Chapter 3
When it began to grow very warm, Laura Stockland pulled her convertible to the side of the road and, amid much squirming from her friends, lowered the top so they could know the full blast of the southern sun. Each of the five girls in her own way was prepared for the hotter climate they sought. Each girl had seen to that early in the morning when they departed the motel where they had spent the night.
Laura, behind the steering wheel, wore very tight shorts and a peasant blouse that slung low off her shoulders. It was cut deeply enough in front to show the white molds of her breasts. Her legs were already beginning to tan. Her toes were exposed from a single strap of each of the straw sandals that she wore. The nails were painted a hot red.
Margie Winters, sitting next to Laura, had glints of the hot sun in her auburn hair, making her look more fiery than usual. She, too, wore shorts: tight, jamming at her thighs in a way that wrinkled the material as it curled it upward a bit. She wore a bikini bra top. It was sinfully low, dug deeply beneath her breasts and exposed her nipples from time to time when she moved in simple actions; leaned forward, turned quickly to one of the other girls, or did anything that changed her position. The breast ends were auburn tinted, obviously catching some of the gleam of her exceptional hair.
Pixie Thomas, Carla Torro, and Kay Faubus occupied the back seat of the convertible. They had prepared for the South very well. Pixie also wore shorts. They were yellow and seemed a long extension of her bright, blonde hair. Pixie did not wear the usual feminine attire to cover her breasts. Held together by a single button near her navel, a boy's white shirt flopped loosely, delightfully revealing the absence of any undergarment. Her nipples indented the material of the shirt. When they did not, they waved in and out of view around the shirt's edges. And Kay Faubus had apparently decided upon looseness and revelation, too. Sitting between Pixie and Carla, she wore a thin, nearly transparent blouse which, although it was buttoned high, revealed the roundness of her breasts and the hard ends. Only Carla, although in a summer frock, seemed less concerned upon the exposure of her very exquisite body. She wore a skirt, flower-patterned, loose, and usually resting quite high above her dark, brown knees and lower thighs. The dress formed a V at the bodice. It showed the puffs of her young breasts in a way that teased without truly giving any true view.
All of the girls showed signs of travel, road dust, and heat. Laura's pretty face was speckled with perspiration. Margie's auburn hair was wilted at the ends and plastered tightly to her neck. Pixie and Kay showed the first signs of freckles, and even Carla, efficient and nearly always in place, was splotched with damp spots where her breasts pressured against her dress.
The trip had produced laughter, serious conversation, and fabulous plans for the enjoyment of vacation at Fort Bixdale. And it had produced periods of quiet and introspection. It was right after such a period, during which Laura had thought of Ron Bolton, forgotten him, then thought of him again, that she speeded the car to overtake the one ahead and discovered that it was filled with boys. They seemed of college age, and, judging by the signs that had been painted on the car, the boys were obviously headed for Fort Bixdale.
"Hey, kids, look what's ahead," Laura exclaimed.
The girls in the back seat hunched forward and Margie, next to Laura, partially rose and leaned over the windshield.
"Come on, catch them," Pixie told Laura.
"If I do, what'll we do with them?" Laura asked.
"Just catch them, then I'll show you," Margie said, raising her hand and waving to a boy's head which suddenly stuck out from the rear window.
Laura laughed and pressed harder on the accelerator. In a moment, her car pulled even with the black hardtop. She risked a quick look to the side and saw that there were four boys in the car, all of them young and strong looking, and that one of them was unusual and unexpected in that he was very handsome, a Negro, and slouched in his seat with a somber expression on his face. Laura turned her eyes to the road again, then glanced to the side again. The sight of the quiet, serious looking colored boy excited her. She wondered why. Then she decided that it was because it offered something new, something previously unexperienced during her young life. She laughed and tried to pass the carload of boys. But their driver, a tall, thin, very blonde boy, shot the car ahead, preventing its overtaking.
"Come on, go, go, go, girl," Pixie called out.
"Yeah, make the pass," Margie said.
"But they're supposed to do that," Kay Faubus said.
"They will. If they don't, I'll oblige," Margie answered.
"Be careful," Carla Torro instructed from the rear.
"Of what?" Laura asked, giggling.
"Your driving," Carla shot back at her.
Again, Laura jammed the accelerator low and approached the other car. She nosed at its rear, crept even with the side, then stayed there as the blonde boy reduced his speed, content with the side-by-side movement of the two cars.
"Hey, bet we know where you're going," Margie called to the driver of the other car.
"Do you know what we're going to do when we get there?" the boy called back, lifting his voice so it could be heard above the roar of engines and the whistling wind.
"Yeah, same as us have fun," Margie yelled.
"But we don't mean to wait until we get there, baby," the dark-haired boy next to the driver shouted to Margie. He raised a bottle high in the air, then drank from it.
"Hey, give us some of that," Kay Faubus shouted from the rear, rising and holding her hand out to the open window across from her.
"Naw, you're just kids," the boy replied.
"Huh. And what are you?" Carla Torro said snippily.
"Men, chick, real men. Experienced, handsome, everything you want," the boy laughed back at her.
"And not a bit of conceit either," Margie chimed in.
"None whatsoever," the boy answered.
Laura shot another quick look at the colored boy; then she called to the blonde driver, "What's the matter with your friend back there?"
The boy cocked his head toward the colored boy, then said, "Ah, Reb's worried."
"About what?" Laura shouted.
"About the South the cotton-pickin' South. He's never been there. He figures before we leave he'll be facing an impartial jury of white gentlemen for something or other."
The girls laughed. They screamed. They giggled. And they made the most of every opportunity to expose their bodies to the boys' view to the driver, the dark, crew-cut boy next to him, to the long-haired boy who sat in the back with Reb, the Negro. And all the boys except Reb reacted with whistles, shouts, remarks, and a great deal of noise.
"Come on, share the booze," Margie shouted, reaching her hand out as Kay Faubus had done.
"Well, all right," the boy decided. "But save us a snort." He handed the bottle to Margie.
Laura put her hand out and said, "The chauffeur first, please."
Margie made a face but handed her friend the bottle. Laura steadied the car with one hand, keeping it alongside the other, then glanced at the colored boy in the back seat before she lifted the bottle and swallowed some of the amber liquid. When she brought the bottle down, she shuddered and again glanced to the back seat of the other car. Reb was looking at her, but not smiling, not indicating in any manner that he observed anything more than a girl driving a car.
Laura handed the bottle to Margie, who swigged from it, then passed it to the girls behind her. When Carla, Pixie, and Kay had each taken some of the liquor, Margie retrieved the bottle and reached it out to the boy who extended his hand from the other car.
"Hey, we're stopping for a swim; how about joining us?" the blonde driver said.
"A swim?" Margie inquired, arching her eyebrows and saying it in a way that indicated surprise and consideration.
"That's what the ocean's for, chick," the boy replied.
"I'm all for it," Laura said, shooting a new look at Reb.
The other boys shouted. The girls joined their calls, waving and hollering enthusiastically.
"Follow me," the driver of the boys' car called out.
He zoomed ahead and Laura brought her car directly behind, following at a safe and conservative distance now that arrangements had been made. And as she moved the car along the highway, she felt the stir of some new, unknown quality of herself, some gathering of excitement within her body as if it prepared for some frantic unleashing, something she had never before known, something that would act as a thrilling predecessor to the vacation that awaited her. She glanced at Margie Winters next to her and saw that she, too, seemed to glow with something new, something even more anticipatory than the mere informality of arranging a date with strangers. Then Laura glanced to the rear of the car and saw that Kay was smiling in a secretive way, that Pixie was adjusting her bodice to more fully reveal her breasts, and that Carla Torro was primping before a hand mirror, making her appearance efficient, bringing the customary order to herself that at times was her passion.
Laura screeched the tires as she turned off the pavement and down a side road, still following the car ahead of her. When the dust of the side road cleared from their fast entrance, the ocean loomed up at them like a series of giant tongues lapping at the shore. And they felt its spray and the breeze that swept over it and the heat of the golden beach.
The black hardtop filled with college boys jerked to a stop within the harbor of a group of tall palm trees. Laura braked her convertible behind it. She sighed and lessened her tight hold on the steering wheel. Then she sighed again, quite erotically, as the boys leaped out of the car.
The blonde driver of the car was the tallest. He looked like an. athlete. So did the others a lanky lad with dark hair and a perpetual grin, a shorter, stockier-built boy whose hair was also dark but was worn long, and the boy, Reb, a Negro with a scowl, one that entranced Laura.
"Let's not be coy, girls," Margie Winters said. She leaped over the door of the car and stepped forward to greet the four approaching boys.
"My, she's so bold," Pixie said, giggling. Then she, too, leaped out of the car and took her place next to Margie.
Laura, smiling, waited. In a moment, accompanied by Margie and Pixie, the boys approached the car.
Laura and the other girls acknowledged all the introductions, trading their own names, backgrounds, college, and plans for Fort Bixdale. Laura glanced often at Reb, who continued to scowl. His dark looks and strong body intrigued her, caused her to know shivers and a quivering at her thighs. Quickly, she glanced at the other boys and found that she felt a reaction to them, but one that was less than that which she felt for the hard-looking Negro.
Margie, who seemed especially interested in the blonde boy, stood very close to him and finally said, "Well, now that we're old friends, how about more of the booze?"
The bottle was handed around again and again until finally it was empty. Blond Bob sailed it through the air to alight behind bushes.
Laura glanced at her friends. Margie's interest was obviously Bob. Pixie seemed to shine toward Tom. Her eyes kept sweeping his short, but solidly built body; and Kay Faubus kept darting her dark eyes toward Larry, looking at him, then looking away, swishing her waist-long hair from side to side as a means of drawing his attention to her. Only Carla seemed without direction toward the boys. She seemed indifferent to them all, as indifferent as Reb was to Laura. Laura, observing this, thought what a shame it was that the meeting of the two cars provided an uneven number of dates, that one girl was left over. She looked around, then decided that it would not be herself who was without a man. She moved close to Reb, raised her hand and tucked it beneath the muscles of his forearm.
"I thought we said something about a swim," she said.
"Yeah," Larry replied. "And right now, chick. Okay?"
"Okay," Laura answered as Margie and Pixie squealed their approval.
Tom stepped forward, then turned and faced all the others. He grinned as he stripped his sport shirt from his body. Then, when all eyes were upon him, he loosened his belt and paused.
"Ready, set, go," he said. "Here's a preview of Fort Bixdale good old Bixdale, Sexdale, yeah, yeah, yeah!" He kicked off his loafers and sweat sox, then dropped his trousers. Then he yanked his shorts from his body and stood before them, nude and immensely masculine.
"Wheeeeeeee," cried Pixie. "Are you ever uninhibited."
"Yeah, that's my middle name," he said.
"And so am I," Margie Winters said, stepping forward. She looked at all of them a moment, then quickly discharged all of her clothing until she, too, was nude.
The boys looked at her in wonder, taking great delight in her small waist, her small but firm breasts which thrust outward, and the tightness of her thighs.
Pixie was the next to hurry out of her brief clothes. When she was nude, she straightened as the others cheered, whistled and shouted wild remarks. Then the others bent to the joyous labor of getting out of their clothes.
Laura took her time, anxious for Reb to approve of her body when it was nude and presented to him. As soon as she removed her last garment, she straightened and looked at him. He was still fully clothed, but his hot eyes were upon her body, searching through her bareness for those parts which most delighted him. There were many large breasts, flaring hips, a small, flat belly, and thighs that looked anxious and wanton.
"To the beach, gang," shouted Bob.
The others dashed past Laura, leaving her alone with Reb. She watched, smiling, as the bare bodies bounded toward the ocean. And her smile grew wider when she saw that dark Carla Torro was also nude, and that even in nudity she looked smooth and efficient and all in place.
Laura walked over to Reb. "What's the matter, big boy, aren't you for swimming?"
"I'm for swimming," he said, looking into her eyes.
"Well?" She nodded to his clothed body.
"Maybe I'm just not ready for this yet," he said.
"But why not? Why would you go to Fort Bixdale if you weren't ready for well, for fun sex everything?"
"The guys talked me into it," Reb answered.
Laura took a step closer and took his arm again, making sure that the crush of her breast caressed it. "Come on, Reb. Don't be a prude."
"I'm not," he said.
"Well, come on then, give," she said, snuggling her breast tighter against his arm. She felt his body tense, felt her own quiver excitedly. Then she glanced downward and saw that she had produced the reaction in Reb that she wanted, the reaction that every woman wanted.
But Reb seemed to pull away from her nakedness as he said, "I'll walk you to the beach, Laura. That's all I'll do right now." He paused, looked at her, then said, "You see, little girl, you don't know about me. I've been off this kick for quite a while. I've got my reasons. And besides, the way I am well, once I started again, hell, then there just ain't no stopping for me."
"Sounds great," she said boldly.
"Maybe. Maybe not."
He took her arm and led her toward the beach, where the others were already bounding into the surf.
Laura and Reb paused at the edge of the ocean. Before them, naked bodies, male and female, splashed and frolicked in the water, jumping and diving into waves, submerging, then bobbing up above the surface again. There was a frantic tangle of bodies as the girls and boys came together often, as boys dived beneath the surface, swam between the bare legs of girls, then rose with the tittering girls on their shoulders. There were a few embraces of separate couples, too; Margie Winters had emerged from the water suddenly, found herself in front of Bob. They embraced, kissed passionately, brought exploring hands to each other's body, moved those hands above and beneath the water where they stood waist deep. And the stockily built Tom was receiving hot attentions from both Pixie and Kay while his friend, Larry, looked on, a cheated expression upon his face. Kay had her arms around Tom's neck. She was kissing him in a way that suggested great passion as she moved her head from side to side, giving, it seemed, the gift of her tongue as it wandered within the boy's mouth. Pixie, behind Tom, had her arms about his waist, but her hands had disappeared beneath the water. Her face was close, however, as she nibbled at his ear.
Laura looked at the girls, smiled at their lively activities, then wondered how Carla managed to remain remote as she merely swam at a distance, away from the others, even away from the boy Larry, who was without a partner.
"They're having fun," Reb said suddenly. "You better go ahead and get in the water."
"Won't you?" she asked Reb.
"Not now. Nothing for me now," he said.
Slowly, a burn swept Laura's body. She felt rejected. She felt undesirable and rebuked, felt all these things that she had never been made to feel before. And it seemed incredible that a boy especially such a boy as Reb should not hasten to accept her sexual invitation.
Laura's eyes narrowed as she looked into Reb's face. Then she quickly turned from the sight of him and rushed into the water, splashing wildly, making great leaps, and finally diving headlong into a roller as it crashed toward shore.
When Laura surfaced, she joined the others and entered into their wild play, entered into it and led it, for it seemed of the utmost importance that she excel, that she be more dynamic and desirable than her friends. But even as her bare body crashed against boys, as it burrowed and teased and promised of itself, she thought of the colored boy on the shore and felt again the resentment of rejection.
"Hey, what's with you anyway?" Bob asked, coming up behind Laura and winding his arms around her waist.
"Fun that's what's with me," she laughed. She clutched his hands, then moved them up and over her breasts.
"You go through the actions but don't look the part," Bob said. "What's the matter; did good old Reb jilt you?"
Laura did hot answer for a moment. She pressured Bob's hands tighter against her and adjusted her body so that she could feel the hard stab of his masculinity behind her. It reassured her, made her feel good.
Finally, she twisted her head so that her face was close to Bob's neck. Then she asked, "What is Reb's problem? It must be a big one."
Bob laughed, then said, "That's one way of putting it."
She lowered one hand beneath the water and grasped him. "Aw, he can't be any more than you are."
Bob reacted by thrusting himself harder against her hold and catching her ear in his mouth.
"Is Reb queer or something?" she asked. "Is that what bugs him?"
After nuzzling her ear for another few moments, Bob pulled back and said, "Hell, no. Guess you could say that Reb's problem is just the opposite. He can't keep off women. You see, the old boy went through a rape charge a little while ago."
"Rape!" Laura exclaimed, pulling away, turning and looking into Bob's face.
"Yeah. That and a little more, too. He well, guess he had his reasons, but Reb was pretty rough on the girl damaged her badly almost beyond repair."
"Really?" Laura felt a strange sensation sweep her, tickle at her thighs and pressure her nipples to greater tautness.
"Yeah. So, old Reb, after the judge put him on probation, went sour on chicks. He's off them, he says. Guess he figures he's like a dope addict once on the stuff he can't stop, so he's not taking a chance."
Laura turned and glanced to the shore. She saw that Reb was sitting on the beach, his back braced against a small sand dune. She wondered how difficult it really was for him. She wondered how good his self-discipline was. She thought about the varied naked girls' bodies Reb was viewing and wondered how he could stand it. She thought that if she were a boy she could not endure it. And as she looked at him, she felt the heat of desire gnaw at her thighs, and she knew that she had to have the tall colored boy, that she would have him, that it seemed predestined that it should be her own body that would end his abstinence.
Slowly, Laura walked through the water, away from the others and to the shore. She straightened, and with the water glistening on her naked body, she had a feeling of great boldness, the greatest she had ever known. She knew that it was because she wished to entice Reb, make him want her, brutalize her, even, but take her as he had savagely taken some unknown girl. She wondered why it did not frighten her, why it was that she felt attracted to this deviational thrill. Then she smiled as she considered that she really didn't care about the cause, that she was much more interested in the results that would be brought to bear upon her sexuality.