Chapter 1

THEY PICKED UP THE TWO GIRLS ON MERRICK AVENUE.

It was no difficult pickup. The girls were ripe, they were cruising also. They were tarts, teasing and juicy, there was no sweat on any score.

At least so Gil and Arnie saw it.

Sure, the kids were young jailbait stuff but that didn't matter to Gil and Arnie. They'd promoted under-age cooze before, such held no terror for them.

Arnie Caves nudged Gil Brewster. "What d'ya say, pal?"

"They look prime to me," Gil leered. "Especially that redhead. Dig those big, baby blues. Talk about innocent! She's just askin' for it."

The pickup lingo was glib, practiced, disarming, the two men working as a precise team, high-pressuring the girls with a subliminal skill neither could resist. After all, they were kids, Vesper just sixteen, Dawn an experienced, worldly wise seventeen.

The line goes: "like shooting fish in a barrel."

There was a penny-arcade over on River Street, would the girls like to shoot a few games? They'd pop, blow 'em to burgers and Cokes afterward. The girls would. And before they knew it, they'd paired off, Dawn with Arnie, Vesper with Gil, the cutting-out done with effortless ease, neither girl having anything at all to do with the choosing.

There was something about those guys-

Within a half-hour the boys had won their confidence, they were laughing and talking like they'd been friends for a long time. Another ten minutes and the fleeting touches, the innuendo, the-leaning-over-the-shoulder-as-the-girls-played-ski-bowl, the sly working-of-the-hip-and-pelvis-against-those-sassy-backsides began.

And where the girls getting talked out of the burgers happened, neither could quite say. All of a sudden the lunch seemed pass', very kiddish and smalltime indeed. They were all having such a wonderful time this balmy May evening, it was only 10:30, it would be a terrible shame to let their fun die on the vine. Just when things were really beginning to swing.

"You don't want any Coke, girls," Gil coaxed. Coke's for kids." He dangled irresistible lure, that curiosity about the forbidden that rides roughshod over the adolescent mind. Why don't we go up to our place? Arnie and I've got some booze. Beer, wine, whiskey ... you call it, we got it. How about it? We'll tip a few, dance a little, you girls can fix some eats...."

Vesper was reluctant, she knew her mother would return at one, she knew she'd get a skinning if she didn't beat her home to their grubby, Murchison Street flat. She'd heard wild stories about things like this, she'd heard that men took advantage of girls once they got them alone in their pads. And her saucy, tart-like appearance to the contrary those skintight slacks, that clinging black sweater that did marvelous things to her just-bursting breasts Vesper hadn't ever gone all the way with a man, she still held such in distinct terror.

But Dawn persisted. "C'mon," she wheedled, drawing Vesper apart from the men, "they won't hurt you. I can get you out of any jam. They won't pull anything fresh, I'll see to that. It'll be a blast. Damn it, Vesper, you wanna be a kid all your life?"

That last taunt did it. And her heart hammering excitedly, that dark curiosity churning her guts, Vesper decided. "Okay," she said, her large, round eyes narrowing speculatively, those lush, dark brows plunging into a fleeting frown, "I'll go along. But no dirty stuff, understand? I gotta be home by one, don't forget that."

The boys' pad was located two blocks over, on Trent Street. For as the girls were guided past the row of dark, shuttered, burglar-screened shops, went past a pawn shop, were turned into a dark, brooding alley, they became suddenly apprehensive.

"Hey," Dawn froze, fought against Arnie, "this don't look so good. What kind of games you guys playing?"

"Unlax, baby doll," he assured her. "This may look like low-rent district to you, but wait'll you see the layout. We got our reasons...."

What those reasons were, he didn't bother to go into. The boys guided the girls into the murky recesses of the alley, the hard-leather heels of their flats clicked on the irregular terrain of paving-bricks. Then a door latch clicked ahead of them, fear climbed in their throats as they climbed some decrepit, wooden steps in pitch blackness. Vesper trembled, she was possessed of the strongest impulse to scream, to squirm and wheel, to escape this rapidly deteriorating situation.

"Easy does it," Gil soothed, his hand gentle yet firm on her arm, guiding her upward inexorably. "Just wait'll you see our digs. You won't believe this, honey...."

Then they were in a dark hall, moving toward an unseen door. Again a key clicked, the door swung open, Vesper felt her feet sink into thick, soft carpeting, she caught odor of stale cigarette smoke, new furniture, still-curing paint. It was an undefinable, distinctive recognition, she was lulled.

"We just moved in a couple weeks ago," Arnie announced proudly as the lights flared to life, illuminated the apartment. "Had everything done special.

All new."

Dawn and Vesper stood in awed silence. This luxury, this beautifully appointed room? In the midst of the Trent Street squalor, up a reeking, filthy alley? 'Hey," Dawn purred, "you weren't kidding, were you? Neat-oh, Arnie. Man, you guys must be in the chips."

The room was small but neat, a coziness pervading that the girls found extremely reassuring. Their minds holding this comparative sumptuousness up against their own down-at-the-heels environment, they felt a quick yearning in their hearts, they wanted to remain in these surroundings very much. Neither of them knew the significance of a Shangri-La, but if they had-

This would have come close.

"I like," Vesper said, taking in the modernistic, segmented-cushion davenport, the hanging, Danish-designed light over the piece. "This I like. Very much." She refrained Dawn. "Oh, neat, neat...."

The boys preened smugly, let the girls take in the pad, sent each other quick glances. Garish, bargain basement as most of the pieces were, tasteless in a connoisseur's eyes as the apartment might be, to these innocents (the concept of having everything new, of living in a furniture salon display dazzling them) it was heaven on earth.

Immediately as women from age six to sixty invariably will their avarice came to the fore. These guys-maybe they should get to know them better. Much better.

Gil led Vesper to the davenport, sat her down.

"Relax, honey," he smirked down at her, "Well get this show on the road." He turned to a glittering, multi-knobbed, portable stereo set that sat on a low, walnut table. "I'll get the music going, Arnie'll take drink orders." Gil was obviously older than Arnie-perhaps he was in apparent charge.

The rig was one Vesper would have given her right arm to own, and she stared at it covetously. "What do you dig, Vesper?" Gil said. "Beatles, Byrds, Dylan . . .We got 'em all."

"The Byrds would be nice," she said in a flawed tone.

"Byrds it is." He chose the record, put it on, adjusted the volume. "The drinks, Arnie. See what they want."

"What they want, hell," Arnie grunted. "I'm choosin'. Specialty of the house." Then he turned, went into the adjoining kitchen. Even as the lights came on, Vesper was further amazed as she saw glittering chrome and stainless steel, the appliances done in a robin's-egg blue shade.

"What...." she turned to Gil, "do you and Arnie do? I mean ... all this must take lots of money."

Gil paused the briefest moment before answering, his smile became sly. "We're in business," he evaded, "we're independent, sort of on our own." And to further distract, he stood, pulled Vesper up. "This I dig," he said. "Dance with me, Vesper."

And while the tune, Turn, Turn, Turn wasn't a very danceable, she did her best, danced slowly and self-consciously with him, kept the prescribed distance between them, somnolently executed the jerks and grinds and bobs that pass for dancing nowadays.

But then, as Arnie emerged with a small tray holding four pretty stemware glasses, the party shortly livened up. "What are these?" Vesper asked, taking an experimental sip of her drink, wondering at the velvet glide of the liquor down her gullet, the instant warmth and ease it induced within her.

"Manhattans," Amie smiled, putting his arm round Dawn, slowly drawing her closer to him. "Nice? That the first you ever had? I make 'em with rum. Smoothest drink in town." He didn't bother to add that for a novice drinker, a mere kid, it was also one of the most lethal.

"Good," Dawn said. "Tastes sweet and nice." She giggled. "Is it safe?"

"Just like cherry pop," Arnie said. "Never hurt you."

Things happened very swiftly after that. Vesper quickly found herself loosening up, she enjoyed the dancing very much. And her exertions working the liquor quickly into her system, she drank her first cocktail much too fast. One drink (of course) deserved another.

Arnie was quick to fill the empty glass she held out.

Now the dancing became wilder, even more intimate, Vesper minding not at all that Gil held her close now, often didn't release her for minutes at a stretch. The girls didn't notice the boys taking turns at the dimmer switch, gradually darkening the room, the mood more exotic by the minute.

It seemed the most natural thing in the world for the tall, slender, dark-haired Gil Brewster to raise Vesper's lips, kiss her lingeringly. She didn't mind at all when the kissing continued, became more and more passionate. She actually shivered as his hands came down, cupped the vibrant globes of her buttocks through those second-skin slacks, squeezed and rolled them. Especially since she now worked on another Manhattan (her third). She found the drink near addictive. It rendered her helpless, delivered her into a dreamy, muzzy never-never land from which she never wanted to return.

"I feel so good," she chanted repeatedly, "I feel so good."

"A thing like this can't 'be wrong, it can't be wrong. Oooh, Gil! Kiss me like that again. Those feelings! So wild, so hot. I feel like I'm on fire inside, like someone's twisting me up in there. Gil, Gil-"

By then, whether she knew it or not, Vesper had passed the point of no return. The music still played, but she and Gil had long ago stopped dancing. They stood in the center of the murky room, their mouths jammed, their lips grinding, their tongues flicking, their bellies clamped together. A fiery compulsion possessed Vesper, made her wild, made her want to work herself closer, closer to him. It was a sensation she'd never known before; it was almost as if she wanted to consume him, as if she wanted him in her own body.

Primal, maddening, it was an ageless, elemental urge. And though Vesper didn't recognize it for what it was, she capitulated to its drive just as women have been capitulating since the beginning of time.

She broke the kiss momentarily, felt a hacking sense of loss, looked around for Dawn, wasn't the least bit chagrined to see the doll-like brunette sprawled on the davenport with Arnie, her sweater partially pulled up to reveal that heaving whiteness of her diaphragm. Even as she watched Arnie run the zipper on the side of Dawn's slacks, she felt no alarm, no fear. It was last call.

Only Vesper was too far gone to recognize it.

That hot yearning grew, threatened to immolate her. She fought herself back to Gil's lips, actually nipped them, actually clenched her legs together in a betraying spasm. She sighed, limply let Gil lead her toward a large, leather-upholstered double-lounge. Then they were sprawled upon it, they were together again, their mouths glued, their bodies bunting, squirming.

This wild, uncontrollable need! She groaned as they slammed their mouths together. This fire, this craziness, she thought. What is it? Why don't I care, why can't I wait, why can't I think? Now, oh now, Gil Yes. Kiss, oh kisss! A pained, thin whimper broke from her.

Gil Brewster recognized the cue, and moved in accordingly. "Vesper, baby," he groaned into her ear, letting the tip of his tongue probe that pearly orifice, causing Vesper to squirm, to suck in her breath loudly, "my sweet, little baby. A regular little fireball. Where'd you ever get a name like that? Vesper?"

She giggled, tried to fight her lips to his anew.

"My mother gave it to me. Used to be my grandmother's name. It's a drag, I hate it. So old-fashioned...."

"Pretty, pretty," Gil muttered, kissing her eyes, letting his tongue drift to her other ear. "Vesper, Vesper. Vesper sparrow. Oh, that's nice. Sparrow, my sweet, little sparrow...." His tongue became even wilder.

Vesper squirmed more frantically, forgot to wonder at this insane, delicious ache deep within her body. She only gave in to it, she enjoyed it, she wallowed in the sensation. The liquor making her totally irresponsible, totally vulnerable to carnal appetites, she glanced across the room, saw that Arnie had removed Dawn's sweater and slacks. Dazedly, she watched as Dawn jittered her plump buttocks on the davenport, her white flesh contrasting starkly against her black panties, her black brassiere.

Now the slacks went sailing, Arnie went over Dawn, expertly stripped off her brassiere, flung it aside. Immediately his head dropped, his lips affixed themselves to her rigid nipples, they plucked and worked at them. Dawn's buttocks writhed even more frenziedly, she drummed her heels on the upholstery. Vesper felt like someone had driven a red-hot dagger deep into her belly, was twisting it there. She jittered, felt all crazy.

"Oh, Gil," she choked. "Do that to me. What he's doing to Dawn. Please, please...."

"You little mink," Gil chuckled smugly. "You are with it, ain't you?" His hands slid inside her sweater, closed on her small breasts, made Vesper hiss with impatient delight. "Sparrow, my sweet, hot sparrow." He laughed again, the sound more arrogant, somehow ugly.

"Sure, I'll do you like Dawn. I'll do you even better.

Easy does it. There's time, there's plenty of time. Jeez, the body on you, Sparrow. The boobs on you, these hard little raisins." His fingers pinched the nipples. "They want old Gil, don't they? They want him."

Vesper was lust-dominated then. "They do, darling," she groaned. "They want you. Oh, pinch them, play with them. Whatever you want to do." Her body spasmed, she tensed her legs, raised her rear off the chaise. "Take my bra off!" Her words emerged in a growl. "Do me like Dawn!"

Gil groaned, knew grinding amazement. He'd seen some hot-tailed kids in his time. But this Sparrow number Instantly his hands were at her body, he was pulling up the black sweater, revealing the white, shimmering nylon of her brassiere. The sweater was torn away, he began on her shoes, her slacks. A cold current of air swept Vesper, momentarily alerted her, tensed her. But the panic was instantly chased as Gil returned, kissed her, slid his hot hands along her inner thighs. Involuntarily she clenched her legs shut, caught his briefly.

Chucklingly, he escaped her, his hands came around her back, deftly undid the snaps there. The bra whispered in relief, sprang away. Vesper eagerly lifted her arms, let him sweep it away, felt no shame at all as he looked down at her small breasts, his eyes, the air tweaking her nipples, making them distend, resemble smooth, shiny, miniature volcanoes, the aureoles engorged, impatient.

"Sparrow," he gloated, "you ever-lovin' sparrow.

You got some of those. Here, let daddy at 'em." Instantly his head dropped, he let his lips close on first one rose tip, then another. His tongue darted and rippled and spun about each of them, his lips compressed and tugged at them gently.

Vesper jittered more agitatedly on the lounge, she loosed a piteous whimper, gave herself totally to sensation, to the fantastic adoration. She felt like her breasts were swelling, like they were on fire, like they would explode at any moment. Seemingly he inserted darts of fire into her flesh with each stab of his tongue.

"Gil, Gil...." she intoned. "Oh, good, so good...." Oooh, oooh ... Don't stop, never stop." She sank into even deeper frenzy.

Thus she barely spasmed, she readily flung herself open to him as his hand slid down her hips, fled across her belly, clutched that humid, crisp promontory there, as it closed and roiled.

Vesper was transformed, transfigured, transported. There was no tomorrow, no yesterday; no practical contingency of nowness could intrude. There was only this clawing, incandescent lust, there was only the instinctive drive to culmination. And even though she didn't know exactly what form that completion would take, she knew she wanted it, she delivered herself to pure instinct, knew things would somehow take care of themselves.

And failing in that-

Gil certainly knew what he was about.

His hand felt glorious there, his lips seemingly set licking flames of fire along her body. She gasped, shifted her feet, flung her head back and forth in heedless fever. Her eyes rolled up in her head, vision came and went. Once she focused on Arnie and Dawn on the davenport across, she saw that Arnie was naked now, that he was atop Dawn, his body plunging between her greedy, scissoring thighs. She heard Dawn's glutinous cried, her stertorous encouragements.

The scene set a hot poker to Vesper's flesh.

And though her sexual experience thus far had consisted only of fighting off some of the sexually precocious boys in her block, fighting off a dirty-minded little brother in the bargain, Vesper knew what was going on between Dawn and Arnie, she knew the mechanics of the sexual act. The accompanying passion storm, however, was something new to her, she'd always wondered how people could work themselves into so wild a state as to permit, let alone enjoy, the intimacies of sexual congress.

There had been that boy a year or so ago Tom, was that his name? whom she'd liked, whom she'd allowed, on a dark night, on the front stoop of their tenement building, to kiss her at length. And who, before they were through, she'd let play with her breasts. There had been a midget approximation of sensation then, but nothing like what she experienced now.

Tom, eventually, had got carried away, had tried to get his hand beneath her skirts, she'd had to fight him off, get rough at the end. So much for Vesper's first, vestigial awakenings to the sex urge.

The thoughts were chased now, Vesper started, sighed as Gil's hand invaded her white, nylon panties themselves. And as that strumming finger found her, as that excruciating sensation was induced, all fear of pain, of other consequences, was gone. There was only swaggering, bullying lust, there was only that overpowering curiosity. She had to know! She'd endure anything to know! "Please, darling," she hissed. "Oh soon, now!"

But Gil Brewster, chaotic though his own lust might have been, had no intention of hurrying. Sensing that he'd caught himself a rare, nearly extinct bird a virgin he thought to draw the session out, milk it of every possible sensation. Thus he smiled strangely, sat up, began working the pristine, practical panties down her legs.

For a long time he sat over Vesper, brushing her hands away as she sought to drag him back to her, he appraised that elegant, tempestuous body at great length, he took her in from the tips of her pretty toes to the top of her touseled, red head. Vesper was a budding specimen, tallish as girls go, her body still boyish, but filling out quickly, giving lush promise of erotic delights to come.

Her hips were wide, her thighs thin, her waist flared to mouth-watering suppleness, her shoulders and throat were fine, sloping in patrician grace. Those breasts, each a perfect handful, were essence of female beauty. And now, as those unique tips knurled anew, they were that much more alluring. His hands rumpled that coppery tangle playfully, swept up lightly over her pulsing tummy.

"You hot-pants," he growled, standing, beginning to shuck off his own clothes, "you're really hurting, ain't you?"

Then he was naked. He stood over Vesper, leered smugly as he saw fear possess her face as she took in his stunning arousal. There were times when he wondered which he really enjoyed most: the expression on the gal's yap when she saw him, or the taste of her, the sound of her sighs when he presented this massive gift to her.

A shudder took him, he moved toward her. And if this little tramp is cherry, like I think she is I'm really going to make her whimper.

There was a final moment of reticence, near terror for Vesper. As the man came closer, gave her better view. But the lust overrode, she didn't care what he did, how much he hurt her. She had to have him, she'd gone too far to turn back now!

Then he was on the bed, there was a crisp crackle, he was attending to a final nicety. And even though Vesper knew what it was: "What, Gil...." she quaked. "What are you...? "

"I'm fixing it so you don't catch any babies," he chuckled. "You wouldn't want that, would you? You'd be no good to me at all if you got P.G."

"No...." she murmured stupidly. "I wouldn't want that."

Then he was beside her again, gathering her, kissing her, his hands and fingers taking gross liberties with her most intimate self, igniting those devil fires anew. Vesper surged, groaned, splayed her legs, steepled her knees. His lips pounced upon her aching nipples anew.

And finally, his guttural chuckles overloud in her ears: Vesper's breath seared her throat, her pulse banged in her ears. She froze, lay stone still in near supplicant's pose, her hands limp at her side, palms up, the fingers slightly curled. She gasped as his knees came between hers, as they slid, adjusted, further stretched her.

Now, with painstaking slowness, lowering himself inch by inch, his voice soft, reassuring, gentling her: "Easy does it, baby. Don't be afraid, I'll be good to you. You'll like this, once you get used to it. Easy, easy...." He paused. "Here, give me your hand. like this. That's right. If this's your first time...."

"It is," Vesper sighed, her heart now suddenly bloating in her chest as her hand tightened, guided, assessed. "It is. I'm afraid...."

"Sparrow," he said, an alien gentleness in his tone, "don't be afraid. Every woman's got to go through this once. Re thankful your first one's with a man, a real man. Easy...."

She tried to forestall him at the last moment, she attempted to claw him away, terror paralyzing her, but he was too strong, too determined. She felt that first maddening touch, that pressure. With a sharp, contemptuous move, he flung her hand from him. And then-

Vesper put her hand to her mouth, she stuffed the back of it tight to her teeth, clamped down. Tears flooded her eyes, she fought to choke back a wail. Her whole body was on fire, blistering heat and pain was seemingly touched to every nerve cell in her body, she actually heard a strident creaking in her head. She gasped, sobbed, chewed harder on her hand.

And then it was over, that initial pain dulled somewhat, a different, more transcending pain began to build deep within her. Pain that was not pain, but was urgency, wildness, she shriek of a hundred banshees all at once. She was suffused with pride. That she was a woman at last, woman enough for this masterful man! Deeper, still deeper he attempted to bury himself. Vesper knew a transfiguring sense of rightness, of purpose, a soul-wrenching self-satisfaction.

"Oh!" she sighed, an edge of anguish to her voice, "oh, oh! I never dreamed ... a man would feel like that. That I could actually want...."

Brewster snickered arrogantly. "You want, baby," he gritted, "and you're gonna get. Are you ever gonna get...."

Then he began to move.

Gradually the pain diminished, became negligible, the former lust and ecstasy built up anew. And Vesper found her arms circling his back, her thighs clamping his flanks, she found herself actually rising and grinding to meet him, to intensify that scalding, fantastic heat.

Her breath came in great, shattery gasps, it seemed became oblivious to everything. To her pantings, to Gil's continuing chuckles and encouragements, to the sounds coming from across the room where Dawn and Arnie had finished, were starting afresh.

Now her entrails were knotted into a thousand knots, they were being pulled tighter, still tighter. "God, oh God!" she barked. As now a hundred tons of molten slut were poured over her. As a screaming welter of voices, an ecstatic ahorus swelled within her head. Vesper groaned, choked, coughed, let her body go crazy, became a total fanatic in pursuit of continued ecstasies.

"Darling, darling, darling...." she chanted in senseless refrain.

As now a virtual shower of Roman candles began going off in her head, painting that midnight screen of her mind with slow, lazy starbursts, each extension composed of millions of minor starbursts. The explosions continued, one atop the other, until it seemed that sky could accommodate no more.

But then they became watery, they faded like snowflakes, there was only that darkness, that terrifying darkness.

Not understanding at all, that appalling fear seemingly pulverizing her very bones, Vesper began to sob.

She clawed herself to this stranger, she dug her face into his hard shoulder, she chewed his flesh, spat desperate sobs against wall of skin and muscle.