Chapter 18
Troy and Angela were married within the week, and he was giving serious thought to getting a job to provide for her, when a loud knock at the door interrupted him. Angela hurried to open it. Troy heard a low mutter of voices that ceased suddenly, and then Angela shrieked. Troy leaped to his feet and ran into the living room. He found Angela wrapped in another man's arms, and he was stunned to see that she was kissing him avidly.
The man let her go, and she spun gaily. "It's your father, you goof! Oh, the look on your face! It's a good sign if he's jealous, isn't it, Mr. Woodford?"
Troy's furrowed brow lifted, and he stepped forward to shake hands with his father. "Hi, Dad. What the hell brings you way out here?"
"You. I read the papers, you know. I saw the story about your silly mountain. What is it? Double-Breasted? Anyway I came here and asked some questions to find out where you lived. Your landlady told me that she thought you were married. She wasn't too sure, but she said you had a girl with you."
"Well, you met her, and she's my wife. Think I made a big mistake?" Troy's father smiled and licked at the lipstick she had left on his mouth. He turned to Angela.
"Will you make this silly ass come home? I need him in the business."
There was little business to tend to before taking off on their honeymoon vacation. Troy filed his flight plan with the dispatcher at the airport, and the trim two-motored plane lifted easily form the runway. Angela felt as secure with Troy at the controls as she had with him at the wheel of the bus.
He banked into a slow, smooth circle and blinked as the port motor sputtered and stopped. His hands tensed, and Angela saw him begin looking at the ground below for a spot in which to make an emergency landing should it become necessary. The starboard motor sputtered, and the plane was deathly quiet as they headed into a long glide.
She looked out the window and saw the contour of Virgin's Breast Mountain for the first time from the air. Troy had no chance now to change direction, and Angela shuddered as the mountain loomed ahead. She closed her eyes and put a reassuring hand on his arm to tell him that they were together and she was not afraid. He took the time to give her a grin and a quick wink, and then he devoted himself to maneuvering the light plane.
She looked out to see treetops scudding along as if they were stopped and the trees were moving. They were very low. Troy's face was taut with strain. Then there was a severe jolt as a tall tree brushed the underside of the fuselage. Scarce seconds later there was a grinding noise, and her stomach seemed to plunge ahead as they came to an abrupt halt.
She breathed easier when she realized that they were down and still in one piece. Troy's facial expression broke from its sternness, and he laughed in relief. He pulled a set of maps from a holder and studied them for a long time without speaking. She saw his eyes widen, and then he broke into uproarious laughter. Finally he pointed, and she followed the line of his finger.
He stopped laughing finally for sheer lack of breath, then managed to speak. "Guess what, honey? A couple of miles over that ridge you'll find what's left of an overturned bus."
"Oh, no!" She turned around in the seat and began to rummage through a neglected accumlation of junk. She held up an empty canteen in triumph. "Well, this beats carrying a bottle anyhow. Is there a blanket in back there?"
"Take it easy, honey, this isn't the bus." He lifted the radio microphone from its cradle and thumbed the button. He flipped switches and waited. When nothing happened he beat on the box with a closed fist. He sighed and fished around until he found a screwdriver. With the lid undone, he peered at the electronic jumble and sighed.
"It's had it, honey."
She laughed then. "What's the matter, darling? Afraid of a little walk?"
"Let's look for that blanket."
She had packed a light lunch, and beside that they found several candy bars and a small cardboard box containing a few personal-sized envelopes containing dehydrated soup. There were blankets tucked under one of the seats. They opened their suitcases and changed into more serviceable clothing. Angela got out a pair of walking shoes and grinned.
"Mind if I wear slacks, Troy. Just to keep you from getting sexy and rubbing my legs?"
They climbed out of the plane, gathered the few things they were taking along, and headed in the general direction of the overturned bus. They walked side by side and held hands, and once in a while they brushed thighs. They rested for lunch at the bus, and Troy took a light nap before they resumed their march.
It was a much different march over the same terrain. There was no need for haste, and there was no one depending on them for rescue. Troy took a small detour, and they lolled for an hour beside a small spring-fed pool where Angela stripped and sponged down her white skin. Troy watched her with growing interest, and he caught her before she could reach her clothes.
She stood tall in his arms and waited for his kiss while her damp body made a carbon copy of itself on his shirt and slacks. Her skin was cool and his palms traced the flat planes of her back muscles until she shivered. "Cold, honey?"
"No, damn you. Why couldn't you have started this before I bathed? Hurry up, darling, and get your clothes off before it really does cool off."
He stripped and took her into his arms again. She reached down and forced his erection between soft thighs, where she held him pinioned. They were not joined, and she lashed out at him with fluid hips in an exciting play that rubbed genital against genital. His arms went around her waist, and she bent backward over them, trusting in his strength to hold her.
She swayed her torso back and forth, and her free, lovely breasts bobbed enticingly. He raised her from the ground and held a breast to his lips while she locked her legs around his waist. He lowered her slowly, and they found a natural union as her weight settled down on his taut member. He walked to the small pile of their belongings and started to let her down, but she made him stop.
"Walk around again, darling. It does something to the inside of me. My God, but you feel huge this way."
He walked around with her until her weight began to tell on his stamina. She knew that he would carry her until he dropped to the ground from exhaustion, but she stopped him and let herself be laid down, and then she rolled him to the bottom.
Without disrupting the union, she turned around so that she faced his ankles, and her hips began to raise and lower in a soothing tempo that made him curse his body for trying to be premature. They were both watching the actual union, and she laughed delightedly to see him sliding in and out with her every motion.
She experimented to see how far she could raise without losing him. She found that she could clutch the head of it with her body's lips, and she would cling to it at the peak of every rise. She was checking his progress by the tiny pulse, and he was checking her by the twitching of her anus. Their careful play came to nothing when she accidentally rose too far and severed the union.
She inserted it again and lost control as the feel of the long penetration caught up with her. Her hips whipped back and forth a few times, and he saw her bottom wink as the tremors of culmination swept over both of them. She stayed there a long time on her hands and knees before she finally rose and let him up.
Owney Lee came into the motel room and said hello to the other two girls. She reached into her purse and dropped a hundred-dollar bill on the small pile of other bills. She looked tired, and she scratched at her groin as though she needed a bath.
"What's the take for the night, Janey?"
"Two hundred and seventy-five. My guy ran short before I found out about it. I settled for seventy-five. Hell, I'd have settled for fifty with him. No wear and tear on the merchandise."
Lorena added her share of shoptalk. "Mine was an ape, and I earned every dime of that hundred. The things he didn't want me to do! Would you believe that it can be done with a man standing on his head in a corner? The ape had been reading too many books on weird sex. You can have the bath first, Owney. You look as though you need it most. What's the problem?"
"I think I got one fresh out of the hills tonight. The guy tried to kill himself on me. I swear he pumped himself into an early grave the way he worked me over. Hey! That reminds me-I heard a news flash on the radio that Troy and Angela are down in a plane on the Virgin's Breast again."
"I'll "bet that he did it on purpose. You missed something there, Owney. He was all man, that one!"
"I knew that I'd get even with that son of a bitch someday. Bartender? I'll have another."
"Told you before, mister, no cash, no booze. Lay a little something on the table."
Jefferson Burns blustered and fished meaninglessly in his empty pockets. He tried to outstare the bartender, but his bluff wasn't in good shape these days. He finally got clumsily to his feet and shuffled out the door. There were other bars on the block. There were bars here on skid row that he hadn't even seen yet. He looked forward to trying them all.
Marilyn Burns was waiting for the mailman, and she almost kissed him as he handed her a letter with a special kind of postmark. She hurried into the house and tore it open before she found her glasses to read it. She had known that Bart would write to her. Look at the introduction! Dearest! Can you imagine that? Such a dear, sweet boy. Finishing basic training and will be here this weekend? Good heavens, that was almost too soon. There was so much to do before he got here. The hairdresser, the masseure, the dressmaker, and she'd have to lay in a good supply of the brandy that he liked so well. Let's see ... he liked steaks, too.
She sat planning, and her bottom began to heat up in the surety that she would be taken care of sexually. He was such a dear, sweet boy.
Franki rattled her tin cup on the jail cell's bars. This was a helluva place to be on her birthday. Let's see would she be thirty or thirty-one? It didn't seem to make much difference, but where did all the years go? She could measure her youthful years by the number of conquests she had made, but lately her conquests had been few and far between. It was time to move to another town and make a fresh start. If only she could raise the bail....
It was a shame that Jonni had to die so young. And what a way to go. She should have had more sense than to fight over that teenage addict. The damned hophead had been an awfully poor lay. Jonni should have consulted her first and she wouldn't have got her head bashed in with that bottle.
Helene took one last look at the lump on the bed that used to be her husband. Thank God the divorce was now final. The crummy drunk was someone else's headache from now on. No court in the land could make her responsible for that any more. She couldn't even remember how Jay had looked when she met him. She didn't know when the bags first formed under his bloodshot eyes. Anyway, he was a lump now, and she wanted no part of him.
She took a final look in the mirror and patted her hair into shape for her date this evening. Maybe the guy wasn't as important as he said he was. He had the price of dinner and a few drinks after. She'd gouge him a little for something like a sick sister who needed medicine. That always worked with the Mid-Westerners. They were "muy sympatico," and wasn't that a cute thing to remember to say? She'd have to pick up more phrases like that. Men seemed to like to be with a gal that got around.
"And now children we come to that part of our country where the mountains stand high against the sky and the trees reach up like fingers to sift through the clouds. That reminds me of a vacation I took a few months ago. Perhaps if I tell you about it, it will explain the terrible ruggedness of the mountain country."
"Quit pounding on that damned door and go away. I tell you I don't know any broad by the name of Claire, and besides, I ain't capable of knocking any broad up. I got hurt in the war see? I can prove it by my doctor, so go away now. Get the hell out before I call the police. I'm a law-abidin' taxpayer, an' I don't know Claire."
The cougar screamed again, and Angela opened drowsy eyes.
"What was that, darling?"
"Just an old fool cougar chasing down some fresh tail. Go back to sleep. Did you know that you're beautiful when you sleep?"