Carl said we'd leave for L.A. that next night, and he'd show me around all the good spots there, and promised not to touch me "for a few days till ya heal up", which was awfully generous of him, I thought since he'd damned near ruined me for life as it was. But I just kept my own mouth shut and let him ramble on. I asked him to get me some sleeping pills, as I was so damn sore that I couldn't get a good night's rest without some help. He got them for me, and then we packed my clothing and headed out. When he asked me about any money I had, I lied and told him that Doc and Harold had managed it, so I guessed that it was down the drain. He just shrugged and said, "To hell with it – I'll give ya all ya want," and we drove leisurely to L.A.
Carl owned a fashionable high-rise 62-unit apartment building on Franklin in the Hollywood foothills, and the new and furnishings were superb, but I could only think of my plans for the immediate future. When Carl wanted me to go around with him and check on his stable of girls, I begged off as being too sore and tired from the trip to do anything except soak in a hot tub and sleep the dock around, adding that I wanted to get rested and healed so we could really get caught up on our loving, and that appeased him for the time being, so that he left cheerily, saying he'd let me sleep and not waken me when he came home.
I knew that he wouldn't waken me when he came home. As soon as he went down in the elevator, I took thirty-six of the sleeping pills and sat down at the desk in the living room and began writing. First, the letter to Carl: "Carl: There were just three things that I ever wanted out of life: sex, with everything connected to it, good and often; next, a decent life, with all the necessities, most of the comforts, and a few of the luxuries; and last, love, real love, the kind that brings comfort and laughs and warm companionship and sharing. I can never have any of those with you, and you'll finish ruining a life that I myself had almost completely ruined in my search for those three thinks. I cannot and will not be your slave, so I am taking this way out. And since you are what you are, and who you are, I have sent letters to the Chief of Police, both newspapers, and the FBI naming names and addresses and items that should put a stop to your actions. I could not do this to your face – I am too cowardly, but it needed doing. Sheri."
I put his letter in an envelope and placed it under the whiskey decanter, for I knew that he never drank before going to bed, it kept him awake, but that he started the day with a double shot even before he brushed his teeth. So he'd find it first thing in the morning, and then, when he came to waken me, I'd have found peace at last. I scribbled the other letters and went down the hall to the mail chute beside the elevator and dropped them in. They'd hit the next day, and then let Carl start running and looking over his shoulder.
I was beginning to get drowsy by this time, so I put on a new pale-blue peignoir, brushed my hair, and lay down on the bed. I know it was silly, but I've always been vain about my looks, and I wanted my last moment to be as pretty as possible. Then I drifted off.
I stared up at the nurse who hovered over me, and then when I started to ask her a question, I felt the immense raw pain in my mouth and throat.
"Shhhh, don't try to talk, honey. Your neck and throat are still pretty sore and tender from the stomach pump. You just lie back and get all the rest you can. The doctor will be along pretty soon and he'll answer any questions you have," the smiling nurse told me. I relaxed and looked around the room. It looked about the same as any hospital room, and I saw the intravenous bottle overhead and watched as drops of something trickled down the plastic tube that was taped to my left arm. Then on the far side, almost in the corner, I saw a man, fiftyish, in a rumpled suit, sitting and quietly reading a newspaper. He looked up and smiled gently as the nurse left the room.
"I'm Sergeant Squires, Miss. Until we catch Carl Watson we're keeping you under twenty-four hour guard. That was a pretty good turn you did us, and we'll protect you. All you have to do right now is get well and rest. No questions – at least not for a few days. You need anything, just ask."
He went back to reading the paper and I drifted off to a dazed sleep, my mind full of queries but too tired to ask them right now.
When I awoke again, I felt a gentle touch on my wrist, and then I focused on the doctor who was taking my puke. He sensed my movement, looked at my eyes, and smiled.
"Hey! Yon princess awakes. You're almost all right, Sheri. You're going to make it O.K. from here on out. The nurse will take the I.V. tube out in a minute, and then we can move you to a different room." He shook a finger at me waggishly. "It was touch and go there for a few hours, young lady. This afternoon I'll want to see you in my office."
As he left, I noticed his well-cut clothes and smooth manner of talking and walking. When the nurse came in shortly thereafter and removed the I.V., she stayed and brushed my hair and helped me tidy myself up. "You're lucky," she said. "Doctor Larson's the best on the staff. And he took an awful lot of extra time and care on your case – he was here forty-two straight hours working on you. But that's the way he is, conscientious as hell, in addition to being really good."
I could see that the staff liked him as well as admiring him, and I think half the nurses had crushes on him because of his warm personality and boyish good looks. That afternoon, I was escorted upstairs to his office. The name on the door jarred me: Dr. James D. Larson, Director, Psychiatric Division.
Psychiatric Division? Was I nuts? Was I in an asylum? His secretary smiled and waved when we entered. "Hi, Sheri," she said to my escort nurse, and then into the intercom, "Jim, Sheri Jackson's here." The doctor's metallic "Send her right in, please" came back from the speaker, and I was waved to the inner door.
The doctor strode from behind his desk and pulled a big chair closer for me, and extended his hand. As I took it, he held it softly in both of his, and I was amazed at the gentleness that a six-three hunk of man could display.
"Sit down and relax. I hope you're as glad to make it back safely as we all were, Sheri." He offered a cigarette. "Smoke? No? Good idea, don't ever start," he admonished as he lighted his own. "Stupid, filthy, expensive habit. Like most of the habits we all tend to get into. Well," he said as he exhaled and lounged back in his chair, "you are perfectly free to go now, young lady. Although there are some questions I believe the police want to discuss with you about Carl Watson. I think you're called a material witness, and as such the D.A.'s office will provide you with the necessities of life till the trial if you'll testify."
"So much for the sordid part," he smiled and leaned forward across the desk toward me. His bright white smile was very disarming, I couldn't help thinking. "The part I would like to discus with you, Sheri, and I'll repeat, you're under no obligation to do it, is this: I'd like you to stay here – you're at the U.C.L.A. Medical Center in Westwood, in case you were wondering – and let us help you straighten yourself out. I'm sure we can help you; we all want to, and there is sure as hell something wrong when a girl as beautiful as you tries to kill herself." He shook his head.
"I was amazed," he continued. "And I'll be very frank with you. While you were still out, I pumped you full of sodium pentothal and quizzed you. If I hadn't, the police surgeon would have, to try to corroborate your accusations against Carl Watson. But I didn't want anyone else messing with a girl as lovely and fragile as you, so I did it all. The cops had to take my word on everything, but they always do. So your entire life history is mine, and mine alone. All your secrets are locked up in here." He grinned as he tapped his forehead. "Any questions, Sheri?"
I was getting confused. One minute I was dying, and knew it, and wanted it that way; the next thing I knew a lot of nice people were going to a lot of work and expense and time and trouble to keep me from doing that. And he "knew all my secrets" – good God! What could he think of me, if he was aware of my life these last three years? I was a nymphomaniac, a liar, a whore – oh, Jesus! I ducked my head and stared at my hands that folded nervously in my lap.
"Oh, come on, hon," I heard his soft voice, "I've run onto hundreds of girls in worse shape than you, believe it or not. And helped a lot of them. And I – we, that is – can help you, too. I just hate to see true beauty ruined and lost, there's so little of it in the world nowadays. C'mon, let me help you. Please."
He had come from behind the desk and now stood beside me and when I looked up into his tender eyes, I gradually got some confidence back, and tried to smile up at him.
"There! That's better. I'd like to keep you under my wing as a patient for just a bit longer, Sheri. Several reasons, which we'll go into later. You see, all psychiatrists are M.D.'s, did you know that? Well, we are, and I'll be very open about your case with you. When we got you, you were hemorrhaging badly – barbiturates sometimes also act as a supplementary anticoagulant – and I repaired the damage. Your vagina was torn and other details were tidied up, so you had problems other than mental. But that's just between us. Incidentally, Carl, or someone he sent, brought you to our emergency clinic. Apparently he got home in time and found out what was happening, and got scared. He bundled you in here and took off, to give himself a head start. They caught him about five hours ago outside San Diego, heading for Mexico."
"But to hell with him," he said as he lit another cigarette. "Lets talk about you. I know all about you, Sheri – your needs, your wants, your hopes and ambitions, your past, your ideas and your ideals." He cupped my chin and pulled my face up to meet his gaze. "And I like them. I respect what you want to be. And I am by God going to help you get their. Now, do you want them badly enough to help yourself? That's the only question you have to answer. And I hope it's 'yes'," he said softly.
I shook my head numbly. Things had happened too fast for me to fully comprehend. All I knew was that I had been sinking, deeper and deeper in the quicksand of life, and now, for no reason, lovely strangers were willing – no, they were wanting – to help me. God? Providence? Dumb blind luck? Hell, Sheri, I said to myself, what have you got to lose? Suddenly I wanted desperately to live, to be, to grow! And I felt myself nodding, smiling happily up at this man who had become my savior.
"Good. And I'll add one more thing, Sheri. I don't want to change any of the three things that you said were important to you, to your life, to your happiness: a decent life, love, and sex. It's just that we'll help you get them into proper perspective, so that you can spend your life living that happiness, instead of wasting your time just searching for it." His soft voice paused, and I felt his hands under my elbows, lifting me to my feet. "And some day, soon I hope, you'll make some man one hell of a good wife. I'm not sure about becoming a mother – you were pretty well torn up way up inside, Sheri, to be brutally honest about it. But sometimes family size should only be just a couple."
He pulled me close, gave me a brief hug of reassurance, and mumbled his thanks as I expressed my appreciation. He told me that analysis and therapy would begin day after tomorrow, and I left his office buoyant and optimistic for the first time in I couldn't remember how long.
I guess it happened on the fifth or sixth session. Doctor Jim, as everyone called him, was devoting three hours a day to my treatment – an hour and a half in the afternoons, and the same from six to seven-thirty evenings. I found that I could talk and say whatever I felt like, and he cast no judgments, no aspersions, accepted my thoughts and past as nonchalantly as if he were merely reading a story about someone he didn't personally know. Then I told him that I thought that I loved him. I just blurted it out.
"Don't be embarrassed, Sheri, that's a very common feeling in patients. It's called transference, and you accept me as a substitute for the father you never had, because you know I'm helping you. However," and he came around the desk and held my hand as he sat on the arm of my chair, "there is one slight difference. I think that I may just be falling a little in love with you. Let's be honest – we have completely different backgrounds. I'm forty, you're a quarter century younger. But I've been so busy I just never had time to get involved with girls. Oh, I've had flash romances, one-night stands – hell, I'm not a priest. In fact, I know myself well enough to know I'm quite strongly sexed. If God made anything nicer, he kept it for himself. But I've avoided distractions, involvements, any permanent alliances up till now."
"What I'm getting at, Sheri, is that I'd like to make love to you. Just once. Your goals, even only half-formed and thought out, match mine. I can give you the affection and comfort and niceties of life now, and God knows you're one of the three or four most beautiful girls in the world, and I'd be proud as hell of you. Let's find out if we're sexually compatible. If not, once will have to satisfy up. If we are, once will have to hold us till we get married – which will be damned quick. Now, are you a gambler? I mean it, angel."
I was trembling, and I felt the salty sting of tears as I leaped up and threw my arms around him. "Oh, Jim," I cried, "yes, yes, YES!! Oh, let me love you, darling! Oh, God, my prayers are answered," I moaned, and then I felt the soft warm touch of his lips on mine, and as he gradually increased his pressure, our lips parted and a gentle wetness probed my avid mouth as he darted and searched gently down into my very soul. He led me to the divan across the room, and we sank slowly onto its softness, our arms still clasped tightly about each other.
"Oh, Sheri, you are so sweet, so beautiful. Let me be gentle and good for you, with you, to you." I thrilled at his murmured endearments. Our fingers bumped as we both tried to unbutton my blouse, and we shared our first loving laugh.
"Here, let me. Please, Princess." I leaned back and watched as he deftly undid my garments, and I hiked my hips up to assist in their removal. He sat back on his haunches and stared for a minute, transfixed as he gazed at my soft white body that lay so willingly poised to become his, his alone.
Then he stood up and slipped out of his clothes rapidly, and I couldn't help but admire, wide-eyed, the manly vision before me. His smooth strength, and the beautiful virile manhood that was exposed so delightfully near me, all aroused within me the familiar old quivering and tremors of my loins, the crushing pressure in my breasts.
"Oh, Jim," I sighed, and couldn't utter another word as joy overwhelmed me at the first touch as he knelt before me on the divan and softly guided my thighs apart. I closed my eyes and gave myself over to the bliss of the moment when I felt his warm tongue touch my pink slit and then deftly part my lips and lave the hungry, receptive entrance to my cunt. His hot tongue raced up and down and then fastened on my clit and I felt the seeping trickle of my juices spill forth as his hotness communicated itself to me, and then a gently probing finger slid tenderly up in an accompaniment to his wildly flogging tongue.
"Oh, Jim, do it to me, lover, do it to me whatever you want, darling, oh yes yessssssss!! Oh more Jim give me more I want all of you my love, put it in now oh I have to have it Jim don't tease me fill me up with that wonderful cock oh Jim stuff it up in me now now now damnit! Oh I've got to have you Jim have your love all of you in every way oh do it to me!" And then as he stood and slipped the sweet head of his cock into the velvet opening that flowed and begged for him, I thought I'd pass out from happiness.
"Say it, Sheri, say it," he told me as I felt the length of his hot meat pushing farther and higher up inside my hot cunt.
"Yes, yes, fuck me Jim I love you I love it I love you oh fuck me fuuuuucckk meeeee!!!" Then I bit the words off as a touch of sanity returned with my first come. Oh, good God, they'd hear me all over the hospital. But that thought was erased as I felt his sperm climb hotly up within my crevice and then we lay there, entwined as one person while my clinging wild cunt muscles savagely wrung every last drop from his spewing cock.
"No one can hear us, honey. I gave Shirley the afternoon off, hoping this would happen. My God, that was the quickest I've ever shot. But the best. And you are the tightest, most beautiful girl in the world." He pushed back from my chest where he had sprawled from exhaustion and smiled and then bent and tenderly kissed a nipple. "Well, Mrs. James Larson, you have to many me and make an honest shrink out of me. Please?" And my head bobbed so fast, and my grin was so wide, that neither of us was bothered by the deliriously happy tears of joy and ecstasy that coursed down my cheeks and plopped onto my heaving, jiggling breasts.
"That's it, honey, till our wedding night. We're going to do this up right, and kosher, and clean and beautiful," he said, and I nodded in ecstatic agreement.