Richard Laymon: The Traveling Vampire Show

Then she ducked and charged. Apparently, she meant to go in under the casket and crash her head into Valeria’s belly. But she wasn’t quite fast enough.

Valeria slammed the casket down on Lee’s back. I heard the whomp of its impact, heard a grunt from Lee. An instant later, she was face down on the mud floor of the cage, sprawled flat.

Valeria tossed the casket out of the way. Then she leaned over Lee, grabbed her by the pony tail and the seat of her shorts, picked her up and hoisted her overhead.

Lee’s arms and legs drooped. Her shirt hung open. I could see her breasts.

I didn’t want to look at them, but I couldn’t help myself. My eyes were latched to them. I grew harder. I felt as if I were betraying her. Betraying Slim, too. But I couldn’t look away. I’d been wanting to see them for so long, and here they were, pale and shiny, glorious… and suddenly lurching on her chest as Valeria ran with her across the cage.

Oh, my God!

Valeria planned to ram her into the wall of bars.

“NO!” I cried out. “LEE! WATCH OUT!”

I don’t know if she heard me, but both her arms suddenly darted up and she grabbed a bar above her face and came to an abrupt stop.

Unprepared for it, Valeria almost tore Lee loose, but not quite. Though Lee cried out in pain, she clung to the ceiling bar. Valeria lost her hold on Lee’s pony tail and shorts and stumbled on, waving her arms, trying not to fall.

Suspended by her arms, Lee twisted and swung.

As Valeria came back for her, she chinned herself up and kicked a foot toward the ceiling of the cage. If only she could hook a foot through the bars, she might be able to pull herself all the way up… maybe out of Valeria’s reach.

But one leg was still hanging down. Valeria grabbed it with both hands.

I yelled, “NO!”

On both sides of me, my guards clapped and cheered.

Valeria tugged at Lee’s leg until the other one came down beside it. At that point, it would’ve been simple to pluck Lee down from the ceiling bar. She didn’t do it, though. Instead, she pulled off both of Lee’s sneakers and tossed them aside. Then she smiled over her shoutder—at me?

After the smile, she stepped behind Lee and peeled her white shorts down and off. First her shorts, then her panties.

Lee dangled from the bar, facing me, her open shirt barely reaching past her ribcage, her body naked from there down. She looked as if she were being stretched by her own weight. Her arms almost seemed longer than usual. Her belly looked taut. I saw a golden tuft of hair between her legs.

Her legs began to spread apart. Then a hand appeared between them. Valeria’s hand. Stroking her.

Lee’s jaw was clenched. She had a strange, tight look on her face. A tightness that trembled. She was wet and shiny all over, so there was no way of knowing if she had tears running down her face.

But I knew she was crying.

When I see a girl cry, something happens to me.

Especially if it’s a girl I love. Like Slim or Lee.

Shouting, “Leave her alone!” I leaped up and drove the point of my elbow into the face of the big man on my right. He grunted and grabbed his nose. Vivian grabbed my other hand, but I didn’t let her stop me. Pulled by my weight, she rose off the bench. I tried to fling her and we both tumbled down the bleachers.

When we came to a stop on top of a wet board near the bottom, Vivian was sprawled under me. She raised her head. I slugged her in the nose. Her nose crunched. The back of her head struck the wood with a sound like knuckles on a door.

I scurried off her.

The big guy was coming for me, leaping down the slippery face of the bleachers.

I jumped off the bottom row and ran for the cage.

I still had to get through Stryker.

But he wasn’t even looking at me. He stood with both hands on the cage door.

Racing toward him, I looked into the cage. Lee no longer hung from the ceiling bar. She had Valeria backed up against the rear of the cage. Head down, she was slamming punches into Valeria’s belly.

Yes!

Maybe she didn’t need my help, after all, but it was too late to back out.

“Open the door!” I shouted as I ran toward Stryker.

I hardly thought he would do it.

But he stepped backward swinging it open, grinning at me through a space between its bars. “The more the merrier,” he said.

I rushed into the cage.

He swung its door shut. Clang!

Valeria was still on the bars. Lee kept landing punches to her belly. They were strong punches. Her fists sounded like mallets smacking wet meat. Each blow shook Valeria and made her breasts lurch. With each blow, she grunted.

“Good going, Lee!” I called out.

“Very good going,” Valeria said, smiling at me. She spoke with a fluid, languid drawl. “For a girl,” she added. Though Lee was still pounding her, she wasn’t reacting. Just calmly talking to me. “Do you suppose you can do better, Mister Thompson?”

Okay, so she knew my last name. I wasn’t going to let that bother me. Much. It bothered me a lot more that Valeria didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the punches.

“Lee’s doing just fine,” I said.

“Is she?” Valeria grabbed the front edges of Lee’s shirt, swung her around and slammed her against the bars. Lee’s whole body jerked with the impact. She started to sag.

A hand to Lee’s throat, Valeria pinned her to the bars. With her other hand, she dragged the shirt off Lee’s right shoulder, baring her upper arm and breast.

Then she stepped back, keeping Lee pinned to the bars. “Lee is doing just fine, isn’t she?”

“Let go of her!”

“Oh, I don’t suppose so.” Reaching out, she slipped a hand beneath Lee’s right breast. “Lovely, isn’t it?” She squeezed it, but Lee didn’t react.

Out cold?

Maybe that’s good, I thought.

“How do you suppose it tastes, Mister Thompson?”

“Leave her alone.”

Valeria licked her lips, then spread her mouth open wide. “NO!” I yelled.

As I plowed into her, she stumbled away and let go of Lee. In the comer of my eye, I glimpsed Lee sliding to the floor.

Arms clamped around Valeria, forehead pressed between her breasts, I chugged with my feet and drove her across the cage. I had a vague notion of slamming her against the far wall and going at her with my fists the same as Lee had done.

But Lee’s punches hadn’t hurt Valeria, so why should mine? Anyway, we didn’t make it to the far wall. Valeria fell flat on her back and I landed on top of her.

Aren’t the five minutes up yet? I wondered.

Maybe they’ve stopped counting.

“TIME?” I shouted.

Valeria, beneath me, said, “This is not a game anymore.”

She was under me, breathing hard. I felt the quick rise and fall of her chest against the side of my face. It was wet and hot and I heard her quick heartbeat.

She’s no vampire!

Of course not, I thought. No such thing.

Just a woman.

Just.

I pushed myself up. Sitting on her pelvis, I pinned her wrists to the muddy ground by her sides.

She smiled up at me. “Now what?” she asked.

I had no idea.

I looked to Lee for an answer, but she was sprawled on the ground, apparently unconscious.

“Give up?” I asked.

“I don’t believe so.” Smiling, she writhed. I watched the rain bounce off her shiny breasts. Her nipples were dark and rigid. “I know what you would like to do.”

I shook my head.

“Go ahead. I’ll let you. I let your friend Rusty do it, and he’s not nearly as cute as you.”

“You let him?”

“Did you honestly believe he’d overpowered me?” She chuckled softly. “I hardly think so. Nothing happens to me unless I allow it. And I hereby allow you, Dwight Thompson.”