Nikki (3 page)

She jumped back and glared, speechless.

“What’re you getting sore at? I know who you are,” he said, as if that made it proper. “You’re Nikki Duquesne and you live in Indy Union. You’re a freshie.”

“You let me past or I’ll—I’ll kick you.”

That seemed to tickle him. He stepped aside and flattened himself against the wall. She rushed past him, thrust open the door and knew he was coming after her, but she didn’t look back.

“I have my car,” he called. She ignored him. “If I promise never to get fresh any more, will you not be sore?”

A group of men students was coming along the walk in the dusklight, eyeing her, and she was glad when Fred stretched his pace, came protectively alongside her, and jutted his head at them.

“I promised,” he said, after another quarter block. “Does that make it better?”

“Well …”

“Know who I’m going to take my pin off and pin you instead?”

Of course everybody knew his girl, one of the campus queens, a senior, a sorority bigshot and a beauty. Nikki’s interest sharpened. “Not interested. Thanks, anyway.”

They reached the broad steps of her house. “Wait, Nikki … I can get you best seats at the games and free trips on the out-of-town games, and Wyzowski’s girl don’t sit down with the mob at the big rallies. A dainty, classy girl like you don’t want to sit down with the mob. And think how it’d protect you to be my girl. No punk’d dare get fresh with you.”

“Except you.”

“I already promised.”

“I know, but I don’t believe you.” She’d let her mackinaw fall open, showing the thrust of her breasts in a white knit sweater, and he was staring. “You see what I mean?” she said, yanking the coat shut.

“It’s just that them bite-sized titties get me.”

“You’re plain crude,” she said, scornfully. She turned, went up two steps, scowled and came back. “How dare you call them
bite sized
,” she said in an angry undertone.

“They are.”

“They are
not
.”

He dropped that prehistoric jaw of his. “For the size of
my
mouth that’s what they are, and I’ll make you a sporting proposition I can prove it.”

She was outraged, then helplessly amused. “Oh, you devil.
Honestly
!” He stood nodding with enjoyment as he watched her laugh. Then he grinned.

“See, already you like me better. And my buddy, Ray Powell, is a gent. Whyn’t you let me and him take you and your roomie out to dinner tonight?”

“We have plans, thank you.”

“Tomorrow?”

“No.”

“I’ll dog you all over this campus, every place you go, night and day. If it takes I don’t give a damn how long to get you, I got to have you. Tomorrow night. Make it easy on yourself.”

“Well, it would have to be a nice place. The University Heights Hotel.”

“It’s a date.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You be ready at seven.”

She turned, giving her bottom the lightest of swishes, and ran up the steps, grinning. “Maybe,” she called back, expecting to stand him up, thinking she would put him altogether out of mind.

News of Truck Wyzowski’s arrival sent palpitations through the building, and Dolores and Nikki had so many giddy helpers running in and out that they weren’t dressed on time. Entering the social room wearing identical blue satin frocks and pony tails, and with a retinue of volunteer ladies-in-waiting, they found Fred and his buddy walled in by yet other admirers.

One of them couldn’t wait, and shrilled out: “Wait till you see what he’s
got
, Nikki!”

What he had was his frat pin, and he was planning on quite a ritual, as was the audience. He reached toward Nikki’s breast, but she backed off, flaring.

“No!”

“But Nikki …” he appealed to the audience, who regarded her as if she had committed a sacrilege.

“Come on, Dolores,” Nikki said coldly, starting to put on her coat. “We’ll eat alone.”

“Hey, lemme help with your coat.”

“Don’t bother. If you think you’re going to pressure and embarrass me into doing anything, you just don’t know Nikki Duquesne!”

Nikki and Dolores swept outside and down the steps, with Fred hustling along after them and his buddy counseling him: “Truck, you don’t have to chase any woman. Truck, I told you you were making a mist—”

“Stick it! I want that little thing and I’m going to have her.”

On the walk, Nikki turned left, Truck pointed right. “Car’s that way.”

She walked on with Dolores, pretending to ignore him. He jogged ahead, spun around, and walked backward in front of them, towering like a falling wall.

“Look here, Nikki,” he blustered, “don’t you act like you don’t see me.” His size and force and rising anger amused her.

She whispered loudly to Dolores behind her hand, “He’s going to fall in that fountain behind him.”

He twisted around, saw no fountain. “Very funny. Ho ho ho,” he grumbled.

“The big dumb ox,” she said, giggling.

“Nikki!” Dolores was alarmed.

“Oh, he won’t do anything but glare and grind his teeth,” she said, watching him cagily, a grin teasing one corner of her mouth.

He swooped and picked her up. As he carried her against his chest to the car she waved her feet, smirking with enjoyment while she set his hat lopsided, twisted his ear and tried to stuff the end of his tie in his mouth. “Ray,” he bawled, “get that car door open!”

“Carry me all the way,” she demanded. “It’s only a couple of miles.”

He tried to set her in on the car seat and she locked both arms around his neck, holding him doubled forward in a clumsy half squat. Then one of his hands was free and moving up under her dress. “Snake!” she hissed, clapping her knees shut on his wrist and clawing at his arm. He withdrew, straightening up outside the car, grinning down at her and panting a little.

“Now, you just sit there. We got a date, and you just quit acting up. C’mon, Ray, you and Blondie climb in back and get yourselves introduced to each other properly.”

“It’s all right,” Nikki called to Dolores. “Get in.”

Nikki scooted across under the wheel and locked the door on Fred, who tapped the window. She said, “I’ll drive. I’m a swell driver. Besides,” she cranked the window down and added in an undertone, “you’re too shaky.”

“That’s the truth. You sure got me shaky,” he said, pushing his big face leeringly close to hers. “So you drive; it’ll leave my
hands
free.”

She opened the door and bounced over to her side, and he got in, chuckling. Nikki grinned to herself, rather pleased with him.

She let him kiss her goodnight and kiss her again and again until he got breathy about it. Then she ran inside.

Next morning, when she came out for breakfast, there he was, and for a week he plagued her. She accepted a few invitations … dinner at his frat, walks, rides … and wherever they went he couldn’t keep his eyes or hands off her. The night before the big rally she thought he was going to rape her.

In the afternoon mail she’d gotten an unexpected little present, a hundred dollar check from her father, and, feeling somehow sluttish, she’d rushed into town by taxi and proceeded to blow it all on black lace panties, a tight black sweater, a swingy white pleated skirt and open-toed sling pumps with the highest, sharpest heels she’d ever worn. She phoned Truck’s frat, left word for him to meet her. His eyes went instantly to her slim, sexy legs and she strutted casually, aware that the high heels tilted her pelvis forward enticingly and gave her round bottom a pert lift.

The sight of her pitched him high, and after they ate she deliberately whetted his senses even more. She entered a broad walkway leading between the showcases of a small department store, and in that privacy prompted him.

“Look,” she said.

She danced away, went into a quick spin which brought the white skirt circling high enough to expose her slim sexy thighs. She stopped, grinned at him, as the skirt settled and furled itself around her legs. As he made a move, she went into a spin in the opposite direction, this time exposing herself to the edge of her black lace panties.

“Nikki!” he said, miserably, as she danced away from him.

“Can’t a girl dance when she feels good?” She went clicking out onto the public walk. “Oh, look,” she cried gaily, pointing down the block. “A penny arcade.”

They shot rifles, tested his strength, looked at some dull-naughty pictures, while he kept looking at her hungrily.

“See if you can take it,” she said, nodding at an electricity machine. He stepped up, grasped the handles and, clenching his jaws, turned the handle to the top voltage.

“Now
you
!” he dared.

She squirmed, shook her head, but stepped up and gripped the handles, bracing her feet apart and giving her hips a small get-set flirt from side to side. He dropped the coin in and stepped aside and watched her. A mildly stimulating current vibrated in her hands and forearms. Gingerly she edged up the voltage and hunched her shoulders, letting out a thin little “e-e-e-e-e” of sound.

She increased the current, her eyes becoming brilliant. The intense vibration reached the exquisite edge of pain and she went up on her toes, down again, up, down. She flashed a glance at him, held his eyes for a bold moment and wet her lips, which were double-layered with red-red lipstick. When the current clicked off, Nikki sagged and fanned her face.

“Now you know the feeling I get just looking at you … only the feeling’s not in my arms,” he said huskily. “Let’s get out of here.”

She kept saying: “I won’t go to lover’s lane. I won’t, Fred.”

He paid no attention. Stopping the car, he yanked her to him and began to kiss her hotly, his hands moving roughly over her. She writhed and twisted, but he forced her down across the seat and fumbled at her skirt. She pulled her leg up, got her shoe off and wallopped him on the head with the spike heel.

“Ouch! Jeez!”

“Cool off. What were you going to do … rape me?”

“Hell, you get me so goddamn worked up!”

“Shut up and drive me home, this instant.”

He started the car dejectedly, drove mutely. He kept glancing at her. “I guess,” he finally said, “I guess now you won’t go to the rally with me.”

“I said I’d go. Did I say I wouldn’t? Drive.”

He was obviously proud to have her seated perkily and prettily beside him on the platform. When he was introduced, the crowd stormed an ovation and he swaggered out and stood at the mike smirking awhile. Then he raised both arms overhead, wagged his hands for silence and barked, “We’re gonna
crush
‘em!” End of speech, start of more screaming madness from the crowd.

Coming back to his seat, he watched her so anxiously, knowing she scorned the rah-rah stuff, and wanting her approval so much, that she melted. Abruptly she stood up on her chair, flung her arms around him and kissed him lavishly, much to the crowd’s and his delight.

He was still glowing as they drove away an hour later. “Doll, you sure made me big. I appreciate it.”

“You made the best speech!”

“Some speech—only four words. They figured it’s all I could memorize. Only I ain’t really that dumb … huh?” He looked over hopefully.

“If I thought you were, would I have anything to do with you?”

“A smart cookie like you sure wouldn’t. Jeez, Nikki, I’d be proud to pin you, a classy doll like you.”

“You always like to pin classy dolls.”

“I know. It makes me feel like something, a dumb patch-pants Pollack like me pinning the classy ones. Only, me being who I am on the campus, you know, I’d still always kind of figure it was
their
privilege. Only, with you, I’d feel like it was
my
privilege.”

“No kidding, Fred?”

“No kidding.”

“That was a lover’s speech, a real lover’s speech.” However, speech didn’t paralyze his hand, which moved to her knees and tried to pry them apart. She reached out and smacked the hand.

Truck said, “I’ve told you fifty times already that I love you.” He got the pin out of his pocket. “Please, Nikki? Wear it?”

After a while she consented. He smacked his lips. “You know what that means. You’re my little wife now.”

“Fred, I’ve told you and told you I’m just not interested in sex.”

“Like a pig ain’t interested in pork.”

“Say, I’ll smack your dirty mouth off. Damn you, I’m a virgin.”

“So?”

“So don’t you dare say I ain’t interested in sex like a pig ain’t interested in pork.”

“All I meant was a pig
is
pork, like you
are
sex. Whether or not you ever done anything, you’re sexy. I just gave you a compliment.”

“Some compliment. You should give up football and become a poet.”

“Anyway, since you’re my little wife I have to see you alone.”

“We’re alone.”

“But not comfortable. I get cramped in a car, a guy my size. It’s too cold outside. So where I figured we could have privacy and be comfortable and all was a motel.”

“Nope.”

“I’d give my solemn promise not to touch you.”

“Your promises!” She had to laugh. “Oh, boy!”

“It’s different now; I can’t break a promise now I’ve pinned you. That’s just the simple code,” he said earnestly. “You’re my woman and I got to shoot straight. A man needs his sweet woman to himself when he’s got problems like I got tonight. That rally got me nervous. I’m big, they scream, but a few weeks and the season’s over. Then where’s Truck Wyzowski? Lemme stop in a delicatessen and get sandwiches and we’ll check in at a nice motel and you can serve the food like my sweet woman, and we can talk about what am I going to do in case I don’t make all-American and in case I flunk out and have to settle for some job no bettern’n my old man’s. Me a college guy and a big man on the campus, it would be a disgrace, I tell you.”

“Why, Fred, dear,” she said, touched. She moved nearer and patted his arm. “I had no idea you ever worried about anything like that.”

“The frat brothers’ve been making it rough on me for dumping that sorority bigshot; me taking an unorganized girl was bad politics. I tell ‘em: ‘talk to a stone wall, she’s my sweet woman.’ You ain’t going to let me down, are you, Nikki?”