"Queer Frolics" by Elliot Sahli was originally published in London, as it was considered "too hot to handle" by publishers in the States. However, it was also banned very quickly in England, after having fantastically high sales in the few weeks that it was available to the reading public. It has remained in strong demand as an "underground" novel of unusual sexual relationships, and is herewith reprinted in its entirety.
The notable psychiatrist, Dr. O. Berndorff, has discussed, with illustrations from his case history files, patients similar to the main characters in this book as follows:
"Dr. W. M. was a psychoanalyst himself who came to me with a serious ethical conflict. He had been treating a most attractive young woman for a year, when she declared that she was madly in love with him and offerred herself for sexual intercourse at his pleasure. He told me that he had discharged her as a patient, but felt that he cared for her as a woman and would like to have sex with her.
"I went into great detail telling him that it would be most unethical for him to possess this woman's body, no matter how freely she seemed to offer it. I stressed the strong hypnotic effect he had probably had upon her during their innumerable sessions of intimate talk and reminded him that all patients were very susceptible to the unconscious hypnotism emanating from a respected psychiatrist's suggestions.
"I told him that we psychiatrists were no more moral than the average person, but that we had more knowledge of the forces of the mind and that we should therefore regulate our conduct accordingly! And that this was to be especially observed in the treatment of young women patients...."
The seductions, orgies and sexual perversions described in "Queer Frolics" show how an unscrupulous individual with a knowledge of psychology may use it for immoral purposes.
It is from this instructive point of view that Continental Classics presents this complete, unexpurgated novel. It is recommended only for the graduate student or the mature adult reader.
A. L. Saunders, M.A. New York City June, 1969
CHAPTER ONE
She cupped her firm young breasts, making their jutting, ruby nipples peep above the neckline of the low-cut black silk dress. There was a smile on her lovely young face, long blonde tresses framing it, as she offered herself to her lover. She lay back completely on the couch and her skirt rode up, up-exposing a pair of gleaming, white, rounded thighs. She began to wriggle her asscheeks and the skirt rose to her navel, exposing gossamer see-through panties. The curves of her young, rounded tits half-exposed and thighs beginning a slow, rhythmic grind, were an open invitation to rape.
"Doc, it's really working on her," the fat, sweating man exclaimed, licking his lips. "Why don't I fuck her on the couch right now?"
The professional looking "Doc" restrained him sharply.
"No screwing until I tell you, Krobutt. She's got to go into deeper trance-do you want to spoil everything?"
Krobutt's mouth hung open and hump-lust shone in his small eyes as he watched the girl on the couch. But, he held his impatient cock in check as Dr. Mark Kirby, the suave, handsome hypnotist had ordered.
The girl's thighs continued to writhe with sensuous passion; suddenly, she parted them and braced her asscheeks with her hands. She moaned with passion as if her invisible lover had thrust his cock into her. Her squirming buttocks began to shimmer through the thin panties in the throes of culmination. Her belly and then her cunt began to twitch in unmistakable "come" ecstasy, and she gasped, "Bob! Bob, that was a wonderful fuck!"
Jake Krobutt looked on in amazement. What manner of magic had this Dr. Mark Kirby worked on this frigid chick he'd been trying to screw for so long? Here they were in this hotel room, twenty-one stories above downtown San Francisco and this babe was acting as if she were alone in bed, screwing with a boyfriend called Bob. He was impatient to fuck her lush blonde beauty ... Doc Kirby had promised him he'd make her lose her mental blocks about him. That after this treatment, she'd be a real hot, frigging doll to him always.
"I'm going to make her go more deeply into trance, so we can root out this fixation she's got on this jerk, Bob, and substitute your image instead," the suave hypnotist explained. The aroused Jake Krobutt nodded agreement as Kirby intoned to the girl on the couch.
"The sea is a still, deep blue," the hypnotist suggested. "The sky is a deeper blue. The sun is hot-hot-hot-. It burns down on your body. It makes you feel wonderfully alive, tremendously vital. As you lie there in the sand, you feel an urge to live, to experience all the new physical sensations that are stirring within you."
The girl smiled faintly. The eyes under her closed lids rolled upward. Her wide mouth opened slightly and the tip of her tongue appeared and sensuously caressed her lips.
The hypnotist observed these deepening trance-symptoms with marked satisfaction. He put a sharper tone into his voice as he said, "You will rest now, and imagine warm, wonderful things happening to you-within you. You will let your mind dwell on the fact that inhibitions are not necessary here on things a woman should feel, the things you were born to feel. The delightful things-like men's stiff pricks in your cunt. You will let your mind dwell on thoughts of this nature, exciting thoughts, and you will hear no voices until I speak the word, happiness again. Remember that. You will hear no voice until I speak the word happiness again."
The hypnotist had been leaning forward in the chair beside the couch. Now he sat back and relaxed and lit a cigarette.
The eyes of the other man in the room, fat, middle-aged, bald-headed, were glued on the girl. Her smile had broadened, become more sensuous. She opened her mouth and her tongue came out lazily as though searching for a contact. She ran her palms over her tits in a circular motion. Her body stretched and twisted and her hands went down her body. She raised her knees and lifted her ass. She ran her palms along the outer side of her legs.
"The trance is now quite deep," the hypnotist said.
Krobutt stared in wonder. "Do you mean she can't hear you talking? She can't hear what we have to say?"
The hypnotist was not interested in the lewd, uninhibited hump-actions of the girl. He drew deeply on his cigarette and blew a meditative cloud of smoke into her face.
"Yes and no," he said. "Her senses are registering what we say, of course. And the memory of our words will always remain in her subconscious. But her conscious mind is obeying my order. It isn't listening. That's about the only way I can put it."
"It's-fantastic," the fat man said. "I've heard that no one can be hypnotized against their will, but...."
"That's quite correct. They can't."
"But Melia certainly doesn't want to lie there and make a spectacle of herself."
The handsome hypnotist smiled at his client. "You mean her inhibitions, in normal state, would not let her. There's a world of difference. It's entirely true that a person cannot be hypnotized against his will. He must cooperate in achieving the trance because a trance is actually self-imposed. Nor will a patient do anything under a trance, any basic thing, against which his subconscious rebels."
"Then how-?"
"This patient," the hypnotist said, "would not dream of acting in this manner in a hotel room before witnesses. But, if she thinks she's alone, or on a deserted beach, that's a different proposition. She had to cooperate to the extent of allowing me to place her on the beach, in a trance, and so now the objections of her subconscious have been met. She is doing exactly what she would not object to doing if the conditions were real. So far as she is concerned, they are real."
"The possibilities are boundless!"
"After a manner of speaking."
"Could I learn to...."
"To be a hypnotist? Possibly, but I don't think you are tempera mentally suited to be a very good one." He allowed his contempt for the fat man to show through.
"In the first place, conditioning a woman for screwing purposes is a very low form of enterprise; and it's hardly a worthy reason for learning an ancient and honorable art."
The fat man raised his eyes from the girl to flash an angry look at the hypnotist. "You took my money without quibbling about it. You seem able to compromise your own principles without any trouble."
"The situation was not the same. I accepted a case."
The fat man was angry now. "Words do not change things, Mr. Kirby-"
"Doctor Kirby, if you please."
"Doctor Mark Kirby" the fat man elaborated sarcastically. "You yourself are doing exactly what...."
Kirby jerked an impatient hand and glanced down to where the girl had moaned slightly and removed her lacy panties. The fat man turned his eyes in that direction and stared fascinated as she dropped the article of clothing to the floor and continued caressing of her legs, and then her blonde bush-hair.
"This girl, you told me, consented to be your mistress. This was a relationship you agreed on jointly and is none of my business. You told me she had some moral blocks and unless they were removed, the relationship would fail. I am merely removing those blocks."
The fat man said, "But damn it, man! You've got no right to insult...."
It was characteristic of Kirby, a mark of his control over people-that he always kept opponents and patients off-balance-to the extent now of not allowing the fat man even to finish a statement.
"You're quite right. I'm sorry. But if you wish this therapy to reach a satisfactory conclusion, you'd better let me get back to the patient."
The fat man scowled and subsided. This wasn't too difficult because he was witnessing something new, something that belonged in a fantasy, not in a downtown hotel room in the middle of the day.
Mark Kirby leaned close to the girl and looked into her face.
"Is she coming out of the trance?" the fat man asked. "No, but her mind has gone back to the original concept."
This had been the basis upon which the girl had been persuaded to cooperate, hypnotic conditioning against the cigarette habit. Once she had agreed to enter a trance under this subterfuge, Mark Kirby had gotten her trust and deftly switched over to breaking her subconscious blocks against fucking for the fat man.
The fat man pulled his eyes away from the girl's hands and her cunt-manipulations that had resulted from Kirby's last instructions. He looked at her face. She wore an expression of distance, as though the inside of her mouth had turned sour.
To all appearances, she was smoking a cigarette and objecting to it.
"Maybe you'd better get her mind back to-"
Kirby motioned for silence. He continued to peer at the girl's face with a puzzled look. "Please be quiet. She had taken command of the trance. She is going of her own volition." He continued to stare. "She is regressing," he said.
"What does that mean?"
"Going back into her own life, reliving some experience."
There was silence now, as they watched. Obviously it was not a cigarette she had in her mouth. It was something else.
Her dress had worked up on her body until the skirt was now rolled and wadded high on her waist. Her eyelids flickered but did not open.
Kirby seemed ever more deeply puzzled. He made no effort to interfere, even when the girl twisted around and came up on her knees. Then she slid off the couch and kneeled beside it as though in prayer.
"No! No!" she muttered, in revulsion. "No! No!"
Now, her head twisted oddly. It seemed somehow locked into the upwardly tilted position, as though in a vise and there was fear and disgust in her face even though her eyes remained closed.
The fat man seemed incapable of movement. His eyes darted to Kirby's face as though checking it to see if this performance frightened the hypnotist. Then they went back to the girl.
She seemed to be trying to struggle. And with nothing to struggle against, the effect was weird. Her mouth opened and again she protested: "No! No! I won't! Don't make me suck your prick!"
"Hadn't you better bring her out of it?" Krobutt asked.
Again Kirby gestured impatiently. He was the dedicated practitioner studying a phenomenon for its own value.
As the girl's mouth had opened to protest, she'd suddenly appeared to be choking. Her protests were now gargles deep in her throat and her larynx worked convulsively. She fought phantoms as she knelt there beside the lounge. Phantoms pushed her forward and down. Her eyes opened wide. Then that form of imaginary resistance appeared to abate and the girl surrender.
That was the incredible appearance she gave; one of surrending to nothing; accepting defeat from the phantoms with which she'd been engaged in battle.
Now, with her eyes tightly closed, she seemed to regress even further.
The girl had achieved a kind of rhythm in whatever she thought she was doing. It gave every appearance of the regression having taken her back to babyhood; to a time when she had been bottle-fed-or maybe she was sucking on a man's penis.
"I think she needs air," Kirby said impatiently. "Open a window."
"Don't you think you ought to-?"
"I said, open a window," Kirby snapped without taking his eyes off the girl.
The fat man got up from his chair and crossed the room. He lifted the window without taking his eyes off the spectacle at the couch.
Kirby was watching the girl more intently than ever. "Has she gone back to babyhood?" he muttered.
The girl's eyes opened wide as though some surprise had been introduced into her nightmare. She gulped convulsively. There was sickness and a trace of fear in her face.
"Disgust," Kirby muttered. "A baby isn't disgusted with its food-" He was puzzled-talking to himself-oblivious now of the fat man's presence.
The girl got up from her knees. She moved in a circle with her hand over her mouth. Her eyes had opened and they remained so. She looked dazedly around the room and saw the door to the bath.
She took two or three staggering steps in that direction and hesitated as though confused.
Her skirt had not dropped, its folds having become entangled in her belt and the fat man was watching, totally bemused by the spectacle of the naked girl's blonde bush-hair and cunt as she was staggering around the room in a trance.
Kirby was on his feet. "I'll bring her out of it," he said decisively.
"For God's sake, hurry," the anxious Jake Krobutt muttered.
The girl froze. Her eyes, even though they were open, seemed to go through the process again, reopen as though they were the eyes of a sleep-walker awakening.
Conscious terror took over now. She looked wildly around the room.
And before Kirby or Krobutt could move, she turned and dived head first out the twenty-first floor window.
The fat man screamed a high, gargled scream but Kirby reacted differently. He was not a man to panic. His eyes narrowed, his lips formed into a stiff, straight line. He looked swiftly around the room for anything that would later prove his presence on the scene. He found nothing and snatched up his hat and started for the door.
The fat man came alive. He squealed rather than screamed, in wordless fear and anger, as he lunged at Kirby. He caught the fleeing hypnotist by his coat-tail and jerked him backward. He found some words:
"You ain't leaving me here, you louse."
Kirby turned, jerked his coat from the fat man's grip, and hit him. His blow was hard and deep, into the solar-plexus.
The fat's man's eyes bulged and his mouth flew open. He went to his knees and tilted forward, his forehead banging the floor.
Kirby cupped him smartly at the base of the skull and he rolled over on his side. Then he kicked the man in the jaw and saw him go limp.
Turning toward the door, Kirby stopped again as another idea struck him. He hadn't much time to think because a scream or two of horror had already come up from the street.
He went to his knees, turned the unconscious Krobutt over on his back, and inflicted several long, hard scratches into the flesh of his face.
Then he left the room and hurried down the hall toward the nearest exit sign.
It was these few moments upon which his destiny hinged. And he was lucky. No heads came into view. No one looked out to inquire as to what had happened.
A matter of ten seconds, and Dr. Mark Kirby had vanished from the twenty-first floor of the hotel to arrive casually, a couple of minutes later, on the fourteenth floor. There he took an elevator to the lobby and left by the side entrance, thus avoiding the necessity of passing the smashed and broken body on the sidewalk in front of the main entrance.
As he left, he wondered if the girl had killed anyone else as she struck the cement. He hoped not....
An hour later, he had checked out of his own hotel and was on the way to the airport. As he moved toward the ramp to board his plane, he bought a copy of an extra at the newstand and, settled comfortable in his seat, he read the story:
"DANCER DIES IN PLUNGE" Semi-Nude Beauty Hurtles From Window of Local Businessman's Hotel Room.
Mystery surrounded the tragic death, today, of Melia Vonner, a dancer who had been appearing currently in local discotheques.
Sensational developments were promised when it was discovered that the room from which Miss Vonner jumped or was pushed, was registered to J. Krobutt, a prominent real estate dealer of this city.
While details are yet to be revealed, it is known that Jake Krobutt, 45, widower, had been seen lately in several night spots. Also, he had been seen publicly with the Vonner girl.
Found in the room on the twenty-first floor of the Taynton Hotel where Miss Vonner was placed by the discovered of her bag and gloves, Krobutt first stated that she accidentally feel from the window after it was opened to provide more air.
Krobutt claimed another man was present at the time, a Dr. Mark Kirby, stating that Kirby was a hypnotic therapist and was treating Miss Vonner for mental disturbances.
However, Krobutt was vague as to where the mysterious Dr. Kirby lived or had offices. Only Krobutt was seen entering the hotel and police are inclined to doubt the existence of Kirby, at least at this early stage of the investigation.
Krobutt refused to talk further on the advice of his counsel. He is being held as a material witness. The police say the charge will probably be homicide because of the fact that deep scratches were found on Krobutt's face and there are evidence of a struggle...."
The hypnotist folded the paper and looked back through the cabin window at the scene of his near disaster. It was fast-vanishing-a cluster of toy-sized buildings below and rearward of the jet. He took a deep breath and assessed the factors of his good luck.
First, the police would find no trace of Dr. Mark Kirby in the city. He was registered at no hotel. He got no mail. He acquired no bills. It was amazing, the protection to be found in names. Dr. Mark Kirby was only one of many that the hypnotist had used in his shady business. It would never be used again.
A second point in his favor was that Jake Krobutt had no personal friends or acquaintances who could vouch for the fact that Krobutt had been consulting with a hypnotist. The contact had been confidential to the point of complete secrecy. Kirby had never been seen with Krobutt except by the girl who was now beyond giving testimony.
Third, Kirby had no friends or acquaintances in the city. He had stayed completely alone.
So, to all intents and purposes, Dr. Kirby did not exist.
Kirby's good fortune had not been the result of caution founded on any expectation of violence. He deeply regretted the girl's death. It was just that he'd learned caution as a way of life-as common sense in a profession that could generate many forms of trouble because of its nature.
More than once, he had saved himself, had escaped sticky situations because of his native caution and his passion for anonymity.
And it was obvious that he had again saved himself. He ran over the details again, searching for possible flaws. He found none and characteristically dismissed the matter from his mind....
To turn to a more interesting area. The girl patient with whom he had made a mistake.
His mistake was quite obvious and it was a source of shame. He had misjudged the depths of the Vonner girl's trance. He had allowed her to seek her own trance-level. He had not paid any attention to the obvious signs of agitation in the girl. These lapses were inexcusable, and he sternly set about analyzing his errors.
The sensuous display of her tits and naked cunt had been quite normal in that it reflected only uninhibited release as a result of his suggestions. The girl wanted and had a capacity for uninhibited hump-relationships. That was obvious. And it was no surprise to the hypnotist. He had seen women turn in these directions before. Once, when badly in need of money, he had worked before a select audience-an extremely high-priced audience. Ten men paid two hundred dollars apiece to see him cause two girls to put on an incredible exhibition of the power of hypnotism. A totally uninhibited Lesbian demonstration, after which they became, at his suggestion, four-legged animals who performed animal functions such as shitting and pissing on each other's faces without a sign of inhibited restraint.
But the Vonner girl. Where had she turned from catering to hidden desires? From that to colliding with a true painful past incident in her life that brought her out of the trance with her in chaos?
She had experienced a release as a result of her own thoughts. Thus, she functioned in a fantasy under controlled conditions, something that the hypnotist considered good therapy. Inevitably, if he'd been allowed to continue the treatments, he would have brought the girl to a point where she could have given Krobutt a complete hump-relationship.
Nothing wrong with that, he told himself firmly. It was what Krobutt had paid him to do and the girl would have profited from it also.
But the other. He should have been suspicious when she got off the couch and knelt beside it. Her expression, her obvious revulsion. He should have known that she was reliving a cock-sucking experience forced upon her at some earlier time. If he had stepped in quickly and reasumed control, he could have led her away from the experience and have profited from what she had revealed to him.
No doubt it had been that experience at the hands of someone that had set up the blocks that plagued her later. With that knowledge he could reconditioned her, eliminated her revulsion to cock-sucking and swallowing sperm and put her through the same experience, in relation to Krobutt, and the man would have been elated with the frigging results that would have been attained.
The jet took a sharp dip that brought the hypnotist back to the place and time. Quickly, he summed up. He'd learned again that you can never let up for a moment when a patient is in trance. You can't tell when a plunge into some painful early experience can precipitate danger.
He recorded the reeducation into his mental note book and went on to the next item of business. Where was he going? What could he do?
He shrugged. What else but follow his destiny as he had always followed? Stay alert and await whatever advantages fate threw his way. His plane was headed for Boston. That had been from pure chance. It had been the first plane out. But was it an omen?
You try to be a scientist of sorts, he thought, so let's forget this omen business and think logically. Right now, it would be best if he lost himself, and where better to lose oneself than in the biggest town of all. He decided that when the big jet got to Logan Airport in Boston, he'd transfer to a shuttle plane and go on to Kennedy. New York had more of almost anything you could name and he hoped that would include patients for his hypnotic brand of therapy.
He mentally began to build up his Manhattan identity. He would be Dr. Ralph Ramey, late of his own midwest clinic. He was coming to the big town for the opportunity to give the benefits of his hypnotic psychology to more patients and to do original research and study.
"Goodbye Dr. Mark Kirby Hello, Dr. Ralph Ramey," he said to himself. He smiled at the attractive stewardess, ordered a drink and settled back to enjoy the luxuries of the first-class cabin.
CHAPTER TWO
He was dozing off in his reclining seat after his second drink, when a pleasant feminine voice trilled into his ear, "Are you enjoying the flight?"
For a moment, he thought it was the stewardess, but in a flash, his computer-like mind recognized it from out of the past. He visualized the voices' owner, the gorgeous Lee Fair. Place: San Bernadino, Time: three years ago. He had been practicing as Dr. Jason Embry.
He cursed the luck that brought an old flame on the same plane with him. It seemed that he always had to have an Achilles heel, that he could never really leave his past behind without a trace. A born actor, he turned to the attractive girl who was leaning over the empty seat beside him and said, "Hello, Lee darling...."
And when he saw her, he was almost happy about it. Three years, but she had not changed except to become more beautiful. Three years. That would make her twenty-seven now. At twenty-four, Lee Farr had been a brunette beauty. Now she was an even more ravishing redhead. She had evidently done well for herself because her simple, basic black traveling dress spoke of an expensive, exclusive original at the very least.
From where he sat, he could not see her legs but he knew they were sexy. It had been her legs that trapped him from the beginning. There was something about them; slim, lovely, of course; but something more. Possibly a personal affinity because he'd had a compulsion to investigate further.
And even though Lee was far from being a tramp or a pushover, the investigation came quickly and was quite complete.
He contemplated her radiant smile as she answered, "Hello, Jason, darling. I've been admiring you from three seats back and you know Lee, she always had a crush on you."
"Of course." He knew Lee very well. He knew her tenacity-a bad trait of hers that forced him into three separate attempts to get clear of her before he actually escaped.
"You haven't asked me to sit down, darling."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I was just overwhelmed."
"I'm sure you were."
"Do sit down, precious. We have more than three hours before we land. You can brief me on how things have been for you. Prosperous, I'm sure."
She sat down and the aura that had been the magnet before again reached out to grip him. Lee had been the only woman he automatically saw naked no matter how she was dressed.
He remembered that first time. He'd watched her cross the room at the cocktail party and he'd had an instant physical reaction. Others saw her in a crimson, tight-fitting gown, but he beheld a naked woman with ankles blending into gorgeously contoured calves; knees that twinkled when she walked; and an ass that took his breath away.
Naked. Walking across the room toward him. And he knew he had to fuck her.
He'd actually wondered if it was love at first sight, a ridiculous idea like that, so forcefully did strike him.
And it had evidently been mutual because within two hours she had really been naked in his arms and he'd had one of the most thrilling frigging experiences of his life.
This had disturbed him. A realist who lived, so to speak, off the emotions of others, he resented his own emotions asserting any control over him whatsoever.
So, regardless of Lee's hump-appeal, he could have walked away if the decision had been left to him.
But Lee was-Lee. She had ideas of her own. Somewhat more of a sensualist that he, Lee had never found a man with a prick that was so satisfying, and she did not want to part with it.
Thus, it had taken him six months to get clear of her. He'd finally slipped out the back door of a San Diego hotel-regretful, because his compulsion for freedom was taken him away from the best and hottest piece of ass he'd ever found.
But Lee was too polished and sophisticated to refer to any of this except in terms of lip-licking indirection. She said, "Oh, yes, darling. My instincts for survival came to my aid on the dreadful day I found nothing but your empty pajamas on your bed."
"I regretted the necessity of that-ah, hurried trip," he muttered.
"I understood," she said sweetly. "By the way, what name are you using now?"
He was not the least offended.
"As a matter-of-fact, I haven't one at the moment."
"How interesting!"
"Any suggestions?"
"How about, Skippy?"
"Redly, my dear!"
"Oh, I'm sorry. Skippy didn't run from anything. Who was it who got famous by going out the back door?"
"It doesn't necessarily apply. You'd be surprised how difficult it was for me to leave on such short notice."
It had been difficult. Keenly aware now, of the lush, voluptuous body pressed against his own, he was beginning to wonder how he'd been able to tear himself away from Lee.
He wondered that even as he began arranging for his escape from this accidental meeting.
"Wonderful to see you," he said heartly. "And I'm desolated that we won't have much time together. I'm only in for a few days or two. I'm gathering some material for a book I've been asked to write on-"
"That's too bad."
He didn't like her smug, confident tone. "Several tunes lately, I've thought of trying to get in touch with you. I really have, Lee."
"So sweet of you," she purred.
"This of course makes the effort unnecessary. Why don't we make arrangements to meet somewhere next week? What are your plans?"
Lee did not answer directly. Instead, she took a folded newspaper from beneath the bag in her lap. "I felt like stretching my legs before the flight darling, and I bought a newspaper. And it depressed me-it really did."
He knew what was coming but he asked the question anyhow. "What depressed you, Lee?"
"A story on page one. A girl jumped from a hotel window, it seems. Tragic. She was with a man, one of those sordid hump-affairs, no doubt."
"No doubt," he agreed stoically.
"But strangest of all was the man's hallucination. He claimed there was a second man in the room. A Doctor Kirby. A hypnotist. Now, isn't that the most amazing coincidence you ever heard of?"
"I don't follow you."
"It seemed so strange that this nonexistent second man was in the same line of work as you."
"Okay," he sighed. "I guess I'm to assume that on the strength of this amazing coincidence, our destinies will run together for awhile?"
"I don't particularly care for that "A while," darling.
Why can't it be permanent?"
"Blackmail, my dear, is a poor foundation for permanent relationships."
"On the contrary, sweet. It can be a very solid foundation."
He pondered for a few moments. Then his next question came, but it was without rancor or hostility. It was merely for the clarification of a point that bothered him.
"Lee, why me?"
Her knee was pressing unashamedly, against his. She was leaning casually close to him, breathing in his face.
"I don't understand you, darling."
"You understand, but I'll explain any how. I'm a very ordinary man approaching middle age. I have no prospects. As a matter of truth, I can land in jail anytime my foot slips. On the other hand, you're beautiful, talented, alluring. You can have any man you want. The young ones. The vital ones. The rich ones. So I repeat, why me?"
"You slip over your virtues so smoothly my dear. One would think you were ashamed of them. The truth of the matter is that any woman would give her eyeteeth to get you. But so far as I'm concerned, there's more."
"More?"
"As if you don't know. You're the only man I ever met whose cock can make me go crazy in bed. So that may be the deciding factor."
"I'm flattered."
"I really don't care whether you're flattered or not, darling. We're going to get off this plane and go to a hotel and undress and fuck each other silly!"
"It isn't at all necessary to phrase that as an order. "I'm quite willing to admit that right this minute I need you so bad my teeth ache."
"A good dentist might-"
"If you think I'd stoop to getting laid in a dentist's chair, sweetie-"
"You have a dirty mind."
"Yes, isn't it wonderful?"
There was something about Lee that made him feel young and irresponsible. And so long as conditions permitted his ego this feeling, there was no reason he shouldn't relax and enjoy it.
She gripped his wrist. "The old frigging fire is still there darling. Tell me, what is that exciting element in you?"
"Discipline. Pure discipline. If more people practiced it, the world would be a better place to live in."
She laughed throatily. "But you're a plain scoundrel. How do you rationalize that?"
"A disciplined scoundrel. There is a difference...."
They checked into the Logan Airport Motel as Dr. and Mrs. Ralph Ramey and the bellboy who escorted them to a suite was visibly impressed. He took the dollar tip, and tried to memorize Lee's legs and ass as he left.
And Lee proved, the instant the door closed, that she too had been able to practice her own brand of discipline. An observer, from the moment she'd spotted the aristocratic-looking man on the plane up to that precise moment, would have detected only an amused affection in her manner. Ralph Ramey could have been a casual friend.
But the instant the door closed, she whirled and went into his arms and pulled his head down and found his mouth.
"Now! Now, you rat! Make it up to me! You're the only one who could ever make my pussy happy!"
He was happy and dismayed by this outburst. Happy because there was only one Lee on earth. Dismayed because it would be harder than ever to get rid of her. Also, it frightened him that a simple physical attraction for his style of fucking could make a woman so tenacious.
He dismissed the latter thought in favor of the first one, and allowed the thing of the moment to predominate. After kissing her, he pushed her away from him and began unbuttoning her blouse. She stood quiet, but trembling, with her eyes closed.
"Your tits are as wonderful as ever, Lee."
"Hurry."
He removed her blouse unsnapped her bra and threw both garments on the bed. Her breasts were as he remembered them. Large and golden as was the rest of her body, the nipples generous. He caressed them gently, then unzipped her skirt and let it fall. There was a blue half-slip that he pushed down and she stepped out of it.
But now, instead of going ahead with the rest of her garments, he began teasing her. Bending down, he ran the tip of a finger along either leg from the ankles, along the calves, and in tantalizing circles around her taut asscheeks.
She stood there with her eyes closed and her lips slightly parted.
"Discipline, my sweet," he murmured into her ear. And in a way, this was a revenge for him. He was punishing her for again attaching herself to him.
"In one minute I'll grab your cock and you'll get some discipline yourself," she hissed.
He was glad she had warned him. He remembered the heights to which her fuck-frenzy could drive her. Once, in a wild moment, she had turned on him, had taken an iron grip on his balls and made him get down on his knees and beg for release.
He drew her close with the pressure of his arms and set his fists, like claws, into the flesh of her asscheeks. Her body jerked forward. Her eyes opened suddenly but more from fear than pain.
"You do that to me, you rat, and I'll cripple you! I honestly will!" she hissed.
He smiled wickedly at her. There was more than a touch of evil in his smile. The fact that she knew what he had in mind-that he intended to take advantage of her by fucking her in the way he knew she hated most-made the episode ever more attractive to him. He decided to have a little fun with her before he actually carried through the act which was so offensive to her. He stroked the plump cheek of her ass lightly once more, watching with glee as her facial expression registered almost horrified distaste.
"You wouldn't!" she cried. She tried to bite him, but with one hand, he pushed her face so hard against his chest that she could not grip him with her teeth.
He smiled again, viciously. "Well, sweetheart, I might-I just might. But not now."
His hand moved on to her clitoris occupations calculated to give her pleasure, not disgust or pain.
Her response was instantaneous. She stopped trying to bite him, her mind now occupied with her own twat-reactions. He allowed her to turn her face away from his chest in order to breathe. Great gasps of air were needed, now, to furnish energy for her violent emotional responses.
Gritting her teeth, she began to curse him and to urge him on in a stream of ecstatic epithets.
"Go! Go! You filthy, rotten-Oh, yes! More-like that! You lousy cunt-lapper!"
Her cries went on as she twisted in his grip, her cunt's delight mounting with her violent words.
Then, he felt her body tighten against his in the quick ecstasy of a fast, unexpected orgasm.
"Oh, oh-" she shrilled. "Ye-es!"
He felt her knees go weak and knew that if he released his hold, she would fall to the floor.
He held her thus, totally a captive in his strong, encircling arms, while she shuddered through the delicious moments of her "come" pleasure, her eyes squeezed shut, her lovely mouth working convulsively, her low voice making little moans and cries of happiness.
Then, when she was a mass of quivering nerve-ends, he pushed her toward the bed. He put one hand squarely on the two pink mounds of her asscheeks and shoved. The meaning of his gesture was unmistakable, he was going to shove his cock up her asshole!
"No!" she screamed. "You louse! You said you wouldn't!"
"I said, not then. Now that you've had your pleasure, sweetheart, I want mine." He chuckled to himself. He knew Lee inside out, and he knew that putting his prick in her rectum was something she hated most of all-but he also knew that deep within her, although she could never admit it to herself, she enjoyed the degradation which he was about to inflict her.
She began fighting with what strength she had left-battling in panic against what would essentially be a rape of her anus. But this was what he wanted.
His grin was cold and mirthless as he forced her down on the bed, ass upwards. She tried desperately to protect herself, or to claw him-anything to escape the punishment of his enormous cock reaming out her asshole.
He had put one hand over her mouth to stifle the first scream and was handicapped for that reason. But he used his body to good advantage in imprisoning her. She fell forward on her elbows and pressed her face into the pillow.
Knowing this was sheer torture, he shoved the head of his cock slowly into her tight rectum, getting all the sadistic vengeance he could. Her gaspings told him she was suffering-almost more than she could bear.
But he increased in ferocity as he shoved his prick in up to the very hilt, and began fucking her anus.
As he approached his own orgasm, her arms jerked convulsively. He released her mouth, knowing she would not scream now.
He groaned as he shot jet after jet of his hot, white scum up her asshole....
Her mouth opened and her tongue was a desperate pink snake as it circled her lips and seemed to be trying to jump out of her mouth.
Weakly, she clawed at the pillow, still hating what he had done to her, still hating him for frigging her asshole, but defeated now.
She lay limp, exhausted by the relentless frigging cock in her anus that had torn her nerves to pieces. Her eyes were closed and her body heaved with long gasps as he rolled away and lay panting by her side.
There was a long minute of silence before she spoke. "You rat. I remember when you shoved your cock up my asshole the first time."
"It was an accidental discovery."
"We always enjoy hurting each other," she mused.
"That's always a component of a good relationship."
"Someday I'll probably kill you."
"You tried that once, too."
"Not seriously. That was when you said that I want men to degrade me."
"You do. That's a compulsion you have. You want to be defiled."
"And you've accommodated me. In about every way you could think of."
"And you've loved every minute."
"But only with you."
"That's nonsense," he said complacently. "A woman says that to every man she fucks with."
"You're the only man I ever really gave myself to."
"What did you do with other men, read bedtime stories?"
She was no longer angry with him. Her hand was fondling his cock gently.
"You're no good," she said, but more cheerfully now. "Once you said I was one of those bitches who like to be degraded by men."
"I did?"
"You and your psychology. You cited as proof a couple of jams I've gotten into. Sheer accidental situations."
"As accidental as sunrise. Your ego knows what it wants and steers you to it. The bilge about accident nothing but excuses."
"It was pure accident that time I-"
"Sure-select your own incident."
"You pick one then. For some stupid reason, I told you just about everything that ever happened to me."
"All right. The time you allowed three men to give you a lift back to town from the resort."
"You're calling that intentional?"
"Did they tie you up and throw you into the car?"
"You're telling me that my ego pointed them out and told me to go with them because I'd get into trouble?"
"Your ego does things step by step. Its first job, in order to get what it wants, is to put you into the right situation. With men. Maybe they're gentlemen, but if they are, your ego calls it the breaks of the game."
"The breaks of the game, indeed!"
"Your ego would then be patient and await another chance."
"You're mad, you're rationalizing yourself-trying to make one of my experiences fit your pompous pattern!"
"Be realistic, Lee."
"Well, if you don't think that experience was realistic! I told you what I had to do to get back into town. Those boys had a field day! I had to fuck the three of them and I earned every inch of that trip!"
Suddenly, she laughed. This was one of the things that fascinated Ramey. Her mood could change so quickly. She had been angry during the early part of this particular discussion. Now she was suddenly gay and almost childlike in spirit.
"And how I fucked on that trip!" she laughed.
"But your ego was still happy, even if you weren't. It was being degraded. You were stripped. You were forced to your knees and made to give the three of them blow-jobs. You could not have been more thoroughly degraded under any circumstances, and that ties in perfectly with your ego hate-pattern."
She rolled over on the bed. "Oh, it does, does, it?"
"Well, how's this for degrading myself? Begging a man, like a tramp. Begging for some real, honest fucking?"
He kissed her. "This sort of degradation I like," he said.
Lee's tongue began searching his mouth her pebble-hard nipples pressed against him. She began to sigh. Her tongue slipped from his mouth, slid across his cheek, and found his ear.
"That's sneaky," he said.
She laughed. When she spoke her voice was husky. "Darling, my cunt's hot and ready, fuck me! Make love to me! Make me yours!"
"Mmmm-mmmm, with pleasure."
As he ran his hands over her beautiful tits, he realized how much this redhead meant to him....
He kept on caressing her soft, full breasts and could feel their nipples jut and harden between his thumb and forefinger. A shudder went through Lee as he touched each nipple in turn.
"Darling, Ralph," Lee pleaded, "how about being a little conventional with me?"
In answer, Ralph grasped her shoulders and drew her down on the bed. He swung over on his elbows and felt her breasts flatten against his chest, her thighs and buttocks began to writhe against his tensed legs.
Lee played his lusting prick to its stiffest erection as she ground her navel against his cock and balls. Feeling his throbbing readiness, as his hands cupped the luscious cheeks of her full buttocks, she helped him lunge into her moist, hot cuntlips. He thrust into her cunt with pile-driving intensity as her twat swallowed his every movement. Suddenly, Lee's body threshed in the frantic spasms of her orgasm, triggering Ralph into shooting his load of spurting hot sperm into her cunt in jolting ecstasy that washed over their entwined bodies.
Lee gasped, "That was certainly the right prescription, Doctor. You'll have to give me a refill just as soon as possible."
CHAPTER THREE
Dr. Ralph Ramey gave Lee Farr the cunt-refill she wanted and then some when they got to New York. They registered at a swank hotel in the East Sixties, just off Fifth Avenue. This was the happy hunting grounds of most of Manhatten's psychiatrists-rich screw-ball patients abounded in the "Gold Coast" as the area is known. Ralph hoped he'd soon be getting his share, money was beginning to get low.
The phone rang just then and a hoarse voice questioned, "Dr. Ramey? Dr. Ralph Ramey?"
"Yes."
"There's something very important I've got to talk to you about. Can you come down to the lobby for a few minutes, or shall I come up? It's urgent!" the hoarse voice said.
"I'll be down," Ramey said tonelessly.
The man who approached him in the lobby was as thin as lath. Yet he gave the impression of power. He didn't carry a gun. Ramey knew this because the straight-up-and-down figure would have shown the bulge of a lead pencil in his pocket.
Ramey withheld any cordiality. His tone was cold as he said, "I'm not in the habit of being called into hotel lobbies. People make appointments when they want to see me."
The bean-pole dropped down on a sofa. "Okay, this is your office. I come on business. A man wants to see you."
"Then let him come and make an appointment."
"AD right," the man said. "My name's Joe Toder. I work for the man that wants to see you. And you got a choice. You can come with me or you can get thrown into the can for registering as man and wife with the dame you got off the plane with."
Ramey readjusted swiftly. He sat down beside Joe Toder on the lounge. "You seem to have become interested in me and my affairs. What else do you know about me?"
"I guess we might as well get it over with," Joe Toder sighed. "Your real name is Ralph Scofield. That's the one you were born with in Columbus, Ohio, forty-five years ago. You graduated from high school there and went to a one-horse college in Illinois where you got thrown out for fucking around with a local broad. You worked as an attendant in a hospital in Chicago until you learned the whole medical bit and then forged a diploma and hooked on at a private mental sanitarium in Kansas. You've got a talent for hypnotism like out of this world and you've been using it ever since they threw you out of that nut factory. But you operated like a schmoe, because you aren't really very bright. You kept doing penny ante grifts and headed out after each caper."
"You were Mark Kirby in the last one. A couple of days ago. A broad jumped out a window on account of maybe you got careless."
Joe Toder raised sad, deep-set eyes. "And so here we are. Now do you want to get bagged here and sent back to explain why the broad jumped, or do you want to see my boss?"
"I guess I'd better see your boss, but there's a favor I'd like to ask."
Toder shrugged. "Ask it."
"I have no love of my multiple-titled background. I'd like to be known as Doctor Ralph Ramey."
"That's O.K. by me, Doc."
"Thank you."
"About the broad. You want to shake her?"
"She's an old friend. I owe her the courtesy of explaining my absence."
"You don't owe her the time of day," Joe Toder said wearily, "but if she's good and you don't want to lose track of her, give her a ring and tell her you'll be back sometime."
"I'd like to go up and tell her personally."
"It might take all day. Tell her on the house phone."
Ralph Ramey went to the house phone and got Lee. "I'm leaving for a little while, baby."
"Like hell you are."
Ramey felt he had enough troubles without doing battle with Lee. "I said I was leaving. I'll be back."
"That's what you said three years ago."
Ramey wondered what thread of weakness there was in his otherwise strong character that made him put up with this. "Lee! We're not married, you know."
"What difference would that make to you? Where are you going?"
"I don't know. A man wants to see me on business."
"That business you were running away from? I didn't get a chance to ask you about it."
"It has nothing to do with this."
"When will you be back?"
"I'll call you."
My God! he thought. Did I say that? It looks as though I've really been trapped! "How soon?"
"Damn it, Lee! Will you mind your own business? I've got something to do. I'm going to do it!"
He slammed the phone down, and as he returned to Joe Toder, he marveled at the deep compulsion for Lee that had been latent all these three years. In a matter of hours, her grip on him was firmer than ever....
And so here he was-riding with the taciturn Joe Toder beside him. Joe had pulled his hat down over his eyes and apparently gone to sleep.
"Am I permitted to know the name of the man who wants to see me?"
Joe's jaw moved. "Mike Moratta."
Ramey smiled wryly. "His real name?"
"It's what he goes by."
Ramey turned silent and watched the passing scene and it was Joe Toder who spoke next. "This racket of yours-this hypnotism bit. I understand your specialty is making broads fuck for guys."
Ramey almost responded hotly. Then he caught himself. "I'll explain hypnotism and the results it achieves if you'll give me a little information."
Toder thought that over. He pushed his hat back off his eyes. "Depends on what the information is."
"How did you assemble that file on me?"
"That what?"
"The personal file. How did you get all your information?"
"The boss knows the right guys. Anything he wants, he gets. The boss don't say good morning to anybody knowing where they were born and what jails they been in."
That hardly answered the question, but Ramey answered it himself by conceding that all information is available to someone and all someones are available at a price. Obviously Mike Moratta was a man who had money to pay for what he wanted. That in itself made him interesting.
"Very well, what did you want to know about hypnotism?"
"What's it all about?"
"Hypnotism is the term used in definition of-?"
"Nuts to that," Joe Toder said. "Is it true you can make a broad strip for you?"
"It's possible."
"What about the caper you got thrown out of Topeka for-making two naked broads shit and piss around on the floor ... Did you really do it, or was it some kind of a frame?"
"Such things are possible."
"I didn't ask you that. Did you make these two broads do it?"
The misdirection in that case had been quite simple for a hypnotist of Ramey s talents. He'd merely discovered and played upon a compulsion in the two girls-a need to be degraded. They'd subconsciously thought of themselves as worthless and had self-destruction psychoses.
"Yes," he said.
"There's a little broad I'd like to go for me," Toder reminated, thus proving that abstract looking bean-poles are, after all, human beings.
"Why don't you let her know how you feel?"
"You think I ain't done that?"
"She doesn't respond?"
"Sure-to the damned butler. Last week he fucked her out in the bushes behind the garage and she came back smiling."
"Is a girl of that type worth the effort?"
"I didn't ask for a sermon. I asked could you make her fuck for me?"
"It sounds as though she'd fuck for anybody. You shouldn't have much trouble."
"I can see where you're going to be a big help," Toder growled.
Ramey pried for more information. "Is Mike Moratta looking for a practitioner to condition a girl for humping?"
"How the hell do I know what he's looking for? That ain't my business."
They lapsed into silence and Ramey drifted into self-analysis. This mood was brought about mainly by Joe Toder's reference to the Topeka affair. How, Ramey wondered, had Moratta gotten wind of that incident?
But he was more interested in his own weaknesses and motivations that the sordid escapade highlighted. He had always believed in facing himself squarely and had tried to do so. This was no doubt an admirable trait, but in his case it had amounted merely to admitting that he had dedicated a remarkable talent to the shoddiness of expediency. He had wasted a rare gift by always taking the easy way.
Aware that he had a power over other human beings, he had excused wasting his days and his years by telling himself as soon as he had a substantial bank account, he would settle down and use his gift worthily.
But that time never seemed to come. There was always another quick dollar to be made the easy way. The new man of integrity would always emerge tomorrow, the day that never arrived.
The conditioning of women for fucking had begun on an entirely worthy basis. He sat back and closed his eyes and remembered the actual experience that had shown him the vast possibilites open to him in that direction....
A man named Hank Tremaine came to Ramey he was calling himself Dr. Fuller at the time-while he was in Lansing, Michigan, making a bare living as a lecturer to small female groups who thought hypnotism "too exciting for words."
Tremaine was in trouble. His wife and he weren't hitting it off and their marriage was headed for the rocks. Would Dr. Fuller talk to her if Tremaine sent her in?
Dr. Fuller talked to her on the basis of twenty dollars an hour and felt extremely ethical about it.
Freda Tremaine was a beautiful girl. One look and Dr. Fuller didn't blame Hank for wanting to hold onto her. He also understood how maddening it must be to lie in bed beside that exciting cunt and generate no response in it whatever.
He began the interview by getting a few things straight. "Mrs. Tremaine, are we both clear on why you've come to me?"
She sat on the deep sofa in his hotel room, her oval face troubled, her gorgeous legs crossed, the knees high and gleaming through nylon.
She nodded.
"You are here at your husband's suggestion then not necessarily because of his urging?"
"I want to be a good wife."
"And why do you think you aren't a good wife?"
"I-I can't let Hank put his penis in me. I love him and I want to and it would break my heart if we separated. But I freeze up."
"Taking your husband's pecker doesn't sound like too much of a problem."
"It may be small to you. It's big to me."
"I didn't mean it in that sense. Correcting the situation shouldn't be too difficult."
He really hadn't the least idea how it could be corrected or if such were possible. But instilling confidence was the first rule.
He was rewarded by a look of hope that made Freda Tremaine's face positively radiant. And made him think: what a cunt to be wasted in a hick town!
"As your husband probably told you, I am a specialist of mental therapy. I use hypnotism as a device for opening your mind and getting to the cause of your trouble."
"Hank said it had something to do with suggestion."
"Yes, but one thing is important. The patient must cooperate. No one can go into the necessary trance if he resists."
That seemed to frighten her. She clasped and reclasped her hands, crossed and re-crossed her gorgeous legs. "Is-is it dangerous?"
"Not in the least. Now please think over what I've told you and if you wish to go ahead with treatments, be here at three tomorrow afternoon. Then we'll proceed further...."
He used the first twenty to pay his hotel bill and hoped for a second. There were five visits in all and he could have made more except that he had to leave town rather hurriedly when a private investigator turned up from Detroit looking for a man who flim-flammed a druggist there for advance payment on a shipment of antibiotics that never arrived.
But his last session with the alluring Freda Tremaine was memorable. He'd had a rather difficult time getting her to accept the trance state; not that she didn't want to or that she didn't try. She strove to relax and obeyed Ids simple orders and suggestions but never went into more than the shallowest of trances.
Then, that last time, all the signs became apparent. When she finally reached deep trance, it was the most natural thing in the world for her.
And now he had a problem. What to do with her? He'd achieved the trance but he hadn't solved her problem and he wasn't very clear on how to go about it.
Then the same instincts that made him outstanding as a talent who played it by ear inspired him and he pierced Freda Tremiane's trance with:
"You know who I am, don't you? I am Hank Fuller, your husband."
Her answer was doubtful. "You are-Hank?"
"I am Hank-your husband. I have something to tell you."
"Yes-you are Hank. Hank I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" This prize piece of ass wasted on a goof like that, he thought. But it was merely a mental observation as he realized how deeply the girl longed to satisfy her husband's cock.
The thing to do here for course-what a professional psychiatrist would have done-would have been to probe carefully, over a long period, and discover the girl's block.
But he didn't have time for that. He said, "I always tell you the truth, don't I?"
"You always tell me the truth, Hank."
"All right. Now I'm telling you that I'm going to leave you."
She tightened, became rigid.
"I am going to leave you, Freda."
"Why? Why are you going to leave me?"
The reason was clear in her subconscious and he realized she could not face it. He realized also that he was lumbering around in dangerous territory. But the recklessness that later sent a girl hurtling from the twenty-first floor of a hotel, drove him on.
"I have found another girl, Freda. A girl who knows how to fuck me the way I like!"
"No, Hank! No! I love you! Don't leave me!"
"You don't know how to fuck me!" He spoke clearly and ruthlessly, half-expecting her to come out of her trance in protest.
But she did not. She was in too deep. She was trapped. Probably afraid to come out and face reality.
"I'll fuck you, Hank. I'll do anything you want me to."
"That's not true."
"I'm not lying, I'm not!"
"You aren't able to fuck!"
"I am! I am!"
He was standing about three feet from her and he was amazed when she sat up, her eyes open but transfixed and dropped to her knees in front of him.
"Hank. Let me make love to you. Please!"
"I have a new girl. You are no longer attractive to me. You are cold and unresponsive."
"No. Hank, no!" She got to her feet and looked like a sleep-walker as she stood there. "I am beautiful. You said I was beautiful. You said that!"
It was incredible, he thought. That a woman like this could have much a compulsion for Hank Tremaine. Good lord! The man had an ingrown chin and you could have hoed beets with his front teeth using his neck for a handle.
He put his hand on Freda Tremaine's shoulder. She took the hand in an odd, quick, sleep-walking movement and put it to her bare breast. She accomplished this by pushing his fingers up under her jacket-she wore no blouse-and under her bra until he touched her nipple. It was large and well-formed, but it stayed soft.
"I'm beautiful. I'm more beautiful than your other girl. I am! I am!"
He was frozen in amazement. And. even more astounded when she withdrew his hand and reversed its direction. She drew in her stomach and pushed it down under the waist band of her skirt....
Now her voice fell to a whisper. "It's enough, isn't it Hank? The-regular things-they're enough."
And the true situation dawned on him. How it really was between Hank Tremiane and his wife.
She got to her feet and began to undress. "Anything you want, darling I love you."
She stripped off her clothing piece by piece until she stood naked before him. Then she began running her hands over his erecting cock.
"Like this? This is how it should start?"
She partially stripped him....
"This was the way you tried to show me?"
He felt her warm, searching lips on the head of his stiff prick and for a few moments, he was revolted. Then the excitement of it gripped him ... That rat!
That miserable louse! he said mentally. But there were two of him now. The decent psychiatrist who had contempt for Hank Tremaine, and the man to whom Freda Tremaine was demonstrating her new-found ability to please her husband.
She could not speak now because she was sliding her lips up and down the shaft of his cock.
And his pseudo-knowledge of psychiatry rationalized it for him by telling him that she really wanted to do this. Thus, for a moment, he sold himself on the same bilge he fed his lecture audiences; the cliche; the over-simplification. "She really wanted to give him a blow-job all the time. I'm helping her by letting her suck me off. I'm saving her marriage. I'm earning the lousy twenty bucks her husband is paying me."
She displayed the evil excellence of cock-sucking technique he would expect to find in the most experienced harlot. He began to tremble as she found sensitive nerve-ends ... Unable to control himself, he shot spurt after spurt of creamy, hot scum right down her throat!
He watched her for signs of revulsion but there were none. The desire to please her husband dissolved all else.
Love directed into pathways Of brutal degradation....
It was over. She sank into the couch as he got up from it. She began to cry softly.
"I love you, Hank."
"It's all right, darling. You're more beautiful than the other girl. I've forgotten all about her, now that you've given me such a marvelous blow-job!"
Freda Tremaine's mind was capable of accepting anything he told her as truth. She accepted this. Not with emotion, but as simple fact.
"You have forgotten her. Now we can make love," he said. "Now you know how to suck my cock. Remember that. Now you know to suck my cock. There is no doubt in your mind. You no longer are afraid. You can satisfy me."
"I can satisfy you."
And Dr. Fuller boldly decided to test Ferda's 'regulation style' as he caressed her two gorgeous breasts into nipple-hardening desire. Dr. Fuller stripped to be in tune with his patient, and his body felt real hump-desire as Freda's lips kissed his neck and chest. As he covered her soft body with his sturdy torso, he could feel Freda's cunt-heat. He felt her draw his pulsing prick within the warmth of her writhing cunt and buttocks. As his stiff prick thrust and plunged, she began a circular, wriggling cunt-rhythm under him. Her legs tightened around his middle like a vise suddenly, as she cried aloud, "Hank-oh, Hank! This is so good!"
The good doctor felt spurts of hot semen surge through as he joined his patient in the ecstasy of mutual orgasm.
He dressed and then implanted the suggestion in Freda's mind that she would always be able to fuck Hank beautifully any way at all. When she was dressed he brought her out of the trance state. She was completely unaware of what had transpired, told him she felt much better and paid his fee.
As he pocketed the money, the thought, I should be paying you for a delightful hump, Mrs. Tremaine!
When he got enthusiastic reports from Hank Tremaine about Freda's fucking later, he figured that he had something unique in his ability to influence a woman's love life through his hypnotic ability. Now to make it pay off....
CHAPTER FOUR
The luxurious black Cadillac rolled swiftly along the smooth concrete stretches of the Long Island Expressway. Joe Toder drove the big car expertly, Dr. Ralph Ramey noted. When he asked Joe where they were headed, the man replied, "Moratta's joint in Westhampton."
Mike Moratta's "joint", in exclusive Westhampton on Long Island's South Shore, turned out to be an imposing colonial-style mansion of about thirty rooms with grounds and all the trimmings to match. Dr. Ramey took in the beauty of the landscaped grounds, the modernistic pool, the tennis courts and greenhouses and decided that Mike Moratta knew how to live.
He was a big man, with an unusual and forceful personality that practically bowled Dr. Ramey over as they shook hands. Then Mike told him, rather than asked, "Let's get a drink!"
Obviously, in Moratta's world, all callers wanted a drink, so Ramey did not demur. He remained silent as they skirted the huge house and passed a gardener digging in a flower bed; the man appeared to cringe and certainly dug a little more industriously as Moratta passed.
The first exceptional note was struck as they rounded the side of the house and came into an out-of-place, tropical patio built around a pair of French doors that gave into the mansion. And if this were not too strikingly inappropriate, the girl lying on the grass in the sun certainly was.
She was completely nude. She looked like a page out of a slick men's girlie magazine except that she rolled over and made no effort to hide any part of her complete nakedness.
Her sexy allure and her beauty were undeniable. The rounded, luscious ass was beautifully tanned. Her tits were overdeveloped, but pillowy rather than grotesque.
Her sullen mouth and the defiant manner in which she consciously exposed her cunt to a complete stranger told Ramey that she had a magnificent problem; one any psychiatrist would delight in analyzing.
Moratta showed no embarrassment, only anger. "Are you at it again? Get the hell into the house and put some pants on!"
The girl scrambled to her feet and Moratta swung an open palm. It cracked against her asscheeks, arched her body obscenely forward, and with her hands on her ass by way of instinctive protection, she vanished through the French doors.
"That little cock-sucker can't get rid of her old habits," Moratta growled. "She's got to show her naked twat all over the place to be happy."
Apparently that explained everything as far as he was concerned. He dropped into a big, basket-like chair beside a wrought iron table and whacked a bell that clanged commandingly. He motioned to a chair opposite him as a butler appeared.
Ramey had turned away to sit down. When he turned back, the butler was there, giving the illusion that he'd popped up out of the red flagstone floor.
"A double bourbon," Moratta growled. "What's your pleasure?"
"A bourbon will be fine."
The butler left and Moratta turned his intense, brooding eyes on Ramey.
"Okay, chum," he said. "I got a deal."
"I'm willing to listen."
Moratta's scowl deepened-as though such a non-commital reply was tantamount to treason in the world he dominated. "From what I get, you're pretty good at handling women."
"I don't quite like it put in those terms."
The sandpaper side of Moratta's personality asserted itself. "Let's not pussyfoot. I don't and I don't like other people to. It's a waste of time. Now...."
He didn't finish because at that moment a boy came through the French doors and Moratta changed as though by magic. His eyes softened. The hardness dropped away. Adoration shown in his big, ugly face.
"Phil! What are you doing up? I told you to stay in bed and get some rest."
The boy advanced toward the table, and Ramey's reaction was quick pity. The lad looked to be ten or eleven years old. He was pale and drawn. His hesitation of movement, a slow, indecisive manner of walking, made it appear at first that he was afraid of Moratta. This illusion was dispeled when he climbed into Moratta's lap and put his thin arms around the great bull neck.
Moratta's grin was almost fatuous. "My son," he said. "Phil. Smart as a whip. A little peaked because he doesn't like the sun-stays inside all the time-in his room."
It was obvious to Ramey that the child's abnormal pattern, his fragile health, were psychosomatic. Moratta, an earthy man, would not have tolerated any chronic physical disability in his son. He would have called in the best doctors in the world. He had no doubt done this and had been told there was nothing that medicine could correct.
This train of logic, which Ramey considered to be acceptable, showed a block in Moratta's makeup. He'd no doubt been told where his son's trouble lay-in a mental disturbance. And he had not agreed. This would indicate that he did not believe in psychiatry as a remedy.
If that were true, why had he called a hypnotist? It would be interesting to find out.
"Phil, this is a guy I know. He puts people to sleep. He can make them walk around like zombies. What do you think of that?"
For a wild moment, Ramey wondered if he'd been brought to entertain the boy. He watched the lad's wan sensitive face for a reaction. There was a sudden brightness.
"You're a hypnotist?"
"That's right," Ramey said.
"Can you hypnotize animals?"
"I think not. I've never tried, but I don't believe an animal would respond."
The boy turned his eyes to his father. "He couldn't hypnotize Dee then. She's an animal."
The last word was propelled from the boy's mouth in a spurt of pure hatred.
The grin faded from Moratta's face as the boy got down from his lap and went into the house. Moratta's reaction was hard to discern from his new expression. It was a mixture of regret and hardness, Ramey decided. But there was no hostility toward either his son or Dee-whoever that was.
"The kid doesn't like Dee. They rub each other the wrong way," he said.
"Dee?"
"My secretary. The girl we bumped into naked on the way in. I think the kid's jealous maybe."
There was a weird situation here. Ramey knew that without further observation. But he knew also that it was none of his business. He was sure that his presence there had nothing to do with the child.
Moratta turned back to the business at hand. He knocked off his double bourbon in one gulp and said, "Like I told you don't pussyfoot. I want you to get to a girl and find out something for me. Can you do it?"
"I'm not pussyfooting when I say that I don't know. I couldn't answer intelligently without knowing the girl, the circumstances, the nature of the information wanted."
Moratta put his habitual scowl on his face. "I'll get to that. Right now I'm wondering if I made the wrong move. I could get a gigolo to handle the thing. The girl would be a pushover for the right guy. But I read a piece in a magazine about hypnotism once and it stayed in the back of my mind. Then I heard about you."
"Do you mind if I ask how you heard about me?"
Moratta grinned but it was different. There was cruelty and contempt in this grimace-no fatuousness. It was the reflection of a man with no more compassion in his makeup than that of a hungry tiger.
"You haven't exactly hired a press agent, have you?"
"That was why I asked."
"The hell with you. I've got my methods. I know a lot of people. I heard a lot of things. It's none of your damned business."
"I see."
Ramey accepted the uniformative answer, but it made him uneasy. In a way, it shook his sense of security. If Ramey knew all about him then perhaps his comparative freedom from harrassment and arrest had been more a matter of luck than brains.
"If you handle this job right," Moratta announced, "There's ten grand in it for you."
Up to that point, Ramey had been negative on whatever Moratta's proposition was. But ten thousand dollars! It would be his biggest individual score.
And there was something mystic here. Sight of the boy, Phil, had stirred something in Ramey, the old demand to be more than an opportunist with a talent; the urge to justify himself.
"How much time will be involved in this project?"
"How do I know? It can't take too long, though. I need the dope I'm commissioning you to get."
"Suppose you give me the details."
Moratta settled back and set his sausage-like fingers into a steeple.
"There's a guy I know. He's got something I want. A building on Fulton St. in Manhattan. The guy's name is Steve Lyman and he doesn't want to give up the building because he knows the same thing I do-and that a syndicate likes the location for a factory and if they decide to go ahead, he's got a valuable lump of real estate-or he might have sometime next year. The gamble's worth holding the place for, so he won't let me have it at a reasonable price."
Moratta leaned forward, his whole, ruthless being thrown into this particular manipulations. "He's also got a nympho wife."
"And what bearing does that have on the situation?"
"Hold your horses 'til I tell you," Moratta growled. "Lyman is in trouble. He's got a big loan pending and just lately, he talked the outfit into a year's extension. This gave him a breather. My trouble is: I can't find out who's holding his tab."
This point intrigued Ramey. Here was a man who could find out all about an obscure hypnotist-right down to the number of names he had used during his life time. But he couldn't find out who was carrying a loan for one of his competitors. He was sure this could have been explained logically. Perhaps Steve Lyman had been more astute in covering his tracks.
This was only a passing thought, however. Ramey said, "I presume Lyman's wife has the required information."
"That's right. It's up to you to get it out of her."
"Do you think you can persuade her to come to me? It would have to be done on a professional basis."
"It can be done right here-this weekend." Then Moratta really floored Ramey by saying. "Lyman is my best friend. He's coming out this weekend, as my guest."
"Are you sure hell bring his wife?"
"Sure Nina'll come because her best friend's the broad I'm fucking now. Dee Redding. You saw her when you came in. She's a nice kid. Maybe I'll marry her after I break her habit of going around with her twat naked."
"Then my job will be to get to Lyman's wife during the two days they're here?"
"Four days. They come Thursday night and'll probably leave Monday night. If you haven't connected, I can talk them into another couple of days."
"If Nina Lyman is a nymphomaniac as you say, won't her husband be keeping a pretty close eye on her?"
Moratta shrugged. "Where would his wife's pussy be safer than in the home of his best friend?"
Perhaps Ramey was past shock. At any rate, Moratta's philosophies were no longer producing the sense of incredibility that enveloped him when he saw the naked girl sprawled in the patio and the pathetic boy whose hatred for his father's way of life had warped him physically.
After seeing these things-evidences of a careless brutality-Moratta's plan of having his best friend's wife fucked while under his own roof seemed quite in keeping.
"If the opportunity is provided," Ramey said, "I might be able to do what you ask. But I must warn you, hypnotism is no exact science. Nothing is sure, every person is different. Individual makeup is the key to success or failure. I have no way of knowing how Nina Lyman would react to hypnotism."
Moratta eyed Ramey with calculation. "You won't have any trouble. You've got the looks, the build. Ten minutes alone with Nina Lyman and you'll be able to hang her pants on the wall for a souvenir."
Ramey instinctively resented that. He was far from a moralist but he did not like his talent referred to with such callous disdain.
"My own personal appearance has nothing to do with it," he said.
Moratta grinned the wolfish grin Ramey would come to know. "That's what you think. Like I said, a few minutes with you and she'll go into a trance or into bed-you pick it."
"Thank you," Ramey said without enthusiasm.
"Okay. The deal is set."
"I'll do my best."
Moratta got up without further word and hurried away leaving Ramey to stare pensively at the doorway-Until a girl filled it. The same girl he'd seen sprawled naked on the flagstone when he arrived.
She was dressed now in a wispy bra and the narrowest bikini imaginable. She had one of the most beautiful bodies Ramey had ever seen. The fact that it did not stir him greatly did not detract from its big breasted, long-legged allure. He was basically a one-woman man in his amorous inclinations, and Lee happened to be that woman.
The girl came forward, her movements so hump-conscious as to be almost ludicrous. Her sullen eyes were insolent as she asked, "What kind of a job has he got -lined up for you?"
"You're referring to Mr. Moratta?" Ramey asked politely.
"Who else?"
"We were discussing some business." He made that wary admission and waited.
"If you want an apology for finding me naked when you came in, you've got it."
"You have no reason to apologize to me."
"I thought you might be some kind of a prude."
She sneered automatically. "All men are when they see a naked woman."
"Do you resent it?"
"Any girl resents men like that."
"Then why do you insist on being the naked woman involved? Why don't you get dressed?"
She didn't flare. She merely remained as she appeared to take a greater interest in Ramey. "You lay it on the line, don't you?"
"I'm usually pretty frank."
"My name is Dee," she said. She paraded in front of him and came to a halt with her back to the high hedge that bounded the patio. She stood with her hands on her hips, her legs slightly spread, as though saying, Well, there I am-all of me. How do you like me?
"I'm happy to know you," Ramey said.
"I'll bet you are."
Ramey wondered what he was supposed to do. Moratta might have been a generous host, but he certainly wasn't a thoughtful one. He'd left Ramey sitting alone without any idea of where his room was. Perhaps, Ramey thought drily, this was Moratta's way of making him remember he wasn't really a guest.
"What do you think of Moratta?" the girl asked.
Ramey had classified her easily. A self-destructionist. Everything he had seen fit that pattern. She had a magnified sense of her own worthlessness as demonstrated by exposing herself naked. She was sullen and hostile by nature. She lived basically and drew her power from hatred of everything and everybody. And now she dared fate be attempting to show lack of fear for a man who was obviously to be feared.
Ramey suspected that Moratta beat her on occasion and that she secretly welcomed the punishment.
"Moratta?" he said. "I was quite impressed."
"Everybody is."
"He's forceful and decisive."
"You're not kidding." Dee Redding's hand went unconsciously to her ass. This told Ramey a great deal. "He's a rat on wheels," she said.
Normally, Ramey would hare steered away from such a conversation, but he was interested in the girl's motives and reactions, so he kept tossing the ball back.
"Would you like me to relay that to him?"
"I wouldn't put it past you. All men are alike. I'll bet you'd like to see me with my pants beat off."
"No, I wouldn't like that at all. Would you?"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Nothing specific. I was just curious."
She frowned doubtfully. "I don't get you. You're not the kind he usually brings around."
"What kind does he usually bring around?"
"The ordinary kind would have me down trying to fuck me by now."
"Does Moratta permit his guests to attack you?"
"You'd be surprised what he permits."
"Then why do you put yourself in a position to be attacked?"
"Will you quit throwing the cuties at me? Maybe it's a new kind of approach. Huh?"
"Perhaps it is."
"I knew it! All men are alike."
Before Ramey had a chance to reply, the patio became a scene of sudden, violent action. Dee Redding was the center of that action.
First, an off, surprised look dawned on her face. Her eyes opened wide. She stood frozen for a moment as Ramey heard a rustling in the bushes behind her.
Then she flew straight up into the air as her hands went around and she clawed desperately at her rear. Her legs sprawled so she was revealed again as totally naked except for the thread-like line of the bikini that ran across her legs.
She continued to claw wildly behind her and Ramey got a weird impression of a girl pushed up into space, impaled expertly upon an invisible perpendicular. Her eyes that had previously merely opened, now bulged and came close to crossing. Her mouth opened and her tongue came out. An animal protest against pain, a wordless squall, spewed from her throat: "Gaaaaaa!!"
Then, words. "Ouch! Cut it out!"
She hit the ground again, her legs churning. They carried her automatically toward the French doors. She moved at a ridiculous hopping gait because she continued to keep her legs far apart in deference to the sudden abuse she'd taken as though she did not want the cheeks of her ass to touch each other again until she could assess the damage that had been done to her.
Ramey, totally amazed by the unexpected demonstration, turned his gaze back to the spot Dee Redding had left. He saw the wan, pinched face of Phil. There was a look of savage satisfaction on it now.
He came through the hedge like a conqueror entering a captured city. He looked at the sharp-pointed stick he carried and threw it to the ground.
"I guess I showed her!"
Ramey was, for once in his life, at a loss for words. "I guess you did," he said lamely.
"Shell remember that goosing up her asshole for a long time."
"I wouldn't be surprised. Tell, me, Phil, why do you hate her so much?"
"She's a bitch! That's why."
He came forward and sat down in the chair opposite Ramey. "What your name?"
"Ralph Ramey."
"How come you're a hypnotist?"
"It's my business. My profession."
"Is there money in going around hypnotizing people?"
"Yes, but mainly I'm interested in helping people."
"How does it help a person to hypnotize them?"
"It allows me to get into their subconscious minds and see what's troubling them. He paused only for a moment. "What's troubling you, Phil?"
"Nothing! I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me."
"Do you love your father?"
"Sure! He's the greatest."
"But you don't know why you hate Dee?"
"She's always nosing around him. When she gets to be too much of a pest, he beats the hell out of her."
"So you think you ought to beat her too?"
"I want her to go back where she came from."
"Where did she come from?"
"The street. She's a streetwalker." His eyes glowed. "Once I got her good. I was upstairs in the garage and she came through and I dropped a pail full of water over her head. She kicked around plenty."
Ramey was appalled. Could Moratta be as stupid as he appeared to be concerning a child he professed to love? Ramey now had a very good idea of what kind of place Moratta ran. A sensualist and a materialist, he conducted himself accordingly and did not have the preception to see that the environment was turning his son into a real sick boy.
Ramey was beginning to feel very sorry for his lost, little boy and the unhappy, beautiful Dee. Dee-there was a dish he'd like to give a little free therapy to, Ramey thought. From her spun gold hair, her tip-tilted breasts enticingly nippled, her slender waist that flared into generously curved hips and asscheeks, right down to her pink-painted toenails, this gal had the sexiest body he'd ever seen. He wondered what it would be like to kiss the ruby cone of her breasts, to possess that sensuous body, to have that gorgeous cunt writhing around his prick in love's frantic ecstasy....He knew it wouldn't take long for him to straighten Dee out because it was a project he could put himself into wholeheartedly, and then some.
Ramey was willing to bet anything that Moratta had probably never once had normal screwing with Dee. Used her as a showpiece, a beautiful scapegoat for his rages, but had never really fucked her. What a waste, he was thinking as he heard Moratta yelling for him.
"Hey, Ramey, come out here and meet Mr. and Mrs. Lyman."
CHAPTER FIVE
Five-foot-five of power-packed sex, an attractive face and ultra-feminine personality described Nina Lyman. She certainly was a magnetic, charming female, Ramey concluded within sixty seconds of meeting her. Money for getting information out of her or fucking with her was going to be an extra-added attraction. If Mike Moratta only knew it, Ramey would have been glad to donate his services for free as far as this babe was concerned. Steve Lyman, the husband, didn't impress him as much. But then, Ramey was concentrating his attention on the beauteous Mrs. Lyman. Definitely a very sensual cunt who merited his-close personal study.
"Doctor Ramey! Are you psychiatrist?"
"I think the term psychologist is more descriptive."
"That's wonderful! I've always wanted to spend a weekend with a psychologist. And I've got a special reason. My headshrinker is a screaming bore. He specializes in using words nobody can understand. I want you to tell me what he means."
"That would be unethical."
This annoyed her. "Ethics! Methics! They must make trouble among friends."
While Ramey shook Steve Lyman's soft, unpleasant hand, Nina Lyman turned to Moratta. "I keep envying you, Mike-for having this place. I keep telling Steve: 'Why don't you get up off your fat ass and go and get a country place like Mike's?' That's what I keep telling him. But does it do any good?"
There was contempt in Nina's voice but it didn't seem to bother her husband a bit. He revealed an interest of his own by looking Ramey over and saying, "I like the cut of that suit. Is it custom-tailored?"
"No. As a matter-of-fact, I bought it right off the rack in a store in Texas."
"Then I guess you're just built to look good in anything," he said.
Ramey didn't know whether to consider that a compliment or not. It didn't really matter, because Moratta cut in to say, "You and Nina can have this place any time you want it, Steve. How about arranging for a trade? That Manhattan property of yours for this joint and a nice hunk of cash?"
Steve shook his head. "She's the one that's nuts about it. Not me. I like places with traffic and lots of noise."
"Peasant," his wife snorted. Then to Moratta: "Where's Dee?"
"Up getting some clothes on, I guess."
She laughed. "You have the damndest time with that girl. She's got a nudist complex."
"Do you want to go to your room?" Moratta asked, "Or could you use a snort out on the patio?"
"When do we eat?" Lyman said.
"Eight o'clock, but I'll get you a sandwich if you want it."
Lyman considered this and vetoed the idea. "No. That'd spoil my appetite for dinner." He yawned. "I think I'll take a nap in case we want to shoot craps or something tonight. I won't get drowsy then."
"Suit yourself," Moratta said. "You want to go for a swim, Nina?"
"Water? Ugh! I'll strip down and find a sunny spot and wrestle with a martini or two."
Ramey, had, found habit, classified the two couples. Moratta and Lyman were uneducated men who had ground and hammered their way up to riches. Extroverts who were essentially proud of their untutored abilities and planned to keep them that way. They had contempt for what others would have considered good breeding and good manners. To them, that was all sham and pretense. They were "regular guys" and they weren't going to let you forget it.
Joe Toder appeared, carrying luggage. It seemed that he functioned as head butler along with whatever other duties he had because he motioned with his head and announced. "You folks go in the end room straight down the hall upstairs. I'll take your bags up."
Then he proved more thoughtful than his boss because he looked at Ramey and said, "I put you in the second room on the left. You'll find everything you need up there."
"Thank you," Ramey said. He remembered Toder's yen for a "little broad" he mentioned and wished he could do something to help.
There was hesitant, shuffling footsteps and Phil appeared. He stopped and then came forward with that peculiar walk that gave the impression he was ready to run at any instant.
"Darling!" Nina Lyman cried. "I haven't seen you in ages!"
The boy stopped. Nina Lyman moved toward him.
"Ke-ke-keep yo-your hand off of-of me!" he said.
"The poor, poor child," she said. "Why don't you do something about that stuttering, Mike?"
It was the first time Ramey had heard the impediment and it surprised him. But he conceded that there was no reason for the surprise. It could be a logical, part of the boy's sorry condition. It was odd though, that it took over only when Lyman and his wife arrived. It seemed to be a reaction to outsiders.
He'd spoken quite naturally to Ramey, however.
"I want a drink," Moratta announced. "Anybody wants me, I'll be at the swimming pool."
He strode off by himself. Joe Toder had already gone upstairs and Lyman and his wife followed after Nina gave Ramey a brilliant smile and said. "I've got a lot of questions to ask you later."
That left Ramey alone with Phil. He smiled at the boy. "How would you like to show me to my room?"
"Where is it?"
"Toder said it was the second one on the left upstairs."
"I'll show you."
He put his hand into Ramey's and they mounted the steps together.
It was a luxurious room, done in late colonial and tastefully furnished. That meant Moratta had had nothing to do with it personally. It had been furnished when he bought the place or he'd had a good decorator.
"Mind if I wash and shave, Phil? I feel grubby after the drive out here."
"No. I don't mind." He hesitated. "Do you want me to go away?"
As he took off his shirt, he assessed the fact that Phil spoke easily and naturally when they were alone together.
"Where do you go to school, Philly?"
"I've got a private tutor. He comes mornings and then goes home again."
"Do you like it that way?"
"How?"
"Having a private tutor. Would you rather go to school with other kids?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. I like it this way well enough."
"Have you got anybody to play with?"
"One of the gardeners had a boy about my age and we played together. But Dad fired the gardener for sleeping back in the bushes."
"Did you enjoy playing with him?"
"Oh, it was all right. But he was so stupid. He liked things with running and shooting in them. Shooting with your fingers. That was silly. Most of the time I'd rather read."
"Why doesn't your Dad send you to a regular school?"
"My health isn't too good."
"Would you like to be healthy and full of energy and vitality, Phil?"
"Sure-I guess so."
There was a question Ramey wanted to ask. He decided to risk it. "Where is your mother, Phil?"
The reaction was sudden and violent. He stiffened as though Ramey had slapped him. His lips trembled and his fists doubled at his sides.
Ramey reacted from instinct. He turned to the window and pointed. "Say! What kind of a bird is that?"
Phil's attention was drawn in that direction. His fists relaxed.
"It's a blue-bird."
"It's certainly full of life. You know when I was a boy I had a pet crow."
"Did it bite?"
"No, not as I remember."
"Birds like to peck your eyes out."
"You must have read that in a book."
"What's wrong with books?" Phil asked.
"Nothing-nothing." Ramey had been toying with an idea. He surrendered to it. "I'm going to shave, Phil. Why don't you relax there on the bed. You can tell me about some of the books you've read."
He turned to the water in the wash basin. He began whistling. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Phil climb onto the bed, lie down on his back and stare moodily at the ceiling with his hands hooked behind his head. "What's your favorite book, Phil?"
"The Innocents."
Heavy going for a kid, Ramey thought. Good grief! "One of the best," he said. "Did you ever read Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer?"
"That drivel? How childish can you get?"
Ramey approached the bed with a razor held negligently in his fingers. "It's all a matter of taste, of course. Do you like movies?
"I like foreign films. Hollywood stuff is too commercial."
The end of the razor was chrome-plated and shiny. Ramey began spinning it in his fingers. "I've always thought foreign films have a very relaxed mood about them-the ones I've seen. Did you ever get the impression that Europeans have a calmer, more relaxed outlook on life?"
Phil tried to evaluate that. His eyes centered on the spinning point of light.
"I saw a foreign film last month," Ramey said. "It was about a boy who wanted to think over his problems and he went out on a pier in a quiet lake. The camera work was very good. You saw the boy looking out on the calm, quiet water and up into the restful blue sky. There was a bird, I remember. The bird was circling on lazy wings up in the quiet sky. I don't know how they got it to circle that way, but the boy's eyes followed it around and around. In a lazy quiet circle-"
Ramey began moving the razor. Its shiny end was now both spinning and circling. Phil's eyes followed it.
"The quiet sea," Ramey intoned. 'The lazy sky. The circling bird. The boy lay there, relaxed, quiet."
Phil's eyes closed. His hands lost their stiffness. Then tension went out of his face.
"You are calm and quiet and relaxed, Phil. You felt so wonderful. All your problems are gone. Your problems are not important."
He stopped and bent over Phil and studied his face. He was in a deep, peaceful trance. There were no signs of agitation or subconscious fear.
"Can you hear me, Phil? If you can hear me, move the index finger on your left hand. If you can hear me, Phil, move-"
The finger moved.
Ramey's voice took on more authority although it remained quiet and soothing.
"Hatred is a poison, Phil. Hatred poisons you. It makes you sick-"
Phil's hands tightened suddenly into fists. His face became tense. His lips moved. He began to speak.
"He hit him. He hit him and hit him and he fell down-all bloody-all covered with blood."
The sparse, underweight, body writhed.
"The lazy, blue sea, Phil. Remember where you are. Come back to the pier. Relax, Phil. You will relax and be calm. Very calm. Very quiet."
Slowly, the fists turned back into hands. The tight facial muscles loosened.
"Calm, Phil. Quiet, Relaxed."
Ramey straightened and took a deep breath. Phil had gone too far into trance. He'd gone back to a terrifying experience. Perhaps the key situation that was affecting his life.
Ramey said, "you will count to five hundred, Phil. To five hundred-slowly, quietly. When you reach five hundred you will awaken and you will feel rested and refreshed. Rested. Refreshed. You will feel wonderful. Start counting. One-two-three-"
Ramey fell silent as soon as he knew the boy was following his order. Phil was now in a comparatively shallow trance-up away from the deep level where the compulsive memories writhed and chewed at his subconscious.
His face thoughtful, Ramey went back to his shaving. He was a little ashamed of what he'd done; but without reason. He hadn't hurt the boy. In fact he'd done him a little good. Not much, but a little.
In the habit of rigidly examining his own motives, however unworthy they turned out to be, he conceded, here, that a lack of confidence in himself had caused him to hypnotize Phil. The hotel incident with the girl suicide still worried him. He'd lost control, there. He'd attributed that loss of control to carelessness. But he had to be sure.
And now he was.
Phil had exhibited the same tendencies as the girl in the hotel room and Ramey had noted them and handled the situation skillfully.
He was satisfied. He had not lost his touch.
He went on with his shaving and his mind went back to Phil's painful experience. What had the boy remembered? What terrible thing had he relived?
He hit him. He hit him and hit him and he fell down-all bloody The boy had seen something he shouldn't have seen. A fight? A murder?
This set Ramey to wondering about Mike Moratta. He had seen enough to know this was no ordinary household. Moratta was no ordinary man. He was cold and ruthless and cruel.
Moratta's love for his son did not negate this picture in any way. Rather, it strengthened it. Love could be a component in any personality. Ramey had learned that a long time ago. But also, that it didn't necessarily ennoble or enlighten. It magnified, intensified. Love in a negative personality could be a terrifying force.
There had been at least two very painful experiences in Phil's life and both of them reflected on the background of his father. One had to do with Phil's mother. The second involved some scene of violence he'd witnessed.
A thought struck Ramey. Perhaps he was wrong. Maybe the traumas were two aspects of the same psychological problem.
Then he shrugged it off. What difference did it make? He wasn't really interested. He was there to do a job and get paid for it.
Ramey finished shaving. He was toweling his face when Phil stirred and sat up. The boy looked around with a dazed expression. Then he smiled and stretched like a skinny, underfed cat.
"Golly! I feel great," he said.
"You had a little nap. Maybe you didn't sleep well last night."
"I'm going out and water the geranium," he said and bounced off the bed and ran toward the door.
Ramey reached for his shirt. Of course, hypnotism as a therapy did have its shortcomings. But the fact remained, it was not all negative.
Hypnosis or not, that was the first time he'd seen Phil act like a normal boy....
Ramey went downstairs and found himself alone. There was no one at the pool; no one in the patio. Except for a couple of shadow-like servants flitting by, he could have been the only occupant of a deserted mansion.
He searched until he found a telephone and dialed Manhattan. A few moments later, Lee's voice came into his ear.
"Surprise!" he said. "An old friend. How's the world treating you?"
"You dog. Where are you?"
"I'm being royally entertained. Out in the country."
"I could find out if I wanted to."
"Is that so?"
"I followed you downstairs, you lecher. I saw the license plate of that car you got into."
"You mean you'd trace me through the license bureau?"
"I wouldn't have to. The letter symbol on the plate. It was a rented car. I could find out who rented it."
"I guess you could at that."
"Are you fucking with a blonde or a brunette?"
"Both. I'm in line to make a chunk of money."
"Who do they want you to kill?"
"The job is completely legitimate."
"Oh, sure!"
"Your suspicion cuts me to the quick."
"Uh-huh. I can hear sobbing. When will you be back?"
"I'm not quite sure, but when I do make it, how would you like a trip to Puerto Rico or somewhere?"
"You mean you'll be on the run?"
"That's what I like," Ramey said, "the confidence and trust of my little helpmate."
"I trust you implicitly, darling. While I'm waiting to go to Puerto Rico, where will you be? Heading for Paris?"
"That might be a good way for each of us to enjoy out trip," Ramey joked. "I'll be calling you as soon as my plans finalize. Just stand pat."
"As long as your plans include me in, okay."
"Don't worry, III call you soon," Ramey reassured Lee and hung up.
He didn't think it possible after such a reunion that he would feel lonely for Lee, but he did. Perhaps he was more deeply enmeshed with her emotionally then he cared to admit. But he forced himself as usual toward a cool objective appraisal of the situation. The whole atmosphere on this Moratta job was so strained and queer that anyone or anything seemed preferable to being a guest in Mike's mansion. The sooner this job was over, the happier he'd be.
CHAPTER SIX
Ramey wandered through the grounds of the mansion. He didn't see a soul around, not even near the swimming pool and idly wondered where everyone had gone. The gardens were beautifully trimmed and kept. Huge trees -lined secluded, flower-decked walks. The open doors of the greenhouse wafted the tropical scents of rare blooms over the area. There was even a very lovely little Japanese rock garden behind the greenhouse with its own little pond and Japanese good luck post. Moratta must have spent a fabulous amount of money on the grounds alone.
He returned to his room and lay down to plan his strategy on the problems confronting him. He wondered if he could do anything to really help little Phil Moratta. His one experi mental hypnotic session with the boy had shown a deep-rooted problem that was keeping him from normal development. The doctor in Ramey's make-up wondered if he should talk to Moratta about really letting him go further in treating the boy. Moratta was evidently very attached to the boy, but might still resent any suggestion that there was something wrong with Phil. And he might get violent at being told what he, himself, was the cause of Phil's warped mentality.
For the time being, he decided it would be better to concentrate on the job Mike had brought him out here to do: get information from Nina Lyman. The voluptuous, blonde wife of Steve Lyman apparently had a strong will of her own. He knew she was interested in him as a man as soon as they met, and the psychologist bit had whetted her appetite. He had no doubts about his ability to get her into the trance state under one pretext or another. Still, he might encounter mental blocks when he wanted her to spill vital information. There was a simple key to success in Nina's case. He had to get her going sexually under hypnosis and he was sure he'd get what he wanted. Both ways, he thought as he pictured her enticing tits, the generous curves of her hips and ass that oozed sex. Yes, it definitely would be a plasure to apply his special techniques to Nina Lyman....
He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep with this thought in mind and perhaps it had something to do with the dream he had.
He was on a plain, empty and void. A figure approached. He waited and saw a woman in filmy garments. As she approached, she began disrobing until, when she reached him, she was naked.
"I'm beautiful," she announced.
The woman was Lee, yet she did not look like Lee. She was tall and gorgeously proportioned. "I want a son," she said and she went to her knees and then down flat on the ground.
He was unable to communicate with her, but his thought was that he was impotent and could not give her a son.
"I'm waiting," she said.
She watched him. Her eyes questioned and she turned aside.
He kept telling himself that this was only a dream but he was unable to convince himself of this. The woman got up on her hands and knees and came close and wriggled her ass suggestively. This angered him and he was able to speak.
"You should be ashamed of yourself."
"Why? That's for children and for pleasure. We can have both."
"I will not have a son by a tramp."
"I will pay you ten thousand dollars for a son."
The woman wriggled her cunt and her tongue lolled out as she panted.
"You're shameless-shameless!" he shouted soundlessly.
"I'm in love! I'm in love! Pity me!"
A new figure approached, warily from behind the woman. He could not tell anything about the figure except that it was human and malevolent. There was a stick clutched in its hand and its eyes were on the woman's torso.
Ramey cried out, "Look out! Look out! There will be pain. You will suffer evil."
The woman looked around and smiled. She was not afraid. "It will be better than nothing."
"You're insane!"
Then there was a noise; a grating sound that turned to a snarl. Ramey came erect on the bed and it seemed he was still in a dream.
But he swiftly realized he had awakened suddenly.
He had slept quite a while because it was now late evening; dusk. But there was still enough light to see well as he got off the bed and turned to the window.
Two men were fighting down below.
There was a section of lawn at that point, an ideal site for what was transpiring.
Ramey watched, spellbound. The men were big and rugged and seemed about evenly matched. It was a savage, uncompromising battle, fought silently, no quarter asked or given.
But so grotesque was the whole situation, that Ramey could not convince himself that he had awakened. This could only be a disjointed extension of his dream. Two men fighting at a civilized country gathering of this sort was bizarre enough, but there were added factors.
One of the men, a hairy giant with fists like hams, wore bathing trunks.
The other had on only a T-shirt.
Incredible was hardly the word. Especially when no one made any effort to break up the fight.
There was a half dozen spectators, two of them, women. The remaining four, males, were all wearing swimming trunks. They were watching the battle as disinterested spectators rather than friends with any inclination to stop it.
As Ramey stared, the hairy man knocked the naked one down. Perhaps it was the first knockdown of the fight because the hairy man rushed forward with the intention of kicking his prone opponent. But he realized he was barefoot.
The fallen man, groggy from the blow, came to his hands and knees and the hairy one raised his fists and delivered a rabbit punch. It was like an anvil coming down on his target, the kneeling man's thick, bull neck.
The blow sprawled the man again, his arms and legs splaying out as his face drove into the sod. But the blow did not incapacitate him.
He roared like a wounded lion and rolled over on his back. The aggressor had stepped back and now he tried another vicious fighting trick. He took a long step and jumped, intent on landing with his whole weight on the prone man's unprotected middle.
But the latter's head was clear enough to telegraph his body and he rolled away.
One of the male spectators laughed. "You're too slow, Tino!"
The jibe, aimed at the hairy giant, brought answering laughs from the other watching men. The one called Tino grunted from the impact of his weight hitting the sod.
But he turned nimbly away in time to avoid the clutching hand that readied for his ankle.
The man wearing nothing but the T-shirt came to his feet. Tino backed away and they measured each other.
The two women stood close together near the French doors that gave into the house. They were both magnificent specimens of superb womanhood. One, a ravishing brunette, wore the skimpiest of bikinis. She could as well have been naked for all the protection the string-like garments gave. Her tits were truly magnificent. Her legs and ass were worthy of any night club line in the country.
And she was angry. Her fists were doubled and her lips were drawn back off her teeth as she glared at the fighters. "Kill him, Tino!" She snarled.
The other girl was of slighter build. Even at a glance, Ramey was impressed by both the beauty of her face and also the look of fear and apprehension on it.
The girl may have had clothes on but probably not, because she clutched a huge turkish towel around her body. She watched the progress of the fight with a frightened intensity and when Tino smashed a blow squarely into the nude man's mouth, she winced as though she had taken the impact of it herself.
"Kill the rotten louse!" the other girl demanded.
Ramey, held motionless by this incredible scene, watched as the naked man staggered backward and sprawled again on the grass in a sprawled position.
Mike Moratta arrived on the scene. He came striding through the French doors. But if Ramey expected an end to the fight, he was disappointed.
Moratta stopped just outside the doors and scowled at the contestants. He jerked his head in the direction of the other watchers. One of the men crossed over to stand beside him and whisper into his ear, evidently briefing him on the reason for the battle.
The explanation made, Moratta folded his arms and watched the fight with added hostility. The naked gladiator had scrambled to his feet. He was knocked down again and Moratta's scowl changed to a smile. It was obvious that he wanted the man beaten.
The hairy man, though no bigger than the one clad only in T-shirt, seemed to be winning. The naked man went down again. He came up slower this time, shaking his head groggily. Again he was on his hands and knees.
The one known as Tino moved up behind him as he delayed arising. Tino lifted his foot, planted it on the point of the other's ass and shoved viciously. The naked one essayed a swan dive and went on his face.
The first time, Tino changed his expression. He grinned. His fallen adversary seemed dazed-too much so to do anything but come up again, into the fatal position. Again Tino booted him forward.
But this time he was undercautious. The naked man, after the second grunting swan dive, rolled over and caught Tino by the ankle and brought him down.
It now became a butting, gouging, wrestling match. Tino squalled out a bellow of agony as the other's knee came up hard against his balls.
"Watch it, Tino," the brunette cried. "Hell cripple you. He's a dirty fighter!"
Tino rolled his foe over with an armlock and dropped his weight of his body on the exposed legs and middle and chest. He was holding his opponent's wrists again the ground and had him comparatively helpless.
The naked man began to buck and twist in order to work loose. He arched his spine in a steady rhythm, trying to throw Tino off.
A laugh came from the spectator group. One of the men called out, "Give it to him good, Tino. He's asking for it."
At that moment, the man underneath achieved his purpose. He threw Tino off. Then he staggered to his feet, but only to take a staggering punch full on the jaw.
He back-pedalled and went down and this time he stayed-flat on the grass, his chest heaving.
Tino waited. Almost exhausted himself, he did not move in on his helpless foe. He stood ready for a few moments, then turned and walked to the French doors. He stopped and turned and looked at the girl who was wrapped in the towel.
His face was cold and commanding. As he waited, the girl cringed. "No, Tino. Please-no!"
He said nothing. He waited. Finally the girl's shoulders drooped and she moved toward him.
The brunette now turned her anger on the girl who cringed in the towel. As the latter stopped and again whimpered, "Please Tino. I-I can't take it," the brunette sneered. "Go in and get your medicine, sweetie. You got it coming too."
Tino took the frightened girl by the arm and they disappeared into the house.
Now Ramey was treated to a new surprise; the brunette went to the fallen man-the one she'd wanted beaten-and knelt beside him. She used his T-shirt to wipe blood from his face. Then she helped him to his feet and they too entered the house.
The excitement was over, Ramey went back and sat down on the edge of the bed. The strange feeling of unreality persisted.
What manner of place had he gotten into? What manner of people had he come into contact with? Obviously, those he'd seen below his window were guests who'd arrived while he'd been asleep. That didn't answer anything, though.
The key lay in Mike Moratta. He was the host. He controlled the situation. And he'd stood by and let two men fight viciously in his back yard.
There was a knock on Ramey's door. He called out "Come in," and the door opened and Joe Toder entered.
Toder seemed weary and somewhat disgusted. "I figured you'd be awake," he said.
Ramey smiled ruefully. "That racket brought me to in a hurry. What was it all about?"
Joe Toder dropped his lank frame into a chair and lit a cigarette. 'The bosses' weekend company. They're running true to form. If it isn't an agrument over a crap game it's a fight over somebody's broad."
"That one seemed to be over a woman."
"The guy that got beat up was Bud Fallon. Tino Cavanne caught him in bed fucking with his broadless than an hour after they got here, too."
A scream ripped the silence. The scream of a woman from some other part of the house. There was a plea faintly heard. 'Tino! No! For God's sake-no!
"The broad's getting it right now," Joe Toder said.
"What's he doing to her?" Ramey said. He didn't try to hide his alarm.
Joe shrugged. "He won't mark her any place it shows. Not if she keeps her pants on."
Another shriek.
"She's taking it the hard way," Joe said casually. He forgot the girl and her troubles. "Dinner'll be ready in an hour. I looked in on you and you were really in the sack so I let you sleep." He snubbed out his cigarette. "I didn't think there was anybody you'd be in a sweat to meet."
"I don't understand any of this," Ramey said.
"Any of what?"
Joe was openly inviting Ramey's confidence so Ramey spoke directly. 'That fight for one thing. It was ridiculous. Thinks like that just don't happen in a normal-"
"Who said this place was normal?"
"I can't understand Moratta permitting such a thing. He has a son. An impressionable boy. Moratta must be out of his mind."
"I wouldn't go so far as to say that. But a big change came over him about three years ago."
"What happened?"
"I don't know. He had some trouble with his wife. He was really nuts about her." Joe Toder made a contemptuous gesture. "She wasn't like these cunt's that hang around here now. Moratta and his wife used to know a higher class crowd. But they all drifted away."
"I was talking to the boy. What happened to his mother had a traumatic effect on him."
"What's that?"
"Something shocked him."
"I've only been working for Mike a year and a half. I knew him before that, though. And he was a great guy."
"Now he seems to have surrounded himself with bums and tramps. I never imagined such people existed."
"Are you kidding? You can find all kinds. You ought to know that."
Ramey was surprised and gratified at the way Joe Toder had slipped easily and naturally into his confidence. It bolstered Ramey's ego and made him feel more sure of himself.
"You never met Moratta's wife?"
"Oh, sure. A couple of times. She was a sharp little number."
"Did he divorce her?"
"I don't know. I never asked him."
"Do you think the boy knows?"
"Maybe-maybe not." Joe Toder leaned forward and put his elbows on hos bony knees. "Look pal. I wouldn't nose too deep into Moratta's business. He's tough and he's hard and he's dangerous."
"I'm sure of that. I'm only curious because he's such an amazing person."
Joe hadn't asked Ramey what Moratta wanted of him, and he didn't know.
Ramey said. "Did the boy ever have a pet? A dog maybe?"
"Not since I been here."
They been silent while the girl screamed again from somewhere in the house. But the scream was different this time. It came from ecstasy rather than pain. It started as a moan and rose in pitch as though in ratio to a rising inner demand for greater release.
"Oh, God!"
Two frenzied words. Then the scream melted back into a moan and scaled down.
As it ended, Ramey got the impression of a woman thoroughly and expertly emptied of everything within her.
Joe Toder grinned mirthlessly. "Sounds like he really gave hell to her."
Ramey felt embarrassed, ill-at-ease. This annoyed him. His professional instincts should have given him an impersonal attitude toward emotional outbursts of whatever nature.
"Does the boy show any interest in the flowers-the garden or that sort of things?"
"Hell no. Why?"
"I was just wondering. How big a staff does Moratta keep here?"
"Six people. It's a job, running a place like this right."
"Why does he stay here? There are only himself and his son. I wouldn't think he'd like it here in the country. He seems like a city-type of man."
"He used to be. But, as I said, Mike changed."
Joe got to his feet. "I got to go. If you come down in half an hour or so, dinner'll be ready."
"Thanks. I'll be there."
Ramey went down immediately. Taking a cue from the people he'd seen in the garden, he put on a pair of trunks the thoughtful Joe Toder had provided, and a robe he found hanging in the closet.
At the foot of the stairs, he paused. Voices indicated that the new guests were gathered on the patio. He didn't want to meet them-at least not yet-so he went straight ahead, turned left, and moved through a pair of French doors into a side yard.
There, on a chaise lounge beside a table holding a half-empty martini glass, lazed Nine Lyman.
She smiled at Ramey. "You're dodging them too?"
"Not exactly. I'm not in the mood for light talk."
"Light! They're about as light as a pack of elephants. Did you see the fight?"
Ramey nodded. "From my window."
"I had a ringside seat myself. It was really something, wasn't it?"
She was trying to put disgust and contempt into her voice, but Ramey detected an undertone of sadistic relish.
"I thought it rather surprising."
"You're a master at understatement. Of all the slobs! When Tino knocked that character down, he actually bounced."
"I never saw anything so savage."
Nina Lyman laughed and the bright look on her face verified his first suspicion. She had enjoyed the vicious spectacle.
"When Tino kicked him I was afraid he's lose his foot." She laughed aloud. "That would have been funny. Tino with his foot-"
Ramey realized she was quite drunk. He cut in quickly with the first thought that struck him. "It's a beautiful evening."
Nina came to her feet. She did not sway, her drunkenness reflecting mainly in her eyes. "Let's go for a walk, handsome."
Her aura glowed. Her luscious figure, covered by a two-piece suit that was a little more decent than the bikinis Ramey had seen, reached out for his cock almost tangibly.
He thought of Lee, and he reacted strangely. He was suddenly proud of Lee. She was broad-minded. She knew her way around.
But she was no whore.
"It's about dinner-time," he said.
"Are you hungry?"
"Not particularly."
"That's too bad," she pouted archly. "I'd hoped you were."
Ramey's eyes narrowed slightly. "I'd like a walk," he said.
She stretched lazily, pushing her stomach out. "I thought you would."
She was so damned beautiful. They were all beautiful. This seemed ridiculous to Ramey. No one ever went on a weekend and found all the cunt completely desirable.
But then he realized, taking the men into consideration, the gorgeous pussy could have been carefully selected. The men had money and they used it to buy what they wanted and they wanted beauty.
Nevertheless, he thought, it would have been a welcome relief at that moment to see an ordinary looking female.
"Let's roam in that direction," Nina Lyman said. She pointed a graceful arm off toward a grove of trees beyond the circular drive. As Ramey hesitated, she smiled lazily. "If you're afraid of my husband, relax. He's upstairs-sound asleep."
She hooked her arm into his and he could feel her warmth against him. "Besides," she said. "You could beat his ears off."
"Lovely evenings," Ramey repeated.
She laughed. "I honestly think you're shy." Then before he could answer, she changed the tack of the conversation. "I've got a question, doctor."
"I'm at your service."
"Is there any connection between love and violence?"
"In what way?"
"Oh, I don't know. But watching that fight did things to me-funny things."
"Such as-?"
"It's hard to describe. But I wanted to see Tino kick the shit out of that naked rat! I wanted to see him sprawled out with his-"
She was drunk. If her question had been: Does alcohol break down inhibitions? He would have answered with an unqualified, yes.
"There is a tendency, under such circumstances," Ramey said, "to experience certain inner releases."
"I wonder if it wouldn't be fun to get raped?" she murmured dreamily.
Ramey had a sudden urge to try for Moratta's information. To go for broke here and now. She was pliable. She was off-guard. He might be able to put her into a trance and get what he wanted from her.
"Let's just sit here and watch the red go out of the sky," he said.
He'd indicated a smooth, grassy spot inside the grove. It was cut off on all sides by low bushes.
"Why not," she said. She threw him a sidelong glance. "My legs are getting weak from walking so close to you."
He sat down with his back against a tree and she threw herself down with her face against him.
"Mmmm," she sighed. "Your skin is so cool."
He felt the quick, wet touch of her tongue and he ran the tip of his finger along her naked back. She shivered.
Now? Or later?
He changed his mind at the last minute-switched it into another direction-when something slightly hostile, a puckish urge to mischief, caused him to remember a technique he'd learned years earlier. He recalled using the technique on Lee once and he could still hear her cursing him in a choked voice.
He ran his fingers down Nina Lyman spine again and drew a second shiver.
"That makes goose pimples," she said.
His fingers played lightly over her covered asscheeks. Her leg muscles flexed and she rolled over on her back. She looked up at him through narrowed lids.
His hand continued to play over skin. She closed her eyes and pulled her abdomen in, inviting him. At the right moment, she obediently lifted her ass off the ground. She sighed as she lowered them again. He laid her shorts aside.
They were silent for a time.
"Do you like that," he asked as he fingered her cuntlips and played with her clitoris.
Her eyes stayed closed but her red mouth opened. "Uh-huh. Feels wonderful."
He continued to finger her clitoris, watching her for results. Her tits began rising and falling faster. He saw her eyes roll upward under the lids. Her cunt tensed.
At the right moment, just as her body began reaching up toward his hand, he stopped.
She sank back with a sigh. As soon as her mouth closed, he went back to what he'd been doing.
Again she stiffened. This time, breath hissed from between her teeth.
He watched her knees. They moved away from each other. One hand spread itself flat on the grass and her red nails dug into the ground. Again, her eyes rolled back.
Her knees bent as she drew her feet up toward her asscheeks. She put her lower lip between her teeth and gripped tight.
"You rat!" she whispered, the words blurred.
He increased his tempo. She began twisting her hips.
He stopped.
This time she did not go limp. She stiffened her body and cursed him. "Don't stop! Don't stop! Oh, you cruel louse! Don't stop!"
But he did stop and a smile played around Ramey's lips as he wondered what she'd do about it. Nina, hips her hot cunt writhing, settled the question quickly. She turned and putting her arms around him, began to kiss him passionately. Her hot lips went down to his neck and left a warm train across his chest. Nina's tongue flicked lower and as she began to kiss his navel, he too began to burn with desire. Ramey was caressing her tits and rolled her jutting nipples that had become like hard, ruby gems between his thumb and forefingers.
Nina ducked lower and he suddenly felt his stiff prick enveloped in a delightfully moist, warm sensation. His hands went to her head as she began a tantalizing rhythm of cock-sucking. She knew what she was doing and Ramey liked her technique so much he wanted it to last forever. Bolts of blue-white lightning jolted through him as Nina sucked him off, furiously. He was still groaning and twitching with pleasure surges moments later as she swallowed the last of the hot scum he had shot down her throat. Lifting her head. Nina laughed as she said coolly, "I wouldn't have given you a blow-job like that if you weren't a professional man...."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nina Lyman's sex sophistication had turned the tables on him, Ramey reflected as they found their way back to the Moratta mansion. Far from having put the laughing, attractive babe walking with him into a trance, she had managed to get him to shoot his wad-and then some. He felt somewhat drained and exhausted, but sampling Nina's cock-sucking technique was worth it. She apparently went for his cock and this made him feel reasonably sure of getting her into trance and getting her to reveal what he" wanted the next time they were alone. He'd just have to use a little more self-control-she was an exceedingly attractive cunt.
As they approached the house, Nina said, "Goodbye for now, Dr. Ramey. I'm going to wake my husband up for dinner, but we'll get a chance to be alone later tonight, dear."
After she left him, Ramey drifted over to an open patio where a generously laden table had delicious looking buffet delicacies-roast beef, game birds and rare wines. He took a plate and helped himself as he saw the other guests were doing. More people had come for the week-end and Ralph Ramey observed them as they all mingled informally.
He took his plate and sought a secluded chair in the patio from where he could study the bizarre people into whose company he had been thrown.
They were new to him and thus intensely interesting.
They came from a world which he was totally unfamiliar.
But, being a realist by nature and by sensitivity, he did not doubt that particular world's existence. He did not turn away from it and its people as being too fantastic to believe.
Women who gave no thought whatever to modesty in any sense-to whom casual fucking was a way of life. Men who lived with brutality; men to whom anything expedient was justified.
And he made his rationalization: They were children. They were ruled by egos that had never grown up. They were children with adult bodies in an adult society and were controlled only by fear of punishment.
Also, it appeared, these weekends provided by Mike Moratta were occasions for wide-open recklessness. Ramey could feel the tension, the excitement, the waiting. The fight, perhaps, was merely the prologue to the play itself.
Left alone, he began studying the individuals. A tall blonde he had not seen before was the most blatant exhibitionist. Her legs were long and exquisitely sculptured. Her hips undulated with a kind of liquid self-consciousness as she entered the patio through the French doors and moved toward the buffet. Her ass was beautifully shaped and her over-large breasts were not freakish because the nipples were in proportion.
In respect to these, Ramey heard a comment from one of the male guests. A snicker and then, "How about those?"
This vulgarism set the tenor of the occasion for Ramey; as much so as the manner in which the blonde goddess was dressed-or rather, undressed. She wore a bikini that was so skimpy she was practically naked.
The girl looked the assemblage over and smiled, and something in the smile revealed the grim truth to Ramey. This was no festive weekend for the females involved. It was work, effort. It was deadly serious.
They were on sexual display. He munched a hot roll and wondered why he hadn't seen the divisions here before. The attached females-the ones who already had a man-were more sedately clad than the cunts on the prowl for a meal ticket.
This was obvious to him now. The blonde was unattached. The girls who were relatively secure in having a man regarded her with open hostility. She was a menace. She was after one of their men, any man she could get and no holds barred.
A humorous aspect of this hit Ramey. He wondered how Lee would have reacted as the blonde moved in his direction. He had little time to wonder, however, because the blonde arrived with a brilliant smile and the question:
"Mind if I drop in that chair next to you?"
"Do sit down," Ramey said.
She used the chair as a display case, drawing it a little closer and leaning in his direction until he could smell her perfume.
"Wonderful party," she said.
"Delightful."
"I didn't expect to be able to make it. Some friends almost roped me to get me to go to Puerto Rico with them. But Mike is such a sweetheart and begged so hard I didn't have the will power to turn him down."
Ramey chalked up another shortcoming of these new people. They had no skill at lying. The obvious deceit she tried to impress upon him was not deceit at all. It was too transparently false.
"I'm Iris Cameron," the blonde said. "I don't think we got introduced."
Ramey thought, somewhat puckishly, that if they had he'd certainly have remembered it.
"I'm Ralph Ramey," he said.
"I'm delighted. Your date won't be angry at me for sitting here, will she?"
"I have no date."
Iris Cameron leaned in Ramey's direction. 'This pate is divine," she said. "Try it."
As she held a cracker to his lips, she bent her elbow rather than extending her arm. This brought her body so close that Ramey could see the pores in the small arc of brown nipple and tit that was visible above the bra of the bikini. The unsubtle allure of her body was fascinating, heady, even to a man of Ramey's control.
Fine golden hairs glowed over her warm, healthy skin, and Ramey could hear the terse comment Lee would have made:
Okay-she's a natural blonde. Is that so important?
Lee was not a natural redhead.
Ramey appreciated Iris Cameron's show-case body and thought warmly of Lee at the same time. Seeing these women made him appreciate Lee more. Lee was sophisticated and broad-minded. There was nothing in the realm of fucking that daunted her.
But there was a difference. She had too much personal pride to cheapen herself as these women did.
He thought, I'm beginning to react like an old married man.
Iris Cameron went back to her dinner. Her appetite was as earthy as her body and her approach. A more sedately dressed girl moved'past them; sedately dressed in that she wore a one-piece bathing suit that was quite decent. The only exposure she'd managed to achieve was in back. She'd pulled the legs so high up that half her creamy asscheeks were exposed.
"Having fun, sweetie?" she asked.
She'd drifted by before Iris Cameron had a chance to reply. But Iris' lip curled in contempt.
"That cocksucker!" she hissed. "I was in Vegas once, at a party she was at. The man she was with got sick of her and invited me to Lake Tahoe with him. She never got over it."
The girl who'd called the blonde, "sweetie", turned and threw a venomous glance over her shoulder. The blonde smiled acidly. "Maybe we'll have some fun before the party's over," she said.
It occurred to Ramey that there had been plenty of "fun" already. He wondered if Iris Cameron had anything in mind that would top the battle of the gladiators on the lawn under his window.
He saw the other girl, a petite little brunette, sit down on the arm of a chair occupied by one of the men who'd been a witness at the fight. He grinned at her and seized her in a familiar hand. The girl winced, but she managed to smile and took the man's attention off one of his appetites by tempting another with a forkful of potato salad. The man wolfed the bit and went back to his own food.
Animals in a zoo?
Ramey considered the question and decided he was being a little smug. They could have examined his background and found flaws they might have considered greater than theirs.
"Are you from Manhattan?" Iris asked.
"I'm staying there temporarily," Ramey said.
"What's your line?"
"I travel for a man's hat band company," Ramey said soberly.
The girl gave him a quick look, wondering whether to believe him. "Is there money in men's hat bands? I thought they came with the hats."
"Oh, they do, but somebody's got to put them on the hats. So they have to be bought." He waved a careless hand. "There's pretty good money in selling them. A carload of hat bands in nothing."
"But hardly anybody wears a hat any more-men that is."
"A lot of men keep a hat for special occasions, though."
"I see."
Obviously, the girl had no sense of humor whatever. She knew when she was being insulted but not when she was being kidded.
They finished their meal and Ramey became aware of a new under tone in the gathering. The little brunette wasn't the only one who hated the blonde. Evidently there had been other incidents wherein Iris had appropriated someone else's man.
Two girls discussed Iris, in whispers, their hostile eyes on her. In several other directions, expressions changed as glances came her way.
But Iris couldn't have cared less. She asked, "Do you get to Puerto Rico much, Ralph? They've got some fabulous hotels down that way."
Direct and to the point. Ramey had the uneasy feeling he was supposed to say, I'm leaving for Puerto Rico right away. How soon can you be ready?
He said, "I seldom get time for vacations."
If he'd been trying to avoid Iris Cameron's assault, he succeeded. She lost interest in him immediately, and went into the house.
I've been jilted, he mused to himself. The shortest romance on record.
He was not ignored long however. A matter of scant minutes and Dee Redding took the chair beside him. The girl's sullenness had not abated, so Ramey set it down as a facet of her character and personality rather than a temporary mood. And he thought of this as regrettable. It was a shame that a classic type of beauty-the kind Dee had-should be ruined by the sullen, hostile mood that clouded and distorted it.
Her eyes turned toward the door through which Iris Cameron had vanished.
"She's in trouble," Dee said.
"I'm sorry."
The sneer became more pronounced. "Don't be. She's got it coming."
"No one deserves trouble."
"She does. She's a rat. She's stolen so many men from other girls that she can't even remember half of them. She's been lucky so far. But she's got a payoff corning and this may be it."
Was Dee forecasting more violence? Ramey wondered. It wasn't important to him, though, and he wished she'd go away. He would have preferred that Nina Lyman replace her.
Nina was business. He'd allowed himself enough abstract observation of the people around him. It was time to look toward the ten thousand he'd been promised and to go about earning it.
"I understand Nina Lyman is a friend of yours."
Dee Redding nodded. Ramey had been afraid that she would resent the question and tell him it was none of his business. When she did not, he was gratified and proceeded with his questions.
"She's an interesting person. Dynamic."
"If you mean she rolls over you, you're right."
"Extroverts sometimes do that. Also, people with positive personalities usually marry opposites." This wasn't true but the observation served as a subject of conversation and he felt Dee Redding wouldn't be perceptive enough to see his erroneous psychology.
"Steve is pretty rough himself," Dee said. "He cut a few throats coming up."
Her eyes were restless-covering the party-turning here and there-and she was answering Ramey without giving too much thought to his questions.
"He seems such a quiet, inoffensive little man."
"It depends on what you mean by inoffensive. He'd as soon cut your-cut your heart out as look at you."
"He seems to get along all right with Nina." Dee shrugged. "He likes her brand of fucking. I hear she's pretty good in bed." Dee's tone turned venomous. 'They say once you've fucked Nina, there's no place else to go. Again, the key-bastions upon which this society was built were casually spotlighted for Ramey. Love, violence, greed. Ramey was honest enough to admit his fascination with this structure arose from a need of his own a need to find someone he could look down on. Compulsively forced to be honest with himself, he admitted his own moral level put most of society above him. But here was a group even he could regard with contempt. And his ego was making the most of it; even to the point of teasing Dee. "I doubt if she's in your class."
"How do you know? You never laid me."
"That's true, but what has Nina Lyman got that you haven't?"
"She's had more experience fucking for one thing."
"She's still young."
"That doesn't matter. It's when you start. She got raped when she was twelve."
"I'd think an experience such as that would drive her away from screwing."
"Not if you like it."
"Uh-huh. She arranged to get herself raped pretty often after that."
"You're joking! A girl doesn't arrange to get herself raped."
Dee regarded him curiously. She was taking his question as a reflection of naivete on his part. "Are you kidding? When you find something that's fun, you want more."
"That's very interesting."
She looked at him suriously. "For a head-shrinker, you don't seem to know much."
"You may be right. I'm always learning."
"All you guys know are a lot of big words. You don't really know anything about how people's minds work."
"We try to find out."
"But you ought to know that people have to talk themselves into things."
"You mean Nina had to talk herself into-"
"Into getting fucked. What else?"
There was a point here that surprised Ramey. Of course it was not news to him that people turn automatically in conversation to the subject that fills their subconscious. Thus, Dee would veer to screwing by whatever route. But her knowledge of motivation was amazingly accurate. He assumed that truth such as she had out-lined would have been blocked out of her mind and distorted by rationalizations of her ego.
"Wouldn't it be simpler to tell the man, pointblank, that you're willing to hump?"
"That's okay for later, but in the beginning maybe you're not sure of yourself. Maybe a girl has to be forced into fucking until it gets to be a habit?"
"What else?" Her face turned bitter. "Men make fucking a habit for a girl. They only want one thing. You give in to them and they want your cunt again and again 'til they're tired of you and want a new broad."
"AH men aren't that way."
"Show me one that isn't!"
"Do you mean you never met a man who didn't want to go to screw you?"
"Sure," Dee sneered. "I met one. The first guy I ever went out with. He only wanted my company until he got me out in the country one night where nobody could hear me yell. Then he wanted something else." Dee sighed. "I tried to talk him out of it all but that didn't help. He fucked me ... real good."
Ramey realized that in a weird way. Dee's ego was an exhibitionist. It wanted to dwell on her exploits. Her ego wanted to stand naked and abscene before whoever would listen. With a little encouragement, Dee would have given him the most intimate details of what happened while she was getting fucked.
But her talk was beginning to bore him and he realized whatever Dee said would be biographical. Her observations concerning Nina Lyman were observations concerning herself.
Actually, he had more data on Nina Lyman than Dee. He'd gotten it first hand....
The buffet crowd was beginning to disperse. The big, ugly men, and the beautiful women their money bought for them, wandered off in different directions.
Ramey was about to wander off himself, in search of Nina Lyman. He hadn't seen Steve Lyman and he hoped that the fat little bastard was occupied with someone other than his wife.
But his search did not start because at that moment Joe Toder came into the patio and approached him. "The boss wants to see you."
"That so? What about?"
Joe eyed Ramey with speculation. "I don't know. But he's mad as hell."
Ramey smiled. "Hmmm. I haven't antagonized anybody in weeks. It looks as though the averages are cathing up with me...."
He passed a poker game in the living room and a crap game on the floor of the library while making for the den as per Joe Toder's directions. He knocked and entered and found Mike Moratta sprawled on a lounge in his shorts. He'd been going over what looked like business papers and now he laid them down and scowled up at Ramey.
"You been sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong."
"I don't understand you."
"My kid. Leave him the hell alone."
"I wasn't aware that I'd annoyed your son."
"He was in your room. I don't know what you said to him but you've got him all upset. Leave him alone."
"I don't know what he told you, but-"
"He started yammering about going to public school like other kids for one thing."
"What's wrong with that?"
Moratta's face darkened. "It's none of your business that's what's wrong with it. Your're here to do a job for me. And that's the only reason you're here."
Ramey surprised himself by his own stubbornness. 'That boy isn't getting a fair chance."
Moratta's eyes mirrored outrage he strove to control. "Is that so? Then something ought to be done about it. Like that cunt you were getting in shape for some guy in that hotel room. She didn't have a fair chance either. Maybe we ought to do something about her, too."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Cut out the dancing around. You're a hypocrite! If there's something wrong with my kid I'll find out what it is. I'll take him to a reliable doctor if he needs it-not a cheap trickster! You stick to your speciality, buster-taking women's pants off. Stay out of places you don't belong. Is that understood?"
Ramey tried to control his own rage. Right or wrong-fair or unfair no man talked to him in that manner.
But Moratta was talking to him in exactly that manner and was getting away with it; getting away with it because, although Ramey's ego writhed, he accepted the fact discretion was the better part of reckless valor. Moratta could send him back where he'd come from. An accounting of his activities in that hotel room would be demanded. It was much better to hate Moratta as a free man than to go to jail with the knowledge of not having let Moratta insult him.
He turned and strode toward the door. "Wait a minute."
He turned, livid from knowing Moratta was deliberately treating him like a flunky.
"How are you getting along with Nina?"
"Quite satisfactorily."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"What it's supposed to mean."
"Don't get cute with me. How soon will you have the dope I want?"
"I can't say."
"Then maybe we better call the whole thing off."
"If I could get her alone for the rest of the night I think I could promise you results by morning."
"That's better. Go ahead-handle her."
"What about her husband?"
"He just went downstairs. I'll have his drinks spiked. Hell be out of the way in an hour."
Ramey's pride and self-esteem had never before been given such a brutally effective going over. Sure, Ramey thought, he was a phony and a con man, but Moratta should have realized that he was also sincerely trying to do his son, Phil, some good. That Ramey did have some psychological knowledge and should have been taken seriously.
Moratta was a rich ignoramus who knew nothing of the medical and psychology books Ramey had devoured. Maybe Ramey didn't have a degree, but he had the ability to use hypnosis in a way that few real doctors could. It was a natural gift, a talent that was worth more than any scrap of paper from some college.
He'd show Mike Moratta what he could do with this broad, Nina Lyman. He'd get her into a trance state and then open her sexual floodgates. He could see her writhing as she fucked under him, her breasts, thighs and ass sensually dancing to any tune he called. He would cause wave after wave of sheer ecstasy to engulf her cunt at his whim while he would control himself against her physical charms and be all business. Mike Moratta would have the information he needed for his business coup and Dr. Ralph Ramey would collect the biggest fee of his career.
Ramey was sure that Moratta would regain a lot of respect for him as he handed over the ten thousand dollars.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Later that evening, most of the guests were still in the patio, but with Joe Toder acting as bartender, the emphasis was now on drinking rather than eating. It looked to Ramey as if everyone was out to get as high as possible as fast as Toder could mix the drinks. He edged over to where Nina Lyman was taking a fresh martini from Toder.
She had changed from her bikini of the afternoon to a two-piece bathing suit. Her abundant tits jiggled an invitation as she turned to greet him.
"Hiya, Doc baby, let's sit down someplace and you can analyze me," she said gaily.
She led him to some lounging chairs, her asscheeks weaving sexily as she walked.
As he sat beside Nina, Ramey saw that the drinks were loosening up the guests and that things were beginning to get wild and horny.
"I'd like nothing better than to continue our analysis of your problems, Nina," Ramey said, "but let's go to my room. Things around here are too unsettleing."
"How do I know you won't unsettle me more?" she asked.
"You'll have to trust me as a doctor," he said.
As if to emphasize Ramey's observation about needing a quiet atmosphere, all sorts of curious sounds became audible. Nearby, there in the patio, a man had pulled a girl into the thick hedge. The girl giggled, then moaned. The man gasped thickly, in the obvious throes of "coming".
So stupid and childish Ramey thought. Why fuck in the bushes when there were perfectly good beds upstairs? There seemed to be only one answer. The beds made everything too conventional; too ordinary. Out on the dark lawn, just beyond range of clear vision, a girl shrieked in surprise. A few moments later, her white naked form appeared with the darker forms of men on either side of her. They were half-leading, half-carrying her off into the darkness. Her shrieks changed to high, wild laughter, as she felt the first cock in her cunt.
Iris Cameron had mentioned possible fun tonight. This seemed to be it.
Nina Lyman reeled slightly. She was a little high but she still had control of her body and her faculties. Ramey didn't want too much liquor in her, so he eased a partially emptied martini glass from her hand and put his arm around her waist as she rose from the chair.
"You know where that stupid husband of mine is?" she chuckled.
"Playing cards?"
"No. Upstairs drunk as a louse. On two martinis. Can you tie that? Two and he's out. A couple of the boys carried him up."
"Maybe he drank on an empty stomach," Ramey said innocently.
"Are you kidding? His stomach hasn't been empty since he drank some rubbing alcohol by mistake ten years ago and they pumped him out."
"The sleep will probably do him good. He probably works hard."
Nina's snort was unladylike. "His toughest job is walking to the bathroom!"
"But he has many business interests. I've heard he's a shrewd businessman."
"He's lucky. Just plain stupid luck."
"His specialty is real estate?"
"Not necessarily. He's got a few pieces of property."
"Some very valuable ones, I understand."
"He could turn them over for a few bucks."
"But he doesn't need the cash."
"Are you kidding? They're pushing him pretty hard."
"His credit must be very good, though."
"Like hell!"
"But if he's got valuable collateral...."
"You seem awfully interested in Steve's business."
Ramey quickly nuzzled her neck. "It's not that. I think I'm jealous. I'm really interested in his wife."
This was enough to cancel out her suspicion. She giggled and followed as he led her around the patio and to a side stairway so as to avoid the activity in the lower rooms of the mansion. They reached his room without being seen.
As he closed the door she turned and put her arms around his neck and offered him her open mouth. He kissed her and found it very pleasant.
"How about a little drink first," she whispered as she teased his ear-lobe with the tip of her tongue.
"Afterward," he said firmly.
She laughed as he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. He laid her down and disengaged her arms and held both her hands.
"Close your eyes," he said.
"Why? You got some trick up your sleeve?"
"Not a trick. But you're beautiful. Once I wanted to be an artist but didn't have enough talent. I appreciate beauty though, and I want to see your face in repose. You have classic features."
Ramey had never found a woman, no matter how passionate or how drunk, who did not respond to flattery. Nina Lyman's smile softened. "You're sweet," she said and closed her eyes.
Gently. He massaged her temples with the balls of his thumbs, smoothing his fingertips across her forehead.
"You're so tense. That isn't good, you know. Makes wrinkles."
"What are you?" she murmured. "A beautician?"
"No. But it's just common sense. You've got to relax to stay beautiful."
"Relax? In this rat race?"
"You want to stay in the race, don't you?"
She wore a two-piece bathing suit that was modest by all modern standards. Her breasts were very high and rounded and the skin that was exposed around her belly' glowed with the health of a woman who had taken care of herself.
Ramey watched her belly rise and fall as she breathed.
"Relax. That's the key word. Rest. Stay calm."
She smiled lazily. "How can you stay calm when you're...."
"Before and after. Calm, relaxed. Rested."
Her knees were partially open and he gently massaged the muscles of her legs. "Tight and stiff," he said. "Relax them."
He ran a finger along her leg and watched her face. The smile deepened. "That tickles."
"Relax-relax."
He slid a finger crudely between her moist cuntlips. "You rat," she said lazily.
"Now you are relaxed. You feel good. You feel very good. You never want to move again. You're drowsy. You want to rest and sleep for a few minutes."
"While you fuck the hell out of me?"
"Rest. Relax ... You're very tired."
He hadn't expected her to be vulnerable. Evidently the liquor had helped.
"You are not going into a deep sleep. You are only resting. Every muscle is loose and you feel wonderful. But you can still hear my voice. You will not go completely to sleep. You can still talk to me."
"Talk to you," she repeated vaguely.
Nina Lyman was already in a light trance. Ramey said, "Your eyes are tired. We will rest them. Imagine a big circle. Now follow it clockwise with your eyes around the perimeter of the circle-follow the circle with your eyes."
He watched her closed lids and saw her eyes obediently circling underneath.
"You will rest but you will not sleep. You can hear me. You can answer. Now I will count to fifty. While I count, I want you to think of something pleasant.
"Something very pleasant. Let your mind find the pleasantest thing imaginable."
His hand continued to work, giving a silent suggestion. Her smile deepened as he began to count.
When he reached fifty, her lips had opened in a sensuous smile. The tip of her tongue moved just inside her mouth.
"You will continue to think a pleasant thought," he said. "You will continued to think of it until you hear my voice again."
He watched her face for a few moments, gauging the depth of her trance. He did not want her too deep. She appeared to be a natural subject and might take the command away from him. This was always a possibility, when the patient's patterns were not known and only the barest indications had to be used as guides.
Ramey wondered if he could start directing her toward the wuestion. The simple, direct query might be successful. She might give him the information without a fight.
On the other hand, if it generated hostility, he might lose her completely. Her smile faded slightly.
The only sure way was absolute control and the only way to know exactly where he stood in this respect was to test.
He decided to put her deeper into trance even at the risk of hitting a trauma area or losing her.
"I will count to ten," he said. "As I count, I will press your fingers and when I reach the count of ten you will be twice as deep in trance as you are now. Twice as deep."
He counted. Then he straightened up, hesitated for a few moments and threw a quick command:
"Open your eyes."
Nina Lyman's eyes opened instantly, but not another muscle moved. He stepped back. It was a perfect trance-perfect control. A feeling of quick satisfaction-almost of triumph-touched him. Not many hypnotists could have achieved such results with a new subject. Success such as this took real skill.
"Sit up," Ramey said.
Nina Lyman sat up and turned and put her feet on the floor. She acted perfectly natural. There was no zombie-like frigidity. Only her face was immobile and her eyes seemed unfocused.
"Stand up." She arose and faced him. She stood in front of him looking at him with unseeing eyes.
A quick feeling of exultation swept him. Perhaps it was a reaction from Mike Moratta's abuse and contempt-something Ramey needed to bolster his ego. At any rate, he looked at Nina Lyman and saw her as a symbol of his power. He was Good. He did have something-a way over people-that set him apart.
Power he had never tested.
"Undress," he said.
Nina took off her halter. She slipped out of the panties and stood waiting. Could he handle her by command? He wondered. He knew she would take almost any indirect suggestion he would make. But could he handle her direct?
"Get down on your hands and knees."
She dropped halfway to the floor but then she stopped.
"You are a dog," he said quickly. "You are tired of standing on your hind legs."
Nina Lyman dropped down on her hands and knees. He was not satisfied. She had accepted his suggestion but not his command.
"You are warm," he said. "It is very warm. You are a dog and you are warm."
Her mouth opened in a grin. Her tongue came out and hung loosely. Her breasts shook as she panted.
"You're my dog. I am your master. You love me. You are afraid I'm angry with you."
Nina Lyman jerked her tongue into her mouth and looked at him apprehensively. She crawled to him and pushed her face on his leg and whined. She wriggled her ass and nuzzled the cuff of his trousers.
This was unbelieveable. For a moment he was sure she was faking. She had to be faking. But then he knew she was not.
He squatted down. "Shake hands."
She obeyed and grinned and wriggled her rear.
It was degrading. But Ramey saw only the triumph. And he sought to make it a greater triumph.
"You are not a dog. You are a woman," he said.
The shock of this could easily have brought her out of her trance. He watched closely to see if there was any indication of surprise. There was none. Only the blank-eyed stare.
He considered his technique. To command a person to commit a degrading or humiliating act would be accomplished if the suggestion that the person was also accompanied it. Then it would no longer be humiliating. But to make the opposite suggestion
"You are naked in front of a dozen men," he said. "But I want you to show yourself to them naked. I command it."
Nina Lyman made a quick gesture as though to cover herself with her hands. But upon his command, she drew her hands back and stood motionless.
He touched a part of her body. "You itch just there. I command you to scratch yourself."
In order to do this, Nina Lyman had to assume a crude position. She did not hesitate. She scratched her asshole and a look of pleasure and satisfaction came upon her face.
"You still itch," he said. "I command you to scratch yourself against the bed post."
She complied and he tested his command further. "Men are watching you; they are laughing. But I wish you to continue."
She hesitated. Then she obeyed.
"You may sit on the bed and rest," he said.
She was an automaton-a zombie, her condition proving Ramey's natural skill-his power as a hypnotist.
He looked closely into her eyes and said, "What is your name?"
"Nina Lyman."
"What is your husband's name?"
"Steve Lyman."
"Where did your husband borrow the money that kept him from having to sell his building in Manhattan?"
She hesitated and he was about to turn her mind away from the question when she said, "From Larry Strieker."
He took a deep breath. It had been as simple as that. Now he could relay the information to Mike Moratta, take his ten thousand dollars, and get back to town. He'd had enough of this place.
Or had he? It occurred to him that perhaps he ought to give the situation a little more thought. If Mike Moratta had been willing to pay ten thousand dollars for that information it was certainly worth a lot more than that to him.
He turned his attention to Nina Lyman. "Put your clothes on."
She got off the bed and donned her bikini and waited.
"I will count to ten," he said. "When I reach the count of ten, you will awaken. You will feel rested and vital and you will want a martini. You will want a martini very badly. And you will remember nothing that happened after you came into this room except that you came up to invite me to have a drink with you."
He repeated the last command twice and then began to count. When he reached ten, Nina Lyman's eyes opened. She swayed for a brief moment. Then her own personality took command and she smiled.
"Well," she asked. "How about it? Can you stand my company long enough for a drink or two:"
"No. I'm afraid I've had a few too many already. Can I have a rain check?"
"If I'm still in the mood when you're ready. Right now, I want a martini even if I have to drink alone. I'll see you around."
She left without a backward look and Ramey closed the door after her.
His mental effort had tired him and he stretched out on the bed. But he did not close his eyes. He hooked his fingers behind his head and stared at the ceiling.
His whole new trend of thought, he realized, had been generated quite suddenly by Mike Moratta's tongue lashing. Ramey had never before been treated that way and he was surprised by his own hostility.
But it was there, nonetheless, and he began sorting out the information he'd gleaned to see if any of it would give him any power over Moratta.
He didn't see how he could make use of the bit he'd gotten from Nina Lyman other than to sell it to Moratta for the agreed ten thousand. He could haggle and perhaps squeeze Moratta for another thousand or so, but that wouldn't be a victory in proportion to the bruise his ego had suffered. There had been a radical change in Moratta's manner and his way of life. He'd gone off the deep end so to speak and Ramey wondered why.
There was something about Moratta's wife. Some painful experience in which the boy had been involved. The boy's outburst in Ramey's room indicated violence. Who had hit whom and kept on hitting and hitting?
Then too, there was that mound back on the estate that looked suspiciously like a grave. The place where the boy planted geraniums.
What significance did all this have?
Ramey took a shower after giving the matter a little more thought, and went downstairs to join the other guests. Things were going full blast. He watched a poker game in which the stakes ran as high as a thousand dollars. He moved on to a crap" game where one of the players rolled a seven and picked up a huge handful of hundred-dollar bills.
Nobody asked him to join in the games. The players were too deeply occupied with their own fortunes.
As he strolled around, Ramey got the idea that these were the kind of people who did everything right up to the hilt. Whatever was worth doing, was worth doing intensely.
He was happy at being ignored; happy also, that except for a girl or two hanging over the shoulders of their men, watching the gambling, the females seemed to have disappeared.
He strolled out into the patio and beyond. A full moon glowed over the trees, throwing ample light, and Ramey moved off in the direction of the strange grave-like mound where he'd discovered the geraniums. Thoughts of that mound haunted him.
Sure only of the general direction, he moved quite some distance and had begun to wonder whether or not he was lost when he heard the quick scream of a woman.
The scream was cut off instantly, as though something had been clapped over the woman's mouth. It came from the left and Ramey turned in that direction. Before long, he heard other sounds-indications of a gathering.
He changed his course, veering to the left and located the gathering sounds of moving foliage.
The activity, whatever it was, went on behind a bank of high bushes that formed a wall. He moved along a bank of trees that hid him with covering shadows and came quietly up to the hedge. He parted two of the bushes and looked through.
The group consisted of four girls. He recognized Dee Redding and the one he'd heard referred to as Delia. He had not seen the others.
Then three other girls joined the group and their arrival was quite spectacular. One was pusshed suddenly through the hedle on the opposite side by the two others. Ramey recognized the girl who had been pushed. It was Iris Cameron.
The other two followed, grim looks on their faces-the girl who had made the acid remark while Ramey and Iris ate dinner in the patio, and one of the girls who had looked daggers at Iris from across the patio.
Iris Cameron stumbled from the force of the shove and went to her knees in front of the waiting four.
"What the hell is this:" she snarled.
A tall brunette girl-one of those already on the scene-appeared to be the leader. She looked at the two who had pushed Iris through the hedge and asked, "Did anybody see you bring her here?"
The small brunette answered, "No. We got her away without any noise."
The other girl smiled grimly. "I told her I'd break her arm if she made a fuss."
"I heard her scream."
"I cut that short. She'll have a sore elbow for a week."
"That's not all that'll be sore," one of the other girls added.
Iris Cameron came warily to her feet. She was dressed in a blouse and a skirt now.
"What is this?" she demanded. "You'll find out, honey."
Iris sneered. "Gang up on me and I'll scream so loud it'll bring cops from miles around."
"Okay," the leader said, "It's up to you. We're just doing you a favor."
"This is a favor."
"Bringing you out here is. Unless you want to take it in front of the men."
"Just what the hell do you mean?"
"We figure you've got something coming, baby, and the men would like nothing better than to see a good brawl. Do you feel like entertaining them?"
Iris looked around through narrowed eyes. "So you are ganging up on me."
"That isn't necessary, sweetie. I can take you any day of the week."
"In a fair fight."
"That's right."
Iris sneered. "You're out of your mind."
The others had moved back into a circle. Without further word, the tall, brunette leader took three steps toward Iris who immediately kicked off her high-heeled shoes.
The two females adversaries now began circling each other, looking for an advantage. As Ramey stared, spellbound, the brunette moved in swiftly and aimed a punch at Iris's head.
Iris ducked the blow but did not completely avoid it. It slid across her cheek and she snarled, "You bitch!" and swung wildly.
The brunette dodged the clumsy blow and drove her fist into Iris's waist. Iris doubled over, emitting a rancous sound that brought harsh laughs from two of the girls and caused the others to grin.
Iris went to her knees, gasping for breath that had been knocked out of her. She tried automatically to rise, but her knees were weak.
The girl who had punched her in the stomach stepped back contemptuously and waited. But one of the onlookers was not so sportsmanlike.
The little brunette rushed in behind the kneeling Iris and jerked her skirt down around her ankles.
Iris staggered to her feet. The waistband of the skirt tangled and she lost her balance and waved her arms wildly as she strove to regain it.
The brunette's sportsmanship ended at this point. She moved in on the teetering Iris and hit her in the waist again.
She said, "Every punch is for some man you've sneaked away from one of us."
Iris was on her knees again. The second punch had brought on nausea and she was gagging. "You cheap, lousy, cock-suckers!" she croaked. "You can't get away with this."
"Yell any time you want to, sweetie. A few of the men are drunk. Maybe they'll think up some ideas of their own, just for kicks."
Iris gamely struggled to her feet, but only to find that the playful little brunette, getting even for the man she lost to Iris, had moved in and treated Iris's panties the same way she treated the skirt.
Naked now, from the navel down, Iris found the panties an even greater hazard. She tried to take a step and they threw her.
The tall brunette had thrown another punch just at that instant, and in dodging and reeling at the same time, Iris went over on her back, kicking desperately to get out of the imprisoning panties.
Another of the watchers moved in now, trying to kick Iris while she was helpless. Iris got rid of the restricting panties and lashed a kick back from the ground. The girl circled her and Iris revolved on her ass, keeping her legs toward the girl.
"You said this was going to be a fair fight!" she snarled.
The girl stepped back and Iris rolled over, preparatory to getting up. This was a mistake. Another of the onlookers, a thin, model-type blonde, lunged forward with hate in her eyes; a hatred that no doubt reflected the loss of a man she valued to the gorgeous Iris Cameron.
Wearing slacks and thus unimpeded by a skirt, she landed astride Iris and dropped her weight into the small of the unfortunate girl's back. Iris went down-sprawled out-with a grunt of pain.
The thin blonde seized her flailing wrists and pulled them backward. Iris's body arched upward until only the tips of her breasts touched the grass.
"You lousy bitch!" she moaned. "Cut that out. Let me go. When I get up I'll cripple you!"
The girl released her arms and seized her by the hair. She grinned up at the others. "Shall I rube her nose in the dirt?"
"Make her eat the grass," a voice said contemptuously.
"Maybe we can do more damage at this end," she said.
"Let her up," the brunette leader said. "She's had enough to get the idea."
The small girl and the thin blonde, however, were in the grip of more sadistic emotions. "Not 'til I give her something to remember me by."
Iris, foreseeing what the girl may have had in mind, went into a frenzy of resistance. "No, damn you! Leave me alone. Get off me!"
"Say uncle!" the girl taunted.
"Like hell I will."
The girl's grin was filled with hate. She applied a vulgar form of painful punishment, shoving her fist against Iris's cuntlips.
Iris squalled in rage. She pounded the grass with her fists. "When I get up I'll beat the-"
The girl twisted.
Iris's face went white.
"Say uncle," the girl demanded.
"Like hell I-owww-oh uncle-uncle-uncle."
"That's better," the girl looked up at the tall brunette. "Shall I let her up now?"
The brunette responded coldly. "I told you to do it before."
"I'll kill you," Iris moaned.
A touch of fear ran over the blonde's face. "You try it and we'll start in again where I left off."
The performance had sickened some of the other girls. They hadn't come to Iris's defense, but their senses, however course and callous, had been offended.
"Speak for yourself," one of them said.
"Wait a minute. I did this job for you. You're not going to let her beat the hell out of me are you?"
"You haven't forgotten Puerto Rico, have you, dearie?"
Ramey, completely spellbound by the performance, kept it from the personalized part of his mind and fell back on the abstract. First, he observed that there was little difference between the hostilities of the men and the women in this group. They both settled their differences in the same way. With violence. Also, he noted that Iris wasn't the only one guilty of man-stealing. There were evidently other grudges to be settled among them.
All in all, he thought, it may have been a gay and glamorous way of life, but it had its drawbacks.
The blonde still sat on Iris's back, grinding her into the grass. She was frightened now. "If I let her up, she'll break me to pieces!"
"Then sit on her ass all night," someone suggested.
"Push a sleeping tablet down her throat and wait 'til she goes to sleep," another taunted.
"Get up and run like hell," a third voice suggested.
Ramey got the idea that perhaps they were all a little afraid of Iris and uneasy at what they'd done. Like children, he thought, who had surrendered to their hostile emotions and were now afraid of the consequences.
The blonde realized that she would get no help-that she was being left on her own. Reconciled to the fact, she. stopped appealing and brought her own ingenuity into play.
She pointed to Iris's brassiere. "Hand it to me," she said.
Intrigued, one of the girls picked up the bra and circled around, out of range of Iris's clawing hands, and held the garment out to the blonde.
The latter anchored it firmly in her teeth. Then, getting up quickly, thus leaving Iris off-guard, she turned and grasped Iris firmly by the ankles.
triumphantly, she straightened up and Iris began struggling anew.
"Stay as you are," the blonde ordered. "Turn over and I'll jump on you."
Iris continued to fight but the blonde was in command, and began dragging the girl toward a nearby tree. There, as the others watched, she pulled Iris's legs around its trunk so that she was still on her face but with the tree trunk between her legs.
The bra, dangling from the blonde's teeth, now came into play as she used it for a cord to bind Iris's ankles together.
"Clever," one of the girls said. "Real clever. By the time she gets out of that, you can be back in the house and locked in your room."
"That's the general idea," the blonde said grimly. She was admitting openly that discretion was the better part of valor and she didn't care who knew it.
She straightened up, wiped perspiration off her face, and said. "I'll be seeing you."
With that, she turned and headed back toward the house.
Instantly, Iris began turning and twisting, trying to reach the binding around her ankles. A steady stream of profanity flowed from her beautiful lips.
The brunette leader watched for a moment. Then she turned and started back toward the house also.
"Wait a minute," Iris pleaded. "You're not going to leave me here."
The others had started to follow the brunette. They all stopped as the brunette said. "You can get yourself loose by wriggling your ass around. While you're doing it, why don't you make a resolution to think twice before trying to take another girl's man away from her.'"
"But I'm trapped," Iris wailed. "What if-?"
She stopped, but one of the more antagonistic girls took a step in her direction. "What if what, honey?" she asked gloatingly.
"What if some character find me this way, before I get loose. I can't reach the brassiere." Fear of what might come had sapped the defiance from Iris. She could face the immediate and the real, but not the imaginings of what some drunk's cock might do to her if he found her helpless.
The girl laughed. "I'm glad it's your problem and not mine."
They left and Ramey watched Iris curse and twist and try to reach the cleverly imposed binding on her ankles.
He debated as to what to do. He'd looked upon himself as an observer, not involved in what went on in this mad place. These people had their own problems and fought their own battles.
That had been his reason for not interfering during the fight-for not stopping the abuse the girls had inflicted on Iris. Or at least that was what he'd told himself. Iris had no doubt earned her punishment. Then let her take it.
But did that still hold now? Did she deserve what might happen if one of the male animals in this strange weekend jungle found her tied and helpless.
He decided that she didn't and stepped out into view.
"Are you in trouble?"
His words sounded stupid and asinine in his own ears but he could think of no others.
Her lips twisted in rage and frustration as she looked up at him. "What do you think?" she snapped.
For a moment, she did not see Ramey as a threat. Then it dawned on her that this was the situation she'd feared when the others left. Kneeling there, trapped, with her ankles bound while a man stood by contemplating her naked tits and exposed cunt.
The fear cleaned her face of anger and stilled her voice. She watched in silence as Ramey approached the tree.
"Leave me alone," she whimpered. "You don't want to stay that way, do you?"
"I'll get loose myself. Just beat it! Go on about your business."
He ignored her demands and knelt beside the tree. Resentment at her unnecessary hostility angered him. But only mildly; only enough to make him take a mild satisfaction.
"You are in a pretty helpless position, aren't you?" he said cheerfully.
"Damn you! Leave me alone." Her tits and ass cringed from him even though he hadn't laid a finger on her.
"That's a pretty ingenious way to anchor a person."
"Go away! Please."
"What are you afraid of:"
"You know what I'm afraid of." He stopped working with the knot in the bra to consider the question that had been presented. He considered it aloud. "That's very strange. You give your cunt away without any fear at all. But when you're in a position to have some pussy taken away from you, then you become fearful. I wonder why."
"Good God!" she raged. "How would you like to lie on the ground naked with your legs tied around a tree and wait for some horny degenerate to pass by."
"I wouldn't like it." Ramey said. "But then again, what makes you think I'm a degenerate?"
"All men are."
"Can you give first-hand evidence on that point?" He'd gone back to loosening the knot. It gave. He pulled it away.
"There you are. All clear."
She got to her feet and turned on him warily. "I suppose you expect some kind of a reward."
The frustrations generated by the attitudes of these ridiculous people struck Ramey suddenly.
"What's wrong with you? Is your whole life based on hatred and hostility? Can't you give a man credit for the least spark of decency? What kind of people have you lived with all your life?"
She stared at him, naked, there in the moonlight. Then, without warning, the nude, gorgeous girl sobbed and put her arms around him. She began to kiss him passionately, saying, "You're good, Dr. Ramey, you're so much better than the rest of them here."
As her curved, tilted breasts pressed into him, she began to rub her thighs and bush-hair against him gently. Ramey became aroused in spite of himself. Iris Cameron was a classically beautiful girl. He drew her down on the soft turf beside him. He began to kiss her firm breasts, flicking the ruby, hardening nipples with his tongue. Iris gratefully began to run her hands up and down his thighs. When she opened his zipper, Ramey wriggled out of his pants and tossed his shirt and shorts after them. Then, naked as Iris, he turned to her tits again. As he mouthed each crimson nipple, Iris began to moan.
She hungrily seized his huge pulsating prick and brought him within the warmth of her splended hot, moist cuntlips. She hoped he would feel her gratitude as her cunt began to thrill his stiff dick rhythmically with thrilling little ways all her own. Iris moaned again with pleasure as tremblings and shudders of sensation shot through her twat. She felt her peak ecstasy rush over her like an avalanche and she screamed joyously, "You're great Ralph, great! Shoot all your scum into me, now, now!" Her legs wound spasmodically around his torso as he grunted with the thrill of supreme pleasure that flashed through his straining prick as his hot sperm jetted into her vagina.
They lay there nude, entwined in mindless sensation on the turf for long moments as the stars looked down on their gleaming bodies....
After a little while, she played with his cock. Before she had worked it into full erection, he had shoved it into her cunt and was fucking her once again.
CHAPTER NINE
The hectic frigging session on the turf with the beauteous Iris had left Ramey on the verge of exhaustion. When he got to his room he decided to put off talking to Moratta until morning, flopped into bed and fell soundly asleep.
He awoke refreshed early the next morning and turned over yesterday's events in his mind. There were some nagging uncertainties about this whole situation and instead of going to Moratta with his information, he dialed Lee in New York.
"When is my wandering boy coming home?" she asked brightly.
"I think I'll be winding things up here very soon, Lee dear."
"Is what you're winding up blonde, brunette or redhead?"
"Wrong on all three counts. I'm having a boy meets boy affair with Mike Moratta-he's so big and strong and handsome!" he jested.
"That I can never believe! I know you much too well," Lee said confidently.
"Good. And now, if we've had enough of this childish chit-chat, I've got a job for you."
"What's his name and where will I find him?"
"Stop it, Lee. This is serious. I want you to get into a cab and take a run downtown."
"What for?"
"You don't have to stop any place. I'm going to give you the address of a building. I want you to look it over-you don't even have to get out of the cab. I just want to know how high the building is-the kind of layout in general."
"That's ridiculous-to want me to do a thing like that."
His annoyance exploded in his voice. "All right. So it sounds idiotic. But it might mean a hell of a lot of money for us."
"It's not idiotic at all. Did you say us."
"I said us."
"Meaning you and me?"
"Who else?"
"That's the point I was checking. I'll leave right away. Where can I call you?"
"I'll call you. In an hour and a half...."
Ramey gave Lee an extra fifteen minutes while he paced the floor. Then he called back.
"I don't get It, darling," she said. "The place is a dump."
"What do you mean a dump?"
"It's a four-floor tumbledown with half the windows broken. The first floor is used by a trucking company without enough money to get a sign printed. Their name is smeared on the door by hand. What's so important about all this?"
"It fits in with some thinking I've been doing."
"Well, if our getting money depends on that place, forget it."
"On the contrary. If it had been a valuable building I'd have been disappointed."
Lee sighed. "I guess it's no use pumping you for information. When will I see you?"
"Soon. I hope."
"I suppose it won't hurry you any to tell you I can't wait to see you?"
"That's very pleasant to hear."
She paused and then her voice turned serious. "Darling-be careful, will you?"
"Of course. I'm a devout coward, you know that ... "
The new information geared perfectly into what Ramey had begun to suspect. The ten thousand dollars might have been logical as a price of the information if the building had indicated a comparative value. It didn't; not on the basis Moratta had stated-as an automatically valuable property that would become negotiable at a later date.
The location being valuable as a site for some future development didn't hold water either. The city would not have paid an exorbitant price. They would condemn and pay their own price if they wanted the land for a housing project.
But the clinching argument was the obvious fact that Lyman's creditors would not rate the place as collateral on anywhere near the scale necessary to make the loan it covered.
Therefore, Moratta needed the information for another purpose. What was it? Lyman owed money to Larry Strieker, whoever that was. Moratta had been unable to identify Lyman's creditor. He'd dreamed up a rather ingenious cock-and-bull story to tell Ramey in order to hide his true reason for wanting the information. So it now behooved Ramey-if he wanted to make a real score-to discover Moratta's secret.
There had to be a secret; a hidden truth worth far more than ten thousand dollars.
Ramey's mind began stringing clues together. The boy. He had seen something no child should witness. Violence of a brutal and terrible nature. Then too, there was the grave out on the estate and the flowers the boy watered regularly. This could spring from the child's guilt complex.
He could have been expiating his father's crime.
Also, the boy hated and feared Steve and Nina. Pure coincidence, perhaps, except that it was the Lyman's who were also somehow involved in the keyknot of the tangled skein.
Ramey was beginning to get an idea. There was nothing he could do about it, however, until after nightfall. Nothing except to use the daylight to locate a shovel....
Saturday passed uneventfully. Ramey was not required to face Moratta more than briefly. Around noon, when Ramey was lounging in the patio, four men came out of the house carrying golf clubs. Moratta veered away from the party long enough to approach Ramey, scowl at him, and ask, "Any luck?"
"There has been progress. But a thing like this takes a little time."
Moratta accepted that. "I'll see that you get another chance at her tonight."
With that, he strode away with his three guests, and Ramey thought he had never before met a more intensely bitter man. Something was eating at Moratta's foundations. Only a strong man would have stood up under the apparent load for so long.
Alone. Ramey again wandered off across the estate. He found the secluded grave without much trouble this time and was kneeling beside the geraniums when Phil Moratta broke onto the scene.
He was hostile and defiant. "What are you doing here?"
Ramey arose and smiled. "Why nothing, Phil. I was just taking a walk and I found this place. Is this the geranium you had to water yesterday?"
"Yes. But you got no right to be here."
"I'm sorry. I didn't see any keep out sign. You didn't have much luck with your other one."
"What other one?" he asked belligerently.
"The one that died. I saw it over there in the grass. Still in its pot."
Phil turned his scowl on the dead geranium and, at least momentarily, his hostility faded. "It died. I did everything for it, and it died anyhow." He looked back at the grave, his eyes sullen. "Everything dies."
"Oh, that's not true. Things live, too. This geranium is doing fine."
Phil dropped to his knees and cupped the blossom in his hand. "This one's doing all right."
It occurred to Ramey that he might possibly be able to shock the information he wanted out of Phil. But the decency in him shrank from this. It would be brutal. Phil was only a child and he didn't deserve it.
Ramey decided, instead, to ask a few logical questions and watch Phil closely for reaction.
"Why do you keep your flower so far from the house?"
Phil's head jerked up and hostility flamed anew, so Ramey quickly gave him an answer: "So people won't step on it and smash it?"
"That's right. They'd walk on it if I planted it near the house."
"This looks like a grave. Have you got a pet buried here?"
Again the hostility, with fright added. Again Ramey adroitly switched his line.
"When I was a boy I had a dog. A great big collie. He used to go out and bring in the cows."
"Did you live on a farm?"
"A pretty big one. I had a horse, too."
"I hate horses. What else did your dog do."
"He would shake hands and chase a stick. But mostly, he liked to chase rabbits."
"Rabbits get in here once in a while. I throw rocks at them."
"Did you ever hit one?"
"I almost did once. Then I quit throwing rocks. The rabbits never did me any harm."
"I never liked to kill rabbits either. My mother used to tell me it was cruel and I believed her. My mother was wonderful. She loved me very much."
"My mother was a bitch!" the boy cried.
"Phil! You don't believe that!"
"I do! I do! I do!"
The boy doubled his fists and jumped up and down in rage. He was near hysteria and Ramey took a quick step forward and stared hard at his feet.
It was a simple trick but it worked. Phil dropped his eyes in that direction.
"A worm," Ramey said. "You jumped on it. I was afraid you were going to kill it."
"You can't kill a worm. If you cut one in two, both ends live."
Ramey turned briskly toward the grave-like mound. "Well, you'd better water your geranium again. It's dry." He started back in the direction of the house. "Are you leaving?"
He turned. Phil's moody eyes were on him. "Yes. You said you didn't want me here." He waited and when Phil said nothing, added, "That's what you told me, wasn't it?"
"Yes," the boy admitted reluctantly. Ramey moved on. "No hard feelings?"
He turned. "Of course not. I'll see you later." He walked slowly back toward the house. There was something wrong in this picture; something definitely wrong. That, he had established to his own satisfaction.
Now, it was necessary to make a final decision. To take his ten thousand and walk away? Or to go all out to pry Moratta's secret loose-and try for a big stake.
There were grave risks in the latter course. He didn't fool himself about that. The secret was dangerous and Moratta was a dangerous man. Going ahead would take courage. Did he have it?
He wavered. Ten thousand dollars was a lot of money. Why be greedy? Why not take it and leave safely.
Then another thought intruded. Perhaps it was merely an excuse to push him in the direction he really wanted to go, or maybe it stood on its own merit. Anyhow, it was a fact. Moratta knew about the girl who'd jumped from the hotel window. This put him in a position to use it against Ramey if he saw fit.
Maybe, Ramey thought suddenly, Moratta intended to use it.
He had spoken of ten thousand dollars, but Ramey had yet to see a dollar. Once in possession of the information he wanted, Moratta would probably tell Ramey to beat it on pain of being turned up as the missing hypnotist a very efficient police department was looking for.
Thus did he find justification, even a necessity, for going through with his more ambitious plan. He would probably need Moratta's secret with which to protect himself and collect the money he had rightfully earned.
But still, with even these fine rationalizations to comfort him, he had to be honest with himself. He smiled without mirth and muttered, "To thine own self be true...."
The grave. What was in it?
After nightfall, he would find out....
In the meantime, there were other things he could do. He got a shovel from the gardner's tool shed and hid it, without being seen, in some bushes. Then he went to the patio by way of the front drive and around the front drive and around the house in order to avoid the swimming pool where, voices told him, everyone else seemed to be gathered.
All except Steve Lyman. He found Lyman sprawled in a chair on the patio. He appeared to be asleep but as Ramey entered, he opened his eyes and regarded him morosely.
"I feel lousy," he grumbled.
Ramey dropped into a chair. "A little too much to drink?" he asked pleasantly.
Lyman burped. "Ulcers-cancer maybe-everything. You seen my wife around anywhere?"
Ramey hesitated for a moment before saying, "No, I haven't seen her."
"She's a bitch," Lyman sneered. "She's probably off screwing in the bushes with some guy."
Ramey could see, now, that Lyman was drunk-probably as drunk as his conditioning ever allowed him to get. He didn't know quite how to answer Lyman's bitter comment, but the man seemed to expect an answer so he said, "Perhaps she's angry. She may be staying away just to irritate you."
Lyman burped a second time and looked even more miserable. "She couldn't irritate me. I couldn't care less. It's just that a guy doesn't like to have his wife frigging around with everybody in sight. It-it ain't ladylike."
Ramey almost exploded into laughter. It seemed incredible that Lyman had failed to see the humor in his statement. But obviously he didn't.
Ramey decided to risk moving a little closer to the obvious truth. He said, "It strikes me the moral level in general is pretty loose around here."
"You said it," Lyman agreed. "It's scandalous. Everybody fucking with everybody else. My wife wasn't around all night. It's gotten to be a hell of a world-what I mean. Sometimes I feel like going back to the grocery store."
"I didn't know you were in the grocery business."
"Are you kidding? I started out with a delicatessen in Manhattan."
"But now you're a financier-or that's what I've heard."
"Somebody's been flapping a loud mouth," Lyman said. "I didn't get nowhere till I got a lucky break. And sometimes I don't think it was lucky."
Ramey was elated. He hadn't expected an opportunity to pump Lyman. Nor had he dreamed that Lyman was in the least pumpable. Instead, the man seemed eager to unburden himself. But Ramey still realized that Lyman would shut up like a clam if he got the least idea that his outbursts interested his listener in the least.
Ramey yawned and said, "I'm afraid I can't agree with you. A lucky break is just that. It can't be anything else."
"Oh, can't it?" Lyman stopped to twist his face in pain. "Ow, my gut." Then he went on. "Suppose you got to keep an eye out all the time to keep from getting killed?"
"Everybody does," Ramey said. "Cross a street these days without looking and you can be dead."
"That ain't what I'm talking about," Lyman said with a contempt for Ramey's stupidity. "I'm talking about a real hit. If that wife of mine wasn't so greedy I'd be living a nice easy life." He waved an arm. "But she wanted this. She wanted glamour and a pack of men to fuck around with. So I got my lucky break. And we moved in."
"I don't quite understand," Ramey said lazily.
"We had a little place," Lyman said wearily. "A summer shack on a lake over that way." Again he waved an arm. "Then one night-"
There he stopped. Perhaps the memory sobered him enough to stay his tongue. He looked at Ramey as though seeing him for the first time, then he burped, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.
Ramey sat there for a few minutes. He wanted to be sure no more information would be forthcoming. But Lyman showed no inclination to talk in his sleep, so Ramey wandered off to be alone with his thoughts.
The thing smelled like blackmail. He took what clues he had and set up a hypothetical set of events. The boy, Phil, had given indications that his mother was not all she should have been. He hated her. Therefore, she had perhaps been unfaithful to his father whom he respected. He had seen violence. That could indicate that Mike Moratta had exacted vengeance for infidelity and the boy had witnessed this.
Everything pointed to that mysterious mound with the geraniums on it. Who was under that mound? Ramey had to know....
But there was to be an interlude. He'd hoped that activity would be at a minimum that night. This would have given him a comparatively early opportunity to venture forth with his shovel on the grave-robbing expedition.
The activity centered around the pool. There had been quite a little drinking during the afternoon and toward evening the spirit of recklessness began to break out.
It began when one of the girls, not particularly drunk, wandered too close to the scene. She was wearing conventional clothes-skirt, sweater, and stockings.
Two men seized her and began to strip her. She screamed, possibly from surprise, but soon found herself standing in her bra, garter-belt, and panties.
She broke away and began to run. They chased her. One of them dropped her to the ground in a football tackle while the other guests, craving excitement and happy that things had broken open, cheered the two men on.
The girl, a tall, beautifully built redhead, became panicky. Thinking, no doubt, that she was going to be fucked in full view of the entire gathering, she fought desperately, screaming to be released.
The two men picked her up by the wrists and ankles and carried her back to the side of the pool. There they put her down again and finished stripping her, throwing each garment into the pool as they pulled it off.
Roaring with laughter, they again seized the now nude girl by her wrists and ankles and began bouncing her on the grass. Each bounce shook her terribly. Tiring of this, they carried her to the pool and threw her in.
Instantly a man watching from the far side dived in after her. He was a good swimmer and as the girl came gasping to the surface, he dived under her, caught her by the ankles and pulled her under again.
Giving her just enough air to avoid a catastrophe, the man steered her, between dousings, toward the edge of the pool. He allowed her to get a grip on the edge of the pool and start to pull herself to safety.
Then, grinning, he helped her out with a vicious upward shove of his thumb right in her asshole.
The onlookers howled with glee. The girl landed on her hands and knees with the target still within range of her tormentor. He again reached toward her but she saw the movement, pulled in like a kicked pup, and crawled out of danger.
The pool-side mirth doubled.
Angry, confused, the girl got to her feet and ran toward the patio and the house. A male onlooker, wishing the fun to continue, started after her.
By chance, his path took him close to where Ramey stood scowling at the exhibition. Ramey's foot moved forward at exactly the right moment. The man bellowed and went headlong.
He got to his feet and whirled on Ramey. "Wise guy, huh?"
Ramey smiled. "Awfully sorry, old man. Didn't mean to get in your way."
The man was stopped by the disarming rejoinder. He hesitated, then turned and went angrily back to the pool.
The guests were disappointed. They'd hoped a fight would develop. When it didn't, three of the male guests started throwing girls into the pool.
Ramey watched this comparatively innocent roughhousing and wondered how long it would satisfy those who needed more brutal actions to satisfy their egos.
Through frantic effort, they finally had every girl in the pool, a squealing, struggling mass of feminitity.
The next phase was no doubt spontaneous, but the action moved so smoothly that it seemed planned. While the three men patrolled the pool-side to see that none of their wet captives escaped, two other men dived into the water and began systematically stripping their victims.
They picked one girl at a time, pulled her into shallow water and turned her upside down and pulled her trunks or panties off.
The remaining male spectators cheered each time the bottom half of a girl came naked and kicking above the water line, displaying a writhing wet cunt.
As each girl's turn came, she accepted her punishment, if that was what it could be termed, with the same struggling resistance as her predecessor. Or at least that was how it seemed to Ramey.
He'd long since given up any idea of championing the girls in their travail. They were still free American citizens and they hadn't been kidnapped and brought to the party.
He even held back while his disgust mounted; when one of the men after the naked girls had been permitted to climb from the pool, seized a small blonde and carried her, kicking and howling, into some low bushes.
"Have fun, Jack," one of the observers called.
In their sick need of abnormal thrills, they listened.
They heard the man's grunt of satisfaction as he obviously shoved his prick into her cunt that was followed by a sigh from the girl. The bushes shook as he began to fuck her. One of the girls giggled nervously.
Then, from behind the low bushes, the little blonde girl's feet appeared, twisting and turning.
They watched. The girl sighed again.
The man appeared a few moments later. There was a grinning look of satisfaction on his face.
"Score one hump for Jack," a voice called out, and the spell was broken.
The man strode back to the pool in triumph. A few moments later, Ramey saw the girl arise and run in the other direction with her head down.
The crowd at the pool was still in the mood for fun and games. Not to be outdone, the bull-like Tino Cavanne had grabbed the squirming, sexy little brunette called Delia and tossed her into the deep end of the pool. The terrified girl surfaced, managed to grab the side of the pool and as she spit water cried, "Don't Tino I can't swim and this is the deep end!"
Tino approached the struggling girl and sat down at the edge of the pool as if to help out. Instead, he rolled down his trunks and captured the struggling girl's head between his knees. Tino grinned evilly as his purpose became apparent to the frightened girl. He choked off her protests by a simple movement of his knees, pushing her head underwater. When she bobbed up again, he pointed to his enormous stiff cock, indicating what he wanted her to do to him.
The group watched spellbound as Delia's head bobbed rhythmically to comply with Tino's demand to be sucked off. They cheered and laughed as Tino grunted and shuddered as the helpless Delia chokingly finished her unusual task and had to swallow the load of hot scum Tino's cock shot down her throat....
Ramey had seen exhibitions and orgies, but Moratta's crowd could dream up sex gimmicks that were the wildest in his experience.
CHAPTER TEN
Ramey watched nude men dragging naked, screaming girls into the pool, trying to outdo the perverted show Tino had just put on with Delia. All he had to do was sit around a little while longer and he'd have enough material for a new volume of abnormal sex psychology.
One of the things that struck Ralph Ramey was that although Moratta gave all his guests a very free hand with the women, he himself remained aloof. Was it possible that a man like Moratta, still young and oozing animal vitality could get his hump-kicks by just watching others? Or was there another reason he let sex shows run rampant on the estate? Some reason that he even let his son, little Phil, get glimpses of sex acts no child his age should ever see?
The answer, he told himself, would be worth a great deal of money. Also, it might save him from destruction if Moratta decided to throw him to the wolves.
He sat in the patio while two more girls-the unfortunate brunette who'd been carried into the bushes by two men, and a tall, statuesque redhead, ran naked through the patio, directly toward the shelter of their rooms.
The brunette was alert and angered, more normal then the redhead who seemed dazed. The latter walked stiffly. He put her down as a victim of shook and wondered what kind of rape had happened to her.
He got up and rounded the house and walked off the estate, through the front gate, and down the highway. It was hot and dusty, but more pleasant than the cool, luxurious rottenness he'd just left behind him.
He walked perhaps a mile before he came to a small country store. It was a leaning, weather-beaten little place with an unpaved lead-in from the highway indicating poverty of the first order.
It was generously decorated with brand-name refreshment signs, the whole atmosphere suggesting a wistful hope of business.
Ramey pushed the screen door open. It banged behind him and agitated a host of flies waiting to invade the dusty interior. He squinted his eyes, adjusting them to the comparative darkness and they focused on a rather pretty girl of perhaps twenty, waiting behind the counter.
She wore a plain blue cottom dress under which a pair of magnificent tits, amply nippled, pressed hard against the cloth.
"A hot one today," Ramey commented. "Do you have any cold Coke?"
The girl bent over what must have been an iced container under the counter. She came up with a dripping bottle.
As she uncapped it and handed it to Ramey, a rear door opened and a little old man shuffled out in carpet slippers. He peered at Ramey over narrow steel-rimmed glasses.
"Didn't hear no car," he said.
Ramey couldn't tell whether this was an accusation or a comment. "I walked," he said. "I have no car of my own."
The man became definitely suspicious. "Where'd you walk from?"
"From up north-about a mile, I imagine."
"From Moratta's place?"
"That's right."
The man glared at the girl. "Jenny you get in the back! I'll take care o' things out here."
The girl pouted. "Aw, Paw-"
"Get, I tell you. This is no place for a decent girl."
"Now, see here," Ramey said. "If you're implying."
"Ain't implying nothing, mister. This is a public store. But I don't want no daughter of mine talking to one of your kind."
Ramey's sudden anger was stifled by amusement. "How do you know what kind I am?"
"You're staying at that cesspool of sin ain't you?"
One thing was apparent to Ramey. He was in the company of a hard-back, old-line religionist. "Yes," he said. "As a matter-of-fact, I am. But I could be there for other reasons than the ones you have in mind."
"You a doctor or something? Anybody sick there?"
"I'm not a doctor. And nobody is sick to my knowledge. But do you always judge people on the company they keep-or the company you assume they're keeping?"
"You're a pretty fast talker." The words were accusing and thick with suspicion. But the oldster was doubtful. "I ain't one for condemning a person without proof."
Ramey's obvious rejoinder would have been that he wasn't on trial. But he chose to play it differently.
"That's a good Christian attitude," he said. "It's like breathing a breath of fresh air to walk into your store."
"Air ain't fresh at all in here," the man snorted. "But I got to admit that if you belonged with that gang you'd be there worshiping Satan with them instead of walking around in the hot sun."
"Thank you." Ramey realized that subtlety was lost on the old man. Still, he proceeded cautiously, "I was an invited guest, but I'll have to admit I was a little surprised at the goings-on."
"Just as bad as ever, huh?"
"Pretty bad," Ramey admitted.
"Slipped up there one night, I did," the old man said. "Thought it was my duty to see if what I heard was true-about the goings-on there, I mean." He stared in righteous wrath. "I sure found out. Women running around stark naked. Men chasing them. Screaming-laughing-wicked revels."
"You've been in this fine country a long time, I assume."
"Born here," the oldster asserted virtously. "Buried my wife here. Raising a daughter in the path of righteousness."
"A good man," Ramey said piously. "About this fellow Moratta. He must have a bad reputation with the local people."
"Ain't much godliness left even around here."
"You mean the local people don't care?"
"New generation coming up. Live and let live, they say. But they mean sin and let sin. Plenty of the old residents ain't any .better than they ought to be."
"Was Mr. Moratta ever married?"
If the oldster thought he was being pumped he certainly didn't care. "She was a wild one. Used to hammer over the roads in one of them sports cars. Crazy and wild. If there was ever a woman who worshipped Satan with men, she was it."
"What ever happened to her?"
"Lord only knows. I think maybe her husband took a horse-whip to her. Should have. If ever a woman deserved a hiding-"
"Was there ever any rumor of trouble at Moratta's place?"
"When wasn't there trouble? Yelling and screaming-"
"But his wife isn't around any more? She disappeared?"
"Can't say one way or another. I've always been a man who minds his own business. Ain't seen her on the road for quite a spell."
"Did you ever hear of a man called Lyman? Steve Lyman?"
"Sure. He and his woman used to have a shack over on Sunrise Lake. There was a woman no better than she ought to be too. Some of the boys around-about claim they saw her swimming stark naked more than once."
"Maybe she wore a skin-colored bathing suit," Ramey said innocently.
The old man shook his head. "She was a brunette. And the boys around here got pretty sharp eyes," he stopped significantly. "At least no woman that wasn't a daughter of Satan wasn't dead set on flouting God."
"I see," Ramey said gravely. "Are the Lyman's still on Sunrise Lake?"
"Nope. They ain't been around for a couple of years. Maybe he caught his wife naked and took a whip to her. Maybe he was ashamed to come back after he found out what was going on."
Ramey set his empty bottle down and pointed to an open carton of cigarettes. The old man took out a pack, blew a thick coat of dust off it, and handed it to Ramey.
"That'll be forty cents, mister," he said. He gave the man a dollar and took the change he scrabbled out of a tin box.
"Thanks," he said. 'The Coke was a life saver."
"Come back any time. Appreciate your business."
Ramey left wondering if there were any whip marks on the back of the old man's daughter....
He walked back as he'd come, planning to return to Moratta's place and avoid contact with any of the other guests until things quieted down. Then he would go about his own vital business.
But there was an interruption. A quarter of a mile from the store, and beyond the sight of it, a thick bank of trees came close to the road. As he was passing them, the undergrowth parted and an attractive face peered through.
It was followed by an equally attractive body and the girl the old man had ordered into the back room stepped out onto the pavement.
"Mister-can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Why of course."
She was wearing a man's shirt, now, tucked into a pair of blue jeans. There was still no brassiere, and the lovely tits were as prominent and more tempting than before.
"The way my father sent me away-" she said. "I was ashamed."
"No need to be. All young people are supposed to obey their parents."
"But it isn't fair. Not even letting me talk to a good-looking man. I'm not a kid any more. I'm seventeen years old."
"He wants what's best for you."
"He's plain mean," she said angrily. "But I didn't come to talk about him." She paused. "You're-you're from New York City, aren't you?"
"Yes." He glanced up the road.
"If you're not in a hurry, I know a place near here where we can sit and talk."
The invitation didn't make Ramey too happy. He had no wish to become involved with the underaged daughter of the character he'd just spoken with. But he was after information.
"That might be pleasant," he said. "For a little while."
She pushed the foliage back and he followed her in off the road, thinking with amusement how Lee would have reacted to a picture of this scene-of his going off for a rendezvous with a girl whose over-ripe breasts were falling out of her shirt.
The girl led him a quarter of a mile in the general direction of Moratta's estate. There, she veered to the left and approached a small lake-hardly more than a pond-but clear and blue and cool.
It had a grassy bank and the girl dropped lithely down into a cross-legged sitting posture and looked up at Ramey.
"I wanted to ask you about New York Qty."
Ramey chose a spot beyond reach of the girl where he braced his back against a tree and had a view of the lake. "What did you want to know?"
"Is it like they say? Beautiful clothes in the shop windows? Excitement-night clubs?"
"Yes. But a city like New York is a point of view. The glamour they talk about is mainly in people's minds. It can be the most lonely place in the world if you have no friends."
"That would be impossible. Having no friends among millions of people."
"You've never been to New York Qty?"
"The furthest I've been from where I was born-in the back of the store-is ten miles. That's how far it is to where I go to school." There was bitterness in her voice. 'That's the law. The law says you have to go to school. Otherwise he'd have never let me get that far."
Ramey felt uneasy. He wished he hadn't come. He didn't care to listen to the frustrations of an angry child.
"He probably has plans for you later. He wants you to be well grounded in love for home and family. There's plenty of time. You're very young."
"I'm seventeen." She looked up quickly. "My name is Jennifer-Jenny Haynes."
"I'm Ralph Ramey."
She was moving close to him. She had given up the squatting, cross-legged position and was stretched full length on her face with her head close to his feet.
"Just how old should a girl be before she makes love with a man?"
The question, thrown abruptly, scratched away a little of Ramey's poise. He covered his surprise with a laugh. "I really don't know."
"Isn't seventeen old enough?"
"No. I don't think so."
"A girl should get kissed at least by the time she's seventeen."
"You've never been kissed?"
"I never had a chance."
"But you've been to school dances. Boys have brought you home."
"I've never been to a dance in my life."
"Well, you're still young," Ramey repeated lamely.
"He keeps saying that too."
"He," spat out contemptuously, evidently referred to her father. She eyed Ramey moodily. "You think I'm forward, don't you? You think I'm brazen. Walking up to a stranger and talking to him about love. But certainly there must be a reason."
"Tell me."
"It's because things have been the way they have. I never get a chance to talk to a man. I've thought about that a lot and so I made myself a promise."
"What was it?" He could see that the girl's frankness did not come easily. There was effort behind it.
"I promised myself that if I did get a chance to talk to a man, I wouldn't be shy-I wouldn't waste the opportunity."
"That's sensible," Ramey said with a certain dubiousness in his voice.
"Sometimes, at night, I just about go crazy."
"I imagine at times it can get monotonous out here alone."
"Not that so much. I mean inside. I get feelings I can't explain. I-I want to feel a man's arms around me."
Ramey wondered, desperately, what there was about him that drew the confodence of people-that caused them to look on him as a father confessor. It was a talent and a valuable personality asset. But at the moment he could have done without it.
"There will be plenty of time for that," he said.
"Time! Time! That's what my father keeps saying. But what if something happens to me? What if I die at eighteen. Look what I'll have missed."
"That may be true, but the odds are against your dying."
"Oh, you don't understand."
"I do understand."
Her face brightened and Ramey saw in it, the beauty and allure the glow-that youth and desire create automatically.
"You do?"
"Of course. It's a matter of-"
She drew closer. "Mr. Ramey-will you kiss me?"
It was ridiculous, but he felt terribly embarrassed. And again his thoughts went back to Lee. She would have gotten a real kick out of this. He could hear her cynical drawl:
"Go ahead Casanova. Give the little girl a thrill. And if you say you're only doing her a favor, I'll break your neck."
The girl twisted up toward him and put her arms around his neck. Her lips found his. He put his arms around her instinctively, but he didn't draw her to him. He felt out-of-place and awkward, holding her there.
Her lips stayed motionless against his and he waited for her to draw away. But when she did it was only an inch or so. Her breath was on his face as she said. "When people kiss they open their mouths, don't they?"
"I guess they do-sometimes."
"That makes it more fun." She again put her lips against his and this time they opened.
My God, he thought. She's only seventeen! I'm a cradle-snatcher!
Her arms were tight around his neck. He would have had to be a stone man not to respond.
You're a heel anyhow, Ramey, he reminded himself. You're a dog and your soul is long gone anyhow. So why not-?
She pushed him sideways. The tree no longer supported him and he went onto his back. She came to him, her lush tits as warm and eager as the tongue that continued to search.
For a girl who was without experience in love, he thought, her instincts worked surely and boldly, her body eagerly against him.
Almost before he knew what she was doing, she'd taken his hand under her shirt. There it found warm, thrilling breasts.
She pressed her cheek to his. "The man teases the woman," she said. "He plays with her. He gets her excited and makes her ready for love."
Obviously, she'd found a book somewhere on the art of love and was quoting it. Then she displayed an individuality by saying. "I think it should be the other way, too. The woman should play with the man and tease him. Why should the man do all the work?"
She then displayed an eagerness to put this conviction into practice by grabbing at his pants zipper. "Good grief!" her exclamation came spontaneously.
"Get up-please."
She didn't seem to hear him. Her eyes still wide, she said, "If you don't frig me, I'm going to go to the State Police barracks down the road and say you did it by force!"
Before he could answer, she nuzzled up against him and boldly unzipped him. Her fresh youth and beauty had aroused him and now with her threat, Ramey threw caution to the winds. He unbuttoned her blouse and as her fresh young titties sprang up at him, began to kiss their cherry-red nipples. Her body tossed in excitement as Jenny felt a man's lips there for the first time.
She pulled off her jeans and panties quickly and Ramey was soon naked with her. His lips worked downward and they flicked the crevices of her navel on her round young belly, she implored, "Fuck me now! I'm burning up!"
She parted her vibrant cuntlips expectantly as Ramey shoved in his huge, stiff prick as gently as possible into her cunt. He felt her flinch for a moment and knew he was the first to fuck her and that he had just broken her cherry. Then he lunged into her more powerfully and quickened his hump-rhythm as he sensed she was nearing her peak. Suddenly, he felt her buttocks tense and her belly and thighs thresh under him in a wild frenzy.
"Oh, Ralph, Ralph! This is the most wonderful feeling in the world," she gasped.
Ramey arched into one last convulsive thrust as jolting jets of sperm surged through his cock into her welcoming cunt. Jenny held him tight, his gasps of pleasure joining her happy cries as a woman's greatest sensation churned through her entire being from her writhing pussy.
Jenny held Ramey as if she never wanted to let him go while they gasped to recover their breath.
"Thank you, Ralph darling," she whispered. "Thank you so much for making me a woman!"
"You sort of forced the issue," Ramey said drily.
Jenny laughed, "I never would have gone to the State Police. I was just playing poker and you fell for my bluff."
"I'm not sorry I did, Jenny," Ramey said with a satisfied smile. "I'll never forget the sweet fucking you gave me on this summer afternoon...."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ramey thought things looked rather quiet around the Moratta mansion when he returned from his frigging counter with the amorous Jenny. He felt he could use a little rest after that hot hump. He heard some cries and commotion from the swimming pool area as he approached and realized that the weekend high jinks weren't completely over yet.
With Tino Cavanne and Bud Fallon as ringmasters, all of the girls had been -lined up at the edge of the pool, Iris and Dee among them. The cries of protest apparently came from the girls who had been told to strip to the buff before the leering group of watching men. Tino and Bud ripped off the bikinis of those who hesitated. Finally, seven naked female bodies, all beauties, stood -lined up at the pool-side.
At the sharp commands of Tino and Bud, they all waded into the pool together, arms linked. Ramey watched, fascinatedly, wondering what the men had dreamed up now for their amusement. Tino and Bud went in after the girls. They ordered the girls on their backs, in a floating position, in a line. The hands of each girl held the legs of the girl floating ahead of her. Tino and Bud moved among the girls and arranged them in a circle. The floating nude beauties-brunettes, redheads and blondes-looked like a water ballet in a nudist camp. Then Tino and Bud made some further arrangements with the unresisting girls bodies in the water.
The men at the pool side began to laugh uproariously at the sight in the pool. Ralph Ramey looked unbelieving at the first floating female daisy chain he had ever seen. The mouth of each girl was on the cunt of the girl floating ahead of her ... He wondered when they would begin to run out of refinements in perversion. Now he could really write his book on abnormal psychology.
Fortunately, for the women, most of the men were beginning to run out of steam and the party was beginning to taper off. A noticeable exodus began a short time later, and by dusk, the estate was practically empty of weekenders.
Ramey studiously avoided Mike Moratta, and he was not quite sure whether the Lyman's had left or not.
Just before moonrise, he pawed his way to the bushes where he'd hidden the spade. He waited until there was enough light to move without breaking his skull against a tree, and headed for the mysterious mound back on the estate.
He found it without any trouble.
He worked easily, lifting the soft earth with an increasing sense of excitement as the mound beside the grave increased and the hole deepened.
Gradually, he became so engrossed in his labor that he forgot the time and the place. So the shock of realizing he was not alone almost stopped his heart. A huge shadow looming suddenly above him. He looked up.
It was Mike Moratta.
Perhaps it was the setting or perhaps something more, but Moratta towered there like a dark monster. Then he realized it was more because his host was stripped to the waist and he carried a long black whip in his hand.
"Looking for something?"
Ramey had no words. "I-I"
"Keep on digging."
Ramey had stepped out of the hole he'd made and was on level with Moratta on the opposite side of the grave.
"All right," he said. "You outsmarted me. I didn't think I was that obvious. How did you know I was interested?"
Moratta was wearing a strange, fixed scowl. "Keep digging," he said.
"That's ridiculous now."
Ramey turned and took a couple of steps toward the head of the grave where he'd laid his jacket. But he never reached it. The black whip snaked out and wrapped itself around his ankles. Moratta jerked and Ramey went down.
"I said, keep digging."
The man was mad; so obviously mad that Ramey saw no sense in resisting or arguing. Resistance could get him certain death. Arguing would get him nowhere.
He picked up the shovel and stepped back into the hole. He began to dig. Moratta approached the grave and stood close to the edge.
Ramey's first terrifying thought changed the picture. As he pushed the shovel into the soft earth, he saw the hole as his own grave. A wild vision of being buried alive twisted through his mind. What if Moratta hit him over his head, stunned him-and he came to under several feet of earth?
Desperate measures were justified. There was nothing to lose.
He turned his head slightly to see Moratta's legs within easy reach. If he could swing the shove, perhaps break one of Moratta's legs, he could take command. He threw out three more shovels of dirt. Then he braced himself to swing the shovel on the next lift.
It didn't work. Even as he raised his eyes, he saw that Moratta had reversed his hold on the whip and now gripped it as a club. The heavy black butt rose and fell. Ramey saw a brief moment of shooting stars. Then there was nothing.
When he came too, a scream formed in his throat as he realized his worst fears had become reality. He was lying in the grave and as consciousness returned he felt clods hitting his chest.
He came erect with a howl.
Moratta laughed and Ramey saw that he'd merely tossed a few clods down into the hole.
The big man shook his head. "Uh-huh. You're not going under yet. We're going to take a nice little walk first."
He'd reversed the whip again and Ramey waited where he was, standing in the grave. "Where are we walking to?"
"Back to the house. And if you've got any ideas of running forget it. I can bring you down with this whip before you've gone three steps.
"I saw a demonstration."
"Okay, up and out of there."
"Are you planning to kill me?"
"You're too nosey. Wait and find out."
Feeling he had nothing to lose, Ramey decided to keep on talking. "I didn't think I was as clumsy as I appear to have been. What did I do that was suspicious?"
"My guests don't hide shovels in the bushes."
"I see. Tell me, who's buried here?"
"Nobody. Start walking toward the house."
Ramey obeyed. "I didn't understand the geranium bit. I still don't."
"The kid gets funny ideas."
Ramey walked slowly talking over his shoulder. Any minute he expected to feel the bite of the whip. "Are you planning to kill me?"
"I said wait and see."
"Then I'd be a fool to tell you the name of the man in the Lyman matter."
"That doesn't make any difference now."
Ramey realized what had happened. Moratta had been on the verge of madness for some time. He'd sought a way out of whatever trap he'd been in by devious means.
Now he'd gone off his rocker. So it didn't really matter about the trip. He was breaking out of it now.
"Why did you want that name?"
"Shut up."
Ramey's back tightened. Moratta's tone, more brutal now, could have prefaced a lash from the whip. But they walked on, Moratta directing Ramey with grunts, until they came to a low, foliage hidden door on the side of the house opposite the patio.
"In there."
The door was not locked. Ramey pushed through and found himself in a narrow cement-walled passage that was lighted with a dim bulb.
"First door to the left."
Ramey opened. The room was lighted by an overhead bulb. It was empty except for an odd rack with suspicious looking straps attached.
"Strip," Moratta said.
The tone of his voice frightened Ramey. It shrieked of instability and sadism. But an objection flared and nonetheless.
"Now wait a minute!"
The whip snapped out. Ramey staggered forward as it bit into his back. He fell against the wall and clawed at it for support.
"I said strip."
There was nothing to do now but play for time. Ramey could either strip and see what happened or stand there and probably be killed. It wouldn't take many blows of the caliber Moratta had just thrown at him.
Ramey had left his jacket at the grave. He took off his tie and shirt.
The whip cracked. Ramey jumped instinctively but it did not touch him. He took the hint however and stripped off his undershirt.
"Now the pants. You can leave your shoes and socks on."
Ramey took off his trousers and Moratta grinned as he acted from force of habit and laid them neatly across the odd frame.
"The shorts, too."
Ramey did not obey. He stood there wondering whether he might just as well keep a little dignity and die with at least one piece of clothing on.
"I said, off with the shorts."
"I'd rather not."
The whip cracked. Ramey jumped and suppressed the scream that the agonizing bite of the leather brought to his lips. It cracked him again, a warning this time and Ramey grabbed at his shorts.
Moratta grinned. "All right. Let's see how your reactions are."
He twirled the whip expertly and aimed a blow at Ramey's ankles. Ramey, acting upon instinct, jumped two feet off the floor and the whip cracked harmlessly.
Moratta, his eyes terrible, grinned. "Pretty good. A little higher this time."
Ramey made it three feet. Moratta kept the byplay going until Ramey was breathing heavily. As he kept cracking the whip, Ramey realized he was forced into a corner. He tried to change direction. Instantly, the whip lashed out to cut him off.
Trying desperately to escape, he made the mistake of turning his back on Moratta. He was thus exposed as he whirled around and the whip was fast. It lashed out, entangled around his ankles, and brought him to his hands and knees.
He remained motionless, stunned for a moment, with Moratta behind him. The whip lashed out, cracking like a gun going off.
Ramey squalled in agony. Pain had never before ripped through his body so fiercely. Moratta roared in delight as Ramey came arcing to his feet, clawing at himself.
Moratta handled the whip like a mad genius. It began cracking like an automatic over Ramey's head, forcing him down again.
"So you're a hypnotist, eh?" Moratta snarled. "All right, I'm a hypnotist, too. Down on your face, kiss the floor."
Terrorized, Ramey forced his face to the rough cement.
"Crawl over here."
Ramey hesitated a second too long. The whip snapped over his back, arched down and snapped against him. He crawled forward.
"Kiss my shoes."
Ramey, pain surging through his body, touched his tongue to Moratta's foot. He was close enough to grapple with the madman now, but there was too much pain.
Ramey, sick, defeated, staggered after Moratta pushed him through another doorway and fell to the floor. His senses reeling, he wondered where he was. He heard movement and opened his eyes. Slowly, he sat up.
The first thing he saw was a naked woman. He blinked stupidly and realized it was Nina Lyman. She crouched on a stool hugging her knees. She looked dazed and miserable.
Ramey turned his head and saw Steve Lyman slumped down against the wall. He too was naked.
"We're in the hands of a madman," Lyman muttered.
His eyes met Ramey's and a silent question and acknowledgement passed between them. And it was somehow a comfort to know they had both suffered the same outrage. It gave them a feeling of brotherhood.
"He's gone completely off his rocker," Ramey said. "We've got to figure something out."
"It's unless," Nina Lyman said. "We're all going to be killed and thrown in the same grave."
It was only now that Ramey caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head. There was still another person in the room. A woman. She was chained to a wall and she was little more than skin and bones. Her hair was matted and her eyes, sunken deep in her head, bore the look of madness. She stared at Ramey.
"My God!" he said. "Who is that?"
"Moratta's wife, Rosalie," Steve Lyman said.
"You mean she's been chained up down here?"
"Almost two years."
Ramey's eyes narrowed. "You knew about this?"
"No! I didn't know anything about it."
"You knew something."
"What makes you say that?"
"I want answers, damn it! Not questions. Were you blackmailing Moratta? Is that the way you got your money?"
Lyman was completely beaten. There was no resistance in him. "Sure, I blackmailed him. The stupidest thing I ever did." He gulped convulsively and turned his eyes on his wife. "It was her fault! I didn't want to. But she was damned hungry. So damned greedy. She pushed me into it."
"You're a liar," Nina Lyman snarled.
Lyman came up off his haunches and lunged at her. "Don't call me a liar."
She cringed away from him as he swung his arm in a cruel open handed blow that cracked against the side of his foot. She doubled over herself, squalling.
Ramey spring forward and pulled Lyman away. "Have you gone mad too?"
Lyman jerked his arm way and went back to his place by the wall. He hunkered down again, sullen and angry.
"AH right," Ramey said, "Let's have it."
"Moratta loved his wife-I think" Lyman said.
"And-"
"She cheated on him."
"Why would that mean anything with what I've seen around here?"
"But Mike Moratta wasn't the way he is now-not before it happened. This guy knew Rosalie a long time ago. Moratta caught them. I don't know exactly what happened, but he got the idea that the kid isn't even his."
"Where does the blackmail angle come in?"
"It was when I had the place on Sunrise Lake. They tried to get away or something. Anyhow, I was out hunting and I walked in on them when he caught up with them. I saw him beat the guy to death."
"Did he know you saw it?"
"No. Not till later." He sneered across at his wife. "I went home and told her and she talked me into something. You see, I knew where he had buried the body."
"Out back-on the estate?"
"No. Way back in the hills."
"What's in that grave out there? Do you know about it?"
"It isn't a grave. Moratta's been telling the kid his mother was a bum for so long that the kid declared her dead and made her grave for her and filled it up. As far as he's concerned, his mother is in it. But she isn't." Lyman pointed. "That's Rosalie there. What's left of her."
The terrible story was beginning to shape up for Ramey. But there wwere still gaps. "Moratta hired me to get some information from your wife."
Lyman's eyes changed. Life came into them. 'The lousy madman." He shook his head groggily and held up a restraining hand. "Don't tell me. I know. He wanted to find out where I had put the protection letter."
"He involved it with a piece of property you own in Manhattan. He tried to sell me on an idea that if he could discover who held your notes he could buy them up and take the building away from you."
"That dump? Clever! Clever! It takes a madman to really come in from left field."
"What was the angle?"
"I told Moratta when I blackmailed him, that I had an ace in the hole. I'd have been a fool not to plant a letter."
"But how did the building and the loan gag fit in?"
"I knew Moratta was smart and ruthless. I wanted to confuse him-keeping him guessing."
"How did you work it?"
"I made myself look clumsy. I told him the letter I wrote was with the only friend I had in the world-a guy who saved my life financially several times. I eased in bits about loans to save property-oh, I was clever! I even had my man call him on the phone and verify possession of a letter from me to be opened if anything happened."
"Then why couldn't he trace a line to the man himself?"
Lyman snorted. 'There wasn't any man. There isnt a dime against that dump down there. I figured if he started looking for somebody he couldn't find because the guy doesn't exist, I'd have him trapped. The guy calling over the phone was a record I had her manipulate."
Lyman's consideration for Nina, if it had ever existed, did not exist anymore. His gesture toward her was one of utmost contempt.
Ramey noted this. 'The name Moratta then-"
"How'd you get it?" Lyman sneered. "Did you play with her a little bit?"
Nina Lyman came partially out of the sullen stupor into which she'd fallen; long enough to look over and sneer back and mutter, "You rat."
Steve grinned.
"Was Nina aware that the man didn't exist?"
"Are you kidding? Do you think I trusted her?"
Nina blazed. "You got no right to say that! I protected the name never told you but Moratta really put me over the barrel trying to get if from me."
"I got a picture of that," Lyman sneered back. "All he'd have to do is touch you!"
"Stop it! Stop it!" Nina screamed. "I was loyal!"
"She's a nympho. And you know how reliable they are!" Lyman said flatly.
"I didn't give that pig the name!" Nina screamed. "If he says I did, he's lying."
Lyman changed slightly, and Ramey saw that he really wanted to believe her. Lyman revealed this in the way he looked at Ramey-with a faint hope in his face.
"Did she?"
Ramey thought quickly. Had he mentioned the name of Larry Strieker? He could not remember having done so, and giving Nina Lyman a break seemed a small enough favor; particularly so because she honestly could not recall what had happened in his room.
He shook .his head. "No. She didn't give it to me. I tried to get it. I couldn't."
Ramey thought Nina flashed him a grateful look. Did she have a faint subconscious rememberance of having given him the name? It didn't really matter. She looked at Lyman in weary, sullen triumph. "Okay, loving spouse. What have you got to say now?"
"Drop dead," Lyman grunted.
Ramey's picture was as complete as he needed; complete enough to satisfy his curiosity about the hitherto unknown details of the affair.
He swiftly evaluated Moratta; the man had to no doubt long been close to mental disaster. He'd been mad, of course, from the day he committed murder and imprisoned his wife. But a seed of caution had remained. The instinct to survive had stayed dominant through the blackmail-playing and name-searching period, with the torture of his wife, no doubt, feeling the vengeance-need of his ego and keeping from going completely out of control.
But now what? Death? Probably. It was odd, but Ramey's regret had to do with Lee. What would become of her? This was ridiculous of course. Lee had taken care of herself very well for a long time without his help. But it was different now. Quite different.
He pulled his mind away from such thoughts. Nothing is really hopeless until your're dead, he told himself grimly. He got up and went to the door and tested it. No chance there. It was amply bolted from the outside.
Nina Lyman moaned. He turned and saw tears streaming down her face. "He'll kill us now, won't he?" she whimpered.
"Maybe not," Ramey said cheerfully.
"You're a liar," Lyman said.
The woman chained to the wall said nothing. She had not reacted in any way since Ramey had entered. Ramey shuddered mentally at the thought of what had happened to her; what had to have happened to her considering Moratta, the manner of man he was, and the circumstances. Every possible indignity and bestiality would have been visited upon her. His mind, sharpened by madness, would thought up things beyond conception.
Madness at its ultimate.
Lyman also, it appeared, was going off the deep end by way of the sadism route. Resentments and frustrations relative to his wife were turning into active cruelty.
He looked at her and said. "He'll kill us, but you know whatll happen to you first?"
"Steve-please."
"You know how many cock-eyed ways there are to hurt a woman. Moratta would know ways that haven't even been invented yet?"
"Stop it!" Ramey said sharply. "We may be trapped by an animal but let's stay human ourselves."
Lyman snarled. 'The hell with you!"
Ramey crossed to where Lyman crouched against the wall and hit him-an open-handed blow in the jaw. Lyman cringed away, mumbled obscenities and went mute.
The incident was ending by the opening of the cell door. Ramey turned. Joe Toder stood there.
Ramey hadn't seen Toder since the surprisingly confidential talk they'd had early in the weekend. He'd wondered where Toder had gone but hadn't attached any great importance to the disappearance.
Now he scanned the man quickly and his hopes rose. Toder looked sane and self-possessed and non-hostile.
"Greetings," Ramey said. "You're a life-saver. We've gotten ourselves in a little trouble."
Then the hope died as Toder took a gun from his pocket and pointed it at Ramey.
"As you were."
Ramey's smile was bitter. "I thought for a moment that you might not be his man-that there might be some decency in you."
"Can it," Toder said. "I'm playing out the string."
"What does that mean?"
"I think I know what it means. There's something for you in this after the crash. We're going to die-you know that-so there'll be no witnesses. You can see what the end will be and there'll be some fat pieces you can somehow pick up."
"You're clever," Joe Toder said thoughtfully.
And Ramey detected something new. It was in no way incredible, but it was certainly a source of ultimate despair to see, now, a touch of the rotten, the unwholesome, the mad, in Toder's eyes. Deep, carefully hidden, but it was there. And this followed because, as Ramey realized, like seeks like. To each his own. There were many ways of putting it but even madness finds its affinity and there was a bond between Toder and Moratta.
Not friendship, not loyalty. Such things were alien to the decayed natures of both. But they were two of a kind even though Moratta had progressed much farther down the long road to destruction.
Ramey's attention was caught by Nina Lyman. She had come off her stool and was crawling toward Joe Toder.
She was hideous. Ramey could find no other term to describe her. Naked, her hair matted, a fixed, fawning look on her face. Hideous, but only from his desperate point of view. From another possible viewpoint, the reaction produced could have been different. Other eyes could have seen Nina Lyman as a breathtaking opportunity. A beautiful naked woman crawling sensuously across the floor.
Nina's fear and desperation had been transformed into invitation. There was unconditional surrender and invitation in her every move. As she crawled toward Joe Toder, she was offering him herself without restriction in exchange for escape. In fact she was selling herself as she crawled.
Joe Toder stared, fascinated. She crawled forward sinuously, until Toder was looking at her with his eyes turned straight down.
A quick, nervous grin twisted his mouth.
Ramey glanced at Steve Lyman expecting to see his wife's action as a betrayal-a final, high bit of marital betrayal that proved beyond doubt, everything he'd said about her.
But it was not the case. Lyman watched her movements avidly. There was hope in his eyes. Obviously, he saw his own possible escape from death in Nina's action. And Ramey could almost hear Lyman's mind speaking:
"Go ahead baby-go ahead ... You've got the right idea ... Give him anything he wants ... any thing's better than being killed like rats in here ... Give him anything he wants ... Make this good ... show him a good time he's never had before ... Buy our way out, baby ... Buy our way...."
And Nina Lyman had exactly that in mind; to buy a way out, at least herself, and by any means possible. She laid her head on Toder's foot. She smiled sensuously and lifted the leg of his trousers and touched his ankle with her tongue.
This was promise; this was negotiation; a way to indicate the true delights Nina was willing to dispense in return for her freedom.
Ramey watched Toder. He took several steps backward and put his back against the wall. Nina Lyman resting on her extended arms, her face almost touching the floor, watching the floor, watched him silently.
Ramey shuddered. Terrible, incredibly, obscene. The beginning of something unbelievable; but a thing entirely logical under the circumstances.
Nina held Joe Toder's eyes for a long moment. Then she began wriggling forward again.
Ramey's mind groped for some comparison; something that nagged at his memory; something he's seen or read. It came. A book, a fiction story. He could not recall the name or the author, but the scene that had seared itself into his memory was one of an illiterate southern girl crawling across a yard toward an equally native son who had some food-a vegetable of some sort, Ramey recalled. The girl's job was to trap the boy with her physical charms so that a relative could then steal the food the entire family needed very badly.
At the time, Ramey had laughed at the book. The idea had been so unreal. Ramey knew that no human being could fall so low as to lie prostrate in such fashion even to keep alive. The human animal had an inherent pride that would not allow such a thing.
But here it was. He was witnessing the reality. He was seeing first hand what a human being would do-how low a person who still called herself human would go-to save her life.
Nina had again reached Joe Toder's feet. Ramey glanced at Steve Lyman, whose eyes were speaking:
"Go on baby ... Go on like only you know how ... Then we'll kick his brains out."
And Lyman's performance further sickened Ramey because he knew how Lyman would react. Lyman really believed his own mental pleadings. Yet, if Nina were successful, if the danger passed them by, he would contemptuously kick his wife and spit on her.
Nina caressed Joe Toder's shoe. He lifted it. She slipped his shoe off. She kissed the stockinged foot and slowly, sensuously began pulling his sock down. He grinned at her. The sock came off. Nina began making love to his foot. As though it was the fetish she'd looked for all her life, she applied her mouth, her tongue in abject surrender and adoration.
Her hand moved up his trousered leg as though she had to have more; as though the foot was not enough.
Joe Toder, completely spellbound, thoroughly bemused, watched her with the tight, frozen grin on his lips. He was held by the amazement welling from the question as to how far the girl would go.
Nina Lyman's promise broadened. Her caressing hands verified the hope and now the expectation of the man before her.
He shivered under the magic of her hands. His knees trembled as she came up onto her knees and continued her adoration.
And as Ramey watched, his muscles tightened. He drove all revulsion and loathing from his mind deliberately. He forced himself to disregard what Nina Lyman was doing. It was academk; she and Toder were shadow people; they did not exist. The only person who existed in Ramey's mind was the Toder holding the gun. He was interested only in that Toder's physical reaction.
He watched. He waited. The terrible pantomine went on. Toder's grin widened and became something seen only on a death's head; on a gaping skull.
Nina Lyman moaned as she unzipped his fly and took the head of his erect cock in her mouth, and the moan came close to jarring Ramey out of his intense concentration. The thought intruded:
God! Is she actually enjoying sucking his prick?
Toder was. He was in a kind of cataleptic ecstasy of anticipation.
And Ramey pounced.
He came forward like a sprinter at the crack of the gun. He hit Toder high above the waist and toppled him.
Nina Lyman, entangled herself, went over also.
Ramey's weight was on Toder and the resulting tangle was a kind of human sandwich with Toder in the middle.
Smothering, choking, Nina Lyman began to fight. But Ramey could give her no thought and no assistance because the gun was under Toder's shoulders. Undisputed possession of it had not been decided and this was foremost and vital in Ramey's mind.
As the two men struggled, Nina Lyman began fighting desperately. Her nude body whipped and flailed. She braced herself on widely spread legs and tried to pull herself free on that leverage. She failed. She began clawing wildly. This got her nowhere and in desperation, she began to beat the floor with her fists.
Then Ramey's hand closed over the gun butt. He jerked the weapon clear and rolled away from Toder, coming to an erect crouch beyond Toder's reach.
"All right," he snapped. "Let her up."
Toder rolled clear in turn, revealing Nina Lyman's bulging eyes. She coughed. Turning over, she came to her hands and knees and coughed with her head hanging. She pulled a desperate arm across her mouth and gagged as though ready to vomit.
Then she collapsed in a heap.
"Against the wall-in that corner," Ramey ordered. Toder-now lived with rage, stood crouched, undecided.
Ramey leveled the gun. He aimed it coldly at Toder's leg and pulled the trigger.
The impact of the slug whirled Toder. He screamed as he went down on his face. He lay there moaning in pain.
Lyman was on his feet now. The hope of freedom was making him a little wild. "Blow the lock off the door, you fool! Let's get out of here."
"A slug wouldn't reach it. It's on the outside."
"Then we're just as bad off as before."
"Maybe. Maybe not."
And for once, things went as logic told Ramey they would. Two long minutes passed. Moratta had been attracted by the shot and his arrival took just about as long as Ramey had expected.
He heard the bolt pulled on the outside. Then, logically thinking that Toder had been forced to shoot someone, he plunged into the room and without checking.
Still holding the whip, he stood there.
"Drop it," Ramey barked. 'Drop it-now!"
Moratta seemed to have difficulty in focusing his eyes. His head came around slowly, as though by effort. Ramey's finger tightened on the trigger but he did not fire.
Moratta blinked and his expression changed as he saw Ramey and the pointed gun.
Ramey expected him to lunge forward with a roar of rage. But he held back. After Moratta took one step, he would fire. That would bring the maniac to the floor with a few feet to spare.
But Moratta did not fly into a rage. He did not plunge forward. He stared for perhaps ten seconds. Then his face began falling apart. Bit by bit, it collapsed. Tears welled into his eyes. His knees weakened and he came slowly to the floor in a heap of total defeat. He began crying hysterically.
"You never can tell," Ramey observed grimly.
Now Lyman plunged into the action. He seized the stool on which Nina had been sitting and rushed at the cowering Moratta with the stool held very high over his head.
"Stop it!" Ramey yelled. "Put that down."
He didn't have to shoot. The command brought Lyman to a halt. His eyes were wild. "What's wrong? Have you gone out of your mind. Let me kill him before he figures out a way to kill us!"
"Put that stool down. Act like a human being. Go upstairs and call the police."
Slowly, Lyman lowered the stool to the floor. He stared at Ramey dully. Then he turned and went to obey....
Ramey sat beside Lieutenant Hollister in the Police Station. It was hours later and the hours seemed years but the police had worked swiftly and efficiently to clear up the weird mess.
"I want to commend you, Mr. Ramey. You did a fine job. You saved some lives."
"Thank you."
"Moratta is a strange case. They've got him in a straight-jacket now."
Ramey couldn't have cared less. He glanced at the door. 'The young lady who's due to arrive. I wonder-."
"She's not here yet," Lieutenant Hollister said. "I have orders to send her in the moment she arrives."
The door opened at that moment and a uniformed officer came in. He looked at Ramey curiously which wasn't surprising. Ramey had been the center of interest since his arrival.
The officer went out and Lieutenant Hollister said, "There will be some routine questions later, but that isn't important now. We have your New York address. We'll contact you there. No need to hold you any longer. You're tired. You need rest."
Ralph Ramey was lying in bed with his favorite redhead, Lee Fair, in their suite at the Crown Hotel. He wound up his tale of the weird happenings at Mike Moratta's mansion with, "So you see, doll, I'm lucky to have gotten out of the deal with a whole skin."
"It's the skin I love to touch, Ralph darling," she murmured as she moved her beautiful curved, luscious tits lightly across Ramey's chest.
"But we're broke, doll," Ramey said. "I didn't get that fee I was counting on so much."
"I have a little money," Lee said, "enough for you to open up an office using your talent as a hypnotereapist. I know you can make good legitimately if you want to."
Ralph looked at the love and devotion in Lee's eyes and let his lips close over her hard, crimson nipples. He kissed each nipple greedily and Lee's voluptuous cunt and buttocks began to grind under him in a tantalizing rhythm. She defdy engulfed his questing, throbbing prick within the eager passion of her moist, hot cuntlips Ralph still nibbled lightly on her rigid, jutting nipples and cupped her full, quivering asscheeks.
"Shove all of your prick in my cunt, Ralph darling," she gasped as she spurred him to fuck her as fully as possible, her heels digging into the small of his back.
Ralph groaned as each of his pile-driving thrusts was met by her writhing twat-he was beginning to lose control.
Lee suddenly screamed, "Fuck me, more, more, more ... oh, Ralph!" and spasm of ecstasy convulsed her cunt. At her cries, Ralph stiffened as he shot his load of hot spurting scum into her cunt and he was lost with her in a shattering mutual orgasm.
They lay entwined in each other's arms for long moments.
"I have a problem, Dr. Ramey," Lee murmured in his ear.
"Well, let's see if we can't cure you."
"I don't see how you can," she laughed as she dangled her tits over his face. "You see, Doctor, I'm a nymphomaniac with the man I love to fuck-you!"
