Madball by Fredric Brown Read Free Book Online

different from men. Of course, Sammy and Jesse had breasts too, after a fashion, but not the kind women had. What were they good for? Most men, he knew, liked to see women's breasts and the rest of women's bodies, too; that was why the marks paid money to go in the model show, to see the models take off their robes and pose on a little stage, in only a G-string and a thin cheeseclothy bra that you could see right through, and he knew that in some towns they got by without wearing even the net bras but they always had to wear the G-strings when they posed. But why did men pay money to see women pose that way? He'd asked Jesse once when Jesse had been in a good mood and Jesse couldn't tell him; Jesse had said, "Damn if I know either, kid," and had sounded as though he meant it, although you couldn't always tell with Jesse.
    Sammy had never gone inside the model show, not even inside the top when a show wasn't going on, because Jesse had told him not to. But once he'd seen Miss Trixie in just the costume she posed in, the G-string and the net bra. It had been on a hot night, an awfully hot night, a couple of months ago in the middle of summer. It had been one of the nights Jesse had closed early and Sammy had been free and he'd been walking around behind the tops and Miss Trixie, in a robe, had ducked under the sidewall of the model show top and had called to him. She'd given him fifty cents and told him to go to the grab joint, not all the way to the chow top but just to the grab joint, and get her a coney island sandwich with everything on and to get himself one too if he was hungry or else keep the quarter. He'd been a little hungry so he got two coney island sandwiches with everything on and called to Miss Trixie from in back like she'd told him to, and she'd come ba ck under the sidewall again and stood with him while they ate the sandwiches. And after a minute she'd said, "Is that a breeze?" and had taken off her robe and hung it over a tent rope and stood there almost naked enjoying the slight breeze that had just come up, and he'd seen her body. It was whiter and smoother than a man's and somehow different in some way. And in two other ways the difference wasn't hard to tell at all. One of those ways was her breasts. Of course he'd known women had mounds there on their chests because you could tell that much even when they were wearing dresses or robes, but seeing Miss Trixie's breasts that close and with only a thin net that you could see right through over them, Sammy realized for the first time that they were breasts like his own except that the nipples were bigger and the breasts themselves were a lot bigger. Like swellings. But they were pretty and he liked them and looking at them gave him a funny feeling, as though he wanted to do something but didn't know what it was he wanted to do.
    The other difference between her body and a man's was even more puzzling and it was the other way around; Miss Trixie's G-string was so small and fitted against her so tightly that he could see she was different there too, that she didn't have what men had there, and he wondered if all women were like Miss Trixie there and if so what they did when they went to the doniker, and he'd wanted to ask Miss Trixie about it.
    He'd forgotten all about it until now, staring up at Miss Trixie on the platform, he remembered and started wondering again about the mystery of women.
    He wondered how he could find out about such things, who he could ask who might tell him. And suddenly it came to him where he could find out and without even having to ask anybody and it was so simple that Sammy wondered why he'd never thought of it before.
    Because he remembered now the word sex. He'd heard people use it and he didn't know exactly what it meant but he did know that it had something to do with women and their bodies. And the unborn show was named Mystery of Sex, wasn't it? And didn't Mr. King, the talker for the show, say that the mystery of sex was