Chapter 4
Lesson Two: Sex With a Belt!
Tony couldn't take his thoughts off the naked nymph on the rock in the lagoon. She was like a seductive love goddess in a dream, vanishing just as you reach out to fondle her glorious body.
Tony and Dobber stamped the sand from their feet and entered their apartment. Dobber was still clutching the packet of heroin as if it were a bag of precious stones. He was breathing hard, an expression of perverted anticipation on his pinched, parrot face. It was as though he was about to enter the bed chambers of a waiting mistress.
Tony walked past the closed door to Race and Margo's apartment. There was a shaft of light under the door, and Tony could hear the blaring noise of a TV set.
Dobber rummaged through several bureau drawers, then found what he was looking for a soft drink bottle cap. Hands trembling, he took out a pocket knife and pried the cork lining out of the cap and threw it away.
Tony had watched Dobber cook his heroin several times. It always made him sick to his stomach.
Tony walked over to the door of the adjoining apartment. He was getting tired of all this mystery about a big money deal. He intended to ask Race straight out just what he was planning. Tony rapped on the door.
Race yelled something, voice inaudible over the racket of the TV. Tony opened the door cautiously and peeked inside. Race was lying on a, couch in his shorts reading a racing form, a can of beer balanced precariously on his white, bony chest. He waved Tony inside.
Margo, still wearing her red bikini, was lying on the carpet in front of the TV. She was sprawled on her stomach, legs in the air and crossed like a teen-ager's. She looked up and winked at Tony.
Tony sat down in an easy chair near the couch. The motel's maids had cleaned the vomit-splattered carpet, but the apartment was still a mess. Newspapers, racing sheets and empty beer cans were scattered about.
Race said something to Tony, but the blaring TV drowned out his words. Race turned to Margo. "Goddamn it, turn that idiot box down!"
Margo reached up and quickly lowered the volume. She reached back, unhooked her tight halter, then lay down again on the floor, breasts pressing into the carpet. Damn her! Tony knew she was teasing again.
"What's on your mind, kid?" Race asked. His voice was thick and slurred from drinking. Little blue veins stood out against his reddish nose, throbbing.
Tony leaned forward. "I was wondering, Race how is your deal coming on?"
Race took a gulp of beer and frowned. "It's shaping up okay, kid. I'll let you know when I need you."
"I was hoping I could help you some way to maybe speed things up a little," Tony persisted.
Race's frown deepened. Irritated, he ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair. "Hell, kid, get off my back. There's only one brain to any trick and I'm it. When I get every angle figured, I'll tell you what to do."
Tony was getting a little peeved himself. "It's just that I need some money, Race. I want to get it myself, not have to let Margo get it for me like she did today. I-" Tony saw Margo stiffen on the floor. He knew he'd put his foot into it.
Race's small, dark eyes hardened like ball bearings. He slammed the beer can down angrily on the table and liquid spurted out the top.
"Whadda you mean, kid?" he snapped. "Did she give you money that she got for a trick?"
Race leaped to his feet, wheeled around and glared down at Margo. She was struggling to get her halter hooked, eyes wide with fear. "It was just a twenty-five dollar trick, Race. The hophead was about to crawl out of his skin."
Race's contorted face was like that of a gaunt, snarling wolf. He reached out to a chair where his trousers were draped, fingers groping for the wide belt with the large silver buckle.
"No, Race! No!" Margo screamed. "I won't do it again! I swear it!" She cringed on the floor still trying to fasten the halter.
Race stripped the belt from the trousers and advanced on Margo. His arm streaked up, then down and the belt lashed against her thighs. She squirmed on the floor, the halter dropping away. The belt flashed up, then down again, lashing across her naked, upturned breasts. Margo cried out in pain. Race coiled the belt in his hand, letting the buckle end hang down. He bent over her threshing body, the belt blurring as he lashed it down again and again across her white breasts. The buckle made little fleshy thuds as it bit into the soft flesh.
Margo's face, at first wild with pain, changed amazingly. Her features contorted in ecstasy, eyes half closed, lips parted. She breathed in little gasps. Guttural animal sounds, half moans and half cries, came from her throat. At first she had shielded her breasts from the cruel blows, now she thrust them forward in perverted rapture, offering them to the lash as she had offered them to Tony for his mouth-teasing. The buckle flashed down again and again.
Sickened, Tony could take no more. He was stunned, but now he leaped to his feet. "Race! Stop it!"
Race's hand darted to a table and came back holding his switch knife. He flicked the blade open. "Keep out of this, kid. Or I'll spill your guts out on the floor."
He swung the belt again, lashing it down across Margo's buttocks and naked upper thighs, leaving cruel red streaks.
"Stupid, goddamned bitch!" Race shouted.
He gave her several more strokes with the belt, then stalked over and pulled on his pants. His anger seemed to have departed as quickly as it had risen.
Race sat down on the couch and began putting on his shoes. He glanced up at Tony. "Sorry, kid. These goddamned broads get me mad."
Margo rose unsteadily and reeled into the bathroom. Her breasts and thighs were a mess of welts.
Race clamped a shoe onto a sockless foot. He jerked his head in the direction of the bathroom. "Broads like that are a dime a dozen. I can go into any bar, any night of the week and pick up one just like her."
"I didn't mean to get her into any trouble. Dobber was about to crack up and we needed cabbage for a fix. She volunteered to get it for us."
"The bitch," Race snorted. Tony thought Race was going to get mad all over again. Little droplets of perspiration from his exertion glistened on his gray, beard-shadowed face. There were elongated scars across his upper cheeks which looked like wounds from a woman's nails.
Race clamped on his other shoe. "If you ever let these broads start giving money to some other weed, first thing you know they've packed their goddamned diaphragms and gone. Then you've got to find another meal ticket. Do you know how I got that bitch?" He jerked his head again toward the bathroom.
Tony shook his head.
Race laughed, harshly. "I walked into this bar in Kansas City one night and there this bitch was, sitting on a stool, her skirt half way up to her navel. I'd just lost my little redhead. Some sailor gave her a good dose of the clap, the bastard. I just walked over, slapped my hand down on Margo's thigh and said, 'Baby, you're going to work for me.' She was a stripper at one of those riverside dives and the manager of the place was with her. He started making static so I punched him in the gut with my elbow. Then I just walked out with her, and the broad's been pulling off tricks for me ever since." Race looked down at his feet, musingly. "But I think I'm about ready to dump her. She don't hustle as good as she used to."
Tony shifted self-consciously. "At first I thought that you two might be married."
Race tilted his head toward the ceiling and roared with laughter. "Married? Me? God, kid, matrimony is for damn-fool weeds who can't get a trick any way else. All women are whores. That stupid broad in there sells herself for $35 or $50 a trick. But that church-going social set of bitches is smarter. They trap some poor bastard into matrimony and make him pay through his Goddamned nose for the rest of his days. Then the poor bastard probably has to shell out to a whore every two weeks to get his horns trimmed."
Race rose and pulled on his shirt. "I'm going out to get a little air, kid."
"Race," Tony said hurriedly, "do you think it'll be much longer before we cash in on the big money? Dobber's going to need some more stuff pretty soon."
Race's eyes hardened again in anger. "That Goddamned hophead! If you're smart you'll drop the bastard. He's nothing but trouble. Dopies can't be trusted any further than a midget can throw an elephant. Get rid of him, kid. We can pick up some other weed to help us on the job if we have to."
Tony shook his head firmly. "He's my pal."
Race walked over to the door. "Pal!" he snorted disdainfully. "He's going to get you into big trouble, kid. Big trouble."
Race slammed the door.
Tony sat there for several minutes, watching TV. The story was about a guy who had amnesia and was trying to find out who he was. Tony found himself identifying with the character: He, to, felt that he had lost his ties with the past, that he was in a canoe rushing into the future in a raging current and he had dropped the paddle overboard.
There was the sound of water running in the bathroom, then the tap was closed. Tony rose to go back into his own apartment.
"Tony?" Margo called from the bathroom.
Tony turned and walked over to the partially opened door. "You okay, Margo?" He glanced inside. He saw her red bikini on top of the commode. She was wrapped in a yellow bath towel, sitting on the closed lid of the commode. She was smearing ointment on the red welts crisscrossing her upper thighs.
She looked up at Tony. "Come on in. I won't bite you."
Tony moved inside nervously. "Margo ... I'm sorry. I didn't know he would take it like that. It was a dumb thing for me to say."
She shrugged and the towel slipped low on her breasts. There was a U-shaped bruise on one of them. "It's not the first time he's lost his temper with me."
Tony remembered the thin scars on her breasts. "Why do you put up with it?"
She smiled introspectively. "I don't know. He's a liar, cheat and a cruel, sadistic bastard. I almost killed him once. He'd hit me with his fist and I had a knife at his throat. But I didn't have guts enough to drive it in." She studied her nail-polished toes reflectively. "I guess I stick with him because he ... he's so dominating. He tells me what to do." She crossed her legs and the towel split open. Tony admired her blonde dye job.
Tony stared at her. She looked up at him and smiled. Then she said, "Don't look so concerned I'm not worth it."
"But well, you should never stick with somebody who abuses you," Tony said.
"Are you suggesting that you wouldn't abuse me?" she asked.
Tony was quiet a moment. During it he realized that he could never live with a woman such as Margo, even that he could not stand a long, personal relationship with her. There was too much of youth and vitality and hope around yes, hope, he thought to become tied to a woman who had had her day, who would never have another truly good day in her life.
As Tony thought of this, another invaded his mind. He remembered the girl on the rock, her beauty and allure, the way she had seemed to have come from the sea as a nymph to lure men to their destruction through love. He could not rinse his mind of her. And even as he looked at Margo, the towel open at her front, he remembered that other girl and her quick escape into the sea.
"You're pretty thoughtful," Margo said. "But don't worry, Tony, I'm not pressing you for an answer to my silent question I know you could never have much to do with me for long. So, skip it."
"You you know that, eh?" he said.
"Yes."
"But it wasn't what I was thinking. Honest."
"It doesn't matter, Tony," she said. "Don't start acting noble not to me. There's only one kind of nobility I know and that's of the flesh. So ... run along. Go to the beach do anything, but have a ball, baby, have a ball."
"See you later, Margo," Tony said slowly.
"Sure you will," she replied.
He turned and left the room. Slowly, he returned to his own apartment.
Dobber was sitting in a chair, rubbing a needle-marked forearm. His eyes were glassy, a twisted, crazy smile on his pinched face. "Tony," he murmured, as if speaking from another dimension. "What's going on, baby?"
"Nothing," Tony said, irritably. "Go to sleep."
Tony went over to the bureau, took out a bottle of whisky and poured himself a stiff drink. He sat down in a chair and sipped the drink, musingly looking out a window at the moonlit night. In his imagination he saw the raven-haired nymph on the rock in the lagoon and saw her dusky body turn and dive into the shimmering water. Had he been dreaming or seeing things?
Tony finished his drink and poured another. But he couldn't shake thoughts of the nymph from his mind. Dobber nodded in his chair, then began to snore bubblingly.
Tony put his empty glass down on a table and rose. He had to find out about the girl if he wanted to get a wink of sleep this night.
Tony left the apartment and walked down toward the beach. It was quite late and the sands seemed deserted. The only sounds were of crying sea birds and the rhythmic slap of the waves upon the shore. The moon was going down.
Tony cut across the beach toward the lagoon. The cool night air, with a faint salty tinge of the sea, cleared his head a bit.
Tony arrived at the lagoon. The water was darkening as the moon disappeared. Tony spotted the large rock. There seemed to be an object on it.
Tony waded into the warm water. He almost expected to hear a splash beside him and look down to see the smiling face of the brunette mermaid. He was waist-deep in water when he reached the rock. He groped for the object, then picked it up. It was a large white bath towel. Tony held it up to his nose. It smelled of a woman's perfume. The scent was new to Tony spicy, exotic like something from Egypt or the Middle East.
Tony folded the towel carefully and, carrying it, waded out of the lagoon. He felt sort of relieved. He wasn't losing his marbles after all. There was a mermaid and he had her towel. Maybe it would give him an excuse to meet her if he ever saw her again.
Tony headed back to the apartment.