Ann Griffin - Skin summer

"Oh, God," she moaned, and he knew he was doing the right thing.

"Lick it!" he ordered.

Her tongue probed the little hole, gingerly at first, then more enthusiastically.

"Suck on it."

And she did. She worked and sucked, and brought him almost to the verge of a climax himself. Fortunately, she writhed under him, rudely arched her back, and came herself, twice. He moved away from her, picked up the clothes he was going to wear for the day, and dressed. When he was ready to leave, he said, "Hurry the hell up, bitch. I don't want you seen."

Fifteen minutes later, she was gone. Clean and sweet, he thought. He was sure no one had seen. He had earned a hundred and twenty bucks. He had gotten a good bit of fun out of the stupid chick. And, perhaps most important of all, he had not ejaculated. He held all his reserves for Susan Calderwood-Logan. He would need them. When he was done with her, if he could hold out, she would be a second paying customer.

It never occurred to Sam Walker that there might be a woman somewhere who was not a paying customer. Somewhere inside of him, there was a human being with all the emotions, with all the ability to love that every man possesses. But that had been plated over with the exterior Sam Walker. The exterior Sam Walker, the facade he presented to the world, was that of a businessman, a computer that knew its limitations and abilities and was using them for the greatest profit gain.

He had no idea that all of his plating, that every inch of his facade would crumble and fall away.

Soon.

Quite soon now…

When Sam went into the office after breakfast, Linda Mock was not there. The only person in the place was Jenny Sansom. She was pounding away at an electric typewriter, reading from a typists' stand next to her right arm. She made pretty good time on the keys, and he stood watching her, enjoying her proficiency. Suddenly, she seemed to become aware of his presence. She whirled her head, looked up at him. The expression on her face was one of total hatred. Her eyes were narrowed, her nostrils flared almost like the nostrils of a wild animal in rabid madness. Her lips were firm, tight against her teeth. Every muscle in her face was strained.

"Any work for me?" he asked.

"There are some forms on the counter, on the nail." She glared at him; her tone of voice was bitter – she made no attempt to conceal her animosity.

"Where's Linda?" he asked, going to the counter, lifting the four slips up and reading them spottily.

"I wouldn't know."

"You're her secretary."

"I'm not her nursemaid."

He tucked the work slips into his shirt pocket and went behind the counter to Jenny's desk. He sat on the edge of it, looked down at her. "Why don't we be friends?" he asked.

She started typing again.

He reached to the floor socket and ripped the machine's plug loose. "Like I said, why don't we be friends?"

"I've got work to do," she said.

"So have I. But it would be a whole lot pleasanter around here if we could be nice to each other." He smiled, stared her in the eyes. She could not manage to return the gaze. She looked at the dead keyboard instead. "Friends are so much better than enemies."

"I can't get my work done with you here. Would you plug me in, please?" Her voice was cold, evenly measured. It was plain that she did not know how to cope with the situation.

"I'll do more than plug you in," he said, grinning. "Why don't you let me turn you on?"

"What…"

Before she could speak, he leaned forward and cupped her breasts in his hands, squeezed them through the bra. He slipped two fingers between the buttons of her blouse and down the bra cup, fingered her nipple. She leaned toward him, her face slack, her mouth open, confused. Her nipple hardened beneath his touch. Then, abruptly, she pulled away and fended off his hands. "You pig!" she hissed.

"I just like women," he said. "I guess the same goes for you, huh?"

"I know about the Markwell girl," she said. "And sooner or later I'll catch you with her."

"What are you talking about, Jenny?" He knew his face showed puzzlement as genuine as any face could register the emotion.

"You know damn well," she snapped.

"I'm afraid I don't."

She looked at him now, vicious, a frightened animal anxious to strike back with all her equipment, all her deadly tools. First, he had come in and taken Linda away from her. Apparently, other summers, Linda Mock had been Jenny's lover exclusively. Next, he had dared to arouse the latent bi-sexual urges that she had fought her entire life to keep down. He wondered why she chose lesbian relationships rather than a man-woman set-up. Whatever the reason, she would be a wildcat when the chance came.

"I'll get you," she said, malevolent as any woman he had ever seen, her teeth bared.

He shrugged and went to the door. As he was about to go out, he turned around and said, "You have very nice little breasts. They aren't huge like Linda's – but nice just the same. I think, if you were handled correctly, you would be a very good lover – for a man."

She called him a sonofabitch as he closed the door between them…

Brenda Markwell spat out the mouthwash, then took in another swallow, swished it around and around, cleansing her tongue and gums and lips of the taste of his anus. When there was nothing but a fresh peppermint mist in her mouth, she stopped the cleansing process.

Now, after she had been satisfied, she could again think clearly. As always, she tried to discover why she was a masochist, why she liked her men to abuse her, to treat her as a loathsome animal form and not as a woman. She had often attempted self-analysis, but had never come close to discovering her problem or the root of it. It was no different this time.

Had she been able to look into the past, she would have been able to understand, to come to grips with the trauma that had warped her life and had made her what she was today. And knowing the trauma and the basis of her hangups, she could have solved some of her problem. But the incident that had warped her life had been effectively blocked from her conscious mind. It was too terrible a thing for her to recall, so she pretended that it had never happened.

A psychiatrist could have probed for that trauma. She knew this, certainly. Yet she would not go to a psychiatrist. Her subconscious preferred not to have to face that hidden memory – even with medical help.

The thing had happened when she was eleven years old. Six years ago. She had managed to forget it within a year. After the initial scene in her bedroom, her parents had refused ever to speak of it again. That sort of unhealthy attitude only served to make it easier for Brenda to conceal the incident from herself, let it fester in her subconscious, let it grow into a many-tentacled beast that would strangle the remainder of her life.

She had been in her bedroom, standing before the full-length mirror in the wall at the foot of her bed. She was a well-developed girl for such a tender age, though still quite a child. Her breasts had begun to bud, and they swelled delicately, charmingly, their little rosebud noses straining toward the ceiling. Her body was downy soft, streamlined, smooth, combining all the sexuality of a precocious child and an experienced woman. Between her creamy, sweet thighs, she was beginning to grow a patch of soft golden down over her sex lips. She was one of the few girls in her class who had reached this stage. In gym, the others looked at her growing thatch and whispered about her, envious. Now, she ran her fingers through that new hair, dared to touch the sweet, chubby slit of her sex. A thrill swept up her body, and she bent slightly to accommodate it.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, and it swung open. She whirled, confronted her uncle who had come to visit them for the Thanksgiving holidays. She was so surprised that she did not even think to cover her breasts or thatch.