The girls very seldom met, and then only the context of school. Once a week only Wes would set up an appointment for each with some john in a discreet apartment he'd rented in an oasis of residences just outside the heart of Metropolis, and there they turned their tricks. Wes handled the finances and was, so far as she could tell, generous in the gifts and allowances he made them. But it wasn't the money that they worked for, it was Wes himself in Maryon's own case even the sex got to be a bore, when it was not with him. For the black took the trouble to give her the semblance of loving, a least, and made sure that she was ready to bounce and blow before he got his own rocks off in her. But it was the whole put-on bit that really intrigued her and kept her with him. She had no intention of making a career out of hustling, but his idea of using 'Higher Education' to promote his own hustler's career kept her in a state of inner amusement. Unlike the other four times, Maryon didn't intend to drop out of school and spend the next few years of her life on her back. She had a pretty good idea of what kind of future there was in that! When, the following year, she was accepted at Central U. and told Wes she'd be moving upstate, he quite cheerfully wished her luck and let her go, after one glorious sneaked night of fucking with him in the apartment that left her bruised and happily weak, and owner of three single hundred dollar bills.
At Central she found herself thrust again into a new environment – the 'new kid' at school all over again, but this time she was in no way eager to gain the friendship, or even attention, of any of the several thousand students who bustled the campus. Lois had managed to scrape up some money, chiefly out of Burt, though he complained he had enough to do supporting Michael at college… and with Wes' three hundred she was easily able to escape the dormitories and sororities and take a couple of rooms of her own, a basement apartment off the beaten track so far as students were concerned, with its own entrance, and beneath a house whose owner used it infrequently.
Mike gave her a desultory hand at fixing it up, moving a few sticks of furniture in, knocking nails, helping to hang drapes over one weekend… but otherwise didn't interfere with her life in any way. Remembering Karen's room back in Glenville, Maryon draped all the walls, blocking out the window and designing a heavily curtained air-lock for the doors, so that her storage space was all behind the thick cloth hangings, these on runners so that she could reveal her bookshelves, her record-player, her desk, and other possessions whenever she wanted to use them. Her bed was a box-spring and mattress, double-size, which sat in the middle of the smaller room, with yards of brightly colored cloth shielding it from the floor to ceiling like a tent. She rarely went out and most of the time she wasn't studying was devoted to reading Mead, Goodman, Wylie, Rubin, Reubin… the Barb, Realist, Eyergreen and Avant Garde; and listening to Baez, Collins, Stones, Beatles, Dylan, Shankar.
Anthropology was her chosen field and she gained many useful sexual insights from it. She was all but through with The Naked Ape when she met Carver and it was memories of that book that still, floating in her head, led to her shacking up with him in spite of her self-promise to keep out of the world as much as possible.
For once Mike had invited her to one of his pot parties. Wes had been almost puritanic about keeping his chicks off of anything stronger than aspirin and so this was her first experience with shit. With Mike around, she didn't figure she'd come to any harm, so when the others in the lowlit crowded room began to pass the joints around, she freely let herself go and so, perhaps, took in more than she should have of the acrid, rough-edged smoke. She soon got the hang of toking, though, and while at first she was a little uptight about her dizziness and the strange way the stuff affected her sight and hearing, it wasn't long before she was comfortably sprawled out on the cushions and relaxing. Next to her was Carver, a heavy-set blond boy, a contemporary of Mike's, apparently, who'd gone out of his way to talk to her throughout the evening, a bit to her annoyance. But his tanned face was almost simian, with great, jutting white-browed porches over his deep-set blue eyes, an unlined, symmetrically rectangular forehead, and arms that seemed too long for his squat and muscular body.
The low light glinted on the hairs of his forearm and the sight delighted her. She giggled. She reached out with one slim hand and began to tousle and stroke the little coils of gold wire. She knew what she had, and where, that would match them. She thought about it. Which was golder? Ho, could she find out? She giggled again. Carver leaned over her and asked what was so funny. She giggled like a child, wouldn't tell him, acting coy. He shrugged, bent down and kissed her. There seemed to be an animal musk about him. She continued to stroke his arm, squinting to keep it in focus. She rested his hand on her shirted belly, for convenience. In a moment she felt his fingers insinuate themselves between two button spaces. Casually she popped the three lower buttons and his hand cupped her navel. She continued to twist his hairs about her fingers. He flattened his hand and worked his fingertips under the edge of her belted jeans. Without thinking about where she was, she obligingly sucked in her belly and thrilled as he boldly slid his hand beneath her panties, over the curve of her belly, and pressed with one finger at its base. He pulled her up against him, half sitting, and brought his other arm about her, running his hand up under her partly opened shirt until it reached her bare breast. His exclamation of admiration caused her to bridge through her fuzzy funny feelings and she thrust herself forward so that her nipple rested against his fingers. She drew her legs up, forcing his other hand down between her thighs and jerked pleasurably as he laid a finger into her slot, rolling it a bit to part her moist lips.
"Hey… Maryon! Let's get to bed and out of here," he whispered in her ear.
"Oh, sure," she murmured, beginning to get turned on and wanting the feel of a prick in her after her several months of abstinence, all the old sensations coming back to her. He looked as though he might be as good a stud as the next. "But I don't know if Mike'll let us, here."
"We'll go to your place. I'll drive," he said, squeezing her erecting nipple.
"What about your place, Carver? Do you have a chick stashed there? Oh, I don't care, anyway." She clamped her thighs on his fingering hand.
"Don't have a place… or a chick," he replied. "Been crash-padding here with Mike. Get yourself in gear, chick, I'll pick up some shit and we'll split."
Abruptly his hands were withdrawn from her. She was, for the moment, disappointed. But later? When was later? Why not now? Oh, well… She took a couple of deep tokes from the next joint that came her way, and drifted into a waking dream. Return of blond ape Carver. Button your shirt, Maryon, m'girl. Huh, okay. 'Bye and see' yuh to Mike. Kiss from Mike and have fun, Sis. Yuh, will do. Cold night air. Car. Week-long night-time drive, how pretty all those lights, and the reds and greens and yellows, stop-go-wait stop-go-wait. Hah! home. Matches? Matches? Oh, yeah… for the joints. Joints? All this mine? Big fat motherfucker of a joint, big as m'pinkie. Wow, man… hey, bed's over here. Yuh, fix y'self a sandwich. Wheeeeee! on the bed. Get these Goddamn pants off! Huuuhhhhmmmm, yeah, man. This is good stuff, uh? Hey, now that's not fair. I've got my pants off, wassamatter with you… with yours, huh!!?
Later Maryon was to remember sitting cross-legged on the bed, wearing her unbuttoned shirt only, drawing huge drags on the joint, watching Carver, naked, unconcerned, also cross-legged, facing her. Somewhere along about then was the time he began to rub her clitoris with his big toe, but most of the night was a blur. In the late morning when she awoke to find him still peacefully sleeping there, she remembered his muscular body, with its flats and planes, as hairy as a golden ape, covered with crisp yellow matted fur. She was naked and her cunt was sore, though she couldn't remember the fucking that had caused it. She pulled down the black satin-like sheet until he was exposed, flat on his back, and looked at him. Even his balls were furry, though only a few stray strands of long golden hair decorated the lower part of his now flaccid cock. Brushing her own long golden hair back from her face, determined to really enjoy him now that she was in her own mind, she let her heavy breasts dangle down onto his hard belly and took to kissing him there. With one hand working on his hard and hairy balls and her expert mouth pulling and sucking at his limp prick, it wasn't too long before it showed signs of life and lust, springing up like a newly awakened flower.