‘Oh. You mean we are checked in?’
‘Not as us. But the room’s signed up for.’
That was certainly good news.
Maybe I’ll stay, after all, Norman thought. I’ve gotta spend the night somewhere. Now, at least, there won’t be much danger of getting into trouble about the room.
Just have to stay away from Boots. And keep her away from me.
He drove slowly alongside the motel’s parking lot, keeping watch for the second entrance. When he spotted it he flipped his turn signal on. He swung in.
‘It’s one-forty,’ Boots said. ‘That’s the last room on this end. See it?’ Her arm stretched past the side of his face, her finger pointing. ‘That one right there. Where that car is.’
Norman drove straight toward it. But he asked, ‘Are you sure? I mean, somebody’s parked there.’
‘Those guys, they went upstairs.’
‘Oh. Okay. Are you sure?’
‘Yeah, I’m sure. Good golly, Norman.’
‘Just pull in next to it,’ Duke said.
‘Okay.’ Slowing, he eased his Cherokee into the space to the right of the other car.
‘Brand new Caddy,’ Duke muttered. ‘Wonder how much these rooms go for?’
‘Plenty, I’ll bet,’ Boots said. ‘It’s a real dandy place – just wait, you’ll see.’
Norman shut off the engine. ‘Let’s get in fast before someone spots us,’ he hissed.
Boots put her hand against the back of his head and gave it a gentle shove. Then she climbed out.
Norman cringed when she slammed her door. It sounded like an explosion. He expected faces to suddenly appear at room windows. He grimaced at Duke. ‘Shouldn’t we try and be quiet?’
‘Got a lesson for you, bud. When you’re up to sneaky shit, the last thing you wanna do is act sneaky. If you’re going in a place, you go in acting like you own it.’
Boots strode past the front of the Cadillac and stopped at the door of room 140. She slid her key into the lock.
‘Let’s go,’ Duke said.
They climbed out of the Cherokee and Duke flung his door shut. Norman shut his door gently. In spite of Duke’s lesson on sneakiness, he just couldn’t bring himself to slam it.
Boots was stepping into the room by the time they reached her. They hurried inside and Duke shut the door. The room was dark except for a slice of gray dusk-light coming in through a gap between the edges of the curtains.
Duke flicked a switch. A lamp came on. It stood atop a round table in front of the closed curtains. The room looked fine to Norman: it had a queen-sized bed and a single one, covers and a carpet that didn’t appear dirty, and a nice set of dressers, counters and mirrors. The TV was raised in the middle of the unit, where it could probably be seen well from either bed. He glimpsed a counter and a sink in the nook at the other end of the room. The door to the bathroom was probably over to the right, hidden by the wall that ran out past the end of the far bed.
Not a luxury room, but not a dump, either. It would be a good place to spend the night. My God, am I really gonna do it? Norman’s heart hammered. I can just stay, he told himself, and mind my own business and keep away from Boots.
‘Ain’t it a peach?’ Boots asked. Grinning, she raised her arms and twirled around like an awkward, stocky ballerina. From Dance of the Sugar-Plum Hog. As she completed her twirl, she flopped backward onto the queen-sized bed. She lay sprawled there, her arms out, her legs dangling off the end with the corner of the mattress between her parted knees. Her thick thighs filled the leg holes of her cut-offs, so Norman couldn’t see in. Her tank top had drifted up, baring her midriff.
Boots squirmed slowly and moaned. Raising her head, she looked from Duke to Norman. ‘I’m ready when you are. What say we get the show on the road?’
Norman faced Duke, his mouth dry. ‘You go first.’
Duke lifted his eyebrows.
‘I’ll . . . I can watch television. Or . . . I know, I can take a shower while you’re . . . you know, busy. Unless you’d rather have me leave. I could go for a walk, I guess. Come back in, what, an hour?’
‘Up to you, honcho,’ Duke said. ‘All the same to me. You can stay and join in, if it don’t matter to Boots.’
She pushed herself up on her elbows and gave Norman a lazy smile. ‘Don’t you dare go running off.’
‘But . . .’
Sitting up, Boots crossed her arms over her belly, clutched the tank top, pulled it up and over her head and off. She tossed it aside. It fell to the floor between the beds. Flopping onto her back again, she flung out her arms. ‘Somebody wanna finish the job?’ she asked, raising one of her booted feet.
‘Happy to oblige you, ma’am,’ Duke said. He stepped forward. When he tugged the boot off, the girl’s whole body jerked. Her breasts hopped, wobbled, jiggled.
I’ve gotta get out of here, Norman told himself. Before it’s too late. He took a step closer for a better view. In the lamp light he could see the pink of Boots’s sunburn. The color was solid and even, except on her breasts. Her breasts were pale but had pink speckles where the sun had entered through the webbing of yarn. Her nipples were standing up straight. Both the tips looked ruddy, and Norman recalled how they’d been sticking out through the small holes in her bikini.
Her breasts lurched and swayed when Duke tugged off the other boot.
But after the boot was off, they didn’t stop. They bobbed, swung and jumped, and Norman realized that Boots was wiggling slightly to make them do it. She grinned up at him.
‘Take these jeans off me, Norman.’
‘Uh . . .’
‘You been wanting to all day.’
‘Go for it, Normy,’ Duke said. ‘Peel her nice and slow, huh?’
‘I don’t know. I really . . . I’m not sure we should be . . . you know, doing any of this.’
Pushing her heels against the floor, Boots raised her pelvis. ‘Come on, Norman.’
Don’t, he told himself. Excuse yourself. Go out to the Jeep. Get in and drive away.
Last call. Scram now, or forever hold your peace. He stared at the brass button at the waistband of her cutoffs. A couple of inches below her belly button.
And what’s a couple of inches below this button? Oh man, oh man, oh man!
‘Come on, Norman,’ Boots repeated. Smiling up at him, she squirmed. ‘Don’t be yellow all your life.’
Duke told him, ‘Come on, do what the lady asks.’
Heart slamming, mouth dry, Norman stepped between her knees. His own knees trembled. So did both his hands as he reached down to the brass button.
He unfastened it. Oh, my God.
The denim edges spread, showing sun-pink skin.
With the thumb and forefinger of his right hand he pinched the zipper tab. He lost his grip on it twice but finally got a good hold and slid it down.
Exposing a deep V of bare skin and tight, wispy golden curls.
When did she get rid of the bikini pants? Norman curled his hands under the slit sides of Boots’s cutoffs, then took hold of the denim and pulled. The tight shorts hardly budged. He stepped backward until he was clear of her knees. She swung them together. Then he pulled again. This time, the shorts came free. He backed away quickly, yanking them swiftly down her legs, past her ankles and off over her feet.
Boots smiled up at him. ‘That was easy, wasn’t it?’
Norman nodded. He swallowed hard.
With that lazy smile on her face, she raised her arms and folded her hands underneath her head. Then she opened her legs wide – and squirmed.
‘What’re you aiming to do, boys?’ she asked. ‘Just stand there and gawp at me all night? Come and get it.’
Chapter Fifteen
Norman thought: My first time ever!
His mind whirled. And it’s an orgy. Maybe something like this doesn’t count as an orgy – just a threesome – but it sure seems like it ought to count.
He supposed they’d been at it for an hour. Maybe longer. All three of them naked an
d sweaty and breathless on the bed, grappling, caressing, humping.
It seemed unreal.
Like some sort of exotic, erotic dream.
The way Boots had done him with her mouth right at the start of things.
Later, the funny stuff with the condom. How he’d unrolled the damn thing, then tried to pull it on like a sock – hilarious for Boots and Duke, embarrassing for him.
Then Boots showing him how it was done. Demonstrating. Taking a fresh one and ripping its wrapper open, then rolling it onto him with slow, gliding fingers and finally pulling him down on top of her and guiding him inside for his very first actual time. I’m fucking her! Norman had thought, astonished. I’m really doing it! I shouldn’t be doing it, but I am . . . anyway, it’s all right, using a condom just like you’re supposed to . . . hope it doesn’t come off or break . . . Sure wish it wasn’t so tight. Gotta be tight. But, shit, it hurts. He’d used up three of the damn things so far – including the one he’d ruined by unrolling it – and now he was on his knees at the end of the bed, ripping open a fourth. His hands shook badly. Not from nerves – from exhaustion.
He plucked the condom out of its wrapper. It was pre-lubricated: slippery as a snail.
He started to put it on.
He could hardly believe that he was ready to go again. My God, look at me.
Though his penis stood up stout, it was shiny and red, and ringed with marks left by the other condoms. Just as if rubber bands had been wrapped tightly around it.
Why the hell do they make ’em so tight?
So they don’t fall off, asshole.
Like Duke’s had fallen off. His second one had come off while he was in her. They’d both laughed as if they thought it was hysterical. Norman hadn’t thought it was funny – until he watched them struggle to fish it out. ‘So much for safe sex,’ Duke had said.
‘I ain’t got nothing you can catch,’ Boots had said. After that, Duke hadn’t bothered with any more condoms. He was on his back now, moaning and writhing. Boots, on her hands and knees between his parted legs, was using her mouth on him.
Norman fumbled and dropped the condom. It fell onto the sheet. When he tried to pick it up, it slipped out of his fingers.
Duke isn’t even using one.
The hell with it, he thought.
He edged forward on his knees, running his hands along Boots’s calves. They were thick, slippery, prickly with whiskers, but the backs of her thighs felt smooth. So did her rump. The crack between her buttocks felt clammy. Lower, though, she was wet and slick. Norman fingered her there to be sure that he had the right place – the front one, as Duke had called it – then moved forward and in.
In her for real, skin to skin, for the first time, and she was all heat and slickness.
He couldn’t believe the feel of it.
I’m probably gonna die now, but who cares?
It’s so wonderful.
So great. Better than anything. So what if it kills me?
What if I get AIDS from this? Or the clap? What if I wake up tomorrow and I’m whizzing blood and pus? My God, I must be out of my mind.
But it probably wouldn’t happen, anyway, and it was too late now to stop. Norman was on his knees, thrusting in as Boots took her weight on her hands and knees, his lap making slapping sounds against her buttocks, his arms underneath her, hands on her breasts – squeezing them as he slid in and out, smacking against her rump as she sucked on Duke and Duke gasped and groaned . . .
. . . And a movement where there shouldn’t be movement caught Norman’s eye. He turned his head. Peered over the edge of the mattress. Saw a man squirming out from under the bed, belly-crawling, facedown. Something wrong with the back of his head. Hair pasted down with blood.
Shoulders furry. Shit! Got a werewolf under the bed.
Only dimly aware that he was still embedded in Boots and clutching her breasts, Norman gazed over the side of the bed and watched.
Not a werewolf. A desk clerk?
The guy kept squirming out from under the bed, apparently unaware that he was being observed.
Neither Boots nor Duke had seen him. Not yet. They weren’t likely to spot him, either. Not unless Duke sat up on the bed, or Boots slid her mouth off him and looked over her shoulder.
The guy was wearing black knitted bikini pants.
‘Boots?’ Norman asked.
‘Mmm?’
‘Who’s the guy under the bed?’
Her mouth made a quick slurpy, smacking sound. Then she said, ‘What?’ She sounded alarmed.
‘What’s going on?’ Duke asked.
The man suddenly scurried across the floor.
Boots pushed herself up, turned her head. ‘Shit! Get him!’
‘Quick!’
Not me!
But Norman was on Boots and Boots was on Duke. Me or nobody!
‘Get him!’ Boots cried out again.
Norman let go of her breasts. He backed up, pulled out. The man was clear of the bed and crawling across the carpet toward the door.
He looked stupid in the bikini pants.
Stupid and disgusting, Norman thought, like a pervert in some sort of crummy porno movie.
How come he doesn’t get up and run?
‘Stop him!’
Norman leaped off the bed. He hit the floor and rushed forward.
He knew he ought to jump on the guy. A great flying leap. But this fellow really was repulsive to look at – all hairy and pale, shiny with sweat, his ass showing through the web of the knitted pants.
Don’t wanna touch him!
Besides, Norman told himself, it might be a crime to jump on him. Assault and battery, something like that. Dressed like that it might come down as a sex crime. What would Norman’s family say if they read about it in the newspapers?
So he dashed past the man.
Got to the door just ahead of him.
Whirled around and planted his back against it.
The man raised his head. Blinking sweat out of his eyes, he gazed up at Norman. He looked confused and about ready to cry.
Like a disappointed kid. A skinny forty-year-old kid in bikini pants who’d just had Santa take away his only Christmas gift.
Boots made a running dive. Her body slapped down on the man’s back. He gave a grunt. His elbows folded, and his face thudded against the carpet. Boots hugged him tightly around the waist. She twisted and writhed as if trying to throw him over. ‘Help!’ she gasped. ‘Come on!’
Norman stood and watched.
So did Duke. He’d hurled himself off the bed a moment after Boots and now he stood behind her, hands on hips, staring down at the struggle, an odd look on his face as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether to scowl or grin.
‘Guys!’
‘You’re doing fine,’ Duke told her.
‘Gimme a hand!’
‘Who is he?’
‘He’s s’posed to be dead, the dirty fucker.’
‘This guy your desk clerk?’ Duke asked.
‘Ain’t no clerk.’
Duke’s scowl lost the struggle. Smirking, he chuckled a few times. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said. ‘You just came over and knocked on this guy’s door, right? Picked yourself some poor sucker, came in, put your moves on him, then bonked him on the head.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ Boots sounded annoyed. ‘So sue me. Why the fuck ain’t he dead?’
‘Didn’t hit him hard enough.’
‘I strangled him too.’
‘Didn’t strangle him hard enough.’
‘Don’t hurt me,’ the guy pleaded from underneath her. ‘Please?’
‘This is his room?’ Norman asked.
‘Help me out,’ Boots said.
Duke grinned. ‘Seeing you wrestle the guy naked’s turning me on.’
‘W-we’d better let him go,’ Norman stammered. ‘You’d better get off him, Boots.’
‘No way.’
‘Come on. This is crazy. We don’t need his room. We can go someplace el
se. God Almighty. Tell her, Duke.’
‘Tell her, Duke,’ the guy underneath Boots repeated desperately. ‘Please. You . . . you can have my room. Just let me go. Please? I won’t tell. I promise.’
‘He sounds like a friendly sort of guy to me,’ Duke said. ‘What do you aim to do with him, darling?’
‘Kill his ass.’
‘Oh God. No, please. Help . . .’ The man’s voice stopped as Boots finally got her leverage right and flipped him over sideways. Keeping hold around his waist, she rolled onto her back.
The man had a bloody nose. Whimpering, he tried to unlock Boots’s hands from around his middle. He twisted and squirmed and kicked at the air. Norman could see through the small holes of the bikini pants.
He’s the only guy around here without a hard-on, Norman thought. Seeing him and Boots grapple is a kinda turn-on.
Course, he’s the one she’s trying to kill.
Boots swung her legs up on both sides of the man. She brought them inward and down, bending her knees, driving her feet down between his legs, trapping him.
‘Good going,’ Duke said. ‘Now what? Gonna squeeze him to death?’
‘If you’d just help . . .’
The man yelled, ‘HELP!’ at the top of his lungs. ‘SOMEBODY HELLL—’
Norman dropped to his knees and clamped both hands over the man’s mouth. ‘Shut up!’
The guy snapped his teeth at Norman’s palm.
Norman jerked his hand away.
The man yelled, ‘HELLLL—’
Norman pounded his fist down like a hammer on the man’s nose. The nose squished. Blood squirted from its nostrils. ‘Now shut up!’
Clutching his face, the man whimpered and gasped for air.
‘Thanks,’ Boots gasped. ‘Wanna get him off me?’
Norman pulled while Boots rolled. As the man started to fall sideways she let go of him.
He flopped facedown.
‘Gimme back my bikini bottom,’ Boots said. Kneeling, she untied the yarn sides of the bikini pants. She tugged the garment out from under her victim and flung it out of the way. Then she sat on his rump, dropped forward and shoved her right arm underneath his neck. She caught his throat in the crook of her arm. With her left hand she clutched the man’s forehead.
‘What’re you doing?’ Norman asked.