Chapter 7
I was in the steeple of a church as large as the universe, and two hands so huge each finger was larger than my body were tying me to the clapper of one of a series of fifteen bells. The hands tied me securely, handling my body with a strange gentleness. A moment later I saw the great bronze shell of the bell begin to sway. The arcs were short at first, increasing as they moved and coming closer and closer to the clapper.
Down at the end of the row of bells the smallest one, the one with the highest pitch, was the first to begin to toll. It tolled a measured tone four times before the next one in line was swinging a wide enough arc to begin to ring.
Two bells now and all the time I was swinging closer and closer to the smooth curved surface of the inside of the biggest bell. I knew that when my bell began to ring I would be smashed to a pulp like an audacious insect. One by one the bells picked up the tolling. The sound reverberated through my body, the sound vibrations pushing me against my bonds.
The thunderous sound beat upon my brain, seeking the shatter the sensitive tissue as my body swung closer and closer to destruction. Now panic filled me. The sound of the bells flooded my body and I couldn't think. I struggled against the ropes, writhing desperately to get loose before I was smashed to bits of flesh and hard pieces of shattered bone, sticking to the inside of the bell in a bloody mush.
Ten bells were ringing.
Twelve.
Fourteen.
Now I was so close to the inside of the bell that I could see the tool marks on the smooth bronze. My bell made another arc and I felt the cool metal gently brush my naked chest. Another arc and it pressed firmly. The bell swung away, far away, to the end of its arc, and came hurtling back towards me. I knew this was the time. When that bell struck me I would be dead. It came closer and closer, faster and faster, as its huge weight picked up momentum.
My eyes bulged. My mouth opened to scream....
Suddenly I was awake and the phone was ringing in my ear.
I shut my eyes against the pain and my groping hand found the receiver.
"Gurgg," I mumbled.
"This is the desk, Mr. Bell. We have a special delivery letter here for you. Shall we send it up?"
I silently cursed the mentality at the other end of the line. But when I opened my mouth to vent my impotent rage all that came out was "Gurgg."
"Very well, sir. We'll send it right up. Thank you." I put the receiver down as gently as I could and rolled over on the bed. I was still fully dressed and my neck was wet with perspiration. My head felt as though all the spaces between the cells of my brain had been stuffed with evil-smelling cotton of unknown origin.
My mouth and throat were parched, my tongue felt like it was made of sandpaper. I cannot describe the terrible odor which arose from my mouth and assailed my nostrils.
The knock at the door echoed in my head and it kept up like an endless canyon reverberating the "Halloo" of some stupid tourist with a brownie camera. I stumbled off the bed and almost fell flat on my face. My legs refused to support me and my head felt like it was detached from my body. I crawled to the door on hands and knees, having trouble even with that, and held onto the door knob to haul myself erect. Afraid my body would shatter like glass, I moved very slowly.
I opened the door and stuck my arm out. Someone in the hall pressed a piece of paper into my hand and I quickly shut the door again. Letting myself slowly down to the floor, I crawled back to the bed.
The ticking of my watch sounded as loud as the firing of a cannon. I raised it in front of my eyes and desperately tried to make out the time. My eyes kept blurring but I thought it said something like eight o'clock. I didn't know if it was day or night.
With an effort I managed to force my eyes to remain open, and in a little while I began to feel better-if being physically capable of sitting up in bed can be considered better. I suppose it is. Anyway I sat up and struggled out of my jacket. The effort took so much out of me I had to wait ten minutes before I could manage the shirt and tie. Then another wait and I kicked off my shoes and socks and got my pants down as far as my knees. All in all it took almost half an hour for me to get my clothes off.
The terrible smell coming from my mouth was the byproduct of some misguided chemical reaction in my stomach. It felt as if the hydrochloric acid and digestive juices were at war with some foreign substance. The flipping of my stomach and the gagging of my throat told me there was about to be another battle in the war. I made it into the bathroom a split second before the clash of the troops. Kneeling at the font of the commode, I heaved my guts out for twenty minutes.
Contrary to popular belief, I didn't feel any better after I threw up. In fact, if such a thing is possible, I felt worse. If my mouth tasted bad before, the addition of bile and partially-digested liquids and solids made it taste a hell of a lot worse.
I used the edge of the sink to haul myself erect and washed out my mouth with cold water. That did help. From the sink to the shower was only four steps but they were the longest four steps I ever took. I moved in a roundabout way, edging along the wall and leaning against it as insurance that I wouldn't fall on the tiled floor of the bathroom.
By the time the shower was finished my knees felt only half as weak as they had before. I made it into the bedroom standing up, an occasion I celebrated with a weak cheer, and kicked my soiled clothes into a corner. Bending over to pull back the blankets set my head to pounding again, but the cool freshness of the sheets made it worth the effort.
With a sheet drawn up over my chest I picked up the phone and sent out an SOS to room service. They promised to give my request emergency status, and a short time later some idiot was knocking at my door again. This time the door was unlocked.
"Come in," I whispered loudly. And when the door opened, "Please don't rattle anything."
I heard rattling and it tore at my eyeballs. A cart rolled to the side of the bed and with my eyes closed I could hear someone breathing.
"You look terrible," a voice said.
I knew that voice, and opened my eyes. It was Connie.
I groaned. "Are you the only waitress on room service? How come every time I call you get sent up here?"
"I'll ignore that insult because you look so bad."
"Yeah, I feel bad. As long as you're here you can be of some use. Prop me up and feed me some of that ice cream. I don't think I could manage it with the way my hands are shaking."
She slipped the extra pillow behind my head. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed, prepared to spoon vanilla ice cream into my mouth.
"What happened to you?" she asked as she picked up the spoon.
"I'm in no mood to be shouted at," I said. "Just feed me and go away and let me die."
"But I'm almost whispering," she said.
"Well, it sounds like shouting." . , "Now I know what's wrong. You're hung over."
She began to feed me and I gulped the cold stuff as quickly as I could. It helped put out the fire raging in my belly. When the ice cream was gone she held the coffee cup for me and I downed the hot black coffee in quick sips. When I finished that she wiped my mouth with a napkin and sat back.
I felt a lot better now. My head still throbbed and my body was weak, but I knew I would live. "Now I'd like a cigarette," I said and she rose to get one. "In my jacket over there in the corner," I told her and she found my cigarettes.
"My memory is still not too good, but I think I'm supposed to be mad at you." I told her after she lit the butt and handed it to me.
She gave me a sheepish grin. "I acted like a ten-year-old," she said. "I'm sorry."
"Your apology is accepted, and if I thought it safe to raise my head from the pillow I would kiss your cheek."
She bent forward and kissed me instead. Her lips were soft and cool and gentle, and somehow more soothing than anything else since I woke up.
"You better get back to work before they fire you," I told her.
She looked hurt that I wanted to get rid of her, but she gathered the dirty dishes and wheeled the cart out of the room. Just before she closed the door I said, "Come back when you get through."
Her face brightened like a sunrise in a cloudless blue sky. She blew me a kiss, closed the door, and I heard the cart rattling down the hall. I was alone with a cigarette in my hand and food in my belly. There was great improvement in my health. Before I had felt like I was in imminent danger of dying, and now I was only seriously ill-polio or something as opposed to terminal cancer.
It suddenly occurred to me that if I was ill there must be some reason. I knew logically, of course, that this debilitating illness was nothing more than the great grand-daddy of all hangovers. Now I tried to remember the circumstances of my evidently monumental drunk. I searched and probed the corners of my memory and things began to form in the fog. Indistinct wisps took on form, solidified, became concrete memories.
And then I was sicker than I had been when I first awakened. I remembered everything with startling and disgusting clarity. I remembered the drinking, the gambling, the floorshow and the orgy room. I almost threw up again, but was too weak to make it into the bathroom so I chocked it down.
It was strange that my attitude toward my escapade should change so in a few short hours. When I had been at the club with Laurie Yost I had greedily courted every exciting sensation. I had been eager, more than eager, to taste the forbidden fruits of her body. And even now that was not so reprehensible. But the memory of the other things, the things that followed our initial pleasure, lashed me like whips.
With my eyes closed I could see myself entangled among all those bodies, and even though I was alone I blushed. I had acted like a five-year-old loose in a candy factory, glutting myself with every available piece-and all the pieces were available.
I remembered that after a while the performers on the stage joined the audience so that it was all one big show, with the participators also the viewers. I had been disporting myself between the thighs of a girl who could have been no more than sixteen and I remember looking around me to see Laurie excitedly entertaining both of the naked negro men. All three of them were standing up, Laurie's white flesh in contrast between the two shiny black bodies. She had her thighs around the hips of one of the men, and the man behind her pressed close against her. They made a sandwich, white chicken meat between two slices of dark whole-wheat bread....
Then, sometime later on, the young girl and I were joined by another woman, and then two more.
And even while wave after wave of sexual sensation tore through my body I remember seeing Laurie and a redheaded girl engaged in the classic lesbian embrace.
But lesbianism was not the only perversion evident that night. There was the sado-masochism mentioned before, and finally two instances of male homosexuality, in one of which I almost became involved. After exhausting myself with the four women I staggered away to give my aching loins a few minutes rest.
In one corner of the room I saw a tremendously fat man and a young boy who was probably a street urchin, picked up and brought here for that precise reason. The man was fondling and kissing the boy, who stood frozen in terror before him. Then the man stood up and turned the boy around so his tight young body was presented to the mountain of flesh....
And I stood watching, too far gone in lust to be horrified.
I felt a hand touch me and my body reacted automatically while I stared, too fascinated to tear my eyes away. The hand touched me and stroked me and the excitement built up in me. When I reached oat to return the caress my hand encountered a hard hairy body. I should have smashed in his perverted face, but I didn't. Instead I pushed him away from me and turned my back. A couple of minutes later I found a woman who was also watching the proceedings and we made love....
Now, as I lay in my hotel bed, disgust tightened like a fist around my vitals. I was supposedly a mature man, almost forty years old. How could I find pleasure in a childish and perverted orgy of misguided and filthy lust?
I shuddered when I thought about it.
The more I thought about it, the more details I remembered. And I began to compare Laurie's love-making with Connie's. Where as Connie had been gentle and sweet, tender and grateful, Laurie had been harsh and demanding. Laurie made love with such frantic haste that it seemed she thought it might become impossible in the next ten minutes. Her only interest was in her own physical gratification. She had a preference for particular kinds of caresses, and she demanded that I do these things to her before our bodies were joined.
And once our bodies were joined, her voracious loins tore at me until she found release. When she was through with me she moved away to find herself another source of stimulation. I had the feeling that if there had been no men or women present to gratify her, she would have used any object she could find. With Laurie it had been two mindless bodies in fleshy conversation.
Making love to Connie was completely different, and I still marveled at the complete lack of urgency for my own gratification. Now I was looking forward to the next time we made love. I wanted to see if the difference was still there, and if it also held true for my half of the pleasure.
I stubbed out my cigarette and turned off the light. Sometime during the night I came awake enough to realize there was a warm smooth body next to me in bed, but I didn't awaken fully.
The next thing I knew it was morning. I could tell because sunlight was shining in from the terrace. I opened my eyes and tested my body. All the symptoms of my hangover were gone as though they had never existed. I was wide awake, and my face split in a grin. Connie lay beside me, the blanket and sheet kicked off her body. Her hair was touseled and her mouth was puffy with sleep.
She looked like a slim dark-haired nymph from one of the paintings of the classical age. She was one of the servants who attended the lush, full-blown beauties who were the primary subjects of those paintings. And somehow I preferred the servant to the mistress.
I got out of bed, showered and shaved. When I came back into the bedroom she was still asleep. Even while asleep she had sensed my leaving the bed and now she lay sprawled across its entire width, her limbs spread-eagled, all her charms freely displayed.
I sat down on the edge of the mattress and put my palm down on her belly. She was so small that my big hand completely covered her from navel to the juncture of her thighs. She moaned when she felt the pressure of my hand and her nipples sprang to ruby hardness. Even in her sleep she responded to me. I took one of those nipples between thumb and forefinger, rolled it back and forth.
Again she moaned, and this time she tried to turn over. My hand on her belly prevented this and her eyes fluttered open. She saw me and smilec sleepily.
"Good morning," I said softly.
She grinned wider and her voice was low and throaty when she spoke. "Hello. Have I slept too long? What time is it?"
"It's too late," I told her.
"Too late for what?"
"For me to crawl back into bed with you." I pressed down with my hand and she giggled. I felt that laugh under my palm as it rippled through her body.
She took hold of my wrist with both her hands and tried to lift my palm off her belly. I pressed harder and she fought fruitlessly, giggling as she struggled.
"Let go," she pleaded. "I have to get up."
"Why?" I asked.
"Never mind why, just let me get up."
"What if I don't?" I teased.
"Then you'll have the messiest bed in the hotel."
I feigned a horrified expression and withdrew my hand. She scrambled up off the bed and disappeared into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. I threw open the doors to the terrace and stepped out into the warm sunny morning. It was still too early for the sun to be uncomfortable, and I felt its pleasant bite on my naked body.
Then I remembered the letter and searched through the pile of clothing until I found it. My fingers shook as I tore the envelope open and unfolded the sheaf of papers. It was the power of attorney and I breathed a sigh of relief. For some reason I had been afraid Juney might have changed her mind about the divorce. There was no personal note, just the legal document.
I stuffed the envelope into a drawer and walked to the closed bathroom door. "Hey," I called. "I'm going to have them send up breakfast, okay?"
"Why not?" came her muffled reply.
"I thought you might not want anybody to see you here."
"What do I care? Do you think I'm ashamed of you? I'm not, I'm proud!"
I ordered breakfast for two and also called the valet service to have my suit picked up and cleaned. In the dresser I found fresh underclothes, fresh slacks and shirt, and I was dressed when Connie came out from her shower. Droplets of water glistened against her black hair and on the proud jut of her breasts.
"I know you're proud," I said. "But you'd better get dressed. They'll be here with breakfast pretty soon."
She giggled as she walked across the room toward her clothes, her hips swaying jauntily. "What do I care if somebody sees my body? They know it's there and they know what it looks like."
"Maybe you don't care, but I do. I don't want strangers looking at things which only I should see."
She gave me a teasing grin and slipped into her clothes. The knock came at the door just as she was buttoning her blouse. We ate on the terrace with the life-giving sun kissing our bodies, and it was utter luxury to lean back with a cigarette and close my eyes. We dawdled over the coffee and our hands met across the table.
"What time do you have to be back to work?" I asked.
"Not until eight this evening. I'm on the night shift for the next six nights. Why do you think I was able to bring your food last night?"
"I didn't know whether it was night or day. But if you don't go to work until tonight, how about spending the day with me?"
"I'd love to," she said, smiling. "What will we do?"
"First I have to see a lawyer in Juarez about my divorce. After that we'll have the rest of the day free."
"Why not call him first?"
"Can I call across the border from the hotel?"
"Of course."
I gave her the lawyer's name and she put the call through. It was easy for her once she was connected through to the Mexican operator. After a few moments she handed me the phone.
"Mr. Soto?"
"Speaking."
"This is Herb Bell. I've got that document I needed and I'd appreciate it if you could expedite this matter.
"Mr. Bell, if you can be here by eleven o'clock this morning I can have you divorced by noon."
"Fine," I said. "Great. I'll be there at eleven sharp."
I hung up and turned around. Connie was out on the terrace again and her back was toward me. I came up silently behind her and wrapped my arms around her. She sagged back against me and I kissed the delightful shell of her ear.
"This is wonderful," I murmured directly into her ear. "All of a sudden I feel completely at peace with myself and the world."
She pressed my arms tighter against her, and her hard buttocks rubbed the front of my trousers. Her neck arched backward, turning her face up to the sim and exposing the sensitive column of her throat. I kissed her there tenderly.
She sighed and her voice was soft when she spoke. "I feel like that too. I knew it the other day, but it was something I never experienced before and it frightened me. The whole idea frightens me. It means that all my life I've had the wrong idea."
I could hear the tears begin to build in her voice, and I held her tight. "Shush now, don't cry. Nothing before matters."
"It does, it does. I thought it never would matter, but it does. How can I go back and undo my whole life?"
"You can't. You don't have to."
But you don't really know anything about what's happened to me," she wailed. "You only guess, and you're willing to forget it. But I don't want you to have to forget or ignore. I wish there were nothing to ignore. I'm no good. I have nothing to bring to you, no purity, nothing. I'm just a cheap Mex slut with a work card that lets me cross the border every day."
I spun her around and slapped her hard across the face. Her sobs stopped abruptly and her hand rose to her reddening cheek. I could see the perfect imprint of my hand on her blazing flesh.
"Now," I said harshly. "We have to get one thing straight between us before we go any further. You are mine. You belong to me and when I say something that's the end of it. If I tell you the sky is red and the sun is blue, as far as you're concerned that's the gospel truth and you wouldn't dare question it. Is that clear?"
She brushed a final tear from her cheek with the back of her hand and sniffed back the last of her sobs as the corners of her mouth made a small sheepish smile. She nodded her head in answer to my question and her black hair bounced in the sunlight.
"Now go wash your face. We have to get me a divorce this morning."
When she came back there was no trace of crying and her eyes seemed to shine from deep within. She curled her small hand into mine and let me lead her out of the room. Just before we pulled away from the steps of the hotel she leaned across the gearshift and transmission hump in the cockpit of the Healey and planted a big firm wet kiss on my cheek. I grinned and spun the wheels pulling away.
Soto was waiting for me when we arrived. The blonde sent us right in to his office and I caught his puzzled look when he saw Connie. He gave me another piece of blue stiff paper folded in the middle and I opened it and signed it in the places he'd marked.
Then the three of us went out of the office and down into the street. Soto led us across the square to the court house. It was a typical Mexican building with an interior court where half a dozen disreputable looking characters were lounging. It looked as if it had been left here by an American movie company when they made The Adventures of Pancho Villa.
We went inside a door and I expected to see a guard with crossed bandoleers of rifle ammunition on his chest. There was no guard. We walked down a long corridor and into an office with a long counter to separate the workers from the strangers who might wander in.
Soto lifted a hinged portion of the counter and held it for us, setting it down again after we had passed through to the area behind the counter. A couple of clerks regarded us disinterestedly. They knew why we were there, and probably couldn't care less. They saw people exactly like us every day of the week. Connie caused a couple of raised eyebrows but she walked by with her head held proudly.
We went through another door and into a small room with only two desks. One of the desks was empty, and behind the other was a young man, perhaps thirty-five. Soto explained that this man was the judge. Hell, he didn't look old enough to be a criminal, let alone a judge.
Soto and the judge spoke rapidly in Spanish for a couple of seconds and then the lawyer handed him the blue folder. The judge signed it and motioned for me to sign. Then everybody shook hands and smiled.
After the handshaking and the smiling was over, Soto led us out of the courthouse and into the street. "That is all there is to it," he said. "You are now a free man. Of course, it will take a day or two for the papers to go from the court to your embassy and then to your own country, but you are legally divorced as of right now."
I thanked him and paid him, and he walked off smiling and whistling. Connie and I were alone on the sidewalk and I felt a sadness about the whole thing. It seemed a kind of waste that any person should be forced by circumstances to resort to this cheap factory-like divorce system. It is one thing to find that two people cannot make a success of their relationship. In such cases a divorce should be granted in dignity. It is quite another thing to struggle to make a go of it and then have to degrade yourself in these cheap surroundings.
Border towns have three attractions for Americans: cheap and sordid sex, readily-available narcotics and quickee divorces.
Connie must have sensed my mood, for she slipped her hand into mine and squeezed gently. I looked up and saw her regarding me with somber, dark-hued eyes.
"What shall we do this afternoon?" she asked in a small voice.
I shrugged my shoulders. The blues had hold of me again.
"Can we have a picnic?"
She seemed to want one so I nodded my head. "We'll need food and things," I told her.
She flashed her quick grin and tugged at my hand. "Come with me," she said. "I know where to get everything."
We walked south beyond the courthouse, in the opposite direction from the International Bridge and farther away from the tourist section. We made a couple of quick turns and I was lost in a maze of buildings. I followed along behind Connie and after a couple of more turns we came out into a big square. This was the open-air market.
On all four sides of the square were buildings which housed butcher shops, vegetable stands, shoemakers and tailors, while in the center of the square were shaded stands set up by the small farmers who lived on the outskirts of town. These people brought their own produce to market, and sold it directly.
The market was a mass of shouting fruit squeezers and gesticulating merchants. No item had a set price. There were some items with their prices penciled on brown paper bags, but no native of the area would consider buying anything at the asking price. Only a tourist behaved in such a foolish and ridiculous manner. Here everyone bargained. And although I couldn't understand the language, beyond a few choice epithets, the facial expressions made everything clear.
The buying of a wicker basket to hold our eventual purchases took over twenty minutes. First we found a stall shaded by an awning under which the basket weaver sat and worked on his wares. Connie seelcted a basket from the display and held it up in the air. The weaver looked up from his work, glanced quickly at the basket, then at me, and quoted a price. Connie screamed outrage that I thought the brown-suited cop lounging near-by would surely come over.
The cop seemed not even to hear her and the basket weaver rose wearily from his work to come to the front of the stall. He looked at the basket carefully this time and quoted another price. Connie shook her head so violently her hair whipped all the way around the side of her face. Then she made an offer and the weaver gave her a look he usually reserved for mental incompetents. The look was full of pity and disgust. He took the basket from her hands, set it back in its place and turned back to his work.
After he was seated again he looked up and quoted still another price. This time Connie's tone was wheedling as she countered with an alternative price and the weaver quickly shot back with a price I'm sure was somewhere in between. The bargain was struck and Connie paid the man.
The official rate of exchange is twelve and a half pesos to the dollar. There are a hundred centavos to the peso. This gives us a total of twelve hundred and fifty centavos to the dollar. Connie handed the man a dollar bill and I think he paid her back all in centavos. He just kept counting coins until her doubled palms overflowed. Maybe they don't use paper money in Mexico.
Once we had the basket the rest was easy. Connie made three or four quick stops and the basket was full. I know it was full, I was carrying it. The longer I carried it the heavier it seemed to get. I began to wonder how many people she was going to invite to this picnic. It seemed to me I was carrying at least enough food for a full day's meals at the hotel dining room.
We stopped once more on the way back to the car-this time at a liquor store. Again Connie made the purchases and I just stood around with my mouth shut and a grin on my lips.
I loaded everything into the Healey and Connie directed me south out of town, then east. For a while we were in open country-on pretty lousy roads I might add-and then we passed through a small town called Saragosa. It couldn't have been any more than ten miles from Juarez.
After Saragosa we turned off the main road-that was the main road?-and onto a cowpath. Now I was traveling slowly, about ten or fifteen miles an hour. We traveled along this cowpath for almost twenty minutes and then Connie informed me that we were there.
I didn't know then, and I don't know now, exactly where there was, but if she said stop, it was good enough for me. I stopped. We got out of the car. And then we proceeded to walk for another fifteen minutes. Hell, this wasn't a picnic, it was an overnight hike.
We walked through a grove of trees and came to the shore of a beautiful, sparkling blue lake. And here finally I was allowed to sit down and rest. After a cigarette it was back on my feet and tramp around the lakeshore for a while until she found a spot she liked.
The spot she finally selected looked suspiciously like the place we first came out of the woods. But by this time I was too tired to care. Dammit, I was too tired to picnic!