"I can't do that, Killer. I'm an officer. What would someone think if they saw an officer helping a seaman steel-wooling the deck?"
"Just long enough for me to kiss my wife?" I pleaded.
She lifted her skirt to expose her thighs.
"There, Killer. First kiss me on the thigh, right there between the top of my stocking and my panties."
I did as she commanded.
"Now the other thigh, Killer."
Again I obeyed. I needed no prompting, for the skin of her thighs was so soft and cool to my lips, and while kissing them I could feel the black lace of her non-regulation panties tickling my forehead and smell the delicate perfume with which she'd annointed herself in that general area.
"Now," I sighed, "I've kissed both wonderful thighs. Now bend down here so I can kiss both sweet wonderful lips."
She knelt beside me and we kissed a long, long kiss that was full of both sweetness and passion.
"I shouldn't be doing this," she said. "What if someone came in and saw an officer kissing an enlisted man? The Navy doesn't approve of such things, but I'm breaking this one rule for you, Killer."
We kissed again, and this time the passion rose to the boiling point.
"Oh, Lordy, Lordy," I said. "Baby, I could do it right here in the middle of the floor."
"Deck."
"Call it what you will," I said, "but let's do it ... "
CHAPTER ONE
By the time I was a senior in high school only a half dozen of my classmates could remember when or why I'd been nicknamed "Killer."
Most of them thought the name referred to my position as star heavyweight on the school boxing team. A few, considering my strikingly handsome face and athletic body, assumed that I had originally been called "Lady Killer." The latter group was closer to the truth. The nickname had once been longer, only the "Killer" remaining after countless repetitions.
The half dozen who did remember the origin of the name are not likely ever to forget it as long as they live.
Baby Gitkins, Jackie Ann Parker, Hank Howell, Ed Wacker, Willis Brown, and Vince Edwards gave it to me the summer before we started first grade at Pansy Fetnor Elementary-but the title with which they dubbed me was "Joy Killer."
I can't remember just when the "Joy" was dropped, but I can certainly remember which type of joy it designated.
At the age of five I was both a Puritan and a perfectionist-a sterling proof that not all preachers' sons are wayward.
I could recognize sin when I saw it. And I saw it that afternoon I walked into our clubhouse and found that game of "science" in progress.
Baby Gitkins had taken off every stitch of her clothes and was serving as the willing, giggling guinea pig for the four mad doctors and their giddy nurse.
Heaven only knows what their experiment was supposed to prove, but I can truthfully say that they were dedicated to science. Hank had a bucket of mud which he was massaging into Baby's stomach, while Vince was keeping close track of the patient's temperature.
Temperature! One's temperature is usually taken in one of three ways: orally, anally, or axillary. Vince was employing a fourth method, much to Baby's delight. Or perhaps she was giggling because Hank's mud tickled her stomach. Who can say?
As soon as I opened the clubhouse door all six of them froze and stared at me. I never learned which roles Jackie Ann, Ed, and Willis were playing in the experiment.
Naturally I was shocked, and quite naturally I was obligated to see that such behavior was not repeated.
"I'll have to tell my mama and my daddy," I said to them, "and they'll have to tell your mamas and daddies."
Baby stopped giggling and Jackie Ann started crying.
"Don't tell on us, Bruce," Vince begged. "We were just playing."
"Playing is the wrong word," I said. "You were sinning. I've got to tell, or you'll keep right on doing it."
"No, we won't, honest," Vince pleaded. "If you tell, my daddy'll skin me alive. Please-we won't do it again. I promise."
"I don't know," I said. "I wish I didn't have to tell, but if you're bad enough to sin, you're bad enough to lie. My daddy said you can't ever trust a sinner."
"But listen, you don't know how mad my daddy'll be," Vince sobbed. "He'll half kill me!"
"For goodness' sakes, Vince, don't cry like a girl or a cry baby," I said. "A boy ought never to cry."
By that time Baby was crying also, not because she was afraid but because I'd stopped the game. Two girls and one boy all bawling simultaneously were too much for me. I weakened.
"All right, I won't tell if you'll promise me something," I said. "Promise me that you won't ever let the girls come in our clubhouse except when I'm here so I can make sure you don't sin any more. You've got to promise never to play with the girls where you'd have a chance to sin with them."
"You mean we can't play in the woods with them?" Ed asked.
"Not unless I'm there," I said. "When I'm not there to see that you behave, you can't play anywhere except in somebody's yard, out where your mamas can see you. Are you going to promise?"
They nodded. They knew I'd not relent any further.
"Line up," I said. "Take your fingers and cross your hearts and hope to die if you break your promise to me."
They all said it together. I made Baby Gitkins say it again by herself because she didn't speak up loud enough the first time.
At first they were so relieved not to have me tell their parents they didn't seem resentful; but after a few days they became very bitter toward me, and they started calling me "Old Mean Joy Killer." They soon dropped the "Old" and the "Mean" and eventually the "Joy," but the "Killer" has stuck with me to this day.
I don't know the exact origin of Baby's nickname. She had it before she could walk. As well as her mother can recall, her father called her "Baby" from the day she was born, and simply never stopped. The name suited her so well that everyone else picked it up.
Baby is a cuddly little blonde with baby blue eyes and a sweet dimpled face. She's completely naive and absolutely unsophisticated. She's also helpless and childish. To everyone who's ever known her, "Baby" is the most appropriate of all possible names.
In addition to her other attributes, Baby is exceedingly beautiful. And a girl who's beautiful, naive, and helpless brings out the best or worst in every male. Some, like myself, become protective in spite of themselves, until they find their continued protectiveness growing into love. Others, I have found, become lecherous, thinking that such a girl will be defenseless against their powers of seduction.
They're absolutely right, too. Baby has no defenses of her own. I assumed responsibility for her virtue at the time I broke up the science game, and have borne it ever since with no help from her. It's a responsibility which has given me no peace and little rest.
Before I finished high school I had to beat up every boy of our age in Seaboard County for trying to take advantage of Baby's gullibility and enthusiastic cooperation.
Any boy could talk her into a necking session, and if it hadn't been for my constant vigilance, there's no telling what else they might've talked her into.
Baby has always been exceedingly fond of sex. No matter how often I lectured her on the importance of virtue, it didn't seem to penetrate. She didn't want it to penetrate. The only thing she wanted to penetrate her was something I told her she couldn't have until we were married.
"It just isn't proper, Baby," I'd tell her. "Not even with me. There'll be time enough for that after we're married."
"Oh, Killer," she used to say, "let's go off and get married tonight. We can lie about our ages."
"Baby, you're completely amoral and impractical. You know I'd never lie about anything. And you should know me well enough by now to know that I won't marry you until I can stand on my own two feet, financially, and support a wife without any help from my father or yours."
"Killer," she'd coo, "we can live on love. Give me love."
"Very well, Baby, I'll give you some love; but remember, we're only in the first round of this love match. We can hug and kiss if you like, but we have to stop and go to our corners when we hear the bell."
"Suppose I don't hear it?"
"Then I'll hear it for us. One of us has to be practical. It's just like in the ring, Baby. I've never tried for a knockout in the first round. In the first round I size my opponent up. I throw a few left jabs to test his defenses, but I dance away if he tries to slug it out. In the second round I hit harder. I use my right for the first time-the old one-two punches, but I conserve my energy. In the third round I give him everything I've got until I have him down for the count."
"You can have me down for the count right now, Killer. I'll count for us, once for every time you do it to me."
"Please don't talk like that, Baby. Anyone who didn't know you would think you were a brazen hussy. I'll hug and kiss with you some, but remember, this is round one."
One evening she looked up at me with those big, baby blue eyes, a puzzled expression on her face, and asked:
"Killer, if hugging and kissing is round one and doing it is round three, what is round two?"
"There isn't a round two in a love match," I laughed. "My comparison falls down there. We can hug and kiss before we get married, and we can have intercourse after we're married. There's no in-between, unless perhaps a little hugging without clothes could serve as round two."
"It doesn't seem right," she said. "You talked about boxing so much that it wouldn't seem right not to have three rounds, just like in a high school boxing match. We can't just skip over round two."
"Well, I wouldn't worry about it, Baby. Just think of round one, now. Are you ready to be hugged and kissed?"
"Oh, Killer," she murmured, "I'm always ready!"
She really was ready at all times, and I took advantage of it for myself as much as for her. I enjoyed the hugging and kissing every bit as much as. she, and I was just as impatient for sexual fulfilment, but I knew that it would be wrong for us to go beyond round one before marriage.
Baby's eagerness was a terrific temptation for me to sin. She almost made sin seem like something innocent, enjoyable, and wholesome. But I was determined to call a spade a spade-and a sin a sin. Calling things by the right name always helped me remember exactly what they were. I had to fortify myself with determination not to rationalize by using a more pleasant-sounding word than sin. Many times, while parked with Baby on the shores of Kinsman's Lake, I became so excited that I was on the verge of stepping in for the sexual knockout. At the last moment I'd say the word sin to myself and it would ring in my conscience loud and clear as a saving bell.
CHAPTER TWO
Sin wasn't the only word I hated to see cast aside in favor of a more pleasant-sounding term. Words can be such liars. I always demand the honest word in favor of words which lie, trick, or insinuate.
I remember the time I knocked Vince Edwards out with a right to the solar plexus. It was at one of those Saturday night parties Polly Harris used to have in her barn. Party etiquette demanded that Baby and I dance at least a few of the dances with others. I'd cautioned her not to go outside with anyone, and she'd promised. Baby could be relied upon to stick to a specific promise such as that for at least a few hours, so I wasn't worried about her as she danced with Vince.
I should've known better. When I went to reclaim her, I found her and Vince in a corner of the room, glasses in their hands and giggling tipsily.
"What's so funny?" I asked.
"Oh, Killer, I feel so dizzy. This is so exhil-exhilar-"
"Exhilarating," I said, "but the word is intoxicating. Vince, what was the big idea trying to get Baby drunk?"
"Calm down, Killer," he said. "A little social drinking never hurt anybody. Have one with us. Don't you want to get exhilarated too?"
"The word is drunk," I said. "No, I most certainly don't want to get drunk. I've never tasted a single drop of foul whisky and I never intend to. Not only would I be breaking boxing training, but I'd be breaking all my moral training. You can make it sound better to your own ears by calling it social drinking, but to me it's plain old getting drunk and it's just as bad as ever. You've done a bad thing in getting Baby drunk. I'll have to ask you to step outside with me."
"Now just a minute," he said. "Don't go off the deep end. Okay, I get the message. You don't want her drinking. I won't give her any more from now on, but you never told me that before, so how was I to know? What say we let bygones be bygones?"
"I'm sorry, Vince, but you've done wrong and I can't forget it. I shouldn't have to tell you each thing to do and not to do. You should know right from wrong; and if you don't, you'll have to learn the hard way. I'm going to teach you now."
"Don't hit him, Killer," Baby begged. "He was just trying to show me a good time."
"Yeah," Willis Brown said. "No use to be a bully about it. He apologized and promised not to do it again. Everybody knows you're the champion boxer. Vince couldn't punch his way out of a paper bag, and besides, he's so drunk he can't stand up straight. What kind of kick you gonna get out of hitting a poor slob like him?"
"I simply know what I must do," I said. "I know right from wrong; Vince has wronged Baby and he must pay. Are you coming outside, Vince?"
"No," he said, "I'm not going with you."
"Then you leave me no choice," I said.
I took the bottle from him and held it in my left hand. With my right I punched him, hard and accurately, in the solar plexus. His knees buckled and he crumpled down to the floor. I set the bottle beside him, took Baby by the arm, and left the party.
There were other times I had to knock Vince out, but never again with a right to the solar plexus.
Once, at Boyd's Lake, I used a left hook to the jaw. Vince has a glass jaw and goes out like a lamp when it's tapped.
Baby liked Boyd's Lake better than Henderson's Pond or Kinsman's Lake because it was the most popular, and Baby loved to show off her gorgeous body in skimpy bathing suits to a large and appreciative audience. I protested, but it did no good. She bought bikinis anyway.
One afternoon we were lying on our beach blanket, half asleep, when Baby got up for something. I opened one eye long enough to see that she was headed toward the rest room, so I thought no more about it for awhile.
I realized finally that she'd been gone along time. I couldn't find her anywhere. She wasn't in the women's rest room, I knew, because the door was slightly ajar. Nor was she in the snack room or on the dance floor upstairs.
If that silly girl has tried swimming out over her head, I thought, she'll be drowned. Baby wasn't a good swimmer.
I walked along the wooden pier leading out to the diving scaffold, scanning the water in every direction. About halfway out I stopped and listened. I was sure I'd heard something. After a moment I heard it again-a giggling sound. Right beneath my feet.
The pier was built so close to the water that no one could see underneath, but there was a six-or seven-inch air space between the water and the boards.
Instead of jumping into the water right there, I strolled on twenty feet beyond that point and eased myself into the water. After taking a big breath, I submerged and swam back toward Baby's giggling place.
Through the clear water I could see Baby's shapely legs pressed against Vince's hairy ones. I was so burned up that I almost lost my breath and strangled.
As I swam closer I could see that Vince was standing in water up to his neck. It was over Baby's head, of course, and she had both hands on his shoulders to keep her face above water. This left his hands free to explore, to the accompaniment of Baby's soft squeals and muffled giggles.
By the time I arrived he'd finished mapping out the breast area. His hands were withdrawing from under the halter of her bikini and starting downward across her suntanned stomach. Just past the navel the fingers reached the top of the bikini pants, or whatever you call them.
One hand tugged at the material and held it away from her lower abdomen while the other hand reached down into the opening.
At that instant I was just close enough to grab the bottom of the bikini at the top of the thigh, hold it open, and thrust my hand upward, placing it squarely in the best position to protect Baby's virtue.
Vince's eager fingers came sliding expectantly over the silken delta of pubic hair. My bony knuckles were not, I am sure, what those lecherous fingers hoped to encounter. They probed at the back of my hand in utter disbelief.
Not nearly so sophisticated as he'd like to have been, Vince had probably never succeeded in seducing a girl into actual sexual intercourse. Quite possibly he'd never before gotten as far as he was at that moment. Still, he had a fair idea of how girls were constructed in that portion of their anatomy which they are most careful to conceal.
Yet the befuddled fingers weren't convinced of any need for alarm. They continued gingerly touching the skin near my knuckles, as though hoping to solve the enigma. Baby was giggling much too uncontrollably to help clear up the matter.
My breath almost gone, I could prolong the game no longer. I turned my hand around and grasped Vince's as though in a warm, friendly handshake.
Had my hand been made of white-hot steel and charged with a million volts of electricity Vince's hand couldn't've jerked away in hastier terror.
I came up for breath, standing beside Baby. She was thrashing in the water. She grabbed me and sputtered:
"Help Vince. He jumped and hit his head on the underside of the pier. I think he's knocked himself out!"
Holding Baby with one hand, I reached into the water with the other and grabbed a big handful of Vince's hair.
"Take a breath, Baby. We're ducking under and out from under the pier."
I carried them back to shore. Although it was probably unnecessary, I gave Vince artificial respiration, knee-chest method. I had no choice. Baby was getting ready to give it to him mouth-to-mouth method.
He stirred and groggily sat up.
"What happened?"
"You bumped your head. Are you all right now?"
"Sure, Killer, I feel fine now."
"Good. Here, let's try standing up. Feel steady on your feet?"
"Like a rock."
"Good. Put 'em up."
"Oh, no!"
"Oh, yes!"
The left hook clipped him neatly on the jaw and he went down-like a rock.
The next time Baby wanted to go swimming I took her to Henderson's Pond. Not as many people were swimming there, but there were more than enough for Baby to get into trouble with. I caught her kissing Tom Whitman underwater.
Unlike Vince, he chose to defend himself. It took a hard right punch to the mouth to subdue him.
Kinsman's Lake had no bath house and no one used it for swimming except a few young boys in the vicinity. The day Baby and I went there to swim there were about eight boys, ranging in age from six to thirteen.
I didn't say a thing when Baby organized them into a game of leapfrog, but I didn't like it one bit. I'm sure Baby could've leaped higher when going over that thirteen-year-old's back. Even though he was big for his age-bigger than Baby-I know she didn't have to sit down on him, practically, every time-sliding over his back, shoulders, and head, to the apparent enjoyment of both him and herself.
In time Baby might've inspired even a thirteen-year-old boy to get himself and her into trouble. I resolved that in the future we'd not go swimming at Kinsman's. Baby couldn't be trusted at any of the public swimming lakes in Seaboard County. If we went swimming at all, it would have to be in absolute privacy.
CHAPTER THREE
It was at this point that I decided to consult my father about my problem with Baby. He was sitting in his study working up his sermon for the following Sunday when I approached.
"Come in, son," he said. "What's on your mind?"
"The same thing that's on my mind most all the time," I said. "Baby."
"Well?"
"Father, I'm asking you this both as your son and as one of the members of your flock. I'm at my wits' ends trying to keep Baby from going astray. She's completely amoral and she thinks about sex all the time. What am I going to do with her?"
"Hmmm," he said, settling back in his chair as though he were preparing to talk for some time. "Son, the problem's not just what you're going to do with Baby; it's what are we going to do with the whole world?"
"I don't know," I said, feeling rather helpless. "If I can't manage one adolescent girl, how-am I going to take all the problems of the world on my shoulders?"
"The world is going to the devil," he said. "Sex, sex, sex. Everywhere you go, it's the same. You can't even read the want ads in the newspaper any more without a picture of some half-naked woman staring you in the face. Just look at this one: Joe's Garage-brake service. Now what does that vixen have to do with brakes? Does she work for Joe? Is she a brake mechanic? Now tell me, son, what earthly purpose does Joe have in putting such a picture on his advertisement?"
"It made you notice his ad instead of somebody else's," I said. "You know she doesn't work there, but the next time your brakes need fixing, you'll remember that Joe's Garage does that kind of work."
He paid no attention to my explanation, busily turning the page to find another example to illustrate his thesis.
"Look at this," he announced triumphantly. "This advertisement for the motion picture show. A person might be led to believe that there are no ladies' clothing stores in Hollywood, the way these actresses dress. That reminds me! I think it's about time I preached another sermon against the picture shows."
"But, Father, Baby and I never go to the movies."
"Corrupting influence, yessiree. The devil has a real stronghold in Hollywood. He can do his dirty work on a mass scale there."
"But-"
"Ha! Look at this! Look at this. Funnies, they call them. Do you hear me laughing, son? Do I hear you laughing? Which one are we going to laugh about? This woman with the whip? That girl being dragged into the automobile by those vicious criminals? This one in the bathing suit that isn't as big as my pocket handkerchief?"
"It's bigger than Baby's," I observed.
"And the front page is the worst. Rape! Why do they have to put that on the front page?"
"People want to know about it."
"Now way back on page sixteen they have a little announcement about Mr. and Mrs. Peabody's golden wedding anniversary. Why can't they emphasize something good sometimes? Mr. Peabody never raped anybody. He's lived a good, meek life for seventy years. Why can't they put him on the front page?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Well, Dad, I guess, for one thing, a rape like that ought to warn the other women in town not to be walking down Rice Street alone after dark. It just isn't a safe thing to do, as this rape case well illustrates. Maybe having that story on the front page will save some other woman that same terrible experience. On the other hand, I don't think any woman need worry about Mr. Peabody raping her."
"What's wrong with a good man, son? Why can't newspapermen write stories about good men for the front page?"
"Father, what kind of women are you always preaching about, virtuous women or wicked women?"
"Give me wicked ones any time. Son, do you know that a sermon on Jezebel will draw ten times the crowd that a sermon on Ruth will draw?"
"Yes. Is that the only reason you preach more about the wicked women?"
"Now don't you go accusing your father of appealing to the public fancy. No, I preach about the Jezebels because there's more to preach about. A good woman's more precious than pearls, but what's to say about her, son? She's good and that's that. But the wicked woman, she's a different story. There's plenty to preach about there because she's done plenty. Give me a wicked woman and I'll give you a hell-raising sermon that'll pack the church to overflowing."
"And give a reporter a good crime or scandal and he'll give you a story that'll sell papers. Like you said, Father, what's to write about a good couple like the Peabodys? They have been good and that's that."
"Ha! Newspapers! Corrupting influences, every one of them. You should see that Baby doesn't read them."
"She doesn't. I've been trying to get her to keep up with current events, but she has such a tough time keeping up with her homework that she doesn't feel like reading anything else."
"Magazines are just as bad. Books are worse. See that Baby doesn't read books. Corrupting influences, all of them. Bring her to church."
"We never miss; you know that, Father."
"It's everywhere you turn, son. Sex, sex, sex-all over the place. Corrupting influences everywhere you turn."
"But, Father, I've been trying to tell you; Baby doesn't read anything except her school books, and we don't go to movies. After all the sermons you've preached against them they probably wouldn't let me in if I wanted to go. And Baby doesn't go anywhere without me. We come to church and prayer meeting instead of going to the movies."
"Son, are you trying to tell your father that his church has been a corrupting influence?"
"No, of course not."
"Then what is? Find out the corrupting influence and remove it. What is it that inspires these lustful thoughts in Baby?"
"Boys," I wailed, the full realization of this truth coming tome. "Well then-remove the boys?"
At a momentary loss for words he stared blankly at me. But not for long.
"The whole world is going to the devil," he said. "You can't even read the want ads without some half-naked woman staring you in the face. Now you take this brake ad-"
"You take it, Father. I've got enough to worry about without brake advertisements. I don't want to interrupt you any longer. Thanks for the advice."
"Any time," he beamed. "Remember, son, I'm here not only as your father, but also as your pastor. Any time you have a problem and need some counsel, you come see me, hear?"
"Sure."
Boys, I thought. I can't remove them, but I can sure keep Baby away from as many of them as possible.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lily Lake was my family's private fishing hole. My father'd had to buy a hundred acres of surrounding swampland in order to get the lake, but it was so full of bass and bream that he considered it a worthwhile investment. In Seaboard County swampland was very inexpensive, so that even a preacher could afford to own a considerable tract of it.
On a number of occasions I'd plunged into Lily Lake for a brief swim. The water, except for being chock full of lilies and their long tangling stems, was perfectly clean. It was, in fact, the cleanest water around. And cold. Much colder than any other lake in the county, for it was fed by underground springs, and judging by the flow of the outgoing river, the springs were numerous.
At any rate I decided that Lily Lake was the only safe place to take Baby. She didn't like the idea, but I insisted.
"Killer, there's nothing here but swamp," she protested.
"There's water," I said, "and a tiny patch of sand here near the boat ramp. Walk to the end of that little pier and jump in. There are no stumps right around in this area, I know."
"Killer, this won't be any fun. There's no room to swim and hardly enough sand to spread the blanket on."
"That's all right," I told her. "At least you can't get in trouble here."
"Oh, I can't, can't I?"
She ran out the short pier and dived into the water. She didn't come up immediately. I knew she was trying to hold her breath and swim underwater just to scare me, but I also knew that Baby was too poor a swimmer to horse around in the water, especially in Lily Lake. She could've become tangled in lily stems and drowned. I plunged in after her and looked in all directions.
Despite the amazing clarity of the water I could see her nowhere. I looked until my breath gave out, then came up. In the moment it took to gulp another breath I looked around to make sure Baby hadn't gone back to the shore.
The second time under I pushed aside a screen of lily stems and swam on toward the middle of the lake. Six or eight feet below me the bottom was boggy and choked with weeds.
In a number of places the weeds waved wildly from currents surging up from holes in the bottom. Could Baby have fallen into such a hole? The very thought filled me with terror. I swam toward one, but the force of the current pushed me away. I was relieved. At least I was sure then that Baby couldn't've fallen into one of them.
The second time I came up for breath I heard her giggling over near the pier. As soon as I saw that she was safe, my curiosity about the holes became the most important thing in my mind. I took another breath and went down again.
I swam just under the surface looking for a hole where the weeds were waving less violently. Finding one, I stepped over it, came up for breath again, and then plunged down and through it.
The hole through which I swam was about three feet in diameter, with hard rocky sides. Once through it I found myself in a dimly lit cavern, resembling a gigantic submerged ballroom. In the minute my breath lasted I could see that the roof of the cavern was solid rock, cut through with about a dozen holes of one to four feet in diameter.
Another breath and another descent. Once through the hole I ventured no deeper. For one thing I didn't have my ear plugs, and without them I didn't like to go deeper than twelve or fourteen feet.
Each time down I could see a little more, a little farther. The water was clear as air. The only problem was giving my eyes time to get accustomed to the gloomy twilight. I found that keeping them tightly closed when I came to the surface for air helped. My pupils could dilate without interruption.
During the first few plunges I spent my time peering at the top of the cavern. At length I turned my attention downward, and was filled with awe at what I saw.
Far beneath me, at least forty feet I judged, an underwater snowstorm was raging. From the mouth of a great cave a wild flurry of white shells or white flakes of something was being ejected with tremendous force. The floor of the basin in front of the cave was covered with the white "snow" and reflected what little light was able to penetrate through the holes in the rock roof.
I was so excited I could no longer hold my breath long enough to explore further at that time. I surfaced and swam full speed back to Baby.
"Didn't you see me, Killer? I've been yelling at you, trying to tell you I'm here. I thought you saw me a long time ago. But you kept going down again and again and again.
Are you mad at me, Killer?"
"Mad? Oh, Baby, I'm so happy I could kiss you all over your sweet and lovely body. Do you realize you just gave us our fortune and laid out our future?"
"No, Killer, but while you're still so grateful I'll get out of this bathing suit right away."
"What on earth for?" I asked, as she ripped the little bikini off and stood naked before me in less than a minute.
"So you can kiss me all over like you said," she gasped.
"Silly, that was just a figure of speech. Go cool off."
I pushed her toward the water and gave her a playful slap on that beautiful behind.
"Oh," she screamed, as she splashed into the cold spring water.
"I'll wait for you at the car," I yelled. "Get dressed."
She came to the car pouting.
"That was real mean, Killer. Pushing me in that cold water again after building up my hopes. Why do you have to be so mean to me? The least you could do is mean it when you promise me something like that."
"What do you think I am, Baby? A pervert? I told you, it was just an expression I used."
"But why not, Killer?" she wheedled. "That could be round two. We need a round two, and you said you didn't know of anything we could do for it. I think having you kiss me all over would be just perfect to come after hugging and kissing and before you take me. Why not, Killer? You do like my body, don't you? It would be such fun."
"Use the right word, Baby-perversion, not fun. Of course I think your body's delectable, but I also know what's normal. Can't you get your mind off sex for a minute and listen to my exciting news?"
"I'll try," she said, "but I know that nothing you could tell me'd make me as excited as I was when you were talking about kissing me all over."
"Anyway, Baby, we're going to make our fortune here at Lily Lake. I'll tell you about it on the way home. But you must keep it a secret for now. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Killer. I won't tell a soul."
"Honey, there's a gold mine at the bottom of that lake. You can't see anything but weeds when you look down from the surface, but once you go through one of the holes in the bottom you can see a spring that's more spectacular and beautiful than any in Florida. I mean it. I saw all the big ones there the last time we went down on vacation. They're all drawing the tourists like flies, but this one has them all beat."
"Really, Killer? Why, you'll be a millionaire."
"Well, I'm not that optimistic. After all, we can't grow palm trees here and our winters are cold and miserable. But I do think we can catch some of the tourists on the way down in the spring, summer, and fall. There's nothing else to see in this area, and tourists hate to drive for two or three days without anything to see or do. This'd be an ideal place for them to stop and break the monotony of the trip. A lot of them spend the night in the Carolinas now. We could get them to bed down right here by giving them a real attraction."
"But, Killer, you don't expect the tourists to swim through holes in the bottom of that swampy lake, do you?"
"Of course not. I'll have to dynamite away the whole top of that cavern and clean all the weeds and lilies out of the lake. Then the swamp around the lake will have to be drained and filled in. It's going to take a lot of work, Baby."
CHAPTER FIVE
Work it did take. Father, as I'd expected, wasn't interested in such monetary pursuits and gave the hundred acres to me, just like that. I rented two aqualungs and took Harding Fraser into the cavern with me. After that, capital was no problem.
The Frasers had kept their money in the family for more generations than anyone in Carolina could trace, and this was done by conservative investments and intelligent speculation. I knew before showing my find to Harding that he'd realize the potentiality of the attraction.
With all the money I needed to push work on the spring at full speed, the only real problem for me was time. Just finishing high school, I had my college and my military obligation ahead of me, yet I couldn't leave the development of Seaboard Spring-as I had named it-to anyone else.
I simply put the military obligation out of mind for the time being and decided that college would have to wait. I turned down numerous scholarships, having graduated as valedictorian of my class with the highest average ever attained in my school.
Vince Edwards, who finished with a "gentleman's average"-no higher than "B" nor lower than "D" on any subject-went off to North Carolina State in Raleigh.
Even Baby, who could never've finished high school without my help, was bound for college. Her father was set on it. He wanted her to attend Coker College in Hartsville, her mother's alma mater. But in response to my pleading Baby refused to leave home. I needed her near, not only so I could keep an eye on her, but because I couldn't bear the thought of being separated from her.
Seaboard County boasted its own college, the Pansy Fetnor Women's College, between Hamlet and Rockingham. Baby insisted upon enrolling there so she could live at home.
My relief was enormous. In addition to being able to protect her virtue, I was able to spare her the disgrace of flunking out. She could never've made it alone.
I spent my days at Seaboard Spring, supervising the blasting and clearing and other work. My evenings I spent with Baby, reading aloud, patiently explaining, repeating, practically pounding a college education into her pretty head.
When she did well on her homework I rewarded her with kisses, for Baby grew fonder and fonder of kisses, and, at the same time, grew more and more desperate for sexual fulfilment.
"It's so very hard on me, Killer," she said one evening. "You just don't know how much I want it. I feel like nothing else in the whole world matters but that, sometimes, and that I can't go on living if I can't have it. Why do we have to wait so long?"
"It's hard on me, too, Baby. Believe me, it is. But right is right and wrong is wrong and never the twain shall meet. One of these years we can be married. Until then, let's suffer nobly."
But Baby wasn't very noble in her suffering. She was always trying her best to seduce me, and had I not been a strong and moral man, I'm sure she'd've succeeded.
After blasting away the roof of the cavern beneath Lily Lake and clearing out the debris, I was left with a round basin forty feet deep and three hundred yards in diameter.
The walls of the basin rose perpendicularly for thirty feet. From the north wall, about fifteen feet from the bottom, there was a crevice in the rocks fifty feet wide and only one to four inches tall. It was from this crevice that the Spring issued, bringing with it a never ending supply of the chalky shell fragments.
Before the blasting, a portion of the basin's ceiling had arched over the crevice to give the appearance of a great cave, but removing this arch had made the spring itself more visible.
While the current surged across the basin to rise over the south wall and into the river beyond, the shell fragments were propelled various distances before falling to the basin floor. The heavier particles dropped in thick flurries within ten feet of the wall from which they issued, while the smaller ones fell less densely and more lazily over the entire basin.
Looking down on this dazzling spectacle from the glass-bottom boats was an experience which no tourist wanted to miss, but for dramatic effect, it couldn't compare with the superb view beneath the current from the floor of the basin itself. Near the bottom of the south wall you could see the whole fairyland scene spread before you-the snowfall on the underground meadow, which apparently extended for a great distance due to the dense precipitation of the heavier shells completely hiding the north wall.
To get the tourists to this spot was no easy problem. Not only was it forty feet below the surface of the water, but it was directly beneath the point where the basin emptied into the river.
At first I'd thought of renting aqualungs and allowing visitors to swim down, but this proved completely impractical. Aside from the danger to inexperienced skin divers and the problem of overcrowding, most tourists wouldn't want to go to all the bother of renting lockers and changing clothes.
Many other plans were considered before my engineers and I designed the Seaboard Submarines. These long cigar-shaped craft could seat twenty passengers side by side, each with a large plate-glass porthole. They had no power of their own but were carried from their dock on the west bank of the basin to the bottom of the south wall by cables. Large air and exhaust hoses kept them well ventilated and comfortable.
Not long after the first of these submarines was put into operation I discovered that it was impossible to set a time limit which would satisfy all twenty of the customers aboard. Some of them would drink in the wonder of the scene for half an hour, while others would grow restless after five or ten minutes, even with a view comparable to the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls.
As a result of this discontent on the part of certain customers, the germ of my idea for an underwater show was born. After various experiments and numerous auditions I had a thirty-minute show which quickly became famous.
All my performers wore aqualungs. We'd experimented with air hoses but had discarded them because the act had to be interrupted at minute intervals by the necessity of gulping air. The lungs, although cumbersome, allowed an uninterrupted performance. At the same time the masks protected the swimmers' eyes from the shell fragments.
Twelve muscular and handsome young men made up my team of underwater acrobats, or Aquabats, as I named them. They had a repertoire of precision drills, close formation swimming, and stunts which were a marvel to see.
Twelve young women, each shapely enough to draw whistles despite the lungs and masks, provided the subterranean ballet numbers. These I named the Snow Maidens, for they closed each show with an exquisite number called the "Dance of the Falling Flakes."
With separate admissions for the jungle cruise, the glass-bottom boat ride, the submarine dive with the underwater show, and the tour of the authentic Cherokee Indian Village I'd built at the bend of Lily River, or Seaboard River as I'd renamed it, my fortune grew rapidly. In addition I had the revenue from the luxurious restaurant, the many refreshment stands, the souvenir shops, and my two ultra-modern motels.
Accustomed to a Spartan existence as the son of a preacher who was completely indifferent to earthly wealth, I didn't indulge myself in sensual pleasures or squander my money. I continued reinvesting it in Seaboard Spring, but I was beginning to feel rather secure, financially.
At Baby's graduation from Pansy Fetnor no one was prouder than me. She barely passed her final exams, it's true, but I felt I'd accomplished something truly phenomenal to get her through at all. In order to do it I'd been forced to acquire a most thorough college education myself.
Baby came to work for me at the Spring. At first she wanted a job in keeping with her college degree, but when I told her I was going to give her a chance to display her marvelous body she forgot all about her degree in her haste to get back into a bathing suit.
Not wanting to dismiss any of my Snow Maidens to make room for her, I put Baby on as a thirteenth member of the troupe. In this case thirteen was a lucky number. Baby took to underwater ballet so well, and her beauty was so extraordinary, even in an aqualung, that the choreographer made her the star of the show, with the title of Snow Queen.
After the Snow Maidens were featured in the movie "Carolina Holiday," Baby became a celebrity, appearing on the cover of the country's leading magazines, with additional pin-up poses of her in dozens of other magazines every month.
Baby gloried in all the attention she was getting, and thrilled to the idea of having millions of men lusting after her body.
"Oh, Killer," she used to say, "don't you think it's exciting? Just think, all over the country men can see my pictures, and soldiers and sailors carry pin-ups of me to all sorts of lonely places in the world. Ohhh, just think; at this very moment there might be hundreds of handsome boys having sex dreams about me."
"I wish I could get my hands on them," I growled. "I'd break their necks. I'd teach them to keep their filthy thoughts off my woman. ' '
"Silly," she giggled, "you couldn't fight them all, and you can't go around punching men just because of what they're thinking."
"No?" I said. "Well, Baby, I could sure try. I could do that much, at least."
"Are you really that jealous?"
"Of course I am. You know I'm crazy about you."
"Then why don't you marry me?" she pouted. "You can't say you can't afford it. You're worth millions now."
"Baby, you know I can't marry you before I go into the service. And I do have to go, millions or not. I can't buy my way out of that. I've been so busy building and expanding Seaboard Spring that I've kept my fingers crossed hoping I wouldn't be drafted right away. But I do have to go-and soon now."
"Why, Killer? Why do we have to wait until you get back?"
"Because you haven't grown up yet, Baby. You're not emotionally mature enough. If I married you now and introduced you to sexual intercourse, what would you do when I went away to the service?"
"I'd wait for you, Killer, that's what."
"You'd try, but you couldn't, Baby. You've got hot pants, and hot pants is a sign of emotional immaturity. Sex is just one of the minor aspects of life, really, and shouldn't concern a normal mature person more than a few minutes a day."
"Oh, Killer, you're so wrong. I think about it all the time, and at night I dream about it."
"That's exactly what I mean," I said. "You need to grow up. The only reason you're still a virgin is because of my eternal vigilance ever since you reached puberty. Why, if I married you now and then went away for two years, there's no telling how many men you'd have in my bed before I came back. As it is, Baby, you might not wait for me, but I've got to put you to the test.
"I love you but I can't go on just guarding you all my life. I've got to be able to trust you. If I can leave you here unsupervised for two years and return to find you still virtuous and waiting for me, I'll know it's safe to marry you. If you can't pass the test-well, it'd be better to find out before instead of after marriage."
"But two years! Killer, that's such a long time. You could join one of those six-months things. Some of the boys went away for just six months and then go to meetings once a week for seven and a half years. Can't you do that?"
"I wish I could, Baby, I really do. I hate to leave my business for so long, and I hate to leave you for so long. But it's too late for me to do that. Those six-month programs are for young men seventeen and eighteen years old. I'm twenty-four now. The best I can do is two years of active duty."
"Oh, Killer, I'll try to wait for you. If I only can! I just think I'll die, though, if I have to wait until after I'm twenty-six to have you do it to me. I'll bet I've wanted sex worse than any girl in town, and I'm the only one who got to be a twenty-four-year-old virgin. It's awful, Killer, just awful. Even that ugly Louetta Rollins brags that she gave her cherry to a soldier. Most of my classmates are already married and I'm still an old maid."
"You're not old," I laughed. "You're still a baby-my Baby."
"But I'm not, Killer. Just because I'm not very bright you think I'm a little girl. I may be dumb, Killer, but Pm not a little girl. I've got a fire in my pants and you won't do anything to put it out. You won't give me round three or even round two. Just round one like the teen-agers."
"Nevertheless, I know right from wrong, and I must be demanding on you because I demand a great deal from myself and a great deal from life. I want a mature, moral, steadfast wife. Do you wish to be her?"
"Yes, oh, yes, Killer. I love you!"
"Then wait for me," I said. "When I get back, I'll marry you. Then-round three. I've told you there's not any round two. But round three you shall have on the first night of our honeymoon."
CHAPTER SIX
About a week before I was due to leave for the Navy, my employees threw a big party for me at the Spring. I knew that few of them liked me personally. I paid none of them more than what I considered a reasonable salary and I demanded what I considered good services. That was my policy and, as I say, I don't think they liked me for it. But they threw the party anyway. They loved parties.
After an insincere rendering of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," the party disintegrated into little groups of friends. In my group there was Baby and John Lorre, my trusted manager who was going to run things in my absence.
"Not a happy-looking group," I observed. "Why did they bother with this make-believe merriment? I suppose most of them need to drug their senses with vile alcohol to have a good time. At least they've learned better than to bring the vile stuff on my property."
"Want me to get us some punch, Killer?" Baby asked.
"I'll get it. John, while I'm away I expect you to look after the moral welfare of this place, as well as the business welfare."
"W-well," he stammered, "I'm not qualified to judge. You k-know I-"
"I haven't asked you to do any judging," I snapped back. "Just enforce my rules, that's all. No drinking. No smoking in front of the customers. Keep the Aquabats away from the Snow Maiden's quarters. Need I make you a list?"
"That won't be necessary," he said. "Now, if you'll excuse me-"
"Sure, run along. Baby and I're going to get a glass of punch and then slip away ourselves."
I watched him stride away and laughed. He was no fonder of me than were the others. But he was a good man. I paid him thirty thousand a year and he thought he was worth twice that much.
"Well, Baby, at least you look a little sad to see me leaving. Come on, cheer up. Have a glass of punch."
"Oh, Killer, how can I cheer up?" she moaned. "When you're gone I won't even have round one to keep me going. I just don't know what I'm going to do."
"You're going to do what's right, that's what. Mmmm, this punch is good. What's it have in it?"
"Grapefruit juice and grape juice and something else," she said. "I can taste the grapefruit juice and see the grape juice and smell the something else. Smells like perfume."
"Yes, I can smell it too, now that you mention it. Mmmm, it's so cooling and refreshing. I'm ready for another glass. How about you?"
"Uh huh," she mumbled through moistened lips.
While we were sipping our second glasses, someone turned the lights down low and couples started dancing.
"Oh, Killer, isn't this romantic? Dance with me?"
"You know I've never been much for dancing in pub-Oh, very well. But wait until we finish these and get a refill."
We danced on the platform around the ticket booths. The dim lights were glimmering on the surface of the Spring and soft music was playing, and I remember feeling so pleasantly dizzy and happy.
"That was over too soon," Baby complained. "You'll have to dance with me again."
"All you wish, Baby," I murmured. "But first let's have another glass of punch."
During the next dance, there was even more of a magic spell on the evening. I sang aloud with the music and everyone smiled at me. I held Baby much closer than I'd ever dared to do in public, but I didn't think anyone would be embarrassed because I'd noticed the Aquabats holding the Snow Maidens in highly intimate embraces.
"Whoops, Baby, I almost stumbled. Lesh not dance any more. Lesh get some punch and sit in one of the boats and hug and kiss."
On the way to the boats I felt the firm platform swaying crazily beneath my feet.
"This one," I said. "Lesh get in and siddown. ' '
"Killer, watch your step," Baby said. "Oh, Killer, we don't want to bother that couple. Ohhh, doesn't it look wonderful, what they're doing?"
"Wonnerful," I said. "Lesh get that inna show. Unnerwater. See't trooda portholes o' da shubmarines."
"We're making them self-conscious, Killer. Let's try to find a boat that's not being used."
The platform spun crazily under my feet and the whole funny wonderful world rolled around and around and around. I couldn't see where I was going, but I didn't care. Baby was leading me. I loved the whole world and everything and everyone in it.
The music grew fainter and the lights dimmer and everything became peaceful and quiet and dark ... as in a deep long sleep.
I opened my eyes and saw patterns of diffused sunlight on my bedroom ceiling. I turned and looked out the window at the wild bird feeding station I'd built in the big water oak.
Several sparrows were still pecking at the seed. A mocking bird, having finished his meal, was warbling a song of the Old South. Two bluebirds were sitting together on a nearby limb rubbing against each other affectionately.
Oh, what a beautiful day, I sighed to myself, rolling over voluptuously and hugging Baby's delightfully smooth cool body to my own. In her half-awakened state she purred and nestled her head on my shoulder so that her silky hair tickled my cheek.
Baby. Baby??? Baby!!!!!!
In my bed! I sprang from it as though it were a bed of hot coals. She sprang to a sitting position and eyed me curiously.
"What's the matter, Killer?"
"What are-pull that sheet up over your breasts-you doing here in my bed?"
At that moment I realized for the first time that I was standing completely naked in front of her. I dived head first under the bed. Peeking out, I saw my trousers thrown across a chair. I reached out cautiously, retrieved them, put them on, and crawled out.
"What do you mean, Killer? Why are you acting so funny this morning?"
"Funny? Funny? And just how should I act to wake up and find you in my bed-and-and neither one of us with any clothes on? It would be shocking enough to find myself in a motel with you, but here-here in my parents' house! What happened, Baby? Did someone put alcohol in that punch? Tell me, did I get drunk last night?"
"Oh, Killer, you mean you don't remember anything that happened since the party?"
"I'm afraid not," I said. "I certainly don't remember bringing you here. How did I ever sneak you past Mother and Father? Whatever possessed me to bring you here? Even if Satan had me in his grip I should've exercised more discretion. Oh, for goodness' sake, what a mess. Did I?"
"Did you what?"
"Violate you?"
"Killer, you mean you don't remember a thing since the party?"
"No."
"Then you might as well crawl back in bed and let me tell you all about it."
"I'd feel safer to stay right here, thank you. Baby, I want to assure you, if I've compromised you, you know I'll do what's right by you. I'll have Father marry us right away. It will break his heart to know that I've come to this, but he'll know there's nothing else we can do now."
"Don't worry about that, Killer. We're married."
"Married? That's impossible! You can't just go off in the middle of the night and get married. They have laws designed to protect people against impulsive marriages. Even in South Carolina you have to apply for a license and wait a day."
"Killer," she said wearily, "this is Thursday."
"But last night was Friday. Thursday? A whole week? Oh, no! I give up!"
I crawled out from under the bed and sank down beside her.
"I remember we saw an Aquabat and a Snow Maiden in one of the glass-bottom boats-and then-start from there."
"The glass-bottom boats were all being used," she said. "So were the jungle cruisers. But we found a submarine. Oh, what a happy night! Round two in a submarine. And you were so romantic about it. You said nice poetic things about each part of me before you kissed it. An ode to one nipple, a sonnet to the other, a funny little limerick about my navel, and a long, lovely eulogy to the silken delta you discovered between my thighs. Oh, Killer, after that poem you didn't say another word all night long. You closed the watertight door and pressed the button and the submarine dived, and you dived, and I found heaven at the bottom of Seaboard Spring that night."
"The word is perversion," I said gloomily. "Go on."
"When the sun came up you came up and pressed the button, and the submarine came up and I looked out and saw Aquabats and Snow Maidens getting out of different boats and going toward their quarters. I put my arms around you and said, "Where to now, my lover?' And you said, "We're going to take off from here and find us a motel somewhere so nobody can disturb us', and I said, "Oh, yes, Killer, let's do that'. And we did."
"Where?"
"Somewhere in South Carolina. I don't even remember. You weren't too drunk to drive, Killer. You didn't act drunk at all. But you did act different. You were soooo sweet. You didn't fuss about a single thing, and nothing was too good for your Baby. You seemed to know everything I wanted and gave it to me before I could even ask."
"Go on, get to the marriage part."
"You proposed and I said "yes', and you gave me this big diamond solitaire. You weren't too drunk to get a check cleared and cashed. We went down to apply for our license on Monday and we got married on Tuesday."
"Where?"
"Cheraw-no, Bennettesville, I believe."
"Well, don't you know?"
"Well, I'm just not sure, Killer. You must have the papers somewhere on you."
"Forget it," I said. "I'll find it later. The important thing is that it's done. I hadn't planned it this way, but "He who sows wild oats must reap his bitter harvest'. I suppose you're happy now. You've had your round two and-three."
"Oh, no, Killer, not round three. You tried, but couldn't. But I have no complaints. You were sooooo good to me with round two. Killer, did your coach ever tell you your technique in round two is simply divine?"
"For Christ's sake-Oh, God forgive me my blasphemous language, but this is enough to try the patience of a saint. What do you mean, "no round three'? What do you mean, "I tried, but couldn't'?"
"That's right, Killer. Romantic, but limp. Maybe a doctor could help."
"Doctor, schmoctor! I don't need any doctor! I'm as virile as a man could be. Now that you're my wife, there's only one thing to do."
"What?"
"Consummate our marriage! I'll show you who can and who can't. Do I look limp?"
I threw off the trousers and stood before her.
"Heavens, no! Oh, Killer, it must be that alcohol makes you that way. What do you call it? Impo-"
"Impotent is the word, but it doesn't apply to me. You might be right. Let's see, six days. Do you think alcohol could stay in my system six days? It must."
Baby threw back the sheet and lay naked before me.
I gasped and reached for her.
There was a loud knocking on the door. "Son, you're going to miss your plane," my father yelled. "You'd better hurry."
"Plane? What plane?" I whispered to Baby. "Killer, have you forgotten you have to be in Great Lakes, Illinois, before midnight?"
"Oh, no!" I muttered, then yelled, "Thanks, Father. We're getting up."
I muttered curses of disappointment and then asked Baby:
"What did they think about our marriage?"
"Your father was disappointed because we didn't let him marry us, but I think he understands."
"I'd better hurry. I don't want to start my naval career off by being AWOL. They're going to make it rough enough for me, anyway, my being successful and all."
Baby went to the plane with me and clung to me the few minutes before I had to board.
"You've got to pass the test now, Baby. You're my wife, and I couldn't bear to have an unfaithful wife. You've got to wait for me."
"I'll try, Killer," she wept. "I really will. I'll try as hard as I know how."
"Can't you say something a little more encouraging than that?"
John Lorre came running up to the plane. "Goodbye, Mr. Flint," he puffed. "I want to thank you again for the raise."
"What raise?"
He laughed.
"Increase a man's salary by thirty thousand dollars a year and then ask, "What raise?' That's a good one."
I looked questioningly at Baby.
"It's like I said, Killer. Alcohol makes you sooo agreeable."
CHAPTER SEVEN
I'd've given the Navy half my wealth to release me from my military obligation at that time. It wasn't that I lacked patriotism; it was simply that I couldn't get my mind off Baby.
Up to the time of my going-away party I'd been rather strong in my patience, waiting for what Baby and I referred to as round three. But once I realized that we were already married, consummating the marriage became an obsession. I could think of nothing else.
Other than this, recruit training was actually relaxing. They worked me only half as hard as I'd been working myself. I'd never pampered myself with luxuries, and ever since my graduation from high school I'd continued the rigorous training schedule of a boxer.
I lived only for my ten days of leave at the end of training. Each night I dreamed of holding Baby's naked body in my arms and making her my wife in deed as well as in name.
One evening I found an eighteen-year-old trainee ogling a pin-up picture of Baby in her Snow Queen costume, without the aqualung. I stopped and looked sternly at him.
"To lust after a woman in your mind is to commit adultery in your heart," I said.
He looked up at me, his jaw hanging open in surprise.
"What's eating you, Mac?" he said.
"The name's Bruce, or Killer, if you prefer-not Mac. That happens to be my wife you're lusting after, and I won't have it."
He said a very shocking thing to me. He told me to go have intercourse with myself, only he used a very crude and revolting word in doing so.
"The word is-Oh, never mind what the word is," I said. "You've insulted me grossly and I'll be forced to teach you a lesson."
"You queer or something, Mac? I didn't think big strong bastards like you went that way but you sure talk like a fairy. Lay your filthy mitts on me and I'll see that you spend your boot leave in the brig. I got plenty witnesses that I'm just sitting here minding my own business dreaming about this nice piece of tail. I don't know whether you're defecating (this wasn't the word he used) me up or not about this pudenda (again not his word) being yours, but I do know there's not a man in the United States Navy that wouldn't give his balls to get into her pants and tear him off a piece of this."
If he hadn't mentioned my leave I'd never have allowed him to finish his speech. But I couldn't afford to get into any trouble which would cost me my precious leave. At the same time I had to teach the young man a lesson.
"You speak with such confidence," I said. "Confidence is good and bravery is better, but foolhardiness is just what the name implies-foolish."
With that I grabbed him under the shoulders, lifted him up and held him over my head. Balancing him on my right hand, I held him aloft with one arm while I crumpled the picture of Baby with my left hand. Then I put him down.
"I don't see any need to fight, do you?" I asked him;
"Hell, no, you bastard," he snarled. "I can get another picture of her, and I will. Millions of guys have them right now, lusting after her, like you say. Think of that. And you know what, you big bully? I hope some guy's laying her right now. Think of that, Mac."
I did think of it, in my nightmares that night and for many nights to come. But each day her letters reassured me that she was behaving. Baby was weak, I knew; but she was no liar. If she succumbed to temptation, she'd tell me, even knowing that it must mean a termination of our marriage.
The only disconcerting thing about her letters was the surprise she kept promising me when I came home on leave. She wouldn't give me the slightest hint as to what it would be.
It can't be a baby, I thought. Thank goodness for that much.
The day finally came. I took a train to Chicago and a cab to the airport. It was a foggy, miserable day. Planes were grounded and would undoubtedly remain grounded at least for several hours.
I checked my sea bag at the terminal and hailed a cab outside.
"Find me a small, clean bar," I told the driver.
"Any special kind, Mac. You looking for a woman?' '
"No," I assured him. "I have a few hours to kill, so I'm going to put them to good use. There's something I've been meaning to do. A little experiment to protect me. A quiet bar will do."
I didn't give him any further explanation, but I did give a tip large enough to make him forget any curiosity I might've aroused.
"Do you have a telephone?" I asked the bartender.
"Sure, Mac. You want to make a call?"
"Not now, later. I want to check with the airport every now and then. Meanwhile, I'd like to taste some different kinds of alcoholic beverages. Just a small amount of each. Rum, gin, whisky-you know them better than I. Just a little of each, so that I can recognize them in the future."
"Let's see your ID card."
"Don't I look my age?" I asked. "Most people think I look thirty. I'm twenty-four."
"Sure," he said, glancing at the card. "But we can't go by looks. They fool you sometimes. Now look, you want a shot of gin, a shot of rum, and a shot of bourbon, right?"
"How much is in a shot?"
He held a shot glass in front of me.
"That looks about right," I said. "Any less than that and I couldn't taste it at all. I want them one at a time."
"Chaser?"
"No, I want to drink them by themselves. I'm only doing this in order to acquaint myself with the distinctive taste of each beverage, so that I'll know it in the future. I want to make sure no one ever sabotages me again by taking advantage of my ignorance."
"Okay," he said. "This one is bourbon."
"It's hot," I said, gulping it down. "How can anyone enjoy such awful-tasting stuff?"
"Gin," he said, sliding another shot glass in front of me.
"Looks like water," I said. "Smells like perfume. Would you believe it-someone mixed some of this-what you call it, gin-with some grapefruit juice and grape juice and I didn't even know I was drinking alcohol?"
"Purple Jesus."
I looked around.
"Where?"
"The drink," he said. "Purple Jesus. That is what you call gin mixed with grapefruit and grape juice. An old college drink."
"Why should Purple Jesus go to college?"
"It's disguised," he said. "It looks harmless, smells harmless, tastes harmless, but it's potent. A young coed who's never had any before might drink it without realizing she's getting loaded. No telling how many campus seductions Purple Jesus has helped along."
"Ugh! This gin has a sickening taste by itself."
"Here," he said, "chase it with this brandy. This is apple brandy. You want to try the peach brandy too?"
"Might as well taste them all while I'm at it," I said. "Then in the future I can be on guard."
"Yeah," he said, shaking his head, "I guess you can."
After the peach brandy my throat was on fire.
"Ish hot," I said. "Gimme some ice inna glash. Wha's at liddle ol' ball-headed fat man looking a' me sho funny about? C'mere, mate, an' I'll buy ya a drink."
"Sure, friend," he said, moving to the stool next to me. "I didn't mean to stare, but I've never seen anyone drinking just the way you have been going about it. Why-"
"Ish a long story," I said.
I started telling him the long story. The room was behaving as if made of rubber, stretching itself into slightly distorted shapes and refusing to stay still.
"Coul' a li'l sip or two make a fellow intosh-intoxish-make a fella drunk?" I muttered, not believing what was happening to me.
He probably answered me, but I can't remember hearing him.
All I can recall is the blanket of silence and darkness and peace enveloping me again, as it had done on the night of my going-away party.
I was awakened by a knocking on the door. I opened my eyes and stared up at a ceiling I'd never seen before, a ceiling covered in dirty, white wallpaper. I sat up and looked around.
Apparently I had taken an afternoon nap on a living room couch. The garish floral designs of the wallpaper, the ugly overstuffed furniture, the paper window shades-everything was foreign to me.
The knocking sounded again at the door.
Perhaps if I answer the door I'll remember, I thought. No, I never remembered anything that happened the last time I had alcohol. But maybe I can at least find out where I am.
I half-stumbled to the door, not, knowing why I stumbled, too interested in getting there.
I opened it and he stepped inside. The little fat bald man. He had a bouquet of flowers and a newspaper. He gave the flowers to me and kissed me on the cheek.
I dropped the flowers and stared at him in astonishment. He was beaming at me. He picked up the flowers again and gave them to me.
"Put them in water, honey," he cooed. "They'll stay pretty for my pretty one."
At that moment I saw the mirror over the fireplace behind him. Strange, I could see the back of his head in the mirror, but I couldn't see myself. Where I should've been reflected, there was a very large woman towering above the little fat man. She was staring at me from the mirror as though she couldn't believe that I was really there.
I pushed the little man aside and walked over to the mirror.
It's me, all right, I thought.
I tore the wig off my head and threw it in the fireplace. I tried to rub the lipstick off on the arm of my dress, but I merely smeared it across my face.
"Hand me that paper," I said to the little man, who was watching me in amazement.
He gave me the paper without a word.
"Oh, no, not that," I moaned, seeing the date on the paper. "My leave-all gone. I've got to be back at the Receiving Station tonight."
"We knew it couldn't last, honey," the little man said meekly. "We knew it was just for ten days, but I didn't think you'd carry on like this. I'm all broken up, too, but we have to take it as it comes. It's certainly been a wonderful honeymoon while it lasted."
I was trying hard not to hit him until I finished talking to him and finding out as much as I could about the past ten days.
"You kept feeding me whisky, didn't you?" I demanded.
"No, honey, you know I didn't," he protested. "We haven't touched a drop in-let's see, five or six days now."
"You miserable little runt," I said, "how could you take advantage of me like that?"
"Me? Now listen, honey, don't go blaming me for anything. You might have regrets now, but ten days ago nothing was too good for me. I was-you said I was-your man. You said I was handsome and strong and you said-don't you remember?"
"No, what did I say?"
"You said-Oh, you remember. You said a honeymoon with me would be a honeymoon in heaven."
That's when I swung. The dirty little bastard! Ten days of catering to his sordid wishes! I knew I'd throw up later, but at the moment all I could think about was smashing his fat ugly face to a pulp.
It was then I realized I was wearing highheeled slippers. The force of the swing threw me off balance, and when he ducked I stumbled around on them and fell. By the time I could kick them off and get to my feet again he was out the door and running down the hall.
I chased him through the apartment building, but at the front door I stopped. I dared not be seen on a public sidewalk dressed, or half-dressed, as I was.
I'll come back here later sometime and beat him half to death, I thought. Ten days! I wonder if I cooked the bastard's meals and got him off to work. Goddamn him. God forgive me for saying that, but do damn him. He deserves it. I wonder how many sins and perversions were committed here.
I looked around for the bathroom but I didn't see it. I threw up right there in the middle of the living room floor, all over his cheap cotton rug. I heaved again and again and again.
Dirty little bastard! It will serve him right to have to clean it up, I thought.
I ripped the dress and lingerie from my body and tore everything to shreds.
I found my uniform and sea bag in the bedroom closet. My wallet was in the pocket of my jumper. He hadn't taken my money.
Outside I hailed a cab and had the driver take me to the station. Before catching the train back to Great Lakes I called home.
"Where in the world have you been?" my father asked. "We waited for you and called the Navy. They said you departed on leave as scheduled. We didn't know-"
"Let me talk to Baby first," I cut in. "She's not here," he said. "She wanted to surprise you, son, but now the surprise is spoiled, anyway, so I'll tell you. Baby joined the Navy so she could be near you. She left this morning."
CHAPTER EIGHT
I reported into the Great Lakes Receiving Station and spent a miserable evening in a barracks with others who'd just reported in and hadn't been granted liberty. Many of them were playing cards. Others were reading, sleeping, or listening to radios. A few were sitting around talking in loud voices, trying to be heard above the noise and confusion.
Both reading and sleeping were impossible for me. I was forced to lie awake in misery, hearing conversations that were of no interest to me. In one of these the subject of homosexuality came up. One young man boasted that it was great sport to "lead a fairy on until I get him alone, then beat hell out of him and take his money."
He was given a reprimand by another, who seemed to be somewhat of an authority on the subject of abnormal psychology. He spoke sympathetically of those whose desires were orientated toward members of their own sex.
I listened until the group went on to other subjects, then sauntered over to the one who seemed to have such knowledge of homosexuals.
"Tell me," I said to him, "how do you know so much about these perverted people?"
"Purely academic," he laughed. "I'm not a queer myself, if that's what you're driving at."
"No, of course not," I assured him, "but I've often wondered-merely idle curiosity-what in the devil do these homosexual men do together?"
He stared quizzically at me.
"As a matter-of-fact," he said at last, "there's a greater degree of choice than most people think. Now, you take the French fairies-"
You take them, I thought. I don't want any part of them.
"-they are generally inclined to mutual masturbation. It's standard among them.
"That's bad, I thought. Imagine my hand.
"Then the British homosexuals greatly prefer sodomy, or anal intercourse."
That's worse, I thought. Imagine my-
"Then the American pansy almost invariably wants active or passive fellatio, or mouth-genital contact."
That's the worst, I thought. Imagine-no, I can't imagine. I don't want to imagine.
"Now, in Italy-"
"Excuse me," I said, walking away.
That little fat bastard was no Italian, I thought. He's as American as apple pie. There I go, thinking about fruit again.
I tried to forget about what the psychology student had told me, but, in spite of myself, I brushed my teeth much more thoroughly and gargled longer than usual that night.
"How long will we be here?" I asked the master-at-arms of my barracks, the next morning.
"Few days," mumbled the tired old Chief Sonarman. "Except for the ones who pull mess cook duty."
"I don't think I have to worry about that," I said.
He looked questioningly at me.
"Why not?"
"Surely they assign men according to ability," I said. "My scores on the tests-General Classification and all the others-were the highest ever made at this command, they told me. I could've chosen any service school the Navy has."
"Which one'd you pick?"
"None. After all, what could they teach me? I have only a high school education, officially, but actually I've acquired an education equivalent to seven or eight years of college."
"Oh? Well, that's fine, but don't tell nobody that if you get put on mess cook duty. They're liable to put you on the grease pit. I remember back about nineteen years ago I got too smart and they put me on it. I wouldn't want to go through with that again."
"That's different," I said. "Evidently you aren't overly intelligent or you wouldn't have such a simple job as being master-at-arms in a barracks."
He grew so angry I feared he was going to swallow his cigar stub. As it were, he bit it half in two, the lighted end falling on the floor.
"No, I ain't gonna get mad and blow my stack," he muttered, more to himself than to me. "I ain't gonna cuss or carry on or even give this simple bastard a piece of my mind. But I'm gonna see that he mess cooks if it's the last thing I do in this man's Navy."
He walked away cursing under his breath. What's the matter with him? I thought. I don't mind admitting that I'm superior. Why should he not want to admit that he's inferior? It should be a relief for him not to have to share the great responsibilities which we more gifted men must carry. Poor man actually seems to think that he has the power to make a mess cook of me-Bruce Flint, the Bruce Flint, finder and founder of Seaboard Spring.
When this same inferior being read my name along with others selected for the mess cook detail, I didn't bother arguing with him. Obviously he was suffering from delusions of grandeur and had simply added my name to the list himself.
Immediately after muster I strode rapidly across the muddy field to the administration building. I didn't bother stopping to chat with the yeomen in the outer office. Had I not made it my practice to go straight to the man in charge, I could never've turned a swampy lake into a multi-million-dollar tourist attraction in six short years.
Commander Orville Hohl was sipping black coffee from an oversized cup and reading the Chicago Tribune when I charged in. Before I could state my business he was on his feet, pointing to my muddy shoes.
"Son, don't you know better than to burst into a commander's office? You see my yeoman outside, not me. But first you get a swab and clean that mud off my deck."
"The word is floor," I said.
He grew even angrier. He looked at the two small stripes on my arm.
"You're a seaman apprentice," he said. "You've finished boot camp. Didn't they teach you that you're in the Navy?"
"Certainly, but that doesn't license me to misuse the American language. Ships have decks. Buildings have floors. This is a building. This," I said, stamping my muddy right foot again, "is a floor."
His eyes opened wide and he choked with words that would not come. He leaned on his desk for support, overturning his coffee.
"Calm yourself," I said. "You look sick. Don't worry about the floor. I'll pay one of the yeomen to clean it up for you. Now, for my business. There's been a mistake. My name was inadvertently placed on the list for mess cook duty. Simply correct this error and I'll forget the whole incident, Mr. Hohl."
The name was what gave him back his strength.
"Mister?" he roared. "Fourteen years I waited to make commander-and you call me mister! How can one person be so stupid?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"I'm Commander Hohl. One of these years I'll be Captain Hohl. Since I never expect to make admiral, I'll be Captain Hohl, USN, Retired, for the rest of my life. I'll never be Mr. Hohl again."
Again I shrugged my shoulders, but he paid no attention.
"As a junior officer no one ever called me Ensign Hohl or Lieutenant Hohl. Never. Always they called me Mr. Hohl. The idiots thought it sounded funny. For fourteen years I had to put up with that Mr. Hohl business. The deck swabbies even had some silly limerick about "Mr. Hohl, with his pole, that's the story I been told'. Well, they can't sing that any more. Those days are gone forever, thank God. I'll never be a mister again. I'm-"
"No!" I exclaimed. "And they let you stay in the Navy? You don't mean to stand there and tell me that you went to Sweden and had one of those awful operations?"
"No, you idiot!" he shouted, almost crying. "How could anybody be dumb enough to call me mister again? See that gold-plated, hand engraved name plate on my desk? It says Commander Orville Hohl. Commander, not mister! I stopped being a mister when I was promoted to commander."
"I still don't understand," I said. "Was it in the war? If you didn't have them cut off, they must've been shot off."
"No!" he screamed, now violently. "I've still got them! But I'm not a mister! I've still got them! Here, I'll show you, you silly ignorant swabbie!"
He unbuckled his belt, dropped his trousers, and exposed himself to me. It was at this moment that the yeomen from the outer office, attracted by his furious screaming, rushed in and stood aghast.
He looked back at them and froze, his mania fleeing, cold sober fear replacing it.
"Look, fellows," he said, blushing, "it's not what you think. I-well, sure, I might've had a few drinks on duty. That's a bad thing, I know, but it's not as bad as what you might have thought when you first rushed in here. Which one of you has never hit the bottle once in a while on Uncle Sam's time? You wouldn't report a shipmate for drinking, would you?"
The yeomen stood there saying nothing. He glanced fearfully and furtively from one to another. He seemed to've forgotten all about me.
"I know," he said sheepishly, "at times maybe you think I haven't acted much like a shipmate, huh? You're right, too. This goddamn gold braid and scrambled eggs on my hat might've gone to my head at times. We'll sure as hell do something about that. Ha, ha, ha, we've all been working too hard around here. A few more special liberties would do us all some good. Oh, excuse me while I pull these pants up. This old belt never was reliable. I'll have to buy a new-"
"What about me?" I asked, loud and clear.
He smiled at me, with his hate and fury well concealed, then nodded to the yeoman first class.
"Take this boy off mess cook duty," he said. "He's got a sick grandmother down in Norfolk. We can't have him up here mess cooking while his poor old grandmother's pining away down there. Let's get him transferred. Right now. Let's get him on his way to Norfolk before another hour has passed. Get right to work on his orders, Conger," he said again. "I'm going over right now and get a new batch of special liberty passes. Step lively, now, and get this boy on his way to Norfolk. As soon as you do that, you can take off on a seventy-two-hour liberty."
"Thank you, Mr. Hohl," I said, departing.
"That's all right, son," he smiled furiously. "Think nothing of it. After all, we're all shipmates in the same Navy."
CHAPTER NINE
Upon my arrival at the Base in Norfolk I was again assigned mess cook duties. By this time I'd accepted the fact that to the Navy I was just another seaman apprentice and that it would be futile to demand an assignment worthy of my capabilities. I resigned myself to being a mess cook.
After all, I said to myself, this is splendid training in humility. Humility is a good quality to develop. My early success has made it difficult for me to feel humble. After all, when I realize that ninety-nine percent of all those around me will not earn, in the whole course of their lives, as much as I've earned in one month, well, humility is hard to come by.
A Navy mess cook, on the other hand, is life's most miserable creature. He rises in the middle of the night, still weary from the toil of the previous day, to shuffle unenthusiastically to the drab and dreary mess hall, where he'll be occupied for fourteen consecutive hours with menial and uninspiring tasks all designed to help an endless horde of uniformed men stuff an incalculable quantity of unappetizing food into their cheerless faces.
As long as Baby was away at Officer Candidate School, I endured, hoping for nothing better, knowing that life could offer nothing worse.
After seventeen long weeks Baby's training was over, and she wrote me that she was being assigned to the Naval Air Reserve Training Unit at Buckroe City, Virginia.
Money talks, I thought. At least I've always heard that it does. Perhaps bribery is sinful, but the holiness of consummating a marriage will cancel out the sin.
Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice bribery is a criminal offense. For that reason I didn't dare make a direct offer to the yeoman on the district transfer desk. I decided to broach the matter through an intermediary, one of the Chief Commissarymen in my mess hall.
"Do you think it would be difficult for a bright young seaman apprentice to get a transfer to Buckroe City?" I casually asked him.
"Mac, it would not only be difficult, it would be impossible. No barracks there. So they gotta give you S and Q."
"What's that?"
"Subsistence and quarters. A cash allowance so you can live and eat in town. It beats the hell out of barracks life. That's why everybody's busting his balls to get to places like that. You gotta know somebody."
"Do you know anybody?"
"If I did, do you think I'd be in this mother -* * * * * * * (he used that detestable word) place?"
"I've heard that money talks-"
He roared with laughter.
"Not the kind of money a seaman apprentice gets paid."
"I had a little when I came in," I said. "I have three thousand I don't need any more. Of course I don't know anybody anyway. I was hoping that you knew a yeoman on the transfer desk who needed a new car. I mean, if you didn't get a big car with all the accessories, you'd have a few hundred left over. I wouldn't care about that part. Whatever happened to be left over would be yours, whether it was a little or a lot."
"New car, my ass," he said. "He'll take a goddamn color TV and be glad to get it. You go get that money and then start packing your sea bag."
"Here's a thousand," I said. "The other two when I get my orders to Buckroe City." The next day I gave him the other two thousand and departed.
I reported into the Naval Air Reserve Training Unit and was immediately put to work waxing floors in the administration building.
Perhaps I should've accepted a school, I thought. But, no, I can put up with anything if I'm going to be with Baby. She should arrive any day.
Baby hadn't joined the Navy as Mrs. Bruce Flint, but as Miss Goldrina Gitkins, her maiden name. According to her confused explanation she did this to save me embarrassment.
What a nitwit, I thought. Imagine her joining the Navy to be near me. It's more than just bribery that we're going to be together. It's luck, phenomenal luck. We could've been stationed on opposite sides of the earth.
How did the darling imbecile ever make it through OCS without me? Undoubtedly her classmates must've adopted her as a sort of mascot and helped her through. From her letter she actually seemed proud to be anchor girl in her class. Well, with me here to look after her, she'll be all right.
I was on my hands and knees scraping chewing gum off the floor of the corridor when Baby stepped through the front door of the administration building. Our eyes met and I started to rise and spread my arms for her, but she motioned me back to my work. There were others in the corridor.
She strolled over to where I was working and looked down at me.
"Don't let anyone know that you know me," she whispered. "I'll get in touch with you just as soon as I can, Killer."
"All right," I whispered back, "but it had better be soon."
She disappeared into the personnel office to report in. An hour later I saw Commander Pratt leading her down the hall to show her where she'd be working.
Soon the seaman in charge of my work detail approached.
"Just leave the corridor," he said. "I want you to go down to Room 149 and give Ensign Gitkin's deck a good going over. Use your steel wool to get all the old wax up so you can give it a good wax job later."
"You're the boss," I said cheerfully, happy to be on my way to my rendezvous with Baby.
The door to Room 149 was labeled "Public Information Officer." I could hardly believe that they'd put Baby in charge of public information-but then they did have to give her some job, and perhaps that was about as undemanding as any.
"Baby!" I said, stepping inside. "At last, thank God! Come to Killer."
"Put your arms down, Killer," she said. "They'll see us."
She motioned to the wall between her office and Room 150, the journalists' office. It was | wood for the first five feet and glass at the top. I could see the head and shoulders of one of the journalists who was standing, and of a course he could see my head and shoulders and the top of Baby's head if he turned.
"Good Lord," I said, "why didn't you pick an office with a little privacy? Can't I even kiss my wife without a lousy journalist looking on?"
"Oh, Killer," she moaned, "don't do anything to get in trouble. If anyone saw you trying to kiss me, it's no telling what they'd do to you. No one knows we're married."
"Thanks to you and your bright little mind," I said. "Well, what am I supposed to do? Just stand here and talk?"
"Oh, no, Killer. You're supposed to be getting the wax off the deck. You'd better go ahead and start working before someone sees you and gets suspicious. If they ever found out we're married, they'd transfer one of us, to avoid the Navy any embarrassment."
"Deck? Oh, no," I wailed. "Not from you, Baby. The kid language is bad enough from the goons, but not from you. The word is floor."
"Deck!" she said with an authority I'd never before heard in her voice. "And you, Seaman Apprentice Flint, had better get to work on it."
"Sure, Baby. I don't want to get into a silly argument over floors and decks. Okay, here I am in my humble working posture. Come on down here with me so I can kiss you without those lousy journalists seeing us."
She stepped closer and looked down at me. "I can't do that, Killer. I'm an officer. What would someone think if they saw an officer helping a seaman apprentice steel wooling the deck?"
"Just long enough for me to kiss my wife!" I pleaded.
She lifted her skirt, ostensibly to adjust the garter snap at the top of a stocking, but in reality to expose her thighs to me.
"There, Killer. First kiss me on the thigh, right here between the top of my stocking and my panties."
I did as she commanded.
"Now the other thigh, Killer."
Again I obeyed. I needed no prompting, for the skin of her thighs was so soft and cool to my lips, and while kissing them I could feel the black lace of her non-regulation panties tickling my forehead and smell the delicate perfume with which she'd annointed herself in that general area.
"Now," I sighed, "I have kissed both beautiful wonderful thighs. Now bend down here so I can kiss both sweet wonderful lips."
She knelt beside me and we kissed a long, long kiss that was full of both sweetness and passion.
"I shouldn't be doing this," she said. "What if someone came in and saw an officer kissing an enlisted man? The Navy doesn't approve of such things, but I'm breaking this one rule for you, Killer."
We kissed again, and this time the passion rose to the boiling point.
"Oh, Lordy, Lordy," I said. "Baby, I could do it right here in the middle of the floor."
"Deck."
"Call it what you will," I said, "but let's do it. Let's be rash and foolish and impulsive and romantic and passionate and have intercourse right here and now, even if they throw us both out of the Navy for it."
"Oh, Killer, you don't understand. They wouldn't throw us out. Not right away, anyway. They'd court martial us for that and give us years and years and years of hard labor and then dishonorable discharges. Let me up from here before you get us into trouble."
She pulled away from me and stood up.
"One of us has to be practical, Killer," she said. "That's what you've always told me."
"All right," I said, "but when are we going to get together in privacy? Now that we're married, I'm dying to have you."
"Patience," she said. "That's what you've been telling me for years and years and years. Come over here and steel wool the deck under my desk. It's all scuffed up with shoe marks."
"Oh, for Christ's sakes! Listen, you've even made me use that sacrilegious expression. What do you think I am, your flunky or something?"
"I think you're a seaman apprentice, Killer; and I'm an officer, and I've given you an order. I threw naval tradition out the window when I got down on the floor with you and hugged and kissed; but if that's going to make you forget that I'm an officer, I'll see that it doesn't happen again."
"Don't get sensitive, for goodness' sake. I'll play the game. I'll steel wool your floor, or deck. Yes, ma'am. I mean, yes, sir-I mean, aye, aye, sir."
"You're not funny, Killer. Under there where I put my feet-see how scuffed up it is? Way back over there?"
I crawled into the cubbyhole of the desk and was busy scrubbing the black scuff marks off the floor. Suddenly something pushed me from behind and crowded me against the back wall of the cubbyhole. It was Baby's knees pushing into my back.
I managed to turn around, but was unable to get out from under the desk. Baby was sitting in her chair, which she'd pulled up to the desk. Her knees were almost poking me in the face.
"What's the big idea?" I yelled. "Move and let me out, Baby."
"Quit yelling," she said in a loud whisper somewhere above me.
I couldn't see her face-only her knees about an inch in front of my face. The back of my head was up against the back of the cubbyhole.
"All right," I replied in the same loud but hushed tone she'd used. "But get out of the way. What's the big idea of sitting at your desk while I'm under here."
By way of answer she spread her knees until they touched the sides of the cubbyhole, slumped down in her chair, and pulled it a few inches under the desk with a scraping sound.
Her knees were now on either side of my head, almost touching my ears on each side.
I didn't have room to move or even to turn my head. I was looking straight between her thighs and I could see that before she sat down she'd removed the lace panties.
"This is our big chance," she whispered. "Round two."
"No," I snapped back. "None of that. I'm ready for the round three knockout. Let me out of here."
I could hear her giggling.
"What's so funny?"
"When you talk," she giggled, "it tickles. Say something else, Killer."
"I'll get even with you for this," I fumed. "Baby, if you don't let me out of here this minute, I'm going to-"
I stopped right in the middle of a sentence because I heard her giggling again and knew that it was my angry words which were again tickling her.
I sat there in stony silence, trying to wait her out.
"Killer? Are you still there?"
"Now where in the hell did you think I'd go?"
She giggled again.
"Say something else, Killer."
"No. Let me out!"
"I need you, Killer. Come on, be a good sport. Round two."
"No."
I'd decided to keep my words short in order to tickle her as little as possible. After a few minutes of silence her knees closed in upon my head, gently and coaxingly. The smooth skin sent shivers of fire through my ears and cheeks, but I was determined not to give in to her. I just sat there looking at the inviting sight only inches in front of my eyes and feeling the smoothness of the skin on the insides of her knees.
I swallowed and pressed the back of my head even harder against the desk.
She's trying to weaken me, I thought. Making me sit here and face my temptation like this. I don't know how much more of this I can take. It's tempting, so tempting ... but isn't sin always tempting? Sin, sin, sin ... yes, that's the word to give me strength. Yes, what she wants is perversion, and perversion is sin, and the wages of sin are death-is death. Which is it, wages are-wages is? It must be wages are-but, no-are death, is death. It has to be is death. The wages of sin is death. Anyway, I'm fortified now with moral strength. I'll outlast her.
I sat there talking to myself about sin for what seemed like hours. I was cramped and aching from the confinement in my restricted quarters, but I felt Baby must be ready to weaken and let me out.
"Baby?"
"Yes, Killer?"
"What are you doing up there?"
"I'm reading a magazine. Oh, Killer, there is the most interesting story here," she gushed. "All about this woman whose husband was killed in the war and she married again and then her first husband came back not really dead and both husbands wanted to stay married to her and she wanted to stay married to both of them and-"
She stopped in the middle of a sentence and immediately said in a louder voice:
"Come in. I was just reading aloud. I do that sometimes when I'm alone. It's good practice for public speaking."
"I'm Lieutenant Howard," I heard a male voice say. "I'm across the hall and two doors down-Ordnance and Gunnery. We're going to be neighbors."
"Oh, how nice," Baby cooed, and I could see her thighs trembling. "I'm Ensign Gitkins. Have a chair, Lieutenant."
He must be a handsome bastard, I thought. I wonder if her thighs tremble like that when I come into a room.
I was fuming mad, but I dared not make a sound. Sailor or civilian, how would a man explain it if he suddenly emerged from such a position as the one I was in?
"Don't I know you from somewhere? Really, I'm not trying a corny line. You look so familiar."
"I don't think we've met," Baby said coyly. "Then-I've seen your picture! Yes, that's it! Let's see, which is it-Broadway or Hollywood?"
"Seaboard Spring."
"That's it! The Snow Queen. What in the world are you doing in the Navy?"
"Someone has to keep our country strong," Baby said, and I could tell by her voice that she was perfectly serious.
"Gosh, imagine giving up a deal like that for-"
"Let's not talk about me," Baby interrupted. "Let's talk about you. Where are you from, Lieutenant?"
"Oshkosh, Wisconsin."
"Really? Oh, I've always wanted to visit Wisconsin. Oh, there was a girl in my OCS class from Milwaukee. I'll bet you know her. Her name is ... "
And on she prattled, on and on and on and on, while I sat there suffering physically, mentally, and morally.
I can't take much more of this, I thought. I've reached the limit of my endurance. Whatever the consequences, I'm getting out.
I twisted my head sideways and bit Baby on the thigh-not hard enough to draw blood-but hard enough to leave the print of my teeth, and hard enough to make her scream and spring to her feet, upsetting her chair.
"Wh-wh-what in the world happened?" the male voice asked. "Here, I'll get your chair for-"
"No!" she screamed. "No, no, no, no, no, I'll pick the chair up. There, the chair's up. I don't know what made me scream like that. I just do that every now and then. I-Lieutenant, would you please show me around the Station? Right now? I think some fresh air would do me good."
"Yes, of course, but why are you rubbing your leg?"
"I don't know," she said. "I just do that sometimes."
"Could I be of any help?"
"Rubbing my leg? Oh, Lieutenant, how sweet of you to offer, but I can manage, thank you."
I heard them leave. As soon as the door'd closed I peeked out cautiously and scrambled out. My right leg was asleep from having been cramped so long. When the blood started pouring back into it, I danced on my left leg and laughed involuntarily.
Oh, what a silly predicament, I thought. Dancing and laughing when I'm so angry I could just explode.
The blood rushed on through my capillaries and I danced harder and laughed harder. In my whirling I could see that the two journalists and their striker had lined up against the glass to watch me, but I couldn't stop.
Command performance, I thought. Oh, the silliness of life.
CHAPTER TEN
After her stroll with the Lieutenant Baby had no chance to talk to me in privacy again that afternoon. We passed in the corridor and I whispered to her:
"Meet me in the Buckroe Drug Store as soon as you get uptown tonight."
She nodded affirmatively.
Liberty, commenced at four-thirty. By the time I got cleaned up and into town it was five-twenty-five. Baby was sitting at the fountain, sipping a Coke.
"Thank God you're out of that uniform," I said. "You look more like my wife. Are you ready for supper?"
"No, Killer, let's first look for an apartment. Everyone at the Station says they're hard to find."
"On Navy pay, yes," I laughed. "But not for us, when price is no limit. Just pick out any one you want and I'll get it for us, even if someone else has to be bribed to move out. Where would you like to live?"
She took me by the hand and led me to the big plate-glass window.
"Up there," she said, pointing to the top of the Buckroe Hotel. "I've always wanted to have a penthouse apartment."
"Then you shall," I said.
An hour later we were having supper in the penthouse, with Buckroe City spread out beneath us. Off in the distance we could see the Chesapeake Bay.
"You asked for it," I said. "Now you have it. Nothing is too good for my bride. This is going to be our honeymoon-our real honeymoon-even if we do have to be back at the Station by seven-forty-five in the morning."
"Oh-seven-forty-five," she corrected me. "Please, Baby, leave the Navy and its twenty-four-hour clocks at the Station."
"I can't, Killer," she pouted. "Not all of it. I wore my civvies, but I can't forget that I'm an officer and a lady-twenty-four hours a day."
"All right, all right, let's not argue-not on this special night. You're also my bride and I want you to be happy. Anything else we need to do this up right? Penthouse, catered supper, candlelight, soft music-this is the first time I've ever used any of my money for real luxury. I've been a Puritan so long I'm unfamiliar with this so-called high life. Anything I've overlooked?"
"Of course-champagne. Haven't you seen enough movies to know that no penthouse romance is complete without champagne?"
"Oh, no. Oh, no. Remember the last time, Baby?"
"I do, Killer. That's just it, I do. The night you drank that gin punch was the most thrilling night of my life, and the next six days were all just pure heaven."
"The word is not heaven, it's perver-Oh, never mind. I promised to forget that and let bygones be bygones. The point is, tonight's the night. After all these years of sparring, I'm ready for the knockout. Are you ready for me to ring the bell for round three?"
"No, Killer," she said, jumping up. "You can't do that. Not now. Not for another year and a half."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"Oh, Killer, don't you know that I'm just as impatient as you are for round three? But we can't. Not now. Not while we're in the Navy."
"What on earth's that got to do with it? We aren't on the Station now. This is our apartment. I paid for it. I paid through the nose for it, in fact. But it's ours and the Navy hasn't got any authority here. Now what's this guff about waiting?"
"Seaman Apprentice Flint, have you forgotten that you're speaking to an officer? Maybe you have, but I haven't. I can't betray my fellow officers by giving myself to an enlisted man. It would be lowering the stature of all officers in the U.S. Navy. What would happen to naval discipline if-"
"Cut it out!" I said. "Baby, I knew you were dumb, but how could you let them brainwash you so thoroughly? Can't you think for yourself, just a little? Those things you're saying may be true in many cases-even in most cases-but can't you see that our case is different? Can't you see that we're husband and wife, and that that fact supersedes all others?"
"No," she said. "Rules are rules and you can't change them all to suit yourself. I stuck my neck out to hug and kiss with you, Killer. I'm even willing to continue round two, but I've got to draw the line somewhere. And the rules are quite explicit about round three. They even have signs in all our heads to remind us."
"The word is toilets. On ships they are heads, but in buildings they are toilets."
"Heads," she insisted.
"Okay, okay, but what kind of signs?"
"One they have in all WAVES officers' heads is "If you have to give it, give it to an officer'."
"Believe me, my beautiful but weak-minded bride, marriage makes a difference. Forget the Navy. Forget the signs. Just remember that you're my blushing bride about to receive her initiation into conjugal bliss by her loving groom."
"No!" she said, stamping her foot to emphasize the word. "I cannot permit that and I will not. Now listen to me, Killer. All these years I've been trying to get you to lay me and you wouldn't. You had reasons. Your reasons, not mine. Religion and ethics and propriety and all that stuff. It meant something to you but not to me. Well, now the tables are turned, it looks like. I'm the one with a reason why you can't lay me. It may be a silly reason in your superior eyes, because you think you're superior to me and the Navy and the whole world, but it means something to me and I'm not going to give in to you. I'm an officer and I'm proud of it and you can't kill that pride with all your sneering superiority. I've always let you tell me what to do and let you bully me around, but not any more."
"No? Baby, I can see there's just no use talking any more. When you get stubborn you just won't listen to reason. Now, I'm content to let you play your little Navy games during the daytime. You put on your little ensign dress and pretend you're an old sea captain, and I'll put on my little monkey suit and pretend that I'm just a little sailor boy there to scrub your decks, if that's what you want to call your floors. I'll go along and call the whole building a ship if you insist. Hell, we can pretend the ground is water and the windows are portholes and the sparrows are seagulls. I'll play this game with you and the Navy for another year and a half-in the daytime. But this is night and we're not playing games now. You're just plain dumb, beautiful Baby, and your husband and master is going to consummate his marriage with you. If you won't cooperate, I'll take you, anyway."
She backed away, anger burning in her eyes. "You-you wouldn't rape me?"
"Rape? That's no word to use for a husband taking a reluctant bride."
I advanced and she backed, around and around the table on which we'd had our supper.
"It's a serious offense for an enlisted man to rape an officer. I'm warning you, Killer, don't come any closer to me or I'll-"
"You'll what?" I said, springing forward and grabbing her in my arms.
"This," she hissed, bringing her knee smashing into my groin, and again, and a third time before I managed to get my hands in the way to prevent further assault.
I was groaning almost inaudibly in the agony of paralysis.
Baby took me by the arm and led me to the bed. I fell across it, completely helpless during the minutes she was tearing the clothes off me and tying my arms and legs to the four bedposts.
It doesn't matter, I thought. Let her tie me. As soon as my groin stops throbbing it will be easy to work Baby's knots loose. It's all she can do to tie her shoe.
I had recovered enough to talk when Baby left me momentarily and returned with a pair of scissors.
"You wouldn't stab your own husband, Baby?"
"No, silly. I'm going to cut your skivvy shirt off. You've got more, and I couldn't get it off before I tied you."
"No, you don't," I said. "I'm getting up from here. Right now."
I jerked my hands and feet but the bonds wouldn't give. I tugged and strained with all my strength, but could make no headway. Baby watched me with an amused smile.
"I'm in the Navy now, remember? They taught me to tie knots. You'll never work those loose. And you couldn't break that nylon in a hundred years."
She proceeded to cut away my skivvy shirt. "That was such a mean trick, kneeing me in the groin. Where did you learn that? Don't tell me-I know. But why did you do that to me?"
"To protect the honor of all women officers in military service," she said. "You know it hurt me worse than it did you, Killer."
"Get off my back," I said.
"I'm not on your back," she said. "But I'm soon going to be on your chest, just as soon as I can get undressed."
I watched her undress. She lay down on top of me and put her arms around my neck. She kissed me and I kissed her back, deep and passionately.
All right, I thought. If she wants it this way, all right. She wants to be on top. All right. She can guide it in. I've heard some men say it's best to have the woman on top. That way she'll be able to feel superior, as well as having a better chance to reach a climax, they tell me.
Oh, I can't be too hard on the girl, my thoughts continued. I guess I really have dominated her all her life. Naturally she's felt inferior, being so dumb and all, so this officer business is the best thing in the world for her ego. She's been so dependent on me all these years to do her thinking and make all her decisions for her. Let her boss me around a little. It'll make her feel good and I can take it. Bigness of heart is the trait of a big man. Oh, I'm swelling up so big! She'd better go ahead and guide me into her.
"Do you like round one this way?" she murmured in my ear.
"Yes, Baby, yes, but it's torture too. With you naked and me naked and you lying on top of me like this, oh, it's ecstasy and agony at the same time. Your skin's so smooth against mine, and your heavenly weight, and with you kissing me madly, your sweet tongue between my lips, your hands caressing my cheeks, and me tied here so I can't put my own arms around you."
"Oh, no, you don't," she teased. "You're trying to get me to untie you. No, no, no."
And she grabbed my head and kissed me again, her delicate young body squirming on top of mine. She rubbed her loins over my own, but made no move to effect an insertion.
"Please, Baby, you can be the one on top, but don't drag it out any longer. Please consummate our marriage. Round three, before I just die."
"No," she laughed, "none of that for a year and a half. Oh, Killer, isn't it awful to be so close to it and still not be able to have any? Look, my nipples are touching yours. Does it tickle?"
"Yes, yes, it sends shivers up and down my spine. Oh, Baby, you can't mean it about making me wait. I can't wait. I just can't! I'll die or go stark raving mad if I can't have you right now."
She kissed me again, then spoke with her lips brushing mine with each syllable.
"Now you know. Now you know how Baby felt on all our dates for all these years. I couldn't wait. I just couldn't. I had to have you right then and there or I felt I'd go crazy. And you'd look so superior and say one of us had to be sensible. You tortured Baby. You didn't care how Baby felt. Baby was so hot she wanted to give herself to Killer or to Vince or anybody else if Killer wouldn't take her. But Baby always had to wait. Killer wouldn't take her or let Vince or anyone else get into her. And Killer didn't even feel sorry for Baby."
"Baby, Baby, Baby, oh, my Baby! Yes, it's true, but I just didn't know ... I just didn't know or imagine how it felt to want something so bad. Forgive me, Baby. Forgive me and take me or untie me and let me take you. Please, please, please, please, please ... "
"Do you think I'm beautiful, Killer? Look me over."
She pushed herself up on her arms, and then dragged her hips forward over my stomach. She sat on my chest. Her legs were bent in a kneeling position, but she was sitting with all her weight on my chest.
The insides of her thighs encircled my cheeks with seductive warmth. Her soft buttocks pressed heavily against my chest. Her hands toyed with my hair.
"Yes, you are beautiful," I said. "You have the deepest, bluest eyes in all the world."
The deep blue eyes seemed so far above me. I looked upward, past the golden corn tassels which grew in abundant disarray on the delta just above me-past the flat abdomen with its small cave of a navel-on up between the magnificent breasts and into the deep blue eyes.
Rest your vision here, they said to me. Look here-here in the cool blue pools. Laze here in the lotus land, while the corn tassels move closer, almost smothering with their pollen-laden richness. In the cornucopia there is honey rare to be drawn forth in the long draughts of patient kisses. Hurry not, for time lies sleeping and the cornucopia can never be completely emptied of its treasured nectar.
I had all but surrendered to the hypnotic spell of the blue eyes when a bell clanged in my brain. Sinsinsinsin sin, the bell rang. Sin! Hear the sinsinnabulation of the bell. Sin. Perversion. Sin. Stop!
"Mmmfftt," I sputtered, twisting my head. "Mmmfftt, move. Stop that!"
"No," she said softly, confidently. "Stop fighting me, Killer. You're no match for me. The bed is my ring. Don't make me have to-"
"Have to what?" I snapped. "What do you think you can do? Certainly you don't think there's any way you can force me to sin, do you? What do you think you can do?"
"Champagne," she purred. "I'll order a bottle now, unless you stop resisting."
"No," I pleaded. "You wouldn't-mmmfftt, hnnh, sttmmfftt."
While I mumbled, she reached for the bedside phone and asked to have a bottle of champagne brought up.
"Just leave it in the dining room," she said. "Open it, if you please."
"Now I'll stay right here and see that you don't yell out and scare the poor bellboy," she said. "I think I'm going to drink me a glass of your champagne. Do you mind? Naturally, I'll feed most of it to you, Killer."
"Mmmfftt."
She reached for a brush on the bedside table and started brushing her hair, listening for the sound of footsteps in the dining room.
"Mmmfftt."
"Shhh," she said, leaning forward even further to muffle my protests more completely. "I hear the bellboy. Pop! Now he's leaving. I'll go get your champagne."
She moved and stuffed the corner of the bed sheet into my mouth so that I couldn't yell while she was gone. She returned with the bottle and resumed her position.
"Let's not bother with glasses," she said. "Oh, Killer, this is such an exciting second honeymoon. In just a few minutes you'll be so sweet and easy to get along with. And you'll thrill me so much. Killer, I'm going to give you some champagne every day so you won't sober up into your mean stubborn self for months and months."
She moved back on my chest, but before I could say a word she had the mouth of the champagne bottle to my lips, pouring in the golden liquid. I was swallowing involuntarily, in large gulps, afraid that I was going to strangle at any minute. It was torture.
"That's almost a bottle, Killer. May I have the rest?"
Again I started to protest, but she simply slid forward again and muffled my words.
"Mmmfftt."
"Killer honey, can't you say anything but "mmmfftt'?"
"Mmmfftt."
"No, I don't guess you can. Not now. But in a minute or two the champagne will start to work and then you'll be able to say something else. Oh, the wonderful flattery you give me, Killer, when you become your better self. It won't take long. I'll wait right here, just exactly where I am until that happens. I'll know, yes, I'll know. Killer, I'll bet you just can't guess how I can tell when the change has taken place, can you? Well, without moving from this spot, I can tell. Oh, boy, I sure can tell!"
"Mmmfftt."
"Oh, Killer, that tickles. But it won't tickle long. In just a minute it won't tickle at all."
"Mmmfftt. Mmmf ... "
The peace and the dark descended upon me and the long sleep put an end to my protests.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Slowly I opened my eyes. Baby was dressed, sitting beside me. I was still tied, spreadeagle, to the four bedposts.
"Merry Christmas, Killer," she smiled at me.
"Christmas? Since when did Christmas come in September? What kind of games are you playing now, Baby?"
"It's Christmas, silly," she laughed. "Listen ... "
She went to the window and opened it. A gust of frosty air swept over my naked body, raising a crop of goose pimples. I could hear the chimes of a distant church ringing out their merry carols. Baby closed the window.
"Convinced?"
"Yes, oh, yes. Oh, how terrible. Baby, do you realize what you've done? Oh, how terrible."
"Killer," she pouted, "don't carry on like that. Is it so terrible for me to bring out your better self? Oh, you've been so wonderful these three months. Do you begrudge Baby a little happiness?"
"I'm not even thinking of that," I moaned. "As terrible and perverted and unfair to me as it is, I'm thinking of something even more terrible, something which can ruin my whole life. Something that not even my millions can change."
"What?" she gasped. "What is it, Killer?"
"You've made me desert from the Navy. Ninety days AWOL is practically desertion. There's no way out of it. I couldn't tell them what really happened or they'd prosecute you for kidnapping me. Baby, what are we going to do?"
She fell upon the bed in a fit of laughter. It was some minutes before she could speak.
"Is that what you were thinking? Oh, Killer, you haven't been here on the bed all that time. You've been reporting for duty every morning and waxing decks and standing watches and everything. No, Killer, as soon as the champagne brought out your better self I untied you. You did everything I wanted you to do, even as far as drinking your daily glass of champagne when I asked you so that you would not revert to your grumpy, hard-to-get-along with self."
"Thank the good Lord I'm not a criminal in the eyes of the Navy," I said. "But I'm still tied just as I remember."
"I wanted to wish both halves of you a Merry Christmas, so I stopped giving you champagne a week ago. Then, yesterday, I tied you here until you returned. And here you are."
"But I don't understand. When I'm under the influence of alcohol, I apparently do anything and everything which anybody wants me to do. How did you keep me from going off into homosexual orgies with men at the station?"
"Don't worry; I kept up with you, Killer. And I kept telling you every day not to get friendly with anyone but me, and to come straight back to the penthouse the minute liberty commenced."
I heaved a sigh of relief.
"You're smiling," she squealed. "Oh, Killer, you're not angry with me."
"I didn't say that," I exclaimed, trying to muster up some rage in my voice. "It's just that I feared much worse. At first I feared I was AWOL and would spend the rest of my life in a military prison. And then I feared I might have engaged in all sorts of unnatural practices with men at the Station while in my helpless condition. Naturally I'm somewhat relieved. I'm-"
She stopped my speech with a long, enthusiastic kiss.
"Stop it," I said. "You aren't forgiven. Oh, no. Definitely not. Although I'm grateful that worse didn't happen, I most certainly don't approve of your keeping me in a state of helpless intoxication so I'd participate in your private orgies. We're married, true, and that gives us license to engage in sexual relations."
"I'll say," she murmured.
"But there's a right way and a wrong way. The right way is that which has child-bearing as its end result."
"But, Killer, you don't want me to have a baby every year, do you? Where would we put all those children?"
"I don't know," I said. "I really think two or three children would be quite enough, but still-Oh, I don't know, Baby, I just don't know. I do know that what you've done-or rather, what you've caused me to do is wrong. Don't you realize that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because the people engaged in perverted sex practices? The Lord's very uncompromising about such matters."
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no. I don't know as much about the Bible as you do, Killer, or as much about anything else, but I do know that round two isn't bad. Who does it hurt?"
"No one, I suppose, but that has nothing to do with it."
"Yes, it does," she purred. "It doesn't hurt anyone, and it's such wonderful fun."
"Fun, schmun," I said. "Is fun more important to you than duty? As a fertile married woman you have a duty to bear children and-"
"I will, Killer, I will," she protested. "But you said yourself that we want two or three. That leaves us so much time for sex that has nothing to do with getting children. Why can't it be fun for us?"
"All right, all right, it can be fun, Baby. But there's still a right way and a wrong way. Even when we've already had our two or three children, we should make love as though we were trying to have more, only since we really wouldn't want more, we'd take steps to prevent conception. However, except for that precaution, the routine should be just the same as if we wanted more babies."
She propped up on one elbow, furrowed her forehead with a puzzled frown and looked down into my face.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because, just because."
"Because why?"
"Because anything else is perverted."
"Why?"
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Because-Oh, I don't know why. But everybody just knows, that's all. Everybody just knows. We have laws against any kind of sex but baby-getting sex. How did the lawmakers know everything else was perverted? They just knew, that's all. If people enjoy any kind of sex but baby-getting sex, we have psychologists and psychiatrists and psychoanalysts and other highly educated and highly paid doctors to help them stop liking what they like and start liking baby-getting sex. How do these doctors know the other kinds of sex are wrong? They just know. Preachers know. Teachers know. PTA women know. Letter carriers know. Newspaper book reviewers know. How do they know? They just know, that's all. And I know too. I just can't understand why you don't know."
"Killer, the more you talk, the more you get me mixed up. I'm not as bright as you are. It's hard enough for me to learn things. I don't see how anybody can just know them."
"Well, they do," I assured her.
"I don't believe a word of it," she laughed. "I give up," I sighed. "How am I doing in the Navy? Am I still a seaman apprentice?"
"Of course. If you made seaman, you'd be transferred. You're in a seaman apprentice billet, waxing decks. I guess you'll have to remain a seaman apprentice as long as you're in the Navy."
"Gee, Baby, that's going to make me look awful stupid."
"Don't worry about what people'll think, Killer. You're a darned good seaman apprentice. I can vouch for that. You've got my floor so smooth that no one can walk on it without sliding down. I have to take off my shoes and walk to my desk in sock feet. Oh, and, Killer, with your steel wool you've almost rubbed through the boards under my desk."
"I should've known," I moaned, "that you'd have me back in that cubbyhole."
"Oh, yes, every day. And you make it so exciting. You can be so quiet. You just don't know how thrilling it is when you're there and someone comes in the office. I sit there at my desk and talk to them about business and everything and they don't suspect a thing. I can't let the expression on my face give me away and I can't moan or say, "Oh, golly, this is wonderful', or twist or squirm in my chair or kick the underside of my desk or grab you closer to me br any of the things I do when no one's there but you and me."
"Ohhhhh," I groaned, "I can feel the fires of hell upon us. Will I be held responsible for this sin too? It doesn't matter, anyway. If you go to hell I'll have to go along to keep you out of trouble. I couldn't relax in heaven for wondering what you and Vince Edwards were up to down in hell."
"It's Christmas, darling. Don't talk about hell. When the time comes for you to change to your better self, since it's Christmas, I'm going to give you eggnogs. Isn't that nice? And as soon as you change you're going to give me my special Christmas present. Then, tomorrow you're going to surprise me. Really, Killer, I don't know what you have in those packages for me under the tree. I promised not to peek and I haven't. Aren't you curious to know what you bought me?"
"Yes," I lied. "Baby, don't change me into my other self. Untie me now and celebrate Christmas with plain old grumpy Killer. I love you even more than that other me does, even if I do have a will and a mind of my own. I'll forgive you for everything that's happened. All of it. I'll let bygones be bygones and we can start afresh tonight. We can consummate our marriage and have a regular honeymoon over the holidays."
"Oh, no. You can't change my mind, Killer. I'm still an officer, remember, and you're still an enlisted man, and I can't go back on my oath. If I give it to anyone, it'll have to be to a fellow officer. You enlisted men just can't seem to understand how serious this code is among us officers. We've got the discipline and efficiency of the whole Navy to consider. We-"
"Hush," I shouted, "that's enough. I could wring your neck, you dumb beautiful child. You really take all that propaganda so seriously. Boy, if everyone were as easy to brain wash as you, the propagandists would never have any trouble. No use trying to convince you. If only they hadn't taught you to tie such goddamned good knots."
"Killer, you're cursing."
"Well, it's enough to make a preacher curse, let alone a preacher's son. In this helpless condition I can't even look out for myself, let alone you. What if someone should try to take advantage of you while I wasn't myself? Who'd look after your virtue then?"
"Don't worry, Killer. You've been keeping me so happy with round two that I haven't even thought about round three."
"You should be happy," I said. "You should be! Taking three months out of my life, just like that! It's as though I never lived those three months at all. I was, in a sense, dead."
"Oh, no, Killer, you were very much alive. Besides, your better self was enjoying every minute of it. And grumpy old you-you haven't been enjoying your Navy life anyway. Now wait here. I've got a surprise for you."
"Wait here, wait here!" I grumbled. "Where do you think Pm going? You and your Navy knots!"
She left the room and returned a few minutes later, carrying a bowl of eggnog. She was completely naked except for a belt around her waist.
"So soon? I have to have that eggnog right now?"
"Not until you've seen my belt."
"What's so special about it?"
"Look," she said, putting the eggnog on the bedside table and seating herself astride my chest.
"So you've got your belt decorated with sprigs of something. So what?"
"This's Christmas Eve; that's mistletoe."
"So?"
"Oh, Killer, don't be so thick. You're supposed to kiss a girl under the mistletoe. So-"
"Mmmfftt."
"You're not supposed to be talking. You and your "mmmfftt'. I don't even know what that means. Oh, well! I can see that you just don't believe in the sacredness of traditions. A little eggnog will put you in the right Christmas spirit."
"Mmmfftt."
"No, you've said enough. I don't want to hear another word. Now drink your eggnog like a good boy."
Eggnog, without any alcohol, had always been a favorite drink at our house during the Christmas holidays. I love the smooth rich taste and the sharp smell of nutmeg. As Baby poured cupful after cupful down my throat I thought of other Christmases during my youth and boyhood. Gradually the world took on a warm and pleasant glow and I sank closer and closer to the oblivion of sleep.
As a child I always went to sleep early on Christmas Eve, convinced that when Santa came with my toys he'd tiptoe into my room and kiss me during that last instant before sleep came. That Christmas Eve in the penthouse over Buckroe City Santa came to me again. Despite my age, despite my wealth, he came; for in that final second before sleep I felt the gentle tickling of his beard as he wished me Merry Christmas with a kiss.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The first thing I noticed upon awakening was the fragrance of the soft spring breezes wafting through the penthouse windows. Outside I could hear a sparrow chirping.
I raised my head and looked around. Baby was nowhere in sight.
Good, I thought. This'll give me a chance to work these knots loose.
My arms and legs were stretched out full, but not to the point of pain. If I could only get my teeth on one of those bonds around my wrists, I knew that I'd soon be free. I struggled for a good half-hour before I admitted defeat. My limbs were sore from straining and I was soaked with sweat.
Helpless, I thought, completely helpless in the hands of a child-a child not bright enough to understand why she should release me, but too bright to fall for any of my tricks.
Spring ... at least six months now that Baby has held me prisoner this way. Half a year of my life and not a single memory to recall. What a way for a man to fulfill his military obligations!
Still, none of this'd be half as bad if it weren't for the sin. Such a great amount of sin and perversion over such a long period of time's bound to corrupt Baby permanently. I'll never be able to save her soul and condition her to normal marital sex after this.
At least three hours passed before Baby rushed in excitedly.
"Killer?"
"Yes, it's me."
"I can never tell exactly when you'll make the change. I tied you up this morning just to be sure."
"What's the occasion? May Day? To what do I owe this return?"
"I had to tell you the exciting news, Killer. Guess who's reported in at the Station? Vince! Vince Edwards! Lieutenant Vince Edwards!"
"Thank goodness I'm here," I said. "At least he'll be afraid to get close to you with me around."
"Oh, no, Killer. I was so proud of you the day Vince got to the Station. You'd just finished steel wooling the deck under my desk and were getting ready to leave my office when he came in. Boy, you snapped to attention like nobody's business, and it was "Yes, sir, Mr. Edwards' and "No, sir, Mr. Edwards' when you spoke to him."
I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth. "What's the matter?"
"You let your husband act like a flunky? Don't-don't you have any respect left for me?"
"Of course I do, Killer, but you're an enlisted man. It's not going to hurt you to show a little respect for officers. A little humility never hurt anyone."
"Humility, schumility-let everyone else have humility, not me. I'm Killer. Why should I have any humility? I've got more brains, muscles, and money than all the rest of them in this outfit put together. Vince Edwards is the one who'd better have humility. I've taught him plenty of humility with these two fists and I'll teach him plenty more if he tries to get friendly with my wife."
"Vince doesn't know we're married."
"What? You didn't tell him?"
"No, I didn't. I'm not going to. And neither are you."
"Why? Why not, Baby? You don't mean to tell me you're going to encourage his lecherous advances?"
"No, Killer, but I'm going to let him take me out dancing and dating. I don't want any sex from Vince. I get all of that I need from you. And you're sweet to me in other ways, too. It's been heaven here in the penthouse."
"All right, all right, then why don't you let well enough alone and tell him we're married?"
"It's nice here," she pouted, "but I don't ever get a chance to go out dancing at the Officers Club or anything. I'd be afraid to let you take me out anywhere around Buckroe City. Someone'd recognize us and then one of us'd be transferred. I haven't been anywhere in six months except here and the Station."
"But, Baby, you know good and well you can't trust Vince Edwards. He's got a one-track mind. He's been trying to get into your pants ever since you were old enough to wear them. What makes you think you could keep him out now?"
"Because he's an officer and a gentleman," she said. "An officer won't try to seduce a girl if she asks him not to. Of course, Vince will still want me, but he'll have to settle for round one."
"Untie me this minute, Baby. I mean it! If you don't, I'm going to spank that smooth little bottom of yours until you can't sit down for a week. I mean it; untie me."
"No."
"Have you gone crazy? Married women just don't go around kissing other men. It's unheard of. Besides, if you give Vince Edwards an inch he'll take six. I know him and you should, also. Once he gets started necking with you, you couldn't stop him. Anyway, who's going to stop you?"
"My conscience."
"That's a laugh! Where did you get a conscience? I'm your conscience. Only I can't protect you when I'm off in never-neverland."
Tears rolled down Baby's cheek and splashed on the bed beside me.
"You certainly don't have any respect for me, Killer. You never did. You think I'm so dumb and you're so smart, even though I'm a college graduate and you're just a high school graduate. And you think I can't be trusted, even though the Navy trusted me with a commission. I'm an officer, and you're just a seaman apprentice. You can't even make seaman, yet you still feel so superior and everything. I thought seeing me in my officer's uniform would make you proud of me, but it didn't."
"Stop crying, please, Baby," I said gently. "I want only what's best for you. It's true, you're dumb and you can't be trusted. So be a good girl and untie those knots so Killer can look after his Baby."
"No!" she shouted. "No! No! No! Once we get out of the Navy you're going to treat me like a dumb little baby all my life, and I won't be able to do anything about it because I love you too much to leave you and I'm not smart enough to stop you from bullying me. Well, you've got another year to go before then, Buster, another year of scrubbing my floors and saluting me and my fellow officers and saying "Yes, ma'am' and bowing and scraping and acting like a seaman apprentice should. I might not be able to teach you any humility-not the real egotistical you-but I can sure enjoy having your better self jump to when I snap my fingers. And I can enjoy a little considerate sex now because I know after we get home you'll be mean and selfish to me all my life, just taking me in the kind of sex that suits you."
She was still crying when she poured the whisky into me. The last thing I remembered was her tears splashing on my naked chest.
When I opened my eyes again, of course, it seemed to me no more than a few minutes later. Baby wasn't in the room. I lay there thinking about our last conversation.
I was wrong, I admitted to myself, in making her angry that way. People don't like to be made to feel inferior. I know that, and yet I keep forgetting it. When one is as superior as myself, it's very difficult not to make others feel inferior. They are inferior, of course. Baby is dumb, but I love her; and since I love her I shouldn't keep reminding her of her shortcomings. I should try to build up her ego. Yes, she had every reason to be angry with me, the way I spoke to her. I suppose I deserve what I'm getting. If I only knew just what I'm getting-or giving.
"Guess what it is this time, Killer?" Baby beamed at me, as she came into the room.
I inhaled the crisp autumn air.
"We've been here in the penthouse a year?"
"Yes! Oh, Killer, you remembered!"
She threw her arms around me and kissed me.
Remember? I thought. How could I remember? It was just a guess based on my knowledge of how Baby's mind works.
"I'll try to be pleasant this time," I said. "What do you have in mind?"
"I haven't planned anything special, Killer. Just a kiss and a few words. We don't have too much time. Vince'll be here soon.
He's taking me out."
"Vince? You're still going out with Vince? Just what's been going on between you two?"
"Now, Killer, I won't have you prying into my personal life. What Vince and I do is our business. We're both adults and we know what we're doing."
"Yes, and I do too. I knew I couldn't trust you, Baby. You've been having sex with him, haven't you?"
"I'm not saying "yes' and I'm not saying "no'."
"You don't have to say anything more. Untie me. Yes, untie me; I mean it. I'm having this marriage annulled. It's never been consummated, so a divorce shouldn't be necessary. An annulment should be sufficient."
"How do you know it hasn't been consummated, Mr. smarty? You don't know what you might've done."
"You told me yourself that when I have alcohol in my system I'm physically incapable of consummating our marriage."
"Maybe somebody else did it for you," she said.
"What? You mean-It's true, isn't it? Just like I knew it would be. Well, Baby, that does it! I'm leaving you, and I'm going to break Vince Edwards into little pieces!"
She laughed so loud that I stopped talking and stared at her.
"Oh, Killer, when you talk about breaking Vince into pieces, it's just so funny. There's a picture I've just got to show you! I took it with Vince's polaroid camera."
She held it in front of my face. It showed Vince Edwards sitting back in a comfortable chair, smoking a big black cigar while I was shining his shoes. I was so angry at seeing the picture that I could make no comment.
"Vince still doesn't know we're married. He doesn't realize that you stay here all night. He thinks you just sort of hang around after duty hours in the evening-a sort of voluntary orderly or house boy because you like me."
"He'll never know, then," I said. "I'll kill him before he has a chance to find out about our perverted practices. Are you sure you haven't committed adultery with him right here in our apartment?"
"You sound so mean and ugly," she said. "I think I'd better get the whisky."
"Baby, I'm leaving you; that's settled. You had better let me go."
"No!"
"You've got your lover. What do you need me for?"
"You'd be surprised."
"No, oh, no! Say it isn't so! Baby, if you've been making me take part in your sex orgies with Vince, I'll choke you to death, you-you little whore!"
She fed me the whisky, undressed, and lay on top of me.
"You shouldn't've called Baby that ugly name," she said. "Take it back!"
"No. You're a whore. You're not my Baby any more."
She grabbed my head and kissed me, and despite my anger I couldn't avoid being aroused. With a squirming, naked female body on top of me, especially a body like Baby's, I couldn't remain unaffected. My loins soon showed concrete proof that I was very much affected. Baby put her own moist loins next to mine and pressed.
"Wouldn't it feel good if I put you inside me?" she purred. "Want me to do it?"
"No," I managed to groan. "I'm crazy with passion, but not that crazy. It might interfere with having our marriage annulled. I know it would interfere with my own break with you."
"But think of round three, Killer," she said, kissing me again.
I thought of it.
"If you leave me, you'll never get to do that to me."
"I don't care."
"Don't you, Killer? Had you rather let Vince do it to me? Be sure, Killer. You always told me, "Think things over and be sure before you make a decision'. Think about me being naked like I am now. And think of Vince being naked. And think of us on a bed hugging and kissing. And then think of round threebetween Vince and your Baby. Is that what you want? If you leave me, I'll have to marry Vince, I guess. He loves me, and if you left me, I'd have to have somebody, so it might as well be him."
She continued this torture for several more minutes-kissing me, pressing her loins against mine, caressing my chest with her breasts, and all the while whispering for me to imagine her and Vince engaged in the ultimate act of sex.
I imagined. That's the last thing I remember as I drifted off. Vince's ugliness and Baby's beauty, all twined and intertwined on a bed of lust. It wasn't a pretty picture. One thing about it was especially bad: I was in it, there at....
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling.
What is it now, I asked myself, fall, winter, or spring? Winter! I thought. I can smell it in the air. How many days've passed this time? I wonder.
I stared out the slightly opened window at the cold gray sky, feeling greatly depressed. Taking care of Baby, loving her, had gotten to be such a habit. Now I'd have to abandon her. Without me to oversee her moral life she'd become the lowest form of whore, I knew. Vince might marry her, but he could never look after her.
She'd rack up a record for adultery such as no woman had ever done before. And when Vince left her she'd probably become a prostitute. First a call girl, then a crib girl, then a street walker-drifting lower and lower on the scale. Eventually she'd reach one of the hell holes of humanity-Singapore, Panama, or North Africa. I could visualize long lines of half-human males waiting outside her door, each awaiting his turn with the insatiable degenerate who refused no one, who refused no depraved command. Still on the earth, but already suffering in the filth and torment of hell, this creature would no longer resemble my sweet and lovely Baby. Sin! Yes, the wages of sin is death.
Tears formed in my eyes. I brushed them away and continued staring at the ceiling.
Suddenly I sprang from the bed. It had just occurred to me that I'd used my hand to brush away the tears. I was no longer tied. I was free!
Baby had left a note on the dresser. It said:
Dear Killer, By the time you read this note I will be a civilian again. I'm resigning my commission before they throw me out of the service. I'm pregnant.
I didn't have the nerve to tell you to your face. I don't expect you to forgive me. You warned me about Vince and about my own weakness, but I wouldn't listen. I let him get me drunk-and then it happened just like you said it would if I ever gave him an inch. I won't fight you when you divorce me. I deserve nothing from you.
Still with love, Baby
P.S. You're due back at the Station at 0745 the day after you wake up.
You are still a seaman apprentice. Report to the leading seaman for your deck-waxing detail.
I wept some more after I read the note.
Oh, Baby, I thought, the process has started. You're on your way down, down, down to hell. Perversion, adultery, drunkenness-what will be next in your downward progress? I hope Vince'll be man enough to marry you. In spite of the odds against it, the two of you might find salvation in the bastard child and reform. I want you to have that chance.
I walked into the living room and looked at the newspaper on the coffee table.
Two more months in this sailor suit and I'll be a civilian again, I thought. lean go back to Seaboard Spring. Without Baby there, I couldn't stand the place. Without her the world will be a lonely, dreary place for me.
I got dressed in my civilian clothes, left the penthouse, and buzzed for the elevator.
I walked up and down the streets of Buckroe City, breathing the fresh cold air and trying to find some new purpose in life, now that Baby was gone. The more I walked the more depressed I became.
"Hey, Bruce," someone yelled at me.
I turned to see a woman waving at me from the porch of a large brick apartment house. She was surrounded by several other women.
I waved indifferently and walked on. She ran down the steps and caught up with me. I had never seen her before.
"What's the matter, boy? Don't give us the cold shoulder. Look, we all know you were shacking up with Ensign Gitkins. So what? None of our business, but now she's gone, thanks to you-or was it Lieutenant Edwards who did the dirty work? Aw, hell, that's nothing to us. The point is that she's gone now and we're here. Come on up and visit awhile with the peons."
"Is this where you enlisted WAVES live?"
I didn't have the slightest interest in where they lived, but I had no reason to be rude to them. I followed her to the porch of the apartment.
"Sixty of us live in these buildings," she said. "They're talking about leasing a group of buildings in West Buckroe large enough to house all the WAVES at the Station, but we prefer it this way. Our rent comes to a little less than our rental allowances. Besides, we have no restrictions here, in case we want to have male visitors."
With this she winked at me.
"That's nice," I said. "Well, I must be going."
"Oh, you don't have to-Hey, look out for that step!"
I missed my footing and pitched forward, striking my head.
"Here," a voice said a few minutes later, "drink this."
Before I realized what was happening I had drunk it.
Whisky! I thought. No, not again! Oh, this is terrible. I must get back to the penthouse and lock myself in before it takes effect.
"Gotta go home," I mumbled, struggling to my feet.
"Oh, no, you don't," a voice said. "You're in no condition to go anywhere. You come right in here in our apartment and rest on the couch."
I struggled to free myself from the hands which were helping me, but there were too many of them. They literally carried me inside and held me on the couch, looking down at me with concern.
There was a large buxom blonde, a slender brunette, a curvaceous redhead, a petite girl with coal black hair, another brunette, plus several other girls behind them.
"You just close your eyes and rest," one of them said. "Don't worry about a thing. We're going to take real good care of you."
Yes, I thought, drifting off. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that goddamned better self of mine will take really good care of you-too, too many of you. You just don't know, but you soon will! And there's no way I can escape it. I feel so dizzy-so sleepy ... so ... so....
When I awakened I was in the penthouse again. I sprang from the bed and got dressed. Not having the least idea when I was due at the Station, I wanted to get there as soon as possible.
I might be several days AWOL, I thought. On the other hand I could be on leave. I'd better get down to the Station right away and find out.
Jumping into my uniform, I took the elevator down and hailed a cab. At the main gate of the station I showed my ID card and hurried across the drill field to the administration building.
I passed two WAVES going the other way. Both of them winked knowingly at me. I returned their winks with a weak smile.
I gulped, wondering just what those winks referred to. It was quite unnerving to have two pretty young women wink so naughtily at me.
Fifty yards ahead a streamlined young blonde was crossing my path. She threw me a kiss and hurried on.
Before I could recover I passed three more WAVES. One winked, one waved, and one puckered her lips to indicate a kiss. I made one feeble nod serve as answer to all three greetings.
"One-tup-treep-fo-one-tup-treep-"
I looked into the direction from which a deep-voiced woman was calling cadence. Approximately sixty WAVES were marching and drilling in execution of her commands. They marched past me at a short distance. They were supposed to be looking straight ahead, but every one of them, without exception, turned her head in my direction and winked.
Great God in Heaven above! I exclaimed to myself. All of them? How? When? Oh, what a busy little bastard I must've been.
On across the drill field I walked, feeling that I was now prepared for any shock.
I was wrong.
A yeoman who was passing in the opposite direction stopped, blocked my path, looked deep into my eyes, took my right hand into his own, rubbed the back of it with his left hand, then walked on without a word.
No, no, no, I tried to tell myself. No more men. I just can't take that.
"Get!" I shouted at the dog which'd started following at my heels.
The bitch paid no attention. I stopped, stamped my foot, and slapped my hands together. She only rubbed up against my legs and looked up at me with adoration.
She followed me to the door of the administration building. I shoved her away and squeezed through the door, closing it quickly after me.
On the way down the corridor to the personnel office I saw Captain Rheum, reputed, I remembered, to be the meanest man in the U.S. Navy. I straightened my neckerchief and sucked in my stomach as I approached him.
"Where've you been, son?" he asked me, smiling sweetly. "I've missed you. It gets so lonesome. Drop by my office when you get a chance."
Again I replied by mustering up a smile, wondering what technique I'd used to soften that hard-hearted old sea dog.
In the personnel office I leaned against the desk of one of the yeomen and tried to decide whom I should question and what I should ask them about my status.
The yeoman in front of me looked up quizzically.
"What are you doing in uniform, Bruce?"
"I don't know," I said. "To tell you the truth I don't know anything. I got drunk. I mean to tell you I really lost contact. I'm all mixed up. Am I supposed to be on duty today?"
"Goddamn, you must've been drinking torpedo juice! Don't you even remember getting discharged day before yesterday? You must have been putting one on to celebrate that."
"Really? You mean I'm not in the Navy any longer?"
"I'm afraid not, Bruce. Remember, you were trying to re-enlist and we had to turn you down. No hard feelings. Everybody likes you here. But regulations are regulations-and a man who can't make seaman in two years is just not good Navy career potential. No hard feelings, though. I like you personally."
"Don't apologize," I said. "I understand. Anyway, I'm all square with the Navy. So I'll say it again: So long, fellow."
We shook hands and I departed before I attracted the attention of anyone else.
"Pssst ... I want to talk to you," someone whispered.
I turned to see the journalist everyone called "Sideburns." He was beckoning me into the Public Information Officer's room, empty since Baby'd resigned her commission. They hadn't been able to fill her billet on such short notice.
"What do you want to talk about?" I asked. "I'm out of the Navy now."
"I know. That's why I hoped you'd have the courage to talk about it."
"Talk about what?"
"You know-about you and Ensign Gitkins."
"What about us?"
"Don't be afraid to tell me about it. I know how you feel, but I already know about it. I saw you one day, through the glass partition to the journalists' room."
"Come on," I said impatiently. "You saw what?"
"You-crawling under the desk."
His words hit me like a hard right to the solar plexus. I had to sit down. Desperately I tried to think of something.
"So what?" I bluffed. "I was told to steel wool the deck. All over. I was just doing my job."
"Yeah? C'mere, Mac. Look under that desk. You've practically worn away the flooring there. Don't try to lie to me. I saw what time you went under there, and I saw what time you came out. After that I used to peek in regularly. I know all about it."
"Then why are you questioning me if you know so much?"
"I need your help."
"My help? How?"
"Why do you think they let me wear these long sideburns? They're not gung-ho, you know. ' '
"You tell me."
"Because underneath these sideburns, on my cheeks here, right in front of my ears, I've got two scars."
"Scars aren't unusual," I said. "Lots of sailors have them."
"Yes, but these two are perfect outlines of garter belt clasps, with the official WAVES emblem clearly showing."
"You mean that you-"
"Yes, I put in my time under a desk the same as you. Lieutenant Commander Eudora Jones. She was a real bitch. Not young and pretty like Ensign Gitkins, but older, and horny as hell. She slept with every male officer on the station. Then during working hours, I-"
"I understand," I said. "You have my sympathy."
"She made these scars on purpose, squeezing in like that, day after day. She even boasted about it."
"Why didn't you report her?"
"I did. Right away, before the first time, when she first gave me the orders. But do you think anyone cared? About a goddamned enlisted man? No one'd believe me. Naturally she'd've denied it even if they'd believed me. And she threatened to rip off her clothes and yell "rape' if I didn't comply. You know what that would mean. An enlisted man accused by an officer is guilty until proven innocent, and there's no way I could've proven my innocence. When she threatened to do that, I could feel the rope tightening around my neck."
"You still refused?"
"Hell, I'm not one to die nobly. Instead of a rope, it was her sinewy legs I soon felt tightening around my neck. Not only that afternoon but for many days to come. And each time she wore that same garter belt. I'm marked for life."
"What can I do about it? She's gone from here now. Even so, what could I do?"
"Testify," he said, his eyes lighting up. "I don't dare testify until my enlistment's up. They'd hang me for sure. But there's a Congressional committee which has been investigating similar abuses of enlisted men by officers' wives. I'm sure they'd be just as interested in our problem."
I knew that it was completely out of the question for me to testify against Baby and get her into trouble. I also knew that my own experiences had been from a purely domestic situation between Baby and me, in no way reflecting any trend in naval conduct. On the other hand I couldn't explain my personal problems to Sideburns.
"I'm afraid I can't help you, Sideburns."
"I'd hoped you'd be a little braver than the rest."
"I have my reasons," I said. "I'd like to help you, but I just can't."
"Sure, go your merry way," he said. "You don't have to worry about it any longer. But think of all the unsuspecting sailors who still haven't put in their cubbyhole time."
"Listen, Sideburns, maybe I'm just a coward like the rest of them, but I can't help you. I've really got to go now."
And so I rushed out of the office and left him standing there in the middle of a sentence. But still to this day I never see a sailor with sideburns without wondering what those sideburns are hiding. Oh, well, it does not cost anything to wonder.
At least my own Navy problems were over forever.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Back at the penthouse I changed into civilian clothes and sat on the couch listening to some Mozart on the stereo set.
Now what? I asked myself. I know what I've got to do. But which first? Find Vince and break his neck? Yes, but I'll have to leave enough of him alive to marry Baby and look after her. Then I can consult a good lawyer to see what I must do to have my marriage annulled.
Afterward? I can't go back to the Spring-not yet. I'd better have a good psychiatric examination. I can't go through life losing myself for months at a time, awakening to find that I've had some kind of intimacies with a whole company of women, a few men, and a dog.
I shook my head as I thought:
No, I've got it backwards. If I see Vince first I might kill him. I might actually kill him. I can't do that. I have no right to take a human life, even if he did take advantage of me.
Just thinking of him enraged me to the point of murder. I clenched my fists and strode around the living room.
Yes, sir, Mr. Edwards. No, sir, Mr. Edwards. Yes, sir, Mr. Edwards, I'll be happy to shine your stinking shoes. No, sir, Mr. Edwards, I don't mind if you make love to my wife. Yes, sir, Mr. Edwards, I'll do anything at all, I....
I slammed my fist down on top of the stereo, cracking the walnut top. The pick-up arm jumped over a movement and a half of the symphony and kept right on playing.
I'd kill him now, for certain, I thought. I know that I couldn't stop punching him until he was nothing but an unrecognizable pulp. No, I can't see him yet. Or Baby either. I might even hit her and make her have a miscarriage. Even if the little bastard is Vince's, I can't hold it responsible. It at least has a right to be born.
The psychiatrist first-that's the only sensible thing. Perhaps he can help me lose some of my rage and look at this thing calmly. I want to be calm enough about it so that I can stop after I've beat Vince only half to death. And I want to end my marriage to Baby without any violence. After all, even though I now know that she isn't a suitable wife, I can't hold her completely responsible for what she has done. She's much too childish and much too stupid to be completely responsible for anything.
I called John Lorre and talked to him about Seaboard Spring. Everything seemed to be in order, so I told him not to expect me until he saw me.
After relinquishing my penthouse apartment I took a plane to New York and found a comfortable apartment there. It was very simply furnished, and after the penthouse, seemed austere. But it didn't matter. The penthouse had been Baby's idea. I needed no luxury for myself.
Dr. Montague Buchanan wasn't the most famous psychiatrist in New York, nor was he the most expensive. He was young and so new to the profession that he still seemed apologetic about charging fifty dollars for a fifty-minute session.
"Don't worry about the money," I told him. "If you can really help me, I'll pay you a thousand dollars a day to drop everything else and concentrate on me."
His eyes bulged.
"I have other obligations part of the day, but-"
"Drop them," I said. "Tell them you're sick or have an emergency. I'll only need you three or four days."
"But I couldn't guarantee that three or four days would be long enough to-"
"I can," I said. "I can guarantee that that's all you'll have. Four days at the most. You can skip the mumbo-jumbo and get right down to business. A thousand dollars a day plus a bonus based on how much I feel you've helped me. Are those terms reasonable enough?"
"Miss Sisson," he said, pressing a button on his intercom, "I'm going to be tied up for four days. I can't see anyone under any circumstances. Tell them I'm out of town or sick-you think of something. But remember, I'm not to be disturbed."
"That's more like it. Now just forget your couch and my childhood and listen to my problem. Sober, I have a very healthy, normal outlook on sex. But with alcohol in my system I not only have total amnesia, but I become a sex fiend as well. I apparently participate in the grossest perversions with anyone and everyone who happens to be around. Women-dozens at the time-men-men and women together-dogs-"
"Dogs?"
"I'm afraid so. Apparently I stop at nothing. And I remain that way until all the alcohol's out of my system. When I return to normalcy, I can't remember a thing that's happened."
"Hmmm," he mused. "This is only a preliminary guess, but it looks like a case of schizophrenia brought on-"
"That's the same as a split personality, right?"
"Yes, you could call it that. Another case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, brought on by an overly vigorous repression of sexual desires. Dr. Jekyll was a good man who tried to be too good. In other words he mistook much that is actually normal and natural for evil, and repressed many otherwise healthy instincts. Once repressed, these instincts were not observed or controlled by his conscious mind and were able to grow lawless and monstrous. When they'd gathered enough force, they took over control of Dr. Jekyll's body. The body was then known as Mr. Hyde. After these monstrous passions had spent themselves, they'd retreat to the subconscious and the body'd again be Dr. Jekyll, until Mr. Hyde gathered enough strength for another revolution."
"Where was Dr. Jekyll when Mr. Hyde was in control?"
"In the subconscious. It was a see-saw affair-two personalities taking turns dominating the conscious and subconscious minds."
"If my case is similar, then my Mr. Hyde is still in my subconscious. Right?"
"Yes, he's still there, along with the memory of all that he's done. I won't consider you cured until you have total recall."
"That would be wonderful," I said. "Or would it? I don't know that I want to face those hidden memories."
"They'd be painful if you could remember them at this moment. That's why you keep them repressed. However, perhaps I can convince you that those memories should not be as unpleasant as you make them out to be."
"How?"
"Most of the thoughts which people repress aren't really so terrible," he said. "Now, you don't have to recline on a couch, but you do have to tell me about your childhood if you want me to help you. Don't argue with me. You're allowing me only four days for a project which would normally require months. Cooperate, then. Start talking."
I talked about my childhood until lunch, and after lunch until almost supper.
"So far, so good," he said at the end of the first day. "Everything's fitting right into place. You've been the victim of a seventeenth century morality clashing with a twentieth century world. This Puritan outlook of yours has caused you to be too demanding on yourself as well as on others. Not only have you remained ascetic, but you've required that others do the same."
"My Christian obligation," I said. "I'm my brother's keeper."
"Yes," he said, "but all the while you wanted to be your brother's friend and your sister's playmate. You had to repress not only your sexual desires, but your ordinary inclinations to be a likeable human being."
"To be right is better than to be liked," I said.
"So says your conscious mind. But your subconscious mind had quite a different idea on that subject. Your Mr. Hyde-your monster-was really a big friendly oaf growing bigger every day. He wanted to be loved by everyone-even men-even dogs. He was big and powerful, but much too easygoing to stage a revolt against your conscious mind. He waited until your conscious mind was asleep-put to sleep by alcohol. He then took over, making friends and giving pleasure to all those around him."
"How can I stop him?" I asked. "I try to avoid alcohol, but I'd rather have some other safeguard."
"Alcohol is only one danger, really. The big oaf would take advantage of any other occasion on which your conscious mind was relaxed. No, unless we can do something about you, these two aspects of your split personality will keep switching back and forth, back and forth, each being completely ignorant of what the other is doing."
"What can we do to stop it?"
"Compromise," he said. "I know that won't be easy. You're an uncompromising man. But you're also an intelligent man. You'd rather meet this big oaf halfway and agree on a course of action than have him take over your body without warning."
"But how? What does he demand of me?"
"That, my good man, is our next problem. I've got to meet this oaf and talk things over with him."
"Now, Doc, if you're thinking of getting me drunk, forget it. I'll seduce you. Or the oaf would. He must be the most charming character on earth, judging from his past conquests."
"No danger of that," he said. "Psychoanalysts have access to more sex than any other men in the world. If you only knew what I'm giving up for four days you'd realize that I deserve every cent you're paying me. But enough about me. I'm not going to get you drunk. I'll bring out your other self with another method."
"Truth serum?"
"No, I'm going to try hypnosis. I hope your stubborn mind will surrender instead of fighting me."
"Don't worry. If it'll help me get the best of this other self, I'll hypnotize myself."
The next morning I had a big breakfast and reported to his office promptly at eight o'clock. I was confident that he was really going to help me, so I placed myself in his hands and surrendered my will to him. Under the monotonous and soothing drone of his voice, I slipped off into the great darkness....
"Snap out of it," he said. "Wake up. I've got good news for you."
"What is it?" I asked, shaking my head groggily, noticing the clock on the wall indicating eleven o'clock.
"This oaf of yours isn't half as bad as you thought he was. I believe we're going to get him to agree to some fairly reasonable terms. Not an unconditional surrender, of course. I've already told you, you'd have to compromise with him."
"But how? He has no morals whatsoever."
"That's where you're wrong. He does have morals. Not as strict as yours, I'll admit. You're too prudish. He's too loose. He goes far beyond liberality and broad-mindedness at times, but he does have limits."
"That's hard to believe. Compromise! Boy, I wish I could punch him in the nose."
"That would hardly benefit you. Well, one detail I'm sure you'll be happy to hear is that that affair in Chicago on your boot leave was not as sordid as you've feared."
"No?" I said, perking up. "What happened?"
"You met a fat, bald man at a bar. He wanted to be friends and you-rather, your oaf-responded to him. As you talked, you discovered that he was a very lonely man with a homosexual fetish he'd never been able to put into practice. His driving desire was to have a wife-a male wife, that is-to cook and wash for him, to whom he could bring flowers and candy, with whom he could watch television in the evening and talk over the events of the day.
"He'd never managed to have a liaison of this sort because all the homosexuals he'd met wanted overt sexual contacts, while your friend simply couldn't tolerate physical acts, other than an affectionate kiss on the cheek once or twice a day.
"Your oaf thought it over and decided that it'd really cost nothing to humor him, and it would mean such a great deal to him, so you took the initiative and made him believe that you wanted to be his wife. You wore the dresses he bought you; you cooked his meals; you washed his clothes. But there were no sordid homosexual acts with him-only a silly and more-or-less harmless play-acting situation."
I was so relieved at the Doctor's words that I couldn't say a thing. I was crying with joy-
"I'm being silly now," I blubbered. "But I can't help it. No matter what else I did, that's one sin off my conscience. I-I almost regret that I took a swing at the little queer. I spoiled what might've been one pleasant memory for him."
"I'm sure he'll remember the good and forget the bad. Anyway, the important thing is that you've never had a homosexual experience."
"Wait!" I said. "Not with him, but there were others."
"No," he said emphatically. "I questioned you in detail on that subject. You'd mentioned a yeoman at the air station in Buckroe City who pressed your hand and looked at you with love. I think I'd do the same if you gave me an all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Paris as a wedding present."
"What? How could I've arranged that?"
"You knew he was taking thirty days leave to get married. And you also knew that he was disappointed because he couldn't afford to rent a cottage at Virginia Beach for that month. So you financed the flight to-Paris, with all expenses paid. You made him believe the gift was a collection you took up from all the men at the Station, but after he returned he found out that you'd paid every penny of it yourself."
My relief was growing. My tears had changed to laughter.
"You just don't know," I guffawed, "you just don't know how good I feel. I-wait-did you ask me about Captain Rheum or that dirty bastard Vince Edwards?"
"Calm down. I did. No homosexual act with Captain Rheum. Everyone else hated him. You were friendly. Nothing with Vince Edwards either."
"No, but something else. Him and Baby-well, what I want to know is-were all three of us ever-You know what I mean."
"Absolutely not. Whatever made you think that? No, I don't think your relations with this Vince Edwards were so abnormal. You would not act that way ordinarily. You see, you knew that Vince Edwards suffered from a terrific inferiority complex. Especially around you. How many times did you beat the poor fellow up while you were in school?"
"Too many to count."
"So many that you made him feel inadequate as a man. But the oaf in you made it up to him. You saluted and said "Yes, sir' and shined his shoes and brushed his uniform off with the whisk broom and lit his cigars and ran errands for him, and in general played the flunky to the point of burlesque. But you never rendered any sexual services to him.
I questioned you thoroughly in that area. It would've made such an interesting case history if you had. But I can state unequivocally that you were never near him when he engaged in sex and he was never aware of being near you when you engaged in sex."
"What do you mean "aware'? How could he be near and not be aware?"
"At Baby's office. She'd sit at her desk and talk to him while you-"
"Don't say it," I snapped. "I know. Boy, that burns me up. Baby sitting there talking as though nothing were going on, while-boy, it burns me up! Well, thank the Lord. You've taken a great deal off my conscience even though there's plenty still there. What about that dog?"
"You bought her raw steaks. That's all, but that's enough to win the heart of any dog."
"Raw steaks?" I laughed. "Is that all?"
"That and a pat on the head. Speaking of steaks, let's you and I go have some now. We can return for another hypnotic session this afternoon."
We had a big dinner to celebrate the progress we were making on my case. Afterwards, we returned and I again surrendered my will to his in hypnosis. When I awakened he was smiling.
"More good news?" I asked.
"Quite. Mr. Flint, I can now inform you with complete accuracy that you've never had sex with anyone but your wife."
"That's impossible. What about all those WAVES?"
"Champagne, supper in your penthouse, presents, orchids, dancing, romancing, but no sex. Some of them tried to get you to bed, but you skillfully evaded them. Your oaf did, or does, have morals after all."
"But not enough to make him refrain from the perversion with Baby."
"Perversion? Mr. Flint, you could hardly call it perversion, especially when it's with your own wife. True, the affair of the desk bordered on abnormality, but-"
"You're speaking of biological normality and abnormality."
"Yes. How can you call an act abnormal when all other higher animals practice it?"
"I'm not an animal."
"Very well, I won't go into that. When it is practiced in every culture, past and present."
"Frequency doesn't make an act proper."
"No, but there are a hundred other good sound biological reasons why there's no abnormality in the act. For one thing-"
"I don't have time to hear a hundred reasons," I said.. "Besides, they'd all be biological reasons. I don't really care how you evaluate such acts according to biology. I'm a moral man and I know that they're morally wrong. That's all that matters to me."
"But morality is relative to-"
"Relative to nothing. Right is right and wrong is wrong and never the twain shall meet. Why discuss it? You live by science. I live by the Bible. We could never see eye to eye. I'm not ungrateful to you, Dr. Buchanan. You have taken the guilt of many gross sins off my conscience. What's left is bad enough, but I can face them. I've committed acts of perversion with my wife, and she's been unfaithful to me. I can now divorce her, without passion. I'll even give her a good settlement so she can marry Vince Edwards before she bears his child. I'll survive."
"Of course you will. But will you be happy? You haven't made that compromise with your oaf yet. He's still there, waiting for a chance to take over again."
"He'll never get that chance. I know now I can never compromise with him."
"If only you would, your split personality would be mended into one personality far healthier and stronger than either you or the oaf. And once you're willing to compromise your rigid morals the protective cloak of amnesia will drop away and you'll have total recall-"
"That would be interesting," I said, "but I'm afraid it will never happen."
"Don't commit yourself so soon. We still have two days. Perhaps I can prove to you that your morals are unrealistic."
"I'm afraid not. You see, Doctor, I'm leaving New York tonight. You've done your job well. I'll pay you for four days, plus a good bonus. But you've done all you can do for me."
"Perhaps I have, at that," he said. "As long as you were cooperative, we made progress. But with this stubborn attitude on this final point, we certainly couldn't get anywhere in two days."
"Goodbye, then," I said, handing him six thousand dollars in cash. "And again, thank you."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Back at Seaboard Spring I looked around with sadness and nostalgia. Everything reminded me of Baby and our love. Had it not been for her clowning I would never have discovered the Spring. I resolved not to forget that in arranging the settlement when I divorced her. She and Vince could have a thirty percent interest if they'd accept it.
John Lorre managed a show of enthusiasm when he saw me.
"Don't pretend, John. You're probably disappointed to see me again."
"No," he said. "Well, naturally it won't be easy to give up the helm."
"You won't have to. I can't stay here for long. I don't know yet where I'll go or what I'll do, but I'll leave the management of the Spring to you. I'm taking you off salary and giving you a thirty percent interest in the place, John. You deserve it, and it will encourage you to look after the Spring."
He was flabbergasted and started to gush.
I stopped him.
"Don't say anything. Call my lawyer. I'll talk to him in my office. No, it's your office now, but let me use it for an hour or so."
While I waited for my lawyer I called the air station at Buckroe City and asked for Lieutenant Vince Edwards.
"Bruce?" he questioned when he took the phone.
"Don't worry. I'm three hundred miles away. Besides, this is one time I'm not going to beat you up, Vince. You win this fight. I'm giving you the prize."
"What are you talking about? What fight? What prize?"
"Baby. I was married to her. You didn't know that, but it doesn't matter. The marriage was never consummated. I'm divorcing her before your kid is born. You and Baby can have a thirty percent interest in Seaboard Spring as a wedding present. It's only fair. Baby helped me discover it."
"Are you crazy? I don't want any part of your Spring or your wife or your baby. What's the matter with you?"
"Not my baby, Vince. Yours. Don't deny it. Don't desert Baby in her hour of need after you got her in this condition."
"I didn't get her in any condition," he screamed over the phone. "If she's your wife, keep her."
With that he slammed the receiver down. Dick Ace, my lawyer, came in at that moment.
"Dick, am I glad to see you! I've got a job for you right now. That bastard Vince Edwards got my wife pregnant and now he's trying to weasel out of marrying her. You've got to make him make an honest woman of her."
He sat down and mopped his brow, staring at me incredulously.
"What do you want her to do, commit bigamy?"
"Of course not. Get me a divorce first."
"Just like that. Listen, if Vince refuses to marry her after the divorce, what then? You want her to be unmarried when the child is born? Is that it?"
"No. No, I don't know what I want. I thought sure Vince would marry her. He's been after her since she was five years old. Maybe you're right. Maybe I should wait until she has the baby so he'll have a name. No sense in punishing the baby for the sins of his parents. But then I don't want him to have my name when he's not my child. That would be cheating my own children later, if I ever have any. Give me time to think it over, Dick. Are you sure there's no way to force Vince to marry Baby?"
"Positive."
"Okay, I'll think it over and let you know what I intend to do."
After he left I spent several minutes in deep meditation. I was getting nowhere. Then I remembered the Bible.
My father had taught me the trick I had used in my youth. When in a quandary, completely bewildered, I would hold my Bible in my hands, close my eyes, open the volume at random, and hold my finger over a spot on the pages. I would then read the verse under my finger and try to apply it to my problem.
John hadn't disturbed any of the books on the shelves of the office, so I quickly located a Bible, and, after locking the door so I could not be disturbed, sat down with the book in my lap and tried the trick.
As soon as I opened my eyes I saw that I was in the book of "Luke." Looking closer, I could see that I was in the seventh chapter. My finger covered the forty-seventh verse and I read:
"Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little."
That settles it, I thought, heaving a sigh of relief. That passage sums up Baby to a "T." Her sins are many, all right, and she certainly loved much-too much. Well, I could never leave her, anyway. She's never been able to take care of herself. She could never be responsible for two. I'll be big about the whole thing. I'll forgive her, and I'll treat the kid as though it were mine. And I'll get Baby's warped sex desires straightened out. Once she abandons all this immoral playing around and settles down to prim and proper sex, I still might be able to make her into a good wife.
I found Baby at her parents' house. She answered the door, appearing surprised, but not happy to see me.
"Come in," she said. "Did you come to talk about the divorce?"
"No, Baby, I didn't. I came to offer you a chance to make amends for what you've done. I'm willing to forgive you if you want to be forgiven."
She broke into tears. She started to throw her head on my shoulder, but turned away as though I wouldn't accept her.
"Of course I want to be forgiven, Killer. I didn't deceive you on purpose. You warned me that I couldn't handle Vince, but I thought I could. And I did, every night but one."
"It only takes once," I said.
"I know. One moment of weakness I let him get me drunk. So drunk I didn't know what I was doing. You can understand that, can't you, Killer?"
"Yes, I can understand and forgive. I can also forget. Consider it forgotten. Let's start thinking right now that this is going to be our child. I'm determined to love him as much as if he were really mine. I'll think of him as my own."
"Oh, Killer, I don't deserve you!" she wailed, throwing her head on my shoulder and sobbing.
"The important thing now, Baby, is for you to straighten yourself out. Get this round two business out of your head. You've been off on a cloud, enjoying all this exotic and forbidden sex with me when I couldn't control myself. Now you've got to come back to earth and adjust to the plain, everyday, huff-and-puff type of sex."
She moaned, tore herself away from me, and threw herself on the couch.
"What's the matter now? Frankly, Baby, you should be overwhelmed by my generosity in forgiving you."
"I am, Killer. I really am, but I know that I'll never be able to be what you expect me to be."
"You haven't tried," I said. "I think the time has come for your instruction in sex.
It's a little late, I know, but better late than never."
"What instruction, Killer?"
"In my family we have a manual we've used for many generations. It has been handed down from father to son, with the understanding that it be read only after marriage. Actually it wasn't intended that husbands and wives read it together. In the interest of modesty it was understood that each should read it privately and discuss it with no one. But modesty died between us a good while ago, I'm afraid, so we might as well be bold and read it together."
"Come sit beside me, Killer," she said, wiping away the tears. "Do you have it with you?"
"Yes," I said. "I hoped that we might be able to make a reconciliation."
"Kiss me first," she pleaded. "Let me know that you still love me."
"Of course I still love you, in spite of all the awful things you've done. My love for you knows no bounds, my darling Baby."
We embraced and kissed quite passionately for several minutes. Finally I tore her away from me and took the manual from my pocket.
"Don't distract me too long," I said. "Let's get on with it. This is something you should've read on the day of our wedding, but under the circumstances, there was no time."
I opened the little book to the forward:
The utmost diligence should be exercised to prevent this volume from falling into the hands of the young or the unmarried. It is the earnest hope of the author that this work may be of some value toward instilling in young brides and bridegrooms a proper attitude toward sex, and that under no circumstances should the book play a part in corrupting the innocent.
"How can a book corrupt anybody, Killer?"
"Don't ask dumb questions, Baby. Everyone knows that young people should be kept in complete ignorance of sex, if possible. Anyway, let's not get into an argument. Let's read the book."
I turned to the first chapter:
A Message to the Bride:
To the sensitive young woman who has had the benefits of proper upbringing, the wedding day is, ironically, both the happiest and the most terrifying day of her life. On the positive side, there is the wedding itself, in which the bride is the central attraction in a beautiful and inspiring ceremony, symbolizing her triumph in securing a male to provide for all her needs for the rest of her natural life. On the negative side there is the wedding night, during which the bride must pay the piper, so to speak, by facing for the first time the terrible experience of sex.
"That's awful, Killer. What an ugly picture. The bride ought to be just as excited as the groom."
"Quiet, we're coming to that part," I said.
At this point, dear reader, let me concede one shocking truth; Some young women actually anticipate the wedding night ordeal with curiosity and pleasure! Beware such an attitude! A selfish and sensual husband can easily take advantage of such a bride. One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten; Give little, give seldom, and, above all, give grudgingly. Otherwise, what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sensual lust.
Baby rubbed her head against my shoulder and cooed.
"What in tarnation are you cooing about?"
"An orgy of sensual lust! Oh, Killer, that sounds so exciting!"
"I'm trying to help you, you depraved female. Pay attention to what the book says."
On the other hand, the bride's terror need not be extreme. While sex is at best revolting and at worst rather painful, it has been endured by women since the beginning of time, and is compensated for by the monogamous home and by the children produced through it.
It is useless, in most cases, for the bride to prevail upon the groom to forego the sexual initiation. While the ideal husband would be one who'd approach his bride only at her request and only for the purpose of begetting offspring, such nobility and unselfishness cannot be expected of the average man.
Most men, if not denied, would demand sex almost every day. The wise bride will permit a maximum of two brief sexual experiences weekly during the first months of marriage. As time goes by she should make every effort to reduce this frequency.
Feigned illness, sleepiness, and headaches are among the wife's best friends in this matter. Arguments, nagging, scolding, and bickering also prove very effective, if used in the late evening about an hour before the husband would normally commence his seduction.
Clever wives are ever on the alert for new and better methods of denying and discouraging the amorous overtures of the husband. A good wife should expect to have reduced sexual contacts to once a week by the end of the first year of marriage and to once a month by the end of the fifth. By their tenth anniversary many wives have managed to complete their childbearing and have achieved the ultimate goal of terminating all sexual contacts with the husband. By this time she can depend upon his love for the children and social pressures to hold the husband in the home.
Just as she should be ever alert to keep the quantity of sex as low as possible, the wise bride will pay equal attention to limiting the kind and degree of sexual contacts. Most men are by nature rather perverted, and if given half a chance, would engage in quite a variety of the most revolting practices. These practices include, among others, performing the normal sex act in abnormal positions, mouthing the female body, and offering their own vile bodies to be mouthed in turn.
Nudity, talking about sex, reading stories about sex, and viewing photographs and drawings depicting or suggesting sex are other obnoxious habits the male is likely to acquire, if permitted.
A wise bride will make it her goal never to allow her husband to see her unclothed body, and never allow him to display his unclothed body to her. Sex, when it cannot be' prevented, should be practiced only in total darkness. Many women have found it useful to have thick cotton nightgowns for themselves, and pajamas for the husbands. These should be donned in separate rooms. They need not be removed during the sex act. Thus, a minimum of flesh is exposed to view.
Once the bride has donned her gown and turned off the lights she should lie quietly across the bed to await her groom. When he comes groping into the room she should make no sound to guide him in her direction, lest he take this as a sign of encouragement. She should let him grope in the dark. There is always the hope that he will stumble and incur some slight injury which she could seize as an excuse to deny him sexual access. Once he finds her, the wife should lie as still as possible. Bodily motion on her part could be interpreted as sexual excitement by the optimistic husband.
If he attempts to kiss her on the lips, she should turn her head slightly so that the kiss falls harmlessly on her cheek, instead. If he attempts to kiss her hand, she should make a fist. If he lifts her gown and attempts to kiss her anywhere else, she should quickly pull the gown back in place, spring from the bed, and announce that nature calls her to the toilet. This will generally dampen his desire to kiss in forbidden territory.
If the husband attempts to seduce her with lascivious talk, the wise wife will suddenly remember some trivial nonsexual question to ask him. Once he answers she should keep the conversation going, no matter how frivolous it may seem at the time.
Eventually the husband will learn that if he insists on having a sexual contact, he must get on with it without amorous embellishment. The wise wife will allow him to pull the gown up no farther than the waist, open the fly of his pajamas, and thus make the connection. She will be absolutely silent or babble about her housework while he is huffing and puffing away. Above all, she will lie perfectly still and never under any circumstances grunt or groan while the act is in progress.
As soon as the husband has completed the act, the wise wife will start nagging him about various minor tasks she wishes him to perform on the morrow. Many men obtain a major portion of their sexual satisfaction from the peaceful exhaustion immediately after the act is over. Thus the wife must nag fast to insure that there is no peace in this period for him to enjoy. Otherwise, he might be encouraged to come back soon and try for more.
One heartening factor for which the wife can be grateful is the fact that the husband's home, school, church, and social environment have been working together all through his life to instill in him a deep sense of guilt in regards to his sexual feeling, so that he comes to the marriage couch apologetically and filled with shame, already half cowed and subdued. The wise wife seizes upon this advantage and relentlessly pursues her goal first to limit, later to annihilate completely her husband's desire for sexual expression.
"Oh, Killer, that's awful. I couldn't ever be like that. I don't want to be like that."
"Nor do I want you to be," I admitted. "This plan is too conservative for my tastes, although it has been the bible for millions of American women, both past and present. It carries the endorsements of the American Office for Proper Books and the Mothers Tutors Association both."
"But sex can be such fun," Baby sighed.
"It can be entirely too much fun, for you, at any rate. I'm a liberal man, and I most certainly am in favor of making sex enjoyable. During our courtship I never tried to hide the pleasure I found in necking with you, and I have looked forward with eagerness to consummating our marriage and getting a taste-no, I'd better use some other word lest you get the wrong idea-er, getting a sample of connubial bliss. I just can't understand why you wouldn't be perfectly satisfied with, say, a little necking and romancing, followed by a little embracing in the nude, and finally the normal sex act. Why the need for this round-two business?"
She looked at me forlornly for a minute, then heaved a sigh of resignation.
"All right, Killer, I'll try to forget all about round two. I really will. I know that I can be excited and reach my climax without it. It's just-well, it's just that that's fun, too, and it seems such a shame to give it up for no good reason, just because you think it isn't proper or something. But I won't argue about it any longer. I'll try to forget all about it."
"Good. Then I don't see any reason why we can't go ahead and consummate our marriage."
"Neither do I, Killer," she cooed. "Not a reason in the world. Just give me a minute to pack my suitcase and we can be off-to anywhere in the world you want to take me."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I went by my home for a brief visit with my parents before Baby and I took off in a chartered plane for Ashville, North Carolina.
There we rented a furnished cottage on a hilltop. With the cottage there was a lovely garden, enclosed on two sides by high stone walls covered with ivy. The cottage provided a third wall to the garden. The fourth side was open, but just at the garden's edge the lawn dropped off into a steep hill sloping down toward the city.
We had supper out and returned to the cottage. Despite all that had happened between us, we were both lost in a romantic mood that knew no urgency.
"What shall we do, Killer?"
"It's early. Let's go out in the garden and watch the lights of the city come on."
We sat on the stone bench, holding hands and hugging, as we watched the first light appear in the twilight-covered city below, and the first star appear in the great sky over the mountains.
Baby started humming "Stairway to the Stars," and before long we were singing the words together.
"Let's dance," I said. "We can make our own music."
We danced in our dream reverie, singing together all the songs we had loved during our courtship-"Stardust,"
"Deep Purple,"
"In the Blue of Evening," and all the other quiet sad songs of our young love.
At last I kissed her, gently at first, then deeply and with passion, but still without urgency.
"I love you, Baby, with all my heart and soul. Will you be mine forever?"
"Forever," she whispered, and arm in arm we strolled toward our cottage door.
"Here, let me carry my bride over the threshold," I said.
I didn't put her down until we were in the bedroom.
"Shall we undress in separate rooms and make love in the dark?" she teased.
"No," I said. "If there's ever a place for shame, it isn't here, in a honeymoon cottage."
Soon we were facing each other in all nakedness, admiring each other's bodies. I stepped forward and pressed her flesh to mine while we kissed again, deeply and for a long time.
When I could wait no longer I picked her up and laid her on the bed, pausing to kiss both inviting breasts before I rose to face her, hovering over her expectant body. I plunged my throbbing masculinity into the depths of her quivering femininity. There I stopped and held the pose as though paralyzed, enjoying the pure ecstasy of sensation. The motions of Baby's squirming body sent thrills racing through my flesh.
After a moment I slowly drew completely out and away from her, leaving her hips straining upward after me. Then, in contrast to my slow retreat, I charged again with fury and rapidity, beating out a long wild rhythm with muscles made strong and flexible by a lifetime of athletic training.
Every technique I used in the ring of love was drawn from sheer instinct and inspiration; for this was my first love match, and I had no referee to give me the rules, no second to give me advice. I was guided by my own sensations and by the effect I was having on Baby.
Aside from her responsive squirming and thrashing, I knew the effect on Baby from her song. For she was singing a song of voluptuousness, a song made up of moaning, sighing, gasping, cooing, purring, whispering endearments, and at times, squealing aloud. It was more beautiful to my ears than any music.
And yet at the same time another of our old favorite melodies kept dancing in the back of my mind. "It Seems to Me I've Heard that Song Before," it said, and then with a slight variation. "It seems to me I've heard this song before, it seems to me I've heard this song before, it seems to me I've-"
The line was interrupted by Baby's wild wail which rose in a crescendo and hung waveringly on a high shrill note, gradually falling in pitch and volume as our bodies relaxed and I slumped down upon her for a minute before rolling over to lie exhausted beside her.
"I've heard that song before," I quietly told her. Then, realizing that my meaning wouldn't be clear to her, I added, "I've made love to you like this before. I don't know when. Obviously one of the times I was under the influence of alcohol, despite the fact that you thought I was impotent in that condition. But I know that I've had this experience before. During those times, were you ever intoxicated also, enough so that you wouldn't've remembered?"
"No, Killer, I've never been too drunk to remember but once-that fateful night with Vince. That's the only time in my whole life."
"Vince," I said, "Vince! He seems to fit into the song somewhere, somehow, but it's all so vague, so fleeting-"
"Relax, Killer. Don't torture yourself. You promised to try to forget about the past. Just relax, my darling."
"Wait! It's coming to me, it's coming! The fog is lifting. I can see through the mist a little, now."
"See what, Killer? What are you talking about? What do you see?"
"I see Vince Edwards, in the uniform of a Navy lieutenant, cocky and swaggering, with a big black cigar in his hand. Yes, I am opening the door to let him in, and I hear you calling from the next room that you aren't ready yet. Now he's turning to me, looking at me disdainfully, glancing down at his shoes, already shiny black, but he's asking me to polish them."
I groaned.
"What's the matter, Killer?"
"Now I'm down on my knees, popping that rag just like a little colored boy, while that bastard is blowing cigar smoke in my face. I'll break his head open if I ever see him again. Now you're coming out of the bedroom, ready to go out with him. You're beautiful, Baby, in your civilian evening gown. Now you're leaving with him, leaving me there alone in the penthouse."
"Stop there, Killer. The rest isn't anything we want to see."
" "But I must go on. Yes, the door is opening. It's you and Vince returning. You're drunk, Baby, leaning on his shoulder for support. He's half carrying you, a lecherous grin on his face. He's reaching in his pocket and handing me a bill, telling me to run out and buy him some more cigars."
"Oh, Killer, if you only hadn't gone for them," Baby wailed.
"I didn't. No, it's all so clear now. I wanted to be agreeable to him, but even more, I wanted to do what I knew you wanted me to do. When he takes you into the bedroom I slam the outside door and hide behind the couch. Yes, the dirty bastard is slipping back to lock the door, just as you'd expect.
"He's returning to the bedroom. I hear voices. Your voice, so drunk and sleepy, but still protesting, telling him no, telling him to go, but you sound so weak, so drowsy. The bastard must've put something besides whisky in your drink. Now I'm coming into the bedroom. I see him bending over you, trying to undress you, while you struggle feebly to keep your clothes on. I hit him. I don't even bother to let him know I'm there-I just slug him on the top of the head and he slumps to the floor. I drag him into the hall, leave him, and lock the door on my way back in."
Baby was propped up on one elbow, her face lighted with the fires of hope and enthusiasm, egging on my memory.
"I'm returning to get you undressed and ready for bed. I remove your clothes, ready to slip your gown over your head. But you're not letting me get on with it. You're putting your arms around my neck and pulling me down to you. Now you're kissing me. The kiss is over. I'm kissing your breasts. I'm kissing your stomach. Now you're pulling my lips back up to yours. You're whispering to me."
"What am I saying? Hurry, Killer, tell me."
"'Skip round two', you're saying, 'I'm ready for the knockout'.
"And I'm reminding you about that sign in all the WAVES officers' heads. 'To hell with signs', you're saying, "to hell with all the signs and everything else but you and me'."
"Am I really saying that, Killer?"
"You certainly are."
"Then bully for me! But please go on."
"I don't need to go on. You know the rest. We just got through acting out the rest of it. You sang your same song of love to me. That's what started me remembering. Baby, do you realize what this means?"
"It means Vince Edwards never made out with me."
"It means this kid growing in your womb is mine! Ours! It-oh, Baby, I'm so happy I could cry."
And so I did. And so did Baby. We cried, laughed, and loved throughout that long wonderful night.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The following days were the most wonderful I'd ever experienced. Our evenings in our garden were romantic and our nights in the bedroom were thrilling. For a week I was in a state of bliss.
Then I started remembering. At first I was not disturbed, as I remembered things the psychoanalyst had told me about: the harmless episode with the little fat man in Chicago, the equally innocent courtship I paid to the WAVES in Buckroe City, all the other non-sexual episodes during my periods of amnesia.
But as the memory of my activities with Baby gradually emerged in my conscious mind I became more and more upset. For the memories were all exceedingly pleasant.
All the hours I'd spent in the cubbyhole were joyful hours, and the nights in our bedroom in the penthouse were nights of pleasure.
I remembered the smooth skin of her thighs upon my cheeks, the gentle tickling of the silken corn tassels, the delicate response of love's lovely instrument against my eager lips.
I remembered and suffered. A tremendous conflict was raging between my moral sense and my sexual desire. I began to long for pleasures which I knew were forbidden. And yet, just as strongly as I felt these acts were sinful and perverted, I knew that they were exceedingly stimulating and great fun. I was in a quandary.
Baby noticed that I was becoming cross and irritable, especially just as our romancing gave way to the final act of love.
"Are you getting tired of me, Killer?" she pouted. "Why should you be cross to Baby right in the middle of our lovemaking?"
"I'm not cross," I snapped. "Let's get on with it."
And get on with it we did. But there was a sense of incompleteness there. The climax came too quickly and as I lay panting beside her, I felt cheated.
It's all too brief, I said to myself. It seems there should be another round, just as Baby had said. Another quarter hour or half hour of delightful dalliance in the valley of voluptuousness before the furious final round. We'd both be so much better prepared for the knockout then. But right is right and wrong is wrong, I groaned.
I started losing sleep, and as other days dragged by, I started losing weight. A tired and haggard expression made itself at home on my face.
"Killer honey, what's the matter with you?" Baby asked, one afternoon. "I think you'd better see a doctor."
"Fooey on doctors," I said. "There's nothing wrong with me."
No doctor can help me, I thought. Nothing can help me. Nothing can. But wait, there's one thing which has never let me down!
I rushed to get my Bible. I placed it on my shaking knees and closed my eyes. I prayed for an answer to my problem, then opened the book at random and steadied my trembling finger on one of the pages.
Dare I open my eyes, I asked myself. What will it say? "The wages of sin is death"? What else can it say? This is futile. But I'll go through with it. I lifted one eyelid and peeked at the page. I began to read:
"Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits." My heart leaped up at the words. Immediately I restrained myself.
I must be sure, I thought. I glanced at the top of the page and saw that I'd read from "The song of songs, which is Solomon's." Hmmm, I thought, it's strange that, of all the years I've gone to Sunday school and church, this book of the Bible seems to have been strangely neglected. I don't think it has ever once been mentioned. I must be sure that it means what I hope it means. I went back a few verses and started reading again:
"Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.
"How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!
"Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
"A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
"Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard, "Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:
"A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.
"Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits."
There was a singing in my soul as I read the words. All my doubts were vanquished. A thousand psychoanalysts could've assured me that it was perfectly normal to make love to Baby as I'd done during my periods of amnesia, but their words would've offered me no comfort.
I am a religious man; I base my life and my actions on the inspired word of God. And the inspired word of God was telling me the wonderful words I wanted so much to hear.
I read all eight chapters of the Song, laughing at some of the quaint but beautiful metaphors:
"My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies."
Now where are the lilies? I asked myself, as I read that verse in chapter two. I found the answer in chapter seven:
"Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies."
But, oh, what a nice heap of wheat, I laughed. This Song is so rich in metaphors. One place wheat, another pomegranates.
"Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates," I read in chapter four, and in chapter six:
"I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vine flourished, and the pomegranates budded."
I don't blame you, Solomon, I thought. I'd want to check up on those pomegranates, too. What a luscious-sounding fruit! Wow, old boy, in chapter eight your spouse is saying:
"I would cause thee to drink of the spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate."
Would you need much encouragement?
Twice I read the eight chapters, lingering on that last verse before closing my Bible: "Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices."
That I will, I thought. That I will. I will make haste. Baby, open your garden gate and let this hart come in.
I ran to our garden to find Baby, my Bible still in my hand. I threw my other arm around her and passionately kissed her.
"Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away," I said to her.
She pushed me away and looked strangely at me. I pulled her back and again kissed her.
"For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
"The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land...."
"Killer, what's the matter with you?"
"Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead."
She slapped me hard across the face. "My hair's no such thing and you know it, you oaf."
"Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely...."
"And thy speech is idiotic. Killer, have you been drinking?"
"Yes, Baby, I'm drunk with the wine that flows from the roof of your mouth, for how much better is love than wine?"
She eyed me dubiously and held me away from her.
"I knew something had been worrying you lately. I told you to see a doctor, Killer, but you wouldn't. Now you've cracked under the strain."
"Not cracked, Baby. Just hungry. Let your beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits."
I fumbled with her skirt, and suddenly kissed her on the thigh above the knee. She put her foot on my shoulder and sent me sprawling on the grass.
"Behold, thou art fair, my beloved," I continued, not getting up, "yea, pleasant: also our bed is green."
"Now I know you've been drinking," she said. "You'd never act like this sober. Especially what you just tried to do. You've been drinking and you're not my Killer any more. You're Killer's better self, aren't you, Bruce? Well, as much as I'd like to, I can't take advantage of you. Not any more. I promised Killer I wouldn't. I'm trying to learn to get along without round two. So you just leave me alone until all that alcohol is out of your system."
"Honest," I said, getting up, "I'm not drunk. I'm your grumpy old Killer, only I'm not grumpy any more."
"Yeah, well, I'm not sure I believe you. What's come over you?"
"Sit down," I said. "Let me read you a song which is the song of all songs. It will be music to your ears."
I read aloud to her, watching the alternating expressions of joy and bewilderment on her face.
"It-it's so exciting," she said, "but some parts of it, I'm not quite sure. Read it to me again, Killer."
I read it again, stopping many times to answer her questions and discuss it with her. And then I read the eight chapters once more, and finally had Baby read them to me.
"Oh, such beauty!" she said. "I never dreamed that was in the Bible. I thought it was just full of warnings about what not to do."
"Pm afraid I and a lot of other people have been in the same boat with you, Baby. Why does everyone have to emphasize only the negative aspects of religion? I've been around churches all my life, and I've never once heard this book of the Bible mentioned."
"But why, Killer?"
"It seems that they've talked so much about the wrong kind of sex that they forget that there is a right kind. When a man takes a wife God wants them to enjoy sex to the fullest. He gave them one of His sixty-six inspired books to show them the way to that enjoyment, but most of them paid no attention. There are so many barren and neglected gardens of love in this world."
"Then don't waste any more time, Killer," she said excitedly. "Make haste, my beloved, come into your garden and eat your pleasant fruits."
Together we ripped the clothes from her body and sprawled on the lawn.
"Not too much haste," I said. "I want to enjoy this. I don't want to rush through. For the first time in my life I'm going to abandon myself to love. I'm going to savor every bit of it, all three rounds."
Baby giggled in delight.
"Who's going to referee this match for us, Killer?"
"Nobody," I said. "That's been our trouble. My conscience has been refereeing. We don't need a referee at all. He'd just break us up in the clinches, and I'm going to have you in all kinds of clinches!"
"Ding! There's the bell for round one, Killer."
I kissed her sweet moist lips, thrusting my tongue between them to explore the ridges on the roof of her mouth. When I had completed that exploration and was resting for another trip, Baby's tongue darted between my lips for a moment, then withdrew to the edge, its tip tickling the corners of my mouth. Holding her head firmly with my hands, I sucked the dainty morsel far into my mouth, drinking the sweet juices which dripped from it.
"Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue...."
"Ding!" Baby whispered. "Round two."
"All right," I said, running my hands over her breasts. "I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense."
I nursed at the nipples like a hungry infant, while Baby cooed softly, stroking the back of my neck as one strokes a cat.
"Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor...." I said.
Moving downward, I ran my tongue into the small depression and moved it in soft circles.
"Quit, Killer, that tickles," Baby screamed, pushing me away.
I grazed on the smooth untanned skin between the navel and the top of the silken delta.
"...Thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies," I murmured, while Baby squirmed impatiently.
I bypassed the center of pleasure and kissed the insides of her legs a few inches above the knees.
"...The joints of thy thighs are like jewels...." I said, moving my kisses ever higher.
"O, my beloved," she moaned, " ... I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate."
Her slender fingers entwined in my hair and guided my lips where she wanted them to be. The mucilaginous reality was more magical than any erotic dream. I lay inert, thrilling to the pulsing and throbbing of the wondrous flesh.
"Awake, O north wind," Baby said, almost impatiently; "and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out...."
I breathed heavily in answer to her request. Her loins were gorged with the blood surging inside, pneumatic, eager, straining, demanding. Still I waited.
"Come," Baby said, now commanding me, catching handfuls of my hair and pulling me closer.
Her thighs locked powerfully around my head, entrapping me, so that I could no longer hear her. I could only imagine that she was still talking.
"...Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits."
I needed no further coaxing. My ardent lips engulfed and were engulfed by the flesh which her belly was pumping against me with powerful rhythms. Hungrily I kissed the puckering lips, licked with my tongue the iridescent bud, sucked into my mouth the viscous deliciousness of her passion.
At length Baby relaxed and heaved a sigh of pleasure.
"My beloved is gone down into his garden," she said, "to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.
"I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies."
"Yes," I murmured, "but now it's time for round three. Dong!"
"Killer, the word is ding."
"That's for the other two rounds. For round three the word is dong."
"Aren't you ready to go to sleep, Killer?" she teased.
I rose and spoke into her ear;
"Listen, I have gone down into my garden, my sister, my spouse."
"Yes, my beloved goeth down sweetly, causing the lips that are asleep to awaken."
"Yes," I said impatiently, "but now I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk, yea, abundantly. Now, open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled, for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night."
"I hear you knocking, but you can't come in," she said.
"No more of this teasing," I said, grasping her firmly by the hips. "Do you feel me at the door?"
"Oh, yes," she moaned. "Oh, so big. Killer, I'm afraid. Don't hurt me. Please, Killer, stop. Please, don't split me. Oh, oh, ohhhh, Killer, you're inside me. Oh, Killer, ohhh, filling me up so completely! Ohhhhh!"
Her voice trailed off to an inaudible moan, changing to a short gasp as I plunged riotously into the quivering cave of love. She worked with me. We found a rhythm and held it together, gradually increasing the tempo to the point of frenzy before I exploded in ecstasy, my very life surging out of me and into her. I slumped on top of her, exhausted. She rolled me over gently, and nestled her head on my shoulder. It was some minutes before I could talk.
"You won," I said.
"No, Killer, we both won," she corrected.
"All right," I agreed, "we're both winners. And as long as we can love with joy instead of fear, we'll keep on winning."
She didn't answer. She was purring contentedly, sound asleep at my side.
