straps down and Gail pulled her arms up and through them, a move that expanded and uplifted her breasts just as he was pulling the bra off altogether and seizing one breast with his mouth and his biting teeth.
He sunk to his knees, planting kisses on her belly and her abdomen as he pulled down her panties and she stepped out of them, completely naked. He kneeled before her, and she pulled his head into her, moaning. His lips and tongue caressed her, probing with passionate intensity until she reached the peak of excitation, rotating her hips into him.
But that wasn't enough for her; not anywhere near enough. He rose to his feet and she unhooked his belt and unloosened his pants as he took off his shirt.
Naked together, they plunged onto the bed, his body covering hers, his mouth showering her with kisses, his hands clutching and probing every part of her body.
Then their legs interlocked and he moved swiftly and smoothly into her as they both gasped for joy. With an old rhythm, so familiar to both of them, they moved together, slowly at first and then gradually picking up speed, Pete probing deeper and deeper into the well of her desire.
Pete drove harder and harder, unable to control his throbbing passion, unable to prolong it, and suddenly, with a shriek of joy he thrust himself all the way up inside her, his body stiffening like a column of marble.
He lay alongside her, his head on her shoulder, cradled in her arm.
"I'm so glad to see you, Pete! God, you make me so happy!" she said.
"Not as happy as you make me," he said. "Why didn't you write me? I was going crazy up there. I thought you'd forgotten me altogether. I thought you'd found someone else."
"What a stupid thing to think," she lied.
"After that second letter, when you didn't write me, I really thought it was finished, all over. I really laid myself out in that letter. I really exposed how much I felt about you. I thought later it was a mistake, that you didn't want to hear that kind of thing from me."
"I do, Pete, I do," Gail said with passion, meaning it. For the first time since she met him, she needed Pete. She needed everything he had to give her. She wanted it; he was no longer a toy. "What was the message of that letter?" she asked.
"The message was, I love you. I love you with everything I've got."
"I love you too, Pete. I need you." They kissed. Then Gail lay back and looked at his profile. She stared at it for a long time before she realized why it fascinated her so much all of a sudden. Pete had the same profile as Mark! His hair was the same color, his mouth the same shape. Was it Mark that she had loved, or had she loved in Mark the idealization of everything she loved in Pete?
"Where's Sharon?" Pete said.
"She's off at a party somewhere, living it up with her latest lover."
"I thought she was a prude? I thought she was down here to look after you. If she's out living it up, who's looking after you?"
"You are," Gail said.
"What changed her so much?" Pete asked. "She said she wanted to be like me."
"Is she now?"
"She's behaving the way I thought I wanted to this summer, running around from orgy to orgy."
"That's the way you wanted to spend the summer-orgying it up?"
"That's the way."
"Why aren't you?"
"I'm here with you."
"What have you been doing-I mean before I came?"
"Very little. Looking after Sharon. Really not much of anything."
"I don't believe you."
"You wouldn't believe the stories I have to tell either. So if you're not going to believe something, it might as well be something nice."
He laughed, and Gail thought that even his laugh sounded something like Mark's. He was built like Mark.
"Look, Gail," he said, turning on his side to face her, their thighs pressed together, "how would you like to spend the rest of the summer with me?"
"Back home? No, I couldn't let Sharon down. I've got to stick it out here."
"I don't mean back home. Just down the shore a ways. Some friends of mine have a house down there. We'll have the whole place to ourselves, except on the weekends, when there might be two or three couples, a little party."
"I'd love to, Pete," she said, thrilled at the prospect of getting out of the hotel.
"We can drive up here once or twice a week and you can mail a letter to your parents, telling them how nice everything is. And Sharon can keep the room here. She won't put up a stink, will she?"
"Hell, no! She'll go along with anything I want to do as long as it doesn't interfere with her pleasure."
"Oh, that's terrific, Gail. We can leave tomorrow. I've got the keys in my pants. I never dreamed it would work out this way. I thought either I wouldn't find you at all or if I did you'd kick me out."
"I can't tell you how happy you make me, Pete. You came at just the right time. I was about ready to commit suicide!"
She looked deeply into his eyes, and in the darkness, his eyes were like Mark's. His face could almost have been Mark's. The hair fell in just the same way, the cheekbones, the nose, the ripe mouth.
Their thighs ground together, and Pete rolled over onto Gail, kissing her hotly on the mouth as she pulled him, guided him to her. She let out a gasp of pleasure as they joined and Pete planted a biting kiss on her throat.
He feels like Mark, Gail thought, digging her fingers into his back and arching her own back up into him.
"I love you, Gail. I love you," he moaned, writhing with her.
"Don't say anything. Just let me feel you with me," she whispered.
