Chapter 4
With militaristic pomposity, Mayor Dillon strolled about the eight foot mesh fence securing the Kansas army base. The pleading hungry eyes of children and the furrowed distress shadowing the brows of men who have fought sharks, dehydration and attack by their own government, found themselves on foreign soil cooped up like a bunch of chickens and no hope for independence or employment.
On this sun bursting afternoon, the Cuban refugee children, frenetic with frustrated energy, followed the six-foot hulk of Mayor Dillon as if he were the Pied Piper. The chocolate, saucered eyes trailed curiously after the immaculately dressed authority figure who had been ordered by the federal government to assess the living conditions at Lawrence, Kansas army base and make recommendations.
Having toured the barracks where cots were lined up like so many teeth and once proud fathers draped bedsheets from the ceiling in attempts to gain a bit of privacy; and the pathetically equipped infirmary, run by a handful of interns, with its seventy-bed capacity; and the latrines with backed up sewers, rusted sinks and urine puddling the floor, he was ready to make a statement to the Lawrence Gazette reporter trailing puppyishly after him with notepad in hand.
"Would you repeat that, sir?" the reporter scratched madly, half running to keep abreast of the fast-paced mayor of Lawrence.
"I said, and you can quote me on this," boomed Mayor Dillon dictatorially, flicking a fleck of lint from his pin-striped suit sleeve, "the living conditions at Lawrence, Kansas army base are damned adequate. There's no reason for the Federal welfare department to stick its nose in our business."
The puzzled reporter eyed a pale-faced mother nursing her child, rocking back and forth and muttering depressive epitaphs in her native tongue, while the hunger swollen belly of her two-year old rubbed against her shoulder.
"But Mayor ... Colonel Nelson claims there are no medical facilities for these people, that it is our American duty to employ Cuban-speaking counselors who can help maintain the nuclear family unit...."
The Mayor halted his General Patton stride in midstep and glared at the Gazette reporter and glowered. "They made it across the Gulf, didn't they? Damned peasants are tougher 'n the rest of us!"
"But ... but, Mayor...." the reporter ran to keep abreast as the mayor charged for the exit gate, scattering children in his wake like the parting of the Red Sea. "Mayor ... Colonel Nelson claims the food supplies are running short and that the County Welfare Department is delinquent in keeping up its end of the bargain."
"Bullshit!" barked the Mayor. "I don't care what the Colonel says! You see any of 'em starving?"
"And jobs," probed the reporter tenaciously. "He claims Lawrence is unreceptive to the Federal Sponsorship Program. Any thoughts on that?"
"We're working on it...."
"Back to the Welfare Department...."
Mayor Dillon's jowled face fell slack and his step quickened. "No comment," he hissed over his shoulder, making a hasty exit through the gate as his eyes sparred with the dark, brooding Latino eyes of Carlos boring accusatively at him.
"I thought I told you to call Cora Nelson!" he bellowed in a baritone voice.
"Honey, I'm sorry ... I plum forgot ... what with the telephone ringing and me trying to find sponsors for the refugees, I just forgot!" A trembling hand reached for the glass of wine on the end table next to a sneezy ashtray brimming with cigarette butts.
"You're too damned drunk, that's what's the matter with you ... you don't have a Goddamned undamaged cell in your bubbly brain!" He shorted and paced. "I ask you to do something and you fall on your ass!"
The slump shouldered woman stroked a wave of bleached hair .out of her eyes and inhaled a puff of smoke which curled from her nostrils now. Throwing back her head, she pursed her lips and started a monologue that made Mayor Dillon yawn.
"I ... I ... didn't used to drink like this, Earl ... you know that. I was a good secretary to you ... nobody could campaign like Joyce Carruthers," she snickered bitterly. "Everything changed after the celebration party ... when I ... had too much champagne and you accused me of-of being with that alderman in the men's room and you-you hit me in the eye in front of all our party members," she sniffed righteously, grabbing the wing glass and punching out her cigarette in one synchronized motion. "You know that started it off ... and don't you deny it, Earl Dillon . ... "
"You were suckin' off Carl in the men's room and don't you deny it, woman!" he boomed, winging around on his heel. Contritely, he scratched the back of his burly neck, and said in a smaller voice, "I can't help it if the Gazette photographer just happened to come out of the can just then." He glowered at the wine glass clutched in his wife's berry red fingertips.
"I've done well, Earl," she averred, setting the empty wine glass on the end table and eyeing it desirously. "I've cut down, really I have ... I go to my AA meeting every Monday night and I...." with that admission she broke down in a loud wail shrill enough to shatter the wine glass. The Mayor turned his back and rolled his eyes at the ceiling.
He didn't want to hear his wife's sob story. He wanted to know how Cora Nelson liked her Cuban houseboy. The Mayor grunted to himself with self-satisfaction. When the Gazette got wind of the rowdy manners of 'certain' Cuban refugees who were luckily chosen for the sponsorship program, it would turn the city of Lawrence against the yellow skinned bastards and Castro would have to take the whole no-good, welfare-sucking idiots back into his Commie country! He couldn't think with Joyce wailing behind his back.
He glowered at the back of her head while he shook his own. Critically, he glared at the half-drunken woman slumped over on the sofa, her body heaving with sobs and he noted, too, the dark roots of her bleached blonde hair. Hard to believe that five years ago when he'd married her, his secretary, that efficient, prolific creature had withered into a simpering, frightened woman who had been one hell of a lay.
He snickered bitterly and turned to stare out the window. Now whenever she got horny enough to let him touch her, she had to guzzle a glass of wine first to crowbar open her cunt. Always had to have the safety of a wine glass at her elbow to stoke her courage. He'd been damned proud of her progress in drying up, and then Colonel Nelson had his asshold Federal Sponsorship Program which made her hit the bottle again.
Earl Dillon barred his teeth and spat out four letter viterperatives. So the town of Lawrence didn't think his wife was good enough to socialize with the upper echelons of this crummy hick town. They would think still worse of their Mayor when they discovered their Welfare Department didn't have enough loose change left in this fiscal year's budget to buy a bottle of aspirin! Maybe he was over his head. Damned, fucking refugees gotta screw everything up for me ... just when it was coming together so well. Earl stroked his naked chin and cogitated on the grim speculations ahead.
Brusquely, he swung around, his face livid with fury; he poked a bony finger at his wife who obediently lifted her mascara-smeared head from the sofa's wet arm and sniffled bravely. "You call Colonel Nelson's hot assed Cuban wife and tell her I'm sending out two more houseboys tomorrow, since she liked 'em so goddamned much!"
Joyce nodded stiffly, her blue eyes two liquidy pools of depression from too many dictatorial confrontations with her husband.
The Colonel's wife dolefully pulled up the satin coverlet and plumped up the pillows; she stroked the coverlet smooth, as a resolute sigh broke from her lips. Last night's horror show flitted drearily through her mind. Leo wanting to make love and she crying over a supposed headache. Now she covered her face with her tiny hands and cried from a very real pounding headache.
How could she possibly let Leo see her naked with the pinch marks dotting her breasts and the other ugly bruises polka-dotting her lovely tanned thighs? Damn that Federal Sponsorship Program anyway, Cora's lovely shoulders heaved. At least she'd done her part and hired one refugee for a day. Now the town could follow her example and take over the responsibility.
Or so she thought, until she answered the telephone.
"H-hello, Cora?"
She's half looped again, thought Cora, rolling her eyes at the ceiling as she recognized the Mayor's wife's raspy voice, deep as the mysterious life of the woman herself.
"How's yer li'l Cuban refugee yes'erday," she slurred.
"He did his work. I have to say that for him," retorted Cora crisply. "Are you calling for any special purpose, Joyce?"
Alcoholics often take impersonal remarks personally, and that's how the Mayor's wife interpreted Cora's brusqueness.
"B-but it was so nice of you t' he'p me out, Cora," sniffled Joyce.
"Don't take it personally, Joyce, if I don't have need for another houseboy today. Carlos was well mannered and I have no complaints about his performance," she pointed out emphatically, her voice chiselled with defense. But then the Colonel's wife was one bull's eye for ridicule and gossip. Better to speak well of him, then leave speculation to the wind....
"I's so har' bein' a Mayor's wife," droned on Joyce. "Lordie, I get stuck with these dirty jobs and nobody to help me." Her voice dropped to a confidential tone. "I feel like I don' have a frien' in Lawrence ... they all think I'm a drunk ... but I try, I really do, Cora."
There was a pause. Mayor Dillon hadn't married his secretary for her body alone. "You don' s'pose you could take jus' one tomorrow ... huh, Cora, honey?
Cora drew a deep sigh. "Okay, tomorrow, but after that I suggest you start calling on the church people."
"Ah, the Mayor'll be so happy!"
I'll bet he will, thought Cora, I'll just bet he will. Lord, lean't issue any complaints about these refugees or Leo will be in hot water.
"Damn Castro anyway!" hissed Cora, returning the receiver to the cradle. "I wish they'd deport the bunch of them and get them out of my hair!"
Leo would be ashamed of me if he heard me talk like that, she berated herself, and headed for the kitchen to whip up a frittata for tonight's dinner.
As she whipped the eggs into a lemony froth, the horrifying thought struck home that Carlos might have some awful social disease. "Oh, Dear God!" she wailed aloud, dropping the fork. Penicillin ... she had to get a penicillin shot just in case. How would she ever explain a festering case of syphillis to Leo? God only knew what kind of veneral diseases plantation peasants carried on them. To go to the infirmary would be watering the grapevine.
Frenetically, she rushed to the bathroom and stood before the full length mirror, inspecting her body for any bruises about her neck and shoulders that might have popped up overnight. How would she explain that to Leo? Her trembling fingertips worked at the buttons of her shirt and pulled it open to expose the full mounds of her braless bosom. No, nothing on her neck, she thought with relief, turning her head from left to right for examination. Tender pinch marks on her breasts distressed her, but a heavy coat of makeup would comoflage them just fine.
A shuffling of feet and "Honey, I'm home!" sent her flying from the bathroom to drape herself on Leo's arm.
"My, aren't we affectionate tonight?" he grinned, showing off pearly teeth in a tanned, dimpled face. "What's the occasion?"
"Us." She needed him more than ever to make love to her tonight to eradicate the guilt of yesterday's rape. The word 'rape' stuck in her throat like bad meat.
They went to bed early, and Leo had flicked on the portable color television set in their bedroom which afforded enough lumination to read a book by. Leo liked to have it on and for that reason, it became an unquestioned habit. So tonight when his towel-draped body emerged from the bathroom in anticipation of finding his wife wearing the sexy black nightgown that always made him want to come in his pants ... and he stepped into a dark room, he immediately demanded an explanation. "Cora...?"
"Yeah, honey. I'm in bed."
"Turn on the TV, will ya? I can't find my pajamas."
"You don't need pajamas, honey," her mellifluous voice whispered. "Come to me...."
"Turn it on anyway."
Cora tutted. "Oh, come on ... don't be a baby."
"I'm not being a baby ... I wanna see where I'm going!"
Him and his damn television! I hope the makeup hasn't smeared off!
"Oh, all right." Disgrunteldly, she pulled the covers up to her chin and stretched a lithe arm to flick on the television set and plopped back down in bed with the covers up to her chin.
Leo cocked his head and squinted at her. "What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing. Why?" Her eyes, big chocolate orbs, blinked up at him.
He sat on the edge of the bed, the television screen splashing white light over his muscle rippling back. "Bet you're wearing that sexy black nightie I gave you...." he commenced peeling back the covers. "Come on, let me see you in it...."
"No...." How could she refuse her husband after incessant nagging about their sexless marriage? "Turn off the TV first."
"Shy? You've got nothing to hide. I love your body, you know that!"
He kissed her, their tongues intertwining in a deep soul-kiss. His hands stroked the silkiness of her neck and explored south to the melonous mounds of bruised flesh which bore the color of infidelity. Dear God, don't let him see that bruise! she prayed, grateful Leo was one of those men who close their eyes during lovemaking.
"Ahhh...." she mewled, her nipples taut and hard, tenderly needful against his chest, while she relished in the feel of his hands roaming over the luscious curves of her slender body, dipping into the moistness of her yearning cunt, his finger tenderly stroking and stoking the fires of desire smoldering hotly from Carlos' 'rape' the day before. He thumped at her clitoris, while her hand fled to the limp tube of his penis and massaged it slowly and lovingly, letting her hand drift down every now and then to cradle the warm sac of testicles.
Minutes passed. He kissed and worked her up to a tortorous arousal, but his cock, hot in her tiny hand, refused to grow. Usually, Leo's penis would have been a cudgel in her fist, seeping with pre-ejaculatory juices and throbbing with blood, and he would have pinned her to the mattress while his eager cock flesh tore into her belly, filling her with love juice.
Not to be. The flaccid tube withered pathetically in her fist, with none of the Nelson zeal. Lying next to him, Cora ground her buttocks into the squeaking mattress, thrusting her pelvis up to meet his finger sluicing noisily in and out of her seeping pussy.
"Leo ... I want you ... I need you inside of me," she wailed pathetically, fearing she'd go stark raving mad if he didn't make her cum.
"Jesus, honey ... I'm sorry ... I guess it's this damned refugee situation that's upsetting me ... you understand, don't you?" he whispered, kissing her forehead like a good little girl deserving of praise.
"Don't let it upset you," she whined. "You spend more time being concerned about them than you do about me!" Frantically, she pumped the withered tube in her fist. "Leo, I can't stand this ... I've got to have you up in me ... I mean it!" She cajoled and pumped and stroked and breathed hot air into his ear.
For nothing.
"PLEASE, LEO!"
Leo buried his head under the pillow. Cora, sniffling from the loss of his fingers stroking in and out of her crying vagina, rolled him over almost wishing he'd see the bruises on her breasts so he'd see what a real man could do in bed!
Oh, what a horrible thing to think! Desperation set in. 'Talk to me, Leo ... maybe you should talk to Dr. Gaston."
"Don't make fun of me, honey ... I'm sorry, but I've got a lot on my mind...."
"What about me? You've got to do something to make me cum, Leo ... anything!" Cora was on the verge of tears and she cried the harder when the mocking leering brown eyes of Carlos snapped to mind. Carlos with the golden chest and fifteen year old penis that filled her belly to bursting.
Distraught with embarrassment, the Colonel flopped onto his back and rubbed the swollen lips of her pussy, his hard middle finger slipping into the dripping juices of her womb, stroking her clitoris until she whimpered out her orgasm.