The Chosen

^{CHAPTER NINETEEN}

She came to him every night now—or, really, every morning, since that’s how long it took Lee to cleanup the room-service kitchen. He was in a trick-bag and he knew it. Kyle had indeed given him that raise, and Lee knew he’d lose it if he complained about the extra work. He also knew that he’d lose more than the raise—he’d lose his job too, probably. Kyle would put the smear on him, and that would be that. Terminated for drinking on duty.

He’d gotten the hang of it fast enough; now he was usually finishing up at about 4a.m., and it wasn’t like he was busting his tail in The Carriage House, not when they were running less than thirty dinners per night. It was room service that did all the business. Life had its ups and downs, Lee rationalized. Being essentially blackmailed into cleaning up after the RS crew was one of the downs. Everything else, though, the money, the free room and board, the bennies, was an up.

So was the woman, the housemaid. Definitely an up.

Lee guessed she was a housemaid. She did a lot of things around The Inn: cleaning, kitchen prep, running RS orders. She was illegal, Lee knew, perhaps all of the maintenance staff was, so Kyle could pretty much work their asses off without worrying about them running to the state employment board.

Sure, it was an up, all right, but it still wasn’t something Lee felt too great about. It seemed exploitative, almost like he was taking advantage of her. Granted, he’d helped her out getting Kyle off her that night in the pantry, but that didn’t mean she was obliged to blow him every night in gratitude. Lee’d told her over and over that it wasn’t necessary, but she wouldn’t hear of it. By now, he suspected that she had a speech impediment; she seemed to understand him, but she never talked. In fact, he had yet to hear her speak one word.

Usually she brought things for him too. A couple of beers, sandwiches. Once she’d even tried to give him cash, but he stuck it back in her apron. I should be paying you, he thought. Christ! The whole thing was a crazy situation, and he often wished he was out of it. But…

Incompatabilities aside, Lee began to realize that he…well, he liked this woman. Nothing romantic or anything like that. He just liked her. Not to mention the head. He definitely liked that. What guy wouldn’t?

Every night now, for weeks. She’d slip into his room several hours before dawn. She always insisted on keeping the lights out, which was fine with Lee. This woman—shit, he realized, she’s been giving me head for weeks and I don’t even know her name! —wasn’t much of a looker; she was, what Lee’s Emerald-Room pal Dave Kahili would call Fugly—that’s fuckin’ ugly, and Lee himself, of course, was none too eager to show off his less-than-trim abdominals and log-sized legs.

Additionally, Lee was none-too-experienced in being a recipient of the sexual colloquialism known as “head.” (Why did they call it head? Hadn’t the Monkees made a movie called Head? Moreover, why did they call it a blow job? They don’t blow in it, they suck it.) Nevertheless, Lee couldn’t imagine anything better. This woman…she had a technique that defied description. Liddy the busgirl had blown him a bunch of times, but that had been nothing compared to this, nothing at all.…

“Hi,” he said from beneath the covers. A slant of dim light fell into the room, then fell out as she opened and closed his door. Moonlight tinseled her bulky, pasty features when she crossed the room’s darkness, set down her bag of goodies, and crawled into bed with him. She seemed happy to be with him, he could sense her smile. He loved the feel of her hands on him, running under the covers, which she quickly skimmed off. Why didn’t she ever take off her clothes? She’d always fuss with him, pushing his hands away when he attempted to disrobe her, but then that made sense. The scars, he recalled. He remembered the whip-weals crisscrossing her back; naturally she was self-conscious about that, and God only knew what other kinds of marks her body bore from so many years of abuse. The most he’d ever done was get her blouse partway down. Lee’s member (which he nicknamed, for some reason, Uncle Charlie) responded quite quickly to her probing, inquisitive hands, and she didn’t spend much time with preliminaries. Aw, jeez, he thought. It was in her mouth already, the slick delicious friction coursing tightly up and down as her nimble fingers massaged his testicles. He always seemed to fall into a dream, like time stood still, when she did this. Like the luscious sensations converged to a paralyzing pinpoint which left him helpless to do anything but lie there and absorb her pleasures.

And upon those pleasures, his mind sailed away…

Now, Lee was not exactly Mr. Endurance. His climax began to amass from the get-go, and it wasn’t more than a few minutes—a very few minutes—before reflex took command. (Thinking about baseball did little good. Lee’s team was the Yankees, and year after year, it seemed, they did the same thing that this woman did, with equal proficiency; they sucked.) It was a bit embarrassing. What must the woman think? Goddamn Yankees, Lee thought, and there it went, the unretractable manumission of his orgasm. Lee thought he might actually die of pleasure, as the ever-reliable Uncle Charlie quite liberally relinquished the starchy-white product of Lee’s loins.

Lee’s body went lax in the silken, exultant aftermath. The woman happily lay her head atop his great belly, as if at total ease in the silent dark, and she gingerly cradled his spent genitals in her hand. Often she’d do it twice, three times, as many times as he wanted, or at least as often as Uncle Charlie would reclaim its necessary rigidity. Lee felt at ease, too, at unparalleled ease, lying here with her as the clock ticked on.

But he also felt…guilty.

More and more he’d felt this way of late. She came in here every night to do this for him, to make him feel good, and all she got in return for her generosity was a mouthful of his goo. Not much of a reward. He was determined to do something for her for a change. But what? he wondered now. She didn’t seem to like to be touched at all—no surprise, really, considering the vicious extent to which she’d been touched in the past. Sometimes he tried to put his hands in her hair while she was doing it, and she’d jerk her head away. If he’d touch her shoulders, she’d flinch. But there must be something he could do for her.

“All right, no arguments this time,” he said. He leaned up, put his hands on her shoulders, and pushed her back onto the bed. Instantly, she tensed up as if terrified, shuddering. “Relax,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you. Just…lay back. Relax.”

She at least attempted to do this, continuing to shudder. Lee began kissing her; her lips remained sealed tightly as the seam between two bricks. Meanwhile he gently ran his big dishman hands over her plump body, feeling her through her housemaid uniform. Christ, this is like pulling teeth, Lee thought, persisting. But eventually his persistence paid off. Soon she was kissing back, lightly opening her mouth to his. Then the tips of their tongues were touching. That’s better, he thought. Now she was getting into it. Now she was— Hoooo! Lee thought—practically sucking his tongue out of his mouth. Her arms wrapped around him, tightening. She made stifled moaning sounds into his throat. Soon it was not even a matter of inference. She was getting aroused.

But when he began to unbutton her starched, collared top, she went to seizing up again. Don’t freeze up on me now! Lee thought. I’m finally getting somewhere! “Relax,” he kept assuring her. “Relax.” Her bra-cupped breasts felt huge and wobbly in his hands. He slid up and straddled her. Careful, big boy. Your fat ass’ll crush the poor girl if you’re not careful. She seemed to like it, though, his weight atop her, pinning her. But her hands kept grasping at his, as if she didn’t want her breasts exposed. He realized why a moment later, when he managed to unclasp the big bra and unloose her breasts.

Jesus, he thought very slowly. Don’t freak out, Lee. You’ll hurt her feelings. Instead, he pretended not to care, not to even notice. But as he gently kneaded the big breasts in his hands he couldn’t help but feel their blemishes, and, even in the dim moonlight, he could see them too. Nests of scars and healed-over punctures made a thick map of each breast, and things that felt like old burn-marks. This woman’s really been through the S&M wringer, he lamented. Still, he did not falter. This was what he could do for her in return for what she’d done for him. Not care. Not react to it. Accept her as she was, not a scarred, pasty gross foreigner, but a human being with real feelings and real desires. It was tough, though. When he began to lick her left nipple he flinched. It had been punctured with pins and needles so many times it felt like a puckered knot of leather. Her hands caressed the back of his head as he carried on, she squirmed gently beneath him.

He swallowed his shock, then, when he moved his mouth to the right nipple, which had long-since been bitten off.

It made him happy, nevertheless, that she had given in to him, that she was dismissing her inhibitions and letting him excite her.

I know, he thought next, remembering the advice of his old buddy Dave Kahill. You gotta go down on ’em, man. Lee decided he would—yes, by God, he’d do it. He’d make this stifled, odd woman have an orgasm if it killed him. He, of course, realized the potential consequences. First off, she was no cute pixie that was for sure. Second, and worse, given her upbringing, her social standing, and the sad lot that life had paid her, he doubted that she was a example of high hygienic standards. Performing the act of cunnilingus on her, in other words, would probably be no picnic. But that didn’t matter; Lee was forthright in his determination, and besides, she couldn’t be any stinkier than the Good Humor Girl of years ago. No, no way, he cheerily told himself. He doubted that anything on earth could be stinkier than that.

He unbuttoned her housedress fully now, letting it fall to her sides. The tragedy of scars and sadism followed the trail of his tongue down her quivering front. He licked the inside of her navel and found it as toughened by needle insertions as her nipple. More old burn-marks became apparent when he stroked the insides of her thighs. Down, down Lee’s mouth went, over the warm, excited flesh. Her legs parted to receive his attentions, her hands gently grasping his head, urging him further. His finger traced the wet entrance; she shivered in pleasure, then his mouth found its target, to which she immediately cooed and wrapped her legs around his head. Lee, of course, didn’t know exactly what he was doing—Dave Kahill had been great for advice but not so great for detailed instruction. He must be doing it right, though. Judging by her reaction, in fact, he must be doing it very right. Her hips gyrated under him, her finger laced in his hair and her back arched. Lee was pleasantly overwhelmed. Her pubis was completely barren of hair, soft and smooth as silk. Furthermore, she tasted nice—she tasted sharp and vivid and clean, and there was not a trace of the dead-catfish-in-the-sun odor he grimly recalled from his unfortunate liaison with the Good Humor Girl. This was actually fun, and more fun still in the proof that she was enjoying it. His tongue prodded her clitoris diligently up and down, and in periodic circles for diversity, and soon she was going subtlety nuts in the bed. Her big thighs clamped against his ears like a warm vice, she was panting in repressed shrieks and rocking her hips back and forth quite vigorously. I guess she’s having an orgasm, Lee reckoned, head rolling to and fro in the clenching embrace of her legs. This went on for a considerable period, such that Lee was beginning to wonder if it would stop before his next shift. But that was fine, that was even better. The more pleasure he could give, the happier he would be…

The protracted climax simmered down later, all her tensions draining at once, and her heels slowly running up and down his back. Her sated smile was bright enough to light the room when she pulled him back up to her and kissed him. Lee was exhausted. Next time bring a snorkel, he thought. But it was fun, it was delightful. He would do this every time from now on, finally adding some mutuality to this bizarre relationship. He’d no longer have to feel guilty about taking advantage of her. Now, the pleasure she gave him he could return in spades.

Her hands were at him again, all over him in their newfound enthusiasm. Lee speculated that it had probably been a long time since anyone had treated her as anything more than an S&M pincushion and whipping post for someone else’s sick fantasies. Lee was probably the first person to ever do anything solely for her. And he would do more! Why not? Her caresses enlivened him; old Uncle Charlie was raring to go again; he was hopping. The woman made to fellate him again, but he pulled her back. “Let’s go all the way this time,” he said. Oral sex was great, but there were other things too, and it was high time they’d moved on to those things.

Suddenly, she slumped in frustration, or despair.

“What’s wrong now?” Lee asked. “We can do it. I even have rubbers.”

She didn’t tell him what was wrong; she couldn’t, and perhaps this only added to her flattened frustration. She couldn’t tell him—

So she showed him.

She grabbed his hand, placed it between her legs, and pushed his middle finger into her sex.

Hooooooooly shiiiiiiiiit, Lee thought.

His finger was not able to penetrate her deeper than an inch. He didn’t need to see, he could feel it, he could easily feel with his fingertip what some sick sadistic monster had done.

A dozen stitches of heavy gauge suture had sewn her vaginal passage shut.

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