“Because of this,” repeated the hunchback, shrugging heavily.
“No, you darling,” she cooed, insisting, closed-eyed again, nudging his cheek with her nose, “no, no, no. What earthly difference does it make! I have blue eyes—you have that. What possible earthly difference does it make?”
“Why?” he demanded, reaching up under her shirt to grasp one of her breasts, then suddenly pulling her brassiere up and her shoulder back, and thrusting forward to cover the breast with his mouth. Candy sobbed, “Oh darling, no,” but allowed her head to recline gently against the couch. “Why does it have to be like this?” she pleaded. “Why? Oh, I know it’s my own fault, darn it.” And she let him kiss and suck her breast, until the nipple became terribly taut and she began to tingle all down through her precious tummy, then she pulled his head away, cradling it in her arms, her own eyes shimmering with tears behind a brave smile. “No, darling,” she implored, “please . . . not now.”
“Because of this,” said the hunchback bitterly.
“No, no, no,” she cried, closing her eyes and hugging the head to her breast, holding his cheek against it, but trying to keep his mouth from the proud little nipple, “no, no, not because of that!”
“I want!” said the hunchback, with one hand on her hip now undoing the side buttons of her jeans; then he swiftly forced the hand across the panty sheen of her rounded tummy and down into the sweet damp.
“Oh, darling, no!” cried the girl, but it was too late, without making a scene, for anything to be done; his stubby fingers were rolling the little clitoris like a marble in oil. Candy leaned back in resignation, her heart too big to deprive him of this if it meant so much. With her head closed-eyed, resting again on the couch, she would endure it as long as she could. But, before she reached the saturation point, he had nuzzled his face down from her breast across her bare stomach and into her lap, bending his arm forward to force down her jeans and panties as he did, pulling at them on the side with his other hand,
“No, no, darling!” she sighed, but he soon had them down below her knees, at least enough so to replace his fingers with his tongue.
It means so much to him, Candy kept thinking, so much, as he meanwhile got her jeans and panties down completely so that they dangled now from one slender ankle as he adjusted her legs and was at last on the floor himself in front of her, with her legs around his neck, and his mouth very deep inside the fabulous honeypot.
“If it means so much,” Candy kept repeating to herself, until she didn’t think she could bear it another second, and she wrenched herself free, saying “Darling, oh darling,” and seized his head in her hands with a great show of passion.
“Oh, why?” she begged, holding his face in her hands, looking at him mournfully. “Why?”
“I need fuck you!” said the hunchback huskily. He put his face against the upper softness of her marvelous bare leg. Small, strange sounds came from his throat.
“Oh, darling, darling,” the girl keened pitifully, “I can’t bear your crying.” She sighed, and smiled tenderly, stroking his head.
“I think we’d better go into the bedroom,” she said then, her manner suddenly prim and efficient.
In the bathroom, standing before the glass, Candy finished undressing—unbuttoning her shirt, slowly, carefully, a lamb resigned to the slaughter, dropping the shirt to the floor, and taking off her brassiere, gradually revealing her nakedness to herself, with a little sigh, almost of wistful regret, at how very lovely she was, and at how her nipples grew and stood out like cherrystones, as they always did when she watched herself undress. How he wants me! she thought. Well, it’s my own fault, darn it! And she tried to imagine the raging lust that the hunchback felt for her as she touched her curls lightly. Then she cast a last glimpse at herself in the glass, blushing at her own loveliness, and trembling slightly at the very secret notion of this beauty-and-beast sacrifice, she went back into the bedroom.
The hunchback was lying naked, curled on his side like a big foetus, when Candy appeared before him, standing for a moment in full lush radiance, a naked angel bearing the supreme gift. Then, she got into bed quickly, under the sheet, almost soundlessly, saying, “Darling, darling,” and cuddling him to her at once, while he, his head filled with the most freakish thoughts imaginable—all about tubs of living and broken toys, every manner of excrement, scorpions, steelwool, pig-masks, odd metal harness, etc.—tried desperately to pry into the images a single reminder: the money!
“Do you want to kiss me some more, darling?” asked the girl with deadly soft seriousness, her eyes wide, searching his own as one would a child’s. Then she sighed and lay back, slowly taking the sheet from her, again to make him the gift of all her wet, throbbing treasures, as he, glazed-eyed and grunting, slithered down beside her.
“Don’t hurt me, darling,” she murmured, as in a dream, while he parted the exquisitely warm round thighs with his great head, his mouth opening the slick lips all sugar and glue, and his quick tongue finding her pink candy clit at once.
“Oh, darling, darling,” she said, stroking his head gently, watching him, a tender courageous smile on her face.
The hunchback put his hands under her, gripping the foam-rubber balls of her buttocks, and sucked and nibbled her tiny clit with increasing vigor. Candy closed her eyes and gradually raised her legs, straining gently upward now, dropping her arms back by her head, one to each side, pretending they were pinioned there, writhing slowly, sobbing—until she felt she was no longer giving, but was on the verge of taking, and, as with an effort, she broke her hands from above her and grasped the hunchback’s head and lifted it to her mouth, coming forward to meet him, kissing him deeply. “Come inside me, darling,” she whispered urgently, “I want you inside me!”
The hunchback, his brain seething with pure strangeness, hardly heard her. He had forgotten about the money, but did know that something was at stake, and his head was about to burst in trying to recall what it was. Inside his mind was like a gigantic landslide of black eels, billions of them, surging past, one of which held the answer. His job: catch it! Catch it, and chew off the top of its head; and there, in the gurgling cup, would be . . . the message: “You have forgotten about . . . ?”
But which eel was it? While his eyes grew wilder and rolled back until only the whites showed, Candy, thinking that he was beside himself with desire for her, covered his face with sweet wet kisses, until he suddenly went stiff in her arms as his racing look stopped abruptly on the floor near the bed: it was a coat hanger, an ordinary wire coat hanger, which had fallen from the closet, and the hunchback flung himself out of the bed and onto the floor, clutching the hanger to him feverishly. Then, as in a fit of bitter triumph, he twisted it savagely into a single length of coiled black wire, and gripping it so tightly that his entire body shook for a moment, he lunged forward, one end of it locked between his teeth. He thought it was the eel.
Candy had started up, half sitting now, one hand instinctively to her pert, pulsating breast.
“Darling, what is it?” she cried. “Darling, you aren’t going to . . .”
The hunchback slowly rose, as one recovered from a seizure of apoplexy, seeming to take account of his surroundings anew, and, just as he had learned from the eel’s head that the forgotten issue was money, so too he believed now that the girl wanted to be beaten.
“Why, darling?” pleaded Candy, curling her lovely legs as the hunchback slowly raised the black wire snake above his head. “Why? Why?” she cried.
And as he began to strike her across the back of her legs, she sobbed, “Oh, why, darling, why?” her long round limbs twisting, as she turned and writhed, her arms back beside her head as before, moving too except at the wrist where they were as stiff as though clamped there with steel, and she was saying: “Yes! Hurt me! Yes, yes! Hurt me as they have hurt you!” and now her ankles as well seemed secured, shackled to the spot, as she lay, spread-eagled, sobbing piteously, straining against her invisible bonds, her li
the round body arching upward, hips circling slowly, mouth wet, nipples taut, her teeny piping clitoris distended and throbbing, and her eyes glistening like fire, as she devoured all the penitence for each injustice ever done to hunchbacks of the world; and as it continued she slowly opened her eyes, that all the world might see the tears there—but instead she herself saw, through the rise and fall of the wire lash—the hunchback’s white gleaming hump! The hump, the white, unsunned forever, radish-root white of hump, and it struck her, more sharply than the wire whip, as something she had seen before—the naked, jutting buttocks, upraised in a sexual thrust, not a thrust of taking, but of giving, for it had been an image in a hospital room mirror, of her own precious buttocks, naked and upraised, gleaming white, and thrusting downwards, as she had been made to do in giving herself to her Uncle Jack!
With a wild impulsive cry, she shrieked: “Give me your hump!”
The hunchback was startled for a moment, not comprehending.
“Your hump, your hump!” cried the girl, “GIVE ME YOUR HUMP!”
The hunchback hesitated, and then lunged headlong toward her, burying his hump between Candy’s legs as she hunched wildly, pulling open her little labias in an absurd effort to get it in her.
“Your hump! Your hump!” she kept crying, scratching and clawing at it now.
“Fuck! Shit! Piss!” she screamed. “Cunt! Cock! Crap! Prick! Kike! Nigger! Wop! Hump! HUMP!” and she teetered on the blazing peak of pure madness for an instant . . . and then dropped down, slowly, through gray and grayer clouds into a deep, soft, black, night.
When Candy awoke she was alone. She lay back, thinking over the events of the afternoon. Well, it’s my own fault, darn it, she sighed, then smiled a little smile of forgiveness at herself—but this suddenly changed to a small frown, and she sat up in bed, cross as a pickle. “Darn it!” she said aloud, and with real feeling, for she had forgotten to have them exchange names.
11
AFTER FRESHENING UP a bit, Candy left the apartment and started walking down West 4th Street. The rain had stopped, and a cool gentle breeze was blowing; apparently it was going to be a lovely evening indeed.
It was too late now of course to think about the job; in fact, it was almost dark when she reached the corner of Sixth Avenue, and she decided, quite on impulse, to stop in at the Riviera and have a Pernod.
Jack Katt and Tom Smart were there, at a front table, lushing it up and keen for puss. These were two fellows whom Candy vaguely knew and generally avoided. They were extraordinarily handsome and clever chaps, and Candy alone seemed immune to their undeniable charm; this was a constant source of annoyance to them. Now, when she entered, they graciously invited her to join them, but she refused. She wanted to sit quietly alone and cherish the memory of the past few hours with . . . but she didn’t have the name to conjure with! And that was the blight on the experience, for she kept thinking of him now simply as “the hunchback,” and every time the word formed in her mind she was cross enough with herself to bite. She didn’t like thinking of him that way. What earthly difference could it make! she kept demanding, pouting her pretty mouth and clenching her small fist on the bar. Then she recalled the name she had given him, “Derek,” and was happy with that for the moment, smiling again and sipping her drink.
“What the deuce is wrong with you?” asked the bartender suddenly, he who had been staring at the girl and had seen the gamut of emotions flit across her face.
“Nothing that you would understand,” replied Candy imperiously; she didn’t like the looks of this fellow, nor his forward manner. She lowered her eyes to the glass in her hand and quite ignored him; but he walked around the bar and looked frowningly down at the stool she was sitting on.
“Anything wrong?” Candy asked, and with an icy hauteur she knew would send a shiver up his spine.
“Apparently not,” he replied easily, though without relaxing his consideration altogether. “Somehow, from the gamut of emotions which crossed your face, I had the idea the stool had slipped up into your damp.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Candy, not comprehending, but even so not too keen on the fellow’s tone.
“You know,” insisted the bartender, going back behind the bar again, “your puss, your jelly-box . . . I thought the stool had somehow slipped up into your jelly-box. It happened the other night, a hefty babe was sitting here at the bar . . . not on the stool you’re on, but the next one, and I was watching her. Well, she seemed to gradually sink down toward the floor, you know, as though the stool itself were going right through the floor, and . . . well, as I say, I was watching her, and, by God, a veritable gamut of emotions was crossing her face while this was happening . . . and what had happened was that somehow the stool had slipped or pushed up into her jelly-box, right up inside it, taking all the clothes with it, skirt, slip, panties and all, right up into her thing . . . the whole seat of the stool and about a foot of the legs. Christ, I never saw anything like it before! Of course, she was a good deal heavier than you, in fact, a lot heavier. She was a hefty babe, and . . .”
Candy didn’t like this gabby intrusion into her thoughts about Derek and the afternoon behind them, and she was quick to let her expression reflect the annoyance she felt; but she allowed him to ramble on, not following the words at all, because she didn’t care for this chap’s tone. She supposed that he needed her in a way, but she wouldn’t think about that now, she was too full at the moment, too full and warm from . . . she recalled Professor Mephesto’s words, “from this wonderful business of living.” She thought of herself for the moment as a lovely, contented cat . . . snuggled warm before the fire in her furabout, purring happily; she could have hugged herself. Yet on another level she did feel that the general ambience of the bar was somehow degrading to the experience of the afternoon, the experience she wanted so much to keep pure and whole, to nurture and fondle, privately, as one might a newborn babe of one’s own. She knew that she should be in a more refined place than this Riviera bar, and she decided she would see if any good foreign films were playing at the local art movie-houses.
She went over to the table where Jack Katt and Tom Smart were sitting and inquired. Of course they had no notion of what was playing at the art cinemas, or anywhere else for that matter, being out only for cheap strong lush and slick tight puss. But they pretended they knew all about the various programs and insisted that Candy sit down while they discussed it. Then the suave Tom Smart leaned forward and spoke confidingly to the girl: “I’d sure like to dip my jumbo into that hot little honeypot of yours tonight!”
“No, no,” said Jack Katt, his dark fire-glint eyes flashing with an impatience which would have made most girls tingle and cream, “let me handle this!” And he tried to pull the handsome Tom Smart away and at the same time actually attempted to thrust his hand into Candy’s sweet little blouse.
“You silly boys!” she said crossly. She knew that this was simply their way of expressing a need for her, but she didn’t care for this sort of talk at any time, and especially not now when all her thoughts were with Derek.
“Good Christ Almighty,” exclaimed Tom Smart, turning to his companion, “will you let me handle this! Now you’ve offended her! Christ!”
“You!” shouted Jack Katt. “You and your damned oblique approach! I want puss!”
And so they fell to arguing and discussing the tactic, though to Candy it was a respite and she pursued her reflections on the hours past.
She hardly noticed when they were joined at the table a few minutes later by another person, Dr. Howard Johns, a pleasant, middle-aged chap, certainly not the looker that Tom and Jack were, but perhaps more stable, and no doubt more comfortable for a young girl to be with. Nor did Candy catch his name at first, if in fact these two even troubled to introduce him, so informal were they in such matters.
“Listen, do you know what he is?” asked Tom Smart, after a minute, speaking to Candy. “A gynecologist! Ha-ha-ha!”
“Good Grief,” s
aid Candy.
“Sure,” said Tom Smart, and turning to the doctor, went on in his winningly irrepressible way, “how would you like to look up that snatch, Doc? Boy, it’s honey and cream!”
“It’s a living snake!” said Jack Katt.
This seemed to embarrass the doctor somewhat and he shifted uneasily in his chair.
“Well,” said Candy, “I’ve never met a . . . a gynecologist socially. How do you do?”
“Are you kidding?” shouted Tom Smart. “How does he do? He gets more pussy in three hours than most chaps do in a week! Right, Doc?”
“Now, really, Tom, Jack,” said Dr. Johns, “I mean, fun is fun, but . . .” He was clearly upset about the turn the conversation had taken.
“I think you boys are terrible,” said Candy indignantly, and she got up and went to another table.
“Good God!” cried Jack Katt. “Now you’ve lost that hot puss for us! Christ! Christ!”
“What! What!” said Tom Smart. “I lost it? Great Scott man, don’t you realize that if . . .”
And so they would discuss it for hours on end.
Meanwhile, Dr. Johns got up and joined Candy at the other table.
“Well,” he said, “they are certainly . . . certainly outgoing chaps, I must say, I’m terribly sorry about that. Really . . . I hardly . . .”
“Oh they’re just silly boys,” said Candy, “it’s just their way of trying to . . . trying to express themselves . . . aesthetically, I suppose.”
“Hmm,” said Dr. Johns, glancing at them again. They were scuffling about the floor now, wallowing in the pools of beer and sawdust, shouting remarks about “tight quim,” “hot puss,” etc., etc.
Both Candy and the doctor looked away.
“Do you happen to know what’s playing at the 5th Avenue Cinema?” she asked.
“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” said Dr. Johns. “Sorry.”
Candy Page 10