Chapter 4
"THEY THREW HER OUT OF THE CAR NAKED."
It was funny how my ears perked up any time I heard anything that sounded like sex. That was what I heard the next day at school, after my session in the pantry with Lex.
If I'd heard it before I met him, I'd have had a different psychological attitude. I'd have been all tingly and interested, but I would have been too timid to ask any questions.
But now it was different. I'd been involved in sex myself. I'd done tricks the other girls maybe never even heard of. I saw myself walking up to them and saying, "Yesterday a guy came to my house and before I knew it I was in the pantry with him. Before I could say a word he had me by the throat and he was — "
I quit dreaming because they were walking away, Sue King and Amy Dunne, and I hurried to catch them.
"Who got thrown out of what car naked?" I asked.
They both stared. Not because I was a stranger or anything like that. They were both in my class, and we were friends. They were just surprised at me asking a question like that.
Sue looked at Amy. "Well get her. You'd think she'd grown up overnight or something."
Maybe I did. But who were you talking about?"
They were both the type that can't resist passing on scandal. "Peg Williams," Sue said.
"What about her?"
"She met a man — "
Amy sniffed. "Picked him up, you mean."
That confused me. The way she said it. "I thought Peg was your friend."
"Why, she is!"
"Anyhow," Sue said, "she drove out in the county with this guy, and he talked her into the back seat."
Amy laughed. "Can't you just see Peg with her legs up in the air and that stupid look on her face that he probably mistook for passion?"
"Will you shut up?" Sue said. "I'm telling Lorna! Anyhow, he got her in the back seat, and pretty soon she didn't have any panties on."
"What's wrong with that?" I asked innocently.
Sue was amazed. "Why, Lorna, you've never said a thing like that before."
It was a thrill to shock them. I wanted them to know I had changed, that I wasn't a little stupe anymore. "Well, for God's sake. When you get into the back seat with a man, he doesn't want your panties in the way. How could he get anything?"
Amy was staring at me, and it made me feel good. Competent. A woman of the world. I'd been a fool to wait so long.
"Well," Sue said, "the panties went and then he got her sweater off, and all she had on was a skirt and a garter belt and stockings."
"What did he do?" I asked. "Take off her shoes to bite her toes?"
"That wasn't what he wanted to bite. The shoes fell off. He began to make love to her, and pretty soon she as too weak to resist; and all the rest of her clothes were gone."
"He must have been a real moron." I sniffed.
"Peg helped him, you can be sure of that," Amy said.
"Well, anyhow, maybe the guy was some kind of a nut because after he got through with Peg, he pushed her out of the car."
"Right there on the road?"
"They were back on a road in the woods, I guess, but there she was, stark naked out of the car with the guy waving her clothes at her from inside."
"How did you find this out?"
"She was over at my house the other night, and we had some drinks, the folks being away, and she told me as a secret." "A secret?"
"Well, I didn't tell anybody but Sue. She's my best friend."
"What did Peg do? Did the man finally give her back her clothes?"
"Yes, but you should hear what she had to promise him before he'd do it."
"I suppose a girl would promise anything under those conditions."
"Peg did anyhow. Then he let her get back into the car, and she spent an hour making good on her promises."
"I'd like to meet that guy." I said.
They stared at me in horror. "You're kidding!"
"I'm not. Honestly. I'd like to."
"You wouldn't want to go out with him!"
"Maybe, maybe not."
It felt good, having them look at me that way. It was so different from having them think of me as a shy little square. But they weren't patronizing me any more.
"Does he go to school here?"
"He's a man. He works in a gas station at Main and Sixth."
"What does he look like?"
"He's tall and blonde, very good looking. That was what fooled Peg."
"She didn't report him?"
"He scared her. He said he'd beat her ears off if she did." Amy sniffed. "A very vulgar person to say a thing like that."
Then the bell rang, we went to class, and they probably forgot what I'd said about wanting to meet the guy. But I hadn't. I thought about him all during class; on the way home I stopped off at the gas station to look him over. It was exciting to go in and look at him, know that I knew something about him he was unaware of.
He was tall and blond all right. And very handsome. And he certainly looked like a gentleman.
"May I use your phone?" I asked.
"Certainly, miss. Right there on the wall."
He didn't look like a man who would take a girl's clothes away from her and then make her do tricks to get them back. He wore a pair of white coveralls, and I was amazed at my own daring when I walked past him to get to the phone and acted as though I'd lost my balance and kind of fell against him. My thigh touched him hard, as I said, "Oh, pardon me," and acted a little flustered.
He helped me catch my balance, and I laughed to myself as I went on to the phone. I hadn't exactly aimed my fall but it told me something about him. Something he could get away with in loose coveralls.
It told me he was all man and touching him had been like touching a fire.
He went outside then, so I didn't have to go through too much of an act before I could hang up and go outside.
"Did you get your number?" he asked.
"Oh, I got it all right," I said. Knowing he wouldn't understand. What I meant was that I had his number.
Before I left school, I'd gone into the washroom and taken my bra off; and as I walked down the street I'd pulled my sweater down tight. That way my nipples showed big, and he was looking at them now.
"Those are real neat gas tanks," I said, smiling. "If I had a car, I'd buy gas from you."
He laughed. "I'll let you hold the hose while I gas my car up, if you like."
I laughed back at him. But I was laughing at what he reminded me of.
"Well, I guess I can give you some business,"
I said.
Then he showed his true colors with a very coarse remark, one a man would never make to a lady. His eyes narrowed and he said, "I could give you the business, too, honey."
I wanted to slap his face, talking to me like that, but I smiled and said, "I meant on the phone. I'll drop in and use it again."
He was looking at my boobs and nipples now, as though they were the last ones in world. I acted as though I didn't notice and stood there planning his future for him, or at least a little bit of it.
But not right away because I had Lex to take care of first. If Lex thought he was going to get away with the things he'd done to me, it was time he thought again.
"My name is Wells," the man said, "Hank Wells."
"Do you own this station?"
"No, but the boss is gone most of the day. I run it for him."
"Well, good-bye, Hank. I'll see you again."
"I certainly hope so, honey. Maybe we can take a little drive some hot night."
"Maybe."
I walked away, feeling his eyes lifting my skirt behind and looking underneath. All nights were hot ones for him. And I knew he was probably thinking what I'd look like running along beside his car naked, begging for my clothes. And he was probably conceited enough to be sure he could get me in that position. One of these guys who push themselves on a girl when she doesn't give them the least encouragement.
I hadn't known much about men up to that point, but I was learning fast. And it gave me a thrill to realize all the things I'd never experienced that were going to come my way.
Little Lorna, I mused as I walked away. Still a virgin but knowing so much about men. But not sitting around hoping and praying that some guy would look at me. Men weren't going to use me. I was going to use them.
There were going to be some real surprised guys before I got through.
And Lex was going to be the first...
He called on the phone the next afternoon. His lazy, insolent voice was the same, and it was all I could do to keep from telling him off. But I didn't because there was something I wanted him for. I'd decided to use Lex to get rid of my virginity. Of course, I suppose it was only a technical virginity, but it was all I had and losing it was my right.
I said, "If you want to have a talk with me, my sister goes shopping tomorrow afternoon."
"A talk?" he said, kind of surprised. "Oh, sure. When does she get home?"
"Well, she has dinner with a friend afterward. Maybe around eight o'clock."
I could see him licking his chops. Getting at me all alone, for four or five interrupted hours had him drooling.
I could hear his brain clicking, thinking up tricks he'd make me do. There'd been the trick in the balcony at the theater, and the one in the pantry. I wondered what others his agile mind would concoct.
And I knew he'd be surprised at the one I'd dreamed up.
After I hung up I went and got a book I liked to read. I'd bought it in a second-hand book store, and I'd read it several times. It was about insects, and I liked the part about black widow spiders.
With the black widow, the female is the boss and the male hardly counts. The female kills the male after she mates with him.
Up in my room, I had a box that I kept hidden from Sis; and in it I kept some things I'd found around the house, in the basement, and out in the yard. Insects and bugs and spiders.
I collected them thinking I might want to become an entomologist some day. If you catch a big fly, spider or butterfly and take it apart, you can learn a lot. When you take a fly and pull off its wings, legs and just before it dies, its head, you'd be surprised at its complicated structure.
I kept that box with the other book, the one I never let Sis see. I had a hard time buying it because the clerk in the book store thought I was too young. But I wasn't. I was young in years, but after he'd finished looking at my oversized boobs with the nipples sticking out and the slacks I wore that were so skin-tight over my rear and belly that you could practically see my pores, he decided I was old enough and sold me this book that was very instructive.
It showed just about every animal in the world, mating. Pictures. Over fifty of them. It was surprising, really, all the various animals in the world, including man, and all with the same idea.
Sex, when you consider its importance, makes the world go around.
I got a lot of my dreams and visions out of the book. When you study a book like that, you can come up with plenty of tricks.
I had to laugh when I thought of how Lex regarded me, as an innocent little kook.
While I was waiting for Lex that day, I took a shower and then a bath. I like water. I turned the shower on and set it so it was a hard, narrow blast of water, like a bayonet, sharp, and then I let it hit my skin.
The effect was terrific. Like being stabbed. I let it hit my back and legs and then turned around and put each boob under it, the water hitting me square on the nipple. First one, then the other, until I could hardly stand it.
Pain like that is wonderful.
But it was even more exciting when I'd lie down in the shower and let it hit me on the stomach and abdomen. Then came the really exciting part. The part I had to grit my teeth for. When I lifted myself back on my shoulders.
When I did this, I thought of something I'd read once about a jail for women. How the matrons treated them. When a girl broke the rules, they took her into the basement where they had a needle-spray hose. They took her clothes off and gave her a treatment. That was what they called it, a treatment.
While the other inmates watched so they'd learn a lesson and not break any rules, the matrons used the hose on the naked girl. They followed her around with the stream of water and directed the hose at her back, and before long they'd have her screaming and trying to climb the wall.
That was what I'd think of while I let the shower hit me with force. It was so exciting, I'd scream. I could really let go because I was alone, and the noise from the shower covered my howls for mercy.
When I couldn't stand it anymore, I'd fill a tub of water make it warm and soapy and go over every inch of myself, every spot I could reach. Doing that, I learned a lot about my own anatomy.
And maybe I could have gone on like that until I was an old woman, if it hadn't been for the experience in the balcony when I learned how much better it was with a man.
Lex had been the great disturbing element in my life, and so it was fair that he should pay for anything that might happen to me in the future.
Pay ahead of time.
After my shower and bath, I went down into the basement and got everything ready and then came up stairs and waited for him.
All I wore was a bright-colored sack with nothing under it.
Then there was a knock at the kitchen door, and I opened it and saw his insolent, grinning face leering at me. But I didn't look at that. I looked below and my excitement rose. My knees got a little weak. His skin-tight slacks showed the muscles of his thighs, the latent power and vitality in him, waiting to be aroused.
"Hi, chick," he said, "ready for a little session?" He made it a sneer, like I was a hooker, or something.
I put the sullen, resigned look on my face. "Why don't you drop dead."
He pushed on in, grinning. "Your sister's still out shopping?"
"She'll be gone for three or four hours."
He stepped up to me and ran his hands over my boobs, as though I were a prize cow or something. His hands went lower, and I could feel what they were finding; everything began to get hazy, my thoughts tumbling.
"You're stupid," he said.
"In what way?"
"You're so dumb you ask for it. You tell me your sister's away. That leaves you wide open for getting worked over real good."
"Why don't you get out of here?"
What he was feeling through my dress widened his eyes a little. He reached down, caught my skirt and pulled it up. His grin deepened as he looked. But there was more. Actually respect in his face.
"God! You are a woman!" "Didn't you ever see a woman before?" I said sullenly.
Still holding my dress up, he pushed against me; and I could feel the rough cloth of his slacks against my skin. The cloth was abrasive now from his nervous excitement. He was a real man, and what was added scared me a little. But there was the excitement, too.
He said, "Look, honey. Why not just relax and enjoy it?"
I put a look on my face that said, Okay, maybe that made sense. "Let's go down in the basement."
"What for?"
"Don't ask so many questions."
I walked away, and all he could do was follow me. He came down the stairs behind me and was surprised. "Hey! This is something."
He was looking at the mattress I'd laid out, but he didn't see the other things. He looked at the thick cement walls, too. It's quiet down here. I'll bet you could yell real loud and nobody would hear."
"Why would you want to yell?" I asked, still wanting him to think I was dumb. Just a dumb nympho.
He grinned slyly. "Well, you said you're a virgin."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Sometimes, the first time, it can be rough."
I looked at him sullenly. And I decided right then that love and sex didn't go together. People who said so were lying. When a man looks at a woman and wants her, it isn't for love. It's for the opposite. To hurt her, degrade her and make her crawl. That's where they get the big kick. The other thing, the ecstasy, goes along with it, but their big kick is to see a girl crawling with her nose in the dirt.
He rubbed her nose in the dirt.
That was one of the expressions I'd heard at school, and I never forgot it. So nobody was going to kid me about love.
"Getting a virgin is a big bang for you, isn't it?" I asked.
He shrugged. "All you dames are the same."
I turned away from him to make sure the things under the mattress were hidden and to keep him from seeing how eager I really was. My knees were like water. My nipples were hard, and I could feel a pulsing in them. The muscles in my belly were pulsing too lightning and loosening as though they wanted to fly away. As though my nervous muscles had a life of their own.
"Take it off," he said.
I knew what he meant and kept the sullen look on my face as I pulled my dress off over my head. I stood there. He looked me over. His face was turning animal, his mouth twisting. It was like I was an enemy that he'd finally cornered, and he was going to give her hell; and there would be a savage joy in it.
He didn't know there would be a savage joy in it for me too.
"Lie down, damn you."
I lay down on the mattress. "You don't have to swear at me," I said. "I'm giving you what you want."
He began to undress as I lay there watching him "You're damned right you are. Now and whenever I want it. From now on when I say bend over or lie down, all you ask is how quickly. Get it?"
"I get it."
He stripped, and as he took his shorts off he stared, grinning into my eyes, looking for fright, wanting me to be scared of what he showed me. Wanting me to whine and whimper.
I was still playing his game so I whimpered. "Please be gentle with me."
"Oh, sure. I'll be gentle, baby. We'll take all afternoon and go real slow. You'll never know it happened."
"You don't mean that. You're going to hurt me."
He grinned and he licked his lips; they were red and shiny 'Well, maybe a little, baby. It always hurts a little the first time."
"Please be gentle."
His face was hardening. "In fact," he said in choked voice, "it may hurt a lot."
He stood over me now, reached down and took an ankle in each hand. He straightened up and then changed suddenly, grinning like a clown.
I knew then that he was sick and probably would be put away sometime. They say that even when you're a little sick that way, it gets worse and worse and you finally have to be put away.
I sensed that Lex was sick because of the quick changes in his mood. Now he was a clown, and he began doing exercises as though my legs were dumbbells or something. He kept his grip on my ankles and knelt there with his back straight and began swinging his arms, as though with dumbells, out horizontally and back again.
He grinned with that same clownishness. "One —two. Three — four."
"Stop it."
He stopped with his arms straight out on either side, looking down at me.
I whimpered, "Please—"
But it ended with kind of a grant, because he changed. The clown look vanished, and the mad man look came back; he lunged at me.
He didn't let go of my ankles, and so my legs went forward, over my head and the strain of my muscles was acute.
I was looking up at my own feet when his whole weight came down on me with a thud.
He was completely mad now. I could see it in his eyes. His mouth was open, and his eyes were kind of glazed; his body was lunging up and down wildly with no direction, just like a lust-crazed animal.
He hit my flesh savagely, again and again, and I knew he'd leave small bruises everywhere he hit.
His face was close to mine, and there was no place to put my arms except around him. I was scared plenty at that moment. I'd taken too much of a chance. Maybe he'd kill me before it was over. Maybe I couldn't do what I'd planned.
I'd been a fool.
Then there was a shriek of agony, and I knew it came from me. It was his last, hard lunge, when found what he'd been hunting for. My vision blurred from the rending shock, but in the middle of the blur I could see his face close to mine. There was a look of savage victory in it, sadistic delight in having been rough. His way with a virgin. Holding me helpless with my legs locked that way, he lay still for a moment, savoring his deep triumph, tasting it with the whole weight of his body at that point.
Then it began. Slow at first, the pace of passion. The unavoidable drive and motion.
It was pure torture at first. Everything had been painful. That one brutal lunge had ruined me. It was all over before I'd started.
Then it changed for me, and I realized I would have delighted in the pain of that first lunge if I'd known what was coming. It had been the surprise that had thrown me off.
Now it was different. Each lunge was pain that made me grit my teeth. But it was savagely wonderful. His hot mad body on mine. His strained, distorted face. His tongue coming out and trying to reach my open mouth but being jerked back every time he returned to the top of one of those ecstatic lunges.
My hands slid down his back, and the way he had me practically standing on my shoulders, his thighs and buttocks were within easy reach. I clawed at them and felt my nails go in. I ripped my nails across his buttocks and knew the wetness was blood.
"Oh, lover," I choked. "Do me! Do me hard! Don't stop."
He was cursing me under his labored breath. Not hearing my words because I wasn't even there as far as he was concerned. He called me vile things in every way he could think of and probably didn't even feel me clawing him, not even when I found his soft flesh and clawed at that, went deep, deep into it. Frantically.
I remembered the balcony and tried to find his flesh, and if I had I'd have hurt him but I couldn't reach him. So I had to settle for the other.
We were rising now, together. We had become one, so when I clawed him I was clawing myself. And what he was doing to me was self-abuse. He was doing it to himself. And all those names he called me were his own hatred and disgust at what he was, not what I was. He was calling himself a tramp and a degenerate and worse.
He'd bounced me off the mattress, and we were on the cement floor; it gouged at my back. It gouged an inch at a time with every lunge as he pushed me along.
Then we rose to the unbearable. I brought my hands up and caught his head in them, pulled it down so I could find his lips with my mouth and tongue. That would make us a complete circle, a single united thing.
His hot mouth pressed to mine in his passion, and that was good too. He cursed right down my throat with the same rhythm that he was using for his assault on my body.
And my answer now was, "Yes, oh, yes! Always yes!"
Then I was screaming into his throat, and I think the unbearable delight made me pass out for a moment or two, because there was a quick vision from one of the pictures on my mating book. A great stallion trumpeting and pawing. And the cringing mare.
And it was over...