Chapter 9
For several days Laura brooded over Reb and her inability to attract him to a sexual taking of herself. She did not know why she thirsted so madly for the big Negro boy. It was enough that she wanted him: Laura always got what she wanted. It was enough that he had not been forced into an involvement with her. This was enough to make her try all the harder. She brooded, then decided to do something definite about it.
After a day's activities upon the beach during which she was the most sought-after girl of the group, Laura returned to her motel and rested. She was alone, but still she could not force herself to sleep. Her mind flitted with images of Reb; her body churned with desire for him. Then she decided to pursue him.
It was dark outside when she left the motel and entered her car. She had dressed carefully, deciding upon a bare midriff summer playsuit, one that was conservative, yet revealing, one that both offered her body but cautioned against it.
Laura drove immediately to the motel where she knew Reb and his friends were staying. She parked at the back of the parking lot. She waited a moment, then alighted from the car and walked directly to Reb's unit. She knocked briskly. There was no answer. She knocked again, then still again. And then the door opened.
Tall, blonde Bob smiled out at her.
"Well, hey there," he laughed. "What a hell of a nice surprise. And I'm dressed for the occasion, too."
Laura looked at him and Saw that he was naked except for a towel that was wrapped around his waist. His bare body was speckled with water bubbles.
"Oh, no," said Kay. "I just want to see Reb."
"Ah, come on, Reb's a creep try me, baby," Bob said.
"Is Reb here?" she asked firmly. "No."
"Well, tell me where I can find him."
He reached a hand out and playfully pulled at her hair. Laura jumped back a bit.
"Oh, well," sighed Bob. "Some studs get all the breaks. Reb's not here. He left a few minutes ago."
"Did he go to the beach?" Laura asked.
"No, the riding stables," Bob replied.
"The riding stables?"
"That's what I said. It's just down the road and across the little bridge."
"Goodness, I didn't know that Reb liked riding."
"Huh silly girl," he said leeringly.
"Stop it," she snapped. "I didn't mean that. I meant well, it's dark out and everything so well, it seems odd to ride at night."
"Not to Reb. He rides any time. Sometimes I think he prefers horses to people."
Laura smiled, then could not resist a quick sweep of Bob's body with her eyes. She saw that the towel that contained him, bulged. She was glad. It gave her a good feeling, enhanced her confidence for her meeting with Reb.
Laura thanked Bob, said good-bye, then turned from him and walked away from the motel. She did not stop at her car. She continued to the road, then turned upon it and headed toward the bridge that arched over a small stream.
When she was midway across the bridge, she paused and looked ahead. She saw the outline of a high barn. The way the moon played upon it made it look mysterious and a little forbidding. She breathed deeply and continued across the bridge.
The riding stable barn was set back from the road several hundred yards. Laura veered off the road and walked across the fields toward it. High bushes and wheat-like stalks slapped against her body as she moved, giving her a feeling of being gently spanked. She found it quite pleasant, did not move to avoid the tangle that greeted her every step.
Laura paused again as she came to the front entrance of the barn. It was very quiet. There was not a sign of activity except for the occasional snort of a horse and its hoof pawing at the earth. She proceeded cautiously, a little fearful, beginning to doubt the wisdom of her search for Reb. But her step did not hesitate. She continued to the large doors that fronted the barn. They were ajar. She pushed them apart, one inward, the other a bit outward. They creaked. Laura stepped inside. It was pitch black, but gradually, as she stood very still and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw the horse stalls and the big, silent animals. Then moonlight streaked through the far window and she could see the hay, the watering pails, the troughs, high heaps of hay in a far corner stall that was without a horse, and the other objects that were significant to the riding stable.
A horse snorted and Laura jumped back a step. Then she breathed deeply and moved deeper into the barn. She halted and looked around. There was no sign of Reb. She looked at the empty stall and wondered if a horse was missing from it because it carried Reb through the night, riding wildly, perhaps even thinking of her. But then she changed her fantasy. It could not be true. The hay in the stall was piled too high, nearly filled the entire stall. No horse resided there. She turned and quickly glanced at the other stalls and saw that they were all filled. Every horse, as far as she knew, was accounted for. Reb could not be riding. Bob had to be wrong about his friend's destination.
Laura sighed. She felt very disappointed. And because there was no sign of Reb, no chance for her to entice him and lure him to her body, she felt a renewal of passion for the big colored boy. It was like a child being offered candy, then denied it, she thought.
Another horse snorted, and one whinnied; then several of them began pawing the earth, making a scuffing sound with their hoofs. The sudden noise and activity made Laura retreat another step. Then she turned completely and headed for the barn doors.
Laura took several steps, then paused, certain that she heard a sound near her. She looked around and saw nothing that she had not already viewed through the moon-lit barn. She continued forward, walking quickly now, quite anxious to leave this place of inactivity, strange noises, and the feeling of peril. The open barn door beckoned and she hurried toward it, achieved it, then was snapped from its freedom by a pair of strong, black hands.
Reb spun Laura around, then pressured tightly on her shoulders.
"What are you doing here?" he hissed. "Why don't you just leave me alone. You go struttin' around like you're giving all that stuff away free throwing it at me knowing that it's going to get to me, kill me, maybe why do you do that, girl?"
Laura could not reply. Her throat clogged with fear, not for Reb, but for having been grabbed so suddenly in the secluded barn. And her heart beat so fast that her breasts heaved to its tune, pushing out, then inward, fast as her heart beat, fast as she breathed.
"Why don't you leave me alone?" Reb shouted. He shook her furiously, made her head snap forward and backward like a rag doll's.
"Because because I want you," she cried suddenly.
"Want me good Christ, girl, you don't know what you're saying what you're asking. You're asking to be killed that's what."
"No I'm not," Laura said, regaining her composure.
"You are, you are, you are," he said, shaking her wildly.
Laura, when she stopped shaking from Reb's jerking of her body, put both her hands on his chest, then said, "Listen, Reb, stop being so damn intense about me about everything. Let's sit down and talk for a few minutes. Okay?"
His grip upon her shoulders slackened, then dropped. "All right, over here in the hay that's where I was till I heard you coming in."
"And then you hid," she said.
"Yes," he admitted.
"And all the time I thought you were out riding some place," she said, trying for lightness.
"I usually am. Tonight, I just sat in the hay and did some thinking."
Laura moved toward the stall of hay. Reb fell in step beside her. Then, as they walked together, she asked, "What were you thinking about tonight, Reb?"
"You," he said simply.
"Me? Really? How nice."
"Not very," he said softly.
"Well, that's not nice to admit," she said. "Now why in the world isn't it nice to think about me?"
They had reached the stall where the hay was piled high. Reb stood waiting as Laura turned, then flopped into the hay. Then he lowered to a sitting position at her side.
Laura glanced at his dark face, made lighter by the moonlight which insisted upon streaming through the window now. She saw nothing that she did not already know: dark eyes, hot and wild looking, a crushed nose, evidence of athletic abilities, a body that was lean and hard and, for Laura, very, very desirable.
She turned toward him, then asked, "Why isn't it good for you to think about me, Reb?"
"Because you don't know anything about me," he said. "You don't know what your teasing and fussing can cause."
"I know," she said. "It can cause you to make love to me; that's what it can do. And, Reb, I don't think there's anything so terribly wrong with that."
"But you don't know how I am," he insisted, looking away from her face and into the nothingness of the dark barn.
"I know. The boys have told me about the trouble you were in."
"Even they don't know how bad it was."
"But it's over," she said. "You should forget it and try to live a normal life."
He turned to her. His eyes blazed and his fists clinched in a motion of tight frustration. "Normal life. Girl, you're crazy. There're things about me that can't ever be normal never in a hundred years."
"Oh, bosh," she said lightly. "You make such a big deal about everything. You don't give yourself a chance."
"A chance," he repeated.
"Yes. A chance to see how you are if you've changed."
He looked away from her. Laura took a deep breath, held it, then expelled it slowly. She needed time. Reb, she was sure, was on the very edge of his endurance. Soon, he would be compelled to unleash all of his pent-up fury. She wanted to be the vessel of that unleashing. And she would be, she determined.
She turned toward Reb. Her breasts reached out toward him, moved only an inch away from his forearm, then moved closer as she deliberately thrust at him. He started to recoil, then did not. Laura burrowed the hard tips of her breasts into his arm, at the same time grasping it and holding it against her breasts.
"There," she whispered. "Is that so bad? Is that so very difficult for you to take?"
He did not answer. But Laura felt his body tense and it served to encourage her.
"You're such a gruff boy," she said. "You act as if you don't want to know how much a girl can like you."
"You like me all right," he said suddenly, the tone coming as if it were far away. "You like me because I'm different. You've probably never had a colored boy, and that's why you're interested in me."
"Ohh, Reb, I'm interested in you all right," she breathed sensually.
She remained with her breasts tight against his arm for a few seconds. Then she pulled back and reached and took his big, strong hand in hers. Then she lifted it and placed it against her breast as she again pressured forward.
"There," she said. "Isn't that nice?"
Again, he did not answer. And Laura noticed that his hand did not move, it did not clutch or knead or seek to bunch her flesh together. It was as if he forced it to remain remote. She pressed it harder against her. She felt the hardening rise of her nipples and knew that Reb must also feel this new giving of herself. But still he did not react.
Laura raised his hand. She let it rest at the throat of her dress, providing him with the feel of flesh that could dip into that greater fleshiness of her breasts. But Reb did not make that dive to softness.
Laura dropped his hand. It landed on her thigh, stayed there a second, then bolted away. That pause further encouraged Laura. She knew that it represented the fight Reb was having with himself, that for that instant he was undecided as to whether he would take her or not.
She turned and faced Reb directly. She saw his black face and his burrowing eyes trained upon her face. Then she smiled and raised one hand to the throat of her dress.
She undid the top button. Then she undid the next several and forced her dress to part at her breasts, exposing most of them, showing the round outline of them and the hard, bullet tips.
"Look at me, Reb," she whispered. "Look at me and think that all of this is for you waiting for you that you can have it this very second."
He looked away. Laura crushed her body forward, pressing her bared breasts against Reb's chest. She raised her hands and clutched at his shoulders and burrowed deeper into his body. She felt his heat. It was torrid. Hotter, even, than her own.
"Oh, Reb, don't be so terrible with me," she said.
She moved back a bit, then reached and took his hands and raised them to her naked breasts. She pressed them against her.
He gripped her flesh and looked deeply into her eyes. "You don't know what you're asking, Laura. For Crissakes, you don't know. I'm not like other boys."
"Yes, I know," she answered quickly, catching hope and intending to make the most of it. "You're not like other boys. You're divine."
Reb groaned. It was a mournful sound, like the lament of a slave after a whipping. His fingers clutched her, then released her, then stiffened and flew away from her body.
Laura was not discouraged. She felt again, felt strongly, that Reb was at a turning point, one that would either take him away from her, or to her.
She waited a second; then, gathering all of her sensuality around her like a cloak, she leaned forward, burrowed her bare breasts to him again and reached with her hand to his thigh, then over it until she felt that erect sign of his response. She grabbed him and squeezed him hard.
It was the action that caused Reb's breaking point.
He choked a cry, then spun around and gripped her by the shoulders. Again he shook her hard. And this time, it was different. It was vengeful and hateful and made not of a will that sought understanding. Instead, it was made up of parts of frustration and hate and deep, deep longing.
"All right, you bitch," he hissed. "All right, girl. You're going to get it. You've been wanting it so goddamn bad, all right, you'll get it. And you'll be sorry, bitch, white bitch, real sorry, 'cause you don't know how I give it the only way that I can give it."
With that he released his hold upon her shoulders, drew one big fist back, then thrashed it forward and struck Laura hard upon the cheek bone.
She reeled backward and landed on her back upon the hay. She felt the instant swelling that came to her face. And she felt shock, deep, severe shock for the blow that she had received. But she had no time to consider it. Reb's hands dug into her hair and he stood above her. Then she felt herself being raised to her feet, felt a pause, then felt a hard blow at her right eye. Even before she crushed to the floor of the stall she felt the popping bulge of skin it had caused. And she felt dizzy and confused, could not understand this strange preamble to sex, had not bargained for it, did not wish it, yet knew that she must be a part of it because she had forced it. And then she felt a sharp kick at her groin and as she groaned and clutched herself there she understood all of Reb's words, all of his resistance to sex with her or any girl. She understood it well. This beatings and mutilations were a necessary element to sex for Reb.
"Bitch, bitch, bitch," he cried. "Oh, you, bitch, what you've caused what you're making me do to you."
He grabbed her hair again and jerked her head upward. But this time he did not raise her to her feet. He held her extended, her head arched backward. Then, while he held her with the one hand, he slapped her hard across the face with the other hand, back and forth, forward and backhanded, again and again until Laura thought that she would lose consciousness. But she did not. In a moment, Reb released her and she fell forward on the hay.
There was a pause. It was only momentary. During it, Laura heard movement and shuffling. She did not know, or care, what caused it. But when she slowly raised her head and turned, she knew why she had been released and knew, too, the origin of the noises. Reb had undressed. She looked at him, and as the moonlight bathed him, she felt very real, truly genuine fear. His body was strong and well-muscled. His sexuality was immense, so terribly strong and weird and virile and treacherous, that Laura had a fleeting thought that made her think how right it was that Reb should be in a stable with horses, nude, exposed, erect and ready. She knew that he compared well with any stud horse.
She uttered a little cry, then rolled and attempted to scamper to her feet. Reb took several quick strides toward her, then once more gripped her by the hair and jerked her head and turned it to face him.
"Look at me, bitch," he shouted. "Look, you goddamn teasing bitch; look and see how I'm going to hurt you."
He jerked Laura to her feet. He released his grip on her hair. Then he struck one hand downward, caught the bodice of her dress and ripped it downward and away from her body. The force of the ripping cloth made her stumble, tearing both shoes from her feet. Then she stood straight again and faced Reb, knowing that he would not be satisfied until she was completely nude. He stepped forward, paused, then hooked his fingers into the top of her half-slip, paused, then seared it from her body. Now she was nude except for the tiny white panties she wore. They were a mere fluff of departure as Reb pulled them from her body. And now she was naked before his hot eyes, before his angry fists, before his great and steaming masculinity.
She tried to breath deeply, but could not. The pain at her groin was too much to allow breathing. But then she forgot it as she knew a new contact, a giant blow to her right breast which indented it, flattened it, then carried across to her other breast, striking it hard and outward until Laura was sure that it had left her body.
Laura fell to her knees before Reb. He was in front of her in a flash. And again he gripped her hair and jerked her head upright. And then he applied a new whipping to her body. One that was invoked by the very symbol of man, the symbol that was meant for love, not hate.
Slowly, Reb moved closer to her. Her breasts, hurt and painful, raised up to him. He looked down for a moment; then, with a mighty twist of his hips he lashed himself against both breasts, striking first one, then the other. Then he lashed from the other side, hitting both of her breasts again with his great strength. And he did not stop. He lashed and lashed and lashed; again and again and again he twisted those agile hips, spun himself like a top and lashed his black strength against the white softness of Laura. And he chanted as he struck her, chanted some strange jungle call that seemed generations away from that moment, from any moment of civilized times.
Laura felt the constant, crashing whipping of his manhood. It was as hard against her, as terrifying and hurtful as his fists could ever be. And for a moment she wondered how she had ever wished for this demon thing to be invoked upon her. And then her attitude, her feelings changed. As Reb whipped himself against her, she realized that she was feeling stimulation. She had not expected it. It seemed too impossible. Yet, it was true a glow came to her, heightened her feelings, made her quiver and yearn and feel a deep stir within her loins as Reb twisted madly and struck her again and again, across the breasts, then to the shoulders to beat there, then higher until he invoked a new fury, twisted harder, hissed heavy breath, chanted madly and struck her again and again across the face, from cheek to cheek, back and forth, harder and harder, as his hips whirred before her face like a million voltage machine.
And then he stopped.
Laura fell forward. Then she was jerked upright again and once more she knew the crash of the big Negro's fist; against her breasts, both of them again, then at her collar bone with such crushing power that she felt broken and beyond repair, and then once more at her jaw, right and left in a quick tattoo that made her head jerk from side to side like a puppet jerked by strings.
When Reb stopped this beating, Laura collapsed upon the hay and rolled to her back. She looked up and saw Reb, panting hard, standing above her. And as she looked at him, she knew that she did not care. With the first fright of a beating over, she did not care, cared for nothing but that which she had so relentlessly sought a sexual joining with the big colored boy.
Reb fell to his knees at her feet. Then his hands gripped hard beneath her knees and jerked them upward. She braced them herself and the action seemed to puzzle Reb, as if he could not understand that she wanted him, that she could possibly understand his madness and want him still.
"Come to me," Laura cried. "Come to me, Reb, baby, darling come to me now. I'll take you I'll make you well."
There was a long pause. It was broken by a tearful cry from Reb as he lunged forward, achieved her, then surpassed that achievement and made a descent like none Laura had ever known ever expected to know could ever possibly know again.
"UGHHHHHHHHH," she groaned. It was not from the pain of her beating. It was from the new pain of Reb's kind of love.
He pounded to her. For a moment, she could not move. But then, very gradually, she took strength, took new passion, too, and raised to meet the assault he committed to her body. And she met it lustily, with a high arch of her hips, a hold, a choked cry from her throat, then a withdrawal, a bounce upon the hay and a new rising, a new choked cry, a new latching of herself to him as they paused, before breaking again, then meeting again, then breaking and meeting and rising and falling and rising like a constant, crazy wave of hot, hot ocean.
Suddenly, Laura could go no farther, no higher, could go no place except to her finale.
"Ohhhhhh," she cried. "Oh. Oh. OHHHH. Oh! OH!"
And then it was Reb's finale, too. He lashed and struck and entered and left and lashed again. And all the time he panted and chanted and blubbered the mixed invocations of hate and love and torment and release. "LAURA!" he yelped.
"Yes, Reb, yes, yes, yes go, go, go, NOW!" she answered.
He thrust a final time. Then found the strength for still one more mighty, animal lunge of his body. And then they screamed together and pounded down the course of final ecstasy.
While Laura moaned her sexual happiness and fought to make her breathing even again, Reb cried like a baby. He blubbered and cried his sorrow.
"I'm sorry sorry, sorry, sorry, Laura, so sorry, I want to die, to die, I'm sorry."
She raised, then caught his head in her arms and gently pressured it to the comfort of her breasts. But still Reb cried, blubbering his tears into the softness of her crushed and hurt breasts.
"There, there, now," she said tenderly. "It'll be all right; it will, Reb, I promise you."
And she knew that it would indeed be all right with Reb once again. She knew that when he quieted, after they had rested, that they would come together again. And she knew that no beating would precede the love they would share. She knew that that part of the big Negro's life was over.