Chapter 6
Valerie started to write home, but she couldn't get started, so she gave it up. What difference does it make anyway, hell with them all.
She threw the pen down and got up from the desk. Outside, it was still coming down and Earl had gone into town to see Ben, driving in with Ben's daughter. She had met the girl earlier that day and she had been somewhat amazed at the girl's voluptuous curves. With a pair of knockers like that she'd be lucky if she ever made it to town with Earl. Earl would want to feel them'and slip it to her.
She got up from the desk stretching, and thought about the night before. Until the rain they'd had a big play and it had been good going all the way again, coming out naked for the second show, the dollar one, her breasts tight with excitement and the men leaning foreheads as she had gone into her bumps.
"Fifteen bucks," one man had offered. "Fifteen for ten minutes."
Of course she had refused the man but Laura had taken him on for ten. That was foolish. A girl had no way of knowing who the men who approached her were and if the man happened to be a cop that girl could get taken in. A thing like that hurt the show and it would result in a fine. While stripping naked wasn't exactly legal the most they could get you for was giving a lewd show.
She was half asleep when Laura came in and closed the door, the rain thick in her hair and her dress almost soaked through.
"You missed a trick last night," Laura said.
Valerie sat up.
"I don't want that kind of money. If I have to make my money that way I'll hang myself first."
"What was I supposed to do with Ben in the hospital?"
"If you thought anything of Ben you wouldn't sell yourself. And with you living in the trailer with May you were taking a chance."
Laura took a chair.
"I didn't think she'd hear me but I guess she did. She was as cool to me as a block of ice today. And the guy looked on her first last night." Laura laughed.
"Well, she's got the shape all right."
"She did say something about how she might work with us."
"In the show?"
"How else?"
"Ben wouldn't like that," Valerie decided. "He wouldn't like it if he knew that we got out of everything last night."
"That was Earl's idea."
"Yes, but it showed up in our take. We had about twenty-five guys that last hitch and that isn't bad."
"They went for you all right but then they always go for the girl with the biggest breasts." Laura lit a cigarette. "I saw that May almost naked last night, those breasts of hers right out in the open, and if I'd been a man they'd have me in jail for rape by this time."
Laura talked some more and she said she was going into town, possibly to see Ben if she could and then to work a couple of the bars, picking up what she could and getting as much for herself as she was able.
"You're a damned fool," Valerie said.
"Well, I'm not going to make any money out here and Earl won't be able to pay us at the end of the week. If he has enough dough to buy gas he'll be lucky."
Valerie sighed and put on a couple of more records after Laura had gone. Laura was playing with a whole case of dynamite and he didn't have sense enough to know it.
There was a fresh bottle of rye and she opened it and poured herself a long drink. Rainy days could be lonely days on a show lot.
She had a second drink and this one went down easier, not burning her throat or causing her to gasp for breath. The first drink was always the worst and there were times when she wondered why she bothered with the stuff. When she had a load on she couldn't recall what Earl had done to her and remembering was nice.
She wished that Earl hadn't gone into town. She was naked and ready for him and they could have made some wonderful love, the blinds closed in the bedroom and their bodies hot together, her body lifting to him as she took from him all that was love.
The door opened suddenly, not giving her time to pick up the robe, and she turned to see that it was Dave Moore. He wore a coat that glistened with water and he had a big hat pulled down on his head.
"Damn you," she said. "Damn you, why don't you knock?"
He took off his coat and threw it on the floor. The hat followed.
"I knew you were alone. I saw Earl leave with Miss Big Bust."
He had seen her naked before and it wouldn't do much harm if he saw her again. The night before he had been in the crowd, watching the show, and he hadn't taken his eyes from her.
"Let's get out of here," he said, helping himself to a drink.
"What do you mean?"
"Let's go somewhere else. This show has got the sign on it and it's going down the drain."
She had thought of it, too, of leaving, but the only reason she had stayed had been because of Earl. Still she didn't know exactly how she stood with Earl and he could drop her in any town.
"Where would we go?" she inquired, curious.
"Who cares? It's a big country and there are things to be done. The year before I came with the carnival I worked on construction and that paid pretty good. I know how to run a shovel or a cat and if you're in the union you've got it made. Even driving trucks pays off in the old bucks."
"And what do I do when you're working?"
"Sit home and save what you've got for me. I catch you giving it to every guy who comes along and I'll bust your beautiful rump."
She poured another drink and she knew what it would be like living with him. No matter how much money he made they would share some cheap room and when he was in the room with her they would make love. If he gave her a baby he would leave her and she would be on her own.
"I'm going to stick it out," she said. "What have I got to lose? I know what I've got here and I wouldn't know what I was getting into."
He gave her an evil grin.
"Stop kidding me," he said with a leer.
"Shut up."
"And I know what Earl is getting. Only he's going to fool you honey. A guy with his education didn't come with this outfit for his health."
"If you want my guess he thinks he can take over and make himself a wad. Well, I've got news for him. Ben laid out the worst route that he could have picked. Trouble with Ben is that he won't say no to anybody."
"The fair should be good," she pointed out. "Most people are heavy on cash when they come to a fair and they shell out to our acts."
He took a second drink and then sat down on the sofa, his glance starting at her bare feet and going up to the top of her head.
"Oh, you can hit it at a fair," he admitted. "The suckers come down out of the hills, and they're easy. But how many fairs have we got left?"
"Three, counting this next one."
"Yeah, and one is for eight days. What happens to the other six days? You lay over and you spend what you make. You have to play a town for a week or you won't get a booking."
"The guys liked you last night," Dave said.
"That's what I'm up there for."
"But you need another girl and that's a fact. I've seen shows that could keep going with just one girl but she really had to have it."
"You weren't looking in the other direction last night."
"I'm looking in the same direction right now."
"Go ahead and look."
"You were anxious enough the first time."
"Yes, but that was the first time and it was a mistake. I guess I got carried away and I didn't have sense enough to stop."
"The dame last night didn't have any idea about stopping."
"Then look her up again."
"Hell, I would if her old man wasn't in the trailer." He scratched his head. "I must be stupid or something but I don't see how these old guys get the young chicks. She can't be more than twenty and he's in his fifties. He can't do anything with her and a girl like that is too young to give up." She scratched his head again. "Wouldn't it be funny if I gave her a kid? How would she explain that to her husband, huh?"
"You've got a rotten mind, Dave."
"Maybe, but I've put my mind on one thing right now. A girl shucks out to me once and she doesn't tell me no the second time. I get what I need and I get it plenty."
Valerie was ashamed that she had been standing there like that and she went over to the sofa for her robe. He was sitting on one end of the robe and he wouldn't get up. Instead he grabbed her breasts and it hurt her. She backed away from him.
"Keep your hands to yourself," she said.
"I liked them better where they were."
"Well, I didn't, do you hear?"
She was turning to start for the bedroom and get another robe, the one Earl didn't like because it hid too much, when the door opened and she saw Earl standing there. She didn't know what to do, to run or to scream, but she saw his eyes wander from her own naked form to Dave. He came in and slammed the door behind him.
"Ben's worse and we couldn't stay," he said.
Dave got to his feet, standing only a few inches shorter than Earl. He didn't seem to be upset by the interruption and Valerie supposed that he had experienced many of them. Terrified at what Earl might think or do she stood there, unable to move, her heart pounding the blood through her veins and her breasts heaving up and down.
"The old man has had it," Dave Moore said as he picked up his hat and raincoat. "That Laura was too much for him and he should have known better."
Earl stood there, the rain wet on his face, and said nothing. Dave put on his coat and hat and said he guessed ne had better be going.
"Slut," Earl said, the door closed. He was staring at Valerie. "Cheap slut."
Somehow she found her voice.
"It was an accident. He walked in on me."
"And how many times did he get what he came after?"
"He didn't."
"I should believe that? He was never alone with a girl or woman yet when he didn't pull their pants down."
She walked over to the robe and recovered it.
"I don't care what you believe," she said. He hadn't asked her about any other time and she would have lied to him if he had. "And he didn't see anything that he didn't see in the show last night."
"That's different."
"Why is it different? Because there was one man instead of twenty or twenty-five? The odds don't change it. When you're naked you're naked. And how do I know what you did on the way in or out from town? Give you half a chance with May Hardwicke and you'd get from her what you got from me last night."
Earl removed his jacket and he made himself a drink and sat down.
"The doctor thought it was better to give him oxygen but I don't know. He looks like hell and I know that this rain had him worried.
"Don't think that it hasn't got the others worried."
"We'll manage," he predicted. "I don't know how but we will."
After the sat around and they talked about Ben and the show they got deep into the bottle. It didn't take long to kill what was in the bottle and Earl said he would drive into town for another one.
"We can't work," he said. "We might as well get a package on."
He was gone about half and hour and during bat time she took a shower. She had just enough liquor in her to want him real bad and she put on just bra and panties. Bra and panties did things to Earl. He said that a girl was more attractive half dressed then she was undressed. When she was wearing these things he liked to kiss her and run his hands down over her body. He'd take them off, breathing heavily as he did so and she'd come alive.
She was out in the living room, when he came in and he looked worried.
"I stopped off at a bar for a drink," he said as he opened the bottle. "And who do you think I met in there? That Laura Hall, offering herself for sale."
He sat down on the sofa and she sat beside him. "I don't like it, Valerie. A girl like that can give you a bad name if she's hauled in."
"She took on a guy last night, right here."
"I thought maybe she had but I didn't know for sure. When I asked May what she thought of Laura she didn't have much to say so she must have known about it, too." He put one arm around Valerie's shoulders. "There are times when you can't figure people, especially a girl like that. And the hell of it is I can't let her go. I need her in the show and Ben thinks she's tops. He would blow out my brains if I ever did anything about her. Old as he is he could have gotten other girls and he had to pick on a slut."
The only time he left her was to get the bottle and once he kissed her hard, putting his drinks down and going at the breasts wildly with his hands. He kissed them, his mouth traveling then his tongue forcing her teeth apart but she made no effort to return the kiss, teasing him along and wanting to make him suffer for what he had said to her.
"You called me a slut," she said, breaking away. "A cheap slut."
"I'm sorry about that," he said grasping her breasts.
"You'd better be."
"Anybody would have been sore. A man walks in and finds his girl naked with another man and what is he supposed to think?"
"I told you how it was."
"All right, all right. But you could have ran. You didn't have to just stand there."
"Aren't you after the same thing?"
"With you maybe but I don't chase the others. There are a lot of girls with us who would let me work it off with them but when I take on one girl I stick to her."
She leaned her head against his shoulder.
"You're smart and you've got an education and here you are with a show that's ready to fold up on the road. If you put what you have to work for you, you could be with a big business organization."
"I like this better, baby."
"Do we always do what we want to do? Aren't there times when you have to do what's sense?"
He laughed and kissed her but not so hard this time.
"The booze is making you preach," he said. "Next thing I know you'll be-"
"It isn't funny."
"It is to me and I couldn't quit this racket if I felt as though I wanted to. Ben is depending on me and you can't let a man like Ben down."
"His daughter could take over."
"Sure, she could take over but what does she know about it? You have to put down the figures and add them up to get the total."
"Just make sure you leave her figure alone. My guess is that she would add up to a pretty big bundle."
"Don't be nasty."
"Oh, I'm not being that way. She's got it and you can't take that away from her." Valerie reached for her drink. "And there's probably something else that you couldn't take away from her." She put her free hand down on his leg. "If you know what I mean."
"I know."
The rain stopped for a few minutes, the sun almost coming out, but then the rain started to come down again and they continued to drink. Even if it cleared the grounds would be wet and they wouldn't draw a crowd, perhaps only a few men who would come out to see the girls shake the flesh.
She could feel herself getting high and then he finally took off her bra, pawing at her. She spilled her drink as she put it aside and then she was fifting herself to him, her legs twisting because she couldn't control them any longer.
"Tell me what you want," he said looking up.
"You, I want you, all the way."
"How bad do you want me?"
"Oh, real bad," she said as her hands went into action.
A few minutes later they were in the bedroom, the blinds down, and she helped him to undress. She liked to do that, to do the things that a man would do for himself. No matter how many times she saw him nude he always fascinated her. He was big, his young body hard and throbbing, and when she saw him that way she thought of the love to come.
"Hurry," she pleaded as she fell to be bed, fighting clear of the single garment that reained and kicking away from her. "Please, Earl" She chocked back a sob. "I need you so badly I hurt."
"This is better than working," he said as he came down to her. "This is a whole lot better than that."
"Only there's no money in it."
"Sometimes it costs."
"Why?"
"You know why."
He kissed her hard as he asked, "Are you afraid?"
She returned his kiss, searing his mouth with her eager lips.
"Maybe I am," she replied. "Sometimes I'm scared. I don't know, honestly. You drink and you want to love somebody, the way I love you, but you have to think of what could happen. You must-"
He drowned any words that she might have said with the pressure of his mouth upon her. She moaned and gave life to the kiss, her mouth coming open, her heart pounding, her hands moving desperately over the hard muscles of his naked back. He kissed the same as he always had, arousing her, the yearning so great inside of her that she wanted to scream in delight. She closed her eyes, shutting out the light of the room, telling herself that this was right, that they were meant for each other and that there would never be anybody else.
She let out a little cry as they rolled and for a second she broke the kiss, burying her face against his shoulder at each thrust. Then her lips met his mouth again, fiercely, wonderfully, and she didn't care what it cost. It could have been her life in the next hour and she wouldn't have cared. She was living only for this churning mass of flesh, for his complete possession of her, for the rising tide of hunger that swept through her. There was nothing else, nothing that could equal what they were doing what was theirs and theirs alone at every twist and turn.
Later, he found cigarettes for them, lit two, and they lay there in heat. For a few minutes they didn't talk, their minds and senses still dulled by what had belonged to them, only their hands played with each other. One thing about Earl, he didn't think that it mattered to a woman afterward, but it did. It mattered terribly to be able to look over at the man who had owned you and feel that he was thinking about you. For Valerie there was always an emotional letdown and having him near to her was a big help. Once she had climbed the summit of love she worried. Sometimes she didn't. If she was too high on booze she just went to sleep. But that day was somewhat different than the other times.
"You said I was your woman," she reminded him. "You said that, didn't you?"
"Well, aren't you?"
"Only I don't want it to be cheap."
"What do we care about some people?"
Some of the ashes from the cigarette dropped upon her right breast. She rubbed herself and the jiggling breast excited her.
"Dave Moore asked me to go away with him," she said.
"He'd drop you when he was done with you," Earl didn't sound sore or surprised.
With her free hand she reached over and traced a line down to his chin. He hadn't shaved that morning and he needed one.
"Is that what you're going to do with me? Drop me when you're finished?"
He rolled over and sat up on the edge of the bed. He was quiet for a moment.
"Do we have to get serious about this?" he inquired.
"Shouldn't I know?"
"What can I tell you? You know how things are. Rough."
"There's always the hotels for you."
He got up and walked around the room, first to the window and then back to the bed. His glance wandered over her nude body.
"I like the traveling," he said. "It's inside of me. And I-couldn't do anything right now if felt like it. Ben's been good to me and he's in bad shape. But it isn't just Ben I have to think of. It's the other people, the little people who have nowhere else to go. You have to work for people like that. You can't let them down."
She moved over so that she could put out the cigarette.
"You didn't answer my question."
"No, because there isn't any answer today."
She felt a little sick.
"No answer except the booze and the quickie. Is that it?"
He ran his fingers through his hair.
"Hell, Valerie, don't push. I'm doing the best can with what I have. There are problems and what we have can wait."
Suddenly the sickness passed for her.
"Honey," she said as she made room for him on the bed. "Honey, what I want you to do is screw me real good."
He went to her and when naked, he fell upon her positioning his body between her parted raised legs.