(Bleep) Spurk! With this rig, you couldn't see the
man's own face! Heller had used the same trick he had played in Connecticut! As he was wearing black cotton gloves, I hadn't seen his hands and neither had anyone else.
I watched with great care. And I confirmed it in the pilothouse window reflection at last. Heller was black-faced! And blacks all look alike to whites. No wonder the day had looked so beautifully hazeless! He was wearing tan contact lenses!
(Bleep) Heller! How can you keep up with such a man!
I did the only thing I could do, then. I phoned the harbor master at Atlantic City. I told him, "I am a Fed. I have to advise you that an attempt will be made to board and blow up the Golden Sunset sometime later today or tonight."
"Good Christ!" he said. "Blowing up a ship that size would make a harbor obstruction!" He was horrified.
"Precisely," I said. "So alert the ship and put her under arms. Don't let any vessels approach her, particularly the Coast Guard."
"Coast Guard?" he said. "Why not?"
"They're not all they're cracked up to be," I said. "They lose ships right and left and won't listen. But here is the important part: the saboteur is a black man, the most evil and deceptive (bleepard) anyone ever saw. If you catch a glimpse of him, don't even challenge. Just shoot on sight."
He promised faithfully he would.
The afternoon was waning and I could see, as Heller looked at a chart and spotted his position, that he must be doing only ten knots or less and that it would be hours before he came abreast of Atlantic City.
It was just as well. The girls were home as I could hear. Quite a hubbub. They were not alone.
Presently Pinchy or Adora or Mrs. Sultan Bey-or whatever the Hells her name was now-came to my door and peered in. "You can watch TV later," she said. "Come on, you (bleepard), and do your husbandly duties!"
Very mindful they could have me arrested for bigamy and thrown in the clink if I did not please, I put on a robe, patted my face plaster so the edges would not lift, and went out.
Two lesbians were there. Mike, a somewhat sallow woman of thirty-five, dressed in very mannish clothes, was smoking a joint in a long holder and swinging her leg as she sat on the arm of a chair. She was not bad-looking really, though awfully tall. Mildred, the other one, might have been twenty-five: she had a rosy complexion, was soft and round and quite pretty. She was eyeing me with a speculative smile. Neither one of them looked like they were going to perish during the reeducation into sex and I started to feel better.
And then I saw the other one! She was standing back of Candy in a corner. TEENIE! What the Hells was she doing back here?
I said to Adora, "WHAT THE HELLS IS SHE DOING BACK HERE?"
"Oh, pish, pish and tush, tush," said Adora. "She felt she didn't have it right. As an adult, dear husband, one has certain responsibilities, as you should learn. These consist of making sure the young are properly educated. How would you feel if you let her grow up to womanhood with totally wrong conceptions and conditionings in the field of sex?"
"I'd feel great!" I said, eyeing this bony, scrawny specimen with her proclivity for sinking nails in faces at the slightest (bleep).
"Well, that may be, dear husband," said Adora, "but Teenie is an opportunity. During her slack time in licking stamps for Rockecenter's office, who knows? He might proposition her and (bleep) her on his desk when Miss Peace isn't looking. And if Teenie knew her business and Rockie had a real (bleep), it might cure him of this God (bleeped) determination to push Psychiatric Birth Control. So it is of vital necessity that we educate the young, whatever you may think. Besides, she's just here to watch and take pictures so she can develop the knack."
"Ignore me," said Teenie, her huge hazel eyes entreating. "I promise to be very quiet and very good. I love spectator sports but I won't even cheer. I promise."
There was no arguing with five women. I opened my robe and Mike, the tall one, went kind of white. "Jesus!" she said.
Right away the others saw she was going to pull a last minute sales rejection and say she did not want the item
after all. They grabbed her. They pulled off her oxfords. They turned her upside down and shucked her out of her pants. Her shirt went flying through the air, followed by her very masculine BVDs. Her breast compressor hit the wastebasket. "After tonight," Adora told her, "you won't want that again, ever."
Adora got behind me and gave a mighty shove. "Have at her, dear husband."
The clamshell top of the bed vibrated and Candy hastily grabbed it as it shook, preventing it from falling down.
Mike's face, close under me, showed wonder as she said, "Oh, it isn't a falsie after all! Oh, you're wonderful!"
Here was appreciation! She was...
FLASH!
For an instant I thought we had been hit with spaceship landing-preparation blueflash and got all ready to go unconscious. I didn't. I stared around.
Teenie! That Gods (bleeped) kid had a flash camera! She had just taken a picture.
To Hells with her. With determination I got back at it.
Adora was smiling indulgently as Mike crooned, "Oh, you honey baby!"
Mildred was bobbing her head in expectant rhythm as Mike cried, voice throbbing with passion, "I have never, never, never felt anything so wonderful. A real MAN!"
I grinned with the compliment and concentrated as she moaned.
FLASH!
There it was again! Gods (bleep) it, it took my mind off it utterly!
I gritted my teeth. I got going again.
Teenie was struggling with her camera.
I kept one eye on her. I must beat her to the draw!
The whole bed quaked and the clamshell top tried to come down but Candy grabbed and held it.
I rested for a moment, panting, and then gave Teenie a sneer. I'd beaten her!
Adora was in there with her usual pitch as soon as Mike had come around. And Mike said, yes, oh, yes indeed! Emphatically! That was the end of biting and scratching. And using Polish sausages for dildos.
Now it was Mildred's turn. But frankly, I felt sort of under a strain. Nerves.
Candy was very nice. She took me into the shower and turned it on and it did help a little. A few minutes later I came back. Mildred was lying on the bed, sheet held up under her chin, looking at me speculatively.
Teenie was having trouble with her camera. Adora was fixing it for her. My restored ardor deflated.
"No more of that!" I said angrily. "Send her home and right now, at once!"
"But her education," said Adora.
"I don't give a (bleep) if she's a dropout," I said. "Get her out of here!"
"Oh, pish, pish and tush, tush," said Adora. "You have no feeling for the young."
But I was having trouble. Adora got a joint. She shoved it into my mouth and lit it. I took a puff. She hit me in the stomach and I exhaled violently. She jammed the joint into my mouth and when I pulled my breath back in, a whole city of smog came with it. I coughed but the stuff was in my lungs. The walls began to recede and draw near.
Adora sat me down and got me to smoking quietly.
Mike stumbled over and sat down beside me. Her
eyes were filled with wonder as she petted my shoulder. It did marvelous things for my morale and I began to take confidence.
Adora gave me a persuasive pull toward the bed.
Mildred watched me approach, expectantly.
Candy made sure the bed-top shell was hooked more solidly to the wall but it had already begun to move. She looked down at the bed appreciatively.
Mike smiled as she watched in dreamy knowingness as the moans started up.
FLASH!
I came straight off the bed!