CHAPTER 13:
The Hollywood Canteen was a remarkable phenomenon that could only have existed during the time of a major war. Movie stars like Bettie Davis and John Garfield had been instrumental in getting the place rolling and the list of volunteers who worked or performed there was a veritable "who's who" of the biggest names in show business.
The talent onstage was tremendous but you were just as likely to find a major celebrity waiting on tables or washing dishes in the kitchen. Gorgeous starlets hit the dance floor with eager servicemen and a uniform was the only price of admission. Everything was provided free of charge to the men and women serving their country.
The Swing Cats were going to be performing there and Gloria was thrilled by the opportunity to rub elbows with such Hollywood luminaries as Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra but she was also pleased to be able to provide entertainment for the troops.
Despite not having a movie contract, or any major star credentials, Gloria was astonished to discover how popular she already was due to her posters, magazine pictures and calendars. It seemed like every soldier in the place knew who she was and wanted an autograph or a chance to dance with her. Some of the movie stars might actually have been a little jealous of the attention being lavished on this relatively unknown girl.
Of course Gloria wasn't just a pretty face, she had real singing and dancing talent and a very bubbly personality. Had she just been a model that would have been more than enough for her male admirers in uniform but her performance that night definitely caught the eye of more than one interested party. Back in those days studios had talent scouts everywhere looking for anyone who might just turn out to be the next big thing. A lot of movie stars were already famous on Broadway or on the radio but they could come from anywhere. Gloria didn't know it at the time but there were several industry people asking around about her. There just might be something there that would work on the screen.
The evening was a rousing success and Gloria felt a tiny little bit of satisfaction that she had done something to help the war effort. She wanted to do more of that and began volunteering at the Hollywood Canteen whenever she could, even if it was just to work in the kitchen. It didn't relieve her of all her guilt but it helped some.
What she really enjoyed was one night stands with random service men she met at any number of places. Sometimes it was a double date with Mabel but sometimes she just took the soldier or sailor or whatever he happened to be back to her room for some no strings attached sex. If she couldn't be fighting beside these boys at least she could be lying under them while they got what could be the last lay of their lives.
As much as she loved fucking she couldn't possibly make up for her draft dodging guilt by sleeping with every man who was going off to fight but even the symbolic gesture was enough to assuage her conscience a little. And servicemen were fun and generally not too complicated. A few of them fell in love with her on the spot and asked her to marry them but usually they were quite content to stick their dick in a pretty girl and go on their merry way.
The boys were always so incredibly nice, even if they had been drinking a little too much. They always seemed so incredibly appreciative, especially to be receiving attention from someone as young and attractive as Gloria. Whether they knew she was a pinup girl or not she was definitely better looking than most of the girls they might try to pick up back home, or even in Hollywood. It was kind of a dream come true for them and Gloria loved to be part of that dream. Some of these boys would probably be gone for years and some of them might never come home. What better way to send them off to serve their country than to suck their cocks? That was a memory they would cherish for a long time.
And while it was a transaction of sorts Gloria was giving herself freely with all her heart. If a guy managed to be particularly good in the sack and gave her an orgasm so much the better but it didn't matter to her that much. For one night those men were treated like kings. They got to do all the dirty things their hearts could desire and didn't have to blow a bundle on the dame in the process.
One night when she was out on her own two soldiers tried to chat her up. She was fine with that but Mabel wasn't available and after making a couple of phone calls to other girls she knew she came back to the table empty handed.
"Sorry boys, it looks like all my pals are already spoken for tonight," Gloria explained with a shrug.
"Oh damn...excuse me ma'am, I meant darn. Slim and I are shipping out tomorrow so this is our last night on the town and we were really hoping to spend it with some lovely young ladies such as yourself," said the more talkative of the two soldiers.
"We could cut cards or flip a coin or something," Slim suggested.
"Now that doesn't seem quite right," Gloria protested. "Maybe I could sort of go out with both of you."
That sounded like a wonderful compromise so the three of them headed back to Gloria's place and proceeded to get out of their clothing. They started by sitting on the edge of the bed, with Gloria in the middle, as she began to work their shafts with her hands. She had been in bed with two men before but the other man was always Mabel's date. This was the first time she'd ever tried to service two peckers at the same time and she viewed it as a challenge.
Slim and his pal would probably have been quite content to just sit there until they had both fired their weapons but Gloria was more ambitious than that. She left Slim sitting on the bed and stood on the floor in front of him. Then she arched her back and began to take Slim's dick in her mouth. His buddy just stood there with his eyes wide open until Gloria noticed that he wasn't moving and pulled her head up long enough to speak.
"Well come on soldier, there's a foxhole for you too you know," she joked with a wink.
The man didn't need to be asked twice and with the speed of one trying to dodge a grenade he was up on her ass and poking his cock inside her pussy in no time. It was definitely a first for her but it was probably a first for the two men as well. Opportunities like this didn't come around all the time. It was kind of an awkward position for Gloria and she thought about suggesting that they all get on the bed or something but it also felt kind of sexy to be bent over this way with two men inside her at once so she decided to stick it out.
If she had gone into the army as a man she might have very well ended up in this kind of situation she thought, except that the other dick would be in her ass, but all three of the participants would probably end up in jail eventually. It was much nicer to take care of these boys in the privacy of her home and without the stigma of homosexuality dogging them forever.
She wondered how many normally straight men did end up resorting to sex with other males under the strain of war or the absence of women. Maybe it was more common than people thought. When you're constantly facing death it probably seems pretty silly to worry about little things like societal conventions. A man is bound to do all sorts of things during a war that he would never do at home in a million years. It was such a scary thought to Gloria. She still didn't believe that she could have hacked it in the army, even if sex never entered the equation. She just wasn't cut out to be a killer.
But were these two boys or any of the other countless servicemen she had met? Was there something that made them inherently braver or stronger or more ruthless? They all seemed like pretty average guys, especially once you saw them naked. Without those uniforms they could be anyone. The guy pumping gas at the filling station or the kid behind the soda fountain. She hadn't met too many John Wayne types but of course he wasn't even in the army. Maybe there would have been a place for Steven Peterson. No way to ever know that now. That man was long dead and gone and a vixen named Gloria Gibson was living his life instead.
The lad at the backdoor wanted a chance to know what a blowjob was like so he and Slim changed places near the end. Slim slid right in and resumed banging Gloria with the same enthusiasm as his partner took a turn at having his cock smoked. Almost as if on cue they both starting to cum at about the same time, which
Gloria found rather awesome and surprising.
She was dripping with sperm in two different holes and had kind of a sore back when she went to straighten up but it had all been worth it. She had gotten a very nice thumping in the process and the boys were both head over heels in love with her. They shared a quick drink before the guys ventured out into the night and went off to their fate, whatever that might be.
When she agreed to have the radical surgery done to her she had no idea how it would turn out or where it might lead her. She could have just used it as a disguise and hidden away somewhere for the rest of her life, hoping that no one would ever track her down, but instead she had been hiding in plain sight as Mabel had suggested. She was up on a stage and even had her pictures plastered to the walls of the very kind of barracks she was trying to avoid being assigned to. She was making decent money and had a little bungalow of her own that she absolutely adored. Everything had turned out so much better than she could have expected and yet one never knew what was waiting around the corner.
CHAPTER 14:
One day as Gloria was arriving at the rehearsal hall the Swing Cats used for band rehearsal she stopped dead in her tracks. There were two men talking to Kenny Clippard and one of them was a military officer in uniform. Her first instinct was to turn and run but then she tried to calm herself down. Why would the army possibly be looking for her in Hollywood and in this particular place?
"Hey Gloria, come on over here will you?" Kenny called out.
Gloria took a deep breath and went to join the other men. It seemed unlikely that everyone would be so friendly if they were here to arrest her.
"Gentlemen allow me to introduce you to the shining star of our humble little attraction, Miss Gloria Gibson," said Kenny brightly.
"How do you do Miss Gibson? I must say you're a rather familiar face in certain circles," the officer joked.
"These boys are here to drum a little business for the USO," Kenny explained. "They caught our act at the Hollywood Canteen and now they want to ship us out."
"Ship us out?" Gloria asked nervously.
"We represent an independent division of the USO called USO Camp Shows, Incorporated," said the other man. "The work that you people do in the service clubs and canteens is extraordinary but there are many thousands of men who are already serving overseas who can't get to a club. They're starved for entertainment and you'll never find a more appreciative bunch of guys in your life I can promise you that."
"We'd love to have you and your band come over and entertain the troops," said the officer. "It would mean the world to them. Now, it's not without its risks of course but in this day and age we're all at risk aren't we? As long as we allow tyranny and fascism to flourish."
The men finished their pitch and left the band alone to discuss the proposition. It wasn't a big money making opportunity and they could all get killed but it was something that many entertainers, both famous and more obscure alike, had agreed to do.
"When your country calls it's hard to say no," Kenny quipped.
Of course that was exactly what Gloria had said when her country first called Steven to active duty. She had said no in the strongest possible terms by having her body turned into a woman's. She was doing so well for herself and had such a bright future ahead of her. Now she was talking about going to the warzone and risking her life, the very thing that she had fought so hard to prevent.
A strange kind of calmness suddenly came over her. Gloria began to see her whole transformation as some kind of a cruel joke. Of course her success wasn't meant to last. Her happy little home, her renewed friendship with Mabel, her burgeoning career success...it was all too good to be true. She had made a bargain with the devil and it looked like the devil was coming to collect his due, just a bit earlier than she had anticipated.
She put on a brave face and said all the right things to everyone but inside she was scared. She felt doomed. What made it even worse was the fact that she felt that she deserved to be doomed. She had a very strong premonition of this being the end of everything and it was hard to shake. She didn't have to go. She could have run from this as she had run from her draft notice, and she would have been committing no crime this time in the process, but she knew there was no way she was going to do that.
It hurt to be leaving Mabel again but partly because Gloria was a little worried about the kind of work Mabel had been doing lately. When dancing jobs didn't turn up Mabel had done some more nude modeling, especially the more hardcore kind. It was Mabel who had tried to keep Gloria on the path of relative respectability but now Mabel was taking a turn into the darker side of show business.
Many of the pictures Mabel was a posing for were not the sort of thing that were distributed in magazines or printed on calendars. She was frequently tied up or being whipped or whipping someone else. Her poses also revealed far more of her body than a traditional pinup girl would ever have shown. These were part of an "under the counter" business for select customers with specific tastes who knew where to get the stuff by word of mouth. This was still a decade away from the days where magazines like Playboy could sit on the same newsstand with Time or Better Homes and Gardens.
It wasn't as glamorous as the modeling Gloria had done and it was illegal, which made it risky, but it paid pretty well and it beat waiting on tables. With her pretty face and voluptuous body Mabel was a very popular underground model. Getting tied up seemed kind of silly to her but it also seemed harmless enough. She honestly had no idea why anyone would pay money to see a naked girl handcuffed to a bed but as long as they were paying her to do it she wasn't going to complain.
Of course the more she did it the more the photographers suggested that she try even more brazen things like spreading her legs to reveal her pussy more or kissing other girls. The process usually followed the same pattern. A photographer would make a suggestion, Mabel would decline, she'd be offered more money and continually pressured to at least "try it once" and then finally she'd give in. It was always in small steps and it became hard for Mabel to justify turning down the money. So what if someone saw her snatch or she was photographed sucking on another woman's nipples? It was all just pretend. She was posing for a picture. If some men liked that kind of stuff and were willing to pay for it why not do it?
It was perhaps an inevitable slide. Chorus girls were always considered "women of easy virtue" and they often lived up to that reputation at least in some way. Simply performing on the stage was not an occupation for a well-bred young lady from a respectable family. Skimpy costumes that revealed so much of the legs were essentially viewed at tantamount to pornography anyway. You could only lose your virginity once so when it was gone you were considered "ruined" by respectable society. How many mothers tried desperately, and often in vain, to convince their daughters that no man would ever want them once they had given away their most prized possession.
Mabel often wondered whether she gave hers away too cheaply. She got a fur coat out of the deal, which seemed like the most luxurious thing in the world, but that coat had been hocked long ago to pay rent and the guy who popped her cherry ended up dead in a knife fight in an alley somewhere. Of course he never tried to see her again once he had taken her virginity. She was old meat and he was always looking for something fresh. The fun was all in the challenge of getting a girl to actually put out. Once she did she lost her novelty value. Then she was just like any other slut and those were a dime-a-dozen.
Mabel always found it strange that she didn't feel more guilty about the things she had done. She was a bad girl and it appeared that she was getting worse all the time. Once you got comfortable taking your clothes off for the camera and posing in odd positions and costumes it started to become just like any other business...only a lot more fun than most. She knew she wouldn't be this young and firm forever so it wasn't like a career that would last for very long anyway. Why not have a few kicks and pick up some cash along the way?
Mabel, like many girls from respectable h
omes at the time, had been told that women didn't like sex. It was something men did and when you were married you would have to submit to it on occasion but hopefully you would get pregnant quickly and then your husband would leave you alone, at least until you were ready for another child. It all sounded so grim and passionless. She wondered what it was that made it so good for men that they wanted it so badly and wondered why women couldn't enjoy it too. The first time she got fucked she realized that her mother had either been lying to her or trying to scare her or that her father was a limp dick in the sack. Maybe a combination of all three.
The Kinsey Reports were still ten years away, and Masters and Johnson even later to come, so no one had officially stated that women enjoyed sex as much as men but any girl who had been rocked by a good, stiff, erection and achieved climax already knew that. It went against the grain of everything the polite world tried to promote as fact but those "fallen women" who had fallen onto a hard cock could vouch for the pleasure to be had from skillful penetration. It was actually much truer that a lot of men were just plain lousy at doing it and had no idea how to get better. Until people learned how to fuck nobody was going to have as much fun as they should have.
Although she didn't think of it that way Mabel was sort of a pioneer in the field of human sexuality. She was representing something that was stumbling closer to a frank and honest depiction of human behavior. Even the kinky aspects of the bondage and discipline portrayed in her work was an acknowledgment of something very dark and hidden that would rarely break into the light over the next 60 years or more.
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