The Jet Set

by Mack Reynolds

He growled, lust heavy in his voice, “A bedroom. Where’s the bedroom? This couch gets … in the way.”

  She managed to come to her feet and took him by the hand. She was nude, and he flung away his own clothing as they progressed to her bedroom. It hadn’t been made up as yet, was still rumpled from her hours of sleep.

  She murmured, hesitantly, “Larry … darling … would you like a drink … before the next time?”

  He growled something she didn’t make out, and they were in bed and he was driving into her again. Fiercely, mercilessly.

  The Contessa Marcella di Loraine had no idea how long a time elapsed before finally she pleaded for surcease. And then, even as he scowled down at her as though thwarted at her calling a halt, she fell into bottomless sleep.

  • • •

  Larry Land stared down at her for a long moment. She’d been the first woman he’d had for some time. Come to think of it, only the second in the six months he had been over here. He relaxed back on the pillow and put his hands under his head and stared at the blankness of the ceiling. Not that there hadn’t been ample opportunity. The fact of the matter was, sex wasn’t as important as all that.

  He knew his outlook wasn’t exactly normal. No, that wasn’t the term. Not exactly average. What was normal and abnormal in sex was a moot question, as Kinsey, among others, had long since proven. One man’s abnormality was another’s normality. It was based on a good many factors. The century in which you lived, the social group to which you belonged, the country in which you resided and its mores.

  For instance, he recalled reading an article which dealt with some of the laws pertaining to sex in various of the American states. In one state the law provided for a prison term for any persons performing the sex act in other than the normal position. The law didn’t bother to define what the normal position was. In other states, several of them, homosexuality could be punished by death. Of course, there was the opposite extreme. In Morocco, as in ancient Greece, homosexuality was not considered abnormal, and no one bothered to think twice about a man who lived the usual married life but occasionally went out with a boy, just as a sort of a treat.

  But he knew he was other than average. Actually, though he enjoyed the act well enough when indulging in it, he would have just as well have spent a few hours of hunting, fishing or, say, mountain climbing, with or without companionship, than bedding the most lusty sex symbol in Hollywood. It just didn’t make that much difference to him.

  He didn’t know if he was born feeling the way he did or if it was a result of environment and experience. As he thought about it, he rather decided it was his experience in the field of love.

  What had been the first? The very first?

  Well, other than the childish play of prepuberty of the you show me yours, and I’ll show you mine variety, his first experience had probably been with Giggling Gertie on the floor of the playroom of her house. He could still recall the ping-pong table, looming above them. Gertrude. He couldn’t remember her last name. The gang all called her Giggling Gertie, that irritating quality particularly coming out when she was at parent-forbidden experimentation of the nature most of Larry’s companions had tried with Giggling Gertie at one time or the other. They had let him know what he was missing. Giggling Gertie was putting out.

  As he looked back through time, Larry Land decided that it had been that very quality of hers that had led to his failure. He couldn’t bear her inane giggling. To him it was a serious enough project to begin with, and on top of other anxieties her parents were upstairs probably wondering why they couldn’t hear the ping-pong ball bouncing back and forth. And her giggling. Briefly, it turned out a farce. Her lying there, her legs spread awkwardly, gawkily, and him trying to perform that hardest and easiest of all acts man is called upon to perform in his short span. And the more upset he became, the more she resorted to spasms of giggling.

  Even now, more than ten years later, he couldn’t find humor in the situation.

  He must have been sixteen the next time. Seventeen? No, he must have still been sixteen. He was still in high school, in El Monte, or had the family already moved to Alhambra by that time? At any rate, he’d come to the conclusion that it was time he lost his virginity, if only so that he could join in the conversation that seemingly preoccupied half the time of his associates.

  The girl — he couldn’t remember her name now, of course — had been a whore. He had found out only later that she was a tyro in her trade, one of the few who entered the oldest profession largely because of her love of her work. And that factor had undoubtedly resulted in the gaucherie that developed. A more hardened and experienced pro would have been easier on him.

  Only after soliciting him had she realized his youth. And, once realizing it, couldn’t leave it alone. Even as she led him to the motel from which she operated, she must use such phrases as robbing the cradle, and twitting him about spending his allowance on this sort of thing. By the time they had disrobed, his irritation at her was as strong as his building lust.

  Actually, she couldn’t have been much older than he. Sixteen, and her body, made for the act of love, was still unaffected by the profession she had chosen. But she couldn’t leave him alone. Subconsciously, Larry suspected now in hindsight, she probably feared failure to find gratification herself, and her nymphomaniacal needs were paramount. So she must make irritating gags, rag him, worry at him. Some of her digs came back to him now.

  “Kids your age can’t jazz right on account of you use your hand too much.”

  He hadn’t understood. As he fumbled with her, in awe at the mystery of the feminine form, this first time revealed to him, her half-whine, half-attempt at humor, didn’t get through.

  She said, in ire herself, undoubtedly at his awkwardness, “You kids can’t swing because you spend too much juice laying Madam Thumb and her four daughters.”

  It came through to him then, and he flushed his embarrassment. And when she saw it, she laughed, shrilly and coarsely. He had never met with coarseness in a woman before. His life had been such that all adult females with whom he had come in contact were ladies, as the genteelism would have it.

  She must have said something even further, which didn’t come back to him now, and then anger welled up and with it lust such as he had never known. And of a sudden he was upon her, his maleness raging, and he driving deep, hard, unrelenting. And, as it turned out, all but unceasingly. He brought her to climax four, five, six times before he spent. And then all but immediately again, and still again, until finally after five raging times in all she pleaded for an end, her face pale. Long since her body had ceased to move with him, had no more than lain prone suffering his relentless jabbing.

  His next experience had added fuel to his growing phobia. He had taken his date to a dance, during their senior high school year. There had been some surreptitiously circulated pint bottles, and neither of them used to more than an occasional glass of sweet wine. They had wound up on the grass of the golf course, and, ineptly, he had finished first. Flo — that had been her name, he recalled now, Florence — had been tight enough to be indignant and snapped something about his selfishness, and then the lust exploded and he was upon her again, though he had climaxed but a moment earlier. Upon her and raging, driving, plunging. And over and over again she experienced that which she had accused him of failing to bring her.

  The pattern was set. There was that in him that had a literal dread of inadequacy in the act of love. There was that in him that must needs call upon resources that he didn’t actually possess, that no physically normal man possessed, in order to assure that his companion of the bed reached full satisfaction and satiety. He would rather by far abstain completely than face a situation in which his partner was less than fulfilled, and overly fulfilled.

  • • •

  Larry Land brought himself back to the present and to reality. His eyes went to Marcella Loraine, asleep in exhaustion. Asleep, Marcella was unable to take the precautions necessary to
hide the long years of alcohol, of hedonistic living, of promiscuity. He no longer wondered at her having a grown son. The Contessa Marcella di Loraine was no spring chicken. Larry felt the slight edge of revulsion he almost always felt after one of his sexual satiation bouts.

  He quietly arose, gathered his clothes, dressed, and, securing camera and gadget bag, let himself from the suite.

  • CHAPTER TWO •

  POGO’S, less than a quarter of a mile from the center of Torremolinos, on the main road south to Gibraltar, opened its door in the later 1950’s, in the early days of the booming of the town as a foreign resort. The dream of an American expatriate and her Spanish partner, Pogo’s quickly rivaled both the Bar Central, as an oasis for the thirst driven, and Manolo’s, for snacks. It was the home away from home for the Americans who found life impossible without such edibles as hamburgers, hot dogs, ham and eggs and chili con carne, and such potables as bourbon and ginger ale, rum and Coke, and really dry martinis.

  There was a midmorning eye-opener trade of those who couldn’t wait until noon to begin killing the hangover, but the crowd, the international crowd, those who were in, began assembling shortly after twelve. By one, Pogo’s was invariably packed, both the score or so tables outside on the terrace and the stools and tables within.

  Spanish style, when you wished a waiter’s attention, you clapped your hands. Rather quietly, if you were an old-timer, louder if you were either drunk or a tourist on the way through who had become newly acquainted with this method of obtaining a drink. You clapped your hands and if you were one of those who were in, you likely as not ordered a gimlet, for Pogo’s Bar, on the Costa del Sol of Spain, is one of the few watering holes outside the boundaries of the English-speaking world where it is possible to get a properly made gimlet, compounded of ultra-dry gin and Rose’s lime juice.

  Larry Land, not being an old hand, ordered a cerveza, being knowledgable enough, however, to specify El Aquila, rather than San Miguel. Spanish beer, he had already discovered, was often not exactly up to the products of Munich, Pilsen or Copenhagen.

  “Rollei, uh? Damn good camera.”

  Larry, still pouring beer into his glass, took in the occupant of the stool next to him. He nodded agreement.

  “Got a 3.5 lens, or a 2.8?” the other said.

  “F.2.8,” Larry told him. “Actually, you seldom need that much speed.”

  “I got an Exacta myself,” the other told him. “Me, I prefer a miniature.”

  Larry grunted, took a sip of the icy-cold beer. Pogo’s was one of the few places in Europe he’d found where the beer was served American-cold. He said, “Square inch by square inch, ounce by ounce, which camera is bigger, the Rollei or the Exacta?”

  The other, obviously American, possibly twenty pounds overweight, moist of eye, florid of face and a bit loud of voice, stared at him as though Larry’s words hadn’t got through.

  Larry said, “When the 35mm cameras such as the Leica, the Contax and the Kodak Bantam first came out, they were really miniatures small enough to slip into a pocket. But as the years went by and the gadgets, attachments, accessories, built-in exposure meters and what not increased, they’ve grown until they’re approaching the size of a Speed Graphic and are about as easy to hide as a walrus in a goldfish bowl.”

  The other laughed. “What’re you drinking? Have one with me.” Before waiting for an answer, he stuck out a freckled and somewhat hairy paw. “Jack Grinney,” he said.

  Larry shook. He was neither looking for company nor avoiding it; however, if he planned to spend a full month in Torremolinos, he might as well take his opportunities to make contacts. “Larry Land,” he said.

  “Larry Land? Sounds like some flack hung a name like that on you. You in the movies? Lot of actors in this town these days. Paul Lucas is semipermanent. Liz made a movie here last year. Kim — ”

  “No,” Larry said. “I’m not an actor.”

  “Writer? Larry Land. Sounds like a nom de plume. Is that what they call it?”

  “I think so,” Larry said. “But that’s my real name. Lawrence Land. You a permanent resident of Torremolinos?”

  “Five years,” Grinney said. “That makes you an old hand. Man, this a boom town. You shoulda seen it just a few years ago. If I’d stuck a thousand dollars, a thousand lousy dollars, into land on the outskirts of Torremolinos five years ago, I could retire now.”

  Their fresh drinks had materialized. Larry said, “It’s the old story. “I’ve heard it about half California, and just about all of Florida. Are you in real estate?”

  “Sure. It still applies here. The boom is still on. Five years from now, this area will be like the French Riviera. You can’t lose. If you’ve got a few thousand to invest in the boom here, I’ll guarantee I can show you where to put it, where it’ll double to triple each year that passes.” His eyes were only slightly narrower.

  Larry’s chuckle was wry. “Sorry. I’ve got roughly fifty dollars to my name.” He patted the camera in explanation. “Making my way around Europe doing a bit of photography.”

  The other dropped his pitch, and Larry wondered if Grinney was begrudging the investment in the beer he had bought him.

  However, the real estate dealer seemed gregarious whether or not a possible investor was involved. “Vacation, uh?”

  “Not exactly. Never had a position from which to take a vacation. I go into my field when I get back to the States.”

  The other looked him up and down. “At your age? What field you in, Larry?”

  “Sociology. I specialized in statistical research.”

  “For the government, like?” The other’s hail-fellow tone of voice and friendly grin kept his flow of questions from being obnoxious.

  “Not in my case. I’ve got a job waiting with National Statistics when I go back. They take some government contracts, but do a lot of private research, too.”

  “Well, like what?”

  Larry picked an example out of the air. “Suppose we gather material on alcoholism. All right, among other things the IBM collators turn up is the fact that alcoholism is, say, more prevalent in the South than in the North, that one-armed men are more apt to be drunks than others, that homosexuals are sixty percent more apt to be heavy drinkers than heterosexuals, that men are more apt to be than women, that persons over forty are more apt to be than younger people. That sort of stuff.”

  “So who cares?” Grinney said, intrigued.

  “So some manufacturer in Douche, Pennsylvania, or someplace, starts up a factory which is so organized that he simply can’t afford absenteeism. He knows that only the common cold competes with hangovers as a reason for staying off the job. So he comes to us, and we give him the word.”

  “What word?” Grinney said.

  “Not to hire any one-armed, male homosexuals over forty who hail from Mississippi.”

  Grinney yelped laughter. “Man, it’s a helluva way to make a living.”

  Larry shrugged and made circular motions over their glasses in the way of letting the bartender know they wanted refills. “What’s better?”

  Grinney waggled a finger at him. “Staying over here is better, chum. Face it, the land of our birth has become one big ulcer factory — the rat race, the treadmill, the rut, the status symbol, keeping up with the Joneses routine.”

  Larry took another pull at his beer and looked about the room. Somewhat to his surprise, he recognized two film personalities and a South American politician who had recently got a spate of publicity when he pulled out moments before the firing squad got around to him. Larry said, “I doubt if there are many openings for sociologists in Torremolinos.”

  “Hell, there are other deals. A dozen ways of making an easy, comfortable living,” Grinney said. “Anything to keep out of that American rat race.”

  A king-sized man wearing rolled-up shirt sleeves, khaki pants and the local peasant canvas and straw-soled shoes without socks wedged betwen them to get to the bar. He must have gone six and a half feet and
well over two hundred pounds. He was as Irish as the Blarney stone and could have been a politician in Boston, a longshoreman in Brooklyn, a cop in Philadelphia — anything but an expatriate in southern Spain.

  “Hi, Jack,” he said to Grinney, knocking on the bar with a fifty-peseta coin.

  Grinney said, “Larry, if you’re going to be in town any time at all, you’ve got to meet Big Bill Daly, the local character to end all local characters. Bill, this is Larry Land.”

  Big Bill engulfed Larry’s none too small hand with a monstrous paw, while still glowering at Jack Grinney. “What makes me a character, Jack?” He pronounced the “Jack” as one would say “Mac,” or “Doc,” to a stranger with whom one was arguing. He turned to the bartender. “Hey, Jesus, three gimlets por screwing favor!” He pronounced Jesus hey-zeus, Spanish style.

  Grinney made with his gold-flashing grin, but explained to Larry rather than answering the newcomer.

  “Big Bill’s a writer, so they say. But I’d have to be shown there’s a typewriter big enough that his hot-dog-size fingers could pound it. He’s a frustrated proletarian. Makes too much money doing suspense novels and movie scripts to work in any other field. He’d be happy dragging down a hundred and twenty tooling a truck around New Jersey, but he’s drinking himself to death making a thousand a week over here.”

  Jesus was making the gimlets. Big Bill grumbled at Jack Grinney, “If you weren’t such a puny little tad, I’d chastise you, Buster.”

  Larry had to laugh at that. Grinney would go a good one hundred and eighty, and at least five foot eleven.

  Big Bill said to him, “Why not come up to the party this evening?”

  Larry said, “Me?”

  The overgrown Irishman took up the gimlets. “Sure. New face around town. I’m getting tired of the old ones. Especially Grinney’s here.”

  Before he turned to go, he growled at Grinney, “You’re going to be there, aren’t you, Jack? Keep me from getting too happy, you being around. Just don’t borrow money from my guests.”