Chapter 8

"Sex Therapy"

"Things moved along pretty good for a long time. We had no problems, because most of the men that came to our house were older men and married, and they didn't want any more trouble than we did. And they paid well.

"The parents of the girls didn't suspect a thing, and nobody wanted to become a millionaire, so it worked out fine.

"I had only one problem: I was getting fed up with sex, since I had to do it every night, whether I wanted to or not. And, a lot of the guys just couldn't turn me on. Since that surgery, there was a lot of loose flesh clogging the lips of my cunt - you know, like when a woman has had a couple of kids.

"That made it harder for a man to turn me on. Just rubbing the lips of my pussy used to start to stir me all up, but I could hardly feel it now. A man had to really get in deep with his cock before I really could feel it.

"But I had worked out the answer. I was drinking about a fifth a scotch a day. I never let myself get drunk - the customers wouldn't have gone for that, but I kept myself completely mellow and relaxed. It made it easy to take some of the men. I didn't try to come with every one of them, but there were a few regular customers that could make me want to let them hump me for free - but I didn't.

"I told the other girls that they didn't have to do it any way that they didn't want to. I know that all of us sucked cocks, that was no problem, if a guy wanted it. We would go all the way until he came, or give him a half-and-half, suck him good and hard, then finish him off with the fuck.

"I didn't mind it when the guys wanted to fuck me in the ass, but Moira didn't like it. I never heard the other girls complain about it, so I guess it was all right with them. And Waxie taught me another trick. He told me that most guys got really turned on when they could look into a well-placed mirror and see themselves in action, so I bought some big three-part mirrors, like they use in clothing stores to let you see yourself from different angles, and I placed them right by the beds we used. A lot of guys told me that they got a special kick out of that.

"But I was getting bored with sex as a business. It was losing its kick for me. Then one day I remembered Jerome and Tom and the handcuffs and hairbrushes, and I began to wonder if that would pep me up. Moira had brought one of those underground papers to the place, and I was glancing through it, out of curiosity, and I stumbled onto this page of want ads. Every one of them had something to do with sex. Some advertised for Lesbian or homosexual partners; some wanted to be whipped or give whippings, a lot of them wanted to get into sex groups where they swung both ways, with men and women.

"Out of curiosity, I wrote-to one of them and two days later, I got a phone call. It was a man, and he wanted to know if I had ever attended a bisexual party, where anything goes. I told him I hadn't, but if he only knew! I convinced him that I was on the level, and he gave me an address and told me that the meeting was to be the next night.

"When I got there, they were all pretty surprised that I was as young as I was. Most of them were in their late 30's and 40's, and a couple were older than that.

"It was a little different group because they were all the brainy type. They really were. One of them was a doctor and another man and wife were psychiatrists, and they were doing some sort of research. I thought at first they were putting me on, but they played a couple of games. One of them was supposed to come from that book from India, on the ways to love. I guess it's called the Kama Sutra. They called it Indian Checkers, and another version of it was called The Wheel of Love. A man and a woman would sit at a big board, and rest our hands on the board - just the fingertips touching it. On the board, there were about 50 pictures in fairly large squares.

"First, we would strip naked, and then we were supposed to tell the other person what sort of sex we would like, or what part of the body we wanted them to use - like mouth, tongue, cock, teeth, asshole, and so on.

"Then, we closed our eyes and let our mind take over, moving our fingers until they stopped on a square. It was kind of weird, sometimes. For instance, I was with this one man and he had a moustache, and I said I would like him to use his mouth and lips to make me come, but when my hands stopped moving on the board, one was on a prick, and the other one on a knife. But they were both on the 'Do,' side of the board. It was divided into two parts - or, it really had two sets of every object - one in a red color, which meant that it was something you wanted to do to the other person, and the blue picture indicated something you wanted done to you.

"The docs got real excited about the red prick and knife, and they asked me if, by any chance, I had ever wanted to cut a man's penis off - especially a man who resembled the partner I had at that time. It didn't take much thinking on my part to connect up what my mind was still saying: I'd give a year's growth to have a chance to cut the cock off of Steve.

"I got hooked on the 'club,' or whatever it was, and I began to read some of the books that the docs gave me on sex and psychology. I told you before, I wasn't too good in school after I began to fuck around, but this stuff really got to me. But it was like a game, and it didn't do much for me sex-wise. I was still bored as hell with sex, and this bunch wanted to play around with the mind, not the sex organs.

"So, I dropped out. But I told the psychiatrist and his wife where they could reach me. I wanted to dig a little deeper into some of the things they had been fooling with. I still like to read psychology and sexology.

"Then, that goddamned dumb Moira got all our asses in a sling. She got into a big argument with her father and walked out and came to stay with me at the house. Her old man sent the cops after her and when they cornered a couple of her fucking boy friends, they blew the whistle. One guy was her 'pimp' at school. He wasn't getting any money from her, but he was getting all the blow jobs and free fucking he could handle, just for steering some guys to Moira.

"So, the smart-ass cops raided the goddamned place. They only got Moira and I, because the other two were off that night, but, they also got Waxier. They booked him on procuring, pimping, contributing to the delinquency of minors, and some other charges, and me and Moira were charged with prostitution, with being 'incorrigible minors,' and in my case, they checked back on that goddamned dope charge and really laid it on.

"They brought my parents into the deal too, and the judge laid it on them good, for their own neglect of my welfare and supervision. I was given a year in a home for delinquents, and Moira got six months. And, we were both ordered to have psychiatric treatment.

"That was a big laugh, because the school was a training ground for thieves, prostitutes, con-girls and Lesbians. Half the girls there were on 'pot,' and quite a few on the heavy stuff. They had no trouble getting it, either. There were at least three men working there that were fucking the girls like crazy, and I personally did business with four Lesbians who worked at the place as teachers and guards.

"I also had sex with one of the supervisors, and he offered me a chance to pick up some good money on weekends, if I'd play ball with him. I didn't want any part of it. All I wanted to do was to make my time easy - do 'easy time,' as they say up there, and get out. I did what I was told, and when somebody wanted a sex favor, I got two for one, you can bet on that.

"I liked the psychiatric sessions. It was fun to shock and upset the young guy who worked with us. We had a lot of group therapy, because they just didn't have enough doctors to work much with individuals. Moira wasn't at the same place as I was - I guess because of her short sentence. But I found I was in good company. I don't think there was a virgin within ten miles of the joint.

"I got along with most of the girls, and the ones that wanted to get tough, I just finked on. I had enough buddies on the staff to keep them in their place. There was one old guy there - a sort of maintenance man - he was handy at anything like fixing electrical things, water pipes, heaters. And -he liked his booze and his fucking. I rigged a deal with him where I met him two nights a week - on recreation nights - and gave him his piece. My price was a bottle of good scotch each time.

"He had a hard time getting a hard on, mostly because he was half juiced up when he'd meet me, and also, he was scared silly that we'd get caught and he'd get fired. I don't blame him, because he had a good thing going for him. On the outside, I doubt if even a whore would want to take the time I always did with the old fart. I know if he'd have come around to my place when I was in business, I'd have told him to blow town, no matter how much he offered. But in that joint, believe it or not, the hardest thing to get was booze. It was easy to bring in pot or dope, I guess, but a bottle of booze isn't so easy to hide.

"He used to like to lick my asshole and my pussy from behind me, while he playing with his cock. Half the time, he never did get a real hard on, so I'd wind up sucking him off and he usually came 'soft.' But, he kept the booze coming, and I kept him coming, one way or another.

"I blew a little pot once in awhile, just to break the monotony, but it never did much for me. A couple of the addicts tried to get me to go for the big stuff, but I had had a taste of that jazz, and I didn't want any part of it.

"The time passed pretty good. I only did seven months and a few days. There was a big hassle over where I would go after I got out, and finally the court decided that I would be put in a foster home, with my mother and father both able to visit me on weekends, but I couldn't spend time with them away from the foster home.

"The people that ran it were pretty nice, but strict as hell and religious as saints. I tried to work on the man, but he told me off good. He told me if I ever tried again, he would call the authorities - I had a visit from a parole officer at least once a week - and tell them what I was up to.

"I began to get bored again, and pretty hot. There were three other girls living there, but they were all straight, and were only there because they had lost one or both of their parents, so I couldn't even have any Lesbian sex. I tried going back to masturbating, but it wasn't any good. I couldn't even force myself to put anything that was big or hard up my cunt, because I'd remember that nightmare with Steve and the weirdoes in the homosexual society.

"Then Tom came to visit me one weekend with my father. The same Tom that had taken me to the party with Jerome, where all the whippers and biters were. He had found out my whereabouts through my father, and had talked him into bringing him along to visit. Man, it was like saving my life to know that somebody that was young and good-looking was still interested in me as a person. He must have damned well known that he wasn't going to get any ass - not under these conditions - so it sparked me real good when he visited.

"I had lived there for six months and kept my nose clean, so my dad had the lawyer ask the court if I could go back to school, and he would pay my board in the home of a family that he knew that had a good reputation. It took another six weeks of investigation, but finally the court agreed to it. I still had to report to the parole officer, and I was not allowed to drink, visit nightclubs, or associate with anyone I had known in the past.

"Moira's people had moved away somewhere when she got out, and I don't know what happened to the other two girls, because they had never been caught, and I went to a different school than I had before. But the people I boarded with were pretty good joes, and after awhile, they let Tom come to visit me. He used to sneak me some scotch, and I had no trouble hiding that in my room. But I couldn't go out alone with Tom.

"Sometimes, though, they were decent enough to let us have the den to ourselves, and we sneaked in a little, but it wasn't real good, because we were both scared that if we were caught, I'd go back to the institution and Tom could be charged with something, because he was 22, then.

"One night, when we both were hot as hell and couldn't do anything because the people were in the next room, Tom knocked me off the couch. He asked me to marry him! He was going to leave school and work for his uncle, managing one of a string of men's stores that he owned. Tom said he had already talked to my father, and that he had thought it might be the best thing in the world, if Tom was sure he loved me and really was ready to help me.

"Even better, my father had talked with my mother about the idea, and had finally convinced her that this was the one thing that might straighten me out - marriage. I "I didn't love Tom, but I thought he was about the nicest guy I'd ever known, and I really thought that, if I tried, I could be faithful to him. Even if we couldn't, I knew that he was a swinger, and that we could make out all right. I wanted the chance, anyhow.

"We went out into the other room and talked it over with the Walkers. They said they would nave to hear about the legality of it from the courts, and they contacted the parole officer. There was a meeting, with the Walkers, with my parents, with Tom and his mother -his father was dead. And finally, we got permission!

"I had to continue living with the Walkers until all the details were settled. Tom had to have his job, and have a home provided for me before the court would release me from the supervision of the Walkers.

"Tom got a nice furnished place. We had a ball picking it out. Mrs. Walker always accompanied us, and she was as excited as if I were her own daughter. Tom liked managing the store and his uncle and mother seemed to like me, although they both said we were a little young to be trying marriage. But, they both knew that Tom had been a little wild, too, and they thought it was the right answer for both our problems.

"The big day came. We went for our blood test, arranged for the wedding -it was going to be a small one, but in a church - and I began to live in a dream. Tom and I talked about the things we would do - a car for me after he could afford it - some nice clothes - maybe a trip to Palm Springs or Las Vegas once every few weeks - things that I had never even thought about before. I don't blame anybody, but my parents never did any of those things; no rides to the beach, or to Disneyland, or boat rides to Catalina, or anything like that. We were just three people living together, with nothing in common, I guess. I don't even think we really knew anything about each other, so how could we like or love each other.

"I was sure it would work with Tom. I was already beginning to respect him - and he was so thoughtful and sweet, that I knew I would come to love him. I worried a little about whether we could be sexually true, but I knew that Tom knew his way around a woman's body. I knew we could talk to each other about sex, our likes and dislikes, so I wasn't too worried on that score.

"Then the roof caved in. The day before we were going down to get the marriage license, a man from the Health Department came out to the Walkers with an order prohibiting me from obtaining a license. It was also a court order that made me be committed to the hospital for treatment for syphilis! Nothing had shown in Tom's blood test, but they insisted he have more thorough exams, and meanwhile, I became a ward of the court and was sent to the detention ward of one of the big college medical centers for treatment.

"I was in a daze. I wanted to die, but I couldn't. All I could think of was: what lousy bastard had given me this goddamned crud. I wondered how long I had had it, and if the treatment would clear it up - if I'd ever be normal.

"Normal? I kept cursing myself for even thinking that I was ever normal. A goddamned 16-year-old ex-madam with syph! Normal? A slut that had had pricks stuck into every opening in her body, and who had sucked cunts, cocks, assholes and even armpits and balls - and got a kick out of it. A lousy kid that was already on the way to becoming a lush - at 16!

"The doctors told me that I had evidently had the damned infection for some time. They couldn't say exactly, but the police got into the act along with the health authorities. They wanted me to give them the name of every male I had had sex contact with. Then the goddamned policewoman came up with the idea that, because I'd been in the home for all those months, every inmate there should be tested. I was so damned mad and mixed up that I blew my top. I told her to forget the inmates and check every one of the goddamned persons who worked there, starting with the superintendent and working down to the janitor and gardeners.

"I wouldn't tell them a single name. Tom didn't know, and they jumped on my father, too, but he really didn't know, so they couldn't do anything with those two. They hounded the hell out of Tom, even after he was cleared, and the court had said that I was to have no visitors until or unless I cooperated and gave them the names of my male sex partners.

"I was in a trap. For the first time in my life, I knew I couldn't use my cunt to get me what I wanted from a man. What intern or janitor or anyone, would fuck a broad with syph? And I wanted a belt of booze so bad that it hurt. I began to raise holy hell with the doctors and nurses and they threatened to put me in a straightjacket if I didn't knock it off. I guess they would have, too.

"But I got to thinking: why take the rap for some sonofabitch that was still walking around, spreading syph? Why me? Why only me having to pay? I felt like a goddamned traitor, but I was desperate. I had to get some relief. I had to get some booze or dope or something, or I would have lost my goddamned marbles. I mean it. They treated me like I was a piece of shit - everyone, after I began to get noisy with them. I guess I couldn't blame them, because I really used the words on them - I called them everything from cunt-lappers to shit-pan pushers. I even tried to tell the doctor that the nurses were trying to get me to lick their cunts, but nobody believed me. I knew they wouldn't.

"One day, the doc came in and sat down near the bed. He wasn't too old, but he was stem, and he acted as if no woman on earth could get him into bed with her. He was - antiseptic - I guess that's a good word to describe him. No sex. No laughs. Just like the white walls of the room.

"He began to talk, and I knew I'd better listen. He said, 'Savvy, I want to tell you what syphilis is; what it does, and what you're fooling with. It's a deadly disease that infects the blood, and is carried to every part of the body. If it lodges in the brain cells, it can destroy them and make a mindless, raving lunatic of you. You have it to a strong degree. You need Very intensive treatment; more -you need to cooperate and allow us to take care of the rest of your body - your diet, your rest and exercise, your sleep, your peace of mind.

"'We need your fullest cooperation. These tantrums are only tearing you down, when you need to be built up the most. Now, I can't force you - nor can the police - to give your cooperation. All I can do is to tell you what you are up against, and you can take it from there.' "'There's no point in hating us, or taking it out on those who are trying to help you. You are the one who is responsible. That doesn't mean that you must pay for your irresponsibility by taking your life, just as surely as if you were to put a gun to your head and blow your brains out. My examinations have shown that you cannot have children - even before the syphilis infection took hold, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a fairly good chance that you can live the full life of a woman, once we have licked this thing.' "He stood up and looked into my eyes. I was starting to cry, so I turned my face away. He said, in a softer voice: 'I want to help you, Savvy. We all do. I hope you will let us.' Then he left.

"I lay there a long time, thinking about what he had said. I didn't want to pull out of it, but I didn't want to lose my marbles, like he said I might. Most of all, I wanted somebody close to me - somebody I could talk to - somebody who would just put their arms around me and let me cry it all out - somebody who would treat me like the little girl I still was - inside.

"But there was nobody. I was alone.

"I knew, all at once, like a big flash of light had hit me, that I was really alone, and that for the rest of my life, I'd always be alone.

"I got out of bed and went into the bathroom and locked the door. I had brought the drinking glass with me. I knew there was nothing else that I could use to do what I had to do. I looked into the mirror and I didn't even know the ugly thing that looked back at me. How could anyone else ever know her, if I didn't?

"I smashed the top off the glass, but I didn't look at it. I didn't want to lose my nerve and I knew that if I watched the glass cut through my skin, and I saw the blood start, I just might not have the guts. But, I didn't have the guts not to - to go back to the goddamned lousy world that I had walked into.

"I ran the edge of the glass across my left wrist two or three times. I could feel the hotness of the blood flowing, then I switched it to my other hand and jabbed it deep into where I knew the vein or artery would be. The blood was running down both my wrists and I could feel myself getting faint, so I took the jagged piece in my right hand and tried to shove it deep into the hollow of my neck, and twist it. But that was the last I remembered.

"But, my luck was still bad. My timing couldn't have been worse. I had picked about two minutes before lunch time to make my big move. They came into the room, missed me, and they smashed down the door and got me into the emergency room. I'm a loser, even when I try to lose.

"But one thing is still possible.

"Tom just might be waiting for me."

What is to become of Savvy? No one can prognosticate her future with any degree of accuracy, because none of the sociologists, doctors, clergymen, lawmakers or psychiatrists, can predict the pathways of today's youth - and Savvy is a most complicated montage of the young female of today.

She is piteous in her cries for help, as we have heard. She, like millions of other youngsters, feels that she is completely abandoned and alone - so alone that eternal darkness seems preferable than the life into which she has been thrust.

It is useless to try to place the blame, for society itself is responsible. Worse, none seem willing or able to try to remedy the situation, or if any are, there is no clear solution to the problem.

There is no easy answer, nor do we pretend to have one. But the life of Savvy, so representative of too many of our young persons today, can be of some use, no matter what may become of her, if the persons who do care and can help, take a hard look at this hardened girl, and shudder as they realize that they are looking at someone they may know.