"We can if you pull your robe together," Sharon said.
Elaine looked at her with mock surprise. "Does it bother you?"
"I'm only human, after all."
Elaine smiled and drew one side of the robe over her lap. "That better?"
Sharon crossed her legs. "I thought maybe you might be able to help me, Elaine," she said.
"Oh?"
"I don't know just how, but I'm going to clear my name." She took a deep breath. "You'll probably think I'm crazy to even try it. But it's just something I have to do. After all, I've got to live with myself the rest of my life."
Elaine nodded slowly. "I've always felt a little guilty about that," she said. "About introducing you to Mark Haley, I mean. If I'd even dreamed he was the kind of man he was…"
"I know," Sharon said. "You aren't responsible for anything at all, Elaine. But I had to start somewhere. All I can do is talk to people, and maybe…" She broke off for a moment. "I know it must sound insane, but somehow I'm going…"
"It's insane – and dangerous," Elaine said. "Take my advice, sweetie. Forget it."
"I can't. Ever."
"All hell's about to break loose, Sharon. If you're not careful, you'll be right in the middle of it."
"What?"
"I would have warned you anyhow – whether you brought it up or not. I wouldn't want to see you get hurt, Sharon."
"What are you talking about?"
Elaine studied her for a moment. "I saw Mark Haley two nights ago," she said. "For the first time since he skipped bail."
"Where?"
"Right here. As soon as I saw who it was, I tried to slam the door in his face. But he got his foot in it and shoved his way inside. My husband wasn't here, and it scared the hell out of me."
"What'd he want?"
"He was just horny, probably. But he was so drunk he forgot about it. He was raving about what he was going to do to the people who had double-crossed him on that jewelry store robbery." She paused. "He was here pretty near an hour, and I don't think he stopped talking once."
"What did he say about the robbery?"
"Well, he didn't say anything directly, you know. It was just bits and pieces. Then he'd go on to something else. But he'd come back to it. And after a while I could sort of put two and two together."
"But what did he say, Elaine?"
"Well, first of all, I think that girl in the jewelry store was in on it. The girl clerk."
"Peggy Campbell?"
"If that's her name. He didn't mention it. But anyhow, he hinted around that she set it up."
"How?"
"By telling Mark when the owner would be out of the shop for a while. And by having all the right stones and pieces waiting for him when he walked in. And by telling the police he had a stocking over his head, so she couldn't identify him."
"Peggy Campbell," Sharon said thoughtfully. "I saw her two or three times, while they were questioning people at the police station. A real sweet-faced, innocent-looking little thing."
"Is she? Well, she's also a parolee – or she was at the time of the robbery. Aggravated assault, I think Mark said."
"That girl? Aggravated assault?"
"I gathered she didn't want to set it up. She had to."
"What?"
"Her parole officer made her. Mark said if she hadn't gone along, her parole officer would have sent her back to prison. The parole officer would have trumped up a violation of parole, he said. So the girl had no choice."
A terrible suspicion came to Sharon. "What was her parole officer's name?" she asked.
"He didn't say."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. He did say she made a habit of such things, though. I mean, forcing the girls under her to set up crimes." She paused. "And other things."
"Other things?"
"Well, he said she helped only the prettiest girls to get out on parole. I thought at first he meant she was a butch. But later I got the impression she wanted only the pretty ones so she could make them take part in orgies or something. I could be wrong, but that's the way it seemed to add up. Mark was almost falling-down drunk, remember. Half the time he didn't make any sense at all."
Elaine's robe had fallen away again, and now she put her hand between her legs, slipped a finger into her cunt, and began to frig herself slowly and deeply.
Sharon looked at the moist finger sliding in and out of the puffy lips with dismay.
"Elaine!" she said. "Stop that!"
"I'm sorry, sweetie," Elaine said, inserting another finger. "I've got a furnace in there. I've just got to have some relief."
"But I want to hear about Mark."
Elaine smiled and spread her legs a little wider. "I can talk and fingerfuck myself at the same time," she said. "You'll just have to listen without looking, honey."
Sharon looked away, trying not to hear the little sucking sounds Elaine's fingers made in the juicing pussy.
"You said Mark said something about people double-crossing him," she said. "What'd he mean by that?"
Elaine had begun to pant, and her voice was ragged. "That was the parole officer again. It had something to do with her fencing the jewels from the robbery. Or having them fenced – I don't know which. Anyhow, Mark thought she gave him a lot less than he had coming to him." She moaned, and Sharon could hear the wet, sucking sounds of Elaine's pussy coming much faster now. She could also smell the intoxicating scent of the other girl again, and for a moment she considered moving to a chair a little further away, where she wouldn't be quite so disconcerted.
"The parole officer also held out on Peggy Campbell, apparently," Elaine went on, her voice husky and blurred with passion. "Mark was making threats about what he'd do if she didn't come up with the money she'd held out on him. He'd been on the run ever since he skipped bail, he said. But he couldn't get it out of his mind. And so he'd come back to even the score with her."
"I see," Sharon said. Trying to listen to Elaine's voice without at the same time listening to the fingers pistoning in her cunt was more than she could manage. And even though what Elaine was telling her was of such great importance to her, it was all she could do to refrain from slipping her own fingers into her own cunt and frigging herself just as hard and deep as Elaine was doing on the couch across from her.
"That's why I said all hell was about to break loose," Elaine said.
"I see what you mean," Sharon said. "You'd better lie low for a while, honey. Stirring things up just now could land you in an awful lot of trouble."
"What else did Mark say?"
"That's all. At feast about anything that might concern you."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
Sharon shook her head, frowning. What irony, she reflected. Just when she'd finally begun to take some action to clear her name, Mark Haley had to come back to start trouble. It was almost too much to bear. The same man who had ruined her life had now set himself on a course that would make it more difficult than ever for her to do anything about it.
She sat very still, trying not to listen to the sounds coming from the couch, wondering what she ought to do. But the sounds were too exciting, and the scent was too enticing, and she found herself wholly unable to concentrate.
Suddenly the sounds stopped. "Sharon?" Elaine said.
"What?"
"Please kiss my cunt a little, honey. I'm dying." Sharon started to look around at her, then caught herself. "No, Elaine," she said softly.
"Then let me suck yours," Elaine said. "Have a heart, honey. I've been crazy to go down on you ever since the first time I met you."
Sharon could keep her eyes off Elaine's pussy no longer. The inflamed lips were swollen to twice their size now, and the smooth, denuded mound glistened with cunt juice. Elaine's hand lay on her thigh, wet to the wrist.
"Please, Sharon," Elaine said, her beautiful gray eyes pleading. "I'll give you the best suck you ever had."