Chapter 12
During the next couple of weeks, things just drifted on, and I let myself be carried uncomplainingly along with the tide. It was nearing the end of October, and the weather was starting to get chilly. A cold wind ripped up out of the river now, every time I came down my street. Winter was setting in fast, though there still might be as much as a month yet before it got uncomfortably cold.
Every Saturday night there was a big party at the clubhouse. The second week in October another sophomore girl was initiated, name of Beth Sidney, a smoky-eyed little burnette who, they said had had an illegitmate child in her high school days and had given the kid away for adoption. Looking at her, I was willing to believe it. Some of the strangest sorts get into Chesley, which is supposed to be so damn exclusive.
At the same meeting two classmates of mine made the grade, Nat Marks and Mike Chase. I didn't know either of them except by sight. That filled up the male contingent for the year, but left one vacancy on the female side, since Helene Wallace had not yet found any Chesley soph she cared to sponsor for membership.
By my fifth regular meeting I had achieved a complete circuit, having slept with all of the female members. Some were hot stuff, some not. Bea Mannheim struck me as absolutely cold, scared stiff, when I made it with her. She submitted, but I could tell her heart wasn't in it and that she was wishing she hadn't gotten mixed up in this whole thing. Beth Sidney, on the other hand, was so goddam passionate that she left me far behind. I made a mental note to leave her for the others, after this.
It was a little funny sleeping with the senior girls. I mean, because they were so much older. But they didn't seem to mind. If anything, they were as happy to be making it with someone new. Two of them, Zelda Hughes and Lois Reznik, impressed me as being screwballs. They got drunk and usually sick at every meeting, and they seemed about as mixed up as people could get. Zelda was twenty-three, almost.
Sometimes I made dates during the week and had girls stay over at my apartment. Nora Sands did that, and Betty Childers, and Joan Donalds. It caused all kinds of confusion for the other people in my residence section, to see me eating breakfast with different girls all the time. They didn't dare say anything to me about it, naturally, but I could tell they were puzzled. And the Chinaman, Mr. Szu, kept looking at me as if he wanted to come right out and ask me how many concubines I really had, but I never heard him say a word, not even hello. He just watched with his beady little eyes.
I figured sooner or later the staying-the-night bit would get me in trouble, and finally it did, in a way. It happened the morning after Betty Childers slept over. I ought to describe Betty, because I haven't done it yet. She was a junior, medium height, very dark complexion, almost olive-skinned, jet-black hair. There was something pantherish about her, except for her morals, which were strictly of the reptilian order (that isn't an original phrase; I got it out of a Henry Miller book in the club library.) She was tremendously thin-hipped but had big breasts, which gave her a top-heavy look.
Well, she had spent the night with me, and it had been a pretty exhausting night. Morning comes, and there's a knock on the door. I'm sleeping next to the wall, trying to pretend it isn't morning yet.
Betty said, "Should I answer it?"
"Mumph," I grunted, without making myself any clearer.
Betty must have taken that for a yes, because she got out of bed and pranced to the door in her birthday suit. I heard the door open, and then I heard a little strangled scream, and I sat up and opened my eyes.
Betty was standing stark mother-naked at the door, and old Miss Strauss, the maiden seamstress from the backroom, was standing there blinking myopically, and Betty had her bare bazoom shoved practically into Miss Strauss's face. Miss Strauss muttered something like, "Well, I never," and turned and stumped away.
"She said to tell you someone left the refrigerator door open last night and a lot of food got spoiled," Betty reported. "She wanted to know if it was you."
I goggled at Betty. "That's a hell of a way to answer a knock on the door. You could have put a robe on, at least. Hell, it might have been my mother out there!"
"If your mother knocked on your door and a girl opened it up," Betty said, "would it make a damn bit of difference whether or not the girl had clothes on?"
"That isn't the point. Miss Strauss knows I bring girls into the room. But she doesn't expect to have them come to the door in the buff."
"The old coot probably left the refrigerator door open herself," Betty said. "Just so she'd have an excuse to knock on your door first thing in the morning and get a look at who you were sleeping with. Well, I gave her a good look. She got her knock's worth."
We let the discussion drop there. But I knew there would be repercussions, and I was right.
Lunchtime, when I stopped off in the office to pay my week's rent, the baldheaded old lecher who runs the hotel leered up at me and said, "We been getting some bad reports about you, Burnside. Very bad."
"What kind of reports?"
"Girls in the room overnight."
"Listen," I said with a sigh, "if those two old spinisters Rooksby and Strauss are making up stories-"
"I don't think they're making them up, Burnside. Strauss came down here all in a dither and a flap around half past nine and said she knocked on your door to tell you something, and a stark naked hussy answered. You know anything about any stark naked hussies in your room last night, Burnside."
"Now, hold on-"
"And they say you've got girls overnight two or three times a week. Different girls. Kid, you must be some lover."
I went red. "If those old bats would mind their own business-"
"They don't know what minding their own business means." He lowered his voice. "Listen here, now, Burnside. I don't give a copper plated damn if you're getting made up there twenty-five hours a day. But use some sense, huh? Don't let your women go running around the hall naked-"
"They don't."
"Well, Strauss seems to think they do. Tell your girls to stay in the room. Try to get them out pretty early in the morning, too. Be subtle about your sleeping around, that's all I ask. Otherwise-"
"Yes?"
"Well, I'll have to throw you out, you see. I don't want to do it, but if those old witches scream to the cops, and the cops start hanging around here on complaints, the cops are going to find out all sorts of things about this building that I wouldn't want them to know. They're going to find out about that nest of chippies on the third floor, and about you and your girls, and about a lot of other things I don't need to tell you. We could get investigated and maybe fined. I wouldn't want that. So if you keep stirring Strauss and Rooksby up, I'll have to ask you to leave. Got that?"
"I'll try to keep things decent up there," I promised.
"Okay. I don't mean to threaten you, but that's the way it bounces." He winked. "By the way, since you seem to be getting so much, how about lending me a couple of hot phone numbers?"
I looked at the lewd old bastard in disgust. "Aren't they too young for you?"
"Nothing over twelve is too young for me."
"No dice," I said. "I can't help you out. These girls are supplied by Metropolitan University for the use of undergraduates only. No outsiders allowed."
He gasped, and I damn near think he half believed me. It was as good an exit line as any, so I turned and left.
But I knew I had to watch my step from now on. One more complaint and I might be out on my ear.
Luckily, though, there were no more incidents. And Betty was properly contrite when I told her about the trouble she had nearly brought down on me.
And so the weeks passed. One week we had visitors who were in town for the Cornell-Metropolitan football game. They were members of the Cornell chapter of our little group, and were staying for the weekend at the clubhouse-a girl and two fellows. The girl was very much in demand at the party that weekend, but I managed to get hold of her for a half hour or so. She was quite torrid-a sultry redhead (originally brunette, though) with what I would call fluid-drive action. Smooth, man. And of unlimited capacity. She took on all fifteen of us during the course of the party, and was still hungry for more when morning came around. We were so impressed that Chuck and Hal Sharp tried to talk her into transferring to Chesley, but she wasn't keen on the idea, and when the Cornell guys found out they were horrified. "We don't try to steal your silverware," they yelled. "You stop trying to steal Alice!" But it was all in good fun.
Some time along in here, we had midterm examinations. Followed by midterm marks. My highest mark was a B minus, in Psych, and they trailed all the way off to a D Plus in Zoology. In short, I wasn't doing so well. I was profoundly glad that midterm marks aren't made a permanent part of the record or sent home to parents. But I knew I was going to be in hot water, and plenty of it, if things kept going this way. You don't get into medical school with a bunch of Cs and Ds. You don't even get into the fifth-rate medical schools, let alone the good ones like P&S and Harvard and Cornell. And my parents had the notion that I was going to be a doctor.
The way I was going, though, I might have trouble being a street-sweeper. I knew what the problem was. I was studying maybe half an hour or an hour a night, instead of three or four. And weekends were just one long orgy. My stamina wasn't enough to see me through both a hyperactive sex life and a full program of academic classes. So the classes suffered.
It occurred to me about this time that Chuck was doing very little talking about Carol West. That meant only one thing: that he was getting noplace with her. Otherwise he'd have been spreading the word.
I wasn't seeing much of Fred Lambert-he seemed to be avoiding me, matter-of-fact-but I knew he was still dating Carol now and then. I wondered what the story was. Chuck had had a few dates with Carol, but obviously he hadn't scored.
Finally I asked him about it.
"What goes with you and C.W.?"
Chuck shrugged. "I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it might tend to damage my reputation as a make-out man."
"Nowheresville, huh?"
"Precisely." He shook his head ruefully. "That girl guards her virginity like it's more precious than the Crown Jewels. I've never seen anyone who could deflect a pass with such unerring skill."
"And yet you keep getting dates?"
"We both find it a challenge," Chuck said. "She enjoys having her defenses tested, and I'm anxious to find out how long it takes to melt an Iron Maiden. And it isn't going to be much longer, either."
His sudden note of confidence, after his previous admissions of failure, caught me off-balance. "Huh? You mean you think that soon-"
"Not 'soon,'" he said, with the smug, cocky little grin that sometimes annoyed me so much. "More accurately, practically at once. I tell you solemnly that before another week has gone by I'll have despoiled that fair maiden of her treasure.
"How?"
Chuck winked. "Never you mind that. Would you care to put a little wager? Say, five bucks that I make her by Sunday?"
"That gives you only two days," I pointed out.
"More than enough time. Five bucks?"
"I hate to take your money, Chuck."
"It's a bet, then?"
"Okay," I said. We shook on it, and Chuck went off toward his class.
I was mystified by his sudden confidence. All along I had been quietly grateful that he had been unsuccessful with Carol, but now I had my worries. It wasn't like Chuck to make a bet on anything but a two hundred percent sure thing. I hoped he wasn't up to something funny. I was pretty sure he wouldn't claim to have made her just to win the bet, but still and all, there was no way I could prove he hadn't-
The matter sat around in the back of my mind and, later that day, when I met Fred Lambert for the first time in a few weeks, things got even stranger.
Fred greeted me distantly. In his eyes I was a sinful person, and he wanted to keep far away from my corrupting influence.
"How's Carol?" I asked. "Still seeing her?"
"Yeah," he said gloomily. "So is Chuck Gordon."
"I know. He still has designs on her virginity, too," I said. "But he doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. Your Carol has strong powers or resistance."
Fred shook his head. "Sooner or later Gordon is going to get what he wants. I know it."
"Why don't you propose to her, then?" I suggested. "Now, while your darling is still virgo Intacta?"
"I can always count on you to say something that's in bad taste, huh, Jeff?" He wrinkled up his face. "You know I can't go getting myself engaged while I'm only a damn sophomore, even if Carol would have me."
"She must like you a little, Fred. She still lets you date her, doesn't she?"
"I'm taking her to the football game tomorrow."
That puzzled me more than somewhat. I happened to know that Chuck Gordon was spending tonight with Marge. And he would be at the orgy tomorrow night from around eight until Sunday morning. So the only time he hadfree to carry out the seduction of Carol West-which he had wagered would be done by Sunday-was tomorrow afternoon. And Carol would be in Fred's company tomorrow afternoon. I couldn't figure it for beans. But I began to think that maybe I stood a pretty fair chance of winning that fiver.
Naturally, I didn't say anything about Chuck's bet to Fred. I may be dense-witted but I'm not malicious. And Fred was suffering enough.
So we just made some more idle chatter, and then I wished him a good time at the football game.
"Thanks. See you around," he said.
"See you around," I echoed.
I spent Friday night and most of Saturday in the library, getting caught up on my studies. The campus was practically deserted on Saturday, with everybody either home for the weekend or else up at Lawrence Field watching the game.
I ate dinner-a light meal, because there were-always refreshments aplenty at the parties-and went down to the brownstone house in the Nineties about half past seven. Giving the special ring on the doorbell, I was admitted by Don Hammer.
"You're early," he said.
"Am I the first one?"
"Not that early. But it's a pretty thin turnout so far."
I went inside. Only about ten members had arrived. Most of them were still fully dressed too, having a few drinks and loosening up before they got down to the serious business of the evening. Dave Rees and Nora Sands were the exceptions, both of them naked and doing a lascivious fox-trot, body against body, while the others watched.
I went into the kitchen. Betty Childers was there, wearing a sweater and nothing else, mixing herself a drink. Just to be friendly, I patted her rear, then slipped my hands up her belly under the sweater and grasped her breasts. They felt like warm, soft mounds of clay in my hands. She leaned back and kissed me.
"Any trouble with the ladies in your section?"
"Not yet. What are you drinking?'
"Bourbon. Want one?"
"You bet."
She mixed me a drink, and I had some and then went upstairs to get out of my clothes. The party had gotten a lot nuder by this time, and Dave and Nora were no longer dancing, but enmeshed on the rug, while the onlookers clapped their hands in rhythm as though it was a hoedown. Dave is on the wrestling team and likes to show off his muscles in fancy positions.
People kept arriving, and the ones who were there kept going upstairs to get undressed. I had learned, by this time, that the ideal arrangement was to take on two girls per party, one at the beginning and one at the end of the evening, and to do nothing worse than neck the rest of the time. I had already picked out my two girls for tonight-Janet Bryce and Sally Marshall. They were two of the best lookers in an organization of good-looking girls, and I hadn't had either of them for a long while. I found Janet unoccupied and asked her if she had made any arrangements for the first part of the evening. She hadn't, so we nestled into an armchair together and began a little preliminary petting.
By way of making conversation she said, "Looks like almost everyone's here already."
"Pretty near? Who's missing? Chuck Gordon's not here, and Lois-"
Then I frowned. Chuck not here? Oh, oh! Maybe-though it was unthinkable-he had decided to skip the session tonight and concentrate on making Carol West. Or maybe he would drop in later, with news of his conquest. By, by, five bucks, I thought.
And at that precise moment the doorbell rang. Ned Carter buzzed back.
The door opened and Chuck Gordon came in, waving a cheery greeting to everybody.
With him was Carol West. And she was so drunk she could hardly walk straight.