Chapter 9
The studio was in the East Village, in the basement of a tawdry apartment house that had been sold for demolition. Two or three recalcitrant tenants had refused to move after the landlord had issued eviction papers, and the housing authority was backing them up. The landlord, forced to keep essential services going for the stubborn remaining residents, had seen a chance to make some quick money when one of Steve's New York cronies approached him for a "studio." For a painter, was the explanation. Nobody actually said, but the landlord knew what kind of painting was going on. It was legal enough, but if there were any trouble of any land the landlord would claim that they were squatters who had camped in the building without his knowledge. Thus the rent was paid in cash and there were no receipts. It was all very temporary, but Steve said no body-painting studio ever intended to be permanent. It was a quick-money turnover, just like the landlord's. It took a bastard to know a bastard, and Steve and the landlord had found each other. Lorna, raised with the prudent New Englander's dictum to demand a receipt for anything you paid for, was shocked at the lack of that all-important piece of paper.
Steve sneered at her fears.
"He cheats big, not little. Use your head, sweetheart. Except when you're working, that is. Then you use other things. Christ, Lorna, if he's reserving the right to toss us out do you think he's going to sign receipts?"
She cringed under his scorn, as she often did nowadays. Instead of shedding the former respectable life that she had hated, she was constantly reminded of it. In small matters such as the argument over rent receipts it was highly apparent that she was "straight". Steve knew the ropes, he knew what respectable people did not know, and Lorna's ignorance was evidence that she still belonged to that category that Steve hated: "nice people."
His hatred seemed to extend to her. She felt that she had somehow failed him simply because of the station in life from which she sprang. It was something she could not help, but still she felt guilty.
He kept her in a perpetual state of nervousness and confusion. Just when she was beginning to feel like a stupid tag-along respectable housewife, he would turn the tables on her and make her feel like a dumb broad fished out of the gutter.
Take the matter of education. Steve was very proud of the number of books he read, exceedingly proud, it seemed to her. He resented the fact that she had gone to college and took every opportunity to lord his learning over hers. He corrected her grammar on minor points that she had never bothered to think about before-nor had anyone else she ever knew bothered with such precise anachronisms of speech. Once she had started to say: "If I am-" He interrupted her.
"If I be, you mean. That's a subjunctive verb, used after an expression of doubt such as if. As in Patrick Henry's 'if this be treason, make the most of it.'"
The look on his face and the sardonic inflection he gave the word treason were subtle warnings to her that she had better do just as he told her, always. He did not say it in so many words, but it was obvious to both of them.
Lorna had heard about prisoners who, for want of anything else to do, had educated themselves while serving time. The papers regularly reported some instance or other, and Nathan Leopold and the Birdman of Alcatraz were solid American legends. There was no doubt in her mind that Steve was highly intelligent, and he had used the criminal's quick mentality in good as well as bad ways. She found his self-taught collection of knowledge commendable and was ready to admire him for it, but he would not let her. The one time she had innocently complimented him on it he had turned on her in an icy rage, lashing her with sarcastic words until he had her in frenzied, terrified tears.
She was too afraid of losing him to analyze the matter properly. She had spent her life-her respectable life-with people who were secure enough to make casual and minor grammatical errors without giving it a thought. She had also known people who spoke with perfect grammar all of the time as a matter of habit, and without giving it a thought. Among the less fortunate and badly educated types were those whose grammar was atrocious and who were proud of it; such lack of elegance proclaimed manliness. But also in this group were people like Steve, obsessed with "self-improvement" and as sensitive as an exposed nerve about their humble origins. Most of these fumbled ludicrously and pitifully for the right word, usually the wrong one, and would rather produce an incoherent sentence than split an infinitive for the sake of clarity. The advertisements on match book covers are directed at people like this.
But Steve, for all his self-improvement and insecurities, was not like this. His vocabulary was immense and well-chosen, and his grammar and clarity were one. Because of this, Lorna often felt like the Bronx guttersnipe and looked upon him as the respectable, fortunate one.
He had used the principle of divide, confuse and conquer on her personality, keeping her in such an agitated state of mind that she was powerless to fight him. She never knew which end was up. The only area in which he allowed her total confidence and marks was the area of sex. This bound her to him and made her do anything he wished, anything, just to please him and keep the cutting, sardonic rejection out of his voice and his handsome dark face. Steve knew that he had her by the short and curly, but he could not have explained to anybody how he got her there. He worked by instinct and intuition and played everything by ear. He would have made a much better lawyer than either Dan or the judge, but the one time she had told him so he had not spoken to her for two days. She could not bear his silent hostility; it was much better to be suspended in psychological space. Anything was better than being rejected by Steve.
She left the ratty building one morning. It was a warm day for December, with a thin sun. She had to get some air, it seemed that they never went out in the daytime anymore. Steve was a night person and they seldom got to sleep before three in the morning. She crossed the street and sat down in the small park area in front of the church of St. Mark's-in-the-Bouerie. The sign made her think once again of Steve's tender intellectual pride. He had explained to her, in response to her question, that the word, pronounced "bowery" was Dutch for farm, and that Peter Stuyvesant's original farm had covered the land that was now covered by broken bottles and vomit.
She looked into the burial ground behind the building. It was littered with beer cans and there were still a couple of bums stretched out on the graves, covered with newspapers and tattered remains of Good Will overcoats.
Lorna shuddered at the sight. How could they sleep there, so close to those ancient bones that would never arise again? She tried to think logically, and she supposed that the surface occupants of the graves felt themselves lucky. The earth was softer than concrete, and even in its present state it was cleaner than the Tombs, the jail to which they all had undoubtedly been at one time or another.
Still, a sensation of dread remained with her. Those bums, so wretched and undernourished, were close to death themselves. How could they, if they had any sense of self-preservation left, imitate the actual dead by stretching out on those scraggly mounds?
Self-preservation.. . .
Quick and automatic denial drove out all other emotions in Lorna. It was self-preservation to escape from Maine, from Dan, from his family! She had done the right thing; she had saved . herself from living death as the wife of a puritanical killjoy and two-faced politician.
A ass lay fiat on his back, directly in front of one of the slab-like tombstones. His hands were folded over his chest and the various coats and old sweaters in which he had wrapped himself looked like a rotting shroud. He stirred suddenly and sat up with a jolt.
She watched him rise slowly. His shadow cast a long, dark smudge over the tombstone. Lorna clutched her throat, unable to take her eyes from him. He seemed to have risen from the dead.
She jumped from the bench and hurried back to the building.
That night, her first customer was a prosperous-looking elegant executive type who seemed ashamed to be where he was. He was about forty-five, dressed in a soft cashmere overcoat and carrying a slim attaché case. Lorna came out in a robe and arranged the tray of paints for him. They were harmless vegetable colors about the consistency of Kool-Aid and just as washable.
In a halting voice, the man told her his name was Tom.
She was bent over the palette when he spoke. As she heard the name, an electrifying sensation covered her. The texture of the brushes on the tray, the nap of the wool in her robe, the way it gaped open in front when she leaned over, everything about that split second rushed her with intense familiarity.
She looked up at him and repeated his name. Her voice was shaky and interrogative and for a moment the man seemed terrified and about to bolt, as though he were afraid they knew each other and she had recognized him. She quickly smoothed it over and smiled at him, forcing her fears away. It was ridiculous, she told herself. She had been reading too many of Steve's books and listening to his newly adopted theories. What other name, with the possible exception of John, could be more familiar than Tom? She had known plenty of people named Tom. It meant nothing at all, nothing!
She took off her robe and stood naked in the bright light. His eyes sank like weights down her body.
"Let's paint a pretty picture, Tom," she said. "Do you want a front or back view?" He swallowed.
"Front, of course."
He picked up one of the soft brushes and dipped it, as they all did, in the red paint. He stroked the cold, wet bristles over her nipples and she shivered and smiled at him through half-closed eyes. He knelt beside her reclining body, panting hard and flicking the brush at her with a shaking hand. Lorna stretched her arms over her head and pushed her boobs out to him in encouragement. His face grew almost as red as the paint.
His eyes descended to her triangular bush of cunt hair.
"Orange," he murmured. "Beautiful. I'll match it."
He picked up another brush and stirred it in the orange paint, then added a little brown until it was the exact cinnamon shade of her thatch. As the brush licked over her pelvis she jerked with pleasure. He had struck a responsive nerve at the juncture of hip and thigh, where long trailing strands of curly hair escaped her neat bush and grew in a scattered red-gold line.
"Hairy but fair," he mumbled. "Just the way I like them to be. God, you've got a beautiful cunt, you know that? May I see more of it? Open your legs a little," he pleaded.
Lorna smiled and spread her thighs. He shuffled on his knees down to the bottom of the pad on which she reclined and gazed hotly into her fully exposed gash. She was hot and creaming and a line of moisture was apparent on the inside of her legs.
"You're excited," he said with wonder in his voice. "My God, did I get you going?"
He held his crotch as though he were in pain. His cock was up and ready. He took another larger brush and dipped it in the water.
"This will feel good, softer than anything, even my tongue, though I want to put that in there, too. I want to put everything I've got in that beautiful little slice. Will you let me?"
"Oh, I don't think so," she whispered. "I couldn't do that."
Her breath whistled through her clenched teeth as the sodden brush parted her pussy lips and crawled deliciously up her gash. He stroked her aching clitoris with it until her hips began a vulgar twisting thrust. She squirmed and sighed, wriggling her bare ass toward him, then drew back away from the stimulating bristles.
"You love that, don't you?" he said eagerly. "May I put it up inside a little?"
"Ummmmm, just a little," she whispered.
He gasped when he stuck the instrument into her quivering gash. She clamped down on it with her muscles and sucked it inside her vagina. He made an exclamation of surprise as she pulled on it vigorously, nearly fucking herself with it. He stared at the moving brush in her cunt and groaned with desire.
"What a lovely snapping pussy you have! I wish I had my cock in there. God, if you pulled on it like that I'd go crazy! Let me give you a little something for what ails you, hmm? Let me slip you some meat, please! I'll give you twenty-five dollars extra-"
"Oh, no, I'm not supposed to do things like that with customers. Just paint me, Tom."
"Please! Please let me! I can't stand it! My dog's about to explode. Please, please, I'll give you fifty-"
"Seventy-five."
"All right, seventy-five."
He began to unzip his pants but she reached out and grabbed his stiff, trapped cock and squeezed it hard. He howled in pain and pleasure and began to grunt and thrust against her palm as she fondled his semen-crammed tool.
"Empty your pockets before you take off your pants, Tom honey."
He was ready to do anything she asked as long as he got his meat in her. He fumbled for his wallet and took out the bills, then kicked off his shoes and dragged his pants down his legs. Lorna's cunt continued to draw on the paint brush stuck up it. She sighed and rolled her hips as she flexed her sex muscles rapidly.
"Ummmmm, I need something bigger than this in there now. You've got a gorgeous cock, Tom. Really fat and hard, just what I need to cool me off. Crawl in, honey, I'll give us both a good ride."
He jumped on top of her with a thud that nearly sent them both sprawling. His hairy legs captured her thighs as he sat atop them. He balanced himself t over the wide opening of her naked crotch, his thighs rough and fuzzy against the satiny inner sides of her own. His balls nestled heavily against her pussy for a moment.
"I like to fuck a woman while I sit on her legs," he panted. "That way I can look down and see my dong going in and out of you."
His stiff prick drove her crazy with lust as he rubbed and thrust it against her belly, digging its tip into her navel. Lorna moaned and jiggled her hips in desperate impatience under him. Her vagina was stretched out to its limits, extended in an aching, needy tunnel right up the middle of her belly.
"I love a big rod in there. Shove it in, hurry!"
He really had her hot, she was not pretending. She threw her legs around his naked ass and squeezed him into the hot opening of her thighs, but he pulled her legs down and squatted on top of them. His hot hairy sack was against her buttocks as he stabbed her burning vagina with his thick ready rod. Her walls clasped hungrily around it as he thrust it in to the hilt. He closed his eyes and smiled in ecstasy as his cock tip struck the neck of her womb.
"That's the sweetest, hottest place in the world!" he cried. He dragged his rod out of her until only the thick head remained clutched inside her harshly working cunt muscles. He stroked in again, then rocked back. Soon they were rolling together in a groaning, heaving delight of lust. A crawling, prickling delight enflamed her vagina and engulfed her whole body. She felt her climax grow out of the sliding movements of his fat sticky pecker inside her snatch. Tiny licks of flame seemed to rush over her pussy and into her entrails and rectum. Her clit rose up like a hot nail and tingled with oncoming ecstasy.
"I'm making you come, aren't I?" he gasped. "I feel that little hole throbbing around my whang. You're spraying me, I can feel it! Get it, get it, get it!"
Lorna gasped and grunted as the waves of orgasm crested inside her. She struggled against his weight and thrust her hips into his groin, rubbing her pussy against his sliding, throbbing cock. He dug it in deep once more and shot out a hot load of jism that he must have been saving up for months to judge from the amount that filled her.
He shook violently until his teeth rattled. After his first big jet of semen he still was not finished with her. He rocked it in slowly, giving her short, jabbing strokes as he squirted some more of his hot maleness into her quivering box.
"God, you got the biggest wad I've ever shot," he sighed. "That was heaven on earth."
As he reluctantly got dressed to go, she almost told him to forget about the money and fuck her again. She knew she did not dare; Steve would be around in a moment to see what was going on. Tom made another appointment for the following week. He was the nicest, most normal customer she had entertained so far. She remembered the fat red-faced man who had "painted" her yesterday. He had wanted back views, nothing else, and he did an in-depth study, too. He made her he on her belly with her legs spread while he stuck six of the tiny brushes up her asshole. Then she had to prance around the room while he beat his meat. When he got it up good and hard, he tore the brushes out and fucked her sore bottom until she felt faint. To make things worse he used a french tickler with hard little cockscombs on the tip, like a rooster's head. The sharp points pricked and stabbed her tender bung until she bled, but still he wasn't through with her. He gave her another fifty dollars and washed her up in his own perverted fashion, first licking out her rim and crack, and then making her spread her cheeks with her hands while he aimed a stream of piss at the torn flesh. She could still feel the acidy burning.
Tom was different, he was normal. All he wanted was a nice velvety slot for a hot dick. He was nice, he was . . . respectable. The sight of him with the paint brush in his hand reminded her of Daddy. Both men had the same slender, sensitive features and quiet voice. When he left she thought of the first time Daddy had fucked her; his rigid, demanding cock as it drubbed against her virgin flesh, the sharp hot pain she had experienced as it tore through her hymen and thrust deeply into her welcoming pussy.
The memory was so real that it frightened her. She had thought of her father many times, but never had her memories been so realistic, so terrifyingly present. Why was she linking of Daddy like this now? It was as if he had come back to haunt her.
The incident of the vagrant getting up from the grave came to her. It was connected somehow, the vivid recollection of her father and the morbid sight of that human wreckage on the grave mound.
Nothing could be more disparate than a memory of Daddy and the sight of that sodden tramp, but there was something else, a third portent that somehow tied everything together. The deja vu she had felt when she bent over the paint tray as Tom told her his name.
What was it!
It had something to do with the dead. Daddy-was dead, the tramp was symbolically dead as he lay on the ground in front of the tombstone. Yet he had gotten up, risen from the dead as it were, and in a way so had Daddy come back to her tonight in the guise of a man named Tom.
Something dead was stalking her. What was it?