Chapter 7
Janey slept.
Rather, she screamed her way through a nightmare in which, shivering in icy rain, she thumbed a lift from a pickup truck and a grinning man tore her shirt open and spilled her breasts out into the hands of Barbara, who spat on them and turned to the man and opened his pants and yanked out his cock. She then made Janey suck it.
Janey awoke hearing a cheery voice.
"Janey, hey! You luscious twat you!"
She awoke with a start, jerked upright in bed, staring at a red-haired Ribbon Girl who stood, feet planted apart, knuckles on hips, grinning at her. Freckle-faced, twinkling eyes, smallish. Pretty breasts, her ribbons in careless disarray, exposing a patch of curly chestnut-colored pussy hair.
Janey had seen her once before, when she and Mrs. Claymore had gazed through the one-way window into the room, saw her mounted backwards on a naked man, strapping his ass.
"I'm Gracie Mac," she said. "But just Gracie, huh? They don't let you keep your last name here. Mine's MacKenzie, but forget it. Anyhow Mrs. C. told me to wake you up, it's noon. I brought coffee and hot rolls and jam so you better get your ass out of bed or I'll eat it all."
Her grin, the friendly twinkle of her eyes, charmed Janey. But she had learned caution. She had a thousand questions to ask, but questions were forbidden. She frowned, studying the delightful, impish redhead.
"I'm not supposed to ask questions."
Gracie laughed. "Oh, fuck! I'm just ribbon like you. Ask anything. Like how does my cunt feel? Same as always, horny."
Janey burst into laughter.
"Come on," Gracie said. "Rolls are hot, and I mean we have the best baker, supplies the hotel, too. Strawberry jam because it's my favorite but also orange marmalade."
Janey left the bed and joined her, feeling immensely relieved by the girl's carefree manner, which seemed to proclaim that here at Palm Cove things were not so bad after all. Still, she was not used to the strangeness of their costumes.
Then hunger, not quite satisfied by last night's supper, got to her, and she wolfed down rolls smeared with jam and gulped hot, very good coffee.
Finally she asked, "Gracie, did Orvil bring you here."
The other shook her head. "No. A cop."
"A cop!"
"Yeah, he arrested me for vagrancy at the bus station in town. I said, so throw me in jail, at least you got to feed me. Was I ever hungry! See, I came down here a couple of months ago and got a job waiting table in a greasy spoon. I had to fuck with the owner and what a shit he was, but then he wanted me to fuck friends of his and I got fed up. I was trying to cadge a bus ticket to anywhere when the cop hauled me in, but he didn't take me to jail, brought me here."
"So the cops work with Mrs. Claymore!"
"Sure. Some nights you'll see the chief of police out in the club, and the county sheriff too."
"So we're like trapped."
"You better believe it, Janey." Gracie stuffed a roll in her mouth. "But it's warm and you eat well. And we have a great indoor swimming pool. All you have to do is learn to behave so you don't get whipped. Gee, the first week my ass felt like it was on fire day and night."
"You never go outside?"
Gracie shrugged. "They say the weather is lousy anyway. That's what the aprons say. They can go out any time they're not on duty."
Janey pondered that. "How do you get to be an apron?"
Gracie laughed. "Ask an Apron Girl, and get your ass beat."
"You mean, it's like a secret?"
"You better believe it. And like where's the clothes you came here wearing? And where's the keys to these doors without knobs? The Ribbon Girls don't know and the aprons don't tell. So make the best of it, Janey."
Finished eating, the girl took a cigarette from a pack on the breakfast tray, and lit it.
She rose, "Got to pee."
Janey watched her friend hook her thumbs into the waistband of her ribbon skirt, stretch it and with a single movement lift it to her armpits. The ribbons now dangled above her navel.
Gracie threw the bathroom door open and squatted on the john.
"When you're done eating, Janey, we'll go have a swim, huh?"
Janey nodded. "But Grace, listen. How about the closed rooms? I mean I saw you last night riding that guy..."
"People are nutty. You wouldn't believe what turns them on. The other night I went all wrapped up in chains, and the guy got so horny it looked like his cock would burst. He was panting just looking at me -- and the chains, maybe just the chains -- and drooling and grinning all strange, his mouth slobbery. And there was a woman -- I had to tickle her cunt with a lily."
"A lily?"
"I mean the flower part, a white one. Mostly these nuts are harmless, but the biters scare me."
Janey shuddered.
"The guy you saw me strapping, he hollered louder and louder how bad he'd been and needed punishment. Then all of a sudden he came, not jerking off or anything, just spurted all over the floor. He gave me a twenty-dollar tip."
Janey frowned. "Do you have a place to keep money? I mean, wearing just ribbons and necklace chain..."
The girl smiled ruefully. "Each apron has a little pocket in it, that's where the tips go. We're supposed to get paid, but nobody knows how much, and anyhow, you can't spend money. Everything's free."
"But if you got out -- escaped -- you'd have no money."
"And you'd be walking down the highway wearing a ribbon skirt. So forget that. Live every day as it comes. One thing sure, it's always different."
They left the room, went down the curved hall past the door to the Ribbon Girls' lounge, past other doors without knobs. The hall appeared to curve in an S shape of blank walls and doors. They had not reached the end when Gracie pushed a door open, took them through an anteroom to another door. Beyond it was a pool.
Janey gaped. The pool was kidney-shaped. The room's entire roof was glass, through which could be seen a turquoise sky. About the pool were small tables, lounge chairs, mats. On the far side a ping-pong table where two naked girls were playing. Other girls swam or loafed about the edges. But most remarkable was an alabaster statue of a girl squatting on the pool edge pissing a constant stream of blue water.
Janey giggled. Then she pointed upward. "Blue skies! Gosh, somebody in a helicopter could see right in."
"It's fake. It looks the same at night," Gracie said. She was removing her earring necklace. Janey did the same. When they were nude, Gracie laced her fingers into Janey's and led her toward the pool. There a tall blonde girl was climbing out of the water. She smiled at Gracie, who waved back. "She's my apron," Gracie whispered.
Janey noticed that the girl's pubes were shaven as cleanly as Barbara's. "Do all the aprons shave their pussy hair?"
"Uh-huh. But some ribbons, too." She pointed at one of the ping-pong players, a brunette with a slick, shiny pussy, not a hair on the plump lips.
Then, standing there on the edge of the pool Janey felt a slap on her behind -- Gracie's hand.
The girl laughed as Janey, laughing, toppled into the pool.
Strangely, Janey was enjoying herself.
Here, she could barely remember the nightmare of he capture by Orvil, or even the whip lashes on her behind. She and Gracie swam, played ping-pong, then shot pool at the table in an anteroom. She quickly overcame her uneasiness at being stark naked. It did not seem to matter, not after seeing bobbing bare titties all about. Even when they danced to rock music in an anteroom, hard rock to which they danced wildly with elbows churning, breasts leaping crazily about -- it all seemed quite natural.
Then the record was changed and dreamy-slow dance music came from the loudspeakers.
Two other pairs of girls were dancing. They melted into each other's arms. Blushing, Janey glanced at Gracie.
The redhead was holding her hands. "Come on," she said. "Unless -- I mean, do girls turn you off?"
Janey let the redhead slip into her arms. As their breasts met, a jiggly cushiony joining, she thought of last night with Barbara, and how cruelly the girl had finally rejected her.
But Gracie was ribbon, now breathing warmly on Janey's throat, her pubic fluff brushing Janey's thigh.
By the time the first song was through, Janey decided it was very sweet, tender, a delightful sharing. But was it permitted? "We won't get into trouble over this?"
"Oh, no. Mrs. Claymore likes the girls to pair off as lovers. See, that's why she had me bring your breakfast. She said maybe we'd be happy together. Do you think so?"
Janey, blushing, looked aside and saw one pair of dancing girls kiss, or rather tongue-tease each other, their lips not meeting. In this strange place it seemed natural. She needed a friend, and now that she was accustomed to the warm, jiggly cushion of their breasts, Gracie's belly against hers, the caresses of arms, the nudge of thighs, she could think of nothing nicer.
She rubbed her chin on Gracie's velvety cheek. "I want to be your lover, Gracie. That is -- if you..."
"Oh, yes!" The girl looked up, eyes twinkling. "I'm so lucky! Kiss me?"
The kiss was like the one Janey had observed, tongues extended. A terrible tease! It made her pull at Gracie's waist, joining their bellies firmly together. Not dancing now, they prolonged the tongue tease until Janey could no longer endure it.
Janey grasped the girl's satiny buttocks and lifted until their hairy pubes met, when she gave a shudder, groaned with pleasure. She felt so hot inside!
Gracie's eyes were sparkling when they resumed dancing, so close now, sealed together from cheeks to thighs. "I never had a lover, I mean plenty of girls but not like this, not like everybody can call us a pair, Janey and Gracie."
The music ended. They stood embracing.
"Come to my room?" the redhead whispered.
"Yes!"
Arms about each other, they left the pool area.
In the hall Janey remembered their nudity.
"Shouldn't we be wearing our ribbons and things?"
"Doesn't matter here in the hall. I have extras in my room."
Gracie's place was exactly like her own. The girl went to the wall at the end of the bed and pushed a button. Panels slid aside revealing mirrors.
Janey frowned. "I don't like people looking."
Her lover placed a finger on her lips. "Sh-hhh! The rooms are all bugged. And if Mrs. Claymore found us here with the panels closed, she'd whip our asses bloody."
Janey did not like being on display, but then Gracie slipped into her arms. Kissing the redhead, rubbing her mound on the other, she decided it did not matter who watched. It was not forbidden and Janey found that her reluctance concerning lesbian love was fast dissipating. Sure, she had always thought of sex as a cock in her cunt, but stroking Grace's slender back, exploring the soft, very female swells of her ass, she was glad her lover was a woman. There could be no arrogance of ruthlessly poking cock; instead, a sharing.
Grace's hands had slipped up between them, kneading their merged breasts. "Everybody was talking about your tits, Janey. And I want to -- on the bed..."
"Yes!"
They moved to the bed and flopped down, Grace across seizing a breast in both hands.
A pale pink tongue circled the nipple, and Janey gasped as moist heat seeped in, stiffening her nipple. Gracie rubbed her cheeks on it, then abruptly seized the nipple in her lips and sucked.
The pull drew deep into Janey's body, producing a fluttering sensation in her cunt that made her grunt with surprise.
She fingered into the other's red hair, silky, sensual stuff that clung to her fingers. Grace sucked again, and Janey gasped. "Ooooh, honey! That makes my pussy quiver!"
Her lover raised up, smiling, glanced down her body at the fluffy tan pubic bush. She lightly fingered Janey's pussy lips.
Janey squirmed, tantalized by the light, slithering caresses. She drew Grace's head down to her breast and poked the nipple into her mouth. Her lover moaned and her mouth sucked the swollen red cap and tugged, which made Janey quiver all over and arch, pressing her hot cunt to the other's invading fingers.
"Honey, you're so hot!" Grace gasped about her mouthful of breast.
"I need to cum," Janey panted. "Oh-hhh, when you touch my clit something just bursts in my belly..."
Grace left the swollen breast and began nuzzling down Janey's hot, palpitating flesh toward her pubes. "I'll lap you over the edge, huh? Then..."
Her breath was hot on Janey's pussy when a voice spoke in the room.
"Ribbon Girl Grace..."
A loudspeaker. Mrs. Claymore's voice.
"Report for duty at post one in the club. Very busy there now..." Janey burst into tears.
Grace gave a cry of anguish. "It's all right, lover. Later. I have to go. It's the rule."
"She's doing it on purpose!" Janey whimpered.
"Shush!" Grace put a hand over her mouth. "Don't let anybody hear that."
She sprang off the bed and from her vanity table drawer took a ribbon skirt, earring chain, and sandals.
She rushed out of the room.
Janey lay squirming on the bed, a finger up her cunt, trying to masturbate through the cum that only moments before had needed merely a single tongue lash to trigger into fluttering ecstasy.