“I don’t mind looking, buster,” she said, “but that’s the end of it.”
“Be nice,” he said, kissing her. She went all wet and open, her tongue coming out. Then she jerked away.
“You crazy or something?”
“Crazy for you,” Billy said, trying to put his mouth on hers again.
“Knock it off,” she said. “I’m a married woman.”
“I won’t let that bother me if you won’t let it bother you,” he said, trying to put his hand on her and finding that she had six arms to ward him off.
“Sam would kill you,” she said, fighting.
“You gonna tell him?”
“There ain’t gonna be nothing to tell,” she said, ramming an elbow into his gut, hard.
“Ouch,” he said.
“You get over there and stay,” she said.
“Now, honey,” he said.
“I’m leaving,” she said harshly. “You wanta ride home you can, but you keep your ass on your side of the automobile.”
“You gonna waste a beautiful opportunity like this?” He tried to put his arms around her. She hit into his belly with her closed fist.
“Goddamnit, that hurt,” he said.
“Get you where it really hurts if you don’t stop acting like a animal.”
“Animal?” He felt the heat of anger. “Animal?”
She started the car. He had this huge want and she’d promised him. Her earlier actions had been a promise. She’d led him on and now she was showing her true colors. A tease. That’s all she was.
“You know you want to,” he said, making one last effort.
“I won’t deny it,” she said. He reached for her as she started the engine. “But I’ve got enough sense for my wants not to hurt me, and yours are going to get you hurt if you don’t get your hands off me.”
“You want to,” he persisted.
She drove home in silence, and he let his anger vent off by closing the door with a crash when he got out. So it was one hell of a frustrating night. She wanted to but she wouldn’t. The way it was with most women, damn it.
He was still thinking about it when he saw the girl come out onto the edge of the cut. He’d been watching the clouds hopefully. If it rained he could quit and go into Ocean City and try his luck at the joint with that tall waitress. When a man is desperate, he’s desperate and if there’d been an organized house in the little town he’d have made plans to visit it that very night, but all Ocean City had was a couple of part-time hookers, and they didn’t look too clean to him. He wasn’t about to waste twenty bucks on something which might begin chewing on him before he even got finished.
Then the girl was there and she was in an outfit that knocked his eyes out. Hotpants and a low-necked blouse. He could see, even from fifty yards away, that she didn’t have a set as big as the Tennessee gal, but she was making up for that with a pair of legs which looked good and that nice fanny. He kept his eyes on her. When she waved, he waved back. She stood there for a long time. The low clouds climbed the sky, building.
“Nothing ventured,” he said. He cut the Cat’s engine, leaving the blade up, ready to go back to work. He walked over the torn ground, lifting his boots over roots and broken limbs.
“Hey,” he said, “you look mighty lonesome out here all by yourself.” Close up, she had a knock-out of a face.
“This way,” she said, turning without so much as a smile. He saw her fanny work as she walked away. What the hell? She stopped, turned. “Are you coming?”
“Where?” he asked.
“Does it matter?” she asked, turning to face him and unbuttoning her blouse to show that she was wearing nothing under it. She let it hang open, showing a nice, firm set. Tender stuff.
“Honey, you name the place.”
He’d heard of such things, but nothing like this had ever happened to him. He almost stumbled over his third leg as he followed her down into the brush along a little trail. It was hot in the woods, with the breeze blocked off. He didn’t care. Man, after his disappointment of the night before, he was ready. And he couldn’t believe his luck, but he’d heard of such things, women so hot they didn’t beat around the bush. He followed. She skirted a little bay. The clouds were still coming. The sun went, and it cooled down. She pushed through thick brush and he fell back so that the bent branches wouldn’t snap up into his face. When he broke through she was standing beside a big tree which had been blown over in some past storm.
“Stand over there and take off your clothes,” she said, pointing toward the root end of the fallen tree, a huge mass of dirt and moss and rotting wood. She didn’t beat around the bush. To show that he was up to anything, he stepped over. The place where the tree had been growing was a big, round hole about four feet deep. There was water standing in the bottom of the hole. Billy wondered where she was going to do it. There wasn’t enough moss anywhere to make a good carpet. Hell, he didn’t care. Looking at her bare boobs, he was hot enough to screw her standing up against the tree, even if it did tire his legs and make them tremble.
“Take off your clothes,” she said. She wasn’t smiling. Billy began to wonder if this were some sort of a con. He looked around. There were no sounds, save the natural sounds of a woodland.
“You first,” he said. He wasn’t born yesterday. If this was something some of the guys had set up for a laugh, he’d go along, but he’d see the rest of her, even if they did come busting out and start laughing. Then he’d have something.
She nodded, shed the blouse in one graceful motion, loosened her hotpants, let them fall. She had a thick, brown bush and sweet-looking legs. She kicked the hotpants aside. Billy’s throat was dry. He took a step toward her. She said, “Now you.”
He grinned. This was surely the real thing. A real nymph, and those psychos were always hung-up about something, even if they did make good rocking when they got started. He took off his shirt and hung it over the fallen tree. Then he had to take off his boots. His jeans were so tight they wouldn’t come off over the boots. He bent and tugged, and off came one boot. Then he lifted the other foot, lost his balance, and caught himself with one hand on the fallen tree. He laughed nervously. He’d taken his eyes off her for only a few seconds. When he looked up, he looked into the barrel of a shotgun. The woman was moving closer.
“Oh, shi—” The spreading pattern of shot blasted the last letter of the word down his throat before tearing off the lower side of his face. The second blast eliminated his eyes. He splashed heavily into the hole.
Gwen padded over to look down on him. She sidestepped the bloody leaves. He jerked a few times and then was still. She leaned the shotgun up against the fallen tree and calmly began to push the bloodied leaves into the hole with a stick. Finished, she examined her work critically. There were a couple of blood spots on the tree itself. She cupped her hand, dug dirt after pushing the mulch aside, and rubbed the tree until the spots were obliterated. She looked at her dirtied hand, wiped it on leaves, and dressed slowly. Then, using shells taken from a small bag hidden in the dead branches of the tree, she reloaded the gun and placed it in its original spot.
Jock, Billy’s best friend, stopped his Cat. The clouds were on top of him and it was time to knock off. He heard only silence and knew that Billy had decided the same thing. He sighed, stretched, and lit a cigarette. He sat on the Cat waiting, and after five minutes got off and took a long, satisfying leak. Pushing a Cat worked on the kidneys. Then he started walking around the remaining mass of trees toward the other end to meet Billy. He walked all the way to Billy’s machine and saw Billy’s tracks leading off toward the woods. He was headed toward them when the girl came out from under the trees.
“Hi,” she said.