Airtight Willie & Me (16 page)

He tongue-flogged her navel, her inner thighs. She pulled and mauled his ears. He moaned ecstatically. They flinched, jerked apart at the flash of dormitory lights on the windowpane, followed by the clang of a wake-up bell.

He ground his face against her vulva. “Oh, no!” he groaned.

She said, “Dammit! I woke up late and blew the sugar. But first chance, Candy Dong, I'll be back to do the do.”

She kissed his navel and burrowed her face and head into his crotch. Reluctantly, she stood and her bantam curves outrageously
bulged her coarse cotton nightgown. Her fawn face was ethereal in the murk as she gazed at him.

She whispered, “I love you, Jay. You want me, too?”

He said, “Me you too, Fay. Who you want wasted to prove it?”

They laughed.

She bit her lip. “I've got the creepies. Can't we please put this place down soon? Like tonight?”

His handsome face twisted for an instant in irritation. “Baby, c'mon now, no bread is what got us here. But you gotta admit, it's got the Galveston juvenile slammer skunked all to hell. I hoboed to Texas,” he said as he moved to sit on the side of the bed. His arms embraced her waist. “But, we're gonna ride the cushions soon as I can . . . ah . . . borrow a hunk of bread from Grandma Dracula's purse or maybe she's got a money box.”

Fay said, “She tried to pump me last night, late. I don't think she bought that you're my half brother. I'm scared of her, Jay!”

He frowned, “Don't be scared, baby; be cool and smart. Soon that kitchen and this place ain't gonna be nothing but a memory. You remember to tell her what I told you?” he asked with a serious face.

She said, “No, I'm an idiot. So, I told her the truth, that I'm the runaway stepdaughter of one of the wealthiest assholes in Milwaukee, crazy enough to hook up with an Arkie from the coal pits and get busted for stealing five bucks worth of tamales.”

They laughed.

She sighed, “My stepfather would pop off if I crawl back.”

“Fay, I guarantee your horny pa ain't gonna get another shot at your poonie. And there ain't never gonna be no more coal pits for me, no more sweat for us, and no more missed meal cramps for us. We're gonna live cushy and hang tough and pretty in the tall sweet clover,” he said with a grim face. “I'll figure a way, out there. Trust me!”

“I trust you, Jay, in clover or in poison ivy. I'll always be your girl and love you,” she whispered as she sucked his bottom lip.

She turned and went to the door. Then she paused, blew a kiss, stepped into the hall, and shut the door.

He heard Big Ralph, the outside dorm keeper, bellowing profanely. He heard the raillery and shouts of the dozen-odd juvenile delinquents as they washed up for breakfast. He shuddered to remember himself out there with them about to start a long day in the fields beneath a blowtorch July sun. Worse than the coal pits, he told himself. Moments later, he heard the six kitchen and laundry girls in the attic dorm above preparing to start their day and the acid tongue of Phoebe, the old dorm mother.

A half hour later, Jay tensed, felt his heart jump cycle to hear the weird old foster mother stir and the usual strange sounds from her room on the first floor below his. He got out of bed and put his ear to the vent. Her demonic gabbling shivered his spine as always. Beneath it, he heard the dulcet warble of canaries. Then he retched from a horrible meld of piercing, hissing sounds and the terrified shrieks of canaries. “Cobra!” he said aloud.

“Homer! You share with Abigail, you heah?” he heard her say sharply. Then after several moments of silence, he heard her order, “Back to your straw now, gluttons!” Then she cooed, “That's my lovelies.”

He heard the door shut, so he went to put an ear against his door to hear Grandma on the stairs. He got into bed. He shuttered his enormous blue eyes, limped his nude steel wire frame in fake sleep. Impregnated coal dust mascara rimming his eye sockets gave his gold-mopped face a debauched cast.

Moments later, he trembled uncontrollably at the sound of his room's doorknob twisting stealthily. Through blinds of silky lashes he saw the door open. Her jowly, corrupt face was thickly rouged and lipsticked. Her massive flab was silhouetted through a red silk wrapper as she stood in the doorway. Her widow's peak and frame of the robe reflected her ruined, long-nosed visage, which gave her a chilling satanic presence. Her wrists and arms were scarred by fang punctures.

She held a glass of orange juice in her hand. She concealed the whip, looped on her wrapper belt, at her back. Smoothly, she shut the door with a bump of her epic rump and padded toward the bed.

Jay heard Fay and the other girls chattering in the hallway on their way to the kitchen downstairs. He shut his eyes tightly, and his hands knotted fists beneath the sheet. He heard the torrid rasp of the old voluptuary's breathing as she moved through the gloom to the side of the bed to his back and placed the glass on the nightstand, the whip on the carpet beside the bed.

The bed springs jounced as she slid her musky heat against him. A bluebonnet blossom rhinestone pinned into the dyed flame of her mane tickled excruciatingly as she nuzzled his spine and buttocks.

He willed himself numb. He'd pleaded a bellyache two nights ago to send her away frustrated and evil, muttering threats to return him to the fields or to juvenile authorities if he couldn't be sweet to her after all she had done for him. Now, she was back to grope him again, he thought. He'd never be able to get the money for his escape with Fay out with the field slaves in the dorm. Or worse, in jail.

Oh shit! I wish this horny creep would gimme a break. Drop dead or something, he thought. He ground his knuckles into his eye sockets as he flipped and yawned spuriously.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” she crooned in whiskey contralto. “Look at me.”

He stared at the ceiling, terrified of her green hypnotic orbs. “Morning, Grandma,” he mumbled. He started to reach across her for his cigarettes on a nightstand. Her gem-spangled hand pressed him back.

As she tapped a cigarette from the pack to light, she pouted her lupine lips. “Please, babykins, call me Brandy,” she entreated as she flicked flame to the cigarette and laid it between his lips.

She took a jeweled hash pipe from her wrapped pocket, lit it, and pulled on it with slumberous eyes for a long moment. The smoke
rode the air pungently as she exhaled. “Oh, Gawd, it's wonderful!” she exclaimed.

She took his cigarette, tapped ash off it into an ashtray, then pressed the pipe stem between his lips. He hesitated.

She crooned, “Hit it a drag, Angel Face. It will give you wings.”

He drew deeply, coughed.

She said, “Draw easy, deep, babykins.”

He closed his eyes and sucked on the pipe. She swooped and licked his washboard belly and jogged her tongue in his nipple. Then she lay gazing spellbound at his movie star profile as he sucked on the pipe and stared at the cigarette smoke rings she blew toward the ceiling.

His awesome comeliness sparkled her ancient crotch. This cute enticer is prettier than Billy Dove, the cruel bastard that I turned my first trick for, she thought. I've got to sculpt his head in plaster for a bronze! She pulled the wrapper off her head. Her scarlet fingernails knifed his pubic thicket. She noticed his organ activate a bit.

He passed the pipe. The hash swirled him into a downer. He remembered the pigsty jail and his yearlong week with the others in the field.

She licked his mouth. He was rigid as he struggled not to recoil. She turned away for an instant to put the pipe on the nightstand. Quickly, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He remembered that the field slaves called her “Grandma Randy the Witch” behind her back.

He darted a glance at her mountainous lobster pink ruin, tree trunk legs scabrous with varicose veins. A combination of pity and revulsion panged him as he thought of the slew of nearly nude G-stringed images in her bedroom, on the walls, tables, and dresser depicting her reign, forty years before, as Bluebonnet Brandy Hoffstader, the sleek honky-tonk queen of Galveston stripper-prostitutes.

He giggled as he told himself a rhyme: “Grandma Brandy now ain't dandy. Just fat and randy.”

She said, “Li'l darlin', it's like music to hear you laugh.”

He panned her bulk with mocking eyes. He snickered, then he laughed uncontrollably. She stared at him malevolently, bit him hard on a nipple. He gasped, reflexively back-handed her face. Through the hash swoon, the face of his cruelly lustful grandmother, Binnie, flashed in his head like neon.

He trembled, with mouth agape, as he stared at her. “Bin . . . uh . . . Grandma, please! Don't! Please! I mean it!”

But she noticed an odd telltale passion in his eyes. She grinned like a shark as she rubbed her jaw and observed his organ quiver to half erection for an instant. Her eyes were radiant with excitement. She turned and palmed a diamond wristwatch with a gem-cut band of gold squares from her wrapper pocket on the carpet. With a smile, she turned toward him. With plump fingertips, she dangled and swept it before his eyes. The bauble shot like golden stars. His blue eyes followed the path of the glittery pendulum hypnotically.

She whispered, “It's yours, li'l darlin'.”

He mumbled, “Mine, Gran . . . uh . . . Brandy?”

She sucked the end of his tip-tilted nose as she slipped it on his wrist.

“It's yours because you're so beautiful and I flat-out adore you,” she whispered hoarsely.

He twisted his wrist, gazed entranced at the shimmering treasure. “This cost five hundred at least,” he murmured.

She smiled. “A thousand, my pet, plus tax.”

He pecked her forehead and exclaimed, “Thanks! It's the most beautiful watch there ever was!”

She sweetly whispered, “It's nothing! My mother left me tons of money. When we're regular sweeties, you'll be spiffy in nothing less than suits, everything tops! Kiddo, I mean rocks on your fingers big as your heartbreaking eyes, your pockets stuffed with ‘C' notes, a white Caddie convertible, with all the extras.”

She heaved a sigh, “I can't wait to see you with it all. Honey,
dearie, everything is up to you.” She threw an elephantine thigh across his belly.

“What I got to do?” he whispered.

She patted his cheek. “Be my sweetie true and make me feel good.”

He said, “Feel good? Like how?”

She said, “In a moment, dearie, I'll tell you like how.”

She took the glass of orange juice, heavily laced with a powerful hypnotic drug, off the nightstand. She smiled. “Drink your breakfast juice to the most beautiful watch there ever was,” she said as she extended the glass.

The hash and the excitement of the watch had parched him. He took the glass, sipped, then drained it thirstily. She smiled and relit the hash pipe and passed it to him. The watch continued to magnetize his eyes as he leeched on the pipe. He fell back relaxed and dreamy eyed.

She uncoiled the whip from the wrapper belt and moved it to the bed behind her. She finger-stroked him from head to toe, watchful for the moment to lynch his fledging manhood on her gallows of sadism. She used her fingertips at her throat and above her cheekbones to pull taut the liver-spotted sag of skin to get an instant, pathetic, almond-eyed face-lift.

She said, “Look! I'm going to be pretty too, when I get the works from you, darlin'.”

He darted a glance at the gargoyle and averted his eyes to the treasure on his wrist.

She moved cold eyes into his face. “Would you believe your so-called sister wasn't in my class for looks when I was a girl? Look at me!”

His heart drummed as he stared at her with glazed eyes. He slurred, “Sure, I believe. You're still cute, Gran . . . uh . . . Brandy, like a China doll. Now, like what do I gotta do to get the dough and Cad and stuff?”

She scowled as her hand derricked up a withered blob of purple-veined, forty-eight breast. She scooted up and rubbed its spoiled cherry nipple against his cheek. Her voice shook. “Like now, suck this goodie is how you start to be my sweetie.”

He felt his belly roil, felt chained and paralyzed. He looked at her with piteous eyes and shook his head in slow motion. “I don't feel good, feel funny, feel like I ain't me,” he murmured.

She reached behind her and gripped the whip then slid off the bed, stood, and growled. “I'm going to chastise you to make you sweet.” She grunted for velocity and hacked the whip across his crotch.

He rolled away, howled piercingly with a breaking quaver like the child he was when he first felt the savage lash of a whip. The old woman's whip whistled a vicious lyric as she flogged him mercilessly.

Drug-shackled in a time warp, he jerked himself from a fetal ball and lay supine. He whimpered in a child's voice, “Please don't beat me no more, Binnie! I'll obey, I'm your slave!”

Her face leaked rivulets of dripping sweat, clownish with streaked rouge and mascara. He erected as the whip stung a rash of scarlet welts. At the moment of the spewing of his ejaculation, she lowered herself across the bed and kissed and bit his lips savagely as he yelped.

She stood with a ferocious face. “Get down here on your knees and lick my feet!” she commanded.

He blubbered incoherently as his dope-maimed body laboriously scuttled from the bed to the carpet on his knees before her. He dipped his head and feverishly kissed and licked her feet.

She slashed his buttocks with the whip. “Now, tongue pussy!” she commanded in a harsh voice.

He buried his face in her gray, scraggly sex-nest until rapture hooded her eyes. Her teeth gnashed as she yowled. Her obese knees quivered, and she collapsed, panting, onto the bed. He buried his face in a pillow and gnawed it as he cried.

She stared at him with tender eyes for a long moment, then she leaned and stroked his hair. He cringed away. She staggered as she got to her feet. Grunting, she half-lifted him onto the bed on his stomach. She took baby oil from her wrapper pocket and gently applied it to his wounds.