My drinking slowed down the next week. I went to the racetrack to get fresh air and sunshine and plenty of walking. At night I drank, wondering why I was still alive, how the scheme worked. I thought about Katherine, about Lydia, about Tammie. I didn’t feel very good.

That Friday night the phone rang. It was Mercedes.

“Hank, I’d like to come by. But just for talk and beer and joints. Nothing else.”

“Come by if you want to.”

Mercedes was there in a half hour. To my surprise she looked very good to me. I’d never seen a mini-skirt as short as hers and her legs looked fine. I kissed her happily. She broke away.

“I couldn’t walk for two days after that last one. Don’t rip my butt again.”

“All right, honest injun, I won’t.”

It was about the same. We sat on the couch with the radio on, talked, drank beer, smoked. I kissed her again and again. I couldn’t stop. She acted like she wanted it, yet she insisted that she couldn’t. Little Jack loved her, love meant a lot in this world.

“It sure does,” I said.

“You don’t love me.”

“You’re a married woman.”

“I don’t love Little Jack, but I care for him very much and he loves me.” “It sounds fine.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“Four times.”

“What happened? Where are they tonight?”

“One is dead. The other three are with other men.”

We talked a long time that night and smoked any number of joints. Around 2 am Mercedes said, “I’m too high to drive home. I’d total the car.”

“Take your clothes off and go to bed.”

“All right, but I’ve got an idea.”

“Like what?”

“I want to watch you beat that thing off! I want to watch it squirt!” “All right, that’s fair enough. It’s a deal.”

Mercedes undressed and went to bed. I undressed and stood at the side of the bed. “Sit up so you can see better.” Mercedes sat on the edge of the bed. I spit on my palm and began to rub my cock.

“Oh,” Mercedes said, “It’s growing!”

“Uh huh. . . .”

“It’s getting big!”

“Uh huh. . . .”

“Oh, it’s all purple with big veins! It throbs! It’s ugly!”

“Yeh.”

As I kept beating my cock I moved it near her face. She watched it. Just as I was about to come I stopped.

“Oh,” she said.

“Look, I’ve got a better idea. . . .”

“What?”

“You beat it off.”

“All right.”

She started in. “Am I doing it right?”

“A little harder. And spit on your palm. And rub almost all of it, most of it, just not up near the head.”

“All right. . . . Oh, God, look at it.... I want to see it squirt juice!”

“Keep going, Mercedes! OH, MY GOD!”

I was just about to come. I pulled her hand away from my cock.

“Oh, damn you!” Mercedes said.

She bent forward and got it in her mouth. She began sucking and bobbing, running her tongue along the length of my cock as she sucked it.

“Oh, you bitch!”

Then she pulled her mouth off my cock. “Go ahead! Go ahead! Finish me off!”

“No!”

“Well, goddamn it then!”

I pushed her over backwards on the bed and leaped on her. I kissed her viciously and drove my cock in. I worked violently, pumping and pumping. I moaned and then came. I pumped it into her, feeling it enter, feeling it steam into her.