Candy by Terry Southern Read Free Book Online

once.
    “I imagine you find Liv rather trying at times, don’t you, my dear?” he said instead.
    “Well, I don’t know how you can bear it sometimes,” admitted Candy. “She doesn’t seem to understand you at all . . . your needs, and . . . and . . .”
    “Quite right,” said Jack, reaching into the glove compartment and taking out a flask. “I could do with a bracer before seeing your father,” he said. “Here, you’d better have one yourself.”
    “Oh no,” said Candy, “I couldn’t.”
    “Right,” said Uncle Jack, having another. “Good girl!” He gave her a little kiss on the cheek. This pleased Candy, for they had not been very affectionate together since his marriage to Livia. And, in fact, Candy was a little jealous. “Well, I’ll just take this flask along in case,” he added, “—better safe than sorry, I’ve always said.”
    It was quite dark when they reached Mr. Christian’s room, but they found him just as they had left him, half sitting up, staring straight ahead.
    There was only one chair in the room, so Candy sat on that and her Uncle Jack sat on the floor, leaning on one elbow, taking occasional sips from his flask.
    They sat without speaking for a long time, but finally Uncle Jack put his head down on the floor and dozed off. When Candy noticed, she came down beside him and tried to wake him up, gently, saying:
    “Uncle Jack . . . Uncle Jack. You mustn’t go to sleep here, on the floor, you’ll take cold.”
    He stirred, reaching out to her with one arm.
    “Oh, let me just be here a moment,” he said, “Liv never lets me sleep.”
    “Be here with me, sweetheart,” he added imploringly. It was the first time he had used the old name he had always called her before his marriage, and it almost brought tears to Candy’s eyes.
    “Oh you poor darling,” she murmured, pressing close to him.
    “Yes, give me your warmth,” he said in hushed urgency, “how I need your warmth! Liv is so cold.”
    “Oh my poor darling,” said Candy as he nestled his head between her breasts and pressed her closer.
    “Give me your true warmth,” he said, raising her sweater and her brassiere and taking her breast in his mouth.
    In the lamplight her Uncle Jack’s face was exactly like that of her father’s, a fact which could hardly have escaped Candy as she watched him, nursing, stroking his head and sighing, “Oh my poor darling, oh my poor baby.”
    Meanwhile Uncle Jack’s hands were not idle, but had found their way beneath her skirt and along her legs into the sweetening damp.
    “Give me all your true warmth,” he said, one hand fondling her tiny clitoris, the other pulling down her white panties.
    “All my true warmth,” breathed Candy, “oh how you need my warmth, my baby,” and she lay very still while he undressed her and then himself; but when he thrust himself into her, forgetting her taut hymen, the girl cried out, and apparently this was overheard by the nurse in the corridor—because she rushed in at that moment, flinging the door open wide and shrieking in horror at the sight of these two, stark naked, hunching wildly half beneath the sickbed.
    “Great God!” she screamed. “Have you no shame! Have you no shame!”
    A husky woman, quite six feet tall and heavily built, the nurse threw herself against the pair who were writhing in oblivion.
    “Great God!” she kept shouting. “Great God!” And through her raging strength and the tumultuous abandon of the lovers, the bed overturned, and all four—the fourth being Mr. Christian himself—were sprawling together in a heap.
    “Good Grief!” cried Candy, in genuine alarm. “It’s Daddy!”
    The confusion was compounded by the fact that the bedclothes and mattress had tumbled on top of the group—all, that is, except Mr. Christian, who had scrambled clear at the last instant.
    He stood, smiling benevolently, and stared at the mattress as it heaved and bumped about wildly, with now a foot, now a muffled