Her awareness was complete, but she couldn’t move. Hot eyes would open only slightly. Her arms and legs and torso were lying heavily on the sand, cut off from her control. The person above her was kneeling on one of her thumbs, pressing it painfully into the gritty surface, but she had no power to get her hand out of the way.
She tried to scream. The sound echoed in her mind helplessly. No matter how urgently she tried to push the air up from her lungs, the scream stayed trapped inside her. She couldn’t even whimper.
Her body was paralyzed, but not her senses. She could feel everything that happened.
He was removing her blouse. He pulled the tail of it from the waist of her skirt, then began undoing the buttons, one by one, starting at the throat. She felt his fingernails graze the flesh above her breasts. The edges of his nails were broken and rough.
The last button opened, and he pulled the blouse wide, then yanked it up her back along the sand, almost to her shoulders. His fingers lifted one of her limp arms and wrenched it painfully free of the sleeve. Then he dragged the crumpled blouse from under her body and pulled it off her other arm.
She expected him to open her brassiere next, but he fooled her. His fingers went to work immediately on her skirt. He was fumbling and inept; Ginny got the impression he didn’t know very much about women or their clothing.
What little he knew would probably be quite enough. She shuddered inside.
The button opened, the zipper dropped, and the skirt was drawn over her hips and down along her legs to her feet. He stopped with the skirt around her ankles and slipped off her sandals. His finger lingered for a moment on the soles of her feet. Under different circumstances, a touch like that would have made her giggle.
Under the present circumstances, it convulsed her insides with fear.
Her sandals were off, and her skirt followed them. She hadn’t worn stockings or a slip that day. Except for the lacy cups of her brassiere and the flimsy material of her panties, she was naked, and those two remaining garments weren’t going to offer any protection.
He had stopped. She opened her eyes again as far as she could, and tried to see him, but he was out of sight down near her feet. She could feel his eyes examining her. She could still hear his breathing, and the way it grew more hoarse and moist moment by moment
She tried again to move, to scream, to make some sound, to plead with him—anything to release the pressure of panic which was bottled up inside her. But it was impossible to stir a single muscle, or even to moan. She could feel a hot thread of pain along the line of her jaw where his fist had struck her. Somehow, that blow had rendered her helpless, leaving her at his mercy.
He was looking at her. And he was seeing more of her than any man had ever seen before. He was seeing virtually all of her, and those few portions of her anatomy that remained concealed—those parts of her that no one but her mother had ever seen—would be bared to his lustful gaze before long.
And once that happened. . .
But it wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t. She refused to believe he would go that far. Somebody would wander along and stop him. Something would frighten him, and he’d run away. A policeman walking on the beach would see them there and chase the fellow off before he had any opportunity to finish what he had started.
It just couldn’t happen. Not like this, not after all her years of fighting it off, avoiding it in all its forms. Eighteen years of life; pure, unsullied, always clean just as she had promised to her mother.
She couldn’t be robbed of all that now, and for no reason. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
But it was happening anyway, and nobody was going to come to her rescue. For all practical purposes, she and the youth were as alone together as if they were the last man and woman on earth.
His fingers touched her sides, just under the armpits. He pulled her up slightly, wedging his hands in underneath her back. She felt her head loll to one side as her shoulders came up off the sand.
A pressure was eased suddenly, and she realized he had found and undone the snaps of her brassiere. When he let her body fall back again, she felt her back entirely naked against the sand.
He had the straps in his hands. He was pulling them down her arms. The cups of her bra were lying loosely on her breasts, and she felt the upper edges of them tip forward away, baring the first rise of her rounded flesh.
Then, the bra was gone. The cool air caressed her naked bosom, causing the buds at the tips to flower and darken. She could feel it happening, and recognized the sensation from her dream of the night before.
Her dream—In the dream, she had escaped this. She had been menaced on all sides by young men just like this one, with the same hideous and lust-distorted bodies, with the same wild and uncontrollable passions. They had all wanted her in that dream, but none of them could have her.
Only the woman—only Madam Fury—could have her.
But this wasn’t a dream. This was reality, and it was far worse than any nightmare could have been.
He was touching her breasts. She could feel the tips of his fingers grazing along her curves, tracing the swell of her flesh like the touch of a blind man reading Braille. The fingers trembled a little, as if he were enjoying his reading-matter.
His touch was gentle. It reminded her again of her dream—lying on her back in that wonderfully soft bed while the phantom shape of Madam Fury stood over her, caressing, stroking, holding. . .
If only it had been Madam Fury touching her now, instead of this vile young man.
His fingers found her soft breast-tips, and worked a delicate tracery of sensation around the puckered aureoles.
Ginny’s panic began to subside a little. Her mind was drifting on a rising tide of pleasure, and it was easy to pretend the hands caressing her were not those of a foul-mouthed young man. As the tingling in her breasts grew to spread along her veins and nerves, grew until it suffused her entire body, the helpless feeling of a paralysis turned into a glow of warm relaxation.
In her mind’s eye, she could see the woman again. There wasn’t sand underneath her, but the bed on which she’d lain in her dream. The sun-striped Boardwalk was gone, and she was back in the room, the one at the end of that long corridor, the one labeled Madam Fury. Behind her, she knew, were all the other room, and all the lust-crazed men who ached to have her. But she had escaped their desires, and now she was safe, and Madam Fury was standing above her.
The shadowy figure had to be Madam Fury. She was so beautiful, and her touch was so tender, that Ginny felt herself bathed in a kind of delight intense enough to soften her mind. The fingers drifted across her breasts, up one curve and down another, touching and prodding the sweet buds of the tips, teasing them into hard excitement. Madam Fury’s hands were caressing her—Madam Fury’s hands were the sweetest and most wonderful hands in the world. Ginny would have been satisfied to go on forever like this, with her body lying peacefully in the warm bed, with her twin-mounded bust cupped and cherished by Madam Fury’s loving hands. . .
But it didn’t go on forever. It stopped, with an abrupt shock of pain, and all at once Ginny was catapulted back into the present, back to the cold horror of reality.
The young man had taken hold of her most sensitive breast-flesh, grabbed it between his thumbs and forefingers. He was pulling her, tugging at her, rolling her, causing bolt after bolt of hot agony to flood her nerves, driving all the pleasure away before it.
Her eyes came completely open. She could move now, but not very well. Her limbs were still weak, her muscles still slack. When she inhaled, she heard herself moan, and knew that her voice was coming back to her. In a few minutes, she would probably be able to scream.
But in a few minutes, it would probably be too late.
His mouth was on her now, slobbering over one aching breast while his hand tormented the other. She could feel the pressure of his lips, the beating of his tongue, the slimy hardness of his teeth nipping at her.
She moaned again. She
felt him stiffen, and knew he had heard her. His mouth released her flesh with a wet popping sound, and his head lifted until he was looking into her face.
His eyes were crazy, bugging from his head like small hard-boiled eggs. The pupils were dilated almost to pinpoints with excitement. His lips twitched insanely as he spoke.
“Just stay still,” he said. “Don’t move or do nothing, or I’ll hit you again. You hear me? You just lay there and be nice, and everything’ll be nice, everything’ll be fine and dandy. You get me?”
His cruel fingers closed over both her breasts, and shoved them almost flat against her ribs. She felt the tips dilate with pain as the weight of his palms pressed them deep into her shuddering flesh.
“Don’t move around,” he said. “Stay still. I ain’t gonna hurt you—I’m just gonna give you what you was begging for. Don’t try to tell me any different, either—walking all alone under the Broadwalk the way you was—wearing that dress so your boobs and your butt would show up real nice—Don’t you think a guy can tell when a gal wants it? I know your kind—I know the hot ones. I can spot them a mile off. You lay there and take it from me, like you want, and we’ll have a real ball.”
He squeezed her breasts for emphasis, and this time the pain of it was so intense that all sensation fled before it, and her bosom went numb. The numbness lasted for only a second, and when feeling returned, she felt her breasts settling on her, felt the air blowing across their tortured curves as they lolled back to their natural shape.
His hands had left her bust. His hands were holding her naked waist, cupping the upper rise of her hips. She heard the rustle of his knees against the sand, and felt his presence between her limp thighs.
His hands were stroking her belly, drifting across her loins with cruel pressures and pinches. Then one of his hands left her, and she heard the sudden sound of a zipper. At the same moment, his free hand formed into a scoop, and dipped under to contain her.
I’m all naked down there, she thought. He can see me, he can hold me, he can. . .
His hands moved across her hips and slid underneath her to cup her buttocks. He lifted, and she felt her loins rise from the sand, to meet the core of his lust.
“Please,” she said. Her voice was weak, barely louder than a whisper, but he heard her.
“Shut up.” There was a thin note of panic behind his words. “We’re going now—don’t say nothing, don’t spoil it.”
“Please—stop. Don’t.”
“Shut up!” He gripped her bottom-flesh violently, digging his fingers into the softness. “I need it. Lemme have it. Don’t pretend you don’t want it, because I know different, I know you want it, I can tell when broads want it. I had all kinds, I know them all, broads can’t fool around with me because I’ve had every kind there is in my time. . .” His voice trailed off on a note of hysteria.
Something was happening. She felt his body shudder and tremble, and clenched herself in a spasm, waiting for his assault.
But the thrust never came. She sensed him touch her, only for an instant, and then he was gone. His fingers dug into her buttocks a second longer, then relaxed.
She fell back onto the rand.
The young man was sobbing. “I did it again! I wanted it to be good—I wanted to make it last. I didn’t want it to be lousy like all those other times. Why is it always over so quick? Why can’t I hold off? What the hell’s the matter with me?”
He stopped speaking suddenly, and seemed to become aware of her presence. He moved quickly from between her thighs. She heard a scrabble of sand as he got to his feet
Then he was running. She listened to the sound of his receding footsteps crunching in the sand, heard also the noise of his mortified sobs dwindling off into silence.
She was alone.
Control returned to her muscles gradually, filtering back into her torso and limbs with a tingle of pins-and-needles. She didn’t try to rush it. The numbness was leaving her body, but was starting to travel up to her mind.
By the time she could stand, her Main was as empty of thought as that of a moron.
She looked down at the place where she had lain. The outline of her body was there in the sand—a large depression where her torso had been, the smaller roundness whore her skull had rested, and the long scoops left by her arms and legs. Between the leg-prints were the hollows left by the young man’s knees, but she didn’t recognize them as such.
The marks in the sand meant nothing to her.
She passed her hands over her body and discovered she was naked. Her breasts and buttocks were sore. When she fitted the cups of her bra over her bosom, she felt a hot irritation where the material touched her nipples.
The soreness annoyed her. She discarded the bra.. Her panties were lying a few feet off, and were covered with sand. She brushed them off as best she could and slipped into them. Her blouse was nearby; when she put it on, she discovered it was tom under one arm. She slipped into her skirt, found her sandals, and began to walk.
After a while, she found an opening which led to a street beyond the Boardwalk. She stepped through it and started off along the pavement. She walked without direction, thought, or awareness. Her dark-nippled breasts were clearly visible through the material of her blouse, but she didn’t realize that, nor did she notice the people who glanced at her incredulously as she passed.
Without consciously trying, she turned into her own block. Instinct guided her into her building and up to her apartment The pocket of her skirt was torn, but fortunately the keys were still in it. She opened the door and stepped inside.
For a long moment, she simply stood there inside the door, her eyes unblinking, her face expressionless, her mind a total blank. Then she went into the bedroom and walked over to the night table. The card was lying there beside some piles of change. She brushed the coins aside and picked the card up.
MADAM FURY, it said.
That’s who I need, she thought numbly. That’s who I must speak to. The woman at the end of the corridor. She comforted me before. She’ll do it again. She’ll touch me, and hold me, and make everything all right.
A tiny smile twisted a comer of her mouth as she picked up the phone, and began to dial.
The man was awake. The woman was asleep.
He sat across the room from her, looking at her where she lay sprawled across the couch. The hem of her dress had hiked up to display most of her lovely legs, but his eyes didn’t linger on her limbs. He had seen them many times before, along with the rest of her. And while he had never tired of her magnificent body, he was used to it enough by now to spare some attention for her face.
He squinted at her through the smoke of his cigarette, and smiled. She really was beat, poor girl. All the while he’d been sleeping in the next room, she’d been out here keeping her vigil by the phone. Considering the boring squalor of the surroundings, it must have been quite a grind for her. Like himself, she was used to better things.
Oh, well—if the evening had been an ordeal, she had only herself to blame. After all, it had been her idea to begin with, so she was responsible for the execution of it. By rights, he ; should have let her stand guard here alone, wait for the calls, if they ever came, line things up, and then notify him. He had considered refusing to accompany her to this ratty rented room when she had first outlined her plan.
But he hadn’t the heart. The idea of such a beautiful woman all alone in a place such as this grated on his sensibilities. And this particular woman happened to be one of great importance to him.
He glanced at his watch.. It was getting late. He would let her sleep a little while longer, but she would have to be awakened soon. Time was running out; the hour of put-up-or-shut-up was rapidly approaching. Either the last of her four calls came in sometime in the next sixty minutes, or her whole plan was kaput.
He fished a new cigarette out of his pocket and lit it from the butt of the old. They would know soon whether her plan was a success or not; and if it failed, it would mean h
e had won. Somehow, the prospect of winning didn’t fill him with the pleasure he had anticipated. The bet itself was relatively unimportant, but the pleasure to be derived from the successful execution of her scheme would be another matter entirely.
He still didn't agree with her theories, which was the basis of their bet. He still thought her notion unworkable. Even if the four people she’d picked out did call—and three of them had already—and even if those four showed up at the place they’d lined up on Staten Island, he couldn’t quite believe things would work out as delightfully as she predicted.
And yet—in spite of the prospect of losing the bet—he secretly hoped she was right about those four. It would give her pleasure to be right, and she wasn’t easily pleased. And k would give him just as much pleasure to watch the vindication of her theory—more than enough pleasure to off-set the disappointment of having bet against a winner.
He turned to flick his cigarette over an ashtray, and spied one of the cards lying beside it Smiling, he picked the card up.
MADAM FURY, he thought. Oh, brother. Leave it to her to come up with a name like that. It smacked of cheap melo-dramatics. Certainly anyone with an ounce of sense could see through the thing after a single look at that name.
And yet, three out of the four had apparently been taken in. A lesbian had been the first, and a male sadist had followed soon after. There had been a third call—he’d overheard it from the other room, but hadn’t been able to make out any of the conversation. When she hadn’t come in to tell him about it, he’d come out to see what she was doing. And found her asleep.
He wondered if party number three had been another sexual nut like the first two. He shook his head in admiration of her knowhow. In all the years they’d been together, he had never been able to understand how she did it; but there was no denying the reality of her knack.
All she had to do was look at a person, and she would know immediately if he differed from the norm. She wasn’t always able to tell the nature or extent of the deviation, although sometimes she figured that out, too. It was uncanny.
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