So Willing

by Lawrence Block

  “Well—” said Vince. He was trying to think. This nut wanted to be raped, that’s all. That’s why she’d picked him up, because she heard women who picked up hitchhikers got raped, and she got it into her head she’d liked to get raped herself.

  So, what the hell, how long could it take? And it might even be fun.

  But then a sudden thought struck him. “How do I know,” he asked her, “that you won’t call the cops afterward, anyway?”

  “I won’t,” she said. “I promise you I won’t.”

  “Yeah, sure, but how do I know?”

  “You know,” she reminded him, “that I will call the police if you don’t rape me.”

  He thought that one over for a minute. It looked as though he didn’t have much choice. “Okay,” he said, and reached for her.

  She slapped his hand away. “I didn’t say make me,” she said. “I said rape me. You’re going to have to work for it.” And she pushed the door open on her side and scampered out of the car.

  She didn’t run very fast. In the first place, she was wearing one of those tight hobble skirts it was impossible to walk in, much less run. And in the second place, she wasn’t trying very hard.

  Vince caught her after six steps. They were on ground that was going to be somebody’s front lawn some day, but was now just churned-up dry earth. Vince caught the woman by one shoulder, twisted her around, and she lost her balance and fell heavily onto the ground. He dropped to his knees beside her and grabbed.

  “Don’t rip my clothes!” she cried, in a shrill half-whisper. “Don’t rip them!”

  Vince looked at her, her straining face staring up at him, and he knew this woman wanted to be roughed up. And he was willing to go along with that. All he had to do was think about the fact that she was delaying him, and that she had threatened him with the law. And all he had to do was make believe she was Saralee Jenkins. That’s all he had to do, and then he could rough her up to her heart’s content. And then some.

  So he belted her open-handed across the face, and snapped, “If you don’t want them ripped, pull them off. And do it fast.”

  “Yes. Yes.” She struggled, lying on the ground next to him, pulling her skirt up and her panties off, and he saw that she had surprisingly good legs, that she was a woman who had cared for her body all of her life, and it had responded by staying firm and shapely long after most women were well into the sag-stage.

  He slapped her again and said, “Get that fur thing off too.”

  She did. She was panting and moaning and half-crying, staring up at him with a crazy combination of terror and desire on her face, and she struggled around until she got the fur piece and the jacket and blouse off, and then he reached down, inserted his fingers under her bra between the breasts, and yanked upward, ripping the bra in two. The bra fell away on both sides, and he slapped her hard, forehand and backhand.

  She moaned and rolled over, trying to crawl away. He smacked her naked buttocks, grabbed her hip with pinching fingers and digging nails, and pulled her back around and down again. He had his own clothes open, and he was ready, and he fell on her.

  She lashed at him, screaming through clenched teeth, trying to buck him off her, but he held on grimly. All the workouts he’d had with Saralee had made it possible for him to last a long time, and he was glad of it. He wanted the time, he wanted to give this woman all she wanted and then some, he wanted to make her sorry she’d ever threatened him, sorry she’d ever come out looking for this tonight. His hands slapped and pinched and pummeled her body, until finally she opened her mouth in a full-throated scream, and her fighting changed, became more real, and she shrieked, “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

  But he couldn’t stop, and he wouldn’t stop. And now she wasn’t fighting him, either make-believe or real, now she was blending with him.

  Slowly, his breath came back, slowly his awareness, of the place and the circumstances came back, and slowly he crawled off her and got shakily to his feet, readjusting his clothes. And the woman lay on her back, her skirt a wrinkled mess around her waist, her jacket and blouse and panties lying dirt-stained around her, and she smiled up at him, sighing, and whispered, “You weren’t such a disappointment, after all. Once you got started, you weren’t a disappointment at all.”

  Now, he was sick of her. He felt used, cheapened, as he had never felt with a girl before. This woman had dragged him down into her own sickness and made him a part of it. He remembered how he had slapped her and clawed her, and how he had enjoyed doing it, and he felt sick and ashamed, and wanted nothing but to get away from here.

  She got slowly to her feet, straightening her skirt as best she could, donning again her blouse and jacket and fur. Balling up her panties and ripped bra, she said, “Come on. I’ll drive you across the Potomac.”

  He thought of saying no, but then he remembered how important time was, that he had to make up for a lot of lost time, and so he nodded and walked back to the car with her. There, she put the panties and bra on the floor in back and slid in behind the wheel, as Vince got in on the other side. All at once, he noticed that she was still wearing that nine-tenths veil hat, that she’d worn it all the way through the fake rape-scene. And for some reason, that struck him as the sickest part of it all, that she’d worn that stupid little Sunday-tea hat all during the phony rape scene.

  She drove him out of Washington, then across the Potomac and through Alexandria to a good spot for him to hitchhike from. As he was getting out of the car, she leaned toward him, her hand held out, and said, “Thanks. You did a good job.”

  He had the suitcase and sign in his left hand. He reached out the right hand, she dropped something into it, and her car spun around and headed back for Washington. Puzzled, Vince looked at what she had given him. A roll of bills. Ten tens. One hundred dollars.

  He got another truck ride out of Alexandria, and this time he was really in luck. The guy was going all the way to Miami. Vince was about six hours behind by now and he was glad he wasn’t going to be losing any more time between rides.

  This guy was driving an overload of tile pipe, so he didn’t exceed any speed limits. Vince was just as well pleased. He was coming into the territory where he was going to be very interested in the roadside scenery, particularly around the motels, so he was glad the truck wasn’t going to be whipping by too fast to see anything.

  What he was looking for was his father’s Packard. He was glad, for one of the few times in his life, that it was a Packard. There were damn few of them on the road anymore, particularly dull gray ones. He wouldn’t be likely to miss it.

  They headed on down across Virginia and into North Carolina, following the route Vince had marked out on the roadmaps back in New York, and every time they passed a motel, Vince took careful inventory of the cars parked in front.

  He struck pay dirt just south of Charlotte, almost into South Carolina. A dull-gray Packard, right year, what looked like the right license plates in the dim motel light. She’d gotten pretty far in one day.

  “Stop here,” Vince told the driver. “I get out here.”

  “I thought you were going to Miami.”

  “I just saw my roommate’s car back at that motel. He can take me the rest of the way.”

  The truck driver was plainly puzzled, but he stopped the car. “Anything you say, buddy,” he said.

  “Thanks a lot for the lift,” Vince told him. “I really appreciate it.”

  Then the truck was gone, and Vince was walking back toward the motel. He threw the sign and suitcase away. He wouldn’t be needing those anymore.

  He went up to the motel, noticing that the office was dark, which wasn’t surprising. It was almost four in the morning. He walked on down the row of motel units to the one with the Packard in front, and tried the door. It was locked, which didn’t faze him. He took one step back, took careful aim, raised one foot, and kicked the doorknob a good one.

  As he’d supposed, the lock was pretty flimsy. The door flew open, and he walked o
n in. The light switch was beside the door. He flicked it on, closed the door behind him, and grinned at the wide-eyed girl sitting up in the bed.

  “Hello, Saralee,” he said. “Surprised to see me?”

  EIGHT

  The kid was awfully nervous. He was about Vince’s age but looked a lot younger. His face was round and rosy like a highly polished apple. His eyes were the kind that were scared to look back when you looked at them. It was a shame, Vince thought, that you had to deal with people like this. But money was money. You couldn’t be too choosy, not when money was money and you needed it in a hurry.

  “Hot as a pistol,” Vince went on, coaxing the boy, leading him gently by the nose. “Built like a bomb shelter. Young, too. Good stuff. You won’t regret it, believe me. Money well spent and all that. You know.”

  “Gee,” the kid said. “I mean…gee.”

  “And she’ll do anything,” said Vince, giving the kid a sly man-of-the-world grin. “Anything you want. Anything at all.”

  “Anything?”

  “Anything,” Vince emphasized. He would have sworn the stupid bastard’s mouth was beginning to water.

  “Well,” said the kid. “I mean, twenty bucks is a lot of money. You can’t just reach out your hand and there’s twenty bucks.”

  Vince reminded him that the motel where the kid staying with his folks cost more than that for a day. Then he went into another profound description of Saralee’s assets. That did it.

  “I’ll get the money,” the kid said. “Hang on.”

  Vince stood there with his face hanging out while the kid went to get the money. Maybe he’ll steal it from his old man, he thought. Or maybe he’ll just tell the old man Hey, gimme twenty bucks so I can get laid, and the old man’ll come across with the twenty.

  It was a pretty horrible thought.

  “I got it,” the kid said, returning. “Let’s get going. I mean, we might as well get it over with, don’t you think? I mean, there’s no point in wasting any time.”

  Vince didn’t feel like talking anymore. He pointed at the Packard and the kid got in. Vince slipped behind the wheel, played games with the ignition, leaned on the accelerator and aimed the car at Saralee’s motel. The kid would be tossing another twenty bucks in the sack, and Saralee would be tossing another kid in the sack, and this should be cause for rejoicing. Somehow it wasn’t. Somehow he felt pretty cruddy.

  It was, he reflected, damned hard work being a pimp.

  Vince was standing outside the door, smoking a cigarette and listening to Saralee showing the kid what it was all about. If anybody had told him he’d be pimping in North Carolina, he would have laughed. But here he was, pimping in North Carolina. And what the hell was so funny?

  When he broke in on Saralee, first she tried to explain, and then she tried to apologize, and finally she tried to seduce him. But this time her attempts at seduction were as ineffectual as her apologies and her explana-tions. Maybe he was growing immune to Saralee or something. Whatever it was, her body did nothing to change his mind.

  At first he had wanted to beat the living crap out of her, but the phony rape bit with the tired old broad in Washington had taken it out of his system. He just didn’t feel up to slapping another woman. Some guys got their kicks that way, but he didn’t seem to be one of them. Besides, he’d come a long way. You don’t hitchhike all the way from New York to North Carolina just to knock some girl’s head in.

  And there were more important considerations. The most important consideration was getting the car back to his old man, and this turned out to be impossible. Saralee wasn’t much of a driver. The Packard was a wreck to begin with, but she hadn’t bothered to put any oil into it. The poor heap knocked and rattled and huffed and puffed. It wouldn’t make Baltimore, much less New York. And if he gave the car back to his old man in that shape, he might as well hang himself.

  That’s where the money came in. With enough money, he could fly back to New York and take a bus to the lake. His father would be annoyed, but he’d get back soon enough so that the old man wouldn’t exactly hit the roof. Then, with enough money, he could pay his father for the car. Make up some story about how it got wrecked, and hand his father a mittful of money. That might do the trick.

  The problem, then, was money. He had the hundred bills from the Rape-Me Relic, and Saralee, he found out quickly, had almost three hundred of her own.

  Which wasn’t enough.

  It would cost him, say, a hundred dollars to get back to the lake. The car might bring a hot fifty bucks on the open market now, but his father would expect at least five hundred for it. And he didn’t dare sell the car.

  The thing was, he and Saralee had a little less than four hundred between them. And he needed a bare minimum of six hundred—one hundred to get back to the lake and five hundred to pay for the car. Seven hundred would be more like it, and eight hundred would be fine, but six hundred would do in a pinch.

  And if this wasn’t a pinch, nothing was.

  The answer had been simple. Saralee would hustle for the money. She would stay in the room, and he would scout likely prospects and bring them to the room where she would accommodate them. He told Saralee about it, and she was against it, claiming that she would give it away to anybody but the idea of selling it repelled her.

  “It’s the same as giving it away,” he told her. “Because I’ll be taking all the money. You won’t get a nickel of it.”

  This didn’t placate her. But pretty soon she managed to see that she didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice in the matter. First of all, he took all of her clothes and put them in the trunk of the car. That left her naked, and restricted her movements to the immediate vicinity of the room itself. Then he told her precisely what she would look like after he got through with her if she didn’t do as expected. She shuddered a little.

  Getting customers could have been easier, but it also could have been harder. Vince knew the type to work on. Kids his age, rich kids on vacation. Nice virginal type kids who wouldn’t make any trouble and who would pay plenty for a chance to be with Saralee. The South seemed to swarm with kids like that. They were all over the place.

  The door opened and the kid walked out. He had a stupid grin all over his polished apple face. “Everything okay?” Vince asked him. “You get what you paid for?”

  The kid nodded, still grinning, and headed off down the road. It was a good mile to the motel where he was staying and Vince started to offer him a ride. Then he decided the kid was so high on Saralee he could probably fly back.

  Vince walked into the room, closing the door behind him. “That’s six of them,” he told her. “How’s it going? How’s the old machinery holding up?”

  He expected her to be a little bitter, but she wasn’t. She smiled dreamily, running her hot hands over her hot body and purring like a kitten.

  “Wonderful,” she said. “Just wonderful. I never had so many boys at once before. One after the other. It’s wonderful.”

  “Well,” Vince said. “Well, a few more and we can call it quits. We’ve got over five hundred now. As soon as we hit six, you can take it easy.”

  “I am taking it easy,” she insisted. “This is fun. Hurry up and get some more, will you?”

  “You’re insatiable.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means you never get enough.”

  She licked her lips. “You hurry up and get some more,” she said, “or I’ll rape you.”

  He shook his head, then walked out and got in the car. The next motel he came to was like striking gold. There were six of them there, six kids seventeen and eighteen years old, and all of them were about as interested in Saralee as it was possible for a person to be. They were ready to go, and they didn’t haggle over the price, and that meant a very fast hundred and twenty dollars, which was enough to retire on. He loaded them into the Packard and stepped on the gas.

  On the way the boys kept talking about what they were going to do. They had some fairly u
nusual ideas. They weren’t going to stand around waiting in line, not them. They wanted sort of a party with all of them in there at once. Vince felt like telling them they were sick, but he had decided that pimping was one of those occupations where the customer was always right.

  But he did have a good money idea.

  “Look,” he said, “something like you got in mind, you got to have what is known as a package deal. That’s what we call it in the trade. A package deal.”

  He sounded so professional that he scared himself. But right away they asked him what he meant by a package deal.

  “Well,” he said, “the twenty dollar price, that’s for one man. You understand? But if you want sort of a party, then the price arrangement is different. What it is, you pay a lump sum by the hour. Then you can do whatever you want, all of you, as much as you want. It’s like you were renting the girl for the hour.”

  He left it dangling there, waiting for them to bite, and they bit. They asked how much it was by the hour, and he told them it was a hundred dollars an hour, with a two-hour minimum. That way they wouldn’t have to worry about how many times, or what they were doing, or anything. They would pay him the two hundred dollars and do whatever they wanted.

  They went for it. They got all excited, as a matter of fact, and before long he was standing in front of the door again, counting the money and waiting for the two hours to pass. He didn’t want to wait for two hours, not really. He didn’t want to stand outside the door while all that nonsense was going on inside the door, either, and it suddenly occurred to him that there was no reason in the world for him to stick around. He had the money, and he didn’t give a hydroelectric dam what happened to Saralee.

  So why stay around?

  He hopped into the car again, and drove to the Charlotte Airport. There was a flight to Idlewild leaving in half an hour, and because of a last-minute cancellation there was a seat open, and he took it. He got on the plane and studied the pretty breasts of the stewardess, which made him think once more of Saralee.