At about seven, that evening, Don Scott had dialed Marcy's number. Her voice came down the wire to him, knowing and throaty, "Oh, Don… I was wondering if you'd call."
"You know it… like you came on strong, this afternoon!"
"Like what…"
"Like you make the motions… send up smoke signals…"
"You curious…?" she queried.
"You know it…!"
"Curious enough to find out… for sure… Don?"
"Like groovy! Where?"
"My house," she said. "My parents have split!" She gave him her address, over near the college.
"I'm on my way."
"Bring some bread, Don!"
He thought she was joking. "You putting me on?"
"No, man! I said to bring bread… and that's it! Otherwise no party!" She hung up on him.
"CHRIST!" He spat at the dead phone. The little bitch! God damned little whore! Christ… And I thought she was interested in me!
Don looked in his wallet; he had a ten-dollar bill he was saving. He had been planning to use it for the next school dance scheduled for the following Friday. Oh, well, maybe I can earn some more before then… or sell something to get a little extra bread! Christ! I've got to see Marcy, though.
He went back into his bedroom; his search turned up another 75 cents in change. He'd have enough for a couple of packs of cigarettes. An inspiration struck him and on impulse he carried it out. Carrying the ten-dollar bill was foolish, he decided; he should have two fives, instead.
Going back through the kitchen, dining room and living room, he went into his parents' bedroom and rummaged in a drawer where he knew his mother kept some cash.
Charity was watching a television show and doing some math homework, at the same time. She saw Donnie go into the front bedroom. Curious, she got up and followed him into the room. She saw him with bills in his hand.
"Donnie! What are you doing in Mom's drawer?"
Startled, he looked up and grinned, "Just changing a ten for two fives…"
"It looked like you were… well, taking something…" she accused.
"Stealing…?" He was incredulous. "Not me that's not my bag!" he assured.
He put the money back in the drawer and put the two fives in his wallet.
Charity still watched him. He looked at her, hard and said, "What's with… little sister… don't you trust me?"
She relaxed. "Yes… I'm sorry, Donnie… it just looked kind of funny."
Coming out through the door he gave her a pat on the behind, a caressingly affectionate pat that was definitely not brotherly. Charity twisted aside to avoid any other contact.
"Donnie! Ugh! How many times do I have to tell you… to keep your hands to yourself?"
He mimicked, reciting, "Keep your hands to yourself, Donnie… or I'll tell Mom! Christ! You're not with it, Sis! You don't know where it's at! I'll bet you wouldn't say cock… even if you had a mouthful!"
"Shut up, Donnie! I don't want you to use those words around me!" She was angry, instantly. She huffed off to sit on the couch, ignoring him.
"You'll learn them… sooner or later!" he taunted; then he chanted, "Shit! Cock! Cunt! Fuck!"
Charity covered her ears with both hands. "Stop it!" she screamed. "Stop it!"
"Never!" He went on, "Ass! Prick! Cum! Suck!"
She hurled her math book at him. It missed. "Shut up… Donnie… or I'll tell Dad!"
"What'd he do…? That old drunk! Fuck him!" Donnie roared. Then, "Where is he?"
"Out!" she said. "Out to get some more beer, I think!"
"That figures!"
"You get out, too… and leave me alone!"
"When I'm damned good and ready! I'll split when I feel like it!"
She was on her feet and stormed into her own room, slamming the door behind her and hurling a final word over her shoulder, "Foul mouth!"
Don laughed aloud. Christ! She was pretty when she's angry. He didn't know what had possessed him to taunt her, but he had enjoyed watching her as she had burned with anger, her expressive face mirroring her every emotion; in addition, the way she had twitched her hips, her tapering, white thighs showing under her miniskirt as she had flashed past him produced a pang of pure lust in him. Damn! What a beautiful chick his sister was! Man! She comes on strong! What a swinging chick she's going to be! Too bad she's my sister… all that nice cunt going to waste! Shit!
Going into his own room, behind the kitchen, he dug out the ten roaches he had bought that afternoon, extracted two and re-wrapped them, carefully, stowing them in his shirt pocket… just in case Marcy would want to burn one with him. The other eight hand-rolled cigarettes went back into their secret hiding place. He was ready to go. He went out the back door, walked around the house, climbed onto his big bike and kicked the engine into a full-throated roar.
He roared down the avenue, staying well within the speed limits. The last thing he wanted was for one of the local pigs to bust him for speeding. They might try to shake him down. If they did… they'd find the two marijuana cigarettes, for sure. Then, they'd have him for possession… and he'd wind up in Juvie… and that's the last place, man! The last!
Arriving at the address Marcy had given him, he found the house to be one of the older ones in town; however this grand old house was not falling into decay. It had been well cared for over the years, and when Marcy invited him in, he saw that it had been remodeled and thoroughly modernized. The name on the mailbox intrigued him: it was one of the oldest and respected names in Redfern. A Lunceford had been one of the founding fathers of the city, and the Lunceford name figured prominently in cultural and political, as well as business aspects of the community.
"You a Lunceford…?" he asked.
"Yeah… like old Isaac Lunceford was my great grandpa…" she said, flippantly, "but don't let it get to you! I don't! All that silly old crap turns me off!"
Don knew that his family had come to Redfern not long after its founding. He remembered that they had lived in such a house as this, further out on the edge of town in the orange groves. Somehow, his father had lost the house and the grove, and the family had had to move into town to take up residence in the shacky house in which they now lived. He was too young to know and understand all of the reasons. There was a bankruptcy. They were evicted. His father couldn't seem to hold a job. He was drunk most of the time, anyway. Don's mother had been supporting them for several years. It was all a big mess, for try as he might, he couldn't warm up to his father, give him the respect a son should give a father. Christ! The old drunk!
"What kind of wheels you got, Don?"
"My bike…" he answered. "Why?"
"I thought you might have a groovy car we could ride in."
"Sorry…"
"Well, you know… like if a guy wants to make it with a chick, he's got to have a car!" she explained.
"Yeah… Well…"
"Houses are too risky! We got to stay here… and my folks could come home… and well, you know, there'd be a big crunch… but in a car… Man! It's groovy… nothing but privacy… if it's fixed up right…"
Don understood, now, and suddenly, his big Japanese motorcycle was nothing but real kid stuff. He had to have a car! Christ! No wonder he hadn't been making it… as often as he would like. It's the dudes with the cars that are scoring, man!
"You better park it in the alley!" she told him.
"Right on!" he agreed and went to do as she suggested. He was elated. She was practically inviting him to stay, although she had not said it in so many words. Her meaning was clear enough to him.
Marcy Lunceford met him on the back walk, just inside the gate. It was dark now, and she put an arm around him, snuggling close and led the way to an old-fashioned, screen-enclosed pergola standing in deep shadows under towering trees in a corner of the spacious back yard. He draped an arm, carelessly over her shoulder and cockily allowed his hand to stray down to a pouting hemisphere of firm young breast. Through the thin material of her dress he caressed and gasped with acute pleasure to discover that she wore no bra to confine them. The bud of her nipple was firm and erect, burgeoning into the palm of his hand, tantalizingly.
"You dig that?"
"Like, wow… you know…" he said, carelessly.
They were in the pergola. She led him to a seat on a roll-around garden lounge. It had a nice soft mattress on it, and he lay back, luxuriously, on it. "Man! This is soft! Better than my pad." He reached for her.
She came easily into his arms, lying on top of him, their mouths searching, finding, welding in a deep kiss, their tongues probing, tasting and twining together. It was she who broke the kiss and asked, "You got some grass?"
"Yeah… you want to take a chance… here?"
"It's plenty safe!" she affirmed.
"Nosy neighbors…"
"They're like too fossilized to know what's with it."
Don broke out one of the roaches, lighted it and inhaled deeply, holding it in his lungs as long as he could, passing the cigarette to her and watching as she duplicated his actions. To be safe, he took a regular cigarette from his pack, lit it, hoping that the odor of the burning tobacco would cover the characteristic, burning-alfalfa smell of the marijuana. They traded, puffed, inhaled, held breath, exhaling slowly, allowing the narcotic smoke to work in them, its effect beginning slowly and building, building, building, until time stood still and the beauty of the night was magnified, every sound was heard… and they were all-seeing… all being. There was only the beauty of now! This is where it was! Everything was there in the smoke. The world was love… and love was everything, because they were young and healthy human animals… knowing all things… and capable of doing all things. They were the young invincibles! It was their right, indeed, their command to love. "Love the world!" it said. "Love each other! Love me…" it said, "and I'll love you back!"
The roach burned down. He snuffed it out and re-wrapped the remaining paper, ash, leaves and twigs, carefully, allowing none to escape him. It was necessary to be this careful; investigating narcs could find even one carelessly dropped particle. He put it safely in his pocket and buttoned it; then, languidly, seeing Marcy, clearly, in all her glorious beauty, he reached to the zipper on her dress, running it down her back and the whisper of the tiny pieces of metal was loud in his ears, as though a freight train had thundered through the quietly serene pergola.
She moved, helping him, standing to remove the dress over her head, revealing the budding womanliness of her, instantly, as she wore nothing under the dress. She was completely, gloriously naked… and he saw her as Athena, the Goddess of love. Indeed, she was love, incarnate.
All love resided in her. Marcy was love!
Dancing a few steps away from him, she moved to unheard music, her body shining alabaster, her long, raven hair swishing across her back, a few locks straggling over her shoulders to fall into the cleavage of her full, proud young breasts, her hips swaying, teasingly, back and forth, in imitation of sexual movements. Her rounding and tapered thighs moved with sure strength, and he watched the suppleness of her legs as they moved.
Don had to have her. Christ! He had to have her now! His penis ached, throbbingly, jerking against his pants, demanding release and relief.
He came off the couch and captured her in his arms to mash his mouth down on hers, kissing her hard and brutal. She melted into his arms and kissed him back with lips and tongue, searching deep into his mouth. Suddenly, he abandoned her mouth, and he was kissing her breasts, taking the nipples into his mouth, one by one, then moving down… down… he kissed her belly, stopping to probe into her navel. Then, he was at the vee of her loins, and he knelt to hold her around the hips while his tongue pressured into the top of her warm femaleness to search for the tiny bud of her clitoris in its warm little shrine of sex-flesh. He found it alive and quivering under his tongue. He licked and she exploded in rapture.
"Oh, yes, Don! Do it!" she murmured. "Lick me! Lick me good! Oooooooh! It feels soooooo goooooood!"
Inching backward, she leaned against a small table and spread her thighs wider, standing in wide-spaced stance, her buttocks resting on the edge of the table, half supporting her weight. Uncontrollably, her hands went to either side of his head to guide his face between her open thighs and encourage him. He used his tongue, hungrily, licking deep at her vaginal slit, the sparse, youthful curls of her pubic mound tickling softly against his lips. She pushed him away.
"Let's do it the easy way… on the lounge," she whispered, hoarsely, moving away from him.
Don got to his feet and followed her. She turned and reached for his belt, opened it and zipped down the fly of his jeans. Then, she unbuttoned his shorts to release his virile young cock into the night air, the cooling wash of it over his sensate flesh a new and different sensation. With hands on his shoulders she pushed him down flat on the garden lounge and positioned herself upside down over him, her glistening, coralline vagina inches over his face, her knees on either side of his head, as she knelt over him, her own face only inches above the hardened cock-flesh of him, spearing up into the air, massively above him, its bulbous head waving excitedly like a battle standard in the wind.
She lowered her loins slowly and teasingly to his mouth, and he used his hands to spread the soft fleshy lips of her young pussy wide apart. He clamped his mouth to the moist, now slightly pulsating mouth, the gentle movements of its own muscular nibbling action apparent to him on his lips pressed up deep between her open thighs, his tongue coming through them, now, to taste and savor, then to thrust and swirl into her cuntal opening, wildly.
The exquisite sensations in him, arcing in the nerves of his cock-head as her mouth slipped warmly and wetly down over the sensitive, throbbing flesh caused him to flex his hips to shove his member up to her. He looked down the length of his body, straining to see in the semidarkness through the arch of her breasts hanging down, soft and lush above his hard, flat belly. He could see the nipples, hard and erect, like small, ripe berries ready for picking. His cock was in her mouth, and she held the shaft of it with one hand while the other gently stroked and caressed his testicles in their soft wrinkled sac, below. Then, her lips turned in to cover the sharpness of her teeth, her mouth began to slide heatedly down his hardened length; down… down… down, encompassing him, engulfing him, slowly and continuously, until he knew that she would take it all the way back to her throat.
Don stared in utter disbelief as his thick, hard cock disappeared deeper and deeper up into her mouth and throat, her voraciously sucking lips working on him, suctioning him, as, inside her mouth, her tongue swirled and laved him. He flipped. Christ! There was nothing like it! It was out of this world! Out of sight… and still going away!
Her smoothly undulating young pussy came down harder on his face, reminding him of the mutual orality of the act, and he returned to the hungry, moist opening with renewed effort, using his lips and tongue both flow on the tiny erect bud between her legs. He sucked the tiny female phallus up into his lips, holding it while his tongue licked and caressed. He could feel the shock of it in her body, the gasping for breath around his hardened rod.
Then, Don remembered the first and only other time he had experienced oral sex. He had been at a pot party and was all toked up. Watching another couple who had, uninhibitedly, kicked off the sex scene by tearing off their clothes and making passionate love right in front of everybody, he had gotten aroused almost to the point of ejaculation. He had grabbed Betty Fowler, the youngest girl there. Even under the influence of the grass she had smoked, she had been unwilling to fuck, agreeing in stead to blow him, use her mouth to bring him to climax. She had been inept, he knew now, but she had tried… up to the point when his big cock had begun to spurt his cum into her mouth. She had gagged and made a big scene about it, causing everybody there to have a good yuck at her expense.
… But Marcy… Christ! She's an expert! She's taking my whole cock in her mouth! She'll probably swallow it… too! She hasn't gagged yet and my cock's halfway down her throat! Man! She really eats it… like it was an all-day sucker!
The building pressure in him told him that it would not be long. His cock throbbed and ached for release, the acid-like burning sensation of the held-back semen urging him to flex his hips, shoving his prick up into her mouth to counter her up-and-down movements, fucking it deeper and deeper into her oral cavern with the urgency of his youthful desire to cum.
"Oh, baby!" he moaned. "I'm ready to cum!" Her mouth moved on him faster and with increasing pressure and suction, her cheeks hollowing in and out, and a couple of times, she allowed her teeth to scrape along the hardened length of him, eliciting a sharp pleasure-pain that caused him to gasp aloud.
"Oh, Christ! That's the most…!"
It was there for him! His big cock, in her slaving mouth, exploded, spewingly, his semen, hot, white and viscous, spurting from the tip of his cock-head deep up into her mouth and throat, forcing her to swallow, voraciously. God! He came and came… and came, his sperm jetting from him in endless streams, it seemed to him. The sensations of release were exquisite; the rapture of them causing a high whine of pleasure to come from far down in his throat. Christ! She's pumping me dry!
As she licked and sucked at him and his jerking penis began to subside, the waves of muscle-relaxing euphoria of sexual release left him satiated, but he tried, manfully, to bring her, too, to climax, sucking and licking at her wildly gyrating cunt above him. Damn! Why doesn't she cum?
Events happened suddenly then. A light at the rear of the big old house was snapped on, its cone of light reaching out into the spacious back yard, but, fortunately, not out as far as the pergola where they lay in illicit sexual embrace.
Don froze. His heart pounded. He was scared. Good God! "Wh-Who…?" he strangled.
"Oh, God!" Marcy gasped. "It's my folks!"
She scrambled off him, groping for her dress. She was thinking fast. "I-I'll have t-to go in!"
"I've got to split!" He was in panic. Standing up, he pulled up his shorts and pants, zipped the fly and cinched up his belt. He started for the door.
Marcy was shrugging her dress down, smoothing it over her hips. She saw him move toward the door. "No! Wait! I-I'll go in f-first! When the light goes out… split fast!"
He drew back into the shadows, trying to make himself invisible. Marcy had more instructions for him.
"P-push your bike! D-Don't start it… un-until you're out of the a-alley!"
"Right!"
"Pay m-me!" she demanded.
"Wh-What…? Now…?"
"I-I told you t-to bring bread!"
"Marcy!" It was a high, female voice, strident and demanding.
"Coming… Mom!" she called back, then, "Give!" she snapped at him, her voice deadly.
Don fished out one of his fives and gave it to her. She didn't look at it; she crumpled it in her hand and made for the screened door of the pergola.
"See you around!" she said and was gone, walking toward the light at the back door of her house.
"Marcy?! Where are you…?" Her mother, again.
"Right here… Mom!" Marcy said, with some irritation.
Don watched as she came into the light. It shone through the thin material of her dress, showing her shapely legs. She might as well have been nude. He would have enjoyed it more, if he hadn't been so frightened. His heart was still pounding hard in his throat, and his mouth was dry from the fear. Christ! I almost flipped!
As he watched her go up the back step, open the door and go into the house, he had some second thoughts about having given her only a five. She hadn't actually named a price, but he knew that ten dollars would have been more like the going rate among the teen-age hustlers that seemed to throng Perry High School. Establishment, he knew, would never have believed the extent of the practice; the administration was blind to it, either because they couldn't see it, or because they didn't want to see it. The V.D. rate as reported regularly in the press was a good indicator, but it was laid to promiscuous sex… not to prostitution.
It's done, now! I should have laid the other five on her, but shit! I was in a hurry… and scared half to death! Anyway… we had to split… right in the middle of it! I could have fucked her in the cunt, tonight… if it hadn't been for her old lady coming home and breaking up the party! Damn it!
He was still under the narcotic influence of the pot, but he could think straight and his motor control of body was good, and as he waited for what seemed eons of time, the light in the Lunceford back yard was switched off.
"Damn!" he breathed. "About time!"
Slowly, he drifted out of the pergola and across the yard, sticking to deep shadow, until he gained the gate and went through it into the alley. It had taken him only a few moments to traverse the short distance, but the distortion of time, in his drugged brain, made it seem like miles and miles and hours of time to accomplish. It seemed to him that he moved in slow motion, every step taking an eternity, and it was as though he had no contact with the earth. He floated in a marijuana dream world… only this was a bad dream in which he had to run away… run until he could run no more… until he dropped from sheer exhaustion.
He was through the gate, now. He almost had it made! A car entered the upper end of the alley, its lights lancing ahead of it into the darkness. Don shrank back, kneeling down to hide behind the two garbage cans next to the fence. The car ground slowly down the alley until it was abreast of the gate into the back yard of the Lunceford place. The car stopped. A man got out and shone a flashlight on Don's motorcycle.
He got a glimpse of white-striped blue pants.
Pigs!
"Does it belong here?" a deep voice from the patrol car.
"Naw! Probably belongs to some kid that's making it with that youngest Lunceford girl!"
"Marcy? That the one…?"
"Yeah…"
"She's playing fast and loose!" the patrol unit driver said. "We'll have to take her in one of these days… then there'll be hell to pay because it's just a matter of time before they'll get her in a narc raid on one of those pot parties!"
The policeman with the flashlight got back into the patrol car. He lit a cigarette. "That bad?" he asked.
"Hell yes! She's a Lunceford… and Luncefords carry a lot of weight in this town."
The patrol car moved off down the alley; whatever else the driver had to say about the Luncefords was lost in the sound of the engine and the crunch of the tires on the gravel.
Don came out of his cramped place of hiding behind the garbage cans with a huge sigh of relief. He expelled the air, gratefully, convinced that he had been holding his breath for at least an hour. He leaned against the fence to calm himself. MAN! That was close! They would have busted me for prowling… and what could I have said? Nothing! That I was just diddling with Marcy… toked up on pot… and Frenching each other? They would have found the joints on me… and I would have been had! Christ! Who would've ever expected something like this to happen… It's just too close! Too damned close! If the man ever busts me… It's Juvie… and maybe C.Y.A.. Shit! I'm still shaking!
Out in the alley, now, he kicked up the parking stand on his big motor bike, grasped the handlebar grips and pushed it up the alley, in the opposite direction from the police patrol unit. Near the end of the alley, he started the engine and rode out onto the street. He gained the avenue in a few moments and headed for home.
A few blocks from the house, he decided not to turn into his street. He was still under the influence of the marijuana and didn't want to risk having either of his parents see him yet. He continued riding out the avenue into a semi-rural area where he turned off on a lane heading into the hills. He gunned the big bike up to the top of one of the steeper hills, dismounted, killed the engine and stretched out on the ground, enjoying the stillness and studying the expanse of the starry canopy over him. He stayed there for almost three hours, alternately dozing and being totally aware, all of his senses alive to everything around him… and in him.
Finally, he mounted his cycle, rode back down the hill and went home. It was well past 1:00 a.m. when he crawled into bed dead tired. He had had a full day… and night!
He saw Marcy Lunceford in the hallway during passing time. She was cool to his airy greeting, but he persisted.
"Get lost, Don!" she snapped.
"Marcy… I just wanted to tell you…"
"Didn't you dig…? I said split… get lost!"
He couldn't understand her manner. He had just wanted to tell her that he wanted to give her the other five he still carried in his wallet. It was too late, he guessed. Christ! I sure goofed it up with her!
After school dismissal, Don spent several minutes gassing with some of his acquaintances. The campus was almost deserted as he made his way to his motorcycle parked in the south parking lot. He had almost reached his big bike before he realized that something was wrong. Jack Roberts was seated in the saddle, obviously waiting for him. Two other students lounged near him. It was too late, he realized. He would have to talk to Jack!
"What's with, Jack…?" he greeted the pusher.
Jack climbed off the motorbike and faced Don Scott. He stood, easily, arrogantly, lazily alert before him.
"Marcy…" he said. "She tells me like you were making it with her last night…?"
"Yeah, Jack… I was over her house… why…?"
"Like she says, she gives you head… and you only lay a five on her!"
"Her old lady almost busted us… I had to split but fast! I thought I was giving her a ten!" Don explained.
"That's nowhere, man! Like she says she has to finger herself to bring it off afterward… and she's feeling like frustrated… so she wants another fifteen! Lay it on me for her!"
"Christ! I ain't got another fifteen… I got five!"
Jack looked at him coldly. "Fifteen, man! Like it's your problem! You get it!"
"This gets to sound like blackmail!" Don said, screwing up his courage to say it.
The pusher glanced toward the nearest building, drawing Don's eyes there, as he said, "Well, look at that!"
Don was sucked into the ploy. His eyes swiveled to look where Jack had indicated. Off guard, he was totally unprepared for the hard, swinging blow to his gut. As he bent over with the sudden, nauseous pain of it, a steel-shod toe booted him, painfully, in the buttocks. He sprawled writhing in pain to the ground. Instinctively, he balled himself, as from the other side another boot caught him in the ribs. Several more such blows were rained on him, all accurately placed in his body so they wouldn't show. His arms, legs, groin and face were scrupulously avoided, as the beating was administered, quickly, soundlessly… and with professional elan. It was over in a matter of seconds. As the three hoodlums walked away, Jack said, curtly, "Tonight!"
Don Scott was almost seventeen. It had been a long time since he had cried real tears, but he did now. He sat on the curb and bawled. He hurt all over, and he cried with the hurt, the fear… and the humiliation.
Finally, after long minutes, he crawled onto his motorbike, painfully, and headed for home. On the way, he passed his sister, Charity. She waved at him, flashing him a smile as he went by, but he did not stop to pick her up. He didn't want her to know what had happened to him. Actually, he couldn't tell anyone. It was a burden he would have to bear alone. Christ! I am in it now! Where in hell can I get fifteen dollars?
He was almost home when it hit him. The idea was monstrous! He had never considered anything like it before, and he wondered whether or not he could do it. Hell, if I don't pay off… those goons are liable to cut me up next time!
Shuddering, he visualized how he would look after having been beaten with bicycle chains, iron bars and brass knuckles. It was too horrible to think about. The beating administered to him was just a warning. He knew that. He could do nothing now but pay off! He had to have money! He had to have it fast!
His mind was made up. He would do it. Don Scott was going to steal a twenty-dollar bill from the money his mother kept in her dresser drawer! He did it before Charity got home.