Chapter 12
The sixteen year old Lolita leaned over and opened the convertible car door for me.
"Climb in," she said dully.
I hesitated, and her full-fleshed Mama had a small conniption.
"You simply must get off your feet, young man, and relax. Despite your rich deep sun-tan, you are as pale as a ghost! And don't you need a lift somewhere?"
"T-thanks, but ... I-I don't know where I'm going," I stammered, blinking from one to the other. Daughter Bettsy was svelte and summer-browned, wearing a petulant, vague and vacant expression, and her kindly mother reminded me of home-cooking and flower-gardens.
"Get in, please," she said firmly. "You are coming home to our apartment with us, for a big bowl of nourishing chicken soup. And I won't take no for an answer!"
"Lady-you don't just pick up strangers off the street!"
"Mama does," came Bettsy's answer to my amazement. "Stash your suitcases in the back seat ... and don't argue with the Duchess!"
"The Duchess?" I asked, sensing that it was her mother's nickname.
"Incongruous, isn't it?" the Duchess queried me, then immediately explained, "When a woman is disgustingly plain and dowdy ... she has to be something else-if only in name! Otherwise, such women often times grow bitter. Let him sit between us, Bettsy...."
I was dazed and dazzled, from my still recent exploit with Teddy ... and mother-and-daugh-ter didn't exactly put a very abrupt end to my fluster. They were, in a word ... fascinating!
"Bettsy is my beautiful baby," the Duchess expounded as she drove the big Lincoln smoothly but slowly. "But at sixteen, she still has not learned to be blase about passion!"
"Crap," Bettsy said, with pouted lips. "It's always your idea to cruise the beach streets and pick up the studs, Duchess!"
I choked on my own spit; I tapped my chest with my fist and cleared my throat. "What is this, with you two?"
The Duchess said inanely, "Relax. Would you like some music on the car radio?"
"I just want to know...!"
"Questions-answers," snorted Bettsy. "Stud-smuck! The merry-go-round goes round ... just shut up and enjoy the ride, Steve!"
"That's ... pretty damned difficult, you know!"
"Whoop dee doop!" Bettsy laughed lewdly. "Don't let your intelligence get nosey and foul things all up."
"It's really a kook pick-up," the Duchess smiled sweetly. "But tempus fugit and we'll all come out in the wash, so to speak, if you'll hold still...."
"For what?" I blinked-grinned.
"For the Duchess and me, that's what!" Bettsy poked me in the ribs. "See, we Bourbon-booze it up at breakfast because all we've got is each other. Arid the Duchess is really a square until she gets lighted."
The Duchess snapped her fingers. "I still know how to cut the cake! Here we are now!"
She braked the car with a lurching abruptness.
My mind was really reeling! It was nearly impossible to make heads or tails ... especially when the Duchess, who looked like the Mother of us all, assumed the rootie-toot hipster speech of her dangerous daughter.
They were both dead drunk. That's all I could decide definitely. And inside their furnished apartment, the chicken soup "bit" tossed me through another loop. I mean, the Duchess insisted upon ... spoon-feeding me!
"That's a good boy! One for the money-two for the show ... three to make ready-and four to go!"
"Hold it, hold it!" I chokingly insisted. "You're practically pouring the soup ... down my front!"
"Then quit spitting, slob," Bettsy said.
"Drooling like a baby," the Duchess corrected her.
"I-I've had enough," I declined the broth.
The Duchess quivered noticeably. "Full to the gills?" she husked.
"That depends ... on what you have in mind!" I blinked.
"Juicy hot dog," Bettsy cinched it.
I drew a deep, jdiscouraged breath. "Look-this is way out weird. Maybe-so weird it's too way out, for me."
"That's a real gasser," Bettsy said. "Quit rippling the pool, fool ... or we'll sick the cops on you and swear our heads off that you forced your way in here!"
"What's with you two?" I asked the Duchess without looking at her.
"We've got a system, that's all," she replied evasively.
"So hit the bathroom now," Bettsy commanded.
"I-I don't have to go...." The Duchess laughed. "In the medicine cabinet, you'll find a large economy bottle of baby oil, Steve. We want you to strip and douse the whole bottle all over your body."
"Just be sure you are as slippery as a snake," Bettsy added. "Peel out, lout!"
"Haven't I got something coming before we start this brawl?" I asked of the Duchess.
"Pay day, hey...!" She flipped me a twenty dollar bill.
I wanted to decline it and get the hell out of there. This was madness! Mother and daughter were ... insane! And I felt again and again ... disgust for their vices. It was surely complete perversion, a shame! I felt dreadfully debased ... and used and terribly conquered. I wanted to run out. But I was too intrigued!
Once alone, in the bathroom, my pride pushed up ... stimulated by the greasy oil. Yes! It was positively erotic to make myself an "electric" eel. The invisible sexual sun heated me and ... the only thing I could put down was conscience.
Yet, going out into the bedroom, I still gulped and blinked hard. The scene was absolutely hypnotic and ... rather marvelous! There, lying perfectly still in the middle of the king-size bed, was a bare Bettsy, her arms up on the pillow at either side of her head, in a position of complete surrender. For a moment I was only excitingly impressed! And then I was genuinely ... shocked? No! Just totally taken aback seeing the Duchess ... standing quite motionless beside the bed-fully dressed-with a yardstick in her hand!
"That's-crazy!" I exclaimed, indicating the plastic yardstick with a quick nod of my head.
"Bettsy misbehaves some times," the Duchess pointed out. "Both of you must play fair. Keep it clean!"
"I-I don't get it, exactly."
"Go man go!" Bettsy breathed. "The Duchess's yardstick will draw the line!"
"Obviously, odd-ball," I said inanely.
And then I was upon Bettsy-slipping, slithering, sliding!-and her arms went around me, encircling my oily body while she squirmed and wiggled underneath me ... lubricating her vibrant skin with magic-motions that caused my emotions to geyser swiftly. And suddenly it was unbearable not to have her.
But she held me off, turning her body from one side to the other, keeping her thighs between us, never letting me get quite to her. And I had a strange, wild thought: She was completely conscious of doing this! Somehow I knew it was deliberate ... but why?
"Baby, Bettsy-" I began, in a passion panting voice that barely rode on turbulent breath.
"Oh ... yes! I want you to-"
Abruptly, there it was-and the sharp smack of the yardstick on my buttocks was just enough ... at that precise, ecstasy-throbbing moment ... to trigger the shattering acme!
I cursed, "Jesus ... damn!"
And laughing gas couldn't have provoked any more giggling laughter out of the Duchess!
"Foiled again," Bettsy pouted, when it was finally all over ... her tense tummy.
"Told you to keep it clean," the Duchess chortled. "We're not going to have Bettsy lose ... her virginity!"
The three of us exchanged rapid glances, and then I jumped up ... with almost hysterical excitement!
"What is the score?" I demanded huskily. "Tell me, or I promise you ... I'll breed the both of you!"
"Know anything about teen-age nymphomaniacs?" the Duchess asked me deliberately. "Would you want to marry one, Steve?"
"Well, hell, I don't really know-but guess I couldn't last long in a real kook marriage setup!"
"Exactly," the Duchess said flatly. "No man ever wants to marry a gluttonous girl! And so I have a mission ... to teach my baby, Bettsy, to be blase about passion."
I blinked hard. "In other words, you give her the cake ... but won't let her eat it!"
"That's right!" the Duchess guffawed. "And I stand over every assignation with a yardstick ... to make certain her virginity isn't stolen!"
"And, do you honestly think that is the cure-all?"
The Duchess shrugged. "After you fiddle rather constantly ... boredom sets in!"
"Oh ... lots of luck!" I offered her magnanimously. "I think you both have ... holes in your heads!"
"We're drunk skunks," Bettsy explained it.
"Drunk smucks," I corrected her. "And God only knows what else-probably daffy and downright ... dangerous! At least, certainly disgusting! You are an outrage as mother and daughter, like a sick joke!"
The Duchess laughed-triumphantly! "And what are you, Steve? I'll tell you! You are nothing but ... a flesh-dispenser for the most diverse forms of perverse lust! That's all you are!"
"I am ... something more," I insisted.
But when I Was finally alone, in the shower ... I washed my body thoroughly with the frantic feeling that I wanted...."out of my skin"!