Chapter 15
I didn't know what to do first. I had never had that much money in my pocket at one time and I wanted to see how it felt to spend that kind of loot. I decided that I would put off paying the few bills I had and went into a classy men's shop and had myself fitted for a suit. I gave the address of the place at the lake because that was the nearest thing to an address I had, and I wanted to pay for the suit then, but the fellow looked shocked and said that It wasn't necessary to pay until it was made, so I went out of there with all my cash and a little card to remind me to come back in a few days for another fitting.
I tried to remember what some of the things were that I had wanted so badly in the past year, but the few things I was able to remember didn't seem very important any more. I walked along Fifth Avenue looking in the windows and feeling a little silly. I was reminding myself of a kid with his first dollar bill.
There were a few things that I would like, but there didn't seem to be any point in buying them when I didn't have a bed to put my shoes under. One was a new instrument and the other was a good hi-fi combination. I had looked at them both before, so I didn't even bother to go into the stores where they were. I finally decided to see if I could find Tram Martin.
I got out my little book with the addresses and phone numbers and looked him up. When I called he was in, and after I told him about the job at the lake, he said he would take it. It was all over, and I didn't have anything more to do. I went into a movie and stayed there until it was almost time to meet Laddie.
I had been afraid that there would be a real-estate man trying to sell us on the place with a contract and fountain pen waiting, but there wasn't anything like that. Laddie had the keys to the place, and after we had taken a couple of drinks we started up to look it over.
The house was set back from the road quite a way, and it could not be seen from the road because of the trees that surrounded it. I liked that, but I saw that if we did buy the place we would have to take down some of them to get a driveway in from the highway.
It was a very big place, and in addition to the house itself there was a cottage where we had to stop and persuade the caretaker to let us in. There was also a huge garage and even a stable. I began to think that it was too big to handle and was afraid that it would cost more than we would have, but Laddie said that the owner really wanted to get rid of it and we could get it for a song. She told me her idea for the outside of the place with the double driveway from the highway and some lighted signs there and a big section of the lawn torn up and graveled for a parking lot. It seemed pretty terrible to rip a place like that to pieces. When I mentioned that, Laddie said that there wasn't anything else that could be done with it, because of the highway that had come through no one wanted to buy it. I asked her why the Milk Fund didn't buy it for a place to send some of the city kids in the summer. She seemed to think that I was kidding.
After we had looked it over from the outside we went into the house and then I began to get hot for the idea too. Laddie was carrying a little swagger stick and she went around marking where the bar would be and where the walls would be cut until I could almost see the whole thing taking shape before my eyes.
"We'll want an architect or a designer to do the actual planning. Or do you know something about that?" she said.
I told her that I didn't know a damned thing about it. She said that she would get the right men if I wanted her to, and I said that was all right with me. By then we were talking as though we had already bought the place.
We stayed there for a long while and we walked back and forth pointing out things and telling each other how it would be. I began to feel really set up and started figuring how long it would be before we could open. I took a paper and pencil and started a list of things to be done. Hiring people to work in the kitchen and getting a bartender and buying equipment—I had a lot of things written down before we got out of that place.
Laddie asked if I was ready to buy the place and I said I would be as soon as I got the lottery money. She said that we wouldn't have to worry about that and that we ought to buy the place and get things started. On the way back we decided that we would sign the papers, and do what we had to do about getting the house on the next day.
She said that she was going to be busy that night and I didn't feel like going to the lake again, so I had her drop me at the Hotel Lincoln and I checked in there. After I had eaten I decided to go out and see what was happening around town.
I spent some time stopping in here and there for a drink and talking with the boys and finally I got around to Big Charlie's. Charlie was the best picker of jazz talent I knew. He had a little place downtown, and his wife made the best fried chicken sandwiches and chili that I have ever had. There was never any regular band at Big Charlie's, but he had a piano and after work, the cats around town used to stop in and relax, and there was usually the best music in town to be heard there.
A couple of the boys were jamming when I went in, and I ordered a bowl of chili and sat down to listen. Pretty soon Babs came in and when she saw me she came over to my table and sat down.
I never did have Babs figured out. She wasn't exactly an entertainer, although she did a job around town now and then. She certainly wasn't a whore, but she never seemed to do any work of any kind.
I had heard that she was kept by Judge Newcomb and that she was at home to him regularly once a week, and I had also heard that she had surprised one of the town's big shot lawyers by giving him a son that was kept out of sight and that he was taking care of her too. If that was anything in either of these stories she kept still about it. She and I were pretty tight, but I had never asked her anything about it and she had never tried to tell me. Babs was the first girl singer I fucked, and we always got along all right.
"I haven't seen you around. What are you doing?" she asked.
I told her that I had been playing at the lake but that I was just cooling it and looking things over that night.
"Want to come over to my place and look things over?" she said.
I told her that I thought that was a good place to kill the night if she didn't have anything to do.
"I don't have anything to do. But I want to get a sandwich first," she said.
She ate her sandwich and I finished the chili and we had a couple of drinks and then we left Big Charlie's and walked the two blocks to the apartment where she had a couple of well furnished rooms.
"Take it easy," she said.
She left me watching television and went into the bedroom for a little while. When she came out she was wearing a short white terry cloth robe.
"You like? It's to wear at the beach," she said.
"It shows off your suntan. What's under it," I said.
"I'm under it," she said.
She sat on my knees and put her legs over the arm of the chair and leaned on my shoulder. She loosened my tie and ran her fingers around the inside of my collar and then took my tie off and unbuttoned my shirt.
"You like my tan?" she said.
"I guess it's all right. I'd like to see some more of it."
She let me open the front of the robe and put my hand in. The night was too warm for a robe of that sort, and the skin of her belly felt moist and her breasts were moist with sweat.
"You just like me because I'm a singer. If I were a straight girl you wouldn't think much of me," she said.
I thought that she might be right about that. I hadn't considered it before.
"Don't worry about that," she said. "You wouldn't make much of a square cat either."
"You're too hot in that robe," I said. "Why don't you take it off now?"
I let her sit up and I helped her pull it off and then I tossed it to a chair.
"I just wanted to show off in it. I just got it today," she said.
She blew down on her gorgeous breasts and on her belly to cool herself. She spread her legs and bent forward and blew on her pussy too.
"You can't cool that spot off that way," I said. "I thought you knew that by now."
She got up and walked to the far end of the room and turned on a small electric fan and stood in the breeze of it. It blew her hair back and she threw her head up and lifted her arms and let the air wash over her.
"That's good. You want to try it?"
I didn't care anything about the fan, but Babs had me so that I wanted to get out of my clothes as soon as possible.
She was like something carved out of alabaster and she could make me very hot without seeming to do much to get me that way.
I had my clothes off and went across the room after her, and my cock stood up.
Babs waited for me, standing still and watching me coming, my cock in a curving, rigid hard-on, and then she drew her shoulders together and dropped her head while I shoved my prick against her and rubbed my belly on her ass.
Her hand went behind her and she touched my cock and slid her fingers through my bush. She threw her hip against me and rocked her body with her knees, and she got her hand under my balls and played with them. Her body rocked more heavily, and I knew what she was going to do next, but knowing about it didn't spoil it.
She didn't turn toward me, but her knees bent further and further, and then she had dropped to the floor. She reached over and found my prick and held it on her cheek with both hands. She turned her head until her lips pushed across my hard, knobby cock-head and then she let her mouth come open and she took it in.
Her chin was resting on her shoulder then. I moved around in front of her and stuck my prick further into her mouth and held it in while she bit it and sucked it and slid her tongue around it. In a little while she stopped sucking.
"I didn't suck any cocks until I let you fuck me," she said. "First time I saw a pink cock I had to put it in my mouth, and I can't leave them alone since. Now whenever I see any prick I have to suck it."
She held my cock tightly and popped the knob right out of the foreskin and licked it, and she licked not only the end, but my whole shaft and then she licked my balls. She wanted to french me more, but I pulled her to her feet and took her into the bedroom. She dropped onto the bed and opened her legs with a heaviness that made her seem like a much bigger woman than she was.
I stood beside the bed and looked down at her. She postured and lifted her ass and she shoved her cunt toward me.
My prick was as stiff as my forearm and almost as big. Babs reached for it and managed to get her fingers around my prick as she pulled me down.
"You ought to bring a friend when you come to see me. I don't know whether I prefer to go down on you or have you fuck me," she said.
It didn't matter very much to me which she did, because I knew that she did both of these things superbly. Whichever job I'd get from Babs would be something that wouldn't leave me wishing that it had been the other.
I lay on the bed waiting for her to make up her mind about it and while I was lying there I shoved one hand down over her belly and grabbed her bush. Babs spread her knees and pushed my hand onto her cunt-lips. She whispered to me what she had decided to do.