Chapter 8

By the time my spasms subsided and I got back up on my feet again, Shirley was nowhere in sight. Whirling, I faced Teddy at pool-side; he was sitting up on the edge now in a state of tranquil exhaustion.

I knelt down beside him. "Explain," I snapped, "what Shirley Boyer is doing here."

Teddy looked blank. "Huh? Who?"

"You know who-the photographer from the hotel...."

"Oh. That Shirley."

"How did she get ... mixed up in this?" I asked him. "And don't try to tell me you don't know...!"

"Okay, okay ... I know, I know, it was a camp," Teddy said quickly. "She was invited to take party pictures ... but of course Carol took the film away from her at the front door."

"Shirley didn't know what was coming off until she walked in on this scene! Did she?"

"Nope! Surprise, surprise...."

"She was ... stricken, horrified ... terrified!"

Teddy shrugged. "She'll soon get over it-probably join right in!"

"Over my dead body!" I heard my own guttural snarl.

"Oh, ho-ho-ho! If it isn't the white knight in shining armor! Well ... that's a real switch now-when you were the ravaging black knight with Shirley only this afternoon!"

I swallowed hard. "You didn't see ... the circumstances!"

"Nope. Only the pitch and fast acceptance ... and I don't particularly give a tinker's damn about anything else! But let me tell you something, Steve ... plank Shirley or anyone again during your working hours for free-and you'll be in real dutch with me!"

"Oh, Jesus," I snarled. "We studs ought to have a union-to take you pool-boy pimps down a peg or two, or three!"

"And you take a good hard look at the competition all around you," growled Teddy. "Then come off the high-horse that you are the biggest shot!"

"Tell me," I asked uneasily, "was Shirley's invitation all your idea?"

"W-what difference does it make?"

"Plenty to me! If you did this to pay me back ... if you deliberately schemed against that poor sweet kid...."

"You'll do nothing!" Teddy cried firmly. "Because ... a devil stud doesn't get involved emotionally-can't afford to! So don't get yourself all lathered up, Steve. Any involvement will just tear you to pieces ... then you can kiss Easy Street good-bye! But maybe that's what you really want to do already. Is it? Be honest now!"

Instead, I sort of side-tracked. "Look at me! Listen to me! I'm still a human being, regardless-and I don't go for sick stuff and tacky toying with a nice girl like Shirley. That's all!"

"Is it? No, I don't think so," Teddy disagreed calmly. "I think you've got a case of ... the sentimental hots for her! I'm pretty sure you've got ... heart!"

"Well ... that's my problem!"

"Lick it! Or ... I'll have to scratch you off my list, Steve."

"Oh, sure, sure ... I can't have my cake and eat it too!" I admitted obviously ... chokedly. "Let's forget it. Just tell me ... where you suppose Shirley is right now?"

"I saw her go back into the house with Carol," Teddy told me, then smiled slyly. "Don't worry-she's in good ... hands!"

I knew this was a dirty insinuation. "You're not suggesting-" I began tensely.

"Uh-huh!" laughed Teddy. "Our co-hostess with the big balloons is a real switch-hitter!"

"You're a rotten bastard!" I cried, feeling my blood soaring, a sinking rush in my heart.

Angrily, I stood up and stepped back, fighting against a killing urge to raise my foot and bring it down upon Teddy, to smash him under the water and hold him down there until he would never be able to bother anyone again.

But, abruptly, my response turned on Shirley. Where was she in the house? And what was Carol doing to her? I had to find her as quickly as possible-get her away. And when this was done, maybe I wouldn't try to control myself ... maybe I would think seriously about our tomorrows. Whirling, I raced inside....

But I was too late! In the quiet bedroom hallway I heard the softly murmuring voices, and froze just outside a doorway at first sight of ... Carol kissing Shirley's breasts, taking the pink nubs into her hot mouth, molding the breasts, squeezing, fondling. Then her hand moved to Shirley's loins, and her thighs opened with excitement and the first thrills of pleasure. But Shirley was passive, taking, not giving! And this pleased me through my bother.

"Men are such awful beasts," Carol was muttering now. "But I'll make you forget them for the rest of your life. You'll never let another man touch you again when you feel the wonderful thrills a girl can give you. It's the only way I really like it!"

"But ... I'm not queer," Shirley objected in a nervous voice. "And it's perverted for girls to do things ... to each other. Oh, please...."

But Carol went on nibbling. "It's only natural nowadays for girls to turn to other girls. It's unnatural for girls not to get something out of sex. It's ... the men's fault. For some reason this world is now full of mama's boys and hard-hearted wolves. They either hop on and off like wild bulls or they can't hop on at all. But girls are gentle with other girls...."

The lesbian kissed ... lower ... till I saw Shirley's sensitive thigh muscles jump at the touch, till her breathing increased with the intensely delicate pleasure, till she began to shake as if laughing silently ... or crying.

And then I interrupted!

"So here you are, Carol!"

She jumped up as if propelled by a cannon; Shirley gasped and stared at me as I strode forward, her face white as a sheet of bond paper.

"I wish I had a horse-whip," Carol snapped at me. "So I could beat you bloody to within an inch of your life for raping this lovely girl!"

"Oh, cut out the phony melodramatics," I told her curtly. "They aren't going to get you any further with Shirley now. Can the dykish sweet-talk!"

"Why, you ... bastard!"

Suddenly, Carol's hand shot out at rne. A sharp smack on the side of my face. Breathing heavily, I grabbed her arm and twisted hard enough to force her down to her knees with a painful moan.

"You filthy beast!" she hissed up at me.

"Shut up and stay there on the floor," I warned her. "Or I'll whack you silly!"

Shirley cried out, "Leave her alone! Oh ... you're hurting her! I-I'll scream for help!"

"Just find your clothes and get dressed, Shirley," I commanded in a loud roar. "Then I'm going to hustle you out of this Sodom!"

Shirley began to cry. "No! Leave me alone! Keep away from me! I'm not going anywhere with you! You're crazy! You make me sick!"

I brought my free hand up in a placating gesture. "Okay, okay ... I was crazy this afternoon. I was crazy ... rough! And I'm sorry as all hell!"

"No! I don't believe you! Liar!"

"All right," I growled. "I'm still a rotten bastard. But, do you really believe this dyke is going to give you any nicer treatment after she turns you on full force?"

Shirley nodded rapidly. "Carol understands ... gentleness!"

"Oh ... crap!" I shouted. "Anyway, is she what you want for a sex partner?"

"Men are stupid, rough beasts! I hate men!" Shirley insisted.

My heart pounded with dynamite intensity. "That's my fault," I had to admit in all honesty. "But ... I desperately want to make it up to you! Shirley, I want to show you, proof-positive ... men can be gentle, too!"

"No! No, no, no!" she denied me. "Will you please get out and leave me alone? Let me be ... with Carol!"

"You don't know what you're saying!" I insisted. "You are just ... hysterical! Carol won't cure you! If anything ... she'll only make your heart-ache worse! Ten, a hundred times bitter-worse!"

"I want to ... be held again," Shirley moaned. "I want to be gently held ... and cuddled ... and stroked...."

"Not by a dyke!" I cried.

"Oh ... yes!"

And suddenly, Shirley spun off the bed and locked her arms around Carol's stomach. It was in this startling instant that Carol jerked one hand free from my grasp and raked her fingernails down my left leg.

And she hissed, "If I could only reach your knockers...!"

"You bitch!" I quickly crouched and bit her left nipple. Hard! Then the other one! Harder! The surges of pain that surged through her body were transmitted to my tight hand grasp on both her wrists ... but abruptly she did not cry out any more!

For a second, I wondered what had happened to her, then I gnashed my teeth on Carol's skin again ... with a sudden and strange kind of terrible awareness and feverish anxiety ... I became deliberately cruel with my mouth.

And in a moment Carol was making the short, harsh demands that I had expected!

"Oh ... yes! You're hurting me! I ... want you to hurt me! Bite me! Please ... bite me! Oh, yes! Harder! That's right! I can't stand it ... I can't stand it ... Men are beasts! They hurt ... but oh-h-h-h ... it's so beautiful ... until they stop hurting ... oh-h-h-h-h...!"

Now, Shirley's horrified sobs intermingled with Carol's choking', ugly sounds, and meanwhile Shirley had let go of her and crouched back on the bedroom carpet like a surprised but intrigued kitten, disbelieving the sights and sounds of true nature. Good! This is what I wanted to happen!

Then, as I embraced Carol's body, still gnawing and sometimes ripping with my teeth, tasting the salt-sweet tang of blood, sanity and reality exploded for two or three minutes while I invaded her intimately, with power and violence and full fast fury to reach deep ... deeper within her very soul to rip and tear her from painful limb to limb.

"Oh-h-h-h ... Oh-h-h-h...!" It was Shirley!

I jerked.

The shock of her high, hot moans was an electrifying jolt back to the reality of our situation ... which was so completely unbelievable to me! Again and again the sickening sight reverberated against my eyeballs, and I felt sick to my stomach and gasped aloud with ... sorrow!

All I could see was Shirley's hunched body ... while Carol provoked her headlong rush to completion! And I knew ... Shirley was only grateful with wild, unseeing eyes to a primitive response to a situation that didn't exist.

"Stop ... it!" I managed the command somehow.

But I was lost in my own swirling daze of slamming passion!

Deep within my aching heart, the absolute horror was tearing me apart by bits and pieces ... but I couldn't lift a finger-couldn't possibly fling them apart while my explosive tension erupted again and again in accord with Shirley's howling, constant spasms and Carol's echoing flailing up body that I tormentedly assailed with slowly subsiding eruptions.

At long last, I was spent and my body became limp. I gasped for air and managed to extricate myself and roll over on the soft cotton carpet, face up. And all I did was gasp, breathe huge gulps of air into my dry lungs ... and most painful of all ... listen to Shirley's parched giggles! I felt bitter; I felt battle-weary ... and beaten down to a pulp!

"Damn!" It was Carol who spoke first. "You bastard, Steve! You selfish, animalistic bastard! And then you men dare to wonder why women turn to other women...!"

"Tell it to the angels, baby," I snarled. "No lesbian lover can give you the sort of rough stuff you really love!"

"Go to hell," she mumbled, immediately scrambling off somewhere to lick her bleeding wounds.

Shirley still crouched swaying in the middle of the room. But she had stopped giggling now that sanity had returned. And she really did look helpless and forlon and confused. I stared at her. This was the time to cinch it. I had to nip everything she felt in the bud. After that....

I said, "Well, Shirley ... did you really get something out of it?"

There was a long silence. Then, "I-I don't want to talk about it."

"I don't either. Not really. But we're going to!"

"No! I won't listen...."

"You'll listen!" I demanded. "It's the damnedest thing-all I wanted to do was show Carol up to you as sick, rotten, and twisted

... and instead, everything became contagious! Why? Why did you join in, Shirley?"

"What do you care!" she flared quickly.

"I can't help caring about it. Because ... because I feel partly responsible!"

"Well, you should! You are!"

I gulped. "I know...."

"I never want a man to touch me again!" she wailed. "After this afternoon, after you ... ripped me apart ... I'm frightened out of my wits over men!"

"Oh, I know, I'm sure! But ... you mustn't turn to girls in-in despair and fear and fatalistic acceptance!"

"Why not?" she blinked.

"Because ... I-I like you and...!"

"Oh, don't make me laugh!" snorted Shirley.

"I do like you! Shirley, listen to me ... look at me! I was rough with you this afternoon because ... you seemed to catch me in an ordinary kind of loving trap that I've avoided like the plague, all my life!"

"Isn't that ... interesting!" she said sarcastically. "Well, I couldn't care less about it ... anymore!"

"Nevertheless, you're going to hear me out," I said flatly. "You are going to listen to my side of things!"

"No! I won't listen to your ... feeble excuses for-for raping me!"

She put her hands over both ears ... and I jerked them down.

My words raced, desperately explaining how personal poverty can so easily make a guy a greedy, selfish opportunist reaching and striving almost insanely for the Golden Fleece-when all his life rich girls wouldn't let him alone, and showered him, unasking, with compensating gifts for his manhood's favors.

I said, more than a little bitterly, "I've always been a poor nobody ... and rich girls who sought me out always bestowed presents on me because, to their way of thinking, everything has to be bought. Price-tags are ingrained and casually accepted for everything they want. It's simply the way of that world ... that dupes a guy, I'll admit. But catches him up, unmindful of the rosy-colored glasses that such girls force him to put on! And ... a guy eventually becomes conditioned-trapped by all the worldly goodies that are right there for him, without the asking! Now, Shirley, do you understand a little ... why I had to balk this afternoon at the-the sweet ordinary?"

She nodded jerkily. "Y-yes ... you are just a weak, mortal man. And-in admitting to me that you take the easy path of least resistance ... you disgust me!" i tensed incredibly. My heart thudded. Then I couldn't help becoming self-defensive!

"And what do you think you're being, Shirley? If you turn to other girls for sex now ... you're just as weak-and damned!"

"So ... be it!" she snapped.

"You don't mean that!"

"Yes I do," she insisted flatly.

"But, that's absurd ... when you just chewed me out!"

"Maybe-maybe we're two lost souls," she said. "Maybe we have to get lots of things out of our systems."

"Shirley! You're only encouraging me to...."

"To go your own merry ways?" she finished my thought for me, quickly.

"Yes!" I cried, searching desperately for a ... tie to bind us now in mutual need and satisfaction!

"I think ... you must go your way, Steve. And I mine!"

"No, no!"

"I really do," she said very casually. "You still have a terrible sexual wanderlust. And after today ... so do I!"

"What?"

Shirley smiled sadly. "Among other things, I'm afraid your ... wicked rebellion, sexually speaking ... turned me on strong!"

I reeled. "Oh my God, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, too! Right?"

"R-right," decided Shirley. "Believe me, I didn't want or expect this to happen! In my wildest nightmares ... I never dreamed of experimenting-of being promiscuous with my body."

"And I don't think you can be!" I asserted. But, somehow, I seemed to know that I was already clutching at the last straw.

"I have to find out what I am-sexually," Shirley was continuing now. "At this moment I'm completely lost. Maybe I am feminine-normal; maybe I'm basically a lesbian! I just don't really know anything except ... I must search for my true nature now! I have to sample ... a few things in bed...."

"With dykes," I spat disgustedly.

"Even-even with other men, maybe!"

Instantly, I saw red ... I saw jealous stars! "But teacher gets your royal shaft! Don't I?"

"Y-yes," Shirley nodded slowly in a voice that barely rode on breath.

"Thanks a lot!"

"Oh, Steve, please ... you couldn't expect me to let you ... so soon after...."

"Okay, okay, I know ... color me brute-bastard because somebody has to be the scapegoat in your frame of mind!"

"Y-yes-I guess so ... you hurt me terribly!"

"Well, for Christ's sake, just give me a single chance to make the amends!" I pleaded. "Doesn't everybody get a second chance, usually? Give me mine!"

But Shirley was adamant. "No, Steve. You are asking too much of me ... too soon! I can't really explain to you; I'm not any good at this sort of thing-you know-explaining things...."

"Because you want to turn me off," I growled. "That's all there is to it! You're afraid of me ... and, that I might be right-that we might be too good for each other! Instead, you'd rather ... whore!"

Shirley turned away from me. "You-you make it all seem so ugly!"

"It is ugly," I insisted. "What you want ... both of us to do is ... filthy! And, if we care about each other at all...."

"I don't know that any more! I don't have ... any feelings, about anything!"

I shook my head sadly. It was a mess-a real mess ... that I had made! And, talking about it now was just like spilling out words against a brick wall. Nothing helped!

"All right," I muttered dejectedly. "Just tell me honestly, Shirley ... who really turned you on a few minutes ago?"

She blinked at me. "You mean , ... was it you or Carol that got me so physically excited? Well, the answer is ... both!"

"But you've got to distinguish...."

"I can't! not yet. Not until ... I experiment!"

"Oh, Jesus, Jesus-this is a mess!"

"Not really," Shirley disagreed quickly. "It's only your certain kind of guilt that makes you feel that way, Steve. Because ... because you really still want to be your own free agent! I know that you feel that settling down to one girl would be nice-but it would also be absolute folly ... until your system is spent and exhausted!"

I wanted to be doubtful ... but everything told me that Shirley had hit the nail on its head! So why fight city hall any longer? Because I was emotionally irresolute-just a great big kid at heart, I must admit ... and so I began to act like a spoiled, angry boy who just had a stick of candy or his favorite toy taken away from him ... I had to childishly rebel in a vain, inane attempt to punish Shirley ... by being the low-down horny life of the party! It was like saying "now see what you've driven me to do" ... when all I was doing was prolonging the "rude awakening"!

"Just watch me," I snarled at her. "I'm going to sex it up and lay 'em low"!