The sweet young thing, half-naked and frightened as a rabbit, trembled against the tree and couldn’t help thinking of all the horrors which the night-time park might have in store for her. She’d entered the park a virgin and alive. Would she leave it the same way?
CHAPTER FOUR
A PENNY FOR your thoughts. A scent of summer violence heavy in the jungle air of New York’s Central Park. A lost Penny, one of many, too insignificant for an affluent society to trouble itself about. Surrounded by danger in the night, could this Penny be saved?
It was up to her. She had to shake off her fear and take some action. She couldn’t just crouch there in the dark and cry with terror because she was lost. Even if it was a headsy-tailsy decision, she had to strike out in one direction or another in search of civilization.
She heard a wild animal growl nearby and it filled her with panic. With an effort, she overcame it and turned it to her advantage. The sound must mean that she was near the zoo. She was sure she must be west of it. So all she had to do was establish from which direction the sound was coming and strike out toward it. If she did that and followed a straight path, then sooner or later she should emerge on the east side of the park.
Resolutely, Penny pinpointed the growl and started out toward it. Trembling still, she pushed through the foliage, seeking a trail. Then, after a few moments, she heard the growl again, louder now, and seemingly very close!
Common sense told her that it must be from an animal in the zoo and that the beast must be safely caged. But common sense was no match for her fear, and so Penny froze in her tracks. Again the growl came; it seemed still closer. And then there was the terrifying sound of a rustle in the underbrush quite close to Penny.
She shrank back in the shadows, and as she did so her eyes focused on a puzzling detail spotlighted by the moon’s rays. There, under a nearby tree, was a pile of clothing. Penny angled her head forward for a closer look. She saw that it was the uniform and cap of a zookeeper strewn carelessly about under a large tree. Another rustle in the underbrush, getting closer now, and Penny was struck with a thought that was pure horror.
Suppose one of the animals had escaped! A lion, or a tiger! Suppose it had devoured the zookeeper, leaving nothing but his inedible clothing behind! The sounds of another movement, terrifyingly close now, sent Penny scurrying up a tree. All she could think of was that if some ravening beast was at large, the only safety might lie in climbing high enough so that he couldn’t reach her.
She got as far up into the tree as she could and crawled out on a none-too-sturdy limb. Now there was the loud noise of something crashing through the underbrush on the edge of the clearing in which stood the tree she had climbed. Penny held her breath and watched as the foliage parted to reveal —
A woman, running and stark naked. Something was chasing her. Penny held her breath, expecting to see some primitive beast come crashing through the bushes in the naked woman’s wake and pounce on her and tear her to shreds. Something did hurtle from the clearing’s edge and pounce on her. But it wasn’t an escaped beast. It was a man, as naked as she, and as he tackled her and brought her to the ground, the woman laughed gaily. So overwhelmed with relief that she felt dazed, Penny watched them.
The zookeeper—and such he must be, Penny decided, for surely the clothes under the tree were his—tussled playfully with the lady. She squealed with delight as he pinched her and caressed her and rolled her around on the grass. Fleeting embraces and then she would squirm loose and back off and he would pursue her and she would let him catch her and then they’d start all over again. Finally, they rested, nestling together in a patch of clover and stroking each other’s loins fondly.
“Ahh, Constance,” he said, “thee art indeed a bonnie lass. ’Twas the very first day I set eyes on thee I dinna hesitate to tell meself, Thoreau, yon is the very lass for thee.”
“Ohh, I’ll never forget that first day. You were so brave. Remember?”
“Aye.”
“I’d pushed my husband’s wheelchair too close to the polar bear pit and forgot to put on the brake. And when it rolled in, you just dived in among those beasts to rescue him. You were magnificent! The sight of you coming out of that bear pit with him in your arms, naked to the waist, with bear droppings dripping from your muscular, pale white torso, smelling so earthy and all. Magnificent! I almost swooned!”
“Aye. Thy cheeks so flushed and red and thy long, woman’s breasts all a-pant wi’ excitement. I canna forget.”
“But there’s something you don’t know about that day, my darling.”
“Wha’?”
“I really didn’t forget the brake on the wheelchair. I wanted him to die.”
“Aye, lassie. ’Tis no a surprise to me. I guessed it.”
“Ohh, Thoreau, you don’t know what it’s like! Living with a half-man. Having to cater to all his needs. Having to listen to all his interminable complaints about his gout! Oh, I know it must be painful. But I just can’t feel sorry for him in his torment any more. All I can feel is that he really would be better off dead. All I know is that I want to stay here with you in the park and never go back to that penthouse again.”
“Aye. Bu’ you must return. ’Tis the way of the world. ’Tis the fault o’the ugly, industrial society we poor mortals ha’ inflicted ’pon us-selves. Ha’ ye looked at it?” He warmed to his subject. “The poison o’ the smog they breathe in the ugly, sprawling city yonder? The tall, ugly cliffs they live in? Central Park West and Fifth Avenue — the signs o’ man’s inhumanity to man, an’ ’tis yet luxury they be callin’ it! Machines! ’Tis everythin’ they have perverted, the bloody, bloodless monsters! Machines! They suckle us from womb to tomb! Machines! How they rob man o’ his very manhood!”
“All but you, Thoreau. They haven’t robbed you!”
“Machines! Do you know the day they installed flush ‘toilets in the park I wa’ truly so disgusted I ’most packed oop an’ hied back to Wales! Believe me, Constance, ha’ it not been for thee, lass, I would ha’ gone. Truly, I would!”
“Hush, my darling. We’ve our own world here in the park. Here I can forget about my husband’s gout. Here you can forget about the evil machines. After all, my darling, there’s still one thing machines can’t do. Birds do it. Bees do it. We do it. But—”
“One day we’ll live to see machines do it!” he interrupted bitterly. “Mark my words well, Connie. It’s a-comin’. The diabolical things will na’ rest ’til they’ve made more o’ their own kind an’ ta’en o’er God’s good green earth from man.”
“Hush. Don’t think about it. Here, in each other’s arms, let us think only of love.”
“Love’s a hard thing, Constance.”
“Aye, tha’ it is,” she mimicked him, squeezing him intimately and confirming his observation.
“Shall I take thee now?” he asked shyly.
“Yes, my darling.”
“Like the beasts in the field?”
“Oh, yes, darling!”
“Like the vegetables in the garden?”
“Yes! Now!” she panted.
“Aye, thee art ’deed a hot-blooded lassie. But it do no’ be good to hurry things, Constance. Thou hast thy rump all a-quiver for it, bu’ I will no be rushed. Thy loins are hungry, an’ shall be fed in good time, but first, Constance, let Nature garb thee.”
“Do we have to take time out for that again?” she asked plaintively.
“’Tis the only thing, really, wha’ seperates us from the machines, Constance. Surely thee would no deny me that.”
“Very well,” she sighed. “Let’s get on with it.”