Chapter 10
The road trip dragged on and on. Wednesday night they concluded the series with Twin Falls, and they packed up and headed for Marshall.
It was one in the morning before they had all checked out of the hotel and boarded the bus. Off they went into the foggy night. Helene wasn't with them for a change. She had grown bored with the road trip, and would be waiting for them when they returned.
"See you when you get back," she told Shep.
He was glad to see her go. Playing this grueling road trip was bad enough, but shacking up with Helene and her friends would bring him to his ruin. He slumped down in his seat and tried to sleep away the trip.
It wasn't easy. They jolted over roads that hadn't been worked on since the WPA projects many years ago. The best Shep could manage in place of sleep, was a kind of light doze that he could sustain for about a half-hour at a time. H e was up at sunrise, and they stopped for breakfast at a dirty little diner in the middle of nowhere, and continued on.
Shep slept, off and on, throughout the day. The scenery wasn't worth opening your eyes to look at anyway. A cloudburst delayed them, and it was past five when they rolled into Marshall.
It was an older town than Twin Falls, but lacked the night life that Twin Falls had. Its team was in first place in the league, and was so far out in front that there wasn't a hope of catching them before the end of the season. The Marshall Stars had a habit of winning pennants, it seemed. They had been league champions for four years in a row, and nine years out of the last ten.
"Just like the Yankees," Cass said.
"Why are they so good?" Shep asked.
"They're accustomed to winning," Cass said. "It gets to be a way of life."
The Stars were a brisk, professional crew. Despite their strong lead in the standings, they approached the game with a tone that would have made you think their whole future depended on the outcome. Shep and his teammates didn't quite feel the same way. The long bus ride had pretty well robbed the competitive spirit from them, and it was a soggy bunch of ballplayers that took the field that night.
The Stars took the first of a three-game series, eleven to two. Shep went hitless for the first time since he had joined the team. The next day he caught up on his sleep, and won twenty dollars in a poker game going on in the lobby of the hotel they were staying at. That night he hit a home run and a pair of doubles. The Stars won anyway, three to two.
The last game of the series was played Saturday afternoon. The sight of the sun must have perked up the spirits of the team because they surprised themselves as much as the opposing team by handing them a sound beating. The score was nine to one when the dust settled, and was made possible by Shep's consistent hitting.
After a hasty dinner, it was back onto the bus again and on the road to the next town.
The road trip finished on a winning note, and proved to be a successful one, overall. They had won six out of nine games in all, and were solidly in third place in the standings. They packed up their gear and headed home.
The bus chugged into town early Wednesday morning, and Shep went straight to his rooming house. There was no game tonight, and he could rest up until a four-game series with the Braves on Thursday. It could prove to be a vital series for both teams. The Braves were in second place by six games, and they could cut that lead by four, if they could sweep the series. They would have to play heads-up ball to do that, but it could be done.
A stack of letters from Lily waited for him. She had written every day, and Shep read through them with a feeling of sadness and guilt. Poor Lily, he thought. Poor lovable Lily, with her big boobs and warm heart. He really wasn't treating her very fairly, he knew. He flipped through the pages of script, reading all about her lonely nights, and how she sat at home with a book or went to the movies. It made him feel about six inches tall.
He thought about Helene.
Helene and Vickie.
Aileen and Judy.
Even Jeanie. Little, big-brown-eyed Jeanie. He had almost forgotten about her. But Jeanie hadn't forgotten him.
"I waited for you," she told him. It was early evening, Wednesday, and she had just gotten off duty at the coffee shop, and ran up to his rooming house. She had caught him completely unaware. "I followed all the games," she beamed. "You hit so many home runs! Do you know that you're fifth in the league in home runs, and you haven't even played more than a dozen games!"
"That's nice," he said.
"Did you miss me?" she asked.
"Why ... uh ... yes, sure," Shep said. "I thought about you all the time."
"I even dreamed about you," Jeanie confessed-"You want to hear my dream?"
"If you want to tell me," Shep said, trying hard to sound interested.
We were married and on our honeymoon. A cruise to the South Seas, and our ship sank, stranding us on a deserted island. Then our clothes fell apart and we ran around naked, like Adam and Eve. We made love all the time, and nobody ever came to find us." Her eyes sparkled excitedly as she related her dream to him. "We would lie naked on the beach, and you'd kiss my breasts and make mad passionate love to me. We made love five times a day, every day for months. Wasn't that a wonderful dream, Shep?"
"Just peachy," he said, forcing back the laugh that was begging to be released.
The silly broad, he thought. She was so simple-minded she was just a dull little teen-ager with a heartthrob. What a ninny! Adam and Eve on a deserted island! Freud would have had a ball with that one!
"Since we spent that one night together," she went on, "and you left on the road trip, I've been counting the minutes. I want to feel like you made me feel that night, again. It was like a beautiful dream that night you made love to me."
"Yeah?"
"I sometimes wonder if it really happened. Did we, Shep? Did you really sleep with me."
"As far as I know, I did."
"I was so afraid, that night, but I'm not afraid any more. I know how beautiful it can be when two people are so much in love. There isn't anything dirty about that, is there, Shep?"
"No, of course not."
"Even if they aren't married," she continued, "the marriage words don't matter. They're just words, aren't they, Shep?"
"Yeah."
"It's what's in the heart that counts. You can be married, and still not have love. That's wicked. But if you're in love, and you do that, nothing else matters."
Shep smiled indulgently at her. She looked a little winded after all that. She had probably been rehearsing it all week, he thought silently.
"I want you, Shep!" she cried. "I love you. Take me to bed again, darling!"
She began stripping away her clothes.
He wasn't really in the mood for her. He was bored stiff with her childish antics, and he wished he had never started fooling around with her in the first place. He was as eager to make love with her as he was ready to get back onto the run-down bus and head back to Marshall.
But she had her blouse off, and then her bra. Her cute rounded breasts came into view, and Shep's interest started to grow. She was an empty-headed little kid, but there was no denying that she had a good-looking body.
Shep never had been able to resist a good-looking body. Especially a good-looking body on a girl who was taking her clothes off in his room.
Jeanie was flushed and excited. Her nipples stood up tall and hard as she finished taking off her clothes. Off came her skirt, then panties, and she stood there in front of him.
She looked down at him with a puzzled expression on her face.
"Is something wrong, Shep?" she asked in a weak voice, huddling her shoulders together as though she felt suddenly embarrassed at having exposed herself so shamelessly. "I didn't ... shock you, or anything?"
"No," he said. "No."
"You love me, Shep?"
"Come over here and I'll show you."
He quickly had gotten into the spirit of the moment. What the hell, she was easy on the eyes, and they could only hang you once for the same crime, he told himself. There was something sexy about the way she looked in her nudity. He had broken her cherry the last time, and it was only fair to her to.screw her again, if that's what she wanted.
He wrapped his arms around her, and she pressed herself against him. Her head tilted up, and she puckered her lips, eyes closed tightly, waiting to be kissed.
He mashed his lips to hers. His hands played with her ass, and he reached around and brushed her cunt with his hand.
"Oooohhh, Shep!" she gasped.
The last time, Jeanie had started with fifteen years of pent-up, festering virginity. Today there were only ten days of abstinence driving her, but the effect was more or less the same.
He grabbed at her breasts and squeezed them, and he felt the nipples, hard as little pebbles, against his hands as she pressed to him. She went wild. Thrashing, flailing, panting, and shrieking like a demon. She didn't believe in maidenly modesty, that was for sure. She had pulled out all the stops. Her body crushed against him with frantic eagerness, and she sank her teeth into his shoulder as she had the first time. It was getting to be a habit with her. A personal trademark.
It was the same shoulder she had munched on the night he had taken her virginity. Those indentations had healed, but now she clamped onto him with a passionate hunger.
There was nothing Shep could do but grin and bear it. Unless, yes! He smiled to himself. Unless he could get her teeth away from his shoulder. And how better to do that, then to fuck her in the ass like he had Helene?
"You really love it," he said with an effort.
"Oh, yes! Yes, Shep! I love it!" she gasped from beneath him. "I don't ever want you to stop!"
"Know what I'd like to do? I'd like to make you feel the way you did the last night, but in a very special way." Shep told the dazed girl. "I know you'd love it, too."
"I don't care, Shep. Anything! I'm going crazy!"
"I'd love to fuck you in the ass," he said hoarsely. "You'd like it, I know you would."
She stopped cold. His hand had wormed under her and was fingering at her young ass.
"But ... but that's dirty! I'd never go for anything as dirty as that!" Her eyes were wide with shock.
"You would," Shep coaxed. "Weren't you afraid the first time we made love, and afterward, you admitted there wasn't any reason to be?"
She shivered beneath him. "You ... you've done it that way before?"
"Lots of times," he lied. "They all loved it."
"They did?"
"Sure."
He pushed his finger into her ass-hole, making her gasp and squirm. "You see? You're very sensitive there. You really like it when I finger you there, don't you? You'll love it even more when I stick my cock in. C'mon, baby. It'll only hurt for a second, just like when I screwed you the first time."
Jeanie moaned wildly. Shep wasn't sure if it was the finger moving in her ass, or the crude manner in which he was talking to her now. Either way, she was greatly excited, and a gasp of disappointment went out of her as he withdrew his prick from her cunt.
Her firm young ass had never looked so sexy to him as it did when he gripped her cheeks with both hands and pulled them apart. Her tightly puckered ass-hole stared out at him, and he massaged her leaking cunt juices into it with his fingers. Her face was buried into the bed, as he eased the thick, swollen prick up to the entrance of her ass. She flinched with pain when he pressed it past the rubbery flesh, and drove it home.
"Aaaahh," she shrieked. Her hands clutched at the bedspread, and he saw the muscles of her back twitching spasmodically as he began to pump in and out of her tight sweet ass.
"You like it, baby?" he grunted. "Does it feel good?"
She shook her head feebly, and he worked his cock faster, deeper.
"Hhaaa, oooohh, Shep! It hurts! Oooohh," she moaned.
He didn't let up with his savage fucking of her ass, and after a minute, she had changed her tune. Her ass jerked, and she thrust at his prick as he drove it to her.
"Shep! Shep!" she cried. "Oooohh, it's good! So good! Jam it in! Jam it all the way!! "
She went wild with lust and continued to ram her ass back to his charging cock.
She was terribly tight, tighter than her virgin cunt had been by far. He pumped his hips, and reached around to toy with her clit. He felt her shiver with pleasure, and she howled with delight at this added treatment.
"Mmmmmm, ooohh! Harder, Shep! More! More!"
He made a renewed effort and stabbed vigorously at the young girl's frantically bobbing ass. She moaned deliriously, throwing her bottom to him in wild abandon, and squealed with delight every time he drove into her.
Fucking Jeanie in the ass was great! He could hardly believe the erotic and physical sensations that ran through him. He was going to blow her ass off when he came, he thought. Man! Was he going to blow her ass off!
Jeanie was first to pierce the air with a howl of joy indicating her orgasm. Even if she had remained silent, Shep would have known, from the way she stiffened, clenched her buttocks, and convulsed beneath him while her insides shook with muscular convulsions.
Her joyful reaction brought Shep to a hasty conclusion, and he blasted her ass with rapid bursts of come from his pumping prick.
"Ooohh, darling!" she whimpered. "Ooohh, I'm dying! I must be dying! Oooohh, it feels so gooood!! "
Shep remained with his prick in her, driving his cock, balls smacking against her ass, until they both fell to the bed in exhaustion. He felt like a million bucks. Totally satiated, and glowing with satisfaction.
Jeanie lay there in a trance. Her eyes were shut tight and she whimpered quietly, lost in a world of her own.
"Was I right?" Shep said, after a long silence.
"Wha ... what?"
"Was I right? Was it like I said?"
"Oh, yes! Yes!" she said happily. "I'll never think twice again. I want to do all those things you want. It felt better than the last time, Shep. Can you believe that?"
"Sure," he said smiling.
Shep got up and went to the bathroom and peered at his shoulder in the dim mirror. The impression of her teeth was plainly visible.
"Shep?" Jeanie called.
"Yeah."
"Where'd you go, honey?"
"I'm here," he answered. "In the bathroom."
He came out. She was lying face down on the bed, limp and weary-looking. She was a nice sight, the smooth back and pink, curving bare buttocks, reddened somewhat from the fucking she had just received, and her long hair hanging around her shoulders.
She turned and looked at him. "Did I hurt you, Shep?"
"I'm all right," he said, rubbing at the marks on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry. I just get carried away when you put it in me. Is that why you did it from the back?"
"Yeah," he said. "That was part of the reason. I wanted to do it that way too."
"I'll try and control myself next time, Shep."
"I hope you don't have rabies," he told her jokingly.
"I don't," she laughed. "Sit down here and hold me. Tell me you love me, Shep."
He sat down and rested his hands on the cool flesh of her buttocks. He stroked at her; that was a pleasant task. But he couldn't bring himself to tell her that he loved her. God knew he had used the three-word gambit plenty of times, when he had to, in order to persuade an unreasonable girl. But this was different.
Those other times he had simply been playing his part in a formulized ritual that had no more of a relationship to true love than a game of marbles did. The girls had demanded a certain kind of magic formula before sleeping with him, and he had complied with their wishes.
Not Jeanie, though. There was certainly a magic in the words, but nothing ritualistic about them at all. She meant them, or at least she thought she did. And she wanted him to say them and mean it. The act had already taken place, and now she wanted the words.
He couldn't say it.
"Why don't you ever tell me you love me?" Jeanie asked. Her voice just this side of turning into a plaintive, maddening whine.
Shep leaned over and kissed her.
"That isn't an answer," she said.
"You know how I feel about you baby," Shep improvised. "We don't need the words."
"Tell me. Please, tell me, Shep," she insisted. "I want you to tell me you love me."
He took a deep breath. This was going to be harder than making an unassisted triple play. He was going to have to tell her that she should grow up and stop living in the doll-house world that she was now. She would have to learn someday, that not everybody took a girl to bed and married her immediately after. She was going to have to grow up and realize that sex could happen without love.
He caressed her naked body, intent on telling her the facts of life before this went further.
He looked down at those big brown eyes. Full of innocence, pleading with him for those three little words of comfort.
Damn! Damn, damn, damn! He couldn't do it. Much as she needed to be shown the truth, he couldn't do it.
"I love you," he said finally. He almost shouted the words.
"Oh, Shep! Shep!" she gushed.