The Rip-Off Read Online Free PDF

pranks to imbue the least sexually appetizing of us with the hugest sexual appetites. To atone for that joke, I feel, is the obligation of all who are better endowed. And in keeping that obligation, I have had many sorrier screws than Connie. I have received little gratitude for my efforts. On the contrary, I invariably wind up with a worse fucking than the fucking I got. For it is also one of fate's jokes to dower superiority complexes on girls with the worst fornicating furniture. And they seem to feel justified in figuratively giving you something as bad as they have given you literally.
    Of course, Connie's father discovered us in coitus before the week was out. And, of course, I agreed to do the "right thing" by his little girl. Which characteristically was the easiest thing for me to do. Or so it seemed at the time. I may struggle a little bit, but I almost always do the easiest thing. Or what seems to be and never is.
    At the time I was born, promising was the word for Rainstar prospects. Thus, I was placed on the path of least resistance early in life, and I remained on it despite my growing awareness that promise was not synonymous with delivery. I had gathered too much speed to get off, and I could find no better path to be on anyway. I'm sure you've seen people like me.
    If I stumbled over an occasional rock, I might curse and kick out at it. But only briefly, and not very often at all. I was so unused to having my course unimpeded, that, normally, I figuratively fell apart when it was. It was the only recourse for a man made defenseless by breeding and habit.
    Both Connie and her father were provoked to find that my prosperousness was exactly one hundred per cent more apparent than real. They whined that I had deceived them, maintaining that since I was nothing but a well-dressed personable bum, I should have said so. Which, to me, seemed unreasonable. After all, why do your utmost not to look like a bum if you are going to announce that you are one?
    Obviously, there were basic philosophical differences between me and the Bannermans. But they finally seemed resigned to me, if not to my way of thinking. In fact, I was given their rather grim assurance that I would come around to their viewpoint eventually, and be much the better man for it. Meanwhile, Mr. Bannerman would not only provide me with a job, but would give Connie and me $100000 life insurance policies as a wedding present.
    I felt that it was money wasted, since Connie, like all noxious growths, had a built-in resistance to scourge, and I had grown skilled in the art of self-preservation, having devoted a lifetime to it. However, it was Mr. Bannerman's money, and I doubted that it would amount to much, since he was in the insurance business as well as real estate.
    So he wrote the policies on Connie and me, with each of us the beneficiary of the other. Connie's policy was approved. Mine was rejected. Not on grounds of health, my father-in-law advised me. My health was excellent for a man wholly unaddicted to healthful hard work.
    The reason for my rejection was not spelled out to Mr. Bannerman, but he had a pretty good idea as to its nature, and so did I. It was a matter of character. A man with a decidedly truncated work history-me, that is-who played around whenever he had the money for playing around-again me-was apt to come to an early end, and possibly a bad one. Or so statistics indicated. And the insurance company was not betting a potential $100,000- $200,000, double indemnity-on my longevity when their own statistics branded me a no-no.
    With unusual generosity, Mr. Bannerman conceded that there were probably a great many decadent bums in the world, and that I was no worse than the worst of them. The best course for me was to re-apply for the policy, after I had "proved myself" with a few years of steady and diligent employment.
    To this end, he hired me as a commission salesman. It proved nothing except what I already knew-that I was no more