Chapter 4
Perry had been mistaken about which twin had been in the black room.
As soon as he stepped back into the party, he saw Maryann in her sari talking with some of the other guests. By the time Margaret came through the door, a few minutes later in her boyish shirt and shorts, Perry had made a clear distinction between the sisters in his mind.
He smiled at Margaret, genuinely pleased at the notion of spending time in her company.
No, relieved would be more like it, Vie decided, as he smiled over in her direction. He had to talk to somebody. Margaret, it seemed, had a real understanding of both his needs and his hesitation. A girl with perception ... well, well!
She came directly to him.
"We can talk better in my place," she said. "It's right across the way."
"I know," Perry answered, and followed her through the crowd, out into-the hall and through the doorway opposite.
This apartment was as crowded with decoration and color as Al's place was starkly simple. A lot of deep, comfortable furniture. Old fashioned lamps with frilly, fringed shades and soft illumination. Bookcases, pottery pieces, printed fabrics on the couches and as curtains in warm colors. And paintings, paintings, paintings. The walls seemed almost solidly covered with them.
Hers was a smaller apartment; basically one very large room, with a kitchen built into what must have once been a huge closet. Perry's immediate impression was that he could relax here, in a way not possible in either of Al's rooms.
"I like your apartment," he told her. "It looks more like a place to live."
She smiled. "It is a place to live. Al's is more for discussing, entertaining, or turning on. Not all the people in the East Village follow the same pattern. Or, did you think we did?"
"I can't say I've thought about it at all," he confessed. "It's been over a year since I've been to New York. Where I was, we didn't get much news about the local happenings."
"No, I don't imagine the armed forces newspapers, or whatever it is they publish in Vietnam, would be carrying stories about Al Park's activities. I think they would consider him as a bit of a subversive."
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean?"
"You haven't read any of his writings, I take it."
"No. We haven't seen each other almost since we graduated high school."
"I see," she said. "Have you read the East Village Alternative?"
"Not yet. Al is going to give me some issues before I take off tonight. He even said something about me writing an article for it. Somehow I think he was kidding."
Margaret's expression tightened. "Al Parks doesn't kid about anything much, P.T. Certainly not about the paper. His sense of humor doesn't run in' that vein. And I've known him at least a year-and-a-half."
"Well, I don't know. It isn't really important." Perry was bored by the serious talk.
She seemed to read his mood. "Do you want something to drink? There may be a can or two of beer left. And, I know there's some wine."
"Would coffee be asking too much?"
"Not at all. It's one of my specialties."
Perry had seated himself on one of the two big studio couches. While Margaret busied herself with the percolator, he leaned back, taking the opportunity to let some of his tension go, and to study the paintings.
There were a number of nudes among them; the women all looking like Margaret or Maryann, the men vaguely reminiscent of some of the guests at the party. Many of the works were strongly executed abstracts, literally bulging with texture and color.
Then, quite suddenly, Perry discovered three portraits staring at him, hung side-by-side on the wall near the door to the hall. They were unmistakably Olivia, Al and Vicky, and the style had the effect of a photograph which had been painted over to accentuate certain aspects of personality.
The artist had made Olivia look older and darker-skinned than she had appeared to Perry. But, even more striking, the sensuality in her face seemed like a heavy cosmetic; even a mask, hiding the real person.
Vicky, on the other hand, was made to look younger and more naive than Perry now pictured her. A brief vision flashed in his mind of the sexual act she had been performing' on Al; might still be doing to him ... or someone else in that black place.
Al's portrait was the most startling. Although it showed the present young man with curly beard, moustache, and rather stern expression, it also revealed the eye-catching handsomeness beneath. He felt the artist might have known Al as he looked in his high school days.
"Who did the paintings?" he asked.
Margaret came back into the room.
"Jamie painted most of them. One of the fellows he shares studio space with did the male nudes."
"And, the portraits of your three neighbors?"
"They're mine."
He looked at her. Their eyes held for a long instant.
"Just those three?" he asked. "I've done others, but I've given them away."
"Don't you sell your paintings?"
She shook her head and sat down on the other couch. "I'm not a professional artist. And, I don't paint for the same reasons most artists do. I can never do a portrait of people I know too well, and after I do get to know them, I usually give them the work ... if they want it. Or, I get rid of it because it no longer represents the person as I see him. I would like to try one of you, but you'd have to sit with me within the next few days. After that, it could no longer be an honest piece of work."
"Why not?"
"Involvement. I'd begin to find out too many things about you, and I would start seeing you the way you see yourself. It would no longer come out as my portrait of you, but more of your portrait of yourself. I happen to believe that first impressions are closest to the truth. When people are still almost strangers they reveal more of what they really are. Once they start to get closer, they begin to adjust to each other, change themselves to suit what they think the other person wants. Then the honesty is gone."
Her talk of friendship made him think about the war, when his buddies were Zeke, and Marty and John and Carne, people who went with him on patrol, on whom his life depended every second of the day and night. These were his friends there, but he did not know what would happen if they met in civilian life.
Once he had a girl who was good in bed with him, but after that, all was separation, all was different. He wondered if she could be called a friend either. He realized that Al had been one of the few true friends he ever had, the only white to ever treat him like a person instead of a black that needed to be made equal. Al's parents had been the same, but they could not be called friends.
"Undress with me," she said. "I want to feel your body, to touch you all over."
Fighting against the strange feelings inside him, Perry took off his clothes while she did the same. He knew she was not going to fuck him. She really was interested in feeling his body to see where the lines went. As she rubbed her fingers over his nude skin, he again filtered reality from his mind and went back to the war, back to a day when everything was quiet because of a truce for some holiday.
He wasn't even looking for a broad then. All he had been doing was walking down a street, glad to be free from the shelling and the noise for a little while. A vendor stopped him and asked in a quiet voice if he wanted to fuck. Perry was amazed. The man spoke almost perfect English, and his accent was slightly Australian.
"Sure," he said. "Where? And how much?"
"Inside that white house with the roof. There's a good whore in there who charges almost nothing. She'll give you a good time."
He knocked at the door. A beautiful girl answered, clad in scarcely enough material to hide her tits and her cunt. A see-through negligee covered her body, softening her already soft lines.
"Come in," she said. "We have room for you. I call myself Mary, though that is not my real name. I use it because GI's can say it easily."
"Are you in charge?" he said.
"I am all there is," she said. "You seem surprised I speak English well. Not all of us learn on the street. Once I was rich and studied in the best schools. The man outside is a cousin of mine."
She named her price, which he paid in advance. He liked to do it that way for it assured the woman she would not be gypped afterwards, and she appreciated that. Her kisses fell on him as soon as she had deposited the money in the room on the side of the one where he lay on the soft bed.
He felt her touches, the deliciousness of her caresses to his body, the way she had her fingers at his balls and his cock before he was even out of his pants. That was the way he liked to be fucked, like a man who was hot and bothered from the minute he got the word on his possibilities, and like a man who had a really good cunt by his side.
Her tender caresses had his cock as hard as steel from the second that she touched it. He realized that she was a well-bred woman who was aware that men need attention and affection to make their fucking good. She cared for him as little as she cared for all the rest of the cocks that she allowed into her pussy, but since she had bargained for a price she was going to give him his money's worth.
Her touches were even more fantastic as soon as they both were naked. When she had taken off the little that she wore he could see that she had a wonderful body, with two tits that stuck up from her flesh and wild curly hairs in her V where her cunt was surrounded with them. He waited for the first touch of his cock against her snaking walls. This would be the time he would have the most fun with her.
He fingered her cunt, touching her deep inside her walls, thrilling her to the effects of his caresses there until she was practically wailing with sheer sexual pleasure that he gave her. His touches swept in all the places where she could feel any kind of delight, concentrating heavily on the bulging fold of skin in her upper walls that was her clit. He soothed that piece as much as he possibly could, knowing that there was where she was the most sensitive to his caresses.
His cock was like hardened steel. It was sweating from the fiery pleasure she drilled into it as her well-formed hand rolled a pattern across its naked surface. She had a touch so divine he scarcely could believe she was a mere woman. He thought she had to be from some tale of Greek goddesses, a woman who had a touch of gold and a heart of iron.
His lust made him so hot he wanted her cunt as soon as he could get in it. But he could see that she was a long way from being ready to let him inside there where he could stroke her until they were both at the peak of their salient pleasures.
He knew what to do to get her hot for him. He sunk to her crotch and spread her legs with his hands, revealing in clear view her pink membranes. She sighed with deep delight when he pushed his tongue against those snaking walls. Furiously he lapped at the walls which had such a good smell to them. That odor was enough to give him all the pleasure he needed for a good while.
He lapped at her cunt again and again, searching out places far inside her, wiping his tongue against her with his male touch that thrilled her to the brim. She was wild with the streaming delights that he gave to her. The lust she felt drove her mad with jerking and shakings through all her naked flesh. If he had been any better he thought she would have died from the pleasure she got from him.
Over and over he whipped his oral implement into her pink flesh. After a while she began to lubricate her walls, and the taste of her luscious juices added to the effects and to the pleasure he got from licking her pussy. The acidity of her oils was something especially tantalizing for him.
More and more of that delightful liquid flowed as she became ever hotter to have him there with her, fucking her madly while his cock swelled with the blood she made go into it. He lapped at her in an unceasing run of touches which thrilled her to the marrow.
Never had he seen a woman as sensitive to his tongue as this one was. Her cunt practically invited him in for more while he lapped at her. Her clit was hard and bulging with blood, and the mixture of her odors and her tastes was something special he wanted to remember.
Concentrating on her clit, he lapped his wet tongue over that hump time and time again. Her sighing was music to his ears, leasing him greatly because it told him that she was getting a lot of pleasure from all that he did to her. Whenever he stroked his oral member against her clit in just the right manner her back arched along with her sighs and her groans.
His touch was fantastic, soothing her naked body all the time. There was not one second that she was free from the pleasures he gave to her. His affections were so great she could be nothing but totally stimulated by his caresses.
He rammed a pair of fingers into her ass-hole, stroking hard in there while he felt her walls writhing and shaking. His fingers went deeper inside until they were in all the way to his knuckles. She twisted on those rods like a candy apple twists on a stick when it is held tightly and the stick is turned.
He felt her getting more ready for the touch of his cock. The sheer delight of having him there with her must have meant something to her. She fucked wonderfully, even if she did not show that much evidence that she loved him. Her cunt was firm and tight, and her odors were making him feel the incredible need he always had to be there with a woman who was ready for him.
His cock was swollen, almost at the point of erupting with his come all over the sheets instead of inside her snatch, but he controlled it with all this will power, holding back to keep himself ready for her. He knew it would not be long before he was inside there, and he wanted to fuck her terribly.
Finally he knew there was no need to wait any longer. Her juices flowed hot and heavy, and the way her walls were jerking about meant she was as ready to come as he was. He crawled on her, practically jumped on her in his eagerness, and slammed his stomach against hers when he drilled his steaming pole into the wet fleshiness of her tight little snatch. The soothing effects of her walls on his pole made him happy he had taken up the vendor's proposition, and he rammed at her with all the force in his body.
Excited by the hard lovemaking he gave to her he writhed shamelessly, her small body squeezed hard under his big one, the contrast in their skins evident to his eye as he looked down the line of her naked flesh at the woman who was screwing him.
Over and over he drilled his shaft far past the triangular bush that opened to him with a welcome. The sheer delight she gave to him made him work all that much harder to be certain that she got some of the same. He plowed deep into her passages, stirring up feelings of luxury and sex that made her shake all over.
Her face was close to his own, with her bones pressing against his and making him more aware of her presence. The soft smoothness of her skin rubbed into his, and the feeling of her close warmth continued all the way to his feet. He was saturated with the sensuous pleasures she gave to his body.
Thrust after lustful thrust of his cock whipped into the open hole between her legs. He heard her squealing with delight with each new blast that he gave her cock. Then he felt her stiffen, felt the lines of her back arch in a solid position, and her moans stayed at one steady wail while her body throbbed with the glory of her delight. Her come was so fantastic he felt pleasure at it.
Seconds after she began her thrashing, his own come saturated her pussy with his gism, pouring it into her so fast he could not believe it really was himself that was fucking her. His breath came hard and strong, and the feelings which were in him made him feel fantastic all over.
He rolled away from her. She told him that was all. There was only one fuck for the money he paid her. He could have more if he paid her some more. But he had no more to give her, so he left, and he smiled at the vendor still outside the house when all was done.
The delicious touch of the fingers on his naked body reminded him of the way that whore had dealt so well with him back then. Now he felt nothing but his own thighs where she stroked them, the hanging fullness of his testicles as she cupped them, the living weight of his penis against her palm and fingers.
I don't even know if I have a hard-on, he thought vaguely, and I don't care. I know that my stomach is flat and smooth because she is touching it. I know that my chest is wide and strong, that my face is lean, my features regular. My mouth. My eyebrows. My forehead.
Where was she touching him now? His mind explored through his body to find the reassuring pressure of her fingers. Not here. Not there. There? No, but it must be close by. I can feel it. But I can't locate it.
"Thank you," Margaret said softly, and he was jolted from one dimension to another. She was not touching him at all. Still by his side, but sitting back on her heels, looking at him.
"Do you want the coffee now," she asked, "or, are you going back to Al's black room?"
The question brought him to full consciousness. Shit, but he was excited! He looked down at himself. The throbbing erection seemed larger than he had ever noticed it before.
"The black room," he said, and his voice was shaking. If only Olivia were still in there! He would show her how a real man can make love! Not once, either. Maybe more than twice!
He got up in one movement, struggling into his clothes with a sense of desperation. Margaret was still in the same position on the studio couch when he finally got his pants zipped up over the almost-painful resistance of his sex.
"Thank you, Margaret," he said, hoarsely. "I'll see you later."
When he walked into the glaring white room Perry realized it was more full of people than before. But, even through the crush of the crowd, he could see Olivia, now fully dressed, sipping at a glass.
Their eyes met as he came across toward her. There was only one way for him to proceed now. Ask her to go back into the black room with him. She looked just as ready for it as he was.
As he came up to her, he was aware that she no longer looked at his face, but directly down at his pants. Her half-smile became an arch sneer.
"It looks like Margaret is about to paint another portrait," Olivia announced, loud enough to make half a dozen heads turn. "You better get into the other room before that black thing breaks off. You timed it just right, Daddy. There's nothing but white stuff in there now."
Perry tried to keep the expression on his face unchanged. The desire to hit her was almost beyond his control.
He turned, and found a familiar face close by; one of the fellows he had talked to for a while.
"Do you know where Al is?" Perry asked him.
"Still in there, I guess."
"Would you give him a message when he comes out?"
"Sure. Are you leaving?"
"Yes. Just tell Al if he wants to get in touch with me, our phone is still listed. Will you do that?"
"Sure. I hope we'll be seeing you again."
"That depends on Al," he said. And a few other things, he added to himself.