Elevator Operator
by Stan Long
The last tower on the block with a manned elevator – this in the nineteen nineties – mind you, was the Art Deco building belonging to the corporate lawyers, Willoughby Willoughby and Grough. Its operator, Billy – as his familiars called him – was a shortish young immigrant from Ireland. His livery was coincidently, green, and a top-hat of ancient vintage, fit his large head.
From under its rim, two black humorless eyes, fixed his customers as a cobra might its prey. As he seldom lifted his head, most people, towering above him, missed this aspect of his personality. Not so the twins, the puritanically upright, Misses Sally and Gertrude. Scared of his eyes, they found the ride to the twenty-first floor a trial and would not dare it singly. Where other WW&G employees enjoyed a cheery banter with Billy, they remained silent. He loved having this power over them and awaited the moment when he could further intimidate them.
The boredom of sailing up and down between the floors every day, would have killed a lesser spirit, but Billy’s mind was busy with a nestful of theatrical settings wherein the twins acted out his fantasies, the kind one would expect of a teenager sentenced to solitary.
It was the night of the Christmas party when patient Billy got his main chance. The Misses Sally and Gertrude, for the first time in their lives letting their hair down, came lurching along and bumbled onto the elevator.
“Take us Shortass,” – which was a sad mistake – Sally commanded in a slurred voice, “to wherever.”
He promptly dropped the elevator while at the same time switching off the light. The ladies screamed in unison.
“Please please please, Billy!”
He was pleased to hear his proper name.
Billy turned the light on, just long enough for him to see where to stop between the floors, then darkness came again, filled with the sobbing of Sally and Gertrude, both scared witless.
They clung to one another, then started squawking like frightened hens in the night when a fox enters the henhouse. His hands were all over them, up their skirts, up their blouses, his long fingers firmly and gently examining the territory, undoing everything that could be undone, his nose in their necks, his tongue licking their ears, the two of them writhing, despite the stupor they were in. Instinct moved them to cling in a knot to protect themselves, but Billy’s onslaught penetrated every obstacle, his prying fingers finding the soft spots in their defences until those vulnerable secret places succumbed, one after the other, to his oh, so gentle siege.
They became curiously quiet when they discovered his touch was so soft – delicate and teasing, they remembered later – as he undid them, his hands knowing more about where to go and what to do, better than they knew themselves. There was something electric about his finger tips that elicited pleasure, the pleasure increasing as he became more insistent when finding their points of arousal. Some took time to find. Neither had experienced lust before, so each in turn involuntarily relaxed as they neared climax. Their heads rolled back, their knees went weak, the dark filled with stars, their bodies steamed with pleasure. Sally gasped, Gertrude gave a Lazarus shout.
Slow to recover, there in the still staggering dark, they waited the effects of the booze to evaporate. Then came the growing horror. His fond assault amounted to rape no matter what their bodies said. Their thoughts went flying, catapulting off the unseen walls. What was he doing, what was taking so long? Would he attack again? Billy stood figuring the odds, allowing them time to sort out their emotions, letting them prepare for the light, the catastrophic light.
Finally understanding he was finished, they held each other’s hands, the need to cling together gone, their minds filled with disbelief at the wonder of it. So this secret was what their parents had tried to protect them from, why they had to tell the boys to keep their hands to themselves, the sacrament only to be realized in wedlock. Who would marry them now and what to do about Billy? There could be no thanking him, not this deliverer from ignorance, this spoiler, this tempter from the garden.
The light came on. Ignoring them, the monster picked his hat off the floor while the two stared to see who he really was. They rebuttoned their buttons, rehooked their hooks, did up their zips, straightened their clothes and at last stood composed, arms hanging with hands clasped.
First time I’ve copped a feel, thought Billy. Nice go. Damn, he was pleased with himself.
“Lobby, next stop,” he sang out.