Mary Jenkins - Innocent in Chicago Volume One

"Yeah, that's a problem. Wouldn't give you enough money to live it up, buy glad-rags, take a swell vacation – just work eight hours a day for nothing."

"Oh, Frankie," she wailed, "you make it sound awful!"

"Well baby, I've been thinking." He paused and lit another cigarette.

"Yess?"

"You could do a lot better than just another job. And make a lot more money."

She waited, not saying anything.

"Look, I really need some dough, but fast. It so happens that we can make seventy-five bucks right off – in fact, tomorrow night."

"Really? How?"

"It's like this. I was at the club the other day and this cat I know comes up and says he's arranging for some clambake for a convention that's in town. He needs a couple of girls and says he'll pay 'em seventy-five bucks – now don't look so startled. All he wants 'em for is to be carried in on some platters, or God knows what, to decorate the joint and liven things up. That's all you'd have to do. I thought of you right away."

"Seventy-five dollars just for that?"

"Well, of course, you'd have to be almost nude…"

"Nude!"

"Now come off it, honey. You know damn well you'd love to have that beautiful young body of yours stared at."

He smiled at her. "You'd be doing me a real big favor, kid. Come on. Then I can pay this guy off."

"Well, I don't know," she said slowly. "I do want to help you, Frankie, really I do… but… well… nude…"

He just looked at her.

"All right, Frankie. I'll do it. If you're sure it's okay."

"That's my baby! I knew I could count on you!"

He gave her a kiss and slightly slapped her rump.

"I told you I'd take care of you, didn't I?" He reached over to his coat hanging on the back of a chair near the bed and pulled out a cigarette case from the inside pocket.

"Here, baby, try one of these." He snapped the lid up. Inside lay several cigarettes, normal looking except that they were much thinner, almost half as slim as a regular one.

She picked one out and looked at it curiously. "What funny cigarettes. What are they?"

"Joints."

"Joints?"

"Yeah. Pot."

"Pot? What's pot?"

"Marijuana, baby, the greatest."

"Marijuana? You mean dope?"

He laughed. "Yeah. Dirty dope. Come on, baby. Try it." He struck a match and lit them up.

She reluctantly took a drag. "They're sort of sweet."

"Yeah. But you gotta really draw it in. Like this." He lay back, his eyes closed and took a huge drag, holding it down for a long time.

She lay back and imitated him. Soon her cheeks grew warm and her eyes felt strange; she closed them and took another drag, holding it down as long as she could. With this, her first marijuana cigarette, she at first was slightly nauseous, but then the sensation passed and she began to feel completely relaxed and at peace with the world, her body light and buoyant.

Frankie's hand, which had been lying on her stomach, moved slowly downward until his fingers reached the waiting lips of her vagina.

Cynthia shifted her position. The lettuce leaves tickled her. Through the closed swinging doors filtered a discordant blare of men's voices, some talking loudly, some laughing, some singing, which swelled into an ear-splitting roar each time the doors swung open to admit a hurrying waiter.

A fat, round-faced man, chewing on a dead cigar, came bustling through the door.

"You girlies ready? You're on in a few minutes. Now come on!" he said, snapping his fingers. "Come on now. Give the boys a big smile!" He bounced down the line of girls arrayed on platters. "Hey, Hank, damn it, come here! Take some of these damn French Fries off. They're covering up her cunt too damn much!"

"This is the corniest deal I've ever seen!" a girl ahead of Cynthia said disgustedly. "God-damn shrimps yet! And you can't even eat the damn things." She was sitting cross legged on a huge silver platter, shrimp made of paper piled up to her waist. Above the mound rose her torso, her bare breasts large and heavy, shaking like two tremendous bowls of Jello as she shrugged her shoulders and then flipped away her cigarette.

"Yeah, these jerks have the imaginations of toad-stools." On another platter stood a majestic looking cake, in the middle of which sat a willowy girl, nude except for a long mane of black hair and a narrow ribbon, set low around her hips which read in large red letters, "The Roto-Flex Sewer Cleaning Corp. – Keeps Your Sewers Free!"

"Hey, you," the man yelled, "get back in that cake. We're ready to go on."

"Keep your fly buttoned, buddy," she said. She snuggled down inside the paper cake and a waiter put the top couple of layers over her head. Through the paper her muffled voice, "Jeez. I've had to pop out so many damn cakes I've got candles growin' in my ears."

"Yeah, but at least you're dry. God, I'll be stinkin' for weeks," said a red-head sitting in a tremendous bowl of orange colored punch, her pear-shaped breasts floating and bobbing on the surface. "I hope someone here knows life-saving."

The girl in front of Cynthia twisted around in her fake lobster shell and winked at her. On her head was a cap made to look like a lobster's head, the feelers waving around like three-foot radio aerials. "You new in this game? You look a little jittery," she said.

"A little," Cynthia said. She was lying on her side on a platter of lettuce leaves, a large green leaf draped over her mound like a G-string.

"Okay, gals, here we go! A great big smile now!"

Four waiters picked up the platter of shrimp, resting it on their shoulders, and disappeared through the door. A tremendous outburst of cheering, stamping and whistling surged through the door. Shortly thereafter, the French Fries and the lobster followed and then Cynthia on her bed of lettuce. Trying to see through the haze of smoke, she smiled grimly as the platter swayed down the aisle towards the head table which was set on a raised platform, the other tables branching out in a big horseshoe. On each side men stood on their chairs to get a better look, laughed and shouted, reached out their hands to touch her; one man, his eyes glazed with liquor, his tie half-off, tired to climb over the table and fell flat on his face, broken glass and crockery flying in all directions. Behind her Cynthia saw the red-head gaily waving to the men from her bowl of punch and tossing orange peels at them. The platters were set down in a row on the head table. Looking over the crowd, all she could see was a nightmarish sea of waving arms, shouting mouths and lustful beady eyes. By the time the black haired girl had popped out of her cake and was striding up and down on top of the table, hand on her hips, her breasts jiggling, her buttocks twitching saucily; the room was in pandemonium.

As she had been instructed, Cynthia got up from her platter and warily strutted over the tops of the tables; hands and arms waved around her like the tentacles of a dozen octopi.

"Me for that lobster," someone shouted.

"Hey, Oskar, how about some fuckin' salad?" A drunken face leered up at her, his hands snatching at the leaf covering her pubic mound.

"Yeah, man, off with the leaf!"

A chair crashed and someone screamed. She glanced behind her and saw the red-head trying to climb out of the bowl; orange punch trickled down her body, dripped from her breasts and ran stickily down her thighs while she struggled with a man who had fallen half-way into the bowl, one arm submerged, the other circling her leg. The white tablecloth turned orange as the punch slowly spread outward. A plate of melted ice cream flew through the air and caught the lobster girl in the stomach. She staggered as the chocolate oozed down her belly and over her legs and she toppled backward to disappear in a clump of clawing arms. At the same time she felt the leaf being torn away and a rough hand seized her by the crotch and pulled her forward. She fell over, headfirst, and landed on top of someone. They both crashed to the floor and a dozen hands were on her. As she kicked and screamed, she heard someone shouting above the din and saw a burly, ginger-haired fellow trying to pull the men off of her.