Darling Read online

  "It's six o'clock," he said.

  She stared at the heavens and did not answer. So there would have to be a today and a tomorrow.

  "I have to go," he added. "I have to catch the seven o'clock boat to shore."

  She turned eyes of yearning towards him.

  "I'm sorry," he whispered gently. "But I have to leave New York tomorrow."

  Somehow, she had known he was a moment; a moment to show her that beyond the rapist there would be a life for her.

  "I have to go to Colorado," he explained. "You see, I teach there."

  It was really all right, his going. She had something else to do. But her body was hungry in the filtered morning light, and she wanted him to take her once more. He would not. Instinctively she accepted that they would have only the past evening together. It was the promise, not the fulfillment of her life.

  "I would ask you to come with me," he said.

  "No," she answered. "I can't come yet."

  "Why must you stay?"

  "There is something I have to do."

  "Something from out of the past?"

  "Yes."

  "You're wrong. You're wrong to live in the past. Live in the present, for now and possibly tomorrow."

  "My past creates my now," she explained.

  "No. You can't undo it; you shouldn't try to avenge it."

  "My past is my present. My past is now."

  "I'm sorry," he said, and he got up and moved to retrieve his clothes.

  She lay naked watching him. He was a young god. His cock, slack against his thigh, made him unknown and innocent in the warm morning. He buckled his belt and pulled his shirt over his head. He was barefoot, and he folded the coat over his arm. He smiled down at her. She wanted to cry her love and finally managed her first sacrifice.

  "Thank you," she told him. "Thank you, my darling."

  He bent down and kissed her. "Thank both of us," he explained, and was over the sand dune and invisible within a moment.

  She breathed the marvelous breath of contentment. Her body radiated its youth. The sea still beat tirelessly against the washed shore. The beach was empty and virginal. She sank into the sand with each step toward the water and then, offering her chest first, she swan beyond the waves. The salt stung her body and awakened her into a world of voluptuous promise. Her hair fanned the ocean.

  It will be good when I kill him

  , she pondered like a young saint. I'm ready to be born again. She wept noiselessly into the huge salty sea, adding her tears to the immense reservoir that covered the earth.

  CHAPTER XI

  Gloria rested three days on Fire Island. She rested in that she did not think constantly of the rapist, the eternal source of her fatigue. She went to cocktail parties with Laura at five every afternoon. Laura was being pathologically happy, and Gloria escaped from her in the impersonal current of the ocean.

  In the evening, they put on their dark tight matador pants and drank bottles of beer and half-raw hamburgers. At nine o'clock, they painted their mouths with fresh lipstick, bright orange that contrasted brilliantly with their tanning skins. Then they wandered to a porch-crowded cottage and gulped gin and tonics till the last star faded. They were in bed at four in the morning and up at noon. After black coffee, they staggered to the beach with all the other healthy partygoers. The sun was merciless on their throbbing heads, and they offered themselves to the cold ocean for five hours of sobriety. Some of the men played ruleless games of baseball along the sand dunes, but mostly they stretched out on blankets and absorbed the burning rays of the sun. The girls smeared their noses and foreheads with patented protective creams to produce athletic, gin-disguising skins.

  When they took off their bathing suits in the evening, they measured the day's sun, comparing the white unexposed buttocks to the strong brown legs. There was an occasional new face in the crowd and there was always a rush to find out what he "did." Then he melted into the amorphous group and somebody fucked him. The island was well staged, and surprises were attributed to a bad production.

  Gloria sat on the floor with one of the interminable gin mixtures in her hand. Her skin was a dark rose, and she felt the return of the gnawing in her groin. She had forgotten it for three days. But the bug was in her, chewing its morsels and widening the great gap inside her. She sat on the floor and looked about her with discontent. She wanted to stretch out in the sand and offer her cunt for ravishment. The men at the party were discussing Tennessee Williams and their sex was an impenetrable question mark. She didn't want questions.

  She got up from the floor and put her empty glass on a nearby table. There wasn't a man in the room. The rapist was leering in her face, laughing and telling her to turn to her uptown friends. The laughter of the gods. What a fool she had been to leave the city for a week. Was he walking near her doorway now, remembering her desperate invitation?

  And there was Laura, conscientiously not mentioning Christopher's name. What a bore, these transparent veneers that shrouded the truth. Of course, she conceded, sometimes the veneers kept us alive. If we deny our misery long enough, we may bury it. At least we learn that we can't shout that we're disappearing to insular strangers. But he was not on the island. She could sense that and it made the island dull and empty. In the same way, she knew that he was in New York. She had to get back. Maybe she could catch the morning boat? There would be no need to explain to Laura. Laura was civilized. She could just say she was leaving and rush to the streets that hid him.

  She avoided the arm-in-arm lovers and walked in the direction of the sea. The eternal comforter. She started along the strand, one foot in the water, the other in the sand. Up ahead she could see a bright blazing fire. It made the sky it did not touch look blacker, and instinctively she moved toward it.

  When she was close to the fire, she could hear a low soft chant, and she saw a huge pale edifice that she could not distinguish. When she drew closer, she saw that it was an enormous papier-mâché penis, at least ten feet long and three feet around. Below the fantastic prick, where the testicles should have been, were two hanging balls on which were sketched grinning faces. In the spasmodic flame's glow, she counted twenty sprawled and naked bodies. They grew silent as she approached.

  "We're having a bacchanal," a loud voice announced to her.

  "Good," she responded. "I'm just in the mood."

  "If you worship the invincible god Dionysus, you may join us," a thick naked body intoned.

  "I am a converted believer," Gloria played back.

  The twenty figures seemed to sigh relief.

  "Remove your filthy encumbering garments," the man ordered. "Dionysus despises modesty."

  "My clothes offend me," Gloria agreed, and she opened the side of her pants, then pulled the trousers over her ankles. Her belly gleamed pink in the glow of the fire; her legs, blackened by the sun, blended with the dark night. Her torso floated to them over the flames.

  "Bare your breasts," the voice continued. "Stand before us as the god Dionysus wishes man to be."

  She tugged at her black sweater, unsnapped her tissue-thin bra. Her breasts were heavy circles in the evening air. They curved skyward with unfettered pride. The voice approved of the fullness and succulence of her exposed body.

  "Our god welcomes you, and invites you to sit and be one of us."

  Gloria sat close to the fire, warming her front. Her eyes, accustomed to the dark, found the outlines of a young blond girl across from her who was staring at Gloria in admiration.

  A thin boy with an enormous prick got to his feet and held a flute before his lips. He blew a thinly melodious song and three women undulated to the faint rhythm. They pumped their hips and buttocks and bosoms in burlesque obscenity, finally embracing and falling amorously to the sand. Gloria's body lusted for a mouth to find her emptiness. She sat and listened to the reedy music, then a bored girl interrupted.

  "Really, this is pretty dull stuff. I can't believe the Greeks worshiped like this."

  "
Be quiet, unbeliever," the leader shouted.

  "Well, what did we take all our clothes off for? It's too late to get a sunburn."

  "Have faith," the boy urged. "The fun hasn't begun yet."

  "The fun never begins. I'm sick and tired of this elaborate fun. I get so tense waiting to have a good time that I'm completely neurotic and miserable when something amusing does happen."

  "I have prepared a little game for this evening's prayers," the leader announced.

  "Oh, goodie ... games," somebody mocked.

  "This game is called blind man's bluff."

  "You're kidding."

  "With a slight twist," the leader amended.

  "How can you twist blind man's bluff? It was considered passé in kindergarten."

  "The blind man will be blindfolded."

  "You really have this game down pat, don't you?"

  "We will all run in a circle around him."

  "I don't think I could stand that much fun."

  "The person he catches," the boy continued, "be it man, woman, child, dog ... do we have any dogs here? ... will have to fuck the blind man."

  They were all studiously silent for a moment.

  "Splendid," a voice shouted. "Leader, you are a genius. That's a splendid game. What a twist! No wonder we didn't appreciate it in kindergarten."

  "There is another condition," the spokesman continued.

  They were all eager to begin.

  "It is the task of the victim, in case of differences in taste or sex, to stimulate the blind man to a generous unstinted fuck. The victim must abide by the preferences of the blind man."

  "Wonderful, wonderful," they declared. "Let's begin now ... immediately. Who's the first blind man?"

  The flutist lilted a merry tune and they clapped their hand like obedient children ready to play.

  "I choose Henry as the first blind man," the leader announced with elected authority.

  There was a gasp of surprise from a small brunette girl.

  "Now, Paula," Henry warned.

  Henry walked to the center of the circle, near the fire. He was ludicrously tall and skinny, and completely naked except for a brush of hair on his chin and head and between his legs. He wore thick glasses, which gave him, from the chin up, a very dressed appearance. One expected him to gravely tip a black derby.

  The leader moved to tie a red and white polka dot handkerchief across Henry's eyes. Henry's glasses interfered with the operation, and his wife said, "Why don't you just take off his glasses? I assure you he'll be quite blind."

  "Why don't you stop assuring people and keep quiet," her husband insisted. But his voice was hurt; her barb had connected.

  The blind man tripped away from the fire, his arms outstretched, cutting the empty but shrieking space around him. Gloria did not move from her position on the sand. She pulled her arm-wrapped knees against her chest and sat watching the bacchanal. Suddenly the blind man whirled about and caught a girl by her shoulders. He held to her firmly as the leader removed the blindfold and handed him his thick-rimmed glasses. He hastily stuck the eyeglasses on his nose and looked at his prize. Then he grunted in horror as he stared into the eyes of his benign wife. He was speechless for a few seconds and then he shouted at her.

  "Why the hell didn't you keep out of my way?"

  "Well how in Christ's name did I know you were going to grab someone behind you?"

  "Can't you ever sit down ... I mean just sit down on the side and watch something? Do you always have to be in the middle of all the noise, in the middle of my goddamn world!"

  "I never see you on the sideline," she retorted. And they stood glaring at each other.

  They turned to the leader in unison. "We don't have to, do we? I mean, for crying out loud, we're married. Can't you make another rule, or give us another chance?"

  The leader turned, for his answer, to the crowd.

  They shouted, "THEY FUCK!"

  "Okay, Paula, do your tricks," the high priest ordered.

  "Oh, come off it," she pleaded in alarm.

  "Look at your husband, Madame," he advised.

  There stood Henry. His hopeful immense erection had wilted like a sick plant on his leg.

  "Husbands and wives shouldn't have to play. They certainly shouldn't have to fuck."

  "Hey, Paula," someone in the crowd shouted vulgarly, "Can't you even make your husband hot?"

  "Sure I can," she retorted. "It's just such an effort." Then she decided to play the game.

  Her husband said, "Get on your knees in front of me and suck me. Shut up for two minutes."

  Paula knelt in the sand, her head level with her husband's lax prick. She picked it up, fingering it critically and sighed, "Ain't I just too lucky."

  From above her head, Henry reached back his arm and struck her brutally on the back of her neck. The girl glared back, shaken. Then she exposed her darting tongue and began to lick him on his inner thighs and on the two balls that hung beneath his tapered frightened prick.

  Gloria could clearly see the pink tongue outlining a circle around his maleness. Henry's rod, with ageless response, trembled and started its urgent ascent.

  Paula's head moved busily at his hips, undulating before him. He looked down at her bowed head and his prick took an important leap.

  She at last took his cock in her mouth and sucked it eagerly, palming his sperm-packed sacs. The shaft disappeared completely into her mouth. Her teeth were nipping it gently and Henry groaned. She seemed intent and lost in her task.

  Gloria's mouth felt dry and jealous, her tongue unconsciously repeating Paula's devotions.

  Henry crushed his wife's head against him and moaned, "That's wonderful darling; that's wonderful darling."

  Paula, intent on his now-rigid cock, could not lift her head to deflate his pleasure.

  Then Henry pushed her away from him and said, "Get on your hands and knees with your back to me."

  "What?" she exclaimed.

  His face was livid with his passion and the reflection of the flowing fire. "Go ahead ... you heard me."

  "You wouldn't dare do this to me in private," she complained.

  He hit her again and she fell to her flat palms, lifting her bottom to his scrutiny. Now he bent his head to her hair-cushioned vault. From behind her, he pulled her legs apart and sniffed his head closer. She looked like a chicken, wings pulled apart, being searched for the white meat. His rod was sailing ponderously before him.

  Paula's hair matted the sand. She was not prepared for the violent push into her cunt, and screamed out. But he was having her at last in the position her arrogance denied.

  Gloria watched the huge white prick sucking in and out of the quicksand hole. As big as it got, the elastic receptacle could absorb more.

  Henry's chin dug high into his wife's shoulder and he rocked violently against her.

  Gloria's vagina burned with sympathy and envy. She reached down and rubbed some sand against the inflamed membrane.

  The husband and wife were oblivious to the panting faces around them. They riveted against each other for completion, moving frantically and often dropping to the sand. His entire prick could not be seen now, only the hair-planted root.

  "Come," he urged her. "Come, baby, come."

  "Yes, yes, yes, yes." Her body twitched, planted awkwardly in the sand. At her first automatic reflex, Henry quickened and deepened his thrusts, until he geysered into her. She fell to the ground and he sprawled on top the shaking form, covering her with his long, thin-bearded body. The audience was silent.

  When she could finally speak, Paula said, "We should do this more often in public. You really improve." And they hated each other again.

  The crowd burst out its enthusiasm. "The next blind man – hurry, pick somebody."

  "Paula," the leader announced, "in the best tradition of blind man's bluff, will now be the blind man."

  "That's not fair," a girl exclaimed. "She'll get fucked twice."

  "No alarm, kitten," he soothe
d. "We all get it twice."

  "Well," a girl next to Gloria whispered, "I think it's just as much of a kick to watch." Gloria looked at her as if she were insane.

  "Don't you think so?" the girl questioned.

  "No, I don't," Gloria replied flatly.

  Paula stood naked, the bandage over her eyes. Her squat body rotated in circles. She held her arms before her, searching for a victim. Her husband lay spent and curious in a far corner of the circle. Paula stumbled blindly, and reached down to a motionless figure on the sand.

  "You are my victim," she announced.

  A very drunk boy was picked. He looked up at her and said, "Baby, we are all your victims."

  The high priest removed Paula's blindfold, and she studied her to-be lover.

  "Jenkins!" she squealed with joy in her voice. "I knew I'd catch you someday."

  "Someday!" the girl next to Gloria echoed. "Christ, she's been surer than guided missiles at getting Jenkins."

  Jenkins weaved out toward the center of the group. He could not stand upright for too long. He had a substantial erection that did not seem to interest him at all.

  "Stimulate me," Paula demanded.

  "The day you need stimulation, kid," he told her "I might get a little stimulated." He hiccupped his boredom and drunkenness.

  Then, with a flying lunge, he caught her by the knees and knocked her sprawling on the sand. Without pause or caress, he pried open her vagina, getting his cock in with one precise gesture. The girl moaned. Jenkins pulled her legs tight around his hips and raised her body till she was propped on her head and shoulders. He methodically and ruthlessly pumped her. Gloria could see the juices dampening the bed of sand under Paula's bottom. Her husband, still in his corner, watched them with hot eyes.

  Jenkins shot in and out of her, treating her like an accidental depression in the sand. The girl writhed under his pounding, screaming his name with abandoned adoration. Up and down he went, and from behind them, Gloria could see his tossing ass and then a glimpse of his knocking balls and the thick wet rod that he threw into her. With each push, Gloria could feel her teeth shake in her head. She was rubbing her starved clitoris to the boy's masterful rhythm.