Chapter 9
The truck continued to roll Over the scorching desert, and if it weren't for the rush of the wind through the open window they would have suffocated.
And yet the heat seemed to have affected them all, agitating them into a frenzy that they tried desperately to quench as one would quench a thirst.
Elaine dozed with the man at her side for perhaps a half hour, and then they returned again to their love play. Soon she admitted him as the caress of his hands and lips on her body drove her into a frenzy of desire.
And then they dressed and climbed down into the cab of the truck. The man she had been making love to took the wheel while Lola and the other driver climbed eagerly into the bunk in back.
It went on like that through the afternoon and into the night. Elaine returned to the bunk several times, always willing, always expectant.
The more she received, the more she wanted. It seemed that the fire could never be quenched. And yet it was wild and intoxicating, and she never really wanted it to stop.
Again and again the man worked her up with his caressing hands, his exploring mouth. And it seemed that he was tireless as well, for she was always able to ready him with the touch of her own caress.
But it had to end at last, and it did when they pulled into El Paso in the early light of dawn. The two men deposited them at a cheap motel, where they immediately rented a room and fell into bed.
They were exhausted. They slept until dark, and then they walked up the highway to a diner where they ate ravenously. And then they returned to the bed and slept again until the next morning.
The next couple of rides were tame compared to the wild journey in the truck. But then they caught a ride with two drugstore cowboys from a small Texas town. Even Lola wasn't interested in making love to them, so Elaine and Lola were put out on the blazing Texas plain somewhere between Kent and Pecos.
There wasn't a square inch of shade in any direction because the sun was directly overhead. There was m nothing but yellow rocks and dust and a few tufts of grass.
Finally they caught a ride into Pecos on a bread delivery truck, and there they found trees with welcome shade. They stayed in the shade at the edge of town until they were picked up by a young divinity student from a nearby college who kept quoting the Bible and casting side glances at their legs squeezed inside the tight-fitting jeans.
That night they slept in an abandoned shed near Sonora in order to save what little money they had left. The next day was another scorching journey through the hot Texas plains, under a blazing sun.
They crossed the Nueces River on a bridge and ran down the bank to jump in after they had stripped out of their clothes. It was muddy from a recent rain, but refreshing. And it washed off most of the dust they had picked up the last two days.
After a series of short rides, they arrived in Laredo after dark. They had enough money left for two bus tickets to Monterrey. They decided to go that far by bus and then worry about getting down to San Miguel.
But the next bus didn't leave until six in the morning. So they had the whole night to spend in Laredo and no place to spend it. They left their suitcases at the bus station.
At the first bar they passed, the sound of Latin music lured them to the door. They looked in. A half dozen drunk Texans led them to the bar and started buying them tequila. It was the first time Elaine had ever tasted tequila, and she found that it went down
Hi very easily with a little salt and a slice of lemon.
It went down too smoothly. Before they knew it, they were crocked, wearing ten gallon hats, singing barroom songs with twenty cowboys.
And then there was a blank space, a tequila blackout. The next thing Elaine remembered, she and Lola were staggering down a dark narrow street that smelled like a sewer. After that they sat at a crowded counter in a narrow cafe, drinking black coffee and eating some strange kind of pastry that looked like a giant doughnut, but tasted like cardboard.
Then there were three of them walking down a dark street once more. They turned in at an opening in a mud wall, found themselves in a sparsely furnished room with a bed, a mirror and a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
The third person was a girl who was probably still in her teens. A dark haired girl with black, glistening eyes. She wore a loose cotton dress, and there seemed to be nothing under it but the girl herself.
It appeared that the girl had offered them a place to sleep the rest of the night. The three of them were in the same bed, minus clothing.
Elaine slept and then awoke in a drunken daze, aroused by the gasping sounds Lola was making beside her. She sat up, and in the pale light that filtered through the single dusty window, she saw a cascade of black hair covering Lola's body.
The strange girl was on her hands and knees, writhing her haunches, her face buried against Lola. And Lola was rolling her head, making heavy, panting sounds in her throat.
Elaine watched for a moment, felt her insides grow weak, and then turned away with her eyes shut tightly.
She slept again while strange nightmares crowded her brain. And then she came awake in the dingy room with a hot flame licking at her.
Her hand went down, and she discovered a mound of coarse long hair at her middle. She resisted for a moment, tried to push the girl away.
And then she gave in and let it happen, sobbing and gasping as Lola had done at the fiery torment that was almost driving her out of her mind. Only when the agony ended in a brilliant, shattering flash that seemed to tear her apart, did she fall off to sleep again.
The next time she awoke it was daylight. Lola was sleeping beside her in the filthy bed, but the girl was gone.
Elaine had never felt her mouth so dry. She sat up and then gritted her teeth as a thousand nails were driven through her skull to her brain.
She rubbed her head carefully, stroking the temples with her fingers, but the pain wouldn't go away. She knew from experience that the only antidote would be a hair of the dog that had bit her.
But as low as they were on cash, they couldn't afford even one shot apiece at the filthy dive where they had spent last night drinking.
She wondered curiously where the girl had gone who had slept in the bed with them last night. Then, with sudden apprehension she jumped to the floor and grabbed her jeans. Her hands fumbled in the pockets. She gave a miserable sigh.
The pockets were empty. The money she had carried rolled up in a wad was gone. The money they were going to buy tickets with, to take them to Monterrey.
She shook Lola's arm.
"Wake up, Lola," she said grimly.
Lola blinked her eyes, then sat up rubbing her head. Her yellow hair was uncombed, hanging in her eyes.
"Oh, what a head," she said painfully. "Have you got one too, girl?"
"Worse than that," Elaine said. "I've got bad news."
"What?"
"We're busted."
Lola blinked her eyes sleepily. Then she stood up, holding her head. "Busted?"
"Our nice little friend rolled us," Elaine said, holding up her jeans.
"Oh, brother," Lola moaned. "What are we going to do? I've just got to have a swig of tequila before I come back to life. Even if it kills me."
"I wish that was our only problem...."
"Well, it's her room," Lola said, looking around. "She's got to come back...."
Elaine shook her head.
"That's probably more money than she's had all her life. She could stay away a week. Do you want to wait that long?"
"I guess you're right," Lola said. And then she shrugged. "Well, it won't do any good to cry about it.
Let's get on down the road. Maybe something will develop."
"We'll have to sell something if we want to eat. The trouble is, we don't have anything left to sell." Lola giggled.
"We might start selling what we've been giving away...."
Elaine ignored her. She started climbing into her clothes because the place was getting her down. The bed smelled like wet chicken feathers.
They dressed and went into the bright sun. They didn't know what way it was to town until they asked an old man. It was quite a walk, and they were dragging when they arrived at the bus station.
They picked up their suitcases and were standing on the curb, staring at the bridge which crossed into Mexico, when a bent, limping chevy pulled up beside them with a loud tearing of brakes.
There were three smiling boys in the front seat, all with close-cropped hair and freshly washed faces. There were suitcase in back.
"Tequila!" the nearest boy said, lifting his hand in a friendly greeting.
"Tequila!" Lola replied. And then she placed the flat of her hand on her forehead. "Oh, damn-"
"Where you gals headed?"
"We were headed for San Miguel until we ran out of cash all at once last night," Lola said.
"Take you as far as Monterrey."
"We're busted," Lola said sadly. "Can't even buy our way across the border now." ill
The three boys put their heads together, and then the nearest one grinned.
"We'll buy your tourist cards and keep you in tequila too. How's that for a deal?"
"Sold," Lola said.
She pulled the door open and squeezed into the back seat, crawling over the boys' backs with her battered suitcase. Elaine followed her. There was just enough room for the two of them to sit cramped together once they had stacked the suitcases in the corner.
The driver spun the wheels pulling away from the curb. In half an hour they were through Mexican customs and rolling down the highway through the dry flat country, surrounded by mesquite and cactus.
There just happened to be a bottle of tequila in the car which was passed around with another bottle of something red called sangrita. It tasted like tomato juice and tabasco, but it washed down the fiery tequila.
In no time at all Elaine's hang-over was gone. And by the time they reached Monterrey in the late afternoon, she was feeling no pain. Everybody was drunk. Lola had traded places with one of the boys in the front seat, and he held Elaine on his lap while they smooched.
He was pleased with himself when he discovered that Elaine had nothing on under her blouse. His hands on her bare breasts and the tequila kept her in a perpetual state of happy excitement.
They pulled into Monterrey and toured the dusty streets until they found a third-rate hotel that would rent them all a single room with no questions asked. The boys were from a college in Pennsylvania, and they had come down to spend a month of their vacation in Mexico.
As soon as they had moved into the room, one of the boys went out for food and more tequila. They ate tacos bought from a street vendor and washed them down with tequila and dark Mexican beer.
Then somehow they all ended up in bed-two beds actually, which they pulled together to make one.
And the party was on.
Lola and Elaine were the star attractions. Between them they kept the three boys happy. It went on a night and a day and another night. The tequila flowed and the bed was the scene of one continuous orgy.
It was like the night in Lake Tahoe, only wilder and more spectacular.
There were three boys instead of two, and at times there were five of them together on the combined beds giving each other mutual love in an unbelievable variety of ways.
Elaine found herself once with three boys, doing fantastic contortions with her body, giving and receiving the wildest sensations. And she was so numb and deadened by tequila that it seemed the most natural thing in the world. There was no sense of shame and no repulsion.
And all the while Lola tried to outdo her in wantonness. Elaine watched, and even then felt no revulsion because the tequila had carried her beyond the point where she cared about anything except the orgiastic thrills of the moment.
There was a kind of shameful high point when two boys caressed her breasts with their excited mouths and the other tormented her elsewhere on her quivering body.
She lay outspread upon the bed with her legs hanging over the side.
She whimpered and moaned in the depths of her throat.
She clawed the sheets.
She flung her head about in a wild fit of agony.
Three caresses upon her at once filled her with an exquisite madness that she never wanted to end.
Her body trembled.
The room went dim before her eyes.
And then the finish came, enveloping her in a sheet of flame. She cried to the sky at the top of her lungs. And still the torturing mouths clung to her, caressing her until every last ounce of strength was drained from her shivering body.