Chapter 6
Laura Stockland leaped upon the platform and raised her arms high over her head as she faced the crowd around her. The blaze of the bonfire behind her glinted her with streaks of red, making her seem like one of hell's creatures. And the faces of the young men and women before her appeared as those of a similar creation, for the bonfire ignited them, too, blazing them and making them seem hot and very anxious.
"Come on, Laura, give it to us, baby," a boy called from the crowd.
"Yeah show us how to do it, honey," yelled another lad.
"Yeah, Laura, give, give, give go, go, go all the way," Margie Winters hollered.
Laura looked down at her friend and smiled. Margie always the first with a new fad wore a topless swimsuit. Her auburn hair caught the sparks of the bonfire and made her seem inflamed, as indeed she was, for her breasts were puffed outward and their nipples had come from concealment and shown hard and brown-red. And the dip of her swimsuit bottom, which swooped beneath her navel like a wide-sized U, seemed on fire, too. Its color was orange.
"Show us the way, Laura," Pixie Thomas cried.
Laura looked at Pixie and saw that she, too, seemed more excited, more sensual and anxious than usual. And the boy who stood next to the small blonde girl seemed especially excited. His hand was around Pixie's waist. It was working its way up to one small, hard breast. And Pixie's hand upon his seemed to encourage it.
Laura turned around and picked up a small bongo drum. The crowd around her cheered. Laura held the drum in the crook of one arm at her side and rested it on her hip so that all could have an unconcealed view of her body as she beat a rhythm upon the drum. And the view they had was very fetching black hair shining, sun-tanned body rippling with perspiration and hot-looking, her bikini so brief that it seemed she was only a breath away from nudity, and her feet spread quite far apart, planted firmly on the floor like those of a thumping native dancer.
As soon as it was completely quiet, Laura thumped once upon the drum. It seemed like a prelude to sin. Then she thumped it again, harder, more sinfully sexual, then still again. And then she paused and looked around as if the drum was meant to issue a call. In a moment, she began a steady beat upon the drum, swaying her body as she thumped upon it, twisting her hips, rolling her breasts, quivering her thighs, beating her feet flat upon the platform in a stiff, hard beat. And then she increased the beat, went so fast that the drum was a constant, rolling call that soared through the black of the night. And her head raised to the star-studded night, went far back and strained until her neck cords popped outward as she continued to beat rapidly upon the bongo drum.
Soon, the audience became participants. Following Laura's lead they clamped their hands in a rhythm of accompaniment. And their bodies began to move, too, started to turn and roll and twist as girls faced boys and executed their bodily movements in a direct call to their passion, turning very sexual, very desirable, very, very urgent looking.
Laura shifted the position of the jungle drum. She brought it before her and clamped it tightly between her thighs. Then she used both hands upon it, thumping a sexual chant in a mad frenzy of movement, letting her head droop forward, making all of her body chum and twist as she struck the drum. Her breasts bounced in and out of her thin bra, dancing a mad dance of their own, twisting and turning and shimmering with the light of the bonfire upon them. And her thighs, tightly holding the drum much as if it were a man she held rolled with perspiration and glistened and quivered and tensed.
At last Laura issued a final tattoo upon the drum. Then she ended it suddenly.
The clapping of the others ended, too. For a moment, it was very quiet. Then there were wild shouts and calls and cheers.
Laura raised and extended her arms above her head again, stretching on her toes and reaching high. Then she brought them down with a swoop and called out, "And now who's ready for follow-the-leader?"
Affirmative shouts split through the night.
"All right, babies," she called back. "I'm the leader."
There were new shouts from the beach gang. Laura smiled and let her eyes roam over all of them, looking as if she sought a particular one, someone special with whom she could frolic. But now, just as it had been since arriving at Fort Bixdale, she felt disappointed. And because she felt it, the beads of desire and competition bubbled more fully within her, and she determined to subdue disappointment through the outlet of her body. She would let it run wild; she would let it churn and burn and give, give, give. And then perhaps, she would know a lessening of the desire that plagued her that desire for a strange colored boy named Reb he whom she had met only to feel the sting of his rejection. As she thought of him, a new burning came to her loins.
"Okay, here we go," she yelled. "Everybody follow-the-leader."
Laura brought one hand to her back, undid the knot of her bra top, paused, then suddenly jerked it from her body and flung it far to the side of the platform. Her breasts heaved and jiggled.
There was a great deal of mad yelling from the crowd. Then there was the confusion of motion. And then there were newly bared upper bodies from the girls, from those who were not already toplessly attired. Laura looked at them all and felt satisfaction at her ability as a leader, felt happiness that she a newcomer to Bixdale was able to invoke her will upon all the others. All, she thought, except the one she wanted most to influence big, strong, black Reb.
"Hey, what about us?" a boy called out. "We ain't got any of those things to take off."
"But you're going to have, honey," Laura laughed at him.
She brought one hand to the tie of her swimsuit bottom. She let it rest there for a moment. Then she looked around dramatically. And then she called out, asking, "Any of the fuzz around?"
"Naw," a girl exclaimed. "They've gone in hiding."
"Good," Laura hollered back. "So men girls follow-the-leader."
Laura whipped her swimsuit bottom from her body and stood before the others in a blaze of sensual nudity.
Again there were shouts, confusion, and soon a baring of all the bodies that faced her men, boys, women, girls; males boldly showing their passion and strength; girls looking wild and free and uninhibited, their breasts and thighs reflecting the light of the bonfire as if they were a part of it.
"Somebody hit a drum," Laura announced. "The leader wants to dance so follow-the-leader."
A drum began its beat from some place behind the group. Laura walked to the edge of the raised platform and looked down. Beneath her a very tall reddish-haired boy smiled up at her and opened his arms. Laura's eyes appraised his body, saw its great strength, saw the full nakedness of him pinpointed and directed toward her.
Laura posed for a moment at the edge of the platform. Then she leaped from it, sailed through the air and downward until she felt the grasp of the red-haired boy's arms as he caught her and held her only inches above the ground.
"There ya go, honey," the boy said. "Thanks," she replied. "Come on dance follow-the-leader."
"That's what I'm here for, little chickie," the boy said.
He did not release her to stand upon the ground. He held her body tightly jammed to his. Their nakedness mixed. Laura felt his strong hands at her back, felt her large breasts crushed against his hard chest, and she felt the occasional thrust of his strength at her thighs as he began to move around in a slow-moving dance step.
Laura looked to one side and saw that the others were following her example, that all of them, nude and close together, had found dance partners and were moving about the beach in slow, sensual steps. She cuddled her mouth into the boy's neck, then felt his quick, jolting reaction, felt his hands lower and grip at her bare buttocks and pinch hard. And she felt the greater whisk of his strength slap at her thighs. It was a signal for Laura to assert herself more boldly. She raised back a bit, then deliberately rubbed her breast ends against his chest, from side to side, a bit up and down, then from side to side again. They boy's fingers dug deeper into her flesh. And Laura brought her hands around his neck and tenderly caressed him there with the tips of her fingers. In a moment, she felt a new jolt of response from him.
Laura allowed another few moments of the erotic dance; then she raised her head and was just about to call a halt and progress to the next stage of the game when at the rear of the crowd, half hidden by the naked, moving bodies, looking shy and hesitant, she saw the towering figure of Reb. Her heart fluttered. Her chest felt suddenly jammed with emotion. She both thrilled and deplored the sight of Reb, he whom she had waited for, had not found, now suddenly confronted for the first time since they had met on the road leading to Fort Bixdale.
For a moment, Laura did not know what to do. She sensed that if she went to him, he would again reject her. She remembered the story that was told of Reb, how he had raped and mutilated, yet escaped the law and the shame by means of college and his ability as a football star of national stature. As she thought of it, her loins ached for him, to hold and cradle him to know him thoroughly. But as she thought of this, she also felt pains of hurt and rejection, and from these signs of what he had caused her, she determined to tease and tempt him, make him sorry that he had not grasped his first opportunity to have her as his own.
"Dance me toward the back, baby," Laura whispered into her partner's ear. She pressured her lips to his ear, then mouthed it fully for a second as her tongue darted within.
"Man I'll dance you any place," the boy wheezed.
"I'm not too heavy?" she inquired shyly.
"Heavy? Hell, your feet ain't touching the ground now, and, baby, they don't have to. I can hold you easy even without hands if you give me the chance."
Laura laughed. The boy's hands tightened on her buttocks and he boosted her a bit higher upon his body, causing her to drag upward against him in a way of reminding her of his strength and power. She permitted her body to remain tight to his, to remain raised above the ground as he danced her in the direction of where
Reb stood, glaring at the moving, dancing display of nude bodies.
Laura, when they were only a few feet from Reb, raised her head and stared directly at him. He stared back. His eyes were as hot as she remembered them, his body as strong, as virile, as hard and ready as she dreamed. Deliberately, she gave no sign of recognition, of welcome or pleasure, of anything but her interest in the dance, her tall, naked partner, and her position upon his body.
They danced in a circle before Reb's eyes. Laura looked at him steadily, conveying, she hoped, a memory of her body as a reminder of the bitterness of his denial of her taking. Again, she brought her mouth to her partner's ear and tightened her grip upon his neck. Again she mouthed and tongue-caressed the boy's ear, making him jolt again, grip her harder and raise her a bit higher upon his body.
Laura glanced at Reb again when she removed her mouth from her partner's ear. And this time she reacted with great, bitter hostility reacted with real anger, for as she looked at Reb, she saw Carla Torro hurrying through the crowd until she arrived at the side of the big Negro. Reb turned to Carla and seemed genuinely happy to see her. Reb was in swim trunks and Laura could see a quick bulge come to them as he investigated Carla's nude body.
Laura felt compelled toward the dramatic, toward anything that would shift Reb's attention from Carla back to herself. And then she decided what to do.
"All right, gang," she called out. "Watch the leader and follow-the-leader."
Laura leaned back from her partner, gripped her thighs at his hips, then boosted her body upward and paused.
"All right, baby," she said. "Carry me carry me and do it without hands if you can."
The boy groaned a sigh of pleasure. One big hand helped boost Laura higher upon his body while his other hand made an adjustment, aided the thrust he made with his hips.
Gently, Laura lowered upon him.
"Ummmmmmmm, nice," she declared softly.
"Ohhhh, Jeeeeeez," the boy whispered passionately.
"Dance," Laura instructed. "Dance me around like this. And and jiggle me a bit, baby."
The boy complied. Difficult as it was, he danced her in a small circle only a few feet from Reb and Carla. And from time to time, interjecting the action with the dance steps, the boy lifted and lowered Laura in a quick series of jolts upon himself, wheezing and uttering sounds of passion as he did so.
Laura helped the action. She tightened her thighs to the boy's hips and pressured up and down, each stroke harder than the one before it, but less hard than the next downward swoop she committed to his body. And she panted sounds of pleasure, some contrived, some beginning to gather the strength of genuine feeling.
Laura looked again at Reb and saw that he stared at her again, that his attention had turned from Carla to her and that his expression had changed to one of wild, hot lust, searing fire darting from his eyes to the place where she and her dancing partner were joined. Reb's expression excited Laura. It sent shivers down her spine. It made her feel hotter and more anxious for union with him. It even forced her to express it through the unique unity she had made with the tall, nude, red-haired boy.
"Dance faster, baby," she whispered. "Faster and faster and faster, baby."
The boy moved quicker. He jolted her harder against him. She clung more desperately, raised and lowered more frequently, higher and lower, more grindingly, more achingly sexual. And all the time, through eyes which were now half-closed, she stared at Reb, conveying passion and desire, that which she was feeling in the hope that it would tempt him to the breaking point of his abstinence.
But the effect of her body tightly united with a boy as they used a dance as an excuse for erotic encounter, had the opposite effect on Reb, made him direct his passion toward another. His arm shot out. He gripped Carla Torro about the waist and jerked her to his side. Although he still stared at Laura, his hand moved to Carla's bare breast as he pressured her closer to him.
Laura's emotions flared. She felt foiled and cheated and shamed.
She lifted higher on her partner's body. But this time she did not descend upon him. Instead, she turned her head away from Reb and Carla and shouted to the others, "All right, time to change. The leader wants to play to play leapfrog so, follow-the-leader."
Moans and squeals of disappointment sounded from all the dancing couples. Laura pushed against her partner's chest, starting to free herself of the cling of their bodies. He protested, attempted to detain her, but could not as she pushed again, then leaped clear of him and close to the bonfire.
"Leapfrog, I said," she shouted to a few of the couples who were continuing to dance with their bare bodies locked together. Reluctantly, the couples parted.
Laura moved a bit away from the fire, then said, "All right girls, we're the frogs boys, you do the leaping."
"Pole vaulting, you mean," a boy shouted as the others roared.
"Ready set come on, let's go," Laura said impatiently.
She squatted on her hands and knees, then looked around as the other girls attained the same position in front of her, forming a circle around the fire. Their bodies looked alive and anxious. Watching them fall into position all around her enhanced Laura's emotions, made them wilder, more wrought by anger for Reb for everything and everyone.
"Okay, leap," Laura commanded.
The first boy in the line behind her touched lightly at Laura's back and leaped over her. Then he went to the next girl and did the same. And to the next, and on and on around the fire. The next half dozen boys did exactly the same as the one who had preceded them.
But then there came a pause which was ended by a n pair of hands upon Laura's body. These made a different placement. They did not touch lightly at her back, then leave. They gripped firmly at her buttocks. Then they jerked her backward so that she could feel the piercing desire that pulsated there.
Laura felt a new thrill dart through her body. She wondered if the boy was Reb, if he finally could stand it no longer and used this game as a means of coming to her. She turned, then looked away again. The boy was not Reb. It was her dancing partner of a few minutes earlier, the tall, strong, reddish-haired boy who had already known the close contact of her body.
"Come on, jump," Laura instructed.
"That's just about what I'm agoing to do, little girl," the boy said.
But he still did not become the leaper over the frog. One hand strayed from her buttocks and touched at her thighs. Then, even before Laura could protest, he jammed close to her, paused an instant, and finally thrusted fully forward and a bit downward. Then he gripped both of her hips and gyrated her against him as he pounded heavily to this prize.
Laura started to howl a declaration of foul, but again she thought of Reb, wondered if and hoped his eyes were still upon her. Then she spun her hips madly, meeting and departing, then meeting again the lurching attack of the boy who drove to her like a maniac. A tremble of thrill tickled her loins. It grew. But still it was not such that she could not deny it.
"All right, next," she shouted.
Several pairs of eyes turned toward her; then a boy shouted, "Hey, that's a real twist, Laura a real gimmick, baby we're going to leapfrog your way."
With that, the boy withdrew his hold upon Laura and proceeded to the next girl. He immediately took her as he had Laura. And Laura felt a new entrance of her own body. She did not know who it was, nor did she care. It wasn't necessary. She reacted passionately to the new partner, immediately lurching and twisting and churning her body in a rhythm that matched his assault. And then, after a few minutes during which her passion intensified, leaped ahead and paced rapidly toward an end, she steeled herself and shouted out a command for a new halt and a new switching of partners.
After the boy's lazy, reluctant withdrawal from her, she felt a new taking of her body. Again her senses flowed and she churned as she had with the others, giving and taking great gusts of energy to the act which was growing more intense, more terrifyingly near its pleasure-terror end.
There were three more partners who pounded the fury of their desire to Laura, three whom she knew as strangers, yet knew in the most intimate of acts. And with each of them she reacted as if he were a one and only lover for whom she thirsted.
And at last there came to her the lurch of a fourth unknown lover. He gripped her firmly. He seared to her as if he were bent upon destruction. And this time, there was no stopping for Laura. She could not. She had gone too far with too many and now wanted an end for all that had built within her.
From the moment she raised and pressured, then relaxed before pressuring again, she knew that regardless of the partner, the game regardless of anything, this would be her evening's last sexual partner. She churned madly. And hastily. And when the build of emotion within her reached its dam, pressured there, then rolled over it, she yelled out a passionate call and turned her head as she fought her body harder to the boy behind her. It was then that she saw Reb. He was standing near her again. He was staring at her. He looked as if he were about to enter the game, as if he had intended to approach Laura and replace every man who had that night known her for a little while.
Laura wished that she could stop the bursting of her body. But she could not. The boy pounded. She answered. And all the time she looked at Reb and wished that it was he who was driving his desire home to her twisting body.
She cried out, then cried again as her partner reached a maximum speed, surpassed it, then slowed, paused, and finally left her.
Laura whimpered and collapsed in a heap upon the sand. She looked to where Reb stood. He had been alone. Now he was not. He had turned and apparently retrieved Carla. He stared hard and bitingly at Laura once more, then grasped Carla by the hand, turned and headed toward a high sand dune. Laura knew that she had stirred Reb toward her violation, that she had succeeded in this which she had set out to do, only to have lost this chance at the very end. But she knew, too, that there would be a new opportunity to tempt the big Negro. She shivered, and she did not know if the reaction had come from anticipation, or from fear for what this brute-man's taking of her might cause.