Chapter 8
"Might as well ride together for a while," Jack Petty said when Niles came back from his evening meal.
The two men climbed into the police special, Jergens driving, and cruised the brightly lighted pavilion area. The usual Saturday night crowd was on hand. It was the last weekend of the season. After Labor Day, the schools would be reopening around the state and the beach would be suddenly deserted.
The best part of the year was ahead. Bright autumn days brought pleasant temperatures. The fish started moving south. With the summer people gone, the beach belonged to the permanent residents and there'd be time for a man to go trout fishing at the inlet or set a big haul net in the surf to tap the river of migrating fish.
In the meantime, it was a holiday Saturday night and the beach was loaded. There were families taking the last chance at togetherness, couples out to have a ball, the college crowd, high school kids from all over the county. And it seemed that everyone, from the youngest on up, was equipped with a powerful automobile. The liquor store clerk reported the biggest day since the Fourth of July when they stopped by to check. It was going to be one hell of a weekend before it was over.
Jergens eased the police cruiser into the pavilion parking area and cruised up and down the lanes. There was a young couple kissing in one of the cars. They jerked apart guiltily as the police car passed. Things were reasonably quiet at the park. There was a big crowd of high school foot-ball types hanging around the outdoor dance area, but Petty didn't see any bottles being brandished openly. He hoped that the kids wouldn't hit the juice too heavily. Somehow, in spite of all the laws against selling booze to minors, the lads always seemed to be able to put their hands on a case of beer or a bottle when they wanted it.
Petty checked in with the part-time radio operator back at the police room in the Town Hall. All was quiet. They drove the beach road, the asphalt which ran the length of the island and gave tipsy drivers the best chance to get heavy feet. They were halfway to the tip of the beach when a heavy sedan went past them doing about sixty and Jergens hit the siren. Petty handed out a warning ticket to an upstate businessman who had taken a few driving down to join his family at the beach.
The college crowd was putting away the beer, but their activities seemed to be confined largely to the strand in front of the motel. If they were going to give trouble, Petty thought, it might well come tonight. They had been on the beach since Friday and they would be getting a little bored just hanging around the fires and drinking beer.
"Wanta take a swing down the back roads?" Jergens asked.
"Might as well," Petty said. "Might not have a chance later, if things get hot out here on the main drag." He yawned with tiredness and settled back as the car took a turn off the asphalt and started throwing up dust from the dirt road.
Once during the night, after Pat Emory finally fell asleep, she was awakened by an awareness of nude flesh touching her. Tina slept in the nude and her soft leg was thrown across Pat's lower stomach, weighing sensuously on Pat's pelvic sensitivity. Pat woke up with a vaguely pleasant feeling. When she realized the situation, she burned with guilt. She didn't move until she was absolutely sure that Tina was sleeping. Tina was breathing deeply and evenly, making a small purring sound. Her body heat was a fearsome attraction to Pat. Tina's breasts were pressed against her side, her flat stomach against Pat's rounded hip, her leg thrown over, heavy, lax. Pat felt like screaming because it felt so nice to have soft girl against her. Her tortured mind fought against the dirty temptation to press upward against Tina's leg. Finally, she eased Tina away. For a long time she stared at the dark ceiling, her mind reliving the scene on the beach. Revulsion and lust fought for control.
Mental exhaustion let her sleep late. When she awoke to midday brightness, she felt apprehensive and nervous. At first, she didn't know why, then it came back to her and she was almost physically sick. In the light of day her perversion seemed even more ugly. She put on her bikini, fully dried overnight, and combed her long, straight hair, forming the protective curtains which shut her away from the world. As she had suspected, she was sore, but not as much as she thought she would be. Her arm and leg muscles felt strange, strained, from the long, tiring swim. She remembered how nearly she had courted death, and shuddered. In the sun, death was unthinkable.
She had breakfast alone in the restaurant and tried to flirt with a good looking boy working behind the counter. He had eyes for her and she usually enjoyed such male' attention but she could not muster any interest in the game. She could think only of the degrading thing which had come to her the night before on the dark beach. She felt as if she were a marked woman, marked indelibly by Ellen's caresses. She was afraid that anyone could look at her and see the sickness. She might as well have a sign on her back which read, "Pat Emory, Lesbian."
She ran into Tom Jack on the beach. He was obnoxiously drunk. She tried to convince herself for a moment that even Tom Jack was preferable to the dark attraction of the girl named Ellen, but she could not look at Tom Jack without feeling ill in the pit of her stomach. She found an cm ply area of beach and spread her towel. She didn't encourage company. She was distant with all who spoke to her because she needed to be alone to think.
Pat had done enough reading in her years of college to know something about the human mind. She knew, for example, that the most informed individual can sometimes be tricked by his own mind, that the mind has a way of hiding things which are too ugly to be faced. She thought, logically and calmly, about the revelation she had faced the night before, the undeniable fact that she had been tremendously excited by the love-making of a girl.
"I've had you spotted for months," Ellen had said.
She remembered the other things the girl said. She had quoted the old theory in psychology which said that all promiscuous behavior, male and female, is based on latent homosexuality. According to the theory, a promiscuous girl flits from man to man because she is fighting her true nature. Actually, the promiscuous girl is substituting different men for the subconsciously desired female lover. Pat had always rejected this theory in regard to herself. However, in view of what had happened, she had to review it again.
She remembered herself as a tomboy, competing with her brothers. She remembered how it was at home with her mother and her father. Was she contemptuous of all men, actually, because her father had been weak? Was she, as Ellen suggested, demonstrating her feminine nature to herself when she had intercourse with a man? By switching from man to man was she rejecting all men, telling them through her desertion of them after one demonstration of her womanhood that they were weak?
She could not accept that. It went against the grain of everything she had built up in the past years. She had proven to herself time and time again that she was a mature person, a strong-minded girl who knew the score. Her somewhat selective promiscuity was healthy, a modern girl's way of getting one of the good things in life, a way of sampling life before she finally settled down to what the world called normalcy. It was not one of them, one of the twilight women who faced life with no more promise than a quick love affair with another of her kind.
True, she had wanted Tina for a few moments last night. She awoke with quick desire for the soft, sleep-warm body of the girl in the bed with her, but she could not possibly go through life wanting the Tinas, scheming and plotting, being the aggressor," never finding that lasting love which she had always felt was waiting for her, someday. It was unthinkable. She hated that kind of woman too much, hated them with emotions so strong that sometimes she became physically ill just reading about Lesbianism.
But, she realized with startling clarity, she had read a lot about Lesbianism. Somehow, in spite of her revulsion, the subject had always fascinated her.
She sat up, looked out over the sea. She felt as if she had made an important breakthrough. She had admitted the possibility of a flaw in her nature. Now she could face it, submerge it, exorcise it.
She needed to get away from the college crowd. She needed time to think it through. There were too many distractions on the beach. She heard feminine laughter. She saw slim, well formed girls. She saw the familiar figure of Ellen, lounging with a group of girls down the strand, casting discrete glances at her.
Sometime during the afternoon she joined a group and found a beer in her hand. For a time, that seemed to be an interim answer. She could at least dull her awareness with the alcohol. She drank freely and found a measure of peace as darkness came. She sang to the soft accompaniment of Ernie's guitar and laughed with Tina. She could think about her problem tomorrow. Now there was the sigh of the wind and the muted crash of the surf. Tomorrow, she could find an answer. Definitely, positively, she would not go the Lesbian way. She might have a slight, sick inclination toward that sort of thing but she would not again submit to it. She was strong enough to resist.
One thing encouraged her. She could summon no interest in the men who talked with her. She could not even muster a flicker of interest in Ernie Harper, a man whom she had always admired. It was as if the sex urge had died, had been killed forever by the Lesbian love of that bitch, Ellen. That seemed to be for the best. It might be best to sustain the feeling of cold indifference. There was just a possibility that Ellen had been right in saying that Pat's sexual activities were compensation for the sick urge in her. If so, she would not allow that drive to possess her as it had in the past. Now that she knew her sickness, she could face it in the open and lick it. She would not allow it to interfere with her finishing school. She wanted a career. Someday, she might want to be married and rear a family. She would work toward that normal healthy goal.
However, Ellen found her late in the evening. When she felt a light touch on her arm and looked into the familiar, detested face, it was almost as if she were hypnotized, a bird charmed by a snake. She could not look away. Ellen smiled. Pat swallowed nervously. She was a little bit drunk and she was suddenly sick. She was scared because she was desperately aware of Ellen's hand on her arm. She shook her head from side to side. Ellen removed her hand and moved to the opposite side of the circle around the fire and squatted on her heels, looking at Pat questioningly.
Pat panicked. She ran blindly from the fire. She paused to retch, bending down with terrible cramps in her stomach, voiding herself in gasping heaves. When it was over she was weak. She sat down on the sand and let her hand trail in the dampness as her head moved helplessly from side to side. She was a wounded animal, not bleeding, but torn asunder inside. She did not have the strength to flee the ominous figure which was outlined against the distant fires, making its way toward her.
"Pat?" Coming near.
"Pat?" It was the voice of all evil.
"You've been crying, dear." Kneeling beside her, soft hands, body warmth, evil.
Ellen was carrying a towel. She went to the surf, wet the cloth and swabbed Pat's face. Pat sat woodenly, lost.
"You're tearing yourself apart," Ellen softly. "It isn't worth it, you know." She spread the towel. "Here, sit on this."
Pat obeyed meekly, her mind retreating from the dark places. She told herself that it would not happen again.
But warm arms were around her, pulling her against softness. It was there, all that she hated, dark, outside of normalcy, evil. But she let her head be pushed down onto a comforting shoulder. She felt little, soft pats on her back as she let the sobs come. She was dry, heaving in anguish, but tearless.
"Baby, baby, don't fight it so."
A hand stroking her back, warm on bare flesh. Evil. Dirt and filth and sordidness.
"Now, now. Honey, it's no use. Don't take it so hard. Look, look at me."
Eyes filled with concern, a set of full lips gleaming moistly in the moonlight. A tender arm around her. Her own body shaking.
"Please don't. Please don't do that." That seductive voice in her ears. "It isn't all so terrible, darling. Believe me, it isn't terrible at all. It's wonderful, Pat. It's a new freedom. It's finding yourself at long last in a world which doesn't give a damn, a world concerned with power and lust and making babies. That's not for us, darling. We need love and tenderness and care. I can help you, darling, if you'll let me."
Pat couldn't speak. She was frozen in the circle of the seductive arms.
"Are you hearing what I say?"
She nodded.
A soft kiss, warm, wet, beautifully tender.
She couldn't speak because she did like that kiss. She felt sheltered and loved and she felt her body begin to respond when Ellen kissed her again.
"That's more like it, darling. Now listen, I know this has been rough on you. I know how hard you're fighting it, because I fought it myself. And, darling, when I quit fighting it and admitted it, that was the most wonderful moment in my life. It wiped out years of frustration, of looking for something. I found what I wanted. I have what I want right here in my arms. I want you, lover. I want you so terribly. I'll help you. I'D make living wonderful for you if you'll only let me."
Lips and wet-warmth and loving arms and a hint of peace, all in Ellen's embrace.
"Will you let me love you, darling? Will you let me help you?"
"Yes."
She said it faintly, almost inaudibly. She tried not to say it, but she couldn't stop the simple, deadly little word.
"Darling!"
A flashing warm tongue seeking wetness in her mouth. Her body coming to life, feeling itself open, begging for love. She had found it, at last.
Ellen said, Tm going to the room. I have the third one from the north end of the motel. My roommates will be out most of the night so we'll be alone. We have a lot to talk about, darling. I'll go first. You follow me in about five minutes, all right?"
"Yes."
"Please hurry, darling." That burning kiss, a quick touch to her rounded breasts, a little smack as lips parted and the evil rose in tall grace and faded into the darkness up the beach.
She sat, unmoving, for long minutes. The need in her body faded and she was lonely on the deserted beach. She was alone in spite of dozens of people within a hundred yards. The group was congregated around the fires just a short distance away but she was alone and more helpless than she had ever been in her life, caught up in the thing she feared most.
She was not fully sane when she stood stiffly and walked slowly into the dark sea. She was, she told herself, going to meet evil and conquer it through her strength, and the battlefield was not to be the comfortable motel room where Ellen awaited her, but the black spread of water which went on and on toward the dark night horizon. The sea reflected the beams of the moon. It was overspread by velvet black, star-punctuated sky. There, in the sea, she would wash away the evil.
The water came to her ankles as a dying wave reached up the strand and then she was knee deep then waist deep and the swell of a wave lifted her and she was swimming, long, easy, reaching strokes. She was an excellent swimmer. She could out-swim all four of her brothers. She could lick any kid her size arid she could put on a lacy dress and brush her hair and apply lipstick and eye make-up and be as pretty as any girl in town because she was, truly, a girl. Her breasts were sensitive and she loved being kissed by a boy. She liked it because she was a girl, and girls were supposed to like being kissed by boys. Boys made her terribly hot. She gave herself to boys because she was terribly passionate, not because by saying no, she would be denying her femininity. She didn't give her body to boys to prove that she was a woman. She liked sex. She was terribly passionate, a man's woman and the evil would be washed away in long, clean strokes through a moonlight sea because out there somewhere was a place where she could be alone, be left alone, escape from the evil of Ellen's soft, wonderful arms. When she thought of Ellen waiting for her, nude on the motel bed, lovely, warm, she swam harder, because she kept thinking of Ellen's warm breasts and hot mouth. Ellen, so aggressive and so willing.
Sanity returned in a brilliant flash of fear. She was so very far from the shore! She was alone, desperately alone on the broad, endless bosom of the ocean. The little waves lifted her, filled her eyes and mouth with salt. She imagined monsters lurking in the darkness below and drew her feet up away from their threatening teeth.
"Easy, girl." She talked to herself. She turned and looked for the dark shoreline from a crest. It was distant, but reachable.
She told herself calmly that she could do it. She started stroking for the distant shore, resting occasionally by floating on her back. There was no excuse for anyone drowning in the ocean. Salt water was so buoyant that anyone, especially a girl with her air filled body cavities, could float indefinitely. She did not want to die. She had never wanted to die. There was too much to do in the world, too much to see and experience.
She was no longer slightly drunk. The water, the exertion, the fear, had cleared her head. She no longer felt that charmed passion for the body of a woman. She was clean.
She was so happy that she laughed aloud.
A wave filled her mouth with bitter salt water and she gasped. There was an obstruction in her windpipe. She tried to gasp in air, her lungs fighting, drawing in her chest in painful spasms. She made a strange, choking, croaking sound against the water which blocked her breathing, and fear was a red haze which came with startling swiftness. She could see the dark line of trees behind the strand. The red haze was turning to blackness when she took air through the obstruction and coughed in painful spasms. She could still make it. She could make it in one last burst of speed. She flailed at the water powerfully, but the dark line of trees which was safety came no nearer.
In the motel, Ellen hurriedly ran water in the tub and bathed quickly in scented, hot, steamy luxury. She rinsed in cold water, rubbed herself briskly with a towel, applied a touch of perfume. She stretched out on the bed, one dim light burning, the door unlocked. Her breasts rose in rhythmic, rapid cadence as she took loving inventory of the sun-tanned body of the girl who would be coming through the door at any moment. It would be so lovely, getting to know Pat Emory intimately, being lovers for a long time. She willed Pat to hurry, so that the wonderful night could begin.
She waited.. . .
Ernie Harper was making out with the freshman blonde. He took her for a long walk and felt the warm wonder of her breasts as she cuddled into his arms and moved her hips delightfully against his hardness. It was going to be a fine night. Back from the walk, he found himself to be in good voice and the night was young. The cats were swingin', singing along with him. He felt good.
When the tall girl named Ellen came to his group and asked if anyone had seen Pat Emory, he shook his head without stopping his song. The girl went away down the beach.
Ernie hadn't seen Pat. He also hadn't seen Tina or Jean or David or Tom Jack. He guessed that Tina had found entertainment from other sources by this time. He shrugged mentally. Jean and David were probably still in their isolation, teasing themselves with their newfound happiness.
As for Tom Jack, the big stud was out of circulation somewhere. He'd had to break up a potential fight between Tom Jack and another stud earlier in the evening. Tom Jack had made a pass at the stud's drag in such a raw way that it couldn't be overlooked, no matter how big Tom Jack was. Ernie guessed that Tom Jack had passed out somewhere. He had slept on the beach the night before so it wouldn't hurt him to do it again. Let him sleep it off. Ernie didn't like trouble. That was the one thing he had against Tom Jack. He was always looking for trouble.
Ernie didn't think he'd ask Tom Jack to make the next big deal at the beach. Too much sweat keeping Tom Jack straight.