Chapter 7
Nine o'clock.
Nervously, Lorraine glanced at her watch, then drummed her fingers on the table at which she sat. She had been drumming her fingers for over an hour, waiting for Gary to return, hoping with half her heart that he would hurry back, and with half her heart that he would not.
She had no idea what she would say to him at nine. I hope you don't mind, darling, but I've got to go down to the maintenance shed to play slave for Bob Shuster. Sure, she thought, that would go over real well. Or: Sorry to leave you alone for the night, but Bob Shuster wants to borrow my body.
She stopped drumming and buried her head in her hands. She wanted to cry, something she had been doing a lot of recently, but no tears would come. She did not even feel sad. Just empty.
She looked at her watch again. Nine-oh-three. Time passes so slowly, she thought, agonizingly slowly.
She could not wait around any longer. There was no way in the world she was going to the shed early, but she could not sit at the small table in the cabin and wait for Gary to return when time ticked by so painfully slowly.
It had been hard enough during the day. Gary had sat beside her at both lunch and dinner, talking animatedly with friends, squeezing her thigh under the table, looking at her with those loving, wide-eyed looks she used to love but now hated. She hated them because they made her feel cheap, and like she was doing something to Gary. Something awful.
And it had been hardest when Gary had come up behind Barry Jameson and slapped him on the shoulder. "Ready to work on the buggy on Saturday?" he asked.
"Yeah," Barry said. "Sure."
Her husband looked at his friend strangely. His words were spoken in monotones, without feeling. His eyes watched the ground instead of Gary, and there was none of his usual enthusiasm in his demeanor.
"Something wrong?" Gary asked.
"Guess I just don't feel good," Barry told him, then turned to walk away.
"Hey," Gary said. "Why don't you join Lorraine and I for dinner? There's a space at the table."
"Nan," he said, still looking at the ground. "I already told Stewart I'd eat with those guys. You know, guys my own age." There was nothing insulting in the boy's tone, but Lorraine could tell from the look in her husband's eyes that the remark had hurt him.
But being the kind of person Gary was, he made the look on his face evaporate as soon as he knew it was conspicuous, and returned to his usual jovial self. It was an act, Lorraine knew, but it was a damned good one. He smiled and chatted through dinner, squeezed her leg and acted as if he was not disturbed. But even though Lorraine and Gary had not known one another long enough to be sure of each other's feelings, Lorraine knew Gary was upset. She loved and knew him that well.
It was for that reason she had considered leaving him, hitching down to the city and then disappearing among the thousands of faces never to be found again. That, of course, was impractical. She had family, and she could not discard them so simply. It was not in her makeup to assume a new name, a new identity, disappear to another place and never be heard from again. She needed her ties, and she needed to know she had a family that cared about her. No, she would have to do the best she could to hang on to Gary. That would not be easy, since her opinion of herself was one of hostility-why should anybody as decent as Gary want anybody like you, assuming he knew what type of woman you are?
There was no choice. At dinner, she had glanced fleetingly at the maintenance shed, which loomed like an omen of disaster down the hill from where she sat. To her surprise, she saw Shuster emerge from within and start down the trail that led to the campsites occupied by Camp Bernhardt's individual troops.
What's he up to, she wondered, then scolded herself. He does work here, she thought, and his work would regularly take him out to the troop sites. What he does with you he does in his spare time. Oh, stop being so damned paranoid.
Then she forced herself to turn her attention back to her adoring husband, and pretend she was happy.
When she looked back at the trail Shuster had been on, it was deserted.
Bob took long strides along the path that led from his combined place of work and place of residence. He knew where he was going, and the thought of it made him happy.
His mind was entirely on ten o'clock that night. His loins ached and his head burned for thinking about it, and in order to try not to, he turned his mind back to the night before, with Lorraine's luscious, full lips pressed firmly against the taut skin stretched over the bone of his erect cock.
He remembered her nibbles, her firm sucking, and he wondered if she had ever gone that crazy for Gary
Kemper, little wimp of an asshole that he was. Probably not, he guessed.
A dozen screaming little boys brushed by him on the way from the waterfront back to their camp, and he weaseled his way through the crowd they made, cursing them a dozen times in his mind.
He felt better when they were gone, and he resumed his long, sure steps as he walked toward the waterfront, and he smiled when he topped the rise and could see the lake and its finely-painted white docks below him. Even from this distance, he could make out the figure of Stewart Roberts, his hairless chest glistening in the sunlight that remained and reflecting stunningly against his bronze tan. The air had already begun to chill from evening's approach, but Stewart wore only his speedos, those brief, tight-fitting swim trunks worn by racing swimmers. They were of the revealing nature they were for a simple reason-speed. Water glided off them quickly, and they clung to a person's body and created no resistance. They were of the same principle as shaving one's body-body hair created pressure against the water, and slowed a swimmer down. The less body hair, the faster you raced. The same was true of speedos-the less clothing hanging off you, the better your chances of winning.
Stewart was the fastest, strongest swimmer in camp. He could not only outrace anybody in the water, he could outrace them in any of the camp's boats, particularly canoes and rowboats that demanded strength more than cunning. He was also the camp's all-time champion gully-whumper, the art of driving a canoe forward by standing on its rear gunnels and jumping up and down, making the boat propel forward from the pumping action.
Yet it was not Stewart Roberts' prowess in the water that attracted Bob Shuster to him. It was what he saw through the speedos.
Stewart Roberts undoubtedly had the biggest cock in camp. With some mixed feelings, Bob had noticed that through the form-fitting trunks. He hated to think of himself as possessing even the smallest degree of homosexual tendencies, yet he had found himself many times unable to tear his eyes from Stewart's crotch.
Now he had found a use for the strange yearning he felt toward Stewart. In his mind, he pictured Stewart and Lorraine locked in the bondage of fornication. His cock began to stiffen again at the thought and he forced himself to return his mind to the task at hand.
He trundled down the trail to where it widened and then vanished, and he was at the entrance to the waterfront. "Yo!" he yelled, conforming to waterfront rules: nobody enters without permission. Far too many times there had been exhausting searches of the lake when it had been figured that somebody might have drowned because nobody had kept tabs on him. It was also the reason they used the "buddy" system, by which everybody who went swimming was teamed with another swimmer. When "buddy check!" was yelled by the waterfront staffer in the guard tower, all swimmers had to find their buddies. If somebody turned up alone, it meant trouble, and another tedious search of the lake.
Phil Lancaster, the waterfront director, ushered Bob in and they walked together down to the docks. "What's shakin?" the pot-bellied Lancaster asked. "Somebody say the dock needs repairs?"
"The dock looks fine," Bob said. "But if you want, I can get rid of all those pests in the water."
Lancaster looked into the lake and tried to identify the pests about which Shuster spoke. Then he realized Bob was referring to the scouts, dozens of them splashing like brainless animals in the cordoned area of the water, and Lancaster laughed. "Not a bad idea, he chuckled. "Sometimes I'd like to get rid of 'em myself."
Bob laughed with him.
"But seriously," Lancaster said, sounding woefully like a bad comedian. "What can we do for you?"
Bob shrugged. "Just came down to see what's cooking." But his eyes were still shifting uneasily to Stewart Roberts, who stood with his fine, strong legs spread far apart on the dock, shouting instructions to a couple of kids working on their swimming merit badge.
"Well, make yourself at home," Lancaster said. "I got things to do." With that, he clambered up the lifeguard tower and replaced one of the younger staffers perched up there. He stretched his legs out luxuriously, and wrapped a pair of dark sunglasses around his chubby face. Then he began to smear sun-tan lotion thickly on his jiggling flesh.
Bob looked away with disgust. A man should keep himself in shape, he thought. He eyed Stewart again. Like that, he thought. Roberts keeps himself in fine shape. Bob decided there was no time for action like the present, and began walking along the slippery dock to where Stewart stood.
"Hey," Bob said to him. Stewart eyed him suspiciously, then turned his attention back to the kids in the water.
"Kick harder, you little bugger!" he yelled, and one of the youths began to thrash at the water with his feet. "Kick, I said, not drown." Then he muttered to himself, "Jesus."
"Tough to work with, aren't they?" Bob said.
Stewart looked into the water and yelled, "All right, that's enough for now. Take five. " Then he turned around to face Shuster. "Is there something I can do for you?"
Bob smiled. "Nope. Something I can do for you, though."
"I doubt it," Stewart said, making no effort to hide his contempt.
"I understand you have access to white lightning," Bob said, "the real thing. I'd like to get my hands on a case. I'd like to make a trade."
"Sorry," Stewart said. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Okay," Bob said shrugging. "I can't make you do anything you don't want to do. But let me tell you, boy, you're passing up one hell of a deal."
"Like what?" Stewart said, just out of curiosity.
"No point in whetting your appetite, is there? Now, if you happened to know where some of that white lightning might be obtained, we could talk."
Stewart shook his head, then looked over at the panting, dripping boys seated on the dock, their feet dangling in the water. "All right, back in!" he shouted at them, and they obeyed immediately, diving headfirst into the icy lake from their seated position.
"I been up to some of those attitude adjustments," Bob said, trying to sound like he was making idle chatter. He wasn't, though. He knew Stewart had what he had been told he had, and he meant to have some for himself. Bathtub alcohol; Christ, there's nothing like it to take a man's mind off his troubles.
"I've been there too," Stewart said.
"Sure, I know that. I've seen you. Man, I've seen you drink like nobody I've ever seen before. How do you do that?" Stewart was known throughout the camp, and had been for several summers, as the man with the cast iron stomach. Once, he had tilted a full bottle of mescal back to his lips and drained half of it; Bob had watched his adam's apple bob up and down as the fiery liquor bathed his throat and cascaded down to his stomach. Yet his eyes remained open, and he never so much as flinched. He may as well have been drinking water.
"Practice," Stewart said in response to the question of how he was able to consume so much hard liquor. Not only could he drink several times what the other staffers could drink, and do it without a cough or a choke, but he remained perfectly sober. When the rest of them were stumbling around in a drunken stupor, some terrified that they would be unable to negotiate the obscure trail back to Camp Bernhardt, Stewart would lead them.
It had been an attitude adjustment ritual. Stewart would take the lead, and the staffer behind him would grab his belt, then the staffer behind him would take his belt, and so on, until they had formed a long train, and then Stewart would begin walking. He would lead them safely co camp.
Not that any of them wanted to be there the next day. Hangovers were not approved of at Camp Bernhardt, and having a hangover was rough enough without having to cover it up.
Only Stewart Roberts escaped hangovers. He was always chipper and alert the following morning, despite the vast quantities of various liquors he had consumed the night before.
Only somebody with a constitution like that can have access to white lightning, Shuster reasoned. And that was only confirming in his own mind what he had already learned from two other sources. One was another staffer-the one he had found balling the church girl in his tent after Lorraine had pointed an accusing finger. The other was an old man down in the town, who claimed to receive a weekly supply from Stewart. "He don't even make me pay," the old man had gleefully related to Bob. "He's a real sport, yes sir."
Bob watched Stewart call out exercises to the boys in the water, and considered whether or not he wanted to follow through with this. So far, Bob had not been given an inch in his conversation with Stewart the Bootlegger.
Might as well, he finally decided, and he walked over to the edge of the dock where Stewart stood. "Careful," Stewart said threateningly. "You might fall in."
"I might," Bob said. He had already decided to play his ace in the hole. "Then again, you might get to fuck Lorraine Kemper."
Stewart registered no reaction. "Stretch your arms out!" he shouted into the lake, then turned and appraised the man who had just offered him the camp director's wife. "That's your trade?"
"That's it," Bob said.
"I suppose I should be surprised, but I happen to know you pretty well. So I'm not surprised. Just sort of disgusted."
"Why's that?" Bob said, not really caring.
"Because you deal so lightly with human beings. I can't help but wonder how you managed to arrange Mrs. Kemper's availability."
"Let's just say I keep my professional secrets to myself."
Stewart looked out in the water, but his attention was no longer focused on his young charges splashing up water before him. "You're a bastard, " he finally said.
"Lot of people tell me that," Bob smiled. "Is it a deal?"
Stewart thought of Lorraine, her long tapering legs and the firm breasts she so proudly displayed in tight tee-shirts. "It's a deal," he said.
"Good. Be at the maintenance shed at ten o'clock with a gallon. Just walk right in. Everything'll be waiting for you."
"It better be," Stewart said, and then he dove gracefully off the dock, barely raising a ripple in the water as he sliced into it. His muscles protruded from his arms and legs, and his obvious strength was apparent.
No, indeed, Bob thought. I'd better not fuck with him. I may be bigger and stronger than anybody else in this camp, but Stewart Roberts is the exception. He could break me over his knee like firewood.
But I won't let him down, he thought, and a smile played on the corners of his mouth. I can't, and I won't. She wouldn't dare to break our appointment. If she does, Im'll ruin her forever.
Smiling happily, he walked off the dock and headed back to his shed.