Chapter 9
Valerie was heaving the low blues, one of those times when one suffers a great disappointment. Yet she didn't know just what was bugging her. Or she knew the action but she didn't know the cause.
"Let's be different," Earl said to her last night. "Let's go to bed to sleep only and not for a piece of tail. O.K.?"
That wasn't Earl at all. He went for the lust pleasures of the flesh to satisfy his sin libido, and he usually went for his sex in a big way, with any girls whenever he could get it.
"You haven't touched me all day long," she had reminded him. "You think I'm a block of wood or some cube of ice?"
"I was busy."
"Sure, with that May."
"We had things to talk about."
"Or things to do?"
"Pull your mind out of the sewer."
"It isn't in the sewer. I've seen the way you look at her and I know what that look means. It's the bedroom look and she looks right back the same way. You'd think she could leave any man alone and find one for herself."
He had merely grunted at the and said nothing.
She sighed as she sat down on the sofa thinking about the bottle that was too handy and telling herself that she ought to cut down on her drinking. Give her another couple of years and she'd be as worthless as that Laura Hall.
"Maybe I'll be able to finish out the season," Laura had said. "If I'm lucky I won't show too much."
"Leave the men alone," Valerie had answered.
"Why? I like men. And I met a dream of a guy in town. He can drink you stupid and then he takes you for a spin in his big car. Drunk or sober he can handle a hundred and he knows what makes a gal tick. Take it from me he can wind you up until you think your spring is going to break open."
Valerie came to the conclusion that Laura was from some other world. She was a creature of desire , her body never getting quite enough of a man, her mind so confused she didn't know right from wrong. Or if she knew she didn't care. Ben was in the hospital, getting worse every day, and she was throwing what she had around.
She finished her drink and got up to pour another one. It had been a big night the night before, the tent packed for every show, and that May had plenty of what it took to pull in the bucks which she, Valerie couldn't have done even with Laura to help her.
There was a mirror on the opposite wall and she looked at herself in it. Well, anyway she was dressed and that was something for the middle of the afternoon. When Earl had come out of his sleep that morning she had been naked in the bedroom, but it hadn't done any good. He'd just grunted again, and put on his clothes, saying that he had things to do. She had almost raped herself in her need.
Things to do? She sat down on the sofa, holding the drink in both hands. He had things to do all right. But he was doing them in bed. And he was doing them with May Hardwicke. Well, okay so let him do them. Let him get May in trouble and he'd know what it was all about. That thought froze Valerie inside. What would she do then? Take a room in each rotten town they hit and play the field? Frankly, she'd had enough men during the time she'd been on the road.
She was on her third drink when Earl came in.
"Hell," he said, "You're getting as bad as Laura Hall.
"So what else is there to do around this miserable hole?"
"Take my crate and drive into town. Do some shopping at least."
"On what? I was one who didn't get paid last week."
"Yeah, you're right but you'll get it tomorrow."
"From where?"
"Mays'got it."
"Got it in what way?"
"Cash," he replied, annoyed. lie poured a drink for himself. "Good crowd of kids out there but they don't have the loot to spend. They want a quarter ride for a clime and then they get sore when they can't have it."
"That's your advertising gimmicks."
"Yeah, it is misleading. . I could never figure that out about Ben. He said if a kid got a buck to spend he got a buck and so what difference did it make. And this is a poor town. We're doing business in the girlie show because we've got what the men want to see anyhow."
Earl didn't stay in the trailer very long and he said he had to go somewhere else. She didn't ask him where he was going. Probably Laura was in town and if that was the case she knew where he was going. He would go to May Hardwicke and she would submit to him, stripping down as she did in the dressing room before she went out to please the men and then with Earl, going the distance on the sofa or on the floor on the grass if it came to that.
She sat down and began to pout, not the pout of a girl who couldn't get what-she wanted but the pout of a girl who had tried and lost who had very nearly lost. She honestly felt that she had lost Earl and somehow it didn't seem right.
So she had to face it. She had lost men before, and she would probably lose them again. You couldn't always win. You were lucky if you won part of the time.
She knew that she was getting a little drunk as she poured the next drink but she didn't give a hang. Earl thought that May was so hot let him put on the show with just May and Laura. She hadn't missed a night since she had been with the group but maybe she'd miss this one. Maybe she'd load up the old gut and then go out and get a man for the money. She had never done it for money.
She started the record player going but she didn't listen. She knew what was wrong and no doubt she had known it for a long time. She hated herself for what she was and what she was doing. Granted that she got some charge out of dancing nude it still wasn't right. A girl shouldn't have to light sex with a torch . Sex ought to be as natural as going to sleep and having a pleasant dream, a dream that rose steadily to a wonderful climax and then left you weak from the beauty of it all.
She was just reaching for the bottle again when the door opened and Dave Moore came in. She gave him a brief smile and poured the drink. Dave was built strong and he always managed to get around after another man had left his woman in the lurch.
"Help yourself," she said, shaking the bottle. "The lousy stuff isn't going to last forever."
"You headed for town?"
"I wasn't headed for anywhere but right here.
And what's the matter with me putting on some clothes?" she added. She held out one leg. "Even stockings, the works. Don't you think I get tired of sitting around in my skin?"
He took the bottle from her and fingered a glass.
"You won't be wearing any clothes where we're going," he said.
Her eyes searched his face.
"And where are we going?"
He downed the drink and took another one.
"We're blasting out of here baby."
"That's your story."
"Yeah, and I like it."
She didn't take him seriously.
T suppose you'll set me up in a cheap room," she said. "What are you going to do after that? Go out and pimp."
He reached into his pocket and brought out a wad of bills.
"This is just part of it, baby. The rest of it comes later."
"How much later?"
"Tonight or tomorrow."
She had never seen him with that much money before. He didn't make a big salary and he generaly spent it all.
"You must have been in a card game," she decided.
He returned the money to his pocket.
"It was better than a game, a lot better baby."
"Well, you didn't come by it honestly then."
"That's beside the point. I just got paid for something that I didn't do, that's all."
She didn't understand him but she blamed the liquor for that. When she was drinking nothing registered the way it should.
"Why pick on me?" she wanted to know. "There are other girls around here."
"Maybe I like you, huh?"
"I guess you've tried enough of them to know."
"I guess there's hardly a gal on the lot I haven't had some truck with." He grinned. "II you know what I mean. Some real hot business. But I'm kind of getting tired of that. You make a little play today and tomorrow you have to start all over again. Mostly I just took what they had and I left them. But with you it's a little different. I got for a dame who isn't trying to save part of herself for her memories."
She remembered having been with him, his passionate conquest finding her own passion to the hilt.
"What happens to us after the money is gone?" she inquired.
"I'll get a job. I told you I worked on bridges before, didn't I? We'll settle down where there is plenty of the heavy work going on."
"Give me one year of that kind of a life and I'll have a kid."
"So, you'll have a kid."
"That's easy enough for you to say. You wouldn't have to get fat with it."
He emptied the bottle into their glasses.
"Maybe I want a kid of my own. You ever think of that? Maybe I'd sick of taking everything that comes along. Hell, I'm not getting any younger and this life is for the birds. Oh, you like it at first but it wears into you. And what have you got out of it?"
"I haven't gotten anything out of it yet," she said.
"That's what I mean. You've got nothing. You've got a good shape that will put on some weight in a few years and then they won't want you. So what happens to you then? I'll tell you what happens. You pick a town and you work the bars and you sleep around for what you can get."
Valerie hadn't thought much of Dave until now but what he said made a lot of sense. He hadn't said anything about marriage but living with him might not be too bad.
"You just want a steady woman, don't you?"
"No, not that. If I was only out for a woman little number doing the palm reading and she wants to haul in off the road. The trouble with her is you might as well sleep with a pillow and when I sleep with a girl I want her to tear the bed apart." He looked Valerie up and down. "The way you did. The Way you drive a man crazy."
He was putting it on the line, straight down the middle and she could either take it or leave it. If she took it, if she accepted his offer, it would be an uncertain life. Maybe he had some money now but he would probably chase other girls on the side and when he got to working part of his pay would go for that. He'd put her up in some cheap room that would be hot in the summer and cold in the winter and before she realized it she would be getting big with his child. But that wasn't the worst of it, having a kid by Dave. It was the misery that would come afterward. On the other side of it if she didn't go with him she would hang around Earl.
"I'm worried about that money you've got," she said, playing with the zipper at the front of her dress and letting him look down inside. "I'm just worried about it, Dave."
"You'd have more cause to worry if I didn't have it. You can't go hardly any place without-money these clays. And I wouldn't want to work the first week or so, just shack up with you. Hell, I'd like that."
"I'm a bitch anyway."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that."
"I wouldn't be living with Earl if I wasn't. I wouldn't have stayed with some of the men I've stayed with and I wouldn't have gotten kicked out of home if I didn't have a lot of bitch in me." She continued to fool with the zipper, shoving it down past her bra and then closing up the opening again. "I'd make some hell of a mother, wouldn't I? And you'd make some father.'.' She laughed. "We'd be a pair and that's for certain. A strip girl and a stud. What kind of a child would we get out of combination like that?"
He came over to her and kissed her lightly on the mouth. It wasn't just a sex kiss but it had some other meaning to it, a meaning that didn't quite reach her and one that she couldn't understand.
"You've got me wrong," he said. "Maybe we aren't what we should be but that doesn't mean that we can't change. I got my first girl when I was sixteen, a girl in school, an older girl, and I've been that one thing ever since. If a girl was married I didn't care what I did to her and if she was single I didn't care about that either. Some of the girls would want me to be careful with them but I wasn't. I feel a little bad about that right now. Maybe I gave some of them kids and I shouldn't have done that. I wouldn't want some guy sleeping with my steady girl and the other guys aren't any different. I just happened to please the girls and they got what they were after. There are only a few girls I came back to a second time and you're one of them. You're right up there on top and make no mistake about it. If I was staying with you I wouldn't need anybody else."
Here, she told herself, was a new Dave, a man who spoke from the heart, a man who had known more than his share of girls and who now wanted to settle on one.
"Get out of those clothes," he said.
"What is this? You can't just walk in here and have me go down to my skin for you."
He kissed her again, harder this time. This time one of his hands got at her bra, and she could feel him going for the flesh underneath. The bra was tight but he forced his fingers under it, moving up, and then he was working at the center, sending a torrent of thrills up and down her spine from her nipples.
"You want loving and you know it, baby."
"You're hurting me."
"I won't if you get out of this junk. The last time you were just the way I wanted to see you and I want to see you that way again."
"Earl might walk in." It was weak but it was an excuse. "You can't tell about him."
"Not Earl. He's getting his from Ben's daughter and he's getting it plenty. He's getting it every hour on the hour. So don't worry about Earl. He gets his hands full of her and he'll kill himself on the job. That's how Ben got his heart attack."
The strain on the bra was hurting her, the band digging into the flesh, and she tried to make him take his hand way. He wouldn't.
"You probably got yours," she said.
"No."
Her left breast was filled with pain, like it was swelling under his touch, under the teasing demands of his finger tips, and she knew that she wanted him again the way she had had him before, her body naked and the manliness of him, overcoming her sanity.
"Wait," she said as she finally pushed his hands away. "Just wait."
She was aware of him watching her as she pulled the dress over her head and placed it on a chair. But before she could get to anything else he had her in his arms, crushing him to her, his hands fighting to unhook and release the bra. She sighed as she felt it let go and opened her mouth wide, her tongue furious in his mouth.
"Hell," Dave breathed as he shoved in against her and his hands traveled over her body.
She laughed and spun away from him, pulling the bra away from her body, her breasts thrusting and ripe. The garter belt came next but she left her stockings on. Her legs had a terrific shape to them and she knew they looked good in nylons.
"The rest," Dave said thickly, struggling with his own clothes.
Then, suddenly, the fright was gone, the sensation of fear being replaced by the delightful sensation of seeing him how he was, stripped.
Seconds later they were both naked and they met in the middle of the room with a fury. Almost impossible they churned into each other.
"The sofa," she whispered. "Please. And the door. Lock the door."
He broke away from her to go to the door and she fell upon the sofa.
After he locked the door he walked toward her.
"You're beautiful," he said, breathing heavily.
"I hope I am. I want to be."
"For me?"
"Maybe. I guess so."
She lay there naked, waiting."
"Or that Earl?" he demanded.
"Do we have to talk now?" This was torture.
"I'd like to know."
Suddenly, she started to cry. She didn't want to cry. This was no time to cry. A girl cried when she was hurt or lonely or lost. Just then she wasn't any of these things. Or she didn't think that she was. She supposed she shouldn't have been drinking so much. Liquor mixed you up. It didn't solve anything. You got half potted and you didn't know what you were doing. But she knew what she was doing-and wanted to do. She knew that all right. She knew as any woman knows when a man wants her and she's anxious for the man.
"Tell me," he said and sat down beside her.
She smiled and fought with the tears.
"I think it's finished for us, she said.
"So do I."
"A thing like this never lasts."
"I told you how it was, Valerie. I'm fed up and sick of this whole racket. I've got the money. I'll have more."
"You said that-but how?"
"Isn't that my affair?" Now he was annoyed with her.
He grunted and placed a hand over one of her breasts.
"It shouldn't be, not as long as I can provide for you. Going, is a problem for both of us. How I get the money doesn't concern you."
She felt sorry about that. Of course she didn't have you know where he got the money but she'd like to know. That was part of being together, of sharing, not sharing only what was physical but the other things which filled in the picture.
"I'd like to know where we'd go," she said.
"Does it matter?"
"No, I suppose not."
He kissed her again, a lingering kiss, a kiss that spread out from her lips and made her twist in desire.
"Just you and me and the money, Valerie. A hot time for a week and after that a job. Then a little place to live where you can cook our meals and wait for me to get home at night." He laughed. "Maybe we won't eat supper and we'll throw the food out. I don't know. I guess you don't want to eat certain times. I guess there are other things that you'd rather do with your time."
The sofa was narrow, mostly because of the limited space in there and it had to be built that way, but he managed to get down beside her. She felt the warmth of his body against her own, the two spots where her breasts tried to sink into his chest and couldn't.
She closed her eyes, listening to him talk, her whole being terribly aware of his maleness . As soon as they were ready to leave they'd travel north. Some big jobs were going on up there and they'd look around. They'd find a town that they liked to stay in and where there was work for him. While he talked he stroked her body with his hands, bringing her in tight, sometimes pausing in the middle of a sentence to kiss her on the mouth, a kiss that she didn't want to break. Then his one hand came between them, searching and finding the fullness of swollen breasts. She moaned and drove her lips against his mouth, unable to wait longer for her unfulfilled passion. Before she spoke again she made it evident what she wanted from the lover.
"Make your speech later," she said fiercely. "What do you think I am? A sack of flour? Honey, I want it now."
She gasped and pressed her soft hotness to him as he entered her violently, sobbed deep in her throat as his mouth mashed down over her lips, and moaned at the burning of his pumping, turgid male spear ramming in and out of her woman sheath, the stiffening as his instant of ecstasy came, the gushing torrent of his male seed releasing, to her, the shock pleasure as the flow came to her pleasure.