Chapter 7
The next day at the office, Jill treated Jack as flirtatiously as she had the day before, but she didn't reserve all her attentions for him. She gave at least an equal share to Uncle Lou.
For instance, she ducked into his office when she saw him through the front window returning from lunch. She listened to the conversation in the outer room as Big Lou spoke to Marjorie at the reception desk and someone else just outside his private office. Just when she knew he was about to step through the door, Jill lifted her skirt and pretended to be adjusting the top of a nylon.
Lou had a good look before she "noticed" that he was there. Properly embarrassed, she dropped her skirt and gasped. "Uncle Lou! You startled me."
He tried to smile, but the effort was a weak one, and this was entirely out of character for the big, good-natured man.
For several minutes afterward, as he sat behind his desk, Big Lou Rombaugh thought of the bare upper leg which he had seen: Such a tender bit of flesh! A man would enjoy kissing that and pressing lightly with his teeth. He would enjoy running his tongue around...
Big Lou swore to himself.
He didn't blame Jill for the torment which afflicted him. She was entirely innocent, of course. She was too innocent, and that was the trouble. Someone should have a talk with her about men ... even uncles.
He had spent a miserable time the last couple of nights. He hadn't been able to turn to his wife for satisfaction. He simply couldn't touch her. To begin with, she didn't appeal to him in that way just now; and, in the second place, he felt a strong sense of guilt because of the lustful thoughts he'd been harboring for Jill. There was only one solution to his problem, he knew, and that was to drive to Boise one of these evenings and pick up a woman there.
Perhaps tonight.
He might as well, he decided. The sooner this was done, the sooner his attitude would be normalized. He had something in his system that he had to get out. If there had been the slightest remaining doubt in his mind, this had been swept away by the incident which had just occurred in his office. The sight of a bare strip of leg. above the top of his niece's stocking, had been enough to set him on edge. He couldn't continue this way. He would have to have an outlet, and the outlet would have to be someone other than his wife.
At about this time, in the outer office, Jack Able strolled over to Jill's desk. "Busy tonight?"
She looked up at him. "You mean, you want to go out with me again?" (There was no one close by at the moment, so they could speak frankly.)
"I'd like to," Jack said. "That is, if you want to go out with me."
"The fact that I'm a virgin doesn't discourage you?"
"If men let that discourage them, no girl would ever be taken out the first time."
"So you still think you can make me."
Jack straightened up, anger coursing through him. What the deuce was the matter with her? She was teasing him one minute and needling him the next. She led him on, then tried to drive him off. He'd never known such a kooky girl.
Well, maybe a little of the independent treatment was what she needed.
"Either you want to go out with me you don't," he said. "I'm not going to beg you and I'm not going to lay out all my intentions in advance. There's such a thing as people doing what they feel like doing at the moment ... or haven't you ever heard of that?"
"That might be all right," she replied, "except that you only feel like doing one thing ... all the time."
"And how the devil would you know?"
"Because you're a man." The answer had come from her quickly and now they stared at one another, each of them thinking about what she'd just said.
Jill was sorry she had made such a blunt statement. She had the feeling she had revealed something about herself that she shouldn't have. For Jack's part, he believed he had gained an insight:
So she's a man-hater, huh? That's what she is. Sweet on the surface, but bitter underneath. Maybe he was wasting his time with her, after all.
"Okay." He grinned. "Think over the invitation. If you decide to accept, let me know. I'll date you if I'm not too busy."
He stomped back to his own desk, picked up his telephone, punched a button and dialed. He waited for the rings.
He hadn't intended to follow through on the date he had made with Linda for that night, but now he had decided to do so. He would let Jill stew for a while in her own juice and see how she liked that.
"Hello," Linda said.
"Hi, baby. Can you talk?"
There was silence for a few moments and, when she next spoke, her tone was distant and resolute: "I can't talk to you Jack. Not now or ever."
"Your folks say that."
"Yes."
"They recognized me, huh?"
"Yes, they did." Her voice was still brittle.
Jack laughed. "Well, what they know won't bother us, baby. Tell them you're going out with someone else."
She spoke very softly: "I can't take the chance. They were very angry. Daddy threatened to ... well, to throw me out of the house if I ever saw you again."
"So? Maybe you'd be happier on your own."
"That's what you think," she said. Then: "Goodbye, Jack."
The next moment Jack found himself holding a dead phone. He slammed the receiver onto its cradle and muttered a mild curse.
"What's the matter, lover?" Marjorie Steck asked, looking at him from around the corner of the partition. "Losing your touch?"
He gazed back. "I don't know. Why don't you go out with me tonight and we'll find out?"
The taunting smile left her thin face and she moved out of sight.
"Well?" Jack persisted.
"No, thank you," Marjorie said coolly.
She thinks I'm making fun of her, Jack thought, but she may be surprised one of these days. I might just get that hard up.
He glanced at Jill and discovered she was watching him from the other side of the room. He looked back at his work Women! he thought. There isn't one of them who'll be honest with a guy.
He began mentally leafing through his little black address book, wondering whom he could call for that night. Of course, he could spend the evening in a beer joint or all by himself in his room looking at television. But he was too young for that.
Well, maybe Jill would have something to say before the day was over. Now that he'd quit playing her game, maybe she would play his. He'd wait for awhile and see.
That evening, while Jack watched The Beverly Hillbillies and decided that Jill Marshall had a much better shape than Ellie Mae Clampett (darn Jill's teasing hide!), Big Lou Rombaugh was seated at a bar in Boise, his thick hand wrapped about a cold, sweating glass of beer.
He had picked a ass spot, he decided. The only two unescorted females in the place were dogs.
He felt uneasy and a little ashamed to be where he was when he'd told Fanny he had to drive to Weiser to see a man on business. But Fanny would never know, and he would be a better husband once he got this out of his system.
After glancing up and down the bar once more, Lou decided to approach the better looking of the two professionals. She was a bleached blonde pushing forty, but she had a fair shape, if what he saw was really hers.
He moved along behind some other patrons and took a vacant place beside the blonde. "Evening," he said.
She looked him over. "You're a large one, aren't you?" Her face was tired and this pretty well defeated her effort to be enticing.
"They call me Big Lou."
"Well, Big Lou, you wanta spend the rest of the night in this crummy joint or d'you wanta have some fun?"
"Fun's my middle name," he said, using a line he hadn't mouthed for fifteen years.
She laughed in a single burst. "Well, fun's my business. Know what I mean?"
"How much?"
She looked him over. Ten for a quickie. If you want all night ... "
"A quickie's okay," he told her. "Then come on."
The sordid arrangement completed, he left the bar with the broad. They hadn't taken more than half a dozen steps up Bannock Street before ...
"Lou!"
He whirled around to see Arthur Davidson and his wife. Davidson owned one of the larger orchards near Fruitvale and was a long time friend and customer of Lou.
Lou squinted. "Hi, Art." He shifted his huge bulk nervously from one foot to the other.
Arthur's sharp little eyes had moved from him to the bleached blonde and back again. Lou could tell what was going through his friend's mind.
Arthur wasn't the one who concerned him, though. His wife, Etta, was staring, too, and the stark disapproval on her face was easy to read. Etta was a close friend of Lou's wife.
Lou looked at the woman. "Hello Etta. Nice to see you."
She quirked her lips in a little smile which quickly went away.
"Well ... " Lou shifted weight again. "Be seeing you, huh?"
"Sure thing," Arthur Davidson replied, and gave him a little wave.
Both Arthur and his wife were still looking at the hooker when Lou turned the other way and started up the street with her.
"Embarrassing moment, huh?" the woman said.
"Shut up," Big Lou snapped.
"Well, you don't have to be nasty!"
He continued on with her to her hotel, a sleazy joint on a side street. All he could think about was the look on Etta Davidson's face. He could see the woman just busting her bloomers to get on the telephone first thing in the morning. She would do one of two things: either call Fanny direct or call some other woman in town. One would be as bad as the other because gossip traveled fast in a community like Fruitvale where the women had nothing else to dr. And the persons being talked about found out the truth quickly.
What could he tell his wife? What possible explanation could he give her?
He was angry by the time he reached the hooker's room. Angry with himself, with her, with the Davidson woman, and with the situation which had driven him to this extreme in the first place.
His niece, Jill, was the cause of the trouble.
Rut he couldn't blame her. That wasn't fair at all.
The hooker closed the door, leaving them alone in a dingy world of cracked plaster, scarred, old wood furniture that was hardly fit for the Goodwill, and a plain iron bed.
"Ten," the woman said as she slouched in front of him, a hip thrown to the side and her hand extended out in front of her.
Lou dug in his pocket, came up with some bills, and peeled off a portrait of Hamilton.
The woman carried this to a dresser and stashed it away. As soon as she turned to face him, her hands went to the fasteners on her dress.
Lou began to take his clothes off, looking away from the prostitute. This wasn't turning out as he'd hoped. Quite apart from the encounter with the Davidsons which threatened to do him a great deal of harm at home he felt practically no desire for the bleached blonde whose bedroom he had entered. What was supposed to be a fling, now seemed unpleasant; sordid. Still, he would have to see this through. His masculine pride was involved.
Nude, the bleached blonde stirred him, as nearly any nude woman would. She was no beauty, but the bulges which had been so evident on the front of her blouse when he had approached her in the bar, proved to be real. Even on her back, as she lay on the bed, her breasts mounded high. They were capped by titanic rings of rust-red, at the centers of which her nipples perched.
Big Lou went to her.
She began to caress him as he lowered his face to her bosom.
Fifteen years had passed since he'd kissed any nipples other than his wife's. The rings around these were rougher to his lips; they were more puckered. You couldn't say they were better. Aesthetically they were not as good. But they excited him because they were different, because they were attached to a woman he had never known before, even though she was for sale to any man in Boise.
Rising passion swept the anger from him, and Big Lou Rombaugh settled down to claim what he had come to town for to do what he would stand convicted of anyway in Arthur and Etta Davidson's eyes.
He began to love the tramp.
He propped himself on his arms for awhile as he worked with vigorous concentration. The woman rose to him rhythmically, in her smooth professional way, and the thrill was there, in spite of what she was and what had happened on the street a few minutes before.
As he brushed back and forth across her breasti, he felt the loose flesh wobble and the up-thrust nipples prick his palm.
The woman began to make some noise little groans and gasps to add to his excitement and thereby get him through faster. But Big Lou was in no hurry. He remained propped up and continued to work her in a measured cadence, rearing back nearly all the way and socking hard.
There was more animosity then tenderness in this. The encounter was more one of combat than of mutual surrender.
Big Lou went on and on, and gradually the red haze of passion filled his mind to the exclusion of all else. Long feminine fingers were reaching for him, seeking to draw him to fulfillment. He struggled. There was just a short way now.
He finished in a quaking spasm which the woman complimented with her own simulated release and, seconds later, Big Lou Rombaugh was a tired hulk fallen forward.
"Hey! You're heavy."
"Yeah," Big Lou replied to her complaint. Then he did what she wanted.
The woman got up. "You're a big one, all right. In every way."
"A big fool," Lou muttered morosely as he began to get dressed.
He wondered how long before his wife would hear about his being seen in Boise with another woman, and what the devil he could say to Fanny that would save him. His wife was mild-mannered, but she was very moral, and she also had a great deal of pride. He doubted that she would take a tolerant view of his infidelity even once. She hadn't known about the occasions many years before.
Maybe if he talked with Art Davidson first thing in the morning, he might be able to make his friend understand, and Art might be able to keep Etta quiet. This was a vain hope, perhaps, but the best one he had.
As Lou Rombaugh worried about what was going to happen to his marriage, the person who had caused his problem in the first place was engaged in a petty diversion which she had thought about on a number of occasions but had never tried before.
With no date that night, and with the evening now drawing to a close, Jill Marshall was amusing herself by standing beside the bed in her hotel room, with the ceiling light ablaze and both window shades up, and she was slowly and lovingly taking off her clothes.
She had been sitting in the darkened room looking out of a window, waiting until the time was right. People had been passing on the sidewalk across the street, but they were men with their wives or girl friends or else they were moving along too briskly, their attention directed toward the front. Finally, however, a group of four men strolled into view and they stopped by the street lamp standard on the opposite corner, there to engage in a discussion of politics, women, working conditions, or some other subject of mutual interest.
This was Jill's cue.
She stood up, walked briskly to the light switch beside the door, and illuminated the "stage" for her amateur burlesque performance.
This was to be a great deal different from any strip tease performed on a theater or night club stage, however. In the first place, Jill was to strip from street clothes, which no professional peeler would do, and there were to be no nipple cups or g-string remaining when she had completed her act. Every delight of her body was to be placed on display for the benefit of the males who would be watching, she felt sure, from the street below.
Another difference would be that no music would augment her performance. But who needed music, anyway?
And Jill would not play to her audience. As far as they could tell, she would have no awareness of them. They wouldn't realize she knew she had left her window shades up.
This comparison between the act which she planned to carry out and a professional stripper's routine didn't occur to Jill, of course, since she had never been to a burlesque show or to a night club where such entertainment was offered. She thought of the act as a far more personal affair than this, anyway. She would be offering herself vicariously to the men who stood on the sidewalk, and she would have her satisfaction from imagining their response. And all the while she would be completely. safe. They were outside the hotel and she was in, with the door to her room securely locked. The men wouldn't be able to reach her, let alone compel her to submit to them. The only thing that kept the situation from being perfect was the fact that she wouldn't be able to see the excitement in their eyes. But she could imagine this. Jill had a very good imagination.
Her own excitement began to build as she slowly removed her blouse, walking back and forth as she did so and watching herself in the dresser mirror. She hoped that the walking would serve to attract the attention of her "audience", in case the turning on of the light had not done so. She would have liked to walk over to the window and look down at the street to find out for sure, but she realized this would make the performance too obvious and thereby remove much of the thrill. Then, to, she could get into trouble if she gave the impression that she knew she was being seen. As the situation was, she could plead innocently that she hadn't realized the shades were up, in case some old lady were to complain to the hotel manager or the police.
She lay her blouse aside, and now her roundly jutting breasts were concealed by only the lacy cups of a white brassiere. They soared out and slightly upward from the wall of her chest twin monuments to Eros, at which almost any man would delight in worshipping.
The men in the street were a group from the packing house at Rombaugh's, which was not surprising, considering that the Rombaugh Company was far and away the largest employer around Fruitvale.
One of the men, a little fellow with eyes like dark beads and the bronze-toned skin of an Indian, knew who Jill was: "Sure," he told the others, as they stared up at the lighted windows, "I seen her in the office. She's some kinda relative of Big Lou's."
"No bull?" the thin blonde-haired youth asked. His greenish eyes glinted and he poked at his teeth with a toothpick as he watched Jill step out of her skirt.
"What a build on that doll!" an older member of the foursome exclaimed. He was heavy-set with pudgy features and liquid eyes that brimmed with lust.
"She acts like she knows," said the blonde young man, still staring at the window. "She keeps paradin' back and forth. Hey! She's about to take off her bra."
There wasn't any conversation for a while. In fact, the men were so quiet that a passer-by could have heard the ragged sounds of their breath ... if there had been any passer-by. Actually, these four were the only people on the sidewalk at that particular time.
The Indian released a gleeful little laugh after she had bared her breasts. The blonde man said, "Wheee-ooo!" The fat one cursed.
The fourth man, dark and compact, who had been staring hard at the windows and hadn't said a thing since the light had gone on, now broke his silence: "That's the best pair I ever saw in my life."
"You can say that again, Hogan!" the thin blonde man agreed. "Man, they shove right out there!"
The short, bronze-skinned one giggled. "Think about how they'd feel!" He gestured expressively with his hand. "I bet they're hard as anything!"
"I'm gonna do more than think," Hogan stated as Jill bent to step from her half-slip, her breasts swaying tautly.
"Whaddaya mean?" the fat one asked him.
"I mean I'm gonna get some."
"You crazy, man?" the blonde asked. "She's a relative of Big Lou's, Comanche, here, says."
"I don't care if she's a relative of the Governor. She's struttin' across that room on purpose, just daring somebody to come up and grab her. Well. I'm gonna go up there and I'm gonna grab. Are you boys with me or do you want to stand here and watch me throw her on the bed?"
"Hey, now ... you better watch your step." The fun-loving Indian was seriously concerned.
"Lookit that!" the fat man said, punching Hogan's ribs with an elbow. "She's gonna take off her pants."
"Sure she is," Hogan said. "She's gonna show us all she's got. And then she figures to crawl into her little bed and giggle to herself about how she got us hot and bothered."
"You think she knows we're down here watchin her?" the blonde man asked, his gaze still riveted on the window as Jill moved past the windows in stockings and panties. She had turned the top of the panties down so that her navel, and the gentle round of tummy on which the navel sat, were exposed.
"She knows somebody's watchin', " Hogan said. "That's how she's gettin' her kicks."
"She must be some kinda nut," said the thin blonde man.
"Look!" Comanche exclaimed, grasping the blonde man's arm. "Hey, Leroy, look!"
Turned away from them now, Jill slid her panties down her legs, then bent gracefully to step from them.
"What a caboose, huh guys?" the pudgy man said with profound appreciation.
In a tone of finality, Hogan responded, "Well, I'm not gonna let that get cold." He took a couple of steps and looked back. "Coming, or are you chicken?"
The other three stared at him. "You go get yourself tossed in the Boise jail if you want to, man," the blonde said. "Me, I'll watch the rest of the show, then grab my kicks with Rosie."
"Lucky ass!" Comanche grumbled, his mood having become morose. "You got a girl to have your fun with."
"Hey! Hey! She's about to turn around." The older man's pudgy mouth was open, his dark wet eyes squinting now.
"Holy Cow..." Leroy's voice ran out.
The compact, dark-complexioned man named Hogan was on his way.
Upstairs, in her room, Jill was flushed with excitement. When she had faced the window, naked except for garter belt and stockings, she had come close enough to confirm that the men were in fact watching her. She hadn't looked long enough to notice Hogan make his move, however. She couldn't let them know she knew they were there.
Standing a little farther back now, and looking at herself in the dresser mirror, she raised her hands up her body and lovingly cupped her pink-nippled breasts, causing the tips to squeeze forward between her curled index fingers and thumbs.
How they'd like to hold me this way! she thought. I'll bet they're burning up right now!
She turned away and wiggled her fanny as she took a few steps to a plain wooden chair. She lifted one leg, slowly released her garter clasps, and brushed her nylon stocking down. She did this with the other one and then, still facing away from the windows, unfastened her white garter belt and took the skimpy garment off.
Now, shall I turn off the light? she pondered.
No. Not yet. I'll keep them out there a while longer. I'll have a nice warm bath, then come back and walk around some more. I'll drive them crazy before I'm through!
Excitement sang through her as she walked to the closet and took out her pink chenille robe. She slipped this on, then moved to the door and turned the knob.
At the sound, the man named Hogan backed quickly into a little recess along the hall where a couple of fire extinguishers were mounted. He listened as Jill's slippered feet moved in the opposite direction, down the vinyl-tiled corridor. He peeked out.
She's gonna take herself a little bath, he thought. That's good, babe! Get all fresh and dainty for me. Hogan grinned to himself, for this gave him just the break he wanted. He could slip into her room and wait for her there ... that is, if she hadn't locked the door. He didn't think she had. He hadn't heard a tumbler turn.
He waited until Jill had entered the bathroom and closed the door, then he crept silently to the entrance of her room. His hand fell to the knob, the fingers tightening on the metal. His hand turned.
Jill's door opened.
A rush of anticipated pleasure filled the would-be rapist as he stepped into her room. The ceiling light was still ablaze, and Jill's clothing was strewn about, where she had discarded the dainty garments.
Moving like a cat, he crossed the room to the unshaded windows. He looked down. Yeah, they were still there all three of them clustered by the lamp across the street. Those chumps!
Hogan waved with a wide sweep of his hand, then moved out of sight.
Into the closet, he thought. That's the best place to wait. I'll stand in there until she comes back, then move out behind her and snap the light off. That babe won't know what's happening until it's too late. I'll get her down on that cver-lovin' bed and ...
He balled his right fist and slammed it against his other hand.
She won't even get a look at me, he thought: When everything's over, she won't have any idea who got her.