Chapter 5

Pool-side again, Teddy scurried up to me like the cat who just swallowed the canary.

"How'd it go?" he grinned like some sort of lewd Tom Sawyer.

"All right," I answered evasively and stretched out on a soft-padded chaise lounge.

"Swell," he crouched down beside me and then, still grinning foolishly, asked, "And how much may I ask was your tip?"

"You mean...?" I affected annoyed surprise. "I was supposed to get tipped?"

"Yeah. Right!"

"Well of all the ... I wasn't offered a red-cent! Not a single penny for ... Of all the nerve!"

"Come off it, Steve, you can't pull the wool over my eyes as easily as all that," he said flatly, softly. "This is a fifty-fifty deal. So fork over half of the tip that Bartelme slipped you. What say?"

I felt myself angering. "What's your gripe? You've already made a neat, easy fifty bucks off me."

"That's the way the old ball bounces around here," Teddy said with concealed annoyance. "And I don't want to have to draw you any more pictures. Just remember ... I've got a number of hunky guys who are anxious to make my hustling list, panting to make a hundred bucks, sometimes two. And they cooperate!"

"I get the picture. But say ... don't think...."

"No, I don't think," said Teddy disagreeably.

"I know for a fact you're holding out on me! Because you see I played charades with Fritz and Clara the day before yesterday-for a big fat tip."

I laughed shortly, squirming back on the chaise, putting both feet up on the lounge. Of all the rotten luck, I thought rapidly, I had to pick up a pool-boy pimp who was dry behind the ears.

"Okay, Teddy...." I dug into my pant's pocket. "You win ... another fifty."

He didn't smile. "Listen to me, Steve, don't you ever try to pull this stunt on me again-or you're out on your ear!"

I shrugged. "Can't blame a guy for trying to save his first tip. It's all a part of the game, as I see it!"

"Thanks for warning me ... I'll have to watch you like a hawk!" Then he scurried away.

I shook my head, looking after him. I felt cheated ... and I didn't like this whole set-up with Teddy. It was one thing to take a cut for arranging everything, but the idea of bleeding my tips was out of fairness. Suppose I did hold out on him again ... and lied about the size of my tips? Suppose I sliced the tips in half first? It might work. But at the same time I had a feeling that Teddy would be sure to know by a kind of extra-sensory perception. What then? He would be sure to pitch a real bitch and where would that get me? Scratched! Still, I was going to work on a fool-proof system....

"Hi!"

I was lost in thought. "Oh, yeah ... oh, hi there!"

Abruptly, I refocused on reality-on a young, very young and beautiful girl standing by my chaise lounge. Hardly more than eighteen or nineteen, I judged, and everywhere lovely, she had silky smooth black hair, so long that it reached down to her narrow waist. Her face was oval shaped, like a Madonna, burnished bronze by the sun, and she was wearing a silken sun-suit, pure white to emphasize her rich tan.

But there was something more captivating about the girl to me. She was pert and pretty with the wholesomeness of the proverbial girl next door type ... and instantly I wanted her-and vowed I would have her, too!

Now she was saying, "I'm Shirley Boyer, pool-side professional photographer. And as I'm supposed to say ... want your picture taken? Souvenir for the wife-or roommate?"

"Haven't got either." I swung my feet down on the cement and sat up. "Maybe you'd like a pin-up of me, though ... for your bedroom wall?"

Shirley smiled through a blush. "Say, don't you come on strong!"

"It's merely the natural bachelor-wolfishness in me," I grinned, whipping off my sunglasses. "You've worked around the hotel long?"

"I ... well, no...." she stammered in embarrassed admittance. "I'm not supposed to say that-give you guests the idea that I'm still green as a photographer. But ... well, I am!"

I liked her little girl fluster. "Just start working...?"

"Uh-huh," she nodded enthusiastically. "Last week. My father is a photographer in Warsaw, Indiana, and ... well, when we stayed here at the hotel over the Christmas and New Year's holidays and I discovered this job was going begging-somehow I talked my folks into letting me stay on and try it for one season in the sun!"

"Over the strong objections of your boyfriend back home in Indiana, I bet."

"Oh-no, I ... didn't go steady with anyone ... lately ... photography's been my hobby."

"I'm sorry, Shirley. I mean you can't snuggle up to a cold camera."

She blushed again. "N-no, you certainly can't very well...."

"Steve," I introduced myself. "You know, I like you, Shirley." The statement, deliberately abrupt and sincere, seemed immediately to touch her soft spot as I had counted on.

"W-well ... you're nice, too, sir."

"Nice, Steve," I corrected her.

"Steve...." she repeated, moistening her lips.

Plunging ahead, feeling the familiar tingle of tightness coming up, I said, "I think I've soaked up enough scorching sun for one day. And ... I'd like very much to get to know you better, Shirley. Isn't there somewhere we could go right now and be ... you know ... alone?"

Biting her lower lip edgily, she said, "Oh, I wouldn't dare...! I mean I could get fired for ... for visiting a hotel guest in his room."

"I'll let you in on a little secret," I winked. "I'm not staying here anymore, since yesterday-just have a special arrangement with the pool-boy captain to act like I really belong here."

"Oh my gosh, then ... there's...."

"What, Shirley? Some place you know where we can be ... undisturbed?"

"Y-yes but-Steve-I don't think-I...."

"Shush and lead me to it," I said gently. "You shouldn't be scared...."

"S-shouldn't I?" she smiled weakly, nervously. "And why shouldn't I be ... of myself? I want to go there-just you and me together."

This sort of took me aback. "You really do?"

"Yes," Shirley answered firmly. "I've watched you all day and ... I don't believe I've ever seen a young man quite as handsome as you. Your face is like a Greek God. Your body is like a finely-chiseled Roman gladiator. I-I'm unable to keep my eyes from roaming you...! I've never experienced anything like this. You're something ... special, Steve."

"And so are you," I said sincerely, then took her hand and very tenderly squeezed it.

"Oh...!" She shivered delightedly. "Steve-come, Steve, come with me now," she whispered fiercely. She spun around as if she had been shot and quickly darted toward the hotel in a rush of speed and need.

Off the lower lobby there was a closet-sized room-with a cot. We dashed inside and Shirley locked the door.

"This is a perfect set-up," I grinned.

"It-it's one of several cubicles in a row, f-for the staff's rest periods," Shirley explained shakily. "We-we really shouldn't be here."

"Shouldn't we?" My hands moved to her waist. "Shush...."

"Steve! I want to tell you something ... important."

"What's that?" My hands moved from her waist, upward, then slipped inside her sun-suit and tugged at the knot of her bra.

"Oh, Steve!" she cried. "I-I never-never did-"

"I know, I guessed. But don't worry about anything, Shirley, baby, just relax and let me-gently-"

"Oh ... yes! I want-you...." Abruptly, she buried her face into my chest and her hands very timidly touched my waist, then suddenly shot inside my swim trunks....

For a few seconds I merely held myself in rigid control, feeling the delicious, tight trembling of her fingers as they explored ... thinking how pure and marvelous her almost dainty exploration was, and how fulfilling her body would be when unleashed for the first tumultuous experience of her lifetime.

Shirley breathed deeply against my chest as she squeezed again and again, and then she began to play her mouth on the hard smoothness of my chest, and all the while her fingers pressed tighter, relaxed, pressed again, tickled deliciously, then held firmly once more.

Slowly, my own fingers unbuttoned the back of her sun-suit and pulled it from her body with expert and experienced tenderness, pulling the bra from her breasts at the same time. She shivered harder against me then, when she was all nude at last, and the things she was surely feeling that eighteen years had accumulated seemed to sweep over me with delightful pleasantness as the demands of her body rose provocatively to meet my own passion. I lifted her face and kissed her on the lips. At first, it was just a soft kiss, the warmth of my lips against the warmth of hers, sweet and gentle, but it changed in a moment and her tongue began to rim the perimeter of my mouth. Slowly her tongue went under my lips, feeling for that particular softness there, and I yielded my mouth to her, my tongue meeting hers, my hands quietly moving against the small of her back, stroking her, pressing her to me, then manipulating her....

I lowered her to her back on the small cot, opened her knees, then ripped off my swim briefs and straddled her in one quick movement ... and hesitated there as indecision swept over her face like a sudden cloud the instant her eyes hurried to me.

"Oh, Steve!" she cried. "I can't-I-"

"No-no-don't be frightened," I whispered, petting her. "Don't tense up-just relax-"

"I-can't ... I'm sorry," she said forlornly.

"You can," I said patiently. "Gently ... slowly does it." And I smiled into her eyes and saw unmistakable signs of fear-mixed-pleasure for the next few moments that would rob her of virginity forever.

The theft was accomplished with all the slow motion tenderness that I could possibly muster ... and in a few minutes more, Shirley began her own action to assist the descending robbery.

Then Shirley was robbed of her shy girlhood forever, and her painful delirium made her scream out hideously for a moment. But only for a moment. She twisted her head from side to side, but my mouth caught her lips and crushed down upon them, and in the next moment Shirley seemed freed at last ... and she cried out for joy. Then she thrust herself up at me in a heated fury of lust, as if to assure the new gained battle victory, and her hands cupped my buttocks and pressed me down tightly to her.

"Ohhh," I groaned happily ... and then slowness ceased. Her legs were beginning to make uncontrollable scissor motions, opening and closing, and I could no longer control my own actions. Everything was automatic now. Our hips gathered momentum as they met and parted, met again, and she reached her first peak suffering a writhing pleasure that rocked her from head to toe, then reached it once more when my moaning howl gave her split-second warning of the dynamic explosion that nearly ripped me apart.

Slowly, I became quiet and our bodies relaxed, but Shirley continued a slow, lazy action of her hips for a long time after it was over. My body was wet and terribly heavy, I knew, and her breath was dry and labored ... but she would not let me roll away. She was making no demands. It was solely an expression of affection, I realized. She wanted to hold the warm masculinity of me against her. She wanted to let me know that she was completely submissive, and if I wanted to take her again, she was there, right there, and I could do anything I wished, and she would be ready for me. If I wanted just to he there, panting upon her, that was all right, too.

"Steve-" she began, in a voice that barely rode on breath.

"Yes, baby?"

"I-I want to tell you something."

"I want to tell you a lot of things."

"Oh, Steve, this is something in particular. I'm not ashamed! Perhaps I should be; I thought all along I would be! I've had a very strict upbringing by the book and-"

"I understand, baby."

"No, no, I want to tell you," she persisted. "This is something special ... once in a lifetime for a girl. Do you know what I mean? I'm really not good at this sort of thing. You know-explaining things. But I want to explain this to you ... I'm not the kind of girl who would surrender to a man unless ... unless I loved him. And it seems to me that I fell in love with you at first sight! Is that possible?"

Oh Jesus, I asked myself, Jesus, Jesus, what in the hell was I doing here with this ... nice girl? I was touched by her words and felt a satisfaction and warm happiness that I knew was not only momentary ... and all of a sudden this bitter sweetness made me hot, flustered, and anguished ... like a time just before tears.

Where was my male-whore's pride ... of emotional unattachment? I questioned myself furiously. After all, not an hour before I had firmly vowed that all feelings of affections were totally out of the picture for me-as a bang-bang sex machine with only money on mind. Then I had been evoked by Shirley, and almost immediately after that....

Where had my selfish greed for the Easy Street life gone? Suddenly it had just seemed to vanish, to be replaced by certain feelings of ... tenderness and caring ... and a spark....

Abruptly, I felt the ache within my heart and knew that it was of a need, of more than a sexual anguish that only needed almost constant relief. Indeed, there was something much more-a desperate wanting to commit myself to ... things ... ordinary....

But I was already committed! To the stud-hustling game ... and full blind speed ahead! First things first, I told myself in a self-chastising fury-what would falling in love get me? A bloom off the rose that would surely soon wither ... a bunch of ornery kid-brats no doubt ... and mortgages up to here! I needed those like a hole in the head!

And so I quickly aroused hatred for Shirley, and it was different this time, it was violent, and she was stunned horrified ... when my big, muscular hands gripped her with convulsive strength, wrenching her, and hugeness and hysteria took her at the same moment. And when she tried to retreat, even if for only the particle of an instant, I dug my fingers into the small of her back, clawing her back to me, with a complete turbulence that swamped her at my finish, and it nearly drove her out of her mind as my violence triggered her emotions and sent them off like crazy fireworks. But of course it was all meant to hurtfully kill everything that Shirley felt for me in a human way ... and so I tore and raged at her like a wild bull ... until her Seventh Heaven spell was broken and shattered in bitterness and hate ... and a painful vacuum of bloody horror.

Then I jumped up quickly and jerked my swim briefs back on. All the while Shirley gagged on her sobs. She could not understand what had so abruptly turned me into a raging jungle beast ... and I wasn't about to ever tell her, naturally. I felt as if Shirley could very well be my end, but I couldn't allow her to quench my thirst for the sexually curious; I was much too aroused by recent experiences to stick to one kind of diet, no matter how rewarding ... and Shirley was! So, I put down contentment and conjured up starvation again.

And smiling satisfiedly, I hurried from the room.