But then there was her other problem. She had been looking at the calendar and calculating and she realised that she had put herself in a terrible predicament. If only she had not meddled in Curt's business. If only she had not allowed Ike Harvey to arouse her all too healthy sexual responses and seduce her in his office. If only she had not gone back there today.
There was a knock on the door and she let Sue in and she could not restrain herself from throwing her arms around her friend and bursting into tears. Sue took her and led her to the couch.
"All right, kid, tell me about it."
Kim dried her cheeks and tried to speak. "Everything is
going down the tubes," Kim moaned. "It's getting out of control."
Sue patted her shoulder sympathetically. "So tell me about it. There's got to be a reason, something must have happened and I can't tell you what to do until I know what it is."
Kim paused, then blurted it out. "I did it again today. Twice."
Sue tried not to laugh. "So that makes you like about half the married women in this country. Did you like it? Again?"
"Of course. I couldn't help myself. That's not the point."
"You're having an affair with your husband's boss. Big
deal. Someday, Curt'll probably have an affair with his
secretary. You need it, your body needs it. If it feels good."
"Sue," Kim said impatiently. "I'm not on the pill. I don't know anything about birth control. I never planned to stop myself from having babies."
Sue stared at her for a long time. "Well, you'd better get yourself on the pill. The thing is, you won't be safe for a month after you start on them."
"It might be too late. My period finished a week ago.
These are my fertile days."
"You won't know until you start missing. In the meantime, you'd better tell Curt's boss he'll have to lay off until you can get on the pill or something."
Kim dropped her eyes and said softly, "It wasn't Curt's boss. Not today. He made me do it with some horrible fat man with a bald head and with a big black man from Africa."
Sue smiled and held up her two hands. "I know, with a cock this big."
"Bigger."
Sue's eyes grew wide. "How'd you like to introduce me to
this black man?"
"Susie!" Kim cried in exasperation. "I need your advice."
Sue spoke evenly, looking straight into Kim's eyes. "You want my advice? I'll tell you. You like fucking, so fuck. All you want. Men aren't faithful to us, why should we be faithful to them? Forget your conscience, just get to the doctor and get some pills. You're nineteen years old, girl. Enjoy it while you can."
"But it hurts!" she protested. "Bernard the man from Africa he's so big. My-my pussy aches."
"Does it ache good," Sue bantered, "or does it ache bad?"
Kim paused. "Good. It aches good." Kim covered her face with her hands and laughed ruefully. "Oh Sue, I love it, I love it, I love it. How will I ever be able to stop?"
Sue began laughing. And laughing. Until tears filled her eyes. "Worry about that when you have to stop," Sue said. "In the meantime, if you need some help with that African fella, let me know. Is he good-looking?"
Kim gave her friend a disgusted look. "I don't know what a good-looking African is supposed to look like but he's big and strong."
"And tell me how it was," Sue urged. "How did he do it?"
Kim dropped her eyes. "From behind. Like a dog."
"Smashing! Hard and deep?"
"Hard and deep. His thing was so long and thick."
"Circumcised?"
"No, I don't think so. I don't know much about those things."
"Did he have big balls?"
Kim was blushing furiously. She giggled nervously. "Enormous."
Sue leaned forward, her cheeks hot, her eyes wide. "Tell me more. Stroke for stroke."
"Oh God!" Kim groaned. "Sue, you're such a pervert!"
"Tell me," Sue cajoled.
Kim hesitated, wanting to tell, but ashamed. "He put his
finger in me back there. In-in my pooper."
Sue guffawed. "Pooper! Baby, it's called an asshole."
"In my asshole," Kim said, pleased with the ease with which the word came from her lips. She had never said that before.
"What else?"
Kim hesitated for a long time. "He came. Inside me. Put his sperm into me."
Sue closed her eyes. "Mmmm. You're living some kinda life, Kimmy-loo."
"There's something else, too," Kim said. "And it has nothing to do with sex. They're dealing in cocaine."
Sue stopped. "Are you kidding?"
"Why would I kid you about that?"
"How do you know? Did they tell you?"
"I heard them talking about it."
Sue shrugged. "Well, what else is new? I know lots of coke dealers. They've got the bread. And they don't mind giving a girl a taste of the spoils. Don't worry about that, just stay away from their business. All you care about is a little bit of fucking and little bit of money."
"But," Kim questioned, "doesn't that make me something of a whore?"
"Babydoll, fucking is for fun and a gift is a gift."
Kim shook her head. "This just isn't my kind of thing," she
complained.
"It is until Curt finds a better job. Remember, if you hadn't tried to be smart yesterday, you wouldn't be in this mess. And don't expect Curt to be understanding about it because he won't. All you can do is hope he won't be there much longer."
Kim nodded woodenly, holding up her hands with fingers crossed. "I'm going to hope and pray that he can find a job somewhere else, in another state. That he hates it so much here he'll go out and get something better."
Just then, Curt came in the front door, his face beaming with a smile reminiscent of the Cheshire Cat. "Guess what, darling. Something's broken for us. I think I might be going to work for Manson and Harvey for a long time."
Kim sat on the toilet with the bathroom door locked counting the contents of the envelope. It came to a thousand dollars! She couldn't believe it! She had never seen so much money all at once in her life. In one afternoon she had been given as much money as Curt made in a month. It seemed obscene that anyone could make such money just making love. Curt had never paid her anything. And her mouth twisted into a wry little smile at that thought.
Kim replaced the money very carefully in her purse so that Curt would not chance upon it. She pulled a good length of paper from the toilet roll and wiped herself carefully, flushed the toilet and stepped into the shower. She washed herself very thoroughly and washed her hair so that when Curt was close to her, he would not smell the other men on her. She scrubbed her skin especially hard to remove any visible evidence, Bernard's fingerprints on her buttocks, or fat Henry Manson's lip-prints on her breasts. Curt was in bed, wide awake and smiling, waiting for her and Kim wanted it to be good. In spite of the day's activities, she was already wet between the legs at the thought of having Curt make love to her again.