Chapter 6

Life had been treading over Claudia with hobnailed boots. She had seen and lived the seamy-side, and now she yearned to break away from its brutal unpleasantness. Here in Chicago, she knew that all life was not drab around the edges. There were many brighter aspects to "the London of the West," yet Claudia had known, for the most part only the sweaty in-sides of the sprawling roistering giant.

She was again in the same position she had been in prior to her enslavement by Madame Sylvia. The few dollars the madam had given her could not possibly stretch beyond two weeks-three at the most. But Claudia understood by now the uncertainties of city life. You were just a little chip in a maelstrom: if you got sucked in at the vortex you were dragged down to certain destruction: if you just missed the fatal center you were swirled about within its turbulent borders, and a sudden watery lash might fling you safely upon a safe and fruitful shore.

She decided not to go through the useless humiliation of job-seeking, but to let life do with her as it would. She was tired of fighting. She would go slackly downstream for the moment; perhaps life would be kinder that way.

Accordingly she took to rising when the spirit willed her. She would bathe and dress (she still possessed an excellent wardrobe) and go out into the milling streets. It was in the middle of summer and the sun felt good upon her bones. If the mood was on her she would stroll from her little North-Side room to the Loop. It seemed to her as she walked through its bustling glitter that everyone, but she, was hurrying to some objective. Before noon, groups of people stood awaiting admittance to combined picture and vaudeville houses. Claudia made a little grunt of distaste. The notion of attending theaters in the daytime was repulsive to her. You walked out of the darkness to blink in what would now strike you as raw, ghastly, obscene sunlight. The romantic spell would be broken by harsh reality. No, she thought, the glamorous, star-studded night was the proper time to leave the theater.

Claudia often went to the lake front. That was the cheapest form of relaxation and productive of the best results. You could bring with you a sandwich or a little fruit and lie there and feel the warm sun seeping through you, renewing the life that was slumbering down deep inside. Yes, she thought, the ancients were very wise when they chose Ra, the sun-god.

Or you could, if you wished, watch the bronzed, picturesque fishermen waiting patiently for a significant tug at the end of their lines; or the equestrians galloping by on fiery, well-groomed horses; or you could swim.

But the nights-the nights were bad. She thought of Frank, but she did not know how to find him and he did not know her new address. Yes, it was when the sun went down that one missed comforting human companionship. "How I long for the touch of your hand . . . " Tin Pan Alley had the right dope at that. Wherever Claudia went she was a target for masculine eyes. All about her she saw sordid romance in the making via the "pickup." The giggling, professionally coy girls made her sick as they stalked the stalkers. And the would-be swains with their pimply faces, horrible clothes and still more horrible manners, offended her completely. Claudia was accustomed to the society of first-rate men and these callow, awkward creatures were offensive to her. No, there was nothing for her in that quarter. And her little supply of money dwindled.

One sunny afternoon Claudia was emerging from the soothing waters of the lake, her simple bathing suit clinging to and revealing the gorgeous flowing lines of her figure, when she caught the eye of a rather plump little woman who had been watching her. She smiled in a friendly way. Claudia involuntarily smiled back. There was something pleasant and comfortable about the strange woman. If you were put to it to describe her in one word you might have said: "home-body"; the description would have been pretty nearly inclusive, at that. She had the easy placidity of a woman who is sure of herself, her man and her existence. Claudia felt drawn to her.

The little woman spoke first: "Pretty cold in the lake?" Claudia nodded.

She continued: "I been watching you swim. You're pretty good. I don't swim myself, but I like to watch. Eating is the best thing I do, I guess." She took a sandwich out of a large, beautifully made English luncheon kit. "Won't you have one?" she asked. "I'm sure you must be hungry after all that exercise. I've got a thermos full of coffee, too."

This was too much for Claudia, who by now was feeling rather faint. She accepted the generous offer and was soon munching on a welcome though unexpected lunch.

"I'm Mrs. Williams . . . Katie Williams," her hostess said. The name had a faint ring of familiarity to Claudia. After introducing herself to Mrs. Williams, she told her that she was almost certain that she had heard and seen the name before. Mrs. Williams' eyes twinkled. She rose to her tiny feet and nimbly executed an intricate dance step.

"Oh!" gasped Claudia. "You're the Katie Williams. I never saw you myself, but I've heard and read a lot about you."

"I suppose you have!" sighed Mrs. Williams. "Well a lot of good liquor has flowed under the bridge since then. You know I danced in the Follies with Ann Pennington and Marion Da-vies in 1914 in the old Amsterdam Theater in New York." She looked down at her pudgy body with a trace of wistfulness. "You wouldn't think so to look at the old frame now. Well, it's all over and I'm content to sit back. But say, kid," she went on, "you've got the sweetest chassis these old eyes have peeped at in many a day. Poor old Ziggy would have snapped you up in no time. How come a doll like you is running around loose in this town? What a chump I am! You must be in show business-a kid with your stuff. Who you with?"

"No one," said Claudia, "unless my shadow constitutes company."

"You're doing some kind of work, aren't you?" asked Mrs. Williams as though she could not believe her ears.

"Not a thing right now. I've just come down from Michigan."

Mrs. William laughed. "That explains it, I guess. But you sure had me fooled. There ain't no hayseed in your hair. But it's a crime to see so much good-looks thrown away behind some ribbon counter or a typewriter maybe. Kid, you oughta be in the profesh and I'm gonna be your angel. I'm gonna take it on myself to see that you get in. Call me Katie."

Claudia grasped her hand. She was overcome with emotion. There was something contagious about the breezy open-heartedness of this fat little woman. She might be coarse, and she had undoubtedly been seared by life's relentless fires, but she was still soft with human kindness.

"You're very sweet to me, Katie . . . " she began, fumbling for adequate words.

"Hell, forget it, kid. I'm gonna do something for you. You wait and see."

The sun was losing its early afternoon warmth and Claudia was oblivious to the life about her as she listened to this veteran of a thousand theatrical campaigns spin yarns. Heartbreak and laughter crowded in around her. A new life was being revealed to her by one who had plunged headlong into its ever bubbling fountain. Katie held the girl in thrall with her tales. Through them all ran a healthy ribaldry.

"Yeah," said Katie, "life's been just a series of sleeper jumps to me. But you wait here until Joe comes. I'll make him do something for you. It may not be much, but you'll at least be able to eat. Here's Joe now. Hello, Joe, you bastard. I was just telling my friend about you," she cried to a slim, dapper man of about forty.

"Yeah?" he said. He grinned at Claudia. "It'll take at least two years for me to square myself after the old lady gives me one of her left-handed buildups. Anyway, hello." He was a nervous, twitchy person, never still. His hands fluttered about and he kept whistling snatches of hot jazz music.

"How did it go today, Joe?" Katie asked.

"Lousy. Them broads I got in the line are worse and worse. I've given up trying to show 'em how to move their feet so they don't fall down. Sam Katz, he don't care if they can't dance without falling on their pratt. That don't get him so much as the faces on these broads. Only today he was sayin' to me. 'For chrisake, we gotta brighten up the front line. I don't care how you have to go out and get 'em, but get me some babes whose pusses wouldn't curdle cream.' Now all I gotta do is go out and rape some girl's school."

"Well, Joe, I know where you can at least get one good-looker for that lousy burleycue joint of yours. Claudia here needs a job. Give her a break."

Joe immediately changed his tone. "Stand up," he ordered. "Now put your legs together."

Claudia followed his instructions. Her splendid figure with its flowing womanly lines showed to excellent advantage in her brief bathing costume.

Joe whistled. "Kid," he said, "you're all there. But can you dance? Nothing much, y' understand. Just a little time step, maybe."

Katie cut in. "She's new, Joe. But you can give her a little personal attention for me, an old pal, cantcha?"

Joe laughed. "Well, I suppose I can. Tell you what to do. You come down to the joint early tomorrow morning and maybe I can wise you up to a few things before the regular rehearsal. Don't get me wrong. Burleycue is a pain. You'll work hard and long and you won't get a lot of dough, but who knows? It might lead you to something; you can never tell."

"Yeah," said Katie. "Look at me. It led me to three husbands."

"Well, what did you expect?" said Joe. "Four?"

They got their things together and departed, leaving the happy girl in blissful anticipation of a solution to her financial and possibly her social problems as well. What luck, she thought, and from a totally unexpected avenue at that. She went home to her room and spent a restless night waiting for morning.

At last the appointed hour edged its way around. Claudia made her way to the burlesque theater. She discovered that the stage entrance was through the alley, and that first impression became to her a kind of a symbol of what the life held for her.

True to his word, Joe was ready for her. She would net have been surprised if he had not been there. In the brutal reality of the morning, the events of the previous day seemed but figments of her imagination.

Joe waved his hand casually at her. "Hi, kid," he greeted, and turned to a stage carpenter to give an order. "Be back in a minute," he said over his shoulder, and he was gone. She had ample time to take in her surroundings. She was backstage! She summoned up all the glamorous writings and thoughts she had ever known concerning the theater. Did all those high-blown words and thoughts apply to such a dingy atmosphere. The backs of the sets were a flimsy crisscross of two-by-fours and the stage floor was littered and dusty. Everything about the entire place was sordid and common. Of course, a burlesque show was not a theater in a real sense, but Claudia knew that this type of entertainment had a certain vogue in cities, and that even the swells sometimes attended just for a lark. It didn't pay to get too close to things, she thought, not if you wanted to cherish illusions.

Claudia was becoming a realist.

Joe returned. "Here," he said, and he threw a few garments at her. "Practice clothes. Get in the dressing room and make your change. I'll be waiting."

She went into the dressing room and made the change quickly. Joe nodded his approval when she returned. "That's what I like," he said. "No fuss and monkeyin' around. Well, let's get down to a little business. I can't give you a hell of a lot in a few short minutes and I'm not going to try to get you all frigged up. I'm just going to put you wise to the simple routines we have in the show so you won't be kicking someone's fat behind and knocking yourself out of the opera."

He took a square of chalk and diagrammed the few dance steps which would be required. He went through them slowly and thoroughly a couple of times. He watched her imitate him and then he stepped to the battered piano and pounded out the melody. Claudia breezed through the routine. She was naturally quick and graceful and the little dance made barely any demand upon her agility or suppleness.

Joe looked at her and said in his cold, matter-of-fact voice, "You'll do, kid. I like your style. Curtain at one. Be back here at 12:45. That's all."

Claudia changed back into her street clothes and walked out into the street to pass the time until she would make her debut. She laughed at the thought of making a debut in the last line of a burlesque chorus. No one would even see her, she thought, and perhaps that was just as well.

When she walked up the alley to the stage entrance, there was all kinds of activity. Girls were trickling in from all directions. There was an old Irishman at the door. He looked at her keenly. "You must be the Miss Fenton Joe told me about. Alright, come on in. See

Lily, the wardrobe mistress, for your costumes."

Claudia elbowed her way among the rushing girls until she found the wardrobe mistress, a middle-aged woman with a certain faded prettiness. She looked up from her sewing machine when she saw Claudia. "Oh, yes," she said in a soft voice. "Joe was in here telling me about you. Take your clothes off and we'll make a fast fitting."

As she took her things off, Claudia remarked, "So far, all I can say for this life is that it's one clothes change after another."

Lily laughed. "You're new at this, but you might as well get used to it. Joe said he thought you might develop into a stripper. If you ever do, then you'll spend all of your time taking your stuff off."

"What's a stripper?" asked Claudia as she pulled her dress over her head.

Lily stared. "My God! He must have dipped into a convent for you, honey. Well, you just go along and you'll find all these things out for yourself." She looked at Claudia's shapely form from beneath her silk chemise, took in her rounded pillars of throat, legs and arms, and her swelling breasts, then continued soberly. "Yes. You'll learn all right, and there'll be a lot offering to help you, I can see that."

She went ahead with the fitting and was soon finished.

"Just put your stuff in here," Joe said when Claudia appeared, "and I got a make-up box for you. Don't thank me, because it's coming outa your pay, see? When you make your first change, come out here and I'll have one of the girls show you how to put the stuff on."

When she was ready, she was directed to a place at the long line of tables. There were innumerable mirrors, brightly lighted, before which the girls applied their makeup with lavish hands.

"This is Betty," Joe said as he presented a tall, willowy blonde girl. "Betty-Claudia. She'll show you the ropes. I've told her you're new."

Betty showed her how to apply the cosmetics, how to shadow the lids of her eyes in order to give appearance of largeness and allure, how to make the uniformly red cupid's bow mouth, and how to dust powder all over her legs, bosom and shoulders.

"Most of this stuff is wasted on a pretty young kid like you," Betty told her. "But as you get along in this racket, you'll find you're gonna need all this extra help. All right," she slapped Claudia on her behind-"you're ready for the slaughter, lamb."

Joe showed her her place in the line, which was forming to go on. Out front the orchestra was striking up the tune she was to grow sick of hearing. She looked around and it seemed to her sharpened perceptions that she was inundated by a sea of powdered flesh. Women and girls of all ages and descriptions swarmed about her. Wherever they moved, they left an aura of loose powder. The music grew increasingly stronger and the girls ran out upon the stage when the cue was given.

Claudia would never forget her first startled sensation when she faced the audience. A numbing sensation took hold of her as she stared out into the darkness before her. Gradually the audience took shape and she was able to make out an individual face here and there. When the girls began to lumber through the routine, she had calmed down and was able to devote herself to the job at hand. When it was over and she was once more backstage, a certain certainty and self-possession swept over her. She was a performer. She nearly grew hysterical when she thought it over. Five minutes in the last line of a cheap chorus and she was already considering herself a member of a glamorous profession.

All about her was a strange, seamy style of life. The girls were kidding with the electricians and stagehands. Their humor was of a rough and ready sort with an occasional obscenity.

The comedians began to walk through the throng of girls. They seemed to be prime favorites among them, particularly one they called "Flops." And when at last the comics had made their entrances, the girls all crowded forward in the wings to watch their act. Claudia walked over to Joe.

"I watched you," he told her. "A little scared, hey? Well, you'll make a trouper yet."

The sound of a sweet tenor voice drifted back to them.

"Whose voice is that?" asked Claudia.

" 'Flops' Morgan," said Joe. "He's goin' places. The Shuberts got their eyes on him. He's tops. He won't be in this racket long."

When "Flops" had finished his number and taken his bows, the girls came on again. When they had finished for the moment, Betty, the girl who had assisted Claudia with her makeup, stalked out upon the stage with a flimsy cape covering her body from the waist up. She was greeted with prolonged applause. The crowd knew her. She sang a little ditty in a small, sweet voice, something about a girl who was taking music lessons from a private tutor. The chorus was self-explanatory. "My first piece. That's the man who gave me my first piece." The audience snickered. Betty retreated and the girls filled the stage once more. When they ran off this time, the stage lights were dimmed and Betty glided sinuously across the stage. The band no longer brayed. The trumpets were muted, and insinuated things. Claudia listened from backstage, completely fascinated.

Joe saw her. "Take a peep," he said casually.

She did, and this is what she saw:

Betty was wiggling her hips with sensuous rhythm. Then she would throw her hips jerkily, as though she were in the throes of an orgasm. With each toss of her loins, the drummer would strike his cymbals, Tchah! Tchah! Then Betty held her arms stiffly before her and rolled her buttocks in a slow rippling rhythm, sinking to the floor as she did so and moaning like a woman in her transports, "Oh-h-h-h!"

"Catch on?" Joe asked.

Claudia nodded. It was simple enough. It took nerve and a nice body.

"Take it all in," Joe told her.

Claudia watched the rest of the "strip." Betty was always threatening to remove some piece of her tenuously fastened clothing with each exit. Continued applause brought her back with one less gauzy piece of covering. Now she was revealed in nothing but a scanty brassiere and a metallic covering over her groin. As she skipped off this time, the place resounded to the wild applause of the patrons. Some were even whistling and stamping their feet in approval. Betty removed her brassiere and returned to grace the boards in the dim light, practically nude.

Claudia eyed her critically. She had a good body, though a little too slim for the particular work she was in. Her breasts and hips were a little too flat to lend themselves to "cooching," but Betty had a fair sense of rhythm and an excellent feeling for showmanship. She made up for physical defects with a good understanding of burlesque psychology.

The show carried four "strippers," and they formed a little aristocracy of their own, like the principals in a high-class production. They kept to themselves, and had their own professional hates and rivalries. They and the comics had the run of the theater.

From the first, Claudia saw the horrible banality of that kind of life. Few occupations could be more empty than that of being a member of a burlesque chorus line. She could not blame the girls for what they did after hours. You had to cut through the monotony some way. Drink and fast living offered peace.

Claudia made good from the start. Joe took an interest in her and brushed her up on the pitifully small amount of dancing knowledge which the business required. Claudia was logical about it all. She reasoned that as long as she was forced to put her time in at this business, she might as well make more money and earn better treatment.

Accordingly, she conditioned herself like an athlete, kept regular hours and watched her food. She would practice for long periods before a large mirror. In time she developed a few wrinkles of her own.

Claudia was maturing. She had filled out and was now in the lovely bloom of perfect womanhood. She was tenderly smooth and round. Her parts flowed one into the other in a striking manner.

One morning, during a dull rehearsal, Joe and another man who wore a derby hat and a cigar had their heads close together.

"Fenton," Joe said, "come out here and show us what you've got."

"Better let her put on a costume," advised the man in the derby hat without moving the cigar from his mouth.

"Yeah," said Joe. "That's right. Tell Lily I want you to have something black."

Claudia returned in a few minutes in a ravishing creation of black lace which accentuated the dazzling whiteness of her skin. Lily had taken her hair down and its glossy length hung down near her waist. The cigar sagged in the mouth of the man in the derby.

"Jeez," he said.

"Like her, Maltz?" Joe asked. He said nothing.

The band struck up Mood Indigo at Claudia's request and she was soon parading her maddening charms before them. She was smooth and effortless in her work and when she reached the peak in her number, she had a slow way of rotating her hips and throwing her groin forward that would make any man's organ jump to attention.

"Where you been hiding her?" Maltz asked. "Put her on right away. Get photographs here. Get Jacobs to fix a little publicity. We're going to do things with this girl."

Claudia went on that afternoon and was almost instantly a hit. She brought something new to the jaded patrons of burlesque. She was different from the others, who looked obviously like the hardened tarts that they were. Even to the bums and drifters in the distant galleries, Claudia possessed an air of refinement that got across. True, she stripped as far as the others, but she was infinitely more graceful. She had a definite charm. She was cleanly made and reminded the spectators of girls they had desired. In short, she was womanly and appeared to the observers to be less brazen and tough than the routine performers they had been accustomed to.

She took her success casually enough. It did not go to her head because she attached little importance to it. She moved to a decent apartment and commenced to take lessons in voice and dancing. It was too late to become overly proficient at either, but they helped considerably by giving her work a certain professional finish.

She was underpaid, of course, but it was enough to keep her living decently. Her main trouble, she found, was to hold off Maltz and "Flops" Morgan. Maltz was getting to be a nuisance, but she felt she could handle him, but "Flops" was something else again.

He was quite a character in the business. He came from a long line of show people, famous ones, too. They had been determined from the start that their offspring should not tread the boards and as a result, he was kept out of the theater and sent to good schools. But the tradition was too strong for the boy and he had gone against the parental desires. His family had gotten him fired from job after job until he had found refuge at last in rowdy burlesque. He had the stuff and would soon move up into faster company on his own merits. Handsome, gifted musically with a fine lyric tenor, he had all the qualities in demand on the big time. Every woman with the show was crazy about him. Any man less talented would have been let go almost instantly as too much bother; but he was under contract and Maltz expected to make a tidy sum by releasing him to the Shuberts.

He eyed her when he thought she was not watching. He always waited in the wings until she had finished her number. He never spoke to her except casually. He had his pride as the Don Juan of the troupe. Everyone was hard-boiled and would have ridden him unmercifully had he committed any open act indicating his interest in her. Claudia understood this and was grateful.

He approached her one night after the late show and, even in his ragged tramp's costume, he managed to express a certain cavalier mood, a youthful recklessness.

"Why are you trying to avoid me, Claudia?"

"I'm not trying to avoid anyone," she answered.

"I don't know," he said sadly. "I've been gargling my mouth twice a day and I just passed a correspondence school personality course."

"Get a copy of What Every Young Man Should Know and then maybe you would be good company."

"Flops" said nothing, but Saturday night after the midnight show, he walked up to Claudia with a book in his hand. It was a copy of What Every Young Man Should Know.

"Have you really read it?" Claudia asked amusedly.

He crossed his heart without a smile. "See you outside in fifteen minutes. Say you will."

When Claudia came out of the theater, he was waiting. "I'm parked across the street," he told her.

Soon they were zooming along the Outer Drive, the wind tearing at their clothes and hair. It was sheer delight to Claudia to sit thus after the scorching hours under blinding lights. She filled her lungs to the very last inch and thrilled to the panorama of Chicago unreeling before her. On the right myriads of twinkling lights and gigantic and unusual advertisements. On the left the vast lake, never twice the same. Now it looked ghostly in the velvet blackness.

When they dashed by Forty-third Street, thousands of Negroes were sprawled over the sand and rocks like some great Congo camp. Flickering bonfires gave the whole thing a weird, fantastic appearance in the surrounding gloom. The night was unbearably hot and the police permitted the wilted bathers to spend the night near Lake Michigan.

"I really should thank you, 'Flops,' for taking me out of the oven."

He leaned over her and patted her on the arm. "Just having you with me is thanks enough," he told her, and when she looked up in surprise at his serious tone, she saw that he was not kidding. She involuntarily drew closer to him. Everything in the picture demanded it. The holy trinity existed: the time, the place and the girl.

They roared through the night like a rocket. A strange feeling of exhilaration swept through the girl. She began to sing at the top of her voice. "Flops" joined her. They drove at a dangerous speed, but tonight they were, "Flops" told her, riding on the crest of the wave. They drew up before a famous Southside hotel and a swift elevator shot them to a glamorous roof garden high above the drive where they looked down at the cars, moving along like so many snub-nosed black beetles. Far out in the lake they could see the light of excursion boats and hear their throaty whistles. They sat touching elbows and thighs and drank bourbon highballs, which gave them a temporarily acute sensitiveness and reaction to the things about them and to each other. They danced to suave music and laughed at whatever the other said. Claudia dropped the shackles she had riveted upon herself in the last few months and was once more a pleasure-loving child.

They had worked up the finest stage of alcoholism, that rosy glow when everything and everybody appears unbelievably beautiful and you want to go around kissing people and giving your money away.

"I love everybody," said "Flops."

"Don't you?"

"Everybody," said Claudia. "I'm America's sweetheart. We're all sisters and brothers under the skin. Colonel's lady and Claudia O'Grady. I want to make everybody happy."

"Just make me happy first, Claudia."

"Flops" suggested practically as he escorted the girl once more out into the night. How they ever arrived at his apartment, they never were able to explain afterwards. The whole drive was one kaleidoscope blur. At last they extricated themselves from the car and piled into his rooms.

"Flops" began to take his clothes off.

"Wait," said Claudia helpfully. "I'll help you make the change."

"Make your own change, honey."

"Flops" said. "I'm coming right at you and if you haven't got your clothes off by then, I'll tear 'em off."

In a moment he was completely nude. Claudia just sat on the bed. She began to giggle and gradually worked herself into a spasm of uncontrollable laughter.

"What's the matter."

"Flops" was angry.

"I've got the mumps," Claudia managed to tell him.

He took his enlarged organ in his hand, looked at it and looked back at Claudia. "Down, Fido," and in a few seconds his penis wilted like a starched collar around a fat man's neck. "No meat for you tonight."

"Better take a cold shower," advised Claudia.

"Flops" grinned. His good spirits were contagious. He was soon splashing in the bathroom. When he returned, he was smiling.

"A hell of a lot of good you were to me tonight," he said.

"I wasn't much good to myself, either," Claudia remarked.

"Just a bad break for the both of us. Just a period that spelled the end of everything."

"A period ends the sentence but there's still an unfinished chapter," Claudia said.

"Will you let me write in your book."

"Flops" asked.

"Pages and pages," Claudia assured him.

They kissed and sat together, waiting for the morning.

Later that week, Maltz threw a party. This was one event Claudia could not evade. Even Joe told her it would be best if she went. "Flops" was angry. He told her that she had no business there and when she asked him if he were going, he grew angry. There had to be a showdown. Claudia decided to gamble on some sort of intervention which would take him off her hands.

They piled into taxis after the performance. Maltz cleverly managed to maneuver Claudia into his and gave her a bad time of it with his unruly hands. Once they reached his luxurious apartment, he was off her hands as he had to perform his duties as the host. All the principals of the company were in attendance, especially the strippers. Betty followed Maltz around in a way that gave Claudia hope that release lay in that direction. Bottles were opened, cocktail shakers made music, the radio blared, voices rose and everybody was growing intimate.

Maltz came into the room, hair awry, face smeared with lip rouge. Betty followed, her dress wrinkled and her face flushed. It was a story without words.

He hiccupped. "Here's a drink you want to try. One shot and you look for someone to bang." He looked across the room at Claudia, who was sitting in a corner talking to "Flops."

"C'mere, honey and have a snifter."

There was nothing for Claudia to do but accept the offer. She did. Maltz drank with her. He was carrying a beautiful load now.

"Attention, everybody!" he shouted. He took Claudia by the arm and they held the center of the floor. "I wanna interduce to you people the loveliest piece of goods it has ever been my privilege and pleasure to present as long as I been in the burlesque profession. Look at that build," he said proudly. He ran his hand down her back and curving waist, stopping at the hip. He patted the swelling flesh.

"It pays to be boss," he winked at the others, and downed another drink.

Betty was doing a dance to a hot piece coming over on the radio. She looked unusually striking in her black, sheath-like gown, cut daringly down the back until the pointed "v" met her hips. In her frenzied motion, her shoulder strap slipped and one small breast hung dazzlingly out of her dress. Another girl, not to be outdone, had raised her skirts over her chemise, a bush of dark hair was in evidence.

Maltz put his hand between her crotch. "Pardon me," he said. "I've just lost a golf ball."

The girl crossed her legs and refused to let him withdraw his hand. They collapsed in a heap on the floor. "Flops" grasped Claudia by the arm. "Let's get out of here." But Claudia stared fascinated at the mad scramble that was taking place between Maltz and his new attraction.

Maltz was thrashing all over the floor. "Let me go, you bitch!" he was shouting, but the girl kept her legs locked. Betty jumped in between them. It was all a pretty hopeless tangle. The entire party stood around offering advice and cheering for their favorites.

Someone shouted, "Give it to her, Maltz."

"I can't!" he gasped.

"How about the back way?" said his advisor.

There was a sound of ripping cloth as Maltz tore the dress off the girl's back with his free hand. He tore the fly on his trousers and his dagger popped out like a jack-in-the-box. He eased it into the squirming girl as he lay on his side. Once he had its full length rammed into her melon-shaped buttocks and was pumping away with all he had, she opened her legs. The crowd cheered. The sweat stood out on Maltz's forehead.

Betty was at a loss for a moment. Things had taken an unexpected turn. People were laughing at her. "Left out in the cold, eh, babe?"

She dove at the crotch of the girl squirming on the floor and buried her nose and chin in their hirsute depths. The poor girl was caught in the middle. This was more than the crowd had bargained for, but Betty had saved her face. Somebody turned out the lights and hell broke loose. Women screamed and moaned, glass broke and bedroom doors slammed shut. Claudia found herself in one of those rooms with the panting "Flops."

"At last, honey, I've got you to myself."

His lips found hers in a long wet kiss. It was as though a bomb had burst within her. In that dark room it seemed to her the blackness was streaked with red. His hands were working in the delicious softness of her bosom. They separated and got out of the binding garments. Now they melted together solidly between breast and thigh. His hands searched for the ecstatic gates and found them. He gently spread them apart, giving them time to respond to the excitement of the moment. Claudia lay there, a willing foil. Her breathing was labored and difficult. "Flops" inserted his tool and Claudia's legs bound him tightly to her, locking him in a carnal clasp until orgasm do them part.

They were quiet . . . getting the feel of each other. He wiggled a bit and she rose to meet him, to absorb everything he had. Now it was in as far as it could possibly go.

"Rock me, honey," Claudia murmured.

They made a living cradle of desire as they rocked themselves toward a state of physical satisfaction. "Flops" fought desperately to prolong the act before ejaculation terminated the preliminary pleasure. Claudia's uterine fingers contracted and tightened about his organ until it was beyond his power to delay the crisis any longer. Claudia's pleasure rose in intensity to blend together with his. His semen began to spurt hotly within her: one, two, three and bang, he poured his load into her and their juices mingled into unspeakable bliss. Gently they relaxed in each other's arms. Love's battle had momentarily ended. His penis shriveled and slipped from her moist socket. What a sensation to lie in the comforting darkness, to be able to touch one another, to know that they were affording each other one of life's greatest pleasures, that they had but to turn to fall into waiting arms. Truly a man has not lived until he has been clasped in the hot, desirous arms of a woman.

Life began to return to "Flops," organ as he cradled in between the tender pillows of Claudia's breasts. It throbbed in her lovely hollow as it renewed its strengtth. "Flops" stretched her full length upon the bed on her back. He pushed up her legs and lay under them until they formed a T. He fingered her yearning sex and then, turning on his side, he injected his spear, letting it remain there lazily. It was delightful to lie there in the clutch of Eros without making any effort to culminate coitus. Just let love run its course. "Flops" began to withdraw his penis at intervals and then bore into her with it. In this way he banked her sexual fires. There is a definite art to love and "Flops" was an artist. He had the unexplainable quality known as rhythm. He built a sexual congress into a thing of major proportions. His prong darted in and out of her sheath like a hot poker. He worked it around until it touched areas that had never been touched before. Claudia began to enter into the love-play. How she wiggled her rump in unison with his tickling until it was all she could do to keep her pulsating body on the bed.

It was not long before their elixir of love spurted to meet in life's oldest cocktail.

Even pleasant things cannot be prolonged beyond their natural conclusions and Claudia and "Flops" concluded many times that night. They came to one definite conclusion, however, and that was that four times in one night was enough.

The next morning a weary Claudia picked up her life where she had left it the night before. She looked critically into her mirror that morning and what she saw displeased her. No wonder the other girls looked and felt like they did if they went through torrid nights to come down in the "morning after" state to go through their grind. She was having a swell taste of it herself, and it didn't go so good. Everyone and everything looked repulsive to her that morning. All the shine and glitter of show business had scaled off like the paint on some scabrous old slum building, and now she could see the drab, dirty bricks beneath the outer coat.

Something whirled in her head. She had to get away. It rang in her ears like an alarm clock. She thought to herself, how had she ever been able to put up with this miserable life in a pigsty? When "Flops" came in he approached her familiarly with a casual and intimate caress. Just another push-that was all she meant to him. At least he might have created an illusion that he loved her. How could he be so matter-of-fact? The entire lack of subtlety disgusted her.

As the day lengthened, her disgust grew with it. Everything that took place seemed to stuff her beyond endurance with revulsion. Her belly was full with all this hokum littered about her. The troupe was nearly ready to go on tour through tough little industrial towns. The whole picture appeared before her: cheap hotels, cheap stage-johns, overnight jumps, sneers, insulting stares, and Maltz.

At exactly 3:30 that afternoon, Claudia walked out of the burlesque business and back into the ebb and flow of Chicago's streets.