Campus Tramp Read Free Page A

M.I.T. for a weekend—all the phrases that were said automatically and forgotten just as automatically. Something valuable had existed for them but they were too young to take advantage of it.
    And now it was gone.
    The memory of that night was enough to set her off. Her hands began to tremble of their own accord and it took her a moment or two to still them. Desire welled up in her, desire not for Chuck Connor but for a man, a real man, a man who would make a woman of her.
    Because she had already decided that she was not going to stay a virgin forever. That may have been the best course back in the dark ages, but nowadays a woman had the right to be a woman, the right to seek love and take it where she found it.
    And she was going to do just that.
    At high school it was wrong. At Corry Senior High School a good girl didn’t let a boy make love to her. But at Clifton College things would be different. She would meet a man, a man she wanted and a man who wanted her.
    And they would make love.
    It was as simple as that. She wasn’t going to force herself to wait, not for a wedding ring on her finger or for a declaration of eternal love. She had waited long enough, and now even the law recognized her right to use her body as she saw fit.
    The next man. The next man whom she wanted would be the man to whom she would give herself. He would take her and he would love her, and he would know just what to do and how to do it, and he would make her body sing with the joy of being alive.
    The next man …
    She closed her eyes, thinking of the man, the man who would make love to her. She tried to picture him in her mind, tried to imagine what he would look like. Her mind conjured up pictures and her head swam with the idea of it all.
    She dozed, half asleep and half awake, half thinking and half dreaming. Then the conductor shouted “Springfield!” and the train pulled into a grimy little city and finally pulled to a jerky stop at the terminal.
    She practically jumped out of her seat. Her trunk was being shipped Railway Express, but she had a suitcase with her and she had a tough time hauling it down from the overhead rack. A middle-aged man helped her with it and then she was off, suitcase in hand, waiting at the platform before the train came to a stop. Her heart was beating wildly and she couldn’t wait for the train to stop so that she could hurry off to Clifton.
    The train stopped. She let the brakeman help her off the train and waved away the porter who offered to carry her suitcase for her. There were half a dozen cabs parked by the side of the terminal and she hopped into the first one in line, saying “Greyhoundterminal” and making it sound like one single word.
    “Where yuh headed, Miss?”
    She told him she was going to Clifton College.
    “Don’t take the bus, Miss. Won’t be one headed there for another four, five hours. You don’t wanta wait that long, do you?”
    “How else can I get there?”
    “Shucks,” he said, “it’s only nine miles. The rate by cab is only three and a half dollars. Why don’t you let me run you out there?”
    “Well—”
    “Listen,” he said, “I’ll make it three. The flat rate’s three-and-a-half, but this way I can stop off in Hustead for a cup of coffee with my wife. I live out there, you see.”
    “All right,” she said, thinking that she would have paid the three-fifty anyway if he had waited a minute more. She settled back into the seat and closed her eyes as the taxi made its way down High Street to Route 68. The driver turned left at 68 and headed out toward Clifton, and she took a deep breath and held it, thinking about the man, the man she was waiting for, the man who would make love to her.

CHAPTER TWO
    RUTH HARDY HAD HAIR AS BLACK as midnight, short black hair clipped into an Italian style haircut that bore a remarkable resemblance to the posterior of a duck. Ruth Hardy was five feet five inches tall, an inch or so shorter than Linda. She was slender, with