Chapter 2
Once in her room a modest cubicle with pale-green walls, drab furniture, and a pitcher and basin to take the place of a private bath Jill quickly unpacked her bags. She wanted to get right to bed.
Going to bed was, for Jill Marshall, an experience to look forward to, even though she always went to bed alone.
She would have liked to take a warm bath beforehand; to laze for half an hour in a scented tub as she had usually done at home in Portland, then don one of her fluffy nighties. This would be a short one, of course. Beneath which she would usually not bother to wear the frilly panties which were part of the set.
(Fancy nighties were another secret Jill had kept from her mother. Since Sarah Marshall had been confined to bed and wheelchair for the last few years, she never entered Jill's room after the girl retired for the night.)
Jill wouldn't take a bath tonight, however. The bathroom was down the hall, and she wasn't used to being on her own in a hotel. So she would wait until morning. Right now she would merely crawl into bed so that she could think for a little while before she dropped off to sleep. The day dreaming Jill did before falling asleep was far more pleasurable than that which occurred during the sleep-state. The latter dreams were frequently marred by darkly-unpleasant images and the threat of suffering such as she had never endured in real life. She didn't care for her sleeping dreams very much at all.
Now her bags were unpacked and she placed them on the shelf in the small closet. She walked across the room, following her reflection in the dresser mirror and swinging her lithe body in a little-girlish way which was blatantly contradicted by the contours of her body themselves. She was no little girl in a physical sense. She was very much a woman.
This became even more apparent as Jill stood directly in front of the dresser mirror and stripped.
She always liked to watch herself as she took her clothes off. She liked to watch all her charms becoming gradually unveiled. She liked to imagine, as she did this, that a man was undressing her that his hands were drawing her dress upward, were letting down her slip, were unclasping the fasteners of her bra, and finally were clutching the thin elastic at the top of her nylon panties, and were stripping those sheer, nearly-transparent panties down.
Jill never wore girdles or panty-girdles. She liked the freer feel of panties next to her skin. And all her panties were made of pure nylon. There were no cotton, rayon or acetate ones for her. Her body deserved the finest, and she liked the feel of the finest as she stood and walked and sat.
Someday she was going to buy some silk ones, she had promised herself. They weren't available in the stores where she had shopped in Portland, but she knew they could be found in the fancier shops of larger cities. She imagined silk panties were even lighter and softer and nicer to the touch than nylon.
She wondered if men liked silk parities on a woman.
Or off a woman.
She giggled.
She had let only two boys remove her panties, and these boys had certainly become excited. One of them had become so very excited that he had ... well, he had become as excited as a boy could possibly get. But she didn't think the handling of her panties had caused his excitement. Once he had pulled them off, he had tossed them away without a glance.
No. Boys weren't much interested in panties, she had decided. Their interest was more basic than that. She liked nice panties, though. She liked their feel, and she enjoyed the thought of wearing something so light and sheer and frilly while most girls bound themselves in constricting foundations.
Jill had quite an assortment of panties, in all styles and colors. She liked the pink ones best pink, brief ones which clung to her like a caress. They really complimented her beauty, her girlish glory.
Jill enjoyed compliments of all sorts: the silent compliment of fine clothing next to her body; the compliments which flashed in the eyes of men, and the spoken compliments which tumbled from their lips. She enjoyed the compliments which their hands paid her, as well.
Nude now, she held her fresh and lovely breasts, cupping them so that their pink lightly-pebbled noses were in full view. She rubbed her thumbs gently back and forth across this sensitive flesh and watched her nipples rise to their full straining thickness. My, how they stood out!
Boys raved about her nipples.
They enjoyed pinching the nubbins and rolling them between fingers and thumbs. They enjoyed plucking at them, too. And they liked to bring their faces down to her breasts and kiss her nipples in a way that nearly drove her wild.
She had let a few boys do that. Not many. Perhaps five or six in all.
Oh, how they had wanted to possess her particularly after that!
But she had never let any of them have the ultimate pleasure. She couldn't do that. She wasn't sure if she would ever be able to do so.
Boys frightened her. But the fright didn't keep her away from them, because she knew exactly how to control their rampaging desires.
Boys were so simple, really. Men too. Men were nothing, after all, but boys grown older. She knew how to handle them all!
Jill turned her back to the mirror and studied herself over a smooth white shoulder. Nice. Oh, yes. Very nice indeed! She had about the prettiest rear end that could be imagined. Boys had told her this, too.
She strode away from the mirror, picked her pink, frilly nightgown from the bed, and slid this down over her body. Her breasts still showed through, as did the rest of her beauty. The nightie dramatized, but did not conceal.
She turned the top of her bed down, then extinguished the lamp beside the bed and crossed the room to raise the window blinds. She looked down at the street. There was a light dimly burning on an opposite corner. She could see three parked cars but none in motion. And there were no people visible on the sidewalk. In the distance, on the back streets, lights shone in a few windows.
Some night she would forget to pull the shades when she undressed, she promised herself. She would see what this was like-the thrill of knowing she was displaying herself to the entire world. This was something she had often thought about doing at home but had never dared to try. Here she could find the courage, since there was no mother to be told by neighbors and to reprimand her.
Jill thought of the whiskery, disheveled man who had stared at her on the street. How would he like to watch her take her clothes off, she wondered. She bet he would become very excited and would want her very much. She smiled to herself.
Mort Hopper certainly wanted her. She could tell by the look in his eyes and the way he had talked. He hadn't tried to come up to the room with her, though. She guessed he was afraid of moving too fast, or else he was sensitive about what the old man at the hotel desk would think, and the other men who were sitting in the lobby.
They had certainly looked her over well! She knew what they were thinking. She knew what every man thought about when he looked at her.
Every man she met wanted her. Jill was sure of this. Some of them wanted her so strongly that they probably could hardly stand the thought.
This realization gave her pleasure. They wanted her and yet they couldn't have her. None of them could have her. This gave her the greatest pleasure of all.
She walked back across the room and climbed into bed. She lay the blanket back so that her body was covered only by the sheet. She soon decided that even this made her too warm and she removed the sheet as well.
Her warmth was not entirely of external origin, however. Most of the warmth was her own.
Now this very personal warmth was about to grow.
This was about to grow until a furnace-like thermal level was attained, and then suddenly the warmth would explode. She would tremble and thrill, and afterward she would sleep.
Slowly Jill lifted the frilly edge of her nightgown, baring her body to the dim glow of light which came into the room through the pair of narrow windows. She lifted the nightie over her firm bosom, which stood high even though she was on her back.
What breasts she had! She knew they were very lovely, and this gave her a great deal of pleasure. This excited her, adding to the warmth.
Her fingers crept upward until one breast was firmly imprisoned by each hand or as much of the breasts were imprisoned as her hands could hold. She began to knead them and to tease her light-pink nipples. Up her nipples came, the aureoles around them also swelling. Her nipples became very fat and very tall. She plucked at them with her fingers. She wriggled. Deep thrills began beating through her.
This was when Jill's dream began her dream about a man.
Tonight she would dream of Mort Hopper, she had decided. She usually dreamed about the man she had been out with during the evening. Though she hadn't really been out with Mort, they had been together for a few minutes. He desired her a great deal, she was sure of this. So she was going to dream about him.
The fact that Mort was personally unattractive didn't matter. Jill found him desirable because of the way he had looked at her. The fact that he wanted her was enough, and this had showed very strongly in his eyes.
She imagined him with her now, and she imagined that her hands were his. She imagined he was kneeling beside her on the bed, staring at all her lush nudity, then pinching and rolling her nipples as he breathed heavily and his eyes glowed with lust.
She dreamed now that he was bending forward, his pudging lips touching her up-thrust breasts. He was kissing her. Oh, yes!
He was loving her like crazy.
In a thirty-five-year-old white frame house about seven blocks from where Jill Marshall lay at that moment dreaming about Mort Hopper, he was climbing into bed beside his wife.
He had stopped at Bailey's Tavern after seeing Jill to the hotel. He had taken a couple no, three drinks with the boys. This he had done not so much to be sociable, but because he had wanted to have some fun when he got home. He wanted to have some fun with his wife after having seen and been close to Jill.
In order to have much fun with Mary, who had been a rather plain woman even when he married her twelve years before and had let herself go completely in recent years due partly to the fact that he had made no effort to keep his own physique; partly to her knowledge of his affairs with other women, and partly to the natural effects of bearing him five children a few drinks were necessary. A few drinks for himself, that is. Mary never drank at all, and she didn't want to have liquor in their house. Mort respected her wishes in this regard.
He was mildly disappointed to find her asleep. He would wake her up, however. She might fuss a little, but she wouldn't refuse him. She wouldn't dare do that.
He got into bed and turned on his side toward her. She was facing the other way. He ran a hand under the covers and to her body. He began to move his hand up and down her leg, just below her upraised hip. Her nightgown was coarse in texture not sheer and silken as he would have liked but there was a promise of warm, soft comfort underneath.
Comfort was about all Mary offered any more. There was little real excitement. At least, the excitement was not on a par with that which Mort derived from other women. There was enough excitement to bring him to the point where he could know the comfort of a release, and that was all.
That was all he expected tonight.
He moved his hand to the hem of the nightgown and slid under it. Mary's warm softness was against his palm and fingers. He slid his hand along ...
She stirred, made a decidedly unromantic sound, and rolled onto her back. Her hair, in curlers, was covered with a scarf which had become partially askew. Her face, puffy in the relaxation of sleep, glistened with an oily cream.
Mary was no beauty at best; now she was something less than pleasant for a romantically-aspiring male to contemplate. But she was the mother of Hopper's children and the companion of his life. He loved her in that sense, and he looked to her for comfort.
He stripped the bedclothes to the foot of the bed. grasped the bottom of her nightie, and drew it up. Mary's legs were too large at the tops; het middle was too much like pudding, and her breasts always spread in this posture so that their shapes were lost.
Mort began to caress her legs gently, displaying a more sensitive touch than one might have expected from a man of his gross appearance. Mary stirred again, moving her legs a little.
He continued.
As he crouched beside his wife, caressing and gradually coaxing her out of sleep, Mort thought about Jill. He remembered how tempting she was, and he began to imagine that this was she before him. These legs were hers, this middle, these breasts...
This nipple.
"Oh! Mort, for heaven's sake..." He kept on.
"I'm sleepy, Mort. Why'd you have to wake me up?"
He raised his face. "You can get in the mood. That won't be too hard."
"But I was asleep. A woman doesn't feel like ... unh ... mmm ... oh, that is kinda good."
Her hands moved to his broad back and the fingers extended to press gently against him. He moved from her right nipple to her left one and, at the same time, his fingertips caressed her in a way which she couldn't possibly ignore.
If this was only Jill, he thought. Then would I fly--I'd take a rocket ride to the blasted moon!
As he proceeded to consolidate his possession of Mary, he imagined again that she was Jill. He held his wife tightly, his face pressed against her lumpy curlers, and imagined he was pressing Jill's silken brown hair. This was difficult but a man could manage, particularly if he'd had a lot of practice at such fantasies.
He imagined that the softness he felt was Jill's and that the warmth was Jills', also. He moved vigorously.
In her bed at the hotel, Jill was moving. And she imagined that the force responsible for her motion was being administered by Mort Hopper. Though she never would have let Mort do this, now she was imagining that her lover was he. She moved ecstatically, her lithe, trim hips bounding. She twisted. Her mouth contorted and gasped.
The fat, older man, Mort Hopper, was loving her and getting a tremendous thrill for himself at the same time. She saw his face how his pudgy features would look in passion. His thick lips were back and his teeth gleamed like an animal's. His eyes were like live coals.
Go, Mort! You silly, fat, old fool ... got Mort rolled over and came to rest on his back. He was breathing hard.
His wife was breathing hard, also. Now she caught her breath and murmured, "That was very good, darling." She turned and kissed him by the ear. Her breath was warm and her lips were moist and slack.
At that moment, in a sleazy room of a ramshackle lodging house which was mainly for pickers and transient farm laborers, Pete Larrabee was about to bed a stringy-haired tramp he had brought home from the Red Apple Bar.
She was nearly as old as he was and little more than a bag of bones. But Pete was very drunk, the lights were out, and the broad at least wore perfume.
But even Pete Larrabee was not without his illusions.
As he loved the string-haired tramp, grunting and huffing out his passion, he thought about the girl he had seen on the street the girl who had stepped off the bus right in front of him and who he, rather than Mort Hopper, might have escorted to the Fruitvale Hotel if only he'd had the nerve to approach her. Pete remembered how she had looked at him and smiled.
What a warm little cookie she was!
What a time he could have with, her on a smooth, white bed! This pig he was with looked like garbage by comparison.
Pete worked savagely.
"Hey!" the woman squawked. "Go easy! Wha-daya think you're doing, any how?"
"I'm loving you, you stupid old hag!" Pete croaked.
"Well, love easy! I'm not made of tin." He shut her voice out. He tried to banish, also, his memory of the way she'd looked when the light had been on. Now, in his mind, he saw only the girl from the bus. He saw that girl the way he imagined she would look without clothes ... with a man ... and in passion. As far as what he felt was concerned, he could just as well be with her right now. They all felt the same.
He huffed on and on, the large amount of liquor having slowed him. He was hardly aware when the woman finished, but then she began to curse and try to push him away. He fought her. He fought her and loved her at the same time. Furiously. Desperately. Her fighting shook the image he was trying to hold in his mind; this slowed him even more and made him angry.
After he had finally finished not very satisfactorily, he reared back on his haunches and slugged the woman with his fists. He hit her several times. She cried and moaned and cursed him in slobbering sobs that nearly made him sick.
He got off the bed, pulled his clothes together, and turned on the light.
He stared at the erstwhile object of his passion and hate. She was a miserable wretch, made even worse now by the red bruises on her arms and body, which would soon turn a dark ugly blue. There was a little cut on her lower lip, from which a line of blood crawled down her jaw.
Pete said a filthy word, delved a hand into his pants and came out with some paper money. He dropped a five-dollar bill on the bed.
The woman paid no attention. She lay motionless but she was moaning very softly and her eyes moved now and then as she stared at the ceiling.
Pete turned and lurched to the door of the room. He flung the door open and left it that way as he proceeded down the hall.
"Lousy witch," he said aloud as he emerged in the still moonlight.
Ae he proceeded to his own rooming house, he resumed thinking of Jill Marshall ... though he didn't know her name. He wondered who she was, why she was in town, and whether she would remain there for long. He wondered if he would get to see her again.
He decided to scout around tomorrow and see what he could find out. The doll had smiled at him. Maybe that meant she liked older men, or maybe he reminded her of her father.
Maybe ...
Well, he would see.
To get some loving of that quality would be worth just about anything a man might have to do.