Chapter 5
Thinking about Paul Moran proved to be a stimulating experience for Evette. She was surprised by the passion of her memory. She had to do something about it.
She walked through the house, looking for something to spark her sexuality. She found it in the kitchen. She picked up the ripe banana and smiled.
"Just the right size," Evette said aloud. She walked to her bedroom, stripping off her clothing as she went. She didn't bother closing the door behind her. Privacy was not a big thing with Evette.
Evette settled herself on the bed and gently fingered her demanding body. She loved to excite her self-there was something about doing it by herself that she could never get from a man. There was a hidden side to her pleasure, but she was unable to put it into words.
She cupped her full breasts in her hands and lifted them, then bent her head down, licking each nipple in turn. She tasted good to herself, salty and fresh. She shivered with pleasure when she remembered how many men had had their lips in the same spot.
She picked up the banana.
Evette stretched out her legs, loving the smooth, creamy look of them. She pinched herself, delighting in the pain. She was aroused and she felt herself, wet and hot. Then she licked the end of the banana, lubricating it nicely.
She gasped when she inserted the yellow fruit-it was larger than it looked. Almost as big as Paul Moran, she thought, and then giggled.
Evette knew how touchy men were about their sex. How would they feel if they knew they could be replaced this easily, she thought.
She had inserted about half of the banana's length, and already her pleasure had begun. She cupped her breasts again, leaving the banana wedged in place.
Her hips were churning, pulling in the banana by sheer muscular power. She smiled-men had told her how unusual she was, how talented with her sex.
She practiced hard.
Her breathing was ragged, and Evette felt perspiration break out on her forehead. It was the beginning of a powerful orgasm, and she tried to bring it on as quickly as possible.
With one move she pushed the banana all the way in, delighting in the way it stretched out totally. Then she grabbed the end and began jabbing herself, slowly at first, then quicker and quicker as her orgasm filled her being with hot, wet pleasure.
Evette withdrew the fruit, tossed it on the floor, and turned over onto her side. She slept lightly, warm from the sunlight that poured into the room.
While she slept, Evette dreamt of other men, former lovers, strangers, and friends, and when she awoke-fresh and red-cheeked-she knew that she had to find someone.
But who would it be?
Peter Wilson worked on a model airplane in his room. At eighteen, he was too old to be building model airplanes, but it was one of the few things Peter knew that relaxed him. It was something he had learned how to do earlier than other children, when he was six, and he was still practicing the art well beyond the time other young people had outgrown it.
He was working on a Fokker, a triplane. He was the only person he had ever known who could do a good job on such a dated aircraft as a triplane, what with the jet age and space age encompassing the world, but Peter had very quick and talented fingers with balsa wood. Peter had a delicate touch and, if he had been more intellectual or more inclined to bigger things, might have been an artist. But he was too involved in himself to be truly creative. Through quickness he could be an efficient artisan but he could never be an artist.
Peter knew this and hated himself because of it. He knew he was a failure and, when any man is intelligent enough to realize this, he reaches a certain impasse in his life. Where can you go when you know there is no place to go?
Peter was unhappy. He was a better-than-average student and could have been a very fine one if he had so desired; but this would have proved nothing as it always proved nothing. The hurdler who could win the one-twenty highs by ten yards but who wanted to be a physician and couldn't pass Biology I in J.C. would have known a little how Peter felt. But there would have been a difference even here; Peter had a high intelligence signifying nothing, whereas the hurdler had great form signifying, too, nothing ... if what you wanted was a particular objective not included within your realm of possibilities. If either had had a fine left hook and had wanted to be a fighter for pay, there would have been no problem. But neither could punch worth a damn. They would have been screw-ups under the articles of the Great American Dream. An important American, like Davy Crockett or Abraham Lincoln, had a special that fit the particular situation; otherwise they would have been Peter Wilsons or the unknown hurdler who wanted to be a physician. Without a little luck, the most famous man of all time would have been another screw-up.
Ability, standing alone by itself without other elements, is completely worthless.
This was not a new truth to Peter Wilson; he had known it ever since he was nine years old.
Peter's mind wandered as his hands touched the nearly finished Fokker. Usually his thoughts could remain completely blank while he built the model airplanes, but lately, the last month or two, he had not been able to have this solace. It was-seven weeks ago?-when Evette began to pay attention to him. He should have remembered the exact day, and probably did somewhere in his subconscious, but he would not allow himself to remember exactly. Evette Warwick was evil; she was a girl with a dirty mind who talked about things and did things that weren't right or just.
She had started a conversation with him in the library one afternoon; she was looking for a reference book in regard to Recent European History, a class which they both attended. He showed her where the book was in the stacks and, as he turned away, her hand came out quickly and touched him. A shock drilled through his weak, slightly soft body; he did not immediately realize what had happened.-He felt her hand and, seconds later, understood. He pulled away quickly and bumped back against a huge case of books. They were alone here between two long and high bookcases and far removed from the main desk, where the old-maid librarian sat with her pince-nez glasses and stamped library cards and collected three-cent fines when the books were returned late.
Evette moved to him and brought her arms around him. Her soft breasts pressed against the front of his white shirt as she brought her lips to him, kissing him; and he did not know what to do when her mouth opened against his closed lips.
But he did not retreat further from her. His arms went around her shoulders clumsily and his hands pressed hard against her flesh.
Her hand touched him again in a hurried second. Then she pulled away from him quickly, hopping backward three paces down the narrow aisle between the two big bookcases.
"Why, Peter Wilson," she cried. "You're nasty. I ought to tell the librarian."
"Wait, I-"
"Now, Peter," Evette said, backing up, still facing him. "Don't get hot-under the collar or anything. Peter, I'm surprised at you."
His face burned a harsh red and he felt the heat that perpetrated itself across his appearance. He clenched and unclenched his hands.
"Pete, you're the real billy goat of the campus," Evette said, "King billy goat."
"You're a bitch," Peter cried. "Whore. Harri-"
"Yea, but you'd like to have a little of it, wouldn't you, Wilson old man?"
Peter bit his underlip and did not answer.
There was a thud as one of the library monitors dropped books onto a cart near them, and Evette pulled back another step and darted away.
Peter stood by himself, silent and ashamed. He hadn't ever known any girls, not really known them, outside of having to dance with them when he was younger and had attended dancing school because his mother forced him. He had known his cousin from San Francisco a little when they were growing up, but he had never considered her a girl, but a relative, and he had not seen her for a long time now. Whenever her parents came down to Thornton on a Sunday she always had a date and didn't come with them.
Peter Wilson had enjoyed the brush with Evette, although he was not ready to admit it. She had made his body react; it had never reacted to a girl before. There had been reactions to dreams, many of them, but never to a live, attractive girl like Evette Warwick.
Phlegm formed in his throat and he did not actually understand the situation. He felt cheap and dirty on the one hand; on the other, he was excited and exhilarated. It was wrong, what she had done, but he wished she had not run away, but done it over and over again.
Peter Wilson needed, needed, needed.
When he was a little boy trying to grow up, the other boys made fun of him and called him a sissy because he wasn't any good at anything; he couldn't climb trees, couldn't fight, couldn't run very fast, and wasn't any good at baseball. One time they tied a bonnet around his head and dragged him down Elm Street, parading him in front of anyone who wanted to watch. He hadn't been strong enough to escape them and no one, not even the adults who passed, had offered him any assistance. Everybody thought it was funny.
Peter never forget that. He still remembered the ones who had done it to him, even though they had probably forgotten.
He opened the drawer of the desk, forgetting Evette for a moment, and looked at the target pistol his father had given him for his fourteenth birthday four years ago. His father had wanted to encourage him in a manly sport and had been greatly surprised when Peter took the weapon immediately and began going regularly with him to the range to shoot. On many Sundays Peter had asked his father specially to go to the range, and the man had been delighted.
His father had not known or understood that Peter wanted to pay back some playmates from a long time ago for a bonnet tied around his head. Even when Peter missed he always smiled after firing the target pistol, and he would hold the weapon up to his face and smell the burned powder.
"Born to steel," his father boasted one afternoon in the bar to his friends.
The men looked at Peter, a little mystified.
"I'd like to kill," Peter had said.
This took them off guard, and a look of horror came over three of them.
"In a war," Peter said. "I'd like to fight for my country in a war."
They all smiled at that and had another drink with Henry Wilson, Peter's father. The boy had some spunk and drive in him even though, and they never said this, he didn't look it.
Peter picked up the automatic target pistol in his hands and fondled it as he had the model Fokker earlier. He was almost as close to the gun as he had always been with his model planes. It was a sanctuary for him, being with it and near it; it was almost as close to him as if he had had a trunk full of earth to supply his grave with sacred soil.
What if he held the pistol against Evette Warwick's head? What if? She wouldn't run away then; she would stay.
But that was ridiculous.
He dropped the pistol to the top of the desk. He fired it on the range, nowhere else. If he had wanted to use it personally, he would have used it on one of those boys who dragged him down the street in the bonnet; and he had not.
He would never point it at Evette.
But what he did not comprehend, as none did yet really, was that:
Someone was going to kill Evette Warwick.