“I like them this way.”
“I hope they don’t get any bigger.”
“They’re perfect now.”
She smiled happily. She leaned forward. “Go ahead,” she teased. “Kiss them.”
He took a breast between his hands and put it to his lips. His hands went around her then, touching the smooth skin of her shoulders, moving down over her back to her buttocks.
Melons, he thought. She’s a collection of melons. Melons in front, and melons behind.
His fingers moved and teased her. She wriggled, her face flushed, her eyes wild. He could see the heat building in her, could see how much she wanted it.
She raised her body, squirming crazily and small animalistic sounds came from her mouth. He nipped at her nipple with his teeth, then drew his lips away and looked at her face. Her lips were very red and she was not wearing any lipstick. Her eyes were shining, her forehead dotted with fine points of perspiration.
“You like to play games,” she breathed. “I can play games too. Nice games.”
He reached for her and she pulled away.
“Lie still, Johnny.”
He lay still. Then she dropped on top of him again, her lips busy with his neck.
Her lips moved over his body and he grew so tense that he could barely see straight. This was fourteen years old? She acted more like an experienced waterfront prostitute than a schoolgirl. She knew more tricks than Houdini.
He was trembling.
Then she was sitting up, her hair tossed angrily over her shoulders and her breasts rampant.
“No more games,” she moaned. “No more getting ready. Now, Johnny. Now!”
She rolled over and he took her. She cried out and moaned from start to finish. It did not take long — they were both too keyed-up to go on for long. It was fast and it was furious. It began and it raced forward with blinding speed, until the top was reached.
They both cried out at once into the night, cried out clearly and sharply in a single voice, cried out and were silent.
Then it was over.
Slowly, gradually, the world came back into focus. Johnny Wells lay on his back, his eyes open again now, his breathing and heartbeat back to normal. He was bathed in sweat from head to foot, sweat that was half his and half hers. He reached for a pack of cigarettes, found them, then fumbled around for matches. He shook two cigarettes loose from the pack, lit them both at once with a single match, and passed one to her.
She took it without a word, and he thought for a split-second that she wasn’t really old enough to smoke, and then he remembered what they had just finished doing, and he decided that he was wrong, she was old enough to do anything in the world — and do it damn well.
He broke the silence.
“Tired?”
“A little.”
“That was good, Linda. Real good.”
“Uh-huh.”
Suddenly he wanted to look at her. What the hell — he was never going to see her again. It would be nice to remember what she looked like.
He turned, saw her lying on her side with a warm satiated grin on her face, and he thought that maybe he would see her again. What the hell, he thought. He could always drop back once in a while to see what the neighborhood looked like. And he could give her the benefit of a quick fling while he was around. Sort of for old time’s sake.
He leaned back, settled down again and looked at the ceiling. He flicked ashes from his cigarette to the floor. Then he remembered something he had half-seen before when he had talked to her. There had been something, but he couldn’t remember what it was.
He turned on his side.
He saw the red stains.
His mind reeled. His first thought was that somehow he had hurt her. Then and only then did it dawn on him. The possibility had seemed so far-fetched that he didn’t think of it for several seconds. When he did he realized it was the only explanation.
She had been a virgin.
He touched her shoulder, shook her, then pointed wordlessly. She looked and blushed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m sorry, Johnny.”
“I didn’t think... I mean—”
“I was afraid to tell you,” she said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t want to with somebody who never did it before. And I thought you would be able to tell anyway once we got started. You know.”
“Did it hurt much?”
“Just at first and only a little. And then everything started to get so good that I didn’t care, and then it didn’t hurt at all and I thought I was going to die from being so happy.”
“You should have told me.”
She shrugged. “I suppose so. But I was afraid you wouldn’t want to do it. I mean, I’m pretty young.”
“Fourteen?”
“Fourteen and two months. And you were thinking I was too young all along, weren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“I could tell. So I figured I shouldn’t tell you because I wanted you so bad it was hurting me and I didn’t want you to kick me out. Besides, it’s not like I never did anything with a boy before. I never went all the way but I came close a few times.”
They lapsed into silence. He’d never been one to place much of a premium on copping a girl’s honor. It was more a public service than anything else at least as far as he was concerned.
But now, surprisingly, he was strangely pleased that he had been the first with her. He didn’t know exactly why he felt the way he did. It didn’t make any sense, not when he added it all up and worked it out in his mind. But when all was said and done he was still glad that he had been first with her, happy that things had gone as they had.
It wasn’t pride that he had seduced her. What the hell — if anything, it had been the other way around. He hadn’t seduced her; she had in fact seduced him.
Still, he was pleased.
“Johnny?”
He rolled over again and dropped an arm over her. Maybe she was ready again. He wondered if she felt like a second round.
“You like me, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”
“Would you like it if I came to your apartment every once in a while? So we can do this again?”
He dropped a hand to her breast.
“Oh,” she said happily. “Oh, I get it. You want to do it again now!”
“Yeah,” he said. “Why not?”
The second time was at least as good as the first. And after it was over she rested in his arms, a smile on her face.
“I asked you a question,” she said.
“I forget.”
“If you’d want me to come bother you like this every once in a while. If you want for us to do this again. Or if you don’t want to see me any more.”
He took a deep breath. “Linda,” he said, “I like you. And I like to make it with you.”
She was smiling. Well, he thought, let her smile her head off. It wouldn’t hurt him.
“You come over any time you want,” he told her. “Any time. I’ll always be glad to see you.”
“I was hoping you would say that.”
“I mean it.”
She grinned, then got up from the bed and picked her yellow towel up from the floor. She wrapped it easily around her body.
“I better go now,” she said. “Back to my own place. My mother would be teed off if I wasn’t there when she woke up. She needs me so she can send me out for more wine.”
He watched her as she took the two-by-four from its place, opened the door, blew him a kiss and departed. For a fourteen year old kid she was hell on wheels. There was no arguing about it — she was a bomb.
He bolted the door himself, then went back to bed. Sure, he thought, she could come to his room any time she wanted. What the hell did he care? Let her come. She’d get a surprise.
He wouldn’t be there.
At two o’clock in the afternoon Johnny Wells walked into the Port Authority Bus Terminal on Eighth Avenue just below Times Square. He was wearing his levis and his leather jacket, and his Ivy cut looked wrong with them. He carried a suitcase in each hand. The suitcases were brown top-grain cowhide and they’d cost him twenty dollars each, earlier that day, in a leather goods shop on Broadway. He also carried a shoe box under each arm since the shoes hadn’t fit into his suitcases.