Chapter 3
Even as the house closed around her, Jennifer felt again the stirrings of rebellion against Mother Dear's years of imprisonment-imprisonment of Jennifer's soul. And there was no escape. She had tried that briefly, and faced two humiliating rejections. In one day! The first man she had truly encountered had looked on her naked and run away; the second had attempted to take her body-and she had, without really meaning to, foiled that. And the man had thrown her out.
Then, of course, there was that minor encounter in the hallway of Cass' apartment house where some man-she couldn't even supply him with a face, since she had been too embarrassed to raise her eyes that far-had offered help and felt of her nudity. Rather gently, as she recalled now, thinking back. And she had run away from him, too, hidden in the stairwell to dress, to come home, to this house.
This is the place for me. Lock myself in and throw away the key. Become a recluse. Live here, where I won't face the temptations of my treacherous body. Except in a pier glass. Or is that sinful, too? And was it sinful thinking of that young man who had seen her preening her body in the mirror? He had even reached out and touched her-which she knew wasn't true, but it suited this particular fantasy-and she had thrown him out. Which also wasn't quite true.
She walked into the room and stared at herself in the pier glass, fully clothed-well, not fully, since there were no panties under the skirt, She relived that ghastly moment of humiliation, face down on the carpet outside the door to Cass' apartment-stark naked, with a man looking at her. As some man had seen her-naked-before this very mirror.
Her cheeks burned with the memory of those incidents, hating herself for having created them, yet feeling a tightness in her chest, a warmth in her loins because of them.
I think I am going mad. I'm schizophrenic. I want sex. My body drives me to wanting. And my mind and all my training tell me I shouldn't. And it isn't just Mother Dear's warped, Victorian precepts, her vague, unformulated hatred of sex. There are rules against it, quite strong rules and all sorts of penalties, real and emotional or, if you like, call them religious, though I'm not a very religious person.
She brought her attention back to the mirror and the reflection of herself in the unhappy clothes, the shapeless middy blouse that hid her breasts and slim waist and the droopy dark skirt that covered her legs. Very slowly she lifted her skirt, revealing the slim, rounded legs. And above that, she knew-and could feel again the warmth of it-was her... pudendum. Her sex box. She made that almost defiant.
We were made for sex. For a man and a woman together. So why shouldn't I give my body to a man? Why shouldn't I know the rich experience of being made love to? But not as I tried today. That was false, artificial. It should just happen. It should come as a natural wanting, a hunger of both...
She was talking herself back into sex-and realized it. And couldn't fight it. Her body was betraying her again, the warmth flooding through her, starting in her loins and spreading.
Because I am twenty. Because I am young and the sap is rising. There is spring in the air, spring in my veins.
In the mirror she saw the bright splash of color and turned to see what lay on the floor. The young man who had seen her naked had dropped some pamphlets. Jennifer stooped and gathered them up, holding them against her still aching breasts-Cass' hands hadn't been so gentle.
Jennifer started out with them huddled to her breasts and then turned back defiantly, adopting Mother Dear's room with its gay colors and many tables and lamps. She dumped the pamphlets on one and stirred them with her hand.
They were pamphlets about cruises, about fascinating places with romantic-sounding names.
It seemed to her, looking at the pictures of young people playing deck tennis and shuffle-board and betting on odd wooden horses and splashing in improbably blue swimming pools or lounging in deck chairs looking out over an intensely blue ocean, that everybody must be going on cruises. And everybody with a mate. "And the animals went in, two by two..." But not for me. I had my chances, two of them, and muffed them both-and that "maybe" third that might have developed into something, but didn't.
Realizing how she was reacting, Jennifer brushed the pamphlets to the floor, glaring down at them. They were temptation! Cruel, bright, gay temptation.
And yet she had just said it herself: if "anything"-and she realized she meant sex but couldn't quite face up to it-was to happen, it would have to happen naturally. And where else could it happen more naturally than on a cruise ship, under a clear, moonlit sky, with warm breezes...
Jennifer stooped and gathered up the pamphlets, sorting them out. The long luxury cruises she put aside. The people pictured in them seemed older, stable, sedate. But there was one-a "Swingin' Singles Cruise" out of Los Angeles to Acapulco-that seemed interesting.
Jennifer studied the brochure with supercritical eyes, trying to estimate if the girls pictured in the bright, gay pictures had been made love to. Of course, there was no way of telling. Jennifer had no criterion for it. Besides, she told herself, even if they all looked smiling, content or even gay, that's what they were paid to look like. They are just models, she told herself sternly, who look happy on command.
It wasn't too expensive, either.
It wouldn't hurt to ask. She picked up the phone and dialed, and a bright voice answered.
"The Acapulco cruise? The 'Swingin' Singles Cruise,' we call it. For singles, only of course. You do understand that, don't you? Of course, two girls may share a cabin. Or two men. But we don't encourage couples. It's strictly a fun cruise." And the bright voice sighed lightly, as if regretting not being on that particular cruise.
"Could I get a cabin-by myself?" Jennifer hadn't really meant to go on that cruise--just ask about it, and dream about what might have happened if she had gone on it.
Instead, she found herself booked for a private cabin on the boat deck. "It's the breeziest. And in the tropics that means a lot," the bright voice said, sounding wistful.
The tropics! There was a special lure to those two words. The tropics! They conjured up visions of palm trees and white sand and scantily clad people cavorting in the sun.
There she was, thinking again of people-but always a man and a woman-and scantily clad. In her imagination they wore less than that. She firmly sat on that idea and then, to cover the lengthening pause:
"I hadn't realized that Acapulco was in the tropics," Jennifer found herself explaining.
"Oh, yes. You're already in the tropics as you pass Cabo San Lucas. You'll see the Southern Cross from there on down, every night. And in Acapulco..." The bright voice died away to a whisper... "there are tropic nights, with bougainvillea climbing to your balcony. And the smell of frangipani in the air..."
Jennifer, who had had an unfortunately large amount of time to read, was not all sure that frangipani grew in central Mexico, but she didn't correct the bright voice. Frangipani sounded as if it ought to be there.
"And the soft, muted music of the mariachi bands strolling under your balcony..."
Jennifer was hooked and knew it. "When can I pick up my ticket?"
The bright voice became brisk, businesslike. "Allow me half an hour to confirm your reservation and you can pick up your passage any time after that. I assume you meant the next sailing-which is less than a week off. Now, you'll need your shots, but you won't be required to carry a passport. Any established clinic can give you shots and a health certificate. May I suggest several lightweight wash-and-wear dresses-for dining. The ship is informal, but the management does suggest dressing for meals." The voice giggled. "Bikinis are distracting to the waiters. And you'll be wearing those most of the time. Or slacks."
Jennifer hung up, dazed. She hadn't really meant to book passage. On a swinging cruise? It seemed almost like booking a night's lodging at a whorehouse, because that was obviously what the swinging cruise was--just one grand floating orgy. At least she would see it, see what sex was like, even if she couldn't participate, even if she was doomed to be a frustrated old maid.
But wash-and-wear dresses! Slacks! And as for a bikini! Why, she didn't own a single one of those. And there would be other things-a sheer nightie. A shortie? Well, why not? No one would ever see it, and it sounded so pleasantly scandalous. A bathing suit? No, a bikini was a bathing suit-of sorts. Robe? Jennifer was frantically going over the list, realizing that she had none of those frivolities. Not even sandals or wedgies.
Suntan oil? Jennifer giggled. That was what that elderly doctor had suggested-open windows, let the sun in, even get a sunburn. And she was anticipating sunburn-with a suntan lotion.
At one of the better shops Jennifer learned with amazement about pantyhose and body stockings, and that people really bought them. They weren't just the figment of some advertising artist's pen. And in the wash-and-wear department there was this Italian weave in canary yellow, white and black that... well, Jennifer had to have it. It was so different from anything she had known. But then they all were. And buying became one delightful series of amazements and revelations. And fun!
Jennifer was already enjoying her swinging cruise, as she was enjoying the new clothes, preening in them in the stores, trying them on before the pier glass that she had had Callie move into her room. Swanking about in that dove-gray and lavender with the wide suede belt, swinging her hips in the Italian weave- and under them all, feeling the new sensuous-ness of the pantyhose, which still mildly scandalized her. No panties with?
But then, practically everything scandalized her-including the prices. So that, in the welter and confusion of acquiring all she needed- which was everything the bright voice and the brochure recommended-she'd almost forgotten why she was going.
Cass reminded her. He called, making what sounded like an apology, mingled with a little anger at Jennifer, and asking for a re-run on their aborted date, but with a satisfactory conclusion this time. He didn't specify to whom it would be satisfactory, and Jennifer didn't ask. She hung up, shaken with the humiliation of remembering, and almost turned in her ticket.
Nevertheless that Friday she stood on the dock, between two bags packed with new clothes and three bikinis, having lavishly overtipped the taxi driver and the porter. She was wearing the Italian weave. The yellow seemed to catch the sunlight, focussing on her, straight and slim and very frightened, still remembering Cass.
She would have turned and run, abandoning the two bags, except that a very nice officer, youngish, with a twinkle in his eye, came over to stand and talk with her.
"Miss Lorn, you'll find the proceedings do straighten out. And everybody does get aboard and the ship does sail, even though that seems unlikely at the moment. It even sails on schedule, which I have come to regard as practically a miracle." And he smiled down at her from a very nice height, nearly a foot above Jennifer.
Jennifer smiled nervously up at him, wondering how he had known her name, and then felt foolish. Her name, in large black letters, was printed on the flamboyant pink luggage tags, along with her cabin number.
He smiled and patted her hand. "They'll process you in a moment. L's are next." He patted her again as he wandered off to reassure some other bewildered stranger.
Jennifer felt as if she had been patted on the head-right on top of the silly, frilly pillbox of a hat-and told to eat her porridge, it was good for her.
But he was right. She was "being processed" -which took almost no time-and was being escorted up the gangplank by a porter loaded with bags, hers among them.
At the head of the gangplank-it was the head, wasn't it, resting on the ship?-she felt she was being processed again. But in quite a different way. Half a dozen or more young men were looking her over, nodding, and then turning attention to the next nearest female.
Jennifer had only the most rudimentary idea of what a swingin' cruise was-but that little was lurid, garnered from paperback books the various maids had left behind. Seeing the men staring at her, watching them turn from her to study each new female appraisingly, she was sure the books were faithful reporting-and this was the start of the orgy, with the males selecting their mates.
She would have turned and fled down the gangplank but for those behind her thrusting her inexorably into the midst of these... men.
The men parted, smiling or nodding, and let her and the overburdened porter through. Breathing with difficulty, Jennifer went down the lane opened for her, heading for her cabin on the promised breezy boat deck.
It was breezy. She had to hold her skirt with one hand and the silly pillbox hat with the other. She was well aware that the coterie around the gangplank were peering up the hatchway, enjoying her dilemma.
So the orgy was starting! It almost seemed she could hear drums throbbing behind the scenes-and then realized she could. It was the throbbing of the ship's engines. Jennifer smiled. Quite appropriate! Those drums would accompany them all the way to their destination like some tribal ceremony. They would be part of the pounding, leaping frenzy that would mark the orgy.
Jennifer's ideas were indeed lurid.