Chapter 9
Tansy was trying to push Pete away, but the woman was too much for her. Pete's hands were all over her breasts, Pete's thigh had forced its way between her own, Pete's mouth kept slopping wetly all over her face, searching for a kiss.
It was her own damned fault, Tansy thought. She should have known better than to shower with Pete. But she'd wanted the shower very badly, and when Meg lined them all up in the front room of the Herald she had asked them to shower in pairs in order to save both time and hot water.
Most of the girls in the group had at least one friend, and when the couples formed Tansy realized that she was stuck with Pete again.
Now, standing here together in the narrow bathtub, their bodies slippery with soap and gleaming with water, Pete wasn't taking no for an answer.
"Will you leave me alone!" Tansy hissed, not wanting to attract the attention of the girls outside who were waiting to use the shower next. "I want to get washed up, Pete. I don't want to play around with you, and I don't want you to play around with me. Just let me get clean, and stop acting like such a jerk!"
Pete was panting with excitement. "Tansy, baby-we're all alone, just the way we both like it, baby. Oh, sweetheart, let me grab you all over-I know you like it. Tansy don't try to tell me you don't like it...."
The woman lunged, and Tansy felt the sudden pressure of Pete's slick breasts showing up against her own. She tried to move out of the way, but succeeded only in getting her left breast imprisoned in Pete's cleavage as the woman's arms locked around her.
"Stop it!" she whispered tensely. "I don't want anything from you. Leave me alone!"
Her arms slipped down to Tansy's waist and her hands gripped desperately at the girl's wet buttocks. They thrashed together in the narrow tub, skidding dangerously on the slick porcelain. Several times, Tansy had to grab at the tile wall to keep from falling.
This crazy woman was going to kill her with all this playing around. Ever since the two days of abstention on the bus, Pete had been uncontrollable and insatiable, grabbing Tansy when she wasn't expecting it, slipping her quick squeezes right in the midst of conversations with the other girls, in plain sight of everyone. Tansy didn't know whether any of them caught it, but that made no difference. There was a lot of pleasure to be had with Pete when the mood was right, but the rest of the time Pete's sweaty grabbing was just plain tiresome.
"Pete, listen to me," Tansy hissed. "Stop feeling at me for a minute and listen to what I say."
"Oh baby," Pete breathed, a stupid smile mushing up her mouth. "You tell me all about it, sweetheart. I always listen to you, all the time-you know that."
Her slobbering lips struck down without any warning, and Tansy felt Pete's tongue invade her mouth. She skidded along the floor of the tub and fetched up against the wall, trapped by the pressure of Pete's body and hands. Now the woman's frantic fingers, free to roam Tansy's body, plunged down her torso....
It's nice to have people care, Tansy thought, but there's a limit. It was the same as sitting two days on a bus and then standing two hours in a street-they were both extremes, and extremes took the pleasure out of everything.
Too much is really worse than none at all.
And as for caring-well, Tansy was beginning to realize that Pete didn't care for her in any way that counted. In spite of the woman's tender words and attentions, she was basically the same as every customer Tansy had ever taken on' the thing she principally cared about was Tansy's body, and the pleasure it gave her. Tansy's mind-the individual inside her head-didn't interest Pete at all.
The woman withdrew her lips from Tansy's with a smack, and dropped her head. The slobbering lips closed on one of the girl's nipples.
The air in the tiled room was heavy with steam, and Tansy had to fight for breath before she could speak again. "Pete," she said surprised at the loudness of her voice.
Pete turned her face and buried one cheek between Tansy's breasts. "Baby, baby-let me love you, be nice. Tansy, be a sweetheart and call me Petunia, so I'll know you care for me...."
"Pete," Tansy said.
"Call me Petunia," the woman pleaded. "Pete," Tansy said, more firmly.
Nothing happened for a moment. Then Pete's fingers loosened their grip. Tansy felt her body withdraw and straighten up. When Pete's face came even with her own she was amazed to see the weird expression on it-the filled up, lustful look she knew so well, but multiplied and bloated to the point of insanity, framed by wet, plastered strands of hair lightened by the pure madness in her eyes.
"Call me Petunia," she said.
"Let go of me, Pete," Tansy persisted. "Let go of me right now. I don't want you to come near me, ever again."
"Call me Petunia," she said, her voice was rising.
"You don't care for me-you don't give a good damn about me really. If you cared, you'd leave me alone when I asked you. You're no better for me than the men are."
"Please call me Petunia," she said.
"I'm through with you," replied Tansy. "Out of the way." She shoved out with her hands and felt for just an instant the glebes of Pete's breasts against her palms. Then there was room enough to get by. Tansy swung her leg over the rim of the tub and stepped out onto the chilly floor.
She dried herself quickly, trying to wipe away the soap which remained unrinsed on her body. Pete stood forlornly in the bathtub watching her.
The bloated look on Pete's face was dwindling now. Her whole body seemed to be slumping; the proud mounds of her breasts drooped, her belly sagged; even the symmetry of her long legs was spoiled as her muscles relaxed and began to tremble.
When Tansy looked at her again, she hardly recognized the woman.
"Please?" Pete said, in a small helpless voice. "Please?"
"No more," replied Tansy firmly. "I'm through."
"But-but it's all I have. I can't go without it. I have to have a woman, or I'll go crazy. And-and you're the only one there is."
"Go to hell," said Tansy. She finished drying her body and flung the towel to the floor.
"None of the others will have me," Pete went on numbly. "They think I'm crazy because I'm a lesbian. You're the only one, Tansy."
"Shut your rotten mouth," the girl cried. "What the hell do you think? That I was put on earth just to entertain you? Go find yourself something else to play with."
She spun around and went to the door, flinging it open before Pete could say another word. Anna and Crazy Pearl stood waiting in the hall, and they stared in surprise as Tansy emerged naked from the bathroom and stalked past them toward the front.
All the girls looked up as she entered. Mr. Salmon who was standing morosely against one wall, bugged his eyes and opened his mouth so far that his newly-lighted cigar fell from his teeth to the floor.
Tansy crossed the room calmly, feeling the eyes staring at her, feeling the bounce and flex of her slim young body bared for everyone to see. The idea didn't bother her at all.
Let them look at my breasts, she thought; let them look at my legs and my belly and my backside. Let them look at everything there is to look at. What do I care? I'm the one who decides who'll see me and who won't, and if I want to walk around naked it's my priviledge.
I make my own decisions.
I'm a person.
Tansy came all the way across the room and stopped in front of Meg and Gully Fry, who were sitting together on the edge of a desk. Meg looked at her with a puzzled expression, but Gully's face wore no expression at all.
"What's the matter, Tansy?" asked Meg, her voice very soft. "Is there something wrong, kid?"
"Miss Meg," said Tansy loudly. "I want you to tell that crazy lesbian-that Pete-to keep away from me. I want you to tell her to leave me alone from now on. I mean it, Miss Meg."
Meg smiled slowly and nodded her head once. "Why, I'll be glad to, Tansy. I'll take care of it right away." She slid her bulk off the desk and glanced at Gully. "Want to come along, Gulliver?"
He didn't answer, but climbed off the desk to stand beside her.
"She in the shower?" Meg asked. "Yes," said Tansy.
Meg posed for a second and her smile grew. "You know," she said. "It's not right for people to criticize anything other people do-but it's awful nice to finally you with us, Tansy."
Before the girl could think of a reply, Meg had turned and was moving off toward the rear hall with Gully in tow.
"Hey, Tansy," said a voice.
She looked around and discovered Eva's chocolate-colored face smiling at her.
"I know some real funny jokes about dyke-women, ' the Negro woman said.
Tansy returned her smile. "Great. Tell me all of them."
The trouble with Pete didn't really slow up anything.
By seven p.m. the girls had all finished showering, and had climbed into their working clothes. A few repairs were necessary on ripped dresses, but plump little Tina was handy with needle and thread, and she made short work of them. All the while she sewed, her eyes followed Mr. Salmon around the room.
The food remaining from Gully's raid on Simon Tate's grocery was divided carefully to provide an adequate dinner for everyone, with enough left over for breakfast the following morning. Louise, the quick-tempered one, took charge of heating up the food, while Tansy helped Anna break out enough paper plates and cups to go around.
Pete sat alone in a corner, her chin sunk onto her chest. She didn't look up or speak to a soul.
With dinner finished and the remains cleared away, everybody set to work. Meg directed the operation, Gully and Mr. Salmon shared the heavy jobs, and all the girls pitched in, except brooding Pete.
The most difficult job was moving the desks and furniture back against the walls. Gully didn't seem to mind the exertion nearly as much as Mr. Salmon, but then Gully didn't have the bright and beckoning eyes of a chubby little whore watching every move he made.
When the floor had been cleared, the two men strung ropes across the room, setting them as close to the ceiling as possible. Then the last bit of plunder from Simon Tate's grocery-a box of spring clothespins-was broken out, and the girls began pinning Hermann Hinkle's blankets to the lines. In no time at all, the room had been partitioned off into twenty separate cubicles, with enough blankets left over to serve as fairly comfortable floor pads.
Meg passed out the remaining clothespins and had the girls clip one on the front blanket of each of the cubicles. "The only trouble with this whore house," she said, "is the walks are too thin. So when any of you girls bring a John behind a blanket, take the pin off as you go inside. That way when the next girl comes in, she'll know which ones are being used, and can take her turn as far away from the grunting and panting as possible."
They all laughed, except for Pete.
With everything squared away to her satisfaction, Meg took care of the last little chore. To Mr. Salmon's utter horror-Tina giggled happily when she saw the expression on his face-Meg opened a paper bag and spilled a pile of small tin boxes out on the desk. At first, Mr. Salmon thought they contained aspirin. He found out they didn't.
"Mr. Gulliver Fry was kind enough to rustle us up enough of these, too. " Meg said. "I don't know whether any of the men in this town carry their own, so each of you stick a box in your purse and make sure the John uses them. We don't want the patter of little feet when we set up in California."
Again everyone laughed, except for Pete and Mr. Salmon-whose face was as red as the fish he was named after.
Meg was a little worried about the lesbian. She couldn't help wondering if she would cause trouble before the night was over. But there was no time to think about things like that. It was almost eight o'clock, and the night's work was due to begin.
One by one, spacing their departures several minutes apart so as not to attract undue attention, the girls slipped through the front door and spread out into the town.
George Link and Wally Sands were sitting on a stoop at the west end of Main Street, staring glumly at the lights of the Four Star across the way.
George was in a lousy mood. Less than half an hour ago, he'd seen his father enter the bar and faintly heard him hail Gar Smith and all the regulars. At this very moment, the old man was in there slopping it up and having a fine time, while his son sat dry as a bone outside. George wasn't quite old enough to drink, according to the law, but Gar usually served him anyway. Gar had one hard and fast rule, however; George couldn't have so much as a single beer if his father happened to be in the bar at the time.
From the sound of his father's voice drifting across the street, George could tell that the old man had gotten credit again. That meant he would probably stay right where he was until the Four Star closed for the night.
Wally wasn't in a much better frame of mind. The opportunity to pass on the fascinating story about Abbie Tate had not presented itself all afternoon, and with the coming of the evening he realized he had nothing to do. It was a painful realization, considering that he spent most of the afternoon looking forward to a roll in the hay with Abbie.
The two young men sat and smoked cigarettes in silence, each thinking his own bitter thoughts, each quite disgusted with his lot in life.
And then Louise said, "Hi, you two."
They turned and saw her. As if at a signal, both their mouths dropped open and hung stupidly slack.
Louise was a fairly large girl, but there wasn't an ounce of fat anywhere on her slender frame. She had glossy black hair and a high-cheek-boned face, somewhat like a fashion model. She wasn't as pretty as a model, of course, but her body made up for that.
George and Wally stared in absolute wonder at her breasts, which bulged against the thin, glossy silk of her dress like the business-ends of twin artillery shells. The glow from the Four Star caught the outer edges of those beauties, illuminating them like half-moons; and there, in the twilight zone where the light blended into shadow, the thrusting buttons of her nipples pointed unmistakably at the boys, singling them out.
The silk dress hugged her waist, her rich hips, her flat belly, and especially her thighs. Where those thighs met, the material puckered slightly. From beneath the hem of her skirt protruded two beautifully bare calves, their muscles drawn up tight by the high-heeled shoes on her feet.
Neither George nor Wally had ever seen anything remotely like it.
"Looking for some fun?" asked Louise in a voice that dripped lust like syrup. "I'm available if you are." She tilted her hips and her skirt rode up, allowing quite a bit of thigh to show through the slit at the side.
George was the first to regain his powers of speech. "Who-who are you?"
Louise smiled a melting smile. "Why, I'm a whore boys. Ten dollars buys it, and take it from me, it's what you want."
Wally was tugging George's sleeve. "I'm dreaming," he said.
George never took his eyes from Louise. "Maybe you are," he replied. "But I sure as hell ain't."
He rose and came down off the stoop, fishing in his pocket until he found two fives. When he put them in Louise's hand, her fingers closed over his own.
"That's the way to do it, sport," she said. "Let's go."
They headed off together.
An instant later, Wally came simultaneously to his senses and to his feet. "Hey," he called. "Wait for me."
"Now, now," said a husky female voice from behind him. "What makes you think you're going anywhere?"
Hermann Hinkle locked his store for the night and was on his way home down Main Street when a girl stepped out of a doorway in front of him. He stopped in his tracks, and blinked his eyes several times, unable to believe what he was seeing.
The girl was blonde, and wore her hair in braids. Her face seemed very fair and her eyes very blue. She reminded Hermann slightly of his wife and daughter, but that comparison collapsed when he took a look at her body.
He had known girls like that in Yorkville, back in the old days-girls with round, Germanic faces but with little, slender bodies; with dancing breasts hung high over narrow waists; with hips and thighs formed perfectly for the business of welcoming a man.
He had known such girls, and he had bedded with such girls. But it had been years ago, when he was young, before the tourists pulled the foundations out from under the old neighborhood he had loved so well.
This luscious creature standing before him seemed to wipe away the years in a rush, and Hermann Hinkle felt the incredible stirring of long-dormant juices.
"Well, hello," said the girl. "Where are you going in such a hurry?"
Hermann's face spread into a smile. "Nowhere, liebchen. Nowhere at all."
Giacomo Carella was sweeping the last of the day's hair off the porch and into the street, when the girl appeared on the sidewalk. She looked very young, and she would have been quite beautiful if not for the crazy clinging dress she wore, and the waves of blonde hair which framed her face. As it was, the word beautiful didn't really describe her.
The word lustful described her a lot better.
Giacomo shivered as an unfamiliar wind blew around his body.
"Hi, mister," said the girl. Where's your wife tonight?" Her voice was very light and sweet, like the voice of a little girl. The sound of it seemed to soften the garishness of her dress and hair.
Giacomo heard himself answering her. "I have no wife," he said. Then, on some strange impulse, he added. "I have no one."
Her face went a bit sad, and her pouting lips kissed up at him. "No one at all? Don't you even have a girlfriend?"
Why am I talking to this girl as if she were a friend? he wondered. What is it about her that makes me think she'll understand?
"No," he said aloud. "I have never had a girlfriend."
She smiled a little. "Are you queer or something?" she asked teasingly.
With awe and wonder at the sound of his own voice, Giacomo heard himself answer: "Yes."
The girl didn't say anything for several long seconds. When she spoke again, it was very quietly, with a tenderness that Giacomo had never before heard in a woman's voice.
"I know all about that, mister. I was a queer myself for a while. When a person can't find anybody to care about them, they go looking in funny places."
Giacomo watched as she came up the steps and picked the broom out of his fingers. Her hand closed around his own; her warm palm made his whole arm tingle.
"I'd like to try and see if I can't help make things different for you." said the girl. "Will you let me?"
Very slowly, as if calling upon every ounce of strength in his body, Giacomo Carella nodded.
Simon Tate was grabbed by the arm.
For one terrible second, he was certain that The Phantom Five had come to claim him. Then he felt a pair of round softnesses ease up against his side, and looked down to discover a girl clinging to him.
She was a thin little thing, with black hair cut short in ragged bangs. Her face was cheap and sluttish, but her eyes were as lively as the flames of birthday candles. Her breasts were delightfully resilient where they pressed against him, and her hips and belly and thighs, which were also pressed against him, were just as firmly fleshed.
Simon had never seen a woman who exuded such an aura of naked lust, not in his entire life.
"My name's Anna," she said, "What's yours?"
"S-S-Simon" he said, trying to pry his tongue from the roof of his mouth.
"Simon? Hey, you mean like 'Simon says, hands on hips; Simon says, scratch your butt'-That kind of Simon?"
He gaped at her, and she laughed.
"I got a new game for you," she said. "It's called 'Anna says', and you play it the same way as the other? Get me?" He nodded.
"Anna says, let's go-" And then Anna said a very dirty word.
Simon said nothing at all. He went. Willie Link was the last customer to leave the Four Star. As he stepped into the street, he heard Gar Smith lock the register inside, and begin turning out the lights.
Willie stood at the curb and sniffed the night air for a while, relishing the light beery feeling in his head. It took him a few seconds to realize that the air was touched with a new and unfamiliar smell.
Could that be perfume? he wondered.
The answer sidled up next to him. "The name is Pearl," she said.
Willie was struck dumb.
"Well now-is that any way to treat a lady? Ain't I entitled to know what your name is?"
"Willie," he answered. Then, without thinking, "You look like a regular whore."
Pearl laughed brightly. "Oh, honey,-that's because I am."
The door of the Four Star opened and then locked in back of him, and Willie heard Gar take three steps before his feet froze to the sidewalk. A smile as big as the summer broke across Willie's face.
"Hey, Gar," he said, without turning. "This girl here says her name's Pearl, and says she's a whore."
"That's me all right," Pearl said. "What's your name, big boy?"
"Wherein the hell did you come from?" Gar asked.
Willie spoke confidentially into Pearl's ear. "Don't mind him-he's just getting off work. Name's Gar."
Pear nodded. "Now Gar, what do you care where I come from? Are you gonna worry about a thing like that when there's so much else to think about? Let's all three of us take a little stroll. I got a friend of mine named Tina waiting down here a ways, and maybe we can all get a little better acquanited."
Gar followed, dumb as an ox being lead to slaughter. When Willie spotted Tina, his smile almost split his head. "Oh man," he cried. "I want that little fat one, Gar?
Think you can find room for this on my tab?"
Willie Sands was learning a few things he had never known before.
For one thing, it wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as he would have thought to bag a girl with only a couple of blankets between you and the floor. For another, it wasn't at all embarrassing to let a girl put a safe on you beforehand, even when it was light enough to see; in fact it was kind of exciting. All of Wally's previous experiences had been in the total darkness of midnight bedrooms and haylofts. He learned now that having a female's body lit up so that you could look at it while you were working on it added to the fun like mad.
But the most surprising thing he learned was that colored gals aren't really any different from the white ones-except of course for the color of their skin.
"Hey," said Eva, spreading her chocolate limbs on the blanket and crooking her finger at him in invitation. "You may be a bit young, but you got everything a man ought to have. Now why don't you just lie down here and take care of your lady?"
He dropped to his knees between her open thighs and feasted his bugging eyes on her nakedness. Her breasts were the size and color of the chocolate Easter eggs he remembered from childhood, and' they were tipped with little discs of candy trim as pink as the tip of her tongue. Wally couldn't help wondering if they felt like chocolate Easter eggs.
He reached out a hand and fitted it over one of the high mounds.
It didn't feel like an Easter egg at all-not by a long shot. What if felt like was a breast, and more smooth and springy and rock-tipped than any breast he had ever felt in his life. He reached out his other hand and got a hold on both brown globes.
Eva wriggled her shoulders against the blanket, and the dark meat of her quivered under his palms. "That's nice," she said, smiling a fantastic white smile. "You don't feel me too soft, you don't feel me too hard-you feel me just nice."
I wonder, thought Wally, if they taste like Easter eggs. He bent his head to find out.
George was only dimly aware of the rustling and whispered conversation from the cubicle next door. There were plenty of other people in this place-lots of them were probably people he knew. But this was no time to think about socializing. George had bought himself a piece of fun that required every ounce of attention he could muster.
Louise slipped out her dress before George could blink an eye. She was bone-naked underneath it. She didn't bother to remove her high-heeled shoes, but just stood there in the center of the dim cubicle, her hands challengingly on her hips, her feet set wide apart, her head tipped to one side. There was a smile quirking her mouth, but George didn't notice it.
He wasn't looking at her mouth.
"Well?" she asked.
He looked up guiltily from her shadowed loins and into her face. "Well, what?"
"Well, so long as you're so interested, why the hell dn't you do something about it? I could catch a chill standing here bare naked, waiting for you to finish looking at me. Why don't you just lay me down, and cover me up, and get me all warm?"
His hands went slowly to his belt. "I got to get undressed first."
"Oh that," she said, chuckling. "That's nothing. Here-I'll show you."
She stepped over the blanket toward her, her firm breasts swinging, and her hand flipped his belt open with a single practiced gesture. Before she had time to think what was happening, the zipper of his trousers had dropped, and his trousers had dropped right along with it.
His hands came up and gripped her breasts, and she paused in her work to smile at him, "You like them, huh?"
He nodded in admiration. "I sure do. This here's the nicest pair...."
"I tell you what," said Louise. "Why don't you give me a little kiss-right there where you got hold of me-and then we'll get rolling. What do you say to that idea?"
George thought it was just fine.
He slipped a hand into the small of her back and she grabbed his shoulders, leaning back so that the twin beauties of her breasts rose to invite his mouth. He needed no second invitation.
Of course it was a thing he had done many times to so many girls, and it was really only a preliminary. Kissing and fooling around with a girl this way was just a simple method of getting yourself in the mood for the big fun to follow.
He knew that-at least he always thought he knew that. Now he was beginning to wonder.
The globe of flesh against his face was firm and full, and completely unlike the breasts of Abbie Tate or Lucy Wynn, or any other girl in town. It had a hard springiness to it that felt almost like muscle, and the pebbled disc his lips held was thrusting out firmly with pure excitement.
Now this, he thought, is more like it.
He switched his kiss to the other breast while his hands slid down and cupped the equally firm globes of her buttocks. The high heeled shoes she wore seemed to pull up the muscles of her legs, and the lush curves of bottom-flesh tucked up neatly in his hands.
A few seconds later, when she pulled herself away and got back to the job of undressing him, George was as ready as he could possibly be.
His shorts slid down his legs to the floor.
"Hey," she said, her voice reflecting surprise, "You're sure enjoying youself, ain't you, honey."
He looked down and discovered her kneeling in front of him, her hands still on the crumpled mass of his clothes at his feet.
She was smiling at him, but not at his face.
Something about her kneeling position and the way it related to his own standing position-something about the fact that she was one of that fabled breed of women called whore; something about men and women kissing-something made him remember an old dirty joke he had once heard.
But that was only a joke, wasn't it? None of the girls in town had ever done the thing the girl in that joke did. No girl in the world did a think like that to a man. It only happened in jokes.
She glanced up at his face, grinning; "I'll bet I know what you'd like, sport." He couldn't say a word.
Her smile changed shape and formed itself into an O of surprise.
Then he was looking at the top of her head.
Then he wasn't looking at anything.
When Louise had finished, George hardly had strength enough left to stand. His knees were trembling with passion, and his heart beat so loudly in his chest that it drowned out all hi sense.
She grabbed him then and led him over to the improvised bed. He fell onto it like an inert side of beef. He heard dimly the snap of a little tin box opening, and felt faintly the touch of her fingers.
And all the while he thought, there's nothing wrong with sex, and there's nothing wrong with me, either. Sex is so the most important thing in the world. It's the biggest thing, so it has to be the most important.
The only thing wrong is with the women in this town.
He hoped that every man in the area got bagged here tonight, got it as thoroughly as he himself was getting it. Once the males of the town tasted the real thing, they weren't going to be satisfied with anything less.
Abbie Tate and all her flabby, unresponsive friends would have to get on the ball if they expected to get anything from men with an experience like this behind them.
And then, because he was still too trembly to move, Louise took care of him all by herself. He felt the pressures of her thighs against his hip, felt the unexpected heat other belly warming against his loins.
She poised there for just an instant, and he opened his eyes to find her squatting on her knees over him, her whole body tensed and waiting.
"Ready?" she asked, smiling.
Somehow he summoned enough strength to speak. "Yes, Ma'am," he answered like a school boy.
She laughed. And then she plunged downward, and George felt himself had.
Her buttocks were slapping at the tops of his thighs, her hands drifting with a maddeningly delightful prickling of fingernails all over his abdomen.
The last sight he saw was the bouncing of her great round-nippled breasts all over her front.
Then he closed his eyes and concentrated on not losing his mind.
Jock Carella found out that the girl's name was Tansy. He also found out that she had up until that very afternoon, been a practicing lesbian. He learned that she suffered from the same sort of loneliness he himself had always endured, that she yearned for warmth and caring, that she had looked for in the same dark corners of life where he dreamed of searching, and that she hadn't found it.
He learned that she was only eighteen years old, and that she had been a prostitute since she was sixteen. And he also learned, to his great surprise, that even a girl such as Tansy-young, and corrupt, and crawling with vice-had more softness and compassion in her heart than anyone in this whole stinking town.
Then he discovered the strangest thing of all.
She excited him.
Was it because she was a chippy? he wondered, or because she was a stranger to him? What could be the reason for his excitement? After all, he'd seen the naked female body when he was a youth and it had done nothing to him at all, any more than the caresses of female hands or the scissoring of female thighs. None of those things had ever stirred him even slightly, which was why he'd chosen the lonely life he was leading.
But now it was happening. Tansy had stripped the cheap dress from her body, and that body was as young, and soft, and lithe, and lovely as anything Jock could imagine. Her breasts were sweetly rounded, capped with tender little buttons which rose and spread passionately as he watched. Her torso was compact, sweeping down from a delicate ribcage to a small waist: then curving wonderfully outward to form the lovely arc of her hips, to frame the beckoning cup of her loins.
He looked at her, glutting his eyes on every shadow and dip of the flesh-ripe roundness of her white young body, and his passion grew monstrous.
She led him tenderly, helping him undress, soothing him with kisses and caresses. She was experienced; she knew the touches which would excite a man most. She used her hands to reproduce all the touches he had used so many times-but how much more exciting it was to feel the hands of a stranger performing the familiar routines, and how unfamiliar were the vast pleasures that her touch was producing.
It was happening. All the years of going without, of pretended satisfactions with loneliness, of fighting down the pressures which screamed for total release-all of the empty past went funneling down into this single present time, and all the unslaked excitement of his life was boiling in his guts with fury.
The young girl laid her body out on the blankets. Her knees lifted. The toes of both of her feet flexed as she opened those knees, as she offered herself for his pleasure.
And now he was learning yet another surprising fact. Womanhood was not a repulsive and hideous thing at all. Not all women were gross as Marge Webster and the others he had known.
A woman could be as sweet, and soft, and beautiful as a poet's dream.
She held her arms up. The hemispheres of her breasts squeezed together between her extended forearms, and the tight nipples stared at him like excited little eyes.
Suddenly, he was on his knees. His body fell forward, his face aimed at the shadowy cleft between her breasts. Then his mouth was tasting the flesh of that valley as her fingers wound into his hair and her sleek thighs formed a funnel through which he dropped himself into passion's ultimate dwelling place.
Why? Why was it happening? After all these years, why had this little girl, this chippy with the face of a child and the body of a lustful woman, brought all the darkest poundings of his body to life where so many others had failed?
The answer was simple.
Woman-child-whore-soft flesh and clamping thighs, and breasts which welcomed the mouth with breathing thrusts-these things weren't the important things of all. The important thing was that this girl cared. Tansy cared.
She knew all the pressures of loneliness a human being could suffer, and she gave herself to him utterly in atonement, doing everything in her power to wipe away all the terrible, ancient pain. .
She cared because she had lived with that suffering herself.
And so, guided by an instinct he didn't even know he had, Giacomo Carella gave in return, gave to the limit of his ability and stamina, gave and gave with a sweet, darkly chilling rhythm that plunged him through layer after layer of tingling velvet delight.
Before long he knew his gift was accepted.
Giacomo the barber and Tansy the whore clutched at each other in a frenzy of limbs as the gallop of their pounding passions made it plain that fate had smiled on them at last.
Simon Tate was going crazy.
"Uh-huh," Anna chuckled, sliding away from him deftly. "Watch those hands. I didn't say, 'Anna says'."
He groped for her but she was out of reach again, skittering and darting just beyond his hands, flaunting her cheap breasts and letting her muscular thighs open wide whenever it suited her fancy.
"Come on, Anna," Simon said, forcing a calm smile which didn't entirely succeed. "Try again. I'll play it right this time."
He stared at her softly-curved belly and licked his lips. He was going to get this girl, and get her just where he wanted her, if it took the whole damn night. His mouth ached to leech onto those hanging breasts, his hands twitched with the anticipation of her buttocks yielding to his clutching fingers, and the rest of him fairly screamed to thrust past her defenses and spear her to the death, if need be.
He held out his hand, still smiling coaxingly. She came toward him, gliding on her knees, with her heavy breasts swaying and bumping each other like fruit on a tree.
When she was almost to him, he lunged at her.
But she was far too quick for the likes of Simon Tate. She ducked past his groping hands, flung herself around onto her back and, with one shove of her long legs, shot under him.
He tried to grab her ankles, but his hands froze when he felt the sudden incredible moistness of her kiss. Then she skidded to a halt on her back behind him, and when he turned wearily she was just as far out of reach as ever.
"You play the game with me, Simon," she said. "Or you don't get nothing."
He bowed his head in defeat. "Yes, Anna."
It had been a long time for Willie Link.
Since his wife had died, in fact, ten years ago. He thought of her now while fat little Tina romped and giggled beneath him.
She had been one fine woman, that wife-built the way a woman should be built and with the sort of mind every man wants in a woman, especially a woman he intends to live with. He could remember well the times they rolled together in bed, on the floor, on the grass outside under the moon-why, Willie and his woman had even made it swimming in his favorite fishing hole.
She had been one fine woman, all right. Too bad she had to kick the bucket.
Like this little Tina here-that's what she had been like. Full of meat for a man to grab onto, nice and pink and round and bouncy, with a set on her front as big as the set most women wear on their seats, and nice thick legs to dig with your fingers, and a real soft cushiony belly to come down on with your own at the bottom of your swing.
This fat little tart was a fine gal.
Willie was having a grand time.
Also having a grand time was Gar, although his trained bartender's eye detected something peculiar about the girl under him.
Well, after all she was a whore, and you couldn't expect her to act or look like an ordinary person. A gal in that line of work was entitled to be a little odd. He thought this over until he more or less convinced himself of its validity, then demoted his attention to getting his ten dollars worth.
Crazy Pearl saw to it that he received value for his money. But her motions were purely automatic. Her mind wasn't think about sex at all, or the man above her.
All Crazy Pear could think of was the knife underneath the blanket on which she lay.
Perry the druggist had a girl named Pete.
Perry wasn't a man without experience. He'd taken advantage of prostitutes quite a few times in his youth, and had many fond memories of what they were like.
And that's what bothered him. The girl on the blanket underneath his pounding body wasn't acting like a prostitute at all. As he remembered it, the normal attitude a man could expect from a harlot is a bouncy responsiveness, a teasing and sometimes even humorous attitude toward her customer, toward the whole idea of sex. He could recall several tarts who made him laugh out loud with crazy antics-laugh until they fell upon him with a snarl and almost ate him alive.
Then what the hell was wrong with this girl?
All she did was lie there, limp and dead as last week's wash. He certainly knew by now that he could do anything at all to her, violate her violently in the vilest ways he knew, and she would never bat an eyelash.
He didn't like it. He didn't like the look in her eyes, or the way the pupils were drawn together into tiny pinpoints. He didn't like the grim set of her mouth, or the little muscle that kept jumping in her jaw.
But he did happen to like the pleasure he was having. Maybe it wasn't the best, but it was a change from his wife.
And he happened to be very fond of her meaty breasts, and the lax surrender of her thighs, and the wonderful old-time feeling of making it with a woman for fun rather than love.
So he satisfied himself with that.
Mr. Salmon was half-asleep in the stock room when he heard the quiet knock on the door. He arose from his bed of packaged paper and went groggily over to answer it.
He'd drawn the bolt and turned the knob before he remembered where he was, and what was going on, and who was likely to be outside that door.
Then it was too late.
The door pushed up and Tina came bouncing in with a cry of happiness. She shoved him away easily and locked the door while he tumbled back onto the improvised bed.
Tina was naked.
"I just had this old guy," she said, advancing on Mr. Salmon with a gleam in her eye. "He wasn't no damn good at all. I guess he ain't had none for a while, because he din't last more than five minutes at the most."
She bent her body, presenting him with the awesome spectacle of her dangling breasts, and flipped open his belt.
"After he left," she said, "I thought of you right away."
Zzzzzt went the zipper, and Tina yanked down his pants.
"Stop-dammit," he protested, reaching up to push her away. But the only things he could see to push were the pendulous fruits of her front, and he couldn't bring himself to touch them.
"Oh, come on, Mr. Salmon," Tina said while her hands bssily extracted his legs from his trousers, and stripped off his shoes and socks. "Don't be a pickle all your life. What's the matter with you, anyway?"
"Please," he said. "There's something wrong with me. Go away. Don't look. Please, dammit!"
"Wrong?" she giggled. "That sounds interesting. Now let's just see about that."
Her fingers whipped his drawers right down to his knees.
He heard her inhale in shocked surprise, and his whole body went limp in defeat. "I told you not to look, goddammit," he said.
"Holy Toot," she said, her voice filled with awe. "There ain't nothing wrong with you, Mr. Salmon."
"Yes," he protested. "Yes, there is. Look at me."
"I am," she said. "I surely am. I ain't never seen anything like it, Mr. Salmon. You are as right as any man could be."
"But...." he lick his lips, "it's too big. That's what a doctor told me. Not normal, he said."
"Oh, Mr. Salmon," Tina cried delightedly. "You poor, silly man. There ain't no such thing in the world as too big!"
She flung her plump little body onto him and, to his utter astonishment, proved it.