Chapter 8
FRANK DURHAM WANDERED MOURNFULLY Across the campus. His tall, stocky frame slushed through the thawing ice and mud, moving carelessly, aimlessly.
It had been a long day, and a bad one.
First there had been his seminar class with Mr. Danton. Old Danton, who had to give him a passing mark if he were to get a degree, and who had to give him a top recommendation if he wanted to begin as anything but an assistant to a third-class ward healer.
The college wasn't a big one to begin with. No major sports graced its stadiums or gymnasiums, no Nobel Prize winners listed in among their credits. In fact, very few people had even heard of it.
As for the law school, it had received even less acclaim than the other schools it resided amidst. Only a handful of years old now, those who had begun with its first term hadn't been practicing for two full years yet. No, it was a long way from becoming a rival to Harvard, and nothing short of top grades could ever get him an offer from the legal firms that scanned the graduating classes eachyear, making bids to those shining lights they wanted.
So what did he do? Exhausted by the party, and further undone by his private session with Mona earlier in the morning, he had fallen asleep in class.
Even that wouldn't have been so bad-in fact, it may have impressed Danton with his industry, with his willingness to burn the academic candle at both ends.
But he was sitting next to Travis, more from chance than choice, and when a firm hand grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him gently, he had said, in a disgusted voice loud enough for all to hear, "I'm not screwing your wife again. I'm too goddamned tired. Just take Mona for a quick one and leave me the hell alone!"
He opened his eyes and stared bleary-eyed at Travis. But it wasn't Travis at all. It was Danton.
"I'm sorry, sir...." he stammered, wakefulness returning faster to his body than his head. "I thought you were Travis...."
That broke everyone up, Travis included. Everyone but Danton, that is. And Danton proceeded to take his paper and rip it apart, point by point, word by word.
It was a good paper. A solid paper. Good for at least a B, and possibly an A if Danton was in a good mood.
But Danton wasn't. He was in a vicious mood. He found faults where none existed, proved that black was white and up was down, and carelessly slung the neatly-typed, carefully-footnoted paper on the floor when he had completed the butchery.
By noon the story was all over campus. Men and boys he had never seen before were approaching him, telling him that they weren't too tired to take Mona upstairs for a quick one-and some of them, too many of them, weren't joking.
Travis was doing a land-office business, joking with most, writing down appointments with a select few. He seemed wildly amused by the whole affair.
By two o'clock Frank was in a black mood, a vicious mood. The next guy who asked him, the very next one, and he'd....
"Hiya, Frank!" Joel Hankins had greeted him as he was walking from the coffee shop to the library, Frank nodded a curt greeting.
"Cat got your tongue?"
Frank. walked ahead, staring at the ground, fingernails grinding into the heels of his hands.
"Not that I really care about your tongue," grinned Joel. "Let Sue Ellen worry about that. But the question is whether the cat has got your wife yet. She-"
He swung without thinking.
Joel's books fell to the ground as he doubled up, hands covering his stomach.
Frank brought up his knee fast, felt it meet with flesh and bone, heard the bone crack as the blood began to splatter his coat.
He laced his fingers together, brought both hands above his head, and drove them down against the back of Joel's neck. Joel fell forward on the snow, and snarling, Frank went after him, throwing himself on top of the defenseless body that "lay still in the snow.
He turned him over on his back, grabbed his collar and slapped his face, drawing blood from his mouth.
"Say it again, you bastard!" he grated, punctuating it with another slap. "Say it again!"
Joel looked up at him, trying to keep conscious, trying to understand what was happening.
"Say it again!" Slap! "Say it again!" Slap!
"Fur God's sake!" mumbled Joel, swallowing a tooth. "Yur killing me! Yur killing me!"
Frank stopped, his hand frozen in the midst of another downward arc. What was he doing? What had happened? This was little Joel Hankins, who had lent him money, given him notes for classes he had missed, who could not weigh more than one hundred and twenty-five pounds dripping wet.
And he was killing him!
"My God, Joel!" he exploded. "I'm sorry.."
He had half-carried, half-dragged him to the hospital, had left him in the emergency room, and had paced back and forth outside the door for half an hour.
At last it had opened, and a nurse had approached him.
"You can see him now."
"Is he hurt bad?"
"He took quite a beating, but he'll be all right in a few days. A few teeth missing, and he'll have a scar or two, but nothing too serious. It was just lucky for him that you found him when you did."
He walked in, afraid and ashamed. Joel was propped up in a sitting position, his nose and one whole side of his face swathed in bandages.
"Joel?" he said hesitantly.
"I'm okay, Frank," he said, grimacing in pain after a futile attempt to smile.
"What did the nurse mean?"
"I told her some hood mugged me," Joel lisped through his adhesive mask. "I don't blame you. It was a rotten thing for me to say."
"I had no right to do it," said Frank, wondering how much face was left beneath the bandages. "Other guys have been saying that to me all day. Look, if there is anything I can do...."
"Forget it."
"No, I mean it. I'll foot the bill, whatever it comes to. And anything else I have is yours too. Including Mona, if you'd really like her."
"Aw, hell no, Frank. Everyone flies off the handle once in a while."
Tears came to Frank's eyes. He wanted to throw his arms around the slight youth's battered body, to hold him, like a son, to beg his forgiveness ... but he didn't do any of those things. He just patted Joel on the leg and walked out.
And now he walked through the campus, vaguely headed in the direction of his home, unmindful of the drizzle that fell on his uncovered head and of the mud that seeped into his shoes.
Suddenly he found himself in front of his house. Tired, he pulled his keys from his pocket, unlocked the door, and stepped inside, absently shutting the door behind him. He slipped his soggy shoes off, hung up his coat and walked to the bedroom.
"Hi," said a low, sultry voice. "I was beginning to think you didn't live here any more."
"Where the hell is Mona?"
"Out," said Sue Ellen, drawing the covers up over her bare, throbbing breasts.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
"Waiting for a taxi," she said with a throaty chuckle.
"Wait outside," he snapped, going to the closet and pulling out a cardigan.
"You're not going to put that on?" she asked. "Why not?"
"Because it's hot in here," she said, throwing back the covers and reveling her nakedness, "and it's going to get a lot hotter."
"It sure as hell is," he said ominously.
"What's eating you?"
"Nothing."
"May I?" she grinned.
"Beat it, slut!" he snapped, getting a fresh pack of cigarettes from his dresser drawer.
"I'd love to," she answered, undaunted. "Whip it out."
He turned to face her, his face contorted in an expression that was half rage and half disgust.
"I put a man in the hospital today, Sue Ellen. I almost killed him. I'm ... we, Mona and me, we're through with it. Done. Got that?"
"Nope," she said. "The only time we throw someone out of the club is when a girl puts a man in the hospital and almost kills him. And I'm not that type," she concluded, patting the bed where she wanted him to lay.
"Forget it! Or do you want a whipping too?"
"I'll try anything once," she said, kneeling over with her bare buttocks facing him. "Whip away."
"Goddamnit! I'm serious."
"So am I," she said, wriggling invitingly. "I'll do it!" he threatened.
"I wouldn't be wasting my time if I thought you wouldn't."
His muscles tensing spasmodically with rage, he unbuckled his belt, pulled it out of the loopholes, and let it dangle menacingly from his hand.
"I'm warning you for the last time. Get out of my house and out of our lives."
Her only reply was a tantalizing wiggle of her buttocks. "Can you see it all?" she asked, raising herself still higher, breathing a little heavily. "I mean ... all...."
He sucked in his breath, cocked his arm, and brought the belt down hard. She yelled as the leather tongue reached out and planted asearingkiss on her, but didn't move.
"Get out now," he said, staring, fascinated, at the long red welt that was already forming.
"Sooner death," she whispered, smiling despite the pain, "than dishonor."
The belt made its high, circular arc and came down again, harder this time, landing with a loud crack.
This time her legs gave way, spreading out slightly to reveal her pink, moist, throbbing center. Her entire body quivered with pain, but she brought her legs back under her and once again raised her welted bottom to him.
"I can take more of this if you can," he said, but most of the anger was gone from him.
"Try me," she said between clenched teeth.
The belt landed again, the sound of it reverberating throughout the room.
This time she flattened out entirely, squirming in agony on the bed.
Then, suddenly, she was still.
"Are you all right?" he asked, the last vestage of fury gone from him.
No answer.
"Sue Ellen?"
Silence.
God. Had he done it again? He dropped the belt and raced to her side, shaking her by the shoulders. "Speak to me! Are you all right?"
She groaned.
"Can I do anything?"
"Am I ... am I bleeding?"
He looked down at the red, swollen buttocks.
"I don't think so," he said. "Is there anything I can get you, anything that will make you feel better?"
"You caused me this pain," she said. "You make it go away."
"But how?"
"Kiss it away."
"Do what?"
"You heard me."
"You go to hell."
"Maybe I will, but if you don't kiss it away, you'll go to jail!"
Resignedly, he lowered his head to her buttocks, pressing his lips lightly against one of the red marks.
"Not quite there," she purred. "Lower."
His lips moved down the curve of her buttocks. Moaning deliciously, she spread-eagled her legs.
"Lower ... lower ... low ... oh...."
He did it, begrudgingly and harshly at first, but as his lips and then his tongue came in contact with her, as he felt the warmth begin to spread, his passion began.
"That's right," she purred, raising herself to her knees once again. "I'll even make it easier for you."
He stopped long enough to rip his clothes off, then returned to her.
"Not bad at all," she said, a beginning quiver of pleasure making her shoulders shudder.
Then he was beside her, trying to turn her over on her back and mount her.
"Not yet, stud," she smiled. "We'll do it when I'm ready this time."
She pushed his head back down to where she wanted it, reaching down and touching him with delicate, light, sensitive fingers.
"And we won't have any more talk about leaving the group, will we?"
He wanted to answer her that, no, we. wouldn't have any more talk about leaving the group, but his tongue was working too furiously to bother forming words. And as his tongue moved, her clit gave, and straightened as his own had, and finally quivered between his lips like a bobbing thing with a life of its own.