What got her were the two words at the top of the card. Personal what? Private what? Why on earth had the woman left the card in the first place?
Could it have something to do with watching?
Ginny shuddered without really understanding why, and was about to tear the card up, when she heard a clatter of dishes from the other end of the counter. The drunken old lady had swept her coffee cup onto the floor, and seemed to be tottering on the brink of following it. Benny was coming out from behind the register, and the cop had left his stool to grab the woman before she fell.
Ginny rushed down the counter, and spent the next ten minutes helping the men bring the old woman around.
And at some point during that time, the card found its way into the pocket where she kept her tips.
* * *
The little man was very bald, very sweaty, and very agitated. “I just can’t keep up with you. Every time you walk in, you got some different kind of itch, and no sooner do I put you in touch with what you want than you’re back here again, wanting something else. Don’t you never sleep, or just rest up?”
Burton Small smiled moistly. “Rest is for the grave,” he said. “I’ll have an eternity to rest. For the moment, I want to spend my time wisely.”
“Sure, sure. The bird of time is on the wing, like the saying goes.”
Small lifted his eyebrows. “I didn’t know you’d read Omar.”
“Who the hell is Omar? And stop changing the subject.”
Small shifted his bulk slightly. His feet hurt, but he was used to that. His pleasures required quite a bit of walking, along streets, down alleys, up dark stairways, and although his feet had never quite gotten used to carrying his obese frame without protesting, he’d grown accustomed to the discomfort.
Men will go through a lot to pursue a hobby they really enjoy. And Burton Small, in spite of his two-hundred fifty pounds of weight, his failing energies, and his forty-seven years of age, was a man with a deep and abiding love for his hobby.
Burton Small’s hobby was sex.
“Sex,” said the little man. “Sex, sex, sex. Is that all you think about?”
“Yes,” replied Small, quite honestly.
“Yeah. I guess it takes all kinds.”
“It does indeed,” said Small. “The varieties and variations of sexual pleasure are virtually limitless . . .”
“I wasn’t talking about sex,” the little man protested. “I meant people.”
“But of course. Without people, there would be no sex. My point exactly.”
“Well,” said the little man, “here we go again.”
Small gazed at him fondly. He came often to the little man’s cigar store, late at night after the bulk of the day’s customers had retired, and he always enjoyed his conversations with the fellow. At heart, Small knew he was being exasperatingly dense with the little man, but he also knew the man wasn’t nearly as disinterested in pleasure or unable to understand Small’s tastes as he pretended to be. They played a sort of game together, Burton Small and the little man—and, in a way, both of them enjoyed it.
“You have contacts,” said Small. “You’ve proven that in the past. Time and again you’ve provided me with the amusement I craved—given me the crucial phone number or name and address. You’re a man of demonstrated capabilities, and really, I don’t see why you can’t just . . .”
“What do you want?” cried the little man. “Tell me what you want, and maybe I can help you. What the hell am I—a mind reader?”
“Sex,” said Small.
“I know that. For Pete’s sake, don’t you think I know that?”
“Then what seems to be the problem?”
“What kind of sex?’’ The man passed a hand over his sweating pate. “like you said before, there’s all kinds.”
“Quite so. Wonderful when you think of it, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t think of it. Answer the question. What kind of sex do you want?”
“Oh—” Small inclined his head and looked thoughtful for a moment. “Something—different.”
“Dammit—different from what?”
“You misunderstand me,” said Small. “By different, I mean—unusual. Out of the ordinary run of things.”
“In what way? Look—one guy makes his wife every night for twenty years, and then one night he goes and makes somebody else’s wife. It’s different for him, but if her husband comes in after he finishes and makes her himself, it’s just the same old wife, right? It ain’t no different for him, right?”
Small frowned slightly. “I’m afraid I lost the thread of that, my friend.”
“All I’m saying is that what’s different for one guy ain’t different for another. Everybody’s got their own ideas of what’s different—and what’s fun, even.”
“Absolutely,” said Small. “As for myself, however—I enjoy everything.”
“All right—look.” The little man leaned forward over the glass-topped counter, and laced his nervous fingers together. “Let’s make a list—let’s go through the ways a guy can get kicks—and you pick from that and tell me what you want. Okay?”
“Fine.”
“Now first-off, there’s women.”
“Ah, yes,” said Small.
“Don’t interrupt. There’s all different kinds of women—you got them old and young, pretty and ugly, tall , short, fat, skinny, any color hair you happen to like, and almost any color skin, too. Am I right?”
“Beautiful,” said Small.
“So, is there a particular kind of woman you’d like? Some kind you ain’t never had? That’d be different, wouldn’t it?”
Small nodded. “It would indeed. But, of course, I’ve had every sort of woman there is.”
“Ever have a colored gal? I know one uptown goes like a tiger.”
“Many times,” said Small. “Only last week, in fact.”
“How about Jap or Chinese? That do anything to you?”
“Passé,” said Small. “And, in my opinion, highly overrated.”
“Polynesian, then. Fresh from the Islands. She’s got a lot of nice, soft curves.”
“Polynesian women are like all other women—delightful, but hardly unique.”
“Big Swede? Six foot two? Knockers like this, blonde braids down to here?”
“Old hat.”
“All right, all right—so far, we just talked about women, about straight throws. What about specialties?”
“Such as?” asked Small, his interest perking.
The little man’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Like to get hurt, maybe?”
“No—I can’t say I enjoy that any more than other forms of pleasure.”
“How about you hurting somebody? Like to tie up a broad? Beat on her a little?”
“Fun,” said Small. “But not at all unusual.”
“In leather bras? Or high-heels? Or—wait a minute, how about watching two gals making it with each other, dyke-style? Yeah, and at the same time, you got a girl of your own wooing on you? How’s that sound?”
“It would probably be just as much fun as the last time I tried it,” said Small. “A month ago, if I remember correctly.”
“Dammit,” said the little man. “Okay—how about we make them younger? You know—Lolitasville. Young and dewy—sixteen maybe, or fifteen. Some Lolitas know more than the professionals. How’s that strike you?”
“A cliché, my friend. Quite common.”
“How about men?”
“Never touch them. Not since that time—ah, but why go into that?”
The man sucked in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then blew it out. “Listen—there’s a guy I know, not far from here—runs a bookstore. And he’s got a book . . .”
“Oh?”
“Called A Thousand Nights Delights—regular hard-cover book, too; not one of them little pamphlets. Pictures from life, every position illustrated, and drawings and engravings and photographs of dirty statues, even.
“Mar
velous,’’ said Small.
“There you are,” said the little man, leaning back and smiling. “Why don’t you go buy that, and just take it home with you. Maybe it’ll give you some new ideas.”
“I own it,” said Small.
The little man paused for a long sad moment. “You do?"
“First edition. Quite valuable. Had it for years.”
“Look—” The man extended a finger at Small, then let it drop in defeat. “Pal, I get the feeling—correct me if I’m wrong now—but I get the distinct impression that you’ve had every kind of sex there is.”
Small beamed. “I imagine that’s so, now that you mention it. Pursuing new and exotic forms of sexual pleasure has been my principal hobby for many years. I’ve been around the world several times over—parents left me a fortune, you know—I’ve visited all the far-away places, tasted the most exquisite and unmentionable delights. I’d venture to say you’re absolutely right—there isn’t a thing I haven’t tried.”
The little man spread his hands. “Then you’re stuck.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re 'at the end of the line, pal. What can I tell you? Either you settle for a repeat of something you already had, or you settle for none at all.”
Small stared at him. “But—that’s nonsense. I refuse to believe I’ve tried everything . . .”
“Sounds to me like you have.”
“But—don’t you realize what that means, man? It can’t be—I don’t believe it.”
The little man shrugged. “You think of something new—something you haven’t tried—and you come and tell me about it, and I’ll see what I can do. But from where I’m sitting, looks like you’re out of luck.”
“No,” aid Small.
“Looks that way,” said the little man. His head bobbed up suddenly and he craned to look over Small’s shoulder. “Here’s a customer. Don’t talk dirty until he’s gone.”
Small stepped away from the counter to make room for the new arrival. After a moment, he turned and walked heavily out of the store without a backward glance.
The pavements were moist with rain, and a few stray droplets sprinkled down to lodge in Burton Small’s mousey gray hair.
No more worlds to conquer? he thought. No new flesh to taste? It’s impossible. It simply can’t be true.
“But if it were true . . .”
A car hissed by on the street, only a few feet from where he stood. A fine sheet of spray rose from the gutter, and Small danced back just in time to keep his trousers from getting soaked. The car gunned past, turned a corner, and was gone.
He glanced down glumly at his cuffs, but his attention was caught instead by a fluttering bit of white—a small card settling to the wet pavement like a bleached autumn leaf. It landed face down near his feet.
It wasn’t easy for Small to bend far enough to reach the card, but he managed somehow. After several false starts, he succeeded in peeling the card free of the pavement. He walked a few feet until he had reached the pool of light spilling from the front of the little man’s cigar store.
He read what was written on the card.
He looked up in the direction where the car had vanished.
Silly thought—who would bother tossing him a card from a fast-moving automobile? Doubtless the card had been simply lying in the gutter, and had been stirred up by the car’s passage.
Or had it? The card was hardly stained at all, and was wet only on the side which had touched the pavement, the side which bore those three lines of remarkable printing.
He looked at the card more intently.
This is foolishness, he told himself. It’s probably nothing more than an advertisement for a new motion picture, or something of the sort. If he were actually silly enough to call the number on the card, he would probably get a recorded announcement telling him about some new brand of hair oil.
He snorted, and poised the card in his fingers, preparatory to tearing it up.
Then again, he thought—could it be what he thought it was? He knew well how deviously his mind worked, how his preoccupation with sex often caused him to see erotic suggestion where none was intended. That had happened to him frequently enough to make him wary of first impressions. And yet . . .
Private. Personal. Those words had a variety of meanings, and not all of them innocent.
Burton Small couldn’t always trust his intellect, but he could trust his nose. He had a nose for sex. He could smell it a mile away.
He looked at the card a third time. And gradually a smile of hope began to distort the grossly puffed features of his face.
CHAPTER 2
THERE ARE SEVEN days in a week, but only two of them count worth a damn.
Monday is a drag, because you have to go to work. And the same thing is true of Tuesday, as well as Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Actually, Friday isn’t a total loss—there’s no work the next day, so you have the evening free. Friday evening is when the worth-while part begins.
Five P.M. Friday to five P.M. Saturday—that’s one day. To five P.M. Sunday makes it two days. Forty-eight hours, almost on the button, in which you’re free to enjoy yourself, do whatever you want, without any consideration of duties or problems.
But at five o’clock Sunday evening, or thereabouts, everything stops. Your coach turns back into a pumpkin, your horses turn back into mice, the spell is broken, the charm is ended, and you’re forced to become yourself again. Sunday evening is a time when you should take it easy, because there’s a brand-new week waiting over the hill for you—five days of working, five days of nothing special, five days of waiting for the weekend to roll round again.
As far as Lillian Peale was concerned, the forty-eight hours of freedom that ended every week were the only moments that made life worth living for her.
But then, Lil had a problem.
At the moment, it was Friday, and so part of her problem was solving itself. Lil worked for an insurance company—a vast impersonal machine which hired people as cogs rather than human beings. And though it was permissible for a human being to have an individual personality, every cog in a machine has to be like every other cog if the machine is going to run properly.
Lil had just completed another tedious week of conforming, of pretending she was no different from her co-workers—a week of forced smiles and false cheer, of boring work, boring breaks, and boring conversation. Five consecutive days of such play-acting can really take a lot out of a girl, and by the time Friday rolled around Lil was feeling the strain.
It was play-acting for her, by the way. The pretense of normality was only a role, a five-day-a-week impersonation, as phony as a department store Santa Claus. Fortunately for her, and for her job, the impersonation was successful. None of her fellow employees had ever guessed even the beginnings of her problem.
The clock on the wall said five, the doors swung open, and Lil was free. The subway ride back to her apartment in Queens was always a disagreeable chore, but she never minded it as much on Fridays as she did on other nights. Knowing the weekend was waiting for her, knowing it was no longer necessary to pretend, lent a gala atmosphere even to things like subway rides.
It was five forty-five when she climbed up out of the subway.
It was six on the dot when the bus let her off at the corner of her block. It was five after six when she unlocked the door and stepped into her apartment.
The mask fell away, and Lil abandoned her disguise.
She went into the bedroom and peeled off her clothes quickly. The skirts and blouses of the workaday world were nothing but a costume to her, and she could hardly wait to be rid of them. Inside of a few seconds, she had stripped herself completely naked.
She was a tall girl, just a quarter-inch short of five foot eight. Her hair, which fell in soft curls around her shoulders, was a dyed rust-red; her natural color was light brown.
Her dyed hair wasn’t the only interesting thing about Lil. Her face, for example, was the sort one does
n’t see every day; she had very dark and liquid eyes, set wide apart on either side of a long and elegant nose. Her mouth was wide, but not at all thin-lipped. Her cheeks were just slightly hollowed, and when she smiled two little parentheses appeared at the corners of her mouth. Her chin was long, but not pointed, and ducked under at a sharp angle to join the smooth column of her throat.
Lil had an interesting face; in many ways, a beautiful face. But from the face down, her body stopped being merely interesting, and started to become fascinating.
If you took a good-sized honeydew melon and lopped if in half, you’d have Lil’s breasts. They rode proudly on her upper torso, tight and firm and perfectly formed. The tender coral puckers of the nipples capped the hemispheres with delicate circles of color, and the hard little tips cast tiny shadows down over the pebbled aureoles.
Shaped like melons, sweet-looking as melons, inviting as melons, Lil’s breasts begged for a man’s hands and lips to take possession.
Her torso beneath the breasts was long and smooth, etched with faint rib-lines and even fainter lines of muscle. For all her taut substructure, Lil looked soft as a bunny, yielding as a rubber doll. Her waist was narrow, and when she stood erect her hips tilted at an age-old feminine angle, producing a soft fold of skin at one side of her waist, and a tightened flow of flesh at the other.
Her hips were broad, but because of her height they didn’t really look it. They swelled out from her waist, then curved gently down to the beginnings of her thighs. Her belly, a tense drum-head of skin punctuated by the elongated depression of her navel, also curved downward to the meeting of her thighs.
The region of her womanhood resembled a bowl, a soft and beckoning concavity which shouted for a man’s attention.
Lil’s thighs, like her torso, were long and flawless, and so were the tensed twin roundings of her calves. In back, her thighs rose smoothly to form lovely buttocks—identical globes which hugged together and moved against each other when she walked.
Her legs and bottom were as soft and inviting as any woman’s could be, and almost any man would have been happy to take up the invitation.
The Jaded Sex Page 2
