Laura bought some vodka and tomato juice on the way back to her apartment, but once there, she did not open it. She'd yielded to too much temptation in the past week, and now that it was too late, she'd at least show herself she could resist it. Looking at the bottle of liquor, she wondered if alcohol could be blamed for her downfall. She'd been drinking every time she'd made it with them at Perry's place, but then again, she'd not been drinking that day, but she'd certainly been ready to make it. It was possible, she thought, that she couldn't experience a real orgasm without a little liquor in her. If that was the case, so much the better. Working as a whore, she'd layoff the booze, and when she wanted to go on a sex binge of her own, all it would take would be a few drinks to get her going.
She sighed and put the bottle away, knowing inwardly that her lusty appetite for sex could not be blamed on anything inside a bottle. It was inside her, and with or without the influence of liquor and bad companions, it would have eventually come out. In a way she envied normal people who kept their sex lives in the correct and usually subdued relation to their day to day living. But in another way she felt sorry for them, never feeling the sexual energy bursting so magnificently in them as it did in people like herself. Even then, following her dismal experiences with Stanley and Helen, she felt it trying to burst out. She experimented with subduing it by taking a cold shower and dressing in a drably familiar old nightgown, and she was pleased that her experiment was a success. She sat down to read away the time until she'd be forced to start her new career. It was a chemistry book she chose, and she found it highly absorbing. It was good to lose herself in it and feel almost like the Laura Dandridge who had gone out of existence in the rain and mud of the Friday night before.
Laura read for a long time and dozed in her chair. The phone ran and she didn't answer it. She knew it was one of her bed partners and she had no need to see any of them or anyone at all until she was taken to see the vice lords of Las Vegas. She cooked and ate a can of soup, chagrined at herself for having an appetite for steak and potatoes now in this time of great distress. Sitting at the little table, she had to think hard about the horrors she'd face as a paid sexual performer before she was able to cry. Even then the tears didn't last long, for she knew she was not only capable of selling herself well, but also capable of enjoying it at times.
It was after dark when the knock came at the door, and she didn't rise to answer it. She sat where she was and listened to it two more times, wishing whoever it was would go away, and wondering which of her wild friends had come to drag her off to another night of dirty, wonderful fun.
"Laura, are you in there?"
It was Chuck's voice, and it gave her such a start she knocked the book off the arm of her chair.
"I know you're in there," he said after a moment's pause. "Your car's downstairs and I can hear you, so open up."
She covered her face with her hands and willed him to go away.
"Damnit, you let me in or I'll knock this door down! What the hell's come over you, quitting work and holing up here? Laura, are you sick?"
She was sick with shame and the dread of seeing him, but as he rattled the doorknob loudly and bumped hard against the wood panel, she raised her head proudly and said, "Just a minute."
In just the few days they'd been apart she'd forgotten how handsome he was. He didn't have the beach-boy good looks of Bobby Barker, nor did he have the snake-like sensuality of Perry Coleman. Chuck's handsomeness was straightforward and clean-cut, and it probably would have gone unnoticed by most girls. She tried not to notice it then, as she spoke to him with cool reserve.
"I am not sick. I have quit my job and am leaving Sulfur City. I never said I'd marry you, you're not my fiance, and I owe you no more explanation than that. So if you'll kindly stop banging on my door and…"
"You owe me a helluva lot more than that!" he interrupted, grabbing her by the shoulders with most unexpected fierceness. "Why are you quitting, and where are you going?"
"It's none of your business!" she retorted, twisting in his powerful grip. "How did you even know I'd quit anyway?"
"They sent us a copy of your resignation by, teletype at the hotel. I flew right back. Now, spit it out. Tell me. What the hell's got into you?"
Man and boy, dog and woman, they'd all gotten into her since last she'd seen him, and how did she go about telling him that? It was better he didn't know that she'd gone all the way with anyone who'd wanted her, after having held him at bay for so long.
"It doesn't matter," she said. "I'm just sick of it here. Now, damnit, let me go!"
He turned tender in the face of her anger and tried to embrace her, saying, "If you're tired of things, I'll change them. Stop being silly and marry me, and in a few months, after we get to know each other as man and wife, I'll be transferred to another plant, and things won't be so dull there."
She resisted his attempts to kiss her, and wanted to tell him she was transferring herself to a Nevada whorehouse. But she said, "No! I don't want to marry you or anybody. I just want to be left alone."
"It's not somebody else then? God, I was worried. Sit down. Talk it out. Whatever it is, I'll understand."
Her look made him let her go. She smiled faintly and shook her head. "You'd never understand," she said, and went to her kitchenette.
Her hands were very steady as she took out the bottle of vodka. She'd broken open the cap and poured several ounces of it in a glass, planning on drinking it raw, before he strode over and snatched it out of her hand.
"Are you crazy? Have you turned into an alcoholic since I've been gone? What the hell's got into you?"
Having asked the question a second time, he deserved an answer. She waggled an eyebrow at him, curled her lips in a teasing grin, and smoothed her hand over the front of his pants. "One of these got into me," she said. "In fact, several."
He blinked a few times. He said, "You're kidding."
"Oh, no," she airily replied, stroking his pants front, finding the soft warm there. "While you were busy at the convention, I learned to fuck, and now I like to fuck. I learned some other fun things to do too, and I liked them all, Chuck, every one of them. So you see, I'm not for you. You need a nice girl, a company girl. Except perhaps when you go to conventions. Then you might like a party girl, a call girl, a whore, and then you might run into me again."
"Cut it out, Laura," he said ominously. "That's not funny. Tell me the real reason you quit, and cut that out," he said, his voice rising in anger as he knocked away her hand.
She sighed and said, "What do I have to do to prove it, take off your clothes and fuck you?" She enjoyed the way he winced at her use of the word, and she went on, confident again, unbuttoning her nightgown as she spoke. "Or would you like to see me do a little strip for you first? I can do that, too. Oh, there are lots of things I know how to do. My friends taught me it lot, Chucko."
He grabbed her arms again. "Who were they? When I get them, I'll kill them!"
"Get your hands off me!" she said, and angrily brushed them away. "It so happens I like my friends and they like me. I like to fuck and suck and I'll do it with anyone, even you, if you… if you have any balls."
His face was dark with anger, and she spun away, laughing at him over her shoulder as she bared it-loving him and wishing he'd go away-hating him and wishing he'd take her. She turned to face him before dropping the nightgown to the floor, and was warmed by the look of desire that showed through his anger. She offered herself to him with her hands, running them over her lush body in a brazenly inviting way, using them to point her big tits at him and to open up her cunt so he could see what might be waiting for him at some future convention of engineers.
He still looked angry, but now she could see the bulge in his pants. She came forward, swinging her hips and laughing softly, and he stood still while she tickled her fingers over his cheeks and down his sturdy body to his loins. She could feel it then, hard and strong, and it excited her considerably. But she contained her excitement beneath the mask of a teasing temptress.
"How would you like it, honey, plain or fancy? Mouth, cunt, or ass-for two bucks! I'm giving you a discount because you're an old friend."
He tried a sardonic grin. "Don't do me any favors," he said. "How much for all night, Laura? Or don't you use that name now. Is it something like Yolanda or Suzette now? Come on," he snapped. "How much for the night?"
She laughed and laughed, for the prospect of her turning her first trick with her almost fiance right there in her apartment was almost too much. He had to shake her to make her stop, and then she angrily said, "All right, mister! A hundred bucks for the night, but don't blame me if you die of a heart attack by morning."
To her surprise, he took five twenties out of his wallet and, taking her by the arm, led her into the bedroom where he placed the money on her pillow.
She shrugged, though now she was getting extremely nervous, and said, "Strip-or do you expect me to do that, too."
"No," he said, taking off his clothes. "I can do that. I can't suck my own cock, though, and that's what I'll have for a start. I've been wanting to see your lips wrapped around this for a long time, Laura. Do it good and maybe you'll get a tip in the morning."
The prick he held in his hand was a big one, and like the rest of him, it looked cleanly and ruggedly appealing. Still she would have backed out of it if she could have at that point, but the rampant stiffness of his organ precluded that. She had to suck it. She had to do everything he wanted, not because he was paying for it, but because this was the last time she would have to make him happy, and perhaps in so doing, make herself fully happy too. He lay on his back on the bed, she crouched down on elbows and knees beside him, and tried her best to please him.
His cock was delicious, and it was so hard. Its shaft felt like iron, though its head was as softly textured as her lips. He tasted good, too, with the faint scent of soap mingled with his maleness. Sucking his cock, fondling his balls, tickling his loins with her hair, she knew she'd never again have a cock in her without thinking of this one.
His hands were bothering her and then his voice. "Get up here, damnit. I want to eat it too, and I paid for it already, so don't be stubborn."
She didn't stop sucking his cock while he got her in the position for sixty-nine. It was so good she couldn't. His tongue in her cunt was good too, but it was just an added fillip to the real thrills she was getting from swirling her tongue on his prick and sucking it with just the right amount of pressure and gulping down the slow secretion from it. She liked the feeling of his balls in her hand too, and when they spasmodically contracted she fondly squeezed them just a bit harder.
She wasn't ready for it when he began shooting. She should have been forewarned, she realized, by the spasming of his balls, but then it was too late to think of that, for his stuff was gushing into her mouth. All she could think about was getting all of it down her wildly working gullet, and then even that became secondary as an orgasm of tremendous force and depth swept over her almost without warning. One moment she was contentedly sucking his cock, and the next she was thrashing all over the bed, his prick still in her mouth, but precious drops of his cum trickling out from the corners of her lips.
The lull that followed it was another kind of bliss, a feeling of eternal peace that she never wished to be roused from. She would have lain there forever, she dimly thought, if he hadn't pulled his prick away from her mouth and started handling her again.
"Wait, Chuck," she murmured. "Just a minute."
"This is my last night with you. I can't wait. I can't waste any time, Laura. Open up. I'm going to fuck you. Your cunt first, I think."
"Y… You're still hard?"
"Yep. It's been backed up in me for a long time, and tonight's the night it's all coming out. Open up."
The fit was tight, and it was irritating at first, for he was starting out fast right away. She asked him to slow down, but he panted back at her that he wouldn't, that he had to keep going strong now to keep his cock hard. It began to feel good, and she started to help him, and then it felt wonderful.
Panting very heavily, he stopped, and she said, "You lay back now. Let me do it."
"Know all the positions, do you?" he said, cooperating in the rolling over. "Just like a good whore."
"I'm the best whore in the world tonight, lover," she replied, and grinned down at him as she set her tits to flopping with the vigorous action of her hips. "Come on," she rasped. "Come for me again. I dare you!"
"You, first," he said, and used one hand to squeeze her tits, the other to poke a finger down against her moving clitoris.
She came again, just as hard and just as unexpectedly as before, and what followed for her was a whole series of orgasms. Each one of them was totally satisfying-until he got her groping and clutching and humping and sucking for the next. And he did this so easily throughout the short, sweet night. Even following a period of his resting, when Laura thought he was completely exhausted, he could start her off on another sexual Odyssey with the touch of his hand, the flick of his tongue. It was a night of sexual excess that she would always remember, and she knew he'd never forget it either, no matter who he might be with in years to come.
Dawn found them at the breakfast table, gorging themselves on more mortal food.
"How did you learn so much about sex?" she asked.
"That'd be telling, and I'm not asking you any specific questions about your education," he replied with a grin. "I'll tell you one thing. I learned a lot last night."
"Oh, I can tell you've done a lot before, Chuck. "
"For one thing, I never screwed a girl in the ass before, and that was really great."
"I never sucked a man till he came in my mouth before, and that was just wonderful! All of it was."
They talked then, like a couple of kids eagerly discussing the joys of the games they'd played, and when they'd gone over every moment of their night together, the sun was up and Chuck held Laura's hand in his.
"I think you'll make a good whore," he said.
She lowered her eyes and the smile left her face. "I think I will."
"But you charge too much."
She straightened up and glowered at him. "I earned it. You're satisfied."
"For now, but what about tonight? I only make eleven hundred a month. Take out my rent, my car payment, food, clothes, and I could only afford to spend maybe six nights a month with you."
"What about with-holding tax?" she sarcastically asked.
"Okay, make it three nights a month. That's not enough for a guy like me."
"You've been doing without up till now-or at least I think you have."
He grinned an evil grin. "Yeah, but I didn't know what I was missing. You're a real good whore."
She tried to snatch her hand from his, but he held it fast. "Hey, don't get mad," he said. "I understand why you have to charge so much. After all, a whore has only a few years to make it with the johns. She's got to charge a lot."
"I wouldn't let you lay me again for a thousand dollars!" she declared hotly.
"You see? You're pricing yourself out of business with your very first customer. Bad business, Laura. If you were smart, you'd charge about five bucks a night and…"
"Five dollars a night! I'd starve!"
"…about five bucks a night," he continued, "plus room and board and incidentals, like a retirement plan, for instance. And you should work under a contract, one that'll extend your career as a whore for maybe fifty years."
"Be serious. Who'd want me when I was sixty-eight years old!"
"I would, for one," he said.
She went all soft inside. "Chuck, are you asking me to marry you?"
"No, I'm asking to be your manager and sole customer. As your manager I'd see to it that you got regular increases in your fees, commensurate with your customer's abilities to pay, and I'd see that you were kept busy every night. What do you say?"
She waggled her eyebrows at him and smiled. "And what if I got a yen for one of your fellow employees at good old Consolidated?"
He waggled back at her and replied. "Then your customer might be missing a few nights, getting it on with some sexed-up little Consolidated secretary, and what would you think of that?"
"I think," she said, "I'd make you a dandy whore."