Chapter 11
Driving toward Lil's, Farley put his hand in his pocket and felt the cold, single key, The front door, she had told him. Now he remembered her voice; its coquettishness, its earnestness, its hushed tone of longing and desire. It was not to be the hurried quenching of hot desire this time. It was to be a. night to remember. He drove faster. Much faster.
He parked the car in the long, semi-circular driveway and walked toward the front door of the house with the key in his hand, It was a few minutes past eleven, and when he looked upstairs, he saw all the lights out, In fact, the whole house was dark except for the porch light.
He jammed the key into the lock, and the door opened with complete ease. Closing it behind him, making sure it was locked, he felt his way for the banister, and found it. He listened to his feet squishing through the soft carpet, the smooth, polished-worn surface of the rail as he held on. His foot hit the top level, There were four doors, one of which was the John. Of the remaining three doors, two were closed, one was open. He walked into the open-doored room, and now that his eyes were almost adjusted to darkness, he saw the glint of white sheet on the bed, the outlines of a huddled, sleeping figure.
Lil had been right. She hadn't been hard to find! Now he went inside softly, and sat down in a chair near the bed, undressing quietly. First, his shoes, then his socks. His tie, his shirt, his trousers. His underwear. He crawled, into bed quietly, and adjusted the pillow under him, hearing the sound of Lil's quiet, contained breathing and the merciless beating of his own heart. Every vein in his body seemed to be filled with lava-hot blood as he let the realization of where he was sink in. He was in bed. In bed with a woman. No novelty there; he'd been in scores of beds with scores of women.
But not with women like Lil.
There was only one Lil.
She turned over slowly, and faced him. A soft smile made her face gentle, and she threw her arms around him. Quickly, fervidly, he embraced her and smelled the sleep and sex of her purring body. He could feel the thin, gauze-like material of her nightie and the heat of her body emanating through it. Her breasts were full and firm and feathery, and as they pressed against his bare chest, a choking desire welled up in him. Yet she seemed asleep.
He kissed her.
Her lips opened slowly, and pressed against his lips-they were held in union by moisture and sensuous clinging. Her arms wound more tightly around him and pulled him closer, while her soft, smooth knee worked up between his legs.
"I'm awake now, Farley," she murmured, clinging to him. "It's like a dream. Don't let me wake up from that."
"Not in a million years, kitten," he whispered, and stroked her breast-with a hand lie had slid beneath the gauzy, flimsy material of her short thigh-length nightie. The nipple swelled and filled between his fingers, and when their lips met again, hers had gone completely slack with panting, puffing passion; she breathed convulsively and worked her belly and hips feverishly against him.
Gently, he pushed her nightie up.
Not so gently, she yanked it off, and rushed back into his arms. Now her nipples seemed to burn holes into his flesh, and his lips strayed from her lips down to her neck, the soft flesh behind the nap of her hair, and around the ears. She breathed with increasing fervor as he kissed those sensitive spots and her body thrashed rhythmically against his.
Through the tangle of sheets and blankets, her hand moved down, separating fabric from flesh, until it found what it had blindly sought.
Him.
"Lil!" he whispered incredulously, "Lil!" She moaned hotly as her grasp tightened around him; his own hand sought her thighs with blind direction, and found them. Now they caressed one another, awakening passions, arousing flesh to fever-pitch.
He bit her neck, and she groaned.
He wound his lips around a nipple, and she cried with sheer pleasure, and as he worked his lips over it, she thrashed and twisted in his embrace, pounding her soft, yielding female belly against him with unbelievable fury. The nipple filled and expanded between his hot, moist lips, and when his fingers moved toward the other nipple, she grasped the hand and put it tightly to her breast, moaning and whimpering with helpless ecstasy. Filled with a sense of her pleasure, he worked the nipples slowly-with his lips, his tongue, his fingers and his teeth, nibbling softly at the hungry raspberry buds.
The tops of her breasts felt like the rounded curve of well-sculptured cups. Perfume and woman-sweet musk arose out of the shadowy crevice that delineated the perfect mounds.
He moved his head down.
Lil sobbed when she felt his tongue pierce her navel, and shoot soft, darting sensations into her groin. Her hands gripped his head tightly, her fingers played through his hair, and she pushed that head down, down, down, until she felt lips dance teasingly over her sensitized thighs, along the tender, quail-like insides where she moistened and readied for the final stroke of pleasure.
He kissed her everywhere.
He tasted the sweetness of hip flesh, belly flesh, thigh flesh. His hands stroked the smooth buttocks that wriggled hotly-and all the while, her hands and lips never stopped in their delirious devotion to his pleasure, his excitement.
Now she could feel the prickly sensation of his head between her sprawled thighs. Then she felt his lips, probing, forcing, her own flesh yielding, accepting.
"Farley, darling!" Her hands went down again to his head and held it tightly while her hips launched into wild, feverish rhythms. Her jaw hung loose and limp, and droplets of saliva flowed from her lips. Her eyes widened with incredulous pleasure as she trapped his shoulders with her thighs and kept him against her passion.
Then she had to have him.
It was a simple, elemental must.
Pulling him upward by force, she tried to roll under him, tried to position them for the final embrace.
His lips kissed her lips, and she tasted the salt of her own flesh. A thrill of recognition shot through her, added to the licking flames that already consumed her. He had shown her love. He had kissed her in a way that only a man filled with love can do. Suddenly she knew it was not quite time for them to mesh and fling one another into oneness.
She had to return that love, caress for caress, kiss for kiss.
Farley heard, then felt the rustle of bedding. He watched her body maneuver, watched her head and shoulders disappear beneath the sheets, and then his eyes went blank with darkness, darkness of the room, darkness of dizzy disbelief. Then he saw lights, many different lights of all shapes and colors and intensities.
Her hands consumed him.
Her lips set hot, liquid fires around him, as she all but swallowed him with fervent kisses. He lay back, feeling nothing under him. He felt suspended in limbo. He stroked her buttocks, worked his fingers between her thighsShe shifted slightly, with unmistakable demand. A roaring sound began in his ears as her thighs clamped shut around them, and the trembling of her body made his body tremble, and her whimpering was muted by the layers of sheet and blanket as passion exploded from both ends of the bed. A few moments of silence. Tender kissing.
Rapid breathing in the darkness. "Farley, darling?' "Hmm?"
Her hands stroked him, and he relaxed against the pillow, letting the warmth regenerate in him.
Lil felt his slow, gradual, but very real response. Excitement began to stir in him again.
She didn't want to sleep at all tonight.
"I still want you-want you very much, inside me! I want you there, darling, touching my core!"
"Yes! YesI" He rolled over and pinned her beneath him, and when her soaked thighs drew him down to her, he was instantly accommodated by her over-ready passion. She made a movement, quick, jerky. Her thighs lay directly under his, and closed tightly, possessively, keeping him irrevocably trapped inside her.
His hands traced the incredible curvature of her hips, his lips sought the pillow-softness of her breasts, and they worked slowly, silently together, occasionally whispering sweet, hot promises-when he used evecative words to describe their mutual pleasure, she whimpered and moved harder against him.
"Farley, Farley, Farley!" she panted, her voice rising to match the oncoming explosion inside her. She knew it was in him, too, and they clung to one another, no longer two people, but one being-and then they became swamped and tossed on the wave of their mutual, simultaneous release.
They never did sleep that night.
Big Bert used Cindy that night. While Farley and Lil made love in bed, plunging themselves in one another's love and sweet passion, Big Bert used, utilized Cindy's flesh, which was no more than a convenient, desirable pleasure-machine.
Bert whipped her naked flesh, tortured it and humiliated it until even her wild imagination ran dry. She made Cindy go to her knees and pay homage with her lips In an unsatiated fit of passion, she next used Sue Sills, who came numbly, indifferently into the room-turned-arena, and put her through her paces.
"Tell me about my boots," she demanded pantingly. Sue lay on the ground and looked with tender passion at the black leather boots that hugged the big dyke's feet and calves.
"They're beautiful. Powerful-only a wonderful, strong person could wear such magnificent leather!" Sue murmured. , She embraced them.
Big Bert whipped her back and buttocks while Sue's lips stopped kissing the boots, and moved up, up, up until the whip was dropped and Bert went into jelly-legged, thrusting movements against the enforced kiss.
It had been a wild night for Big Bert.
Now, morning found her a little tired, a little used, a little out of temper from lack of sleep. It was an unusually warm morning, and the sky was absolutely blue, not a cloud in it. Big Bert thought, It's going to be a nice day-I think we'll all take things easy. Cindy and Sue, having satiated her twisted, animal desires, had made Bert aware of her fatigue as well. She didn't have the energy to lose her temper; she would merely make it easy on everyone. It would be a truce. A holiday.
Sue and Cindy never talked to one another, now. Cindy had exactly one month left of her term to serve out, and then Sue would have a new cellmate. It didn't matter. She knew now you didn't have friends in prison.
She knew a lot of things she'd never known.
Now she felt numb and indifferent to it. It didn't matter one way or the other. If Big Bert wanted to slam her around, let her-she'd ride out ten years, a hundred years without ever feeling the bumps if she wanted to. And what the hell, maybe her next cell-mate wouldn't say no to a little lovin'-you couldn't stay dry for ten years! And lately, she had viewed the lovemaking between cellmates through different eyes. There was tenderness in their lives, sometimes even love. If you didn't have that, you had nothing. So maybe she'd be lucky when Cindy left.
Poor kid looks beat, Big Bert thought when she saw Sue. For the first time, something like compassion stirred in her. It was not compassion as we know it; it was really more of a feeling of looking out for one's interests. Of all the girls she owned, Sue was far and away the best-Sue made her (who knows why, exactly?) feel better, more satisfied than any of the others. Of all the girls, Sue was the one she now looked out for the most; something of a reversal. No more oil baths, no more riding herd on her-now it was she who went to the library, she who got the easy jobs. Big Bert knew she was going through a temporary state of shock, which would wear off and give way to a complete awareness of how she stood. Then she would hang on to it with stubborn determination, pleasing Big Bert in any way possible.
Sue (not "Sills") was in the bag.
She decided to be especially easy on the kid today, and let her rest. Rest completely.
"Sue-take it easy today, huh?" Big Bert spoke with a new, gender voice through the bars as she walked by. "Catch up on your sleep," she added with a lewd wink. Then she yelled at the others to "get the hell into line," and "let's go, we ain't got all damn day-" with the voice of Big Bert.
It was ten in the morning when Phineas Plane called Big Bert.
"I want to see Sills today," he said crisply. "Sorry, Warden. She's restin' up. She had a long night."
"That's immaterial, Bertha. I want to see her." His voice hardened with firm command.
"Well, you can't. She's too tired to see straight, and-she's still sore." This last was an allusion to Phineas's handiwork.
"Then we'd better not argue over the phone," he said angrily. "Turn things over to one of the other guards, and come to the office."
Big Bert replied by hanging up in his face.
She was indignant and huffy as she strode quickly toward the administration building and Phineas's office. It was a sweet arrangement and she didn't want to blow it, but hell, enough was enough. Those girls were under her, and he was nuts if he thought he could just pick up a telephone and dial for a quick roll on the rug. Especially Sue. Big Bert had been pondering all night how she could keep Sue away from Phineas.
She wanted that chick for herself.
Phineas was already standing when she entered. For once, there wasn't that ocean of desk to separate him from her.
"Bertha, what in hell are you trying to do?" he exploded angrily., "Look out for that girl," she returned just as angrily. "Goddamn it, man, she just can't go through it again!"
"Had a little fun last night, did you?" he sneered.
"Yeah. That's right. Now she's gotta rest up-besides, I don't know that I wanta farm her out to anybody else."
"Oh? I was under the impression that this was a mutual arrangement."
"She's private stock from now on," Bert said firmly.
"-'I could stop this arrangement, you know."
"And I could have you looking through bars from the other side."
They glared at one another with undisguised hostility.
"Bert-who else can I have? Now, I mean."
Bert felt a glimmer of excitement. She'd brought the little sonofabitch to his knees, and now he was compromising. But why should she give him anybody? Why not let him sweat a little while? Then he wouldn't be so snotty in the future.
"They're all busy," she said. "There's work to be done, remember? You're the one who made the schedule."
Phineas walked toward the door.
She watched him with something close to amusement as he locked the door.
"You wouldn't try to mess with me, would you, boy? 'Cause I'd break you right in half."
"We'll see, you ugly dyke!" he shouted angrily, and rushed her with the blind fury of a bull going after the flag. Big Bert stood her ground, waiting, muscles tensed.
When he hit, she slammed him in the gut so hard he crumpled like a deflated balloon.
"Sonofabitch, Phineas, you're nuts!" she laughed. In truth, he was. No man in his right senses goes up against a tough butch, especially a butch like Big Bert. It's a good way to get hurt.
"I gotta have somebody," he panted. He still lay on the ground, collecting his wind.
"So do I," she said with a sudden gleam in her eye. "So do I." Quicker than the eye could follow, she whipped the Sam Brown belt out of her breeches and advanced on Phineas, swinging the leather and buckle through the air with maddening speed. The corner of the brass buckle hit him in the face and ripped away a cheek. It hit him again and ripped away the other side, then smashed his nose.
"Bertha," he gurgled through bloody lips, "you're crazy! I didn't mean-"
"Shut up, you bastard," she spat, and tied his hands with the belt, his legs with his own belt, and stuffed his handkerchief in his bleeding mouth. "You look terrible, Warden."
Through eyes wide with terror, Phineas watched her pick up the telephone.
"Send me Sills, Martin, and a couple of others," she said, "quick, one-two-three." Then she hung up.
"You're going to have all the girls you want, big boy." She laughed, and began undressing.
They came in.
There were four of them, including Sue and Cindy. As soon as they saw the warden tied and bleeding, and Big Bert naked, they looked at one another.
"Don't panic, girls. I just decided it was time you all had a little fun and games, okay?' She nudged her head in Phineas's direction.
"Do anything you want with him. I'll watch. "
What they did to that man made even Big Bert a bit apprehensive.
They stripped him, untied him, lashed him with the two belts and generally scratched and clawed at him until he screamed for mercy. Finally, Big Bert screamed at them to stop. They might hurt him, she thought.
"C'mere, punk!" she commanded Phineas.
He came over fast, on hands and knees-he was too weak to make the trip in any other fashion.
"Do what I like the girls to do, Phineas," she commanded, and pointed to the triangular gateway between her bare thighs as she sat imperiously in an overstuffed chair.
The girls all watched.
They giggled, pointed, laughed, sneered.
"Funny, ain't he?' Hannah laughed. "Wish I could do to him what he did to me, but hell, it's impossible." The others laughed raucously.
Big Bert shoved him away.
A happy-calm grin spread Over her face. Shi grunted and sighed with satisfaction.
"You're weaker than a woman," she spat at Phineas. "Okay, let's go back to work, girls."
Sue felt good. Some of the tension, some of the humiliation had gone out of her: she looked at Big Bert through new and different eyes now. The big dyke had given her a chance to vent her spleen at one of Them. Hell, Big Bert wasn't such a bad egg after all, she thought. Not so bad at all.
Farley was told that the warden wasn't in, and was asked if there were anybody else he wanted to see instead.
"No. Just see that the warden gets this. It's very important, so if he doesn't come in, deliver it to him." It was nothing more than a note telling him he would be receiving a summons very soon. It was a generous stroke on Farley Brock's part-it wouldn't hit him all at once, but by slow, hard degrees instead.
He hardly recognized Sue when he saw her. She sat on her bunk laughing with Cindy; it was a cruel laugh. He had never heard such laughter from those innocent-looking lips. In fact, he had never heard her really laugh.
"Sue, I've got some great news!" he said, after the guard let him inside the cell. "This'll interest you too, Cindy. Your case has been busted wide open, Sue-the Warden, Howard Hardin, Bertha Starr-everybody's been charged with one thing or another, and your innocence will have to come out in the trial.
"And Cindy, you'll no doubt be released on time, with a little retroactive money, once they decide special hardship while in prison."
Sue laughed.
"Suppose I don't want to get out of here?"
"What?' Farley asked incredulously. "Don't-want to leave?'
"That's right. I've got it good around here, Brock, real good. I'll never have it so good on the outside. I don't want to know those hypocritical bastards out there. They stink."
"A lot of people stink, Sue," he said gently. "I meet them every day of my life. But you have to look for the good people. They are out there, you know. You just have to look hard for them."
"I'm too tired to look," she said sullenly. "Too tired. I got Big Bert to take care of me here."
"You won't have for long," Farley said. "She'll go down with the rest of them. Stick around, maybe you'll have her for a cell-mate," he told her facetiously.
Sue was silent.
"The man's right," Cindy said. "It might be too late already-after what you've been doing around here. You gotta get out there and try and straighten yourself out."
"Don't lecture me!" Sue shouted, "What've you been doing?" Farley asked.
Cindy told him.
"My God," he muttered. "Sue-you've got to get out of here. And now I know you will, I just hope to hell the trial doesn't take forever and a day."
When Farley left Sue Sills, he was utterly deflated. He had never felt depressed to the point where nothing looked hopeful. All that fighting, all that digging, that working, that hoping, praying-and now it was all reduced to an empty, hollow gesture. He felt robbed. Now all his triumphs were strictly in the name of the law. It was too late to save a sweet, innocent kid named Sue Sills. She didn't exist.
They had all killed her.
What did he have? Mentally, he calculated: Lil, first and most important. He had her. A reputation, second; and third, Benchly's full backing. Fourth, and the thing that practically obliterated the glory of the others, a feeling of utter futility. In the end, he concluded, guys like Harris and Plane got off easier than guys like himself. They had nothing to lose except money and comfort.