Chapter 10
HE DIDN'T FIND ANYTHING.
To find something, you have to know what it is you looking for, and Jimmy now knew less than when he had started out on the road just what that thing was.
Something.
What?
Kicks, maybe. ATI kinds of experiences; experiences that were different from any he had had before. That might have been it, to begin with, but somehow in the process of having them the idea lost its meaning, and now he wasn't even sure that that was it. For one thing, the people Matty knew seemed to be having kicks all the time, and the longer he stayed there the less surprised he was by them, Things that were at first very exciting became eventually almost commonplace-people dropping in at all kinds of odd hours, to talk, to drink, to smoke a joint, to listen to records or to go into a bedroom and play.
It was all very strange to him until he began to realize that this was all very normal to them. Not that this wasn't fun-he had his kicks, too, with more than one chick who spied him and promptly had eyes for him.
He did a lot of things during the next week at Matty's. He forgot about getting a job, or a gig, as they called it. There was always something to eat in the pantry, a scrap of bread or some leftover slices of pizza or part of a chicken Matty had stolen from the restaurant she worked in. There was always some wine somebody had left from the night before, or a few roaches of marijuana left in ashtrays to get high on. And Matty didn't seem to complain about his extended stay there, so why work?
She seemed to like him, in fact. And now that he knew she was a full-fl-edged Lesbian, she intrigued him.
After his initial disgust at the discovery, he forgot about that as far as doing a lot of conscious thinking about it was concerned, and he learned a lot from her.
They talked a lot. She told him about things he had never thought about before-things like modern art, poetry, way-out jazz music and musicians, even philosophy. A lot of it he didn't understand and a good deal of it he wasn't very interested in, but she managed to get him interrested in a lot more things than he might otherwise have been, and it was fun listening to her talk.
He liked her.
A lot.
This fact was all the more confusing to him, considering what he knew about her.
How could you like a Lesbian? He had always thought of them as being funny, objects of ridicule or scorn.
He hated them but he learned to tolerate them when they came around. A lot of her friends seemed to be that way. He'd just take off or sit silently in a corner, getting stoned or sipping wine or drinking espresso.
Lesbians, weirdos-he got to see them all. A real human circus, passing before his eyes.
Some of the stuff he saw going on nobody back home would believe if he told them. But he had no idea whether or not he was ever going home again anyway, so he didn't think about telling anyone. If you dug a thing, you didn't have to do a lot of talking about it.
He dug Matty. That was his hang-up, he began to realize. She should have disgusted him, but when he was alone with her he dug her, liked being around her, liked listening to her voice and liked lying in bed with her and letting her stroke him.
That was pretty nutty.
Sometimes he wondered if he was flipping, going along with a bit like that. Maybe he was.
But, the hell, he couldn't figure out his next move, so there he was, all hung-up on a chick who preferred little girls to little boys. Espresso and talk and wine and turning on and more talk-the whole bit.
The night he got into bed with a girl named Rosie who lived on the next street over in a tiny pad with her sister. Rosie was nineteen and her sister was twenty-three and worked nights in a bakery. When she came home that morning and found him in bed with her kid sister, instead of kicking him out of the house she promptly took off her clothes and climbed into bed with them, and Jimmy spent all that morning with two chicks.
That was a kick.
Rosie was a redheaded athletically built girl with a hard firm body and her sister was a big built-for-comfort brunette who couldn't find a bra big enough for her, and between the two of them Jimmy was busier than an amateur Russian track star in training for a meet in the States.
"You be good to my little sister," big sister would admonish, watching while Jimmy did his damndest to be good to the little filly, and then big sister would do things with her hands and mouth that made it impossible not to be good for Rosie.
Thus they formed a three-ring circus.
Fun and games. But all play and no work makes Jack a very tired boy. Jimmy, returning to Matty's was almost glad his roommate was the way she was.
Almost.
But almost doesn't count. Matty did everything for him a girl can do except the one thing he wanted her to do, and the situation became more and more frustrating.
Agonizing, in fact.
And at times, downright painful. A couple of times he came home from a foray around Chinatown or lower Market Street or a jaunt along Fisherman's Wharf to find her bedded but not asleep with another girl, giving her all in the cause of true love. She let Jimmy watch, but that was all. He'd light up a joint and get sick and disgusted and stoned as he watched, an exquisite form of self-torture which became a habit.
Smoking the weed was like that-it could make you lose active interest eventually. Jimmy explored the secrets of pot one by one, until it held none for him.
His conversations with Matty became a ritual too, always the same.
"I like you, Matty. Why don't we...."
"No. Anything but that."
"God, haven't you ever even tried that?"
"I told you I have. I just don't like that, that's all-that makes me sick to my stomach!"
"Maybe not this time."
"Yes."
"How do you know?"
"Because that always does, that's how. If you want to stay here, Jimmy, you've got to stop asking me for that. What's wrong with the other chicks you've been sleeping with?"
"Nothing," he said glumly. "I just don't feel the same way about them, is all."
"I'm touched. But I just can't help you that way. Don't you have a steady girl back home?"
He evaded that question, wondering if he did or not. He hadn't bothered to try the number Myra had given him. despite his resolution to do just that.
By now, she had probably given up anyway and gone on back to Coram.
To kill time, he stripped the Harley down, working Jn the shed with tools borrowed from a guy who built hot rods, cleaning and checking each part, greasing it, reassembling them again and then waxing the paint and chrome until the machine gleamed like new in the afternoon sunlight.
It was in perfect working order by the time he was done. The only problem was, he couldn't make up his mind to leave.
This led him eventually into a state of depression. He would wander around the city, glum-faced, aimlessly walking while he stewed in his own juices. Normally cheerful by nature, being depressed was a new thing to him, and he blamed it on the marijuana he had been smoking. A good part of the time his brain seemed dull, slowed down, and he lacked the energy to do much of anything.
But it wasn't pot, he secretly knew. It was her.
She was driving him crazy.
Another week of that and he was just about going out of his head. He lost all interest in other chicks, rejecting their offers of a night in bed. Things became so bad he began to lose any physical desire at all.
This worried him. That would worry any male, and especially him, being only seventeen. Could pot do this to you, too? He wondered. He wished he were eighteen so that he could go and enlist in the navy and forget the whole thing, break out of this mental bind he was in. He even thought of going down to the enlistment place and lying about his age, but somehow he didn't even have the will to carry such a simple plan through. They would want proof or something that he was eighteen, and he didn't have any.
And didn't care.
He thought about all the things he had seen along the road, the guys he had met and the chicks he had had, and one day out of sheer desperation he talked Matty into lending him ten bucks and went out to get roaring drunk.
He started in the afternoon, drinking beer in a little place down near the wharf. Some idle dock hands were in there, playing the bowling machine. Jimmy challenged them for beers and won six straight before they gave up. Six tall cold bottles of beer in mid-afternoon and he was on his way.
He walked stiffly out into the blazing late afternoon sun, wearing his Air Force surplus sunglasses, and began the long climb uphill to find another place to drink in a different section.
A fancy place, he thought. No more beat hangouts, seedy bars smelling of urine and sweat. He had spent less than a dollar of the ten, winning all those beers, and had a head start on a good high already.
The bar he chose was a cocktail lounge in the uptown section, near an expensive and fashionable hotel. His leather jacket open, soiled tee shirt underneath hanging out, he sauntered in, went up to the fancy walnut bar and eased a hip onto a plush-bottomed, high-backed stool.
The bartender looked like a character from an English film, cropped mustache, gray hair and all. He looked at Jimmy and his nose wrinkled slightly, as though he had smelled something bad.
"You must have made a mistake, young man," he said, peering down his nose. "One is required to wear a jacket in here."
"I'm wearing one," Jimmy said belligerently
"I mean a suit jacket. And tie."
"Okay, man," he said, placing his hands on the bar and slurring his words deliberately, the way Ronnie would have, "like lend me yours, huh?" And he slowly reached out and made as if to grab the man's black tie.
"You'd better leave here, fellow, or I'll have to call the police."
"Call the police," Jimmy mimicked, feeling nastier by the minute. "Like I'm a customer, Jack-like serve me, huh?"
"Certainly not! We don't serve beatniks in this place!"
Jimmy stood up, raising himself to full heighth and shoving his face at the bartender's.
"You don't huh? You ever been beaten by a beatnik?" His voice sounded so nasty it surprised even him as he said it. But it felt good. A hard cold anger burned in him now; a reckless anger that knew no limits. The lousy square needed a pasting, and he was ready to give it. He caught him by the shirt-front, jerked him onto the bar, and drew his arm back to swing at the round, middle-aged kisser.
"Don't!" a female voice cried.
Jimmy held back, surprised by the noise. He hadn't seen anyone in the place, but now, looking down at the end of the bar, he saw her.
She was a knockout. A vision in platinum and black, with dark narrow glasses covering her eyes, but not her face, which was beautiful, with lavender colored lips and exquisite white teeth. Her bosom was tremendous, spilling out over the bar in two mammoth curves, a lot of the deep cleavage showing above the low cut top of the black dress.
"Don't do that," she repeated in a clear throaty voice. "The young man is right, Francis. He's a customer, so you're required to serve him."
Jimmy let go of the bartender, who fell back, his face beet red, and smoothed his wrinkled tie and shirt.
"Of course, Mrs. Devereaux," he said, nodding deferentially in her direction. "Whatever you say."
Jimmy grinned unpleasantly. "Give me a double Scotch and soda then, gramps-easy on the wash, too!"
"That's on me, Francis," the woman's cool voice said. "We'll drink it in a booth, please."
She slid off the stool and walked over to a booth away from the bar. Jimmy watched her walk with frank amazement. She seemed to be built of all curves, all moving at once, a big, magnificently built woman in her thirties, yet graceful and poised and cool as a cucumber.
He followed her over to the booth and slid in. The bartender brought them their drinks and left them alone, busying himself in the kitchen.
"Thanks, baby," Jimmy grunted, still finding Ronnie's style suited to his mean mood. "What's the pitch?"
"I want you to take me for a spin."
"Huh?"
"On your motorcycle. I want to go for a ride with you on your motorcycle. That's the pitch."
"What makes you think I got a motorcycle, lady?"
"You have a black leather jacket. That means you probably have a motorcycle."
"Zebras have stripes, too, but they've never been in jail," he sneered.
She laughed, from the breasts up.
"All right," she said; "Maybe that was the wrong approach. What I really want you to do is make love to me."
He tossed down half of his Scotch before answering that one.
"Yeah? Why?"
She pinked just slightly, taking off her sunglasses and showing him a beautiful set of green eyes to go with the platinum hair.
"Because you look strong and-capable. Like a tough motorcycle kid. Am I right?"
"Sure. I'm hell on wheels. But-a broad like you, you could get any man to tumble you."
She took a deep breath, her fantastic breasts moving with it, and when she spoke her voice was pure sex: "I don't want anybody, I want you. I'll pay you anything you want."
"How much is anything?" he said cautiously, thinking she was kidding him along.
She opened her purse beneath the table, took something out and dropped it in front of him.
He looked at it. Twice. The second time, it was still a hundred dollar bill. He picked it up and felt it, rubbed it between his fingers.
The 100 didn't rub off.
"Okay," he breathed, tucking it in his jacekt pocket before it flew away from him. "Where?"
"Across the street, the hotel. I have a suite there."
Jimmy downed the rest of his Scotch and got up. This was fantastic, but with a C-note in his pocket he wasn't about to ask questions. "Let's go, lady."
She got out of the booth, showing him enough leg to make his mouth water.
"My name's Marion," she said, tucking her arm in his as they left. "Marion Keyes. I've just been divorced and I haven't had any love in a week. I'm starved for some; that's why I'm paying you."
"Mine's Jimmy."
"Good. I like the name. And the looks. Have you ever thought of being a gigolo, Jimmy?" He shook his head.
"You ought to. You're extremely good looking."
He didn't say anything till they crossed the street, entered the plush lobby of her hotel and were going up in the elevator.
"Nice joint," he commented.
"It's adequate."
They got off at the fifth floor and walked through a knee-deep carpet down the hall to her suite. She unlocked the door and they went in.
It was something out of a Hollywood movie. Jimmy had been inside hotels before, but never one as luxurious as this. The furnishings were all tastefully modern, the carpets deep, the walls soundproofed so that you couldn't have heard a car pass below without the windows open. Abstract paintings hung from the walls and the living room had a pull-out bed which Marion promptly went over to and pulled out from the wall.
"Will you have a drink?" she said.
"Sure. I'll make my own."
"Good. I won't be long. Relax and enjoy yourself. There's a stereo over there and plenty of cigarettes in the silver box on that stand."
"I'll make out."
"I'm sure you Will," she smiled. But then her face turned serious. "One thing, Jimmy-you've got to be good."
"No sweat," he said sarcastically.
"I mean good the way I want you good. You have to do what I tell you."
He frowned, pouring himself some Scotch in a crystal tumbler.
"So okay. So what's the hang-up?"
Her face looked a little worried as she studied him, but then she smiled, turned and disappeared off into a bedroom.
Jimmy took off his sunglasses, sat down with his drink on the ssofa next to the stereo, and turned it on. Softly muted cocktail music came on in a few seconds.
Cocktails for two, he thought. A crazy broad with a lot of money to blow, and him.
He wondered what her bit was.
He didn't have to wait long to find out. He was halfway through his drink, smoking a gold-tipped imported cigarette when she came back into the room.
Jimmy gaped.
The outfit she was wearing would have been ridiculous on a lot of women, but somehow it wasn't on her. It was a baby-doll kind of thing, the type of nightie an eight-year-old girl might wear, full of ribbons and ruffles and frills. Pale pink, practically transparent, so you could see all the monumental sights underneath. It barely came down over her hips, and she had the most absolutely fantastic legs he had ever seen on any woman, real or in a picture.
Perfect legs.
Perfect legs and perfect breasts. Perfect body.
But it wasn't the nightie, with all its long blue pastel ribbons and pink chiffon ruffles, that made him gape. It wasn't the way she had changed her hairdo to that of a girl, with a big ribbon and bow around it. her beautiful face lipstickless now and devoid of make-up, that made him stare.
It wasn't the perfect legs and breasts and body that made him flip, either.
It was the whip in her hand.
Jimmy knew that kind of whip. The kind certain parents who had never heard of Freud or Dr. Spock occasionally kept around to use on their kids.
A cat-o-nine-tails, it was called.
Jimmy's old man had used one on him a couple of times, when he was small and had done some real bad things.
So that was her bit, he thought, continuing to smoke now as she stood posing in front of him, letting his eyes run up and down the length of her amazing physique. Baby-Doll with a cat-o-nine-tails. A six foot stacked platinum blonde with a body out of a Hollywood movie advertisement, pretending to be an eight-year-old waiting for daddy-o to punish her for being a bad girl.
And he thought he had been living among weirdos!
Even her voice seemed to change.
"Do you like me, Jimmy darling?" she said in a thin, high, sugar sweet voice that sounded like innocence itself.
"Yeah," he answered, a little hoarsely.
Hell, he would have liked that in a burlap bag.
"I've been a bad girl though," she said, frowning and wrinkling up her nose as though she were going to burst into child's tears. "You have to whip me, I've been a bad, bad girl!"
She tossed him the whip. He caught it in his hand, examined it as he crushed out his butt.
It was a thick piece of well-oiled, pliant leather, about three feet in length and as many inches wide, solid about halfway down and then sliced up into strips from there on, about eight or ten of them.
That would hurt like the blazes.
She knelt to the floor in front of him, real tears coming to her eyes now.
"Are-are you going to hit me, Jimmy?"
Sure, he was going to hit her. For a hundred dollars he'd throw her out the window if she wanted him to.
He got up and took off his jacket. Her body quivered as she watched him.
Then he went to her. The beautiful curve of her back and butoocks, milk-white under the transparent material, were directly under him as she bent forward, making of her body a pliant bow of soft female flesh.
Beautiful.
Perfect.
He raised the cat and swung it down, aiming carefully.
Slap!
It sounded like a shot. She jerked spastically, biting her lips, but she didn't scream. He swung again, harder. Slap!
Again and again, perversely enjoying this now, enjoying the nice red stripes it made across her flawless white flesh, the whiny screams issuing from her beautiful throat....
Enjoying the hell out of this.
He reached down and tore the nightie off her back, ripped it up the middle, halving it, to get directly at the smooth flesh underneath. Every muscle in her beautiful body was quivering now. Sobs racked her throat and tears of real pain spilled from her eyes as she bit her lips till they bled.
He swung.
He swung and swung and swung.
Again and again and again, all up and down her body, slapping once at the back of her head so that she sprawled forward on the floor, hitting her with all his might until her back and buttocks and legs were beet red.
Then he kicked her, making her turn over.
And began again on the other side.
She was getting more than she had bargained for. Her screams were real ones now, not fake, but the windows were closed and they never got beyond the walls of the room.
He lashed at her big spreading breasts.
Again.
He stood by her, whipping again and again, mercilessly.
Then her waist. Legs.
Perfectly perfect legs. He made a red and white zebra out of her marvelous body. She screamed so loud he felt his eardrums would crack, but still he didn't stop.
She wanted this.
She was getting this.
Sweat dripped from his forehead and face, soaked his T-shirt, ran down his arms.
When his arm turned to lead, he stopped, dropping to his knees, exhausted.
He looked at her. That beautiful white body was now covered with marks, ripe red welts that would later turn to bruises, dark and ugly, but not so serious that a week in bed wouldn't recover her.
That was going to be a damned painful week though.
Her eyes were closed and she was unconscious, knocked out from the pain. His whole arm and shoulder hurt. He got to his feet, stumbled to the bar and got a drink from the Scotch bottle, grabbing it by the neck and tilting his head back and pouring.
Then he started laughing. Crazy, hysterical laughter. She had wanted this, he realized. She had wanted to be beaten senseless like that.
Her groans as she came to were groans of pain, but also groans of pleasure.
Her pleasure.
But now was the time for him to have his pleasure. Quickly he undid his belt and got out of his boots and pants and shirt.
In no time at all he was undressed. Undressed and ready.
She saw him, her eyes grew wide as he approached her where she lay in the middle of the rug, and the crying began once more.
"No, no; you hurt me too much, too much!"
He paid no attention. When she tried to stop him with her knee he banged his fist so hard into her he thought he felt bone. Her face went white as a sheet.
She didn't offer any resistance then.
She hadn't any left.
He took her quick, with all his force. He saw her try to double up, but that was useless.
"Now, babydoll," he said through gritted teeth, "I'm going to show you what I'm for."
Which was exactly what he did.
He demonstrated for a good long time, and each time when she seemed to be on the verge of slipping away from consciousness, he stopped, waited until the glassiness left her eyes, then started again.
On and on.
She began to babble, to spit, to froth at the mouth like a damned idiot. He laughed in her face, spit on her, said the most awful things to her he could think of.
On and on he went, till the walls of the room seemed to explode outward and the ceiling come crashing down and the whole damn world blew apart.
Then that was over.
For a long time he lay there, spent, without moving.
Finally he got up, gathered his clothes. Through the big windows he could see it had turned dark outside now. Nighttime had fallen.
The bathroom of her suite was big, luxurious, built for comfort. He took his time in it, helping himself to whatever he wanted, taking a long hot soaking bath in her gigantic sunken bathtub and when he grew tired of that, getting under the shower and torturing his flesh with a driving cold needle spray.
By the time he was done, he felt good.
Very good.
A man again. He got into his clothes and left the bathroom.
She was sitting on the floor now, squatting, her legs folded under her and her head drooping down toward those magnificent breasts. She was crying softly to herself, holding her mistreated breasts in her arms as if to comfort them.
"You asked for that," he said, looking down at her.
She didn't look up.
"Yes, I asked for that," she said softly. "You were bound to pick up the wrong guy sooner or later."
"I know."
"I'm leaving now."
"Don't. Stay here. Stay with me. I need somebody like you. I've got money. Stay."
"The hell, I got to go." He stopped, picking up the cat-o-nine-tails. "But I'll take this with me. To remember you by."
And then he left.
Downstairs, at the main desk, he had the hundred dollar bill broken up into small ones. The clerk gave him a funny look, but he ignored it.
After that he went out to the streets to find a nice quiet place to get very drunk in.