"Fuckin' bastards!" she muttered, trying to catch her breath.
Isabel Chatham wore a brown, shapeless dress that matched the desert. Only 22 years old, she walked as fast as she could along the dusty dirt road, grateful that the sun had gone down and that it was twilight.
Occasionally, without stopping, she would glance backward, as if in fear of someone or something. And then it came: a black sedan, with a burly man behind the wheel, and another one beside him. The driver, Quentin Wakefield, stared straight ahead, keeping his eye on the road and at the same time looking for the girl.
The other man, Jerome Sapporo, occasionally glanced at the barren fields on either side of the road. Neither man spoke, but both had the same objective-to get the girl.
Isabel wasn't sure whether she heard the roar of the approaching motor or whether she saw the black dot on the horizon. But one thing she did know: that the car was fast catching up to her, and there was little chance of eluding those two men.
Which was when she muttered, "Fuckin' bastards!"
She threw herself in a ditch and lay flat against the dirt, ignoring the possibility of meeting a rattlesnake or a scorpion eye to eye. A lizard scurried past, not even stopping to look at this giant creature, and she said to herself, If that's poisonous, I wish he'd bite me and get it over with.
Isabel held her breath as the sedan raced by at-70 miles an hour, leaving a trail of dust. A minute later, when she pushed herself to her feet and didn't even bother to brush herself off, she started walking in the same direction. There was no sense in retracing her steps, even to elude those two men.
Suddenly, in the distance, she saw the sedan lurch to a stop and make a turn on the narrow road. As it came toward her, Isabel became hysterical and started to run across the desert. It was an hour before darkness, and there was no protection for her.
Once more the car lurched to a stop, and the two men slid out of the front seat and gave chase. As they got nearer and nearer, Isabel cried out in panic, ran harder, stumbled, got to her feet, and ran some more.
She was no match, however, for the men. Wakefield caught her first, grabbing her arm (but not without first stroking his hand across her breast), and with her free hand Isabel struck blindly at him and screamed, "Let me go, you cocksucker, let me go!"
"Shut up before I shove it down your throat!" snapped Wakefield.
"You do, and I'll bite it off!" she warned, and the big man knew she wasn't kidding.
Sapporo was there seconds later, and when he grabbed Isabel's shoulder, she gave a sudden jerk and fell to the ground. Both men pinned her to the desert floor, glaring at each other with silent satisfaction as she finally gave up the straggle.
"Bastards!" she swore. "Why don't you kill me?"
"Got a better idea," Sapporo grunted. In a moment his hard, throbbing penis was in his hand. "Ever see one that big?"
Before Isabel could answer, Sapporo was down on his knees, between her spread legs. In one fell swoop he lifted her skirt and ripped off her panties, and like an expert he guided his penis to the lips of her vagina. They were moist from the desert heat, not from passion, but that was all Sapporo needed to slip his penis inside her.
"Rape!" she snapped. "You'll go to prison for this!"
Sapporo was too busy pushing himself up and down to pay attention to her words. But Wakefield merely grinned and answered, "Who'd believe you?"
Isabel knew that was the truth. Nobody would believe her-especially after her record for prostitution.
"Hurry up, Jerry," coaxed Wakefield. "Christ, she won't help any," Wakefield groaned, sweating profusely as he worked hard on the desert floor.
But at that moment, as if on cue, Isabel rose to the occasion. She wrapped her legs around Sapporo's torso, as if to pull him tighter inside her, and her arms went round his neck and held his face close to hers.
There was a low, guttural sound emanating from Isabel's innards, and Sapporo shot his load just as she came.
"How's that for timing?" he bragged, pushing himself to his feet and turning away from Wakefield.
Isabel's eyes were closed, and she relished the warm feeling inside her. When she opened her eyes, she saw Wakefield prone over her, and she felt his penis entering her.
"Fuck you!" she screamed, pulling back and leaving him hanging there.
"You got it wrong, girlie," Wakefield grinned. "I'm the one who's going to fuck you."
And fuck her he did. It took a little doing, holding her down, but once he got inside her, she was like a wild horse gone tame, and she did everything he wanted.
When it was all over, Isabel stood up, dried herself with her torn panties and threw them away.
"You shouldn't try running away all the time," Sapporo gently chided her.
Isabel was ready to curse him out when she thought better of it.
"Look, fellas-why don'cha pretend like you never found me? Some day our paths will cross, an' I promise, I'll make it up to you."
"Would like to oblige you, Isabel," said Wakefield, "but if we came back empty-handed, we'd lose our jobs."
The two men led her to the car. Wakefield got behind the wheel, and Sapporo sat in the back of the sedan with Isabel. "What the hell you always trying to escape for?" Wakefield asked, then commented, "Nobody ever made it yet."
"This one will," she averred.
"That'll be the day," muttered Wakefield, and he hit 70 miles an hour, although he was in no particular hurry to get back to the Honor Farm for Women.
The other 15 inmates, ranging in age from 18 years to 30, were already in the dormitory of the barracks-like wooden building, when Sapporo turned over Isabel Chatham to Mrs. Preston, the middle-aged matron.
Mrs. Preston, an unusually considerate woman, merely nodded to the deputy. She did not thank him, for it was not in her heart to do so. She did not condemn nor condone Isabel for her escape attempt. Instead, she said to the worn girl, "You must be hungry."
"I'd just as soon starve to death," Isabel blurted out ungraciously.
"Get undressed and get into bed," said Mrs. Preston, "and I'll-"
Before she could finish the sentence, John Munhall walked unannounced into the dormitory accompanied by Wakefield, who had gone to tell him that the girl had been captured, and by Sapporo, who never let an opportunity go by to watch the girls undressing.
Munhall was the stern superintendent of the Farm, as it was called. In his middle-fifties, he was an unbending man, adhering to the letter of the law. In the three years that he was reponsi-ble for the Farm no one had escaped, although there had been no less than nine attempts. With fury in his eyes, but his voice low, he approached Isabel's bed.
"You'll never quit, will you?"
"Not until I'm out of this fuckin' hell-hole" she exclaimed.
"It's an Honor Farm," the superintendent reminded her sharply, at the same time wincing at her choice of words. "You were sent here because-"
"I don't want to hear that bullshit again!" Isabel cried out. "I'm here because your two goons caught me. But next time they're not going to."
"There won't be a next time," said Munhall.
"You wait and see!" she snapped back. "The first chance I get, even if it's tonight, I'm getting the hell out of here, and you or nobody else is going to stop me!"
Munhall turned to Wakefield. "Handcuff her to the bed," he ordered.
Mrs. Preston moved forward. "Do you have to?" she asked.
"The girl leaves me no choice. You heard her."
After Isabel was handcuffed to a metal bar of the bed, she stretched out, her hand over her head, and glanced up at the deputies. "Well, what're you two goons starin' at? You saw it all before!"
Wakefield and Sapporo were enjoying themselves, being in the proximity of all these women of different sizes and ages, who were in the process of undressing when they had come into the dormitory. As a matter-of-fact, some of the women had continued to change from dresses into pajamas as if they were doing a strip-tease, and Sapporo, who never let a cheap thrill get past him, kept a lustful eye on them.
"I want to see you in my office," Munhall said to Mrs. Preston, and when he left the dormitory, the two deputies reluctantly followed him.
"Are you too uncomfortable?" the matron asked Isabel.
Actually, Wakefield had handcuffed only one wrist to the bed post, so that Isabel could lie there in a degree of comfort. To Mrs. Preston's question, however, she muttered, "What's the difference?"
The matron shook her head, then finished the sentence she had begun before the superintendent had come in. "I'll bring you something to eat."
The moment Mrs. Preston left the dormitory, the other inmates began to chatter, like monkeys in a cage.
In one corner, somewhat apart from the others, were four beds occupied by an un-likely quartet. At the moment, like the rest of the women, they were talking about Isabel.
"What's she all the time trying to get away for?" drawled Augustine Rostov, a hard-nosed, sarcastic, 24-year-old prostitute. "Don't she like the country club atmosphere?"
"Must be the company," remarked Nancy Minot, just past 21, a remarkably pretty girl who had been mistress to a millionaire, a man influential throughout the state. Nancy's cross was that the gentleman had refused to use his influence to keep her out of prison because any obvious association with her or interest in her might tend to incriminate him. If she was a bitter girl, she had good reason to be.
"Maybe she was invited to a party," cracked Roselle Parma, and the remark was, in a way, self-chastisement. For Rose was at the Farm for having been a party girl. She had held down a regular job as a model so that she would never be charged with vagrancy, but she earned most of her income on weekends, when she got a hundred dollars a night for being a willing companion.
There they were-Nancy the mistress, Rose the party girl, and Aggy the prostitute-all with a different sense of morality but, when the sham or the glamor of their calling was stripped away, they were three of a kind.
The fourth girl in their little group was Clara Sedan, a quiet redhead who had just reached her 21st birthday. Clara had been imprisoned for petty thievery. Unlike the other women at the Farm, she had refused to discuss her crime. She took no pride in it, and carried a deep resentment in her heart.
"It's too bad," she said softly, "that they caught Isabel again. I wonder what they'll do with her?"
Aggy laughed. "If she knew what to do with them, they wouldn't have brought her back."
Isabel, handcuffed to her bed, thought to herself, Little does she know.
Nan said to Aggy, "You ever give it a whirl with those guys?" And then, before Aggy could answer, she made the reply herself. "I'll bet you did."
"Oh, they're not good enough for you," said Aggy, taking off her brassiere before slipping on the tops of her pajamas. "They gotta have a million bucks before you get in the hay with them." Then, needling Nan, she went on, "For all the good it did you."
"Lay off," said Rose.
Aggy was not one to stop a good argument. She indicated her full round breasts and grinned slyly at Nan. "Hey Nan, if your guy saw these mountains of flesh, instead of your little knockers, you think he'd set me up in a swank apartment and give me charge accounts in all the big stores?"
"The men I know," said Nan, "would rather go to bed with a cow than with a pig."
Aggy threw a shoe at Nan, who ducked. The shoe hit Clara. Instead of apologizing, Aggy was contrite. "Serves you right," she said to Clara, "for being in the way."
When it was time for lights out, Mrs. Preston returned with a sandwich and a glass of milk for Isabel. It was too much to refuse, though Isabel barely muttered her thanks.
"Before I turn out the lights," Mrs. Preston said to the 16 inmates, "I want to talk to you girls."
"Girls," cracked Rose. "We were old women when we were 13 years old, all of us, I bet."
Mrs. Preston gave Rose a reproving glance, then went on: "Mr. Munhall wants it made clear that as long as he is superintendent of the Honor Farm, no one will escape. From my own point of view, I don't see why any of you ever attempt it."
There were several sarcastic remarks, but the matron chose to ignore them. "In the first place, all of you are here on your good behavior. It means a chance for rehabilitation, a year at the most before you return to society. Is it worth the gamble to take a chance to-" Mrs. Preston hesitated, then continued, "to be sent to the Women's Reformatory?"
That meant serving out a full term, with no possibility of a parole. Nevertheless Isabel, having washed down her sandwich with the cold milk, shouted, "Damn right it is!"
Mrs. Preston spoke to everybody, although the words were meant, most of all, for Isabel. "In the second place, how far do any of you think she can get? Ten miles to Tecumcare? Fine, so you get there. Then what? There's no place to hide in Tecumcare, and from that point on, the highways are patrolled by state policemen."
The matron turned out the lights and said, "No, girls. It isn't worth it. The state is giving you a second chance here. Take it. Make the most of it. And when your time is up, put this phase of your life behind you and forget it."
She said goodnight to the inmates, knowing none of them would reply in kind. Then she went out and closed the door.
As she left the barracks, she checked to see that the night guard was on duty. It was Jerry Sapporo, one of the two deputies. He alternated, days and nights, with Wakefield.
Sixteen girls lay in their narrow beds, row after row after row. Sixteen women with but a single thought: I wish to hell I was out of this god-forsaken dump.
CHAPTER TWO
Some time during the early morning hours, when all of the women were asleep, Mrs. Preston came back into the dormintory with Sapporo. They went to Isabel's bed, and the matron gently shook the girl.
"Shhh," she said softly.
Isabel opened her eyes and watched while Sapporo unlocked the handcuffs and removed them from her wrist and the bedpost.
"Come with me," said Mrs. Preston, "and don't make any noise."
The moment they had left the dormitory Aggy, who was a-light sleeper (a habit, no doubt, influenced by her profession), reached to the next bed and awakened Rose. "They just took Isabel."
"Where to?" asked Rose.
"Where do you think?" replied Aggy. She slipped out of bed and peered out the window. That awakened Nan and Clara, the former pushing herself up on her elbows to ask, "what's up?"
"There's a state car outside," said Aggy. "Can't see what is says. Must be the sheriffs office, or maybe the highway patrol."
"You know what that means," said Rose. "They're shipping her to the Reformatory."
"She's a sucker," said Nan. "She knew damn well she couldn't get out of here. Nobody escapes, like Munhall said."
"Well," said Aggy, climbing back into her bed but remaining in a seated position, "there's always a first time. And me, I'm going to be it. You'll see."
"If you figure out a way," said Rose, "count me in. I got too much catching up to do."
"What about you?" Aggy asked Nan.
"Oh sure," said Nan, not for one moment believing that Aggy would take her seriously. "I'm getting tired of the decor of my bedroom, and any change would be for the better."
Aggy spoke in a hosky whisper to Clara, in the fourth bed. "Hey Clara-you're coming with us." It wasn't a request; it was more of an order.
There was no answer. "She's asleep," said Rose.
"Hell she is," snapped Aggy, who knew better.
But Clara did not stir, despite the fact that the talking had awakened her, and she lay there in silence, her eyes closed.
"Leave her alone," said Rose, "she's only a kid."
Aggy let out a soft, sarcastic chuckle. "Clara a kid? Didn't you ever see her in the showers? Her tits are almost as big as mine."
"Is that all you ever talk about?" snapped Nan. "Every girl has breasts."
"You got marbles, compared to some of them around here," claimed Aggy.
"Where I come from," said Nan, "it's quality that counts, not quantity."
That was the last word. In a hair-pulling contest, Aggy usually won. In a word contest, Nan was always the victor. Rose was the go-between, the keeper of the peace. "That's enough, you two. Goodnight."
Clara was grateful for the resulting silence. But not for the long, dreary hours before dawn. They were the worst hours of all, when the inmates, if awake, stirred restlessly in their beds. They were the idle hours,'when the girls had nothing to do but think. And remember.
Clara remembered how her parents were killed in an automobile accident when she was 14 years old. She moved in with her mother's sister, a widow who had a 16-year-old son of her own. At first Jack never made a pass at his cousin, and Clara was grateful for that, because Jack had a reputation in town for being a fast one with the girls.
But one night when Clara was 15, there was a thunderstorm. Frightened at the noise and the lightning, Clara ran to her aunt's room for solace, but her aunt always kept her bedroom door locked. Not kowing where to go in her fright, Clara ran into Jack's room and slipped under the covers beside him.
Now Jack was not one to pass up an opportunity. He knew Clara was a virgin, and if he took her cherry and his mother found out, there would be hell to pay. But there was nothing wrong in an anatomy lesson, and a little pretending.
Jack held Clara close to him, and he could feel her heart beating loudly. His blood pounded against his head as her small, firm, round breasts pressed up against him; and when the thunder struck again, Clara unwittingly pressed her stomach against his, and through the nightgown his penis felt the touch of her pubic hair.
Jack took Clara's hand and placed his penis in it. "Do you know what that is?" he asked.
"I-I never really saw one," Clara admitted.
Jack reached for a flashlight that he kept by his bedside and turned it on, a beam of light shining on his erection under the covers. Clara, holding onto it, peered at it.
"It's hard," said Clara. "Does it stay like this all the time?" she asked innocently.
"Wish it did," laughed, Jack. He turned off the flashlight, then gently lifted her night-grown. He just pressed his penis flat against her body, its head stroking her pubic hair. "Like that?"
Clara's answer was noncommittal. She had forgotten about the thunderstorm, and she gave a little moan, as if it were approval. Taking it for that, Jack gently rubbed his forefinger on the outer lips of her vagina. But there was no getting inside.
"Tight," he remarked.
"I'm scared," she told him.
"And a virgin, aren't you?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, don't worry, I'm not going to lay you."
Clara received that information with mixed emotions. Other schoolgirls had been laid and told her about it, and she wouldn't have minded. On the other hand, there were dangers-and there was no sense in pressing her luck.
"There're other ways," said Jack.
"Like what?" she asked.
"Take off your nightgown."
Clara complied, and Jack took off his pajamas. They kissed gently at first, then he pressed his lips hard against hers, and he forced his tongue into her mouth. Clara responded to that, and returned the compliment.
Jack's head moved slowly down her body, kissing her neck and then each breast, the tiny nipples becoming hard with excitement. Jack proceeded to tongue her body all the way down to her pubic hair, and finally his tongue touched her thighs.
Clara opened her legs. The tip of Jack's tongue touched the tip of her clitoris, and she cried out softly in ecstasy.
"Shhh," he warned her, and then he slid on top of her. Instead of thrusting his penis inside her, her merely placed it between her legs, against the vagina. "Now press your legs together," he whispered, and she did.
Jack had only to move up and down a couple of times before, in the heat of passion, he ejaculated.
"I won't get a baby?" asked Clara.
"Naaa, it's all on the sheet," he assured her.
The rainstorm had ended, and the thunder was silenced. Clara went back to her own room, still a virgin, but nevertheless thrilled at what little pleasure had taken place.
When she graduated from high school, Clara went to work in the local department store, and a year later she was promoted to cashier. Cousin Jack, meanwhile, worked at a bakery. His wages went to pay for his mother's illness; Clara's went for household expenses.
Strangely enough, Jack only played a game of cat-and-mouse with Clara, never quite going all the way. But it was enough to satisfy her, bettter than masturbating, and she did not ask for more.
Then the time came when Jack, having been careless with another girl, got her in trouble and needed money badly. He confided to Clara, and said his life would be ruined if he did not get the girl $50 that would pay for an abortion. He promised to pay it back a week from Saturday, when he got his salary from the bakery.
It was against Clara's better judgment, but she knew the accountant would not check up on the cash until the first of the month. So she took the $50 out of the safe and gave it to her cousin, once more getting his reassurance-and a little feel to boot-that he would repay her in time.
Jack's girl friend had her abortion and died the following morning from blood poisoning.
Frantic, Jack left town, and Clara was left holding the bag.
Nobody believed her story. Or, if they did, they didn't care. The point was, the trusted cashier stole $50 from the department store safe, and she was tried, convicted and sentenced to the Honor Farm, for this was her first offense and she was not an habitual criminal.
Nevertheless, the scandal was too much for her aunt, and the poor woman, already suffering from a weak heart, passed away. With Jack gone too, Clara was all alone in the world.
All alone, except for 16 roommates who had come from various backgrounds for having committed assorted crimes.
Nan heard the motor of the car outside start up, and that brought to mind her own car. It was a high-powered red convertible, given to her by Sam, her gentleman friend, when she agreed to move into the apartment that he had furnished for her.
At the time, Nan was a college student. It was at a football game, where she was leading the cheering section, that Sam took a fancy to her. Long thin legs, boobies that bounced beautifully and bountifully underneath that sweater. So Sam arranged to meet her, to shower her with small gifts, to make her yearn for the so-called better things in life.
"Why do you want to waste away the best years of your life studying?" Sam had asked her. "To become a schoolteacher, and make five, six thousand dollars a year? Hell, Nan," he said, "I'll spend that much just on clothes for you. Don't you want to be all prettied up?"
Nan was torn between the material things and her better judgment. Her good sense told her to stay in college, that her whole life lay in front of her. Beside, there was Denis Tiffin. He was president of the student council, captain of the football team, and the idol of all the girls on the campus. The girl he loved, and pinned, however, was Nan Minot.
The only flaw in their relationship was that Denis, being healthy and virile, needed an outlet, and he talked Nan into giving herself to him. "It won't make any difference," he had convinced her, "because sooner or later we're going to get married."
She thought of that spring night when they both slipped out of the campus library, where they were supposed to be studying, and met behind the hedge. Usually it was just for a cigarette and a kiss. But this night it was special. It was Denis's birthday.
"I wish I had a present for you," she said, kissing him warmly.
"There is something you can give me," he told her.
"What's that?" she asked innocently.
"You." Then, without waiting for her answer, he took her in his arms and pressed his lips against hers. Her mouth opened, and his tongue found hers. When he felt her resistance lowering, he pulled her to the grass, and his hands slipped under her sweater, unfastening her brassiere.
As he massaged the full, firm breasts that protruded, Nan whispered, "Denis, not here. Somebody might come along."
"Nobody will see us," he assured her, and he kissed the nipples that pointed at him, his tongue slipped over the nubs of the nipples and made them stand erect, so that she moaned with the pleasure of it.
Then his hand lifted her skirt, and although she resisted briefly, she let him pull off her panties. It was the first time that he saw that sweet rounded hillock of flesh between her legs and, to make sure she would not come out of the passionate spell, he leaned down and his tongue found the tip of her clitoris.
"My God!" she moaned, and he continued to move his tongue gently along the lips of her vagina as he managed to undress himself.
Now his lips traced tiny designs in the sweet-scented bush above the love nest, up her belly, to the firm breasts. First one nipple, then the other, and as she moaned some more, his lips met hers and his tongue entered her mouth. She responded in like manner, unaware at first that he had slid on top of her.
But getting his penis inside her was another matter. Penis met membrane, and there was resistance.
Nan cried out a little. "What's the matter, Denis?"
"Either my prick is too big," he sighed, "or your cunt is too small."
But he soon remedied that by salivating her juices with his finger. When her pussy was well lubricated, he slipped his throbbing penis between the lips, gave a gentle shove, and when she cried out once more he knew the cherry was gone.
Slowly, at first, he pushed up and down, at the same time kissing and fondling her breasts.
Nan just lay there like a dead fish, not knowing how to cooperate. Perhaps dead was not the word for it, because every nerve of her body was out.
Suddenly, then, Denis whispered hoarsely, "Move your ass!"
Nan complied. It was like second nature. She undulated, twisted and turn, then wrapped her long, lean legs around his torso.
"Baby, this is it!" he exclaimed, and as he moaned, she groaned with ecstasy, and they both came at once.
When I was all over, her first thoughts were, "What if I have a baby?"
"You don't have to worry about that," he told her. "I used protection. Look here."
Denis showed her the rubber over his shriveling penis. He pulled it off, extended it to her. "Smell it," he said.
She took a whiff of it.
"That's love juice," he explained, and he thought, before long I'll have her swallowing that, and she'll love every drop.
And because Denis had broken her in, Nan did not find it difficult to give herself to Sam, for he had given her some lovely gifts and promised her even more. The material things eventually outweighed her better judgment, and she left college to live in an apartment that Sam had rented and furnished just for her.
Being a public figure, Sam was a careful man, and even when he bought the convertible for her, he paid cash, so that it could never be traced to him. Which, it turned out, was a smart move.
Because one night, driving at 80 miles an hour, Nan was not able to swerve in time to avoid crashing into a farmer in a pickup truck. Unfortunately the man died, and Nan was charged with manslaughter.
Sam sent an attorney to her who informed Nan that it would be best, for all concerned, if she would plead guilty and serve the year at the Honor Farm. By "all concerned," Nan understood, Sam meant that if he tried to pull strings, one of his political enemies might uncover their relationship.
So Nan, feeling abandoned by the man for whom she had given up both her college education and her steady boyfriend, went to the Honor Farm an embittered, disillusioned young woman. She swore to herself, and she meant it, that she would never have anything more to do with a man for the rest of her life.
Roselle Parma, on the other hand, liked men, and tonight, as she lay on her bed, she wished that someone of the opposite sex were beside her.
She had had a good job in the big city, modeling clothes. The only difficulty was that, with her 65-dollar-a-week take-home pay, it didn't leave much for her to buy the nice things that she modeled for others. And she felt she had as much right to them as they did.
She needed no coaxing, then, when the buyer of the store suggested she might find it worthwhile to spend the weekend at his ranch with some friends. The friends were out-of-town gents who did business with the buyer.
As it turned out, they also did business with Rose. She averaged a hundred dollars for a Saturday night gig, and $150 for the two days and nights of a weekend.
Rose was an expert at fellatio. Nothing gave her as much pleasure as taking a man's erection in her hand and guiding it into her mouth. The bigger the prick, the better she liked it. She drove men crazy the way her tongue licked the underside of their pricks, then as she took the balls, one at a time, into her mouth. When the whole prick was in her mouth, her tongue worked miracles on the organs. No man ever thought of fucking her, this was so good; and no man could possibly stop, once she got started.
The hot semen was sweet juice to her, and not only did she swallow every drop, but even when the man was through, she continued to suck until every last drop eked out.
This was something Rose would pay for if she had to or if she had the money; but she was getting paid for it, and paid well. What's more, the money was tax-free.
All was perfect, as far as Rose was concerned. Not as far as an older model who had been shunted aside for Rose was concerned, though. She anonymously informed the state police of a weekend party at the ranch, and after the raid that followed, Rose wound up at the Honor Farm.
It didn't bother her too much, once she got over the initial shame. She knew, from experience, that she had two attributes: she was a good model, and she was a better cocksucker. Somehow, when she finished serving her sentence, she would get to New York, where she would be lost in the crowds, and then she would let nature take its course. She really had nothing to worry about, and she was aware of it.
Not so with Aggy Rostov. For Aggy was an ordinary whore, who had spent seven years working in houses throughout the midwest. She had become part of a syndicate, and after a month or two in one city, she was moved to another.
The price varied according to the location. In the farm belt, where things were bad, the price was five dollars a fuck. In the cities, where manufacturing was at an all-time high, the price was ten dollars. Aggy was allowed to keep half of what she earned.
And she earned it, taking on all comers: young kids just breaking in, old timers too spent to make the grade, alcoholics who couldn't get a hard-on, and dope fiends. For all of them, however, she had only one question: Where s the money, dearie?
And for all of them, though she felt nothing, she put on a good act. She rarely had an orgasm, but the way she moaned, she made the man feel like he had conquered the world. That was part of the game.
It dawned on Aggy that if she went in business for herself, she could keep all the money. So she left the syndicate and set up shop in an apartment. But she didn't know the angles, like the art of paying for protection from the law, and the syndicate saw to it that she was picked up for pandering.
Where would she go from here? Aggy didn't know, didn't care. Wherever the syndicate would send her. That is, if they'd take her back. That's what bothered her.
CHAPTER THREE
The Honor Farm was more than a facility for rehabilitation. Ordinarily it would not pay to have a superintendent, a matron and two deputies, who alternated as day and night guards, to watch over 16 young women.
These girls, however, worked. Not only for their own room and board, but to help sustain the Women's Reformatory by raising vegetables and farm products for that institution.
This morning, as they did all mornings except Sunday, the women were in the field, tending to the various patches. There were other farm chores, too, and the inmates took turns at these.
The heavy work was taken care of by a resident farmer and his assistant. They usually milked the cows, too, although once in a while an inmate who had been raised on a farm knew how to handle this and was given the assignment.
All the girls were dispirited about Isabel having been removed to the Women's Reformatory. It was not that any of them cared one little bit for this unfortunate girl; it was merely the thought that if one of them should attempt to escape, the same thing would happen to her.
"It's not worth it," grumbled Rose.
"Hell it isn't," said Aggy. "All it takes is brains and guts."
"Well," cracked Nan, "you got the guts."
"Very funny," said Aggy. Then, as Nan examined her broken fingernails, Aggy added, "What's the matter, Miss Minot-didn't your manicurist show up this morning?"
"You should talk," shrugged Nan. "I'll bet the only place you ever had your hair done was at a barber's college."
Before Aggy could hit Nan with a rake, Rose warned them, "Hop to it, you two. Here comes the law."
All the girls pretended to work hard as Mrs. Preston approached across the field. "Nan," she said, "it was Isabel's turn this week to work in the laundry. I'm afraid you'll have to take over."
"Yes ma'am," said Nan, noticing the grin of delight on Aggy's face.
"Everything all right, girls?" asked Mrs. Preston.
"You know what I read once, Mrs. Preston?" countered Rose.
"What's that, Rose?"
"Some folks go to farms during the summer. What I mean is-they actually pay to get out on the field and do this kind of work. Talk about nuts!"
"It's not so nutty," said Mrs. Preston. "The combination of physical work and fresh air is a good one. At day's end, after a hearty meal, a person is ready for a long night's sleep. You'd be surprised how it rebuilds the body."
"That's one thing l don't need," remarked Aggy. "To rebuild this body of mine." She inhaled deeply, so that her breasts stood out.
Mrs. Preston chose to ignore both Aggy and her wisecrack. She spoke seriously to Rose. "It may be old hat, Rose, but nevertheless there's a lot of truth in the saying that the devil finds work for idle hands."
"Well," laughed Rose, "the way we're watched, the devil won't even get a foothold at this Farm."
Mrs. Preston smiled and walked away. "What's her angle?" asked Aggy as the matron joined another group of girls some distance across the field.
Clara, who had been silent all this time, couldn't help saying, "Does everybody have to have an angle?"
"You tell me," said Aggy.
Clara cleared her throat, as if to throttle the anger that was choking her words. "She happens to be a nice person, that's all. As long as I've been here, she has gone out of her way for the girls. Just because she works around people like us...." Clara let the words trail off.
Aggy indicated Wakefield, the deputy on day-guard duty, who was standing not too far away. "I suppose he's okay in your book, too?"
"I didn't say that," Clara replied.
"What're you trying to confuse her for?" snapped Nan. "Clara was talking about Mrs. Preston, not Wakefield. That's like saying-"
"That we're all whores," broke in Aggy. "You and Rose, you got paid for it just like I did, and you're no better than I am."
"Why, you two-bit-" and again, before Nan could finish, Aggy was at her. This time Aggy slapped Nan across the face and grabbed her hair, successfully knocking the rake out of her adversary's hand.
In retaliation, Nan kicked Aggy in the shin, forcing Aggy to let go of her hair. The next instant, however, saw both Nan and Aggy grab each other's hair and pull it hard.
"Break it up, you two!" said Rose.
But Rose's words went unheeded as the two women fought and knocked each other to the ground. The noise attracted Wakefield, who ran over and pulled apart Nan and Aggy.
In doing so, Wakefield grabbed hold of Nan around the waist and yanked her to her feet. He pulled her tightly against him, and let his hands slip upward to clamp over her breasts. Nan elbowed him, freeing herself and yelling, "Get your dirty paws off me!"
Mrs. Preston was back on the scene by this time, warning both girls that they would be confined to the dormitory if they continued to act like children.
Meanwhile Wakefield was grinning lasciviously, having received his kicks from Nan. She eyed him grimly, had a notion to kick him in the groin, then thought better of it. It would be too difficult to convince Mr. Munhall, the superintendent, that his deputy was some kind of pervert.
Before the kettle of emotions boiled over, there was the loud honking of an automobile horn. Everybody turned to watch the jeep turn off the dirt road onto the terrain that led to the nearby farmhouse.
"Wow, look at him!" exclaimed Rose.
She was referring not to Louis Niles, the elderly, very efficient farmer; but to his new assistant, whom he had driven up from the bus stop in Tecumcare.
Nan turned white and in the next instant the blood rushed to her face. For the farmer's helper, to her dismay, was none other than Dennis Tiffin, her former college sweetheart, the one whom she had abandoned for Sam, her millionaire gentleman friend.
Denis lifted the suitcase out of the jeep and paid no particular attention to all the women who were staring at him from the field.
"Well, this is your new home," said Niles. "Hope you like it."
"I'll like it fine," said Denis, and he followed the farmer into their frame living quarters.
"Pretty soon," said Aggy, "we'll have enough men here to go around-one for each of us."
Nan, glaring at Wakefield, said, "You call him a man?"
"That's enough. Both of you," said Mrs. Preston. "Now, back to work. And Nan, don't forget-the laundry."
When the matron and guard walked away, Nan turned to Clara. "Honey child," she said sweetly, "how would you like to make ten dollars?"
"I'd like it," said Clara, "but how?"
"By taking my turn in the laundry."
"No thanks," said Clara. "I'll wait for my own."
Aggy said to Nan, "As long as you're handing out money, what about the sawbuck you owe me?"
"You'll get it."
Aggy decided to needle Nan some more. "Sure, I'll get it. The point is-where will you get it?"
"Don't worry. I'll get the money I owe you, and plenty more."
"Your bank closed, sister. Only you don't know it," Aggy kept hammering away.
"I know the combination to the safe," said Nan, losing her temper and raising her voice.
"You're talkin' loud enough for me to hear," said Aggy with a wry chuckle, "but not loud enough for your boyfriend. And I use the word loosely."
Rose stepped between them before there were any more fireworks. "Listen, you two. If you keep on fighting, what chance will any of us have of breaking out of here? They'll keep watching us day and night."
That hit home with Aggy. She did not want to jeopardize her chances, however slim, of escaping from the Honor Farm. And Nan, who had not cared one way or the other about escaping or serving out her sentence, now felt, because of Denis coming here as a farmhand, that she just had to get away.
"I'll see you-all later," muttered Nan, and she walked slowly across the field toward the Administration Building. This was the only two-story building on the farm. Mr. Munhall had his office on the first floor. The rest of the space was given over to the kitchen, which was entirely staffed by the inmates on weekly shifts, and the huge area that served both as dining room and recreation hall for the women.
Upstairs were the bedrooms of Wakefield and Sapporo, as well as the suite of rooms set aside for Munhall. Mrs. Preston had a small apartment in one corner of the dormitory building.
In the basement of the Administration Building was the laundry room. This was Nan's destination, and if she went there with reticence, she had good reason. The most difficult chore on the Farm was washing the laundry, mostly because there were no modern appliances.
Nan had to wash all the sheets and towels by hand, then carry them to the rear of the building and hang them on a clothes-line to dry. Not that she had to do all of it in one afternoon, of course.
The work was spread out over an entire week, and it included not only the flat wear, but the women's prison dresses as well, which had to be ironed individually. (The girls washed their own underwear and hung it to dry in the community shower room.)
Nan went to work with a vengeance. She scrubbed and she scrubbed, as if to wash all thoughts of the past out of her mind. It wasn't the pile of dirty towels that bothered her; it was the proximity of Denis Tiffin.
She was certain that his coming to the Honor Farm was no coincidence. After all, Denis was a college graduate and a super athlete who could get a good position as teacher and coach at practically any high school. His coming here meant that he wanted to be near her, and though that should have gladdened her heart, it made her furious instead.
She bent over the tub, scrubbing for all she was worth, and she did not hear someone come down the basement steps and move up behind her. The moment she felt a slight pressure against her, she was sure it was a man. And she was sure that the man was Denis Tiffin.
She whirled in anger to face him, and realized at once that she had made a mistake. It wasn't Denis at all. It was Wakefield.
Taken by surprise, she blurted out, "Oh, I thought you were-." But she caught herself and bit off the words.
Wakefield grinned, and even in the reflection of the naked light bulb she could see the evil in his eyes. "Who'd you think I was-Mr. Munhall?"
Nan tried not to show her relief. If that's what he wanted to think, well and good. Just so he didn't connect her with the new farmhand.
"What do you want?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
"You know what I want," he sneered.
"There are fifteen other women around here. And Mrs. Preston makes sixteen. So why pick on me?"
"You got class," he said, and he reached out for her.
"I also got a loud voice," she warned him. "You just touch me, that's all, and I'll scream bloody murder."
"You tramps," he swore under his breath, "you're all alike. What do you want-money?"
"You'll never make enough in your whole life to pay for the likes of me," she told him.
Suddenly his anger dissolved to amusement. He stepped back, to indicate that he was not going to try to touch her, and he smiled. "You got a long time to go," he said quietly. "Some day you'll want a favor. Then you'll come to me.
"Don't hold your breath," she snapped.
"No need to," he spoke with confidence. "It's happened before. It'll happen again."
And when he left her alone in the basement, Nan, torn by fury, frustration, and self-pity, wept bitterly.
CHAPTER FOUR
Denis Tiffin sat on the porch of the farmhouse with his new boss, Louis Niles. The elderly farmer, smoking a pipe, said to Denis, "You must be tired, riding on the bus all day."
"Muscles are a little stiff. That's all," said Denis.
"Why don't you turn in, then? Good night's sleep never hurt nobody."
Denis glanced at his wristwatch. "Man, it's only half-past eight."
Niles smiled to himself. "My regular bedtime is nine or so."
"Nine o'clock!" exclaimed Denis. "I'm just beginning to wake up about then."
"We wake up at five in the morning round here," chuckled the farmer. "I'm afraid you'll have to change your habits."
"Guess so," agreed Denis good-naturedly. He got to this feet and stretched. "Think I'll take me for a long walk and work out the crinks in my muscles."
"Might be good for you at that," allowed Niles.
"Want to come along?" asked the younger man.
Niles broke into soft laughter. "Me walk for the fun of it? Son, I walk so many miles doing my chores each day, when it comes night-time, my feet argue about carryin' me as far as my bed."
Denis stepped off the porch. "By the way, are there any limits? What I mean is-any place I'm not allowed to go?"
"No. Ain't no laws for us. Only thing is," the farmer told him, "You're not allowed in that barracks building down there. It's the women's dormitory."
"Thanks," said Denis. "I'll remember that." He turned around and added, "If you're asleep when I get back, I'll see you in the morning."
"You sure will," said Niles, and Denis could not see the twinkle in his eyes, " 'cause I'll be shakin' you before the cock crows. Take it easy, son."
"Right you are."
Denis went to the barn first, as that was near the farmhouse, and gave it the once-over. He remembered his early childhood on a farm, before he was ten years old, and he hoped he could recapture some of the knowledge and experience that had been instinctive with him.
Then he strolled down a path that inevitably led him toward the barracks. Denis was unaware that a man was nearby in the shadows of the buildings, so preoccupied that he did not hear the young farmer approaching.
The man was Jerome Sapporo, the deputy who was on night guard duty. At the moment, his duty consisted of peeping into the dormitory. In order to do so, he had arranged a neat pile of logs on the ground, and he stood on these so that he could look into the window.
All of a sudden Sapporo heard someone say, "Good evening," and he almost fell off the logs. He stepped gingerly to the ground and, in order to hide his embarrassment, tried taking command of the situation.
Throwing a beam from his flashlight on Denis, the night guard demanded to know, "Who are you? And what are you doing here?"
"I'm the new ranch hand. Denis Tiffin." Then, barely able to hide his amusement, Denis drawled, "By the way, what are you doing here?"
Sapporo blustered, "What's it look like?" And he answered his own question when he added, "I'm the night guard. Just checking up."
"Nice work if you can get it," said Denis, and before Sapporo could make any more excuses, the farmhand ambled away.
Sapporo, speaking under his breath, said, "The lousy sneak!" But of course he meant Denis, not himself.
Having made sure that the farmhand was out of sight, Sapporo resumed his former position on the logs, assuming that no one could see him.
But someone was watching him. It was Aggy, who knew where to look and at what angle, from previous experience. She laughed, and said to her own group of girls, "Old Jerry's at it again."
Clara quickly turned her back to the window, though she still had on her brassiere, and managed to change into her pajamas without giving the night guard a free show.
Nan was sitting on her own bed, watching the other girls get undressed. She took especial interest in observing the various sizes of women's bosoms, and she often wondered that while she thought some of the breasts were outsized and repulsive, why was it that they always seemed so attractive to men? Withdrawn, she didn't give Jerry Sapporo a second thought; all she cared about was that he, and the other guard, Wakefield, would leave her alone.
Not so with Rose. "If there's one thing I don't like," she announced, but there was laughter in her eyes and in her voice, "it's a Peeping Tom!"
"A Peeping Jerry, you mean," grinned Aggy.
"I'll fix him," said Rose, and in a matter of seconds she ripped off all her clothes-her dress, her brassiere and her panties-and stood there stark naked.
Outside, Sapporo emitted a soft moan as he watched the former model and party girl flaunt her nakedness in front of him. He had no idea that she was exercising, and facing him, for his benefit. Well, not exactly for his benefit, but just to work him up and then cut him off without any satisfaction. Rose knew what that would do to a man.
She stood up straight, shoulders back, and her breasts pointed directly toward the guard on the other side of the window. As if to stir up circulation, she rubbed one arm, one shoulder, then one breast, until the nipple stood out eagerly. Then she repeated the performance with the opposite arm, shoulder and breast.
After that came the exercises. Holding her stomach in tightly, she displayed a beautiful set of limbs. She raised her hands overhead, brought them to her shoulders, then extended them to her sides, and back to her shoulders again. Repeating this several times, it made her breasts bounce, and once more-though she did not know it-the night guard almost fell off the logs.
Finally Rose turned her back to the window and bent over, touching her toes with the tips of her fingers. Sapporo's saliva ran out of his mouth as he saw those bounteous buttocks and, as Rose parted her feet, the rear view of the hairy nest that nestled between her thighs. The night guard zipped open his pants and out jumped his prick, throbbing like a steam engine climbing a hill.
Sapporo watched Rose, at the same time pulling viciously on his penis until the wads of hot cream spilled against the wall of the building. "Some day," he muttered, putting the spent cock back in its place, "I'm going to shove my prick right up her ass."
Then he moved away from the barracks and started on his tour of duty, checking the various buildings.
Sapporo was not the only one, however, who had been staring at Rose. Nan Minot remained immobile on her bed, watching the display of feminine pulchritude. The tits that bounced like tennis balls all over the dormitory room, the big asses and the small ones, the forests of pubic hairs and the combed bushes.
Then a great change came over Nan. In her sudden hate for men, since the moment that her gentleman friend had virtually thrown her to the wolves, she took an abnormal delight in women. Not that she ever had anything to do with another girl.
Not yet, anyway. But the desire, the urge, was there. And the imagination.
Nan thought of how wonderful it would be to have cute littla Clara naked in bed with her. They would kiss gently at first, and their tongues would leap into each other's mouths. Then they would take turns running the tips of their tongues over each other's body: the neck, the shoulders, the full breasts until the nubs of the nipples were firm and erect, the belly, the triangle of hair that warned of the lovely danger that was below, and finally the sensuous lips of the vagina.
As she thought about it, Nan's own pussy became wet with desire. She couldn't wait until lights were out, for then she could finger herself, get heavenly, blissful release, and sleep the dread night through.
Mrs. Preston came into the dormitory and said, "Two minutes, girls. Then lights out!"
Everyone hurried to get into pajamas and into bed. If any of the girls were late-not only for getting to bed, but also for reporting to the dining room or for work-she would receive demerits, and those marks took away from the few privileges the inmates were allowed.
"Goodnight, girls," said Mrs. Preston, as she turned off the lights.
There were a handful of goodnights from some of the women. Most of them, perversely, refused to say goodnight to the matron, although she was the only one who always took their sides.
Going down the narrow hallway to her own rooms, Mrs. Preston struck a match, rather than turn on the light switch, and lit a candle. As the flame flickered, it threw a pattern of light over a small framed painting of a young woman.
It was a painting made from a photograph. The young woman was only 20 years old. She would never reach twenty-one. For she was dead. And this candle, flickering brightly in the darkness, was an altar where, every night, Mrs. Preston sat and prayed for her daughter.
Each night, as she performed this routine, Mrs. Preston couldn't help but remember the chain of events that led to the tragedy of Sally's death. She forced herself to remember, because she blamed herself for what happened, and this was her way of making penance.
The Prestons were an average-income family, Mr. Preston being an accountant. Dealing with figures, he was a great believer in insurance-and when he was stricken with a fatal heart attack when he was only 42 years old, he left his widow with 13-year-old Sally and more than a hundred thousand dollars in cash.
Wanting the best for Sally, Mrs. Preston moved from Kansas to New York City. That meant meeting the right kind of people, even for a young teenager. It meant a private school, ballet lessons, and on Saturdays a full day at the riding academy, where Sally became proficient as a horsewoman.
She also became proficient as a teenage lay. Riding horseback always gave her pussy a warm feeling, and there was never any difficulty finding a willing mate in the stables, sometimes one of the help most of the time one of the male riders, usually a teenager also.
Sally had, at first glimpse, a delicate body: breasts like rosebuds, narrow firm belly, strands of golden hair in the pubic area. Her legs were thin, not too long, and apparently had little strength. But the horseback riding strengthened them, let alone the ballet lessons, and lucky was the man or boy who found himself on top of Sally and inside her.
For the looks belied the power, and she wrapped her legs around her partner and held him close to her, always whispering passionately, "Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me!" She got her kicks out of those two words, and let out a little scream when she came.
Not until she went to finishing school did she take it in the mouth. Her classmates taught her the finesse of sucking cocks, and at that she became one of the best.
Little did Mrs. Preston know what her daughter learned at finishing school. She had raised Sally to be a lady, with the idea that the lady would snare herself a wealthy young man.
"It's just as easy," Mrs. Preston advised Sally, "to love a rich man as a poor man."
"Easier," laughed Sally, and it amused her to think of what her mother would say if she told her how many men she had snared since they left Kansas.
Sally was either lucky or careful, or perhaps both. Until that one romance when she was all of 20. He was an intern in a local hospital, and his cock was as big as he was bright.
Sally loved it, every inch of it, length and breadth. It wasn't the longest one she had ever had inside her, but certainly the widest, and it was her favorite.
So much so, that she usually had three or four orgasms, which was unusual for her, when she went out with the intern. Unfortunately one of these lays resulted in a pregnancy.
Now it would have been simple for Sally to tell the intern and for the intern to arrange an abortion. But no, she told her mother instead.
Mrs. Preston agreed that Sally must have an abortion but, for the first time in her life when it came to her daughter-perhaps because she was so overwrought-she tried to save money. Or maybe it wasn't that she tried to save money, but that she was too embarrassed to go to the right places for information.
At any rate, Mrs. Preston found a quack nurse who agreed to abort Sally's unborn baby for seventy-five dollars. That should have been warning enough.
The nurse came to the Preston apartment, and Mrs. Preston made sure she washed thoroughly. But evidently one of her instruments was not sterilized, :because less than two days later Sally Preston lay dead of blood poisoning.
That was why Mrs. Preston lost herself on the desert, at an Honor Farm for first offenders. She thought, to make it up to her dead daughter, she would devote herself to other young women who had made a mistake, and she would try to comfort them or help them straighten out their lives.
A pure and simple case of self-punishment, though she thought it was penance.
CHAPTER FIVE
In the morning, after a hearty breakfast, Denis went to the barn where he busied himself repairing a harness. Niles, the elderly farmer, was driving the tractor across an uncultivated patch of land which was going to be planted.
Nan, carrying a basket, strode across the field toward the barn to pick up the daily supply of eggs. She was startled to find herself confronted by, and alone with, Denis.
She ignored his wide grin and asked sharply, "What are you doing here?"
"Fixing this harness," he said laconically.
"I don't mean now, at this instant," she snapped. "Here, at the Farm. Why did you come here?"
Denis put down his tools and stepped closer to her. "I thought that was pretty obvious, Nan. But if you must know in so many words, after what I read in the paper, I thought you needed a friend. And here I am."
"Nobody sent for you," she reminded him.
"Honey," he said softly, "you're not talking to some stranger. This is me, Denis. Denis Tiffin. The guy who loved you at college. The same guy who gave you his fraternity pin."
"I gave it back," she said quickly.
"It's not too late to pick up where we left off," he told her.
"Where?" she said bitterly. "Behind the library?"
That brought a flush to Denis's cheeks. She had brought to mind, bluntly, that first night when he had seduced her. More than that, he remembered the first time he made her kiss his prick.
It was about their sixth love-match, and Nan had gotten to love it even more than Denis, if that was possible. Each time they met behind the library, the moment she kissed him she darted her tongue into his mouth, simultaneously feeling for the mountain of muscle between his legs.
Even before he had a chance to undress, Nan zipped open his pants and let his penis jump out. Then, as he ripped off his shirt and slid out of his trousers, she'd fondle his big prick and express her emotion with adjectives filled with excitement.
She never let go, even as Denis undid her bra and pulled off her panties. It was spring now, the weather was warm, and they always got naked together.
Nan played with his protruding dick every moment he kissed her, ran his lips over her breasts and made her nipples erect, let his tongue touch the skin of her belly and work its way through her scented pubic hair, finally finding its way to the lips of her vagina.
"Put it in," she begged him.
"Not now," he told her.
Instead, he put his fingers inside her cunt, worked them slowly at first, then faster, until she arched her back and came.
Even then, Denis did not stop. He left his fingers inside the honeypot, the juice running over his hand, and worked gently until every nerve in her body tingled again.
"Please, Denis, fuck me!"
"First give me a kiss."
She got up on her elbows, as if to kiss him on the lips.
"Not on the mouth," he said. "On my big fat cock."
"Denis-I can't!"
"I kissed yours," he said.
"That's different," she argued.
"Okay," he said, suddenly contrite, "no kiss, no fuck."
"Ohhhh...." it was a murmur of disappointment. Then, "All right, I'll kiss it."
She finally let go of his prick and gently touched her lips to its head. Strangely, it excited her, and next time she kissed it with a passion.
"Now lick it," Denis ordered.
Without any argument this time, Nan scraped the underside of his penis with her tongue, then the upper side, then the balls. After that, when she least expected it, Denis shoved his whole prick into her mouth.
"Suck it, baby, suck it!"
She sucked, and he finger-fucked her. They both came at once. Nan was taken by surprise, and the love juice, squirting against the roof of her mouth and the back of her throat, gagged her. She pulled away, spit it out, retched.
"What the devil did you do that for?" she snapped.
"You were so good," he told her, "I couldn't control myself." Then, after a pause, he assured her, "Before long you'll want to swallow every drop."
"Not me," she said defiantly. "We'll see."
Nan was satisfied with her two orgasms, Denis with his one, and he did not lay her that night. But not more than a week passed by before she sucked every last drop out of his delightful cock. Then, as a reward, he would get it hard again and shove it into that lovely mountain of flesh, between those moist lips of her cunt, until she came again.
But now, this morning on the Farm, it was different. Denis gently touched her shoulder, but she pulled away as if he were an asp. "Take your goddamn hands off me!"
Then Denis remembered something else, someone else. The man who had replaced him in Nan's affections. He wondered whether that gentleman had mistreated Nan, to make her cringe like this at the touch of a man's hand.
"Honey," he tried to assure her, "I'm not going to hurt you."
"You're damned right you're not." Then, to drive home her point, she added, "No man is going to hurt me again. I'm not going to give him a chance."
"That doesn't sound like you, Nan. You're sour on the world, embittered."
"Who has a better right? I give up everything. I have-my education, my friends, everything-for some jerk geezer who comes along, and I do my best to make him happy. He tells me I'm his real wife, his wife away from home. He swears I'm the one he loves, not the other one who gave him children. "Sure," she said drily, "I meant everything to him. Until I got myself in a jam. An-an auto accident."
"Yes. I read about it," nodded Denis.
"What you didn't read in the papers," said Nan, "was that this great big millionaire lover of mine got scared. Scared to stick his neck out for little ol' me. Oh no, he couldn't take a chance and pull any strings, because someone-"
And then, abruptly, she bit off the words and shrugged, picking up a new line of thought. "Oh hell, what's the difference? It's all over now, and the next step is to get out of this dump."
"That's just another six months," said Denis.
"Are you off your rocker?" she exploded. "You think I'm going to spend the next hundred and eighty days in this snake pit?"
"Oh come on, now," Denis said, "it's not that bad. Lots of people live on farms."
"Lots of people live in crazy houses, and lots of people are confined to hospitals," she pointed out, "but that doesn't make it good."
"Don't get impatient," Denis advised her. "The time will pass faster than you realize, then you and I-"
"You and I nothing," she broke in. "What are you trying to give me-sympathy?"
"No, Nan. I came here because I couldn't get you out of my mind, out of my heart. I've been in love with you a long time, and I thought...."
Now it was his turn to let the words trail off. He saw a softness in her eyes, the tension removed from her facial expression, and he took it for a sign of compassion. He placed his arms around her, and she let the basket drop to the ground as her own arms were raised to embrace his huge shoulders.
Denis bent down, touching his lips to her. The spark awakened an old desire, and he pressed his hard loins against her, so that she would become aware of his love.
For a brief moment, Nan was torn between the old emotion and the new one: between love and hate. The brushing of his lips against hers was a pleasant sensation, and in a flash of a second she thought of many things-the campus lawn, a lakeside motel, a porch swing.
Her pussy became damp, the nipples of her breast became hard, and for a brief moment it was going to be like old times. Then, without explanation, she felt not the warm ache of a woman wanting a man, but the sudden fury of a woman hurt by a man. That was all anybody wanted-her body. Instead, she would give men this: her fingernails dug into the back of Denis's neck, so that he relinquished his hold on her and moved backward, out of reach.
"What's with you?" he asked, somewhat alarmed, because he could feel the blood trickling down his back.
"That's what's with me," she snapped. "I hate men. You're a man. So I hate you. Is that clear?"
"Nan," he said, refusing to give up, "you've taken this whole thing too hard. It isn't the end of the world. I told you, we can pick up where we left off. We can both forget what happened in-between."
"Maybe you can forget," she persisted, "but I can't. So if you're hanging around here just to get next to me, I can tell you right now-you're wasting my time. And furthermore, you're wasting your own. Because all the girls around here are nothing but tramps."
The moment she said it, she heard a rustling sound behind her, and she wheeled around to see Clara standing in the open doorway of the barn.
"What the devil are you sneaking around here for?" Nan demanded.
"I'm not sneaking," said Clara. "Mrs. Preston sent me here to see what was holding you up. They're waiting for the eggs."
"Well, if they're in such a hurry, let 'em get them themselves!" Nan gave the basket a vicious kick and sent it flying across the barn floor. Then she stormed out of the barn.
Denis walked over and picked up the basket and brought it to Clara, where he placed it beside her. "I'm terribly sorry," he said, and then, referring to his interlude with Nan, went on, "I don't know how much you saw ... or heard."
"Just that last part," Clara admitted, "when she said we were all tramps."
"Oh, she was just hot under the collar. I'm sure she didn't mean it."
"Maybe she's right," said Clara. "Birds of a feather...."
"Come on, now," said Denis, managing a contagious smile so that the girl grinned back at him, "I'm a good judge of horseflesh and young women, and I know a thoroughbred when I see one."
It was the first compliment Clara had received since her trouble with the law. Whether or not the fellow meant it, she thought, it sounds good, and she was very appreciative.
The truth of the matter was that Denis really did mean it. He was educated enough to know that some mistakes are inevitable and the person involved had no intention of committing the error, and it was in this category that he mentally placed the girl who stood in front of him.
Denis extended his hand. "By the way," he said, "my name's Denis Tiffin."
"Mine is Clara Sedan," she replied. Then, to make a small joke, she added, "Like in four-door."
When she bent over for the eggs, her dress pulled up in the back, and Denis got a quick rear-view of her ass and the protruding lump that was her cunt. His prick hardened and he was about to shove it against her, but something held him back, and he didn't try it.
Clara turned to face him, basket in hand, and he started talking to get his mind off the subject that intrigued him most. "I'm not really a farmer. If I tell you something, can you keep a secret?"
"That's what I do best," she said.
"Nan used to be my girl. That was some time ago, before she-well, when we were in college."
"Are you still in love with her?" asked Clara. She saw the confused look that came into Denis's eyes, and she hastily added, "I'm sorry, I had no right to ask you that."
"Oh, I don't mind. Only-well, it just struck me, whether or not I'm in love or think I'm in love with her, I know one thing for sure. She doesn't want any part of me."
"Some girls don't know when they're well off."
Denis glanced sideways at Clara, and she caught his look and blushed. "What I mean is-well, when a fellow's interested enough in a girl to follow her all the way to a place like this-holy smokes, what I'm trying to say is I think she's a fool!" Clara exclaimed.
Denis laughed. It was a soft, pleasant sound, and Clara laughed too.
"That's the first time I laughed since I've been here," she told him.
"How long has that been?" he asked.
"Eight months. Four to go."
"It will be over before you know it."
"I guess so," she said, but without conviction.
"Where do you go from here?"
"As far away as I can," she said.
"Don't you have any family?"
"No," she said. "Not a soul." She did not count her cousin Jack, who had run out on her, letting her hold the bag. As far as she was concerned, he was as good as dead.
Denis felt sorry for Clara. "You know," he said to her, "you can't run away from yourself."
"That's what really worries me," she admitted. "No matter where I go, no matter what I do, I'll always have this to haunt me. However you look at it, Mr. Tiffin...."
"Denis," he said.
"No matter how you look at it, Denis, I'm a jailbird. It's on the record."
"Some of the most famous men in history, Clara, have served jail sentences, for one reason or another."
"For one reason or another," she repeated the phrase. Then, bitterly, she said, "They don't want the truth. They just look at the surface, not what's underneath."
Denis understood her bitterness, but he did not question her. If the time ever came when she wanted to tell him about herself, well and good; if not, it didn't matter.
But he gave her some good advice. "When you look at yourself in the mirror, Clara, you just don't see your face, do you?"
"What else is there to see?" she asked curiously, knowing he was driving at something.
"You see yourself. Not as others see you, to be sure, but as you know yourself and believe in yourself. Just look into the reflection of your own eyes each morning, and you'll see the truth. If you can face the truth, you can face a neighbor, a stranger, and the whole world."
Clara let it sink in. Then another thought hit her. "I suppose you won't be staying here much longer, now that Nan-well, since you two don't seem to be hitting it off."
"I'll stick around awhile, anyway," he said. "Four months, at least.
Clara swallowed hard. She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a light kiss on the lips. "Thanks," she whispered, "for making life bearable."
"It will get better," he assured her. As she stood near him, she felt the heat of his prick that tented his pants, and she wished it were inside her. She was afraid, though, on two counts: maybe Mrs. Preston would be coming here momentarily herself for the eggs; and perhaps Denis would think she was just like any other girl.
And Denis, wanting to touch those breasts, finger that cunt, shove his prick inside her, held back. He was afraid he would scare her away forever, that she would think he was just like any other man.
And so they parted. But they would meet again.
CHAPTER SIX
The girls sat four to a table in the dining area. Actually there were only three tables in use, because the other four girls were working in the kitchen and serving.
When the Farm personnel ate-Mr. Munhall, Mrs. Preston, Wakefield, and Sapporo-they had a small private dining room of their own. And better food.
Nancy, Rose, Aggy and Clara shared a table, and all of them were disgruntled over their dinner. In disgust, when one of them shoved back her plate, the others did the same. Mrs. Preston, circulating around the room, stopped at their table.
"What's the matter, girls-aren't you hungry?" she asked.
"Hungry," replied Rose, "we're starved!"
"You shouldn't have deprived the pigs of this slop," said Aggy.
"That's enough, Aggy," Mrs. Preston reprimanded her, but when she walked away from the table, she made a mental note to complain to the superintendent that the meat was lacking in both quality and quantity.
Disgruntled, Nan muttered, "Swell Saturday night chow."
"Is it really Saturday night?" asked Clara.
Aggy mimicked her. "Is it really Saturday night? Listen, Girlie-when you don't remember one day from another, it's time you got out." She paused, then said emphatically, "And that time is getting closer."
"Aw, you're all talk," said Nan. "What are you going to do about it?"
"Don't worry," Aggy replied. "I got ideas. You'll get action."
Rose grinned. "Talk about action," she said, "this is my night to howl."
When the lights were turned out in the dormitory, Rose wasted no time in getting dressed. Then she stepped over to the window, opened it slightly and emitted a low, long whistle.
Outside Sapporo, the night guard, cautiously glanced in all directions. He heard a do, barking somewhere in the distance. He waited until it stopped, then returned the whistling signal and went over to the window.
Rose eased herself out into Sapporo's arms. As she slid to the ground, he held her tightly, rubbing against her and getting a vicarious thrill. Instead of releasing her when her feet touched earth, he kissed her, at the same time rubbing his left hand over her right breast.
"Now now, Jerry," she said softly.
"What's your hurry, Rose?"
"Later," she promised. "When I get back from Tecumcare."
Sapporo showed his annoyance. "Hell, you always say that. And when you get back, you're always too tired for me."
"It's a long walk both ways."
"That's not what I mean," he told her.
But when Rose gave him a fond hug and reassured him that she would be back in four or five hours and make it up to him, he gave her a final pat on the buttocks and told her to be careful.
Aggy, who had been at the side window watching this little tete-a-tete, went over to Nan's bed and sat down. Both Nan and Clara were sitting up on their beds, waiting to hear how Rose made out.
"Did he let her go?" asked Nan.
"Doesn't he always?" replied Aggy.
Nan nodded and said, "Well, if he can do it for one, he's going to do it for all four of us."
Clara shook her head. "Not me. Like I said before-I'm going to do my time. I've only got another four months."
Without provocation, Aggy reached over and slapped Clara viciously across the cheek. "When I make plans for us to shake this joint, they include you. All four of us. So make up your mind, Clara-you're going to do what I tell you."
Clara buried her face in a pillow to hide her sobs when Aggy returned to her own bed. Nan stepped over to Clara's bed and sat down beside the unhappy girl. She gently ran her fingers through Clara's shoulders and back.
Clara tightened and pulled sharply away. "Don't touch me like that!" she whispered, not wanting anyone else to hear.
This angered Nan, who muttered softly, vindictively, "You're a fine one to talk, you petty thief! Anybody who's low enough to swipe fifty lousy bucks out of a-"
Clara sat erect and interrupted Nan, not so softly this time. "I only borrowed it. I was going to pay it back, and you know it as well as I do."
Aggy didn't like this loud talking and she pushed herself up on her elbows and warned, "Pipe down, you two. Want to wake up the law?"
Now Nan vented her anger on Aggy. "Who the devil do you think you are, telling me to pipe down, you no-good tramp?"
Aggy jumped out of bed threateningly. "That's the day," she snapped, "when a slut calls me a tramp!"
Nan spit on Aggy, and that was the signal for a fight. They scuffled violently, knocking each other across the bed and pulling each other's hair, punctuating the activity with dirty names.
Suddenly one of the other girls, nearer the main door, warned them, "Shhh! Somebody's coming!"
That's all it took-one word of warning. Within seconds Nan and Aggy were in their own beds, pretending to be asleep.
Rose had been thoughtful enough to put a couple of pillows under her covers, so that it would look like she was asleep if Mrs. Preston came in to check up.
And that's exactly what the matron thought when she opened the dormitory door and ran a scrutinizing eye over the sixteen beds. All of them, in the light reflected from the hallway, seemed to be occupied. Seeing or hearing nothing unusual, Mrs. Preston backed out of the dormitory and pulled the door closed behind her.
The girls remained silent for about five minutes. Then Clara, reprimanding both Nan and Aggy, whispered, "You almost got Rose in dutch."
Nan said, "Who cares?"
Aggy told her to shut up.
"Shut up yourself!" snapped Nan, and another fight almost started.
But when Clara reminded them that Mrs. Preston might be standing outside the dormitory door and listening, Nan and Aggy decided against another scuffle, and they went to sleep.
Not so Clara, who lay on her back and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. She wondered what Denis Tiffin was doing with his Saturday night.
Denis, who had borrowed the farmer's jeep, was in Tecumcare, seated in the small town's only bar. There were a handful of people in the booths listening to juke box music and drinking beer.
Denis was seated at one end of the bar, while Sidney Cranston, a hulking man under forty, was at the other end, slowly getting himself drunk. Cranston, who was us uncouth as he was muscular, banged the bar and demanded another beer.
Tom Rabat, the bartender, put his elbow on the counter and tried to reason with his friend. "Sid, why don't you take it easy?"
Cranston wanted beer, not advice. "Look, Tom-when you come to my gas station, I fill up your tank and I don't give no pitch. So fill up my tank and save the lip for this stranger here."
By stranger he was referring to Denis, who was making his first visit to Tecumcare. Cranston eyed Denis, decided he liked what he saw, and asked, "Want a beer?"
Denis grinned. "As long as you buy, I'll drink." Then he got up and moved to the stool next to Sid Cranston's.
"You heard the man, Tom," said Sid. "Two beers. And quick."
When Tom Rabat put two glasses of beer in front of the men, Cranston said, "You're the new hand at the prison farm, huh?"
"That's right," nodded Denis.
"How do you like the dames over there?" asked Cranston, a sneer on his lips.
Denis had the right answer. "I like dames anywhere."
"Man," exclaimed Cranston, "you talk my language!" He raised his glass, and Denis touched it with his. "To dames, big ones, little ones, fat ones, skinny ones. They all got what it takes, and I'm the guy who takes it."
Denis laughed, as he was supposed to, and they guzzled their beer.
As they drank, Cranston stared into the mirror behind the bar and saw something that brought a frown to his face. Not hiding his fury, he banged his glass down onto the bar, and some of the beer spilled out.
Cranston turned to his stool and confronted Rose Parma, whom he obviously knew. "Thought you wasn't comin' into town no more?" he asked sarcastically.
Rose glared right back at Cranston. She did not know that the man beside him was Denis Tiffin, because the farmhand remained with his back to her. "As far as you're concerned," said Rose, "there ain't no more."
Then Cranston shifted his eyes from Rose to the man escorting her. It was Juan Morelia, a slick-looking Mexican who ran a hash-house in the Latin section of town. "What's he got," sneered Cranston, indicating Morelia but talking to Rose, "that I ain't?"
Rose had a quick answer. "Manners."
"Yeah?" Cranston pushed himself to his feet, wavered unsteadily, then approached the man and woman. It was the man whom he addressed. "Morelia, you got manners?"
Morelia was not cowed by this massive, drunken man. He merely nodded and answered in a quiet voice. "If that's what the lady said, that's what I got."
"In that case, I'm going to knock them out of you." Then, without further warning, Cranston lurched at Morelia; in that same instant, as if it were a reflex movement, the Mexican whipped out a switch-blade and raised his arm.
Cranston was agile enough to knock the knife out of Morelia's hand. From then on, it was a fair fight; vicious, with no holds barred, but even.
Denis was more interested in Tom Rabat than in the fighters. For the bartender picked up the telephone behind the counter and dialed Operator. And Denis heard him say, "Give me the State Police."
Dennis quickly slid off his stool, grabbed Rose by the arm and said, "Come on-let's get out of here."
At first, Rose yanked away her arm. But when she saw who it was, and noted the grim expression, she followed him outside.
They got into the jeep and drove back to the farm without further incident or conversation. When they stopped beside the farmhouse, from where Rose could easily get back to the barracks without being noticed, they both heaved sighs of relief.
"Boy," said Rose, "am I glad you were there!"
"No doubt," said Denis. "The question is-how come you were there?"
Rose grinned. "The governor gave me a fourhour pass for good behavior. When Denis laughed, Rose made a suggestion, though it was in the form of a question. "Isn't there some way I could thank you?"
Denis shook his head. "Forget it," he told her.
"I wish I could," she sighed softly.
But Denis did not encourage her. He got out of the jeep, and she stepped out on her side.
"See you around," he said, indicating this was the end of the road.
"You bet," she replied. "And thanks again."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rose returned to the side of the barracks. She could have stood on the logs and pushed the window open from the outside, and perhaps climbed in. In that way, she would have avoided Sapporo.
Tonight, however, she wasn't crazy about the idea of avoiding him. It wasn't Sapporo so much. It was a man. Any man. She had been cheated out of a good time in Tecumcare, thanks to that no-good Sid Cranston.
She made a wry face when she thought of the gas station operator. When he was sober, he wasn't so bad; but drunk, he was a regular hell-cat. That's why she wouldn't go out with him anymore.
Her first couple of dates with Sid were well worth remembering. He was a good cook, and he took her to his little house and prepared two prime cut steaks on the charcoal broiler. Even out in the sticks, way out there in remote Tec-umcare, a man could act civilized.
Sid served champagne before dinner, and a red wine with dinner. Afterwards they had liqueurs. And after that-well, Sid was as competent in bed as he was in the kitchen.
Rose had the feeling that he ate his steaks rare, because the food seemed to work wonders with him. After feeding her, Sid made love to her. It was a violent kind of love, but the kind a young woman could enjoy.
He wasn't a man of finesse, like those whom she had gone out with when she was a department store model. They believed in the little touches, the preparations-the tender kisses, the fondling, the warming-up process.
Not Sid. He kissed her once, and the moment his lips were against hers, he shoved his knee between her legs and spread them. He reached down, a hairy paw searching for the hairy lips, and he spread them without much ado. Then he shoved in his cock in her, whether or not she was ready for it.
All he knew that he was ready, and the hell with the fuss. But he was a big man, a real bull, and the size of his cock thrilled Rose.
As a matter-of-fact, she got an extra thrill out of his crudeness. He seemed to forget she had breasts to kiss, a warm belly to rub gently, a vagina to lubricate. He was all animal. But the animal in him rubbed off on the animal in her, and that compensated for the loss of lovemaking.
Even so, once would have satisfied Rose with Sid. Not so Sid. He would merely rest five minutes, ten at the most, then repeat himself, without having got up to clean it off after coming in her pussy. And then, to top it off, there was a third time, all in the same night. It was something Rose learned to take in stride.
Leave it to Sid Cranston. It might have cost him plenty for the steaks and wine, but he got his money's worth. After that, he started drinking beer for chasers, and he got nasty. When he got nasty, he liked to slap people around, and since Rose was the only one around, Sid often hauled off and knocked her across his bed. He wasn't angry with her or anything at all; it was just his way of doing things.
That's why Rose gave up Sid, and wanted Juan Morelia this night. Sid saw to it that she had neither man, and thanks to Denis Tiffin, she got back safely from Tecumcare without getting involved in a brawl.
However, she still wanted a man. Denis had his chance, but he wanted no part of Rose. She couldn't understand why.
The next best thing was Jerome Sapporo. The night guard had been good to her over the months, and she had always teased him. A kiss, a lingering feel, and that was about all. If she did not come across soon, as she had promised, Sapporo might get sore and not cooperate. So tonight she would make it up to the night guard. She would give him something to remember her by!
Rose whistled-the low, sly whistle that was their signal. In about a minute she heard approaching footsteps, and at a safe distance, she heard someone whistle to her. Rose returned the signal.
Sapporo quickly, stealthily approached her by the side of the barracks. Not expecting anything but excuses, as he had been used to, he whispered harshly, "You're back kind-a early, Rose."
"Just like I promised," she said, and she placed her arms around him and gave him a long, passionate kiss, her tongue darting into his mouth.
Instantly Sapporo pulled her to the ground.
It was as safe there, under the protective shadows of the barracks, as to the barn, it would give her time to change her mind.
Like all men who are fearful of losing opportunities, he wanted to make quick work of it. But Rose would have none of that.
She wiggled out of her clothes, using her dress as a blanket. "Take all your clothes off, Jerry," she whispered.
"That's taking a hell of a chance," he told her. "I can fuck you with my cock shoved out of my pants."
"Naked or nothing," she said, and in half a minute Sapporo was stark naked.
Rose lay back and reached up for Sapporo, pulling him toward her. "Now," she said huskily, "make love to me."
It was a case of even-steven. Rose worked on him as much as he worked on her. He kissed the nipples of her breasts, she tongued his tiny but hard nipples. He ran his mouth down her belly, she repeated the action on him.
He nibbled at her pubic hair, she bit tenderly at his. He stuck his tongue in her vagina, she stuck his cock in her mouth.
Just before he was ready to come, Rose ordered him to fuck her. Which he did, lunging the massive lance inside her as she let out a moan of gratitude, a cry of satisfaction.
Their preliminaries had brought them to fever passion, and in less than ten seconds, simultaneously, they both came, their hot love-juices intermingling inside her.
Then a warm breeze caressed their naked bodies, and Rose held onto him, long after it was over. Finally Sapporo became anxious, lest Mr. Munhall should happen to come out for a walk around the farm, a possibility that was quite un-likely.
With great effort, then, he pushed himself away from Rose, got dressed and told her to put on her clothes.
"What for?" she asked lightly. "I'll only have to take them off again as soon as I get inside."
"Okay," he agreed, "if that's the way you want it."
Before she climbed in, with his help, he said, "Now you won't be so anxious to run into Tecumcare every chance you get."
She gave him a light kiss on the lips. That was better than any word to convey her answer.
He lifted her to the window, and didn't let the opportunity slip by to fondle her ass as he pushed her inside. Rose, once inside, leaned out and whispered, "Why don't you come on in?"
He didn't answer her, for fear of waking one of the girls. Sapporo merely handed her her clothes and waited until she closed the window. Then he continued on his tour of duty, a happy and satisfied night guard.
Aggy was sound asleep. Having been a prostitute, she learned the art of sleeping even if there was a party going on in the rooms on both sides of hers.
Clara was not asleep. She did not stir, however, because she did not want to carry on a conversation with Rose, or anybody, for that matter. Clara had Denis on her mind. He was the first man she ever had any real feeling for; he was the first man who ever treated her with any honest consideration.
Clara wondered whether he was just being polite, or whether he liked her. She didn't dare think that he might love her; at least not yet. She thought of the future, and then she became tense with fear. After all, Denis knew that she was a jailbird. Yes, a common, ordinary jailbird, no matter how much she protested. And what would he want with a thief? A petty thief, as one of the girls had called her.
Clara bit her lip and continued to stare at the ceiling. Fourth months. And then what? She would give anything-anything she possessed now or would possess in the future-to know what the next year held for her.
Sleep did not come to Nan, either. The scuffle with Aggy had infuriated her, and with her emotions thus aroused, she could not calm herself.
It hurt Nan to think that she had to share a dormitory roomwith a prostitute like Augustine Rostov. Nan considered herself a completely different type of girl on a completely different level.
In the back of her head, though, she could not shake the notion that she was really no better than either Aggy or Rose. They were, when you stripped away the embroidery of false morality, three of a kind.
Of course, Nan told herself, she was not promiscuous like the other two girls. Her affair with Denis Tiffin, while at college, was the beginning of the real thing. He was the only one who had made love to her; and as he had said, it was quite all right, because some day they were going to be married. Her affair with Sam, the millionaire gentleman, was something else again. It was not bawdy. It was something fine, although she was a back-alley wife. Sam said he loved her, and he promised her many things in return for her love. So you could not call that promiscuity, call it what else you will, she decided.
Then Nan considered the case of Roselle Parma. Rose was no ordinary call girl. As a matter-of-fact, she had held down a respectable job as a model. It was the after-hours work that got her into trouble. She was just a good-natured, fun-loving party girl. You could not say that she was not promiscuous; by the same token, she did not go to bed with every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Her men were in a high-salary bracket, usually out-of-towners, and all Rose did was play the good hostess. Of course, the men gave her money for her favors. But was that any different than if they had gone out and bought her a present? This way they let her choose her own presents. Still, Nan had to admit, Rose was promiscuous to a degree.
Then there was Aggy, whom Nan dispised. Aggy, who would take on all comers. All they required was the fare.
What bothered Nan most of all was that haunting thought that she was, in the eyes of the law and therefore in the eyes of society, not one bit better than Augustine Rostov.
Here they were, the three of them-a mistress, a model turned party girl, and a common prostitute-lumped together like they were three of a kind. It was little wonder that Nan had changed herself from a lover of men to a lover of women.
She slipped out of her own bed and got under the covers with Rose.
"What the hell you trying to do?" asked Rose in a whisper.
"I peeked out the window," whispered Nan, "and saw you and Jerry Sapporo. If you can love that guy, the least you can do is give me the same shake."
Rose was about to haul off and tell Nan to go fuck herself. Then she thought better of it. Maybe the new experience would be fun. "Okay," she said, resigned to it, "I'm all yours."
Rose was surprised, to say the least, at Nan's gentleness, her finesse, her every probe with tongue and finger. Nan merely brushed lips with Rose, then slid down her body with her tongue: the hills of flesh on her chest to the hillocks of flesh between her legs.
Then Nan tenderly chewed Rose's clitoris. So far, so good. But when Nan darted her tongue inside Rose's cunt, she was surprised, shocked by the taste. It was a mixture of love-juices from a man and a woman, and she did not respond to it.
She started to pull her face away from that bushy entrance, but Rose, already worked up, grabbed hold of Nan's head and held it there. Afraid Rose would press too hard and soffocate her, Nan slid her tongue up and down, in and out, until Rose arched her back and came once more that night.
Without a word, Nan hurried back to her own bed. Rose grinned to herself. What the hell, it was rather enjoyable at that. Not as good as having a man, she decided, but not so bad, either.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Shortly after breakfast as Mr. Munhall sat fuming over a particular report in his office in the Administration Building, there was a knock on his door. "Come in," he said.
Mrs. Preston entered, closing the door behind her. Mr. Munhall barely raised his eyes to see who it was, then glanced at the report in his hand again as she approached his desk. "What is it, Mrs. Preston?"
Rather stiffly, both because she had not been invited to sit down and because she did not enjoy what she was going to do, the matron said, "I don't like to bother you on Sunday morning, Mr. Munhall...."
When her words drifted, he leaned back in his chair and looked at her. "Something wrong?"
"Yes. Yes, there is," she said. "The food."
"What about the food?" he asked.
"Well, the girls are complaining." Mrs. Preston cleared her throat and quickly added, "Personally, I think they have some reason to complain."
"Really," he said, putting as much ice in his voice as he possibly could. Then he stood up. "I'd like to tell you something, Mrs. Preston. I am not interested in any complaints whatsoever from these convicts."
Mrs. Preston was startled, stunned. "Convicts?"
Mr. Munhall saw that he hit a sore point, so he rubbed it in. "You heard me. That's what they are, and I do not appreciate your attempts to portray them in any other way." He came around to the front of his desk, still holding onto that report, as he continued, "The food here is good-simple, well-cooked and nourishing."
It would have been silly of Mrs. Preston to argue with him, so she remained silent.
He held up the official looking document in his hand and said, "See this, Mrs. Preston?" She stared at the report, not knowing what it was. But Mr. Munhall told her. "It's an official reprimand from the State Commissioner of Prisons. All on account of Isabel Chatham trying to escape."
Mr. Munhall reached behind him, dropping the document on his desk, but still facing the matron. "It's the first black mark on my record since I've been with the prison department. And just between you and me, Mrs. Preston," he added emphatically, "it's going to be the last one, too."
Incensed, Mrs. Preston said, "Isabel needed psychiatric care, not a prison."
The superintendent shrugged. "All I know is, she was sent here. That placed her under my supervision." Then, instead of facing the matron, he walked past her and glanced out the window. "The trouble with you, Mrs. Preston, is that you're too soft. I've been watching you a long time."
"It seems to me," she answered quietly, "that I handle the girls without any difficulty."
"Sure," he admitted, "you know your business. But you're too sympathetic."
Mrs. Preston became tense. She thought of her own dead daughter, and the terrible mistake she had made with her. If she could only explain to Mr. Munhall what it would mean to help these young women, to encourage them, instead of beating them down. But she remained quiet as he spoke.
"In this line, you've got to be tough. And one thing above all else, you've always got to keep the upper hand."
That was too much for the matron. "Your trouble, Mr. Munhall, is that you don't understand human nature."
It wasn't often that someone dressed down the superintendent. He wheeled and glared at her. "Maybe not. But I do understand criminals, and that's what we have here. Criminals," he repeated harshly, "whether you like the word or not."
When she did not say anything, he went behind his desk, sat down and raised his eyes sharply to her. "I told you," he reminded her, "I wanted to see Nancy Minot this morning."
"She's right outside," said the matron.
Mr. Munhall spoke curtly. "Then send her in. Please."
Mrs. Preston turned and went to the door. Just as she reached for the doorknob, she heard him call, "Mrs. Preston." She slowly turned around and looked at him across the office, but said nothing.
"Just to repeat," he said in a softer tone, but with as much emphasis as before, "I run a taut prison and anyone who gets out of line with me is going to find herself in plenty of trouble."
Then, quite rudely, he picked up some papers on his desk and started to peruse them, as if he were busy.
The matron, knowing this was his way of dismissing her, quickly left and closed the door. Nan was sitting on the front stoop, waiting.
"You may go in now, Nan," said Mrs. Preston.
"What's he want?" asked Nan, as she stood up and straightened the wrinkles out of her dress.
"He didn't tell me," said the matron, and when Nan went into the building, Mrs. Preston strolled over to the barracks where a group of girls were seated on the wooden steps.
"It's such a nice day," said Mrs. Preston. "Why don't you girls take a walk?"
Aggy asked, "To Tecumcare?"
The matron refused to be needled by any of her girls. She simply replied, "You know the limits, Aggy."
Rose stood up and beckoned to Aggy and Clara. "Come on."
Clara said, "I'll catch up with you later." She waited until Rose and Aggy started to walk slowly across the field, and Mrs. Preston went into the barracks. Then Clara put a hand to her hair to make sure it was brushed back as it should be, and headed toward the barn.
When Nan knocked on Mr. Munhall's door, he told her to come in and close the door. After she approached his desk, he said, "Sit down."
Somewhat coldly Nan said, "I'd rather stand, if it's all right with you."
Mr. Munhall stared at her with some annoyance. Then he rummaged through the sheaf of papers on his desk and picked one out. "Your attorney," he told her, "requested probation for you."
Nan's heart skipped a beat. That meant her gentleman friend, Sam the millionaire, was pulling strings after all! Her moment of anxiety soon turned to despair.
"Your father," Mr. Munhall said bluntly, "refused to sign it."
Nan's face reflected her dejection. Her father! He had left her mother when Nan was only ten years old, and he had never even contributed to her support. Her mother went to work as a dressmaker, and it was she who sent Nan to college. When Nan became mistress to Gentleman Sam, her mother (it had nothing to do with the circumstances) became incurably ill, and despite the best doctors and treatment, she died.
Nan glared at the superintendent. "What's my father have to do with my probation?" she demanded.
"It takes the signature of someone legally responsible for you," explained Mr. Munhall. "No doubt he thinks you need more rehabilitation."
"You call this rehabilitation?" she sneered.
That infuriated the superintendent, and he pushed himself to his feet and came around to the front of the desk, confronting Nan. "Never mind what I call it. You're here, and you're going to stay here until you finish your time. That means you toe the line and do what's expected of you, and no back-talk. Do you understand?"
"I understand," she nodded. She also understood, and this hurt more, that Gentleman Sam would not stick his neck out and sign her probation papers. She took a deep breath and asked, "Is that all?"
"That's all," he said. "Unless you have any questions?"
Nan said flippantly, "None you can answer," and she wheeled around and went to the door, opening it abruptly.
"Nan!" the superintendent called sharply.
Nan took another deep breath and turned to hold his level gaze.
With tongue-in-cheek, he said, "You may go now."
Nan returned his sarcasm with a like amount. "Yes, sir," she said. "Thank you, sir." She appeared to be leaving the office quietly. As soon as she got into the hallway, however, she slammed the door shut.
Mr. Munhall jumped in anger and was about to go after her. Then he thought better of it and went back to his desk, where he started rummaging through his reports again.
Nan stood in the fresh air, and her inner fury blurred everything in sight. She cursed her father, her gentleman friend, even her attorney. The thought of a parole had not occurred to her; now that she had heard about it, and also had been told it had been turned down, she swore to herself that she would not serve her full sentence come hell or high water. That made her feel better, and with the emotional haze clear, she saw something else that bothered her.
It was Denis Tiffin coming out of the barn with Clara Sedan.
They strolled leisurely down a path. Denis was neatly, though informally, attired. Ocassionally they passed another girl or two and said hello.
"I never knew Sunday could make such a difference," Clara confessed.
Denis chuckled. "I'll say. Sleep 'til seven. No work. Except milking the cows and collecting the eggs," he added amiably.
"More than that," she said in a more serious vein. "Somehow I feel free. I know-the same buildings, the same faces. But when they let you walk around, it's like...." she couldn't seem to find the words and Denis picked it up.
"I know what you mean, Clara. Sometimes I feel fenced in myself."
"You? You can come and go whenever you want to," she pointed out.
"Yeah, I guess I can. Only-" he shrugged non-committally.
"You're still carrying a torch for Nan, aren't you?" she asked gently.
"Not any more," he admitted. "When I first came here, I wanted to pick up the pieces. But it's hopeless." They walked in silence awhile before he added, "Prison-even an Honor Farm-can do strange things to a girl." Then, catching her glance, he quickly said, "Present company excepted."
They sat down on the steps of the farmhouse, and Clara said, "To tell you the truth, Denis, except for having to stay here, this is no better or worse than anything I've ever had."
"Must have been pretty rough for you," he said sympathetically.
Clara wanted him to know what her crime was, and she told him about her life with her aunt, and what her cousin had done to her.
Denis shook his head in disbelief. "They sent you here for that?"
"I'm thankful," she said, "they didn't send me to the Women's Reformatory." On second thought, she continued, "But just the same, there's the stigma. That's why I want to get as far away as possible, as soon as I leave this place."
"What about your friends?" he asked. "I don't have any friends," she replied simply.
"You've got one," he stated. And when she looked at him, she began to understand that loneliness was not a condition suffered only by prison inmates.
The farmhouse door opened and Louis Niles came out with a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses. "How 'bout a little something to wash down the dust?"
"Suits me fine," said Clara.
"Can I help you, Louis?" asked Denis.
"That'll be the day," said the farmer, "when I need help."
He poured the lemonade for Clara and Denis, but nonefor himself. "Whataboutyou, Mr. Niles?" she asked.
Chuckling, he replied, "Not me. I made it. I know what's in it." Then, winking to her, he added, "Besides, I always say two's company and three's a crowd."
Then, whistling happily, the elderly farmer reentered the house.
"He's kind of corny," said Denis, "but they don't come any nicer."
Clara said, "I think some of him must have rubbed off on you."
He reached for her hand and squeezed it. At least she didn't pull away from him like Nan did.
Then, ever so gently, he leaned over and kissed her. She responded in like manner.
Pressing his luck, Denis let his hand brush across her breasts. This time, when she didn't reject him, he gave them a little squeeze. Obviously she liked that.
How far could he go in the daytime, on the porch, with Louis apt to step out without notice? Boldened by passion and a willing mate, he slid his hand under her dress.
Clara's legs parted amiably, and Denis slid two fingers under her panties and into her cunt. He finger-fucked her until she came.
When it was over, she said, "That wasn't much satisfaction for you."
"Just so you enjoyed it," he told her.
"Do I have to tell you how much?"
"Wait till we get to the real thing," he promised, at the same time taking her hand and placing it over his cock that was hard in his tight pants.
"If I have to wait too long, I'll die," she said, giving it a squeeze.
"Leave it to me," he said softly, "it won't be long."
CHAPTER NINE
Several days later, in the early hours of the morning, Nan lay in her bed moaning. Rose, Aggy and Clara all got out of their own beds and came to her side.
"What's the matter, Nan?" asked Rose.
Nan merely moaned.
Aggy leaned over the ailing girl. "Hey, kid-something hurt?"
"My tooth," mumbled Nan.
Aggy looked up at Rose and Clara. "She's got a toothache."
"Isn't there something we can do to help her?" asked Clara.
Aggy cracked, "A shot of whiskey would help. It would help me, too."
Rose ignored the remark and said to Clara, "How 'bout waking up the law?"
Clara put on her slippers and went to Mrs. Preston's suite, where she knocked on the door. The matron, in robe and slippers over her nightgown, asked what was wrong. When Clara told her, she followed the girl to the dormitory.
Upon seeing the lights come on, Jerry Sapporo, still on night guard duty, went to the win-down and peered in. When he saw Mrs. Preston with the girls, he was disappointed; he had hoped there would be a fight and that the girls would tear off each other's pajamas.
Mrs. Preston sat on the edge of Nan's bed and asked, "Is it very bad?"
Half-crying, Nan whimpered, "I can't stand it."
The matron turned to Clara and said, "You'll find an ice pack in my bathroom. Take it over to the kitchen and fill it with ice cubes."
"Sure will," said Clara.
"And hurry, will you, dear?" asked the matron. When Clara went out of the dormitory, Mrs. Preston bent over Nan and said tenderly, "We'll deaden the pain for now. Then, first thing in the morning, we'll send you in to the dentist."
Quentin Wakefield was taken off guard duty after breakfast and ordered to drive Nan to the dentist in Tecumcare. Neither of them spoke a word all the way to town, and when they got to the dentist's office-he had been called and was expecting them-Wakefield let her off and drove across the street to the gas station.
Sid Cranston, who ran the station by himself, greeted the deputy. "Hi, Wakefield."
"Morning, Cranston."
"Noticed you had one of your pigeons in the car. Sending her home?"
"Naaa. She just had a toothache. Fill up the tank, will you?"
"Be a pleasure." Cranston filled the sedan's gas tank, added two quarts of oil but was sparing with the water. He hated to give away anything that was free. "Eight dollars and seventy-five cents," he said.
Wakefield paid and had Cranston sign a receipt. "Got an hour or two to kill," said the deputy. "Think I'll wait in the bar."
"Might as well go with you," said Cranston, who always looked for an excuse for a beer, morning, noon or night.
The bar was empty except for Tom Rabat, who was so happy to have company in the morning that when he served the first two beers, he announced, "This one's on the house."
Cranston said to Wakefield, "We'll probably be hit by a tornado this afternoon."
Rabat didn't take kindly to the remark. "If a free drink is so hard to swallow, I'm not allergic to your money."
Cranston laughed. "Okay, Tom. Thanks for the beer."
Wakefield shook his head. "When are you two guys going to grow up?"
Tom said lightly, "Who else we got to quarrel with?"
Cranston nodded in agreement and said to the deputy, "Yeah ... maybe if you send in a couple of those prison chicks, that would take some of the pressure off."
Tom, who had been told why Wakefield was in Tecumcare, asked, "What about that one you left at the dentist's?"
Before Wakefield could answer, Cranston blurted out, "Boy-she's a cutie. Even with the swollen jaw." He nodded sagely. "She's got it all over Rose."
Wakefield sat erect and frowned. "Who you talking about-Roselle Parma, out on the Farm?"
Cranston was quick to cover his mistake. "Naw ... Rose Morelia, one of the Mexican girls in town." The gas station operator glanced across the bar at Tom, then back to Wakefield. "How would we know about any of those dames out there? We never get to see them, 'xcept when you bring 'em in to the doctor or dentist."
The telephone rang, and Tom answered it. "Hello?" He listened, nodded, and said, "Wait a minute." Then, turning to face Wakefield, he said, "It's for you."
The deputy went to the 'phone. "Wakefield here." He listened, nodded his head, glanced at his watch and said, "Okay, Doc. Be over in an hour and a half."
When he hung up, he told the others, "The dentist said she had an abscessed tooth. Has to pull it."
Which was exactly what Dr. Gilbert told Nan. "Will it hurt much?" she asked.
"No," he said, explaining he would give her an injection of sodium pentathol. That would make her sleep about fifteen minutes. Then she could rest.
Dr. Gilbert carefully injected the solution into her arm, and in a short time Nan was asleep. First business first. Dr. Gilbert pulled the abscessed tooth, and there were no complications.
Then he set about the real business of the day. Lifting her skirt, he pushed Nan's panties aside, bent over all the way, and tongued her vagina. At the same time, he reached into his own pants, took out his penis, and began to stroke it.
As he pulled harder and harder on his cock, he worked his tongue faster and faster between the luscious lips of her cunt. Then he shot his load all over the apron that covered Nan.
When she woke up, her tongue touched the empty spot along her gums, and she sighed with relief that the abscessed tooth had been removed.
Suddenly she blushed. Her panties were wet, and she thought, in her deep slumber, she had pissed in them. Dr. Gilbert led her to the lavatory, where she was surprised to find only a dampness. It was a familiar feeling, and she knew she had had an orgasm. No, she thought, Dr. Gilbert couldn't have fucked me. Maybe it was a reaction to that shot.
Meantime the beer flowed freely in the Tecumcare bar, because there was no air-conditioning. Finally Wakefield said goodbye to Tom and Cranston and went to pick up Nan.
"Holy smokes, Sid," Tom Rabat chastised Cranston, "when you going to learn to keep your big mouth shut? You almost got Rose in trouble."
"Okay. So he didn't catch on," was Cranston's excuse.
Not only Wakefield, but also Dr. Gilbert was surprised to find that Nan was not in the anteroom where he had left her.
"She was kind of woozy from the injection I gave her," explained the dentist, "and I thought it best if she'd sleep it off. I can't imagine where she got to."
"I can," the deputy said sourly. "But don't worry. She won't get far."
Wakefield drove the sedan east for ten miles, did not see a sign of Nan, so turned around and headed west. He raced through Tecumcare and hit the main highway at a 70-mile-an-hour clip.
Nan was walking briskly, despite the hot sun. A truck came along and she tried to thumb a ride, but the driver had strict instructions not to pick up any hitchhikers, and he reluctantly passed her by.
Nan cursed him out and kept walking. When she heard another car coming, she stopped, turned and looked. It was the farm sedan. Resigned to it, Nan folded her arms in disgust and just stood there until the car screeched to a stop beside her.
"Where do you think you're going?" Wakefield shouted, relieved that his charge had not gotten away from him.
Nan spoke flippantly, "I thought you left without me, so I decided to walk back to the farm by myself."
"You happen," he said wryly, "to be going in the wrong direction."
"Fancy that."
He pushed open the door and ordered her to get in. After she did so, he remarked, "You're not going to be so flip when I report you to Mr. Munhall for trying to run away." He was infuriated because he might have lost his job.
Nan's attitude changed and she became serious. That's all she needed-a run-in with the superintendent. "Now wait a minute, Mr. Wakefield," she said with all the sweetness she could muster, "you don't have to tell him, do you?"
As he swung the car around and headed back toward Tecumcare, he snapped, "What do you think?"
"That could get me into real trouble."
"You should have thought of that," the deputy told her, "before you tried it."
They sped along the highway, and Nan decided to try a different approach to this man's better side-if he had one. "You know," she said real cozy, "I could make it up to you."
Wakefield kept his eyes on the road, but he said, "What are you talking about?"
"I'll show you." With that, Nan slid closer to him and placed her hand on his trousers. He brusquely shoved it away. Much as he wanted her, he refused to give in.
"What the devil do you think you're trying?"
Nan became tense. "What do you want-money?" and before he could answer, she said brightly, "That's it. Say, you let up on me, and I'll see to it that you get a hundred bucks."
"You're out of your mind," said Wakefield.
"All right," she said angrily. "Two can play this game as well as one."
Wakefield barely glanced at her. He didn't know whether this was some kind of threat or just some frightened small-talk. But it took all of his concentration to swerve around some cattle that had wandered onto the highway, and after that, the rest of the trip back to the farm was spent in silence.
Wakefield pulled up in front of the Administration Building, "You go on in," he ordered, "and as soon as I put the car away, I'll meet you in Mr. Munhall's office."
Nan got out of the car and slammed the door shut. She watched him drive toward the barn, then hurried inside and, without knocking on the superintendent's door, opened it and appeared breathless before Mr. Munhall.
"That man!" she gasped. "He-he tried to kiss me and ... oh, I'm ashamed to tell you what else."
Mr. Munhall was astounded. "Are you talking about Mr. Wakefield?"
"I certainly am," she responded. "He even tried to put his hand under my dress. And when I didn't let him, he...." Nan buried her face in her hands, pretending she couldn't go on talking.
"Imagine!" exclaimed Mr. Munhall, clenching his fists.
"That's not the half of it," Nan went on. "He said if I didn't get in the back seat of the car with him and let him-you know what-well, he said he'd fix me, but good, with you."
"Of all the-" before Mr. Munhall could finish, there was a knock on his door, and he fairly shouted, "Come in!"
When Wakefield confronted the superintendent, Mr. Munhall demanded, "Now what's this all about?"
"She tried to escape," the deputy replied.
"I did nothing of the kind!" exclaimed Nan.
Mr. Munhall looked at her and said, "I'll handle this, Nan. You go and report to Mrs. Preston."
As soon as she had gone, Mr. Munhall stood up and faced his deputy. "Wakefield, is that true, what she said?"
"Just what did she tell you, Mr. Munhall?"
"That you molested her. Or at least tried to."
Wakefield was furious. "Look," he argued, "who are you going to believe? Me, or that little tramp?"
"I'll listen to your side of it," the superintendent said, "just as I listened to hers.
"In the first place," Wakefield explained, "I've never laid a finger on any of the girls at the farm, and I've been here five years."
"There's always a first time," said Mr. Munhall.
"Not for me there isn't. At least not with this kind of trash. There's an old saying-you don't eat where you sleep. That goes for me."
"I hope for your sake," said the superintendent, "that you're telling the truth."
"If you have any doubts," said Wakefield, "all you have to do is ask the dentist. He knows she tried to escape."
"Don't worry," said Mr. Munhall, "I'll call him." His curt nod dismissed the deputy. Then he went to his desk and sat down, perplexed. Obviously he didn't know whether to believe Nan or Wakefield.
Mr. Munhall picked up the telephone and dialed a number.
CHAPTER TEN
After reporting to Mrs. Preston, Nan joined the other girls in the dining room for lunch. The swelling had not yet gone down in her jaw, and there was still a soreness in the gums. So all she had was a glass of milk.
Rose, Aggy, and Clara shared the table with Nan. Rose and Aggy were glad to divide the food that Nan did not eat.
Mrs. Preston, walking from table to table as she usually did, was the first to see Mr. Munhall come into the dining room. She approached him.
"Tell Nancy Minot to come here," the superintendent said.
Mrs. Preston went over to Nan, tapped her on the shoulder and beckoned her. All the girls in the room stopped eating and watched as Nan followed Mrs. Preston toward Mr. Munhall, who stood like a statue near the door.
The matron stopped, turned and admonished the inmates. "You girls keep right on eating. This is none of your business."
The girls grudgingly started to eat, and the matron took Nan to Mr. Munhall and asked him, "Do you want me to leave?"
"No," he replied. "You stay right here." Then, turning to Nan, he said, "The dentist just returned my call. He told me what happened."
Nan asked, "What was that?"
"That you disappeared from his ante-room without telling him."
"How could I tell him?" she asked, pretending to be hurt by the news. "After all, he had a patient in his office. I couldn't break in."
"You could have waited until he told you to leave."
"But he did tell me. He said to lie down until I felt better, and then I'd be all right to go back," Nan insisted. "So when I thought I was okay, I went looking for Mr. Wakefield."
"Went looking?" asked the superintendent, taken by surprise. "Wasn't he waiting for you in the car?"
"Why don't you ask him where he was?" countered Nan. Then, seeing her advantage, she pressed it with, "He wasn't even across the street at the gas station, like he said he would be."
Mr. Munhall shook his head. "Nevertheless," he stated, "that was no reason for you to try to escape."
"I didn't try to escape," she persisted. "After all, Mr. Munhall, I had a shot of sodium pen-tathol and a lot of pain. Out there, one road's just like another." She shook her head, imitating Mr. Munhall, and continued, "I know better than to try to escape from here. Didn't I see what happened to Isabel Chatham?"
Mr. Munhall looked at Mrs. Preston, but got neither a rise nor a reaction out of her. He took a deep breath, one that seemed to admit failure to solve a problem, and said, "Go back and finish your lunch."
When Nan returned to her table, the superintendent asked Mrs. Preston, "You know what happened in town?"
She nodded. "Yes. Nan told me."
"What do you think?"
"About her," the matron asked, "or about Mr. Wakefield?"
Her answer was so evasive that Mr. Munhall sighed despairingly, then took a few steps forward, past her, and called for attention. "Girls, I want you all to hear this."
There was a sudden silence, and all the women turned to face the superintendent.
"As you all know, one girl tried to escape from this facility, this Honor Farm, and is now serving her full sentence at the Women's Reformatory. I have reason to believe that the same thought has entered the minds of other inmates in this institution."
As he kept on talking, Aggy glared at Nan, who defiantly glared right back. They heard Mr. Munhall say, "let it be understood, once and for all, that I will brook no attempt at escape. From now on, you girls are going to work here and live here under the very letter of the law."
He cleared his throat, wanting to emphasize his next point. "If any of you so much as step one foot off limits-r-even by mistake-you shall be severely punished."
There was a slight rumble of low voices, but it stopped to hear the last of Mr. Munhall's speech. "Just to show you that I mean business, I am suspending your Sunday privileges until further notice."
That was too much for Aggy. She viciously kicked Nan's shin. Nan returned the compliment. Mrs. Preston knew something was going on and moved closer to their table to prevent any fight.
The moment Mr. Munhall left the dining room, the girls started to jabber and groan, with special attention aimed at Nan. Mrs. Preston clapped her hands and demanded order. "Girls, girls! That's enough!"
The noise subsided and the inmates finished their lunch, but as they passed out, single file, there wasn't a one, except for Clara, who didn't have a dirty look for Nan.
In mid-afternoon, Nan, Rose, Aggy and Clara found themselves working together in the vegetable patch. As they furrowed the ground, Aggy deliberately hit Nan with a rake.
"What the devil do you think you're doing?" snapped Nan.
"I ought to break your neck," countered Aggy, "spoiling it for the rest of us."
"You're off your rocker," Nan came back. "You think I'd try to make a break from here all by myself?"
Clara came to Nan's defense. "Mr. Munhall didn't say she tried to escape."
"Not in so many words, maybe," said Aggy. "But he sure got some wild ideas about it." Then, turning to Rose, she said, "It's going to be all the tougher now, thanks to Nan."
Rose didn't take it so hard, though. She said to Aggy, "Relax, will you? There are no walls here, and only two guards. Taking away our Sunday privileges isn't going to make that much difference."
And just to show which side she was on, Nan added, "When I leave-and believe me, I'm going to-it'll be with the rest of you."
"It better be," fumed Aggy, but she did not notice the wary look in Clara's eyes.
The very next day the ball started rolling. At dawn the dormitory door opened and Mrs. Preston called out, "Up, girls! Another day. Everybody up."
She was about to leave the dormitory when, at a quick glance to the end of the room, she saw that Nan was still in bed. "Nancy Minot-out! Didn't you hear me?"
Mumbling, Nan rolled out of her bed. "They can hear her all the way in Texas."
"What was that, Nan?" asked Mrs. Preston, somewhat annoyed.
Nan smiled and said, "Good morning. That was all."
"Oh. Good morning," said the matron, and she left the dormitory.
"Now don't get her on our backs," warned Aggy.
"You kiddin'?" asked Nan. "She's the one who always sticks up for me."
After washing and dressing, the girls hurried to the dining room for breakfast. Mrs. Preston had gone to the private dining room to have breakfast with Mr. Munhall and the two guards, one of whom was coming on duty, the other going off.
Rose took advantage of the matron's absence to have a little fun. Standing up, she lifted a tray off the table and placed it on her head, parading around the table in the same strutting manner she used to do as a model.
"Look, ma-I'm a Fifth Avenue model!" she said, and all the other girls applauded.
Mrs. Preston returned with a handful of mail and was unnoticed amid all the pleasant jeers and catcalls as the inmates laughingly reacted to Rose's horseplay. But when Rose made a sweeping turn and saw the matron in the background she froze, and there was sudden quiet in the room.
Mrs. Preston made lightly of it. "Sometimes it pays to have a flat head, doesn't it, Rose?" she said good-naturedly, and everybody sighed with relief.
Before Rose could sit down, the matron approached her and handed her the batch of mail. "As long as you're on your feet, you might as well give out these letters."
There was the usual hubbub of anxious voices from the girls. "Any for me?"
"Hey, Rose
-where's mine?"
"Nobody ever writes to me," complained one girl. And "You're sure you didn't see one for me?" asked another.
During the confusion, Rose turned over a letter to Aggy. She merely glanced at the envelope, then slipped it into her pocket. Nan noticed the grin of knowing satisfaction that crossed Aggy's face, but she said nothing about it.
Aggy managed a couple minutes of privacy before the girls had to go out on the field. She carefully opened the envelope and removed the letter. Then she made doubly sure that no one was around.
And when she read the contents, she said to herself, this is it.
She could hardly wait to share her secret with Rose, Nan and Clara.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As soon as the four girls were working together on their regular vegetable patch, Wakefield strolled by and gave Nan a dirty look.
Aggy said, when the day guard was out of earshot, "Hey Nan-how come you didn't give your boyfriend a big hello?"
"What I wish for him," said Nan bitterly, "goes for you, too."
"Why don't you dames bury the hatchet?" asked Rose, who was getting Weary of their constant arguing.
"In each other's heads," cracked Nan.
"Try it," said Aggy. "I got this." She picked up her rake and banged it against a rock, loosening one of the steel prongs.
Rose frowned. "What are you doing?"
"Getting all set for a getaway," said Aggy, with supreme confidence. She yanked off the steel prong and put it in her pocket, then grinned.
"You know that letter you gave me this morning, Rose?"
"What about it?"
"It's from an old friend of mine," said Aggy. "He's got a nice place all picked out for us in Chihuahua."
Nan showed interest. "A hideaway?"
Aggy nodded. "You said it. One that's easy for us to get to, and tough for anybody else to find." Then she smiled with self-satisfaction and said to all three girls, "Didn't I tell you I'd come through? I wasn't talking for nothing."
"I'm ready any time you are," said Nan.
"Me, too," chimed in Rose. She held a finger up to her neck. "I've had it up to here."
Aggy turned to Clara, who was on her knees pulling weeds. "What about you, Clara?"
"I don't see what difference it makes if I don't go," she replied.
"Then I'll explain the facts of life to you," said Aggy in a deadly serious tone. "Three girls from our section are missing. One is left behind. Now-who are they going to third-degree to find out where the runaways went?"
"You don't have to worry about that," Clara tried to reassure Aggy. "I won't tell them a thing."
"I'll say you won't," Aggy emphasized, "because you're going to be with us to Chihuahua-whether you like it or not."
Before an argument could start, Rose warned, "Button up. Here comes the law."
Moments later Mrs. Preston joined the group. "Clara," she said, "there's a wheelbarrow in the barn. The girls need it on the other side of the Administration Building. Would you bring it over, please?"
"Anything to break the monotony," said Clara, not wanting to reveal how anxious she was to get away from Aggy. The matron walked away, and Clara got up off her knees and headed for the barn.
"She 's a good kid, Aggy," said Rose. "Why don't you lay off her?"
Aggy took the steel prong out of her pocket and looked at it menacingly. Then she raised her eyes to Rose. "What did you say, Rose?"
"I told you-Clara only has about four months to go. Let her alone."
"Sure," said Aggy, "I'll let her alone." But the way she wiped her fingers over the steel prong before carefully putting it back in her pocket, indicated she had something else in mind.
The second Clara entered the barn, she stopped short, and she drew in her breath sharply. For there, some ten yards away was Denis Tiffin pitching hay. He had taken off his T-shirt, and his back was to the barn door, so that he did not know Clara was there.
Clara tiptoed up behind him and said lightly, "You act like you know what you're doing."
Denis stopped working, slowly turned and grinned. "I'll tell you something. I do." He wiped his brow, and Clara got a whiff of the manly perspiration. It excited her in a strange way, and it took all of her will power to keep herself from embracing him. "It's been a long time," Denis admitted, "since I've done this kind of work."
"Did you live on a ranch?"
"Sure did. Back near Norman, Oklahoma. When I was a kid."
"You're a long way from home," Clara said.
"And a long time."
"You going back?" she asked.
"We'll see," he said quietly.
Clara was aware that he had said "we," not "I." When she reached down for the wheelbarrow, he bent over to help her, and their shoulders touched. It was like a explosion, this first, slight meeting of their bodies. As one, they melted into each other's arms, and at this first impact she felt his manhood against her loins.
"Oh Denis," she murmured. "What are we going to do?"
"Shhhh...." That was all he said.
But not all he did.
Denis led her into one of the stalls where, without a word, he disrobed her. Then he tore off his own clothes.
They stared at each other's naked body. He saw those two firm breasts, the nipples already hard even though he had not touched them; the flat, hard belly from hard work; the triangular patch of lacy pubic hair that topped the hidden lips of the anxious vagina.
Denis, too, had a hard, flat belly, and that was where the similarity ended. His chest was broad, as were his shoulders, and his hips were wide. He had a jungle of pubic hair, and standing erect from it was a massive prick, ready for battle.
And a beautiful battle it was. They stood there, kissing at first, his cock pressed between their stomachs, her breasts throbbing against his chest. When their tongues intertwined in each other's mouths, he gently pulled her to the ground.
Denis kissed her earlobes, blew into her ears, kissed the point of her nose, the point of her chin. Little did she realize that these, under such circumstances, were erotic points. Clara held onto his prick, squeezing it methodically, and he continued his downward travels with his hot tongue, pausing at each tit and chewing gently on the nub of each nipple, tracing a pattern of passion down her stomach, pausing at her belly-button where he inserted his tongue, then down along her bush until he found the moist lips of her vagina.
He could tongue her and control her, and go on like that for an hour, but he knew they could not waste time. So he took his penis in his hand, giuided it into the welcoming vagina, and they just lay there quietly, not moving.
At last he whispered, "We better get going."
Clara moved her ass up and down, then from side to side, and he saw she was so good at it, he let her do all the work, for he was afraid if he moved, he would come too soon.
As it was, they both ejaculated at the same time, their lips pressed hard against each other, their tongues wildly darting into each other's mouths.
They were silent as they dressed quickly. Then, with only a glance of appreciation between them, Denis took the handles of the wheelbarrow, and they walked out of the barn together. Little did they realize that Mr. Munhall, standing outside the Adminsistration Building, saw them.
After supper Nan, Rose, Aggy and Clara sat down in the lounge to play bridge. At least they pretended to play. It was a good cover for their subdued conversation, which was broken only by the infrequent appearances of Mrs. Preston, who walked from group to group and exchanged pleasantries.
"Now look, girls," said Aggy, "I got us a place to stay. But the big question is-how do we get there?"
"What do you mean," corrected Rose, "is how do we get out of here?"
Aggy shook her head. "Nope. I got that all figured out." She winked at Rose. "You haven't been building up Jerry Sapporo for nothing."
"You kiddin'?" countered Rose. "He wouldn't let us all out the same night."
Nan nodded excitedly. "Aggy's got a point. Look, Rose-you just take him to the barn, and the rest of us will make a break without him being any the wiser."
And Aggy added, "Then we'll meet you at the car."
"What car?" asked Rose.
Aggy turned her eyes toward Clara. "That's where you come in, my friend."
Clara shrugged. "I don't have a car, and you know it."
"Your boyfriend," said Aggy, "he has the keys to the jeep."
"You mean Denis?"
"Whatever his name is," said Aggy, "he still has the keys to the farmer's jeep."
"Sure," chimed in Rose, "you can borrow it, with a little persuasion. The kind I give the night guard."
Clara flushed. "I wouldn't involve him-not for anything."
Nan gave out with a sarcastic laugh. "Involve him? Hell, he wouldn't stick out his neck for anybody. And I know what I'm talking about."
"I know you do," admitted Clara. "He told me about you and him."
"Did he tell you everything?" asked Nan, an evil smile crossing her face.
"I didn't ask him," Clara replied quickly.
"Well," put in Aggy, "you better ask him for that jeep."
Then Nan did an about-face, and she said to Aggy, "Forget about the jeep. It makes so much noise, it would wake up the whole countryside."
"All right, smarty," said Aggy. "You got any better ideas?"
"I got a bank account in Santa Fe," said Nan, and glancing at Rose, she continued, "Can you line up a car from one of your friends in Tecumcare? After we get out, I can arrange to withdraw my money and pay for it."
"Oh, fine!" Rose exclaimed sarcastically. "You expect me to make a deal for a car now, then tell the owner we'll pay for it when we're down in Mexico!"
Nan was annoyed. "I'm willing to do what I can. I can't do any more."
Aggy spoke up, "I'm doing my share, getting us a hideout."
Rose was thinking. "Maybe I can swing it after all," she said softly.
"What do you mean?" both Nan and Aggy asked simultaneously.
"There's a guy in town-Sid Cranston-who has hot pants for me. It just may be...."
Clara nudged her under the table to keep quiet. They had been so engrossed in their conversation that they did not see Mr. Munhall come into the lounge and speak to Mrs. Preston.
Now the matron was beside the table. "Clara," she said, "Mr. Munhall wants to speak with you."
Aggy tried to give Clara a warning glance, but Clara avoided her eyes and left the table, joining Mr. Munhall at the door. "Come to my office," he said, and Clara followed him outside.
Clara sat in a straight-back chair without being told to, and she nervously watched as Mr.
Munhall deliberately went from one window to another, pulling down the shades. Then he went to his desk and leaned against the edge of it, facing Clara, and he stared at her for an entire minute without speaking a word.
Finally he said, "I suppose you're wondering why I asked you to come here with me?"
"Yes, sir," she replied meekly.
"The fact is, Clara, I took an hour off this afternoon to go over all the details of your case." He lit a cigarette, then continued, "It's true, petty theft isn't one of the most serious crimes committed in our society, but evidently, it was serious enough for the courts to send you to the Honor Farm."
"Yessir," she nodded. "I'm aware of it."
"You may or may not know it, Clara, but I've been keeping a close eye on you all the time you have been here. You-uh-you're quite different from the other girls. I tend to believe your story, that you did not perpetrate the so-called crime, but that you were a victim of circumstances."
"Thank you, Mr. Munhall. I appreciate that."
"I think you have a remarkably good chance at rehabilitation," he spoke thoughtfully now. "As a matter-of-fact, you probably had the best prospects of anyone on this farm."
"I've always tried to do what is right," she said simply.
"Up to today," he agreed, "you've pretty well succeeded."
Clara knitted her brows in surprise. "Today?"
"Yes. I saw you coming out of the barn with that ranch-hand."
"Denis Tiffin?"
"You seem to be on pretty familiar terms."
"All the girls here know him," said Clara.
"But all the girls," Mr. Munhall said accusingly, "don't go into the barn with him."
Clara stood up quickly. "Mrs. Preston wanted the wheelbarrow, and she sent me after it."
The superintendent ignored her explanation. "How long were you in the barn with him?"
Clara, flustered, said, "I don't know."
Mr. Munhall pressed the question. "Was it five minutes ... ten ... maybe fifteen?"
"Mr. Munhall," she said, her voice quavering, "I don't know what you're driving at."
The superintendent crushed out his cigarette in an ashtray and stood directly in front of Clara. "What I want to know is, did he do this to you?" And then, taking her by utter surprise, he ran his hand over her breasts.
"No, sir. He didn't do that. Honestly."
"Did he do this?" Mr. Munhall asked. He took hold of her hand and pressed it against his trousers, and Clara blushed when she felt his extending loins.
"Oh no, no sir, Denis didn't make me do anything like that. I swear it."
"Then what were you doing in the barn so long?" he persisted.
"We were-uh-just talking."
"I know men, especially around pretty women. I want to know the truth, Clara-did he try anything like this?"
Then, as she stood there pertrified, Mr. Munhall reached under her dress and played with her. Her reaction was not a sensuous one, but pure fear. She did not know how far he would go, what he would force her to do.
"Well," he asked, when he had finished playing around, "is that what he did to you?"
"He didn't touch me. Honest. I swear it."
"All right, Clara," he said magnanimously, "I'm inclined to believe you. You understand, of course, I have to asked these questions only because I am responsible for your behavior."
She nodded, too frightened to answer.
"What we have discussed here this evening," he went on, "is confidential. Is that clear?"
"Yessir," she whispered. "Very clear."
"I'd hate to see you make a mistake. Any mistake," he emphasized, and she well knew what he meant. "I wouldn't want you to be sent to the Women's Reformatory."
"No sir," she agreed. "Neither would I."
"Fine." He smiled. "You just toe the line, Clara, and before you know it, you'll be out of here."
"I certainly will," she assured him.
"You may go now. The other girls are in the dormitory."
When she went to the door, he followed her, and he rubbed his hand on her buttocks. "Remember what I said," he reminded her.
"Yessir."
"Just routine questioning, if anyone should ask you."
"I understand clearly," she said, and when he opened the door, she could hardly wait to get outside.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Clara stood between the Administration Building and the barracks for fully five minutes, hoping the gentle breeze would soothe her mixed-up emotions. She had an urge to run to Mrs. Preston and tell her about the superintendent; however, she well knew that not only would Mr. Munhall deny it, but he would have her punished for insubordination, which would mean a long trip to the Women's Reformatory.
Deciding to forget the whole incident, she went to the dormitory where the lights had already been turned out. As she started to undress in the semi-darkness, Aggy pushed herself up on her elbows and said, "Clara...?"
"What?" she responded, continuing to undress and not even looking at Aggy.
"What did he want?"
Clara ignored the question and slipped into her pajamas. Angered, Aggy sarcastically remarked, "Maybe she can't hear so good," and she threw her covers aside and stepped over to Clara's bed. "I asked you, Clara-what did he want?"
When Clara still refused to answer, Aggy grabbed her by the arm and pulled her completely around. "I'm talking to you!" Aggy exclaimed.
"I've got ears!" Clara replied, furious. And she pulled away, sharply.
Both Rose and Nan joined them, and Rose whispered, "Keep it low, you two."
Aggy snapped, "What difference does it make now-after this stoolie spilled her guts?"
"How do you know what she said?" asked Nan.
"So why don't she answer?" was Aggy's response. Then she addressed Clara again. "Well, what did you tell him?"
"None of your business!" said Clara.
Needing no more provocation, Aggy slapped Clara across the face. Clara staggered backward and fell on her bed. Before either Nan or Rose could intervene, Aggy grabbed Clara by the hair and yanked at her viciously.
"I'll teach you to squeal on us, you double-crossing rat!" said the vindictive Aggy.
When Rose pulled Aggy off Clara, the latter asserted herself and was ready to give it back to Aggy, but Nan restrained her, admonishing her with, "What's the matter with you-you flipped?"
"Me?" asked a surprised Clara. "I've taken all I'm going to take from her. From now on-"
"Shut up, all of you!" Rose whispered harshly. And when the noise subsided, she continued, "This will get us no place-fast."
"That's just where we're going," said a subdued, infuriated Aggy. "No place-fast."
"If you quit fighting and relax like I told you," Rose said, "maybe I'll be able to line up a car for us."
Aggy's attitude changed. "In town?"
Rose nodded. "I'll give it a whirl."
Aggy didn't let any opportunity get by. "How soon?"
"Tonight," replied Rose. "If you stop all this brawling and leave Clara alone."
"Okay," agreed Aggy. She looked at both Clara and Nan. "Come on-let's hit the sack."
Aggy returned to her bed, but Nan sat down beside Clara and put her arm around her. "Did she hurt you?" asked Nan.
"I'm all right," said Clara.
"Did Mr. Munhall give you a bad time?" When Nan asked the question, she also let her hand slip onto Clara's breast, and she gently squeezed it.
Clara had had enough trouble for one night, what with the superintendent and Aggy. So she merely pushed out her elbow, thereby forcing Nan to let go of her, and shook her head no.
"Don't worry, Clara," Nan tried to comfort her, "things have a way of working themselves out."
"Get into bed, you two," ordered Rose, and as soon as Clara and Nan got under their covers, Rose started to dress.
Jerry Sapporo, turning the key in the patrol box, thought he heard a low whistle-the signal. This was unusual, being signalled in the middle of a week. He whistled back, just to play it safe, and listened. When he heard the signal again, he hurried toward the rear of the barracks.
Rose leaned out of the domitory window. "What's with you, Rose?" apporo asked.
"I have to run into town on business."
"This is getting to be a habit," he told her. However, as she eased herself out the window, he helped her down to the ground.
"Like I said, Jerry-it's business."
"Yeah," he muttered, "monkey business."
"Look, Jerry," she said softly, moving away from him, "didn't I come back early last time?"
He recalled the wonderful time she had given him, and he couldn't be too harsh with her. But he did warn her. "You're taking too many chances. If you get caught, it's going to be curtains for both of us."
"I never got caught yet," she reminded him.
"There's always a first time."
Trying a new tack, Rose shrugged and said, "Okay, if that's the way you feel about it, forget it." And then she added slyly, "and I'll forget about you."
"Now look, Rose," he said, putting his arms around her and pressing against her, "No use getting sore. All I want is for you to be careful."
She gave him a sultry smile. "You know how careful I am." Then, after a quick kiss, she pulled away and hurried toward the road. Sapporo, worried, looked after her with anxiety-and with the hope that she'd come back in time to spend half an hour or so with him.
Rose sat with Sid Cranston in one of the rear booths in the Tecumcare bar. They necked openly and obviously were having a good time.
Sid, undoubtedly surprised by Rose's strong response to his advances, was in a particularly good mood-which was Rose's intention in the first place.
When the time seemed ripe, Rose raised her glass to Sid's and said, "Well, here's to us."
"You said it, doll. Here's to you and me." Sid gulped down his beer, put dpwn his glass, lustily grabbed Rose and planted a wet kiss on her mouth. Rose pulled away.
"Hey," she laughed, "wait a minute. Lemme up for air."
"Baby" whispered Sid, "I'm nuts about you." Rose eyed him shrewdly. "Are you? Really?"
"Cross my heart," he said, and he did so, as if that was reassurance. "You got everything. And then some." Sid lowered his voice suggestively. "I been thinking, Rose baby-maybe it's time you and me should go up to my place."
"Not so fast," she told him. "Fact is, Sid, I've got a little problem that's worrying me."
Sid was filled with confidence tonight. "Yeah? Tell me, doll. I can solve anything."
"I'll bet you can," she flattered him. "You're the big, strong, dependable type, Sid. Anyone can see that."
When she brought home her point with a passionate kiss, he said, "Most dependable guy in the world."
"You'll really help me, then?" she pleaded.
"Sure, baby." He hedged a little. "If I can. What is it? Money?"
"I need your car," she said, taking the plunge. "Tomorrow night."
Sid frowned. "What for?"
"I've got to get to Amarillo."
"What the hell," he exclaimed, "That's a hundred miles from here!"
"So what?" she pouted. "I could do it in a couple of hours."
"You mean skip out of the farm, go to Amarillo and back again-all the same night?" he asked dubiously.
"Sure. What's so hard about that?"
Sid wasn't anxious to get mixed up in thb plan. "I don't know...."
"Please, Sid," she begged, putting her arm around him. "I never told you this before, but I've got a kid all my own. Lives with my older sister in Amarillo."
"You married?" he asked, surprised.
"Used to be. If it wasn't for that sucker," she said, feigning anger, "I wouldn't be where I am today."
"Must be some guy," said Sid sympathetically.
"You should see my kid. Tomorrow's his birthday-he'll be five, Sid. I promised him I'd be there for his party. You know what that means to a kid."
"Yeah, sure," he agreed. "But how do I know you'll come back?"
"Fine friend you are," she flared angrily. "I should have known better." She stood up beside the booth and glared at him. "You're only out for what you can get. For nothing," she emphasized.
Sid quickly pushed himself to his feet. "Wait a minute, Rose." He took her hand and tried to pull her back into the booth. "Sit down. I didn't say I wouldn't do it."
"And you didn't say you would."
"Well, you gotta give a guy a chance to make up his mind." When she sat down beside him, he asked, "What time do you need it?"
"About midnight. All you have to do is leave it on the side of the road about a quarter of a mile from the farm."
"That's all?" he said sarcastically. "The least you could do is come in town and pick it up."
Rose knew how to get around that one. "I would, if you want me to. The only thing, Sid, it would take all my strength-and instead of saving it for tomorrow night, I thought maybe tonight, you and me...."
"Do you mean what I think you mean?" he asked huskily, starting to paw her.
"Try me out," she whispered. "But not here."
They wasted little time in getting to Sid's little cottage behind his gas station. It was bachelor diggings, a one-room affair with a built-in kitchen. Sid opened a couple of beer cans which he and Rose emptied as they undressed.
Sid pressed the cold beer can against his forehead, trying to keep calm as he watched Rose wiggle out of her dress and unhook her brassiere. Her two breasts, freed from their supports, danced tantalizingly in front of his eyes.
Knowing all the innuendoes, Rose turned around so that he saw her buttocks as she bent over and pulled off her panties. He would have pushed up against her at this moment, but his own trousers were halfway off, and he was in no position to move.
When she faced him, it was more than he could stand. She opened her arms and embraced him, their mouths meeting in a passionate kiss, their tongues darting against each other's.
Sid pushed her down onto the bed, already to go into action. "Hold it," said Rose.
"Something wrong?" asked Sid.
"Not so fast, honey," she said. "Make love to me.
Sid was not an artful lover. He was what girls called a rabbit-fast and furious. So Rose gave him a lesson in the art of romance. She whispered her instructions to him, and his face came down upon her breasts, kissing the nipples, biting gently on them, until they were hard and erect. She took her hand and pushed his head along her body, and he had sense enough to tongue her, though he did it brusquely. Nevertheless Rose felt a coarse thrill, a new kind of sensation, at the roughness of this trip around the world.
He even chewed on her bush, and when she opened her legs, she was surprised he did not resist and let his tongue linger on the vaginal lips. It found her clitoris and she moaned.
"What'sa matter, kid, am I hurting you?" he asked.
Amused, Rose changed positions, saying, "My turn." And as she pushed him on his back, she leaned over and gave Sid the works-a tongue-lashing from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. Everything but his big cock.
Then, seeing he was losing control, she whispered, "The car, Sid-you goin' to let me have it?"
"Sure, Rose. Anytime."
"Tomorrow?"
"Uh-huh."
"At the farm?"
"Yeah ... sure ... come on, baby. Fuck me!"
She mounted him, then, straddled him and rode him like a jockey trying to win the Kentucky Derby. He grabbed her tits as if holding onto the reins, groaned, and away they went!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The girls were having breakfast, and they ate in silence until Mrs. Preston walked past their table to another part of the dining room.
"Holy smokes," said Aggy to Rose, "another half hour and it would have been daylight! Where'd you go-Galveston?"
I went to the moon," said Rose. It was a private joke. Then, more seriously, she added, "The point is, I got out and I got back, didn't I?"
"Yes," agreed Nan, "but did you get a car?"
"If I'm half the woman I think I am," said Rose, "we have a car."
"When?" asked Aggy, trying not to show her eagerness.
Mrs. Preston had a feeling the girls were talking about something she would like to overhear, and she strolled near their table again. Suddenly, however, the glirls clammed up.
"The food's been better recently, hasn't it, girls?" Mrs. Preston asked.
"Great," said Nan.
"Just fine," said Rose.
"Swell," replied Aggy, and when Clara sat there in silence, Aggy kicked her under the trouble.
"Yes, the food's been wonderful," said Clara.
Mrs. Preston smiled at them and once more walked away. Aggy chuckled, "Food ... oh boy, I know what I'm going to have for breakfast tomorrow morning." Then, just to make certain, she said softly to Rose, "Youre sure, now?"
"Don't worry. The car will be there."
Nan grinned. "How'd you manage it, Rose?"
"As if you don't know," she grinned right back.
Nan said, "You're the greatest. You get the car ... you get us out of here...."
Aggy broke in with, "and I get us a hideout. Don't forget that."
"I'll come up with the dough so's we can live awhile," promised Nan. Then, turning to Rose again, she asked, "How are we going to work it tonight? You know-getting out of the dorm?"
Rose saw that Mrs. Preston was watching them from across the room, and she said, "We'll talk about it out on the field."
Aggy said, "Trouble is, Clara does the laundry today."
Clara just sat there, staring at her plate, saying nothing. She refused to commit herself or to start an argument by saying she wasn't going.
Mrs. Preston clapped her hands and called out, "all right, girls-time to go to work!"
As they filed out, Aggy walked closely behind Clara and gave her a pinch. "That's just to remind you, Clara-you're going with us. I'll fill you in on the details later."
Clara was grateful for the solitude of the basement laundry. Just as she got started, however, she realized she was out of soap powder and she went upstairs, and looked for Mrs. Preston.
Mr. Munhall was talking to the matron, and as Clara approached, she overheard him say that he would be gone all day, and for her to assume full responsibility. Then he walked toward the barn where the farm sedan was parked.
"What is it, Clara?" asked Mrs. Preston.
"We're out of soap powder," Clara told her.
"Mr. Niles has the supplies," the matron said. "Go ask him for some."
As Clara walked toward the farmhouse, she saw the superintendent driving away. Mr. Niles, the elderly farmer, met her on the porch.
"Morning, Clara."
"Good morning, Mr. Niles. I came for some soap powder."
Mr. Niles was not as old as he looked. At least not mentally old. His eyes twinkled. "Suppose I bring it over," he suggested.
"Oh, I don't want to put you to any trouble," Clara said.
"No trouble," he told her. "In fact, I insist."
"Thank you, then," she said, and she walked back to the laundry room, noticing on the way that Wakefield, the day guard, was patrolling the far corner of the field, while Mrs. Preston talked to the girls at the vegetable patch.
For the next five minutes, Clara made neat piles of the sheets, pillowcates and towels. Then she heard the basement door opening, and she called up, "Be careful Mr. Niles. The steps are rather steep."
And then she realized why the old farmer had insisted on bringing over the soap powder. Because Mr. Niles wasn't there at all! He had sent Denis to her.
"Sorry to disappoint you," said Denis as he approached her and placed the soap powder on a ledge.
"I'll show you how disappointed I am," she smiled happily, and she embraced him and gave him a warm kiss.
"Hey lady," he laughed, "I could learn to like that." He noticed Clara's smile dissolve into a frown. "What's the matter, Clara-something I said?"
"No, Denis. It's-well, something's up." Clara hesitated and turned away. "Maybe I shouldn't be telling you."
"If you can't trust me," said Denis, "then who can you turn to?"
"It isn't that I don't trust you, Denis. Only ... ," she let the words drift.
Impatiently, Denis asked, "Only what? Tell me, Clara-what is it?"
Clara turned to face him again. "Some of the girls," she revealed, "are planning an escape."
Denis said, "Just so you're not in on it."
"That's the trouble. I am."
"You're out of your mind!" he exclaimed. "You've only got a couple of months to go."
"You don't understand, Denis. They're forcing me," she told him.
Denis was dumbstruck, but only for a moment. "They?"
Clara nodded. "Yes. Nan ... Rose ... Aggy-the girls in my section."
"How can they force you?" he demanded to know. "You're a grown woman, Clara. Not a kid."
"It sounds simple, I know," she admitted. But you don't know them-especially that Aggy."
"All you have to do is go to Mrs. Preston or Mr. Munhall, and tell either one of them."
"I can't do that, Denis."
"Why not? Who are you worried about-them ... or yourself?"
"It isn't that. I just-well, I can't squeal."
Denis took her by the shoulders and spoke in a soft but persuasive tone. "Look, Clara. You were a patsy once before for your cousin. I thought that taught you a lesson."
Clara evaded his eyes, and he pressed his point. "Why do you think I'm waiting around here?" When she raised her eyes and looked directly at him, he said, "When you walk out of here, Clara, I'm walking with you."
"Denis," she said very quietly, "do you mean that you and I ... ," she was afraid to finish the sentence, afraid that she might have misunderstood him or put a false meaning to his words.
But Denis was quite reassuring. "If I didn't make myself clear, Clara, then let me tell you this: you're not alone anymore. And as far as that goes, neither am I."
Clara threw herself in Denis's arms, and he held her tightly. There were tears in her eyes, tears of happiness. And as he held her against him, she forgot about the escape attempt, for there were new, more exciting interests.
There was Denis, with his tense muscles, with his wordless appeal for her love. And there was her desire aroused once more, her wish to show this man that she loved him.
Two healthy, young people, in love and alone in a basement.
"Denis," she whispered, "reach up and turn off the light."
"Somebody's liable to come in," he said.
"No," she told him. "I saw Mr. Munhall drive into town. Mrs. Preston and Wakefield have all they can do to keep the girls busy on the farm."
"You sure?"
"Positive," she whispered, and this time, when she kissed him, he threw caution to the wind and reached up and turned off the single overhead light.
Clara had arranged a huge pile of sheets, not for lovemaking, but it served well as a place for them to lie down.
Denis had had her in the light; now it was time for a repeat performance in the dark.
They undressed each other with anticipation, and as they lay on the bed of cool sheets, even before they embraced, she felt his huge cock pressing against her stomach.
Clara gently took hold of it, moved closer to Denis, and they found each other's lips. Then, as she gently massaged his balls, he made love to her in the darkness.
Without seeing, but with tremendous passion, he nibbled on her lovely tits until he felt the nipples hard and erect. Then he ran his tongue down her belly, stopping as before at the belly-button. Next stop was the fragrant bush, which he chewed tenderly.
And then, when his tongue touched the tip of her clit, she let out a moan. Instantly he darted his tongue between the now moist vaginal lips, and without thinking about it, Clara made an undulating motion.
"Wait for me," he whispered, and he lunged his massive prick into her.
"Oh Denis!" she cried softly, "Denis! Denis!"
Denis had rolled onto his side, holding her in his arms. "Clara, I love you very much. This is the real thing. It's going to last us a lifetime."
She responded with a kiss, and she knew for sure that Denis Tiffin was hers forever.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
At eleven o'clock that night, just before her own bedtime, Mrs. Preston quietly went into the dormitory and tiptoed round the room. It wasn't often that she did this, but tonight she had an uneasy feeling that something was stirring. No doubt because of the animated, then subdued, conversations of the girls.
All sixteen girls were in their beds. And all sixteen were sound asleep. At least that's the impression they gave the matron.
She returned to her own room and turned in for a long night's sleep after a tedious day's work.
Aggy waited several minutes after Mrs. Preston had left, then sat up in her bed. "You all awake?" she whispered loud enough so that she wouldn't awaken the other inmates.
Rose sat up, and so did Nan. Aggy said to Nan, "Give Clara a shake."
Nan reached over to the next bed and shook Clara, at the same time fondling her breast. Clara quickly sat up and said, "Who could sleep?"
"You going to way-lay Jerry Sapporo first?" asked Aggy of Rose.
"That's the general idea. But we might as well all get dressed and be ready," Rose replied.
"Aggy, Rose and Nan pushed away their covers and started to dress. Only Clara remained in her bed. Aggy snapped, "Come on, Clara. Dig the led out."
"I told you before," Clara said softly, "I'm not going with you."
Aggy stepped nimbly to Clara's beds and ripped the covers off her. "You want me to tear your pajamas off, too?" she said vehemently.
Clara stared defiantly at Aggy, remembering what Denis had told her earlier that day. "I'm not a kid, Aggy. I'm a grown woman. If you think-"
Before she could finish the sentence, Aggy brandished the steel prong from the rake that she had fashioned into a weapon. Aggy pressed it against Clara's breast and warned her, "One way or another, you're not going to talk."
"I swear to you," said Clara, "nobody will get so much as a word out of me."
"I'll make sure of that," persisted Aggy. "Either you're coming, or you stop breathing. I've got nothing to lose. You've got everything."
"You better do what she says," Nan advised Clara. "No use bucking traffic." ' Clara reluctantly got out of bed, took off her pajamas, put on her brassiere, panties, socks, shoes and dress. To get a sweater would have meant opening a locker, and none of the four girls took that chance.
They huddled beside the rear window and Rose pushed it open. Then, leaning out, she emitted a low, soft whistle.
Jerry Sapporo returned the signal, listened once more for the whistle, then hurried to the rear of the barracks. This time he was sore, because he felt Rose was taking advantage of a good thing, and he was prepared to put up an argument.
Rose, however, had anticipated himi and she was already sliding down from the open window when he arrived, and he had no choice but to take hold of her and ease her to the ground. He did not have an inkling that three other girls were leaning against the wall, watching furtively.
"Now what do you think you're doing?" Sapporo asked Rose, trying to keep his voice down.
"Is that any way to greet me?" asked Rose provocatively.
"Fine one you are. Almost didn't get back in time last night. I mean this morning."
Rose pretended to pout. "Why do you think I'm here now? I missed you last night, so I thought-well, if you want me to go back in...?"
Sapporo took hold of her arm. "you mean you just came out to see me?" he asked, trying to hide his surprise.
"Can you give me a better reason?" she teased him, and when he embraced her, she gave him a kiss that made him anxious for more. "Not here," she whispered. "Let's go to the barn."
"Okay," he said. "Come on."
After Rose took the night guard away, Aggy told Nan to climb out first. Nan clung to the ledge, which wasn't high off the ground, then let go. "Next!" she called up to the darkness.
"That's you," said Aggy, and she gave Clara a little shove. Clara dropped down without any trouble, and thought this might be the time to make a run for it. Nan, sensing Clara's indecision, warned her, "You know what'll happen if we get caught. Not that I give a damn. But that Aggy-she'll slice your throat."
There was no more time to consider the alternatives. Aggy had already jumped to the ground, and she took hold of Clara's arm. "Let's go," she said. "The car's supposed to be parked at the edge of the farm."
As the three of them traipsed across the field, Clara caught sight of the farmhouse, and she decided to make one last attempt. Without giving any indication to Aggy, Clara broke away and started running as fast as she could.
But she was no match for Aggy, who gave chase and tripped her. Clara sprawled on the ground, and Aggy sat on her, once more brandishing her crude weapon. "This is better for me," said Aggy, breathing hard. "I could slice you up right here, and we'd be to hell and gone before anybody found your body." To emphasize her point, she pressed the steel prong against Clara's neck.
"Now," she said, and there was no doubt that she meant every word of it, "either you come along like a good girl, or they might as well dig a hole and bury you right here."
"I'll go with you," Clara said weakly. As long as there was life there was hope, although she didn't hold out much hope for her prospects at this moment.
The car was waiting on the dirt road that led from the Honor Farm to Tecumcare. The keys were in it, as Sid Cranston had promised. Evidently someone had followed him out in another car, and had taken him back to town, for he was not there.
Aggy shoved Clara in the back seat and got in with her, holding the weapon in her hand in case of another attempt at escape. Nan sat up front, but not behind the wheel. Inasmuch as Rose had borrowed the car, it was her prerogative to drive.
"How long are we going to have to sit here?" Nan asked Aggy.
"It depends on Rose, not me," Aggy said sourly.
If Rose had her way, she would have been there in a minute. But there was no eluding Jerry Sapporo, once she got him to the barn.
"Let's make it a quickie," she suggested.
"We got hours," he told her. "What's your hurry?"
"I can't stand the smell of the barn," she told him. "Makes me sick."
"It was your idea in the first place," he reminded her. "We can go behind it. Nobody'll see us there."
So Rose followed him to an area behind the barn that wasn't too dusty. "How's this?" he asked.
She shrugged indifferently. "I guess one place is as good as another," she said.
Sapporo flelt that something was lacking, but he had no intention of letting this opportunity slip by. He took hold of her, brought her close up against him, and pressed his mouth against hers. She began to cooperate, and he felt better for it.
When Sapporo started to take off his shirt, she said, "Don't get all undressed."
"Why not? We did before. Remember?"
"There was grass there," she replied. "I'll just slip off my panties."
"What about up here, these gorgeous tits of yours?" he asked, giving her breasts a squeeze over her dress.
"Let's skip that for now. Come on, hon," he said, lifting her dress and removing her panties, "I 'll take good care of you."
When he saw her with raised dress, his prick pressed hard against is pants, and he let thjm drop to the barn floor. He didn't want to fast fuck, and he didn't want to argue with her. So he made a compromise.
"Tell you what," he said. "How 'bout you sucking me off instead of fucking me?"
Rose was all for that. She knelt down before him, and he stood up, glancing down as she took his big cock into her mouth and sucked back and forth, back and forth.
"Not so goddamn fast!" he snapped.
Rose took the hint. She kissed the head of his gargantuan prick, ran her lips along the side of it, pulled his balls out of his shorts and took them in her mouth, one at a time.
"That's more like it," he breathed hard.
Then, once more, Rose placed her lips over the head of his lance, slipped it into her mouth, worked her tongue over it until he came. She gagged at the first surge of semen, but after that she was all right and managed to swallow it.
"You like it," Sapporo said, as he pulled his shrunken penis into his shorts and pulled up his pants.
"I like everything you got," she lied, adding, "I'm going into town for an hour or so."
"You're crazy!" he told her. "You'll never make it."
"Sure I will," she replied. "Somebody's waiting for me in a car, at the edge of the farm."
"So that's why your were in such a fucking hurry!"
"Well," she admitted, "I figured if I paid you off first, the least you'd do was carry out your end of the bargin."
Sapporo had no choice.
"It's about time," growled Aggy, who had become impatient because Clara, beside her was restless.
Rose chuckled, thinking of how fast she really worked, gave Nan a gentle pole and slid into the driver's seat. When Rose turned on the ignition and tread on the starter, the car did not turn over. She tried again and again, but still no luck.
"Damnit all!" snapped Aggy from the rear of the car, "don't you know how to drive?"
"Sure," said Rose, "I can drive. Trouble is, I can't get this damn thing started." She seemed to enjoy the suspense, but Nan did not.
"Let me try it," said Nan, "I'm a whiz with cars." She slid over on top of Rose, letting Rose slide under her, and they exchanged places.
Nan turned off the ignition, pushed on the accelerator to clear the flooded gas line, then quickly turned on the ignition. The motor started. "See," she said gaily, "I'm a genius!"
"Okay, genius," said Aggy, "let's roll!"
And roll they dd. Nan did not turn on the headlights, because they had all agreed that the beams might attract attention. There was a good moon, and they had a fair amount of light.
"Hey Nan!" said Rose sharply, "where's the fire?"
Clara leaned forward and said to Nan, "another five or ten minutes isn't going to make any difference. Take it easy."
Nan merely laughed. Holding the wheel of a car gave her new strength, the same kind of strength she had when she drove her own convertible, the present that her millionaire boyfriend had given her. She pressed harder, harder, throwing caution to the wind. Four girls in an old, heavy convertible, speeding toward the main highway.
And on the highway, rolling along at a fair clip, was a small truck. There was a driver up front, and there were a; dozen Mexican immigrant laborers standing crowded together in the back.
The convertible on the dirt road.
The truck on the paved highway.
Chances were slim that they would meet. But in the game of life, no one can figure the odds. This time, depending on the viewpoint, they hit the jackpot.
Or, to put it more bluntly, the convertible hit the truck. The driver of the truck saw the speeding car lurch out of the crossroads too late, and though he tugged at the wheel and the truck veered and skidded, it was hit so hard that it turned over.
The dozen Mexicans were pinned beneath the overturned truck. But not the driver. He was knocked out of the driver's seat and killed. A swift, painless death.
Not one of the four girls was even slightly injured!
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
For the first few seconds after the impact, the girls remained in the car, stunned. It was Aggy who snapped out of it first, but her immediate concern was not for the injured Mexicans.
"Holy mackerel, Nan," she yelled, "we should have known better than to let you take the wheel!"
"It wasn't my fault!" exclaimed Nan. "You didn't want me to drive with lights on. Besides, they should have seen me."
While the two girls were arguing, one blaming the other, the other making excuses, Rose and Clara ran toward the overturned truck to help the trapped men, whose fearful cries were blood-curdling.
"Come around here," Rose called to Clara, "and we'll push from this side. One, two, three-both together!" The two of them pushed and strained and pushed harder, but to no avail.
Clara shouted to Nan, "Hey Nan, give us a hand, will you?"
Nan came over, and Aggy traipsed along. "Some of these men are hurt badly," said Rose.
"It wasn't my fault," said Nan, repeating her previous statement to Aggy.
"Who cares?" snapped Rose. "Let's push this damn truck upright and get them out."
The four of them stood in one line and pushed with all their strength. The weight of the men held down the other side of the truck, and the girls were unable to right it.
"We've got to get help," said Clra. "Somebody better drive back to town and-"
"You shut up!" ordered Aggy. "Nobody's going to Tecumcare. We're headed south, to Mexico."
"But we can't-"
Again Aggy interrupted her, this time with a rough shove to the shoulder. "Who says we can't? We're going to Mexico, and the sooner the better."
Rose took Clara's side. "We can't leave them here, Aggy."
"Oh, for pete's sake," snapped Aggy, more impatient to make her escape secure, than she was worried about the screaming Mexicans, "somebody's bound to come along."
"Along here, at this time of night?" asked Clara. "For all you know, they could die."
Aggy was completely without compassion. "That's their hard luck, not mine." She grabbed Rose's arm and said, "Come on-before the cops get here."
Clara took hold of Rose's other arm and implored her, "You can't run off and leave them like this, Rose. It's not human!"
Rose, briefly torn with indecision, yanked her arm away from Aggy. "I'm staying," she said. "We'll get help, one way or the other."
Aggy had already given up on Clara. It was not important now whether she stayed or went along. But Nan was important to her, and she turned to the girl, who was still shaken from the havoc that her carelessness had wrought.
"Well, Nan," she muttered, "you coming with me, or are you staying with them?"
The truth of the matter was that Aggy could not drive a car, and she had to have Nan. As far as Nan was concerned, it wasn't escaping from the farm that was on her mind now, but getting away from the law for the accident. For her first offense, she got off with a year's sentence at the Honor Farm. For this, a second offense perpetrated while committing another crime-the escape attempt-she knew it would go hard with her in the courts.
"Let's go," said Nan, and the two of them ran back to the car.
The second they were in, Aggy advised Nan, "Now be careful!"
Nan furiously turned off the ignition and turned on Aggy. "You're so smart, why don't you drive?"
"If I knew how, I would, damn you!" Aggy snapped. "Now get going, or it'll be worse for you than for me, and you know damn well what I mean."
Nan knew all right. She turned the ignition key on again, started the motor, backed away from the scene of the accident, then put her foot on the brake and shouted to Rose and Clara, "Last chance, you two! Do you want to come, or don't you?"
Neither of the girls answered. They were too busy trying to make an opening for the trapped men. Rose barely glanced over her shoulder as the convertible sped away from them.
Aggy gave a backward glance to the overturned truck. "Crazy fools," she murmured, half to herself, "they'll get picked up by cops, sure as hell."
She was about to warn Nan for driving at such a fast clip, but thought silence was the better part of valor under the circumstances. She folded her arms belligerently, stared straight ahead and wished they were already in Mexico.
Clara paused for a deep breath, turned and got a fading glimpse of the car disappearing down the highway. "How can they do that," she asked Rose, "driving away from a terrible accident?"
"It's not the first time for Nan," Rose reminded her, and she shook her head in disgust. Then, realizing the futility of their pushing against the overturned truck, she continued, "You wait here, Clara, and signal for help if a car comes along."
"Where are you going?" asked Clara tensely, thinking that Rose was going to desert her.
"I'll run into town, as fast as I can," she said. "I know where to get help there." For an instant she shuddered at the thought of having to face Sid Cranston, for by the time she got there, his car would be in Mexico.
"It's closer back to the farm," said Clara.
"Suppose I go and get Denis."
"If you go back there," said Rose, barely touching Clara's arm, "you know what that means."
"What difference does it make now?" asked Clara, and she motioned toward the truck and shuddered at the moans that came from under it.
"I'll go with you," said Rose.
"No," said Clara. "I'll manage. Besides, like you told me, if anybody comes along somebody better be here to signal them."
"Okay," Rose agreed, "Hurry."
Rose was tired and wanted to lean against the overturned truck, but she was afraid to, what with all those injured or dead men under it, so she stood several feet away and watched Clara running back up the dirt road.
Then, alone on the highway except for the Mexicans, Rose shuddered. It was an eerie feeling. She said to herself that she could do not good here, and she was half-tempted to start running south, toward the Mexican border. She even regretted that she had not gone along with Nan and Aggy.
She was lucky she didn't.
As they sped southward, Nan clutched the wheel, as if holding on for dear life, while her past loomed up before her. Having crashed into the truck, knowing she was speeeding, driving without lights, and emerging from a side road onto the highway without stopping, Nan realized she was solely responsible for the tragedy.
Once before, she remembered, she had snuffed out a life. That time, she was more interested in what would happen to her than what happened to the man she had run down. This time, however, the enormity of the accident, the number of lives involved, emotionally shook her. She considered herself a cold-blooded murderer, and she wondered what there was in her past that had driven her to this.
Her father? He was unimportant to her. At least that is what she thought. The one time he might have helped her, by signing the application for for her parole, he had refused to so so. Nan cursed him out. Suddenly it came to her that if she had been paroled, she would not be in this predicament.
Denis Tiffin? Was he the only good thing in her life, or was he the really bad thing? He loved her, or at least he said he did. But he had seduced her. He was the first one, the only one, in fact, until Gentleman Sam came along.
Almost subconsciously she compared the two men. Denis was young and virile, and he played games with her tits, her bush, her cunt before laying her. Gentleman Sam was middle-aged, and he was only good for one orgasm at night; but that was a top-notch one, filled with gentleness and a tongue that was nothing less than heaven.
She also remembered that Denis said she'd learned to take it in the mouth. But it was Gentleman Sam who finally induced her to do that, and came the time when there was nothing she liked better than his slim prick jutting at the roof of her mouth, bending slightly toward her throat, and the hot come streaming into her mouth.
And then she recalled the one time that Gentleman Sam, wanting to experiment, suggested he shove his prick up her ass. She had never heard of such a thing, although the very thought of it was more of a mystery than a shock.
"How are you going to get that prick of yours into my tiny asshole?" she asked Gentleman Sam.
"Where there's a will there's a way. And baby-is there a will?"
He took a jar of Vaseline, rubbed it all over his cock, put more on his finger and shoved it up her asshole. Then, as she lay on her stomach, he worked gently, as if she were a virgin, and slowly edged his slim cock up her rear.
Nan thought, I was his wife. His common-law wife, anyway. But it was Denis who came back to me, back to where I was, on the farm. I had a chance to straighten out everything, to pick up where we left off. But I didn't. I was a fool, a damn fool! I should have stuck with Denis.
"Watch it!" cried Aggy, and Nan snapped out of her reverie and held the car on a steady course. "What the devil you doing?" snapped Aggy.
"What the hell do you think?" Nan snapped back. What she had done was to drive on the wrong side of the highway, so that if any car had come toward them, there would have been a head-on crash.
"Well, concentrate on your driving?" said Aggy sharply.
Nan tried to, but the past still loomed up before her. Sam, the millionaire, the married gentleman who had given her everything. Almost everything. When she got into trouble, with the car he had bought for her, he wasn't there to help. But living with Sam, she had to admit to herself, wasn't the same as being married. It wasn't in life and in death, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse.
It was better for him, she said, and worse for me. I gave up college, I gave up Denis, and for what? The bastard, I'll get even with him.
"We're going back," Nan suddenly said to Aggy.
"What are you talking about?"
"Those men," said Nan, "they might die." Actually she wasn't concerned about the Mexicans. She subconsciously thought that if she drove back for help, the whole story would come out-the story of how the millionaire had lived with her. She didn't care what might happen to her. All she cared about, in these moments of depression, was what would happen to Sam. She would tell all, and she would drag him down with her.
Aggy tried to talk her out of it. "There's nothing we can do to help," she argued. "Besides, Rose and Clara are there."
"It'll take me less time to drive for help," Nan persisted, "than for them to go for it."
"It's too late," persisted Aggy. "Keep going, Nan. We're almost there."
"No. I'm turning back."
Nan put her foot on the brake and started to make a U-turn on the highway. Aggy grabbed for the wheel and tried to keep the car on a straight course.
"Let go!" shouted Nan.
"Don't be a fool!" yelled Aggy.
The heavy convertible swerved wildly from side to side, and in the struggle for control of the wheel, Nan took her foot off the brake and pressed it on the accelerator.
Nan gave a powerful tug on the wheel, and since she had both hands on it, she had more control than Aggy. But it was too much of a tug, and despite Aggy trying to keep the car on the road, it crashed into a fence and went up in flames.
The force of the impact knocked the steering wheel into Nan's chest and mercifully killed her. Aggy's head hit the windshield, and she was momentarily stunned. By the time she recovered, however, she was already enveloped in flames. She screamed, her yells punctuating the silence of the night, but there was no one for miles around to hear.
In the last moments of her purgatory, the sins of her life burned in her mind, just as her clothes burned against her flesh. There were flashes of her sordid past, all the oddballs who paid five or ten dollars for her services.
Like the one character who only fingerfucked her while she jerked him off ... the fat geezer who came when she squatted over him and pissed on his face ... the guy who reamed her, sliding his tongue as far as possible up her asshole, at the same time jerking off. These were the weirdos ... and then there were the hundreds of blokes who just fucked, fucked, fucked.
Flesh they wanted. And flesh they got. The word flesh stuck in her mind, and Aggy screamed because the odor of flesh filled her nostrils.
Burning flesh. Aggy Rostov's flesh. And when she stopped smelling it, she was dead.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As Aggy screamed with her last breath, Clara banged frantically on the farmhouse door. The elderly Mr. Niles opened it, standing there in his pajamas and robe, and seeing the frightened, breathless girl on the porch, he asked, "What's the matter, child?"
"There's been a-" Try as she might, Clara could not get the words out. She had been running, walking, and running some more.
"Sit down," he suggested, "sit down on the steps."
"No," she managed to say, "can't." Then, as Denis appeared in his pajamas, she seemed to gain new strength, and she blurted out, "Wreck ... crossroads ... lots of men."
Denis said to the farmer, "Go back with her in the jeep. I'll get Mr. Munhall."
Denis slipped on his trousers and a shirt over his pajamas, stepped into shoes and ran across the field to the Administration Building. Jerry Sapporo, on guard duty, tried to stop him, but there was no time to explain. Denis hit Sapporo in the stomach, doubling him over; then an uppercut to the jaw knocked him out. Denis did not know why he did it, but there was something about this character he disliked. If he had paused to think about it, he might have remembered the first time he met Sapporo, when the night guard was peeking into the dormitory.
Denis awakened Mr. Munhall, who first telephoned the State Police for help. Then he took Denis with him in the farm sedan, and they raced along the dirt road, catching up to the jeep just as it reached the highway.
Rose was waiting for them.
An hour later, Clara and Rose sat forlornly in the jeep and watched the last of the Mexicans being taken away in an ambulance, its siren wailing a mournful sound.
Denis came over to them. "They'll be all right," he assured the girls.
"All of them?" asked Clara.
"All except the driver," he was sorry to admit. Then, trying to buoy up their spirts, he said, "You did the right thing, coming for help. You probably saved their lives."
Before they could answer, a State Trooper rode up to the truck and asked, "Who's in charge here?"
"If you mean from the Honor Farm," said Mr. Munhall, "I am."
The Trooper got off his motorcycle and beckoned Mr. Munhall to one side. They spoke in low tones, so that they could not be overheard. Finally the Trooper remounted his motorcycle and roared off down the highway, and Mr. Munhall walked over to the jeep, where Niles had joined Denis and the girls.
"I told you," Mr. Munhall said to Rose and Clara, "that nobody could escape from the Farm."
"Mr. Munhall," Rose started to say, "Clara didn't-"
But Mr. Munhall cut her off with, "I'm talking about Nancy Minot and Augustine Rostov."
"They were caught?" asked Clara tensely.
"No. The State Trooper just told me-the car smashed into a fence and both girls were burned to death."
There was a sudden silence, except for Clara's sharp intake of breath. Rose shuddered, and she thought she was going to throw up.
"You girls get in the other car," Mr. Munhall ordered curtly.
They got out of the jeep and started for the sedan. Denis tried to make a pitch for them. "Mr. Munhall . ... "
The superintendent looked at Denis. "It's late and we're all tired. What do you want?"
"About the girls-Clara and Rose...." he began.
"I think the superintendent," he said coldly, "is better equipped to handle the situation than a farmhand." With that, he joined the girls in the sedan and drove away.
"There's a guy," Denis said bitterly to Niles, "who is cut out for his job."
Then they climbed into the jeep, and Denis drove the farmer back to the farmhouse.
At breakfast, there was not the usual chatter in the dining room. All the girls ate in gloomy silence, while Rose and Clara did not eat at all.
Mrs. Preston came over to their table, where Nan's and Aggy's empty chairs were tilted, and said, "Try to eat something, girls."
They both shook their heads, and Mrs. Preston did not insist. She walked briskly to the door as Wakefield, the day guard, came into the dining room. After talking to him, she returned to the table.
"Mr. Munhall is waiting for you," she said. "Both of you."
The other dozen girls all put down their spoons and forks and watched as Rose and Clara got up and walked silently, like a couple of condemned prisoners, out of the room.
Mrs. Preston escorted them to the superintendent's office. When they got inside, Mrs. Preston pulled the door shut, showing her intention of staying there, and she stood slightly behind Rose and Clara as they faced the desk.
Mr. Munhall was in a thoughtful, introspective mood. He looked at the girls; first at Rose, then at Clara. He glanced at two reports on his desk. He cleared his toroat. "I do not condone your escape attempt," he said, and Clara shut her eyes, figuring this was the end of the line for her.
"However," Mr. Munhall went on, "I cannot overlook what you did for those men. It was a purely unselfish act."
Clara opened her eyes and managed a brief exchange of glances with Rose. Then they heard him say, "What's more important, by coming back here for help and remaining with the truck, you both deliberately jeopardized what little chance you had of getting away.
Mr. Munhall got to his feet and came around to the front of the desk. "That shows a spark of decency, and I want to keep that spark alive. The problem is-how?"
Rose took it upon herself to say, "Mr. Munhall, there's something you ought to know about Clara."
"What's that?" he asked. For a second he recalled his previous tete-a-tete with her, and it occurred to him that Clara might have opened her mouth, and now Rose was going to threaten him with exposure unless he was lenient. But he need not have feared.
"Maybe I'm just as guilty as the other two," said Rose quietly, "but Clara was forced into this. She had no intention of trying to escape. As a matter-of-fact, she tried not to, but Aggy made her come with us."
Mr. Munhall looked directly into Clara's eyes. "Is that the truth, Clara?"
"Every last word," she said soberly.
"I'm glad to hear it," he said. And he was. He had no heart to punish this girl. "When I make out my reports," he told them, "I'm going to recommend that both of you be allowed to finish out your normal terms right here at the Honor Farm."
Rose's expression betrayed her surprise, and Mr. Munhall did not hide a little smile. "I know you're surprised, Rose, so I'll explain why I'm being lenient in your case. Not only did you stay with the injured men, but you were strong enough to assume the responsibility for the escape when you removed the blame from Clara. Besides," he added somewhat somberly, "I think the other two girls paid the price for this entire abortive episode."
There was silence after that. No one had anything to say. Mr. Munhall went to the window and looked out. He could see the farmhouse across the field, and though he could not make out their features, he saw Louis Niles and Denis Tiffin standing on the porch. They should have been working, not wasting time.
But this morning was different. Without turning, he said, "That will be all, Mrs. Preston."
"All right, girls," said the matron, "we can leave now."
The door opened and closed. But Mrs. Preston had not gone out with Rose and Clara. She had remained in the office, and she stepped to Mr. Munhall's side.
"That spark of decency," she said quietly, "I guess it's contagious."
Surprised, he turned and smiled. "I hope so," he said.
Thinking nothing undue about it, Mrs. Preston reached over and kissed him on the cheek. To her surprise, Mr. Munhall held onto her, and the next kiss was on the lips.
Their bodies pressed close, and she could feel his hot loins pressed against her. She pressed hard against him, to indicate her consent.
He led her over to the leather couch and disrobed her. It was a long time since he had taken a woman's clothes off, and it was a longer time for her that a man had removed her garments.
Then he took off his own clothes, during which time. Mrs. Preston stretched out on the couch, her legs spread open. Standing, she had full tits, overhanging. But lying down, she knew the secret of how to put her hands behind her head, and the mountains of flesh were firm and hard.
Mr. Munhall was all impatience, undressing, eyeing that welcome vagina. He sat down beside her, and as he kissed her again, he placed a finger in her cunt. Then two fingers ... then three. The juices came, and he mounted her without further ado.
Theirs was not to experiment, like the younger folks. Just a good lay was all they wanted.
Mr. Munhall pushed up and down and breathed hard, and the matron told him to relax, she would do all the work. She wiggled her ass so that his prick slid around inside her, and she held off her orgasm until he came. Then she obliged.
He was so spent that he just rolled over on his back. Little did he suspect there was another surprise in store for him, Mrs. Preston got up, bent over his shrunken dick and licked it clean.
And as she licked, it became hard again. This time, she let him stay on his back, and she mounted him.
"Now," she whispered, "let's just stay this way."
"How long do you think it'll stay hard?" he asked breathlessly.
"In me," she grinned, "till the day you die."
"What a way to go!" he chuckled.
And they just lay there, making up for all the years that had passed them by, his cock in her cunt.
Outside, Rose and Clara had left the Administration Building and had headed for the barracks. Then something caught Clara's eye, and she ran alone toward the farmhouse.
Denis came forward to meet her. They met on the field, near the vegetable patch, and they did not care if the whole world was watching. They opened their arms, and they embraced, and Denis held the sobbing girl close to him.
"Everything's going to be all right," she cried. "I'll be out of here before the end of the year, like we planned."
Denis ran his hand over her head, through her hair. He wondered about the details, what Mr. Munhall had said to her, but this was no time for questions. Besides, seeing her cry like this, he was too choked up to speak.
At last, when she gently pulled away, he handed her a handkerchief, and she dried the tears. "I'm a little baby," she said, this time with a twinkle in her eyes.
"No," he said kindly, "you're a big girl. And a good girl." She returned his handkerchief, and after he put it back in his pocket he said, "Fate may hand you a dirty deal once. But not the second time. Not if you do what's right."
"Then you'll wait for me?" she asked, as if she needed reassurance.
He smiled then. "The question is, my dear-will you wait for me?"
She squeezed his hand, and they parted. They both knew that nothing, at least nothing within the control of humans, would ever keep them apart.
