She gave the matter a lot of concentrated thought while she stood nude before her mirror and gazed upon the reflected breasts and belly and thighs. She imagined a man with a blank face, a shapeless nonentity, a man who would touch her and arouse her and take his pleasure with her and ultimately satisfy her, and her mind made itself up after a while.
She got dressed. She put on the white sweater she had worn to the Record office that first time, but now she omitted the bra. She would make things easier for whoever she selected as her human candle.
She slipped a skirt on without bothering with panties underneath it. The skirt was a dark green and it contrasted nicely with her blonde hair and with the white sweater. She didn’t bother with socks but pulled a pair of dirty white tennis shoes onto her feet and tied them quickly.
Then she left the dormitory. She wandered aimlessly around campus for about half an hour, not knowing who or what she was looking for, not knowing where to search for the man who would serve as Lover Number Two. For a moment she considered hunting up Joe Gunsway—he certainly wanted her, and he’d be more than grateful for a chance to maneuver her into a horizontal position. But she decided that she didn’t want Joe. Joe represented a potential emotional involvement, on his part if not on hers, and she didn’t want to find anybody who would fall in love with her. She just wanted somebody to take her to bed.
It was cold out—in a week or so it would probably be snowing, but now the ground was blanketed with covered leaves and the night air was clear and cool and quiet. She wandered around, getting halfway into town at one point before she turned and headed back toward the campus.
She was looking for a man. And, ultimately, she found a man.
His name was Jim Patterson.
He was a junior, she knew, and he was majoring in economics. She knew him enough to say hello to—he was one of the vague members of the Group—the gang of boys and girls that Don hung around with. He was short and wiry, with a goatee that was always neatly trimmed and eyes that seemed to look through a person.
When she saw him he was walking alone on the way back to his dormitory. He had a few books under one arm and there was a pipe in his mouth. He didn’t see her at first, and she had to run up to him before he noticed her.
“Jim!”
He turned and looked at her, his face blank. “Hi,” he said. “Where are you headed?”
“Nowhere special.”
She looked at him—a bold, purposeful look. He wasn’t a moron; he knew what had happened between her and Don, knew what she wanted when she looked at him like that.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I want to get rid of these books. I’ll be down in a second.”
She waited at the side of the dormitory while he walked up the fire escape. While she waited she wondered what would happen, whether he already knew what she was after or whether she would have to be more obvious about it.
When he came down the fire escape with a blanket under his arm she knew she didn’t have to worry about it any more.
“Let’s go for a walk,” he said. She nodded and let him take her arm. They walked along silently across the campus toward the golf course.
Clifton’s excuse for a golf course had greens that looked like fairways and fairways that looked like rough. This, of course, was perfectly all right, since no one had attempted to play golf on the six-hole weed patch since Grant had been elected president of the United States. The physical education golf classes played on the course at Xenia Country Club. The golf course at Clifton had one use and one use only, but that use was enough.
It was a golf course with hazards, of course. The hazards consisted of the pairs of bodies that blanketed it from tee to green on warm nights. There was a legend that the president of Clifton had once walked the length of the golf course on a pitch-dark spring evening. At one point he stepped on someone. The boy who had been stepped on thanked him profusely and went back to what he had been doing.
There were those who swore the legend had a firm basis in fact.
The course was relatively empty that night, however. It was late and it was cold and the two of them had as much space as they could possibly have wanted. Without saying a word Jim spread the blanket out on the ground and the two of them sank to the ground and sat on the blanket side by side. For several seconds, neither of them made a move or said a word. Then, as if by some prearranged signal, they turned to look at each other. It was very dark—Linda could barely make out the boy’s features.
But it didn’t matter what he looked like.
“You’re very pretty,” he told her. The words were automatic—mere formality to go before the more serious business of the day. Gratefully she snuggled closer to him and his arms went around her.
They kissed. It was a passionate kiss right from the start, with both of their mouths open and both of their tongues urgent and demanding. She pressed close to him so that he could feel her breasts through the sweater, rubbing herself against him while she touched his tongue with her own.
When the kiss ended she stretched out on the blanket and he lay down beside her. She lay on her back so that he could touch her breasts, and with her eyes wide open she watched the few stars that were out that night. His hands, through the thin sweater, were warm and insistent as he manipulated her breasts expertly and she felt her nipples hardening into firm little rubies.
She lifted herself up on her elbows and helped him take off her sweater. His gasp of pleasure at the sight of her two perfect breasts made her feel warm inside, warm and wanted and desirable. The ache that had been present within her since Don had refused to sleep with her now seemed to evaporate as his hands stroked her breasts and excited her as Don’s hands had excited her not so long ago.
Then he removed her skirt, folding it neatly and placing it on the blanket beside them. His hands touched her where no hands had touched her in too many days and she writhed under his hands, wanting him, ready for him.
She unbuttoned his flannel shirt and he took it off. She touched him and held him and his breathing was becoming faster and harsher now and she knew how much he wanted her, how much he had to have her, and her heart swelled with the pleasure she derived from his need just as it pounded with her own physical need.
Then he was naked, ready for her as she was ready for him. She felt ridiculous with her tennis shoes still on her feet and kicked them off impatiently, then drawing her feet up and making herself ready for him. There was no time to waste on loveplay, no time to waste on kisses and caresses, no time for anything but pure sexual pleasure.
“Hurry!” she begged him.
He took her and her body slipped at once into the now-familiar rhythm. Her hips churned as her arms locked around him and pressed him against her. She felt almost alive again, alive for the first time in weeks, and she wanted to make the moment last forever, to make him stay there until the end of the world, loving her savagely and passionately forever.
He reached his climax before she did and she feared for a moment that he would leave her before bringing her the release she craved so desperately. But her fears vanished the next second as he stayed with her, moving with her, straining with her, until she floated higher to the top and finally received the gift of peace that was so essential to her.
Then they lay together very still. It was over now—they had made love and now they could part like the proverbial two ships that pass in the night. Now she had had her pleasure; she wanted only to be alone.
He seemed to understand.
Awkwardly they separated and began dressing. She put on her sweater and skirt, then her tennis shoes, wondering as she did so why she felt absolutely no emotion toward Jim Patterson. She felt that she ought to love him or hate him or something, but instead there was no emotion at all, nothing that lingered after the so necessary orgasm had come and gone.
They stood up and he folded the blanket and put it over his arm, letting her take his other arm as they walked back to the campus. They parted at the edge o
f the golf course—their dorms were in different directions and there seemed to be no need for them to walk together any further. She went straight to her room without a backward glance at him.
It wasn’t the same as it had been with Don. It was sex, nothing but sex, and it wasn’t the same as what she had enjoyed in the past. It was the quiet and random breeding of animals in the privacy of a barnyard. The only purpose was physical satisfaction, the only emotion was an indefinable feeling of cameraderie.
But, she thought as she undressed for bed, able to sleep at last, it was surely better than nothing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NOTHING SPREADS LIKE GOOD NEWS.
This is a well-known fact. The best news gets around the quickest, and on a campus the size of Clifton’s news of almost any sort travels at the speed of light. There is a saying that, if you have an abortion in Schwerner Hall, the news will reach Buchanan Hall on the extreme side of the campus before you can flush the fetus down the toilet.
This is very probably true.
The news that a pretty freshman by the name of Linda Shepard was currently available for fun and games was an item which belonged in the category of special priority good news. It wasn’t exactly as though Jim Patterson was one of those boys who boff and tell. He didn’t run out and scream the happy news to the rooftops. Neither did he tell everybody he met. He simply revealed the fact to a few select friends.
Who in turn revealed it to their friends.
Who in turn relayed the message to their own friends.
And, before too long, Linda Shepard was one of the most popular girls in the freshman class.
Linda’s first knowledge of her new-found popularity came with a phone call the following afternoon. There was a boy on the other end of the line, a boy named Leon Camelot.
“Hello,” he said. “My name is Leon Camelot.”
“Oh,” she said, which was as much as she could say, since the name Leon Camelot meant absolutely nothing to her at the moment.
“There’s a good movie playing in town tonight,” said Leon Camelot.
“There is?”
“Uh-huh. Would you like to see it with me?”
Why not? she wondered.
So she said: “Why not?”
“Swell,” said Leon Camelot. “I’ll pick you up at 7:30.”
Leon Camelot picked her up at 7:30. Leon Camelot turned out to be a tall beanpole type with glasses and a rather bulbous nose. He told her that he was majoring in physics and that he planned to go to graduate school at M.I.T. At the time she could imagine nothing duller than majoring in physics and going to graduate school at M.I.T., but she didn’t tell him this.
On the way down to the show she sat next to him in the front seat of his brand-new Rambler sedan and listened to him talk about the miracles of the modern physical world. He seemed to know everything there was to know about relativity and quantum theory, and while this didn’t make for the liveliest conversation in the western world, it was something of a change to sit next to an expert on such vital facets of everyday living.
The movie, contrary to Leon Camelot’s report, wasn’t much to sit through—the standard Hollywood drivel complete with the phony happy ending. Instead of watching the actors mince around on the screen she relaxed in her chair and wondered why in the name of Einstein Leon Camelot had called her for a date. Time, she decided, would tell. And whatever it was, it was something to do.
The movie ended.
Everything does, if you give it time. Even a movie like that one. Anyway, it ended, and after it was over Leon Camelot took her by the hand and led her out of the movie theater.
“Wanta coke or something?”
She shook her head.
“Wanta go for a ride?”
“Okay,” she said. She didn’t have anything better to do, just books that she didn’t want to read and studying that she didn’t intend to bother with. Why not go for a ride with Leon Camelot?
They went for a ride. The Rambler was a fine machine and Leon Camelot knew how to drive very well. Linda wondered dimly whether his ability behind the wheel was in some way due to his prowess in the world of physics. It was something to think about anyway.
Leon Camelot, it turned out, not only knew how to drive but also knew how to park. Subtle he wasn’t, but all of a sudden the car was parked on a shady lane unsullied by streetlights. It suddenly became quite clear to her why Leon Camelot had called her for a date. She wanted to say something bright and clever, but all she could think of was how in the world were they going to do it in the car.
So she said: “’How in the world are we going to do it in the car?”
“It’s a Rambler,” he explained.
“So?”
“The seats go down.”
“That’s nice,” she said. “The seats go down and so do I.”
He blinked, and his bulbous nose seemed more bulbous than ever. She turned on her seat and looked up at him, waiting for him to begin. Not once did it occur to her to refuse to make love with him. It was as though she had found her role in life—the question of her own desires didn’t enter into the picture.
But Leon didn’t seem to know what to do.
“Leon—”
He stared at her and blinked again.
“Didn’t you ever—”
“A few times,” he said. “But never with a girl. I mean … never with a girl from school or—”
He broke off, looking somewhat bewildered, and she waited for him to say whatever he was trying to say.
“With prostitutes,” he said. “Down at Newport there’s a place some of the guys go to some of the time. But I never did it with a girl that I knew.”
He looked so sincere that she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. For a moment it occurred to her that she was being called upon to double in brass for a Newport whore but she didn’t let the thought worry her.
“Leon,” she said softly, “don’t you know what to do?”
“I know what to do. I just don’t know how to get started.”
He was approaching the problem like a problem in theoretical physics, and that wasn’t the right way to go about it. “You could begin by kissing me,” she suggested.
He followed her suggestion. At first the kiss wasn’t much more than the pressing of one pair of lips against another, but after a little practice she was surprised to discover that Leon Camelot was learning quickly. Despite herself she felt her heart quickening, found herself getting excited as his arms tightened around her.
“Let’s put the seats down,” she said.
They put the seats down. The seats in Leon Camelot’s Rambler evidently hadn’t been down in quite awhile—which was more than could be said for Linda—and the time it took to get the car ready for battle almost killed her mood. But he kissed her again and she got back into the spirit of the occasion.
“Unbutton my blouse.”
He performed like a highly skilled robot, but once her blouse and bra were off and he was fondling her breasts clumsily but effectively she was able to forget where she was and who she was with. He kissed her breasts, not skillfully as Don had done but with a certain amount of passion, and she didn’t have to manufacture excitement. She was quite thoroughly aroused.
She took off her skirt and panties without any prompting and he had the sense to follow suit. There was something strange about lying around stark naked in a parked car but before long she found herself used to the idea.
Now that the two of them were naked Leon Camelot’s hands took on a new assurance as he caressed her and kissed her and drove her half-wild with hunger. Either he learned quickly or he did a lot of reading, she thought.
Then she didn’t bother thinking any more.
There were better things to do.
And, once they really got down to business, her brain was spinning around much too quickly for any thoughts to germinate in her head. They made love quickly, feverishly, hectically, and at one point she was afraid that the rhythm
of their bodies would start the car rolling along the lane.
Then, eventually, it was over. The customary feeling of relief was present as the usual aftermath, but for the first time she felt acutely ashamed of herself, conscious that what they had done was wrong, even inexcusable. As she dressed she found it impossible to look at Leon Camelot, and on the drive back to the dormitory she stayed on her own side of the car, careful to avoid touching his arm, careful to keep from any additional physical contact with the boy.
At her dorm he asked her if he could see her again and she told him maybe sometime, that he could call her some evening next week if he felt like it. She said the words automatically, knowing all the while that he would not call and that if he did she would not see him. The experience had been nothing more than just that to him, she felt, nothing more than an experience not far removed from previous excursions to the Newport cathouses. It wasn’t likely that he’d be particularly anxious for a repeat performance.
As for herself, she already knew what the affair was for her. Just part of a pattern, a pattern that was going to be repeated again and again, over and over, on and on and on and on. She walked up the steps and down the hall to her room, undressing for bed, anxious to sleep. First, though, she had to take a shower. She felt truly unclean for the first time in her life.
The shower didn’t help. She scrubbed herself over and over with no discernible effect. Finally she gave up and went back to her room and crawled into bed.
Her head started spinning. She had to get up and race down the hall to the bathroom again, where she was violently sick to her stomach for several minutes.
It was almost dawn before she finally passed out and slept for sixteen hours.
Leon Camelot was followed by Frank Willet, who in turn was followed by Jackson Rice, who paved the way for Nick Bingle, who gave way to Roy Swinnerton.
Thus the days went by.
And the nights.
It made perfect sense to her. She was the tramp of Clifton College, the little girl who could be counted on for a tumble on the turf or a roll in the hay when ever a guy needed something female to take his mind off the pressing business of books and tests and classes. She had more dates than she wanted, but dates weren’t the only source of sexual satisfaction. There would be a date in the early part of the evening, a date that was nothing more than the prelude to a scramble in the back seat of a car. She found in the course of it all that if you weren’t particularly choosy it wasn’t at all difficult to make love in a car, even a non-Rambler without descending seats to simplify matters. Or, if something more than automotive sex was on the evening’s program, there was always the motel down the road where any couple was automatically man and wife and where the proprietor didn’t care what went on as long as he got his money in advance.
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