Chapter 11
Everything was different. The sky was bluer, the trees were taller, the pungent smells of the forest more delightful than ever before.
Sandra walked at the head of her little column, leading the way through the forest, her head high, her breasts thrust forward proudly. From time to time, she sniffed and glanced about, almost laughing aloud.
Often she looked back over her shoulder and slowed her pace until the others were able to catch up. She would call to them and clap her hands and laugh with joy, and her girls would respond with delighted calls.
At lunch time, they halted in a clearing, high in the mountains. The place had been used many times before, and there were a number of rings of blackened stones where fires had been laid. They threw off their packs and, under Sandra's direction, the girls began warming the food.
Sandra and Candy shared one of the fires, squatting on their haunches and holding wieners over the heat on sticks. The other girls were collected about three separate fires, their chatter and laughter filling the clearing. It had been a successful morning. They had found most of the plants on their work lists and caught glimpses of several varieties of small game.
Sandra hummed as she withdrew her stick from the heat and examined the meat. It was darkened and bubbling on one side, so she turned it over. Her humming continued, and there was a Mona Lisa smile on her lips.
"For cripes sakes, you sound like a bumblebee just after he made out in a flower!" Candy muttered, looking from her stick to Sandra.
Despite her words, she was half smiling. She was a beautiful girl, Sandra thought, and she was pleased that her summer was going so well. Candy had the sort of figure made for a Treacher Camp uniform-the T-shirt properly filled out by high, hard young breasts, the shorts prettily stretched across her bottom, excellent young legs, straight and tanned.
Sandra laughed. "I'm not certain what that means, but I suspect you're talking like a tramp again."
"You bet your sweet you-know-what I am. "She moved her knee until it brushed Sandra's outer thigh. "Come on, what's the score? Your feet haven't been near the ground in two days."
Sandra looked at her, her dark eyes dancing. "Does it really show that much?"
"If they could plug you in, you'd generate enough power to light Dodger Stadium through a double-header." She snorted in the direction of her blackening wiener. "And I'd rather buy one of these dogs there than cook my own."
"I think it's wonderful to get out like this all day and eat under the trees."
"Maybe, if you're a jackrabbit or one of those forest sprites, but I'm not. I'm just Candy Simms, late of Los Angeles and who knows where she's going next?"
Sandra touched the girl's arm. "I don't know where you're going, but I know it will be a better place than the one you left."
Candy smiled, and Sandra could read grudging affection and respect in the younger girl's eyes. They had grown close as the days went by, and Candy had kept her word, staying out of troubleso far as Sandra knew. She was a tough little blonde, but her word was good.
"Quit changing the subject, chief weirdo of the woods. What or who is turning you on like an Edison lamp?"
Sandra had been moving about in a trance ever since the night Tony Gibbs had changed her world campletely. Now she was a woman, a fulfilled woman who finally knew why she had been put on earth. For two days, she had kept her secret locked inside her breast, wishing she could leap up on a table during dinner and shout the news to the entire camp. Several times, she had debated telling Candy the whole story-but she was still afraid to confide in her.
Now, it seemed, the blonde knew something was going on, anyhow.
"I suppose you'll keep after me until I tell," she barely suppressed a giggle, feeling like a high-school girl all over again. She hoped, of course, that Candy would keep after her.
"I'll keep after you like the Dynamic Duo keeps after the Riddler. Come on, spill the beans or I'll sic that lesbian supervisor on you some night after you're in bed."
Sandra shuddered. "Don't even joke about such a thing!" But not even the thought of Hester could quiet her bubbling spirits. "All right, I'll tell, but you must promise..."
"Lady, where I come from nobody squeals. If they do, it's..." She drew a finger across her throat.
Sandra took a deep breath. "Tony Gibbs."
Candy stared and then grinned, showing all her teeth. "I ought to have figured it out, especially after Nola and I sent him into Hester's office after you the other night." Again she nudged Sandra's thigh. "So you two rang all sorts of bells together, eh?"
"A million bells!"
"That's good," Candy went on, examining her wiener and then trying to pull it from the stick. She burned her finger and sucked the grease from it. "You needed a good man after so long in this booby hatch. "She looked at the forest about them, rolling her eyes in consternation. "I'm starting to grow a tail."
"I realize now how much I needed him," Sandra agreed.
"You ... uh, you went the whole route, eh?" Candy was peering at her, eyes squinting.
Sandra turned her head away, concentrating on placing her wiener in a bun without dropping it into the dirt. "That's right."
"How do you feel about that?"
Sandra faced her again. "I feel perfectly wonderful, thank you. Not ashamed, but proud."
Candy grinned. "Good! I assume, from all the fireworks going off, it was your first roll in the hay."
Sandra sighed. "Must you put everything into your own inimitable language?" She bit into her roll, and juice spurted, running down her chin. She wiped with the back of her hand and chewed until she got the mouthful down. "Yes, it was my first time."
"Welcome to the club. How did you manage to keep it until you were twenty-one?"
Sandra laughed, making it a low, lustful sound. "Blame it on the backward social stratum in which I was raised."
"Anyhow, I'm glad you aren't going to pieces all over the place." Candy finished her hot dog. "Some dames make a big thing of it, like they earned a dishonorable discharge or something. They think everybody on the street will know. Some of them are even dopey enough to think they cheated on the guy they're going to marry even though they haven't met the poor sucker yet."
"I know." Sandra nodded. "I've seen other girls go through the experience. But it's no problem for me, because Tony is the man. I made love to him because I love him, because he's the one, not because I was carried away by a handsome profile or a pair of provoking hands."
"My, my! Candy said with awe in her voice. "You really are serious about this gorgeous hunk of male down the road. How far does this route lead-clear past this summer?"
Sandra lifted her chin and threw back her shoulders, jutting her breasts with defiance. "I'm betting everything I have that it will last forever. Don't you see? That's exactly why I feel no remorse. That's why I don't feel I've cheated on the man I'm going to marry."
Candy gasped. "You mean . . ? "
"Exactly. If I have my way, someday soon you can call me Mrs. Anthony Gibbs."
Candy clapped and a few of the others looked their way, smiling, but they turned away again, intent on their meals. "Keep after him, baby!" the blonde advised, her voice low and calculating. "Keep after him until you bring him down. From what I've seen of that buck, half the female hunters in Southern California must be on his tail. Strike fast."
Sandra smiled and said, "I have my plans all made, thank you, and striking fast is among them."
Everything changed as they wound down the highway, taking the curves fast with a slight squealing of the tires. The pines gave way to high brush, which gave way to cactus. The temperature climbed from eighty to more than a hundred and ten by the time they reached the desert floor.
Sandra turned the wind wing on the convertible as far as she could, so that the breeze whipped in at her, sending her dark hair streaming back from her face. She squinted into the hot wind, her arm trailing from the window, loving the feel of the warm air on her palm and fingers.
She turned to Tony, letting her knee slide over to meet his. "Now I know why Palm Springs isn't a summer resort," she said.
He nodded, grinning as he maneuvered the car around the baking carcass of a rabbit. "We're lucky. I don't think it's as hot as usual."
How she loved to hear him speak! How she loved to see him, to look at him! How she loved to touch him, to have him touch her!
Tony ... he was her Tony. Even though they'd only been together that one night, she knew he was hers from the moment they put their arms around one another on the dance floor. And she was his. She knew this, too, and she wanted him to understand how deep her love had become.
It had been a terrible two weeks. They had had to wait a full fourteen days until the Sunday came when each could slip away from camp duties. He had been adamantly against casual visiting between camps and equally strict about telephone calls. He bad warned her how easily rumors-whether true or not-could spread if they were seen together.
So she had waited, her spirits high, at first, as they were the day she took Candy and the other girls on the long hike. After the third day, when she beard nothing, she began to break apart. No visit. No call. Nothing...
The horrible thought which had always lurked in the back of her mind came forward-the fear that perhaps she was nothing more to Tony Gibbs then another conquest. She told herself it couldn't be true, that he was far too sincere, too tender, too much the gentleman to hurt her.
Then the letter came. He could get free the following Sunday if she were able to meet him. It was not Sandra's day off, but she traded with another counselor, who asked no questions, and met him on the road, out of sight of the Treacher Camp gate.
The trip to the desert was his idea, and she thought it was wonderful. If he had suggested they spend the day hanging by their thumbs from the limb of a tree, she'd have been equally ecstatic. After eight weeks in the woods, they agreed that a shot of the swimming-pool and bright-light life would do them good.
He wore white slacks and a white T-shirt. She wore a halter-type dress which was backless and sleeveless. He wore tennis shoes, and she wore no stockings. They had done all they could against the heat, but still it was hot.
By the time they reached the chain of luxury hotels at the approach to the city, they were perspiring, the moisture pouring from their skin and running down their faces. She could see the dampness coming through his shirt, and she could feel her own moisture building.
When he turned into a ranch-type hotel she pointed out, it was too hot for her to remain in the car while he checked in. She went into the office with him, not caring if the clerk should notice she wore no ring. She was with her man-that was all that mattered.
"Yes, sir," the clerk said, chattering while Tony filled in the register. "That's why they call it the Palms to Pines Highway. You can go from snow to eighty degrees in the winter and from chilly weather to a hundred and twenty this time of year." He beamed at Sandra as though he personally made the climate miracle happen.
They accepted a bucket of ice and returned to the car. Tony drove slowly to the rear, all the way to the cabana with the most privacy to offer. He parked and lifted out a small canvas bag and the ice bucket.
It was mercifully cool inside the cabana, which was done in Old Spanish with lots of tile, heavy drapes, matador posters and a corner adobe chimney. "We must come here during the winter," she exclaimed, whirling in the middle of the room like a housewife discovering her first home. "How wonderful it would be to curl up in front of a fire!"
Tony chuckled, taking the bag into the kitchen. He took out a couple of bottles and got glasses from a cupboard. In a minute, he had made them each a cool, green, brimming gimlet.
"Hey, what's wrong?" He chuckled. "Too strong?"
"How unromantic can a lug get?" she replied, pretending to complain. "His one and only gives the misty-eyes-of-love look, and he thinks she's choking on bad vodka."
She set his glass aside and put hers with it.
"Hold on! I hardly toucbed my medicine," he sputtered, reaching for his drink.
Sandra grasped his wrist and pulled him away from the table, throwing her arms around his neck. "You're my prisoner."
"I'm also thirsty."
"I have something which should satisfy any complaints you might have." She pressed her hips against him and her breasts dug at his chest, their ends hard, probing.
"God, it's so hot!" he complained, methodically peeling her arms from his neck, one at a time. "Tell you what. Let's go into the pool first. Then we'll be clean, cool, comfortable."
"Ugh!" She made a face. "You sound like a television ad for a deodorant."
"Come on," he exclaimed, taking her hands, pulling her close for a kiss and then shoving her away. He got the bag out of the kitchen and rummaged in it, taking out her bathing suit, a white, one-piece outfit. "I'll bet you drive the boys wild in this mantrap."
She laughed, catching the suit when he threw it. "All right, you terrible, frigid old man. I'll go swimming with you, but you're not going to hold me off for long."
She began to loosen the halter of her dress, untying the straps at the small of her back, her eyes dancing with mischief while she watched him slip from his shirt. When he had kicked his trousers from his legs, she struck.
She leaped on him, her weight carrying him with her and they staggered to the bed, falling in a heap on the coverlet. She climbed on his body, straddling him, holding him down with one hand while she clawed at his shorts with the other. She stripped him to the cozy sound of giggles-giggles which were designed to sound seductive.
He was pinned, helpless except for his hands, so he put them to work. She thrilled when he pulled her straps free and the halter fell to her waist.
"What a hussy!" he exclaimed. "No bra! You'll be drummed out of the Treacher Camp girls Honor Society."
"Please don't mention Treacher again in this room or I'll do something that will hurt," she warned, her small fists poised over his stomach.
He didn't. Instead he touched her breasts, and the same electric shock which had rocked her that night in the forest made her buck and lunge all over again. Her reaction to him was more violent than ever. Then he was pulling at her hips, removing her dress, flinging it away so that they were nude-nude and together as she had ached to be for fourteen days.
Then he was rolling, upsetting her so that she was a tumbling collection of arms, legs and breasts, falling to her back on the cool softness. He was kneeling over her, his face on hers, their mouths locked together in a hot, feverish seal which could not be broken.
His hands were busy again, preparing her body, massaging breasts, tummy, hips, her thighs, making her more ready than she thought she could ever be.
"Darling, darling . . ! "
Her voice was a harsh whisper as she felt things happening inside her. Things which were being mixed in the laboratory at the center of her womanhood. These things would be mixed with the product of his body chemistry, and they would fuse in a wonderful explosion.
She reached, finding him, grasping him hard until he cried out with sweet anguish.
Then he was slapping her hands away, throwing himself upon her, his body hitting hers heavily but accurately. They were one, and their motion was beautiful and effective. She felt his heat reach an animal pitch and, from the look of anguish on his lips knew his chemistry was ready for hers.
They were poised, bodies arched, hard and stiff, and then the center span of their bridge broke, and they fell heavily to the softness, their bodies expending themselves, their strength flowing freely and wonderfully for second after second after second.
"You're good ... You're good ... You're good..." he panted as his strength poured from him into her, satiating her for the moment, giving her the peace of mind which only a fulfilled woman can enjoy.
As last, she said, cradling his dripping face, "Yes, I'm good with you, dearest. I'm best when
I'm with you, and I know we'll be good for each other ... always!"