Read HCC 115 - Borderline for Free Online Page A

again and devoted her attention to the
     more dramatic ones. There were five different characters in the set, two men and three
     women. One man was an American, probably a soldier boy having the time of his life
     on a furlough. The rest of the characters were all Mexican.
    Two of the pictures showed the two men making love to one of the Mexican girls, a
     young one with bleached blonde hair and incredibly large breasts. Two more pictures
     showed the soldier, one shot involving two of the girls and the other all three. After
     a furlough like that one, Meg decided, the soldier would be able to live on memories
     for the rest of his hitch in the service.
    Another picture had all five characters represented, and what they were doing seemed
     interesting as hell if slightly impossible. Meg spent a long time looking at that
     picture.
    There were two pictures of girls only. These interested Meg, too—she had always wondered
     idly what it was that lesbians did, and now she knew. A picture was worth a few thousand
     words on the current rate of exchange. She now knew what they did, although she still
     wasn’t sure whether it could be fun or not.
    The rest of the pictures were one-man-and-one-woman stuff, exciting enough in their
     own right but overshadowed by the more involved and esoteric shots. Each picture,
     black and white and glossy, served to point up one fact which had already occurred
     to Meg. To wit—she needed a man.
    She needed a man desperately. She was looking at one of the man-woman pictures, and
     the part of Meg’s own body which corresponded to the area of the Mexican girl’s body
     that the man was kissing—that part itched. Itched furiously and needed to be scratched.
    She was still looking at the clever little picture, and still itching, and still needing
     a man, when she heard a voice at her elbow.
    “Well, hello,” the voice said. “What have you got there?”
    She looked up at the man who had spoken. He was an American, dark-haired and broad-shouldered
     and tie-less. He was around thirty-five, Meg guessed. And good-looking. And fairly
     sure of himself, poised, easygoing.
    “I’ve got filthy pictures here,” she said. “Have a seat and have a look, friend.”
    * * *
    After Marty left the diner, he drove home, showered the filth of the poker game from
     his skin, and made a cup of instant coffee. He drank the coffee and went downtown
     to the bank again. Or, rather, to the two banks. At one bank, where he had a checking
     account under the name Martin Granger, he deposited the five hundred dollars on which
     he was willing to pay taxes. In the other bank, where he had a safe deposit box under
     the name Henry Adams, he deposited a thousand dollars on which he did not intend to
     pay taxes. The remaining thirteen hundred dollars stayed in his money belt. A gambler
     had to have a roll, and he had to keep it with him all the time. Otherwise he missed
     too much worthwhile action for lack of funds.
    Then he had gone home again, and to bed. He was exhausted—it had literally been days
     since he had had any sleep and he was ready to fall apart. He sprawled nude on the
     bed in his air-conditioned bedroom and slept like a hibernating bear.
    He awoke at seven. He had a constitutional inability to sleep for more than seven
     hours at a stretch. Even after a several-day siege at a poker table, he still woke
     after seven hours. He showered again, dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt and a
     pair of twenty-dollar gabardine slacks, and went to the kitchen. He made himself two
     ham-and-swiss sandwiches and washed them down with two bottles of imported German
     beer. He got a pack of Luckies from the refrigerator—they stayed fresher there—and
     he smoked three of them. Then he left his house and got in the Olds.
    He remembered the waitress, Betty, big boobs and swinging rear. He remembered her
     and he realized how much he needed a woman. It was always that way after a long game,
     more so