Lil would see to that.
"He hit me,” said Ginny. "Right in the mouth.”
Lil was so enchanted by the sight of the girl’s rounded flesh that she hardly understood what she was saying. "Who did?” she asked absently.
"The boy. The one I was telling you about. Under the Boardwalk. He hit me, and knocked me down. And when I woke up, he was taking off all my clothes, and I couldn’t move.”
“Poor sweetheart,” said Lil. Her hand lifted from Ginny’s thigh and came up casually toward a breast. She hesitated an instant, then cupped the flesh in her palm.
Ginny didn’t seem to notice the touch. “He felt me,” she continued softly. “He felt me all over with his hands. He hurt me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even say anything.”
Lil’s hand was pressing the warm mound of flesh, urging Ginny gently backward. The girl allowed herself to be pushed over onto the bed. Her eyes stared up at the ceiling and beyond it into recollection as Lil moved over her and took hold of both her breasts.
“Everything,” Ginny said. “He took off everything. He felt everything. He did dirty things to me.”
“Shhh, baby,” said Lil. Her voice was trembling almost as much as her hands. My, she thought—what a sweet little unspoiled gal this is. She’s refreshingly different . . .
“May I kiss you?” Lil asked, emphasizing the thought with her hands.
“He did dirty things,” said Ginny. “And I couldn’t stop him. And then he tried to do the dirtiest thing of all.”
Lil was no longer listening. Her face was down between Ginny’s soft breasts, and her lips were pressed into the warm hollow of the cleavage. She touched the mounds with her cheeks. Then she lifted her face from the valley.
The sight of the beautiful breasts was too much for Lil. Her hands tenderly cupped the twin mounds.
“The dirtiest thing of all,” continued Ginny. “He tried to dirty me. He would have done it, too—but something happened. Something happened to him. I don’t know what it was, but all of a sudden he wasn’t there any more. I mean, the excited part of him wasn’t there. It just went away. I heard him—sobbing, I think, as if something terrible had taken place. And he went away.”
“Mmmm,” said Lil.
“So I called Madam Fury, and she said for me to come. And she’d talk to me—explain what was wrong—comfort me— hold me . . .” Ginny sighed and closed her eyes.
Lil had never felt anything remotely like this girl. Her flesh had a softness that was almost too beautiful to be real.
The hell with you all, thought Lil bitterly. The hell with you, Sam. You’re off somewhere tonight having a fine time with another girl—you just dropped me as if I wasn’t worth even two cents. You just didn’t care, Sam—and maybe it was my fault for expecting you to care—but it’s all over now, and you have somebody new. But so do I, Sam, my dear; so do I. I’ve got somebody so new, she’s never been used at all. I’ve got a brand-new one, and I’ll bet that’s more than you have.
And the hell with you, too, Bill Henry. You think you’re a big makeout artist, with your fancy red convertible and your handsome stupid face. You’re a good-looking guy, Bill, and you have a lot on the ball—you really made me feel it this afternoon, and men can’t usually do that for me. Blame it on fate, Bill—blame it on the dreams of a frustrated lesbian. But it won’t happen again. You can’t give me what I want, Bill. Because you’re a man.
The hell with everybody in the whole world. Do what you wish, think what you like—condemn me, pity me, call me names, if it pleases you.
But leave me alone. You can’t change me—you can’t ever change what I am. I’m a lesbian, and I love it.
“But Madam Fury isn’t here,” said Ginny.
Lil lifted her hands from Ginny’s flesh. Her fingers undid file fastening of the girl’s skirt, drew it off, then returned to the elastic band of her panties. Slowly, inch by inch, she began to rofl them off. “That’s right, honey,” she said breathlessly. “Madam Fury isn’t here. But I am, baby. I’ll help. I’ll give you what you want.”
The panties were now hardly more than a rope of pink under the sweet hill of Ginny’s belly. Lil’s fingers quivered uncontrollably as she pulled the rolled-up garment from the girl’s hips and down the pale columns of her thighs.
“Can you?” asked Ginny. “Can you give me what I want?”
She was a natural-blonde. Lil had never seen a natural blonde before. So light—so delicate—almost like spun gold. She felt the desire flare in her, and then sensed suddenly another sensation behind the desire—an alien sensation that had no place in this lustful moment.
She tried to ignore it. “Yes, sweetheart—I can give you just what you want. Let me?” She slid to the edge of the bed and began rapidly removing the rest of her own clothing. “Let me help, Ginny? Tell me what you want, baby.”
Ginny’s face grew softly troubled. “There’s a question,” she said. “I want you to answer me something.”
“Yes, baby.” Lil’s bra was gone. Her breasts swung voluptuously away from her body as she stripped down both skirt and panties in one motion. Her fingers hesitated at the garter-belt, then decided to leave it in place. “Tell me your question, sweetheart, and I’ll answer it for you.”
“My mother,” said Ginny. “She always told me boys were dirty.”
Her mother? How the hell had her mother gotten into the conversation? And what was that eerie feeling Lil felt growing inside her?
“She said boys had dirty minds, and wanted to do dirty things to girls. Boys—and men, too.”
Lil was naked. She slid into place beside Ginny and put her arm under the girl’s shoulders. Their bodies met. Their breasts squeezed together, then settled with one of the girl’s soft mounds cuddled into Lil’s cleavage.
“Your mother was right,” Lil said. She kissed Ginny’s face—her cheeks, her brow, the line of her jaw, the pulsing cords of her throat. Her hands caressed the girl gently. “She told you right. Men are no good. Men are dirty.”
“Men are sex,” said Ginny.
Lil’s mouth paused in its kissing. “Men are what, honey?”
“Sex. That’s what mother was talking about I didn’t realize that until I was Older. The dirty things men want—they’re sex. Men are sex, and men are dirty, so sex is dirty, too.”
Lil started to speak, then checked herself. Something about what the girl was saying seemed to be feeding the unwelcome emotion inside her. That sensation was growing, and was rapidly reaching the point where it would take all the edge off Lil’s passion.
“Is there . . .” Ginny paused. From beyond the wall came the sound of the couple in the next room. “Can there be such a thing as sex without a man? Can women have sex?”
Lil didn’t reply.
“And if they can—is it all right? Is that kind of sex clean? I wanted Madam Fury to explain that to me. Will you explain it to me, Lil?”
Lil didn’t say a word. All at once, the feeling within her became clear, and it shook her from head to toe.
Those people next door, she thought—she could remember the bright-eyed face of the man, the dead-eyed face of the girl. She’d watched them go up the steps together, and she’d seen immediately there was something wrong with them. But her head had been too filled with her own thoughts to bother thinking about it.
Lying now in Ginny’s arms and listening, she heard exactly what was taking place on the other side of that wall.
He was beating her.
Lil could hear the sound of his fists striking her flesh, hear the strangled sobbing as the girl fought for breath. But worse than either of these sounds, she could also hear the background noise—the subtle overlaying voice of passion, of sexual pleasure. It spoke in every slap of a fist, every groan, every gasp of pain.
Perverts, she thought. Sadists, or something. Crazy people, who derive their pleasure only from hurting, only from brutality and torture.
She wondered if the fellow next door would enjoy taking h
er place right now. This little girl-—Ginny—was completely untouched and unused, soft and golden and innocent, a perfect target for vileness.
Would the man beyond the wall enjoy the process of ruining Ginny?
Of course he would. Because he was a sadist.
Lil felt the guilt erupt finally into her brain, drowning her passion completely.
I’m a lesbian, she thought. I'm a sexual-deviant. I may be considered depraved.
But—I’m not a sadist.
I’m not one of those . . .
* * *
Small watched the young man with interest as his agitation grew. The anecdote about the Trinidad whorehouse hadn’t made much impression on him. Small wondered if his abilities as a raconteur were failing him.
Bill stood up from the couch, and started pacing back and forth in front of it. “I don’t like this,” he said. “Why doesn’t something happen?”
“My young friend,” said Small kindly. “There is nothing to do but wait. Something is bound to happen eventually.”
“Yes.” Bill came to a halt and looked at him. “That’s the trouble.”
“What is? I don’t follow you.”
“Something is going to happen. Maybe it’s already happening. I don’t know. But I can feel it.”
Small shook his head in bewilderment. “Please be more specific. Feel what?”
Bill chewed his lower lip for a moment. “Trouble,” he said.
“I think you’re imagining things,” said Small.
“No, I’m not. There’s going to be trouble. This whole place reeks of it It’s in the air.”
“Really, my friend—you’re talking like an old lady with a premonition. Why can’t you simply sit back and take things as they occur? To me, this has all the earmarks of a very interesting evening.”
“Who owns this place?” Bill asked.
Small shrugged. “The woman who calls herself Madam Fury, I suppose.”
“You said you looked around. What’s in that room across the hall?”
“Nothing. Just another sitting-room, like this one.”
“How about in back of the stairs? What’s back there?”
“A kitchen,” said Small. “And a pantry,”
“So she must live here.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why would there be a kitchen or a pantry, or two room with all this comfortable furniture, unless this woman—this Madam Fury—lived here?”
Small stroked his nose. “An astute observation,” he said, nodding. “Now that you bring it to my attention, I must admit that the facts do seem to indicate . . .”
“Mr. Small?”
“Yes?”
“You told me you’ve been all over the world, been to every kind of—of sporting house there is—right?”
“Absolutely.” He smiled. “I’ve seen them all.”
“Yes. And I’ve seen a few in my time, too.”
“Oh, really?”
“In the Army,” said Bill. He hunched his shoulders. “I know what they’re like, and so do you.”
“Quite,” said Small.
Bill turned and swept a hand around to indicate the entire room. “This isn’t one of them,” he said.
“It . . .” Small started to speak, then paused, and followed the direction of Bill’s gesture. “Isn’t one of them?”
“This isn’t a whorehouse,” Bill said. “Did you ever hear of a whorehouse with furnishings like this? Did you ever hear of one in which the madam lived? This place is nothing but a—a home. People live here.”
“Young man . . .”
“Where’s the liquor, Mr. Small? You ever romp in a house where there wasn’t booze available? Where’s the music? They always have something—a piano-player, or at least a phonograph. Where are the dirty books and pictures to get the customers excited? Where’s the atmosphere?”
Small leaned forward on the couch and peered carefully around him. “You know—those are good questions, young man.”
“I’ve got an even better question for you,” said Bill. “Where’s the merchandise?”
“The merchandise,” said Small. “Yes. Where is the merchandise?
“You ever been in the parlor of a brothel before that wasn’t filled with girls in kimonos, or even in the nude?”
“Never,” said Small.
“What about upstairs? You said there were bedrooms up there.”
“That’s right.”
“Did you see any sanitary equipment up there?”
“No,” said Small. “Nothing.”
Bill took in a deep breath. “This isn’t a whorehouse, Mr. Small. Can’t you see what I mean?”
Small climbed to his feet. “I can see exactly what you mean, son. And I think I can predict your next question.”
Bill looked at him. “If it isn’t a brothel—then what the hell is it?”
“Exactly. Do you have any ideas, son? You seem to be a young man of rare perception—can you answer your own question?”
Bill nodded glumly. “Honey draws flies, Mr. Small. Candle-flames draw moths. Sex draws people.”
“You think—” Small’s eyes widened. “It’s some sent of trap?”
“Maybe. Only—who wants us badly enough to lure us here? And for what?”
* * *
She felt the pain.
It was glorious. It filled her mind with its power, blotting out her awareness, driving reason before it like a hurricane of lust.
Julie shuddered and moaned under Morton’s fearsome assault, unable to really believe that the dreadful convulsions she was feeling were a result of only his fists and his manhood. In the past, only the whip had been able to make her thrill like this—only the cold bite of the lash against her flesh and the molten eruption of pain which followed it could bring the pleasure to her.
He was a sadist. He was venting on her all the terrible fury of his lust and his perversion. He was destroying her, stroke by stroke and blow by blow, cracking her bones and crushing her flesh and ruining her forever.
Forever—
The time wasn’t quite right. The pain was almost unbearable, the pleasure was murderous, but there were more pains and pleasures to be had. There was room in her yet for the twin sensations to expand, grow, bloom into their final power.
Not yet—but soon. And when the moment arrived, she would tell him.
And he would do it, just as she’d asked.
And at that moment of perfect mortal pleasure, she’d feel the awesome thrill of immortal pleasure, the ultimate spasm of lust, the blinding release that would free her from her lusts and her body simultaneously.
Death.
I want to die, she thought, again and again. I want to die, die, die. I want to stop breathing, I want everything inside me turned off, I want to go into the ground and rot, fall apart, turn to dust. I want to stop being . . .
It would have been better if I’d never lived in the first place. But I had no control over that, or over what I am. That’s the past, and I can’t change any of it.
But the future is mine. I can do anything I like with the future. And the future stops right here, now, tonight In just a little while, there won’t be any more future. There won’t be any more me.
In just a little while . . .
The pain so wonderful . . .
It’s almost time.
* * *
Red.
Not blood. Not lust. Not even fire. Something bigger, stronger, redder than any of those.
The color pounded against Morton’s senses in a rhythm which matched and surpassed the crashing of his body against the girl under him.
Morton had never dreamed there could be so much red.
I’m not afraid, he screamed to himself. I’m never afraid. There’s nothing in the world that can frighten me. This is the biggest moment in my life—this is the moment when I satisfy everything I ever wished for. Why should I be afraid of that?
I’m not afraid!
But he was.
<
br /> The fear was a living thing, an animal with razorsharp devouring teeth feeding on his vitals. He could feel it gnawing through his body, beginning in his belly and working downward with slashes and clawings of cold fury, eating him hollow, leaving an emptiness in its wake that was frigid as ice.
The fear was consuming him alive. He could feel the awful surge of its fangs inching down toward the core of his lust.
Fangs—a flash of white amidst the red. There, in the center of a pulsating crimson world, hung a blanched patch of whiteness.
He tried not to look at it, but it drew his eye. He tried not to comprehend it, but his mind could think of nothing else. He tried to focus all his awareness on the enveloping redness of pleasure, but the icy bit of white transfixed him.
Her teeth.
She was screaming, with her lips drawn back clear to the rim of her gums. Her lips were red, her tongue was red, all of her was red. Except her teeth.
White teeth. Bits of bone. Ridges of ice, fantastic to see amidst the redness of the moment.
He stared at her teeth, unable to look away. And, as he watched, something hideous seemed to happen.
Her upper lip drew back, all the way back to her nose. Her lower lip pulled away, until it was turned down upon her chin.
Her white teeth leered at him.
Then the gums drew back, revealing the bone of her jaw, and in beyond her teeth he saw the soft red stuff of her mouth, shrivel up and run like melting candy down into her throat.
He stopped, frozen with horror, his hands going limp on her breasts, his body petrified.
“Please . . .” she said. The teeth opened to allow the word to escape, and suddenly her face split, beginning at the lips and ripping open like a rubber mask. The red flesh parted, and behind it was white.
White . . .
“Please,” she said again. “Now. Do it now . . .”
The flesh of her face fell limply to the sheets on either side, and he found himself staring at her naked skull. Her white eyes rolled in the sockets, staring at him.
The Jaded Sex Page 21
