Chapter 7

"YOU LOOK AWFUL grim," she told him after a while. "What gives?"

His head was spinning from the unaccustomed jolt of so much alcohol, and his tongue felt loose. "A girl was raped tonight," he said thickly.

She laughed. "A lot of girls have been raped tonight. Or so they say. That's a square word, I think. Lots of times it's a good excuse for a girl to have her fun and ease her conscience by pretending that she didn't really want it."

"Not my daughter!" he snapped. "She's a good girl."

The blonde's eyebrows lifted. "So, it was your daughter got raped?"

"Yes." He drank lustily, spilling some of the Scotch down his chin.

"Do they know who did it?"

"No, but I intend to find out before the night is over."

The girl whistled. "That's a mighty tall order, Pops. How do you intend to fill it?"

His thoughts blurred. "I don't know. I thought I might hear something in a bar. You know how these young thugs like to brag about their sexual prowess."

She frowned. "If they were young, you'd stand a better chance going to a bar where mostly young guys hang out. I come to this place myself, only because I like older men," Her green eyes shone wickedly, and she rubbed her thigh against his. Sam was repelled by her brashness, but the intimate touch of her hard youthful body nattered him too. The alcohol had lowered the gates of his formidable inhibitions a little.

"What does a pretty kid like you see in old men?" he wanted to know.

She smiled. "They're much nicer to a girl. They appreciate it when a young girl pays attention to them, and they go out of their way to please her."

Sam nodded. "Old lechers. Look, how about showing me the places where the young crowd hangs out?"

"Be glad to." She slid off the bar sinuously, deliberately letting her skirt skid all the way back to her hips. Sam had a disturbing glimpse of a triangle of pink silk between her tapering thighs.

"No fair peeking," she said slyly.

Sam blushed. "I'm not like one of your lecherous old men," he said pompously.

She laughed and took his arm, pressing her hip into his thigh. "If we're going to date, you better know my name. It's Sylvia."

"Pleased to know you, Sylvia," Sam said, trying to maintain his dignity with all the Scotch sloshing around in his belly. "Just call me Sam."

She took him to a joint called the "Devil's Tooth." It was a smoky, bare place with a low ceiling and booths along the walls. In the center of the room, sweaty couples gyrated to the frenetic rhythms of a Negro combo. Sylvia saw a group of boys and girls she recognized sitting in one of the booths. She went over to them and pulled up chairs for Sam and herself at the end of the table. They greeted her loudly.

"Long time no see, Syl," a redheaded youth said. "What brings you slumming?"

"I'm restless, like the rest of the town. Meet my friend Sam."

They all regarded the stout, older man with amusement. Sam felt uncomfortable at their scrutiny, as if he were an abnormal specimen under a microscope. "Live it up, old-timer," a blonde boy said, placing a pitcher of beer and two glasses in front of the newcomers. Sam observed that the boy had a row of angry scratches across one cheek.

"What happened to you, Si?" Sylvia asked him.

The other boys at the table roared with drunken laughter. "Old Si got mixed up with a wildcat," one of them said.

The blonde youth grinned sheepishly. "But she tamed down after a while. Turned out to be quite a pussycat."

"Did she ever!" a dark boy hooted.

Sam felt a sudden, inexplicable antagonism toward these young men. It came to him in a sixth sense, the way an animal smells a threat to its security. Could these be the hoods he was looking for? he wondered. The animals who had raped Sissy? His hand tightened around his glass, and his muscles coiled for action.

"She was an old doll," the blonde volunteered. "Over forty."

Sam relaxed. They weren't talking about Sissy.

The boy went on. "One of those frustrated matrons who don't get enough from her old man, I'll bet."

"Knock if off!" a girl at the table said. "She was probably some old whore from a two-bit house."

"Not a chance!" he said huffily. "This babe was class. Expensive clothes, underwear." He laughed. "She had a cute mole on her bottom too."

Sam heard him through a curtain of music and bedlam. Mole. On her bottom. He dismissed it with a shrug.

The subject had turned from sex. "Did you hear about the guy they fished out of the lake a while ago? Drowned himself."

A cold weight compressed Sam's heart. "Do they know who it is?"

"No identification the last I heard," the boy said, "He was blonde, a good-looking kid."

Fear crushed Sam deeper into his chair. "Where did they take him?"

"To the morgue, I guess."

The stout man lurched out of the chair and headed for the door. Sylvia gaped at him in surprise. "Hey, where are you going, Pops?"

"Looks like he's going to puke," a boy suggested.

"Yeah." Sylvia ground out her cigarette and stood up. "I'll be seeing you, kids. I don't want to let this one get away."

They watched her go, laughing to themselves. "Syl is a good kid, but she plays too rough for me," the red-headed boy said.

The girl caught up to him in the middle of the block. "Hey! Where are you going, Sam?"

Sam didn't look at her. "To the morgue."

"To the morgue?" Sylvia was incredulous. "What for?"

"To look at that boy who was fished out of the lake. I have a strange feeling I may know him."

She took his arm and remained silent the rest of the way. Sam identified himself to the attendant at the morgue. There was a policeman stationed there, too.

"Haven't had such a full house since the flu epidemic back in World War One," the attendant said gleefully. He was a thin, cadaverous little man with long, bony hands that he kept rubbing together dryly. His bloodshot eyes licked hungrily up the girl's voluptuous body. "I'd like to get a customer like you, honey," he said, with a leer.

"Dirty old man," she sneered.

He took them into a cold, clammy room with tiers of drawers on each side wall from floor to ceiling. He opened one of the drawers, and a beautiful, blonde boy stared up at them. He was naked, and his sightless eyes were deep blue. Sam choked and looked away.

"It's my boy," he sobbed. "My Dick. Oh Lord, why?"

Sylvia was stunned. "Gee whiz! That's terrible, Sam." She ran after him as he rushed out of the morgue and into the street. At the curb, he collapsed on his knees and vomited into the gutter. The girl came up and held his head.

"Easy, Pops, easy," she said, stroking his forehead.

At last his retching stopped. "It's my fault," he said.

"I killed Dick."

"Don't be a nut! The kid drowned. He was probably out on the lake in a rowboat and fell overboard."

"My fault," Sam repeated with dull repetition. "I sent him out to follow Sissy. I'm responsible."

Sylvia helped him to his feet and put an arm around his shoulders. "Look, Pops, let's go back to my place and talk about it. You need a drink."

He let himself be led through the winding streets, along a dark alley and up a long flight of stairs to an apartment in a cheap rooming house. It was surprisingly well furnished, though.

"Did your parents do all this for you?" Sam asked. "A girl your age really shouldn't be living alone."

Sylvia laughed and lit a cigarette. "My parents are both dead. No, I did it all by my little self."

"You're so young," he said wonderingly. "What kind of money can a young girl like you make here in Coaltown?"

Her green eyes slitted. "You'd be surprised, Pops."

Sam didn't care about her. All he could think of was the cold, white body of his son lying in that drawer at the morgue. How could he tell Bess? He groaned and slumped back on the couch.

"Where's that drink you promised me?" he asked.

She went into the kitchen and mixed two strong drinks. She brought them back into the parlor and gave one to Sam. "This will straighten you out, Pops," she said. She put her glass down and took off her sweater. "You don't mind if I make myself comfortable?" she asked him. "This dump is sweltering from the sun beating on the flat roof all day."

Her breasts looked like two balls of foam rubber in a white mesh brassiere that showed her red nipples. Casually, she took off her skirt. Her white mesh panties matched the bra. The filmy undies hid very little of her femininity, just enough to taunt the eye of the beholder. She had the sleek, supple body of a cat.

Sam stared at her impassively. "If you're a hooker, Sylvia, forget it. You picked the wrong guy. I'm dead, inside and out, only I haven't got the sense to lie down."

She laughed and shook her pony tails girlishly. There was something incongruous about the sweet, childish face on the sexy body.

"I'm not a hooker, Sam," she said. "I knew you weren't that kind of a man the minute I laid eyes on you."

He blinked. "How could you know that?"

"By instinct, mostly, I guess. There's a look in the eyes, a kind of slump to the shoulders. You can't pin it down, really. But I always know. I don't think you're over the bill, Sam, but the old motor doesn't roar the way it used to, right?"

"What do you mean?" he demanded, blushing self-consciously.

"Don't kid me, Sam. If you and your wife make love once a month, it's a big deal."

He hung his head, saying nothing.

"Your desensitized, Sam, dead like you said. But it's only skin-deep. The spark is still burning, but you have to cut through a lot of blubber to reach it and fan it."

"Stop that kind of talk," he told her. "I'm not interested in your ideas about sex. My son is dead, and it's my fault. If only I could atone. If only I could be punished."

Her lips curled slyly. "You think that would help, if you could be punished?"

He buried his head in his hands and rocked back and forth in grief. "I wish I was dead. They should tie my arms and legs to wild horses and let them tear me apart."

Her green eyes glowed. "That would be exciting, but a little impractical. You're right, Sam, about one thing. You need to be punished for your sins. It would make you feel a lot better. A lot of men like you come to me for that reason."

He looked up curiously. "For what reason?"

"To be punished, of course," She went to him and began to unbutton his shirt "Let mama undress you, first."

. He watched her impassively. His brain was dazed by drink and shock and grief. He was too tired to protest, too tired to make his own decisions. He let her take off his shirt and undershirt.

Sylvia giggled and slapped his paunch with the back of her hand. "That would make a nice little cushion for a girl to bounce on, Pops." She told him to stand up, and she unbuckled his trousers. Soon he was standing naked before her, a fat old man with a bald head. His condition gave him satisfaction. It was good to feel this young girl's amused eyes on his gross, unclothed body. Humiliation filled him with perverse satisfaction.

"You wait," she said. She turned and went into a bedroom, her plump buttocks flexing inside the tight mesh panties. A faint notion of desire blew across his loins, but it was only a notion.

Sylvia returned, wearing patent-leather shoes with stiletto heels. In her right hand she carried an object that caused Sam's eyes to widen. It was an old-fashioned cat-o'-nine-tails, the kind his mother kept on a hook beside the kitchen stove when he was a child. It had a thick leather handle tapering down into nine separate leather straps with knots spaced along their length. She slapped it playfully against the palm of one hand.

Her voice was low and soothing, the rhythmic cadence singsong and hypnotic. "Your son is dead, Sam It's your fault, you said so. How you hate yourself! You don't deserve to live, but you are too cowardly to kill yourself."

"Yes, yes," he blubbered, the tears streaming down his cheeks. "Oh my poor Dickie, what have I done to you?"

The leather thongs slapped harder and harder into the girl's hand. "You must be punished," she said. "Down on your hands and knees," she commanded him.

Sam obeyed and crouched down in front of her as if in prayer. His eyes were on a level with her full, round thighs. Her lush womanhood asserted itself boldly through the mesh panties. He felt unfamiliar excitement in his loins. He shut his eyes and tensed himself for the blow.

"All right," he whispered.

White teeth gleaming against her gums, Sylvia slashed the cat-o'-nine-tails across his bare back. The nine cruel cats plowed deep, bloody furrows in his white flesh from shoulder to shoulder. Sam groaned and fell forward on his knees and elbows, gritting his teeth against the fiery agony. His white, flaccid buttocks were upturned to her now. Green eyes blazing, she swung the brutal cats again. The lashes painted vivid, red welts across the flaccid cheeks, spaced with bloody gouges from the knots. Sam reared up like a branded steer, clutching his buttocks. He couldn't hold back the wail of anguish.

"Beautiful! Beautiful!" the blonde girl hissed between her teeth. Her face was transformed. The innocent child had become submerged. This was the face of a witch, a beautiful witch. The eyes were fiendish, the mouth cruel as a scimitar. She got behind him and kicked him in the buttocks, so that he fell face down on the floor. Then, leaping high in the air, she came down on top of him with her stiletto heels stabbing into the vulnerable flesh just over his kidneys. The agony of it paralyzed Sam. He lay there helplessly, gasping for breath, as she stomped all over his back, buttocks and thighs, digging the pointed heels viciously into his flesh until he resembled a bloody waffle.

Sam's entire body was a symphony of pain. It vibrated in his fingertips and toes, played a cadenza along his spine, beat like a drum in his belly. It Was terrible, but it was wonderful, too. He was suffering the tortures of the damned. He was suffering for his son's cruel death. He could never fully atone, but at least he was beginning to pay off the debt. Through the red mist of agony, he saw Sylvia taking off her brassiere. Her pointed breasts shook in his face, the blood-red nipples two, taut accusing fingers.

He staggered up on his knees as she peeled off her panties. He grabbed her around the hips and cupped her smooth, round buttocks in his hands. He buried his face in her velvet belly. She shrieked in passion and beat him across the back and rump with the cats as his mouth drank deeply of her marvelously sweet flesh.

At last, she cast the cat-o'-nine-tails aside and let her body slide down, with her legs spread on either side of him. His lips traveled up the length of her torso and found one of her hard breasts. There was no desire in him at first, just gratitude for the measure of solace she had brought him. Gradually, he became aware of her nipple pulsing in his mouth, of her belly rubbing against his. She pushed him down on his back and lay on top of him, writhing her hips until she had achieved her purpose. With a jolt, Sam realized that he was virile as he had not been in more months than he could remember. His aging body was alive again! She took him greedily. His pleasure was real, vigorous. Her buttocks bounced up and down. Priming the pump. Her breasts bobbed up and down. He could see the blood on her thighs and belly. His blood.

It came from deep down inside of him, roaring up like a wildcat oil well. Pain and pleasure fused in the distorted alliance of sadomasochism. Male and female, they fed each other's need for destruction. They cried out like beasts in torment, not desire. Their fulfillment was the peace of death, not of love and creation.

Sam dragged himself over to the couch and rested his cheek on the cool cushion. He wept bitterly. When he had recovered, Sylvia was belting a dressing gown around her. The look of girlish innocence was restored to her face. She smiled at him sweetly.

"You okay, Pops?"

"I don't know," he moaned, lifting himself painfully. "I feel funny, as if something is gone inside of me. Maybe my soul."

She laughed. "You've crossed over a frontier into alien country. It will pass in time."

"In time?" he winced.

"Of course. You'll want to come here again, won't you?"

He looked into the evil green eyes. His voice was heavy with shame. "I don't want to. But I will."

"They always do."

"They?"

"Yes, I have lots of customers like you, Pops."

"Customers, yes." His voice was vague. "You expect payment?"

"Certainly. I like it as much as you, but a girl has to live. You'd expect to pay a whore, wouldn't you?"

Sam felt terrible, sick inside, sick in spirit. "I suppose so. How much?"

"A hundred dollars. My service is unique. It's more expensive than getting absolution in the confessional, but my methods are so much more effective and satisfying."

He found his clothes and took out his wallet. He counted out six tens and two twenties. "I've got to go home now," he said. "I've got to tell my wife about our son." He shook his head. "What kind of madness has possessed this town?"

The nucleus of the madness was the Coaltown General Hospital. The wards and rooms were overcrowded, beds resting mattress to mattress in some cases. The nurses and residents were run ragged. They functioned on instinct like automatons.

After Dr. Evans had left, the burden of responsibility fell on Dr. Paul Bowles. In the early hours of the morning, nurse Jane Tyler summoned him.

"I'm afraid Mrs. Taylor in terminal isolation is dying. We've tried to reach her husband, but he's not home. Her fever is up to one hundred seven!"

"I'll look in on her at once," Bowles said. He strode down the corridor to the isolation ward. Most of the patients were in drugged sleep or delirium. He walked to a bed in one corner with a screen around it. Mrs. Taylor was a beautiful, young woman. Her raven hair was fanned out across the pillow, her lovely face aflame with fever, her violet eyes glazed with a hallucinatory film.

She smiled as he took her pulse. It was weak and erratic. Her voice was dreamy. "John, darling, are the children in bed?" she asked.

Bowles shivered. John was her husband. She thought he was her husband. "It's all right," he said gently. "Go to sleep."

She laughed hysterically. "Stop teasing, John. You know I want to make love. I've wanted to so badly all day."

Bowles pulled back, but she grasped his hand in both of her hands. Her strength was fierce. Bowles was a dedicated young man who had given his all to medicine. He had never had time for marriage. He had sublimated his sexual instincts successfully, but not without pain. Once a month he frequented a house of prostitution in a nearby town, but he had never enjoyed true passion in a woman.

The delirious eyes implored him. "Love me, John! Love me!" she whispered. "I want you."

Suddenly, she whipped the sheet off, exposing her naked body to him. The short, hospital nightgown was rumpled up under her armpits. He stared at her in terrible fascination. The fever had suffused her flesh with a rosy glow. Her breasts were swollen, the summits rigid with tumescence.

"I'm on fire, John," she pleaded. "Help me! Please help me!" Smiling the bold, lascivious smile of a woman in the grip of desire, she parted her sleek, warm thighs and moved her hips in an unmistakable invitation.

Bowles was wet with perspiration. He trembled uncontrollably. He glanced around the dim ward wildly, looking for help. It was silent, except for the unconscious patients. She struggled up violently and pulled him down on the bed.

"Please, Mrs. Taylor!" he gasped, fighting to push her down. He couldn't hold her squirming shoulders, and his hands slipped down to her breasts. They swelled in his grasp like live things, the hot nipples nudging his palms. Bowles was shocked as the fire in her body was transmitted to his flesh. One of her arms locked around his neck. With her other hand, she tore at his clothing, mumbling to him in an inarticulate jargon of passion and delirium.

Many times in his career, Bowles had seen this embarrassing reaction of patients under the influence of drugs or fever, male and female. In all hospitals there is an atmosphere of sensuality stimulated, it would seem, by the close proximity of sickness and ever-present death. Bowles thought it must be a chemical defense mechanism, as if the glands of propagation were screaming their defiance at the dark threat to their life. He had never been confronted by it so dramatically before and without the reassurance of other doctors and nurses around him.

"I want you, John, and you want me," she ranted. He recoiled as her searching hand touched his bare body.

"Mrs. Taylor!" he begged her. "You must stop this at once!"

They wrestled around on the bed violently. Her smooth, slippery flesh burned Lis hands as he tried to hold her. He touched her breasts, her belly, her hot flanks. She was a madwoman. All the while, her hands were caressing him. The agony was more than any man could bear. Bowles was a man starved for love, the comfort that only a vibrant female body could give to a man. Here was a woman offering him the joys of her body, urging them on him with fierce passion. True, she was a sick woman, a woman who had no conscious reason of what she was doing. Bowles was a stranger to her, a man dedicated to healing the sick, to bringing her peace and comfort.

But this was not a time of reason. In one day, the earth had turned on its axis, and the world was topsy-turvy. He was sick himself, from overwork and strain. All will power drained out of him. His body was waxing and warming to her caresses. Her face swam before him as he slipped between her thighs. She surged up to devour him with a cry of grateful joy.

"John, my darling!" she murmured happily.

He kissed the dry, feverish lips, let her draw his cool tongue into her parched mouth. The power of her awed him. She seemed to be drawing on his strength and health, sapping his reserves with great, hungry convulsions. She was a wayfarer in the desert, drinking lustily from a life-giving oasis.

At the climax, his spine dissolved into jelly. In exquisite spasms, he poured his life to her dying shell. She gave a great, joyous sigh and collapsed on the bed.

He feared she was dead, but a quick examination proved she was in deep sleep. Her pulse was stronger and steadier, and her breathing was less labored and shallow. It was a miracle!

Bowles walked from the room in a stupor. His behavior was reprehensible. He could not excuse it. Still, he could not fault himself too severely for what had happened in the room. The mysteries of life and the universe were interminable. The human brain could not comprehend their complexity.

At the desk, he steadied himself and told the nurse: "Mrs. Taylor-I think she's passed the crisis. I think she's going to be all right."