Phil had been wounded in the World War, so he knew danger; he even knew the stress of facing immediate death. But this afternoon he'd had a long swim and then delicious but exhausting sex, so he felt weak when Singleton's two thugs dragged him out on deck. He needed a few moments to recover. No man who ever had sex with Vic Singleton's ripe daughter was going to be able to climb into the prize ring right after!
George Panther chatted nervously as he tried to cool the bootlegger down. Vicious Vic had towed George to the yacht in his larger launch shortly before, enthusing that he'd just met a Boston blueblood who'd make a great match for Flair. Vic dreamed of society status now that he had money, so he'd invited the young man to the yacht for dinner.
On the yacht frightened servants told Vic's group that Flair had ordered all the help out of sight and somehow lured this stranger into the main bedroom. It was the worst possible time for Phil to have come along and deflowered Singleton's daughter. But Panther spoke up.
"Remember, Vic, this young guy can help with our water show at the aquarium," he babbled, hanging on to Vic's arm.
The gangster just said, over and over: "You bastard! You've ruined my daughter for a big shot wedding. You've ruined her!" And the two thugs lugged Phil out on deck.
"If we shoot him on the right side of the boat nobody from shore can see," said one thug.
"But we could throw the body over easier from the back of the boat," countered the other.
"It's not the right side of the boat, you punk!" sang Vic. "It's the Goddam starboard side. The left side's your port side."
"The rear of the boat?" asked the second.
"The stern, you asshole."
While this curious instruction went on, Phil felt some of his strength return. His active life made him far stronger than Singleton's hoods. He gave a shove to the left and sent one man reeling. He gave the other a shove to the right, not caring which was port, which was starboard. The second man went down to skitter along the deck. Then Phil bounded toward the rail.
He planned to do a magnificent Doug Fairbanks leap from the high rail down into the water and swim to safety. Flair Singleton stopped him. She glided from nowhere to a place in front of him to shove the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun into his middle.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Unk!" Phil stopped dead with both barrels prodding his belly. At least the girl had covered her essential parts with the big towel.
"He's ruined you, baby!" cried Vic. "He has to die!"
"You're not going to kill my husband-to-be!" she shot back.
"Hub-husband?" said Vic, thunderstruck.
"You always said I had to save my girlhood for my husband. Since he took it, he has to marry me."
Father and daughter glared at each other. Phil broke it up.
"A shotgun wedding with the bride holding the gun?" cried Phil. He jerked the gun from Flair's grasp. He waved it to stop the chagrined hoodlums who'd recovered. "I thought all crazy people went to California. New Jersey's worse."
"My daughter's not marrying any poor, overmuscled California swim tramp. That's final," fumed Vic.
"Tramp!" yelled Phil. "You're the tramp! I teach Olympic swimmers, world-respected young athletes who compete for the highest honors of civilization. You sell booze, degrading every man, woman and child in this nation, pulling down society's standards, creating poverty and filth. You're the tramp, Singleton, and a punk besides."
"You're overstating, Phil," George warned.
"He has a point," murmured Flair.
But Vicious Vic looked from his determined daughter to the angry Phil and then at the menacing shotgun. His face relaxed.
"I was just letting off a little steam," he said quietly. "Let's all get dressed for dinner."
Phil collected his clothes from George's boat and felt very sexy sitting there without his trunks underneath. They were floating somewhere in the ocean. But Flair had apparently had enough lessons in sex for one day; she all but ignored him. Nobody mentioned the earlier embarrassing incident, nor marriage. Instead father and daughter picked at each other, making Phil suspect that she'd used him to get back at her father. She was a cool female after all.
The Boston blueblood sent his regrets which made Singleton subdued. Meanwhile the dinner was delicious, a boiled terrapin with a sublime red sauce imported from Baltimore, prepared by the top chef in Baltimore's finest Shore Dinner establishment. It was rushed to Atlantic City by express train and messenger.
Phil and George gorged themselves at Vic's expense. Phil decided that if the bootlegger could spend money like this, he was a potential backer for Phil's California project with Maddy, so he remained in good humor. Singleton was morose and finally picked on George Panther.
"We've got to square away your dumb, two-bit water show," he said. "Phil, that's the least you can do for me after enjoying both my daughter and my dinner. Panther's roped me into this stupid girlie thing in some Goddam converted aquarium where they used to show off fish but went broke."
George murmured that all his show needed was a little tightening and polishing.
"Polish, hell!" sang Vic. "Those girls are ugly and they swim like stones. One night one of 'em is going to drown! Phil, since you're such a bigshot, world-respected swim teacher, I want you to go over to that aquarium and straighten out this shit."
"I'll looked at it," Phil promised. After all, he had to stall until Maddy came to town.
Singleton explained to him that Maddy had been a nurse to his sick wife until she died. Now Maddy was on duty in New York with Vic's aged mother. She came down with the mother every couple of weeks or so.
Phil looked forward to that. It was a cinch that Flair was not going to swim for him, or sleep with him, much as he might desire either or both. So it was back to Maddy. The crafty girl had wisely picked up a profession at which she could make a living after the Olympic team failure.
Phil and George chugged back over the water in George's small boat.
"That Flair's crazy," Phil fumed. "She teased me to romp with her and then turned herself off. Did you notice she hardly spoke to me at dinner?"
George sat back, flask in his lap, and watched Phil steer. He spoke from twenty-five years of experience in the hard world of show business.
"Flair doesn't want to marry nobody," he said. "I don't think Vic wants her to marry either. I think they've got it for each other but won't admit it. So you did 'em a favor, lifting her virginity. If some important guy did it, they might talk themselves into some lousy marriage. This way when a nobody takes it they don't have to worry."
"Thanks a lot," said Phil.
"Nothing personal," said George quickly. "Uh… how was she?"
"We're getting close to shore," countered Phil. "Where do I head in?"
Phil almost died when he saw George's set-up. His show was in a musty old building on an insignificant street just off the Boardwalk. There was an ancient, faded sign "Wonders of the Sea" superseded by George's garish new one: Panther's Water Show Passion Pixies – Merry Mermaids – Cool Music – Hot Divers – Sexy Swimmers – Comedy Acts.
A separate sign informed the public that the one and only Texas Bunny Long, Chanteuse Extraordinaire, direct from Paris, sang ballads in an exclusive engagement.
Texas… Paris?
The show was even more drab than Phil had been told. Six listless girls, not really as bad looking as Vic had said, went through swimming formations with an embarrassing lack of skill, showing skin. Two guys did comic dives. Texas Bunny sang to a piano that George pounded with more verve than art. She was a real looker with some class compared to the others, but her voice sounded weak to Phil.
It cost $1.00 to get in and hard wooden benches served as seating. The place could only hold about one hundred people. The air stank of a fishy smell from the former occupants and there was a penetrating sweetish odor that Phil didn't recognize. Still, the house was full.
Sitting through the ghastly show, Phil realized that George had lured him East not so much to help his niece as to save himself from being dropped off the Steel Pier in cement overshoes by Vic.
After the first show, Phil cornered George.
"What you've got is a lousy show in a crummy auditorium isolated in a impossible location. Even at five dollars a head you'd lose money."
"Oh, I make a little. Singleton wants more."
"You make a little, with a payroll of eight swimmers and the doll singer?"
"Well," said George with a sly look, "the girls pay me, you see. I think they hook after the show. There's one of those 'boarding houses' with rooms that rent by the hour up the street. The guys come to the show to see the bodies before they rent 'em. But you see I don't let 'em show too much. So I charge the girls instead of paying them."
"My God!" said Phil.
"Don't let Vic know about that. He'd think it lacks class," begged George.
"What about the platinum blonde, Texas Bunny. She must cost a bundle with her looks, even if her voice is weak."
"Oh, that's Vic's mistress. He pays for her. I charge him to give her show business experience."
"What a con. How about the men divers?"
"Oh, they siphon off a little and sell it on the side."
"Siphon? Sell?"
"Maybe you noticed the smell. We don't use water in the tank here. It's filled with ten thousand gallons of pure Canadian gin."
Phil felt his mind rock.
"Your water show – the girls swim in gin?"
"Right. It's Vic's storage vault. Doesn't hurt the stock for people to swim and dive in it. Alcohol kills germs. So the divers take a little home. I don't pay 'em, I don't charge 'em."
Flabbergasted, Phil said weakly, "And I suppose you sell some of your trusted audience a little."
"Oh, just a little, Phil. I don't want Vic's men to notice too much evaporation."
"Holy crumb!"
"So can you train those girls better?"
"I'm sure I can," laughed Phil, "if we can keep them sober!"
Phil retired to George's office for the intermission and the second show. He couldn't bear to watch it all over again.
Swimming in gin? It was a nutty idea, but there was no reason why it couldn't work. In fact, he was tempted to swim in the stuff himself and maybe even sip a little. What a goofy set-up!
As for George… sleaze, sleaze, sleaze, since the days he'd sold patent medicines from the back of an ancient wagon, medicines laced with alcohol. Nothing had changed with George!
Phil passed the time by catching up on the news with some New York papers George had on his desk. There were two big stories that riveted his attention. Gertrude Ederle had just finished a successful English Channel swim, the first time by a woman, with a time-lapse that beat the best men's records. It looked like she'd come back to America a heroine with a ticker-tape parade down Broadway in New York and all the rest of the accolades.
Phil grinned happily. He'd followed Trudy's endurance swim faithfully. Her success meant that his California project was no longer a daydream. If Vic Singleton didn't buy it, some other millionaire would.
The other news was about Houdini's fabulous trick immersion under water in the pool of the Hotel Sheraton, New York. Houdini, a world hero for many years with his escapes and feats of magic and daring, had done it again. A young Egyptian, Rahman Bey, had challenged Houdini to match his immersion in a bronze coffin in water for an hour. The Egyptian claimed he could live in his casket for an hour, using only the air in that enclosed space because he could induce a trance.
Houdini said it could be done without a trance. Accordingly Houdini had himself immersed underwater in a metal box, soldered shut, and remained under for an hour and a half, a half hour longer than the Egyptian "miracle man". There was no trance or trick involved; Houdini had merely taught himself to breathe shallowly and remain at complete rest. His superb physical conditioning did the rest.
Phil applauded that. Phil's father had been a friend of Houdini's, working in the famous Society of Magicians, when he was alive. Phil would have to write Harry, or "Ehrich" as his wife and close friends called him, and offer congratulations in the name of the Griffin family. Phil had met the great sorcerer and escapist several times in his early years when his father had still been alive.
The door opened and Texas Bunny Long came into the room. With her came a burst of tinny music from George's hand-wound Victrola as his swimmers swam lackadaisically as George monitored the machine to make sure it didn't run down.
Phil had been introduced to the singer, Vic's mistress, before the first show, but now he got a good look at her close up. What he saw was pretty interesting.
She was the opposite of girls like Flair and Maddy, with their firm muscles and athlete's spirits. Her body was soft and the meat seemed a little loose on her bones which Phil thought sexy.
Her breasts were not as large as Flair's but because Texas was slender, they hung like ripe fruit from her chest. At present he could see the imprint of big nipples in the tight jersey gown she wore, a beige number that clung to everything. And how they jiggled when she walked. Her torso was as flat as any girl athlete's. The dress showed the attractive indentation of her belly button.
The round sweep of her hips was fantastic, almost a circle. That was because she had a fabulous ass, slightly longer than most women's. When she turned her back, there were these two sweet mounds with a magnificent crack, longer and deeper than you usually saw. In that tight dress the depression between her buttocks looked like it would make a dream nest for one long, hard cock, say seven inches when stiff. Phil had never had anal sex or thought much about it, but he knew that if he ever did he'd want to bugger between two gorgeous hams like those.
Her thighs and legs were softly, sexily shaped with just the right taper. The evening gown she wore was split at midthigh, tight to contain that great behind, then split to show silk hose held up by a garter. The soft muscles flexing under the silken sheen when she walked, plus that behind, those breasts and her slenderness hypnotized Phil as it must have Vic and many other males.
Her face was great. Her platinum hair was thick, whereas most lightly complexioned platinums had thin hair. Her eyes were big and a startling brown. Her lips were rose petal lush, her cheeks highboned like a fashion model's. Yes, Vic had quite a package there.
What intrigued Phil even more was her manner of talking. She spoke in the soft, vulnerable voice of a scared little girl asking for her momma, instead of the brassy tones you'd expect of a singer. When she sang her ballads, every man in the audience wanted to rise up and protect her from the sorrows that made her quiver.
Her costume was bizarre because above the clinging night club gown she wore a white ten gallon Texas sombrero and on her feet were dainty-heeled, authentic cowboy boots. Being from the West, Phil knew they were the real thing.
"Oh, excuse me," she murmured in that scared voice. "I came for my medicine. I have to go on in about twenty minutes. My throat is dry tonight."
Phil beckoned her to the desk and stood aside.
"Did I sound all right in the first show?" she asked, coming up to the desk.
"Fine," he lied.
"I was lousy," she contradicted him. "That's why I need my medicine. Oh, no. Sit on the desk, please. I can find it easier."
Surprised, Phil sat on the desk facing her and politely lifted his legs as she opened one of George's desk drawers.
"Not there," she said, fumbling in the drawer. She took his left leg and rested it on the drawer. She opened a drawer on the other side and rummaged inside. "Not there." She put his right foot on the opened drawer.
What the heck?
"Oh, here it is," she said in her near whisper. She put her hands on Phil's crotch and began to unbutton his fly.
Phil sat there petrified. He could not believe what was happening. The girl's movements were so slow and deliberate, so sane, that the mind rejected what she was really doing. What she really did was gently lift out the coil of his cock and balls and stroke his shaft as if it were a lovable kitten.
"You see," she explained, "there isn't much time until I have to sing, so I'm being bold in getting right to my medicine."
Was she drunk? Crazy?
"Where… where is you medicine, Texas?"
"Right inside your plumbing, Mr. Griffin, Phil. Don't worry. I know how to find it."
With little girl diffidence she began to masturbate his blade in soft, satiny hands. Phil felt luscious streaks of desire as his cock grew. That rinsing that Flair had given him several hours ago had by no means depleted his sexuality. In fact, that first throw had only stimulated him to want to blast off a second time, but Flair had turned unfriendly.
Two emotions tore him, surprise and delight. Outside he could hear faintly the applause of the crowd, some of the thin music. It was certainly safe enough here; George had to busy himself on and around the tank during the show.
"You want… my jism?" he managed, wallowing in this new, hot pleasure.
"It coats my throat, soothes my voice box," she said. "Then I sing marvelously well. Yes, sperm does it."
"Ahhhhh." His big prick strained up now as if eager to leap off his body and hunt for sex on its own. Those capable hands really could stroke!
"Would it embarrass you if I…" Pleading brown eyes looked up at him.
"I… uh… don't think so. Not at all!" he gasped, his breath almost choking him in rising excitement.
A pink tongue flicked out and circled the head of his cock, painting it with warm honey saliva.
"I'll try not to be gross," she whispered, "but I really have to have your sperm and pretty fast."
"Yes!" he hissed in ecstasy as she engulfed the whole top of his prong in her mouth. Thrills and rushes of delight shot through his belly and loins. He fucked up a little into that soft, tight mouth. Her suction was strong, exquisite. Wet flesh pressed insistently, excitingly on his cock head as she bobbed her own head and grooved his flaming spear top against the roof of her mouth. Teasing fingers stroked his shaft, gently caressed his balls.
"Ho, ho, ho!" he sang, heart pounding wildly. In less than a minute she'd set his whole belly on fire.
She released his cock and they both watched its happy dry throbs, as it gleamed in the satin of her saliva. Phil felt the slight sting of the digestive power.
"Well, I won't go too fast," she laughed. "If you don't mind a little tease, I find that it increases the sperm volume."
"Tease is all right!" he cried. God, he could feel the sweet joy from his toes to his head. What a cock handler this shy, strange show business girl was.
"If I can hold back the ejaculation long enough," she explained as if she were a teacher in a classroom, "the force greatly aids in coating my throat. Don't be surprised if I take you quite deep at first and then draw gradually back to apply an even spread of your precious male juices."
"You know best!" Phil sang in ecstasy.
She was better than her word. She knew how to handle a man's cock the best of any woman Phil had ever met. Carefully she ate down his stiff, reddened shaft on one side and up the other. Her deft tongue ringed the very edge of his mushroom cock head until he got dizzy and crazed from the good feeling.
"Can't… stand!" he moaned.
She stopped when he dry throbbed. When his crystal clear preseminal fluid eased out of the dark hole she licked it up as if it were nectar.
"Helps my throat already," she said, swallowing. He watched the soft throat muscles work and thrilled. His prick kept oozing out more nectar as the tension from the delight-maddening friction went on and on.
She ate his balls with the expertise of a gourmet cocksucker.
"Texas, you know how!" he exulted.
She was back at his shaft, using her teeth as well as her tongue as she sensed that the longer it lasted the harsher he wanted it. He bucked recklessly now into her mouth, breathing hard, wanting to rush to explosion. She held him back with gentle restraints.
Soon his pubic hair, shaft and balls were totally covered with a warm sexy gloss that made him shudder in pleasure. It was as close to a cunt feel as the real thing, the way she used her mouth, suction and her stroking, incredible hands. She worked the stiff blade back and forth, up and down to add to the growing pleasure-fury.
"Oh, oh, Texas!" he cried. "I may die!"
"No one ever has!" she laughed.
He was out of his mind now, growing dizzy with the continued pleasure. She'd brought him right up under the point of paralysis and explosion and she held him there while he could imagine his sperm factory whipping up extra gallons of throw juice, packing his reservoirs till he wanted to scream in pleasure from tension.
"Please let it go!" he begged. "Take me."
He grabbed her head and fucked lustily into that teasing luscious mouth, watching his shaft run over wet lips and go inside.
"Not yet," she laughed, squeezing his prick and slowing the joy. "A young, handsome male like you with this heavy duty jong has infinite capacity."
He was so crazed to fuck off his load, he jerked free, grabbed her and hoisted her on the desk. Her body was light and handled easily. He scooted up her tight dress to get at her belly and cunt and thrilled to discover that she wore no panties. Her pubic hair was platinum, she was authentic. With a happy groan he nuzzled between soft, warm thighs and began to eat her cunt greedily. There was plenty of musk juice for him. Texas was so hot that her girl honey had spread halfway to her knees, staining the inside thighs of her silk hose. He inhaled her essence and coated his own throat with her gland flow.
"Oh, my heavens. Oh, great scott!" she moaned. "Ah, ah, ah!"
He put his hands on that magnificent ass now, digging them into those gorgeous buttocks as he savored the satiny, quivering flesh and sucked out her cunt oils as if she must be dried to dust.
"Huh, huh, huh," she gasped. "Oh, I'm fucked!"
Her loins humped wildly on his face. She began to jerk and sing in hysteric pleasure.
He gripped her hams and opened them. He ran his tongue up on her ass button and ate it.
"Oh, nooooo!" she sang, jerking. "Nobody ever did that to me."
He wanted to eat the flesh, so soft and loose, off her bones and suck dry every drop of her juices. She bucked in sweet distress.
"Coming! Comiiiiinng!" she managed.
He dug his tongue once more into her sphincter, making her quiver and wail and then drove his tongue back on her clit and made her give up her girlhood. She locked her pelvis on his face and surrendered. Throb, throb, throb. Hers were not the powerful, spaced spasms of the athletic Flair, but quick flutters of expiring womanhood, almost furtively given, as if Texas did not wish the world to know that she'd been forced into sex convulsions. They lasted a long time and she melted into a puddle on George's desk.
"Oh, sweet heaven!" she sighed.
Phil stared at her naked ass, exposed because her dress was shoved up almost to her breasts. At that moment he knew he was going to violate that little red seal and go deep in her backhole if she died for it. But not tonight. He had a duty to perform.
Dazed brown eyes looked up at him as he reinserted his prick in the girl's mouth as she moved helplessly on the desk top. But she was a trouper. She recovered quickly and give him three fantastic suckbites, using everything, teeth, tongue and pressure.
He blew, dizzy, half unconscious with repressed desire.
Spurt, spurt, spurt.
She'd done her job all right. She'd teased him into packing a double load of jism into his system and it spewed out now in involuntary heavenly, rich shots of boiling jism. He nearly fainted from relief, but wouldn't let go because he wanted to enjoy the fabulous, sexy pleasure of this wild, wet sex fling.
Texas was true to her word. She pulled his cock deep in her throat, until it felt like a body-hot cunt and let him coat her passage inch by inch as she oozed his prick up her plumbing.
"Go, go, go," he sobbed in the richest oral orgasm he'd ever felt. His prick just kept on spurting wildly, making his body sing, his heart pound, his mind reel with unbelievable joy.
Somebody came into the room. Several somebodies. As Phil finally tapered and came back to sanity, he looked up… and then he really did come close to fainting.
Once again he stared into the savage face and angry eyes of Vicious Vic Singleton. Once again two hoodlums on each side of the tough bootlegger reached for their guns as they sprang forward to seize him for punishment because he'd ravaged Vic's mistress this time.
"Griffin, Goddamit," cried Vicious Vic. "This time you've really gone too far!"