“Just leave everything to me,” he said. “You’re going to have clean clothes and a hundred bucks, and then I’ll drive you to Xenia and you can catch a night train to New York. You don’t have a thing to worry about, April I’ll take care of everything.”
He was turning the car around now. He drove a mile on 68, then turned off onto a winding dirt road. The car splashed water from puddles in the middle of the road.
“Got to find a place for you to stay,” he said. “While I go find those clothes for you.”
“Where will you get them?”
“My sister,” he said. “She’s about your size and she won’t miss a few clothes. I’ll get the clothes and the money and come back for you. Meanwhile I know a place where you can stay.”
“Where?”
“A barn. There’s an old barn along this road — we used to hack around out here when we were kids. Nobody’ll bother you. Hell, nobody ever goes there any more. You can relax and dry off while I get the clothes and the money.”
“The money,” she said.
“Yeah. A hundred dollars. That’ll be enough for you, won’t it?”
“Of course. But where will you get it?”
He chucked her under the chin. “Don’t you worry about a thing,” he said confidently. “I’ve got a pretty good idea where I’ll get it. Don’t worry, April.”
The barn was old and sagging, weatherbeaten and ready to crumble. But it was better on the inside than out. First of all, the interior was dry. Although the roof leaked in a dozen or more spots, there was one huge section where no rain dripped through, and that section was comfortable enough. The floor was covered with hay and dead leaves. The barn had a barnlike smell which she did not find unpleasant. This was certainly a hell of a lot better than wandering around in the rain.
“You’ll be okay here,” Danny said.
“Sure.”
He was looking at her now, his eyes warm. She saw how he was staring at her breasts and she knew what was on his mind. He was not exactly hard to figure out
“All this hay,” he said. “Sort of a shame to let a place like this go to waste.”
“Is that what you did when you used to come here?”
“We were just kids then,” he said. “But now things are a little different.”
She did not want to make love with him. She did not want to make love with anybody, Danny Duncan least of all. She wanted, in fact, only to be away from Antrim and on her way to New York. But he was getting her dry clothes, was giving her a hundred dollars, and was driving her to Xenia — perhaps he deserved something in return. And she had only one thing to give.
So she offered no resistance when he came to her, taking her in his arms and pressing his mouth against hers in a kiss. At first she merely stood still like a robot, but then she realized that she might as well make it good, that he had probably never had a very experienced girl and that she could give him something he would never forget.
She ground against him, her loins seeking his, her mouth hot and demanding. She felt nothing, nothing at all, but her lack of feeling he would never have to know about. She would make it good for him.
He let her go and stepped back.
She looked at him, at the strong athlete’s body. She felt no burst of passion, no rush of desire. In a sense, she was entirely cold-blooded about what she was going to do.
“Now, Danny.”
He came to her again, embraced her, and they tumbled to the floor. She felt leaves and hay under her body, pricking her flesh a little, getting her itchy. She drew him down upon her and burned his mouth with a kiss. He was hotter than a two-dollar pistol now, she thought, and she herself was cooler and more accomplished than a two-dollar whore. Her tongue was in his mouth, doing wonderful things and driving him wild, and he was squirming on top of her, writhing with excitement.
He moved, his hands grabbing for her breasts. He squeezed the mounds of flesh, stroked them, patted them. She felt nothing, but she knew enough to feign excitement. She wriggled on the hay carpet, thrusting up her hips and softly moaning.
“You’re the greatest, April. I never saw anybody like you. Never!”
She took one of his hands from her breast and moved it downward slowly, over her flat stomach. He touched her with greedy fingers, and she went on with her pantomime of passion, squirming and moaning as if his actions were exciting to her.
She thrashed beneath him, taking up the rhythm of love with the intensity of a dynamo, driving him outward and upward, making him moan and shriek with passion unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He bit her shoulder, cried her name to the skies.
Then he finished.
She held him for a moment, thinking that he was a child and that she was an old and sinful woman. She remembered the woman in Marseilles that Craig had talked about. Give me another twenty years, April North thought.
He got up slowly, his face flushed, his eyes wide. “That was — pretty great,” he said.
“I’m glad you liked it.”
He took a deep breath, held on to it for a moment, then let it out slowly. “I’d better get dressed,” he said. “Better get going. So I can get the clothes and the money for you.”
“Leave some cigarettes,” she said.
“Sure.”
“And some matches.”
“Yeah, I will.”
“And hurry back,” she said.
She did not bother to get dressed. The clothes were wet and to put them on again would have been ridiculous. Instead she sat on a pile of loose hay and smoked three cigarettes one after the other. She did not think about anything in particular at the beginning. She merely sat on the pile of hay — which tickled her rear end slightly — and smoked the cigarettes. She put them out carefully. It would not do if the whole barn went up in a sheet of flame. People would be annoyed.
The time with Danny, she reflected, had been sort of interesting. It had done nothing to her, despite the incredible effect it had had upon him. The interesting part was the way she could turn on all her passion and still not feel a thing. Maybe that was the secret of a prostitute, she thought. Give the man his money’s worth without losing any of your reserve. A valuable talent, no doubt. If everything went wrong in New York as it had gone so irremediably wrong in Antrim, she could always cash in on her ultimate negotiable asset and become a prostitute. She evidently had a bent for it
No, she thought. No, Danny Duncan had been the first and Danny Duncan would be the last. She was going to be good from here on out. She was going to get out of town, start fresh somewhere else, and this time everything would work itself out. She sat naked, smoking, letting her wet skin dry as the cool air hit it, and she waited for Danny to come back with clothes and money.
She heard a car and sprang to her feet. The car braked, and she ran to the door, keeping her naked body hidden and craning her neck to see who had arrived.
Not one car.
Five cars.
Each car stopped in turn. Doors flew open and boys piled out. About twenty of them, all with excited glints in their eyes and funny expressions on their faces. She recognized most of them; they were classmates at Antrim High, members of the senior class. She saw Jim Bregger, the fat pimply kid who had tried to date her when Danny had declared open season on April North. She saw other boys, and all of them were coming toward the barn.
Danny was leading them.
The rest waited outside. Danny came on in, and April stared at him. He tossed her a bundle of clothes — a wool plaid skirt, a yellow sweater, underwear and socks and shoes.
“Here you go,” he said. “But don’t put ’em on yet, April.”