Cheerleaders Sex Ring
by Unknown


FOREWORD 

Norval Jones sucked up the last of his cherry Coke and sized up the sexy 
blonde sitting next to him in the candy store. 

"Got a name?" he asked her. 

"Liz," she replied, and smiled at him. 

Norval knew he had it made. "Wanna go for a walk?" he asked. "I could walk 
you home." 

"I hardly know you," she protested, but Norval knew from experience that she 
was hopelessly hooked on his good looks. 

She wasn't bad either, not with her trim figure and full, luscious breasts, 
which were on full display under her white T-shirt. 

"So we'll walk and you'll get to know me better," Norval suggested. 

Twenty minutes later, they arrived at Liz's apartment building. 

"Wanna come up?" she asked, squeezing his hand anxiously. "My aunt and uncle 
are out for the night." 

"Sure," Norval replied. 

These Queens girls were hot, much more so than the girls upstate. 

His eyes were riveted to the sight of her firm ass as she climbed the 
stairs. 

Once inside the apartment, Norval tore Liz's T-shirt down the middle of her 
chest and started to fondle her big breasts. 

"Not here," Liz gasped. "Let's go into my room." 

They did. 

It was a night Norval would never forget. 

 CHAPTER ONE 

"I got a million of 'em," Uncle Jackie chirped before the full length 
bedroom mirror. "A million of 'em, I tell ya." 

Liz kicked shut her bedroom door to drown out the sound of her uncle's 
monologue and turned her attention back to the latest issue of TEEN BEAT, 
where Madonna and Sean were belting photographers. The story also went on to 
say that critics were hailing Sean Penn as the new James Cagney, whoever he 
was. 

The thin wall separating Liz's room and Uncle Jackie and Aunt Rose's room 
was not thick enough to drown out his stream of corny jokes. Uncle Jackie 
was a comedian who worked mostly shitholes in Jersey and the Borslit Belt, 
in some of the lower class hotels. 

"My wife makes friends easily," Uncle Jackie droned on, his voice carrying 
easily into Liz's room. "With strangers, she takes a little longer. You 
know, I don't have to be here tonight. I could be home starving instead ... 
saw a great porno movie about a Jewish American Princess: DEBBIE DOES 
NOTHING ... I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing...." 

Liz lay across her bed and flipped through the pages of her teen rag. Uncle 
Jackie eventually finished his comic patter, Liz heard, and now came the 
really bad part-his closing song. Liz grabbed her walkman and jammed on the 
headphones. Even Iron Maiden was better than Uncle Jackie's singing. 

"Yeah, you gotta start each day with a song, "now even when things go 
wrong," Uncle Jackie belted, shaking the thin walls of the Jackson Heights 
apartment. "You'll look better and you'll feel better. I'm here to tell ya', 
you'll be a real go-getter...." 

In the kitchen, Aunt Rose's anorexic parakeet, a condition caused by her 
husband's old jokes, dropped off its perch, dead. 

"Elizabeth!" Aunt Rose cried from the kitchen as she finished washing the 
last dinner dish, "it's time to dry the dishes." 

With Iron Maiden cranked to the max, Liz did not hear her Aunt Rose's 
calling. 

"Jackie, will you shut the hell up for Chrissakes!" Aunt Rose screamed. "You 
just killed Elmer!" Uncle Jackie burst from the bedroom, wiping his brow 
with a handkerchief. He was 49 and had been working the so called "toilet 
circuit" for nearly thirty years. Though far from a household name, Jackie 
Bender always found work, be it a sleazy Queens nightclub or a Hassidic 
resort in the Catskills. 

"What the hell is it, Rose?" Uncle Jackie asked impatiently. "I'm rehearsing 
here." 

Aunt Rose, dowdy and clad in a faded print house-dress that made her look 
twenty years older, wiped her hands on her apron. 

"You do the same act for thirty years and you gotta rehearse?" she asked, 
shaking her head. 

"Rose, I'll tell you the millionth time," Uncle Jackie said, popping a cheap 
cigar in his mouth, "I don't rehearse, I get stale." 

"Stale's the word," Aunt Rose said, turning to knock on her niece's door. 
"Ackk. She's listening to that junky Van Heflin again. Elizabeth!" 

She pounded now. The door flew open. Liz, her headphones propped up against 
her head, stood barefoot. 

"What, Aunt Rose?" 

"What, she asks," Aunt Rose moaned. "Always 'what.' It would be very nice if 
you took it upon yourself to maybe ask if the dishes needed drying." Liz 
leaned in the doorway. "Alright, Aunt Rose, may I dry the dishes?" 

"You're too late, I already did them!" Aunt Rose snapped, turned and marched 
down the hallway back into the kitchen. 

"That woman could make Mother Teresa feel guilty," Uncle Jackie said, 
shaking his head. "Don't let her bust your chops, Liz baby." 

He went back into the bedroom and rehearsed his act again. Liz wanted 
freedom from them both, however temporary. She slid into her tennis sneakers 
and pocketed the three dollars and change in her skimpy shorts. 

She went down the hall on tippy toes, lest Aunt Rose try and lay more shit 
on her. 

She was turning the doorknob when Aunt Rose appeared out of another 
dimension, arms folded across her formidable chest. 

"And where do you think you're going?" she wanted to know, appraising her 
niece's appearance: skintight shorts, a halter top that left little to the 
imagination, sneakers with no socks and a body best described by her Uncle 
Jackie as "a brick dollhouse." 

"Out," Liz replied poutily. 

"Dressed like that?" Aunt Rose asked. "You'll have every man, boy and child 
in Queens trailing you like ants on a birthday cake." 

"What's wrong with this?" Liz asked, pointing to her big boobs. "It's hot 
out." 

Liz opened the door and slipped out before Aunt Rose could think of a 
comeback. "I'll be home early." 

"It's already too late to be home early!" Aunt Rose called from the doorway 
as Liz took the three flights of stairs down to the lobby. 

The one-time luxury high-rise nowadays had graffiti spray painted all over 
the walls and most of the furniture that had once adorned the posh lobby had 
long been stolen. Where there had once been reproductions of famous works of 
art on the wall there now stood "Chico '84" and "Carmen Loves Enzo" in 
various shades of spray paint. 

Down on the corner, the usual crowd was hanging around the newsstand/candy 
store/video arcade which was owned and run by a sleazy Arab named Amir 
Bagashelz. 

"Hey, Liz," gurgled Hector, a hot Columbian guy who had a hardon for the 
nubile high school senior. She looked better than fifty lines of coke. 

"What's happenin', Hec?" Liz asked, her petite hands shoved deep into the 
pockets of her shorts. 

"Your aunt givin' you shit again?" asked Mona McGargle, another neighborhood 
chick. 

"Aunt Rose's got a cattle prod up her ass," Liz said, going up to the candy 
section inside Amir's. Several local geeks played video games and drank 
beer. 

One of them, an older guy of twenty named Zeke Jablonski, came up behind Liz 
as she tried to decide between a frozen Snickers or a Milky Way and squeezed 
her left ass-cheek. 

"Quit it, Toejam," Liz said, not even turning around. 

"What's wrong, sweets?" Zeke asked, his hand remaining. He was a big, 
somewhat dumb Polack who was nonetheless boyishly handsome, with a lock of 
gold hair that hung down his forehead. 

"I don't like anyone named Zeke squeezing my buns," Liz replied. She opted 
for a frozen Snickers. Behind the counter, Amir hissed as she unwrapped and 
ate half of it before paying. 

"Zeke's just my nickname, babe," he said, squeezing her cheek again. Liz 
liked it, but did not encourage him. 

Instead, she slapped his hand way, her cheeks bulging with frozen Snicker. 
"Get outtt!" 

Zeke laughed. "You on the rag tonight?" 

"None of your fuckin' business," Liz said pointedly, and plunked a quarter 
and a dime on the rubber mat, which Amir scooped up with the skill of 
Houdini. 

"Another nickel more," he snapped at Liz. 

"It was only thirty-five last week," Liz protested. 

"Go up one nickel more, please," Amir informed her. Liz scowled and fished 
up another dime. She threw it onto the mat. Amir dropped her nickel change 
in her palm, avoiding all human contact despite Liz's sexy body and adorable 
puss. It was common knowledge that all Americans had the herpes, and Amir 
took no chances. 

"What say we go back to my house for a spot of heavy petting," Zeke offered. 

"You don't beat around the bush, do you?" Liz asked. She was a virgin and 
planned to stay that way until she met a man she really loved. Most of the 
neighborhood girls put out at fifteen. Early pregnancy and marriage came 
quickly to many, but Liz was smarter than that. She had plans for her life 
and didn't care to be tied down to a couple of screaming brats and a drunken 
husband by the time she was twenty. 

"Life is short, Liz," Zeke said, swigging beer. "We could be blown away by a 
heat seeking missile or something any time." 

"You're seeking enough heat for a hundred missies, Zeke," Liz said. Some of 
Uncle Jackie's flippancy had rubbed off. And why not? She'd been in their 
care since she was nine after her old lady split for L.A. to break into the 
movies and even now was rarely heard from, except when she needed bread, 
which was most of the time. 

Liz's father was never discussed, but she'd heard Aunt Rose and Uncle Jackie 
mention someone named Glenn who her mom had gone around with. No pictures of 
Glenn existed, but Liz had heard that her mother got knocked up by him back 
when she'd been a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall. Glenn played the 
trombone in the orchestra, or something like that. 

Liz didn't care if she ever met her father. Aunt Rose and Uncle Jackie were 
okay, never beat or sexually abused her, and she wanted for little even when 
Uncle Jackie was unemployed and his sister, Liz's Mom, hit on him for bread. 

Sure, Aunt Rose was a pain in the ass, but it was a concerned kind of pain 
in the ass, not the kind who did it just to be mean. And Uncle Jackie was 
always good for a five-spot, always telling his niece to "keep it on the 
Q.T. from Aunt Rose," whatever that meant. 

Liz strolled out onto the comer and hung out. Zeke trailed behind her like a 
dog in heat. 

The neighborhood had changed radically over the years. Jackson Heights had 
been traditionally a Jewish-Italian-Irish working class neighborhood. Now, 
South Americans, Middle Easterners and West Indians populated the narrow, 
concrete-choked streets, although some holdouts. Aunt Rose and Uncle Jackie 
among them, remained. Cocaine wars raged almost daily. Jackson Heights was 
the new coke capitol of the world with the arrival of Columbians and 
Bolivians. 

Liz hung out with all of them. She had no prejudice about who her friends 
were, although some of them played a little rough sometimes, drug, sex and 
crime-wise. 

One person who qualified in all the above areas tore down Northern Boulevard 
in his souped up Harley and pulled up in front of Amir's store. He was tall, 
barrel chested and wore tight black jeans, heavy motorcycle boots and a 
black, skin tight t-shirt that showed off his muscled physique. 

He lowered his sunglasses and smiled at Liz. 

"Hiya, sweet potato," he said. 

"Hi, Johnny," Liz smiled back, leaning seductively against the blue mailbox. 

Johnny Vitello was everything Liz liked in a guy-he was older, he was 
handsome and he was sexy. He'd taken her out once or twice, to the movies, 
to the Garden to see the Rangers, and when Liz had spurned his advances, he 
knew from experience that she really did want it and would come around 
sooner or later. 

"Wanna go for a ride?" Johnny asked as Hector and Zeke watched enviously. 

"Sure," Liz replied, and hopped on the back of his Harley, putting her arms 
around his waist as he sped off down the street. 

"Where we going?" she screamed in his ear as they whizzed by parked cars. 

"My old man's working the lobster shift down at the plant," Johnny screamed 
back, "so no one's home. Thought we'd watch some tapes I rented today." 

Home alone with Johnny. It was now or never, Liz knew. 

"Sounds great," she screamed in his ear. 

Johnny lived with his widowed father in a two bedroom apartment in 
neighboring Woodside. The two Queens neighborhoods were more or less 
interchangeable. 

After a quick stop at the Greek grocery store on the comer for some beer, 
soda and chips, Johnny escorted Liz up the stairs to the apartment. The 
furniture was torn and faded, but otherwise, the place was neat, or as neat 
as it could be with two men living there. 

"Park your cute little butt on the couch, Liz," Johnny said, and turned on 
the A/C, which sputtered listlessly to life. "What are you drinking?" 

"Tab," she said, sitting on the couch facing the TV. On top was a new Sony 
VCR that Johnny got when it fell off the back of that truck. 

Johnny returned from the kitchen with a can of Tab for Liz and a tall can of 
Bud for himself. He plunked down next to her on the couch. He grabbed the 
remote control thingie from the adjoining table and turned on the VCR and 
the TV both. 

"I got two flicks," Johnny said. "TALK FILTHY TO ME and LICK MY BOOTS." 

"Does your father allow you watch this stuff?" Liz asked. 

"Hell, he's the one who rented it," Johnny laughed. 

"I've never seen a dirty movie," Liz said. "I don't care which one we 
watch." 

"Cool," Johnny said, taking off his sunglasses and putting his arm around 
Liz as he started the movie. 

It was a Technicolor fuck movie with lots of big breasted beach bunny 
California type blondes and equally blond hung surfer type studs cavorting 
naked all over the place. What it lacked in plot, it more than made up for 
in sizzling sex action. 

Despite the A/C humming behind them, Liz felt herself getting hot. Beads of 
sweat formed on her brow as she watched the heated action on the tube. 

"Wanna do some lines?" Johnny asked. 

Had anyone else offered, she would have refused. She knew what coke did; 
she'd seen enough of her friends coked up know. Enough of it stole your 
soul. 

"Sure," she replied. 

Johnny disappeared into his bedroom and came back holding a small vial 
filled with the white powder. He dumped it onto a mirror and with a razor 
blade, started cutting it into lines. 

He rolled up a twenty and handed it to Liz, who snorted two lines and 
immediately felt giddy, her heart pounding. She'd only tried the stuff a 
couple of times and got only the Hershey squirts as it had been heavily cut 
with baby laxative. 

Johnny's stuff was far more pure than anything she'd tried previously. She 
not only felt high, she felt extremely horny as well. 

"Pretty good stuff, huh?" Johnny said, snorting a line or two. 

Liz nodded. 

Johnny sensed her mounting desire and made his initial move. 

He pulled her close to him, his arm around her thin waist. 

"Let's suck face," Johnny suggested. 

He pressed his lips against hers and kissed her deeply, one hand placed 
gently on her breast. Liz returned the kiss in triplicate, sliding her hot 
tongue down his throat. 

Their mouths glued together, Johnny wrapped his powerful arms around her and 
eased her down on the couch as the fuck-flick spun to its conclusion. 
Neither one really cared how it ended. 

Liz threw her arms around Johnny, holding him tightly as they continued 
smooching passionately. 

He kissed her face and her neck. Liz's left leg dangled over the side of the 
couch as Johnny's trim body pressed sensuously against hers. 

She locked her hands around his neck and rubbed her body against his. Johnny 
slid his hand under her thin halter and started squeezing and rubbing her 
firm tits. 

Liz wanted him to take her, to make passionate love to her. She didn't want 
to be a virgin anymore. 

They necked and petted, getting hotter and hotter until the entire apartment 
threatened to go up in spontaneous combustion. 

"Let's go into my room," Johnny said breathlessly. 

"Okay," Liz agreed. The hell with resisting. 

Johnny took her by the hand and escorted her into his small bedroom. There 
were posters of various blonde TV starlets like Heather Locklear and others 
adorning the walls. In the middle of the room was a good sized bed, unmade. 
The room smelled faintly of dirty laundry, but at that point, Liz could have 
cared less. 

Johnny locked the door behind them, although the apartment was empty. He 
faced Liz, who smiled nervously at him. 

He pulled off his black t-shirt to reveal a brawny, hairy chest. There was a 
bulge in his pants the size of a grapefruit. 

"Take off yours," Johnny said hoarsely, a dribble of sweat running down his 
back. It was much warmer in his room, where there was no A/C. 

Liz dutifully complied, pulling the skimpy halter top. Johnny whistled 
softly. 

She was quite a piece. She had nice large, sloping breasts and the pointiest 
nipples he'd ever seen. 

"Shit, but you're sweet," Johnny moaned, his body tense with desire. 

He shed his black jeans and boots, standing in his tight skivvies before 
her. Liz kicked off her sneakers and laid flat on the bed, her arms 
outstretched. 

Johnny went to her, sitting on the edge of the bed. He swung full onto it 
and laid next to her. He rolled into her waiting arms, crawling flat on top 
of her and crushing her breasts against his rock-hard chest. 

He darted his hand into her shorts and started stroking her cunt. Liz moaned 
deeply; no man had ever touched her down there. She remembered Aunt Rose 
telling her once, "Never let a man touch you 'down there.'" 

Now, as she felt Johnny's fingers stroking her wet snatch, she doubted Aunt 
Rose's advice. It felt good when a man touched you "down there." 

They kissed again, rubbing their bodies together, when Johnny, fingering 
her, broke away and sputtered, "Shit, you a virgin?" 

Liz nodded. 

"Is that bad?" 

"I ... uh ... I suppose not," Johnny said. "You mean you never ever went all 
the way before?" 

"No," Liz confessed. 

 CHAPTER TWO 

"Jeez," Johnny muttered. 

"Is something wrong?" Liz asked, urgency in her voice. 

"N-No," Johnny said. "I ain't never made it with a virgin before." 

"Really?" 

Johnny nodded. "You want me to be your first?" Liz nodded this time. 

Johnny liked the way her nipples felt against his chest, the soft curves of 
her body, the slim thighs. He decided to chance it. 

"The guys down to Nick's Texaco are never gonna believe this...." he said to 
himself, forgetting momentarily that he was not alone. 

"You weren't planning on broadcasting this all over Queens, were you?" Liz 
asked, holding his shoulders. 

"No, course not," Johnny grumbled. "Just cause I work there don't mean I 
tell the guys everything." 

"Uh huh," Liz said doubtfully, grateful that she did not know his co-workers 
personally. With names like Flipper, Norval and Rocky, who wanted to? 

"Will it hurt?" Johnny asked. 

"Will what hurt?" 

"When we do it ... will it hurt?" he asked. 

"Well, I might experience a little discomfort at first...." she started. 

"Not you," Johnny interrupted. "Will it hurt me?" 

"How should I know?" she asked indignantly. "Look, why don't we just forget 
it, if you're so worried?" 

She started to climb off the bed. Johnny grabbed her around the waist and 
pulled her on top of him. 

"I didn't say I didn't want to," Johnny protested. "Let's make some love." 

Her heart pounding, she writhed against his chest, kissing him. Johnny took 
her hand and guided it inside his BVD's. She felt something hot and hard. 

She giggled. 

"You know what that is?" he asked. 

"A 1928 Deusenberg?" 

"It's a cock," he instructed. 

"Only smaller," she said. 

"Ha ha," Johnny said. "You know what it does?" 

"Imitations of Al Jolson?" 

"It squirts," he said in all seriousness. 

"And gives milk a chocolately flavor?" she asked. "Why do I feel like Bud 
Abbott?" Johnny asked no one in particular. 

"I'm sorry," Liz said apologetically. "My Uncle, he's sort of a comic. Some 
of it must have rubbed off." 

"What's his name?" 

"Jackie Bender," Liz said. "He shortened it from Bindlebender...." 

"Has he ever been on Carson?" Johnny wanted to know. "Or Letterman?" 

"Uncle Jackie had trouble getting on Joe Franklin," she replied. "They 
didn't want to cut the Hungarian fire eaters, but...." 

"I never heard of him," Johnny said. "Does he stink?" 

"He's good, actually," Liz replied, but didn't feel like going into it. 
Uncle Jackie was the last thing she wanted to think about. 

"What are some of his jokes?" 

"Are we gonna make love or not?" 

"Okay, okay," Johnny said defensively. "I was just axin'." 

"Ax later," Liz shot back, and kissed him. The suspense was too much to 
bear. 

Johnny wrapped his arms around her and flung her around so that he was 
stretched out flat against her, his body engulfing hers. 

Thanks to TALK FILTHY TO ME, Liz knew just what to do. She wrapped her legs 
around Johnny's and locked her arms around his neck. 

He kissed her neck, and started working his way down. He cupped her left 
breast in his hand and descended, taking her plump pink nipple between his 
teeth. 

He sucked it into his mouth and drew deeply on it. Every nerve in Liz's body 
exploded like an M-80. 

She kissed his head and tousled his hair as she felt his burning tongue and 
teeth sinking into her breast. Johnny didn't have much going on upstairs, 
but in the sack he was really proving his worth. 

He repeated the process on the opposite nipple, taking it under his tongue 
and caressing it with the tip. 

Liz shuddered despite the heat, her flesh a series of goosepimples. She bit 
Johnny's earlobe and gasped hot breath, which made his manhood spring to 
attention against her thigh. 

"Oh ... oh ... oh.." she moaned, wrapping her legs around his waist now, 
clinging to him like Handiwrap. 

Their bodies a tangle of arms and legs, Johnny raised his ass up off the 
bed, aiming his enormous shaft at her tight twat. 

"Be gentle with me, please, Johnny," Liz moaned breathlessly. 

"I will," he replied softly, and rammed his throbbing nine inches into her 
dry snatch. 

The force of his thrust knocked the wind out of her as his cock penetrated 
her. She was tight. 

Liz's chest heaved as she gulped down warm air. Johnny slid his hands under 
her butt and squeezed her cheeks, forcing her groin up into his. 

His cock pierced her deeply now. Johnny started to pump her. There was a 
slight trickle of blood but nothing serious, less than she had expected. . 

Liz felt a stabbing pain in her groin, but after a few thrusts, the pain 
gave way to a sweet sort of sensation. 

Johnny pumped her steadily now, her vaginal walls greedily swallowing up his 
pulsing shaft. Johnny buried his face in the girl's soft neck and gave her a 
hickey as he balled her. 

He came to a swift and sudden climax, his balls swollen and aching for 
relief. 

Liz felt his pecker snaking around inside of her as it exploded, stretching 
the walls of her cunt. 

When he was through, he withdrew from her and rolled onto his back, wiping 
his brow with the back of his hand. 

"That's it?" she asked. 

"Whaddaya mean, is that it?" Johnny asked indignantly. "What the hell did 
you expect the first time, bells and firecrackers and shit like that?" 

"I was really expecting the Vienna Boys Choir chanting 'Ave Maria.'" 

"You're weird, Liz," Johnny said, shaking his head. "First you beg me to 
screw you and then you bitch because you didn't come...." 

"Who said I didn't come?" 

"Well, you didn't, did you?" he asked. 

"I don't know. Maybe." 

"Whaddaya mean maybe?" Johnny asked. "Either you do, or you don't." 

"And how do you know so much about female sexual awareness?" Liz asked. 

"I read it in BIG BOOBS magazine," Johnny replied. "Anyway, I didn't hear 
you kicking and screaming. That's what most chicks do when I ball 'em." 

"Why, don't they enjoy it either?" 

"No!" Johnny bellowed. "That's what they do when they come." 

"I'm a bit confused," Liz said. "If I don't kick and scream like a baboon, 
I'm not having an orgasm?" 

"Forget it," Johnny said irritably. This bitch was really off the proverbial 
wall. He took a swig of beer and wiped the sweat off of his face. 

"Maybe if we try it again," Liz suggested, trying to make the peace. After 
all, she had started it. She just didn't know how touchy most guys were on 
the subject of their performance in the sack-aroo. 

"Maybe later," Johnny said. "You're kinda twisted, you know that?" 

"I come by it naturally," she replied. "My grandfather was a belly dancer." 

"He was?" 

"Drink your beer, Johnny." Liz sighed. Definitely gas jockey mentality. 
Well, brains weren't everything. 

He shrugged and chugged, taking half the can in one gulp. He let out a 
resounding belch. 

"'Scuse me," he mumbled. 

"No problem," she replied. "I think I got a little blood on your sheet." 

"No sweat," Johnny said casually. "It'll dry." 

"Right," Liz said, wondering whether Johnny was worth the wait. It was her 
desire to have a climax, to experience the joys of orgasm that kept her in 
the Italian Scallion's bed. 

"You really got a sweet body," he said admiringly. "I mean, really hot. But 
you're, I dunno, kinda strange." 

"This sounds like a problem for an expert," Liz said severely. "Call Doctor 
Ruth." 

"You also ain't serious about anything," Johnny chastised her. 

"Seriously?" 

"Uh huh," Johnny said, scratching his head. She always had a way of fucking 
with his brain. 

"I'm sorry, Johnny," Liz said, but wasn't sure exactly what she was 
apologizing for. "I know I'm out in left field sometimes. It's just the way 
I am. But I really like you a lot, Johnny." 

She scratched his muscular forearm and kissed his shoulder. She rubbed her 
hand around his chest, his crucifix cold against the tip of her fingers. 

She could see his cock rising slowly to the occasion as she tantalized him, 
rising like a helium balloon under the sheet. 

Liz kissed his chest and fondled his cock in her hand, stroking it like the 
blonde in the movie. 

She could feel Johnny's cock get harder and harder in her dainty fist. 

"Put it in your mouth," Johnny suggested. 

The thought both repulsed and compelled her. She gave in to the latter and 
took the purple tip of his shaft between her lips. She skimmed her tongue 
across the piss-slit, where a drop of come lingered. 

She cupped his balls in her palm and gave them a little squeeze like in the 
titflick. Johnny groaned in pleasure and placed his hand over hers on his 
shaft. 

Together they jerked it up and down until it was as hard as a rock. 

"Feel it getting hard?" Johnny asked, ever the straight man. 

"Is that what's happening?" Liz asked back. "I thought I was holding a stiff 
pickle." 

Johnny let that one slide. When his cock was fully erect, he eased Liz onto 
her back and even spread her legs for her. 

"You'll come this time if we gotta screw all night long," he mumbled, 
mounting her carefully. No girl ever fucked Johnny Vitello and left wanting 
more. He had a reputation to uphold. 

"Something to look forward to," Liz mumbled back, settling comfortably into 
the soft mattress as Johnny descended on her. 

He pierced her immediately, sliding his throbbing meat deep into Liz's twat. 
She had to admit to herself that it felt a lot better this time. In fact,-it 
felt downright wonderful. 

He started pumping her, slowly this time, thrusting his hips at her in a 
steady rhythmic motion. 

Liz gripped his shoulders and held on for the ride. 

She clamped her eyes shut and wallowed in the sensual pleasure of Johnny's 
big cock filled her. Her breath came in startled gasps now, as the force of 
Johnny's thrusts increased in intensity. 

Reality started to fade away as Johnny used everything he had to bring this 
pretty girl to the brink of climax. He could feel her nipples grow tense and 
erect against him as he continued drilling her, and he knew from experience 
that Liz would come this time. 

"OHHHH!" she cried, holding him tightly. She loved the way his cock filled 
her perfectly, loved the feel of his hard chest against her. 

Johnny pumped her faster and faster, until Liz was frothing at the mouth. 
Her twat felt like boiled macaroni, but it felt great at the same time. 

"Ya' come yet?" Johnny gasped. 

"I ... I ... I.." Liz started to say, and something exploded in her brain. 
Her entire body was engulfed by a sweetness the likes of which she'd never 
dreamed possible. Every nerve ending tingled with excitement. 

She was plunged into a world of orgasmic bliss, orgasmic pleasure washing 
over her like a flood. 

Liz started to dream, reality fading away like dirt on the sidewalk during a 
rainstorm. 

In the dream was she standing on a line. 

She was stark naked. So was everyone else. On line ahead of her was Hector, 
also naked. In front of Hector was Mona McGargle, also nude. Her udder-like 
breasts hanging down to her belly. 

In her dream the line started moving. Everything was a pale shade of 
grayish-white and the people on the line were all moving in slow motion like 
during the action scenes in "Miami Vice." 

She found herself moving slowly up the line until Hector disappeared into a 
dense fog. 

At the head of the line, Amir the Arab was standing behind the counter of 
his newsstand. He was also naked. 

Amir grinned at her, revealing brown teeth that perfectly matched his teeth. 

There was something in his hand. 

He pushed it across the counter to Liz. 

Liz took it. Looked at it. 

It looked vaguely familiar and had three numbers printed on it. 

4-9-6. 

"A winner every time," Amir said to her, still grinning. Liz didn't like the 
idea of the sleazy Arab seeing her naked. 

"Four-nine-six...." Amir muttered, sounding a million miles away. He also 
sounded like Uncle Jackie now, only in Amir's body. The voice that came out 
of Amir's mouth turned from Uncle Jackie's into Jimmy Durante's. 

"You pays your dollar and you takes your chances," Jimmy/Amir/Uncle Jackie 
cackled. 

Amir gave her another slip of blue and yellow paper. On it were the same 
numbers, 4-9-6. 

"I got a million of 'em!" Amir/Durante/Uncle Jackie said, laughing. "A 
million of `em, I tell ya'!" 

In the dream, it slowly began to dawn on Liz what the slip of paper was. 

A lottery tick.... 

"Yo! Liz!" 

In the dream, someone was shaking her. Only it wasn't a dream anymore. 
Reality and fantasy crashed head-on as Liz swam slowly up to consciousness. 
Amir faded away as Liz opened her eyes. Johnny was shaking her, looking 
worried. 

"Jeez," he said, staring down at her. "You okay? I thought you died on me." 

"I'm ... okay," Liz said, shaking the cobwebs out of her head. "What 
happened?" 

"Beats the shit outta me," Johnny replied. "You started moaning like you 
were having the orgasm of the century, and the next thing I know, you're out 
in the ozone somewhere in the Twilight Zone, muttering about Jimmy Durante." 

"Did I?" Liz asked, worried. 

Johnny nodded. "You also started mumbling about three numbers...." 

"Four-nine-six?" 

"Yeah," Johnny replied. "That's right." 

Liz chewed her lip nervously. Was there something wrong with her? Maybe it 
was a brain tumor that kicked into overdrive only when she climaxed. That 
would explain why she'd never experienced it before. 

"You okay?" Johnny asked. "You really climaxed up a storm, babe." 

Liz grinned weakly. 

* * * 

The next day, Liz sat curled up in the living room chair watching TV, the 
dream more or less forgotten. At least she wasn't a virgin anymore. 

She got up and changed the channel, flipping over to Channel Five so she 
could watch a rerun of MASH she'd probably already seen a dozen times. 

Every day at seven-thirty P.M., the station announced the winning lottery 
numbers. Some pretty, lame-brained chick would pull a ping-pong ball with a 
number on it out of a tin drum like they used in bingo. She would do it 
three times, plucking a ball from each cage and announcing it to a camera. 

Liz wasn't a lottery player, so she naturally didn't pay any attention to 
the pretty girl on the tube, filing her nails instead. 

"And today's winning lottery numbers," the girl chirped cheerfully, 
"are...," 

She pulled the first ping pong ball out..., "four...." 

She went to the second cage. Another ball popped out..., "the second number 
is nine...." 

She went to the third cage. A third ball popped out..., "the third number is 
six," she concluded, "so if you chose the numbers four, nine, six, you're 
the winner of today's New York State Lottery...." 

Liz stopped filing her nails abruptly. A small moan escaped her throat. 

Those three numbers sounded damn familiar. 

MASH came on, but Liz didn't watch. 

Four. Nine. Six. 

Then she remembered. They were the same three numbers on the slip of paper 
Amir handed her in the dream. 

"You pays your dollar and you takes your chances," she murmured to herself. 

It wasn't possible, she reasoned. 

The vision had come to her during sex. More specifically, it had come during 
orgasm. The first time, she'd felt nothing, and therefore had had no dream 
or vision or anything. 

After pacing the apartment for a few minutes, she went to the phone and 
dialed Johnny's number. Fortunately, Aunt Rose and Uncle Jackie were out 
that evening, as Uncle Jackie was doing a gig somewhere out in the wilds of 
New Jersey, and Aunt Rose had accompanied him. 

She was alone. 

After four rings, Johnny picked up. 

"'Lo?" 

"Johnny, it's me, Liz," she said, trying to keep her voice calm. 

"Hi," Johnny said, somewhat distantly. He'd hoped that Liz was history. She 
was too off the wall for his tastes. 

"Wanna come over tonight?" Liz asked him. "My aunt and uncle are out and 
won't be home till late. We'd be all alone." 

"I dunno," Johnny said hesitantly. She was a foxy, hot bitch, but she was 
also nuts in her own way. He wasn't sure he wanted a repeat performance. "I 
was right in the middle of something, and...." 

"It'll be great this time, Johnny," Liz said to him, and tried to keep the 
desperation out of her voice. "I promise. I'll fuck your brains out and no 
wiseass jokes, honest." 

"Well...." Johnny said tentatively. 

"C'mon," Liz urged. "You won't be sorry you did." 

"Gimme a half hour," Johnny said, and hung up. Liz put the phone down in the 
cradle. 

Now she would get to the bottom of this. 

 CHAPTER THREE 

Johnny laid flat on his back, squeezing Liz's boobs as she bobbed up and 
down on his pecker. She placed her hands over his and pressed them flat 
against her swollen nipples. 

Johnny had started with some skillful foreplay. Liz had been an obedient, 
submissive little girl, following his lead as he went through the motions of 
eating, sucking and generally ravaging her. Anything for an orgasm. Liz had 
to know if that crazy vision had been a one-shot deal or something that 
would recur every time she had sex. 

So far, nothing. She bounced up and down on the empty-headed Italian's 
shlong, her hands gripping the firm flesh above his knees. 

The penetration was deeper when she sat on it. It also felt incredibly 
delicious. 

Johnny pinched her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. Liz moaned 
audibly, on the brink of climax. 

"I think I'm gonna...." she sputtered, curling her toes under his calves to 
brace herself. 

Johnny sensed her anticipation and gave his ass a heave upwards, slamming 
his pulsating nine inches all the way into her quivering quim. 

Liz gurgled deep in her throat and sank her fingernails into Johnny's leg. 

Reality faded into a dream-like white haze. She floated effortlessly into 
the dense fog and found herself right back at the end of the line of naked 
acquaintances. 

Uncle Jackie's brother, Marvin was there, naked except for his white 
dentist's lab coat. His wife, Aunt Meema was also there, as was Aunt Rose, 
stark naked, as grisly a sight as one would ever care to see. 

Off to the sidelines, Uncle Jackie, also buck naked except for the black 
bowtie he wore during his Master of Ceremonies gig, was telling stale jokes. 

"I got a million of 'em!" Uncle Jackie cried, his face pasty white. Liz 
tried to avert her eyes from his doughy, pudgy figure. "So I run into my 
cousin the other day, 'Hit 'em-Over-The-Head' Schwartz. I says, 'who you 
workin' for these days?' He says, 'the usual outfit-the wife and kids.' My 
wife got a mudpack the other day. She looked great-then the mud fell off. 
You know, I could do twenty minutes on my wife. Actually, everyone's done 
twenty minutes on my wife...." 

Uncle Jackie faded into the fog. Liz found herself at the front of the line. 
Amir leered at her. His teeth were still rotten, no doubt from the three 
dozen or so Almond Joys he stuffed into his Arab kisser every hour. 

"You pays your dollar and you takes your chances," Amir said in Uncle 
Jackie's voice, and pushed a ticket across the counter. 

Liz looked at it. There were three numbers on it. Eight. 

Three. 

Zero. 

"Eight ... three ... zero...." she chanted, Amir fading away in a sea of 
mist. 

"Eight ... three ... zero ..." 

"Yo, Liz," Johnny said, shaking her back to reality. She was still sitting 
on his cock, but it was now flaccid inside of her. She had no idea how long 
she'd been in her own private ozone. 

"Huh?" she asked groggily. 

"Think you could climb off me for a bit?" Johnny asked. 

"I think I came," she said, more to herself than to Johnny. "In fact, I'm 
positive I did." 

"And you also went into the Twilight Zone again," Johnny informed her. "You 
were muttering some numbers like you did yesterday." 

"Eight-three-zero?" 

"Yeah, that sounds right," Johnny agreed. "What's the deal here, Liz?" 

"How long was I in the Twilight Zone?" she asked, climbing off of him and 
writing the three numbers on a pad on the night table next to her bed. 

"I dunno, two minutes or so," Johnny replied. "You wanna tell me what's 
going on? I mean, you didn't invite me over just 'cause I'm a hunk and great 
in the sack." 

"If what I think is happening," Liz said slowly, choosing her words as 
carefully as possible, "we both might end up on SIXTY MINUTES." 

"What the hell are you talking about?" 

"Tomorrow at this same time," Liz said, "we'll know for sure." 

"Aunt Rose, can I borrow a dollar?" 

"What for?" she asked, rolling uncooked matzo balls between her greased 
hands. 

In the living room, Uncle Jackie was trying out some new jokes, which were 
new only in the sense that he'd never used them before. Otherwise, they were 
older than the hills. Still, Uncle Jackie maintained, "A joke ain't old if 
you never heard it." 

"I wanted to get a malted," she said. It was a clumsy lie. Aunt Rose saw 
through it in second. 

"You hate malteds," Aunt Rose maintained. "You said hey close your throat 
up. What do you really want it for?" 

"TEEN BEAT magazine," she confessed. "Junk," Aunt Rose sniffed, dropping the 
walnut-sized matzo balls into boiling water. "Why don't you read something 
useful like the NEW YORK POST and learn a thing or two." 

"Never mind," Liz said, waving her hand. Uncle Jackie was always a soft 
touch. 

Liz padded into the living room, where Uncle Jackie was playing to a packed 
house of plastic covered chairs and couches...."so the Black guy says, 'that 
was no wife, that was my lady.' Three rabbis, a priest and Morris the Cat 
walk into a restricted country club...." 

"Excuse me, Uncle Jackie," Liz said, tugging on his elbow. 

"What is it, Elizabeth?" he asked, whipping out his hanky and wiping his 
sweaty brow. 

"Can I borrow a dollar?" she asked, rubbing his arm affectionately. 

"What for?" he asked, chewing on his cheap cigar and studying some typed 
notes. 

"I need it for school," she said, and regretted it. She'd been on summer 
vacation for three weeks. It was Queens College in the Fall. 

"We pay taxes for school," Uncle Jackie replied, his mind a million miles 
away. "What's the dollar for?" 

"I need it for my senior prom." Liz took full, advantage of Uncle Jackie's 
befuddled condition. 

He absent-mindedly fished some bills from the pockets of his baggy pants and 
peeled off a single, handing it to her. 

"That enough?" he asked, flipping through his notes. 

"I could always use five," she said quickly. 

Uncle Jackie peeled off a fiver and handed it to her. "Is that all you 
needed, dear? I'm kinda busy here.." 

"I'm sorry, Uncle Jackie," Liz grinned, kissing him on the cheek. "Thanks." 

She skipped out of the living room, Uncle Jackie watching her ass bounce. 
She was one hot number, his sister's kid was. Probably had more boyfriends 
than Cleopatra. And a nice kid, to boot. He hoped she didn't get knocked up 
too soon like the other girls in the neighborhood before she tasted life. 

Liz made straight for the front door, which one had to pass the kitchen to 
get to. 

"Where are you going?" Aunt Rose asked from the kitchen even before Liz's 
fingers made contact with the doorknob. 

"Out to the comer," Liz said. 

"Dinner's in three hours," Aunt Rose said severely. 

"I'll be back in ten minutes, Aunt Rose," Liz said, and sailed out the door. 

* * * 

Liz laid the dollar Uncle Jackie had given her on the counter at Amir's, who 
looked at her with his usual expression of both lust and disdain. 

"I wanna play the numbers," Liz said to him. 

"What numbers?" Amir asked, going to the computerized New York State Numbers 
gizmo. 

"Eight-three-zero," Liz replied. 

Amir pushed some buttons and a slip of paper, exactly like the one she'd 
seen in her dream, popped out. He slid it across the counter at her. 

Liz stuffed it into her blouse pocket and went home. 

She really wasn't too surprised when eight-three-zero came up that evening. 

Liz was a winner straight across the board. 

She had to conceal her excitement from her aunt and uncle, who were watching 
MASH alongside of her in the small den. 

"Alan Alda, that's a star?" Uncle Jackie snorted. "Hell, I can get ten times 
the laughs that asshole gets in half the time it takes him to deliver one 
punch line. Sid Caesar, now there's a funny man. Howie Morris, none better. 
Whaddya we got today, Alan Alda? Eddie Murphy? A 'schwartzer' who curses and 
says 'faggot' and 'shit' and you call that funny?" 

"Jackie, clam up, will ya?" Aunt Rose snapped at her husband. "This is a 
good episode, the one where Radar gets the clap." 

Liz rose abruptly from the couch. 

"Where are you going?" Aunt Rose wanted to know. 

"Down to the comer for a soda," Liz replied, the winning numbers ticket 
tucked safely inside her panties. 

"There's soda in the fridge," Aunt Rose said, eyeing her niece suspiciously. 
Liz had had a rosy pink glow on her cheeks lately, which led her aunt to 
believe that the girl had been having sex. 

"I know there is, Aunt Rose," Liz said impatiently, "but unfortunately, my 
friends don't hang out in the refrigerator. I'll be back in a bit." 

She skipped out the door. 

"I'm worried about that girl," Aunt Rose said to her husband when Liz was 
gone. "I think she's been having sex." 

"How do you know that?" Uncle Jackie asked, not even looking up from his 
copy of VARIETY. 

"Some things a woman knows by instinct," Aunt Rose replied. "In fact, I'd be 
willing to bet good money that Elizabeth isn't a virgin." 

"Hell, Rose, the girl's eighteen now and legal," Uncle Jackie said. "She can 
do whatever she wants." 

"It's that kind of attitude that causes young girls to get pregnant." 

"Christ, Rose," Uncle Jackie blurted. "You talk like it was me doing a 
number on the kid." 

"Don't be ridiculous," Aunt Rose snapped. "I think I'd better have a talk 
with her, just in case. Even if she's spreading her legs for every boy in 
Queens, she should know about birth control and contraception." 

"Want me to talk to her?" Uncle Jackie volunteered. 

Aunt Rose shook her head. "You'll probably open with a couple of jokes. No, 
I'd better do it. When she comes back later, we'll talk." 

* * * 

Liz shyly slid her winning lottery ticket across the counter. Amir grimaced 
in distaste. 

"I won five hundred," she informed him. 

Amir examined the ticket, comparing it to the list of winning numbers. 

"Yes," he said, eyeing her suspiciously. "You have won five hundred." 

He didn't like it. Liz had been hanging out at his store for a few years, 
and had been a permanent fixture there since he and his brother Fabian had 
taken the place over four years earlier. Not once did she ever buy a numbers 
ticket. Now she was a winner her first time out. 

"Can I have my money, please?" 

"It is not so much simple," Amir informed her. "There are forms you must do 
to fill out." 

"Forms?" Liz asked, wet behind the ears. "What kind of forms?" 

"Tax forms," Amir lied. Actually, there was no tax on any gambling winnings 
under five hundred dollars, but Liz was a babe in the woods, and the wily 
Arab knew it. 

"You mean I have to report this on my taxes?" Liz asked. 

"Well, perhaps we can maybe work something out," Amir told her. "I will be 
happy to redeem the winning ticket for a fee of fifty dollars. Otherwise, 
you will have to subway to the World Trade Center to collect your money, 
which will be in check form and impossible to cash." 

"So for fifty, you'll redeem my ticket?" 

Amir nodded. "You are very lucky girl, to win the numbers on your first 
try." 

He winked at her, and Liz knew what the wink meant. Amir knew something was 
up. 

"I guess that'll be alright," Liz agreed. 

Amir smiled and counted out four-fifty in tens and twenties. This had to be 
the easiest fifty he'd ever made. 

Liz stuffed the thick wad of bills into the pocket of her Levis and walked 
four blocks to the public library, which stayed open late on Tuesdays. 

Once there, she went through the files in the hope that she could maybe find 
a book that explained this incredible phenomenon. She looked under the 
parapsychology section, and sidelined into clairvoyance, checking out every 
book on the subject. 

One such textbook, entitled "Clairvoyance: A Detailed Examination of Para 
psychological Phenomena," caught Liz's eye. 

She pulled it off of the shelf and skimmed through the pages. The author, 
who had a PhD in the study of the mind, related an incident that took place 
somewhere in Texas back in the late Forties. It seems this simple woman, the 
wife of an itinerant farmer in some shit kicker town, was hit on the head by 
a big rock her husband had tossed out of the way while plowing the fields. 
While unconscious, she supposedly gave her husband directions to a spot 
where some thousands of dollars that had been buried twenty years earlier a 
mile or so west of their farm by some bank robbers who had been gunned down 
by Federal Marshals. The whereabouts of their ill-gotten stash had never 
been found until the day the woman was hit by the rock. 

The story went on to say how no real explanation of this fantastic event 
could be found. The author stated that some such events, such as the one 
he'd detailed, could never be rationally explained. 

That didn't do Liz much good. Maybe there was no real explanation for the 
psychic gift she possessed. 

Maybe I'd just better be grateful for it and leave it at that, Liz mused as 
she strolled home from the library. Anyway, there were other problems she 
had to deal with now, such as how she was going to explain to Uncle Jackie 
and Aunt Rose where the money had come from. 

She didn't want them to know she was having sex. No, that would never do. 
Aunt Rose would go to pieces and Uncle Jackie would make jokes about it. 

They were still in the living room when he got home. 

Liz slinked into her bedroom and pulled the money from her pocket. She 
dropped it into a shoebox and stuffed it back into her messy closet under 
some other shoeboxes. She piled some old clothes on top of them so that the 
box was entirely concealed. 

That done, she padded into the kitchen and dialed Johnny's number. 

"'Lo?" he said, picking up on the third ring. 

"Johnny, it's Liz," she said. 

"Hi," he said, somewhat coldly. 

"Johnny, are you busy?" 

"Why?" 

"I thought we might get together ... at your place," she said. 

"I dunno," he replied. "You're a hot looking chick, Liz, but every time we 
hit the sheets together, you go off into one of those death-like trances and 
it really freaks me out. Maybe we better pass on anymore dates. You're too 
flipped out for me." 

"Johnny, it's real important," Liz maintained. 

"Look, kiddo, we had some fun, why spoil it?" he asked. "We just ain't 
suited." 

"Johnny...." 

"Bye, Liz, have a nice life," Johnny replied, and hung up. 

"Shit," Liz muttered. She went back to her room and flopped down on her bed. 

She had to have sex that night. Otherwise, she'd blow another five hundred. 
But who? 

She flipped through the pages of her dog-eared phone book. 

Eddie Humphrey? He was a classmate. Handsome, vain and probably lousy in the 
sack. His type always were. 

Bobby Crapanzano? A nice guy. Italian. Not too macho like Johnny. Maybe. 

Fat Tony Valdez? No, he was too fat. He'd crush her. 

Steve Kowalchuk? He'd asked her out many times in the past, but Steve wasn't 
her type. 

Marvin Noodleman? Aunt Rose liked Marvin, probably because he was one of the 
few Jewish guys Liz knew. Brainy. Glasses. A bookworm. 

Yeah, maybe Marvin, although Liz doubted he'd ever had sex. Marvin was the 
late bloomer type, the ones you never remembered in high school and always 
turned up at the ten year reunion with a pretty girl on each arm. 

Yeah, Marvin had possibilities. She hadn't seen him since they'd graduated a 
month or so before, but his number was still in her book. 

She was about to return to the kitchen to make the call when there was a 
knock on her door. 

"Can I come in?" Aunt Rose asked. "There's something we need to discuss." 

 CHAPTER FOUR 

'Aunt Rose sat demurely on Liz's bed. 

"What's up, Aunt Rose?" Liz asked nervously. "It's time we had a 
girl-to-girl chat," Aunt Rose said to her niece. 

"A girl-to-girl chat?" Liz asked. "About what?" 

"Sex and men," Aunt Rose replied. 

Liz felt her insides turn into slush. 

"What about them?" Liz asked. 

"The two usually go together," Aunt Rose said. 

"And I think they've been going together in your life lately. Am I correct 
in this assumption?" 

"In other words," Liz said, "you want to know if I've been having sex?" 

"Not in other words," Aunt Rose replied. "Your words will do fine. Are you 
having sex?" 

Liz had long learned that lying to Aunt Rose was akin to trying to trick 
Sherlock Holmes. It was always safer to tell the truth. 

"Yes," Liz replied. 

Aunt Rose blanched, then quickly recovered. "Do you want to tell me with 
whom?" 

"Only if absolutely necessary," Liz replied. "It's not that important. Just 
a guy I'll probably never see again when college starts." 

"Let me tell you a little story," Aunt Rose said. "Years ago, your Uncle 
Jackie knew this girl. She was a singer and a dancer. She was young this 
girl, no older than you are now. She fell hard for this musician, a trombone 
player. Well, everyone knows that musicians have the morals of a child 
molester. A bigger bunch of bums you won't find from Maine to New Mexico. 
Always hung over and reading the racing form. Anyway, this girl allowed 
herself to get seduced by this trombone player, gets pregnant and when she 
tells him the news, he takes off on the next bus to God-knows-where. Damn 
near ruined the girl's life, he did. Point is, Liz, that the girl didn't 
know anything about birth control or any thing, coming from a strict family, 
and when the time came, she took no precautions or anything.." 

"Did she have the baby?" Liz asked. 

Aunt Rose nodded. 

"That baby was you," Aunt Rose said. "And that girl was your mother. Your 
grandparents-her mother and father, may they rest in hell-more or less 
disowned her when they found out." 

"Things are different now, Aunt Rose," Liz replied. 

"Sure, but the more things change, the more they stay the same. Look, 
Elizabeth. You're a big girl, and if you want to have sex, well, there's 
nothing I can do to stop you. Just believe me when I say that your Uncle 
Jackie and myself want nothing but the best for you. And we don't want to 
see you getting knocked up by some brainless boy and be forced to marry him 
and ruin your life. So do us all a favor and take the proper steps to insure 
that you don't end up preggers or wind up with some rare venereal disease 
known only to the natives of some Third World shithole. Everyone's got the 
herpes these days." 

Liz leaned back in her chair. Aunt Rose looked embarrassed. This kind of 
talk was new to her. 

"You think I should get birth control pills?" Liz asked. 

Aunt Rose wanted to blow her groceries across her niece's bedroom. Sex talk 
made her extremely squeamish. But at least she'd gotten it out. 

"It couldn't hurt, if you plan to have sex on a regular basis," Aunt Rose 
insisted. "If you like, I'll call my doctor and set it up for you. Of 
course, we'd both be happier if you waited a while, at least until you meet 
a boy you really loved. But I know that teenagers are always in perpetual 
heat. I was young myself, too." 

Liz tried to picture Aunt Rose at eighteen. It wasn't easy. To Liz, she'd 
been born forty. 

"Remember, Elizabeth," Aunt Rose concluded. "If you can't be good, at least 
be careful." 

Liz chewed over that one. 

* * * 

"Hello, Mrs. Noodleman, this is Elizabeth Bender. I was wondering if Marvin 
was home." 

On the other end, Mrs. Noodleman broke into tears. 

"He's a Hairy Krishner now," she wailed. 

"What?" 

"He joined up with those baldheaded creeps," Mrs. Noodleman bellowed, 
blowing her nose soundly into the receiver. "That schlemiel! You sweat blood 
to raise them properly and they break your heart! Shaved his head except for 
a tiny ponytail and now he stands outside the United Nations building 
shaking his tangerine and chanting gibberish." 

"When did this happen?" Liz wanted to know. 

"One week after graduation," Mrs. Noodleman cried. "Just up and joined the 
Krishners, Marvin did. Said he wanted to seek the word of the godhead or 
some such nonsense. Now he bothers shoppers and begs for change. I'm so glad 
his father, may he rest in peace, isn't alive to see this. It would have 
killed him!" 

Scratch Marvin Noodleman. 

Liz tried a few more numbers, and batted zero. Eddie was in the army, his 
father said, and good riddance. Steve Kowalchuk was motoring around the U.S. 
with some friends. Billy Feeny was now a screaming faggot, his sister Emily 
said, and lived in Greenwich Village with some other screaming fags. And the 
Crapanzano kid was married and living in the Bronx with, in his mother's 
words, "some fat Puerto Rican broad he knocked up." 

Zero. 

Liz decided to check out the action down at Amir's. Maybe if Hector was 
there, they could get something going. 

Unfortunately, Hector wasn't down at Amir's. Nobody was, except for Lili 
Chu, a pretty Korean girl whose parents ran the fruit stand on 75th Avenue 
and Northern Boulevard. 

Lili was playing Pac man when Liz strolled into Amir's. 

"Hey, Lili," Liz said. 

"Hi, Liz," Lili replied, her eyes riveted to the computer game. 

"You seen Hector around?" 

"Not today," Lili replied. "What's up?" 

"Nothing in particular," Liz said. Maybe Lili could suggest somebody. "You 
know anyone who...." 

"Who what?" Lili asked. 

"Who wants to get laid?" 

Lili looked up from her game and eyed Liz. "You want to repeat that?" Lili 
asked in her flawless English. 

Liz leaned over and whispered in Lili's ear. "I've got to get laid," she 
said to the foxy Korean lass. "Tonight." 

"Why?" 

"It's kind of complicated," Liz replied. "But it's very important. Do you 
know anybody? I'd be willing to pay them fifty...." 

"How about me?" Lili suggested with a grin. "You what?" 

"Ever make it with another chick?" Lili asked. Liz shook her head. 

"You might like it," Lili maintained. 

"Will ... will I have an orgasm?" 

"That's up to you," Lili replied. "My folks aren't home. They usually close 
the stand down at eleven. We'll be alone." 

Liz looked at the sexy Oriental girl. Lili was pretty-all the guys in the 
neighborhood agreed on that. She dated none of them though, and now Liz knew 
why. She preferred women. 

"I guess it would be okay," Liz agreed. 

"But you can't tell me why it's so important that you have sex?" Lili asked. 

"There's a good reason," Liz insisted. "That's all I can say now." 

Lili shrugged. 

"Let's go," she said, stuffing a couple of sticks of Juicy Fruit into her 
small mouth. 

* * * 

Liz closed her eyes and writhed in ecstasy as she felt the Korean girl's wet 
tongue lapping against her clitoris. 

Liz gripped the fitted sheet on the bed and curled it between her fingers. 

Lesbian sex was wonderful. 

Not exactly her cup of ginseng tea, but Liz enjoyed it all the same. 

Her pretty little head nestled between Liz's thighs, Lili lapped eagerly at 
Liz's poontang, fingering her at the same time. 

God, but it sure felt sweet, Liz thought as Lili paid her expert lip 
service. 

The saucy slanty-eyed girl licked Liz's swollen labia lips. Liz forced 
Lili's face down deep into her snatch. 

Lili nibbled Liz's cunt gratefully. Men did nothing for her sexually, and it 
was hard finding a willing female to hit the sheets with. And Liz had needed 
little, if any, persuading. 

"Oohhh, Lili ... Lili ... Lili!" Liz moaned orgasmically. She forced Lili's 
face deeper into her muff. Lili licked the dripping gash with gusto, dabbing 
the clit and fingering Liz's hole. The girl really knew her way around a 
cunt. 

Liz had no way of knowing that Lili had spent a few months working the 
streets of Seoul servicing U.S. soldiers and even a handful of WACS, many of 
whom were real diesel dykes who liked to munch pussy and be munched on, too. 
Lili knew all the tricks. 

Many of which she used now. One included fingering both Liz's snatch and her 
asshole at the same time. 

Liz flinched and picked her lips sensuously. Her cheeks were flushed with 
desire. 

Lili licked and sucked and fingered Liz, sometimes all at once and sometimes 
a little bit at a time. Liz felt the hot blood pounding through her veins 
and suddenly had the sensation of floating through air like a pigeon feather 
in the breeze. 

Her ass started pitching up and down off of the mattress, jamming Lili's 
nose into Liz's snatch. 

"Liz?" Lili whispered. 

Lili raised her head up from between Liz's thighs. Liz's eyes were rolling 
around in the sockets and she was making weird noises from deep in her 
throat. Her fingers clenched the sheet, pulling it from under the mattress. 

Lili looked at her with some alarm, and realized Liz was having an orgasm. 
Some women reacted differently than others when they came, like screaming at 
the top of their lungs are muttering sweet nothings. 

"You takes yer chances," Liz mumbled in a voice totally unlike her own. Lili 
freaked out. Liz sounded like the chick in "The Exorcist." 

"Hey, Liz," Lili said, shaking her gently by the shoulder. 

"Four...." Liz moaned, eyelids fluttering wildly as Lili shook her. 
"Seven...." 

Lili got worried and slapped Liz's face, just hard enough to arouse her. 
Liz's eyelids flew open like window shades. Lili gasped. 

Liz sprung up on the bed like Mortimer Snerd and sat upright. 

"The third number!" she cried. "I didn't get the third number." 

"What are you talking about?" Lili asked in astonishment. 

"Jesus, that was a strong one," Liz exclaimed. "Even Marvin Noodleman turned 
up on line this time, dressed just like a hairy kirshner." 

"What is with you?" Lili asked in astonishment. "I thought you were dying or 
having a fit." 

"I was coming," Liz explained. 

"Sounded like you were going," Lili replied. 

"Lili," Liz said, no longer able to keep this to herself. "Can you keep a 
secret?" 

"What kind of secret?" 

"I can't tell you until you promise not to tell anyone, and I mean anyone. 
Not your mother, not your father, not your brothers...." 

"I wouldn't tell them the damn time," Lili snorted. "I promise." 

"How can I trust you?" Liz asked. "This is big, Lili. Really big." 

Lili was getting excited. She and Liz had never been great friends. More 
like acquaintances. "Really, really big?" Lili asked eagerly. 

Liz, wide eyed, nodded vigorously. "We're talking Chrysler Building here." 

Lili hopped off of the bed and went to the dresser. She opened a wooden 
jewelry box and pulled out a gold chain with a huge green stone at the end 
of it. 

"There's an old Korean custom that when one person tells another person a 
secret, the person who tells must accept a token of friendship-such as their 
first born male child or a couple of swine-from the person he tells it to as 
a sign of faith and trust." 

She handed Liz the gold chain and stone. 

"This is an emerald," Lili told her. "It was given to me by my 
great-grandmother, who got if from her great-grandmother. It is worth well 
over fifty thousand dollars. If I tell one person the secret you're about to 
tell me, than it's yours." 

Liz whistled softly. She knew at once that Lili could be trusted. 

She handed it back to the pretty Korean girl. 

"I can't take this," Liz told her. "But I trust you." They lay side by side 
as Liz said, "I can pick the winning numbers when I come." 

Lili propped herself up on one elbow. "What?" 

"I better start at the beginning," Liz said. "Last week, I lost my virginity 
to Johnny Vitello." 

"I know," Lili replied. "Johnny told everyone." This news did not disturb 
Liz. She had other things to worry about. 

"That figures," she shot back. "Anyway, the second time we did it, I had an 
orgasm, and then I started doing what I just did now, you know, going off 
into the Outer Limits and stuff, and I had this strange dream where I'm 
standing in a long line stark naked, and there's that slimy Arab creep Amir 
handing me this paper with three numbers on it. And those same three numbers 
came up in the next day's drawing on TV. So the next day, we balled again, 
you know, and it happened again. Only this time I put a dollar down on the 
numbers I saw in my dream and won five bills, I swear I did. I'll show it to 
you." 

Lili looked at her quizzically. 

"Are you pulling my arm?" Lili asked. 

"It's am I pulling your leg, and the answer is no," Liz replied. "That's why 
I had to get laid so bad tonight-to see if it happens again. And it did, 
except I came out of it too soon and only got two numbers instead of three." 

"That was my fault," Lili admitted. "I kind of got scared and slapped you a 
little." 

"That's okay," Liz replied. "You didn't know." 

"If this is true, Liz, and I'm not completely convinced that it is," Lili 
said, "it's pretty fuckin' incredible. Maybe you should talk to a doctor or 
something." 

"No." Liz shook her head. "Anyway, how would I prove it unless I had sex 
right there in his office or something." 

"Yeah," Lili agreed, "You got a point there. But you can't keep this a 
secret for very long, Liz. Sooner or later, someone's gonna find out." 

"Not if I go to a different place every day and buy the ticket," Liz 
replied. "I've been doing a lot of thinking about this, Lili. I went to the 
library, but there wasn't anything much written about this oddball talent I 
have." 

"I guess not," Lili concurred. 

"Plus," Liz went on," I'm gonna have to have sex every single day." 

"Not necessarily," Lili replied. "You could always masturbate." 

"Really?" 

"You do play with yourself, don't you?" Lili asked. 

"Well ... sure," Liz said, "but never to the point, you know, where I came 
or anything. In the shower, or when I'm alone in bed I do it. But I never 
had the dream when I did it to myself. It only happens when I come having 
sex." 

Lili stroked her chin thoughtfully. 

"This really blows me out of my stockings," Lili said. "Do you know how much 
money you could make? Millions! Let's see-five hundred a day, that's 
thirty-five hundred a week, fifty-two weeks a year, that's over 180,000 
bucks a year!" 

"182 thousand dollars to be exact," Liz said. 

Lili fell back on the bed. 

"Holy Buddha!" she cried. "Just think what would happen if you could pick 
six numbers instead of three! You'd make millions!" 

"Six?" Liz asked. "Impossible. I couldn't. I don't even know what causes me 
to see three numbers." 

"If we make love again," Lili suggested, "think you can do it a second 
time?" 

"I'd be willing to try," Liz replied, pulling the sexy Korean girl on top of 
her. "Just do what you did before." 

Lili did. 

 CHAPTER FIVE 

Days passed. 

The hundreds of dollars in Liz's shoebox turned into thousands. 

Lili and Liz made love every evening before her parents got home from the 
fruit stand. Lili would lick Liz six ways from Sunday until she came. 
Inevitably, so did the visions. 

Liz split fifty-fifty with Lili. Then, one sunny Tuesday morning, fate 
stepped in. Lili, helping out in her parent's fruit stand, slipped on a 
squished cantaloupe and jettisoned head first into a row of boxed 
artichokes, cracking her jaw. She was out of commission, according to the 
doctors at Beth Israel, for at least six weeks, her jaw wired shut. 

Maybe it was just as well, Liz thought on the subway going home from the 
hospital. She missed sleeping with men. As good as Lili was (and Lili was 
great) she still didn't have all the right parts. 

Fortunately, the night before her accident, Lili advised Liz on some rubber 
goods that might help her achieve an orgasm by herself, such as dildos and 
vibrators and the like. They'd planned a buying trip to Forty-Second Street, 
but now, with Lili laid up, Liz would have to go by herself. 

She dreaded the idea of going there by herself. The place was a zoo. She'd 
been down there a few times with Mona and some of the others, and she 
couldn't believe the assortment of lowlife hanging out trying to sell bogus 
drugs. 

Now, as she climbed the subway steps up to Broadway and Forty-Second, all 
the familiar smells assaulted her nostrils-vomit, fried grease, the sour 
aroma of rotting garbage, burning chestnuts and Sabrett hot dogs. 

Every foot of the Deuce was a new adventure in humiliation. Skinny black and 
Puerto Rican dudes lined the street, and being alone, was subject to 
harassment from each one. 

"Hey baby, you wanna have some fun?" 

"Nice titties, mama." 

"Wanna be in a movie?" 

"Looking for a date, sweetheart? Give you coke and pot." 

She hurried down the crowded block past movie theaters and chicken joints, 
avoiding direct eye contact with everyone. 

She turned into a smaller, less crowded X-rated joint that had a large 
selection of sex toys. She scanned an assortment of black and white rubber 
dildos, butt plugs, vibrators, rubber vaginas and a wide array of other 
stuff. 

A sleazy looking brown man-he might have been Amir's brother-leered at her 
from behind the cash register. It wasn't too often a pretty young American 
blonde came into the store. 

"Pardon me please. Miss, but can I be of some assisting?" he asked. 

"Just looking," Liz said, not looking at him. She could feel his lustful 
gaze burn through her blouse and blue denim jacket she wore. 

A short, bald man wearing a cheap polyester suit slunk over to her. 

"How much?" he asked, munching a cigar. 

"How much what?" 

"An hour?" he said. 

"You mean...." 

"You wanna suck my toes?" the fat man wheezed. 

"I'll give you a hundred bucks if you suck on my toes and then piss in the 
backseat of my car. If you eat asparagus at the same time, I'll give you two 
hundred." 

Liz stumbled away from him, backing into a display table of French ticklers 
wrapped in plastic. 

"Sorry," Liz mumbled, making a quick exit, stage left. 

Next stop was Show World, probably the biggest sexual emporium in the city. 
Liz felt a little more at ease in there. A few women, accompanying their 
husbands or boyfriends, were browsing right along with them at the selection 
of sexy apparatus. 

Liz opted for a large black dildo, almost eighteen inches long. Also: a 
vibrating egg, Ben-wah balls, a selection of expensive French ticklers and 
an object called a "super teaser love machine." It was a motorized rubber 
dildo that vibrated and plugged into the wall. It was guaranteed shockproof, 
silent and flexible. 

Liz subwayed back to Queens. It was a bright Saturday afternoon. Aunt Rose 
and Uncle Jackie were in Monsey, New Jersey, where Uncle Jackie was doing a 
gig at the local Lions Club. She had the whole house to herself and planned 
to test out her new purchases. 

Aunt Rose and Uncle Jackie were waiting for her when she got home. 

Aunt Rose held the shoebox full of money in her left hand. 

She looked angry. 

Liz found herself being dragged, with Aunt Rose on one arm and Uncle Jackie 
on the other, down the hallway into her room. 

They flung her down onto her bed and slammed the door. Uncle Jackie went and 
fetched her package from the front door. 

Aunt Rose grabbed a hunk of greenbacks and hurled them at her niece. The 
tens and twenties scattered all over the bed. 

"Where'd you get all this money?" Aunt Rose demanded, hands on hips. Her 
left cheek tended to twitch when she was angry. 

"Aunt Rose...." 

Aunt Rose hauled off and slapped Liz soundly across the face. "The truth, 
girl, or so help me God...." 

"I ... I thought you were going to Jersey...." Liz stammered. 

"The gig was canceled," Aunt Rose snapped, "so I thought I'd spend the day 
cleaning out that disgusting closet of yours. You can't IMAGINE my surprise 
when I found this!" 

"What is it, drug money??" Uncle Jackie wanted to know. "Have you been 
dealing drugs, Elizabeth?" 

"No!" she cried. 

"Don't lie!" Aunt Rose bellowed. 

"I'm not lying," Liz shot back. "It's not drug money!" 

"Then it must be...." Aunt Rose started to say, and he face went pale. "Oh 
my God, Jackie, she's turning tricks!" 

"I am not!" 

"Then where did you get all that money?" Uncle Jackie asked angrily. 
"There's close to ten grand there! I'd have to play the toilets in Jersey 
for fifteen weeks to make that kind of bread." 

"She's buying clothes with it, too," Aunt Rose hollered, grabbing the big 
brown bag from the floor. 

"Jeez, don't look in there," Liz started to say. 

Aunt Rose pulled the two foot black dildo out of the bag. Her cheek started 
twitching like a hummingbird in heat. 

"What the hell is this?" Aunt Rose asked slowly, as if not believing her own 
eyes. 

"Send a shlong to your boy in the Army, maybe?" Uncle Jackie chimed in. 

"It's sort of a dildo, kind of...." Liz vainly attempted to explain. Both 
Aunt Rose and Uncle Jackie were livid with rage. With good reason, she 
supposed. 

Uncle Jackie pulled the Super Teaser out of the bag and examined it. 

"Not turning tricks, huh?" Uncle Jackie asked brusquely. "Huh. I know chorus 
girls who aren't as educated as this." 

"What chorus girls do you know?" Aunt Rose asked. 

"The ones...." Uncle Jackie stammered. "Wait a minute. We're supposed to be 
yelling at her, not me!" Aunt Rose turned to Liz, her face beet red with 
anger. 

"What else is in that bag?" 

Uncle Jackie saved Liz the trouble of answering. He turned the bag upside 
down. The French ticklers and other stuff tumbled to the floor. 

"Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed. "Will you look at that stuff? It looks like a 
Swedish joy house in here." 

"Elizabeth, I want the truth about all of this!" Aunt Rose said firmly. "And 
don't give me any crap. I want it all." 

And Liz knew she did. Lying was out of the question. Aunt Rose saw through 
them like Superman could see through walls. 

"Maybe you'd both better sit down," Liz suggested. "This may take a while. 
Better still, I think coffee and Danish would be in order here." Forty-five 
minutes later, they sat in the kitchen as Liz finished her story. It was 
tough detailing the sexier parts, especially the business with Lili. Uncle 
Jackie's ears turned red. 

"You're telling us that you can pick the winning daily numbers when you have 
an...." Uncle Jackie choked on thee last word, " ... orgasm?" 

"I know it sounds incredible," Liz admitted, "but I swear it's true." 

"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Uncle Jackie asked. 

"Cow knishes!" Aunt Rose cried. "The girl's lying through the teeth we paid 
thousands to fix with braces!" 

"That's why," Liz said. "I knew you'd never believe me, but I can prove it." 

"How?" Aunt Rose cackled. 

"That's what the stuff in the bedroom is for," Liz told them. "To make it 
happen by myself. After all, Aunt Rose, you told me to wait for someone I 
loved, and that's just what I'm doing." 

She had her aunt there, and Rose Bindlebender knew it. 

"Black rubber penises are a bit extreme, aren't they?" she asked. 

"Lemme get this straight," Uncle Jackie broke in, trying to piece this all 
together. "You're gonna play with those toys in there and then you'll know 
the winning numbers?" 

"Something like that," Liz said. 

"The girl's nutsy-coo-coo," Aunt Rose spat. "She and her horny friends are 
probably working Eighth Avenue." 

"We are not!" Liz said, rising from the table angrily. "And I'll prove it to 
you." 

Liz marched down the hallway into her room and slammed the door. 

She also locked it. In the kitchen, she could hear her aunt and uncle 
talking. 

"It's got to be drug money, Rose," Uncle Jackie was saying. "What else can 
it be? After all, we're in the middle of it here in Jackson Heights, you 
know. It'd be easy enough to get ahold of." 

"For the first time in twenty years I agree with you," Aunt Rose chimed in. 
"She's probably selling it to the kids as P.S. 145 in the schoolyard." 

"I AM NOT!" Liz cried from her bedroom, and the chatting in the kitchen 
stopped abruptly. 

She'd show them. 

Liz unwrapped the black dildo and jumped onto the bed. She tore off her 
tight jeans and lay on her bed naked from the waist down. 

Aunt Rose and Uncle Jackie crept silently down the hall. They crouched 
beside Liz's door. Uncle Jackie peered through the keyhole, one of those old 
fashioned numbers large enough to get a more than good glimpse at his half 
naked niece. 

"What's she doing?" Aunt Rose whispered. 

"It ain't the third act of 'King Lear," ' Uncle Jackie hissed back. 

Liz slowly inserted the fat rubber tip of the dildo into her moist snatch. 

"Jeeez," Uncle Jackie muttered. "Minsky should only be alive to see 
this...." 

Liz knew they were out there, probably crouching like mice outside the door. 
She could hear their muffled voices. 

Let them watch. Maybe they'd learn something new. 

She sank the cool rubber organ a little deeper into her snatch. It felt 
great. She shoved it in more. 

Outside the room, Uncle Jackie was aware of a not altogether unpleasant 
sensation in his groin. His rope started to rise slowly as he watched his 
niece diddle herself with the dildo, none of which went unnoticed by his 
wife, who commented, "That's the biggest I've seen it since the night before 
you did the Ed Sullivan show back in '66." 

"Shuddup," Uncle Jackie hissed at his wife. 

Liz pinched her left nipple and worked the dildo into her pussy slowly, 
savoring every second the apparatus was inside of her. 

She fingered her clit simultaneously, shoving the black shlong as deeply 
into her snatch as it would go. 

Uncle Jackie bit his knuckle as he watched her, mesmerized by the highly 
charged scene unfolding only a few feet away. 

Aunt Rose felt a streak of jealousy bolt through her stomach as she watched 
her husband watch Liz diddle herself. 

She slammed him on the back of his head with her palm. His face hit the 
door, his left eye going into the doorknob. 

"Wassamatter, my headlights don't shine bright enough for you anymore?" Aunt 
Rose hissed. 

Uncle Jackie rubbed his eye. "What was that for?" 

"Don't enjoy it so much," she replied tartly. She pushed him aside. "Lemme 
see." 

"I don't think you should, Rose," her husband said. "For someone who thought 
E.T. was a filthy movie...." 

But Aunt Rose was already peering anxiously through the keyhole. God bless 
pre-war buildings with their big peepholes. 

Her eyebrows jutted up her forehead and disappeared into her scalp as she 
watched her niece masturbate. 

"Goodness," she muttered. 

Liz was really working the phony phallus now, sliding it in and out of her 
snatch and playing with her clit. She writhed in ecstasy on the bed, 
undulating her pelvis, massaging the dildo inside her wet, warm womb. 

"What's she doing now?" Uncle Jackie asked with delicious anticipation. 

"None of your business," she snapped back. 

Aunt Rose watched, totally transfixed. 

Liz continued pounding away with the dildo until she gradually slipped into 
another sphere of consciousness, moaning deeply. 

"Orgasms," Aunt Rose snorted. "When I was her age, we didn't know from such 
things." 

Liz's moans got a little louder, which prompted Uncle Jackie to ask what was 
happening. 

"Don't know," Aunt Rose replied, watching as Liz flip-flopped all over the 
bed. The black dildo rolled off of the bed and bounced around the floor like 
a snake. 

"I went to a psychiatrist last week," Liz said in a voice not her own. "He 
says, 'Tell me everything.' I did-now he's doing my act...." 

"Is she stealing my jokes now?" Uncle Jackie asked indignantly, listening to 
the commotion inside Liz's bedroom. "What the hell...." 

"Shush!" Aunt Rose barked. 

"You pays your dollar and you takes yer chances," Liz moaned, doing a pretty 
good Durante. 

"She's doing my whole act!" Uncle Jackie cried. 

"It's the strangest thing I've ever seen," Aunt Rose declared. 

"Nine ... four ... seven...." Liz croaked. 

"Nine, four, seven, write that down, Jackie," Aunt Rose ordered her husband. 
Uncle Jackie quickly jotted the numbers down on the wall. 

"Not on the wall," his wife hissed at him. 

Aunt Rose returned her gaze into the bedroom. Liz was coming around now, 
sitting up on her bed. 

"Quick, she's getting up," Aunt Rose gasped, scrambling to her feet and 
dashing down the hall. Uncle Jackie also jumped up, crashing into the wall 
in the process. 

They skidded into the kitchen and whipped their asses into the kitchen 
chairs as Liz's door opened and they heard her footsteps coming their way. 

She stood in the doorway, her cheeks rosy red. 

"Nine-four-seven, Uncle Jackie," Liz said to her Uncle. "Play those three 
numbers tonight and tomorrow I promise that you'll be five hundred dollars 
richer." 

* * * 

The following evening, Aunt Rose, Uncle Jackie and Liz sat in the den and 
watched Channel 5. "All in the Family" ended, and after the closing credits 
rolled, they always did the daily numbers. 

Uncle Jackie clenched the numbers ticket in his fist as the Numbers Lady 
read the numbers off of the ping-pong balls. 

"And the first number tonight," she said with a plastic smile, "is nine." 

Uncle Jackie tensed. 

"And the second number for July twenty-third is four." 

Aunt Rose started needle pointing her pattern to her dress. 

"And the third number tonight," said the toothy white girl, "is seven." 

"Nine-four-seven," Uncle Jackie said in a small voice. "Oh.." 

"God help us," Aunt Rose said, her cheek twitching like crazy. "She can do 
it." 

"Told you," Liz said proudly. 

"It ain't possible," Uncle Jackie said, shaking his head. 

"Wait a minute," Aunt Rose announced, talking slowly. "Remember when 
Elizabeth was a girl, about three, and we took her and her mother up to 
Grossingers for the weekend...." 

"Sure I remember," Uncle Jackie recalled. "I opened for Jerry Vale...." 

"Right," Aunt Rose harked back. "And Lizzy got conked by that apple in the 
nightclub, remember, the one that was targeted for you?" 

"I remember, I remember," Uncle Jackie replied testily. "It wasn't meant for 
me. The guy was drunk." 

"Whatever," Aunt Rose went on. "You got this big bruise, Elizabeth, on your 
forehead. We all fretted about it for a week, it got so big. You probably 
don't remember, dear, but it was the size of a walnut almost. We were all 
frantic until it went down. The docs were afraid of maybe a hairline 
fracture. And now this. You think that conk on the noggin could have 
something to do with this?" 

Liz shrugged. "Maybe." 

"Millions," Uncle Jackie said. "We'll make millions. We're sitting on a 
goldmine! For the first time, I really will have a million of 'em!" 

"Slow down, Jackie," Aunt Rose advised. "We got to think this thing out 
thoroughly." She turned to her niece. "Does anyone else know about this, 
Elizabeth?" 

"Just Lili Chu," Liz replied, "but she promised not to tell." 

"Uh huh," Aunt Rose said, her mind working like a Swiss watch. 

Liz could see her eyes actually get beady as she watched. 

 CHAPTER SIX 

Norval Jones drummed his fingers on the surface of his battered wooden desk 
and studied the map that stretched across it. 

His back left molar throbbed dully. A bad sign, it meant something was wrong 
somewhere. 

His gaze returned to the seven circles drawn crudely on the map of New York 
City. All of the circles had been drawn around locations in Queens, in the 
Woodside/Jackson Heights vicinity. 

Norval Jones touched his aching molar with the tip of his tongue. He was 
really going to have to get the tooth looked at sooner or later. Only he 
hated dentists, especially the ones who claimed to be "painless." It just 
wasn't possible. The words "teeth" and "pain" went hand in hand. 

Norval Jones, at twenty-four, was the hottest trouble shooter the New York 
State Gambling Commission had. The day before, a mousy clerk named 
Laughingwell had come to Norval's office with some interesting data 
concerning a rash of winnings in a certain section of Queens. 

"It's the damndest thing you've ever seen," Laughingwell had claimed, 
pointing to a map of the borough. "Every day for the last three weeks we've 
had a winner, sometimes two or three on the same day, in this one section of 
Queens. Could be coincidence. It's happened before, but never to this 
extent. Kind of makes you wonder." 

And it did. The fact that Jones's molar throbbed was the first indication, 
meaning either it was raining out or that something was rotten in Denmark. 

Norval scanned the map again. The winning tickets had been purchased at a 
series of seven newsstands within a fifty block radius, and all had been 
straight winnings, almost as if someone had known beforehand what the three 
winning numbers would be. 

Hmmmm. 

It was impossible that anyone could know the winning digits ahead of time. 
Contrary to popular belief, the daily numbers were, in fact, done on the up 
and up. There was no possible way a person, even one employed by the 
Commission, could know beforehand the winning numbers, as they were chosen 
on-camera before millions of TV viewers. 

Which meant, Norval reasoned, that either someone was on a very lucky 
winning streak or else there was a fly in the ointment and someone was 
rigging the outcome. 

Norval duly reported all of this to his superior, a cranky but on-the-ball 
ex-FBI man named Chambers. 

"Sure," Norval told him, "it could be a coincidence, but I doubt it. 
Something's up. I can feel it in my bones." 

"Any theories?" Chambers wanted to know, regarding his young assistant. 

"Not offhand," Norval told him. "But seventeen winnings, all in the same 
vicinity in so short a period of time. I don't like it, not one bit." 

"So talk to me," Chambers said, cleaning his pipe. 

"With your okay, I'll fly to New York today and talk to the owners of each 
newsstand where the winning tickets were purchased. Then we'll take it from 
there. Dollars'll get you doughnuts there's a pattern here." 

"Do it," Chambers replied. 

Aunt Rose closed the bedroom door slowly and locked it. Down the hall in the 
living room, Uncle Jackie was watching Johnny Carson and bitching about how 
lousy his monologue was. 

Liz was asleep in her room and was blissfully unaware that her aunt had 
"borrowed" her Super Teaser electric dildo. 

Aunt Rose couldn't wait to try it out firsthand. She sat on the edge of the 
bed and held the rubbery item in her hand. It was a big, flesh colored penis 
and had a cord and adapter attached to it. Inside the rubber penis was a 
wire that made the whole shebang wiggle when turned on. 

Her heart thudding with anticipation, Aunt Rose plugged the adapter into the 
outlet by the bed table and then switched the "on" button. 

A fraction of a second later, the fuse box in the kitchen blew apart with a 
popping sound and every light in the entire building went out. The defective 
dildo managed to short out half the neighborhood as well 

"What the...." Aunt Rose muttered, sitting semi naked in total darkness. 

"Rose!" Uncle Jackie cried. "Get the Chanukah candles! Looks like Con Ed 
fucked up again!" 

She didn't have the nerve to tell her husband the truth. 

Fabian Bacoo loved America. Sure, New York was a jungle. Sure, Americans 
were slobs and assholes and lazy sons of bitches. Sure, white women wouldn't 
look at him twice. Even so, it beat the hell out of South Yemen, where 
either the government soldiers or thieves managed to take what little he 
had, and every chance they got. 

When his cousin Amir had written from America and invited him to Queens to 
come and run a second newsstand he was opening, Fabian leaped at the 
opportunity. Unfortunately, his visa had expired six months earlier and he 
had no green card yet. 

All of which explained his nervousness when this official looking Anglo man 
in a cheap trench coat stepped into his establishment and slapped a couple 
of lottery tickets down on the counter. 

"Are you the owner of this newsstand?" Norval asked the nervous Arab. 

Fabian nodded. He hoped this guy wasn't from the Immigration Department. 

Norval whipped out his wallet. Fabian saw a glint ,of silver badge and his 
bowels turned to water. He'd be back in South Yemen faster than a camel fart 
in a sandstorm. 

"Norval Jones," Norval informed the jittery Arab. "I'm an investigator from 
the New York State Gambling Commission. And you are...?" 

"I am Fabian Bacoo," the swarthy man replied. "And do you own this place?" 

"I am a co-owner with my cousin," Fabian answered. 

Norval shoved a stick of gum into his mouth. "Can I see your green card, Mr. 
Bacoo?" 

Fabian gulped and felt his heart start pounding in his chest. 

"Of course," Norval went on, sensing the man's fear, a fear he gladly played 
on, "it won't be necessary if you answer a few questions for me." 

"I will be happy to," Fabian sweated. 

"These winning numbers tickets were purchased at this location," Norval 
said, "on three separate days. All I want to know is, who bought them? Take 
your time in answering, because this is very important." 

"It was a girl," Fabian replied. 

"A white girl?" 

Fabian nodded. 

"Ever see her before?" 

"No," Fabian replied. "She come in, buy a ticket, leave and come back to 
collect her money." 

"Can you describe her to me?" 

"Young, perhaps seventeen or eighteen years old," Fabian recalled. "Pretty. 
Nice breasts. Tight jeans. Lots of makeup." 

"That description could fit half the girls in Queens," Norval said. "Give me 
more." 

Fabian gave him more. 

"About five feet and three inches," he went on, using every ounce of memory 
he could muster. "Blonde hair, long." 

"Did she come alone?" 

Fabian shook his head. 

"Once she came with another girl, Oriental girl. But all other times, she 
come alone." 

Norval was pretty sure the nervous camel jockey was telling the truth. 
Threaten them with deportation and they sing like sparrows. 

Norval thanked him and left. 

He visited several other newsstands that had sold winning numbers tickets. 
Not surprisingly, he got a similar description of a young blonde girl 
between seventeen and nineteen with a knack for picking the right digits. 

Last on his list was Amir's establishment. 

* * * 

Liz slept. 

Her sleep was mercifully dreamless that night. She had had quite a day. 
Suddenly, it was hard to breathe. Even though she slept deeply, Liz sensed 
that her lungs were not getting enough air, like she was suffocating. 

She swam up to consciousness and opened her eyes. There was a hand over her 
nose and mouth. At the other end of the hand was Uncle Jackie, with a 
maniacal look on his face. 

"Don't scream," he wheezed. "It's okay." 

"Mummph." Liz attempted to speak. 

"You been living with Aunt Rose and me for a long time now, Elizabeth," he 
whispered, looking ridiculous in his Fred Flintstone pajamas. "You owe me, 
you owe us both. Didn't we feed you and clothe you and give you milk money? 
Didn't we take your to our bosoms after your mother ran off to California 
with Glenn Gilroy, that shmendrick?" 

Liz plucked Uncle Jackie's pudgy hand from her face. 

"What the hell are you talking about, Uncle Jackie?" she asked, 
understandably confused. 

"You guessed three winning numbers, you can guess six," he rasped, sweating 
heavily, and not just from the summer heat. "Do it for me, Lizzy." Uncle 
Jackie leaped onto the bed and crawled on top of Liz. She tried to scream 
and found his clammy hand back on her face. 

"Do it for me, kiddo," he stammered. "I don't ask for much...." 

His hot breath against her neck, Liz struggled to get out from under her 
uncle's bulky frame, kicking her legs wildly, arms flailing. 

"The jackpot's up to seventeen million this week," Uncle Jackie cried, 
pinning her arms to the mattress with one hand and covering her yap with the 
other, no easy task with a spirited teenager. "One quick bang and we're set 
for life! Think of it, Lizzy-a penthouse on Park Avenue, a Bloomie's charge 
card...." 

Liz sank his choppers into Uncle Jackie's hand. He yanked it back and bit 
his tongue to keep from howling like a banshee. 

"Get off of me or I'll scream for Aunt Rose!" Liz snapped. 

"Please, Liz!" Uncle Jackie implored. "You only go around once. Gotta grab 
for all the gusto you can, like in that beer commercial...." 

He squeezed her tit. Liz slapped his hand away. 

"I'm gonna count to three," she threatened, "and if you're not offa me, I'm 
gonna bellow my brains out!" 

"Don't to that, don't do that," Uncle Jackie said, climbing off of her. 

"I'm really ashamed of you, Uncle Jackie," Liz scolded angrily. 

He looked hurt. "I didn't mean anything by it. I just thought as long as you 
had to get laid anyway...." 

Liz was more disappointed than upset. "I thought you were different, Uncle 
Jackie. Not the run of the mill cunt hound like most men." 

"Sue me, I lost my head," he said. "I'm only human. We're talking millions, 
kiddo. Can't you just dream six numbers instead of three? That's not asking 
much." 

"I don't have any control over my subconscious mind or alpha waves or 
whatever it is that causes this," Liz replied. "It just happens. In the 
dream, I put the dollar down and the guy-it's usually Amir, but sometimes 
it's Henny Youngman-hands me the ticket with the winning numbers on it." 

Uncle Jackie scratched his nose thoughtfully. "Why can't you just ask him to 
give you a ticket with six numbers on it instead of three? Hell, it's your 
dream and your damn dollar." 

Liz had never considered this. "I guess I could try," she replied. 

"Sure you could," Uncle Jackie coaxed. "I got faith in you, Lizzy. You're a 
trouper. Hell, I bet you didn't know that Eddie Cantor is your fifteenth 
cousin twice removed! Well, he is." 

"Go to bed now, Uncle Jackie," Liz said, "and tomorrow I'll give it a shot." 

"I guess this means a goodnight kiss is out of the question?" 

Liz threw the black dildo at him. 

* * * 

Amir Bagashelz, unlike his cousins who dotted Queens like caraway seeds in a 
loaf of rye bread, was a naturalized citizen and as such felt no need to 
answer any of these white man's questions. After all, he had his rights to 
remain silence. ( I This word is repeated.) 

"So you're telling me you don't remember who bought this winning ticket?" 
Norval Jones asked. 

"As I told you, Sir," Amir replied self righteously, "I am not remembering 
anything." 

"Did you sell this ticket?" 

"I'm not remembering," Amir repeated. "Perhaps my nephew sold it to her. He 
is employed here on a basis of part time." 

"Is he here now?" 

"No," Amir replied. "I am not knowing where he is. Today day off." 

"Where does he live?" 

"I am not knowing." 

Norval shrugged, resigned. He strolled casually around Amir's place, 
inspecting the racks of magazines and dirty paperbacks, some in foreign 
languages. He went to the computerized Lotto machine and ran two fingers 
across the top. 

The tips of his fingers were covered with black dust. 

"You really ought to keep this machine cleaner, Mr. Bagashelz. Dust builds 
up, shoots the microchips all to hell. Be a shame, wouldn't it, seeing how 
you do so much business with it. Take a hefty chunk out of your income, 
wouldn't it? Yep-folks love to gamble, the same way they love to eat and 
drink and screw. Good business to be in, don't you think?" 

He crossed to the opposite side of the small store and started flipping 
through some hardcore sex magazines. 

"Nice photography," he smiled. "But you know, as pretty as these girls are, 
they don't look a day over sixteen. You know what kiddie porn is, Amir?" 

Amir nodded. "All models over eighteen." 

"Maybe they are, maybe they're not," Norval said. "But if I, as a servant of 
the State of New York, honestly felt that this magazine contained obscene 
material, I would have to inform the bunco boy, who would promptly shut this 
place down tighter than a bass drum until the issue was decided." 

Norval strolled over to the payphone on the wall and bounced a quarter in 
his hand George Raft style. 

"One phone call, Amir, and your business is history." 

"I believe her name is Elizabeth," Amir blurted, a tower of Jello. "She 
lives around this neighborhood and hangs out here with her friends, also 
local roughnecks like her." 

"How many times has she bought the numbers here?" 

"Just one time, although a man who I believe is her father also bought 
here-for the first time-the day before yesterday." 

"Did he win?" 

Amir nodded. "Five hundred dollars." 

"Would you recognize her if she came in again?" 

"Most certainly," Amir said graciously. "She comes here often, often every 
day." 

"Okay," Norval replied, his molar starting to flare up again. Really had to 
get it looked at one day. "I'll be back tonight. When and if she comes 
tonight, I want you to point her out to me. Think you could do that?" 

Amir nodded eagerly. 

"Good boy," Norval said, slapping his brown face affectionately. 

* * * 

Norval laid on the heated waterbed in room 231 of the Queens Boulevard Motor 
Hotel, which was little more than a "hot sheets" motel, a place where folks 
went for a quick roll in the hay. It boasted luxurious suites with 
waterbeds, mirrored ceilings, complimentary champagne, hot tubs and X-rated 
videos in each one. 

It was a dump, but Norval found that it suited his purposes nicely. For one 
thing, it was within walking distance of Amir's. For another, it was lively. 
Even as he relaxed on the soothing liquid mattress he could hear a couple (a 
couple of what he didn't know) in the next room obviously having the time of 
their lives. 

He looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to seven. In a half hour he would 
shower, shave, dress and go back to Amir's place to hopefully get a line on 
this pretty young blonde on a lucky streak. 

His back molar throbbed. Instinct told him that this one would be out of the 
ordinary. He could feel it in his bones. Something was definitely out of 
whack here. A teenaged girl who could pick the winners every day running, 
and always in sequence. It had to be more than beginner's luck. 

In the next room, Norval's neighbors went at it. Norval listened with 
amusement. 

"Not in there, Harold!" cried a woman who sounded like Joan Collins. "No 
toilet shots, Harold!" 

"Just this once, please?" Harold pleaded. 

"No...." Joan Collins protested, and then Norval heard a series of moans and 
groans and what sounded like a large dog barking. 

He really didn't want to know what they were doing in there, preferring to 
concentrate on the work that lay ahead. 

At twenty-four, Norval Jones was the youngest investigator in the history of 
the New York State Gambling Commission but one of their most prized workers 
nonetheless. He was like a ferret, sniffing out tidbits of information that 
could be pieced together to solve the toughest case, such as the newsie in 
Spanish Harlem who'd found a way to program the ticket machine in a way that 
allowed him to skim hundreds of dollars off the profits. 

Norval had gone directly from Central Ithaca High into investigative work, 
working his way up from a lowly security guard to the best private dick the 
company had. He'd been tapped by the Gambling Commission two years earlier 
and had proven himself invaluable, getting to the bottom of cases some 
thirty-year veterans couldn't crack. 

He got up and showered, foregoing the luxuries of the hot tub, and dressed 
in some new straight legged jeans, boots and a tight blue tee-shirt. He put 
on a pair of sunglasses and slicked his hair back with Vitalis. 

If this pretty blonde whose name was or wasn't Elizabeth was anything like 
Norval imagined her to be, then she would probably go for the dopey macho 
types so common in the outer boroughs of New York City. 

He rolled a pack of Marlboros up in the sleeve of his tee-shirt so that it 
looked like it was growing out of his shoulder. 

He popped one in the corner of his mouth and tried to look tough. Guys from 
Ithica were not generally known for their ferociousness. He snarled and 
flexed his muscles, which were well developed thanks to three nights a week 
at Vic Tanny's. 

He left. 

 CHAPTER SEVEN 

Liz sluggishly slurped one of Amir's egg creams at the counter. Despite the 
fact that Amir wasn't a cranky Jew like Moe Horowitz had been-Moe proceeded 
Amir as the proprietor of the joint-his egg creams were just as good. 
Tonight though, Liz listlessly sucked up the sweet concoction. 

It wasn't bad enough that Uncle Jackie had tried to craw! into bed with her 
or that Aunt Rose started buying her new sex toys. What was even worse was, 
Aunt Rose started playing matchmaker. 

Liz had returned home the day before to find none other than Marvin 
Noodleman, complete with hairy kirshner outfit and little ponytail, sitting 
on the living room couch between Uncle Jackie and Aunt Rose, both of whom 
were beaming with approval. 

"Marvin?" Liz asked. "Is it really you?" 

"We knew how much you liked Marvin," Aunt Rose said, "so we invited him for 
dinner." 

Liz stood in the doorway, reeling from shock. It wasn't hard to figure out 
what they were up to. 

"It's perfectly divine to see you again, Elizabeth," Marvin said, and from 
the sound of it, his brain was Maypo. His grinned vacantly at her. 

"Uh ... hi, Marvin," Liz said weakly. 

"Uncle Jackie and I are off to Cedarhurst out on the Island," Aunt Rose 
said, yanking her husband to his feet. 

"I'm doing forty-five minutes at Del's Deep Dish Pizza Theater," Uncle 
Jackie explained. 

"Don't leave," Liz blurted. "Don't do this to me.... 

Uncle Jackie scooted over and whispered, "Don't worry-he's perfect. Clean. 
Disease free, straight and Jewish." 

Liz grabbed his arm. "Don't leave him here with me. What'll we talk about?" 

"Give him a few Krishna gags, like 'how many Hairy Krishners does it take to 
screw in a light bulb?'" 

"How many?" 

"I thought you knew," Uncle Jackie replied, and glided past her to the coat 
closet. 

"What about dinner?" Liz cried. "Aren't you staying to eat?" 

"No time," Aunt Rose bubbled, sliding into her coat. She held out her coat 
for Uncle Jackie to put it on her. He walked by, jamming on his hat, and 
Aunt Rose found herself handing it to the floor. 

"Such a class act. my husband," she gushed with jolly humor, and pushed his 
hat down over his face as he strolled out the door, causing him to walk into 
the wall. "There's a vegetable casserole in the oven-Marvin eats no meat-and 
Kool-Aid in the fridge. You two enjoy yourselves now." 

"Break a leg, Uncle Jackie," Liz said. 

"In addition to my broken nose," he said, checking for blood. 

They were gone. Liz turned to Marvin, who sat on the couch clutching a 
wilting daisy. 

"How did they ever get you out here, Marvin?" she asked him. "I didn't know 
you were allowed to leave the dorm." 

"I came to express my love and to bring you the word of the godhead, so that 
you might achieve total inner peace, spiritual fulfillment, and because they 
promised me a hundred dollars if I slept with you." 

"They didn't!" 

But they had. And Marvin had been more than willing to live up to his end of 
the bargain, so much so that a shifting mountain range appeared under his 
sheet. 

It was around that time that Liz fled the apartment, leaving Marvin to his 
soybeans. 

Today, she wasn't speaking to either of them. Things were starting to get 
out of hand. 

It was time to move out. And money was no problem. Not with the steady 
stream of cash rolling j in every day. Maybe a place in Flushing, near I 
Queens College. Her own apartment. She'd have a cat and some nice plants and 
lots of closet space. 

Norval walked in. Amir, who was standing behind the counter cleaning a 
glass, looked up. Their eyes met and locked. Amir nodded his head, motioning 
to Liz at the counter. 

Norval nodded back and slid onto the stool next to her. He unwrapped a straw 
and chewed on it. 

"Gimme a cherry Coke," he said to Amir. 

He stared at Liz. Amir and his sand-nigger cousins had been right about one 
thing-she WAS pretty. Nice tush, pert breasts. A real package. 

She looked preoccupied, lost in thought. And not especially happy. 

"Could you pass me the napkins, please?" Norval asked, trying to get her 
attention. 

Liz grabbed the metal napkin dispenser and slid it across the formica 
counter directly in front of Norval without looking up from her egg cream. 

Amir set the cherry Coke down. "You know, someone told me that Queens has 
the prettiest women in the world, and also the friendliest," Norval said to 
him. "What do you think?" 

Liz didn't even look up. "Whoever told you that is full of shit." 

"I don't think so," Norval commented, looking at her. 

Finally, Liz raised her heavy head up and shot a glance at the handsome 
greaser sitting to her left. He must have been new in the neighborhood. Liz 
had never seen him before. 

Zeke, the last person Liz wanted to see, strolled into the store and zeroed 
in on Liz. He went over to her. 

"Hey, baby," he greeted. "Wanna get lucky?" 

"Make like a banana and split, huh?" Liz replied. Zeke placed his hand on 
her thigh and whispered in her ear: "Fuckin's a lot better than munching 
pussy, sweetie." 

Liz started to give him the elbow in the groin, but Zeke grabbed her arm and 
stopped her. 

"Don't be so bitchy, Liz," he snapped. "Why are you always brushing me off?" 

"Because you're toejam," Liz said, and yanked her arm free. 

"This lowlife giving you a hard time?" Norval asked her. 

Zeke's ears turned red. 

"Why dontcha mind your own fuckin' business, asswipe?" Zeke countered. 

"Where I come from, we know how to treat women," Norval smiled. 

"For what, the clap?" Zeke asked, and returned to Liz. He put his hands on 
her shoulders and started rubbing up against her. 

"Quit it, Zeke!" Liz protested. "You feel like a wet herring against me." 

"Leave the lady alone," Norval said. 

Zeke turned on him with all the wrath of a lover scorned. 

"Shut your mouth, greaseball, or I'll...." 

"You'll what?" Norval asked, rising from the stool and facing Zeke, who had 
a good three or four inches on him. 

Zeke grabbed the collar of Norval's black jacket. 

"I'll pound your ass into the mutha-fuckin' sidewalk, that's what!" Zeke 
cried. 

Norval smiled coldly and neatly dropped his hand down and grabbed Zeke's 
testicles, squeezing them. 

Liz watched intently, her heart fluttering. This dude was brave-and also 
adorable. 

"I could turn your nuts into marmalade if I wanted to," Norval threatened, 
the smile never leaving his lips. "Now. I want you to repeat after me: 
'I-your name ... '" 

"'I ... my name ... '" Zeke moaned, the pressure on his testicles mounting 
as Norval clenched them. 

"'Promise never to bother, this or any other girl physically or otherwise, 
because it is rude, thoughtless, and degrading." 

"You fucker ... owwwww!" Zeke wailed in pain as Norval increased the 
pressure. "Okay, okay, I promise never to bother this or any chick 
physically or otherwise 'cause it's crude, degrading and ... what was the 
third one again?" 

"Thoughtless," Norval repeated. 

"Thoughtless then," Zeke agreed. 

Still holding Zeke's balls, Norval spun him around in a semi-circle and 
released him, sending the turkey spiraling out the door. Zeke flailed his 
arms uselessly and cascaded into a group of pimply teenaged girls. 

Liz gaped at Norval, somewhat impressed now. Outside, the pudgy girls were 
slamming Zeke over the head with their bags. 

Norval sat back down and sipped his cherry Coke. Liz gazed admiringly at 
him. 

"You didn't have to do that for me," she said. No man had ever gotten into a 
fight over her. It was kind of exciting. 

"It was nothing," Norval replied. "A mere bag of shells." 

"Yes?" Amir asked behind the counter. 

"Not you," Norval said. 

"You're not from around here, are you?" Liz asked. 

"No," Norval told her. "I'm from upstate. Just visiting." 

"I've been upstate," Liz said. "Whereabouts?" 

"Ithaca." 

"Home of the Gaiety Theatre, right?" 

"How do you know about the Gaiety?" Norval asked, impressed. 

"My uncle's a standup comic," Liz told him. "I know every theater east of 
St. Louis." 

"What's his name?" 

"You've never heard of him," Liz said, explaining for the millionth time. 

"You never know," Norval said. "What's his name?" 

"Jackie Bender," Liz said. 

"Never heard of him." 

Norval sucked up the last of his cherry Coke noisily. 

"You live around here?" Norval asked. "I could walk you home or something." 

"Or something," Liz said dubiously. "I don't even know your name." 

"Norval Jones," he said, extending his hand. 

"Elizabeth Bender," Liz replied, and took it. His grasp was cool and dry. He 
released her hand reluctantly. 

"Ready?" he asked. 

"I guess," Liz said, and slid off the stool. They walked out onto the 
street. Rounding the comer as they exited was Zeke, plus a few of his 
buddies, some of whom Liz recognized from school as the mindless giants with 
vegetable soup for brains. 

"That's him!" Zeke cried, and the group-about five of them-walked briskly 
toward them. 

"Friends of yours?" Norval asked nervously. "Nope," Liz replied. "I suggest 
we run, unless you'd rather end up stuffed inside that mailbox." 

"Not especially," Norval said, and grabbed her hand. Together they tore ass 
down Northern Boulevard with Zeke and his pals in hot pursuit. 

Norval noted with some alarm that they were all carrying a startling array 
of baseball bats, broken car antennas hockey sticks. These Queens boys 
played for keeps. 

They ran. Liz knew the territory, Allah be praised, and she jerked his arm, 
motioning for him to cut through an alley and ducking into a stairwell that 
led into the courtyard of an big apartment building. Norval lost his balance 
and crashed into a row of garbage cans, spilling half a ton of rotting 
garbage all over his chest and pants. 

"Shit!" Norval snapped. 

Liz grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the muck. 

"Nice going, Tarzan," she said, and dragged him into the basement of the 
building, where they huddled behind the furnace until Liz was convinced it 
was safe. 

"They're probably half way to Elmhurst by now, the lame dicks," Liz said as 
they hit the street again. There was no sign of Zeke or any of his buddies. 

"Nothing personal Norval," Liz said, pinching her nostrils, "but you smell 
like the slums of Rio in August." 

"Yeah, I guess I am a bit pungent," he said distastefully, peeling off his 
leather jacket and tossing it in a nearby trashcan. "Let me walk you home 
and then I can change at my place." 

"I don't feel like going home just yet," Liz said with a grin. "Where's your 
place?" 

"I suppose there's a good reason why you're staying here," Liz said, taking 
in the surroundings of Norval's hotel room. 

"There is," he replied, peeling off his shirt and balling it up. "It's 
cheap." 

Liz sat on the edge of the heated waterbed and stared at Norval as he tossed 
his shirt into a plastic bag and sealing it with a wire tie. He had a pretty 
good build. A trifle on the skinny side, but still sexy in a boyish kind of 
way. 

"I'm gonna hop into the shower for a minute or to, so make yourself to 
home." 

Norval disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door. 

Norval sang as he showered the smell away, lathering every inch of his body. 
Outside, Liz smiled as she listened to him sing. He had a rotten voice. 

Liz had always wondered what the rooms in this joint looked like. She knew 
of the motel's reputation, as did everyone in the neighborhood. There were 
mirrors on the ceiling and, Liz shortly discovered, X-rated movies on the 
tube. A black dude decked out in a giant Quaker Oats box was dancing in a 
white woman's kitchen as she peeled her clothes off. His big black dick was 
sticking out of the bottom of the box. 

Norval stepped out of the shower clad only in a clean pair of jeans. He 
looked like he was pretty well endowed, Liz noted with great interest. 

"Want some champagne?" Norval asked. "It came with the room." 

"Sure," Liz replied. She felt herself becoming more and more attracted to 
him. He wasn't brainless like most of the guys she knew, and although she 
was sitting on his bed in a hot sheet motel, he had as yet made no advances. 
Liz hoped he wasn't a queer. 

Norval dried his hair with a towel and fetched a couple of paper-wrapped 
plastic glasses from the bathroom. He took the champagne from the bucket of 
melted ice and started unscrewing the cork. 

"It's a bit warm but I'm sure it's fine," he said, and backed his face away 
from the impending explosion as he yanked the plastic cork out. None came. 
He pulled it out with a popping sound. The cheap bubbly barely fizzed. 

"That was a close one," Liz commented. 

Norval poured them each a glass. He handed one to Liz. 

"Salud!" he toasted. "Here's to a gutsy girl named Elizabeth Bender." 

"I'll drink to that," Liz replied, and did. 

They drank the sweet, somewhat flat champagne. 

"You never did tell me what you're doing here," Liz said, staring at him 
over the rim of her cup. 

"I work for the State of New York," Norval said. "More than that I'm not at 
liberty to reveal." 

Liz wasn't impressed. "Then why did they stick you in the biggest hot-sheet 
fleabag in town?" 

"The State of New York is very cheap," he replied. "More?" 

Her eyes traveled down to the grapefruit-sized bulge in his pants. Norval 
watched her watch him and poured her more champagne. It was hard to believe 
that this pert blonde could pick winning numbers. 

"Ever slept on a waterbed?" he asked. 

"No, but I've always wanted to try," Liz replied, smiling at him in a way 
that said, "fuck my brains out, please!" 

She gulped down the rest of her champagne and slapped the cup down on top of 
the set. She kicked off her sneakers and hopped onto the bed. 

Norval also slid back onto the bed so that they were sitting side by side 
against the headboard. Their combined weight made tidal waves on the squishy 
waterbed. 

"Got any Dramamine?" Liz asked, feeling the waves shake them. 

"What do you think?" Norval asked. 

"Pretty funky," Liz replied. 

They sat and rolled around as waves of warm water swept them back and forth. 

"Now what?" Norval asked. 

Liz shrugged. "Beats me." 

She laid flat on the waterbed. Norval leaned over and turned off the lamp on 
the night table. 

He rolled onto his side and kissed Liz on the mouth, his hand resting under 
her breast. He stroked her leg with his other hand. 

"We've gotta stop meeting like this," Liz giggled. 

"We've never met like this," Norval reminded. 

"Then we've got to start meeting like this," she replied. 

"Suits me," Norval said, and resumed kissing her. Liz curled her arms around 
his bare torso and pulled him down on top of her. She rubbed her groin 
against his leg, squeezing it between hers. 

She parted her lips and slid her tongue into his mouth. Norval did the same, 
feeling the excitement building in his loins. 

He slid a hand under her white tee-shirt and under her bra cup. He fondled 
her breast tenderly, working his fingers into the soft mound of white flesh. 

"You're not married by the way, are you?" Liz asked. 

"No," he whispered to her in the dark, his lips grazing her ear as he 
continued kneading her boob. "Do the guys around here know how to really 
make love to a woman?" 

"Not too many," Liz replied. 

"Let me show you how we make love in Ithaca," Norval said, and proceeded to 
do just that. 

He started to undress her. Liz had never been undressed by a man before and 
found herself liking it. It heightened the sexual tension, made them both 
more eager. 

Liz raised her arms up. Norval pulled her shirt off, then reached behind and 
tried to unsnap her bra, fumbling with it. 

"Having some trouble, Bucko?" Liz asked. 

"No more than usual," Norval grunted. 

"Let me give you a hand," Liz offered, unsnap-ping the bra herself. It slid 
off in Norval's hands. 

She had the most luscious set of melons he'd ever seen. His mouth watered. 
He couldn't wait to see what the rest of her looked like. 

Liz laid back as Norval started yanking her jeans off. She lifted her rump 
off the bed, and the waves rolled lazily from one side to the other, 
sweeping them along. 

That done, he shed his own pants and slid comfortably on top of Liz. 

She wrapped her arms around him as he kissed her nose. 

"Welcome to Queens," Liz said, and kissed him on the mouth. 

"I just want you to know that I don't dick every Tom and Harry who breezes 
into town," Liz said. 

"How come I was so fortunate?" Norval asked, gradually violating one very 
important rale of his profession-falling in love with a suspect. 

"I like what you did to Zeke," she said. "Let's make some love." 

They did. It would alter both of their lives forever. 

 CHAPTER EIGHT 

Elizabeth Bender made love like an angel. 

She genuinely enjoyed it, a claim Norval could not make for some of the 
women in his life. 

He did not slam his hips at her in rapid fire thrusts but rather, stroked 
the inside of her warm quim with his pecker nice and slowly. 

Liz had her legs wrapped around his ass. Their mouths were glued together. 
Norval held her ass-cheeks in his hands as he penetrated her bottomless 
snatch. 

Liz sank her finely honed fingernails into the flesh on Norval's sides as 
she felt his delicious manhood servicing her, filling her completely. 

Liz could feel Norval deep, deep inside of her womb, caressing her tenderly 
down there. He had amazing staying power compared to Johnny, who us" 'y 
popped his cork after a minute or two. he stroked her steadily, increasing 
speed gradually. There was no rush, and he was savoring every second of it. 

Liz's box was tight, engulfing and squeezing his throbbing pole inside of 
her. Norval felt his balls getting tender and hot, filling with jism. He 
hoped Liz climaxed first. 

"Ohhh.." Liz moaned joyously, her arms wrapped around his neck as she 
manipulated his cock inside of her. "Oh, it feels sooo goooood!" 

"It ain't bad on this end, either," Norval gasped, and his cock exploded 
inside of her, hot semen jettisoning deep into her womb . 

The vibrations of his cock deep in her, Liz also began to climax. Her 
nipples got hard and taut. Blood rushed to her brain. She groaned deep in 
her throat and her entire body started quaking under Norval, who was having 
the most satisfying orgasm of his life. 

His cock spasmed uncontrollably, shooting a hot stream of jism into her. Liz 
threw her head back on the pillow and made gargling noises. 

Norval continued coming hard and heavy, gripping her asscheeks, his face 
buried in the stiffly starched motel pillowcase. 

He finished coming and then realized that Liz was still in the throes of 
hers, and was painfully sinking her claws into his back. 

She was spinning like a top under him now, thrashing around even after he 
withdrew from her. 

Norval watched open mouthed. 

It was eerie. 

Liz's face contorted into an expression of anger. 

"I wanna play six, not three!" she muttered indignantly. 

"What?" Norval asked her, but could see that she was pretty much out to 
lunch. "Liz...?" 

"I pays my dollar and I takes me chances," Liz moaned. "I got a million of 
'em!" 

In her dream state, Liz was arguing with Amir, who slid only tickets with 
three numbers at her. His cousins kept sneaking up behind her and grabbing 
her tits, and she constantly had to fight them off. 

"Give me six...." Liz murmured, and Norval watched amazed as she started 
slapping at her tits as if trying to swat a fly. "Hands off, camel jockies!" 

"Liz?" Norval asked, convinced that she was having an epileptic fit. That 
would make for some wonderful headlines in tomorrow's POST: 



"Gambling Commission Investigator Caught In Love Tryst With Convulsing 
Queens 

Teenager." 

Maybe she wasn't even eighteen, Norval thought with rising alarm. 

"Six! Six! Six!" Liz started chirping. "C'mon, it's my dream and I'll scream 
if I want to!" 

Amir turned into Uncle Jackie, who was stark naked except for a black derby 
and a Fred Flintstone jock strap. 

"You're a trouper, kiddo, a real trouper," he chortled, chomping on a cheap 
cigar. "I got faith in you!" 

"I'm almost there, Uncle Jackie," Liz said, and Norval watched in rapt 
amazement as a second, entirely different voice came out of her mouth. 

"I'd likes for ya' ta' meet my friend, Hit-Em-In-the-Head Schwartz," Liz 
said, and the voice sounded like ... no, it couldn't be ... Jimmy Durante? 
Impossible. 

"Four ... seven ... nine ... five...." Liz muttered in a low, baritone voice 
like an album being played on the wrong speed. "Need two more for Uncle 
Jackie ... noooo, don't leave ... you only gave me four ... I need six ... 
six ... six...." 

Amir and Uncle Jackie and Hit-Em-In-the-Head Schwartz faded from view as Liz 
returned to Planet Earth and Norval's room at the Queens Boulevard Motor 
Hotel. 

Her eyes fluttered and opened. Her body relaxed. 

"Wow!" she gasped. "That was the strongest one yet." 

"Strongest what?" 

"Uh, orgasm," Liz said somewhat sheepishly. "Were you aware that you slipped 
into a higher consciousness?" Norval wanted to know. 

"I've been known to do that," Liz apologized. "I hope I didn't alarm you." 

"I thought you were epileptic," he said. 

Liz laughed. "Sorry. It just happens. You don't happen to remember if I 
muttered some numbers while I was ... out?" 

A warning bell went off in Norval's brain. His back molar also started to 
throb. 

"Yeah, you did," Norval. "I don't remember exactly what they were...." 

"Does four-seven-nine-five sound right?" 

"Come to think of it," Norval pondered, "it does. What do those numbers 
mean?" 

"Nothing," Liz lied clumsily. "It was just the combination for my locker at 
school." 

"They only have three numbers," Norval said pointedly. He was closer now, he 
could taste it. 

"I kept an extra number for good luck," Liz said, realized she'd said too 
much already and hopped off the bed. 

She skipped into the bathroom and slammed the door. 

Norval relaxed and decided not to let the matter drop, for the time being, 
anyway. Something was up. Why did she mumble weird patter when she was 
coming? That was a first. 

And that business with the numbers, what about that? Norval was befuddled. 
Nothing was adding up, but she was definitely the one picking the numbers 
though, of that Norval was certain. But how? Therein lied the mystery. 

Liz emerged from the bathroom and climbed back into bed, pulling the covers 
over her. She grabbed Norval's arm and wrapped it around her shoulders and 
snuggled up to him. 

He started getting hard again. Not surprising, since she was brushing her 
young, supple body against his. Either the girl was overly affectionate or 
she was totally insatiable. 

"You're very pretty," Norval said, kissing her breasts. "You got a steady 
boyfriend?" 

"No," she said. "To be perfectly honest, I just had sex for the first time a 
few weeks ago." 

Another bell went off in Norval's head. 

"How long ago, exactly?" 

"I dunno exactly," she replied. "Approximately two weeks, three days, seven 
hours and twelve minutes ago." 

"Approximately," Norval said. 

"Right." 

Norval kissed her nipples absent-mindedly and ran some figures through his 
mind. The first winning ticket had been cashed maybe a day after the date 
Liz claimed to have lost her virginity. 

"Have you made love often?" Norval asked. 

Liz looked down at him. "A few times." 

"Was it as good for you then as it was tonight?" 

"Why are you asking me this?" Liz asked. 

"Just curious," Norval said, and started kissing her face. 

"How long are you gonna be in town for?" 

"It depends," he replied, and started to kiss her on the mouth, embracing 
her. She was so young and sweet. And surprisingly innocent for a girl from 
Queens. She didn't have that tough-as-nails exterior that most city girls 
had. 

He drew her down on top of him and held her face in his hands. He 
French-kissed her passionately. Just as Liz started to return the kiss and 
give herself to Norval completely, she caught a glint of silver from the 
comer of her eye. 

Upon further inspection, she saw Norval's wallet on the floor, which had 
evidently fallen out of his pants. It was laying open, and Liz saw a big 
silver badge on one side and an I.D. card that had NEW YORK STATE GAMBLING 
COMMISSION in bold type at the bottom. Squinting, Liz saw the word 
"investigator" emblazoned on it. 

She froze. Norval stopped kissing her, feeling her tense up against him. 

"You okay?" he asked. 

"Yeah," Liz said, trying to sound normal. "Just caught a chill." w 

"Probably the A/C," Norval said. "I could turn it down." 

"No, that's okay, I'm fine," Liz replied. "Where were we?" 

They made love a second time, but Liz didn't climax. 

* * * 

"Only four?" Uncle Jackie asked. "You only got four?" 

"It's better than three, isn't it?" Liz replied defensively. "can't you just 
play the other numbers ion combination?" 

"I don't understand," Aunt Rose put in. 

"All we have to do," said Liz, "is play every combination of the remaining 
two numbers." 

"We'd have to hit every joint in town," Uncle Jackie protested. "That's 
what, five hundred different combos? Maybe more. Where's my calculator? 
Rose, where's my calculator?" 

"In the bedroom," she said. 

"Why's it doing in the bedroom?" 

"Because it isn't in the kitchen," Aunt Rose replied indignantly. 

"Ahh," Uncle Jackie griped, and got up to get it. 

When he was gone, Aunt Rose asked, "This man you slept with, was he nice?" 

"Very nice," Liz said, leaving out the part about him being an investigator. 
"I like him a lot." 

"I don't like this, Elizabeth," Aunt Rose said. "I don't like the idea of 
making money like this. Seeing you sleep around to win at gambling. It's not 
normal, and it's not right." 

Liz patted her aunt's hand. 

"It'll just be this one last time, Aunt Rose," Liz soothed. "Uncle Jackie 
says the pot's up to 22 million this week, and if my last vision was 
correct, we're as good as rolling in dough now. This was doesn't feel right 
though, not like the others." 

"What do you mean, Elizabeth?" 

"The other times," Liz said thoughtfully, "I did it strictly for profit. But 
this time, with Norval, it was more than just a quick hump to bring it on. I 
really felt something for him. And the vision just wasn't as strong, even 
though my orgasm was. It makes me wonder. Will I lose it completely if I 
fall in love?" 

"I don't know," Aunt Rose replied. 

"Did he call today? Or drop by while I was out? He said he would." 

"No, I'm sorry," Aunt Rose said. "Nobody was here today. Except for that 
nice man who came to fix the radiator." 

"Uh huh," Liz said, wishing she was wrapped in Norval's arms. She got up and 
pulled a Tab out of the fridge. She downed half of it in one gulp. Then it 
hit her. 

"Aunt Rose," Liz said, "did you say a man came to fix the radiator today?" 

"Yes, the landlord sent him over," she replied. "Why?" 

"In July someone comes to fix a radiator? Doesn't that strike you as 
somewhat odd?" 

"No, not knowing our landlord," Aunt Rose said, dismissing it. "He probably 
gets the bargain rate this time of year, the cheap crumb." 

Liz sauntered over to the radiator in the living room. Affixed to the steam 
valve was a small, dime sized transmitting device. 

Liz poured a little Tab on it. It fizzed. Two blocks away, huddled in a 
doorway, Norval cried out in agony as the roar of carbonation almost blew 
his eardrums out. He yanked the earplug out of his head and hopped around 
the sidewalk. 

"You bastard!" Liz hissed into the small device. "I hope you rot!" 

* * * 

Memo To: Alan J. Cuthbertson, Executive Director of Investigations, New York 
State Gambling Commission. 

Memo From: Norval T. Jones, Senior Investigator. 

Date: July 17. 

Subject: Elizabeth Bender/Rash of Numbers Winnings in Jackson 
Heights/Woodside/Astoria Vicinity. 

"Re above subject, believe I have successfully identified one Elizabeth 
Bender as buyer of winning tickets. Subject is normal, healthy eighteen-year 
old girl with above average I.Q. and no family history of gambling, 
compulsive or otherwise. Believe subject has extra-sensory abilities-repeat 
extra-sensory abilities-that allow her to choose winning numbers, although 
have not as yet ascertained exactly how. Otherwise, there appears to be no 
concrete or rational explanation for her unusual talents. Am meeting with 
subject this evening in the hope that I can figure out just how she chooses 
appropriate digits on daily basis. Suggest checking files to see if any 
similar cases on record. Regards, N. Jones." 

Norval typed the report number in the lower left hand comer of the page and 
then yanked the page out of the small portable typewriter he used to write 
his daily reports. 

Norval read back what he had typed. Professional. Impersonal. He'd 
conveniently left out the part about his interest in Elizabeth Bender, which 
was now more than professional. 

In fact, Norval was pretty sure he loved her. 

Someone started banging on his door. He slid into his pants and padded 
barefoot to the door. 

Liz, looking like a million in designer jeans and a frilly pink blouse, 
stood there looking at him angrily. 

"Liz...." 

"You really ought to be more careful where you leave your wallet," she said 
indignantly. 

Norval felt the blood rush to his feet. "Come in," he said, feeling 
extremely lightheaded. 

Liz stepped into the room. 

"Have a seat," Norval said, sliding a chair at her. 

"No," she said, refusing the chair. "I can't stay long." 

"Liz," Norval said, "I'm really glad you came by, because there's 
something...." 

She held her hand up, stopping him. "Don't lie to me, Norval. I know who you 
are and I think I've got a pretty good idea why you're here. You're 
investigating me, aren't you?" 

"Liz," Norval pleaded. "It started out that way, but now...." 

"You even bugged my apartment," she said bitterly. "I suppose last night was 
just part of your job, too." 

"Yes," he admitted, "but I feel differently now, Liz. I fell hard for you, 
and that's strictly forbidden in my profession." 

"You want to know how I do it, don't you?" 

"That's why I was sent here, yes," Norval said. 

"Last night, when we were ... doing it, remember?" 

"It was the best night of my life," Norval said. 

"Never mind the orchids," Liz replied cynically. "I mumbled some numbers?" 

"Yes." 

"Those numbers are gonna win my Uncle Jackie 22 million dollars in 
about...." She looked at her watch, " ... forty-five minutes." 

"Liz, what the hell are you talking about?" 

"I get visions," she explained. "You might as well know it all, because 
there's nothing you can do about it. Whenever I have an orgasm, I have 
visions where someone hands me a ticket with tomorrow's winning numbers on 
it. And they haven't been wrong yet." 

Norval slumped down in the chair and looked at her with an expression of 
bewilderment. 

"It's impossible," he said. 

"No, it's very possible," Liz replied, "and I'll tell you something else. In 
the coming weeks I plan to win every Lotto jackpot every day and break the 
bank into little pieces, and like I said before, there ain't a damn thing 
you or anyone else can do about it. Because there's nothing illegal about 
what I can do. I know-I did some reading up on the subject. Today's 22 
million is just a drop in the old bucket, Norval, compared to the dough I'm 
gonna win." 

"I don't believe you," Norval said stiffly. "It's just not possible." 

"There's a lot of stuff in this world that can't be explained, Norval Jones, 
like why people still laugh at my uncle's jokes or the Lox Ness monster." 

"I wouldn't put this in the same league," Norval said crisply. "Jesus, this 
is right out of a Stephen King novel." 

"Yeah," Liz added, "only this story's gonna have one hell of a happy ending. 
I'm gonna bankrupt New York State until Lotto and the daily Numbers and all 
the other games are history." 

Norval knew he had a definite situation on his hands. 

The consequences were far-reaching. If her powers were real, and Norval had 
no reason to doubt they weren't, then it was more than likely that Liz could 
indeed bring the whole state to its knees. Nobody would play Lotto if they 
knew for certain that they would lose. And if the press ever got ahold of 
this story, it would be pure disaster. Millions upon millions of dollars in 
gambling revenue, which accounted for a hefty chunk of the state's income, 
would disappear from the coffers in Albany. 

"I got to call Albany on this one, Liz," Norval said. 

"Go ahead," Liz shrugged. "I haven't broken any laws. There's nothing they 
can do." 

And there wasn't. 

 CHAPTER NINE 

Norval Jones, Elizabeth Bender, Jackie and Rose Bender, Alan J. Cuthbertson 
and several other representatives of the New York State Gambling Commission 
sat around the Bender living room on the plastic covered chairs and sofas 
and munched stale honey cake left over from Passover. 

Three hours earlier, Uncle Jackie had won Lotto to the tune of 22 million 
and change after playing five hundred different combinations. 

Needless to say, he'd arrived home jubilantly, only to find some official 
looking types waiting for him. No dummy, Uncle Jackie immediately got on the 
blower and called his cousin/lawyer from Forest Hills, Willie Gingrich, who, 
as rumor had it, could out distance an ambulance doing sixty on a side 
street. 

Then, Uncle Jackie refused to answer any questions until Willie arrived some 
ten minutes later, no easy feat from Forest Hills, which was a good 
twenty-five minutes away as the pigeon flies. 

At Norval's urgent request, the head honchos flew down to the city after 
Uncle Jackie's victory. 

"You realize of course," Cuthbertson advised the Benders, "that we will most 
certainly not honor that winning ticket until we make a full investigation 
of this matter. I am not wholly convinced of Mr. Jones's claim that Miss 
Bender here has, uh, special powers that enable her to pick winning numbers 
out of the clear blue." 

"You gotta pay up, Cuthbertson," Willie advised him, "or else we go to the 
papers, and you don't want that." 

"They'd never believe you," Cuthbertson's second-in-command, Shumacher, put 
in. 

"They will," Liz said defiantly. "Because it's true." 

"Prove it," Cuthbertson said. 

"It ain't that easy," Uncle Jackie chirped. "She's gotta, you know, do the 
dirty deed first." 

"What?" Cuthbertson asked. 

"I gotta get laid," Liz snapped. "That's what he's trying to say. And it 
only happens if I have an orgasm." 

There were murmurs from the Albany contingent and head scratchings and 
throat clearings. They talked among themselves, chattering like parakeets. 

"They don't believe it," Uncle Jackie said. "Fools." 

"Jackie," Cousin Willie said, "I'm not so sure I believe this myself." He 
leaned in closer. "What kinda hustle you running here? This is serious 
business." 

"Look, Clarence Darrow," Uncle Jackie hissed in his cousin's hairy ear, "It 
IS true and I DID win 22 million today. And I'd like to collect it. That's 
your job." 

"What's in it for me?" 

"Write your own ticket," Uncle Jackie whispered back, "but just get it for 
me!" 

The Albany bunch stopped chattering. Cuthbertson stood, half of his gray 
tweed suit sticking to the plastic on the chair. 

"We have decided to forego any further decision making," he announced, 
"until we can witness first hand this amazing phenomenon you insist is the 
explanation for Miss Bender's good fortune. At such time we will advise you 
of the outcome of our decision." 

"What?" Uncle Jackie piped up. "You wanna put that in Ingles?" 

"They want her to prove it, you moax!" Aunt Rose spoke up. "They want her to 
have sex while they watch! And the answer is no! I don't give a rat's tushy 
about the money or anything else! I just want all of this to be over. I 
won't let any of you harm this girl any longer." 

"Rose!" Uncle Jackie snapped. 

"Shut up, you 'chazzer!'" she snapped back. "Look what you're asking this 
girl to do, and for money yet! I won't permit it any longer!" 

"It's alright, Aunt Rose," Liz said affectionately. It was probably the 
first time Aunt Rose had demonstrated any love at all for her. "If that's 
what these gentlemen want, than that's exactly what they'll get." 

"You sure?" Aunt Rose asked. 

Liz nodded and looked over the assortment of eligible males. Cuthbertson was 
too old, as was Shumacher and the third dude from Albany, Kockenlocker. 

"I need the participation of a healthy, virile male," Liz informed them all. 

All three Albany boys raised their hands, volunteering. 

"Jones," Cuthbertson snapped. "I believe you and Miss Bender here have been 
acquainted on a physical level, have you not?" 

"Yes, we have," Norval said, staring down at a piece of lint on the carpet. 

"If Miss Bender here has no objections, perhaps you would be willing to ... 
ah, assist her?" 

Liz looked at Norval and felt her heart skip a beat or two, although they 
weren't exactly on speaking terms. 

"I guess it'll be alright," Liz murmured, "that is, if Mr. Jones is up to 
it." 

Norval glared at her and stood up. 

"Up to it?" he asked indignantly. "I didn't hear you complaining last night, 
sweetheart." 

"I didn't wanna hurt your feelings!" Liz lied. Actually, she'd loved every 
minute, the first time anyway. 

"Listen, doll face, one hour with me and you'll walk bowlegged for a 
week...." 

"Jones!" Cuthbertson broke in. 

"Sorry," Norval said sheepishly. 

"Remember, Liz," Willie put in. "You're not obligated to prove anything to 
these men. They have to honor Jackie's winning ticket and they know it. It's 
your decision." 

"Take the week to decide if you want to," Norval quipped. 

"Jones!" Cuthbertson snapped. 

"Sorry." 

"I don't mind," Liz said, "but with Mr. Jones at the helm, don't expect 
miracles." 

"Grrrr," Norval growled. 

"Let's go, Casanova," Liz jerked her head in the direction of her bedroom 
and set off. Norval followed dutifully behind. 

He followed her into the bedroom and shut the door. He also locked it for 
good measure. 

He turned and faced her. 

The night before, they'd ripped their clothes off in the heat of passion. 
This night, however, was the total opposite. Each gaped at the other 
self-consciously. 

"You don't have to do this, you know," Norval told her. 

"I know." 

"It's not too late to back out." 

"I know," Liz repeated. 

"It's really kind of tacky what they're asking, you know." 

"I know." 

"I think I love you, Liz," Norval confessed. 

"Buffalo bagels," Liz replied. "You're in love with your damn career." 

"I'm gonna quit," he said. 

"Uh huh," she said, not believing a word of it. "Let's just get t his over 
with, okay, Norval? Then you can go back to Yoyo land or wherever it is you 
crawled out of." 

"Fine," he snapped, tearing off his shirt and tie, then hopping around on 
one foot as he pried his boots off. "That's just fine. So lay down and 
spread your legs." 

"You bet I will," Liz snapped angrily, and unbuttoned her blouse and pulled 
it off as Norval yanked his pants down his thighs. 

Liz stripped down to her lovely birthday suit and scrambled under the quilt 
on her bed. Norval, also buck naked, crawled into bed beside her. 

They rested on their sides, facing each other, both glaring. 

"We're not going to accomplish much with you over there," Norval said 
grumpily. 

"No shit, Sherlock," Liz replied, but made no attempt to go to him. 

Despite their anger, they both felt a strong attraction to each other, which 
mixed them up good. 

Outside in the hallway, Cuthbertson, Shumacher and Kockenlocker hunkered 
down level with the keyhole. Cuthbertson fumed. 

"Thirty years with the State and I'm peering through keyholes like a house 
dick," he grumbled, watching the lovers do nothing. "C'mon, Jones, do 
something already!" 

"Anything happening?" Shumacher asked eagerly. 

"Is Jones performing?" Kockenlocker asked. 

"Yes, the death scene from 'Camille', from the looks of it," Cuthbertson 
replied. "Christ, I feel like a peeping tom." 

Inside, Norval and Liz continued glaring at each other, the sexual tension 
running rampant between them. Norval's cock was fully erect and throbbed 
with desire. 

Norval inched a little closer to her under the quilt. 

Liz inched a little closer to him. 

"I won't hurt you, I promise," Norval sniffed. 

"I'm sure of that!" Liz snapped. 

Norval was furious. "And try not to lay there like a herring!" 

"Huh!" Liz sniffed. "I'll tire you out in five minutes." 

"Yeah, of boredom!" 

"Look who's talking!" Liz returned. 

"Honey, you'll never do better than me!" Norval cried. 

"Never do worse, you mean!" 

"Oh yeah?" Norval blurted. "I'll show you!" 

He dived at her, flopping on top of her and pinning her arms to the bed. He 
smashed his lips down onto hers and kissed her more passionately than he had 
ever kissed any woman. 

To his surprise, Liz returned the kiss, throwing her arms around him and 
drawing him down flat against her belly. She could feel his pulsing organ 
against her thigh. 

"No we're getting somewhere," Cuthbertson said approvingly, and the three 
men, whose combined yearly salaries totaled a quarter of a million dollars, 
all crowded around the keyhole to catch a glimpse of the lovers. 

"This is better than the Playboy Channel," Shumacher extolled when it was 
his turn at the keyhole. 

"Look at them," Aunt Rose said with disgust. "Grown men acting like horny 
teenagers." 

Liz and Norval exchanged tongues as their coupling grew more heated, their 
mouths plastered together. Norval fingered her excitedly, probing her snatch 
deeply. His digits worked furiously, diddling her clit with his thumb and 
working his forefinger in and out of her. 

He kissed her face and neck lovingly, caressing her warm, soft flesh with 
his lips. He worked his way down to her breasts and started nibbling on 
them. 

Liz stroked his back as she felt his tongue dabbing at her swollen nipple. 
He cupped her firm breast in his hand and sucked the entire brown nipple 
under his tongue. 

Kockenlocker started rubbing his crotch and biting his lower lip as he 
watched through the keyhole. 

"Kockenlocker hasn't been this excited since the last Rhonda Fleming movie 
came out," Shumacher observed, watching his colleague take his turn at the 
door. 

Cousin Willie, who was bearded and fat, appeared behind them. 

"Gentlemen, if you don't mind," he said officiously, "I think the lovers 
would like their privacy." 

"Of course," Cuthbertson replied. "Come, gentlemen." 

He turned and started to walk away, with Shumacher in tow. Kockenlocker 
remained crouched in front of the keyhole, drooling. 

Cuthbertson grabbed Kockenlocker's ear and dragged the fifty-seven year old 
executive to his feet. 

"Owww!" Kockenlocker cried. "That hurts." 

Norval continued ravishing Liz, kissing and licking every last inch of her 
body. 

He buried his face between her legs and started lapping at her pussy, 
stroking it hungrily with his wet flapper. 

"Oh, you make me feel so goood!" Liz moaned, writhing in ecstasy. "Oh, I 
hate you!" 

Norval lifted his face from her muff and kissed her belly, nuzzling his face 
in it. 

"I love you!" he gasped. 

"I hate you!" Liz cried, pulling him back on top of her. 

"I love you," Norval kissed her neck. 

"I hate you." Liz ran her fingers through his hair and jammed her lips onto 
his. 

"I love you," Norval aimed his aching pecker at her warm snatch. 

"I heard you the first time, dickhead." Liz spread her legs and lifted her 
butt off the bed. 

"That's gonna cost you," Norval gasped, and gave his hips a hefty thrust. 

"Make me pay." Liz gripped his shoulders as Norval rammed his cock into her 
tight snatch. Her nipples burned into his chest as he pierced her as deeply 
as he could, burying his cock in her up to the base. 

Liz bit his earlobe as she felt her lover's love muscle penetrating her. She 
arched her back under him, grinding her body against his. 

Their arms and legs were a tangle. Liz clung tightly to her man, legs 
wrapped firmly around his waist. Liz gyrated her cunt up and down as Norval 
slammed his hips at her. Their crotches made a slapping sound as they met. 

Liz rested her cheek against Norval's and pushed, their bodies humping as 
they went at it. 

"Oh, love me, Norval," Liz cried. "Love me all night!" 

* * * 

"...so the one-armed jockey says, 'How was I supposed to know? I thought she 
was a tuba player! '" Uncle Jackie chortled. "I got a million of 'em I tell 
ya', a million of 'em." 

Cuthbertson took a swig of his Mogen-David Heavy Malaga wine spritzer and 
grimaced. It tasted terrible, but not as terrible as Jackie Bender's one 
liners. 

Uncle Jackie attempted to entertain the visitors with a portion of his act 
while his niece and the Jones fella beat the sheets in the bedroom. 

Shumacher, whose idea of a great comedian was Victor Borge, tried to keep 
the smile plastered to his face. 

Aunt Rose accompanied Uncle Jackie, banging the antique piano in time to his 
punch lines. 

"I know you're out there, I can hear you catching AIDS," Uncle Jackie 
quipped. He pointed to Shumacher. "You were in the audience twenty years 
ago, right? I never forget a suit. But seriously ladies and germs...." He 
walked over to Kockenlocker, using a carrot as a mike. "Pardon me, sir, how 
old are you?" 

"Fifty-seven," Kockenlocker replied as Uncle Jackie held the carrot under 
his mouth. 

"Fifty-seven, isn't that wonderful," Uncle Jackie gushed, speaking into the 
carrot now. "God bless you. sir. What's your sign?" 

"Gemini," Kockenlocker said. 

"I know a little about pastrology," Uncle Jackie went on. "Your moon's in 
the House of Pancakes and can't get a cusp on the cuff. Take my wife ... 
please. No, but seriously. My wife was very promiscuous as a girl. I won't 
say how old she was, but she lost her virginity in the backseat of a Tonka 
toy...." 

That was Aunt Rose's cue to go into his closing theme, "Start Off Each Day 
With A Song." She riffed into it. 

In Liz's bedroom, the lovers continued banging their brains out and 
proclaiming their love for each other, their mutual anger forgotten in the 
heat of passion. 

Norval started to come just as Uncle Jackie started warbling, his voice 
floating through the hallway like the aftershock of an earthquake. 

"YES, YOU GOTTA START OFF EACH DAY WITH A SONG!" Uncle Jackie belted out the 
lyrics. Beneath him, as a result of Norval's intense lovemaking, Liz slipped 
into her personal Twilight Zone. 

"Guess them all the time, baby," Norval whispered in her ear as she writhed 
uncontrollably under him. He stroked her slowly now, keeping her in a highly 
charged state. "Guess all six, Liz. Show them you mean business." 

"Can't see ... blurry...." Liz moaned, her eyes clamped shut. 

"Try harder, baby," Norval whispered in her ear. "Do it for me." 

"Four numbers here ... not six...." Liz started lurching in his embrace, 
their sweat-soaked bodies rubbing. 

"Go for it," Norval whispered. "I don't know if you can hear me, baby, but 
don't quit until you get all six." 

"Seven...." Liz blurted out. "Four...." 

Norval grabbed a pad and pen off of the night table and frantically jotted 
down the numbers as they appeared...."zero ... five...." Liz squealed. 

Then, silence. 

"Two more, Liz, two more," Norval barked at her. "You can do it!" 

"Fading...." Liz said softly. "Like a cloud...." 

"Not yet, Liz!" Norval cried. "Go back!" 

She started to quake under him. A trickle of sweat ran down her pretty face. 
Norval stroked her pussy with his manhood, speeding it up a bit. 

Liz was instantly transported back, deeper and deeper into another 
dimension. 

"Seven-four-zero-five-two...." she breathed. 

"One more, Liz baby," Norval urged. "Just one...." 

"One...." Liz blurted out the last number and snapped awake. 

* * * 

Uncle Jackie was doing his Jolson imitation when Liz and Norval emerged 
fully dressed from her bedroom....".I'd walk a million miles/for one of your 
smiles/my Maaaaa-miieee!" He went down on one knee. 

His less than receptive audience rose to their feet as the Norval stepped up 
and handed Cuthbertson the six numbers. 

"Play those," he said to his boss, "and you'll win." 

Cuthbertson looked at the six numbers jotted down on the page. 

"All six?" Uncle Jackie asked excitedly. "You got all six?" 

Liz nodded. 

"I knew you could do it!" Uncle Jackie squealed delightedly. "Did I say she 
was a trouper, a true Bender!" 

"Get a doctor over here," Cuthbertson snapped at Shumacher. "An M.D., I 
don't care what he charges. And a shrink, too, and might as well get a brain 
specialist while you're at it. Nobody leaves this apartment until I get to 
the bottom of this." 

 CHAPTER TEN 

Dr. Jeffrey Weinberg shined the penlight into Liz's eye but saw nothing out 
of the usual. 

"Open wider, please," he said gently, probing with the penlight. Nothing in 
he left eye. Nothing in the right. 

Dr. Weinberg clicked off the small flashlight and turned to Aunt Rose. 

"You said earlier that Elizabeth was struck on the forehead with an apple as 
a child?" 

"Spiked with olive pits," Aunt Rose added, nodding. "They were aiming for my 
husband, who was on stage...." 

"Don't bore the doctor with details," Uncle Jackie snapped. 

"And how long did it take for the contusion to go down?" Dr. Weinberg asked. 

"She didn't have no contusion, she had a bump," Uncle Jackie put in. 

"About two weeks, I'd say," Aunt Rose remembered. 

"And did you take her to a doctor?" 

"Of course I did," Aunt Rose replied indignantly. "What did you think? I 
took her to Doctor Tarses in Bayside. Maybe you've met? He was our family 
physician for years." 

"Did he take any X-rays?" Weinberg asked. 

"He didn't seem to think they were necessary," Aunt Rose said. 

"Well," Weinberg said to Cuthbertson and the others. "I don't see anything 
unusual, but this was just routine. A scan could turn up something, maybe a 
hairline fracture or a lesion of some kind." 

"A lee-shun?" Uncle Jackie asked his wife. "Is he calling our niece a 
queer?" 

"Shut up, Jackie," Aunt Rose snapped. 

"There may not be any physical or psychological explanation for this," 
Weinberg claimed, "although my guess would be that conking on the noggin the 
girl took years back triggered some kind of abilities modem science is at a 
loss to explain. There was a case I remember reading about in med school 
about a peasant in Quito, Ecuador who...." 

Cuthbertson didn't want antidotes. He turned to Dr. Lemming, a leading 
psychoanalyst. 

"And your opinion, Doctor?" 

Lemming stroked his goatee thoughtfully. "Upon a careful but somewhat brief 
conference with Miss Bender, I have come to the conclusion that she is 
either blessed with a gift that is outside the realm of our knowledge and 
comprehension or that she is totally full of shit." 

"Full of shit!" Uncle Jackie snapped, balling his fist and leaping from his 
chair. "No one calls my niece full of shit! Step outside, you 
psycho-sidewinder!" 

Uncle Jackie went after the understandably confused headshrinker with a 
water-filled rubber bladder that he once used in his act. 

He started to beat Dr. Lemming over the head with thee rubber bladder until 
the shrink sought refuge in bathroom, locking the door. He sat down on the 
toilet and started sucking his thumb. 

Uncle Jackie continued banging on the door. Cuthbertson noted this with some 
alarm. 

"Jones," he snapped at Norval. "Go quiet that man down." He pointed to Uncle 
Jackie, whose face was roughly the color of pickled beets. 

Norval, who had more or less remained silent while all this was going on, 
stood up abruptly, whipped out his wallet containing his badge and I.D. card 
and slammed it onto the coffee table. 

"Get yourself another servant," he said, his voice laced with disgust. 

He stomped out the door. 

"Jones, come back here!" Cuthbertson snapped out the door. "Jones, you just 
can't walk out like this...." 

"Watch me!" Norval cried back. "And leave the girl alone, Cuthbertson, or 
else you'll have to answer to me." 

For the first time that day, Liz found a reason to smile. 

"Let me talk to him," Liz offered, and set off after him. 

Norval was lighting up a cigarette when Liz caught up with him. 

"And just where the hell do you think you're going?" she asked. 

"First," he replied, "I'm gonna check out of that fleabag I'm staying in, 
and then I'm gonna find the first monastery I come to and become a monk." 

"Shla-monk is more like it," Liz said, rubbing his arm. "What about me?" 

"You?" he asked. "You collect your millions and live happily ever after." 

"I'm afraid it isn't quite that simple," Liz replied, her large brown eyes 
melting Norval's heart like a snowball in Hell. 

"Why?" 

She whipped the supposedly winning ticket out from between her breasts and 
handed it to him. "Take a good look at it," she said. 

Norval did. "What about it?" didn't win," Liz confessed. "Uncle Jackie 
played the right combo, alright, but he only played six numbers, and Lotto 
has seven. We didn't win diddly squat." 

Norval studied the ticket carefully. He scratched his head in bewilderment. 

"You're right," he replied, "but so what? You can get laid tonight and win 
tomorrow." 

"That's part of the problem," Liz confessed. "I don't want to make it with 
anyone else, Norval, except you." 

"Really?" he asked delightedly. 

"Yes," she confessed. "And my powers always flew out the window when you and 
me made love together. It doesn't work when I make it with someone I have 
... well, strong feelings for." 

"Wow," Norval said, sitting heavily down onto the marble steps in the lobby. 
"But what about before? When we, you know, made love?" 

"I made those numbers up," Liz giggled. "They won't come up tomorrow." 

Norval sucked his butt thoughtfully. 

"I have an idea," he said, standing up and grabbing her hand. He dragged her 
back to her apartment. 

Cuthbertson sat in a plastic covered chair, his arms folded across his chest 
as Cousin Willie Gingrich verbally assaulted him. 

"We got you by the shorthairs, pal," Cousin Willie informed him. Despite the 
fact that Cousin Willie was indeed an ambulance chaser, he was nonetheless a 
sharp man who also happened to be an excellent lawyer when the layers of 
slime were stripped away. "You gotta pay and you know it, so why are we here 
wasting time?" 

"Because," Cuthbertson said for the tenth time, "wee are not entirely 
convinced that Miss Bender's talents are legitimate...." 

"Mule fritters!" Cousin Willie argued. "You've seen the results first hand, 
so quit making ignorant. And there's isn't a law on the books that you can 
fall back on." 

"I'll sit here all night and all day tomorrow if necessary," Cuthbertson 
maintained primly, "until the results of tomorrow's Lotto." 

"She got the power and you know it," Cousin Willie insisted. He picked up 
the phone. "Last chance, Cuthbertson." 

Cuthbertson didn't reply. It was a fine day when a two-bit hustler like 
Willie Gingrich got the better of him. 

"Operator," Cousin Willie said dramatically, "gimme Rupert Murdoch at the 
New York Post...." He started humming "I Don't Want To Set the World On 
Fire" as he waited. "Hello? New York Post? My name is William Gingrich, an 
attorney who represents a family in Queens named Bender who have what I 
believe is the most incredible story the likes of which you've never 
heard...." 

"Do something, Alan!" Kockenlocker cried. "He's giving it to the press, for 
Chrissakes! This story'll blow the lid off everything!" 

"What do you suggest I do?" 

"Settle!" Norval said, ushering Liz back into the apartment. 

All heads turned to Norval, who had his arm around Liz's waist. 

"This is no concern of yours, Jones," Cuthbertson snapped at him. "You are 
no longer employed by the New York State Gambling Commission." 

"You're absolutely right," Norval agreed cheerfully. "I'm not. And that 
gives me the power to assist Miss Bender in this matter." 

"Hold on," Cousin Willie said into the phone. "This incredible story is 
unfolding even as we speak." 

"We're listening," Shumacher said, mopping his brow. "Go ahead, Norval." 

"As you are well aware," Norval said, almost enjoying Cuthbertson's torment, 
"Miss Bender here has the ability to predict winning numbers during times of 
peak intimacy. She could easily bankrupt the entire gambling structure in 
this state. She is a strong-willed girl, Gentlemen, and may someday be able 
to use her powers on horse racing, dog racing and other gambling-related 
sports." Kockenlocker groaned audibly. 

"Therefore," Norval went on, "she is willing to make a settlement in this 
matter." 

"Settlement?" Cuthbertson piped up. Agreeing to a settlement, in his eyes, 
indicated a chink in the fortress. 

Norval nodded. "Miss Bender is civic minded and has no desire to wreak havoc 
on the legalized gambling in this state, which would in turn seriously 
damage the whole economy." 

"Get to the point," Cuthbertson snapped. 

Norval held up the supposedly winning ticket, which was anything but. "For a 
sum I have written down on this piece of paper, I will tear up this winning 
ticket and Miss Bender will sign a release to the effect that she will never 
use her abilities again in any form for the rest of her natural life." 

"That's awfully kind of Miss Bender," Cuthbertson said crisply. "To what do 
we owe such a thoughtful gift?" 

"It was my idea," Liz chimed in. "I'm not greedy. 

I just want what's coming to me and my family, that's all. You may doubt my 
powers now, but in two weeks I'll turn this state upside down." 

"And what sum did you have in mind?" Cuthbertson asked, pointing to the 
piece of paper in Norval's fist. 

"We thought you might want to guess," Norval replied. 

Cuthbertson ran his hand down his face, Edgar Kennedy style. 

"A hundred thousand?" he asked. 

Norval unfolded the paper and looked at it. 

"Sorry, that's not it," he replied. 

"Five million?" Shumacher asked, and could see his heavily mortgaged 
Colonial-style three bedroom house being repossessed. 

"Nope," Norval said. "Look, let's get right to it. I hold in my hand a 22 
million winning Lotto ticket, so let's start there and work our way up, 
shall we?" 

"Blackmail, that's what this is!" Cuthbertson accused. 

"Call it what you want," Norval said. "But unless we receive a certified 
check for thirty million dollars by ten o'clock tomorrow morning, Miss 
Bender will make you curse the day your mother popped you out of the womb 
and into this world." 

Cuthbertson opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. 

"I'll call you back," Cousin Willie barked into the mouthpiece, and slammed 
the phone down. 

"You want that in one lump sum or in installments?" Cuthbertson said 
finally. 

* * * 

Twelve hours later, the Bender family was perhaps the richest in Queens. 

As promised, Norval tore up the bogus ticket and Liz signed a release form 
forbidding her to ever claim gambling winnings in the State of New York. In 
return, she was given a check for one million dollars, and would receive a 
similar check every year for thirty years. 

Liz and Norval romped merrily in the waterbed. Norval had extended his 
visit, as Liz had promised him a piece of the action when the first of the 
money came through. 

Aunt Rose and Uncle Jackie, who'd announced his retirement to anyone who 
cared to listen, were in Miami Beach shopping for a condo, leaving Liz all 
alone with Norval. 

Now, as the warm afternoon dwindled into oblivion, Norval Jones and 
Elizabeth Bender sipped Dom Perignon in the squishy motel waterbed. 

"I guess we showed them, didn't we?" Norval said happily, gulping down the 
sweet bubbly. 

"Bet your ass," Liz giggled. "Thirty million big ones. Will that put me in 
with the Four Hundred?" 

"Yeah, the four hundred percent tax bracket," Norval mused. 

"No, I mean the high society types," Liz said. "I always dreamed of mingling 
with the upper classes." 

"They'll bore you to tears," Norval informed her. "No, I got plans for you. 
How does Ithica sound?" 

"After Queens, the more dull, the better," she replied. "I've had enough 
excitement for the rest of my life." 

"Elizabeth," Norval said sincerely as he got on his knees, no easy task on a 
waterbed, "will you marry me?" 

"This is so sudden!" Liz replied. 

"Does that mean yes or no?" 

"How do I know you're not marrying me for my money?" Liz asked. 

"You don't," Norval replied. "I just can't stand the thought of anyone else 
banging you." 

"You're an incurable romantic, Norval Jones," Liz responded, throwing her 
arms around him. "How many kids should we have?" 

"How many do you want?" 

"None," Liz replied. "I hate the little nose-picking bastards." 

They tossed their plastic glasses across the room in a mock toast and 
started making love again. The glasses didn't shatter. They cracked. 

* * * 

Liz and Norval rode back to her place in a taxi, smooching shamelessly as 
the cabbie, a Greek wetback named Stanopopolous, tried not to watch in the 
rearview mirror. 

Norval spotted that day's New York Post beside the cabbie. 

"Mind if I take a look at your paper?" Norval asked the driver. 

Mr. Stanopopolous handed Norval the paper. "Let's check the winning Lotto 
numbers, just for the hell of it," he suggested, flipping through the pages. 
"You missed them all by a long shot." 

"I told you, silly," Liz said, snuggling up to him, "the power left when I 
fell in love with a clunk named Norval Jones." 

"Uh huh," Norval sighed, and handed the POST back to the cabbie. 

"Could you let us off in front of the fruit stand on the comer of Northern 
and 75th Avenue?" Liz asked the driver. She turned to Norval. "I wanna get 
some fruit and stuff for the weekend." 

Stanopopolous pulled up in front of the Chu fruit stand. Lili was still at 
home recuperating, but her mother and father were working. 

Norval and Liz were coming out of the fruit stand and walked smack into Zeke 
and his buddies. 

"Oops," Norval said, grabbed Liz's wrist and dragged her down Northern 
Boulevard. 

"You bastard!" Zeke cried. He picked up the closet object with some weight, 
which happened to be a ripe Granny Smith green apple. 

"Push me around, will ya?" Zeke screamed as the retreating couple. He heaved 
the apple as hard as he could. Norval turned around and saw it coming. 
Zeke's aim would have made Yogi Berra envious. 

Norval ducked. 

"Norval?" Liz asked, turning around. The apple struck her on the forehead 
and splattered into applesauce. 

Liz staggered in a small circle and collapsed. 

"Liz! Liz!" Norval cried. "Talk to me, honey?" 

Liz opened her eyes and looked around. "Norval...?" 

Norval kissed her deeply on the mouth, more out of impulse than anything 
else. Liz started quaking in his arms. Her eyes fluttered. 

"Atlantic City," she muttered. "Fourth slot machine toward the wall ... 
Harrah's ... four more quarters will take the jackpot...." 

"Liz..?" Norval asked. She was off in another trance again. 

"It's back, Norval," Liz blurted, hugging her man. "My power is back ... I 
saw it clear as day when you kissed me!" 

"Saw what?" 

"Harrah's!" she cried. "I was there, playing the one armed bandit and I won 
two grand in quarters!" 

"Jesus.." Norval muttered. 

"That conk with the apple brought it all back!" Liz said excitedly. 

"Liz, you don't mean...?" 

"There wasn't anything on that release form about gambling in Atlantic City, 
is there?" she asked. 

"No, but...." 

Liz jumped up and hailed down another cab, grabbing Norval's arm and pulling 
him inside next to her. 

"Atlantic City, driver," she said, "and step on it." 

"You got any money, bigshot?" Norval asked. 

"I got thirty million of 'em," Liz said as the cab started off down Queens 
Boulevard. "Thirty million of 'em, I tell ya'!" 


THE END
