Chapter 5
Clara was terribly excited when Garnett visited her that evening at ten. No sooner had she ushered him into her parlor than she announced: "I've met part of the Scorpion's gang! I'm sure I have!"
They sat in the big couch, side-by-side, and she told him all that had happened.
"This woman called me," she began, "and said that the ring belonged to a friend of hers-I told you that over the phone, didn't I? Well, I met her at the Clive. She calls herself Mrs. Mason, and I guess that's her name, all right. She's in her early thirties, I think, and she's very pretty. You know, like a countess in The Three Musketeers or something. Anyway, she's very fascinating and very European. The name Mason doesn't fit her at all. She has dark eyes and hair and a husky voice. She's very cultured. I kept thinking about international spies and things like that all the while I was with her. And she. has the tiniest feet I ever saw!"
Garnett smiled. The girl certainly had enjoyed herself; in fact, she had sponged up all the thrill there was to be had.
"She didn't say anything about the ring right away," Clara went on. "We took a table in the Clive and ordered tea and cake, and she was very pleasant to me. She had brandy in her tea, but I was afraid of sleeping drugs and stuff so I said no to the brandy. My, she was nice, though. Before I knew it she had invited me to come and visit her at her home in the country. We talked about all sorts of things for a quite a while before she asked about the ring. But I didn't have it with me. I told her that I was afraid I'd lost it, and she seemed quite disappointed. But she went on and described it perfectly. Even the little nick in the silver-did you notice it? I couldn't refuse to give it to her after that, and I asked her if she could come home with me and get it. But she said she was expecting a friend and couldn't Instead she asked if it would be all right to send her brother-in-law with me to get it and I said of course that would be all right, so she made a phone call, and we had some more tea, and then a man came and joined us at the table. She introduced him as John Webster, and said he'd drive out with me and get the ring.
"Mrs. Mason and the Webster man were very friendly, and I somehow got the impression that he had been an old flame of hers. Either that or she's known him better than a married woman should know a strange man, even her brother-in-law. Anyhow I didn't believe he was any relative of hers. From what I found put later about him, boyfriend or not he probably knows her too well.
"We finished tea finally and Mrs. Mason wanted to know if I could come out to her place in the country tomorrow. I promised to phone tonight and let her know. She said I could call any time after eleven. Then I got into the Webster man's car.
"He was nice, I guess, but he insisted on complimenting me all the time. And they were very personal compliments, too. All about my bosom and things like that But he didn't do anything until we arrived here at the apartment. Then, after J had given him the ring and we were both sitting here with a drink, he suddenly put his arms around me.
"I hardly knew what to do. I just sat still while he ran his hands over my arms and back. I let him kiss me a couple of times, and I opened my mouth when he seemed to want me to. Then he told me to lean back in the chair while he felt of my breasts. I was awfully scared. I didn't know whether he was the Scorpion or not-but I'm sure he wasn't; he wasn't the sinister type at all-and I was determined not to seem scared or surprised, so I just smiled at him and encouraged him. I wanted these people to think that I was their type, so it would be easier for me to get mixed up with them and find out about Rita. Was that right?"
Garnett nodded sagely. "Webster probably was just testing you. Anyway, he felt your breasts and you smiled at him, then what did he do?"
"He slipped his hand up under my dress. I hated to have him touch me. I didn't really like him at all. But I kept on smiling and acting as though that were just what I wanted him to do. Then he suggested that we come over here to the couch.
"Once we were on the couch together he became very insistent. He began to handle my legs and to put his hand all the way under my dress, and right away he asked me if a man had ever-had me. I told him no, and I winked at him, so he wouldn't know whether I really meant it or not and he said that if I wasn't kidding I was making a big mistake and missing a good deal. Then he told me that if I wanted to be made love to-and he said he couldn't understand any girl not wanting to-I should positively go to one of
Mrs. Mason's weekend parties. But he went on to say that I ought to look him up first. Then he began feeling my thighs again.
"I knew it wouldn't be long before he'd want me to take my dress off, just the way you said, and it wasn't. He had been pushing my skirt up along my legs until he could feel between them, and, while he was pushing the skirt up, he had been trying to push me down on the couch with his shoulder. Finally I was lying down."
She paused, and appeared reluctant to go on. "What's the matter?" Garnett asked. "Have you forgotten what happened?"
She shook her head and turned crimson. "I haven't forgotten a thing."
"Then tell me. What did he do next?"
"He made me take my dress off, and everything else besides-my underwear and my stockings and everything."
"While you were lying on the couch?"
"Partly while I was on the couch, partly while I was standing in front of him."
"And then he had you lie down with him again-naked?"
"Yes, that's right. I had to lie down with him naked. It was almost like with you. I don't mean to sound like I'm putting you both in the same class; I didn't like him at all-he wasn't nice or anything-but it was almost like it was last night. What he did, I mean. I had to lie in his arms while he felt me and prodded me and fingered every single part of my body. Every single part!"
"You mean he examined your vagina too?"
Clara swallowed hard. "Uh-huh, that too. He made me spread my legs open and let him feel me there, and then he put his finger inside."
"And he still had his clothes on?"
"He did then, but he took them off right after that. He made me sit up, and he wouldn't let me cover my breasts with my hands, and he made me look at him while he undressed. He made me tell him that I had never seen a man naked, and it seemed to delight him to be the first man I ever saw. He especially wanted me to say that the hair over his-thing-surprised me. But I said no it didn't because I had hair there, too. He looked a little sore about that. Then he came back to the couch with me"-she smiled as she noticed that Garnett was laughing silently over her last sally-"and he stood up in front of me and made me touch him. He took my hand and put it on his-on-oh, do I have to tell you all this?"
Garnett rose from the couch and turned out all the lights except one lamp over in the corner. Then he sat with her again. "If you can't tell me, show me," he said. "Where did you have to put your hand?"
Clara timidly brought her hand to his trousers. "There," she said.
"He made you touch his prick, you say?"
"And that wasn't all! After I touched it, he made me hold it in my hand and look at it while it grew big and fat and stiff, and the skin on the tip stretched and got shiny and looked like a plum." She stopped, as though she just realized that she had been more appreciative of the enterprise than an unwilling little innocent should have been. Then, blushing slightly, she added: "He made me hold it in both palms and-and-" She made a vague up and down gesture.
"Perhaps you'd better show me exactly what you mean. I see you don't like to say it right out. Go ahead, show me. I won't look at your face while you do. Open my trousers."
She seemed unable to believe at first that he was serious, but he nodded at her questioning look and she bent in a confusion of blushing and tried to unpuzzle his zipper fly. "Oh, Mr. Garnett," she exclaimed as she bent to the task, "I'm so ashamed of myself. I did something so dirty today that I can't believe I did it."
"Yes," he said, "I can see that. But this is the price you must pay to find your sister. If you love her, it won't matter."
She fingered his tool gingerly, dropping it confusedly now and again from one hand to the other like a hot potato. It was hot to the touch, and it became incredibly stiff in her grasp. She moved her hand to and fro, illustrating the manner in which she had been obliged to manipulate the member of Mr. Webster. Garnett's engine grew bigger, and she moved her hand faster.
"He made me do it faster, too," she confessed, "and he grew very excited. He seemed to be trying to pull my head toward it. At last I wouldn't do it any longer. My wrist was tired, but I didn't tell him that was why I stopped. That was when he lay down with me for the second time." Garnett took Clara's hand and closed it more firmly around his shaft, which she had almost released while speaking. She added: "He was feeling me-" she guided his hand-"there."
Garnett reached far under her dress and into her crotch. He was a trifle surprised to notice that she didn't have any panties on this time.
"He was doing everything you did there with your fingers," she went on, "and he made me play with his-thing-again."
"And you were ashamed," Garnett suggested softly.
"Oh, yes, I was horribly ashamed. But I had to keep doing it. He didn't feel like you do."
The devil's advocate looked at her questioningly.
"His-thing-had more skin on it up at the end," she explained.
"His foreskin," Garnett advised her, amazed at her ignorance of so common a phenomenon as circumcision. Didn't little girls take care of babies any more?
She went on: "He said he didn't know whether he should make love to me or not, but that if I did what I was doing well enough he wouldn't have to. So I did it as well as I could, but my wrist was killing me. Anyhow I did everything he told me to, and just like he told me to do it. I pulled his-thing-and rubbed it and tickled it, and I took the heavy things underneath in my other hand and squeezed them a little. I let him tickle me and rub me as much as he wanted to. I was afraid that if I stopped him he would make love to me, and I pretended to be enjoying myself very much. When he asked me how I liked it, I told him that I'd never felt anything so great in all my life."
"That was true, wasn't it," Garnet chuckled.
"Yes, but I hated it! I hated it! And I was so afraid that someone would come in and find us there like that, even though I knew that no one was around. The slightest noise made me jump like a bank robber."
"Bank robbers don't jump. They have nerves like iron." Garnett worked his finger more insistently in her dripping-hot grotto. "I suppose he was doing just about what I'm doing?" He put a good deal of feeling-and rotary firmness-into the movement.
"He was using two fingers," she confessed shyly.
Garnett corrected this error promptly and found that two not only fitted more snugly than one but also worked twice as well. The twisting motion was even more interesting, and it did not hurt her a bit. This year's virgins had more leg room than the earlier models, he decided. Come to think of it, though, this kid was only technically a virgin-and she wasn't going to stay that way any longer than it amused him for her to do so. "How long did this go on?" he asked her after a few minutes.
"Just about as long as we've been doing it. Then-" 'Then this happened!" Garnett finished for her in a tight voice.
"Oh, Mr. Garnett! How could you?! " she cried, wiping her hand on the handkerchief which she snatched from his breast pocket. She sat up, wringing the handkerchief between her fingers and accusing him bitterly. "You're just as beastly as he was! Oh, I didn't expect this of you!"
Garnett grinned. "But it's only natural, my dear girl. If your handling had this same effect on Webster, you should have expected that it would have it on me. Isn't that true?" '
"No! You should have used self-control!"
"I suppose so. But it wouldn't have been much fun. Life is too short for self-control. Anyway, what happened after Webster ejaculated? Did he do anything else to you?"
"No, he left right after that. But, before he went, he told me to be sure and remember Mrs. Mason's party tomorrow. I suppose I have to go, don't I? Now that the ring is gone I can't simply let her forget me."
"Yes, you'll have to go-poor girl. Have you looked in Rita's diary to see if she mentions Mrs. Mason or Webster?"
"She doesn't use any names at all. She calls people A and B."
"How inconsiderate of her," Garnett sighed. "How goddam inconsiderate."