Chapter 5
As usual, there was no one in the store but Levi, and the owner's dog Memphis; it never ceased to amaze Levi and anyone else who frequented the establishment that F. S. Carruthers Books managed to stay in business at all. They had a few regulars, people who came in once or twice a month to prowl through the messy piles of second-hand books Mr. Carruthers always managed to find in his frequent trips all over the west. A couple were real book collectors, legitimate connoisseurs who hoped for a valuable find among all the worn dime-store novels and battered travelogues from another era.
Levi didn't really care about the lack of clientele one way or the other; to him it was just a job, something to pay the rent on his tiny cluttered room. In fact, it was almost pleasant being there alone most of the time; there was always plenty of time to read, and he could even work on his book. It had started out to be a serious, scholarly analysis of the ancient Satanic cults that flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe, but it was now taking shape as a stylized blend of fact and fiction - the fictional element being his own self, on a fantastic imagined trip through the centuries as he traced the development of demoniality and Satanism through his reincarnated form, to give his hoped-for readers a touch of eye-witness reporting- He could only work on it when there was no question of Mr. Carruthers return; Levi wanted no one to even lay eyes on this manuscript until it was fully completed. He could easily see it as a kind of worldwide guidebook for Satanic worshippers, printed in dozens of languages at low-cost, maybe even distributed without charge to the masses everywhere.
Aside from working on the manuscript, or reading the scarce source material he could cull from the dusty boxes of books Carruthers brought back from his expeditions, there really wasn't anything else to occupy his time during the seven hours he spent each weekday in the lonely shop. Most of the customers needed no help; they would just come in and take their time combing through the heaped-up piles of books. And if they found something they liked, he would be obliged to ring up the sale and drop the volume in a paper bag. Nothing much more stimulating ever happened at Carruthers Books.
Nothing that is except when Patricia Davies and her daughter made their religiously bi-weekly stops. Mrs. Davies collected out-of-print editions of poetry; any kind, any period, as long as it was not available in a reprint edition. She usually came in on Mondays; he heard her remark to her daughter one day that it was nearly time for her club meeting, so he assumed that was what brought her into downtown San Francisco so regularly. He'd never actually talked to either Mrs. Davies or her daughter, except just in passing whenever she found something she wanted for her collection. She'd never called her daughter by name, but the Christmas card she had sent Mr. Carruthers was signed "from Lawrence, Patricia, Kathi and Kerry." It was logical to assume Kathi and Kerry were her two children, but only Kathi came with her to the store.
Patricia Davies was one of the best-looking mature women Levi could remember seeing; and in a city full of models and movie actresses, that was saying something. She possessed a healthy respect for her age; something that most women in their late thirties are afraid to face. Never mimicking her teen-age daughter, she always seemed to pick the right fashions to showcase her still-perfect figure, but she was never overly-conservative to the point of being frumpy and out-of-date. Her short brown hair must have seen the hairdresser at least weekly, for it was always perfectly shaped and combed.
They usually stayed quite some time when they stopped in, and from his high, three-legged stool behind the counter in back, Levi could watch the two of them carefully as they combed through the jumbled stacks of books.
He liked to fondly examine their figures as they craned to reach a top shelf, or stooped to sort a pile of volumes stacked on the floor. Patricia was never too careful about watching her hem as she searched the musty stacks, and sometimes he could catch a quick, fleeting glimpse of her trim thighs, past the enticing band at the top of her stockings, where the dark, filmy mesh hooked to the garters dangling from her girdle.
Kathi, on the other hand, was a study in contrasts. She never seemed to be wearing any undergarments at all; he was certain about a bra, for the tiny, pert peaks of her firm, peach-like breasts often poked boldly from under the thin fabric of her blouse. And when she wore one special pair of bell-bottom slacks, denim that seemed to be molded to her smooth young curves, there was never a hint of an outline showing in the taut cloth to trace the hidden edges of her panties.
With so little to do, their visits were longed-for occasions, a welcome relief from the drab procession of middle-aged collectors who trickled through during the rest of the week.
He liked to imagine what each of the women would be like in bed. Mrs. Davies would be warm, passionate, but business-like, he told himself as he watched her carefully and skillfully examine volume after volume, passing over the worthless junk until she found just what she wanted. She'd probably long ago ceased to find any real satisfaction from sex with her husband; it had been his well-founded observation that most women her age would give it up altogether if given their choice. Levi liked to think he could change all that - just a few uninterrupted minutes together and he'd have her thinking like a girl of twenty-five again.
She'd probably still be strikingly attractive without her clothes, he guessed. Maybe a little sag here and there, but the care she took in choosing her cosmetics and clothes told him that the part he couldn't see was probably just as well cared for. He guessed her bust to be about thirty-six or seven; it might have been an inch more when she was younger, but it was still high and firm with a senuous line most women could only envy.
Kathi could offer a man something entirely different though. She was delectably young and ripe, like a succulent piece of fruit hanging temptingly on the tree, waiting for someone to pick her from the bough and introduce her to the incredible delights of real womanhood. Not that she had to be a virgin, of course. But at sixteen or seventeen, she had that indefinable certain something that gave her away her innocence. He could easily make out the smooth, flowing lines of her young boyish figure, firm and solid under her slacks and blouse. When she wore a mini-skirt, her legs were trim and slender, with just a trace of adolescent knobbishness about her knees. They were still lacking that swelling fullness that would come later, but somehow she was even more enticing without it, especially when she wore crisp white cotton stockings that came nearly to her dimpled knees. That was the perfect dash of little-girlishness to complete the picture.
Levi slowly panned his head to the left as Kathi leaned over a pile of books to show her mother something in a volume she'd found. Her temptingly short mini-skirt had ridden up past the delicious fold of her buttocks where it joined her thighs, and the red-and-blue-striped fabric of her panties barely covered the soft, tender curve, leaving a cheeky peak of young flesh uncovered.
He hoped they wouldn't need his help right away; it wouldn't do for them to see the aching hardness poking at his trousers.
Though years apart in age and experience, Kathi and Patricia Davies, shared the same common need for the skilled, sure hand of a man to answer their special needs. Pat, to re-acquaint her with the boundless joys of physical love, and prove to her that a wealth of joyous hours still remained in her future. Kathi, to open up the unbelievable paths of sexual fulfillment just beyond her grasp, the enviable pleasures of a young girl becoming a woman.
Satanism taught that to ignore these pleas was unforgivable, that ultimate physical gratification should be offered to every man and woman, and Levi considered these two no exceptions.
Oh, I'm going to enjoy every precious second of our brief time together . . . I'm going to show you a world you never knew existed . . . And when I've done with you, Kathi and Patricia Davies, you'll fall on your trembling knees to thank me!