Linda O'Mara, the grim little colleen, has innocently run up some gambling debts. And there is no way for her to get the money to pay them. No way but the oldest way there is. The quiet little military town was wide open for games like that, too, as Linda was soon to discover. Naturally, she couldn't expect Dolph, her virile Irish husband, to furnish the money. Then it was up to the provocative Patty Contino to lead Linda to the Laundromat where all the bored and jaded army wives gathered in search of a little pin money. To smile at the passing soldiers and romp off to the nearby South Winds Motel; at five bucks a romp. And no sooner does Linda place one foot into this seething world of shame than she finds herself irrevocably trapped into a life of sin. Where each evil meeting blends into debasement like a parade of passing soldiers. Pete, her first ... a giant, a cruel man. Then all the faceless, nameless men. And Chet, who furnished his own special wardrobe and opened new doors to Linda ... doors of perversity. And finally, the ultimate degradation arrives in the form of Hattie, the benevolent Negress who was madam to the town's most thriving palace of pleasure ... Hattie, who wanted Linda to join her little crew and play a game called black and white....
CHAPTER ONE
June. Texas June. Hot, desert dry, the kneeding, relentless wind driving abrasive shards of sand before it, causing little spurred drifts to form in the gutters, cranking up miniature dust-devils in the very streets of the camp. The thermometer hovered at 100 degrees. Not really hot as the summers at Fort Holt went. But hot enough.
If it wasn't for this damnable wind, Linda O'Mara thought, unreasonably irritated as she bent forward, squinted to keep her eyes clear of sand. She pulled her gaily-colored silk scarf tighter to her chin, tucking her chin down to block the gritty particles as they invaded her white blouse. Damn it! Why today, of all days? When I want to look my best. When I want to look pretty.
The tension gathered as she walked determinedly down Post Street, became more naggingly intense. Hell, I can't, she wailed inwardly, a nameless terror constricting her stomach. I just can't. How did I ever let myself get into something like this? Why did I ever tell Patti I'd-?
Briefly she remembered Dolph, considered the misery he must be suffering today. Out on maneuvers, broiling under this murderous sun, choking down alkaline dust by the pint. And you think you're hurting? She flayed herself. Don't be suck a self-centered, spoiled baby.
Again a scorching blast of wind caught her, whipped at her body and face, coated her teeth with a gummy surface of dust. Nervously she touched her bangs, dark and glistening when she'd left the house, found them coated with a sandpapery film of sand. Her angry frustration mounted.
How does Dolph say it? she pondered. And distasteful as his reference to the Texas winds was, she mentally and vengefully articulated it word for word. Like a breeze from hell-
Momentarily she glanced sideways, marveled at how confidently and insolently her companion, Patti Contino, swaggered against the wind. It seemed the current had lustful intent, the way it pressed her knit T-shirt against her body, caressed her proud, pointed breasts, the way it molded her shorts, made her torso even more pronounced than it already was.
It was too much, really, Linda concluded. Shorts-and such blatantly tight, figure revealing ones at that-at a time like this. It wasn't quite decent.
And yet, she snorted, who was concerned with being decent? Today of all days.
Slacks was as far as Linda had been able to go. She'd considered a summer play dress, but Patti had vetoed that. Slacks or shorts. Nothing else. Anyway in summer. It was sort of like a uniform.
Linda was glad for the slacks. They protected her legs from the corrosive ferocity of the wind, they seemed sop to propriety, camouflage to the ugly things these same legs would do before the afternoon was over. Just as the long-sleeved, nylon blouse-"Too loose and baggy," Patti had derided-was camouflage.
"Nervous, honey?" Patti addressed her now, her voice seemingly overloud in a lull in the wind.
"No," Linda replied, lying. "I'm not nervous. I'll be all right." Nervous? she mocked.
Not me. Terrified is more like it.
"Yeah? Well, that's good. You got no cause to be. You know the score. Just remember everything I told you."
"I will, Patti. Don't worry about me."
The hard-faced blonde smiled skeptically at her friend, trudged on more rapidly. Patti Contino was somewhat older than Linda O'Mara, both chronologically and philosophically. Her outlook was callous and bruited. Life had taught her that. As well as a cruel, faithless husband. It seemed she smiled now, her lips thin and her blue eyes opaque, almost sadistic.
Patti was 26, three years senior to Linda. But ten, twenty years advanced in cyncial outlook. She was a dark blonde, her body small, on the plump side, her breasts and behind pouty and sensuous, exuding sultry promise of carnal delights. The sight of her tanned legs-subtly brushed with a golden, iridescent patina of fuzz-twinkling and throbbing in preening display, was enough to set any man's teeth to clenching.
Her face and eyes, despite the venal cast there, were pretty enough. Her ripe, full lips, her heavy lashes, the ferret-greedy point of her chin, her thin nose with its pinkly flared nostrils-all contributed admirably to the picture of wayward woman.
Wanton. With a personal crusade all her own.
But now Patti's steps flagged. And Linda found herself breathing much faster, her legs all at once feeling rubbery. As they approached the large, desert-stone building, its windows fogged and moisture flecked. A building before which a simple neon sign proclaimed: FORT HOLT LAUNDROMAT. And beneath, a hand-lettered tag amended: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
"Here we go, baby," Patti chuckled. "Pull in your middle, poke out those boobs. Let these other slobs know you're something special. In we go."
Linda felt like she was walking on eggs as she passed through the large glass duor, as the preliminary blast of moist, air-conditioned air hit her. Then they were inside, they were pausing near the door, letting their eyes get used to the comparative darkness of the long room.
"You tell me," Linda remembered Patti saying, "I don't know why it's so. A drugstore, a bar, a street-corner even. But a laundromat! Sheese! I guess it's because those bims are from hunger. They can't afford the price of that first drink. It got started that way; it's become sort of a Fort Holt tradition. Who're we to buck it? And so. The laundromat's where it happens."
It seemed to Linda that every woman in the place was staring at them. All in all, eleven pairs of eyes. Some staring with amusement, some with a look of competitive jealousy, others with open contempt. She shriveled inwardly, fought for the aloofness Pattie had commanded she maintain. But it was easier said than done.
Patti and Linda walked to a corner of the spacious room where chairs, a planter gone amok, were situated. Sitting down beside Patti, Linda followed her lead, took up a magazine from the table there, pretended to read. While her hands never stopped shaking, her eyes wouldn't focus on a single word.
Again her panic flared. Again the refrain: Dear God, Mow did I ever get into a mess like this?
Little by little Linda O'Mara calmed herself, was able to breathe more evenly. Furtively she looked about her, took in the other women. It was just as Patti had forewarned. There were only six women present actually in the process of washing clothing. The other four were there for quite another purpose. The same purpose as she and Patti.
She could tell the honest customers. By the way they were dressed, their hair unkempt, their faces devoid of make-up. By the fact that there were toddlers with them, kids who were oblivious of the strange interplay going on here, who scampered merrily around the whirring, sloshing banks of washers and dryers.
There was one other tip-off. It was these women, busily folding and sorting, loading washers, who looked at her and Patti with such venomous, undisguised hatred.
The other four hangers-on were dressed similarly to Linda and Patti. Slacks or shorts. Only one of the girls had dared oppose the edict. And she wore a crisp, pink cotton, sleeveless, the front scooped low to reveal her freckled cleavage.
Gradually Linda assessed each and every one of them, found herself becoming more revulsed by the moment. As she saw herself reflected, duplicated. Several of them were chic and pretty, carefully made up, their hair arranged prettilty. None of them, however, was as pretty as she or Patti. It was a comparison Linda took small comfort in.
By and large they were slatterns, faded caricatures of intentional Woman, either gaunt or overweight, who had taken no special pains with themselves. There was even one Negress, an over-stuffed specimen in wrinkled lavender slacks and blouse, who sat across from Linda, who, as evidence of her monumental ennui, was dozing over her magazine.
And looking over each of the women in turn trying m to determine how each had come to this sorry fate, Linda wondered, How many of these girls, like Patti, are here just for kicks', for vendetta against their husbands or society? How many of them are here because they have to be? Because of some emergency? Beyond that, as in her own case: How many of them are here because of a grievous mistake?
Then Linda felt sicker than ever.
As remembrance of Dolph returned to her, as she thought how tightly his arms had held her just this morning, how warm and tender his lips were. I'm sorry, darling, she wailed to herself. I'm truly sorry. If only there was some other way. Forgive me if you can.
She shook her head to blot back tears. Had it only been eight hours since they'd made passionate love, since they'd kissed and clung so hotly, making their merging something special. In view of the fact that Dolph would be gone, in the field, for the next six days and nights.
It seemed an agonizing eternity had passed since then. An eternity composed of doubts and wracking self-evaluation. An eternity buttressed by desperate fear and despair.
An eternity that had led her here at two o'clock of a blistering June afternoon. To this humid, throbbing room. To this most unique of "parlors."
It was only the fact that Dolph was gone, would be gone-and his entire division with him-that had lent Linda courage. That had reinforced her resolve. If it was ever to be-there would be no more perfect time than now. For with everyone gone there would be nobody left to recognize her, to run tattling. Only the myriad swarms of men from the other remaining divisions at Fort Holt.
She could at least spare her husband that disgrace.
Now Linda glanced up, caught the tail end of a stare from one of the women folding clothing at the dryers. Instantly she read the expression in her eyes, interpreted it perfectly. How could a woman as pretty as you-it said-a married woman at that-? Instantly Linda flushed, felt deepest shame. As she glanced at her hands, saw she'd forgotten to remove her wedding and engagement rings.
Instantly, shielding her hand in the cover of her legs, Linda slid the jewelry off, dropped it into her handbag. Then she rubbed her finger in attempt to remove the telltale marks the rings had left.
The housewife's accusations were well-founded. For it was the truth; Linda O'Mara was a beautiful woman, far and away the loveliest female in the laundromat at that moment. It was inconceivable that she could be here for such tawdry purpose. Yet it was so; there was no denying it. For Linda, like the other waiting women, had entered with no bushel of soiled clothing under her arm. She'd made no pretense that she was picking up a previously delivered load of clothing.
Linda was a slim, fairly tall beauty, her hair raven-black, her complexion clear and white, a true "Black Irish." She came by it honestly, for she'd been a Kelly when she'd met Dolph. There was a sporty elegance to her carriage, a rakish casualness to the line of her back and hips. Her legs were slim, subtly alluring, her breasts small, yet piquantly exciting. There was an almost boyish quality to her bearing. Which quality was instantly refuted when one stared into her wide, almond eyes, looked into her refined, high-boned face.
She wore her hair in a gamin disarray, the bangs combed straight, yet curling slightly just above her brows. Her brows curved in a provocative sweep, became perfect compliment to her dark, fascinating eyes. Her nose was perky and short, her mouth wide and opulent, her teeth even and white. When she smiled there seemed to be a too-tense glitter behind her eyes-a taunt and challenge.
And yet. Here she was with these other unprincipled females. Playing the oldest waiting game in the world.
With her heart suddenly fluttering, her pulse revving up, nearly choking her. As from the corner of her eyes she saw the man-an E-l dressed in suntans and an overseas cap-saunter into the laundromat, take a spot against the wall. Where he lit a cigarette, looked around the room with slit-lidded arrogance.
Patti nudged Linda. "Smile, honey," she whispered. "We've got a live one."
Linda forced a smile, tried to look at the man, but at the last her gaze faltered. And before she could look up again, the transaction was concluded. As the doggie nodded at the doll in the pink sundress. Quickly wheeled, started out of the establishment.
Now Linda focused her eyes, saw Pink Dress rise with studied slowness, retrieve her handbag, then start out. At the last she looked back, sent a mocking smile at her competition.
The hateful look in the respectable housewives' eyes would have melted sun-baked clay.
Linda's heart was beating insanely, she knew she was coloring. "Just like that?" she murmured to Patti. "So quick?"
"That's right," Patti chuckled softly. "What'd you expect? An introduction and a written invitation?"
"No, but I thought..
"Business, baby. Short and sweet."
"Where do you suppose they'll go?"
"Depends. Maybe the GI wants her in the back seat of his car. Maybe he's got a place. Most likely they'll go off the base to The South Wind."
The South Wind being a motel a mile or so off the post, on Highway 43. The same motel Patti and Linda had stopped at, made certain arrangements with the money-hungry operator just prior to coming onto the base themselves. An arrangement which netted "Greasy Frank" two dollars every time either of them brought a John to his door. With no embarrassing questions asked.
"Your room," he'd said, looking at Linda with an evil leer, "will be twenty-two. Door'll be open. Just lock it from the inside."
Very simple, very practical arrangements. Direct and to the point.
Linda cringed inwardly as she envisioned the girl in the pink dress and her blond soldier boy checking into the motel. And thought, Soon-
Perhaps ten more minutes passed without interruption. Several of the legitimate customers left, others arrived. Until, shortly after two-thirty, the front door opened again and once more Linda felt her heart thunder in her ears, she was engulfed in an all consuming terror. He mustn't pick me, she quailed. Patti, one of the others. But not me. I'm not ready yet-I've got to have more time.
He was a large man, well over six feet tall, weighing at least two hundred pounds. Again he wore suntans, an overseas cap. His face was coarse, blue-shadowed by a tough beard. If anything, he was even more cocksure than the soldier preceding him.
There was no play with a cigarette, no hesitation. His eyes swept the five women swiftly, returned immediately to Linda. "Smile," she heard Patti hiss beside her.
But Linda could not smile. She was too afraid.
Then it seemed she would faint, her eyes swam. As she saw the soldier stare meaningfully at her, cock his head in the direction of the door. And now, he too was bulling his way out of the door.
"Oh, God, no," Linda breathed. "Patti, I'm scared. Scared stiff. What do I do now?"
"Do?" Patti sniffed exasperatedly. "You get off your rear and get out there. Just like I told you. Don't act like suck a kook. You'd think this was the first time you've ever .. '."
"It is," Linda whispered. "With anyone except Dolph."
"There's always a first time. Get out there, will you? Don't keep him waiting."
Linda caught fleeting vision of the amused, mocking smiles on the other girls' faces. As Patti dug her savagely in the ribs, half pushed her up. Then, her head spinning her legs feeling like they were made of wet noodles.
Linda was on her feet, she was walking toward the door.
The massive man was standing against one of the modernistic pilasters at the buildings far end. Waiting for her, a smug, fixed smile on his face. "Well, honey," he gruffed as she self-consciously approached, "you sure took your time. I didn't make no mistake, did I?"
The words came at terrible cost to Linda. "No ... You didn't make a mistake."
"Okay, hon. Let's make love." And more as courtesy than anything else, he said. "What're you charging, dolly?"
And though Patti had told her $5 was the going rate on the post, Linda, a novice through and through, foolishly tried to up the ante. She needed so many jive dollars. And if she could get some of the men to pay more-
"Ten dollars," she quaked. "Plus two for the room."
"Ten dollars?" the man squawked. "You nuts or something? About face, kid. Go on back in and sit down. I can have any one of those dogs in there for five. You're pretty, honey, but not that pretty."
"Please ... ten dollars."
"Five. Take it or leave it. Or do I march your cute rear in there, pick out a substitute?"
Thought of the disgrace stunned Linda. And weakly: "No. Five dollars. It's all right."
"Where? The South Wind?"
"Yes. Do you have a car?"
"What'dya think I am, a peasant or something?"
Five minutes later they had checked through Gate B, were on Highway 43. Heading south. And Linda found her heart choking her. found herself shaking uncontrollably.
"Go pay the man two dollars," she forced, sidling away from the soldier's pawing hands. "So he won't interrupt anything."
And while he was gone, leaving Linda alone in the shabby, small motel room, she fell against the wall, fought for composure and strength, tried desperately to even out her breathing. Lord, she thought. II I can just stop shaking. He'll take advantage if he suspects-
Now the soldier was back, a wide, expectant leer on his lips. Confidently he locked and bolted the door, turned on her. "You all ready, honey?"
Linda stiffened, then relaxed. As an even greater feeling of despair and loss encompassed her, twisted her inside. "Yes," she said dully.
"You sure?"
"Yes," she snapped. "I'm sure."
Now, still smiling, he took out his wallet, extracted a fivespot. Walking to the bed, he dropped it onto the middle of the bedspread. "Over here, dolly," he mocked. "Here's where things happen."
Woodenly Linda approached the bed, reached for the bill. She barely had it in her hand when the man upended her, pinned her on her back on the bed. "Pretty," he growled. "Honey, you are really one spicy hunk of merchandise. I ain't seen you before. You new around here?" Then he was driving his bristling face into her tender throat.
"Please," she squirmed, "you're hurting me."
"Sorry," he smiled. "Didn't mean to. Not with a pretty baby like you. What's your name? Can't go on calling you kid all day. Call me Peter."
"Linda," she murmured, feeling revulsion fill her as he continued nuzzling his face into her throat.
"Just Linda? No last name?"
"Just Linda."
"Aha!" he gloated, "cheating on daddy, huh? Who's your husband? Some officer? You look too sharp to be married to some slob of an EM. I've always wanted one of you high and mighty dames."
"I'm just Linda. Please, Pete. Don't be so rough."
"What'samatter, honey? You shy or something? This is the way things go! C'mon, let's give big Pete a big kiss. C'mon, damn you!" He shook her. "I didn't pay no five to have you play coy on me. Relax, will you? Pete'll show you a good time. A real swingeroo."
Then his weight came to her completely, nearly suffocated her. As he crawled to Linda, trying to trap her lips with his. She was totally helpless as his lips clamped and locked, as he ground his slippery lips against hers. And for a moment, sudden nausea swarming over her, she thought she was actually going to be sick. But then thought of losing the money, of the violent ways the man's displeasure would take hitting her, she stifled the sickness, got control of herself.
"Please, please," she moaned. "It's all right, Pete. I'll give you what you want. Only don't be so rough. You're a big man, you don't know your own strength."
"You're damn right I'm a big man, Linda. Just you wait until you see. You'll never settle for second best again." He charged her anew. "C'mon, lemme kiss you. I dig that little mouth of yours."
Suddenly Linda felt very tired, very weak. It was as if she'd just given up entirely, was a mindless vessel, put here only for the man's cruel sport. Maybe if I let him have his way, she thought, he'll be finished in a hurry.
He kissed her for a long time. Linda fought for a time, and then, a strange lassitude pervading her, she surrendered, opened her mouth to him. With a victorious whine he darted his tongue.
The torpor was a baffling thing. By all rights she should have been sickened to her soul by this coarse contact. Instead, in surrender, she found she could close her mind to the man's kissings and gruntings. Almost as if her brain was temporarily disengaged.
"No!" she groaned, lurching suddenly, as Pete put his big hand on her middle, began to roll and pinch. It was the first time any man except Dolph had touched her. Her stomach lurched over savagely, the sickness back.
"No?" the man gritted. "What the hell kind of dame are you anyway? What do you think I came here for? To play jacks?" His hand encroached again, clutched her. "Damn it, we gonna play or not?"
"Please," she gasped, struggling for composure, for strength to go through with this, "it's just that you're being so rough."
"Well then, get with it will ya? What d'ya want, candles and violins? Get out of these duds. Or do you want me to take care of it for you?"
Once more Linda froze. "No...." she whimpered.
"Hey," the soldier chuckled throatily, "I'll bet this is your first time out. The first time you ever hustled. . Isn't that right, Linda? Level with old Pete. Tel! him the truth. Isn't it?"
"No...." she said unconvincingly. "It isn't. There have been others."
"Like hell. You're a damned amateur, admit it. You and pa had a fight, you're taking it out on him like this." He tightened his grip on her, his hands sliding and gripping. "Well, Linda, baby, you came to the right place. Old Pete'll treat you right."
Then he was undoing the buttons on her blouse, opening it, his eyes glistening lustfully as he saw her small, peaked breasts, surveyed their stormy rise and fall. "Man, Linda," he slathered, "those are the cutest I've seen in a long time. I can kiss both of those at the same time."
Immediately he slid down her body, ran the zipper along the side of her slacks. With one fluid motion, he was lifting her, sliding the slacks from beneath her. Now they were being pulled down her slim legs. Roughly he slapped away her white, strap sandals, finished dragging the pants off her ankles.
Now his hands went crazy on her legs, on her middle on the cove of her body. "Hot doggies, Linda," he chuckled, "if you aren't the sweetest package I've stripped in a month of Sundays. Hell, after the dogs I've been loving...."
Linda's humiliation was complete. It seemed he could do no more to vilify and degrade her. And yet she knew it was not so. For the ultimate vitiation was yet to come. When he-
Again he gathered Linda into his arms, again he kissed her, send his tongue to her mouth. While his hands, pinching, clutching, caressing her everywhere, turned her to a seething swarm. It took every ounce of reserve to keep from bolting, making for the bath.
He sat her up, slid off her blouse. Then his hands were fumbling with the clasps of her brassiere. "No," she protested, coming from her sick trance momentarily, "I'll do it."
"Not on your life, sugar. I dig helping dollies like you out of their undies. Especially pretty silkies like these you got on."
His lips descended, closed on her rigid nipples, compressed them noisily. While his hands crept to her panties. It felt to Linda like a fire had been ignited. Not so much in what the man was doing as in the fact that this was the first time any other man-besides Dolph had touched her.
She arched, squirmed, tried to crowd him back, but he only chuckled at her discomfiture, became sadistic with his teeth, biting her, forcing her to stillness. And he went on with his enjoyment.
Until, with a deep sigh, justifying her total surrender by thought that she was only delivering what had been duly bought and paid for, she relaxed again, made no further protests as his big, hurting hands played with her. She trembled as he slipped her panties off. But it didn't matter. She was beyond pain, beyond repugnance now.
Or so she thought. For now suddenly, Pete pulled away from her, left her in naked disarray. Standing a few steps from her, he avidly stared at her. All the while stripping off his own clothes. Almost in defensive reflex Linda closed her eyes. She didn't want to watch.
"Here, Linda, honey," she heard his wheedling voice come out of the darkness, "I want you should see. Look at Pete, baby. Look at the real Pete."
Still Linda locked her eyelids, turned her face away from him. Until the man approached the bed, hit her a stinging slap on her flanks. "I said look, damn you! I ain't paying for no little prude. Look at me!"
Reluctantly Linda forced her eyes open, stared hatefully at the man. Slowly her eyes widened, her mouth parted a half-inch. As she took in Pete, realized with terror that his words hadn't been mere braggadocio. "No...." she whispered. "You aren't going to...."
"Oh, honey," he mocked, "but I am. You'll love me. I know you will. Didn't old Pete tell you he'd treat you right?" He advanced two more steps, laughed jubilantly as he saw Linda cringed before him. "Hell, you dolls oughta be paying me."
Linda tried to scramble away. "No, please," she choked. "You'll hurt me. You'll hurt me bad. Take your money back. Only don't...."
"Take my money back? Not a chance. Not with a little thing like you. Baby, you're gonna like me. I'll make you. C'mon now, you little tart. I'll only hurt a little. Then I won't hurt at all. I'll be the greatest. I guarantee...."
Linda screamed and sobbed simultaneously as he threw her back. As his hands fumbled, prepared her. Next she was hurt by a searing, torturesome pain. As Pete drove brutally.
It seemed she would never stop screaming, that the bursts of pain would never stop.
"How was that?" he chuckled thickly when at last that was over, not letting her free for a moment, ignoring her sobbing pleas.
And after a suitable interval, when he'd exhausted his store of vulgar taunts and Linda thought he'd leave, he began to breathe hard again, desire renewed for him. He took her hand, forced it to him, held it. "That's right, Linda, baby," he rasped. "That's good. You're getting there. Keep working."
"But no," she fought. "Not again. You paid for once, you can't ... You'll have to pay more ..
"Honey," he mocked her, "you got things all mixed up. The second one's always on the house. Just like that second cup of coffee. Now be a good girl, and maybe I'll leave you a tip." He snapped her head savagely. "Lay still I said! Just like you did before."
He hummed pleasurably in his throat. "Wow, wow...."
Linda was still sobbing when Pete left. He'd tried to dress her, to drop her off in his car, but she'd fought him off, begged him to leave her be. Half hysterical, she didn't know what she was doing. And finally, when she clawed him, he'd called her a particularly vile name, had dressed and stormed out.
Now Linda lay on the bed, still naked, her body throbbing and burning, barely able to see for the tears which blurred her vision. Idly she fingered the five-doilar bill, smoothing it, then balling it, then smoothing it again.
Thoughts of the most bitter sort invaded her brain, cloaked it in a despondent, desperate mantel.
So this, her brutalized mind fashioned, is what its like to be a five-dollar tramp. This is how cheap a human body is.
Then she was sobbing anew, as if her heart would break into a hundred pieces.
CHAPTER TWO
Linda O'Mara was not, in the usually accepted sense of the word, an overly intelligent girl. Beautiful and fastidious in her personal grooming she was. Her house was neat as a pin, always clean and sparkling. The meals she cooked for her husband were always carefully and thoughtfully prepared. In her heart of hearts she was slavishly devoted to her husband, she was an innately faithful and loving wife. It was inconceivable that she should ever do anything to cross or to hurt him.
At any rate, at least until yesterday afternoon. And last night.
But brutally and simply stated. All the above being true, they still didn't change things a whit. Linda O'Mara just wasn't very bright.
This was not mere observation by an author omniscient. For Linda herself would have been the first to admit as much. In fact it was thoughts of this nature that nagged her this very Tuesday afternoon as she sat in the polished and glistening kitchen of the tiny rental house at 1123 Xavier Street. As she sat waiting for Patti to come by for her, even then firmly dedicated and determined to venture forth on another foray of sin.
II I wasn't so damned dumb, she goaded, I wouldn't be in this hellish mess in the first place.
The lovely woman picked up the cup of stone-cold coffee, took a tentative sip. Making a wry grimace, she put it down again. And tried to shut out the damning, self-condemning thoughts by lapsing into a spate of comforting self pity.
School had always been a torture for Linda, and she'd been a dull student to say the least. She'd liked to read, but only fiction and fantasy. The hard technicalities of textbooks-chronology and equations and physical laws and theories-had been eternal mystery to her stubborn brain. It had all seemed like so much fuss over things that really didn't matter. If the day was bright and pretty, if she had new clothes to wear, if Mom was cooking her favorite meal-what more did life have to offer?
It was an introverted, babyish philosophy. One which Linda had been only too happy to accept. Ever tractable and docile, she'd never given her parents a moment's worry. If anything, they were concerned with her lack of interest in the outside world, in the social swirl at school. After all, a girl as lovely as Linda-content to remain at home night after night, to watch television by the hour, to pore over romantic teenage novels, fairy-tales even-it was a matter of no small concern.
And when Dolph O'Mara had begun courting the Kelly girl in her nineteenth year the family had breathed a collective sigh of relief. When the heretofore quiet and undemonstrative girl had tumbled head over heels in love with the easy-going, steady, ever-smiling blond, they had been more than pleased. They had never seen their daughter so happy, so vibrantly radiant. It would be a good match, a marriage that would unquestionably stick.
Granted, they had been somewhat distressed when Dolph had returned on furlough from his two years of compulsory military training, had announced his intention to become a career army man. They'd wondered how Linda would adapt to such an uncertain existence.
A month later Dolph and Linda were married. Two weeks later, after a glorious honeymoon in an isolated North Woods cabin, they were on their way to Fort Holt, at Winville, Texas.
Thus the placid girl had exchanged one warm, snug cocoon for another just as warm and snug. Secure and happy in marriage, certain that her niche was invulnerable, she had settled back to enjoy life as she was certain life should be lived. Uncomplicated, even-keeled, serene, comfortable.
Needless to say there had been minor storms. Two crises had occurred, and had, for a time, threatened to upset Linda's calm existence. One in the fact that after almost eight months of steady-and deliriously ecstatic-laboring to conceive the baby Linda had yearned for all her life, she'd been unable to become pregnant. A trip to the post hospital for prolonged observation and examination had revealed that Linda was unalterably barren.
The doctor had explained it carefully to her, had used difficult medical terms to make her understand what malformation within her was responsible. But it had all boiled down to one thing-life had played a grisly joke on her; she would never have her baby.
Even now the initial shock of that realization was revisited upon Linda, and she felt her breath catch in her throat, her eyes filmed over. She shook away the tears. Again, she thought bitterly, another big 'if. II I could have had Dolph's baby-there wouldn't have been time for that other-there wouldn't have been time to be bored.
The tears welled even stronger. Why? I wanted a baby so terribly. Why, why?
Now she recalled the strange, sullen lethargy that had overtaken her for months after. Her disappointment seemingly turning her against Dolph. As if it was his fault and not hers. Though she'd granted him his bedroom privileges, the wild sacrificial abandon had gone out of the love act, and she'd been unresponsive, irritated and impatient with Dolph. She'd merely endured his kisses and caresses. She'd lain in cow-like permissiveness at the end, when he'd taken his final will with her.
The fights and arguments had started then, by-product, undoubtedly, of her grievous disappointment. That and the endless monotony of her days as an army wife. Dolph had insisted on taking his small allowance and living off the post, his stubbornness that his wife shouldn't be exposed to the trashy element on post putting them at a severe financial disadvantage.
Things had ganged up on them. They had taken to snarling and snapping at each other, Dolph blaming her frigidity, her indifference to him. Once she'd worked up courage enough to stand up to him, to return his insults. It had been crowning stroke, and in a fit of animal frenzy, Dolph had methodically and efficiently beaten her up. It had taken weeks before all the bruises and cuts had healed. Weeks in which Linda had had time to take a good, long look at herself. And at her marriage.
She didn't like what she saw. Not at all.
Weeks also, in which Dolph, contrite and shamefaced at his brutality, had been remote and uncommunitive. Night after night he didn't come home for dinner, preferring to catch a sandwich at the NCO club, running out the night at the bar, coming home staggering drunk.
The physical love he'd extorted from her those nights had been sickening to the utmost degree. But terrified of him as she was, memory of the physical violence, totally new to her, still strong in her mind, she'd given in without a murmur. II this was woman's role-
She suspected that Dolph was playing around with other women, hoped against hope that she was wrong. Realizing also, that if it was true, it was her fault. That she'd driven him to them with her childish refusal to grow up, with her prolonged orgy of self-pity over the babies that would never be.
Until that night when she'd openly accused him of infidelity. And Dolph, drunk, stung to the depths of his being, had again proceeded to mop up the floor with her.
Now a crimson flush rose in Linda's cheeks. As she recalled the aftermath of that beating. With Dolph lying on the floor beside her, his eyes glazed with tears, his voice choking, begging her to forgive him, swearing that there had been no other woman.
And further she recalled the purifying surge of love and forgiveness that had transported her then, the way she had quivered through her pain as he'd lifted her, carried her to the bedroom.
I was wanton, she marveled anew. That night I was a wanton of the worst sort. Her features colored even more deeply as she went on remembering, rebuilding the events of that night. The things we did! To prove to each other how sorry we were, how much we truly loved each other. Things I never did before, things I've never done since.
Linda found herself trembling, her pulse quickening at the recreation of the night.
Afterward, both of them crying, pleading for forgiveness, vowing their eternal love, they'd straightened on the bed. And, as much as Linda ached, she had groped and guided, frantic and gasping with desire, she had welcomed her husband eagerly.
She had screamed her glory, she had delineated her sensations in unflinching detail. Teeth clenched in painful grimace, calling on every muscle and nerve end to never let go. As the ripping, blinding flashes, peak after peak, had arrived and departed.
Until it had seemed the room had tilted crazily, that flames had licked the walls, that they were caught up in a holocaust such as the world had never known. A degenerate giving and taking of sensation that she wanted to last forever. And then it was time. She was delirious, wild.
The words had acted as trigger, touching a flaming, cauterizing brand to his brain, making her words mandatory, undeniable. Faster and faster, and Linda's ecstasy had swelled and rainbowed. At the last it semed that a hundred pipe-organs were thundering in the room, dedicating themselves to an orgiastic paen, a tribute to their magnificent love.
Then finally, as she wailed jubilantly to announce two, briefly spaced peaks, Dolph had frozen and passed the peak, on and on.
Achieving still another fulfillment, Linda had gone on calling for more.
Even then, the wall between them at last torn down, Linda was not satisfied. And holding Dolph she'd cunningly begun to do the work. Carefully, she had caressed and nudged. Until, little by little, he had recovered, his virility recharged.
"You devil, you sweet devil," he'd groaned.
"Again, darling," she'd whimpered. "Again, again. All night again. If you can."
The night had marked a turning point in their marriage. The old rancor was gone; it was as if they were sent back in time, as if they were honeymooners again. They were reborn; their marriage was once more secure.
Now, once again, Linda broke from her trance, was ashamed to find herself breathing shallowly, to find her hands shaking. It was a betrayal she could never quite understand. Even during those early days of marriage she'd been surprised at the sensuality that Dolph's touch, his kisses, his very nearness could instill in her. She'd always been embarrassed by thing sexual, even by the lingerie ads, by the puerile references to kissing and hugging in the teen-age novels she'd read, and later, by the more candid descriptions of the love act in the adult books she devoured.
Thus the puzzlement, when, during her honeymoon, she'd become an eager love partner to Dolph, had herself, on more than one occasion, become instigator. It was certainly out of character for her. But out of character or not, it was nevertheless so. Linda O'Mara was a very passionate, very sensual woman, much enamored of the physical side of love.
But with one major reservation. It was only Dolph who could fan that passion. She had never once, in the fourteen months of their marriage, ever even looked at a man. She loved Dolph; the sun rose and set on him.
And even though it was a strange love, tinged with a childish subservience and adoration, a love colored by fear of Dolph when he was in a rage, by fear of the violence he had twice wreaked with his fists, it was nonetheless an enduring and honest love.
A love that could be demolished only by-
And Linda sighed, remembering yesterday, the betrayal of that love. Projecting herself, knowing she must go on betraying Dolph, she must pursue degradation without stop. Until-
For if Dolph ever discovered her intial blunder, if Andrea Lallier carried out her threat to expose Linda to her husband, God knew what rampage the disclosure would ignite within Dolph. God knew what effect it would have on their marriage. Everything would be blasted all over again. And Linda doubted if she could put the pieces together a second time.
Now memory of the soldier named Pete, and what she let him do to her at the motel yesterday afternoon, returned, filled her with cold dread. This was the absolute worst. If Dolph should ever discover the truth about his wife, discover to what lengths she'd gone to buy Andrea Lallier's silence-
It was too horrible to even think about.
The terror mounted, the tremors scudding down her spine, branching into her arms and legs. God, don't ever let Dolph find out!
And with recollection of the sadistic Pete came another unsavory recollection. As Linda reviewed the rest of yesterday. The way she'd called Patti at the laundromat, told her to come to the motel and get her. The way that she'd dragged herself back to the laundromat at night, sick at heart and still in pain, had waited for even another pickup.
A man she could barely remember. Two men. Faceless phantoms who'd taken her to the motel, who had taken care of things with a jack-rabbit casualness and proficiency, using her as receptacle and nothing more.
Afterward she'd returned home, had tossed for an hour before her nightmares had finally faded, had let her sleep.
The only comfort being that she had earned $15 that day. Fifteen hard-earned dollars. A niggling sum that had banished decency from her life forever. Cheap, she'd groaned. Is virtue so cheap?
There was one other consolation. She had only $105 to earn. Before she could buy her freedom from Andrea.
Again vision of Dolph came back to her mind. As she remembered how loving and gentle he'd been with her only yesterday morning, before he'd got up to ready himself for the week long bivouac. As she remembered the heights of ecstasy to which he'd delivered her.
Dolph, she breathed inwardly, forgive me. I don't want to do this, but I must. If only I hadn't been so stupid. If only I hadn't started it in the first place. Forgive me, darling.
Boredom had become a deadly, unrelening enemy. Even after she and Dolph had resolved their differences, had put their marriage on even keel once more. Boredom had been responsible for the whole thing.
There was nothing for Linda to do. Their house was of necessity small. There was only one bedroom, a bath, a kitchen, a living room. And with no children to take care of, how long did it take to pick up such a small house? Daytime television drove her batty; she could read only so long before she tired of it. There wasn't enough money coming in, she and Dolph weren't well enough established so that she could take extensive shopping trips, so that she could join the bowling league some of the other off-base wives in the neighborhood participated in.
And so, what to do with her days?
Patti Contino had been the friendliest of the girls in the neighborhood. It had been Patti who had come to call first, who'd helped the morning fly by with a nonstop flow of neighborhood gossip and base scuttlebutt. They'd sat over coffee many mornings after that.
Then one afternoon Patti had announced that she'd latched onto a female newcomer. A woman named Andrea Lallier who was willing to teach a small group of girls how to play bridge.
And though bridge wasn't Linda's cup of tea, she nevertheless went along with the plan, vowing to kill herself trying to learn. And so another diversion was added to Linda's days.
As expected, the bridge didn't come easy. But Andrea was patient, and after a month or so of fairly steady play, she had the three girls pretty well up on the game. So well up that in time it was suggested they put some money-nothing big, a dime here, a dime there-on the game. Just to make it more interesting, keep everybody on their toes.
Which was all right with Linda. Though she lost consistently, the amounts were so small that she was easily able to keep them secret from Dolph, absorbing them in the food budget. It was small enough price to pay for an afternoon's entertainment.
Dolph was death on gambling. In fact he was down on anything that he deemed a waste of money. He didn't come by money easily, so he was, naturally, careful with it His one big extravagance was the new Plymouth they'd recently bought. The payments, seemingly, were killing them. His other luxuries consisted of an occasional movie on the base, or a night at the NCO Club with Linda, where they drank sparingly, danced, had a sandwich to close out the evening.
There was yet another extravagance. This the frequent small gifts he surprised Linda with. Dresses, costume jewelry, lingerie, candy, perfume-items which could be economically picked up at the base commissary.
So had he got inkling that Linda was gambling-and losing at that-
While the games went on there was much entertaining-and eye-opening-chatter, and Linda came to look on the role of the peacetime soldier in an entirely new light. Especially the married soldier and his dependents.
There was endless talk of which lieutenant's wife was sleeping with which captain, which captain's wife was spending time with which major. And so on down into the ranks. Also Linda was oriented in what Dolph had meant by "trashy", as she heard about EM wives on the base hanging out at the laundromat, selling themselves to add to the family budget, to cover up for fancy dresses and shoes they'd bought without hubby's knowledge. Beyond this were eye-witness accounts of stunts pulled by the WAAC's on the base, by the civilian gals who worked on post.
At first Linda didn't believe. But as the stories became more numerous, more intimately documented, she lost her doubts. It seemed at this moment that someone was pressing a glowing coal against her brain as she recalled one of her own dimwit declarations at one of their card meetings: "Five dollars? You really mean it? They actually sell themselves for five dollars? How can any woman fall that low?"
If only I'd known-
It was the going rate, GI pay being what it was. If one woman wasn't willing to love for that much, there were ten others who were. It was definitely a buyer's market. As Linda had so sadly learned.
The next development-seemingly preplanned-had been the introduction of still another woman, Diane Stover, to their card club. And since bridge can't be played with five players, it was only natural that they try another game. And how about some low-stake poker.
Again Linda, desperate for companionship, had gone along with it, had learned the winning sequences in poker. Had not been overly alarmed when her losses had started climbing. For with a novice's optimism, she truly believed that it was only a matter of time before the cards came her way. After all, poker, as any fool knows, is a game of luck, not skill.
For a time Linda had been able to keep up with her losses. But seemingly the game was getting rougher, and more and more frequently Linda was obliged to let Anddrea stake her. True, she did have streaks of luck, and she managed to keep her debt to Andrea at an average $20.
Then one day two weeks ago, the vision of a lovely summer dress she'd seen in one of the downtown shops still glittering before her eyes, she'd gone to Andrea's with the intent to really gamble. With $30 cadged from the grocery budget in her purse.
The cards had fallen her way. At first, anyway. By three o'clock she'd been $30 ahead. But then, in a foolish streak of confidence, she'd begun to bet on long shots. And when she'd left Andrea's house at five, she was out $50. This plus her original $20.
Stampeding, she'd done the worst possible thing. She'd continued to sit in on Andrea's games, hoping to recoup. Inside of a week she'd run her losses up to $120.
It was then that Andrea Lallier had turned nasty, had demanded that Linda start paying up. The whole wad. Her husband was being transferred to Fort Benning; she wanted that money. And fast. She'd delivered an ultimatum. Two weeks. Or she'd go to Dolph, demand the money from him.
Panic? Linda discovered that she was only first learning the meaning of the word.
"But how," she'd wailed as Andrea had finished, "how am I going to raise that much money so fast? Please, Andrea, give me a break. Leave your address. Let me send it to you ten at a time. I won't welsh, I swear."
"None of that," Andrea had sneered. "I've had that pulled on me too. Cash, honey. I'm sorry, but that's the way it has to be. Otherwise, much as I'd hate to do it, I'll have to call up Sergeant O'Mara, tell him how you've been spending your afternoons lately, put the bite on him. Any trouble, and I'll have my Walt go over his head. The army frowns on stuff like that, you know. It won't help dear Dolph's service record any. Two weeks, babe."
"Where?" Linda had pleaded. "Where will I ever get that kind of money?"
"Where?" Andrea mocked. "The same place half the other pigs on post are getting it. Peddle it, honey. Two dozen guys, maybe less if you're lucky and hit a big spender, and you've got it made. I'll take the first sixty by next Friday. Or else."
"You can't be serious," Linda said, sucking in her breath raspingly.
Andrea's smile was a lewed taunt. "Oh, can't I? Hell, baby, with your looks you'll be able to turn it over in one night. Ask yours friend, Patti. She'll teach yon the ropes."
"No ... not Patti. You mean she's ..
"That's right, kid. Patti's an old pro. You hurt her feelings that day though. Maybe she won't help you at all. You mean you didn't know?"
"No. I never dreamed that she was that kind of...."
"That kind, hell. We're all that kind. When we have to be. And you, Linda, are in it up to your neck. You have to."
Linda had begun to cry. "Please, Andrea. Let me send you the money. I swear...."
"Save it. You go see Patti. She'll clue you in. Only she ain't doing it because she has to. She's sorta settling a score with old daddy Contino. Ask her about it."
It had been a very frightened, very desperate Linda O'Mara who had slowly let herself out of Andrea Lallier's house late that afternoon.
Just as it was a very despondent and quaking Linda O'Mara who now rose from the table in her own kitchen, went out the front door. Summoned by the persistent blare of Patti Contino's auto horn.
It was two o'clock. Time to re-establish her watch at the laundromat. $105 was still outstanding to Andrea.
CHAPTER THREE
How're you feeling today?" Patti greeted with arch joviality. tcYou got over yesterday?"
Linda feigned a toughness she did not really feel. "I'm fine. A good night's sleep was all I needed. After all, I see by the papers that women have remarkable recuperative powers. Even better than men."
"Is that right?" Patti hit the accelerator, lurched the '60 Pontiac away from the curb, started toward the post. "You can't prove it by me. How many tricks did you turn, Linda? You were gone by the time I got done fighting off my last John. Talk about drunk...."
"Three," Linda answered. "How did you do?"
"Five. But it took until midnight to do it. Then I had a regular. Comes around every Monday. Kind of a weirdo, pays double if I let him pull a nasty little stunt he digs."
A spear of apprehension darted through Linda. "What? What kind of a stunt?"
"That'd be telling, honey. He was harmless. You'll run onto your share of oddballs in time. Humor 'em. They pay good. They sure's hell aren't rough trade like that bull you pulled yesterday."
"Please," Linda winced. "Don't talk about it. It might be a nice day after all."
"Nice, schmice. Too damn hot."
They drove in silence the rest of the three miles to Fort Holt, the sun glaring mercilessly down on the convertible. Then at last they topped a rise, came upon the sprawling military installation. Stretching as far as the eye could see were the administration buildings, barracks, warehouses and vehicle depots. And there, at the extreme northern end of the camp, they saw the dependent's quarters, attractive, modern bungalows, lying in somnolent torpor, seemingly deserted.
Three intrepid kids were playing in an inflated pool in one back yard. Otherwise it might have been a ghost town. Coming closer to the fenced reservation, they saw a tank batallion spilling into a tractor lane, throwing up dense clouds of cooking dust.
"Those poor jerks," Patti said. "To be buttoned inside those sardine cans on a day like this. And look at us. We get to spend our afternoon in a nice, air-conditioned laundromat."
"Very funny."
"Isn't that something?" Patti continued, indicating the camp with an expansive wave of her hand. "It actually looks like they looked for the most Godforsaken stretch of rear" estate in the whole damned state of Texas, then put an army post on it. Talk about dust bowls."
"Hellhole," Linda agreed. "Leave it to the army."
They were stopped at the main gate, the smugly smiling MP checking their dependent's ID cards, waving them through. His eyes, all the while insinuatingly staring holes through Patti's sheer, black blouse. "Go ahead, Mrs. Contino," he called, putting emphasis on the Mrs.
"He acts like he knows you," Linda offered.
"Maybe he does. For all I know he spent a half hour with me at The South Wind one night. I can't keep track. You go ape if you try. So far as I'm concerned they're all nothing but marks."
Despite herself, Linda shuddered. Will I ever get this hardboiled about things? How long did it take Patti to get like this? I hope it never happens to me.
And she thought of her rigid deadline. Only jive more days. Then Dolph will be home. I have to earn the money by then. After that it will be too late. Unless I really want to take my life into my own hands.
Also she wondered about the surly-mouthed, venaleyed blonde who sat beside her. Why was she doing it? If she didn't have to? Surely revenge against her husband wasn't worth all this. After all, who was she hurt-ting? Certainly not Vito.
And before Linda could check the words, they were tumbling out: "How come, Patti? Why do you keep up with this?"
"What do you mean, why do I keep up with this? I get my kicks this way. I sure's hell don't get any from that louse I married."
"That's not true, Patti. I don't believe it. If you really wanted thrills, you wouldn't pick this way. You'd find a handsome man, one who'd treat you good, you'd do it because you liked him."
Patti made a sour expression. "You're getting to be quite a philosopher all of a sudden, aren't you, honey? One time out and you know it all."
She looked at Linda, smiled. "Well maybe you're right. Truth is, I'm saving up some dough so I can cut out. I'm fed up to the gills with this sandbox. When I get two hundred bucks ahead, I'm taking off. God knows that two-timing husband of mine never lets me get my bands on any money of his."
"And how much money do you have now?"
"A hundred or so."
Linda cringed inwardly. It meant at least fifteen tricks Patti had turned. This making allowance for an occasional "spender." Her heart became heavy, sunk into her stomach. And you, she accused, hope to make it m a mere week? Ifs impossible.
The impossibility of Linda's self imposed task was doubly magnified that afternoon as she and Patti sat out the whole afternoon in the laundromat, Patti going out with only one customer, Linda winning none. Business was definitely slow. Only two other soldiers came in, picked out their afternoon's tumble, ankled out. And these were regulars, Linda surmised. They seemed to know just which woman they wanted.
"What's wrong?" she asked when Patti returned 45 minutes later. "Where are all the men? Do I look all right? None of those guys even gave me a second look."
"Take it easy," Patti said. "What you don't get now you'll get tonight. It's just a slow afternoon. You gotta remember we got tough competition around here. What with so many WAAC's and plain Jane wives just giving it away. Then there's a couple of call houses in town. They cut in on the trade too. Keep cool. Something will turn up."
Linda became panicky. "But when? I've only got this week, Patti. Then Dolph will be back."
"Wow!" Patti snickered. "You sound like a seasoned veteran already."
Linda flushed crimson. "I didn't mean it that way. It's just that I need that money. Bad. And so long's I've gone this far, I might as well go all the way. Why doesn't someone come?"
"They will," Patti soothed. "Tonight. Just watch."
Had there been any alternative to out-and-out prostitution? Linda pondered as she sat out the rest of that futile, maddeningly frustrating afternoon. Any real alternative? It wasn't as if she hadn't tried to come up with some way of acquiring the money before finally throwing herself on Patti's mercy. She had, desperately.
She might have borrowed the $120. But loan companies frown on soldier accounts. Especially wives without husbands to co-sign. And that would certainly be defeating her purpose, wouldn't it?
She'd considered writing home, asking her parents for the money. But they were both on pensions, and couldn't spare a cent either. Besides, how would she pay them back?
The pawn shop would be a good out. But there was just one drawback. With the exception of her rings, the set of inexpensive silverware Mom and Dad had managed to scrape up money for, she had absolutely nothing to pawn. And these would be instantly missed by Dolph.
Patti had uses of her own for her money. Sympathetically but firmly she'd turned Linda down. Seconding the witchy Andrea Lallier's suggestion by saying, "Sorry, baby, but that's the only way out as far as I can see. (jive it a whirl. It won't be as bad as you think. You might even get to like it. What you got to lose? Play it cool and Dolph'll never tumble."
Which was the whole ball of wax. There was no way out for Linda. Either way she'd come up a loser. Which she dreaded worse-Dolph's wrath and the probable torpedoing of their marriage-or the ugly times with foul strangers-was hard to determine. But in the long run the vagaries involved in her husband's blowup seemed somehow more menacing.
It was the truth. If she could go through with it, who would be the wiser? She was doing it for Dolph, wasn't she? To save their shaky marriage?
And when it came right down to it, there was no choice. Either steal the money, murder someone for their money, steal merchandise she might pawn or sell outright. Or face Dolph, tell him the truth. Hobson's choice. None of which she had courage enough to face up to.
Thus her decision to take the easier way out. To put her body on the market.
And the line forms at the left.
The sweating electric clock on the opposite wall read five-fifty. As a very irritated Patti dug her elbow into Linda's ribs. "C'mon. let's blow this trap. Nothing's going to show now. Not until after nine tonight."
Wearily Linda stood, followed her companion out the door. The hot desert air hit them with a suffocating blast as they came onto the still street. And Linda felt a fear almost equal to that she'd shown at this same time the day before. For an entirely different reason.
Another day almost gone. And she was no closer to amassing the vitally needed money than she had been four hours ago.
Dispiritedly she followed Patti down the walk. To the lot where they'd parked the Pontiac.
At nine o'clock, dusk finally giving way to night, they were back at the FORT HOLT LAUNDROMAT. Which was, that night, playing to a full house. There had, miraculously, sprung up a virtual regiment of play-for-pays, and Linda's heart was further bludgeoned. Beyond the hard-eyed prostitutes on hand, there was also an increased glut of housewives. Who were, of all things, washing their clothes.
"Oh, damn," Linda wailed. "Another bust tonight."
"Don't give up so easy!" Patti countered. "You might scare up some business among the doggies who got dragged along to help Ma carry baskets to the car. I coined an easy five that way one night. The guy told his wife he was going out to stretch his legs. We really stretched his legs, let me tell you. Took care of him in the back seat of the family bus in four minutes flat. With faithful old Rover looking on from the front seat."
The picture sickened Linda, and she turned away, picked up the magazine she'd all but memorized that afternoon, pretended to read. In this way avoiding the hungry stares of the slobby, henpecked husbands who'd been hauled out for the evening's damp version of "togetherness." It seemed to her that every male eye in the place was drilling holes in her.
And seized by an unreasonable frustration and exasperation, her thoughts suddenly turned uncharacteristically vulgar. Go on home, damn you! Ditch those frumps. Crack your piggy banks and come back. Don't just stare at me.
By ten o'clock the majority of the clothes washers had cleared the laundromat. There had been a brief flurry of business around nine-thirty, and now only a dozen of the independent merchants remained. With Linda first in line.
She fretted and shifted impatiently. Patti was gone; another of her regulars had whisked her away shortly after they'd arrived. Oh, please, someone. Linda pleaded silently. Pick me. The frank urgency of her thoughts no longer surprised her. Granted she was still frightened, she still felt queasy when she though of walking out that door with a strange man, but by now she'd reconciled herself to the fact that it was something that had to be done. And the more scores she racked up, the sooner it would be over. Somebody, please.
It was at that moment that she looked up to see the pale, drawn-faced man, dressed in mufti, obviously unsure of himself, standing just inside the door. His eyes darting from girl to girl. Until they finally settled on Linda. Her pulse revving up, she stared at him kindly, a small smile forming on her lips. A smile quite different from the gaudy, neon-lighted come-ons the other girls were sending him.
He stared intensely at Linda, a strange something in his eyes that made her shiver involuntarily. Then he raised his hand, beckoned, his finger seemingly plucking the air.
Breathing deeply, standing straight as she could, Linda picked up her handbag, and with an impudent smirk at the dolls left behind, followed him outside.
Room 22 again, and no fuss at all. Linda was out of her dress by the time the man returned, sitting on the edge of the bed. Tonight she wore pumps, no stockings. With only panties and a bra beneath her slip.
It was obvious the blond, washed-out man had been to his car. For now, as he re-entered the room, he was carrying a small suitcase beneath his arm. What-? Linda wondered. Is he planning to make a week of it?
He was very nervous, his face twitching, his hands constantly moving. Carefully he put the suitcase on the bed. turned to Linda. There seemed to be distance in his manner, as if he was not really looking at her like a woman. But through different eyes entirely.
"My name's Chet," he said softly, his voice oddly feminine "I picked you special. You were the prettiest, you seemed to have a kind face. Not mean and hard-boiled like those other women."
"Linda," she replied, goose pimples streaking down her arms at the hollow intonation of his words. "I'm glad you picked me."
"Linda. Pretty name for a pretty girl."
"Thank you." She forced a smile. "Well, don't just stand there. Don't you want to...?"
It was as if he hadn't heard a word she'd said, as if nothing had really interrupted his monotone monologue "I'm wondering ... some girls won't do it ... but I was hoping you would. I'm willing to pay extra if you'll...."
Linda's scalp puckered suddenly. And she recalled Patti's warning earlier. A weirdo. I've drawn a weirdo But what-what does he want me to do?
"You said five dollars as we drove over," the man called Chet continued. "I'll pay you ten, double what you regularly get ... if you'll...."
"What?" Linda's voice emerged in a low squeak "What do you want me to do?"
In answer, his confidence growing by the minute, the man walked toward the bed, opened the tan suitcase. Now he flung back the lid, revealed its contents. "This," he said, the word blurred.
Linda's month fell open, her eyes widened. "But what...?" she gasped. "I don't understand." For there in the satin lined confines was a carefully folded woman's dress, lingerie, a pair of red satin pumps. While in the cover pocket she saw the strands of a blonde wig peeking out. What does it mean?"
"I've got this thing," Chet murmured, somewhat shamefacedly, "I can't help it. I've tried, but that's just the way I am. I like to dress in women's clothes. In pretty, silky things. Before I make love to a woman. It makes it that much better for me."
His eyes were afire with deranged pleading. "Please, won't you help me? Won't you let me? I won't hurt you, I'll be good to you. I promise."
Linda couldn't help notice that he was becoming more agitated by the moment, his motions caricature of femininity, his voice sliding into more pronounced falsetto. Her stomach constricted, her mouth moved, but no words came out. Then suddenly the revulsion was gone, a sardonic amusement taking its place. Damn! Of all things. Yes. Yes, if that's what you want, my odd friend. I've certainly heard of worse things.
She shifted on the bed, smiled.
"You will?" he squealed happily "You'll dress me, make me into a woman? And then, after...?"
"Yes," Linda said. "I will. Give me the money...?"
Frantically Chet dug into his pocket, brought out the crumpled tenner, gave it to her.
Linda carefully folded it, put it into her handbag. Turned on him. "Now. Just tell me what you want me to do."
He whirled away from her, his face masked in aberrated excitement and glee. "Just wait right there. I'll be right back."
Then he was locking himself into the bathroom.
Linda was amazed, when he merged minutes later, totally naked, to see how feminine the man's body really was. His shoulders were sloping and narrow, his skin was soft, smoothly white. Had his legs been on a woman, had they been less hairy, they would have actually been beautiful. His hips were also narrow.
"You dress me, help me look like a pretty girl," he breathed, coming close to Linda again. Then he was digging all sorts of female artifacts from his little case. Among them was a make-up kit, an exotically conceived ensemble of black lingerie, slip, foam-padded brassiere, and panties. Plus a matching garter-belt. And another item which Linda didn't understand.
But which Chet taught her to use, it being the first thing to go on, to conceal the damning reality of his unwanted heritage. Then Linda was putting the brassiere on him, holding the panties for him to step into. The stockings were put on next, smoothed and straightened. Then the pumps. Docilely Chet stood, teetering on the unaccustomed heels, let Linda drop the exquisite, expensive slip over his head.
"I'm getting there," he giggled shrilly "You do my face now. With that kit. Make me into a pretty girl."
He perched on a chair before Linda, let her apply and blend in the pancake make-up, let her form his brows in sweeping arc, sighed as she applied eye shadow to his lids. Then, using a costly lipstick brush and paint, she did his lips, giving them a lush fullness.
Looking at himself in the mirror, Chet squirmed in delight. "The wig," he gurgled "Put on the wig."
The transformation was fantastic. For now as the man turned away from the mirror, he was an amazing recreation of a woman. No casual observer could tell the difference. "I always wanted to be a girl," he seethed his excitement growing, his tones almost slurpy. "I always like pretty things. Why did I have to be a man?"
He turned and posed before the mirror, his eyes lingering on the artificial point of his breasts, the sleek line of his legs. "Aren't I pretty, Linda? Real pretty? Almost like a real girl?"
Linda's voice snagged. And sincerely amazed, she said, "Yes, Chet, you are pretty. You're a dead ringer for a woman. You'd make some women jealous."
"Damn, damn," he said, switching in exaggerated pique. "It isn't fair, it just isn't fair."
Linda rose "Do you want your dress now, Chet?"
His face became cunning. "Call me Sherry, won't you Linda? Do that one more little favor? Please?"
Linda choked back a snicker. "Yes, Sherry." She settled the dress over the man's head. "Here, Sherry," she soothed, talking as she would to a child, "we'll put your pretty dress on you. There, isn't that nice?"
The man's eyes glazed when he saw his complete transformation in the mirror. For a second Linda thought he was going to cry, so taken was he with his artificial beauty. For the longest time he continued to pirouette and pose, taking himself in from every angle, his hand fussing with his breasts, with his hair, smoothing the gown.
And minute by minute he became funnier and funnier to Linda. It was all she could do to stifle her laughter. But scant minutes later, the humor suddenly went out of everything.
As the man began to breathe hard, as his arms and legs began to tremble, and an even more deranged glitter was sparked in his eyes. "Oh love me, Linda," he shuddered, advancing on her "I need you. Love pretty Sherry." There was no mistaking that. The man was adrift in a new dimension now. He was wallowing in pure fantasy.
It gave Linda a distinct queasiness as his mouth slammed down on hers, as she smelled the perfumed cosmetics, felt the lipsticked lips on hers for the first time in her life. Now his body moved against hers, his padded brassiere jammed against her own bosom. Sweet God, she thought, this is going to be aw Jul.
His huggings and kissings went on and on, his breath coming more raspingly, his arms wrenching uncontrollably. Until at last, from that deep trance, he intoned hallowly, "Undress Sherry now. Love her. Love her pretty body. All her pretty things."
In semi-trance of her own by then, Linda did exactly as she was told, sliding off the dress, then the slip. Here Chet stopped her, moved away. "Am I beautiful?" he chanted, doing a lascivious dance before her, his hands roiling his breasts as if they were real. "Is Sherry one of the prettiest girls you've ever seen?"
In dumb, awed tone, Linda replied, "Yes, Sherry. You're pretty, very pretty."
"Do you want Sherry. Real bad?"
And taking her cue, falling into the role she knew the man expected, Linda said, "Yes. I want you, Sherry.
Real bad."
He was very rotten then, very mixed up. "Undress," the man said in his syrupy falsetto. "Take off your clothes. Then you can have Sherry."
And almost impersonally, disoriented, as if she were actually disrobing before another woman, Linda slid off her slip. Then her panties and bra. Stood naked before the man where he'd flung himself to the bed, where he posed in his unhinged masquerade.
"Love Sherry," he commanded.
For what seemed an eternity he held Linda to the kiss, his soft hands going everywhere, caressing and probing, his touch infinitely tender. When he tired of this he insisted that Linda sit up. That she touch and caress him.
That riled Linda's stomach to perform the sick acts-to squeeze the lifeless breasts, to stroke his nyloned legs, but she saw them through. All the while hoping that the twisted travesty would soon be over.
She breathed a fervent sigh of relief when, finally, Chet ordered her to undress him, completely. When he ordered her to turn off the lights. Never dreaming it was merely intermission before the main act.
For once he was naked he became even more arounsed, his hands skittering over her with maddening touchings. "I love women," he seethed, "I adore them. Pretty women I mean. I guess it's because I can't be one myself. That's why I have to worship them. I'd do anything for them. Even this...."
And with a sudden, unstoppable move, his body was spinning on the bed, his hands were pressuring her.
"No!" she wailed, appalled and sickened by the matter-of-fact way he crowded his kisses to her, so boldly attacked her. There's been no strokings, no preliminaries. All of a sudden he was busy, a happy humming in his throat. And despite the fact that that had happened to her before-that chaotic night with Dolph-this was still a stunning, mind-reeling act.
"Chet, please," she screamed, trying to dislodge him. "You shouldn't. You're hurting me." He was stronger than he looked, and was immovable. Seemingly in retaliation he nipped her with his teeth, causing her to cry out, he pinched her cruelly.
"Sherry, damn you!" he rasped. "Don't forget."
"Please, Sherry, it's not right. Stop now. Oh, I can't stand this."
"It is right," the demented man gritted. "The right-est thing in the world. For Sherry to adore you."
Then he lapsed to silence, only the sound of his caresses scorching the night air. Until at last the desired affect was achieved. And Linda was caught in the grip of a compulsive riptide of passion. She could no sooner have stopped him now than she could have flown to the moon.
And the fires raged higher for her, like napalm, clinging, burning, crisping her. Making her want to scream without end. Until at last, involuntarily, her hands were holding him, trapping him. Refusing to release him until-
When she thrilled her glory, Chet giggled and snorted and yelled along with her.
But she barely had time to get her breath before he was pulling himself up, bulling, taking her with one brutal move. And still caught up in the fantastic frenzy, Linda caught herself answering him, found her arms twining about his back.
But even so, that was anti-climactic. For Linda's addled efforts were wasted. She was to have but that one release. As Chet, over-stimulated, finished prematurely. And babbled his sick, choking joy too soon.
The spell was broken. Brief minutes later, as soon as the man recovered his breath, he pushed her away, flung himself from the bed. In the darkness Linda heard him gathering his clothes. Then he was going into the bathroom. She heard a click, saw a frame of white light form about the door.
Tiredly, wonderingly, sick at heart at the way she'd let herself go, she struggled up, clicked on the bed lamp, began to dress herself.
When Chet emerged, all traces of make-up had been scrubbed away, all his female impedimenta had been repacked in their case. He was, to all intents and purposes, a man again. An effeminate man, but a man just the same.
"I'm sorry," he said evenly, averting his eyes. "I hope I didn't shock you too much. I just go out of my head at times like this. I'm not responsible. Forgive me."
"It's all right," Linda said dumbly. "I...."
"C'mon, let's go. I'll take you back." He didn't speak again all the way back to the post. When he dropped her at the laundromat he didn't even say good-bye. For some strange reason Linda sensed nagging disappointment.
She remained at the laundromat another hour. But she might as well not have bothered. There was no more business that night. And as she and Patti piled into the car, her mind still spinning. Linda had but one dour thought:
That makes $25. Only $95 more to go.
CHAPTER FOUR
Linda O'Mara was jarringly brought from a drugged, haunted sleep at eleven o'clock the next morning by the insistent ringing of the telephone. Struggling from her lonesome bed, she weaved her way into the living room, angry and bitter, too soon brought back to the ugly reality of a new day.
A reality that was even more devastatingly reinforced as she picked up the phone, recognized the voice on the other end.
"Morning, honey," Andrea Lallier said snidely. "I hope I didn't wake you up. I'd sure's hell hate to disturb your beauty sleep for anything in the world." She laughed throatily. "A gal in your line needs all the beauty she can get. Isn't that right, Linda?"
"Oh," Linda blurred, "it's you, Andrea. What do you want?"
"You know damn well what I want, dolly. That money. I just called to see how things are going. You gonna have the sixty by Friday?"
"Yes, I think so. I'm trying to raise it. Maybe I'll have more."
"You took Andrea's advice, huh? Really peddling it, are you? Good show." Linda didn't answer.
"Mousy about it, huh? Well that's all right, too. I don't care, just so long's you get the scratch up."
"Is that all you called for?"
"Yeah, I guess. Just checking. I'll see you Friday, huh? Don't mess me up."
"I'll be there."
"Okay. Then that's it, Linda." She cackled lewdly. "Keep up the good work. If I hear of anybody's needing a good overhauling, I'll recommend you." And still laughing, Andrea hung up.
Leaving an enraged, mortified Linda holding the receiver. A remorseful, guilt-swamped Linda, who stood frozen in place, remembrance of last night washing over her afresh, making her feel crawly inside. Until at last, the buzzing of the phone drawing her from her trance of self loathing, she swayed, replaced the receiver.
Ran hurriedly to her bedroom to dress. If she kept herself busy, tidying up the house, preparing lunch, if she turned the radio way loud, she could blot out the revolting reveries, she could close her mind to the degradation she must return to only two hours hence.
There were only two other prostitutes, Linda didn't flinch at the word any more, called a spade a spade-at the laundromat that afternoon. Again the doll in the pink dress, another slattern in too-tight shorts. Who nodded in easy familiarity as Linda and Patti entered, took their regular places.
Briefly Linda recounted the details of Andrea's call that morning. At which Patti's eyes narrowed, her lips compressed. "That cheap witch," she spat. "She's got her royal nerve queening it on you. As if she's never peddled her scrawny self. She invented the trade. You think a card shark like her hasn't been caught short more than once? Talk about tramps."
"But it all seems so cheap and tawdry," Linda complained. "That a woman should sell herself for a measly five dollars. That she should betray her husband, everything...." her voice broke, " ... that their marriage stands for. Five stinking dollars...."
"Some women give themselves away free."
"That's different. If they're having an affair, if they think they're in love with the man. But to sell yourself. For such a tiny amount."
"It ain't so tiny. We're having a hard time raising it, ain't we? Besides, five's good. Could be worse. You know where the term two-bit got started, don't you? Don't kid yourself that that's fiction. Hell, we're living in prosperous times."
"But, Patti, listen...."
"No, you listen to me. You're not really bad. Honest. It's these nympho pigs running around loose who're rotten. They got no reason to act like that. You have. And, maybe, so do I. For instance, take that Shirley Zubrod. Married to the first in C Company."
"I don't know her."
"You're lucky. She digs movies, never misses a one. And she never buys a ticket. Vito tells about the time he caught her with the theater manager in one of the Johns in the men's room. Old Sergeant Miller with Shirley, making like an express elevator. Just for a pass.
"She hits the other shows, too. Takes on any usher that'll let her in. Talk about double features...."
Linda made an ugly grimace. "Don't, Patti. Don't say any more. Or I'll heave on the spot."
"There are worse things than what we're doing," Patti battered home her point.
While Linda sighed heavily. "Yes, I guess there are. Only...."
She never finished. For at that moment a GI came in, ran a swift recon of what was available. Then, playing it safe, picking the tried and true, he signalled Pink Dress. All of which Patti and Linda took in with resentful stares.
Three little Indians.
It was a slow afternoon. Even those occasional women with washing were few and far between. Once or twice a passing soldier stopped outside, glanced hungrily in. Then, probably broke, passed on.
Three o'clock came and went. The other "fun" gal became impatient, wandered off. Only one woman waited for the drying cycle to end, and the place was all but deserted. It was at that moment that the fat, waddling Negress in the splashed print dress sidled into the room, sent a sharp glance in their direction.
She was a short, big armed woman, perhaps fifty, a look of guileless good nature in her pink eyes. Her skin was almost blue-black, her lips obscenely pink about white teeth. Yet there was an air of self importance about her. She wasn't just another tramp. She was somebody. She had purpose, a reason for being here.
Assured of what Linda and Patti were, she smiled in brash overture, started toward them.
"Oh, oh," Patti said. "Competition."
As she came closer Linda saw the white strands in the Negress' brows and hair, the face appearing almost jolly and benign. The woman sighed heavily, took the empty chair next to Linda. And came immediately to the point.
"You two gals hooking?" she asked genially.
Linda was abashed, but Patti took it in stride. "So what if we are, Mammy? What's it to you? Don't try any religion on us. We're full up."
"No religion, honey," she said, completely unruffled, her drawl slow and even. "Business." She giggled. "Monkey business. Ah'm Hattie. Maybe y'all heard tell of me."
"Can't say that I have," Patti said.
"Well, you're just not listening, then. Ah got this little place on Wilkins Street. A right happy little place. Ah'm looking for a couple of new ... how you say it? Hostesses? Lost a couple good girls recently. Their husbands shipped out. Y'all know how it goes. Interested? No dogs, all high class stuff. You kids qualify."
Patti became leary spokesman. "Might be. How much you getting?"
"All kinds of prices, chile. Whatever the traffic bears. Ten dollars bottom. Lots of times more."
"And your cut?"
"Ah take half. Hattie never cheat her gals."
"Which means five bucks. What we got to gain?"
"Like ah said, Ah get customers who pay more sometimes. Especially for pretty chicks like y'all. That's what you got to gain."
Immediately Patti's mercenary tendencies came to the fore, and her suspicions swiftly faded. "I don't know. I never worked for Negro's before."
"Ah ain't prejudiced," the fat Negress beamed. "Ah'll give you a chance if you do same for me. Ah had plenty white work for me. Never a complaint. Ya'll wanna talk?"
Yes, they wanted to talk. Linda especially, who with time so swiftly passing and no earthshaking inroads on her debt made as yet, was frantic to scare up business.
Hattie's voice dropped to a mellow, lulling rumble as she described her operation. It seemed Hattie was proud owner of a five bedroom home on Wilkins Street, in the heart of the Winville Negro district. A home well known to the neighborhood-and out of the neighborhood as well-and seemingly resented by nobody. A place where a man could stop in for a bottle of beer sold out of her refrigerator at 30 cents a crack. Anytime of night or day. And if someone should care for refreshments of still another kind-
It was a varied operation. She kept no girls on hand; they were always summoned by phone. And Winville being the small city that it was, it was only a matter of fifteen minutes wait. Of course, advance reservations were always appreciated.
The girls could be enjoyed on the premises, or you could order them "to go." Same price. Any color, any size, any age, any style. You name it, Hattie could get it for you. "White boys dig darkie gals," Hattie said, "that's okay by me. Just so long's the Negro gal's willing. An' the white boy's got the scratch."
"Hey," Patti said, "does that work both ways? I'm not about bedding down with no Negro boys."
Hattie smiled. "You wasn't listening, chile. Ah said it's up to the gals. Again, if you was to, it'd mean a bigger price." Then, by way of insult: "Don't yall worry none on that score. The blacks don't dig white so much. They go where they get real loving."
Patti stiffened, flushed, but said nothing.
"Well, that's about it, girls. If ya'll want to sign on, all you have to do is give me your name and phone number, maybe tell me what kind of stunts you go for. Ah promise Ahll never run in a ringer on you."
Hattie took out a small notebook and an expensive gold pen, poised it over an empty page. Stared directly at Linda. "How about you, honey? Vail want in?"
Hattie smiled. "Oh. Ah get it. Well, okay, as sort of a favor. But Ah, usually likes my gals to hang on longer than that."
Gravely and carefully, writing with slow, precise hand, Hattie took down both Linda's and Patti's addresses and phone numbers, promised to call them as soon as something turned up.
"Maybe it'd be better if I called you," Linda said.
"Same here," Patti added.
"That's quite all right," Hattie patted Linda's hand. "Any way you like, honey." She printed a number on still another blank page, tore it out, handed it to Linda.
Then she rose, ceremoniously said good-bye, her eyes all the while boring deeply into Linda's. "Ya'll both might get business sooner than you expect." With that she was slowly and dignifiedly walking out of the laundromat.
"Well, I'll be dipped," Patti snorted when Hattie was gone. "I'd never thought I'd live to see the day when I'd be hiring out in a Negro house." Then she began chuckling as if it was the biggest joke in the world.
While Linda sat in silent dismay, said nothing at all.
The two men's names were Roger and Bill, and they had come into the laundromat scant minutes after Hattie had disappeared. They were half drunk when they'd picked up Patti and Linda, had outlined their rauchy little scheme; and now, in the double room at The South Wind Motel, they were getting even drunker, preparing to make a real blast out of what remained of the afternoon.
Bill was a tall, gangly redhead, easily the drunker of the two, while Roger was dark-haired, heavy-set and cracking jokes a mile a minute. There was half a fifth of Jack Daniels sitting on the dresser. Which the men kept urging Linda and Patti to help them kill.
Which urgings the girls resisted. "We're working," Patti snapped. "We can't go getting drunk and let slobs like you take advantage of us. We've got other tricks to turn before the day's over."
"Is that right?" Roger laughed. "Well, suppose we make it worth your while? We got money. We can pay."
"Okay," Patti said. "Talk. What's on your mind?"
"Suppose we make a party out of this. None of this quick stuff. Have a little fun. You're only young once."
"How much?" Patti insisted.
"We'll double the ante. Ten bucks each."
"Big deal."
"Well, f'r...." Bill said exasperatedly. "What do you expect? We're only E-ones, not majors. Where's your patriotic spirit?"
"Check back on the Fourth of July," Patti snapped.
"Listen, kid," Roger said. "You ev'r hear about the bird in the hand? Well this is a sure ten bucks for a little of your damn time. How do you know you're gonna pick up another guy tonight? This is a sure ten bucks apiece."
He was right, and Linda and Patti knew it. It would be better to take the ten, let the boys call the tune.
"Okay," Patti said, her smile cold. "What you guys got in mind?"
"We have a few drinks," Roger said, "have a little fun, play around. Then we trade off after the first one. That sound so awful?"
"Sounds okay," Patti admitted reluctantly. "Only get this straight from the start. We only trade off once. More than that'll cost you another five bucks a time."
"Damn," Bill grumbled. "Talk about your business women. Do you want it in writing?"
While Linda stood off to one side, marveling at the hard-boiled manner in which Patti handled the men. I wish I could be like that, she mused. That Pete creep wouldn't have taken me for the ride he did.
"Take a drink," Roger said, dropping ice cubes into a glass, trying to drown them with whiskey.
"No drinks," Patti said. "We want to keep this thing under control."
Bill's voice took on an icy edge. "Well then why don't we forget the whole thing? Why don't you two tarts just take off? Well find somebody else. Somebody who'll at least have a damned drink with us. Take your little purses and shag out of here."
He meant it, and Patti knew it. Instantly she had misgivings about her party-pooping refusal. Linda crowded her shoulder. "Let's, Patti," she whispered, "Ten dollars is ten dollars."
"Okay," Patti looked at Bill squarely, capitulating. "You win. We'll have a drink with you. Hand it over."
"Cri," Roger said, "you'd think we were serving rotgut. Maybe you don't get a drink now."
"Give," Patti snapped vengefully. "Don't make a big production out of this."
Bill took the glasses from Roger with a happy hoot, presented one to each girl with an overdone bow. And immediately cornered Linda, but his arm around her, dragged her toward the bed. "C'mon, Linda, dolly," he slurred, "let's you'n me get cozy."
Linda stiffened, then relaxed. Let herself be pulled down beside him. Where she sat, her body tight to his, letting Bill-he in no hurry to get down to basics-run his lips in her hair, letting his free hand lightly toy with her nipples. And in the bargain, nervously apprehensive as she was, sipping at the barely diluted whiskey faster than she should have.
At four o'clock on a hot summer afternoon, on an almost empty stomach, it was definitely the wrong thing to do.
Especially for Linda, who was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a seasoned drinker. The only time she ever drank at all was during those rare nights when she and Dolph visited the NCO club. Otherwise she was strictly one of those "Pepsi, please" girls.
And Jack Daniels. A hundred proof. Murder.
By four-thirty Linda was definitely feeling her liquor. As also were Roger and Bill. But then, they'd had a head start The only one who was still possessed of a modicum of control was Patti. And she was fading in the stretch. It seemed to Linda that the room was all tippy. And she was so very, very happy. It was fun to sit and drink like this, to laugh and joke with these amusing, light-hearted men. Fun. So much fun.
Both she and Patti had been skinned out of their slacks and shirts by then, and cavorted about the room, wrestled and played on the beds dressed in only then-panties and brassieres. The guys too had peeled down, pursued them with drunken doggedness wearing only their white shorts.
It was a fun ball. Real fun. Getting wilder by the minute. As certain undeniable pressures raged and swelled within the woman-hungry men. It was nothing short of miraculous that they'd held off as long as they had.
But party they'd said-
The late afternoon sun bathed their semi-naked bodies with a harsh gold light, making the scene-in Linda's blurred vision anyway-beautiful, even granting aphrodisiac effect. She was so pretty, she felt so good. And the things Bill was doing to her. She felt like she was stinging in pleasurable anticipation all over.
But in reality, it wasn't the gold of the sun. It was the liquid gold that came from the squat, dark bottle that transformed the grubby motel room into an exotic pleasure dome.
Until finally, Patti finally tumbling over the drink, becoming the original party girl, things really began to roll.
The guys had the girls right where they wanted them.
Linda and Bill lay on their bed, kissing and embracing, tied up in a surging knot.
Until now, tiring of the buildup, Bill pulled away from Linda, pushed her back to the bed. "Bill, baby?" she said, stupid in drink, "What...? Don' you...?"
"Something's gotta happen soon, honey. Else I'll finish without you. Here, let me get you outta those duds."
"Yes, Bill," she hesitated, squirming unashamedly before him, "take off my undies. I wan' you to. Hurry."
But Bill didn't hurry. He took his own sweet time, working Linda to even more feverish pitch. And where she'd only days ago thought she'd never willingly, wantonly give herself to another man beside her husband, the liquor had served to modify her outlook. And as he ran his hands over her naked body, as his fingers did those wild things to her, as his lips and teeth made her breasts ache and throb, caused tentacles of lust to find their way into every extremity of her body, she wanted him.
Wanted, wanted, wanted-
"Bill, you devil...." she purred, shifting on the bed, adjusting her body so his hands could wreak even greater havoc for her, "you're a good lover. A real dream ... boat. Oooh, that's yummy. No one's ever done that before."
She stiffened. "No Don't Bill!" Then she was pulling his lips up, kissing him. "That's a good boy. For a minute I thought you were going to...."
"You little tramp," he rasped, his chest heaving in great swells, "you gorgeous little tramp. You got me all twisted up. I can't wait. I gotta have you now."
Linda's smile was a lewd, crooked smear on her face. "Then why wait?" she said in a croaky voice.
And then, totally blitzed mentally, beyond conscience, Linda made a blatant invitation, urged him forward. He chuckled coarsely, gave her nipple a last evil nip. "You lover. You're really wild for old Bill, aren't you? Wowee. This is gonna be a real bellringer." He slid down her ,body, made himself comfortable. "Hut, two, three," he laughed. "Time now, baby. Time for a little close order work."
There was nothing beautiful or rhythmic or graceful about that. Just was purely animal, grasping and greedy. In a trance of passion Linda's hands came out, piloted him Bill arched and flung in vengeful fury, thrilling her to the utmost of his capacity.
The room was spinning crazily, and almost as quickly as he'd begun, Linda achieved her first completion. The sunlight was beautiful, the colors that flowed before her eyes-like windblown, silken banners-were beautiful. But not as beautiful as-
And she screamed, announcing her second.
The third took longer, and was like a slow opening flower, reaching toward the sun. Reaching, reaching-
Until all at once, in a glaring explosion of light, that happened.
And both she and Bill were trembling convulsively, in a towering, death-like embrace.
"Tramp," Bill was groaning. "You sweet tramp."
And as she and Bill drifted lazily down from that torrid plateau, as their breathing became less stertorous, Linda was distracted by the sounds coming from the next bed. And she watched in evil fascination as Roger flopped with Patti, as the lust sealed their eyes and consciences, transported them to a world where only sensation, only the immediate existed. It might as well have been a parade ground at high noon.
"Oh," Patti was shrieking. "You lover, you stag." A viscous, gagging sigh broke from her throat. "Roger, baby. Dig, dig."
While Roger, his face red, scrambling for traction, was sweating up a storm, crazy to do just that. He groaned. "Lordee, Lordee. Lorde-eee-eee."
Their screams climbed to a discordant crescendo, rose, rose, twisted into a strident cacophony. Then suddenly became a hushed, awed whisper, a choking sob. And finally spiraled down to silence. To gasping breathing and sighs.
Then it was time for more booze. And though Linda protested that she'd had enough, still Bill pressed more on her. "C'mon, dolly. Pep up time. You got another round to go. With Roger there, the great white lover boy. We gotta kill this bottle. Thatta gal. Down the hatch."
Linda, even more than Patti, was quite irresponsible now. The walls of the room appeared to be liquid, to be buckling and sagging, threatening to fall in on her. It was the strangest sensation. And muzzily she giggled, welcoming back the happy feelings the whiskey conferred.
Then it was time to swap. And a weaving, staggering Linda negotiated the perilous terrain between the two beds.
But that was anti-climactic with Roger. She might as well have been making love with a bumbling, ineffective seal. Whiskey being the leveler it is, it took him a long, long time to achieve his release. Not to mention the valiant effort on Linda's part. "Help me," he kept urging her, "help me, baby."
Until at the end, as the fever again seized Linda, she was redelivered to rapture, she didn't need any urgings. And she moaned thickly in her throat, twisted wildly.
Flip-flip, flip-flip, flip-flip, flip-flip. Flip-
And was over. Strangely there was a momentary lucidity that cut through her alcoholic torpor, through the guttural, satisfied groanings of the man. Another ten bucks for the old war chest, she thought. And began to giggle for no reason at all.
There was a long silence in the room. As the degenerate foursome rested, saying little, Roger even dozing, all recuperating from their vigorous, draining labors. All still dizzy, waiting for their heads to stop spinning.
Linda smelled whiskey, looked up to see Bill holding her glass under her nose. "Drink up, honey. Get ready for the next round."
Patti heard him. "Next round? Uh uh, pal. You guys had it. You got your ten bucks worth."
Bill's eyes narrowed, and he struggled to focus them. "Suppose Roger and I were willing to go another ten."
"Fine," Patti smiled. "I'm game. Let's see the color of your money."
"Honey," he coaxed. "You got no imagination. I don't mean regular. I mean...." He raised an eyebrow. "Ten bucks?"
"Patti," Linda said, "What's he talking about?"
"I got my ideas...." Patti said thickly.
"You got musical talent?" Bill sneered. "All you girls have. You play a musical instrument?"
"We don't pull that kind of trick, pal," Patti said.
"F'r ten bucks? Easy money. It's not as if we're strangers. We're old fren's. Good fren's." He pulled Linda close, began to twirl her nipples between his fingers. "Ten bucks. Well go wash even...."
Drunk as she was, licentiously permissive as the liquor had made her, Linda still sensed what it was Bill hinted at. And a crushing dread cut through the alcoholic insulation in her brain. My God, he didn't mean-
A long silence followed, and Linda took the glass, drank the whisky greedily, wanting to achieve that careless limbo again. Where twisted things like this didn't seem to register. Or matter.
"Patti," Linda wailed. "No ... I don't want to...." Patti's scathing stare willed her to silence. And the only sound was that of the men scrambling for their clothes, digging out their wallets. Patti took both the bills, put them in her purse. Watched coldly as the coarsely chuckling men made for the bathroom.
"I can't," Linda quaked when they were alone. "It'll make me sick. I've never...."
"You'll get used to this," Patti said. "Ain't half bad. It's only that first minute or so." Her voice became drunkenly intense. "Make yourself! This one time!"
Ten bucks. An easy ten bucks."
"I don't know how. I...."
"Just watch me. There's nothing to this."
Then the men were back, they were lying on the bed, half propped by pillows, staring at their reflected image m the perversely tilted mirror on the far wall. The mirror that caught panorama of what was going on on both beds.
Patti was already busy. While Linda still hovered near Bill, trying to work up courage enough to-Until Bill, impatient, put his hand behind her head, pressed down.
Unwillingly, her stomach tumbling, Linda began.
She hesitated, and Bill's hands closed on her head, rocked her. Thick, liquid sighs were breaking from his throat. Then he was prodding at her shoulders. "Move over, baby. Can't see in the mirror." Dumbly, a mindless mannequin now, Linda moved.
"How is that?" Roger called to his buddy from across the room.
"The greatest. The real way." And he sucked in his breath noisily, shivered. "Linda, baby," he whimpered.
Then, more to end that than anything else, Linda attended him with pagan, aberrated savagery. Until Bill was moaning without stop. She'd intended to stop at a crucial moment. But she was too slow. For at that mo-meat Bill caught her, held her in murderous grip.
Go!
And Linda was helpless to do anything. There was no tolerance. She heard Bill's guttural chuckles.
Then she was breaking away from him, running for the bathroom. Where she scrambled before the sink. Began to methodically and endlessly heave her frustrations.
CHAPTER FIVE
Again the next morning Linda was ripped prom the snug, warm world of sleep, was brought upright in her bed-to face the grotesque reality of day-by the ringing of the telephone.
Fighting back the thoughts of the previous day's debacle, feeling slightly nauseous from the alcohol her system had absorbed before she'd thrown up, she was confused, was unable to recognize the mellow, soft voice.
"Who?" she said. "Who did you say's calling?"
"Honey." the patient Negress said, "ya'll was up last last night, Ah can tell. This is Hattie. Remember? Ah talked to you and your friend at the laundromat yesterday. Ah'm sorry to be calling you like this. Ah know you asked me not to. But you said your husband would be gone the rest of this week, so ah figured it'd be safe. Ah had to call. Something's come up."
"Oh?" Linda said bemusedly. "It's you. Hattie. I remember. Sorry, I'm not awake yet."
"Ah'm sorry chile, truly Ah am. Ah wouldn't do it if it wasn't impawtant. Ah gotta line up somebody for certain."
"It's all right, Hattie," Linda said, feeling her pulse mount. What now? "What is it?"
"Ah don't know rightly how to tell you this. Not knowin' what you'll stand for. It'd pay you twenty-five dollars. Even after Ah takes my cut."
Linda's heart leaped. Twenty-five dollars! What do I have to do for that much money? If those rotten pigs had paid only twenty for what they made us do yesterday? "Did I hear you right? Twenty-five dollars?"
"You heard right, Linda. That's the offer. Y'all wanna hear the rest?"
"Yes," Linda replied in hushed expectancy. "Tell me about it."
The "rest" revolved about a woman client of some long standing. Which woman was afflicted with a twisted craving. In that, despite the fact that she was married and a pillar of her social circles, she had an uncontrollable urge for other women. And because she had to keep this idiosyncrasy a deep, dark secret, she had to avail herself of Hattie's "house," throw herself upon her mercy.
The woman, Charlotte her name was-last names were Nemesis in Hattie's line-had visited "Hattie's" often, had always been well satisfied with the girls Hattie had provided. But today a new lust, a brushfire of desire, bad been born within the Lesbian. She was tired of her usual lovers.
And here Linda's spine seemed to shrink, her skin prickled at the base of her scalp. Today the libertine Charlotte wanted a white girl.
For-Hattie added in premeditated afterthought-Charlotte was, like herself, a Negress.
For a long time Linda stood at the phone, swaying slightly, unable to form a solitary word.
"Honey?" Hattie said. "Ya'll still there? Ah didn't shock you too much, did Ah?"
"Are you serious?" Linda said finally. "A Negro woman?" Her upbringing had been different than Patti's, she couldn't bring herself to say more. "I...."
"She ain't what you think, honey," Hatti assured. "She young an' pretty. What we generally call a 'High Yaller.' She really very nice. Except for that one little quirk of hers. She won't hurt you. Ahll see to that. Y'all treat her right, no tellin' what she do for you. What y'all say, Linda?"
"I just don't know. I guess I'm surprised. I don't know if I could bring myself to...."
"Forget that prejudice stuff, chile. This here's a quality woman. She treat you good. She pay good."
"But when it came right down to things, I don't know if I could make myself...."
Hattie chuckled. "Honey, you all mixed up. She want you. Y'all don't want her. She do everything. You just relax and enjoy. That ain't so hard, is it?"
Linda's brain spun crazily, and she fought to force herself to accept Hattie's offer. As the $25 loomed larger and larger in her mind, seemed a magnificent sum. It would bring her to within $50 of her otherwise insurmountable goal. Negro or not, she temporized, perverted or not, it couldn't be any worse than the rotten things I did at The South Wind yesterday. Might as well hang for a sheep as for a dog.
She felt very weak, very confused. Until finally-Timidly and softly she said, "Yes, Hattie. What time do you want me there?"
"Two-thirty be all right? She usually take an hour or two. That give you time to keep any other dates y'all have. You got the address, ain't you?"
"Yes. I have it."
"Good. Ah see you then. Oh yeah, one other thing."
"Yes?"
"Wear your prettiest outfit. Charlotte, she like her gals to be all dolled up." Then the line clicked dead.
And a highly disturbed Linda had the rest of the forenoon, those dragging hours before two-thirty, to get used to the oppressive dread, to envision what it would be like at Hattie's, what the woman named Charlotte would do to her. In a way this new crisis was a blessing. For it served to blot out the sickening remembrance of the debauch with the soldiers called Bill and Roger.
Linda didn't know how to drive. And even though Dolph's new car was in the garage, she was forced to take a cab to Hattie's Wilkins Street address. She was shaking like a ieaf when the leering cabby turned, said, "This is it, lady."
Emerging from the cab, she was surprised at the house's exterior and location. She'd expected Wilkins to be a slum area. Instead she saw it was a modestly well kept up residential district, Hattie's house being one of the largest, a pale green story-and-a-half, with a well manicured lawn, winding walk, ornamental iron railing on the porch. And if she was observed going up to the door, she did not know it, for the neighborhood was totally deserted.
She paid the cabby, then fled before his knowing smirk. Any passerby certainly would have had certain second thoughts upon seeing the well turned out white woman-dressed in a dark blue sheath, white hat and gloves, stockings and sabre-toed white pumps-in the Negro district in the first place, entering the infamous house in the second.
She only had to ring once before Hattie let her in.
For thirty seconds Linda blinked against the gloomy light within, unable to clearly distinguish anything except the fact that the drapes were drawn, the TV was blaring, that the house was delightfully air conditoned. Hattie lived well indeed!
"Right on time, honey," Hattie beamed. "Here, sit down a minute. Catch your breath before y'all go up. Charlotte's waiting, but let her wait. It be all the better the longer she fret."
It was the most incongruous of settings. And as Linda's eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she was more and more surprised. The living room was small, unpretentious, boasted very skimpy and very cheap furnishings. A long, cushioned davenport, in maple, a matching chair. Several gaudy plastic hassocks. Two chrome-legged straight chairs, obviously from the kitchen, were against another wall. A brown, enameled space heater stood in one corner. Obviously, during winter, the bedrooms' occupants were expected to provide their own heat.
There was one man, a strapping Negro, doubtlessly Hattie's lover, in the room. He seated in a lounge chair, a bottle of beer in one hand, watching an afternoon panel show on TV, ignoring Linda completely.
And most incongruous of all: The glut of pictures on the walls. Framed photographs of Hattie and various children, one of an older boy in cap and gown, one of Hattie and a man (different from the one in the lounger), he wearing a navy uniform. On another wall was an enlargement showing Hattie dressed up, obviously in church, receiving an engraved plaque for some civic service from a group of Negro men, a preacher prominent among them.
Finally, on the wall behind the heater, a monstrous picture of The Last Supper. Ornately framed, with the Libbey-Owens-Ford sticker still in place in one corner of the glass. Around the big picture were small plastic framed plaques proclaiming: "God is Love,"
"Home Is Where The Heart Is,"
"Do Unto Others As Ye Would Have Them Do Unto You."
And this-Linda wondered-is a house of ill repute?
Straight through from the front door Linda saw the kitchen and the large refrigerator from which the 30 cent beers came. While to the right there was a little hallway. Undoubtedly leading to the bedrooms, to the stairs that went to the second level.
"You have a very nice place here," Linda remarked, for want of anything better to say. "Nice and cool."
"We like it here," Hattie beamed. This afternoon she was dressed m a red satin wrapper, a very unflattering garment that made Hattie look even fatter. She held the remains of a barbecued rib in her hand, noisily sucked her fingers. "You care for a beer, Linda? Before you go up? Calm down, baby. Ya'll looks scared. Take it easy."
"No thank you," Linda replied. "Nothing." And she perched nervously on the edge of the davenport. While Hattie scuffed out to the kitchen again, returned with another piece of meat.
Which she gnawed at hungrily, seemingly forgetting Linda, smiling at the antics on the TV program. Until now, finished, daintily putting the bone in an ash tray, she beckoned Linda to follow her. "Ah reckon we better go up."
Then they were upstairs, in a slant-ceilinged hallway. "In there, honey," Hattie indicated. "She's waiting. Don't be afraid. She be good to you." She turned, started downstairs, then stopped. "Y'all look real pretty, chile," she smiled reassuringly. "Don't knock. Go on in."
Timidly, alone now, her heart drumming a voodoo frenzy in her ears, Linda silently turned the knob, gingerly pushed the door open.
Slowly the woman rose from the bed upon which she'd been sitting, turned to face Linda. An uncertain smile formed on her lips, and she said, "Hi, Linda."
"Hi," Linda replied, her voice dry and tight. And immediately fell into silence. As her amazement compounded upon itself. For Hattie had not been exaggerating. Charlotte was a beautiful woman, probably one of the most beautiful Negresses Linda had ever seen.
She wore a beige walking suit, a white nylon blouse, beribboned and fluffy beneath the jacket. Her figure was svelte, yet voluptuous, her legs long, sleek and sweeping, her ankles thin. Bone-colored pumps, with a tricky, squat-heel, graced her feet.
Her flesh was everything Hattie had promised. A mulatto, her skin was a burnt-almond, almost honey-toned. The face was lovely, and had it not been for the slight fullness of her lips, the coarse, black hair, the dark, flaring brows, she might have passed for a well-tanned white woman. Even here, the hair was worn long, expertly waved in casual, loose style.
And this vision is a Lesbian? Linda marveled.
"Come in, dear," Charlotte said in a self assured way, "don't be shy. I won't bite." She smiled warmly, and Linda's fears were softened. She entered the room, closed the door behind her. "Lock it," Charlotte ordered.
Linda locked it, turned again.
"Come over here. In the light, dear. Where I can see you better. Mmm, Hattie wasn't fooling when she said you were a knockout. You are lovely. You don't mind if I call you Linda? Hattie told me all about you, I feel as if I know you already."
The woman's hands rested on Linda's shoulders, and she turned her slowly, looking at her from all angles. At the last they trembled slightly, touched Linda's breasts, slid along her waist. "You'll do nicely," she breathed. "Very nicely."
With each passing moment, with each word and gesture, Linda was further convinced that Charlotte was no ordinary Negro. She was a cultured woman, had undoubtedly been to a northern university. There was no trace of Southern accent in her voice. The large diamonds she wore on her fingers, her earrings, the fine line of her clothes testified to the fact that her husband was a vastly successful man. A man who loved and adored his wife very much.
A man who would never know the truth about his wife's strange addiction.
Now there was time for Linda to take in the room. It was large; probably the largest in the house, its ceilings were sloped. Had it not been for the whirring window air-conditioner it would have also been extremely hot. The furnishings, as downstairs, were skimpy. A bed, a battered dresser, a straight chair. Far cry indeed from the furnishings the refined Negress must ordinarily be accustomed to.
And if the ironies of downstairs were not enough, the walls in this room were also religiously decorated. With a large picture of Gethsemane, another small plaque reading: "The Lord Is My Shepherd."
Linda sensed movement, turned to see Charlotte go to the dresser, open her large leather handbag. Remove an exquisite silver flask, two small silver shot glasses. "Brantly, darling," she smiled, filling them to the brim. "It'll help to relax us."
"I'd rather not," Linda declined. "I'm not much of a drinker."
"Just one?" Charlotte coaxed gently. "As a favor to me? It's imported. Very choice." She shuddered slightly. "It'll make things easier for both of us."
The brandy went down like liquid velvet, with no backbite at all. When Charlotte filled her glass again, Linda made no protest. Why not? she mused. II it'll make this easier? She felt a small elation as the brandy warmed her, as she felt the numbness meander through her.
"I saw you evaluating the decor," Charlotee said, sitting on the bed, indicating that Linda sit next to her. "Don't be too harsh. To us Negro people there are many shadings of black and white. It's a philosophy inbred into us over centuries. We've had to learn to wink at certain things. Otherwise our hearts would break, we'd die of indignation.
"Hattie's sincere about this." Her hand swept the pictures. "She goes to church, she prays. Maybe she'd practice her religion if she could. But the whites won't let her. So she makes her living the best way she can. And in spite of this, she's still a very devout, religious person. Can you understand that? Do you see what I'm getting at?"
"I don't know," Linda said, suddenly feeling very unsure of anything. "I'm not noted for being a bright person. Or I wouldn't be in a situation like this."
"Do you want to tell me about it?"
"No. I'd best not. I'll just do what I came here for. Then I'll leave. No offense meant."
She felt the bed shudder beneath them, as an involuntary spasm pierced Charlotte. Briefly her hand closed on Linda's knee, she stroked it three times, then rose. "More brandy, Linda?"
"Please."
It filled Linda with the most incredible sensation to have the woman take her into her arms, bend her back on the bed. She was filled with unreasonable fear as she saw the Mocha-tinted face close on hers, as she saw the wide whiteness of Charlotte's eyes as they came closer, grew larger.
Then they were kissing, and an eerie tingling was going through Linda. The woman's lips were so soft, so lush, so tender and devouring. It was a totally new dimension of feeling. After the hardness of men, the greedy, egotistic way they kissed and held her-it was sweetly stultifying.
There was no forcing, no dominating. Only the soft touch, the patient flow of sensation. And Linda felt quite dizzy, felt herself becoming limp, as if her very bones had melted inside her. An incredible awe swept her.
Then she thought, is that the brandy making me so weak? Or am I actually enjoying this? The delicious lethargy grew, and she relaxed completely in the beautiful woman's arms, let her take her way with her.
She opened her eyes to find Charlotte staring at her, her expression rapt. "You're beautiful, Linda," she was saying. "So beautiful and small. I've always wanted a white woman. And now that you're here, I'm glad I waited. For you. Linda, baby, don't hate me."
"I don't hate you," Linda said truthfully, a strange impatience growing. Don't talk, she thought. Just go on with this. Go on kissing and holding me. The lazy peace, the suffocating warmth and security became even more intense. Somehow reminiscent of those times, when, as a girl, she'd huddled in her mother's arms like a wounded little rabbit. Seeking a place to hide. Where the world couldn't find her ever again. Please, Charlotte, kiss me again.
And from that moment on, lost in a trance induced by the potent liquor, by the magnificent tenderness of the woman, Linda gave herself to her totally and unstintingly. Do what you want with me, she pleaded. Anything you want.
When Charlotte's lips bestowed the tender warmth once more, when her tongue made tentative overture to Linda's, she was swamped by ecstasy, she let her tongue go forth to welcome Charlotte's.
And they fell backward to the bed. The kiss went en and on, built to furnace-like in Linda's brain.
"We're getting our dresses wrinkled," Charlotte said when finally they broke. "Here, let me undress you."
"I can do it," Linda said.
Deep hurt was reflected in Charlotte's eyes. "Please, Linda. Let me?"
Again the warm sufferance was back, the ghostly ease of yesteryear, when she'd been a tiny child, and her mother had taken care of her. She fell limp again, let the supple-bodied Negress undress her.
But Charlotte didn't disrobe her the way her mother had. Not at all. She made a sybaritic ritual of it, pausing incesantly to stroke, to kiss, to admire that glowing white body. "Your clothes are pretty," she whispered to Linda as she removed the tight dress, then the black slip. "You have excellent taste."
Her hands were warm and dry as they stroked Linda's bare waist. They trembled uncontrollably as they made small circles on her legs. Then they closed on the quaking mounds of her breasts. Moments later, tenderly and languorously, they slid on her nyloned legs, A maddening, nerve-twitching adoration.
Only when Linda was totally naked before her, when she'd sat looking at her with lusting eyes for minute after minute, did Charlotte undress herself, Linda offering to help, but being rebuffed. Now standing before her, the honey-ripe body glazed with soft light from the afternoon sun, she displayed .herself boldly and proudly.
Linda was amazed at the perfectness of her figure, at the firmness of Charlotte's breasts, at the pinkness of her taut nipples against the darker skin. But Charlotte had little time for self-display. Her lust deranging within her, she advanced to Linda determindedly, her eyes glittering with dark purpose.
"You're lovely, lovely," she chanted, drawing Linda into her arms, beginning to sinuously move against her. "Look how white you are against me. So pretty. Brown and white. White and brown. Let me love yon," she choked. "Let me love you."
"Do," Linda strained, wanting this pagan love with an aboriginal, mindless desire. "Please do."
That felt like coals had been fanned to life inside her breasts as Charlotte's delicate lips found her nipples, As her silky, tickling fingers caressed her middle, touched her legs.
That went on and on. Until Linda felt like she would explode if it went on a minute longer. There was a mind squeezing urgency and longing boiling inside her. Something had to happen. Someone must drain that frenzy from her. Before she went out of her mind.
"Please, please...." she whined in mindless gibberish.
"Is this good?" Charlotte said. "Do you like me?"
"I do, I do," Linda gasped. "Like nothing I've ever known before."
Charlotte sighed. "Only a woman knows how to really love another woman. Don't let anybody tell you different."
Again her lips swooped to Linda's breasts, kissing, teasing, manipulating, drawing sensation like a long, silvery filament, stretching, stretching ... Then overlapping, braiding an ever stronger thread. It felt to Linda that her breasts were a separate entity, that they were disconnected, pointed, aching.
While those wicked hands kept working-
And finally:
"Now," Charlotte sighed viscously. And she was turning on the bed, her kisses making a channel between Linda's breasts, circling and dipping at her navel, making larger and larger spirals on her waist. Then-
"Oooh!" Linda gasped raggedly, arching. And she sagged, fell back. Jubilantly let Charlotte have her way with her.
This was nothing like what the half-man named Chet had done. Incredibly different somehow. As the practiced, efficient caresses smothered with delectable, teasing tenderness. Drew her close to ecstasy, then denied it. Close. Then away.
There seemed an inviolable truth at that moment: Charlotte's claim about a woman loving a woman.
Momentarily Charlotte stopped. "Hold my breasts, darling," she whispered. "Twist them. Gently, now. There."
And when Linda's hands went crazy, Charlotte turned into a snarling, primitive animal.
And Linda screamed shrilly, without stop. "No more, Charlotte! No more! Stop, I can't stand any morel"
But Charlotte didn't stop. And Linda could stand more. Much more. At the end, apparently Charlotte had made a convert.
CHAPTER SIX
Linda did not go cruising that Thursday night. too shaken by the electrifying, twisted love the Negress named Charlotte had shown her, too amazed and guilt-ridden at her own pagan permissiveness to that love, Linda had remained at home. She needed time to regather her resources, to think, to try to get hold of herself.
When Patti had stopped by for her, Linda had begged off, had lied, told her friend she wasn't feeling well.
Thus she had spent a very unpleasant, seemingly interminable evening by herself. Thinking, recreating the sordid scenes that had transpired in these brief four days, wondering, almost in disbelief, at the irrevocable change that had come to pass in her life.
Puzzling also, at what might transpire before the week was finally over, and Dolph was back home. A savage fear grew within her, pressed a dagger-point to her heart. How will I be with Dolph? she agonized. Will I be able to face him? Will he be suspicious, sense that something's changed between us? Dear God, if he starts questioning me, if he crowds me, I don't know what I'll do.
And little by little a simple, logical plan evolved in her mind. She wouldn't give Dolph time to become suspicious. She would shower him' with love, show him in every way possible that she'd missed him, was glad he was back. And for a starter-just as soon as he walked through that front door-
Linda found herself squirming eagerly, surprised that the passion fires were still not burnt out within her, pleasantly amazed that mere thought of her husband in bed could inflame her thus. Still life in the old mare after all, she mused.
She could do it, she decided. Under pretense of having missed Dolph, she would virtually eat him alive. She would keep him off balance, give him no breathing space, no time to even begin to get suspicious.
So the slow hours passed, with Linda fabricating alibis and fictions about what she'd done that week, where she'd gone. She must have her part letter perfect. There was so little time.
But finally, as the grinning, taunting phantoms began to invade her thoughts, when she remembered all her love partners of the past days, she could bear her solitude no longer. In effort to blot out conscience, she'd turned on the TV, tried to concentrate on a detective thriller on the late movie.
It was no good. For still the bodiless heads floated before her mind's eyes. Mocking, cackling with idiot glee at her. Calling her vile names. Pete, then the two indistinguishable smears of faces, aftermath of Pete. Next Chet's simpering head rolled and tumbled into view. Then Roger and Bill. And now-the beautiful, imperious Charlotte.
Until at last, as the heads spun and dove at her, she was forced to turn off the TV, to go bed. Where again, as she had so often lately, she took a sleeping powder, slept a drugged, fitful sleep.
Now it was Friday morning. And Linda had a visitor. As she and Patti sat over coffee and sweet rolls in her tiny kitchen. Discussing things in general...." I've seen some screwballs in my time," Patti was saying, "but that nut last night took the absolute cake. It was the easiest ten I ever earned. You should've been there, kid. He'd probably have paid you ten just to watch."
"And you think he was an officer?"
"No doubt about it. The threads that guy wore. Civvies, understand, but real class. A major at least. In his forties, with a little black mustache.
"First off ... once we were undressed I mean ... he got on the floor, wanted me to put my feet in his face. To press down until he couldn't stand any more. While all the time he was holding my ankles, kissing my feet all over. Tickle? I thought I'd die."
"Patti, you're kidding."
"Hell I'm kidding. This is God's truth, baby. He was a psycho from the dark ages. Then he brought out this studded belt-he was wearing it, I guess-handed it to me. He opened the bathroom door, hung onto the top of it for support." Patti paused, almost as if summoning belief on her own score.
"Then he told me to whip him. As hard as I could. Well, that's when I figured him. If that's the way he got his kicks, who am I to be particular? So I laid it to him, with him hanging on for dear life, screaming like he was in a fit. Actually enjoying it, you know? Begging me to hit him harder and harder. Until his back started to bleed. Then I got kind of sick."
"My Lord, Patti, that's awful," Linda grimaced.
"It was about then that he finished. All by himself. Just from what I was doing to him with that belt.
"Then he stopped me, turned around with a grin on his face. And that was all. He never put another finger on me. Except when he fell down on the floor that last time, kissed my feet again. Ten minutes later I was back at the old stand. Ten bucks. Without so much as even raising a sweat"
Linda trembled slightly, steadied her hand on the table. "That's strange, real strange."
Patti looked at Linda sharply. "And how about you? You went to Hattie's, huh? I didn't have time to catch the details last night. How was it? What kind of place's she got?"
Hesitatingly Linda described the curious decorative scheme at Hattie's, the matter-of-fact way the business part of their transaction had been conducted. "All cut and dried," she said. "Like maybe it wasn't really happening at all. I can't explain it."
"And the trade? Was it rough?"
"No, not at all." Linda reddened. "It was a woman."
Patti sucked in her breath loudly. "A girl? Wow! What'd she pay?"
"Twenty-five dollars."
"No kidding. That's good, Linda. Give. Tell me about it. I've never tried that. That ain't saying I wouldn't, either. For that price...."
Evasively, revealing very little of the actual happenings, nothing of her own reactions, of the way her body had betrayed her, Linda detailed her afternoon with Charlotte. Patti was seemingly satisfied. For some strange reason Linda did not tell Patti that Charlotte was Negro. Patti wouldn't have approved of that.
"And Hattie's on the level?" Patti finished. "She didn't try to cut the price?"
"No. She paid me to the penny."
"What about the girl? Did she want a return match?"
Linda flushed again, dropped her eyes. "Yes, she said she'd have Hattie call me again. She ... liked me."
"Wow, doll. You're really getting an education in a hurry. A big hurry. You'll be going around in mink before long if you keep this up."
"No I won't," Linda snapped. "I've had it. Once I get enough money to pay Andrea, I'm quitting. For good."
Patti smirked. "That's what they all say. But once the chicks get a taste of that easy money, they keep going back for more. I know that wherever I land, once I cut outta here, I'm gonna keep hustling. There's places where the Johns have money. Where they pay twenty, fifty bucks a time. That's for me. I'm sick of this cheap army camp."
Linda felt twinges of revulsion as a quick thought hit her. It was easy, once a person buried conscience and decency. If a time ever came when she was up against it again-she might. Dolph need never know. Who'd be hurt? And she made a wry face, blinked her eyes rapidly to shut out the ugly, cheapening thoughts.
Patti saw the expression, laughed. "Honey, you look like you just sat on an egg. What's the matter? The idea getting to you?"
"No," Linda flared. "The idea isn't getting to me."
"You got something against money?"
"I have against earning it that way."
Patti made a mocking pout. "Watch it, honey. You'll be hurting my feelings in a minute."
Linda forced a smile. "Well, I mean it. I'm only doing this because I have to. If Dolph ever found out...."
"So what if Dolph found out? You think he's perfect? You think he's never cheated on you?"
"Don't judge everyone by your own husband."
"Oh, hell," Patti said scathingly. "Wise up, kid. All men are alike. Your Dolph's no exception. I'll bet he and his buddies are sneaking out of bivouac every night. I hear that Lampasas is a real jumping place. Small but lively. It's only five miles from where the Sixty is playing Boy Scout."
"Stop, Patti. You're making me sick. Not Dolph...."
"No? Well, what about that time when you two were on the rocks?" Linda had mistakenly taken Patti into her confidence, told her of that marital crisis in their lives. "Where do you think he was all those nights he didn't come home? He said NCO club, but how do you know he wasn't down at the laundromat himself?"
Patti's face was contorted into a vengeful mask. "Those rotten, slimy rats. They're all alike."
It was on this note that Linda's impromptu coffee hour ended, Linda pretty much discounting all Patti's remarks about Dolph's possible infidelities, chalking it all up to the fact that Patti's marriage had turned sour. And misery loves company.
But later, when she was alone, as Linda lingered over a late and skimpy lunch, Patti's accusations came back to haunt her. Try as she might, this time she could not shake them off.
Could it be so? Was it possible that during that bad time Dolph could have had another woman? Other women? An entrail-tumbling alarm gripped her. That he might have gone into Lampasas all week, scouted up a willing woman?
No, she raged. Not Dolph. Not my Dolph. He's the strong one in this family. I depend on him. No matter what I am, I can still trust in him. Dolph won't let me down. He's pure and good. I'm the only woman he's ever had. The only one he'll ever have.
Now she roused herself from her frantic stupor, found herself unconsciously shaking her head from side to side in ritualistic No against these crazy doubts.
Not my Dolph.
Then there was no more time for such debilitating, distracting thoughts. For Linda started up from the table. The phone was ringing.
Linda's heart was dropped into a dark purse, the draw strings were swiftly and painfully pulled tight, as she recognized the voice. Hattie.
"Ah wouldn't call you back so quick, chile," she apologized. "Ordinarily I give my gals some rest 'tween times. But this is special. And y'all said you was in a jam of some sort, that you need money bad. Well, a gal'd have to need money bad to go through with this."
The draw-strings were wrenched even tighter, and Linda felt like she was suffocating. "What is it, Hattie? What kind of...."
"It's a devil thing. Y'all don't have to do it. Just say the word. But it pay twenty-five dollars. Just like yesterday. This man he play mean. But he pay good. He need gal who put up with plenty. Ya'll interested, Linda?"
For a long time Linda didn't answer. Just stood in frozen trance. While the bats of hell fluttered and screeched in her skull, their needle-like talons clawing for resting place in the convolutions of her brain. What does it matter? she thought, feeling a crushing weariness. What does any of it matter? The only thing that counts now is to get that money, to get all this ugliness behind me. Once and for all. Before Dolph gets home.
Let the lecher do his worst. I can take it. For $25 I. can do almost anything-
"Linda?" Hattie prompted. "What you say? You interested? Y'all want me tell you about it?"
Linda ripped the words from between gritted teeth. "No, I don't want to hear about it. It'll make it all the worse. Let me find out when I get there."
"You mean, honey ... that...?"
"I'll be there I'll do anything he wants. Anything. I need that money."
Hattie was taken aback by Linda's vehemence. "Okay, chile. If you say so. Be here at nine. And, honey?"
"Yes."
"Be here with a mean on. This man is no good."
Then she'd hung up. And Linda was dialing furiously to call Patti, to cancel the afternoon's sortie. Then there was also the matter of calling Andrea, finding when she could deliver the $60.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was eight-forty when Linda reached Andrea's house. Telling the cabby to wait, she ran up the walk, her heels clattering loudly in the still night, knocked on Andrea's door. Shortly the TV's volume was turned down, and Andrea herself appeared inside the screen, let Linda in.
"Well," she said, her smile lupine, "right on time, aren't you?" She surveyed Linda fleetingly, took in the flounced, pink dress, the trim bolero jacket, the pumps and stockings. "My, aren't we pretty tonight? All dolled up. Heavy date, honey?"
Linda ignored the taunt, thrust the plain envelope toward Andrea. "I brought the money," she said tonelessly.
"Good girl. I know you must have had to work very hard to earn it. No doubt you're on your way to work right now, aren't you? To earn the rest of it?"
And when Linda turned away sullenly, failed to rise to her baiting, she called, "Wait a minute, Linda. Don't rush off. Not until I count this money anyway."
And carefully Andrea double counted the money. "All here. Sixty bucks. Thank you, Linda. I'll see you again next Friday, won't I? No later. Walt's shipping on Tuesday."
"I'll be here," Linda shot "If I have to crawl."
Andrea's tone was vituperative. "Maybe you will at that, little pig, crawl, I mean. Night, now."
Before Linda was halfway down the walk, the TV's sound was pushed into high once more.
There was one soldier sitting in Hattie's parlor as Linda walked in. Slouched on the davenport, a bottle of beer balanced on his knee, he was idly watching TV with Hattie. At least until Linda walked in. Then his interest suddenly flagged. He stared at Linda with open, burning admiration.
Linda shot a questioning look at Hattie. Is this the man? Hattie shook her head, sent a sidelong glance toward the hall leading to the bedrooms. Linda saw subtle fear in the Negress' expression.
Nothing was changed seemingly from yesterday Hattie still wore the stained red wrapper, the Negro mar sat in the lounge unperturbedly watching a TV western All that was missing were the barbecued ribs.
There was no time for amenities tonight. Instantly Hattie was up, striding toward the dark alcove, indicating that Linda should follow. Once out of earshot, she stopped Linda at the base of the stairs. "He's up there!" she whispered. "Waiting. Y'all sure you don't want m to tell you? Forewarned is forearmed, they say."
"No," Linda hissed. "I'll take things as they are
"All right," Hattie laughed nervously.
... that moment a flurry of commotion from behind the door they lingered at interrupted their conversation The sound of a squeaking, thumping bed was heard Then an intermingled duet of male and female moan and squeals. Linda made out the words the female voice was chanting. They were not very nice.
Hattie tapped on the door sharply. "Not so damn much noise in there, y'all!"
There was a brief silence, then a man's voice bellowed back, "Says who, you fat old witch!" A gargle of chuckles and giggles then. And the noise was recommenced.
Hattie chuckled herself, shrugged, turned back to Linda. "This man upstairs. He's impawtant. One of the councilmen from city hall. His first time here, so we gotta treat him right. Name's Aaron Harland. An old man, 'bout fifty, sixty. That's so you know some of what you got 'head of you."
"All right," Linda quaked, fighting to control the butterflies in her stomach. "Should I go up right now?"
"Ah except so. He'll wanna get you ready."
Linda froze. "Ready?"
"Naked. He likes to play before. You know."
"Oh." A spasm cleaved her back. "I see."
Linda was halfway upstairs when Hattie called to her, "Good luck, chile."
"I'll need it," Linda whispered with false bravado.
It seemed an hour passed before Linda had courage enough to knock on the door. While, in truth, it was barely a minute. A paper dry voice carried out: "Come in, honey. Don't stand on ceremony for Aaron."
Then Linda was letting herself timidly into the room.
Only two lamps burned on the dresser, dim ones at that, giving the room an unappetizing gloominess, leaving the corners deep in opaque shadow. Seemingly spotlighting the shabby bedspread, the rumpled pillows.
Almost a part of the shadows, sitting in a straight chair to Linda's right, a reeking cigar clamped in his lips, the man reminded Linda of a ponderous toad. An old, wrinkled toad at that. Hattie hadn't been exaggerating. He was a repulsive specimen.
He wore a wrinkled gray suit, a pale yellow shirt, a black string tie. He was partially bald, his face a florid mass of spongy wrinkles, his teeth brown and stained. His hair was a rat's nest tangle, grizzled and coarse.
And yet, despite his flabby paunch his sagging jowl, there was a look of power about the man. A commanding-demanding-something in his eyes. Like he was always used to having his own way. In many, many things.
Linda quailed frozen into silence. Damn, she raged, I can't, I can't. Not with that-
"Well," the man snapped. "Cat got your tongue? Can't you even say hello?"
"H ... hello," Linda forced.
"Hell, I'm not as bad as all that am I?" He waved his cigar imperiously at her. "C'mon over here. In the light. So I can see you better." The cigar was jammed back into his mouth, and an unearthly, slug-like glitter was lit in his puffy, deepset eyes.
"A real beauty, aren't you? Worth every cent." He leaned toward her, ran his hand down the back of her legs, brought it up, pinched her left buttocks. "Maybe even more. Depending on how good you are to old Aaron." She shied, but his other hand came up, caught her other hip, held her in place. "Choice. Very choice. That's a pretty dress. Pretty shoes. Stockings, too. Better and better."
Linda's stomach did a monstrous flip as his hands came up, kneaded her nipples, balanced her breasts. Still she stood, tolerated. While Harland dropped his right hand, casually reached her skirt, pinched her legs. "Firm, Linda, firm. All the way around. Just the way I want my women. It is Linda, isn't it?"
"Yes," she quailed. "That's right. Linda."
"Pretty voice too. Scared. That's good too. Did Hattie tell you what gives tonight?"
"No," Linda blurted stupidly. "T didn't want her to."
"Ah," he sighed, "the adventurous type. I like that. Well, hell, far be it from Aaron to spoil your surprise." His hands clawed into her and he brought her closer. "Relax, Linda. This's gonna be fun. Real fun."
Then he dropped his hands. "Over there, Linda," he said with matter-of-fact tone. "Undress. Take off your dress and slip. Leave the rest. I like to see a woman running around in her undies."
Linda's body swayed and she stood immobile. "C'mon," Harland barked. "Don't be shy, kid. You think you got something I haven't seen before? Shuck off those duds." An obscene menace crept into his voice. "Or do you want me to do it for you?"
Woodenly Linda's hands came up, began to undo the snaps and zippers of the ingenuous dress. Then she was lifting it over her head, laying it aside. Now the slip drifted up. Revealing Linda dressed in a pink, tailored brassiere, pink, unornamented panties. Through which the outline of her black garter-belt could be clearly seen. Her nyloned legs, complimented, given exciting flare by the white pumps, were caressed by the dim light, made to appear even more sensuous.
Aaron Harland's livery lips trembled, he all but swallowed his cigar.
"Man, oh man," he gloated, "That is a real female. Talk about Satan in high heels. Oooheee. mama. You are doing things to me. But good." He beckoned her. "Over here, baby. That's too good to just look at."
Docilely, her legs trembling, feeling disjointed, Linda walked to where the toady man sat. She stood in dumb permissiveness as his hands moved down the back of her legs. Then they walked across her waist and he chuckled coarsely.
His hands became more agitated, moved to her breasts. He roiled and lifted and cupped them, his breath coming faster in his throat. "How's about a little kiss?" he said finally. "A sample. Before the main event?"
Giving Linda no chance to answer, he put down his cigar, drew her roughly to him. Where her breasts zeroed evenly with his mouth. Then his lips were at each breast in turn, and Linda felt the nylon become slippery on her nipples. As he kissed greedily. "Oh, honey," he said, giving her nipple a severe nip. Woodenly she put her arms around his neck, feigned ardor.
When he finally drew his head away, Linda sensed a greater queasiness.
"Atta girl, Linda," he crowed, releasing her. "That's the way I like my girls to act. Loosen up, enjoy yourself." He sighed, slumped slightly in his chair. "There. Now I'm ready." He fixed Linda with a stare. "Press that button there, honey. By the light switch. That'll tell Hattie it's about time."
Time? Linda shrunk. Time for what? Obediently she went toward the door, pushed the indicated button.
"Now, Linda," he said in oily anticipation, "if you'll be a good kid and bring that other chair over here. Set it down, right tight to mine." Again she complied. "That's right. So you can sit snug with Aaron while we watch the show. I dig these shows. But I hate to watch diem all by my lonesome. Nothing for my hands to do when the urge gets me."
"Show?" Linda murmured. "What show?"
"Oh," he chuckled. "That's right. You don't know, do you? Well sit back and wait. Might be a pleasant surprise to you."
The chairs in which they sat were dark oak, extremely high-backed, armless, with only a thin padding on the seat. All in all very comfortable. It was as Linda was further adjusting them that the door slowly opened, and she sensed that they weren't alone.
She turned. To see the Negro who'd been sitting in the lounge chair when she'd arrived. Dressed in only a white tee-shirt, a pair of light blue slacks. With him was a Negro girl, in her mid-twenties, a pretty enough thing except for her unmanageable hair. Her figure was good, though a trifle pudgy; she wore a chenille housecoat; black, patent leather pumps graced her bare feet.
"Aha!" Harland greeted. "The entertainment. Good enough. That's a right pretty wench you got there, boy," he addressed the Negro stag. "Will you lock the door before you start? I sure hate to be interrupted when I'm enjoying myself."
Wordlessly the Negro man clicked the knob lock over. While his girl friend unconcernedly went to the bed, opened her housecoat, threw it aside. Exposed herself, dressed in only panties and brassiere, violent red garments, with black lace overlay. She waited for her partner, and when he reached her, she lethargically began to undress him. Which attention the man casually tolerated.
"C'mon, you two!" Harland scolded. "I paid you for this. Put something into it. Don't act like a couple of zombies!"
"Yes, sir," the man replied, his eyes glistening with white hatred "We'll get going in just a minute."
"You'd just better."
Then the Negro man was totally naked, standing before the girl. Linda stiffened in amazement as the buck displayed himself so proudly. And I thought Pete was a big man, she gulped.
Then it was the buck's turn to undress the girl. Which he did with more display of arousal, his hands moving do. a her black flanks. Then he was pressing her back to his chest, she arching ludicrously.
Moments later they were both on the bed, kissing, their hands all over each other. In ten seconds flat the room temperature climbed ten degrees. And Linda understood why Harland needed a partner. As, never taking his eyes from the squirming pair, he put his arm around Linda, drew her closer, began to squeeze her breasts, his fingers hurting and cruel, becoming more excited by the moment.
As was the Negro couple. And now, in preplanned eroticism, they were pulling apart, the woman was sitting upright, arranging her partner on his back on the bed. Then, without any delay, her head was going forth on a most bizarre errand. And though that was a futile gesture, faced with such a challenge, the woman did the best she could, her hands clinging, bracing for balance.
It was here that the liquidly breathing Harland took his right arm from Linda's shoulder, let it slide down her waist. Where his hand found her panties with cruel fingers.
As on the bed the Negro buck was accommodating his love partner in like fashion. Until, seconds later, the woman moaned announcement of sensation, toppled over. And now all that could be seen was the black stallion's bade, the awkward angle of the woman's limbs.
"Get back up there, damn you," Harland cursed. "I can't see a thing. Get like you were."
The couple got like they were. And the anamalous act went on and on.
Though Linda struggled to tear her eyes away from the ugly charade, she could not. Its evil fascination was hypnotic. But now her attention was distracted, as Aaron's hands became cruel. "Open my clothes, honey," he gritted, not looking at her.
When she hesitated his fingers became even more hurting. And Linda knew she had no choice. Dully, without speaking, she did, placing her hand where he wanted it. "Atta girl," he sighed thickly. "Oh, that's good. Real good. Don't stop unless I tell you."
And so, their bodies at awkward balance, their arms forming perverted cross-supports, they sat, Linda conferring pleasure, sickened to her soul, receiving none herself. As the dusky lovers now took a natural pose, as the man stormed the bastion of his mate, causing her to moan and scream in primordial joy.
Harland's hands really went crazy then.
Finally that was over. The couple was dressing quickly, the woman appraising Linda's own ugly subservience with a barely concealed smile. Then they were flitting out the door, their black bodies melting into the blackness without.
With a thick sigh Aaron Harland disengaged their bodies. "Now, Linda. It's time for us to play. Ready?"
She shuddered, forced the words in a blurred voice: "Yes. I'm ready."
"Good. Go lock the door. Then come back here."
He forced Linda to undress before him in the center of the room, sending vulgar vilification at her as she did so. Then he made her undress him, his hands taking foulest liberties all the while. Until now, he was naked, a quivering mountain of obscene, hairy fat, parading and standing before her. It was time for things to really start.
He gathered Linda into his arms, pressed her tightly, worked against hers. It felt to Linda that she would be swallowed by that bulk, suffocated. Despite herself, great spasms swept down her back. The testament of fear giving Aaron even greater charge. "Don't be afraid, honey. I'll be all right," he snickered. "You'll get to like old Aaron. I swear you will. You just be good to him, that's all."
His hands slipped down to her buttocks, and dug. "I'm paying you, remember? You be good, put something into this, or you get nothing. Except a broken neck."
A cold, will-sucking weakness pervaded Linda's brain. Oh, God, why not? Damn you! Get this out of the way. So you can get out of this rotten hellhole.
Numbly she moved with the man, let him pull her toward the bed. Where he flung back the bedspread, exposed the white sheets. Then, an evil leer on his lips, he sat down on the edge, well back, facing Linda. With a strong snap of his wrist, he drew her to him. "Up here, baby," he seethed. "On Aaron's lap. He likes that."
He made her kneel. Then his hands came under her, raised her slightly, gave her room to move. He pinched her to hurry her. And Linda was trying with all her might to get around his waist.
She had to put her arms about his neck, to hang there for dear life. Further sickened at his foulness, at the continuing, growing foulness of his talk. "Closer, you teaser," he gritted, pervertedly savoring her. Then, a strange rite started. As his hand dropped to his lap, made certain adjustments. Then he was caressing Linda, The sensation tickling, maddening.
She began to move to avoid the rotten contact. But Harland only laughed, goaded her further. "Good, baby. You can stand this. That's a good girl. Good, good. Isn't that good?"
Linda didn't answer. She couldn't answer. He became more determinedly sadistic. "Say it, damn you!"
"Yes," she forced. "That's good."
At last, when Linda thought she could tolerate the sick play no longer, that she could hang onto his neck no longer, he tired of the game. "Okay, doll," he laughed. "Let loose now."
With a sigh of relief, she did. But she wouldn't have felt relief had she known what was next.
As the fat, obese slug fell back. Where he lay, his vast middle heaving and quaking in excitement.
He made Linda kneel, offer her breasts to his lips. Taking each in turn, he savored them, relishing the way Linda started when he closed too hard. And all the while his hand was doing outrageously vile things.
But now, as his passion mounted, became a raging, uncontrollable thing:
He dismissed Linda, sighed and trembled in sensual expectancy. "Kiss me," he rumbled lazily. "All over, baby." And he made her kiss his shoulders, his chest. Now his hand slid more, the finger guiding Linda. And Linda, moving in sick, ravaged shock, continued kissing, realized what she must do before he'd be satisfied.
That was so. As now his hands gripped her breasts where they hung and swayed, closed down in significant threat. "The rest now, tramp," he hissed. "You know what I mean."
Again and again Linda forced back the urging ... Don't, she warned. You can't vomit now. Not here. On the bed. Then control was back, the blunted mindlessness. And she let her head sink.
"God!" the man groaned in delight. "Good, doll. Real good."
His hands lifted and bounced her breasts playful at first. But as the unholy thrill went through him, they became punishing, clenching talons. Talon's which pinched them savagely whenever Linda's attentions faltered.
Brutalized, the significance of this loathesome thing not really registering in her dead mind, Linda offered him no resistance. As long as he wanted this, as long as he did not punish her-mechanically she continued.
There was mercy of sorts. For, realizing his own capacities, his age taking unmistakable toll upon him, Harland knew he could not let this twisted act go any more. Once his virility was drained, he would not be able to regain it for hours.
And he desperately wanted more. In quite a different way than this.
Thus, when he began to flair and clench, when his hands turned into willless flesh, moved on their own, deserted her breasts for other tempting regions, he knew his time was near. And he was twisting away from Linda.
She loosed a soft sigh, fell face down on the bed. Became aware he was struggling up, that he was standing beside the bed. She heard his thick tones: "Now that's an idea too," he mocked. "But not my brand. Not at all."
His hands were on her ankles, twisting them. "Turn over, honey."
Sluggishly Linda let herself be turned. "Oh!" she hissed as the man roughly pulled her, half dragging her off the bed.
"Now, tramp," he was saying, his fingers digging into her calves. "Hold onto Aaron. For the loving of your life."
When she took too long his hands became more cruel. And eagerly, a stinging, raging flame of pain now, she fought her way to him, held him as best she could.
While Harland, his hands forming a pinching shelf for her, was supporting her, was working away.
And standing like this, with murderous agony, a frenzied, madman glint in is eyes, Aaron Harland achieved his final delight, he ravaged and pirated her.
"More," he rasped, his face dripping with sweat from his exertions, Linda feeling like she held a pig. "More, damn you!"
On and on he went, his breath coming from his throat in whooping gasps. The maniacal frenzy mounted for him. And a steady stream of obscenities, names, descriptions, began pouring from his lips. While at the end, as his finish was near, he was calling, "Tramp, tramp...." with nonstop cadence.
That was over. And Linda opened her eyes to see the perverted fiend.' His eyes glazed momentarily, and he swayed, as if he was emerging from a deep, deep trance. Then his eyes focused, zeroed on Linda, a look of awesome, insane hatred in them.
"Tramp...." he gritted a last time.
Then, in an instant reversal of self, as if ashamed of what he'd done he let her fall. Then he was scrabbling at his clothes, dressing as fast as he could.
Linda crawled to the bed, watched him in bruited bewilderment. What did this mean? What was wrong with the crazy man? Hadn't she done everything he'd asked?
Finally, with one last epithet, he was charging out of the room.
It seemed Linda dozed for hours. But it was actually only minutes. She came awake to the sound of angry voices carrying up from downstairs, heard clearly because Harland hadn't completely closed the door.
"Ten dollars!" she heard the male voice howl, shouting down an equally belligerent Hattie. "Ten dollars for yon, ten dollars for those two actors, ten dollars for that black-haired tramp upstairs. That's all you get!"
"But, Mr. Harland, sir," Hattie protested, unmistakable tinge of fear shading her anger, "you promised seventy-five. You can't go backing out. That poor chile upstairs needs that money. Ah promised her...." Linda sensed that Hattie was on the verge of tears. It was a rotten, unexpected trick for the man to play on her.
"Thirty dollars," Harland snarled. "Take it or leave hi I'm not asking, I'm telling. You give me an; trouble, and I'm going to have a little talk with the chief of police. He's a good friend. Once I tell him what kind of monkey business goes on here, hell...."
"Oh no," Hattie caved in. "Don't do that, Mr Harland. Give me the thirty. It's all right. Quite all right Only don't never come back."
"That's hardly likely. May I fall dead if I ever set foot in such a contaminated sin den again."
A slow spreading dullness and despair came down an Linda, seemingly crushed her. Drained her of all existing will. I wish I was dead, she raged. Dead, dead, dead-
An ironic remembrance smote her then. How had Patti put it? "You're really getting an education in a hurry." Linda began to laugh mirthlessly. God, isn't that a fact. All kinds of education. She was learning the truth about the world, about mankind. The laughter grew louder, more hysterical.
Then she was burying her face in the pillow, sobbing searing, throat-scalding sobs into its suffocating softness.
"It seemed to Linda that it took a very long time for her to regain even a small portion of her composure. Try as hard as she could, it took her a very long time to get back downstairs to where Hattie was waiting for her with the story of disappointment Linda had already overheard.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dolph was home!
Waiting at the living room window shortly after noon on Saturday, Linda saw a battered Chevy, loaded to the gunwhales with fatigue-clad GI's, slow to a halt before the house. And from that tangle of arms and legs a medium-tall man emerged, a smiling, tanned specimen, his fatigue cap at a rakish angle on his head. From somewhere within he pulled an OD knapsack, waved a quick farewell to his buddies.
As the car roared off, a chorus of shouts erupted from within. Most of which centered about resumption of love activities now that he was back home again. One rang loud and clear on the otherwise still street, seemingly echoed and hung on the air: "Don't try to ruin things all out in one night, Dolph."
Then Linda's heart leaped; a love she'd thought the week's depravities had permanently killed was instantly reborn in her breast. As she saw how handsome Dolph looked after his week in the outdoors, how lithe and graceful his body appeared as he loped toward the house.
My man, she thought idiotically, smitten like a love-struck kid. The man I love. The only man. Forever and ever.
The rest was forgotten, completely erased from her brain. There was only Dolph, the mystic and sudden yearning she had for him. All the nagging fears about this homecoming were aborted as she ran toward the door to meet him.
The knapsack was on the floor at their feet, she was in his strong arms, his spare, hard body was locked to hers. And their lips were joined, devouring greedily. As if it had been years, not mere days that they'd been separated. The kiss went on and on. And despite the bestializations of the past week on her body and psyche, Linda was amazed to find desire so swiftly revived for her.
"I've missed you, darling," she sighed when finally Dolph released her. "Oh, so trroch. T can't begin to tell you. Welcome home, Dolph."
"I've missed you," he repeated. "Like all get out. By Thursday night I damn near went out of my head for wanting you. You wanna try it some time. Laying in a pup tent on rocky ground, hearing some sap snoring next to you. With your head full of thoughts of your pretty wife. I tell you, it was murder."
"I know how it was," she said, becoming conscious of the he. "It was that way with me too. Only I was here. Alone. Thinking of you."
"You look lovely, honey," he admired, holding her at arms length. "Good enough to eat."
Linda flushed. She'd hoped her camouflage would deceive him. She'd' dressed up specially for his homecoming, wearing a fluffy, feminine, pink cotton dress with a scooped neckline. Plus stockings and the white pumps. Thinking all the while as she'd primped, I mustn't give him time to think, to notice anything. "Why thank you, baby," she smiled. "I was hoping you'd notice I dolled up for you."
She snuggled into his arms, rocked her head against his hard chest, let her voice drop in suggestive huskiness. "Just for my big, handsome soldier boy."
"You look tired though, honey," he said. "Your eyes are so dark; troubles?"
Linda stiffened. Then relaxed. "I didn't sleep too well, Dolph. I kept reaching for you in the middle of the night. Only you weren't there."
"You angel," he breathed, recapturing her, pressing his lips to her smooth forehead. "Whooh! Is it good to be back with yon again! A whole week without his woman is mighty mean on a married man."
Linda felt exultation, and clung tighter. Patti had been wrong, all wrong. Dolph had been faithful; there'd been no midnight traipsings into Lampasas, no other women.
She pulled back, looked at Dolph in burlesque of wanton invitation, batted her eyes playfully. "Well, big boy, what are you waiting for?" she purred.
"You little tease," he laughed, letting his hands drop to her back, pulling her tight to his stomach. "You got me going already. Look what you're doing to me."
"Oh?" Linda teased. "What is that?"
"You damn well know."
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"You little twitch," Dolph laughed. "Don't you have any modesty at all? Who's seducing who here?"
"Mmm," she chirruped playfully. "Let's go somewhere and find out."
Laughing, a spasm of desire knifing his chest, Dolph O'Mara leaned, picked up the pretty, small package in his arms, carried her happily to the bedroom.
Their lovemaking was easy, light-hearted, joyous. Right. Right as any lovemaking between two, practiced, uninhibited partners can be. Linda gave herself willingly, eagerly to Dolph's ministrations, wallowing in sensation, adrift in a sea of delight, the very fact that this love was sanctioned, heaven-blessed making it all the more wonderful.
She let him undress her, let him fuss with her legs, let him admire and caress the expressly exciting lingerie she'd worn for him. And at last naked, she let him kiss and caress her, let him adore her breasts to his heart's content.
There was only one moment of panic. "Honey," he queried. "These bruises. On your legs. What happened?"
Linda thought fast. "I was cleaning the garage," she lied. "I tripped over that darn lawnmower."
And preoccupied with more vital matters as he was, Dolph was satisfied, accepted the story without a murmur.
Then he was at her, with an exquisite jubilance and sense of well being. This was right, so right. And in greeting, she compressed intensely, sending him messages of loving welcome.
It was not serious lovemaking. Dolph's need being what it was, there was no time for too-long overtures, for too-ardent declarations of love. So they enjoyed themselves like two famished, playful children, both of them laughing and kidding each other throughout, making comment on the physical progress each was manifesting.
Until, at the end, there was a moment of beatific silence. When the only sound was that of their rasping breathing, Linda's throaty sighs, the rustle and squeak of the bed. And kissing Dolph, breathing in his manly, unwashed fragrance, mixture of stale sweat and acid dust, she was even more highly excited.
And clung to him with all her strength, willed with all her heart that this peak should be for him, as well as for herself, one of the spectaculars in a long line of spectaculars.
"You wanton," he sighed when all was over, "you magnificent little wanton. I'm almost turned inside out." He kissed her feverishly. "Baby, you were born to make love. Just how lucky can one guy get?"
A flood of shame and guilt washed over her at his words. And she fought to crowd them back to the dark recesses of her mind. Dolph, ij you only knew-
She made small talk. "I should get up, make you some lunch."
"Lunch? Who needs it? I got all the lunch I'll ever want right here."
She laughed, held him tighter to her breast, let him lazily lap her nipples. "Silly. Don't you have enough?"
"I'll never get enough of this!"
But Dolph lied. For moments later he had dozed off, his head rolling away from Linda's bosom, resting in the crook of her arm. She watched him for a long time, her heart bursting with love. She stroked his dusty blond hair gently, she touched his bristled cheek, her heart paining her intolerably.
Lying like this, innocent and so vulnerable, he reminded her of a baby. The only baby she'd ever have.
Dolph, she called inwardly, I love you. I do. With all my heart. I'm sorry I had to do those things. More sorry than I can ever express.
Dolph, my handsome, steady Dolph. Forgive me if you can. It was with those remorseful thoughts that Linda fell asleep herself. And like two wayward children, totally nude, bathed in desert dry air, they slept away the best part of that regenerative afternoon.
Dolph parked the Plymouth in the crowded lot with ease and flair, beaming, pleased-as-puntch, like a kid with a new toy. Before them, looming against the dark summer night, a tiara of crystal bright stars glittering beyond it, was The Big Wheel. By way of celebrating his home-coming, despite the tightness of their budget, Dolph had insisted they come to the NCO club, make a night of it.
A proposal which Linda, hungering for a social evening, for clean, honest fun, had leaped upon.
Saturday night, needless to say, was a big night on the post, and the club was really jumping. In the distance they could see a constant stream of GI's and their women entering and leaving the club. Then also, the liquor store, at the building's extreme north end, was doing a land office business. As stay-at-homers and the back-seat-set stocked up for tonight and Sunday.
Squeezing through the rows of parked cars, they saw some commotion in front of the main entrance, hurried to catch it. But even as they stepped up their pace Linda couldn't help but see the two women, parked in a convert just off the main walk, one of whom she recognized as Pink Dress from the laundromat-tonight in black-who were trying to scare up some business with two none-too-eager doggies. Here's another angle, Linda thought dourly.
And there was still another. For as they came along the broad walk, Linda saw other free-lancers, girls who looked to be barely twenty, walking outside the building, waiting to be picked up. For dancing and drinks. Or maybe for some more basic human interaction. She marveled at the fact that though she'd been to the club before, she'd never noticed the signs of free enterprise before.
Or is it, she lashed herself, that it takes one to know one?
Now Dolph took her hand, pulled her faster, half running, Linda's sharp heels pounding an agitated tattoo on the pavement "It's a fightl" he called excitedly.
"Dolph, please," she protested, female intuition flaring that he would become involved himself.
But it was a fight of short duration. For as they broke through the crowd on one side, the M.P.'s were spearing through on the other. Linda caught a momentary view of the two GI's standing toe to toe, their arms flashing and pistoning, striking with barbaric heedlessness at each other's face. She heard their choked cursings and groans. She saw his face was almost invisible behind a runny glaze of blood and torn flesh.
They were drunk; there was no doubt about it. What had triggered the fight would never be known. Yet she was mesmerized, fascinated by the show of brute power, of male animality. As each gave and took merciless punishment, fought off the stunning blows, came back for more.
Saturday night, U.S.A. The same scene was being enacted all over the nation at this moment. As animal and grain spirits got mixed up, were stirred to a volatile mash. Brute versus brute.
Then the one man was down, the M.P.'s were clubbing the other one into submission. And the fight was over. It took Linda a long time to dislodge Dolph, to pull him away from the gaping mob. By the time they were entering the club she heard the wail of a siren, looked back to see an ambulance drawing up. Then the unconscious soldier was being put into a stretcher.
The Big Wheel was prototype of every other NCO club on any given permanent Army base in the U.SA. A giant, barny building, it never failed to remind Linda of a hangar wherein dingibles or blimps might be kept The noncom in charge checked their ID cards carelessly, waved them in.
Then they were in the main room, a sprawling, high-ceilinged arena in which tables were arranged in long rows. There was an ample dance floor, a raised stage at one end accommodating an eight piece off-base orchestra. In a catacombed series of rooms branching off the main room, were located the main bar, the snack bar, and the game room. While against another wall stood a tripoded sign indicating the "Swabby Room"-as Dolph called it-where soldiers in fatigues were served.
Linda sensed a momentary blackout as Dolph so proudly led her into the main room. She fought to keep from freezing. For there, sitting alone at one of the tables near the wall, staring directly at her, was none other than the man named Pete-the man she'd first betrayed Dolph with. And then she breathed a sigh of fervent relief. As she saw that Pete was stoned, that he was in a stupor, that he glazed eyes were really seeing nothing.
The club, as were all U.S. Army clubs, was integrated, and Linda was amazed how easily whites and Negroes could get along in a purely social situation such as this. There was no rumblings, no dirty looks. She saw Negro soldiers and their wives or girl friends sprinkled all over the room. Some dancing. Here and there sat a Negro and a white soldier, drinking and talking together with no sign of rancor whatsoever.
And yet-scarcely a mile beyond the post gates-such an intermixing would cause a bloody race riotl Crazy-
They threaded their way through the tables, seeking an empty one. Spying one against the west wall of the hall, they struck out toward it. Only to be sidetracked as a female voice hailed them. "Hey, Linda and Dolph. Over here. Come sit with us." Turning, they saw Patti and Vito Contino two tables over.
Again the fear nettled Linda. II Patti should spill something by mistake-"Hey," Dolph smiled. "There's Pat and Vito. C'mon, honey, let's go over." It was a very reluctant Linda who let herself be pulled toward their table; she had wanted to be alone with her husband. Tonight of all nights.
With a flurry of greetings and wisecracks Linda and Dolph were situated at the Continos' table. It was no chance acquaintance; Dolph and Vito had been in the same company for almost two years. It had been from their relationship that Linda had got to know Patti.
And right away the serious drinking began, the men talking beer, an occasional shot on the side, Patti and Linda deciding on Old Fashions. And since beer was 25 cents a bottle, cocktails were 40 cents, who was complaining? In a very short time a happy aura of reckless camaraderie had sprung up among them.
The liquor went to work directly with Linda, and she watched herself to see that her tongue didn't get loose. She and Patti exchanged guarded looks, and it would seem the evening was launched on a very amicable bask.
When the hard-faced waitress brought their drinks, Linda noticed that she was careful to set her tray on the side of the table opposite Vito. Linda understood immediately. Vito was up to his usual tricks. Whether Patti was with him or not. With a sidelong glance she saw Patti staring murderously at Vito. As he had only eyes for the blonde waitress, straining to see down the front of her dress, her cleavage plainly exposed as she leaned to make change.
Talk about your Rover Boys, Linda mused sardonically.
When the waitress was gone, Linda inquired about her to Dolph, asked how she'd got a job like this.
"Some doggie's wife," he said. "They get first crack at any post jobs. Otherwise they get somebody from town. Why?"
"I was just wondering," Linda said. But the truth of it was that she was wondering why she hadn't thought of a job like this instead to taking the way out she had. And knew instantly that it was "liquor-think." Dolph wouldn't have tolerated it in the first place. And if she had worked, how would she explain to him where the money had gone? Also Andrea had been in one big rush.
She abstractedly watched the waitress go to the next table, saw the pained expression on her face, the way she forced a smile, sidled away as a drunken, amorous GI let his hands slide up the back of her legs, disappear under her skirt. It wasn't a fun job.
As the liquor cut in more definitively, Linda pulled Dolph out onto the dance floor. Which he did. The orchestra was playing "Over the Rainbow," a favorite of Linda's, and she was feeling very sentimental. She pulled closer and closer to Dolph. Until they were dancing as one.
Pleasurably Dolph chided her. "Hey, honey, you did miss the old man after all, didn't you? Any closer and I'm gonna have permanent indentations in my chest. You're scorching my brass."
"I'll do more than scorch your brass," she husked, a trace of fuzziness in her voice. And because they were in a small clot of dancers, unobserved from the tables, she purposely bunted her body at his, gave a wicked little twist.
Dolph replied in kind, letting his hand close on her buttocks for a brief instant, tucking her even closer. "Watch it, dolly. We'll finish on the dance floor if you aren't careful."
She pulled away in mock alarm. "Can't let that happen. There are much better places. Sorry, honey. I'll be good." She tilted her head, kissed his ear.
"You're cute, dolly," he breathed, holding her close again, damning consequences. "I love you."
"I love you, Dolph."
They danced two more slow numbers, the alcohol, their close, romantic contact triggering an unholy, feverish desire within Linda. Her head felt hot, her eyes were heavy, And worse still, her legs felt like someone had taken the bones out of them. You're getting blotto, honey, she warned. From booze. From something else too.
She wished with all her heart that she could be home in bed with Dolph at that moment.
But bed was not foremost in Dolph's mind at that moment. As he kept getting higher and higher. Linda, Patti and Vito right along with him. To such an extent even, that Vito was beginning to promote with his own wife. Dancing with her, playing with her knees under the table, kissing and flattering her. And Patti was eating it up.
It seemed the orchestra was picking up the tempo, and when they danced now their exertions were more excitable, more inflaming. Both Dolph and Linda had little inhibition about how close they danced now. It was instinctively understood that they were both working up for an earthshaking love event once they got home.
They were back at the table, the clock hands inexorably moving toward midnight. Closing time. Patti and Vito danced; Linda and Dolph sat muzzily watching. A small commotion broke at the table next to them. As three soldiers, very polluted, started making plans for after hours fun.
"We gotta get outta here," one said. "Where there's some stuff to be picked up. All this's taken."
"Yeah? Where?"
"Let's hit the WAAC barracks. Something's sure to be stirring. Pick us up a couple dogs, go out on Sanders Road for an hour or so."
"You think there's a chance?"
"Chance? With those bags it's always sack time."
"Okay, I'm game. Let's go."
Then the one staggering man, a short, fat specimen, lost his balance, almost fell. And recovering, he started weaving his way through the tables, singing a song in a nonsensical, tuneless monotone.
Which set up a small ripple of laughter as he left.
Shortly it was time to leave. The club manager came on the PA system, announced: "The club is now closed. Please clear the club. The club is now closed. Please...."
Patti and Vito tried to coax Linda and Dolph to stop by their place for a nightcap, but they doggedly resisted.
"Hah," Vito snickered. "I know what you got on your agenda."
Patti shushed him. "Damn it, Vito, pipe down. You want the whole club to hear?" She turned to Linda. "You kids go ahead. I'll get this big mouth home." She sent Linda a wistful smile. "Have fun."
Linda was very woozy by the time they got home. And very passionately aroused. It seemed she had a fever, that she couldn't wait to get Dolph into bed with her. She whirled on him the minute they were inside the door, flung herself into his arms, refused to let him turn on any lights. "You better want me, Daddy," she slurred. "I want you so much." And she kissed him predatorily, her teeth clicking against his, her tongue sweeping to his mouth like an avenging serpent.
Then in a giddy, irresponsible spate of desire, she bore her husband back onto the davenport, began to undress him. "Hey," he said, amazed at the blatant outburst. "What gives? I can undress myself. I'm no baby."
"Yes you ... are...." she slurred. "Linda's big baby. Please, honey? Let me? I wanna show you how much ... I missed you. How much I love you. Lay still now."
In docile wonder, Dolph capitulated, let her undress him. Until at last, entirely naked on the davenport, he let her run her hands all over his body, let her kiss him with demon savagery. "You're so handsome, baby," she chanted. "So pretty. Mama's pretty, pretty baby."
And slowly, her words, her lips, her inventive, bold hands, worked Dolph up to a plateau of sensation he'd never attained before.
But just when she was getting really good, Linda leaped up, broke for the bedroom. "Last one there's a rotten egg," she squealed gaily. "Come catch me, lover."
Then giggling and sighing and murmuring, the intensities of love and desire cutting through some of the alcoholic torpor, Linda flopped on the bed, voluptuously arched against his fingers as Dolph made a prolonged ritual out of disrobing her. Until she was trembling and sighing in sick desire, calling without stop, "Love, me, Dolph, love me, love me. Ooh, I feel so wild. Like melted butter. Love me, darling. It's been so long since you loved me."
"Yeah!" he laughed, stripping away her panties and garter-belt. "Ever since this afternoon."
"Oh that," she sniffed. "That was just an appetizer. This time is for real."
And she charged him, pulled him to the bed. Rocking blissfully, while she kissed him, let her tongue dive to his again and again. Moment by moment their actions became more frantic, a patternless symphony of motion, of entreaty and answer.
Until Linda, out of her mind with desire, was struck by a bold, wanton plan. As she conceived of something she wanted her lover, her very special Dolph to have. That did not seem perverted, or even out of the way when looked at in the self-sacrificing light of married love. When-most important-love and self-sacrifice were the determining factors in that act.
Now her hands went crazy on the befuddled Dolph, became avenging instruments. Brought pain. And with that most exquisite ecstasy.
Why? Linda's fevered mind questioned. Why not? If I could do these things with total strangers, with repulsive, brutal strangers, why can't I confer as much to this one man? This man I adore with all my heart and soul? An act of love-ultimate testimony of love.
Instant by instant the determination grew. Until she was sure. She knew she would. If Dolph would let her.
Now she paused in her vigorous stirrings, turned thoughtful. "Dolph? Will you do something for me?"
"Yes, honey. If I can. What?"
"I-I don't know how to say this, but do you remember that night we had that last fight? When you hit me? And carried me to bed afterward?"
"Linda, don't remind me of that. I'm sorry. I went out of my head that night. Forgive me...."
"That isn't what I mean. Do you remember everything we did that night?"
There was a long pause, and Linda heard only the sandpapery catch of his breath. "I think I do."
"Would you like to go out of your head again tonight? Would you let me...?"
"Linda, you can't be serious. You've had too much to drink."
"That's right. But it doesn't mean I don't know what I'm saying. What I want."
His voice quavered. "Do you want to, Linda?"
"Yes," she said evenly, her hands trembling on his chest. "I do. You don't have to. Just let me. Unless...."
"But why, Linda?"
"Because I love you. I want to prove that. Maybe as a kind of homecoming present." And maybe, she thought, shards of bitterness pricking the liquor glazed balloon of her brain, because that will be some strange kind of penance. For what I've done to hurt you, Dolph. A way to punish myself.
Again there was a long pause. Finally Dolph said, "You're sure, darling? You want to do this?"
"I do, baby. If you want me to."
A wracking shudder seized him. "Yes," he intoned. "I do. I've wanted that ever since that night. But I was always afraid to ask."
"Baby, why didn't you?" she sighed. "Why didn't you?"
Then, without another word, Linda was twisting on the bed. With no hesitation whatsoever she was scrambling, crouching. And with a shrill, hissing sigh, she held him, her lips ready.
Dolph twisted from the delectable silkiness, unable to control himself. Low, thick whispers drifted from his mouth as Linda, lost in a mind-disintegrating fantasy, applied herself with all the delicacy, finesse and self-sacrifice at her command. Until Dolph was unable to forestall the sick clickings in his throat.
Then, as his ecstasy became more cauterizing, as Linda worked more demonically, he had to answer her. He touched her legs, moved them. And he shifted his shoulders.
"No," Linda said, interrupting her passion vigil. "You don't have to, darling. That's all right"
"I want to," he rumbled. "I want to show you my love too. All the way." Limply, a monstrous, happy lassitude flooding her, Linda was letting him move.
Then she sighed, whimpered from rapture. Retaliated, dropped her head anew. Made Dolph groan in fresh agony.
An agony that was not agony.
That went on. Appeared to last forever. Sensation piling atop sensation, until a mountain of glowing coals burned in inferno before their eyes. Now they were both screaming in unison. As the mountain toppled over on them, buried them.
"Darling," he groaned, when that was cataclysmically over. "Stop now. That's enough."
"I want the rest," she murmured, not desisting for a minute. "The regular way. I'll help you. Let me." She was amazed that this humbling, ordinarily loathe-some act was now-when glared in the light of love-beautiful. Actually fanned the flames of fresh desire.
That did not take, long. And as he was recovered, as she uprighted herself, pulled him to her, as their lips slammed together, their tongues saluting each other, she sighed. "I do love you, Dolph. Forever and ever."
CHAPTER NINE
On Sunday Linda and Dolph stayed in bed the best part of the morning. Both of them tired, dazed, strangely shy with each other after their most recent excesses. How it really happened? Or was it something dreamed, a vision induced by a sorcerer's potion? A potion largely alcoholic?
Act of love? Linda pondered. Or act of contrition?
It was a tortured puzzle. Viewed in the light of day she saw their wild indulgences as just that. Wild, unprincipled, pagan. And yet, she temporized further, hadn't the obeisance made the final segment of their lovemaking glorious beyond compare. Hadn't they been transported to another time and place? A totally new dimension of sensation? Where all that had mattered was satisfaction of physical needs? Satisfaction without equal?
Where, before that was through, the world had crumbled around them, nothing had remained but that holy thing. A holy carbonization, with the two of them together, and the rest-mind, body, spirit-nonexistent. While as that went on, had become a dominating thing on which the whole universe pivoted like a crazily whirling top.
Love or penance-Linda was determined to find out. They made a casual, lighthearted love around ten that morning, when they first woke up. Then dozed once more. Another event had transpired at noon. Then they'd risen, showered, got dressed. Linda had prepared a festive dinner for her lusty warrior.
The afternoon had passed in lazy fashion, with both of them sitting close-an aura of honeymoon heavy about them-trading sections of the Sunday paper, watching TV, talking, stopping often to kiss and hug.
In the evening a strange expectancy had grown within them. Try as they might they couldn't concentrate on the high-powered entertainment the TV moguls had prepared for them. Dolph became more and more restless, even went so far as to fix whiskey coolers for both Of them. Until, by ten o'clock, both feeling their drinks, they had no eyes for television at all.
Only eyes for each other. Questioning, anxious eyes.
A convulsive tremor seizing him, Dolph had decisively risen, gone about the house turning off lights. Then the inquisitive eye of the TV had been poked, had faded to darkness. And Dolph had quakingly led her to the bedroom.
"Linda," he'd muttered, rolling his naked body close to hers. "Do you think ... could we...? Please?"
Then it had been Linda's turn to joyfully tremble, to sit upright in bed. "Yes," her hushed, sibilent voice had come. "Anything you want ... Now, darling?"
"Now."
Act of love, Linda had decided in hard finality. As again she found the submission sweet beyond description. Was it so wrong? she rationalized. II both of them gained pleasure from the surrender, if both participated, conferred mutual delight?
It was not wrong, she'd concluded. Not wrong at all. As moments later, the wild discords of sensual love were sounded once more. The primordial, pagan symphony was recommenced.
Now it was Monday morning, and Linda sat in her small kitchen, a look of tragic puzzlement on her face. Dolph had just called from the company to inform her that he'd pulled CQ for that night. He'd be home for dinner. Then he'd have to go back to the post, spend the night there. "Sorry, honey," he'd said sincerely. "I hate it as much as you do. Especially after the way things have been going at home lately."
"You're not as sorry as T am," Linda murmured. She'd feigned gay flippancy. "I'll bear up, I guess."
The bad part of it was that his announcement had brought other thoughts up too. Bad thoughts. Thoughts like Andrea Lallier, and Linda's outstanding debt to her. Thoughts about how she must earn the money to pay that debt. How she had already earned $80.
And despite the despair flooding her, the dread at having to return to the degenerate pandering, her mind clicked with a mercenary immediacy. With Dolph gone tonight, perhaps there was a chance for her to earn some more money. No one knew when she'd get another tailor-made chance like this.
As much as she hated to do it, to even think about it, she had to. She had to be practical. Or else Andrea would practical for her. In a very disruptive way. Not for a second did Linda doubt that Andrea would face Dolph with the whole ugly story if she failed to come across with the remaining $40 on the deadline date.
Dangerous as it was, she knew she had no alternative. Friday loomed with deadly menace. And if she couldn't get out of the house again-I'll just have to be doubly careful, she cautioned. Look at every man twice. If I see anyone from Dolph's company, I'll have to make tracks in a hurry.
Hope flared anew in her. II I'm careful, real careful, I can earn that money in time, I can get out of this ugly mess once and for all. I can begin to live again.
Her mouth hardened to a grim line. II I can just get a streak of luck. A few live ones. Anything, I'll do almost anything to close this up once and for all. Luck, just a little bit of luck.
And then she went to the phone, called Patti, had a brief and pointed conversation with her. The outcome of which was the knowledge that Vito was playing poker with a gang of GI's tonight; she would be free to accompany Linda on her foray into venery.
Though Linda did not know it, her string of luck had run thin. She was fresh out. And before that night was done, she found herself beset by a tragic reversal. She found herself riding a roller coaster to doom.
Sitting as far away from the "girls" as possible that night, almost infringing on the antiseptic ground of the legitimate laundromat patrons-this in case a soldier who knew her or her husband should walk in-Linda thought there was something vaguely familiar about the man.
The look of tight uncertainty on his face, the ramrod stiffness of his posture, the way his civilian clothes looked somehow out of place on him, should have been warning enough. Also there was the hesitancy in his approach; it was obvious he'd never patronized the "scrub parlor" before.
But despite the small inner warnings, Linda took a chance, screwed on her "for hire" smile. And the man nodded at her, wheeled and went outside. With Linda in immediate pursuit. And caution be damned. She had to turn some tricks. And fast. This would get the evening off to a slam-bang start.
How slam-bang Linda couldn't begin to dream.
The man was taciturn, very nervous as they drove off the post. Again Linda should have been forewarned by the fact that he drove an expensive Olds, by the deference the guard at the gate showed him when he offered his ID card.
When Linda sought to allay her suspicions, when she asked him his name, what company he was in, he was even more evasive. "Call me Harv," he smiled patronizingly. "And as for my outfit, let's just keep that secret, huh? It really doesn't feature does it?"
"No," Linda said. "Not really. I was just trying to be friendly."
"That's swell, Linda," he smiled. "I appreciate that. But annonymity is the password for tonight. Dig? Now where is this motel of yours?"
He was a tall, well-built, ruggedly handsome man. His hair brown, cut in a medicum "crew," his figure thin and hard, he was attractive in an undefinable way. Looking at him from the bed-she already undressed-Linda felt little fear. At least the man-Harv-was not the bloated, repulsive grotesquerie of a man Aaron Harland had been. Even though her sense of betrayal would be great after the sanctified love she and Dolph had shared this weekend, she could still tolerate, still feel no terrible revulsion.
Even when the man turned, revealed his eagerness, Linda could look on him with a baffling equanimity.
He had paid his $5 without a murmur, he had made no coarse remarks. What was there to fear? This was going to be cut and dried. An easy trick. She'd hardly be puffing when she returned to the laundromat, ready to service John after John. All night If need be.
Which was further testament to the change in Linda, to the way she was becoming used to her prostitute's lot.
He stood over her proud of his tough-hard-planed body, proud of his bursting masculinity. Only a small lamp burned on the dresser, the dim light casting sharp shadows on his muscular body, making the expression in his eyes undecipherable. There was an ominous something about him, and Linda shivered involuntarily, goose pimples springing up all over her limbs.
"Chill, huh?" the man smiled. "We'll take care at that in short order. Won't we?"
Linda adopted the frank, teasing manner, moved her hips invitingly, feigning impatient passion. "We sure will, big boy."
He sat on the bed beside her, his feet still on the floor, his body half turned. His hands came out, twirled her nipples gently. "Mmm, Linda," he sighed. "They got me. Like hard little raisins." He chuckled. "And I'm nuts about raisins. Have 'em in my cereal every morning."
Linda smiled harshly. "Not these you don't,"
"But for a bedtime snack?"
"A bedtime snack, yes." And in effort to arouse him quickly so they could get this out of the way shortly, get back to the post, Linda let her hand slide on his bare chest, make slow, tickling circles on his stomach. "Hurry, Harv. I'm gonna like you."
It was a sickening patter, a cheap trick. But one which invariably worked. If there's anything a man likes it's to have a girl articulate her need for him. And Harv turned, lowered his head to her breasts.
And in her newfound toughness Linda relaxed, let herself enjoy his tender ministrations. After that Aaron slug-But enjoy only to a point. For there was still the business-like impatience. Let's get this show on the road, lover boy.
But Harv was a slow fuse. He liked his dessert. Turnabout. Before he got down to the main course. And for a long, long time he hovered at Linda, kissing her, roiling her breasts, gathering and kneading them. Finally, in some sort of innovation, compressing them in both hands, squeezing them together, so both nipples almost touched. Then his lips found them, engendering evil flame in both at the same time.
Linda squirmed, savored the attention. That was something new to her, and despite her remoteness, she found that very pleasurable. Perhaps her ardor with this artful man wouldn't be as pretended as she'd thought.
"Oooh," she sighed. "That's good, lover. Real good. Nobody's ever done that before. I want you, baby." Her voice became coarse. "The way a gal should want a man."
But he was not so easily swayed. Still his lips encased her nipples, still his tongue lapped and darted. His lips puckered and relaxed, puckered and relaxed.
And things were starting for Linda, fight them as she did. "Turn out the light, Harv," she seethed.
"You little cat," he gloated, breaking from her. "You little cat. You are wanting me, aren't you? This's no fake."
And with that he got up, turned out the light. Linda was waiting for him when he returned. Her hands came out of (he darkness to greet him. "You little witch," he muttered.
But the fires died quickly for Linda. For once the man had her, he was like all the others who'd known her during the past week. A dead, cold thing. A mere job to be done. Fleeting remembrance of Harland swept her mind, turned her even more cold toward Harv.
But she didn't let her mood show. She worked with a mechanical parody of passion, her mouth dripped words of lust, of delight and encouragement. And Harv thought he was really great. That swelled his pride.
His words, as the blistering moment of truth neared, becoming more gasping and blurred. "Wowee! Linda, how you go! You're a regular little love machine."
His arms clenched, became steel bands. He groaned, small puffs of exertion breaking from him as he reached the end. "Now, damn you, now. Go, go, go...."
Then, with a ragged howl of victory the man named Harv announced his deliverance. Held himself to Linda. Now that was definitely over.
Linda gave him what she estimated was five minutes to recover his strength and his breath, all the while breathing hard herself, telling Harv, in base parody of rapture, how good he had been. Until, at last:
"We'd better get dressed," she said. "Get out of here. That's all, Harv."
"C'mon," he coaxed, Linda detecting a new arrogance and contempt in his tone, "not yet, honey. That was so good. Can't we wait, try another?"
Linda smiled. Hell, maybe I'm getting to be a better actress than I thought. If she could trigger repeat business that easily-"Sure, honey," she said. Then adopting a telephone operator's nasality, she mimed, "Deposit another five dollars, pie ... ahz...."
Harv chuckled. But not really. "No, Linda. That isn't what I mean. How about another one on the house? If I was all that good for you...?"
There was a disturbing menace, a sureness in his voice. As if he had some trick up his sleeve. As if he knew something that Linda didn't know. In defense she made her own voice scathing. "Honey, what do you think I am? Some amateur or something? Five dollars more. Or out we go. What do you say, sport? You were good, but not worth-a-free good."
His tone became even more insinuating. "Oh, I don't know about that, Linda. I figure I'm in a position to do you some good. I'm a good guy to have on your side."
Linda's breath caught in her throat, her mind scrabbled to identify the threat he was extending. What's going on here? she raged.
"Is that right? How do you figure you can do me any good?"
He paused; it seemed his voice was coiling, like a snake, preparing to spring. "One big way, Linda," he said silkily. "By not telling your husband you're cheating on him, at five bucks a cheat. I imagine that would throw Sergeant Dolph O'Mara pretty bad, wouldn't it, Mrs. O'Mara?"
Linda drew in her breath loudly, it feeling as if she were sucking in carbolic acid. And in that instant her body was turned to stone on the bed; her whole world came crashing down about her. She wanted to scream, to sob, to curse. But she did none of them. Only lay in paralyzed silence.
"That really grabs you, huh, Linda?" the man taunted. "Get you where you live. Thought I didn't know you."
"Who...." she blurted, "Who are you? How do you know me?"
"Captain Del Watson at your service, Linda. I just happen to be Dolph's company commander."
"You're lying. You don't know him. You don't know me."
"Don't bet on it, honey. I happen to know he's on CQ tonight. That's why you're out prowling tonight."
"What ... are you going to do?" Linda murmured, her words all but choking her. "What do you' want ... from me?"
"Not much, dolly. Just that you be good to me tonight. That you don't give me no static."
"And after tonight?"
"Honey, you're prime. I can use a lot of you. Only I don't have a lot of five-spots to throw around. I figure you'll put out free. Whenever I give you a call."
"And if I refuse?"
"Baby, I go right outside to that phone booth, make a very pointed call to Sergeant O'Mara. Enough said?"
Linda fell into a brooding, oppressive silence. In the darkness she could only imagine the burning, triumphant stare the man was beaming at her. And she realized that she'd reached the end of the line. That she could fall no further. He meant it; he'd no sooner hesitate to tell Dolph than he'd hesitate to stomp a cockroach.
It was the final humiliation, the final debasement. For now not only must she continue giving herself to this slimy leech as long as he willed it, not only must she capitulate before his twisted demand, but she must go on living in a greater shame. In the reflected shame that her rottenness had bequeathed to her beloved Dolph. She had given other men a weapon against her husband; they could laugh at him in their knowledge that his wife was nothing more than a roundheels, a $5 harlot.
That was the worst penalty of all. The rest she could endure. But to have Dolph's name besmirched-
"You can keep the five tonight," Captain Watson was saying. "As a memento of our first meeting. But after this, it's free. Whenever and wherever I call. Is that clear?"
"But," she protested, "I can't just take off any time. If Dolph ... my husband's home, I...."
"I know that, stupid. Just leave that to me. I know when Dolph's gonna be busy." He snickered. "In fact, those nights I want you, I can arrange it so Dolph won't be home. Neat and dandy."
"You're rotten," Linda choked. "I should have known from the start. I thought you looked familiar...."
"I thought you looked familiar too, baby. And as the evening wore on I got more and more sure. Then everything clicked into place. And I knew I was home free."
"You pig, you dirty...."
"Knock it off, sweetie. I don't need none of that. You're the pig, you're hustling, I ain't." His hand came out in the darkness, slid on her waist. "I'm ready, Linda. You gonna perform?"
Linda groaned aloud, and twisted on the bed away from him, her heart aching, feeling as big and heavy as a bowling ball inside her chest. But Watson pulled her back, twisted her wrist brutally.
"Don't act hoity-toity with me, witch!" he spat. "I said I want you." He guided her hand. "Only I ain't quite ready. Give me a hand, pig." He chuckled at his pun.
And he twisted Linda's wrist more brutally, until she could stand the pain no longer. Shortly it was time.
"Encore, Linda," he gritted. "You ready?" Cruelly he pushed her away, crouched to her, lifting and rearranging her. "There's something I always wanted to try. And since Betty never had the nerve, since I got me a perfect patsy...."
Then Linda was lying full length on the bed. On her face.
"No," she screamed, tensing in unholy horror. As the man crawled to her, dug his hands under, clawed again.
But he didn't listen. Instead he chuckled and cursed. All the while he continued the eviscerating, agonizing job. Then, when it seemed Linda would become unhinged from the pain, Watson continued rapidly, without stop.
Linda buried her face in the pillows, howled her agony in throat-rupturing screams. As the bestial body kept attacking, attacking-
He drove her back to the laundromat in his Olds. They both maintained a complete silence, except for once, when Captain Watson broke into a horrible chuckle and said, under his breath, "Pig!" Then he chuckled again.
She did not have the heart to wait at the laundromat for any more Johns-and her whole body still ached from the last time with Captain Watson. Sore, burning with shame, feeling trapped forever, Linda dragged herself home to wait for Dolph, to keep up the act, to convince him that she was his faithful, loving wife in
CHAPTER TEN
Two vultures were looking over Linda O'Mara's shoulder now. One, Andrea Lallier. The other, the most recent interloper, Captain Del Watson. And it seemed to Linda that she was trapped in an endless maze.
For-and God granting-she would no sooner be rid of Andrea, than Watson would take over as chief tormenter. Worse still, there was no price on his silence.
She could not foresee a time when he would free her from his debasing, vile demands. If ever.
It would go on and on. Until he had tried every twisted stunt in the world on her. And what would be left of her spirit, of her infinitesimal decency and self regard then?
Looking ahead this Thursday morning, her soul laid waste, hope scooped from her, leaving a hollow husk, Linda imagined a time when, still under Watson's demonic control, she would make another mistake. Some other extortionist would discover her sordid secret, she would again be passed from hand to hand.
A long chain, each link forged of the grossest inhumanities and debasements-Stretching into the distance.
Until, one day, Dolph himself would stumble on the truth.
It would be the end of everything. Life would cease to have even its small meaning to her any more.
And to think-Half a life of immoral servitude. To pay for a momentary folly. To erase something as piddling as a $120 gambling debt.
Damn, she raged, her despair threatening to suffocate her, how do people get so messed up as this?
Time and time again during those following days Linda thought that she would go to Dolph, confront him, tell him the truth about what she'd become. Beg his forgiveness, endure his wrath. And forgiveness not forthcoming, she being cast away, she would at least be free of this eternal damnation at the hands of ghouls like Andrea and Captain Watson.
But upon reconsideration, remembering the sweetness of their most recent love, the recreation of that rebirth warming her even through the galling hopelessness, she wondered which would take the greater courage? To go on in her prostitute's role, in her role as sadist's plaything-or to face Dolph, tell him everything.
And frightened, confused coward that she was, Linda knew that she'd sooner accept degradation than tell Dolph. The revelation would destroy him. He would never be a whole man again. And no matter what, no matter what cruelties she must endure, she could not do that to Dolph. She loved him far too deeply for that.
For when he was crushed, she too would cease to exist.
So day followed club-looted day, each morning bringing new remorse and self-loathing. Until it seemed permanent state of mind to Linda. She went to bed at night reviling herself, awoke in the morning with the same vilifications frozen on her lips.
Instant hatred.
This particular morning it was particularly vile. As sitting alone in her kitchen, staring emptily into space, she thought back over Tuesday and Wednesday and the desperate chances she'd taken servicing three different soldiers. As she projected herself to what tonight would bring, Captain Watson calling her only yesterday morning, telling her he was sending Dolph's platoon on a night problem tonight. And unnecessarily adding the information that he would pick her up outside the laundromat at exactly nine-thirty.
"Rest up, baby," he'd taunted. "Save some for Del.
He's been saving himself for you."
But even more unsettling than this looming horror was the fact that Linda was still $20 away from her goal. And she was supposed to make payment to Andrea by nine o'clock tomorrow night!
And what to do? She had already decided that she would again, as she'd done on Tuesday and Wednesday, keep daytime vigil at the laundromat, risk be damned. After all, what alternative did she have? She wasn't about to conjure the necessary $20 out of thin air. Perhaps she'd go to the laundromat early this evening also, try to squeeze in a date before Captain Watson came to extort his tribute from her.
Beyond this there was Hattie. But this too, had proved futile lately. She'd called Hattie's number constantly, but always the answer was the same; Business was slow. Hattie had nothing for her.
Now Linda sighed heavily, tried to force down some of the hot coffee. There was Dolph to consider also. She'd been forced to rebuff him both Tuesday and Wednesday night, pleading sickness, in actuality deeming herself unclean and unfit, the thought of him so innocently making ardent love to her suddenly intolerable. Soon, darling, she vowed. As soon as I get Andrea off y back. Then I'll be strong enough, I'll have made some counterfeit peace with myself.
The look of bafflement and rejection on his face those nights had killed Linda. It had been as if she'd been torn up inside, two separate desires warring within her. Soon, baby, soon.
Now, though she fought the ugly reveries, Linda found vision of Captain Watson floating in her brain. And with it, image of the three men who'd bought her body after Del Watson.
There had been two of them on Tuesday, two barely remembered men who gave evasive names of Nick and Larry. Man who had been love-famished, who had attacked her with animal frenzy. And though she'd still ached in every bone of her body from the deranged love Watson had forced her to the previous night, she'd driven herself to the act with almost vengeful fury, thinking that at least these brutes, callous as they were, wanted only one thing from her, were direct and honest, tried to plunder no variations from her.
She recalled the soldier named Larry especially. A short, simian man, he had been extremely forthright, calling a spade a spade, using a very basic four-letter word to describe what he wanted from her, what he was getting from her. A man who had shown no chagrin whatsoever in telling her she was the best he'd had in a long, long time.
It had been a strange sort of lovemaking to Linda, and though it moved her sensually not at all, an experience in itself. Larry had made no pretense of work up. To him the love act was a necessary bit of commotion that had to be got out of the way once a week, someone perhaps telling him that it would have adverse effect upon him if he didn't have a woman at regular intervals.
"Strip, kid," he'd ordered upon returning to the motel room. Then casually, with no interest at all in Linda's divestiture, he'd slipped out of his own clothes in no time at all.
Moving to the bed where she lay naked, he'd looked at her critically, had prodded her legs, made a fleeting pass at her breasts, much as a man might examine a cow he was thinking of buying. She'd expected that at any moment he'd be opening her mouth, counting her teeth.
But no, that was as far as his interest went. "You're pretty, Linda," he'd scowled. "Too pretty to be a tramp. How come?" But he'd given her no chance to reply, instead dropping to the bed beside her, his hand instantly busy. "You ain't got nothing, have you? I mean...."
"I know what you mean," Linda had snapped, angered by the accusation. "I don't have anything."
"Good. Anything I hate's a woman who's got...."
"Spare me the details," Linda said.
"Okay. Jeez, you don't have to get sore. A guy's gotta look out for his own interests...."
"Forget it, soldier. You want to get with things?"
"Man, do I ever. I've needed a girl all week. Been jumpy as a stripper at a Legion stag."
He hadn't touched her. No kissing, no breast caressing. Nothing. Only the main event.
And grateful for his single-mindedness, Linda had thrown herself to the mechanical manifestations. Had given him a three-bell event. At no small price to her ravaged soul.
Larry had achieved a terrific charge from her, and as his fulfillment had neared, had turned completely Neanderthal. Had fought with pleasurable ferocity, had complimented her by calling her every vile, rotten name in his copious, imaginative repertoire. And, judging that he was a fifteen year veteran of army life, it was no small feat.
A vilification that had not fazed Linda at all. Nothing would surprise her now. Besides, wasn't it so that she was using some of those names on herself, goading and castigating, driving herself to the agonizing peak by sheer perversity. If she had-for one second-been sorry for herself-
Larry was no sooner delivered of his fulfillment than he had moved away, recoiling as if she'd been contaminated. Immediately he'd started piling into his clothes, urging the dumbfounded Linda to do the same. "C'mon, you sweet candy," he'd snarled. "Shag into your duds. I'll take you back to your steamy little hole."
The interlude had left Linda with a big wad of lead in the pit of her stomach during what remained of that loathesome day.
On Wednesday afternoon she'd been confronted with another weird, but strangely satisfying experience. For this afternoon, she'd been able to give kindness, she'd been revered, her offerings gratefully received. As she'd gone to the motel with a lad no more than nineteen years old, a lad who was, without a doubt, a dewy-eared virgin.
He was a pretty boy, thin and fragile looking, with a lost, moony quality in his expression. A blond, he had an almost golden sheen to his body, his face barely beyond his first shave. And where her caveman of the previous day had shown no embarrassment whatsoever, the boy called Jack Lindstrom was epitome of all the shy, hesitant boys in the world, boys facing their first intimacy with a woman.
"Can't we turn out the lights, close the blinds or something?" he'd wavered, his bravado fast going by the board. This when Linda had unconcernedly begun to undress right in front of him, the boy flushing, turning his head in modesty.
Linda had smiled tiredly, had felt her heart go out to him. And she'd resolved to help him over the rough spots as best she could, to make his first love affair-even if it was with a $5 prostitute-something to remember.
"Look at me, Jack," she'd said softly. "That's right. Don't be afraid. I won't hurt you. I'll make this good for you. But nothing can happen with your clothes on."
"You act as if I've never loved a woman before," he flared, forcing up bluster.
Linda felt greater compassion for him, smiled softly. Poor kid, she'd thought. He's an awful liar. "No, Jack," she said, "that isn't what I mean. Of course this isn't your first time. But your attitude's all wrong. This isn't something so awful. This's beautiful, done right. A man's body, a woman's body ... there's nothing to be ashamed of there. Now. Will you get undressed?"
Then, deferring to his pathetic shame, she went to the windows, slammed down the blinds as well as snapped shut the drapes. Casting the room into soothing murkiness.
Turning, she'd teased, saying, "Do you want me to help you, Jack?"
"No," he'd hurried, plucking off his undershirt.
Nevertheless Linda had approached him, run her hands along his arms and chest as he'd dropped his shorts. "Mmm, you're so strong. I like strong men." And knowing that he was totally ignorant of protocol in a situation like this, she had come close to his naked frame, pressed her breasts to his chest, almost laughing at the way he started. "Would you like to kiss me, Jack?" she'd whispered.
"Yes," he'd breathed, his body trembling uncontrollably. Linda had come close, had put her arms around his neck, had raised her lips to his. And boy though he was, she'd become very aware, as she'd crowded close, that he was all man.
A raging storm of passion had broken over the boy, and he'd held the kiss, letting his hands slide frantically down her back. Until his breathing had turned stertorous. Then Linda had led him to the bed.
"Here," she said, lying in blatant display, "you can touch me. Anywhere you want. Do what you want, I won't stop you, I won't mind. Enjoy me, Jack. The way a man should enjoy a woman."
Tentatively at first, then becoming more bold, as confidence and passion joined to make a tiger of him, the boy had wonderingly caressed her body, leaned to kiss her half-parted lips again and again. Wanting very much to kiss her elsewhere.
Sensing this, Linda had encouraged him. "Okay, baby. Kiss my breasts if you want. I won't mind. I like that. Most all women do." With her hands she'd guided him to her breasts. "Kiss them, Jack," she intoned a little later. "All you want"
Then in impudent preplay, she'd let her hand slide across his body. He'd jerked in surprise, but as Linda's fingers touched, he'd surrendered completely, had shook convulsively, enjoyed the attention. The attention spurring his lips to even greater boldness.
Linda had withered inside with feeling of self-sacrifice as the boy had moved to her, as his whimpering, rapturous sighs had swelled at the sensation. He was breathing so deeply, and so fast, it sounded like he was sobbing.
"Not so fast," she'd instructed as he'd begun. "Easy. Slowly, let things build." And seized by the wildest yearning to please, to make this special for him, Linda had adjusted herself to precise tolerance. There was nothing shameless about that. Since the boy didn't know-
But despite her adjurations, Jack did work too fast, and answering as she was, he was too soon delivered. Leaving Linda feeling a strange frustration. For where she'd never again wanted to achieve completion with any man except Dolph, it had seemed somehow fitting-with this poor boy-
"That was too bad," she sympathized. "You let that happen too fast. Take your time. Much better the longer you make things last. Would you like to rest a little, try again?"
"I don't have another five dollars."
"That's all right. If I can't do some kind thing once in awhile, what's a human being for?" Act o) kindness, she mused. It had been so long since she'd even wanted to do such.
Shortly, with certain encouragements from Linda, he was ready again. And this time, as he followed her instructions, as Linda guided the tempo, they did last. And at the end, Linda did achieve a bittersweet scrap of completion. Perfect complement to the raging storm that broke over the boy. As his groan-half-whimper, half-shout-announced a body wrenching end.
The look of adoration and gratitude Jack had sent her as he'd dropped her off at the laundromat had warmed her, made her almost happy for an hour afterward.
Just as remembrance of his expression, his soft, halting, "Thank you," caused her to smile even now.
Caustically she shut out the memory. There are some compensations to being a prostitute after all.
Her attempts at scaring up any trade that afternoon and early evening were totally futile. There simply weren't any hot rock specialists abroad. Nobody was turning a trick. Linda's panic turned into a dull, steady ache as she watched the clock hands inexorably rearrange themselves, mock her, pointing almost gleefully to the too-fast approaching nine-thirty. Where would she get the money now?
Then it was a few minutes to H-hour. Linda rose from her chair in the laundromat, stepped out into the hot, dry night, teetered down the walk. Where she hovered in shadow, waited for Del Watson's Oldsomobile to come into view.
The man's name was Bruce Carrick. He too, like his accommodating friend, Watson, was a captain in the U.S.
Army. He too, was an unprincipled libertine. From the very first moment, when Linda had crowded into the car between them, when Watson had said, "Hey, Linda, I want you to meet a guy ... a good friend of mine," she'd known what to expect before she was dismissed this night.
They brought whiskey with them, a couple of bottles of mixer. Glasses and ice came courtesy of the motel.
And Linda tied right in. It was better that way. At least her conscience wouldn't bother her, once things got really rough.
The room was semi-dark, the small dresser lamp again conferring the only light. They lay naked on the single bed, Linda in the middle, Carrick and Watson on either side of her. Each of them insisting that her hands should not be idle. Each of them, in turn, doing as much for Linda, abusing her unashamedly.
In direct retaliation, Linda drank faster and faster. Gradually becoming unconscious of what they were doing.
Until finally, Watson, concerned lest she pass out before they'd extorted their fun, cut her off.
But Linda didn't care. She had a rousing good start.
She didn't even bother to protest when Watson turned her on the bed and, being the gallant host he was, offered her to Carrick first. In a very vile way. But not her first time. The novelty had completely worn off. And while Carrick lay sighing, while Watson watched with avid gleeful eyes, Linda stoically took care of things in fine fashion.
Then it was Watson's turn. But he, being in better control than his tyro friend, stopped Linda at the crucial moment. Pushed her to the bed, crawled to her. With a liquid oath, worked with cruel haste, cursing her.
And Linda, wanting that to be over as badly as he did, but for entirely diverse reasons, did her best.
Afterward, Carrick revived, Watson gave up his hold. Carrick wheezingly took over, did his best. Shouted at the end, rewarded Linda's efforts to please by leaning, nipping her left nipple cruelly.
"Please, no," she groaned, emerging from her sick torpor when Watson turned her on the bed, tried throwing her on her face. "Don't. I'll do anything you say, only not that. I can't stand that. You'll kill me."
"You'd be surprised what you can stand, pig," Del rasped. "Tramps like you go for this. In a big way. You don't fool me."
"Oh hell, no!" she wailed at the initial maddening pressure. "Don't Del, I beg you...."
"You'll be begging me not to stop in a minute."
"Del, oh please. Turn out the light anyway."
"What? And cheat our good friend Bruce here? He came to see the show too." He snickered in guttural drunkenness. "Watch this, pal. Watch me put this tramp into orbit."
Linda began to scream, to claw the sheets. Then she was scrabbling for a pillow, seemingly trying to bite big holes into it. While her agonized wails kept backing up in her head, threatened to deafen her.
She heard both men laughing uproariously.
It was then, as the pain became excruciating, mind-snapping, that Linda passed out.
It was to be an unsolved riddle to the end of her days, whether or not, while she was unconscious, Bruce Carrick had taken that vile pleasure also.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There was no raging delirium of despair and despondency assaulting Linda that Friday morning. Only a dull, cold sense of fear and hopelessness. As she agonized over the fact that she hadn't earned a cent the day before, that she still needed $20 to satisfy the avaricious Annecia.
That tonight, by eight-thirty-
And where was she to get the money? There was absolutely nothing in the house. A few dollars of the grocery budget still remained, but she needed that to keep up some semblance of normality about the house. To at least put milk on the table at breakfast. She was fortunate in that she'd had a good stock of meat, bread, vegetables in the deep freeze. Even so, Dolph was beginning to notice the skimpiness of their meals, to complain. And-as Dolph even more crudely put it-"The old eagle wouldn't spit for another week yet."
She was so very tired. And lying in bed as she was, it took all her will power to keep from simply shutting the monotonous thoughts off, to keep from dozing off again.
I've got to get up, she assailed herself. II I'm going to earn the rest of that money. I have to get over to the laundromat. Get up, Linda. Get dressed, get this house picked up. Put on your street-walking shoes and get out of here.
But, bestialized and weary as she was, Linda did no such thing. Instead she surrendered to sleep, fell back with a small sigh, slept the sleep of the dead.
The phone must have rung for three minutes straight before Linda was finally roused. Bewilderedly she sat up, looked at her alarm clock. Was thrown into a fit of anxiety as she saw it was after one o'clock. Damn, did I sleep that long? The clock must be wrong.
Then she was up, running to answer the phone.
Never in her life had she been so happy to hear a human voice. As her caller turned out to be Hattie, with offer of another appointment. A bona fide one this time.
Linda breathed a ponderous sigh of relief at mention of the name. It was as if she'd been rescued from the jaws of death at the last possible moment.
"Charlotte again? That's fine, just fine. I'll be happy to come."
"Hey, chile," Hattie laughed softly. "What is it with you? Don't tell me y'all got a thing for that gal."
"Not at all," Linda breathed, feeling absolutely giddy. "It's just that I need the money so bad, that I have to have the rest by today."
"Yeah, Linda. But with one of those she an' she gals...."
"I've had worse," Linda said curtly. "Lots worse. At least Charlotte doesn't hurt you for the mere fun of hurting. Like some people I know. At least she pays for what she takes."
"Ah'm sorry about that last, honey," Hattie apologized. "Ah had no way of knowin' that was how it'd turn out. Ah surely hope he didn't hurt you too bad."
Again Linda was seized with the impulse to repeat herself, to say, "I've had worse," but wisely she kept her silence. "Forget it, Hattie," she said instead. "Maybe we all learned a lesson from the great Aaron Harland."
"Ah sure did. He don't get in here again." Her voice dropped. "Though Lord knows how Ahll stop him if he call again. He mighty powerful man in Winville."
"Forget that animal," Linda interrupted. "Tell me about Charlotte. What time?"
"You certainly made big impression on that woman. She really want you. Called with a big, trembly voice, say she gotta have Linda. Even promise to pay more."
Linda's heart leaped. "More? How much?"
"Thirty this time. You be real good to her tonight and who knows? Y'all be able to hold her up for whatever you want next time."
A cold hand gripped Linda's bowels, tore and twisted at them. "Tonight? But Dolph ... my husband'll be home tonight. I can't get out."
"Ah figured as much. Well, that's your problem, Linda. You figure something. Can't you tell him some story? Y'all's going to a movie with a girl friend or something. He oughtta buy that. You think, chile."
"What time, Hattie?" A burning urgency grew in her tone. "Somehow, no matter what, I'll be there."
"Eight-thirty. Be on time. An' wear some pretties again. See you, baby."
For long moments Linda sat beside the phone, her brow furrowed, nervously biting her lip. As she tried to formulate a plan whereby she could get out of the house for two hours tonight without arousing Dolph's suspicions.
Gradually the furrows faded, her face became calmer. The movie bit, she exulted. Why not? She and Patti were going to take in a musical at the downtown theater. And since Dolph and Vito hated musicals they were not invited. Dolph would buy it, she was positive he would.
Again her shoulders hunched. There was still the problem of Andrea. She wanted her money on time.
Then she was dialing rapidly, hoping to beg a twelve hour extension.
"I swear, Andrea," she countered the mercenary woman's snarled opposition, "I'll have that money for you tomorrow morning. I've got most of it already. Tonight I'll get the rest. First thing tomorrow I'll come over. I'll have every blessed cent."
Andrea couldn't resist the chance to get a dig in. "Real hot date tonight, huh? Hell, if Dolph ever found out what little hobby his wife's taken up lately...." She laughed, her voice sounding like broken glass. "Okay, Linda. I'll go along with it. Tomorrow morning at nine. You fail, and there's gonna be some hot telephone wires."
With a last cackle, Andrea hung up.
Linda hurried around the house, dressing herself, picking up the living room. Humming to herself, despite the sick sufferance she must endure that night, almost happy. The increased fee of $30 would put her over the top in fine style. There would even be money left over to repay the grocery fund.
And really, Charlotte wasn't so bad. After the first few minutes anyway.
Linda arrived at Hattie's punctually, was relieved to see that there were no customers waiting, that only Hattie sat in the living room. Drinking a bottle of beer.
"No trouble?" Hattie said. "What y'all tell your big bad Daddy?"
"Just what you said," Linda grinned. "That Patti and I were going to the movies. We wouldn't be home until after eleven." Momentarily, recalling how Dolph had taken her announcement, how he'd been almost happy about it, Linda was subtly shaken.
"Good," he'd said. "You go ahead, enjoy yourself. I'll go down to The Wheel, have a few beers with the guys."
"Didn't Ah tell you?" Hattie beamed. "Y'all don't have to get fancy with men. They easy to fool."
Linda looked toward the murky alcove. "Is she here?"
"She sure is. On all kinds of pins an' needles. Waiting for you, baby. Better go right up."
A shiver impaled Linda, and she faltered. It had been so easy just thinking about it, but now that she was here, that it was time-"Yes," she murmured vaguely. "I guess I'd better."
The hesitancy became even more pronounced as Linda topped the stairs, stood outside the room. Trying to work up courage. But her temerity was short lived. For Charlotte's voice carried clearly to her: "Is that you, Linda? Come on in. I'm waiting. There's nothing to be afraid of."
Then Linda was letting herself through the door.
Charlotte was all dressed in black tonight. A black chiffon gown, full-skirted and bewitching, smoky-hued stockings, black, narrow-toed shoes. It was a complimentary color, and set off her honey coloring perfectly, made her look eminently sexy and desirable. If I were a man, Linda mused, I'd be crawling.
Only she had it rather mixed up. Before the night was over it would be Charlotte who'd be crawling.
"Mmm," Charlotte purred, drawing Linda into the light, "you're dressed so pretty. I like that. A woman should look like a woman. None of this slacks junk for me." Then, with an easy self-assurance, she was pulling Linda into her arms, she was re-igniting those same will-full fires within her. It was just like the first time all over again.
And Linda couldn't help but be reminded as Charlotte's hands slid so gently on her back, of how she'd acted with the boy named Jack at the motel on Wednesday, the way she'd guided and helped him to overcome his uncertainty. It was that same way that Charlotte was treating her now.
Second initiation, she thought.
"Linda, Linda," the Negress was sighing, delicately jabbing her hard pointed breasts at Linda's, "you don't know how much I've missed you. How I've been looking forward to this all day." Then her body was bunting Linda's, her lips were descending on hers.
Minute by minute the dissolute urge to surrender became more dominant within Linda. And as the kiss went on, as Charlotte's body spasmed more paganly against her, as the firebrand tongue drilled at Linda's, she became weaker and weaker. Became quite willing, eager even to continue with this twisted love.
A scalding surge of self-pity transfixed Linda. After all those horrible men, the horrible things they did to me, this feels so wonderful. To have someone love me so tenderly, so completely-
"Baby," Charlotte sighed, stepping back, looking Linda up and down, her mouth curved into a lustful smear, "am I going to work you tonight. With a fine toothed comb. There won't be anything I haven't loved." Then in discordant note, she added: "Old Rick'll get his tonight."
"Rick?" Linda asked. "I don't understand."
"My husband. He's winding up a big business deal; I'm supposed to meet him around ten-thirty. We're going to celebrate. He expects a ready Momma tonight. Well, he'll get it. Rick and I'll coast on afterglow. I'll just have to think of you and...." A grimace contorted her face, she stiffened where she stood.
"That's why the fancy dress," Charlotte said. "Old Rick digs wild clothes too. I guess that's the only thing we ever will agree on. But then a gal's got to go along with things. He's the man who brings the butter for my bread."
"It's very lovely," Linda said. "The dress I mean. The prettiest I've ever seen."
"Thanks, honey. I wore it partly for you, too, you know." The predatory glare flared to arc-light intensity in Charlotte's eyes. "And speaking of dresses, what do you say we peel off? Before things get the better of us and we start tearing things?"
Linda said nothing, made a mechanical move to run the zipper at the waist of her gown. "No!" Charlotte snapped, plainly angered. "How many times do I have to tell you? I want to do it. I want to take care of every single detail. What do you think I'm paying for?"
"Sorry," Linda murmured. "I didn't know that was such an important part of it"
"You're damn well right it is."
Then there were no more angry words. As Charlotte slid back into her trance, came close to Linda, kissed her again, gathered her small breasts into her hands, roiled them gently. And now she began stripping Linda.
There was a variation in procedures tonight. For as Linda stood before the twisted wanton, wearing only pink panties and brassiere, her garter-belt, stockings and pumps, Charlotte impatiently flung away her own bouffant gown and slip, sunk to her knees before Linda.
And there, tremblingly wrapping her arms about Linda's legs, she began kissing her knees, showing no shame, no reluctance whatsoever about the sick adoration. Causing Linda to cringe inside, a rain of goose pimples splashing her.
Still Charlotte continued the maddening, tickling games, letting her lips do the wildest things. A savage, volcanic fire was born for Linda as the groveling female did the last thing left to her, as the head moved. And then-
"Stop, Charlotte," Linda whispered. "Oh, that's awful. Driving me wild. Not like this. Put me on the bed."
Charlotte did not hear. And if she did, she chose to ignore the words. As her lips became busy, torturing demons.
But finally she tired of this ersatz love. And broke away. Still holding Linda, she began stroking her svelte, silken legs. Then her lips were sliding across their opulent terrain. The attention almost as tickling as what she'd done before, Linda almost falling when Charlotte began to nip and gnaw behind her knees.
"Please, Charlotte," she wailed, "stop now. I can't stand that. Take me to the bed. Please...."
"You're so beautiful," Charlotte sighed, pulling back, still kneeling, running her hands along her legs.
"So white and beautiful." She shuddered wrackingly.
"Oh this's going to be wonderful tonight."
Slowly she pulled herself up, came to kiss Linda Once more. All the while walking her backward. Until they both tumbled to the bed. Again she began the involved, prolonged ritual of undressing Linda. Again she stopped at every excuse, to kiss and caress.
"Turn out the lights," Linda said, her voice seemingly coming from some place in antiquity.
"No," Charlotte said. "I want them on. So I can see your beautiful, ivory body. So I can see how pretty we are in living black and white." She snuffled at her small joke, bent to lave Linda's aching nipples anew.
Finally it was time, and small puffs of desire jetting from Charlotte's throat, she could wait no longer. From all appearances, she might have been a malaria victim, in the throes of a fever-crisis. "Baby," she keened. "I need you now. Let me love you."
"Yes." Linda sagged, "anything you want."
There was another variation. As Charlotte dragged Linda to the edge of the bed, arranged her. Whereupon she deserted Linda, knelt on the floor at the edge of the bed. Kissed a fiery trail along Linda's legs.
"Oh, oh," Linda gasped, as if in actual pain. Surprised and awed at the difference, at the new tricks Charlotte was plying. And when she couldn't bear that any longer, when she tried to shift away, Charlotte's hands closed sadistically on her ankles, brought her back.
That went on and on. Until Linda was vibrating. Then, in still another excess:
"No!" Linda hissed, fighting her. "Not fcbereJ"
"Yes," Charlotte growled. "There. I promised, didn't I?"
Recognizing the threat in Charlotte's aberrated chokings, Linda surrendered, let her have her way. Puzzled over the sensation. One of strangest, most un-setding things she'd ever experienced.
Then that was gone. Charlotte was on familiar ground once more. But the deviation had had its effect. Scant seconds later Linda was squealing her first pinnacle.
Moments later Charlotte had returned to the bed, was fighting Linda's hands for immediate resumption. And groan and protest as Linda did, it was to no avail. Charlotte was a woman possessed tonight. She could not get enough. Again the thousand watt current was touched to Linda; she began to scream with ecstasy.
"Hold me," Charlotte instructed, pausing briefly. "Like last time. That's all I ask."
And Linda held her. Gave the Negro woman bonus besides. In a very tactile manner.
Until they were both screaming in unison, each in a rapture of self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice poles apart in definition. "I love you, Linda," Charlotte choked and gurgled. "I love you, love you. You beautiful, white witch I You're good, so good!"
Charlotte was gone. For five minutes now. As slowly and dazedly Linda stirred on the bed. Sighed a stertorous, shuddering sigh. She felt like she'd never be able to walk again.
But finally she regained her strength. And resolutely, forcing herself, she pushed herself up from the bed, began dressing. I have to get home before Dolph does, she temporized. I can't let him become suspicious.
Hattie was waiting for her downstairs, a mocking smile on her lips. "Wow, Linda," she said in a hushed voice, "what did y'all do to that woman? She went outta here with a glassy-eyed smile a yard wide on her face."
Linda grinned tiredly. "I didn't do a thing. Charlotte did everything by herself."
"Mmm mmmm. That's what Ah call easy money. An' speaking of money...." She held out three $10 bills to Linda.
Dumbly, strangely enough feeling no great elation at this moment of final trumph, Linda took the bills, casually put them into her handbag. "Thanks," she said in a dead tone. "Now I guess I'll be saying good-bye. For good, Hattie. I hope so anyway."
"Wait now," Hattie said, winking secretively, drawing her into the kitchen. "Don't go rushing off. How you feel about taking on one more customer? Ah got a live one waiting in the back bedroom. An easy fiver for you."
Linda shrunk inside. Thinking of how she would have given thanks only yesterday for an extra trick. And now that her goal was achieved, they were dropping from the sky. "No, Hattie," she demurred. "I'm tired. I've made my stake. It's time to go home."
"This boy's easy," Hattie coaxed. "Ah know. He been coming here for months. No gal's complained yet. No rough stuff at all. C'mon, Linda. I been good to you, you be good to me."
A nagging temptation grew in Linda's brain, became full blown. What did it matter? One trick more or less?
After tonight she could turn her back on this aspect of her life-there was only Del Watson to contend with. One more time-the extra five would enable her to buy a mammoth steak in the commissary-she and Dolph could have a victory celebration on Sunday. A victory he would never know was going on.
Her face became hard; she imagined her expression as carbon copy of the one Patti Contino perpetually wore. Now Linda turned on Hattie. "Okay," she said tonelessly. "Show me where he is."
"This way, honey," Hattie chuckled. "He be good to you, I know he will." She paused before the silent door. "In there, chile. Go on right in." And respecting Linda's feelings at this moment, she whirled, made herself scarce.
While Linda slowly opened the door, started in.
But suddenly it seemed the floor was tipping beneath her, the room seemed to be rocking in savage tremors. And she clung to the doorknob for support, her fingers curved into aching, clenching talons.
As the man looked up from his magazine with a cocky smile. A smile that instantly faded. His face turned pale, his jaw dropped in agonizing disbelief.
"Linda!" he said.
Then a mighty fist was buried deep in the pit of her stomach, her head was reeling, she couldn't get her breath. Reflexively she took a single step forward, closed the door behind her. Turned again to face her husband. To face Dolph.
It seemed decades passed as they stood staring at each other. Linda slumping against the door, her legs feeling like they were made of string. Dolph still frozen in place on the edge of the bed. There were no words.
What words could there be at a time like this?
Until, at last, the stunning truth hitting Dolph, enraging him, he snarled. "Linda! For God's sake what are you doing here?"
The expression on his face, one of smug, male superiority, of snap condemnation, detonated an awesome rage within Linda. And too far gone to care any more, too tired at keeping up the vile subterfuge, her last iota of strength expended, she turned on him. He has no right to look at me like that. With such a contemptuous stare. No right. No right at all.
"What am I doing here?" she seethed. "The same thing you are. You're buying aren't you? Well, I'm selling! I'm a tramp!" Her voice snapped, turned shrill. "What do you think about that? What are you going to do about that?"
And then, confused beyond any coping, for no reason under the sun than that she'd always turned to Dolph in times of crisis, Linda found herself lunging at Dolph, she found herself clutching him, crowding herself into his hard, strong chest. Then she was sobbing hysterically, without stop, as if his arms held her only salvation.
Begging him not to reject her at this time of decision.
And, a love deeper than any animality, greater than any transitory, sinful drive possessing him, Dolph was closing his arms about her, he was embracing her hotly, running his lips in her hair. Soothing her hoarsely, knowing that no matter what she had done, what he had done, it was not beyond repair.
If only each could bring himself to forgive-
Gasp by sobbing gasp, the words emerging in haphazard, incoherent sequence-jumbled yet carrying unmistakable message of extorted degradation-Linda told Dolph everything that had happened to her during these past tainted weeks.
When it was finished, and a stunned, vengeance-made-man sat holding her, his entire world in schism, Linda remembered Dolph's part in this corruption.
"Why, darling," she sobbed, "why? Why this? Wasn't I woman enough for you? Didn't I please you?" She choked on a sob, fought for control. "Hattie told me you've been coming here for a long, long time. Even before I...."
"This is the God's truth," Dolph said, his voice vehement at the sincerity of his words. "I don't know why I do it, baby. I hate myself afterward. I love you, only you. But every once in awhile I get this awful urge. And I can't help myself. I have to go off, find another woman."
"I don't understand. If you'd only some to me, I'd...."
"I can't explain it. It's not that. It's like I feel cheated. Well, because I married so young. You were the only woman I'd ever had. And I hear the guys talking about all the women they've slept with ... it drives me crazy. I get this insane urge to go out, to try someone else."
His voice blurred from the weight of his emotions.
"I'm sorry, darling, truly I am. I never wanted to hurt you, I never wanted to have you find out. It's you I love. These other pigs meant nothing to me. Nothing at all."
A sweet, exquisite pain flowered within Linda. Now he could understand. That she'd done these things to protect him, to keep him from getting hurt. She articulated her thoughts: "That's why I had to keep going on with it," she quaked. "I didn't want to hurt you for the world. I'd have done anything so you wouldn't know the truth about me." Her voice dropped, became wispy. "And now we both know ... about each other ... "
"It's all right," he rumbled, his mouth close to her ear "All right, all right."
But Linda could not see how it was all right. How it would ever be all right again in their whole lifetime. Crushed beneath a new avalanche of grief, she began to sob with a fresh desperation.
Until Hattie, hearing the weepings, came banging on the door. "Hey, what's going on in that room? You, soldier boy? You hurting that gal?"
Dolph rose gravely, hitched his arm around Linda, supported her. They went toward the door. Hattie fell back as it opened, as she saw the dark stare in his eyes. "I'm taking the lady home," he growled.
Then he was squeezing past the baffled Negress.
"It's Dolph," Linda choked at the last. "My husband."
Hattie's great white eyes bulged, her jaw dropped. As she watched them go out the door. "Ah'll be damned," she breathed. "Damned and double damned."
She looked once at the religious picture hung on the wall, echoed a far-off sentiment, then turned to go back downstairs to the television set.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Dolph stood in the center of their small living room, his fists bunched into white knots, his face dark with hatred. "I'll get that Watson louse," he gritted. "One of these nights when we're out in the boondocks, he's gonna have someone come down on him like a carload of sandbags. He'll be spitting teeth for a month after. I'll cut his pretty face up for dog food. And as far as that Lallier trash is concerned, I'll . .
Linda touched his arm. "You won't do anything. Dolph. It's over."
"But, damn, Linda ... the filth they forced you to. They can't get away scot free. They have to get theirs."
"No, darling. It won't help matters at all. You'll only get yourself in trouble. The next time Watson calls I'll tell him that you know. About me. And about him. Hell have no hold on me. And once I pay Andrea the rest of what I owe her, I'll...."
"Pay Andrea!" he snarled. "Are you out of your mind or something? Pay her? Pay her nothing. Take that money and buy something for yourself. The prettiest dress in the store, shoes, jewelry ... God knows you've earned it."
"But she'll cause trouble. She'll spread the story all over the post."
"Let her try," Dolph spat. "Just let her try. I'll sit her on a fence post all the way to her Adam's apple."
"But she said she could get her husband to make trouble at company for you. Something about poor report going into your service record."
"He's full of it, too. That fat cretin isn't shipping out, he's being shipped out. The company's got no use for him. God help the new outfit that wins that lazy goldbrick." Dolph slapped his fist into his palm. "He can't do a thing to me. You just let me answer that phone tomorrow, I'll tell that louse a thing or two I could spill a few beans about that slob. He'd get a DD so fast it'd make his eyes shine backward."
Dolph's face twisted into a mask of frustrated anguish. "Damn. Linda, if you'd only come and told me in the first place. None of this would've happened. They had no hold on you. None at all."
"I was afraid, Dolph. After you hit me that last time ... I just couldn't."
"Damn, Damn," he groaned. "What have I done? It's my fault. All the way down the line."
"It's both our faults," Linda said softly, coming into his arms again, huddling against his chest. "It's done, we can't change it. But one thing...."
"What's that, baby?"
"We can forget it At least try. We can forgive." She dropped her eyes. "I'm willing to if you are."
A hot flame of love flared to life in his eyes. And he leaned, wanting desperately to kiss that muddled, frightened face. But Linda pulled away. "Don't Dolph," she said. "I'm not worthy. Not this way. I'm tainted, contaminated. I want to be clean before...."
He smiled, feeling a monumental compassion for his wife as he looked down into her intense face, saw the haggard, wan expression there, the way her eyes looked like holes burned in a dingy sheet. "I know what we can do about that. C'mon with me."
"What, Dolph?" she puzzled. "Where?"
"Into the shower, baby both of us. Well scrub ourselves raw. We'll be clean for each other. We'll never get dirty ... that way ... again."
Linda was limp in his arms. "Yes, darling," she intoned, feeling suddenly so very weak, "yes...."
* * *
Docilely, the feeling of being a little girl again, of being taken care of by a wiser, stronger person returning to her, Linda stood under the drumming spray of the shower, let Dolph wash her. Despite his angry vow, he was not rough with her. Instead he was very gentle.
As he washed her face, her back and breasts, paused before her to soap her legs. Now he turned her, Linda pouting in gamin embarrassment as he washed her buttocks. She squealed in protest as he tried washing her elsewhere. But her persisted. "Everywhere, baby." Little by little she gave herself entirely to his gentle hands.
Then she was clean. In a most unique purification ceremony. In a stunning confirmation of forgiveness. A baptism of sorts. And promise besides-
"My turn now," she said when at last Dolph was finished. And though he was reluctant to grant her identical privileges, Linda insisted, kept agitating until he relinquished the soap and washcloth. And a second purification rite-symbolic though it may have been-was commenced.
As their slippery, clean bodies touched each other, as Linda touched her husband, as he leaned often to kiss her breasts, a flood of water splaying off his head, it was only natural that they would both become ready, Dolph especially.
Until Dolph stopped her, said. "Aren't you supposed to be using a wash cloth, honey?"
Linda giggled. "Better this way. I can get right to business."
He shuddered, clung to her shoulders for support. "Business is right. Any more business and we're going to have to start all over again."
"That'd be nice, wouldn't it?" Linda teased, the aphrodisiac effects of their loveplay very much pronounced by then. And she wanted Dolph with all her heart and soul. She wanted that final forgiveness. That testimony that their marriage, their love-though there undoubtedly would be rough days ahead-would survive.
"Enough," Dolph groaned. "Let's get out of here. Go somewhere where we can do something about this."
Linda said nothing. But pulled his head down, now kissed him. While her hand still played, conferred a mutual stimulus, their bodies close as they were.
"You torchy little devil," he sighed. "Out. I want out."
Playfully they lingered in the cramped bathroom, drying each other, caressing and experimenting, adoring and admiring.
They deserted the muggy bath, ran to the darkness of their bedroom. Linda was left alone as Dolph went the living room, extinguished lights, locked doors. Then he was back, kissing Linda without stop.
"I love you," he muttered. "I'm sorry, desperately sorry any of this happened. If I'd have been an understanding husband instead of a bullheaded bully...."
"Don't. Dolph Forget it now. If you'll forgive me for being so stupid, for not coming to you ... I forgive. I forgave you the moment I was in your arms again."
"Angel," he husked. "My precious angel."
Then he was hovering to her. He was dropping his head, kissing her breasts.
Linda sucked in her breath sibilently, feeling like a match had been lit, touched to her. A hundred times sweeter now that the phantoms of guilt had been routed. Now that she could bring herself in sensual totality, with no recriminations to haunt, to inhibit-"Don't stop," she chanted. "Never stop" But he did stop. Seconds later. As he surprised Linda, transformed her momentarily into immobile marble. He twisted on the bed, his lips to her middle. Then impatiently rooting her hands away, kissing further.
"No, Dolph," she quailed. "You don't have to. Pm not worthy to have you...."
"I know I don't have to," he murmured. "But it just so happens I want to. You opened a new door to me that other night. I don't want to close that. Besides . .
"Besides what, baby?"
"I want to show you I've forgiven, that I'm sorry I drove you to such...." He didn't finish. "Perhaps it's a form of penance."
"If you're sure...." Linda said dubiously, speared with incredible delight as he returned to his homage.
"I'm sure," he sighed. "Very sure."
"Then so am I." And she was seeking him in the darkness, adjusting, reaching....
"Darling," he choked. And ministered to her with even more insane frenay.
But this time they stopped just this side of ecstasy. Dolph rearranging himself, taking her slowly, painstakingly. Both of them sighing thickly.
Then the ethereal harmonics were begun, a violent duet of the most magnificent sort. To Linda, that was perfect beyond anything she'd ever experienced. A pure, regenerating love. A transfiguring love. And happy beyond imagining, her ugly past once and for all behind her, she found her eyes filling with tears.
I love this man. No matter what. I love him because he is my man.
Linda clamped tighter to him, with maddening ebb and flow of pleasure. Gained exalted pleasure, for herself in the bargain. An eerie, wild humming began in her brain, and she knew that foretold an end so beautiful, so soul-shattering, so mind-obliterating-
Her own voice blended with the sirene choir, rose to dizzy crescendo. Her arms laced about her lover's back with animal compulsiveness.
"I love you, Dolph," she cried in that last second of sanity.
And heard him repeat that love.
Then they were lost souls. Transported to glory beyond belief. Adrift among the stars.
Later.
Much later in the shrouded darkness of the crowded night, Linda reached out to find Dolph there, beside her.
So different, she thought. So very different from ail those long, lonely nights while he had been far away from me....
And in no time at all, at least it didn't seem to Linda that it took very long, Dolph was eternally responding to the heathenish caress of torture she was so wantonly administering to his agile desires, over and over again.
Dolph turned to her then, half asleep and yet so apparently aware, and clutched her tightly to his chest.
He knew this was going to be one long, hard night ahead of them.
And many, many more, looming there just over the star-studded horizon of total ecstasy....
