“Love, shmove!” Aunt Marta shouted at her. “Out! Out of my house, you whore, you Jezebel! Out!”
Motty turned to Stevie, still crying. “Stevie, tell your mother! We love each other. Tell her!”
Stevie stared at her through his horned-rimmed glasses with the solemn look he always had. “We have to think about it,” he said nervously. “Maybe we’re acting too hastily. Mama is only trying to do the right thing for us.”
Then all she could do was cry until the tears blurred her eyes and she could barely see. Still crying, she felt strong hands gripping her arms. “Stevie!” she cried. The tears still rolling down her cheeks, she looked up. “Joe.”
“You were crying out loud,” he said. “I could hear you from my room.”
She sat up in bed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “Everyone has bad dreams sometimes.”
“This was stupid,” she said. She looked up at him. “I guess I’m really afraid of your mother. You know how she feels about Stevie.”
Joe laughed. “I know. She thinks that there’s no girl good enough for him. Her son the doctor.”
“She doesn’t feel that way about you,” she said.
“I’m a nogoodnik,” he said. “What’s a writer who doesn’t work?”
“It’s a different kind of work,” she said.
“I know it. You know it. But she doesn’t,” he said wryly.
“Let me change,” she said. “I’ll heat up dinner.”
“No rush,” he said. “I’ll be working. Just call me when you’re ready.”
She sat on the edge of her bed until she heard the sound of his typewriter. Slowly she took off her slip and looked at herself in the mirror over the dresser. There were dark circles under her eyes. She turned the light on in the room. Daylight was fading quickly. She switched on the bedside lamp and turned back to the mirror. The circles under her eyes seemed even darker. Slowly she unfastened her brassiere and her girdle. In the mirror she could see the red lines on her flesh where her undergarments had compressed it. She rubbed the marks on her thighs and hips, then cupped her breasts. They felt heavy in her hands and she wondered whether they were becoming bigger and softer. She hoped not. A 36 C cup was big enough. She always felt embarrassed about the size of her breasts. At work, the men were always looking at them, trying to grab a feel of them or talking about them. She felt an aching in them.
Quickly, she checked the date. She was only a few days away from her period. Maybe that was why she felt so heavy. She tended to gain a few pounds before her period, and maybe that was also why she now felt so blue and down. Automatically she touched her pubis. It, too, felt heavy and swollen. Quickly she fingered her clitoris, but the moment she felt the pleasure and excitement she stopped. She always felt very horny just before her period, but nice girls didn’t do the things she wanted to do. She turned to the bathroom. A quick shower would make her feel better.
* * *
JOE’S DOOR WAS standing open as she walked past it in the hallway on her way to the staircase. The sound of the typewriter went clackety-clackety, faster and faster. “I’m going down to the kitchen,” she called in to him.
The typewriter kept clacking; he seemed not to have heard her. She hesitated a moment, then went into his room and stood behind him looking down at the page in the typewriter.
The razorlike scimitar slit her brassiere and suddenly her naked breasts leapt forward. [Motty read the words on the page]. Quickly, she tried to hide her beautiful globules with her hands but without avail. Her breasts were too big to hide and they overflowed her small graceful fingers. Then she felt the Arab’s hot lips and breath moving down her throat and neck, down and down, the heat growing more intensely as he moved toward her breasts. Honey wanted to scream for help but there was none available. She was completely in the savage’s power and no one to save her. With one hand she tried to push him away but he only laughed and slipped the scimitar under the belly band of her harem pants and slowly began to cut them away from her beautifully rounded curvy hips and legs. “No!” Honey cried. “Please, no. I’m a virgin!”
Haroun Raschid smiled, leering. “Of course,” he said in his fascinating sexy voice. “Only a virgin’s blood is pure enough to mix with a sheik’s love.”
The scimitar flashed. She moved quickly, running toward the entrance of the tent before she ever realized she was completely nude. The tent flaps opened and two giant Nubian slave warriors pinned her arms.
“Bring her here,” the sheik ordered.
They brought her to the center of the tent, still squirming and trying to escape. “Bind her wrists and her ankles to the two center poles.”
Instantly, they obeyed, and turned silently from the tent. Honey tried to move but it was impossible. They had tied her securely. She shook the blond hair around her face. She stared at him as he slowly moved around examining every tiny secret corner of her nude body. Now she couldn’t see him because he was completely behind her. She felt his hands touching her back, the soft curves of her buttocks. “What are you going to do to me?” she cried.
“You will see,” he said softly and came out from behind her and stood unmoving. Then raising his right hand he uncovered the soft silk strands of a cat-o’-nine-tails whip.
Her eyes were wide and frightened. “You’re going to hurt me and beat me!” she cried.
“No, my love,” he said softly. “Believe me, you will never feel any pain, only pleasure. The pleasure that will bring a passionate excitement into your body that only the magic of our love can satisfy.”
As if hypnotized, Honey stared as the whip in his hand raised up and up, before her. She held her breath as it began falling toward her …
The typewriter was suddenly still. Joe looked up at her beside him, his eyes glazed as if he had been far away.
She felt a strange heat inside her as she looked down at him, then, “Jesus!” she exclaimed, suddenly realizing that he had been seated in nothing but his undershorts. “You’ve got a hard on!”
He blinked down at himself, then up at her. “That’s right.”
“How can you write with a hard on?” she asked.
“When I write like that, I have a hard on,” he said. “I feel everything I write. When I write tears, I cry, when I write fear, I’m frightened. Whatever I write I feel. I even feel what other people feel when I write about them.”
“Even real people?” she asked.
“Even about you or Mama and Papa. Stevie, everyone.”
“Does your feeling come from writing or do you feel and then write?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Sometimes one comes first, sometimes the other.”
She looked down at him. “You still have your hard on.”
He opened his fly and held his penis in his hand. “Yes.”
“What do you do about it?”
“You know, jerk off or take a shower—and there’s always the real thing. I could get laid.” He looked up at her. “You read it over my shoulder. Didn’t it get you horny?”
She didn’t answer. The truth was, it had. The heat in her loins felt like fire. “No,” she answered huskily.
“Touch it a little,” he urged. He remembered a phrase from his childhood. “Kiss it and make it better.”
She was shocked. “I’m going to marry your brother.”
“You’re not married yet,” he said.
She let out a deep breath. “You are a shit!”
“That’s right,” he said.
She stood next to him for a moment, then smiled. “I think that you’re not as bad as you like people to believe you to be.”
“I still have a hard on,” he said.
“That’s your problem,” she said. “I’m going downstairs to get supper ready.”
7
THE BELL OVER the store door rang for the first time in the two weeks he had been working there. He rose from behind the narrow counter aisle in which he had jammed the typewriter table where he
worked. A flashily dressed, pretty black girl walked toward him. “Hello, Joe,” she said in a soft southern voice.
He looked at her blankly.
She smiled. “You don’t remember me, do you? I’m Lolita.”
He still drew a blank. But he did remember there had been three girls the first day he had come to the store. “I remember,” he said. “But which Lolita were you?”
She laughed. “I was the one who went out for the coffee.”
He nodded, but really did not recognize her. “Lolita?” he said questioningly.
“My name is not really Lolita,” she said. “But that’s what Jamaica calls all of us. My name’s Charlotte. Charlie for short.”
“Nice to meet you, Charlie,” he said, holding out his hand. Her hand was small and warm in his palm. “What can I do for you?”
“I was just in the neighborhood,” she said. Her hand still rested warmly in his clasp. “What are you doin’?”
“Working,” he said, gesturing to the typewriter behind the counter.
She glanced at it. “Writin’?”
“I’m trying.”
She withdrew her hand. “Jamaica around?”
“Not until six o’clock,” he said. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was only a quarter to four.
“I was hopin’ I’d find him here,” she said. “I wanted to make a little contact.”
“Sorry,” he answered. “He doesn’t leave me with any. That’s his department. All I do is take telephone messages.”
“I can always find up some scrapins in the back room,” she said.
“The back room’s locked,” he replied. “And he keeps the key on him.”
“Shit!” she said. “I’m really feelin’ down.” She looked up at him. “You don’ know how bad it is out there on the street. I must have been up and down Broadway from Columbus Circle to Times Square three times and never scored.”
He felt disappointed for her. Then he remembered. “I have a small clincher of a joint. I don’t know how good it is because I have had it a long time.”
“Anything will be a help,” she said.
He took out his pack of Twenty Grands and tapped out the small piece of cigarette. She took it in her fingers and held it under her nostrils.
“It’s not bad,” she said. She opened her purse and took out a bobby pin. Carefully she clipped the joint in the pin, then lit a match. She inhaled slowly and deeply. She looked at him through the curl of smoke. “This is a godsaver!”
He lit a Twenty Grand for himself and stood there without speaking. The pungent smell of the marijuana was overriding the tobacco in the cigarette. He began to feel it in his head. He stared down at her breasts swelling over the square-cut decolletage of her blouse.
She smiled at him. “Like them black beauties?”
“Unbelievable!” he said.
With her finger she pulled down her blouse. “Ever see such purple nipples?” she asked. “They stick up like little black pricks.”
He stared silently. He could feel the surging in his penis. Still smiling, she placed her hand on his fly. She laughed. “You have a real friend there.”
“We better cut it out,” he said. “The front door is open.”
“It don’t mean a shit,” she said. “Nobody ever comes in here. Like french?”
“I’m not crazy,” he said.
“I give the best french in the world,” she said. “Let’s get in the back corner behind the counter. Nobody can see us back there.”
She followed him behind the counter. Carefully she pinched out the joint and knelt in front of him and opened his fly. Expertly she cupped his testicles with her hand and, resting the shaft of his penis on her palm, gently began to lick her tongue in a slow circle around his glans as her teeth sharply touched him in unexpected tiny bites.
He felt his legs becoming weak, the sensation running through himself under his groin into his anus. Suddenly the telephone began ringing. “Jesus H. Christ!” he exclaimed. Picking up the receiver, he spoke into it. “Caribbean Imports.”
A very formal woman’s voice came to him. “Mr. Crown?”
He could hardly answer. “Yes.” He looked down at the black girl. She was really into her work, her eyes smiling at him, her large white teeth nipping at him.
“Laura Shelton,” the voice came into his ear. “I have good news for you.”
He leaned on one arm so that he would not fall from the counter. “Yes, Miss Shelton,” he managed to say.
“I’m sorry I haven’t called you before, but I have been very busy. But despite that I have been working for you. You know that story you sent to me, ‘The Shoplifter and the Store Detective’?”
“Yes,” he gasped.
“I just sold it to Collier’s magazine for one hundred and fifty dollars,” she said.
“Oh, my God!” he shouted, no longer able to control himself. His orgasm was tearing throughout the whole of his body. He looked down at the black girl; his semen was overflowing from the corners of her mouth to her chin and onto her cheeks. “Oh, my God!” he yelled.
She must have sensed a strangeness in his voice. “Mr. Crown?” she asked quickly. “Mr. Crown, are you all right?”
“Yes,” he gasped. “I was just overwhelmed.”
“You must be very excited,” she said with self-satisfaction in her voice. “Especially since we’ve never even seen each other face to face.”
He looked down at Charlie, still kneeling before him, her hand holding his erection tightly, her tongue still licking him as if he was a popsicle. “Yes,” he said more calmly. “I never felt anything quite like it.”
“We have some details to work out,” she said. “Could you come into the agency tomorrow morning? I’ll have the agency contract ready for you, and the magazine check.”
“Ten-thirty okay?” he asked.
“That will be fine,” she said.
“Thank you very much, Miss Shelton,” he said. “And also pass along my thanks to your sister for bringing us together.”
“I will do that, Mr. Crown,” she said. I’m looking forward to meeting you at last. Goodbye, Mr. Crown.”
“Goodbye, Miss Shelton,” he replied and placed the telephone on the counter. He looked down at the black girl, whose fist still held him tightly. “What the hell are you trying to do?” he asked. “Break it off?”
She wiped the semen from her cheek and chin with the back of her other hand and licked it off. “One good come deserves another.” She smiled. “There’s still a lot of juice in your balls.”
He stared at her as she brought him into her mouth again. Her cheeks went concave as she drew him in tightly. Then a sharp knifelike pain tore into his anus as she forced two long-nailed fingers inside him. He almost fell as the pain ricocheted through his groin. He yelled in agony and almost automatically hit her across the face with his open hand, knocking her to the floor. “Bitch!” he snapped angrily.
She held her hand against her cheek, a peculiar expression on her face as she looked at him. “I was jus’ tryin’ to pleasure you,” she said.
The back-room door opened behind her. Joe had forgotten the secret alley door that Jamaica used to the back room. Jamaica glanced at him, then down at the girl. His voice was cold. “You tryin’ to put a hurtin’ on that boy, Lolita?”
The sound of fear echoed in her voice as she tried to grovel toward him. “No, sweet man. I was jus’ foolin’ with him.”
“Bitch!” he snarled. With his heavy boot, he kicked her in the ribs and she rolled sidewise across the store. “How many times done I tol’ you never to come into the store less’n I ask?”
She curled herself into a ball, crying. “I didn’ mean nuthin’,” she said. “I jus’ was so horny for to see you.”
“Lyin’ bitch!” he said coldly, drawing his belt from his trousers. “You were lookin’ for some dope.” He slashed the belt across her back and buttocks until she slumped half-unconscious on the floor. Then he picked her up with one han
d under her armpit, and half-dragging her across the floor threw her into the back room and closed the door behind her. He turned to Joe, the leather belt sliding back into the loops of his trousers.
“I’m sorry, Jamaica,” Joe said.
“It’s not your fault,” Jamaica said. “She a schemin’ bitch. She know the rules.”
“I didn’t mean for her to get beat up like that,” Joe said.
Jamaica looked at him as if he were stupid. “You hit her, didn’ you?”
Joe didn’t answer.
“Don’ you know that was what she wanted?” Jamaica smiled. “That’s the way she gets her kicks. She’s happy now. Now she knows she’s really loved.”
“I don’t get it,” Joe said.
“You’re young yet,” Jamaica smiled. “You’ll learn.” He glanced at the telephone still on the counter. Usually it was on the shelf underneath. “Who was on the phone?”
“It was my agent,” Joe said. Then it suddenly dawned on him. He was now a real honest-to-God writer. “Collier’s magazine just bought a story of mine!”
“First time?” Jamaica asked curiously.
“With a real classy magazine,” Joe said.
“That’s great,” Jamaica said. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Joe said. “I still can’t believe it. I bet she thought I was crazy. Lolita was still frenchin’ me while I was on the telephone.”
Jamaica laughed. “Not too bad,” he said. “You were gettin’ it both ways.”
Joe shook his head. “I still don’t get it.”
Jamaica sniffed. “Thought I caught a smell of ganch when I came in.”
“Yes,” Joe said. “I had a half a joint. I gave it to her.”
“No shit for any of those girls unless I okay it. Capish?” Jamaica’s voice was emphatic.
“Capish,” Joe said. “I’m sorry.”
“Now you know, forget it.” Jamaica opened a small notebook. “I have several extra deliveries. Have the time for them?”
“That’s my job,” Joe said.
8
THE PIERSALL AND Marshall Agency was located in a renovated brownstone house in the middle of the street between Fifth and Madison Avenues. A square plaque attached to the iron-spike railing indicated that the offices were on the fourth floor. He entered down the steps to the basement entrance and into a small hallway with an old-fashioned grilled elevator. The elevator was empty and he went into it, closed the gate and pressed the button. The elevator screeched and ground to the fourth floor.
The Storyteller Page 6
