Chapter 7
The lorry was black, now, and the number plate had been altered. Nonetheless, Hartnell felt distinctly uneasy as he drove it east from London towards the coast.
It had been three days since he'd last seen Gracie and only a week since he'd first met her and taken her out to dinner. During that time Francie, it appeared, had spent quite a lot of time somewhere in the country and Gracie had not been bothered with him. But still she was not prepared to clear out. Hartnell had done his utmost to persuade her, but she was somehow numbed to the hope of success. And now she was afraid that he would cross Francie and that something terrible would happen to him.
So here they were hanging on, aimlessly, and here he was, with Johnny once more beside him, driving out on some unspecified job which he didn't want to do. It was as if some force outside himself had taken a hold on his life and was running it for him.
In front of them the Riley with Francie, Bill, Jake and Jim was nosing its way through the traffic, racing a long way ahead and then slowing down to wait for the lorry like an impatient terrier.
"What's the mystery about this one?" he asked Johnny when they were out in open country, heading southeast.
"Didn't Francie tell you?"
"No."
"I guess 'e doesn't trust you yet. Well, we're going to pick up some skirt!"
"Pick up some skirt?"
"That's right. Fresh from Gay Paree. High class French skirt."
"Don't talk in riddles, Johnny. What the hell do you mean?"
"Well, these girls are interested in the money what they can make in London, but they're all tabbed by the French authorities and they wouldn't be let out. So - trust Francie - we're going to pick them up from a fishing boat and they're going to join Francie's little business."
"Francie's little business?"
"Yeah. I guess you an' Francie ain't bosom pals yet. 'E doesn't tell you very much."
"What's Francie's little business?"
"Well, I don't suppose I'm breakin' any confidences. You'd know later on today anyway. 'E runs a call girl outfit."
Hartnell pursed his lips. Next, he'd be hearing that Francie ran an assassins agency. Whiskey and cigarettes! What a load of bull that had been.
"'Course it hasn't been doing too well 'cos it needs fresh blood," Johnny was continuing. "But these Frenchies should revive interest in it quite a bit."
The sooner I get out of this, Hartnell was thinking, the better. Sooner or later there's going to be a crash somewhere and then it's going to be just too bad for everyone.
It was growing dusk when they drove through the little east coast village to the big house back from the beach which Francie had rented a month before for this special purpose. The Channel was calm, dotted with lights from boats way out on its sleek surface. A white foam rolled gently up the narrow stretch of beach.
"Not much around here," Johnny said, as they drove over the dusty ground to the roughly fenced off grounds of the house. "Trust the boss to find the best spot for the job."
The Riley was already parked and lights flashed on in the house as they climbed down and walked towards the main door.
Inside, the other four were sitting smoking in the main ground-floor room. Francie was staring out to sea through the big windows which overlooked the beach. The house was sparsely furnished with enormous, old-fashioned furniture. There were heavy brocade curtains at the windows and covering the doors.
"Well, we've got quite a little while to wait," Francie said. "But, we'd better not show ourselves in the village just in case. We brought some food in the Riley." He looked around the room. "Hey, Jake," he said. "Go out and bring in the grub and the bottles - in the boot."
Jake ambled out of the room and Francie stared back through the window. Still staring he said: -
"Well, Roger old chap, here we are and it's just as well you should know what we're up to." He nodded out across the dim expanse of the Channel. "Somewhere out there," he went on, "is a little boat with 'alf a dozen beauties onboard. Not French racehorses, I don't mean, but French pros - high class mind you. They'll be pulling in here just down to our right about two in the morning. They're coming to make a bit of money for yours truly - and for the rest of us here."
"Another nice little racket, Francie."
"Not bad is it? Make us a mint of money they will. Nothing like a bit of Oh-la-la to make an Englishman's eyes light up."
"How'd you get hold of them?"
"Oh, I got friends everywhere. 'Igh class friends. I'm going to make it worth somebody's while over there to bring 'em over here. Suppose you might speak French?"
"Yes, I do."
"Thought you would. Well it's only the fishermen'll be bringing them so you might have to talk some French to 'em. Les girls are supposed to speak English, but you can never count on that - and it's not very important from our point of view."
Jake came in with sandwiches and the whiskey and they all began to eat and drink.
"Bring the cards, Bill?" Francie asked. "There, there boy. Don't look so bored, always worth the wait until they come, isn't it? Then you can 'ave one all to yourself." He chuckled and turned to Hartnell.
"We always try the goods out just to make sure we 'aven't been cheated," he explained.
The lights in the house were put out at one o'clock and they sat for a while in darkness, smoking and looking out over the water. There was a crescent moon and no sound apart from the gentle breakers.
"A good night," Francie commented. "We'd better go down in a few minutes in case they come ashore further down."
They left the house and walked over the rough ground past the vehicles. They jumped from the higher ground a few feet down to the sloping beach, their feet sinking deep into the silvery grains.
"You stay here, Jake," Francie said, when they'd reached firmer sand quite near the water's edge. "If they come in here and we don't see 'em, give a whistle."
As he walked beside Francie along the shore, Hartnell wondered vaguely about coast guards and people like that. But, as was usual with Francie, he felt the man would have left nothing to chance, that everything would be known beforehand and taken care of. He felt like a child in comparison.
One by one at distances of a few hundred yards the others stopped and waited until only he and Francie were left striding along the beach with the salt breeze in their nostrils.
"We'll go along as far as those rocks," Francie said, indicating a clump of boulders ahead. "If they come up any further away than that they'll have to find their own way to the house."
They sat in the shelter of the rock peering out to sea. Lights were still winking far out. There were no lights coming from the village about a mile away.
"Hope they don't keep us waiting," Francie said. "Some of the boys haven't had a bit of skirt for a long time. It'd be a shame to have them getting frustrated."
Hartnell was thinking of Gracie. He didn't dare look at Francie because every time he did he had to resist the temptation to sock him. How he wished he and Gracie could be out there now in the Channel, maybe heading for the French coast, or perhaps for Spain, anywhere away from this mess. He allowed his mind to dwell upon himself and he could hardly believe the reality of himself sitting here on this beach with this other man waiting for this strange, criminal arrival in this fantastic setup.
For a long time he sat there, not saying a word, thinking - of Gracie, of Dora who'd been upset when he'd moved out, but had let him go without too much fuss, of Gracie again, always coming back to Gracie, the charm of her lovely face and voice and the beauty of her breasts, her slim woman's body, the desire with which the thought of her choking breath when he loved her, always filled him.
Francie was silent, too, lost in his thoughts which were also of Gracie and that inner core which she had, which he couldn't get at, that something which kept unattainable, the only woman he'd ever really wanted.
There was a low whistle from up the beach and they both scrambled to their feet and began to run along the surf's edge.
The dim shape of a large rowing boat met them, growing out of the dimness into phantom near-reality and then substance. Bill and Jim were already there, helping to pull it in.
"Ask them if everything went okay," Francie said.
Hartnell addressed the nearest of the two French fishermen, asking what sort of trip they'd had.
The fisherman grinned and said it had been fine but the "young ladies" had suffered a little from sea sickness.
Hartnell told Francie and then he noticed the women, huddled in the boat.
"That's all right," Francie said. "They'll be suffering more than a little from prick-sickness soon."
Shivering slightly, in spite of the thick coats they were wearing, the girls began to climb from the boat, walking from seat to seat in their dainty high heels, helped by the fishermen as the boat swayed, and then jumping ashore.
"Well, well. Hello girls," Francie said. "Par-lez vous anglais?" It was one of his few expressions in the language.
"A leetle," said the first girl. "We all speak a leetle. We were seek, but it is better now."
"I trust you all know how to faire l'amour a leetle," Francie said with a coarse chuckle which was echoed by Bill and Jim and the others who had now arrived on the scene.
The girl giggled and rubbed her tongue along her lips at him.
As soon as they were all on dry land the fishermen pushed off and rowed quietly and rapidly back towards their boat, leaving a strange little crowd of people behind them on the beach. It was just two o'clock.
They walked in a body up the beach. When they came to a high step to the road, the women were helped up by the men and there were so many playful shrieks as hands held buttocks and ran up between thighs that Francie called out for quiet.
As soon as they were in the house, Francie pulled the heavy curtains across the windows. He switched on the light and leaned against the door with a smile on his face.
"Well, well," he murmured. "It couldn't 'ave worked out better."
Hartnell studied the women while Jake doled them out sandwiches and whiskey. The color began to come back to their pale cheeks as they ate and drank. They were certainly very attractive, he decided. Most of them had typical dark, French good looks, with a faint olive tint to the skin and prominent but delicate bone structure. They all looked astonishingly vivacious. When they began to remove their coats, the voluptuousness of their figures brought unrepressed whistles of appreciation from the men.
"Go and have a wash, dears," Francie said, after they'd eaten, "and then we'll see if you know your stuff."
None of the girls seemed the slightest perturbed by his words and they all trouped out quite happily after Jake who was to show them to the bathroom. Impatient at having to wait, Jake seized the last one to enter and mauled her big breasts as he kissed her. She bit his ear and pinched his penis through his trousers.
Half an hour later they had all returned to the main room where the men were drinking fresh whiskey. Eyes moved over them avidly as they came in.
Francie stood up and walked over to them. His sensual mouth was smiling, his eyes as hard as granite chips.
"I'm Francie," he told them. "And, I'm your boss. Tomorrow we'll all go up to London and start arranging for you to make a fortune. In the meantime, the boys here are anxious for a bit of continental screw an' I'm sure you must be a bit frustrated after that trip so tonight we're all going to get to know one another." He paused, looked around the room and saw Hartnell. "If there's anything you don't know how to say," he added, "then you can just ask the gentleman over there 'cos 'e's got class like me and he speaks your lingo like an onion boy."
The girls looked at Hartnell with interest and several glances remained fixed on him even when Francie resumed speaking.
"Now girls," he said. "We'd all like to see how you look folies bergere style, you know, nu - so starting with you" - he pointed to a petite brunette - "get those togs off and let's have a look at you."
"Togs?" the girl queried.
Francie glanced at Hartnell and then grinned.
"Bit of Old Blighty," he said. "Clothes, my dear - skirts, brassieres, knickers - you know."
The girl giggled, repeated the word "togs" to herself and began to strip.
She took off her clothes with the tantalizing technique of a professional striptease and when at last she was standing naked in front of them the gang were breathing very heavily.
"Get a load of that," Johnny muttered.
She had big breasts, almost too big for her size, with enormous, angry-looking nipples, her waist was slim and her hips were, also, broad for her size. They seemed to shine with an oily olive gloss and the tangle of dark hair at her thigh junction muffed out in glossy profusion.
"Yes, I think you'll do," Francie said, with a leer. "Let's 'ave a look at your behind."
Unabashed the girl swiveled round like a mannequin and playfully jutted a pair of glossy, olive buttocks at him, arching her back inwards to accentuate them.
"I see you've been sunbathing without any togs," Francie said and all the women giggled.
"All right," Francie said, pleased with his own humor. "Don't stop the show. Next buttocks please."
The pantomime continued until all the girls had slowly peeled their clothes from their bodies and paraded before the watching, desire-filled eyes. They all had bodies well worth any man's money. Some, like the first, were plump in the right places to the point of being exaggerated, others were elegantly well developed with long, svelte lines.
"Anybody who can't wait for privacy?" Francie asked, hopefully.
And Jake, who still felt the pressure where the girl had pinched his organ, stood up with a deep flush. He took another swig of his whiskey and then drained the glass with a grimace.
"Go on then, Jake. Give us a show," Francie encouraged.
Jake's eyes were fixed on the girl who had first stripped - the one he had kissed outside the bathroom - while he unbuckled his belt. She came over towards him, seeing from his glance that she was the one he wanted.
"You wan' me to 'elp you?" she asked and began to unbutton his trousers.
"Go easy or he'll faint and then we'll all be sorry," Francie said. Jake leered at them amidst the guffaws which followed.
With the help of the little brunette he got his clothes off. Towards the end she was taking them off for him alone, because he couldn't do anything with his hands except run them over every glossy portion of her body he could reach. The girl herself had begun to tremble and had jerked the last garments off him with some savagery.
"Go to it, Jake," Francie cried.
Jake had a bit of a paunch, which wasn't too big, considering his size, and his penis jutted out from under it almost vertically. His big hands caught the girl, who squirmed up close to him and rubbed his penis between her soft, glossy thighs. Jake uttered a couple of gasps which the laughs of the company did not affect. He kissed her and she clung to him passionately writhing, exploring his body with her fingers as he explored hers.
Suddenly, placing her arms up around his neck, she leapt up, twining her legs around his waist.
"She's a gymnast, as well," Francie declared in a torrent of fresh guffaws, guffaws which edge of lewd violence.
Jake placed his hands under the girl's stretched behind, played with her anus for a moment, found his rod waving near her open vagina and wormed it in.
With a little gasp of "Oh cheri!" the girl flopped down onto the fleshy mast and began to squirm on it, mouth open, murmuring in French and English.
With her jogging on him, Jake carried her to a rug, and flopped down on top of her. The company moved into a circle around them to watch, offering encouraging suggestions. One of the girls bent and gave Jake a couple of playful taps on his behind to a burst of fresh laughter.
The girl on the floor was squirming like a mad thing and Jake kept shuffling his knees further in between her widespread thighs, trying to stop himself from slipping on the rug. Panting, he leaned on her thighs, pushing them farther apart and the spectators had a perfect view of his big, white organ ramming into the red gulf, surrounded by its forest of black hair between her legs.
"Oh cheri, oh cheri," she kept murmuring as he split her apart.
Jake pushed her legs back now, pulling back the thighs against her big, trembling breasts, leaning forward on them so that she was bent almost double, holding out her nether portions to him as if she wanted only those parts to exist.
Jake leaned up off her and pushed forward his hips like a matador attracting the bull. His rod disappeared to the hilt with each thrust while the girl waggled her upturned bottom, whose glossy white roundness was there to further inflame those who watched.
Around the floor scene, some of the gang had caught hold of the naked girls as they watched, and, still watching, were fondling their breasts, running their hands over the svelte lines of bosom and belly, playing with buttocks. Without taking their dark eyes from the pantomime, the girls, too, were feeling for bulging organs, opening fly buttons, losing their relentless fingers inside protecting clothes.
With every stroke, now, Jake was belching forth a strangled gasp of breath, giving a final agonizing flick to his hips as his bulging, excited penis seared into the girl's moist vagina.
She had unwound her legs and wrapped them around his waist, squeezing them tight with every intrusion he made into her channel. Her grasping, clawing hands had made red weals across his back.
Jake held her buttocks, each in a cupped hand and lifted her slightly off the rug so that she rested on it only with her head and shoulders. The different position gave him even greater penetration and the girl gave a little shriek. Her eyes on the ceiling were unseeing.
"Fuck me, fuck me to death!" she pleaded.
"She certainly 'as a good grasp of the English language," Johnny said as he sucked the ear of a slim, dark girl who, standing with her back towards him, had taken out his weapon and was rolling it between her legs.
Jake was straining into the girl whose head slid back on the rug every time he jerked into her. He had a finger in her behind and was seeing how far he could lose it, while the girl kept clamping her buttocks together tightly around it.
"Hurry, hurry cheri," she spluttered. "J'arrive, I'm coming, hurry."
Jake let her fall back onto the rug and lowered himself onto the soft ramp of her hips, still pistoning into her. He leaned onto her and bit her neck. She bit his ear in return and bit it again in passion.
"Uuuuuug," Jake bellowed as she bit him.
His mouth had opened, his eyes were wild, full of sweet pain, his strokes slowed, grinding in like a thick, slow screwdriver.
The girl's loins were almost turning circles, rotating furiously, her buttocks brushing the rug, screwing it up under them. They were both gasping as if their lungs would burst.
Jake's mouth moved, his hands held her shoulders as if he would pulverize them.
'"Ere it comes," he cried. '"Ere it comes, now . . . Uuuuugh! . . ."
The girl gave a shudder. Her hips went into a paroxysm.
"Oh, oh, oh, oh, cheri, cheri, cheri - Oooh!" she screamed.
As they both began to subside in dwindling activity, Francie turned to the other girls.
"She'll do," he said. "Now we'll see about the rest of you."
The gang began to break up, each man leading a girl away into other rooms for a more private pleasure. Eventually Jake and his girl stood up and went off to find a bed for a fresh bout.
Only Hartnell was left, sitting on a table, his legs swinging nonchalantly to and fro. Across the room, the odd girl stood, undecided.
Hartnell, in spite of the show could not summon any great enthusiasm to make love to any of these professional women. He remembered his only too infrequent nights with Gracie, the torment they left inside him, the feelings of love, passion and protection they left within him. All this was cheap in comparison and he could only think of her.
He looked at the girl who remained and realized she was waiting for him to do something. She was a slim, dark girl with big breasts and a rather sharp, attractive face. He noticed she was not wearing lipstick and that her lips were a gentle shade of pink, well shaped and soft-looking.
"Go to bed," he said. "I don't feel like it."
She raised dark eyebrows in surprise and came across to him.
"'Ow is that, darleeng?" she asked, putting her hand on his shoulder.
Hartnell grinned inwardly at the situation. He thought of earlier occasions when he would have loved to have had just such an attractive girl standing nude in front of him asking why he didn't want to make love to her. Things have come to a pretty pass, he thought.
"I guess I'm just tired," he said.
"But I will make you wide awake again," she insisted. "Am I not beautiful enough?"
She made a little pirouette in front of him, displaying her curvaceous back view with the perkily protruding rounded buttocks, and giving a little laugh which brought out dimples in her smooth, brown cheeks.
Hartnell felt a sudden warmth down in his trousers.
"Oh, you're great," he assured her. "I just don't feel like it."
"Perhaps you are un'appy in love?" she suggested, putting her finger unwittingly straight on the wound.
"Perhaps I am," Hartnell agreed.
"Is true - this?" she asked.
"Is true," he said.
She moved closer to him, throwing back her head a little so that her firm breasts stood out towards his face, inviting.
"Then it is better that you make love - make you 'appier," she assured him. "I wish you were right," Hartnell said. She misunderstood his words a little and put her hand down on the bulge which had grown, without him being fully aware of it, in his trousers. She ran her fingers over it, feeling it, measuring it.
"You see - you want it really," she said. With her hand titivating his penis through a couple of thicknesses of material and her breasts so close under his face that he would only need to sway forward to kiss them, Hartnell felt a doubt in himself. He didn't really want her. But just for the few minutes of physical delight which would allow him to forget everything? Might it not be a good thing? But then he saw Gracie lying in the bed thinking of him, wanting him and the desire dissipated.
"Come. You come upstairs - or we stay here?" the girl asked. She was rubbing her thighs together, pressing against his legs, working herself into a state of excitement.
"No," he said. "No - not tonight."
"No? Why is no?" she asked.
She began to undo his buttons and he realized his erection hadn't gone down. He couldn't make the effort to get up or push her away.
She undid them all the way down and searched for the opening in his pants, found it and worked his organ out into view. She held it gently in her hand looking at the blunt cudgel of a knob, the thick white staff.
"Is big," she said appreciatively.
Her fingers on his penis had made a certain warmth of feeling gush into it and find an echo in his throat. He looked at her body, at the thin fingers stroking his flesh.
"You still not sure you want it?" the girl asked, but her eyes were twinkling with certainty.
She bent suddenly and took the knob in her mouth. The movement took him by surprise, sending a sharp pain of sensation through him, making his penis swell in her mouth to even greater size.
She glanced up at him quickly.
"I eat it," she said.
Her mouth went back to enclose him and he watched the top of her head with its short black curly hair jogging about.
She was using her tongue and he could feel it swiping around him, stimulating his rod to make little involuntary jerks in her mouth. Her lips were soft as they moved down the staff, taking all she could into her mouth, surrounding the flesh with the warmth of her breath, the moistness of her saliva.
Her tongue was like the suction end of a vacuum cleaner. As she licked his prick he felt as if this slender morsel of flesh, this tongue was drawing the very dregs of feeling out of him, electrifying his whole body.
She began to suck voraciously, rubbing her legs together all the time and he leaned back on the table, pushing his hips at her face, moving his penis farther towards her throat.
He wouldn't stop her now, he realized. It had gone too far now. He thought about Gracie and the thought was quite apart from what was happening down there under her moving head. It was easier to recognize the difference when it was happening and it didn't matter so much.
She bit him gently and he squirmed. He leaned forward and ran his fingers through her hair and then reached down to stroke her breasts. She didn't look up, but continued with her sucking, continued rubbing her thighs together and breathing heavily over his rampant phallus.
His heart began to pound. He wanted to tense his legs together and strain his hips at her. His loins were growing hot. He was sweating between his legs.
Releasing her breasts, he let himself fall gently backwards until he was lying across the table. She moved back with him, keeping his penis in her mouth, burying her head in his loins.
Now he was on his back and could sense himself. He did so and felt an immediate crush of feeling at that stiff protuberance which her tongue was working on like a mad thing. His lips moved apart and his breath made the only noise in the room.
He felt her hand exploring in his trousers and then she pulled out his testicles so that his genitals were all exposed in a neat little triangle. She stroked the loose sacks of flesh while she sucked and he felt a fresh intoxication run through his body, finding its extreme point at the head of his cudgel.
His breath shot in little explosions into the still atmosphere of the big room. His hips were grinding against her face. He glanced down and saw her engrossed in her sucking, eyes closed, fluttering every so often, her breasts pressed against his knees, her legs still tight against him and rubbing. He bit his lip and tensed his hips watching her pretty, unrouged mouth eating sensually on his penis.
The stem of his penis, that part which wasn't engulfed in her mouth, was dead white. In contrast, he knew, the knob would now be dark, flaming red.
It would be getting redder and redder, darker and darker, all the blood drawn into it just as the sperm was already tingling to move into it. He panted in a continuous stream, writhing his hips, gritting his teeth at the pinpoint of furious sensation lost in her mouth.
He wanted to grab her, twist her over and shove it in her with furious energy, but he couldn't move from his position. His passion had trapped him there, making him incapable of breaking the rhythm.
His fingers clawed at the polished tabletop, bringing out thin scratch lines on its smooth surface.
In his belly he could feel the imminence of the explosion, the boiling to great heat. He gasped, gasped loudly, so that the sound echoed in the big room and the girl renewed her tonguing with even greater energy.
Deep inside the boiling was under way. He could feel it growing and growing and the thought that he was going to flood into her mouth filled him with an overwhelming perversity of pleasure. He worked his hips, hurrying the climax for fear she would jerk away before it was reached.
He was lost now. It had to be finished. Not to finish now, for her to pull away now, was the equal of death, of torture and then death.
He gasped, uttering formless words. He looked down at her as he felt the flood start. Her face was flushed with passion, eyes still closed and fluttering, mouth working furiously. He forced his neck to stay in that position so that he could see her. His eyes screwed up with the effort. There were sharp spears running along the inside of his penis: an enormous flood of them hurtling along the tube with greater and greater velocity.
He cried out and her face didn't shift its position. She seemed to be entranced.
And as the sperm burst from his penis with agonizing gusts which were like the dragging of his entrails out into the light, he saw her swallowing gluttonously before he fell back, giving all his mind to the sensation and the effort of arching his hips at her face.
When he lay still, filled with lassitude, after it was over, she didn't let his deflated organ escape from her lips. She continued to suck it gently. She continued the gentle friction of her legs against each other. He lay back, letting her carry on, feeling momentarily exhausted, thinking that it had been one of the most acute feelings he'd experienced.
After a while his organ began to thicken again in her mouth. She licked it and bit it gently, reveling in her power to rejuvenate it after its collapse.
When it had stretched out, elongated to its full length once again, and he was starting to feel the desire rekindle in his loins, she took her lips off him for the first time.
"Are you going to make love to me now, darleeng?" she asked. "I need it very bad."
He slithered off the table and took off his trousers and shorts. She held his penis under his shirt and stroked his testicles.
"Let's have it here on thees table," she said.
He caught hold of her. His prick was an enormous itch now, wanting to bury itself into soft flesh.
"I wan to be spleet in two," she said.
She turned into his arms and stretched facedown across the table, so that its edge cut across the crease of her hips and her feet touched the floor. She spread her legs wide and reaching behind her caught his penis and dragged it at her open vagina.
With a grunt, Hartnell rammed it deep inside her. He leaned heavily on her while he shagged in and in and she clawed the table the way he had while her buttocks hollowed and filled under his eyes.