Chapter 9
MADGE TOOK CARE OF HER MAN.
Afterwards, she collected the fee, plus the extra five dollars, and went downstairs to the second floor.
There was another order waiting for her.
So she went to the fifth floor, and to another customer.
This guy wanted different things. He wanted to fit himself between her breasts. Madge charged him extra for that. Madge allowed him to kiss and fondle her body for a while.
Once again, she collected the fee, plus the extra, and went downstairs to the second floor.
A third order was awaiting her.
He was on the fourteenth floor, and he had peculiar ideas. He wanted to fondle her standing up. He also wanted to position Madge and himself so they could see their reflections in the bureau mirror. Madge saw no reason to refuse him, and decided not to charge anything over and above the usual fee.
The man put his hands over her body, palming and stroking her breasts, gripping her hips, turning her around so he could watch himself holding her buttocks and the backs of her thighs.
She did similar things. She touched him softly, she held him tightly and tenderly. She used every skill she possessed, every bit of know-how, to draw the deepest pleasure from his aroused masculinity.
At no time did he look at her, or even speak except to give her instructions. He amused himself, with his eyes fixed on the mirror the entire time.
It was over. She collected her fee, and went downstairs to the second floor.
A fourth order awaited her.
And then a fifth.
And a sixth.
Madge's fatigue was no longer a physical state-it invaded her mind as wellas her body. She lost track of the number of men she visited, how many doors she passed through, how many beds she felt under her, how many male bodies she supported with her arms and thighs. The hands of all these men blended into a single pair, clutching her breasts, squeezing her buttocks, spreading her legs. The mouths became one mouth, pulling painfully at her nipples forcing their alcohol-breathed kisses harshly against her lips.
All the men merged together until they were one.
And when Madge thought back to other times, and other men-when she thought back to the days when she'd worked at that diner and the hard-bodied coarse-mouthed males she'd entertained in the past-she discovered they were all the same man, too.
The same lustful lurch against her womanhood, the same brutal aching thrusts, the same hoarse breathing and tacky body sweats-all the same. They took her, they used her, they paid and discarded her, and not once did any ever acknowledge the fact that she was a human being.
None ever had.
Not even Walt.
Walt wasn't really different from any of the men in her past, or from the men she entertained tonight. His soft words, his tender looks, his sensuously drifting hands, his warm kisses-these were just part of his style. There were a lot of men in the world who used such techniques on a girl not out of consideration for her pleasure, but because they themselves preferred it that way.
The difference had been with Madge. Walt's style had fooled her, blinded her to the fact that he was just another man, like all men, who couldn't even care about a woman such as Madge. His interest in her had been only a means of gratifying his own pleasure.
She had been dreaming. She had conned herself into believing in love. With that belief planted in her brain, her body responded to his caresses, up to the limit of her ability to respond. It happened with him, but not because of him. It happened only because of Madge's dream.
She was with a man as she thought this-customer number eight, was he? Or number nine? She couldn't be sure. Anyway, he was a customer, and he was fondling her at the moment in a style very much like Walt's. His mouth was at her breast, his palm warming the other, his hips were gliding between her thighs in an even, gentle motion. Just like Walt-just the way he did. She lifted her head and glanced down at him, and saw he had the same color hair as Walt. And the way he had his lips pursed around the tip of her breast-that was Walt's way.
He was doing everything she liked, but she wasn't responding. It wasn't happening. It wasn't even going to start happening.
Why?
Because the man didn't love her, didn't care about her. He was a customer.
Walt didn't love her, either. She thought he did, but she had been mistaken. And now that she knew her error, she knew also it could never happen again with him. She had been robbed of her dream-pleasure by the cold reality of truth, and that hurt.
He really didn't love her.
If he did, he wouldn't have sold her to these men, this man-the one rotten man, the ultimate male who was the distillation of all males, the one who took and took from a woman, and never gave in return the only thing that mattered.
Clyde got his dark gal.
He was happy with it. He tasted it, he felt it, flung himself onto it and groveled in it. He had a wild time; he really let himself go.
Kit also let herself go. She enjoyed being with Clyde. She got a kick out of his climbing all over her, grabbing, pinching, nipping her with his teeth. And she got a bigger kick out of doing the same to him, pinning him to the bed and just taking him over, popping her mouth from one point of his anatomy to another, driving him crazy with her soft lips and flickering tongue.
But Hester, in her way, was getting the biggest kick of all.
She and Kit had worked it out neatly. When Kit had gone into the room, she had left the door slightly ajar. Hester listened to the conversation, heard the sound of rustling clothing, then heard the unmistakable creak of the bedsprings.
That was the signal she'd been waiting for. She slipped into the room silently, easing the door shut without a sound. To her right was the door to the bathroom, and beyond the angle made by the bathroom wall was the bed. Hester couldn't see the bed, nor could the pair on the bed see her. What Hester could see was the bureau across the room on the left. It was set at an angle against the wall, and its mirror framed the scene on the bed.
Just like watching a movie, she though. Only better, of course.
Her station by the door was in darkness, so she knew Clyde could not see her, even if he did happen to glance in the mirror. He Wasn't-likely to look in that direction, anyway-he seemed to be occupied with the full-scale appreciation of Kit
Hester watched it all. As she did, a strange dryness invaded her mouth, and she felt a twisting in her bowls that was altogether new to her.
Kit was a study in soft shifting chocolate.
Her round brown breasts were heavy but firm, and capped with oval nipples the color of light coffee. Her torso was sleek, and gleamed with moist highlights as she worked up a sweat over her man. Her waist was solid, her buttocks twin solid mounds, her thighs and calves were oddly angular and limber.
There was a patch of tight wool beneath her belly that bore no relation at all to the pomaded hair on her head.
She was the goddamnedest animal Hester had ever seen.
That was the only word for her-animal. As she slid around on the bed, gripping and mouthing her turn savagely, Hester was reminded of a panther devouring its prey. She kept expecting to see blood, but she didn't.
All she could see was raw sex.
Kit spread her body prone on Clyde, and was wriggling, letting him feel the yielding masses of her fleshy torso. Her hands stroked his chest, and inched downward, slipping her knees between his open thighs and easing back until she was kneeling. She slid her palms onto his abdomen and leaned her body forward. The dark pendulous forms of her breasts squeezed down against his loins.
"Hey," he said, surprised.
"You like this, honey?"
"Yeah-I guess so."
"You going to like it even more before I get through."
She shimmied her shoulders, and her breasts danced and heaved beneath his abdomen. Her hands slipped down around her breasts and disappeared between his thighs.
He stiffened. His whole body went straight as a board. His lips curled back from his teeth in a half-smile, half-grimace, and gulps of air seethed between his lips.
Still holding him with her hands, engulfing him with her breasts, Kit dropped her face and kissed him on the abdomen. She was doubled over completely, and dark muscle raced beneath her skin in a total caress; she spread her feet, and her toes flexed against Clyde's straining calves.
Inch by inch, she continued to slide down. Her breasts slid away from his loins and came to rest briefly in her own cupped palms. Her body moved suddenly, and she flung a brown thigh over one of his legs, straddling it, letting herself down upon it, fitting it between her thighs and her breasts.
Her body was still wriggling, still moving downward, when she finally stopped moving. She had his foot trapped between her thighs, and the chocolate globes of her breasts were pressing into him just above his knee.
Her face was just above his groaning loins.
"Now you really going to get something," Kit said, her voice as dark as her skip.
Clyde made a sound. It might have been speech-it might have been something more like a death-rattle. Clyde was reaching the limit of his endurance.
Kit's hands moved. One set of fingers cupped, the other set curled. A weird snarl boiled out of her throat. Then the sound died off into a lascivious liquid hummmmm...
Hester could almost feel it. Of course., she knew Kit could never kiss her quite that way. But that didn't mean Kit couldn't kiss her with the same fervor, the same growling enjoyment. Watching, Hester could imagine the fierce touch of those lips on her own body, and the fantastic feeling they could produce. She could picture herself in Clyde's place, spread out naked and helpless beneath that assault of that lithe brown animal-she could almost feel her ankle scissored between Kit's chocolate-fleshed thighs, and the voluptuous weights of Kit's breasts hanging against either side of her knee. All that-Kit's insane devouring mouth-Hester envisioned it happening to her.
But that-that was crazy. That was a crazy idea.
She didn't want to really do such a thing with a girl
-even a girl like Kit-Did she?
It was a crazy idea. Wasn't it?
Kit made good her promise. Clyde was absolutely drunk with lust; his eyes were half open, but they didn't see a thing. His chest heaved and there were little bubbles of spittle clustered at the corners of his mouth. He had his hands on Kit's shoulders, and moved them absently back and forth across her rich ebony skin.
There was only one thing Clyde wanted; but he was too far gone to ask for it.
Fortunately for him, Kit didn't have to be asked.
Up she came, releasing her manual possession of him in a single lurch. She heaved back onto her haunches, lifted upward, and came to rest with her thighs straddling his knees. like a woman on horseback, she urged herself forward, rocking upward toward his hips. The motion made her breasts shiver.
The sight of it made Hester shiver.
Kit reached her saddle. She lifted her hips and suspended them over him. Her hand sought down between them, found him, positioned him. With a smile of raw molten lust on her face. She took her seat.
The bedsprings howled. The slap of Kit's rump filled the room with its rhythm. She arched her back, reached her hands out behind her to grip his knees, and flung herself into a full gallop. Her thighs tensed and quivered with muscle-motion. The brown hill of her belly throbbed like a naked heart. The candy-tipped spheres of her ripe breasts swung and heaved, flinging wall-eyed one moment, beating softly together the next.
Her chin was lifted high over her pulsing throat, her mouth was open, her eyes stared glassily at nothing, her windpipe sighed and moaned like the pipe of an organ. The sound was as basic as the act she was performing, as basic as the sobbing of jungle cats in rut.
Hester watched it, felt it. Hester's body hummed with sexual electricity, drawing it from the scene in the mirror in sizzling bolts of pleasure. Hester's eyes gobbled it up, and fed her glands until they felt like bursting.
In the midst of it, she felt hands on her breasts. A moment later, she realized they were her own. She held herself, crushed herself, lifted the globes almost clear out of her bra, clutching her own tender flesh in spasm after spasm of desire.
Oh, Kit, she thought-oh, Kit, Kit, Kit-you black sexy hunk-oh, I'm, I'm going to get it from you-am I ever going to let you gobble me up-oh, baby ...
Hester was finally beginning to understand what Patsy and Liz did in the shower together.
Little blonde hooker.
God-it was like the years since that time hadn't ever happened, like he'd never grown out of boyhood, never married Louise, never spent all that time pretending to be an adult. The burden of life-already-lived rolled off his shoulders when he saw her, and it was the good young days again.
He spoke to her. He said words, strung them into sentences, but none meant anything. He had no more idea what he was saying than he had of what she was answering. All he could see was her standing there, slim and pretty and young, with phony blonde hair and round breasts and broad flaring hips and sweetly-tapering legs flowing from under her dress down to the delicate bones of her little ankles.
He said more words to her, and she took off her clothes. He trembled as her garments fell away one by one, as she bared her slender body to him. His mouth hungered to kiss the firm hemispheres which rose so invitingly, his tongue ached to taste the luscious coins which tipped them. His hands lusted for her flanks, heft the calves of her tender rump, cup and warm the soft triangle of darkness which gave the lie to her long blonde hair.
It had been a long time since Roger had felt anything even remotely like the sensations which assailed him at that moment. A youthful sap bubbled in his veins; deeply hidden stores of desire poured forth their juices, filling his body with the awful tension of young manhood. Looking at her, seeing her nude body and what the sight of it was doing to him, Roger could hardly believe he'd ever had a woman before.
It was the first time all over again.
Somehow, he found himself undressed. Somehow, he was out of his chair, taking her in his arms, drawing her slim nakedness up flush with his body. Her tight young breasts snuggled against him; her coltish loins seemed to melt into his own. His hands found her bottom and lifted her up onto her toes. His knees bent slightly. Her breasts and belly slipped along him and her slender thighs opened in instinctive welcome.
Fingers biting deep into the yielding rump-flesh, he lifted her and carried her still pressed full-length against him to the bed. He let her down onto it, and she reclined with a smooth-limbed grace that brought his heart leaping into his throat.
Just like the first time, he thought. When you come to take your first woman, she's the only woman in the world.
He found his place beside her. He caught one of her breasts in both hands and lifted the tip into his lips. They trembled as he felt the delicate flesh pebble and spread in response to his kiss.
First one-then the other-God, they were so soft-a girl's breasts-how often does a young man dream of a girl's breasts, of holding them, tasting them, nourishing his untried lusts at the naked breast of a young girl? It's part of the dream of adolescence, part of the terrible mysterious awakening of desire, and its first pounding fulfillment. It's part of the dream of flesh, which is every young man's burden.
But Roger wasn't a young man-Roger wasn't a virgin kid-Roger was a man who'd been married twenty years, who'd tasted the delights of many women before settling down to concentrate on one.
Roger wasn't a kid, recognized the fact.
But that didn't change anything. He kissed her breasts all over, from upper curve to lower, holding and manipulating the resiliant globes as if they were newly-discovered wonders.
He kissed her on the mouth. Her lips were unresponsive at first, but he wormed his tongue past them and buried it in the wet hollow of her mouth. When she began to respond, she didn't do it with much fire, but his own passion helped make up for it.
Roger moved into position between her lovely thighs. Those thighs came up hesitantly, as if unsure of their role in the proceedings, but rose far enough to tip her upward at the proper angle. He suspended himself over her, supported by his elbows; then slowly, blindly, he probed forward.
Just like the first time?
No-it wasn't like the first time at all.
In the space of a heartbeat, the confusion of alcohol and lust blew out of Roger's brain. He blinked his eyes until his vision cleared, then took a long hard look at the face of the girl beneath him.
She was much younger than he had suspected. She was very pretty and soft-looking; where he expected the hardness of an experienced slut, he saw only innocence. And there was something else in her face, too-a question, it seemed; an uncertainty over what was happening, and the reasons why.
She stared up at him, and the look in her eyes told him the truth more forcibly than the unexpected barricade he had run into a moment earlier.
"You're a virgin," he said.
"Yes."
"But-why didn't you tell me?'
"I don't know. Should I have told you?"
"Well-sure. I mean-tarts aren't virgins. That's impossible."
"I'm sorry," she said.
He looked at her closely. The question was still printed on her face, and he was beginning to under stand what that question was.
"Don't you know anything at all? I mean, about sex?"
"Not very much."
Hasn't a boy ever-well, done things to you? like I was doing?"
"No..." The girl's eyes shifted. "A girl did, though."
"What?"
"A girl-a girl from the hotel here. She did those things to me. And other things, too."
"I see." Roger shook his head. "Well, I hope she gave you what you wanted. It's your privilege, I suppose-"
"Wanted?" said the girl. "I didn't want nothing. It was her idea. She told me she was going to rub my back, and she didfor a while, anyway. But she kept taking off my clothes a piece at a time and before I knew it, I was all naked, and she wasn't rubbing my back any more. She was doing things."
Roger's mind was still foggy with drink. He wasn't at all sure he was following the girl's train of thought. "Now let me get this straight you're saying some girl stripped you and played with you and--and that wasn't what you wanted?"
"That's right. All I wanted was my back rubbed."
"Isn't this girl a friend of yours, or anything?"
"Oh, no. I hardly know her. In fact, I always thought she was a little crazy. She had this friend, see, and I think they do funny things together-"
"Lesbians," said Roger softly. "Huh?" said the girl.
Roger took a deep breath. "Look you're too young to be doing something like this. You don't have any experience. You can't know what you're involved in."
"You're talking about sex, ain't you."
"That' right."
"I want to know about sex. Show me. Please."
"I . ... "
"Don't you see? All I know now is what Patsy did to me. It was so so crazy, it has me all turned around. I don't know where I am any more."
"Miss...."
"You've got to show me, or else how am I going to know? I want you to show me. Please show me."
Roger was silent for a few seconds. "Are you sure you want that?"
"Yes. I got to have it, so I can figure things out. Please."
"It's going to hurt in the beginning."
"That's all right. If that's part of it, then I got to know about that, too."
So Roger showed her.
It wasn't hard. The last defense of her immaturity fell easily, almost on the first attempt. He heard her gasp, and searched her face for a clue as to what she was feeling. Her eyes were clenched shut, her mouth was distorted, her nostrils flared around a shuddering breath.
And then, all at once, her face changed. The straining muscles relaxed, and color flooded into her cheeks. Her mouth went slack, and when she opened her eyes they were sparkling with wonder.
"Oh" she breathed. "It's so oh-you're oh!"
"Shh," Roger said softly. "Don't say anything. This is just the start. Let yourself go, sweetheart. Let it happen."
She let herself go. It happened.
And while it happened, a funny thought crossed Roger's mind. A woman, he thought, wasn't a woman until she stopped being a girl. A woman didn't reach the full flower of her maturity until her virginity was gone only then could a human female properly put on the cloak of womanhood.
He realized that men created women. It took a man to give a woman her adulthood. It took this act this sharing of pleasure to rupture the cocoon called little girl and set free the butterfly called woman. Only a man could do it.
Roger was a man, and was doing it.
Youth didn't mean anything after all. It was nice to be young, but it wasn't important enough to mourn over when youth had gone. You had manhood to compensate for your loss, and manhood was the most wonderful thing in the world.
Slowly, tenderly and near the end, violently Roger made a woman out of Libby. He used all the power of his masculinity to give her the answer she craved he taught her what it was like to be a woman. And in the process, he learned anew what it was like to be a man.
Roger was a man. As long as that was so, there was no reason to ever shed a tear over the loss of anything else.
In his dream, Pop saw a corridor.
It was one of the hotel halls, and there were doors ranked down the walls on either side. They were open, but from where he was standing he couldn't see into them.
There were girls going in and out of those rooms day-maids and night-maids, bustling from door to door on various errands. Some carried piles of fresh bedding, some carried pitchers of water, some suitcases and overnight bags.
There were others-mixed in the crowd of girls performing their normal hotel duties and these strolled from room to room with their skirts hitched up about their waists, wearing nothing below but high-heeled shoes. No panties. No garter belts. No stockings. Nothing.
They were dressed at least, those parts of them that were dressed in standard maid's uniforms. But they pretended they were something else. As they sauntered up and down the corridor, buttocks working, long legs flexing, hands holding their skirts high in a brazen display of their loins, Pop realized they were trying to pretend they were prostitutes; not just maids turned prostitute, but professionals. The girls were trying to convince the men in the rooms that they were full-time bookers.
But they weren't fooling anybody. With all the wanton hip-twitching and the come-hither smiles, none of the men believed the girls' pretense. They knew they were maids.
The uniforms they wore were a dead giveaway.
Pop came out of his dream with a wrench that almost stopped his heart. For a few seconds, he could not imagine where he was; his mind's eye was still filled with that dream.
But gradually the shuddering of his heart slowed, and he found himself slumped in a chair beside the purring bulk of the hotel furnace. There wasn't any corridor. There weren't any girls. It had all been a dream.
No wait a minute. Something was fitting into place inside Pop's head; something about the dream, and the goings-on at the hotel tonight. Girls in the corridors girls dressed in the unmistakable uniforms of hotel maids...
And then he had it.
He remembered an incident from his childhood God, how clear the memory was, even after all these years. He and a group of other boys had been planning a small larceny. One group was to go into this neighborhood five-and-ten store and raise a ruckus; and while the attention of the management was fo-cussed on that, a second group would slip into the store, grab everything they could, and run like hell.
They had been all ready to try out their plan, but an older boy had talked them out of it. There was a flaw in the scheme, he said; a simple flaw, but a big one.
They were too close to home.
The store was in their neighborhood. Each and every one was known around the area. How hard would it be to track down local kids who lived so near the scene of the crime? Even if they got away with it, none could ever run the risk of walking on that block again, or going into the store, for fear of being recognized.
Don't do it, the boy told them. If you have to pull a fast one, try it somewhere where they don't know you. But never, never in your own back yard, never against a background people associate with you.
That's madness. That's like a bird crapping in his own nest.
Pop lurched up from the chair. He heard his wine bottle topple over and shatter on the floor, but he didn't care about that. Time was running out; he had to get up to the lobby quickly, had to warn that young fool Walt-
My God, he thought he's selling girls from this very hotel, making no attempt to disguise the fact that they were members of the staff. He hasn't provided any way to defend himself against bad luck he's laid himself wide open. The evidence is right here on the premises, along with God knows how many witnesses.
Make only one enemy, Walt, and you've had
Pop staggered toward the elevator as fast as old legs could carry him.