Читать книгу Sweet Tormented Love - Victor Jay - Страница 6

CHAPTER TWO

My dad was sitting watching television as usual, the gray screen the only light in the room. He grunted and took another swallow of beer when I came into the room, his usual cheerful form of greeting.

I grunted an answer and started in the direction of the kitchen. “Your mother’s in bed with a headache,” he said as I left the room. “Don’t make a lot of noise.”

I grinned bitterly as I turned on the kitchen light. Her headache, I knew, had more to do with the two empty wine bottles in the garbage than anything else. I had tried, for a lot of years, to feel sorry for her, and even for him, but that feeling had long since departed from me. There was no reason why I should feel sorry for either of them. They had both made it plain enough that they hadn’t wanted me, and still didn’t. I had been an accident, an accident that had been used to convince my father to marry her. Having served that purpose, she had ceased to have any further use for me, and he had never tried to hide his resentment of me.

There wasn’t any love wasted anywhere in the family. I would have left long ago, too, but I had determined that I would finish school, and I knew how much harder that would be on my own—not that either of them did much to help; but at least this way I had a roof over my head, and as often as not there was something in the house to eat. Anyway, there were only a few days of school left, and after that I would be free to leave and make it on my own.

I drank a glass of milk before making my way back to the living room, to the corner that had been curtained off as my “bedroom.” The television was loud, as usual, and from time to time my dad would grunt or even manage a sound that was vaguely like a laugh.

I lay for a long time, staring at the white plaster of the ceiling, and thinking about the evening. One thing still worried me. I should have been sore, or even sickened, at what had happened. I had gone to bed with a man, and any way you looked at it, that was pretty queer. But I wasn’t queer, I was convinced of that.

I convinced myself, finally, that it had nothing to do with what I was or how I felt. I had done it for the sake of making money, money that I needed, and that was all. After that I fell asleep easily.

* * * *

Between finishing up things at school and working evenings at the grocery down the street, the week ended and Saturday came quickly. With the ten dollars I had earned, and the little extra I had managed to save, I was able to rent myself a dinner jacket to wear, buy a corsage for Karen, and pay for the tickets, with a couple of dollars left over for incidentals. It was costing more than I knew I should spend, but I was determined to make a night of it.

Karen was as pretty as a picture when I came to pick her up, and I knew from her smile that she thought I looked just as great. I had tried to borrow my dad’s car. He had stubbornly refused, but fortunately the school was only a couple of blocks from where Karen lived, so it wasn’t too far to walk.

The evening went smoothly enough. I wasn’t a great dancer, but I managed, and I had plenty of chances to sit out dances, as Karen was pretty popular. Any number of fellows came over to ask her to dance, and I offered no objection. After all, she was leaving with me, let them pant after her all they wanted.

The third time that Jerry Fields, the local football hero, came over, however, I began to get a little edgy. Jerry was the most popular fellow in the school, partly because of the hero status, and partly because of the big Thunderbird he drove, a slinky, blue affair guaranteed to turn any girl’s head.

And Karen was interested in him. I had seen her flirting with him often enough in the halls at school to know that, but thus far he hadn’t given her a tumble. Tonight, however, he was coming on like gangbusters, and Karen was obviously enjoying it. I was beginning to get a little uneasy as I watched them on the dance floor, Karen’s body pressed tightly against his massive frame.

“How about some air,” I suggested when she had come back to where I was sitting. She had danced three straight dances with Jerry.

“Oh, do we have to?” she pouted, giving me a wilted look.

“It’ll do you good,” I told her stubbornly, taking her hand to lead her across the decorated gym to the door that led outside. She was annoyed, but she came along.

The parking lot outside was filled with cars, but no people, and it was dark enough at the one end. I pulled her toward me, leaning against the fender of a car. “You know,” I said, trying to sound playful, “I could use a little of that attention you’re giving Jerry.”

She let me kiss her, but there wasn’t any enthusiasm in her response. When I let her go, she gave me a bored look.

“I think we should go back in,” she said coolly.

I was fighting hard not to lose my temper, but it wasn’t easy. I had spent almost every penny I had on this date, and all she could think of was getting back inside so some other guy could paw her over for a while.

“It’s after eleven,” I told her evenly. “Maybe we’d better be getting home.”

“My parents said I could stay out late tonight,” she answered, her voice just as firm and cold.

“I want to go.” I said it sharply. I didn’t care now if she knew I was sore.

“Then go,” she said flatly, and with that she turned away from me and she was gone.

I stared after her for a long time, seething with anger. I started once to return to the dance and checked myself. If I went back in now, there would be trouble. Instead, I decided finally to walk around and cool off before I went after her.

I walked for almost twenty minutes, circling about several blocks before I made my way finally back to the school. I was calmer now, and actually sorry that I had taken such a bossy attitude toward Karen. After all, this was a big night for both of us, and I was a fool to risk spoiling it. With any kind of luck, I could look forward to getting a lot further with Karen tonight.

Several of the fellows greeted me as I came back into the gym, and one or two of them gave we what I thought were funny looks. It was a few minutes before I began to catch on, and by that time I had come to the realization that Karen wasn’t there. I even went into the hall and stood for a time outside the girl’s restroom, to see if she came out of there, but she didn’t. I knew before I went back in to the dance, that Jerry was gone also.

I didn’t say anything to anybody as I left this time. I started out across the parking lot again, and stopped in the middle, a sudden hunch coming to me. I circled the lot slowly, staying as much as possible in the dark.

I saw Jerry’s Thunderbird finally, at the far end where it was really dark. I was still quite a distance away, but I could see that it wasn’t empty. I came up behind it quietly, my eyes glued to the window of the back seat.

I needn’t have been so quiet. They wouldn’t have heard a parade going by, the way they were occupied. Karen’s formal was tossed up over her like some silly sort of cape, and there wasn’t anything left to spoil the view of her lower anatomy—nothing, that is, except Jerry Field’s bare fanny bobbing up and down like a cork in a whirlpool, and just about as violently.

I didn’t stop to think that Jerry stood a full head taller than I did, or that he outweighed me by an easy fifty pounds. Given even breaks, he could have torn me in two as easily as looked at me. But a guy with his pants down around his knees has a serious handicap, and I had two things on my side—surprise, and the fact that I was out-of-my-head furious.

They just had time to look around startled when I yanked the door open before my fist caught him on the jaw, and he sprawled across Karen in a pose that would have been outlandish at any other time. He managed to get off her, and scramble out of the car, but I was pouring it on all the time. The blood was pouring down over one eye, and from a cut on his mouth, and he hadn’t laid a hand on me yet.

I only half heard his swearing, and Karen yelling at me to stop. Jerry managed to get out of the car to solid ground, yanking at his pants with one hand and poking at me with the other, but I caught him a good one on the side of the head and the pants fell again. He lunged for me, and the trousers tripped him. As he toppled by, I gave him some additional speed with a hard kick in the seat of the pants.

It was my fight, and he must have known it, because he stayed down, staring up at me as though he still hadn’t figured out what happened. Beside me Karen was still rearranging her clothes, and from the way she was panting you’d have thought it was her in the fight. But then, I reminded myself bitterly, she had another reason for panting.

Some things just come into your mind for no reason, at funny times. I saw a flash image of Jerry and Karen in the car, and it occurred to me that—size or no size—there was one way in which Jerry couldn’t half measure up to me—literally. I laughed, an ugly, vicious laugh, and turned to Karen.

“Get back in the car,” I snarled, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind what I intended. She gave me a funny, frightened look, and shot a quick glance at Jerry, but he had had enough for one night. He stood up, brushing off his clothes and trying to get them back on.

“Be my guest,” he told me with a laugh, clapping a friendly hand on my shoulder, and started off across the lot toward the gym.

Karen got back into the car. I didn’t wait for her to get things ready for me, I came in after her fast and wild. The cloth tore as I ripped her dress out of the way. Her panties were still where she had left them, on the back floor of the car, so I didn’t have to worry about them.

I came in like an angry bull, and she damn well knew it wasn’t Jerry Fields. She groaned aloud, but she didn’t say anything, and I felt her body arch upward to meet my thrusts. She’d be sore tomorrow, but for the moment she was loving it, and she was getting it all again and again with savage ferocity.

Her body stiffened suddenly, her hand clawing at my shoulders, and I let go, emptying myself of the last of my fury and frustration.

I pulled coldly away from her and began to straighten out my clothing. My coat had gotten torn somehow in the fight with Jerry, and I knew I’d have to pay for it somehow, but it had been worth it.

“I guess you’d better take me home now,” Karen said as I was climbing out of the car. I turned back for a moment, giving her an icy stare.

“Why should I?” I said coldly. I slammed the door in her face and walked away, out of the parking lot toward home. She hadn’t gotten all she deserved, and I didn’t feel at all sorry for her. If I felt anything toward her, it was loathing for the fact that she had tried to make a fool of me.

By the time I had reached Hollywood Boulevard, my hatred for her had spread to every member of the female sex. They were nothing but misery, and I wanted nothing more to do with any of them.

I was walking slowly, not even thinking yet of the distance between my location and home. It was Saturday night, and the Hollywood traffic was heavy. I heard the sound of a car slowing down, and glanced over my shoulder.

A new Ford was coming by slowly, in the curb lane, and the driver, a man, was watching me carefully. I got the message, and like a flash my arm came out, my thumb extended. I was right. He came to a quick stop, ignoring the blast of the horn from the car behind him.

“Where you headed?” he asked as I slid into the car.

I opened my mouth to say where I lived, and stopped myself. I needed money, didn’t I, to pay for the torn jacket, and besides that, I needed something more than that episode in the car with Karen to calm my nerves. I wanted nothing more to do with women, and that left a clear path—a path that could mean making more money than I’d ever make working at a grocery store.

“No place in particular,” I told him, and I turned my face to meet the anxious gaze. My legs were spread, and I dropped one hand boldly to my crotch, rubbing slightly. His eyes followed the hand, and widened. Even under ordinary circumstances it would have been enough to excite someone like him. Swollen as it was now, I might have been carrying a change of clothes and a bottle of wine. He was licking his lips nervously.

I turned my hips slightly, toward him, my legs parted. The invitation was obvious, and he didn’t wait for a second one. His hand took the place of mine, and I felt the flesh swell and stir as it began to harden.

I let him feel while he drove, let him excite himself to a fever pitch as it grew in his hand to mammoth proportions. There was a lot there, and by now he wanted it, badly.

“Is it worth twenty-five bucks?” I asked abruptly. A few minutes before he might have said no, but now he knew how much there was, and I was counting on the blatant desire in his eyes and the groping of his hand.

The hand paused for a minute, and he swallowed hard, fighting with himself. I didn’t want him to think it over. I took his hand, and with mine wrapped it around the bulge threatening to tear itself free of my clothes.

That sold him. “Where do you live?” he wanted to know.

“We’d better go to your place,” I answered quickly. I made a mental note that I would have to get a place of my own soon if I was going to make a business of this. Some of them might not have a place to take me.

This one did, not much of a place, just a one-room affair not too far away. I remembered to use the bathroom first thing, and cleaned myself thoroughly. I was determined that, if I was going into this, I was going to see that they got their money’s worth. And I collected the money first, to avoid any necessity of trouble.

This one wasn’t good-looking, and he was a lot older than Glen had been, but he got his money’s worth. I let him take his time, and when he timidly indicated he’d like seconds, I made him happy. My body was a little sore from the unaccustomed use, but it did me proud.

By the time he had driven me home, my mind was made up. I quieted any doubts in my mind about my being queer, but I knew that this was going to be my line of work in the future. And I was sure I would be successful at it as I patted the wad of bills in my pocket.