Chapter 9

I should have guessed. Though an hour later, when I lay beside her on the bed in the fishing camp and sucked at her grinding lips and felt the lash of her tongue and cupped and fondled her breasts, I still didn't know how she would satisfy me and get her kicks.

The breasts were indeed phenomenal, and they stood up proudly, the tiny, pink nipples hard, the deep crevice between the mounds steaming and slick with sweat.

I kissed down from the damp lips and licked slowly around the breasts while my hands skated the slick skin of her stomach, and then her back, to raise her body tighter against mine.

The breasts were all the more incredible because Emily Ann was so thin, and it excited hell out of me to squeeze my hands nearly around her narrow waist while I licked, kissed and sucked the breasts frantically.

Emily Ann, her blue eyes wide and penetrating, toyed with my ears, neck and shoulders, light, swift touches of her thin fingers, accentuated with sudden, slightly painful digs of her nails. She rocked her body with passion and sighed and breathed heavily.

I made animal-like slurping sounds as my lips sucked the moving mounds whose flesh had the quality of solid honey-honey-smooth and flawless, yet with the firmness there was nearly a strange liquid quality, hot liquid as though molten. My body screamed with desire and my head and face throbbed with dull pain and my sexual parts felt strained as though they had been jerked and twisted.

I slid around on the bed to take the pressure of my body off them, and wallowed my scarlet face in the breasts, back and forth, nuzzled the hard, tiny nipples, then went berserk with my mouth there between the breasts, licking and sucking and gasping for breath, while Emily Ann tickled my ears and groaned and undulated her whole body.

I slid a hand over her quivering stomach and under her skirt, then freed my other hand and pulled myself from her breasts to remove the skirt. But she stopped me, and smiled sweetly, her big blue eyes wide.

"Forget that, Carl," she gasped. "Please, kiss my breasts some more right now, and just use your hands between my thighs a little."

I didn't argue, but fell again to take the taut, rose-bud nipples between my lips using my teeth and tongue to bring moans of frenzy that matched mine.

And I skated a hand over her lean body and beneath the skirt and bikini panties to tickle and fondle her small vagina, covered with a thick mound of very silky hair. She thrashed her thighs, pressed the thin, slick thighs against my hand, released it, enclosed it again, then slowly and steadily worked her thigh muscles and muscles in the vagina as I stroked the dampening folds of flesh beneath the tangled, silky hair.

After several minutes of this, I kissed up to suck at her mouth again, and our tongues rubbed and we twisted our bps crazily and she slid her hands down to start undressing me.

But when I was naked and again sucked at her breasts, she still wore skirt and panties, though her skirt was pulled up over her stomach, to reveal her thin thighs, which still worked steadily, even without my fingers. I had little doubt what the rhythm was doing to her-already her panties were damp-and for a fevered moment I was afraid she had somehow tricked me and would leave me in this state while I worked with her breasts and she finished by herself.

Then she suddenly wrapped her arms around my head and hugged me face tighter against her burning, heaving breasts and I could tell her heart was going berserk. So was mine, and I slid over so that my prick was rubbing against her small thigh. She didn't like that at all, the the thigh motion stopped abruptly and she released my head.

When she lay back and I looked down, those blue eyes were narrowed and her child's face was red and twisted with passion-a strange grimace of lust that showed her dimples.

"Straddle me, Carl," she panted. "Don't wait, take me now. Aren't you ready?"

"Jesus, yes," I said, and raised up slightly to move myself between her thighs and tear the panties down.

"No, Carl, not there," she said and shook her head to throw off the sweat that was pouring from her forehead. "Here, straddle me, darling, and move up to my breasts. Don't you want to do that, Carl? My breasts and nipples are so sensitive, darling, it will be wonderful for both of us."

"So that's it," I mumbled, as I straddled her, and worked my way up, my swollen, aching prick sliding over her warm, heaving stomach. Her thighs were working again now.

I tentatively touched a breast with my anxious prick, and an electric thrust of pleasure shot up the instrument and over my body, and Emily Ann thrashed her head and dug her nails into my hips. Her mouth was twisted and she uttered a series of short, guttural sounds of inhuman pleasure.

I guided the prick and rubbed a hard nipple, and then lowered it into that tight valley of flesh, and the sensation was overwhelming.

"Oh, God," she moaned and I felt her lower body undulating with a steady rhythm, while she took her hands and pulled the breasts apart slightly, then with both hands shoved them together around my prick.

A whimper of ecstasy fled my clamped lips, and I tasted blood as I started rocking back and forth and put my hands on the tops of the breasts and mashed the nipples, while Emily Ann pressed them together, twisted the mounds, worked them in expert ways.

Her blue eyes slowly closed, her thighs rubbed together, her body humped, and whined and pumped and my prick rubbed through that hot, sweat-damp prison of the breasts, and flood after flood of raw nerved feeling raced over my prick, into my gut, up to my nipples.

Then as I worked faster and groaned with each thrust, Emily Ann's hands fell away and doubled into fists that opened as my climax built to grab the sheets and twist them violently, while she bit her lips and her body went berserk.

The scalding release poured from my soul, it seemed, taking something of my very essence with it. I nearly squealed so great was the final unbearable flood of acid-edged pleasure through my prick there between the breasts.

Emily Ann was still now, deathly still, except for her irrational breathing, which caused the breasts to jerk.

Her breasts and her neck and her face were covered with my release and our sweat, but she lay there fighting for breath a full two minutes before she rolled over and began to wipe herself off.

I couldn't even move by then, and just lay weak and drained on the wet sheets, my eyes closed, the faint taste of blood in my mouth, my prick limp and sore again. And now the pain in my head and face throbbed again, but I was too weak to care.

An hour later, she again drove expertly along the twisting, narrow swamp road.

She leaned forward as she drove, her glasses on the end of her nose, her hands rigid on the steering wheel. She was a good driver, but drove dangerously fast. The undergrowth grew up to the road on both sides, and there was obviously water in many places, and I knew one mishap and we would plunge into some slimey bayou or bog or bed of quicksand.

"Well, what do you think now that you've had your turn?" I asked.

"I'm quite satisfied, Carl," she said, and shook her head up and down, then shoved her glasses back up on her nose. "It was delicious. And how about you? Are you satisfied?"

"Jesus, yes, I'm satisfied," I said. "It was one of the most unique nights of sex I've had. But, Emily Ann, I wanted to make love to you. I don't mind taking you that way, too, but dammit, don't you understand that things like that should just be part of foreplay or a variation and that men and women should make love. This whole keep-your-virginity-at-any-cost-bit is ridiculous. Can't you see that, baby?"

"You simply don't understand, Carl," she said, as the headlights picked up an alligator scrambling off the road. She shivered. "Those things give me the creeps. Look, Carl, the mistake you're making is bringing your values to Harrisville. Nice girls here don't go all the way, but they do pet if they like a boy, and sometimes, they pet heavily. The things we do are just extensions of that, of heavy petting.

I shook my head and switched on the radio. A trumpet number blasted out, sudden and strange in the swamp darkness. 'That's ridiculous," I said. "What about Peggy Sue and Millie, and that lesbian bit, baby?"

"You're just impossible," she said. "They're not lesbians, silly. Girls are often affectionate with each other, at least around here. And since we don't go all the way, well, sometimes we kind of help each other, you know, kind of finish. I mean, Carl, nothing we do to each other, physically, could really be wrong, now could it? We all come from the oldest and best families in town."

I snapped the radio off. "Christ, you mean if Millie goes down on Peggy Sue it's affection, but if she did it with some waitress, it would be lesbianism?"

"There's no need to get all upset, darling," she said, sweetly. "You seem to be enjoying yourself and after all, we're not trying to convert you. Anytime you like, you can leave and go back to whatever kind of life you're used to. But while you're involved with us, it would be a good idea to accept our values."

"I want to know about Jamie, dammit," I said. "Emily Ann, please tell me what's happening, in the name of God."

"You enjoy yourself and soon you'll see Jamie," she said. "Just admit you can't do anything but wait."

"What in hell if I start talking," I said. "I imagine Harrisville would be shocked at your sex games. Or what if I just slapped hell out of you and made you talk? We're alone here in this swamp."

"You won't talk and you won't touch me," she said. "No one would believe a word you said, and since you're Jamie's boyfriend, in more ways than you know it would be devastating for her if you tried to say nasty things about us. Don't think we can't take care of ourselves. And you'd wind up under the jail. like tonight, Carl, if I'd started crying, or accusing you of just the simplest little thing at that honky-tonk you'd be in jail right now."

"You mean I'm absolutely helpless to do anything but play sex games with you girls, and wait?" I asked.

"You don't have to play our games, Carl," she said. "You don't even have to stay in Harrisville, though I do hope you're here long enough for Julie and Sandy and Millie to have their turns. Damn road. I've been over it and thousand times, but it drives me crazy. Soon, we'll have lots of good roads, all over this area."

"The freeway interchange?" I asked quickly as I sat up.

She glanced at me. "Why, what in the world are you talking about?"

"I heard some talk in town that there was going to be a huge freeway interchange constructed," I said. "And that if the right people owned the right land they would make a great deal of money."

"Oh, that highway thing," she said, and shrugged, but her attempt to lapse into her little-girl-innocence tone failed. "They've talked about that for years, but nothing ever comes from it."

"I see," I said. I settled back, and gingerly touched my throbbing cheek. I was too weak and sore to argue with Emily Ann, but another piece of the puzzle was slowly coming into place.

The freeway story broke in the Harrisville paper the next afternoon.

I bought a copy, and after making my usual call to Jamie's, I went to a bar across from the square and ordered a glass of Falstaff. I was sitting at a stool at the front of the bar, and as I drank the first swallow through the thick head, I glanced out the window and saw Kerry and some other girl driving slowly around the square. They stopped an instant in front of the hotel, then roared off.

But I was more interested in the story in the paper, because a few pieces were falling into place-though still in a nebulous, disjointed way-and I sensed the key might be in this freeway development, in line with what Ted had said about

Jamie's father locking horns with the town's old families again.

Actually, though it had a banner headline, the story was brief. It stated that a joint announcement from the state capital and from Washington had confirmed rumors that a gigantic interchange complex, linking three important federal and state highways, would be constructed on the edge of Harrisville, and would throw a ring of elevated highways and exits around the town.

In addition, the existing highways would be widened and many secondary roads paved and widened, with a process that would put down roadbeds that would hold in the swamps. It was to be one of the largest construction programs in the state's history. But the story stated that final details had not been announced, nor the exact location of the interchange route or the feeder roads and exits.

There were several side stories: the mayor stated that this was indicative of the town's progress, the head of a large construction company said this would be a boon to the town's economy and provide many jobs, and the president of the Blue Bell Garderi Club hoped this would not ruin the scenic approach to Harrisville from the Gulf which was apparently lined with flowering bushes.

When the bartender brought my second glass of beer, he nodded at the headline and shook his head. "Wish I'd believed them rumors that were going around," he said. "I'd like to have bought a little property a few months ago, and be sitting on it now. Jesus, no more bartending for me."

"The story says the route isn't known yet," I said.

"Listen, buddy, it's not a matter of knowing the route," he said. "It's a matter of where the smart money in this town has been buying up property. Hell, Washington don't care if some exit is a few hundred yards this way or that, on this lot or that one."

"So, you'd sell now and make a killing?" I asked.

He shook his head and picked at a rotten tooth with his fingernail. "Only if I was holding some of that swamp land that costs so much to drain develop," he said. "like the Conway-Lawrence land company. They can unload that damn near worthless land now for lots of money. But that ain't what I mean. That's just a one shot deal."

"I don't follow you," I said, and sipped the beer.

"Hell, buddy, there will be dozens of approaches and exits and thousands of cars every day," he said. "In lots of places they'll just abandon the old highways and build new ones. Can you imagine the money to be made if them new exits and approaches are on your land, you can put up motels and filling stations and restaurants?"

I nodded. "I see what you mean. Well, where has the smart money been buying land?"

He picked at his tooth again and stared at me. "What's your interest in this?" he asked suddenly suspicious. "You new around here, ain't you?"

"I'm just visiting for a few days," I said. "My only interest is idle curiosity."

"Buddy, in the bar business you learn curiosity is never idle," he said. "It don't matter, though. Some of the smart money, I'd say belongs to that bastard Ron Meadows, and you can bet he'll try to get those exits on land he owns now. And some of it belongs to the Conway-Lawrence bunch. You bet your butt they's some finagling going on with the county board of supervisors and the state highway commission and such. It's just a matter of whose money turns out to be smartest, and who you believe will get the route on his land."

Someone called him down to the other end of the bar for a drink, and I drained my beer and dug out a dime and walked over and made my ritualistic phone call.

My heart pounded-the line was busy.

I hung up, waited a minute, then dialed again. It was still busy. I went to the bar, ordered another glass of beer and through the window I saw Kerry's car circling the square again.

I smiled to myself and thought of the girls who wouldn't get their turns, and the blood was pounding at my temples as I dialed again. But it was still busy so I forced myself to sit down, take it easy, and finish the beer before dialing again.