Circle of sin

IT HAD TO HAPPEN!

There were eight people in the therapy group. Eight people; male, female, and in-between. Eight people with strange obsessions and warped perspectives on life. It was inevitable that one of them would find murder the only outlet for frustrated passion.

Finding a killer was nothing new for Detective Lieutenant Thomas Durango. But this was a unique problem, and in finding the solution he had to probe deeply into eight human souls. With him, you'll acquire new insights into the things that really make people tick. . ..

IT HAD TO HAPPEN!

Books like The Man from O.R.G.Y., The Nude Who Never, and The Girl from Pussycat — frisky, laugh-laden suspense romps from the torrid typewriter of Ted Mark — have earned him a reputation as one of America's most ribald and witty entertainers. In this major novel, he proves that his talent transcends pure entertainment. Ted Mark is above all a superb writer — and this is a book that had to happen!

CIRCLE OF SIN

This book was previously published under the same

title with the author listed by the name Leslie Behan

TED MARK

LANCER BOOKS NEW YORK

1965

CHAPTER 1

Packaged for Sex!

New York. Upper Broadway, in the nineties. Early ayem. Pimps and pushers, drunks and doll-boys, johns and jackrollers — night-scum lodged in the darkened store-fronts by the pelting rain. Eyes hopscotching the pattering drops, ducking under the umbrella brim, lech-leeching onto large, bouncing breasts, prying under the tight, short skirt to the creamy thigh-flesh above the stocking tops, grabbing at the joggling buttocks and squeezing hard.

She felt the eyes on her. She felt them fall into the rhythm of her half-trot, felt them embrace her in a macabre dance of sex between the raindrops. She felt them strip the clothes from her body, felt them caress her damp flesh until it grew warm under the touch, felt them press her to the sidewalk and squeeze and suck the juices from her. She felt the eyes raping her, devouring her, and she laughed.

Why not? They were an accolade, weren’t they? They were the Louvre stamp on a Rembrandt, the Nobel prize to a philosopher, the show-stopping ovation from the drama critics themselves. There was no tougher audience in the world for the merchandise she was parading down Broadway than those sex-sated night-drifters huddling in the doorways. The thrust of their eye-lust was the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval branded on her carefully packaged wares. She gave her hips an exaggerated roll, a nod of acknowledgement to her public.

The public licked its lips in reply. It called furtively to her, but she didn’t heed. The goodies, so amply displayed behind the store window of her transparent celluloid raincoat, continued the provocative, scampering march down Broadway.

Then she turned into a side street and the storefront eyeballs settled back into their sockets. Fingers tensed on groins relaxed. Rain washed away the fleeting lust.

Heading toward the Hudson River now, she angled her umbrella, slicing into the darkness, cleaving at the head-on wind. The West End Avenue corner spun her around, threw a hand to the celluloid cowl shielding her hair, tore a curse from crimsoned lips. She scuttled toward the other side of the street and continued down the block toward Riverside Drive.

She stopped under the canopy of an apartment house just off the Drive. She studied the number a moment and nodded to herself. She closed her umbrella, shook it out, fastened it, and entered the lobby.

The doorman was sitting on a sofa, sound asleep. Just as well. No questions asked and answered; no sly looks.

She paused in front of a mirror in the lobby. She lowered the cowl of her raincoat and shook out her blonde hair. She dipped into her purse for a comb, ran it through her curls, replaced it and took out a tissue. She blotted her rain-wet cheeks and then applied make-up. Her reflection smiled back at her, satisfied.

The elevator was waiting. A red-laquered nail pressed the button numbered “5”. It glided up and opened silently; she glided out. The finger poised again over a doorbell. It hovered a moment and decided against it. Instead, the hand circled the doorknob.

The door slid easily open, then closed behind her. She stood in the foyer a moment, just a touch uncertain. Then she shrugged to herself, and called out.

“Dr. Golden?”

“Right there.” The voice bounced back from behind the closed door facing her at the other end of the foyer. The door opened almost immediately and Dr. Golden stood there looking at her.

“Hi. I’m Debbie. You called Mrs. Wilson—?”

“Yes. Of course. How do you do, Debbie? Oh, rather Wetly, it would seem. It must really be coming down.”

“Pussies and puppydogs. It’s a regular Niag’ra.”

“You poor thing. Well, come on in and get out of those clothes and into a nice warm cocktail.”

“Swell. Oh, wait a minute. I’d better take these off here.” Debbie indicated her galoshes. “No sense in tracking up your floors.”

She bent over to undo the buttons of the trim little high-hell boots she was wearing. Dr. Golden stared as her breasts swung forward freely against the top of the bright red, extremely low-cut peasant blouse she was wearing. No bra encased them, and in Debbie’s bent-over position, her sharp-etched roseates and long nipples were plainly visible behind the teasing transparency of the raincoat she wore. Dr. Golden’s tongue darted over lips as Debbie pulled off the galoshes, extracted the high-heeled shoes from them and replaced them on her stockinged feet.

Debbie looked up impishly and met the devouring gaze. “I aim to please,” she said coquettishly.

“And you succeed, my dear. I am most pleased. I shall tell Mrs. Wilson so when I have occasion to speak with her again.”

“Will you? Gee, thanks, Dr. Golden. I appreciate that. See, it never hurts to have the boss know the customer’s satisfied.”

“I’m sure you’ll be eminently satisfactory. Eminently. You know, my dear, that raincoat you’re wearing is really quite provocative. Yes, indeed. Quite provocative.”

“Do you like it?” Debbie fluttered long lashes at Dr. Golden. “These things are awful cheap, you know. Only four bucks. Trouble is you wear them in the rain a few times and then they’re no protection at all any more.”

“I wasn’t referring to their water-repellent qualities,” Dr. Golden murmured.

“Oh, you mean it’s sexy. You know, I never thought of it that way before. Well, if you like it, I don’t have to take it off.”

“Eventually, you do. After all, it will be necessary to the removal of your other garments, won’t it?”

“Nope.”

“I beg pardon?”

“Watch.” Debbie stretched erect and reached around behind her shoulders. Her fingers groped under the celluloid collar to the zipper of the blouse. Clawing a little, she managed to bunch the material upward until she’d undone the zipper altogether.

She twirled, turning her back on Dr. Golden. There was a quick flurry of movement and then she turned back. She reached between the buttons of the raincoat and the blouse came away in her hand. She let it flutter to the floor.

Debbie deliberately arched her back. Her breasts strained proudly against the transparent raincoat. They were fully revealed now, ivory shadowed by the celluloid material. They were quite large, firm and perfect circles, dotted by shimmering pink roseates shading into quivering scarlet tips. Dr. Golden gasped audibly.

The blond girl moved sensually under the transparent coat so that the breasts seemed to have a life of their own. They described slow, suggestive circles. They apparently filled with air, seeming to stretch the very material covering them. The nipples grew and hardened as they grazed against the material.

Debbie’s eyes were half-closed. Her feet didn’t move. And yet her breasts seemed to be dancing, to be reaching out almost, as though to envelop Dr. Golden in the deep shadow of cleavage between them.

Now Debbie reached inside the coat and undid the clasp to her skirt. She rolled her plump hips once— twice — and the skirt crumpled in a pile at her feet. She took one dainty step backward and was free of it.

Dr. Golden saw that Debbie wore no slip, only bikini panties made of black silk. Her legs were long, smooth, excitingly shaped. She slid the thighs together, then apart, repeating the motion invitingly, rolling her belly, grinding her hips. The panties inched lower and lower.

Debbie turned slowly, drawing Dr. Golden’s eyes to her plump, jiggling buttocks as honey draws a fly. She turned back and increased the tempo of her movements. One wild series of bumps and the panties were tickling their way down her thighs, fluttering to the rug. In their wake the air teased blonde tendrils, the only modesty left her womanhood, a modesty made even more stimulating for being framed by the garter belt holding her stockings.

“See? And I’ve still got the raincoat on,” Debbie laughed.

“Wonderful!” Dr. Golden’s voice was quite hoarse. “Now come inside and have that drink. You’ve earned it.”

“Not yet I haven’t. But I will.” Debbie crossed over to the nearest door, then turned and looked questioningly at Dr. Golden. “In here?” she asked.

“No. That’s my office. My living quarters are back through here.” Dr. Golden pointed the Way.

“Your office? Is that so? Hey, you know, I’ve never seen a headshrinker’s office. What’s it like?”

“At the moment, it’s a mess. I had a group therapy session in there tonight and I didn’t bother to clean up after them.”

“A group what?”

“Group therapy. That’s what it’s called when a group of patients is gathered together to discuss their problems.”

“I don’t get it. What’s the point?” Debbie wanted to know.

“The idea is that they’ll inter-act on one another and thereby help each other gain perspective on their problems.”

“That’s over my head, Doc. You’ll have to explain. I guess I’m not up on this psycho-jazz.”

“I’ll explain later, if you’re really interested. First let’s relax and have a drink.” Dr. Golden led the way into the living room.

“Hey, this is some beautiful setup you have here.” Debbie looked around at the wood-paneled walls, the imitation fireplace and the glittering bar.

“I’m happy that you like it.” Dr. Golden stirred the gin and Vermouth gently.

“It must have cost a pretty penny.” Debbie settled into a lush, overstuffed chair upholstered in velour and clucked to herself. “This psycho-whatchamacallit must be a pretty profitable dodge.”

“Psychoanalysis. Yes, it pays well.” Dr. Golden handed her a cocktail.

“Does it ever really help anybody?”

“Yes. Frequently. It’s not a racket, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Gee, Doc, I wasn’t implying anything. I’m sorry if it sounded like I was.”

“That’s all right. I’m probably over-sensitive. You see, there is a tendency among the general public to sneer at the kind of work I do.”

“Well, as long as you’re helping people, I think that’s pretty good.” Debbie paused. “Except-—” she started to say hesitantly and then stopped.

“Except?”

“Well now, no offense or anything, but what about someone like you? I mean, are you so unscrambled you can help unscramble other people?”

“I have my problems like everybody else,” Dr. Golden told her. “But I can cope with them. And I can maintain my perspective while helping my patients cope with their problems. But tell me, Debbie, why do you ask?”

“Well—” Debbie took a deep breath. “I mean, if you’re coping so well, then how come I’m here?”

“Psychoanalysts are human. They have sex desires just like other people.”

“Just like other people?” Debbie thought about that a moment. “But you’re married, aren’t you, Doc?”

“I am. But I don’t think that has anything to do with it. Nor do I think my marriage is something I’d care to discuss. Do you mind?”

“I’m sorry, Doc. I didn’t mean—I guess maybe I just don’t have much tact.”

“Now, now, it’s not that serious. Let’s just forget it, shall we?” Dr. Golden walked over to the stereo set and flipped a switch. A record dropped. “Let’s dance.” It was a cha-cha—slow-—steamy hot. Dr. Golden’s arms held Debbie tight. Their bodies, melted together, moved as one. Even through the raincoat Debbie’s flesh burned.

The number ended. Dr. Golden’s lips were searing, greedy on Debbie’s mouth. Their tongues entwined and they sank slowly to the couch together.

Dr. Golden’s fingers fumbled at the buttons to Debbie’s raincoat. When they were undone, Debbie shrugged out of the garment and pulled Dr. Golden’s head to her breast. Sharp teeth closed over its succulent plumpness and Debbie moaned softly. She writhed on the couch, arching her hips, pressing herself hungrily against the fount of Dr. Golden’s hunger.

“Love me, baby. Love me,” Debbie Whispered. “Love me all up and down. That’s how I ’m gonna love you, sweetie. You make me so hot, I’m gonna just drive you nuts, angel. We’ve got a tiger by the tail, we do.”

“Wait a minute.” Dr. Golden’s voice was thick with desire. “Not here. Let’s go in the other room. The bedroom. It’s more comfortable.”

Dr. Golden led the way and sprawled on the large double bed, panting as Debbie approached. “Love me now. Hurry. Now. Now.”

“What do you want me to do to you, sweetheart? What can I do to make you hot and happy?”

“Kiss my breasts,” Dr. Golden gasped. “Kiss my breasts and pull up my nightie and play with me. I’m your woman, Debbie. I’m your woman. Make love to me. I’m your woman. Your woman. Your Woman. Your woman!”

CHAPTER 2

Packaged for Murder.

LEGS TWISTED, hips arched, naked bodies writhed, female fulcrum to female fulcrum, grinding, straining, aching for mutual fulfillment. Scaling the heights and soaring into space, it was achieved. And flesh melted into limp, damp, sweet exhaustion.

Outside, the storm swept down from the Palisades, raged across the river, and beat against the walls of the apartment house. Raindrops rat-a-tatted against the window is though in a wild demand for entry. Drums of thunder pounded the water from the sky. The crackle of lightning split the blackness, its reflection dancing inside the room, pronouncing a harsh, jagged judgment on the sated nakedness sprawled over the rumpled sheets.

Debbie was frightened by the storm. But it wasn’t a steady fear. It came and went, according to how strongly its power seemed aimed at her personally. Thus the lightning which had seemed to explode inside the room itself had filled Debbie with genuine terror, while its aftermath left her relatively calm. In this aftermath, the picture of her bed-partner which had been imprinted on her brain in the light-flash remained.

It was a sharp picture, detailed, erotic. It was the picture of a woman in her early thirties, nude, glowing. It caught both the physical beauty and the essence of the woman.

Dr. Golden was slender, taller than average. She had narrow hips and small breasts, yet her figure did not seem boyish. Her face was an oval, the cheekbones high, the nose small and straight, the jawline strong, almost, but not quite masculine. Her hair was blue-black, worn short, with just a touch of gray at each temple.

She looked younger lying there naked than she had wearing the tailored dressing gown in which she’d greeted Debbie. But she still looked distinguished. That aura of somehow being ageless still emanated from her. It was part of the feeling she gave of being someone who could be leaned upon, of being someone who had been leaned upon by many people and whose strength had been equal to the task.

Even now Debbie felt this about the woman lying beside her. But the feeling was at odds with the youthful passion which had just been vented upon Debbie's body. It jarred by comparison with the energy which had been expended, with the pitch of wave upon wave of desire attained. Debbie groped to pinpoint the inconsistency, and fastened on Dr. Golden’s hair.

“Is your hair really going gray?” Debbie put it into words.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, you seem awfully young to get gray.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. But is it? Naturally gray, I mean.”

Dr. Golden pondered the question a moment. “I guess there’s no reason to keep it from you, Debbie,” she said finally. “No. My hair isn’t naturally gray. I touch it up at the temples to make it look that way.”

“But why? I mean, it makes you look older. Do you want to look older?”

“Not older, necessarily. I prefer my age to be—indeterminate. The gray helps convey that impression.”

“But why do you want to give people that idea?" Debbie was still puzzled.

“It’s an aid to my profession. It makes transference easier.”

“Transference?

“Yes. That’s what it’s called when the patient identifies the analyst with a parent. It’s a necessary stage in psychoanalysis. It allows the patient to express those aggressions toward the parent-figure analyst which he never dared show his mother or father during childhood. The gray hair subconsciously—or even perhaps consciously—makes the patient look on the analyst as older than he—the patient—is. Thus the analyst becomes in the patient’s eyes an authority figure—which is to say a parent-substitute.”

“Then what happens?”

“As I said, the patient strives to release whatever aggressions he may have felt toward his parents.”

“Couldn’t that be dangerous?” Debbie laughed nervously. “My old man used to whale tar out of me. Sometimes just ’cause he had a load on. I never dared lift a finger back at him, of course. But if I was gonna — what did you call it?—‘release my aggressions’ toward him on somebody else, I’d be likely to kill that somebody. I don’t mean everybody had a lousy wino for a father like mine, but all the same, wouldn’t they be likely to get violent if they made this ‘transference’?”

“Not as a general rule, but it has happened,” Dr. Golden told her.

“But aren’t you afraid?”

“On rare occasions, yes. I am.”

“I gotta hand it to you. You got guts, Doc.”

“Do me a favor, will you, Debbie? Don’t call me ‘Doc’. Under the circumstances, it seems somewhat lacking in romance.”

“You want me to call you Mrs. Golden?” Debbie asked, naive in her confusion.

“Lord, no!” Dr. Golden laughed. “That certainly wouldn’t add to the romantic atmosphere. Call me by my first name. Call me Mavis.”

“Mavis. That’s a real pretty name. Sort of glamorous. All right, Mavis.” Debbie snuggled up to her, resting her cheek on Mavis’ bare breast. “How come you dig this sort of thing?” Debbie asked idly.

“What sort of thing?”

“You know. Two women. ’Stead of a woman and a man, I mean.”

“Everybody is basically bi-sexual. Most people repress it. I just don’t believe in repressing it. That’s all. But how is it that you ask me, Debbie? After all, it takes two, doesn’t it? You’ve been indulging in Lesbianism the same as I.”

“Oh, that’s different. With me it’s strictly business. I got a body to sell. Anybody can pay the price, it’s theirs.”

“And is that all, Debbie?”

“Sure. What else is there?”

“There’s what you felt before. The way you responded. That wasn’t just business. And it wasn’t acting to please the customer, either. Believe me, I’m experienced enough to know the difference. You were getting as much pleasure out of it as I was. Admit it. Weren’t you?”

“Yes.” Debbie actually blushed. “I was.”

“There. You see. There’s nothing abnormal about that. It’s simply a matter of variety. A well-adjusted woman can enjoy sex with another woman occasionally just as much as she can with a man. Even you enjoy a switch once in a while. Even a professional like you gets her kicks both ways. Isn’t that right?”

“Wrong.”

“I beg pardon?”

“I said you’re wrong.” Debbie went on to explain. “You see, Mavis, I’ve never made it with a man.”

“But in your profession—?”

“That’s really strictly business. To tell the truth, I’m kind of new at the game. I’ve only been at it a little more than a year. Oh, I guess I had plenty of men during that time. But I never made it with even one of them.”

“What about with other women?” Dr. Golden wanted to know.

“Once in a while. Like tonight, with you. Never as good as tonight, though.” Debbie fell silent with the silence of regret. Finally, she shook it off. “But that still doesn’t explain why you want this kind of kick, Mavis,” she said.

“I thought I had explained it. What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re married. What about your husband?”

“What about him?” Mavis answered. “He’s away at a medical convention.”

“Oh, is he a doctor too? Like you?”

“A DOCTOR, YES. Like me, no. He’s an orthopedist. A bone specialist.”

“Don’t you make it with him?” Debbie asked. “In the hay, I mean?”

“Yes, I do. My husband is a very adept and wonderful lover. He satisfies me completely.”

“Then why—?”

“I told you. Variety. It’s that simple. Nobody else can give me what my husband gives me. I have no desire for another man. But I do sometimes desire a woman. Wonderful as my husband is, that’s one need he can’t satisfy. And so, when the opportunity presents itself, I call Mrs. Wilson and arrange for some female companionship. Now do you understand?”

“Not really. But I guess it doesn’t matter.” Debbie turned restlessly. “Gee, you’d think this rain would cool things off,” she remarked, “but it just seems to make things hotter and stickier.”

“As they say, it’s the humidity. It’s oppressive. I feel it too. Say, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we take a shower? It will make us both feel better.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“All right, let’s go.” Mavis stood up.

“You mean together?”

“Sure. Why not? It will be fun.” Mavis led the way to the bathroom. “See, there's plenty of room.” She indicated the oversize shower stall to Debbie.

“Oh, this is lovely.” Debbie clapped her hands.

“Ladies first.” Mavis opened the frosted glass door so that Debbie might enter. She followed the blonde in and closed the door behind. her. She reached around the younger girl and turned the handle. A heavy torrent gushed forth, pelting them both.

“Yikes! That’s cold!” Debbie tried to duck behind Mavis, away from the icy stream.

“Coward.” Mavis laughed, not letting the blonde use her as a shield. “All right, I’ll fix it so it doesn’t hurt my baby’s tender skin.” She turned the other handle until the pouring water took on warmth. “That better?”

“Oh, yes. It’s delightful.” Debbie leaned back so that the force of the warm water struck her breasts directly. “Ahh, that makes me feel hot and sweet all over.”

“Here, let me soap you up.” Mavis took a small bottle of liquid soap, poured a generous amount into the palm of her hand, and then rubbed her hands together until she’d worked up a thick lather. She applied it to Debbie’s shoulders, kneading the froth into the skin with nimble fingers.

“Mmm, that feels so nice,” Debbie purred.

“It will take all the tenseness out of those shoulder muscles,” Mavis told her. “You’re all knotted up.”

“Oh, yes. Where did you learn about that?”

“My husband.”

They both laughed.

Mavis’ hands went lower, working their way down Debbie’s spine. She rubbed until the blonde’s entire upper back was covered with a rich, foamy lather.

“Oh, the way you use your hands. It just makes me tingle all over.”

“I’m glad you like it.” Mavis knelt and began soaping the back of Debbie’s lower body. Her fingers pinched the plump flesh knowingly, caressingly. It quivered under her touch, turned pink and then was covered with suds. Mavis lingered over the deep cleft, cleansing it deeply, but using her fingers very gently. Debbie moaned, wriggled a bit, shifted her legs to afford closer contact. Finally Mavis went on to quickly soap up the length of the arched, shapely legs, and then rose to her own feet. “Turnaround,” she instructed Debbie.

Debbie did as she was told, and the two girls’ breasts grazed against each other as they faced. “You know,” Debbie said, looking deep into Mavis’ green eyes, “this is quite a switch for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re washing me and‘ sort of coddling me and making me feel so wonderful and all. It’s supposed to be the other way around. I’m the one who’s supposed to please the customer.”

“You do please me. And don’t worry, you shall have the opportunity to please me much more. Meanwhile, my greatest pleasure is in giving you pleasure, my most exciting thrill in thrilling you. You’ve had enough experience, Debbie, to know that one often becomes most sexually stimulated by stimulating another.”

“Yes,” Debbie agreed as Mavis’ fingers caressed her ears and trailed foam over the sensitive length of her neck. “That’s true.”

Mavis stroked her breasts, and the pink roseates seemed to spread like flowers opening their petals. The nipples hardened and quivered, peering through the froth. Then the knowing hands were lathering her hips, rotating them gently. And then her flat little belly was being soaped, the navel gently probed with a rhythm that made Debbie tremble all over. Finally the love-laving went lower, working the suds in ever more gently.

Debbie almost swooned at the intimate touch. Finally she could stand it no longer. She grasped the tantalizing hand in her own and thrust downward holding it fast and squirming as though trying to devour it. She clutched it hotly, liquidly, rose on her toes and all but squatted in her eagerness. Then her body was seized by a prolonged shudder, and she buried her face against Mavis’ breasts until it was over.

“Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” she murmured as the tension spurted from her. She took the pleasure-giving hand between her own and covered it with kisses. “You’re wonderful,” she told Mavis, her eyes shining. “Now let me bathe you.”

Mavis stood quietly as the blonde, still trembling, covered her body with foam. But as the red fingernails reached between her legs, Mavis grasped Deb- bie’s wrist and stayed her hand. “Wait,” she told her softly.

“But why?”

“Because passion delayed is twice as good. Please. You’ll see. Let me do it my way.”

“All right.”

“First let’s rinse ourselves off,” Mavis instructed.

The girls frolicked under the water, splashing each other, washing the soap from each other’s bodies. Then Mavis abruptly shut off the hot water tap and forced Debbie to stand under the icy spray with her. She turned up the cold water and laughed as the younger girl broke out in goose pimples. She herself found it exhilarating, felt her small, upthrust breasts swell proudly against the cold, felt the inner warmth of her body more acutely in contrast to it.

“P-P-Please,” Debbie shivered. “I’ll turn into an ice-cube.”

“All right, you sissy,” Mavis said fondly. “I’ll take pity on you.” She turned on the hot water tap again. “Now watch,” she told Debbie. “This is the best part of all.” She reached up and adjusted the nozzle. Instead of drops of water, a fihe spray filled the stall now. She turned down the cold water even more, and the glassed-in booth began to fill with steam.

“Why, it’s just like having your own steam room,” Debbie exclaimed.

“Even better, because the space is so small. The steam penetrates every pore of your body. This is what I meant before by waiting. This makes me feel like I’m aflame from top to toe.” Mavis reached out and embraced Debbie then.

Her mouth was moist and clinging as she kissed the voluptuous young blonde. Her own love-buds were erect and burning as they pressed into the flesh of Debbie’s breasts. Her nails were sharp as they raked the girl’s back with unthinking urgency.

“Kiss me here.” Mavis pressed Debbie’s mouth to her breast, her fingers lost in the tangle of blonde hair as the lips enveloped her, sucking deeply, tongue flicking like live flame over the erect tip of her breast. “And now here.” She pushed down gently on Debbie’s head and the girl sank to her knees, lost in the vapor filling the shower-stall.

The steam rose around them as if it were the visible evidence of passion exuded by Mavis herself. Her legs were spread now, thighs clenching Debbie’s head, shutting out the sound, pulsating with the movements of the voracious mouth raised against her. With a surge of passion she descended to it then, thrusting downward to fulfillment, holding Debbie just where she wanted her. And then again. And again. And again.

Finally the girls stumbled from the shower, their bodies moving dully, without coordination, drained of control by the overwhelming surge of their lust. They dried each other with large Turkish towels, slowly, languidly, enjoying the touch and sight and sex-smell of one another’s flesh. They combed and brushed each other’s hair with lazy, strengthless strokes. Then they ambled back into the bedroom.

“Here’s a robe you can wear.” Mavis tossed Debbie quilted silk kimono of a deep blue hue. She selected a white terrycloth robe reaching to the knees for herself. She tied it and looked ruefully at her reflection in the mirror. “Shall I confess something to you, Debbie?” she asked.

“What is it?”

“Despite all my psychological orientation and motivational know-how, I still feel deprived-childishly petulant, almost—because I have such a lousy figure.”

“But you don’t!” Debbie protested. “You have a lovely, slender body. Most women would give their right eye for your kind of slim attractiveness.”

“Nonsense! I’m small-busted and I have no hips, and I know it. And I don’t like it. And every so often I give in to being immature and feeling damned underprivileged about it.”

“Your bust may be small, Mavis, but it’s firm and beautifully shaped. You shouldn’t be ashamed of it.”

“It’s all right, I suppose. At least it is when I don’t have any clothes on. But when I dress, no matter what I do, I look as flat as a board. Just look at me now. For all the shape I’ve got, there might be peewee marbles under this terrycloth.”

“Well that’s easily fixed.” Debbie crossed over to her. She reached inside Mavis’ robe and lifted her breasts, squeezing them together. Then she arranged the material. When she was through, she stepped back, surveyed her handiwork, and smiled impishly. “There! Now what do you think of yourself?” She spun Mavis back towards the mirror.

Mavis looked at her reflection, and pleasure spread over her face. “You’ve certainly made me look sexy,” she admitted. Instead of covering her breasts, the terrycloth now supported and framed them. They shimmered like large twin pears in the lamplight, golden and scarlet-tipped. “But if I go outside this way,” she laughed, “I’ll get arrested.”

“Then this is a treat just for me, and that makes it all the better,” Debbie told her. She Watched Mavis study her reflection a moment. Then—“You know, it’s still hot in here,” she observed.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it? Well, I can fix that. Give me a moment.” Mavis started for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Into my office. There’s a window-fan in there. I usually keep it in the bedroom. But it was so warm tonight that I hooked it up in my office for the group therapy session. I’ll go get it.”

“Can I help you?”

“No. I can manage. It isn’t heavy.” Mavis automatically closed the door behind her.

Debbie lay back on the bed and relaxed. This was nice. Real nice. As pleasant a trick as she’d ever turned. The lamp was shining in her eyes. She reached over and turned it off. Now the room was dark. And very still.

Suddenly a long chain of lightning whipped around the walls. It was followed by a sustained roll of thunder. Pause. Silence. And then two sharp, distinct cracks, echoing off into a short, high whine.

The sequence frightened Debbie. She bolted from the bed and ran to the door. She opened it and scurried down the hall towards Dr. Golden’s office. “Mavis?” she called, her voice shaky.

No answer.

She ran into the foyer. It was dark. Something brushed against her. A scream caught in her throat and died there. She shrank back against the wall. Whatever it was kept going past her. The door to the outer hall opened. Light blinded Debbie from the entryway. It shut quickly. She was alone in the dark again.

She crossed to the door to Dr. Golden’s office. She pushed it open. Again she was temporarily blinded by the overhead light shining down from the ceiling. Her vision refocused and she stared at the scene before her, stunned.

Chairs were arranged in a circle in the center of the room. Dr. Mavis Golden stood inside the circle. She was sucking for air and her naked breasts, framed so enticingly by the terrycloth, were squeezed together, straining with the effort. Just beneath them, where the white material pushed up against their under-surface, a bright red stain was beginning to spread out and reach downward toward her belly. As Debbie watched, horrified, the stain erupted into a spurting gush and Mavis began slowly to sink to her knees.

“What—? How-?” Debbie’s brain formed the questions, but her vocal cords failed her.

As if in answer, Mavis looked at her from helpless, dying eyes. “The group!” she said. “Ask the group. The group knows! The group! The group!” She toppled forward, the blood pouring from the wound with the last of her life. And then she was still, not breathing, staring at Debbie from dead green eyes.

Debbie screamed. Again. And again. She didn’t stop. She would never stop screaming. She would scream and scream and scream until the city roused itself to the violent death of a lady who had been packaged for murder!

CHAPTER 3

All Join Hands and Kill Her!

“THE GROUP! Ask the group. The group knows! The group! . . . ”

“Now what do you think she meant by that?”

Detective Lieutenant Tomas Durango spoke the question loud, although it was purely rhetorical and he expected no answer. He got none. Debbie, still clothed only in the blue silk kimono Mavis had loaned her, stared at him across the length of Dr. Goldenls office as though she hadn’t heard. He stared back.

Some piece! She sat carelessly, the robe parted to reveal her tantalizing legs. A button had slipped loose at the top, and Durango could see the shadowy outline of her breasts nuzzling the quilted material. Her face was still frozen with fear, but her body exuded sex appeal.

Durango was far from invulnerable to that appeal. He took his eyes from her long enough to notice that dawn gray had infiltrated the slats of the venetian blinds. The rain had stopped, but the sun was not yet risking the possibility of being quenched by its resurgence. Outside, the rumble of a truck and the clatter of tin testified to the beginning of the garbagemen’s working day.

Inside, the garbagemen had already departed. They’d carried off the corpse, sucked up the blood into carefully labeled test-tubes, dusted the premises with fingerprint powder, blotted up the results, and gone on their way. The last to leave was Sergeant Connors, who worked the homicide detail with Durango.

“Gonna take the broad in?” he’d asked before he left, jerking his thumb at Debbie.

“I’m not sure. Haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“Want me to hang around ’til you make it up?”

“No need to. I can handle her without any help.”

“I don’t see why you’re waitin’. You’re gonna have to book her sooner or later,” Connors told him.

“How do you figure that? You think she did it?”

“Who else? She was alone here with her, wasn’t she?”

“That’s not her story,” Durango pointed out.

“She’s a pro hooker. She must have a million stories. I wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for any of them.”

“Maybe.” Durango shrugged. “Then again, maybe not. I can’t see that she had any reason to bump the lady off and then just stand here screamin’ ’til the cops got here.”

“A hooker don’t need no reason. They’re all hopheads. You know that.”

“You on the needle?” Durango asked Debbie.

She shook her head and continued staring at the floor.

“She says she isn’t,” he told Connors.

“And you believe her?”

Durango crossed over to Debbie and lifted her arm. He pushed back the material of her robe and examined the skin. Then he repeated the maneuver with the other arm. “No hypo marks,” he told Connors.

“I don’t care. I still think you oughta book her.”

“Oh what charge?”

“Suspicion of murder. Material witness. Prostitution. What’s the difference what charge? Just so’s we got her on ice when we need her.”

“Well, maybe I will bring her in,” Durango said. “But there’s no rush. Right now I’m more interested in solving this murder.”

“All right, Sherlock, you go on playing games. Me, I’m going home and grab some sleep.” On that note, Connors left.

So they were alone now. Just Durango and the girl. And Durango was having a hard time keeping his mind on the case. Every time she made the slightest motion of shifting in her chair, he’d find himself licking his lips and daydreaming about what it would be like to roll her around the rug.

“What’s your name?” he asked to get his mind off the vision.

“Debbie.”

“Debbie what?”

“Debbie—” She paused. “Smith,” she said finally.

“Oh, like that, huh?”

“Just like that. I had experience with cops before.”

“I’ll just bet you have. Well, I had experience with tramps like you, too, Miss—Smith. I worked the Vice Squad for two years.”

“Really? And how many girls did you shake down?” Debbie asked sweetly.

“Look, girlie, don’t get smart with me. You oughta be in the lock-up right now. Only reason you aren’t is out of the goodness of my heart.”

“Don’t make me laugh! I see the way you’re looking at me. You just figure you can grab yourself a piece before you take me downtown. That’s why you got rid of your partner and the others, and don’t think I don’t know it. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“It’s a thought,” Durango admitted. “Except I don’t dig dykes.”

“I’m not a dyke!” Debbie protested.

“No? Then what were you doing with the dear departed? Swapping recipes?”

“Look, I admitted I turn tricks. I’m on call. Whatever the job is, I do it. That’s all.”

“So you’re a switch-hitter,” Durango told her. “Same difference.”

“Think what you want. It makes no never-mind to me. I’ll just as soon my virtue stayed intact.”

“You must be kidding!” Durango’s face broke into a wide, humorless smile, displaying very white and even teeth.

In spite of herself, Debbie had to smile back. Her words did indeed ring oddly even in her own ears.

“There,” Durango said. “No reason why we can’t be friendly. Makes it more pleasant all around.”

“I guess you’re right.” Debbie subsided. “Durango,” she mused aloud after a moment.

“That’s my name.”

“Italian, or Spanish?”

“Neither.”

“Puerto Rican? Mexican?”

“Nope. I‘m Maltese.”

“Maltese?” Debbie was puzzled. “What’s that?”

“My parents came from the island of Malta—near Gibraltar, you know?”

“Then you are Spanish.”

“You better not ever let my father hear you say that. Spanish is a dirty word to him. We’re Maltese, and damn proud of it.”

“Maltese, huh? Like the cats,” Debbie teased.

“Sure.” Durango laughed tolerantly.

“Well come on over here, kitty, and let me make you purr.” Debbie stretched seductively.

“Later. Maybe,” Durango replied. “Not now. Now I got a murder to solve.”

“You don’t look like you’re solving it spread all over that chair.”

“You got a point there.” Durango got up and began strolling around the room.

He was a small man, Debbie noticed, but very athletic-looking. His shoulders were broad, his hips narrow, and he did indeed move like a cat. A Maltese cat. His complexion was swarthy, his eyes dark and flashing, alert and intelligent, his hair black and his features rugged.

Now he came to a stop before a cabinet and tried the door. It was locked. He extracted a bunch of skeleton keys from his pocket and tried them. After a moment one worked and the door swung open. Durango knelt and studied the reels of tape neatly filed inside the cabinet. He pulled one or two out and looked at the labels on them.

“Ask the group. The group knows!” The words cha-cha’d over the surface of his brain.

“What did you find?” Debbie asked.

“The tapes of Dr. Golden’s group sessions,” he told her.

“You mean she recorded them?”

“Evidently.”

“Is tonight’s session there?”

“Let’s see.” Durango knelt and pulled the last tape from the bank. He studied the date on the label. “Here it is,” he told Debbie.

“Why don’t you play it?”

“Let’s remember who the detective is around here,” Durango said acidly. “Anyway, I was about to do just that,” he added, grumbling. He found the tape recorder, fiddled with it, figured out the playback mechanism, strung the reel and turned it on. The babble of voices filled the room . . .

“All right, everybody’s here. Let’s begin.” (Debbie recognized Dr. Golden’s voice over-riding the others. It gave her a creepy feeling, hearing the voice of the dead woman.) The hubbub subsided. “Who would like to start?” Dr. Golden’s 'voice was loud and clear, the only one heard now.

“I would.” A female voice, young, sultry, deliberately intimate. “I have a dream, a gasser, one that should hit all you cats where you live.”

“Tell us about it, Lisa.” Dr. Golden’s voice again.

“Like that’s why I’m here, Doc. So anyway, snooze-time like four in the ayem and little Lisa’s in the hay all by her lonesome — which, as you know, is not per usual. There’s a goodly gurgle of scotch warming my tum-tum and the same old game is burning groinily, but, like I say, somewhere along the line the bed-partner I had had in mind copped out on me. So old Mother Sex is pastured out — only temporarily, to be sure—and it’s off to Dreamsville for yours truly.

“And who do you think I meet? You guessed it. None other than that old psycho-cat Doc Golden in person. Only the person’s a smidgeon altered like to pep up the dream. It’s Doc’s face all right, only she’s a he. Which, you must admit, from my man-hungry point of view is a decided improvement.

“So this he-Doc comes on looking like gangbusters. T-shirt, bathing trunks, and muscles busting out all over the place. And that isn’t all that’s busting out either, dig? The he-Doc’s all eager and bulgy over bosomy little me.

“But I don’t let any man hurry me. Well, at least not in my dreams. So I let him sweat a little while I bounce around in my shortie nightie—choreography by Minsky if you know what I mean.

“Oh, did I mention that this scene we’re making’s in my pad? Well, it is. It’s morning, dig? Sol, the voyeur’s, creamin’ rays through the window and all over the joint. And that sunlight’s splashing over little me like neon bouncing off the goodies in a high-class bakery window. And the he-Doc’s nose is pressed to the glass like he’s hooked on my French-style pastry but good.

“Just the look on his face is making me squirm for it, but the way this dream’s laid out, I have to play the tease. So I flash my gams at him and tug down my sweet little bodice and he’s all but bustin’ his britches. I mean, let’s face it, when it comes to legs and boobies, little Lisa leaves the crowd behind. Here, I’ll give all you hungry cats a look-see at what I mean. Go on. Take a gander at what a strictly female female’s made of!”

“Pull down your skirt, Lisa. And fix your sweater.” Interjection by Dr. Golden. Voice calm.

“No orgy tonight, hey Doc? Well, all right. Sorry men, show’s over. Back to Dreamsville.

“Okay, so I’ll cool the action. But I can’t cool the words. This was a steamy dream, dig? And it gets steamier.

“More fantastic, too. Like, where do you think the he-Doc’s come to fetch me to? A picnic. That’s right. Me, who can’t breathe without I smell Greenwich Village flushing its toilets, is going pastoral with this panting he-man.

“So when I get through the tease bit, I cram my yummies into a sunsuit that shows more than it hides and we’re off. A snazzy Jag with the top down—when I dream I dream big — and zip up the West Highway and into the hinterlands. Trees and flowers and all that jazz.

“We cut off the highway, and we’re driving along through all this Thoreau gook down a back road. Suddenly, the he-Doc says like why don’t I shift for him. One of these sports car shift-sticks from the floor, you know? He says like he’ll guide me in what to do and takes my hand.

“He guides my hand all right, but it isn’t to the shift-stick. He’s pushed down his trunks, dig? And he wraps my hand around the biggest— Well, it was a dream, remember. Every girl’s dream, by the size of it.

“Anyway, things have a way of jumping all out of proportion in dreams, and that’s what happens with this one. Soon as I touch it, it grows to almost twice the size. I have to use both hands to shift, dig? And it’s lucky the top’s down on the Jag, because it keeps getting bigger and bigger. Pretty soon we’re driving down the road with this thing waving in the breeze like the Leaning Tower of Pleasure.

“Don’t laugh. I know it seems funny now. It even seems funny to me. But it didn’t in the dream. In the dream it was like real serious. What I mean, it got to he frustrating. All my life I could never get enough of that item, and now that I did, it was just too much. Practically speaking, if you know what I mean. Like, what can a girl do with something that big?

“Finally the he-Doc pulls the Jag off the road and we get out. He picks a spot and it’s grassy, but not like grassy in real life. I mean, in real life when you find a grassy spot in the woods, it’s apt to be pretty messy. All weedy and overgrown and filled with burrs and bugs and all the other crap Ma Nature plants around. Anyway, that’s the way I remember it. But this was different. This was grass like feathers, short and even like it had been mowed, all manicured like you see sometimes in front of government buildings.

“It was soft like feathers, too, when we lay down on it. There’s not a cloud in the sky. The sun’s hot and the breeze is warm. The he-doc’s lying on his back waving in the wind like—so help me—a tall sapling.

“All of which turns me into a firecracker. What I mean, little Lisa’s so hot there’s twin penpoints poking holes through the halter of her sunsuit. And below I’m so hungry I’m practically swallowing the material of my shorts. The situation’s changed. Now it’s me who’s in a hurry, not the he-Doc like before at my pad.

“So I rip off the halter and my size 38’s are pointing free like arrows quivering in the wind. I hip-wriggle out of the shorts and when I stand up my legs are like question marks I’m so anxious. Like this redhead’s red-hot and gushing for action.

“But_it’s no use. With that giant sapling of the he-doc’s, it’s impossible to make the scene. It’s so big now I couldn’t even climb it if I wanted to — let alone straddle it. Still, this only makes me burn even more.

‘Man, the frustration’s indescribable. Finally, I flip with it. I mean like the whole top goes. Naked, crazy with lust, I begin attacking the damn thing. First with my bare hands — hitting and scratching. Then, suddenly — don’t ask me from where — I got this axe in my hands.

“I chop at it, and it’s almost like I’m making it at last. I mean, what I’m doing’s violent, but even more, it’s absolutely sexy. Chopping away at it, it’s like having sex itself in this crazy mixed-up dream. Then there’s a crash and the damn thing just topples over—for all the world like a real tree.

“But I don’t stop hacking away with the axe. It’s still like the way I feel when I’m having sex, but what I’m doing now is working over what’s left of the he-Doc. I’m chopping up arms and legs and the torso and finally the face until there isn’t anything left but a bloody pulp. I begin clawing at the pulp with my bare fingernails, and that’s when I wake up.

“You know how it is when you wake up from a sex dream? Like it’s been so great making it with this guy in your dreams, and then suddenly there you are with nothing but a pillow between your burning thighs? Well, that’s sort of what this was like. Only it was my hand that was going like a piston rod, my fist I was all but doubled up trying to impale myself on. You can believe it, I didn’t stop. Awake or not, I kept right on going until I was so exhausted I had to rest before I could change the sheets. How many times? I couldn’t say for sure. I lost count.

“That’s it. That’s all there is. Well now, how do all you cats like them Freudian apples?”

“Yes. Let’s hear the group’s reaction.” Dr. Golden’s voice.

“Simple.” A male voice. “Just a subconscious expression of every patient’s wish to kill his analyst.”

“Right.” Another male voice chiming in. “Since the analyst is a parent-figure and we all have unadmitted desires to murder our parents, Lisa’s dream is perfectly understandable.”

“I’ve had similar dreams myself. For instance—” The female voice was interrupted.

“We all have.” The voice that interrupted was also feminine. “I don’t think there’s much to be gained by discussing it.”

“I disagree. I think the method of violence deserves examination.” Another male voice, much more high-pitched than the first two.

“Yes. I’ve often wanted to kill Dr. Golden. But I never would have chosen such a method.” A fourth female voice, timid, hesitant.

“Haven’t we all. Haven’t we all. Personally, I’d like to strangle her with my bare hands.” The last voice, deep, grim, masculine. “Killing the good doctor is my favorite daydreaming pastime.”

“But not all of you found it necessary to turn me into the jolly Green Giant to do it.” Dr. Golden, kidding, smooth.

General laughter.

“Seriously, though, dreaming and daydreaming are one thing, but with all your joint perceptiveness about the universality of the urge to kill one’s analyst, I wonder how many of you are willing to admit to it on a conscious level. Come on, now, who here really, consciously, admits to wanting to do away with me?”

“I do. Me too. Are you kidding? You’re my favorite murder victim! I’d kill you in a minute! Just try me, Doc! Don’t ever try me, or you’ll be sorry! Just give me a gun and you’ll find out!” The voices were a chorus of murder!

(“By God, they all wanted her dead,” Durango exclaimed. “And one of them could have done it, judging from this!”

(“Don’t tell me you’re finally admitting I’m not the only suspect?” Debbie asked.

(“‘Shut_up and listen. I want to hear this.”)

“All right. All right.” Dr. Mavis Golden’s voice quieting them down. “I guess I’ll just have to accept my fate as inevitable. Each of you wants to kill me.”

“Then why don’t we?” The question dropped into the sudden silence jarringly.

“Or will we? I mean one of us?” another voice added, wanting to know.

“Yes. Aren’t you afraid?”

“Is there a genuine risk that one of us might actually murder you?” a last voice summed up for them all.

‘Yes,” Dr. Golden conceded. “But it’s a risk that has to be calculated. Taking a scale of zero to one hundred, f or example, I would say that most of you fall somewhere between forty and sixty.”

“You mean there’s a fifty-fifty chance one of us really might kill you?” The voice was shocked.

“That isn’t what I said. Offhand, I’d guess the odds to be quite comfortably less than fifty-fifty. That calculation I gave you stipulates certain factors. Opportunity, for one. Motive — which is to say the feeling of wanting to kill me finding its fullest expression due to some outside pressure—for another. And these two would have to work out in conjunction. I should think the odds against that would be quite heavy. Then there’s the question of the weapon. And the weighing you’d have to do of the fear of getting caught. All these factors enter into it. And with all of them favorable—or, more correctly from my vantage-point at least, unfavorable — you’d all still fall somewhere between a forty to sixty percent likelihood of actually going through with it. So you see, I manage to sleep nights.”

“Is that true of all your patients?”

“Pretty much. Of course, some are more dangerous than others. I have one patient, suffering from the same thing as Brenda over there, but in a far more exaggerated form, whose hostility verges on the paranoid. Close to the brink of violence, or at least much closer than any of you. Still, I feel competent to confine this hostility, to keep the patient within bounds. Hers is merely a further projection of what you all feel.”

“Then you don’t think any of us would really kill you?”

“Well, of course, you never can tell.” Dr. Golden laughed. “As I said, under the proper circumstances, I suppose there’s a possibility that any one of you would prove capable of murdering me. Still, I don’t envision those circumstances ever really arising . . . ”

There was more to the tape and Durango heard it out. But the topic had turned from murder, and there was nothing he heard that he thought might be of value to his investigation. When it was done, he turned to Debbie and found himself looking at her helplessly.

“Start at the beginning,” she advised him.

“What?”

“Play the first tape of the group. That way you can straighten out Who’s Who.”

“Now, look! I told you before. I’m the detective. You’re a murder suspect. So suppose you stop telling me what to do!”

Debbie shrugged.

“All right. I suppose I can’t lose anything,” Durango granted grudgingly. He fished out the first reel from the cabinet and put it on the recorder playback.

“Well, we’re all here.” Dr. Golden’s voice again. “Now this is the first experience with group therapy for any of you, so naturally you all feel awkward. As you can see, we’re a well-balanced group. Four men and four women, not counting myself. I’d suggest we begin by introducing ourselves and telling something about ourselves and being as frank about the problems that led us into analysis as we can. Dave, why don’t you start?”

“I’d rather not, but — Well, all right. My name is Dave Evers. I’m twenty-four years old. I’m a graduate student at City College, going for my doctorate in chemical engineering. I live at home with my parents. That’s a big part of my problem. But the main problem is that I’m still a virgin. Technically speaking. And it’s eating me up inside . . .”

CHAPTER 4

The Reluctant Virgin

“. . . My name is Dave Evert. I’m twenty-four years old. . . . I’m still a virgin. . . It’s eating me up inside . . . ”

Dave Evers sat in the armchair from the TV set and stared vacantly at the movie on the Late Show. A few paces to the right of the set, the door to his parents’ bedroom was wide open. The lights were on, and Dave could hear his mother’s and father’s voices quite clearly. Their large double bed was plainly visible through the open door. They were preparing to make love.

Rabbits! Dave thought bitterly, biting his lip. Rabbits! That’s what they were! That’s what they’d always been. As far back as he could remember, that’s what they’d been!

Even before he could remember, from what Dave had been told, sex had come first with his parents and he, their only child, had come second.

“The doctor says it would be best for the baby if I nursed him,” Molly Evers had told her husband Stewart back then.

“But won’t that pull your breasts all out of shape?” Dave's father had asked.

“That’s what I said. Baby or no baby, I told him, my husband comes first. And my husband doesn’t like women with droopy bosoms. He likes me just the way I am.”

“Then you won’t nurse?”

“Of course not, honey. You’re the only baby’s gonna nibble on Mama. Just like always.”

So Dave had been a bottle-baby, suckled by a rubber nipple, deprived of his mother’s flesh before he even knew enough to yearn for it. Did he really remember, or was it only that he imagined he could recall struggling to pull cold milk through a choked nippled while his parents, uncaring, thrashed about on the bed beside his crib? No matter, there were more than enough such incidents later so that he was sure he did remember the way they really were. These were the incidents which twisted his own sexual desires, which made him fearful and unsure of himself, which made him regard all women as relatively taboo, almost as off-limits to him as his bed-bunny mother was off-limits to him.

Dave had been ten or eleven, just beginning to feel the first stirring of puberty, the night those limits were made clear to him by his enraged father.

“My back aches,” his mother had said. “I wish your father wasn’t working late. If he was home he’d rub it for me.”

“Let me do it, Mommy.”

“It wouldn’t be the same. You’re only a little boy.”

“Please let me. I can do it. Honest.”

“Well . . . All right.” She’d taken off her robe and stretched out face down on the bed in her nightgown. “Rub hard now, Davey,” she’d said, “but don’t scratch or pinch.”

Dave had straddled her, putting his weight on his knees on either side of her small waist. He’d started with her neck and shoulders, Working his fingers slowly down her spine on top of the silk nightgown. He found himself strangely excited, and his pajamas began to bulge like when he wore those corduroy pants that were too right for him and they rubbed up against him.

“Oh, that feels good,” his mother had sighed. “You’ve got strong hands, Davey, just like your father. But wait a minute. This damn nightie is tickling me.” She’d risen on her elbows and pushed the nightgown up so that it was bunched under her chin and over her shoulders and the back of her neck. “That’s better.” She settled down on her stomach again, and Dave stopped staring at where her bare breast had momentarily hovered over the sheet.

He had resumed rubbing her naked back then, kneading the flesh and taking pleasure in the feel of it under his hands. She too was enjoying the massage, her small sighs and little contented movements testifying to the fact. “Lower,” she’d instructed when his hands were at her waist, and Dave had followed her spine down between the beginning rise of the hillocks of her small, plump buttocks.

“To the left,” she told him. Then, “And right, too.” Finally, “Lower, lower . . . Ah, yes.” Her breathing came more quickly now, and her sighs had turned into pronounced little moans.

Dave sensed her enjoyment and rubbed the rosy cheeks eagerly with both hands. He moved downward, the better to manipulate his mother’s flesh, and her legs parted so that he might close his knees to kneel between them. He was able to put more pressure on the area then, and his mother’s responses became more pronounced.

Her moans became rhythmic, and her hips began describing little half-circles in the same tempo. Instinctively, Dave’s stroking also matched the rhythm. Her muscles tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed as she ground her body harder and harder against the mattress. “Oh, yes-yes-yes” escaped her lips without her even realizing she’s spoken aloud.

The throaty murmur excited Dave to commit an unplanned act. He leaned forward and kissed the rippling surface he’d been caressing. His mother laughed sensually, lost in the thrill of the sudden sensation.

And from the doorway there came a sudden roar of rage from Dave’s father!

Dave was never to know how long he’d been standing there watching. At the bellow, the boy had scrambled hastily from the bed, filled with a sense of guilt, but childishly confused as to just what he’d done that made him guilty. He’d backed off to a corner of the room and stared at his father, afraid.

“Just what the hell do you call this, Molly?” His father’s voice had been trembling with anger.

His mother had turned over then and smiled innocently at her husband. Despite his fear, Dave couldn’t tear his eyes away from her large breasts with their straining red tips and the still-throbbing, moist womanhood discernible under the lightly-matted black curls above where her legs began.

“Hello, Stewart, darling. I thought you’d never get home,” she cooed.

His father too had stared at her pulsating nudity and licked his lips. “That’s not right, what you were doing with the boy,” he said, the anger suddenly gone from his voice and replaced by a note of longing.

“Don’t be silly, Stewart. He was just rubbing my back.”

“I saw him kiss you there, Molly. That isn’t right for a boy to do to his mother.”

“Oh. Stewart, you’re being just plain ridiculous. He’s just a boy. He didn’t mean anything sexy by it. After all, I’m his mother. He was just showing that he loves me.”

“Maybe. But you know what you were doing. I saw you squirming around—just like when we’re going at it.”

“I couldn’t help it, honey.” Dave’s mother laughed lightly. “I was thinking of you, wishing you’d hurry up and get home so we could—you know.”

“That the truth?” A hungry look had come over Stewart Evers’ face. “Davey, you get to bed now where you belong,” he’d said, running his eyes over Molly’s body. But there had still been anger in his tone. Anger, and something else the boy couldn’t understand. Jealousy, perhaps, or maybe the hint of a threat.

Dave had done as his father said, gone to his bed, which wasn’t really a bed at all, but only the Castro in the living room of their three-room apartment in the East Bronx. Perhaps, when they’d originally rented the apartment, before Dave was born, it had really been out of necessity. It had been the tag-end of the Depression then, and Dave’s father, earning peanuts and glad to get it, hadn’t been able to afford more rooms.

But things had gotten better during the years Dave was growing up, and there had been no reason for not inking a larger apartment where Dave might have had a room of his own. Certainly now, twenty-five years after Stewart Evers had signed the first lease on the apartment, there was no reason why they couldn’t afford it. Rabbits! Bitterly Dave reflected that the reason they remained in these cramped quarters was the same now as it had been then. For some perverse reason, his parents liked involving him in their sex life, and the lack of space provided them with an excuse to keep from facing this fact. Yes, they enjoyed it—just as much now as they had that long-ago night when his father had caught him giving his mother a massage.

They’d left the door open on purpose that night, too, Dave was sure. They’d left the lights on also, giving him a clear view of their activities from the Castro. And so he’d watched them, as he would watch them many times in the nights to come.

His father hadn’t even bothered to undress. Breathing heavily as he gazed at his wife with the nightgown up around her neck, he’d merely taken off his jacket, unzipped his pants and pushed his underwear aside to free his manhood for action. The shock of seeing it, so big, so hard-looking, so seemingly dangerous like some giant weapon which might tear his mother asunder, made Dave even more afraid than he’d been before when his father had bellowed at him.

Without reasoning it, he became sure that now his father was going to punish his mother brutally for what she and Dave had been doing. As his father sprawled on top of her, Dave became positive that this was what was happening. And as that giant weapon tore at her body, seeming to split it in two, Dave was possessed by the idea that he must go to her rescue, that he must run in there and pull the heaving man-beast off her before he destroyed the mother Dave loved.

But he hadn’t the courage. He didn’t dare move from the Castro. He just lay there and watched, overcome with his own guilt and fear. He just lay there and watched and cursed himself for a yellow coward.

There was more. At the end his mother had squealed with delight. And she had covered Dave’s father with kisses. And her voice had carried to the boy cowering on the couch.

“Uh, Stewart, the way you make me feel! Oh, you are my man! And you’re all man, Stewart. All man!”

“Beats playing with the boy, hey?” Dave’s father had chuckled.

“He’ll be lucky if he’s ever half the man his father is.”

“Even if he is, he’ll never get himself a woman like his Daddy’s got.”

Dave had pulled the pillow over his head and ground it into his ears so he wouldn’t be able to hear any more. Now his fear, his guilt, his hatred at himself for his cowardice, were all merging into another, overpowering emotion. Dave was consumed with jealousy of his father, and that jealousy was to harden into a steely hatred.

Yet this hatred, as he grew older, would never be as great as the hatred he would develop towards his mother. It was she who would reject him time after time during his adolescence. Yes, she would reject him, with anger at times, poking fun at his display of affection at other times. And, always, she would make it clear that she preferred his father. That which she denied Dave, she not only gave willingly to his father; she spent night after night arousing him to accept the gift ---and all the time the two of them knowing that Dave could see and hear everything.

Dave remembered many such nights, but the one which stood out occurred when he was thirteen. He’d been going to sleep on the Castro as usual. His parents had been undressing with the door open and the lights on—as usual.

Molly, his mother, had stood directly in front of the door, facing the side-wall mirror. She’d already, taken off her dress, her shoes, stockings, garter-belt, panties and bra. Now she wore only a halfslip and was fiddling with the earrings at her ear-lobes. She dropped one of them, and the half-slip, which was very short, rode up over her buttocks as she bent over to pick it up.

At that moment, Dave’s father, completely nude, came up behind her. He leaned over her and his hands closed over her bare breasts, squeezing them. Dave’s mother wretched her arms out and grasped the edge of the bureau for support. She widened her stance deliberately and pushed backward against her husband. And then they locked together, writhing with the blind lust of animals.

Dave couldn’t tear his eyes away from them. His father loomed like some giant prehistoric monster over his mother. Yet the expression on her face and the eager wrigglings of her body told Dave of the ecstasy she was feeling at his assault.

Ashamed as he was, Dave’s body was seized with the thrill of what he saw. Gazing almost directly into his mother’s passion-blinded eyes, his hand groped under his pajama pants and encircled the throbbing response his parents had aroused. Not just his fist but his whole body moved then, rising and falling with the staccato thrusts of his mother and father against each other. And when his father gave that final lunge and his mother half-screamed with her own release, Dave’s last surging spasm was a party to their fulfillment. It was during the following moments, as his brain cleared, that Dave really began to hate his mother for arousing him in his solitude while granting to another man the ecstasy she would always deny him. His hatred of her may not have been logical, but it was strong enough to warp his sex outlook right through the beginnings of his adult life.

Now, twenty-four years old, still a virgin and despising himself because of it, Dave was filled with rage towards both his parents as he watched them make ready ready for bed. They were in their forties now, but time hadn’t diminished their uninhibited ardor. They still played like rabbits almost nightly, and they still seemed to take some sort of perverse pleasure in flaunting their sex-play before their grown son.

Dave watched his father sit down alongside his mother on the edge of the bed and fondle her breasts. He heard her giggle and saw her lean over and blow suggestively in his father’s ear. Disgusting! he thought. Gray-haired and going to pot, but acting like a couple of high school kids with hot pants! It reminded Dave of his own high-school days, of the first time he’d almost gotten rid of his virginity when he was sixteen.

It had been on a dark night, no stars shining, no moonlight, along a deserted stretch of beach in the early autumn. The girl’s same had been Rhoda something, a pudgy kid with large breasts, only a year or so younger than himself. But she’d been much longer on experience. The word around school was that she’d been putting out since she was twelve. And the way she acted, it was obvious she had more idea of how to go about things than Dave did.

The beach had been her idea. Dave had taken her to a local movie and they’d sat in the last row of the balcony. Almost as soon as they sat down, she’d taken his hand and put it on her sweatered breast and turned to him to be kissed. Her tongue was hot and wet, and her hand had dropped to his lap to squeeze him there. Dave had slipped his hand under her skirt and Rhoda had willingly parted her legs for him. After a while, she’d unzipped his pants and angled so that she was half-sitting, half-lying on one hip, trying to press against him. The chair-arms made it virtually impossible, but even if that hadn’t been the case, the arrival of the theatre manager with the beam of his flashlight splashing over them would have brought things to a halt anyway.

“Let’s get outa here,” Rhoda had whispered after the manager had finished bawling them out and left.

“Okay,” Dave had agreed. But out on the street he’d been at a loss. “Could we go up to your house?" he’d asked.

“My folks are home. How about yours?”

“My folks are home, too.”

“I know!” She’d suggested it then. “Let’s go to the beach.”

“Orchid Beach? How will we get there?”

“We could take a cab.”

“That’s awful expensive.”

“It’ll be worth it. I’ll let you do whatever you want there,” she told him frankly.

They necked and petted all the way out in the taxi. Dave was taut with eagerness after they arrived. He was burning to release the sex energy their playing had aroused. Rhoda led him along the beach to a spot behind a large dune. Here she sat down and began matter of factly taking off her clothes. Dave followed her example and also began to undress.

He’d lain down beside her, nude, aching with the force of his aroused passion. He’d kissed her, stroked her breasts, playing with her as she directed him to, and all the time his hunger to possess her grew. Finally, Rhoda had turned towards him, pressing her body against his to make sure he was ready. Satisfied, she’d rested on her back again, drawing him with her.

Dave had sprawled over her then, ready to take her. Poised, looking into her face, it was then that it happened. Suddenly Rhoda’s features merged into those of his mother. His mother’s eyes looked at him seductively, his mother’s lips smiled at him teasingly, his mother’s voice said “Come on! Do it to me now!” And behind his mother, his father snarled a threat of rage . . .

Dave had gone limp. Completely limp, unable to do anything. Even now, eight years later, he writhed with embarrassment remembering Rhoda’s contempt. Even now, he couldn’t forget how he’d wanted to kill himself when she’d spread the word of his failure around among his school buddies. Even now he was filled with resentment when he recalled for how long after that he shunned girls altogether, afraid of another fiasco.

Looking past the TV set into the bedroom, Dave knew he had good reason to be bitter. Watching his parents as they undressed, he almost wept with rage at his memories. Listening to their whispers, the rage grew.

“You prepared?” his father asked.

“I took care of that in the bathroom.”

“Let’s do it the way you like,” his father said.

“Wonderful!” His mother scrambled over his father’s body, lowering herself eagerly.

Dave watched, feeling a silent sob welling up inside him. The scene was just like the one he had played that first time he’d dared go near a girl after Rhoda. Only it hadn’t been his mother lowering herself slowly to savor the sensation. It had been a prostitute.

Dave had been almost twenty. Tired of viewing himself as a freak, he’d decided he had to do something about his virginal state. So he’d gone down to Eight Avenue, gotten himself drunk, and picked up this hooker.

She was lush without being beautiful. Her body was fleshy, warm, seeming to give off an aura of sex. Her face was a doughy mask, smeared with too much make-up and completely without expression or character. But Dave told himself that didn’t matter.

She’d taken him to her place, a dingy furnished room. Relieving him of the money first, she’d then stripped off her clothes. She’d undressed Dave herself, killing two birds with one stone by playing with him while she did it in a way which aroused him greatly.

She’s pushed him gently so that he was stretched out flat on the bed, his manhood quivering eagerly in the stale air of the room. “This is how they do it in Samoa,” she’d whispered sexily, and started to climb over him.

Dave was bursting with his desire for her. But as she poised over him, his mind played a drunken trick. Suddenly, it was his mother’s knees clenching his hips, his mother’s breasts hovering his lips, his mother’s womb reaching out to envelop him. But it wasn’t like it had been with Rhoda. Instead of fear, Dave was filled with a tremendous sense of triumph. At last he would prove he was as good a man as his father. Just as the prostitute grasped him to settle herself, the triumph became too much for Dave. At the touch of her hand, he exploded prematurely, possessing neither his mother nor the prostitute, but only the stagnant air.

Once again he’d been consumed with shame. The prostitute had tried to get him to stay—for a price, of course — but Dave was too filled with self-revulsion to even consider it. He’d dressed hurriedly and run out into the night, drunk enough to cry real tears at the frustration which possessed him.

Now, as his father’s body heaved up against his mother’s flesh with an eruption the joys of which Dave seemed destined never to know, he cursed to himself and thought of the life of half-sex to which his parents had consigned him. It was mostly a solitary world of shameful release-in the bathroom, or on his couch late at night. Even when it wasn’t solitary, it was never the complete man-woman experience his parents practiced regularly. It was always some sort of half-measure contrived by Dave to gain a bit of satisfaction without having to face up to the possible failure of actually going to bed with a girl. Typical of this had been the interlude with that college girl — Olive Anderson, that was her name—only a few nights before.

She was a college junior, a shy type, which suited his purposes just fine. He’d taken her to this murky cocktail lounge he knew after they’d gotten out of the night class they both attended. She’d gone with him nervously, flattered to have been singled out by a graduate student, apprehensive that her own eagerness might lead her into some folly.

Dave had selected a back table in a particularly dark corner booth. He sat down very close to Olive and ordered drinks for them. Immediately, he launched the conversation on the topic of sex.

The waiter, bringing the second round of drinks, overheard the following: “I had a very religious upbringing,” Olive was saying, “and I suppose it has inhibited me as you say. But it can’t just be talked away, Dave. I have very strong scruples where sex is concerned. Knowing the reason for them doesn’t make them any the less strong. I mean, like, take you—” She paused to take a deep gulp of her second drink almost before the waiter had a chance to settle the glass on the table. “I find you very attractive. Maybe I even want you to make love to me. But my scruples would never let me.”

“It’ll work itself out,” Dave told her. “Bring us another round on your way back,” he called as the waiter moved away.

Three rounds later the waiter was having a hard time keeping his poker face. No hands were visible on the table as he set down the drinks. The couple, lost in a deep kiss, didn’t even notice his presence. Glancing down, the waiter took a long, appreciative look at the girl’s legs. Her skirt had been pushed up to reveal them fully, and one of Dave’s hands was busy between them.

The waiter’s eyes shifted, and this time a smirk did break through his composure. Dave’s fly was wide open, the tip of his manhood clearly visible above the girl’s encircling fist. Her hand was moving like a machine, and her body was bouncing eagerly with the same rhythm.

“Can’t we take a hotel room?” the waiter heard her moan.

“Sorry, I haven’t got the money,” Dave had lied.

“I want you.”

“I want you, too.” It wasn’t quite a lie, but it wasn’t quite the truth either. “Don’t stop,” he’d added, his excitement mounting. “Here, take this.” He’d handed her his handkerchief to catch the fruits of her caresses.

When that was over. Olive had moaned that it wasn’t right acting like this in a public place, making love this way, and besides, it was frustrating.

“Next time we’ll take a room,” Dave had promised her, knowing very well that there would be no next time and that even if there had been such a prospect, he would be afraid to take advantage of it.

Yes, this was the sort of perverse pleasure to which the years of observing his parents’ brazen love-making had reduced Dave. Listening now to his mother’s contented sighs in the aftermath of the romp she’d just had with his father, Dave’s frustration and anger were greater than they had ever been. Nymphomaniac! He cursed his mother to himself. That’s what she is! A nympho! Just like that Lisa Bourbon dame in the group! A bed bunny!

Dave’s mind skidded off into remembering the group therapy session he’d attended earlier that evening. He thought about Lisa describing her whacked-up dream, and the recollection brought back the excitement he’d felt while she’d been relating it. But the feeling quickly dissipated as thinking of Lisa and the group inevitably narrowed his thoughts down to the illogical bitterness aroused in him by Brenda.

Brenda was the group’s Lesbian. She admitted it freely. And just knowing this about her was enough for Dave to center much of the hatred he felt towards his mother on her. She, a woman, could have relations with other women, and she let it be known that she often did. But Dave, a man, was unable to have relations with women. Because of this, he despised Brenda unreasoningly.

It complicated things for Dave. In the throes of a transference by which Dr. Golden was replacing his mother in his subconscious, Dave’s feeling toward his real mother became all mixed up with his jealousy of Brenda, his resentment of Lisa’s brazen sexuality and all the bottled-up aggressions he was just beginning to be able to express toward Dr. Golden. But lately there was a tendency for the three of them to merge with his mother even in his conscious mind, and Dave frequently found himself daydreaming about committing all kinds of aggressive acts against each of them. His confusion was such that in his mind their ills became part of his mother’s personality and his mother’s sins became each of theirs as well. To Dave, this four-way conception was particularly embodied in the person of Dr. Golden. It was on her that his aggressions centered.

Thus, now, as his mother began the seductive ritual of urging Dave’s father to a second sex session, it was Dr. Golden’s face which Dave envisioned atop the twisting body. His brain whirled with all kinds of feeling, and suddenly the prospect of their making love in front of him again became too much for Dave.

He threw on his clothes and slammed out of the apartment. Black with rage, he half-ran down the street to the subway. He didn’t even notice the rain pelting him. The desire for unreasoning revenge filled him completely. Blindly, he got aboard a Manhattan-bound lo cal. Vengeance pushed him off the train at 96th Street. Unseeing, he fought the rain-wind down Broadway.

Revenge!

Toward whom?

It didn’t really matter.

All was confusion except Dave’s need for—-

Revenge!

CHAPTER 5

Monkey on Her Back

“. . . I’M CORA WILLIAMS. My problems? I’m a junkie. I’m twenty-two years old and I’ve run the gamut from tea to horse. I know, I look older. It can do that to you. I’ve been at it since I was sixteen years old. I want to stop, but I can’t. Or maybe I don’t really want to kick it at all. I don’t know . . .”

When the session broke up that fateful night, Cora was the first one out the door of Dr. Golden’s office. She wanted the elevator to herself, and she got it. Alone, going down, she gave in to the cold shakes sweeping over her body.

I need a fix! I need a fix! I need a fix! It was all she’d been able to think of during the group meeting. Even Lisa Bourbon’s whacked-up dream and all the talk of murder hadn’t been able to take Cora’s mind off it. She thought that they’d never stop gabbing, that it would never end, that the time would never come when she could be alone to figure out some way of satisfying her desperate need. Only now that she was alone, her mind refused to function. It just kept repeating the desire over and over again; I need a fix! I need a fix! I need a fix!

Pausing under the awning as she came out of the building, Cora felt the first wind of the just-breaking storm. It hit her like a knife-stab, penetrating to the fragile bones under her tight-stretched skin. She stepped back into the shelter of the lobby and opened her pocket-book. Two one-dollar bills and three pennies. She stepped outside again and hailed a cab.

“Fifty-second Street between Sixth and Seventh,” she told the driver.

He threw the car into gear and pogo-sticked down West End Avenue, seeming to make an extra effort to hit every bump in the road. Three blocks later he hit a red light and braked roughly. He took advantage of the pause to case Cora in the rear-view mirror.

The cab-driver saw a small, painfully thin girl sitting hunched up as though every muscle in her body was tensed in an effort to simply hold it together. Her face was pretty, snub-nosed, probably round once, but now gaunt and hollow-cheeked and squinched up as if she was in pain. The street-light hitting her eyes bounced back blue; the eyes were sunk very deep, blank-staring pinpoints. Make-up might have relieved the paleness of her complexion, but she wasn’t wearing any. And her brown hair, a somewhat mussed-up tangle, lacked luster.

The light changed to green and the driver went back to punishing the ruts on the road. When he hit the next stoplight, he completed his inventory, concentrating on Cora’s body. It proved more interesting than her face.

Her breasts were small, but high and quite sharply pointed. Noting that she’d been careless about buttoning the top buttons of the sloppy sweater she wore, the driver angled his mirror and studied the hard-breathing curve of bare flesh which was revealed. After a while he changed the angle to look at her legs. She was sprawled uncaring on the low seat with her knees apart, and he could see the flesh where her inner thighs met over her stocking-tops. Her legs were shapely, a little on the skinny side maybe, but with a sleek sexiness about them nevertheless. She was slim-hipped and her waist was very small, and her slender appearance made her seem more bosomy than she really was.

By the time he’d barreled the cab down to Fifty-second Street and turned east, the driver had decided that Cora was sexy enough in a feverish kind of way, but probably unapproachable. He shrugged it off and pulled to a stop at her request. She paid him, tipped him, and got out.

“Showtime! Showtime! Yessirree! Step right inside. Show just starting. Step right inside for the most sizzling show in little ol’ N’Yawk! Showtime! Showtime! . . . ” The barker’s voice assailed the crowd from the theatre-break, but for the most part they ignored him.

Cora slipped between him and the four-color 32-sheet of the stripper in pasties and G-string and went down the four steps to the entrance of the club. Stepping inside, she had to pause a moment to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. The only light came from way in the back where a thirtyish stripper with size fortyish breasts was performing a desultory series of bumps and grinds with a look of complete boredom on her face that her mechanical smile didn’t begin to conceal.

As her vision adjusted itself, Cora could see that there were only two or three couples seated at the tables around the stage and watching the show. Most of the action was up front, behind the velvet rope, where the bar was. Here some thirty-odd men were clustered, looking over the B-girls, who looked them over right back, only much more knowledgeably.

A tuxedo’d plug-ugly loomed up in front of Cora. “Sorry, miss, no ladies allowed wit’out they got an escort,” he told her.

That was a laugh! The joint was crawling with B-girls on the make, and here was the management acting all tough and virtuous. Of course, what he really meant was that if any hustling was going to go on, it would be house-hustling and the house would take its split. But Cora was in too much of a sweat to dwell on the irony.

“I’m not going to stay. I’m just looking for a friend,” she explained.

“Sorry. You’ll have to look for him some place else.”

“Relax. The friend is female. I’m not trying to move in on your little racket. Oh, there she is. Hey, Zelda, come here and rescue me.”

“With you in a sec, honey.” Zelda waved at her from the other end of the bar.

A brassy, over-bleached blonde, Zelda stood with her belly thrust out and grinding against the man with whom she’d been drinking. The black silk of her short skirt stretched tightly over her rotating buttocks. The slit in her skirt revealed one of her fleshy legs almost to the hip. Now, impatient to get to Cora, she turned away from the man, pulling his arm around in front of her so that his hand gained easy access to the extremely low-cut, golden-sparkle blouse she wore. With no bra to hinder him, he was soon fondling her over-ripe, melon-size breasts eagerly. She reached behind her, fumbled at the zipper of his pants, found what she’d been groping for, and proceeded to expertly pay him off for the split of champagne he’d bought her at three times the legitimate price. It only took a moment, and then she patted his cheek and moved off toward Cora.

“What’s up, honey?” Zelda ignored the hand that reached out to pat her buttocks and lingered to caress them. “I ain’t seen you in along time. Where you been keeping yourself?” She reached behind her, and the intimate hand deposited two dollar bills in her palm. Zelda turned long enough to flash a smile at the paunchy man to whom the hand belonged. “Wait for me at the bar, sugar. I’ll be with you in a minute.” She turned back to Cora. “So what’s the pitch?”

“I have to make a connection.” Cora came right out with it.

“Easy! Not so loud.” Zelda looked around nervously. “Lotsa bulls come in here, you know.”

“How about it? Can you help me?”

“I ain’t got no connection. I kicked it. Two months I ain’t had a fix — well, almost. Anyway, I’m outa contact. What happened? Your pusher get boxed?”

“Yes. They picked him up last night. Please, Zelda, I’m half out of my mind. You have to help me.”

“I would if I could, kid. You know that. Nobody knows better than me that cold turkey ain’t no fun. Particularly if you ain’t even tryin’ to call a halt. But I don’t know nobody, an’ that’s a fact.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” Cora sighed. She turned to leave.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Zelda called after her. “You know who you might try? Mickey.” She stepped close to Cora and her voice was low again. “I saw him on Broadway about an hour ago and he was really flying. He’s gotto be gettin’ it somewhere. You know where to find him?”

“I know. Thanks, Zelda. I’ll be seeing you around.”

Cora walked, hopscotching the store-fronts to try to avoid the rain that was coming down. It didn’t do too much good, and she was wet and shivering when she finally got to the Forty-Second Street grind house where Mickey hung out when he was H’d up. The movie theatre was three-quarters empty, and she didn’t have any trouble spotting him in the last row of the balcony.

“Greetings and salutations, Cora-Cora-Cora,” he said aloud as she slid into the seat beside him.

Mickey was a light-skinned Negro, a college graduate with a Master’s in finance. Once he’d worked as a teller for a large bank. He’d worked for them for a long time before it dawned on him that there would never he any promotion for him. A promotion meant he’d be working in the bank’s offices, out of sight of the customers, and that would never do. It would defeat their whole purpose in having hired him in the first place. They wanted him out front where his acceptably tan face with its acceptably Caucasian-styled features would serve as a public badge of their tolerance. “So,” as Mickey himself put it, “I jes got bone-weary of bein’ that little ol’ bank’s house nigger, an’ one fine day I he’ped myself to some o’Mr. Charlie’s white man money an’ made tracks. Alas”—the switch from dialect to an archaic sort of classical speech was typical of him— “my flight was in vain. The minions of the laws apprehended your truly before I could even begin to spend my ill-gotten gains. Thus the constahulary, aided and abetted by the judiciary, saw to it that l was incarcerated in a penal establishment. ’T was there I fell prey to the evil habit which holds me to this day.”

“I need a connection, Mickey,” Cora told him now. "I can see you’ve got one.”

“Yes-yes-yes. Indeedy, I do. We’s friends, Cora-Cora-Cora, so I put you onto him if you like. But it gonna cost. So tell me, milady, fairest-of-the-fair, heart-of-my heart, how y’all fixed for bread?”

“Not good,” Cora admitted. “I was hoping you might help me out.”

“Sorry, sugar, it took all my crumbs jes to get this fix. I-would-if-I-could-but-I-can’t,” he sing-songed. “An’ this pusher I got’s strictly cash-and-no-carry. On the line, sans credit.”

“All right. I’ll get the money somehow. Just tell me how I make the connection.”

“South Ferry, down near the pier there’s this all-night cafeteria he hangs out in.” Mickey went on to tell her how to recognize the man and approach him.

Cora thanked him and left the theatre. She took the subway downtown to West Fourth Street. Then she walked the narrow Greenwich Village streets for some seven blocks in the rain until she came to the coffee house which was her destination. She took a table in the rear and waited for Lucas to finish his round.

Lucas was a folk singer. “His troubles is he’s for real,” a Village wag had once said of him. “So naturally he’s a flop. Twanging away at the genuine American ethnic doesn’t pay off. The squares want the Burl Ives-y crap, or the Bellafonte dressing. Lucas only puzzles them.”

He’d wandered down from the Cumberlands a year before, when he was only seventeen, and hitch-hiked to New York with his guitar slung over his shoulder. He hadn’t a nickel to his name, but somehow he managed to live on the tips he cadged from the customers in the coffee houses where he sang. Half the time they threw him some coins just to make him go away and quit bothering them while they were making time under the table. Lucas didn’t care. The joke was on them. He was singing for his own pleasure, not theirs.

Now, spying Cora, he finished his song in a hurry and joined her. He liked Cora. She was one of his few friends, one of the few people who really appreciated his singing. “Hey there,” he greeted her. “How be you?” He looked at her more closely and answered his own question. “Cruddy, hey? What gives, Cora? Y’all look like almighty hell.”

“I need some money, Lucas. Can you let me have some?”

“Sure. Anythin’ I got. Which ain’t much thought, I calc’late.”

“I’m in kind of a hurry, Lucas, so do you think you might -?”

“Sure ’nuf. Let’s give the ol’ piggy bank a shake.” He emptied out his pockets, piling coins and a couple of bills on the table. “Let’s see now.” He counted the money. “I make it zackly ten-thirty-fi’. That ’nuf for you, Cora?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure. But I’ll want all of it, Lucas. Will that be all right?”

“Long as you leave me bus fair. I’m tired’s all get-out tonight. Gonna knock off soon an’ don’ look to no more tips. So gimme fifteen cents an’ welcome to the rest.”

“Thanks, Lucas.” She picked up the money and dumped it into her pocketbook. She bid him good night and left. By the time she was halfway down the block, she was running in her eagerness to get to the subway.

Getting off the train at South Ferry, she was so obsessed with her need for a fix that she didn’t even notice the force of the rain pouring down and drenching her. It was always like this when she needed it real bad and was getting close to having it. Her whole body shook with anticipation, and she no longer bothered to fight against the shaking. Soon now, soon, there would be some relief from this ache of craving, from this hunger exploding inside her head like ice water cascading over her very brain and numbing it to everything except her need. Soon!

The pusher was where Mickey had said he would be. Cora had no trouble recognizing him. She went directly to his table in the cafeteria and sat down across from him. “I need a fix,” she said, too anxious to parry words.

He continued reading his newspaper, ignoring her.

“Mickey said you could help me out.”

“I don’t know you, lady,” he mumbled behind his newspaper. “I don’t know any Mickey. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come off it! I’m not the fuzz. I need it real bad, I tell you!” Cora couldn’t stand this. She was close to tears.

He didn’t answer. His hand reached out from behind newspaper and grasped her arm. He pushed up the sleeve of her sweater, glanced at the telltale sores on her arm, and quickly pushed it down again. Still he was silent.

The window behind him shook with the force of the storm. A flash of lightning creased the top of his balding head, which was all that Cora could see of him over the top of the newspaper. The crash of thunder reverberated inside her skull, drum-beating the urgency of her hunger. Outside black rain howled out an echo of her desperation.

Cora was at the point where she was biting her lip to keep from screaming when he finally spoke. “Four pounds.” That was all he said.

Translation: twenty dollars. Despair filled Cora. “It’s too much,” she told him. “I never paid more than two before.”

“The heat’s on. lady. Things are tough all over. A coupla boys got nabbed just last night. Things like that happen, the price goes up. Supply and demand, you know? The demand’s the same, but the supply’s gettin’ hard to come by. An’ I don’t bargain. Two-oh dollar, price-fixed. That’s final.”

“Please. I just don’t have it. Couldn’t you sell me half a stack?”

“Nix. Too risky. You think I’m gonna stick my neck out makin’ splits, you’re psycho. An’ I don’t wanna sit here talkin’ about it. You ain’t got the bread, it’s your problem.”

“But I have to have it. I’m sick, you can see that. Please. I’ll give you ten now and the rest next time. Please, you can trust me.”

“Girlie, I wouldn’t trust my own grandmother if she was a junkie. Now I can see you really ain’t got the price. So let’s just forget it. Go on, take off.”

Cora knew she should leave, but she couldn’t make herself give up hope. She just sat there and stared at him helplessly, pleadingly. Finally he got up and crossed to a table on the far side of the cafeteria. He sat down and buried himself behind his newspaper again. Somehow Cora found the strength to force herself to go.

The walk through the rain, the subway ride uptown . . . it was all a nightmare of hopelessness. Numb, soaked through, Cora got off the train at Eighty-sixth Street. Half-crazed with fever and cold, obsessed with pain and despair, she made her way to the brownstone house in which she lived.

Entering her room, she saw that Jeff was in bed waiting for her. Jeff had once been her lover; now he was only the man with whom she lived; heroin had become more important to both of them than sex. When they didn’t have it, they were mutually obsessed with getting it. And when they had it, the particular cloud it took them to was usually too euphoric for them to be troubled by sexual desire. Only occasionally were there exceptions to this.

Tonight—at least as far as Jeff was concerned—turned out to be one of those exceptions. As soon as Cora came in, he threw back the blankets and exposed himself as eager for sex. But his manhood wasn’t all that was revealed to Cora. She was also quick to notice that Jeff’s eyeballs were dilated and that his manner was transparently serene.

Jeff had gotten a fix! There could be no doubt about it. Jeff was flying!

“Where? !” She stood over him, trembling, ignoring the hand sliding up her skirt, trying to pry her thighs apart. “Where is it? Tell me!”

“All gone! All gone-gone-gone!” he singsonged, trying to pull Cora down on the bed beside him.

“I don’t believe you. You’ve got some stashed away for later. Where it it?”

“Gone-gone.”

Cora wrenched away from him and went into the bathroom. Yes, there it was! The wax paper Jeff’s pusher always wrapped around the fix. But it was crumpled up and empty. Not a grain left. Cora smoothed out the paper and looked at it. Then a sob tore from her throat and she ran into the other room.

“You bastard!” She fell to her knees beside the bed and began beating at Jeff with her fists. “You lousy bastard! You had a double dose there! Enough for both of us! And you took it all yourself! I’m jumping out of my skin and you take it all for yourself. I could kill you, Jeff! I could kill you! I could kill you!”

Jeff, half-laughing, tried to hide from the blows being rained on him by huddling under the blankets. The more Cora beat at him, the more the energy of her frustration built and exploded into new cycles of energy. Finally, it propelled her away from Jeff and out of the room, downstairs and out into the rain once again.

Racing blindly down the side street to Broadway, and then on up Broadway, there was nothing left inside Cora now except her need. She was beyond all else. She had to have money for a fix. And the only place left to try, her only hope, was Dr. Golden.

Somehow Cora had to persuade Dr. Golden to let her have some money. When she was like this, Cora would do anything for a fix. Anything! She’d sell her body! She’d sell her soul! She’d beg! She’d rob!

Cora would even kill!

CHAPTER 6

A Man Among Men

“. . . KEVIN FRANCIS CONNERY here. From the milky look o’ your lips, I’d say me thirty years makes me the elder statesman o’ the group. Perhaps ye’ve noticed I’m Irish. Dublin-born and bred I am, and in New York only five years. Oh, don’t be lookin’ like that! Sure I work hard at it. But after all, bein’ an Irishman’s a career in itself, you know. . . . Yes, I suppose I am puttin’ you on. Me brogue’s only as thick as I care to make it. That’s true. . . . Me trouble? Sure an’ you might say I’m a bit queer, I suppose. Take it easy there, Dave, I’m not about to attack you. Unless you want me too, o’ course. But you’re not me type. It’s a nubile Nubian lad I’m seekin’. . . . All right, the good doctor’s growin’ impatient with me façade. So, on to me problem in a nut shell. Which is that I hate women, an’ I’m ashamed o’ wantin’ men an’ me person is to me a matter o’ truly great self-disgust . . .”

Kevin Connery waved good-bye to the other members of the group and swaggered up West End Avenue. He was a big man, burly almost, and his solid figure cut an easy swath through the strengthening wind. His red hair picked up the beginning drops of the light drizzle and glistened in the night like a bobbling lamp seeking companionship.

And it was indeed companionship that Kevin was seeking. That, and something more. For although he hadn’t shown it during the session, Kevin had been much affected by Lisa’s vivid description of her dream. The image of the giant male organ she had described burned in Kevin’s brain. From it came a tightness in his groin and his skin tingled with a hungry heat. He knew there would be no sleep for him this night until he found satisfaction. And so Kevin went on the prowl.

Not haphazardly, however. Kevin knew exactly where to go to find what he wanted. He took the cross-town bus at Ninety-sixth Street and rode it all the way over to the end of the line at the East River Drive. Here he strode slowly through the gloom under the overpass of the Drive and searched patiently.

His sharp eyes missed nothing as he investigated the area. Here was an old pansy propped against a pillar, his hands moving lazily over the half-buttoned fly of his pants, his sunken eyes sizing Kevin up and gleaming with an invitation. There was a fat fruit, rouged and lipsticked, hands propped under breasts that belonged on a woman and jiggling them, his smile a garish coquetry aimed at Kevin. Over there was a slender young tough, standing half in the pool of light thrown by the streetlamp, hips and buttocks round and plump under ultra-tight chinos, his willingness communicated by turning away and rotating his lower body suggestively. And still farther along, deep in the shadows, a well-dressed, middle-aged man lying side-by-side with a curly-haired pretty boy and caressing him; a grizzled, hard-bitten merchant seaman pushing the head of a college boy wearing a fraternity sweater toward his lap; a hoarsely breathing man with a crewcut, horn-rimmed glasses and a London Fog raincoat over his Brooks Brothers suit pressing eager lips against the mouth of a very young sailor as if trying to suck the very youth from him.

This was the meeting place for knowing homosexuals — this week. Next week it might be changed. And as if by magic these men of the half-world would know of the change and go to the new trysting spot.

Finally, Kevin saw something which appealed to him. Seated on a park bench just under the overpass and looking out over the river was a clean-cut boy in a zelan jacket. He had fine, sensitive features and his curly hair was cropped short. Kevin sat down next to him, and the boy kept staring out toward Welfare Island, ignoring him.

Kevin smiled to himself. He didn’t like the obvious ones, the over-eager ones. Aside from anything else, they were the ones most likely to try to roll you. Jack- rolling fairies was a way of life for some young hoodlums, and no matter what homosexual acts they committed, the fact that they did it with an eye toward’s stealing a fairy’s money was their justification, the balm they spread over their conscience to prove they hadn’t really enjoyed it, the proof they offered themselves that they weren’t really queer. Experience had taught Kevin to spot this type and avoid them. But this lad beside him on the park bench now seemed a different sort.

Kevin bided his time, letting his presence establish itself. When it seemed taken for granted that neither of them was going to move, he spoke. “Sure it’s after bein’ a miserable night, isn’t it?” he said.

The boy turned, obviously attracted by Kevin’s Irish accent. “Yes, and it looks like it’s getting worse,” he agreed.

“I’d think a young lad like yourself would be home in bed instead o’ out here bravin’ the elements,” Kevin observed.

“My roommate and I got bored. So we decided to come out for a walk.”

“Oh, so you have a roommate, do you?” Kevin looked around. “But where would he be?”

“He-—met someone. They got to talking about African sculpture, and my roommate took him back to our place to show him some pieces we have there.”

“Met someone, did he? Well, ’twas no doubt an old friend,” Kevin said teasingly.

“I don’t know.” The boy shrugged. “What difference does it make?” His eyes stared wide and innocently at Kevin.

Chuckling to himself, Kevin moved closer to him on the bench. “Why, none at all, of course,” he said softly. “Sure, an’ it’s nobody’s business if two gentlemen wish to discuss works o’ art in the privacy of the digs o’ one of them. Still, it does seem a shame that you’re left out here in the cold whilst they’re all snug an’ warm in your quarters.”

“I don’t mind. I would only have been in the way,” he told Kevin frankly. “You know, two’s company an’ —“

“Three’s a crowd, to be sure. But four’s a party often enough, wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose so.”

“Well then—?” Kevin let the hint hang in the air.

“Are you interested in African sculpture?” the boy asked after considering a moment.

“Sure an’ it’s been me lifetme passion.”

“Then perhaps you’d like to—?”

“Now, lad, that’s rightly kind o’ you. An’ it’s glad I’ll be to be gettin’ out o’ this wet night, too."

The boy got up, and Kevin threw a comradely arm about his shoulders as they emerged from under the Drive and started crosstown. He turned south when they reached Park Avenue and led Kevin up to an imposing-looking building. “This is it,” he said.

“Well, now.” Kevin gave a low whistle. “Isn’t this a fancy. What would your name be anyway, lad? Rockefeller?”

“No.” The boy smiled. “It’s Bruce. Bruce Adams.”

“Well, Bruce Adams, I like the style o’ your habitat.”

“Thanks. Come on in.” He led Kevin past a doorman who tipped his cap to him and through an ornate lobby to a bank of elevators. “Hello, Albert,” he greeted the elevator operator, and they were whisked up to the eighth floor. The door was open, and the boy ushered Kevin inside.

Kevin stood in the foyer for a moment and admired the expanse of sunken living room before him. The furniture and draperies were quietly expensive, and the paintings and sculptures around the room were modern and in quiet good taste. Kevin peered at a Buffet seascape on the wall beside him and noted that it was an original.

“What will you have to drink?” The boy had crossed the room to a pine-paneled bar.

“Good Irish whiskey, of course. What else? That is if you have any.”

“We have it. On the rocks?”

“If you please.”

“Here you are.”

Kevin took the drink handed him and sipped at it appreciatively. “Ahh, ’tis like a breath o’ the auld sod.”

“Don’t you think you’re overdoing the blarney bit?” Bruce asked pleasantly enough.

“Now don’t be a skeptic. It’s not that I’m puttin’ you on. Bein’ Irish is part o’ me nature.”

“Do you really come from Ireland?” Bruce sat down beside him on the couch.

“Straight from Dublin, cross my heart. An’ it’s sorry I am if me brogue upsets you.”

“It doesn’t. I like it. I just thought you might be playing tricks on me. But I can see I was wrong.”

“That you were.” Kevin grew conscious of the heat of the boy’s leg pressed against his on the couch. He returned the pressure. “Where’s this roommate o’ yours an’ his new-found friend?” he asked, taking it slowly. “Do you suppose they went out again?”

“No. They’re probably in the bedroom,” Bruce answered matter of factly.

“Oh. Well then, we won’t want to be disturbin’ them, will we?”

“No,” Bruce said very softly, turning his face to Kevin. “We won’t.”

Kevin leaned over and kissed the boy. Bruce’s lips were soft, warm and eager, a girl’s lips parting to a man’s searching tongue. The boy’s arms slid around Kevin’s husky shoulders, the fingers seeking out the muscles under the shirt and kneading them. Kevin stroked the boy’s hips and flanks, admiring their slender sleekness.

“Wait.” Bruce got up and turned out the lights. He switched on a stereo set, and soft music spread gently over the room. Then he crossed back in front of Kevin, with the light from the foyer behind him, and slowly began to undress.

Kevin forced himself to sit quietly and watch. His whole body was bursting with lust, but he controlled the impulse to rush over to Bruce and tear the clothes from his body. He just sat on the couch and let his desire build even more as he admired the slim, olive-skinned beauty of the boy’s torso.

When Bruce had stripped completely, he poised naked before Kevin. The older man stared at the sinewy figure which seemed to ripple in the light-glow for a long moment. Then he got up abruptly and quickly took off his own clothes.

“Ahh, look at that,” Bruce said. “Isn’t that lovely?” He stood directly in front of Kevin and caressed him intimately-knowingly.

Kevin pulled the boy close to his hairy chest and kissed him again. He drew him down to the couch and lay beside him, fondling him. He murmured in Bruce’s ear and was rewarded by the boy’s mouth seeking out the sensitive parts of his body. Finally, his hands were eager on the boy’s hips, trying to turn him.

“No,” the boy whispered. “Not like that. Like this.”

He knelt beside the couch and lay his head on Kevin’s knee.

“Ahh, there’s a good lad,” Kevin said. “Aye, that’s right, me hungry darlin’. Oh, yes, sure that’s the way. Oh, ’tis madness you’re drivin’ me to. There! There! That’s it!” His fingers tangled convulsively in the boy’s hair and he half-rose from the couch as he felt the passion expertly drained from his body.

Later they lay side by side in each other’s arms. Kevin stroked Bruce lazily, tenderly, without lust. For the moment Kevin was at peace, although he knew from experience that it was a moment which couldn’t last.

“Have you been in the life long, lad?” he asked idly.

“I started in prep school. Bob and I started together.”

“An’ who would Bob be?”

“My roommate.” Bruce nodded toward the closed bedroom door off the foyer. “We’ve known each other since we were twelve years old.”

“Have you now? Well, judgin’ from the surroundin’s, one o’ you must come of a pretty wealthy family.”

“I guess we both do. When we were kicked out of school, our families didn’t want us around. So they agreed to foot the bill for this place if we’d stay in New York while they lived down the disgrace.”

“Caught corn-cobbin’ were you now?”

“Yes. And drummed out of prep school. Drummed out of our families too, I guess. Except for them paying us to stay out of their sight.”

“A sad tale.” Kevin chuckled. “Still, I’d hardly say you’d been forced into a life o’ hardship. One thng’s puzzlin’ me, though.”

“What’s that?”

“‘Well, if you an’ this Bob’s so chummy an’ all, an’ you’re so fond o’ one another that you stay together, then how is it you play around with other fellows?”

“That’s easy. We just grew up a little. See, when we started with each other, it was fun mostly because it was so forbidden. But when we came to New York, It began to pall. And we were honest enough with each other to admit the reason. You see, both of us get our big kick the same way. We both want a man to love us; neither of us wants to play at being the man. So we sort of work as a team to find men to give us our kicks.”

“I see. And did you get them tonight, me darlin’ ?”

“Did I ever! Kevin, you’re the best I’ve had in a long time. And did I satisfy you?”

“That you did, laddie. That you did!”

At that moment the door to the bedroom opened. A boy’s voice called out. “Everybody decent in there, Bruce? We’d like to join you for a drink.”

“Just a minute. I guess we’d best put our pants on,” he told Kevin. “After all, I don’t know how shockable Bob’s friend might be.”

“Right you are.” Kevin got dressed.

Bruce pulled on his pants and kicked the rest of his clothes under the couch. “Okay, Bob, come on in,” he called as he turned on the lights. Kevin continued dressing, feeling more secure when fully clothed.

A slim blond lad, almost a fair-complexioned counterpart of Bruce, entered. He was followed by a tall man in his forties who had a powerful build that looked as if it was running to fat. Introductions were made on a first-name basis all around, and the man's name was Phil.

The boys went to the bar together to make some drinks and stood there giggling and chattering in subdued voices like a pair of schoolgirls comparing notes after a date. Phil sat down across from Kevin and smiled pleasantly at him. “Swingin’ kids, hey?” he said after a moment.

“So ’twould seem.”

“Mine’s a real hot baby. How’s yours?”

“As sweet an’ sizzlin’ as you might want.”

“Yeah? Hey, maybe later we could play switch.”

Kevin looked Bob up and down for a moment. “Now that might be very nice indeed,” he said after a moment.

“Good. Then it’s settled. Say,” Phil winked, “ain’t they experienced for such youngsters, though?”

“Bruce is for sure.”

“So’s Bobby. I wonder just how old they are, anyway.”

“Oh, eighteen or nineteen, I’d guess,” Kevin said.

“I’ll bet they’re younger. I’m gonna ask them. Hey, Bobby,” he called. “How old are you kids, anyway?”

“Seventeen.”

“Both of you?” Phil wanted to know.

“Yes. Our birthdays are only a month apart.”

“Well,” Phil smiled and got to his feet. “Whaddaya know about that?” He stred down at Kevin with a small smile. “It looks like you’re the patsy, after all.”

“I’m not followin’ you.”

“You see,” Phil said calmly, “if they were over eighteen, I’d nail ’em for soliciting. But they’re too young for anything but a delinquency charge. So that leaves you as the fall guy for impairing the morals of a minor.”

“What’s that you’re sayin’ ?” Comprehension spread slowly over Kevin’s face. “Is it a bull you are then?”

“You got it. I’m a vice cop, and this is a pinch.”

“Wait just a minute, now.” Kevin got to his feet slowly. “Where the hell do you come off pinchin’ me? After you lovin’ it up in the bedroom with the lad over there? Or was it marbles you was after playin’ in there? Is that what you expect me to be believin’ ?”

“Think what you want, pal. You can’t prove nothin’ on me. I’m just doing my duty. You’re the one’s under arrest.”

“Under arrest am I?” Kevin’s face grew purple with rage. From the corner of his eye he saw the two boys standing frozen and staring at them. “And for what? I’ve done nothing you haven’t done yourself.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Phil said, still calm. “And if I did, you couldn’t prove it.”

“Nor can you prove that I have.”

“Oh, but I can. You see, you told me yourself. Of your own free will. And by the time l get through with those two boys over there, you can be sure they’ll bear me out.”

“But why?” Kevin’s voice shook. “Why are you out to get me? You never even set eyes on me before this night.”

“Because I can’t stand pansies,” the detective told him softly.

That’s when Kevin hit him. He hadn’t known he was going to until after he threw the punch. It caught the detective flush on the jaw and he went down hard, cracking his head against the leg of the couch as he hit the floor.

For a moment nobody moved. Kevin stood over the detective with his fist still clenched. The two boys stood across the room and stared at him with their mouths open. It had happened so quickly they were all three stunned.

Kevin recovered first. “I’d best be gettin’ out o’ here before he comes to,” he said, starting for the door.

“But you can’t just go and leave us holding the bag,” Bob protested. “Come on, Bruce, help me stop him,” he added when Kevin kept going toward the door.

He grappled with the boys as he waited for the elevator to come up. The door opened and the operator peered out, astonished at the commotion. “Help us with him, Albert,” Bruce called out as Kevin tried to lunge inside the elevator. “He’s attacked a man in my apartment."

But Albert was too slow. Kevin whirled around behind him and propelled him into the two boys. The force of the maneuver carried them out of the elevator, and Kevin slammed the door shut after them. He pushed the elevator’s lever and shot down to the lobby. He got out, ran past the startled doorman, and kept running across Park Avenue. He made straight for the shelter of Central Park, and didn‘t slow down until he’d emerged on the west side of it. Then he strode toward Broadway, his mind in a turmoil.

Despite the exertions of his flight, Kevin was still possessed by violent rage. At first it was the face of Phil, the detective, which served his mind’s eye as the tar- get of this rage. But as he turned down West End Avenue and felt the full force of the storm assaulting him from the Hudson River, the rain whipping his face stirred a memory and his vision changed.

Now it was his mother’s face he saw. That Irish lady who should have been a spinster, damn her immortal soul! It was her fault he was what he was! It was she, with her cuddling and her hands always on him and her pressing him so hard to her breasts that he felt he must suffocate, who had turned him away from women. Yes, his mother, taking her revenge against his unknown father on her bastard son by twisting at his very body until he felt she’d twisted the manhood right off him. He saw her face and felt his fist strike it with the blow he’d loosed at the detective.

But his mother was dead and he couldn’t punish her. Oh, but now he had another mother. Yes, that he did. Kevin’s rage dissolved the image of Brigid Connery and summoned another face in its place. Retracing the steps he’d taken in the early evening, marching down West End Avenue through the thunder and the lightning and the explosive blasts of wind, Kevin held fast to this new vision with the fists clenched at his sides. And he saw himself destroying it, blasting the life from it he would have blasted the life from his real mother if her death hadn’t robbed him of the chance. But now he had another chance, and death was his to deliver if he chose. This face he saw in the rains-pattering of the paddles was alive and waiting, available for him to destroy.

And the face that Kevin saw was the face of Dr. Mavis Golden!

CHAPTER 7

Hot Stuff in Cold Storage

“. . . NAME: GLORIA ANDREWS. Age: twenty-eight years. Color: shiny black. Problem: people think it might rub off. . . . All right, Dr. Golden. At least I didn’t come on shuffling my feet and spitting watermelon pits. But let’s face it, if you’re colored you’re got a problem to start with. For instance, I can’t help thinking the good doctor here only asked me so she could say she had an integrated group and brag to her colleagues how far-seeing and liberal she was. Or maybe just so she’d have a catalytic agent for all you white folks to bounce your aggressions off. Or maybe just for scenery like a white girl I used to know who always asked two tall Negro boys to her parties and then tried to position them on either side of her snow-white couch for all the world like a pair of book-ends. . . . Well, that’s enough of that. I’m a research chemist at Columbia University. I’m married. My problem really is that l can’t make it in bed with my husband, although I love him very much. . . . Which is pretty funny when you consider that us black girls are well-known to be real hot stuff. Only it’s not funny to me at all. It tears me apart! . . .

“That you, Gloria?” Her husband was in the back of the apartment, in the bedroom, when she reached home that night.

“Yes, Frank. What are you doing in there?”

“Closing the windows. It’s blowing up a storm.”

“You’re telling me!” Gloria brushed a few raindrops from her hair as Frank joined her in the living room.

“How’d the silly session go?” he asked.

“Wild. Interesting.”

“And did the therapist’s nigger do her bit for the integrated psyche?”

“Why do you have to always be sarcastic about it, Frank?” She’d been primed for some kind of remark from him and when it came her reaction was more explosive than she supposed was warranted.

“It gripes me to see you throwing out good money trying to wash the black out of your subconscious."

“But it’s not like that! I’ve told you often enough. You’re just trying to get my goat.”

“I know what you tell me. And I know what I know. Which is that the only way a Negro can make a Freudian adjustment in this society is to either Uncle Tom it, or Rinso-white his whole memory-bank.”

“Frank, that kind of talk just proves how warped your mind is. Color has nothing to do with it. I’m going there to face my problems—our problems — which you’re just too plain scared to face.”

“I knew you’d get around to that sooner or later. But I face it, baby. I face it all the time."

“What do you face?” Gloria felt wretched. Once again they were trapped into the same old argument; once again they were picking at the canker-sore of their life together, the canker-sore with its pervading pus that spread over their hours together and poisoned each of the moments. She’d hoped they wouldn’t tonight, but here they were going at each other again.

“I’ll tell you what,” Frank said, his voice low and measured, biting off the words. “I face the fact that I’m not capable of making my wife respond to me in bed. I face the fact that I’m just as much of a failure at night in the sack as I am all day and every day out in Mr. Charlie’s great big wide world.”

Gloria tried to sidetrack the main issue. But she was angry enough so that her words were cutting anyway. “Frank,” she said, “Lord help you if people ever really do get color-blind. Because if that happens, you’ll have nobody to blame for not succeeding in life. And then you’ll have to face the fact that it isn’t the white man, but you, yourself, who are your own worst enemy.”

“Well, hear, hear! Thanks for the vote of confidence!”

“Oh, I‘m sorry. I didn’t mean to come on that strong. I know a lot of it isn’t your fault. It’s just that I can’t stand the idea that you’ve just plain given up.”

“That I have! And why not? Happiness, after all, consists of recognizing your station in life and being content with it. And I’m the most smiling, head-bobbling, good-natured spade elevator operator in all New York. See, baby, I’ve learned my place!”

“Don’t hand me that guff, Frank. I’ve sat through as many protest meetings as you have. You don’t have to mouth integration platitudes at me. We’re not talking about the Negro race, or the ‘problem’, or ‘mass injustice’, or any of those great big wrongs that have to be righted. We’re talking about you, Frank Andrew, a college graduate who runs an elevator because he just doesn’t have the guts to face up to the rebuffs and keep trying to better himself in spite of them.”

“That’s me. Frank Andrews, gutless wonder.”

“Only because you let yourself be. What’s happened to you, Frank? You used to take some joy in life, have some faith in yourself, some hope, some willingness to fight the system for what should rightfully be yours.”

“It was knocked out of me. I just accepted the fact that there’s no place in a white world for a black architect. They’re building white house for white people and a black face around the office might make the customers nervous. I had to accept it. Either that, or flip my lid from sheer frustration.”

“I know. I know. But it’s not that cut and dried. Look at me. I managed to find a job, and not scrubbing floors or doing some white lady’s ironing, either. I work at what I was trained to do, and I’m happy at my work. The people I work with respect me, too. If only you’d keep trying, it could work out the same for you.”

“No thanks. I don’t want to be Columbia University’s nigger. I’d rather push an elevator.”

“You don’t mean that, Frank. You don’t really believe that’s all I am.”

“No.” He was contrite. “I guess I don’t. I didn’t mean to sound off that way. I guess the truth is it gripes me that you make twice as much money—more, in fact-—as I do. It bothers me that my wife’s got all the status in the family. And I guess, what really burns me is that it’s so typical. It’s all part of the pattern. The world castrates the Negro man, and so the woman takes over as head of the family. Employment doors get slammed in the man’s face, but their tongues are hanging out for a black girl to come clean their houses. You figure that if you sweat out an education, it won’t work out that way. But you can’t beat the system. They pat you on your kinky head for getting a diploma, and while they’re doing it, their other hand’s busy tearing out your gonads by the roots all the same."

“You still have yours, Frank.”

“Thanks. But we know better than that, don’t we?

“No, we certainly don’t! Why can't you admit that our sex problem’s mostly me? Oh, you may have something to do with it, but the fact that I can’t respond to you sexually is mostly my problem. That’s why, I’m in therapy.”

“Do you really think it’s helping you, Gloria?” His tone was earnest now, not sarcastic.

“Yes. I really think it is. I can feel that I’m getting better. I can feel that I’m more capable of responding to you. Some nights I’m so close . . . so close . . . ”

“And tonight?” Frank put his arms around her and looked down into her eyes tenderly.

“When you touch me and look at me like that, I just know I can make it.”

“Could you make it tonight?”

“Oh, Frank, I don’t know.” She was trembling in his arms. “I think so. The way I feel now, I just know I can. Only -”

He cut off her words with a kiss. She felt the muscles of his slender body tighten as their tongues met and she moaned deep in her throat. When the kiss was over, he picked her up in his arms and carried her toward the bedroom.

“Frank!” she squealed. “Put me down, you maniac. I can walk.”

“I’m a hot black buck and I can’t control my animal impulses. It’s rape for you, missy.”

“Ooh, promise?”

“If I’m only ten percent as good as the way a white lady looked at me in the elevator today, you’re in for a savage mating there, my Swahili maiden. The way she squeezed her fat legs together, all it takes is a look from my jungle-hot eyes and wham! I tell you, I’m just a sex-mad brute!”

“Well, brute, it must have been her husband who was undressing me on the subway coming home. Poor man, the way he was eyeing me, I just know he felt he wasn’t up to coping with my basic, uncontrollable, erotic appetites. You could see on his face that he just knew I'd be too much for him. Only an outsize buck like you can put out my fire.”

“I got the hose all ready and waiting.”

They both laughed.

“Isn’t it a caution how that’s the one thing the whites envy us for, and really there's no truth in it at all?” Gloria asked.

“That’s their problem. And it serves them right. But the hell with them. And enough of this unseemly levity. I’m about to make serious love to you. That is, if you’ll oblige me by getting out of your clothes.”

“Gladly.” Gloria got up from the bed where he'd dropped her and began to undress.

Frank watched her appreciatively. She took off her dress and hung it neatly on a hanger in the closet. Her smooth skin gleamed satin-black against the white slip she was wearing. She sat on the edge of the bed and rook off her shoes. Then she raised one leg in the air to roll down her stocking. A small smile crossed Frank's face. He loved Gloria’s legs. They were so long and slender, yet so erotically curved.

Then she stood and pulled her slip off over her head. As she folded it he admired the compact, feminine figure in bra and panties. He loved the way her hips arched out from her tiny waist, the way her small, high, perfectly formed breasts thrust upwards as if trying to escape the confines of her brassiere.

Gloria smiled at him impishly as she reached behind her for the bra clasp. The smile widened as she heard him catch his breath at the sight of her naked breasts bubbling slightly, their red tips taut and hungry in the center of the firm, black roundness. She pushed her panties down her hips slowly, sensually, turning away from him so that he might see her firm, sculpted derriere as it was presented to view. She turned around and posed for him naked a moment. Then she went to the closet and took out her gold nightgown—sheer and clinging; Frank’s favorite — put it on and got into bed.

He turned out the light, quickly pulled off his clothes, and joined her. Gloria’s body did indeed burn as he embraced her. Her lips were moist and eager on his, and her nipples were hard as twin cherrystones against his chest.

Through the thin material of the nightgown, Frank felt her legs begin to move. Her hips arched and her thighs parted as she searched out the fulcrum of his body. She moved against him anxiously, straining backward to feel the hard muscles of his belly pressed against hers.

The nightgown strap slipped from her shoulder and one of her breasts, shaped like an ice-cream cone, was exposed. Frank fastened his mouth on it and Gloria dug her nails into the back of his neck as his tongue moved over the tip. Her whole body trembled spasmodically as she tugged at the waist of her nightie to pull it up over her waist and hips. She took his hand and pressed it to her womanhood, stroking the back of it to establish the rhythm by which she wished him to caress her. Then her hand slid over his stomach and she moaned as her fist encircled him.

They remained like that for a while, playing with each other, letting their desire mount. Finally Gloria could stand this teasing no longer. She rose up on her knees and pulled off the nightgown. And then she moved over Frank, first with her eyes staring hotly into his, then with her swaying breasts grazing his face as she lowered herself to the contact for which she yearned.

His hips rose from the bed to meet her. His hands clasped over her back as he pulled her forward so that his lips might again pressed kisses over her free-swinging bosom. He stroked her flanks slowly, letting Gloria squirm until the pressure of his upthrusting loins was exactly where she wanted it. Then he increased the tempo, feeling the warmth of her response and the fever of her flesh on his.

First he rose to her with small circling motions, then, as her moans grew louder, he switched to deep, pulsating thrusts and she laughed aloud with pleasure. Deliberately, Frank contracted his muscles, restrained himself, held back until Gloria should tell him that she was ready for the ultimate joy. He waited as long as he could, and then-—

“Now?” he asked hoarsely, using all his will power and restraint to delay the final moment.

“No. Wait. Just a moment. Just one moment more.”

“Now?” he asked again a moment later as he felt his determination slipping away into the uncontrollable beginning spasms.

“Oh, wait! Wait! Please!“

And a moment later—“Now! I can’t stop it! Now, darling! Now Now Now!”

“But I'm not—” Gloria panted.

It was too late. Frank took her with all the strength and frustration he’d kept bottled up in him. His body pushed hers toward the ceiling with one last, mighty thrust, and then it was over.

“You didn’t -?” he said after a few seconds of silence.

“No. I’m so sorry. I thought I was going to—if only you’d been able to wait just a little bit longer.” As soon as she spoke the words, Gloria regretted them. She knew Frank. She could have bittten off her tongue!

“I’m not man enough to,” he said coldly, turning on his side, away from her.

“Oh, darling, I didn’t mean—”

“Never mind. I know what you meant." He got up out of the bed and walked into the living room.

The tears welled up in Goria's eyes as she watched him go. She pressed her face into the pillow to muffle the sobs. She cried for a long time before she dozed off.

She knew she couldn’t have been sleeping long when the crash awakened her. She grabbed up a robe to run into the living room and see what it was. She switched on the light as she entered, and the first thing she saw was the overturned end-table with Frank standing over it rubbing his knee and muttering curses.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Gloria asked.

“Damn thing’s always in the way!” he snarled.

“Why didn’t you turn on the light?"

“I’m black and I like it black around me.” His voice came out nasty, through clenched teeth.

Gloria looked at him more closely. “You’ve been drinking,” she said.

“Better than that. I’ve been getting drunk. Plastered. Swizzled. Soused. Stoned.”

“But Frank? I’ve never know you to sit alone and drink before.”

“Whv not, you mean.”

“But you’ll be all hung over for work tomorrow.”

“So what? So I won’t put in a man’s day’s work. Well, why should I? If I can’t even be a man in bed, why should I try to act like one for Mr. Charlie?”

“How much have you had?” Gloria demanded.

“Count the dead soldiers, baby. One kaput and one half-dead. Well, I guess I just better finish him off.”

He picked up the half-empty bottle of rye and raised it to his lips.

“Stop it, Frank. Stop it. That isn’t going to do any good!”

“The hell you say. I’m just conforming to the image. Mr. white man, he say Rastus like his liquor, so Rastus, he aim to please. Jes’ gwina shape up to suit Massa. Iffen black boy don’t lap it up every now an’ then, it might shake them Co-casians’ faith in us.”

“Oh, stop it now. You are drunk. And you can’t blame that on the white man. He‘s got nothing to do with it.”

“The hell you say. You know, Gloria, you get drunk enough, you just might dissolve that lily-white foot pressing down on the back of your neck.”

“Frank, when are you going to learn that not every white person is out to keep you down?”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Every damn one of them is out to do just that. Go ahead, you try to name one who isn’t.”

“Dr. Golden.”

“Ha! That’s a laugh! You think she’s really bleeding for you, baby? Well, let me tell you she's not. All she’s interested in is milking you for a sawbuck per session. She’s just come up with a new angle for exploiting the coon. That’s all. Man, the things I’d like to tell that white lady hypocrite.”

“That’s not fair. She’s not like that.” Gloria started to cry again. She really does care about me. She‘s trying to help me.”

“She's trying to help herself to ten black bucks per week, you mean. You know, I really hate her with that carrot of false hope she keeps dangling in front of you. I hate her because you fall for her line. I’d like to get her in a dark alley some night and carve her up for real.”

“Frank! Don't talk like that! You know you’re not like that. You could never hurt anybody, white or black.”

“That’s not true any more, Gloria. People change. And black people change because white people see to it that they do. Every man reaches the point where he’d had just about enough of all this sociological jazz. And when he does, he just wants to get a white throat between his hands and squeeze the life out of it.” Frank took another swig from the bottle. “I tell you true, Gloria, that’s the point I’m at. And I can’t think of anybody I’d like to blast as much as that con artist who crawls into bed with us every time we make love.”

“But she doesn’t. What happened before wasn’t her fault.”

“I think it was. No, I know it was. And I just think I’ll put on my coat and go on down to her fancy office and have a talk with her about it.”

“And will that prove to you what a man you are?” Gloria spoke without thinking, and again she regretted the words as soon as they were out. She’d never seen Frank like this before. Ordinarily, he wasn’t a violent man. Even on the one or two occasions when he’d had too much to drink, he didn’t get violent. But tonight her husband was a man she’d never seen before.

“Maybe it just might,” he answered ominously. “I owe that white lady a lot and maybe tonight’s just the night to pay her off. Sure, we could discuss your case, or maybe why Negroes are so brutal.” He drained the second bottle and pulled on his coat. “Why not?" he said over his shoulder and slammed the door behind him.

“Frank! Don’t!” Gloria’s voice was loud in the now empty room. She ran over to the window and raised it. “Frank! Please! Come back!” she called after the determined figure plodding down the street. But he ignored her, and Gloria’s only answer was the sudden gust of rain splattering her bathrobe.

She didn’t notice it. She continued looking out the window and watching the figure as it crossed over toward the north side of Central Park. She stayed at the window long after the figure vanished from sight, getting colder and wetter, and staring out into the night.

The night, rain-washing Harlem in vain, booming out thunderclaps of protest against the garbage in the streets and the filth, and the human waste. The night, split by the exposure of lightning fingers pointing at the white-made blacks, the pimps, the pushers, the prostitutes, the beggars, the drunks, the killers-for-profit, and those driven to murder by the sudden congealing of inner rage seeking white skin over which to erupt — those like Frank Andrews. The night, filled with the fury of a storm which couldn’t wash Harlem clean, not bleach black skins white, nor cleanse white hearts of their sins.

So Gloria continued to stare out into the hopeless night. And Frank cut through Central Park and walked downtown. He started west at Ninety-Sixth Street, and his fury grew with every white face he passed. The faces looking back saw a slender young black man scowling hate at them. They averted their eyes from him. It was almost as if they realized what it was they saw in his visage.

It was murder looking for a place to happen!

CHAPTER 8

God’s Gift to Women

“. . . I’M OVERSEXED. That’s what’s wrong with me, and I don’t know that I want it cured . . . Oh, sure, my name is Reginald Ivers. Call me Reggie. I’m thirty-five years old—I know, I don’t look it — so I guess that makes me the elder statesnan of the group, not Kevin . . . I’m an advertising account executive by profession. . . . I’m married, and I have two kids. My marriage stinks. I can’t stand my wife. Which is funny, because she’s just about the only woman I know who doesn’t appeal to me, the only one I don’t want to drag off to bed . . .”

Reggie forgot about the group session as soon as it was over. But he couldn’t make himself forget about the individual session he’d had with Dr. Golden earlier that afternoon. It still rankled him as he turned his car onto the West Side Highway and headed uptown.

“Don Juan complex, my foot!” he growled to himself as he recalled the words Dr. Golden had used so calmly to define his problem. “What the hell does she mean, what am I trying to prove? Can I help it if every girl I meet just rolls over on her back and begs me for it?” He liked this concept of himself, and he nodded once at the raindrops beginning to fog up his windshield as it to confirm it.

The Cross-Bronx Expressway, the Throgg’s Neck Bridge, the Clearview Parkway and a short stretch of the Long Island Expressway, and less than forty minutes later Reggie was pulling into the driveway of his home in the Bayside suburb of Long Island. He noted that the light was on in the upstairs bedroom. His wife Harriet must be up there watching TV.

Maybe he’d go up there and play a little “Gaslight” with her, Reggie thought viciously. About the only kicks his wife could give him any more were the ones he got by tormenting her. She was such a slovenly bitch! He wondered why he’d ever married her.

Or maybe he’d be magnanimous and throw her a quick one instead. Hell, how long had it been, anyway? Then he could let her know subtly what a lousy lover she was. Yeah, it might be more fun that way.

“Hello, Reggie. Have you eaten anything?” Harriet Ivers raised up in bed to be kissed.

Had he eaten anything! Kay-rist! Didn’t she ever think of anything but food? Reggie kissed her and wrinkled his nose just enough before he turned away so that he was sure she’d notice it. “I had a bite downtown,” he told her. “What’s new?” Immediately, he was telling himself that he should have known better than to ask.

She proceeded to tell him, although she half-guessed that he’d already tuned out. “Bobbie’s teeth . . . ” and “Suzie’s dancing lessons . . . ” and “the new maid doesn’t know how to iron . . . ” and “my mother called . . . ” and “my back’s been bothering me . . . ” and an endless amount of other trivia — such was Harriet’s litany and she covered it in detail.

As she went through it, Reggie took off his clothes and got into his pajamas. He threw her a grunt now and then, more to let her know how boring he found her than to indicate his interest. About the time she ran down he climbed into bed beside her.

His hand inadvertently encountered the bulge of fat at her hip and he recoiled. God! Why did she let herself go this way? She was three years younger than he was, and she looked old enough to be his mother. He studied the wrinkles at her neck until she noticed his stare and flushed.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, automatically raising her hand to cover the spot at which he’d been staring.

“Nothing, honey. I was just thinking you work too hard. It’s beginning to show.”

“I really don’t, Reggie.”

‘Well, if you say so. Still you should take better care of yourself. Keep your hands out of hot water and things like that.”

Harriet self-consciously slipped her hands back under the covers. I guess they are getting a little red,” she admitted meekly.

“And you should watch your diet. I don’t want you getting sick.”

“I’m really very healthy, Reggie. Don’t I look it?“

“Well, now that you mention it, you have been looking a little pale lately, Harriet.”

“Oh, dear, maybe l should try a new make-up base.”

Or a new face, Reggie thought viciously. “I think it’s just you should be more careful about what you eat,” he said aloud.

“I have been’ getting a little plump,” she sighed.

Plump! That’s a laugh! Fat! Gross, obese, fat, that’s what she was. “Yes, I’ve noticed,” Reggie told her. “You’re beginning to waddle when you walk.”

“Oh! Reggie, don‘t be unkind! It’s not that bad! Is it?”

He let his silence serve as an answer. Her eves filled with tears as he’d known they would.

“You don’t find me attractive any more,” she wailed. I know you don’t.”

Will you look at the waterworks, Reggie mused. “Sure I do, honey.” He calmed her, putting his arms around her and stroking her back.

“Really? But you never seem to want to make love to me any more.”

“Now, Harriet, it is just that I work hard and I’m tired.” Yeah, he’d throw her one tonight all right. And then he’d make sure she was devastated by her realization of her own sexual inadequacy. He slipped his hand under her nightgown and caressed the side of her breast. Flab and sag — and I’m married to it! he thought. He deliberately squeezed her breast harder than was necessary.

“Ouch! Please, Reggie, be more gentle,”

“Come on, Harriet, don’t be so sensitive. It spoils things.” Reggie pushed his leg up under her night-gown so that his knee was poking hard against her bare thighs. “I’m a man and you're a woman,” he added, “so let’s act that way.”

“Not tonight.”

“For God’s sake, Harriet, when you act coy, I really don’t find you attractive. I’m just plain repelled.”

“I’m sorry.” She started to cry again. “But we can’t tonight. I have my — my—"

Now wasn't that just like her? Out of the goodness of his heart, he was going to overcome the nausea she roused in him and make love to her and she hauls up the flag! That was typical of Harriet, all right! No appreciation! Well, that would teach him to be generous! “I should have known,” he said.

“H-How?”

“From the way you smell. Like stale fish,” he told her brutally. He turned over on his side, away from her, and stared at the wall.

Harriet kept sobbing, but Reggie ignored her. Damn it! Pig that she was, she’d still managed to arouse him. And now here he lay, all hung up! His groin ached, and the frustration turned his mind from Harriet to his secretary, Shari, and the excitement he’d shared with her that very morning . . .

Shari was built like an Amazon. Truly, that was why Reggie had selected her from the agency secretarial pool. Her ballooning bust and generous hips had outweighed any considerations as to her skill at typing or shorthand. And the buttock-bouncing way her long legs carried her around the office, the hot-eyed aquiescence peeping out from under her ebony bangs, labeled Shari as a swinger.

Reggie hadn’t been disappointed. She’d been working under him less than a week when she found her way under him for pleasure as well. It had happened more than once over the past few months, but this morning had turned out to be the wildest.

Reggie had buzzed for her, and when she had answered and was standing alongside his desk, he’d slipped his hand up under her skirt and squeezed her silk-panties nether-cheeks. Shari had giggled low in her throat in that sexy way of hers and wriggled her hips. When Reggie took his hand away, she stepped back and pulled her skirt all the way up, enticing him with her legs. She pulled it over her garter-belt and panties and then did a little bump-and-grind that showed off her womanhood as if it was trying to escape from her panties.

Reggie hadn’t, been able to control himself. He’d gone over to her and bent low to kiss the creamy surface of her thighs over her stocking-tops. Her fingers had grasped at his hair, tugging his face higher. A tremor swept her body at the pressure of his lips, and Reggie clawed at the elastic waistband of her panties in response.

“Wait!" Shari whispered. “Not this way. My knees are too weak. My legs won't hold me.” She went over to the swivel chair behind Reggie’s large, kidney-shaped desk. She pushed her panties down over her hips and legs, picked them up from the floor, and tossed them into the top drawer of his desk. She closed the drawer and sat down, her knees spaced wide apart. “I’m ready now, lover,” she said, rocking back and forth in the chair.

Reggie hunched under the arch of the desk and knelt in front of her. His hands pushed her thighs farther apart and his eyes devoured the pulsating redness of her aroused womanhood. Then his head moved forward and Shari gasped with delight at the contact of his mouth.

Eagerly, Reggie pressed forward. Obsessed, he forgot everything in the excitement of what he was doing. His ears rang with the pressure of the clenched thighs squeezing them. The muscles of his neck bulged against the pressure of her hands pressing down on his head. And all the time one of his hands moved like a machine inside his trousers.

Suddenly the pressure of Shari’s thighs relaxed. Her hands stopped pressing down and clenched at the roots of his hair instead. The frenzied movements of her passion gave way to a warning signal of sudden stillness. Reggie stopped moving, and as he heard the voice, he made a conscious effort to stop breathing.

“Isn’t Mr. Ivers in yet?” It came from the office doorway, the measured tones of Stanley J. Kirkwood, Reggie’s boss, the head of the agency for which he worked.

“Yes sir, he’s in,” Shari answered calmly. “He stepped into the men's room for a moment. He should be right back.”

“What are you doing sitting at his desk?” Kirkwood asked disapprovingly.

“I was just straightening up some papers for him, sir. He asked me to.”

“I see. Well, then I guess it’s all right. You just go on with what you’re doing. I’ll wait for him.” Kirkwood sat down in the leather armchair across the office.

“I will sir,” Shari answered evenly. She began squeezing and contracting her thighs against Reggie’s cheeks again.

The brazen bitch! he thought, torn between panic, admiration for her nerve, and excitement at the idea of pulling it off right under Kirkwood’s very nose. The sense of thrill won out, and he cautiously nuzzled forward again, reaching to caress himself at the same time. It went quickly then, and only a moment or two later Reggie had to stifle the impulse to cry his satisfaction aloud. The timing was perfect, for Shari half-rose out of the swivel-chair at precisely the same instant. However, her little triumphal cry of fruition was not squelched.

“Eh, my dear? What’s that you say?” Kirkwood looked up from the papers he’d been scanning.

Under the desk, Reggie crammed a handkerchief in his mouth to gag the uncontrollable giggles which swept over him.

“Nothing,” Shari said, her voice shaking a little. “Mr. Ivers asked me to check the figures on this account, and I just found the mistake he was looking for."

“Well, you shouldn’t get so excited about it, my dear. Look at you. Your face is all flushed.”

“I take my work seriously,” Shari told him gravely, her hand groping under the desk to tickle Reggie’s ear.

“Very commendable, I’m sure.” Kirkwood’s voice grew impatient. “What the devil can be keeping Ivers?" he said.

“He’s m the men’s room, sir. Why don’t you go back to your office and I’ll tell him you want to see him when he gets back."

“I suppose you’re right. Fellow’s gone so long he must have diarrhea,” Kirkwood grumbled. “Oops! Beg your pardon, my dear. Well, tell him to see me when he gets back."

Reggie heard the door close behind Kirkwood and came out from under the desk. He and Shari must have laughed together for a solid five minutes. After which she put her panties back on and they both went about their business tasks . . .

Remembering it now, in bed with his incapacitated wife, with Harriet’s tears just beginning to subside, it wasn’t the humor which filled Reggie’s mind, but the erotic imagery of what he and Shari had done. He reached over to the night table and picked up his wristwatch. It was still early. He got up out of bed and started to dress.

“Where are you going?” Harriet asked, startled at his abruptness.

“Back to town. There’s some business I have to take care of.”

“At this hour? And on a miserable night like this? Are you out of your mind? Can’t it wait until morning?”

“No, it can’t. I just had an idea for a whole campaign. I want to get to the office and get it down on paper while it’s still fresh."

“Why can’t you do it here, downstairs in your study?”

“Because I have to check out certain. data.” said Reggie smoothly, thinking fast. “And the information I need is in the office."

“I don’t believe you!” Harriet’s voice rose hysterically. “You’re going to see some woman!”

“Of course I am!" Reggie’s tone was savage. “Not just one, several. I’m going to have an orgy! Hell, I’m a satyr! You know that. After all, I must be. Don’t I even force myself to try to make love to you once a month?”

Harriet’s wail of protest rang in Reggie’s ears as he went down the stairs and into the garage. But he’d forgotten her completely by the time he pulled the car onto the Long Island Expressway. Gale-force winds battered the auto as he crossed the Throgg’s Neck Bridge, but Reggie barely noticed them. His mind was busy with imaginings of the wild sex he would find when he reached Manhattan.

When he did, he parked outside a drug store on upper Broadway and went in to use the telephone. Shari’s voice sounded surprised to hear him.

“Gee, Reggie,” she said, “I’m sorrv. I’m busy tonight.”

A laugh sounded in the background and Reggie heard a muffled male voice. “You can say that again, baby,” it said.

“All night?" Reggie asked a little plaintively. “Yes, all night,” Shari answered firmly.

“Can’t you get rid of him?” Reggie asked.

“Give me that phone!” The male voice was loud now. “Buzz off, you creep,” he shouted and there was a click in Reggie’s ear.

That lousy double-crossing slut! Reggie thought to himself. Well, her days are numbered. Yessir, I’m about due for a new secretary!

He pulled an address book from his pocket, thumbed through it, and then dialed another number. The female voice that answered sounded sleepy.

“Hi, Noreen. Reggie Ivers here. Thought you might be in the mood for a little company tonight.”

“You’ve got your nerve! I was sound asleep.”

“I’ll bring the champagne if you’ll scramble the eggs.” Reggie was trying to be ingratiating.

“Oh, no, you won’t! I’m going back to sleep. And alone!” She hung up on him.

The tramp! And after, the bundle he’d spent on her, too!

Reggie dialed again. “Hello, Emma, this is Reggie,” he said when the phone was answered.

“What do you want?”

“You, baby, like always.”

“Oh, sure. That’s why I haven’t heard from you all these months.”

“I’m sorry, honey. But work’s been keeping me busy as hell. Honey. Not a day went by I didn’t think of you, though. Remember that swinging night we had? I thought we might try it again.”

“Not on your life! I remember, all right, and probably a damn sight better than you do. I remember that you got me all hot and bothered and then passed out on me, leaving me all hung up. I’m not going through that again!"

“Aw, Emma, don’t be like that. I was soused. It could happen to anybody. Let’s give it another try.”

“No thanks. Once with a lover-boy like you is enough for me. If you want my advice, Reggie, you’ll go home to your wife. Maybe you can make it with her. And don’t bother calling me again!" This time the force with which the receiver was slammed hurt Reggie’s ear.

He made six more calls, but the results were the same. Yet with each disappointment, his desire grew. He needed a woman, damn it! He’d have one tonight even if he had to pay for it!

And so he called Heidi, the only call girl whose number he could remember offhand. “Miss DeVoe is out,” her answering service informed him.

“Do you know where she can be reached?”

“No. She cannot be reached until morning. If you care to leave a number, I’ll have her call you back."

“Never mind," Reggie muttered and hung up.

He ordered a cup of coffee at the drug-store counter and sat over it, brooding. Can I help it if every girl I meet just rolls over her back and begs me for it? Bitterly, he recalled how smugly he’d thought that earlier in the evening when he’d been driving home from the group session. And the more he mooned over this shattered self-image, the greater became his sex urge and his determination to have a woman.

All right then! Maybe Dr. Golden was right! Maybe he did have a Don Juan complex! Suppose he did? What did she know, anyway? She was just a woman like all the rest!

Yes, that she was. And not a bad-looking head at that. The way she didn’t care how high her skirt rode up her shapely legs, the way her bosom rose and fell, pushing out against the white silk blouses she wore so that the outline of her nipples appeared and disappeared and appeared again the way her gray-green eyes focused on him so intently when he was relating some particularly choice sex experience — yes, she was all woman. And she was attracted to him, Reggie told himself. He could tell.

And that talk about a Don Juan complex. He should have realized what was motivating her at the time. Sure! She had the hots for him. How could he have been so dense as not to realize it before?

From this building certainty, Reggie's mind pushed forward to erect a fantasy. He’d drive down to her place. Her husband wasn’t home. He knew that because she’d told him. And of course he should have seen that in telling him she was issuing an invitation.

When he got there, he’d go straight up to her apartment. Maybe the door would be open. It was always left open during, her office hours. It might well be that she’d leave it open just because she was expecting him. If not, if he had to ring, if she really hadn’t been expecting him, he’d make some excuse about a psychological trauma, make up some story that could lead easily into making his pitch for her.

It was late, so she’d probably be in a nightgown. Maybe she’d throw a robe over it. Maybe not. Either way, he’d find his way to her flesh. His hands would caress those intriguing breasts. His mouth would drink deep of her warm lips. His body would move over hers until her professional composure was a dim memory and she was no longer a doctor, but a woman screaming out her ecstasy in his ears. At last Dr. Mavis Golden would be made aware that Reginald Ivers was no mere braggart, but a lover the likes of which hadn’t been dreamed of by either her or Freud.

Reggie paid the check and left the drug store. He got back in his car and pushed down Broadway through the storm. One hand stayed in his pocket, reassuring himself of the magnificence of the weapon with which Dr. Golden would soon be assailed.

At last, he’d prove to her what a man he really was. At last her body would be his, warm and alive in his arms. Warm and alive . . .

Reggie’s plans didn’t include the premonition that the body he was picturing would soon be cold and dead!

Very cold!

Very dead!

CHAPTER 9

Bull in a China Swap

“. . . I’M BRENDA HALEY. I’m twenty-eight years old. I’m a lesbian. What they call a dyke . . .”

Brenda stalled until the rest of the group had left. She stood in the hallway outside Dr. Golden’s apartment and watched the elevator dial until it settled at “L” and she was sure that the car had been in the lobby long enough to discharge all its passengers. Then she pressed the button and waited for the car to come up again.

When it did, Brenda stepped inside and pushed for the fourteenth floor. The elevator rose slowly, and she hummed to herself in anticipation. Ling-Foi would be waiting.

So she was. The Chinese girl opened the door to her apartment as Brenda stepped from the elevator. “Good evening." She bowed low from the waist. “And welcome to my humble house.” Her English was flawless. She backed through the doorway and made a sweeping gesture for Brenda to enter.

“Why do you do that?” Brenda was half annoyed, half amused.

“It is the custom in my humble homeland,”

“Nuts! You were born in San Francisco. You’ve never been any closer to China than I have. You’re just putting me on.”

“Never would I do such a thing. This worthless Chinese maiden lives only to serve you. If my greeting does not please you, then let the life flow from my un-loved body.”

“Now let's not get drastic. Besides your body is far form unloved. I’ll prove that to you soon enough. What I want to know is why you knock yourself out conforming to the stereotype of Lotus Blossom, the China Doll?”

“It’s not a bad stereotype.” Ling-Foi shrugged.

“But you don’t have to put on an act with me.”

“Why not? It is a part of our relationship, isn’t it? My enjoyment comes from catering to my master. Not only in bed, but out as well. I’m sorry you feel it is false. I only want to please you. And I’m not putting you on with the stereotype now. I mean that.”

“All right, honey, I know you do. I‘m sorry I barked at you. I guess I’m just in a nasty mood.”

“You are tired. It is only natural at the end of the day. Come, I have a drink waiting for you and I will draw you a hot bath. It will relax you.”

“I guess you’re right.” Brenda laughed. “It’s a very lovely stereotype indeed. I wouldn’t change you for the world, Ling-Foi.”

She looked lovingly at the Chinese girl, and her heart fluttered as it always did when Brenda was struck with Ling-Foi’s delicate beauty. She supposed this beauty too was a part of the stereotype. If it was, Brenda was all for it.

She adored Ling-Foi’s small, slender figure. Her body looked so petite in the flowered kimono she was wearing, and yet Brenda knew how deceptive this appearance of slightness was. Ling-Foi’s breasts, for instance, were quite large for her body. Her hips were almost plump, and her buttocks definitely were, jiggling with an excess of flesh which Brenda found endearing. Her legs too were sturdy, albeit girlishly curved. And_ all the flesh of her body was sensual and ripe to the touch and always fragrant with exotic perfume. Most of all, Brenda loved the small roundness of Ling-Foi’s belly, and the way it seemed to ripple under her touch until the pinkness beneath it blossomed into scarlet and quivered open like a flower opening its petals wide as it absorbs the heat of the summer sun.

Brenda’s, mind dwelt on the charms of Ling-Foi with both recollection and anticipation as she soaked in her tub. Finally her anticipation won out and she cut her bath short. She got out of the tub, dried herself. and pulled on the sweater and slacks she’d been wearing. Then she went into the bedroom where Ling-Foi awaited her.

This room too reflected Ling-Foi‘s inclination to stress her Oriental heritage. It was dimly flit by two Chinese lanterns on low tables standing on either side of the bed. The bed itself was very low and very wide, and the sheets and pillowcases were of pale green. The red glow of the lanterns was lost before it reached the drapes drawn over the windows. Only memory told Brenda that they were of heavy gold velvet. Across from the bed, on a carved teakwood bureau, a large jade Buddha, reflected in the mirror over the bureau, contemplated its navel in duplicate. The mirror also gave back a part of the reflection of Ling-Foi. She was propped up on the pillows in the center of the bed, more sitting than lying, and her skin glowed like pale ivory where the slit down the middle of the black silk kimono into which she’d changed had parted. Brenda knew that Ling-Foi had arranged herself on the bed to impress her, and so she stared at her a moment, letting her appreciation of the pose show.

Brenda started for the bed then, but Ling-Foi raised a hand to stop her. “Just a moment,” she said. “I have a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?”

“Yes.” Ling-Foi rose from the bed, her body seeming to flow into an erect position. “I have bought you a present.”

“You shouldn’t have. You can’t afford it.”

“And why not? After all the gifts you have given me.”

“That’s different,” Brenda insisted. “It’s only natural that I should bring you gifts.”

“Please. I know that my worthless gift is small and will not measure up to the receiver. Forgive me for insulting you with it, and try not to judge it too harshly. I know it cannot please you.”

“Damn clever these Chinese!” Brenda grinned. “All right. Unworthy as I am, I shall accept it.”

Ling-Foi smiled back and took a large, ornately wrapped package from the closet. She bowed low. and handed it to Brenda. Returning the bow playfully, Brenda removed the wrappings.

“Oh, it’s lovely!” she exclaimed when the box was opened.

It is nothing,” Ling-Foi demurred. “Will you do me the honor of trying it on?”

Brenda pulled off her sweater and slacks and donned the gift. Ling-Foi turned on the overhead light so that Brenda might see herself in the mirror. “Perfection,” the Chinese girl breathed as Brenda slowly pirouetted to display the garment.

It did indeed become Brenda. A floor-length robe of gold lamé, it had a low-cut, square neckline well suited to Brenda’s ample, slightly low bosom. Two dark embroidered dragons circled under Brenda’s breasts and challenged each other across the bared triangle of her navel with garnet-red eyes. The robe reached to the floor and was slit down each side, revealing long, slender legs and the sleek, almost straight line of Brenda’s hips. As she turned, her tight-muscled haunches, tanned from constant exposure to a sunlamp, played hide and seek with the slits of the robe.

The style of the gown followed the straight, slim lines of Brenda’s body from her rather square shoulders to her trim, almost delicate ankles. The color accentuated the deep, tawny blonde shade of her short-cropped hair and added depth and intensity to her dark brown eyes. But the texture of the material—so feminine — contrasted with the year-round tan of Brenda’s face. The face, without make-up, with its strong jaw line and the almost angular set of its features, was more boyish than female, and it was this quality which the robe brought out and stressed.

Ling-Foi was delighted with Brenda’s pleasure at the gift. The Chinese girl clapped her hands and her eyes glowed as Brenda approached her. Brenda put her hand under Ling-Foi’s chin and raised the delicate face to her own gently.

“Thank you, my darling,” she said and kissed the moist red lips.

When the kiss was over, Ling-Foi turned off the overhead light again. Then she lay back on the, bed and raised her arms to Brenda. The motion revealed the ivory-white silhouette of one of her plump breasts.

Brenda sank to her knees at the side of the bed. She pushed back the material of Ling-Foi’s kimono slightly and cupped the perfect globe of the breast in the palm of her hand. “Like a dove,” Brenda murmured. “It flutters in my hand like a dove.” Pursing her lips, she bent and took only the pink-shaded roseate of the breast in her mouth. Brenda’s tongue was feather-soft on the peak.

They remained like that for a long moment. When Brenda finally raised her head, the pink roseate of Ling-Foi’s breast had moistened and spread, opening like a flower. In the center the crest had grown long and darkened to an almost purple shade. It quivered as if with a life of its own, and a single dew-like drop was suspended from the very tip.

Brenda bared Ling-Foi’s other breast and repeated the caress. Then her lips traced the slit of the kimono down to Ling-Foi’s belly and her tongue probed deep in the Chinese girl’s navel. Ling-Foi squirmed and laughed deep in her throat. “That tickles.” she told Brenda. “But it is such a lovely, sweet tickle. Here, let me show you.”

She moved over on the bed so that Brenda might join her. Then she rose up on her knees and bent over Brenda. Her lips fastened lightly on the naked triangle of flesh at Brenda’s midriff. Slowly, expertly, Ling-Foi increased the suction of her lips until Brenda’s- hands clutched spasmodically at the back of her neck. Finally Ling-Foi raised her head and looked impishly into Brenda’s eyes. “There. Does it not tickle?” she asked.

“The sensation is exquisite,” Brenda said. Her eyes were squeezed shut tight and her breasts were rising and falling rapidly.

“I told you.” Ling-Foi’s laugh was a low, affectionate thrill, almost birdlike. She lay back on the bed again.

Brenda moved over her now, stroking the silk-covered legs, feeling the fleshiness of the thighs burning hotly through the thin material of the kimono. She raised the hem of the garment slowly and her hands trailed intimately up the length of the legs. Ling-Foi’s hands moved nervously to the twin slits of Brenda’s gown and fastened over her hips, her nails digging almost to the bone.

Brenda pushed the kimono up over Ling-Foi’s belly now, and she stared adoringly at what she had exposed. Then she grasped both the Chinese girl’s hands in hers and gently slid one long , slender leg under Ling-Foi’s body. Pushing the rear flap of her gown out of the way and tucking the front one up to her navel, Brenda pushed upward until the tip of one foot was visible under Ling-Foi’s shoulder. She angled her own body and that of the Chinese girl slightly so that now their legs were apart like half-opened scissors joined at the fulcrums. As she pushed harder, the fiery clutch of Ling-Foi’s response aroused Brenda tremendously and she felt the lotions of love mingling as the pressure grew.

Still holding hands, the girls moved in an erotic ritual of love-making. They rocked gently, then faster, their joined hands providing the leverage. Now their rhythm was wild and they abandoned themselves to it, all consciousness concentrated on the writhing suction of their merged womanhood. Unthinkingly, Ling-Foi’s head came forward with the forward motion of their rocking and she nipped passionately at the brown-tipped pendulum of one of Brenda’s breasts. Then the reverse motion tore her target from her mouth, and the Chinese girl thrust her hips upward uncontrollably as though trying to envelop Brenda’s being. But the envelopment was mutual, and both girls sounded their delight simultaneously—Ling-Foi whimpering, Brenda almost shouting her ecstasy—and their bodies froze spasmodically as they prolonged the moment deliberately, squeezing every last drop of enjoyment from one another.

Later—much later—Brenda stood up and smiled down at Ling-Foi. She felt wonderfully relaxed, and she inhaled deeply. The delicate whiff of burning incense she drew into her lungs made her tighten with a renewal of sexual desire. Brenda sighed and stifled the impulse. “I have to get going now,” she told Ling-Foi.

“Why don’t you spend the night?”

“I can’t. I have to go home and change my clothes for work in the morning. I can’t go to the office in sweater and slacks.”

“I would offer to lend you clothes, but they would not fit you.”

“I know. Thanks anyway.” Brenda pulled on her clothes, turned on the overhead light, and sat down in front of the mirror to comb her hair. A loud clap of thunder sounded from outside. “Will you listen to that!” Brenda said. “It must really be coming down. Boy, I'm sure not looking forward to the trip home.”

“Don’t you have a raincoat?”

“Not with me. It wasn’t raining when I left the house.”

“But how can that be? I thought it had been drizzling heavily for some time when you got here.”

“Oh! Yes. I guess you’re right.” Brenda caught herself.

“I even wondered before how it was that your hair didn’t get wet.”

“I ran between the raindrops.”

“No, seriously. You didn’t come straight from home, did you?”

“No,” Brenda admitted’

“Where were you then? Have I a rival?”

“Don’t be silly, darling.”

“Well, where were you then?” There was suspicion and jealousy in Ling-Foi’s voice.

The question hung in the air between them, thicker than the incense, more ominous. Brenda’s mind was racing. She had never told Ling-Foi about her visits to Dr. Golden, or about the group sessions. She was very self-conscious about going to a psychoanalyst, and she feared that Ling-Foi might be disgusted at the confirmation of mental illness which such treatment implied. Besides, she was afraid that Ling-Foi might try to question her about what she discussed with Dr. Golden, and any such interrogation would be difficult, even painful, to Brenda.

Still, Brenda couldn’t bear the hurt expression on Ling-Foi’s face now. It was obvious that if she didn’t come up with an explanation quickly, her loved one was going to think the worst. And the only explanation her confused mind could come up with was the truth.

“I was at a session with my analyst,” she told Ling-Foi.

“Your analyst? You never told me you were in treatment.”

“Well, I am. I guess I didn’t want to tell you. I don’t like to talk about it.”

“What’s wrong? Is it that you’re ashamed of being a Lesbian and want to change?” Ling-Foi guessed.

“Maybe. I’m not sure.” Brenda felt herself bristling and tried to repress the emotion. “I told you. I’d really rather not discuss it.”

“As you wish, of course. I am your most obedient servant and shall be guided by your wishes.” Ling-Foi rose in the bed and bowed her head.

“Now, there’s no reason to be sarcastic,” Brenda flared.

But I’m not. After such pleasure as you have given me, the last thing I wish to do is displease you,” Ling-Foi said soothingly. Then, as an afterthought—“Is this analyst of yours in the neighborhood?"

“In this building.”

“In this building? Wait one moment! You aren’t by any chance being treated by Dr. Mavis Golden, are you?”

“I am. Do you know her?”

“Do I know her?” Ling-Foi burst out in a hearty, most un-Oriental laugh. “Do I ever!” Her laughter continued and grew louder.

“I don’t see anything so damn funny!”

“Oh, but you will, baby, you will. Just as soon as I get‘ breath enough to talk, you will.”

“You, re out of character,” Brenda said icily.

“Ain’t I just, though? But at the moment, I couldn’t care less. This is just too much. So you think Mavis Golden is gonna cure you of being a dyke, huh? Well, my naive lover-girl, you have another thing coming!”

“What do you mean? Why shouldn’t she be able to help me?”

“Because she’s just as much of a dyke as you are, that’s why!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Brenda protested. “She’s a married woman.”

“Hell, that doesn’t mean anything. You’ve been around long enough to know that.”

“Even so, how could you know anything like that about her?” Brenda asked indignantly.

“How could I know? Oh, that’s rich! Because she was my lover for six months! That’s how I know. She spent more time up here than she did in her office last summer. I tell you, we had a real hot and heavy affair. While it lasted, it was the greatest!”

“Why did you end it?”

“Her husband had been in Europe for the summer. When he came home, the good doctor kissed me off.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about it?” Brenda asked hotly.

“Did you tell me about all your past affairs?” Ling-Foi shrugged. “It was really none of your business.”

“Was she— Was she good? In bed, I mean,” Brenda asked jealously.

“Uh-huh!” Ling-Foi purred. “Mavis had a way with her, all right. Real great technique. She really knows how to satisfy a girl when she makes love to her.”

“Then she was better than me!” Brenda said accusingly.

Ling-Foi only smiled.

“Well, was she? Was she a more satisfactory lover than I am to you?”

Ling-Foi’s smile widened and she looked straight into Brenda’s eyes. The look said that she wasn’t going to lie about it.

“Then to hell with both of you!” Brenda sprang to her feet in a rage and slammed out of the apartment.

The rage continued as she stood in the hall opposite the elevator. She was so angry that she forgot to push the button, but she stood and waited stupidly for it anyway. Her lips were drawn back over her teeth, her fists clenched, her whole body shaking with fury.

It filled her mind as she remembered her sessions with Dr. Golden, recalled her confessions to Dr. Golden about the Chinese girl in this very building with whom she was having an affair, recollected the cool, noncommittal way the doctor had sat there taking notes. Yes, and there was all that sympathy and understanding the doctor had manifested toward the problem of being a Lesbian. The witch! And all the time she was really a Lesbian herself! All the time she’d known that the girl Brenda was so in love with was one of her very own cast-offs! How she must have been laughing at her!

That thought detonated the rage inside Brenda’s brain. She jabbed savagely at the elevator button. When it reached her floor, she got into the car and stood a moment, shaking all over with her desire to revenge herself against Dr. Golden for having made such a fool out of her. Finally her outstretched finger reached for the bank of buttons. It hovered there for a moment between “L” and “S”. Then it jabbed murderously . . .

CHAPTER 10

Raw Bait for the Rapist

“. .. I’M AFRAID of myself! Me, Vance Thurmond, who isn’t afraid of another thing in this world. They gave me a Bronze Star in Vietnam, you know. I killed thirteen Reds, three of them in hand-to-hand combat, the rest with my carbine. Only then they made a mistake. They sent me back home. Six months later I was in jail . . . What for? Assault and rape. I couldn’t stop myself. Even after they caught me, I wasn’t sorry. I enjoyed it so much it was almost worth going to jail for. Especially since they went real easy on me because of my army record . . . When they paroled me, they sent me to a clinic and that’s where I met Dr. Golden here. That was about three months ago. I don’t want to knock her, but I don’t know how much good she’s doing me. I still get this overwhelming impulse to attack women, to hurt them and then take them by force. Maybe this group therapy business will help. I hope so. I’m only twenty-three years old and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life hopping in and out of prison . . .”

Vance Thurmond Liked the rain. He walked from Dr. Golden’s building over to Riverside Drive and sat down on a bench to watch the storm gathering force as it blew in over the river. He turned up the collar of his leather jacket against the wind and snorted a challenge aloud, a guntlet flung in the teeth of nature.

Braving the storm, he stayed there for a long while, well over an hour, a square-cut figure of a young man with shoulders thrown back in a military posture and craggy, rough-hewn face, unshaven, raised arrogantly against the elements. No hat covered the stubbly crew-cut of his black hair, and from time to time he had to shake his head to clear his eyes—metallic, blue-gray, staring—of the raindrops. All the time he stayed there, unaware that he was doing it, the fist of one hand thumped a solid, metronome-like beat against the palm of the other.

This movement, like his enjoyment of the storm, played around the periphery of Vance’s consciousness and didn’t intrude on the thoughts which gripped him. His mind was fixed on Lisa and the dream she’d related to the group that night. The only physical sensation which did infiltrate his awareness to a marked extent was the feeling of tightness in his groin, where his imaginings were making him strain against the tightness of the crotch of his pants. The aching bulge was like a weapon waiting to be unholstered and used to beat Lisa into submission.

Lisa . . . Vance pictured her. That long red hair, worn in a ponytail, tossed about like a mantle to advertise her lust, a mantle to tempt men! And those teasing green eyes with the taunt they flung at a man, daring him to throw her down to the floor,right then and there and make love to her! And that body, with the large breasts always bouncing so brazenly, the long legs always crossed and jiggling as if in the throes of some orgiastic thrill, that lush behind bouncing and those hot hips swaying, signaling the message to any man: “Here I am! Come and get me! If you’ve got the nerve!” Lisa . . . .

Vance’s jaw muscles clenched as he remembered the way she’d described her dream during the session. Oh! what a ball the little tease had been having! Her voice, filled with sex, deliberately trying to excite the others. The way she’d licked her lips over the erotic descriptions, choosing her words carefully to build the most erotic pictures, putting just enough of the focus on herself so that everyone would know just what a hot little nympho she was!

And then that bit where she’d pulled down her sweater! She hadn’t been wearing a bra and Vince had seen her nipple clearly before Dr. Golden had made her cover it. And pulling up her skirt like that! Vance bet that if Dr. Golden hadn’t interfered, Lisa would have tossed it all the way up over her face. What’s more, he’d bet she wasn’t wearing any underwear, either! Talking it up the way she’d been doing, she’d gotten herself so het up that Vance was sure she would have taken on every man in the room on the spot if she could have pulled it off. Yes, every man in the room. But especially him!

Oh, she had the hots for him, all right! He could tell! Whenever she pulled off anything like she had tonight, he was the first man in the group that she looked at. And from the way she looked it was obvious she wanted him so bad she was almost exploding. She wanted him to make love to her, to force her, to beat her, to rape her, to give it to her until she screamed for mercy!

Vance’s mind jumped, and he saw himself doing it. He’d sneak back into Dr. Golden’s office and look up Lisa’s address in the files. Somewhere down in the Village it would be, and he’d hop the subway right down there. He’d knock on the door, and. as soon as she opened it he’d slam it back and give her a hard shove into the room. Then he’d close the door behind him and go up to her slowly, menacingly.

“You know why I’m here?” he’d say.

“No. What do you want?" She’d pretend she didn’t know. And she’d be afraid. She wouldn’t have to pretend that.

“You, you tramp!” He’d maybe slap her across the face then so she’d know he meant business.

“Help!” She’d probably scream.

Then he’d really belt her. “You open your yap like that again and I’ll kill you!”

She’d know from his voice that he meant it. About then, she’d probably decide to play it honest, to throw herself on his mercy. “Please, Vance. Don’t be rough with me. You don’t have to. I want you to make love to me. You don’t have to force me.”

“Don’t I know it, baby. But that’s too easy for a slutty tease like you. You’re going to get what’s coming to you. I’m going to teach you that you can’t go around waving your boobies in men’s faces and get away with it. You’re going to learn that at least one man knows how to treat a teaser like you. And you’re never going to forget it!”

He’d rough her up good then. He’d slap her around ‘til her face was black and blue, her nose bleeding maybe, one of her eyes swelling up, tears running into her mouth as she begged him for mercy. But there would be no mercy. He’d tear off her clothes and go to work on that luscious body. He’d punch her breasts until they were all red and swollen. He’d take a belt to that tantalizing rear end until it was crisscrossed with bloody welts from the sharp edge of the buckle. Yes, and then maybe he’d cut her up a little, too.

Then he’d tie her on the bed, spreadeagle her, so that her pain-wracked body would be ready for his rape. Perhaps he’d get some ice water and throw it in her face before he began; he’d want her wide-awake and gibbering with fear; that would make his enjoyment greater. He’d climb over her roughly then, his hands squeezing those big, spread-out breasts real hard to wring a few more tears from her. Yes, and he’d pinch her lower body too, front and back, wake it up with pain to the thrill he was about to give it. And then he’d take Lisa brutally, bounding as hard as he was able, splintering her pelvic bones, tearing her apart inside, drawing blood as if the slut was a virgin.

Despite her agony, Lisa would react. Her body would rise up to meet each brutal thrust. Her breasts would heave with the pain of her passion. “Now! Now!” she’d scream out ecstatically.

Here Vance’s fantasy got completely away from him. He saw himself driving home with tremendous power — the strength of some primeval beast, the thrust of an atomic-powered machine, the devastating energy of a shell fired from a cannon. He saw Lisa screaming the over-powering joy of a fulfillment unlike any she’d ever known before. And as she clung to the joy of it, Vance saw himself reaching up, taking her throat in his hands, and quickly breaking her neck and strangling the life from her body. Then he saw himself at last releasing the fruits of his own lust upon her dead body!

Vance held that final image for a long time, holding fast against the now raging storm which was trying to blot it out. His fist continued to beat against the palm of his hand. His eyes continued to stare at the naked body caught in the spasm of passionate reaction.

Finally Vance became aware of the lightning splintering his dream, of the rainwater running down his neck. He rose from the bench, admitted to the chill in his bones, and. started up the side street toward Broadway. When he reached the main street, he turned into the first cheap restaurant he came to and sat down at the counter. “Coffee, black,” he ordered.

He sat there for a long time, dawdling over a second and then a third cup of coffee, staring blankly out the window at the rain coming down. Then, draining the third cup, he got up, paid for the coffee, and went back out into the night. He ducked down a few doors and finally stood leaning against a darkened store-front, under an awning. Again he stood staring blankly, not thinking of anything much, a stocky figure with no place to go, nothing to do.

More time passed before Vance’s eyes focused on a specific and they danced alive with -interest again. They said that Vance was thinking the blonde sashaying up Broadway through the rain was really something. That brazen, hip-rolling walk, the way her breasts bounced up over the top of her low-cut blouse under the transparent raincoat she wore, reminded him of Lisa. Like Lisa, she obviously hadn’t deigned to wear a brassiere. Like Lisa she was flaunting her body for all to see. Like Lisa, she knew what she was doing, and was doing it deliberately to tease.

Watching the blonde as she drew closer, Vance’s mind merged her with the redhead of the fantasy he’d had before. By the time she drew abreast of him, his brain was tearing the clothes from her tantalizing torso. And as he watched the jiggling buttocks retreating, the tight skirt covering them dissolved in his mind’s eye and he saw the crisscross lines of blood appear as he flayed their plumpness.

She turned the corner into the side street, heading west the way Vance had come. Holding fast to this new vision, Vance darted from the doorway and followed her. She was halfway down the block as he too turned the corner. He closed the distance between them a little, but not too much.

A tart! It was obvious. A cheap tart on the make. Still, she didn’t look like she was looking for a pickup now. She looked like she had someplace to go. Even so, she couldn’t help tripping down the block like some peddler displaying wares. The dirty slut! She just had to advertise that her body had a price even on a dark block like this one where there was nobody to see what she was hawking.

Nobody but Vance. He slowed down as she reached the corner of West End Avenue and the wind spun, her around. He got a good look at her face then, a pretty doll’s face, vacant of any expression except automatic sensuality, the over-lipsticked mouth forming a curse lost to Vance in the rumbling of thunder from overhead. He saw that face all swollen and bruised from the beating it so richly deserved. He saw the lips forming pleading words, begging for mercy. And the eyes punched shut like Lisa’s eyes, disfigured lids shuttering the teasing fire which burned in them. He fell into step with her again, a quarter-block or so behind her as she crossed West End Avenue and continued toward Riverside. When he reached the corner, he crossed diagonally so that he was on the other side of the street from her. He quickened his pace so that now he was almost abreast of her, with the rain-spattered gutter between them.

Vance smiled wryly as he saw her turn in under the canopy of the apartment house just off the Drive. Some coincidence! Dr. Golden’s building! The very same one he’d left only a few hours before. Vance recrossed the street and strolled past the entrance slowly, peering into the lobby.