Having thus proclaimed her thirst for all and sundry, Gloria sank to her knees ... She slid the fat astounded penis deep into her mouth, jostling the boy about for all to see, as she sucked and swallowed and lapped and wildly moaned out her gratitude for this swabbing delight. Umm! ... what an enchanting odor of lifebuoy-soap and lathered testes she found at his crotch, nearly forgetting her main mission for a moment as she recalled how long it had been since she'd had such a voluptuous oral feast.
CHAPTER ONE
It was August in Manhattan, and even though she wore nothing but an ice-blue hair-ribbon, Gloria was hot. The second-hand air-conditioner sticking in her window, which she'd dug up at a sacrifice-sale on Third Street, worked only when it rained, and since the skies hadn't opened up in weeks, Gloria's tiny apartment felt about as airy as an upholstered armpit. She slept naked the year around, warmed in winter by a dually-controlled central heating system: half steam via the boiler-room and half simmering body fuels which became activated-either manually or with outside help-by just the barest nudge of her thermostat.
And now, having stripped both herself and the bed, she felt wearily resigned to her nightly struggle with humidity. However, she didn't forget her dedicated ritual of self-appraisal before calling it a night-that sensuous inventory, as she stood naked before her full-length mirror and proudly eyed the fleshy dips and ovals of her body. At twenty-three, Gloria was certain that under the exploring hands of an appreciative man, in the dark, her body didn't feel a day over sixteen. No danger of rusting for her, not when the softness of her skin was put to so much proper and constant use.
She stood there and sighed, ogling the areas on her body where Tony's hot and nuzzling lips had travelled two nights ago, wondering if he, too, were having trouble sleeping, lying next to that shrew of a wife to whom he was so tragically chained. She pressed her fingertips where his mouth had lingered and longed, gliding down the fullness of her flanks and belly, and lower, to the satin incline. Gloria was a tall, lithe-hipped blonde with yellow-gold hair that sprang out in the same exultant shade, no matter where it flowered upon her person. No incongruous jet or chestnut tufts curling about her mound of Venus, for she was a truly matchless blonde, everywhere. She gazed fondly at her plumply rising breasts in the mirror, throwing her shoulders back and inhaling deeply; then drinking in the splendid sight of brownish-rosy nipples as they expanded and firmed, trying to see through the eyes of a man who'd been entrusted with these ... in the night, unexpectedly, and given the freedom to do with them as he pleased.
I give only to the needful, she thought, fondling herself. I give these ... and this ... and more ... Thus reassured that all her full-blown treasure-weapons were still intact, Gloria dimmed the lights and crept into bed ...
Then heard the knock at her door. A soft, scratching sound, the signal that could not be mistaken. Oh damn that beautiful hungry lout for taking such chances, she thought, with his wife and brood asleep just across the hall. And good gracious, didn't he know how much it meant to her to maintain a virtuous reputation in the apartment house where she'd lived in such neighborly style for the past five years? She slipped on a robe and went to the door, opening it a few inches, leaving the chain attached. It was him, all right, and Gloria inhaled his aromas and felt the dizzying tremors of excitement, the musk of his tobacco, beer and tangy man-sweat, as mature and mellow as cellar-wine.
Tony Danizetti was a husky, square-jawed Sicilian dock worker with a grown son, two cradles full of newborn twins and, Gloria believed, a nagging bitch of a wife who would make Medea sound like Winnie the Pooh. With a quickening pulse, Gloria recalled her last explosive interlude with this man. Mercy, what a stampede! He'd nearly split her wide open in his despair and frustration, poor neglected soul.
But tonight he was really being too reckless, so she must try to be stern with him. "Tony, what's gotten into you?" she whispered. "You know I'm sitting with the Overton's baby tomorrow afternoon and you were all set to visit me there. It's never safe here at my place, honey, I've told you that a thousand times."
"Aw baby, please let me in ... I'm in a bad way!" he pleaded, his voice rough and hoarse with desire. "Just this one time, Gloria, and from now on well play it cool. And honey, listen ... Madge won't even know I'm gone. I slipped two tranquilizers in her beer and she's dead to the world, I swear it! And believe me, it was pure self-defense, just to get her off my back."
Gloria tried to summon up the harsh domestic scene he'd painted, unconsciously rubbing her thighs together as the surge of pity for him began to tingle between her legs. "You mean she's been aggravating you again, Tony?" she asked, half-relenting.
"Oh doll, you know it!" Tony's intense Latin eyes went soulful and downcast.
Gloria hesitated chastely, but briefly, eyeing his rangy, muscular body as he pushed eagerly against the door. She saw that he was barefoot, and the threadbare robe he wore hung loosely from his massive frame, revealing that there was nothing underneath except a pair of tight white jockey-shorts which bloomed out telltale at the center ... and golly, will you look at the crux of his anxiety, she thought, her eyes lowering pointedly ... just see how it throbs and agonizes towards me! Oh ... this poor overgrown Daddy of a boy, how can I ignore his eloquent call-to-duty in the night?
Moving with the stoic grace of a true sister of mercy, Gloria unlatched the door and opened it wide, extending the hand of rescue. "Come, you poor hungrily bereft old dear ... oh come and do your weeping here ... "
Tony groaned as he eyed the lush, fat crying-towels she offered him, so visibly bouncy beneath her robe, his hands pawing at them after he hurried into the room and softly closed the door. With a savage cry ... ( "unn! ... Jesus!" ) ... he pulled her body close to his, his burly hands swimming and grabbing inside her robe, thinking ... whew! What a hot bunch of consolation prizes this baby kept in wraps for him. Knowing he'd have to talk a Utile romantic first before he could slip it right up her soup-kitchen where it belonged, Tony said: "Aw sweetheart, I'm so unhappy, havin' you so very fuckin' near ... and yet, so very fuckin' far away ... " Sure, nothin' but sweet-talk for this kid, because she had to have some poetry with her gash or she wouldn't spread.
Gloria's eyes went tearful as she reached out to touch his swarthily handsome face, her fingers moving through his thick black masses of hair that tumbled loosely over his forehead. She gasped valiantly as he dove in at her and buried his huge and urgent mouth against the silky tender flesh of her throat, his full lips a biting, mauling gypsy-prowl as he held her fiercely to him and moaned out the endearments of his misery. "Ahh ... you gorgeous hunk of sweetness, you're more like a mother to my babies than she'll ever be. Dammit, it oughta be you sleeping next to me every night, not her. The snotty-assed bitch, I'd like to kill her. And my jailbird in-laws too, the slobs-I'd like to get me an ax and invite 'em all over for pot luck, and just start chop-pin' away, 'till the whole bunch of 'em was out of my life for good!"
"Hush, my sweet, we must bear them no malice," she murmured, "for those demons brought us together." Sighing, Gloria cupped his big sensual face in her hands and pulled his grieving mouth down hard against her own, parting her lips to admit his softly charging tongue that entered and sought hers. A rasping cry tore loose from his throat as her hot lacy tongue curled tenaciously about his, and Tony's lips went crushing more deeply to suck the flicking tongue, then slid lower to suck the ladylike tilt of her chin, removing her robe now and hungrily pressing the naked resilient warmth of her body against his own. They were both breathing heavily and starting to perspire in the sultry night, Tony's eyes glazed with emergency as he stood back to get a full and greedy look at her body in the shadows-the moonlight filtering through the blinds and shimmering against the willowy loveliness of her flesh, hips so creamy and tapered in the lunar glow. Gloria's long blonde hair hung loose and lustrous about her shoulders, and as he made out the poignant design of her face reaching once more towards his, Tony noted happily that all her makeup had been scrubbed off for the night, leaving the exquisite sculpture of her lips free and ripe for his devouring. He pulled her close again, frantic to taste that "girl-of-the-old-South" freshness he always found in her kisses. Weird, poetic little doll, she'd probably been bangin' around since she was ten, but she was so damned soft and delicate to touch that he felt downright "naughty" every time he sank it into her. Oh wow ... what a sexy, long-stemmed pussy-child, giving him that delicious dirty-old-rapist feeling whenever they made love, as if he was gettin' her cherry over and over again each time she opened up for him ... Christ, he didn't care how long he'd have to pretend to hate his own comfortable wife in order to have this melting bundle of beauty in his arms once or twice a week. And Gloria was rarer and cleaner than most pushovers her age, because she only went with family men, which meant that she respected the sanctity of the home and the fireside and the Sabbath and all the rest of that snow-white bullshit. A girl in a million, and worth a helluva lot more than the inconvenience of confessing a few white lies and broken commandments in church every Sunday. Imagine a sweet young kid like her giving him every perverted delight he asked for, and him a big smelly stevedore who was pushin' forty. Holy Jesus, there wouldn't be much more free-loadin' nooky like this in his future, so he'd better grab it fast ... better concentrate and drain it ...
Gloria, meanwhile, was reeling with the customary vertigo that came to her in such moments, a dewy, shooting sort of nausea that blossomed wetly between her legs and sprang upwards. Nor did this cauldron diminish as she watched Tony slip out of his robe and briefs. Golly hemlock! ... there was so very much of this man to console, she tenderly observed. Her eyes fastened, awe-inspired, on his brutish hairy chest, a compulsive whimper escaping her lips as she touched his body and let her fingers trail slowly downward, her breath almost stopping, pulse pounding, until there it was, thick and burning in her hand, that jungle-sprung patriarch of all the members that flesh lay heir to ... ahh ... mercy! ... just feel that long swelling rod of rigidity which must first inflict pain upon her before finding comfort for itself ... I'll let it enter me and give him solace, Gloria vouchsafed bravely, let him heave-to and find his port in the storm here ... (pressing her abdomen) ... deep in the home of my belly ... Trembling but stalwart, she swung out her other hand and thus fully cradled and entrapped the rearing heat of his erection, palming and squeezing and finding new hope in the power of it. Father penis-pulse with a life of its own, beating out the signals, giving her the private instructions. No one hears but me, she thought, her fingers gliding over the moistening knob of it, and so I must obey. Destiny can sometimes be cruel, but I'm only a girl, how can I fight the future? Especially when it's so immediate ...
Tony was gasping and moaning with the feel of her hands on his prick, and suddenly gripped her fingers and held them still, jerking his sinewy haunches backwards and freeing his aching member from the clutch of her, lest their geysers foam too soon ... "Oh God, honey ... wait ... don't touch it for a minute ... it's so hot it hurts. Let's ... just walk slowly to the bed and maybe it'll go down, and ... you can get it up again ... " He took her hand and she moved with him ... "and watch it grow, baby ... "
But they were still a few feet from their goal when Tony knew he couldn't wait any longer. With a choked and wretched cry he swept her up in his arms and moved swiftly forward, flinging her on the bed and crudely sprawling his body over hers, his huge calloused hands mauling and re-discovering every lush mound and crevice of her nude and moist young flesh ... "Oh Gloria ... baby, you're so perfect ... wanna eat you alive!" Working and kneading his grubby fingers upwards, he made a roundly twin bouquet of her breasts and held them up to his face, staring and suspended for a second to torment his appetites further. And aw Christ, how fat and juicy they looked when he pushed them together and watched those blushing pointed nipples get even harder as she saw his eyes on them, Tony licking his lips now, face rapt in cruel self-denial as he prolonged the joy, swallowing and nearly gagging from the torture of the wait. And then, at last, the appeasement, the supping descent as he lowered his shaggy head and slowly, gently, began to suck the fevered wealth and flesh of her ... pulpy girl-tits swirling in and out of his yearning mouth, his tongue probing and rubbing as he groaned out his whimpers, her squirms ... "Ahh ... my hungry one!" Gloria exclaimed, fingering the curls on his head, eying the sensual progress of his mouth as he imbibed, and she softly panted to see the languid movement of his lips on her ... and oh gracious! ... was there anything more devastating than this big yowling mouth of a day-laborer, so swabbing and succulent ... these lips of a Daddy-beast-man who worked a bulldozer on the docks ... hot tongue on the breasts of her, incensed and gulping-eager to drink the fire, but suddenly wanting the heat that lurked lower, down her belly and into the hub ... Latin mouth now oiled and primed for the hotter lips of her as Gloria let out a shuddering gasp to feel him spread her thighs apart and hurl his mouth deep into the downy nest of her vagina. She madly groaned and quivered under this attack, while Tony feverishly licked and sucked the tender labia, his mouth a gobbling pioneer about the outer pubic fringes ... then building the panic and scooping his flaring lips in deeper to capture the searing, fretful clitoris, Gloria bucking and bolting her pelvis as his mouth pumped and scoured out the tremulous core of her, flinging her legs about his neck as if to press the whole rapacious face of him inside her, making a penis of that searching father's tongue, as Tony growled and half-sobbed to feel the gentle streams of her starting to flow and trickle against his lips ... "Oh no, please Tony ... it's not proper for you to be kissing me there ... ooh ... naughty Daddy!" Feeling her sleek-textured slit palpitating and sprouting in his mouth, trying to groan and whimper more like his little girl now, instead of the yawning-limbed woman he was making of her ... "Oh ... you big brawny dock worker and father of a teen-ager, what are you doing down there ... sucking a little girl's dimple in the night ... "
"Oooumm! ... hush, baby ... Daddy make it well!" Tony's lips nurtured and caressed, while his penis throbbed out its impatience to share in this repast, and he could no longer let it remain so aching-stiff and alone. He rose up on his knees and went into a sudden, newer frenzy as he saw her eyes go to the swelling head of his jutting prick, loving the perfect look of girlish horror she managed to affect as she surveyed the looming breadth of it.
"Where do you want it, baby-doll?" he muttered huskily. "Anywhere you say, that's where I'll slide it. But you gotta open that portal yourself, with your own precious-pink fingers, honey ... so when I dive there'll be nothin' in the way ..."
"Oh, you poor displaced husband, you see me as a refuge, don't you, darling?" her eyes on it, peeled and faithful. "And look what that horrible loveless creature across the hall has made of you, shirking her wifely duties until here you are, fiendish for a little affection ..."
"Where, Gloria?" he persisted. "Put out the welcome mat so this thing'll know it's wanted. Aw yeah! ... look at it baby, and stare and love it ... ooh Christ! ... your eyes are startin' a little rain to fall ..."
"Oh Tony, no ... please! ... I can't bear to have you wait and aim it and taunt yourself any more, darling, so hurry ... quick! ... shove that fear of God into me, Tony, and ... do ... it ... now!"
Then Tony saw the gesture he'd been waiting for, as Gloria reached down and pulled the nether-lips of her vagina as far apart as a Utile girl's orifice would go, flinging her long graceful legs almost horizontally apart for him. With a lustful mouth-ticking smile, Tony slowly lowered his pulsing fat member and swept it fully in between the obedient invitation of her fingers ...
"Oooohhh! ... no no no ... ahh! ... yes ... up there ... unnn!" she gasped and winced and bit her lips as her body rocked violently with the entry; and then removed her fingers to let him rotate it experimentally inside her. Tony was grunting and sweating profusely, his cock inflamed by the flesh-feel of her soft clinging chasm that swamped around it, and he was no longer able to deny himself another inch of this stealthy invasion. Licking the perspiration from his lips, he pushed her thighs up higher and sprang the whole muscled structure of his body forward with one thumping lurch, leaning and lunging the full hard length of his weapon deep into the moistening cavity that she herself had so devoutly unsealed for him. And now the quick thrusting shocks of locomotion as his hips became a mass of heat and pounding, and he lowered his head to kiss and sip at her wetly pared lips so as to silence those gulping, fitful cries of her, the girl's body all wrenched and bounced and caught anew with each fresh stabbing stroke ... his flanks and buttocks popping up and in and off and digging, undulating and jolting ever faster as the painful sobs and sounds of her both worried and inspired him, his prick feeling hotter and more bloated with every ramming plunge, his mouth still groaning and ecstatic against hers, her legs wrapped about his body, squeezing and pushing, as he pummeled and dug ... and ahhh! ... going crazier and wilder for it now ... that soft clamping suction of her passage seemed to grip and clench at his battering cock, a new surging sensation accompanying every inward jab ... wet and warm and ooh ... baby-girl, it's like sinking it into a hot bubbling vat of honey with a whole gang of bees stinging the head of it ... ahh! ... going in the hive, in the hive, raiding ... splattering ... his big thick penis all sticky-damp in there ... aw, motheraGod! ... slapping it fully into her with a rapid staccato strength, Jesus ... how that feels! ... superman and super girl merged and juiced and hooked together ... aw Daddy fuck the Babysitter and make her twitch ...
"Ooohh ... God, Tony, it's so lovely and wrong and frightening, it's like a ... meat cleaver in there ... ahhh! ... shovel it into me ... shovel it!"
"I'm diggin' the ditch, baby ... aw, diggin' it!" Tony crammed and stuffed it up that clutching channel with a maddening ferocity, glancing briefly downward to watch the velvet-fleshed entry ... thickly in and thickly out, his cock stretching those girlish oven-walls until he felt the knob of it deep inside her womb, all grabbed and nudged there ... aw ... baby wants her bottle, so give it to her and squirt it and lift that hot-box up and down on it and listen to the squeals of her and ... oh ... wait ... now? ... no, Christ let it hang in her like this for a minute ... oh God, I love it ... but then the terrible guttural roar from his lips as he felt the gushing swarm tear loose from his loins ...
"Oooh! ... me too, Daddy," she cried, "all wet and swimming in there ... now ... oh help me, darling ..."
"Aw ... sweetheart, I'm ... gonna bust wide open ... " They clung and gasped and rocked together as Tony filled her with his hot spurting juices that shot out of him in endless jet-streams to meet hers ... Gloria clawing at his back, pulling his mouth down on hers to sink her teeth into that brooding under lip of a day-laborer who stunk and writhed and had used her like a fluid creamy girl-toy, a gadget ... ahh! ... father dear father come into me now ... and taste blood ... and flow. Flow.
With all wounds swabbed and swallowed now, they cherished the soft melting terror for a moment, the lunacy and limbo of their agony-peace. Limbs entwined and mouths engulfed to blot out an end to it. Then, at last, the sliding apart, the after-sighs and heavy breathing, the lighting of cigarettes and the shared eloquence of fresh silence.
Finally, Gloria spoke, her voice small and properly repentant. "It was terribly self-indulgent of me to let you stay so long, Tony. What if Madge wakes up and finds you gone?"
"So ... I'll tell her it was too hot to sleep, and I went out for a drive."
"In your bathrobe?"
He laughed. "Hell, I've done crazier things than that, and Madge knows it. But you can relax, Gloria, because she's not going to wake up until that alarm goes off in the morning. I spiked her Schlitz real good."
Gloria sighed, reminding herself how truly honor-bound her performance had been. "If only that woman could understand and empathize with you, as I do."
"Well, that'll never happen, believe me," Tony said, his hands lazily caressing the slumped fullness of her breasts. "And sometimes I swear, that icy broad acts more like a mean old stepmother than a wife ... " But to himself Tony thought that no wicked stepmother ever gave her son the jazzy, screwin' blast his old lady Madge put out at least four or five times a week; which, of course, only made him hotter for the more youthful enticements of good-neighbor Gloria.
"And you mean she still never lets you touch her in bed?" asked Gloria.
"Shit no, she claims she's through with sex altogether," Tony lied elatedly, his dark eyes twinkling in the shadows. "God, it's been more'n a year now. She says she don't want no more kids and she's afraid of them damned birth control pills 'cause she heard they bring on Early Change ... and ..."
"Good gracious, I've never heard such pitiful excuses!" Gloria broke in. "And let me tell you something, Anthony Danizetti, you are married to an unnatural woman."
"Yeah, huh?"
"I mean ... oh golly, Tony, it's a sin to say this, but I absolutely hate her! ... I hate her frigid guts!" To further illustrate where her loyalties lay, she reached down and gave his newly stirring spear a cheering kiss on the tip.
Ooh wow! ... keep hating her, baby, thought Tony as he watched her moist warm lips glide felicitously lower ... 'cause you can hate hotter than any girl I know ...
A few minutes later Tony found himself sapped all over again and decided it was time to leave. He swiftly rose, dressed, kissed her, and then stole softly back out into the shadowed corridor.
Having the replenished sighs, Gloria lay there in the dark and smiled beatifically, once more pinning that invisible badge over her philanthropic heart: "I Gave," it read.
Then closed her innocent eyes and slept the sleep of the just.
* * *
The next day was Saturday, and when Gloria awoke that morning, she wriggled her supple young body between the sheets and eagerly welcomed this weekly opportunity for escape. Five times out of seven she was shot from her launching pad with such a blast, she was in a state of shock until well after the ten o'clock coffee break. But whenever she wasn't dabbing-in-the-arts, her weekends were mostly taken up with night-time charity work, which meant that she could have a tremulous sigh and linger lushly in her bed during the mornings.
And ahh! ... what a comfortably debauched feeling it was, she thought, snuggling deeper into the luxury of the moment, weaving her own hot-fingered carousel of fancy and nonsense as she recalled Tony's fiery attentions the night before ... leftover nerve-reminders still assailing her munificent warm body ... fingers educating and busy as she summoned up her secret admirer in thrashing reprise.
While it was true that Gloria was a part-time babysitter, she loved children so much that she never charged a fee-and served only in homes where the need for her sympathies was two-fold. Upon first confirming that the lady of the house was a foul-mouthed virago who did not appreciate her husband, Gloria would offer herself as a sacrificial pacifier for both father and offspring, thus sealing the generation gap with one salvaging merger of limb and heart.
A sudden thought struck her now and she leaped out of bed and stared at her calendar. Good heavens, it's August thirty-first, the first three-day weekend in months! How could she have forgotten? A full extra day to alleviate the domestic crises in still another of her collection of shattered, female-gutted homes. How it sickened her the way most women turned their husbands into spineless, emasculated slaves the minute they got that ring on their fingers. Of course, lately her patterns for healing had been alternating most deliciously. While "sitting" in one home-either in her own apartment house or the one next door-she quite often managed to entertain the beleaguered Daddy of another. How very touching and trapped they all were, the poor, browbeaten dears. And, indeed, if it weren't for her retreat for henpecked husbands she felt certain they'd all take to the streets and become involved with loose and promiscuous ladies-of-the-night. A one-woman rescue mission, that was Gloria; offering up more in-depth psychotherapy than any social worker in New York.
Ahh ... Labor Day weekend! ... such a wistfully lusting time in Manhattan, she thought fondly. The end of summer, the last rush of freedom, when millions of cold shoulders left town and the air fairly tingled with warm and alien thighs-those hungry searching strangers ... O see all the running men in flight from their wives! ... each of them groping for a link they didn't know was missing, pouting escapee bearded faces full of loss and need, their very souls in heat.
Gloria raised her Venetian blinds to let in the day, and then dashed towards her tiny bathroom. She was thinking of Tony again and some of the others on her get-well list, reminding herself how fortunate it was that she had such instant rapport with children.
Gloria Jane Heavenrich had come to New York from Bagel Ox, Texas, about five years ago. After a precarious upbringing on her father's wildcat cattle ranch (where she'd nipped her little hymen while astride a frisky colt) she dropped out of High School in her junior year to start her own day-nursery in her parents' living room. Gloria was an only child and her mother and dad were quite proud of her humanitarian ambitions, until the girl's maternal instincts mingled with her incendiary desire to succor the fathers. Since the town was small and her dear family's humiliation quite large, Gloria quickly switched careers and became a part-time car-hop and art teacher. But it was already too late to dispel the breath of scandal, so potential pupils stayed away in droves from the Heavenrich home. Faced with all this leisure, and the blistering memories of several solicitous young fathers left over from her short-lived nursery days, Gloria soon became her own most attentive student. In no time at all she was swept up in the delightful therapy of water color, dedicating herself intermittently to her palette and brushes.
Upon arriving in New York she hungered for a shining career among the better class Village surrealists, and to be Dali's female counterpart became the urge of her life. But, fortunately, she found a job as file clerk for an old reliable firm and upon learning from the girls in the office that her handsome young supervisor's wife had recently turned lesbian, Gloria was off to the races, developing her comfort-station facilities to the fullest. And yet, there was a memento to her old ambitions which Gloria never gave up. Her sketchbook. Wherever she went and she was a singularly mobile girl-she sketched her impressions of bodily endeavor and free-form physiognomy and, sometimes, biceps-at-the-beach. Her pencil sketches and silhouettes were splattered merrily against walls of her apartment, while her more serious disasters in oil were easel-scattered all over the living room.
Now, all powdered, primed and showered, Gloria sped out of her bathroom and slipped into bikini panties of cool nylon net, over which she clamped a saucy cerise miniskirt and white lacy blouse that was ever so subtly peek-a-boo. However, she wore a flesh-colored strapless bra so the nipples wouldn't show; for it often embarrassed her to have those tiny pointed erections singled out in public.
Happily, she hummed her favorite tune-My Heart Belongs To Daddy-with just enough sunny adenoidal intonation to sound like Mary Martin. After making her bed she blew a few cobwebs off her hand-painted lamp shades and fed her two adored pet hamsters, Marlene and Izzy. "No time to cuddle you this morning, you fuzzy little darlings!" she sang into their snouts. "I've got three whole days of freedom, and I'm off to find the Father of the Year!"
It was a little after nine, a bit early for Gloria to be at large on a Saturday, but this weekend felt so pregnant with challenge and promise she wanted to kick up her heels and give until it hurt. She took a careless last glance at her apartment, a studio-kitchenette a stone's throw from Washington Square, which she redecorated every six months to jack up her psyche. The walls were now Persian pink, the slipcovers a pale tangerine. The effect was sometimes a tonic.
Heading for the door, Gloria suddenly remembered the elaborate fish mold she'd prepared for Lonny and Darwin, her next-door neighbors. It was their third anniversary and she'd promised to surprise them with a special treat for their party. Despite their reverse biology, they were really the sweetest boys. Always inviting her over on bleak Sunday afternoons to munch dusty peanut brittle and listen to their exotic collection of Mae West records.
Gloria seized the mold from her refrigerator and raced out the door and down the hall. After ringing their doorbell several times, Darwin appeared in his pajama bottoms. He looked big and enigmatically masculine, despite the blond hippie-ringlets falling over his forehead.
"Your mold!" she said brightly, shoving her treat at him. "I know it looks like a baby shark drowning in jello, but it'll be real decorative."
Sleepily, Darwin glanced down at the platter she held out to him. "Angel baby, you remembered! Ain't you the sweetest lil' bunch'a kicks! Hey Lonny, come here and see what our gorgeous neighbor brought us!"
Lonny appeared, his hair a honey-gold bouffant- Lonny, who was sloe-eyed, drowsy and not masculine at all, mouth, voice and eyes a perfect replica of Mia Farrow. Dimly, Gloria thought that there was one couple where she would most certainly not step in and offer comfort if the wife mistreated her husband.
"Now you kids stick this in your freezer," she said, as Darwin took the mold and placed it on a nearby table. "I'm on my way out." She started to turn away.
"Oh please, you've gotta come in and drink a toast!" implored Lonny-Mia.
"Yeah, come in a minute, doll," Darwin's mammoth paw clutched her arm. "I think we can still find some warm gin lying around. This is an occasion, and we oughta share it. Think of it, Glory baby, three years today since I started shackin' with this lushed-up lil' drag queen."
Gloria's cheeks went red as Darwin pulled the comely boy to him and kissed him fervently on the mouth, a thumping erection zooming out of his loose-hung pajamas. Mercy, what a sorry waste of procreation-material, thought Gloria, unable to take her kind, blue eyes away from this involuntary growth.
"Oh ... uh ... boys!" she said with a nervous little cough, relieved when they ended the embrace; and really, how "consenting" could two adults get with the door open? "I think it's lovely you're both so happy and all, but you know, quite often during the night I wish you'd remember to be kinder to each other and not fight so much."
"What?" giggled Lonny. "And miss all the groovy times we have makin' up?" Before Gloria could bat a shocked lash, the boy slipped his long tapered fingers into Darwin's pajamas and pulled out an astonishingly fat and stiff appendage.
"Well ... I must say," said Gloria, too outraged and fascinated to move, "if that doesn't take the cake!"
"Wanna see how much of that big teardrop he can take?" Darwin gave her a manly wink.
"Where?" she inquired, still under the phallic hypnosis.
"No kiddin', he's a real wizard at it," Darwin chuckled. "When he was a baby his old lady musta rocked him to sleep singin' Blow The Man Down, 'cause I mean to tell ya, this kid's outa sight in the French department ..."
And with that Lonny was truly "out-of-sight," or at least he'd dropped from Gloria's immediate line of vision, going down on his knees and taking the swelling pendant-head in his mouth before the gaping girl could regain her senses, cry out an hysterical: "Enjoy your fish!" to them, and slam the door on the whole lubricous scene.
CHAPTER TWO
Panting a little, Gloria headed back to her own apartment, thinking ... mercy! what a strangely mated pair they were. Darwin, obviously the "butch" member of the family, did embroidery, rug-weaving, stayed home and cooked and kept house; while the girlish Lonny drove an enormous truck and hauled freight for a living ... Golly hemlock, all those untapped glands flowing against the current, she thought; and actually, what good were the right hormones with the wrong compass? Yet, faithfully remembering her Neitzsche, Gloria knew that anything which existed in nature was natural; and anyway, she usually found the boys much too thoughtful to condemn. Could she ever forget that cunning Tirolian skirt with all the fun-tucks which Darwin had whipped up for her birthday in April?
"Hey Gloria hon, you got a minute?"
This was Elsie Svensen who had the apartment just across from Lonny and Darwin. She stood in her doorway, a shrieking infant on each arm, and one for the future jutting out in the middle. What a pity, mourned Gloria-only nineteen and going so fast. Still, that was the way of it, she supposed. It either happened to a girl too early and too often, or too late and too seldom. No middle road at all. These days a single female was sunk if she waited and sunk if she didn't.
"Lars wants we should see Planet of the Apes tonight for only a dollar and a quarter on Twelfth Street. You think maybe just this once you could babysit for us, or are you busy somewhere else in the building?"
"I'm sorry," Gloria smiled sadly at the girl, "I'm booked up all weekend." Naturally, she couldn't tell Elsie that she never sat in homes where the couple got along so beautifully, although where the magnificently constructed Lars Svensen was concerned, she almost hoped for a little conflict, so she could feel free to release herself for some active duty.
Lars stuck his blond viking-head out of the door now. "Aw please, Beautiful, just this one time!" he begged her. "You can bring your date here, Gloria, make yourself at home, watch TV, live it up ..."
Gloria gazed into the grinning heat of his eyes, thinking what a special boy this was, for the Svensen's were up to their ears in debt, and still Lars remembered to bring his wife party-Pizza every night for dessert. As she stared at that innocent Nordic face, she wondered why men rarely discerned the truth of her medicinal desires until she actually touched them, gave them the rejuvenation of her hands where their pain was most acute ... "How I want you, Lars, you endearing slab of Scandinavia; but you're much too happy with your wife, and I do have scruples, you know ..." These words shot like darts from her eyes, but the boy, an earnest telephone repairman, did not see them.
"I'm needed elsewhere, Lars," she smiled at him benignly. "But why don't you ask the boys to sit for you?" she pointed towards the apartment of Lonny and Darwin, always hoping for a little more integration within the building.
"Oh now listen, Gloria," said Elsie, "I wouldn't have them two Morfadikes in my house. Don't you think I notice how they look at my Lars ... all the time watchin' how cute he walks from behind, like maybe they wanna turn him into some kind of Greek or somethin'? What're you tryin' to do, honey, bust up our marriage?"
Although this was said in a jocular manner, it gave Gloria the glimmer of an idea. Ah but no! she quickly cancelled the immoral thought. It was destructive, adulterous and strictly not her modus operandi; for she'd never willfully caused dissension in any home. The wife-spewed anguish had to be real, or Gloria wouldn't play.
Voicing her regrets once more, she swiftly returned to her own apartment. A few minutes later, while donning a decorative head-band to keep her wispy blonde locks from flying in her face, Gloria was startled by the pealing of her door chimes. She'd had them installed only recently, after seeing Funny Girl in super-Panavision. They chimed out the first four bars of Don't Rain On My Parade, and would be completely paid for in thirty-six months.
Must be Elsie again, she thought. I won't let myself give in to her. She'll stand there with those bleating babies and then she'll cry and maybe I'll cry, but I'll still say no.
However, it wasn't Elsie. Two of Gloria's closest office sisters filled the door to overflowing-Myrt Neeley and Gladys Kawolsky, both of whom felt that Gloria desperately needed a combination mother and chaperon during her weekends.
"What on earth are you girls doing here? I thought you were going to Atlantic City for the weekend."
"Listen doll, we couldn't go without seeing you," said Gladys, she and Myrt waddling into the living room. Gladys was a long-term widow. Obese, maudlin, and very kind.
"Look, Glory sweetheart, we rented this real swinging' sedan for the weekend," explained Myrt. "Ira's double-parked, waiting for us downstairs." Ira, it should be noted, was a lady. "We're gonna get you to Atlantic City for your own good even if we have to drag you there." Myrt was a chronic divorcee with tendencies towards psychosomatic nymphomania which didn't always remain latent. She was currently free. A little plump below the diaphragm, but pontoon-like above. Her voice was thick with Brooklyn, and she was afraid of nothing.
Gloria laughed, pleased by their concern, basking in the little-girl image they had of her. "You girls are wonderful to worry about me, but you know how I look forward to holiday weekends. Why, it's the only time New York really comes alive."
"This is alive?" queried Myrt. "When everybody in their right mind gets outa town? Baby, evacuate already! What do you need with a disaster area?"
Gloria flitted gaily about the room, straightening ashtrays and planters, remembering how very little these girls knew of her after-hours involvements. However, they did know of her interest in art, so her explanation for wanting to be alone during the holiday didn't really have to be a tie. "I figure I can do about forty pencil sketches in the next three days," she told them. "Even if only ten of them turn out good, it'll keep my color-easel spinning for months."
The ladies stared at her, sadly shaking their heads. "In this heat she needs a spinning easel yet?" Myrt now appealed to Gladys.
"Gloria, what're you gonna do to paint yourself a husband?" inquired Gladys.
"Now ladies please, no matchmaking today, it's much too hot!"
"Darling listen," said Myrt, "you've gotta get married at least once so you can settle down your alimony checks like the rest of us. Don't you want security? Think of your future, dear, and come with us ..."
"No, all you natives who hate New York can just go ahead and take your little side trips and leave it to me," said Gloria, bending over Marlene and Izzy's cages and blowing them kisses. "Yes ... you traitors can desert, but I shall remain. Why, it's as though I were the Captain of a ship!"
"Look, Captain, all you're gunning for is a first mate, just like we are," opined Myrt.
But this was much too close to the truth, so Gloria adamantly said: "Not another word! I love you both too much to quarrel. Have a marvelous time in Atlantic City, and don't get dehydrated by the sun."
Realizing they were politely but firmly being dismissed, the girls started for the door.
"One last piece of advice," Gladys looked solemn. "Promise you won't get into any guys' cars."
"That's right," said Myrt. "If the slobs're walking you've got a fifty-fifty chance, but in a car you're a dead pigeon-especially on a freeway where they're got you out of the state before they've even made the first pass."
Gloria laughed delightedly at this notion, gently ushering her two would-be duennas towards the door. "I'm sure I'll be protected by the White Slave Laws. But that's enough out of you mother-hens. Now git!"
Myrt and Gladys shuffled down the hall like two rejected pallbearers. Reaching the self-service elevator, Myrt's fat thumb shot out and pressed the button.
"So tell me, what can you do with her?" sighed Gladys. "If what she wants to do makes her happy, so let her be happy."
"I tell ya, Gladys, it ain't right that a girl that single should cruise around town all weekend painting the scenery. This is a hobby for a full-blooded female?"
Gladys sighed again. "God should only be willing she'll have an accident and stumble over a nice live hot wire with a bank account who needs her just like she needs him."
"So who's she gonna find in Manhattan on Labor Day ... a bunch of Pinkerton's who can hardly make it from one keyhole to the next?"
"Myrt, it's like I said. If what she wants to do makes her happy ..."
"... so if she wants to be the only twenty-three-year-old virgin in New York, so we'll let her. We'll wash our hands and we'll let her, that's all."
At this moment Gloria was adding the finishing touches to the beguilements of her summer finery, and feeling a great burst of giddiness. For here it was at last, bubbling all around her-freedom! She did a tight hearted dance about the room, hugging this jewel to her. This rare and precious opportunity, when anything might happen, when fate beckoned and said ... "Come, Gloria Heavenrich, be what you are, what you feel-forget time clocks and schedules and taboos. The cage is open now, Gloria. Fly!"
* * *
Gloria trotted gingerly through Washington Square stopping at every other bench to chat with strangers and old friends alike. The rich and the poor, the tempest-tossed and the catatonic, they were all drawn to Gloria Heavenrich because she listened to their troubles with such cocked ears!
Just as she was about to leave the Square, she heard a familiar voice calling to her. "Gloria, my girl, is it really you!" She turned and saw the despondent figure of Terence Kildaire sprawled out on one of the benches.
"Why Terry, darling, I hardly recognized you. Are you trying to grow a beard?" Re-charting her course, she went over and sat down next to him. Terence, a good-looking, red-haired lad of twenty, was one of Gloria's former neighbors. He'd also been a client, and by far the youngest father she'd ever resurrected. He'd recently separated from his wife Birdie, an absolute sow of a woman whom he'd found in bed with a census-taker one noon. There had been a frantic, fist-flying donnybrook which won Terence a thirty-day jail sentence. Birdie still lived in the building, the census-taker remaining to check out her vital statistics while Birdie filed a separate maintenance suit against her husband. Gloria had often wondered about poor Terence, seeing him as one more prime and victimized example of what the wrong woman could do to a man. Birdie had been the only transgressor in the case, and yet, she'd been given the benefit of every doubt, including custody of their year-old child.
"I just got outa jail, darlin'," he told her, tapping his beard and giving her a woebegone sort of grin, "and I sure didn't feel much like shavin' in there, so I ... just let 'er sprout. 'Guess I look like Ric The Red, don't I?"
... You look like a man instead of a boy, she wanted to tell him; and damnably, newly appetizing to the eye ...
She felt his close scrutiny as he scanned her body from top to bottom. "God, but it's good to see you again, girl-you're a tonic for the eyes, and that's the truth ..."
Gloria let herself gaze at the sweet Irish blue-eyed face, loving the incongruity of unkempt reddish beard that gave him an appealing touch of the primitive. She remembered the fervor of their brief consolation course; then thought of those thirty celibate days he'd spent in jail and heard some distant rumbles.
"Are you back on the job, dear?" she asked.
"Nope. The filthy heathens, they fired me. And between you and me, darlin' girl, I don't care if I ever work again."
"Ahhh ... don't talk like that, Terence!" she admonished him. "That doesn't sound like the bright and cheerful boy I used to know ... " Terence had come over with his parents from Belfast when he was only twelve, and Gloria remembered that he'd been a choir boy, and possessed the truest tenor voice; and, until recently, still sang at weddings and wakes. There'd always been a certain refinement about Terence Kildaire-and now look at the dear, wounded hero, so hollow-eyed and deserted.
The boy slipped her hand in his and pressed it hard. "I miss you, Glory girl. I was always able to come to you in a time of need, and we could talk and cling for hours, remember?" His soft spaniel eyes lingering about her peek-a-boo bodice.
Gloria glanced down at the big hairy-knuckled hand in hers, thinking that one never knew where or when the trumpet-call to duty might come. And to have been blessed with an avocation like hers meant that she must always be listening for that exalted blast. "Where are you staying?" she murmured gent-
"A Godforsaken little room on MacDougal Street," he replied. "Will ya came over and let me hold ya tike I used to ... 'till all the goblins're gone?"
Gloria's momentary hesitation was purely a matter of protocol, but the boy took it as a serious rejection. With a forlorn and wretched wail, he reached out for her, crushing her against his chest, every bleary eye in the Square gaping towards them. "Aw Gloria, I'm choosin' ya for my deliverance this day ... you can't say no to me, 'cause I'm as low as ever a man can get ... !"
"Please, dear, no public demonstrations!" she said, pushing him away and adjusting her clothes. "Now, you just ... hippety-hop out of the Square, and I'll follow you. Discreetly."
"Aw darlin', may the Saints be praised and smother their blessins' all over ya!" he warbled tearfully.
"Mind you, I can't stay very long," she said, "because this is a holiday weekend, you know, and I'm sort of ... well, promised."
* * *
Ten minutes later she had the boy stripped, washed and serenely embraced. With the shades drawn, the shabby room was dank and musty. They lay body-locked and naked and necked. Gloria loved the hot bearded feel of his mouth as it gulped so drowningly at hers, and recalled how obsessively wild Terence was about long nude kissing sessions. A pity really, she thought, with all the members of their bodies pressed so headily together while only their tugging lips inter-related. After a few sensual but static minutes Gloria grew too moist and tremulous in other areas to make do with the mere insertion of his bunting slippery tongue; and it seemed such a neglectful waste to bypass the more prominent implements of his frustration.
Her hand stole slinkily down between their clutched torsos, and with a small but tell-tale gasp of dear discovery, she latched onto it. How deprived he must have been in that masturbating jail cell for thirty days, and this was certainly the hardest dejected young father's penis she'd ever touched. Golly, it was like a big lead pipe in her hand ... velvet-coated, of course, and definitely alive ... (ooh ... feel the moist-throb messages!) ... but a shaft, nevertheless ... and how she yearned to feel that jutting expanse of warmth stuffed deep inside her, so that she might use its stiff majesty like a throne and prop herself upon it ... anointed mounted queen of all the manhood she surveyed ...
She tried to slither downward for this installation, but Terence held her fast, his rubbery hot lips staying glued to hers. "Terry please," she mumbled against his tongue, "let's stop being so adolescent and ... communicate. Don't you want me, dear heart?"
He moved his lips from hers for a second. "Aw, ya sweet juicy darlin', I can come just by lookin' at your lovely flower of a mouth, don't you know that?"
"Hmm ... well, we must try that some time," she said, squeezing the bulging scepter in her hand, her thighs and pelvis squirming for fruition. Terrence aimed his imploring mouth at her again, but this time Gloria ducked and lowered her body against his. Before he realized the nature of her maneuver, she flipped him over on his back, straddled her legs over his firm, taut thighs, and swiftly sliced his towering weapon fully up the clamoring oven of her vagina ... "Oooohhh ... my goodness!" she gasped with delight, "that was so ... so fast! ... ahhhh ... such agony!" She tossed back her golden blonde tresses in a spasm of ecstasy and supplication, balancing her arms in the air like a circus equestrienne, riding him in a cowgirl frenzy ... galloping. She bounced madly up and down on the enormous wide bludgeon of her choirboy, incensed by the joyous sweaty look on his face as he gaped down at his journeying prick and saw it embedded and slit-swallowed and released and gulped again, while her porous creamy flesh clamped and sucked the fiery tong of him. Up and down went the gifted graceful girl, gaily riding-to-the-hounds or him, the blue benevolence of her eyes asparkle with the unbearable lashing joy she was giving ... and oh! receiving too, and such a reward for her bounty ... the girlish squeals and sobs escaping her lips because ... oh golly, she loved it so! ... ahh, the thrashing and the thumping and feeling as though she were being overtaken and stabbed by a band of renegades ... highwaymen in the night's forest, rumbling right up her apex ... horses and hooves and sabres and the lot of it, all up in there ... oh Gloria, look at that starved young Irish cock as it divides you ... unnn ... the thick hot bursting of it, in and out and up and jammed and saved ...
"Aw me darlin', I wanna kiss ya, but you're ... so ... far ... so ... very far ... away ... " and then his mouth flopped open convulsively and he gasped, "Aw ... Jesus, Mary and Joseph, sure'n it's comin' I am ... holy blitherin' Christ, you're sittin' on an ocean, me girl ... batten down that lovely hatch before we sink ... ahhh!"
"... oooh yes ... yes, Terry ... splice and tear ... and make me weak with it, darling ... oh splash me, dear boy ... I'm wet!"
He reached up and seized her about the shoulders, then twirled her body in a revolving somersault until their positions were reversed, and he was on top of her, pummeling and slotting it into her and, finally, ending their mutual incision in a much more traditional manner-no girl-capturing throttles for him, no indeed ... when it came to meltin' his blarney-juices, it was man-topping-woman-time like he'd been taught in the old country ... and his father before him ... and the devil take the hindmost!
"Did I hurt you, then, with all that soupin' and poundin'?" he asked, his insatiable lips crowding in against hers again.
"No, my dear," she giggled, blithely returning his kisses, "but it was an odd sensation, because I was ... well, coming-in-transit, so to speak-I mean ... when you were rolling me over and right in the middle of a revolution, suddenly everything seemed to give way. It was a bit daring, doing it like that ... but rather splendid."
Gloria rose then and briskly began to dress, remembering that Manhattan was still expecting her.
Terence watched her, absently fingering his loose indolence. "Do you know what my secret desire is?"
"Tell me, tell me!" she said, almost before he'd finished the question.
"Now don't laugh," he chuckled bashfully, "but I've always wanted to do it while droppin' to earth in a parachute."
Fastening her bra, Gloria glanced at him and considered this aerial notion for a moment. "Wouldn't that be rather cumbersome with two parachutes?"
"Oh no, darlin', just one chute would do it ... with the right girl in my arms and firmly attached at the bottom before we leap ..."
"... and falling to earth inside of her!" Gloria elatedly finished the fancy for him. "My, what an imaginative idea, what a zenith to attain!"
"And by God, I'll do it one day too!" he vowed.
"Well there now! ... that's what I like to hear, Terry, some of the old ambition coming back again."
At the door he nudely kissed her once more and said: "Will ya look in on my little baby now and then to see that they're not mistreatin' her?"
She nodded solemnly, brushing a lock of hair out of his eyes. "That's what I'm here for, dear heart."
While walking down the five flights of stairs, Gloria couldn't help thinking of the romance-language of his parachute. What a heavenly fall from grace it could be ... melting angels' descent. Hmm ... she must make a note of that, now that the space age was here ...
After a quick Fifth Avenue bus ride that steamy morning, Gloria dislodged herself at Forty-Ninth Street, intent upon a chic snack at the Cafe de la Paix. Central Park South was tall and diamond-studded as she juggled her way through the holiday mobs towards the Hotel St. Moritz. She smiled mystically at all these salesmen and conventioneers from Sioux Falls and Walla Walla, so desperately seeking surcease from their hag-ridden lives back home. She felt like some great cosmic hostess, wanting to sweep them into her arms and show them that not all women were such fang-faced, penis-envying wretches.
The advent of middle-age seemed such a desolate crisis-time for most men, Gloria observed. Those in their traumatic forties appeared to be especially glandular and floundering, so touching and inarticulate in their last-gasp clutch at virility, their very genes bemoaning the oncoming eclipse of their libido.
However, as she reached her sidewalk paradise, she saw that it overflowed with the very same visiting refugees she was so eager to welcome. Consequently, the waiter led her to a mini-table that was behind too many heads and shoulders to see the street or even smell the carbon monoxide. Good gracious, she thought, this table's really nothing more than a tray with legs, which she was actually forced to share with someone. A man, she quickly discerned, but so submerged behind a newspaper that only his knuckles were visible. They were hairy. But some of the hairs were silver, she noted with mild interest, which made the exposure much more intriguing than vulgar.
"I'll have a stinger," she told the waiter, "and make it green, please." After the scurrying little man departed, Gloria sat back in her chair and preened a little. It was truly the most glorious, blue-skied day, she thought, gazing across the street at the tall, swaying trees in the park. She reached impulsively into her handbag for her sketchbook, deciding that if God's color-pots were being worked overtime today, she wanted to absorb some of their handiwork. Humming a little, she began a rough pencil sketch. Then she heard a soft low thunderclap on her left, and with a start, Gloria turned and saw that the hairy knuckles were no longer disembodied.
"I heard this delightfully feminine voice, and said to myself: 'Heathcliffe, old man, you can read the financial pages another time.' So I put aside my newspaper, and here you are, looking every bit as delectable as you sound."
Gloria gulped, and felt terribly clumsy and guileless under the imperious gaze of this stranger. She'd never in her life seen a man look so regal or prepossessing; and as a result, felt ridiculously tongue-tied, unable to do anything except stare and goggle at him.
"I take it you're an artist?" he said, his voice deep and disturbing as he eyed her little sketchbook, which Gloria quickly covered with flailing hands.
"Well, in a way," she said, "I mean ... sometimes ..." The waiter brought her drink and she sipped daintily and fast, just to keep busy and look soignée at the same time.
"I'm rather a Sunday painter myself," he announced, peering at her with such intense interest that Gloria's stomach turned over with each swallow of her creme de menthe. "I used to be deadly serious about it, of course, but now I consider it mainly a home-relaxer. I'm from Vermont. And you? You can't be from New York-not with all those magnolia blossoms nestling in your voice ..." He gave her a flashing, full-lipped smile, his mouth wide and sensuous, the insinuating curve of his lips and silky black moustache making her feel thoroughly naked under his gaze and wishing quite shamelessly that she were-except that she'd never been in the habit of picking up strangers. Goodness no! ... she had to know their home lives', backgrounds and astrological signs first, had to determine if they were marital underdogs or just plain on-the-loose and pleasure-bent. They had to need her before receiving the balm of her hands on them. Mere hedonist wanting was never enough.
And yet, this man was creating an overwhelming first impression on her-all that aged-in-the-wood maturity in one heady package. "You're right, sir," she finally managed to speak. "I am originally from the South. Texas." And then, chuckling nervously, she knew she was lapsing into a pronounced drawl. "But golly hemlock! ... I thought I'd lost my lil' ol accent by this time ..."
The stranger chucked too, his eyes diving down her cleavage. "Ahh ... but surely you're much too young to have lost anything you were born with."
Gloria thought about all the territory this remark covered, and with a glance at his softly grinning mouth, her thighs started to twitter under the table and she knew she had to change the subject in order to circumvent an involuntary cloudburst ... "My goodness, isn't it hot out today? I always feel so sorry for the dogs in this weather, don't you? They suffer so much ... and they have no way of telling us, except, of course, to let their tongues hang out ... and ... and ..." Blushing, Gloria suddenly bit her tongue and fell silent under his deepening gaze.
"You're enchanting," he said, his voice throaty and intimate as he reached across the table and covered her hand with his. "Are you all alone in the city?"
CHAPTER THREE
The touch of his hand on hers gave her such a charge, Gloria feared she might go into a tail spin minuet and fall right off her chair. "Oh no indeed, I'm not alone at all," she answered his question. "I have many friends, and ... and many interests ..."
He smiled. "My name is Montague. Heathcliffe Montague." Removing his hand from hers, he reached for a slim platinum container and offered her a cigarette, which Gloria seized gratefully, thrusting her face forward to accept his light. The man watched with unabashed appreciation as the girl's full red lips moistly puffed at the cork tip, maintaining a rather inadequate flare from his lighter so as to prolong the pleasing sight. "Ahh, what a lovely gamin mouth!" he said. "Tell me, child, what's your name?"
Nearly hypnotized by these words, she said: "Gamin Heavenrich. Uh ... no! ... I'm so sorry, it's Gloria. Yes ... just call me Gloria ..."
"Heavenrich!" he exclaimed delightedly. "What an ideal name for you. Sounds like some sort of pasteurized dairy product, all wholesome and creamy and health-giving ..." the hand reaching to cover hers once more ... "May I be so bold as to hope the label fits the contents, my dear?"
Gloria felt a tremor about the pelvis and couldn't remember when the mere presence of a man had made her feel so giddy and unschooled. Primly sipping her drink, she went through a cycle of unrelated biochemical reactions as she tried to perceive which of the stranger's features was most striking. The flowing black pompadour with the splash of silver at the sideburns, die dramatic widow's peak, the aquiline nose, the expressive mouth that was so full of humor and mobility, the high, sculptured cheekbones, or the black eyebrows and moustache? Or perhaps that low, rumbling voice which made him sound like the monarch of all he surveyed. Every time he spoke to her it sounded like a decree from some totalitarian dictator: "Tomorrow, the world, but today, YOU!"
"Heathcliffe," she said. "What a Ye Olde English sound that has to it-makes me think of the moors and the heather ..."
He said nothing to this, his eyes a continuing beam as they lingered about her throat and bodice. Then, after a breathless silence! "These are awfully cramped quarters for getting acquainted, so why don't we stroll across the street into the park? Not nearly so romantic as the moors, perhaps, but we can watch the ducks at play in their pond."
"Oh, I really shouldn't," said Gloria, thinking: at least not until I know how miserably your wife treats you, or if you've got one, or if you have kids back there in Vermont and want to import a truly sympathetic sitter. However, her body belied her coy refusal, for she was rising even as she spoke, telling herself how pleased Myrt and Gladys would be to see that at least she wasn't being picked up in a car. And, after paying the waiter and fighting the traffic, they were soon abroad in the summer time wilds of Central Park.
Heathcliffe was a towering vision in his elegant seasonal silks, and Gloria decided this man had to be about six-feet-four if he was an inch! They sat on one of the few unoccupied benches near the pond, watching their feathered friends at play. "My God, what a lovely, shining day!" said her escort, his voice idyllic and bursting. "How fortunate we are to live where the seasons change with such cleansing violence." Sensuously, he stretched the long and languid framework of his body, Gloria drinking in every ripple.
"However, the sun's a bit ruthless today," he added, "so why don't we meander in the shade for a bit?" He rose and extended his arm.
"I'd be delighted," she said politely, still wishing she could forget his chemistry long enough to dig up some of his history. They strolled leisurely down several intertwining paths, while the sun shot its steaming arrows, and fragments of noisy tourist capers surrounded them on all sides; attended by the fragrant drooping leaves, the blistering hot-house aromas of summer-caught-by-surprise ... Oh, it's all working against me, she thought-I wasn't ready to be melted down so early in the weekend ...
Heathcliffe removed something from his back pocket and struck a match to it. At once, Gloria envisioned a nightmarish montage of riots and Molotov-cocktails, thinking there was a touch of the Mad-Bomber about this man's eyes and stance.
But no, it was a pipe. A gilded question mark encrusted with star sapphires.
"Good gracious, you're not going to light that lovely thing, are you?"
Grinning and puffing, he said: "My dear, pipes have their function, just as you and I."
Watching how his lips curled about the pipe and the word "function," Gloria could think of nothing to say for a moment, and her knees went a bit wobbly.
"Tell me about your painting," he said. "Do you do it full-time, or are you compelled to divide your energies?"
"Well ... that's a good word, 'divide,'" she began, "because you see, I work in an office 35 hours a week, but quite often, in the evenings-when I'm not needed elsewhere-I do find time to sketch a little ..."
"Ahh ... that is charmant!" he said approvingly. "But yet, when you're not at the office, or sketching, exactly what is it you do when you're ... 'needed elsewhere,' as you put it?"
Gloria wracked her brain to decide which of her multi-faceted activities she could discuss rather than demonstrate. Determined to avoid all mention of her marital-misfit campaign, she told him of the many evening courses she took at Columbia or Cooper Union ... "To broaden my horizons," she explained. And went on to tell him of the lonely shut-ins and recluses she visited in Manhattan, just to lighten their weary load. "Why, it would jar your slats to know how many people I've found to visit who are absolutely starving for social intercourse ..."
"Oh ho!"
"... Now I'm talking about your real hard-core senility cases, those poor leftovers of humanity. They talk and I listen. That's the only blessed thing I do, but I know I help them. Why, just last year I married off this seventy-eight-year-old bachelor with only one lung and a chronic prostate. And don't you know, in six months he was such a changed man, he went out and got himself a job working a pile-driver."
Heathcliffe laughed heartily and squeezed her hand in his. "Oh, I do like a generous jeune fille! There are so few selfless creatures left in your age bracket."
Gloria felt considerably warmed by his appreciation, although she wasn't so naive as to think she'd gotten him off the subject of "giving" in other fields of endeavor. But he seemed so receptive, it spurred her on to confide in him even more. "You know, often when I'm calling on some bedragged soul who's really had it, and I know that nothing I'd say could help, I bring my easel and my colors ... and I sit there and paint something."
"But what on earth could you find to paint at death's door?"
"Well, something pretty. I do try to make it pretty. Because remember now, these are people who have no one left to see them go, except maybe their priest or rabbi or minister, so I'll sit there a half hour or so, sketching something silly or tight-hearted, and then POOP! they'll go. But I'll get a smile out of them first, or at least a wink. Golly, some of them even wave goodbye!"
She was then startled by a wild crescendo of laughter. "Gloria Heavenrich, you're a wonder!" cried Heathcliffe. "A living, flying wonder!" He turned and pulled her swiftly into his arms, deftly tilting her chin and plunging his soft warm mouth fully down against hers for a long, obliterating kiss. Gloria's legs felt like melted wax under this heady bombardment, but she flung her arms about his neck, her lips claimed and caught by the steaming hot caresses of his mouth, which gently parted to enjoy more deeply the dewy lipsticked taste of her, welcoming her lacy hesitant tongue as it searched and flicked, his big hands pressing down against her spine until they came to rest on the taut straining buttocks, where they stayed and cradled.
"Ohh ... don't do that!" she said; and with a stab at propriety, wrenched away from him. "I mean, not here. You never know what'll pop out of these bushes." She pressed a finger against her lips to still their trembling, then straightened her blouse. "Shall we keep walking? It's much safer being a moving target in the park these days ..."
A secretive smile played about Heathcliffe's lips, but he said nothing; simply took her arm and they continued strolling.
"Now it's time we talked about you, Heathcliffe," she said. "Tell me about your home in Vermont. Do you paint landscapes up there, or ... are you too busy with your family? Wives and children can be such a debilitating bore sometimes, don't you think ... hmm?" Steady girl, she cautioned herself-that was a powerfully disturbing kiss, but don't get your hopes up.
"Oh pooh pooh, Gloria Heavenrich," he was saying, "you can't possibly want to hear about stuffy old me. Except for a lingering devotion to Art, I'm really only a retired country farmer. I spend most of my time working in the garden; which, if I do say it, is a masterpiece. My gladioli have run off with every flower show in New England."
"Retired? And so young!"
He grinned, jabbing a responsive thumb into the palm of her sweaty little hand. "Nonsense, I'm forty-five, my dear. But I could as easily have retired at fourteen."
I knew he had breeding, thought Gloria, taking heart, but still wishing he'd list all his tax exemptions, if any.
"However, as an artist, dear girl, this weekend is my swan song."
"Oh nonsense, the true artist never gives up," she said. "Look at Gaugin, painting his lovely guts out over there in Tahiti."
Heathcliffe nodded sadly. "Ahh, but he had the courage to escape the crassness of civilization, and you see, when my last effort with the brush was shown locally, it was acclaimed by all commercial critics ..."
"Splendid!"
"... after which I longed to take it home and keep it forever in reserve for my own secret pleasure. Instead, I was persuaded that I owed a debt to my public, that groveling man-on-the-street so sloppily sired by the population explosion ..."
His voice had grown so abruptly hostile, Gloria dimly wondered about the origins of his tobacco.
"... And so I let them make a circus of my life's work, which is now being blatantly displayed by one of those Shylock dealers on Fifty-Seventh Street!"
She blinked at him in awe. "But that's marvelous. You must be talking about a salon."
"Sewer would be more like it," he said ruefully-and then with a twist of his Lincolnesque head, he shot her a glittering smile. "Gloria Heavenrich, you're dying to see that immortal canvas, are you not?"
Once more his voice sent her into a flutter of lids, tips and loins, and she tried to return his smile. "If ... if you want to show it to me, Heathcliffe, I'd be very honored to see it ..."
"Excellent!" he said, pivoting her about and aiming her towards Fifth Avenue and a taxi, "on to the Salons!"
* * *
In the cab he took her hand and pressed it against his upper thigh, Gloria trying not to appear too immobilized and deciding he must have a deep sunburn there, or else ... why all that ultra violet pull?
"Would you care to hear the story behind this painting, my dear?" He pressed her ringers a little father up his silk.
Gloria felt a mild rustle of fabric, the sensation very much like standing on a railroad track and feeling the vibrations of an approaching train that was still miles away. "Oh?" she said. "Does your painting have a legend?"
"I'm afraid it's much too painfully real to be legendary," he said with a sigh. "This esthetic grand finale is a portrait of my late wife."
Oh good gracious, he's only a widower, she thought deflatedly; nobody left to rescue him from. But then a more cheering notion struck her-perhaps this woman had been such a vicious monster while she lived that the horrible memory of her still haunted him, which meant that he might have that special hunger for her after all. Ahh! ... another lost and wailing casualty-husband, and looking like this ... like God The Father with thighs of fire ...
"Monica ... " he was saying, his voice atremble, "oh Monica, for the grueling grasping public to gape at ... Monica, blared out so obscenely into the sunlight, into the smashed faces of vagrants, panhandlers, as transient and degrading as those balls hanging in every pawnshop doorway ... Offered up to them, like alms! Oh woe, Monica ... you with your slow slinky smile, your midnight eyes that could and did mean everything mysterious known to Man!"
With a fitful leap Heathcliffe pitched himself into the corner of the seat and collapsed into a paroxysm of hysterical, hacking sobs, howling and beating the upholstery with all the obsessed fervor of a banshee on a toot.
Oh dear, apparently this lady wasn't a snarling hag after all, mourned Gloria. And then caught the quick sneer of their driver in the rear-view mirror as he cautiously pulled over to the curb. She sprang forward like an avenging tigress. "Keep going, sir, until you're told to stop. Don't you have any respect? This man's wife just died." As they rode on, she closed the glass partition, plagued by too many mixed and brewing emotions to know what to say for the moment. The poor dear man had been so gay and valiant, who would have thought he'd be hiding such a wound? He'd seemed so happy-go-lucky. He must have just buried her.
She reached out to comfort him. "There now, Mr. Montague, please don't carry on so. I mean ... I've never seen a man cry before, and that's the truth ..." She tried to offer him a handkerchief, a lace affair that had been dipped in Tibetan sachet for weeks. But he waved it aside, apparently inconsolable. "If it means anything, I'd like you to know how sorry I am, Mr. Montague," she said. "What an exemplary person your wife must have been. Monica. Was that her name? My, what a pretty name. She must have been a saint ..."
In a flash Heathcliffe popped up in the seat, completely poised and dry-eyed. This was such a fast reflex, Gloria's delicate crying towel fluttered somewhere between his legs; and ooh! ... how she longed to play the gay retriever, those mysterious folds of his trousers so darkly abulge and entreating. But she clenched her fists and thought better of it, while Heathcliffe moved to the other side of the car and eyed her guardedly. "You dare to call her a saint? She was a vulgar man-eating bitch, and I hated the very earth from which she sprang! Everybody hated her ...!"
... ooh ... I love this man! ... and he can have his way with me or torture me or bend me to his will, because he's got my initials carved all over him ... and I knew it from the first ... he's mine!
"... and furthermore, don't you pretend you liked her, dear girl," he added, "no ... not at this late date!"
With this curious remark, Gloria's eyes returned to the rear-view mirror and the cab driver's leer. Moving forward, she carefully reopened the glass partition.
CHAPTER FOUR
Gloria leaned back in the seat and tried to gather her wits. Well new, this man will certainly bear watching, she decided, for he's obviously under a bit of a strain. And yet, she could suddenly visualize quite clearly the woman who did it to him: a brassy, swollen blonde with cash-register eyes and a Tommy Manville complex. Heathcliffe had undoubtedly been the sensitive one, while she had been unspeakably vain and dense. Oh, the poor, tortured darling, she wouldn't blame him if he'd murdered her ... Gloria gasped as this thought pin wheeled through her mind. Stealthily, she turned and watched his face. He seemed so calm and self-contained, she was certain he'd forgotten his outburst entirely. And honestly, was that the face of a murderer? Wishing she hadn't asked herself this question, she decided to attribute all of his unorthodox behavior to the heat.
But as they reached Fifty-Seventh Street, they'd only ventured a few steps before Gloria had to ask the question. "Heathcliffe, I know it's rude of me to pry, but tell me, how did it happen? Monica, I mean. How did she go?"
"She froze to death."
The hand that gripped hers felt suddenly hot and heavy. Gloria's chilled a bit. "You were ... on a Polar expedition?"
Grimly, he shook his head. "This suicide was strictly homegrown."
"Suicide?" Her round blue eyes widened in horror.
"Yes ... one morning, after a rather abortive affair with our butcher, Monica threw herself into the food-freezer ..."
"... NO!"
He nodded. "And without a stitch on, of course-not even a slice of parsley in her teeth."
Shivering, Gloria glared at him. "But ... how hideous!"
"Yes, it was rather nasty," he firmly took her arm and continued down the street. "You see, she'd very carefully taken all my meat out."
"Your meat?" Gloria queried, detesting her flaming cheeks, which her escort noted with a brief sidelong glance.
"In the freezer, my lusty little dove," he said, chuckling at the refreshing show of gluttony on her face. "We had a three-months' supply of steaks, loin-roasts and suckling pigs-but, lamentably, everything spoiled."
Gloria gazed up at the lovely azure sky for a second, as if to find some answers in the ether of infinity. "Well, my goodness! ... couldn't she have taken an overdose of sleeping pills like everybody else?"
"Never touched them. Slept like a rag doll, the over-breasted Mongoloid!"
"But what a grisly way to go, frozen stiff."
"I'm afraid that filthy fellatrice was stiff before she was frozen or she would never have done it in the first place."
Gloria tried to tell herself that this situation was truly made-to-order, for here was a man who'd been married to an adulterous drunk and desperately needed someone to make him forget her. She peered questioningly at him. "She drank?"
Nodding, Heathcliffe did three genuflections and half a Hail Mary. "Poured it everywhere, the scummy little vampire!" Suddenly he turned and stopped in his tracks, gripping Gloria so violently about the shoulders that she lost her balance and went down on one knee, Mammy-style. "But look ... there she is, right before our eyes! ... the most seductive child-molester of them all!" He pointed behind her at one of the Salon show-windows, and seemed quite unaware of Gloria's scrambling struggle to get both feet back on the ground. Grabbing his lapels, she yanked herself upwards, while Heathcliffe continued his oddly ambivalent eulogy ... "You know, Monica never really belonged on this planet ..."
"Is that a fact?"
"No ... she was like some orgiastic comet that had been gassed into the wrong solar system; and even if I could have withstood her a moment longer, she wouldn't have lasted. But, my dear, when you gaze upon those classic features, please realize what I've done for the universe, and for her. No matter what a monumental tart she was in her lifetime, now that she's dead, I've made her a shrine."
Gloria felt on the verge of neurasthenia, torn by a seething desire for this man and an inexplicable surge of terror. Trying to forget that she'd ripped her nylons and had slightly scabbed a knee, she turned slowly and stared into the showcase window.
At once she spotted it. A huge portrait of a dark and leering lady with a Neapolitan squint.
"Monica?" she muttered.
"In all her glory!" Heathcliffe stood proudly behind her. "Now perhaps you see that I had to capture that face."
Gloria moved close to the window, her nose flattened against the glass. Then her trance-like state crumbled into frenetic little pieces of anxiety and surprise ... Why, for heaven's sake, there's no doubt about it. A reproduction, of course, but ... it's the Mona Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci, b. 1452-d. 1519.
Her mouth dangling open in the scorching breeze, Gloria turned and searched his face, waiting for him to tell her they'd been discussing the wrong portrait and Monica was really being unveiled down the street or next-door ... or in Dutch Guiana ...
"Notice her smile?" he was saying. "Infuriating, isn't it? Everyone called it 'an alluring enigma,' the fools! She had nothing but sodomy on the brain, and that's the most dyspeptic looking leer I've ever seen on a female."
Gloria studied the awe-inspiring conviction on his face, and thought how staggering it was, and rather glorious too, because he hadn't the slightest doubt. But darn it all, this was surely the most artfully deranged mind she'd ever stumbled over, and what a positive joy it must be for him, what a crowning achievement not having to waste his creative energies on daydreams or wishful thinking ... He doesn't have to dream, thought Gloria, because he knows! Oh, how I envy him. It would be such a luxury to get off the fence and stop being a mere eccentric and, instead, become truly unhinged in this tender, old-world way. The Renaissance that walks like a man ...
"Well now," she grinned cozily at him, "if that isn't ever a stunning portrait." She patted his shoulder and delicately tried to edge him away from the shop.
But he refused to budge from his post. "Naturally you've noticed I'm exhibiting it under an assumed name?"
"Oh yes ... I caught that."
"I picked a good one, don't you think?"
"Well ... nobody's used it late," she chuckled; then tugged at his arm again. "Wouldn't it be a lovely day to go shindow wopping ... uh ... I mean window shopping?"
"For awhile, if you like," he said, taking her arm and escorting her down the street. "However, my girl, we must soon begin to choreograph our weekend."
Oh golly, then he does want everything I've been saving for him! But then she started to shake her head demurely, because he probably wanted to go to her place, and she'd never once been seen bringing a man into her apartment. It seemed like one of the modern miracles of all time, but she enjoyed a flawless reputation among her neighbors, and good heavens! ... she wouldn't even know how to go about entertaining a lover unless she was simultaneously babysitting in someone else's apartment. So many of her native reflexes had been geared to Dr. Spock, and any question of dallying in a cheap motel room was out.
"I've decided to keep our idyll as Asiatic as possible," Heathcliffe rambled on. "Three Arabian nights are better than none, don't you agree, my rose-scented truffle?"
He pressed a fever-stricken cheek against hers, and Gloria heard a ringing in her ears that sounded exactly like the Don't-Rain-On-My-Parade lilt of her door chimes ... "I take it you live alone, you leggy lass," he said, pulling her closer. "Tell me, pretty Gloria, what is Heaven's address?"
... Good gravy, he'll think I'm crazier than he is if I tell him I can't take him home unless he has a baby, and that everyone in my apartment house thinks I'm a virgin-sitter and I absolutely adore that sick delusion and want to preserve it ...
Gloria scrambled out of his arms and ogled into the nearest show-window. "Good Lord, look, a genuine Matisse!" Her squeal was so high-pitched she was sure it could only be heard by the passing pigeons.
A large hairy hand stole snakily from behind, halting somewhere in the vicinity of her upper abdomen. "I'd planned to kill the holiday with some arthritic old cronies on Long Island," he said, "but I cannot forsake this prospect of poetic investigation. We must know each other better, my sprite, starting with body and soul ... and in that order ..."
With a dizzying pirouette, Gloria twirled out of his reach and bounced on to the next window, pointing madly. "Oooh ... it's Picasso!"
The proprietary hand once more, encircling, probing. "My dear, do let me dance attendance on you," he persisted.
"... in his Mauve Period!"
Turning her about to face him, Heathcliffe lowered his leonine head and devouringly swamped his mouth in against hers. Once more Gloria felt the velvet clutch of doom ... the soft emollient crush of his lips bringing on that lovely feeling of loss and helplessness ... as his tongue slid smoothly in and confiscated the very whole of her, paring her vitals from the core right on out ... sealing all the gaps and doubts ... "Think what a romp we'll have in your little lair," he murmured, his lips still full and brushing against hers ... "Just you and I, with nothing on but the twilight ..."
They'd now begun to draw a small crowd on the street, people tittering, pointing, full of the derision that was born of envy. But Gloria ignored them all and clung to him more fiercely. "Oh Heathcliffe, yes ... I'll be your wild sweet Kathy on the moors and under the heather ... you poor wrecked darling, how that woman must have torn you to shreds!"
"She was a thug," he concurred, taking her hand as they strolled afresh.
"All right then, call us a taxi, dear. I ... I live in a rather chaste dormitory, but I'll do my best to smuggle you in."
In the cab he sent some well-seasoned fingers gliding up her satin thigh, while Gloria sighed and let him become acclimatized to all the tremors and vibrations this contact brought to her, winging her thighs apart for his gently nudging intrusion, as he experimentally sank in first one roving pinky, then a ring finger then another ... whhissh! ... right up to the knuckles. This was such a stinging sensation that Gloria went a little faint and placed her handbag over the impounded terrain ... "Oooh ... darling, I think I'm going to be tickled to death just knowing you ... but please, not here ... with that meter clicking and the driver leering ... and ..." But she gasped and shuddered once more as he damply wedged up past her ring of fire and happily furrowed there. With a quavering sigh, she let her head rest on his hard, broad shoulder ... "I know I should be afraid of you, with that evil stud-demon in your eyes ... ahhh! ... don't ... no, please ... not like that ..."
"Ummm! ... my angel-girl ... I feel as though I'd been lost in the desert for years when I touch that bubbly mirage down there ... " He pressed his cheek against the silky perfumed blondness of her hair as he spoke, "and oh, you delicious one ... do you know what it will mean to an old roué like me, just to be able to sip a woman under thirty again?"
"Golly ... such talk! ... I oughta have you arrested ..." she said, wincing from another furtive jab. "No really ... I'm in danger here ... ohh! ..."
"Good God, what a manicure!" he said as still another burly knuckle joined the throng.
Gloria tried to think of some elegant way she could keep wriggling and squirming under this attack, so headily stuffed with that nuzzle of doom inside her panties ... impossible not to meet it and greet it and swivel and fantail and ... "Oh golly, yes ... yes! ... I want to feel all those widower's tentacles in there, pulling ... and pinning ... and blotting out the fear ... and this is how I'll end my days, I think ... donated ... and given in trust ... without a question ... without panic ..."
With each thudding beat of his heart, Heathcliffe grew more moistly latched to her. "Ahhhh! ... it isn't raining rain, you know, it's raining violets!"
Pale and dewy-lipped, Gloria snapped her legs tightly together and thus trapped his yearning pilgrimage in sweet repose. Nice timing too, because a moment later their taxi approached Washington Square, and home-country.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Stop here!" Gloria cried, deftly unhooking her apparatus and sliding free. Although they were still two blocks from her apartment building, she decided it might be best to approach her nosey neighbors on foot. Less of a shock for them that way, especially since Heathcliffe would be the first gentleman caller she'd ever acknowledged in public. She also remembered that her apartment was an untidy mess, and hoped there'd be some way to delay his entrance until she'd gotten it to look a tittie less like a tossed salad.
As they skirted the Square and sped through MacDougal Alley, Gloria tried to break Heathcliffe's galloping mountaineer stride ... Sakes alive, he's like a young bull feeling his first picador-so compulsive! But as they reached her entrance, Gloria saw at a glance that the humidity was against her. Several of the ladies who couldn't afford to skip town for the weekend were stationed outside on folding chairs that had been placed under the warped canopy. Gloria's landlady, Leona Liebowitz, distributed the chairs to her tenants every summer. They were crumbling relics from her salad days, when she and her ailing husband engineered a bathhouse bordello on Fire Island. Today Leona's cheering section wasn't the usual battalion; only three of the busiest bosom-bodies in the building. The out-sized Leona, resplendent in Lane Bryant leotards, Tony Danizetti's wife Madge, and Terence Kildaire's estranged wife Birdie, that champion huntress of unidentified delivery boys and salesmen.
Gloria took one glance at the dilapidated building she called home, and made a fast decision. "I live here," she jabbed a thumb over her shoulders, "in that ... quaint turn-of-the-century house that has seen better days. But while I go up and air the place out, I wonder if you'd do an errand for me?"
"But certainement, my treasure! What is your heart's desire?"
"Well, I've nothing cold to drink, and there's a liquor store a few doors up the block, so if you'd like some beer ... or ..."
"... Ah, but no! ... it'll be champagne for us, my love ... endless oceans of champagne."
"That's lovely, Heathcliffe. I'll see you in a few minutes. My apartment number is 602."
Gloria turned to go, but he seized her in his arms and gave her another long and grappling smooch that was reminiscent of Ramon Navarro in his heyday. "Unn ... the taste of your lips is such a tempting preview ... and when I think of the flavors yet to come ... Gad! ... all that charisma from one girlish blossom!"
Witnessing this astonishing interchange, Gloria's neighbor ladies-two of whose husbands she'd nursed back to health-shot off their camp chairs and stood at gaping attention.
"Hold that kiss for me," Heathcliffe murmured, then headed down the block, stopping briefly to light his bejeweled pipe.
"So nu, Gloria, tell me," wheezed Leona as the girl approached, "who's the alter cocker smoking the uncut diamond?"
Remembering what a wholesome and glowing opinion these women had of her, Gloria tried to see Heathcliffe's arrival in their eyes, wondering which way they'd react-as bodyguards or matchmakers.
She felt Birdie's speculative eyes on her. "Christ, he looks like he owns the Bank of America!" she said. Birdie was a beautiful twenty-four-year-old redhead who managed to put a great deal of fun in her life, although she rarely smiled.
"Ain't he wearin' one of them two-hundred-dollar Fiberglas suits that sucks out all the sweat?" asked the ever-weary Madge. "I seen it in Life last week."
Gloria thought of poor Tony, pleading with his wife for a tittie affection while she sat up and read magazines all night.
"So stern and sober he looks," said Leona, slumping back down on her chair. "That greying hair with the peeking widow-and such posture! To stand any straighter he'd have to be paralyzed. So mazel tov, Gloria darling-you deserve a rich husband already, and kids of your own after all these years of taking care of everybody else's children."
"Will you girls stop clacking and let me pass?" said Gloria. "I've only got a few minutes to get upstairs and straighten my apartment before he finds out what an absolute bird-cage I live in."
"Darling listen, a catch like that, you should only lock the door when you get him in there," said Leona, her enthusiasm starting to bubble. "And I'll give you away, Ketzeleh ... and say listen, I'll make for you such a trousseau ... not to mention layettes ... and bassinets ..."
"Oh please, you're all a lot of romantic idiots," said Gloria. "Mr. Montague happens to be a very cultured gentleman and I assure you that whatever he's got on his mind, it isn't matrimony ..."
"... Oh ho!" said Madge.
"... I mean ... he's an old friend of the family who just happens to be passing through. More like an uncle, very innocent and ... and very plutonic ..." Gloria found that she'd begun to shout in their scoffing faces as she pushed past them and entered the building.
* * *
Once inside her apartment she dashed about like a mad thing for about thirty seconds, picking up here, scooping under there. First she grabbed that box of Tampax off the top of her TV set and hid it in the bathroom; after which she seized the panties she'd hung out to dry on the antenna and buried them in a dresser drawer. Then, to her horror, the door chimes rang out. Oh golly, it couldn't be him so soon-it had only been a few minutes, and there was so much more that needed piecing together.
But it wasn't Heathcliffe. It was her landlady, Mrs. Liebowitz, and also Tony's wife Madge, and behind them a veritable brigade of neighbor ladies from the lower floors, all carrying brooms and dust-mops and vacuum cleaner. Some of the women were only vaguely familiar to her, although in several cases she'd diapered their husbands as well as their babies. During the years Gloria had "sat" for most of these women, and it hadn't been easy to pretend she didn't know what aggravating nuisances they were in the eyes of their husbands. If it hadn't been for the medicinal attentions she'd given these men, their homes would have been broken up years ago. So it was a little ironic having to accept their generosity now, when none of these women realized exactly how grateful to her they should be.
"Darling, we've come to brighten up your little place so you'll make a good impression on your fiance!" announced Leona Liebowitz, out of breath from lugging two bloated shopping bags.
"But Leona dear, no ... and ... you other ladies, listen to me! This is all very sweet of you, but there's no time. Mr. Montague will be here any minute."
"Relax, hon," said the mournful-eyed Madge. "We got Birdie Kildaire to stall him for awhile, 'till we get things lookin' real pretty."
"Birdie Kildaire!" gasped Gloria; and in a flash she saw a vision of that horrible day when Terence found her with the census-taker. "Where ... where ... is she?"
"So cool it, you schnook," said Leona. "They're outside talking under the canopy. That little bigamist shiksah wouldn't dare lay a finger on him in public." Then she turned to Madge. "Would she?"
"She'll never tell, so who're you asking?" said Madge. "Now come on, let's get busy."
Amidst Gloria's wailing protests, the whole contingent of busty do-gooders barged into her apartment. They were all chattering so giddily that to an outsider the event might have been anything from a bar mitzvah to the Pillsbury Bake-Off. Some of the women scurried into the place carrying floral displays or linen or silver or artificial fruit, everyone laughing together in some alarming panic of mass conspiracy. Golly, it's the Long Hot Summer Syndrome in reverse, thought Gloria-people ganging up to force love on their fellows instead of hostility. So she decided there was nothing for it but passive resistance.
"Gloria really! ... they oughta call you Miss Still Waters of 1969, you sneaky little thing," rasped a horsy matron from the second floor front. "Later, we'll cook you the fastest wedding supper on record ..."
"Oh no, please," Gloria said limply. "We're not hungry ... or engaged ... or anything ..."
Gazing over the ladies' shoulders, Gloria saw that several men had joined the throng, standing out in the hall wielding beer cans. She recognized Steve Overton from downstairs, wondering why he kept beckoning to her so insistently. Also the flaxen-haired Lars Svensen; and for a fleeting second she caught Tony's puzzled and inquiring glance, but there was so much immediate activity, she found it quite simple to avert her eyes from him, although she wouldn't be a bit surprised if he felt betrayed by the arrival of a legitimate suitor in her life.
It was only about fifteen minutes before Birdie led Heathcliffe to this eruptive scene, but by that time the apartment was too mobbed for either of them to squeeze through the door. Leona and Madge were hanging bright shantung drapes, while another housefrau-fifth floor front, Gloria noted-was applying all her Hoover attachments to the carpets and cobwebs. Two women, whom she only dazedly recalled, were setting up her skimpy table in the parlor, over which they threw a breathtaking tablecloth of genuine damask. Beating her way through to the kitchenette, Gloria found that even more treasures were being laid at her feet. Exquisite silver, a service of Danish china with the sassiest cupid design, and on the floor, waxing the linoleum with savage vigor, was that attractive young hippie-manuscript typist from 201 who was also a part-time hooker and librarian.
Gloria stood and gaped at the bedlam in her apartment ... Goodness, everybody's acting like it's Sadie Hawkins Day and I've just run the mile in nothing flat! Then she noticed Heathcliffe towering splendidly in her doorway, a bucket of champagne swinging in his hand. He was being offered one of the folding camp chairs which Tony and Birdie had set up in the hallway. But it was almost impossible for her to reach him, and seemed like ages before Gloria was able to push her way through the crowd to the other side of her apartment; and she was so anxious to talk to him and somehow explain the reason for this undignified pageant. All the poor man had wanted was a little romance and intimacy, and instead, here he was, face to face with chaos and confusion. Not very good therapy either, having all these well-meaning Amazons manipulating and guiding him. What would it do to his psyche, which, from all he'd told her, had already been sufficiently cauterized for one lifetime.
And when she finally reached the doorway, he was gone. I knew it! ... she thought, frightened off like a startled buck ...
"Don't panic, hon," said Birdie Kildaire, sprawled on a folding chair and fanning herself with a frozen pizza. "Tony took Lover-Lips over to his apartment for a shower and a band-aid."
"But what happened?" Gloria saw that one of the chairs, which had apparently been Heathcliffe's, had split in two.
"Sweetie, the whole chair gave way and he ripped his pants seam!" Birdie went into an unaccustomed fit of laughter. "Leona musta picked that chair up in some city dump back in 1935. He fell right on his cute ass-you should'a saw his face, like Jack Lemmon in The Odd Couple, I swear to God!"
Shaken by this news, Gloria thought of Heathcliffe's wounded dignity, although she tried not to think of the advances Birdie might have made towards him that could have caused this accident. It was even more unnerving to think of the blistering earful Tony Danizetti might be giving him about her this very minute, the two of them alone in that apartment, swapping notes and old wives' tales ... "Oooh! ... I must go to him," she said, her arms outstretched and reaching across the hall. But in the next instant she was swept back into her parlor by Leona and Madge, who had just finished redecorating what they prayed would be her marriage bier. "Tell me, darling," said Leona, edging Gloria towards the windows, "did you ever see such well-hung drapes in your life?"
"They're lovely, Leona, but please ... let me ..."
"... and Gloria sweetheart, listen to me something please; when you finally get that mensch alone, I want you shouldn't worry about house rules. You know that little NO-NO-CHART over your clothes-hamper saying what not to do? So tear it down and do it, darting. Feel freely!" With a series of sloppy hugs and kisses, Leona finally led Madge and Birdie away from the bustling scene. And a few minutes later several other neighborly invaders started to leave, all promising to return at some propitious time during the weekend with special desserts basted with brandy. Soon the apartment was cleared and Gloria was able to close her door on the premature bridal shower.
However, before dashing across the hall to rescue Heathcliffe, she felt it might be more sensible of her to shower and change. Her holiday garb was a crumpled, wilted mess, and she felt much too sticky and deflated to make the enchanting sort of impression a connoisseur like Heathcliffe had the right to expect.
Twenty minutes later Gloria gazed into her mirror at the glittering and glossy job she'd done on herself. A simple peasant blouse and skirt, and those brand new three-inch pumps she was determined to wear for added stature and queenliness under fire. She phoned across the hall and told the Donizetti's she was ready to be launched, and would they please send over the Commodore?
A moment later Madge and Tony stood in the doorway with their offering-Heathcliffe. And if Gloria resembled a simple, glowing milk maid, he was definitely a throwback to the Marquis of Queensberry. Tight bulging denims, white T-shirt and hairy muscles galore. Her moist Vermillion lips parted in a small sigh, for she never realized he'd look quite so primeval partially stripped.
Tony gave her a sly, winking grin, the significance of which Gloria didn't even want to think about; although it could mean he was being nastily jealous, or that he now felt he knew all her precious secrets: that she consorted with every available male she could lay her hands on, not only henpecked husbands. Some day she'd take him aside and tell him about Heathcliffe's tragic-opera background; and, being Italian, he might understand ... But later, not now.
"I'm gonna sew up that rip in his pants, hon," Madge was saying.
"I let him wear some of the gym things I work out in," said Tony. "They really fit him where it counts, don't you think so, Gloria?"
"Of course they fit him," said Madge. "Because he's got a real swell build on him, just like you, honey ..."
Heathcliffe's eyes were on Gloria, appraising and alert. But he seemed so silent and full of danger that Gloria's tottering heels suddenly gave her an uncommon fear of heights, and she clutched the doorknob for support, navigating herself carefully backwards. Heathcliffe's resemblance to a handsome hoary lifeguard had taken her unawares, and she felt a disturbing rush of physiology at the pit of her stomach ... Ooh ... he's turning me on, she thought, struggling to give the whole mystic phenomenon some semblance of current reality.
The Donizetti's left them alone at last, and with the grace of a pantomimist, Heathcliffe removed Gloria's hands from the knob and swiftly closed the door.
Good gravy, we're alone for the first time today! No waiters or cab drivers or neighbors ...
Peering intensely up and down her body, Heathcliffe clasped both her hands in his, up high, as though they were about to dissolve into the Virginia Reel.
"Take those blasted things off," he commanded. "Qu'est-ce que c'est?"
"Those barbaric stilts. They're not only killing you, but they're putting your nipples on an eye-level with mine, and I find that rather obscene."
"Well now!" she tried to laugh but only quaked. "As a matter of fact, they are a half-size too small. I have them made by this marvelous little leather worker in Gracie Square, but she is getting on ..."
Gloria scrambled into the dressing room and slid into her satin ballet slippers with the secret arches, after which she sprang back into the living room to make sure he was still there. He was.
"Ahh ... what a delightful entrechat, my pure Pavlova!" he said, and pulled her into his arms, his warm mouth a soft and tender salute as he kissed her gently at first, and then more deeply, his lips parting, his tongue smoothly entering to be sucked and received by her, and getting his wish as she sighed and gulped and let his hand slip inside her bra, her flesh going like jelly with the mere touch of him ... telling herself once more that he was the one and her search was over and betrothal lay dead ahead. "You could quite easily be a ballerina, you know ..." he murmured, his lips moist and circling, "you're as graceful as a gazelle ..."
... Oh good heavens, the Ballet! She pulled away from him and glanced down at her watch. Nearly two o'clock, and how terrible it was to have this lovely compliment remind her of the day and the hour. She remembered Steve Overton again, beckoning to her in the hall. He and his wife were attending a ballet matinee-dear sweet enslaved Steve Overton! And she was all set to stay with their baby for three hours, with Tony Danizetti planning to sneak in and visit her there later, which was probably another reason for all his sly winks and grins, although naturally even he wouldn't be such a beast as to hold her to that appointment, now that Heathcliffe was so firmly planted on her horizon. But it was too late for her to disappoint the Over-tons, since there wasn't time for them to get anybody else.
She gave Heathcliffe this news, saying she was sorry but it was a previous obligation and she was sort of pledged and it was really a matter of honor.
He looked crestfallen, although he found the idea of her as a babysitter quite charming. "But why not bring the little tot here and we'll tend him together?" he said, taking her in his arms again. "Or better still, I'll come down and visit you there after they've gone ... "
Gloria had a horrible vision of Tony knocking on that same door as Heathcliffe approached and caught him there. "No dear, I'm sorry," she said, pulling away from him, "that would be taking advantage ... using their apartment as a ... a tryst. Bad form, you know-couldn't forgive myself. Oh darling, this is an awful thing to do to you, after you've been so very tolerant and patient."
"Oh well, scurry away if you must, my dedicated Madonna," he said blithely. "And I'll tell you what! I'll stay here and plan our dinner. I'm a magnificent chef, you know, and under my guidance you'll be devouring the most sensuous nutriments that ever touched your lips ..." He swept her back into his arms and kissed her with a wild passion. "My dear, tell me you'll let me feed you whatever delectable morsel I devise, no matter how exotic or unnatural it may seem as it glides past your pretty pink tongue. Say it, girl or glory ... before we part ... say you'll let me feed you ..."
She nodded, many times. "I'll let you feed me ... let you, let you ... let you ..." his mouth caught this stream of words and silenced them. He let her go, then blowing her a kiss at the door ...
Reluctantly, Gloria went downstairs to the floor below and knocked on the Overton's door.
CHAPTER SIX
"Oh Gloria, we're so glad it's you!" said Sandra Overton, letting her in. "We were just about to phone you."
"Yes, I know ... I'm terribly late," said Gloria. "Hi there, Mr. Overton."
"Hello, Gloria," Steve Overton grinned warmly at her. "How've you been? I see you've got a house-guest ..."
She nodded. "A distant cousin. You know how it is ..." She let her eyes dwell on him for a second, absorbing his sandy-haired good looks and gangling physique. Although Steve had a lean and mild-mannered bank-clerk look to him, Gloria knew that beneath that tranquil shell lurked a snarling ruffian. His wife was a portly, round-faced matron in her late thirties, forever hopping from one low-cal diet to another. To Gloria she had always seemed a very gracious and gently humorous woman. But whenever she saw Steve alone, he had other stories to relate about his home life, which proved to her that appearances could sometimes be grossly deceiving.
"Jaimie's sound asleep, dear," Sandra told her, "so there's really very little for you to do. You know where we'll be in case of an emergency." She adjusted her dark glasses and took her husband's arm. "Come on, sweetie, let's hurry and see how lucky we get with the traffic."
"Nag, nag, nag!" blurted Steve, giving Gloria a quick and meaningful glare; although she hadn't noticed anything particularly officious in his wife's tone. She wondered if their real problem mightn't be a failure to communicate. "Oh hell! I forgot my tie pin," he said. "Listen, you go down and look for a taxi, dear, I'll be right with you."
"All right, dearest, but hurry," said Sandra, giving them both a pleasant smile. "'Bye, Gloria-there're some magazines on the couch, and we'll tell you all about the Ballet later." And left her husband alone with the help.
Steve softly closed the door, and with a groan he seized Gloria roughly in his arms. "Oh baby ... sometimes I think that loud-mouthed bitch's gonna drive me right outa my skull!"
"But Steve, she wasn't really ..." His hungry mouth swallowed her words, and she nearly gagged as he crowded his lunging hot tongue half-way down her throat. Not wanting to offend, she pulled back and sucked on it a little, reveling in his flavors of tobacco and mouthwash ... "Oounngh! ... wait, Steve," she struggled tenderly with him, "you're always so frantic when you kiss me ..."
Hurriedly, he slipped a hand into her bra and breathlessly rummaged there. Then glanced at his watch and groaned again. "Oh Jesus, I've got a hard-on ... happens every time I kiss you or touch you." He removed a handkerchief and gave it to Gloria, letting her wipe the lipstick off his mouth; after which she kept this telltale evidence to discard later. "I can live on a kiss like that all afternoon," he said, pressing her to him again. "In fact, I'll probably go to the men's room during intermission and diddle myself, just thinking about it ... all that good juice going down the drain just because you have a mouth and a pair of tits that won't quit ... oooh God, honey, I can't get you out of my mind. All day long at the office, there you are, poking those pretty nipples out at me from among those damned insurance claims."
"That's sweet, Steve, but not too practical, is it? Now don't forget your tie pin, and you'd better hurry, she's waiting for you."
"Ugh! ... that fat slob!" he said contemptuously as he headed for the bedroom. "Christ, I don't know how much longer I can put up with the vicious psycho. And you know lately she's even started to hit the bottle."
Gloria flapped her long lashes in surprise. "Mrs. Overton?"
"Oh hell yeah," he called back to her. "And man, you should hear her language after a few slugs of gin. She sounds like an old sea dog."
"Well for heaven's sake, how split can a personality be?"
"A good question, baby. She's got two faces, and I'd like to trade 'em both in."
Gloria sat down on the divan and leafed through a magazine, her mind wandering from the strange dualities of Mrs. Overton to the even stranger inconsistencies of the potential lover she, Gloria, held in reserve just one flight up. At times Heathcliffe seemed so unique and distant. And then would come some inescapable burst of vibrance and intensity that would bring him "home" to her once more, indisputably there and drawing her in like a sponge.
She was startled by a rumbling, creaking noise coming from the floor above. She gazed up at the ceiling and listened. It was a thumping rhythmic sound. Unmistakable.
... For goodness' sakes, who could that be at this hour? ...
Steve returned to the room and saw her peering upwards. He laughed. "Whoops! ... they're at it again up there. Put I guess you've never worked here on Saturday afternoon before, Gloria, so you don't know their habits."
She turned and stared at him. "Their habits?" she murmured. And at once realized he was referring to the Donizetti's. Yes ... that would be their apartment, directly above the Overton's "Well ... they must have reconciled," she said absently.
"Reconciled?" Steve chuckled. "Madge and Tony? Hell, if that's what you call it, they've been reconciling their asses off, nearly every night and twice a day on weekends."
"No ... no," she said, staring up at the ceiling again. And then felt his eyes on her, probing. "I mean ... it seems so shocking, in broad daylight and everything. I mean ... what sort of life is that ... first a lot of screaming and fighting, and then making up so noisily!"
"Well, I don't know about any screaming or fighting," said Steve, "because all we hear down here is a lot of bouncing and banging." A horn honked from outside. "Oh hell, I'd better hurry, or I'll have that Goddamned brassy bitch chewing me out all day long." He rushed over for another quick and gulpy kiss, and then left her alone.
Gloria sat quietly, feeling the rage beginning to seethe and boil inside her as she listened to Madge and Tony cavorting overhead. She rose and walked across the room, pressing her ear to the wall. She could hear faint sighs, and his grunts, the filthy pig; oh that fiend, that rapist ... using her innocently offered body under false pretenses, calling Madge lazy and mean and frigid and inhuman, just so she, Gloria, would take pity on him and open up her ruby-red heart!
But good gravy, what if they'd all been lying ... all those lost Daddy-souls whose journeys through life she'd made a trifle more fluid, greasing the path for them, as it were? Oh golly, had she been duped by a lot of con artists ... forced to squander all her goodies among the undeserving? She wondered now if Sandra Overton truly fit her husband's fierce descriptions of her, or if she was really as docile and unassuming as she appeared on the surface.
Tense and fidgety, she went to the divan and sat down again as the noises from above gradually diminished. Well, bully for them! ... Tony's got his satisfaction now, she thought; oh that slimy transgressor, that liar ... doesn't care where he gets his flesh pot kicks and never did. No doubt he had feared that she would cancel out this appointment, in view of Heathcliffe's sudden arrival; so he'd had the gall to substitute the favors he'd expected from her this afternoon with those of the ostensibly glacial Madge. Any port in a storm for that one, even his own wife, whom he'd so faithfully professed to despise. And she, Gloria, had refused to let the debonair Heathcliffe visit her here, not because it wasn't proper, as she'd pretended, but because she'd feared he might run into his first serious rival in the hall.
On an impulse, Gloria rose and went to the phone, dialing her own number. But when Heathcliffe answered, she knew at once that it was hopeless because he was in the midst of preparing their elaborate dinner ... "My darling, I've got something on the stove that must be watched every minute! But you keep wanting me down there, Gloria ... yes, let it simmer and brew for tonight ..."
Which meant she'd have to suffer these hours alone. Just her and that slumbering toddler in there who was completely unaware of her sacrifice. And so, back she went to her magazines on the divan, where she listlessly read and scanned her chipped manicure.
Until the knock at the door. The soft, scratching signal. Oh golly, I don't believe it! ... not him, that perverted Sicilian, he wouldn't dare! It hasn't been ten minutes since he finished with her. Their skin hasn't even had time to dry yet!
Well, she'd show him the error of his sins. She dashed to the door and let him in; huge and swarthy and lumbering as ever. Sleeves rolled up. Sweaty dungarees, soiled and bulging.
"Hi, Luscious," he said, as she smiled and backed gracefully away from him. He closed the door and sauntered towards the divan. "I didn't figure you'd be making this scene today, after what your friend told us upstairs earlier ..."
"You mean Heathcliffe? What did he say?"
"Oh ... he told us he was very fond of you, and some kind of crap about how he'd 'like to sweep you off into eternity one day.' He talks a helluva lot like Dracula, you know that?"
"He's gallant," she said, putting the accent on the last syllable, "which is something you'd never understand, Tony."
"Yeah? Well, anyway ... he left the door open up there to air the joint out, and I seen you wasn't anywhere's around, and Madge is down in the basement doin' the laundry; so I said to myself: 'Tony boy, Gloria's waitin' for ya, right this minute!'" He slumped down on the divan, his legs asprawl. "Come here, baby, I want these hands on you and fast!"
Slowly, Gloria walked over to him. She stood before him, between his flung-out legs, and he reached for her. He slid his big calloused hands up her legs until they tapped the hem of her skirt and swooped under, gliding up her knees to the soft warm flesh of her thighs, nudging higher to grip her panties and gently pull them down over her hips and buttocks until they fell to the floor. Then Tony pulled up her skirt and stared and gawked and Gloria let him, because now she had an absolutely brilliant idea which would require her cooperation, at least for a little while.
Tony drew her down on his lap and feverishly began to kiss her, his mouth full and growling against hers, his hand inside the lifted skirt, fingers tapping, tickling the soft oasis he found there ... He raised his head, gazed at her mouth ... "How about all that honey down there ... is that mine, or do you want to bottle it?"
"Yours, Tony ... you know I can't say 'no' whenever you're around ..." He nudged one fat and tremulous breast out of its peasant-blouse cage, and Gloria gasped as he bent and brushed a nipple against the moisture of his lips, back and forth ... until he moaned and plunged the breast deep inside his mouth, sucking and sighing ... his hand going wetter in the vaginal nest of her. She reached down and pressed her fingertips along the steamy bulge that bunched and throbbed in his jeans, unzipping him fast and slipping her hand inside his briefs, tugging and wrestling with the thick hot monster until it sprang free and loose in her hand, cleaving out so proudly from between his legs, hers to apply ...
"Put it into me like this," she said, "we needn't undress, Tony ... like this ..." she swept her skirt up around her waist and slid her body under his.
"Ooh ... yeah!" he said, his massive chest heaving in and out as he grew more breathless for it. He crawled over her on his knees as she dug deeper in his jeans and released the full and hairy wobble of his balls, Tony starting to whimper a little bit now as he zoomed in on her. And sank it. Grazing the tip on her pubic curls for a second, and then sighing ... and dipping it. Up.
"Ahhhh!" she cried out and flung her arms about him, shoving and jerking her pelvis hungrily upwards as he crammed it fully into her ... faster, faster ... gasping, grunting ...
"Oooh! ... wait, dear ... stop!" she said.
"Huh?"
"Coitus Interruptus!"
"What the hell's that mean?"
"It's Latin for ... 'hold it a minute, I forgot something?'" Sliding her body back and away from him, Gloria reached down and yanked the pulsating penis out of her, fretfully waving and pointing it in the opposite direction ...
"Aw Jesus, honey ... I was so close to comin' ... what the hell're you doin' ..." his enormous cock still grinding up and down in mid-air, his ass continuing to jab back and forth on the divan involuntarily even after she'd risen and moved away from him.
"I've got to go upstairs for a minute, Tony," she said, neatly dabbing a hanky between her legs. "You wait here and promise not to budge, because that baby in there can't be left alone for a single moment ..."
He sat up on the divan, his penis still erect and gleaming and starting to sprinkle at the knob. In a lustful-eyed stupor he watched as she sopped up all those precious cunt-moistures, stared and ogled and with a shudder, he came like that. Shooting high in a milky-white arc, generous gobs of it, streaming, spurting.
"Oh dear," she said, and ran to the bathroom and brought him some Kleenex, tossing him a handful of it, helping him blot.
"... this some kind of a joke?" he said, still panting and spraying a little.
"No, silly, but at the last minute I suddenly remembered that I'd forgotten to take that traditional ounce-of-prevention ..."
"Holy shit, you talkin' about your pill? But you take that in the morning, don't you?"
"Well, that's what I mean, Tony. I forgot this morning, so I'll have to rush up and get something else ..."
Slowly, he nodded, and then grinned lustily at her. "Hell yeah! ... I almost shot myself another baby, didn't I? And man, as hot as we get together, we're liable to build ourselves a whole village with a single blast."
"Right, dear, so you wait here. Unless, of course, you feel you've had enough of me for one day ..." Breathlessly, she waited for him to pick up this cue.
"What're you, kiddin' or something?" His laugh was a dirty one.
"Fine, Tony," she smiled at him, "then be sure to listen carefully in case the baby cries. His bottle's on the stove in the kitchen, and Mrs. Overton always has a written list of instructions, in case your own experience as a daddy suddenly slips your mind."
"Oh now look, you're not gonna be that long, are ya?"
"No, of course not, Tony; just being cautious, that's all, so don't you be too impatient." She went to the door, and after blowing him a kiss, swiftly departed.
Tony finished wiping up his weapon's residue, dressed, and then thumbed through the collection of lady-type magazines. Glamour. Harper's Bazaar. Man, what a bringdown!
* * *
Heathcliffe was overjoyed when Gloria appeared and said that one of the neighbors had offered to "sit in" for her.
"Ahh, but this is perfect!" he said exuberantly. "Dinner won't be ready for hours, so we'll have all this precious time for indoctrination. At last ... the chance to do with you as I wish. Oh come let me savor you, dear child ... come and go limp in my hands ..."
He'd been standing in the doorway of her dinette, and now he slowly approached her, crossing the living room.
Gloria froze and suddenly thought of his late demented wife, Monica, wondering if she really did leap into that food-freezer or was she forcefully stuffed? ... thinking of the Mona Lisa, and Heathcliffe's unwitting collaborator, the dear departed at Vinci ... O Leonardo, Leonardo ... is there something you're not telling me ...?
"A ... a chance to do with me as you wish?" she inquired, and found that she was backing ever so slightly away from him. Oh golly hemlock, he looked so gargantuan and flashing-eyed and lovely, and, for the sake of poetic truth, she really didn't care what he did with her as long as there was no bleeding involved, although it wasn't as if she could first ask him for a written guarantee: no sharp instruments or broken bones or garroting or suffocation, and absolutely no intercourse that was so sophisticated it might require a coroner's inquest later ...
Now she saw his eyes.
My stars, what a fixed grin! ... she thought; he's either trying to look burningly romantic, or plotting everything from vivisection to pederasty. A man on the subway had once smiled at her with that same rapt intensity, and kept smiling, never averting his attention all the way from the Village to Fifty-Second Street. Then he fell on the floor in a fit and had to be carted away.
All of which proves that too much glandular concentration can kill, she thought, although she was quite certain there wasn't the remotest possibility that Heathcliffe would fall on the floor before he reached her. He crept forward, his tongue darting slickly over his curved, sensual lips, as he half-crouched and lurched towards her, like a white-hot zephyr-ape about to spring.
Then the telephone rang and broke the spell. Momentarily.
"Oh damn the luck!" roared Heathcliffe, and stomped his foot like an angry moppet.
"... oops! ... I'll get it!" said Gloria, and clutched at the instrument as if it were an emergency rip cord.
It was Tony, of course. "Hey, Doll ... how long does it take to slap a damned diaphragm up your pussy?"
Gloria's eyes twinkled speculatively from Heathcliffe to the mouthpiece, wondering if, under these "Murder-In-The-Rue-Morgue" circumstances, it mightn't be more hygienic to go back downstairs and let Tony have his ramming way with her. Oh but no! ... not when she recalled his heinous lies about his own wife and his totally amoral behavior as head of a legitimate family unit ... and furthermore she'd much rather take her chances with Heathcliffe any day ... that fetching lunatic, let him come and swing his deadly ax-she was ready ...
"Heathcliffe, I smell something burning!" she said, using this as a pretext to get him out of the room while she spoke to Tony.
"Oh good Lord ... I'd better hurry!" Heathcliffe raced into the kitchen.
"Tony dear, I'm sorry," Gloria whispered, "I've suddenly gotten sick to my stomach, so I won't be able to make it back there today."
A tense silence for a few seconds. "Why you lying little slut ... I know what you're up to. You've got something new on the string, and you're afraid it'll rot if you don't get your cock-happy hands on it right this minute! Florence Nightingale's a pushover and she's in apt. 602 ... I oughta write that on the walls in the lobby ...!"
"Ooooh ... goodness! ... such naughty words from a babysitter."
Another pause. "Who's a babysitter?"
"You are, Daddy, until the Overton's get home at five-thirty. I'll tell them I got sick and you were sweet enough to substitute for me, because you're such a grade-A devoted family man ..."
No more pauses now. "You ... you ... uh ... you mean I'm gonna be stuck here all afternoon and I can't go bowlin'?"
"Right, Tony. And while you're sitting there, stare up at that ceiling the way I did awhile ago; and try to imagine how it vibrates when you and 'frigid-bitchy-Madge' are having one of your bat-ties!"
Now there was a very long pause from the other end of the wire. Then a small sigh. "Oooh ... boy! Got me right in the balls, didn't ya? Well ... ya win some and lose some ..." and he hung up.
Then Heathcliffe reappeared and sprayed the same gamy terror all over her parlor. But bravely, Gloria undulated towards him of her own accord, thinking: I simply must exorcise that brute-in-the-fields expression from his eyes, for I flatly refuse to let this get bestial before there's been a cultural exchange ...
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Ahh, you tormenting little fawn, come into my arms!" cried Heathcliffe. With some fast and nimble footwork, he was standing close beside her, his body looming, huddled. In an instant Gloria's mind was wiped clean of all thoughts of culture or the Arts, and she knew there was no more time to retreat. She heaved a tremulous gallows-sigh and let all her muscles go lax, as if she were screaming out to him from every pore of her body: Take me, my love ... I'm yours to dismember and maim and chew! He seized her in his arms, his craggy, God-like head lowering, his lips parted and thirsting ... "My girl, we've been skirting the issue too long. Our whole day has been simmering on the fire, but now ... it's ... time ... to ... serve ..."
"Oh, I fully agree!" she said. "In fact, ever since that first moment when I saw your knuckles at the Cafe de la Paix ... " But he ended this recital with a kiss that blacked out her entire vocabulary, his mouth a soft and searing cushion of tenderness as it eagerly engulfed hers. Gloria felt crushed and rescued all in the same tingling split second, and couldn't remember when the touch of a man's lips had so utterly melted her defenses, such as they were. She felt a series of tremors shoot from her knees upwards, warming her thighs and starting the tropic flows between ... and the echoes of her own whimpers in the room as his tongue slid gently between her lips that were so red and curved and waiting for this invasion. She reached hungrily for him, pressing his head fiercely down against hers, opening her mouth wide to fully receive the flaring heat of his kiss. And now the advent of his hands on her body, those huge roaming hocks of male-flesh that seemed to own everything they touched, kneading, grabbing, caressing. With the snarl of an impatient dragon, he reached behind and unfastened her blouse, and she was free of it in a second. Underneath, the flesh-toned strapless bra that was so full and bursting, her creamy-white bosom-flesh bulging out at the top.
Heathcliffe stood back and stared in awe. "My God, what lovely fat treasures you've been hoarding! ... what a care package you've been denying the truly needy souls of this world. Unn! ... let me hold them like that, so plump and gift-wrapped ..." She felt his hands all over them now, as if he were somehow yearning to dismantle them and drag them away to some solitary cave ... "I want to taste that ivory valley between ... want my lips there ...!" He pulled her close again and buried his face against her bra and the heaving cradled flesh that throbbed there, his tongue tracing the satiny cleavage, his fingers worrying and hardening the nipples under the flimsy fabric ... "Ahh! ... I could happily breathe my last with my mouth between breasts like these! ..." nuzzling and gasping hot air there, as he unfastened the bra and let the warm and fleshy globes bounce and cuddle against his face and mouth ... his eyes closed, tongue flicking, rubbing as he basked drunkenly in the tumbling ripe feel of baubles and bangles and ... "Oh yes, Lord, if I'm to go, let it be like this! ... with the taste of pure Gloria on my lips ..."
Gloria moaned and went a little faint as his lips suddenly seemed to be everywhere at once, swabbing and sucking at her nipples until she felt her knees would give way and she'd drop to the floor. Sensing this, Heathcliffe lifted her in his arms and carried her towards the dressing room, where, with one hand, he pulled down her creaky old rollaway bed and gently spread her out on it. Then he stood back and gaped at the round and yeasty perfection of her breasts, their pointed roseate peaks seeming to beckon to him as she lay flat and poised and awaited his partaking.
"Fling your arms out to the side," he instructed her, "and then remain absolutely still and helpless while I finish undressing you."
Gloria meekly obeyed him, the pangs of fear and desire mingling and churning at the pit of her stomach. Still fully dressed, her wild-eyed lover knelt on the bed at her feet. Slowly, he removed her ballet slippers, which he dropped gracefully to the floor. She wore no stockings, so he played sensuously with her bare feet for a moment. Then he bent and lightly sucked her girlish toes, one after the other-adoring the new spasms and squirms this created throughout her body, and further incensed by the moist-lipped look of torture on her lovely face. He moved upwards and unzipped her skirt, pulling it down past her hips and thighs and legs. And now the unbearable urgency for him as his hands started to shake and fumble at the white silk panties with their revealing patch of moisture at the crotch, and he realized he was brewing more agony for himself than he was for her, so it might be best not to delay lest he grow too salivating to reap all these juicy harvests he'd planted ... Off came the panties, down around her ankles and in his hands ... and briefly pressed against his face as if to inhale the bouquet of some rare vintage wine ... Gloria watching this feverish charade and unable to lie still another second. She pitched and writhed about on the bed, staring at that bloom of affirmation between his legs that seemed about to burst out of the tight denims that Tony had lent him. She was totally naked now, and he crouched over her body and stared down at it, his eyes agleam with exultant discovery as he prized this garden of curving mounds and dips. "Oh, you lithe and lovely animal! ... They've been trying to keep us apart all day ..." his voice hoarse and trembling, his hands slipping about her waist and sliding tentatively downward along her hips, fingers fanning inward to meet at the center, gliding past her navel, tracing the taut softness of skin at her pelvis ... and lower, filtering through the silky golden foliage ... one hand gently rounding into a fist as it reached the damp and dimpled heat of her vagina, furrowing softly in against the opening ... those baby's tips that blossomed into full-grown womanhood when properly parted ...
Gloria let out a choked and wretched cry and knew that she could bear this awful waiting no longer. She was panting and half-sobbing for some deeper touch from him, pulse pounding out the fires ... and she slid down and flung her legs about his neck as if to tame some rearing colt, and rammed his face and mouth fully in against her moist and throbbing passage ... almost as if, in some frantic fancy, she wanted to be fucked by the lunging prowling mouth of him, wanting this member to enter and climax within her. Now she groaned and rolled with the captured leonine head as his tongue sought and dipped inside that dark and cuddling privacy she was so eager to have him populate ... gasping anew as his lips formed the soft healing succulent caresses ... kissing, licking ... ahh! ... enraging ... creating what she wanted: his mouth in a penis-tip's own image and stabbing ... "Ooooh! ... golly, you dear, wild stranger ... ahh ... taste and sip and swallow the very roots of me ... EAT!"
"... Ambrosia for the Gods!" he read out the menu of her even while he dined. Then, still tonguing some of the girl-oils from his lips, he rose up and swiftly got out of his clothes. Gloria went even wetter as she watched her brawling giant reveal all his dangling secrets at last. Breathlessly, he peeled off the jeans and briefs and saw her lips part in delicious horror as he unharnessed his long thick mast of flesh and let it go bouncing arrogantly into view, his rough-hewn man-balls a pair of swinging comrades down below. Gloria stared at it in ashen-faced dread and admiration ... ogled and gaped until it seemed like another person in their midst ... almost, though not quite, an interloper ... It's more than Tony has, she thought ... his was the biggest and the sturdiest of them all, until now ... but, dear God, look at this one! ... Springing out at me so straight and muscular and staunch, looking almost military in its stiff attention ... I've got to get away from here! ... Out of this bed and onto the streets, running ... running from it ... oooh ... that gleaming pink monster, it's my rod of redemption at last, the punishment to fit all court-martial ... firing-squad-cock to thump and judge and purge me.
Nude, Heathcliffe stood above her, the tremendous shaft of penis seeming to suspend itself outward from his body as he aimed and expanded it- salutary weapon, mute identifier ... appearing to detect the native-need of her like some pulsing Geiger-counter nearing a zone of radioactivity, the ripening head of it growing more tremulous with signals the closer it got to her body-heat. Her eyes sweetly pacified with hypnosis, Gloria rose up in bed and reached out for it; but then, with a shudder, she drew back. "It looks so ... so vengeful and ... hostile ..." Blunt-edged sword to disembowel? she wondered ... "I'm almost afraid to touch it ..."
His smile was fatherly and tolerant, as he whispered: "Then let your mouth be its first mediator, my dove; and thus, we shall pave the way for all future acceptance ..."
She knew what he meant, but tried to look guile and fresh-faced for him as his stiff and velvety member neared her lips. Like an obedient child, she folded her hands primly in her lap and, moistly parting her lips, she let the juice-filled fleshy idol lunge softly in against her tongue, until it filled and crowded her mouth with its fat bestowal. He groaned aloud with the tender wet furnace-feel of her tips ... as they drew him in and received. And as she sucked and gulped at this swelling, hot entity, Gloria realized that it could be wielded and controlled after all ... and hence, she lost some of her great awe of the instrument. Seeing this, Heathcliffe gently slipped the great prick out of her mouth, and then sprawled the full and massive breadth of his body down against hers, pressing her shoulders flat against the bed, his mouth a newer coil of passion as it swarmed in and kissed up his own seminal-juices from her girlish lips ... and the accompanying overwhelmed vesper-sighs as he kissed her throat and tilt of chin and silken shoulders and Ahh! ... down to the bouncing sprouts of her ... Oh, these nipples to suck and let tremor against his tongue ... and up again as he raised her arms to lick and swab those private perfumed crevices of shaven armpits ... Umm! ... See the heart of the girl ... it's everywhere! ... Gloria quivering and groaning beneath these fiery caresses. Nobly, he raised his head once more to make another loving feast of her mouth, making of his lips such a distraction of lingering constancy that what he meant to do down below would come as a beguiling surprise for the child. And when he was certain the sweet-mouthed girl was totally committed to his kiss, her eyes blissfully closed and, indeed, the face of a woman in love with the mere wedding of their lips ... an oral oblivion and beholden to it alone ... he spread her thighs wide beneath him and, still moist from her mouth-to-penis assuagements, he smoothly pushed his cock up into her like that. Sliding it damply and thickly slow ... easing past those giving love-lips ... letting the tawny labia swallow the fruity head of it ... then ending the soft initiation and plunging deep and fast ...
"Oooohhh ... Unn! ... No, darling, please ... there's so much in there! ..." She flung her legs up crazily in the air, and then locked them about the merciful ruthless pumping flanks ... hurling her body up and jabbing in her terror ... her hands at his hair, tugging at the cruel and tousled mane.
Heathcliffe raised up a little to watch himself ramming into the gripping hot chasm that seemed to embrace and tenderly mother his thudding cock with every stroke. And how he rejoiced and gasped at the look of her voluptuous, spreading thighs beneath him as he sank it and slammed it up into her, grabbing her sweaty, round buttocks and fucking the little girl with a growing frenzy of abandon, knowing how she adored to be whipped and chastised in this fashion. He hungrily watched each fresh entry, scrutinizing her lovely face and eyes as his prick swept plumply in and out of her. Ahh! .. look at the flicking girlie-tongue of her, moist-petalled lips gulping from the horror and the thrill ... wild, blue eyes all forest-haunted and chased ... face running away from him while the body sucked him in. "Look into my eyes while we're joined!" he commanded her, his cock a happy contortion now as it latched from side to side, vaginal walls bowing to make way, like the hostess of some Oriental pagoda ... ("O welcome, Great Master, to my unworthy abode!") ... "Look into my eyes, I say!" he roared down at the trembling, split girl. "I want us to lock souls whilst I go rumbling deep inside the nectars of your belly! ... Ahh! ... My Glory-Girl with the Glory-hole ... My God, girl ... open those crushed-virgin's eyes and stare at me ... and know what has taken possession of you ... Make friends with it ... Oh, you sweet, darling, pulpy-flavored bitch ... It's your birthday .. blow ... out ... some ... candles ... and look at your gift! Here ..." pointing to his peering eyes as he fucked.
Her head rolled from side to side in a spasm of agonized euphoria, as she raised up her face and met his gaze and found new flesh-fluxed turmoil from the beam. Her long, blonde hair cascaded all over the pillow, her body writhing with each thunderous entry of his member, and she knew that this merging of fear and passion was too new for her to understand, but forced the panic in her eyes to meet the lusting triumph in his, sensing what intimate admissions he longed to wrest from her in this manner: to see the face of her at these most bursting heights, to see and victoriously testify to the deep fulfillment he issued out to her ... a lyric flow from his body into hers, and perhaps knowing that some later masturbation-hysteria could never reproduce what he now provided ... his cock rending and tearing to compose more of the pain of her love for him and have it shine from her eyes and go moistly eloquent on her humbled mouth. And for him to see these bare and secret truths meant that she would never be able to deny what she felt for him, the base and grinding recognition, the rapport. If she screamed out in pain as he thrust it fully in and let it stay, slotting and savagely widening, they both knew how irrefutably she was professing her love for him. And so she screamed and they made love to the sound, milked the anguish ... "Ahhh! ... please, darling, not ... like ... that! I'll bleed and die and burst with it in me like that ... no ... stop!"
Grinning, Heathcliffe received this message and plowed his prick more furiously into her ... translating her shrieks to mean that this was now his pleasure-property, for whatever brandishing or impaling he chose. Now he raised her legs high and wide, her luscious body nearly bent double as he presented her with the faster, deeper lash-strokes, her sobbing convulsions telling him even more of what he needed to know, because as she wept she shot her pretty hips and buttocks upward to greet and gulp every ramming inch he had to give her. He seized her about the shoulders now and pressed her bottom down hard onto the swollen thickness of his weapon, digging it even more frantically into her, as he saw and felt the sings of her whirling summits ... half-sobbing with his own elation, his balls afire and heralding the approaching wet marriage of their flesh ... knowing that their flows would be mutual and wanting to celebrate this phenomenon ... reveling in the magic seething tumult their bodies had devised ...
Her fingers tore and tugged at his hair ... legs kicking, flailing ... "Ooohh! ... now, darling ... oh please ... yes ... like that! ... let it happen ... I feel ... so ... beautiful inside ... don't go away, please! ... Here ... and ... now!" Her body shuddered and writhed in a series of twitching shock-waves ... "Ahh! ... death and love all jammed and drowned together ... Ooh! ... let's go ... wading, darling ... barefoot ... up to our necks ... and it's warm ..."
He chronicled the new glow of peace in her eyes, waited until he felt the final molten waves of her surround his embedded prick, and then his hands went gently cupped at her breasts and he glared at the nipples as he let go of his own pent-up throbs and swarms ... hot streaming jets of it ... up and splattered and weaving, trembling from it ... yelling out the brutal lover-cries, the guttural commitments ... "Ahh ... my God, I love you, Girl! Love what you brought me ... and weren't afraid in the giving ... oh, never such a clutching, pumping embrace of female-and-child ... oh ... never ... such ... surcease!" And fell upon her, grappling, gulping, spurting the rest of it ... liquid jewels into her ... irreplaceable ... now the two of them glorying in the reflex-quivers of their bodies, pagan lost echoes of the mewling, whimpered joy ... a melting that quaked and lasted for long wordless moments ...
* * *
The hours swam by as they made love with soft kisses and clung and stayed loosely joined long enough to repeat their gifted performance whenever the spirits blew them. As the afternoon grew more humid, they kicked all the bedclothes on the floor, until now there was a mountainous billowing of sheets and blankets surrounding them; and in the summery shadows of the room it seemed they were adrift on a houseboat, perhaps barging down the Nile in ancient Egypt. Heathcliffe had turned off the stove in the kitchen, deciding there was still plenty of time for them to feast in the more conventional manner, but dashing undely in and out of the refrigerator to serve her chilled champagne in bed.
They lay and fondled and toyed and Gloria had never known such a delirious feeling of both release and apprehension. She held him dearly close and pressed her timorous little hands everywhere on his rangy body, wanting to dance and shriek with her joy at finding this ineffable concoction of kingly father and engine-stud all wrapped in one chaotic package ... "My darling, darling beauty ..." she murmured.
And with a sudden, wild cry of abandon, Heathcliffe lifted her in his arms and stood up in the bed, bouncing recklessly about. "Ahhh! ... my waif, my treasure ... with the angels' own skin and the devil's own hunger ... what black magic have you wrought in the heart and guts and bowels of me? Good God, I could sip the creams of you forever ... or until I died and drowned in your flavors" ... burying his face against her breasts, his mouth rejoicing and full of her ... trying to suck her nipples and madly cavort without missing a step or a lick.
Then the bed collapsed, sending their bodies heaving and tumbling in an antic heap. First a creaking sound, then an outright bump and boom that brought the tottering old structure to its knees with such a crash it must have been heard all over the building.
Laughing fitfully, Gloria clung to him. "Captain, the ship's going down ... what're your orders?"
"You a'feared, ya landlubber? Wanna abandon ship?"
"Not on your life, Barnacle Bill, darling, it's Davy Jones' locker for mine!"
"... Well, I like that!" she protested.
"... No mutiny, now, flip over! ... and that way we'll go down ... in ... style ...!"
Giggling and shuddering all at once, Gloria tasted some of the terror once more, but blithely rolled over on her belly. His huge warm hands set her ivory-cheeked bottom high and poised, and she dutifully knelt upwards for him, wincing and biting her ripe and pouting under lip as she felt the first scalpel-stab of pain; but soon, once more, their endless laughing children-sounds went interweaving in the torpor of the day. His hands lightly spread and caressed as he entered her anew, their flesh belonging even when the digging was slow and laborious ... his mouth lowering to kiss her silken back-skin as he obligingly plumbed her fullest hidden depths ... her hoarse cries taking on the form of bestowed emissions which dwindled to join his soft hysteria-murmurs of laughter as, with grace and the feeling of pure and knightly nature, Heathcliffe found his homeward thrust again ... and again ... while his ripped and humped moist girl sobbed out her elation and ... consigned herself to him.
He grew a little younger that afternoon, while Gloria, it must be said, quite definitely mellowed, her rationales full of the pensive fancies of the loving; like deciding once and for all that it didn't matter to her if he thought he painted the Mona Lisa, or even ... oh, God! ... even if he'd posed for it! He was a divine and tumbling mystic riddle, and she wanted him close and touching-near where she could solve him, where she could find the key to all his warlord powers and make it her own.
CHAPTER EIGHT
They dined naked and by candlelight that night. The air was stifling and muggy, but the iced champagne still cooled their throats and embers. Her epicurean-lover had prepared a breast of guinea hen, no less, in wine sauce and with all the trimmings. They ate in staring silence, sipping and smiling and inhaling the wondrous gift-aura that each bestowed upon the other, merely by breathing in and out and being. After repairing her ravished old bed, Heathcliffe grandly offered her his arm, as if about to lead a cotillion, and together they scampered back amidst the loose springs.
Only the insistent ring of Gloria's telephone broke this lavish flow of camaraderie. She wondered if it were Tony Danizetti, Steve and Sandra Overton, all of whom had a right to be rather puzzled by her actions; except that the devious Tony had deserved his afternoon's penance. Of course, any number of people could be trying to reach her by phone, even some of her lost and lonely shut-ins who needed someone to sit with and talk to. It was awful, just letting the phone ring like that, but Heathcliffe wouldn't let her budge. "Your greedy, grasping public, I suppose?" he spat out, his voice alien with jealousy, his hands preventing her from rising.
"Silly," she said, but excited by this quick flare of rage, "they're only friends, or clients, really ... who want me to babysit or keep them company ..."
"You squander too much of yourself, my girl," he said. "Love simply flows from you and you never even think to put the plug in!"
"Could you clarify that for me, please?" her brows up, senses wary.
"If you have this vibrant capacity for warmth, you must learn to police it and hold it in reserve, until someone special comes along." As if to punctuate this announcement, he got up and took her phone off the hook. Then he hurried back to bed for some endless re-enfolding, and they romped the night away like that; while, intermittently, Gloria caught the bleary image of the Mona Lisa glaring out at them from that Fifty-Seventh Street salon. But pooh-poohing this haunting anxiety by telling herself it would all seem quite natural when they were married and living in some comfy little split-level in suburban Vermont, where she could almost hear herself saying to friends: "Any hallucination of my husband's is an hallucination of mine ..."
Still and all, it was a rather extraordinary delusion, wasn't it? Unless ... ooh! ... unless Heathcliffe was a bona fide reincarnation of Da Vinci, and thus, not really deluded at all. Oh good gravy, where did that spooky thought come from? Imagine having been in bed with some passionate poltergeist all these hours, with one eerie ectoplasm after another wailing around inside her.
No. She banished this scaly vision from her mind; and for the rest of that night Heathcliffe stayed much too figuratively close for her to continue such deductions. Since his splendid body became less of a mystery to her with every artful lunge, it was difficult for her to keep wondering what was eating away at his cerebrum.
* * *
The August morning sun streamed through the blind and Gloria opened her eyes. Facing due East, she gazed into the closed, heavily black-lashed eyelids of her house guest. This gave her quite a start, for it was the first time any man had slept the night with her. Usually it was fairly important that they get up and go home to their wives, stealing away into the night, and utterly disappearing from that nocturnal fantasy-world to which she'd persistently assigned them. But here was the nude and brawny Heathcliffe, still sprawling and accounted for. His hairy legs were flung apart, and Gloria gazed intently at his full-blown morning erection, her eyes scanning up and down the height of it as if it were one of the seven wonders of the world, something that should be visited and pointed out while on the Grand Tour. Taut complacent monarch ... pompous sculpture to austere and un-needing ... and goodness! ... do men always lie in state like this after they've sapped themselves, she wondered. Almost as if he were waiting to be encased in bullet-proof glass and given a ticker tape parade up Fifth ... And golly, what does one do with one of them in the morning? Imagine waking like this daily ... and how do those energetic little hookers stand it? Desire under the sheets in the stultifying hot a.m.!
She did a fast and fitful playback of their predawn calisthenics, and her cheeks went warm and scarlet. All those ambitious cartwheels and rotations. Why, they'd done everything but hang from their toes! And now that she knew she wanted to marry him, she was in deadly worry; for he was a true romantic who would now consider her an "easy target," which naturally meant that he'd want to pop everything but The Question.
She sat up in bed, determined to rise and make a desperate stab at looking chaste. But as she moved, Heathcliffe twitched a little and opened his eyes. Seeing her sitting there and wobbling creamily above him, he grinned and remembered all their dawning beach-heads ... "Umm ... nipples for breakfast!" he mumbled, stretching and swallowing several times and licking his lips. "More of the fluid dalliance for you, is it, my libidinous glutton?" he said, lazily cupping her nearest fat pendant. "Encore, eh, ma cherie?" And then he swooped in at her like a rabid hawk diving after a chicken.
"Non, Monsieur!" Gloria squealed, deciding it was high time he got a nobler opinion of her now that she wanted to waltz through life with him in a wholesome upright marital manner. "Now do behave, Heathcliffe," she said, tearing free of him. "After all, it's Sunday. Can't you hear the bells?"
He slid his fingers in feathery fashion all over her body, watching studiously as her rosily pointed nipples prickled with his touch.
"Oooh! ... now no!" she squirmed, "I mean really!" At last finding some bodily courage, she twisted out of his grasp. "I said you're to stop that, you ... you darling licentious old ape ... I'm not used to all this handling. It's simply that champagne loosens my stays a little, as it were ..." Not listening, he slipped a finger drily up between her legs for a soft insertion, and she gave a shriek which she hoped sounded like that of an outraged maiden, even though it felt so heavenly and she just had to wriggle a little ... "Now that is a gross infringement ... and I won't have it!" She shot off the bed, draping one of the sheets demurely about her person. "Listen, my dear, I don't want you to feel rejected or anything, because really, I'm terribly impressed by all this virility. You must work out or something! But you see, despite my willingness to learn, this is all very new to me, and I simply can't throw myself away all at once. Why ... I'll get so numb I won't even know I'm ecstatic ... and you wouldn't want that, would you ... hmm? You do see my side of it, don't you?" Not waiting for an answer, or even permitting her eyes to rest on that sinewy, fat body-decor in her bed, Gloria scurried into her dressing room, bent on hygiene and decorum.
Twenty minutes later, looking lush and delectable in an armless, backless white summer sheath, Gloria found herself blissfully alone in the apartment, giving her time to count whatever blessings she might find lying around in her psyche. Heathcliffe, still claiming to be the world's most prodigious chef, had gone down to the nearest delicatessen to personally refill her barren breakfast larder ... "I don't keep a lot of food around because I abhor cooking and practically live on TV dinners and ice cream," she'd explained to him, knowing it would have been ridiculous to pretend anything else, since he'd find out the truth once he got her in his kitchen up there in rustic old Vermont. Of course, she knew for certain that they'd used up an awful lot of calories last night, and had to admit that his highly touted Eggs Benedict Creole might get them both back on the balls of their feet; transforming them into rational standing-up adults who discussed plays and the arts and, in fact, exchanged every detail of their past, present and future before they ever touched again. If she'd only seen her orange-blossom-future in his eyes right from the start, she could have been willfully abstentious and denied him. But now, all she could do was somehow brainwash all those lewd memories away and start afresh ...
When Heathcliffe returned, laden with enough staples for a wagon-train, he headed triumphantly towards the kitchen with his loot and immediately began to mix up some trial batters. Deciding to stay out of his way for the present, Gloria busied herself straightening up the apartment until it looked only slightly more disordered than it had before. But soon she inhaled some pungent traces of her lover's culinary designs, and wondered just how spiced-up he intended to get in there-and wouldn't it have been more politic to dine out, since her stove was a crumbling old dinosaur at best?
"Oh I say there, Chef BoyarDEE!" she called, moving into the kitchen.
Wearing one of her organdy aprons, Heathcliffe turned from his skillets and rushed at her, half-dragging her back to the parlor. "Oh ... my dearest darling heart, you can't go in there ..."
"Why not?" she asked, suddenly assailed once more by all the nagging suspicions about him. Nudging and dancing him back towards the kitchen, she tried a little hop to peek over his shoulder at her sputtering stove, wondering what in the world he could be hiding in there, and why he was acting as if it were an operating room and he'd just botched up her next-of-kin? "Please, dear, I want to help you," she insisted.
Obviously to distract and beguile, his eyes went to her blooming body.
"Ummmm ..." he sighed. "Your thighs are like the taunting soft-petalled wings of an archangel in flight!"
Oooh ... taunting archangel's flight-thighs! Oh, this man will drive me right out of my ...
He lifted her chin and let his libertine spice-scented mouth swallow her up with one of those kisses that made her feel so beautifully arrested, sentenced and beheaded. And, like a homing pigeon, his hand slipped neatly down her décolletage, fingers re-acquainting and familiar ...
"I'm preparing another voluptuary's delight for us," he told her, "so you sit yourself in a corner somewhere and memorize a bit of the narco-synthesis of Dylan Thomas or Edgar Guest ... I shan't be long." His eyes sparkling, he rubbed his palms most gleefully together and zoomed back to his laboratory.
Trying not to think of Sherlock Holmes or the Mad Doctor From Bleeker Street, Gloria half-reeled from the rich musks of perfumed herbs wafting out of her kitchenette, as she fed Marlene and Izzy and then gave herself a manicure. However, much to Heathcliffe's resentment, her door chimes clanged incessantly. Her solicitous house cleaning neighbors of yesterday, wanting to know the results, inquiring brazenly after her health, wealth and marital status. And then, when she put her phone back on its hook, it, too, kept raiding their atmosphere. People alarmed at not being able to reach her; several of them-her elderly recluses-had even considered having the police break into her apartment to see if she were safe.
Knowing that Heathcliffe had some compulsive urge to keep her in isolation, Gloria saw how it infuriated him to see so much evidence of her popularity. Finally, she took the phone off the hook again; and as she did so, it clearly dawned on her how very much she was needed, and in wildly diversified circles. And honestly, after years of aiming herself in so many directions, how could she be expected to cease firing in one day? She'd made herself a daily part of too many lives-both platonic-ally and emotionally-to turn her back on them, or even find them a quick replacement, without any notice. It was inhuman, and certainly Heathcliffe would see that he, too, could be a part of all this community-giving ...
On an impulse, she turned her head towards the dinette and saw him standing in the doorway, peering ferociously at her; and she felt a creeping chill, because she was suddenly positive that he'd been reading her mind.
"NO!" he boomed at her.
"No what? ... my lovely giant?"
"I am not going to share you, Gloria Heavenrich!" his voice low, sonorous. "Eventually, I shall rip that phone off the wall, and shred those vaudeville door chimes of yours. Because we're going to be alone, you and I. A duet, ad infinitum and unattended ..."
Oh my wild sweet Goliath, she thought. I'd live with you on Mount Vesuvius if you'd only talk contract ...!
But having issued his proclamation, Heathcliffe said no more and returned to his cooking. And it was only a few seconds later that Gloria was startled once more by the implosion of those dread door chimes. Eager to halt this clangor, she moved swiftly towards the door. But knowing that he'd heard, she called out: "Don't worry, my darling, I'll make short shrift of this intruder!"
Said intruder being none other than her landlady, Leona Liebowitz-looking bright and bulbous in a playsuit of zebra-striped acrilon.
"Congratulations, darling! I just got a report from your neighbors downstairs and they said they could hear you bouncing all night, which means at long last you're deflowered, Gloria, so it must be serious. Here, I brought you strudel to celebrate." She shoved a baking tin at Gloria and wobbled her way into the room. "So nu? ... where is he? You got him tied up?"
"Hush, dear heart!" whispered Gloria. "He's in the kitchen."
Leona gazed towards the kitchen and sniffed. "Doing what, may I ask, sending up smoke signals? He's Sitting Bull maybe?"
"Well ... he's cooking." Somehow Gloria was unable to look her landlady in the eye with this news.
Leona inhaled again, and this time hacked up a bit of phlegm. "Cooking yet? Oh my God, and I thought you were burning some kind of hippie incense." She glared at Gloria. "Gloria, listen to me flush in the face frankly please-this man you are letting cook for you?"
Gloria began to wring her hands and pace nervously about, feeling terribly inadequate and unfeminine under this harsh inquisition. "Listen, Leona, it's like a hobby for him. Why, he'd rather cook than eat."
"Hmm ... rather cook than eat, would he?" her landlady nodded sagely. "If it smells like that, who could blame him? Dolly listen, what kind of an impression is this to make altogether? You need a husband, not a mashugennah dietician."
Without another word she sprang at Gloria, and like a lioness teaching her cub how to kill, she seized the girl by the waist and pushed her towards the kitchen. "Go already, you'll grab him by the pot holders and show him what a little home maker you are!"
"Leona stop it!" said Gloria, squirming free of the bulky woman. "That hurts. And besides, he knows I can't cook-I told him."
Leona heaved out a wheezing sigh and collapsed into a chair, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "Oy! ... the dizzy little pisher ... she told him! You also told him maybe you got warts or insanity in the family?"
Hoping this last was a mere slip of the lip, Gloria said: "Leona really, you don't understand. Heathcliffe is a ... well, he's a ... a ..."
"... A fagila? With all that bouncing?"
"No," Gloria laughed, "I was going to say he's a gourmet."
"Yeah? So what's that, something in Civil Service?"
Laughing again, Gloria ran to the woman and bent over her for a brief hug. "No, sweetie, he's an expert on food."
At this point Heathcliffe strode grandly into the room, carrying his sumptuous New Orleans entree on a platter. "Ah, Mrs. Liebowitz!" he gave Leona an ingratiating smile. "How very nice to see you."
Giggling excitedly, Leona ballooned to her feet. "And a happy Sabbath to you, Mr. Montague. You slept well?" Her thick brows rippled meaningfully up and down. "For years my poor diabetic husband Jerome is telling me that someday Gloria's antique old rollaway will break down-so now I see that crazy old optimist was right."
Ignoring this bit of gaucherie, Heathcliffe placed his steaming offering at the center of the table. Then glanced at the pan of strudel which Leona had set nearby. "What on earth is this rancid mess of dough?" he inquired of Gloria. "Another donation from one of your cloying neighbors?" And, with a deprecatory smile to Leona: "She wastes entirely too much time on people who don't deserve her, you know. Pedestrians, really-so unchosen." And then returned to the kitchen.
Leona's mouth fell open as she gaped after him. "That nudnik you're calling an expert on food?" She flounced to the table and redeemed her baking tin.
"Oh, now darling, he didn't mean ..."
"... And will you kindly tell me please, what's this dreck he just brought you on a platter?"
"Well ... they're eggs soufflé or mousse or something ... from New Orleans."
"Oh ho? ... and they look like they walked here all by themselves too. Every color in the rainbow. He cooked them with Kem-Tone maybe? Gloria, listen, don't take yourself a mouthful."
"Why? ... what do you mean, dear?" Gloria felt another in her series of apprehensive chills.
"You read about the Borgias in Readers' Digest, hmmm?"
"Oh Leona, now stop!"
"... No, listen ... what do you know about him? ... who is he? With one meal he could drug you and make you a sex-slave ..."
Not wanting to tell the woman that Heathcliffe could achieve the very same effect if they went on a hunger strike, Gloria said: "But Leona, a minute ago it sounded as though you thoroughly approved of this match."
Heathcliffe returned to the room with another smoking platter. "Ahh ... what an enchanting play-suit, Mrs. Liebowitz!" he winked, giving her a coy pinch on the chin-flab. "If I didn't know better, I'd think it was stunning Nita Naldi making a comeback." Setting the platter on the table, he went back to the kitchenette.
Gloria watched her landlady go into another rapid transition. The woman's face flamed into a grin that stretched from one shoulder strap to the other. "Nu? Even Jack the Ripper could have such manners, and I'd say, 'so go ahead already-rip!'"
Heathcliffe was back again with cups and a pot of tea.
"You'll join us for a bite, my dear?" Once more his sensuous smile hit Leona right where she used to live.
"Bite?" she repeated; then gazed down at his colorful egg concoction and despite her cheery demeanor, something in her eyes went sick. "No, thanks a heap! I already bit twice this morning ... first with Jerome, his regular soft diet with the mashed prunes, then I frenched myself some toast with marmalade ..."
"Now that I should love to have seen," he said, adding: "Oh do put down that tray of overdone cake mix and sit with us."
Leona rheumily eyed her strudel. "Oh, you mean this rancid mess of dough? You're right, it's making me so nauseous I can hardly stand to hold it." She set it down. "Pfooey!" And joined them at the table. "So what's your business, Mr. Montague?" she began without preamble. "I hope you earn enough to support a ..."
"... Leona, please!" Gloria broke in. "He's retired."
Leona stared shrewdly from one to the other. "To be retired you got to be doing something in the first place, so what was it?"
"He was a very successful painter and ... and gladioli-planter," said Gloria.
"Oh? You wouldn't paint no more, Mr. Montague? A good estimate on my breakfast nook you couldn't give me?"
Gloria, growing too embarrassed to eat, wondered how affected it would look if she sat out the rest of the meal under the table.
Chuckling warmly, Heathcliffe said: "Like our mutual friend here, Mrs. Liebowitz, I too am an artist."
Again Leona examined their faces. "So you paint fancy, like Gloria? You know, for years she's been throwing away her money on colors and pots, without one cent to show for it. So for a man like you, this is a living?"
Heathcliffe ate heartily. "As the fates would have it, my ancestors left me more money than I'll ever be able to squander."
Leona's eyes fairly popped with this news. "This is legitimate, or are you a lucky embezzler? Because believe me, for Gloria either would be perfectly kosher ... I mean, as far as we know, the marriage offers she's had lately you could stick up your ..."
"... Leona!" Gloria glared at her.
Squirming irrepressibly in her seat, Leona gave Gloria such an exuberant nudge that the girl had to grip the table to keep from going down. "Schnookila, you're listening? The Social Register staring you in the face, and you can eat?"
Gloria had silently started on Heathcliffe's individual serving of eggs, hoping it might take on the form of an escape. Just as silently, Heathcliffe slid another personal portion under the prominent nose of Leona, who was still so enthralled over his financial report, she forgot her initial aversions and dipped her fork, continuing her monologue ...
"... So sensible that a young couple should have something to start out with, like a down payment on the future. So tell me, when all the tallies are tallied up, what else is there? Security, no? Listen, when I married my Jerome-God bless his kidneys-what did he have? Nothing! But me, I was cashier in a 12th Street burlesque house, so I paid his way through a six-week Turkish Bath course and another month of Whoremonger Intermediate, and after that, everything opened up for us ..." In two absent-minded mouth fulls the woman had completely laid her Creole eggs to waste. Suddenly she let out a hooting gasp. Her face went white and her eyes bulged, as she muttered something like ... "Oy ... ooh boy!" Then clutched her throat and shoved her chair back, tipping it over, her skin rapidly turning a pallid embalmers' green, as she roared and hacked ...
Heathcliffe rose with all the concern and gallantry of a Douglas Fairbanks Senior. "Why, my dear lady, what is it? Are you, perchance, unwell?"
Leona had managed to stagger to the door. "I ... I think I hear my phone ringing ...!"
"From the first floor?" asked Gloria.
"So ... we've got a long extension cord ..." Opening the door, she turned and gave Gloria a last, terror-stricken look. "Sweetheart, I want you should know my medicine chest is at your disposal any hour-you know what I'm talking, Ketzeleh? Antidotes, schmantidotes ... the white of an egg, the skin of a turtle, we got 'em on every shelf!"
CHAPTER NINE
Gloria gazed across the table at Heathcliffe, trying to decide if she should be delighted or horrified by his puckish sense of mischief. Portentous thoughts of cyanide and hemlock made it rather difficult for her to manage a smile as she lightly said: "You jealous fiend, don't you think it'll get a bit ..." she swallowed here ... "cumbersome if you go around poisoning all my friends?"
"Nonsense," he brushed this off, "a hefty overdose of rosemary and oregano never hurt anyone."
With a deep sigh of relief, Gloria gave him a sunny grin and relaxed; and now she could feel genuinely amused as she recalled Leona's face. "It's terribly flattering to know how badly you want to separate me from the rest of the world, darling, but you must realize that all these people are quite harmless, and ... and loving ..."
"That's a stupid, sentimental fallacy!" he burst out. "They're not 'loving' at all ... they're merely a bunch of leeches demanding your love on a full-time basis, and giving nothing in return ..."
Gloria's smile faded as the roar of his anger echoed in her ears.
But then his voice softened again. "Don't you see, my dear, I'd like you to reserve some of that warmth for me, instead of ... spreading it all over town ..."
Oops! ... he knows something, she thought. Tony must have filled him in on every last detail when they were alone earlier. But no, Madge had been there too, and he wouldn't have dared let loose all that gossip in front of her. And yet, since Heathcliffe was too much of a gentleman ever to let her know he knew, how could she ever be sure he didn't? She would take it as a rather kindly gesture if he at least gave her a hint; that way she'd no longer have to maintain those foolish fictions of her virginal past.
Hoping to reroute his attentions, Gloria rose and went to him for a quick embrace. Heathcliffe pulled her closer for a kiss, and Gloria loved the way he sighed and trembled as she drew back and let her tongue glide back and forth across his moustache; after which she slipped coyly out of reach and began to clear the table. "It's true, I suppose," she said, "I've been much too involved with my ... uh ... charity activities. But actually, it's rather difficult for me to start saying 'no' to people who've come to rely on me."
"Now there we have the crux of the problem." Rising, Heathcliffe removed his pipe and proceeded to light it, his expression one of deep reflection. He followed close behind Gloria as she took a load of china into the kitchenette. "The trick here is to get you in a position where you needn't say 'yes' or 'no' to anyone but me," he said. "Sort of like corralling a doggie, as you Texan's might put it."
"Hmm? I don't think I follow ..." her eyes very quizzical.
"For a few days we'll remove you from all temptation."
Ooh ... that does it! Tony quite definitely has told him I'm not as pure as I'm painted, and oh golly, maybe he thinks I need some kind of cure or operation; or, as Leona so delightfully predicted, maybe he wants to chain me up somewhere and make me a sex-slave!
"Remove me?" she said with a half-hearted giggle. "Ha ha, what a curious choice of semantics. You make me sound like a piece of hot contraband that has to be smuggled over the border."
"No, my darling, we needn't go that far," he said, his large dark eyes beaming into hers. "We'll simply do the sensible thing and take a suite at the Waldorf."
With the utterance of those magic words, Gloria forgot all fears and suspicions, and there was an ear-splitting crash as she dropped five pieces of her newly donated china. Wanting to avoid the necessity for a tourniquet, Heathcliffe stepped gingerly backwards. But she flew at him, clutching him excitedly by the arms.
"You mean Waldorf like in Astoria? Oh, you couldn't mean the salad or the cafeteria, because you said suite!"
Taking her hands in his, he bent and kissed each palm. "Of course, dear, if you prefer the Plaza or the Americana, we could ..."
"Oh, my goodness ... Ye Waldorf Astoria, on Ye Park Avenue ..." Gloria began to shuffle about the room, chewing at her nails, "where all the chambermaids are showgirls and the doormen are a mile high ... and secret service guards frisk all the taxi drivers ... and golly, that lobby! I sneaked in one Easter Sunday and it was all gussied up in potted plants and blossoms and absolutely festooned with balustrades careening all over the place ... and drop-leaf staircases like some kind of grounded spaceship ... I mean, everything so bacchanalian, so Early DeMille and Jet-Set all combined ... and the carpets, my dear, where you sink in right up to your ... is that the place you mean, darling? No, that couldn't be it, or is it ... no, it's not, is it? It isn't ... oh no ... is that the place?"
His eyes brimming with adoring amusement, Heathcliffe nodded, watching her.
"Out of the question," she said with a wave of the hand. "People would talk." She walked primly back to the parlor, still determined to make him think she was clinging to her morals no matter what he may have heard about her lack of same. But gracious, what if she went too far and he dropped the subject?
"People are talking already!" he said, following right behind her. "You heard your landlady ... everybody in the building heard this bed fall apart. And surely those who didn't must know by now that I've spent the night with you. In fact, from what I gathered, that was exactly what they all wanted; shoving us together with all the finesse of mating time at the Bronx Zoo. So, you've got to face it, my pet, you have no more secrets ..."
"Now exactly what do you mean by that ... hmm ... hmm? Tell me!"
Heathcliffe blurted out his exasperation. "You and I established a considerable amount of compatibility here last night, and the whole world knows it. Is that plain enough?"
"Well ... if you hadn't been so damned noisy, you ... you bellowing bear. You don't have too much finesse yourself, not when it gets right down to the nitty-gritty ..."
Catching each other's eye, they suddenly began to laugh giddily together, an unexpected wave of delirium building until they sounded like a couple of smitten hyenas, tears streaming down their cheeks as they crazily embraced. He gave her the soft, gently dabbing kisses, and Gloria clung to the impetuous warm crush of his mouth touching hers ... half-giggling and breathless as she parted her lips and held him tight, her hands flying to the top of his shaggy head, tugging at his hair, basking in the feel of his hard muscled chest and shoulders straining against her body ... Ooh! ... I love him so fiercely it's giving me a little headache ... want to pull his hair and his ears and his nose and chin and everything else on him that's warm and reachable ... and why do I feel so physical about him, even when we're up and dressed? ...
"Oh darling, this whole idea sounds like a lovely fairy tale," she said, pulling back from him. "The Waldorf. I can't believe it! I mean ... what on earth will I wear? How far can a girl get with one good basic black and a rabbit stole?"
"Hah! ... you delicious ninny, we'll pick up new things for you on the way."
"Ooh no, that's corrupt."
He laughed again. "You're not still trying to talk like a virgin, are you? Not after last night ..."
Hmm ... he only said "last night," instead of mentioning all those other nights he might have heard about. Perhaps Tony kept the faith after all ...
And yet, this still represented "going away with a man out of wedlock," so she mustn't appear to give in too readily. "I'm sorry, Heathcliffe, I can't do it. I guess I'm ... just an old-fashioned girl, when you get right down to the bottom of ... uh ... I mean, in the long run."
He eyed her closely. Although his face was now in its normally sensual repose, the smile hadn't quite left his eyes. "Then you flatly refuse to come with me?"
She nodded her head firmly. "No honeymoons for me until I've been properly branded."
Without taking his eyes from hers, he said: "Where's your overnight bag?"
Still nodding her head in the same firm negation, she said: "On the first shelf in my dressing room-you can't miss it ... it's a chintzy alligator thing but it expands like mad and it'll hold much more than you'd think ... all my shoes and colognes and hair sprays ... Oh ... you darling ghoul of a rapist, what are you making me say? Not a tiara or a lorgnette to my name ... I can't help it ... all this and you and the Waldorf are the first real fantasy I've ever had come true, and I want it ... want every glittering minute of it!"
Together they threw all her unmentionables into the ratty looking suitcase, their hysteria so exultant and contagious it left them nearly helpless, as they laughed and kissed and clutched and took turns sitting on her luggage in order to close it ... Oh, this tremulous tower of a man, she thought, his big hands making an intermittent tour of her body as they packed ... this tender shield with the powerful seeking mouth and gentle fingers ... this ruler from some mad, mythical kingdom who's come to show me the way, even though what I really need is a magnificent new wardrobe, with undies and stoles and negligees and things ... from the skin out.
Heathcliffe went across to the Donizetti's to reclaim the suit he'd left there, fairly sure that Madge had finished repairing the ripped seam by now. He was gone so long that once again Gloria started worrying about the power of positive gossip. And when he finally slipped back to the apartment and hurriedly donned his newly pressed suit, he whispered something to her: "Dearest, did you know your considerable entourage of friends and clients is lined up out in the hall?"
"Oh golly, this city's so full of spectators and voyeurs," she said. "But I suppose they're all waiting to catch our exit, the dears. They're really terribly romantic, you know, and it's been so awfully hot and everything ..." Then another idea struck her.
"Good heavens, we can't let them in! I just broke all their dishes!"
Heathcliffe stared at her, then wearily gazed at the door. "My God, it's like Heloise and Abelard, the way the world's trying to come between us!" Then he glanced towards the windows. "Has anyone ever tested that fire escape?"
Following his gaze, she said: "Only second-story men. But darling, really ... we mustn't leave until we clean the kitchen and glue those dishes ... and, of course, I should leave a few notes for Leona so she'll remember to feed the hamsters ... and somehow I should manage to have my phone calls relayed to the Waldorf ..." and upon uttering that golden word, she gasped again: "Waldorf!"
And went quite breathless in the next instant, for Heathcliffe pulled her roughly to him, the glints of affection in his eyes nearly blinding her. "Listen to me, you dizzy little cockatoo, right now we're going to concentrate on only one thing-escape!" With that he descended upon her with another of his mind-bending kisses, and Gloria said, "Okay, you've sold me, let's go ..." moving hypnotically to the windows, lifting one leg, quite prepared to climb out into the humidity.
"No, darling, wait!" He caught her arm and pulled her back. "I think I have a better idea."
Taking her luggage (the bulk of his things were checked at Grand Central) Heathcliffe turned the doorknob. "Now Gloria, promise you won't say a word. Just leave this to me."
Gloria's hallway was jam-packed with would-be matrons of honor, and also a few scattered and surly looking husbands, who tried to smile at her through their brooding bafflement. Gloria had never flaunted her illicit affairs out in the open before, so naturally the boys she'd serviced so surreptitiously wondered what the hell kind of dope she was on.
"Aw look at the little devil," yelled Elsie Svensen, "she's eloping!" She and her husband Lars both beamed their approval at Gloria.
"Go to it, Gloria!" cheered Lars. "You were born to make some man happy, we've always known that."
Ahh ... but you were always too happy to know how beautifully equipped I was for that job, Gloria sighed inwardly, her eyes travelling briefly over Lars' ample topography as Heathcliffe led her down the hall.
Steve Overton was also very much in evidence, dramatically cradling his infant son in his arms, a gesture quite obviously designed to give Gloria a last-minute guilt complex. "Oh wow ... this little tyke's sure gonna miss you, Gloria, hon ..."
"We all will, dear," Sandra Overton gave her a smile of deep bovinity.
"The poor little baby," Steve went on, tenderly rocking his offspring back and forth. "He'll probably wake up in the night crying his heart out for you ... and you'll be on his mind constantly every waking minute ... no matter where he goes ..."
"Now dear, really!" giggled his wife. "The baby's only seven months, so ... let's not overdo it ..."
"But Gloria, hon, you should'a told us," said Madge Danizetti, her husband Tony smiling nearby, through clenched teeth. "We would'a give you a baby shower or somethin' ..."
"We're on our way to a picnic," Heathcliffe loudly proclaimed. Seeing his intentions, Gloria smiled and nodded and winked, wishing pensively that someone would play an old shoe or throw an organ, because this was certainly the closest she'd ever gotten to Mendelssohn.
"A picnic?" leered Tony Danizetti, eyeing their suitcase. "Pretty heavy eaters, ain't'cha?"
"Smarty-pants," said Gloria, "we packed a folding tent and two camp chairs, and they're very bulky."
"Gloria, please!" muttered Heathcliffe. "Let's do this whole maneuver in pantomime, and keep moving towards the elevator."
"Whatever you say, Sire!" she grinned up at him, gripping his hand. At that instant there was a rumbling noise from somewhere in the building, plus the faint sound of angry voices-but the fleeing couple were now too close to their escape-valve to care, as they made a double jab at the elevator button.
Turning, Gloria waved gaily at everyone, wishing she had a truck load of bouquets to toss at them. "You're all being terribly sweet, you know. But rather silly, too, because honestly, I'll be back quite soon ..."
"Does that mean you'll sit for us again, Gloria ... huh ... does it?" yelled the fidgety Steve Overton.
"Oh golly, I don't know," said Gloria. "After this weekend I may never sit again ..." she gazed idolatrously up at Heathcliffe, who stifled a chuckle as the elevator arrived and he led her in.
"You insatiable vixen!" he murmured as the doors slid shut. "If you meant what you just said, I fully intend to hold you to that promise." He clutched a handful of her buttocks, and Gloria winced, reviewed her syntax and blushed.
"But God, what a reprieve!" he said, as the elevator began to descend. He gave her a bone-crashing hug. "No more fish bowl romance for us, my lovely. From this moment on there'll be intimacy, tenderness ..."
"... On silks of sheet ..."
"On what?" he laughed, nuzzling at her ear.
It was then that they heard the screeching sirens of police cars pulling up to the building, and as the elevator reached the lobby, a small group of officers were bolting up the stairs.
Instinctively, Gloria found herself wandering after them.
"Gloria ... what the devil are you doing? Come back here!"
"Hush!" she commanded him. "I'll bet that crashing noise we heard a few minutes ago was poor Terry Kildaire smashing into Birdie's apartment again. Oh that sick and lonely boy ... I must go to him!" Before he could overtake her, she was bounding up the stairs three at a time.
As she reached the second floor, Gloria saw that her bogus wedding party had dropped several flights in record time, just to case this new action. Four officers were dragging the tall and lanky blue-eyed Terence Kildaire from his estranged wife's apartment.
"Oh my God, I'll kill 'em, the black-hearted sinners!" he cried. "Ahh ... glory be to the Holy Ghost, I'll cut off their balls and tits and hang 'em in the Square! I'll mash 'em ... I'll crucify 'em ...!"
... Good gravy, he came to visit his baby and found Birdie with another census-taker ...
"All right, boy, take it easy and stop your blubberin'," said Officer Von Steuben, a gentle soul who used to give Gloria lifts to night school in his prowl car when she was studying karate, which certainly came in handy whenever he parked and locked her in.
Getting a strong whiff of rosemary and oregano, Gloria turned and saw Leona standing beside her. She was peaked, but upright. "This boy wouldn't cut off nobody's balls or titties," she said, "not even a paring knife was he armed with, the poor kvetch ..."
The officers carried out a badly beaten blond young man, whose trousers had been left carelessly unzipped, although nobody took the trouble to notice this except the over-vigilant Gloria Heavenrich. She felt a twinge of compassion as she saw that he was sobbing at the top of his voice: "Oh Mother, Mother ... I tried to be a big boy like you said ... and look at me! I got hurt, Mommy, awful hurt! ... that fucker kicked me in the goodies!"
"Tilt that schlemiel sonofabitch!" roared Leona. "A bloody hall-runner I couldn't send to a dry cleaner."
Birdie Kildaire, a little under the influence, suddenly shrieked out from the shambles of her apartment. "Hogs! ... that's what they are. Every mother's son of them! Scratch a man and what the hell do ya find? A dirty little boy ... a dirty little filthy little snotty little ... boy!"
"Good heavens, that's one very sick adulteress in there," conjectured Gloria.
"Imagine such a nativity scene, Gloria," said Leona, "they were doing it right in front of the cradle ..."
"No!" gasped Gloria.
Leona nodded. "Yes. And with the baby crying for her bottle yet. To me already this is carrying sex education in the home a little too far ..."
Terence suddenly tore loose from the cops and ran the length of the hall towards Gloria.
"Oy vay, that mumser ...!" cried Leona, "he's freaking out altogether!"
The boy sank to his knees and flung his arms about Gloria's lower anatomy. "Aw Gloria, once again I'm choosin' ya for my deliverance. Ahh ... may the Saints Come Marchin' in, tell them about me, darlin' ... you know what I'm really like, how decent and gentle ... tell them!"
Gloria grunted a little from these fresh flesh-attacks upon her tender person.
"... You could give the judge a bit of a sermon about me, Gloria ... because sweet heavenly Jay-sus, you know the pure purgatory I've been through with that jerked-up little heathen in there!"
Smiling sweetly down at him, Gloria brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes, resisting the impulse to give him a full and corrective therapy-kiss on the mouth and thus ease some of the boyish turbulence there. "Well dear, I'll try my best, if you really think I can help ... "
But the officers brutally dislodged this poignant Madonna-child cameo, dragging the boy away from her so abruptly that Gloria fell forward over Terence's shoulder and was dragged a few feet with him. "Oooumghgg!" said Gloria; and of course, this violent show of police persecution was all she needed to launch a fight against injustice. "Don't you worry, Terry, I'll go downtown right this minute and vouch for you," she panted. She glared icily at the whole squad, "They want to put you away. Ahh ... but Gloria's here now, dear boy ... and Gloria cares ..."
A pair of eyes stopped this declaration of war.
Heathcliffe's.
Still lugging her antique suitcase, he stood nearby, peering at her like a foiled Svengali. In a flash, Gloria remembered that magic carpet he'd laid out for her which extended all the way from the Village to Park Avenue.
With a sickish grin, she gave Terence a bracing pat on the arm. "Dear, you go with these gentlemen. Things are bound to work out ... and this week I'll draw up a testimonial for you and send it all over to the Court of Domestic Relations. Faith will move mountains, you'll see!"
Flitting down the stairs with Heathcliffe, she heard him murmur in her ear ... "The quality of mercy is not strained ... it falleth as the gentle rain from heaven ..."
Flushing with pleasure, she turned and took his hand as they reached the lobby. "Oh dearest, how sweet to quote The Bard at a time like this."
"My demented little firebrand," he said, seizing her about the waist and whirling her out the door. "What will it take to get you out of here, short of a rocket? And don't answer that, my darling ... let's just hurry and find a taxi ..."
The police swept past them with their flailing, red-haired captive, dragging the boy to an awaiting squad car. The entrance of the building now swarmed with the traffic of curiosity-seekers who had just seen Birdie's blond inamorato being hauled away in an ambulance.
Gloria wrenched her head away from this final scene.
"Oh Gloria, darlin' ..." wailed Terence. "Get Birdie's door fixed. And Jaysus, Mary and Joseph, put a bolt on it!"
"Now dear, you try to forget all about such externals, and ... and spend the day in restful contemplation ..." Gloria dabbed at her eyes. "Oh Heathcliffe, can you honestly see a face like that behind bars?"
"No," he sighed wearily, "and my dear, that is one treat I'd just as soon forego, if you don't mind ..."
Gloria viewed him quizzically as he stood in the middle of the hot-tarred street, waving for a cab ... Hmm ... the poor tired darling looks as if his joie de vivre might be running down; and is it any wonder, after the aggravating obstacle course I've just put him through?
Knowing it was unforgivably un-chic, Gloria placed two fingers in her mouth and whistled. In two shakes they were motor-borne. Seated comfortably close to him in the taxi, she threw her arms about him. "You look a bit queasy, darling, are you all right?" she asked.
He grinned happily and pulled her close for a deep and sealing kiss. "I'm perfectly fine, now that I've got you alone."
"Where to?" asked their driver.
"Waldorf," said Heathcliffe.
"Astoria!" Gloria further confirmed.
"With a few detours, of course," added Heathcliffe. "Like Bergdorf Goodman's ... Sak's Fifth ..."
Hearing this made Gloria feel deliciously iniquitous and "kept," and she cuddled closer to him in the seat, her hot little hand lurking perilously about his upper thigh ... "Oooh ... now darling, you'd better brief me-what do we do when we get there?"
"We go upstairs and shower together and strip together and ..."
"... Now no! ... What I mean is, do you go up first and toss a key out the window, or do I follow ten paces behind like a Geisha, or perhaps sneak up later with a password and a secret knock?"
Laughing, he pulled her hand higher and gave it a neatly cupped bulge-rest. "We won't need any of that counter-espionage nonsense. You simply do everything I do. And really, you'll find that the people who work in luxury hotels care very little about the social graces of their guests."
"Meaning what?" she said, her fingers gently squeezing and rising a little with his growth, "that I shouldn't try to impress the help?"
"Now you've got it, my darling," he dove down at her and bit her playfully on the neck, his lips rubbing lazily at her flesh. "I'm the only living being you've been programmed to impress. So concentrate on that." He pressed her hand more definitely between his legs and throbbed out the rest of this message.
CHAPTER TEN
Gloria Heavenrich descended upon the Waldorf Astoria with a sense of mind-boggling awe and incredulity. She felt a little like "Alice" making that jittery bum trip through her looking-glass. And yet, something about striding so glamorously into that lobby made her feel more like Marie Antoinette, sweeping across the drawbridge after a tryst, with poor foppish Louis sniffing snuff and spitting grape-pits while awaiting her return in his tower chambers.
Laden with packages from Bergdorf's and Sak's, Gloria decided it would save time if she signed the registry, while Heathcliffe tipped the driver and the doorman. She skimmed haughtily up the foyer stairs and through the lobby, wearing a stunning new suit-dress of bright-hot yellow. She was certain she looked expensive enough to be taken for granted in these surroundings. And then, as she reached the lobby, a flare of panic as she realized she was lost before she'd hardly taken a step. However, she was determined to keep going and sign in somewhere, since decisiveness was very important if she were to continue to look like visiting royalty. It was this sort of reasoning that led her directly to the Overseas & Latin American Department, where a weary attendant inquired: "Are you sailing or flying?"
Gloria was about to tell him she always walked that way when Heathcliffe, breathing fast and frantically, finally overtook her, followed by a bellboy carrying more packages and Gloria's suitcase. "Now really, darling, what are you doing over here?" he asked. "If we were going to Rio, I would have mentioned something about it-don't you think so ... hmm? No, don't answer that. In fact, not a word about anything until we're safely installed."
"Well, I must say!" she said huffily.
"No you mustn't." He took her hand and led her quite confidently across the huge rotunda; and it was pretty obvious to Gloria how well he knew his way around the place.
"I suppose you have spent enough clandestine weekends here to run a rickshaw service!" she bristled.
"If you mean, am I a seasoned philanderer, my dumpling, yes, you're quite right. And you really do deserve much more than an amateur, you know." He clicked his heels and gave her a mock bow as they reached the registry desk and waited in a small line.
Still feeling a little stage fright, she whispered: "I'm trying to think what fictitious name we should sign so nobody'll question who or what we are ..."
"Don't be so absurd, you goose!" he said. "Who in the world would question it when I sign us in as Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliffe Montague of Burlington, Vermont?"
She gaped up at him, her mouth falling open. "Well, I never!" she said; but it was already their turn up at bat, and Heathcliffe was busy at the registry.
No one will question Mr. and Mrs. indeed! ... she thought-why, the blundering pompous old beauty, doesn't he see this is the only disguise in the world that I would question? Golly, the first time he's mentioned matrimony even indirectly, and he's going to propose to a desk clerk!
* * *
During the next forty-odd hours, Gloria Heavenrich couldn't have made a more thorough exploration of the Waldorf if she'd been assigned by the. Fire Commissioner to condemn the building. Heathcliffe wore himself ragged recruiting searching parties for her; and once she was convinced that she was officially a guest in the house, Gloria became a mobile unit-racing from the Terrace Court to the Grand Ballroom, from the East Foyer to the West Foyer; down the Grand Ballroom stairway ... hungrily probing, observing, questioning, giving advice or asking for it, and just plain awed and thunderstruck by everything she saw.
For a while she found the other patrons alluring and provocative to watch. But soon they bored her. The Ladies-of-the-Manor she found particularly weird and hilarious to study. She tried not to laugh aloud as she watched how they draped themselves like rolls of yard goods wherever the decor afforded them a chance to look horizontal. Forever standing with their feet at right angles, like those jaundiced models in Harper's Bazaar with the nineteen-inch waists and the eighteen-inch chests ... "I dreamed I met a Silicone Surgeon in my Maidenhead Bra!"
Disenchanted with the paying customers, Gloria soon found greener pastures among the personnel. The life stories she assiduously pumped out of bell captains, page boys and security officers grew into dramatic vignettes of woe and frustration which never ceased to arouse her ire or compassion. Surely these downtrodden vassals were the most vital people on Park Avenue-the true puppet-masters who held all the strings. Of course, it was true that most of the female help seemed much too self-sufficient to require her simpatico ear. The weaker sex indeed! All one had to do to disprove this theory was to follow one of these Amazon chambermaids as she wheeled a batch of bedding-bull-dyke muscles all over the place. On the other hand, some of the male personnel found Gloria Heavenrich just about the warmest bundle of commiseration they'd ever wanted to come up against.
Upon conducting a haphazard sort of poll, Gloria found that an alarming number of these men were either victims of an ego-maiming divorce, or the products of an uncomfortable marital situation.
As a kind of portable sociologist, one of her favorite questions was: "Does your servile capacity here at the hotel ever threaten to carry over into your home life?"
"If you mean, does the little woman give me a tip every time we do it, the answer is no," winked one of the bellboys, who happened to find Gloria much too stacked, pretty and curvilinear to take offense at.
And to another-this one a blondly robust elevator boy-she said: "Do you find you still have an unconscious desire to kowtow and take orders when you get home at night?"
The handsome lad eyed her shrewdly, as if to scout out all her juice-trends and play her by ear. "Why ma'am, you never said a truer word, because my wife takes advantage of that very thing you're talking about ..."
She gave him one of her liquid blue-eyed smiles. "My heart goes out to you."
Gazing down at her busty bodice, the boy thought: "and that's not all!" But said: "Yep, my wife's so sure all my will power's been broken down for the day, she wants to go on playing the same game at night. You know: she-Tarzan, me-Jane? But damned if I don't let her!"
The boy gave her a helpless grin, as if to say: what can I do, women always have their way with me! And Gloria felt some of those old philanthropic tendencies twittering in her tummy, as she stood near him at his post in the lobby. There was an air of scrubbed vulnerability about him that actually had an odor-sort of loamy and fresh-earthed. So Gloria inhaled a lot as she surveyed him. "Well ... your wife apparently tries to dominate the scene and rule your life and ... and emasculate you ..."
"Well, let's just say she's as bossy as hell," he said. "But as for emasculatin' me ... oh brother! ... she'd have to be pretty handy with a meat ax to handle a job like that." He gave her a meaningful wink and his eyes grazed down his uniform, coming to rest on his tightly encased topic of discussion.
Following the boy's eyes, Gloria was truly taken aback by the classic symmetry of his bone structure. He got a load of passengers a moment later, and he urged her to take a couple of rides with him, as he had a whole lot of domestic problems and needed someone to confide in. So Gloria stayed on with him for awhile, spasmodically chattering out more sympathies, and feeling more strongly by the minute that he was far too young to be suffering the pangs of wifely persecutions.
After twenty minutes or so, he whispered something to her: "Hang on for another trip or two, I get off in about ten minutes."
Gloria pretended not to know what he meant and plied him with another barrage of therapeutic questions. Furtively, he told her how his wife really forced him to marry her by saying she was pregnant; and he did the right thing, even though he knew that baby could have been fathered by practically any street cleaner up the block.
"Ahh ... duplicity, thy name is woman!" Gloria chanted out the litany.
And then the ten minutes were up, and instead of letting her out in the lobby, the boy released everyone but Gloria. Then he shut the doors and descended. And stopped the elevator between the basement and the main floor.
"It's safe here," he whispered, his hot young eyes going to the rigid outline of her nipples.
"What is?" she asked, her heart beginning to pound as she courted the fear and the tingling awareness of where they were-right underneath the lobby, under the legs of all those rich and strutting sinners.
"This is," he murmured, his tone full of alley-adolescence as his fingers tugged and unfastened and flipped out the corpulent display for her ... waving it at her in full and prideful exposure.
Gloria caught her breath and stared at it. It was round and stiff and long and a lovely shade of rare, pastel coral. "My goodness! ... what's its name ... I mean ... what's your name, dear?"
"Rod." Grinning impudence. Lip-licking assurance of his voluptuous boy-powers to stun and disarm. "Do you like it? ... huh? ... say something! ... go ahead, talk about it, describe it, describe it ... love it out loud ... I wanna hear ...!"
"Yes ..." her eyes reflective and caught ... entranced by this flaring prong of flesh he held for her in his hand. "Yes, it should be talked about," she said, "for there's never enough publicity about them when they look like that. If only more men had the courage to unveil the really special adornments, such as yours, our failure to communicate and choose a proper mate would be greatly minimized ..."
"... Yeah ... yeah ... talk about it!"
"... It's so enormous ... and nicely turned-out ... with such a valiant, lusty sweep to it ... and ... it's so young-looking, as if it had just been born, this very instant ..."
He nodded, eagerly condoning her every word. "Man! ... that's the best character sketch anyone ever did of it ... and they all flip over it right away, which is why I like to show it to 'em real fast in case maybe they won't like the rest of me, like my personality or the way I talk ... but then, after they see my big fat baby here, it's too late ... you dig?"
"Too late ..." she nodded.
"Come on, put your hand on it, honey. Ooh! ... you sweet pretty thing, you look so hot for it, I could bust just havin' you see it ... all naked and stickin' out and throbbin' like this ..."
She reached for it with both hands, wanting to feel the full expanse at once. And she said: "Shhh now ... quiet ... hush!" In her hands and burning there and rolled and adopted, hers. She pressed her fingers lightly into the soft cushiony flesh that cloaked the manly steel of his erection ... and the boy groaned as he felt her deftly gliding caresses swirl about the thick edge of it ... until the delicate pink lady fingers went a little moist with the swimming urgency they produced there ... "Aw lady! ... you're gonna see it shine if you keep that up ... wanna see it shine? ... huh? ... do ya?"
"Shiny ... and photogenic," she murmured, tonguing her lips as she gently rubbed the trickly staff. She molded her fingers down to the base of it, where a few scraggly blond gym-champ's hairs sprang out of the tight opening of his briefs ... "Ooh Christ, I love your hands on it and your eyes on it ..." He pulled her to him and clutched his lips down over hers, his mouth a sticky-sweet burst of the Hershey and caramel he'd been gobbling earlier ... moaning with the randy trembling taste of her tongue as it swept in to meet his ...
"Oooumm! ... baby," he said, and pulled back to stare at the lovely lips that moistly caressed the tip of his tongue, as he slid and teased it in and swiftly out, watching the eager blossom her mouth became as it formed a gulping plea for more of the warmth of him. "Will ya ... will ya do something for me?" he muttered, hardly able to speak clearly. "Take my pants and my briefs off ... aw God, how I love to feel a lady doin' that to me ... 'cause hot damn! ... that's the livin' end, gettin' all peeled and unpantsed by a pretty gal with big juicy tits who stares between my naked legs like the whole Goddamned world's fallin' apart ... and nothin' else matters to her ... do it!"
Nodding, her mouth a slim flushed smile, Gloria slowly unbuckled his trousers ... pulled them down over his lithe hard hips. And then the breathless quickening heartbeat as she wrestled the unwieldy organ and shoved it back in his briefs temporarily ... (mourning the evanescent passing!) ... so that she could slide both trousers and briefs down around his ankles-and golly! ... what a tumbling gay delight to see the sturdy youth of his balls spring loose ... lush companion-pieces for the stout commander that soared above. He had an uncommon wild density of hair forest about his crotch, and Gloria fingered through it idyllically, while he kissed her and hoarsely groaned some more and unfastened her bodice and pulled out a warm plump breast from the straining bra.
His mouth on hers, rubbing, biting, speaking ... "Let's trade sucks," said the hot-steamed lips, "or don't you know how to play that game ...?"
"No ... tell me the games you've been forced to devise, you bereft and lonely boy ..."
He gazed down at her breast that was now so aroused and tremulous in his hand. He lowered his blond boy's head and took the nipple in his mouth, mildly wetting it with his fresh saliva-fires, briefly encircling it with his tongue as Gloria cried out and gripped his searing penis more fiercely in her hand, squeezing, adoring, gasping to become part of it ... wanting to wear the long maleness as well as insert it ...
And even more excited by his words and the fruit-moistened charade he proposed ... "For every suck I give this baby, you match it with one down there on my baby ..," he spoke with his tongue still dabbing at the nipple. "How 'bout that game, huh? Everybody wins, honey ... believe me! And man, it'll get you so frantic ... after about sixty seconds you'll want to take on a whole football team!"
"Oh ... yes!" she said, as he plunged more of her breast into his mouth, now biting, now licking, now snarling for it ... his lips a ripe-blown harvest of her flesh as he raised his innocent truant head again and stared at her, swallowing some flavors ... then giving her the signal ...
She nodded. "My turn," she said, and the glee fairly sang through her lips as she went gracefully to her knees and ardently busied herself there. With the first hot feel of girlish tongue surrounding the head of it, the boy cried out and gasped and straddled his legs wider, giving the oven-appetites of her mouth full rein, leaning against the wall of the elevator, his fingers filtering through her long blonde hah as he peered down at the sensual repast her curving lips made of him ... and lower at the pouting lone breast of her, the nipple still aimed and pointed for his tongue's most sensitive urgings. But she rose after only wetting the knob of it, barely lighting the torch ... and he knew it was time for him to share in this bouquet of loving cups ... his mouth sweeping in at her once more, lips going greedy and foam-haunted for that tip-most point of pulpy nipple ... and then, a second later, Gloria the mute receptacle at his feet again, roundly joined there ... receiving the lunging spear that swamped and bulged its way down her throat. And now, faster and faster they alternated, as she rose and gave his lips their bounty, only to descend again and grovel for more of the taut taste of him ... then he at her ... and she at him ... up and down and mutual went the succulence of their mouths, as she sucked in more of his throbbing with each journey ... her lips all flared and full of this sweet servant boy's bludgeon ... inhaling all his teen-dipped aromas as she licked ... up and down went the pledged and transient couple ... mouths and loins growing riper for it ... ahh ... the torment and sweet gulping ... but now ... hurry! After only a few moments of this lovely agony they were both half-crazed with hunger for the deeper tortures, as now she let him undress her, groaning aloud as he softly kissed away the moistures that had gleamed the downy patch of her vagina ... gripping the rumpled blond curls as his tongue dug in to taunt her clitoris ... and then the tremors and soft sighs as he pulled her stripped and baubled body down on the floor ... laid her flat and supplicant and crawled over her ... his member swollen and angered by all their worrisome foreplay ... as now, at last, the tan and pectoraled young elevator boy turned his prick into an event and surged the full experience deep up into her ... diving up that swarming hot spread of her channel ... bare-assed lust-child going into her between floors, crowding the warm wide thickness of his tool up her writhing belly with an agonizing slowness ... so that it seemed an eternity before the full cock-length of him disappeared into her body, his fat and humid balls dabbing gently against her flared-out buttocks as he fucked and entered and created the bliss of new emergencies for the girl ... young ramming intern filling the prescription ... ahhh! ... take as directed ... and direct what's taken ...
The boy performed.
Lash-strokes that were wet and sure and artful, as Gloria squirmed and thrashed that swallowing juice-lipped pit of hers up hard against what he gave and battered and thickly relinquished, and felt his eager greasy-kid-stuff mouth nearing hers again ... yearning voraciously to suck the soft hot flower of her tongue as he dove up into her ... faster and slotting and more frantic with every thumping jolt ... slicing his way into the heaving gift of her vagina that seemed to grip his prick and bite it and smoke it and puff it and suck it. And for Gloria ... oh golly! ... it was so terrible and wonderful and wrong and furtive ... but mercy! ... what could she do with a boy like this, who was so beautifully designed to please and to purge? And, after all, there was a rampaging lady-beast in his house, one more she-devil whom Gloria Heavenrich had been divinely ordained to cast out ... using her own dear body as the catalyst ... ooh! ... those long sacrificial legs, o benevolent one, and chase the glooms from this boy ... give him cheer!
He was panting out some words for her as he pivoted it and so brilliantly banged: "Ya ... want me to explode it up your belly, baby? ... or should I raise up just in time so's you can nurse it?"
The question swirled about in her brain and body, building new fires there, leaving her so benumbed with desire that she could barely speak. But oh ... to make this choice he expected, to turn what he offered into some desperate serum ... ahh! ... to do and to comply! To let him see that what he had sensed about her was true: it was milking-time ... always milking-time for Gloria ...
"Rod ..." was all she said; and he licked his lips and knew, grinning ... but breathing heavily now and perspiring and dangerously close to his climax. Tensing all his muscles, he held his cock's warning pulsations in check until he could slip it out of her wet cunt and then slowly raise his body upwards to offer her the full and photogenic thrust of his love-dipped tool ... ooh! ... just like that baby, at the tip's peril ... throbbing with its dammed-up flood-tide ... God ... half creamily sprung and ready for the peak ... aw ... touch it with your tongue ... yeah ... like that ... and now real slow ... oohmyGod ... yeah! ... let it in ... aw Christ! ... what a beautiful wet hot mouth ... ahh! ... those lovin' lips ... those juicy red lovin' lips ... ummm! ... suckin' lovely bitch ... do that with your tongue ... again! ... aw ... I'm dyin' in there ... aw ... here it is ... now and now and ... now ...
Smiling and rubbing her thighs together, Gloria received the throbbing spurting wedge right up to the hilt ... gently squeezing the balls that so warmly caressed against her chin as she drank. And a moment later, the streams and sighs ... as the boy gasped and groaned and waited and watched while she sponged him dry ... then dove down between her legs to sop up the buttery flow of nourishment there ... gulping and breathless for the endless gushing, his mouth brimming and radiant as he swallowed ... Gloria groaning out her pain of fresh release as she still licked the lingering traces of his boy-issue from her lips ...
Mouths and loins replenished, they raised up their heads and looked at each other. And smiled the wordless salute: they would remember this. They had left their mark on the scheme-of-things, and the world couldn't possibly have gone on the same if they'd never met or fused. They would separate and never touch again, but in passing had shot out some posterity. Unalterable. Two new moist stars in the galaxy.
* * *
Rod squirmed back into his uniform, still abulge in half-erection as he gave her a hand with her panties. "Sure hope the Union doesn't hear about you." His grin was chaste and neighborly.
"Oh?"
"You've got a whole new way of tryin' to organize the help, and they just might want a few lessons ... "
She laughed, reaching out to gaily fingertip his lips once more. Such a sweet and callow humor. But good heavens, how desperate and floundering he must be at home, poor lad! And golly, there are so many of these wronged and ravished ones who are still untreated! Oh Heathcliffe, my dear and tender Monitor ... if you'll only allow me to continue with these good works after marriage, I shall but love thee better ... especially when I just know I'll be able to manage beautifully with a clever budgeting of my time ... because after all, they do say if you want anything done, ask a busy person ...
As she joined Heathcliffe in their suite a few moments later, he found her gaily humming: I Dreamt I Dwelt In Marble Halls ...
"Where the devil have you been for the past hour?" he demanded.
"Now darling, didn't you hear what I was humming? That was a hint. I met the sweetest little old lady who has lived here for years, and she took me on a lovely scenic tour of our castle ..."
With smiling guileless eyes Gloria licked her lips and fully swallowed this white he. It was still quite tasty.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
On their first evening together at the Waldorf, Gloria and Heathcliffe decided to dress lavishly for dinner. She looked newly fulfilled and radiant in something frilly and pink which the Bergdorf salesgirl had insisted was an organza trapeze with a modified mini and a see-through top-although decorator-pasties were included with this ensemble and were, of course, optional. Gloria, still reeling from the palpitating effects of Rod's nuzzling mouth, chose to use this mild camouflage before letting Heathcliffe feast his eyes on the finished product.
"My God, but you're lovely!" he groaned, gathering her to him and burying his face against her bosom. He blew hot air against the fabric, digging his chin and mouth in deep between the thrusts of her. Still tender, Gloria winced a little through her smiles.
They dined pleasantly together that night, and the shared intimacy between them was relaxed and effortless. However, something about entering the Empire Room on the arm of her bogus husband changed Gloria's sentiments from socialism to capitalism in an instant. Now she wanted to be a part of all this tinsel and velvet, even though living like an African violet under glass was something she'd never be able to tolerate permanently.
While waiting to have their order taken, Gloria leaned forward and gently touched Heathcliffe's cheek. "Darling, did I thank you for buying me this lovely gown? And all those other pretty things?"
He nodded rather grimly. "Every time you come near me, my high-bosomed child. There's gratitude astounding in the least little touch of you."
She laughed uneasily. "But really, dear, everything was much too expensive. I mean ... where do you get such tons of money, you gorgeous mystery man sitting there in those magnificent Italian silks! That was such a fat check you cashed at Bergdorf's, and they honored it at once. Are you some sort of potentate or plenipotentiary?"
"Sometimes," was all he said. Then, with a smile, he took her hand in his and softly kissed the palm.
Their waiter appeared, shattering the rest of Gloria's probing badinage. And when Heathcliffe ordered Truite de Riviere Farcie Braisee au Porto, Gloria arched a pinky over the tinted cigarette she was trying to smoke and felt glowingly akin to Madame duBarry-until the entree arrived and she saw it was nothing but a big fat trout embalmed with medicinal Port.
* * *
That night they made love with a lingering intensity. Gloria was never so unalterably convinced of her beloved one's madness as she was during his obsessive performances in bed. With other paramours there had always been those thrilling fundamentals of simply being needed; but with Heathcliffe there was the driving, unleashed gluttony, as though he feared she might disappear or melt away before he could get his scavenging fill of her. What tumultuous groans and sobs he uttered during then blending heights; wailing out into the jungled cosmos like some newly speared rhino, rumbling his last ... right up into her. And amidst these fluid terrors, Gloria clung to him that night as he piteously grunted and rolled that big dipping phallus from side to side and up and slashing-in ... and she joined him in this howling fugue of sobs, always ready when he was and shuddering in the drenched obliteration of his burning conquests ... after which the mouth-engulfing kisses of her thundering Lothario.
And sleep.
Their bodies were like honeymoon lavalieres that night, and in the most traditional sense. Gloria thought of this, dreamt of it-locked in his castle and so blissfully groom-torn by him, widened for that rocky "course-of-true-love" road ahead.
She thought of ancient Polynesian maidens being sacrificed to the Gods, having always wondered what visual form those idols themselves might have taken. But knowing now. Heathcliffe, when nude and plundering above her. Yes. He was like one of those Gods, and she could just see those flashing white teeth of his sinking into the satiny thigh of a maiden. But for Gloria the sacrifice was sweet, even though the fear-doubts remained that she might one day breathe her last under his marauding.
... To be thrown by the mob to a judging stranger, a festivity to appease. And in his hands whoever he was ...
* * *
But the next morning Gloria awoke early to the same insatiable curiosity about the Waldorf and its bewildering personnel. Without disturbing Heathcliffe she dressed hurriedly and disappeared into the maze of corridors. When her lover misplaced her later, he again had to report her missing; while, with an inquiring eye, Gloria sauntered stealthily through the Waldorf Towers, staring at the doorways, behind which she was certain lurked the most glamorous statesmen, expatriates and spies the world had ever known. How marvelous if she could listen at these keyholes to the sounds of history: tycoons locking antlers, stars locking diaries.
Various other investigations kept her whirling during the daylight hours-including a sorrowful bartender and a cuckolded bell captain-but Heathcliffe always managed to locate her before nightfall, when they dined alone together. And later, those king-sized rediscoveries in the dark.
* * *
Finally, their last evening was upon them, and with a start, Gloria also realized it was the beginning of the end of her Labor Day weekend. Oh golly ... did that mean her Polynesian Sun-God was going to dash right back to Vermont to whomever or whatever was awaiting him there?
It was nearly midnight, and since these two enchanted tanglers were between jousts, they were temporarily sated. They'd been lying abed for the past half-hour, holding hands, listening to piped-in Debussy. Gloria welcomed this ease of night-sharing weariness, knowing it would end once her lover-lord got the wind up again.
Heathcliffe doused his fragrant pipe, and she missed the exotic fumes at once. He drew her gently to him, moving so slowly she was convinced he hadn't caught the tiger-scents again; and, for a while at least, they could still be cubs together. But with the feel of his big hand cupped lazily at her breast, Gloria wasn't sure how long she could maintain this sweet repose without wanting to convert herself into another quick serving.
She turned and gave him a sidelong glance, taking in the great imposing chest with its black curling hairs, her eyes travelling upwards to his full, contented mouth, the piercing dark eyes, grey-streaked rumpled mane ... then down again at his hard flat manly nipples, and lower ... firm-muscled belly and navel and beneath ... to that trailing slash of hair that led to his black-fleeced pubic bush ... gently curling tufts that heralded his mammoth loose languor down below ...
"People seem to love you very quickly, Gloria, I've noticed that ..."
"Pardon?" His voice had jolted Gloria from her reverie. And what was he saying? Was it an accusation?
"You're quite wonderful with strangers," he said, "I've been watching you."
... Now if he's leading up to something, she thought, it simply isn't fair, because I've only comforted three of these sad hotel-boys, and it might easily have turned into a much more all-embracing project, considering the awful emotional bankruptcy each of them face at home, poor stumbling lambs ...
"... I envy you that instant ease you have with people," he was saying. "I don't trust anyone, you know. I'm always convinced that practically everybody has some dark, ulterior motive for talking to me, that nobody's quite what they seem. We are all absurd accidents of physiognomy, each of us encased in masks that have been nailed into place by a thousand and one lies ..."
Now she was even more confused. Did he mean that her "instant ease" with people was real, or part of a mask? And would she ever know where she was with this plummeting enigma of a man?
"Well golly, I suppose I trust everybody on sight," she said, "and then ... just wait for them to give me a reason not to." But, with a nervous laugh, she tried an amendment. "No, I don't mean that, exactly. I mean that ... quite often by the time I find out I shouldn't have trusted someone, it's too late, because by then I'm already hooked."
"And you love and accept them with all their faults and deficiencies," he interposed.
She nodded. "I guess I do," but thinking ... it would surely help if she knew what he was driving at.
He sighed. "I'm rarely able to do that, I'm afraid. I've always gone through life demanding perfection. And when I didn't get it, I rejected, disqualified."
Is this a warning? Gloria pondered. A threat?
Then she was startled by one of his abrupt crescendos of laughter, a quicksilver rumbling sound ... as if he'd found something absolutely new and original to celebrate. He pulled her closer and lightly brushed his lips against hers, his black eyes devilish, grinning. "That's why you have totally won me with your pretty ways, my pet-because you are not in the least what you seem, and by God, I love you anyway!"
Gloria stiffened, not sure if this was a blast of ridicule or tolerance. She tried to push him off, but he held her firmly.
"... I can sniff behind all your masks, my darling, and I want everything that's lurking there ..." He held her wrists as she started to struggle, now climbing over her to weigh her down, while she sputtered and stammered out her indignation ...
"... I'm sure I don't know what's on your mind, Kind Sir, but suddenly I think you've got a very sick attitude ...!"
He laughed down at her red-cheeked face, but the tones were warm and chuckly ... "All those lustful, little-girl imperfections only add heat to my craving fires. Gad, woman, don't you see what has happened? Love has made a tolerant spirit of me at last ...! For you see, I know what a used bruised article you've been, and instead of feeling betrayed or vengeful, all I want is to be added to your list and given some slight priority ..."
"Well I never!" Gloria tore a fist free and socked him in the throat, and he gagged a bit, but gripped her anew. "Of all the pompous, patronizing jackasses ...!" She was kicking and clawing at him now until at last she managed to disentangle herself, further enraged by his uncontrollable hoots of laughter. She slid out of bed and moved half-way across the room to a boudoir chair, where she enthroned herself, all naked and breast-sprung and glowering. "Who in this vicious wide world has been talking to you about me?"
"Word of mouth, my radiant lovebug," he said, still crouched on the bed where she'd eluded him. "Their words, your mouth ... " Blowing her a kiss, he flopped down on his belly and stared hotly at her, reveling in her daintily crossed legs, her superbly angered heaving breasts ... trembling with impatience for her performance to begin, her flaunting defense ... "There's a man across the hall from your apartment who claims you're ambidextrous ... claims you could swallow the whole male race with one flick of your fiery-pink tongue ..."
He watched her cheeks go even redder, as Gloria thought: That doesn't sound like Tony; this big poetic brute must be translating ...! Heathcliffe's eyes studied her nipples as they rose and fell and hardened with her fury. "He's a liar!" she said.
"Who?"
"Tony Danizetti's a habitual liar, and I know that's who you're talking about. But since you're a man, maybe you're lying too, because he'd never talk like that in front of his wife, so ... I think you're fishing ... yes, that's it! ... you're hoping I'll confess to something that isn't true, just because it gets you more excited to think about it. Ooh! ... that's dirty ...!"
"Ahh ... but Tony's wife wasn't there yesterday morning when I went to pick up my suit," he said, his tone still light and playful.
Gloria grew even more tense as she thought about this; for it was all quite clear to her now--Tony's scheming revenge for the trick she'd played on him Saturday afternoon, turning him into a trapped babysitter in the Overton's' apartment. He really deserved a much crueler fate for all his deceptions, so it was really too preposterous that he should make any attempts to retaliate ... Then, suddenly, she glared at Heathcliffe in fresh fury, wondering where all the valor had gone. "But what did you do when he said those awful things about me ... didn't you beat him within an inch of his ..."
"... Life?" interjected Heathcliffe. "No, I'm afraid not, my bouncy blossom. He has enormous fists, you know, and Sicilians hit a lot. And anyway, I agreed with everything he said-wholeheartedly ..."
"Agreed?" she blurted out, her slim crossed leg swinging fretfully back and forth. "Well, I must say!"
"He feels you're quite remarkable, and it's true, my darling, you're a wonder ... facts are facts."
... Ooh ... damn him! ... if only she were perverted enough to see his words as tributes instead of insults, it might lessen the flow of her adrenalin ... except there was too much "lady" in her so she couldn't take it lightly ... "I will not sit here and let you condemn me on such absolutely paltry evidence!" she said, uncrossing her legs, re-crossing them. "For your information, that man is completely unreliable and not to be trusted and ... and furthermore, everybody knows what a foul-mouthed liar he is. For example, now listen to this: he told me ... uh ... I mean, he told everybody that his wife Madge was a nag and a shrew ... and what's more that she was frigid to boot!"
"... Hmm ... those are the worst kind," he grinned at her, "to boot, I mean ..."
"... Well ... " she was undaunted, "I mean to say, that woman ought to sue him for defamation of character, because Saturday afternoon I sat in the Overton's' apartment, which is right underneath theirs, and I heard some definite evidence which proves that poor, doomed woman is just as abnormally sexed as I am ...!"
"... HAH!"
"... Highly-sexed as I ...!" she shrieked out the correction. "But ... well, there I sat, don't you know, with nothing on my mind except the dear baby who'd been left in my care and ... well guess what I heard?"
"I give up!" Heathcliffe was perched on the edge of the bed now, his eyes growing more lustily intense with every word she uttered.
"I heard their mattress springs ... or ... or their hideabed springs pounding and bouncing and ... and ... well, pumping ... and ..." She saw the flushed anxiety on his face and stopped. He had slung his massive frame around and was now sitting up in the bed, a huge blooming erection sprouting between his legs.
"Yes, yes ... my God, go on with it, girl!" he urged her. "They were pounding ... and bouncing ... and ...?"
Hoping it wasn't too late to alter her syntax, Gloria said: "Well ... I turned the radio on very loud so I wouldn't have to be a ... a party to such vulgarity ..." But she knew this was too little and too lame, for she'd already admitted everything by her detailed protest.
"All right ... come on! ... tell me, you precious fool, were you jealous? ... How did you feel, with all those pretty fornication-sounds grinding in your ear? ... Did you want him more or hate him or want to join them ... Or did you want to kill old scuttled-blimp Madge for wringing him dry when he was your property ... Ahh! ... good-neighbor stud coming over to borrow your endless cups of cream! ... Oh tell me ...!"
She stared at him, his whole ungainly scowl of body and genitalia. Arousal, she thought; but surely there must be another word for this! "Goodness, Heathcliffe ... you're out of your ... uh ... you're confused ... no end!"
"No, no, my darling ... listen to me. You must see now that there needn't be any more lies between us. In fact, I shall only want you more if you tell me everything ... oh God! ... if there've been others besides Tony, you've got to review them intimately for me, each and every one. Now try to concentrate, my dearest ... start with the first and send them tripping off your tongue. Yes ... I want to hear every detail from that dear crotch-ridden little angel-mouth of yours ... Go on! ... catalogue ...!" He slid off the bed and moved towards her ... "And when you open up and reveal all the under flesh of your past, down will come the veil ... that silly vanity-tissue of frothy girlish fancies!"
She felt the icy, recurrent fears again as she watched his body lumbering nudely closer to her, the tremendous shaft of penis expanding circuitously as he moved ... "Well goodness me! ... talk about lies and ... and fancies ... shouldn't that sort of confession work both ways? I mean ... what about all your masks and mysteries and ... and pretenses ...?"
He stopped in the middle of the room, legs apart, muscles hard and tensing, but a hurt and wounded look in his eyes. "My dear girl, we'd only known each other an hour before I was telling you my whole life history. Surely you remember."
"Yes, but ..." her eyes on his plumply accusing member, which did not deflate, even in anger ...
"... and I told you about my unfortunate marriage, my home in Vermont," he went on, "and my interest in Art. Why, I even took you to see one of my paintings. Have you forgotten that too?"
"Now listen, Heathcliffe, that painting you showed me was ..."
"... Yes ... yes?" he prompted her, his voice suddenly husky and harsh.
Gloria's words stopped, and she shivered as she caught the wild look of expectancy about his eyes. It was almost as if he were daring her to utter the forbidden words; and if she did, she feared she would become one of those he rejected, disqualified. She was even further convinced of this when she noted the slight lowering tremor of his penis. So she finished her sentence: "It was exquisite, dear ... really quite beautiful ..."
He grinned, the rigid grandeur of his rod shaping up again. "Well now, our lives are an open book. I've had other women, you've had other men; so we've both been duly primed and lubricated to enjoy what we can offer ..." His chieftain-strides once more, advancing towards her ... "Hence, you tell me your dreams, and I'll tell you mine. You start with bull-hung Tony and go backwards, if you like ..."
He stood directly above her now, body brawny and disturbed, eyes gleaming out then lunatic-lust. Gloria kept her legs tightly crossed, although she couldn't very well avert her eyes from his slung-out piston without seeming rude, or badly brought-up. "I'm ... I'm not a bad girl, Heathcliffe," she said, not feeling in the least ridiculous to be humbly addressing his taught protrusion, "It's simply that men are such lonely beasts, and if I can ... somehow illuminate the darkness of their caves, well ... golly! ... why ever not?"
"Good God, I've never heard that expressed with such nobly depraved innocence! Out of the mouths of babes ..." He stared down at her for such long seconds that she quite visibly began to twitch. "The 'sexual gesture' is your way of showing the world that you wish it well-have I hit it on the head, my darling?"
Her eyes encircling the head that was not a figure-of-speech, Gloria nodded. "To contribute," she murmured, "that's the music of my life ..."
"Then by God, let's dance to it!" With a zesty growl he bent and separated her legs, then slid his hands and arms beneath her thighs and lifted her bodily like that, up high and cradled against him. "Ahh! ... wrap those ballerina stems around me, darling, I wouldn't want to do you an injury!" Benumbed, Gloria felt his arms fasten under her knees and about her waist, and she did as he asked, reverting to sacrificial-Polynesian-maiden once more. When he was sure he held her firmly in his grip, Heathcliffe clutched the hot mounds of her buttocks in the palms of his hands and hoisted her fully onto the thick towering bulge of his penis ... circling the flaring knob until it latched and caught at the fleecy opening; then he gripped the cheeks and arse of her and pressed down ... a tortuously slow and sliding descent as he applied the bubbly swirl of her vagina and made it fit ... now digging it into her with such consummate ease that Gloria barely had time to tingle. She let out a series of quick and breathless gasps as the delicious slab of pulsation penetrated deep into her belly ... a shaft of thick surprise paving and clubbing its way into the vulva-warmth and heart of her ... big hot law of gravity flinging her fully down on it. There was a shooting stab of shock-pain ... but this quickly dissolved into a feeling of surging, crazed frenzy ... and the girl went wild and mindless for the gashing sting and the thud of it ... ahhh! ... the plunger-man! ... the devil and the horns and the pitchfork, all ... up ... in ... there!
"... ooooh! ... it hurts like that ..." her eyes glazed with joy ... swamped-in body a bobbing fit of communion ... "hurts!"
"Another lie!" he roared-and as if some invisible ballet master had given him the signal, Heathcliffe began La Dance. He galloped and careened about the glacial tower suite, their two bodies joined like spongy porous pieces of a jig-saw puzzle ... his choreography consisting of rhythmic folk-rock gyrations as a conquering Mongol might attempt them ... now a clumping waltz or a cha-cha or bossanova ... dipping and swirling and gouging his fat go-go-baton more deeply into her with every manic flourish. Gloria groaned out the horrors of her delight ... knowing that one day "they" would come and cart him off to the rubber-rooms, this luscious psychotic she'd ensnared ... but oh golly! ... uuoomgh! ... not now ... no ... it's our first dance! She whimpered and bit the hot snarl of tongue and mouth that sucked in at hers ... and ahh, what giddy release to slam and jounce up and down on the savage cruel length of cannon that sludged and crowded up into her ... vaginal-lips and seared-gushy walls and clitoris inflamed and flushed and upbraided with each tearing entry ... and oh, listen to him! ... The dear beauty's singing a lovely old tune as an accompaniment to this sweet invasion. But goodness, wasn't he getting the words all wrong?
"'Oh ... how ... we ... danced ... on ... the night ... that ... we ... bled!" sang her bucking troubadour.
Gloria was much too close to coming to know that this Freudian slip had sent chills up and down her spine ... "The night that we wed, darling ... WED!"
At which rotating juncture they neared the bed, and without having to dislodge themselves, Heathcliffe leapt with her and pounced their hooked bodies on the soft, giving mattress; where he knelt, his moist hard weapon still clamped in its creamy cubby hole ... then, with all the divine grace of the truly hefty, he slowly twirled her flung-up legs in a circle, his prick still clutched-though swiveling now-inside her, as he screwed her lush white torso fully around on his member until he had her in a kneeling position ... "Oooh! ... yes ... like this, darling," she said, "it's scarier ... " and shot her flaring round buttocks upwards and back to clench and grip this new prowling vantage-point of his prick as it dug anew ... fresh recruit now! ... just-sworn-in Top Sergeant taking command ... taking over and in and cramming it from behind.
Heathcliffe damply panted and groaned as he watched the satiny gulp of scenic-view she presented from this angle ... two buds of soft adornments and the blushed valley in-between ... girlie-spread anus-jewel and that melting cavern that cupped his cock below ... oh Lord, how this dear child opens for me! ... See this flaring ass-flung vista as I pound and absorb ... ahh! spread of tender velvet white baby-cheeks with that crushed-rose throb at the center ... girl peeling for me like a Babylonian nectarine ... split-naked and exposed as I juice-throb and lunge it ...
Gloria trembled and groaned and shot up banging adoration as he joggled up her belly from the rear ... "Ahh! ... this is the way to go home!" howled Heathcliffe, as he passion-jabbed his prick more speedily ... "home ... sweet ... home ... my God! ... where they have to take you in ... and ... in ..."
"Ooooh! ... darling, please ... turn me around so I can kiss you when it happens ... umm! ... want your tongue and lips on mine when I do it ... pivot and roll it around inside of me like you did before and ... and maim me a little, if you like ... and ... oh no! ... wait ... hurry ... no, it's too late ... don't move it! ... don't breathe or make a sound and shove ... it ... like ... it ... is ... oooh! ... like that ... yes ... now! ... I'm coming upside-down! ... upside-down ... running out and out and out ... and ... now! ..."
Gasping with his heaving sight of victory, Heathcliffe bit down on his lips and waited for the gushing flows of her to subside, watched that white-appled toying ass of hers jerking upwards to the skies ... molten hot girl-swarms waylaying his cock in there. Then kept on her as he twisted the flailing haunches in full-circle, feeling the rounding wet swipe of her vagina as he rolled her over and gave her the kiss she'd craved ... forcing the warm prayerful lips open with his tongue before she even had time to gulp the fading sobs of her explosion . . crushing his parted full-wet mouth against hers as he moaned and shuddered ... ahhh! ... now grabbing her body and the bedclothes ... soft quick flight of tangled limbs and grapple ... bundling the whole fleshed chorus of sensations in a mass of sheets and sweat and turmoil ... his loins shooting and bursting with such a vast surge of propulsion that the pain was crucial and tormenting ... unnnn! ... globs of arising oceans now cover the earth ... and ... we ... we ... go ... now ... aahh! ... melting oils and creams rushing to meet hers as he trembled like a humping mongrel with each gust of milked-out sperm that splattered into her ... God! ... there's more and more and here ... and squeezing out the last pearled drops of it ... all up into her and sopped and kissed there ... "We're alive!" he roared and gasped this news as his last creams shot ... repeating the words as if he longed to drink a toast to this announcement ... to hail and salute it ... "Ahh ... Gloria, wrap those pretty legs around the radiance of this moment- we're alive!"
* * *
They slept for an hour, and when they awoke, he murmured: "Now tell me about all those others your body has sucked and drained. And I don't want to hear why you devoured them, my pet, just how." He slid his face down and pressed a cheek against her breast.
"Promise you won't scold me?" She watched his lips go roundly full as he drew in a nipple.
"Only if you leave something out," he said, nibbling and busy at her. "I'm quite beholden to that regiment of your past. They've plowed such a ripe and squirty harvest for me ..." His tongue tracing the ballooning dangle, hand-cupped and squeezing as he sighed and inhaled her.
Gloria watched his trailing mouth so raptly, she almost forgot his question-until he sharply bit a nipple-tip as a reminder, and she said ... "Oh ... well let me see now, first I guess there was Jethro ..."
"The family steer?" he mumbled hopefully.
"No, silly, he was a kind of an itinerant cowboy back home. I was out on our lovely backyard swing one day and he asked me if I'd like to watch him shoe a horse in the barn; said there was quite a trick to it and it might be fun for a little girl of nine ... educational ..."
"Was it?" he asked, three fingers gliding down between her legs to slickly enter there.
"Well ... he taught me how to ride," she giggled, squirming as he poked.
"Ahh! ... God bless Jethro, who blazed this bubbly trail!" With a little groan he flung up a leg and re-straddled her.
"Oh no, darling ... please, not again! ... no ... STOP!"
He didn't, and topped each of her tales throughout the night.
* * *
Later, Gloria turned her head and half-heartedly noticed the luminous dial of the clock on her night-stand. Golly, it was three a.m. and tomorrow was so close and threatening. She reached for the telephone.
"Umm ... what on earth are you doing now, my little sperm-blossom?" he asked.
"Oh darling, I almost forgot. I have to leave a call. Tomorrow's a work day, which means, of course, that the sky is falling and it's back to the salt mines for this girl."
Heathcliffe raised up in bed, trying to hide his deep chagrin. "But I'm extending my stay several days because of you, so surely you can get some extra time off too. That way we'll get to know each other better, you and I; and after that ... who knows?"
Gloria waited to hear a little more along these lines, but there was nothing but a pregnant silence. "No, that's out of the question," she said, "because tomorrow I have to open up."
"Oh? I thought we'd more than attained that pinnacle this evening."
She smiled in the shadows, but staunchly evaded this bit of prurience. "I guess it does seem rather sophomoric, but it's become a kind of tradition at the office. After holiday weekends, Gloria Heavenrich always opens up!"
He burst out laughing and pulled her to him for a warm, chuckly kiss.
"Now please, it's really not so funny," she said, tearing free of him. "Sometimes I sit there until noon before anyone else shows up."
She placed the call, and then nestled contentedly in his arms. "Heathcliffe, I love you," she said, and the words rang like a bright new revelation in her ears. "And isn't it amazing, there's nothing else attached to it! Just love, like that ... standing alone and unchained. I mean ... I'm not sorry for you, or doing a service for you ... or sheltering or mothering or filling a need or guiding. Golly! ... I'm just loving you ...!" And still afraid of you, too, she added privately; which was probably what went wrong all those other times ... and maybe love-without-fear just doesn't work ...?
"You, too, are my first experience with love," he said softly. "When I was in my fierce and randy twenties, no girl I met was ever as willing to give and unfold as much as you. So you're the first ... and I am born ..."
With a cry that was both a fury and a blessing, Gloria threw her arms about him tightly; although she dimly realized there wasn't a sentence in all his lyric lovemaking that she could find in the wedding ceremony if she looked from now 'till kingdom come. But she couldn't really care now, with her face against his, and her body trembling with the kind of joy that comes alive only in a sob ... his burly pawing hands pressing her close and blotting out the doubts ...
"Ahh ... my darling," he said, "there's a house I know, far away on a hill ... and someday, somehow ... I'd like to see you there, holding court, and enthroned ..."
Ooh ... golly! ... that's Vermont he's talking about, she thought. Yes ... frost-blown pumpkins and frozen swimming holes and ski lifts and 'Sleigh-bells ring, are ya listenin'?' ... I'll be a swingin' chatelaine! This shimmering pastoral sang in her mind, the princess in her winter-wonderland ice-palace ... all lofty-high and snow-kissed ... as she sighed and fell asleep on the hairy valiance of his chest.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Heathcliffe taxied Gloria downtown to her office the next morning, after which he went to Grand Central to pick up his luggage. "I'm only scheduled to remain a week," he'd told her, "so I've just the one suitcase. Shouldn't take up too much room." Since Leona Liebowitz was the most permissive landlady in the Village, they saw no reason why they shouldn't 'bunk together' for a few days; although living so blatantly in sin at home would be a rather ticklish novelty for Gloria.
She had some serious afterthoughts about her lover's one, lone suitcase, and trying desperately to fill in everything he hadn't, as yet, told her, she decided: he either plans to send for the rest of his things later, or make flight reservations for the two of us when the week is up ...
But once she was busily ensconced at the office, she refused to dwell upon the transitory flavor of this bizarre romance. There remained such a myriad of unanswered questions that it gave her nervous prostration even to consider them-to say nothing of Heathcliffe's reluctance to speak of the future in any terms other than those to be found in Aesop's Fables. He kept alluding to the "foreverness" of their alliance, and while it wasn't as if she "didn't know what he wanted from her, she certainly wished he'd designate in which capacity he expected her to give it.
Luckily, she was easily distracted that day by the teeming gossip and involvements of her co-workers, so the hours went reasonably fast. As usual, Artie the office manager teased and badgered the girls unmercifully, while Gloria energetically played referee for the whole sweaty crew, flattering him and winking out false, licentious promises to hold him in abeyance. Her friends Gladys, Myrt and Ira were full of plaintive tales concerning their adventures in Atlantic City over the weekend.
"Myrt found herself a real catch," said Ira who, like the other two, was in her early unattached forties. However, she was the most sallow and pallid-looking member of the trio by far. Her stringy hair was the color of decomposed chestnuts, and her figure simply fell in a hipless, titless straight line. Her voice could only be described as a toy-poodle falsetto with a Yonkers twang ... "She met a guy who runs his very own herring concession, right on the beach," she finished her scoop.
"Oh Ira, please!" protested Myrt. "Must you glamorize everything? It's a live-bait shop, Gloria, but at least it's steady and he saves a little."
With a ruminative, beady eye, Gladys questioned Gloria: "How about you, doll? Did you maybe strike up a little something too?"
"Oh now listen, Gloria's much too busy with her art and her charity work even to think about men," Ira said admiringly.
"Ho, ho, ho!" put in the perpetually eavesdropping Artie from the other side of the filing cabinets.
Gloria rose and shot him a single glare, and he subsided. Just because she'd taken pity on that forlorn, balding gnome a year ago when his wife was in her eighth month-giving him a quick lick and a tuggle in the supply room-he couldn't resist getting in one of his insidious "ho-ho-ho's" every now and then.
"Gloria looks pretty secretive today," said Myrt, watching the girl busily manipulating her cross-filing indexes. "Could be she's saving up a big announcement?"
"For pity sakes, you girls, is this a brokerage office or the Ladies Aid Society?"
"You tell 'em, Gloria!" yelled Artie. "I'm getting sick of listenin' to that eight-hour coffee-klatsch every day, so knock it off. And that especially goes for you, Myrt Neeley!"
Myrt shot up from her desk and glared at him. "Why, you bone-headed little fink, that's favoritism ... and this time I got witnesses!"
"Yeah, honey, you go straight to Mr. Reynolds when he comes in," said Gladys, "we'll back you up."
"Now please, everybody, let's calm down," said Gloria, wearily detecting new signs of warfare.
"Honestly, Artie," said Ira, "if you've got all that hostility in your system, why don't you go dump it in Vietnam where it's popular?"
"Because Artie's too old to fight anything but females," hacked Myrt, "ain't that right, fart-face?"
"Ladies, please!" Gloria admonished. "Watch those epithets."
"Sure I'm overage," said Artie. "But for your information, I also got 'Pernicious Hernia'!"
"Congratulations!" howled Myrt. "If it's a girl, please don't name it after me!"
"Aw ... shit!" groaned Artie, and stormed into the men's lounge.
"That poor man," clucked Gloria. "You really shouldn't jump on him like that, Myrt. It can't be too easy for him, being the only man on the staff ..."
"Uh huh," drawled Myrt, "that little squirt's got it easier than you think, since he's practically got that whole men's room to himself."
Everyone looked at her, curious and alert.
"What is that supposed to mean, dear?" asked Gloria.
Myrt gave them all a conspiratorial glance and lowered her Bronx-cheer voice. "Don't you know what he does when he goes in there so often ...?"
Ira's maiden-aunt eyes flapped wide with interest. "Why, he relieves himself-what else?"
"Plenty else," Myrt nodded wisely.
"Myrtle, I don't think I like this sort of conversation," said Gloria.
"I agree," Gladys said, though none too decisively. "It's much too hot. And anyway, Myrt, how could you know what goes on in the men's room? I mean ... just because you're comfortably divorced and subscribe to PLAYBOY ..."
"... So shut your fat mouth already, and I'll give you an exclusive!" said Myrt. Everyone fell silent and listened. "Now I got this straight from the cleaning woman; you know ... the one with the big beefy ass and no teeth ...?"
"Rhoda Schlemper," Gladys identified.
"Right," said Myrt. "Anyway ... Artie was in the office all alone one night, working overtime. So when she comes in to clean, he's in the bathroom, and since she don't see nobody, she takes it for granted everybody's gone home. So she goes in the men's room and automatically pushes open the door to the first booth, and bang! if she doesn't catch him red-handed-Artie, I mean ... diddlin' himself like there's no tomorrow ...!"
"Oh my God!" cried Ira. "How intimate! ... I mean, that poor woman ... what did she do?"
Myrt tried to muffle her welling howls of laughter. "She said she couldn't move. She just stood there with her gums hangin' out ... absolutely petrified. And he wasn't in no condition to smooth over the little incident neither, because-listen to this!-she caught him smack in the middle of the end of it ... saw the whole fireworks display go off in his hand, spritzing right up in the ah, while she stood there and they stared at each other over that fountain, like they was both on some kind of sight-seeing tour ...!
"... Old Faithful!" blurted Gladys, and started to laugh uncontrollably.
Nodding, Myrt tried to get her breath and choke back her shrieks. "Did you ever hear such a classic? I tell ya, if Candid Camera ever did stag movies, this'd be a natural!" She and Gladys were both laughing helplessly now, Ira timidly joining in. Even Gloria tittered a little, although she still pretended to be revolted in order to preserve her germ-free mystique.
"But good grief, what did she say?" asked Ira, between her squeaky chuckles. "I mean ... how embarrassing! God, I think I'd die right on the spot ..."
"... And be buried at SEA!" hooted Gladys, the tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Now hush, all of you!" Gloria giddily attempted.
"Listen ... what could she say?" panted Myrt. "Like maybe ... 'Pardon me, Sir, but I came in to mop up?'"
This met with an even wilder mirth-cascade.
"So ... she said 'hello,' and that's all she could think of," said Myrt. "Then she grabbed her bucket and got the hell out of there."
There was a mildly deflating pause then as each of the girls reviewed this picturesque scene.
Then Ira emitted a stealthily whispered question: "Myrt, listen ... did Mrs. Schlemper happen to say what it looked like?"
"Ira, please!" said Gladys. "Remember the child!" They all gazed at Gloria, who obliviously began to hum Roses In Picardy ...
"Look, Gladys, for Ira this is a perfectly healthy question," insisted Myrt. "She's never seen one before ..."
"... My father's once," meekly muttered Ira, "when the Welfare Nurse came to give him an enema ..."
"... Which wasn't exactly the height of passion, hon, so you got a right to a little knowledge," consoled Myrt. "Anyway, as God is my witness old Lady Schlemper said this was the biggest damn wang she ever saw in her life!"
"How do ya like that?" Ira squeaked academically.
"Yeah ...!" said Myrt, fresh guffaws rumbling up inside of her, "can you imagine? ... a little pot-bellied schlump like Artie hung like the Jolly Green Giant ... my God! ... and with Delicious Hernia yet ...!"
Gloria's cheeks reddened, for her own gobbling memories of Artie defrocked in the supply room were much more structural then even these pictures evoked.
"Well then, they're probably madly in love by now," said romantic Ira. "I mean, good heavens, if there is such a thing as love at first sight, it sure sounds like that'd be the right sight!"
"Quiet!" Gloria cautioned them. "I just heard the boss go in his office, so he'll be in here in a minute."
The girls went glumly mute and busied themselves. And in precisely sixty seconds, the portly and white-haired Mr. Reynolds appeared to bid them a brisk good-morning, which they each smilingly returned.
Then he walked just as briskly toward the men's lounge. The girls exchanged fast darting glances, their expressions a frantic mingling of hysteria and suspense.
Several minutes passed.
"Oh-oh ... I can hear them talking in there," said Ira.
"So ... what's such a big deal?" said Myrt. "They are on speaking terms, you know." But she cocked her ears like crazy.
After four minutes elapsed, Mr. Reynolds strode hurriedly out of the men's room, his face flushed, his manner oddly subdued and tense. Followed a few seconds later by Artie, who looked equally grim and red-faced. He resumed his work and everyone remained silent.
Later ...
"Now what do you make of that, Myrt?" Ira asked during their coffee break.
"Yeah ... did he bawl him out or join him?" queried Gladys.
"Girls, listen to me," said Myrt, giving them each a gaseous smile, "you gotta be philosophical about these things. I mean ... it's the temper of the times and it's a sick country ... and it's a sick world ... and I figure what we don't know will keep us healthy. Right, Gloria?"
"Oooh! ... I think you've uttered a truism there, Myrt, I really do!" gushed Gloria.
* * *
That afternoon Heathcliffe called for Gloria at her office. He had rented an enormous old black Dusenberg limousine, which added considerably to the usual panic of rush-hour Wall Street. This ornate monstrosity reeked of medieval Sunset Boulevard, and was by far the tallest vehicle in sight.
Heathcliffe double-parked and beckoned frantically to her, while Gloria's co-workers gaped and ogled.
"Gloria, my God!" shrieked Ira. "Who ... he ... you ... whaaa?"
"What the hell ... him ... how ... that ... and you?" spluttered Artie.
"Who died?" Gladys wanted to know.
"That girl!" said Myrt. "All day long she holds up her head so bravely, and now somebody picks her up in a hearse!"
"You sillies, that's my fella!" Saying no more, Gloria dodged between two stalled cars and slipped into the seat beside him. After the lights allowed, they were off. "Oh you wild charioteer, who told you to rent a land-yacht?" She snuggled against the leopard-skin upholstery and slipped an arm in his, drinking in the aura of his rakish, saffron-colored Nehru suit.
"My darling, you and I shall tour the city in this antique gondola," he announced. "We'll visit iniquitous little dens you never dreamed existed, and together we'll uncover secret sins in dusky corners ..."
"Sounds enchanting," she said; and then, not wanting to seem too anxious: "But I hope you're not forgetting my busy schedule. I'm due for my fencing lesson tonight, and Wednesday there's this stirring Druid revival in Herald Square ... and too, I've been meaning to do a still life of my hamsters ..."
"We're cancelling all that," he said, with an imperious wave of the hand.
"Well! ... the aggressive brood-male doth rear his ugly head!"
"Oh? Does that mean you won't be free to see me?" he asked archly.
"No, I didn't say that! I'll simply make a few fast phone calls, and presto! at your disposal shall be."
"Ahh ... that's more like it," he said, and nudged his warm thigh against hers. "First we'll go to your apartment, where I've a few stunning surprises for you."
On the threshold of her door, Heathcliffe insisted that Gloria cover her eyes; and a few seconds later she was utterly inundated by the roaring sound of a waterfall. Upon opening her eyes she saw a low, long assemblage of mahogany where her collection of mildewed flower pots used to be. She knew, of course, that this must be the most elaborate home appliance she'd ever seen, but at first glance it looked like a Univac computer that had been kicked to its knees.
"Stereophonic and ultrasonic, my lovely one!" He had to shout out this information. "And what we're hearing now is a live reproduction of Niagara in all her full, torrential splendor!"
Unable to make out a word of this, Gloria tried to read his lips, as she stood there vibrating with her floor boards.
"Six speakers!" he moved closer so he could enunciate clearly in her rear. "And dearest, I want you to hear what happens when I turn the record over." Gingerly, he approached the reptilian instrument. "It plays a lovely bridge collapse, screams and all-or would you prefer a plane collision or a circus fire or Hurricane Clarissa?"
However, the record changer flipped out its own independence and presented them with a twenty-one-gun salute, direct from Arlington National Cemetery.
"That's an Assassination Special," said Heathcliffe and stood at attention. "They just threw that one in for good luck." He was at her side again, holding her close, basking in the look of dazed glee he saw on her face. "It's all yours, my darling. In fact, I've had the whole apartment rigged, and wherever you walk now you shall have true fidelity."
"But dear, listen," she said, tugging at his arm, "there really isn't too far to walk around here, haven't you noticed? I mean actually, this place is rather petite ... and ..."
"... I've even installed a speaker next to the hamsters' cages, those desolate little buggers ..."
"Oh no!" Gloria screamed, and quickly dashed to the rescue. "Good heavens ... oh please, turn it off ... look what you're doing to them!"
"Nonsense, have they ever been able to square-dance before?"
"Rarely," she had to admit. After pulling out a few plugs, Gloria waited for her pets to come down off the tops of their cages, and then staggered into the bathroom for a cold compress. But with a violent backward hop, she was out again, stifling another shriek. "Heathcliffe, something icky and all mammalish has crawled up the drainpipe ...!"
"That's no mammal, you idiot!" he laughed uproariously at her antic fallibility. "That's Moon-yean."
"Moon-WHO?"
"... Yean, darling! She's an exotic little white marmoset who has come to live with you. Her last mistress was an old courtesan I once knew, so you see, she's been raised as a mascot for lovers all her life."
Gloria stared at him, wondering how he was able to make all these cartoon insanities sound so rational, while she, who questioned them, always ended up looking like the nut-case of the century. It wasn't fair, and there really ought to be another sane person present so they could out-vote him.
"She's quite tame, Gloria," he assured her, "and very lovable. Come on, let me introduce you ... don't be shy." He dragged her gently back to the bathroom.
Still squatting in her tub, the tiny animal sat perfectly still and peered up at Gloria with round, ferocious eyes.
"My God, how uncanny ... she knows you!"
"Possibly from another life," she mumbled giddily, "Madame Pompadour ... Sadie Thompson ... a courtesan is a courtesan ... is a ... " Then, finding it rather difficult to smile while shuddering, Gloria said: "Hi!" to the monkey.
Moonyean chattered out something in reply, but instead of translating, Heathcliffe said: "Wait here!" And dashed back to the elephantine stereo, where he switched on a screechy jungle album, permeating the air with sounds of wild birds, giraffes and tsetse flies.
Hearing her national anthem, Moonyean leapt out of the tub and onto Gloria's shoulder. "Well hell!" gasped Gloria, going nearly as white as the ape, "if you ain't the cutest lil' ol' somethin-or-other ..." But by the time Heathcliffe returned he saw that his girl was slowly being won over. "Oh golly, she feels so soft and yummy. Of course, the first thing we must do is break her of this entrancing habit of biting my ear lobes ... ooh ... ouch! ... you little devil ..."
Pleased by this sportive family tableau, Heathcliffe went into a fit of cozy concupiscence and embraced both Gloria and Moonyean, showering the scrambling, chattering harem with kisses.
"Heathcliffe, watch it! ... she gets jealous when you kiss me ... think of my ear lobes ... remember King Kong and Fay Wray ...!"
"Don't worry, my darling, she's had all her shots!" he said; and despite the primitive roars coming from the stereo, they waltzed capriciously about the apartment in three-quarter time.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Under the rabid tutelage of Heathcliffe Montague, the next few days and nights were studded with diamonds and nuggets for Gloria Heavenrich, and he deluged her with many more gifts during the bright revel of their hours together. Bought her candy and lingerie and cherry-flavored nipple-rouge which he studiously licked off later. He besieged her with the traditional array of baubles, flowers and trinkets, including a twenty-seven-inch color TV, even though Gloria hadn't yet finished paying for her own 14-inch black-and-white portable. He was a quixotic and mercurial man to have around, and opened up a whole new glittering world of sensation for Gloria, both in bed and out of it.
On their first night's excursion into the wilds of Manhattan, he took her to an offbeat little muscatel and coffee mill in the East Village called La Non-conforma. This was a tomb-like hippie retreat which boasted all the homey charm of the smugglers' cave in Carmen. Sociologically speaking, Gloria found its wealth of local color most pungent, yet so steeped in doom and negation that she quickly dragged her lover back home for some plunging affirmation. "Being" ... and "immediacy" ... and "breath-flow" ... that's what she wanted; not the darkness of withdrawal.
Each afternoon that week Heathcliffe met his diligent playmate at her office, still commandeering the calamitous Dusenberg. He usually drove her home for some quick and breathless rollaway skirmishes, after which he'd wait while she changed and showered. Then he'd whisk her out on the town like a Long Island debutante.
Gloria's neighbors were so fascinated by her stereo and color TV, she gave many of them access to the apartment while she was out. She now knew that she'd utterly forfeited her neighborhood image of guarded virginity, due mainly to Heathcliffe's gymnastic performances and the paper-thin walls and floors of her apartment. And yet-with the exception of some of her ex husband-assignments-most of these people seemed genuinely happy for her. Or, as the pithy Leona Liebowitz put it: "Say listen, Ketzeleh, if there really is such a thing as a sexual revolution, it's for everybody ... because this is a democracy and we don't discriminate ... and I figure the good girls as well as the bad have a right to get in on it. So if I'm wrong, sue me. But in the meantime, darling-live!"
Nevertheless, Gloria felt it might somehow vindicate her wanton behavior if she let these non-judging spectators make use of her new home appliances; although it wasn't too easy to pry them loose from late-late Technicolor when she and Heathcliffe returned home and wanted to buddy-up in private.
On Wednesday Heathcliffe persuaded Madge Danizetti to phone Gloria's office and say she had flash flu-at least seventy-two hours' worth. And together these two idyll-makers toured the borough of Manhattan like a couple of pasteurized Kansas tourists. Legendary old landmarks became clownish delights for them: the Bowery was The Land Of Oz and Mademoiselle Liberte waved madly at them in the harbor ...
They dined in a different and more exotic restaurant each night, usually places where neither of them could speak the language; so that the routine task of ordering their food became as perilous a game as Russian Roulette. One evening they discovered an elegant little French cafe off Lower Fifth, where Gloria felt terribly grand and blasé, adrip in a hanging black voile thing Heathcliffe had bought for her that afternoon. The next night they immersed themselves in the clangorous din of Lindy's for blintzes and pastrami. And later, acting against the militant white-backlash advice of everyone, they made it up to Harlem to hear the melting arpeggios of a dusky chanteuse who claimed to have studied directly under Josephine Baker. At the end of the girl's performance, Gloria engaged the artiste in such lengthy dialectics, Heathcliffe nearly had to club and drag her back to the car for a moonlit drive along the Hudson.
Here they parked and sat in the burnished autumn evening, blinking at the Jersey lights, hands linked and nestled, the two of them touching each other in silent wonder for several moments, unable to believe the full reality of their shining days and nights, which all added up to the incredible process of time standing still and offering itself to them.
The night air tingled with all the chestnut-roasting promise of Indian Summer. Gloria let herself drift into the sort of reverie one summons when trying to seal up the present and make it a perennial thing. She reviewed the changes that had so swiftly taken place within her; mainly, the drastic shift in focus. Instead of being gregarious and multi-faceted in her goals, her concentration span was now aimed in one very singular direction. Her old affinities for baby-plus-Daddy-sitting seemed quite remote and inconsequential to her now. And besides, it would be far easier for her amorous clients to find a replacement for her than it would be for her to replace Heathcliffe. On the other hand, he hadn't come right out and ordered her to discontinue these diverse assignments. He'd simply left her with no time for anyone but himself.
She thought of all the ridiculous fun of their days, and the luxury of behaving absolutely idiotically without chastisement. She remembered what his mere touch did to her, no matter how slight or casual; the tremor and turbulence with only the barest contact. And reveled in the awareness of his pride and careless nobility, a glow she felt just by walking alongside of him. And thought, too, of his intentions. What kind of tomorrow did he want for them, if any?
"What dream is this, Milady?" he whispered in her ear, his tongue sliding lazily out to lick her lobe.
Gloria quivered with the soft feel of wet heat on her flesh, resting her head on his shoulder and shifting his face about so that his mouth lightly covered hers for an instant, lips tracing, dabbing. "I was thinking what a lovely, prancing time we've been having, you and I. And ... wondering how it would all end, and when ..."
For an answer his arms completely enveloped her and he deepened their kiss, made of it the stubborn eloquence, the time-remover. "How amazing," she laughed, her fingers caressing his chin, then gliding up and across the silky moustache, "that's exactly what I thought you'd say."
Artfully evasive, he said: "Tell me what else you were dreaming about, my little passion-bud."
"Oh ... this time of the year always reminds me of that lovely rose-covered swing I used to have back home, behind the barn ..."
"Where you were so deliciously attacked by your first cow-hand?" he queried.
"Yes," she giggled, "but I remember it for other reasons as well ..."
"Ahh ... how I should have loved to have known you then, pushing your little bottom softly from behind, back and forth ... and healing you in the hay if you tumbled ..."
She smiled and pinched his hand in hers. "You naughty old dinosaur, you're so terribly coitus-minded, aren't you?"
"Unnnn! ..." his large clamoring hand now wending its way up her thigh.
"But ... to get back to the swing," she said, sliding her knees apart to give him a bit more franchise, "Daddy built it for me so I could forget the humiliation of having to wear braces on my teeth. I think I was about twelve ..."
"... God! I'll bet you tasted toasty at twelve!"
"... and ... and I absolutely adored that swing ..." She gave a little shudder as his hand went grappling and urgent inside her panties ... the palm and fingers pressing flat against the humid velvet of her abdomen and going motionless there for a second, neither nudging nor rifling ... "ooh golly yes, that swing accelerated my every wish, made everything seem possible to me ..."
"... And now you know everything is," his fingers gently lowering through the silken crotch-hairs and below, tapping musically at the cuddled slit-heat as if to play a tune there ... and he groaned a little with the precious genital-feel of her at his fingertips as he rubbed and slowly entered the slippery-soft mouth of her vagina ... ahh! ... the fiery abode down there ... his fingers oozing, pressing into the oily throb, feeling her lovely tremors begin as he searched ... Gloria breathing faster and moaning and sliding down in the seat, but still bent on her nostalgic recitative ...
"... Oh gracious, that was really a swing! ... up and up to the very top branches I would fly ... up up up and ... oooohh! ..." three fingers raiding in there now, to the knuckles ... but sweet and cushiony in their paving ... "always a Summer idyll for me, that swing ... even when I hopped on it in the dead of Winter ... ahh! ... I loved it so ... ooh darling I'm going to scream and go all spastic if you ... don't ... unn! ... stop that!"
Suddenly Heathcliffe slid down on his knees and knelt on the roomy floor of the old car.
"Mercy! ... what are you doing now?" she asked, rather alarmed by this abrupt descent.
"I want to irrigate your shrubbery, my fruity nubbin ..."
"Here? ... there? ..." she gasped.
"Everywhere!" he laughed. "And you know, it's just occurred to me that I've never dined under the dashboard before."
By the time Gloria was positively certain he couldn't be serious, he had her panties off, skirt raised and her legs spread from ear to ear as she saw his kingly head go zooming in between. Then she whimpered and winced as she felt the gnawing surge of his mouth kissing and crushing its way in and around the tremulous wet fringes of her cunt. She wriggled and writhed and tried hard to stifle the fitful cries that welled up in her throat with the deep lashing entrance of his tongue ... Now the digging, hooking prowl as it curled about her clitoris and dabbed and licked and tormented that juicy piston of hers. Gloria played lovingly with his tousled mane as he parted his lips more fully to gulp and suck at this fount and core of her that had a life of its own whenever he partook of it, breathing those hot fluid flames against his lips or tongue or cock ... his mouth now the tender savagery, ingesting ... as she slunk down in the seat to expand and contract her moist vagina for his lips' delight ... while he dipped and scooped and moaned and made crazed love down here, his mouth flaring and wet from the beginnings of what she could not hold back ... but oh golly, not like this, all transient and hidden in the night ...
"Heathcliffe, we'd better stop ... it's very dangerous, parked here like this ..."
"Then start the car, my darling, and I'll drain you in transit!"
"Unn ... no! Please be sensible ..."
"You can drive, can't you?"
"Of course, but ..."
"... Here, let me swing around to the side ... like this ..." He moved his head around her right knee, still keeping her thighs sufficiently parted. "Now! Your legs are more or less free to manipulate, while that gushy jewel between them is still my lovely open-faced buffet!" Remaining huddled on the floor, he leaned forward and up to continue his feverish nuzzling, while Gloria clutched the steering wheel and turned the key in the ignition. She felt increasingly dazed and quivery as he tongued and scoured at her heralding juices, and with her legs pressed slightly closer together, it made a tighter, more enraging bouquet for his emollient lips to pluck ... as he dipped at her in profile now, but no less urging and deep. "Ummm! ... step on the gas, my fruit-flower!" he muttered between swallows. "And drive defenselessly ...!"
She started the car, startled by the chortling noises of the old relic-then switched on the lights and drove placidly along Riverside Drive, headed downtown, going home in their palpitating Dusenberg. Heathcliffe's industriously buried head was completely out of sight, and to all the motorists who passed and ogled this antique-on-wheels, it appeared that Gloria was totally alone in the car. And luckily, they were much higher than most of the low-slung vehicles on the street.
Until they waited at a stop-signal and a fairly high-perched young truck driver glanced her way and was quite taken by the glowing expression on her face. The feisty young wage-earner-father of two and one in the oven-had never seen a girl look so wildly transported, just driving along by herself-all clean and wholesome and staying out of mischief. He hoped she wouldn't think he was trying to pick her up, but he had to say something to this dewy-faced kid.
"Hi, Miss! You look so happy, you make me feel good all over. What happened? Did you just get some good news?"
Gloria turned and glanced at the husky young crew-cut daddy, shifting lower in the seat, taking full advantage of this pause while her hungry lover sucked her more voraciously and she stared at the big rough mouth of the truck driver ... mingling this dual-swab of male mouths in her fancies ... "It's just that I ... I ... ooohh! ... I LOVE this car," she told the guy, her blonde-tressed head thrown back, her full cupid-lips moist and parted, eyes radiant "... Yes, I ... unn! ... love it, love it ... LOVE it!"
"Old family heirloom, is it?" asked the friendly mouth of the stranger, Gloria still transferring these members-lips and tongues and hunk-jawed mouths ... all at her ... oooh! ... the gulp-battalion in suck-formation ... Ready, boys? ... now eat!
"Ummm! ... yes, it's a very ... precious ... car," she said, staring at the raunchy, rugged features of the driver, young hot-lipped stud so very close to her, but having no idea what sweetly lunged and bubbled between her legs ... If only she could yank him in here where he belonged, stationed wetly between her legs and taking turns with her succulent man-beauty of maturity ... ahh! ... pure baby-faced thug and noble knighted one, kneeling and alternating at her spigot as they lapped and sucked and appreciated ... oooh! ... taking their joyful-tipped turns on her. "Yes, I ... always feel so wonderful ... behind ... this ... wheel!" she told him.
And then it happened, the swift flare of passion on the truck driver's face as he noticed the curious whirling movement in the girl's lap. He raised up a little and gaped and gulped and tongued his lips and swallowed as he saw Heathcliffe's dipping head, and caught a flash of creamy-white bare thigh-flesh. But then the light changed and the horns started honking behind him, and he had to move. And he called out to her, crazily, hoarsely: "Hey, Kid ... hey listen ... wait a minute! ... damn! ... I'd like to talk to you a minute. Can we? ... huh? ..."
But Gloria turned at the next block, trembling more violently now, because ... oooh! ... whoosh and drizzle and flood, it was happening to her, the full remaining flows ... Ahh! ... the spurt and throat-spray ... going, trickling, bruising and bursting to splatter and explode ... "Oh darling ... now! ... yes ... drink me and drink me and get it!" feet still tapped against the pedals, hands squeezing the wheel as his grappling mouth sponged out the dregs of her.
"Watch ... the ... traffic!" he gulped, then crouched in deeper for the last pumped creams and flavors.
Driving with only a mildly erratic waver, Gloria sighed and gave up all that was in her-life's marrow consigned as she listened to the beloved moist sounds of her lover's pledged lips; but again seeing the sensual hot face of that horny young truck driver ... ooh yes! ... seeing him at home later, all hidden away from his family in the John while he groaned and summoned up the sweet divinity on her face, as he wagged the big stiff flab of his meat ... ahh! ... up and down go those thick man-boy fingers ... until he got hisself all wetted, Mommy ... and sticky-nasty. And later showered all over his wife as he replayed the thrill in his sleep. Ah the tasty loose-tongued fellas, always ticking, grabbing, sipping ...
And mercy! ... what a lovely autumn night to drive along the Hudson.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The next day was Saturday, and Gloria awoke early, suddenly plagued by feelings of compunction and guilt. It had been days since she'd paid any attention to her network-of-the-needy, those desolate and lonely shut-ins who'd always been so cheered by her brief visits. Since Heathcliffe invariably slept until noon, perhaps she could use this time to make amends.
She managed to shower and dress without waking him, but as she was about to open the door, he shot up in the rollaway and glared at her. "Where are you off to at this ungodly hour? Across the hall, perhaps ... hmm? Or downstairs? Is that old 'Depressed-Daddy-Psychosis' eating away at your little vulva again, my dove?"
"Oh now Heathcliffe, that's dirty! I simply want to brighten a few corners I've neglected, and I'm referring to the lame and halt and the senile."
"Oh?" he eyed her suspiciously. "With a jelly-popper like you at their bedside, they'd be off and pounding in a minute. You're more potent than a dozen hormone transplants, you bobbling aphrodisiac. I ought to have you chained ... or perhaps I'll arrange to deep-freeze you some night during climax. Ahhh ... think of it! ... an endlessly coming Gloria ... an ice-flow for all eternity?"
He was giving her those aberration-gleams again and Gloria shivered a little, thinking of his formerly frozen Monica, and terms like paranoia and dementia praecox. "You must really learn to trust me," she said, thrusting out her chin in a mock bravado. "These are absolutely sexless pursuits, involving a lot of old ladies and hermits who got used to seeing me once or twice a week and ... well, I worry about them. You go back to sleep, darling, and I promise I'll be here when you awake ..."
He flashed one of his quick smiles at her, which was accompanied by an incendiary twinkle of mischief in his eyes. "All right, my dear, run along and do your penance, whilst I slumber more ..."
* * *
Three hours later, with all her errands and mercy-flights tucked neatly out of her conscience, Gloria returned to the apartment-and was confronted with a scene which, at first glance, seemed like utter and devastating chaos. Two huge and sweaty workmen were packing their tool kits and preparing to depart while Leona Liebowitz stood snorting in the doorway, her eyes blazing with pain and panic.
Then Gloria saw it.
And stared. Wide-eyed and incredulous. Was this for real, or was she home in Texas all those lost years ago, in her own backyard? Golly! ... look at it! ... trickling gently back and forth under the archway of her dinette. "A swing," she cried. "Good gravy, I don't believe it!" There were twin garlands of intertwining roses on each gilded rope, and on the seat, a gold lame cushion-and Moonyean, who had quite definitely claimed this new perch as her very own.
But Leona Liebowitz was roaring, her accents half in Yiddish and half in Manhattan-gangster. "In jail I'll see you!" she promised everybody within hearing range, but pointed specifically at Heathcliffe. "Meshugennah! What kind of schmuck to come out of a clear blue sky and weaken my beams, rip out my moldings, shred my cornices ... the whole ceiling could come crashing down. I'll lose my whole foundation, my license ... kill my tenants altogether ... So I'll be sued, blackballed and, furthermore, let me give you a word of advice: Who needs it?"
With a soft disarming smile, Heathcliffe waltzed across the room and waved a check under Leona's antenna-like nose. The old lady's furry eyebrows shot up and her bosom-plateau fairly wobbled with applause. "Ah hah! ... so look Gloria ... talk about your 'gracious living,' darting ... nothing like a nice little swing to dress up your apartment, huh? Boy, are you classy!"
Gloria stood mute and rapt in the middle of the room, her eyes tearfully glistening. "Oh, you darting man, what a gorgeous, splendiferous idea!"
Heathcliffe went radiant with her excitement, going to her for a brief, but hard-touring, hug. "Try it, Gloria. I can't wait to see you swinging about in your very own jewel-studded rabbit hutch. Ever since you told me about it last night, I haven't been able to shake the picture of you, swinging and swinging away-and I think I shall always see you like that ..."
Leona's eyes shot back and forth across then faces. "So nu, if you're a swinger, swing for him, darling. And listen to me, Mr.-Fort-Knox-sweetheart, next week you want auto races up here? Leave it to me; I'll fix it up for you."
Dabbing at her eyes, Gloria ventured slowly toward her glittering gift. "Well, I guess I'll just take myself over here and test this pretty swing."
Heathcliffe and Leona watched her, each of them reveling in her joy, Leona issuing out another stage word of advice: "Don't swing yourself out the window, Ketzeleh-they'll think it's an eviction!"
Gloria bent and gently tried to dispossess the chattering Moonyean. But the two girls fought bitterly, their rivalry over Heathcliffe now quite firmly established. "Here now, that's naughty!" Gloria said, struggling with the animal. "Get off, I say! Daddy got this swing for Mommy ... now you stop nipping Mommy's knees!"
Heathcliffe rushed over and grabbed the monkey, cradling and petting her while Gloria boarded the swing. But as Gloria started to gain some momentum, Moonyean scrambled out of Heathcliffe's arms and hopped on the perch alongside of her-not biting now, just claiming part ownership. Heathcliffe watched proudly as his two pets swished from the rafters, snarling gaily at each other every inch of the way.
"OoohWHEE!" swung Gloria, dropping about a dozen years. "Isn't this miraculous?"
Grinning and misty-eyed, Leona waddled politely to the door. "So enjoy, darling," she said. "Wear it in good health." Then she opened the door and departed, leaving the two oddball star crossed lovers alone.
That evening over their last champagne supper, Gloria lit candles, sprayed Moon Madness incense and spoke in only the most wistful of whispers. "Hey there, Prince Valiant," she murmur seductively, sharing a huge tooth-glass full of wine with him, "we must do something terribly romantic to celebrate that silly swing."
And they did. They gave the overworked Dusenberg a night off and decided to canter continentally through Central Park in a hansom cab. This outing became even more of an adventure when their driver told them he packed a pistol on each hip to keep the muggers off.
"A bit of Restoration England, isn't it, my darling?" laughed Heathcliffe.
"Ahh yes! ... we're members of the Court with urgent news for the Queen!" cried Gloria.
"But there are enemies of the Crown, blackguards and bandits, and they're chasing us through the forest!"
"Yes ... go faster, driver," shouted Gloria. "Hurry! Don't let those evil traitors catch us!"
"It'll never happen, Madam!" yelled the driver, flashing his whip. "Off with their crummy heads ... them lousy insurrectionists!"
But when they reached the castle later that night, they forgot all about the Queen, and swore pulpy new allegiances to each other.
* * *
Sunday morning winged out gloriously before them, offering a sensuous tapestry of blue skies and tormenting breezes. Heathcliffe proclaimed it an ideal day for them to don their swim suits and drive to the beach. "My darling," he said over coffee, "you've been so athletic all week, I have this urgent hunger to see you riding the ocean waves when the sea gods are full of wrath and anger."
"The beach?" queried Gloria, her cup rattling in her hand. "You mean ... out where the sun is?" Gloria had such fair skin that she'd made an absolute religion out of staying in the shade. It had been years since she'd exposed herself to anything even remotely ultraviolet. And what's more, having been brought up as an inland girl, she'd never learned to swim and had always detested the mere idea of dipping her tootsies into the wild blue sea. And yet, that was such a lovely Olympics Queen image he'd painted of her that she was most reluctant to shatter it. But decided to try.
"Dearest, there's a special matinee of that marvelous new British musical called 'I'll Get You For This!' Don't you think it'd be a lot more avant-garde if we went there?"
"Nonsense. With your Texas bronco background, you've convinced me you're an outdoor girl; and on a day like this it would be a mortal sin to keep you leashed up in this apartment or in a dark theater. I want to see you blooming in the sand, all bikini-clad and joyful!"
With a feeble whimper, she at last agreed. "All right, dear, if that's how you want to see me, you'll get your wish!" She pulled him close for one of their tuggling kisses. "I shall be all things to one man-any way you care to see me, that's how I'll be!"
"Gad, but you're staunch!" he cried, cuddling her lithesome body against his. "Ahh ... my idiot-elf, my gem ...!"
* * *
Several hours later that afternoon a few of Gloria's neighbors lingered solicitously in the corridor outside her apartment. Heathcliffe, his face pale and drawn, was having some choked last words with Gloria's emergency-physician, a tiny pastel soul with a left facial tic. "Doctor, I really must insist that you give me her prognosis."
"Lockjaw she could get from such a burn!" clucked Leona.
"My God, that girl's infrared all over!" gasped the frail-but-wiry Lonny. "How's her oxygen?"
"Now, now, I've certainly seen worse cases," the doctor consoled them. "There was this one lady during the World's Fair who didn't have any coverage at all, and well, sir, she turned absolutely black. Had to wire to Duluth for identification, don't you know? Oh yes ... her dental history, her inlays ..."
"Maybe a little skin grafting'll bring her back, huh, Doc?" ventured Madge Danizetti.
"No. Unguentine we'll give her," resolved Leona. "Then we'll mentholate her all over."
"Oh hell no," said Tony, "a quart of Dago Red and a Bufferin, and that's it."
"But I simply cannot fathom this freak accident," sighed Heathcliffe. "She's been so superbly champion about everything else this week ..."
"Uh huh, that girl deserves a whole lot of trophies," said Tony, his eyes leering and suggestive.
But Heathcliffe grandly ignored this and went on. "Why do you suppose she refused all my offers of suntan oil or water wings? And you know, once or twice, as we battled the waves together, I thought I heard her strangling behind me. Yet, when I turned to inquire, she insisted she was only laughing aloud with the jollity of nature."
"Hmmm ..." the doctor thoughtfully stroked his tic. "How long has this girl been despondent?"
Both Leona and Heathcliffe gaped at him. "Minnie Ha-Ha, despondent yet?" chuckled Leona.
"Oh, you're way off the beam, Doc," said Madge, "cause all week long that girl's been a regular joystick."
"Well, if you'll forgive me," said the doctor, "this entire incident smacks strongly of suicide."
With this remark Heathcliffe went savage. With a hoarse, low growl, he lurched towards the man, who quickly scampered down the hall. "Why, you bush-league quack, anyone could tell you that if she'd wanted to kill herself she would have thrown herself into a food-freezer ... but this was an act of bravery ... and devotion!"
"A death wish, that's what she's got!" insisted the doctor as he disappeared down the stairs.
They all watched the brooding fury on Heathcliffe's face as he returned.
"A food-freezer, Mr. Montague?" inquired Leona.
He did not respond to this question, looking right through her as he spoke. "She did it all to make me happy. Yes ... this was my doing. I wanted to see her all bronzed and golden from the sun, so she offered herself to Old Sol ..."
"And Sol's brothers and his uncles and his sons too, most likely," put in Tony.
Heathcliffe stared quietly at the hulking Sicilian for a second. "No, my boy, I know what you're thinking, but she's through with all that."
"Through with all what?" asked Madge, glancing from one to the other.
"Through with family welfare," Tony put in quickly.
Madge considered this, staring quizzically at Heathcliffe. "If that means he won't let her babysit any more, they really must be engaged." she said, "and oh wow! ... there's gonna be a wedding soon, and a happy ending, and ..."
But Heathcliffe slipped away from this hubbub and crept noiselessly back into the apartment.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The blinds were drawn and Gloria Heavenrich lay gently cradled in her rollaway. "Are you under sedation, my tawny little sungoddess?" he murmured. Getting no answer, he decided that she was. Stripping down to his briefs, Heathcliffe slid under the sheets and lay reverently next to her. Softly, his hand reached out and came to rest on the one portion of her body he was certain would still be white and painless. And because there'd been no damage in that area, the titillating sensation of his hand on her unbleached vagina-terrain sent tremors shooting through the girl's hot loins and hips-and she awoke, her pubis astir under the cupping caress of his palm.
"Did I hurt you, darling?" he asked, his briefs blooming out thickly with the touch of her.
"No ... not there," she murmured narcotically. "But I'm so feverish everywhere else that any friction in that tender spot seems magnified a hundredfold ..."
"Ahhh!" Heathcliffe could not hide his delight at hearing this announcement, for it pointed the way to some deft and therapeutic intercourse: displace the pain in one area of the body by introducing ecstasy to another. This notion got him so medically excited, he threw back the sheets to feast his eyes on the tantalizing two-tone confection his flouncy little asp-blossom had become for him. Gad! ... what a stunning panorama of interweaving flesh hues! ... red and white, and then red again and more white. Breasts and pelvis of cream-dipped ivory, while the rest of her was flagrantly parched Pocahontas ... umm! ... half-breed skin-tones so lushly beckoning. He crawled out of his briefs and his sun warmed love-tool jabbed plumply into view as he knelt above her. "Dare we?" he asked, though not very timorously.
In a sensuous stupor, Gloria gazed fondly at his rearing fat member that throbbed so eagerly for the balm of her. "Yes ... now ... before the pain pills wear off ..." she said, and squirmed as she saw his lusting eyes hungrily scan her body, drinking in the blonde muff of curls at her white crotch, then gazing down at the roaring crimson of her thighs below ... and up again to that patch of red rounding belly ... "Ahhh! ... spread those pretty copper legs very far apart, my darting, so I won't have to bruise them as I enter you ..."
"Yes," she said, doing as he asked, "you must somehow manage to do it without touching me anywhere else ..."
"Lord, what a heady challenge! With my hands tied behind my back, as it were ..."
"... Yes ... as it were ..."
Her legs were now flung apart in a horizontal bar, like mounted butterfly wings. Keeping his knees close together, Heathcliffe crept carefully towards his target, his moist expanding cock aimed and straining to dip into its waiting nest. First he pressed his hands against the mattress to balance himself above her, making sure there'd be no danger of his body flapping painfully against hers after the correct insertion had been effected. The idea of performing such a rewarding act with nothing touching except their genitalia, became a dizzying contagion for them both. Poised safely above her, Heathcliffe now launched the easy hip-thrusting motion and hurled his pulsating mast of flesh forward-like a triggered bullet that had been channeled narrowly in the air from some telescopic rifle, geared to hit nothing but its victim, single-minded and exclusive in its journey. Gently, he nudged the swollen knob-tip in against the loosening lips of her vagina and felt his own seminal sprinkles growing wetter with hers. Ahhh! ... she was burning there too, as if in sympathy for the rest of her body-shock. Now he slid it into her with a fluid ease, feeling the pull of it, the yearning suction; and since the upper portions of his body had to remain elevated, they were both able to watch this wide and voluptuous entry, inch by heat-grinding inch ... ooh! ... their eyes aglow with the skin-blending gulp and thrill of it-like two children at a sex-education training film, fascinated by biology's vagaries, the miracle of having all their precious pieces fit so sublimely, and knowing that while men and women might be strangers the world over, they each possessed this key to fit the lock of the other ... A warming thought for the two of them as he now sank and dug his penis in her up to the hilt and hairy balls of him, the black tangle of his crotch-forest a newly glamorous array of contrasts against the vivid red and white of her ... and she gasped out her excitement, the dual elations of seeing and feeling his thudding hot velvet go into her all in the same sludging split second ... watching that instrument and prescription of his sinewy body that was still raised cautiously above her ... seeing his anguish-moist mouth and crazed eyes as he stabbed and crammed and hooked it ... and ahh! ... how the density of his desire flared up and pounded in his temples as he greedily eyed her round and pointed breasts, yearning to touch-fondle-suck them as he dipped into her more swiftly now ... but fearing he might infringe on her forbidden zones in the process ... lips, midriff, thighs, ah off-limits as he fucked.
"Ooohaaugh! ... I love it!" she cried, "and I hate it ... because I can't throw my arms around you and push you in deeper ...!"
"No, darling, you must he still for this!" he said, but gave her a fuller more thrusting lash of his cock and let it stay throb-planted for a second ... and smiled as he saw the gratitude in her eyes, and felt the swarming grasping tremors as his member went clenched and frenched and slotted into the bubbly pit of her, while she made love to it there, her inner clamors romancing, womb-kissing his juiced prong of penis-tip as it dug ... until he let out the wild-bull roars and cries of squirm-clutched torment. "OhmyGod, what are you doing to it in there? ... I'm not even moving it, and it's going to happen! ... oh you darling girl, you're masturbating it inside your belly ... ahh! ... squeezing and swimming ... " gazing down to watch her incredibly bobbing pelvis while the rest of her body remained stiff and still ... "oh ... open up that hot-cunt river and boil it, you glorious child ... unn now! ... grind those love-muscles around it and pinch and pull with that creamy grip and magnet-pool of sweet castration ... oooh! ... still not moving it ... just stiff and straight and swallowed ... and it's going to ... yes ... here ... unn ... now! ... burst and spray and explode ... vampire-clitoris-tongue ... suck ... it ... out ... of ... NOW!"
And she gasped and licked her sun-parched lips as she felt his searing, fluid streams careen and pop inside of her ... ooohhunn! ... this white-hot flood-tide bolting in to head off the onrush of her own rapturous cascades ... wet raging waves of it ... that gushing prick-clogged apex between her legs now all tumble-damped and brimming ... and quick! let's fall in love in there ... now ... diving, flailing, oh ... no ... more and more ... yes! Let loose. Sighs ...
* * *
"Lovely, darling," she smiled up at him a moment later; then slowly she eased her body away from his. "But now I'm starting to hurt again and joy is on the wane ... " With some difficulty she rose and headed towards the bathroom. "Perhaps another pill, and more of that cooling spray the doctor left ..."
However, the spray had such an awful odor, she feared her lover might never venture near her again; so she sprayed on a little cologne which was so irritating that she hopped all over the tile to keep from yelping like a mad dog. Then she gazed in the mirror and, to her horror, saw that she'd turned a sort of Rhode Island red all over. Mercy! ... how could anyone but a sex maniac have gotten aroused over that blistering body? She slipped into a flimsy, faded peignoir, and upon returning to the living room she tried to ignore Moonyean's derisive chatter, and lounged casually on a hassock. Although her cheeks felt tight and leathery, her smile was cracking elegant.
"Well now!" she gave him a brief grin of hysteria. "Hasn't this been a day?"
Heathcliffe sat up in bed and stared at her with a look of unsuppressed idolatry. "You are beautiful, Gloria Heavenrich. You are the sum total ..."
His tone startled her for a moment because it sounded like the beginning of a long eulogy, and she was almost certain he was about to sob. But he rose and walked towards her. Any man would have worked up a little misty-eyed phlegm after what they'd just achieved.
Naked, he knelt at her feet, his bell-shaped accoutrements thickly dangling between his thighs; and she now decided those were leftover passion-trickles beneath his eyes because-golly! ... what was there to be sad about? She'd recover, eventually.
"Ahh ... you look so dusky and bronze, my princess ... like something right out of Borneo!" And then, forgetting for an instant, he bent and pressed his mouth against her knee.
Gloria wince-grinned and said: "Ouch! Darling!"
"Oh I'm so sorry, my brave girl! Are you sure you'll be all right now? You're really quite a color, you know."
"Everything'll be fine, Heathcliffe," she assured him. "Just wait and see. After I peel I'm sure to heal-and then I'll be launched for the Season, fashionably tawny-looking ... and then, nothing can hurt me ..."
With these words he wrenched his body away from her and stood up, pacing about the room, his member loosely flouncing as he moved. "Oh ... blast the luck, my beloved one, oh damn this timing all to hell! Sometimes I absolutely abhor the Fates, don't you?" Not waiting for her answer, he plowed on. "I mean ... it seems so absolutely rotten to be leaving you now when you're not yourself."
Gloria looked up and saw the message in his eyes. The adieu, the inevitable fini. She sighed, fresh sun-pangs riveting through her tissue. "You're going back to Vermont, aren't you?"
He came over and stood above her, his eyes meeting hers, the corpulent languor of his penis seeming to swell even in repose. "Yes," he said. "I must return."
"When?"
Averting her gaze, he ambled away again. "I'm afraid I've already overextended myself ..."
She stared at his naked back, the powerful shoulders and haunches. "You have a business, or a ... a family, or you have ... something back in Vermont, haven't you?"
Grimly, he nodded. "I've wanted so much to tell you but I couldn't. I was afraid you'd misunderstand, and then I'd lose these lovely days we've had. This week has formed itself like such a charmed cameo, I didn't want to spoil it by giving you the facts in the case."
"Case?" Gloria sat stonily still, not daring to move a single festering limb. She managed a gay chuckle. "You silly old botanist, your gladioli are dying and they need you, isn't that it ... humm? ... fess up!"
He turned and eyed her soberly, and she vaguely wished he'd put on a loincloth or something so she wouldn't have to be so graphically reminded of his charms while he was waving them goodbye.
"My dear, I've been on a sort of furlough," he told her.
"Oh? And it's not the Army, is it?" She sadly shook her head. "No."
"... Nor the Navy?"
"No," and he took a deep breath. "This is a place we like to think of as a ... a Sanctuary For the Sensually Hypertense."
"Well now, isn't that ... "
"It's really the most exclusive refuge of its kind in the Western Hemisphere," he went on, starting to warm up to these word-pictures. "An enormous, rambling retreat which we call Libido Lodge ... "
... I knew it, she thought-the lust resort, where they breed men like these, dip them in a vat of hormone-nectar and send them out on the streets to rampage ...!
"My paternal grandfather founded it," Heathcliffe went on. "He was Vermont's first fully-recognized nudist, you know; and upon reaching maturity, I directed a series of psychodramas for the fetishist ward, then served on the board of trustees only a few months before pulling some strings and having myself committed."
"Well now," she said again, her cheeks chipping, "I guess it's not really what you know, but who ... as the old saying ..."
"... Hah!" he wailed out jubilantly, "I joined that Legion of Seminal Dropouts with relish ... and I renounced this loveless world of noise and avarice, retreating to peace, passion, and play among my fellow artists ...!"
All that wondrous heat of the man, thought Gloria ... I must have known from the first it was much too unorthodox to set my sights on. His endearing young delusions and appetites are being expertly juggled somewhere ... taken care of ... oh see the little men-in-white romping with their nets ...?
"Libido Lodge isn't at all like your run-of-the-mill psychopathia sexualis sanitaria," he explained trippingly. "No indeed, our sex offenders come highly recommended, and we consider no one but overripe artists, writers and composers. We've fashioned a true health spa of the senses, where right-thinking satyrs and nymphs can treat one another with equanimity-and grow whole together. Oh I tell you, my darling, today's sexual revolution seems about as progressive as kindergarten cunnilingus compared to the exotic communal delights we have achieved!"
Gloria kept grinning. "Well say, if they treat you nice, and the food is good ... and ... uh ... I mean, it's like a home away from ... or ..."
"Good God, my beloved, you should see our waiting lists! Henry and Arthur Miller, Jean Paul Sartre, and Tiny Tim, William Buckley and Gore Vidal ... and Margaret Meade ... all top-esthetic-drawer! ... and each of them hungering for the fluid freedoms of pure genital expression-our motto being: COPULATE OR CONVULSE! THERE IS NO MIDDLE ROAD!"
"Golly ... it sure sounds like an amiable group, Heathcliffe, but ... I'll miss you ..."
"Now don't be such a ninny," he said, "of course you'll come to visit me whenever you're ready." To her relief he had begun to dress; briefs veiling lost bounty ... the ornaments of her nights' dwindling ... "Now do get accustomed to our schedule, Gloria. We're allowed two big holiday furloughs a year, whichever we choose, but there are absolutely no rules about visitors; so you may come as you are any time you like. The estate itself is magnificent, my darling, and I tend to much of the grounds myself-especially the lovely garden behind the Hermaphrodite Wing."
"Oh?" her brows raising.
"And I serve them as an artist too," he added. "Why, just last year I painted some striking nude murals for the Fellatio-Therapy Room."
Gloria thought about this, dazedly. "You must employ some unusually gifted nurses there."
"Oh yes. Our staff has been trained most religiously. And once your temperature's been taken at Libido Lodge, you just know there's been something under your tongue besides a thermometer."
Fully dressed now, he went to her and knelt again, as grandiloquently as one of the Barrymore's. "Oh Gloria, you must come and see me soon. It's so beautiful there at this time of year ... with the heather spraying, the apple trees blooming, and those earnest little squirrels dancing in the mornings ..."
"... Earnest dancing morning squirrels?" she queried.
Nodding, he reached in his pocket and gave her one of his cards. She peered numbly at the diminutive gold-embossed letters: "Heathcliffe Montague- At Home-Libido Lodge, near Burlington, Vermont."
"We'll all be waiting for you, my delicious one, and think what a Dionysian romp we could make of all that poetic leisure-just you and I and 'the group' undulating down life's highway together ... " He rose and went to the dressing room for his slimlined suitcase.
Watching him and eyeing his sparse luggage, Gloria tried to wax philosophical. "He who travels light laughs last ... uh ... I mean, he who ... who he ... how now ...?"
"Ahh! ... I'm devilishly late, my blossom, and I'm eager to get back and read the minutes of this little sojourn we've had."
"You mean ... you've been taking notes?"
"Oh yes, we're honor-bound to share everything we feel when we're on our own and loose." He extracted a small notebook and waved it at her. "But now, we shall say the smallest of goodbyes, and I'll leave you here to cogitate on what I've said. There's a whole new world awaiting us, my dear, just trembling over the brink. Let the visions simmer within you, dwell upon them; and then, ultimately, come to me, bend to me ..."
"... Make me your own ..." Gloria completed the dear old lyric through taut scorched lips.
He blew her one last kiss, touched her briefly on the breastbone; and as she flinched from new firestorms, he whispered in her ear: "There's magic ahead for you, my girl-just follow the yellow brick road!"
And was gone from her.
Gloria inhaled deeply to catch some last traces of his heady tobacco and man-lotions. Then she hobbled over to the rose-trellised swing. But Moonyean beat her to it. Itching and tweaking, Gloria then staggered to the reptilian stereo and pressed many buttons. And before she knew it, it was playing their song, the twenty-one gun salute from Arlington National Cemetery. Then she pressed still another valve which switched on the giant TV set, emitting one of their favorite deodorant commercials, a winsome underarm ballet. After a tussle, she managed to elbow Moonyean off the swing and claimed it for her own, swinging from Leona's warped cornice tike a long caress, gazing about the room at her Zeus-boy's mementoes, all of them so absurd and costly.
Golly, I'll never find another roommate like that, she thought, her temperature soaring even higher at this point, although she smiled right through it. "He went in his prime!" she sighed aloud. The Moonyean hopped back on her lap and sentimentally bit her on the third-finger, left-hand, while Gloria swung high over her stereo. A tear began to form ... "In his prime!"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Many weeks flew by, and because Gloria Heavenrich wasn't the mourning sort, they flew fast. After deciding that Heathcliffe was eternally out of her realm and reach, she put him firmly from her mind. With a manic propulsion, she whipped herself back to that clamoring cargo of babies, daddies and senior-citizens. And, always having been a culturally-bent girl, she resumed her avid interest in non-matriculating evening courses and painting. She also surrendered to the neighborly old habit-patterns that were so generously provided by Tony, Steve and several other thirsting males, most of whom still remained pulsed and available on Gloria's routes of healing. And one morning down in the laundry-room she even managed to initiate the astounded but beholden Lars Svensen.
The men on her list grew wilder for her than ever during this period-for they each sensed how much more free and open she was now, no longer demanding their credentials or issuing out nonsensical rules and regulations. Gloria knew that it was Heathcliffe who had given her this new maturity, the honest acceptance of her own native drives. Men didn't have to be unhappily married any more to qualify as lovers; even the blissfully contented husbands were now welcome in her bed. Golly! ... what a sublime heritage her old darling had left in his wake ...
And yet, even as the time passed for Gloria and benumbed the ache a little, Heathcliffe, like God-the-Father, loomed above her bed during every tangle and thrust of flesh. Not an image of censure or reprimand. Instead, he was applauding her fresh prowess and vitality as if he were overjoyed that, through his guidance, she had learned to intensify the cadences and spout out more fruitful exhilaration-the new interior sperm-fuels welling up to give her strength ...
Her facility with the paintbrush proved to be a strong, if intermittent, release. However, just after she finally finished that still life of her hamsters, they suddenly grew scaly and rank, and died. Gloria went all-out for a state funeral. Her thoughtfully gay neighbors, Lonny and Darwin, helped her hang black crepe throughout her apartment. Blue punch was served at the wake, and later everybody came as she buried Marlene and Izzy in the window box. Everyone cried. Lonny got drunk and his lover slugged him when he tried to grope the Nordically-endowed Lars Svensen. Then Lars slugged Darwin, because he said he hated bullies, regardless of their sexual persuasion. Then Lars' wife Elsie started in on him for turning into such a fruit-defender, while Darwin and Lonny wrestled their way back to their own apartment. Hearing their haggling tussles above the stereo, Gloria grew alarmed and quietly simpered over to offer them tea and sympathy-and was nearly dissected by flying tiaras, jockstraps and falsies. But all in all, it was a good burial soiree. Very communal. Heathcliffe would have adored it.
One cold December day at the office it suddenly occurred to Gloria that the prospect of sharing a future with Heathcliffe might not be as hopeless as it seemed. It was during a coffee break, and the steam heat had been making the girls giddily sluggish all morning. So, wanting to break the monotony, Myrt Neeley finally got up the nerve to ask Gloria what had happened to that rich and sporty looking number with the widow's peak and the Dusenberg and-so Leona Liebowitz informed them-a gorgeous estate in Vermont.
"Yeah, hon, we heard how serious that romance was," said the sallow, twittery Ira. "And listen, doll, if there was ever a chance I could make it with that kind of fella, and I knew where he went, I'd follow him, Gloria. I wouldn't even give notice at the office. I mean, who needs unemployment insurance in heaven?"
"But I know where he went, you sillies! In fact, he's even invited me for a visit ..."
The girls all gaped at each other.
"Then go to him, Gloria!" exclaimed Ira. "What're you waiting, he should send out a safari for you maybe ... a caravan? I mean ... he's rich and gorgeous and you're invited, so what've you got to lose? Chase him!"
As she subwayed home that night, Gloria wondered if this suggestion were really as simple as it sounded. And golly, wouldn't the girls be horrified to learn that all the rooms in Heathcliffe's lovely Vermont estate might very well be padded right up to their light sockets?
Later, she laid awake for hours, mulling and debating and ruminating. Then, on an impulse, she shot out of bed and dashed to the phone. She wanted to prove there was such a place first, and then make up her mind. She dialed. About thirty digits later a male receptionist smoothly said: "Libido Lodge, Tool's Paradise of Vermont-what is your trauma?"
... Oooh ... good gravy, it exists, after ah ... oh it's up there all right! ...
"Mr. Heathcliffe Montague please," she said. "You may find him painting in the Fellatio-Therapy ..."
"... Sorry, Madam. Mr. Montague has retired for the night and left word not to be disturbed."
Banging down the receiver, Gloria felt a well of insane laughter building up inside of her. What an adorable policy for a mental institution, leaving word not to be disturbed! She was instantly ablaze in a riotous spasm of joy, dancing and cavorting madly about the apartment, bumping into easels, tables, her lovely blonde hair tossed back in a burst of gleeful, roaring mirth ... laughing, rejoicing. She switched on the stereo and swirled onto the swing, her gilded passion-built throne, thinking: Ooh! ... that man's expecting me, lusting for my arrival this very minute ... waiting for ESP and the right vibrations to bring me to him! ... and by God, I'll do it! Yes! ... first thing in the morning I'll cash in all my payroll savings bonds and have myself committed!
* * *
Then morning came and found Gloria reconsidering the logic of such a move. The "wither-thou-goest-I-will-go" credo sounded beautifully inspiring; but how on earth was she to storm that bastille and convince them she really belonged? She couldn't simply wire for a reservation as if she were going up to Grossingers-'An orgy-cell and bath, please, and do keep me posted about Planned-Parenthood-Picnic and Nude-Ins!' And really she was just a pitiful little file clerk, so who was she, Gloria Heavenrich, to think she could compete with that staggering waiting list of the psycho-carnivorous? This made her feel awfully insecure, and she felt it would be an added embarrassment if it turned out that she wasn't sufficiently frothed-over to pass the entrance exams.
To prepare for her lustful role, Gloria spent long, astigmatic evenings with Freud, Kinsey and Jacqueline Sussan, studying the in-depth aberrations of the American female. And before her mirror nightly she aped every degenerate contortion she could find in the steamy pages of Fanny Hill and Lady Chatterly.
But as she gradually realized that all this research was getting her nowhere, she at last hit upon the horrible truth-the shattering, spine-chilling fact of her future:
... Golly hemlock! ... I've got to commit a sex offense all on my own, or they won't let me in there ...!
* * *
Gloria needed help. Two consecutive nights in a row she woke up screaming: "Help!" And on the third night help came; and like Maeterlinck's backyard bluebird, it had been too close for her to see it.
If she wanted to dabble convincingly into the specialized fields of psycho-sexual behavior, she'd have to go to an expert to find out exactly how it was done. And heavens! Who else could coach her quite as effectively as her dear friends Lonny and Darwin? They both had records of lewd-vagrancy charges dating way back to their pre-natal sex drives!
Deciding not to waste another hour's insomnia, she invited them over for popcorn and color TV, then promptly turned off the set. They regarded this act rather curiously, each of the boys looking typically lithe and vital in their tightly-packed pastel dungarees. Gloria then recited the whole 'Saga of Heathcliffe' for them, from beginning to end.
"Oh my God, that's so fuckin' romantic!" said Lonny, and burst into sensitive tears, flinging himself into his lover's burly arms. "Darwin baby, the next time they put you away for goosin' little boys in the subway, I'll do something real wild, just so's they'll put me near you!"
"Why, you dirty little cocksucker, you've been behind bars twice as much as I have!" said Darwin, giving his handsome buddy-lad an amiable clout. "Remember that time they caught you blowin' six merchant marines all in a row?"
"But Goddammit, that was unfair, 'cause we were all consenting adults!"
"Look, when you do it in Columbus Circle and it's stiff Daylight Savings Time, it don't matter whose consent you've got!"
Lonny glared at him. "You're judging me again, aren't you, Darwin ... hmm? Listen to him, Gloria ... isn't he judging me?"
"Now boys, please," said Gloria, "this is a perfectly charming conversation, but it's not exactly getting me arrested, now is it?"
The boys had to agree, so they cooled it. And suddenly got very sober and clinical, eyeing Gloria shrewdly, then moving away and whispering between themselves.
"Hon, listen," said Lonny, "we know how beautiful that guy is and all, and ... like he's probably rich too, and maybe he even owns that place up there ..."
"... Got a real wild basket on him too," Darwin said respectfully. "I could tell that at a glance ... meat for the poor!"
"... and Christ, girl," Lonny continued, "I'd give anything to be the Maitre-dee in that Fellatio-Therapy room ... like maybe I could break in the new recruits after they was hypnotized ..."
"... Hey, Glory, how about if we get you up there all safe and sound?" asked Darwin. "Could you may be put in a good sick word for us? I mean, it's not like we'd have to commit anything new to qualify ..."
"Well, I'll most certainly give it a try," Gloria's attention shifted rapidly from one to the other.
"Except that you've gotta make sure he'll remember you," said Lonny, "and that's what I was gettin' at, Gloria. I mean ... so all right, he's got a great swingin' body and he's a real gentleman. But doll, if he's such a freak-out he thinks he's Leonardo Da-Whatsizname ..."
"... NO!" Gloria halted these suppositions at once. "He remembers me, Lonny, and he wants me near him. And what's more, I'm quite prepared to bribe myself into that place if I have to. I've cashed my bonds and taken out nearly fifteen hundred dollars from my savings ..."
"Okay, then, knock it off Lonny," said Darwin. "This girl believes, and she has faith. So we've got to take it from there."
"Right," said Lonny, scrutinizing Gloria up and down again. Suddenly he laughed out madly. "Jesus, if it was me there'd be no problem at all. Why honey, I'd just walk into the biggest men's room in town and gobble up the first prick I saw!"
"And keep gobblin'," said Darwin, "'till you either sprained your tongue or got busted."
"Which wouldn't take long, with all the peeping-tom fuzz they got in this queen's town," said Lonny. "Imagine, big grownup detectives makin' a living that way, when all those little old ladies are getting slugged on West End Avenue!"
Gloria said nothing for a moment, trying to recoup her wits and filter out a little logic from all this chatter. "Well, that idea sounds perfectly legitimate for you two," she told them, "but I can't very well walk into a men's ... uh ... I mean ... well, naturally I ... can't ..."
She stopped talking abruptly as all three stared wildly at each other, touched off by the same unanimous spark.
"No ... oh no!" Gloria slowly shook her head, chills racing up and down her spine. "Never! ... I couldn't possibly bring myself to ... why ... I'd ... I'd ... get ..."
"Arrested! That's what you'd get!" said Darwin. "Whee! ... what a campy idea ...!" He suddenly seized Lonny in his arms and the two boys did a brief mini-version of the Boogaloo to celebrate.
"And girl, the publicity would be marvelous!" Lonny said breathlessly, as his lover finally released him after a crazily passionate kiss on the mouth ... "because honey, you're gonna do it in that enormous stud-horse urinal at Grand Central-where else?"
"Ooohh!" said Gloria.
"OhmyGod, I can see it all now," said Lonny, "you'll be the world's first 'Sex-Offense-Symbol,' and we'll plan the whole thing as a kind of one-woman protest march." Gloria could see that the boys were really warming up to this project.
"Yeah ... a dash for freedom!" said Darwin.
"... And we mean a freedom of choice that's long been denied the American female," added Lonny. "After all, straight guys can go to whorehouses when they get the drizzles, and gay guys ... oh hell, Mary! ... they can go to bars, baths, tearooms, parks, shows and all to hell'n gone and get what they want. Why not the same Goddamned rights for hungry cunts?"
"Right!" Darwin lustily applauded this speech. "Let's emancipate all the horny broads of the world ..."
"... We'll call her Gropin' Gloria ... ooh Holy Christ, that has a ring to it!"
Gloria rose and moved erratically about the room, Moonyean chattering and nipping at her ankles. Employing all her powers of imagination, she tried very hard to visualize herself walking into the men's room at Grand Central Station. At best, she found this a very elusive picture indeed.
"Boys, listen to me-this plan is full of holes. For one thing, since I am quite obviously a girl, I'd probably be stopped before I even got a chance to touch anyone, or ... or do anything ..."
Lonny and Darwin exchanged quick glances.
"Hey, she's right," said Darwin, "I never thought of that. With all the heat they got roamin' around there, she'd probably get stopped right at the door."
"And they'd most likely think she was a tourist who lost her way, no matter what she said," said Lonny.
"What's more, in this case saying isn't going to be enough," said Darwin, "she's gotta be caught doing something ..."
"... Something big ..."
"At least eight inches' worth," confirmed Darwin.
Gloria felt their eyes on her again, the brittle speculation. Then watched anxiously as the boys peered at each other, newly attuned flickers of revelation seeming to weld them in fresh resolve ... Gloria marveled that this must be true love if the two dears could read each others' minds ...
"Are you thinkin' what I am, Lonny?" asked Darwin.
"You know it, baby, and why the hell not? With all the long-haired hippie-shitheels prowling the streets these days, who knows where anybody's hole is anymore?"
Gloria gave them a smile of bright terror. "You ... you boys want me to ... to impersonate a man?"
"Oh never, you silly chick!" giggled Lonny. "Let's not press our luck, not the way you're built ..."
"Then ... then what?" she wondered aloud.
"Why girl," said Lonny, "step up and have yourself a Hot Coronation, 'cause you are gonna become Faggot-For-A-Day!"
The boys swept her into their arms, Lonny going tearful again ... "Oh darling, welcome to the club!"
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Gloria Heavenrich and her laddies-in-waiting went on a breathless rampage, designing the proper comic-strip disguise and choreography for her suspicious debut on Public Enemy Number One. "We'll just have to make her a gay hippie," Lonny told Darwin early in the proceedings.
"I agree," said Darwin. "With all the flowing yellow hair, there's no other alternative."
"Of course, it'll look phony," said Lonny, "since very few hippies are legitimately gay. Oh, a lot of 'em go the AC-DC route, I guess, when they're all bombed-out on pot or acid, but I'm talkin' about your pure blood-line congenital rattle-sucking bona fide homo man-lover."
"So all right, the phonier she looks, the quicker they'll spot her," said Darwin.
"Baby, you're brilliant!" squealed Lonny, and juicily kiss-rewarded the boy.
Thus it was agreed: Gloria as a Homo Hippie Junior-Grade fruit-impersonator. So the boys rented a second-hand Singer and busily started stitching her wardrobe. Their knottiest problem was finding an adequate breast-flattener; but they finally came up with a network of whalebone stays that felt like a pack of railroad ties whenever Gloria tried them on. When they saw how small and dainty her feet were, they vetoed the barefoot bit and fashioned a freaky pair of psychedelic sandals for her. And tightly contoured shocking-pink jeans which gave the girl's protruding back-buns the apple-curved look of a boy, but which did absolutely nothing for her perform ace at the crotch.
"Do you think we oughta hang a dildo on her garter belt?" asked Lonny.
"What garter belt?" Darwin reminded him.
"What's a dildo?" queried Gloria.
"A foam-rubber jazz-organ, baby," said Lonny, "but I think if we get your orange suede Nehru shirt to hang low enough, you won't need no basket."
"Then maybe we can skip the jockstrap too," decided Darwin-a bit of strategy which Gloria found instantly endearing.
The boys performed several dress rehearsals for their neophyte degenerate, teaching-and demonstrating-all the subtle arts and devices of urinal grope-cruising. They pretended to be pervertedly predatory strangers approaching each other in her bathroom, with the lights brightly lit so she could watch. Which Gloria studiously did-and took copious notes on as well.
Furtively, the boys unzipped themselves, wagging and jagging their own ample equipment, stealing secret downward glances at the meat-display each of them categorically drooled for-not pretending, really, although mugging a bit more than usual; like letting their tongues hang out almost as long as their hardening hot glands. When Gloria took full cognizance of these dual risings, she grew rather jittery and warm ... because golly! ... they were both so sturdily bloomed-out, it was a little tricky for her to remain neutral. However, when the huskily-built Darwin sank to his knees and frantically began sucking his lover's pulsing-pink member, Gloria kept politely silent only until Lonny was brought to climax-about eight mouthy minutes, she tallied-and then most tastefully intervened ... "Oh boys, aren't you getting carried away ... hmm?"
But they were too absorbed in their groaning duet to hear her, as Darwin ravenously sipped and milked the last honeyed drops from Lonny's spouting fat cudgel. "Oooohumm ... good!" sang Darwin, as he gulped and rose, grinning at Gloria, his own enormous throb still hard and firm.
"Oh Christ, I'll never be able to resist that educated alley-tongue of yours, you rapist!" Lonny giggled at his lover. Then he fondled Darwin's jutting erection and waved it at Gloria. "You wanna get in some practice-licks, girl? ... just till you get the hang of it ...?"
Lips parted, eyes glued to Darwin's long temptation, Gloria found herself moving towards the bathroom-but then caught herself as she saw how ridiculous this would be: like having sex with a rather deformed sister. "Now really, boys, there's no need to go on with this," she said sternly, backing away from them, "for I assure you, I get the picture. So may we please adjourn this meeting and regain our senses? Are you two listening to me?"
They were not; for Lonny was now kneeling at the grail, his warm mouth full of the ripe supple taste of his loin-thrusting betrothed. Gloria went a little swoony watching the intense look of passion on Darwin's face as he sighed with the swallow-feel of the other boy's lips ... wet gappling rapture, digesting. But despite her quavery limbs she chastely closed the bathroom door on the well of their fulfillment. Then, humming with determined insouciance, wafted capriciously into the living room and tooled about on her swing.
* * *
By the time Fag-Day arrived it was just a week before Christmas-a Saturday afternoon-and the human traffic ebbing in and out of Grand Central was thick and savage. Gloria and her gay duennas were seated in the huge Grand Central waiting room, which immediately adjoined the main men's lounge. They'd provided her with a dark, powdery kind of makeup around her chin and cheeks to simulate a Dick Nixon-type beard; and after messing her hair into a shaggy boy-girl-hippie tangle, she looked about as neuter gender as anything else one might see loping across Forty-Second Street.
"Is it a boy, is it a girl ... no! ... its' SUPER-FRUIT!" joshed Lonny.
But Gloria was too busy trembling to be amused. And besides, her battened-down nipples were killing her.
"Aren't you kids coming in with me?" she said sportingly.
"No, doll, you're on your own now," Lonny told her. "We'll be cruisin' the other John to pass the time."
"And you'll have enough competition in there without us," said Darwin.
Gloria rose a bit unsteadily, taking a deep breath and thinking: oh Heathcliffe, my love, I'm only doing this for you, just to belong to your shimmering world of sensation ...!
"Remember what we told you, hon," said Lonny. 'In show business, timing is everything."
"And the element of surprise," added Darwin.
Watching her, Lonny said: "OhmyGod! ... she looks like a cross between Steve McQueen and Jane Fonda!"
Trying very hard to feel like 'star-material', Gloria walked bravely towards the men's room ... I simply must look like I belong, she kept coaching herself. And somehow it worked. Nobody even noticed her. When she entered the urinal-proper, she gasped at the soldierly array of exposed and dangling privates. Oooh! ... would you look at that one ... and that one ... and ... thinking how odd it was that they'd all stand so far back while they sprinkled. Especially those who weren't sprinkling at all.
She stood behind them and waited for an available trough. Two fellows who stood immediately in front of her were behaving just like Lonny and Darwin during rehearsal, their eyes clamped obsessively downward on each others' glowing erections. With an adroit and slinky lurch, one hand grasped the rigid rod of its neighbor. Gloria noticed a wedding-band on this hand, and wanly thought: commuter-transgressions so interwoven and various. Her eyes giddily scanned the chorus of pulsating prongs and she felt a little light-headed. Mercy! ... she'd never seen such an opulent display of male-flesh before, en masse and on-the-hoof, so to speak. It could have been a dream come true, if they weren't all so strung-up on each other.
One of the men reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out some sort of a card. For a moment Gloria feared she was about to witness a preliminary arrest before being able to concentrate on her own. Then she saw that the gesture was a friendly one, and was rather astonished to see that the men were apparently exchanging business cards. They both nodded curtly, like a couple of scheming foreign agents. One zipped up and departed, the other following a few seconds later, after a brief cloak-and-dagger glance over his shoulder.
Eager for her first serious dip into public depravity, Gloria pranced up to the vacant urinal, glad that the one next to her was not in use at the moment. This gave her time to unzip and move in as closely as possible, so nobody would notice her pronounced lack of status symbols.
She focused her eyes slowly to the left and this really gave her a hearty glimpse of stiffening missile-thrusts. Golly! ... it made her feel naughty and hungry and privileged all at once, this multiple bird's-eye view of male adornment ... tempting rack of ladies' ready-to-wear, inveigling. And see the glittering assemblage of colors and sizes ... soft flushy pinks and peaches and rosy gland-hues. If only she could pass and pick among them, filling up a bulging basket of such goodies!
But the door to this fleshy daydream snapped shut in an instant, for someone was standing next to her, unzipping. With a quick glance Gloria saw that it was a boy of fifteen or thereabouts, which was practically heaven-sent, because Lonny and Darwin had warned her not to strike until she'd snagged herself a minor, since child-molesting was easily the most frowned-upon sex offense of them all. Oh golly! ... her first time at bat and she was in luck! With another fast glimpse she saw that the boy had one of those instant post-puberty erections: BOINNGG! ... and there it was, Gloria having to stifle a gasp as she carefully chronicled the vast size of this appendage. Mercy! ... what an adult instrument for such a cherub-face ...
Oh Heathcliffe, spray the bed and dim the lights, I'm on my way! ... she inwardly sang; and also thought she heard a chorus of scatological troubadours chanting: 'Onward Christian Soldiers! ... We're Marching To EuPHORIA!' ... spurring her on to heights of lewd victory, whipping up her militant juices ... as she gently lowered her hand, her fingers in grope-formation just as she'd been taught.
And then, something that had not been rehearsed. The eager boy had lowered his hand in the same instant, swiping it towards her cautiously hidden epicenter just as she had angled towards his. Then-hands struck together quite hard, and Gloria winced; for it was pretty painful, and damnably unexpected. Although she didn't known beans about protocol in this sort of life-situation, she wanted to tell him he was making a very silly mistake, and didn't he know the rules of the game either? She steadfastly refused to remove her hand. And he, too, refused, keeping his knuckles lodged fiercely against hers. Oh dear! ... if she raised her hand, she knew he'd slip his fingers inside her jeans and get the shock of his tenderly inverted young life. All of which might result in an abortive fluster of commotion, but hardly the travesty they'd planned.
"Let me go first," she said in a tomboy-whisper.
"No!" was his scowling low retort. "I'd rather play than be played with."
... Well good gravy, what a stubborn child! She certainly didn't envy his mother; and talk about a sloppy bringing-up and children having no respect for their elders ... mercy! if he were hers, she'd ...
"... I'll give you twenty dollars if you let me touch it," she hissed down at him between her teeth.
The boy gulped, and then nodded, fast. "Okay," he said.
Now Gloria knew there was no time to waste, Tor there wasn't another decent minor in sight, so it had to be this one, the little beast ... standing there expanding his thick precocity! She reached out and grabbed the velvety bulge, tweaking it gently at first. Then she let out a gurgling girlish squeal: "OooahhWHEE!" A lusty howl of idiocy that echoed weirdly in that tiled rotunda. "Oooh! ... you delicious sweet-hung boy-child, I've just GOT to drink that peter dry or I'll die! ... do ya hear that, Vice-Squad? I'm gonna suck-a-little sin-a-little ... eat-a-little-BOY!"
Having thus proclaimed her thirst for all and sundry, Gloria sank to her knees and did a dedicated imitation of Lonny and Darwin, as well as recreating a few old appetites for herself. She slid the fat astounded penis deep into her mouth, jostling the boy about for all to see, as she sucked and swallowed and lapped and wildly moaned out her gratitude for this swabbing delight. Umm! ... what an enchanting odor of lifebuoy-soap and lathered testes she found at his crotch, nearly forgetting her main mission for a moment as she recalled how long it had been since she'd had such a voluptuous oral feast.
For the first few minutes several urinal-devotees gathered around to watch this gulping display. But then the commotion erupted, as the attendants yelled out shouts of warning: "You queers lost your minds 'er something? Do your cocksuckin' in the booths like you're supposed ta!" Then someone yelled for the cops, and this frightened everyone away, except busy Gloria.
The attacked boy was convinced this was a very cute young lad tonguing away at his prick, and was finding it very difficult not to spurt out and flood that pretty mouth. But he was also terrified ... because gosh! ... everybody was peeking! "Let go of me!" he cried, his eyes still yearning downward to watch the lovely full curve of those lips as they stretched to devour him. "Oh ... not here ... please! My Momma's waiting outside and ... and she don't know I mess around with boys ...!"
Over her shoulder, Gloria saw the approach of several hugely-built men who were obviously plainclothes detectives, a few uniformed policemen accompanying them. This was the Show-Biz timing for which she'd been trained. "Don't worry, Sonny," she said, after slipping the teen-aged confection out of her mouth. "Your mother will be pleased as punch when she finds out I am a girl, after all!" As she got to her feet, Gloria lowered her jeans, unfastened her Nehru shirt and popped out her whalebone breast-flatteners. And, as Lonny had taught, she began to a sing a definitive old pop-tune: "I ENJOY Being A Girl," from Te Flower Drum Song. She was totally naked now, and as she cavorted and danced amidst the urinals, her free-blown breasts wriggled and jounced, while her creamy-white ass and tummy revolved and thrust forward that telltale mound of split-dimple at her crotch ... "Aaaaghahhooh! ... what a BLOW for freedom I've struck here today! ... I'm a girl in the men's room with the divine right to hunt and pick prick as I choose! Ahh! ... Females UNITE!"
"Holy Shit! look at that," roared one of the detectives. "It is a girl. Aww ... I'm dyin'! ... all that pussy in the men's room! My God ... those tits!"
"Jesus, another fuckin' freak-out ...!"
"Oh man, dig that curly blonde cunt! ... and them big juicy knockers bouncin' all over the shit-house!"
"You think she's tryin' to tell us something? Maybe she's a Christmas present ..."
"Yeah? Then you'd better stop lookin', 'cause we gotta wrap her back up ...!"
"... And her front too, Gaddammit ...!
"... If we can catch her, ya mean. Hell ... look at 'er go! ... and ooh Jeez, I got a hard-on, dammit ... does it show?"
"Who's lookin' between your legs, for Christ's sake! Now let's grab hold of her and get those pants back on her ..."
Despite her gymnastic pirouettes, it was Gloria's irate victim who reached her first. Panting and furious, the boy gave her an outraged kick in the shins. "I HATE you," he sneered at her. "Ooh ... are you ever a liar ... ya dirty-lady ... dirty-lady ... if I knew you was a girl I'd throw up!"
"Run and tell your mother, honey-there's a good lad!" Gloria was doing a series of high revealing kicks at this juncture, her voice a wailing popart tremulo ... "Oh Men Think I'm Cute and FUNNY ... and my teeth aren't teeth, but PEARLS ...!"
"... So're your tits, ya dizzy freak! ... now get these pants on," said one of the surrounding detectives, waving her jeans in the air.
"Hey, son, how old are you?" asked another cop.
"Fourteen!" he replied, still glowering at Gloria. "And this whore of Babylon's been following me all over town!"
... That's right, you little darling, thought Gloria ... sweeten the pot! ... ooh! ... sweeten it! ...
"And she attacked you. Right?" asked the cop.
"Sure! You saw what she was doing ..." the boy's eyes rested involuntarily on the still-blooming bulge in the cop's pants. "Couldn't you just VOMIT?"
"Yeah, yeah, I think I could," said the cop, "if you don't stick your wet pecker back in your pants ...!"
Blushing, the boy sent floundering fingers to his fly.
"You want to press charges?" asked one of the detectives.
"Oh boy, can I?" the lad almost danced for joy. "Gosh, that'd be cool!"
... Poor dear, thought Gloria; he feels so betrayed, he might never trust another loose-tongued female again ...
One of the detectives led the boy away, in search of his mother, while a merrily grinning crowd of male holiday-shoppers now gathered greedily about the scene for some transient voyeurism, the nation's number one pastime. Two officers held Gloria's fluttering arms, while another cop pulled the jeans up over her naked quivery thighs. His big florid face lurked perilously close to the exposed, moist crease of her vagina as he knelt before her. Salivating like a St. Bernard, the man inhaled deeply just once before sealing this bubbly treat out of sight and mind.
Another officer forced her arms back into the Nehru shirt. "Child molestin', indecent exposure. Jesus, they're gonna throw the book at you!"
... Promises, promises, Gloria giggled to herself. And before the man knew what was happening, she grabbed a hand full of his fabric-crotch and pulled his gaping face down to hers for a sloppily succulent kiss on the mouth.
"Let go of me, ya fuckin' hophead!" But Gloria thought he edged her body away from his very slowly; and felt the others in his platoon eyeing this interchange with lip-licking interest.
"Jeez! ... it's too bad there're so many witnesses," one cop whispered to another, "cause damn! ... we could sure bust our nuts on this one back at the station house!"
"Did you hear that, ladies and gentlemen?" squealed Gloria. "Some of New York's finest Protectors In Blue, and they're planning to gangLAY me in the Interrogation Room!"
"Don't nobody believe this bitch!" roared one of the cops. "She's a nut-case from way back!"
With a surprise dip of the torso, Gloria darted out of reach and managed to peel off her shirt again, rendering herself bouncy and topless as she went into another mangled strip tease ... popping her hips and nipples in a swirling tumble of bumps and grinds, while the cops chased her in and out of the booths and the onlookers applauded as she sang: "They Call Me A Cock-Aimed Optimist!" from the blue version of South Pacific. And saw a flashbulb snap her picture, running madly to embrace the photographer, who went down on his knees and begged her to slip out of the jeans again: "I'm from The Village Voice, baby, and we need us some BEAVER!" But, alas, seized by the law again, as Gloria saw that the whole enormous shed was milling with curiosity-seekers, as well as more cops and security guards and news hounds and photogs ... Oh Heathcliffe, by George I think we've done it! I'm sure to be plastered all over the tabloids, after which they'll strap me up and cart me away and ... ooh golly, I certainly hope they know the address!
"There are also laws against impersonatin' a member of the opposite sex," one of the cops reminded her as they dragged her out into the terminal.
"Oh?" she said archly. "And exactly what is the opposite of a homosexual?"
"Huh?" they collectively grunted.
"I was impersonating a male homosexual, you silly morons; and if that's a direct opposite to my sex, what does that make me?"
The cops glared stupidly at her for a moment as they continued to drag her through the crowded yuletide terminal. "Holy shit, I guess that'd have to make her a lesbian. Right, you guys?"
They all nodded wisely.
But Gloria laughed in their faces, and even managed to tweeze another testicle or two in-transit. "Now that's something you'll never be able to prove, not after my recent performance," she snapped at them. "So I'm home free. I know my rights, you bull-dogs ... ooh ... you mastiffs ...!"
Before they handcuffed her, Gloria waved gaily at the sparkling-eyed Christmassy throng. All these frolicking Manhattan pedestrians taking their annual French leave, full of vermouth and Noel and good cheer ... and absolutely entranced by the spectacle of this lovely blonde ingénue-girl who smiled so courageously in the face of dire adversity.
"Put her down, ya bunch of Scrooges!" yelled one puffy matron.
"That's right, honey!" shrieked Gloria as they led her out to the wagon. "Think free! ... and God bless us Ladies-Of-The-Night, one and all!"
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Gloria was booked into City Prison that day, and after her victim's dyspeptic mother pressed charges, her bail was set at $3,000.00. She was permitted one phone call, but decided not to make it, wanting the public shock and notoriety to snowball overnight. She made no effort to conceal her real identity, but was quite prepared to deny knowing-or ever having seen-anyone who might appear to rescue her, whether they be friends or lovers. She also refused the many attempts to bail her out that night, after her pictures were seen in the evening papers. They put her in a cell by herself, pending a psychiatric examination, which was vaguely set some time before her hearing.
In the meantime, Lonny launched some spasmodic protest marches in front of Grand Central and City Hall. With the aid of a zealous coterie of Village cohorts, he drew up some slapdash placards demanding that the 'Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness' clause in the Declaration of Independence be broadened to embrace: The Equal-Opportunity Rights of Sensual Selectivity. Other signs proclaimed that Gloria was an innocent little sex-suffragette who was being hounded and persecuted by the gestapo-like Manhattan Police Force. These devoted disciples nobly picketed up and down, chanting their truly stirring campaign song: 'Let Our People BLOW!'
Darwin, meanwhile, dug his inroads in the opposite direction. He and a quickly rounded-up staff made scores of crank calls to the police and other right-wing organizations, complaining about that abominable freak-girl they'd picked up in Grand Central, demanding that some crucial action be taken against such atrocities, and wondering: "When oh when will our clean-cut pubescent young-boys be able to walk the streets without being raped and sucked right out of their milk-fed little minds?!"
And so the controversy and the hubbub meshed and interwove, while Gloria spent a rather edgy first night in jail. It wouldn't have been quite so bleak if it weren't for the troupe of mice that came to visit her about three a.m. About half a dozen of them gave a dance recital that wouldn't quit; and even after they finally rang down the curtain, there was no more sleep for Gloria that night.
But the next morning she was considerably cheered by her wide and pictorial newspaper coverage. Suddenly Gloria Heavenrich-a heretofore unknown and ignominious little fellatrice from Texas-was hot Manhattan-copy for the holidays. Since it was tinsel and holly time, the city seemed ripe for a story of such devastating kook-appeal. Gloria refused to see anyone but reporters, although the girls from her office appeared and pleaded to have the girl released in their custody, since she wouldn't accept their offers to pay her bail. However, Gloria insisted that she'd never heard of these people, and if they wanted to call her a poor put-upon amnesiac, it was all right with her, whoever they were. Even when the redoubtable Leona Liebowitz herself cagily finagled an admittance and stared her favorite tenant right in the face, Gloria remained adamant.
"Ketzeleh, listen to me ... if there's some point to all this, so tell me! I mean ... darling, a square I'm not-you're hip already?"
But when Gloria said: "I never saw you, I don't know you, and by the way, who are you?" Leona went into a howling rhetoric of hysterics, wailing like a stuck mongoose and, poor dear, had to be led out of the place by several beefy matrons.
Later that morning, while she was being interviewed and photographed by the staff of Ever-Ram magazine, a guard appeared at Gloria's cell to tell her that someone wouldn't take no for an answer and had just put up her bail, so she was free to go whether she liked it or not. Curious, Gloria asked the guard to give her the name of this tenacious person.
"She says she's the Countess de Trop, or some kind of nutty name like that ..."
"Jesus God, it's Minnie!" said the bearded and leafy-smelling youth who'd been interviewing Gloria. "Hell, this is just the kind of hydrophobia that turns her on the most, so I might'a knowed she'd snap at this bait, once the story broke ..."
"Holy fuckin'-Hearst!" wailed his fellow scribe, a lady. "It looks like you've been drafted, my grisly one."
"Oh? ... hmm?" Gloria perked up her ears.
"Let me fill you in," said this myopic lady-of-the-ink. "The Countess Minerva Irena Minetta le Bilge de Trop has been making but the gamiest psycho-headlines for ages. She lost a Count and a small kingdom a few generations ago, and now runs this split-level Spook Ranch up in New England ..."
"... Which would make Bedlam look like Disneyland," finished her boy companion.
Gloria glared hotly from one to the other and shrieked out: "VERMONT?"
They nodded. "Then you've been there before!" said ladyscribe, making fast notes.
... ooh golly hemlock! ... how very like Heathcliffe to have a Countess for a housekeeper, because that's who she is, all right ... oh she has to be! Yes ... she's a courier ... and he's sent her for me ... there couldn't be any other explanation ...!
Gloria told the guard she was ready to leave at once, tugging at his sleeve, urging him to hurry ... oh please ... hurry! When she was released, the rabid Ever-Ram reporters followed her every step of the way, bent on chronicling this momentous meeting or reunion, or whatever it might be. And what a visual confrontation for a cover story: FREAK-OF-THE-MONTH MEETS FREAK-HUNTRESS OF THE CENTURY!
There was another lusting mob of vicarious thrill-seekers lying in wait for Gloria outside the prison, as well as a banner-waving contingent of feisty demonstrators, championing their Sex-Goddess's mad dash for the free-blown mind and body. It seemed like utter pandemonium and anarchy, but it was all being duly recorded and photographed by The Press.
"That's the Countess!" pointed lady-scribe from Ever-Ram. "She's so small and dumpy, you can't miss her!"
"Where ... where?" And then Gloria saw this cuddly virago, and thought: what a darling little bundle of effusion! She wasn't much over five feet and irrepressibly chubby in her thick sables, cunning high boots, towering Cossack hat and ermine ear-muffs. Although snow had begun to fall rather heavily, Gloria was able to make out the swaggering chauffeurs on either side of the Countess, both of whom were terribly immense and protective, like faithful Hussars.
This lady's tongue entered mortal combat with itself each time it was employed, and she now waved at Gloria as though the girl were a long-lost delinquent daughter ... "Ahh! ... there you are, my truculent truant!" bustling her way through the crowd of reporters. "Oh ... you poor naughty lost waif, why did you have to play hookey right in the middle of your Diaphragm-Dianetics class?" But not waiting for an answer. "I mean ... if you felt one of your foamy impulse-fits coming on, couldn't you have left a note with Selina, or another of our nocturnal orderlies-something with elan, like 'Don't wait up, I went out to play a little Snooker in the Smoker ... ' Actually, we can't think how you got out, since it wasn't your Furlough Time, and we did away with the Smoker months ago when all that leather upholstery over-sensualized one of the visiting husbands and he begged, but pleaded, for a little Sodomite-therapy to ease his bursting tensions. That was the Season we were draping all the wards in satins and heavy brocades, like the Court of Charlemagne ... or was it Nero? ... anyway, it did nothing to intensify our Stud-Saturation point-all of which, of course, you remember quite well, don't you, my beguiling little stray ... hmm?"
Gloria felt she should say something quick and encouraging, so she ventured: "Like it was yesterday?"
The Countess nodded and beamed, her fat palms pawing the air as she edged her way closer to the girl, her two gargantuan attendants running muscular interference for their panting mistress. Upon reaching Gloria's side, the woman's stumbling attempts at an embrace were thwarted by the bulk of her furs and the snow drifts now forming quietly about the crowd. "Listen to Minnie, Nymph-Girl, you're the prettiest Original Sinner we've ever salvaged, so we don't care what moonlighting mischief you've been up to, if you'll only tell us why you had to resort to all these subterfuges ... or is the plural of that subterfuJAY? ... hmm ... moot point, except that when you stop to think of it, documentarily I mean, how could you slip away from us without a Group Peeling Of The Id? Not that I'm bitter, you dear churlish sycophant, but oh la! ... you were getting on so well with everyone ... not keeping your loin-moist pinkies to yourself as you did when you first arrived, but really and truly 'probe-sharing,' as we like to put it. Mind you, I'm much too adult a psychosomatic allergenist to be personally offended, because as I almost always say, to hell with mid-Victorian protocol, but to the very hell!"
"Hey, Countess de Trop, dear," yelled lady-scribe from Ever-Ram, "who's watching that Nut Hatch of yours while you're out saucing it up for old St. Nick?"
"NUT HATCH?" the Countess nearly shot out of her slush-streaked boots. "Why ... you scummy harlot, are you in any way referring to my Sanctuary For The Lasciviously Disassembled?"
... Oops, you goofed, dear, thought Gloria. Heathcliffe calls it 'Sensually Hypertense,' and he oughta know, for pity sakes, 'cause he's the landlord ...!
"I'm talking about 'Hormone Gulch,' honey!" roared out lady-scribe from Ever-Ram.
"Oh mercy no, you've all got it wrong," said Gloria, deciding it was high time she set everybody straight. "It's not 'Gulch,' it's 'Lodge,' so why deliberately confuse the issue, when I know ... and we know, don't we, Countess ... hmm?" Feeling a sudden surge of exuberance, Gloria flung herself at the wobbly little woman, full of radiant affection for her blessed deliverer ... clutching at her sables. The two of them went face down in the snowdrifts together as another flash bulb popped and Gloria babbled out endless apologies, trying desperately to help her lady bountiful to an upright position. But no matter how devotedly she brushed her off and propped her up, a new position of balance wasn't too easily achieved, as Gloria seized this time for some secret mutterings: "Listen, Countess, you needn't pretend with me. He sent you here to rescue me, didn't he? ... the Prince of Peace himself ...!"
"... Oh my God!" sputtered the Countess, addressing her assisting chauffeurs, "now she's on her Mary Magdalen jag again!"
But Gloria was still heedlessly enthusing. "Oh how very like that divine magician to send me a gentle chaperon! ... although it's amazing he could be so positive that I'd ever take such drastic measures ..."
"... Sacre BLOO, but you're limber!" Minnie interrupted her, spitting out a fine spray of snow flakes and edging deftly out of Gloria's embraces, while several in the Christmas crowd laughed drunkenly at this festive performance. "Of course," Minnie went on, "I really fear you're having another of your fantasy-projection tantrums and are badly in need of one of those 'Think Pauses' we used to give you just before your hypnotherapy classes so you could ooze into a trance with a clean slate. And heavens! ... remember what you did last autumn? Merde! ... we wouldn't want you to repeat that, would we?"
"No," said Gloria, trying very hard to remember what it was.
"Why, we found you flitting through the forest thickets of the Adirondack's, barefoot right up to your eyeballs, my dear, and you gave your address as 'Green Mansions.' And gracious, weren't the Resident Healers ever displeased!"
"Well ... certainly they were," said Gloria, wondering now if she could play this by ear; "because they knew where I lived all the time. It was really Green Lodge, wasn't it? Or ... possibly Libido Mansions?"
"Hey honey," yelled one of the reporters, "are you trying to tell us you really did escape from Minnie's chamber of horrors?"
"Yes, of course!" cried Gloria. "And it's not a chamber of ..."
"... Why, you disgusting parvenu!" Minnie broke in, addressing the jeering newsman. "I've had quite enough insults for one day ..." She scrambled downwards for several quickly produced snowballs, then rose up and flung them at the entire roundelay of laughing reporters. "Oh ... Mon dieu! ... you hacks, you vultures!" Then turned to Gloria. "My dear, if you're quite ready to return to the fold, let us away from these tabloid lizards! ... ooh! ... how I loathe the Fourth Estate ... I spit on it!"
Gloria stared quite soberly at this irresistible bit of fluff and menopause, telling herself she'd never met anyone quite so endearing, and golly ... there couldn't possibly be two sanitoria in New England to fit this unique description. She's either a truant officer or a talent scout, she decided. However, since she'd let it be known to the press that she officially belonged up at 'Minnie's Place,' there was no danger of being apprehended for jumping bail if she did leave town with the woman. And now Gloria was truly convinced that everything pointed towards escape and Heathcliffe.
"Yes ... I'll go quietly with you," she said for all to hear. "And I promise never to run away again ..." Minnie arched a rather surprised brow, then quickly smiled. "We can go in your car, can't we?" asked Gloria.
"Why ... certainement, my dear!" said the Countess. "And the sooner the better, since you're starting to twitch again." Then, with a startling shift of attitude, the woman issued orders to her mountainous chauffeurs with all the crisp dispatch of a WAC lieutenant. "Melville, Brixton, get her in the station wagon!"
Before she could bat a lash, these lumbering giants lifted Gloria high above the pavement, through the dwindling crowd and over the gutter. After which they deposited her in the rear portions of something long and black enough to be a hearse, except that all the seats were upright.
"You sit in the back with Melville, my charmante little fledgling," said the Countess; and Gloria was astonished to see the woman so swiftly lodged in the front seat. "Brixton will drive us today, since my learners' permit has expired again ... and isn't that a damned nuisance, such red tape to test the beginners when it's always the experts who are having the accidents. But, neverthemore ... home is the hunted, mon petit ... so brace yourself, we're off to see the wizard!"
And a cue if Gloria had ever heard one, as she faithfully recalled Heathcliffe's very last words to her and said them aloud in this shining moment: "Just follow the yellow brick road!"
For the first two minutes she couldn't see too well, since all this black chromium studded against the afternoon's snowfall was far from a guiding light ... Then Gloria wondered about the subtle change of tone in her benefactress's voice: Golly, why doesn't she sound cozy and clubby anymore? And why are there shades on the windows of this perfectly lovely station wagon? And goodness, why are they drawn and colored a prison-grey? Oooh ... I want to color them yellow! ... it's so much cheerier!
"Merde, mon cher! ... there we were, scouting for you all over this tight little island," gushed the Countess. "Then we monitored the police calls on our car radio, read your plight in the papers this morning, and dashed to the rescue."
... I'm either being liberated or kidnapped, thought Gloria; and if there are any other alternatives, I'll think about them tomorrow, when I'm in his arms-please, Lord ...?
"Ahh! ... if the enchante Count Gregor were still alive," said Minnie, "how furiously would he condemn those crude, gauche hucksters with their filthy jellyfish journalism! Now there was a gentleman for you, lovey ... my priceless dead husband, who expired while in-climax, by the way, and in me, I might add, the faithful old dear ... but oh al! ... what a messy extrication-scene that was, except that he was a bone fide bon vivant, you know-oh yes! ... one of the very last and gallant, my dear, right up to the very end. Left me piles, cherie, literally piles! And willy nilly, wouldn't you know, I squandered every centime ... sou after sou after sou ... until they were calling me Sweet Sou, among other things ... or was that Sow? ... HAH! Howsomever, they were not gallant, let me tell you. First I played The Numbers, don't you know, until I could no longer count my own toes and fingers. Then I did this disastrous absinthe binge at Monte, where I dropped enough to lay a cornerstone for Princess Grace. Of course, the rest went at Hialeah. Oh la la! ... the fables I could recite about the tempting tout-studs at Hialeah-but delicious!"
When Gloria's sight returned, the first image to break through was her towering escort. Even sitting down he looked about eight feet tall. "Why, hello there!" she beamed, feeling she should say something, although the sickish grin he gave in reply did very little to create a sense of security. "Why do you keep smiling down at me so strangely, Melville? Not that I don't think a smile is convivial, for pity sakes, but you've been smiling like that now for ... oh, at least thirty seconds ... without even a word of explanation about what you plan to do with that ... uh ... shaving kit you keep clutching there in your lap. Ha Ha! ... you don't have some Freudian impulse to lather up in the rear-view mirror, do you?"
"All right, Melville," said Minnie, "we're on the freeway now, so it's safe to give the little dear her surprise. But do it quickly, please, before she gets spastic ..."
Muscle-bound Melville unzipped the shaving kit and brandished a hypodermic needle fat enough to fell a stud buffalo. "What's that?" Gloria asked sincerely. A purely rhetorical question because, not waiting for an answer, she crawled instinctively up the upholstery.
"Now lovey, to panic at this point would be so immature," cooed Minnie. "Melville simply has this large compassion to assist the over-pressured, and usually does it with these generous portions of Sodium Pen ... or let me see now, was that Sodium Chlor ... or possibly Sodium Amy ... oh the hell with it, it's got a lanolin base, that's one thing we know, and cherie, right now it is but the end in all the important Swiss medical circles; and we over here who are in the least progressive hope it will one day be patented."
"Not patented, eh?" Gloria now cringed on the back of the seat like a trapped falcon.
"Now lovey, these shots couldn't be more chic," said Minnie. "They were the original brew of this terribly Left-Bank Fascist Cuban who was a High Guru from birth, don't you know, and did all those controversial medicine shows in Tijuana last season, until they exposed him in Ebony ... But only last week there was this absolutely charismatic survey in the National Veterinarian, because actually, this tonic is very much like those White-Dream soluble capsules they've been giving to animals ... domestic, of course, which enables them to get along so felicitously with rats ... cats, I mean, ... per se ... and also with dogs, wolves or foxes where the hostile feline produces the base-powered resentment rash, don't you know ...?"
"Not patented, eh?" Gloria was busily trying to burrow a hole in the roof of the car with her head, nose and manicure.
"Ahh Cherie, I promise you ... in fact, I'll stake my whole sleazy reputation on it-in this world, I mean-just one little puncture and you'll be home for Christmas!"
As Melville advanced on her with this interplanetary weapon, Gloria gulped, quavered and trembled, and wondered how in heaven's name she could have been such a faulty judge of character? Good gravy, this woman must be some disreputable old Madam, and these were her bodyguards or pimps or slave-trappers, and she, romantic Gloria Heaven-rich, was being transported to be used, bruised and manhandled. "Oh please! ... before you jab that thing, tell me I've been wrong to be suspicious! Tell me that Heathcliffe knows all about this!"
"Heathcliffe?" exclaimed Minnie.
"Yes ... yes!" gasped Gloria.
"Oh Brixton," Minnie poked her big-chested driver, "isn't that delectable? She knows your middle name-how clever!"
Gloria tried some last-ditch nonchalance. "Well, I guess I'd better confess that this has been nothing more for me than a game ..." She tried to snap her fingers in Melville's face, but they felt too much like wet noodles. "It was only a gag ... and I was dared to walk into that men's room ... dared by the Eastern Star. That's my Sisterhood, and they dream up all these funzie-times for us-you know, like baby showers and weenie-roasts and egg rolls ... and ..."
With a lusty growl, Melville grabbed a warm, protesting thigh and yanked Gloria onto his lap; whereupon he removed her coat and shirt, lowered her pastel jeans, and jabbed-playing fondly with one tremulous buttock while he detonated the other. It was a speedy potion, and, in a trice, Gloria found the White Dreams enfolding her whilst she hoydenishly romanced kittens all over her gladioli-besprinkled garden, wherein Heathcliffe was conspicuously not in attendance ...
Reviewing his artistry and the soft fleshy pompoms of her arse, Melville hacked out a rather primordial chuckle. Then he indulged quite heatedly in some nudging dalliance and experimental finger-slidings, slicing now under, now over ... and up ...
"Here now, we'll have none of that until she's able to feel and reciprocate!" Minnie's eyes were peeled to the rear-view mirror. "You filthy satin beast, turn her over ... No! ... not that way, you crazy hybrid, slip her jeans back on. She's liable to go into shock if penetrated while under the influence. Oh you gland-case, you're never cautious enough, and I hope you haven't forgotten that shattering lawsuit last year, when that perfectly well-heeled matron claimed she was tranquillized, raped and six months' pregnant before she even knew she could conceive, since that was the conformity-block that brought her to us in the first place. So behave, you lovely throwback. Yes, sweets, that's more like it. Put her on your lap and let her doze ... um hmm ... OhmyGod ... you fiend! ... I said to put her jeans on first ... ooh! ... look what you're doing, CLUMSY!"
Melville's trousers were down around his ankles, and Gloria, who softly snored, was launched fully and completely upon his great white thrust of cock-flesh, as he rhythmically entered her main orifice from the rear ... going all vulva-hooked and womb-warm there ... holding the girl's limply lush thighs on high while he joyfully bounced her slumbering body up and down on his swelling moist rigidity, his thick brute-lips parted, eyes greedy and catatonic with this thrill of sport and recreation ...
"Oh well," sighed Minnie, "Say Lah Vee! ... and how're you gonna keep them down on the funny-farm after they've screwed Cherie?" Then, going into a fit of bubbly laughter, the Countess reached between her driver's thighs and, with one unzipping slash of fingers, set free his long and palpitating handle, wielding and tweaking it to her heart's delight ... her eyes still fiercely pinned to the rear-view mirror ... "Ahh! ... doesn't the girl look lovely like that? ... sort of a montage effect, all that frantic pounding girl-flesh, so neatly applied ... no, don't you look, Brixton, you're trickling enough as it is! Of course, Melville, we must really fight those baser stone-age instincts ... (her hand going up and down faster on the chauffeur's stiff slab which now bloomed high enough to touch the steering wheel) ... I mean you and I together, Melville, tooth and nail. Don't you remember those sublimation slides we displayed in the conference room just the other dawn, teaching us the secretious purity of ejaculatory calisthenics ...? ... hmm? OOH! ... Melville, I can see you! ... you're splashing yourself right out of your Simian mind, aren't you, darling? ... right this minute ... you're doing it and doing it ... snap-crackle-pop! ... right up into that pretty girl who will now be so sweetly pumped full of you. Ahh ... isn't that lovely? But please, dear boy, now that you've scaled her heights, put her down. NO, Melville! ... don't just leave her there for the whole trip. You're not a hat rack, you know, and it can't really be too comfy for you to leave her hanging on it like that; so please, lover-ape, I beg you to do me this tiny little favor in this one shining isolated moment? For Mother, precious? For posterity? For hygiene? Put her DOWN, Melville ... you put her down this instant!"
"Uuunooughmff!" said Brixton, and shot skyward, Minnie going into a double-dash as she scrambled first for a lacy-sachet hankie, and then leaned forward and turned on the windshield wiper.
... While Gloria just sat there, looking very natural ...
CHAPTER NINETEEN
For what seemed like a coon's age, Gloria Heavenrich dreamt of animal crackers in a soupy porridge of semen, each of which were shaped like monstrous phallic plungers, all aimed and pulsed in her own exclusively coital direction ... threatening to rend her whole belly asunder before she could even dip a ladle. And then ...?
... One long stabbing shriek of a nightmare, in which she saw herself racing through the halls of Libido Lodge wearing nothing but a spermy old jockstrap, beating on doors and crying out her lover's name ... until she was confronted with a terrifying chorus line of girl sex-offenders, all of them stripped-to-the-gills and doing clit-popping precision highkicks like the Rockettes, marching in on her, waving ugly miniature replicas of male urinals and shrieking out accusations: "Ya scab, ya phony! Unless you join the Union Of The Damned-Demented, you don't belong here, girl, so beat it! ... and fast!"
... My goodness! ... I've been sexually offensive for years and I still don't qualify, simply because this is the first time I ever had enough grace and valor to do it in public. Golly, there must be thousands of others who perform even more ambitious feats in private, but they too are denied the rights of admittance to Heathcliffe's Hallowed Halls-barred on a technicality, the poor dear underground flesh-lickers ...!
Gloria lay in a state of heavily drugged suspension for about thirty-six hours. And when she opened her eyes early Monday morning, she found still another nightmare. But this time she wasn't hallucinating:
In a cameo of gloom she saw before her what appeared to be a ballet performance. A prancing quadrille of ladies leapt hazardously in the air like bilious fawns, all sheathed in transparent, flesh-colored leotards; and as they undulated their bodies, every dance-dimpled organ was revealed in minute detail. The whole room seemed to be athrob with revolving nipples, navels and fuzzy pink labia. Although each torso was most voluptuously endowed, none of these girls appeared to be too professional in the field of Terpsichore. They collided rather violently-and repeatedly-in mid-flight, clutching each others' breasts, buttocks and cavities to keep from going down. But then, tumbling to the floor anyway and inter-rolling there together, sinuously. While none made a move to undress the other, Gloria decided they might just as well, considering what they were doing. Long limbs and arms all interlocked and kneading, lipstick-smeared mouths pressed sensuously against fabric-tipped nipples ... Good Heavens! ... they've put me in the Lesbian Wing! Somebody with a terribly filthy mind has been spreading all the wrong dirt about me! Ooooh ... dammit! ... how in the name of all that's psychopathic can a girl who attacks a boy in a men's room be considered a Lesbian? Why ... she'd have to be out of her MIND! ...
Refusing to watch this perverted tableau, Gloria rolled her eyes upwards-at which point her gurgling, terrified screams would have made the Hounds of the Baskervilles turn chicken. Not that she was squeamish about a simple orgy-and-blood tour through Dante's Inferno, but even Beatrice herself couldn't have taken that ceiling lying down. It was a writhing bas-relief mural depicting infamous sex murders of the past, with every key atrocity etched out in the most grisly, pus-dripping detail-although Gloria thought the gold lame on the blunt end of Lizzie Borden's ax was rather gilding the lily. Poor Lizzie! ... moved to that one desperate act of familial severance, simply because she'd been turned out of her parents' conjugal-thrumming bed during the first flush of puberty. Homestead rejections ... crux-boomerangs ... and oh golly! ... look over there: until now she'd always thought it was Samson's hair that Delilah had cut off. Mercy ...!
Unable to believe this butchery-decor another minute, Gloria tried to rise and shake her head free of illusion. It was then that she found she was cradled in something lush enough to be a chaise longue, but she was, nevertheless, securely strapped into it. Also swathed in a strait jacket of saucily fuchsia-hued decron. There was a sticky-sweet aura of perfume and femininity all about her, and as she peered questioningly into this amber-lit rotunda, Gloria discovered a whole fleet of lounges carelessly strewn; some empty, but many erupting with more of those gleeful, scantily-clad ladies. They all wore the same, curve-hugging body-tights, which were so sheer as to expose the color and density of each girl's pubic jungle ... Goodness! ... thought Gloria, clasping her legs together to protect her own downy valley ...
A wiry sister of the corps de ballet now circled and fluttered about Gloria's lounge, attempting a pas de deux. Then she spewed out a wild manic shriek ... "Aahhhieyeeow! ... " and dove head-first under the bedding, right between Gloria's astonished thighs ... wailing with joy upon discovering that her victim was naked from the navel down, and since her arms were strapped up, there was nothing she could do to defend herself. Hidden beneath the coverlet, the girl flung Gloria's legs apart and feverishly began to suck the dry and ambushed vagina. Gloria shuddered and felt some headily receptive tremors under this moist and gulping attack ... the girl's hot lips and tongue lashing deep inside of her, a nuzzling, kissing ferocity ... the mouth pumping and slurping like something rabid and feral. Gloria gasped and felt the rising moistures, trying to remain as placid as her injections and gnawed clitoris would permit ... and to hold back the humiliation of so alien an orgasm, she coldly screamed out a proper name, as if it were the deity to cast out all her vaginal demons: "Heathcliffe!"
And, to her tremulous relief, she heard a familiar voice. But since it was that of the Countess, she reminded herself to be terrified all over again, as the feeding inmate snarled and dipped between her legs, growing hungrier for the denied juices ...
"Oh mon dieu, Selina, did you hear our girl vocalizing? She must be in a high mood-cycle!" The Countess de Trop herself now made a breathless appearance, accompanied by a muscular, but comely, lady-orderly. Selina was a large, rough-hewn girl. Unshaven, but clean.
"She's singin' somethin' from ol Siegfried, ain't she, Mrs. Countess?" Selina ventured in her customary Ozarkian.
"No, lamb, it's Gotterdammerung with a touch of Hairy Widow." Then Minnie saw the rumble of activity under Gloria's quilt, and heard those telltale 'By-A-Waterfair sounds lapping up the atmosphere ... "Merde! ... is that you, Suzanne? Oh you insatiable oral gymnast, come out of there this instant ...!"
Gaping at this scene, Selina said: "Holy cow dung! ... and I thought that lump was some kind'a growth or somethin' ...!"
The startled dancer-licker zoomed out from between her captive's pouting pink slit, although by this time Gloria was so close to a semi-zenith, she felt that another delinquent second or two mightn't have been too despoiling.
"Now you scat, you artful little glutton," said Minnie. Quaking, the girl licked her full and fruity lips and, attempting a crippled entrechat, moved balletically out of reach, elbows akimbo. "You might at least wait until you're introduced!" the Countess called after her.
"That one's the limit," clucked Selina. "She's always gotta be first in line to taste the new ones."
"Oh now please, Selina, you and Melville had a double shot at this girl when you wheeled her in here, so don't try to sound so angelic ..."
Dazedly, Gloria listened to these accounts of where her body had been while she was out, which might-or might not-explain some of those stinging pangs that had been shooting up her anus and cervix. She also had a rather tangy taste about the palate, but decided not to harbor on that, but merely swallow and block out. And yet, the outrage stirred within her, because honestly! ... wasn't anyone going to follow the rules? Here she was, being usurped and swallowed by everyone but him. It was downright unethical ...!
"Now the rest of you girls keep dancing!" called Minnie. "But do try to rupture your metatarsi at the other end of the Wing, not here ..." She gazed fondly down at Gloria, as Selina pulled up a small boudoir chair for the Countess to sit on. "They're such children, my dear. I hope you're not too alarmed. Most of them are undergoing a rigid course of STP-Therapy, so you see, the minds they're out of are somebody else's, not theirs ..."
"... And after awhile they sixty-nine themselves 'till they go blue in the tongue and pass out," said Selina, "which saves us a whole helluva lot on syringes."
"Hush, Selina," said the Countess. "Such shop-talk might sound a bit touch-and-go to a novice." Minnie looked quite spectacular today. She wore a Mandarin hostess-kimona of corpuscle maroon, while in her bright pink wig squatted a veritable lighthouse of a crystal tiara. And from her floppy arms billowed several morning newspapers. At Minnie's kind suggestion, Selina loosened the straps on Gloria's jacket, to make conversation more amenable.
"Now lovey, do you know that while you've been lazing around for two days, you've become an overnight star?"
"Fancy ... " mumbled Gloria, groggily eyeing the ballet performers in the distance. "And they said I'd never dance again ..." But then gasped: "Two DAYS?"
Selina nodded and grinned at her. "See how time flies, sweet stuff, when you're being taken care of?"
The Countess eagerly described how all those frantic photographers had exploited the shots they'd taken of Gloria on Forty-Second Street and outside City Prison. "Cherie, they have made you the most electrifying world figure since Amelia Earhart!"
"... Or Bridey Murphy!" said Selina.
"... And my dear, when they heard it from your very own lips that you were one of our escapees, everyone had to agree that I held more jurisdiction over you than that stuffy old bail bondsman ..."
Gloria stared at the two women, realizing that by her own admission she legally belonged to them, but still wasn't sure where she was ... except that they had mentioned the state of Vermont, and oh golly, that was his country, wasn't it? She had to hold fast to that ... ! (O Heathcliffe, where are you? If I'm getting warm, send out a vibration! Just one lil ol ESP-twitch'd do it! Oh ... concentrate, you Mad Beauty ... Think Gloria! ... )
"Darling girl, do you have any idea what you accomplished in that Men's Room at Grand Central?" Minnie was saying.
"A Fornicating Renaissance, that's what you've started!" said the Countess. "My dear, you've captured the imagination of millions of quiet desperate nymphomaniacs the world over. This act of yours was honesty incarnate! The Freedom To Copulate At Will! ... Sexual Intra-Diversion For The Masses ... free, without cost, penalty or obligation ... and wherever it's anatomically accessible ...!" Minnie wobbled about irrepressibly in her enthusiasm. "Oh my darling pioneer-child, in this decade of the Suburban Population Frigidity Explosion and the Double Standard Early Change, more power to you, Gloria Heavenrich! You're the first civilian sex-symbol this country has ever had. Not an actress, not a starlet, but just an average girl who wants what other starving average girls are afraid to reach out and spoon up for themselves ...!"
Selina nodded her somber confirmation. "Women are walkin' into men's rooms all over the world ..."
"... And men into women's!" corroborated Minnie. "Aren't you proud?"
Gloria nodded numbly and said: "Where's Heath ..."
"... Think of it!" Minnie interrupted her. "The whole wide world one big international daisy-chain of people making people happy! No more need we take all our healthy appetites underground! ... Everything's over-the-counter at last!" The Countess had to get her breath for a moment, having nearly over bubbled herself with glee. She pulled out a long holder and a cigarette, and waited while Selina lit it for her. Then reclined in her chair and beamed anew at Gloria. "So you see, lovey, there's absolutely no use your fighting this notoriety. Fan mail's been pouring in from every corner of this silly old douche-bag we call Mother Earth ..."
"... And," added Selina, "it seems like there's a whole mess'a critters out in the waitin' room who claim you're the sweet lover-gal they deserted a long time ago, but now they're sorry and want you back ..."
"Oh no, they've had their chance." said Gloria; and was then astonished upon hearing her own words. Had she really gone mad after all? Or was this, perhaps, just a dash of deja vu? "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again ... No ... that was Rebecca or Jane Eyre ... or The Rape Of The Sabine Women ..."
"... And not only old lovers, dear heart," the Countess was saying, "but scientists and doctors too -all of them absolutely seething to test your metabolism!"
Gloria gave her new landlady a ferocious stare. "Well, you can tell them I lost it in Melville's shaving kit, among other things ..." scratching her oft-pierced apertures.
But Minnie was a veritable iron butterfly of persistence. After all, Gloria was getting international coverage, she said, and the reception now awaiting her in the lounge was too dazzling to ignore. Among the stellar columnists was that everlasting Ad for Cosmetic Incision, Shirley Popper of Hollywood ... "Lovey, she's setting up her cameras to tape you for an interview and we simply must kowtow, because her planted spectators represent all of the New York press (blast their asses!), half of scientific Washington, and a fifth of Madison Avenue. And sacre BLOO! ... I've nothing to serve them but psycho-sexual brochures!"
Wanting Gloria to look particularly appealing, they decided the strait jacket must go, no matter how chic or nouveau couture. While Minnie circulated about the room, lecturing the other ladies, Selina masterfully stripped Gloria down. She winced when the husky girl's fingers went probing up her thighs, feeling the nuzzled dampness where Suzanne's energetic tongue had dipped.
Leaning close, Selina whispered in her ear: "Did that lil ol fuckin' toe dancer get your jollies, or are you still bubblin' up in there ...?"
"Selina!" roared Minnie, half a rotunda away. "We've no time for a coffee break now! You can chew her out later tonight after she's relaxed and had her shots; and I don't mean cocaine this time, because you saw how ravenous she got on the stuff last night-even tried to attack me! Now get that adorable two-piece pants suit on her, and do it fast!"
After being thus stripped and modishly re-draped, the women proceeded to drag Gloria towards her destiny. But Gloria scraped the heels of her shoes along the floor and balked ... "Now you ladies just hold on a minute here! Why, if you weren't such amateurs, you'd see I wasn't really inmate-material at all. Don't you realize this whole caper has been a planned impersonation from start to finish ... and you know you've never seen me before, and what's more, this is all very illegal because you've shanghaied me without giving me a single Rorschach ...!"
"... You're spraying, dear," wiped the Countess.
"... and if you want the truth, I'm here to visit this delightful old gentleman friend who's giving himself an early retirement somewhere on the premises. He's a ... a gladiola breeder by trade, and also paints a little ... so possibly you know of him, or you'll be Christian enough to give me his suite number so I can buzz him on the intercom, or perhaps you'll have me casually announced ... or put me on an escalator ... or shoot me up the drain pipe ... or a pneumatic tube ... or ..."
Gloria was stopped by Selina's howls of laughter. "Oh dollbuggy, are you ever in the wrong pea patch! You ain't gonna find no male tail within molls of this hut!"
Gloria gasped and stared fiendishly at them, her eyes shifting from one giddy harlequin-face to the other. "Oh God no! ... it isn't true ... it can't be!" Flying into a rage, she hurled herself at the sturdy young miss. But, with an orangutan wing spread, Selina not only held her at bay, but several feet off the floor.
Gloria struck at her from on high, her nails helplessly clawing the air ... "Oh please, tell me you're lying ... even if it's a lie, say it! ... or I'll do you an injury ...!" Springing free of Selina, Gloria flung herself at the Countess, whose tiara slipped and clattered down her uplift ... "This place is co-educational, isn't it, Countess de Trop? Men and women and boys and girls and oh! ... please say you've got some of both ... now tell em I'm right ... and you're just teasing me, holding back ..."
"Oh la la, mon petit!" panted Minnie, replacing her capsized crown and flashing out eye-signals to Selina. "We'll get to all that nonsense later. There are people waiting to see you in my salon, ready to offer you the most intoxicating fame and glory any girl could ever wish for!"
"Nope. I won't budge until you give me Heathcliffe's room number."
"Toss her over your shoulder, Selina ... ahh! ... there's a dear ...!"
Selina complied and did her thing, her inquisitive fingers going all nipple-nudged and rectum-tweezed in the process.
Gloria felt herself oozing into a brand new shock state, her mind dissolving into a muddy malaise of horror and chaos ... Oh Good Lord! ... I think I've gone 'round the wrong bend! Where in the world did I goof? ... everything seemed so very rational and well thought-out ... and now look at me, right booby, wrong hatch! Oh Heathcliffe, look down at me from your throne on Mt. Olympus, or whatever Loony-Bin you're haunting at the moment, and tell me, is this playing The Game? I mean ... golly! ... weren't there enough obstacles from the beginning? And ... and for heaven's sake, this certainly looks like the place ... and mercy, it feels like the place ... but ooohh, do you know something, my darling? ... I don't think this is the place! ...
CHAPTER TWENTY
While her head dangled precipitously over Selina's shoulder, Gloria wailed out in mid-flight to get Minnie's attention: "Oh Countess, would you be good enough to ring for a taxi and a road map? I've just made the most dreadful error!"
Which plea went unheeded, for they were all jointly aghast at the turmoil they encountered in Minnie's bristling antechamber. Nor did Gloria find it too pacifying to discover that all the furniture in this space-age salon flipped in and out of the walls upon command. One stamp of the foot before the location of one's choice and out would sail a svelte settee or divan. In such fashion twenty people could be seated quite cozily. And yet, when the girls tumbled into the sanctum that morning, they saw at least sixty-five flailing, squirming mortals, including the scuttled TV crew of Shirley Popper.
Every piece of these sophisticated accoutrements was having electronic hysterics. Even the pink leather hassocks looked askance to find themselves so kittenishly upended. And the couches, designed by a Florentine swivel-expert during a hashish hiatus, looked like the Beetles in A Hard Day's Night. They romped saucily in and out of the wheezing panels at most unprecedented intervals. Several goggle-eyed bystanders, who seemed perfectly content not sitting on anything, were thrown full-tilt when a contoured wing chair flew out of a slot behind them and caught them squarely in the back of the knee. An awful lot of people all seemed to be saying "OOPS!" at the same time, since they were still being too polite to scream.
But Minnie let loose a roar volcanic enough for everyone to hear: "Aieeeyow! Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stop playing with the furniture? Oh ... mon dieu! ... you wouldn't behave this way at home, would you? Selina, run for help ... and hurry!"
Gloria could only feel the most subliminal concern for all this crippling mayhem, so shattered was she at finding herself caged in a house for strictly female disorders. She tore away from the holocaust and crept into a dark corner ... thinking of that sweetly plunging old lost darling of hers, and wondering if they would ever touch again and relive their so beautifully freak fusion ...
But was rousted from this reverie by the urgency of Minnie's upholstered carousel, which, collectively, popped right back into the woodwork after claiming a captive. From inside the walls could be heard eerie, far-off sounds ... like ghostly spirits swapping wives under water. Stunned journalists and potentates stomped through the room in search of lost companions.
"Oh mon dieu! ... somebody's dragged the telephone in with him!" shrieked the Countess. "What's the area code for the National Guard? ... maybe I can yell it out the window!"
A blossom-cheeked trio of Aussie exchange students went cart wheeling headlong into the walls right before Gloria's eyes ... With a wistful sigh, she thought: ooh golly, they looked somehow happy to be making the trip. If they come out again I'm going back with them ... and maybe find a new route to My Boy ... in the dungeons and the bowels of this mewling mortuary.
... While all about her, statesmen and public relations' execs staggered in a fretful tizzy, calling out the names of dislocated buddies ...
"Oh Professor?"
"Your Excellency?"
"Oh Padre?"
"Irving honey, it's Ralph! ... knock three times if you hear me!"
Almost tripping over one of the casualties, the Countess squealed when she recognized him. "Senator baby, it's you!" She helped a doddering ivy-league kidney patient to his feet and dusted him off. "Why, you hoary old centenarian, I can remember when we first met. It was at that State Funeral in Washington back in '46. You'd just blown Taps ... (whoever he was!) ... and came springing off the lawn into the White House Ballroom. You filled up my entire Dance-Bid that night, and later tried to french me along the Potomac, but were too drunk to find it ... you scrofulous old goat! But ahh! ... we weren't a Senator then, were we?"
"Negative," he grunted phlegmatically, "nor were we a Countess."
"Oooh touche! ... and come to think of it, you're quite right; I was running a home for retired cocktail waitresses at the time ... Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stop playing with the furniture?"
The Senator pulled her to him for an intimate whisper. "Senator, really! ... this is hardly the place, or the time of life, with nothing getting rigid but your arteries ... hmm?" She poked a little.
"... Now Min, take your stubby little pinkies outa my fly, that's not what I'm getting at! Listen ... for old times' sake, I want you to do me a favor. That girl over there ..." he pointed at Gloria huddling in her corner. "We want to run her for Congress on a secret ballot. She's built herself a real classy media-image now, and from the latest surveys, practically all the voters in this country are ready to identify with her type of bodily endeavors ... you know, sort of a 'community affairs' platform ... and maybe with someone like her at-the-helm we can press on for new reforms ... like Legalized Masturbation in public ... and ..."
Gazing towards Gloria, Minnie said: "You want to run that child on the Sexual Freedom ticket, don't you?"
He nodded. "That's the ticket."
She snapped a finger in his face. "Not a chance, you syphilitic old roue; we have grander plans for that one!"
In a fury, he gaped at her. "Why, you damned old body-snatcher, don't you play footsy with me!" The Senator angrily stomped a footsy. A love seat folded out of the wall and cuddled him neatly inwards.
Waving him a fat adieu, Minnie said: "I think I'll turn this whole place into a Time Capsule and fly to Cannes!" The Senator's hobby-horse sassed out again, quite empty. "He'll sue, of course!" she spat. "And if the rest of those vandals ever dig their way out, I hope they all come up in Lapland! My God, such rampant destruction! ... and will you look at what they've done to my decor! ... all my lovely Hysterectomy Mobiles flown in from the Himalayas! ... oh the shambles ... oh, these nauseating Junkies of the Press! ... the bigger their by-line, the bigger their habit!"
"Countess, sweetie, are you perhaps adding slander to injury?"
Minnie went white as she saw Shirley Popper, florid, obese and atrociously dressed as ever, standing in the center of the room, clutching a script and a decanter of Gibsons; and watching her entire TV entourage glide catatonically in and out of the walls on sleek settees.
"For the love'a Helen Twelvetrees!" roared Shirl. "Ten minutes before air time and these acid-heads want to play musical gangbang!" Shirl twitched so vehemently that the left side of her face, which had recently been jacked up in Biarritz, slipped all the way down to her clavicle. She continued her tirade with two fingers jabbed upwards at the temple. "Minnie what is this with you, sweetie, you want to see my ass in a sling!"
"Well, that's not one of my darkest desires, darling," giggled the countess, "but I assure you ... this is just an accident, and I'm really quite innocent!"
"Now listen, you miserable White-Slaver, don't you know this show is Network?"
"But Shirl baby ... angel-pie, I'm trying to tell you this is nothing more than a short circus ... uh ... circuit! We'll simply have to plug up a few fuse-boxes ... or pull some electrodes ... or ..."
"Just get my boys out of that woodwork in time to set up their dollies!" was Miss Popper's final ultimatum.
Crouched in the comparative safety of her corner, Gloria played a fond old childhood finger-game ... This little masochist went to market ... this little necrophiliac stayed home ... Home! O, good heavens, that's where I want to be this minute! ... want to go home to my paints and my easels and my babies and my daddies ... and Leona Liebowitz ... and the BMT ... and Myrt and Washington Square ... and Tony and Steve and Terence and respect and Good Clean Living!
At this point a cluster of orderlies burst into the room to restore order, and Gloria instantly changed her mind. For these orderlies were unquestionably and indisputably ... MALE!
"Oooh! ... Selina should be canonized for reaching you boys in time!" Minnie wobbled up to this sturdy looking crew. "Umm! ... all you exquisite Princeton athletes getting boned-up on your Psych Majors for the Holidays ... " She marched and ogled gaily back and forth along this chorus line, tapping each tightly jocked-in throb in abstract appraisal. "Merde! ... the next time I'm down with the vapors I'll have you served upon my bed tray one by one ... " tweezing one last veiled circumcision before getting down to business. "Ahh, all that starch and cream of wheat in there! But where were we? ... oh yes! ... first let me relate what has transpired here ..."
"You can save all the goosin' and locker-room pep talk, Ma'am," said a blond Viking looking leader-type fellow. "They've all fluffed their duff- right?" He pointed at Shirley Popper, what remained of her staff, the New York press, half of Scientific Washington, and a fifth of Madison Avenue.
However, at this moment Minnie was staring once more at her truant divans, as she said: "Oh, that's so true! See if you can curb their fits, and fast!"
"Okay men," and here the Viking chanted a little madrigal: "A one, a two, and a three-let's get these clowns before they flee!"
From the back pocket of his trainee-tunic, he produced a portable restraining net of porous plastic, which he and his scrimmage team collapsed over the heads of everybody who hadn't, as yet, gone into the foundations.
"Oh Padre?"
"Your Excellency, doll?"
"Irving ... HONEY!"
In her neutral corner Gloria gasped and said one of her favorite small prayers ... Now I lay me ... now they lay me ... now he lay me ... now who lay me ...?
Scrambling to a fringe area, Shirley Popper opened her mouth in horror, dropping her zircon-tipped harlequins, her Gibson's and her right jowl.
Sniffing the gin, the barrel-chested Viking said: "Holy Cow, this sex-freak smuggles in her own hooch!"
"Well then. Gauchos, if you are ready, shall we bossa ourselves a little nova?" In an inkling Miss Popper was surrounded, slack-jawed and incredulous-unable to believe what they were about to do. Then she felt those jabbing collegiate hands on her, tugging at her amorphous bosom and buttocks as if they took it for granted this vulgar probing would appease her into submission.
"A sixty, a seventy, an eighty, a ten-let's close in, cats, and flip this hen!"
The glamorous old gossip-monger gasped and grunted as she saw her varicosed limbs make their aerial ascension. However, she had the distinction of being strapped into one of the individual sequined jackets, as opposed to the more mundane community net.
"Now this old fart-ass'll get the high-voltage taffy-apple first in line ... 'cause man, like she's the neediest!"
"Maybe one of us oughta give the old blimp a little jazzin' in the elevator. The broads in this joint need it as regular as a bedpan ..."
"Oh hell, man ... she must have a hole like a torn-up moon crater!"
"Hold her still a minute ... see if I can lose my elbow up there!"
After raising her skirt, the boy unraveled her snuggies and gave her a knocking upward lunge. Miss Popper's roar resembled that of a hippo in late spring: "Aiyceooohahhh!" Then she clamped her thighs over this intrusion and hugged it in deeper.
"Hey, what do ya know? ... she's queer for elbows! Jesus, she's gotta cunt like a century plant! ... give me back my arm, Goddammit!" The boy pulled, and the resultant sound was something like: "Pufluoop!" After which Shirl regained her senses and chose a course of strident outrage: "Minnie, I swear, this is the end of you! Jack Warner will break you for this ... you slimy, fiendish witch ... we'll break you!"
Busily overseeing her naughty divans, the Countess turned and said: "Break me for what sweets!" Then she saw the flailing columnist with her snuggies hanging about her ankles as she was being carted from the room and down the hall-whereupon Minnie went livid and screamed: "Oh BOYS! ... could you drop what you're doing ... please!" Then gazed about the room and saw the mass horror of mistaken identity-all those floundering, babbling, innocent captives. She scurried up to the remainder of the crew and wagged a finger of censure in their face ... "Ooh ... now listen, there's been a terrible breach of etiquette here. These people aren't tenants, for Jung's sake, they're visitors!"
"Help!" screamed one of these put-upon victims. "Oh ... Goddammit, get me out of this thing or I'll write my Congressman!"
"I'm your Congressman, you moron!" yelled another. "Tell them to let us loose so we can draw up a petition!"
"Sacre BLOO!" wailed Minnie, bouncing about in a dither as she tried to distinguish one guest from another, peering under the billowing net that trapped them. "Now, boys," she addressed the orderlies again, "where did you learn such atrocious manners in the presence of greatness? Why, these people are The Special, The Chosen ... like that dear little brownie towards the center of the net. You see him? ... the one turning a sort of formaldehyde blue? Well, my dears, he's a Spermatory Dietician, here to investigate the caloric content of seminal hot toddies just before retiring ... and merde! ... you've got him so unnerved he even lisps when he screams!"
There was such a howling din in the room by this time, the orderlies couldn't catch a word Minnie was saying. She glared at these proceedings in an appalled stupor, as everyone was dragged, crushed and bundled through the bulging archway-exit of the salon. "Well, at least try to be more GENTLE with them, you anthropoid idiots!" she shrieked at them in parting. "Oh ... you storm troopers! ... where the hell do you think you are, Auschwitz? OhmyGod! ... now will come the lawsuits, the investigating committees ... the splintered skulls, the shell shock!"
The last orderly to leave kicked the door shut in her face, and Minnie flopped her pudgy palms over her ears and, folding downward like a deflated accordion, she squatted on the floor. But she could still hear the shrieks of that glittering pack of lion hunters as it swiftly became part of her clientele. "Oh well, that tears it. Now I'll lose my liquor license!" Her mouth hung slackly open as she numbly watched her love seats and wing chairs puffing forlornly in and out of the panels. "How very sad they look ..." she sighed aloud, "like a merry-go-round without the tots." Then she glared across the room at Gloria who, for some time now, had been glaring vindictively at her. "Instigator!" Minnie hurled an accusing finger at the girl. "This is your doing. Do you know who they've just dragged downstairs for shock treatment? WHO'S WHO from cover to cover."
Slowly rising, Gloria, too, pointed a righteous finger. "You lied to me, you old fraud. You said there weren't any men on the premises."
Quickly on the defensive, the Countess flashed her a brilliant smile. "Ahh ... now cherie, do temper your juices! You've been such a lovely ad for Libido Lodge, I wanted to keep you two star-crossed ones apart as long as possible, the better to milk your potentialities ..."
Reaching her, Gloria gazed down at the crumpled Countess. "Are you telling me he is here, after all?"
"Yes, yes, of course, lovey; but at this time of day he's usually to be found in the Men's Wing- two miles due east."
"The Men's Wing!" gasped Gloria; and instead of helping the woman to her feet, she sank to her knees and sat down on the floor with her, gaping and in awe.
"Of course, my darling, there's a Men's Wing, a Woman's Wing, and half-way between the two there's this delightful sort of Rumpus-Castle which we call Cohabitation Center, where all four and a half sexes meet three evenings a week to compare endocrinological idiosyncrasies ..."
"Right-thinking satyrs and nymphs, treating one another with equanimity ..." muttered Gloria, remembering Heathcliffe's own words. "Oh Minnie, you are a fairy godmother, just as I thought!" She flung herself at the Countess for a series of rolling, panting hugs, although Minnie finally broke free of these cloying embraces unharmed. "But why did you have to keep me in such suspense?" Gloria wanted to know.
Minnie skidded a few feet out of reach before going on. "Now lovey, if you had known the truth, you would have slipped through our ghoulish fingers and gone to him ... and there'd have been none of this entrancing publicity ... what with our list of qualified subscribers growing rather derelict. Why, even the Mayo Brothers get their pictures in American Heritage, whenever the moon is full and their Zodiac's embraceable ..."
But Gloria was still trying to knit this whole awesome picture together. "Oh golly, that blue-blooded old darling!" rising and now helping Minnie to her feet as she spoke. "I'm so happy to know that not everything he said was a delusion. I mean ... he really does own this place, doesn't he, Countess?"
"Hah! Own it indeed, mon cher!" said Minnie, flicking lint from her kimono. "He owns half of Vermont as well. Stables, nurseries, ski lifts, condominiums. Of course, here he's Chairman of the Board of Trustees, whenever he's lucid enough to attend the meetings. But oh my dear! ... how the Gods have watched over that man! None of his family were ever sane enough to prove him incompetent, you know ... and of course, that paranoic wife of his was even flakier than he is, with her death-wish affinities for leather-boys and ice-flows ... and that ungodly Mona Lisa grimace she wore at parties-as if it had any of her dirt from us! ..."
Oooh! ... the woman who drove him mad, thought Gloria-and from whence sprang the dread Da Vinci fixation ... the poor dear, although I still wonder if he's non-violent ...?
"... but, of course, it's terribly fortunate for us that Heathcliffe's the most rational member of that whole funky family," Minnie went on. "Just last year one of his lymphoid nieces tried to take possession of Libido Lodge, and darling, now they've got her out on a health farm, peeling pomegranates and milking bulls."
Gloria tried to absorb some of this picaresque tale as she absently watched the emptily bobbing divans sludging listlessly in and out of the paneling. "Then medically speaking, Heathcliffe doesn't really have to stay here, does he?"
"Ahh ... don't you believe it, my dear! Oooh ... he's a danger to himself and to others, that one. But actually, it's much nicer here than some of the cages he'd be dragged to if they ever let him run loose long enough. Naturally, we like to think he remains on the estate out of his own free will, but now and then he needs the tubs and the volts just like everybody else. Once or twice a semester he has to be nailed right down to his bungalow, a lush, twelve-room solarium designed by Frank Lloyd Wright shortly after his death ..."
Gloria said nothing for a moment, sponging up more of this background. And then, suddenly bursting to see him, she said: "Oh Minnie, where is he now? ... Where's my boy?"
Minnie's jowly heart-shaped face fell a little, and she averted her eyes, pretending to watch one of her gymnastic couches. "I'm afraid he's ... well, he's gone, my pet ... voila tout!"
"Voila tout?" Gloria repeated numbly, "You mean ... 'gone' like in ... 'way out' ...?"
"No, lovey, I mean like in really out. Apparently that dear sweet gamecock saw those pictures of you on Forty-Second Street and outside City Prison ... that whole carnival did look like a mass rape, you know ... which was just the kind of hoopla you wanted, of course. But I suppose 'He' got all his continental chivalry muscles in an uproar and dashed out into the night to rescue you, without even leaving a note for his house boy, whose name is Kim ..."
"Oh no! ... how long has he been gone?"
"A day and a night," said Minnie, "and we've phoned every Frothy Factory on the east coast, but none of the shrinks have got him yet."
Suddenly all the lights went out and Minnie's winded furniture took a breather. The door opened and a lumbering visitation floated towards them via candle glow. It was Selina.
"Hey, Mrs. Countess Ma'am, I blew out every fuse we got in the house!"
"Hah! ... and with her breath, she could do it too!" laughed Minnie.
"I figured that without no more juice, them critters downstairs couldn't get their electrocution treatment, and these poor rockers up here can rest they-selves and set a spell."
"Isn't she ingenious?" said Minnie. "Another year of such progress and we figure she'll be a free-lance imbecile. Now give me that candle, Miss Neanderthal, before you set fire to your moustache!"
As she gazed at the candle glow, a new gleam of fancy and propulsion appeared in Gloria's eyes. "Light a torch for me, Countess," she said, "because I'm going out there in the dark and find that man! He probably went straight to Central Park, and he's sitting at the duck pond this very minute, where we first chatted and pledged and ignited ..."
"Now you listen to me, Miss Fluffy-Brains ... if you know what's good for you, you'll stay right here and let him find you. Don't you realize the sort of cause celebre you'll be stirring up in the next few days?"
"Me?" said Gloria, humbly. "But I'm just an unimportant little file clerk."
"Nonsense! ... you're a giddy sexy fluke, my pet, and you'll have the opportunity to attract more attention than any personality on earth, since everyone knows that today's most popular figures are those to whom the average citizen can relate sensually ..." Minnie rolled her weathered tongue delightedly over this word. "And, of course, the Shirley Popper caper alone could keep you on Page One 'til we reach die moon. My God, can't you see that woman strapped up to those tables and plugged into the wall? ... and the poor old wraith just fresh out of Mernningers!"
"Hmmmm ..." Gloria quietly considered all this while Minnie doubled up in a gaspy mirth-fit. "Well ... then you feel all this ... all this ... brouhaha will bring him home to me?"
"Certainly, my dear; that's what brouhahas were made for," said Minnie, wiping her laugh-runny eyes, "and we'll do everything in our power to ensnare him for you. Of course, it's rather like Count Onassis wooing Tillie the Toiler, but never fear, lovey-the power of positive lunacy can move mountains!"
As if to illustrate this credo, a delayed-action love seat folded out of the woodwork containing Shirley Popper's mislaid makeup man. He looked terribly ashen and seemed to find some slight impediment in his speech ... "My name used to be 'Irving' ... but now I'm Elizabeth Arden and I've come to tea! I'm Elizabeth Arden and I've come to TEA!" He brandished a battered lip-brush. "Everybody look kissy and say prune-poop!" Then he spun gaily around on the floor like a dismantled roulette wheel, and the lights came back on, the divans doing their thing once more.
"What a strange, lost fetishist!" the Countess eyed the lad sadly. "He's probably gotten lipstick all over the termites." And turning to Gloria: "Now, my sweet, let us flee this sideshow and come back with me to your silken lounge, where we'll take some of those chartreuse capsules on your night stand marked 'antidote' ... and we shall relax, and do the traditional wait of a woman for her man ... by Jerome Kern ..."
"Happiness is just a thing called Warners!" sang Liz Arden.
"... Seems so unfair," mourned Gloria. "Now I'm in and he's out ..."
"... That's the way the Id crumbles, my little wild flower," said Minnie.
"I love him, Minnie ..."
"... And that ol' tiger loves just about everybody!" twinkled Selina.
Blocking this out, Gloria went on: "And even if I run so hard he'll never catch me, I ... oh, I can't help ..."
"... lovin' dat man of mine!" sang Liz.
"Cherie, we all love that ramming boy of yours," said the Countess. "Not only does he have the tallest soul in the world, but ... shall I tell you something else about him ... something sweetly intimate?"
Gloria nodded. "Oh yes, yes ... please!"
"He actually puts wings back on flies," said Minnie.
"Ahhh ... neat too!" sighed Gloria, and dabbed away a tear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was the day before Christmas and all through Libido Lodge every creature was stirring, except Gloria and Minnie. They reclined luxuriantly on their peach-tinted lounges, the Countess 'at home' in a surgical tea-gown corset-chemise with matching chinchilla stole.
Three days had passed since the last electro-captured notables had been rescued from the cellar and sent home via hospital-plane. And, while there were several king-sized lawsuits pending, Gloria's colorful mystique grew and blossomed throughout the Free World. Not since Doris Day or Christine Jorgensen had the country so eagerly identified with such a winsome sweetheart. And Libido Lodge was fast becoming a national exposition second only to the Haight-Ashbury and the Minnesota Strawberry Festivals.
"Gawd! ... we haven't had such a turnover since Assassination Spring!" rejoiced the Countess.
Fire-eyed photographers beat a freeway to Gloria's night stand, and within a few days she was snapped up for more magazine covers than either Twiggy or Lady Bird in their heyday.
"Now tomorrow they're taping you for the Tonight Show," Minnie read off her schedule. "This evening they'll want you for the Today Show, and Monitor will have you over the weekend."
"Oh? And when do I swallow swords for Ed Sullivan?"
"They've booked you for next Sunday, lovey, so wear something porous ..."
But from mad, impetuous Heathcliffe? Not a word.
"Oh Countess, we've tried everything but jungle drums to reach that boy," said Gloria, "where can he be?"
"Patience, lovey, you know what an incurable romantic he is. This very moment he may be off bagging lions in Yucatan, or climbing the highest mountain ... swimming the deepest river ..."
"... All of which is a perfectly lovely way not to find me," brooded Gloria. "Christmas morning there'll be nothing in my stocking but me."
"Very hygienic, I'm sure," said Minnie. "Now do hush, you silly tiddly, and watch how adorably the girls trim their trees!"
Minnie's words were such a literal description of this festivity that Gloria's eyes clouded with compassion as she watched the limber ballerinas. "Aw ... the poor dears! Countess, why don't you cut them down?"
"But non, mon petite! ... they're so jolly!" Minnie clapped her fat little hands together. "Don't you think it's rather progressive letting them be the ornaments this year? Ahh! ... how little it takes to please them! Three sturdy oaks and a set of costume-chains!"
"But golly, it looks so dangerous," said Gloria. "Couldn't they get tetanus ... or something?"
"Don't be so silly, they're draped on, not hooked. And naturally those little light bulbs in their mouths aren't real, they're just for playsies. And the darlings hang themselves in shifts, so no one should get too malformed ..." She was interrupted by a loud thumping sound, gazing up in alarm. "Oh my God, Glenda just fell off the Star of Bethlehem! Precious, I warned you not to try to be tinsel! Now wrap a tourniquet around that hole in your neck, and do try to be a bauble like all the others. Merde! ... some days it simply doesn't pay to be a disciplinarian ..."
"The poor warped dears," sighed Gloria. "They're trying to sublimate by day, because Lord knows how compulsive they are by night."
"Oh? Have they been 'at you' again, my little treasure?" Minnie giggled.
"Yes," said Gloria, still feeling the loin-infringements of the night before. "They bandy me about from one to the other as if I were some sort of Group-Dessert."
"Isn't that enchanting?" Minnie beamed her approval. "You mustn't be too intolerant of them, my dear; that's their way of giving you a bridal shower -paving the love-lanes for Heathcliffe, so to speak. He insists upon a worldly flexibility in his women- and knowing this, the girls want to be sure that all your paraphernalia are primed and pleasing ..."
Gloria thought about this rather startling anthropological footnote ... a kind of reverse fertility-rite ... "And can Heathcliffe expect the same treatment if he's given a bachelor party?"
"If it's held in the Men's Wing, my darling, you bet your booties he can!" said Minnie. "We run a good dirty Equal-Opportunity House here, which is why there are so many people lining up outside in the snowdrifts, waiting to belong."
Almost at once there had been the instant guided tours, conducted by natives in the area who, ordinarily, wouldn't dare aim their dog-sleds at these unknown acres. Local realtors shot up emergency pizza stands. Unemployed ski instructors rigged death-trap toboggan slides. The Teamsters' Union offered a speedy sleigh service from Burlington for all those hungry panacea-seekers who were quite willing to set up little picnics on the snowy grounds of Libido Lodge while waiting to register. Vermont was a riot of Playland Fever, a fun-fair and a folderol, with Gloria Heavenrich serving as its taunting Little Egypt.
Her nights, however, were something else.
While the Countess was perched high above in the sanctity of her pearl penthouse, Gloria was left to defend herself in the Ladies' Wing, while simultaneously longing for her tender old-world lover to materialize and hoist her heavenward. But her roommates were much too pleasure-bent to be simpatico in her hour of need. Mercy! ... they were such bundles of nerves. All night long they kept tossing and turning. Each other, as well as her.
One night Gloria was quite seriously raped. And it was performed in such traditional style, she was almost certain that Heathcliffe had at last arrived for his healing ministrations. " ... Ooohhh! ... you darling lovely boy, you're here, within me ... unn! ... where ... you belong ... !" Throbbing and thrashing, she planted a kiss on the mouth lurking above hers, raising her hands to cup and caress the dear face of him ... fingertips longing to fondle that beloved bushy mane. And then came the horror. The touch of this cheek was soft and beardless. The mouth devouring hers tasted of lipstick that was definitely not her own. With a gurgling little cry, Gloria felt the shoulders, then slid her hand lower against the cushiony pressing body ... and suddenly knew that the person now penetrating her was decidedly not a gentleman!
It was Athletic Glenda, playing the ruthless, plunging male with the stiff prehensile aid of an attachment. This was strapped firmly to her pubis like an elongated diaper, and every round rubbery inch was prodded deep inside Gloria's grateful womb and medicinally scrounging there before she realized the true origin of this quivering delight. But by then it was too late to take any corrective measures, for her legs were locked fiercely about the slamming haunches of Heathcliffe-Glenda ... and she closed her eyes, trying hard to make the scent of Chanel Number Five seem like shaving lotion as she moaned and rolled under the thick and jabbing attack ... opened and received the plummeting girl-man, so wildly desperate to be occupied and drenched in tender reminiscence. The girl held her and made silent sorority-love as she kissed and mauled her breasts, hip-thrusting the bloated prosthetic in and out ... plunging and barging it against her cervix, forcing the muscles of her vagina to dilate and contract almost against her will ... stretching and distorting those starved pink lips, as Gloria writhed and rotated her hips ... seeing Heathcliffe against the closed lids of her eyes as she let the moistly sensuous mouth caress and gulp at her ... pulling him in with the kiss, no matter who she was ... ahhh! ... loving it and giving and holding and spreading out the ripples and the valleys ... until ... now ... the moment pointed and stared and stung and she knew that the girl in her arms wasn't him ... and oooh!.. out and out went the very last of Gloria's pent-up resources ... the dams bursting and flooding and paying homage to that crowding, spongy hot tube that had been so undeniably girl-launched ... girl-conceived ... girl-flesh battering that implement of joy ... oh ... so deeply up and tearing ... no! ... I'm not a Lesbian! It's simply that my body was lonely, and she was there. Girl of the moment. Need of the hour. Dark and faceless. Except that she is rather pretty, isn't she? No. Handsome ...
Finally, the girls sighed together, felt cramped and wet together. And Glenda spoke at last, as she pulled out the gooey annex of her passion ... and the two of them stared at the lifelike gadget in proper awe, ogling the ersatz-bulge at the tip ... examining the flesh-toned glow and texture of the shaft ...
"It's lovely, isn't it, hon?" said Glenda. "And it never goes down, you know. Never just hangs uselessly between some jerk's legs ... never droops or pisses or gives ya the clap. That's why most studs are worthless half the time, don't you think so?"
"Maybe," Gloria said guardedly, fearing the girl might give her a surprise karate-chop if she argued.
But later that night two other girls made alternate appearances in her bed, each of them similarly equipped with eight wide inches of plastic rapture. Deeming it more prudent not to struggle, Gloria again envisioned Heathcliffe happily inserted and abulge and above her ... Ooh darling, see the pretty harem of bridesmaids preparing me for our wedding? ... umm! ... how these girls can rehearse ... and guide me up the aisle, up the altar ... so I can grab onto that podium and listen to those preacher's words ... and ooh! ... rip off his habit ... and ram his sweet beads and bible all ... up ... in ... there ... ahhh! ... they're getting me ready for you, my beloved! ... and, ready ... or ... not, here ... I ... come! ... ohh! ... girls, but you're rowdy ...!
* * *
On Christmas Day an elaborate holiday-feast was presented; but since Gloria felt too gloomy for turkey, Minnie's inventive dieticians offered her a cheery wishbone soufflé with parsley endives basted in a tart meringue. Gloria tried sluggishly to summon up a little spirit as she watched the other girls so gaily playing badminton with their cranberry slices. But when grab-bag time came, the clutch of nostalgia was simply too much for her. It was a time for love, and hers was still missing; so she dashed downstairs to the Fellatio-Therapy Room, just to be near the inspiring pastoral her lover had painted of Napoleon Bonaparte licking the Russian Army ... Ahh! ... two by two ... they go marching through ... those nobly-born sweethearts on parade ...!
* * *
The next morning the Countess appeared and announced some surprise visitors. "Lovey, there's a boy and a man to see you, except that I don't think they're either. Who do you know who fits that description?"
"Lonny and Darwin!" exclaimed Gloria. "Oh, the dears! ... They got me into this, so I guess they've come to get me out ..."
The two boys stood in the doorway, stunningly decked out in red ski-suits, which they immediately proceeded to shed. "Don't be an ass, darling!" said Lonny, as they rushed jubilantly to her lounge-side, "we've come to move in!
Gloria saw the luggage they were carrying and gaped, her eyes bulging anew as several other familiar figures trailed into the room, each carrying suitcases-three of her very favorite client-daddy-lovers ... ohh! ... that dear sweet legion of the lost, the loyal ones. Tony, Steve and wild Irish Terence, all of them ready to devote their lives to the loose lunacies of sexual integration; and in her honor ... almost as if she'd passed away and they were joining hands to form a human monument to her hot memory, ahh! ... stirring, throat-catching gesture ... something like that classic old flag-waving scene at Iwo Jima ...
"All my loving buddies!" she flung out her arms to them. "Come to keep me company ... and to fill his shoes ..."
"And our own, too," said Steve Overton, as everyone surrounded her lounge and set their luggage on the floor.
"As far as Darwin and I are concerned," said Lonny, "us kids built you a dream, and damned if we didn't fall in love with it ourselves ..."
"... So we're here to stay," said Darwin. "We figure we can work our way through."
"And baby, you know me," Tony Danizetti moved close and took her hand, grinning. "I just wanna live for love and die screwin'. Simple, ain't it?"
"We've been reading up on you, Gloria, and you have really got it made here," said Steve, moving around to the other side of the lounge. "We'll work as janitors, maintenance men ... anything as long as we can stay here and keep the rest of the world out of sight!"
"Aw ... sure'n none of us have been too happy on the outside," Terence reminded her, "so we figure if they'll give us a bit of credit here, we'll make ourselves useful around the place, and they won't be sorry ..."
"Oh Selina, you werewolf!" yelled Minnie. "Come and get this luggage!" And to Gloria: "Isn't this marvelous, lovey? We'll be getting a great big booster shot of High-Male-Octane ..." she smiled lustily at Tony and Steve ... "and these delightful stud-nomads are so weary of grime and grit and subways and shit, and darling, where you are is where they want to be. They wouldn't take no for an answer, so it'll be a Family Plan-compre?"
And now, as Selina arrived and began seeing to their language, everyone began talking at once, itemizing the countless hidden hobbies and appetite-fancies none of them ever had the nerve to attempt, until they'd been spurred on by Gloria's brave victories. However, the women in Gloria's apartment building had at last put two and two together: the girl's recent headlines and her old babysitting activities added up to only one thing-they'd all been betrayed, and for years!
"Oh ... but surely, boys, you haven't left your wives because of anything I did?" Gloria said in a tone of crushed innocence.
"Hell no, we're gonna send for them later, after we get settled," said Tony.
"At least that's what they told them," added Lonny.
"Oh no, we're serious," insisted Steve. "We asked them to join us here as soon as the kids're old enough to take care of themselves."
"The kids?" said Gloria. "But ... they're infants!"
"Get the picture?" laughed Darwin. And suddenly they were all laughing as they encircled her lounge for some affectionate hugs and squeezes.
"And as for the piece de resistance," said Darwin, "get a load of this package-deal we found for you, right on your own doorstep!"
Just as they'd rehearsed it, the boys all chimed in and sang a snatch of Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing, making it a heralding trumpet call. After which there were some rustlings and mutterings and fluttery intakes of breath-and then 'He' appeared, their captive gift.
... Oooh yes! ... it was him all right. Moving towards her with that same Lawrence of Arabia stride, same wild stallion's mane, and those arresting stiletto-eyes ... Goodness! ... I'm getting the creepy trembles, thought Gloria; and knew she mustn't let him think she was in the least unnerved by the heart-pounding sight of him ... strutting as if he thought he was the most gorgeous brute-lover on earth, and unn! ... wasn't he ever! But she was determined to be casual and bland and flip. "Ha ha!" she giggled gaily. "What kept you? Were you off bagging Hons in Yucatan?"
Then he moved nearer and spoke out in those rumbling chest-tones, and Gloria melted right down to her pedicure. "My dear, the lion is most to be found in ... French ... Equatorial ... Africa ... " his voice a lingering murmur as he swept all others aside and zeroed in on her, his huge heavy hands all over her body at once, journeying quivers of total recall ... his warm sensual mouth dabbing at hers again ... lips trailing downward along her throat, and then caressing higher once more for the claiming kisses, the two lovers oblivious to the intense interest on the faces of their spectators, as his lips on hers formed the words of greeting: "Good morrow, you wild one! ... oh, you gypsy thing, you wench! When I saw how they dragged you off in shackles I feared the fiends would put you on exhibition ... praying to Zeus they hadn't shipped you to the Smithsonian, you rare and Dresden pagan-girl ... !" His mouth on hers again, his hand urgent and swimming inside her bra. "Then at the jail they told me about Minnie, and I knew you'd need a few days to get over your initial shock of entry ..."
"... So this character holed up in your apartment," put in Tony, "how about that?"
"And until we read about your arrest and saw the headlines about this place, we thought you were in there with him!" said Steve.
"... But as soon as Leona got all the facts straight, she said she could kick herself for giving him the key and then threw him out on his ass," Lonny added.
"Oh my darling, I felt so near you in that scaly old apartment," said Heathcliffe. "I cleaned the entire place for you; waxed the floors, reinforced the swing. Then I mailed Moonyean to an Ape-Sitter in Carnarsie ...!"
"Ahhh! ... l'amour, l'amour!" warbled the Countess, suddenly rising and dissolving into a flabby Cha-Cha. "If this fable were any more romantic, I'd marry the very next man I rented!" She dashed and bubbled herself in and out of this convivial group, bestowing hugs, gooses and kisses on. everyone. course, you're all a malingering litter of psychopaths, but speaking as Keeper of the Padlocks, I couldn't be more enchanted! Because you're my kind of derelicts: oversexed and broke, but so willing to learn! And very soon, darlings, lush-life Utile hideaways like Libido Lodge will make tract-living a thing of the past. Ahh yes, it's coming, my dears, just as sure as God made Utile green bank-notes! From the cities they escaped to Suburbia, and from Suburbia there's no place left but these divine wall-to-wall bed-and-hypo-chambers ... yes! ... the happy parlors, the gilded escape hatches, where nothing exists but feeling ... and being ... and people making people happy ...!"
Outside a band struck up Don't Rain On My Parade, the theme of Gloria's door chimes, and Heathcliffe whirled his hand around inside her bra and whispered: "Dearest, I hope you won't mind-I've rented Wally Cronkite to cover our elopement ... "
"And that's Louis Bellson on the skins!" said Tony.
Heathcliffe lowered his head for a fast nipple-muzzle, as everyone grinned and watched and wildly applauded, Darwin reaching for Tony's fly and nobody appearing to be in the least resentful.
Gloria felt the love-flows swirling and juicing inside of her, as Heathcliffe swept her up in his arms and rushed down the aisle with her. "Come on, Aphrodite, I'm going to put you in quarantine!" Tucking the lovely pink and white breast back in its cage, he carried her through the main entrance and down the stairs; while behind them they could hear the rumbling hoof-beats of their disciples.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Outside the Ladies' Wing they were met by honking horns and idolizing windswept faces. "Oh Heathcliffe, look!" she cried. "All those precious sparkling idiots want to job our club. We've started a trend. Ooh! ... I mink I'll pass among them and give them each a welcome-wagon hug ..."
"Now there's plenty of time for that," he said, "since they're all here to enroll ..."
"That's right, darling," she said. "We can both hug every one of them later!"
"We must call a board of directors' meeting right after the honeymoon," he was saying, Gloria adoring these semantics. "There'll be a lot of work ahead of us, you know. We'll have to put in new wings and annexes and ink-blots; and thank God the Countess is here to prevent utter anarchy. I don't know where we'd be without her militant management."
He rushed her through the crowd to an awaiting limousine. "In here, darling-quickly now, before your fans tear you to pieces!"
As the car got underway, Gloria opened the window and waved to all those freezing strangers who were giving up the whole world in the name of love and madness; waving, too, to the cluster of TV reporters and newsmen, including Wally Cronkite, fumbling with his breast-mike.
Then Heathcliffe gave his drivers a royal command and Gloria jerked swiftly about in her seat. "Melville, Brixton, pretend you're snow-plows and lose Milady's entourage!"
Those names! ... thought Gloria, rubbing her flanks and thighs together as the memory fully struck her: the original hypodermic kids! "Darling," she nudged Heathcliffe, "don't look now, but I think Frankenstein just met the Wolf Man in the front seat!"
He laughed softly, as did Melville and Brixton. "The boys know you're the 'Lady of the Manor' now, my flaxen-haired angel, so they're both your slaves!"
"Oh?" she said, considering this. "But ... what about Civil Rights? I mean ... is it absolutely compulsory? Can't I set them free?"
"Don't be silly, dear, you'll feel much safer having the boys near so they can watch over us."
"But Heathcliffe, listen ... there's a perfectly good reason why I won't feel safe ..."
She was interrupted by the loud honking of a horn nearby. Gazing to the side, they saw the ubiquitous Countess de Trop at the wheel of her station wagon, which was filled to the brim with Gloria's loyal buddies: Lonny, Darwin, Tony, Steve and Terence.
"Meet us up at Cohabitation Center!" shouted Minnie. "We've just arranged an impromptu reception for the two of you. All very private and exotic -no reporters allowed!"
Not waiting for their answer, she sped on, the boys waving from the back seat.
"Wouldn't we rather be alone, my sweet?" said Heathcliffe. "It's been such a long time."
"No, no ... we should put in an appearance. I wouldn't want anyone to think I was a snob." Gloria felt this detour might give her the time she needed to discredit the peculiar blandishments of Melville and Brixton. She was sure that when she finished explaining it to Heathcliffe, he'd agree that having a pet tiger in the house would prove a much less hazardous means of protection.
Libido Lodge's Cohabitation Center was just as the Countess had described it-a mammoth, gymnasium-size dormitory, with lounges, divans and studio beds strewn about in a loose, disorderly style. And it was co-educational, in the baldest sense of the word. Reporters and TV cameramen beat madly on the doors, yearning fiercely to record the tumbling frolic of this engagement party; but they were held at bay by a troupe of snarling Doberman Pincers, with enormous guards immediately attached.
"Now you boys station yourselves out here and help keep these creatures from invading our privacy," Gloria instructed Melville and Brixton.
But as they approached the entrance doors, the two men kept following them as if they hadn't heard.
"Heathcliffe, I thought you said they were my slaves."
"Eh? Oh, of course," he chuckled. "They're simply not used to you yet."
"Hmm ... they should be," said Gloria as, with a signal from Heathcliffe, the men turned and joined the guards.
Inside, with the doors securely bolted, Gloria said: "Now Heathcliffe, let me tell you about them. Especially the bigger one of the two. Well ... he took down my ..." But she stopped cold as she gazed about at the teeming interior of Cohabitation Center. It reminded her of a slightly smaller Grand Central Station, with the same sort of hustle and bustle; except that these commuters weren't simply passing through or ignoring one another. No, indeedy! Each of them took time out to communicate with the other, and a warmer method of passing the time of day Gloria had never encountered. Instead of merely saying 'Hello, how are you?', they took a much friendlier initiative and found out by employing a kind of blanket Braille system. It was as if they were all pretending to be blind, and could only determine the existence of their fellows by the sense of touch ... everybody feeling each others' pulses just to celebrate being alive.
Gloria couldn't help but feel a quickening rush of excitement, because they were all nude, these men and women and boys and girls; except the Countess, who billowed about the place in an Hawaiian muu-muu. Gloria's old comrades were just slipping out of their trousers and checking them at the reception desk as she and Heathcliffe entered.
"Oh my goodness! ... how healthy everyone looks," said Gloria.
Stifling a blase yawn, Heathcliffe began to undress. "Hurry and get out of your things, dear, or they won't let us enter the Main Arena."
Gloria turned and watched him strip down; then let her eyes dart about the room as she tried to take in every pendulum swing of flesh with one sweeping glance ... Heavens! ... look at Tony and Steve, hanging so rosily out like that and ... and swelling up right before my eyes. And Darwin and Lonny, too, ooh! ... even more quickly thick and erect because, of course, they were gaping at Tony and Steve.
Terence Kildaire was the shy one. Kept his briefs on. Until Minnie reached out and yanked them down about his ankles with one tigress slash. "We'll have no affectatious hangups in this house!" she announced; and then gasped with the enormity of what she'd unsprung: "Sacre BLOO! ... what a blarney stone!"
"Darling, can't I stay dressed?" Gloria implored her lover. "I love to watch, but I hate to be watched. Just a Utile nervous habit I picked up."
"My sweet, if you don't do it yourself, a whole gang of lodge brothers and sisters will do it for you, and then I mightn't see you for hours."
Gloria got the message and peeled. Heathcliffe stood at her side, already massively naked and hairy, his gigantic penis a flaring throb of languor- until Gloria removed her blouse and bra and her breasts sprang loose, two white marble globes topped with ripe cherries ... and Heathcliffe licked his lips and remembered all their moments together, the fresh waves of instruction zooming between his legs to produce the swift rigidity there ...
As now they all were naked, all seven, standing in the archway and gaping with mouth-watering incredulity at all that flesh-revolving activity going on in the huge arena.
"Wow! ..."
"Holy Shit! ..."
"Jesus ..."
"... Christ!"
"Ummmmm!"
"Is that something else?"
"Look at that guy screwin' that girl and gettin' humped by another guy on top of him, all at the same time ...!"
"Ahhhhh!"
"But Holy Cow, this is the quickest, biggest hard-on I ever saw in my life," said Darwin, as they all edged closer together while watching; and it was quite clear that Darwin was now referring to Heathcliffe's jutting member. "Let me hold it for a second," he pleaded, "huh? ... can I?"
At once Gloria looked alarmed, wondering who would strike first, Lonny or Heathcliffe, or Darwin in self-defense. But, to her amazement, nobody struck-for this was the house that lust built and hostility had quite obviously taken French leave.
"Help yourself, boy!" Heathcliffe gave the lad an expansive smile. "We are all linked anatomically to one another, don't you agree? To touch a stranger is to touch one's self-especially in our case, eh? ... since you and I are built so very much alike ..."
And it was true, thought Gloria, as she gaped from one bulging prong to the other. Golly! ... twin-peni, shaped exactly alike ... even the same rouge-like glow at the knobs! Shyly, Darwin reached out and took Heathcliffe's huge cock in his hand, gently squeezing it, then letting his fingers trail back and forth across the stiff length of it. With a sigh, Heathcliffe pulled Gloria close and tenderly palmed her breasts. Breathing heavy now, his cheeks flushed, Darwin bent over and slowly flicked his tongue about the swelling head of Heathcliffe's member. With a low, throaty cry, Heathcliffe dove down and sucked at Gloria's hot-tipped nipples, rolling his tongue around on them, nibbling ... an act which further heightened Darwin's voyeur-courage, so he bent lower and swallowed the long, pulsing rod, crushing it fully down his throat, taking all of it ... right down to the balls ... loving this exciting flavor of having a straight guy's cock budding and throbbing against his tongue ... Lonny now smiled with the same innocent permissiveness that shone from the faces of everyone, as he moved in and aimed his own hot tube of flesh at the protruding lithe buttocks of his lover. He spread the hot cheeks and sank his cock smoothly up that warm and seasoned passage, thrusting his hips gracefully back and forth as Darwin groaned out and hungrily sucked this lovin' man of his dear neighbor, Gloria ... who now tried to hold back the squeals and tremors as Heathcliffe's fingers poked and rubbed inside her moist vagina ... as they all stood there in the wide archway, watching and touching ... a world in microcosm, full of juice and acrobatics.
"Ahh, that's lovely, children!" said Minnie, looking on. "Play nice and do your thing. There'll be refreshments later."
Like three hoof-grinding stallions, Tony, Steve and Terence now moved in closer to the others, going hot and hard and panting-eager to join in. Steve lowered his body in a crouching position and, after wetting the head of it, he fiercely pressed his sweltering cock against Gloria's taut reluctant anus. The rubbery ring of this tight channel held for a moment, and then popped open, permitting Steve to grind it fully up and into her ... "Ooohhhh! ... no! ... Ummmm!" groaned Gloria with the first sting of pain; but slung her ivory cheeks backwards for more of it as Heathcliffe pinched and prodded her wet clitoris.
Tony, incensed by these sounds and visions, growled out his need for quick action, his big prick stiffly cleaving the air and yearning to be swallowed in someone's flesh; and so he grabbed the first warm handful within reach, Heathcliffe's firm and muscular buttocks, pulling them apart and making a snarling attempt to enter there. Watching this grunting panorama, Terence grew inspired and frustrated and jittery all at once, because he knew he had to jump on someone fast, but couldn't make up his mind which body to choose. He danced and whimpered and circled the group for a moment until at last, with a sigh, he settled on the swinging-hipped Lonny now poking his meat juicily into the velvet back-tunnel of the bent and sucking Darwin. Terence stationed himself behind Lonny, half-kneeling and waiting for the rhythm and the cadence to be right so he could hook on without breaking the lovely symmetry of this pumping chain. Then he saw his moment and seized it, lurching forward with one thick-cocked thrust to jab and plunge his swollen rod fully up the surprised but grateful rectum of the devotedly fucking Lonny.
Gloria let out a gasping shriek as Steve rammed more deeply into her, Heathcliffe's fingers teasing and searching up her drippily throbbing cunt as the hungry-boy Darwin sucked so greedily between his legs ... Heathcliffe now reaching a hand behind Gloria to hold Steve's battering weapon and help guide it and crunch it up his darling girl's sweet and not-too-accustomed asshole. She shuddered and squirmed under this delicious dual-attack, as Steve cried out with the wondrous clutching sensation that swarmed around his cock ... "OhmyGod ... it's so tight and beautiful in there! ... she's gonna drink all I've got with her ass! ..." Now Heathcliffe had four wriggling fingers inside her pulsing wet chamber, as he jabbed and dug right up to the knuckles ... but she seized his hairy wrist and gasped and cried out and licked her lips ... "Oooh! ... no, no ... wait, darling! ..." weaving and trembling from these shattering flesh-assaults ... "never felt anything like this ... and I think I'm ... ooh! ... hurry, it's going to happen ... do something ... ahhh! ... quick! ... don't let it ... no ... no ...!"
Sliding his honeyed fingers out, Heathcliffe reached down to stop the frenzied sucking lash-strokes of Darwin's mouth. "Get it!" he commanded the boy, pointing between Gloria's thighs. "Simply shift those hot boyish lips of yours, and scoop out some happiness from her!"
Darwin stared broodingly at the long, tempting phallus Heathcliffe had just denied him, swallowing repeatedly and running his tongue over his full, ripened mouth. Then he gaped at the shiny, pouting slit of his good-neighbor Gloria, while Steve now moaned out and banged more ferociously up and in her, and the anguished girl cried out her warning again: "Oh hurry! ... somebody, please ... don't let it ...!"
"But Christ! ... I never sucked no girl before!" protested Darwin, his eyes going sulkily from fat hard-on to bubbly pussy and back again, as his lover-Lonny shot his own welling-up cock more swiftly in and out of Darwin's thrust-out ass ... Darwin bucking and stooped-over and still licking his lips in indecision.
"Hurry, boy ... if you really want to integrate and belong to this family, put your mouth where your sentiments are and be quick about it!" So saying, Heathcliffe tugged Steve's cock more violently into Gloria's anus, hurling her body forward, while with his free hand he pushed Darwin's face between the girl's legs, instructing him to "Lock your lips and tongue in there, you untried infant ... and suck my girl, and think of my cock going in and out of that same buttery hole, and by God, you'll love it!"
At that instant Terence roared out: "Ahhh! ... holy Mother! ... sure'n it's COMIN' I am ... aaoounnahfg! ... here ... and here ...!" And shot everything he had between Lonny's still heatedly bobbing cheeks, while Gloria grew even more excited by these heady cries and with a shuddering sigh let loose all that was within her ... while Darwin, whose mouth had gone reluctantly clamped against her vagina only seconds before, now gasped and gulped and felt as if he were drowning as the alien hot girl-creams gushed and swirled past his opened lips, down his throat, spraying his cheeks and chin, even though he compulsively drank and licked as fast as he could in order to catch every bursting drop as Heathcliffe had ordered him ... and even now felt that man's big hand pressing his head deeper against the spouting tremulous cunt, until his mouth was swimming and shining in the stuff, and he could hardly breathe. To see his lover lapping up a girl was such a bizarre treat for Lonny that now he heaved out a series of breathless sighs and shot his full load deep into the bowels of the boy ... "Oooh baby! ... that's the first time I ever saw your sexy mouth suckin' a hole, and it drove me so wild ... I had to pop, honey ... had to!"
As Darwin remained at Gloria's well, still obediently mopping and growing steadily excited by the process, now that he saw what this picture had done for his lovin' Lonny ... everyone was startled by a new-sounding double roar ... the maddened howls of two grown and burly men as Tony Danizetti finally managed to pierce the burning resilience of Heathcliffe's narrow and rebellious rectum ...
"Aw ... Holy Christ!" roared Tony. "I'm IN something or bust!" He dug it deeper, gradually shoving every long, fat inch up that tightly gripping chasm, as Heathcliffe bit his lips and moaned out with agony and shock ... "You horny old bastard!" cried Tony. "This ain't half bad! ... oohhh ... umm! ... my God, I think I'm gettin' your cherry! Aw, Gloria baby, watch me fuck your lover ... watch me!"
Heathcliffe writhed and grunted from this stabbing invasion as everyone hungrily gaped and stared, utterly entranced to see Tony's thick Italian tool go plummeting up this noble one's manly, kingly hot ass. Knowing that as their leader he would have to comply, Heathcliffe decided to grin and bear it, intent upon setting them an example, showing them the way. He bent way over to make it easier for Tony; and as he did so, Darwin arose from his unaccustomed vaginal feast, wiping his lips and face. The boy's long prick bobbed out between his legs, still firm and erect, and Darwin saw that it was directly in Heathcliffe's line of vision, his shaggy head lowered there as he stooped for Tony's lunging. Everyone got the same idea at once, but Darwin was first. His cock full and jutting, he moved slowly forward until the expanding knob pressed against Heathcliffe's warm and mobile mouth, which was now softly parted and panting from the pummeling attack at his rear ... "NO!" he shouted, moving his head to one side. "That is not in my scheme of things!"
"Heathcliffe," said Gloria, still politely bent over for the breathlessly grinding Steve, "remember, dear, what's sauce for the goose, is sauce for the ..."
"GANDER!" said Darwin, and jabbed his gleaming prong forward again. He gently took the big leonine head in his hands and nudged his prick against those flaring angry lips of the man. "That hot hunk of boy-meat is all yours, Big Daddy ... and remember, you said it looks just like yours, so this'll really be integration, and right now!" Tony slung into his back-passage more ruthlessly at this point and Heathcliffe let out another groan ... his lips loosely parting, which enabled Darwin to slide his cock softly in between. Heathcliffe instinctively gagged as he felt his mouth stretched wide and full ... the thick, meat shaft of flesh sinking in against his tongue; and he sensed there was only one way to keep from choking on this hot intruder and that was to suck and receive and lick ... "Oooh yeah!" cried Darwin, holding the big head in his hands and popping his hips back and forth ... his fingers clutching the tousled masses of hair as he fed his cock to the man ... "Ahhh! ... that hot man-mouth and hot girl-juice all the same, and ... oooh! Christ ... all together now!" Darwin watched Heathcliffe's wide, sensual mouth pull in more of his cock, felt the suction and the pumping and oooh! ... look at the hunger down there!
Lonny slid down to the floor beneath Heathcliffe's legs and ravenously scooped the big man's stiff, neglected penis into his mouth, sucking like a mad thing while eagerly watching his lover's hard, fleshy spear glide moistly in and out between the rugged, gulping lips of Gloria's virile roaring lover-man. Steve, moaning and whimpering, slid his juice-flavored prick out of Gloria's rear-passage, now that she was free in front, and quickly re-entered her body through this fresher, damper orifice ... crouching down to swing his cock straight up and pivoting ... he and the girl both crying out together ... "Ahhhh! ... yes ... and yes!" she sighed. "OhmyGod, that's so good!" he yelled. "And ... unn! ... all of this is so lovely ... like it's the first day of my life ... and look at all of us like this ... never anything so beautiful! ... all of us on our feet and touching! ... oooh! ... touching!"
Now Darwin cried out and gasped and rolled his head back and groaned ... "Oh God! ... oh ... wow! ... it's gonna blow ... ummm ... I'm coming! ... now and now ... and now!"
Heathcliffe tried to pull back, but Tony, still pounding up his rear, shoved his head forward and held it like that until the sighing boy emptied all his spurting rich juices down Heathcliffe's throat ... and he felt the raging swarm of sodomy and oral copulation mingling inside of him as now his mouth filled and billowed with the hot tide of gelatinous invasion ... but oh, God bless them all! ... liking the taste of it ... gulping and tonguing up those thick, spicy vanilla-flows which were so much like those endearing geysers of his own beloved girl ... ahh! ... yes ... yes ... cream is cream IS cream! And he pulled at the wet, throbbing prick in his mouth, nursing, milking, draining, as Darwin groaned and staggered before him ... and Lonny sucked Heathcliffe's hanging bloom of a cock with a voracious, lapping intensity ... swirling his tongue fretfully with each artful stroke of his lips, because Lonny knew he had to be ready for an ocean-full of this man ... knew Heathcliffe had to be close now, and that's why he had gobbled up all that come-of-his-lover, in his mouth and swallowed and licked and digested ... this man who drank his boy was now being sucked dry by that boy's lover ... ummmm! ... Lonny was so ready and sucked harder as Darwin finally slipped his limp member out of the man's still poised and gulping mouth ...
"Aw ... MotheraGOD! ... here it is!" yelled Tony Danizetti from behind ... "Ahhh! ... I'm gonna blow his ass off! ... all up in there ... gonna break that hole and jam it and stick it ... ummm!.. there it goes ... up his belly ... up ... up his belly ... now! ..." And thumped everything he had between the spread and clutch of man-sized yielding buttocks.
"Jesus ... it must be catching!" cried Steve, "because I'm doin' it too!" And suddenly, on his deepest inner stroke, he held his cock firm and still inside the hugging cushion of Gloria's womb and let her feel all his milky reverberations ... all those searing, popping streams.
And now, at last, Heathcliffe's symbolic roars to make this symphony complete, as he cried out with the joy of his own moist flows ... reeling from the turmoil about his loins and colon, his prostate all raw and agitated from Tony's ramming, the pain sweet and exquisite as he watched Gloria whimper and squirm and come a second time just before Steve pulled his deflated spent tool out of her. Heathcliffe rose up now to let Lonny finish his brilliant swabbing more effectively, as the boy continued to suck his tremulous cock, Heathcliffe now pulling Gloria close to him, burying his face against her breasts and wildly sucking her nipples, his appetites further heightened by the feel of sucked-flesh in his mouth while he himself was being sucked ... then groaning and raising up to kiss her mouth, deeply, passionately. "Let it flow into his mouth, my dearest," she murmured against his lips, her hand lowering between his legs. "I want to feel those great testes, and want to feel your pulse down there ... as it passes to him ... ooh! ... look at the dear one drink it!" Heathcliffe kissed her again, half-sobbing with the wordless joy and exultance, as Gloria held the thick base of his rearing, drenched cock while Lonny avidly caught all the careening gusts and trickles of her lover's lovely climax ... ahhh! ... the long and thudding release, endless swallows of it as Lonny stayed kneeling at the fountain and was loyal.
Everyone watched and clutched and smiled together. They had never seen such a sight in their lives, this display of visual music ... and the fuels that lay within them were still aswirl with the shock-waves of people making people happy, becoming gifts for one another. And so they were flesh-drunk and lightheaded and linked. Umbilical group marriage ... friendly expanse ...
The Countess de Trop appeared to applaud their expertise: "Well ... now that you've gotten the preliminaries out of your system, come with me into the Main Arena and I'll introduce you people around. Then you can really get down to business and infiltrate!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It was more than an hour before Heathcliffe managed to tear Gloria away from her tangling new coterie of admirers. After thoroughly drying all their members, they were forced to slide back into their clothes on the run; and upon making their breathless exit, Melville and Brixton found it necessary to employ considerable muscle and girth to keep the reporters and media-hounds off them.
"We're doing a feature story on you two called 'The Utopian Couple!'" shouted a man from SNEAK Magazine. "Can't you at least stand still long enough for an interview?"
"Sorry, Sir," said Heathcliffe, "in this weather we'd turn blue before there was even time to say 'no comment!'" He bundled his shivering girl into the back seat of the limousine, and ordered Brixton to get moving.
A few moments later, their arms interlocked, mouths all clutched and dripping, they pulled up to a house which could only be described as a snowy shimmer of glass and crystal. Easing out of their steamy embrace, Gloria gazed at this fragile structure with great awe and wonderment. "Why darling, what a glamorous conservatory!"
Laughing, Heathcliffe opened the door and got out, reaching in to take her hand. "This is not the conservatory, my beloved, it's our love nest, our souls' bright home ... our palace for posterity, designed under great duress, I might add ..."
... Yes indeed, thought Gloria, remembering this was Frank Lloyd Wright's sole posthumous gesture ...
A pixie Japanese house boy, all but buried under a mountainous raccoon coat, scurried out to greet them. "Bonzai, Missy Heavenlich!" he grinned foolishly. "Welcome to Wit's End!" And sure enough, Gloria looked up and saw a blinking neon sign above the doorway that confirmed this fact. 'Wit's' in yellow, and 'End' in red.
"Sweetheart, this is Mr. Kim. He'll be your valet."
"He'll be my ...?" Gloria looked askance.
"Oooh! ... you catch a stacked one this time, boss!" said Kim; and suddenly Gloria wanted to stop the action and play a brief game of Twenty Questions. But everything was too rush-rush as the house boy guided her hurriedly towards the door, and their chauffeurs parked the limousine in an underground garage that seemed to zoom straight down into the heart of the planet.
The entrance hall was an enormous, stained-glass affair, and Gloria half-expected some immediately adjoining incense and myrrh. Just as she was about to kneel and do some obligatory repenting, she was urged to disrobe again-this time for a rather traditional wardrobe change.
"Oh but must I, with him looking on?" she asked, pointing at the servant.
"Oh, you needn't worry about Kim, darling. He's travelling light."
"Pardon?"
"Maintenance adjustments," explained Heathcliffe, "to make him a tamer companion when I have overnight guests."
"They cut off my balls, Missy!" giggled Kim. "They say I too hot for Oriental Menial, but ho ho hee! ... I got memory like Confucius!"
"Well now ..." murmured Gloria, as the boy stripped her down. "A eunuch among us ..."
"And greatly in demand from certain of our special inmates," said Heathcliffe.
"And Landlords too," added Kim. "Master here, he flip me over on back with legs pointed to Hong Kong. Say it feel just like Geisha Dlive-In!"
"That's enough, Kim! Concentrate on your chores."
... Hmm ... permissiveness everywhere, Gloria reminded herself as she was peeled anew. She was quickly re-draped in a languorous chenille hostess-gown, dotted with diamond-chipped sequins. This weighty garment was quite a burden on her shoulders, but she felt far too honored to let it sag her to the floor. The exquisite emerald crown which house boy Kim hoisted to her head was equally as heavy.
"Now ... you're officially my High Priestess," said Heathcliffe, "and you'll be presiding most appropriately the minute you enter the house ..." He stood back to admire this authoress of all his foamed-up passions. "I suppose you'll want to be carried in?"
"Oh yes, darling ... please!"
Heathcliffe snapped his fingers and Kim moved dutifully behind Gloria and proceeded to sweep her in his arms. "Ooops!" said Gloria. "Well for heaven's sake ... I didn't mean him!"
But her lover was already inside; and while Kim faltered with his burden once or twice, he finally managed to get her through the door, though not before slipping a hand inside her bodice and tweaking. "Ha ha! ... bet you think they should cut off my pinkies instead of my cookies, right, Missy?"
Not waiting for an answer, Kim handed her over to Heathcliffe, and then, still giggling, the boy disappeared. Whereupon Heathcliffe took her hand and led her through twelve rooms of muted amber florescence. Each wall was transparent, until a discreetly pressed button draped the entire castle and it suddenly appeared that Jules Verne might have taken over and the two of them had gone adrift in a balloon for eighty days.
"My goodness! ... it all looks so spherical and floaty," said Gloria.
"The Taj Mahal West," he said, his smile warm and beaming.
In a burst of passion and gratitude, Gloria flew into his arms, lavishing gently questing kisses all over this face of her errant knight. "Oh darling, how very transitory it all seems, you and I together under glass. Are you quite sure the world will let us do this?"
"Nonsense, my beloved. People have been living in glass houses for centuries; but we shall be the first with nothing to hide."
He took her hand again, guiding her towards an intertwining network of corridors which were shot full of dusk-spray and sea-mist, an effect that was achieved by melting dry ice in the ventilators, he told her. "At the end of these tunnels ties enchantment!" he promised.
They scampered quickly past a bevy of glittering old artsy-craftsy landmarks, like old Gainsborough's and old Rembrandt's and old Van Gogh's and old Ming Vases ... at the end of which journey lay Heathcliffe's master bedroom, an oblong cavern of desire that boasted the most enormous round bed Gloria had ever beheld. She gasped in the doorway, staring appreciatively at the tormenting concoction of slanting eaves and Mongolian fire screens, embellished by the subtlest iridescence of filtered candlelight and moonbeams. The background music, with its infectious strains of jazz-rock folklore, offered an old seventy-eight of Lizzie Miles singing A Good Man Is Hard To Find. The bed was a frosted casserole of ivory, topped by a tufted ermine bedspread, and back dropped by a half-moon headboard ensemble of ferocious red velvet. Gloria stood there, quivering with ecstasy and surprise-for here, at last, was the key to the mystery, after all her dizzy doubting months. She was alone with her wild one now ... the man behind the malady ...
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
She glanced at the bed. "Oooh ... that maybe I'd like to run for cover ...?"
He nodded and they exchanged knowing grins. "Yes, let's!" He took her hand in his and together they took a running leap deep into the ermine and the eiderdown.
"Oh golly, a round bed!" she exclaimed as he busily unraveled her gown. "Who'd ever want to leave a round bed?"
Heathcliffe rose and hurriedly slipped out of his clothes, his eyes heated and intense as she saw them linger fondly about her waiting breasts and belly. When he was all stripped and sprung-out for her once more, he nudged his body gently down against hers, his hands gliding in and up and around to rejoice in the creamy feel of her flesh, the soft plumpness of her breasts as he cupped and kissed them. "Ahh! ... here's that magic I've been missing, in my hands again ... all of it! God, the frenzied infant-fantasy of you, my girl, the lovely lewd innocence and youth of this body that has been like a sponge of joy and honey for so many men ... but still mine alone, no matter how sucked and invaded by others ..." his lips nurturing, cherishing the skin-flavors, "ahh! ... this fire, this touching search for the approval or others ..."
He reached under the bed and pressed a small buzzer. At once a panel slid open in the wall and Gloria was rather startled to see Melville and Brixton appear, both as silent and sturdy as ever. And totally nude, their huge palpitating erections standing at full attention between their sinewy thighs.
"They will watch us, my lovely," he said, "and without moving from their post, they will quietly indulge in auto-erotics while we perform." He slid a nipple in his mouth and nuzzled. "Does their presence excite you?"
"Yes, yes, darling," she had to admit, "as long as you're here too ..."
"Then later," he said as he gently topped her, "you can get to know them more properly ..."
That terrified her, but Gloria decided not to think about it; although she felt it might be a splendid way to overcome her dread fear of the help ... Oooh! ... but now Heathcliffe was above her and entering ... ahhh! ... up and into that sweet moist offering of betrothal, his member glorying in the tugging displacement of girl-flesh ... the wing spread devotion ... as the two burly chauffeurs stared and sprayed out when the lovers did, disappearing behind the panels once more ... as Heathcliffe still held his love and slid down between her legs to wistfully lick at the last warm soupy traces of her commitment to him ...
... while outside the house they could hear the sound of voices. Their followers and members of the media brigade had finally reached their goal, and were pounding to get in for their interviews and tributes. A few were even serenading them, singing old romantic favorites.
"Golly, listen to them out there!" said Gloria. "They want to make Living Legends of us, don't they? And who knows, maybe someday we'll have a chain of Libido Lodges 'round the world, from the Riviera to Apple Valley ... branches along the Nile and the Volga ..."
"We'll have to do it all by telephone, my girl, because you are not budging an inch!" He pressed his lips deeper against that bubbly jewel between her legs and chuckled a little while he sucked there, because she trembled so delightfully ...
Through the keyhole came the high-pitched voice of Kim. "Lady and Master please to open door! SNEAKY Magazine here to photograph love-nest in Super-Vision!"
"Oooh! ..." Gloria writhed and thrashed as Heathcliffe darted his tongue inside of her and flicked it, making of it a worrisome thing, a torment ... "They ... can't get in, can they?" she asked. "I ... I think I'd get embarrassed, right at this particular moment ..."
He gazed up from his joyful task, his mouth radiant with her traces ... "If that threshold is taken by force ..." he snapped his fingers ... "five thousand lethal volts, right up their spines!"
"Mercy! ... I think I'll close my eyes," she said; and then quivered as his mouth scooped in at her again ... succulent, investigative. And as his lips pledged deeper into the softness and jellied heat of her, they both remembered exactly who and what they were, and this new fusing was as all the others had been before-very right and very tonic.
Even when Kim giggled and stood at a safe distance a moment later, and the retinue of SNEAK photographers exploded into the room, their hair on end and their eyes popping as they vibrated electronically on the door sill ... the dual oblivion of Heathcliffe and his Gloria did not waver. They clung to it. For now, at last ... "Ooohhh! ... darling, now ... at ... last!" she cried, legs flailing up, hands reaching down to press his rearing god-like head ever deeper, as one by one the pearls slipped out of her into him, "ahhh! ... unn ... yes! ... now ... at last ...!"
... for now, at last, they could see their future. And all of it was an embrace.
