When her breathing had slowed somewhat and her vision cleared and the pounding of her heart had returned to normal, she leaned away from the door far enough to read what was printed on it.
Private, it said. Personal.
And underneath that Madam Fury.
Ginny stared at the words. She didn’t know anybody named Madam Fury, but the name seemed familiar to her. She wondered if she should open the door. After all, the fact that there was a woman’s name written on the door didn’t necessarily mean there was a woman behind it. For all she knew, there might be a whole army of nude men waiting for her in there, waiting to break her open and ruin her forever, just as she had been warned men. would do if she ever allowed them.
She was frightened about opening the door, but something drew her. Perhaps the female name reassured her. There was a risk involved, but even a remote chance of finding a friendly woman behind that door made the risk seem worthwhile. Anything was better than standing there naked, feeling the eyes of the watchers boring into her naked back, leaving marks of lustful desire all over her thighs and buttocks.
She grabbed the knob in her hand, hesitated only a moment longer, then turned it and pushed the door open. The room beyond was dark. As the door swung closed behind her, it became even darker.
She waited, her back to the door, expecting male hands to come out of the darkness at any time and grab hold of her. But it didn’t happen. Nothing at all happened, and gradually her eyes became adjusted to the dimness and she began to see details.
There was a bed in the room, but it was different from the other beds she’d seen in the men’s bedrooms. It was soft and frilly-looking, almost like her own bed at home. It invited her. She felt herself drawn across the room by the softness of that bed, and let the power of it take her there.
When she lay down on the bed, it yielded deeply to her body, enfolding her in cool comfort. The muscles of her limbs relaxed, the twitching in her belly and legs began to subside, and the terrible pounding of her heart slowed and slowed until it was almost normal again.
But her breasts were still sore. The ligaments which supported them and gave them shape were pulled taut, and the circles of her nipples felt irritated and sore. She wanted to reach up her hands and take hold of her bust, the way she did sometimes when sleep wouldn’t come. She wanted to hold herself, perhaps even manipulate the flesh a bit, because it was soothing to her.
But the bed was too soft and her arms were too limp. She couldn’t make the effort to raise her hands.
Then, without warning, she felt a touch. Fingertips, resting lightly around the perimeters of each of her breasts—just the fingertips. She could feel the warmth of the palms suspended over her puckered breast-tips, but they didn’t touch her, nor did any parts of the fingers touch her, except the tips.
She wanted to be touched. She couldn’t raise her arms, couldn’t use her own hands to cuddle and soothe her aching breasts; and now somebody had come along to do the job for her, and she wanted whoever it was to do it right, not just rest the tips of their fingers lightly around the outside curves of the globes, but drop their whole hands, cup their palms into containers, curl their fingers into position, and hold her flesh the way it was meant to be held.
The hands never moved. With a terrific effort, she inhaled a deep breath, and inflated her lungs to their fullest capacity, forcing her breasts to rise.
The fingers spread. The palms cupped. The hands received her flesh.
Pleasure. Sweet, deep, relaxing pleasure. She felt the warmth of the palms spreading into her, as if the tight excited discs of her nipples were drawing the sensation from the skin of the woman who touched her . . .
Woman?
She opened her eyes, stared up through the dimness, and saw the figure standing over her. It was a woman. A woman with her face in shadow. She was naked, just as Ginny was, and her body was very beautiful, with skin like alabaster, breasts like ripe hard little fruits, a long sinuous torso, slender legs, a tender belly, and delicate legs. Her arms were slim, her wrists very narrow, her hands traced with faint blue veins, her fingers tapering to pointed red nails. Her palms were very soft; Ginny could feel that by the manner in which the skin yielded to the thrust of her tightening nipples.
The woman held Ginny tenderly, delightfully, relaxing away all the soreness and producing in its place a feeling of warm pleasure. It felt so wonderful that Ginny’s mind began to drift; the room and the bed and the gentle woman shifted into soft focus.
And, after a while, they were gone. The bed under Ginny’s back was her own. The room around her was her own room. The hands that held her breasts were her own hands.
She awakened slowly. The mists of sleep took some time to dissipate completely, and even after they had, a portion of the dream lingered on. Ginny was afraid to move, afraid to run the risk of losing the sensation before she had identified it.
Then, all at once, she knew what it was. Pleasure. Warmth. The touch of the hands. In her dream, the hands of a strange woman; in reality, her own hands. But the sensation was real.
Her breasts were being held, and that was pleasure.
She lifted her hands, raised her head slightly from the pillow, and looked down at herself. The tips of her rounded bust were sculptured taut with arousement.
She lay back on the pillow again and sighed. She’d never felt anything remotely like this sensation in all her life. It bathed her from head to foot, it washed all the darkest places of her body in honeyed delight.
Slowly, with her eyes closed and her mind drenched in the strange thrilling warmth of pleasure, she fell asleep mice more. And this time, she didn’t dream.
But she remembered.
Madam Fury had touched her, in a way no one had ever touched her. And that touch had given Ginny more pleasure than she ever knew existed.
She wanted that touch again. Not just in dreams, but in reality.
Her last conscious thought was of her dead mother.
Stay away from boys—boys are dirty, boys only want sex, sex is dirty.
Ginny thought: Yes, mother—boys are dirty. But what about girls? What about sex with girls? Is that dirty, too?
What about girls, mother?
The girl with the big-fruited front awakened ahead of Small.
She sat up in bed and stretched her arms overhead, flexing her muscles luxuriously in a way that drew her monstrous breasts high and tight. She wiggled her shoulders, working the stiffness out of her back, and her bust danced heavily, the globes swaying and knocking together.
A display like that couldn’t continue for long without the attention of Burton Small. Before she was even aware that he had stirred, she felt his hands capture her pendulous breasts and cup them up against her torso like a brassiere a few sizes too small.
She giggled. Her flesh giggled, too, against his palms. Small also giggled. Under the circumstances, who could blame him?
"Mister, don’t you ever get enough of them things?" "Enough. There’s no such thing as enough.”
"For some people, maybe. Like you. But not me. I had enough. Come on—leave go.”
"Just a moment longer—I’ll be through in just a few seconds.”
"I swear, I never heard of anybody so crazy about a girl’s front before.”
"Few girls are endowed with such succulent fronts.”
"You mean big?”
"I mean big, round, firm, heavy, warm, malleable, pendulous, shapely—in a word, magnificent.”
The girl laughed again. "If I could figure a way of getting along without them, I’d sell them to you.”
“If I were sure they’d remain so ripe and fruity after being plucked, I’d be in the market to buy them.”
"All right—that’s enough now. Lemme get dressed and get out of here.”
“A kiss goodbye,” pleaded Small. "One last gesture of affection for each of them. Is that asking too much?”
"I guess not.” The girl sighed and shifted her body. Small lay on his back be
side her. He took his hands from her flesh and let them fall.
She leaned over him. Without his hands to hold them, the twin bubbles of her bosom swung out over his face. She lowered herself until his mouth had her.
First one, then the other, then the valley between them.
“Okay, that’s it. I gotta dress now.” She lifted herself but of reach, climbed from the bed, and began pulling on her clothes. Small lay in the same position, watching her through sleep-numbed eyes.
When she was dressed, she came back to the side of the bed. “Mister?”
“Yes, my dear?”
“What about my money? You ain’t settled with me yet, remember.”
“Oh, yes—fifty dollars, wasn’t it?”
“Fifty dollars, it sure was.”
He inclined his head toward the chair where his clothing lay. “Be good enough to bring my jacket to me, my dear. I think the wallet’s in the inside pocket.”
The girl went over to the chair and picked up his jacket.
“Oh, and while you’re there, my dear, please also bring my vest.”
She returned to the bed with both garments and dropped them beside him. He fished inside his suit jacket and found his billfold. He examined the bill compartment and frowned. “Oh, dear,” he said.
The girl’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What? What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you don’t have any money?”
“Money?” Small glanced at her and laughed. “Certainly, I have money.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Can you change a hundred-dollar bill, my dear?”
“A hun—” She blinked her eyes. “Hell, no. Is that the smallest you have?”
“Yes.” Small withdrew a hundred from the billfold. “Oh, well—perhaps our interlude together was worth it. Here.”
The girl accepted the bill cautiously. “What am I supposed to do with this? If you think I’m gonna go somewhere and change it . . .”
“Keep it,” said Small with a wave of his hand. “Enjoy yourself with it. You’re a delightful girl—very refreshing.” He yawned and closed his eyes. “I feel a need for more sleep. I’d be very grateful if you’d let yourself out.”
“Yeah,” said the girl. “Sure.” She was backing toward the door of the room, clutching the bill as if she were afraid it would turn into mist and dissolve. “I’ll find my way out okay.”
“Take the elevator to the basement, if you wish,” said Small dreamily. “There’s a door there that will enable you to leave the building unobserved.”
“Will do,” she said. “Thanks a lot.”
“Or leave the front way. It doesn’t matter to me. However you want it.”
The girl didn’t answer. She was already on her way down the steps.
Small sighed, opened his eyes, and picked up his vest. He searched with one pudgy finger into the watch pocket until he found the card. It was still safely in place, he thought; that was good. At the moment, that card was one of his most valuable possessions.
He rolled over on top of the vest and fell asleep once more.
On her way through the first floor, the girl stole some antique silver, two expensive vases, a gold and diamond letter opener, and several other items that looked valuable to her. Clutching her haul fiercely, she left the building the front way, and ran like hell.
CHAPTER 6
LILLIAN PEALS LEFT the phone booth that Friday night in a daze.
Outside, she let the mobs of Village revelers absorb her again, sweeping her along like a piece of debris on the tide of their noisy enjoyment. All around her was laughter and talk, people meeting, pairing off, walking arm in arm and hand in hand. Boy was meeting girl that night, just as usual; but then, boy was meeting boy, too, and girl was meeting girl. Everyone was having a marvelous time, doing what they wanted to do, satisfying their personal appetites.
That’s what made the Village such a fun place.
But the merriment couldn’t penetrate to Lil. She was swallowed in her own thoughts—a welter of them, a Gordian Knot of thoughts, all twisted and wound up in her head, forming a mass that defied untangling.
Eventually, the flowing crowds deposited Lil in front of a subway entrance. Hardly aware of what she was doing, she went down the steps to the platform and caught a train back to Queens.
She refused to let herself think during the ride home. She needed peace, solitude, the comfort of her own apartment, and above all a drink, before she could hope to make any sense out of the prospects facing her.
There was a bus waiting when she surfaced out of the subway in Queens. Less than ten minutes later, she was opening the door of her apartment and stepping inside. She locked the door after her and switched on the lights.
It was the same old apartment, but it looked strange somehow. It had been quite a while since she had seen the place on a Friday night around midnight. Usually at this hour she was in Sam’s apartment, in Sam’s arms, in the throes of passion which Sam’s loving produced.
But not this time. She was in the familiar apartment at an unfamiliar time, with an unfamiliar and unwelcome sensation in the pit of her stomach: The emptiness of frustrated desire.
Her nerves were still jittery from all the coffee she’d poured into herself earlier while waiting for Sam to show up. And the phone call to that woman hadn’t helped settle her nerves. She decided she needed a drink.
She peeled her heavy sweater off and threw it on a chair. Her nipples were rosy with irritation where they had brushed the rough material. Naked to the waist, she crossed to the liquor cabinet. There was hardly enough scotch or rye left to wet an eyebrow, so she settled for vodka. She poured half a glassful straight, and took it over to the couch.
The first sip burned her tongue and throat, but she forced herself to stick with it until the alcohol started to warm the dull coldness in her belly. She lit a cigarette. It tasted like burning garbage, but she smoked it anyway. Besides drinking too much coffee that evening, she’d also been smoking far too much, and the combination had turned her stomach to acid. Add to that the nagging irritation and disappointment over Sam’s failure to appear, plus the embarrassment she’d felt while making that phone call . . .
She shook her head. First things first—that was the only way to straighten out her thoughts. And the first item on the agenda was her relationship with Sam.
Sam would have to be crossed off her list forever. She was a lot of fun, a good sexual partner, and a pleasant companion even in more innocent pastimes, such as going to the movies or ballet or museum-hopping. Sam meant a great deal to Lil, and she knew she was going to miss her.
But, damn it, Sam was cheating. Sam was out tonight—or maybe even home tonight, which was even worse—with another girl. Another partner had come into Sam’s life to take Lil’s place, and so Sam had cut her out, dropped her without a word of warning or thanks.
That was something Lil could never forgive.
Why do I feel this way? she asked herself.
An inner voice answered the question: Because you've lost something you wanted.
Yes, she thought. That’s right. I do want Sam, or at least I did. But so what? There are lots of girls like Sam in the world. I’ll have no trouble finding another. What’s there to get upset about?
You and Sam were lovers, said the voice. It always hurts when you lose a lover.
That’s nonsense. Sam and I weren’t lovers. Nothing like it.
Weren't you?
Certainly not.
What, then. What were you if not lovers?
Friends. We—liked each other. Not loved—just liked. We liked to be together, take pleasure in each other, have sex . . .
Have sex. When you have sex with a person, doesn't that make her your lover?
No. Nothing of the kind. We had more sense than that Being in love is silly—two people who let themselves fall in love are just looking for trouble, for pain and sorrow. That’s true of anybody, but especially of lesbians. Those things can’t last. Yo
u have to be modem about it.
So you didn't allow yourselves to fall in love because you knew it couldn't last?
Yes—that’s right.
You were right, then—weren't you?
Right?
Yes. You felt it couldn't last. And just as you expected, it didn't.
It didn’t last.
It’s over now. Sam has found somebody else, and that ends it.
Yes.
So why do you feel unhappy? You knew this had to come sooner or later. You knew Sam would tire of you, or you of her—that one or the other of you would meet somebody else, You knew all along this was coming, and that’s why you didn't want to be in love. Isn't that right?
Yes. That’s right.
Do you think Sam is unhappy because its ended between you?
No. She’s found someone else.
That’s right. She's found someone else, and she can take up with that someone else without a second thought, without even calling you or telling you about it—because Sam fulfilled your original bargain.
Bargain?
She didn't fall in love with you. Wasn't that the arrangement?
Yes.
But you fell in love with her.
No! I didn’t!
Didn't you?
No. I have more sense than that. My relationship with Sam was very realistic. We made the vow not to love, and we stuck with it. I never loved her.
Then why do you feel this way now that it’s over?
Lil closed her eyes. There it was—the unanswerable question. She could sense the emptiness deep inside her, feel the way her intestines twisted, the way her heart ached. Why would she feel this way over the loss of Sam, unless . . .
Unless she had been in love.
She opened her eyes. The living room of her apartment had never seemed so empty. The cigarette was still burning in her hand and she dragged deeply on it, then poured a few fingers of vodka down on top of it. The combination was vile.
All right, she thought. So I’ve been a sucker. There’s no changing that. I can’t go back and undo what happened. The only place for me to go is forward.
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