The quake, p.42
THE QUAKE, page 42
“You’re lucky I cut down the rose bushes,” he had called to her. Then he’d lowered himself to the ground, retrieved his scissors and razor, and squatted beside Sheila to pick up the end of the barbed wire. “Fall down go boom?” he’d asked in baby-talk.
No answer from Sheila. Just a narrow-eyed glare.
She was gasping very hard for breath, so Stanley had spent a while watching her chest heave, lifting and lowering her breasts. They were shiny with sweat and blood. They were spickled with goosebumps, and the nipples stood erect.
“You turned on? You can’t be cold. Maybe you like all this. Do you? Do you like pain?”
She’d blinked her eyes, then crossed her legs and sat up.
“Ah. You’d rather get going. Scared I’ll start on you, I bet.”
The momentum of her quick sit-up had carried Sheila to her knees. From there, she’d gotten to her feet. Instead of bolting, she’d only stood there, her back to Stanley, the wire hanging between her legs to the grass.
At her back, Stanley had ducked and reached between her knees and grabbed the wire. He’d drawn it up behind her.
“Welcome to my back yard. That’s my house right there—what’s left of it. Of course, it fared better than yours. Mine is only half down. Over here is my garage, which fared even worse than my house. Mother’s in the house. Deader than shit, as the saying goes. And a good thing, too. She would not approve of my behavior today. Wouldn’t approve in the least. The old bat always did think I was a pervert.”
Laughing, he’d given the wire a couple of quick upward tugs that made Sheila jump and gasp.
“Giddy-up, horsey.”
Bending over, Sheila had started to hobble forward.
“To the right, to the right. Our next obstacle is the block wall there by my driveway. But I think we’ll go around it. Would you like that? You took such a nasty fall at the last wall, so we’ll try to spare you, this time. I think we can probably make it to the gate without drawing undue attention to ourselves, don’t you? We’ll just go down my driveway.”
She’d led the way, and Stanley had kept a sharp watch as they approached the front of his house. Making her wait, he had stepped past her and opened the gate that shut off Judy’s side of the cinderblock wall.
Then they’d gone in and made their way alongside her house to her back yard.
“This is the home of my friend, Judy. I don’t believe you know her. Me, I’ve gotten to know her quite well since the quake. It was her saw we used to get you out. A lovely woman. Not in your league, of course. Nobody is in your league. Perhaps we’ll visit with her, later on. You two have a lot in common. Me, for one thing. And guess what—she’s still in her bathtub. Not that her house fell on her. Her house didn’t fall at all, the lucky bitch. But I fell on her. Ho! Maybe we’ll let her out, later on, and ask her to join us for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Why not? It’ll be her stuff.”
Stanley had kept the monologue going all the way across Judy’s back yard, smiling at Sheila’s backside, sometimes chuckling, wondering if she was at all impressed by his wit.
Under the circumstances, he’d thought, I can hardly expect her to be amused.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “The pool’s just on the other side of this fence. See where I made a doorway for us? We won’t have to climb over this one or go looking for a gate—we can walk straight on through. But watch your head.”
Hunching down, Sheila stepped over the lower crossbeam and slipped through the gap in the redwood fence. On the other side, she halted. Stanley stepped through. He ducked, but not quite enough. The upper beam scraped the top of his head.
“Ow!”
Sheila ignored him.
“I hurt myself.”
She acted as if she were deaf.
“Say you’re sorry.”
“I’m not sorry,” she muttered.
“You’re not being very nice to me.” Stanley flipped the wire from side to side, switching it against her thighs. “But why should you be? All I did was rescue you.”
She didn’t look back, didn’t make a comment.
“Get moving.”
She waddled toward the pool.
“Go to the right. We’re going to the other end. That’s where the water is.”
She followed orders.
As they walked alongside the pool, Stanley said, “Bet you can’t wait to get in. I’ve been in. Not a whole lot of water down there, but it’s plenty good for washing off blood. And it’s really quite refreshing. I’m sure we’ll both enjoy it. Okay, stop here.”
Sheila stopped.
“Face the pool.”
She turned and looked down.
This is it! Stanley thought. Suddenly, he was trembling.
He could hardly believe that he’d actually freed Sheila from the bathtub and brought her to the swimming pool—that they were finally here, exactly as he’d hoped.
This is my day! The greatest day ever! And the best of it hasn’t even started yet!
Dreams can come true, he told himself. All you’ve gotta do is reach out for them and not let anything get in your way.
Stanley peeled the clinging remains of his pajama pants away from his rump. He crouched, lowering them to his ankles. While still down, he placed the scissors and razor on the concrete. Then he straightened up. With a few quick, silent movements, he stepped out of his moccasins and the scanty rag that draped his feet.
Sheila seemed to be unaware of what he’d done. “We can’t go in here,” she said.
“Sure we can.” The concrete felt awfully hot under his bare feet. He was glad to be naked, though. He wished Sheila would turn around and look at him.
See how big I am? It’s all because of you.
Just tell her to turn around.
No no no. I want her right where she is.
“It’s too shallow,” she protested.
“This is the deep end, moron!”
With that, he used both hands to jerk upward on the wire. Sheila cried out. The barbed steel vanished in the crease of her rump, but she bent down and it came out fast. Still tugging the wire, Stanley took a quick step backward.
The pull made Sheila fold as if broken at the waist. Her bound hands came swinging toward him between her calves. Her elbows struck the inner sides of her knees. Her face appeared, upside-down, hair hanging.
Stanley yanked the wire upward as hard as he could.
Sheila shrieked.
For a moment, Stanley thought he might be able to drag her whole body, arms-first, through her widely spread legs.
Make her kiss her own ass!
But suddenly her legs flew up, bare feet almost kicking him as she flipped over. Her back, just below the shoulders, struck the edge of the pool. The blow jolted her body, straightened her out. Stanley strained at the wire as if he hoped to drag her from the brink.
Propped up at only one end, Sheila was stretched out over the pool like the naked and bloody victim of a demented magician more interested in torture than levitation.
The wire lurched in Stanley’s hands.
Letting go, he watched his end of the wire leap high.
Sheila’s legs dropped out of sight and the fulcrum of the pool’s edge seemed to launch her upper body forward.
Stanley rushed to the edge.
At first, he thought she would hit the water flat, a real belly-whomper. At the last instant, however, her body twisted and curled. Her side hit the surface. A geyser of white, sparkling spray shot up and she was submerged in a roil of froth.
The spray sprinkled down.
The froth vanished.
After her impact with the water, Sheila must’ve rolled over. She was face down, bound hands hanging toward the bottom, legs spread apart. Submerged in water tinged with pink, her body seemed to waver and shimmer.
As Stanley watched, she glided slowly upward.
The surface of the water slid away to make room for her back.
Her back became a slick, clean island that gleamed with sunlight.
But it was the only island.
The rest of Sheila stayed down, a layer of water rippling over her buttocks, the hair on the back of her head rising and swaying.
She’s faking it, Stanley told himself. Wants me to think she’s drowning so I’ll let my guard down. She’ll come up for air any second.
But the only movements of her body seemed to be those made by the gentle shifting of the pool water buoying her up.
What if she’s out cold?
What if she drowns?
“Sheila!”
Nothing.
She can’t drown! That’d ruin everything.
But even as Stanley leaped from the edge, he wondered if this was exactly what she wanted him to do.
He was on his way down when he realized that his hands were empty. He’d set down the scissors and razor…
“Shit!” he yelled.
His feet slapped the water. A moment later, they struck the bottom of the pool and he felt as if his legs were being rammed up through his hips. His knees folded. He tumbled forward through the rising spray of his splash and slammed onto Sheila’s back.
He drove her down.
He felt a slight jolt when she hit the bottom of the pool.
No struggle came from under him.
No good, he thought. No good at all.
What if she drowns?
He knew he should act quickly to save her, but he wanted to savor the moment—the silence, the mild and heavy coolness of the water, the slick feel of Sheila’s skin against his chest and belly, the way he was pressed against her rump with his penis snug between her buttocks.
Why they call ‘em buns, he thought.
Could do her right now. Go just a little lower, and shove it in…
And she’ll drown for sure, he warned himself. Don’t want that. She’s gotta be alive and kicking, or it won’t be any good at all.
So he clutched her just below the armpits and slid himself backward. On his knees, he leaned away from her and pulled. She glided up with him. As her body rose, her arms descended and slid over the backs of his hands, pressing them against her sides.
Their heads lifted out of the water.
Stanley gasped for air.
Sheila didn’t. She hung limp in his arms, her head drooping.
Stanley shook her. “Hey!”
Nothing.
He stopped shaking her.
She didn’t seem to be breathing.
Doesn’t mean anything, Stanley told himself. Maybe she’s just holding her breath.
From his position at her back, hands clamped to her sides, he couldn’t tell whether she had a heartbeat. So he shoved his hands forward, forcing them through the tight spaces under her arms.
When they came out the other side, they met her breasts.
Which ended his quest for her heartbeat.
He filled his hands. The breasts were wet and slippery, heavy. He squeezed them. They were soft, firm, springy. He swirled his hands around them. The nipples under his moving palms were stiff, rubbery nubs.
Breathless, he grew so hard that he ached.
“Can you feel it?” he whispered, pushing against her.
She didn’t respond.
“Answer me.”
She didn’t.
“This is a test,” he whispered. He clamped both her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. “Tell me when it hurts.” He squeezed.
Not gently.
She didn’t flinch rigid and scream with pain, as Stanley thought she might. But she did moan. She did squirm slightly. As if disturbed in her sleep. Then she started to cough. A wet, rattling cough.
Stanley cupped her breasts loosely so he could feel them lurch and bounce, slapping against his hands as she was wracked with spasms of coughing.
Don’t wait till she stops! Get her now while she’s screwed up!
Clutching her breasts, he pulled her backward until she was tight against him, then put his feet on the bottom and stood up, lifting her. The water was almost waist-high. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted the chrome ladder fixed on the side of the pool, near the corner. It didn’t extend down very far—was intended for use when the pool was full. He wondered if he would be able to reach the lowest rung. Hoped so.
Wading backward, he dragged Sheila toward the ladder. She twisted and writhed, and couldn’t stop coughing.
At the corner of the pool, he swung her around and shoved her at the wall. She didn’t bring up her arms in time to stop the collision. Her body made a wet, smacking sound when it hit the tiles. Her forehead thumped. Stanley’s hands felt pleasantly trapped between the wall and her breasts. He kept them there while Sheila coughed a few more times. Then he slipped them free.
He stepped away from her back, grabbed her upper arms, and spun her around to face him. She tried to push him away. The effort was feeble.
So much for our Amazon, Stanley thought. Bash her around enough, she ain’t so tough.
He thrust her bound arms high.
Her wrists reached almost to the ladder’s lowest rung.
Pinning them to the wall with his left hand, he caught the dangling strand of barbed wire with his right. Though he jabbed himself a few times, he drew the wire up and wound it around the side rail and bottom rung of the ladder. With a few twists, it was secure.
He stepped back.
“Fabulous,” he muttered.
In his wildest fantasies, perhaps Sheila had almost looked like this.
But perhaps not quite so beautiful, so vulnerable, so ready for him.
Most of the filth and blood had been washed away. Except for a few bright red trickles sliding down her forearms from fresh wounds on her wrists, her skin looked clean and glossy. It ran with streamers of silver water. It dripped diamonds.
Arms raised high, she stood straight and tall, her head tipped back.
Each time she coughed, her body shook. Between coughs, she panted for air. The shaking and panting did wonderful things to her breasts.
The ruffled surface of the water encircled Sheila’s waist like a fluid, transparent skirt, vaguely pink. Just below it, the fine curls of her pubic hair sparkled like gold. Stanley could see through them as if they weren’t there.
Her legs seemed to blush in the sunlit, blood-tinted water. Stanley knew they weren’t moving, but they appeared to undulate.
My Sheila, Stanley thought. Just the way I always dreamed, only better.
While he was gazing at her, she lowered her head. She grimaced at him, eyes squeezed almost shut, teeth bared. She coughed a couple more times, then sniffed.
“Are you all right?” Stanley asked.
She didn’t answer.
“You look spectacular.”
He moved closer. He dipped his hands into the water by her hips, then slid them up her sides to the smooth hollows of her armpits. Then he explored the sleek muscles of her upraised arms before sliding his hands down to her breasts.
He watched her breasts as he fondled them, hefted them, pressed them together, squeezed them. Sometimes, Sheila moaned.
She likes it, Stanley thought.
She squirmed and made quiet wincing sounds when he pinched her nipples. When he pulled and twisted them, her back seemed to stiffen and she hissed through her teeth.
He caught one of her nipples between his lips. He flicked and wiggled it with his tongue, then opened wide and sucked in her breast until his mouth was full of the slippery, cool flesh. He tested its springiness with the edges of his teeth.
What if I bite it?
Bite it off and eat it?
She wouldn’t look so great afterwards, but imagine the scream! And the taste! And she’d turn into part of me, flesh of my flesh…
Sheila attacked him with her knee.
Stanley felt it thrust in and slide up between his thighs.
A groin shot—sapped of its power by the weight of the water.
if we hadn’t been in the pool…
But we are! Yes yes!
As the knee rushed upward, Stanley shut his legs to trap it. But the water slowed him. By the time he clamped his thighs against the sides of Sheila’s knee, it was already touching his scrotum.
Instead of crashing into his testicles, her knee simply stopped, barely touching him, and hoisted Stanley upward. His feet lifted from the bottom of the pool. His mouth lost hold of her breast, which popped out with a squelchy, sucking noise.
Rising out of the water, he saw the fierce look on her face.
The agony.
And despair, because she could obviously see that her attack had failed. Stanley was riding her knee like a pony, grinning, pointing at her with his stout penis.
He didn’t even fall off.
He simply rode her knee up, and rode it down.
“Wanta try again?” he asked.
She glared at him.
“You could’ve hurt me, you know. You could’ve ruined everything.”
“That was the point,” she said.
“I know.”
Stanley punched her in the stomach. There was no water in the way to slow down his fist, so it landed good and solid just above her navel. It sounded like smacking wet meat. Her breasts jumped nicely. Her legs jerked upward as if she wanted to double over but couldn’t. Her breath blasted out and she was smashed backward against the side of the pool.
Stanley punched her once more in the same place.
Not only did her breasts bounce like before, but this time her eyes bulged wildly and her knees broke the surface of the water so that she hung there by the barbed wire around her wrists. Hung there and squeaked as she tried to haul air into her lungs.
Fabulous!
Stanley shoved his hands into the creases behind her knees. Clutching her there, he pulled the knees wider apart and drew them toward him and stepped between them.
As he lifted them above his hips, her dripping cleft came up out of the water and tilted toward him.
He plunged into her.
He thrust up hard, rising on his tiptoes to reach high and deep, staggered by her tight, gripping slickness.
It had never been like this for him.
Not even close.
This was better than he’d thought possible.
I’m in her! Sheila! I’m fucking her! Yes!
