The problem of illegitimacy has received a vigorous pull which has transformed its former status of "forbidden topic," bringing it to the highlights of public attention. With this move into the open air of the free discussion, during the last few years this complex question has undergone a profound transformation. The public has recently found new avenues of approach in their choice of manners by which they could tackle a final solution. For, even though many argue that the results we see presented in front of our eyes by the modern investigators do not admit comparison because in times before there were few, if any, reliable statistical figures on the topic, and we cannot compare the accurate with the unreliable.
However, despite all these arguments, it is the opinion of the majority that during the last years illegitimacy has been on the rise in America. And it has been so quite steadily for an extended span of time.
Although we are in the beginning of our work, we must give credit to this generation for one basic -and gigantic-step forward: the having eliminated the curtain of taboo that for centuries was placed in front of illegitimacy-as well as practically all other problems of the sort-by the recalcitrant atmosphere of Victorian hypocrisy.
Authorities have stated that during the, last decade the rise of illegitimacy has risen by an estimated 200 per cent! An increase of such alarming proportions concerning a problem which affects so deeply the lives of our population, upsetting the structure of the family, which is the very base of the American society, and jeopardizes the future welfare of so many children which are the inevitable toll of this socio-cultural disturbance undoubtedly deserves our very best attention to make us probe deep into the matter, as well as the unconditional commitment of good will and understanding to analyze the results and deal with the facts available in order to give an accurate, functional, practical and humane solution to put an end to this constant source of sorrow that touches so many lives, so often and in such grievous way.
Even though much less than before, in our present times children horn out of wedlock are still handicapped in their lives by their social status. And this is, in our opinion, something conflictive with our American ideal of equality for every human being at birth.
Since two different individuals-a man and a woman-are necessary to create another human being, Whether with or without the benefit of clergy, it is only logical to consider that the company, the care and the protection of both father and mother are the least rights to which any human being is entitled.
From an emotional point of view, a child should feel the sense of security generated from the monolithic block of the social and legal union of his parents in marriage; and this being established as such prior to his arrival into this world and into their lives. The solid sense of security that this gives to a child can be translated into many aspects of his personality; and, by the same token, the wounds inflicted in his emotional self by the lack of these supporting foundations in his life can be found profoundly etched within the child for whom this basic element was missing.
It is true that quite often this emotional support breaks apart and disappears from the child's life, either by death or divorce of the parents. Frequently, children face the vanishing of this essential security very early in their lives. However, children of divorced parents still have the consolation derived from the fact that marriage did exist at the time of their birth, or at least, of their conception.
The very and simple fact of this difference gives the child enough grounds to consider that his arrival was welcomed-or at least expected-by his parents. The illegitimate one, on the contrary, has all the reasons in the world to believe that he was indeed unwanted. For many, the bitterness of this fact is an important contributing factor to shape up his personality. But the damage doesn't even end there.
Quite often, the child born out of wedlock never knows his father's identity. Frequently, not even his mother can be certain as to who was really the man who begot the child. Even in those cases where there are no doubts possible regarding paternity there are not many chances that the child can count with his father's presence along his future life. It has been said that while motherhood is a biological matter, fatherhood is a social one. This phrase, barring the obvious errors of reproductory biology, and not taking it in the axiomatic way that for so long has brought so many, and so cruel misunderstandings, indeed carries an element of reality in its brutal and ironic contents. A woman is always sure of her participation in the bringing to this world of a human being. She carries the living evidence of her own fruitfulness within herself and throughout the entire process with which she is so directly involved, she finds herself at least inclined to feel concerned about the fate of a child whom for so long a while she physically felt dwelling within herself.
However, paternity presents an entirely different face as far as the man is concerned. For him, the biological event does not involve his being so directly. If for a woman a child is born after a physical process in which her body undergoes visible transformations to befit the part it takes in the process of creation, for a man a child is born to him from an act he performs on countless occasions throughout his life. An act he comes to regard as a common, even if indeed pleasurable routine of his biological processes of living. The frequency eliminates all traces of transcendence for a man regarding the sexual act.
While maternity is an undisputable fact for women, such appalling proof of relationship are not available to men, and the immense majority tend to recoil from such unexpected and often utterly unwanted responsibilities. Many choose the easiest way out of the problem, whichever that way may be. It is mainly the social reality of marriage, with its unavoidable implications of roles and duties the moderating element which helps a man to set himself in order and accept the truth of paternity.
So, it is common to see that the illegitimate child is deprived not only of his father's presence-with all the implied consequences of this but also of his financial support, having to rely mainly-and often solely-upon his mother, whose capacity to earn an income is: first, impaired by the burden of pregnancy during sometime and: secondly, handicapped by the presence of the child himself, whose life necessities demand her care and attentions.
Moreover, it is not rare to find that the social implications of illegitimacy have deeply scarred the mother's personality, and often it happens that the mother's emotions toward the unwanted child are so tainted with bitterness that she is unable to supply her offspring with much concerning human understanding.
The woman's position under this set of embarrassing circumstances is far from being an easy, nor a pleasant one. Facing a situation which is condemned by the immense majority-most possibly including her own parents and friends-as something shameful liable to brand her for life as a rather immoral person, and unable to hide for long the visible evidence of her actions, she is forced to seek help-if not much understanding-from a world which has proven to be utterly hostile to her.
Unable to avoid the necessity for help due to the physical impairment which is the temporary effect of pregnancy, as a rule she finds her whole life ruined without much hope for the future.
Sometimes the harm reaches the bachelor father and even the lives of the relatives of both parties involved are touched and injured by the unfortunate event.
But, if so much harm can be expected and so little gratification is obtained, how is it, then, that otherwise enlightened people do not seem to gather experience from the scene presented all around them but, on the contrary, have proven to be increasingly more and more ready to commit the same mistake which has brought so much heartbreaks to others all the time? This question is undoubtedly together with the one which has been asked over and over by all those who wish to take a step to end or, at least, to alleviate the problem: which are the causes of illegitimacy in America?
This question, as all those which deal with problems concerning human behavior-and human emotions behind a certain scope of activity-does not have an easy answer. The facts are there, available and abundant, to the investigator. The patterns followed by the individuals studied have been classified and labeled. Yet, only one thing seems to come forth with bold characters spelling its reality: there are many answers to the same question; therefore, none of them is the final one, nor can we ever find a final one. Those who advocate this as the only possible conclusion believe that the only help that can be offered to those involved is to create institutions throughout the country, aimed to give help and understanding to the unwed mother, providing her with food and shelter during her months of pregnancy when she is unable to earn her own living, as well as medical attention up to the moment of delivery and the preliminary pediatric care for the newly born child. These institutions often operate a sort of adoption agency through which the baby is put up for adoption if his mother feels she doesn't wish, to keep him, or is unable to do so due to her financial situation.
Undoubtedly, these institutions have done a tremendous service in helping many unfortunate women who, for one reason or another, have found themselves caught in the terrible situation of being pregnant and unmarried. The help of either the father of the child and their own parents have been either denied or unavailable to them. So, these women have found an incalculable help when they have needed it most through these charitable institutions.
The mere existence of places such as these homes for unmarried mothers has contributed to a great extent in curbing further incidents of any serious nature, such as suicide or self-induced abortions with their enormous risk of a fatal result-by giving them a readily available solution to their troubles.
Nevertheless, this cannot be considered as an ultimate solution, since it only serves to alleviate the problem but does not cure it. Although we do agree that such institutions are indeed necessary and sincerely praise their efforts and achievements, we cannot but feel that this is not everything, and that the search for a true solution has not yet ended. And we believe this is so because We are duly aware of the fact that-although the homes are available to all who need them-only a small percentage of girls who go through the problem of pregnancy without the benefit of marriage look for a solution through these institutions.
It has been stated that the trouble lies in that we don't dispose of enough institutions centers or of homes which offer these services, and so, the solution, lies in building and organizing more of them. In our opinion, it is true, but it is not everything. There is still a considerable amount of heartbreak motivated by a situation of unwanted pregnancy. The purpose of this book is, precisely, to bring forth the facts and to propose a solution-or many solutions-to it.
During the months of strenuous work of research and investigations, in which we went through the task of examining the laws that in our country rule the destinies of illegitimate children as well as those which rule the different activities by which the different people involved try to give an adequate solution to their problem we found many statutes and regulations which, in our opinion, reflect the social myopia of times already gone by. Some of these mistaken conceptions have even contributed to the rise of illegitimacy.
However, the law of a land undoubtedly reflects the opinion of most of its people, and statutes and regulations are drawn and drafted precisely to enforce the patterns of behavior which are considered best by the majority. Therefore, there is a lot of transformation still to be promoted in the field of public opinion, and this is precisely the ultimate aim of this volume.
In order to form an idea of what the different opinions may be on the same subject, we interviewed many people of different strata of society, of all ages and religious beliefs. Some of their answers were reasonable and involved practical solutions; others implied a compromise between the old ways and the modern ideas; still others were so radical that to follow their proposed solutions would implied changes so drastic that the whole structure of society would have to undergo revision. Not all of them proposed practical solutions, nor were they all understanding nor in the least broad-minded. Nevertheless, the amount and diversity of opinions with which we availed ourselves in the preparation of this book undoubtedly helped us immensely by giving us a better insight of the status quo regarding the problem of illegitimacy. And also to arrive to a conclusion as to what is really needed in terms of a functional solution.
For reasons of space, we will not transcribe here all what we have heard about the subject. Some of the opinions brought forth in our investigations were based on widely known standards, and wouldn't say anything new to our readers, others are so impractical that to carry them out would mean to bring a greater problem while wanting to wipe out a lesser one. As an example of some of these curious opinions we will mention that of a young man we interviewed in San Francisco, who seemed to be delighted with our questioning him, since he thought to possess the ultimate solution (most people do regarding anything!) And this cure for all evils was nothing less than to abolish marriage altogether. Thereby, society would have gotten rid, in this young man's opinion, of illegitimacy, plus many other problems. Free love was the solution he advocated for all problems. It was reassuring to see how his ideas were not shared by the majority.
Impractical as well was the solution proposed by a middle-aged bigot who seemed to be the image of religious bigotry. Upon our questioning he became utterly emotional and in a voice tainted with! angry excitement he uttered: too much freedom! These kids have too much freedom and what they have to abolish is promiscuity!
If we analyze the various solutions that throughout the ages people have given to the problem whenever they have been forced to face it, we see that these are not so many, and they have been considered solutions ages ago in the same manner as they are today. Furthermore, no matter how these solutions may have been regarded by society, they have been used over and over again in regards to this problem.
First, women of all ages have done the impossible to avoid pregnancy to occur, ever since it was discovered that the sexual act had something to do with the condition of pregnancy. All sorts of contraceptive devices have been invented and put to use with different results altogether. Only in our days women have available a contraceptive device which is both safe to them and also gives them a good margin of results in doing its job of curbing pregnancy.
Nevertheless, there is still a bitter controversy around the subject of women's right to prevent conception. The press still spreads around superstitious ideas of a metaphysical nature scaring women off the idea of using any of the contraceptive methods available.
Second, there is the solution given once that pregnancy does exist, to end it prior to childbirth, thus preventing the development of the fetus into a born child. What we are referring to, of course, is abortion. The validity of the arguments presented either in favor or against abortion as a solution to any unwanted pregnancy is a matter of different points of view. As in any debate concerning such a problem, the arguments set forth are countless and differing in nature one from the other.
Finally, if no contraceptive device, is used, nor the condition of pregnancy is ended in abortion, what is the position of the child born out of wedlock concerning his status as a member of society? Would he have all the rights and the equality under the law granted to all our citizens according to the Constitution? Some say he does and some say he doesn't.
In the last chapter of this book we present these three aspects of the question in as many details as the space and purpose of the book permits us to do. We give facts and opinions, but both are clearly separated so there would foe no doubt in the minds of our readers as to which is which. After all, it is the reader's opinion the one which-in this case -ultimately counts.
In order to prepare the reader's mind to be able to work with the facts and form an opinion as to what should be done, and also to explain why we set forth our own opinions, we present a series of case histories which in our belief illustrate the matter in an excellent manner, giving a quite clear idea of all the aspects of the question.
Here is the book, the result of a long and thorough research. Here are the facts and the reasons of our subsequent suggestions.
THE NON-VIRGIN CLUB MEMBER
Nancy flung back the sheet from off her bare body and jumped out of bed. As she did so she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the full length mirror on the door leading to her bathroom.
For a moment, the young girl watched herself in the mirror. She saw a trim, well-proportioned figure with pert bouncing breasts enhanced by the tiny rosebud nipple in the center of each milky mound. Her slim body was totally tanned except for two miniature triangle areas which had probably been covered by a tiny bikini. Her legs were long and shapely and the area below her stomach shaded down to the mysterious shrubbery that surrounded and concealed her femininity.
Nancy spread her legs now so that this part of her body was more apparent and she fondled the area with increased interest. For a moment, her fingers again caressed this tender flesh and she felt pleasurable sensations go shooting through her whole being. But her senses also told her that this kind of self-manipulation would not be enough for her young and eager body.
A shadow crossed Nancy's lovely oval face as she headed toward her bathroom. She remembered how when still in Plessville, the perspective of a weekend was always pleasant and full of events. Then, she had lots of friends ready and eager for entertainment at the distance of a phone call. Her thoughts centered around Mickey, her last boy-friend during the last few months she had spent in her home town of Plessville. Mickey, she reflected to herself, was exactly what she needed right now. Mickey with his strong lean body and his athletic arms which knew so well how to bat a ball as how to hold a girl and make her happy.
Nancy sat down thoughtfully at the edge of the bathtub. She had locked the door so that no one would disturb her, in case someone would have wanted to see her a Saturday at ten in the morning, which was not very likely. Since her father had prospered so well in his business that they had moved to this fashionable neighborhood in the new city in Florida, her parents had changed a lot, Nancy reflected. They no longer babied her or talked with her like they used to in the more modest house they had in Plessville. Now, there was never time for Nancy. Daddy had his eternal golf and Mom had discovered the attractions of bridge, and Nancy didn't fit in neither green surface of a golf course or a bridge table. To make matters worse, they had moved too soon for her, just before she started her senior year at the high school where she'd been during her whole life and where she was rather popular among the student body.
This new school in the new city of Palmville was much more fashionable than the old one. It was located in the same elegant suburban sector where Daddy had bought this new and beautiful home with rooms for everybody including guests. Nancy Romney reflected that she preferred by far her old room with all the posters of her favorite stars pasted on the walls rather than this enormous, cold room furnished in Danish style, probably as cold a style as the climate must be over there in Denmark. Here, Nancy wasn't allowed any of the light disorder which makes one feel at home. She had the feeling of being boarding in her own house, and at seventeen, things like that are very important.
The school was still the worst part of the picture for Nancy Romney. She had been accustomed to consider herself as a lovely girl in her early teens, which she indeed was, with her wide green eyes and beautiful features, her pert slightly upturned little nose, her pouting mouth, and her ash-blond hair tamed into a youthful pony-tail which made her look somewhat younger than what she really was. Nancy thought this youthful aspect of hers was perhaps the reason why most of her classmates at the new High-School weren't exactly friendly with her. The students, even her own classmates, would be with her polite, but cold and didn't seem to establish any friendly grounds with her. Nancy felt all the time as though she had bad breath, although her perfect white teeth couldn't be more healthy especially after so many unsuccessful Check-ups with the dentist.
Nancy resented that loneliness. She yearned to go on dates again and to enjoy the company of a male. Nancy didn't pretend to be any white dove, but she was still a virgin although she had indulged in a certain amount of necking and petting with boys from her former school. Her heart sank when she thought of the pleasant evenings she spent with Mickey in his old run-down car, at any drive-in movie or simply parked in the dark alley of the park.
The young girl remembered with real nostalgia the last dates she had had with Mickey and in which they both had been so passionate. She had never let him go beyond a certain level however, much as he had pleaded and usually it had happened sitting in his parked car where her clothes had impeded any real freedom of movements. But Mickey had always successfully crept beneath her panties and found what he sought with his fingers. Nancy had allowed this, even though she know that ultimately this would not be enough. She didn't want to go so quickly "all the way" with Mickey; she preferred to defer this until she would be in her senior year.
But they had had to move and here she was in this unfriendly place with no friends at all, without one single date!
In the other school, she used to confer with her girl friends about her sexual experiences with Mickey or any other boy friend she had at the moment. Most of them had had similar experiences, and in some cases had gone "all the way" as they termed it, and often they exchanged notes of comparison about their activities with their respective boy friends. It was fun being young in Plessville and Nancy was beginning to wonder whether she was not finally going to wither away among the many Cadillacs of Palmville.
Nancy opened the shower and stood beneath the cool spray of water. It felt good against her young body and she loved the feeling of it. Her hands moved of themselves up and down her body, the sides of it, her hips and mostly over the soft swells and dips of the front. There came to her mind from the seductive feeling of her palms caressing her skin, pleasant memories of her days in Plessville, of the many afternoons and evenings spent in the company of some muscled young boy like Mickey with whom a date would quickly become a wonderfully enlightening petting session.
She recalled how one of the last times she had seen Mickey, they had been parked in his car up in the woods above the town and they had begun to pet heavily. Again Mickey had begun that journey up her leg, and under her dress, beneath her panties. No, as a matter-of-fact, she didn't use panties the last time she saw the boy. She remembered his expression when he had felt her bare skin down there under his hand and how he had become more pressing in his pleadings that she would go all the way with him that time.
She had opened her legs slightly to his inquiring fingers and she had moaned in her excitement when he had delicately caressed the sensitive area. Also, she had let her hands caress tentatively the hard outline of his summer slacks. Mickey had pulled her against his huge chest, his moist mouth seeking, then finding hers Their tongues met hers tiny, his huge and her tongue, although small, held its own, forcing itself against his as she pressed her body against his, feeling sharpness that thrilled her, making goose pimples form on her thighs.
Mickey's fingers had worked under her bra. She felt their rough male hardness, and desire began deep back, dark and threatening. His fingers had worked her bra down, letting both breasts jutting into the darkness of the car, naked and lovely with their excited tips pointing tentatively toward his mouth. Her breasts we're big, hard, full, like those of the woman she was becoming every day more. She looked down on their loveliness as Mickey's hands cupped each thoroughly, forefingers gently massaging their nipples.
She had shuddered, nipples suddenly becoming very hard. Both arms went around his neck. She kissed him open-mouthed, tongue again demanding his, breasts lanced against his hard chest. His arms were around her, low on her, fingers spread out, fingers cupping her. His fingers worked steadily, striking the right response, making her tremble in eagerness against him. Her feverish hands went to his zipper, and Mickey slashed open his belt to allow her to touch what she sought.
Then her hand had reached through the opening of his shorts and what she touched made her gasp in savage earthy delight. She begun to caress this hot excited flesh of a male with a passion rising at every second within her deepest being. That time, Nancy had remained frustrated because Mickey had quickly forgotten all about her in the frenzy of his sexual pleasure. At one moment, he had suddenly withdrawn from her and looked for a handkerchief in order to clean the "mess" he had made. Although she had been happy to have given Mickey some relief, she still had looked forward for him doing the same for her which he didn't then.
Nancy ran her hands more slowly over her water slick body. Her frown at the remembrance of her past frustration disappeared as her fingers moved with a life of their own. They flexed and kneaded and pinched and tickled, and at a certain place, they poke inquisitively. They poked often, and each time they moved, she sighed and shuddered. If only one of them could belong to the boy friend she desperately needed.
She stiffened for a long moment and stopped stroking herself. She thought that she must overcome this impulse to indulge in such self-manipulations each time frustration raised its tortuous head. Then her hands moved again and her fingers were more active than before they had paused. Her full, out-turned, soft lips parted in a broad smile that showed her perfectly spaced, sparkling bright teeth to the tiled wall of the bath-tub. Her hands were more insistent as they pressed lingeringly over her feminine enticements. She let her fingers finish the job as best as they could although they were poor substitutes for strong male fingers or still another most enticing male attribute for which all her body longed desperately. She moaned aloud at the feeling of deep pleasure rising within her. As she stiffened from a final flurry of activity, a gasp of delight, a ragged sigh escaped her and a feeling of completion invaded her with its warmth.
As Nancy toweled herself vigorously with a rough textured terry cloth towel, some of her usual confidence in herself returned. It wasn't with her that there was anything wrong, she decided, it was with a situation that she hadn't been able to grasp yet. But she was going to find out, or her name wouldn't be Nancy Romney. There must be a way for her to become as popular among her male classmates as were other girls which she considered less favorably endowed than her.
Nancy slipped on a bikini and a beach robe. She had decided to spend her day at the beach to put order in her thoughts. Breakfast was a quick cup of coffee and some orange juice. Then she went toward the new car her father had just given her, a beautiful yellow convertible of which Nancy was very proud. Again, the young girl thought how fun it would have been to have the old crowd around. Then she could have fully enjoyed the car and everything else. But in that almost total loneliness, there was nothing which could really cheer Nancy up, except the enormous hope rising in her every time the phone rang and she thought it might be for her, a hope always deceived up to now.
Nancy headed for the strip of beach along Palmville. It was very hot indeed and a good swim wouldn't do her any harm. She parked her car in one of the lots and noticed that probably she would meet many of her classmates around because she recognized some of the cars. Although most of the kids had swimming pools in their homes, they preferred the beach where they had more space and they could be freer.
As she walked in the direction of the beach, Nancy suddenly felt her heart contract at the sight of the tall bronzed back standing with a group of other kids from her class around him. She immediately recognized the handsome blond giant who sat quite near her in the class. Nancy had felt, almost since the beginning, very much attracted toward Steve Kelly, although, to her utter dismay, he didn't seem to pay any attention to her. Nancy wasn't used to such a lack of male interest in her youthful enticing appearance. But, in this new school, among her classmates of whom Steve Kelly seemed to be the leader, the young girl hadn't received one date yet. Nancy had often wondered why didn't she enter in the favor of the handsome Steve, without finding any valid reason.
As she passed by the group, recognizing the familiar faces surrounding Steve Kelly, she threw a warm, "Hi-ay!" to which only a few indifferent "Hi!" responded. She threw her beach robe on the sand and ran toward the water. As she approached the water's edge the waves scudded up and down on the smooth wet packed sand, she paused for a moment.
In her brief snug bikini swimsuit, there could be no doubt as to the glorious perfection of her slim young body. Her full firm high breasts jiggled tautly within the confines of her small halter. Her blond straight hair swung rhythmically as she walked toward the water and delightfully framed her smooth oval face which was flushed from the heat of the day. Her slim young waist writhed with muscles scarcely buried within her tanned skin and natural feminine padding.
Within the tiny twin triangles of her bikini panties, the ripening curves of hips, belly, and buttocks were clearly discernible in all their lush youthful elasticity. Her long legs tapered down from powerful thrusting thighs to slim exciting ankles. All in all, Nancy was aware that she represented the ultimate perfection of exquisitely alive feminine desirability and beauty and from the corner of her eyes, she had noticed that Steve's hard blue eyes were on her.
The voice behind her startled her. "Hi, Nancy. Are you gonna swim?"
She turned to face Harold, a lean-bodied, rather handsome young fellow who seemed to be Steve's second. Although he had never asked her for a date, Harold had been nicer with her than the rest of her classmates, girls included.
"Hi, Harold. Yes, I'm gonna take a dip. Very hot today. Want to race out to the barrels?" Nancy replied, somewhat exhilarated.
"Okay. I'm taking a last swim. We've been here all morning."
"You mean the whole crowd?"
"Yes, honey, the whole crowd." Harold smiled at her. He seemed to be in a pleasant mood today, Nancy decided. She welcomed the swim with the boy since she wanted to ask him a few things about the crowd keeping away from her.
Harold and Nancy plunged into the water and dove expertly under a breaking wave in perfect unison. The slow effortless movements of both bodies gave them surprising speed through the lumpy water.
"Big as you are, I can still give you a good race," Nancy boasted playfully. "I can keep you running on a tennis court, too."
"So, you're the frail, helpless type of girl. What a pity," Harold said jokingly.
"Phooey. Why should I try to be the clinging vine type?" Nancy retorted, playfully splashing him with water. She was feeling so well now, in the company of someone who didn't seem to think she had bad breath. "Look out. You'll get wet and maybe shrink."
"Careful, Nancy. If I start drowning from your rough behavior, you'll have to save me and tow me ashore," Harold kidded.
They continued swimming for a while.
Harold broke the silence and this time his voice sounded serious.
"Hey, Nancy. You seem to be a nice girl, not the inhibited type. Am I right?" He asked.
Nancy looked at him, surprise showing clearly on her face. She didn't expect such a question coming from Harold.
"Well. It depends of what you mean by inhibited. I don't pretend to be a wild dove, sure...." She left her reply unfinished.
"Then, why don't you join the Club, Nancy?"
This time, she remained with her mouth open so great was her surprise. She had never heard about the Club. Then, she managed to ask a weak, "The Club?" Which club?"
Harold laughed. He saw that she didn't understand what he meant.
"The Non-Virgin Club. Steve Kelly is the president, I'm the vice-president. Every member has to be initiated into mature sexual activity. All your classmates are members. Ifs fun, believe me."
Suddenly, the veil tore about the indifference toward her of her classmates. Now, she understood. It was the Club, and she wasn't a member. So that was it! A Non-Virgin Club. This meant that she would have to go "all the way." But wasn't she going to do so with Mickey? The handsome face of Steve Kelly came back to her mind. It sounded fun and indeed very exciting.
"I didn't know about it, Harold." Nancy replied slowly. "But I want to become a member, How can that be done?"
"So you like the idea?" Harold smiled at her. "I told Steve that you would surely accept, but he didn't want to get into trouble. After ail we didn't know what kind of a gal you were. I knew you were that advanced. Then you are coming? We're having our next reunion tonight, here on the beach."
"Aren't you afraid someone might come and find out about it all?" Nancy asked.
"Of course not. We always have somebody watching out. So there's no problem. We've been coming over here for a long time already. People think we are having just a simple beach party and that's how it looks. You'll see."
On her way back home, Nancy was thinking about the strange conversation she'd had with Harold.
The whole idea was indeed very exciting although Nancy felt somewhat apprehensive about the matter. She wasn't a white dove as she had told Harold, but she wasn't that wild either. In her school at Plessville, she knew that there were a few elements which were considered pretty wild by her more conservative crowd. There had been rumors of sex parties and clubs and "Ex-Virgin" organizations to which it was said most of the really "hip" girls belonged. Nancy had had a normal curiosity about all this, but when she and Mickey were going steady, she hadn't let it trouble her. Of course, they had dated and necked like most young couples, but not only herself but also Mickey had always been reticent to go beyond a certain point although she knew he had strong physical desires. Now, she was on the point of becoming real "hip" as they said. She wondered about what would her crowd have said. But then, in Plessville, she wouldn't have needed all this. She was popular there. But in this new school, belonging to the Club was the only way of getting some attention apparently. Nancy shrugged and decided it was okay with her.
Saturday night, as usual, her mother had her bridge and her father had left for the country club. Nancy found that she didn't even have to give lengthy explanations to her mother about her going out. She simply explained that some classmates had organized a beach party and that she was not going to be late. Mrs. Romney nodded indifferently. She was too busy arranging some cookies in a plate. Nancy left for the peculiar beach "party."
She had taken particular care in her clothing. She wanted to appear as attractive as possible. Her blue baiter blessed her heavy girlish breasts and the tight blue pair of shorts molded her hips and buttocks in a very enticing manner. She drove rapidly in the direction of the beach.
"See you at nine!" Harold had told her before leaving with the rest of the crowd. Nancy glanced at her watch. It was five to nine. Five minutes early. But it didn't matter.
There were already some people gathered and there were many familiar faces. Betty with her Frank, and Liz Martins, and Roger Miller, and practically all the regulars she ran around with at school. She immediately spotted Harold who came over to her smiling a welcome. There was no visible trace of Steve Kelly. Apparently, he hadn't arrived yet, or maybe he was inside the tent.
"Here you are lollipop," Harold smiled taking her by the hand and smiling. "The fun hasn't begun yet. We were waiting for you." Harold was wearing tight fitting swim trunks boldly outlining his bulging masculinity. Nancy noticed that there was a kind of care free abandon about the movements of all of them that gave her the impression that they had probably sampled some drinks already.
"What do you say, doll-face? Want something? Harold asked.
"Okay, Harold, but not too strong. I want to enjoy the party."
Harold laughed and gave her a can of beer. Then he proceeded to introduce her around as though she didn't know most of them. There was an obvious change in their attitudes about her. Now, everybody seemed very friendly.
Nancy was slowly sipping form a can of beer, enjoying her new status among her companions When Steve Kelly emerged from the tent. Nancy stared at him admiringly. He really looked handsome in his skin-tight white swim trunks, his blond hair falling on his heavily tanned forehead, his blue eyes as cold as ever. Immediately the teenagers gathered around him. They were all looking at Nancy who had remained sitting in the sand, lovely and enticing bundle of feminine beauty in her blue bikini swimsuit. Then Steve said something to Harold who came toward Nancy, a nervous smile playing on his mouth.
"Come on, Nancy. The fun is beginning. You know what it's all about, I was clear, wasn't I?"
Nancy stood up, leaning on Harold's extended hand. Her heart was beating furiously in her chest. She had never thought that the "first time" would take place on a beach with a crowd of kids looking on and with a person who had almost never spoken to her. She would have wanted to run away very far from all of them, but she remained standing there, her eyes directly meeting the cool blue eyes of Steve. Then Harold brought her in front of the Non-Virgin Club's President. Nancy noticed that there was a wide blanket spread on the sand. It was probably there that it was going to take place. Again, fear came back beating at her feverish temples.
"Come here, girl." Steve's voice sounded in the deep silence which had fallen on the group. "I guess Harold has already explained to you the activities of our club and what you have to do in order to belong. Apparently, you agree since you are here." He paused for a moment, his eyes heavy on the faultless young body. She nodded.
"Get naked," he continued.
She had been afraid that when it came time for this, she wouldn't be able to do it. Not with all those people around. But suddenly all "those people" were kids who were going to school with her, exactly like the others with whom she had grown up back there in Plessville. Only these weren't kids any longer. They were grown ups, standing on the threshold of adulthood with all the drive and intensity of their adolescent youth urging them on now. Nancy wasn't afraid or self-conscious as she slowly unhooked the blue halter liberating her youthful breasts from the narrow confines of the bra.
Steve Kelly was observing the young girl undressing, a tense expression on his handsome face. Excitement was slowly building up in him with his passionate youthful blood running down to the bulge clearly outlined by the white, tight-fitting trunks. His hands went to the strings of his swim-suit and untied them, his eyes never leaving for one second the lovely tanned body showing itself in front of him.
From the crowd of teenagers massed around the couple formed by Nancy Romney and Steve Kelly came a steady beat of a strange music. As Nancy's halter fell on the sand, there was an excited buzz and the young girl could hear the rustle of anticipation together with the beat. As the beat progressed, she began to move her entire body as though she would be performing a strip-tease number. All anxiety had left her now and she gave herself entirely to her act. Every eye was on her now as she swayed and swirled still keeping on the tiny triangle of the down part of her bikini.
There was an audible chorus of approval from the teen-age boys who were watching this unbelievable treat. Nancy was good indeed, with the two luscious mounds of white soft flesh shaking back and forth as she moved in time with the music. Then she slipped her fingers beneath the panties and slid them down part way off her hips.
"Oh, man, Nancy have a heart" one male voice wailed out. "I can't hold out any longer. I'm gonna wet my jeans!"
There was some nervous laughter at this and all eyes turned toward Steve Kelly who was also sliding his trunks down, revealing white, hairy flesh down the heavily tanned upper area of his body. His virile bulge was more pronounced every moment and he hadn't taken his eyes from Nancy's enticingly undressing figure. All teen-age girls had their eyes fixed on Steve's attributes. They all knew from experience what he could do to a girl and they also knew that Steve Kelly never went more than once with the same girl. He always had a new one at his disposal. The group didn't like Steve very much. They knew that he could be very cruel whenever such a mood was on him. They didn't like him, but they feared him and thus obeyed each and every one of his commands.
Suddenly as the beat had become particularly wild, Nancy unsnapped the down part of the bikini and pushed them down, expertly kicking them off. She was completely naked now and the effect was like turning on a current.
At this moment, the slightly trembling voice of Harold rose, "Okay, gang. This is where the fun starts. Keep looking!"
Both Nancy and Steve were completely naked now, standing facing each other near the blanket spread on the sand to receive their bodies. Steve put a hand on Nancy's shoulder, feeling the girl shiver under his touch. He was aware of the attraction he exerted on her as well as he was aware of that peculiar magnetism he exerted on all girls, at least at the beginning. He wanted this naked girl more than he had ever wanted any one before, and his desire for Nancy was obvious for the whole crowd massed around them. Steve liked to perform in public. That was the reason why he had organized this Non-Virgin Club.
Nancy was giving way to the call of nature as Steve drew her to him, pressing her bare torso against his hard chest. Her breasts flattened against him so great was his pressure and as his broad hand brushed down her front, passing over the junction of her thighs, his fingers hooked and gripped her briefly. Nancy gasped and jumped away.
He laughed and pushed her down on the blanket, falling immediately after her, his weight upon her frail body. Steve was bold and daring in every one of his movements. He slid and arm around her neck and settled his lips on hers, inserting his tongue inside her mouth.
"No," she said, not half knowing what she was saying.
When his thumb tweaked a nipple into firm erection, she heard herself gasp. She felt herself drawn to him, and then it was she who kissed him.
Steve bent and kissed her breasts, his tongue cheating neither of its lively attention. Then the sensation of his hot, moist tongue wavered between the soft mounds and traced lower to spear its trip into her navel. Nancy couldn't struggle any longer against her inner urgings. All her body called for abandon to the ministrations of this stranger whose hands were doing wonderful things with her hips, her thighs, with her-With a sight of surrender she closed her eyes and laid her arms around his neck, passionately returning his next kiss.
She kept her eyes closed. She felt him move, felt his broad knee brush her uplifted thigh. She lowered one leg. His knee came between her legs; there was a short pause, then the other knee lifted.
Her hips squirmed downward, meeting him. Then she felt the warm, insistent probing of firm man flesh against her deeper being. He lurched forward and she gasped, "Don't be so rough, please, darling!"
"I'm a bull," Steve said throatily.
He crouched menacingly over her sprawled body on the sand. With precarious balance, he sucked in his breath, tightened his powerful muscles and then made the plunge into masculine fulfillment. There was a cry of victory from the teen-agers around them.
Nancy partially regained control of her body as she felt her virgin barrier breached by his powerful surge. She screamed as she felt her body penetrated by his splitting power, and instantly his hand was clapped over her mouth. "We want no scandal, Dove hear me, honeybunch?" He whispered in her ear. He had deeply assailed her torn agonizing flesh and now every lunge he made was more pain he inflicted her. He didn't care about the moans escaping her mouth, he was stroking himself to ecstasy. Nancy tensed as she felt him swell and instinctively knew that his time had come. Just when she was beginning to enjoy it a little! And then he reached his peak and fell beside her, spent, with a powerful groan.
Nancy remained on the sand, feeling utterly soiled by this scene sin front of so many people. The others seemed to have enjoyed it, judging by the strange light of lust shining in the eyes of the boys and the blushed cheeks of the girls.
Then Steve Kelly rose and spoke. "Now gang, Nancy Romney belongs to our club. You've all been witness that she was properly initiated! As you well know, the fun has just begun. Choose your partner and start stripping; With these words he went toward the tent and disappeared inside.
Nancy looked around and saw the girls tugging at boys' belts and unbuttoning their shirts or untying the strings of their swim trunks. The boys were busy unfastening halters and pulling down panties. The whole beach seemed to buzz with sensuality. Nancy noticed that Nature had indeed been kind to most of the kids around her. There couldn't be any shame in them at exposing such beautiful and harmonious bodies. Soon couples were lolling about in different attitudes, some with the girls nestling their heads in their dates' lap while in some cases it was just reversed with the boys lying in the creases between the girls' thighs. Many couples had just assumed the normal postures of sexual intercourse. The Non-Virgin Club was real wild and the night wasn't finished for Nancy herself.
Harold had come toward her, completely naked this time and Nancy could see that he wasn't less well endowed than Steve.
"What'cha say, doll. You wanta?" He asked in a raucous voice betraying his excitement.
Yes, she wanted. Steve had left her high and dry. She felt that Harold was somewhat different. And indeed he was. He sincerely wanted to give her as much pleasure as possible which he did. He was considerate, not wanting to cause her pain as Steve did, and he took his time, draining all womanhood, all emotion from her.
Her full hips rose, met, held, fell back-the repeated fever flaming within her. Harold's weight was squarely on her small body, but she was unaware of its heaviness.
Hoarse breathing burned her ear. Large hands cupped, kneaded, pulled her upward, released her, then pulled again.
Suddenly, wild passion hit Nancy. Her body exploded. Her hips ran wild. That was exactly what she had expected from "it." Momentarily, she was suspended in red space, scarlet flames breaking. Then, passion spent, she lay back, breathing hoarsely, hips calmed down.
"Wonderful, darling," Harold panted.
After Harold, there had been others, many others all her male classmates had passed by her arms in one or another of the club's reunions. Nancy Romney couldn't say any longer that she was lonely. She didn't care any longer whether her father was too busy playing golf or her mother playing bridge. She was a full member of the Non-Virgin Club and this kept her real busy!
This wonderful situation didn't last very long for Nancy Romney. There came the day when she discovered that she was pregnant, and she panicked. She didn't know what to do, to whom to turn for advice. So, she decides to take the case to the club president, although she didn't have much hope for whatever Steve Kelly would present her as a solution.
She saw him at the school campus, just coming out from the building that housed the gym. His hair seemed wet and recently combed, as though he had just taken a shower. Nancy couldn't help feeling a wave of shivering response to the boy's dashing masculinity. However, the nearer she came of him the more that her present reality was stripping Steve from the magnetic attributes that her earlier imagine had bestowed upon him. His cold look emerged now from his eyes with piercing cruelty, and she felt it falling upon her, heavily, obscenely and totally devoid of warmth nor friendliness.
For a moment he saw her, appraised her and immediately recognized her for what she meant to him: a known and already conquered territory. She was nice, his eyes glided all over her luscious body, but Steve was a one-time man, and his eyes took a petulant expression when he noticed she was approaching him.
"Hi Steve." She managed to say with her utterly dry throat.
"Hi...." He answered, immediately giving her "the works" of his "million dollar smile."
"What's cookin'. . .?"
Nancy smiled at the phrase. As she saw it, Steve didn't have the faintest idea of how much meaning it had for her.
"Oh, a lot's cookin', Stevie-boy." She answered with a faint touch of irony. "That's precisely why I came to see you, hon."
"Really?" Steve answered, thinking that perhaps somebody was planning a party, another orgy or something, in which his talents as an exhibitionist would be required. He became interested, but didn't want to show it to the girl. That was his usual move, playing it cool all the time. He wrapped his jacket around his powerful chest and threw an arm over Nancy's shoulder, guiding her forward.
"Okay, kid." He said in his habitual patronizing air. "I'm always available to hear everything you dolls have to say...." They walked toward the school cafeteria.
"Now, let's go over to the cozy cafeteria and have a soda the two of us ... very near each other. . . and there we can talk, talk, talk, to your heart's content...." Continued Steve with petulancy.
Nancy was aware of his tone of voice, but biting, his bitterness away managed to smile and follow him to a Pullman. When Steve had ordered soft drinks for the two of them, he turned over to face her, with his usual petulant grin.
"Well, honeybunch, what's in that oven?" He said, lighting a cigarette.
"A baby ... ! " Nancy couldn't help grinning herself, at the 'handiness' of Steve's phrase. "I'm pregnant, Steve."
"You're what?" Steve asked, loosing his grin.
"Pregnant." Nancy looked at his eyes, staringly. "That's why I .had to talk to you."
"So I see. . . " He said. "So I see ... So, you're pregnant, kid, are you ? Well, well, well ... Those are news!" Gradually, his face lost the initial seriousness, and his petulant grin settled again upon his handsome features. "And, who's the father?" He asked, innocently.
"How should I know, Steve?" Nancy retorted, rising her voice.
"Keep down the yackety!" Commanded Steve dryly. "There's no need to make a scandal, cooky. I believe I've told you before we're allergic to scandals." His voice lowered to a whisper, matching the cruel look of his half closed eyes, piercing hers while he poured out his venom slowly, with liquid corrosiveness into her weary ears.
"What the hell are you telling me now, kid?" He whispered. "What do I know about you and why are you telling me all this?"
"But, Steve...." Nancy argued. "You are the president of the club. . . You, you. . . must do something to help me!"
"Oh, I was sure that this would end up like this." He continued. "If not even you know who the heck made you the brat, what do you want me to do about it. Go around asking every guy I know who's responsible?"
"Steve!" Nancy interrupted his savage mimicking. "That's not what I mean and you know it!"
"Then, what is it you want, girl?" He said, with an insolent tone.
"I want you to help me, Steve...." Nancy felt desperation choking her throat. "I'm in trouble, Steve, a big trouble. I know should've known better ... but. . . now I'm in the middle of this big mess and I need help. And you're the only person I can come to, Steve. I don't know exactly what to ask you for, but all I know is you must help me figure out how to get over with all this...."
Nancy's flooded eyes met with Steve's cruel look. Her last few phrases had made him grin triumphantly. Apparently, they had given him a way out from the bothersome mess that Nancy's importunate condition had placed the flamboyant president of the notorious organization of campus sex.
"You see?" He was again pulling his charming smile, trying to bring the resource of his magnetic personality to his aid. "You're exactly like all women ... I don't blame you, chicken ... After all, you're a woman yourself...." He sighed. Then adopted a more confident, familiar tone. "See here, honeybunch. You don't even know what the heck you want. How can you expect me to know what you want ... Right?" He paused a moment and then leaned over the table, toward her, and said in a rather patronizing tone. "Why don't we both go home now and think it over for a while. . . let's say ... a week or so, then...."
"Steve!" Nancy interrupted him, raising her voice nervously. "Are you crazy? How can you tell me that? Steve this is a serious matter. Can't you get that through your mind? I'm preg. . . "
"Nancy!" Steve interrupted her sharply. He realized that in her state of nerves she was about to say loudly in the middle of the school cafeteria the nature of her condition, and Steve was conscious of the embarrassing position in which such a statement would put him. Everybody knew he was fast and promiscuous with the girls, so the first thing all of them would think was that he was directly responsible for the 'case'. The very thought made Steve Kelly boil in anger.
"Are you out of your mind?" He whispered angrily. "How the heck do you dare to hawl about all that in here? Look here, you ... I don't know what the hell is your damn problem and I don't care! Get it? So let me be!"
"Wait a moment, Steve!" Nancy saw the boy's decided attitude and tried to stop him, with a desperate gesture. "You must help me! You cant leave me now!" Her voice broke in desperation.
"What do ya mean help you?" He said savagely. "What do I have to do with you or with your problems?"
"You ... you...." Nancy was in utter desperation. "You're the president, besides, there's always the possibility ... I mean ... You know the baby could be yours also...."
Hearing this, Steve Kelly's handsome face became red with bloody anger. He threw a dollar on the table and left. Nancy followed him until they were out of the cafeteria and also from the curious gazes of the kids there. Nancy hurried her steps to catch up with Steve. When they were together.
"Steve!" She cried out.
"Get off my back, you, little whore!" Steve shouted savagely. Now that they were safe from being overheard by schoolmates, Steve felt free to pour out his anger against Nancy's problem, and what he considered her invasion into his own private and precious-self.
"Scram!" He continued. "Don't bother me with your silly female problems, and don't come now trying to bully me into believing I have anything to do with your own contribution to the population explosion, baby. Oh, no! If you think you can outsmart me, you're very wrong, kid, 'cause around here I'm the one who does the bullying! Got that straight?"
Steve was breathing heavily from the anger he felt and the effort of his continuous speech. Nancy was standing in front of him speechless, paralyzed from the surprise of his sudden reaction.
"Come on!" He continued. "Haven't you heard me still, or do you need me to draw you a picture? Are you so utterly dumb that you can't take a hint?" Steve had regained his security. "Now scram out of my sight and don't let me hear you're going around blabbing away your dirty story or else ... I'll tell everyone what are your sexual habits, honey. . . "' He smiled cruelly. "And, believe me, I'm great adding up flavor to dirty stories about chicks with a loud mouth like you ... So scram!"
And Steve left while Nancy remained spellbound at the same place; not knowing what to do, and wanting very much to drop dead, finally, she had to get her parents out of their respective green worlds to inform them that their daughter was carrying an illegitimate child.
As expected, both parents threw a tantrum, but when their attitude simmered down, the problem remained there to be solved.
Nancy Romney never finished her high school. Her parents sent her to the country where she had the child. It was a baby boy whom Nancy never saw. The doctor who delivered him gave the baby to a young married and childless couple who adopted him.
A CASE OF INCEST
Andrew Kirk was a strange man. A short and skinny guy of indefinite age with a protuberant Adam's apple stuck in the middle of his thin and rather elongated neck. Over such odd piece of tubular anatomy stood Kirk's bony head, with its scarce streaks of dull black hair over his freckled skull and his angular features, always inhabited by his incredibly bulky eyeglasses.
His face usually lacked any definite expression; and this, added to the fact that the thickness of his potent lenses distorted the shape of his eyes, gave him a strong resemblance to some sort of Chinese detective from an old mystery film. Probably the only features which wouldn't suggest immediately or having been made with discolored old leather were his lips, which were sensually pink and fleshy, and also the abundant moustache of black hair which seemed to lean heavily over his upper lip, like a peculiar anachronism.
Generally speaking, Kirk was a silent man. He hardly spoke while at home and when he did, it was in a shrieking voice, uttering an excuse for his violent accesses of rage, which were usually directed toward Myrna, his wife. She was a woman of exuberant attributes and vulgar appearance, who tinted her hair red and used a heavy make up.
Although she gave the impression of having a great physical strength, Myrna Kirk was afraid of her husband during his crisis of rage, where he'd beat her savagely for the smallest incident--which he usually provoked. Otherwise, when he was quiet, Andrew Kirk was taciturn man who'd go around the house meekly, as if he were a stranger there; someone who's afraid to be evicted from the place at any moment.
Sally Ann was their daughter. She was already sixteen and had developed into quite a nice looking young lady who for a long time had felt the effects of her parents' inadequacy as such and their failure to provide a less disturbing environment for her to live, at least during the difficult and traumatic years of her adolescence.
She felt she was the real stranger in that house. Her feelings towards both her father and her mother were a mixture of fear and utter despise. She knew she had to endure them, but harbored little affection of any kind toward either one of them. All the time she was at home, Sally Ann did whatever she could to withdraw herself from their range of sight, not to be noticed, not to give them any excuse to unleash their frustrations upon her, as they have done so many times before. She hardly spoke and this only when she was spoken to, and whenever she felt her life to be an unbearable burden, she found consolation in the thought of putting an end to the situation as soon as she'd finish school and find a job which would allow her to support herself. Yes, she had decided that long time ago, and she would affirm such a thought within herself every time that there was one of those horrible lapses of brutal violence in which the otherwise mousy little fellow who was her father would haul around in his high-pitched shrieking voice calling both her mother and herself the most obscene names while he would break to pieces every breakable item that would happen to come near his range of sight. At those times she'd feel like a hunted animal chased by a morbid hunter who blatantly wishes to skin her alive. Feeling the panic of the one who faces the near reality of death, Sally Ann had learned over the years to run and hide for her life. Ever since she could remember, even as a toddler, she recalled how she would sense the danger of the situation and instinctively hide under the bed, pressing her panting body against the wall, trying to hold her panic-striken breathing; feeling how her animal senses would open and become ultra-sensitive to any betraying sound of the approach of her father.
Coiled up in a tiny bundle of fear under the bed she would listen, and listen, and listen ... and become even more frightened by her own heavy breathing which, to her highly perceptive ears would sound as loudly as an old bellows. Sometimes she'd even stop breathing until her lungs would ache from the effort and then listen even more, until not only her auditory system was listening to the limit of its capacity, but her chest, her arms, her legs, her entire body was listening too.
From her hiding place, Sally Ann would hear all the noises that over the years came to be so familiar to her. The sounds of glass breaking violently against the walls or the floor, pieces of furniture being pushed against or even lifted and thrown against some other solid object against which they would crash and smash beyond repair. She would learned very early in her life to know exactly the direction of the hurried steps taken by the two adults running around the house like kids playing a rough game; only that their game was for real, and Sally Ann knew it.
But the most horrible of all sounds were the ones made by human voices screaming in a seemingly inhuman way. Her father's guttural laughter, sounding beastlike in all its' cruelty, mixed with his heavy breathing when he'd pump air in and out of his narrow chest to keep him going in his mad chase around the house like a beast of prey pursuing two of his favorite victims. Then, as if he'd be harboring two different beings within himself, his other voice, the high-pitched screeching betraying his disturbed state of hysteria would take over and he'd shriek out an abundant array of obscenities with which he'd excite and anger himself even more, gathering further strength to continue the chase of his own private human game.
But those were not the only sounds of voices Sally Ann would hear during those frequent hours of living nightmare. Sometimes the hunter would accomplish his wishes and get hold of his human game. She could know the exact moment when this would take place by the savage scream of terror uttered by her mother's throat, and by the triumphant cry of victory issued from the hunter's at the very moment when he'd set hands on his victim. Then, the sounds of feminine yelling would increase while they'd become mixed with the horrible noise of human feet and knees and clenched fists smashing against equally human flesh and bones, until the coarse breathing would become heavy and tired from the effort and the injuring activity would be changed and he'd cease his beatings to give her a few last blows by crushing the woman's tortured body against the floor, or the wall, or any piece of furniture would happen to be on the way.
Many times she heard the maddened man demanding the woman to deliver their child to his tormenting ministrations and she sensed him looking around for her after he had had his way with her mother. At those times her heart would come to a near stop, so great was her fear of uttering a sound that would betray her barricaded hiding place. And when he'd come near, in his desperate search for another victim of his madness her entire infant body would become solid, paralyzed by her dread of being found and submitted to torture in the same manner her mother was. And there she'd stay, wherever she was, in the same place where she would have managed to whisk herself out of the sight of his frantic cruelty. And she'd remain still, breathing slowly and with infinite care, not moving a finger nor even a muscle in a noiseless fright, during the few hours during which the fury would last. Sometimes she even fell asleep there, exhausted from the horror and the effort, and she'd wake up after, to remain motionless for a few moments still, putting all her senses to work finding out if the storm had finally passed and it was safe for her to abandon the place. If it was so, she would then come out slowly, with her fearful heart still pounding vigorously against her weary chest, looking eagerly by the also familiar sounds which were to be heard after the crisis. For she knew that there was a moment in which her father would be exhausted from the energy consumed in the chase and beating of her mother, then, he'd stumble away from her and look desperately for a bottle of hard liquor, then fall heavily upon the big bed they both shared. In there, he'd drink himself to a deep stupor after which he'd sleep deeply for several hours, snoring loudly to his heart's content.
During that time, the mother would take care of her wounds and cry her eyes out. Many times she even said loudly that she was going to commit suicide since it was there was no way out of her misery nor any solution to her tormented life.
Even though she always tried to stay away from her mother, not knowing exactly what could she do to help the wretched woman, in the very beginning Sally Ann felt a certain pity for her mother, and that contributed to increase her already existing hatred toward her father. She knew that the woman's punishment was not to end there. After a while, the man would wake up and call her to the room. The woman would go and they'd close the door to the room. For Sally Ann, that meant that the man would undoubtedly resume his torment of the woman and this she confirmed beyond any doubt to her young mind one day when she came very near the door, pressing her ear against the door. When she did that, she was able to hear neatly and clearly her mother's voice sounding in what the child supposed to be a wail of sorrow.
However, at the age of fourteen, Sally Ann was to get another view of the situation which caused her to change her opinion entirely. The door wasn't completely closed, and when she noticed it, she came over to witness the part of her mother's periodical torture which had always been hidden to her. She heard the familiar wailing of her mother's voice and came near, filled with the terrified curiosity of one who knows that a murder is being committed and cannot fail but to witness the horrible deed he's unable to prevent.
They were both on the bed, naked. The woman was in a supine position lying on her back and with her legs spread apart. The repulsive little man was mounting her as though she were a mare. He was covering her while supporting his weight with his hands on the bed at her sides, while his abdomen followed a strange motion up and down over her.
Sally Ann was astonished to see that. She didn't expected to witness the strange ritual performed by the two adults. She looked even more attentively and then she saw her father's long, rod-like organ protruding from his groin, and she saw that it was going in an out of her mother's widely open sex, thickly covered by a reddish blond tuft of curly hair, while another sac-like appendage, also hanging from his groin would rock back and forth following the regular rhythm of his movements.
Every time that he thrust his engorged rod into the woman's body, Sally Ann would hear her fainted moan, so she concluded that the act would be painful for her. However, why was it that the woman's hips were also moving back and forth, matching the rhythm of the man's movements, and so logically aiding to the perpetration of the act? There was no doubt of it. Sally Ann could see clearly how her mother's hips were pumping like pistons against her father's groin and her moans and groans didn't seem so much to mean discomfort....
Suddenly, the tick veils of ignorance fell heavily from the girl's mind and she saw clear. Her keen senses matched the scene with the confused notions of sex and human copulation which were hushed around by the other girls in school. And the impact of truth invaded her with all its horror. Her parents were simply having sex together and her mother was giving herself to that man who had debased her only a while before and was even enjoying it!
She couldn't bear it any longer so she closed her eyes tightly as if to wipe out the image from her retinas. Then she ran away to vomit away her revulsion. From that moment on, her pity toward her mother ended abruptly.
It wasn't until' Sally Ann was sixteen that her own private storm came to happen.
Her mother was away in the hospital where she had been taken to have her gall bladder extracted. So she was alone with her father. The situation was so nerve-wrecking for her that she almost tiptoed her way around the house whenever he was there. As usual, they hardly spoke to each other, until one evening, the second after Myrna Kirk had entered the hospital, that Sally Ann heard the dreaded and ridiculously week voice of her father calling her.
She came over to him, not being able to help but the tight feeling of apprehension gripping her stomach. When she was in front of him, Andrew Kirk smiled at her affably. In a friendly tone he invited her to sit near him for apparently he wished to speak to her.
She did so without any slight protest; she indeed feared the meager man tremendously; she knew exactly of what was he capable of. Then she heard him begin, in a hesitant tone that was obviously an effort to be friendly.
"Sally Ann...." He began slowly. "You're already sixteen, are you?" She nodded and he continued. "You're. . .er. . .you're a young lady now and it is time for your father to have a talk with you about many things. . . "
She looked at him staringly, not knowing what to do or say.
"I want to ask you some questions, first. . . " He continued, in a grave tone. "Do you go around with ... boys?"
Fearing that he wanted to set her a trap for her to say something that would give him an excuse to beat her, now that her mother wasn't there, Sally Ann felt her chest become solid with fear. Then with an effort, she denied, shaking her head vigorously at his question.
"You don't ... eh? He said with visible satisfaction. "I'm glad to see that you're a good girl, Sally Ann. . . or so you say. . . "
She detected the touch of cruel irony in his voice, and she denied again frantically. "Oh, no, father!" She uttered. "It's the truth! I've never gone around with a boy! I'm telling the truth. . . ! "
"Well...." He said, delighted with her reaction. "We'll see about that later ... You know ... ? Some day you'll. . . get married and there are things you should know. . . And it is for me, your father, to teach them to you...."
"Yes, father. . . " Sally Ann whispered raucously. "I'll do whatever you say ... I'll learn all what you want me to learn ... really. . . "
"I'll make sure you do...." He added, standing up. "There's no doubt about that. Come over with me...." He walked toward the room.
Sally Ann followed him to his bedroom and when they had both entered, he closed the door.
"Take off your clothes...." Andrew Kirk said coldly, turning toward his daughter.
"W-what?" Sally Ann whispered, beginning to sweat away her terror.
"You heard me!" Andrew said firmly. "Take off your clothes, now!"
"But ... but ... father. . . " Sally Ann was desperate. "I don't understand ... ! "
"Don't 'but' me, girl!" Andrew insisted bitingly. "You don't have to understand a thing! Do as you are told or you'll be punished!"
Hurriedly, Sally Ann preceded to take off her clothes, trembling with visible panic. She felt embarrassed and utterly ashamed to have to expose herself naked in front of a man. The fact that Andrew was her father didn't change the matters for her. She had always felt him so alien to her feelings and herself so much a stranger to her parents that the only emotion which remained within her for him was fear. No matter how deep one would probe into her feelings, there was not the slightest trace of affection that could be found in her for either one of her parents.
When she finished undressing at his demand she remained naked in front of him. She couldn't help but notice the lecherous look in his eyes examining her all around. And her stomach contracted at the obscenity of the gesture when for a second he flickered his tongue rapidly over his lips. . .
"Lie down on the bed!" He ordered. And the tone of his voice wouldn't admit any delay.
She did as she was told and then heard him say savagely: "I'm going to see if you're telling me the truth. . . ! Because if you lied to me, Sally Ann. . . " For a moment his breathing became heavy from the excitement. Then he continued with mellow tone. "If you lied to me, to your own father, I swear to you that I'll kill you!"
His words came pouring from his mouth. Andrew Kirk was like a man possessed by a demon. He was sweating profusely and his movements were sharp and nervous. His entire body trembled visibly.
Then, as soon as she was in bed, lying down as he had told her to do, Kirk came slowly toward her, while his lips depicted a twisted smile. He was now breathing so heavily that the sounds he emitted hardly seemed those of a human being.
His hands went toward the girl's bare breasts, cupping them. When the man's damp palms touched her sensitive skin, Sally Ann couldn't help to a gasp of panic escape her throat.
"Come, come, Sally Ann." He said hoarsely. "Are you gonna be afraid of your own father?"
The girl could feel the violent tremor of the man's hands on her chest. He grabbed her breasts tightly, and then began making a rubbing movement over the soft flesh of her womanly hillocks. Then, his fingers crept over to her nipples, massaging them softly.
"Have you ever done this before, Sally Ann? He asked in a whisper. "Come on, tell me, girl, Have you ever let a boy do this to you?"
The girl shook her head in frightened denial.
"Come on, Sally Ann." Kirk insisted. "Tell your father all you have done with them boys out there in the street...." He said in a lewd voice, while his hands kept the rotating motion over the girl's nipples.
"No, father, no ... ! " Sally Ann exclaimed with broken voice. "I swear to you I've never done that before. I wouldn't let any boy touch me, I wouldn't let anyone do that to me. . . I don't like it?" She said, adding the last phrase as a hidden plea for him not to continue.
He laughed. He seemed to have been pleased by the girl's answer. "I hope you're telling the truth, girl." He said after a little while. "For your own sake...." Then, gravely, he added: "I warn you, Sally Ann, it'll be much better for you not to lie to your father. You are only a girl and a girl cannot trick a man ... I am a man and if you're lying to me very soon I will find out. I'm going to examine you, Sally Ann. I'm going to give you a very thorough examination, and I'll find out if you're telling me the truth or not. . . "
"I am telling the truth, father, I swear to you!" She sobbed in utter desperation. "I don't like what you're doing to me!"
"Oh, you'll like it!" He said amusedly. "Maybe it's true that you haven't been around with them boys. With them filthy people who will only hurt you." He came nearer to her. "But your Daddy is gonna do many nice things to you, Sally Ann. You will see how clever your Daddy is and how many things he's gonna do to you which are gonna make you roll around with pleasure. . . "
"But. . . but I don't want. . . ! " Sally Ann dared say.
"You don't want because you don't know about them things I'm gonna do to you ... Or is it that you don't want me to find out that you've been going around with boys and doing filthy things with them.. .?" He added menacingly.
"No, it's not that. . . " She gasped wearily.
He continued rubbing her nipples with his hands and twitching them with his fingers. Sally Ann wasn't enjoying it. She was too afraid and too revolted at her father's actions to feel any pleasurable sensations from what he was doing to her. Already, she felt the skin of her breasts irritated from his constant rubbing, and the nipples hurt her a lot.
"Well...." He said, while his abdomen jerked in a short series of little spasms which rocked him toward her. "Let's get down to examine you more thoroughly."
His hands traced her body downwards, and Sally Ann welcomed the apparent truce given to her tortured nipples. But when his hands moved softly around her hips and" went over her thighs, into the soft and highly sensitive inner flesh, she contracted herself strongly, pressing her legs closed together.
"Come on...." He whispered. "Open your legs. Open your legs for me to examine you...."
"Father...." Sally Ann was paralyzed with panic. "What are you going to do.. .?"
"You'll see...." He said softly. "You'll see ... Just spread your legs apart and don't resist. . . Don't resist, otherwise it will hurt you...."
The girl relaxed her spasmodic resistance, and the man leaned over in the bed, placing himself between her legs and, using his fingers, he opened the youthful folds of his daughter's virginal flesh.
When the vaginal opening was exposed, his entire body shook violently and a guttural moan escaped his throat, like an animal in heat. For a moment he only looked at it, a feminine formation of silky, pink flesh crowned with the fluffy forest of her pubic hair. His fingers moved toward the opening, and when he arrived, his index did not stop at the entrance, but continued probing deeper and deeper, into the girl's inner sanctum.
The man's breathing became so heavy that it was now a series of weak moans and groans which choked themselves into his throat.
"Father, it hurts!" Sally Ann cried.
But Andrew Kirk couldn't or wouldn't hear her now. He was lost in a wanton world of incest. When his finger reached the limit, he noticed the tiny bud of the girl's rosy clitoris, and he pressed his thumb against it. There, he began again to apply a rotating motion to the girl's most sensitive region, while he mumbled, almost unintelligibly: "Come on. . . Come on. . . Ain't that nice ? Come on. . . Come on, girl. . . Tell me...."
After he had kept for a while his lewd massage of the girl's clitoris, he change his movements and then it was his index, which he started to move back and forth, back and forth, into the girl's feminine cavity, while his mouth kept pouring out muffled moans of excitement and uttering lecherous phrases urging the girl to respond to his incestuous ministrations.
All the while, Sally Ann kept pleading with her father to stop his actions and let her go. Her body was so contracted that the rubbing of his finger against her virginal inner linings was extremely painful to her. She wanted him to stop, and she wanted that more than anything else!
"So, it hurts you, eh?" He said finally. "I see that you didn't lie to me. . . That's a good girl. . . " He stood up from his leaning position and started to take off his clothes. "Because you didn't lie to me and you haven't been around with them filthy boys, your Daddy is gonna make you very happy now...." He said joyfully.
For a moment Sally Ann thought that an end has finally arrived to her torment. But when she saw him shedding off his clothes, she was again paralyzed. She turned her head toward him and saw him.
He was then taking off his undershirt. The gesture of taking it over his head, lifting his arms, allowed her to see his entire body, covered only by his boxer undershorts. He was skinny to the bone, and the tremendous bulge that was swelling his lower abdomen seemed to Sally Ann as though he had a monstrous extra limb, something defective and shameful which only he had and shouldn't be there. She sensed that more pain was about to come to her, and her torment wasn't over yet.
When he pulled down the only piece of clothing he still had, the huge protuberance which had been hidden under his clothes jutted outward, swinging menacingly toward her.
Sally Ann let a short cry escape from her throat.
Apparently, Andrew Kirk interpreted his daughter's reaction as a sign of admiration, for he was very pleased with it. With proud eyes he came near her, thrusting his hips forward for her to have a better view of his colossal appendage. He placed it over her face, then, making it lean softly over his open palm, as if he was displaying a very valuable masterpiece, he smiled.
"How do you like it, Sally Ann?" He said softly. "Ain't it beautiful? You see how well hung your father is? That's why I told you I'll give you much more pleasure than any one of those pea-sized teenagers who don't even know how to use their little beans."
He bent his knees, leaning forward until his engorged maleness was almost touching the girl's face.
"Come on, Sally Ann," he said softly. "Kiss it ... kiss it...."
The girl was terrified. Her father's mighty rod of steaming flesh appeared immense for her, under the perspective of its nearness. She could smell the musky odor of its uncleanliness. She turned her head to the other side, closing her eyes tightly, as if in that way she could erase the image from her mind.
"Sally Ann!" The man said impatiently. "Don't turn your head, girl! Do as you're told!" Then, in a mellow tone, of voice, he insisted: "Come on, kiss it. . . Take it in your mouth and lick it, baby. You will see how you're gonna like it. . . Take from your Daddy your first taste of a man. . . ! "
The girl didn't move, only her muscles contracted even more with spasmodic strength. Only a faint wail escaped from her weary chest.
Andrew Kirk was becoming irritable with impatience. He was so tremendously excited with the act he was committing in the person of his daughter that he couldn't hold it much more. His entire body was shaking violently with desire and in his feverous mind contained one only thought: to deflower the virginal body of the girl. In his mind she was his; he had created her, given her life. Therefore, it had to be his the privilege of enjoying her sexually, and not any other man who hadn't contributed in any way to her existence. Under such light, he couldn't understand why was it that his daughter didn't realize he had the inalienable right to take her. He couldn't see why she didn't just abandon herself to his lewd ministrations and consider herself very lucky to have her own father do it to her, instead of any other male alien to her blood. The girl's reluctance only made him angry and desirous of hurting her, of "showing' to her what would it be her fate at the hands of any stranger who wouldn't take any considerations with her. He was convinced that only he was capable of showing the girl the pleasures of sex, in his own way. His foggy brain was totally unable to grab and realize the insanity of his intentions. Now he was feeling a wave of bubbling anger invading his senses at the girl's reluctant attitude.
"Sally Ann!" He mumbled, clenching his jaws. "Do as I tell you. . . or you'll regret it! I don't wanna thing that my own daughter is a no-good whore who'd rather give herself to a stranger than to her own father!"
The girl didn't move. She felt the man's penis resting over her right cheek, and the touch of its hot, sticky flesh made her feel revolted inside out.
Andrew Kirk groaned, blind with insane rage. In his mind, the girl's attitude was only the evidence of her 'evil nature'. "No, she wouldn't give herself to me,'" he thought. "She wants only to keep it in order that any filthy stranger would rip her apart fill her all over with his alien venom." He felt his anger rise to a frenzy. "The little whore! So that's what I have been keeping under my roof! A filthy wench, a deviated slut who's only willing to give the body I've given her to a stranger!" He grabbed the girl's shoulder."
"That's what you want, eh?" He blunted. "You don't care to have it nice and pleasant from your father, eh? You wanna have it rough and filthy from a stranger, eh?"
"No!" Sally Ann screamed, hysterical with panic. "No! I don't want anything! I don't want to do it, with a stranger nor with you! I'm afraid! I'm afraid!"
She tried to get off the bed, to run away from the nightmare and cover her shameful nakedness away from the man. She didn't want to see the sight of his inflamed virility pointed menacingly toward her. Somehow she sensed that with it he would hurt her, and she was franticly afraid of the pain she anticipated. Besides, in her tortured mind she could realize the horror of the situation. She knew all along how wrong it was everything they've done that day since the beginning. She felt there was something sinful and utterly evil in what her father was doing to her, and Sally Ann felt revolted and sick not knowing how to put an end to the atrocious act which seemed to be infecting her entire being with its evident depravity.
Andrew Kirk perceived her intentions of running away, and, feeling his anger mounting to a peak of frenetic proportions, abandoned all thoughts of civilized behavior and grabbed her mercilessly by her hips, turning her tremulous body toward his. Then, in a rapid gesture, he forced her legs apart and placed his body between the girl's thighs.
Sally Ann screamed and tried to wrestle her way out in a desperate attempt to escape the consummation of the execrable act upon herself, but she was no match for Andrew's overexcited strength. He placed his hands over her breasts, squeezing them brutally. This time there was no delicate nibbling as it was in the beginning. He felt outraged and filled with a desire to punish her for what he considered a mighty reason. So, he was decided to carry out his intentions but without giving his child any benefit of consideration.
The girl moaned with the excruciating pain she felt from her father's brutal crushing of her breasts. And the man, without losing his grip on the feminine attributes, pushed her backwards, until her back was pressing hard on the mattress. Then, he took brought one hand toward his engorged protuberance and manipulated into position at the entrance of the girl's virginal opening.
"No! No! Please, father! Don't do that! You're hurting me!" Sally Ann cried loudly, shaking her body franticly, but to no avail.
The man squirmed when his aroused flesh made impact at the desired target. Then, feeling a renewed wave of bubbling anger running through his veins, he pushed forward. He found the expected resistance and then he felt how it yielded to his power which, continued brutally its impaling action.
Sally Ann felt the stabbing pain of the savage invasion. For a moment she thought she was going to be broken apart, injured badly, probably even crippled by the piercing agony he was making her feel. She began to haul wildly, like a tortured animal who, instinctively, seeks a way to preserve his life.
Her cry pierced the barrier of ecstatic pleasure which seemed to be encompassing Andrew Kirk's senses, getting through as a warning signal. In his feverous mind he realized that the girl's frenetic screaming could be heard by someone in the outside, and that somebody might come and try to prevent him from reaching the nirvana of delight he was trying to reach at every one of his mighty thrust into the girl's warm entrails. For a second time he took a hand away from the delicate mound of feminine flesh he kept clutching and slapped her painfully across the face, not once, but many times in rapid succession. With the same hysteric nervousness which now seemed to be ruling all his acts.
Contrary to his expectations, the girl didn't stop her desperate yelling, but instead continued screaming even louder. Then, his insane mind looked for a rationalization to the girl's attitude, and he found it soon enough in the belief that the girl was screaming only to be heard by one of those 'strangers' from the street, to whom he was convinced that his daughter wanted to give herself in preference to him.
The very thought made his anger mount even more, and this time he didn't attempt punishment by slapping her, but instead, lifted his both hands and clenching them mightily, brought his fists down with all his strength, viciously hitting her at the nipples.
Sally Ann felt as though her chest would have been pierced by bullets, pain piercing her skin and traveling, at an incredible speed all around her body, communicating the throngs of this new agony to all her nerves. She felt her mind becoming foggier and foggier while her body seemed to emanate an icy sweat that covered her entirely; and, mercifully, her mind rolled and rolled deeply into unconsciousness.
The demented man saw her becoming limp and quiet. Smiling, he thought that, finally, she was beginning to see the benefits of what he was doing to her. He even thought that perhaps the girl might have enjoyed his harsh treatment. After all, wasn't that the only thing a girl could expect from a 'stranger'? And wasn't a 'stranger' precisely what his daughter obviously wanted? Maybe it was because the child was depraved and deviated, and liked to be mistreated and beaten up to unconsciousness . . . "
He saw he had lost a bit of his previous arousal, and he wasn't getting as much pleasure as he was before, during the first moments of the intercourse. So, he looked for it frantically, trying to recover his enjoyment by lunging into her deeper, harder, with vigorous thrusts which were increasing in speed and strength, until the journey into his insane delight gained momentum, and he felt the shower of delight that precedes the ultimate realization piercing his very being and traveling from his core throughout his entire flesh, touching every nerve-ending and then, finally, he entered into the whirlwind of accomplished sexuality which poured itself forward, like a mighty cataract of life-giving cells, which invaded the girl's tortured entrails with its liquid presence.
Sally Ann regained her consciousness softly and gradually. It was like coming out from a painful dream, sliding back into reality. She opened her eyes and looked around. She was alone in the room.
Some time, maybe even a few hours must have elapsed since she had lost continuity of the events which now poured into her brain. "It wasn't true...." She thought. "It was only a nightmare, a bad dream. I must have fallen asleep in Dad's room and that's why I had such a strange and horrible dream." The idea seemed to refresh her feverish temples, infusing some cheerful hope into her weary soul.
Then, a chilling breeze glided over her naked body, which was still lying spread-eagled over the bed. She realized she wasn't wearing any clothes, and when she tried to get off the bed, a sharp pain stabbed her abdomen, bringing back reality to her senses.
The events that followed seemed to have been covered by a thick fog, blurring them in Sally Ann's brain. The days after, she moved around more like an automaton than like a human being. Life itself became dull and artificial to the girl who had to go through such a tremendously traumatic experience which scarred her entire life.
After a while, her father himself took her to the doctor. When he heard the news that she was pregnant he wasn't upset. Quite on the contrary, he seemed happy and proud. He even told her he expected her baby to be a female, and he'll be glad the baby will be born soon, so he wouldn't be too old to do the same to his granddaughter as he had done with his child. Candidly, he said the same to the doctor who examined his daughter.
Sally Ann had a nervous breakdown.
The doctor himself took care of sending Sally Ann to an institution to recover from the nervous breakdown she suffered at the physician's office. Fortunately, after a while she did recover from her mental condition and is presently making great progress in the process of coming back into normality, and incorporating herself into the sane world.
She will, most probably, but it's doubtful that her father would. He still remains, probably forever, in the hospital for mental patients where the Court sent him, by the thoughtful recommendation of Sally Ann's physician.
THE MERRY HIPPIE
Less than a year ago I was engaged in a research project involving the new hippie movement which has taken into its ranks so much of our youth. A few of my colleagues and myself were concerned about such a peculiar trend which had so obviously taken such a deep roots in America-as well as in many other countries-and was directly responsible for the profound transformation that has taken place in the otherwise placid destinies of this country's youngsters.
The strenuous process of gathering data for my work took me to the picturesque section of Ashbury Park in San Francisco, where I was able to obtain a sort of collective interview with some members of a peculiar sect which sticks together, and consider themselves to be a religious congregation. This religious faction, needless to say, contains among its "sacraments" the use of hallucinogenic drugs, such as LSD-25 and the like, and their congregation is complete with their "clergy" of prophets and visionaries, and the practice of their faith includes promiscuity among its members in a form of indiscriminate free love.
Our initial conversation was conducted in a rather shabby apartment, furnished in a style that wishes and tries very hard to be Oriental and exotic. In my opinion, not only it doesn't succeed in its attempts of orientation, but it is indeed colorful and somewhat appealing, showing many details of good taste, but also of negligence in matters of cleanliness and order.
In the living room there were half a dozen children, ranging from three years, down to a few months of age. I was surprised to see that the place, though it contained such an amount of toddlers in a rather noisy age, it was kept under a marvelous state of control by the grown-ups there.
Immediately after our arrival the children were herded out into an adjacent room, and I found out where they all came from. They all belonged to different members of the congregation, although they de facto belonged to all. In regards to their civil status, they were all illegitimate.
I spoke to the young mother of one of them, Rena Koch, a twenty-four year old member of the peculiar faith. This is her story:
"I was a student at the University, Dr. Siegel," the shapely blonde explained to me. "That was some time ago ... I wanted to major in Anthropology." She smiled nervously, adding. "And, believe me, I was a good student!"
"Why did you give it up?" I asked.
"Oh, it was no use!" She answered. "It took me time to find that out, but the time came when I realized the whole idea was just bullshit. And it was, Dr. Siegel, believe me. It was an enormous lot of bullshit."
"Why so?" I asked her. "If by any event you considered that Anthropology was not to your liking, I believe there's always time to change your major and get an education oriented toward something else you may have liked more."
"Oh, it's not that!" She answered in an amused tone. "It's not like that at all! There was nothing wrong with my major; where there was something wrong was with life itself. You see? I wasn't living at all! Oh, I realized that! I was only existing! But existing like a plant does, just there, being fed and defecating, like an animal is. And being used by a society the basis of which are all rotten from the core ... ! "
"What do you find wrong with today's society that makes you judge it so hardly?"
"Oh, it's not today's society, Dr. Siegel." She said impatiently. "It has been always the same. As I told you before, it's the whole basis of this society which is entirely wrong. It's sick and it has been so right from the beginning. I guess it all began with civilization itself. You see ... ? It's a matter of purpose, Dr. Siegel. In the beginning I thought it was a problem of attitude. People's attitudes were awful. . . I'm sure you must have noticed that...."
"I agree with you that many people display an utterly wrong attitude about many aspects of life which directly concern the individual. I also agree that there are many people whose aims in life are quite censurable. However, all of us, as human beings have a duty toward ourselves and toward each other...."
"Precisely." She interrupted me. "That's precisely what I mean, and I'm glad you've grabbed the whole meaning of this, Dr. Siegel. We do believe in what you just said, and we practice it." Her expression was triumphant and childishly joyful.
"How can that be explained, my dear girl." I argued. "If your group, as far as I can see, are not much productive. Nor for yourselves nor for the rest of humanity."
"Oh, but you're all wrong, Dr. Siegel." She said with a sadness of expression that looked somewhat theatrical. "And at the same time, you have just said the key word in this matter. Its in that concept of 'productivity' where the big mistake lies."
"And what's wrong with productivity?" I said, curious to hear what angle she was going to take in her deprecation of our "rotten society."
"As I see it, taking the matter of 'duties toward oneself and toward the others', it is the concept of productivity the only meaning one can find in the purposefulness of our existence. It is the only way by which we can justify and give a meaning to our presence here, if we are to practice those altruistic ideals you seem to support."
"Please, Dr. Siegel, try to understand me." She said in a pleasant tone, which made me aware of my exalted voice.
"I'm sorry, Miss Koch" I said earnestly. "I didn't mean to make a speech here. Believe me, It is very far from my purpose here to try to teach you anything, nor am I here to judge you and least of all to condemn you. I was just...."
"Oh, that's fair enough!" She said amusedly. "It doesn't bother me your arguing, believe you me! Quite on the contrary! I'm not so insecure about my own beliefs as to feel hurt if somebody tries to challenge them. Not in the least. On the contrary. A good discussion about an issue that touches me so deeply does contribute to strengthen my view's about the subject. So, go ahead. . . "
Her attitude of charming congeniality surprised me, for it was not precisely that what I had been expecting from an irredeemable 'beatnik' such as she was. I smiled. "As I said before, Miss Koch, I didn't come here to express my opinions, whatever these might be, nor to make a point, but to know about your group. So, why don't you kindly go ahead and tell me, for instance, what were the circumstances which made you join the group?"
"All right, Dr. Siegel, I'll tell you." She said calmly. "As I was explaining to you, I was a student in the University. I was interested in Anthropology and I intended to major in that subject. I entered college with an enormous enthusiasm. You see? I was interested in people, above everything. I wanted to know about their different ways of living, the civilizations they had made in the past and in the present times. I wanted to know what were their main purposes ... of their lives ... And all I could find was a systematic series of wars and destructions. . . A hatred towards each other that seems inherent in the human being. . . But, you see ... ? I was also part of humanity and that hatred wasn't part of myself. I couldn't find it anywhere within me, so I concluded that it wasn't something inherent to the human being, but a product of their so-called civilizations...."
"That was the reason?" I ventured.
"Mainly that was it." She answered. "You can say it was an utter disgust toward all that humanity praises most: its sacred institutions."
"You mean the religions of mankind?" I asked.
"That included." She said. "But all the others as well. "Their games of politics, their social systems mostly based on discriminations and exploitations of one another. In a word, all that series of disgusting trends which are followed by all systems of human organizations. I was sick and tired of all that. It was, as we call it here, the enormous bullshit of humanity. And to think that all that has been, and still, is wrapped up in peoples favorite game: war. That is a game people do not seem to get tired of playing: the systematic destruction of each other. They have been playing it since the beginning of time and they will try to keep playing it till there's only one human being left on earth. Then it would probably stop, since he wouldn't have anyone to make war against."
She stopped for a moment to light a cigarette, then continued.
"Then, when I was sick and tired of everything, disgusted at all the struggling I had to do in order to continue in the University where I was supposedly trying to 'better myself' according to the standards of society, and everybody seemed to be engaged in a personal fight against my doing it. There were those interminable questioning about how I was going to pay the tuition, and the never ending struggle to get the money to continue, while so many millions of dollars were spent around the world in order that people could kill people...." She paused a moment, gaining her breath, then continued. "I got sick and tired...."
"Then you joined this group because it was easy to live with?" I said.
"No, it wasn't like that." She retorted. "In the beginning I saw all these young kids, just like myself, making their public demonstrations and speeches about all sorts of things, mainly about freedom'. You see? Above everything these people advocated for freedom and for peace, and I agreed with them wholeheartedly. So, I began joining them. I believed in many things in which they believed."
"One thing struck me in them: they seemed to be happy. Something which I was not. So that attracted me. However, I didn't join them still, I didn't know much about them. Until I met Reb...."
"Was he, or is he a member of this group in particular?" I asked.
"Yes." She answered. "As a matter-of-fact, Reb was the founder of our group. We met in a meeting they held with other cats of the University. You might have heard of the marches for peace...."
I nodded. "Could you tell me about what happened between you and Reb that seemed to have been so transcendental in your life in order to have changed its course so transcendentally?"
She smiled. "Oh, you've said the right word, Dr. Siegel. It was something transcendental. I still remember his words...." Anyway, he told me about his views regarding life, society and everything, and he spoke about the enormous amount of bullshit...."
"You, Rena," Reb said. "You're not a free being. That's why you're unhappy. It's not your fault, I know that. It's the fault of society itself which has created this world for you. You see? You are inhibited about most things which concern you as a living being: You judge things according to whatever patterns have been set for you by laws, religion, society, tradition, etc."
The young former Anthropology major sitting in front of me kept speaking with a dreamy expression in her intense face of her experience with Reb. The young man seemed to have had an enormous influence on her for something like an inner light irradiated from her youthful face. Lengthily she spoke to me of the new meaning of love Reb had given her, of how he had made her aware of her own importance as a human being and as a woman. "There was nothing in Reb of that superiority complex, of that desire to dominate I had observed in other men before. They all needed so much to be recognized as males, to have their male ego fed that I had often wondered whether they were very sure of that masculinity they were so much boasting about. Reb was so different and that is why I learned to love him and to love all these young and free people surrounding him. People without complexes, people who didn't need to prove anything to themselves, or to the world, people who were happy of being alive and young and healthy and who tried to help those who weren't so lucky as them. Yes, doctor, I understood what love meant then. I understood that it was composed of all those little and big actions one does daily for himself and for the others. And I loved Reb in that way, not in that demanding, almost commercialized way of loving or what people call loving, and it makes me laugh! There were no ties between us but what we build everyday. It was a bridge, not a rope. We were only two pillars of the vast temple standing one besides the other...."
Thus Rena Koch spoke, telling me or rather herself about that first time she went to bed with Reb. And all the details of her story came naturally since she was speaking mainly to herself.
It had been in a barn where Reb lived when he wanted to be by himself. Rena went to the barn in an old run-down Ford she used to go to the university. As she approached the barn, she saw that there was a garage, an old wooden one, next to the barn. Hearing her horn, Reb stepped out from the barn and came up to the car, smiling.
"Pull in the garage, darling," he said, and opened the door as she gunned the car inside. Then he closed the door of the garage and they stood, facing each other, smiling to each other in the happy light of the summer.
"Come in darling, welcome to my kingdom." Reb said sweetly and he took her arm and they stepped into the barn. The door swung closed behind them. The place was rather large, originally built for holding livestock. It no longer did; it had been converted into a sort of study! that is, one corner of the interior had. It was closed by a knotty-pine door. The rest of the barn was intact, full of clean, sweet-smelling hay. Even the hayloft was still there.
Which is where Reb headed. Rena watched him climb the ladder; his strong thighs moved steadily, well outlined by his old jeans. She liked him to have a well-muscled body, and she loved his rugged face with the blond beard framing it with a golden frame.
"Come on, up, Rena," he called from above. Slowly, Rena climbed the ladder, and when she was up there, Reb reached over and pulled the ladder up. Now they were sitting in soft, clover-pungent hay.
Alone.
The two of them alone, in a big, secluded barn. Where they could do anything. Anything at all. Rena became filled with the knowledge as it seeped through her mind, and incensed with it; entranced. She raised her eyes to meet the blue eyes of Reb studying her. He was looking down at her, as she was lying on her back in the hay. Her skirt had risen slightly above her knees, exposing part of her well-tanned smooth thighs. Her breasts rose and fell in time to her steady, fast breathing. It was a cinch that she wore no brassiere, the way her nipples were outlined and suggested by the light blue beneath the thin material; that look that even told a clod that bare flesh was rubbing against the fabric, without any confining cups of elastic and sponge rubber. Rena saw the effect of her breasts on Reb's face. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. It was obvious that he liked her, and a lot.
Reb came nearer to her. He wasn't wearing any shirt and Rena could see tiny beads of sweat shining between the scarce curly hairs on his broad chest. His hands went to her exuberant red hair and buried themselves in the soft locks. Her wild eyes bore into his, and he was caught by mounting passion-her body, all what it promised of earthy and heavenly delight, all too much for him to withstand.
He bent down and kissed her. He held her in his arms, tightly against him; the warmth of her breast radiated through the sheer material of her sweater against his bare chest. They thrilled to the contact.
"Let me get my sweater off," Rena whispered, breathing hard and rapidly now. She had been with other men before, but never had she felt so thrilled by the presence of any of them and by the anticipation of what was to come. Her fingers flew to the zipper in the back, and soon the sweater was off. Her torso was naked, and Reb saw the white flesh, the lovely breasts, rising and falling in two distinct globes, parted by the deep, silky crevice. Her nipples were porous and pink, delicately shaped, like two rose-buds.
Gently, softly, Reb took one nipple at a time between his lips. Rena leaned back slightly and sighed with pleasure.
"You're so gentle," she murmured, "so nice." She felt languorously passionate; like she could take her time, and just relax to the little pleasure-kisses of his lips against the pink delicate nipples that capped the white rising flesh of her breasts. He persisted in his gentle kissing, filling her with a slightly dizzying kind of sensation. Then he drew his head up, level with hers, and cupped her breasts, one in each large, masculine hand. They were firm and full, and rested as though they belonged there. He squeezed them.
"They're lovely," Reb said. "They feel as though they belong here, in my hands."
"They do," she whispered, "they truly do." She leaned forward, and found his lips with hers; they were moist and parted. He felt her tongue gliding effortlessly through his lips, prying, opening, until it found his tongue. Quick darting movements, thrusts of tongue against tongue heightened the passion inside them, and then Rena slowed her tongue-thrusting, struck up a deliberate tempo, in and out of his mouth, hotly suggestive of-and she felt Reb shudder with anticipation against her shivering flesh.
Rena's hand moved to his jeans.
"Let me see you," she moaned, "grasp you in ray hand-"her voice was husky with wanting, and it set off a blast of exploding desire inside him. Reb felt her hand on him, heard the slow, hiss of the zipper, felt the surge of freedom as the waistband suddenly stopped hugging his hips-then he was wriggling, kicking off his loafers, naked now. Rena was still wearing her skirt, naked from the slim waist upward. She lay beside him, and they kissed again, a lingering, tongue-clashing kiss that said it all, how they felt, what they felt.
Her hand grasped Reb.
Lightly, expertly. There was no bite of fingernails, no inept over-eagerness; just a light, stroking, all-encompassing and possessive surrounding of a woman's hand. She was doing it because she felt like it, she wanted to do it. She moaned hotly, feeling his throbbing, awesome hugeness. Her hand moved, and Reb closed his eyes, gasping with joy.
"I want you, darling," Rena murmured," I want you to know my every touch, my every kiss-" her voice trembled, and grew fainter as her head moved down. For a brief moment, Reb saw the glint red hair, then nothing except her smooth, flawless shoulders as they slid against his chest. His body stiffened, then relaxed to the sudden surrounding of warm, pouting lips, darting, caressing tongue. His head swam, and he was only dimly aware of her hands pushing at him telling him with mute insistence to turn around, to move down.
Rena cried out with ecstasy.
Her thighs did a fitful dance, up and down, slamming and spreading, her whole body convulsing as Reb's large hands grasped the cheeks of her buttocks and pulled her closer to those wonderful, impossibly knowing lips against her, throbbing thrilling her as she had never been thrilled.
Savagely, Rena got up and pushed him back. Reb thudded against the soft hay, lying on his back, looking up at her as she moved slowly down, touching his body, then resting upon him, twisting so that her buttocks rubbed hotly against his raised thighs; down, down, down, until she feasted upon him, reveled with him thrusting and rooting eagerly inside her, while she screamed and cried and made short breathless sounds. His hands gripped the soft flesh of her sumptuous hips and pulled her back and forth, against him, while she closed her eyes and panted, going faster, faster, until she screamed as the final barb of ecstasy went ripping through her body, so that all feeling in her ebbed away into nothing, nothing but sweet content.
They lay in the hay, side by side, for a long time, before Reb opened his eyes. He turned to Rena, and faced her squarely, so that her breasts touched his chest.
"Rena?" He touched a breast lightly, squeezing the nipple. She moved, her eyes fluttered open, and she stared down at his hand.
"Yes," she whispered, "do it again." Her arms opened for him, and she felt him pressing onto her waiting body, then he fell upon her completely, their lips meshing and grinding ardently against each other, seeking contentment in each other.
Again, they made each other happy. Then she lay back, exhausted, smiling up at him.
He leaned on her, kissed her softly on the neck. "Thank you," he whispered, "thank you so much, Rena, for the happiness you have given me today." Then he smiled down at her....
Rena Koch was finishing her story. Now she smiled at me and said slowly. "I think it was that day that we conceived the little child. It must have been then, when we had so much love for each other. That is why she is so beautiful. Do you want to see her, doctor?"
I nodded.
"Pandora!" she called.
A little red-headed girl came running toward her. She had bright blue eyes and wasn't more than three years old, with firm little limbs healthy red cheeks.
She threw' her arms around her mother, saying, "You called me, Rena? Do you need something?"
"That's her, doctor. Little Pandora." Then she turned toward the child and told her. "Go and say hello to the doctor, Pandora. Then you may go back to play with your little brothers and sisters."
Gravely, the little girl shook my hand, then she run with all the vitality of a three-year-old toward her friends, laughing in a crystalline way that sounded exactly like her mother's laughter.
"You see, doctor, she is my daughter, but she is also the daughter of everybody in here. She doesn't know me as her mother. For her, I am Rena, that's all, and that's enough for me and for her. She has all the love a child and a human being needs. She is happy, what more can you ask?"
Yes, what more, I thought dreamily as I left the strange group in Ashbury Park.
THE IMPATIENT BRIDEGROOM
Karen Ross was really a good girl, and everybody knew it, her parents included. Even the priest of her parish as well as all her acquaintances from her home town in Southern Minnesota and from St. Claude High-School where she had been a brilliant student. She dated even less frequently than most girls her age, despite the fact that she was much liked among her male companions. Karen was a nice-looking girl, but the boys knew from experience, or hear-say, that she wasn't of the kind who would go "all the way" with them.
Peter and Marcia Ross, Karen's parents, owned a drugstore in the small town. They were good, simple folks who loved their only daughter and cared for her. Karen had a childhood without incidents and now her adolescence seemed also to lack the usual turmoil and disturbances found among youngsters coming from less peaceful families. The truth that Karen didn't really have anything to complain about, and since she was an extremely well balanced girl, she didn't invent problems which didn't exist. With the keen insight of her bright intelligence, Karen often thought of herself as being indeed very fortunate to have been born to such parents as Peter and Marcia, for she was aware of the troubled atmosphere many of her girl-friends encountered in their own homes.
"Is your room all made up, Karen honey?" Her mother said.
Karen was startled at the sound of her mother's voice. The girl was plunged in deep thoughts around the wild episodes of high school life with which her closet friend, Patty Andrews, supplied her vivid imagination.
"Yes, mother," she replied, turning away from the window where she had remained staring at the garden bathed in the warm light of midsummer. "I did it first thing in the morning. Boy, what a mesa after these girls left yesterday!"
"Yeah, but it's always like this with young people and Patty and Debby are your best friends." Marcia replied, sighing heavily. She was still beautiful in her late thirties and her face had a serene expression about it which rendered it even more pleasant. "Well, if help weren't so hard to find around here, I sure wouldn't have you do all this for your summer vacations, honey. You should be spending your time with the people you know." She observed to Karen.
"Oh, those drips!" Karen said disdainfully. "After being around with them all winter, it's a relief to get away."
"Except maybe for Allan?" Marcia Ross teased with a laughter.
"Well, maybe him," Karen smiled back.
Allan Preston was Karen's boy-friend in the sense that they had gone to all the school dances together and had dated almost every week-end, and on one occasion they had gone to a neighboring town for a baseball game in which their school team was playing. Allan was handsome, with his sharp blue eyes and thick black hair-a bit too long for Karen's taste-and his exciting, hard-muscled body.
"I think we've just about finished up, honey," Marcia said to her sexy-looking offspring. "Why don't you freshen up and go out?"
"Yes, you're right, Mom. I'm going to shower and dress and go down to the shopping center." Karen said.
"Go ahead, honey. I'll just have to finish up a few thinks yet. Your father is having breakfast."
Karen gave her mother a peck on the cheek and disappeared into the bathroom. In a moment she had thrown off her clothes, and stood naked beneath the warm spray of water. It felt good against her young blossoming body and she luxuriated in the feeling. Her long chestnut hair fell in damp streaks along her shoulders, its tips titillating the young full breasts whose pink nipples were now standing erect under the exciting action of the falling water. Karen lathered up her body with the highly perfumed soap she had begun to use quite recently and for brief moment her fingers lingered about that delicate area below her flat stomach. Karen, like most girls her age, had discovered early that there was a pleasurable sensation in using her fingers in a special way around this area and there were times when she had kept doing so until it seem her very being would explode, but there was always some part of her that remained unsatisfied.
Now, standing beneath the jet of luke-warm water, she moaned softly to herself as her fingers continued to probe and explore this area of such pleasant sensation. Her mind wandered about those brief but delightful moments with Allan and the times that his strong fingers had tentatively directed their caressing course toward this area during some of their sessions of heavy petting. In that aspect, also, Karen was quite a regular young girl who liked boys just as much as her many girl-friends did, if not as wildly. She had never let Allan go beyond a certain level; not Allan nor any other boy she had dated during her last years of high school.
Karen had talked with her school girl-friends, most of whom had had similar experiences, and in some cases had gone "all the way" as they termed it. And often they had exchanged notes of comparison about their activities with their respective boy friends. But Karen was resolute in her decision not to let Allan nor anyone else go "all the way" with her in the back seat of a parked car. The matter didn't appeal to her and although she felt very definite sexual yearnings, she preferred to abstain from too daring activities.
She knew, too, of Allan's sexual urges and how they manifested themselves in a rather vivid manner. She recalled how the week before in the drive-in movie where he had taken her, they had begun to pet heavily as usual, but Allan's heavy breathing betrayed his anxiety as he took her in his arms and pressed her against himself in a particularly suggestive manner. Karen felt his growing desire in a very palpable way, and she was also aware of her own rising excitement. It had been very hard to keep Allan away, but she succeeded.
Karen remembered how at their first dates Allan had only dared give her tentative little pecks on her cheek. She shrugged. And so it had gone. One night, she let her hand feel up his leg and into that area where she could feel the powerful throbbing of his masculine desire. That was the night Allan unhooked her brassiere and let his hand slip beneath it, and Karen experienced a thrill run through her young body as she had never felt before....
Allan was sipping slowly a malted milk at the soda counter when Karen arrived and seated her five-foot-one lovely frame beside him. He grinned with his handsome face radiating pleasure at seeing the girl.
"Howyah, babe? Gosh, I haven't seen you in days, what'cha been doing with yourself to become lovelier than ever?"
Karen blushed with delight at the compliment. Allan took hold of her hand and she let him caress slowly her moist palm.
"How about a ride, heh? It's awfully hot here and, after all, we're on vacation!"
"Okay," Karen agreed, thinking that she shouldn't let herself be alone with Allan again. But, she shrugged, she knew how to handle him in case he became dangerous so they went, hand in hand to the boy's run-down convertible.
Allan drove until they went deep into the woods. There he stopped the car and turned toward Karen, his arms pulling her against himself, his lips pressed down upon hers. She felt his warm, inquisitive tongue begin to find its way into her mouth. She wanted him to go on and on, kissing her like that. But his hands were busy, too, unhooking her bra, cupping the now unrestrained breasts while his fingers went to the eager nipples, teasing them into excitement. Then, his lips left her mouth and went toward her neck, and then downer, and downer, until he buried his head in her chest. Karen felt a warm dampness enveloping her nipples and making a delightful jet of pleasure invade her very being. Allan was now mouthing her nipples, his tongue traveling around each lovely pink bud and leaving a wet trail across her breasts. It was the first time that Allan was kissing her breasts and Karen was beginning to enjoy it tremendously. After all, it wasn't dangerous, she thought, and they both liked it.
"Karen, baby, you're so beautiful! And so well-stacked with those gorgeous breasts of yours!" Allan sighed as his hands squirmed this time under her dress, successfully creeping beneath her panties and finding what he sought with his fingers. It was the first time that Karen allowed him such daring move what he had pleaded with her on previous sessions in his car, while they were alone, parked in some lonely spot.
The new sensation was so strong and so different from what she had obtained through her own manipulations that Karen opened her legs to his inquiring fingers and their daring and exciting caresses. Allan, too, had moaned in his excitement at touching the damp, forbidden area; and Karen, in turn, let her hands caress the hard outline in his thin summer slacks.
As her own excitement mounted, she found herself searching for the zipper on his slacks and Allan feverishly found it for her and slashed his belt open to let her touch what she sought. Then her hand reached through the opening of his under shorts and, for the first time in her life, Karen Ross held in her hand the hot, excited flesh of a male. She began to caress it tentatively while Allan continued his exciting journey beneath her panties. Karen felt like getting rid of all her clothes and letting go to the wild sensations coursing throughout her blood. But she resisted the temptation, even though she knew that, ultimately, all this would not be enough. But she wanted this "ultimately" to come only with the "right guy" and certainly not now that she was still in high school.
It was then that Allan suddenly drew back from her in haste and almost gasped for breath as he seemed to lose all control. Karen understood then what the girls meant when they spoke of "that mess." Allan quickly reached for a handkerchief in his embarrassment, but Karen knew he couldn't have helped himself, and secretly she was glad she had given him some form of relief, although he had left her "high and dry."
Back in her room that afternoon, Karen remained a long while thoughtfully thinking about the morning. The memory of Allan's warm and bare flesh became vivid in her mind, and she wished that he could be there right then, so that she could feel again that hot rigidity of his. But this time, not in her hand, but in her very self ... She struggled against these thoughts as her own fingers went to that place where Allan's had so expertly explored only a while before. "Oh, Allan, Allan," she moaned. "I want you, Allan. I want you!"
The rest of her last school year was uneventful. Karen did successfully resist all temptations to go "all the way" whether with Allan, who soon turned to more cooperative girl-friends, or with her other dates. Karen was serious in her intentions of not getting into trouble and keeping herself for the man whom she would love.
After graduation, the attractive brunette went to St. Timothy College with the intention of majoring in biology and later getting a job in some laboratory.
It was in her sophomore year that Karen met Bob Madison, a handsome, ail-American hunk of a guy with a pleasant face and an athletic body. They began dating and soon their relationship became more intimate. Bob thought that Karen was as easy-going about sexual matters as so many college girls were. To his utter surprise and dismay, he soon found out that things weren't just quite like that with Karen. Yes, they kissed and necked, and even had many sessions of petting but it never went beyond a certain point. Not that Bob didn't try to "make it" Karen, but he was always unsuccessful in his efforts, no matter what he did.
Bob Madison was a nice guy and he really was taken by that serious brunette, so pleasant to be with and who earnestly wished to give herself only to the "right guy," because she wanted it to be "forever." He knew that Karen wanted him as much as he wanted her and, therefore, he admired her self-control. Evenings were adding to evenings when both would separate panting and breathing heavily, with Karen pushing Bob away with the last fraction of energy she had left. Karen had seriously considered simply letting go and going to bed with Bob Madison. She liked him tremendously, as she had never liked anyone before, but she felt there was something else in her feelings toward Bob which was not only sexual desire. She really liked him and enjoyed being in his company. Secretly, she didn't want their relationship to end so soon, and she knew that if she gave herself to Bob, it wouldn't be long before he would turn away from her and to someone else. She was not aware Bob Madison harbored toward her the same feelings she had for him.
So when Bob asked her to marry him, Karen was at first surprised. Then, a deep feeling of joy invaded her very being at learning that he, too, was in love with her. They hadn't spoken of love before, but now so many things remained for them to say. However, in spite of Bob's pleadings and of the pleadings of her own heart, Karen wouldn't consider marriage until after graduation. Bob did his best to convince her to wed sooner, but she wouldn't, accepting only to continue going steady with him, although they both loved each other deeply.
In an effort to convince Karen to expedite their wedding, Bob occasionally tried to go all the way with her, but only obtained that she'd allow a heavy petting that would leave both of them unsatisfied and eager.
Finally, graduation neared and Karen accepted to set a date for the wedding. The young couple also rented a small apartment and began to decorate it. Both were floating in happy dreams of fulfillment in every sense of the word.
That afternoon, Karen had gone to the apartment to take over there some of her belongings. In the gaily decorated one bedroom nest, the young girl went from one piece of furniture to the other thinking of the happy moments, Bob and her had spent together choosing every detail of the place. The wedding was very near now, only in two weeks or so, and everything was ready in the little apartment to welcome the young couple in the most pleasant way possible. Only yesterday, Bob had helped her hang the curtains and she remembered his strong arms around her waist, lowering her from the ladder. They almost "did" it then in the frenzied and enervating excitement which had seized both of them. Karen had to struggle hard against her own self in order to push Bob away and tell him that "it" was so near now that it would be stupid to spoil it all in a foolish moment like they had had so many already. Bob hadn't seemed very convinced by Karen's weak arguments, but he didn't want to hurt her irreparably by some impatient action, and he had left almost immediately. Karen had remained a while longer, thinking about Bob's departure, fragments of overheard conversations coming back to her mind. There had been Sally Ann who had discovered that her fiance went regularly to see some cheap whore after every time they had had a date together. Sally Ann was another one who didn't want to "go all the way" before her wedding....
The same thoughts came back to Karen now, as she was closing slowly a drawer where she had just added one more lovely and sheer nightgown to the pile of enticing pieces of clothing. She wondered about what Bob must have done after leaving her. She remembered that day with Allan, in high school, when she had relieved him although she herself had remained high and dry. She had never done that with Bob whom she loved. She wondered whether she had not committed a terrible mistake; after all Bob loved her sincerely, the proof was that he was going to marry her. As a matter-of-fact, it was always him who wanted their wedding to take place sooner and she'd had a hard time convincing him to delay it until after graduation. But she knew how hard it was for her to refrain from engaging in sexual intercourse with him; she thought that for Bob it must be at least as hard. If she had the recourse of masturbation, didn't he have it also, she asked herself. Again, the story of Sally Ann came back to her anxious mind and upset her. She wouldn't want Bob to go with anyone but her, even if. . .
"Darling, you are here! Bob's happy voice startled her from her thoughtful reverie. "It's grand, baby, I wanted so much to see you!"
"But, Bob, we saw each other only a moment ago. We had lunch together." Karen replied, reassurance coming back to her at the sound of Bob's voice.
"Don't you know I want to be all the time with you, darling. I love you." His voice had become a whisper as his strong arms enveloped her and she felt his breath on her mouth.
They were kissing, endlessly, almost desperately, standing only a few steps away from the big queen-size bed where they would have wanted to be already mingled one to the other. Bob's hands had become demanding, running alongside Karen's round hips, fondling her strong and soft buttocks while Karen felt his rising excitement against the flaming center of her body. She shivered in his arms and pressed herself more against him, feeling his strength more acutely than ever. If only they would have been already married, she thought, with how much eagerness wouldn't she abandon herself to his caresses, to his probing fingers, to everything he would have wanted to do with her.
Karen felt passion's fire glowing higher in her-Bob had unhooked her brassiere and his hands were actively fondling her breasts, torturing the soft mounds of flesh with rising desire. She sucked in her belly as she felt his hand moving down the front of her body, gliding under her skirt and creeping to the most important part of her. And there his fingers worked beneath the sheer panties with a knowing labor, building high her desire for total fulfillment until she was afraid she would scream. Then she felt his swelling readiness against her and found out that she was unable to coordinate her thoughts properly. She was altogether too excited to be able to think of anything else but the body of Bob against hers and its obvious promise of fulfillment.
As through a fog, she heard Bob's voice whispering in her ear. "I know it's high time that you and I stopped wasting time," he told her gently but firmly. "We love each other and we're going to get married very soon--.the sooner the better. As my wife, you'll be so well loved that you won't have time to be so cruel, the way you've been recently, not only with me, but with yourself also. I know you want it as much as I do, darling, so why not? I thought you didn't attach so much importance to a vulgar piece of paper." He added, a note of reproach in his voice.
Karen felt like letting go. She was Bob's, she thought, she loved him. So why not let him decide things for both of them? For the benefit and satisfaction of both of them, she was sure. If what they both felt for each other was real love, then she should be happy to go along with it wherever it might lead her. Her high young breasts thrust up enticingly against Bob's chest and her lithely round hips filled her panties skin tight and also Bob's large and strong hands. Strangely enough, she felt no nervousness or shame, as Bob told her of his love and his plans for their future together. She knew that he loved her, all of her, as a person, that he was not just hungering after her like some wild beast to use and abuse her tender femininity.
She felt weaker than ever as Bob continued whispering in her ear. "We are going to be married soon, darling, and I would like so much to start our togetherness, now, this evening. I know how you feel about that. Tonight, I can only ask that you go as far as you want to. I'm sure that our love will carry us through, so we can wholly be joined, as one couple my love."
Karen's steady resistance suddenly crumbled apart, leaving her wholly abandoned to the wild passion rising within her and twisting at her entrails. Very slowly, her long fingers went to Bob's shirt, unbuttoning it. Bob also, very gravely proceeded to undress Karen. He had never seen the young splendor of her breasts before, although he had felt them and kissed them in the dark. Now, he remained staring at her bare torso and his hand let go of the blouse and bra he had just removed from her body.
Karen found she felt no sense of self-consciousness which had been one of her fears. She reached over and unfastened Bob's belt and released the top button of his trousers. Meanwhile, he had unfastened the snap on her skirt and swept it from her. She was in panties now which clung to her shapely youthful body.
Their voices sounded thick and husky as they went about discovering each other's body for the first time. Bob's hands shook a bit as he tenderly drew the thin panties down Karen's slim white hips.
"Man, oh man," he exclaimed. "You are beautiful, Karen, really beautiful. My wife," he added pulling her against him. There was no going back now, not that Karen wanted it, but their young naked bodies clung to each other as though glued.
Bob suddenly lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. She fell back on the fresh sheets. Theirs mouths and tongues met now in that familiar duel they had had before, only this time her body lay bare beneath him and she was feeling all the impact of his naked maleness. Bob increased his pressure against her and began to caress her with his tongue, over her ears and neck, and to her breasts, his teeth gently nibbling at the erect nipples, making her shiver with anticipated delight. He could feel Karen begin to squirm in her pleasure.
Her hands were upon him now, seeking, searching, probing. She stroked and fondled his warm flesh, laughing at his nervous tremors and spasms. Her hands feverishly caressed him, seeking that part of his body that seemed so alive and vital. Bob groaned in his pleasure from her manipulations, then stopped her hand. She was aware that he was doing something to himself; he seemed to be preparing himself for the moment she had often wondered about so very long and which they both longed for.
"It will hurt a little, baby," Bob said. "It's your first time, I know. I'll try to be gentle. I understand."
Now Bob lay half over her and could use both mouth and hands to demonstrate his worship and mounting passion. She watched intently his every move and a vague smile of pleasure and anticipation across her full pouting lips. Bob's attentions centered on her breasts and he cupped and fondled them tenderly while she observed in fascination, her feelings stirring warmly within her. His fingers gently teased a nipple into responsive erection and they both smiled in silent communion at this. Her hands were gliding up and down his muscular back as though memorizing it while assuring his perpetual presence close above her. When his hand gently caressed the secret area of her passion, she slowly became fully aware of the forces being aroused within her. His firm considerate gentleness allowed her to accept each novelty and enjoy it before going on to the next.
Karen murmured in reply. "I think I'm ready now, too, Bob. Ready to show you all my love, and receive all yours, darling."
She instinctively spread herself to his entrance-Then she felt for the first time the urgency of a male upon her. She felt the rigid warm flesh as it slowly began to penetrate into her very inner self. Bob was right. There was pain; but a pain coupled with a sensation she had never known. This was what she had been waiting for so long. Now she knew. Now she understood what a male body meant to a woman's body. And she rose up now to meet this man who carefully made his way bit by bit, until he felt he had accomplished his purpose-He had all her love and she had all his. That was more than enough for both of them.
Now they lay close-gripped together for a brief moment, savoring this first experience of loving ultimate intimacy. Then slowly Bob began to perform the love rite, watching her face changing expressions gradually as joy and pleasure intermingled on her features while he gradually increased the tempo of his vigor, certain that he was not hurting her in any way.
Karen saw his smile of pleasure as she began moving slightly beneath him, varying the stimulation that she was receiving. He liked her evident cooperation with him. They began their rhythm together. Bob knew that his powers could not hold out very long because he had wanted Karen for so long the sole thought of it had become painful for him. He was struggling to hold back, for he was determined to give Karen as much pleasure as possible and from her gasps as she lay beneath him, he knew he was doing just that.
On and on he moved, always gentle, always loving, trying to give as much pleasure and ecstasy as he was receiving. Under his rhythmic moves, he both saw and felt Karen responding with ever-heightening passion. Her movements were now wilder and accompanied by moans of carnal delight. Then he felt Karen clenching around him with spasming muscles wherever her flesh gripped his. Her means mounted to an uninhibited scream of releasing passion as she thrashed and flung herself about in ecstasy. A few more driving motions and with one mighty groan of energy, Bob felt all his tensions flow from him. As he lay sighing on top of her, Karen patted him with her moist hand-
"It was good, Bob. So very good. Thank you for having been so gentle with me."
He didn't reply immediately. He only held her tightly against him, and later she heard him whispering in her hair, "My wife! My beloved wife!"
Two days later, Bob Madison died in an absurd car accident, hit by a drunken taxi driver.
Shortly after, Karen discovered that she was pregnant.
Only then did she realize clearly that although she was crying Bob as a widow, she was not, she had never been his wife according to the law. And she was waiting for his child. She didn't feel ashamed, she had loved Bob too much to be ashamed of bearing his child. She was simply broken down and totally lost. When Bob died, she had seriously considered committing suicide. Only her deep faith had prevented her from doing it. Now the situation was even worsened, if that could be possible....
It was then that Marcia and Peter Ross came to play the lifesavers role for their daughter. In a moment of utter despair, Karen informed her mother of her terrible situation. And to her utter surprise, Marcia didn't erect herself as judge and jury. She spoke at length with her daughter, probing for the first time in her feelings toward the late Bob-Only when she assured herself Karen indeed had loved Bob and loved him still did she begin speaking of the child as Bob's and Karen's as something Bob had left Karen for her to remember him with tenderness....
In due time, Karen Ross had her baby. But the little Robert Madison Jr. was-registered as the son of Marcia and Peter Ross. In Marcia's words, "Why should a little child suffer for an act in which he didn't take any part and which society sanctioned in the person of its most immediate victims?"
THE PATRICIAN DIVORCEE
Sharon Clark slept brokenly that night. When brief sleep came, dreams ran rampant. And each dream featured another attractive man who would be loving her, Sharon Clark. When she awakened, she was ashamed of her dreams. They were not exactly the proper dreams for a married woman.
But they had been recurring-for the last months-and she couldn't help it.
She breathed deeply, breasts lunging upward, falling. She glanced down her length. The stiff starchiness of the sheet rubbed against her pink alluring flesh. She lay rigid, lips dry, eyes closed. Then she lighted the bed lamp. She was feeling all damp although the drapes were parted and the window open to let in all night air possible. The dim light of the lamp danced across her naked body. Sharon Clark admired her huge breasts with their pink tips pointing at some invisible point on the ceiling. It had been a long time since a man-her husband-had last caressed those breasts.
She glanced at the clock. Four o'clock and Hugh wasn't back yet. A bitter smile came across her full pouting lips. Hugh had gone to one of his "business meetings." Certainly, Hugh was a young executive on the rise; he was making lots of "business." Recently, Sharon had discovered she was being the gossip target of her friends at the different clubs she attended. Of course nobody had anything to say about Hugh; as a matter-of-fact, they were all so ready to find excuses for him! The fact that Hugh Clark was a degenerate didn't count for anybody. Sharon sighed and turned feverously in her large bed. Sleep wouldn't come again, at least not for tonight. One more sleepless night to be spent at brewing the same dark thoughts about her shaky marriage.
She wondered why she had left college so stupidly in order to marry Hugh Clark, the most attractive but light-headed playboy who now spent his time in so called "business orgies." She remembered that her father had warned her against such a marriage. She was rich, young, beautiful, she was going to a fashionable college and was a member of the most exclusive clubs. But Hugh Clark had come on the way and charmed her out of her single life. And now, a fully mature woman in her early thirties, still very beautiful and very rich, Sharon Clark had discovered that her husband not only didn't pay any attention to her, sexually and otherwise, but that he bestowed his attentions upon other women during his numerous business conferences and lengthy business trips.
For some time now, the relationship between Sharon Clark and her husband had been deteriorating rapidly, due in large part to his heavy drinking, and his indifference toward his wife coupled with his excessive interest in women other than his wife. Sharon was beginning to realize that as a husband, Hugh was becoming most ineffectual and this situation kept her awake for long nights, seeking a solution and not finding a suitable one.
Lustful desire hit her again. She reached over her breasts, legs rising. Her small hands fastened around her ankles. Slowly, she spread her legs wide, pulling them back simultaneously. Her throbbing flesh screamed for a man's pounding attentions. She remembered Hugh as he was during the early years of their marriage. Were the same Hugh here he'd be on his knees now, hands on her legs, spreading them even wider. Sharon pulled hard, assuming the carnal position, her flesh burning, her heart thumping. Again she thought of Hugh with her, in this same bed. She would feel him and her hips would scrounge downward on the bed to meet his.
Delightful ecstasy would spear her, making her flesh quiver. Her hips would rise sharply, smashing his. He would then settle on her, weight pushing her breasts and she would strain and rise to meet his harness.
Hugh would work, testing her womanhood, the soft contours of her femininity. His hungry lips would find hers. Her lips would crush his. Her tongue would move out, meet his damp tongue, loving it. His hands would move down, thrilling over her smoothness, bringing lust surfacing. She would lift gladly, willingly; his hands would cup her, fingers digging, prodding, loving. His harsh breathing would sound in her ears. His hard body would lift, fall, lift again, and she would rise, pull, rise again. Her teeth would be tight, grinding, her lips compressed, her eyes closed, exactly as they were now, but then it would be of passion not frustration. She would work and he would work and then in flaming fire, their bodies would become one, suspended against lustful space, the outside world forgotten....
Anger and shame struck her.
Apparently her own husband didn't want her. Otherwise he would have been beside her instead of somewhere out in the city with some vulgar slut. Only twice during the last year had he manifested any husbandly attention to her and both times Hugh had left her so hot she could have lighted a cigarette from the tip of either of her still throbbing breasts. Yes, Sharon decided, divorce was definitely indicated as the complete answer for her problem. She needed to be free again, to stop being the center of gossip of the club. She was still young and beautiful, she was also rich, a fact which did not make matters worse, quite on the contrary. So, what was she waiting for? Why hadn't she taken the necessary steps already? She didn't love Hugh any longer. It had been a long time that she didn't love him although she had remained married to him.
Sharon had analyzed herself quite thoroughly and without the help of any psychiatrist. She hail found out that the main reason why she hadn't asked for a divorce yet was that she was afraid of life alone, a life which she knew wouldn't be exactly that of a single girl. She would be a divorcee, with all the yearnings of a fully mature woman throbbing within her, and yet a shyness which she hadn't been able to overcome. Sharon Clark had never been unfaithful to her husband, not because she lacked wanting, but merely because she had never taken the first step. She had married Hugh when still in her teens, a young socialite who had just begun her first year in college. Of course, she had had the usual sexual experience of an eighteen year old girl, which did not amount to much, some petting and necking, that's all. While Hugh had fascinated her at first because of his ease in respect to sexual matters. Hugh was an accomplished playboy which he continued to be, only he had taken on demonstrating his abilities to others rather than to his wife and the situation had long since become intolerable in the Clarks' home.
Surprisingly, Hugh met her at the breakfast table. Sharon observed that he wasn't as handsome as he used to be, maybe because of the hangover face he wore that morning. She was astonished at discovering how little feeling she had left toward him. If she wouldn't have been aware that this tall man, sitting in front of her in a dark blue robe was her husband, she would have been surprised at seeing him in front of her at all, but as mildly surprised! as one feels toward other people at a restaurant.
He must have returned late, it could be seen on his face. Another night of orgy, she thought.
"You have any luck last night," Sharon asked as lightly as she could.
Hugh Clark glanced at his wife sharply. "What are you driving at?"
Sharon sipped coffee. "You went out last night, remember? Another important business meeting...." She put the accent on the word business.
"Yes, oh yes" Hugh replied slowly. "The guys got me completely drunk...."
"So I see." Sharon said in an indifferent tone.
"And what's it to you, anyway?" Hugh said sharply. Instantly, he regretted his reply. After all, he had made an effort to come down and have breakfast with Sharon. He felt that there was something different about her, a certain new independence. Who knows, maybe she wanted to ask for a divorce. He wouldn't have blamed her for doing so, but she was very rich although he had made a nice amount of money during the last few years. Hugh Clark liked to live well and the money of the old Perkins, Sharon's father, had been very welcome. He shrugged. After all he didn't care, even about the money. He had enough by himself and he knew that Sharon wouldn't ask for alimony. She was too proud for that. He simply didn't love her any longer, if he ever did. Hugh liked variety, peculiar variety in sex. He had orgiastic tastes which Sharon obviously couldn't satisfy. If they had grown so much apart, why not break it completely, he thought. Actually, he didn't particularly welcome the idea of a divorce from Sharon, mainly because his tastes were expensive and Sharon was rich. But he was too apathetic to really try to stop her from getting it.
As Sharon shrugged at her husband's last words, Hugh got to his feet, appetite gone. He didn't even look at her as he went up the stairs back to his bedroom to sleep away the remnants of his orgy of last night.
This afternoon, as she toweled herself, lingering at the more exciting parts of her body, Sharon felt again the old sexual yearning which had been manifesting itself with more urgency every day. Then, as every time she felt that way, Sharon hated Hugh. He couldn't give her even that. He couldn't appease that hunger gnawing at her entrails; he preferred his disgusting mixed-grills as her friends from the club whispered behind her back in a voice she could perfectly distinguish and with little laughter that made her cringe ... Hugh Clark had everything. Everything a man could possibly want. Why didn't he appreciate her? At least have enough tact and respect for her so as not to be so utterly blatant about his infidelities? Sharon had always been honest, in every way. She was clean. Out of spite, and a secret fear of committing herself. There had been joy, at the beginning of her marriage, youthful optimism also. And now: appearances, fronts, images, and no marriage, not even in the most euphemistic sense. And as far as she was concerned, without a marriage, there was nothing.
And Sharon felt utterly bored with life. Here, in Cherry Grove, she felt as though she were in a vacuum. Most of the other wives were younger than she, for one thing. They weren't as sophisticated and they talked and dwelled on things that she couldn't care less about. Presently, they talked about her and Hugh. Sharon felt that she might snap.
With the mailman; the milkman. Any man. She was reaching the saturation point....
The door buzzer broke her reverie. Someone was outside wanting to see her. It couldn't possibly be Hugh at this time. He had left a few hours ago having slept off his drunkenness and he wouldn't be back before late into the night. Besides, she wasn't expecting anyone.
Hurriedly, Sharon climbed into a pair of slacks and yanked a light weight sweater over her head. Then she went to the door, shouting, "I'm coming"
When Sharon opened the door to the house, she forgot the safety chain was dangling, unused, against the door casing.
A nondescript young man who was neatly dressed pushed himself past Sharon into the hall.
"Say, now!" the young woman shouted. "Who do you think you are to enter like that?"
"I have the most wonderful vacuum cleaner you've seen in your whole lifetime. Just let me demonstrate it to you. You don't have to buy it, lady...."
Before Sharon was able to articulate anything, the young man had entered the living-room and was drawing a strange contraption out of a bag he carried with him. He connected it and the noise it made was so atrocious nothing of what Sharon was shouting could be heard.
The man snuffled, then licked his lower lip. And Sharon didn't like the way his watery eyes lighted when they spied the heavy bulges that jutted the sweater out so far. She realized then that she wasn't wearing any bra. She was naked when the doorbell chimed, and she hadn't taken time to wear bra or panties. She decided not to speak any longer since the man didn't listen to her speech. She'd better act, she thought.
. She was still standing by the door, and she opened it wider as a hint for him to leave.
He started past her, and then he whirled, took her in his arms, and she barely managed to avoid his drooling lips. With one hand he pushed the door shut until the lock clicked, and then the same hand that had shut the door slipped up the hem of her sweater and squeezed her breast. Sharon was too surprised to act at once. Then she slapped his face.
"Leave me alone, darn you!" she cried.
"Don't worry, honey. I can't get to you the way other men can. I ain't built that way, but I sure get a charge out of making little dolls like you get your kicks in other ways."
"I'll scream." Sharon threatened.
"Go ahead. Bring a crowd of neighbors to see us perform so they can talk about what they saw and laugh and tell all their friends."
The man didn't seem at all impressed by any threat she might make, or represent.
"Get out!" She screamed again as she tried to pry his hand from her breast.
The man brought a knee up sharply to the junction of her legs. Sharon swore at the pain and dragged her hand from his to push his knee from where it still bore heavily against her.
Standing on one leg as he was and holding Sharon tightly, he lurched sideways as she moved in resistance and they both fell to the floor. But the man seemed to be an old pro at such maneuvers. Before Sharon knew it, her wrists were held securely in his left hand and stretched high above her head. She screamed again at him, but he only laughed, a most unpleasant laughter that showed his bad teeth. Then he dropped his mouth to her chest and yanked the sweater up. His thick lips engulfed one of her nipples. She demanded again to be let go although, despite herself, a strangely pleasurable sensation was invading her breast with warmth.
"Huh-uh, not yet, baby-doll." The man replied to her pleadings. "I always take good care of my dolls. I don't believe in doing anything half-way. Hold still, honey."
Her head tossed from side to side on the thick carpeting of the hallway, and she shut her eyes tightly, trying to think of something quick to get rid of the intruder. She kept saying, "No, no," until he had rolled her sweater up to her arm pits. She gasped a final protest as her nipples tingled from the pinching of his full lips. He did not try now to kiss her on the mouth, for which she was thankful. But his lips and fingers were well educated and experienced in the art he was presently displaying.
Despite her determination not to yield to this stranger, Sharon felt her responses begin. In some way, the man had shoved her slacks down past her knees, thus baring the lower region of her body.
His own knee now snuggled firmly at the junction where it had been when they were standing. He did not move his knee, he only held it there despite her kicking protests. Sharon found herself moving her body faster and faster as the man loved her hard nippled breasts.
She groaned and moved restlessly on the floor. Then, he tried to kiss her on the mouth and the foulness of his breath broke the spell of aroused sexuality which had led to her response.
Sharon bunched her muscles and tore her arms free of his hand. She struck his jaw with a hard little fist. Apparently, the man wasn't expecting the blow for she hit him right in where she directed her movement. As he grunted and drew back, Sharon brought her knees up with terrific force to slam against his manhood. His face whitened and he rolled off her onto his back on the floor, clutching agonizingly at himself, his face distorted with pain.
Sharon smiled with satisfaction as she leaped to her feet and pulled her slacks up her legs. She laughed loudly at the contortions of agony she saw on the face of the man, and the whimperings he mouthed sounded sweet to her ears. She didn't believe her own eyes. So she had done it!
When the worst of his pain had passed, Sharon ordered him out of the house.
"You've ruined me!" he croaked.
"Good! Now get the hell out of this house and be glad I haven't called the cops. Get out before I do!"
He moaned pitifully as he struggled to stand erect. At last he limped his way to the door and let himself out.
Sharon slid home the safety chain and bolt on the door. She staggered to the sofa in the living room and slumped on it in delayed, dazed reaction to her recent danger and the victory she had won, even over the petitions of her own body. Sharon couldn't hide to herself the fact that she had been stirred by the intruder's manipulations, no matter how vulgar and obscene they had been. But most of all, Sharon felt a certain peace had invaded her deepest being, a peace she hadn't known for a long time, and which she had been seeking during so many sleepless nights and anxious days.
It was shortly after the incident of the vacuum-cleaners' salesman that Sharon Clark obtained her divorce from her husband Hugh and thus began following the peculiar pattern of a divorcee's life.
When Sharon Clark went back into circulation as a non-committed person, she found out she was rather suspicious of every man who'd come near her or approach her in any way. Also, she realized that most of these men would soon make to her rather bold propositions about sharing a bed with them, something which wasn't so common at the time she was still a single girl. But she knew that with a divorcee, men thought that it "should be a lot easier." They all expected her to be yearning for the known satisfactions. Somehow, she understood that it would be rather awkward that in her present "civil status" she'd demand marriage like a timorous young virgin. Besides, she felt she couldn't trust any man any longer for something as important as marriage. She was aware she didn't have any commitment toward any one. Her freedom, in a way, frightened her. She had already taken the first step by cutting all ties with Hugh and stop using her marriage to him as a crutch. She knew it would be difficult for her to become sexually liberated as past thirty, but she was determined to enjoy herself to the fullest extent.
It was Mark Harrison who helped Sharon Clark make the second and decisive step in her new life as a divorcee.
Mark was an old friend of Hugh and he had often been at the Clarks, before the divorce. He was handsome, educated, had a good job and a brilliant record in his academic field, and he was still a bachelor. Besides teaching at the local college, he had a downtown office where he practiced psychology. Everybody considered Mark a very lucky man. As a psychologist, his fees were enormous. He catered only to clients with money. Sharon knew many women-some very wealthy-wanted him. So far, Mark had escaped their nets but his sexual adventures were numerous. He had always felt very attracted toward Sharon, but he was aware of the peculiar psychology of the young woman. He wasn't surprised at hearing of the Clarks' divorce, he had seen it coming for a long time.
Shortly after her divorce, Sharon had met Mark, darkly handsome and attractive Mark in the city. He was going to his office, she was doing some shopping. She informed him of her new address and told him he would be welcome to drop in any time. Sharon too, had been aware of the attraction she exerted on the young man and she wasn't herself indifferent to his charming manners and physique.
A few days later, Sharon was dawdling over a little glass of brandy, a sick feeling inside, when the doorbell chimed.
Who would be ringing at this late hour?
Surely none of her neighbors. She was the type who never became overly friendly with neighbors. Besides, she had just moved in that apartment building, and she didn't know of anyone who would visit her.
Sudden fear hit her. She hurried toward the door, tightening around her the beautifully fitting Chinese robe she was wearing. She was surprised to see Mark Harrison, more attractive than ever in a gray suit that fitted his wide shoulders well, a large smile on his rugged tanned face. Sharon felt a strange feeling of elation invading her. She motioned to Mark to enter, a smile playing on her full lips.
Mark was not very closely acquainted with Sharon. He was more Hugh's friend. Of course, he'd danced with her and joked at various cocktail parties, but he joked and made light talk with all women, beautiful or otherwise. Dr. Mark Harrison worked on the principle that women, like all other people, loved flattery. You flattered them young or old, homely or beautiful-and you were surprised at how many you later seduced.
"Mark, how good to see you!"
"And you, too, Sharon. You look more beautiful than ever. This green seems to have been mixed up for you. My dear Sharon, divorce suits you well, if you allow me to say that!"
"Come in, please." Sharon repeated, accompanying a motion of her head. She had blushed slightly at the words of Mark and his look at her harmonious curves, closely outlined by the robe had not escaped her. It had been a long time since a man had found her beautiful, and she knew that Mark Harrison was a connoisseur in the field. Sharon Clark was flattered and flattery rendered her even more desirable because conscious of her own desirability.
Mark entered the hallway with its thick carpet. He decided that the decor of this new home fitted Sharon's personality well, although at the moment, he was not sure what her personality constituted exactly. During the past years, he'd dropped in at the Clarks' for coffee or drinks, sometimes when Hugh hadn't been present, but their conversation, despite his efforts, had been rather stilted. He hoped that now there were more promising perspectives in Sharon's smile.
"A drink, Mark? Scotch with ginger ale as usual?"
"You've a marvelous memory, my dear Sharon. Yes, scotch with ginger ale will be all right with me."
Mark followed her down to the bar, his eyes admiring her full behind. He wet his lips. Sharon's buttocks rose, fell, moved sidewise, moved back, her walk enticing him. He wondered whether she wasn't aware of the effect she produced on him and she wasn't exaggerating her curvaceous movements. There was hope there, he thought.
His eyes loved Sharon's small waist. He imagined her naked, sitting on the edge of a bed, her huge breasts up-thrust, nipples dark and secretive. The slightest movement of her beautiful body and her breasts would rise and bob. Again, he wet his lips.
She stirred the drinks. With each movement of her hand, her lovely derriere wobbled enticingly. Mark again imagined her naked. As she reached for something behind the bar, her thigh pushed out sharply against her robe. Mark's throat was tight. His eyes feasted on her wide hips and small waist. He felt the stirrings of manhood within him and he smiled wryly. Last night he had had a plunging, sex-hungry bunch of luscious curves called Kitty. By all rights, he should now be completely depleted. But the sight of Sharon stirred him.
Sharon came with the drinks and some canapes. She put the tray on the low table and sat down in front of Mark. For a moment, the atmosphere was tense between both of them. They knew they wanted each other.
Then Sharon rose and went to the window. They had been speaking of Hugh. She didn't want to hear anything more about Hugh. That was a closed chapter. Suddenly, she felt her hand imprisoned by his large, strong hand. "Sharon...." he began. His fingers were firm and strong. She thought his voice trembled slightly. She could not be sure; her won ears pounded blood and she was terribly nervous.
She tried to withdraw her hand, but he held it. She looked up at him and he down at her.
"Sharon," he repeated throatily.
She tried to speak, couldn't. Her throat was too clogged. Her wild heart hammered her ribs. She was sure he could hear it. Slowly, he drew her close, hand imprisoned. She could pull back, but suddenly, she didn't want to.
"Mark," she said, voice hollow in her ears.
Now his arms, strong and masculine, were going around her waist, pulling her close. To make things look good, she braced both palms against his chest and pushed, but he was the stronger pulling her in.
Her hands fell, delight lancing her throbbing flesh. Her breasts touched him. Their points instantly hardening into erection. His hands loved her back, fingers strong and demanding. Suddenly, utter abandon struck her.
Her arms flew around his muscular neck. She brought his head down, her curvaceous body on tiptoe, straining upward. Her breasts pushed him hard. She wanted to throw in her hips, meet his, but a thin edge of reality clung in her mind, prohibiting this. But he did it for her, pressing her body against his, making her feel the hard contour of his masculinity, sending her blood racing through her vessels.
His lips were as she imagined-full and warm and moist. They demanded hers, begged for her tongue-and she obliged. Her tongue entered the moistness, found his, and their tongues loved each other. He smelled of shaving lotion and a good clean male smell, something she had not tasted for a long time. For a long suspenseful moment, they stood locked and loving.
Then, Sharon heard herself saying words she had never dreamt of pronouncing before. "How about it, Mark? I'm not experienced, but I imagine I could be quite proficient." Her voice was hoarse with unknown emotions.
"You really want, Sharon," Mark managed to say. He wanted this woman with all the power of his blood racing to his throbbing manhood and here she was, boldly telling him that they could go ahead with it. He hadn't expected this quick reaction from a person as reserved as Sharon Clark. But, who knows! Divorce changes many things ...
"If it isn't you, it'll be someone else," she said. "And it'll be tonight" She started to turn away, probably in the direction of the bedroom. He followed her.
She led him to her bedroom, her lovely behind swaying in front of him, torturing his desire for her.
He put his hands on her shoulders. "Honey," he said.
He felt her shoulders tremble. Elation speared. He had her, he knew-the physical touch had done it Sharon burned inside.
"Yes, Mark."
"I have wanted you for such a long time." He said hoarsely.
Mark's eyes were on her breasts. Big and huge and hard, they pushed out the Chinese gown, the nipples clearly outlined by the green, brilliant material. He dropped his hands around her waist, fingers spread out over the rise of her rear. He pulled her slowly to him, her eyes on his. She evaded his lips, and he put a hand under her chin, feeling sexual desire trembling her flesh. Then his arms enclosed her more tightly and she came to him with a little cry, lips open and moist. He pulled her hard against him, thrilling at the sharp touch of her breasts, now hard and jutting upward. Now he was very sure of one point. Sharon hadn't had a man for a long time.
Her tongue met his, strong and moist, and their tongues wrestled sweetly. She shivered in anticipation, her breasts quivering, as they stood in tight embrace, lips locked. His fingers spread, inched down, and cupped her, pulling her hips against his. She gasped in happiness, for she felt what he had intended for her to feel.
Her gown's belt was tied on the side. One hand moved up, found the knot, pulled it free. Her gown fell open, baring her creamy stomach, bulging her thighs and magnificent breasts.
Slowly his lips left hers. He glanced down and his blood sang at what he saw. Sharon was a line of bulging curves, womanly and soft. He lifted her robe, hands moving under it, loving her firm hard flesh. He looked into her dreamy eyes and pulled her hips in, loving her warmth.
"It's had been a long, long time, darling, that I have wanted to hold you like that," he said.
"But it won't be much longer," she assured softly. "You'll just have to supply the fun, and I'll get enthusiastic, don't you worry." Her voice was challenging.
There she was, almost naked, the robe opened on the full length of her magnificent body, hopelessly alluring and tempting with that green bright material of the robe that contrasted suggestively against the bare white flesh of her body. Mark moved towards her.
And he kissed her again. Hard, insistently, until she responded with moist lips, that parted and let his tongue enter the hot cavity of her mouth. Mark felt his tongue collide with hers, then the darting, quick action of both tongues moving against one another. She moaned softly.
"Make it interesting," Sharon whispered, "and I'll play."
She sat on the edge of the big bed, and when he leaned forward to kiss her again, she pushed his head down. He kissed the smooth shoulder on the way down to her breasts, and smelled the perfume she wore: also expensive. When his lips found a nipple and captured it, she sighed with mounting pleasure.
"That's right," she rasped, "interesting. Make it worth it."
Mark kissed her other breast, taking as much white flesh as possible in his widening mouth. She gasped now, and began stroking his head with fluttering hands, making huge open-mouthed breathless noises of desire.
Then she stood up and her gown fell on the floor. She said, "First, your coat," and began unbuttoning. He waited, looking down her, seeing her hips bulging, her belly flat.
She slipped his shirt free, kissed his hairy chest, her tongue teasing the small nipples. His arms tightened around her nakedness even more, crushing her breasts against him. Her tongue played, and her hands worked on his belt. His zipper gave, and his slacks fell to the floor. He freed his feet, blood howling, and kicked his trousers aside, shedding his shoes at the same time.
She buried her head in his shoulder, teeth nibbling gently, as she slid both hands down his hips, palms down, and pushed his shorts down. He nuzzled her wealth of dark brown hair, the woman scent good and appealing. His shorts fell and he stepped out of them. Only then did she release him.
"Both naked now," she murmured.
Her hands went down, searched, found swiftly, and what she found made her gasp in earthy delight. Her hips surged hard, moved, then retreated, and he saw her mouth slightly open, white teeth glistening, as passion surged through her blood, demanding male fulfillment.
Hands still holding, she sank back on the bed, bringing him down with her. His hand swung down, cupped her, lifted her on the bed. He was on his knees and he moved in between her spread eagled, lifted thighs, feeling their creamy softness against his sides. She squirmed down hurriedly to meet him, and his weight went down, his hands moving back and down, finding and holding.
"Oh, good, good!" she suddenly gasped.
Passion grooved her lovely face, making her eyes slitted. Her teeth gritted, her muscles tensed. For one long moment her beautiful body was rigid, straining against him, her hips wild-and then the spasm passed, and she resumed a steady satisfying rhythm.
Mark knew now for sure, that no man had touched Sharon's luxurious, full body for a long time. Passion had struck her immediately as she shrieked with unexpected pleasure. Mark discovered that Sharon was giving him something he hadn't often had with other women, abandoned, hungry desire, devoid of anything but just that; no distractions, no wondering mind. Just delighted, eager, and knowing reciprocity of movement for movement, lunge for lunge.
He worked slowly, thoroughly, at his delectable task. All his huge maleness, with its throbbing hunger embedded itself in her, giving her a long desired ecstasy. She drove back, thirty one years of womanhood, ripe and mature and lovely, driving right along with her. He paced carefully, to give her full release.
She panted under him; her body quivered, her fists pounded against his hard back. Her head tossed, rolled. Her white teeth were clenched. Small moans broke.
He looked at her passion torn face, showing great passion. It drove his blood mad, smashed energy into his hips. He buried his head in her flowing, sweet hair. He took his time. He had to. Sharon had arched, drained him-time and time again. Again and again, she shrieked with the fury of completion, again and again, he filled her with renewed desire, his own stamina amazing him as they repeatedly rose to new heights and fell to new depths, only to return to the dizzying heights of pleasure again.
For the four time, her lovely body convulsed, her teeth gritted, her moaning increased. She settled down again, kissing his cheek. Again, he built her up expertly.
Back in his being, the dark deep forces gathered, seeking sexual expression. Sharon renewed her activity, rising and falling. He met her squarely, tempo increasing. He gave himself over to lust alone.
"Come on," she demanded hoarsely, "come on! Now! she panted.
They mated perfectly, each meeting the other. Panting, moaning, cursing, all the pent-up desire in both bodies unleashed itself furiously. Then, Sharon screamed as the final barb of ecstasy went ripping through her man-hungry body: so that the hunger ebbed away, into nothing, nothing but sweet content.
Then he was beside her, looking at her rising breasts as her ribs pitched to deep breathing. Sharon was sweating and dripping when they finished. She lay back on the bed, still breathing tremulously with exertion and pleasure. Her face was red and flushed. Mark looked down at her body, still marveling at its perfection, then at her face, into her eyes.
"Are you sorry, now?" he asked. "Now that you are able to think about it?"
"No. No, I'm not-that was delightful, Mark. If you knew how long since I've had anything like that-" Her voice was dreamy. New horizons had opened in front of her now that she was totally free....
At the beginning there was Mark, then others came, as proficient, as delightful as Mark. Until Sharon Clark discovered that she was pregnant.
But she had matured since her divorce. It took her only a little trip abroad and with all the money the old Perkins had left her, her problem was easily solved. When she came back, she simply decided to be more cautious in the future....
A CASE OF RAPE
Nora Greenwald hurried down the stairs of the hospital where she had just finished her night shift. Her young, attractive body was overcome by a tiredness which was the toll of many previous nights of work. Nora had only bothered taking off her head the immaculate nurse headdress. Her thick black hair was braided and twisted around her round, lovely head where two large gray eyes could hardly remain open.
She stood on the sidewalk, indecision drawing large furrows on her otherwise smooth forehead. The girl was wondering whether she could afford to take a taxi or not. She opened the cheap purse which was hanging from her shoulder and once again counted the change she had left. Although only two days had passed since her last pay day, Nora didn't have much money left. The check for Canada, addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Greenwald in Winnipeg, had been mailed this morning by Patty, one of her roommates who came to work during the morning. Helping her parents took a big bite from Nora's salary.
The young girl looked at the empty street, dark and menacing. She was always afraid to go home after her night shifts. Somehow, although she had been doing it for almost two years already, Nora felt apprehensive about walking alone in the; night the few blocks which separated her from home. She thought with some envy that Patty and Annette, her two roommates, must be now snoring in their beds, while she had still to reach the house which seemed to be millions of miles away. Nora felt as though instead of bones, she would have sand supporting her; packs of sand which would crumble away at the first movement of her tired limbs. Then, she shaked her head energetically, trying to give herself some courage before facing the empty street. After all, she thought, she had been doing it every single day, or night rather since she had arrived to the United States, and found that job in Chicago. But she also knew that every single night, she had felt the same way, overtired and overworked as usual.
Nora looked hopelessly for a taxi. She also knew, from experience, that taxis were never there when someone needed them; and at this hour, last of all. She would have to walk the interminable distance between the hospital and the house where she shared a small apartment with two other young nurses from her country.
Nora Greenwald was an attractive young nurse who ha immigrated to the United States from her native Canada two years before. She came with all the illusions and dreams of an energetic success which are the common spiritual luggage for so many foreigners who arrive to America filled with hopeful dreams and wishful thinking, the luggage of sand of the young and poor immigrants striving for a better future.
She wanted to make a lot of money in order to give her parents a house of their own and to pay an education for her little sister. Nora had always suffered very much at seeing her poor father crippled by rheumatism because of his work in the factories of Winnipeg; and her mother, a very good woman indeed, having to bake little cakes to sell to their neighbors in order to increase the family's meager income. Although she had harbored unspoken dreams of becoming a physician, Nora had to study nursing, the nearest thing to her dream in order to help her parents as soon as possible, also because medical studies were totally out of reach-monetarily speaking, that is,-since Nora was a brilliant student.
Back there in her native Winnipeg where it snowed for more than six months a year and where summer was a short week of people crowding the ugly beaches of Lake Winnipeg, Nora had often dreamt of taking her parents to more cheerful climates, such as to that wonderfully sunny California which she had seen in so many pictures. South of Canada lay the United States with all the promises of its rich land an countless, opportunities. That's why Nora Greenwald decided to come to the United States.
An old friend of hers who hid the same ambitions behind a rather carefree appearance, Annette Didier, had written to her from Chicago where she had been able to get a job in a hospital. Annette told her that she could share her tiny apartment and thus, their expenses would be cut down and they could save more money for their future projects. Nora had gratefully accepted and immediately bought herself a plane ticket with the money she had patiently saved for such an opportunity.
The highly industrial city of Chicago had been an unpleasant surprise for Nora, but she quickly built up again her reserve of optimism with the thought that here, at least, she would be able to make money. Money which would enable her to bring all her family to a house there, in sunny California, where little Alice would find a decent school and would get a good education, and maybe would become the doctor she had not been able to be.
Soon, Annette's tiny apartment received another resident, this time it was Patty O'Connor, also a young Canadian nurse whose presence would enable the other two young women to cut down their expenses even more and save some more money.
That is why, Nora and her two roommates, who were animated by similar dreams, didn't take any expensive apartment to live in, nor moved to a bigger place in order to have more privacy. Nora was even glad that she was making the night shift since it meant more money coming to her modest savings account.
The three girls had cut down on all expenses such as dresses, pretty things an so on, something which girls their age don't do often. Only very seldom a young intern would come up to the little apartment in order to take Annette, Patty, or Nora out. Although, the three of them were pretty, fresh and young. They didn't lack propositions, but none of them would abandon their long cherished dreams for a night of pleasure. They had even rationed their movies and would stay at home reading or take a walk on their lonely weekends.
Nora had been the more perseverant of them all. Recently, Annette and Patty had been out more and more often with two young interns. During the last few months, they had preferred to take the day shifts, while Nora kept coming back home, dead tired, in the middle of the night.
There had been this handsome Greg Carson who had often tried to get Nora to accept a date with him during one of their few coffee breaks together. But Greg had to content himself with talking with Nora during half an hour to the most, after which she would send him away with the words, "I have work to finish, Greg. So, please...." Nora knew that Greg was not indifferent to her subtle charm and that maybe, something deeper could develop between the two of them since she wasn't either unmoved by his tall figure and his probing blue eyes. But Nora Greenwald was a very stubborn young person, and she was serious in her intentions of making her dreams reality and bringing her parents over. Already, her bank account showed an amount which wasn't any longer ridiculously small. One year more of hard work-night shifts, of course -and maybe ... Nora didn't dare to think about what would come after that "maybe."
Nora continued walking along the dark, narrow streets leading to the tiny apartment. She was thinking that she still had to wash her uniform as soon as she would get home, in order to have it ready for the next day. And she was tired, and sleepy, so sleepy ... The little bed seemed to be waiting for her so far away. She felt as sitting down on the sidewalk, so great was her exhaustion. It seemed to her that someone had poured lead into her weary legs, for they were so heavy to lift at every step she made. It was hard for her to remain awaken, but she had to, the house was only a few blocks away now, and there, her bed would be wait-ting for her ... No, first, there was that uniform to wash. Nora had only one uniform, for reasons of economy, and she had to wash it every night in order to have it clean for the following day.
She didn't notice the man following her, she was too sleepy to notice anything. She concentrated on reaching the house. Her mind was so foggy that when she heard the raucous voice near her, she didn't react immediately.
"Hey, babe, looking for a roll in the hay?" the man uttered.
She turned her head and saw him He was a rather young man with a pale, thin face where two watery eyes looked her over in a most unpleasant manner. She noticed that he was wearing soiled jeans and a sweat shirt of a washed out color. She tried to continue her way, but she felt the sweated hand of the man on her arm and his hoarse voice nearer, "Not so quick, babe! We've just met!"
Suddenly, her head cleared. She sensed the imminent danger. This man was not merely a bothersome person teasing her. She didn't like the way he looked at her and the words he was saying, his foul breath nearer than ever. "You know something, babe? You're a very exciting chick! I like nurses! Hey, babe, don't you like men?"
Nora tried to squirm free of his grasp as she avoided the nearing obscene lips of the man. She tried to scream, but a damp palm had landed on her mouth while the man brought her arms behind her back, pressing his body against hers. By then, Nora was completely terrified. She tried to get rid of the man, to struggle, to beat. Her nurse's shoes weren't of much help with their rubber soles, but Nora used them as best as she could, hammering the man's legs with all her strength, although she didn't have much left after the long night's work and the long walk home.
Suddenly the modest and only uniform Nora possessed was ripped away from her body, revealing her perfect figure in bra, half-slip and panties. Somehow, in their wrestling, they both tripped and dragged each other down onto the hard sidewalk. The man grabbed Nora, holding her tight with one hand while his other hand roughly fondled and squeezed one her full high breasts jutting out of the tight confinement of the bra. Nora's revulsion at what was happening to her brought tears to her weary eyes. She almost couldn't breath with the man's hand on her mouth. He tried to kiss her, but Nora promptly hit him with her shoe and he snarled in pain and anger. He cruelly pinched her nipple so hard she whimpered in agony as she fought him, the hard texture of the sidewalk bruising her naked back.
The man's free hand was now groping demandingly at the snug crotch of her panties while Nora heaved and thrashed to avoid his lewd gestures.
Now, Nora brought her closed fist around in a short powerful arc, hitting him squarely in the eye. The man grunted at the blow and shook his head to clear away the brilliant shooting stars that whirled and rocketed blazingly across his mind. His free hand wrenched wildly at the waistband of her panties. The material ripped apart and Nora whimpered again as she felt the cool night air and the gritty sidewalk on newly exposed intimate flesh.
Franticly, the man strove to pin her down so he could take her carnally, but her lithe but strong, vigorous struggles kept frustrating his wild attempts. Soon they were both fighting like wild animals. The man seemed completely determined to commit the brutal rape and he had to succeed at any price.
When for the dozenth time, Nora had avoided impalement by his rigid frantic virility, the man took the final step that could insure his success. With his free hand, he dealt Nora a paralyzing blow in the upper stomach, knocking her wind out and momentarily rendering her helpless.
As she lay defenseless, fully conscious but unable even to gasp. He quickly thrust her thighs wide apart. Now he ripped her half-slip away and wrenched her bra from her upthrusting breasts as he crouched menacingly over her sprawled body on the sidewalk. There was not one soul passing around at this hour of the night. There were not even houses with people who could become aware of what was happening in the street. Nothing but the cool, cruel air of the night on her bare flesh and the shadows of the trees in the nearby park. She heard the crissing sound of a descending zipper. Seconds later, with precarious balance, the man sucked in his breath, tightened his powerful muscles and then made the plunge into his lend fulfillment.
Nora partially regained control of her body as she felt her delicate virgin barrier breached by the powerful lunge of the man. She felt as though her body was being split apart. She screamed as her body was penetrated by the cruel thrust of the rapist, and instantly the man clapped his hand over her mouth. By the time he had deeply assailed her torn agonized flesh, she was regaining her ability to fight. Instinctively, she heaved and writhed trying to free herself from the heinous grip. But in vain. She only succeeded in scratching the man's hard epidermis. He laughed wildly as he slapped her violently on the side of the head, leaving her almost unconscious on the pavement, as he stroked himself to ecstasy against her delicate and torn inner flesh.
It was only at the end of it all that Nora once again regained consciousness enough to pull one knee violently between his legs, hitting him in the most sensitive points he could find. She felt her knee crunch victoriously into his groin. The man hadn't expected it, so he didn't protect himself and the blow went in to the impact, falling at the aimed direction, with all the strength of her desperation.
A mixture of groan and scream came from the man's lips, followed by a horrible bawling. Then Nora struggled to escape from the dead weight of his half unconscious body which collapsed limply over her. Despite the agony of her tortured flesh, Nora stood over the retching, helplessly writhing from. Her hatred was so intense that she spat on the man as she tried to hide her nakedness with the torn remnants of her clothing.
She was silent as she slowly walked toward the house, but muffled sobs of anger and distress wracked her lovely young body.
Finally, Nora managed to arrive home. She stumbled inside and, after a few seconds, the entire living-room glared with light. Her roommates, who seemed to have sensed some trouble, had waken up when she arrived, and the sudden light came together with Annette's muffled scream when she saw Nora's state of disarray.
The sudden shock of both the lights and the girls' screams were the only thing that Nora needed to fall unconscious on the floor. It had been too much for her.
The two young nurses helped her recover. When they had the story from her, Patty immediately wanted to call the police. "They have got to catch him!" She shouted, seized by a violent anger. Nora herself asked her not to do it.
"I don't want to go through it, Pat, please!" she pleaded with her friend. "I don't think I could stand it!"
"But, Nora," Pat insisted, "what that man has done to you is awful! He's a criminal and the police should do something about it. They must catch him before he gets someone else and do the same with her!"
"No, Pat!" Nora replied wearily. "I don't think the police can do anything to help me, now. What was done was done, and no one can repair the damage." She burst into tears of utter desperation. "I don't want the police to come and ask me questions. I'm ashamed, Pat, I'm so utterly ashamed!"
"There's nothing for you to be ashamed of." Pat comforted her. "You haven't done anything wrong, darling. Calm yourself, and try to rest now. I understand how you feel."
"No, you don't!" Nora refuted. "Nobody can understand how I feel now, Pat! One has to go through this nightmare to understand how it feels ... ! That is why I don't want anybody to come and ask me questions I'd be too embarrassed to answer. Besides, I don't think I could even tell the police how the man looked like. It was too dark and everything happened too quickly ... The little I remember of that brute I just want to forget it. Otherwise, I don't think I'll be able to live with myself again!"
"She's right, Pat." Annette ventured. Anyway, the police can't do a thing to help her now. The best thing, Nora, is for you to get well as soon as possible and try to forget all about it as quickly as you can."
"I don't think I'll ever be able to forget it!" Nora said sadly. "You can't imagine what a horror it was...."
"Of course, you will forget it, darling!" Annette tried to cheer her up, mercifully. "In a little while, everything will be just like a bad dream. Don't forget that time heals everything and erases even our worst moments."
Her friends did whatever they could to help Nora Greenwald in those dark moments of utter distress. As soon as her physical soreness disappeared, the two girls tried to devote all their free time to the merciful task of "making it easy" for their friend to get back to the normal flow of daily life.
Two months elapsed since the night of the dreadful event, and Nora was beginning to smile again. Then she realized she could not forget, when she found out she was pregnant.
Then, all the love of Annette and Patty could not do anything for Nora Greenwald. There was no possibility of an abortion for her. The law simply didn't grant it to her. And Nora could not make herself to the idea of carrying this criminal's child. It was too much for the poor little Canadian nurse who had come to America, dreaming of a sunny future. There was no future at all, now. She thought of her parents up there, in Winnipeg, of her little sister whom she had wanted to bring over. Her family didn't know anything about what had happened to her, she preferred not to tell them. Anyway, they couldn't do anything about it.
She thought that soon, she would even have to abandon her job, if she didn't want to wait until they would fire her.
There was only one door open for Nora Greenwald. It was suicide. On a clear afternoon of July, she threw from the narrow window of the tiny apartment she continued to share with Patty and Annette.
She didn't die. She was lucky. She had a miscarriage and a broken leg. It was internist Greg Carson who took care of her and at last learned why Nora had changed so much in two months. He loved her and he understood her utter despair. When his warm hands closed tightly around her tiny hands, Nora Greenwald felt that she could begin to smile again.
ILLEGITIMACY & THE LAW
The attitude of the law in respect to an individual's personal freedom is, in many aspects, paradoxical and absurd. It has been said over and over that one's freedom ends where somebody else's freedom begins, and those who agree with this concept also tend to see in the machinery of the law a -systematie set of rules aimed to the purpose of making sure that this meaning of freedom is preserved.
However, in many instances, it doesn't serve its purpose.
We know that sex is a biological fact of humanity. An important one, as a matter-of-fact. However, since the times when marriage was established as an institution, the laws of nature have had to give way to the laws of society, even though many times, the former proved to be stronger than the latter.
Since marriage was created, it wasn't established only as an institution aimed to regalement the destinies of the family, as the basic unit of society, it also regalemented sex. For since then sex was considered to be an activity to be engaged into solely within the boundaries of marriage. And the law was created to see to it that all forms of sexual activities performed out of wedlock would be prevented and condemned wherever and whenever it came to happen. Thus came to be the laws against fornication which is the term used to define sexual acts between unmarried individuals.
In respect to the laws in our country, in most states, fornication is a crime, although their respective statutes differ as to how serious this might be. The penalties range, as far as imprisonment is concerned, from short periods such as thirty days to as much as five years, being much higher the penalty in some states, if the act is committed by people who could not marry by different reasons which in that state impede them to undergo a legal wedding ceremony.
Some states determine a separate crime of "lewd cohabitation" when a man and a woman who are not legally married to each other live together as husband and wife in one dwelling. Whereas, in other states their union is considered as "common law marriage" with all the legal implications and prerogatives inherent to any other bona fide marriage performed with benefit of clergy.
That our sex laws are a compound of necessary regulations on one side and absurd restrictions which no longer represent our contemporary sense of moral on the other, is well exemplified by these laws against fornication.
On one hand, they are designed for the protection of everyone concerned. For the woman, in order that she wouldn't find herself, later, victim of the derogatory set of circumstances that such intercourse may place her into. One of these is, precisely, a situation of unwanted pregnancy that would bring about an illegitimate child.
Nevertheless, throughout the ages and despite whatever harsh may be the penalties they have had to face in their lives, people have continued to "commit the crime" of fornication regardless of the consequences.
In many instances, these acts of fornication, regardless of whatever their legal status may be, have ended up in an unwanted pregnancy, many of which have ended up by producing an illegitimate child to come to existence.
As a remedy to this problematic situation, people have sought ways of ending such unwanted pregnancies by performing abortions. Thereby, they believed to have given a solution to an entire set of circumstances, including the unfortunate life of the innocent child who comes into existence into a hostile world which has only disadvantages to offer him. Yet, this practice has found detractors among the majority of the civilized societies of mankind.
It would take an entire volume of historical facts to describe the attitude of mankind toward abortion. As far as we are concerned, all fifty states have laws forbidding abortion. The penalties imposed range from rather severe jail sentences to life imprisonment or death.
However, facts tell us that there is a large portion of our citizens who do not seem to agree with our laws against abortion. And we state this conclusion upon the infinite number of abortions performed every year in the United States, regardless of what the law says.
However, abortion as a legal matter continues to be a "forbidden subject" and despite the many proposals for reform recommended by numerous authoritative sources (including the American Law Institute which proposed changes in 1962) the state laws on the subject of abortion have been virtually immune to any sort of transformation.
As they are now, after a few rather timid attempts of revision, in forty five states, abortions are permitted only when unavoidably necessary to save the mother's life. In four other states, abortions are also considered legal when they imply saving the mother's health.
Analyzing the origin of these recalcitrant laws, Lawrence Lader, in his remarkable work, "Abortion, A Woman's Right?", states: "One predominant factor lay behind the design of U.S. abortion laws -the Puritanical obsession with sin. Since both abortion and contraception eliminated the visual product of immorality, they were particularly distasteful to the Calvinist mind. If an unmarried girl became pregnant, she must be punished. Her rightful punishment was to carry before the world the permanent mark of her fall."
Those who based their rejection on these prejudiced rationales were undoubtedly forgetting that this form of "punishment" was not only aimed at the sadistic fustigation of the mother but also of the child who was solely the innocent victim of such a hysterical way of behavior.
Besides, as I have stated in a previous chapter of this work, it takes two to make a third, and it is obviously unfair that when a crime is committed by two individuals only one of them should bear the guilt of both and only one would be punished.
Yet, once again the law appears to be quite paradoxical ; both the law and those ways of behavior which are tacitly approved by society. Promiscuity seems to be an affair concerning a male and a female who engage in the same sort of act. Yet, while a man is acquitted and, more often than not, praised for his promiscuous inclinations, a woman is condemned and rebuked for the same type of behavior. Even in those cases-which form the immense majority-where a man regularly engages in sexual acts with different women, in comparison to women whose sexual activities are confined to only one male partner, the man is considered to lead "a normal, healthy and masculine sort of life, quite satisfactory, if not encourageable," to say the least; where as the woman, on the contrary, is considered to be "an easy broad of questionable moral and low standards of decency," totally rejectable from within the acceptable circles of respectable society.
Those who are reluctant to see such a deleznable status of mean prejudice behind the laws which today support the mighty structure of our society are ready to bring forth absurd predicaments concerning women's "safety." They argue that abortion is risky for the woman's health and they ascribe a number of possibilities of injuries and death to an operation which has gradually become one of the simplest and safest of all surgical interventions. Nevertheless, those who support these views have succeeded in developing an unfortunate mythology of fear and guilt in the public's mind. The truth is, as Dr. Tietze points out, that "the risks of abortion are only one-sixth to one-tenth as dangerous as those attending pregnancy and childbirth. In other words, it is safer to have a hospital abortion than to have a baby."
In this respect, it is necessary to elaborate a bit about the meaning of "hospital abortions," as opposed to "illegal abortions." In the first case, it is implied an abortion which is performed by a qualified physician, in a well-equipped hospital where all the resources of modern science are available. An abortion, no matter how simple and easy it might be, is still surgery. And as in any case in which surgery is performed, it should take place with the best conditions of asepsia posecble, under sedation to eliminate the pain and making use of all the instruments and drugs necessary in order to prevent infection or any other complication further on.
On the other hand, if the same operation is performed by an unqualified practitioner who lacks the necessary knowledge and does not even have adequate instruments, in a place where the strict conditions of asepsia observed in a surgical room are neglected, when the subject to be operated upon is not a calmed patient who has been properly anesthetized in order to eliminate all traces of pain, but a terrified woman who expects and feel the excruciating pain of being operated upon, and when the logical resources of antibiotics or blood transfusions are not available if needed, even the most uninformed layman will agree that the results cannot possibly be the same. Such is also the case with abortion, and being it also a surgical operation, it should be judged under that light.
Within the mythology of fear ascribed to abortion by many of its detractors, none of its aspects has been more puzzlingly paralyzing and yet more absurd and inaccurate than those which refer to the so-called "psychiatric after-effects" of abortion. Medical literature is filled with warnings of emotional scars suffered by women who would undergo abortion. Psychiatrists declare that women are "traumatized by abortions," that "they feel guilty after they've done i."
"because for a woman it unconsciously implies a murder." Even when they have been confronted by the fact of countless women who far from feeling guilty because of their having submitted themselves to abortion have felt relieved, many psychiatrists argue that "their guilt feelings are unconscious and even though the woman may not be aware of them they do exist in their minds and are manifested through other aspects of their behavior." To me, this argument is quite the equivalent to saying, "You are guilty, you did something which I do not consider you entitled to nor do I approve of; therefore you must feel guilty." This, needless to say, is an outrageous insult to human integrity.
Moreover, the astonishing aspect of this absurd rationale is that, as Lader stresses, "it centers around a limited number of cases, passed down through the literature. The tradition, moreover, stems from no exhaustive studies." Dr. Jerome M. Kummer, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, elaborating on this subject, explains that "there has been no statistical documentation of such sequelae."
Nevertheless, let us probe deeper into this curious point, and assume that there are indeed cases in which a woman does have guilt feelings which create emotional problems to her. Why is it so? To answer this question, it will suffice to quote the words of a reputable authority on these matters, Dr. Garrett Harding, professor of biology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, who clearly states that "Society can make the experience a traumatic one or a psychologically negligible one. If society thoroughly approved of induced abortion, the reasons for trauma virtually disappear."
Although abortion remains one of the most controversial theological, legal, and medical issues of out times, the fact that so great a number of women each year are forced into the hands of unscrupulous abortionists, yielding a shocking harvest of injuries and fatalities among our female population, we must agree that the entire matter is in bad need of a thorough revision.
To do this accurately, we must first face the reality which lies behind the fact of tradition. As Lawrence Lader clearly exposes in his mentioned work, the subject "touches our most sensitive nerves, for abortion involves the ultimate control by woman over her own procreativity." And such a total control of herself is not something that man is too eager to give woman.
An issue which has been subject to an equally heated controversy throughout the years is that of birth control. However, it wouldn't seem logical, since one of the major philosophical questions around abortion stems from people's reluctance to end up a human life which was begun at the moment of conception. Then, why would there be any opposition to grant an individual the right to prevent conception, thereby avoiding the possible "murder"? Quite on the contrary, it would seem a logical way of curbing the incidence of abortion, whether legally or illegally performed, and of illegitimacy, by simply avoiding the fetus even to be formed in the womb of someone who obviously doesn't want him.
However, since 1873, with the Federal laws advocated by the fanatic auspices of Anthony Corn-stock, birth control, or contraception, became a dirty word in this country. All material related to the prevention of conception were termed under the same label as obscenity, articles of "indecent and immoral use" and things of the sort. One state, Connecticut, even made it a crime to use a contraceptive. Massachussetts considered it more or less the same, and half of the other states, although they didn't go that far, did impose many kinds of prohibitions on the advertising, display or sale of anything related to contraception and birth control in general.
Fortunately, today, these restrictions are rarely enforced by the law, but many of these statutes remain in the books, bearing the same prohibitions and the same wording. This presents a curious aspect of the legal structure of our country that may interest our readers.
Under our constitution, the control and regulation of marriage and affairs concerning the family is a patrimony of the legislation of the different states. However, the constitution grants the Federal government the power to control trade among the states and also regulates the nation's postal system. And this is where the problem seems to lie.
Nevertheless, the different states have passed recently more lenient laws regarding birth control.
Now the question remains, if an out of wedlock pregnancy is not avoided by means of any contraceptive method or device, nor is it terminated by abortion, but is carried out to birth, what happens, then?
There are many answers to this question. Usually, the baby is put for adoption through any of the many agencies offering such services. Not every girl is ready to make the decision of keeping the baby as in the case of Karen Ross; nor is every parent as understanding as those of Karen were.
However, there are instances in which the solution of turning the baby over to people who may wish to adopt one is not available Such was the case of Nora Greenwald the Canadian nurse who was brutally raped in the street while returning home from work.
Under the circumstances, she might not be able to give the child out for adoption through ordinary channels since adoption agencies are very wary about taking a child of a father known to be a criminal who might also, considering the nature of his crime, be psychotic.
Now, whether the mother is unable to give the baby away for adoption or wishes to keep him with her, which is the status of the illegitimate child?
About this, I am glad to say, there have been changes in the law, and much for the better. The English law, from which our own stems, at one time considered the bastard so completely outside the pale that neither of his parents was bound to support him and neither had the right to his custody or services.
Today, however, things are different and a much brighter horizon awaits the child born out of wedlock. In a few states, even the very concept of illegitimacy has been eliminated. Their statutes rule that every child is the legitimate child of its natural parents.
Unfortunately, such is not the case in the majority of the states. Yet, in our present time, we are able to find a much more humane attitude toward these children who are but the innocent victims of an unfortunate set of circumstances.
