Chapter 5
NOT LONG AFTER her children had gone out, Bess Lutz went upstairs and took a shower. Toweling herself before the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door, she took inventory of her body. Her breasts were about the size and shape of ripe pears. In her teens and twenties, they had been as round as apples. She remembered with bittersweet nostalgia how Sam could never get enough of her body in those days. He had worshipped her breasts. Now he reacted to them as if they were just another piece of furniture in the bedroom. Bess shivered as the rough nap of the towel tickled her red nipples, teasing them erect. She examined her belly and buttocks in the mirror. They were fuller than in her youth, riper, but there was no trace of sloppy flesh or wrinkles. They could still stir desire in the male. Bess sighed. Sadly, her body no longer held allure for her husband.
Moved by sudden determination, she let down her long, auburn hair and brushed it until it glowed with hidden fire. In her bedroom she opened her most expensive perfume and dabbed it behind her ears, on her throat, on her navel and behind her knees. She slipped into a sheer negligee and belted it loosely. Humming, she went downstairs, where Sam was watching television in the study. She perched on the arm of his leather armchair and put an arm around his shoulders.
"Anything new on the plague?" she asked.
He grunted. "The medical examiner says the crisis will come in another twenty-four hours. We'll know by then whether it's under control or going to become a full-scale epidemic."
"Turn the TV off, honey," she said. She stroked the back of his neck with teasing fingers.
"Why?" he demanded. He noticed her provocative negligee for the first time. "Hey, Bess, you can see right through that thing."
She giggled coquettishly. "That's the idea."
He frowned. "Suppose the kids come in and see you like that?"
"They'd think I'm trying to seduce their father," she told him. "And they'd be right. Come on upstairs, honey. We don't get to be alone like this very often." She shifted around to face him on the arm of the chair, deliberately letting the robe fall open in front.
The sight of her bare, powdered body seemed to shock Sam. "What's got into you tonight, Bess?" he asked.
Her smile was lewd. "Nothing, yet. How about changing that, lover?" She took one of his hands and placed it on one hot breast. Her flesh swelled with desire, the nipple surging against his palm. "Please, Sam," she whispered urgently. "I need you "
Sam snorted. "You gals pick the darnedest times to get romantic. Hey! Stop that!"
Her one hand slid down slyly inside of his trousers and found him. "You need to relax, darling," she urged him. "You've been wound up like a spring. Remember how you used to say your problems didn't seem as bad after we made love? Please, Sam, let me try to help you relax."
"Maybe later," he said wearily. "I got too many things on my mind now, Bess." His flesh was as cold and passive as marble. In revulsion, she pulled back her hand, hating him, but hating herself even more. It was pretty sad when a woman had to beg for a little love from her own husband, had to try to sell him a bill of goods like some cheap waterfront whore.
"I'm going up to bed," she said sharply, and stood up.
Sam merely grunted. He was absorbed by a special news bulletin from the mayor's office. Bess breezed out of the room and climbed the stairs briskly. Her anger and frustration were stifling her. The thought of lying down on the lonely bed in the hot, humid darkness was intolerable. She had spent too many nights on the torture couch. Something had to give. A few nights earlier she had been reading a sexy novel, and by the time she turned out the light, her body was in a state of intense sexual excitement. It had taken all of her will power to resist the urge to resort to the infantile practice of her girlhood for relief. She was not going through that self-debasing battle again this night. Impulsively, she threw off her negligee and began to dress. She slipped on a pair of black lace panties. She picked up the matching bra, but changed her mind. She did not care to be harnessed on this sweltering night. Anyway, she rationalized, it was dark and nobody would notice. The silk blouse she chose was slippery and sensual on her bare breasts. Rejecting a slip, she stepped into a short sheath skirt. Her daughter had given it to her for her last birthday, but Bess had never worn it before. It was too sexy for a middle-aged woman, she thought. She still thought so, but she didn't care any longer.
"Maybe I'll pick up a healthy young stud," she said to herself, not meaning it. Even the joke made her feel better somehow.
Bess didn't bother to put up her hair again. She tied it at the back of her neck the way the young girls did, in a long ponytail. Slipping her bare feet into ballet slippers, she went downstairs. Not bothering to say anything to Sam, she opened the front door and went out into the night.
She walked aimlessly, thinking about the rut she and Sam were in. There were times when she believed he tortured her deliberately. She had read about men and women like that. They were subtle sadists, inflicting mental agony on their mates by withholding their needed love. The pain Bess felt was very real, almost physical pain. It throbbed in her breasts and in her loins, as real as a chronic toothache.
Along a stretch of dark street, a car pulled up alongside of her. A series of wolf whistles emanated from its interior. She was startled and offended at first A young boy, no more than nineteen, poked his head out of a window.
"Hi, babe," he greeted her. "How about a ride?"
She ignored him and kept on walking. The car followed her slowly, its occupants directing a steady stream of whistles and remarks at her. Bess was unable to maintain her indignation for long. It was funny and quite flattering to be found appealing by a bunch of males who were young enough to be her sons. The confidence which Sam was always undermining was bolstered by this uninvited attention.
I've still got sex appeal, she thought with pride.
She turned her head finally and inspected the youths in the car. There were four of them, their faces indistinct in the darkness. They were big and husky, and two of them wore athletic sweaters with the large 'C of Coaltown High School emblazoned on their chests.
At last the car pulled away from her and turned the next corner. Bess thought she was rid of them. She was startled, when she reached the corner, to see the car parked by the curb and two of the youths standing outside of it, leaning up against the front fender.
They approached her, laughing. "We decided that a pretty chick like you shouldn't be walking around unescorted on a night like this," one of them said.
"Get out of my way this instant," Bess said, with the imperious air of an adult chasing two mischievous children out of her flower beds.
These two were not children. They were adult males, in body if not in years. Bess gasped as they each grabbed one of her arms and propelled her toward the open door of the car. She tried to scream, but a heavy hand clamped across her mouth. Then she was seated in the back seat of the car, wedged in between their hulking bodies. The driver gunned the car down the street, as the boy beside him in the front side turned around and leered at Bess. He was a young, brute animal, handsome in the way of all young animals. All of them had that same anonymous appearance. Butch haircuts, square jaws, broad shoulders and big hands.
She gasped as those same big hands fondled her thighs and her breasts.
"Wow!" one of the boys, who was feeling her breasts, exclaimed. "She ain't got anything on underneath this blouse."
"I guess she was looking for a pickup," another one suggested. "Well, you hit pay dirt, babe. You got four of us. Oh, are we going to howl tonight!"
Bess was terrified. "Please let me out," she whimpered. "I'm a respectable wife and mother. I was just out for a breath of fresh air."
They thought this was hilarious and laughed uproariously. "Oh, you're a joker, doll. You really are," the blonde boy next to her said. "Next right, turn out to the highway," he instructed the driver.
Bess gazed wildly out the window. The lights of the town were behind them. She recognized the dark road that led out to the farmland beyond Coaltown. About ten minutes later, the car veered off the road, following a dirt drive that led back to a complex of dark buildings. The driver braked before a barn. The youths piled out, dragging Bess with them. She struggled frantically, hut they held her as easily as if she were a child. They all went into the barn and shut the door behind them. A switch clicked, and glaring light from a bare, unfrosted bulb suspended from the ceiling lit up the interior.
Bess saw they were inside of an old, abandoned barn, flanked by empty stalls on either side. Rusty farm equipment lay scattered around the dirt floor or was hanging from pegs on the rickety walls. There were several piles of thick, dry hay in the center of the room. They shoved Bess down on one of the piles and looked at her.
"Say, this one ain't no chick!" a red-headed youth with pimples said, with faint disappointment. "She's forty if she's a day."
"But she ain't no bag," a dark boy said. "Get a load of those legs. Smooth, real smooth.'
"Bet she's a hot number," the blonde said. "Them older women always are the best, they say."
"Well, let's find out," the last one said. "What'll we do, draw straws?"
The redhead giggled. "I got a better idea. Let's let the lady take her pick who she wants first. May the best man win."
They thought that was hilariously funny. Laughing, they began to shed their clothes. Bess was paralyzed by panic. Her enormous, gray eyes regarded them in horror as shirts, pants and underwear were doffed. It couldn't be happening! Not to her! You read about women being raped in the papers, but it didn't really impress you. It was like the sex scenes in novels. Once you put down the book, it was nothing more than a lot of words on paper. This was real. These hard, bullish young bodies menacing her were real.
She cringed down in the straw, appalled by their naked lust. During the past months of her celibate existence, Bess had been preoccupied with guilty dreams of male virility. When the need was very strong, she had even decided that to be raped would be better than nothing. like a bad penny, that unwholesome desire had come home to haunt her, fourfold!
The redhead stood over her with his hands on his hips, flaunting his masculinity at her. "Okay, baby, who is it going to be? We're all yours."
"Come on, take it off," the blond boy said impatiently. "Let's get this show on the road."
The paralysis left Bess abruptly. Fear launched her into desperate, furious action. She aimed a swift kick at the redhead's belly, and felt her heel dig deep into vulnerable flesh. He screeched and doubled up, almost retching. Bess bounded to her feet and ran for the door. The blonde's leering face was in her path. She clawed at it with the speed of a tigress. His grin dissolved in surprise and pain as her nails ripped open his cheek. She shoved him aside and kept running.
The two remaining youths hit her from behind with flying tackles. Pain exploded through her body as she fell to the ground, and their big, muscular hulks pounded down on top of her, crushing the wind out of her lungs. Stunned, she was dragged back to the straw bed roughly. The dark ones kneeled on either side of her and began to pull off her blouse. She read the lust in their eyes as her breasts were bared.
"Beautiful! Beautiful!" one murmured. "She's hot stuff for her age. Here, doll, this is for you." He took one of her hands and placed it on his body, but she recoiled in disgust.
Bess kicked out frantically as they pulled off her skirt. The sight of her lush hips and buttocks encased in the tight black panties increased their impatience. Their ruthless fingers tore at the scanty briefs with the ferocity of two wolves fighting over the carcass of a doe. She was naked, now, except for the elastic waistband and leg bands of the panties.
"This ain't going to be easy," one of the dark youths muttered breathlessly. "It's going to take three of us to hold her down."
The boy she had scratched came out of a dark corner of the barn, wiping the blood from his mauled cheek. In his other hand he carried an old buggy whip. "She needs some taming first," he said. "Stand aside boys, and I'll show you how they break nasty little fillies where I come from."
Laughing, the boys who were holding Bess stood up and backed off. Crouched on the hay, she tried to cover her nakedness with her arms and hands. "Ain't she cute," the redhead said. The blond one snapped the whip smartly in the air above the woman's head. "We're going to ride you, lady, come hell or high water. Now, why don't you behave?" He flicked the whip expertly at her so that the knotted leather tip stung her white belly, leaving a fierce red welt just below her navel.
Bess whimpered in agony and rolled over in the straw as he raised the whip again. The youths ogled her buxom buttocks hungrily. The whistling lash cracked loudly across the full, fleshy cheeks, bisecting their perfect rounds with fiery crescents. Bess screeched in agony. Never a woman who could tolerate much physical pain, she thought she would surely die. In convulsions of torment, she writhed around on the straw. The blond took dead aim at her bulging breasts as they bounced into view and flicked the cruel thong at her left nipple. She almost fainted, the sensation was so excruciating. The inflamed summit swelled to twice the size of its twin. Screaming madly, she floundered up on her hands and knees with only one purpose on her mind, to flee from the awful pain.
She stumbled, and her elbows gave way, pitching her face into the hay. Her attackers murmured in lewd appreciation as the awkward posture exposed her most vulnerable parts to their gaze. The whip snapped again with malicious accuracy. A volcano of molten fire spewed up between her thighs, inundating her whole body. She collapsed in a merciful swoon.
"Okay," said the redhead. "She's had enough. Let me at her. He bent over the helpless woman and rolled her over on her back. His hands clamped roughly on her upturned breasts as he fell between her unresisting thighs.
Bess felt no pain when he possessed her. To a woman of her age, married for years, lusting male flesh was not exactly a novelty. Somewhere, deep down inside, a mocking laugh echoed. Of late, it had been a decided novelty! She cursed her husband for his neglect, the cruel rejection that had brought her to this humiliating circumstance. Sprawled out on the floor of a barn like a brood mare, servicing four young stallions!
His cry of pleasure sounded in her ears. There had been a time when Sam cried out like that for the joy her body gave him. The youth rose from her and another took his place eagerly. His hands were gentler on her breasts. Her nipple still vibrated with the sharp sting of the whip, but it was a dull pain. She winced each time the male's surging pushed her smarting buttocks into the hay. Some of the soft stalks poked up between her thighs, tickling her. She was acutely aware of his fingers kneading her breasts. The feeling was not altogether unpleasant. His release was strangely warming.
When the third one came to her, she could not resist a compulsion to open her eyes. It was the blond youth she had scratched. With his gashed cheek, he had the brutal, powerful look of a Hun. She shivered at the gross masculinity of him. Her own husband had never exuded such virility and strength even in his best days. Experienced as she was, she gasped at his furious assault. This one really let a woman know that she was being possessed! Her first timid convulsion astonished Bess, mortified her. Frantically, she tried to suppress the glimmer in her loins. It happened again, stronger this time. A look of surprise flitted across the lust-filled face above her.
"Say, is this for real, doll?" he muttered.
The answer came in a tumultuous wave, that crashed over the reef of her reserve. Her hips lunged up to meet his thrust, her thighs gripped his sides. She swallowed him hungrily, catching his rhythm and then surpassing it. The wonder and glory that had been deprived to her starving body for so many months blossomed forth like golden sparks from an exploding rocket against the night sky.
She was ready again before the last of them took his turn. The others watched in wide-eyed awe, marveling at the unexpected developments of the evening.
"She must be a nympho!" one of them said.
"She's crazy for it!"
"I'm for seconds!"
"Holy cow!" the redhead muttered. "This is like one of those stories in the book Mister Jensen was talking about in class. She's a babe right out of the Decameron."
Bess had never known what raw lust could be like. Her experience with Sam had been limited to the gentle desire of love. This was wild, mad, impossibly ecstatic. It was the craving of the uninhibited body and spirit fulfilled beyond her most shameless dreams. The flaming welts that laced her belly, breasts and thighs had supplied a new dimension to the experience of sex. The pain had supercharged her senses and her nerve endings. It had expanded the horizon of her libido in the same way that certain narcotics could expand the senses of sight and sound and smell.
'Tm ready for seconds," the redhead declared.
She took him hungrily, smiling like a wanton hussy.
When the last boy had taken her for the second time, Bess was physically and mentally depleted. The raging pressures and tensions that had beset her for so long were drained dry. She felt as loose as a piece of wet macaroni. The four youths were exhausted, too. They lay around her on the hay, dozing or staring blankly into space. Bess stood up, finally, and gathered up her clothing. Her panties were ruined, but her blouse and skirt were intact. She put them on, wincing as the cloth irritated the savage welts on her breasts and buttocks.
The boys revived and commenced to dress, too. There was an air of guilt and shame about them. They did not look at Bess or each other. The hangover from excessive lust can be more painful than the morning after an alcoholic binge.
The redhead cleared his throat and said in a formal voice, "Sorry we tore your underwear, ma'am."
"Sorry we beat you up too," the blond added.
Bess winced at the term, "ma'am." It was the address he would use to his mother, or someone ancient enough to be his mother. She felt suddenly old and weary.
"Forget it," she snapped. "The party is over."
One of the dark lads laughed. "It was some party, all right. You liked it too, right, ma'am?"
"I had a ball," she said. "Now, it's getting late. Would it be too much to ask you fellows to drive me back where you found me?"
"We'll take you right to your door," the redhead offered.
Her laugh was brittle. "No thanks." The boy blushed. "I don't suppose we could all get together again some other night?" She patted his cheek. "I'm afraid not I told you the truth before. I'm a respectable married woman and mother."
It hit them like a slap in the face. In embarrassment, they turned away from her. "Come on," a dark youth said huskily. "Let's get out of here."
On the drive back to town, Bess studied them thoughtfully. "What you did tonight, do you often do things like it? Raping women, I mean?"
"Naw!" the redhead said bitterly. "It was a wild thing to do. This plague business has got everybody hopped up. We had a few beers, and it seemed like a good idea at the time."
"Now you're ashamed?"
"I guess so."
Her voice hardened. "And you're worried, aren't you?" p
They looked at her uncertainly. "Worried?" one asked.
"You're worried," she said, "because I'm a respectable married woman like your mothers. You don't like to think a thing like this could happen to your mothers. Rape-it isn't a very nice thought, is it? Suppose it did happen to one of your mothers? How do you think she'd take it?"
"Shut up!" the blond boy said nervously.
"It scares you, doesn't it?" Bess sneered. "She might like it as much as I did, that's what you think!"
The car screeched to a stop on a dark street. "Get her out of here," the driver ordered.
The door flew open and she was shoved out. Bess smoothed down her skirt and tucked in her blouse. "So long, friends," she called after them. "Thanks for a lovely evening."
She walked a few blocks aimlessly before she recognized where she was. It took her fifteen minutes more to get home. The door was unlatched, and she went in silently. The television was still blaring in the study. She walked down the hall and looked into the room. Sam was sprawled in his chair, snoring peacefully. A wave of scorn swept over her as she studied his pot belly rising and falling with his labored breathing. She thought of the hard, flat bellies of the youths who had raped her, their muscled chests and bulging thighs. Bess smiled to herself.
"Fat, lazy, impotent Sam," she said to herself. If only you could have seen me tonight. If only you knew! Oh, how I wish I could tell you about it! The anger left her then and she sighed sadly. Poor old Sam. If she told him, he'd probably grunt and go right on watching television!
The urgent clanging of the doorbell startled her. She hurried down the hall and opened the door. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw her daughter flanked by two patrolmen. Sissy's face was swollen and bloody. Her clothing was torn. She hurled herself into Bess's arms, sobbing.
"Mama! Mama! It was so awful!"
Bess tried to calm her hysterical girl while she listened mutely to the story the policemen related. "She and her date were walking in the park when a bunch of hoods jumped them," one cop explained. "They conked the boy over the head, and he's in the hospital in fair condition." His eyes dropped. "Your daughter isn't hurt, ma'am, but there's one thing you should know."
"She was raped," Bess said shakily.
"Yes, ma'am."
"You didn't catch the hoodlums who did it?"
"Not yet. This is the fourth girl who's been raped tonight. This town is going berserk. The chief is swearing in a dozen extra deputies to help matters."
She patted Sissy's disheveled head. "All right. Thank you, officers, for bringing her home. I won't keep you. I know you must be needed elsewhere."
They touched the bills of their caps. "Thanks, ma'am. Maybe you better have your family doctor look at the girl."
Sam came staggering out of the study as they left. . His voice was thick with sleep. "Whazza matter?" he demanded. "I thought I heard the bell. Voices."
His eyes snapped open wide, and he gasped as he saw his daughter. "Sissy, baby, what happened? Were you in an accident?" Crying himself, he ran to the girl and put his arms around her. "Baby, tell Daddy what happened!"
Bess gave it to him hard and fast, as the officers had told it to her. The blood drained out of Sam's face, and his eyes were aglow with fury and hatred so intense that Bess was frightened. Unexpectedly, he turned and went back into the library. When he came out, he had a revolver in his hand. He jammed it into his belt, inside of his shirt, and walked to the door.
"Where are you going?" Bess asked anxiously.
"Out to find the dogs who did this to Sissy."
"Sam!" she yelled after him. "Don't be crazy! You don't know who they are. Sam, you'll get in trouble! Please, come back!"
He was already out of earshot.