Chapter 3
Outside the cook tent Cotty held Debra back while he cupped his hands to light a cigarette. He didn't offer her one; she didn't smoke. He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. "I don't like that guy worth a damn."
"Dan? The feeling's mutual," Debra said with a mischievous chuckle. "He doesn't like you, either."
He peered at her narrowly. "Have you been talking to him about me? I don't know as I like that."
Debra dropped her gaze and folded her hands demurely before her, as though acknowledging the rebuke.
Cotty decided not to pursue it. What the hell was Dan Fields to him ? He let his breath go with a sigh and said, "Well, what's the schedule? What do we do tonight?"
Without looking up, Debra said, "How about a movie? There's a late one showing in town. A musical."
Cotty grunted in exasperation. Debra was a movie addict; she gulped movies like an insomniac swallowed pills. Sometimes the movie houses in the towns where the carnival played had late showings for the carnie employees who never got through work until well past midnight. With a resigned shrug Cotty took her arm and started down the midway.
Debra said meekly, "I've already told Evan that's where we were going. Since that night two weeks ago when we were out so late...."
They were passing under a light and Cotty saw the wash of color across Debra's face. He grinned faintly and her glance jumped away.
"Anyway, after that night," Debra hurried on, "he made me promise to always let him know where I was going."
"And you're always yakking about being grown up! You'd better let your old man in on the secret."
She made a sound of distress. "But darling, don't you see? Ever since Mom died ... I was only seven ... I've been away at school. Now that I'm back Evan can't yet believe that I am grown up. I have to give him time to get used to the idea."
Cotty grunted. "Okay, baby, okay. Let's skip it, huh?"
They passed through the midway entrance, the arching neon tubing overhead cold and silent. They caught a cab uptown.
The movie theater was about half filled; a large number of those present were carnies. Cotty and Debra took a seat in the back of the house. Debra snuggled close, her hand warm and still in his. She concentrated all her attention on the movie, a brassy musical. Cotty cared very little for movies and he was soon restless. His gaze drifted around the darkened theater, picking out those carnies he knew. He would much rather have been in a bar at that moment, a bar filled with carnies. Not to drink, but to talk of his big day. His roving glance finally swung back to Debra's rapt face and he smiled to himself. She was wholly absorbed in the movie. She was like a kid in many ways. But not all. Definitely not all!
Last season had been Cotty's first as a carnie. He had worked as a shill for Gil Meeks' wheel joint. A shill is considered only a step above the canvasmen and the ridemen in the carnie social structure. He had met Debra toward the end of last season when she'd come to visit her father, but it wasn't until this year that his increased status as a show talker had given Cotty the courage to ask her for a date. There had been immediate resistance from Evan Frost. Evan was big and burly, always strong with cooking odors. The two men had disliked each other at once. At first, Evan had refused to allow his daughter to go out with Cotty. But Debra had prevailed. Evan couldn't deny her anything for very long.
In the beginning the dates had been innocuous enough: a movie, a late dinner in town, and once a dance. Then came the night Debra had mentioned a little while ago, the night when they didn't return to the carnival lot until dawn. Debra had been a virgin. Nothing could have surprised Cotty more. He had known many women, the first at fifteen, a married woman more than twice his age. But he had never known a virgin....
It had been a warm night, that night two weeks ago, with a moon full and golden. From their very first date, Cotty had tried to seduce her, but Debra had always managed to fight him off at the last moment. She would let him go so far and that was it. Some instinct had warned him not to force it and he had accepted the rebuffs with ill grace.
But this particular night was different from the start. They had been to dinner and Debra had had two drinks which left her slightly tipsy. Afterward, they strolled hand in hand through the empty streets. Debra clung to him, her fingers digging into his arm. She was unduly nervous, her laughter too quick and climbing. Once, she pulled him into a darkened store front and lifted her mouth. She was in a sweater and a thin summer skirt. In his arms she was soft and pliable, her mouth loose and hot and sweet. A moan clogged her throat as he kissed her. Cotty felt a throb of desire. But, as his hand probed under the sweater for her breast, Debra tore away from him with low, nervous laughter.
There was a small park on the edge of town. It was deserted at that hour of the night. They found a great tree spreading its branches over a gentle slope. The grass was thick and fragrant, shadow-speckled from the moonlight sifting down through the leaves.
Cotty pulled Debra down onto the grass with him. She snuggled into the crook of his shoulder. Cautiously he cupped her breast in his hand. She stirred, murmuring, and then was still. Her lips at his ear, she whispered, "Cotty ... Do you love me? Tell me, please."
He experienced a spasm of annoyance. They were all the same. Every woman wanted to hear those words. Even the first one, who'd probably accommodated at least a hundred men, had demanded that assurance. She had withheld her favors until Cotty had mouthed the words she wanted to hear.
To Debra he said, "What do you think? Why do you think I spend all my time with you?"
Her soft sigh came. "I just wanted to hear you say it, darling." Her lips moved down his neck and across the line of his jaw to his mouth. When his tongue entered her mouth, her fingers dug into the muscles of his back in relaxing convulsions. Then she fell away and lay prone on the grass.
Cotty raised up on one elbow and looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, the lashes long and shadowy. In the moonlight her skin glinted like the surface of a pearl. Her breasts were pert mounds under the sweater. He caught at the bottom edge of the sweater and Debra raised herself slightly, elevating her hands over her head. He peeled the sweater off in one motion. His fingers found the snap of her brassiere. Her breasts were small and white, the nipples the color of a kitten's tongue. He closed his hands around the smooth firmness of her up-thrust breasts and a pulse banged in his throat as he felt the leaping response of the tiny breast-buds. She seemed about to burst with the ripening approach to womanhood. Her body was young, untried, yet her eyes were knowing and hungry.
He lowered his mouth to the warm flutter of the pulse in her throat. Against his ear were the mute murmurings of her parted lips. His mouth moved down to her breasts and found an erect nipple. He could hear the wild thumping of her heart. His fingers moved over the sleekness of stockings, over taut garters and onto firm, silken thighs. He drove his hand all the way up to nylon-sheathed softness. Debra gasped, her breath hissing, and she arched against his hand. Suddenly she went lax, a moaning sound coming from her. Then she was naked beneath him; somehow his own clothes were stripped away. He felt her lightly touching fingers on his bare back as she waited. He responded to her unvoiced command with experienced hands and practiced movements. In a moment he moved around on his knees to take her. Dimly he heard her whispered plea, "Cotty ... be gentle. This is the first time for me."
He didn't believe her, not for a second, but he was too far gone in lust to care one way or another. He took her in straining, shuddering silence. There was a moment when she flinched away from him with a small cry of distress, but her wail was lost in the great roaring in his head. Debra went limp under him. Unheeding, Cotty drove desperately toward the final skyrocketing flare of ecstasy, his body pounding her relentlessly.
When it was done, when his passion broke, leaving him weak and shuddering, he knew she had been telling the truth. He had been the first. She lay in a broken sprawl, her face turned away into the crushed grass. As the full knowledge of her virginity burst upon him, he felt a surge of powerful male pride. He held himself ready for the tears, the recriminations. But there were no tears, then or later. If she felt any regrets, she never expressed them to him. Not once. And that was not to be the last time. Twice, since that night...."Cotty?"
He started and glanced around at the sound of Debra's voice, blinking in the sudden glare of light. The movie was over and people were leaving the theater. He nodded curtly to Debra's inquiring look and followed her out into the aisle. In the lobby Cotty paused to light a cigarette. Debra was prattling something about the movie, but he listened with only a part of his mind.
"Starke?"
He spun around at the sound of his name. Basil Greer loomed tall just behind him with Paula on his arm. Paula stood with her eyes downcast, the madonna face demure and untroubled. She looked as untouchable as an ice maiden.
"It was my thought that you understood our relationship." Greer's voice was slow, measured, as though he spoke past a speech impediment. "In any case, I will clarify it for you now."
"But I...." Cotty started to say.
"You work for me as a front talker," Greer swept on. "And that is the extent to which you are involved with my wife and me. Do I make make myself clear?"
"No, you don't make yourself clear." Cotty felt a prod of temper. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about!"
Greer's gaze was level. "I think you do. I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. There is a line which you do not step over. If you do, I will find myself another front talker."
Cotty's will crumpled under Greer's penetrating stare and he had to look away. Greer led Paula off. Just before they passed through the theater entrance, she glanced back. Her look was taunting. And yet, somehow, she contrived to make it seem they were conspirators, sharing some guilty secret. Cotty's humiliation was scalding. He could only stare after them, seething.
Debra tugged at his sleeve. "Cotty? What was that all about, darling?"
He rounded on her. "Just shut up! Just shut the hell up!"