by Stan Hayes
She turned to look at him. “It’s pretty big.”
“Yeah.” He moved his hand up and down, squeezing it to show the head to its best advantage. “Hey Terry.”
“What?”
“Why doncha come on back and help me?”
“No! Yesterday was enough for awhile. You just go on and take care of that,” she said, not taking her eyes off the slick, thrusting head as Jack continued to stroke the shaft. “And don’t get any on the seat.”
“You touched it when it was inside my pants. Doncha want to feel it again?”
She pondered the possibility, then said, “I’ll jus’ reach over from here.” Very tentatively, she extended a finger to within half an inch of the tip. Very slowly, she closed the remaining distance, touching, drawing back, and touching again, this time extending her thumb as well, gently pinching the flesh. “It’s so slip’ry. When’s it going off?”
“Any time now. If you come on back here, you can see it. The handerchief’ll be in th’ way if you stay there.”
“Oh, all right.” She opened the door, looked around at the surrounding cars for a moment, then slid in beside him.”
“Ooh, I’m sooo close. Touch it again.” She repeated the pinching move, leaving her grip in place. “Come hold it with me,” he breathed, putting his hand over hers, arranging her fingers around the shaft, then closing his hand over them. “Now. Heeere we go, baby.” Six, seven reciprocations and it was done, the pale string of ejaculate hitting the handkerchief near dead center. “Aaaah! Don’t move yet. Please don’t move yet. Leave it there; please kiss it for me, baby.” And she did, this time letting her lips slip down the shaft just a millimeter, lingering for an instant to take in a little of his ejaculate.
“Jackie, you felt so strong. That was amazin’.”
“J’you enjoy it, sweetie?”
“Yeah. Loook, the little man’s shrinkin’. Gimme that handkerchief for a minute.”
Chapter XVIII. Hoochie Coochie Man
“Well you know I’m the hoochie coochie man
Everybody knows I’m him”
-Muddy Waters, Hoochie Coochie Man
The white car’s cheese-slicer grille grinned at him as he topped the hill, boosting his blood pressure a quick twenty points or so. Shit, he thought, rapidly reviewing his options, what now? He was tired, too tired even to make the ritual stop at Ribeye’s, and his reflexes deserted him. He turned into his driveway and stopped to get out and open the gate, having answered the girls’ cheery gesticulations with a matter-of-fact flick of his hand, much as if he’d seen them parked downtown somewhere. Even as he did, he knew that he wasn’t likely to escape that easily. Three quick beeps of the limo’s horn bore him out; the girls had pulled in behind him; the twin in the driver’s seat- he still couldn’t tell one from the other- stuck her head out of the window. “Hay-eey!”
Her jauntiness made him grin in spite of himself. “Hey yourself. “What’re y’all doin’?”
“D’liverin’ Valentines,” she said, her grin eclipsing his. “Can we come in for a minute?”
“Sure,” he said, wanting to take it back as soon as he had. “Mind closin’ the gate behind you?”
He lit the firewood he’d laid in the den’s stone fireplace that morning and headed for the kitchen. “Would y’all like a drink or anything?” he asked over his shoulder.
“If you’ve got Co’colas. You really have a niice place, Petey,” said Diana. He knew she was Diana since she’d just called the other one Dolores. He was surprised to see how tall they’d grown, to five-ten or so; reminiscent, he thought, of Jean Peters when she did Viva Zapata, but more athletic.
“Thanks,” he said, letting the “Petey” apellation go uncontested, the better, he hoped, to defuse it. “Glad ya like it. Y’all’ll have to excuse me, though. I had a long day, and I’m tired like you’ll never understand ’til you’re this old yourself. So-”
Dolores, approaching from behind, put her hands on either side of his neck and squeezed with surprising strength before he could resist. He felt the resistance that he would’ve exercised leave his body through his feet, much as if he were an upended tube of Ipana. He exhaled and said nothing. “How’s that?” she asked as her thumbs dug into the long muscles on either side of his spine.
“Good,” he said. “Very good. But-”
“Just sit down here for a minute,” she said, pulling him back toward the edge of the ottoman that sat in front of his Eames chair. “Let me get that tension out while we give you your Valentine. Then we’ll run along and let you get over- uh, relax.”
“OK,” he said, unable, unwilling, to stop the molten flow that oscillated from his heels to his head.
“Let’s slide you back just a little,” Diana said. They helped him ease back on the ottoman. Dolores sat down on the front edge of the chair, her fingers continuing their magic, and Diana began removing his shoes.
“Wait,” he said. And that was all he said, as Diana’s fingers duplicated the dexterity of her sister’s. He quickly gave up both the soles of his feet and any idea of holding out against the girls’ ministrations. They continued for twenty minutes or so, ending with his being seated in the Eames chair, his feet on the ottoman, sipping his neglected Red Cap.
“Feel better?” Dolores asked him.
“You bet,” he said. “That was some Valentine. I didn’t even know I was on your list.”
“You’ve been on our list,” she said, “ever since we sat down in your old car for the first time. There’s a lotta magic in there. But this lil’ole massage isn’t your Valentine.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. We really want to exchange Valentines.”
“Hm. Nice idea, but I didn’t expect-”
Diana interrupted him. “Don’t worry. You already have ours; you just didn’t know we wanted it.”
Being of sound mind, Moses could see this one coming. “Hey, girls-”
This time Dolores interrupted. “It ain’t sex, Petey, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not just sex, anyway.”
“We got the idea from Evvie,” said Diana. “We were talkin’ about men one time, like girls do, and she said that she wished you could’ve busted her cherry.”
Too relaxed to jump to his feet, Moses settled for a groan of protest. “Evvie? I never-”
“We said ‘wished’,” said Dolores. “It’s too late for Evvie, but not for us. And we went to a lot of trouble to make it special. Show ’im, Di.”
Diana dropped her jeans around her ankles, revealing rock-hard, milk- glass cheeks, freckled with tiny red hearts. “Oh, God,” he breathed. Tattoos?”
“Nah. Ball-point pen,” Diana laughed, stepping clear of her jeans. “See?” she said, backing up to put the tropical heat of her labia six inches from his nose.
Dolores, standing behind him, continued squeezing Moses’ trapezius. Shifting her left hand to the front of his shirt, she deftly undid the top button and slipped the palm of her right hand against his chest. “Isn’t she pretty?” she said, catching his nipple between her middle and ring fingers.
Moses leaned forward, lining up the right cheek, and sunk his teeth in it, easing off just short of drawing blood. Diana’s scream broke the mood; jerking her hands away from him, Dolores moved to embrace her sister, who had whirled to face him, both hands on the offended area.
“You bit me! Motherfucking cocksucker, you bit me! That hurt, you fucking sonofabitch,” she screeched, tears coursing down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Moses said, getting to his feet. “But you shocked me. Guess I made a mistake. I thought y’all were serious about getting your cherries busted.”
“We were!” sniffled Diana, pulling up her jeans. “-ah, I mean, we are…”
“But didn’t you know it’d hurt? More than that little love nip, anyway.”
“It would?” said Dolores.
“Damn right. Why do you think they call it ‘bustin’’? It’s not something you just go out and do
, like gettin’ a haircut. For your first time, you’ve gotta want it so much that you don’t care if it hurts. And your lover’s gotta want it that way too, otherwise he’ll stop when you say stop, and you just have to start over.”
“Evvie didn’t…”
“Tell you it’d hurt? Well, I guess it’s been long enough ago that she’s forgotten. I appreciate the compliments, both yours and hers, but doin’ one of you girls under these circumstances would be almost impossible for me, let alone both.”
“You don’t understand,” said Dolores. “We have to be together when it happens.”
“You do? Well, let me ask you this. Are you girls in love with anyone?”
“Yes,” said Diana, “with you.”
“Really? With me? What did I do to be so lucky?”
“It’s just who you are,” said Dolores. “You’re an adventurer. And you helped win th’ war.”
Moses’ guts turned icy. “I wasn’t in the war.”
“Maybe not; we’re not sure. What we do know is you saved the President’s life, and Mr. Churchill’s too.”
Struggling to regain control of himself, Moses aimed a very spotty grin at the girls. “Me? An adventurer? Well, that’s certainly a nice way to be thought of, for sure. But if that’s what you want, I think you should look around some more. I’m just a small-town merchant, and pretty near three times your age.”
“No,” said Diana. “You’re not. That’s just what you’re doin’ right now. You’ve got some swashbucklin’ days behind you, and more to come.”
“And we love you, so get used to it,” said Dolores. “Even if you won’t bust our cherries.”
“Well,” said Moses, “Maybe later. Say when y’all’re twenty-one. How about for your birthday?”
“Twenty-one?” they bleated.
“What’s th’ hurry? Didn’t Evvie tell you that you could have fun without gettin’ your cherries busted?”
Diana drained her bottle of Coca-Cola. “We better go now,” she said. “Would you like to have some fun like that with us some time?”
“We’ll see,” said Moses, his arms around their waists as he ushered them to the door. “Now y’all scoot, and I’ll see ya later.”
As the white car backed down the driveway, Moses leaned heavily against the door, trying to get hold of the implications of what had just happened. How the hell, he thought, do I put some distance between those little maniacs and me without risking their blabbing whatever other shit they think they know? Maybe I can sic Nelson on ’em; if he hasn’t been there already. Damn! -those cheeks…
Three thoughtful souls sat on Gene Debs’ porch, speculating on the chances of a spot of clear sky sufficient for Jack and Moses to go flying. If they got airborne, Jack, who’d gotten his private pilot’s license on his birthday last year, would pass the hundred-hour mark in J3 pilot time today. Now he’d start to work on his instrument rating. He could only get so far with the work in the sparsely-instrumented J3, but he’d do as much as possible, while logging hours that were virtually free.
“ ’J’all see God last night?” asked Jack as he watched the clouds’ shades of gray lighten, then go darker again.
“I wadn’t ’at drunk,” said Gene Debs. Flying done for the day, he sipped from a jelly-glassful of Jack Daniels. Lifting his hip slightly off his rocking chair’s oak-slatted seat, he released a long, relatively silent jet of sulfur dioxide into the humid air. “An’ I hope you wadn’t, either. Where was God s’posed ta be hangin’ out last night?”
“On You Bet Your Life. It ’us just a gag, but I think the ole boy that was supposed to be God really thought he was.”
“How much did he win?” Moses asked.
“Not much. Of course nobody wins a lot of money on that show.”
“That the one with Groucho Marx?”
“Yep. Pretty funny, in a square sorta way, the way that Finaminamin kisses ’is butt non-stop. And th’ duck, of course.”
“He’s been funnier, but it takes th’ whole brother act to do it,” said Moses. “Remember Duck Soup?” he looked at Gene Debs as he said this.
Gene Debs thought for a minute, then smiled and said “Hail Freedonia!
“That’s the one,” Moses said with a snicker. “A little before your time, Bub; came out in 1933. The best one the brothers ever did, far as I’m concerned. We showed it, Monkey Business and Horse Feathers, all of ’em made in the early thirties, in a Mark Brothers Week at the theatre I managed in Baltimore. It’us a satirical slap at Germany, just after Hitler took over. There was this guy, Rufus T. Firefly, played by Groucho, who this rich woman, Mrs. Teasdale, helps become dictator of Freedonia. The country next door, Sylvania, wants to take it over, and sends Harpo and Chico into Freedonia as spies. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.”
“The thing I’ll never forget,” laughed Gene Debs, “is the mirror business. Remember? That damn Harpo dressed up like Groucho, broke a mirror and when Groucho came in he got on the other side of th’ mirror frame and did everything that he did.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Moses, “and th’ hat routine, where they drive ol’ Edgar Kennedy nuts? Oh, man!” They shook the porch’s rattly planks laughing.
“You know,” said Gene Debs, “all their stuff’s based on Jewish humor, straight outa that Yiddish burlesque that ’us big in New York, and I guess in some other big northern cities. Them boys never did try ta cover up their Jewishness, like a lot of ’em do now.”
“Yeah, to be so Jewish, the movie business makes a lotta overnight Goyim, like Danny Kaye and Kirk Douglas. But if ya don’t look Goyim, ya can’t carry that trick off too well.”
“What’s Goyim?” asked Jack.
“Gentiles,” said Moses. “Th’ people who buy th’ tickets.”
“Well, hell, if the boys’re that good, I need to see ’em, and so does the rest of Bisque. How ’bout another Marx Brothers Week?”
“You know, that ain’t a bad idea,” Moses mused. “We’ll do it, soon as you’re back from New York. Be a good kickoff to Fall, get ’em into th’ house with a big promotion. Hell, we could even do some kinda tie-in with Bowman’s; give away a DeSoto or sump’m.”
“Tell ’em Groucho sentcha!” laughed Jack.
“Hell,” Gene Debs guffawed, “Tell ’em God and Groucho sentcha, but don’t get a Firedome V8 up your ass!”
“Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” Facing the swinging doors, his arm stretched wide, hand on the bar, Webster extended the mood of his address to a ponderous side-to-side shake of his large head. Then he swiveled it toward Moses with a grimace. “Jesus. Welch truly put old Joe away today, didn’t he?”
“So I hear,” said Moses. “I didn’t catch it. Had to go put out a fire at a customer’s. If his delivery was as spellbindin’ as yours, the poor bastard didn’t have a chance. Tailgunner Joe’s own tail’s probably still smokin’.”
“Yeah, union bigwigs, state department fags and Hollywood reds can breathe easy when they put McCarthy away; Bob Taft must be rollin’ over in his grave. Somebody’d better pick up the torch in a hurry, somebody who’ll go on gettin’ after ’em the way ol’ Joe did. Otherwise, we’ll be livin’ in a far different world pretty soon.”
“Some people would say ‘with all deliberate speed,’” Moses said with a faint smile.
Webster took a bite from the pickled egg that was soaking a bar napkin alongside an iridescent Polish sausage. “Oh, Christ. Don’t remind me. These fuckin’ Democrats’ll have us up to our necks in coons and commies if we don’t send a bunch of ’em home in November.”
“Now, now,” said Moses, suppressing an urge to grin. “Don’t be too hard on your former associates. Whatta they call ’em these days? ‘Fellow travelers?’ ”
“ ‘Now, now,’ my ass. Don’t you be gettin’ on your high-horse just because you saw th’ light a year or two before I did. There were damn few people around here who weren�
�t Roosevelt Democrats when you came to town. And I bet you voted for Truman in ’48.”
Moses inspected the polish sausage and glanced at the gallon jug that held its siblings with a near-imperceptible shiver. “Who in hell would admit to votin’ for Dewey?”
“I not only admit it,” said Webster, “I’ll say it on the air.” Looking quickly over his shoulder, he said, “but not in here. Most of these citizens still think Roosevelt’s comin’ back.”
“I can remember when you’d laugh if you heard hysterics like Ol’ Joe’s, regardless of which side of the aisle they were comin’ from. Now you sound like the Walter Winchell of Bisque.”
“Sneer if you must. But I don’t want my kids goin’ to school with reds or rugheads. If Congress doesn’t turn this Supreme Court decision around with some ironclad law, our schools won’t be worth th’ powder it’d take to blow ’em to hell.”
“Wait a minute,” said Moses, poking Webster’s puffy deltoid. “ ‘My kids?’ What kids’re we talkin’ about?”
“The kids I’ll be havin’ with Robbie. I forgot to tell you; we’re gettin’ married next week.”
“What??”
“I said we’re gettin’ married next week. And unless you have some objection, you’ll be there as best man.”
Moses looked at him as though Webster had just announced his imminent hanging. “And where will these nuptials be conducted?”
“Augusta. Saturday at 12. The Second Baptist Church.” He seemed to have caught the mood of execution.
“What, was the first one booked?”
“How the hell do I know? All I’m doin’ is showin’ up. With you, now. Mind drivin’ me over? ”
“Sure.”
“I don’t wanta show up in my rattly-ass Allstate Henry J. She just bought a friggin’ new Dodge Coronet ragtop, Red Ram V8 and all. We’re goin’ on th’ honeymoon in it.”
“Sounds good.”
“Paid cash for th’ goddamn thing.”
“Sounds better. Where y’all goin’?”