Chapter 1
HER NAME WAS MADGE. His name was Walt.
She was a girl, he was a boy, and at the moment they were engaged in proving the differences between their sexes.
The bed they shared was on the second floor of the Oakwood Arms Hotel, in a room that was only one of many reserved for the use of the hotel staff. A few of these rooms contained beds, but most contained cleaning apparatus, fresh linen, carts for room service, folding stands for suitcases, and miscellaneous items without which a well-run hotel couldn't operate.
The bed on which Madge and Walt were tangling wasn't very large, nor was it particularly comfortable, but neither of them minded these shortcomings. They were too wrapped up in each other to pay any attention to the furniture. If either thought at all of the bed, it was to note the ungodly noise it made, the tell-tale creaking of the frame, and the way the headboard knocked against the wall.
There were many things wrong with the bed and the room and the little time available to them. The scene wasn't nearly as idyllic as they would have liked.
But what the hell-it was better than nothing. Lots better.
They made it do. "Walt," she said.
He was leaning over her. He was naked, his chest crisped with hair and plated with solid muscle. That huge masculine chest came down, crushing the twin mounds of her nude breasts.
"Walt...."
First the nipples-pale, coral flowers, little coins of sensation, feeling the inexorable hardness of his body, tasting with their small tongue-like tips the electric touch of his flesh. Then, the nipples crushed, pushed into the yielding softness of her breasts.
"God-Walt...."
Then the breasts themselves-squeezed out of shape, robbed of their thrusting roundness by his pressure, spreading against her heaving ribs like honey-filled bladders.
"Oh, Walt...."
She felt his hands clasp her waist, then slowly, sensuously drift down to her flanks. His fingers slipped under her, and she raised her pelvis slightly, allowing his fingers to curl tenderly around the smooth globing of her buttocks.
"Walt-ahh...."
His hips wedged themselves deeper, and as he thrust forward, his hands cupped her, raised her, lifted her hips and belly.
"Walt-Walt-Walt. . . "
There.
Something parted. A glide; a tingle, a friction of velvet, a warmth, a sudden thrill.
Her thighs quivered against his hips. Her calves twitched upward onto his back,' locking around him, drawing him deeper. Her arms lifted, her fingers grabbed at his shoulders, drawing the hardness of his body painfully against her swollen breasts.
She tried to call his name again, but her voice was gone.
For Madge, it was always that way with Walt.
Gentle Walt. Tender Walt. Soft and hard, slow and furious and fantastic Walt. For her, there wasn't another man in the whole goddam world besides Walt.
She had only a moment to think these things. For just a few seconds they remained like that; unmoving, linked, lying male and female together.
Then he started.
A gasp rose in Madge's throat and burst from her lips. Her eyes squeezed shut, her red lips curled back from her white teeth as if in pain. Her nostrils flared with the effort of her sudden harsh breathing.
His masculine assault began.
Madge felt herself driven in a pounding rhythm away from reality and into a warm, sweet darkness. The thrashing of his body echoed the rhythm of her pulsing heart.
His fingers released her buttocks, but it didn't matter. Her body had learned the rhythm and needed no hands to guide it. As he rose, she dropped against the bed. As he descended, she heaved upward to meet him.
His hands now were under her arms. He rested on, his knees and elbows, his face next to hers. She felt his hot breath roaring in her ear. She wriggled her shoulders, pushed against him with her hands. With his torso slightly raised, the hemispheres of her breasts returned to their natural shape. She could sense the rosy tips growing hard as rocks.
His hands slipped across her throat, drifted down, his fingers curling as they followed the rising curves of her breasts, climbing the ripe mounds until they nestled in his warm palms. Her nipples poked upward in his hands.
Her breasts trembled under his caressing fingers. Her breathing grew faster and faster, surpassing the rhythm of his caress, the rhythm of his attack, and finding a totally new cadence.
The rhythm of release.
Now it was about to happen. She could feel it beginning, somewhere deep inside her, deep down in the sweet darkness of her soul, down there where only Walt could reach. He was driving for it-he was there, at the point of ecstasy.
And that was all Madge needed. It happened.
Not all at once, of course-but gradually, in waves, in spasms of pleasure and delight. Even before it had become anything more than a promise, she knew it was going to be heaven. She could feel its power almost before the first twinge of savage delight shot across her trembling being.
But it was always so with Walt. That was what made Walt so special. That was why Madge gave herself to Walt any old time he asked for it-day or night, on lunch-hour or coffee-break, or even at a time like this: late at night, at the end of her shift, with only a few minutes to spare for pleasure before Walt went downstairs and took up his duties as night-clerk. Anytime at all-he could just name it and he could have it, on his own terms, exactly the way he wanted it.
It was a big favor to do for a man, and Madge was well aware of it. But in exchange, Walt made it happen. There couldn't be any fairer exchange than that.
The cresting waves of delight were building up inside her now. As their thunder filled her, she felt her mind coming adrift, felt herself losing contact with reality. Slowly her body was turning into a concentration of pleasure-drowned throes, and all her senses focused on the single-minded appreciation of what was happening.
Pictures drifted through her brain. She saw herself, naked, reclining on beds much like this one, saw her spread thighs welcoming different men, saw her breasts grabbed and her buttocks squeezed and her body kissed by every male who had ever been important in her life.
She remembered what those men had been like. She recalled the boys in high school, with their rabbity pounding and their bony clutching hands-she remembered the men in that diner where she'd worked, who smelled of beer and lived in cheap rooming houses and groveled out their lust like pigs snorting at a feeding trough.
That's what men had been like for her. They'd been either too bony and quick, or too hard and brutal. They took all she had to offer, without ever giving anything in return.
Until Walt. Walt made it happen, and none of the others could do that. Walt made it happen the first time they had sex together. Walt drew her out with the right mixture of tenderness and fire, of sweet caresses and driving power. Walt made her sing, Walt made her thrill.
Walt made it happen every time. And each time, it was better than the last.
As it happened now, she thought: Do it, Walt-do it for me, honey-make it good for me, and I'll always make it good for you-anytime you want me, I'll be ready and waiting to give you a good time, as good as you're giving me.
Great honey-pourings of pleasure filled her. Dimly, she felt the spasmodic grasp of his hands on her breasts as the thrill engulfed him. It was happening to them together, their separate delights ripening at the same instant and blending into one great thrill.
In the split second of mental coherence remaining to her, Madge thought:
Always be here, Walt, close to me, taking your kicks from me, giving me my kicks the way only you can do. Never leave me, Walt. If you go anywhere, take me with you. I'll go with you. I'll go any place on earth just to be with you. I'd even go to hell and smile about it all the way down if I was going there with you.
You're the only man in the world, Walt. I'd do anything for you, Walt.
Anything.
Not far from where Walt and Madge were mixing it up was another second-floor staff room; a much larger one, filled with rows of lockers and long wooden benches. A door at the end of this room opened into a set of shower stalls.
There were more than fifty lockers lining the walls, and room enough on the benches for as many people. But at the moment, only five girls were there-two out of sight in the shower room, the other three sitting in a row in front of their opened lockers.
The three girls were about the same age; and although their hair and skin coloring differed, as did the general structure of their bodies, they shared several features in common.
For one thing, none of the three wore more than bra and panties. For another, the freshly starched and ironed uniforms hung in their lockers were identical. For a third, the tone and volume of their voices seemed exactly the same.
But the highest mark of similarity was in their faces-not the features so much as the expression. Each seemed veneered with a hardness, as if her face had been shellacked to hide her personality, to conceal the worldly knowledge she possessed.
But the varnish hid nothing. It might cover their features, but it couldn't cover their eyes, and one look into those three sets of wise and cynical eyes told all one needed to know about the girls.
"Right on the butt," said Libby, a peroxide-bottle blonde. "That's where he got me, the bastard. My
God, who'd have thought such an old crump'd have such strength in his fingers?"
Hester, whose red hair-came from a different bottle, brayed with laughter. "Libby, how many times I got to tell you-it's the old ones you got to watch. Listen, when some young guy gets a chance to pinch a cheek, he's just doing it to build up to a throw. Young guys get their nature up that way-and they figure to get your nature up, too. Although how they figure a fanny pinch is going to turn a gal on, I'll never understand."
Libby drew on her cigarette, then picked a speck of tobacco from her tongue. "Yeah. So?"
"So when they get old like that, there ain't nothing left for them to do but pinch. They ain't got it anymore, and even if they had, they don't have the go to use it. You swing fanny for some old crud, right away he remembers how it was when he was young, remembers them days is gone forever. But he still-likes to pinch. And he gives it all he's got, because that's all there's going to be. Understand?"
"Sure," said Libby. "That's a real classy piece of thinking. You really got a great head on your shoulders. How come you don't charge money for all your advice?"
Hester snorted. "Okay, be a snot-nose. I don't give a damn. You want black and blue fingerprints all over your behind, it's all right by me."
The third girl smiled at them. Her teeth were dazzling in contrast to the ebony black of her skin. Her hair color was her own, but the soft waves in which it was arranged were the result of some thick applications of pomade. Her name was Kit.
"Come on-we just starting to work. What the hell you guys want to fight for right off the bat?"
Libby glanced at her coolly. "Who's fighting? We ain't fighting, are we, Hes?"
"Nah." Hester waved a hand. "You take things too serious, Kit. Libby and me just like to bitch at each other, that's all."
Kit nodded. "So do. If that's your kick, who am I to say it ain't?"
Libby puffed on her cigarette. "What the hell time is it?"
"Quarter to midnight," said Hester, squinting at her watch.
"I guess we better start dragging tail out of here and get to work." She sighed, then peered toward the shower room. From beyond the door came the rush and splash of water. "What's taking them two broads so long in there? I swear to God, I ain't never heard of anybody who can make a production out of a goddamm shower the way they can."
Hester glanced at Kit, and the two girls exchanged smiles.
"Yeah, Libby," Hester said. "It is kind of peculiar, now that you mention it. I mean, them staying in the shower so long. How about you go in there and hurry them up?"
Libby blinked her eyes. "Go in there? While they're-hell, I wouldn't do that."
"You wouldn't?" asked Kit.
"Of course not. Would you?"
"Oh, well-I might if I was in enough of a hurry to shower up myself. It ain't right them hogging it the way they do. If I was in a real hurry, I think maybe I might."
Libby looked puzzled. "I wouldn't," she said.
"Why not?" asked Hester.
"It-it ain't polite."
Hester barked a laugh. "Polite? What the hell you worrying about being polite for? They're the ones who ain't polite. You got every right to just go in there and tell them to haul tail and let somebody else get wet for a change."
"Sure," said Kit. "Hes's got the right idea."
"It aint' polite," Libby said again. "You know what I mean."
"No sir," said Kit. "I don't have no notion what you talking about." She tossed a wink at Hester.
"Privacy," Libby said. "That's what I mean. They're entitled to privacy."
Hester snorted. "Patsy and Liz? Entitled to privacy? God's sake, Lib-they don't give two hoots about privacy. Where'd you ever get such a dumb idea as that?"
Libby's voice rose slightly in anger. "There ain't nothing silly about it. When a gal takes a shower, she should have privacy. It just ain't right for people to barge in on her when she's..."
"Nudesville?" asked Kit. "That what you mean, Libby?"
"Well-yeah."
"Don't like nobody looking at you when you're stripped, huh, Lib?" Hester's voice was edged with laughter.
"Hell, no. Don't that bother you, Hes?"
"Not no more. When I was a kid, maybe-but not now. I showed myself in the buff to some crowd of people in my time."
"Men, you mean?" asked Libby.
"Mostly."
"Well, that's different."
Kit inclined her head. "Different? How's it different? You know, you'd kind of think a gal'd show herself in the skin to another gal a lot faster than she would for a man. Ain't that so, Hes?"
"Sure. Show it off to a man, right away you got to either give or haul quick out of reach. But you got no worries on that score with another gal. What's the sweat in having somebody looking at you, so long as they don't touch?"
Libby looked puzzled again. "I don't know," she said.
Kit tapped her arm. "Hey, Lib you had guys look at you before, ain't you?"
"Sure. Of course I have. What the hell do you think?"
"All right, honey I was only asking. I just wondered, that's all."
"Wondered why? You think maybe I never had a man? Do I look to you like a gal who never had any? Libby's voice was defensive.
"No, sir," Kit said. "You look like you been around: Same as me. Hes, too."
"Right," Libby said. "I been around just as much as either of you."
"Okay," said Hester. "So you do give a damn when a guy looks at you peeled?"
Libby drew on her cigarette. "I guess not," she said. "I mean-that's for a reason. When I strip for a guy and let him look me over, I'm doing that for a reason."
"You're going to get loved," Kit said.
"Yeas, right. That's why."
"But, honey like Hes says, with a gal looking, it ain't for no reason at all. You ain't going to get loved. You ain't going to get felt. It's just you bare and some gal looking at you. How come that sweats you?"
"It don't sweat me. I just don't like it, is all. I strip when sex-time comes, but the rest of the time, I like to be by myself. I'm taking a shower, I don't want no nosy broad coming in and looking me over. It ain't right. It ain't decent."
Hester smiled. "It ain't decent, Libby?"
"That's what I said."
"So you don't think any of us should go inside and tell Patsy and Liz to haul it because it ain't decent for one gal to go look at another gal when she's all in the nude? Is that what you're saying?"
"Yeah." Libby puffed once more on her cigarette, then dropped it to the floor and ground it out.
"But they're already in there together, ain't they? They're in there showering and nude all over, ain't that so?"
Libby chewed her lip, then looked at the shower doorway. "Yeah-I guess that's right."
"So they ain't going to care if you go in and say hello."
"Sure, honey," said Kit. "They already nudesville with each other, so another gal ain't going to shake them none."
Libby nodded. "Maybe not."
"There you are," said Hester. "Now there ain't no reason for you not to go in and shake them up a little. So why don't you?"
Libby stood up quickly and took her uniform from the locker. "Why don't you?" she said.
Kit and Hester laughed.
"What the hell's funny?" Libby didn't look at them as she shrugged into her maid's uniform. "How come you two are laughing? Did I say something funny?"
"Ain't you going to take a shower, honey?"
"Yeah, Lib don't you want to be all clean for the dirty old men?"
"The hell with it. I'm clean enough to go to work. The hell with the shower."
"Hey, Lib?" Kit's smile was white as fresh snow.
"What?"
"Ain't you going to show us where that old bird got you? Ain't you going to let us see the mark?"
Libby finished buttoning her uniform and she smoothed the bodice over her pert breasts. "You're crazy," she said. "The both of you. Crazy."
They laughed again.
"We sure would like to see that mark," said Hester. "After all, we heard so much about it."
"I'm going to work," said Libby. "You two crazies can sit here all night if you want to, but I got a job."
"Hey, Lib?"
Libby was halfway to the door, but stopped at the sound of Hester's voice. "What?"
"I think maybe you better watch out for them old women, too. like, some of them got pretty strong fingers."
Kit and Hester both fell into gales of laughter.
Libby stared at them for a moment, her hands on her hips. "You two are really nuts,'" she said.
Kit and Hester continued laughing after Libby left. Finally, Hester said, "What you think about that girl, Kit? Is that Libby a lacy-pants virgin or am I going blind?"
"She fresh fruit, all right," said Kit, wiping her eyes with the back of a hand. "Whoo I ain't laughed so hard since I don't recall when."
"We should fix her up."
"Who with? Liz and Patsy?"
Hester laughed again. "Nah you know what I mean. We ought to get her some stud. She needs it."
"Sweetie, ain't it hard enough getting good stud for ourselves without we start playing Salvation Army and handing it out?"
"Yeah, that's a fact."
"You don't worry about that Libby. She going to get some sooner or later, and probably sooner. She got the bait for it. She got the figure, she got the face she got what it takes to get it."
"Well, I wish to hell she'd hurry up about it.
She's a nice kid and all, but it's against my principles to associate with any goddam virgin."
Kit cuckled. "What time's it now?"
"Crap look at that. It's midnight, straight up. We're on duty."
"Oh, now we ain't. I ain't going on no duty till I get me a shower bath."
Hester shrugged. "I guess we got to go in there and break old Patsy and Liz up."
Kit smiled. "I guess so."
"I tell you what why don't you and me just strip right down and go in there bare? I mean, we got to peel to take our showers anyway-and when Liz and Patsy see us coming in nude like that, they'll really get shook."
Kit nodded slowly, still smiling. "Why don't we do just that?"
She stood up and reached her brown arms behind her, searching for her bra clasp.
"Boy," said Hester, licking her lips. "Them two kooks are going to go right through the goddam ceiling when they see us coming."
"They sure will." The clasp opened, and Kit's bra dropped down her arms, freeing her heavy chocolate breasts. "They're a pair of sillies showering together and feeling and kissing and horsing around like they do. I just can't understand a thing like that, not at all. How hard up is a gal got to get when she's got to go looking to another gal for some kicks? Can you figure that, Hes?"
Hester didn't answer.
Her eyes were fixed on Kit's taut-nippled breasts.
Downstairs in the lobby of the Oakwood Arms, Mr. Fisk waited impatiently behind the check-in desk. Now and then he would glance at his watch, then check its accuracy against the large clock above the elevator. Both time-pieces showed it was just past midnight.
Mr. Fisk was a small man in a gray suit. If the suit had been a shade or two lighter, it would have matched the gray of his skin. Mr. Fisk's hair was a closer match to his complexion it was thinning, combed tight to his skull, and from a distance of a few feet gave the impression of total gray-pated baldness.
One of the elevator doors opened, and Mr. Fisk saw Walt Evans emerge and cross the lobby toward the desk. Once more, Mr. Fisk glanced pointedly at both clock dials.
'"You're late, Evans."
"Sorry, sir. I was unavoidably detained." Walt lifted the counter-leaf and stepped in beside his boss. His features were arranged in what he hoped was an expression of humble apology.
"Detained? Detained how, Evans?"
"I had to go to the toilet," Walt said.
"Oh. Well of course, if that were the case ... But it seems to me, Evans, that one might plan one's that is, when one knows working time is approaching, one should be table to-"
"I'll plan ahead from now on, sir. It won't happen again."
"Yes. Very good. See that you do, Evans. Remember, the convention arrives tomorrow, and the staff must be on their toes."
Mr. Fisk glanced up at the banner which had been strung across the lobby. It read: WELCOME EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION PRECISION TOOL AND DIE CO.
"Don't worry about it, Mr. Fisk. The whole staff is anxiously awaiting their arrival. We'll all do our best to make the Oakwood the best convention hotel they ever visited."
Mr. Fisk smiled. His teeth were false, and nearly as gray as his skin. "I'm sure you will. I know I can depend on my staff."
After Mr. Fisk left, Walt flipped open the register book and checked the arrivals preceding his shift. He compared the entries with the keys remaining on the hook-board. Satisfied, he drew up the high stool and hitched his lean frame onto it.
With a scratch pad in front of him, he took a ballpoint pen from its holder and began jotting figures in long columns. He became completely absorbed in his calculations.
Walt was thinking about the convention. He was thinking about the fact that the Oakwood Arms had never played host to a company convention before. He was thinking also of the rumors he'd heard about Precision Tool's last convention, and how the grapevine spoke of trouble with the hotel management. Nobody seemed to know just what the trouble had been, but Precision Tool had been forced to change the locale for this year's bash.
This added up to something to Walt.
To that, he added Madge Cross. The warmth of her delight still lingered in his loins, and the round firmness of her breasts was still fresh in his memory.
He put it all together, and he began to get an idea.
Mr. Fisk wouldn't have liked it.
Outside, the bells of the city were tolling midnight.
Nice time midnight. It signals the death of a day, sure but it also marks the birth of a new one. It tells you the days are still coming, flowing from one calendar page to the next, and as long as that continues, you really have nothing to worry about.
Midnight tells you time has flown, but it reminds you of more time on the way. Midnight taps you on the shoulder and informs you that today is dead; and with it all of today's hopes and fears and desires and fulfillments. Maybe the day just past wasn't such a good one; maybe it cuts you with the realization that twenty-four hours out of your precious life just went down the drain.
Midnight can make you feel that, and it's not at all pleasant.
But Midnight's brought you something else besides bad news. Midnight's brought you a present. It's a day.
A bright new unused day.
Forget about today. Today isn't today any more; it's yesterday now. Another spin of the earth has ground up a day into dust, letting it rain down out of the present into the gray bone yard of the past.
As for tomorrow well, you're holding that in your hands. That's Midnight's gift to you. That's Midnight's way of making up for your loss. Tomorrow has ripened into today.
And today is the most precious thing in the world.
Today is now the immediate moment of existence. Today is your heart beating, your brain thinking, your voice speaking, all your senses sensing.
You might have dreamed the past none of it might ever have happened.
And the future doesn't really come into being until you get to it. For all you know, it could be a myth after all, nobody's ever been there.
But today now is right here where you can see it. And seeing it, you can see the reality of yourself. Today is you functioning, pulsing, alive.
It's only now that counts. Now, with you standing right in the middle of it. It's fresh, it's new, it's possibilities are limitless and it's all yours.
Hear those bells tolling?
Midnight, pal they're telling you it's Midnight. And Midnight is a real nice time.