Chapter 8

A can of pipe tobacco and some girly magazine? were lying on the floor, beside a pair of discarded men's shorts. Ida felt a shiver run through her as she walked across the room. Yankee Lane was violent, uncouth, and hard to predict; Ida somehow feared that he would injure her.

And yet the amazed look on his face made his growing pleasure very evident. Maybe he was only dangerous when his desires were frustrated-or so she fervently hoped.

"Nobody can figure dames out," Yankee said as he sat up on the edge of the bed. "I call you and chase you but I keep gettin' the brush. Now you pop in out of nowhere."

"Life is boring on the campus. Do you have a cigaret, Yank?"

He paused briefly, the hem of his robe sliding away to reveal the shadowed malehood which lurked underneath. Ida's veins churned with raw wantonness. She watched the brute arise and step toward a gold flecked chair on the other side of his apartment. It was a typical bachelor flat, unkempt in every detail from the orange velvet of the bed to the alternating panel drapes, which were as gigantic and primitive as the man himself.

"Enjoy it." He gave her the cigaret and lit it for her with fire from a bent match-book. "And tell me why you changed your mind about me."

"There's no reason. A girl has the right to do an about-face whenever the wind shifts direction. Of course I can leave if you'd rather be alone-"

"The queen'd be king if she had any balls. Sit down."

She clenched both hands to avoid trembling when she eased her buttocks onto the slick sheet covering the mattress. He didn't have to be told of her true motivation. She knew this big-mouthed chaffeur would brag about his "conquest" and the story would reach Maurie's ears-and he'd be jealous. That was how she planned to win him again.

"Lucky thing I took the night off," said Yankee.

Ida cleared her throat and replied in her high-pitched voice, "I often wonder why you didn't marry anyone. At your age, men need companionship."

"Cut it out, honey. What I need is the thing I find whenever I lift my finger. Beddy-bye! Here's the hair of the dog for you."

"Thanks." She accepted his Bloody Marv and drank from the glass quickly, tasting tcmatb juice and aware that the vodka would hit her very soon. Maybe Yankee had a point about his single status; with such an insatiable hunger for sex, he'd be better off as a bach than joining the ranks of husbands. Her reading had told her that half of American husband; cheated. Yankee w-nld surely be among the unfaithful crew, and thus make any marriage for him a woeful farce.

After the second vodka she felt more uninhibited. She took off her jersey bounce sweater and let him play with her anxious breasts. The brute laughed with joy, still titillated by her surprise visit, as he undid the straps of the bra until her breasts came free. She fidgeted in his embrace, pushing him away and letting her chest dance with gay abandon as she swayed on the bouncy mattress.

"You're slow on the trigger," she said. "I wonder if it's your bad conscience acting up."

"Horse manure."

"Thrill me the best way you know how, Yankee. Make me love it and love you as a person. That's when the whole schtick is truly satisfying."

His breath was ragged and coarse with unfed yearning as he suckled her flesh. His low boiling point required a minimum of stimulating. She heard him groan as their naked bodies thrashed in the prone position and he buried his head in the softness of her thighs. For an instant she imagined it was Maurice upon her. But then she understood that she was the victim in an unspeakable degradation which Maurice could never inflict upon a girl. Ida felt the tears scorch her own cheeks as her deepest vulnerable spot was violated.

The walls and ceiling exploded as though racked by dynamite. She was inundated by the backlash, the wicked reverberations of a cascading, roaring waterfall that had disemboweled a river bed with its awful thrusting force and gouged an ever wider gap in the clay, the uncharted terrain of her entity.

Suddenly she was insane no longer. The physical chaos had receded and she could think with rationality-she mumbled at her folly in encouraging Yankee's perverted demands.

"You don't get away so easy," he grated as he got on his back and rolled her naked, spent frame upon him. "Kiss me, baby! Give me your teeth and that warm little tongue, and do it nice."

"What a beast!" she laughed. He wouldn't suspect she was only half joking. Luck had been his tonight, for she needed him as the pawn in her determined scheme to draw Maurie to her like the reluctant sphere on a yo-yo.

She licked the muscled bulges on Yankee's chest and arms and she rammed the eel which was her tongue into his yawning mouth. A strong breeze struck her rump. She noted that he had opened a window, but the chilliness served to stoke her ardor like a blow-torch-as she aroused him by her wandering hands until he was ready again.

"Be gentle with me," she sighed. "You could kill a girl-if you don't watch out with that-"

"That hammer? Hey, I thought of a neat word, too."

"Yankee ... talk to me nice and easy and say I'm beautiful."

"Save the poems for your college friends. Me, I deal in pleasure. And you're receivin' the best I can offer to anyone. You oughta be glad."

"You're such a kid sometimes."

She felt herself being thrown back onto her hip and she tasted the perspiring musk of his jaw and forehead and neck as he kissed her frantically. The orange bed-sheet had become as hot and rough as a burning mass of leaves. The man was inside her now, she knew, and he jerked his body with a savage rhythm that eased and increased the pressure until she reached the end of the line. Her fulfillment was a freight train thundering nearer to the depot. The wheels clacked and boomed and finally a blast deafened her ... and the train began to speed away.

Maurice had his legs crossed calmly as he lounged at the stand-up counter in Bill's coffee spa. The neighborhood was unusually quiet for this time of day. After sipping at his coke, Maurice leaned his elbow against the top of the counter and put his weight upon it.

He nodded to the girl beside him. "I dig you, Korin. In fact the two of us .re very compatible in things that count."

"Oh? You once said I was a mixed-up kid."

"That phrase happened to be the sour grapes of middle age." Maurice studied her angular, etched features and the excitement of her open lips. "I was jealous of your youth. But when I'm with you, I feel vibrant and loaded with energy."

"Just don't vibrate too much or I'll be in hot water." She raised her eyebrows, staring at his groin jokingly.

"I wouldn't take advantage of you."

"That could be either an insult or a compliment. It says nothing for my ability to get you excited. Pass the straws, will you, prof?"

He slid the container of straws toward Korin and felt her soft breasts crunch upon his wrist. He understood what her "gay" nature really meant. It had been a kick-offbeat sex with her female roommate-and Korin was rebounding already toward heterosexual love. He wiggled his arm up and down, shaking her breasts delightfully. "I wish you would rebound a little more slowly," he said.

"Pardon me?"

"Nothing. Let's be a couple of real chums and talk about Yvette."

"I stiil want to know why you and I are so palsy lately. You said I ask too many questions. And also my comments are very frank for your taste-so what's the bit with the new friendship?"

"Hell, can't I join the club? By talking to you I forget this girl out of the dark, romantic past, who keeps haunting me."

"So that's it!"

He smiled as she dug a finger into his ribs to show that she was needling him. Suddenly the creaky front door of Bill's lunch bar opened, and a tall, gray-haired man entered. It was Uncle Wilbur. "Hi, Wilbur!" said Maurice as he waved to gain the man's attention.

"Well, as I live and breathe in this rat race of a world! My long-lost nephew has appeared."

Maurice said, "How have you been?"

"Still miserable and getting older." Wilbur came to the counter, acknowledged Korin's presence by doffing his bus driver's cap. "Hi, sis." Then he shook hands with Maurice with scant enthusiasm although the codger seemed friendly enough U" der the reserved surface. "They've got me do' the Wharfside run. Here I'm sixty-two years and they give me crap, while kids right of"' street get ... oh, what's the use. You and I are both fine, I hope?"

"As well as can be expected."

Maurice proceeded warily as he intro" Korin to his uncle and then traded chit-chat. Ic wouldn't do for the old gent to suspect anything amiss with the Hayko marriage.

Korin said, "I've seen you on the bus a few times, Wilbur. You get along with all the coeds. I think you're the one they call 'uncle'."

"Heck, I always did like kids. Never got hitched, though, because a couple of women hurt me bad."

"You seemed to recover from it."

Maurice said, "The two of us are birds of the same nest. Back in Hartford we used to hit the dances and parties and shop affairs together. Remember, Unc? We were more like brothers than anything else."

"Yep. Then you had to go and decide on being a teacher. Well, excuse me while I get my coffee-and. Let your hair down and give me a call some time, Maurie."

"Sure thing."

Then he was alone with Korin again, as a mournful caw echoed from the sky and he gazed out the window at a seagull swooping down with a clam in its beak. Maurice turned toward the girl. "The beach has a weird fascination at this time of year. Want to take a ride with me?"

"As pupil and teach, I assume?"

He winced. "We can count the grains of sand and the waves. I promise not to get fresh."

"If you keep the promise, I'll think there's something wrong with you."

"Touche."

He walked beside her out toward the macadam parking lot where his car lay inert. Trucks zoomed by on the overhead turnpike. He smelled oil and felt the concrete of the city surrounding him like a cement octopus. Korin nestled into the passenger seat and he drove away from the downtown area.

Yes, she was comfortable to have around you on a gorgeous autumn afternoon. Sex rated as a neutral subject in her line of thought. He recalled what she had said yesterday when they had met in the hall near History 31A...."I take sex for granted. By itself it means nothing-until we use it and create thrills by our own ingenuity."

He doubted that he would try forcing himself upon her, but maybe they'd be able to talk and admire the scenery, thus eliminating the danger of copulation.

Korin's skirt hiked up to her hips as they parked near some huge rocks. He gestured down in the direction of the beach. "See how desolate it looks? The gray water, the wind, trees swaying-Edgar Allen Poe would have loved the atmosphere."

"Prof-"

"Maurie," he corrected.

"Tell me about the girl you spoke of. The one you want to forget. If it's someone I know, maybe I can help you."

"She was very long ago," he lied as they meandered down the hillside to the privacy of a wooded area. No one must know how deeply he felt about Ida. The loneliness of the deserted shore envigorated him as he entwined his fingers into Korin's and felt her thigh continually bump into him.

"Did anyone ever tell you what beautiful freckles you have?" she giggled as she put a hand gently upon his cheek. "And the jaw is dimpled like Kirk Douglas'."

"Yes-I'm fantastically handsome."

"Be serious! Cleft chin, devil within is what the psychiatrists say. And I don't care if you do think the head-shrmkers are phony, because this time they were right."

The couple strolled arm in arm along the sandy peninsula until they reached a place hidden from the road by trees and bushes. Maurice felt no guilt or danger to his marital status. Whatever happened would have no emotional love attached, and it might even help him just because Korin was a chattel-a plaything meant for fun without involvement.

"You seem to know my pet peeves," he told her. "So even it up by throwing light upon your dislikes. What's a friend for, if not to hear another's woes and lighten their burden?"

"You big kidder." She halted in her tracks and then set down on the cushiony sand, her hair the color of sherry wine beneath the sun. "Actually I'm turned on by the Robin Hood scene. Ycu know, the classic war between rich and poor. I'm not smart enough to know which side is right, but I do think snobbery is a shame. Especially in cities where there's corruption and decay and poverty-ridden folks buried under it all."

He felt his heart thumping harder as the lassitude of the warm, balmy weather struck him. He knelt in front of her. The blood gurgled through him and he had the zip of a young stallion at mating time.

"I adore your sweater, Korin. Champagne camel's hair with a nice low-swept collar."

"One of us is talking an awful lot."

"We're out here at Durasett for completely different reasons," he said as he reached over and kissed the peak of her nose. "You're interested in the view. And I want you." His hands gripped her by the shoulders, sinking into delectable female flesh before his fingers hit the bone, feeling it throb to his touch. "This could be a wonderful experience for both of us."

"Just remember one thing." She levered her palm into his chest and shoved him away playfully. "It's possible you don't care to try merchandise that's been used already. Right?"

"I'm not exactly the newest car on the lot, either."

He laughed as she grabbed his fist and put it on her stomach at the place where she most wanted it. Her pliant warmth stirred him quickly. The zipper buzzed as he went to work on her skirt, anxious for the feel of her youthful skin. She kicked her shoes off.

A low purr echoed in her throat as she unleashed all of her cautious restraint. She ripped at Maurice's shirt and pants until he lay next to her with only his underwear between him and nudity.

Her thin but supple body shone startlingly....

I'll like a golden peach turning red and succulent. "I'm going to worship each part of you," he whispered. "Your breasts are fantastic and so very his;!" He kissed the mounds a hundred times before letting the tips meet his hungry lips. They stood at obedient attention.

"The sand is so dirty," she gasped.

"For you I could be Superman and Hercules rolled into one. Up we go!" He thought his spine would snap, but he hoisted Korin upward and carried her to the dry moss under a tamarack tree. The sea shimmered with its soft blue light. He lingered at her waist, suffusing it with caresses while his own desire raced toward ecstatic heights.

He paused to catch his breath. The hunk of waiting female reached up and clamped him around the back of his neck and drew him down again. She sure as hell doesn't act like a lesbian, he thought.

Onward surged his marathon of paying physical honor to the bastions where her honeyed delight awaited. He kissed her ankles and knees and thighs and continued upon those magnificent pink hips with the skill of a violinist. Briefly his thoughts catapulted back in time as he recalled a stag film he had once seen at a casino-two lovers on the beach, b, th dressed in skimpy swim suits, holding each other as they rolled along the edge of shore splashing in the water. When the woman's bikini shorts had worked loose, she went berserk with stark open licentiousness.

Maurice felt the moss heavy under his flesh. He must not try the water scene because Korin seemed afraid or perhaps allergic to it. In a way, though, she sensed that today would be her first and last time with the professor and she put up no resistance.

His hands searched, groped, found the treasures of carnality that beckoned him. Then she was kissing his neck with such ardor that a trail of heat followed her path down to his chest. He glanced at the welts which his own affection had forged upon the girl's breasts. She began rotating her body and raking his hair and squirming until she had herself on the bottom of their wild embrace.

He flattened her breasts, moulding them with his zealous clutch into various shapes. Now they were tan-red melons, now giant lozenges that clung to him, now mountains of twin dark-peaked glory with perfect, round dimensions. Strangely he felt that no other female including Ida had ever promised or delivered such rapture to his needs.

"Kiss me again, Maurie. I love it when you kiss me so gently and-" Korin twitched in savage revelry at the descent of his mouth upon her face.

He moaned, "Is the tongue enough? We're only halfway there when I give you these beautiful kisses. I'm on the verge of-losing you! Sweet baby!"

He realized the folly of ruining such a sacrosanct moment in the history of physical love by the use of words. Shut up, stupid! he berated him- self. The penetration was all that he had dreamed of ... and more. He stabbed as far as he could, felt his hands grasping like parts of a mindless computer, pressed forward with his buttocks until the point of limit had been reached. He was there-and so was she-the coupling found birth in their mutual painful success as they found a jackpot at the end of their rainbow.

He shuddered with violent fury and knew she was chattering like a machine-gun beneath him. Her teeth glistened with saliva. Maurice shut his eyes when she rolled away to leave him alone in the universe again so that his vitality could ebb back.

The whole bit was annoying. He had accomplished a sexual zenith far beyond his hopes, yet had failed in the goal of erasing Ida Reneson from his thoughts. He continued to yearn for her with a desperate, crying bitterness. She was the final clear thought in his mind before he dozed off in the warm Indian summer breeze.