Chapter 4
Kay Faubus felt a little guilty for having slipped away from her friends so soon after their arrival at Fort Bixdale. But then she considered the reason and knew that it was right. She had to find out for herself what it was that seemed to prevent her from cohabiting with a boy, one who was attractive and of her own age. Kay had to make some discoveries about herself. She had to.
Fort Bixdale had proved to be all that the girls had anticipated. The streets and beaches and shops were packed with people, all young people, college students on vacation, adventuring forth to meet new people, enjoy new experiences, and, like Kay, discover things about themselves.
Kay considered that she might have a genuine problem that just the mere absence of her Uncle Jason did not solve. She thought of it first when she and the others had met the boys on the road to Fort Bixdale and stopped for a swim and the capers that developed. It was then that she knew something was wrong. Although she smiled and played with the others while naked, she later found that she was incapable of forming a sexual union with a boy. Two had tried that day. She had rejected both of them, had led each to the brink of desperation by her playing, and had then turned them down. So she had left the others and walked and sat alone on the beach, watching the others in all kinds of sex play and interludes. And while she had watched, Kay had felt deep regret that it was not herself churning with one
or all of the boys. But she had come close. For a while, it seemed that she could enter a sexual adventure with a stranger without the slightest hesitation. She had even bounded naked in the surf with the others, had even bestowed passionate kisses to each of the boys, had, to two of them, pleased them with the wanderings of her hands, the manipulations of her fingers thrashing beneath the surface of the water. But then it had gotten serious. Suddenly, upon Laura's command, Kay was called upon to make ready to wrestle to the sand with one of the boys. Then she stopped. Then she could go no further. Then she could only sit on the beach and watch. And wonder. About herself, about whether her incestuous life with her uncle had somehow invalidated her as a normal subject for a normal boy. And it was then that Kay decided that as soon as possible she would seek aloneness in Fort Bixdale, wander the streets, and finally determine for herself what it was that cheated her of love
of sex of the great, great pleasure of a thirsting boy. Kay left the motel where her friends were resting.
She had used the pretense of some shopping errands. But as soon as she was free of the motel, she had hailed a cab, entered it, then left it after being delivered to the beach section of the city, the place that was already jammed with youthful bodies.
Kay pushed with hundreds of others along the sidewalks. like the others, she was dressed in semi-nakedness. She wore a peasant blouse tight shorts and sandals. Her body showed sensually from the brief garments. And her long hair swished at her waist in a tempting call of adventure to every boy she passed. Many of the stranger-boys commented as they passed her. Some were bolder.
"Yeah there chickie," a tall boy dressed only in bermudas called out as he approached her.
Kay smiled.
The boy stopped directly in front of her, barring her from passing him even as the others hurried in various directions all around them.
"Man that's hair," the boy said.
Kay smiled wider.
The boy raised both his hands and wound his fingers into the thickness of her dark hair. He caressed some of the strands, then gripped it tightly as he forced her head back so that she had to look into his eyes.
"Baby, your hair's for dragging," he said.
"Dragging?" Kay asked.
"Yeah, like across the beach to my cave."
"Oh, you have a cave," she said, brightening, or pretending to, thereby entering the game she had determined to play, the game of easy accessibility of herself to any and all who wanted her.
"Yeahhhhhh," the boy whispered. "It's lined with leopard skins and all sorts of goodies."
"Goodies?"
"Sure sex goodies. Things to make you happy, friends to make you holler and laugh."
"Sounds ominous," Kay said, pretending to frown.
"Wantta see for yourself?" the boy asked.
Kay hesitated. She was a little tempted. But then she told herself that it was much too soon in her adventures alone to decide upon a subject who might be the one to bring her the answers she sought. This boy hardly seemed the type. She would wait and wander.
"Not just now," she said. "Maybe later. All right?"
"Naw, it's not all right, but I'm not the type to pressure. I'm a peace-lover, spelled either way, a flower-boy too, and I sure don't pressure. Besides, you'll probably come to my cave all on your own."
"Probably," she laughed.
"But before you go before we part, sweetie," the boy said. Then, even as Kay felt the crush of strangers passing them in the middle of the street, the boy brought his mouth upon hers, swooped his tongue in a blazing dart between her lips.
Kay matched his aggressiveness. She caught his tongue with her lips and sucked thirstily, remembering how this had always been a part of love-play between her uncle and herself. She clung passionately to the boy. She released her hold upon his tongue and pressured her own into his mouth, wiggling it there in a gay, light frolic that was a foreigner to her feelings. Finally, the boy took her offering. He thirsted upon it, moaning and thrusting his thighs tightly to Kay. She felt the crush of him and loved it. Somehow, it seemed more inspired by herself than when she noticed the same reaction in her Uncle Jason. And when the boy's right hand shot from her shoulder to her buttocks, where it pinched, she returned the touch, crumbling her hand between their bodies and making an erotic grasp.
The scene was in full view of thousands. It was not unlike similar scenes played to the public at scores of areas throughout Fort Bixdale. But it was a short scene, a casual scene, one to leave quickly behind.
"Ummmmmm, for Crissakes, what are you made of?" the boy exclaimed, pulling away.
Kay laughed, told him he would never know, then shouted a good-bye and hurried out of reach of the boy's outstretched hands.
Before Kay had walked another dozen paces, she was interrupted by a new boy older and more serious looking, but just as passionate in his approach.
"Girlie, I've been looking for the-likes of you all my life," he said.
He extended his arms out so Kay could not step off the curb and cross the street.
There were laughs all around her. Other girls were being detained by other boys. And there were many embraces among strangers. The Mardi Gras spirit of Fort Bixdale prevailed, encouraged even the most outrageous intimacies in plain view of hundreds of strange eyes.
"Come on, girlie," the boy said. "Don't go any farther. You've found your man your one and only your big, handsome brute who will deliver you of evil and replace it with thrill with . "
"Thanks loads," Kay laughed. "But all I really want to do is cross the street."
"You cannot pass," he said dramatically. "Not without a touch a caress some little thing to remember you by."
The boy opened his arms and Kay, with a little laugh, went within the wide fold and lifted her face for his kiss.
The kiss was bestowed. So were two hands made to contact her breasts. They kneaded as he kissed her, moved in a motion that was meant, Kay was sure, to create passion within her. And it did, too. But not enough for her to pause here and decide upon a sex subject with whom she could investigate her own sexuality, its normalcy or the abnormality of it.
Kay pulled her mouth away from the boy and stepped out of his embrace.
Kay continued to jostle through, and with, the crowds. She walked down the narrow streets of the small southern town which each year during spring vacation was taken over, tormented, and extra-economized by college students. And as she looked at all those boys and girls who were together, even those who met suddenly for the first time, then hurried off together, obviously bent upon exploring their new relationship, verbally first, then sexually, Kay thought how alike they all were, and how different she was, not by appearance, but by her history and the strange things that boiled within her.
Kay moved with a small crowd of young people which departed the streets and headed for the beach. In the distance there was another crowd, circled and intent upon three men who were on a platform in the center, obviously performing an act of some kind for the others. It was toward this entertainment that Kay moved.
When she stopped at the outer rim of the circle, Kay gave her attention to the entertainers. There were three of them: two boys of college age and an older man who wore the tattered clothes of a beachcomber. The older man pounded sensually on a bongo drum. The two college-age boys strummed guitars. From time to time, one of them would burst into a weird chant. The boys were both handsome. But it was the older man to whom Kay's attention was drawn her attention and her interest for upon the first sight of him she felt a growling rumble of sexuality come to her loins, ignite there, then flame to her breasts, her neck, even, she did not doubt, to her face. Kay knew that her rather casual search along the byways of Fort Bixdale had ended. She knew, just as sure as she knew that she was standing there, that it was this man who was somehow destined to become her guide toward normal sexual outlets.
The man's dark eyes pierced at her as he pounded the jungle drum. He was bearded, and because his bristles were spotted with gray, his dark brown eyes appeared darker and more piercing, hot, and constantly anxious. But his eyes did not dart over her body as Kay expected they would. Instead, they held steadily to her own eyes, straying only to implore at her long, waist-low hair. And the way he looked at her hair and into her eyes made Kay wonder if her large, beautifully proportioned body was in some way lacking. But she knew that it was not; she knew that it conveyed sexuality, gross and hot and adventuresome.
The trio thumped their way to the end of a number. The middle-aged man who squatted around the jungle drum beat upon it madly and lifted his head in a chanting, screaming torment of some strange song that Kay knew was not of this land, perhaps not of any land that was known.
The song ended with a machine-gun tattoo upon the drum. Silence came when the man slumped his head far forward, resting, his shoulders exerting from his heavy breathing and the exertion he had expended upon the drum.
Screams and yells and applause broke out, grew, went crazy, and finally subsided.
Kay stared at the figure of the man, at his soiled and rumpled clothing, his bare chest that showed all his ribs as it was exposed from the open white shirt he wore. She looked at his dirty, bare feet, at his long, never-cut, matted hair. She thought of the contrast he made to the others, really, to all of them, yet it was a contrast that did not deny him youth, for there was something about him that, to Kay at least, seemed eternally youthful. And virile and curious and knowledgeable.
The man raised his head. His eyes still bore into Kay's.
The crowd cheered and called for more entertainment. The two college boys obliged. Then began an enchanting tone, caressing the strings of their guitars as women were meant to be caressed. But the older man did not join them. He stood up, then walked to the edge of the platform, which was on a direct line with where Kay stood. He smiled thinly, then leaped off the platform and began pushing his way through the crowd in Kay's direction.
Kay felt like running, both away from this strange man, and toward him. She did neither. She remained standing where she was, watching him as he threaded his way through dozens of young bodies in order to reach her.
At last he was before her. His smile widened. Kay looked into his eyes.
"You're looking for me, aren't you?" the man asked. His voice was deep, as if it had been nurtured in the bottom of the sea.
"Yes," Kay answered, astonished that this word had come from her when she had intended another.
A long, eerie howl of laughter issued from the man's lips. When he quieted, he said, "I thought so. I can always tell."
"Tell what?" she asked. "That you were looking for me. Tell me, who referred you to me."
"No one."
"Really?"
"No, I just came to hear your songs the music and . "
"Well, I'll be damned," he said, obviously pleased. "A case of pure rapport, I guess."
"Perhaps," she answered. Although her body trembled, her voice was calm.
He smiled slightly, then started to push past her, saying, very simply, very confidently, "Follow me."
Kay followed him, through a new crowd that had gathered behind them, over the smooth sand of the beach, along the ocean, and finally up from the beach and through a tangle of brush and bushes that at places was as thick as a jungle. And Kay, feeling inferior, feeling as if she were a commoner betrothed to a prince, followed the strange, dirty man at a respectful few paces.
Soon, the man paused and waited for Kay to come even with him. When she did, he parted a great tangle of vines that wound together in the center of a mass of trees which were bunched together. The man nodded, indicating that Kay should step through the clearing he had made.
She did. Then she paused and looked ahead at the small beach cottage that snuggled in the center of several high sand dunes. It looked as if it belonged to a South Sea Island setting. It looked hidden and protected from all the world.
The man let the vines snap back into place. Then he moved to Kay's side.
"Come," he said, his voice suddenly gentle. "This is my studio. You'll like it, I'm sure."
He touched lightly at her forearm. The touch was not sensual, not even intimate. It was offered merely as a guide.
Kay and the man walked to the beach cottage. At the front door, which was set back from a long, broken porch, the man stood aside and waited for Kay to enter. She stepped through the open doorway.
It was very dark inside, and Kay wondered how it could be this way. Outside, the sun blazed. Then she knew that her eyes needed a moment in order to adjust to the interior, which was shielded from outside light by buckled shutters.
"Here, I'll give us some light," the man said, as if he anticipated how she felt.
He walked across the floor, then threw open a wide pair of shutters. A broken stream of sun rays entered the room.
Kay looked around. Immediately, she was both enthralled and fearsome of the interior of the odd beach cottage. Odd-sized paintings were jammed into the room, mixing the oily substance of the paint with the new light, casting a multicolored array of shades before her eyes. Some of the paintings she could not understand. Others were all too evident of that which they were meant to depict. These factual paintings were those of men and women, girls and boys even some of same-sex lovers all involved in the most detailed sexual encounters imaginable. And the splashes of color that the artist had used to express the sexual attitudes that had been attained, pinpointed the grossness of the sex acts that were expressed.
"Do you like them?" the man asked, nodding from Kay to the paintings.
"Did you paint them?" she asked. "Of course," he answered. "Then you're an artist."
"No, a beachcomber."
"You're not," she said. "You couldn't possibly be that."
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because of this and because of the way you played the bongo drums all that well, it's not representative of the life of a ass."
"Beachcombers aren't bums," he corrected. "But never mind; it's not important. For your purposes, you can consider me a sexologist, which I also am."
"Sexologist?"
"Yes. I make most of my living this way, that is, when I accept fees. That's why I asked who referred you to me. Most of my patients only come by referral."
"Patients?"
"Yes, child," he said softly. "Patients like you."
"But I'm not . "
"You are. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here wouldn't have sought me out as you did, then followed me here."
"Oh."
He laughed, then said, "Oh that seems always to be the expression young people use when confronted with something they don't fully understand."
"Oh," she said again before she could catch herself.
The man laughed harder, and in a moment, Kay joined him, laughed hard, harder than called for because it gave her pleasure to join with this odd man in some united expression of feeling.
When they both quieted, the man said, "Well, let us get on with our business. What is your particular problem?"
Kay started to say that she had none, that she didn't know what he was talking about, that he was presuming in an area where presumptuousness was especially rude. But she caught herself before she uttered a word. The man's voice had been so soft, so calm and unselfconscious, that she felt confident and hopeful, much as if she were indeed before a doctor awaiting his diagnosis.
"Well?" the man questioned.
Kay looked around, then said, "May I sit down."
"Of course. Any place will do."
Kay could see no chair, so she settled on the floor upon a straw mat that was bunched together as if it were intended as a cushion. She was very aware of her body as she seated herself. She knew that her breasts pressured against the thin material of her blouse and that her nipples pointed outward, demanding attention to them. And she knew that her bare legs, cuddled beneath her hips, caused her buttocks to be sharply evident as they pushed against her tight shorts, making her look wanton and tempting. But most of all, Kay realized the asset of her long black hair, for it was this that she remembered the man had stared at, had actually fondled with his eyes. She could not help but make the most of it. A quick turn of her head provided the effect she wanted. Her hair floated over one shoulder and trailed across one breast and into her lap. Her body looked split diagonally with black.
The man looked at her, smiled as his eyes seemed to investigate each strand of her hair. Then he said, "Now that you're comfortable, tell me about your problem."
"I don't think I really have one," Kay answered quickly.
"Of course you do," he said. "If you didn't, you wouldn't have been directed to me."
"But I wasn't . "
"You were," he interrupted. "You were motivated to me by your innermost feelings and impulses. Many of my patients come to me this way by instinct, or perception, or whatever you may wish to call it. But, about you, you're seventeen, I judge, beautiful, I know, and I imagine you've come to Fort Bixdale for a sexual fling either one that is meant to free you from inhibitions, or a fling that will free you from something else perhaps the habit of a sex life you cannot kick."
Kay nearly gasped. The man's words seemed so much the very ones she wished to express that she was sure he was psychic, could read her mind and compound her problems.
The man nodded, much as if she had concurred with his dialogue. Then he said, "You are also a very wealthy girl extremely wealthy, not in your own right but through the fortune of your parents or guardians."
"I live with my uncle," Kay said, much as if it would explain many things.
"Ah, yes, a most attentive uncle, I presume."
"How did you know?"
"I just know," he laughed. "I know most things, but about one as lovely as you I know more than is ordinarily my right."
Kay picked up the end strands of her hair and began fingering them nervously, rolling them together in a tight knot, then unbraiding the strands, then braiding them together again.
"Who are you anyway?" Kay asked.
"My name is Adam, and I am all things, artist, doctor, sexologist but most importantly I am a beachcomber. A happy one, one whose avocation is resolving the problems of beauties such as you."
"But I , " Kay started again.
"Don't tell me, lovely one," the man interrupted. "Just be still and listen. And watch. And feel."
He walked across the room and disappeared behind a bar arrangement which separated the one room from what appeared to be the kitchen. Kay heard the jingle of glass upon glass and guessed that her host was making a drink, one which, she was sure, was meant to reduce any resistance she might feel toward his advances. She thought about resistance and realized that she never truly had it, that she instead always reached a certain point of unity with a boy, then stopped, not necessarily rejecting him, just taking herself out of the sexual picture. And within her, Kay knew that the reason was her uncle, his early introduction of strange and deviate sex to her life. And it was for this that she had contrived to vacation at Fort Bixdale. It was even this and her desire to test herself with others that placed her in the dirty quarters of a most unusual man.
Adam returned to Kay. He did not carry the glasses she expected. But he did carry a vegetable of some kind that looked very much like a stalk of celery, except that it was bright orange and the leaves were brown, not green.
"Here," Adam said, extending the stalk toward Kay. "Take some of this native fruit. It'll help you better express yourself."
Kay took the fruit from Adam as he moved near her, then settled cross-legged directly opposite her.
"Go ahead, eat take it, don't be shy," he encouraged.
"Aren't you having any?" Kay asked. "No. I've had my daily quota."
Kay took a small bite from the end of the stalk. It was bitter, but quite pleasant, she decided. It was not chewy like celery; instead it nearly dissolved in her mouth. She took another bite and swallowed the substance. Then she placed the stalk next to her on the dirty floor, unaware that she had done so, not mindful of dirt or of anything except the strange feeling that crept throughout her body, one of shouting desire, hot and anxious yearning for sex with the man, Adam, with him, with anyone or everyone.
"There, feel better now?" Adam asked.
"I feel giddy," she confided with a little laugh.
He leaned forward and peered into her eyes as if he were a hypnotist and she was his subject.
"Now listen to me carefully, lovely one," the man said. "You are young, and I know that you've already suffered many sexual experiences some good, perhaps, but many, many of them bad. Regardless, I'm here to help you with your problem."
"I want your help," she said. Her voice droned. Her eyes had glazed. She appeared trance-like, yet felt deeply cognizant of everything that occurred.
Adam extended his hand and lifted the ends of her long hair. He, as she had done earlier, twirled them between his thumb and forefinger.
"Why are you doing that?" Kay asked.
"Because I want to. Anything that's sexual should be done merely because one wants to do it, do you understand?"
"You sound like my psychology professor," she said, giggling a bit.
"I'm that, too," he answered soberly. "But for the moment, let's just say that I'm your new lover."
"My new lover," Kay repeated. "Yes. That sounds very good."
"It is very good," he said, leaning still closer, so close that his face was only inches from the peak her blouse made at the bodice.
Kay expected Adam to kiss her. Then, when he did not, she expected him to grasp her breasts, perhaps even sneak his hands inside her blouse to feel of her flesh, to caress it, to, she thought hopefully, play with her nipples the same way that he caressed at the ends of her flowing black hair.
Adam made no such move. He even gave up his grasp upon her hair. But his eyes remained intent upon her as if he were exerting some hypnotic power.
"Undress, lovely one," he soon said in a soft voice. "Discard those foul garments that keep the delight of your body from me."
Kay obeyed, still wondering if she had been hypnotized, or if not, perhaps brought to some feeling of enchantment by the strange fruit she had taken. But she did not care. She was conscious of undressing, but was happy to consider herself under a spell. It seemed to help her hurried journey to nudity.
Completely nude, Kay faced Adam. She felt lazy and happy and also very anxious that her bare body should meet with Adam's approval. It did.
"You are divine," he said. "Utterly divine, and of such a nature, I can well tell, that your loveliness can be cause for upset and unhappiness, the demon that will one day crown you, or destroy you."
The words made little sense to Kay. They were a part of Adam's purring speech, his sound of authority, and, strangely, the confidence in him that so quickly became a part of her.
"Come here, my dear," Adam said, still looking into Kay's eyes., She moved toward him. Her body undulated, the breasts swaying a bit, the hips in perfect rhythm with the rest of her.
When she stopped in front of Adam, he reached out, by-passed her body and again touched at her hair, touched it lovingly. Then he brought both hands around her and lifted all of her hair over her shoulders to hang down either side of her neck. He stepped back and looked at her. Then he placed the hair ends in odd designs around and over parts of her breasts. Again, he stepped back and viewed the effect he had created, and he was like an artist viewing the painting of a new subject.
Soon, he seemed satisfied with the designs he had created with Kay's hair upon her nude body. Then he gently led her to one of the mats and urged her to settle there. Again she complied with his wish.
"What are you going to do with me?" she asked when Adam seated himself cross-legged next to her.
"Not with you, sweet child," Adam replied. "For you what am I going to do for you is the way you should pose the question."
"All right," she answered dreamily. "What are you going to do for me?"
"Teach you the first requirement of sexual enjoyment."
She cocked her head slightly on the side.
"The first principle of a love act is that it should be enjoyed. I'm going to make love to you a different kind of love and I want you to enjoy it. Should you, part of your battle for responsiveness will be over."
These words, too, seemed strange and remote to Kay, but she knew that she could never do anything except what this unique beachcomber wanted.
"Come, stretch close to me," Adam instructed.
Kay moved to enter his arms, but he directed her to a lying position next to him. First, he looked at the long, well-built length of her. Then, like a musician an organist, perhaps he stretched his hands out over her and ran all ten fingers up and down her body.
Kay closed her eyes. She concentrated on the feeling. She liked it, for it made her wish for more. Soon, Adam obliged that feeling.
Slowly, and moving carefully, he hunched over her body. He kissed her throat, each ear, and her throat again as Kay wondered why he did not crush upon her mouth. But then she ceased to wonder at this, for he lowered the point of his caresses and kissed each of her breasts, dotting each of them exactly in the middle of her nipples and pushing them inward. Now, she was oblivious and without mental instructions for her lover. Now she concentrated upon enjoyment as Adam had advised. And she felt great sensations as Adam began a side-to-side sweep of her body with his tongue.
He worked delicately and expertly. And he moved constantly downward.
When Adam reached Kay's belly, she moaned and raised her thighs in a quick, lurching motion. Adam, still kissing at her belly, hooked his hand beneath her risen thighs and held them upright until Kay planted her feet in a propped position. At last he dived deeper and buried his mouth between her thighs.
"OH!" Kay cried, then moaned the same word in a longer, softer key.
Adam crept a hand forward to aid his oral quest. He touched her, found the line of her, made a separation, then spread her in order to know a greater smoothness of her body. Here, he ran up and down the length of her, giving of his tongue in hot slaps, in loving titillation, until soon he rose high and found his high-humped goal. And it was here that he gave his most ardent attention. He kissed and chattered and spanked her hard with his tongue, whisking it back and forth, up and down, in a tiny circle that did not, even for an instant, lose its delicate contact.
Kay felt a sweep of passion that blinded her mind to all things except the moving, working, very intense Adam. And soon the sensations grew even more intense. His tongue became more incessant his fingers upon her more spreading and the hump of her was made to rise even more. And its rise seemed to envelop her, seemed to become a giant balloon that contained all of her past and all of her future. Her body strained mightily. Her hands grasped Adam's head and pressured him closer. She gasped and sighed and emitted sounds of delight and shock at the sensations that coursed over her body. And at last it ballooned higher and higher until nothing was left but her own unleashing, bursting, the splitting through the balloon that enveloped her to give her freedom.
A scream issued from her throat. It was both terrifying and peaceful. It was of such impact that her thighs wound around Adam's neck and squeezed tight as the lurching motion of her body continued.
Kay rested for a long time. Then she left Adam's dwelling as she had come to it. And though the stranger was not a peer, although he was even one reminiscent of her uncle, Kay knew that she had undergone a change, that part of her quest had been achieved.