All the prostitute was wearing were skintight panty hose made out of some sort of dark silky net stuff. From the waist up she was naked; her breasts were cushiony, ripe melons, with a pair of rose-colored nipples on them that stuck right out; and solid, as big as they were. They stood right out, "Jesus," I said, looking at that pair.
Cora laughed, low in her throat, and they bounced a bit.
"You like, Jimmy?"
I swallowed. "I like," I told her. Juicy. Suckable.
"That's nice," she said, coming in again, and letting the pair of them bump my bare chest. Her hands started to get busy on my belt. "I'm mmm ...glad you ...like them," she purred, sliding my pants down. "I like them too. There, now..."
I managed to get hold of the top of the panty hose, and began sliding them down over her wide hips, a little clumsily. She giggled, and helped; they slid down and she stepped out of them, bare-ass naked now. I grabbed, getting a hand on one of those big globes, and she giggled again.
"Don't ...be in too big a hurry, now!" she said, and her eyes half closed as she pushed a little, pressing the round tit against my hand. "Not ...that I don't ...LIKE it, because I DO..." She pulled back, and I could hear her breath coming a little unevenly. Her eyes slid down my body and her white teeth glittered between moist lips.
"Oh, my!" she said. "Yum-yummy. Now, you ...just ...hold ...still, Jimmy baby." She slid downward, on her knees, her hands running along my body till she gripped my thighs from behind, hard. Her tongue darted out like a snake, the hot, wet touch of it sending flickers of crazy sensation through me.
Then her mouth opened wider and her lips got busy, nipping and grabbing. Her hands held onto me, and she was strong, let me tell you; I let out a kind of gobbling noise and nearly jumped straight up, but she hung on tight. And didn't miss a step in what she was doing, either.
Look,, I'd had a blow job or two before. But ...Jesus, Cora was something else l An expert, warm-tongue, and there was no comparison. And she wasn't about to stop there, either; she was just building things up. I know it isn't possible, but I'm damned if I don't think the old banger grew another inch right there, while she did those things. Those lovely belly-warming things. But just about the right second, she kept downshifting gears, so everything just got hotter and hotter without blowing up. I don't know how she managed it, but she was doing it all right.
Next thing I knew, she was on her feet again, pressing up against me, and getting her long legs around behind me somehow; and then she slid up, wrapping her legs around my waist like some kind of goddamn acrobatic act. Junior was standing up right under her, and she was sitting up there, spread, just letting it touch,hanging onto me and giggling-crazily. I almost flipped out, right there, when she slid down just a little, letting me feel that hot, moist slit. Letting me get it in there about half an inch, and then off again.
"For Christ's sake!" I managed to say, then she slid right off and bounced back a couple of feet, her hands grabbing mine, pulling me with her. She let out a wild giggle like a teenager, and fell back across the orange satin sheets, her long legs kicking up in the air.
"Guh!" I said, plunging toward her, wild. My skin was tingling all over and there was this high whistling sound in my ears. I was really flipping, honest l And damned if she didn't twist right out of target area, so I landed on the bed beside-her with a spring-twanging thump.
"You goddamn BITCH!" I said, rolling after her, grabbing again. And there I was on top of her, her hot naked body tight against mine, me biting on those great big delicious boobs while she squealed like a kid and pushed at me. Her legs were held tightly together and she was laughing wildly, while I started getting really peeved.
"Quit.. . TEASING, damn it!" I gasped.
"You..." she giggled. "Ooh, man ...not ...teasing. like it, don't you?"
"It's killing me!"
"Plenty of time ...she panted in my ear. "I like ...to make it LAST." Suddenly her hips ground up against me, wriggling insistently. Her thighs moved apart and her hands slid down, grasping me hard, so hard I almost yelled out with the delicious pain of it. She guided, holding the tip so it slid against her throbbing clitoris, bumping.
"You..." she gasped hoarsely. "You make it last ...go ...slow, slow ...long and slow ...AH!" I drove it in, up to the hilt, and moved in and out, slow, the way she wanted it. Every time I sank it in she let out a deep gasp, like the air being squeezed out of her. But she was really digging it now, I could tell. And I was too, believe me I
"Ooh ...AAH I" she groaned, her body pushing up against mine, writhing slowly in time with the movements. "JIMMEEE ...oh, God, you are ...damn GOOD, for ...an amateur ...you know that?"
"Uh ...amateur?" I grunted. But I didn't have time to worry about it. She was really with it now, and her hips were starting to wag up and down, faster and faster. Her heels came up further and started to rap a steady beat on my rear end; her green eyes opened wide, rolling a little.
"Oh, boy, now, now, NOW.. . " she bubbled at me. "Bang it IN there, fox, go, GO hard, fast ...oh, wowee..." Her teeth snapped at my ear, and her nails really raked at my back this time.
I went into high gear, slamming it in hard; the whole bed shook and Cora's hips went into a real tornado job, around and around. She was really swinging now, gobbling into my ear as I rode her.
"Oh, ahh, HAH, you're the BEST, I'm really ...MAKING IT I Oh ...I'm guh ...guh ...AAAH!" And right up off the bed, up, and up again, arching right up in the air while she twisted her fingers in my hair, shrieking. It was like riding some kind of wild horse. But a lot more fun.
"Uhhh!" She slowed down and hung onto me, quivering all over, clutching. She was trying to say something, but her words came out as a kind of gobbling noise at first, till she managed to get a little control.
"Oooh!" she groaned. "Please ...please ...slow, now ...slow ...slow ...you ...you don't KNOW what it feels like!"
...and Cora let out a long, whistling gasp of air, and shook all over, even harder, clawing at me, biting my shoulder. I arched up and nibbled on one of those luscious nipples. That did it.
If you think I'm going to try and tell you what happened, you're wrong. I mean, I'd like to, but I honest to God don't really know. It was like getting shot out of a cannon or something. I knew what had happened all right, afterwards. Maybe a couple of hundred years afterwards.
Oh, sure, it wasn't that long. It just felt that way.
She was lying against me, wrung-out limp, and I was just about the same. We were both trying to get air, like a couple of deep-sea divers. The pink lights were swinging around. in circles, and I shut my eyes.
"Oh, WOW!" I said.
"Jimmy." The husky voice, next to my ear. Shaky sounding.
"Uh."
"The first damn time, Jimmy. You know that?"
Everything was still spinning a little, but I still had some sense-I chuckled; it was funny. I had an arm around her moist, naked body.
"You're kidding," I said. "No virgin ever did ...all that."
"Didn't say first time I ever balled, you bastard," she murmured, groggily. "First time ...I ever ...went. That way. Honest..."
...ON THE HOUSEBOAT
"There's a full moon," the girl from Petaluma said.
She was a tall, slim girl, with large eyes and a curiously vacant expression; nobody seemed to know what her name was, though she had been aboard the houseboat for some hours. But it happened that way sometimes; there were people who seemed to have no names at all.
She was leaning on the rail on the broad upper deck, ankles crossed in the slightly exaggerated elegant way models have. She might be a model, Seymore thought, or a call girl who wanted people to think she was a model. He felt a faint curiosity, watching her; she had to be on something, he thought. Some drug or other ...she had the look.
Everybody in this world is hooked on something, Seymore Than thought, and his handsome mouth stretched slightly, a wry grin.
"Wig-out time." Burt, the Porno Movie man, was on the lower deck, leaning back to peer appreciatively up toward the girl from Petaluma above him. He was round-faced and slightly balding; he looked, Seymore thought, like his own ideal customer, the kind of man who attended every adult movie in town. From the way his eyes roved behind the heavy-framed glasses, Burt was able to see fairly far up the girl's dress, and he seemed to be taking every advantage of the view.
"Yeah," Burt said, still peering upward. "Full moon. Brings out the essential craziness, you know? The werewolf in you, sort of. People flip out all over town, in a full moon."
"In San Francisco, how can you tell the difference?" Seymore asked, and walked slowly toward the stairway, not waiting for an answer. Going down, he passed Burt who was ascending, wearing a slightly goatish grin. Burt paused and grabbed Seymore's arm, his eyes glittering.
"She has a funny look," he said, shrugging. "Maybe she's on something, I don't know. Horse, maybe. She isn't quite there, you dig? I don't even know her name. She just showed up, the way people do."
"I tried banging some damn chick, a real nothing cunt, she was on heroin, a while back," Burt said. "It was lousy. But that one up there ...she has a great pair of jugs. I dig jugs."
"They could be rubber," Seymore said, grinning.
"No," Burt said. "I can tell. I mean, I figured you ...you're old super-stud, after all. If anybody knows what a chick will or won't do, you'd be the one."
"Thanks," Seymore said, dryly. "But not always. Why don't you use your usual methods? Walk up behind her, grab her by the ass, and whisper something dirty into her ear?"
Burt giggled, nervously. "I might, at that. Oh, well..." He went on up, and Seymore continued down.
A moment later, as Seymore pushed open the door into the big main cabin of the houseboat, he heard a faint scream from above. Damned if he didn't really do it that way, he thought.
The main cabin was broad and high-ceilinged, with "a wide fireplace at one end; if it weren't for the view of dark water and twinkling bridge lights through the windows, it might have been a room in a house on solid land. It had been used as a studio by the painter who had owned the boat before Eve Starr bought it; it still had a studio look about it. There were heavy fur rugs on the floor, and piles of pillows, but not much ordinary furniture; Eve preferred a lot of open space, as she put it.
There was a small bar; well fitted out, against a far wall; a dark-haired girl sat on a stool next to the bar, a tall glass by her elbow. She was a small girl, but everything was there that belonged there, in proper scale to her size. Seymore's eyes met hers momentarily; they looked at each other as two hunting cats might exchange a brief, wary glance of mutual recognition. They were, after all, the same kind, Martha Stone and Seymore Iban.
One of these days, I'll have to find out about that one, Seymore thought, watching "her. She dresses just a little mannishly; that plain-look,ing skirt and jacket thing, for instance. A touch of butch, he thought.
There were two other men in the room; the painter, Hugh Thomas, a burly man with a black beard. Martha had brought that one, Seymore remembered. And a man with close-cut gray hair and a wooden-looking face, leathery and silent; he was behind the bar now, mixing drinks. He was Riley; F. X. Riley, the closest thing to a universal robot this side of a science fiction story. Riley, who could handle any problem from barkeeping to repairing the frequent damage after a party; who seldom spoke, and apparently never saw anything he wasn't supposed to see.
On the other side of the room, alone, Eve Starr lay curled on a heap of cushions, chin in hand, watching the small fire in the fireplace. and apparently listening to the music that blasted out of the big wall speakers. It was a new rock group, an especially hard-driven beat that Eve had decided to make her Thing for the week. She had tried to talk to a producer, to get him to use them in her next film; she even spoke of inviting them to the houseboat, something Seymore hoped wouldn't happen. He knew too much about rock groups, and especially this particular one. Given Eve's own particular ways, and the way of that group, mass rape would be the least that would happen.
Not that Eve would object, at that, Seymore thought, glancing toward her. America's Wet Dream, that one. Blond, luscious, a long-legged package of femaleness, and a complete kook. The clothes for instance. She was dressed in something especially far-out tonight; a pair of blue sailor pants, bare feet, and a wild-looking, sleeveless, nearly frontless leathery-hairy vest that looked as if it belonged to a Hell's Angel. Maybe it had; Eve was quite capable of that, too.
She rolled over and sat up, the vest opening slightly to a fairly good view of the boobs that kept a thousand drive-in movies warm.
"Somebody yelled up there," she said, barely audible above the music.
"Just that chick from Petaluma." Seymore said, above the sound. "Hey, can I turn that down a minute?"
"It's almost over," said Eve. She leaned forward, chin on knees, listening with an intense look as the record finished. "There. What chick?"
"Burt," Seymore said. "He's on the prod again."
"He pinched me once, and I told him, one for free; the next time he gets a knee in the groin," Martha said from across the room. "Doesn't he ever get enough? You'd think he'd be oversupplied, with that movie thing going."
"He told me that's why he went into skin flicks," Seymore explained with a flash of teeth. "Thought he could get all he wanted that way, but it doesn't seem to be working out."
Eve laughed and slid sinuously to her feet She moved toward the bar, her hips swinging. Damn it, that one manages to make a thing out of just crossing a room, thought Seymore, watching her.
Across the room, in the tall mirrors, he saw himself, an elegant figure, as, he stood in the doorway. He liked studying himself; it was a little like a craftsman who-likes to look over his working tools for the pleasure of thinking about their uses. But always a touch of slight dissatisfaction, too; there was always something just short of the ideal arrangement
The clothes were perfect, just mod enough, just expensive enough. The dark hair, carefully careless, and the moustache ...but damn it, there's always a wrong look. If I saw that good-looking face on somebody else, I'd say he was a con man, a pimp, and a few other things. And I'd be right, too. He grinned, a little wryly, and thought ...it's just as well other people aren't quite as sharp as I am. Except possibly Martha Stone.
"When you said we could arrange the matter here, that was very helpful," said Seymore. "Sometimes that's the hardest part, finding the right place to make the-ah ...exchange."
"Eve, darling, be careful about one thing," Martha warned. "This hippie, Danton, the one that made the run. He isn't just in it for the money; he thinks Seymore here is going to arrange to get him a recording contract."
"Actually, his stuff isn't. half bad," Seymore said, staring down into his brandy glass. "It's well, weird. But I doubt it's commercial."
Martha giggled. "Seymore gave him the whole treatment. Hinted around about big deals, recording contracts, everything. It's funny. That Danton. I thought he was fairly clever, for that sort of ...whatever you call it. But he believed the story. Enough so he took this other idea ...making a trip, all the risky part."
Eve's large eyes were puzsled, looking from one to the other. The black-bearded painter, Hugh Thomas, had moved closer, silently listening. He grunted, frowning.
"In other words, you suckered him."
"I'm going to try, about that contract," Seymore protested. "I just don't-well, I'm not quite the important wheel in the recording thing that he thinks I am." He grinned. "Who knows, though? With a little help here and there, I might manage to get a few things done."
There was another squeal from the dark upper deck, louder this time, but not quite so indignant. Something fell over with a bang, probably a deckchair.
"I hope he isn't actually raping that chick up there," Martha said, glancing upward.
"It's possible," Seymore remarked. "He seemed to think this was the right place for what he calls a good old orgy."
"For Christ's sake, you didn't tell him about..." Martha began, and stopped, glancing at Thomas. Then she shrugged. "Oh, hell, Hugh's cool. I mean, there have been a couple of pretty swinging brawls here in the last month or two, but I wouldn't want this boat to get too much rep. You know."
The painter grunted. "I know what you mean. This town is a little oversupplied with bigmouths. Enough gossip for a real hick village."
"They don't have those morality clauses in picture contracts any more," Eve said. "If they did, I wouldn't have made any pictures, believe me. Gossip? Baby, try dear old Beverly Hills for that. Listen, I'll tell you a dirty story." She giggled, and put her drink to her wide red mouth, gulping down a good half of it. "You know about the casting couch bit? And producers? Well, old Rod ...the one that created Eve Starr, is the way he-likes to put it ...he has a casting couch, but it's sort of special."
"Eve, baby," Martha began. But Eve plowed on.
"That was how I got the lead in that awful thing, the one about black magic and all that stuff. It's funny, I never actually saw the picture, can you beat that? And Rod-he didn't really think the picture was going to be anything but a drive-in special, a cheapie. And it made all those awards, and all that fuss ...so. He says he created Eve Starr. He means he made Eve Starr and oh brother did he!" She giggled again. "He did. And he would just LOVE to do it again, but now he can't! Ha!"
Seymore listened, smiling at her. He was holding his self-control carefully. You ought to know better, buddy, he told himself. Letting her light your fire might not be too good an idea. There's plenty around, no need to get involved with a kook, especially one that might be hard to handle. And there's a husband, too, somewhere. That Hungarian movie director ...he could be back, fast. But damn it, she could certainly do something to the male blood pressure ...sitting there, only a foot or two away, the faint musty scent of her coming to his nostrils ...cool, man. Cool.
"I could tell the world about Rod and his casting couch," Eve said, staring down into her glass. "One of these days, maybe I will. And the pictures. That was what the stinker did, do you know? He took pictures."
"You mean, while, he..." Seymore said, a little incredulously.
Thomas erupted, with a deep bark of laughter. "God, Eve darling, how the hell could he?" Thomas grinned widely. "I mean even with an ordinary woman it wouldn't be easy, but I can't see a man wasting time snapping a camera when he's got something like yourself on the ...I think you said casting couch?"
"Hey, man!" Eve said, swinging slightly around on the bar stool and turning her special expression on. It was all aimed straight at Hugh Thomas, the total Eve Starr look. He turned a little pale and his eyes widened slightly. Seymore, watching, almost expected the black beard to curl as if scorched by the heat.
"Hey," she said again, in a voice that somehow reminded Seymore of a mixture of hot rum and honey. Her eyes moved across the stocky painter slowly. "You're cute, man. That's a compliment you made." Her voice dropped an octave. "I dig it. Dig those beards, "Better make another round all around," Martha said. "Riley? Pour a little oil on the waves."
"What was I saying?" Eve asked. "Oh, another drink, good. Yes ...those pictures. He had a cameraman, hiding. It's a thing he has. He always gets a set of pictures when he goes through the old routine. I think they're for his memory book or something."
"He sounds like our friend Burt up there," Martha suggested.
"Except for the fact that Rod's pictures get a little better distribution," Seymore said. "I think the word is voyeur, isn't it?"
"That's what my shrink said," Eve agreed, nodding. "He said Rod was a ...what you said. You'd be surprised at what my shrink says I am. But don't ask me. It's a secret." She was frowning slightly. "Besides, I don't believe him. Not about that."
There were confused noises overhead and Martha glanced upward, shrugged elaborately. She glanced at a delicately jeweled watch.
"Isn't our Mad Monk a little overdue?" she asked. "He was supposed to get here an hour ago."
"Mad Monk?" Eve queried. "Gee, is he some kind of monk, really?"
"Oh no,' of course not," Seymore told her, and to Martha, "Relax, doll. He's never on time. He's against clocks and money. You know that sort."
"Why is he a Mad Monk?" Eve asked, tilting her gold head.
"Because he looks a little like Rasputin," Seymore said. "Or ,a little like Jesus Christ, maybe. I guess it depends on the lighting."
"Oh, Rasputin," Eve said. "I saw the movie. He went around hypnotizing people, didn't he? Does this Danton do that? He sounds groovy."
Martha's eyes met Seymore's, and there was a flash of mutual understanding. Groovy? Oh, no, please. Don't let anything like THAT happen, Seymore thought, and knew that Martha's mind had brought up the same idea. Eve, taking up a hippy mystic with long hair and a beard ...and she probably really did dig beards, as she put it. When kook meets kook, Seymore thought, all hell breaks loose.
There was a sound of heavy footsteps or. the stair and Burt appeared, his plump face flushed and his hair rumpled; behind him the girl from Petaluma came slowly down, straightening her dress. Her expression was, if possible, a little more vague than before.
"There's a weird-looking bus or something stopping out there, near the dock," Burt said. "It might be Danton"
Seymore moved to the window that faced landward. There was a long wooden floating pier, and beyond, a narrow dirt road on the breakwater. A microbus, halted on the road, stood in the shadows up there, lights off; there was a thin thread of light under one of its windows.
"So why doesn't he come on it?" Burt demanded impatiently.
"He's being careful," Seymore replied.
Someone emerged from the bus, a shadowy figure; whoever it was came down the dock slowly, and then up the gangway. Seymore went to the side door and opened it.
The man who entered stood for a moment, his dark, deep-set eyes moving across the room. He seemed to be holding himself in readiness to move, like a wild animal who scents a hunter. But his bearded face was extraordinarily calm; a totally relaxed look.
He looked very young, and in an odd way innocent, a kind of unmarked look. He had long, light brown hair and a full beard; the hair, down on his shoulders in a smooth shining fall, did not make him look at all feminine. Medieval, rather, Seymore decided. The clothes too; a kind of loose shirt that was almost a robe, over baggy, patched trousers, and desert boots. Salvation Army stuff, Seymore said to himself. And, with a slight touch of odd envy-he looks better than I do, in fifty-cent rags!
"Martin," Seymore greeted him. "Come on in."
The man advanced slowly and paused, his eyes moving from one to another.
"Everything's cool," he said in a curiously musical, resonant voice. But it was hard to tell if it was a statement or a question. He gestured. "Meet everybody. Martin Danton, guys. Eve, and that's Martha, Hugh, and Burt. Everybody's in for a piece of the action. Ah ...you've got it all with you?"
"It's all in the truck," Danton said. "I came first, to see ...if it's all right here. You understand." He smiled. "Just a minute." He turned back to the door and stepped outside; he uttered a low, sharp whistle. Two figures appeared and came down the dock, moving fast, their arms filled with something. In the dimness outside there was an exchange, and Danton came back in, his arms full of packets wrapped in brown paper.
"It's all here," he said quietly. "Want to check it out?"
The packages were put down on the rug. Burt, his eyes glittering, knelt over them, turning them over and poking into them; the others stayed calmly at the bar.
"Here's the rest of the bread, then," said Seymore, putting an envelope swiftly into Danton's side pocket. "I trust you, Marty. We'll check the stuff out later, but I know it's all here. Hey, how about a drink? Maybe your friends in the car might like one?"
"I don't drink," Danton said softly. "They don't either."
"Maybe we could sort of sample some right now," Eve suggested. Her wide eyes were studying Danton with a peculiarly intense look. Martha, next to her, was watching that look, and her expression was wary.
"No. Thank you, but it isn't our bag around here," Danton said.
"Well..." Seymore said, a little uncertainly. Thank God the beard doesn't want to stick around, he thought. That Eve is starting the hot-pants routine, I can see it. "By the way, about the records, I think I could--"
"It's all right about the record," Danton said, in the same calm, gentle voice. "I found out about the whole thing last week before we left, Seymore. I know you can't really manage it."
Seymore stared at him, almost losing his cool.
"I would probably have done this anyway," Danton went on, still calmly. "You didn't need to play that game. I'd really like to have records, but it's not that important." He paused, and shook his head. "But I won't run any more trips for you, Seymore. I couldn't trust you."
He smiled, and made a curiously ritualistic gesture with his right hand toward the whole group.
"Peace," he said, and was gone. A moment later the bus roared into life outside.
Eve was the first to break the silence. She burst into a wild peal of laughter, almost hysterical.
"He found out!" she stuttered, rocking on her stool. "Oh, Seymore, he wasn't a sucker, was he?"
"Can't win them all," Seymore said, shrugging. He glanced down at the pile on the floor. "He made the trip, anyway. We've got what we paid for."
"Catch another hippy next time," Burt grunted from his kneeling position. He sniffed, and chuckled aloud. "Man, this is the best stuff I've seen in years! Hey, hey!"
"Let's divide," Seymore proposed, and dropped to a sitting position next to Burt. "Okay. This, this, and these ...your cut, hashish. And this ...that's the mushroom stuff ...psylocibin. And these are for me ...and your bit, Martha, and Hugh ...and the package here, that's for our lovely Eve, for letting us take care of the meet here."
"It's like Christmas," said Eve, giggling again. "Packages of presents ...gee, all that hash! I've got to find a really good place to hide it, don't I?"
"That might be a good idea," Hugh Thomas agreed, carefully ramming his own share down into a capacious side pocket. "Damn, there really is a lot of it, isn't there?"
"Enough," Seymore said. Enough to buy back a few of the amenities of living, he thought. Enough for the other deal, setting up that bitch Cora so there will be more of the good green stuff in my pocket.
"The hippy acted a little bugged," Burt said. He was watching the girl from Petaluma; she was leaning dose over the pile with an avid expression, the first look of anything real she had worn all evening. Burt's face showed a badly concealed smirk as he watched her.
"Hell with him!" Seymore said. "He got his piece of it, some of the stuff and bread to boot. I can always find another when I need one."
But no one that knows how to find it so fast, and so neatly, he remembered, with a trace of anger.
"Uh," Burt said. "Say..." His eyes were riveted to the girl from Petaluma. "Ah, the lady and me, we're going to split. Right, sugar?"
"Oh," she said, looking toward him. He was grinning, holding the brown paper packets in such a way as to let her see them clearly.
"You do have a lot of it, don't you?" she said vaguely.
"Enough for a really great weekend or two, ducks," said Burt. "And what I told you, about the flicks..."
"Oh, that," she remembered. "Oh, well. Gee, it's been nice, everybody..."
"Don't you want to stick around and photograph the orgy, Burt?" Seymore asked, wickedly calm.
"Orgy?" Burt looked confused. "I didn't bring a camera..."
"Gee, that's too bad." Seymore said. "I mean, we were going to get stoned and throw a real scene or two. It would have made a gas of a feature for your movie houses, wouldn't it? Real star like Eve..."
Burt licked his lips. "If I'd brought the camera.. . " He paused. "Maybe another time, hey? Right now-splitsville, kids!"
Then he was gone, the girl from Petaluma in tow.
Martha, staring at Seymore, finally laughed edgily. "My God, you maniac!" she said. "For a minute I didn't realize you were putting him on. Oh, you perfect bastard!"
"Suppose he took you seriously and stayed!" said Hugh. "We'd have had to put on an orgy for him."
"Maybe we should have," Eve snickered. "Golly, I never saw any of those porny movies of his. Are they any good?"
"Terrible," Seymore said. "Dull, dull, DULL! They're for people who can't do it and like to watch. like your voyeur friend."
"Seymore should know," Martha grinned. "He starred in a couple of them."
"No, you didn't!" Eve said, her mouth a round "O."
"Really?"
"I did," Seymore agreed. "I needed the bread."
The painter laughed lecherously. "You're trying to say it wasn't any fun, man?" he asked. "I've seen one or two of those things. It looked like fun to me."
Seymore shrugged. "So go see Burt, maybe he can use you. No beard, though. He says it hides the action in the tastier bits." He was beginning to feel annoyed. He hated to be reminded about Burt and those films.
"I wouldn't take. off the beard," Thomas said.
"What tasty bits?" Eve demanded, her face slightly flushed, her eyes a little too bright. "Hey, don't let it hang there, man; tell us!"
Martha meanwhile had slid down from her stool and was busy. She straightened up, holding several thick cigarettes.
"Evie; doll, don't bug poor Seymore about his wicked past," she said, and the green eyes flickered with malicious amusement toward Seymore. "Let's have a lovely taste of, this. One for everybody, wow!"
They sat in a semicicle in front of the fireplace, matches flaring. Seymore lit his and drew a deep breath, holding it. It was smooth, silken stuff, warm and undulating through his body. The painter, Hugh, leaning back, let a cloud of smoke float upward, his eyes closed blissfully.
"Oh, man, boss stuff," he murmured, not opening his eyes. "Farther out than far out..."
"Right on!" Martha said; . she sat, hunched over, drawing deeply on her own. Suddenly she giggled; a new sort of giggle now, with a lessened edge in it. "Man, it gets to me so fast; not like that gruesome shit they grow up in Mendocino county."
"Oooh," Eve murmured. Her wide eyes opened again, toward Seymore. "But I did want to hear about the tasty bits," she sighed.
Seymore shook his head. "Nothing, believe me."
"Oh, I don't know," Martha said lazily. She unfolded, and stretched, lying back with her arms under her head against a pillow, her pointed breasts up tightly against her smooth white blouse. "Seymore's so modest. But so talented. I saw that picture, Seymore baby. Burt brought a print around for a laugh-and because he was trying to make me." She giggled. "It was a scream. One of the chicks was really lovely, too ...the one with the pigtails."
"She was a les, Martha," said Seymore with a twisted grin. He drew on the cigarette again. "In it strictly for the money. like me."
"You couldn't tell," Martha said. "She acted like she loved it."
"Some chicks are good at putting it on," said Seymore.
"And some chicks aren't really lesbians." Martha murmured, "Just what you might call various. Both ways, AC-DC." She opened her green eyes wide, and made an expression of utter amazement at Eve. "But Seymore ...oh, my! I'll get a print of that picture for you. I mean, wild! He's hung like ...like a bull elephant, I swear!"
"Now, that's just not true," Seymore protested. But he was amused, somehow, in spite of his irritation with Martha's weird insistence on talking about that film. Maybe a little flattered too, he thought, with increasing amusement. "I doubt you saw the picture, if you say that. Sweets, you're complimenting me, but honestly ...I'm as normal as cottage cheese, I swear it."
Eve had been lying in a triangle of cushions, her long legs turned under her, the vest half open, so the lower rondure of her big, firm breasts was clearly visible, almost to the nipples. Her huge eyes were a little glazed now; the hashish was powerful stuff. But she was still listening intently.
"Martha, don't..." she began, then stopped confusedly. "Oh, double shit," she said, biting her full lower lip. "I'm stoned, people. I can't move, I mean. Anybody ...somebody pop a record on the turntable, will you? Something groovy?"
"Where the hell is Riley?" Martha asked. She slid slowly to her feet and went to the record player, swaying slightly, found a record, slid it into place, and came back.
"Sitar music," Eve said, closing her eyes for a moment. "Oh, wow. I love it, but it's ...too damn sexy. But don't change it." She moved her body in a long, sinuous, writhing movement, restlessly, and opened her eyes again as the thin, twanging music came through the speakers. "Riley? Oh, he cut out. He has his thing. He can't dig it when we turn on, he just goes away. I think he doesn't like it."
"That's weird," Martha said. "Didn't you ever ask him to turn on? It would be really something, wouldn't it, watching that stone face break up a little?"
"He couldn't," Eve said. She twisted again, more violently.
"Maybe you ought to turn him on." Martha said. "A favor-he needs it. Hey, Evie, why are you playing at being a snake that way?"
"Told you," Eve said, in a small distant voice, drawing at the smoke and staring into the fire. "My shrink, the creep. Said I had a problem. But he got the wrong problem. Said I was frigid. He needs a shrink, that one." She let out a long steamer of blue, strong-scented smoke and tossed her head, throwing back her mass of loose gold hair. "I've had a bad case of hot pants since I was fourteen. Me; frigid. Ha! I get switched on by almost nothing, sometimes. That hairy hippie ...oh, golly. He put out some crazy vibrations, or something. I just flipped, when he was standing there."
"Danton's supposed to be something of a chick chaser," Seymore said, lazily. "Maybe he does have some sort of magic charm."
"It got to me," Eve said, pouting, her red mouth sulky and wet.
"So your shrink was wrong," said Martha. "Lots of them are."
"I'm not frigid," Eve said insistently.
"Sure you aren't, doll," Hugh agreed, white teeth glittering in the black beard. "That's impossible."
"Hey, hairy!" Eve,sat up, suddenly. This time the vest's single fastenings lipped open completely. Her firm breasts, big, cherry-pointed, pale gold in the firelight, stood out freely, and Hugh, staring, drew a sharp and audible breath, almost a gasp.
"Beards ...are ...yum!" Eve said in a husky voice.
"I'll grow one right now," Seymore promised, grinning at her.
"I dig you, too, you evil bastard" Eve said in the same husky voice. "Know why?"
"No. Why?"
"Mmmmm. Because you're so EVIL!" she said. "like Martha, too. Evil, I dig that. You probably bite and scratch." She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply; her magnificent breasts rose, their tips hard and firm. She did not seem to know they were completely exposed now, or possibly she didn't care.
"Wow, are you stoned!" Martha murmured, but her teeth showed in a smile; her eyes narrowed, green and hot.
"Evil?" murmured Seymore.
"It's okay," Eve said, her eyes open again. "I like it evil sometimes. Do you know ...people are cats, sometimes. You and Martha, like ...those Mex cats, what do you call them? Ocelots, and like dogs. You, hairy. You're a big of ...wolf dog."
Hugh, grinning even more widely, uttered a low howling sound, then laughed.
Eve put her chin into her hand thoughtfully. "Oh, mother. You're right. I'm stoned out of my Polack head." She stared at Seymore. "Bet you didn't know I was a Polack, did you? Not Starr. Stareski. From Pittsburg. Tell you something, about the jokes about dumb Poles. It's true. I'm a dumb Pole. Back home, in my family, all they ever knew how to do was to drink beer, fight, and screw. I'm the only one of them ever made any money. So I can spend it on having a phony headshrinker tell me things. And a crumb for a husband who hasn't got any balls, damnhim. Him, the Hungarian sonofabitch, the great stud. One week he keeps it up, the second week he's temporarily out of stock, and then off he runs to Europe. Creep. Look, look at this."
She came to her feet smoothly and swiftly, a dancer's movement.
Seymore tensed with the shock of her sudden predatory fingers pressing against the tight front of his trousers. Then he laughed quietly, and put his hands up, circling her smooth bare back, drawing her mouth down against his. His lips pressed hotly against her soft wet mouth; his tongue darted, pushing inward and searching, while his hands slid slowly down across the silken skin under his fingers: Her hands moved up to pull his head closer, and he felt her firm body quiver. Then she drew her mouth away, and sat back from him, letting out a long, shaky breath.
"Hey, man," she said uncertainly, staring at him. After a moment she tilted her head, studying him questioningly. "Wow! Either I'm ten times as stoned as I thought I was, or you've got something new. Eee. That ...DID ...something."
"Tell you, Eve," Martha said, lazily. "You are. Ten times as stoned. I know I am." She giggled.
"No," Eve said. "You know something? I'm not sure it's the hash."
"Maybe it's the full moon," Hugh suggested. His eyes on her naked breasts were hot and avid, but his voice was steady.
"Us Polish girls," Eve said. "We're scientific, you dig. We like to get the true facts. Seymore ...did something just then, but I can't figure out what. But if it happens again, I'll know it's probably me and not Seymore, right?" She stood up suddenly, long-legged and lovely against the fire. "You, Hairy. You don't look completely zonked out. Come here a minute."
Hugh came to his feet and stood for a moment as if testing his balance.
"No," he said. "No, I'm not zonked, Sex Goddess." He grinned. "Not too zonked to..." He stepped forward two paces and his arms slid around Eve's slim waist, bringing her closer. His bearded face bent a little toward the two high mounds of rose-tipped flesh, closer; his mouth opened as he reached them.
"Ahh!" she gasped, her body bending back away from him, her eyes closing suddenly; her face twisted in an expression of almost painful ecstasy, and she moaned a second time.
He came up and his mouth sought hers in a long, demanding kiss, her hand clutching him, her long legs beginning to twine around his as she pressed her twisting hips closer.
And again she let go; she stepped back, almost stumbling, and sank down on her heels into a cushion.
"Mmmmmm," she said, rocking slightly. "Oooh. Oh, my. It must be the hashish, it has to be. Can't be two studs like that..."
"Maybe you're just lucky," Martha said from her curled-up corner. "Or maybe you just haven't played enough post office yet." She giggled and flung back her mass of black curls, her eyes seeming to slant more than ever. "Hey, post office, right? How come Evie's getting all the special delivery letters?"
Hugh, where he stood, feet planted as if the floor might tilt, turned a little in her direction and smiled at her, a slow, hot-mouthed, smile. He extended his hands and Martha seized them, pulling herself lithely to her feet. Then she tossed back her hair again and laughed.
"We ought to try to keep the odds even, shouldn't we?" she said, and her slim white hands flicked swiftly downward along her blouse; she peeled it back, and dropped. it. Under it she wore a fragile black lace bra, cupping small, firm breasts, nowhere near Eve's for size, but not all bad, Seymore decided as he watched.
Martha's hands slid up behind her back and there was a snap; the bra parted and fell away.
Definitely not bad, Seymore thought.
"A fair contest, anyway?" Martha asked, and moved toward Hugh.
He slipped his arms around, and his bearded head went down again, and the sound of a deep chuckle stopping abruptly as his lips found their mark. There was a sudden hectic flush in Martha's face, but she held her control.
"Yum yum," the bearded painter grinned, his head up again. "Small but delicious, as the cannibal said. But to make it really fair, I'll have to make up for a slight difference, won't I?" His mouth came closer as he drew the smaller girl toward him, his head bending to meet hers. "You probably have a little more resistance to that lovely hashish than she does. So, for you, a little extra."
His mouth sank brutally into Martha's, thrusting and pressing her lips open, his tongue entering as if raping. She gasped, twisting helplessly as his heavy hand cupped her slim buttocks, grasping harder. Her back was toward Seymore now and he saw Hugh's strong artist's hand spread across the round, tight-covered seat of her trousers, then a hard, horny finger thrusting down into the creased valley, digging fiercely. Martha's slim body arched suddenly like a bow, and she uttered a sound like a choked scream.
"Oh!" She stepped free, and he grinned at her lewdly.
"It ...it wasn't bad," she said, not quite steadily. Her fingers touched her red mouth. "But that was only ...air mail. Seymore, let's try for special delivery."
And she moved toward where Seymore lay, in a single, panther-like step, almost a bound. She spread her legs, standing over him, and dropped against him, her weight thrusting him back and down under her; and her mouth seized his, hot and avid, as her hips ground tightly against his groin, thrusting, and thrusting again.
There was something ,almost male in her assault, Seymore felt dizzily as she writhed against him; her mouth burned, touched down along his cheek and neck to his chest while she tore at his shirt with clawing fingers. It opened with a popping of buttons and fell back, half off. Martha's hot, twisting mouth sought his again, and her hands dragged his belt downward insistently.
Almost without his willing it, his hands copied her move, grasping at the belt of the trousers she still wore; and as she managed somehow to pull his down, he had a grip on hers, and they slipped down to her knees. A silken scrap of panties went with them; her hips thrust against him now, naked and hot. He felt the tingling burst of her mound, tight-pressed against him, and her widespread legs gave him a new opportunity. He lifted his hips with a powerful effort and thrust, his erect tool touching her damp, hot slit and beginning to enter.
"Oh ...ash." She let out a wild gasping sound of terror and bent up and away; she came to her feet, swaying, her face a strange mask of both terror and pleasure.
"No..." she gasped, and then laughed suddenly, a shaking laugh. She glanced down at the trousers hanging halfway down her slim thighs, and laughed again.
"No sense doing it halfway," Martha said, and stepped out of the clothes with a graceful movement.
Hugh watched, grinning. "Know something, ducks? Damn few women can undress so handsomely."
She stood naked, elegant as a slim waterbird, smiling oddly; she did not seem to hear him. She stared at Eve, instead, her eyes hot; Eve's face wore the same look: blind, ecstatic hunger.
"You didn't try everything, Eve," Martha said in a low, purring voice. She came forward slowly, step after step; knelt over Eve, and with slow, voluptuous care began to peel the sailor pants down from Eve's wide, shapely hips. Eve neither helped nor stopped her; she lay like a golden doll, her eyes wide and fascinated, as if she had never seen her own luscious nudity before.
For a long moment, Seymore and Hugh watched the two naked, lovely girl shapes against the dying fire which was growing redder and-darker now. They held their pose, breathing long, shaking breasts, almost in a matched rhythm.. The twanging Indian music still rang softly in the room.
Then Martha's body came down, tight against the lush blond loveliness under her, and her own smooth, firm hips clamped against Eve's, fiercely as a man's might do. Her body twisted, sliding against the girl's under her, and her mouth sought Eve's in a panting embrace. They locked together, shuddering; and suddenly Eve's long silken legs spread wider, kicking and twining around the girl's hips above her own, locking their bodies even more closely.
They were moving, and moaning together in an almost painful pleasure; Seymore, watching, felt a hot pang of lusting envy. And then, taking control again, he chuckled aloud at himself. His eyes came up, and met Hugh's; the bearded painter was also grinning.
"Oh, God,, God, ahh!" It wasn't possible to be sure which girl had let go with the wild cry of pleasure; but now, they moved apart. Eve lay, eyes rolling slightly, naked and lovely, limp. And Martha, amazingly, was still able to slide herself back, and into a sitting position ...and to grin with a wicked, teasing look at the two men.
"Now that WAS a special delivery," Martha said, in a shaken voice.
Hugh laughed, and leaned toward the brass tray where the hashish lay, picking up a cigarette.
"Martha, honey, if I'd known I wouldn't be any use..."
"Now, really, doll, who said you weren't?" Martha purred at him. She tilted her head, studying him. "I'll bet we can find some use for both of you yet, this evening."
"The bartender job's open," Seymore said, softly malicious, and got to his feet, adjusting his pants. "And I'd like a drink ...anyone else?"
Eve's eyes were nearly shut. "Wowee," she said, in a low voice. Then, louder. "Brand ...eee. That sounds great. A big, BIG one."
"It's really no test of my abilities as a barman," Seymore rejoined. "But it does make it easier." He came back, two snifters in each hand.
"Restores the old zap," Martha announced, gulping. Her eyes had regained their green-wild, shining-as she looked from Hugh to Seymore. She reached for another hashish cigarette, and lit it, drawing deeply and closing her eyes for a moment. Then, opening them again, she drew in a second draft.
"Wow. The brandy straightened out my head," Eve exclaimed, raising herself slightly. She glanced down at herself, and uttered a smothered giggled. "Oh, crap, Martha, you bit me. Marks!" Then, as if she had suddenly noticed, "Hey, dig. You're naked, and I'm naked."
As if something had been released, there were three bursts of laughter from the others; and then one from Eve.
"But ...dammit, you aren't," she noted over the laughter. "You're dressed."
Seymore shrugged, and came to his feet. "Not much left, now that the shirt's gone," he replied, unbuckling his trousers. "A twenty dollar one, too, Martha love." He dropped the trousers, and kicked them away.
"Hugh, too," Martha demanded, pointing. "Sorry about the shirt, Seymore, but I do play rough."
"Hugh too, me too, very poetical," Hugh quipped, and began to undress.
"That record," Martha said. "Mr. Bare-ass Iban, would you be a perfect gentleman and turn it over ...I'd say it seems like a night for weird Oriental tunes." She stared boldly at him. "I might want to play on the organ, and any time now."
Seymore went to the record player, and returned; at the fireplace, he bent calmly, and laid another small log on the fire.
From her pile of cushions, Eve laughed, "Look at him, will you? Not even a little bit bothered!"
Hugh, sitting upright, down to his shorts, grinned nervously. "I wish I could say the same," he chuckled. "I don't get to go to a really first-rate orgy often enough to get that used to it."
"Hey, is this going to be an orgy?" Eve asked, round-eyed.
"Maybe it isn't," Martha opinined. "I don't know if I'm in the mood or not. Maybe we should simply tease the living hell out of these two and send them off in a nasty state, how about that?"
Seymore turned and leaned against the fireplace mantel, calm and naked, staring down at the two girls with a cool insolence that Hugh could only envy. Hugh, himself, was trying his best to look debonair and man-of-the-world, to equal Seymore's, cool. Inwardly, he was in a state.
These two are too much, he thought. I'll bet that bitch Martha is capable of doing exactly that. Playing games. It would be her idea of good clean fun to work a man up and then turn off, just when-and the blonde is just screwball enough to do anything. But God, what a body!
He watched Eve, trying not to look as if he was staring, and not really succeeding.
Eve stared back at him, wide-eyed, and more self-possessed than she had been, her wide mouth curving slightly in a smile.
"You're really hairy, Hugh Thomas," she said, and her tongue darted out suddenly, moistening her lips. Her eyes moved over him, boldly. "Man, you are."
He grinned at her, nervously, and silently. Eve studied him for another moment, and Martha and Seymore watched the exchange of looks. Then Eve stretched her magnificent body languidly and sat up, leaning forward.
"Do you paint girls, Hugh?"
"Not usually, I ...ah, I do ...abstract." His voice shook a little. She giggled, a little cruelly.
"Why, don't you dig girls?"
There was a slight crease of anger in his forehead, but he controlled himself. "Sure, I dig them."
She let her heavy gold hair fall forward over her face, and frame her features, as she watched him. After a moment, she said, "Oh, wow, I'm so stoned it isn't even funny. I'm being mean to you, Hugh Thomas."
He shrugged. "Not necessarily."
"Oh yes she is," Martha asserted. "Eve, sweetie, you're being a tease, aren't you? Isn't she, Seymore?"
Seymore grinned. This is some sort of new game, he thought. Let's play it by ear.
"She's teasing, that's it," he said.
"I know all about her," Martha boasted, still in the same light, sweetly acid voice. "Don't I, Evie? She loves playing tricks. She was teasing me just now, a little while ago. Always pretending to be terribly worked up, but she's always playing it very cool inside, aren't you, Eve?"
Eve now looked confused; somehow the game was going another way, out of her control. Minutes before, she had become increasingly aware of a physical urgency building within her, a hunger she knew well enough. The brief moment of contact with Martha hadn't satisfied her, it had merely turned her on; but she had wanted to tease Hugh Thomas a little first. She liked watching men grow excited, their faces reddening, sweating and grasping at her; that was the best part of the whole thing. The rest of it wasn't much, Eve had always thought; nothing, compared to the fun of the hunt itself, of playing the elusive prey, twisting and turning and acting reluctant.
"I know something about her," Martha repeated, to Seymore. Slowly, Martha put out her hand, and stroked Eve's cheek, hypnotically gentle movements that were at the same time somehow like the moving paw of a cat over a frozen mouse.
"Eve's shrink told her she was frigid," Martha explained. She smiled sleepily. "Because Eve told the shrink she really didn't get that certain big kick out of sex. That's right, isn't it Eve? You never did have the great big bang, did you? Except just now, with me, you were getting there, you almost did."
This is getting a little too freaky, Hugh thought, watching Eve's expression, stoned out, as if she floated in some inner sea; and Martha's, her eyes glittering with the look Hugh remembered seeing in the eyes of a girl watching a bullfight. Seymore's look, cool Satanic detachment and amusement too. Eve was the object of this whole game, Hugh realized suddenly; they both want her, but in different ways, and for different reasons. And Hugh-he was a tool, for either or both of them to use.
"I made it lots of times," Eve said, in a vague, faraway voice.
"Mmmmm," Martha purring, still running her long fingers down Eve's cheeks. "But let's really make it, hmm; darling, all the way, right up there. We'll all help, won't we?" Martha's voice was not quite steady now, and Hugh saw a fine dampness of sweat on her face. She leaned closer to Eve now, and her hands moved downward along Eve's smooth shoulders, and caressing her high breasts, the fingers delicately circling her nipples. At that touch, Eve's nipples leaped up, hardening, and Eve moaned, closing her eyes.
"We'll all help, won't we?" Martha repeated, and Seymore moved toward the two of them, and dropped to his knees beside Eve, a thin smile on his lips. He bent over her, his mouth moving down along her belly; and above him, Martha bent suddenly closer, her mouth pressing against Eve's stiffened nipples. The blond girl writhed, and gasped a sudden wordless sound, her hands opening and closing as if in pain.
"Hugh sweet," Martha said, turning her head a little. "You're in this too, sweets, aren't you?"
He grinned, nervously. "Am I?"
"Do light us one more of those super joints, doll," Martha said. "There, that's it." Hugh bent close, holding the hashish cigarette for Martha to draw on; she inhaled deeply, passed it to Seymore. Then, with a swift, deft grab, she snatched at Hugh's shorts, drawing them down.
"Can't imagine what you were hiding, Hugh darling," Martha purred up at him. "My, look at that. Excited, aren't you?" She took the joint from Seymore, and held it to Eve's lips, half-open and wet. "That's it, a little more, and you'll be flying, baby. Open your eyes and see what Hugh's been trying to keep out of sight."
Eve's eyes opened, the pupils dilated enormously, and she stared up at Hugh. She giggled. "Beards," she said, and giggled again. "Wow, beards, beards, thousands of beards. Hey, what are you doing to me, you two?" Her voice was blurred, and she seemed to be unable to be sure where her hands were, but she did not sound angry about what was happening, Hugh thought. Hell, he told himself, if she-likes it, why argue?
"You couldn't really improve on that hard-on you've got there," Martha commented, still with her cheek against the round curve of Eve's breasts, but staring up at Hugh. "But then, maybe..."
"Aaaaah!" Eve suddenly shrieked, a gasp of amazed shock. Seymore's sleek dark head was buried between her thighs, his hands spreading their firm length wide; his mouth against the golden mound, he had thrust skillfully with an experienced tongue against a small wriggling target. Eve arched, squealing again, and twisted around wildly.
Martha, thrust away by the wild leap of Eve's body, uttered a crazy laugh of excitement; she grasped Hugh suddenly, kneeling in front of him, her arms around his thighs. Looking down, he saw her mass of tightly curled black hair against his body and suddenly, her hot mouth opened wide, circling his prick. Her tongue darted against the tip, setting off a series of tingling shocks, while her fingers swiftly slid between his thighs, playing a practiced game in exactly the right places.
Hugh gasped, his knees beginning to fold, as, fiery flashes leaped up within him, pleasure so intense it was nearly pain. In a sinuous, twist, Martha drew him down on the piled cushions, still clinging to him like a leech. He was facing down, with the twisting girl underneath him, his hands on either side of her hips; her smooth, flat belly faced him, and below, a train-gel of tight dark curls, and her wildly scissoring thighs.
Beside him, Hugh caught another glimpse of the golden body of Eve, thrashing wildly, breasts bouncing high as she arched and bent, he could hear her gasping cries, increasing in intensity, as her hands beat the head pressed between her thighs.
But it was only a brief glimpse; that hot, demanding mouth at his loins worked now with a frenzied motion, send his body his helpless leaps of pleasure. Then suddenly the maddening mouth stopped, and released its prey; he heard Martha's half-choked voice, gasping demandingly, "Damn you, damn you, do me, please, please ...DO ME TOO, you hear..."
He laughed a wildly crazy laugh, and gasped her firm thighs, drawing them apart. Her slit was remarkably small, tightly closed against his exploring finger, but as he worked it open, it seemed to leap into life, pulsing hotly. Her clitoris was a little larger, too, than seemed to be proportional; but Hugh wasn't in a mood to measure such minor details. He thrust his bearded chin down, and caught at the elusive pearl with his teeth, nibbling gently; then he lashed it briskly with his tongue.
Under him, he felt Martha rise, her body bending lithely as a snake's; he heard her wordless choked cry of pleasure at what he was doing. But she never stopped for a minute in her own intense business upon him. Then he felt the warning signal, the pressure building up and burning, dizzying sensation coming closer; and he lifted his hips a little higher, and laughed crazily again. "Martha, look out, I'm going to..."
"Yes, yes, you bastard, do it, I want it, I want it!" he heard her gasping cry, and swiftly, she fastened her mouth on him again, drawing his tool into her mouth so far that for a moment he thought he would certainly choke her to death. But there was no time to think. It was as if a brilliant flash had been set off inside his belly, and he felt the hot flood of released fluid spurting out, with an ecstasy almost too intense to stand.
"I told you!" Hugh heard Martha gasping, her voice broken by her shaken breathing. "I like doing that oh, wow, you big, dumb bastard, you do it, don't you?"
He rolled over, leaning back-momentarily released, but not at all sated, he was amazed to notice. Martha lay half across him, her red mouth grinning widely, as her tongue darted over her lips, and her clever hands slid across his hairy body.
Eve lay, spread out like a luscious blond doll, arms and legs out starfish-wise; Seymore knelt between her quivering thighs, grinning wildly at the other two. The blond girl was rolling her head from side to side, babbling in a crazy stream of meaningless words mixed with sounds that were half-laughter and half-moaning.
"Mama, mama, oh, ooh, ah, touching me, not like this, ooh, OOOH..." she was babbling. Her head rolled toward Hugh and Martha, her golden mop falling in a tangle; her-wide eyes held on Hugh, and she began to grow slightly less wild. It was as if for a moment she managed to regain her self-control, with a tremendous effort of will. She still gasped, panted, but a little more slowly as she regained her breath.
"Oh, God, you..." Eve said, in a husky voice. Then, "You ...you're really doing it to me, aren't you? Martha, is it that dope? It's so, so good. It's never been like this, never. My God, what have I been missing?"
Martha laughed.
Eve lay, a little less movement in her body now, staring at Hugh. "Hey, Seymore, you..." she said, abruptly. "You, you're great, that way, but I want him, the beard there. Now. I mean NOW, please!"
Seymore rose swiftly, and moved back, smiling at Hugh.
"Lucky you," he murmured.
Hugh slid to his feet, and stood swaying for a moment staring at the flushed golden flesh spread willingly there before him. He could not think rationally at all any more, he noticed. He moved forward, like a sleepwalker, feeling a pulsing, hardening sensation that told him that Martha had not succeeded in doing much more than supplying an appetizer to the main course.
Hugh dropped to his knees, between Eve's spread-out long legs, staring down at her with a slightly stunned look. She lifted herself slightly on an elbow, smiling up at him.
"Oh, I'm going to have to ask my shrink about this," Eve purred huskily, reaching out to twine her fingers into his beard. She held it, staring at him. "Oooh. You ...you just don't really know. Listen, Hugh, I'm flying. I mean, I'm out of the world, wow. This is like the first time, you dig?"
He nodded, unable to say anything. She giggled.
"I never knew what that shrink meant I didn't know ...I go all melted inside, and it's happening, it's like I'm ...WET, man, gee, I don't know what it is. But listen." She reached up, and her arms encircled his neck, drawing him down, closer; her red mouth moved to his cheek, her breath coming in short, harsh pants. She hooked her heels behind his knees, and swiftly, her right hand released his head, and dove downward, sliding between their bodies. Feeling her fingers suddenly, circling him, Hugh gasped; she giggled again, guiding him to the hot wet slit, pressing his tool into her with a lift of her hips.
"That's ...right," she panted. "In there. Don't fool around ...don't need any more of that, oh, wow, into me, all the way into me, man. Aaah!" her hips against his hard, impaling herself to the hilt, her body vibrating like a high tension wire "Go, go, go, DO IT HARD!"
Martha, next to Seymore, watched Hugh's body lift and thrust with pistoning force, faster and faster, Eve's naked golden body under him rolling and returning each thrust again, their hot, wet flesh slapping against each other. Martha's eyes gleamed, and her hands moved excitedly over her own body, while Seymore glanced sideward at her, with covert amusement.
He leaned close, and whispered, "By God, that little blond bird is really going, isn't she? Now, what about you and me..."
"No!" Martha gasped, bending back away from him, her green eyes flaming at him. "No, I've had enough. I don't want..."
Seymore's white teeth glittered. "I know what you want, pussycat," he said, in a low, sensuous murmur. As she slid to her feet, he came up after her, and stepped forward, his long arms sliding around her hips. His muscular hands cupped her small, firm buttocks, clamping hard, as he pulled her toward him, grinning down at her.
"You ratfink..." Martha hissed, straining back in an effort to pull free, but failing. Seymore's grip was unbreakable; his white teeth glittered in a triumphant grimace, and he held her locked firmly.
Martha stopped her straining effort for a moment, going limp. She glared up at Seymore, and controlled her voice, with difficulty.
"I don't want to, not with ...a man," she said, tensely. "Didn't you dig that already, Seymore?"
He uttered a short, barked, laugh. "No kidding?" One of the hands clutching her bottom suddenly moved, and a finger dug cruelly between the firm spheres. Martha uttered a smothered scream.
"Damn you!" she gasped. Then, more softly, "Seymore, I won't, don't want to try it ...listen, I'll do you, the way I did Hugh ...you'll love it. Let me..."
He barked a laugh, again. "I wouldn't trust you quite that far, love," he said. "Teeth, you know."
Swiftly, she ducked her head, snapping at his shoulder; and as swiftly, he brought up a hand, and jolted her chin back with a palm under it. Before she could recover, he had thrust a knee between her thighs, and bore her down to the fur rug, driving his member hard at her tight slit. As he entered, she uttered a cat-like squall of pain, beating wildly at his face and chest with her fists. But he was merciless, thrusting harder, and again, again, until her eyes rolled wildly, and she began to utter harsh gasps of mingled excitement and rage.
"Tight ...God, girl, you're tighter than..." Seymore gasped hoarsely, and thrust again, fully and completely, impaling her to the very hilt.
"Aaah!" There was a faint froth on her red mouth, and her eyes were glazed. "Buh-bastard..." she gasped. "I ...I'll kill you ...ooh, ah!"
"like it, though, don't you?" Seymore said, pausing, deep into her pulsing flesh; they lay, locked together, Martha glaring wildly at him.
"I ...hate it, damn you," she gasped, and then, "All right, all right, I like it, rat, I like it ...eehuh!" She arched, bent like a taut bow, and her mouth fell open in a crazy gasp. "Oh, yes, I like it, I do ...ah!"
"So do I," Seymore murmured, and chuckled, lifting himself free for a moment. "I love it tight, that way ...now, let's see how tight THIS is..."
And as Martha, lay gasping helplessly, he rolled her over with a lightning movement, onto a big pillow, rear upward, face down.
This time he was even less hesitant; he pushed-into the new opening with a single thrust, and a harsh cry of ecstatic pleasure at the tight grip. Martha, face almost smothered in the pillow, uttered a maddened squalling sound, and literally bucked, like an untamed horse; but Seymore's long hard tool was so deeply and firmly driven in that he held on easily. His hard hands came under her, and grasped her small, firm breasts, squeezing hard, till she squealed again; and as he began to move swiftly up and down, she uttered the same maddened squeals at each deep-driven thrust, louder and wilder till he uttered a wild, triumphant, gasping cry, and slowly relaxed.
"Oh, you..." Martha groaned, limp under him. "You ...you killed me. My God, I won't be able ...to walk. Oh, please, please ...take it out..."
"Whooee!" Seymore rolled free, and leaned on an elbow, grinning at her. He laughed. "No real complaint, eh?"
She lay, legs and arms loose as a rag doll's, her eyes green and furious. "All right, rat. I enjoyed it. But no more, please. Oh, man, I'm wrecked!" She turned her head sideward, and abruptly, she giggled. "If you're still randy, stud, dig Eve there."
Hugh lay, wrung out, arms spread wide, done, while Eve lay half across him, her hips still writhing a little, giggling and panting. She saw Seymore's look, and laughed.
"Told you..." Eve said, hoarsely, and giggled again. "Nothing really wrong with me. Damn fool shrink. Men ...I could outscrew a dozen of you. Bet you can't, Seymore, buddy..."
"I won't take a dare," he countered, and got to his feet, moving toward her. She uttered a surprised sound, and rolled off Hugh, and away from Seymore; but he was upon her in another long stride. He reached down, and took her under the arms, swinging her upright, and against him.
"I like to finish what I start," he told her, pulling her tighter against him. Her magnificent breasts flattened, soft mounds with hot, pulsing tips pressed against his chest; she moved her thighs against his, insistently, and her mouth came up against his lips.
"Mmmmmm," he said, and his hands went under her thighs, lifting her off her feet, up her spread legs, and lowered her again, down and slowly onto his up-thrust tool.
Her head fell back, and her eyes rolled up, her mouth opened in a long, ecstatic moan as she received him, sliding down and down onto him.
"Ah, aaah, ahaha!" She was locked in place; he stood, legs apart, and slowly moved her hips, rocking, as she moaned louder.
"Ooogh, AHEE!" The blond girl gurgled mad sounds, her golden flesh wet and quivering, as the two of them stood there, like a statue of lust personified. Hugh sat up, staring. The sight brought some of his zeal back; his eyes glittered as he watched. Martha's eyes feasted on the sight too, and her breath came faster. Then Seymore saw her and uttered a deep-throated laugh.
"Martha and Hugh..." Seymore called out, huskily. "Come on, let's really do Eve baby, the works!" Martha rolled over, to her hands and knees, and came snaking swiftly, toward them, as Seymore knelt, still holding Eve gripped to him. He dropped on his side, holding her, and grinned toward Hugh just beyond, his hand slapped gently on the writhing round spheres of Eve's bottom.
"Hugh, give!" Seymore panted. "Right in there, come on, man, you'll love it!"
And suddenly Hugh found himself curled against Eve's back, his hands reaching around, finding a hot, soft, mounded breast; his miraculously erect instrument seeking the tight crevice between her firm buttocks, and the tighter opening within, driving in hard. His knee bumped Seymore's, but he did not even notice; the doubly impaled blonde writhed with new energy, and squealed almost steadily now, her head thrown back, her face a twisted mask of joy.
Then, weirdly, Hugh discovered a slim girl's leg against his cheek, and another on the other side; and in a haze of energetic joy, he saw that Martha had straddled Eve's head, and pressed her dark-curled mound down against the other girl's open, gasping mouth.
Hugh himself was nearly unconscious now, his body moving in a scarlet fog of ecstasy, but he found a brief second to feel a flash of wonder at Eve. She must have been even more completely lightning-struck by the exploding orgy around them than he was, but she still seemed to remember what to do about Martha's offered treasure. He caught a brief glimpse of Eve's pink tongue, darting up in avid search, and then it,was covered by Martha's darkness; and as Hugh exploded in wild orgiastic grunts of release, he heard Martha's answering cry above him.
Hugh's mind was swimming in dark seas as he saw the firelight still flickering on the tangled flesh around him; all three lying now, limp, utterly drained, as the last blue curls of smoke of a forgotten hashish cigarette eddied across their wet bodies.
CHAPTER TWO
The color was red.
Bright red, splashed on the clean wood of the decks, and on the frame of the open door, darker red prints of a hand, streaked where the hand had slipped downward. A drying puddle of scarlet near the door of the second room, and in the room, a thickening pool at the edge of the bed. The blond girl lay there, head downward, her gold hair hanging down into the red pool, thick strands of red in the yellow hair.
The other girl was sprawled face up near the outer door, her black hair spread around her head. She was naked, too, except for a rag of torn cloth that had been a slip, but which now hung around her neck in a string of tatters. The long blade pinned her to the floor, thrust straight downward; her eyes were open, staring emptily at the ceiling.
The man was sitting in a corner, head down on his knees, as if he were thinking about something. He wore a pair of trousers, and nothing else; there was a wide strain of red down his bare chest, and his throat gaped, open as a second frightful mouth.
The lights were on, all through the houseboat; the door swung, moving slightly as the boat rocked a little in the swell. The stereo speakers hummed quietly, and a steady scratching sound came from them, a record that had reached its end and now turned silently on the turntable.
Outside, the sky reddened toward the dawn, and the patrol car's light flickered steadily, a fire-red glare, turning, turning.
A camera's strobe light flashed, blue-white. "That's Miss Starr, all right," one of the policemen said quietly.
"His name is Iban," the man in civilian clothes said, looking down at the body. "No record, but he would have had, any day now." He grimaced and moved to the door, standing and looking out at the dawn sky.
"Maybe he was lucky, anyway," the gray man outside added, lighting a cigarette. "What did they used to say? Live hard, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse."
"A good-looking corpse?" The other man grunted. "Take a look, John. He was good-looking, all right. Yesterday."
"No, thanks," the gray man replied. "Not my job." He spat into the dark water. "Beautiful People, isn't that what they call 'em?" He looked down at the bow of the boat, where the name was printed. "Hmmm," he said. "They called this tub Rosemary." The printed name was half-worn off. "Spooky, eh? Makes you remember that movie, Rosemary's Baby." He looked around at the bodies. "Rosemary's Boobies would be more like it, in this case."
...BETSY'S STORY
You'd be surprised if you knew how quickly I could tell you all about the first part of my life. I mean, more than ...oh, nine-tenths of it, you know nothing really ever happened, not a thing. But I'm a speed freak, you dig, and we love rapping, that's the way we are, so I'll rap about it. I've got lots and lots of time, more than I can use up.
I mean it's funny in a way. I'll be twenty in another month, or so. I'm a Leo, really. Can't you tell, looking at me? I've, got this Leo look, I think. I washed my hair, to get it lighter, like a lion's mane, and green eyes, and all that ...anyway, I've had twenty whole years, and I've only really been alive for a couple of those years and now it's all over, in a way, isn't it? No matter what happens, it's not going any further, really.
Oh ...about me. I was one of the girls in the typing pool. You know the typing pool. Any typing pool. Pour them all together and you get an ocean, an OCEAN of girls, all pretty much alike, dressed alike, thinking alike ...typing like crazy.
We all had smiles, nice, polite, toothpaste smiles, even the one whose period was a little late, and who knew the ass wouldn't marry her. Or the one who was married already, only there wasn't enough money, so she was working ...just for now, or maybe just for the next twenty years. Or the ones who never met anybody, neither a ass nor a right gay. They all smiled, all the time. I got so damn tired of smiling. I smiled too, though. I wanted to go to art school, but there just wasn't ...whatever it took. Besides bread, that is. So smile, kid.
I had a mother, and a father, who weren't living together much, and a dumb brother, who was in the Army somewhere. I went to a high school, just like everybody else.
We had this big lecture once about the drug menace, with slides. About the dangers of it all. Nearly everybody in school turned on, of course, whenever we could pick up a lid. Now and then, somebody got busted, but in our kind of people, there was usually a way for the folks to get you out of it, somehow. It was usually only pot, after all.
But there were the fat girls. I mean, we always had plenty to eat, out there in the suburbs, and it was pretty easy for a girl to get a little too fat. Aha, but if you're fat, you won't get the Right Man, which is a pretty big item, even nowadays. And something you'd be reminded about, often enough; nobody ever let you forget anything that had to do with the way you looked. Nobody cared what you thought. It was looks first.
But fat girls can get thin, naturally or unnaturally. You could just not eat,, of course, but we aren't very big on asceticism where I came from. This is the modern age. You took a pill.
The Pill was usually good old amphetamine, also known as speed. It comes in a dozen shapes and sizes, but it's always that same good old magic powder, invented by those smart Nazis, somewhere in between inventing rockets and nerve gas; and it'll kill your appetite, just fine. It will also do a few other things. It'll make you rap, all the time, and not sleep much, and you get a great feeling that everything's going fine. It's the American Dream, high speed living, zip, zap, pow.
Then sometimes it turns your brains into oatmeal, and you slide into the black pits when it wears off. But what the hell, you can't have everything, can you?
I started using it back in tenth grade, and I got very slim and luscious, and it was just great. The year after that, I managed to sneak a supply of the other Pill, the important one, and just in time, too.
Because that was the year I lost it, you know. The great old word for it, deflowered, wow. I dug that word. I used to think there was this weird little flower, like a kind of undersized camellia, sprouting between my legs, and once, back then, I actually took a good hard look, trying to see if it was actually there, inside my cunt. Isn't that crazy?
I was pretty young, anyway, and you haven't got any idea how kids think, now aways, I know you don't. Maybe they were always like that, but I doubt it.
I think I was around fifteen, anyway, or maybe sixteen. My memory isn't that good about dates and things. But I know it was after I had started to slim way down, and I was growing breasts, and everything. I used to get to feeling so horny it, was absolutely insane, really. There were dozens of girls my age who told me they had "done it," and how great it was, and all; maybe some of them were lying, but it made me feel out of things, and not with it. I heard all the different words about what happened, "copping a cherry."
"becoming a Woman." And deflowering, yes.
So I was up there in my room, wearing the specially imagine under things, the ones I bought for myself, and kept under other stuff at the bottom of a bureau drawer. And looking into the mirror, posing various ways; trying to see what a boy might see, on the Fatal Occasion.
Oh, man, I looked great, back then. Yes, I know the papers said things like the "strangely beautiful accomplice," and all those other phrases, but they should have seen me then. I've got a couple of pictures from around then, and they simply flip me out, to look at them.
It was odd, though; I mean, I looked in the mirror, and I thought I just didn't look good enough, not sexy enough, really. I took off the bra, and the jugs weren't anything much, round, but pretty small. I tried massaging them, but that didn't make them any bigger; it just gave me a funny, uncomfortable feeling down between my legs.
I remember a lot of the little details about that particular day. No matter how absentminded I might be about a lot of things that happened before, or since ...that's a day a chick remembers, the day she first got balled.
I said balled, didn't I? It's the wrong word, though. Balling is fun, a ball, you know. Not laid, either; that's still a little off, that word. I was humped, banged, reamed out ...fucked. You don't like that word? Find a better one. I didn't expect what happened, not exactly. I mean, I wasn't completely unprepared, of course, but I hadn't planned it, either. It was planned by a boy named Red, who would have been the last one I would have picked to pluck my tender blossom, believe me.
Oh sure, the flower thing. I had just come across the word, that particular day, and actually looked it up in the dictionary. The definition got me feeling a little weirder than usual; and I had been getting a few extra bennies, speed pills, here and there, too. So, standing in front of that mirror in my room, I wasn't exactly in my right mind that afternoon, if a teenage chick has a right mind.
I actually slipped my panties down and bent down to look, hard. In the furbush, you know. At least I had that, anyway, though it wasn't much more than fuzz, and so light-colored you couldn't see it. But I have to laugh, thinking about it and all; me actually thinking there might be something there that I hadn't ever noticed, something that the word flower applied to. I looked very closely, and it wasn't there. As far as that goes, it didn't look like a cherry, either; another word I knew about. It looked more like a peach, and nobody I knew called it a peach.
So I slipped the panties all the way off and sat down on the floor, in front of the mirror, right there, with my legs open, and carefully, put a finger inside, spreading it open a little, just to see what the whole thing was all about. And my finger just barely touched my clit, and zap! It was like pushing that last button, you know. Blast off. I went all over jelly, and fell over on my back, making funny noises. It was so damn good ...and the first time I'd ever done it, you understand. I'd never known it felt like that. All of a sudden I knew what all the others were talking about.
Oh, wow, I said to myself, as soon as I could think straight again. And I remembered a couple of nights before, with a cat who had taken me out dancing, and later, a little parking; and how I'd said "No" a little harder than he wanted to hear. He was a gentleman, in his way; he hadn't gone very far, beyond a squeeze and a tickle. And he stopped right there and drove me home. Not next time, Betsy, I told myself. Next time he tries, I say yes, yes, and yes. This is the right thing all right.
Damn, I thought, I'll say yes to the next one in pants that asks, I will, I have to try the whole bit.
But the thought of Red, a real clod, just never came into my head. He was big,. not what I would call charming, and lumpy. And he had been getting a case of hots for me for months, which I didn't know at the time, I tell you. I was a real innocent. And that particular afternoon, the clod had to-pick to call up and ask for a date. He never knew how much dumb luck he had. And it never occurred to me that it was going to be anything except the hamburger and milkshake deal. Actually secretly what I really wanted was Tony Curtis tearing off my frillies, but even I wasn't idiot enough to take that idea seriously. Still, anything less like Tony Curtis than Red would be hard to invent.
And so I got dressed, and incidentally, I didn't put on the imagine underwear, which ought to prove I wasn't even betting on Red to show in that race. Plain old Woolworth's snuggies and a two-dollar bra, under a nice, simple, plaid skirt and white blouse. I didn't think I looked any more sexy-seductive than a loaf of rye bread, but you wouldn't think so to look at Red's expression when he picked me up. If I had been a little more experienced ...well, we all have to learn sometime.
I learned, all right, I learned all about it, about nine o'clock that night, and from Red, of all people. I know what time it was, because we had gone back to my folks' house, and we were watching television; the two of them were both out, in different places, of course. They had whay they called a civilized arrangement. They wouldn't be back for hours, and I just had to be idiot enough to mention that to Red. Red the Rape Artist, or Ready Red, or something.
He didn't waste a minute on any of that useless preliminary stuff. One minute I was watching the commercial come on, and before the announcer got around to telling you what cigarette the cowboy was smoking, Red was opening my blouse. He didn't notice the buttons, either; he yanked, and buttons flew like popcorn, while I just made remonstrating noises and tried to slug him.
Then there I was, on my back on the couch, and he was working off my skirt and his pants at the same time, while holding me down. It was quite a trick, but he did it, and there I was, in nothing but panties and a bra, and a couple of hundred pounds of male nut on top of me.
Well, I could have stopped him; a good loud scream, for instance. But my head was scrambled. That incident that afternoon-it blew my mind. And when I saw that thing of his ...and he was really hung, I'll say that for him ...there it was, waving at me, and all of a sudden, I got that jellied feeling again.
I did say no, you have to give me that. I just didn't say it loud enough, I guess.
Red was clawing away at my bra, and I automatically slid my hand around and undid it; it was new, after all, and two dollars is two dollars. And out popped the two apples, and Red almost came, then and there. He came down, on them, gobbling like anything; and when I felt him biting and nipping at my nipples, I fell apart some more. I was trying to work myself up to a genuine yes.
Red didn't bother to wait, though. His technique was early apeman; he tore off my panties, and one of these great hairy hands clamped down on my crotch, like a lobster's claw. It was spinning, but I heard myself letting out a yell, or starting to; but he crammed his mouth down on mine, with his tongue ramming into my mouth. He got hold of my legs, and opened me up like an airmail letter, one, two, three and stabbed that gigantic cock up into me so far I thought it was coming up my throat. He slammed it into me, going like a pile driver in high gear, and I just took it. I was unable to even yell, somehow, I felt as if I'd been raped by an elephant or something. It hurt ...but there was something else coming on, something like that feeling I'd had that afternoon. Red's hairy chest was flattening me down like a pancake, squashing my tender nipples and feeling like sandpaper against my belly; he was grunting, sweating, and babbling, going faster and faster:
"Uh, uh, UH!" Red was gasping, and choking out what he might have thought was stimulating small talk for the occasion..."Oh, Jeez baby, it's the wildest, come on, come with me. I'm coming, I'm ...oogh!" And I felt a positive fountain of hot liquid jetting up inside me.
But just about then, I was beginning to really get turned on ...but only beginning, damn it. And Red ...he was all through, punched out, the end.
If I hadn't been so young, and so dumb, I'd have realized what was what, and maybe kicked that' dumb Red right in his limp little thing. My diddlebox was jumping, and he was about as much use as a photograph. But I was just too mixed up to think straight, about then; I remember thinking, a little disappointed, gee, is that ALL?
It wasn't all, though. As far as Red went, he had had his chance, and he never got another, as soon as I found out a few of the facts of life. That there were cats around who didn't think three or four minutes of panting and heaving around were all there was to sex. Oh my, yes. I did find out quite a little, that last year in high school; maybe that was one reason for my awful marks.
I found out something else, too. I found out about The Rules. Let me tell you about the Rules. It's simple enough; the idea is DON'T GET CAUGHT. And don't look funny, look like everybody else, pretend to be ...not like everybody else, but like whatever they tell you it's proper to be like. You can do anything ...but you mustn't get caught.
like you're supposed to be more or less a virgin, you dig. At my age, they called it statutory rape, as if the girl didn't even have enough sense to decide whether she was willing or not. Oh, man, if the parents only knew ...but then, they wouldn't believe it. I didn't KNOW any girls in my class who were cherry except one, and that one was into something really weird, with a German shepherd dog.
And if I told you everything, I heard, from other, chicks ...no, nobody could believe half of it. I began thinking I was some sort of freak, because I only let a guy get away with it once in a while, and only one at a time.
The trouble was, I found out I didn't exactly like balling as much as I thought I might. One cat, then another, and then another, and each time there was something ...missing. At first, I used to think it was something wrong with me. I got more and more worried; I started leaning harder and harder on speed pills, to keep me cheered up. And I began hunting around, in a dopey way; exploring, sort of. I tried acouple of weird things, the yoga stuff, and like that; and I began wandering around town on weekends, down in the city. I had some sort of crazy idea I could find out what was missing, as if I'd recognize it when I saw it, like the missing part in a jigsaw puzzle.
I know now what it was. It was only partly my fault; a lot of it was the way a lot of cats are. Uptight, you know. I read a lot, sometimes those sex manual things, and once or twice I'd want to try something new, with one of those uptight ones; and wow, they'd look so seared! One of them ran out, calling me a nymph. Can you flash that?
But all the time, I was being a Good Girl. I had this dumb job, typing, in a place in town, and I used to drive in and out in the station wagon, our other car. Then well, it was just a little thing, something about the car needing a fixing. And I happened to hear about a little pad, a one-room-and-bath thing, that another girl was giving up because she was getting married, and I realized it would be a lot closer to the job. And on the edge of the Haight, too. I was becoming a kind of weekend hippy, anyway.
I remember that was the same month as my eighteenth birthday. I was such a good, square little chick, on the outside ...and so completely screwed up inside. The speed, that was the worst thing. I had stopped kidding around, now. I was high on the stuff most of the time; I hadn't gotten to actually shooting it in with a needle yet, but I might as well have. I rapped a lot, and stayed awake, too much. I used to be busy, busy, all the time. And yet, not really getting anything done, either. That's speed:
People warned me, a lot of times. I had friends who hated speed, and a few of them were into all sorts of other drugs, but they wouldn't touch that crystal stuff, not them. I tried pot, sometimes, but it wouldn't do anything for me. And I tried acid, too; I had two or three good trips, beautiful ones. But then the next trip went bad. It was the worst bummer I could imagine, a really EVIL thing.
I can't tell you all about it; it was too awful, believe me. It was on a weekend, in that little room I had, and I ...oh, my. I was climbing the wall, I think.
For awhile, during that bad trip, I had ugh, the Stone Man. He looked like the handsomest, sexiest cat you can imagine, long, flowing hair, smooth body muscles, like a Greek God, only he was made out of some kind of pure white stone, a statue. But alive, except the funny way his eyes were, like ...oh, like Orphan Annie, white. He came right out of the wall, walking right toward me, naked. His white stone cock, standing up ...brrr. I don't like to remember, even now.
(I got him out of the Art Museum, actually. I remembered, a lot later, about that, seeing a statue there. It must have photographed itself on my mind, the way things do.)
I had been wearing a shortie nightgown. Oh, sure, I really did wear those things, back then. After I got in with Martin, I gave all that silly stuff away ...but then, that weird stone man hallucination, yes. That was awful, and what happened was worse. I felt naked, somehow, and when I looked at myself, I was, the nightgown was gone. It was as if I couldn't control my own body anymore, it was terrible. I fell on the bed, on my back, with my legs all apart, and the Stone Man must ...oh, god, I was being split apart. And it was like a bar of cold iron inside me.
Then all of a sudden the Stone Man turned solid black, but those eyes were all lit up, bright and empty. And his thing inside me seemed to get hotter and hotter, till it felt as if it were burning up. I kept wriggling and twisting, trying to get off it ...but I couldn't.
The silliest part of it is this. I knew it wasn't real, all the time. I was really lying on the bed, pushing something ...some sort of candle, I think it was, into myself, and it was all a freakout dream-thing. But it. seemed so damned real, and I was so completely, horribly scared.
After that, I made up my mind I wouldn't take acid, not ever again. For a week or two, everything was all right; I went to work every day, I managed to look straight, as usual ...and then it started.
The first time, I was coming down Market Street, on the way to work. It was morning, a little bit foggy. I liked that sort of weather, usually. I was feeling a little funny, though; I remember, I looked into a store window, and caught the way I looked, haggard, rings under my eyes. Not good. Eighteen years old, and I looked thirty. The people walking along ...the way they look in a fog, heads down, not really clear, you dig. And there, coming down the street, toward me ...the Stone Man.
I just stopped, frozen stiff. He wasn't real, I knew that. He was naked, the way he had been before ...and he'd grab me, and throw me down on the sidewalk, pull up my skirt and shove that stone rod into ...I was shivering, but I couldn't even run.
Then, he slowly started to fade, and in a minute, he was just.. . fog. Gone.
I saw him twice more in the next ten days or so; each time, he'd get closer before he faded out, and I'd get more scared. I couldn't do anything about it, either. I mean, what could I have told anybody? He wasn't real, I knew that. But he scared me green.
It was pretty bad. It was so bad that the day I got fired, I hardly noticed what was happening. I just went home, fast, and shut the door. I think I took two or three pills ...stuff that was lying around. Maybe they were Benzedrine, or maybe something else, I didn't really know, then or now. By that time, I was so strung out I couldn't tell.
They fired me because I looked pretty weird, of course; my hair had started looking stringy and uncombed, and my eyes were all red. And I was making mistakes, too, but the main reason was the way I looked. It was something I always knew, even then. As long as you look all right, anything goes.
So there I was, ready for the funny farm. I heard Him in the halls, sometimes, walking up and down, getting closer, thump, thump. All that day and night. Jumping out the window. wouldn't help, it was only the second floor. And I'd never get as far as the bridge, where everybody jumps.
Now I have to stop a minute, and try to remember how it happened, I mean about Marty Danton, Martin ...he hates to be called Marty.
I knew another chick, living in the same building. A kind of strange chick, actually. Her name was Judy; she was pretty tall, slim, with a kind of high-cheekboned, slanty-eyed face, the way models try to look. But she wasn't a model; she had been some sort of dancer, modern stuff, I think. I had done her a little favor, nothing special; it was just something that happened, when the cat she was living with freaked, and she had to hide for a night, she came to my room. But I didn't even remember about that, I didn't think she knew about what was happening to me. But the walls in that place were pretty thin, and she was right on the next floor ...she knew, all right.
What Judy did, when she heard the funny noises I was making, was to go looking for Martin Danton. They were calling him the Guru, even then. He hadn't been around long, but he was getting people to ...sort of listen to him. He impressed them, I guess. And he was getting people together, into a kind of little group, the way it is.
Judy thought he was nearly God. She didn't trust anybody else, a hospital or anything; they'd have locked me away in a funny farm for sure. She went off through the Haight, looking for Martin, while I was in that room, waiting for the Stone Man.
I expected he'd come through the wall, the way he had the last time. He'd grab me, and I'd really go, this time, all the way out, forever. I sat shivering waiting.
Then I thought I heard the door, a light knock. I got up, sort of automatically, and went to open it. I swung the door open ...and he was standing there, white and enormous, just ...looking at me.
So ...when Judy and Danton came, I was in the bathroom, poking around at my wrists with a rusty razor blade, trying to find the big vein. I was completely flipped.
I don't want to talk about the next part much.
Except Martin got me through it, all in one piece, anyway. Judy helped, but he did the main part. It took a few days, but I came out of it. And that's all I want to tell you; not the details. They aren't nice. If you want to find out about things like that, go flip out, and see for yourself.
Martin had a house; one of his bunch had rented it, and they had all moved into it, a little while before. It was a big old house, very rickety, over near Golden Gate Park, not a very nice nieghborhood, but cheap. And it did have a big yard, and a tree.
Inside, it was really a wild place. There were maybe six or eight people who were really part of it,. Martin's thing; and several more who just came and went, hanging around, the way people do. There was a lot of room, and it was cleaner than a lot of the hippy pads, but it looked the same way, if you know what I mean. Posters, and lights, and funny things, the way hippy places look. But there was more furniture, more than hippies usually have, and better; all kinds of things from glasses and plates and towels and sheets, the little stuff, to a really great stereo system, and a lot of new records.
Martin never seemed to have any money though, and I remember wondering about the place a little, in a foggy way. I was in such a state that first week or two that I didn't even know how I'd gotten there, though. Or why.
Judy was living there, now; she had split from the cat who gave her all that trouble. And there was a strange little chick, maybe fourteen or so, called Tink ; she was probably some runaway. There was a chick who was the most beautiful one I'd ever seen, a strange-looking one, called Iluana; she came from somewhere like Hong Kong, maybe. She wouldn't say where, but she had very black hair, long and shining, and skin that was the color of light coffee, golden brown. She must have had some sort of Oriental and Polynesian and maybe some other old ancestors, I don't know. And there was a redhead, around seventeen, a really crazy Irish girl named Eileen. That one used to wear a gold cross around her neck and nothing else, a lot of the time. And Sandra, who wore round glasses, and was plump and cute, and always joking about something, a natural comedian.
Five chicks, and somehow, they were all really Martin's chicks; at least, I started to get that impression, after a few days there. Then, there were two cats; Richie and Ben. Those two were ...well, disciples, I guess, is the right word. Sometimes there was one other, a big, silent, guy named Allen, but he was hardly there, and he was so quiet anyway, you could hardly tell.
A lot of the floating population went through the place, in and out, so fast I never even heard their names; and most of them, being really farout people, weren't going to tell you their right names anyway. There are other places like Martin's.. . in other cities, too. But his was ...well, more so. He called the place the Nest, after something he read somewhere, I don't know where.
When I first got there, I was wigged out of my head most of the time, and all I remember is that everybody treated me like glass. Breakable, you know. Everybody was kind, careful, and quiet around me; Judy fixed me up a small room in one of the corners of the place, with a bed and all. She had packed up my things from the room, and brought them; but I was wearing a funny thing I'd picked up somewhere, most of the time, a kind of Indian dress like a sari.
That was the way it was, for ...oh, days and days. I just wandered around, slept a lot, and sat, listening to music, or just digging things, the rest of the time. Sometimes, Martin would talk to me, in that odd, slow, deep voice of his, doing queer things to my head, I think. His eyes would get to fix on mine, and I'd sort of float. No, it wasn't like the newspaper thing. He didn't hypnotize me. He had something else, some sort of way of digging in and. moving things around in your head, like a shrink, maybe. But better.
The first thing he did was get me off speed. Partly he did it with that eye thing, whatever it was, talking to me. But he kept me smoking that marvelous pot he had around, and it began to get to me, too. And finally, he kept giving me some weird kind of tea he made, that got me even higher than the pot; but he wouldn't tell what was in it. He called it soma, but he laughed when he used the word.
After a few days, I started eating with everybody. It was good, too, and a lot of it; nobody went hungry at the Nest. And then, a few days later, I happened to look at myself in the mirror. Wow, I was ...me again. No black circles under the eyes, no more green color.
I can't exactly describe how I was beginning to feel, by now. It was high, but super-high, floating, swimming ...like the feeling of a really great orgasm, spread out over things. I tried to talk about it, but I couldn't. I remember we were sitting there in the big room, listening to music, digging life. There was Martin, and a couple of chicks, on each side of him, another bringing things, a real harem scene. Especially Eileen, who seemed to hate wearing clothes ...with her body, you could understand that ...wandering in and out wearing her big gold cross and a smile, and nothing else.
"Some people don't need speed," Martin said, apropos of something somebody else had said ...but he said it in my direction. "Any drug is good for some people, bad for others."
There were three or four of the floating population in the room, at the time. There was a young boy, maybe seventeen or eighteen; I had heard someone call him Paul, earlier. Short-cut brown hair, a round, innocent face with big glasses, like a schoolboy's, but his eyes had a shifty, nervous look. I knew, when I saw him ...another speed freak in the making.
I think he knew about me, too, in a way, like vibrations. He wanted to make it with me, but he couldn't ask, somehow. Instead, he was trying to find out about Martin, about the house, asking all sorts of questions. I could tell some of the others were beginning to tighten up, thinking he might be a narco; but Martin seemed to know he wasn't. He explained as much as he felt like explaining, very slowly and patiently.
"Here everybody's really free," Martin told him. "Whatever your thing is, do it. If you have to have drug, you can probably get it here, if you ask. Even things that kill you. You have a right to die, if yoix insist. But it seems a lot more groovy to live." He grinned at Paul.
"Oh, go on," Paul replied, and gave a slightly edgy chuckle. "Nobody's really free, man. Everybody's got hang-ups, troubles ...and free, what do you mean, free? This place-I'll bet you've got some rich cat paying for all this, right? All the food, all these other things ...listen, they told me around the Haight that you were some sort of guru, dig. I mean, I thought you were for the holy poverty thing, rice and living in a sleeping bag, and meditation..."
"No rich cat," Martin told him, just as gently. He was slowly, smoothly, caressing Tink, who was lying across his lap and purring like a cat; and Iluana was caressing him, at the same time. Sometimes Tink would reach up and run her fingers through his thick beard, too.
"We get all these things ...the food, the rent, the other things..." Martin said, nodding. "But don't you understand? We just take them."
"Steal them?" Paul asked, and he actually seemed a little shocked.
"Of course," Martin answered, smiling.
Richie had just come in. He was a lean, hollow-faced young man, with a drooping mustache; he reminded me a little bit of James Dean. I looked at him and began to entice him for the first time, the first time since I got there that I really looked at a man. I thought about balling him, vaguely; it might be nice.
But he was looking at Martin, a funny, warning look, and now he shook his head.
"Martin," he said quietly. "I don't know if..."
"If they want to get at us, they'll manage it some way," Martin said slowly. "Anybody who wants to find out about us could probably do it, without much trouble. I don't think Paul's a fink. Just a cat with a problem, right?"
"No problem," Paul said, a bit tight-voiced. "None that anybody else could touch, anyway." He stayed quiet for a minute. He was looking at me, I saw, and he had a funny, bright glitter in his eyes.
"I don't..." he started to say, and stopped again. "I mean, you saying it's all free around here. I've been hearing that kind of thing since I came to the Haight, and I used to hear it around the East Village. But everything gets charged for, sooner or later. There's always a price, in some way, isn't there?" He stopped and nobody answered, so he kept on. "Nobody gives away pot, they always sell it, don't they? And free love. Ha. What free love? Chicks that talk about it ...they're usually just talking. They don't mean it."
"We give pot away;" Richie informed him, sitting down on a cushion and grinning for the first time. "What did you think you were smoking when you dropped in, yesterday? Nobody asked you to buy it, did they?"
"Free love?" Martin went on, quietly. "It's always free. Why don't you just ask chicks if you want to ball, man?"
"Oh, wow," Paul exclaimed, curling his lips. But there was a look of wild envy in his eyes, looking at Martin. "I'm not ...some sort of super-stud like you. I mean; you've got all the chicks for yourself, here. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame you. I would too..."
"But I don't," Martin said. "I mean, I don't own anybody here, do I? If you're feeling randy, just ask, maybe a chick will do it." He grinned. "Or maybe she won't. I mean, that's being free, so you can say no or yes."
Paul looked at him for a long time, with a weird expression; angry, envious, but something else, too. I just sat there, digging. I knew, in some Ways, exactly what he was feeling, and yet I didn't really sympathize.
Somewhere inside me, I knew about Paul. He was messing up his life, a little like the way I messed up mine. Maybe he'd stop, maybe he wouldn't. But it wasn't really my business, was it?
He was looking at me again, and I know he dug me, running his eyes over me till I started to get that familiar, hot, tingly feeling. If he asked me to go up in one of the bedrooms with him, I thought, I would. I suddenly remembered, I hadn't balled anybody, not for months. Toward the last, even before that awfulness came on, I just ...lost the knack. But it was back, now, and I began to feel it, more and more.
Paul was a square inside and probably as scared and tight as most of the ones I'd tried. I didn't care. He was male, anyway; he'd release some of this, inside me. If he says anything, I thought ...and he wants to, I saw that.
But the other thing, the itch to prove something or other, was stronger than the pull toward me. Paul's hands were clutched tightly in his lap, and he had a funny, closed-up sound in his voice when he spoke again, to Martin.
"Oh, sure," he said. "It's all sort of Utopian, like that kind of thing you always talk. about, but ...but I'll bet you really aren't free. I mean, like jealousy and possessiveness, and all that ...nobody gets free of those things." His eyes were hot and bright, and a little scared-looking, as he tried to be really daring. "I'll bet you wouldn't like it if I asked one of your girls to ...let me screw her."
Martin laughed, a deep sound, throwing his head back, so his beard went up. He looked a lot like the god Pan, in some old myth or other.
"Man, I told you, you have to ask them. I wouldn't mind. But you ought to do the asking yourself, don't you think?" He rose, standing in his crazy wizard's robe, a thing with a lot of stars and such on it; looking down at Tink and Iluana, and then at me, and then over at the doorway, where naked Eileen was standing.
Paul just sat, his lip stuck out a little, stubbornly. He wouldn't actually ask, I could flash on that easily.
I thought about doing it myself. I could just get up, go over, and grab his hand, and say, "Come on, buster, let's go upstairs and ball like crazy." He might faint, I thought, and giggled. But I really didn't want to, not that much.
Tink, the fourteen-year-old runaway, sat up, and looked at Paul, a long look. She had taffy-colored hair, short and shaggy; she brushed it back, with one hand, and kept on looking. Her round little breasts stuck out under the loose sweater she was wearing, moving with her deepened breathing, while she kept her eyes on Paul. His face was beginning to get red.
"Hey, man," she said, finally, in her odd, rusty little voice. "Me."
"Oh, come on," Paul replied, redder now. "J-jailbait, I mean..."
"Nobody's going to tell," Tink giggled. She slid to her feet, came to him, andgrabbed his hands, pulling him upright; "she pressed her young body tightly against him, with an expert wriggle of her hips. "Yummy!" she said, enthusiastically. "Let's go upstairs, daddy-o."
"Wait, now..." Paul tried, but it was no use. She had grabbed his arms, and was moving him ahead of her, through the door. As they went through, she was saying, "Upstairs, wow, and we'll blow some great pot." She giggled, and her voice came from the stairway. "Blow some pot, blow your mind, and then we'll blow each other, ooo-ee!"
Everybody in the room looked at each other, and there was a soft laughter among us, warm and friendly.
"It must be great to be fourteen," Martin said.
"I wasn't like that, when I was fourteen," I said. "I wish I was."
"So do I," Martin added, in. a low voice.
"I mean all ...oh with it, that way," I expanded. "Alive, able to just groove any way I wanted to..."
"I was in prison when I was fourteen," Martin told me.
"You're putting me on," I said but then I looked at him, and realized he wasn't.
"Till a year or so ago, I was inside, most of the time."
"God," I exclaimed. "That ...that's awful."
"Yes it was," he continued calmly, "but then, that's where I began to find out. About everything. Where I decided what was going to happen. I saw what was happening, and I ...I had a vision. I got the message, you dig. About what I had to do, what was coming." His voice grew more intense. "I saw the whole country, burning. Fire, killing, a terrible war. It's coming soon, now. And I saw I'd have to take a few people, and go where it would be safe, and we'd build something new, something real. A place where everybody would be happy, free, pure ...where everything would be beautiful and groovy, all the time."
Richie, silent near the wall, nodded violently, his eyes bright.
"Yes, man," he said, in a husky voice. "Danton'll do it, too. A place, for us. A real place. To live..."
"It's going to take bread," Martin said. "That's what we're getting into, soon. Ways to make enough bread, to buy a big piece of land, in the Sierras, away from everything. I've been there, seen the place. It's right, the earth spirits are there. But we have to have a lot of bread. There's a couple of ways ...one might be to sell a really good record. My music..." He looked vague, his voice drifting off "...a man who promised to get an audition, for me. But I think he's probably a con man, that Iban."
"I know he is," Richie spoke harshly. "I've seen that kind before. He's a pimp, mostly."
"He takes girls and sometimes makes them hustle for him," Iluana said, her odd accent coming strongly through her words. "I know one, a girl called Cora ...the one Richie found. You should bring her here. Richie, she would stop doing those things for Iban." Richie's face was suddenly like stone.
"I wouldn't bring her here," he said, in a cold voice. "She isn't ...right for us."
"Iban is pretty raunchy, I know that," Martin shrugged. "If I knew any other way to get the music on records, I would ...and he might even be faking about that, too. He exploits people. But he won't have a chance with us. The other thing, the trip ...it'll be cash in our hands, or we don't have to give him the stuff. And he's got to give us loot to make the buy with, anyway."
"He could fink on us," Richie said. "Turn us in. He's the kind."
"But then he'd lose his money, and nothing for it," Martin replied.
Then there was a sudden sound of feet on the stairs, and funny noises. I turned my head, just in the time to see Paul go past, and out the door, very fast; and few seconds later, Tink came down the stairs, wearing a big old towel draped around herself like a toga, and a look of giggling triumph. She came in, and stood, grinning at us.
"He ran away!" she shrieked, and burst into wilder giggles. "He ...just ran! Oh, my, what a perfect NUT!"
After a minute, she managed to get control of her laughter, and came to where we sat in a circle, sinking down next to Richie, cross-legged.
"Oh, Martin, let's really blast some pot, please!" Tink said, brushing her light hair back with her hand, and catching at the towel with the other to hold it up. "Oh, wow. He freaked, he really f-freaked."
The sounds of Paul's leaving and Tink's laughter had drawn attention; people began appearing, from various parts of the house, coming into the big room to listen as she told.
She took the first stick, as Iluana rolled several; still giggling uncontrollably, and repeating her first words. "He did, he freaked out!"
"I guess it's definitely light-up time," Martin said, and began to fill the bowl of the huge waterpipe he preferred. Aromatic smoke began to curl through the room; others, coming in, lit up too. I took the mouthpiece of the pipe when Martin passed it to me with a smile.
"You wouldn't believe it, I know you wouldn't," Tink babbled. "I mean, I wish I'd taken a picture of him, going all red in the face. Oh, wow, he went red all over. He ...he..." She stuttered, and rocked back and forth, nearly losing her towel again.
Come on, Tinkie, tell us," somebody entreated, and there was a chorus of encouragement and laughing.
"Gee, I don't know if I can ...SAY it," Tink giggled. "He ...he wanted to, but he got all quivery and shaky, and acted so scared, like he never did it before, so I ...I just grabbed it, in my mouth, and ...oh, wow, he YELLED!" Tink doubled over, squealing with laughter. "He was afraid I'd ...BITE!"
"You mean he just ran out, like that?" somebody said incredulously. "What a total cube."
"Now, who is his right mind would turn down Tink, anyway?" Ben commented behind me. He was Martin's second disciple, a solidly built, wide-shouldered young man who looked like a truckdriver.
"I wouldn't." A shaggy young man, a really long-haired longhair, spoke up, grinning lewdly at Tink, who giggled again. He was one of the transients, and I'd never learned his name, if he had one.
"I don't know," Martin said, drawing on the pipe, and letting out a cloud of blue smoke. He shook his head. "I guess he really was pretty strung out about something. Too bad, really. It isn't fair to laugh at him."
"Tink comes on pretty strong, when she's in the mood," Richie remarked.
"You didn't mind, the other day," Tink told him.
Somebody had put on a record that beat, steadily and strongly, a thumping pulse that seemed to make the floor vibrate slightly. Some of the kids were dancing, now, moving through the smoky room, hips writhing, bodies moving insistently. I saw Eileen again, her pointed Irish face set in a drugged, ecstatic look, dancing; for some weird reason she had finally decided to cover part of herself, at any rate. She wore a pair of blue jeans, but her high, pointed breasts were bare, tossing as she moved to the music.
I was sitting next to Martin, and Tink was on his other side, now. Iluana, her eyes slitted, stood behind us, swaying to the beating music; and now, looking almost hypnotized, she moved slowly out, to dance, a wild, slow sensuality, moving in the flickering light from the colored lamp overhead. Judy, as tall and lithe as Iluana, came out of the shadows, moving opposite her; they swung, like a pair of temple dancers on some old Hindu carving, moving around each other.
"Oh-oh," Richie said, near me, in an odd tone. "I think ...it looks like another one of those nights."
"You know the rule," Martin said, in Richie's direction. "The only rule. Do your thing."
He sat watching, his deep dark eyes unreadable. I watched him, trying to dig it. It was beginning to get to me. I hadn't really got it, till now; but now, I could feel something, something ...strange.
Maybe ...evil.
I suddenly remembered the Stone Man and shuddered, turning cold. Martin looked ...a little like that, the awful hallucination. But he didn't, did he? I stared at him, trying to figure out why that had suddenly flashed on me, that image. And he turned his head, looking at me, reading me.
"It isn't coming back on you, is it, Betsy?" he said softly, just barely audible over the loud music. "That bad trip? The Stone Man?"
"I didn't know ...I told you about it?" I asked, stupidly..
"You don't remember telling me."
"I guess I must have."
"I told you what it meant, too," Martin reminded me. "You'll remember, some time. But it won't come back, don't worry."
And somehow, I believed him. He could do it, he could really get rid of things like that. He was a real guru, a magician, teacher, whatever you want to call it, I knew it.
"A lot of people have that," he assured me, his eyes still on me. "Fear, or whatever you want to call it. Fear of letting their bodies move and live..." I felt as if his eyes were growing larger, as if I were going to fall into them, and sink. "That was your Stone Man. The same thing Paul was afraid of."
"I'm ...hot," Tink announced suddenly, and let the towel slip down around her waist, showing her luscious small breasts, with the nipples popping out like twin pink noses. She glanced at Ben, and then reached up, drawing him to her.
"Tink doesn't have that trouble, anyway," Martin said, shifting his position, a little closer to me, to give Tink and Ben room to sprawl out on the other side of him. Their mouths were glued together, and Tink, barely covered now, moved her body, pressing it against Ben's big solid body with writhing invitation.
"Uh!" Ben said, releasing his lips long enough to draw a breath. He laughed, deep in his throat, his arms sliding under the twisting teenybopper. "Man, you can say that again. Oh, baby..."
"It's funny," I said, watching Martin. "I can't quite dig it. You just don't ...well, I mean, it doesn't get you uptight, when your girls make it with other people. They're really your girls, aren't they?"
He shrugged. "I told you, nobody owns anybody," he said. "They like being my girls, if you want to put it that way. But I'm different." He was still looking at me, in a special way. And then I knew something was going to happen, something important.
It just came out of my mouth, as if the words were waiting there.
"Can we make it, Martin? You with me?"
He studied me very slowly, carefully. "Not yet," he said calmly. "But soon."
I was sitting there completely freaked by what I'd just said. I mean, I was actually zapped. "I ...I never asked anybody before," I told him in a voice that didn't even sound like my own voice.
Martin merely smiled again. "You're beautiful, Betsy," he murmured in a low, almost caressing voice. "But you're still very hung up, you know that?"
"I know."
Richie, just behind me, grinned suddenly, with a flash of teeth. "I dig you; baby," he said. "Hung up or not. I was on speed myself, once."
"I've got something much better," Martin said, and held out his hand. "For you, Betsy, and one for you, Richie." There were three small black balls, half the size of marbles, round and smooth, on. his palm. Richie picked one up, and swallowed it, silently. Martin took one, and stared at me, still holding out the last one. I picked it up, and put it in my mouth. It had an odd burning taste as it went down; then suddenly I began to feel a faint terror, remembering the last acid trip.
"Was that acid?" I asked, staring at Martin.
"No," he said, "much better than LSD. Difference. You'll see."
"These are just for us, Martin's people," Richie said. His voice seemed suddenly vibrant, as if the sound of it were coming from a deep place.
"Hey," I cried, digging it. "It comes on fast, doesn't it?"
"Not yet," Martin said. "But ...soon." He looked out at the room, the moving figures; and then at the tightly locked pair next to him, listening to Tink's gasping and giggling, Ben's occasional ecstatic grunt.
"We ought' to let it come on in a quieter place," he said, and slid to his feet, rising above me, taller, somehow, dark, enormous. I rose, a queer, delicious, scared feeling inside me, and we moved out of the room, into the dark hall, up the long staircase. I saw that Richie was there, too, walking with us, his lean face closed up and guarded-looking.
We were in a long, narrow room, bare, but with thick dark rugs on the floor. The rugs had queer-looking designs on them, and there were strange marks on the floor, like symbols. At the far end of the room there was a mattress, on a raised platform, a big mattress covered with a red cloth that was embroidered with silvery lines. And on each side of the mattress there were two big brass candle holders, as big as I was. Candles burned in them, thick black ones, three in each. And there was a strong, smoky smell of incense, too.
"like a church," I said wonderingly, finding my voice growing harder and harder to manage.
"It's a temple," Martin said, in a deep voice. We went to the mattress and sat down in a row, cross-legged, all three of us. like those three monkeys, I thought, and laughed aloud.
"Hear no evil," Richie said, grinning at me.
"See no evil," I giggled. And Martin added, "Speak no evil."
"Hey!" I said, round-eyed. "You read my mind."
Both of them laughed this time.
That black pill was really something. The room was slowly shifting and moving, swinging slowly around. I could still hear the music downstairs, but now I could feel it too, as if it were coming through my skin. My skin tingled, burning, but not hurting. I kept feeling a kind of pulsing, getting stronger and stronger, coming right up from the end of my spine, thump, thump, THUMP.
"Oooh," I said, swaying a little. "Oh, my."
"It's ...time." I heard Martin's voice, echoing.
He stood up and slowly peeled off his robe, tossing it aside. He stood, looking at me for a moment, and I looked at him. He was bigger than I'd thought, though he really wasn't a big man. He was smooth, all over, and brown, like an Indian, as if he had been tanned in the sun; but that big beard, and the long hair, had made me think he'd be hairy all over, and he really wasn't. Then, in the candlelight, I saw something else; white, thin scars here and there on his body, old scars.
Behind me, I heard Richie move too, and then he came around into view. He had stripped as naked as Martin; he stood, lean and boyish, staring at me, with an odd, distant look.
It was as if I knew what to do, with no one telling me. I stood up, on the mattress; the two of them lifted the dress, and pulled it up over my head, carefully. I wasn't wearing anything underneath; I just stood there, in the candlelight, naked.
I could hear myself talking, in a low, shaky voice, saying strange things, as if somebody else were using my vocal cords for me. Saying crazy things ...I don't remember what anymore; I couldn't really understand my words.
And I could hear Martin Danton talking too, low voiced, but the words sometimes coming through clearly.
"...being one, with all of us, in one body, together..." he was saying. "You were always alone, by yourself ...now, you are inside us, we are inside you, do you dig it, Betsy?" I saw his eyes, enormous . and dark, and I was floating, way out, farther out than any trip I'd ever had, with nothing in the universe except Danton's eyes, watching me.
I was standing, between the two of them, and that wild, weird thing about floating away was still going on, as if I were in two places at once. But I felt great, not scared, or even really confused. My whole body was coming alive, humming as if I were turned onto some sort of great big electrical trip.
"Oh, wow, what..." I said, swaying a little. "What ...was that stuff, Martin?"
"It really turns you on, doesn't it?" he said, and smiled slowly. Richie grinned, an odd smile as if he weren't quite there.
"It's the special stuff," Richie said, in a faraway voice. "Baby, you ...don't know yet." His eyes met mine and began to burn, with a hot, hungry look, a kind of impersonal lust that was almost scary. If I'd seen that look when I wasn't high, on whatever this weird stuff was, I'd probably have run screaming; it was like all the sex in the world packed tight into one place and sizzling out, zap!
Richie, standing in front of me, slowly reached out, and began to run the tips of his fingers down, over my breasts and nipples, slowly, down my sides and over my hips, a stroking, sliding touch that seemed to leave a trail of fire behind it. I moaned, and closed my eyes, swaying; and then I felt Martin's hands, supporting me under my armpits, and his voice in my ear. I couldn't understand what he was saying, the maddening urgency of those hands touching me was blowing my mind completely.
Then Martin's hands closed around my breasts, cupping and caressing; but I saw Richie, bent down, kneeling, his hand at my waist, and his arms circling my thighs, holding me up. And his tongue ...I screamed, this time, and flashes of lightning seemed to explode out of my burning center.
Everything went around in orbiting circles; and then somehow I was lying on my back, spread out across the scarlet cloth, my head going from side to side, tossing. I was enormously aware of my whole body, as if every part of me, toes to head, had come awake, and all of my various parts were having orgasms of their own. I had the weird idea that my breasts were shooting sparks into the air; and my hips were moving, hammering against the mattress, up and down, without my control.
And both of them, Richie and Martin, were doing these out-of-sight things. I wasn't even sure what, kissing, and patting, caressing, and sometimes painfully digging with hard fingers, here and there; but they were playing on me, as if I were an instrument. Deliberately getting me wilder and wilder, setting off epileptic kickings and writhing of frustrated ecstasy till I had no breath left to scream with. I was shining with sweat, and I felt a hot wetness inside me, as if I were beginning to flow like a volcano. I could feel something that had never happened to me before; inside, in there. I was actually moving, gripping andpulsing. I had heard of that happening, but it had never happened to me before.
"Oh, God, God, don't, don't..." I was babbling. "Aaah, you're KILLING me, please, stop you devils ...I'm dying, please, ball me, damn it, I CAN'T STAND IT, ooh...."
I was laughing and moaning, out of my head completely now. There seemed to be even more hands on me than before, and now I saw faces and heard soft lustful, laughter ...there were others in the room, now. I saw Iluana's dark lovely face, and Judy, and there was Ben, grinning.
Mouths touched me in half a dozen places at once, each touch leaving an explosion of sensation, and I think I almost passed out again. But the pleasure-torture would not stop; they brought me to a new, even farther out point, until I really shrieked with it all.
Then I opened my eyes again, and saw Richie's face, above me, his mouth coming toward mine. His hard, lean body pressed me back down against the mattress, while his tongue darted into my mouth, searching. His chest pressed my breasts, and his knees moved insistently, thrusting my thighs apart, wide. Then, I felt his cock, hard, burning, sliding deeper and deeper, into me. I felt as if the thing was expanding, swelling up until I was stuffed full, as if it had gotten so damn big that it was almost up in my throat. Now he was thrusting, harder, harder, with a slow, enormous power, and I was sailing up, up, and out.
Then I suddenly knew what was going to happen. I was coming, but really coming, for the first time; it didn't matter about any balling I'd done till now. That was all like ...oh, a kid practicing piano, compared to Horowitz at a concert. I was EXPLODING.
Parts of me seemed to be sailing around in circles, and I felt my inside twisting and convulsing wildly, my flesh grabbing Richie's as if trying to squeeze the last drop out of him. I moaned, feeling him withdraw. I didn't want to stop, not ever.
But it wasn't over, oh no. I had no time to stop, not even to slow down; there was another body against mine, hands grasping me and drawing my hips tight against an insistent maleness, spearing into me to renew the driving pleasure. I was no longer sure who it was, this time; and as it went on and on, I swung higher and higher, and I couldn't even be too sure what was being done with my body, let alone who was doing it.
One thing was certain, I wasn't holding back; I was doing my part, as if my body were inventing these things and doing them without my having to even think about it. Things grew more and more mixed up; I was suddenly aware of lying on top of a smooth, writhing form, my own hips twisting and wriggling in sensuous pleasure against ...Judy's? It was Judy, and her head was thrown back in a wild ecstasy, against a male body spread over her, her mouth widely opened, sucking. And there was another body against my moving buttocks, doing something to me from the rear that made me yell again with wild pleasure.
I don't remember the end of it, not at all. It was what Martin called the super-grope session, with a specially lewd grin; that was a long time later, days later.
It took a long time to wake up, after that sort of thing; we were, most of us, in a kind of cheerful grogginess for days. And nobody actually discussed it; it was too much, really. You couldn't discuss it. What Martin said, to me, was that this really farout thing didn't happen often, and you couldn't really plan it.
"The signs have to be just right," he said gravely.
But I knew what had happened to me, all right; even if I never did find out exactly what it was Martin had primed me with. I'd ...changed. I was awake, in a special way.
A couple of days later, I happened to wander into the big second-floor bathroom, and found Ben in the tub, floating and grinning at me. I stripped, and climbed in, into the suds with him, with no more thinking about it than as if we were a couple of puppies. We screwed away, splashing and yelling, completely pleased with it all.
It was like that. Each of us had some particular bag, some ways of our own ...but everybody was able to act with that kind of-oh, do what you thought was right, right away, dig?
I did it with Ben, and with Martin, of course. Martin ...oh, he was special. When he did it, he made it last, and last long: slow, increasingly intense caressing that ended with a balling session so intense that it left me limp for days. Martin was fantastic. He seemed to be inexhaustible; he could screw me, that way, leave me unable to move. And then he could begin with one of the other girls, and do the same thing to her; and once, he managed to take care of a third one of us, too. Wow, he just was.
And I actually did it with Judy, and IIuana, too; Both of them were that way, you know. They were ...oh, damn, I can't say Lesbians. They dug doing it with girls, but it was different, you know. We'd kiss, and use our tongues, all over, and go pretty wild ...but I think even Judy was more in favor of doing it with men.
They never passed up a chance at that, any more than I did. We made it with any and all of the cats who came to the Nest, sometimes driving the poor guys half out of their heads first; but we hardly ever let a healthy male get by ungrabbed.
Tink was the greediest; she could and did ball everything male in the place. Once she told me she had managed four visiting cats inside of a single evening, and left every one of them in a completely zonked state.
"I've just got a big appetite," she told me, giggling. "Or maybe my diddlebox has, I guess."
Eileen, with her red-gold hair and her habit of going around nude, turned on any new cats, and she usually had one or two following her around, with their tongues hanging out. If she found herself near a soft place to lie down, she would calmly do so, and lie, smiling vaguely up at the guy who'd been trailing after her, and say something completely disconcerting. A couple of times, it scared the cat away, but not usually; that luscious white body and red hair was too much for any cat to resist.
But there was something funny happening.
I dug Richie, a lot. There was something about him ...that queer, vague, lost look, maybe, I don't know. But I wanted to make it with him, again. And ...well, it just didn't happen. I couldn't figure out why.
Then I realized he wasn't making it with anybody else anymore, either.
I couldn't just ask him why not. It was the sort of thing Tink might do, but I couldn't. There was just too much of the suburban thing in me. I had to know, though, so I did a lot of diplomatic digging ...and I finally started to get some of the story.
"He's hung up, Betsy," Judy told me, finally. "On a chick ...oh, wow, a real crazy. Something happened ...it was just before you got here. Her name's Cora, and she's never been here, I don't even know what she looks like, or what happened, except that it did something to Richie."
She told me more about him. He had been a motorcycle crazy, one of those, you know. He came from the L.A. area, where there's even more of those, like the Hell's Angels ...but some of them are worse. And he was on drugs, hard stuff, before he met Danton; maybe, Judy said, he might be on them again. There wasn't any way to tell for sure. He was so walled in and watchful.
She told me about Danton, too. He had come to the city just out of jail; he had been in for a long time, for something like car theft, she wasn't sure.
"He's been in jail almost all of his life," Judy said, her eyes wondering, looking out a window. "It must be ...awful, but he's a different kind. He didn't flip out, like a lot of guys. Or go rotten. It's like he found out something, some big secret. I don't know what it is, but he knows.
That was when she told me about the other things.
"Richie and Ben, they're mostly boosters. They steal, if you want to call it that. They're really good at it, especially Richie. But it's because of the idea Martin has. To buy that ranch, up there in the mountains, and make a real place, where we can have a lot of people, and everything will be groovy,. not ...not the way it is, in the city. like, natural, like the Garden of Eden, that way. But he has to get a lot of money, and he doesn't really dig that, about money. He's against it. But there's a thing we're going to do, about that" She lowered her voice. "We know about a place, in Mexico, where we can get a lot of that great pot; it's where we got the stuff we have now, and all-the other things. We're going to get some, for a straight cat, a man named Iban, a really big buy; maybe a hundred kilos."
That was what happened. One day, we all got sleeping bags and a lot of camping things, and piled it all into a microbus that Richie brought around. It was only a couple of months since I'd come there, I remember. But I was so different, I hardly knew myself. I'd called my mother, a couple of times, to tell her I was all right; but she acted as if I were doing something terrible, just being what she called "a dropout." I never told her about any of the rest of it, about balling and all that, of course. Just that I was getting along, doing my own thing. But she was hopeless.
Martin, Richie, and Ben; and Judy, Tink, and a new chick, Gail, and me ...we were the ones going. Iluana stayed, to take care of things, and we couldn't bring Eileen, because Mexico isn't a good place to go wandering around barebottom if you're a beautiful redheaded gringa, I mean. And nobody could make Eileen wear clothes, really.
It would take us a couple of days, each way, Martin said. There was somebody he knew, in a place just a few miles into Mexico, and it would be very easy, not like the usual deal there. I knew a lot of people were afraid to buy pot in Mexico anymore, because the big dealers now controlled everything, and didn't like interference; but Martin said it was going to be special. Richie had worked on the car, so it was going to be really easy, no breakdowns; he was a really great mechanic. When we rolled out of town, he was driving, and I watched him, sitting behind him, and feeling more and more ...that funny feeling, about him.
And there wasn't anything I could do about it, nothing'at all.. . .
CHAPTER FOUR
...RICHIE'S STORY
Couldn't do anything about it, nothing at all. That damn dumb bitch was gone, man, gone. Cora. Shit, that wasn't even her name, not really, she invented it. I didn't even know what her real name was, not that it mattered.
Than now. That con man, soft-talking, smooth, pimping dude ...he could use a woman and not even ask what her name was, as long as he got what he wanted. You almost had to admire it, in a way. Except he was wearing the imagine threads he'd bought with the money he got from her, wearing them right now, probably. It might be good to waste him, the way I would have, back last year. Before I got in with Danton, I wouldn't have thought twice about it; Seymore would be a dead dude.
He softened you up, I thought. Danton, with his talking, and his way of looking into you, so you couldn't really dig that hard, hot feeling, the way it was to cut a man ...almost as good as gangbanging a girl. Wasn't there any more. Cora took some of it, and Martin Danton took some, and old Richie, the hard guy ...jelly.
I was watching the long road unwinding ahead, in the soft gray dawn, listening to the motor, feeling this ice thing, inside, cold and hard ...remembering the first time I'd seen Danton. And the first word, the word I used then. Bullshit.
Bullshit. I was listening to him, and he was laying down a heavy rap, the world was going to come apart, and we had to find a way back to the beginnings of things, all that. I tried to dig it, but it sounded like a whole lot of what I'd heard already, a million times. Hippy stuff, love, flowers, peace ...bullshit.
Because, man, that covers everything. Best word in the English language. It describes everything, the schoolteachers, the parents, the church types, and the pigs in blue with their guns and clubs, and their P.R. boys telling about Law and Order, yeah. It was all bullshit.
From one end of it to the other, a world full of it. I knew, man. I was born and brought up in places where you had to know the score. The scores was Us, Nothing; Them, Everything.
I was riding with a club in Venice Beach, then. We didn't get into the papers, the way the Angels liked doing, but we could have had a couple of Angels for breakfast, and raw. We were that hard, man.
There was a little heat; a couple of crazy teens, and maybe eight or ten of us, out on the beach, the usual thing. We never even had old ladies in our club; we used to say rape was the only way that was any good, if they were willing, they were pigs. The fresh ones had to be young, and it wasn't class to ask for a piece, you were supposed to rip one off. These two jailbait chicks were there on the beach, and it was dark, so we went on down and got at them.
Hell, neither of them was hurt any, we were always pretty careful about that. They weren't cherry either, I don't think; I was one of the first to climb onto them, after we got them stripped, and the way that chick's little box shifted gears, I'd say she liked it fine and she knew what it was. But one or two of the guys had freaky ideas, and started playing extra rough, after we'd all had a hump or two. The chicks started yelling for help, and we had to split; and somebody managed to get the number on my motorcycle. There was a warrant out for me, and I had to cool out of there.
That was how it was when I was in San Francisco, walking around, doing the tourist thing. I was going to stay for a while, just till things got cool back in L.A. I had enough bread; I'd been dealing and running, and all that, and I had enough to last me awhile.
That was where I ran into Danton, in the park. I saw people, lying around on the grass, and groovy-looking chicks, a lot of them. I was feeling a little horny, but it wasn't my turf. Cool, that was the right pitch, feel things out. I hadn't hung around San Francisco much; the rules were different.
I spotted Danton, lying on his back in the sun, with a couple of farout birds on each side of him, and one or two more that looked as if they were in the party too, maybe. He looked like any other hippy creep to me, with the Jesus beard and all; but he was talking to the three or four people around him, and he sounded as if he had some sort of thing as if he knew what he was talking about. Dig, it wasn't what he said, exactly, it was the way he said it. I can't explain it any better. It was like somebody said about jazz once, if you have to explain it, you aren't in it, so don't bother.
But I was eying those chicks, especially a wild red-headed one, sitting next to him, and thinking I wouldn't have much trouble taking that one along. He didn't look like any kind of stud to me; if a chick had a chance to feel that old tool of mine tickling her slit, she'd forget all about any long-haired cat like that, I thought. I moved in, and tried a pitch to the redhead. And I got nowhere, which just bugged me out of my mind.
That's when I told him what he was saying was bullshit. But it wasn't anything he said. It was the redhead, giving me a hard-on, and obviously hooked on the long-haired type. Envy, man, that was it.
I didn't even know what his name was, then. I drifted off again, and out of the park and downtown, toward' North Beach. That redheaded bird was on my mind. I've always dug redheads, damn it. And that one had switched me on, without doing a thing, just sitting there.
That North Beach didn't cool me down, either. One strip joint after another, nude movies, topless and bottomless joints, with the gray flannel dudes swarming in and out, sweating. And those San Francisco chicks, all over the place, long-legged, high tittied, bouncing along, with the smell of them reaching out and twisting my nose, man! But I couldn't go that far, man, it wouldn't be class.
If I had the hog with me, that would have done the trick. Even these clean shiny chicks go ape for a really class bike, believe me. You just ride them around for awhile, letting their little furry boxes bump up and down on that hard seat, and they get hotter and hotter; and then drive down. to a nice quiet corner somewhere, and before you can lock the bike, she's usually half out of her jeans with no help at all.
Maybe I should take a trip over to Berkeley, I was thinking; there might be something a little more available around there. It was pretty early yet, not even dark.
Then, right ahead of me, I flashed on that sight, wow. It stopped me, right on the sidewalk.
Ass. Round, firm, just the right size, I mean right. Wearing what looked like white leather, stretched so tight over those bouncy round thighs that you could see the crease; and legs, long, great legs, from there on. My fly zipper must have creaked, no kidding. I could feel a hard-on come up in there that was so much it almost hurt.
Mother, I thought, it's the ideal woman; there isn't anything there except the good part, cant, legs, and ass.
But she was bending over, that was it; that inside the hood of a little white car, a Triumph, with that great tail sticking up that way. I just stood there, taking it in. And then she straightened up, and the rest was even wilder.
She was another redhead, but she had the other one completely out of the running. She was wearing a bright red blouse, made out of nylon, and her tits, under it, pointed out as if they were going to tear right through. I didn't believe those bumpers, they had to be imitations. And she had this big-eyed wet-mouthed look, the kind that looks as if the chick were just about to fall on her back. Sure, it isn't real, usually, but my glands don't know about that.
She was looking at me, and I got a sudden, crazy, embarrassed feeling, the first time I ever remembered feeling like that. I didn't want her to look. The way I felt was so damn obvious, all she'd have to do would be to take one glance at the way I was standing out in front, man.
Listen, back in West Texas, or down in L.A., I might have been a bit different. A chick turns me on that way, hell, I'd have run my zipper down and let her have a look, man. And moved on in on her about ten seconds later.
But this time it wasn't the same. I just gave her my country-boy grin, and moved up, close to the car; close enough to her so I smelled a crazy, spicy perfume that nearly finished me off.
"Something wrong?" I asked.
"Oh, this damn car," she said, in a husky voice. That was the right voice, the one that fitted her. "It won't start."
I took a look. It wasn't too hard to spot one of the things wrong; I got the fuel line off, and put it to my mouth, and sucked. Gas came through,. and I spat it out, with a grunt, then I hooked it back again.
"Wow, what a taste," I said. "Hit the starter, lady."
She swung those luscious legs into the car, and tried the starter. The engine caught, sputtering; and ran, but not too well. I listened for a minute, and reached over to the car, fiddling a little more.
"You need a new float in the carburetor, I think," I told her.
"Oh, SHIT," she said, and her big eyes got hot and angry. She let the engine die with a pop and sat glaring. "That mothersucking two-bit turd..." Then, she looked at me, and turned a little pink. "Gee," she said. "I ...it doesn't sound lady-like, does it?"
"Got to express yourself, I guess," I said, grinning at her.
"I just had this ...this thing ...tuned, in a garage down there," she said, biting the words. "He said he'd checked everything. I'm no mechanic, damn it."
"It isn't hard to put a new float in," I told her. "Anybody's got it, any store that sells auto parts."
"I guess I'll try to get it done..." she said, in a doubtful voice, studying me. "I'm not even sure I can drive it the rest of the way. It's uphill, five or six blocks. And the engine kept stopping." She looked worriedly around. "And if I park here, they'll tow it away. North Beach..."
"I could get it a few blocks for you," I suggested. "I've nursed these cars, a couple of times. They just take a little handling."
She slid over in the leather seat, and her teeth gleamed at me.
"Would you?" In that whiskey-tenor voice, man.
We drove up a hill that went up and up, the car sputtering and coughing all the way, but with a little handling, it made it. We pulled up in front of one of those duplex places, really class, all Spanish-looking; she got out slowly and stood watching me as I got out.
"That gasoline must have tasted terrible," she said.
"I've tasted better things," I told her, and my eyes rolled down along her front, taking in that luscious smooth curve of belly down to the crotch. ON baby, I wonder how that tastes, I thought.
"Maybe I could fix you a drink," she offered.
Going in, I caught the mailboxes; two of them. One of them read P. Tundifer, and the other had nothing at all in it. We went up a flight of stairs, and she fitted a key into a doorlock, me standing there behind her.
"This is a nice place, Miss ...ah, Tundifer..." I said. And she giggled, shaking her head.
"Smart, aren't you?" she said. "That's the other tenant. My name's ...Cora" I noticed the small stop. She didn't use the name much, I thought. All right, so she didn't trust me. That was cool. It meant she was with it, anyway. We were in a big living room, modern furnishings, a little fireplace, warm lighting, and a lot of mirrors. It was a pretty nice place, all right. I saw a half-open door, and a rose colored light over an enormous bed, biggest I'd ever seen.
"Your husband..." I said, tentatively.
"Me, married?" She looked startled.
"You got this bed, in there," I said. "I thought..."
"It's pretty big," she admitted, turning toward a tiny bar against the wall. "But I rented the place furnished. What do you like? I've got everything."
"You do, all right," I said, and she glanced at me suddenly. "I mean, that's a lot of different things, there." I studied the row of bottles, and shrugged. "Just Scotch and ice, okay?"
"You sound like a country boy," she said, mixing. "Texas maybe?"
I nodded.
She took her drink to a low couch, and curled down into it, while I stood, watching her. Then she turned those big eyes my way, and I held on, tight. Cool it, man, I said to myself. She's a straight chick, there's nothing here for you, COOL it....
"I wish..." she said, and bit her lip. "Oh, gee, I feel like such a dope, asking you ...but..."
"Anything you want me to do, just say it," I told her, and my voice sounded funny. Definitely uncool.
Anything, I thought. Just ask me to peel those leather pants off those wild scissorlegs, and clop my choppers down on that crazy muff, lady. Ask me to check those jugs, and if they're real, stab me to death with them.
"I don't want to go back to that damned mechanic," she said. "He's like all the mechanics in this town, he's so ...blah. You said it was easy to fix, I mean ...would you? Do it, I mean? I could pay you...."
"Oh hell, baby, I don't need bread," I snorted. I finished the drink. "Sure, I'll come around and fix it, don't worry." I grinned. "Thanks for the drink" I sat the glass down.
"Do you..." She stopped, and looked at me. "You said you were just..."
It was a little hard to figure. Maybe she wanted me to stay a while, or maybe not. Hell, I thought, let's hold on and see. She could always change her mind.
"Make me another, would you, Richie?" she said, holding out her glass.
I made a pair and brought her one; I took the other over to a big hi-fi, and studied the records in the cabinet. No taste, I thought. Pure solid nothing, those records. There was a radio, and I tried it; bringing in something reasonably listenable took a minute.
She cocked her head, listening, as I moved back toward her.
"Mm," she said. "I like that. I'm a real hick. I got here, oh, six months ago. Dumb broad, big city, all of that. Now, I'm ...where I am. It's nowhere, Richie. Really nowhere. Hey, another one, will you? You do these pretty good, you know that?" she held out her glass again.
I could let her get smashed, I thought, and then ...oh, hell, I don't dig screwing a drunk, I thought. like a laundry sack, usually. But she seems to be holding it, so far, except for this down talk. Nowhere? What's nowhere, a pad like this, her clothes ...they aren't cheap, either, I thought. And that car. I couldn't see what she might mean. She might be twenty or twenty-one; and she wasn't doing badly. I began to feel a funny resentment, as if she were putting me on. Maybe she was, I thought. The come-on look, but that might be all. A cock teaser I'll bet on it.
"What do you do, Richie?" she said, softly. "I mean, for a living."
"I steal cars, and I deal dope," I said, bluntly, watching her.
She laughed, a low, warm laugh. "Go on"
"That's the way it is. What did you think I was, a Boy Scout?"
"You aren't kidding?" She studied me a moment, and nodded. "I guess you aren't. Gee, that's farout." And laughed.
I said nothing, and finished my drink. After a minute, she said, "I mean, it's farout. Stealing cars. Wow." She laughed again. "Hey. If you'd like to shave, there's an electric in the bathroom."
I was really beginning to feel hot, now; horny, and angry, because I felt I was being teased, led on. I gave her a wolf grin.
"I'm letting it grow," Y said. "I want a beard that turns them on, the way I see it around this town. Beards are in."
"It's your face," she commented, and shrugged. "Maybe..." And for no reason, she giggled, suddenly, a high, rather childish sound. Then she looked sullen, staring into the cold fireplace, her wide mouth pouting. "But I don't have much choice most of the time...." It didn't seem to mean anything; I was puzzling about it, when there was a shrill buzz, the phone. She reached around and picked it up, frowning in an odd way.
"No of course I don't," she said, after a minute, answering somebody. Then, "Sure. Why should I mind? No, I'm tired. I'll just watch TV or something. Right" It was a funny conversation, short, cut-off. She hung up, and looked at me, and her whole expression was different; alive, lit up. Her big eyes were glowing, and there was a slight flush in her face, excitement.
"A date?" I asked.
"No," she replied. "I mean ...oh, some business. It doesn't matter." She came to her feet, all in one smooth, liquid movement, like a dancer, and put her glass on the little bar. "Don't go away, Richie," she said. "I want to clean up a little. I feel sort of sticky." And she slid through the bedroom door, out of sight. A second later, I heard water running in the bath beyond.
I got up, and walked around the room, studying things. It was a funny place. It didn't have any feeling that anybody lived there, if you dig it; a place like a store show window, everything where it belonged, but no fingermarks. Not even a man's picture. All chicks have one of those, somewhere.
"Hey, Richie," she called, from the bathroom.
"Yeah." I could see a sliver of light, the door opened a few inches. But I was still playing it cool.
"I'd love another one of those Scotches, and a cigarette," she said, through the door. "I'd like to sit and soak in this tub with it, Richie. Would you?"
I'm a butler now, I thought. Okay. I found a pack, lit a cigarette, and mixed another drink; brought them through the bedroom, past the huge bed with the rose light on it, and digging the smooth pale blue sheets that were on it. She talked as if she were broke, practically on welfare; it got me angry. I know about that word, nowhere. It's where I am, and people like me, not people with a pad like this.
A smooth, bare arm came through the door; I gave her the cigarette and the drink, and turned away. But not before I saw a long, smooth line of flank and hip, and the tilted tip of a pointing breast. Those things were real, after all.
"You can look, if you want to." Her voice came, husky warm, unexcited, beyond the door. "I don't mind."
"Sorry," I said, and turned away, back to the living room. I went to the bar, and belted a big one, without bothering with the glass. The stuff ran through me, hot, burning. But not relaxing. I was as tight as a high-tension wire.
A nut, I thought. A freako. San Francisco had them, lots of them; the way I'd always heard, it was a freako's town. I picked up the bottle, and put another long one down.
like that gay in the park, I thought, another nut. He wouldn't get out of my head, him and his damned long hair and beard and those crazy eyes, boring into you. Damn him, too.
I leaned back, elbows behind me, on the bar, and studied the room. The lush was beginning to work inside me, a little bit; I was hot, and getting hotter. I opened the collar of my shirt, letting air in, and still looking at that expensive, elegant, nowhere room.
"Aaah," I said, in a low voice, aloud. "Fuck you, Jack."
"Sure." It was Cora, standing in-the bedroom doorway; she was wearing a thin, loose robe, blue and lacy. It covered her, but the light behind came through just enough to bother me, a lot. Her long, deep red hair, loose, was down around her shoulders in a thick cloud, glowing. Her eyes looked bigger and crazier, somehow.
"Good motto, Richie," she said, her voice all honey husky, smiling. "Fuck'em all. Right?"
"Sure," I muttered. I discovered my hands were damp, but I held my face cool.
"You mad at somebody?" she asked, moving closer. "Me, maybe?"
"No," I said. She came up about to eye-level, without her shoes; whatever that perfume was, she still had it on, and it hit me, as she came closer still. And a faint scent of Scotch, too, but not too much.
"Don't look like that, then," she said, and her hands moved up, touching the sides of my face. "Grim. Listen, don't get uptight, Richie. I've heard all the words, don't worry. Lots of times."
"I heard a cat saying that words didn't mean anything," I said, in a gravelly voice. "In the park, today ...one of those hippy preachers."
"Maybe he's right," she commented. She stood against me, so the points of those unbelievable boobs were inches away from my chest, poking out of the thin stuff like two fingers. She had her hands on my face, but now she moved them down under my collar, pulling the shirt down off me, her fingers touching my bare chest.
"Bodies talk better than just words," she said in a funny voice. "You've got a nice body, Richie."
"You too, doll," I said. Her hands had gotten my shirt all the way off now. I was paralyzed. Me, the old rape artist, super-stud; hung in mid-air this way. I couldn't believe it, but I didn't move.
She slid her hands around my neck, and drew my mouth down against her. Her lips were hot, wet, moving hungrily; her body pressed against mine, and her hips pressed in, moving against my hardened rod.
Then she moved back, a little, her eyes searching mine.
"Hey," she said. "Richie." Her hands touched my face again. "Give me a cigarette."
I lit it, and passed it to her. She drew on it, still standing where she was.
"Richie?"
"Yeah."
"It's all right," she said, very low. "It's all going to be right. Let it all happen, Richie, let it hang loose. There's no hurry."
It was weird, but her voice was doing it, loosening the tightly held muscles; I had been standing almost as stiff as some kind of nutty sentry. I could feel myself 'letting, go. Then I looked at her.
"That's good," I laughed. "I'm in no hurry."
She moved in closer again, her cigarette in one hand, near me; she put her other hand on my neck lightly.
"Richie, honey..." she said, in slow, warm, voice, looking at me. "Hey, I dig you a lot, you know that?"
"I dig you too."
"I'll make you a deal, Richie," she said, her fingers tracing lines on my skin.
"What?"
"Promise me something," she said.
I laughed, looking down at her. I was completely calmed now, and the whiskey warmed me, burning and soothing inside me. Promises, I thought. They always want something. Promise her anything, but give her eight inches.
"Okay, I promise," I said.
"No, wait," she said. "Listen, you were getting all worked up, right? Look, I know. You were. I don't want it that way, so ...fast." Her skin was flushed, now, and her eyes were huge. "Promise me not to hurry, that's all. Make it all last, darling. It has to last and last, please. Please..."
I stared at her. "Last?"
"I want to, Richie, but I want to go real slow." She spoke so low I could hardly hear her. "I can show you. How to make it slow."
"Any way you like it," I said in a hoarse voice, making a queer purring noise, as her hands slid down my sides. "Oh good, good," she said, against my chest, her mouth brushing my skin.
I reached around her, my hands against her body, feeling her through the thin stuff. Her muscles were marvelously firm, smooth but strong, like a ballet dancer's. I moved my hands down, running my palms against the firm curves of her rear.
"I'm kind of an ass-fancier, you know that?" I said, in her ear, cupping them hard and drawing her tighter against me.
"Oh, gee, that's too bad," she murmured huskily, and writhed excitingly against me. "I was hoping you were a tit man." Her fingers slid under my belt, and roved, tingling, digging. She giggled, wildly, leaning back against my circling arms, and looking up at me. "Because I have a great pair, I do, really!"
I stared down at the deeply open front of the blue robe, where the upper roundness of those farout bumpers showed. My mouth was getting dry.
"Uh," I grunted. "Changed my specialty. Okay?"
"Don't specialize," she said, and slid out of my hands, somehow, moving back, and leaning against the couch back, smiling. "Dig it all. Not just bits."
I stayed there, looking at her. "I dig it all," I said. "Oh, man, all of it."
"You haven't seen it all," she corrected me. Her hands went to the belt of her robe. "You look like the Wolf Man," she said, and giggled at me. "Listen, our deal ...slow, remember. Don't rape me. Not even with your eyes ...not yet."
"I like rape," I said and laughed. "But it was a deal. Want another belt of this stuff?"
"All right," she said, and waited till I handed it to her. Then she lifted it slowly, sipping, her eyes on me. "I told you, you hadn't seen it all," she continued, and undid the belt.
The robe slipped down to the floor. She stood, leaning back, her head tipped backward, and her long red hair falling in a stream; naked and luscious. Slowly, she put her arms behind her head, and her breasts, pointed and redtipped, lifted upward and out-thrust. She was a pale golden color all over, lightly tanned, but without the white marks of a bathing suit.
I could hear my breath in my throat, rasping, like a man being choked. Go slow, she said. Slow ...man, how can I look at a naked broad with a body like that, with those tits, and that damned luscious tuft of red hair, the whole wild bit ...and stay cool?
"Ahh," I said. The words came slowly. "Might be ...harder ...to go slow. Harder than I thought. Whoo ! You ...you're too much, baby."
She giggled again, and straightened up, coming slowly toward me. I groaned, and pulled her against me, my mouth going down on the stiffened nipples, as her hands clutched at my hair.
"Aah," she said. "Ooh ...I didn't mean ...I didn't mean too slow, darling. Oh, I like that, keep doing it."
Her hands were at my belt again, but moving with purpose now, undoing it, sliding down . my trousers came down around my feet, the whole works. My cock sprang out, angled forward, and pressed against the silkensmooth, hot firmness of her belly, as she pushed her body even more tightly against mine with a husky-voiced moan.
Her hands slipped down, and suddenly cupped underneath, clutching hard; the touch was like a shock of high voltage, and I let out a yelp. She giggled, and suddenly she was slipping down, to her knees, her cheek against my thighs, and her hands holding the family jewels, hard gripped.
"Ah!" I said, and stood shaking a little. "Oh, God ...easy, baby, they're ...valuable!"
"Mmmmm." Her fingers did unbelievable things, stroking along my tool till it grew even longer. I thought the damn thing would explode in another minute, but her grip was exactly right. "Stay ...stay there..." she said, coming closer. "Don't move ...mmm."
Her tongue, wet, maddening, agile as a cat's, was running along the length of my tool, tingling; while her fingers moved around, busy. Suddenly her wide mouth opened, and she took the end of it in, her lips and tongue doing wild things. I felt a crazy throbbing, like a giant pulse, going in my groin, harder and harder; I clutched the bar behind me, and gasped out loud.
Cora let go, and came on her feet, sliding against me, pressing.
"You can take me into there, in the bedroom..." she panted, her mouth wet against mine. "But remember what we said...."
I picked her up; she was light for a girl her size. I carried her through into the bedroom, and put her down on the blue silk, and bent over her, my mouth on those great boobs again.
"Mmmmmm." She made the purring noise again, clutching my head. "Oh, wow, you're like steel wool."
"Oh, sorry..." I said, lifting my bristly chin; her breasts were reddened and scratched. She laughed, deep in her throat.
"I like it," she remarked. "I'm glad I didn't ask you to shave."
I swung my legs up, and knelt on the bed, over her, my hands on her breasts, cupping them; she stared up at me, out of those wide eyes.
"Did that bother you?" she said, in a low voice. "What I did? With my mouth?"
"It bothered me," I grinned. "I like being bothered."
"Can I tell you something?" she said. "Oh, God, don't stop doing that yet. I wanted to tell you, I ...never did that. It was because I dig you, country boy."
I just looked at her, trying to figure it, and not succeeding.
She brought her hands up, covering mine against her breast, and squeezed them closer, closing her eyes with a slight gasp.
"I ...I'm not made out ...of glass," she gasped, shakily. "Hard, man. Hurt me a little bit, hey."
"Why?" I asked, and stopped pressing.
She opened her eyes, and looked at me. "I like it. Being hurt ...but not too much." Her red mouth curved. "Maybe, if you knew me better, you'd want to slug me."
"I doubt it," I told her, sliding my hands down along her body.
"I'm a bitch," she said calmly. "Coming and going, believe me." Her eyes glittered wickedly at me. "Have you ever been to bed with a real live bitch. Richie baby?"
"Sure." I moved my hands down to her hips, digging those long smooth curves.
"Richie," she reached down, and took my hands, holding them. "Do you smoke?"
It was funny; I was so turned on I could hear the blood thudding in my heart like a drum in a cave. But I could hold on, too, God knows how ...if she wanted to play it that way. I sat back, grinning, and took my hands away.
"Sometimes," I said. "Here." I reached across her, and got a pack off the table beside the bed; lit two, one for each of us, and handed her hers. She inhaled slowly, smiling.
"I'm such a terrible bitch," she said slowly, staring at the ceiling. She seemed almost to be talking to herself. "I could still change my mind. Couldn't I? Would you get me to change my mind, Richie? Or would you just rape me? I'd deserve it, wouldn't I?"
I laughed, a little twitchily, but I managed it. "Don't know, doll. Maybe not."
"But you want to fuck me don't you?" she said, in that low, faraway voice, staring up at me. It was freaky, I thought, really freaky. She gave a low chuckle.
"Maybe you're one of those whip and boot nuts, hey, sweets?" I said, as calmly as I could. "like me to thump on you, too, maybe?"
She was a little pale. "No, not ...not quite that." She shook her head. "I told you, I'm awful. I ...I'm slow, I don't get there. You know. I don't make it, if it isn't really a long time. So I tease and all, to make it last."'
"I dig." And I did, at that. "It'll last, baby. I said it would."
I heard her breath coming a little faster as she lay watching me. She reached over to the ashtray, and put out her cigarette.
"I said something when I was around six or seven, some sort of word ...and got spanked for it," she told me. "I was brought up in one of those places ...man, you don't know. A girl's cherry was so damned important. And the way they acted if they heard a word they didn't like ...remember what I said, what you said? Fuck them all." Her mouth widened, in a wicked grin; she suddenly looked even younger.
"Sure," I agreed. But I could feel my breath coming faster, looking down at the luscious long nudity of her, the whole golden-skinned package. "But one at a time, hey?" I leaned closer, and my mouth brushed her nipples again, moved down along her ribs, while my hands moved lower. "Ummm," I said. "Starting with the tasty ones."
I heard her let out a long drawn-out sound, "Oaah. " Her hands grabbed at my hair, holding on.
"Ah," she said again, in a rasping voice. Then, "Oh, wow. Richie ...Richie, I'm ...ooh. I'm beginning. Do it, baby, do it ...but don't hurry."
My mouth brushed her firm flat belly; it quivered under my touch, and I deliberately ground my bristly chin lower, down against the fine, light downy fur, red as a fox's. I heard her squeal softly, and I chuckled. Her firm legs twisted under me, restlessly, and I reached down, grabbing her knees, drawing her thighs apart.
I leaned on one elbow, between her spread legs, touching her luscious slit with my index finger, opening it slowly, and exploring a little. It grabbed tightly around my entering finger, velvet soft and wet, but tight. I moved the finger around, teasing; it really switches a chick on to do that, sometimes.
It switched Cora on, all right. She made a crazy choked sound.
"Aah-AAKH!" She reached down and grabbed my hand with both of hers, moving it around. "Oh, man, do that, do that ...right there! The right place, there...." Her hips twisted wildly, in a sudden convulsion. "Ooooh!" And she pulled my hand away, with a gasping moan.
Her arms went behind her and pulled at a fat pillow, shoving it downward beside her; her voice was a husky moan, wildly excited now.
"Richie, please, under me. The pillow. I like it that way, up ...please." And as I slid the pillow under her, she raised her hips, her knees apart. Her hands were clutching at the silk sheets. I raised myself, lifting over her, and her eyes opened, staring up at me.
"Let me..." she said, and her hands caught my tool, circling it with her fingers, guiding it. She put it carefully into her tight slit, but only just in, for a fraction of an inch. I could feel her pulsebeat, throbbing rapidly in there.
"It's going to be so damned good, this time." she said, and gently moved the tip of my tool a little, rubbing. Her pink tongue came out, wetting her mouth, and her eyes seemed to be out of focus for a second. "Oh, wow. Richie, if you let me do it my way, it'll be great."
"Your way..." I said, hoarsely. "Yeah, baby, your way. You..." I brought my mouth against hers, moving my tongue against her tongue.
"I'm tight down there, aren't I?" she said, her mouth close to my ear. "Don't hurt me. Easy ...ah! Oh ...easy!"
I lowered my weight down against her upturned hips, my tool sliding slowly into her. She was opening now, the velvet-wet walls still tight, but relaxing. I was surprised at myself; I felt as if I had managed to grow longer than usual. Crazy, man, I thought, and laughed, as I pressed all the way in, holding Cora's taut body clamped in my arms.
We held it there, and she giggled crazily, her arms tight around me. Her ankles came around mine, holding on.
"Don't move for a second!" she gasped. "Whatever happens, just wait, don't ...I'll do things, you'll see, oh, darling, wow...."
Her teeth nipped at my ear, and her hips and belly slid, quivering, under me. Then, something happened. It was down there, where I was fitted as tightly into her as a key in a lock ...and her flesh gripped, a wild suddenly rippling, as if fingers were squeezing, pulling at me, a kind of crazy pulsation that grew faster and harder. It sent an indescribable shock through me, a kind of electrical thing; I let out a noise like a tomcat.
Her fingers dug into the small of my back, working at me, while that wild milking got faster and harder; her eyes rolled back, and her mouth was loose and open, panting hard.
"Now, now!" she cried out, hoarsely, clawing at my back. "Do it, hammer it into me, damn it, go on, hard!" And then, as I drove my hips pistoning up and down, deep into her, her hips rose up off the supporting pillow, slamming back at me as hard as I drove down. With each thrusting stroke, she gasped louder; our bodies were slippery with sweat as we rode that big wave right into the beach.
"Aaaaahhahaa..." Cora was gasping a kind of laughing, crying sound, and I heard my breath coming out in a single big whoosh, as the pinwheels began going around. I was flying, far out there somewhere. I heard her moan, ecstatically, in my ear, biting it.
"I ...did it, I DID IT."
Five or six hundred years later, I managed to make a landing on earth, more or less, and lay there, shaking and gasping. And got enough breath to tell her, "You ...did ...it ...all ...right."
"Ooh," she gasped, rolling on her side.
We lay there for a while, our arms tight around each other. Then, later, she opened her eyes. They were huge, dark. She whispered, "Richie?"
"Yeah."
"Want to.'. . do it again?"
It was out of this world. A crazy shiver went through me, a freaky returning excitement. You could get killed this way, I thought. But it was a good way to go, wasn't it?
"Uhhuh," I said. "Any ...minute now."
She giggled delightedly.
"I could help," she whispered, sliding around against me like a velvet snake.
"Hey," I objected, but she was already halfway there.
"This time ...your party," she said, her mouth running down my thighs. Her long satiny legs were against my body, held close together, as she put her arms around my thighs. Her tongue flicked out.
"Christ!" I said, closing my eyes, and lifting on an elbow.
"You ...dig Frenching?" Cora said, rubbing her cheek against my groin.
"Oh, baby, are you kidding?" I controlled a shudder of unbearable pleasure, as she started the thing with the fingers again. "Aaah!"
"My, my, it's all soft," she chuckled. "And yummy..." She opened her mouth, and took me all the way in, wet tongue against me, sucking hard. Her lips lay against me, hot flushed, and I felt a crazy quiver of returning blood pulsing into my tool as she held it in her mouth.
"Hey..." I slid an arm under her firm hips, turning them toward me, and used the other hand to move her thighs a little apart. "Two can play at that, can't they?" I stabbed into her with my tongue, working it around.
Her body thrashed, as if she were full of springs, and she suddenly swung her firm thighs around my head, and locked down. I felt her mouth moving on my tool and a sharp pulsing, as it swelled under the exciting touch. She was forced to release some of her grip; that thing of mine was simply too big for her. But she hung onto as much of it as her mouth could hold, working and pulling at it, in spite of the wild shivers of pleasure that I was getting out of her body.
"Oh, God!" she cried out, suddenly releasing me a second; her fingers went on, though, as she gasped with joy. Her legs clutched at my head so hard I was nearly strangled, but I couldn't stop.
"It's happening again, aah!" she cried out. "Oh, RICHIEEE..." Her teeth nipped at me, dangerously, as she nearly flung us both off the bed in a crazy writhing movement; then she grabbed inches of my throbbing tool, her lips clamping hard.
"Uuuh!" she gasped, her words muffled by her filled mouth. "You ...can do it, do it...."
I couldn't have not done it, believe me. Both of us exploded together, in a flurry of thrashing arms and legs and muffled sounds.
"It'll ...take a little longer," I gasped, my voice choked a little by a warm bare arm across my face. "For the next one...."
* * *
All right, it was great. It was the greatest.
I told you, I'm a country boy. Dumb, man. Listen, I went through high school ...vocational school, wouldn't you figure that? I didn't learn anything. I didn't learn anything later on either, except how to figure a few percentages, and fix engines.
But now about women. You want to learn about-them, you have to work at it full time. Maybe like Seymore Iban.
I don't know anything about the why of it. I just know what happened, you know, like Dragnet. The facts, man, just the facts.
It just never happened to me that way before. I was like some dumb chicks I've seen, get a good humping and can't get unstuck from the guy. I was like that with Cora; I was hooked. I wasn't any virgin, man. But that-wild body of hers, and the way she pumped every drop out of me, and then managed to find a few more drops left, and that crazy, freaky, talking ...I didn't know where I was, except I wanted to stay there.
Any cat with a little know-how would have caught on, right away. She was just too much to be true. I turned her on, all right; that was real, as real as the way she turned me on. And the crazy part ...she didn't get turned on much, hardly ever, in fact. So she was hooked too, in her own way.
Except for the details I missed, of course, being a hick.
I mean ...she was a professional. That's right. A call girl, you want to be polite about it. Or a whore, if you want the right word.
The apartment was set up for her. She got her customers through Iban, who set things up; he had half a dozen girls working around town, and she was the highest-priced one. He owned her and he got his percentage, naturally.
She had come to town, fresh from the sticks, only a year before. She wasn't much good at jobs; she hadn't any special training, no experience ...so, after awhile, things got rough. After awhile, she had to try at some easy money, from a creep named Burt, a moviemaker. Yes, that kind of movie.
I remember how she talked, calm, almost cold. After I found out for myself about the apartment, and Iban, and the rest of that part of it, I was listening to her. I was in a hell of a state, and Cora, sitting there, was perfect, beautiful, and nowhere. Just nowhere.
"Go see one of his movies, if you want," she told me. "You see one, you've seen them all. Different, girls, maybe, but the same thing. Maybe two, or three, or four girls. I was in one he said was an epic spectacular, with eleven girls at once. But it was the same thing, anyway. Everybody takes off their clothes, and screws everybody, that's all. Girls and boys, girls and girls." She shrugged.
"That's how I met Seymore," she went on. "He was in one of them. He did it pretty well; he made it feel ...well, it wasn't bad. Not the way it was with us, Richie."
I noticed the "was," but I didn't say anything.
"He got this going for me," she added. "I don't care. The Johns ...they don't mean anything. There wasn't anything, till you got here. I told you, I'm nowhere. This is what I do, what I am."
"You don't have to be afraid of him," I told her. "I could take him."
"I'm not afraid of him," she replied. "You don't understand about him. He needs me. You don't."
"Needs you?" I stared at her. "Sure he does."
"I knew you couldn't see it," she said, wearily. "Richie ...you could wreck me, you know that? I dig you too much. Know what happens to a prostie who gets switched on?" She sighed. "Richie, go away, go all the way away. Now, darling, please."
So I did.
Danton ...that happened about the time I got through. It was something I can't figure out, either. He was all mixed up with Cora in my head, maybe because it had all started on the same day, seeing him, and seeing her. And he seemed to know something about the reasons for things. Maybe I thought he had an answer. Maybe he did, I don't know. At first, for awhile, it felt as if he did, as if any minute I'd know the real score, about everything.
I moved into that hippy house, and at first it was a ball. I spent a lot of time, after I ran into Ben, working with him on our specialty. Man, it was an easy town, for people like us. People didn't really lock up, not tight enough. And we were experts. We could have boosted the Golden Gate Bridge if we'd had any use for it.
The rest of the time around the Nest I spent sleeping, eating, and screwing. I got it into every one of them, hard riding and all the way around the block, man. But it got so I couldn't keep my mind off Cora; I kept seeing her face on every bird in the Nest.
That weird little piece, Betsy, turned up around that time; a great shape, but her head was gone, far gone. Danton and Judy got her when she was freaking out on a bad LSD trip, really flipped. They brought her home, to the Nest, straightened her up a little, and she started being part of the family. I dug her, somehow; it wasn't like Cora, but it was something good. But I was so strung out about Cora by this time that I didn't try to lay Betsy; I just kicked the idea around a while.
Then I went over to see Cora again. I couldn't stay away any more.
That was a bad time, man. She was gone, of course. Wigged, and locked away. I got the details, but I don't want to go over the whole bit. Just the main thing; she was out of her head. And the way it looked to me, it was Seymore Iban who managed to push the buttons. Not on purpose, sure; she was an investment, after all, like a cow to a farmer. But he was the one.
I thought about that a good deal. It might have been pretty good to cut Iban. It would have felt right, you dig. But it wouldn't change anything that mattered.
Oh, that particular night-the same night, as a matter-of-fact, when I found out about Cora-that was the night Danton decided to turn on Betsy, with one of those things, but it doesn't matter right now. The way Betsy was, she really wouldn't have needed much extra push to go along with the bit; she was a swinging chick, that one.
That night was the way parties sometimes got going, in the Nest; no planning, just the right circumstances. The best parties happened that way, and that one was a real gas.
With Danton, though, it was more than just having a ball. You know this word, Dionysian-nice ancient Greeks used to get stoned and screw all night, right? It was part of his religion, Danton's thing. He said that screwing was "celebrating the holy body." Well, I don't know how many of the teenyboppers and hippies knew what he meant, really, but they were all willing to go along with the idea anyway.
The Betsy chick was as hot as a firecracker that night; she'd gotten over some crazy hang-ups she had left over from that LSD trip, and man, she was ready,. willing, and able. It was a great night: Betsy dug getting it, and getting it again and again. I made it with her, more than once; but the way I got it, she really rode fast that night, turned every way but loose, man.
Maybe if I had a little more of whatever it is keeps somebody like Than happy with himself-ego, or whatever-I'd feel great about some crazy things. like the way Betsy started acting around me, later; as if she was getting a case on me. I looked her over, but I couldn't go along. She was all right, I mean; a great body, willing, and good at it. And I dug her. But I had a hang-up.
And that was the way it was, when we started out, rolling down toward Mexico, driving 101 at a nice easy fifty ...making the run that was going to set us up with that ranch. Me driving, watching the road, and thinking, thinking too much.
CHAPTER FIVE
...Ben's Story
I took over the wheel of the bus, down near the border, just after we passed the Border Patrol station. It was early morning, one of those crazy gorgeous mornings in early spring you get down there in the ass end of California. Richie had begun to look a little bleary-eyed after all those hours driving, but he hadn't wanted to let me take it over for some reason. So for the first few hours, I spent my time back in the big bunk, between Tink and the new one, Gail. It wasn't too restful, but fun. The bus had pretty ancient suspension springs, so there was a wild rolling movement at times, but that just made it better.
I had been making it with Tink; she dug climbing on top of me, spread out and literally sitting astride, bouncing and giggling as the bus rocked, while I just lay back and let her ride the old thing till she let herself go off like a teenaged bomb. Gail, a round, firm, fully packed chick, with a pair of those big round glasses on, wrapped up in a huge old fur coat, had half-awakened through Tink's assault on me; she lay, her eyes and the top of her smooth brown hair just visible above the fur, and watched up with deep interest. She didn't say a word, until Tink finally decided she had had enough, for a change. Tink curled up, grinning like a kitten, wrapped up in a blanket, and went to sleep.
Gail just stayed there for awhile, looking a little like an owl; then, with no special warning she rolled over, and opened up the fur. She wasn't wearing much underneath. She rolled against me without a word, and started to wriggle around till her round bottom was right up against my lap; then we were at it fast and hard. It was peculiar, in one way; it was all so silent. She panted and gasped, as it got to her, and let out a moan or two when she really came; but she didn't say a word, till afterward.
It had been her first time with me. She had made it with Martin, I knew that. But not much else about her; she was named Gail, she was nineteen or twenty, and that was all.
Now she was squashed up against me, half inside the fur, and I lay comfortably, holding her from the rear, my hands tucked up against her soft big boobs, while the bus bounced.
"You're okay,. " she said, in a whisper.
"Thank you, ma'am," I replied.
"No, I mean it." She sounded as if she were reviewing a play or something. "Very good fucking, man."
"Right on for you too, luv," I concurred, and squeezed one.
"I never thought it could be like this," she went on almost to herself. "I'm just a cunt. Surrounded by me. That's right, that's what I really wanted, man. Hey." She grabbed my hands, and pressed them tighter against her breasts. "Do me something."
"Sure."
"Give me that lovely cock, often, man," she murmured, in a groggy voice. "Yours. And Martin's, too. I have to have a lot. A lot of screwing. You with it, man?"
"Right with it," I said, yawning a little.
"I want to make it with him, too," she muttered. "That Richie. He's beautiful ...listen, is he queer?"
"I don't think so."
"He wouldn't do it. Before, I mean..." Gail yawned too. "Maybe he will.. . . "
That was why I was still a little sleepy myself when I finally came up forward, and Richie moved back. I settled down, and held the speed steady, while the sky got lighter over the mountains ahead, eastward.
Martin was in the other seat, his wide hat down over his eyes; he seemed to be asleep. But after a minute, he pushed back the hat, and ran his hands down over his beard, looking over at me.
"Ben," he said, in a low voice.
"Yep."
"Something's not going right."
I listened to the engine, puzzled, and looked over at him. He had an odd look on his face, fogged out. He didn't mean the engine, anyway.
"I'm copping out, Ben," he said, in the same low voice. "like, I don't want to do this. It's ...wrong."
"You always say there isn't any such thing as wrong or right, man."
"It's right if it feels good," he admitted. "This doesn't feel good. There's something telling me to turn around, give Than back the money, drop the deal."
"We'll make just enough to pay the money for the ranch," I said. "Once. Is that so bad? It's for us, for the family. Look, is it that different from stealing, back in the city? You've got the special contact, we can get the stuff and not get caught, man. It's cool."
"Not getting busted. That isn't what's wrong, I've got a feeling there's something else, something far down" He hunched into his coat. "I read the Tarot cards, and the I Ching. It doesn't tell me why not, but something's wrong. But you're right. The money, the ranch. Where we can go back to the right way, the way of living.. . natural...."
He stopped talking for a long time.
"The place is called Ixal," he informed me after awhile. "We turn off the federal road, up through these mountains. Go slow, it's a dirt road. After a bit, you'll see a funny-looking steeple, in a little valley."
We kept on, mile after mile, Martin all hunched down and quiet. It was a long straight road, with the mountains rising up on both sides, real scenic. But I couldn't dig it, somehow. The engine hummed like a watch; that Richie really knew how to tuneup a short. There wasn't any traffic on that highway at all, and that made it even easier.
Richie came up, and reached over my shoulder, to turn on the radio; we picked up a local
station, with real cornball music blasting away, and every so often somebody yakking in .Spanish. But the noise helped to keep down the other thing, the funny feelings, whatever they were.
"There's the turn," Martin said.
I swung the bus of, onto a dirt road that climbed up, up, and further up, through cracks in the hills and along the sides of the mountains. I kept the speed down, grinding slow up, and around, and up again, in second gear. The chicks kept looking out the windows and squealing with excitement, but I didn't appreciate it as much.
"Don't worry, she won't overheat," Richie said behind me.
"Sounds all right so far," I answered as we rolled into a fairly level stretch and picked up a little speed. Up ahead on a distant hill I saw a couple of men, standing watching silently, and I pointed them out to Martin. "Shepherds or something."
"No," he said, staring at them, frowning a little. "They're dressed like city men ...I don't like it."
"They're gone," Richie said.
Martin nodded. "Too quick."
"Narcos?" I asked.
"I don't think so," Martin said. "Maybe something worse. The mob. I told you, the Mexican dealers lately ...they're mostly in with a big organization. Independents get busted, somebody tips off the border guards."
"Think they might be mob hoods?" I asked. "I don't know." Martin dug around under the seat, and brought out a canvas bag. He opened it, and I saw a glint of dull metal. "You've used a gun before, Ben?"
"Yeah," I replied, watching the road. We were going down around long curving track now, through a valley of crags. "I don't ...hell, Martin. What happened to the peace and love bit? What's going on with us, anyway?"
I saw Richie's eyes, in the rear-view mirror, wide and staring. Martin sounded as if he spoke with difficulty, his voice harsh.
"I hate all this too," he said in a low voice. "I don't want it. It's wrong, but..."
"It would be a hell of a lot wronger to get wasted by hoods," Richie said in a fiat, hard voice. "Or get our stuff and our car ripped off. What's with you, Ben? You were in the army. What are you, a goddamn saint?"
"You get enough killing, man," I said. But I held out my hand, and felt the cold, iron butt dropped into my palm; my hand fitted it perfectly, fingers curling around it, like around a chick's tit, gratefully ...a forty-five Magnum revolver, a hell of a piece.
"If they jump us, they'll probably wait till we get the stuff," Martin remarked. "But I don't know. Let's hope nothing will happen."
I dropped the Magnum into my jacket pocket and kept driving. The chicks had gone quiet, scared I guess. There was a queer, iron click sound behind me, a familiar noise I had heard a long time ago; the action of a grease-gun worked up and down.
"Feels like she'll go good," Richie said in a cold voice, and out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of the gun, an evil-looking weapon.
"I hidthem under there," Martin said. "I hoped we wouldn't have to even get them out."
"There's a car on the road, down there ahead," I noted, slowing down. We were on a high stretch, a narrow road cut into the side of a hill, and far down along the lower curve I could see a dark shape in the shadowed pass under us. They were waiting, ready to cut us off, rip off the money for the buy, probably kill the lot of us. They didn't have to wait till we made our buy, I thought. These were gang men, and the idea was to protect their monopoly; they didn't care about whatever, pot we bought, they owned it all.
"I wonder how they figured it out, about us," I said, and slammed my foot down on the accelerator. We rolled downhill, screaming around a tight curve; behind, the girls yelled in terror and Richie let out a wild bark. He. knew what I was trying to do, and he dug it ...a crazy
biker's trick. Martin, thrust back into the seat by the speed, sat as calmly as a stone idol, with no fear on his face at all.
Me-I was scared, man. I had the gun, but I didn't want to use it. As I said, I've had that scene. But those cats ...they could do me, and enjoy it. I felt the old bus swing the wheel. We were sliding, in a long skid, but I had it under control. The car was a big one, black, and heavy, but not heavy enough-not when they made their try, a second too late, because they hadn't expected us to come barreling down like that. One fender caught them just at their front end, and their car swung away, still moving, as we shot past. They hadn't time to brake; there was a ravine ahead of them on the roadside. I heard the tearing crash behind me, and the girls screaming in our own car.
"Stop the bus, Ben!" Martin shouted, grabbing my wrist; but calm, cool ...except his eyes looked back of us, with a queer expression. I braked to a stop, but I didn't want to.
"They're out of business," I said, staring back. The black car was nose down in the gully, and on fire.
"We have to help them," Martin said, opening the door.
"Man, they would have killed us," I told him. "It isn't ...we have to," Martin said. "They're human."
"Shit," Richie objected in an icy voice, but he climbed out too. The gun was under his arm. We told the girls to stay in the bus, but as we moved back along the road, Judy and Tink climbed out and came after us. Then Gail followed more slowly; she had a tire iron in her hand, and I thought, she doesn't trust those rats either.
We climbed down into the gully and yanked open the bent door of the car, a big Mercedes. The guy in the front seat wasn't going anywhere; the steering column had finished him. There were two more in the back, and one in the front, who fell out when the door opened. We pulled the other two out, and got them away from the car, just as it began to burn faster. Meanwhile, the one on the ground had managed to get on his feet, swaying. They were three of a kind, sharp dressers, blank white faces; real hood types.
"Hold on," Richie said sharply, bringing up his gun. The front seat man was trying to get a piece out of his pocket, but he stopped when he saw the one on him. He stared at us, cold-eyed, and waited.
"You bastards killed Joe," one of them said, in a flat voice, scrubbing blood away from his suit.
"You tried to stop us," I said. "What was that about?"
"Goddamn hippies," the one who had tried to draw a gun said. He stared at the girls behind us. "Jeez, they brought whores too."
Gail threw the tire iron. It was a great shot; it clipped the loudmouth, and he fell down, cursing. Sitting on the ground, he glared.
"Tough, ain't you?"
"He's North American," Judy said, in a low voice, behind me. "Listen to that accent, Ben."
"Listen, you goddamn hippies," the man on the ground grunted in a cold voice, watching us. "You with all the hair, you're the boss of this, right? Play it smart, turn around and get out of here. Go on back and nothing's gonna happen to you."
Martin stared at him, calmly.
"How'd you know about us?" he asked.
"Shit, man," the one on the ground said, contemptuously. "We didn't know anything about you. Somebody like you, beards and all, you come on down this way and word gets to us. There's always some creeps like you trying to make a buy here. Why don't you pick up your pot back home, like smart kids? You're in the Organization's backyard here, dummy." He leered, trying to sound friendly but not really succeeding. "Look, nobody's gonna hold Joe there against you. He ought to have watched it. He's dead, so that's the way the ball bounces. Now, if you go out of here..."
Richie brought up the gun. "Martin, I think I ought to...."
"No," Martin checked him. "We can't do that."
"They'll pass the word."
"Let them go," Martin said. "It doesn't matter."
Richie stared at him, and then at the men. After a minute, he said slowly, "All right, then. You, all of you. You hear what he says. Go on, get walking."
They moved toward the road, in the direction of our bus, but Richie snapped sharply: "Not that way. The other way."
They didn't look pleased, but they went. The one who had been hit got up, and started after them; he stopped-and looked back, leering again.
"Nice-looking chicks," he said, in a low, carrying voice. "I dig hippy chicks, man. Hey, girls, you like it, hah?" he raked them with a glittering eye, his, mouth set hard. "You wait, maybe I'll get a chance at some of that hippie pussy you got there."
He limped away slowly and we watched him go, not moving.
After they were out of sight, we went slowly back to the bus, silent. We climbed in, and I started the engine; we rolled off, leaving the thin drift of smoke from the burning car behind.
All of a sudden, the sunshine wasn't so warm any more, I thought.
"We'll be there soon," Martin commented quietly. He glanced at me. "Don't worry, we're taking the other road back, they'll never know where we went. It was an accident, their running into us. It'll be cool."
"Sure," I replied. "Only that bastard is dead. It isn't right, Martin. Killing. It's a bad start."
He nodded, but said nothing.
The road was dipping down now, and we passed a few adobe houses here and there. Then, far ahead, we saw the beginnings of the town, a rundown clot of ancient houses, a church, and a few more people, walking along the road.
"It's all set up," Martin murmured, half to himself, as we came closer. "The stuff will be at Don Jaime's place ...that's the big house, there, see it? Pull in here."
We were in a kind of walled yard, now; there was a kind of look about the place, as if there was some sort of general store, gas station, all that, going on. There were 'a couple of rusty gas pumps, and a scrabble of old trucks and cars, some of them on blocks; a lot of stuff printed in Spanish that was pasted up on the wall ahead. On one side, there was a kind of veranda, and one very old Indian-looking cat, sitting folded up in a serape. But nobody else, not a live soul.
"They don't do anything when the sun's up," Martin said. "Too hot. Stay in the bus." He climbed out, and went out, and went inside the building; the old Indian never moved a muscle. A minute later, Martin came back out, glancing around, and beckoned to us. We went inside, quietly.
It was like a great big barn in there, full of all sorts of things, saddles and boxes and junk hanging around on the rafters, like a store. It was dark, too, and quiet. Then a tall, skinny man appeared, out of the shadows, and came toward us.
He had a face that looked like it was made out of saddle leather, Indian-looking. He was dressed up in imagine boots and a sort of cowboy jacket, and he had a drooping bandit mustache, but he looked friendly.
"I am Don Jaime," he announced. "Everything is ready, amigos. We must work quickly ...I understand you met some bad people, and they may make trouble. Besides it's siesta, and no one will see, if we hurry. Ole, Sancha!"
The girl that came out was a slim, pretty one, dark and quiet, maybe no more than fourteen or so. She said nothing at all, just glanced at us, and started uncovering a big pile of boxes hidden under old sacks.
"She will help," Don Jaime said, and smiled apologetically. "I am growing old, it is necessary to move slowly. Sancha is my granddaughter."
We got the stuff out, neatly packed in tight bricks, and began to carry it out to the bus, packing it into a place under the floor. There was an awful lot of it, I thought, and Martin seemed pretty sure it was all the right stuff, too.
As we loaded up, Don Jaime filled our gas tank from one of the rusty pumps. Then, as we finished putting the floor back on, he beckoned and led us back inside.
"You will find it in the best, senors," he said, smiling. "It is grown in own fields, north of here, and prepared by my own people. We are expert, as Don Danton must know." He paused, his face hardening. "I would almost rather make no money than to sell it to those-hijos de perro. They come here, and we must sell to them sometimes, but none of us like it. And now they have control, they do not pay well either."
Sancha was back, too; she spoke to her grandfather, in a low voice, in Spanish. He shrugged.
"Sancha is afraid of them," he said. "She thinks they may know you came here, and they may ...make trouble."
"Then we'd better leave," Martin said. "Adios, Don Jaime...."
"I have had Sancha make food for you, and put it in your bus," Don Jaime said. "I am ashamed ...it is not our custom to hasten a guest. But..."
"It's all right, pops, they ain't leaving yet."
It was the three from the road; one, their leader, stood in the doorway, casually holding a gun aimed at Don Jaime, while the other two came in behind him.
"We got a ride," the one holding the gun said, icy calm. "My name's Carl, hippy, in case you want to say hello. Meet Mack and Smitty, too." He smiled, displaying yellow teeth, and moved inside. "Now we're all introduced all around ...Mack, shut that door. Everybody keep real quiet, now."
We were all lined up, against the wall, and the one called Smitty sat casually on a bale watching us, his gun on his knee. Carl prowled through the place, poking and sniffing thoughtfully, while Mack sat and watched us, too.
Finally, Carl turned to look at Don Jaime.
"Listen, greaser," he said, quietly. "You held out on us. You said you weren't growing anything this month," Carl chuckled evilly. "Okay, pops. You got to learn, so we're here to learn you. You too, hippy." He stood, staring at us; then his eyes fell on the chicks, and he leered.
"Yeah," he said slowly, licking his lips. "Swinging chicks, yeah. You know, I got some plans for you. And these hamburgers you're with, too, I got plans. Okay, let's see what you got, hey." He gestured with thefun. "Strip down, you babes." When nobody moved, he lifted the gun. "You take it off, or else."
Judy, Gail, and Betsy began to undress, slowly and reluctantly. As the clothes came off, the hoods made appreciative comments.
"Dig them bumpers," Mack said, eyes on Judy's naked breasts. "Yeah, that's the stuff."
"Now, me, I like this little one." Carl said, staring at Gail, who was down to a pair of panties and nothing else. "Hey, you, I want to see it all. Beaver, baby. Off the pants, or..." He stopped, and uttered a low whistle, as Gail complied. "Now, there's a juicy little snatch, yes, sir. Yummy." He stared at her nude body, rubbing his chin.
"Hey, Carl, can we put the blocks to 'em?" Mack asked, his voice shaking a little with excitement. "How about this big one?" pointing to Judy.
"Nah, there's plenty of time." Carl said slowly. "I like letting their boyfriends watch them getting it. ...We got to make lessons out of this." He studied the old man. "like Don Jaime here. So he can pass the word, you know?"
He looked at Sancha, who was cowering near the old man, but still fully dressed. "You two guys, keep this bunch right up against the wall, especially pops. I'll hand the biggest problem. You, guapa, come here." He hooked a finger at Sancha, and when she would not move, he aimed at her grandfather. Reluctantly, she came closer.
"You know, those little Mex bitches start awful young," Carl said, stepping closer to Sancha and looking down at her. "Look at the tits, and I'll bet she's maybe fourteen." His hand shot out, and tore downward, a ripping movement; Sancha's blouse was torn open. She wore no bra; her breasts popped out, and she gasped in terror. Dom Jaime cried out, but one of them held the gun toward him.
"Can't find any Mex girl who's really cherry," Carl remarked. He slid an arm around the girl, and grabbed at her waist, yanking down the full skirt. "No panties either, how do you like that?"
Sancha struggled in the hard-muscled arm that held her, babbling in terror, nearly naked; Carl's hairy hands slid down her back, and he thrust between her legs suddenly, with an extended fingers. She squealed wildly, but Carl held her, pushing her back toward a pile of bales. He put his gun down, well out of reach; and unzipped his trousers, thrusting the writhing girl down on her back. Sancha, catching sight of his huge member, screamed, beating at him with her fists, while he tried to yank her flailing thighs apart. Don Jaime, his eyes crazy-looking, cursed at the men in Spanish, and rushed; but Mack slammed him casually on the side of his head with the butt of his gun, dropping the old man.
Carl, holding the struggling naked girl, glanced back, and saw Don Jaime unconscious on the floor.
"Shit, Mack, what did you do that for?" Carl asked, pausing. "The old boy's got to see it all. Wake him up, will you?" He knelt, pressing Sancha back with one arm, watching as Mack went for water. And then Gail made her move.
That girl had acting talent; she fooled me for the minute it took.
"Hey, man, that's a farout thing," she said in a husky voice, staring at Carl. He glanced toward her, looked slightly surprised.
"Hah?"
She moved a foot or two closer, swivelling her hips as she came wetting her lips with a darting pink tongue.
"You've got a great cock, Carl honey." she said, in a purr. "Listen, if us chicks are nice to you, maybe you'll treat us right. I don't care what you do with these bums. And I'll bet the others girls will play nice, too ...right?"
Judy was the first to catch on, while Betsy still stared, furiously.
"Gee, mister, that's right," Judy said, trying for seductive tones. But Gail's really sounded sincere. Carl, who probably thought a good deal of himself, didn't act surprised at a chick's suddenly coming over to his side. But pleased, you could see that.
"Well, now, what do you know about that..." he said. But Mack was already splashing water into Don Jaime's face, and the old man groaned, coming awake. Gail was almost at her goal, now. I could see she had something in her closed hand, something she must have managed to snatch out of her clothes-but I couldn't tell what.
"It's a BEAUTIFUL prick, man," she purred her left hand reaching toward him. "Hey, let me fool around a little ...you've lots to spare don't you, Carl baby? Mmmmm, what a farout thing!" She teased, with a finger, and he snickered foolishly, almost letting go of Sancha.
"Want a little French massage first, honee?" Gail said, bending closer. Her hands cupped, holding him, and her fingers tickled. This time he actually did let goof Sancha, who cowered helplessly back. Gail took hold, tighter; her right hand moved in.
The other two were watching, fascinated. Then, suddenly, Carl let out a wild shriek and stiffened, frozen where he stood. Gail, on her knees before him, stayed tensely. Her hands were still clutching his most precious possession.
"That's a razor blade, you prick," she said, in a calm, matter-of-fact, voice. "You breathe too hard, and you're going to sing soprano the rest of your life. Tell those other two not to shoot, man. I can cut as fast as they shoot."
"Carl, whatcha want us to..." Mack began. But Richie had leaped, a single bound that knocked the hood over, and a sweep of the hand to snatch his gun. The one called Smitty was still staring, as I made it up behind him. My arm went around his throat,-and held while I caught the gun hand with my other hand. I twisted, and heard the bone snap, just before he let go of his gun with a scream of pain.
"Don't you move, crumb," Gail hissed at Carl. I let go of Smitty, moved to Carl, yanked his trousers down around his ankle, and snatched up his fallen weapon.
Martin, kneeling beside Don Jaime, grinned up at us.
"You're too much," he said.
A little later, we had the three of them herded together in a corner. Richie, his eyes insane with hate, sat glaring at them with a gun in, each hand. The girl Sancha was dressed again, and our chicks were getting .dressed; and Don Jaime was shaking with his emotions, babbling in Spanish.
"Martin, let me do it," Richie said, in a cold voice. "This time, I got to."
There was a soft, insistent tap at the door, and we froze.
"It is not the police," Sancha said, in a shaky voice, buttoning her blouse.
"Psst," a voice came from outside. "Listen, Don Jaime. I have to tell you something...."
Sancha ran to the door, opened it to a glare of sunlight; dark figures stood there, silhouetted. Three men, two big women; they filed in, slowly, staring at the scene.
The women were plump, middle-aged and housewifely looking, but each of them carried a heavy machete, as the men did. The men wore serapes, and looked like villagers. They burst into rapid-fire Spanish, seeing the situation, and Sancha ran to one of the women, weeping.
As Sancha stammered out words in Spanish, the group fell silent. They stood, staring at the three in the corner, with a strange look. One of the women lifted her machete thoughtfully.
"I don't think they want us to be here," Martin said, in a tight voice. "Outside, everybody." We moved quickly into the sun, toward the bus.
I was real quiet, for about a minute, inside. Then there was a funny bubbling shriek, and then silence again.
"I think that old lady was Sancha's ma," I said. "She'd be pretty mad. Christ, did you see that machete?"
"Come on, get in," Richie said. "Let's split." He climbed into the driver's seat, face cold and set, and hit the starter.
Betsy, at the bus door; hesitated. "Hey, maybe we ought to find out what happened...."
"You don't want to know what happened," Judy told her, and got in.
We moved, rolling out and toward the mountains again, going fast. It was dead quiet in the bus, except for the engine sound. The sun was getting lower, now, and slanting across the road, a bright glare.
I remember sitting in the rear seat leaning back, staring at the mountains, and my head perfectly blank, like I'd wiped it clean. And then, Gail piping up. "Hey."
Nobody said anything, but she said it again. "Hey. Maybe ...maybe we ought to do something. To get it out. Make a scene, somewhere, find a party ...I don't know. Clear the vibrations up, hey."
She was right. That was what we ought to do, clear things up. Except I wasn't sure about how, not yet.
CHAPTER SIX
...Michael Riley's Story
Some of them have money, and some of them don't. That's the big difference, the only difference.
All that it means is that the ones with money can buy their way out when we nail them. But they're the same kind underneath. Dirt. Degenerates. They're my business, the stock in trade, you might say. People like me have to deal with this human garbage, so decent people can live in a respectable way. And we have to listen to a lot of weak-sister types yelping about police brutality, and crap like that, and we have to watch out for those special toes, the ones you can't step on. And the whole ball of wax, brother.
The Starr thing, now. It's my baby, from here on in, and I'm going to do what I have to do. But if you think I give a tinker's damn about the two broads and their stud you're wrong. Bitches like that get knocked off every day in the slums, and nobody gives a curse; frankly, the world can do without them.
But this one was hot. The husband for one thing. Not only did he have a good alibi, being in Europe at the time, but he had all sorts of connections. Carl Ravic, the great director. Shit, I'd seen a couple of his pictures, and they didn't even make sense.
I was there, on that houseboat, looking it over; there wasn't anything I'd be-likely to see that the regulars wouldn't have seen already, of course. But the D:A. wanted it to look right. And there was the other reason for being there. I hadn't counted on the reporters knowing it, though.
The report was clear, as far as it went. Somebody had come aboard, probably in the early evening; maybe nine or ten o'clock. The blonde was in the bedroom, probably screwing somebody. The somebody might be the slick-haired type, Iban, or maybe anybody else; it seemed she wasn't particular. The other broad, the art-gallery type, was probably outside, in the kitchen or the main room, and where Than was would be anybody's guess. The killing was pretty fast, but messy; a heavy knife, possibly a machete or a bayonet. Whoever did it would have had blood on himself ...or herself. And there wasn't any weapon around; we were checking the water, though. He might have been dumb enough to throw it right over.
Frank told me there were things missing, jewelry, a camera, and some other oddments-he wasn't sure what. He had a room, a mile or so away, in Sausalito, and he said he'd gone there right after finishing his work on the boat, six o'clock. So he hadn't been around to hear a thing.
I talked to Frank myself, because I could feel the heat coming on, and I didn't want to let it get onto him. It's what a brother's for, isn't it?
It's funny, me being five years younger than Frank, and I'm the one that looks out for him, after all. Sitting there in that room of his, bare, with nothing on the wall but a couple of holy pictures, not even a TV set, I told him that.
"You ought to have stayed in the department," I told him. "There's other jobs too; I could still fix it up, Frank."
He just looked at me, with that rock-hard Irish face, no expression at all.
"You know how I felt about it, Mike" he said. "Same thing. I can't take all the deals, the funny business. And the Starr woman paid pretty well. It's ...it was ...a job." He saw my look, and shook his head. "I don't bother much with owning things; I put it all in the bank. I'm okay, Mike."
"They might lean on you a little," I observed. "Ask a lot of questions."
"I know which ones I have to answer," he said.
"You might fill me in a little. I mean, off the record. I hear the blonde was a real swinger. Parties, pot ...how about that?" I chuckled. "Did you ever get a piece of that yourself?"
His mouth went into a hard straight line, and he looked at me, the hard way.
"Fornication," he said. "Damning the soul...."
"You're still like that, Frank," I remarked. "Sorry ...I forgot. If you'd gone into the priesthood...."
"You know I wasn't able to keep myself clean enough for that," he said, in that flat tone. "It wouldn't have been right."
No use arguing about that, I thought; nobody would win.
"Those orgies of hers," he went on. "I never stayed to see anything. It wasn't my job to worry about what an employer does, but I don't have to share sin, either."
"A tasty piece like that," I said. "I'd have taken the chance."
"I know who's responsible," he noted quietly.
"You do?"
"A young devil. A priest of Satan, you might say. He brought them a lot of filthy drugs, God knows what ...and for all I know, he could have killed them when he found out there was money around. With someone who has sold his soul, anything's like enough."
"Who is this guy?" I asked excitedly.
"His name is Martin Danton, and he's one of those hippies," Frank asserted, still as cold as ice. "He preaches something like Satanism, I think; he keeps three or four degraded women, and he..." Frank paused, frowning. "Yes. I can definitely say his truck was there that night."
"You saw it?"
He didn't answer for a minute; then he nodded.
...Cora's Story
That's the name I used, most of the time, Cora. There was this Greek chick, a goddess, I saw a statue of her. She was a virgin, too Isn't that a gas? I mean, me picking the name ...me!
My right name's on a couple of police blotters and hospital records, if anybody's interested. I'm not. I like Cora for a name, and I'm keeping it. The Johns, like it too, it has that imagine tone they go for. Most of them like to think they're screwing a genuine classy piece, a real society nookie, maybe with a college degree. Sure, I do it because I'm doing like sex research for my-degree, dig. Sure.
I didn't know about Than getting killed, not till a long time after it happened. That month, I wasn't reading the papers. I was in the booby hatch. The funny farm, that's the word. Treatment, ha-ha.
No, I wasn't really crazy, just a little ...uh, nervous. And I'm all right now, except for one or two things, once in awhile. I was all right then, too, actually, and I don't give a damn if anybody believes that or not. There are a lot of things people wouldn't believe, like what goes on in mental hospitals, especially when the patient's still got a good-looking body, even if her head isn't quite screwed on. Not all the attendants are Florence Nightingales, wow. like, there was this big nurse, built like a man ...could I tell a story or two, about what happens in the hydrotherapy tubs, yeah.
But it's a lot further back, most of it. That goofy kid, the motorcycle type ...oh, yes, Richie. That was his name. He just happened by, right when a lot of other things had happened, all at once, and I think he's got the idea it was his fault, about my flipping out. I got a nutty letter from him, but I never answered. It wouldn't work. Believe me, it wouldn't.
Because I think it all started before either of us was even born. It had to be a long time ago, because my world's been a mess since I can remember.
For one thing, I was one of those kids that looks sexy a long time before she knows what the hell it's all about. And what's worse, I was dumb, man, just plain dumb. I managed to keep up in school, but just barely; and having breasts and legs like that, even in Junior High, didn't help, and too many guys kept trying to throw me their ball; and naturally, I usually dropped it. I don't know whether I was lucky or not, but my old man was important in that town, a respectable citizen ...like the ones who turn up around me these days, with their tongues hanging out, they're respectable too, baby.
But the fact of my old man being a wheel, that used to keep the studs from trying the ultimate argument with a chick who won't put out. like rape. We used to have rapes happening around my home town, oh my yes. Especially to chicks who let things go along until the stud was reaching around inside her panties and then, "Oh no, Charlie, that's far enough!" Once in a while, poor Charlie just couldn't stop, and he'd climb on regardless of the yelling and screaming. But with me, they always remembered my old man, and if that didn't cool them off, they'd think about my brother Dan, who was in the army, but due back shortly. He was big and mean and tough, Dan was.
That was how I made it all the way up to sixteen years old still cherry. And stacked, and ignorant. I read movie magazines, and stared into a mirror, and tried to figure out how to get Gorgeous Me into television, in a hurry.
And I got very odd feelings sometimes, but being dumb, I didn't even know chicks got those feelings, so I didn't do a thing about them.
And that was the year Dan came back, after being gone for four years. He was big and red-headed like me, and he turned a lot of chicks on just walking down the street the day he got back from the army.
A few days being home showed me Dan was different now, all right. He had a lot of scars, on him and inside him, and a look in his eyes that was like some kind of animal in the zoo. He walked too quietly, too, and he acted funny, especially around me.
We lived in a big, old house, out on the edge of town, and usually the place was full of relatives coming and going, as well as. my old man, and his second wife, my stepmother. Dan moved in too, of course, back in his old room. He took down all the crud that was in the room, the kid things like trophies and stuff hanging on the walls, and he made that room look about as much an Army barracks as I ever saw. All bare, and empty looking, nothing but the bed, and that made up as tight as a drum. It was odd, and maybe I should have wondered what made him do that. But I wasn't that smart. I was crazy about him, when I was a little kid; the way girls get, about big brothers. Now he just scared me a little.
Then that Sunday everybody just happened to be out of the place except the two of us, Dan and me. The whole house was empty, for the first time in I don't know how long; my old man and his wife off on a drive, the other relatives all gone to some church social thing.
I came back from church, around eleven in the morning. It's true, I went to church in those days. It was what you did, you know.
I didn't know Dan was in the house. My head was full of a couple of dozen things, nothing important. I was all dressed up, because of church, and I simply ran up to my room, yanked off my dress and hung it up, and turned on the phonograph: I put on a record I liked, something loud; and still wearing just my slip, I flopped down on my belly on the bed, and started turning over the pages of a teenage magazine, looking for an ad I wanted. It was something about a mail-order model course, I think. It doesn't matter what it was any more. And then my door slammed open, and Dan's voice growled at me: "That goddam racket, kid! What the hell is this?"
I ran to turn off the record player, and then, as I did it, I saw Dan looking at me, and I realized I was only wearing a shortie slip.,I backed up slowly, blushing, and sat down on the bed. But Dan didn't leave. He stayed leaning against the door frame, looking at me. I'd never seen him look that way before. It made me feel hot and a little dizzy.
"Dan, I'm not dressed," I said.
"So what?" He walked into the room, and stood looking around. After a minute, he said, harshly, "You aren't the first broad I've seen in her shimmy, kid."
He stayed, moving slowly around the room, staring at various things like a man shopping, who can't make up his mind what he wants to buy. And he kept on talking, in a low, grating voice, as he moved around; not paying much attention to any answers I had.
"All this junk in the room," he said, staring at things on the wall, pictures and such. "You ...you're like everybody else in this manhole town. Slobs and creeps. Damned bitches that want to get married, pop yammering about a job for me. All any of them want is to sink in. the shit up to their armpits and take root."
He stared at me, and that look was hotter now.
"I should have stayed in the army," he said. "No shortage of cunt, even if it was gook cunt." He saw my expression, and laughed, a barking sound. "You want me to think you never heard those words, kid?"
I just sat there looking wide-eyed and scared. He stared at me.
"You aren't cherry, you little bitch," he said. "Think I don't remember how it was in high school? I banged every snatch in the senior class. Same ones that turn up their noses nowadays. There aren't any virgins in this part of the country.
I was really looking panicky now, and he seemed to relent a bit, looking at me.
"Ah, don't look so much like a scared rabbit," he said. He pulled a bottle from his pants pocket, and opened it, taking a long pull. Lowering it, he held it out to me.
"You drink too, don't tell me you don't."
"Oh wow," I said, swaying where I sat. "Uh, Dan ...that's enough. Here."
He took another, before he put the bottle down on my bureau. Wiping his mouth, he laughed again.
"Yah. I know when I look at a chick. I know whether she does or doesn't. You got the shape, you can't kid me, not your own brother. Your smart brother, who had to,come home and find out what he was fighting for in the fucking swamps"
"Does or doesn't what?" I asked, my head a little fuzzy from the liquor. "What ...what are you talking about?"
He stared at me, hard-eyed, grinning fiercely. "You're all alike. All of you. But I'll tell you something, sis, the gook broads fuck better. Lots better."
I swayed a little where I sat. "Danny ...get out, please. Pop might come back. The way you're talking..."
"You don't like talking, hah?" he said, moving toward me. The smell of bourbon got strong, and I realized he'd probably had a lot. He stood over me, grinning evilly, and grabbed a handful of my red hair, pulling back my head. "Maybe action's better'n talk, hah?"
His mouth crushed down on mine, and I got dizzier. I hardly realized that I was actually responding to the kiss; I'd been kissed before, after all. It was reflex; before I could stop myself. Then suddenly, he pulled his mouth away, his eyes lit with a red spark.
"Figured you knew something..." he said, his voice blurred with lust. "Lessee how much more you know...." His big hands caught at my slip, tearing. He ripped it away as I fell. backward, and knelt over me, staring down at me, in my bra and pants. I shoved at his chest with both hands, but it was like trying to stop a tank.
"Dan, you're crazy, I'm your sister.. . . "
"Crap," he said, and clawed at my bra; it gave way, and he stared at my adolescent breasts, panting. "Aagh," he said, grasping one of them and squeezing it hard. I gasped, and then his hands moved down, unbuckling his heavy belt. I heard his shoes clunk on the floor. And he was kneeling on the bed again, naked, his eyes burning, and his breath whistling in his throat, coming toward me.
It was the first time I'd ever actually seen a male cock. Cross my heart, that's the truth. And Dan's was fully erect, standing out in front of him, like a club, huge and hot and thick. I just stared, frozen, as he leaned closer.
"Yuh ...you want to ...waste all this some place else, keep in the family, hah..." he rasped, and clawed at my panties. Now, I went into a real panic, kicking and twisting, but it did no good; he had them down before I could get enough breath to scream. He was making crazy noises, deep in his throat, like an animal; he clutched at my legs, pulling them wide apart, and drove himself hard, straight in.
For a minute it hurt like hell, just the way it was supposed to. I was scared out of my senses, crushed flat under his weight, spread out and pinned by that huge thing that seemed to be filling up my whole body, as if it were getting bigger inside me. But maybe the drink of bourbon lowered my inhibitions, or what ...I don't know. Adolescent glands, maybe . whatever it was, my flesh was doing things without my saying anything about it. My body liked it, a lot too much. I was clutching at Dan's shoulders, my mouth hanging open as I gasped for air, my hips shoving up against him as he rammed again and again. Suddenly he made a wild grunting noise, and his mouth clamped down on one of my breasts, as he gasped, his hips heaving.
But I wasn't satisfied; I clawed at him, urging him to do it again, clutching for more. And I got more then, and later.
That was how it started. It happened again, and a third time, in the next few days; I wanted it, and I knew where to get it, now. If it had gone on, though, we'd have been caught sooner or later. Maybe it was all right the way it did happen.
It was really so damn stupid, the way it happened. But simple. I just got the idea I was pregnant ...which I wasn't, not at all ...and I went into panic, and ran. away. Just the same as maybe a couple of thousand other dumb chicks do, every day, right?
I never went back, never tried to find out what happened; I was out, man, and free. About as free as any seventeen-year-old chick with no money. I thought I knew all about sex, too; and that was a really big joke. Because I didn't really know a goddamned thing.
There was a middle-age dude on the bus, and a night in a hotel; and that was the first cash I earned in the big city. It was the first time I really dug into the fact that men would pay for it, too.
I hadn't any intention of trying to make it that way, of course; I tried getting a job, and a couple times I had one. But what kind of job does a seventeen-year-old, without the right ID, get? Yes, that's right. Then, there were a couple of share-the-pad deals for awhile, once with a middle-aged writer, and for a few weeks with a couple of young dropouts like myself, but male. I started using the name Cora then.
But I couldn't take the poverty scene. I wasn't brought up that way. The thing I wanted was bread, loot; I wanted Things. And I was beginning to find out that all the heaving and panting around, the whole sex bit ...well, it meant a lot more to the men than it did to me. I never seemed to ...get with it, somehow. In other words, I was about ripe to get into the thing for money.
However I happened to meet Burt doesn't really matter; he knew right away when he had a live one. He gave me quite a line of guff about films and art, and all the old movie-fan-magazine crap simply bubbled right up inside me. I was hooked, landed, and in the pan, in minutes. Wow, me, in the movies, what do you know about that?
Burt picked me up the next day, and drove me out to a motel, just on the edge of the city. It had a lot of advantages, he told me, as we drove. He knew the owner, so there wasn't any problem there; and it could supply a lot of room settings, even a swimming pool, which wasn't used by the guests very often. It was one of Burt's favorite spots for movie making.
I giggled at him. "Oh, come ON, buster, all I want is my name up in lights. And the cash, too, sweetie, don't forget-that." We came into the main room, where there were several people already waiting; I stopped, looking them over while Burt made introductions. There was a pimply kid with the cameras, a jowly cat with a cigar, and a tall good-looking one, dressed flashily, with a mustache. That was Seymore Iban.
There were two girls, too; Linda and Celeste, according to Burt, a plumpish young blonde, and a Spanish-looking dark girl in her twenties. They were fully dressed, and perfectly relaxed; I guessed that they had been in this sort of thing before. Me, I was a little shaky. I'd never done it in front of people, till then, like a show.
Burt got busy with drinks for everybody, and the big producer smile bit; the pimply kid started setting up lights and fooling with his camera. Than sat there, quietly smoking, giving me a special eye, while Burt ran through what passed for a story line. There wasn't much of that, of course; Burt's customers don't worry about the movie having a plot.
"...and Cora here is going to lead in this one," Burt was saying. "Hope you two aren't going to be jealous." He grinned at Linda and Celeste, who stared right back at him.
"Not as long as we get paid, Burtie baby," Celeste, the dark one, spoke up. "No freebies, dig." She glanced at me. "Watch out for Burt, he-likes to sample the merchandise."
"He tried," I told her. "I look dumb, but I'm not that dumb."
Everybody laughed, including Burt, though his was a little strained. "Okay darlings," he said, getting up. "Now we aren't MGM, so we don't waste film. We get this shot real quick, and everybody collects, okay? Cora, doll, you and the girls start things, the way I told you ...slow, tease them a bit. The Lesbian stuff, and then Seymore goes to work. Warm up a bit, then we'll get the camera going."
There was a lot of giggling and fooling around, while the three of us girls started getting the set-up arranged. I was supposed to play an unwilling novice, and they were being experienced dyke types; and pretty soon I started to suspect the blonde one wasn't just acting, from the way her fingers roved around under my blouse and all. We were all still dressed; we set things up on a big bed, and the cameraman got the range quickly.
"About ready here, Mr. Burt," he said.
"Okay," Burt snapped, watching critically. "Hey, you know I never did ask you if you really dig the Lez bit, Cora. Because if not, just try to look kind of pleased anyway, around the last part, right?"
The blonde, Linda, was wiggling her fingers against my belly, under my belt, and I could hardly talk for giggles.
"Don't KNOW, Christ, stop a minute, Linda..." I said. "I mean, I don't know if I do or not, I ...eeh ! ...never tried."
The next thing I knew, we were all In the Movies, the camera was whirring, with Pimples peering out with his eyes rolling a lot, digging it. Burt nearly swallowed his cigar, watching, and I could see that Than was smiling, wickedly, as he studied the scene.
Because one thing was damn certain, we were all pouring it on, all the stops pulled out. It was pretty hard to remember Burt's telling us to go slow and tease the audience, because we were all feeling a special something that day.
Celeste was holding me down, at one point, While Linda started undressing me, as I kicked and writhed around, being resistant. Every so often she'd stop working at the undressing to gobble around, nibbling on me everywhere; she was nearly bare herself by that time, and Celeste was too. Then Linda got me down to the skin, and really went to work, diving down with a tongue that felt like nothing I'd ever experienced before. I Mean NOTHING. Every time her wet, hot tongue slid into my crack and hit me, I went right up off the best, squealing like crazy. Celeste wasn't missing any of the action, either, working around up top, and dividing herself between nibbling my boobs and fingerwork on Linda.
I caught a fleeting glimpse of the camera kid, and he looked as if he might fall over, just watching. The action was wailing along at a great rate, till we were all pretty winded, especially Linda.
"Wowee!" It was Burt, his face actually red. "That's going to be the GREATEST scene ...Jeez, Cora, if you do as well as that in the next shot, I ...I'll give you a bonus." He was really turned on, I thought, if he was giving away money.' I grinned at him, panting, and pushed back my damp hair.
"How much of a bonus?" I asked.
Iban, next to the camera, laughed. "Now there's a smart one," he said, quietly. "Hey, doll, I dig you."
"It's in the script," I said. "You're supposed to."
"Mmmmm," he purred lazily, but he was studying me, I could tell. It felt the way a rabbit must feel, in there with a king snake ...but I liked it.
He came on to where I waited, and we fooled around, warming up as Burt put it. Then, he grinned at me, moving in a little closer, his mouth against my ear, while his hands moved around exploring.
"I got your number, sweetheart," he murmured in my ear. "You were cool. Those games didn't really ring your chimes, did they?" And suddenly he thrust a finger right up, into my rear end. It hurt, but it did something; I felt as if somebody had turned on the lights inside, for a second. I let out a wild yelp.
"Yi ! Don't DO that!"
He grinned at me, and I saw a funny look in his eyes. His hands clamped around my waist, bending me back against the pillows.
"I'm going to give you something you never had before, doll," he murmured, so only I could hear him; then, louder, he spoke to Burt. "Let's go, Burt, we're really going to swing this one."
Then before I could open my mouth, he was out of his clothes and starting to work.
You've got to give it to that bastard. He was an artist, in that line. He did things I couldn't believe; he used every nerve in my body, and just with his fingers and teeth, he started running me up and up, all the way, like I'd never had it done before. He HURT, I mean ...but the way he did it, oh God, I mean, he'd found out ...about me, and being hurt a little. And he used it, till I was rolling around and babbling, and he still hadn't gone the rest of the way.
And all the while, he was ...gee, I don't know what to call it. Scientific, I guess. Impersonal. He was having fun, all right, but I wasn't like another human being to him, just some sort of instrument that happened to be made out of live, screaming, female meat. I just flashed on that, staring up at his face and listening to my own voice gasping in a crazing way, begging for more, while he grinned down at me with a devilish expression.
Then, just as he got me all the way to the top of the roller coaster, with the cameraman in such a state that he could hardly keep his mind on his camera, and Burt starting to wheeze like a steam engine ...just as I was really sailing, way up and out, Iban's hands grabbed my knees, flipping me over on my face; he circled my waist, lifted, and suddenly I felt something really new.
He sank his tool all the way in, through the tradesmen's entrance instead of the front door, pushing it right in, slow and hard,, while I squealed and squealed. Maybe what was really bothering me most was the fact that I liked it. I went over the top, and all the way down the roller coaster, yelling all the way, while Iban chuckled, ramming deep.
The bonus. Yes, Burt gave it to me, a lot later, when I finally got dressed. It was quite awhile after the others had already left; I wasn't ready to run around as soon as they were, I can tell you. Burt's expression was really zonked out, as he wrote out a check for me.
"The cameraman passed out, did you know that, Cora?" Burt said, in an awed voice, staring at me. "I mean he actually sat down on the floor and went out, for a couple of minutes. What a performance, baby!" He passed over the check. "Uh ...you wouldn't care to drop over for a drink, later..."
I giggled at him a little shakily, but with the old zing still there.
"I don't want to spoil 'the beautiful thing we've got together, Burt," I told him. "like, money. G'bye, see you in the movies."
I've always wished I could have kept a print of that film. I want to find something; just how Than did it. Whatever it was. Actually, I never even saw the movie, can you beat it?
But all of a sudden Than had me. I wasn't in love with that rat, not at all. I didn't even really like him much. But somehow he knew where my buttons were; he could turn me on all the way, any time he wanted to. In the next couple of weeks he did, more than once. Bit by bit, he got me into a condition I can't explain, a sort of trance. I would wake up only during the moments when he had me spread out, pinned and wriggling like a maniac, in a tortured ecstasy, hating him and loving what he was doing to me, all at once.
In that time, I made a couple more of Burt's porno movies, just as bad or worse. And Than somehow latched onto the money, or most of it; I never even noticed where it was going. Then he set me up, making more for him. It was all too easy. He sent over the customers, and took care of the details, like money.
I wasn't the only one; he was building up a regular stable, each one different, but all of us hooked, in some way or other. But then, he stopped turned up as often as he had, and I started trying for something to fill the gap. You know, a hobby for those long evenings. like maybe needlework. It was needlework, with a Number 22 needle and a stash of smack, popularly known as heroin. Kindly supplied at a bargain by Seymore himself, one of his sidelines.
Oh, I was careful. I kept it as down as I could, and don't let any junkie tell you it isn't possible to hold down a habit, because it is. I was stoned, a lot of the time, but not really strung out. And I kept the needle marks where they wouldn't damage the goods, not an easy thing to do, either. I took sunlamp treatments, so the Johns could get that big thrill of seeing an all-over tan.
But then, that skinny one happened to me, that damned Richie. And I found out I could get turned on by somebody who wasn't like Than at all. I found out I was still female, damn it.
And I found out I couldn't make it with the next John. The poor bastard had his pants down, ready for business, when I suddenly closed down the store, right in his face; told him to go home and wait around outside the high school, get himself a nice little-chick, and screw the hell out of her. But not me, because I wasn't in the mood.
In my business, you can't afford moods. It went pretty fast, from there on. Seymore cut off everything, his stud service, his dope, and the telephone. And I found out I was a little more hooked on smack than I'd suspected, because I ended up screaming all the way to the hospital, in an ambulance.
Then, after awhile, I got out again, and found a newspaper, and there it all was. Seymore, and a couple of jet-set broads, all three of them dead in a imagine houseboat, all cut up like salami, a couple of months before. The police were checking associates, it said, and a cold chill ran up my spine. I was in that little black book of his, I knew that.
The story got worse. Some hippy chick had confessed to participating in the murders, according to the police; a second party had been arrested, and there were going to be more taken in. But the second party's picture was there, looking out of the paper at me.
Richie.
I didn't have any real feelings left; all I had was fright. I wanted nothing to do with the whole thing. I didn't care what happened, as long as I didn't end up in a cell; I'd had enough of that.
So, I went, as far and fast as I could. The farthest away from the West Coast, New York, naturally. They've got everything a girl needs, here in New York, conventions, answering services, the same Johns they have back in California, just a bit sharper and tighter. And I've got all the equipment, the body. They buy it; they don't really notice whether I'm at home in it or not, as long as they can grapple that luscious meat. I haven't got one or two things, like Iban, for instance, or a heavy habit on drugs; but those I can do without.
No, I don't care what happens to Richie, I really don't. I said I was dumb, but not so dumb that I want to get any more problems. I didn't want anybody to turn up my burners, thanks. I'm all right.
But I read the papers every day, following the West Coast news. Every goddamned day....
And it all came out in the end. Richie was the one most responsible for the horror, of course. And I knew why. Me. The other poor kids were just unlucky enough to be there, probably high, when Richie got his revenge on Iban. Why revenge? Me again. I guess.
I guess Richie really, loved me. Me? I love nobody. Take this nitwit named "Jimmy" that just left my bed. He'll probably tell himself he's fallen in love with me too. Fuck him. Just another John. Can I help it if I'm such a good lay?
Well, at least I can feel safe as far as Richie is concerned. He and his freakish friends all drew life sentences. And he told me once how they were going to buy a ranch up in the mountains, a Garden of Eden, he called it. And wouldn't I like to follow him to the good life? Well, they all got their "ranch." Only it's not in the mountains. It's in San Francisco Bay. And they all have separate "rooms." Ha! Fuck 'em.
