David nodded, feeling sick, corroded with humiliation and self-disgust. "Where can I throw up?" he muttered.
"Not on those sheets, lover, unless you want a big Karate chop in the throat. And just in case you plan to get rough, baby, I happen to be a Black-Belt expert, and a killer from way back…"
Slowly, David slid off the bed and got to his feet. He stared across the room at the boy, dimly realizing this freaky kid was a lot younger and more agile than he. But the rage was boiling and flaring up inside him, and he had to strike out at something. "Goddammit, maybe if I kicked your balls off you wouldn't have to lie any more! Sure 'Hazel'… a nice bloody little castration-scene would make your whole career…!"
"Try it, baby… come on, come on… try it!" With a squealing, raucous Karate-cry, the boy leapt in the air and landed in a fierce crouching position, his arms and hands extended in full hatchet-formation.
David moved nearer. "Just one good sock at that phony fuckin' mouth of yours! Oh brother, that's all I want. Just let me feel some teeth pop!"
"Aw hurry up, baby… come on, come on… I'm waitin' for ya!" howling out the wild, Oriental shrieks, his body leaping, circling, crazily crouching all over the room, a sneering grimace on his face. "But hear this, you creamy hunk'a stud: you'll be unconscious before you can even make a fist. Then I'll dump you off the terrace like that, naked and unidentified. Eighteen stories down. And Mr. Sweet-Nuts honey, in a building this size you could'a dropped from anywhere…"
David stopped advancing, for he was suddenly positive the boy wasn't bluffing. Jesus, anybody who lived this dangerously had to be able to protect himself. And now another weird idea occurred to him. "You tell them all the truth after they come, don't you?… I mean, you wait 'til you've had your kicks with each and every one of them, and then afterwards… you tell them they've been having sex with a boy…"
Hazel-Harry nodded and grinned. "There ya go, baby-that's how I get my biggest charge of all, watchin' their faces when they find out how homo they've been without knowin' it… Wheel… some of 'em really go ape! Of course, when they're too big or too smart to chop down, I'll use this on them…" Reaching in the pocket of his robe, Hazel-Harry produced an eight-inch switchblade knife, and flick!.. it was open.
David stared at the knife and, in his delirium, muttered a bit of insurance terminology: "Then you've got full coverage."
"You'd better believe it, darling. So what're you gonna do about it? Wipe the whole hoary mess from your mind and kiss me off… hmmm, honey-boy?" he made mincing, but provocative, kissing gestures with his lips. "Ooh baby! You were so hot and contented when you were kissin' me… I've never had a guy who wanted to lick and suck my tongue the way you did, sweetie, do you remember…? How will you ever get that out of your system?"
Feeling limp and queasy again, David turned and headed towards the bathroom. "To start with I'm gonna throw up and get out of here…"
As he was about to leave a few minutes later, Hazel-Harry gave him a final warning at the door. "In case you didn't get the message, David, it's all over between us. Do don't you ever try to see me again, you understand me? This was it… a one-shot, baby, and I mean no return engagements."
On his way down in the elevator, David tried desperately to blot out the past hour from his mind. He'd make it a do-it-yourself lobotomy if he had to, but dammit, he'd shove it down and away and out-of-sight. To do this he'd have to start thinking of his future and not ever look back. He'd had some lousy luck, it was true-Joyce had been an old friend instead of the alluring stranger he'd hoped for, while Hazel had merely been strange; which meant that he'd had his night of training and he'd made the one big whopper of a mistake the Fates allowed him. But he had a lot of determination left, plus a large new dose of defiance, so he pulled out the dog-eared computer-list and peered at it intensely.
Number three coming up. Who was she? Somebody called Valerie Hudson. Aw please, Lord. Let me strike gold this time, and let 'er be sweet and horny and big-knockered and lovable and nympho and affectionate and romantic and hot for me. And let 'er be a girl… please?
But as he drove along the Bayshore Freeway that night, Hazel-Harry re-flashed in and out of his thoughts, where she was to remain, intermittently, for a good long while. What a kisser!
EIGHT
Brad Grogan was pissed off. After the quarrel he'd had with David at lunch that day he remained in a bitter, sulking fury. That damned pampered mama's-boy had broken every unwritten law in the book by trying to involve Joyce in a lurid scandal right in the heart of Hillsborough. But hell, that's what he got for confiding in the boy, telling him all those hot details concerning his ex-wife's flagrant promiscuity. After that, one minute alone with Joyce and nothing was sacred to David. When a guy's thinking through his nuts, loyalty goes right out the window, and all David wanted was to get on everything he'd heard about. Wanted to conform and squirt a little Joyce in his juice, just like all those other sex-freaks he played golf with every weekend. Oh that bastard! He'd even had the gall to brag about this cheap conquest, taking it for granted he'd never in the world know which "pushover" he was raving about. Well, thank God Joyce had chosen to be loyal in this one instance and had shown the tasteful good sense to give him the facts. After all, his ex-wife was living proof that whores made good mothers, so imagine the nerve of David, molesting her right in her own backyard, when he knew how important it was to Brad to preserve the sanctity of his broken home.
Now Brad was convinced that David was just like the rest of those sonsabitches up there on the Peninsula, all of whom had been putting him down and writing him off for more than a year. He was a South-of-Market city-boy from way back, and if it hadn't been for a football scholarship, he'd never have seen the inside of Stanford University, let alone get the chance to court the radiant Joyce Barkley. But shit, he'd never really belonged in her world, not for a minute. And man, how quick she and her friends were to let him know it, once the news of their divorce leaked out. They'd dumped him like a load of garbage, because he'd never fit in the way Joyce did. Yeah… she sure fit in! Right between their ivy-league balls. But when she was up and dressed and in her own backyard, she was still more socially acceptable to them than he could ever be, even though "vulgar uncouth Brad" had never so much as touched one of their wives.
For months Brad had been wondering how he could get back at them, all those diamond-plated hypocrites. In his brooding fancies he had dreamed up various schemes of retaliation, all of which were pretty gruesome. But now that David had become the slimiest Judas of them all, Brad felt that at last he had the key to his retribution-
Lovely Linda Fortune, the crown-princess herself!
All those pure-assed junior-executives had been bangin' Joyce since the Year One, so now the time had come for him to take one of their prizes, and really show them how a big crude stud-slob behaved when he was at home. Man they'd given him the name… so let 'em sit back and watch how he played the game. David's exquisite wife had always been an aggravating temptation for Brad. Oh, he'd been a good friend to David and had never made a pass or anything, but Christ, he'd been sizing that woman up for years, wondering how it would feel to slide his hand up those creamy-white thighs of hers, just once. Yet, it wasn't merely the feel of her that he wanted; he'd had the most driving curiosity to see that girl's snatch… just to be able to walk up to her some day, lift her skirt, pull down her panties and simply stare there for an undisturbed moment or two. Aw man, he was almost positive that her cunt would look different from other women's. Like, oh hell, maybe there'd even be Stardust down there… or tinsel. And all during their years of friendly picnics and parties, he'd wanted to reach out and grab a horny handful of those fat baby-lickin' melons that always looked as if they were about to fall out of those jazzy two-piece swim-suits she wore around the pool.