by Jack Ketchum
Donna turned the card around and read it.
"Get naked with the player of your choice. Well, we're all of us naked as we're gonna get, so that's easy. Then take him or her into the next room and make love until the other players agree you should stop. You got a real zinger there, Stroup. Seven points, right? That would put me over the top."
Donna considered a moment. Looked at each of them.
Then said, "I choose Shiela."
They left the room and George and Stroup sat there listening to the sounds coming from the bedroom, liquid sounds and murmuring and then after awhile George asked Stroup if he thought they'd had enough time in there, if it was time for them to stop and Stroup said it sure as hell was, so George called out to them.
You can't always tell about these goddamn games, thought Stroup. Maybe those college kids have a really good time with them. Get to know one another, sort of. Maybe it's not just booze and a glimpse of pussy. Could be I'm performing a kind of public service here. Who was to say? As for this one, the hell with it. Too many holes, too many problems. Screw wouldn't buy it. Fuck it.
Good title, though.
"George, give 'ern a yell again, will ya?" he said.
But the sounds continued and George was gone and Stroup fell asleep on the couch long before the game was over.
My first paid writing job was ghosting for a big-money copywriter, doing soft-sell ads for Psychology Today's book club. He was living in Laguna Beach, California, at the time in a house on stilts that has since fallen into the sea. He was also creating sex-games and making very good money at it. I helped him road-test a couple. They were of the have-a-shot-of-whiskey, caress your partner gently variety mentioned here. But I got to thinking, what if you really went for the throat with one of these?
THE BURN ARTIST
(published as BOSOM BUDDIES)
I found Phil in the Belles of Hell. That was his bar. He was already drunk. He was drinking stout. There was a woman with him with a brace on her neck, a pretty woman, big phony eyes and big breasts loose and firm under the teeshirt. The teeshirt said ROCKIN' PNEUMONIA, all pushed out of shape by the tits. I read it a couple of times. I brushed her arm as I passed by. Soft skin, nice.
"There you go, there he is," Phil said. "This is my best friend in the world, honey. How you been, boy?"
He always talked like that. Talked like he came from Nashville. He came from New Jersey across the river. He'd been writing about country music too long. He was a hotshot six-gun country music outlaw from Newark. He was full of shit but he could write. Nobody could write, the writers were all dead. Everybody was a storyteller nowadays and nobody could put two lines together. All catfish sucking bottom, bunch of James Mitcheners. But Phil was all right.
"I'm pretty good, Phil," I said. "I hear you quit your job."
"Just this morning. Moving to L.A., buddy."
"L.A.'s a lousy city."
"Don't he know, Phil?" said the woman next to him.
"Know what?"
"No, he don't know, asshole. I been waiting to tell him."
"Tell me what?"
"You ought to tell your friends first thing," she said.
"I ought to carry you off in a manure cart," he said.
"Don't be mean, Philly."
He turned to me. "Me and Cathy are getting a divorce," he said. "She agrees to stay in New York if I agree to leave. That's our settlement."
"Doesn't sound so hot to me."
"Yeah, damned right it doesn't. Burned the hell out of me, didn't she."
"Sounds like it."
"Shit, they all do. They're all burn artists. Look at this one here. You don't know this one, do you. This is Helen. Helen, this is Stroup. Helen here is a cockteaser and a huge pain in the ass. Stroup is my best friend in the world."
"Pleasure to meet you," she said.
"She's full of shit," Phil said. "She'd like nothing better than to bleed us both for drinks all night and then go find some twelve-year-old Cuban kid to dick her. Don't let her hand you anything, Stroup. She's pure dreams and bullshit."
"Jesus, Philly."
"Don't you Jesus me."
He took a long pull on the stout. Helen was looking at me. Hot, like this kind of talk was a turn-on. She had eyes like a cow. Obviously she wanted them that way. She made them up to look as cow-like as possible. I wondered if somebody had put her in that neck brace.
Phil ordered drinks all around. He looked pretty bad, pretty morose. It was a sad excuse for a party. I told him I had to go soon but he insisted we have dinner together. You couldn't contradict him. He ordered more drinks. Then he seemed to snap out of it.
"See this cunt?" He pointed to Helen. "She won't let me lay her. She pretends to be a fan of mine but she won't fuck me. How do you like that. She wants me to write about her but I've never fucked her. Now what the hell am I supposed to write about?"
"Oooooooooo, you will write about me, won't you Philly?"
"Sure, bitch."
Then she was all over him. She wrapped her arms around him and kept poking the palms of his hands with her tits. I don't know how she managed to angle those tits into his hands all the time. It was uncanny. The only way he could get away from them was to face square to the bar and keep his hands flat on down on its surface.
Meanwhile all the time she was looking at me, performing it all for me. She'd stick out her tongue and run it over her lips and stare over his shoulder straight into my eyes.
She was a sexy-looking bitch all right. Real trash. I wanted to fuck her and then beat the piss out of her. It would be like balling a lovely corpse. You'd want to get off, and then you'd want to burn the thing.
Phil went to take a leak. Helen moved over to his stool and then all of a sudden those tits were in my hands.
She really had a talent.
"I won't fuck Phil," she said. "I know he wants me to. But he's too safe. He's married and all. He says he's moving to L.A. She'll take him back, though, you watch. He's too safe for me. But you. You look like you might be dangerous. I like a man to be dangerous."
"I'm thinking of kicking your ass," I said.
"Mmmmmmmmmm," she said.
The skirt she wore was silk, a nice French silk and the tits said ROCKIN' PNEUMONIA. I put my hand over one of the tits and squeezed it and she smiled so I moved the hand down over the silk and under it and under her panties and into her cunt. It was wet and I moved my finger in and out. I saw the bartender watching. I didn't mind. She smiled and closed her eyes, very dreamy. Then Phil came back and she went to take a leak.
"I'm going to fuck Helen tonight," he said.
"That so?" I said.
"I'll goddamn well rape her if I have to. There's nothing wrong with her neck, you know. She wears that thing just so guys won't beat her up when she pulls this shit. I've had it with her."
"Uh-huh," I said.
Then Helen came back and I went to take a leak. Who knows what they talked about.
"Let's get out of here," Phil said.
"Where to?" I said.
"Let's go to the Plaza."
We were wearing blue jeans and teeshirts, Phil and I. Phil had a belly that stuck out between his shirt and pants, you could see his big hairy navel there. Helen had that stupid brace. We were drunk. We looked like hell. We took a cab uptown and went to the Plaza.
"Gimme a Chivas and soda," he called out to the bartender. The bar was full of men in three-piece suits from Brooks Brothers and Paul Stuart. "And two more for my friends here."
The maitre d' came rushing over. Little guy.
"You can't come in here dressed like that," he said. "I'm sorry, sir."
"I just ordered a drink you sonovabitch," said Phil.
"I'm afraid you'll have to leave."
"Bullshit."
"You cannot come into the Plaza dressed like that, sir."
"Suck my dick."
The maitre d' motioned to a guy standing in the corner. Big guy. "Really. You'll have to leave, sir."
"That's enough, sir."
"When she takes off that neck brace she's not bad."
"Please, sir."
"Feel one of those tits. Go ahead, feel one. Tough as nails those tits are."
"Please."
"Do you know who I am?" said Phil. "Do you know who you're talking to?"
The maitre d' had it fairly well under control but you could see he was losing patience. The big guy moved in close. Uncomfortably close it seemed to me. We left the Plaza. We found another bar. And another one.
"Let's go to my apartment," said Helen. "I want to lie down."
"We'll get some chicken," said Phil.
"Cognac," I said.
"Chicken and cognac, right."
We bought greasy fried chicken and Courvoisier. I was broke but Phil had just sold a story for $1,000. I had to work two months for $1,000. I let him buy. Helen lived in two pastel pink rooms on West 72nd Street. She had a cat so the apartment smelled like cat piss. I told her if she fed the cat a little ammonia once in awhile she wouldn't have that problem.
We ate the chicken and sucked on the bottle of cognac. We'd been drinking all day so we dug into the chicken like savages. Helen got out of her neck brace. She had a nice neck, it looked perfectly okay to me. She also got out of the silk skirt so as not to get it greasy with chicken. You could see pubic hair sticking out of her panties running up to her navel and poking out each leghole. Her ass was too big but that bush looked good. I wasn't sure what to do. Phil really wanted her bad. If he was having trouble with the wife maybe he needed her too. I didn't want to stick around for seconds and I didn't want to get in his way if he had to have first shot at her. At the same time I wanted in myself. But my friendship with Phil came first. Best I just got out of there.
I finished off the cognac.
"I'm leaving," I said.
"Nooooooooo!" said Helen.
"Got to."
"I've got some J&B."
She pulled out the J&B. I had a swig.
"Okay, for a little while," I said.
"I'm going to take a shower," she said. "It's so hot. Be right back."
I passed the bottle to Phil. "You want to go look at her naked?" I asked.
"That's what she wants us to do."
"Really?"
"I tell you she's a lunatic. You know she's a legend in the music business. Rumor is she's still a virgin. Gets you hot and no payoff. Wears that neck brace all the time. Last year a bunch of guys were talking seriously about throwing a party, the First Annual Helen Bassett Gang-Bang. Make it a yearly event. They had a dozen women all volunteer to hold her down.
"She's always saying this guy or that guy is in love with her. Keith Richards, Dylan, Billy Swan, me. Everybody at one time or another. Makes a lot of guys' girlfriends mad. But she's crazy. She doesn't know shit. She's a burn artist. You want to help me fuck her?"
"No, that's all right."
"Okay. I'm going to fuck her, though."
"I'll just leave once we finish the scotch."
"I could go up her ass."
"That's all right. Thanks, though."
She came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, looked good. "Let's see those tits," Phil said.
He grabbed the towel.
"Nooooooooo," she said. It was too late. They were nice tits but they looked better inside the teeshirt.
"Please, Stroup," she said. "You've got to stop him. He's a madman. He's drunk!" Her eyes were flashing. She was flirting with me.
"Yeah," I said. I finished the scotch. "I'm leaving. I hope he plugs you good."
"I gotta piss," said Phil.
When he was gone she wrapped her arms around me, kissed me. She tasted good. I didn't like the towel there. I pushed it away and grabbed a handful of tit. She moaned. She was quite a liar.
"I don't want you to leave," she said. "Please stay."
"Why?"
"Phil will try to fuck me."
"So?"
"I don't want to fuck Phil. I'll fuck you though."
"Sure you will."
Phil came out of the bathroom and saw us there. I didn't let go of her. Instead I smiled at him.
"Woman here says she doesn't want to fuck you, wants me instead. What do you think?"
"I think you ought to fuck her then."
"Want to watch?"
"Sure," said Phil.
"You mind if Phil watches?" I said.
"Of course I do," she said.
"Good. Phil can watch, then."
I tossed the towel away from her, took one cheek of her ass in each hand and pulled her down to the carpet. Yellow wall-to-wall carpet in a pink living room. It smelled like cat piss and raw death. I pulled off my pants and put my cock inside her. It was warm in there and the size was good. I was on my knees with my hands under her ass lifting her back and forth over my cock. Phil sat down next to us and sipped a cup of coffee, black.
"Give me a hand here, will you, Phil?" I said.
He unzipped his fly and got his cock out. He crawled in underneath her and stuck his cock into her asshole and I lowered her down slowly on him. That left my hands free.
"Thanks, buddy," I said.
Helen groaned a little. I looked at her wide soft mouth. "Too bad we got nothing to put in there," I said.
"Get the cat," said Phil.
"I don't think so," I told him. I had my hands on her tits now, pulling on the nipples until they were hard and red and flushed with blood. I could feel Phil working away beneath her.
"What the hell you want to go to L.A. for?" I asked him.
"Good a place as any. And I can get work there. I can make a living."
"You're a writer. You can work anywhere."
"Yeah, but there's lots of magazines in California. Staff jobs. Nice and secure."
"You want security?"
"I could use some."
"Move a little to the left, will you?"
"That better?"
"That's it."
"No, it's mostly that I want to put a few hundred miles between me and Cathy."
"You must love her then."
"Of course I do."
"Then what do you want to split up for?"
"Hell, I don't. It's Cathy's idea."
"She's got a beef?"
"Christ, yes. I fuck everything I can get my hands on."
"Yeah, I guess."
Which brought us back to Helen. She wasn't a virgin. She was having a wonderful time except that Phil's zipper was bothering her. I didn't like to hear her complain.
"Get rid of the jeans, will you, Phil?"
"Sure."
She was starting to break out into a sweat and you could see she was close to coming. Her cunt had opened wide to me and I was into a nice soft glide. I told her to play with herself. It was just what she wanted to hear. You could hear the snick snick snick of her finger against her clit like an old man sucking at his old false teeth. With her other hand she tugged at her nipples. That made her sweat and moan some more. She was lathered like a pony when suddenly her back arched and I could feel her body flush and saw her thrash side to side. Phil pumped hard below and I hit her hard and deep and she took orgasm after orgasm like so much mortar fire. Wounded she was, gouged and broken and she lay back exhausted and then Phil came and lay back too.
Not me though. I picked her up and carried her into the bathroom. My prick was still inside her. I pulled it out and put her down in the shower. I aimed the nozzle at her and turned it on. I'd say the water was lakebottom cold. She screamed.
"I want you mean for this," I told her.
I got in beside her and pulled her on top of me so the water slapped across her back and was pretty near luke before it splashed down onto me and got inside her again. Her mouth was open wide, astonished, and her eyes squeezed shut tight. Her nipples were small and tight as raspberries, her skin cold as death. I rammed at her like a bull-goo
se loony and then I was coming, a long winding orgasm that began in my gut and slammed at me like a machine gun. I reached up and flipped off the water. I rolled her off of me. I went back into the living room.
"I got an idea," I said.
"What's that?"
"I don't want you going to L.A. You're my buddy. I want you to stick around. Suppose I go visit your old lady. How can she bitch about you if she's playing too? See what I mean?"
He thought about it.
"You got a hell of a nerve. You know that?"
"You want to go to California or you want to stay?"
"I want to stay."
"So let me take a shot. What can you lose?"
He thought about it some more.
"Nothing personal in this? Between you and Cath I mean?"
"Nothing at all."
"You wouldn't bullshit me?"
"Never."
"I don't know, Stroup."
Helen came out of the shower mad as hell. She wanted us to get out of there. Phil said that was impossible at the moment, we had something to discuss. He suggested she make some coffee.
"You just use a girl," she said. But we heard her in the kitchen. "It's a really rough thing to say, Stroup. I mean, to tell you to go ahead. She's my goddamn wife, you know? I don't know if I can do that."
"You can do it, Phil," I said.
"I don't know."
Helen poured the coffee. She'd forgiven us by now. She looked wonderful walking around naked serving us coffee, pouring the milk, spooning out the sugar. It's funny but a woman always looks better to me after I've fucked her. Some guys say there's nothing worse than the morning after. I've never found that so. It's as though I smell myself on a woman after I've had her, as though she walks around with traces of me on her from then on in.
"If we do it, it's gotta be now," Phil said.
"Okay. Fine."
"You're sure about this?"
"Completely."
"What are you guys talking about?" asked Helen.
"Don't you worry your ass about it," said Phil. "We'll see you."
"You're going?"
"Yeah."
"You too, Stroup?"
"Got to, baby."
"Will you call me?"
"Sure. Sit by the phone, all right?"