Chapter 1

The bellhop wore a ten gallon hat, tight pants, and high-heeled riding boots. I imagine the tight pants are very attractive to women guests of the hotel but to tell the truth they didn't do a thing for me. The kid unstrapped the two pieces of luggage from the rack on the trunk of the Austin Healey and waited while I unfolded myself from the front seat. I'd driven straight through from Los Angeles, and my bones ached.

The facade of the hotel was done in pink stone and glass and was just a little too cute to suit my taste. Some of this modern design looks good, but only when all the lines and colors work together. When they are just a little off, the whole thing is kind of awkward. This one was kind of awkward. The furniture in the lobby went with the design of the building, the chairs low and small with slanting backs.

The bellhop led me to the desk clerk and set my bags down while the clerk assigned me a room. The clerk wore no stetson, but otherwise his costume was the same: tight pants in a dark blue color, an equally tight western-style shirt with pearl buttons, this in a lighter blue, and a white silk handkerchief neatly folded and wrapped around his throat.

The clerk finished his business on the phone and looked up at me. Most people have to look up at me. The average height of the American male is five feet eight and a half inches. In my stocking feet I run a good six inches taller than that.

"Yes sir," the clerk said with an efficient snap to his voice.

"The name is Bell, Herb Bell. I have a reservation."

He gave me a flash of white teeth to show we were friends and turned to take some cards from a file behind him. He leafed through the cards until he came to the one with my name on it and turned back to the desk.

"Yes sir, Mr. Bell, here we are."

I didn't know where we were and I was about to ask, but he slid a registration blank in front of me and stuck a pen in my hand. I'd made the reservations a week ago when I decided to take this vacation. I picked the hotel from a brochure put out by the El Paso Chamber of Commerce. This was the town's deluxe hostelry, from now on I was going to travel only first class.

The registration blank required my name-printed, my signature on the bottom, and my home address. I went along with them on the name. Last name first: Bell, Herbert L. My mother had been frightened by a novel by Sir Walter Scott and my middle initial stood for Launcelot. Needless to say I never used my middle name. In fact I rarely ever used the last half of my first name. Herb was good enough. In the space requesting my home address I put down California. That's all they needed to know. Anything more specific was none of their damned business. I signed on the bottom of the form and handed it back to the clerk.

He looked it over to make sure it was filled out correctly, then smiled up at me again. If he smiled once more I was going to think he was making a pass at me. "Room Five Eleven," he said, handing the bellhop a tagged key.

The elevator was five steps to the right of the desk. On the way up to the fifth floor he tried to make conversation. "You in town for business or pleasure?" he asked.

"Yeah," I answered. He got the idea and shut his mouth.

Normally I don't mind when a waiter or a bellhop tries to increase his tip by making small talk, but this time I was weary right down to the bones of my toes and I was in no mood for pleasant chit-chat. Pushing a sports car eight hundred miles, even on relatively good roads, is a hell of a lot more tiring than pushing a Caddy the same distance. And I had pushed the Healey all the way from L.A., nonstop.

The elevator stopped and the doors slid back with a hiss. I had been looking down at the tops of my shoes because my head felt too heavy to hold up. When I heard the doors open I started out of the elevator and ran smack into the largest, hardest pair of breasts I'd ever seen. They punched into my chest and flattened against me. Then their owner bounced from my chest to the carpeted floor of the corridor.

She fell in a tangle of skirt and legs. My eyes flicked from the sweatered cones of her breasts to the flash of her white thighs and then to her face. She'd landed hard on her rump and her face was twisted with pain. She put one hand tenderly to her backside and looked up at me.

"If you're through taking inventory you can help me up," she said coolly.

"I'm sorry," I said, holding out my hand to her. "I didn't see you."

"If I thought you did that intentionally,' she said, her voice like an iceberg, "I wouldn't be talking so nicely right now."

If the tone of her voice was nice then, I'd hate to see her when she was mad at somebody. She took hold of my hand and I hauled her to her feet, surprised at the weight of her. When she stood up I saw why she felt so heavy. She was a big girl. She had to be for her breasts to come as high as my chest. And of course she was a blonde. But not a blonde like you see in the magazines these days.

Her hair was long and it fell like a golden waterfall down over her shoulders. Her eyes were a funny shade of gray, large and cool, but they looked like they could smolder with passion if she was in the mood. I mentioned her breasts before, but they were big enough so that another mention wouldn't be out of line. They were covered with a sweater now, and I imagine she had a bra underneath. With breasts that size she'd need a brassiere just to keep the damned things from bouncing right off her chest when she walked. They stuck out from her chest like twin torpedos, and looked just as lethal. When I looked at them I forgot all about being tired.

Below her breasts she had a slim waist and then the flaring curve of a magnificent pair of hips. Those flaring hips Spoke volumes about the ultimate function of a woman's body. This one was built for sex. Between those hips was the gentle swell of her belly and then the long columns of her legs.

She was easily five feet nine inches tall and must have weighed in at around a hundred and fifty pounds. On her it was a hundred and fifty beautiful pounds. In these times when women embodied the philosophy behind low-calorie meals she looked like a steak and potatoes dinner. And suddenly I got hungry.

"You can let go of my hand now," she said.

I hadn't realized I was still holding on to her. This one was too good to let get away. "Look," I said. "I'd like to buy you a drink as sort of an apology for knocking you on your ... knocking you down."

She grinned when I almost said the dirty word, and that's why I almost said it. When somebody makes a slip like that the listener somehow feels friendlier toward him. It makes the speaker an individual instead of just a body.

"Not this afternoon," she said, her voice about two hundred degrees warmer. "But I'll take a rain check."

With that she swept past me into the elevator and the doors closed. The bellhop was leaning against the wall, my bags at his feet and a silly leer on his face. "Let's go, laughing boy," I said. "Fun's over."

He hefted the suitcases and led me down the hall. The management of the Hacienda Hotel gouged their guest twenty-eight bucks a day for room Five Eleven and when I stepped inside I could see that the place was almost worth it. The room was large, very large. It had to be because the bed was so big. That bed was big enough to be used as the playing field for the Rose Bowl. And if not the playing field then at least the staging area for the floats from the parade. It was seven feet from side to side and almost eight feet from head to foot. It looked big enough for a family of four.

Next to the bed was a large night table and opposite the foot of the bed a chest of drawers. When I unpacked I would put my drawers in the chest of drawers. Hell, I was so tired I was getting giddy.

Anyway, on the other side of the bed there was a large open space and a glass wall. The glass wall had sliding glass doors which opened onto a terrace, and beyond the terrace I could see the swimming pool and golf course. Just inside the terrace doors was a sofa, coffee table, and easy chair. The damned place was big enough to be the waiting room of a railroad station.

Laughing boy set my bags down and checked the bathroom for towels, toilet paper, and a fresh tissue-wrapped glass. He also flushed the toilet to see that it worked. For these small services and for carrying the two suitcases he expected to be tipped at least a dollar. I made him work for his money.

I dropped onto the bed and began to untie my shoes while he fidgeted near the door. "Call down and have them send up a bucket of ice," I told him. "And stick a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door."

He picked up the phone and growled into it while I stripped off my socks. The sign was in the top drawer of the chest along with the ever-present Gideon bible. He slipped the string over the outside knob of the door and came back towards the bed, his hand stuck out in front of him, palm up.

I peeled a single off my roll and dropped it into his palm. He lost the worried look and the bill disappeared into his pocket. "If there's anything special you want just ask for Earl," he said.

"What do you mean special?"

"Anything at all," he told me. "If you want a bottle after the bar is closed I can get it for you. If you get lonesome I can arrange for somebody to keep you company...."

"I'll remember that," I said.

He closed the door quietly behind him.

Bellhops hadn't changed much in the twenty years since I'd hustled suitcases. They were still part-time pimps, and connection men for poker games. In any town there are two people who can direct a traveler to the fleshly pleasures. Bellhops and cab drivers know more about a town than even its mayor. Laughing boy was not exception. He was a hustler, a sharp kid with a head on his shoulders. If people were willing to pay for such things as an after-hours bottle or the directions to the nearest poker game, why shouldn't he take their money? It wasn't as if he were corrupting them. If he didn't take their money somebody else would.

I flopped back on the bed and felt the excellent mattress push up against me. After twelve hours behind the wheel of the Healy that mattress felt damned good. My ears still rang from the continuous drone of the engine of the car and my eyelids felt like somebody had poured sand under them.

There was a discreet knock at the door and I sat up in bed.

"Come in!" I yelled.

The door opened and a waitress came in with an ice bucket in her hands. She was a tiny little thing, no more than five feet high, and she looked as fragile as two-hundred-year-old lace. She was Mexican, with black bail' and soft brown eyes. Room-service waitresses were a new twist, but I could see the shrewd thinking behind it. She had a menu tucked under her arm.

Having pretty girls as room-service waitresses was bound to increase business. A guy comes into a strange town on business, he checks into his hotel and has a couple of hours to kill before he makes his contact. A good-looking broad comes to his room with a menu, and if he wants to keep her there for a few minutes just to look at her he has to order something. I wondered if the girls were available for some other service besides hauling food and soiled dishes.

She set the ice down on top of the coffee table. She was wearing a very short skirt and when she bent over, I could see the flash of black that was her panties. She straightened and turned back to me.

"Do you wish to see the menu?"

"Just leave it over there. That'll be all for now."

I dug a half dollar out of my pocket and flipped it to her. She caught it neatly and swept out the door, her hips working like a finely oiled piece of machinery.

When the door closed behind her I felt my weariness wash over me. It was a good tiredness, coming from long hours of physical exertion, and I wanted to just lie down and close my eyes for about a week. But I knew that if I stretched out right then I'd never get to sleep. I had to unwind first. A hot shower and a couple of stiff belts would put me more in the mood for a year's sack time.

I bounced the larger of my bags onto the stand at the foot of the bed and flipped open the locks. Under the shirts was a half-empty fifth of Jim Beam Bourbon. I dug it out and went into the bathroom for the glass.

I couldn't see any sense paying ten or fifteen bucks for a bottle of booze when I always carried one with me anyway. I chunked a couple of ice cubes into the glass and splashed the bourbon over them. I like bourbon, in fact I drink nothing else, but it's no good unless it's cold. I set the drink down to cool and stripped off my clothes.

By the time I was naked the ice had worked its cooling magic. The mouthful of booze went down smoothly and exploded warmly in my stomach. I smacked my lips and threw down the rest of the drink. As I poured another I felt the first flush of alcohol begin its job of loosening the knotted muscles of my body.

I filled the glass about three quarters full this time and took it into the shower with me. I soaped and drank, and rinsed and drank, and then stood with the water beating down on the nape of my neck as I added hot water to the mixture until the stuff coming from the shower head was three quarters pure steam. The hot rinse was something I picked up in Japan during the war. That's the real war-World War number Two. When you talk about the war nowadays most people think of Korea. I don't want to take anything away from the kids who caught it over there in all that frozen mud, but the Police Action was kid's stuff compared to the jungle fighting on the islands in the Pacific.

Anyway, I had been in long enough to knock off my quota of Japs and I was lucky enough to get assigned to occupation duty after we baked Nagasaki and Hiroshima to a crisp with the atom bombs. Those first few lovely months of occupation were almost worth the malaria and jungle rot and dysentery. They were wild, wacky, wonderful days with the Japs goddamned anxious to please the conquering Americans. Two weeks after I stepped off the plane in Tokyo I had a little chick and one of those paper pads and the whole arrangement cost me the equivalent of a couple of cartons of cigarettes a month.

Her name was Toma Nakayama and her father had been an official in the government. He was thrown into prison by the first wave of occupying troops and little Toma was left to fend for herself. In those days everything was scarce in Japan and the only way for a single girl to be assured of three squares a day was to hook up with some GI. I was a GI and Toma hooked up with me.

Every day, when I got home from the camp, she would have my bath ready for me. I came into the house and she would be waiting, kneeling beside the door to remove my shoes. Shoes off and feet stuck into a pair of felt slippers, she would lead me to the bedroom and take off the rest of my clothes. Then on to the bathroom. We had one of those tubs sunk right into the middle of the floor, about four feet square and three feet deep. Alongside the tub was a low wooden stool. I would sit down naked on the stool and she would dip up water from the tub in a wooden bucket. After she poured a couple of bucketsful of water over me she would soap me up and then rinse me off. That procedure took care of the hygiene end of the thing as far as the Japanese are concerned. The rest of the ritual was strictly for pleasure.

Once I was clean I would ease myself into the scalding hot water of the tub. The Japs could just hop right in, but I had to take it slow. I would stick my feet in first and then ease the rest of me down into the water. The tub was deep enough so that just my head and neck stuck out. The water was so hot that my face would soon be dripping with perspiration. After ten or fifteen minutes of soaking and getting used to the heat I'd be ready for the next part of the procedure.

Toma would come back into the bathroom with a bottle of cold beer or a small jug of hot sake. She would set the booze down beside the tub and then strip off her kimono. She'd get into the tub with me and we'd drink the booze and play around. Sometimes we'd never make it into the bedroom to finish up. Sometimes we got so involved in that tub that we finished the whole thing right there. Whenever that happened Toma would giggle about it for three days afterward.

So that's how I picked up the habit of the hot rinse after the shower. I would, of course, have preferred a sunken tub and a broad to help me, but in this country the hot shower was all I could expect, and it was better than nothing.

I came out of the shower about half bombed and I wondered why. Usually it takes a lot more booze to get to me. Then I realized I hadn't had anything to eat in about six hours and then it had only been a quick hamburger and a cup of black coffee to keep me awake on the road. No wonder I was getting stoned, my stomach was emptier than a bank three days after the stock market crash.

I lit a cigarette and scrubbed myself dry with a hotel towel. If there was nothing else good about the place at least the towels were big and fluffy. My mouth tasted like a cotton ball after the boll weevils have been at it and I thought about brushing my teeth, but I was too tired.

Back in the bedroom I poured myself one final drink and pulled back the bedspread and blanket. Two pillows behind my head were enough to prop me up and I crawled naked between the sheets. I was still too tense to fall asleep and when I closed my eyes I could see little flashes of light against my eyelids.

Those few minutes when you lay in bed and try to fall asleep are a bad time. During the rest of the day you're busy, occupied, and you can control your thoughts, but when you're lying in bed and trying to relax your mind runs rampant. The things you don't want to think about push themselves up into your consciousness and nag at you.

I'm no different from anybody else. I had things in the back of my mind which I preferred not to think about. Some of those things were fairly recent and they bubbled up to bother me then. In the week since I'd made the reservation at the hotel I'd been able to make sure I went right off to sleep when I hit the sack. So now these things were troubling me for the first time.

I sipped slowly at my drink and stared at the place where the ceiling met the top of the wall. After a couple of seconds my eyes unfocused and the bitterness began to boil in my gut. A week isn't really long enough to forget much. It's not long enough to forget five years of a marriage or eight years of a business partnership. When a guy loses both those things at the same time it can really hurt.

But maybe I was just feeling sorry for myself. The last year of the marriage hadn't been very much to talk about and maybe I was sorrier for losing the business than I was for losing Juney.

The trucking business was eight years of my life erased in one fell swoop; eight years of sweat and worry, of sleepless nights and pushing rattletrap trucks beyond their limits. It was eight years of sixteen and seventeen-hour days. And it was eight years of friendship with George Galanis, the big soft-voiced Greek.

I'd started out as a hod carrier in the construction business. That was back in the days when they didn't have elevators on partially completed buildings, and the only way to get material up to the men working on the top floors was to carry it. I spent almost a year lugging hundred and fifty pound loads of bricks up the skeletons of buildings. I quit when I saw there wasn't much of a future hustling loads of bricks up six stories. The most I could expect was a promotion to bricklayer.

My next job was driving a dump truck, and that was a little more like it. First of all it was a lot easier on the back. And secondly the pay was better. I worked hard, taking all the overtime I could get, and saved my money. For six months I didn't touch a drop of liquor or date a girl because I didn't want to spend the money. At the end of those six months I had enough for the down payment on a dump truck of my own.

With the help of a bank loan I bought a second-hand truck and went into business for myself. I remember the first day, and my feeling of pride when I saw my name on the door of the cab. This was the time of the big post-war construction boom and I made money. It would have been impossible for me not to have made money. I didn't make a lot, but it was enough for me to pay off the loan on the truck and take out another on a second truck. Oh boy, then I was really in business. I even had an employee.

For a couple of years things went along smooth as silk. And then suddenly, there were enough houses in southern California. There was still construction going on but it was big stuff, office buildings and apartment houses, and the big outfits got all the work. Hundreds of small businesses like mine folded almost overnight.

I was lucky enough to be able to unload my trucks to another outfit and the Bell Sand and Gravel Company ceased to exist. For about a month I lived like a playboy. At the end of that month I sat down with my check book and almost cried when I saw that I had tossed away almost two thousand in that month of pleasure.

Right then I tightened up. I'd come out of the business with a few hundred over the twenty grand mark, which wasn't bad considering that I started with nothing more than a sore rump from bouncing around on the front seat of one of those trucks, and now I had about eighteen grand left. I put the eighteen thou away in the interest-paying vaults of a bank while I looked around for some kind of business to invest in. To keep myself occupied I took a job driving again. This time it was long distance hauling and I was pushing a big six-wheel tractor trailer. I was a pretty good driver and when I got the feel of the six-wheel job they pushed me up to an eight-wheel rig and the cross country run.

I had no family and no ties and I enjoyed the job. It gave me a chance to see most of the country and wherever I went it was fun and games between hauls. The eighteen big ones rotted in the bank until nineteen fifty three. By that time I had another bank account with a few grand stashed away and I was getting bored with the routine. I had been almost everywhere and seen almost everything and I was itching for something new.

By that time I'd known the Greek for about a year. He owned and operated a truck stop-diesel fuel and sandwiches-just outside Indio, California. I stopped in there one day, liked the place and the Greek, made it a regular stop whenever I took a rig through that area. I made it a practice to pull in there and leave the truck to be fueled while I spent a half hour over a mug of coffee and a sandwich. The Greek's was one place where I didn't have to worry about watching the pump.

If I was there when the place was empty the Greek would draw himself a mug of coffee and we would shoot the breeze for a while. We got to know each other pretty well. Anyway, one day I was doing some general bitching and telling him I was thinking about quitting, and the next thing I knew we were talking about starting a trucking outfit of our own. I had the experience, he had the connections and the land for a garage and warehouse, and all we needed was about fifty thousand in cash.

It was one of those conversations where we were day dreaming, and it sounded like a good idea. When I told George about the money I had in the bank we started to talk serious business and three weeks later Bell and Galanis-Hauling was born.

It was tough at first. Hell, it was tough all the time.

It never did get to be a soft touch. That first year we only got business by cutting our rates to the point of starvation. In fact our food and rent money had to come from the profits of the restaurant and diesel fuel. Things were so bad the bank was beginning to worry about the money it had lent us. We economized by cutting overhead to the barest of minimums. Our drivers had to make their own repairs and I drove a double shift every day.

Once we got our foot in the door we started to make a little money. The shippers found they could depend on us to meet a schedule and uegan to send a little more business our way. So we hired more drivers and I came in off the road to handle the administrative end of the operation. George helped out as much as he could, but he was pretty busy with the restaurant.

We both worked hard. The business grew and soon we were able to afford some new trucks. The thing seemed to snowball. The more cash we took in the more we poured out on new equipment, and the more we spent on equipment and drivers the more business we got. A sort of vicious cycle, but a lovely one.

I met Juney during the second year of the business. She was a receptionist at one of the outfits we dealt with, and I met her when I went over to see about some money they owed us. At first there was nothing special about her. She was just another broad; a nice one, but a broad.

We dated for about six months and every time I'd toss a pass she'd duck it neatly. She'd go for a little necking after a date but she always put on the brakes when things began to get hot and heavy. It's funny but the more she turned me down the more I wanted her, and pretty soon I found myself telling her I loved her. I don't know, maybe I did love her. Once I'd said it, and I didn't think I was giving her a line, the next step was just as obvious to me as it was to her. If we were in love then we must want to get married. It never occurred to me that there was any other way of doing things. I'd had plenty of other women but this was the first time I'd said, "I love you."

The two-carat ring I slipped on her finger gave me a few more privileges. Now it was alright for us to do anything short of the actual sex act. It wasn't that there was a sudden loosening of her attitude, but she allowed me to go further and further each time we went out.

I remember one of the high points of our courting period. Juney and I had been to a couple of the clubs along the strip and we'd had a great time. When we got to my apartment she was about half bagged and her brown eyes were sparkling. I hung our coats in the closet and she sat in the living room while I broke out the ice and mixed the drinks. I dropped a couple of albums of Sinatra's ballads on the hi-fi and turned off all the lights but one. We drank and listened and when we finished the drinks I took her in my arms.

Her mouth was hot and wet and open when we kissed and I heard her moan deep in her throat. I kissed her mouth and her ear and her throat, and then I slid my lips down to the bared upper slopes of her breasts. My nostrils drank in her perfume and the musky odor of her body. I was as hot as a two-dollar stove in January after the first kiss and she was going pretty good too, but not as strong as me.

She enjoyed it when I kissed the upper part of her breasts and she tangled her fingers in my hair to press my face tighter against her. My fingers found the zipper at the back of her evening gown and pulled it all the way down to base of her spine. The top of the gown fell away, leaving her breasts naked. I let my lips wander over the white flesh, circling around the nipples until she forced one into my mouth. I took it between my teeth and bit gently and she moaned again.

One of her hands left my head and went to my lap. She grabbed a handful of my trousers and gave me a good squeeze. Up to then she'd always called a halt at that point, but this time the light was still green. I went ahead full speed.

I twisted her around until she was lying full length on the sofa and I was sitting next to her. I grabbed one breast in my hand and put my lips to the other one. My other hand I slid under her skirt to touch her nylon-covered leg. She still gave no indication that she wanted me to stop so I slid my hand up along that leg until it slid off the nylon and onto bare flesh. The skin of her thigh was hot, I could feel the muscle tremble against my palm.

I moved that hand up further until I touched her panties and she gasped. Then my hand was under her panties and she was rolling her hips against it, rubbing herself. Now she began to take an active part in the proceedings. Her trembling fingers found my zipper and pulled it down and her hand dove inside my trousers. It was the first time Juney touched me and I almost ended the show right there.

The record ended and we were disturbed by the mechanical noises as another record dropped down. I almost cursed aloud when Juney begged me to stop.

"Wait ... please," she panted. "No more."

I pulled away from her and she sat up. It wasn't the first time she left me with nothing but an ache between my legs.

"Can I have a cigarette, please?" She asked, her voice low and husky.

I lit us a pair of smokes and handed her one and we settled back to listen to the new record. She made no move to cover herself up and I began to hope we might have another session, picking up where we left off.

She dragged deep on the cigarette and looked away from me. "Herb," she said. "I love you very much. And right now I want you so bad my belly hurts with it."

"I know what you mean," I said. "I'm not exactly free of pain, myself."

"But at the same time I want to wait. It's only a few months till we're married and I want to make our wedding night something special."

"I may die of lover's ache before we ever get married."

"You don't understand," she told me. "I'm not trying to talk you out of anything. I need some release just as badly as you do. I want to be able to let myself go and not have to worry. I want to be able to completely enjoy it when you touch me without having to think about when to say stop."

I was beginning to get the idea. "In other words you want me to be the policeman. You want me to stop before we lose our heads." I must admit I didn't like the idea. If she wanted to stop, then she ought to be the one to say when.

"That's not what I mean. I want you to promise me that no matter what we do, no matter how involved we get; you won't go all the way. I'll do anything you want me to, except for the final thing. And you can touch me or kiss me or put your hands anywhere on my body, anything at all except for actual intercourse."

It sounded funny to hear her use that word. "Let me get this straight," I said. "You're saying we can do things to each other, anything we can think of, so long as we don't actually make love. You're game for everything but that."

When she looked at me she actually blushed, but nodded her head. "But you have to promise."

"I promise, I promise," I said as I reached for her.

She came into my arms like a wild woman and soon she was completely naked for me. I lingered in my exploration of her body with hands and lips and eyes, and when I knew every square inch of her I stood up and removed my own clothes. She stared hard when I took off my trousers but her face was a blank and I couldn't tell what she was feeling. I stretched out beside her and took her in my arms and her hot wonderful body was pressed against my naked flesh from chest to thighs.

My hand slid down her spine until it came to the lush jut of her rump. I squeezed a handful of that soft flesh and then slid my hand around to the front of her body. She moved herself to allow my hand full access and then locked her thighs around my wrist. Her chest heaved and her eyeballs rolled up in her skull as I sent her to heaven and back again. When it was over for her she kissed my chest and thanked me tenderly.

Then it was my turn. I didn't have to show her what to do. She knew, and I was glad she knew. I rolled onto my back and she kneeled beside me. Her hands were gentle and tender, then forceful and demanding. I thrilled to her expert manipulation. It was damned near as good as making love. And when she leaned over to put her mouth on my body it got even better. Her mouth was hot and skilled and it got better and better until I thought it was the best it could be. But I was wrong. It got still better....

In the rest of the time before we were married we discovered other techniques that were even more pleasureable. We found for example that if she knelt on her hands and knees and I came at her from behind it was just as good as making love. In this case we didn't use the portion of her body usually associated with sex, but the mechanics and sensations of the thing were just the same....

No matter what we did it was better than the time before. Even if we repeated the same thing it was better.

And on our wedding night we really made love. I was glad she'd made us save something because that wedding night was better than all the other sessions rolled into one. We made love continuously from ten o'clock at night till five the next morning. Her first climax was so stupendous she passed out. And she was so grateful when she came to that she spent the rest of the night thanking me. A little more gratitude would have killed me.

We came back from our honeymoon trip two weeks later, but the honeymoon really lasted about seven months. In that time I paid more attention to Juney than I did to the business. We both wanted to start a family right away. After all, I was making a good living.

Hell, I was making a lot of money. I was making so much money right then that Juney couldn't spend it as fast as I made it, not with her own car, and not with all her charge accounts.

We bought a house and I gave her a blank check to furnish it. I must admit I did wince a little when I added up all the bills, but I didn't complain. And she did a wonderful job of decorating.

After seven month Juney and I were pretty well used to one another and I began to devote more of my time to the business. We were doing great and I had all the work I could handle. Every time I balanced the books at the end of the month George and I would get drunk in celebration. At the rate of our business at that time, if it continued to grow both George and I would be millionaires before too many years passed.

Of course things didn't quite work out that way. We'd been riding the crest of a big business boom. When the wave passed and things got back to normal we still made money, but nothing like before. After we'd been in business six years our net worth was over a hundred thousand dollars. Not bad for a Greek hash-slinger and an Irish hod-carrier.

When I turned most of my attention back to the business Juney found other things to keep her busy. She joined clubs, worked for charities and threw parties. And my life was full and rich. I had a wonderful wife, a good partner and a steadily growing business.

The only thing missing was children. I was past thirty-five by then and I began to get anxious. Four years of marriage and no children meant that we ought to look into the thing. Both Juney and I went to the doctor. He peered and probed and checked and took tests and I sweated the whole thing out. I was afraid I was the one who couldn't have kids. It never occurred to me that it might be Juney.

The doctor's report was a hell of a shock. Juney was as sterile as an operating room. She could never have kids. Something went out of our marriage when we got the news, and it never came back. But the strangest thing of all was that no matter how bad I felt, and I felt terrible about the whole thing, I still couldn't suppress a feeling of gladness that it wasn't me. Maybe the guilt about feeling glad threw the monkey wrench into our marriage.

After that I began to spend more and more time away from home. I took every chance that came along to travel. And when there were no reasons to travel I made up some. One good thing that came from all this traveling was that I managed to expand our business by about fifteen percent. I traveled all over California to talk to people and get their hauling business.

Then one day I returned home from a trip to San Francisco to find Juney and the Greek waiting for me at the house. I walked in, set my bags down in the hall, and they hit me with it smack between the eyes. Juney and George were in love.

We were quite modern and civilized about the whole thing. We sat and talked about it for almost three hours and at the end of that time I agreed to sell out my half of the business and go to Mexico for a divorce. Even though Juney and I had drifted apart it hurt, I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing how much it hurt.

George and I settled on a figure of seventy-five thousand for my share of the business. Juney wouldn't contest the divorce and she wouldn't ask for any kind of settlement. All she wanted besides her freedom was the house. I signed it over to her and moved into a hotel while George got together the money.

So there I was, almost forty years old, lying in a hotel room. No wife, no business, no friend. All I had was seventy five grand in cold cash. I knew that a part of my life was over. It had ended just as surely as if I had died. Tomorrow or the next day I would go across the International Bridge at El Paso to Juarez and in a couple of hours I would have a divorce.

Then it would be a new man and a clean fresh start. My drink was finished and my cigarette had burned itself out in the ashtray. I closed my eyes, testing to see if I were ready to fall asleep. This time I didn't see any little flashes of light. I set the glass down on the nightstand, pulled the covers up under my chin, and rolled over on my side. I guess I was asleep in five minutes.