The mayor of Atlantic City was there and a host of other city officials. As Phil predicted, Houdini drew senators, congressmen and other of the city's leading lights because it was a well-publicized black tie affair. There was barely room for the press, the important and the near important in the small auditorium and flash-powder trays burst in dazzling light as endless pictures were taken.
A small orchestra played on the stage and then Phil put on his regular water show for the blue ribbon audience. It was well-received as the crowd was in a holiday mood, waiting for Houdini's appearance.
Houdini appeared in a dress suit while his attendants brought forth a coffin-like metal box similar to the one he used in his New York hotel immersion. The great artist was small in stature and stocky with twinkling, blue-gray eyes and, not at the age of 52, had a receding hairline over an extra wide brow.
"He always manages to look rumpled," Bess his wife explained to Phil as they watched from the wings. "Someday I hope they invent a wrinkleproof suit for men."
"Ah, but when he gives the crowd that dazzling smile and opens his mouth he's listened to like a king," Phil replied.
Houdini suddenly jerked at his sleeves and his arms were bare from the elbows down. It was the old magicians' challenge of "Nothing up my sleeves." Then he did card tricks, enjoying himself as much as the audience enjoyed him.
"We work in such big theatres," whispered Bess, "that he's really excited tonight to have this intimate place where he can do pint-sized tricks that everybody can see." Then Houdini did some handcuff escapes and was finally sealed in his box and lowered by ropes to the bottom of the aquarium tank. The orchestra played, the audience buzzed expectantly. But by the time an hour had passed, the room was silent and electric with tension. What human could possibly survive without air for so long under water. Was Houdini now a lifeless corpse at the bottom of the great link?
At an hour and fifteen minutes people called for the box to be lifted, sure Houdini was dead or near death. A sense of genuine catastrophe filled the auditorium. But Phil noted that Bess Houdini merely smiled.
A bell rang at the mark of an hour and twenty minutes, the box was lifted and opened and Houdini emerged, weak and pale but smiling. He received a thunderous ovation. There had been no tricks involved, he had lived on the natural air sealed in with him for all that time.
For the next hour the place was a milling crowd of well-wishers, everybody wanting to meet Houdini in this intimate place. Usually in vast theatres there was no chance to meet him after a show.
"We're eternally grateful," Phil told Houdini when at last the crowd began to thin and the magician, his wife and entourage were about to leave. "It seems like a lot of trouble to put you to for such a small audience."
"Listen to me, Phil," said Houdini. "You did me a favor. When I beat that Egyptian's time on his immersion, some people said I was lucky. They said I couldn't do it again. Tonight the papers were here and the story goes out on the wires across the country. So, quickly and easily I nailed it down that I can beat his one hour time any day I want. That frees me to go on to my big fall show and develop some new things. I won't be challenged on that one again. Besides, Bess and I can enjoy a couple of days off at the beach."
"For which I'm grateful," said Bess Houdini, proudly taking her husband's arm. Phil noted that Houdini seemed well recovered from his ordeal of the evening.
Before the magician left he gave Phil some advice.
"I'll leave my metal box. You can have it for a display. Your business should be good for a couple of weeks in the aftermath of the publicity. Charge 'em five bucks a head. After that I'd fold the show. Your place here is really too small. I struggled for years as a near failure in dime museums in the old days and nothing can break your heart like small time show business."
"Oh, I've got a big one coming up," smiled Phil.
"Good boy. Once you get off the ground, keep flying!" Houdini and his group were gone with friendly waves. Phil stood there feeling great. There was no limit to the man's talents; in addition to everything else he was a pioneer aviator, which is why he left Phil with that aeronautical advice.
Vic Singleton was beside himself with delight. "Tonight was big time for me!" he crooned. "Tonight was the big night of my life. I looked the mayor and the police chief in the eye and they looked right back and smiled. We even shook hands. You were right, boy. It was time for me to leave the rackets. That Houdini of yours was really something. I'm going to have those pictures framed in gold!"
"There's more to come," said Phil. But he was too astute to introduce his new idea while Singleton floated on the euphoria of tonight's success.
Everyone was so hopped up by the excitement that they gave a midnight show, charging $5 a head this time and filled the place. Flair was in good spirits and Texas Bunny was in good voice. Even George, the cynic, seemed mellow.
"In show business you get one good night a year," he said. "Tonight was our night for this year."
Two days later Phil saw Maddy for the first time.
She was half-naked in that first sight of her because Vic Singleton had stripped her of her nurse's whites to her waist and feasted on one of Maddy's round, ivory breasts. Maddy Metcalf had the clearest, finest textured skin Phil had ever seen on a woman. In addition she had lustrous black hair that fell well below her shoulders. Not for her the short-haired flapper style that the hot mamas of the day favored!
Phil had started to leave the bath to go into the master bedroom of the yacht when the other two entered the room and began their love play. They didn't see or hear him because Vic's sexual attack on the girl absorbed them both.
"Oh, Vic, should we?" moaned Maddy. She gasped and rolled her head in sensuous pleasure as the older man assaulted first one and then the other of her big, pink nipples.
"We should!" laughed Vic.
Phil froze in shock, unable to believe his eyes. He'd come three thousand miles to find his former girl and to give her fame in a new career. A thousand nights since she'd left him in 1924 he'd dreamed wistfully of holding that firm yet feminine body in his arms and caressing that creamy, delectable skin, pillaging her rich charms once more. Her brilliant green eyes would go dazed with passion; her nipples of those high, full breasts would harden and her tight little cunt would gleam with desire juices.
Like most endurance swimmers, like Flair, Maddy had a voluptuous and sturdy body. She had strong flanks and buttocks, shapely arms, a graceful back and powerful, tapered thighs and calves. Her flesh was tight on her frame, and that clear ivory skin made her a lover's dream.
Only it was Phil's millionaire patron who held the girl in his arms, fixed his mouth to those nipples and kissed those well-shaped lips. Maddy moaned in desire.
As Phil watched, thunderstruck, Singleton peeled off the rest of Maddy's clothes and there she stood naked, exactly as Phil remembered her. Worse, she stood in the exact spot where Flair Singleton had jacked Phil off in her virgin lust, a little over two weeks ago.
Phil's cock began to thicken even as he stared in horror at the scene before him.
Vic who wore only a robe pulled the nude girl to the bed.
"Vic, is it safe?" asked Maddy.
"Sure, baby, they're all on shore with my water show, your uncle George, your ex-boyfriend, Texas Bunny and Flair. I gave orders for nobody to come aboard tonight. The crew and servants are all below."
"How is Phil?"
"That kid is the greatest. Did I tell you about Houdini?"
"I read the story and saw the pictures in the New York papers."
"Listen, wait till you hear the rest of it. I'm sponsoring an endurance swim way out on Catalina Island in California near Hollywood. Since Gertrude Ederle got her ticker tape parade in New York and became a national heroine, endurance swimmers are hot news."
"I saw her. They say she'll star at the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial and get $10,000 for it."
"And you can be the next Gertrude Ederle, baby. Listen."
Vic took off his robe, revealing his own nudity. An average-sized cock, very hard, jutted up from a nest of white-streaked pubic hair. The sight of it sickened Phil as did the realization that the older guy had a pretty good body. Phil guessed that bootlegging had kept old Singleton physically active. Maddy took hold of that rival cock and jogged it, while Vic rubbed his hand into the glossy black hair around Maddy's cunt and then fingered into her. They both moaned and made pleasure sounds of sexual arousal. "Mmmmmmm. Ah, ah."
Phil's cock was hard, and so were his fists. He burned to leap into that bedroom and kill Vic, but he was still too stunned to act.
"Your clever boyfriend, Phil…" Vic resumed.
"Ex-boyfriend," Maddy interjected.
"… has got it all fixed up," said Vic. "He has an agreement with the owners of Catalina Island to put on an all-invitational swim. Since I'm putting up the dough, it'll be the Victor Singleton Invitational Catalina Swim. It's open to everybody, amateur and professional. Dubs and pros. I'll get my name in every newspaper in the world because nobody's swum that channel yet, not on record. How do you like that?"
"It sounds great." Maddy leaned up on her elbow to look down at Vic. "I'm glad Phil's finally getting a break."
"Now comes the best part. You, Maddy Metcalf, will win that swim, Phil thinks. He wants to train you for the next two or three months. We put on the big swim next January. At that time of the year the island is dead. This brings in a thousand tourists which the owners like, which is why they've agreed to it."
"Oh, Vic!" breathed Maddy.
"We'll both be world famous!" cried Singleton. "Me as sponsor, you as swim winner. Then we can get married!"
"Oh, Vic!" cried Maddy.
It was as if someone had hit Phil with an axe. Married! It had gone that far!
"We are going to get married, aren't we?" asked Vic.
"I told you I would, lover," said Maddy. "First you had to give up bootlegging."
The fact that Vic wanted to marry Maddy and that she would accept him stopped Phil cold. Now he could not invade that bedroom to try to reclaim Maddy. He could only listen in agony. And watch… as Maddy leaned over Vic's body and sucked his prick into her mouth.
"Ohhhh, lover!" crooned Vic happily.
"Does Phil know about us?" asked Maddy, jacking off the man in the soft gleam of her saliva. "Does Flair?"
"Uh, so good! Flair suspects, but Phil doesn't know. I told him you nursed my mother when the old lady won't let anybody near her but Old Lady Cosgrove. Nobody knows you're on my payroll but working in New York charity wards until I could convince you to marry me."
"I'm ready," said Maddy.
Phil felt his world shatter. Everything he'd done for Maddy would fall into Vic's arms. His project… Vic had the money for that, he didn't. Vic and Maddy would come out on top of the Catalina swim. Worse, he'd actually removed the last barrier to their marriage by pulling Vic out of the rackets. Before that Maddy wouldn't marry him. He? He was no better than a servant, like those two thugs Vic used to keep with him. Even worse than that, he could hardly be angry at Vic. He'd deflowered Vic's daughter in front of the older man's eyes, just about. He had shot off his gun in the mouth of Vic's mistress as the man walked in on it. He owed Singleton something for that and Vic got it back now by taking his woman!
"There's one more hitch, Vic," said Maddy. Phil listened as hard as Vic did. "You'll have to get rid of Texas Bunny. She's your mistress."
"Ah, child, I'm through with that mixed-up broad. Do you know she actually wanted me to fuck her in the ass? Perverted! I've already walked away from that one!"
And who, thought Phil bitterly, made Texas bold enough to reveal her back door hang-up. I did by falling in with her fantasy.
"Such vulgar talk," said Maddy. "I don't want to hear any more."
Then Maddy gave a happy laugh, straddled the ex-bootlegger and fit his stiff shaft to her pink slit. They both bucked and Phil saw the ultimate horror, Vic's cock violate Maddy's precious cunt to take possession of her belly.
Tears stung Phil's eyes as he watched Maddy's elegant legs spread wide, Vic's prick work in and out of her belly and her white buttocks squeeze in ecstasy. He wanted to tear himself away, yet he could not. It was as if he had a penance to pay to watch his rival fuck his dream girl. He witnessed their carnal pleasure, their grunts and moans of rising passion, seeing the man's blade flash faster and faster into his beloved, decorated with her hot, willing juices. She flexed and keened in exquisite joy. It seemed forever before they rose to climax, but Phil watched it all. At last Vic held those white, round buttocks to lock Maddy's pelvis to his and gave a happy cry. "Oh, I'm gone!" and spurted his hot seed into her cunt.
"Vic, ohmigod!" responded Maddy. She gave up her own orgasm in healthy pleasure as Phil could tell from her paralyzed body, dazed eyes and loin jerks.
As they clung together, panting, glowing from their hot sex run, he could finally turn away in sorrow. Behind him the window leading on to the deck was big enough for him to escape through. He managed to get out on the deck, where he stood alone, staring up at a big moon that made the black waters of the bay glitter.
He'd swum out here alone. An hour before after the last show he'd met Flair as he strolled toward the Steel Pier heading for his boarding house. She told him Maddy had arrived and was on Vic's boat. She said they weren't supposed to go over there till morning; she was staying over with Texas. Even then he hadn't been suspicious.
But walking on alone he suddenly decided to surprise Maddy. He hid his clothes on shore and swam to the yacht, enjoying the cool night air. In these magic moments he was on top of the world. Once aboard the yacht he went straight to the bathroom for relief, and that was where Vic and Maddy trapped him and changed his life forever. In a single hour he'd been plunged from the heights to the depths.
A dripping figure came up onto the deck from the ladder. Moonlight glittered on the gleaming, nude figure of Flair Singleton, water drops like crystals.
"I saw you swim out," said the girl. "I figured I didn't want to spend the night on land either."
Phil was still in a state of shock. "Your father… Maddy. They're lovers! They plan to get married."
"I was afraid of that," said Flair. "He's been chasing that stupid broad for a long time."
"He… they… I saw them just now. They fucked!" cried Phil as if it were something beyond all human ken.
"You still love her," said Flair.
"No, of course not, I…"
Phil became aware of a shooting pleasure in his penis. He looked down. Both Flair's hands had closed over his hard-on. His prong was still rigid from the hot scene in the cabin.
"Oh, now," he said, startled.
"Texas has told me about oral sex. She gets great store on what she called 'cocksucking'. Will you teach me?"
"Flair, I…"
Phil wanted to say he was in no mood for sex. He never wanted to touch a woman again in his life. His soul was shattered and he'd been thinking of diving over the side of the yacht and sinking into the depths. He could see the shocked, sorrowful faces of Vic and Maddy as they stared down at his corpse in his coffin. How they'd regret their hot sex together!
Flair fell to her knees. She bent his cock down. She took it in her mouth. She sucked on it awkwardly. Phil felt a whisper of sexuality turn into a rush of pleasure.
"Now, Flair, dammit!" he protested.
"Teach me, Phil! I have to find out what suck is like."
"Oh, listen, I don't think I want to… ahhh!" Without thinking he bunted his cock into Flair's hot, sucking mouth, feeling the wetness, feeling the sexy ridge of her teeth drag over those sensitive cock nerves.
"It tastes like meat!" she exclaimed in surprise and seized his jong once again.
He howled. She'd bitten down too hard. He pulled her loose.
"What am I!" he cried. "Some kind of frigging sex teacher to all of Vic Singleton's women? Stop it!"
But she merely said, "You want it," and sucked in his prick again, this time softer but with elegant power. Incredible rushes of delight shot through his belly. He held onto her wet, silken head and fucked into her mouth with a groan. She was absolutely right. The lines of her naked body, glistening with water drops, the feel her outrageous, beautiful mouth on his rod, whipped up his lust right through all his sorrow and anger. But he tried one more time.
"Flair, I spend all my life getting into trouble over sex. For once I'd like to walk away from it. Control m-my… oh, my… lust. Do you understand?"
She stopped sucking on him and looked up at his face, her lovely features incredible in the moonlight.
"Teach me to suck," she said.
They were absolutely alone on the deck. He hadn't had relief since the anal trip with Texas two days before Houdini came. His pleasure nerves were on fire. He slid down to the deck, pulled the voluptuous girl flat beside him. He placed his cock at her mouth and his head at her cunt.
"I'll teach you the double suck!" he cried. He nuzzled his head into her crotch and found her cunt.
"Wup!" she said. "Hoooo." She shuddered in pleasure, scissored her legs around his head. "Texas didn't say it worked both ways."
He ran his tongue into her hot, wet vagina, stroking her stiffened clitoris. She gave a gasp of pleasure wounding. "Oh, my goodness! Oh, my soul!"
Vic's meat. Vic's beautiful young daughter, incredibly sexy, dumb, cold, phlegmatic. But underneath her father-repressed surface she might be an animal of lust.
"My cu… my box!" she whimpered. He remembered that she could not say "cunt". He inhaled a circle of her cunt flesh with her clit in the middle of it. He tongued on the girl's main sex nerve and thrilled to feel her whole, rich body quiver and jerk in exquisite pleasure. All he had to do was caress less than a cubic inch of flesh in her big body and he controlled the whole lovely carcass. He laughed in rueful humor. Drunks returned to the bottle. Sex destroyed him and he returned to sex. He gulped down her sweet gland juices, hot, exciting.
"Flair, have you had sex since that time with me?"
"No! I hate men. I'll never marry. I just wanted to try this one thing."
He hugged her firm but soft thighs in delight.
"You're a cold bitch," he laughed, "but I can fuck you. And suck you. I'll bet I could even cornhole you. I own you. You're helpless girl meat. I could even marry you if I wanted."
"No! No! I don't love you. I don't love anybody."
He felt wildly reckless. He pulled his head off her steaming, streaming box. "Then let's stop this sex right now."
She didn't answer. She just grabbed his cock and began to suck on it. He laughed in triumph and gripped her buttocks. She, too, had gorgeous hams, as rounded as Texas Bunny's but much more firm and muscular. He parted her mounds and ran his tongue up onto her ass pucker. She jerked as if shot.
"Holy mackerel!"
"Suppose I sucked out your cunt juices, pronged my tongue into your asshole and then rammed it into your mouth," he said. "You'd love that, wouldn't you, Flair."
"Holy mackerel!"
But he was through teasing her. He was burning hot with throw desire. Her body was moist with sex sweat and his words had inflamed her poor puritanical mind. She humped crazily on his mouth and tried to suck his blade. In a trembling voice, feeling the hot joy of her eager attempts on his prong, he instructed her on how to give him pleasure. He dug his tongue into her cunt, sucked more of her juices, fingered into her flowing vagina and kept up a steady rhythm on her clit. Her big body writhed in ecstasy and he could imagine her dazed, strained face as she experienced her first double trip of oral sex.
"Phil, it's crazy, wild. I never dreamed anything could feel so good. Oh, oh, oh."
He'd lost Maddy, he acquired Flair, whom he didn't particularly want. But the big, dumb kid was one hot sex package, sixty times better than masturbation.
She was in her pre-orgasmic distress now, bucking, gasping, hardly able to keep up her part of the suck. Her magnificent body heaved in her desire to surrender her womanhood to him. Once again he tongued up into her crack. Her seam was ripe now with her escaped cunt oils, very sexy. He pressed his tongue on her sphincter and worked it, knowing that the sensitive nerves that protected her life-necessary hole were set on fire. She responded.
"Yeeee," she went. "Yeeee!"
She came up to lock with a gasp of wonder. Those silken thighs clamped around his head. Her muscles tensed. Then she gave up her cunt to him. Throb, throb, throb. God, she did have a store of passion which, for some dumb reason, he was the one to reach. Keening "Oh, oh, oh," she gave him her full, complete orgasm with surprising openness. In the past he'd found that some shy girls remained shy in bed.
At last she fell back, spent, panting. "Phil, it was sooooo good."
He laughed and pulled her warm body on top of his. "Now it's my turn."
She'd learned her lesson well. In seconds she had him dizzy and grunting as she sucked, tongue and teased his prick with the bony ridge of her teeth.
"Oh, Flair. Close… close… getting there!" he crooned.
Then he passed the ineffable, inevitable boundary when it was no longer possible to stop his orgasm.
"Remember, drink!" he grunted as he slid into paralysis.
"I will!"
She sucked. He exploded.
Spurt, spurt, spurt. His jism was liquid fury, expended against his sorrow, his shock and his eternal lust. Flair held his cock in her mouth and drank off the spasms of relief and pleasure as he had ordered, milking him deliciously.
"Ah, Flair, drink! Ah, God, good!" he sang, letting it all go and spume out of him into her mouth, down her throat, his powerful manhood spurting what felt like a gallon of body-hot jism into her being. When he tapered, his prick felt immediately sensitive, so he withdrew it, catching his breath, delighted with the saliva sting on his blade, at all like sex. He kissed and nibbled Flair's satiny thighs in appreciation, and she responded in kind, the two of them stretched out flat and naked on the deck.
Footsteps. Suddenly he heard Maddy's voice.
"Oh, for heaven's sake!"
He looked up and there stood Maddy staring down on them, obviously seeing what had happened. Maddy was fully dressed. She was alone.
"Pig!" she cried. "Filthy, disgusting. Phil, you haven't changed a bit in two years. You're a regular sex maniac!"