Chapter 13
I was so bubbling over with glad hopes that Winnie Jo instantly guessed what had happened. "Get away from me, you cheating hustler! After all we've meant to each other and then you go peddling your patoot."
In bed she at first refused to touch me but soon relented, kissed and forgave me, stuck her tongue into my vagina. "Doesn't feel any bigger." Holding the lips apart she kissed my private flesh while I held her small head against my crotch. "But honestly, Carol, if you keep it up this honeypot it'll stretch out like a witch's cauldron."
Bonnie Ringgold returned from her tour and business picked right up, with many visitors, reporters, a producer, booking agent, Bonnie's physician, dressmaker and hair stylist.
Loads of food, also cases of liquor were delivered at the house. Bonnie herself looked bright and healthy although she admitted she'd still been drinking too much.
She seemed genuinely pleased to see Win and me as her house guests. But she proceeded to lecture us on the dangers of the city. "Don't trust any of the men around here, beware of friendly pats from any man younger than seventy . you hear me?" She smiled at Winnie Jo's fierce expression. "I'm sure they aren't going to put anything over on you."
"Just let 'em try to get me down," Win said "and I'll raise a lump on their head like a potato." Then she had to blurt out, "But trust Carol to polish the old apple. She's been humping like mad with Rudy."
"That's a lot of kid nonsense," I said quickly. I forced a laugh but Bonnie was an old hand, I didn't fool her for a minute. I saw that she was hurt and angry. Rudy had practically admitted he'd bedded the star. She was in her late forties, acutely conscious of the menace of advancing age. Her squinting glance accused me of ingratitude, betrayal.
She couldn't compete with an eighteen year-old rival on even terms but she could use her power to separate Rudy from me. "And what are your future plans here in the city dear?"
Meaning, "Don't expect me to board you in my house while you steal my lover."
"I have a temporary job telephone selling." (What I earned wouldn't keep Bonnie in toilet paper.) 'Win and I are looking for a nice apartment near a school in town for when the fall term starts."
Winnie Joe knew we hadn't been looking for any apartment, opened her mouth to say so, then caught my eye and had enough sense to keep quiet.
The next day all I could think of was another date with Rudy. I waited around, hoping he'd offer to drive me up to the city but he buried himself in business, more personal appearances for Bonnie had to be arranged, and so on. I was getting pretty fed up with all the polite snubs and infighting of the theatrical crowd, I'd never dreamt that competition in the arts could be so crude and merciless.
Fat fixers with acting parts to hand out were offered women's (and men's!) bodies for their pleasure as a matter of course and then more often than not the fixer took what he smugly called "Just another piece of tail" and gave nothing in return. Also, as a matter of course, successful older show biz personalities demanded youthful lovers and got them.
So Bonnie, aging and supporting an expensive household, had as her star's right taken on my handsome Rudy. Well she could just give him up! I felt sure he didn't love her. She didn't own the earth . Let her go balling with a man her own age and leave us young people alone.
I arrived at Bonnie's house that late afternoon at the cocktail hour, but neither she nor Rudy Mather were in the big living room. The long bar was deserted save for Winnie Jo swigging a Coke. Her eyes glittered with mischief.
"Wait till you hear the latest! Whew-ee! You'll scram outdoors screaming and climb a tree."
I noticed she wore her blouse like a loose smock. "Don't tell me you're knocked up?
Blithers, you're too man-shy for that."
"I've been waiting for you, to show you how I'm painted then I'll clean it off." She shucked out of her blouse and I could see bright red on her navel and nipples. "This noon Bonnie cleared us all out of the house so she could rest and Mandy took me to the theatre not to sit in the audience, we caught the acting from the wings. The show was a dud so far as I could see, endless goo about man's destiny in this rotten modern world, you know that boring slurp.
"They asked me would I care to meet the male star and I told them 'Some other time,' but I saw the female star Dawn Topping, in her dressing room-Mandy said her real name is Mrs. Ada Murphy. She was painting herself and she insisted on daubing me with red too "
"So you stripped naked for her, I suppose?" But the cause of my darkening frown was that neither Bonnie nor my darling had come through the door arid Rudy had always stopped by at this time for a drink or a chat before dinner. "And I suppose dear Mrs. Murphy's hand found its way between your legs?"
"Oh shucks! Sometimes Carol you're just too childish for mod society. Show biz people are so full of vibes and feelies that nudity and a friendly goose mean no more to them than drinking a glass of beer. Oh well, now that you've seen my new beauty spots I guess I'll go upstairs and clean my poor body. Come and watch and give me a tickle if you want."
She fixed her blouse, wiggled her behind, and started off, but I called, "Wait!" Winnie Jo smiled at me with an innocent expression as if she didn't know what worried me. "When Bonnie cleared everybody out of the house even you and Mandy did Rudy Mather stay here while you were gone?"
"Well of course Rudy stayed what do you think she wanted the rest of us out of the way for? After all, you poor thing you, he's her live-in lover and Bonnie can't rest without a bit of dicky-do."
"Stop it!" Win reacted round-eyed to my glare, the opening and closing of my angry fists. I stilled my shaking only with severe effort. "You don't know they went to bed together, you didn't see them."
"Sure maybe they played ringtoss." Winnie Jo rolled her eyes in the exasperating manner that made me want to slap her down - "Bear up, hon, get some sense. You know you asked for this, trying to steal the man from a top show biz star. Hereafter you'd better have more consideration for me, your true sweetheart."
"Oh knock it off!" I turned my back on her, I was so upset, and she ran upstairs in a huff.
Mandy suddenly showed up, fixed herself a drink of Scotch at the bar and for once I helped myself to a gin-and-tonic. The alcohol took the edge off my temper but didn't cure my love-sickness.
Dinner was a dismal affair, neither that man-eating star nor Rudy showed up. I recalled her mention of how she liked to give her sex partner tongue treats, even licking his anus and I lost all appetite for the roast lamb and caper sauce.
I hung around the living room all evening hoping I'd see Rudy but he stayed away. Then Mandy broke the hateful news: Winnie Jo and I were politely asked to leave. "Bonnie's found a nice apartment in the Marina for you two and she's asked me to move you first thing in the morning in the station wagon."
Money power had spoken. Bonnie had a perfect right to ask us to leave, what I could never forgive was her grabbing off the man I knew loved me. I felt sure that Rudy soon would have asked me to marry him; but when his fat job with Bonnie was at stake he'd had to ditch. He played along in the cutthroat game like all the rest!
Winnie Jo and I had never done anything to earn more than piddling amounts of money if you didn't count what the Blossoms paid us for whoring. Sure, we had the big insurance settlement but Daddy had died for that. I had invested the forty thousand in high-interest bonds and so far we hadn't touched even the three hundred a month income it yielded.
"I'll miss living high on the hog," Win said, "but it's a change so what't'doody?"
She was cool at adapting herself to our being shuffled around from place to place even though deep down every uprooting filled her with new terrors. "Gee Carol, won't it be nice to live by ourselves again? I can cook you things we used to eat, like spare ribs, greens and stuffed peppers. But don't you try bringing any trashy men around to our apartment or I'll give 'em a good kick in the belly " We had gone on up to our room, Winnie Jo was in the bathroom assigned for our use and I was standing in my robe, combing my hair, when someone knocked on the door. It was Rudy I stood there, let out a sighing breath," expecting him to take me in his arms, but he walked right by me, paced back and forth avoiding my eyes as though he chose to exclude me from his sight and touch.
I weakened reached for his hand, but he yanked it away. In quick anger I blurted out, "Are you through screwing the boss for your paycheck or must you go back for an overtime suck?"
Rudy turned very red, clenched his hands into tight fists, but made no reply. Hurt and resentment came over me, for I knew now for certain that he and Bonnie had been playing such games as kiss-my-twat. "Did she look and smell pretty down there when you gave her a tonguebath. Or did you close your eyes and dream of the dollars you'd rake in for cheating on the girl who would love you and become your loyal wife?"
He did touch me then violently. He threw me on my back on the bed I thought he was going to make love to me. I'd put up a holler, then I'd let him overpower me. Except that Winnie Jo would be fighting him like a tiger.
Also the urpy doubt flashed: he probably couldn't even raise it after Bonnie Ringgold had drained him to the last drop in a marathon orgy- He didn't even try to take me, instead he crushed me in agony with words. "Such shitty talk from you, Carol, is no more than I'd expect the way you must know all the positions.
You didn't mention that you'd carried on prostitution with your father's employers, going down on the wife, letting her debauch your kid sister, taking the pill so the man wouldn't knock you up the many times you let him screw you for money."
"But that-that-" I was stammering "Mel Blossom forced himself on me-the first time-"
"Yeah I can just see him doing that when it was right there for him. Do you expect me to believe he forced you to do a deep throat job sucking his cock?" I was really crushed speechless. Win came bouncing in her robe tight around her. "What's going on here? You leave my sister alone you bullgut or I'll throw you out the window." Rudy sprang up pushed Win back into a chair, resumed his pacing.
"Moral dry rot clear through," he said "A decadent, noisome situation. Chances are after you came home from selling your cunt to the Blossoms there was your drunken, rapist father to throw you down on the bed or floor, nail you with his oversize rod-" But Win was up clawing at him snarling raging. He tried to hold her off, could have knocked her senseless but didn't want to hurt the kid. She grabbed his shirt, tore off the buttons. I pulled her back kicking and crying.
Rudy too was breathing hard. "Yeah incest. With your father and this little demon too. So you expected me to involve myself in a situation like that? Maybe you thought I was as nutty as you two."
I could find no words to defend myself. Why bother? The road back to him was forever blocked. He demolished me with a bitterly cold stare. He'd never marry me, I must have been out of my mind to have expected it. When a well-set man could pick and choose, he'd be pretty foolish to take for his wife a girl with my sex record - Rudy Mather had his weaknesses but he was no fool, he played the game smart.
It embarrassed me when Winnie Jo jeered at him. "Who do you think you are but a male hooker? Yeah, Bonnie Ringgold's fancy man What do you expect you'll ever amount to?
Ten years from now when she's nothing but an alcoholic old rag you'll still have to kiss her twat to earn your pay. Ha! That's all you show biz characters are, a lot of animals, so stuck on yourselves anybody'd think you had principles to be proud of. Yeah! You ass-kissers are pretty useless and boring in my opinion."
I chocked her with an arm around her neck made her shut up Win gurgled and thumbed me in the ribs.
"I've listened to enough of this crap " Rudy stared morosely at the ruins of his twenty dollar shirt. "Bonnie wanted me to talk to you frankly let you know where you stand "
"I know Rudy." Anger had left me, I felt only despair. I saw the big truth about myself.
Nothing but a promiscuous cunt. No man who knew the facts would ever want to marry me. "You can reassure the boss, tell her that Win and I will go peaceably, thank her for taking in such trash as us."
"We aren't either any trash!" Winnie Jo said but didn't convince anybody.
"I'm sorry it had to end this way Carol." Rudy spread his hands in a gesture he must use often when being tactful dismissing the losers. "But it definitely has ended. A girl as pretty as you will make new contacts, easy. And next time take my advice and confess nothing."
With a sly twist of his lips he turned and left the room.
"Afraid even to kiss you goodbye," Win said "Just shows, all he loves is himself. Good riddance, I'd say. Maybe I shouldn't have blabbed to Bonnie about you and Mr. Hot-Nutsy but she'd have found it out quickly enough. I'll never forgive Bonnie for snitching on us."
I could never forgive the rich star either. What I'd confided to her in earnest trust and was understood not to be repeated. But the aging star, fighting to retain youth and love stopped at nothing.