Chapter 11
It wasn't until afterward-long, long afterward-when Hal Gilmartin woke up in Julian Phelps Memorial Hospital days later, that the foolish boy realized exactly what had happened to him. Then, as he found himself trussed and bound in an antiseptic bed, his left leg and his right arm in traction, his face swathed in bandages, just before the murderous pain blacked him out again, the grisly picture suddenly came back into focus. A day later, when he realized his nose and jaw were broken, when the nurse told him every finger on his right hand was snapped, the picture became even more clear. And lastly, when he begged a nurse's aid for a mirror, when he partially tugged away the bandages with his good left hand and saw the raw hamburger that had once been a face Then, had he been able to unhinge his locked jaw, he would have truly bellowed. Then the total impact and significance of the merciless beating he'd received truly swarmed over him, taught him the realest meaning of terror!
As he'd left the apartment Dwight Adair so generously maintained for his eternal convenience that cold, blustery night in mid-December Hal Gilmartin had felt strangely uneasy. Climbing into the junk-heap Ford that would have to suffice until he accepted delivery on the promised '69 Buick Riviera, he'd had distinct twinges of fear. He could have sworn that the rakish Caddy parked across from him had been empty, its lights out, its motor dead only moments ago. But then, when the tail-gating car had turned off behind him only two blocks on his way to his dumpy West Side pad, Hal's fears had been allayed. Partially drunk, weak as a cat from the demands of the tireless Sirri, he'd had much more important things to think about.
Thus he'd been totally caught off-guard as he'd parked on Grant Street, and started toward his apartment building. His mind a million miles away, he certainly couldn't have been expected to notice the same Cadillac parked a half block up the street. The voice had lashed him, galvanized him into instant immobility. Someone in the alley? At three o'clock in the morning? "Gilmartin?" the soft-spoken man said. "Hal Gilmartin?"
He should have bolted; anyone with half a brain should have known there had to be a clinker somewhere. Instead, he'd turned, had stupidly stared into the darkness. "Yeah, I'm Hal Gilmartin. What d'ya want?"
"I've got something for you, buddy." Before Hal had been able to make a move, the man had strong-armed him from behind. Shutting off his wind, he'd dragged his victim deep into the alley. Where, with a stunning ease belying his modest size, he'd swung Hal against the brick wall, the sudden stop responsible for minor skull concussion the doctors later found.
"Please, please...." Hal gasped dazedly.
"A Christmas present, Hal," the man had wheeled. "In advance. From an old friend. If you're smart, you won't need a second. The name Adair mean anything to you? He wants you to lay off. Or else." At which, with blurring speed, the dark-suited thug had buried his brass-bound fist into the center of Hal's mouth, the blow efficiently breaking off all Hal's front teeth at the gum line.
A flurry of blows had followed the initial, ox-stunning smash, the jagged metal protecting the man's fist breaking Hal's nose in two places, gouging out huge pieces of his flesh in the bargain. When Hal had commenced to scream he'd been rewarded with a larynx-paralyzing chop across his throat. As he'd gaggingly folded up, his hands to his face, the goon had knead him in the groin three times in quick succession. Hal hadn't been able to remember very much after that. One, massive, grunting ball of superhuman pain, he'd been picked up from the ground again and again, had become a human punching bag as the hired-ape had poured fist after fist into his stomach, his chest, his back and kidneys. Hal had heard ribs collapse; he'd wheezed and gasped for life as the breath was repeatedly knocked out of him. Again the knee came up, seemingly drove a jagged timber up his pelvic cavity. Until finally Hal had mercifully passed out, had crumbled into a bloody heap upon the crumbling cement.
He'd awakened to find the man kicking him in the ribs. "Can you hear me, pal?" the softly-wheezing man had called. "Listen good, you."
"I hear you," Hal had bubbled through a blood-clogged mouth.
"You ever bug my friend again, I'll kill you next time. Understand?"
"I understand."
Then Hal's very head had exploded with sirening pain; he'd screamed, his cries emerging as a muffled, "Unh, unh...." And the man had deliberately stomped Hal's right hand, as he'd jumped up and down on his leg, then his arm, until he was satisfied with the timbre of the bones breaking. Upon which Hal had once more passed out cold.
Now, staring at the mirror, regarding his Grand Guignol face, he wanted to die. He would never be handsome again; no woman living would ever take a second look at his face so long as he lived!
It was on the day following Hal's admission into the hospital-that knowledge in itself strongly jarring her-that a very wary and uncomfortable Sirri Stenson kept a spur-of-the-moment appointment at the Adair residence. But, for a wonder, not with Dwight Adair. But with his wife-the stone-faced, cruel-eyed Noreen Adair instead. "Yes, Mrs. Adair," Sirri put on her best school-girl air. "My mother told me you'd called, that you wanted to see me. What is it about?"
Noreen never smiled once during the entire interview. Impassive, curt, she was in total charge from the minute Sirri entered the luxurious Adair living room. And indicating the place beside her on the contemporary davenport, she said, "Sit down, won't you, please, my dear. I'm quite sure you know what this is all about."
"Mrs. Adair?" , "Let's not play games, Sirri. There isn't time." Her eyes drilled into Sirri's, froze her where she sat. "It's come to my attention, child, that you and my husband have become rather close of late. Intimate, shall I say?" Further vitriol erupted in her gaze. "Games, did I say?" She chewed out the remainder of the accusation: "Intimate, hell! I happen to know that you two have been screwing like fuck-crazed minks for the past four months now!"
Sirri nearly voided her bladder where she sat. Her face white, her voice blurred, she said, "Mrs. Adair! What are you saying? How ... dare you!"
"I told you, Sirri. Knock off the act. I've got you cold. This says I do." With a quick movement she drew the plain, brown envelope from beneath the davenport cushion, handed it to the girl. "Open it. Take a gander at those."
With trembling hands, terror threatening to collapse her very skull, Sirri drew out the eight-by-ten glossies-a dozen in all-which showed her and Dwight disporting themselves in sexual deviations of every description. The photographs were expert, taken with super-fast film, a fabulously wide, fast camera lens, and they showed Sirri and Dwight in simple copulation, in the soixante-neuf position, in the weird lingerie ensembles, as well as naked. They showed Dwight performing unadorned cunnilingus, as well as Sirri, with her lips blissfully wound about his massive prick. The pictures of Sirri were especially clear, her face in unmistakable close-up, her expression undeniably pagan. There were others, but the piece de resistance was the glossy depicting Sirri accommodating Dwight via anus.
"Where, where did you get these?" the ashen-faced girl blubbered as she looked up from the last photograph.
"That's irrelevant. I've got them; that's all that matters." What followed was very terse and brutal indeed, and amounted basically to an ultimatum; one which Sirri Stenson could not, in good conscience, refuse to honor. The photographs would be doctored so that Dwight's identity, as well as the background, would be concealed. And should the dim-witted little bourgeois be so foolish as to consider bucking Noreen, the photographs would be sent to her parents, to Father Wilkinson at the church, to relatives and friends. Should she dare to reveal who her seducer was, the total might of the Adair fortune would be brought to bear in Benton Falls; she'd have as much chance as a snowball in hell of proving her charges. Money does have its inherent privilege after all. So if Sirri had any sense at all The blackmail adventures would cease immediately; as would the group parties recently foisted upon Dwight. Sirri would continue to make herself available to Dwight as long as he might continue to find her fascinating. For which acquiescence she would continue to be taken care of handsomely up to such time as she and Dwight tired of her. Status quo would continue insofar as clothes, gifts, allowance, and her automobile were concerned. But for now:
"Come upstairs with me now, my dear. I've got a little surprise for you." Docilely, all will to resist dead within her now, Sirri did as she was told. Upon reaching the bedroom, once again among familiar surroundings, Sirri trembling as the door was locked behind her, an eerily-aroused Noreen said, "I think you owe me an apology, Sirri. After I trusted you, brought you into my own home, treated you like my own daughter. How did you repay me? By stealing my husband right from under my nose. That was a very naughty thing to do, don't you think?"
Noreen's voice became more arch, more pinched by the moment. "Aren't you sorry for what you've done?"
"I'm sorry...." Sirri pleaded. "Very sorry...."
"That won't do, I'm afraid, my dear. Don't you think you should show me how sorry you are?" She led the shuddering girl down to the bed. "Undress, please, Sirri. I think it's time I found out what there is about you that Dwight finds so irresistible. I am a woman of certain strong needs myself, you know."
Sirri instinctively knew what it was the wild eyed Mrs. Adair was leading up to. "Please, Mrs. Adair ... Noreen! Don't ask me to...."
"If you will undress, please!"
Shamefacedly, in agonizing fits and starts, Sirri began removing her clothes. By the time she was finished, Noreen was naked also, and she sat in an imperious pose in an upholstered chair on the top tier. "Come up, please, Sirri," she commanded, an addled ring to her voice. And as Sirri complied falteringly: "If you will kneel, dear. Here, in front of me-between my legs. You're sorry, aren't you, baby? Very sorry. You wish to make amends ... show me how sorry you are, don't you?"
Mesmerized, wholly confused by then, Sirri whispered, "Yes, Mrs. Adair. I want to show you how sorry I am." Then she was sinking to the floor between Noreen's legs; she dazedly crawled forward.
Noreen endured the child's sweet lips at her nipples as long as she could. But then, as the Satanic fires raged out of control in the depths of her cunt, she snapped, "Enough, darling! Enough of that! My cunt now, my burning cunt. Lean down, kiss it, lick it. Move, you little pig! I'm on fire, do you hear. Suck my cunt! Suck it until I give you permission to stop!" For long, brain-fevered moments Sirri swayed before Noreen, acted as if she hadn't heard. Until, finally, a strangled sob escaping her, the futility of resistance crushing her spirit, Sirri slowly slumped to her haunches before Noreen, began the long journey along her thighs.
There was a last hesitation. As Noreen now brought up her bare feet, dug the heels into the chair's cushion. A move that totally exposed her black-furred hole, the glistening film of vaginal elixir that clung, then popped like a soap bubble. Even this was not blatant invitation enough, for then Noreen's fingers dropped, pulled the lips of her yawning pussy even wider.
Sirri shuddered, abjectly forged ahead; she buried her mouth in that hot, slimy mush, let her tongue slither forth. Moments later, only the sound of wet clickings, Noreen's thick wheezings of delight could be heard in the echoing vault of that macabre torture chamber.