Chapter 9
Bert had to have her.
Yesterday, even two hours ago, Big Bert had thought I can wait for her, they all crumble sooner or later, but now she had to have that luscious hunk of flesh. All the more luscious because of her stubborn refusal to acquiesce. Big Bert burned for her now, and as she walked toward the cell where Sue lay in her bunk, she wondered what she'd do if the girl just refused as she always did.
She burned.
She itched.
She could already hear the sound of sharp-edged leather ripping neatly, savagely into tender, untortured buttocks and thighs-and the slobbering willingness of those contorted, red lips to please her own burning flesh! It was too much to hold out against: a picture, a blurred vision like that.
That lawyer'd seen her. He might get ideas and do some nosing around, but hell's bells, what could he prove? Nothing. He'd seen nothing, and whose word would carry more weight, hers or some lousy con's? No need to worry. No sweat, strictly no sweat.
"Sills!" she yelled when she stepped in front of the bars to Sue's and Cindy's cell.
"Yessir." Sue sat bolt upright in her bunk, almost bumping her head against the ceiling.
"I wanta see you. Alone."
Cindy gave her an eye-signal that Sue couldn't possibly understand. She didn't know whether it meant 'don't do it' or 'you better do it."
"C'mon." She unlocked the door. Sue hesitated, looking at Cindy wild-eyed. "C'mon, godamnit! Now!"
Sue remembered the black, stinking oil-and followed. Followed, then was followed, with Big Bert close behind her, and she wondered where they could possibly be going, until she found herself standing in front of the warden's office door.
"Come in," a voice said, when Big Bert knocked. They walked in, and Sue saw the warden sitting behind his big desk.
"Ah, Sills," he said, rubbing his hands together. "My colleague tells me you've been most uncooperative."
"I have not-" she began indignantly, but the warden cut her off with "Who am I to believe, Sills, you or my trusted guard? Besides, you're being impertinent!"
She clamped her mouth shut.
What was the use: They had you, no matter what. You were quiet, that was an admission of guilt; you opened your mouth, you were snotty and had to be punished with extra work or solitary or whatever. So why get shook up? Either way, you lost out. That's why you were a con; the difference between a con and them was the difference between losers and winners.
"What's the difficulty?" the warden asked, turning to Big Bert.
"Out of line. And telling visitors stinkin' lies, sir."
"Like what? Be specific?"
"Tellin' people she's gettin' mistreated."
Phineas made a clucking sound. "We wouldn't want her to lie, would we, Miss Starr?"
"No sir, we sure wouldn't." Big Bert grinned. It was closer to a real smile than Sue had ever seen from Bert, yet it was not a humorous or good-natured smile at all. It was an unmistakably evil smile.
"What should we do, do you think?"
"Make it the truth, sir. Then she won't have to lie."
Phineas appeared thoughtful.
'I see. Yes, there's something there, something very solid-but lets ask Sills. What do you think?" he asked, turning to look at Sue.
"I think you're crazy I" she cried. 'What is this, some kind of torture chamber? Hell, this is a state pen where they reform people, not make animals out of them!!!"
"You are an animal," the warden said softly, without apparent malice. "That's why you're here in the first place. It's our job to make you pay for your sins."
"What sins? I was framed."
"Yes, you all were, to hear it come from you; inveterate liars, all of you. Really, you have no idea how badly in need of punishment you are. Wouldn't you agree to that, Miss Starr?"
"Definitely." Big Bert knew this was the only way. She hated to throw meat to Phineas before she'd had a taste, but this was a special case. Sills just wouldn't crack, and now it was necessary that they both go to work on her. Then she would have to crack, and once cracked, the rest would be easy. It had happened only once before, a long time ago-years ago. Every now and then you just had a stubborn bitch that really had to be worked over hard, Big Bert thought miserably.
"Take your clothes off, Sills." The warden's voice was crisp, efficiently cold with command. Sue responded to it automatically, much faster than she would have with Big Bert's hysterical, enraged shrieking.
Phineas studied the body.
He walked around her, examining, as she stood naked. His manner became increasingly less detached; Sue heard his short, shallow breathing deepen with excitement. He wasn't deluding her; she wasn't quite so stupid as to overlook the essence of his attitude, which was of course purely sexual, twisted out of all proportion.
He was like Big Bert.
Delighting in the pain of others, reveling in his power. She knew it now, as he continued walking around her, moving closer and closer until his hand closed around her breast and hefted its feathery substance.
He tweaked the nipple., "How can such beasts have such beauty?" he mused. His other hand stroked her belly, moved over the contour of her hip and slid it down her firm white thigh and across, until his fingers closed possessively in the triangular patch-the gateway to man's pleasure.
"Hmmm." Sue wondered why he didn't take her immediately. There was a handy couch-he'd have his jollies, and she would be immensely relieved. Her sexual tensions, repressed for months, would be out of her, and she knew she'd feel like a new person. And, if he wanted an occasional roll in his office, it was all right with her, as long as he kept it straight and strong. It would certainly be preferable to Big Bert's perverted lust!
"Well, Bertha, I suppose we'll have to be especially severe with this woman. I can see the evil in her face," Phineas concluded.
Big Bert nodded, Sue saw her eyes gleam savagely, lust illuminating the pupils into fine, predatory points. Then, to her horror, Big Bert began undressing. She revealed her strong, powerful body-that of a grotesquely overdeveloped female with far more strength than the averagely equipped male. Her muscles rippled throughout her body, and to Sue's added horror, the figure before her put her boots back on.
She had removed them to get out of the breeches; now she was putting them on-the black, gleaming leather looked awesome contrasted against white, muscled flesh, Then she held a whip.
A real whip, a cat o' nine tails, extracted from Phineas's desk. She advanced toward Sue, who covered her breasts and had her legs crossed, stark fear in her eyes.
"Bend over, sweetie!" Big Bert ordered with obvious relish. "Unless you wanta make me get real rough." The last threat made Sue comply; better to get whipped right away than to enrage the dyke to the point of possible irreparable mutilation.
The whip didn't come right away. .
First, the toe of a boot smacked her between the spheres of her buttocks, and she fell over onto her stomach, with the wind knocked out of her. A couple of times, she was kicked by those black leather demons, and when that stopped, the whipping began, Phineas did the whipping.
He stood behind her and aimed the tendrils of the whip at her tender, raw flesh, while Big Bert stood naked in front of her, watching, Sue saw the boots, inches from her face.
Black.
Leather. Symbols of punishment and power and depravity. Over and over again she told herself. I'm not guilty, I've been framed and if I uas guilty, this wouldn't be right, I wouldn't deserve it.
But it wasn't so easy to be logical, Phineas's voice kept drumming into her consciousness: "You're all animals, beast, inveterate liars."
Sue felt more keenly than ever the stigma of being society's prisoner, These people were her tormentors, her superiors; there was nothing she could do to combat it; they were the System incarnate, She saw all this in the leather boots in front of her eyes, as in a reflection, Phineas whipped her buttocks, the backs of her thighs until her feet drummed hysterically against the rug with pain, and her buttocks squirmed contortedly, Then: "Lick my boots, you crummy bitch!" Big Bert's command entered Sue's mind as a half-blind man stumbles through fog-barely audible, but unmistakable. "C'mon, lick 'em!" Sue felt one of the leather monsters being jammed at her face, her lips. She tasted them.
She tasted, smelled the wax on them-tasted their thickness, their animal quality as Big Bert lifted a thigh condescendingly to make Sue's task easier. She tasted. She ate. She chewed, and Big Bert laughed tauntingly while Phineas looked on from behind.
Only an absolutely worthless being could do such a thing.
She was that absolutely worthless thing; no one with a shred of dignity would humiliate herself so, if she weren't deserving of such humiliation. I must be deserving, she thought with despair-then, I am deserving.
"Now kiss me the way I really wanta be kissed!" Big Bert panted. "Get on your knees!" There was no mistaking the request. Sue balked.
"I-can't!" she blurted. As soon as she protested her inability to do so, the whip came crashing down on her flesh, harder, much harder than before, She screamed, "I can't, I can't!" and each can't was emphasized rather precisely by a whip-stroke.
Remarkable what pain can do.
It can liberate, it can torture, it can goad, can make one rise to new heights of willingness. Sue was hardly aware of her arms encircling Big Bert's massive, muscled buttocks and hips, of her head moving closer and closer to the object of seething desire in her torturer, Only when Big Bert began to pant and moan like a whinnying bull astride a cow, did awareness close in on Sue. It was too late. She closed her eyes and moved her lips fervently on the moist, hungry flesh, and Big Bert writhed and squirmed with pleasure as her knees wrinkled and weakened with ecstasy. Her hands went to the top of Sue's head, and pushed her closely, more deeply into the caress of Lesbos.
Phineas was beside himself.
Big Bert stiffened; her eyes rolled cow-like, and she sank slowly to her knees, pushing Sue out of her way like a discarded heap of rubbish.
My turn, he thought gleefully, and as he had already stripped himself, he now rushed toward her crumpled body. "Up, girl, up!" he shouted, raising her to her knees, and then "Bend over," pushing her into the position he wanted, "Yes, that's right, that's right, now hold it," and then for him, infinite ecstasy as his swollen maleness penetrated and pierced the deep shadow between her swollen, marble-white buttocks, those two heart-shaped beauties-for her, unbearable agony.
"Eeeeyyyah!" she screamed, falling forward on her hands, Her long, silky hair hung forward over her face as she rocked on her hands and knees to the tempo of male lust that moved inside her, strained her flesh unnaturally.
"Ahh," Phineas sighed, unable to believe the pleasure of it all. Martha had been nothing compared to this find; nothing at all. His hands pinched and grasped at the feminine abundance of hip-flesh, and with the abandoned fury of a stallion, drove himself home, into her tortured depths, while she rocked dizzily, wildly with pain and violated dignity.
Big Bert watched.
She lit a cigarette and sat naked in a chair, with her booted ankles crossed; a languid, leisurely pose, watching the action before her. They had the girl crazy now-revenge was sweet, punishment and torture even sweeter, she decided, A whole stable-full of beauties back there, and now she had them all, Phineas had them all. Sill's tortured, insulted body symbolized victory for her. And Phineas standing behind her with his hands on her hips, ramming himself home with the force of a pile driver while she screamed and rocked helplessly (the rocking making it Heaven for him), made the victory complete.
She would never say no again, Big Bert knew from long experience that once a woman ceased to have any real worth in her own eyes, she would suffer any indignity hurled at her, thinking herself deserving of it. It was all part of the psychology.
After that, they expected it!
Sue knew she bled. Pain seared all the way through her, and she knew that when she got up, she would not be able to walk.
She bad never been thus victimized, until now.
Secretly, clandestinely, she was carried back to. her cell; they had hurriedly dressed her, and then Big Bert and another guard had carried her sack-like back to her cell. Her last conscious thought had been Martha was right about the marks, and sank into unconsciousness with the knowledge that the letter would be undeniable proof, if its allocations were examined by a court-appointed physician, Farley Brock sat impatiently in the waiting room, and looked at his watch for what was probably the fiftieth time. He hadn't been waiting for Ely Harris more than fifteen minutes, but it seemed much longer. Watched pots never boil, and Brock's vigil could be equated to watching for the pot to boil, with a fair amount of accuracy. He jammed his hand into his breast-pocket, and felt the shining, slick surface of the photostat copy of Martha's note.
The original was locked in his office safe. So we can say that Brock was boiling with eagerness, with anger-all the things that make people boil.
Finally, a pretty secretary came through the door
"The judge'll see you now, Mr. Brock." Brock sat up, stubbed out his cigarette, and walked toward the door without acknowledging her. She had to move out of his way.
Ely Harris, The People's Friend.
The shaft-artist of the century, who applied his art with such verve and skill as to make it virtually painless and unsuspected-like a doctor giving & skillful injection to a patient
"Mr. Brock." He rose He seemed perfectly composed, but Farley knew he made the judge uncomfortable. He'd discovered that during Sue's trial, when he'd made oblique references to bribery and framing.
"Hi, Harris," The judge looked a little indignant that Farley neglected to say 'your Honor' or even 'Judge', But he let it go by.
"Sit down, Mr. Brock. I hope your visit doesn't concern the Sills woman's appeal again Not unless you have some enlightening evidence "
Brock smiled sardonically
"Oh, it's enlightening, Harris-it's enlightening as hell, believe me."
Farley reached inside his breast pocket, and took out the photostat. He flipped it across the wide desk, in front of Harris, who picked it up, putting on his glasses and clearing his judicious throat, Meanwhile, Farley opened his attache case, and waited.
He watched the calm composure change into florid, blushing discomfort.
"This is absolutely outrageous!" Harris exploded.
"Yes it is," Farley agreed, "It's the most out rageous circumstance I've ever encountered-and Ely, old boy, I'd say offhand you're in a helluva lot of trouble, wouldn't you?"
"It's a lie-a demented prisoner who committed suicide!" He huffed indignantly and fired up a nice, green St. Helena cigar ($25,50 per box), setting up a thick screen of smoke between himself and Farley, "Maybe. But I've already gotten permission, over your head, of course, to conduct a physical examination of Bertha Starr and Phineas Plane."
Harris puffed harder.
"And," Farley continued laconically, crossing his legs-pausing to light a cigarette while Harris ruined purple, then slowly white with suspense, "I'd like you to hear something concerning your friend, your old friend, Phineas Plane. Ready, Ely?"
Ely was painfully silent. He no longer puffed at his cigar, but let it go dead between his lips.
"1953, discharged from the Army. Undesirable changed to 'medical'. Big stink about sodomizing a Korean girl. 1956, dismissed from a congregation in Montgomery (Alabama, Judge) for seducing a fifteen-year old girl during an outdoor-baptizing ceremony. 1959, caught and arrested by the Montgomery vice squad for committing an illegal act on his wife in the corridor of a night-club, a spot he thought deserted; wife claimed it was against her will, and pressed charges.
"Here's the corker, Ely-Phineas Plane was a name given to Paul Palmer in 1960. Paul Palmer was a classmate of Ely Harris's, both at UVA and later at Georgetown Law School. Harris an old friend of the family, as well as a friend of Gladys Palmer, nee Smith. What do you make of all this, Judge"?"
"Where-did you get all this?" Harris asked, the cigar dropping out of his mouth, Brock grinned.
"I paid a few people. It wasn't hard, since they were used to being paid off-way of life with them. Know what I mean?" He winked at Harris, and stuffed the dossier back into his case. "And now, that letter,. First of all, Miss Sills will testify-and once she testifies, all those other prisoners will, too, And don't think Sills won't, Judge, because she's got nothing to lose. Ten years in that stinkhole you call the State Penitentiary sort of changes human values."
He snatched the note from the desk, and read it aloud.
"Big Bert is a bull-dyke and she beats people and makes them do horrible things, and the warden does horrible things. If a woman refuses, things get too rough to take. They beat you into it, force you into it until you have to. Big Bert has a tattoo on her butt. It's a big heart with a knife running through it, and the warden has a funny red mark on his right leg, near his you-know-what. Cindy Martin, who has had to do the same thing I did, has a big scar on her stomach from being whipped. So I'm going to kill myself, I can't take it any more."
"Signed Martha," Farley concluded with caustic tone. "Just a stinking little con, Ely. A stinking little con who just hung you and that goddamn Nazi bitch and-uh, yeah, Phineas Plane. What a nice, righteous name that is!"
"Brock, I've got money, I can set you up, make you a big man in this state, a big man-" Harris began to babble.
"Can it. Stop making an ass out of yourself. What I wanted to tell you is we're having a trial, Harris. And in this trial, lots of things are going to come out. You and Hardin. The whole frame up of my client possibly where you and Hardin have that two million Sills is supposed to have, and very possibly, a lot of changes. This state might even go Twentieth Century after it's all over."
Harris said nothing.
He looked very old, very undistinguished. His face had melted and disintegrated into a lot of wrinkles and flabby-skinned death. His sparkling blue eyes no longer sparkled. Brock looked at him, and felt a wave of pity. It was more a twinge than a wave, As soon as the monstrous series of events welled up before his memory, the pity disappeared. Wordlessly, he snapped his case shut and got up.
On the way back to his office, he worried a great deal. Suppose Harris took Martha's way out and killed himself? What then? Farley's legal mind came back to him, and thought of the consequences more dispassionately. It would be exposed, the whole mess, no matter what happened. There was Plane, Starr, Sue. There was the dossier, the medical exam. There was Hardin. Now all he had to do was call the State Attorney and put it into gear.
He would go see Sue. It would give her encouragement-she would be able to hold out as long as she had to. Now she would know the end was in sight.