Chapter 10
It took me a long time to wake up. In fact, it seemed to me that consciousness did not want to return to me-a discouraging warning that I was in a pretty bad state and shape, So I kept my eyes closed and groaned. My tongue felt as if it had been out all night licking barnacles from the bottom of a cattle boat ... my stomach was practicing homicidal high jumps ... and my bruised, cut skin, particularly my marred buttocks, still dully throbbed-tingled with searing fire. All this was not the kind of mental therapy I needed just then.
I thought, one of the things I could do about the hurt and hangover was go back to sleep again. I didn't know the time of day and did not care. Judging from the slant of the sun as I peek-squinted just once at the Venetian blind-slatted windows, it was probably fairly late, mid-afternoon. But it made no difference. I just wanted to lie there in the bed and doze off again as quickly as possible. When you're asleep, you're unconscious, and nothing hurts. So I groaned again and turned on my side.
Immediately, something soft and warm pressed against my stomach. In the throes of my generally repulsive agony, I thought at first it was Teddy lying there beside me. Then I sluggishly remembered the Venetian blinds which Teddy didn't have at his windows. Plainly I was not in his bed.
I opened my eyes as far as I could. The first thing I saw was the milk-white mound of a plump hip, conspicuously feminine. Two plump legs lay crossed on the bed. I forced myself to look higher. But I did not know who the blonde girl was, for one rounded arm lay across her face. She had the slightly flattened look of a person who had been through quite a night, and was patiently sleeping it off.
I stared. I was now beyond groaning, or gasping in surprise. And I remembered practically nothing of the night before, except that two blonde girls had latched on to me in giggling delight just as soon as Carol fainted under Kong's agonizing torture ... and these two girls had mixed me a very special "high potency" drink that had obviously caused my sanity to explode. Also, obviously, this was one of the blondes.
To save both of us any embarrassment, I decided it would be best if I bowed out while she was still asleep. It would also save the embarrassment of having her look me in the face and call me a certain kind of creep, which was what I felt like all of a sudden as I vaguely remembered using some peculiar techniques.
Cautiously, quietly now, so as not to disturb her sleep, I turned over to leave the bed by the other side ... and there, to my left, lay the other plump blonde, her ripe mouth pursed, as if from the last kiss, her heavy breasts pressed together like two delicious, cherry-topped vanilla puddings.
I furrowed my aching forehead, trying to think. One little blonde was bad enough, but two flattened-out little blondes, sleeping me off, well-it rather staggered even me. And they still had me in a spot that I didn't know quite how to get out of. I was surrounded! I could not climb out of either side of the bed without waking at least one of them.
Yet I had to get away before they regained consciousness and maybe made an outcry of....further demands! For if they did raise that kind of a fuss, there would undoubtedly be hell to pay; in my present condition, I probably wouldn't have been able to raise a finger, let alone....
I remained motionless. I was afraid to move even a finger for fear one of them would wake up, look me straight in the eye, and scream ... more! At length, it occurred to me that if I went off the foot of the bed, I might make it without ruffling their slumbers. So, slowly, an inch at a time, I slid down the bed, moving my naked body as smoothly as possible, and when at long last my knees bent over the foot of the bed, I sat up, taking care not to breathe.
A few moments later I was on my feet and free of the blonde-covered bed. At this point, I permitted myself a breath of relief. Then I hurled myself into my scattered clothes and tiptoed to the door of the tiny efficiency apartment. Just as I was reaching for the doorknob, a heavy-lidded voice purred from behind me, and my tired blood turned to buttermilk.
The voice laughed softly, "Well, Steve! You don't look so bright eyed and bushy tailed any more."
"Wow! I'll bet you're just dead tuckered out, Steve," said another voice, much like the first one.
"Yeah," I grunted. "I feel like I've been put through a meat grinder-many times!"
Both the girls giggled. I blinked at them in the bed, then my head whirled as remembrance flooded my lethargy. They were identical twins! And it seemed to me, if they hadn't shifted bed positions after they finally allowed me to pass out, the one on the right was Elsie, and her twin sister was Delsie.
In a practical tone, Elsie told me, "You didn't have to try to sneak out on us, Steve. It always makes us sick before noon."
"But it's a quarter till two!" exclaimed Delsie, holding up an alarm clock.
"So long, girls!" I said quickly. "I'm still sick-and late!"
"For what? You think you gotta dash to send Carol a dozen white lilies?" Elsie asked evilly.
"W-what, exactly, happened to her?" I inquired shakily. "I mean, after...."
The girls howled with laughter!
"Delsie, I told you that magic potion we doped Steve with was instant insanity," Elsie twittered. "Poor guy didn't get to enjoy the fantastic fun he made for everyone! Including us-most of all!"
I was abruptly annoyed and demanded, "Look, tell me what happened to Carol."
"Don't worry about it, Steve," Delsie said almost soberly, then smiled maliciously. "Her bloody butt is going to burn like wild-fire for three or four days, but she'll survive."
"Sure?"
"Positive," Elsie laughed. "Say, what's with you, Steve? Why the guilty feeling today?"
"Carol's still a human being," I admitted. Then I asked quickly, "How are you girls coming out of it?"
"Wanta try us?" Delsie answered with a wink.
"I-I'd rather not. Save it." Elsie said, "I think you're flabbergasted by our resiliency, Steve. Don't be. We're not Amazons; we just have pills for almost everything. Wanta pop a pep-up pill with us?"
"No, thanks."
"Suit yourself," Delsie shrugged and chuckled. "But we're going to drag you back into bed, anyway!"
"Like hell, you are!" I said flatly. "What the hell-I'm beat down to a pulp!"
"Well, we've got a thing or two for solidifying," Elsie assured me.
Abruptly, they propelled themselves off the bed and came at me as if I were the fifty yard dash finishing line ... and I felt as if I were being hurled through the air across the small room, and then the terrible twins threw me to the bed and flung themselves upon me, tearing off my clothes, and I was nude again. I did not struggle; what the hell-I was weak from the entire night's frenzy, and mesmerized ... pleasantly! So I lay back in the bed, my arms up on the pillow at either side of my head, in a position of complete and sly surrender, and let them have a go at me. My body felt unbearably limp ... but watching the twins became, in a sense, a completely visual experiment for me. That is, watching their love's labors lost gave me a strange sort of sadistic pleasure! Derived, undoubtedly, from their ridiculous, nymphomaniacal and unquenchable horniness.
The girls swept over my body like vacuum cleaners. Elsie grasped and sucked my tongue tightly between her lips, and Delsie plastered her body flat atop me and crashed her breasts into my chest again and again; then Elsie did the same thing across my eyes and mouth, until at last she moaned out in sheer frustration.
But after five, ten minutes ... everything was as it had been in the very beginning: sad. "Sorry, girls," I grinned.
"Oh, no," Elsie whimpered. "No, no, no, Steve."
"I can't," I said flatly.
"You can," Delsie groaned. "Here-" She grabbed me under the legs and forced them apart and up.
"It's really no use," I said after a few more moments.
"We don't give up the ship!" Elsie cried desperately and she was gone for a moment as she groped for something underneath the bed, then extracted and handed me ... two monstrous masterpieces!
"Well, I'll be ... twins really do have twin every things!" I chuckled.
"Go ahead-beat the band!" Delsie hollered. She bounced once, then settled against my left side.
On my right, Elsie was already pumping my arm and blithering, "Hot dog ... hot dog!"
"Go, GO!" Delsie panted.
The twins thrashed on the bed, delighting in their headlong rush to completion. And then, much to my surprise-albeit to my weary, nearly numb relief-they jumped right up, afterwards.
"Black coffee, Steve?" asked Elsie in a practical tone.
"Okay. Strong," I muttered.
"You know it," Delsie seconded. "We've still got a long, wild work day ahead of us."
"Oh Christ, don't mention it," I said. "Look at the time-I'm going to get hell from Teddy when I appear at the hotel pool ... if I can possibly drag myself over there."
"You're a real nut, Steve," said Elsie, brewing the coffee on a hot-plate.
"How come?" I inquired. "What do you mean by that crack?"
"Don't get mad at us," Delsie said.
"Hell, no," Elsie countered. "You haven't been stud-hustling very long?"
"Nope. Are you complaining about something I did or didn't do to you two?"
"Hell no!" Elsie repeated herself. "I'm just trying to say that you got a quick education, but fast, from Teddy ... and now you really don't need him any more!"
"To work at the Breakers Hotel, I do. He's big boss-with his steel thumb right on us whores!"
"That's what you think," said Delsie. "I mean, Teddy's all a lot of hot air. Among other things. Give him the royal shaft!"
"But quick," Elsie went on with her two cent's worth. "Teddy was just plain dumb to bring someone with your equipment to the monthly party last night. But he never learns-he never keeps his initiates in the dark for very long. Wise up, Steve!"
"Teddy will continue to use you just as long as you let him, and that's all," explained Delsie. "When you put your foot down with him, Steve, he'll jump like a jack rabbit at your demands. To begin with, slice his cut to twenty-five percent!"
"He'll stand still for anything-from you, beautiful baby," said Elsie. "Believe us, he will. He'll let you work the Breakers at almost all costs to himself. Because ... every pool-boy pimp at the party last night will give his eye-teeth to hustle for you!"
I frowned. "Don't put me on...."
"Swear on a stack of Bibles!" Delsie said seriously. "We all hate Teddy's style and system. And we all like you. So fair warning ... lay the law down to him-today!"
"Yeah," Elsie nodded in agreement. "Get out from under while the getting is still good!"
"That's a ... curious statement, kind of," I said. "What's the non-subtle hint mean, in plain English?"
"Use your imagination," Delsie replied evenly.
"It's sluggish-way under par, I'm afraid. But ... you don't mean-some sort of ... blackmail!" I laughed. "Teddy couldn't possibly get a single thing on me!"
"Wanta bet?" Elsie challenged me. "He's done it before, and I'll bet he'll do it again with others."
"But not with me," I said confidently. "Anyhow, thanks a bunch for your forewarning and concern; I really do appreciate it. But I don't need it. Steve Reynolds' life is an open book ... with no apologies to anyone. Ever!"
"Here. Drink your coffee," Delsie said sourly. "I just hope you don't have to eat your words!"
"Oh Steve, Steve, Steve!" Shirley wailed. "I'm being-blackmailed I"
I didn't have to question her about it. "What did Teddy get on you? Any how?"
Shirley couldn't control her sobs. She flung her head on my sore shoulder, but I didn't object. We huddled behind the tall, thick shrubbery that screened out the employee's entrance to the hotel, forty five minutes later. Shirley had been watching all day for a cab to drop me off, and by now she was practically in a state of hysterical collapse as she shakily handed me....
A perfect Polaroid snapshot ... of that notorious three-way! r
"That bastard! That rotten bastard!" I hissed, tearing the picture to tiny shreds.
"That solves nothing, Steve! He says he has another one ... hidden somewhere. Of course he would! Maybe several others! You and Carol and I weren't in any condition to know; we were so blind and unseeing with passion that he could have snapped a dozen! Now ... he says I've got to go to work for him on the side-as one of his w-whores! And God only knows what else he has in store for me! He was so ... nasty! Otherwise, he's going to send some filth about me to my folks!"
"Over my dead body," I told her firmly. "I'll break his neck first!"
"My parents would die! Something like that would just kill them! I know it!"
"Shirley, Shirley, take it easy," I husked. "I swear to God, I'll give Teddy his comeuppance over this!"
"That'll be the day," the familiar voice came from behind me. It was Teddy.
Without uttering a word, I balled both fists, spun around wildly, and managed to land a hard left to Teddy's ribs, following it at once with a vicious right hook to the chin. Surprised and completely off guard, he buckled at the knees, staggered one step toward me, then fell down on the cement walk.
The angry blood congested in my face. "Get up so I can wipe up the ground with you!" I hollered.
And Teddy cried, "God damn you! Don't you lay another finger on me."
"I'm going to beat you up," I assured him.
"And that will definitely get a picture sent to her precious parents!" Teddy yelled, wiping away the blood that dribbled down his chin.
"No, no, NO! DON'T!" Shirley pleaded in tears.
"He's only scared and bluffing," I said.
"Try me!" Teddy snarled. "If you touch me, Steve ... or if you don't continue to toe the mark I lay down ... a vivid picture gets sent home to Indiana! Get the, er-picture? Pun!"
"I get it," I hissed. "You didn't want to particularly recruit Shirley ... all this was just a God damned way to keep me in step!"
"Ah, the light at last," Teddy chuckled. "Steve, you're positively the best stud I've latched on to in several seasons.-And, you can make me a small fortune. Naturally I'm not going to let you get away from me!"
"Okay, okay," I breathed heavily. I was a little crazed, and desperate. "So maybe I deserve you-for being such a stupid son of a bitch. Maybe I'll have to beg my butt off to you, too...."
"Oh, you will!"
"Well ... that's okay," I panted. "That's okay, Teddy. For the time being! If ... you let Shirley cut out of this mess!"
Teddy hesitated and looked up at her. "Really scared of this whole scene, doll?"
"Oh yes!"
"Okey-doke, you don't have to make it, Shirley doll ... except with Carol!" he said harshly. "Because she's got real hideous hots for you-and she can have you now, for as long as she wants you. That way, I don't give in to Steve too much-and wound my pride of lordship!"
"It's no deal!" I snapped.
And Teddy snarled, "It's set and settled-or else the postman rings. That's that!"
"Wanta bet? Nobody gets in touch with the postman ... under pain sedatives in the hospital!" I enlightened him.
"But you can't keep me down forever," Teddy defied me. "There will eventually come a day ... there always does! And I'm a great one for biding my time ... when I really want to serve up a full measure of just dessert!"
"In that case, I'll follow you like a shadow-stick right on your tail!"
"Who are you kidding, huh?" Teddy asked with a twisted grin. "I have you right smack flat over the old barrel, Steve! So stop annoying me even more with your anger and feeble threats-or I'm just liable to lower the boom anyway, out of sheer spite!"
Dead silence ruled. I stood over Teddy, breathing heavily. Shirley sobbed, her face buried in her hands. Finally she looked at me.
"We're trapped by him, Steve," she said brokenly. "There's nothing else to do, but obey him. Nothing at all!"
"Not at this moment," I corrected her. "But time will tell...."
"Forget it," Teddy laughed. "Don't count your chickens ... don't turn my slow simmer on to the boiling point!"
The enraged blood congested in my face again. "I'll get you for this, Teddy. Some day, some how-I'll pay you back in full, awful measure. Mark my words! I'm going to get you-but good!" I felt a surge of powerful confidence. "I'll cut your heart out for this!"
"Tit for tat?" Teddy laughed. "I'm all aquiver."
"You'd just better shake in your boots," I growled. "And say your prayers! Fair warning...."
"I couldn't be scared less, Steve."
But it sounded like false bravado to me. God knew, Teddy had just better know the war path, I thought. For he had converted me into a man with a purpose ... hell-bent after his family jewels!