Chapter 9

The "entertainment" that had been "brought back by popular demand" was just about ready to begin the "performance" when I returned to the pool-patio. But on my way out through the living room, Teddy waylaid me for a few minutes-not angrily, but quite coolly and calmly and seemingly a bit awe-struck.

"Hear you roughed Carol up," he clucked.

"So? She asked for everything she had coming."

"I don't doubt it! But-you don't mess up the beauties at these parties. At least, not so teeth bites leave their mark for a couple of days; that's not kosher."

"Kosher be damned," I shrugged.

"I thought you ought to know ... Carol won't be able to peddle her pants until nature heals her skin. And whores can't get unemployment insurance!"

"So sue me!"

"Fun-ny! I suggest you keep out of her way now."

"Maybe I'd just better cut out altogether," I said, a bit miffed.

"Hell, no! Don't be silly," Teddy grinned. "Co-hostess Nancy thinks it all a hoot and a holler!"

"Oh, yeah?"

"Nancy can't stand bi-sexual girls," he said in a confidential tone.

"That's odd. I mean, when they're roommates, sharing this house...."

Teddy smiled. "Only because Nancy is a closet dyke. Yes. Lots of whores are; they basically despise all men."

"It's a tough, cruel world," I chuckled. "Send crying towels."

A low murmur of anticipation went up from the pool-patio; I turned and looked out, wondering what was about to happen. I wasn't long in finding out.

"Don't just stand there with your mouth and imagination watering," Teddy laughed. "Come on and see tonight's piece-de-resistance."

The "piece-de-resistance" was the hugest man I had ever seen. He stood nearly seven feet tall ... and he was a Negro. Not dark brown. He was typically Nubian ebony ... black as a Halloween midnight. And ugly. He was heavy featured, thick and ugly as an acid-scarred ... I don't know what! Indescribable! Horrendous!

I shuddered. "Integration be damned! I thought this was still the deep South. But that's darkest Africa!"

"A nightmarish King-Kong incarnate," agreed Teddy, laughing. "Get the costume."

I had already noticed. He was wearing a tight white leather crotchless garment that unabashedly displayed everything. I blinked, incredulous. And I shuddered again ... at the long thick vicious bullwhip that dangled carelessly from his ruthlessly great hand.

"This can't be for real," I said to Teddy.

He chuckled. "Kong ain't just gonna stand there all night, like a statue. Believe me, baby, and ... look there!"

The new sight drew my eyes-and loud gasp! The girl, joining Kong across the width of the pool from us "spectators," was very young and petite ... certainly a tiny midget! Her skin was snow white, too! And she was dressed in a tight black leotard-with red, high-heeled booties.

The whole effect of both of them was totally incongruent to anything imaginable ... but I got a warped mental picture, somehow, of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Granted, there was no ice for Little Eva to flee across; she'd probably walk on the pool water! In her booties, I knew surely that I could do it!

"W-what's the name of the game?" I stammered in a breathless voice.

"Snow White Meets King-Kong," Teddy whispered, grinning. "We expect her to take the whip away from him ... and turn it on him."

"That's-impossible!"

"Watch!"

I wasn't quite prepared for the abrupt action ... as suddenly, the air was punctured with a sharp crack. Surprise, instinctive recoil, and shock leaped through me and my eyes missed the first darting lash of Kong's whip stinging Snow White's breasts.

Swish! went the whip again, cutting through the tropical still air and crack! it cut around her quivering buttocks. Swish, crack! Swish, crack! Two more blows were delivered in rapid succession ... tearing the upper part of the leotard completely off ... exposing swollen breasts that were beginning to trickle blood.

Now a high, almost giddy murmur of approval went up from the closely gathered crowd. Someone handed me a tall glass full of straight scotch and I sipped it eagerly to whet my parched throat ... and I watched ... Snow White, after three more lashes, reached out and miraculously grabbed the flicking whip end, quickly jerking it in a winding manner around her waist in a rapid motion to maybe jerk it out of Kong's hand. In that instant....

"Stop the action!" Carol's cry came.

"Oh Christ, NO!" other cries went up. There was the immediate loud babble of objection and disappointment.

"Shut up." Carol shouted them down. "Let's be different tonight! Let's make empathy for ourselves ... by having one of us replace Snow White for the rest of the performance! How about it, gang? Any volunteers?"

Silence was never so golden!

"Carol, don't be crazy," Nancy told her at last. "We all value our skins too highly to let them get ripped off!"

"But I insist ... someone among us isn't scared chicken crapless. ARE YOU, STEVE REYNOLDS?"

I felt my heart stop cold; my knees nearly buckled. "She go completely off her rocker with that question?" I managed to ask Teddy.

"Carol's nailing you to the cross," he observed. "Talk about a woman scorned! You put her on the frying pan; now she's putting you into the fire!"

"Like hell you say!"

"Join Kong!" Carol commanded me. Her golden hair was a halo around her devilish hate-twisted face. Her eyes were slits with dagger-sharp stares, and her bruised mouth, which I had so recently chewed to hurt, was distorted almost grotesquely in quivering detestation. "Steve! Let's see if you can receive as well as you give torture!"

"You insane bitch!" I laughed. "Up your wazoo! With a red hot poker!"

She screamed, "KONG! GET HIM! TAKE HIM-WHIP HIM! HE'S ALL YOURS!"

Almost instantly, my "business acquaintances" backed off as if I were suddenly a contaminated lecherous leper ... and Kong started slowly walking around the pool toward me-dragging his bullwhip!

"Teddy-" I began, in a hoarse choked breath.

"Forget it!" he gasped. "This isn't my mess. You're on your own!"

"You cruddy bastard!"

"Kong wants you to take his whip away," he hissed, as a parting gesture.

So I knew what the score was; at least, I knew what I was up against now. But how much did Kong want me to have that whip? How long and how difficult would he make the contest? And ... could I possibly endure the lash of his whip time enough?

Abruptly, there it was-a searing white-hot thin long line of fire ripped across my bare broad chest. The shock was electrifying and stomach-sickening. I tensed incredibly ... but there wasn't any time to submit to the self-pity of pain. Swish! Crack! My buttocks were slashed ... and automatically, in a man's instinctive way of self-preservation, my hands flew down to cover my groin.

"Burn his butt to bits!" Carol cried out with high, hot vengeance. "Rip him to shreds, Kong!"

I could neither think nor plan clearly and sanely ... but I quickly vowed that Carol would never see me whipped to cringing, humiliating bondage. Somehow I would conquer ... Kong's whip, at least ... and after that Carol had better snap her fingers like a Miss Mandrake the Magician and just disappear! Because I was going to give her full comeuppance of some sort.

Swish ... :! I crouched low and charged Kong under the flicking whip that crack! slapped the cement pool deck. And I drove at him, sending a vicious right hook to the crotch ... that was like slamming my fist into a solid stone wall!

But ... Kong twitched and moaned softly-with satisfaction! My blow had not completely failed. So I stayed in close and hammered away, putting my weight and shoulders behind every punch to that enormous hard crotch ... and I prayed! In vain! Kong slipped quickly back suddenly, and in the next moment my body was vulnerable to the bullwhip again and CRACK!! it sliced my hunched-backed buttocks with such a fiery zing that I thought I felt the red welts popping up.

My shocked reaction was startling. Crazy! Great pain tore through me in swelling throbs, but I felt a very madness of painful pleasure! The line between pain and pleasure is thin, and there seemed a strange kind of overpowering relief at just discovering ... this newest thrill! But it was not possible to savor this moment until I had really taken something from it for the "book" ... because I wouldn't give Carol a moment of satisfaction! That damned dyke bitch wasn't going to catch an instant's glimpse of my painful pleasure! So, I mustered all my strength and charged in at Kong's rock belly with the top of my head ... and miraculously succeeded in goring him, off guard, to the flat of his back!

"Oh, Goddamn you!" Carol shrieked at me. "You! Kong! Up and at him!"

"Yeah. Up, Kong!" I agreed. "So I can beat you and beat you and beat you ... back down!"

"Oh dear," came someone's lusty twitter. "This is delightfully delicious!"

"You miserable black beast!" Carol hissed. "On your feet! And beat him bloody!"

"Do as she says," I dared.

Instead, to my utter amazement, Kong assumed a kneeling position directly in front of me ... then he handed the bullwhip up to me!

"To hell with you, Kong!" Carol snarled.

Again and again I lashed him. "Lawdy, lawdy, lawdy!" he shouted shrilly, his eyes glazed with insane pleasurable pain. "That's nice, man! That's the greatest! Beat me, man! Beat me bloody! And ... I'll ... kiss your ... feet! Master! I ... am ... your ... slave! Lawd ... it over me! Master! I'm your slave!"

I was frankly flabbergasted! I was so absolutely amazed ... and, yes, shocked at his frame of unintegrated mind! ... that I actually froze with the bullwhip-frowning at this sobbing, frothing giant who was slobbering over my feet now. (Later I learned that Kong suffered a terribly oppressive guilt of some horrendous kind-he was actually college educated, but he was strangely ashamed of his race's rabble-rousers ... a credit to both black and white America ... until sex entered the picture ... then he somehow reverted back to being a "Mississippi nigger slave." His words!)

And his pleading cry now was, "Order me! Please, Master ... order me to-"

"Rip Snow White apart!" came the high and harsh chant of passion-thirsty crowd. "Rip Snow White! Rip Snow White! Rip Snow White!" became the chant of the cheering section, over and over again.

And I was stil dum-founded-frozen to the spot. I was also speechless.

"What are you waiting for? Do something!" Just as Carol made this livid explosive outcry, she grabbed the bullwhip out of my relaxed hand ... and I heard it zing-sail through the air ... across my broad back!

My immediate reaction was an overpowering impetus ... to turn and toss her to her back on the cement patio with such force that all the air whooshed out of her, as if out of a pricked balloon. Then I immediately kicked her over onto her stomach and ground the heel of my left foot in the very tender small of her back.

"Take her, Kong!" I raged insanely. "Rip her apart!"

Soggy with emotional horror, the others couldn't seem to move a muscle-only generally gasp or gulp hard ... and watch fascinated. Until....

Kong obeyed me ... with brutal deadly intent.

Then Carol fainted in anguished agony. Of all the rotten luck!