Chapter 2

IT'S SO HARD TO EXPLAIN HOW THINGS REALLY ARE with a person. How they were with me. One thing: I was a nice girl. But I guess I always thought more or less about sex.

That didn't make me a bad girl, though. I never threw myself at men or propositioned them. I always kept a good image, because I didn't want to get in trouble.

But there's no law against thinking and dreaming and, well, maybe experimenting a little by yourself. Because, good Lord, after a while it's just too much. It keeps coming into your mind.

Before you know it, you're making your own fantasy world full of naked men doing things in your fantasies that are wild and crazy and inventive because that way it isn't dangerous.

In the first place, I liked myself. But I couldn't see any harm in that. I didn't see where it was wrong to be naked in the front of a mirror and look at yourself. Or to use a mirror to see the places you can't see just sanding there.

Or trying your body out to see how it works.

On a bed is wonderful. You lie there, and it's all warm and quiet: you can hear your heart beat and the blood sing through your veins. You run your fingertips along your legs, and it tickles.

Then you close your eyes and imagine a man with you. When it's that way there isn't any embarrassment, and you can have him do or say anything you want.

You lie there on the bed; the door opens and he walks in. It's warm, you push the covers back and he looks at you. His eyes pop and you watch and see his lust in his eyes, the desire you always imagined, more fierce than any fantasy; scares you.

He walks up to the bed, puts a hand on one of your boobs; and you sneer at him: "Are you getting yourself a big thrill, buster?"

"They're nice, honey, real nice."

"You're not so bad yourself."

"You want some?"

"Show me, big man."

That's what makes it better when you're alone. You couldn't say that to a real man. It wouldn't be ladylike. But that way you can say it, lie there and watch him undress.

"How do you want me, baby?"

"The hard way, buster. You think I'm a kid or something?"

He looks at himself and grins, and then he looks at you. You're showing him what he's got to play with, and he grins and lifts one leg to get on the bed; but you stop him.

"Not so fast, buster."

"Why the delay?"

"Because that's how I want you."

He's crazy hot for you now and mutters something about hurry up or he'll weaken. He says some things you don't really understand yourself but you've heard the girls at school say them, the kids who really know their way around, so you make your dream guy say them. Then maybe you remember something you've overheard, where a girl was telling about a party some other girl went to and told her about.

There had been a big guy at that party who'd pushed a broad around, dropped her off at home afterward with her knees rubbery from exertion, and she' gone in and dropped on the bed exhausted.

So at this party, she had friends, or at least that was how the girl at school had heard it from the girl who said she'd been there.

Anyhow the girl who'd had it done to her told her friends, and they were all drunk; they grabbed the guy and tied him down and said, "There, he's all yours, baby."

And the girl laughed and knelt on his chest looked down into his face. Then she straddled his chest, which wasn't hard because she had a wide, full skirt on and it let her get down on her knees there, straddling him.

Then she put her skirt over his face, and there was nothing he could do because he was helpless. Then she got very sensuous. She began rolling her eyes and her shoulders and twisting forward on her knees, but staying there while someone put a slow record on the turntable.

And she did a whole, sexy dance for them with the guy hidden under her skirt, her body braced and writhing. A kind of sit-down dance with everybody laughing so loud the guy could hear them easily.

Then her dance got real wild, as she ground her hips, twisting and rubbing while the guy began to kick his heels and fight; but they'd fixed him so that he had to stay, and the others began laughing harder.

But maybe the guy couldn't even hear now, smothered that way, the whole world kind of a blindfold for him while she made him cooperate — got even that way.

And finally getting up and dancing away, leaving him the way he'd naturally be after a thing like that. Then the girl danced into the bathroom and came out with a towel she used as a scarf for a while, swinging it around and taunting him with it.

It had been the opposite of what he'd made her do when he'd had her in a spot. Had made her. That was the thing. He hadn't asked her. He'd just grabbed her and said, "Do this for me you witch," or something like that. So she'd gotten even. And afterward, she'd sprawled on the couch, exhausted from her dance and the other thing she'd used him for and laughed at him.

I wasn't a fool, though. I didn't necessarily believe the story. But you have to admit that it could have happened. And it was in my mind to play with.

So my invisible guy there in the bedroom ends up that way too. But he's on his belly and he's the man in the balcony. The wild, wonderful fantasy world, where everything is so easy, is full of palm stalks, and when a fantasy man yells nobody can hear him. So I made him yell and yell while I screamed. "How do you like it." Knowing all the time it hadn't been as bad as that in the balcony. In fact kind of sudden and exciting.

But I'm really not yelling of course. I'm lying on my shoulders on the bed, writhing until my muscles hurt from the strain, tormenting, torturing myself until I'm almost crazy with ecstasy, my hands wild and all the wild colors shooting in front of my eyes until I can't stand it any longer and roll over and bury my face in the pillow, scream with my hips writhing at the finish of it.

Then I'm exhausted and ready for sleep, and I drift off thinking what's happened: I'm exhausted. There were a dozen men and they kept throwing me from one to another. A dozen bodies thudding down on me. A dozen evil, lust-stained faces against mine. A dozen tongues finding mine. A dozen brutal repetitions of the wild ecstasy and the plunging colors and I stagger to the bed when they're through with me. I'm exhausted. I sleep ...

But that's not the way it is always. Just on my sex nights. A girl at school said, "Honey, it's nature! You've got to get rid of it or it'll get rid of you. It's no sin to do something for yourself that's really healthy. Otherwise you might find yourself crawling up to some guy sometime and pawing him and begging for it.

So what I did was all right. If you're oversexed, you have to do something. But I always knew the difference between fantasy and reality. I never let them get mixed up.

On the mornings after my sex nights I always woke up kind of disappointed and frustrated some way. That was the only bad thing about doing it all yourself. It didn't seem complete. It was wonderful and satisfying, but you were left with a yearning to go farther, sure that you'd find something even fiercer, more delightful. More wonderful.

So I woke up that next morning thinking about the man in the balcony and his telephoning me. But this was a better morning than any of the others because he was there to think about. There was the excitement of wondering what would happen.

I went downstairs. We lived in a house on Pendor Street that my father gave my mother when they were divorced. But Sis wasn't down, of course. She played the piano in the Ciro Club downtown; she always got home late, so I made my own breakfast.

Sis was wonderful, and saw that I had the best; I loved her. But more than that, she protected me. She'd been around men and was determined to see to it that things went right with me, because with Mom dead we only had each other.

We had our afternoons together, but when she went to work I was always in bed. I knew about men because she told me how bad they were and what they could do to a girl.

Never any details or anything like that. We never talked sex because, well, between a girl and her sister I guess it's a kind of touchy subject.

Sis had Frank, of course. She never talked about him, and I never asked her. She kept us apart.

I understood her having him. Sis was a young, beautiful, healthy woman, only 28, and she needed a man. Healthy normal women do need men, but nice women don't talk about it. That's why so much in people's minds are never said. There are a lot of nice men, too, and it's the same with them.

Like when I see a man watching me in a bus or something. He doesn't say what I know is in his mind. Like: God, baby, I'd like to pull those slacks down of} your hips, sit you over one of these seats and — Something like what you know he's thinking, but he doesn't say it. If you drop something he might pick it up and say, "Here, miss," very politely.

You see what I mean? Nobody says what they're really thinking. But I knew about Sis and Frank because I'd seen them. It was all right, I think, for me to see them because after that I quit feeling guilty about some of the things I thought about and imagined people did, maybe did myself a little when I was alone.

Anyhow, the way I saw them was this: It was her shopping day and Sis told me to go to the movies after school, but I'd seen the picture and went home instead to wait for Sis.

She came, but she had Frank with her. I was up in my room and as I came out, I heard Sis say, "No, Frank, it's too risky. She'll be coming home soon."

"But she isn't here now, honey," he answered back. And I could tell from his tone that he wanted her bad, because he sounded just like the men in my dreams sound sometimes when I'm holding them off and maybe showing them what they're drooling for, just to make it harder. When men want you that bad, they almost paw the rug; and that's kind of what I imagined Frank doing: drooling at Sis and pawing the rug.

Then I went to the banister and saw them down in the living room, by the lounge. They couldn't see me because the upper hall shade was pulled to keep the sun off the carpet, something Sis had learned from Mom before she died. So it was dark in the hall.

Sis was beautiful. I never got used to how beautiful she really was. She was dark like me and had flawless skin and a kind of tanned sexiness about her. I always enjoyed seeing her naked. Not because I'm a Les or anything, at least I don't think I am, but every time I saw her naked I'd compare us, and it always added to my self-confidence. Because I knew she was beautiful from just looking at her, and then I could look at myself and see that I was the same.

I had the same big boobs that she did with the nipples the same deep shade of brown. My belly was just as flat and our legs were slim; our thighs came up into our hips with the same smooth curves and lines.

So maybe that was why I was able to think of Frank making love to me—like he was doing to Sis while I watched.

First, she kept holding him off. "Frank, this isn't the time or the place."

He had his arms around her and was pushing her toward the lounge.

"Any time's the right time for you and me, baby," he said.

Frank was slim around his hips and very big in the shoulders and arms. All muscle up there. He was a dancer, but that didn't mean he wasn't masculine. I'd never see him dance, but I saw a picture of him in his dance clothes once; and my first thought was to feel sorry for Sis. How could she stand it?

Then I was shocked at how bold those tight clothes made him look. But it didn't seem to bother in the picture. He wasn't in any way modest about it. The way he stood with his leg out and his foot pointed at an angle, kind of pushing his belly out, he looked to be very proud. I thought of how the women in the audience must have felt while they watched him dance. He must have made them cringe when he leaped.

Anyhow, he was pushing Sis toward the lounge, and he got his mouth on hers so she couldn't object. They stood that way, in a clinch for a while, and thick moans came out of their throats. But Sis didn't have her tongue to use for talking because Frank was trying to push it down her throat from the way it looked. His hips were rubbing against hers, and they looked very graceful standing there. Then Sis kind of moaned again and braced her legs a little apart so she could press back against him. Her skirt was tight against her thigh, and I could see her muscles harden as she ground a little against his hips. I shivered as I thought of his body in the picture.

If she didn't want him to go any farther, spreading her feet like that had been a mistake, because now he could get between them and bend her backward and he did.

He leaned forward against her. One of his hands had been hidden from me, but now I could see it and what he'd been doing with it: opening the front of Sis's blouse.

Now it was all open and he bent Sis backwards some more. Her knees bent and her body arched, and then her knees touched the floor, with her shoulders and head lying back on the lounge.

He'd slid both his hands up over her boobs, and now he pushed outward, breaking the hold she had around his neck and spreading her arms out on the lounge. He was kneeling gracefully before her wide-spread knees by that time, and she was arched down on the lounge with her arms spread wide, kind of imprisoned because he held her arms that way and wouldn't let her move them.

Her head was thrown back and she whispered. "Oh, Frank!" and closed her eyes; there she was — everything tight. Frank was back a little from her, on his knees like I said, kind of worshiping her. And that word worship isn't exactly accidental, as I'll show pretty quick.

Anyhow, I could see her. Her blouse had been thrown open; she hadn't been wearing a bra. The arching of her body pulled her belly tight and away from the band of her slacks, pulled so hard her navel wasn't round anymore. It was a tight, dark line running up and down. Her boobs jutted out like beautiful brown-tipped melons, the nipples like brown grapes on top, hard grapes.

Her eyes were closed, her tight throat was working, and her lips were open. Then she whispered, "Frank — oh, darling — worship me!" And her tongue came out a little like a pink, darting snake trying to reach him.

He was kissing her throat, every little inch of it, as though he didn't want to miss any. Then he went lower and kissed between her boobs, all up and down the deep valley.

Then he took first one boob and then the other with his mouth. He was going quietly crazy, drooling for her. Her throat was wet, and her boobs glistened from his kissing. The brown nipples looked like they wanted to pop off and roll across the floor.

I was on my knees against the banister and although they didn't know it, I was going right along with them. Frank was kissing two women that way, Sis and me. I could feel his lips, his tongue and teeth, and I wanted to close my eyes like Sis; but I couldn't or I might have missed something.

Sis whispered, "Darling, darling, worship me! Quick. Oh, please! Don't torture me too long!"

Frank, worship me too, me first — I can't wait — Those were my whisperings up there on the landing. I didn't know what worship meant, but I knew it was more than just a word; and I wanted some of whatever it was too.

I guess I did close my eyes for a while, because then I saw that Sis' slacks were off. One leg was clear, and the slacks were bunched around the ankle of the other leg. But she was still in the same position, so I wondered how they'd done it.

And Frank, too. His trousers were open and down, but not off.

I felt cheated at what I'd missed, and I knew I wouldn't close my eyes again.

Frank was kissing under Sis' boobs now, still getting every inch. And she was moaning.

"Oh, you're cruel, so cruel. Don't make me wait. Darling, don't torture me."

I thought she must have been out of her mind, if that was torture, I'd take plenty of the same. As I watched, though, he did hurt her a little. When he got to her navel I saw his mouth open, and then his white teeth and his jaws closed.

Sis' eyes popped open along with her mouth, and she jerked up her head and her legs. Her knees stayed open as she pawed the air with her feet, kicking off her slacks in the process. A kind of gagging bark came out of her, and Frank shook his head like a dog with a bone, his teeth still closed; Sis' legs came way back and up as she reacted to the pain.

But now she didn't seem to mind. She did do a strange thing, though. Sis did exercises and was very supple, so touching her knee to her face was no trick. She did that now, but added something. She opened her mouth and began biting her own knee! It seemed crazy, and I was surprised at how exciting it was: Sis down there with Frank getting ready to worship her, and Sis biting her own knee as though she'd gone crazy.

Going right along with them as much as I could, I bent one finger and put a knuckle in my mouth, bit down on it. Hard. There was pain, but the pain was good. I got the same feeling that I knew Sis was getting, biting myself for the same reason, because I couldn't wait to be worshiped.

Then it seemed as though the whole room blurred, as though it was spinning around inside of my own head. Spinning and spinning, with Frank and Sis in the middle of the vortex or the eye of a storm, and the storm was whirling around me, too.

Then the vortex narrowed, and Sis' moans came from some invisible place because I couldn't see her face anymore. Or hardly even her boobs. All I could see were her straining thighs.

Frank's head was there, too, steady and solidly against Sis. The back of his head with the black curly hair and the muscles of his neck straining into two cords.

"Oh," Sis moaned. "Worship me, damn you!"

Getting hysterical now, as the time had arrived. And that was what happened. Sis straining and twisting on the lounge, her arms lashing and then her hands on the back of Frank's head, the fingers twined together, straining, pulling. It was like I saw them through a telescope now, because I could see Sis' knuckles and even the veins on the backs of her hands standing out like cords.

Then Frank began to fight and he began to sound angry, he was growling.

And Sis' frantic, pleading voice. "Oh, no! Don't stop! Pity me! Don't stop now! Oh, God."

My mind was whirling around inside my head, but it was still working. Pity her. What about poor Frank? He was fighting for breath and he pulled away, but Sis' fingers stayed twined and she went with him, off the lounge and down with her shoulders on the floor and pulling Frank down, down. My head was in a tailspin, my body and belly shaking like an old lady with ague.

"Don't stop! Please!"

Sis wanting, oh wanting so bad, and I understood from something I heard a girl at school say once. A man can leave a girl hanging sometimes, and that's what they do.

I'd heard a girl say that, and I'd wondered what it meant. But now I knew. And I was pleading right along with Sis. Oh, don't leave me hanging, Frank. Have pity. Don't leave me hanging.

I couldn't see any more. It was all a blur, and inside it was like every bone in my body had melted. I was livid with passion. My biggest moment was passing, and when it was gone I'd be gone.

I closed my eyes tight and opened them again and peered down. I'd heard gasps and low sounds from down there, and my blur cleared for just a moment; I saw them both on the floor, stretched out there with Frank's head on Sis' stomach, his chest heaving.

"You tenacious witch!" he gasped.

But it wasn't a curse or anything like that. He wasn't even mad. The way he said it, it was like a term of endearment.

Sis said, "She'll come." She gasped out the words like a person exhausted. And I knew she meant me. I might come home.

Frank laughed weakly. "Are you kidding?"

The way they were lying, Sis was in a position to caress him; and she was doing it.

"I'm sorry, darling. I'm so selfish at times like this."

Sis' hand began to move, but I couldn't stand anymore. It was as though I was ready to do a very embarrassing thing in public, and I had to get out of sight. I had to get to my own bedroom, to my own bed.

I practically had to crawl there, my knees were so weak. Then too, I couldn't make any noise. I got to my bed and on top of it and lay spread-eagled and in kind of a new heaven. Pity me. Don't stop now! Oh, don't ever stop! Maybe it was over for them down there, but I'd just begun. For me it wouldn't ever be over. I was sure of that. But after the balcony, I would have to have more than dream men.

From then on, dreams wouldn't be enough .