THE NUDE WHO
EVER
Ted Mark
1965
THE $72.39 MISTAKE
The only thing duller than Birchville was the people who lived there. And Llona Mayper's boyfriend, George Rutherford, was the dullest of all.
The thought of marrying George and settling down in the sticks was just too much. So Llona emptied her piggy bank — $72.39 — and took off for the big town.
She wanted to be where the action was. But the action backfired — and Llona was in hilariously embarrassing hot water.
Follow her unpredictable adventures in this ribtickling new novel by Ted (The Man from O.R.G.Y.) Mark — but make sure your laughter insurance is paid up first!
From Berkeley to Boston,
hip readers are asking...
WHO IS TED MARK?
He’s the man of mystery behind the Man from O.R.G.Y. and other improbable characters — the author of the decade’s most hilarious bestsellers — the creator of a craze that’s sweeping the country! Read his books ... and you’ll ask, too!
Chapter One
“I wish I was a fascinatin’ bitch.
I'd never be poor; I'd always be rich.
I'd live in a house with a little red light.
I’d sleep all day and I'd play all night.”
LOOKING at the man’s elbow sticking out of the top of the peasant blouse she was wearing, Llona Mayper caught herself humming the song under her breath. She couldn’t have said where she first heard it; all the girls in the high school locker room had been giggling over it last year when Llona had been in the senior class. But the message meant more to her than to the others, and the words had stuck in her mind.
The picture they painted was a lot more attractive than eight hours a day behind a counter at the Birchville Five-and-Dime. And a darned sight more appealing than a life of scrubbing floors for George Rutherford, or one of the other beaus she’d be sure to marry if she didn’t get out of Birchville soon. The thought made her restless and she shifted position. This wasn‘t easy because George’s car was a Volkswagen and had never been designed for even moderate petting.
The shift caused her a sudden thrill—something which was unexpected since she knew George’s technique by heart and had long ago given up expecting any innovations in it. My, she thought to herself, George is feeling bold tonight! Then she looked down to find that the pressure between her legs had come from her unintentional straddling of the floor-shift—not from George’: hand as she had supposed.
Both his hands were where they had been: one plunged elbow-deep down her blouse, the other playing with her right ear. The right ear and the left breast, in George’s limited rural love-making experience, were the key points in arousing girls. If only once, Llona thought to herself forlornly, he’d play with my left ear and my right breast!
“George,” she said.
“Umm?” George breathed into her left ear which he’d been nibbling at. He always nibbled her left ear while playing with her right ear because he liked to keep things even. But he never played with her right breast because he just couldn’t get more than one hand down the front of her blouse at a time and the left breast, according to both local folklore and his own experience, was definitely the more sensitive one.
“George,” Llona said, “let’s go home.”
He withdrew his thin, red-skimied, rural American arm from her blouse, turned to Llona and looked at her with injured eyes. “Gee, Llona, it’s still early,” he said. “Look,” — he waved his arm to indicate the darkened cars spaced out in the clearing which sewed as the local Lovers’ Lane —“nobody’s leaving yet.”
“I don’t care. I'm tired. I want to go home.”
“Aw, all right. Just one more kiss.”
She let George kiss her again, parting her lips to the cool tang of Sen-Sen on his tongue. Once that had made her thighs clench with yearning, but now it only made her wish idly that just once George would taste of tobacco, or liquor, or even onions. It would be a change, at least.
George felt her lack of response and broke the kiss short. “I guess you’re just not in the mood tonight, huh, Llona?” he said, starting the car.
Llona readjusted her bra strap and fluffed out her hair. “I’m a working girl, George,” she said. “I have to get my beauty sleep. Besides, these passion parties two or three times a week aren’t getting us anywhere.” She took out her compact and studied the damage to her makeup in the mirror.
“You can say that again.” George backed the car carefully out of the clearing and pulled onto the road. “I mean, they’re fun, but Llona, you sure can leave a feller frustrated.”
“You bring it on yourself, George.”
“Maybe. I sure do feel like you’re just teasin’ me along, though.”
“If you don’t like it --”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. It’s just that I guess guys are different from girls. When a girl lets you go so far — well, then you just naturally want to go all the way.”
“So the man has his fun and the girl’s left with a bundle while Mr. Passion Operator moves on to his next conquest. No thanks!”
“Aw now, Llona, it doesn’t have to be like that. In the first place, with a drug store on every corner there’s no reason why a girl has to get into trouble. In the second place, you’re not fair. Sure I’m hot for your body, but I’m willing to pay the price.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning we should get married; that’s what.” George pulled the car to the curb in front of Llona’s house and doused the lights.
“Well, I’ll be darned!” Llona was surprised, then angry. “That’s some proposal, George,” she told him. “You’re sure the romantic one.”
“Now don’t be mad, Llona. I mean it.”
“You really do, don’t you? Well, George Rutherford, you hear this: I’d go to bed with you a lot faster than I’d marry you! Maybe you’re willing to tie yourself up for life for a roll in the hay, but I’m not. I may not be the smartest girl in Birchville, but I’m too smart for that!” She opened the door to the car and slid out.
“Hey,” George said, “aren’t you gonna kiss me good night?”
“Drop dead!” She flung it at him over her shoulder and stormed into the house.
Her mother and father were sitting in the parlor watching TV as the front door slammed behind her. “Llona?” her mother called.
“Yes, Mom.”
“You’re home early. Did you have a good time?”
“Just dandy.” Her tone was sarcastic.
“What’s the matter, dear? You sound funny.”
“Nothing.”
Llona’s father walked into the foyer as she was starting up the stairs. Rufus Mayper was a big, rawboned man who’d spent most of his life on a farm before he’d gone to work in the Birchville Mill. He didn’t understand women, and from the time Llona had been born he’d felt ill at ease with her. The feeling had increased as she grew up. Boys were easy to raise; you just whopped ’em when they were bad an’ then they behaved. But girls were a different kind of animal. They were delicate and they got woman trouble and things like that. They had to be protected and kept virgins ’til they got married. Rufus wouldn’t really breathe easy ’til Llona had a husband. ’Til then every boy she went out with was a potential despoiler in his eyes. All this lay behind his words when he spoke now.
“That George Lutherford; he get fresh with you?” he asked suspiciously.
“No, Pa,” Llona said wearily.
“He does, you tell me. I’ll pin that whippersnapper’s ears back, you hear? Your Ma and me, we raised you to be a good girl. You see you stay that way, understand?”