Chapter 2
THE FIRST VALLEY
He took off his jacket and his shirt. His tie had long since been left, behind some place. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd shaved and had a bath, but there were other things he remembered very clearly.
For instance, there was the day in the warden's office at the penitentiary, when he was given the clothes he was wearing, a ten dollar bill, a handshake and sent on his way with the words, "We hope you never find your way back here again."
Now, as Jeff rubbed lather into his beard, he remembered how badly he wanted a woman. He closed his eyes and saw them in skirts that reached inches up their thighs; bras that thrust their breasts upward and forward, tantalizingly.
His beard off, he stepped under the shower. It was a makeshift affair built out of an old-fashioned tub that looked as if it might have been made for the Jolly Green Giant-it was the biggest tub Jeff had ever seen in his life. This museum-piece stood out about six inches from the wall and had a wrap-around plastic curtain, that had a bad habit of adhering to his back or ass as he showered. But the warm spray felt good as it splashed against his tail, lean, body.
He was still thinking ... remembering how with his money gone before he left the west coast he'd bummed his way east.
Here and there on the way, he had managed an occasional job. Anything that would earn him a meal and maybe the price of a drink or a pack of cigarettes. But never enough for a woman.
As he stepped from the shower and rubbed himself dry in a huge, rough Turkish towel, Freda's voice came through the closed door. "You about ready?"
"Be right out," he called back to Freda, as he rubbed the towel through his hair.
"You'll find a robe ... a man's robe on the hamper-"
When he was dried off, he saw a bottle of bath cologne on the shelf and helped himself to it; patting it on his face and body and pouring some on his hair. Next he ran a wide-toothed comb through his hair, parting it on one side. He put on the bathrobe and looked into the mirror. Now he looked more like the Jeff Harlow than he had in more than eight years. Older perhaps, more mature, but definitely Jeff Harlow.
When he opened the door and came out, Freda just stood there, staring up at him, with her mouth partly open.
"God damn!" she exclaimed. "If I thought I was bringing Rock Hudson home with me-I'd have run all the way. Oh, Mister, are you ever a bundle!"
He felt a little embarrassed about the way she was gushing over him so he sniffed the air and quickly changed the subject.
"Do I smell food?"
"Food?" She snapped out of it. "Oh yes-I thought you might be hungry, so I whipped up a little something while I was waiting. Think you can eat?"
"A horse, a cow, a couple of chickens, and maybe a side dish of you."
She grinned and hugged him, crushing her breasts against his chest, leaving no doubt in his mind that they were real. He sat at the table and she served him a half dozen fried eggs, a pound or more of sliced ham and several mounds of potatoes, with toast and coffee on the side.
"When did you eat last, Honey?" she asked him as she sat across the table from him and watched him put away all the food.
"Would you like that answered in days or weeks?" he asked her.
When finally he had wiped the last trace of egg from his plate with the last piece of toast on the tray, and drained the last drop of coffee from the pot and from his cup, they stacked the dishes and the pots and pans in the sink. She stood before him, wrapped her arms around his waist and looked up at him, longingly.
"What do you suppose we're going to do now?" she asked him.
He shrugged, feeling luxuriously filled with food. "Well, I thought maybe if you had a good book...?"
"You'll get a book over your head," she threatened, jokingly.
With one hand she separated the top part of his robe and ran her sharp tongue over one of his nipples. She breathed deeply of the cologne which he wore. Umm-you smell like a male whore." She raised her eyes to his face. "I hope you ARE one."
"I can't give you a money-back guarantee."
He leaned forward and kissed her. She parted her moist lips to admit his tongue that slithered into her mouth and searched out her tongue in a passionate play. It was the first time he had held a woman in his arms in so long that he had almost forgotten what a wonderful sensation it could be. His heart began to pound against his chest and every tiny nerve and muscle in his body began to crawl as she pressed her warm, quivering curves against him, and began to squirm slowly.
He could feel himself grow rigid against the yielding softness of her thighs and stomach. He knew she could feel him, too, because she was positioning herself so that she could derive the maximum pleasure from his hardness and bring him an added thrill, too.
As his desire for her continued to grow his fingers began to slowly work the bottom of her robe up her legs. Halfway up her thighs, she stopped him.
"No, darling," she whispered. "Not here. Not standing up the way Roy does it. You're something super-special-I want you lying down in bed. I want it to be something to remember." She reached up, kissed his lips and shot her tongue between his teeth. "Think you can make it?"
"I can try. And you?"
"I'm not sure."
He leaned forward and swept her up into his arms. The ends of his fingers tingled as his one hand cupped one of her big, firm, breasts and the other hand gripped the bare flesh of her thighs that the robe had left uncovered.
Her arms went around his neck and her body stiffened and he could actually feel her heart thumping as she gave him another passionate kiss.
"I don't know what the hell's the matter with me?" she confessed to him. "You got me feeling like a goddam schoolgirl-all hot and wet and shaking like a crazy leaf."
It was a pretty accurate description of how he felt, too, as he carried her into the bedroom and deposited her onto the king-sized bed. She made no attempt to control her labored breathing or disguise the fact that passion racked her body, as he started to unbelt his robe and take it off.
"No," she interrupted and patted a place on the bed beside her. "Let me."
He sat alongside her on the bed.
"Don't you always get a little kick out of seeing somebody being undressed for the first time?" she breathed, excitedly. "Wondering what they're going to be like? If their body's going to match their face? If they're going to be fat or skinny? Big or small? That's why I want to undress you myself. It's like unwrapping a Christmas present, I want to see what you've got for me."
As she spoke she sat up, unfastened his belt, brushed the robe from his shoulders and let it slide in folds to his waist. She sat there staring at his bared torso. He wasn't built like a guy from muscle beach, with a big barrel chest and bulging, knotted bisceps. But there was no mistaking the strength and power in his whip-like body; every muscle honed to steel-like sharpness.
She moved a little closer to him and ran both palms over his bare shoulders, across his smooth chest, lingering a few moments to tease his nipples, then down to his waist where she very gingerly parted the lower folds of his robe and brushed it aside.
She stared at his manhood, intrigued and excited as it stood at rigid attention. "Oh, darling...."
She put one arm around his neck and grabbed him with her free hand. Then as she kissed him and worked her fiery tongue in and out of his mouth, suggestively, she began to stroke him, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until the blood pounded in his ears and an ecstatic numbness began to dance along his loins.
"You'd better stop while you're ahead," he cautioned.
"So soon?"
"So soon!"
She drew back from him and took away her hand. The devil smiled in her eyes. "You mean I can't even do this...."
She lowered her head and her lips and tongue took over for her hand.
"Oh no!" he cried out and pushed her back away from him.
She smiled up at him, the devil still mocking him. "You don't like it?"
"That's a silly question," he said and grabbed hold of her and pushed her backwards on to the bed. "Let's see how you answer it."
She pretended to struggle against him. "Rape me. I'd love to be raped by you, darling."
His fingers found the talon at the top of her zipper and pulled it down as far as it would go, midway down her thighs. Then he slowly began to part the material, drawing it back off her shoulders and baring her lush breasts. To a man who hadn't seen a woman's body in so long, a pair of lemons would have looked good. But Freda's were no lemons. They were big as melons; firm and white and succulent with large pink nipples that were meant for sucking. Which he promptly did. First one then the other, back and forth, he sucked at them heavily, until the points were flame-red and swollen. Then he stripped off the rest of her robe and threw it to one side out of the way.
She lay there on the bed before him naked, except for a pair of black nylons rolled down and gartered just above her knees and a pair of white heels that gave her lovely legs added shape and were intended to make her look more sexy.
For him, she needed no such embellishments. The sight and scent of her naked heated flesh lying there against the glaring white of the bed sheets was more than he needed. His brain was whirling dizzily and the heaviness in his thighs threatened to burst prematurely, as he ran his hands up along the outside of her long, shapely legs; over her hips and across her body. He grabbed her monstrous breasts in his two hands and squeezed them as if to assure himself that they were real; that all this was happening to him ... after so very long.
His mouth went to the moist flesh of her cleavage, kissing his way up each mound to the point; then leaving a trail downward over her stomach to the soft, warm inside of her thighs, to kiss her intimately and make her moan alound. She was warm ... she was sweet ... she was woman ...!
She entwined her fingers in his hair and pressed him deeper ... deeper ... as she began to grind against him, building to a frenzy ... until she moaned again, this time much louder....
"Now, darling ... now!" she cried out.
His lean body came up and covered her. He nuzzled at her neck and shoulders. She spread apart her legs, wide, to welcome him. It had been such a long time but he had no difficulty finding the way. As he ventured deeper and deeper into the valley of abundance, it all grew more and more familiar to him and he no longer felt a stranger. Then as the warm walls closed in around him to hold him snug and secure, he felt her move against him and he remembered the climax of pleasure that awaited them ahead. He began to move with her and as easily as he had found the entrance to the valley, he fell into her rhythm-not hurried at first-but gradually building until she suddenly turned into a wildcat, twisting, squirming beneath him until a couple of times he almost lost contact with her.
And then they were there! Neither of them had to say a word but they both knew. She wrapped both legs around his waist; arms tight around his neck and lifted her buttocks off the bed and glued herself to him. In a blinding blaze of light they exploded together-he more violently than she-but after several releases-he was spent and began to recede-but she kept building even after she had reached the climax. And she refused to let go of him until she was certain there was not a drop of energy left in him-at least not this first time.
When finally she relaxed her hold on him and dropped back onto the bed, he continued to lay atop her, looking down at her; enjoying the warm after-glow from her body.
"How long has it been since you had a woman?" she asked him.
"Eight years."
"Eight years?" she echoed, looking up at him, disbelievingly. "Stop kidding. How long?"
"Eight years," he repeated.
She frowned. "Where could you be for eight years without a woman?"
He took a moment before he answered, then said, "In prison."
"Prison!"
Her face went white and he could feel her entire body tighten under him. He rolled off her and lay on his back.
"I should have told you," he said.
She propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at him with some concern. "You didn't kill anybody, did you?"
"No."
"And it wasn't for any 'far out' sex offenses?"
"No."
"Maybe you robbed a bank?" she asked almost hopefully.
"No bank."
She searched his face. "You don't want to talk about it?"
His strong jaw set. "I'd rather not."
She frowned. "You sound like maybe you still got a little hunk of bone stuck in your craw and you figure to cough it up?"
He didn't answer her but it was apparent by the look in his eyes that she'd just poked the ball out of the park.
"That's a good way to go back for another eight years."
He shook his head, resolutely. "If I go back, it won't be for eight years. It'll just be long enough for them to run up their electric bill."
She shivered. "Hey-don't talk like that-not even in fooling."
But the grimness in his voice when he said it made it crystal clear that he WASN'T fooling.
She changed the heaviness of the subject matter to something more in keeping with their environment.
"Don't they ever slip a girl into a man's cell?" Freda asked. "Like maybe on his birthday."
"If they do, she passed right by my cell on eight occasions."
"But can't it be arranged-I mean, if a prisoner's got money?"
"I wouldn't know. I didn't have any money."
Her morbid curiosity began to get the better of her and, as she leaned over him and let one of her swollen nipples brush his, she continued to bombard him with questions. "I heard that sometimes some prisoners do other prisoners."
He sighed and decided that the only way to satisfy her inquisitiveness was to tell her about one incident that took place almost under the very noses of the prison guards. He'd been a witness to it, even though he wasn't a participant, because he just happened to be in the machine-shop at the time.
A new inmate, he told her, had been assigned to the shop. He, also, was in on a narcotics charge-possession of marijuana. His sensitive, almost girlish good looks was what first made the guys sus-picious. They began to walk behind him wherever he went, watching the wiggle of his rounded, well-developed can. They nick-named him "Baby Doll" and several of the guys began warming up to him, taking a very special interest in him.
After all, some of these men had been in prison for years without a woman and Baby Doll was the answer to their irreligious prayers. But Baby Doll remained aloof even though he had an audience every time he took a shower. At night his cellmates would try to crawl in bed with him; sometimes all at one time, but he managed to ward off their advances. Nobody wanted to actually go the whole way and rape him for fear of reprisals, just in case they were wrong.
Then Baby Doll made his big mistake. He took part in the prison show. He donned a blond wig; a form-fitting low-cut gown over a padded bra, pink lace panties; sheer black nylons on closely shaved legs; and a pair of high heels. With his lips painted a vivid red, fake lashes and heavily shadowed eyes, he had almost every guy in the audience standing at rigid attention.
Then one of the guys remembered seeing him in a San Francisco night spot doing the same act. He was a woman impersonator with a clientele that included a couple of millionaires. It was no wonder he'd have nothing to do with his cellmates or the rest of the guys in the prison. But the prison show proved his undoing.
None of the guards lifted a finger to interfere as two of the roughest guys on the premises walked up to the work bench where Baby Doll was working. One of them shoved a shive in his ribs and flanking him, they walked him into an alcove at the far end of the shop where nobody was working.
Here another guy was waiting for them with the blonde wig, the form-fitting gown and all the rest of the adornments that Baby Doll had used to beautify himself for the show. With the sharp point of the shive menacingly pricking his flesh, they made him put on the wig and makeup as he had the night of the show. Then they stood him against the wall and stripped him.
"One peep outta you, Baby Doll," one of them said as he and the other two loosened their clothing, "and there won't be enough left of you to flush down the toilet."
Each of them seemed very proud of his size and individually exhibited themselves for his benefit so he'd know what was in store for him. He was made to face the wall, then spread apart his legs and the first guy had his way with him. The second guy wanted it different.
"Get down on your knees, you little bitch!" he said as Baby Doll knelt.
When he was done, number three made Baby Doll lie facedown on the hard, cold concrete floor and climbed atop him.
Baby Doll wasn't altogether docile or submissive to these advances. He twisted and pulled and tried to get away from them. But these gyrations only incited the three men more and when they really wanted him to stop struggling they simply let him feel the point of the make shift blade.
When the three of them were done with him, they dressed him in the gown, the bra, the pink panties, and the black nylons and high heels. Then one by one the other men in the machine shop filtered through the little room and signed an IOU book that one of the original three guys held. For anything from cigarettes and candy to promised cash, the long line did anything they wanted to Baby Doll ... and some of them had very inventive minds. One of them got so excited watching the others that he did himself as he stood waiting his turn.
They kept at him until chow time-almost two hours-a seemingly never ending line. Everybody was asked. Only a few, including Jeff Harlow didn't need it that bad, but most of them did.
"I ain't had it in two years," one guy said and did Baby Doll twice almost without stopping.
When finally it was over and the last of the long line was gone, Baby Doll lay there on the hard floor, his gown in shreds, his blond wig wet and matted, his bra and pink panties gone, one nylon missing, the other down around his ankle, one of his high heels snapped off. His jaws ached; his stomach was nauseous and every part of his body seemed bruised. While the guards led the men to the mess hall, the original trio stayed behind and took Baby Doll to his cell. They bathed his body in alcohol and soothed his sores. One of them brought him a tray of food.
From that moment on, Baby Doll had no more worries of mass rape, because the trio adopted him as their own. To them he became personal property; a valued prize for as long as he remained in prison. They protected him from anyone laying a hand on him without their permission. They set up a regular schedule for him, and only by arrangement through them could anybody bed down with him
-and they paid dearly for the privilege.
Baby Doll lived like a queen. Everything he wanted was his for the asking-from cigarettes to booze. They even managed to smuggle in an occasional joint of marijuana for him, to keep him high and in the proper mood for the land-office business they were doing. Baby Doll didn't need the outside, nor his millionaire playmates-Baby Doll had it made.
As Jeff Harlow figured, the story was sufficient to keep Freda from asking any more questions. She simply wanted to know: "You never went for Baby Doll's charms, did you?"
"I guess he wasn't my type."
"Am I?"
He rubbed her big breasts. "What do you think?"
Her hand moved lower on his stomach. "Then after eight years, you shouldn't have any trouble answering the call a second time?"
He didn't. The moment she began tugging, playfully at him, to her delight, he suddenly came to life.
She rolled over on her back and lifted her feet in the air so that her white high heels were at right angles to her body. Jeff then climbed aboard and she rested her nylon-encased legs on his shoulders. As his rearing white steed again found its way into the lush valley, she applied past experience and easily maintained her balance with her hands. In this position the torrid, velvet walls of the hollow pressed much tighter against him. But he successfully slithered between them until he reached the very end of the passageway and was hemmed in on three sides by her tender warmth.
This time his strokes were slow and gentle for he controlled the movements, but she found herself readily adjusting to the languid tempo and from the contented sounds she made, she enjoyed it just as much as the furious pace she had previously established.
Easily, unhurriedly he continued to move a-gainst her in ever-increasing delight until he felt himself grow bigger, and bigger. She could feel him, too, deep inside her.
"Don't try to hold back," she murmured. "Let go ... I'm ... ready."
Simultaneously they moaned ... simultaneously they reached the climax together and zoomed up into a heaven of ecstatic sensation.
She actually cried out in sweet torture as the waves of his passion crashed against the wall of the valley and filled it to overflowing with molten lava, as spasms of involuntary muscular reactions jerked through their bodies. Gradually the storm and the tidal waves that it brought with it, calmed and slowly died to leave them exhausted and motionless.
After he got off her, she squirmed on the bed until she could wrap an arm and a leg around him and with their wet, weary bodies clinging, they fell asleep.