The fat man turned a mild gaze upon him. “That, young man, is a question we’d all like answered.”
* * *
Morton and Julie found the intersection of Eugene Street and Bliss Place on the dot of midnight. Morton parked his car behind a red convertible. His hands were trembling with anticipation.
He got out of the car, came around to the passenger side, and opened the door for Julie. She swung her legs off the seat, and as she did so the hem of her dress rode all the way to the tops of her thighs.
There was just enough light for Morton to see the cruel red stripes on the flesh of her thighs. “Hurry,” he said.
“Is this the place?” she asked.
“I don’t know. It’s around here somewhere. We have to find it. She didn’t describe it—she just said I’d know it when I saw it.”
“There must be a sign, or something.” Julie peered around. “What’s that?”
“What?”
“Up there—on the porch of that house. Something white.” Morton scowled into the shadows. “I don’t see anything.”
“It’s a sign. Let’s see what it says.” She stepped away from the car and started toward the house without waiting for him. She was, he realized, even more anxious than he was himself. The thought filled him with red excitement.
She got to the porch ahead of him. He heard her open her purse. The flame of a cigarette lighter sprang up in the darkness.
“M. F.” she said. ‘‘Does that mean anything to you?”
“Madam Fury,” he said softly. “This is it.”
She grabbed the door knob and pushed the door open. “There’s no light in here,” she said. “This lighter’s getting too hot to hold.”
“I hear voices,” said Morton. “There’s another door here.”
“I’ve got it.” The girl pushed open the second door and Morton followed her into the hallway. There were three people standing at the bottom of a flight of steps. One man was holding a flashlight, while a second man held a large candle-holder. Between the men stood a woman.
Morton felt a pang of disappointment, then shrugged it off. The woman didn’t look at all like his mental picture of Madam Fury. But what was the difference?
It was odd, but Morton discovered his mind had done a complete turnabout. Where earlier his thoughts had been filled with Madam Fury and her lustful promise, now all he could think of was Julie—the little pain-lover who wanted to die. Just thinking about the supreme pleasure of giving her what she wanted made Morton’s knees tremble.
He grabbed her arm and walked her down the hall toward the group at the staircase. The young man with the flashlight saw them first. “Hey—new arrivals. Hi, gang.”
Morton ignored him and addressed himself to the redheaded girl. “Madam Fury?”
She twisted her mouth and shook her head. “Sorry. It’s not me.” The red-head looked past Morton at Julie. “It’s not you, is it?”
“Where is she?” Morton asked, glancing around.
“I have no idea,” said the fat man. “I’ve been through the place—all except the top floor—and there’s no sign of anybody anywhere.”
Morton looked at him suspiciously. “Who are you?”
“Burton Small, at your service.” He made a little bow.
“I’m Bill Henry,” said the young man. “And this is Lil Peale. Who are you two?”
“Morton’s my name. This girl is named Julie.” He looked again from face to face. “Why are you people here? Did you get—a card?”
“Yes,” said Small. “I spoke to Madam Fury myself, and made an appointment for this evening.”
“So did I,” said LiI.
Morton stared past Small at the dark stairway to the second floor. “Who’s up there?”
Small spread his hands. “Just bedrooms,” he said.
Morton nodded. He grabbed Julie’s hand and pulled her up the stairs after him. Small stood aside to let him pass.
From below, Bill Henry called out, “Where the hell are you two going?”
“To get what we came here for,” said Morton.
CHAPTER 14
GINNY WAS LATE.
It wasn’t her fault She’d left the house in plenty of time, made it to the Battery in less than an hour, and had crossed over to Staten Island without any difficulty. A series of signs had directed her to the local bus ramps, and she’d asked an old man sitting on a bench which bus would take her to Eugene Street and Bliss Place. The old man very kindly pointed out a waiting bus; Ginny thanked him, and boarded it
To start with, the bus was very crowded, but gradually one passenger after another reached their destination and got off. Ginny was so lost in thought she didn’t even realize the bus had stopped until the driver tapped her on the shoulder.
They were at the end of the line. Bliss Place? He never heard of it. Eugene Street he knew, but they were miles from there.
The old man had been stupid, or misinformed, or just mean. Ginny was on the wrong bus.
The driver let her ride free back to the next intersection of bus routes, and told her to wait on the corner for bus Number Thirty-Two. No bus bearing that number ever showed up. After waiting for over an hour, Ginny spied a cruising cab and hailed it.
The cabbie wasn’t any more certain of Bliss Place than the bus driver had been, or even of Eugene Street, but Ginny remembered the directions to the letter. Once the driver found Hylan Boulevard, everything was all right.
And so, after much trial and tribulation, Ginny finally arrived at the corner she wanted. Her watch said ten minutes past midnight. And it was almost twelve-fifteen by the time she had groped her way onto the right porch, read the sign, opened the doors, and gone into the house.
To her left as she entered the hallway was an arch leading to another room. Beyond it, she could see a flickering glow, which reminded her of candlelight. She walked to the archway and looked into the room.
There were two men seated on a couch—a young one, smoking a cigarette and dangling a dead flashlight in his hand, and an older fat man, sitting with his hands laced over his belly, doing nothing.
The young man spoke first. “Oh, brother—here’s another one.”
The fat man glanced at her briefly and smiled.
But it was the woman sitting opposite the men who moved. She rose from her chair and came quickly across the room to where Ginny was standing.
“Hello,” she said. Her voice was pitched very low, as if she didn’t want the men to overhear her. Ginny answered in the same hushed tone.
“I’m looking for Madam Fury,” she said.
“Madam Fury’s not here,” said the girl. “We’re all waiting for her. Except the two who went upstairs. My name’s Lil.”
She shook her head, unable to follow the thread of the girl’s words. “I’m Ginny. Isn’t this where Madam Fury is supposed to be?”
“Yes, Ginny. But she hasn’t shown up. We don’t know why.”
Ginny looked over the girl’s shoulder and discovered that the two men on the couch were watching her.
“They’re looking at us,” she said.
Lil made a face. “Don’t pay any attention to them. Listen—why don’t we go upstairs?”
“Upstairs? What’s upstairs?”
“Bedrooms. Nice quiet places were you and I could be alone. I’m sick of sitting down here with these two.”
“But—I wouldn’t want to miss Madam Fury.”
“You won’t.” She paused, and a crafty look came into her eyes. “What did you want to see Madam Fury about, anyway?” Ginny glanced down at her feet. “I wanted—” She licked her lips. “It sounds crazy.”
“Tell me.”
“She was going to comfort me. This boy—he tried to do something dirty to me, and I called Madam Fury afterwards and she said she’d make everything all right. Only she isn’t here.”
“Poor baby,” said Lil, and the tone of her voice made Ginny look up in surprise. “You need somebody to talk to.”
&nb
sp; “Yes.”
Lil smiled tautly. “Will I do?”
* * *
After the girls had gone, Bill turned back to Small. “What the hell was that all about?”
“They’re going upstairs,” said Small mildly.
“I know that What for?”
“To make love, of course. What else?”
“To—Bill goggled at him," then pounded his fist into his palm. “What is all this nonsense? I don’t understand anything that’s happening tonight.”
“It’s quite simple, really. This place was represented to all of us as a sort of bawdy-house—a place where special sexual pleasures were available. The operator was supposed to be a woman named Madam Fury.”
“A whorehouse?” asked Bill in awe.
“More or less.” Small pursed his lips. “Rather less than more, as it turns out.”
“So you, and that guy—what’s his name . . .”
“Morton, I think he said.”
“Morton—and Julie, the one who was with him—and Lil—you all came here expecting to get sexual pleasures?”
Small said, “That’s right. I can’t speak for the others, but I myself was expecting some unusual sensual delights.”
Bill inhaled deeply. “Who are you, anyway? Or maybe I should say—what are you?”
Small chuckled. “A perfectly reasonable question. I am a voluptuary. So, I imagine, are the others.”
“A voluptuary. A sex-nut, you mean?”
“Crudely put, but quite accurate. A sex-nut, I mean.”
“And what’s this about Lil and that blonde who just arrived?” Bill looked toward the archway again. “You said they went upstairs to do what?”
“Make love.” Small shifted his bulk on the couch. “Really, young man—you must be blind as a bat not to have seen it.”
“Seen what?”
“The truth about your date. How long have you known the girl, anyway?”
“Just since this afternoon. What truth are you talking about?”
Small shrugged. “She’s a lesbian.”
“Oh, come on . . .”
“She is. Don’t doubt me, young man. I’ve seen too many of them in my time to be mistaken.”
“A dyke? A butch? Lil?”
“It’s written all over her face. Of course, one must know how to read the language.”
“And you mean to tell me that Lil and that blonde are up there now—making it?”
“Precisely,” said Small.
Bill sat in numb silence for a while. “Shouldn’t we go up and stop them?” he asked finally.
“Stop them? Why on earth should we do that? They have what they want. It’s none of our concern.”
Bill nodded slowly. “I guess that’s right. It’s none of our concern.” He put his hands on his knees. “Well, it’s been nice talking to you. Don’t take any wooden—or—whatever it is you take.”
“You’re not leaving?”
“Is there any reason to stay?” Bill’s voice rose. “My girl just flew off to Lesbos—I think it’s time for me to get back to the city, look up a whore, and do some flying myself.”
“Nonsense,” said Small. ‘‘The evening’s just getting started. There may very well be new arrivals at any moment.”
“Sure—-it wouldn’t surprise me if Lady Godiva came through the door. So what?”
“Well,” said Small reasonably. “There seems little point in your journeying all the way back to Manhattan when the object of your search might walk into this very room—-now does there?”
Bill settled back into the couch. “I guess you’re right. Who knows what’s going to happen around this nutty place?”
“Precisely.” Small made a tent of his fingers and gazed off into the shadows at the corner of the room. “You know—Bill, is that right? You know, Bill—this reminds me of a house I visited in Trinidad several years ago. Would you like to hear about that?”
Bill crossed his legs in resignation and lit a cigarette. “Fire away,” he said.
* * *
"Don’t take it off,” Julie said. “Tear it off.”
Morton’s hands paused at the half-opened zipper of her dress, then came around to the front and grabbed the material of the neckline. With one quick rip, the dress was split clear to the girl’s waist.
“Make it good for me,” she said, as he yanked the remains of the garment down to her feet. “Make it as good as you know how. I want to feel everything—the pain, the pleasure—everything.”
Morton only grunted. His eyes were feasting on her nudity, his lusts were feeding on the tender expanses other bared flesh. He grabbed her breasts viciously, clenching his fingers deep into the yielding mounds. The sensitive tips spread and rose against his palms.
Julie shuddered. “Make me feel it. Use me up—right here, right now. Give me everything there is to get—the good with the bad.” She opened her eyes and looked at him, “This is the last time for me, you know.”
His lust boiled up into his brain. He twisted the handfuls of flesh savagely, then released them and struck her across the side of the face with his fist. She spun backward and fell sprawling on the floor.
He whipped off the last of his clothes quickly, and stood naked above her. Her eyes were turned back in her head so the whites showed beneath the lids. Her belly shivered with her breathing.
He bent and tangled his hand in the hair of her head, hauling her to her feet. Supporting her by the hair, he ran a palm down her back and clamped his fingers around a warm buttock.
Her voice was barely coherent in the gusty winds of her breathing. “I want to die . . .” she said.
He hit her again, this time in the stomach. She doubled over, and his next blow caught her full on the sphere of one breast Her body arched backwards, her hair flying around her head, her mouth a breathless mass of red.
The whole room went red. And Morton found himself staring at the color he had been waiting for all his life.
The red of blood—that was nothing. Not even the red of lust—the vibrant crimson he had seen all the times before, the color he had revelled in as he worked over the helpless body of a girl—nothing in his experience could equal the insane hue be was seeing at that moment.
It was the red of flame—a flame before which nothing could stand, a flame that consumed the flesh and the mind and all the aching spasms of lust as easily as a blast furnace might destroy a scrap of tissue.
He hit her in the face again, and felt his knuckles split against the edge of her teeth. The Wow catapulted her body backward toward the waiting bed. She fell on it heavily. The hemispheres of her breasts leaped once, then settled. Her thighs lay open, the whip-striped flesh inside them jerking in convulsions of pain.
Her voice issued from her throat like wind whistling through a mausoleum.
“I want to die . . ."
Then he was on top of her. The bedsprings howled beneath them as he pounded at her flesh. He heard the sound of his own body slapping against her, and it drove him on to greater fury. Her breasts lost their shape in his brutal grip, her loins were battered with ferocious cruelty by the base power of his driving lust.
The redness flowered all around him.
Why was it so red? What made the difference? The room—the girl—the moment—all were so very red; so very, very red. Should things be so red? How much red was too red?
A strange feeling was growing in him, and he might have recognized it as fear if there had been room in his mind for anything but the awesome animal fury of his pleasure.
* * *
A room away, Ginny heard them.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Shhh,” said Lil. She glanced with annoyance at the wall from which the sounds were coming. “It’s nothing to concern us, sweetheart. Just relax now.”
“It sounds like they’re fighting,” said Ginny.
“Maybe they are. What else could you expect He’s a man, isn’t he? She’s got nobody but herself to blame for let
ting him near her. Please relax, baby.”
The girl smiled thinly, but Lil could still fed the tenseness of her muscles.
Damn this stupid kid, she thought. Why doesn’t she stop worrying about next door and pay attention? How am I going to get anywhere with her if she doesn’t pay attention? She’s so damned stupid . . .
Lil had Ginny’s blouse off now, and had tossed it to one side. They were sitting together on the edge of the bed, their hips touching through their skirts. Ginny faced front, but Lil had turned her upper torso sideways, with one hand resting on Ginny’s knee and the other pressing lightly into the naked small of her back.
She was perfect, thought Lil. She was exactly the kind of girl needed to satisfy the demands of revenge. Lil had known it the minute she’d walked into the parlor downstairs, and had moved quickly before either of the men could get to her first.
She wondered momentarily about Madam Fury. Was there actually such a person, or had this whole thing been a gag? Earlier, Lil had been convinced she was the victim of a con, but when Ginny appeared she hadn’t been so sure.
Maybe Madam Fury hadn’t shown up—but she hadn’t said she would. What she had said was that she would provide Lil with a soft innocent girl to ruin; and that’s exactly what Lil had beside her at that very moment.
If you’re out there, Madam Fury, thought Lil—thanks. You couldn’t have done it better if you were Santa Claus.
She reached up Ginny’s back and unhooked her bra. "You were telling me about yourself, baby. I want to hear more. Don’t pay any attention to that racket. Just tell me all about your problems while I make things good for you.”
"All right,” said Ginny dreamily. The straps of the bra slid from under her arms, the cups dropped away, and her lovely breasts were naked.
Lil caught her breath. She’d had quite a few female lovers in her time, and seen every sort of bust there was. But never had she gazed upon a set of beauties to equal the ones spilling now from Ginny’s bra. They were round and soft-looking, tipped with pale circles of coral that invited the lips like candy. At the moment, those nipples were soft and formless, but they wouldn’t last long in that state.
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