Chapter 11

Troy woke up knowing that this was the day of decision. The fire had slowed, thanks, to the lack of wind, for the last two days, but its steady progress had brought it high enough on the mountain so that the dry band of new fuel above timberline was now ready to be consumed. In only a few hours their position would be untenable.

He drank a cup of black coffee to clear his drowsy head, and then he strode down the road to choose the path they would have to take to break through. It would be a decision wrought with suspense and a lot of uncertainty, and sheer luck would have a lot to do with the outcome. He was aware that he could only lessen the odds against them with careful study of the fire and good judgment in selecting the escape route.

Marilyn Burns watched him go and debated with herself whether to follow him. Her balloon of sexual desire was blown to the bursting point, but to be that bold would require more courage than she had. She let him go with a nostalgic sigh.

She hurried through a scant breakfast and headed for a secluded spot where she might indulge herself in masturbatory daydreaming. It would be lonesome, but it would bring her relief.

She found a comfortable spot among some rocks and settled down on her ample bottom to soak up the heat from the early-morning sun.

Her eyes closed, and she started building her erotic fantasy. She pictured some man-any man-coming to her with hot passion ablaze in his eyes and an extended rod that throbbed to be dipped in her. He was coming closer, and her dreaming was so intense that she could almost hear the scuffle of his feet on the hard, rocky ground.

There was the sound of a rock rolling downhill, and her daydreaming was pierced with the knowledge that the sound was real and not imagined. Her eyes fluttered open, and she gasped as she saw Bart Coldridge standing over her. Maybe he had blazing eyes, but his rod was not standing out erect and exposed. Her heart fluttered with the unexpectedness of his appearance, and it settled down as she studied him. He looked tired and drawn, and his clothing was ragged and dirty. He came closer without invitation, and she had the gall to assume that her daydreaming was going to be reality.

She fingered the hem of her dress as she moved her heavy thighs apart to make room for him. He looked puzzled at her gesture, and he stopped dead still to reassess the situation. She was in a hurry now, and she increased her unspoken invitation by raising the skirt until the folds of fat over her knees came into view. He could not mistake her meaning now. He frowned and then opened his mouth to laugh.

"You? You want me to screw you? Well, I'll be damned! What does a fat old broad like you want with sex? Christ! Cover up those knobby knees before I puke!"

She understood that her great gift of love was being refused, but her ego wouldn't let the word sense of the insult filter through to her mind. Maybe a bit of flirtation was needed here.

In the long-gone years of her girlhood the showing of a bit of angle was enough to stir a man, but she supposed that all these mini-skirts and bikinis had callused men's senses. Jefferson had used to stare at her nude body in the early days of her marriage.

She raised her skirt higher and spread her sloppy thighs even further to entice this young man. She opened her mouth in what was supposed to be an enticing smile, and she didn't know that a fine line of drool leaked down her chin. Bart Coldridge's mind was running at full speed. He was desperately starved, and here was a way to get food.

The more he watched Marilyn squirm in her need for sex, the more sexy she became in his mind. There was something in her gross need that appealed to him, and in spite of his finer instincts, her fat, greedy body enticed him. She raised her flesh-hung butt and tugged off a bloomer-like affair. For a moment there was doubt in his mind whether the exposed triangle was dirt or hair. He leaned forward and sniffed the air around her and could detect no body odor other than the delicate teasing of feminine perfume. So the old bat was, at least, clean.

He sat where he could get a clear view of her crotch and stared at her anatomy while his body made testing demands on the strength of his slacks. It was the first time he had ever seen bared female organs at close range, and they were incredibly stimulating.

"Okay, I'll make the scene, but you gotta steal me some grub. I'm so damned hungry right now that I could almost eat that hairy thing of yours if it were fried."

If Marilyn heard him there was no sign. She inched her bottom away from the rock, and the hunching of her hips made her opening open and close as if it were winking.

Coldridge sighed, open his fly, and then changed his mind and dropped his slacks. He saw a change of expression pass over her face and didn't know that it was disappointment at the size and shape of his member. Seen bare, he and Jefferson could pass for twins.

Bart crawled to her on hands and knees, and she plastered a wet kiss on his cheek before he could turn his head way. It wasn't so bad when he didn't have to look at her. In fact, it was rather more than just pleasant to feel her obesity cushioning him. He gave her a tentative jab and missed. Her hands fluttered down, and he was shown the way. Somehow her extra-moist heat surprised him. He didn't really know what he had expected, but it was not what greeted him.

He had had enough experience with sex in growing up, and the many girls he had conquered had given him a false conception of what to anticipate in the way of reciprocation. His sex partners had lain down for him to pierce, and most of them had carefully concealed-or else they had not felt-the wild and eager enthusiasm of a woman who wanted sex above all else. Marilyn amazed him with her own participation.

She was a hot maw that groped blindly for him. Her energy seemed inexhaustible, and she throbbed with an excitement that was frightening. He made a mental note to seek out fat women in the future.

Her hips curled up and down in frenzy, and he felt her wiry brush rub him from naval to balls. It was straight intercourse with no frills, but who the hell needed frills with a working over like this? There was a defiant intensity in the way she used him.

Her chubby hands dug at his back, and her teeth fastened on a shoulder muscle in a grip that threatened to become painful. He felt her great body tremble, and then they both exploded as she raised her huge thighs and locked them around his waist. He felt like a prisoner there as she held him incapable of movement until her body drained itself of the stored-up desire.

She released him finally, and his lack of erection broke the union. The thing was done and over except that Marilyn closed her eyes and shut him out of a private world where she relived the past few minutes over and over again.

He reiterated his demands for food and knew that he had made a big mistake in screwing her before he had eased the call of hunger. He tried to rouse her from her reverie, but she was, as stubborn in this as she had been in seeking out her release. He grew angry and shook her until he was sure that the pain of his grip would bring her around. It didn't, and he sensed from her tense position that she was again experiencing orgasm. He let her go through the whole thing, and then kicked her.

Her eyes opened in pained surprise. "What's the matter, honey? Did I go off and leave you by yourself? I'm sorry, honey, I thought you were all done with me. I'll have to wash before we do it again. I'm all slippery and I couldn't feel you toward the last there. We're going to be good together, I can tell."

"Look, dammit, I'm hungry. Get off that fat ass of yours and bring me some food!"

"You shouldn't talk to me like that, honey. First you seduce me, and then you start ordering me around right away. That isn't right. Maybe I'll bring you something to eat and maybe I won't."

It took a supreme effort to push down the terrible anger that rose in him like a red curtain. He forced himself to try to be courteous, and he helped her to her feet to start her on her way back to camp.

He watched her waddle away with mixed feelings. He fully believed that he should feel disgust for himself and scorn for her gross body, but it didn't come out quite that way. There was something incredibly sexy in the fat sway of her ass, and with misgivings, he knew that desire was stirring in his body again.

He waited a half hour and cursed himself for letting her go without threatening her with what would happen if she didn't hurry. An impatient hour went by and his fury was reaching a maniacal point when she plodded into the rocky clearing. She was carrying a parcel wrapped in newspaper, and he tore it from her grasp.

He ripped the paper away and stared at a very dead and very dry trout. There was also a handful of cornbread crumbs that drifted to the ground from a tear in the newspaper. Hunger drove away any reservations he might have had about the quality of the food, and he tore at the fish with barbaric teeth. He consumed it all, even to cracking the head to lick out the small pocket of brains. It wasn't enough, but it did ease the empty ache inside.

Marilyn watched him eat and then sat down on a high rock to raise her skirt in readiness. She had done as he said, and now she wanted the just rewards of her labor. He noticed that she had discarded the odd bloomers somewhere. His sense of obligation made him take a step toward her, and then his stomach rebelled at the gulped meal with gripping pains. He curled up on the ground in agony, and Marilyn came to sit beside him and cradle his head on her lap.

She soothed him as a mother would sooth a sick child, and their relationship became fuller. He looked up at her concerned face, and he discounted the heavy makeup that attempted to hide the wrinkles of fat and age. He saw only the sympathy and pity, and he didn't feel so lonesome anymore. His contorted stomach began to relax, and Marilyn rocked him to and fro until the pains subsided.

He didn't know the price he was to pay until she lifted him momentarily and when his head was lowered again his cheek touched her bare thigh. She had raised her skirt into a roll at her waist, and a heady, musky aroma drifted up to his nostrils. She made sure that he was feeling better and then his head was grasped firmly and turned, to be pressed into her soft flesh.

There was a trembling eagerness in the hands that held his head so tightly, and Bart knew without being told what she had in mind for him. She opened her thighs, pushed him down lower and then curled herself upward until her womanhood met his mouth. He waivered, and again choice was taken from him as her hand came down to part the hair and present herself to his lips.

It was not as bad as Bart had anticipated. In fact, her response overwhelmed any reservations he might have had. He closed his eyes ostrich-like to hide any shame he might feel at doing this to such a fat old woman, and then he knew shock as she moved to bend over his own body.

It was obscene and indecent and perverted, but it was also thrilling and sensuous and exciting. Any extra activity by one was duplicated by the other, and the whole meaning of life seemed to be wrapped up in a frantic need to bring each other to orgasm. Both were extremely sensitive to this idea, and that added concentrated flame to the heat of passion.

They hadn't yet had enough practice with one another to prolong the ecstasy and the spasms of release came upon them before they fully realized it. Bart sighed heavily as Marilyn's mouth left him and a cool breeze dried him off too quickly. He raised his head from her lap, and they stared at one another for the wonder of what they had done.

Marilyn left him, to return some ten minutes later with the furtive air of a criminal. She dipped deep into the neckline of her blouse and brought out three cans that she had stolen from the party's hoard. She gave them to Bart with an unspoken apology that they weren't more. He didn't have the heart to tell her that she had forgotten to include some means of opening them. He lost some of the canned juices when he pounded the lids off with a rock.

She had also stolen a bit of soap, and they went down the spring-fed stream bed to a remote spot where the scarce water had collected in a tiny pool. He let her bathe him with the cold water, and her soapy hands caressed him back into excitement again. It seemed for the rest of the afternoon that they couldn't get enough of each other's bodies.

Bart found a smooth, wind-sanded stick that had numerous little knots protruding from its surface, and he spent a good hour teasing Marilyn with it. He knew that she was raw inside when her last orgasm made her scream. He stopped prodding her with the stick, not because she asked, but because he didn't want to cause her any serious harm.

She retaliated by nipping at his erection with tiny bites that never lasted long enough to cause real pain. She showed her proficiency in holding him on the very edge of a ejaculation for the better part of twenty minutes. It took all his willpower to keep from grasping her ears and forcing himself down her throat. He knew that she would have permitted such an action without question.

Neither of them considered the future, when they would have to come down from the mountain top and face civilization. Bart would have the added charge of the rape of Owney Lee to face, but that all seemed far away as Marilyn cradled him again in her fat thighs.