Chapter 3
The next day was just about the most horrible in my life.
The rest of the night had been bad enough-so bad I forgot to be happy about being educated at last. But the next day....
The less said the better, I guess. Suffice it to say I got expelled, Mr. Enright got beaten up by two of my uncles-and then went and drowned himself, of all things-and my mother just looked at me.
She didn't scream and shout; that was going to come later, I figured. I think right then she was too, well, happy. Happy to know that her worst fears had been realized-that I really was a harlot and a disgrace to the family and all that.
I don't mean I supposed she wasn't upset at all, but for years she'd been calling me bad names for no reason, and now she had a reason, a real good reason.
I guess she felt the way one of those men with long beards who carry signs saying
Along about noon, once all the shouting had subsided and Mr. Enright's body had been fished out of the bay, she shoved me into my room and slammed the door and locked it.
I knew what was coming later on, all right. And I didn't wait for it. I scribbled a note-Have fled to Montreal to live a life of sin and make big money Regards Sharon-and hopped out the rear window.
All I had was the summer dress I was wearing retrieved from Mr. Enright's bathroom by one of the teachers-and thirty dollars I'd saved. But I went. Not to Montreal, though. I'd just written that to pat my mother off the scent.
I hitched a ride to Leachville and then took a bus to New York.
Which is where my real adventures began.
I'd been hoping things would start getting interesting on the bus, but no luck-the bus was full of old ladies, and soldiers with their wives and babies and children.
So I slept.
I got off at a place they call the Port of New York Bus Terminal. It looked just like movies I'd seen of it-lots of people rushing around, bright lights and so forth. Real exciting.
Pretty soon I noticed two young men, both with their hair slicked down, giving me the eye and whispering to each other. I pretended not to see them, fished a pack of cigarettes out of my purse and lit one.
About then they walked over and smiled at me politely. What they wanted to do was leer, I could tell, but they tried hard to just smile.
"Excuse me, Miss," said the taller of the two, "We're agents of the International Travelers Assistance Society. Our job is to be friendly and helpful to travelers. My credentials."
And he whipped out a card. The card read: This m to certify that John Smith is a bona fide agent of the International Travelers Assistance Society and can be trusted completely. The shorter one had a card just like it, only it said his name was Tom Jones.
Well! I mean, I might have been young and from a small town, but I wasn't stupid. I knew right off that these fellows had just paid a dollar to have some printer run off a couple cards-they weren't out to help travelers but to pick up girls. Like me.
I'd read an article once that told how some men the article called them jaded hipsters--liked to hang around bus stations in big cities and pick up young corn-fed girls right off the bus from Kansas and such places.
I didn't say any of this, of course. I just said, "Gee, if you only help international travelers, I guess I'm out of luck. I didn't come from overseas."
"That's all right," said the one who called himself John Smith. "We help national, state and local travelers too. Uh, traveling alone? Being met?"
"Yes," I said. "And no, I'm not being met. I'm running away from home, in fact. I suppose you'll call a policeman and have him telephone my mother, huh?"
"Oh, no!" said the one called Tom Jones. "Our job is to help girls run away from-I mean, we never ask people why they're traveling. You got a place to stay-a hotel reservation or something?"
I shook my head. "Maybe I should go to the YWCA, huh?"
"No, no!" said John Smith. "I mean, they're full up. So are most of the hotels, in fact-World's Fair, you know. Tom, do you have the list of available hotel rooms?"
"Sure," said Tom, whipping a notebook out of his pocket. "The Gotham Gothic Grand has a penthouse suite at a hundred and fifty a night...." He turned a page. "And the Bowery Brabizon has a five-room apartment for two hundred, bath included. That's it, I'm afraid. No other vacancies in town."
"Gee," I said. "I don't have that much money. Guess I'll have to sleep in the subway."
"Too dangerous," said Tom.
"Illegal, too," added John. He nudged his buddy. "Say, what about old Mr. Carter's generous offer?"
"That's right!" gasped Tom. "Just the place for this chi-young lady. Mr. Carter," he went on, talking to me now, "is an elderly philanthropist currently traveling in Europe. When he's away he lets financially embarrassed girl travelers use his spacious apartment Free. We'll take you there."
"How nice," I said, offering him my arm.
And off we went. To my first Adventure, I figured.
And I was so right.
Mr. Carter's "spacious apartment" was way down in what they call the Lower East Side, a real ratty neighborhood, and it was more like a big loft than an apartment. Three flights up, too.
Walking up the stairs I could hear voices-male and female-laughing and swearing, and somebody picking at a guitar.
"I thought Mr. Carter's accommodations were just for girl travelers," I said innocently.
"Oh, no," said Tom. "Mr. Carter doesn't practice any form of discrimination-racial, social or sexual."
"A real swinger, old Mr. Carter," John snickered, placing his hands on my buttocks and kind of shoving me upstairs faster.
Tom opened a door and in we went. It was a huge, untidy room as big as five single-car garages put together, and full of smoke and boys and girls.
Kind of rough-looking boys and girls, too. A lot of the boys were wearing sideburns and black leather jackets. Some of the girls were wearing black leather jackets, too. In fact one girl was wearing just a black leather jacket. A couple other girls didn't have anything on above the waist, and another one was naked entirely. She was sitting on the saddle of a motorcycle which was standing in the middle of the room drinking beer. The girl, that is, not the motorcycle, of course.
Everybody stopped drinking and talking when we walked in, and when they saw me between Tom and John they started hooting and cheering and growling.
"Well whadya know," jeered the girl who was naked on the motorcycle drinking beer, "Tom finally caught himself a sheep."
Well!
Right off I realized I'd outsmarted myself. I'd figured Tom and John were jaded hipsters, and that all they wanted to do was lure me to their pad and seduce me, which I'd been looking forward to. Also I'd figured they might keep me for a couple weeks at least, so I wouldn't have to pay rent.
Boy, had I been wrong! As soon as the naked blonde called me a sheep I knew what was up. All the kids in the room belonged to a motorcycle club, that was what. A bad club. I'd read all about that kind of cycle club in a magazine article. When they took in a new member, the guy had to bring a girl for all the male members to gang; the girl was called a sheep. If she was willing to sex it up with all the members, okay-but she didn't have to be willing.
Instead of a jaded hipster, Tom was obviously a new member, and John was his buddy, who'd gone along to help him snag a girl.
Me.
Poor little Sharon Chablis from Denaquid, Maine, was going to get jumped by thirty male motorcyclists-and maybe some girl motorcyclists too.
Don't get me wrong-I'm not against orgies in principle. Only these kids looked rough. Even Tom and John all at once looked less like city slickers and more like hoodlums.
So I did a dumb thing: I let out a yell and dived for the door. I didn't get even close. Tom just laughed and reached out and grabbed me by the hair. My hair, I should mention, is naturally red and real long, like it falls below my waist, so it wasn't hard for him to grab a handful and yank.
I went backward and landed with a thump on my backside, and a moment later there were hands all over me.
I started to struggle, but then I remembered the motto for girls in my predicament: When being ravished is unavoidable, relax and enjoy it.
So I tried to relax and smile.
"She's grinning," said some girl. "She's looking forward to it. Boy, is she dumb!"
All at once I felt less relaxed.
By this time four husky guys had hold of me, one for each wrist and ankle. They held me a couple of feet off the floor, facing the ceiling, while everybody else crowded around.
I smiled, still, but it was a real effort.
"Unwrap the package, Spike-I mean Tom," said the blonde girl who had been on the motorcycle, and Tom-whose real name was evidently Spike-nodded and grinned, and then grabbed the front of my summer dress and ripped it right off me.
A cheer went up. "No bra, no panties!" chuckled some creep. "This sheep is like ready!"
The guys holding my ankles moved further apart, so my legs were stretched out like I was doing the splits or something.
Boy did I feel helpless!
"Okay, fellows," said the blonde-who must have been the current president of the club, I decided "step right up and enjoy her. No waiting."
I craned my head up and peered between my breasts. Sure enough, several of the guys, grinning like hungry wolves, already had all their clothes off-all their clothes below the waist, at least.
One of them sauntered toward me, walking between the guys holding my legs. I felt like I was about to be torn apart. He paused about six or eight inches from touching me, and sneered.
"Still smiling, eh sheep?" he asked, real nasty like. And then-for no reason I could see except to be mean-he took the lighted cigarette out of his mouth, flicked off a bit of ash, and then stubbed it out on my stomach.
I let out a yelp of agony and my eyes filled with tears of pain. So I didn't see him push forward against me. But I sure felt him. He was a big guy, and when he got to me I felt like I'd been bit with a tree trunk.
Cheers went up as the guy started slamming himself against me. Hard and fast and real brutal. It was just awfull I saw this TV show once where a bunch of men picked up a telegraph pole and used it as a battering ram to bash down a door. Well, I felt just like that door.
Fortunately, he didn't have much stamina, or else he was too excited, because after he'd slammed away at me about a dozen times he grunted and grabbed my hips and whammed against me real fast, and then it was all over.
For him, at least.
Me, I got the second guy in line five seconds later. He wasn't as big, but what he lacked in size he made up for in endurance. He kept working me like he was trying to inflate a tractor tire with a bicycle pump. I thought he'd never stop! So did the creeps standing around watching and cheering; they kept telling him to hurry it up.
"Yeah, Stud," yelled a moron with buck teeth, "your bird's anxious to get some herself."
"Tell her," gasped Stud, "that, uh, I'm, uh, finishing, uh, right now!"
Which was no lie, believe me.
The third guy got shy, if you know what I mean, which slowed things down for a while. Not for long, though. The kids jeered at him and yelled that if he couldn't get his courage up he should back off and not hold up the party. Which he did.
The fourth guy wasn't a bit shy, just big and fast. And rough. Too fast and too rough. I felt just like a punching bag, he was pummeling me so hard and so quick.
I don't remember the fifth, sixth and seventh ones too well. I was too busy trying to tell myself to relax and enjoy it. But truth to tell, it was only partly enjoyable.
I mean, I'm not a fanatic about privacy, but there was something real humiliating about being used like that with a whole lot of boys and girls standing around jeering at me. Also jabbing my naked breasts and belly and buttocks with lighted cigarettes every now and then just to make me yelp.
I mean, I felt like an object.
Then a funny thing happened. All of a sudden I began to almost enjoy myself! Good grief, I thought. Am I what they call a masochist? I knew from reading adult paperbacks that some girls liked being ravished and tormented and humiliated. I'd even read in this sexy spy book that after some people had been tortured long enough they got to enjoy torture.
But I'd never figured I was like that.
I decided later that I was just being subconsciously clever--forcing myself to enjoy what I really didn't like.
And then, just when the eighth or ninth guy was getting himself situated, and I was trying to smile at him and tell myself it wasn't so bad and anyway it couldn't go on forever, just then some lousy chick a sharp-faced little beast with black hair and dead white skin and nothing on but a big black motorcylists belt around her waist-had to get her rotten oar in.
"This is going too slow!" she bleated, tossing her long black hair and wriggling her shoulders so as to make her breasts dance around. "I know how to speed things up," she added, and right away she dropped to the floor and crawled underneath me, grabbed my hair Srith both hand's and yanked my head down. Hard.
"Okay boys!" she yelled. "Form two lines, huh?"
Everybody cheered. Everybody but me, that is; I groaned.
I mean, what a dreadful position for a nice girl to be in-suspended horizontal and naked three feet off the floor while boy after boy has at her more or less conventionally-and sometimes jabs her with lighted cigarettes-and then to have your head yanked down so you don't have any choice but to stare at a second line of boys forming!
I did the only thing I could. I shut my eyes. But not before I saw a husky-looking creep with no clothes on start toward me. A moment later I felt the warmth of his flesh against my face.
The girl holding my hair twisted her grip, and the creep who was pressed against my face must have reached down and pinched my nipples between his fingers. Hard!
Naturally, I yelled.
"You'll yell harder, sheep," snarled the guy pinching me, "if you don't start kissing me pronto. And make it good, sheep, if you don't want me to use a knife on you."
So what could I do? I kissed him, as well as I could. Sure, I thought about biting him real hard, but I didn't reckon I'd live to know how bad I'd hurt him if I did.
Of course I wasn't sure I was going to live very long anyway, but there was no sense in committing suicide!
I sure didn't enjoy kissing him, though. He did, of course. And kept urging me to work harder, use my tongue, et cetera. Which I did, for the sake of self-preservation.
I kissed him so good it wasn't long before another guy was pinching my nipples and urging me to kiss him the same way. I tell you, I was almost sick I was so mad-and scared.
What a way to spend my first night in New York, I thought, as a third guy swung a leg over me and kind of straddled my lower chest while he pushed my breasts close together and began sliding his thumb back and forth between my breasts.
It sure was true, I reflected while three guys at the same time were playing sex games with me-and while other boys and girls kept jabbing me with lighted cigarettes-it sure was true that a small-town girl ran a certain amount of risk in coming to the big city.
Meanwhile boy after boy was holding my hips and slamming himself against me, while boy after boy twisted my nipples and made me kiss him where he wanted to be kissed, and creep after creep played sexy games with my breasts.
And so it went. Real nasty. Monotonous, too, after a while.
Finally-a zillion years later-it ended. The guys holding me had each given some satisfied guy the ankle or wrist he'd been holding and had his fun, and at last every rotten boy in the place had used me for kicks.
Me, I was just about unconscious. I felt myself dropped on the floor like a sack of cement, and I just lay there. Not for long, though. Pretty soon I heard laughing and jeering, and felt my arms and legs being grabbed again, felt myself being carried along and then-splash!
I'd been dropped into a bathtub full of ice-cold water.
"That'll liven her up," cackled some girl. And she was sure right. I wallowed around for a minute or two and then I climbed out real fast, before some clown thought of pushing my head under.
I stood there all dripping and spluttering and feeling sore for a moment, and then some sadist kicked me hard on my backside and I went sprawling through the bathroom door and landed on my face and breasts in the main room again.
I struggled up on all fours. That was a mistake, because right away some guy landed on me like I was a horse, and whacked me on the rump and told me to gallop.
Well, I didn't gallop, but I did crawl painfully across the floor, with the guy up there whooping and laughing and the other creeps making crude remarks.
The rest of the motorcycle kids were sitting or standing or lying around guzzling beer and cheering me on while I crawled around and around the loft. For hours! They took turns riding me, girls as well as boys. And who says girls are the gentle sex? The girls were much worse than the boys: worse at making nasty remarks, worse at yanking my hair like it was reins. One girl-a chubby brunette-even got a couple of beer can openers and used them like spurs, jabbing them into my buttocks when I didn't crawl fast enough. They treated me like I was an animalt Worse, in fact.
Then-as I should have guessed-things got sexy again. Like the boys who'd first played sex games with me began to feel frisky again. And had at me again.
In just about every way possible!
Some of them made me stay on all fours while they had their fun.
One guy-who kept calling himself the Leader of the Pack though the others didn't pay him much mind-told me to stand up. I groaned and shook my head. I couldn't.
He took out a switchblade knife and-snick! the thing was open and pressed against my left breast. All at once I had the strength to stand up, and did.
"Feet wide apart," he barked, "and touch the floor."
I groaned and did as he said.
Naturally, he came up behind me and grabbed my hips and started rocking me back and forth against him. Slow at first, then faster and faster until at last he gasped and grunted and sighed ... and finally shoved me away. So hard I turned a somersault.
"I'm dying, I thought. I'm really and truly dying! I wasn't, though, worse luck. And a few minutes later some other yeck was pushing his big ego at me, ordering me to fondle him and stroke him and kiss him and heaven knows what all else!
After that I kind of lost track. I was like delirious.
The next thing I remember is lying sprawled on my back, and a group of them were standing around talking about what to do with me.
It would have been a real nightmare if I hadn't been so beat up. I mean, I just didn't care, I felt so bad. I just lay there and listened, like it was some TV horror movie I didn't care much about.
What they were trying to decide was first whether to kill me or not, and then, if they killed me, how they should kill me.
One girl-it was the chubby brunette-was real drunk and waving a knife. I remember how the blade glittered under the bare bulb. She wanted to cut me up. Personally. First she wanted to carve the club name on my belly, then she wanted to cut off my ... Well, you wouldn't believe the horrible things she wanted to do!
A little shrimp of a guy with a mustache wanted to hang me. He said he'd never seen a hanging, and now was his big chance.
Another couple, a boy and girl who kept nuzzling each other and kissing, wanted to string me up by the ankles and whip me to death with their belts.
And so on.
But' then some guy who'd gone out to get some more beer came in and said a cop car was cruising around and around the block, and the blonde witch who was president of the club said it'd be a dumb thing to kill me, 'cause look at the trouble they'd almost got into when they'd killed that sheep in New Jersey.
So they let me live.
Just before they all left, wheeling their motorcycle with them, the blonde bent over me and said, "Listen, sheep, you're getting off easy. Real easy. Now make things nice for yourself: Don't go running to the fuzz. Like this isn't our loft, we just borrowed it for the night. And you don't know our names. And even if you saw one of us on the street and had him busted, it'd be your word against forty. Understand?"
I nodded my head-or tried to.
"Okay. You couldn't make trouble for us if you tried. But if you do try, we'll get you. Us or friends of ours. Get you and burn you. Alive. Real slow. And it'll hurt, believe me. It'll hurt. Open your mouth, sheep."
I opened my mouth. And she dropped a lighted cigarette into it. Just to give me a taste of what it would feel like to be burned alive, I guess.
Nice people!
After which they left, and I passed out.
When I came to it was late afternoon the next day. I could hardly move, I was so stiff! I crawled and staggered into the bathroom, took a hot bath, which made me feel a bit better, then flopped onto a filthy old mattress and went to sleep again.
Next day things were much better: I got a swell job, posing in the nude.