Chapter 7
Carl's bony knees clasped Linda's rib cage tightly as she tried to power her way between his legs. She shrieked her distress as Carl's hands drummed a fiery rataplan of spanks upon her squirming, quivering, bare hind cheeks. Carl leaned down over her back and rode her right down to the floor as Linda's outcries increased, spanking steadily. Feverishly she twisted beneath him, first onto her side, then her back. Carl aimed a final spank at the soft bowl of her stomach, then rose from her reluctantly.
Linda was crying openly. Shuddering sobs shook her entire body as she crawled painfully onto her knees again. "Boy, is her ass gettin' red!" Mousie observed from behind her.
"You'll be able to light a cigarette off it time we're through with it," Charlie said. "C'mon, you," he added to Linda. "Get movin'."
Forlornly Linda approached Edmondo on hands and knees. She had one quick glimpse of his big cock dangling loosely as the swarthy-skinned boy half-crouched, awaiting her. Then she scrambled forward as rapidly as her sore knees would permit to try to cut down the period of her exposure to the hard-slapping hands.
It was as futile as before. "Owww! Owww! Owww!" Linda yelled as Edmondo's thighs gripped her and prolonged her stay between his legs while the sound of the spanks he rained down upon her plump bottom exploded noisily inside the cabin. Desperately she tried to squirm away as the upper and middle slopes of her nude behind felt as if they were on fire. Her voice soared. "Ohhhh! N-no, please! Owwww! Ooooh! OWWWWWWWWWW!"
Her voice caught in her throat suddenly. Her thigh-clenched struggle to escape the tight pressure upon her waist and the burning heat in her scarlet rump combined to produce a familiar deep-thrilling tingle within her. "Ohhhhhh, nooooo!" Linda moaned. Furiously she wrenched herself free from Edmondo's thigh-grip upon her waist. She collapsed on her stomach in front of Charlie, panting like a dog in heat. The thrill-tingle poised in her depths, quivered lightly, then receded.
Linda wept bitterly, prostrate on the floor. What was the matter with her? She knew she had almost come in the midst of this disgraceful, painful exploitation of her tender bottom-flesh which was flaming hotly. What was the matter with the Linda she had known all her life?
"Move it along here," Charlie s voice beat down at her. "You're holding up the parade."
Weeping freely, Linda forced herself up to her hands and knees again. Fearfully she stared at Charlie's husky thighs, matted with blond hair. Anxious as she was to get her painful running-the-gauntlet over, she suspected this last stop would be the most severe. Without giving herself time to think further, she attempted to scramble frantically through Charlie's legs.
It was far worse than she had anticipated, even.
The blond boy gripped her waist with his powerfully-clamping thighs until Linda's ribs felt crushed. She gasped, then groaned. "Ohhhhhh!" she shrieked as Charlie's big hands detonated loudly upon her helpless behind, immobile except in its frantic, ceaseless writhing. She felt as if even her brain were aflame.
Charlie straightened up slightly, his strength so great that Linda's knees lifted from the floor. Dangling from between his legs, her hands beat on the floor frenziedly as her backside, uptilted slightly in its new position, absorbed a thunderous series of heavy spanks.
"Owwwwww! Owwwwww! OWWWW-W-W!" Linda screamed. Her drooping legs kicked froglike in her anguish. And then in a flash the thrill-tickle ignited in her loins again and overwhelmed her, and in the depths of her whimpering shame she felt her behind thrusting up and down independently of its previous efforts to escape Charlie's hard-handed punishment of it.
Her sweat-slippery body finally escaped from Charlie's thigh-pinioning grasp and she plunged to the floor. Hoarse sobs strained her throat as she doubled up into a foetal position in an effort to hide her still-throbbing cunt-lips. Eyes closed, she sought in vain to conquer the betraying internal explosion which somehow seemed to alleviate the smarting burn in her backside. Desperately she tried to conceal it from the prying masculine eyes.
But Charlie had noticed.
Although Linda's bare, scarlet behind was still within reach, he had stopped spanking her. "You know somethin', gang?" he said in a wondering tone. "This damn broad comes off when she gets her ass whaled. I saw it happen when Carole gave it to her, only I didn't really believe what I was seein'." He stooped, untucked Linda's thighs from their doubled-up position, and inserted a finger into her quim. He held up the dripping, slippery-looking finger to the others. "See that?"
"Why the hell would she do that?" Mousie asked curiously.
"Who the hell knows why broads do anything they do?" Carl shrugged. "Well, what's next?"
"God, she's a mess, isn't she?" Charlie said. "Floor dirt stickin' to her, back an' front, knees scraped, an' face all dirty from cryin'. We ought to get her cleaned up."
"That's a handsome red ass she's got, too," Mousie said admiringly. "We really gave it to her, didn't we?"
Charlie inserted a bare toe in Linda's ribs. "Get up," he said. "You're not killed."
Linda struggled to her feet. She didn't even feel much shame, because she had a new problem. "P-please," she said in a whisper. "I've got to-where's the bathroom?"
Carl snickered. "Out behind the first bush," he advised her. "Help yourself. The rain will clean you up."
"What's she mean?" Mousie demanded. "That she's got to piss? Listen, I want to see her take a leak. Wait a minute." He went to a corner of the cabin and returned with an empty quart milk carton. He handed it to Linda. "Go ahead," he said. "Do your stuff."
Linda's teeth were clenched. She felt as though her bladder were already leaking slowly. She looked through the window at the cold rain drumming down outside, then at the milk carton in her hand. She squatted swiftly, seized the tampon-thread and pulled the tampon out of herself, held the milk carton under her, and released a thundering torrent of piss into the carton which had her eyes swimming with tears of relief.
Mousie had crouched down to observe closely the whole performance. "Damn, she can really aim that thing, can't she?" he remarked when Linda straightened back up slowly. Her legs felt so weak she was afraid she would fall.
But Carl had picked up the discarded tampon. "Look, guys," he said. "No blood."
Charlie looked at the damp, compressed, but white tampon. "What day of your period is this?" he asked.
"The f-fifth," she whispered.
"You mean we can luck her cunt?" Mousie exclaimed joyously.
"Give her a rag and send her outside to wash herself off," Carl said. "She can dry off in front of the fire."
Mousie produced a rag, and the group herded Linda toward the cabin door. "Oh, please," she said, hanging back. "It's so-so cold. Not outside. Not bare. Please."
Charlie's hand cracked sharply upon Linda's tender bottom, and she jumped and yipped. Edmondo opened the door. Carl pushed Linda outside into the rain. "We won't let you back in until you're clean," he said, and closed the door.
Linda stood on the muddy path in her stockinged feet with the torrential, icy rain pelting her shrinking flesh. Individual drops stung her nipples. In seconds she was drenched with her hair lying lank on her shoulders. Frantically she scrubbed at the accumulation of floor-dirt on her belly and thighs. She had never felt so thoroughly miserable since the time a gym-class initiation had resulted in a forced cold shower.
More gently she wiped her bottom with the rag, unable to see if any dirt had clung to her sweaty flesh or not. Four faces peered out at her from the cabin window. Linda widened her legs and applied the saturated rag to her pussy which flinched from the frigid application. She flung the rag from her and turned and pounded on the cabin door with both hands.
The door opened, and she stumbled inside.
Frantically she trotted to the fireplace and moaned in relief at the welcome heat. Her usually creamy flesh looked almost gray and pinched-looking. Mousie produced another rag, and Linda patted herself dry after shaking the excess water from her hair.
"Look how her ass has faded out already," Carl said.
"Yeah. It's just a nice pink now," Mousie agreed.
Linda alternately toasted back and front before the leaping flames. Some of the pallor began to leave her skin, and her nipples slackened from their rain-induced tautness. During one of her back-toasting pivots she noticed a change in the arrangement of the cabin. The large bed was no longer in the corner of the room but had been dragged to its center in the area of greatest light. Linda's heart began a slow, distraught pounding.
"Who was that chunky-lookin' redhead I saw goin' into your place the other afternoon?" Charlie said to her suddenly. "She had an ass on her that wouldn't quit."
"That was-that was-" Linda hesitated, taken by surprise. She couldn't mention Helen Dickinson's name. Suppose this awful group somehow involved Helen in their dreadful schemes? "That was Eunice Glenn, a county librarian," she improvised quickly.
"A friend?" Charlie persisted.
Linda thought she knew how his mind was working. "Just--just an acquaintance," she said. "I see her seldom."
"Listen," Mousie broke in. "It's still gonna be a while before she warms up enough to take us on. Why can't she be suckin' on a couple pricks in the meantime?"
Linda's cold stomach lurched.
"A damn good idea," Carl said emphatically. "I've been wantin' to get that I-wouldn't-say-shit-if-I-had-a-mouthful look off her stupid female face ever since I first saw her."
Charlie looked at Edmondo, then shrugged. "No reason why not," the blond boy said.
"Then I get to go first," Mousie said. "It was my idea."
"Suit yourself."
Mousie went to the bed and took a pillow from it, his slender nudity showing reflected splashes of firelight. He brought the pillow to Linda who was standing in front of the fire with both hands pressed tightly to her breasts and threw it down in front of her. "Kneel down," the boy ordered importantly.
Linda struggled to find her voice which seemed to have shriveled somewhere in the back of her throat. "N-no," she said faintly. "I-I won't do it."
"She'd rather have her ass paddled again," Carl said sardonically. "Let's use a belt this time."
"Oh, no!" Linda said quickly. "I'm-I'm still s-sore. But don't m-make me do this. P-please don't m-make me." Her eyes filled with tears.
"Here comes the goddam waterworks again," Carl said disgustedly. "I never did see such a weepy broad."
Mousie pointed down at the pillow. "Kneel down," he said.
"Do what he says," Charlie said sharply to Linda when she made no move. "A mouthful of cock never hurt any girl."
Linda's tears spilled over and ran down her pale cheeks. "I think I could enjoy using my belt on her," Edmondo said with a smile.
Linda sobbed openly and sank to her knees on the pillow. Mousie crowded up against her at once, pushing his grin into her face, and Linda stared in horror at the slender penis with its red head bobbing about in front of her lips. "I don't think she's ever done it," Carl said with relish. "I really don't think she has. Go on, you cunt; a prick in your mouth is too good for you."
"Prick or belt, sugar," Charlie said from above her head. "Take your pick."
Linda's breath felt caught in her throat. If she had any courage she'd take the belt, she thought despairingly. But the memory of the painful smarting caused just by the boys' hard hands was an instant dissuader. Besides, they'd just whip her until she gave in and then make her suck the prick anyway. Linda advanced her head forward gingerly until the rank odor of unwashed boy assailed her nostrils.
She tried to make, her mind a blank. With her left hand she reached for Mousie's slender rod and took it in her shaking fingers. The boy already had the beginning of an erection. Shutting her eyes, Linda advanced her mouth toward the stiffening prick held in her hand.
The rubbery tip bumped her chin, then under her nose. It rubbed against her lips, and she felt a quick quiver in Mousie's slender body. "Suck it in!" the boy said hoarsely. Linda took a quick breath and lipped the tip of Mousie's prong inside her mouth. "Jesus!" Mousie groaned. "Ooooh, Jesus, what a feelin'!"
"Work your tongue around it, bitch!" Carl ordered. "Or I'll really make your ass smoke!"
Linda swirled her tongue around the slightly-greasy protuberance in her mouth. Mousie came up on his toes and lunged at her, and Linda almost choked as almost the full length of the boy's whang slid inside. The back of her throat felt stuffed until she thought she would gag.
"Suck on it!" Carl demanded. "Suck on it hard!"
Linda couldn't breathe except through her nostrils. She pursed her mouth and drew inward experimentally. She had to do something to get this awful thing out of her throat before she strangled.
The quivering erection slid back and forth between her semi-parted lips. She ran her tongue at it again, and Mousie gasped. "Hey!" he exclaimed in alarm. "She's gonna make me come! I oughta pull out! It's her cunt I wanta fuck!"
"Go ahead an' shoot it into her," Carl advised. "You'll be back up again before you can whistle Dixie. Remember the last time?"
But Mousie was already beyond heeding or caring. Linda's clinging mouth and tongue were assaulted by the jabbing motion of the boy's hips. Deeper and deeper the prick was forced down her throat. Then Mousie gave a high-pitched cry and came up on his toes again as he deluged Linda's mouth with his prick-jerking, jet-propelled spend.
Linda gave a muted bleating cry as her mouth was inundated. She choked, swallowed desperately, choked again stranglingly, and swallowed again. Rivulets of uncontained semen ran down from the corners of her mouth and dripped from her chin onto her swaying breasts. Mousie pulled out of Linda's mouth and she gasped aloud. "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" she moaned piteously, wiping furiously at her mouth, chin, and breasts with her hands.
"So now you're not a mouth-virgin any more," Carl said with satisfaction.
"How could she be a mouth-virgin when she's probably sucked more cunts than you've got fingers and toes?" Charlie asked.
"Well, a prick mouth-virgin," Carl amended it. "Say, while she's down there I want to look over the scene." Linda was still on her knees on the pillow, but doubled forward as she tried to keep from retching. Dimly she felt Carl bend down over her, and then she felt her still-tender hind cheeks spread widely as he gripped one in each hand. She whimpered but didn't dare resist. Carl released one buttock to insert his little finger into Linda's anus, and she squeaked in dismay. Her mind was in a panic as she realized what her total exposure must look like to the avidly staring eyes.
Carl probed cruelly with the finger, twisting it to widen the aperture. Linda cried out in pain and tried to shuffle forward on her knees on the pillow. Carl seized her by the waist with his free arm and held her, meantime boring deeper. "Man, I mean-that's a-tight asshole," he grunted, corkscrewing his fingertip deeper into Linda's flinching rectum. The first joint of his finger had disappeared and he was still gaining ground slowly. "Push back on it and take it, you bitch!" he growled at Linda.
"Ohhh! Ohhhh! Ohhhh!" Linda cried out in pain. "S-stop him! Please stop h-him!"
Carl released her waist and pulled his finger away. It emerged from the constrictive grip of Linda's stretched anus with a popping sound.
"Where'd we leave the vaseline?" Carl demanded.
"Over near the door," Charlie answered. "But before you plug her bunghole I want a shot at her cunt. You forgotten you spoke up for first crack at it?"
"I changed my mind," Carl said. "I'd rather pack her shit."
"Okay," Charlie said. He reached down and tapped the crouching Linda on the shoulder. "Onto the bed, sugar." He paused and looked at the others. "Or wait a minute. Anyone else want to waste a load down her throat?" No one re plied. "All right. Onto the bed," he repeated.
Linda rose to her feet as slowly as she dared. Mortifying sensations from the disgraceful things that had been done to her had succeeded each other so quickly that she felt lightheaded. Her anus still throbbed from the intrusion of the hard fingertip. The nipples of her breasts were sticky from the overflow from Mousie's come. The inside of her mouth felt defiled.
Charlie took her in his arms when she was standing upright. He rubbed his stomach against hers and his chest against her breasts. Linda felt his hard muscularity along the entire length of her soft flesh, and then his stiffening prick rose and prodded her between her thighs. Despite herself her breath quickened.
Charlie inserted a hand between her thigh juncture and worked it up against her gash. "Open up, sugar," he said. Linda moved her legs apart and spread her thighs. Charlie's hand turned over and cupped her entire sex on his palm. Then he squeezed lightly, and Linda shivered. Disturbing feelings were beginning to erupt within her.
"That's a real piece of brisket you've got there," Charlie told her, squeezing it again. He sounded almost jovial. "Reach down an' shake hands with the man who's gonna stand up for you, sugar."
Timidly Linda reached out and took hold of his hard prong which was now bumping against her stomach. She was afraid her mounting excitement was going to betray itself by an excretion of moistness from her pussy-lips in Charlie's palm. She stroked the taut length of his prick with her fingers, then took a hand-hold on the shaft near its head. Charlie moved his hand slightly, separated a finger, and began to insert it into her damp passage. Linda's legs quivered.
"She's gettin' hot!" Mousie declared delightedly. "Give her a good frig, Charlie!"
Charlie patiently worked a few sticky hairs out of the way of his finger, then began to plunge it in and out of her rapidly. Linda rose on her toes as she felt his knuckles rapping at her lower down, but the penetrating finger pursued her into her depths. Charlie's hard mouth suddenly came down upon Linda's, startling her. In all her previous hard usage from the group, none had kissed her at all.
Charlie's mouth forced Linda's open and his tongue searched for hers. She squirmed involuntarily against his hard belly as the steadily frigging finger in her seeping sex organ stirred a sleeping flame. Her hand rubbed the head of his prick as his tongue swirled around hers and she could feel her nipples drawing up into two tight little buds.
She gasped for breath when Charlie suddenly broke the fused contact of their mouths. She buried her head against his broad shoulder, not wanting him to see her face. The rapidly-moving finger in her cunt was driving her crazy. The soles of her feet itched and a live, glowing coal in her interior burst into open flame. She moaned softly and before she realized what she was doing she tried to sit down on Charlie's hand to work the finger more deeply into herself.
The boys all laughed. Linda felt her face flaming, but she told herself that she really didn't care. All that mattered was that red-hot, white-hot squirmy feeling deep inside that demanded something be done about it.
"Ask me," Charlie said suddenly.
Linda raised her head to look at him. "Ask you?"
"Ask me for what you want."
She knew what he meant.
A few days ago she thought she might literally have died before complying. Now it suddenly didn't seem to matter. After all the brutal, hurting things that had been done to her, why should she let a little nice-nellie sense of propriety bar her from something she now found herself wanting desperately? The listening, watching boys were a deterrent, but not that much of a deterrent.
She took a quick breath. "F-fuck me, Charlie," she said unsteadily.
Edmondo smiled.
Carl grinned.
Mousie whooped.
Linda didn't care. She rubbed her bare thighs together over Charlie's wrist where it curved in between her legs. She rubbed her breasts against his hairy chest. All discretion, all long-adaged tenets of ladylike behavior seemed to have flown out the window into the rain still teeming down outside. All she knew was that she wanted the rodlike masculinity in her hand inside her cunt-hole, and she was going to have it.
Charlie stooped suddenly and picked her up bodily, his strong arm under her buttock-cushions. He carried her to the bed and placed her upon it. The sheet felt gritty under her body, but again she didn't really mind. She widened her thighs eagerly as Charlie knelt beside her. She sank down on her back and raised her middle slightly for the pillow he arranged under her bottom.
Then he was crouching over her, his straining prick once more prodding her soft flesh. She reached for it quickly and drew the head up against her slot. She heard her own hissing breath as Charlie joggled his hips slightly and the head slipped in. Hot sparklers seemed to be going off in her womb, and nothing but that prick was going to be able to satisfy her gnawing itch.
Charlie closed with her steadily, his prick slipping up into her cunt and filling it deliciously. She felt none of the stuffed, strained sensation she had encountered before with Edmondo. She felt filled, but delightfully filled. And then Charlie began to move in and out of her with long, slow strokes of his engorged love muscle, and Linda heard herself shamelessly mouthing murmured expressions of supreme satisfaction.
"Mmmmmmmmm! Mmmmmmmmmmm! Ahhhhhhhh! Yesssssss! Ahhhhhhh!" she said huskily as the hard pole poked her and stirred her juices. She raised her legs higher to try to get more of him into her. She thrust her bare bottom upward vigorously, trying to time his downstrokes upon her that sent deep, racing quivers rippling all through her heated flesh.
She came so quickly and so easily that it startled her. A single wild-flying surge of clasping thighs and she felt herself inundating his hardworking prick. She sighed brokenly as her frantic breath came in uneven gasps. Charlie's hips never missed a beat as he slammed his lovely meat deep up into her as she lay slack-limbed and dewy-eyed.
She raised her head in amazed disbelief when his hard probing triggered another minor convulsion in her interior. Her eyes encountered the watching faces at the foot of the bed, but she closed them out of her mind. Her thighs raised up reflexively and again seized upon Charlie's taut mid-section. He plowed her steadily as her hips rose higher and higher, corkscrewing upward until her weight rested on her shoulders and the back of her neck. Her molten-lava sheath-walls fluttered madly, grabbing mightily at the welcome intruder therein.
She came again in a frenzied, wriggling burst of lustful energy that almost wrenched her out from beneath Charlie. "Ohhh! Ohhhhh! Ohhhh! It's good! It's gooooooooood!" her unrestrained cries rang through the cabin.
And then Charlie's weight submerged her and she felt him climbing with his knees and burying his chin in her neck and plunging and plunging and plunging and plunging until with a savage cry he shot a boiling load up into her already juicy cranny.
Then there was silence.
As usual Carl broke it. "Did you ever see a hotter piece of twitch than that?" he was demanding.
No one answered him.
Linda found she didn't care even though she realized the implication was aimed at her.
Charlie rolled off Linda onto his side. His face was crimson. He looked at her half-wonderingly, then at Edmondo standing beside the bed. For the first time Linda saw the massive erection that Edmondo held in his hand. Again she found she didn't care. "That is the best I have ever seen you do, my friend," Edmondo said soberly to Charlie.
"I'll say-it was the best," Charlie panted. "I tell you-she like-to wrung me out. That's some-little fucking machine-there, now you -better believe it."
"I am prepared not only to believe it but to demonstrate it," Edmondo replied in his curiously stilted English. "If I may have your place in the arena?"
Charlie rolled off the bed and got to his feet. His shriveled prick dangled limply between his legs, its flushed head and greasy exterior attesting its recent involvement. Linda felt curiously languid as Edmondo moved in between her still-parted thighs with their brimming centerpiece fiery-lipped and slack-looking. She braced herself for the onslaught of his long, thick prong but experienced no real concern about it. For the moment her feelings appeared to be in limbo.
Edmondo widened her thighs still more and applied the hard knob of his prick to Linda's passageway. It stretched her, but she was so well lubricated that it entered her grotto without trouble. Edmondo worked it slowly about, from side to side as well as in and out. Gradually Edmondo eased into her more deeply. Linda grunted a couple of times as she felt the huge whang stretching her cunt-walls, but the gradual distention left her experiencing only a minor portion of the acute distress of the first time.
Edmondo settled his knees and picked up Linda's nude buttocks. He began to ride her slowly, and she flexed herself upward under him but with little of the furiously-impelled swiveling bottom-movement that Charlie had induced in her. Linda felt almost comfortable in a strange way. She had to reach into her memory to recall that this was a shocking thing being done to her by this group of intimidating boys.
Gradually Edmondo picked up his tempo. The steady slapping of his bare belly against Linda's resounded throughout the cabin. When she raised her legs slightly, the swarthy-skinned boy's heavy balls bounced from the lower portions of her hemispheres. Her breasts wen; flattened under his weight, and her nude hind cheeks felt so slack-muscled that they were buffeted about without resistance on her part by Edmondo's fiercer stroking of her relaxed quim. It was so quiet in the room that she could hear the sound of the rain on the roof.
The soles of Linda's feet began to burn, then to tingle. A hot spark in her middle surprised her; almost incredulously she felt it fanned to another glowing coal. Pythonlike, her legs climbed and clamped Edmondo, and her bottom began to heave seemingly of its own accord. A yelp trembled in her throat, only to be expelled when Edmondo's next hard plunge again buried him in her depths. "Eeeeeee!" Linda swallowed hard. "Ohhhhh! I'm-you're-ooooh! You're- my pussy! My-ohhhhhhhhh!-pussy!"
She lingered longer at the crest, and once thought she had lost it. Redoubling the clutching of her squirming thighs, she caught it on the rebound and spiraled downward in a mind-bursting, sensation-shattering series of eruptions in her vulva. Thoroughly drained, she laid in limp lassitude as Edmondo worked himself up to his own climax and thoroughly doused her slack-mouthed love object. She felt blissfully tired, so much so that she hardly noticed when Edmondo pulled out of her.
She raised her head at a touch on her arm.
Carl was standing beside the bed with a jar in his hand. "Roll over," he said.
Linda blinked. Edmondo was standing beside the bed, Mousie at its foot. Charlie was sitting on the edge. "What?" she asked blankly.
"Roll over," he repeated. "I'm going to vaseline your asshole."
Linda looked at Charlie. "You're not going to let him do that-that ugly thing to me, are you?" she pleaded.
"Why not?" Charlie replied lazily. "It's his thing. He likes to do it."
"But-" Linda sat up in panic. "You mustn't let him! It's indecent! It's-it's dangerous! I might get cancer! Please, please don't let him do it to me!"
"Look, in our crowd everyone does his own thing," Charlie answered her. "It's not the end of the world, sugar. Plenty of assholes get stretched without no one readin' about it in the paper."
"But you were just s-so n-nice to me!" Linda's voice trembled. "And n-now you're being h-hate-ful! Please, I'm afraid! Please don't let him! I'll do anything-"
"You're right you'll do anything, startin' right now," Carl interrupted her. "Come up here, Mousie, an' help me hold her." He addressed Linda again. "Now are you gonna roll over on your belly or am I gonna have to punch you around?"
For a long moment Linda stared at Carl's sneering face.
She looked at the others.
Mousie looked interested.
Edmondo looked blase.
Charlie looked impassive.
With a muffled sob, Linda rolled over onto her stomach.