It was a small building set back from the street, looking very much like a private home. There was a small bronze plate, delicately etched and beveled, beside the big bronze doorway.
The plate read, Institute of Applied Sexology.
Sam Benson, a tall man, handsome, surging with the fulminating eagerness of thirty-four, stood for a moment at the entryway admiring the bronze plate, the general air of sedate privacy that he had achieved for his institute. He was quite proud of his enterprise, This place was a veritable gold mine. But, still, he didn't want Vivian to find out about it.
Vivian, The Astrologer. That's the way everything that she owned read. He wondered if she would have those words tattooed across her gorgeous tits. One day he would have to find out for himself.
He opened the door with his key and as he went inside he glanced at his watch. He had a good group coming in tonight but he knew that he would not be able to wait for them. He was on fire now and he was glad that Lorraine was inside waiting for him.
It was a little after six and he had already had dinner. Now he was ready to face the evening and the new group that would provide him with lots of fun and some really interesting joy.
The Institute of Applied Sexology was not really unique, he supposed, but the way he got his clients was pretty clever, he thought. He worked for Vivian as the supervisor of her Institute of Hypnosis and Human Motivations. They came to him to be hypnotized so that they could change many things. Always they wanted to be different. Most of them had sexual hangups of one kind and another, and when he told them about the sex institute and the sensitivity sessions and the things that they would be called upon to do if they became clients, it didn't seem to bother them. They would have to do what was required so they might become cured or changed.
Lorraine had come to him in that way. She was a lovely little blonde with fabulous breasts and lovely legs and a really gorgeous bod. But she had been inhibited, too much so, and after losing five boy friends she wanted to change or to be changed. Sam had handled her case personally, privately, and now she was his manager, a dear friend and associate. He thought of Lorraine's delicate perfection, her soft and eager eyes, and he suddenly had an erection that hurt him. Lorraine would take good care of it for him, and he was glad of that.
She came out of her office to greet him, and when he saw her short skirt, virtually exposing her crotch, he shivered. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Her hand went to his crotch, her fingers handled his stiff cock, and she gasped with a sound of pure delight. He put his hands on her firm young breasts and she fell against him. One hand slipped between her legs and he shivered as his fingers encountered sweet, slippery flesh. She had known when he was coming to the house so she had removed her pants. She was very ready.
He let her go and she stood, her big blue eyes gazing at him affectionately, excitedly. He took her hand and she went along with him. He took her to his private quarters, and as soon as they were in his bedroom she slipped out of her blouse and her short skirt. She was splendidly naked, and she began helping him out of his clothes. She was breathing harshly, noisily.
Her hand captured his stiff cock and she rubbed her firm young breasts up against him. They fell onto the bed and he kissed her sweet young mouth while they moved into a position of greater comfort and purpose. She slid beneath him with a practiced ease and their tongues and lips were swollen and filled with great sexual excitement.
Her legs were wide apart and she was guiding him into her slippery little slit. He began sliding his cock into her depths and she giggled as her lips crawled and squirmed on his mouth. She was shaking as he began moving inside her.
"Oh, Sam," she said softly. He began plunging into her, and she was squealing and screeching into his ear, and then she was bursting and climaxing and she was loud and vigorous when her climax came.
"OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH, Sam," she screeched, "I'm coming! Oh, Lord, am I coming! OOOOOOOOOOOOOO, AH, AAAAHHHHH," she sighed. He could feel the clenching surges of her sweet young flesh as it tried to strangle his pulsing cock, and when he collapsed on top of her her arms hugged him and her mouth kissed him with sweet and softening passions.
They lay quiet for a time and then she wriggled out from under him. He heard the shower a moment later and he dozed for a time. She woke him up with her hungry mouth licking and kissing his cock. She liked to lick him, to suck him, and he squirmed in delicious agony as her mouth and tongue teased his organ into fierce and bristling erection. He was writhing and bouncing around on the bed, but she was merciless. Her tongue was teasing his flesh and her tiny teeth nibbled as she licked and kissed the length of his rod. And then she slid her mouth down over his cock, her delicate little fingers plucked at his balls, and her cheeks hollowed with the force of suction. Her tongue was shifting and moving and he could feel the swift, burning forces sliding and twitching in his loins. She sensed that he was close to coming, which always made her fiercer, and her suction increased and nearly pulled the blood from the head of his cock. He ached with desire to stop her, and then he was gushing into her mouth and she was swallowing contentedly while her fingers squeezed and kneaded his balls, stroking him, trying for more.
His brain went haywire and he shuddered as a new and greater burst of spending went through him. She was like that. Just when he was sure that he had done it all, she would use her tongue and fingers and savage suction to force him into new and greater frenzies. She kept on licking his flesh, sucking it, and then she finally slid her mouth off his weak prong and she sat up and smiled at him. He could see the way her nipples stood out like overripe berries, tiny, but hard and bursting with erotic eagerness.
"I'm glad that we are going to have an orgy," she said. "I'm so hot I'm going to burst."
"Not an orgy, dear," he said, sliding his palm upward on her thigh so that he could tease her little cunt into new and greater excitement.
"Ours is what is known as a sensitivity session, a time of touching and tasting and getting to know the bodies and needs of others."
She chuckled. "You can call it anything you want to call it but it will turn out to be an orgy. They always do."
"Yes, dear," he said, "and you can suck as many cocks as you want to. And you can find lots of sweet and loaded cunts to suck, too. You will have a grand time."
"I know," she said, smiling at him. She had a soft, bemused look on her face and her smile showed that she liked him, adored him. She sighed when he pushed her away from him.
He showered and got into his black silk robe. He always liked to welcome a new group in his robe. It did something for him and something for those who came to his session, too. Lorraine showered, too, and brushed her hair and fixed her face. She was exceedingly lovely, glowing with beauty, youth and an insatiable need for sex. She was as hot as fire, she told him. She put on a short skirt and transparent panties. She could help to turn on some of the new ones by just bending over a bit. She liked to do that and she admitted it.
They had something to eat, but they were knowledgeable enough to eat lightly. No one has much fun with sex on a full belly, he knew. They sat at a small table in his private office and nibbled at sandwiches while he looked over the data cards on the people coming in tonight.
Linda, twenty-two, redhead, green eyes, exceptionally good body, severely inhibited. She was trying the group session in desperation. She had been married and her husband had left her because of frigidity. Now she was going to the other extreme, he hoped.
Rose, twenty, blonde, blue-eyed, just a bit plump, but very pretty, very ardent. He suspected that Rose was coming to him because she had no other way of getting some cock.
Karen was nineteen, shy and quiet, a brunette with gentle brown eyes and a slender body. She had good legs and high breasts, and he had already begun her therapy at the hypnosis institute. In the private office he persuaded her to hold his cock, and when she kept licking her lips he took his hands and pushed her mouth down over it just as it began shooting. He rammed it right down her throat and she swallowed it all, and when he stopped holding her head down she lifted her face up so that she could smile at him.
"Soon I'll be able to do it all by myself," she said.
"We'll work on that," he said.
He persuaded her that being able to touch others, to enjoy others, was moving in the right direction if one wanted to be the master of one's personality.
In a way, it always amazed him the way his people would become eager participants in sexual orgies in the guise of becoming better acquainted with the great glories of seeing and touching the persons of others.
This group was going to be especially interesting.
They began arriving shortly after seven and Lorraine brought them into the party room one by one. He sat on a sort of dais like a cross-legged king, and they all liked to see him in such a posture. He supposed it gave an added authority to his commands.
Lorraine brought Warren in first. He was a mild-mannered young man, always close to tears in his utter nervousness. He was a man of medium height with brown hair and brown eyes, thoroughly nondescript, actually, but he was a compulsive masturbator and he had an enormous cock, he said. He was twenty-eight and eager to please, eager to learn. He could not seem to get a girl friend and so he masturbated.
Paul arrived next. He was tall, slender, twenty-six and too shy to make out with girls, he said. He was blond, blue-eyed, very nervous and unsure of himself.
The three girls arrived together, and when Lorraine brought them into the party room she locked the doors behind her. There was a bathroom attached to the room, and everything that they might need was available to them.
The floor was covered with deep pile carpeting and they all sat down on it. He talked with them for a time, and then he told them that they were ready to begin to achieve the freedom of spirit and person that they must achieve if they were to be happy and able to enjoy being alive.
Lorraine spoke to them. She smiled as she turned out the soft lights and turned on the bright spotlights in the ceiling. She pressed a button and drapes gathered up on their rods, exposing mirrors on all of the walls.
"Now," Lorraine said, "we usually begin by having one of the girls getting undressed. She is required to stand on a little platform so that everyone can look at her most intimate areas and touch her in any way that they choose. Now, we very rarely get volunteers for this opening gambit, so we have each of you take a card. The one who gets the lowest card must stand and undress while we all watch. Now, let's take a card, please."
Sam lit a cigarette as he watched the three girls take cards from a deck. Karen, the cute little brunette, suggested that Lorraine ought to have to take a card, too. Lorraine did it, and she was the most cheerful of them all. Karen got a deuce. She was very nervous and quite unglued as she stood and began getting out of her clothes. The others clustered around her and Lorraine helped her by taking the clothes as Karen removed them.
Her breasts were snowy white and very pretty, with no hint of sag. She stood up straight and showed them off. She shivered when Sam told the men to handle her breasts and kiss them if they so chose. The girl seemed to enjoy the touch of masculine fingers, he thought.
She took her skirt off, then her panties, and he looked at the sweet-shaped behind, the delicately shaped lips of pale pink flesh. Her pubis was covered with a heavy growth of hair, and he encouraged the males to handle her cunt and kiss it if they so desired.
He noticed that Warren, the young man with the massive cock, put his mouth over Karen's clit and she came quickly when he began tongu-ing her. The others began getting out of their clothes, too, and the whole thing turned into a wild romp.
Sam got into the spirit of things. He had Linda sit on his lap, and he opened his robe and she sat on his cock. He began moving his hips around and then they slid down to the floor and he began fucking her fiercely, enjoying every second of his romp with the lovely redhead.
Lorraine was handy, and she began eating Linda's overflowing cunt, and he went off and left the two of them together. Warren was busy with the lovely blonde Rose, and she was writhing and screeching as he kept ramming his enormous cock into her depths. Paul was busy screwing Lorraine while she ate Linda, and Sam was glad to sit for a time and watch the heaving, grunting bodies as a thoroughly satisfactory sensitivity session got under way.
They were very eager to learn, to cooperate. The girls all got the chance to suck a cock and a cunt, too, and this was a grand chance for him to explain all of the various benefits that unbridled sexuality could accomplish.
He watched Lorraine suck each of the males off, and then the other girls wanted to learn how to do that, too. There was a time when he sucked cock, too, and the other males did the same. The girls learned how to make love to each other and when he realized that this group was only beginning, Sam felt good about the wonderful things he could easily teach these young people.
He spent hours indulging himself in every way, and he was glad that the girls were quite content to go down on each other when the males petered out on them.
Sam Benson sighed as he sat and watched his new group. They were all paying for this session and it would cost them fifty bucks a piece. He should be paying them. But, that was the way it was in the self-help racket. Make them do what you wanted them to do and charge the hell out of them for it, and it all worked out slick.
Linda, the pretty little blonde, slid her head into his lap and he felt the warmth of her tongue against his hardening meat and he was filled with a sense of happiness and worthiness.
He had a wonderful thing going for himself. But he would have to keep it quiet. Vivian would not stand for this kind of an operation.
And he was afraid of Vivian.
CHAPTER ONE
She stood beside the casket gazing down into Fred's dead face, and the sense of sudden freedom that captivated her also made her feel a pang of shame.
Fred Carson had been very good to her. Now she was rich and famous, and all because he had exploited her and helped her. He was old, nearly sixty, and he should not have had so much to drink. The cab driver said that he hadn't even seen Fred until it was too late. He was dead before he got to the hospital.
Somehow, she didn't think that Fred really minded. He had been tired for a long time now, and having a beautiful blonde wife was a pleasure of sorts, but except for the fumbling nonsense on their wedding night he had never approached her.
She pursed her lips in a soundless kiss for him, and when the mortuary attendant spoke from behind her she jumped, startled.
"He looks so splendid," the moon-faced attendant said.
"He is to be cremated," Vivian said sharply. "As promptly as possible."
"Of course," the man said. "There are certain formalities involved. Would you step this way, please, and we will discuss them."
Vivian Sherwood, twenty-six, beautiful, talented, stacked, went along with the man and the formalities were attended to.
It was late when she finished at the mortuary, and she stood for a time watching some of Fred's mixed-up clients filing in to pay their last respects. He had been a very busy marriage counselor and he had had more problems than any of those he tried to help.
The need for a hot tub and a cup of coffee became overwhelming and she left the mortuary and got into the lavender Rolls. She guided it skillfully through the city traffic and then she cruised the canyons of Beverly Hills with absent-minded ease.
Her mind was busy with plans for the immediate future. She would have to get someone to take over Fred's little enterprise. Perhaps she could update it and turn it into another gold mine. She had several gold mines of her own already. Another never hurt a girl, she reasoned.
All by herself, she was big business. The Institute of Applied Astrology was a real money maker and the hypnosis institute was another. She was firmly entrenched in the self-help business, and as long as people would not accept themselves as they were she would continue to prosper. It was something that she had difficulty comprehending. Why couldn't people be what they were? Why did they have to be hypnotized so that they could stop smoking? Or so that they could stifle their fear of flying? Why couldn't man just be content to walk the face of the earth-and do his thing and then get the hell off-stage gracefully and just let it go at that? If people were like that she would be out of business. She decided that she would stop thinking about screwy stuff and put in a little time mourning Fred. She would spend a lot of money on a fancy urn and send the ashes to his sister in Long Island. Then she would go about her work and try to find somebody to help her with the many enterprises that she had going now.
She thought of Sam Benson almost immediately. He was a perfect bastard, though, and she knew it. But maybe that was just the type she would need to help her run things.
The computers did most of it, of course. She was mailing out seventeen thousand horoscopes a day now, and they were all made up by the machines. Once the information was fed into the data processors, anyone's horoscope was instantly at hand. The way she worked it, she could not do a better job if she tried to cast each horoscope individually.
The Institute of Applied Astrology was her baby, a multi-million dollar showplace of moving planets and smoked glass and conducted tours each afternoon. They liked to watch the simulate heavens and the winking planets as they moved in their computerized paths. The simulated solar system had cost a quarter of a million dollars, and it was never really completed. The astronomers were always checking her complex for accuracy. Life had done a big spread on her fantastic electronic setup and the Institute of Applied Astrology attracted a great deal of publicity and attention.
Crowds flocked through the exhibits every afternoon, and she liked that. The real work was accomplished between the hours of five in the morning until one in the afternoon. After that, the sightseers were welcome.
Somewhere along the line she had encountered the enmity of Peter Prentice. She didn't even know Peter Prentice, but as a syndicated columnist of international fame he had taken it upon himself to publicly brand her a charlatan, a fake, a coldly calculating woman whose Only interest in her fellows was the money that they would pay for phony horoscopes.
When she thought about the vicious things that he said in print, she nearly wept. His charges were utterly unfounded. She did operate her businesses with some measure of intelligence, and the data-processing services permitted her to operate on a much bigger scale than she could have hoped for before the electronic brains started working, but the horoscopes were true and accurately drawn. She made certain of that.
Most of her enterprises were now being operated by competent and dedicated people and she had little to be worried about. She could easily discontinue Fred Carson's marriage counseling agency, but she worried about the people who were his clients. Maybe Sam Benson would like to move up now. He was an adequate and capable manager for the hypnosis institute but he should be able to take on new and greater tasks. She would take him to lunch and ask him about it on Monday.
It was Friday afternoon, the week had been hectic, and she was tired. Too, Fred's unfortunate experience did unnerve her, and she was glad to notice that she was close to home.
Angela would be waiting for her. Angela with the long dark hair, the incredibly soft eyes, the tiny delicate hands that brought such soothing pleasures. She wondered if she hated Angela, actually, and hurt her deliberately. The things that she did to Angela were hideous, but the beautiful young girl thrived on abuses and humiliations. Oh, well, she was a Pisces, and everybody knew that you can do anything at all to them and they accepted it.
She swung the big Rolls into her driveway, and when she got out she paused to look at the splendor and beauty of her home. It was a big place, set back from the street, and the stuccoed walls were tinted lavender, the wide solid doors controlled by the long gold bars that stood out on their surface.
Inside, there were more of the simulated planets moving along in their dictated paths, but it was a much smaller display than the one at the institute. She had had it installed because she often gave interviews and worked on horoscopes at her home. Many of her famous and important clients were glad of the privacy that visiting her in her own home afforded them and they didn't mind that such a benison showed up on their bill.
She went into the house and the glorious Angela came running. The girl had been at work in her office in the front part of the house. She smiled as she saw Vivian, and the fantastic beauty of the girl was breathtaking, Vivian thought. The dark hair was hanging down the girl's back, glistening from the brush and excellent health. Angela's big gray eyes were staring at her, liking her. The pert young breasts stood out sharply, bewitchingly, on the girl's rib cage, and her sweetly shaped butt and pretty legs were beautifully displayed by her short miniskirt and the sleek pantyhose. Angela was a lovely young girl and she should have been married and happy. But she wasn't, and Vivian was grateful that she had her.
Fred had sent her to Vivian.
"She is engaged to be married to this young man she is seeing," Fred explained, "but she cares nothing for him. He is a selfish, sadistic young man and she is thriving on the abuses that he forces upon her. I'm afraid that that is the only attraction he has for her. She has to have someone who can understand her and hurt her."
When she met the girl, Vivian was astonished by the virginal beauty, the docility in Angela. The girl had been raised in an orphanage, and when she was old enough to go on her own she had been hired out to a young doctor. The medic and his young bride were swappers and they quickly included Angela in their nocturnal fun and games. But Angela ran away and got a job in a department store. That was where she met the young man who was making her life miserable when Fred Carson stepped in and gave her another thing to do.
Angela and Vivian took to each other and Vivian made a pet out of the girl. Convinced that Angela's delicate and distorted personality could not survive in ordinary mileus, Vivian gave her a job, a good life and an ample check. Aside from her erotic eagernesses, Angela was capable, efficient and a fine secretary.
Angela's big gray eyes were examining her face intently, affectionately. She smiled and the girl's soft, full-lipped mouth curved into one of her sexy little smiles.
"Was it bad?" Angela asked.
Vivian shook her head. "Not really. But I hate losing Fred. I am upset. Do come along and help me."
Angela's smile took on a brand-new luster.
"Of course," she said.
Vivian strode through the arched passageway leading to a smooth oak door at the far end and Angela went along with her. They talked as they moved.
"There are many calls," Angela said. "Most of them are not too important, but John Gavin called. He is worried about his case in court on Monday. I thought you might want to talk to him. After all, a big criminal lawyer is important."
Vivian laughed. "Call him when you are free and tell him that he will win his case Monday morning. I have already taken a look at his chart. His ephemeris suggests that anything he attempts will turn out right for him on Monday."
"I am so glad," Angela said. "I like him."
Vivian turned to stare at Angela. "Fifty million bucks, who wouldn't like him?" Angela giggled. "I am learning some of the things that you are trying to teach me."
Vivian touched the smoothness of the heavy door in a special place and in a certain way and the thick panel opened. They walked through and entered the perfumed, artfully furnished rooms that Angela and Vivian lived in.
The drapes and fabrics were lavenders or orchids or heliotropes, the woods highly polished and modernistic. The living room contained a large-screen television set, a grand piano, a stereo entertainment center and the pale, deep pile carpeting. There were three bedrooms, furnished in pastels and blond woods. All of the colors or tints were a part of the purple spectrum of color and Vivian's bedroom was the same lavender tint that she had on the Rolls.
Vivian began taking her things off as she stood beside the wide bed, smiling at Angela. The pretty young girl's personality seemed to undergo an abrupt change as soon as they entered the bedroom, and Vivian knew that it was something that she liked and enjoyed. The girl became docile, meek, almost servile, certainly obsequious, and that was sexually exhilarating and thoroughly exciting to Vivian.
"You may help me, dear," Vivian said.
Angela stepped close to her and the girl lifted her face so that they could kiss. She could feel the heat in the girl's lips and tongue, and she shivered as she suddenly turned on, too. Angela reached behind to unfasten her bra, and then Vivian's glorious breasts were free and quivering with their own special eagernesses and sensual anxieties. Angela touched the taut little nipples with her fingertips, and Vivian gasped as sensation raced through her endocrines and exploded in her loins. She was very wet and exceedingly tumescent, thoroughly concupiscent, and she wished that she could give herself to Angela but she could not.
There would be a ritual of sorts and Angela would be permitted certain privileges and liberties, but she could not allow the girl to feed upon the juices that her ardent ministrations engendered. It was cruelty, of course, but Vivian could not accept lesbianism or cunnilingus, even from a dear and treasured friend.
She stood quite still as Angela's reverent hands removed her pantyhose and then she was nude, splendidly naked, and every nerve in her body was alert and yearning for attention.
She let Angela take her hand and they walked to a wall. She pulled a large picture of handsome plumed knights on fat horses away from the wall, then her skilled fingers moved through the combination on a small dial set into the wall. A moment later half the wall slid away and they walked into a vast, sybaritic chamber that had cost a fortune to furnish. Vivian was sure that it was worth every dime invested.
There was a sauna, a deep pool, many couches and some very sophisticated furniture. One couch was remarkably clever, sinfully expensive and her dearest possession. It was completely mechanized and capable of any conceivable adjustment, and when it was occupied the person intending to enjoy its capabilities had only to relax and the machine would respond to a set of controls on a handy console. The user could enjoy mechanical copulation, mechanical sodomy or a combination of both at once. The couch had been sold to her by a clever inventor in Denmark and she had paid a fabulous price for it but she was quite satisfied with her purchase.
She stood for a moment beside the couch, waiting, while Angela did things to a very fancy brazier that operated electrically. She knew that her skin would begin to tingle and prickle with deliciously erotic stimulation as soon as the subtle chemicals began to fill the air with their devilish fragrances and dermal agitations.
Angela began getting out of her things and in seconds she stood beside the couch, glorious in nudity. Vivian glanced at Angela's crotch and she could see that the girl was already flowing.
Angela began rubbing a lotion into her exposed styin and there was a reaction with the fumes from the brazier and Vivian began to enjoy sensual ecstasies undreamed of by the average hedonist. Her whole being became involved in deep sexual spasms and as intensity deepened the sensual thrills that were coursing through her skin and her loins, she shivered and began an unconquerable time of trembling and twitching and perfectly splendid orgasm. Angela was rubbing lotions into her pelvic area and the hot, burning ecstasies of skin and glands and fulminating juices joined and crested and a monumental sexual spasm claimed her vibrating body for a long time and she slipped into a warm and glowing place of delicious and unimagined pleasures.
She had spilled, she knew, when sanity returned and the faithful Angela had helped her through her time of sexual grandeur. When she looked at Angela's slack face she saw the weak, lopsided smile, and felt the warmth of Angela's palms easing tensed and tormented muscles.
Vivian sighed and gasped as Angela began rubbing the depilatory lotion into her pubis and the flesh of her genitalia. She knew, too, that Angela was massaging and manipulating her clit and it was a truly delightful feeling, but as she moved close to another massive sexual convulsion she began writhing and squirming, thrilled and tortured by exaggerated sexual bliss. She swept through orgasm and relaxed, spraddled-legged, while the lovely young brunette dabbed at her flowing well with absorbent pads and disposed of the products of sexual splendors. She knew that Angela ached with the desire to devour such nectars but, perversely, she would not allow that. She suspected that Angela did lots of forbidden things to her anyway when she was on one of her far-out forays into the labyrinths of sexual ecstasy, but what she never knew about she could not forbid, she supposed.
Her breasts and her nipples were especially sensitive and seething with an excess of stimulations. Angela bent and then she was feeling the touch of the girl's lips, the swift, darting tongue that brought a flavor of extreme sexuality to their kiss. She sighed and pushed the sleek head away from her mouth. She came a dozen times while Angela's hot, slippery mouth teased and sucked at her nipples and tender breasts and then she was squirming and writhing in a fresh burst of sensual frenzy. She slipped her fingers down between her thighs and touched familiar spots in overheated flesh and a torrent of spectacular orgasms rewarded her, calmed her.
There was a time of quiet relaxation, cigarettes and a quick drink, then Angela was at her again.
"Roll over," the girl said. "I'll loosen up your muscles a bit, then the sauna, then the fucking couch."
She pretended shock. "Angela," she said, "how crude. How utterly crude."
Angela grinned, enjoying Vivian's reaction.
"It is that kind of a couch," she said. "I wish you'd let me use it more often."
"You'd fuck yourself silly with it," Vivian said crisply. "Now, let's get on with it. I have a date tonight."
"Poor guy," Angela said. "I hope he doesn't want to get laid. You do it all right here."
"Sure do," Vivian said.
She settled down again on her back and Angela began massaging legs and thighs and sweet young breasts. Then she rolled over and the girl's educated hands kneaded calves and buttocks and shoulders, and when lassitude set in and she was close to sleep, Angela's nails ticked her rump in a swift slap and she awoke.
She spent an hour in the sauna and then Angela helped her to get settled on the mechanical couch. She lay on her back and let Angela press the buttons. A machine rose up from the space between her legs and Angela fitted twin dildoes onto the pistons and moments* later Vivian felt the luscious thrills of energetic copulation and could taste the quick, passionate kisses that Angela was planting upon her lips.
Sanity left her quickly and Vivian gave herself up to complete enjoyment of the voluptuous thrills and ecstasies that the machine gave her. She knew it when Angela helped her to turn so that she could be placed in doggy-fashion position. The couch lifted her belly and adjustable arms lifted the pistons to the proper height and the whole business began again. She was dripping with juices, her thighs were wet and chilled, and the stimulated nerves in skin and crotch and delicate flesh was excruciatingly erotic and she slid into a state of pure sensual ecstasies and she lost track of things. She was a living, seething organism, seething and bubbling with exaggerated blisses, and then she was moving far out into a rosy cloud of joy and for a long time she knew nothing.
Angela Was using the built-in bidet, gently douching her, cleansing her sexual area, and she lay still, cooperative and filled with the lethargy that a long time of sexual frenzy always induced in her. Angela dried her and then rubbed soothing lotions into the skin of tingling breasts and hurting nipples.
Angela finished with her ministrations, and tossed a light blanket over the beautiful nude body. She placed her mouth on Vivian's lips and they kissed warmly, affectionately.
"Sleep, my dearest," Angela said, softly, the words crushed and almost lost in their kisses. "I will wake you when I must."
Vivian slept then and her brain was cluttered with horrid dreams, remembrances of hideous times in the distant past.
She was asleep under filthy blankets in a corner of a room in an old shack and an ugly woman sat at a bare kitchen table, caressing a crystal ball, facing a worried, harried man who had given her money. There were whispered predictions, money changed hands, and then the gurgling sounds of whiskey being devoured. The benison of sleep could not drown out the sounds or erase the squalor of her surroundings. She hated her mother and the way that they lived. There was just the two of them, and she vowed that she would make somthing of herself when she grew up.
The dream shifted and swirled like a picture dissolving on the TV screen, and it was the high school dance and she was lovely and the kids were admiring and happy. She was the belle of the ball and someone out of the range of vision said, "You wouldn't think her mother was a drunk and a whore, but she is."
She never did identify the speaker. Instead she turned and fled, and when her date offered her a drink she took it. She went with him to his car and they swilled whiskey and she could not get drunk even though she was determined to get drunk. Her mother was a drunk and she knew all about it.
When the boy put his hands on her breasts, she shivered and shrank away from him. He gave her some more whiskey. Then his hands were underneath her dress and she could feel his wet, clammy palm on her thigh. Then he was poking his fingers into the warm folds of alerted flesh, and she promptly threw up all over him and put an end to her foray into the region of sin and sophistication.
She became a masturbator and could experience great thrills whenever she touched her own sensitive flesh. She did a great deal of that.
Her mother taught her how to cast a horoscope and how to read palms, too. She was eighteen years old when she went into business for herself and she expanded and prospered. She was very sincere and earnest about her desire to help people, and some of that must have shown through in her ads and her talks.
And then there was a cameo scene in her dreams and she could see the words that Peter Prentice wrote. "Vivian, The Astrologer, is a fake, a charlatan, a veritable weasel preying upon the fears and the uncertainties of those who seek her advice and counsel. She is a money-making machine and that's all that she is. Vivian cannot predict the future, no one can. Her crime is that she charges money to do what no one can do."
She awoke drenched with sweat. Angela was standing beside the couch smiling down at her. Vivian shivered as Angela took the light blanket away. She had a worried look in her eyes as she gazed at Vivian.
"You've been dreaming again," she said.
"Yes, dear. What time is it? I have a date with Wally Barlow."
"I know. You have lots of time. Would you like to bathe and dress now?" There was a portable table and a pot of coffee steaming. Angela poured some coffee into a cup. She handed it to Vivian.
"How many Barlow Beauty Bars are there now, dear?" Vivian asked. "You should know."
"I do," Angela said. "There are sixty-five. We own fifty-one percent of all outstanding stock and we are collecting interest on the money we advanced to Wally Barlow and his associates."
Angela was nude, splendid and gorgeous, and in the soft lights there seemed to be a luminescence to her skin and her eyes and she was breathtakingly lovely. The tiny nipples on her breasts stood out like rubies and the beauty of face and body was almost overpowering.
Vivian said, "You are the prettiest computer I have ever seen. Really you are."
"Thank you," Angela said. She smiled and dimples appeared on either side of her mouth. They only showed up when she was especially pleased and her smile exceptionally wide.
"Help me to bathe and dress, dear," Vivian said, "and I will leave this room open for you tonight and you can fuck yourself silly with the machines. Now come along, dear."
Angela was very good about helping her to select the right things to wear and she was a very talented hairdresser, too. She wished that she could do something spectacularly splendid for Angela and still keep her around, too.
Angela was brushing her hair and setting it when she asked, "Why are you so interested in the corporate structure of Wally Barlow's Beauty Bars?" "Wally is not going to be alive for much longer, I'm afraid," Vivian said unhappily. "I do think that we should be in a position to protect our investment in his little health spa. Don't you?" "You have checked his chart?" "Yes, dear, and while I was examining it a premonition of death for Wally came to me. I am sorry but there is nothing I can do. I don't even know how it is to happen."
Angela shivered. She set a curl into position, sprayed it, and then stepped back to observe the effect.
"I like Wally," she said. "He is nice."
"He's stupid," Vivian said. "His ass was in deep trouble and Vivian Enterprises saved him. Now we own a big chunk of his business. When he goes I want us to own it all."
They were in Vivian's bedroom and the sound of the door chimes tinkled softly in the big room. Vivian got up and touched a button on a wall panel.
"Yes?" she said.
"It's Wally," a male voice said.
"Do come in, darling," Vivian said sweetly. "Just make yourself at home. I'll be right along."
She pressed another button and the front door opened and let Wally Barlow into the house.
Vivian looked at Angela and went over to the opened panel leading to the recreation rooms and the pool. She began to close the door when she saw the stricken look on Angela's face. She stopped teasing her.
"I wouldn't do that to you, dear," she said. "Do have a nice time. And when I get home we will talk if you are still awake."
She stood still for a moment and then she let Angela kiss her lips chastely, carefully.
"You are exquisite, Vivian," Angela said, inspecting her.
"That's the way I like to hear you talk," Vivian said in an encouraging tone.
She walked out of the bedroom into the living room, and a moment later she left the private rooms and walked out into the cavernous rooms of the outer regions.
Wally Barlow, a handsome young man in a dinner jacket, was sitting on one of the comfortable sofas in the foyer. He got up and whistled when he saw her. She could see the admiration in his gentle eyes and she was grateful to him.
"I'm so glad we can have dinner and some fun," he said. "I have to fly to New York in the morning on business for us. So let's try to have a good time tonight."
She stood close to him while great shivers swept her slender body. She stared at him with eyes that were suddenly knowing.
"Wally, dear," she said, touching his arm, "don't do it. Don't fly tomorrow. Whatever you do, don't go."
He stared at her. He smiled and shrugged.
"Of course I'll go," he said. "I don't have any choice. Business is business. You know that."
She nodded. He took her arm and opened the door and she wished that she could tell him that she had seen a bursting airliner and bodies falling from the skies and one of the bodies had belonged to him. She could not compel people to heed her, she realized. She could only warn them, tell them what might happen and then hope for the best.
She didn't really want to have to run the health spas. She didn't really want to operate Fred Carson's marriage clinic, for that matter, but she would do it. Or hire someone to do it.
As she walked with Wally Barlow to his sleek car she remembered how it had all begun for her, how many men had helped her. When she met Fred Carson he had a friend who was in the data-processing business and they had talked about Vivian and her skill as an astrologer. The rest was history.
CHAPTER TWO
The remains of Fred Carson were cremated on Saturday morning and Vivian spent a couple of hours at the mortuary. She was tired and saddened by Fred's passing. She felt that she had lost a dear friend, someone who really cared about her, but not like she had become widowed at all.
The mortuary agreed to ship Fred's ashes to his sister in the East, and when she finally left the mortuary all that was tangible of her marriage was gone. And she was glad of that, in a way. Fred had been a friend, a great help to her, but she had been a big help to him, too. A few years back, the pupil had surpassed the teacher and she found herself taking over and running Fred's marriage counselling service. There was potential for good income in such a service and she was always glad for new sources of income.
It was a beautiful morning in mid-April and she was using the convertible, enjoying the warmth of sun and gentle breezes. She drove back to the house slowly, worrying about Wally Barlow.
They had dined and danced and had several drinks and she enjoyed herself with him. Socially Wally was a jewel, but he did not have a head for business. He had built a body-building business into a going concern and then the money boys moved in on him, set up a far-flung network of product outlet, then let the whole thing go into bankruptcy. The same people would then step in and purchase the fading assets of the concern for ten cents on the dollar or less. They would re-name the company and go on from there. Actually, they had used money manipulations in order to steal a corporation. It was done all of the time.
Wally had come to her for a reading and had asked her how his future was going to turn out, and she had bought into his operation and now, with her money behind him, he was safe.
Almost.
She had seen imminent disaster in his chart when she had first cast his horoscope, but she had been willing to believe that his financial troubles would account for the blot on his future. But that was behind him now and she could not rid herself of the quick, fleeting glimpse her mind had shown her of bodies falling from a giant airliner, and Wally's in particular.
She hoped that she was wrong about it, because Wally had phoned her this morning to tell her that he was leaving as planned and she would hate for anything to happen to him.
The sunshine warmed her and a feeling of euphoria almost claimed her. She decided that she would look in on the institute and make sure that the mechanical planets were in their proper orbits and moving through the glassed-in patterns. Too, there would be a few of the girls working, and she would visit with Minnie, the girl who practically ran the horoscope departments. Like so many others, Minnie was a jewel who had come her way in the early days and was now a fixed star in her own galaxy.
Angela had awakened her this morning, and she could imagine the wild and frenzied times the girl had enjoyed with the mechanized couch and some of the other equipment in the playroom. By the time that she left the room, the atmosphere there was heavy with the sensually stimulating ingredients that brought exquisite bliss to the entire body. Angela would take full advantage of that, she knew.
She had watched once when Angela was busy with the twin-pronged dildoes and the fierce agitations that the imitation cocks could achieve when desired. The twin prongs would work in quick and double operation, then they could be made to move independently so that one dildo was withdrawing while the other one was thrusting into warm and agonized flesh. She liked that sort of action herself.
She sighed and stopped thinking about Angela. She decided that she would stop off at the institute first and see what was going on. She liked visiting the place and had her own offices there. Actually she did most of her work at home, but the suite that she maintained at the institute gave her an aura of importance and stature that she could not achieve otherwise. The crowds that visited the institute and its exhibits were all made aware that this was the temple wherein the fabulous Vivian did her work. The startlingly accurate predictions had their inception in this building, and somewhere within its private depths Vivian was toiling with the stars and the inscrutable heavens and there would be more predicitions. That was the line that the employees fostered and promulgated, and she enjoyed it as much as any of them did.
She parked the convertible in her slot behind the building and went inside. The elevator took her up to her floor, and when she walked in she found her secretary and several of the other girls bending over a newspaper. She went up and looked over their shoulders.
They were reading a column by Peter Prentice in the Sunday paper and the lead item was about her. Peter Prentice was attacking her again and she had no idea why he should be so vicious where she was concerned.
"The beautiful blonde houri of the stars, Vivian, is at it again, filling the pages of the nation's newspapers with her silly predictions and her asinine writings. She doesn't really write anything herself, we are told, but puts out lots of books and columns that are turned out by trained seals who take a cut of the dough. We wonder if someone else does her predicting, too.
"This columnist will appear next Tuesday night on the Morry Akins talk show. We are hereby inviting the luscious fake, Vivian, to appear on that same show and answer some questions. How about it, Vivian?" The girls became aware of her and they straightened up. Lonnie Talbot, her secretary, a tall girl with big brown eyes and a fat face, smiled almost sympathetically.
"He hates you," Lonnie said. "I wonder why."
Vivian shrugged. "I have no idea. Now, how about you girls getting back to work?"
Lonnie stood for a time, watching the others scoot. She turned to face Vivian in her chair before she went off to her own office.
"What shall I do about his challenge or invitation?"
Crisply, Vivian said, "Call his office. Tell him we will be glad to appear on that show." "We?"
"We. Me and my crystal ball."
Lonnie gave her a crooked grin and went out.
There were calls to be returned, and she wished for a moment that she had set up shop in the East where the weekend was a time of rest instead of the West Coast where business was a seven-days-a-week affair. Usually she did not mind, she enjoyed the activity of running her enterprises and handling her contacts, but she was upset this morning and she did not know why. Perhaps she should take a look at her own horoscope. Her ephemeris, the daily guide that was supposed to aid her, could be informational if she took the time to look at it.
She was still at her desk, almost finished with her calls, when Lonnie walked into her office. She could see by the white, tense look on Lonnie's face that something was wrong.
"Wally Barlow is dead," Lonnie said. "It was just on the radio. There was a hijacker on the plane that he took and the man was inexperienced with grenades. He pulled the pin to threaten the pilot and forgot to hold it just right. It went off and the plane burst open and everyone died. The pilot had his radio on and they were able to hear the whole thing. Poor Wally."
There were tears on the girl's cheeks. She had lunched with Wally Barlow and some of his people had been helping Lonnie toward a better figure and better health.
Vivian thanked Lonnie and sent the girl away. She sat in the privacy of her office for a long time, weeping, wishing that she was not always so accurate with her predictions. She had seen it all so clearly. And it had all been a waste.
She wept for a time and then it was done for her. She picked up the handset on her desk and when Lonnie answered, she said, "Get Abby James and tell him to move in and take over control of the spas. I think that we own them now. If we don't, tell Abby to see to it that we do."
She hung up, knowing that Lonnie probably thought her cold and mercenary and uncaring. Perhaps she was all of these, but business was business and must go on. She wondered if Wally would want her to do anything for him right now. Maybe she would stop off at his place and see if he had left a will. Better yet, she would ask Abby to do what must be done. Abby was a good lawyer, a good friend. She wished that he could get along without her help but he did not seem able to . He was always calling her, asking for advice and predictions. She had done an extensive chart on him and he was one of the favored ones. He would become fantastically successful, very rich, winding up with a judgeship and all of the honors that probity and earnestness could give.
She had hired him for her own attorney before he got to be too rich and powerful for her. He would handle things now for her and she would add Wally Barlow's health spas to her growing chain of successful enterprises.
She finished her work at the institute and left.
She bought a late paper and read about the airliner that had exploded in flight. She wanted to get home quickly to Angela's gentle kisses and eager services. She ached with the need for a gentle massage and a short nap. Then she would be ready to face the world and its demands again.
Angela seemed to know that she would be sad and unhappy. She helped Vivian out of her clothes and rubbed and kneaded the lovely young flesh until Vivian was close to slumber. Then she kissed her and covered her and Vivian slept.
She woke refreshed, and it was midafternoon. Angela fixed some coffee and toast for her, and then she got dressed. She took Angela with her when she went to look at Fred Carson's marriage counseling setup.
The offices were sort of tacky, she thought. Maybe they could be redecorated and refurbished and made to look more imposing. Then staff the place with qualified psychologists and turn it into a paying business. She could send the clients here herself. So many of those who wrote in or called her needed counseling. If she could make a deal with Sam Benson to take this operation on she would have a chance to watch him in operation, and if he was any good at all maybe she would turn over general supervision of all of the enterprises to him. She certainly needed somebody. She liked Sam, she especially liked his brashness. He was a qualified hypnotist and a good psychologist. He could let someone else run the hypnosis institute and take over here.
Angela began looking through some of the files that Fred had been working on, and she blushed as she read one transcript. Vivian moved over so that she could look, too.
It was a transcribed case history of a young wife who was married to a man who beat her and did awful things to her in order to get his kicks. He would burn her nipples with cigarettes and he would whip her with metal-tipped lashes. She had put up with this type of treatment from her husband for three years. She was not seeking divorce, she just wanted to understand why she was the way that she was. When the counselor suggested that she was masochistic and probably liked being abused, the girl was quick to admit that. She simply wanted to know why.
"I wish I could find a guy like that," Angela said, red-faced.
Vivian laughed. "You mean I am not cruel enough to you?"
Angela shook her head. "You have to be really rotten to be any good at it. Really bad."
They went through some more transcripts, which were complete with tapes. Vivian was not to surprised to learn that most of the troubles that brought people to a marriage counsellor's office seemed to be sexual in nature.
One transcript in particular dealt with a young woman who was married to a husband who was depraved, she thought.
"He makes me suck him all the time," the girl said on the tape. "That's all that he ever wants and I'm not like that. I am not very fond of sex anyway and if it has to be, I want it to be the right way, not like he wants it. He is a pervert."
They listened to Fred Carson's talk with the girl and then they, tired some of the other tapes. Vivian became convinced that there were too many cases in progress in the office to permit a time lapse and she would have to do something about keeping things going right away. She had planned to have lunch with Sam Benson on Monday but she changed her mind. The time to talk to him was right now.
They closed the office again and went back to the institute and her offices. The late shifts were working and the corridors were cluttered with visitors in the care of uniformed guides. She and Angela managed to avoid the crowds and get into the private offices.
Lonnie Talbot came when she buzzed and she was amused by the way Lonnie stared at Angela. The girls knew each other and she was sure that they cordially disliked each other, but they really had no reason to be enemies. Angela was her social secretary and she did a good job at what she did. Lonnie was a good office secretary and she was good at her work, too.
Lonnie picked up the desk set and a girl brought coffee in to them a few moments later.
"I called Peter Prentice's office and told his girl that you would be glad to appear on the talk show with him on Tuesday night. Then I called Morry Akins and told him. He is very upset. His contract is coming up for renewal and there has been some talk in the columns that he might be cancelled. He is very anxious to consult you privately. And, of course, he wants to talk with you as soon as possible. I think he's a little afraid that you will mention on the air Vthat he is one of your clients."
"That's ridiculous," Vivian said. "I've been on his show at least forty times. I have never mentioned it before. He should know better."
"He does now," Lonnie said crisply.
"Call him when you get a chance and tell him we don't need to talk. His show is being renewed and he is getting a much nicer deal. I am sure of it."
"You've checked his horoscope?" Lonnie asked.
Vivian chuckled. "No," she said. "Tom Beh-rens is one of my clients too, and he decides such things for his network. He told me that they are very happy with Morry and are definitely renewing him for a good long stretch. I confirmed the wisdom of that move. Poor Tom. He has such a beautiful young wife and she is going to divorce him. That will hurt him badly."
"Are you sure of that?" Lonnie said. "I mean, you can't really be sure."
"The hell I can't. His wife has already retained Abby James. There's a great deal of money involved. Now, dear, I wonder, could you possibly locate Sam Benson for me? I'd like to talk to him."
"I'll try," Lonnie said. She flashed a quick, sneering look at Angela as she went. Angela smiled at her and crossed her long, beautiful legs.
"I think Lonnie turns on for you, dear," Vivian said. "You are just so lovely you affect everyone who sees you."
Angela's dimpled smile rewarded her for her kind words and Vivian wished, fleetingly, that they were in the sauna room enjoying a nice time of horny bliss. She shook her head and began looking at some of the telephone calls that were listed for her on her desk. She didn't intend to return any of them.
She was beginning to wonder if she was being realistic hoping to talk to Sam Benson on a Saturday evening when Lonnie buzzed her to tell her that she had him on line two.
"I lucked out," Lonnie said. "He was at home."
"Thank you," Vivian said. A moment later she spoke to Sam Benson.
"Sam," she said, "I would very much like to talk to you as quickly as possible. It's business or I wouldn't bother you like this."
"No bother," Sam said. "You know I always like talking to you, Boss Lady. What wouldst thou have me do?"
"Quit clowning," Vivian said. "I am leaving here and going home. How about having dinner with me and we can talk? Or do you have a date?"
"I would break any date I might have to dine with you, lovely lady. You know that. Just say on."
"You silly son of a bitch, quit it," Vivian said. "You pick me up at my place at seven-thirty. I'll have Angela make reservations for us at a good eating place."
"Will Angela be with us?"
"No, dear, she won't. Angela will have things to do at home."
Sam sighed. "I'm glad," he said, not too positively. "She is so beautiful I just know I would not be able to talk sensibly if she was with us."
"You horny bastard," Vivian said, "you won't need to talk. I'll do the talking. You just listen."
"Don't I always?"
"You be at my place at seven-thirty. Goodbye, Sam."
"Farewell, my beauty, light of my life, golden houri, unattainable princess, farewell."
"Oh, fuck off, you silly son of a bitch. Go fuck yourself."
Sam sighed again and she could hear his heavy breathing over the lines. "I may have to do that now," he said. "That is all that is left to me now. Farewell, my glorious patroness, farewell."
Exasperated, Vivian pushed the button down and sent Sam off into limbo again, as far as she was concerned.
He was a clown, a real fool, at times, but he had a good brain, he was overendowed with intellect and education and he was a good businessman. She had heard some stories about his sex life. She had heard that he was a swinger and that he was bisexual. One story concerned itself with a pretty young widow and her handsome young stepchildren. Sam was said to have taught them a therapy that was based upon utter sexual freedom and an interplay of emotional and sexual activities. The fink who had told her about it said that Sam's therapy was one of his own concepts and insisted that sexual freedom was the gateway to intellectual freedom and utter serenity. Sam had a ball with that concept.
She had heard other tales about Sam but she tried to believe that she had no interest in him other than his acumen as a supervisor of one of her lucrative enterprises. Too, she rather liked Sam.
She picked up the handset again. "Lonnie, dear," she said, "how quickly can you get me the package on Sam Benson?"
"Ten minutes."
Angela gathered up their coffee things and disposed of them. Vivian sat and smoked a cigarette while she waited for the records she had asked for. It occurred to her that Sam Benson would have been checked out pretty thoroughly by the Golden Sceptre Detective Agency, one of the very best. Naturally, Vivian Enterprises owned and operated the Golden Sceptre Detective Agency and therefore she got excellent results when she needed to utilize their services. She wondered what the professional bird dogs had learned about Sam Benson.
Lonnie brought her the files a few minutes later.
Sam Benson had quite a background. He was thirty-four years old, five feet eleven inches tall, no scars or tattoos, dark brown curly hair, brown eyes, slender, according to his listed weight. No criminal record, moderate drinker, lived modestly in a good apartment house in a quiet neighborhood. Never married, no known bad habits.
He had a good educational record, too, a masters in psychology and a doctorate, too. The report stated that the doctorate was one that Sam had purchased from one of the schools that would sell them for twenty-five hundred dollars. Sam used his doctorate wisely and seemed to be a dedicated and hard-working psychologist.
Vivian tossed the folder onto her desk a bit disgustedly.
Lonnie picked it up. She had her eyebrows in the air, wondering at Vivian's reaction.
"It reads like it was written by his mother," she said.
Lonnie hesitated. She glanced at Vivian and then she moved her feet in a telltale way. Lonnie had something that she wanted to say but she was just a bit hesitant about it. Vivian knew the signs. Lonnie had been with her for a long time.
"All right," she said. "Let's hear it."
Lonnie helped herself to one of the cigarettes in the tray on Vivian's desk. She sucked smoke into her lungs and sat down in the chair that she usually occupied when Vivian was working with her.
"Sam has a few things going for him," Lonnie said. "He meets a lot of screwed-up people at the hypnosis institute and he persuades them to believe that much of their trouble comes from their inability to face their sexual needs or de-sires. He helps them to deal with their desires and their hidden compulsions in a clinical way. For many, of course."
Vivian was amazed. "Now, just how the hell does he do that?"
Lonnie was even more nervous than when she began. "He has an institute of his own," she said. "He owns and operates the Institute of Applied Sexology. He has people come there and he helps them to do things that are sexual. He has a program that his clients go through. Each girl must do everything imaginable sexually with partners of Sam's selection. Among the other clients, of course. That way each girl and each man can get to find out if they are really homosexual, or if they are hung up on any kind of sexual kick. It works, they say."
"What do you say, Lonnie?" Vivian asked quietly.
Lonnie's face was flame-red. She smiled ruefully.
"I like to suck cocks," she said. "We found that out about me. But Sam says that most girls do, anyway, so I don't have to feel like a leper. And my boy friend likes to have me do it, so I guess maybe Sam does do some good."
"You bet he does," Vivian said. "That son of a bitch is going to have a new partner in his damned institute. I wonder why that information doesn't show up in the file."
"The guy that did the investigation turned out to be gay. Sam fed him a lot of nice young boys. Nothing bad about Sam is ever going to show up in the files. I like Sam, too. I might as well tell you."
Vivian smiled. "I think I like him, too."
She gave the folder back to Lonnie. She and Angela left the institute a bit later and drove in the softness of a spring twilight. Angela was quiet, and Vivian had nothing to say.
In a way, she worried about Sam and his private enterprise. She would offer him a chance to have a partner. Or would she? She wondered, belatedly, if association with -such a project would be healthy. Maybe she would just keep still for a while.
She had to applaud Sam's thinking. He had a good mind, and she knew a good idea when she ran into one.
She liked having brilliant people around her.
CHAPTER THREE
Her dinner date with Sara Benson went rather well, she thought. He was handsome and he dressed well and they made a very good-looking couple, she knew. When they were following the maitre d' to their table she was conscious of the many admiring looks that they got. Too, there was a great deal of whispering as people recognized her. As soon as they were seated, several people came to ask for autographs and one woman, a skinny girl in an old fashioned dress, asked for advice.
"I'm a Pisces, Miss Vivian," she said, almost simpering. "Will things go well with me this year? Or can't you tell?"
It was a challenge. Vivian matched the woman's simper and she said, "Oh, yes, this is definitely Pisces' year. Definitely."
"Oh, I am so glad," the woman said fervently. She went away.
After a while Vivian was able to look at Sam. They were rather awkward with each other until they had gotten past the second drink. Then it was just fine. Sam ordered for both of them and then Vivian sat back and gazed into Sam's big brown eyes. She could see how he would have little difficulty in persuading females to do anything that he might want them to do.
"It's nice to see you, Sam," she said.
He lit a cigarette and she knew that his clever brain was clicking fast. His eyes were on her face, and then they met her own and she looked away hurriedly. In the dim archives of memory she could remember her mother telling her to avoid looking directly into a brilliant man's eyes. "Don't look too steadily at any bright lights, either," she'd said. "You can lose your cherry in a hell of a hurry that way." She still remembered the advice her mother had given her, so she gazed out at the dance floor and watched the people squirming and writhing and bouncing around. The band was good and the place was beautifully decorated. There was no need to her to be a bit uncomfortable but that was the way she was.
"You have something on your mind, Boss Lady," Sam said. "What is it?"
She turned to look at him and she smiled.
"Oh, Sam," she said, "stop talking like a character out of a B movie. I don't think you are cute."
Sam's face sobered. "I'm cute, Vivian," he said. "You'd better believe I'm cute."
She sipped at her drink and looked at the dancers again. She got out a cigarette and Sam lit it for her.
"Why are we having dinner? You intend to fire me?"
"Lord, no, Sam. I have something else in mind. Shall we talk first or have our dinner first?"
"Let's talk. Wondering what you've got going in your pretty blonde skull would keep me from enjoying my meal. So, let's talk."
She said, "I want you to take over Fred Carson's marriage counseling bureau and run it. You must have someone, an assistant, who can handle the hypnosis institute. You can keep a piece of that action and get a sixty-forty deal if you operate the marriage counseling clinic."
She was tempted to add, "I hear you are very good with clinics," but a sense of caution stopped her. In the future it might be useful if no one could prove that she knew of Sam's private operation. She didn't say anything of what she had been told. Sam sat back in the booth. He was staring at her and she could almost pick his brains. Sam loved money, most of all, and she hoped to encourage that instinct in him. People who loved money could be manipulated. And she intended to manipulate Sam if he measured up.
"That's a grubby little operation," Sam said. "Fred's clients didn't have money. They were poor people. Where the hell is there any dough for a bright guy in that kind of a setup?"
Vivian grinned at him. She moved forward in her seat so that she could talk to him more intimately. Automatically, she reached out to pat his hand.
"I thought that we might remodel and make us some really posh offices. Then you would find yourself dealing with rich people who have matrimonial problems. You could soak them as much as you wanted to. You know, wealthy people have problems, too. There are so many in need of educated counseling."
Sam gave her a deadpan stare. "And where would we get these wealthy clients?"
She matched his deadpan look. "Why, I would recommend that they see a reputable and gifted counselor, of course. Who else would do it for us, Sam?"
She had gotten to him, she knew. She could see the look in his eyes as he figured it out.
"I always pay bonuses to people who help me, Sam," she said softly. "Which would you like, a very young and beautiful girl or a handsome and virile boy?"
Sam smiled in a weak and uncertain way.
"Why not both?" he said. "I do like to live good." He smiled in satisfaction.
"They would have to live, with you, Sam," she said. "You would have to pretend to be their uncle and you would have to send them to school and look after them. But they will keep your house for you and do anything that you can think up."
"I didn't know that you were in that business, too," Sam said. He sounded disappointed in her.
"I'm not, Sam," she said, "but I know several people who are. These kids are sex fiends already. Incurably so. Most of them are reconstructed little hippies who are tired of living scared and hungry. So they go and see a broker to get checked out, and then the broker finds a good home for them where they can use the skills and talents they have learned to earn their keep. It is better than open prostitution and disease and all that. If you are serious I'll have a broker call on you with pictures of people available for adoption."
"You do that," Sam said. "And you've got a deal. I will take over on Monday."
"What will you do with Miss Cardoza, Fred's secretary?"
"That prune-faced bitch goes. Right out the door. I want a beautiful broad with gorgeous tits around me."
"Or a handsome young boy, Sam?"
His face got red but he smiled at her. "Handsome young boys don't type worth a damn. Somebody had got to do some work once in a while," he said, suddenly businesslike.
"Sure they do, Sam," she agreed.
They ate then and they danced, and when they left the restaurant Sam wanted to take her to a night club but she declined. It was getting late and she was beginning to yearn for the sweetness of Angela's mouth and the gentle caresses of the girl's hands. If she got away from Sam before she became too tired she and her beautiful little friend could spend hours in the playroom, and she found that much more interesting and intriguing than spending any more time with Sam. She had done what she hoped**to do and that was the end of her interest in Sam at the moment.
Sam drove her homejn a state of silence. He seemed to be pleased by the things that they had talked about, and when he took her to her door she wasn't sure whether he would want to kiss her goodnight or not.
He did and she let him. He held on to her hand a moment as he looked at her with a solemn face.
"You know," he said, "about the kids you promised me. You wouldn't mention that part of the deal to anyone, would you?"
"Of course not, Sam," she said. "It is not at all that unusual any more. You'd be surprised how many couples I know have a niece or a nephew come to live with them. Sometimes, as in your case, it can be both."
"One thing," Sam said, "what happens if I get tired of them or they start fucking around on me? Then what?"
"You have to keep them for a few months, but I understand that there will be others eager and willing to take them off your hands. For a price, of course. A handsome young boy and a pretty little girl cost a lot of money, so you see I am giving you a very expensive gift."
Sam smiled and she could see that he had improper thoughts in his mind. He proved it right away.
"You wouldn't want to fuck for a while, would you?"
"Sajn," she said, horrified. "How dare you?"
"I just thought I'd ask," he said. "You know how it is."
"Good night, Sam," she said primly. "Good night."
She went inside, and she knew that Sam was walking away from the front door with an erection in his pants. Poor Sam. He could call someone from his clinic. She would see to it that Sam lived well from now on.
She opened the doorway to her private domain and the lights in the front rooms automatically went out. Angela was waiting for her with a soft, happy smile and tender, helpful hands.
She was so glad that she had Angela.
The bedroom was filled with dazzling sunlight when she awoke. She and Angela had exhausted themselves and they had simply slept where they happened to be and so the drapes were not closed. She sat up and touched a button and the sunlight disappeared. She lit a cigarette and looked for Angela. She smiled when she heard her in the kitchen.
She went into the bathroom and stepped into the shower. She began to empty her bladder while the water washed her and cleansed her. She liked to stand in a shower and pee. She was sure that she was quite perverse but she had so many little tricks that thrilled her. And she liked to make Angela a part of some of them. She was particularly fond of Angela at the moment, but that could change. Then she would be horrid to the poor girl and she would feel badly about it all afterward.
When Angela angered her she would fasten cruel and hurting clamps onto the girl's nipples and her clit and the tiny little pink lips of her genitalia. She could watch Angela suffering and experience many splendid orgasms, realizing that what she was doing to Angela was merely prelude. She would have Angela lie down in the sunken tub and she would spatter the sweet mouth with well-directed piss. There had been a time when she had forced Angela to swallow some of the urine, but it made the girl sick and they did not try that again.
She wished that she had the time to be horrid to Angela this morning but she knew that she did not. It was Sunday and she would have many of her V. I. P.'s in for readings or advice. It was the only free time the big wheels could manage and she charged them outrageously for spoiling her day of rest. They didn't seem to mind.
Angela was serving her breakfast on the glass-topped table in the private living room. Angela was naked too, and Vivian liked to see naked thighs and bald little slits while she ate. Angela showered her with smiles and warm kisses, and then they ate and Angela became businesslike as she read off the list of appointments she had arranged.
They ate leisurely and Angela helped her with her hair and her dress and then Angela got dressed. She was truly lovely* Vivian thought, as she moved into the outer rooms and settled down behind her desk. Angela joined her and they were busy checking on planetary changes that would affect the people coming in when the first one of them arrived.
He was one of the television industry's most popular and famous producers. He was about to take on a new series and he was worried. Vivian looked into his chart and the future aspects and she told him to go right ahead. His venture would be enormously successful. He was grateful to her and he went his way happy and secure.
There were others in the waiting room and Vivian wished that she could be brusque and very businesslike and permit her clients a specified, allotted time, but she never was able to do that, she cared too much.
She liked the people who came to her and she was very sincere in her desire to be of help to them. She had always been a gifted astrologer, but now she was becoming aware of a new and frightening element in her life. She was beginning to have visions. She could "see" things. Like Wally Barlow's death in an exploding airliner.
She had always been able to make predictions, off the cuff, so to speak, but she was sure that those ad libbed predictions had their roots in logic and what she knew of certain situations and eventualities, but things were changing for her now. She could actually envision things and they happened. She had heard of such people. They said that Nostradamus and Caglios-tro could do things like that. She wished that it would go away and leave her alone. She didn't want to see things. Especially if they were bad things. She shook her head to clear it of such thoughts and smiled at the handsome man Angela was ushering into her office.
The day went on and she worked hard and was exhausted when it was done. She went to her bed when her work was finished and she broke one of her own rules. She was tense and nervous and when she saw the eager, yearning look on Angela's face she smiled and shook her head slowly from side to side, deploring Angela's incorruptible sensuality.
"All right, dear," she said to her. "Do it nicely for me. Then perhaps I'll sleep well."
A moment later she felt the warm, slippery tongue on her supersensitive flesh and the tensions began leaving her in eager, bursting torrents and delicate spasms of too-stimulated flesh. She was awake for a long, long time, enjoying, before exhaustion finally claimed her. When she did sleep, she practically died.
They went out to dinner and when they got back to the house Vivian had some dictation and they worked for a while before retiring for the night.
The week ahead was going to be a busy one, Vivian knew, and she lay awake in the darkened bedroom, getting things straight in her mind. She had refused Angela's eager offers of paradise for a while but only because she was not in the mood for fun. She would have to get someone started on the remodeling job at Fred's place, or would Sam Benson want his own people to do the work? She would ask him in the morning. They might have a decorator in and he and Sam could put their heads together and lay out a very posh suite of offices. She thought about Sam's bisexuality and she was not at all appalled. So many people were like that nowadays. She was not even sure that she was a straight. Who the hell knew any more? You did what came naturally and you did your best to enjoy. What else? She remembered that she was to encounter Peter Prentice on the Morry Akins show and she worried about that. She knew that the columnist hated her and wanted to destroy her and she could not imagine why. Maybe he was a gay bird and had a thing against women who could be successful or important. She didn't know but she would certainly be on her guard with him.
She slept finally, her worries temporarily forgotten.
She was at her desk bright and early on Monday. The girls in the work rooms had been at their tasks from five in the morning and they were glad to take a coffee break when she arrived and began checking her own private universe. Lonnie Talbot was at her elbow constantly, helpful, respectful, working on something that she could not really comprehend.
Vivian went along when the people came in to check the computers, and she was busy and absorbed until it was time for the ten o'clock coffee break. She joined the others in the coffee shop, and while she smoked cigarettes and sipped coffee, Lonnie brought her up to date on calls and appointments.
"There is a big-shot producer, Harold Farmer," Lonnie said. "He called in and asked for an appointment as quickly as possible. He was recommended by Abby James."
"Call him and tell him he can come in and see me at any time."
"I thought you'd feel that way," Lonnie said. "He is coming in at two. Today."
"All right," Vivian said.
She was deeply immersed in her work and she had almost forgotten about the producer when Lonnie called her to announce that he was in the outer office and ready to see her. She told Lonnie to give her five minutes to check her face and hair and then she could bring him in.
She went into her private washroom and fixed her face. Then she returned to her desk. She buzzed Lonnie and a few moments later Lonnie brought the film man in to her. Lonnie had his chart in her hands. She placed it on the desk and then went out again.
The producer was a tall man, handsome in a rugged sort of way. She knew him by sight and she shook hands gravely with him, then waved him into the visitor's chair.
He lit a cigar and waited for her to say something. She glanced at his chart and saw that he was a Leo. That in itself was not indicative of anything actually important.
"I'd like to take moment or two to look at your horoscope," she said, smiling. "Would you like some coffee while I'm doing that?"
The producer nodded and Vivian buzzed for Lonnie. She brought coffee in and Vivian watched Harold Farmer covertly as he smoked his cigar and sipped the coffee. He was a very wealthy man, one of the really great ones in his field. He was a gifted director, too, and she wished that she could be useful to him.
She closed the folder and sat back.
"Now, Mr. Farmer," she said, "how can I be helpful to you?" She looked up at him.
"Well," he said, a bit uncertainly, "I understand that you advise a lot of important people in my industry. I am hoping that you will advise me."
She nodded and smiled and waited.
"I expect to sign tomorrow to produce and direct Casey's Castle, a very important musical. I have had some luck with musicals in the past and this is a big deal. I am wondering-what you might have to say about it. Should I take it or let it go?"
She was about to tell him to take it, by all means, when something stopped her. She closed her eyes and the visions were back. She saw a darkhaired girl tumbling from a high scaffold. Another was on a motorcycle which smashed into a bridge abutment and she saw the flashing lights of the ambulance as it carried the girl away. There was another scene, another girl, and a heavy senior light that fell from a catwalk and smashed the girl's skull when she walked under it. The visions ended and it was over, like a film that has run its course and winds up flapping in the projector.
"Don't do it," she said. "Let it go. Your horoscope indicates that the immediate future will be busy and fortunate for you. But the musical will be a disaster. Three young girls will die during the filming of that picture. The producer will inherit a great deal of blame. You can do without that."
Harold Farmer looked at her, was digesting her words, trying to estimate their worth.
"You're sure about this?".
"I'm very sure, Mr. Farmer. Wait a few days; there will be other good offers. Take the first one that comes along. It will be very lucky for you."
He stood and looked down at her. He was not really seeing her, she knew. He was disappointed, grave, unhappy.
"I really wanted to do that show," he said. "The money, the prestige. I wanted to do it."
"You can go ahead and do it if you like," Vivian said, gently. "After all, I can be wrong."
He shook his head. "No. Abby says you are right too often to ignore. No. I'll let it go. Thank you very much. If you will send your bill to my office I will see to it that it is paid."
Vivian said, "No. That is not the way we do it. On your way out, leave fifty dollars with Lonnie. That way no one knows that you consult an astrologer. That should be our little secret. That is the way we like to work it."
He nodded. "It's a good way."
He went out and Vivian got on to other things. She forgot all about Harold Farmer.
Monday was always a hectic day for her. She spent a great deal of her time with clients on the phone, and by the time she was ready to go home she was so tired she was achy. She was glad that Sam Benson was taking over Fred's operation. She had talked with him early in the day and he was already in gear. He had a contractor in mind who would redo the offices the way that he wanted them done and in the meantime he moved into Fred's office. There were two psychologists who had worked with Fred and they would stay on for the time being.
She supposed that Sam would get in his own experts. She wondered if he would stick his phony Ph.D. up on the wall. Somehow she decided that he would. Sam was like that.
Angela had let some favored clients talk her into evening appointments and Vivian wound up eating her dinner off a tray in her office at home. It was very late when she went to bed and, because she was exhausted, she let Angela put her to bed without anything other than a sweet goodnight kiss.
She made all of the columns on Tuesday.
The trade papers of the film industry reported that Harold Farmer, who had been about to sign to produce and direct Casey's Castle, had backed out and now the project was off. A great many people would be unable to work on the musical and there was great disappointment in an industry where work was no longer plentiful.
One columnist wrote that his spies reported that Harold Farmer had paid a visit to the Institute of Applied Astrology before abandoning the project. Vivian again? Peter Prentice's column was not nearly so charitable. He blasted Vivian as a meddlesome charlatan, an ignorant woman who was dangerous. By advising Harold Farmer against doing the musical, she had deprived many people of jobs, and that was almost criminal, Prentice said.
The piece that Peter Prentice had written went on and on, and she could feel her skin crawling with embarrassment and rage when she finished it. There was something radically wrong with Peter Prentice, she thought. He was much too vicious against her. She had never done anything to him. She didn't even know him.
Or did she? She had seen his picture many times, she had watched him when he worked some of the talk shows and she thought him very handsome, very nice. Until he began attacking her in print.
It worried her that she was to see him and argue with him when she appeared to tape the Morry Akins show that same afternoon.
The Morry Akins show taped at five for showing late in the evening, and it was done in an old theater on Hollywood Boulevard. She went home early so that she could bathe and dress and look her very best for the cameras. Angela wanted to go along, and Vivian decided to take her. Angela went along on such trips often. She liked the bright lights and the excitement of rubbing shoulders with the elite of the entertainment world.
She was a few minutes early getting to the theater and as soon as she entered the building one of the ushers told her that Morry was eager to see her. He was waiting for her in his office. She got the impression that all of the ushers had been alerted to send her into Morry's sanctum the minute she showed up.
She glanced at Angela as they walked through the dingy passageways of the old building. Angela smiled, too. They were both thinking the same thing. Morry was anxious to get her advice about something. But maybe not. He had been told by her people that his show was being renewed at a better price. His agent knew Jt, too, by now. She wondered what he wanted. Maybe he was going to offer her a little drink to calm her. She sort of wished that he would.
Morry Akins was a small man in stature. He had dark brown hair that was growing thin on top and big blue eyes that were always twinkling in a way that suggested that he liked everyone.
He touched her cheek with his fat little mouth and she let him hug her. He had gotten up from behind his desk the minute that she and Angela walked in. She noticed that Peter Prentice was sitting on a couch, watching her, gazing at her with a steady, angry stare.
Morry Akins was nervous, and it showed.
"Vivian, dear," he said, when he let her go, "I wanted to have this chance for you and Peter here to meet and talk like good friends. After all, you are going out there in front of maybp forty or fifty million people and I want it all to be nice and friendly. You are both beautiful people and everything should be nice and friendly on the tube."
Vivian smiled at him. She noticed that Angela quietly sank onto the couch beside Peter Prentice and she saw, too, that he liked looking at Angela. That made her feel better. At least he was not gay. Not the way he was looking at Angela.
She turned so that she could face Peter Prentice. He stood, and she was grateful to him for the courtesy. He bowed slightly and his eyes were cold and angry and she could not imagine why.
"You are truly beautiful," he said. "I am glad to meet you in person. I will be quite polite and a gentleman. I intend to ask you certain questions when we are on the air. I do not intend to reveal them now. I have said publicly that I think you are a vicious and corrupt individual. I really believe that. I shall talk and act accordingly."
Vivian burst into laughter, and that astonished Peter Prentice. People did not laugh at him, obviously. His handsome face became cold, bleak, insulted.
Morry Akins glanced at his wristwatch and his nervousness was greater than it had been.
"We are running out of time. We have to get out there. Please be good kids, both of you."
Vivian said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Prentice. I didn't mean to laugh at you, but you do sound so pompous, so defensive. Please feel free to ask me anything that you want to. I will answer. Nicely, too."
There was a moment of silence and she examined Peter Prentice's face very intently. His eyes were nice when he wasn't busy hating her. His mouth was intensely appealing and she could imagine kissing it, but she thought it might be much more appealing if he had a mustache. The Ronald Colman type, maybe. He had short hair and thin cheeks and a quick, nervous way of moving his hands. His nose was straight and thin and he was almost handsome in a classic way. But he just missed. He looked like a nice, gentle person. But she did not develop any illusions about him. He was like a sleeping cobra at the moment. She knew all about his fangs.
A page knocked on Morry's door and announced that it was time to get out on stage. She wondered about the rigid respect of the schedule. The show would not be aired until eleven and she wondered why the time had to be just right. She glanced at Morry and he read her mind.
"Another show tapes right after us. They use the same studio and we have to get in and get out. So, come along now, and please be good kids. Please, for old Morry's sake?"
They did not go out onto the stage. They were led to another room, a waiting room, and she sat down and looked at one of the monitors. Morry went on to open up the show. The comedian who had been warming up the audience came into the waiting room and helped himself to a drink at the portable bar. Angela asked if she would like a drink and she shook her head.
Peter Prentice was watching her and she could see that he thought her pretty and attractive. Why was he so horrid to her all the time? She decided to ask him.
It was the wrong thing to do.
"I think you are the worst kind of fraud," he said. "You know that the mumbo-jumbo you dish out is so much nonsense, but it can hurt people. Look at the mess you made of Harold Farmer's deal with the musical he wanted to do. Now what does he do? That could have been a big break for Harold."
"He'll get something else," Vivian said. "Something really splendid. I can see him picking up an Oscar for his next picture."
Peter Prentice shook his head, deploring her indomitable prediction. "If you had a brain," he said, "you'd be more dangerous than you are. The sad thing about you is that I honestly think you believe these so-called visions of yours. And I wonder now how you have been using your astrological predictions and mumbo-jumbo to line your own pockets. I know that you are big business. They say you are into everything. Well, we'll see. I have some of my people looking into your enterprises. I am going to do my best to put you out of business."
His outburst was rather amazing and she was too surprised to reply for a moment. Then one of the pages came for him and she noticed that Morry was announcing him on the monitors. When she sat down beside Angela she.was shaking.
"He has to be crazy," Angela said. "You've done nothing to him. Nothing at all."
"Someone has done something to him," Vivian said.
She lit a cigarette and her fingers were trembling. She and Angela were alone in the holding room and she wished that she had the courage to take a drink. Peter Prentice affected her in a way that she did not fully comprehend. She liked him and she hated him. She wished that they could be friends, that they could sit and talk like friends and he could tell her what was behind his vicious attacks upon her.
She wished that she could put her arms around him and comfort him. Perhaps she could soothe him and make him gentle and then he could tell her the things that were bothering him.
She knew a great deal about him, of course. She had had her people investigate him, and the detectives from her own agency had labored to find something that could reveal the columnist to be less than respectable, but there was nothing.
He had lost his mother when he was very young, and his father had disappeared a long time before that. He grew up in a foster home and distinguished himself in school. Scholarships put him through college and he went to work for the newspaper that still paid him. His column gradually became important and now he was highly respected, feared and hated by everyone who had anything to do with him.
She decided that she liked him. She liked him very much.
She decided that she was out of her mind, too.
The page came for her, too, and she went out onto the stage, her smile fixed in place, her hands waving to the crowd in the studio audience. Morry gave her a big kiss on the cheek, told her that she was one of his favorite people, and then introduced her to Peter Prentice.
"You are not one of his favorite people, dear," Morry said. "I wish I knew why."
Vivian smiled at the whole world, right into the camera.
"I wish I did, too."
She sat down on the opposite side of Peter Prentice.
Morry said, "I have invited you two here tonight to talk things out. I think the whole wide world knows that Peter, here, has said some very unkind things in his column about you, and I hoped that getting to know each other could make you friends."
Vivian lit a cigarette and gave Peter Prentice a sweet smile. "I am perfectly willing to be friends. I do think that Mr. Prentice is quite wrong about me and I know that I am not any of the things that he says I am."
Prentice reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and brought out a sheaf of notes. He looked at Vivian and the coldness was in his eyes again. She felt like a wingless fly, suddenly impaled and helpless. And scared.
"I am sure you know, Miss Vivian," he said, "that Mr. Harold Farmer was about to begin work on a big musical that would have given work to thousands of people. You told him to abandon the project."
"How do you know that, Mr. Prentice?" Vivian said. She was abruptly angry. He had to be guessing. She was sure that there were no bad apples in her barrel.
He changed her thinking in a hurry. "We newspaper people have our spies everywhere," he said. "Harold Farmer would not comment when we asked him about you. He said that he would have nothing to say. But it is known that he visited you in that crazy astrological show-place you have, and when he finished with you thousands of people were deprived of jobs th�t they might have gotten."
"That isn't really so," Vivian said quickly. "One of the film companies is behind the project, and they will still make the musical with another producer. They will also take the blame for the deaths of the three young girls who will die during the making of that musical." She looked at him solemnly.
Morry Akins was staring at her with a startled look. Peter Prentice was smiling.
"You've had another one of your famous visions, I suppose."
"Yes," Vivian said. "You might say that."
"You can really predict things Tell us, will there be a great earthquake here in California?"
Vivian closed her eyes and saw horror and hordes of people dying beneath falling debris and collapsing buildings. She opened her eyes and looked at Peter Prentice.
"No," she said. "There will be a great earthquake in one of the South American countries and many thousands will die. This will happen Within a week."
Peter Prentice burst into laughter. He shook with merriment for a time, while Vivian felt the heat growing in her face. She realized that he had baited her into making a fool of herself. She had made an outright prediction, and she could not know if what she had seen in her mind's eyes would actually take place.
"You are a fake," Peter Prentice said. "You are a very pretty girl, but you are a phony. Now why don't you admit it? You can't really predict anything. You can't even write a book. Why, you can't even make up a chart any more. You've become a lovely parasite, preying upon a society that wants to believe the junk you spread. You are evil, you are vicious, and I am going to do my best to show you up for the faker that you are. I intend to expose you."
His attack was so vicious, so unexpected on the air, that she tried to speak but she could not. She was furious, she was cold and shaken and utterly astounded by his insults. She stood and she knew that she was swaying, close to fainting. She shook herself and then she turned to look at Morry Akins.
"Morry," she said, almost whispering, "I can't stay and take any more of this. I simply can't."
She turned then and ran from the stage and the lights.
"Let her go," she heard Peter Prentice saying in the monitors. "Let her run. She won't be able to hide."
Vivian didn't want to hide.
She only wanted to die.
CHAPTER FOUR
Vivian wept inconsolably for hours after she got home. Angela had been waiting for her when she left the stage. Somehow, they got home, although she was shaking violently, outraged and utterly stunned by Peter Prentice's unprofessional attack upon her probity and her value as a positive contributor to society.
No one could be the moral leper he supposed her to be. No one could be as viciously dishonest as he thought she was.
Why hadn't she mentioned the vision she had of Wally Barlow falling from the skies? She had tried to tell Wally. He didn't believe her and he died. No one would believe her, if Peter Prentice was right.
He was sick. That had to be it. Morry had been astonished, too. The things that the newspaperman said were unwarranted, uncalled for, and certainly not the gentle, good-natured kidding she was often subjected to whenever she went on one of the talk shows. She didn't usually make specific predictions about major disasters, either, but whether she did or not was unimportant.
There were many astrologers who were always making that sort of prediction. Every few days one of them would predict a great quake that would level Los Angeles or drop it into the sea. But their predictions were irresponsible. Hers were not.
Or were they? Angela did much to comfort her and make her feel better but there was little that the girl could do. Vivian slept fitfully and then woke, covered with perspiration, filled with tremblings and fears that were actually nameless, unidentifiable dreads.
She took some tranquilizers and finally slept the rest of the night away.
Angela went out and got the newspapers the first thing in the morning. She had made the front page and so had Peter Prentice. Her prediction of an earthquake of devastating proportions occuring in a South American country within a week was given a great deal of attention in the press. Surprisingly, no one ridiculed her. She had predicted that three young girls would die during the making of the musical Casey's Castle, and that was given publicity, too.
There were some benefits from that situation, too, she noticed. Harold Farmer announced that he was signing to do a dramatic picture and he was glad to give up the musical.
One of the columnists in the trade papers wrote that one of the big film companies was going to do the musical production of Casey's Castle. That made her feel a lot better. The people who might have lost out because she advised Harold Farmer to drop the picture would still get their chance.
She stayed at home all day and saw a few clients who would have come to the house in any case. Angela was helpful and eager to please her, but there was nothing that anyone could do to make Peter Prentice change his mind about her and her work.
Maybe she could make him see the light, she thought. Perhaps, if she got the chance to talk to him privately, she could make him understand that she was as dedicated and earnest about the things that she did as he was.
Her mind became obsessed with her need to talk to him and she finally sent Angela over to the offices at the institute to get the file on Peter Prentice. She knew that he worked at night mostly in a small house on the beach in Malibu. She could get the exact address from the files and she could drive out to his place late at night and she could ring his bell and ask him to take time out so that they could talk for a bit.
She would tell him of the many people that she helped in many ways. He would have to listen to her and they wouldn't have the whole country watching them while they talked this time.
For some reason that she never did figure out, his opinion of her was suddenly very important. She really wanted him to think well of her. That was crazy, when she thought about it. She should hate him. But she didn't hate him.
The day got away from her and Angela brought the file on Peter Prentice to her and she sat for hours reading about him. She knew it all and there was nothing to interest her except the address of the house where she knew he liked to do his work.
He lived in one of the posh apartment houses in Beverly Hills, and from all reports he lived rather well. The investigators estimated his income at fifty thousand a year and his private fortune at about a quarter of a million dollars. This covered real estate and stocks and bonds, presumably. He seemed to have done quite well for a reporter.
She had dinner at home with Angela and while the girl cleaned up and put things away she saw several people who phoned and asked to come in for a consultation.
Harold Farmer was one of those who visited her. He was quick to assure her that he had not mentioned his talk with her to anyone. He was consulting her now because he wanted to know how his new venture would work out. Vivian told him, certain that she was right, that he would make a smash hit and his picture might win him an Oscar. He would most certainly get one of the nominations.
The producer told her that he suspected that she had someone in her organization who was selling information to the press people. She knew that, but she didn't really want to identify the guilty party. She was fond of everyone who worked for her. When she explained that to Harold Farmer he smiled. He was like that, too, he said.
They had a nice visit and when he was gone it seemed to Vivian that her day was done. It was a little after nine at night and Angela was in the living room watching a show on the color set. She looked in on her and decided against telling Angela what she intended to do.
She was going to visit Peter Prentice and see if she could talk to him sensibly.
His private telephone number was in the file and she tried it, just to make sure that he was working at the beach house. He answered after the first ring. She didn't say anything when she heard his voice. She pushed the button down and disconnected.
Angela was deeply involved with the television show and she didn't notice when Vivian went into her bedroom.
She dressed carefully in a blouse and a skirt, and tied her hair down with a silk scarf. She fixed her face and her mouth and her eyes, and she was quite pleased with the way she looked when she was ready to leave.
There was a door that exited into the rear yard and the garage, and she went out that way. She took the Rolls and she worried as she drove off about not telling Angela that she was leaving. She reached for the phone and then changed her mind. She was a big girl now. She didn't have to tell Angela everything.
The big car rolled along in the night and she was very much excited. She had never done anything like this. She was going to beard the lion in his den and maybe she could talk some sense into his head. He was a brilliant man. Why did he have to behave so foolishly? And in public, too.
She got onto the coast highway and began moving along with the traffic. Everyone was going sixty-five, at least, and she was going to arrive at her destination before she was emotionally or intellectually prepared for her visit with Peter Prentice.
She got to Malibu much too quickly. It was too early in the night for a simple talk. Maybe she was chicken.
There were many bars, the neons glittering and gleaming in the softness of seacoast night. She felt funny about parking a brand-new Rolls in front of one of the glitter joints but she did need a drink quite desperately, she decided.
She found a nightclub that had a rear parking lot and slid the Rolls into the darkness there. She walked in through the rear door, wondering if she would have to deal with all of the people in the place. She would be a lone woman, an attractive woman, and she could get into some real trouble.
The place was crowded, a loud rock group was busy, and no one paid attention to her at all. There were several vacant stools, and the darkness in the place was hardly relieved by the weirdly shifting psychedelic lights that were bouncing and dancing all over the place. At first the noise of the band was deafening, and then it seemed to slide through her head and consciousness without hurting anything.
She slid onto a stool and a popeyed bartender with a big leer pushed his face up close to hers in the semi-dark.
"Oh, you are a pretty one," he said. "Pretty, pretty. Now, what will pretty, pretty, have? A nice stinger maybe, something to make your little cunt quiver and twitch while the boys play and bounce their balls around for you."
She gasped and stared at him. Another girl who was sprawled on the next stool, her back against the edge of the bar, smiled at Vivian. She was an overt lesbian, a dark-haired girl with eager eyes and dirty jeans, a faded blouse and great dark eyes that were much too heavily made up.
"Bertie is a foul-mouthed bastard," the girl said. "He thinks he is thrilling you with that kind of talk. Just tell him to fuck off and he won't bother you anymore. He tries any broad that comes in. I wonder what the hell he would do if one of them went for his bullshit. He'd die."
The bartender was still close to her face, leering, listening. He pouted when the girl finished speaking. She reached around and picked up her glass of beer. She flipped her hand backward expertly and drenched the bartender's face.
"Bitch," he said amiably. "That will just mean another beer for you. What do you want, lovely one? I would just love to eat you. Oh, golly, I would. I would."
"Right after you've been juiced," the girl said. "That's the way our Bertie is, aren't you, darling?"
Bertie got a sullen look on his face and he didn't answer the girl.
"I'd like a bourbon highball," Vivian said. "Ginger ale."
"You'd better specify," the girl said. "Otherwise Bertie will give you bar whiskey and I think he pisses in that bottle when nobody is looking. I really do."
"Not me," Bertie said. "The boss's wife does it. I'll give you good stuff, dearie. You look like quality folks to me."
A tall, leather-jacketed young man left the dance floor and stood beside Vivian. She could feel the warmth of his palm on her buttocks and she was close to hitting him with the palm of her hand, but she shifted her bottom and stood on the floor instead. She began to feel that she had stumbled into a den of weird people and utterly unrestrained kooks. The young man stared at her without blinking. His attitude suggested that she had imagined anything improper from him.
The bartender placed her drink in front of her and she picked it up, started to lift it to her lips. Bertie placed a fingertip on the rim of the glass and held it motionless.
"It is customary for one to pay for one's booze before one drinks. Rule one. Why don't you try to get past rule one? You'll be happy here once you get past rule one."
She put the drink down and got her purse out of her jacket pocket. The first bill she plucked out was a twenty. She put it on the bar and Bertie gazed at it almost reverently. He picked it up, snapped it between his hands and then laid it on the ledge of his cash register. He made change and brought it to her. His attitude had changed and he was suddenly respectful.
"Don't leave your change on the bar, ma'am," he said. "This ain't that kind of place."
The young man who had sampled her rear echelon so candidly licked his lips as she put the money away.
"That your Rolls out in the parking lot?" he asked.
"Yes," Vivian said. "That is my Rolls. Now, I just came in here for a drink. That's all. Just a drink. So far I've had nothing but cute people and smartasses talking to me. Now, how's about you all shut the hell up and leave me alone."
The pile of bills, mostly singles, was still on the bar. She ordered another drink and when Bertie began to take one of the bills in sight, she stopped him. She gave him another twenty-dollar bill. He took it, shrugging his big beefy shoulders. The change gave her a stack of bills in front of her. She placed an ashtray on top of the pile and sat in silence, smoking and sipping her drink. Bertie wandered away from her. He glanced at her from time to time but he tried his brand of humor on some new and eager faces.
Vivian looked around her, wondering how people could become as these people had become. They didn't seem to care about anything, and she was sure that she could easily be raped and robbed in such a place. The band was loud and the dancers were busy and much took place that nobody noticed. She would be glad to get out of the place, she knew.
She finished her second drink and got down off of her stool. She started to walk out the back door but Bertie called her back. He pointed to the pile of bills she had left on the bar. He was very much concerned for her money.
"Don't forget to take your money, ma'am," he said.
Vivian smiled at him. She picked up the stack of bills and threw them toward the ceiling. She walked out as the crowd began banging heads down on the floor, trying to pick up the money. She was quite proud of herself for that one. It would keep them busy while she got into her car and drove away without being molested. It worked that way, too.
She drove on up the highway and found the lonely street that Peter Prentice's bungalow was on. She parked the car a few doors away from his house.
There was little or no light and she had to peer at the numbers closely to make sure that she had the right house.
She rang the doorbell and the sound of deep sonorous chimes was loud inside the house. The whiskey that she had drunk was sour and heavy in her stomach and the urge to turn and run overpowered her. She was just turning away when the door opened and Peter Prentice stood in the doorway looking at her. She tried to smile, but that didn't work.
There were many things she wanted to say to him and she could think of none of them.
She said, "Hi."
He was in shirtsleeves and he had a pencil stuck behind his ear. He had obviously been working. He did not seem surprised to see her. He did not seem glad to see her. He just stared at her as though she might be an apparition from another world.
"I want to talk to you," she said. "May I come in?" She looked at him anxiously.
He didn't answer her. He stepped back, she walked into the house, and while she stood, hands clasped, just inside the door, he closed it and locked it.
He led the way into a small room that was fitted up as an office. He had been working at a large desk. The electric typewriter was whirring softly and he went back to sit down behind the machine.
There were cigarettes on the desk. He helped himself to one of them and lit it with a small gas lighter that was on the desk, too. He did not offer her a cigarette.
"I smoke, too," she said. "I'd like to sit down."
"You were very foolish to come here," he said flatly. "I thought I made myself clear. I don't like what you do, I don't like the way that you do it. I don't like you, period."
"I'll cry about that if you will only tell me that I can sit down. You could be nice to me for five minutes. That's all that I ask. I want to try to explain to you that I am not the social pariah you say I am."
He leaned back in his chair and gazed at her. He did not like her, she saw.
"Anything I have to say to you will be said in public," he said. "I want you to go now. I am busy and I don't want you here. You had no right to come here. Now go."
She still stood. He left his chair and there was a strange look in his eyes. She was sure that he was quite willing to lift her up and toss her out of his house.
Something dangerously perverse in her made her bait him.
"And if I don't want to go, then what?"
"You'll go," he said. He reached for her arm and then she was being half carried, half shoved toward the door. She lost her head and struck back at him. She jammed her spike heel down onto his instep and he yelped in quick pain. He let her go hurriedly. His face was twisted up in pain and she hauled off and slapped it, first one side then the other.
He put his foot down onto the floor and then he grabbed her with his hands. She fought him like a caged and angry tigress. He was defending himself for a time, she knew, and then he was using his hands, trying to hurt her. They were tearing at each other, fighting fiercely, senselessly, but savagely. She slipped and fell to the floor and he was on top of her. They were clawing, scratching, and she was suddenly naked from the waist up. Her breasts were bared and he was looking at them, then he was handling them, hurting them. He buried his face in their snowy depths, his tongue was licking them, tasting them, and his mouth found one of her nipples and sucked at it harshly. His hands slid below and she was available there, too, her skirt and panties in shreds. His fingers were eager and vicious and she was still fighting him, trying to remove his fingers from her slippery flesh, and it was useless. He was grunting and moaning and she was making weird, shrill sounds deep in her throat. The wind was whistling through her nostrils and she was sure, all at once, that Peter Prentice was going to rape her.
He moved to press her slender body down with the bulk of his weight and then his knee was between her legs, forcing them apart. She was screaming and twisting and turning but it was in vain. She felt the warmth of his organ as he pushed it into her body and it was nothing like the dildoes, nothing like the machines, nothing like anything else that she had ever encountered on earth.
Her body was quivering and quaking. Great shudders forced her person into a state of extreme excitement and her legs wrapped themselves around his waist, her hips began slamming against his thighs, and she was weeping and sobbing and moaning as the most wonderful sensations she had ever known came alive and clamored in her loins with a brand-new, agonized sort of ecstasy.
He was harsh with her, driving himself deep into her person, then withdrawing, only to plunge and squirm deeper and ever deeper into her loins. She was bursting, cresting, and then he was shaking violently, close to orgasm, and her body sensed what was about to take place and a new wave of sexual ecstasy and fierce spending came to her. She reached a state where she could feel every curve and muscle in his rod and then she felt it throbbing, spilling, and she was suddenly exploding with sensual thrills and agonies undreamt of before. She could feel his juice spilling and spattering and boiling inside of her and a massive orgasm drove her to the brink of paradise and beyond.
She was weeping, screeching, and her body was sopping and she was experiencing her first touch of a shared ecstasy and it was just too much for her to stand.
She fainted.
He was still lying on top of her, gasping for air and squirming within her, when she woke again. She tried to push him off her but he would not be dislodged. His hands were busy with her tingling breasts and he was slowly beginning in her again and she tried to scream a protest, she tried to get out from under him, but she could not. She was hopelessly captured, impaled, and when he began the swift, quickening machinations she aided and abetted him, knowing that she should be ashamed and forever abashed because of her venality. Her mind slid off into some forgotten place and she gave herself up to the sheer enjoyment of voluptuous sensations too numerous to separate. Her body, already inflamed and aroused, responded with even greater ardor the second time, and when their time of bursting came to them they clutched each other tightly, frenziedly, while great excitements and anguished spasms of raw passion and liquid delights swept through them and drained each of all strengths.
He collapsed on top of her, and when she could she used her hands to roll him off of her. She got up onto her feet and she was shaking. She stood, weak-kneed, the fluids sliding down her bare thighs, cold and slippery on her smooth skin.
He sat up and looked at her crotch, the hairless sexual organ clearly exposed. He shook his head and there were tears on his cheeks.
"Bitch," he said dully. "Dirty rotten, filthy bitch."
She stared at him, certain that he was crazed. She backed away from him as he began to get onto his feet. There was a sad, unhappy look in his eyes and she knew that he was going to hurt her again. She turned away from him and ran for the door.
He was after her, not slow, not fast. He lumbered toward her like a big animal. She was frightened for her life and she was sure that he meant to harm her.
He was weeping and sobbing and she spent a fleeting second with her hand on the doorknob while he moved closer to her. She got the door opened and then she was running on the sidewalk, trying to reach her car, trying to look back to see if he was pursuing her.
He was not. She had slammed the front door of his house closed behind her and he had not opened it. She sighed in relief.
She reached her car and got the door opened. She slipped inside and locked all the doors.
For a long time she sat, smoking a cigarette and trying to understand what had happened and how it had happened. She could not explain any of it. She knew that shared sex was far more exciting and thrilling than anything else. She had learned that much at least.
Maybe it was progress of a sort.
CHAPTER FIVE
The next day was ghastly for her and she had Angela cancel all appointments. She stayed in bed, sedated, trying to rest, trying to erase the memory of her experiences with Peter Prentice from her mind. She was not able to do it.
Her hurts were not entirely physical. Flesh that had been assaulted so often by machine and dildo and frenzied fingers was not to be hurt by rape or the extreme efforts of a man. Her hurts were born of outrage, dismay and disgust with her own stupidity.
She had brought it all upon herself. She had no business going anywhere near Peter Prentice's beach house. In time she was to wonder if she actually went looking for what she got.
There were blank places in her recollection of the trip home from the beach house. She had sat in the car for a long time, shivering and twitching. She found a thin wrap on the back seat of the car and that helped to cover her nakedness. She used her scarf as a bra and tied her breasts tightly. She got the car started and found a cigarette in her skirt pocket. She had left her purse behind her but she was not going to go back for it. She could be lucky and get all the way home without being stopped. There would be no reason to stop her if she covered herself well.
Once she got the car started the heater warmed her and she cleaned her leaking crotch with tissues from the glove compartment. She was careful to place them in the disposal bag and not attract attention by littering.
It was late at night but there were people on the streets, and in spite of the secluded character of the street she saw several cars moving in the night. By the time she had finished her first cigarette she was ready to try to get home.
It was an uneventful drive. Her mind seethed and bubbled with senseless fulminations and there were periods when she wept, silently, painfully. She wept for many reasons and she could not identify any of them.
She put the car away and began to dread facing Angela. Now that it was behind her, she felt like a fool. She expected to face Angela's curious, accusing eyes, but that was not necessary, either, she found, when she got inside the house.
Angela had been waiting up for her, but she was sound asleep on the living room couch.
She went into her bedroom and closed the door. The wetness was still on her thighs and she was dripping. She realized that she could get pregnant and that thought was so frightening she raced into the bathroom and used the bidet to wash away all traces of Peter Prentice in her depths.
She got into her nightgown after a shower and then she went out to waken Angela and send her to bed. The girl stared up at her stupidly, not really alert.
"Get up, dear," Vivian said. "Go to bed. I'm home now."
Angela smiled. "I missed you. Where did you go? Why didn't you tell me?"
"Honey, I had an appointment with a client. That does happen, you know. Now, get to bed."
She gave Angela a hand to get up onto her feet. Then she watched the girl go off to her own room. She put the lights out and got into her bed. A sense of warm and delicious comfort eased her and she was sure that she would sleep. But she could not.
She put her fingers down to make sure that she was nice and clean and she could feel a new sensitivity in her sexual flesh. Her whole crotch area tingled and she felt stretched and abused down there. She sighed, knowing that she would undoubtedly survive it all.
Peter Prentice kept coming into her mind and she wondered why he was as he was. He had behaved like a madman. His rape of her had been more than the frantic use of a female that a man too long deprived might attempt. There had been a quality of savagery and intent to hurt in it. He had wanted to hurt her, to make her feel pain, and he had succeeded.
Yet there had been splendor and glorious frenzies for her, too, and she wished that he was with her again so that they could battle each other and make love again and again.
She got up and took a couple of sleeping pills. Her silly head was turning into a turnip and her brain was becoming mush. She was acting like a girl who had fallen in love and that was absolutely wild. How could a girl love a man who had raped her and abused her and hit her? The pills took over and she slept.
Her purse was returned to her at nine the following morning. Angela brought it into her bedroom. It was a brown package and she was very glad to get it back. She placed it on her night table and Angela disposed of the wrappings.
"A messenger brought it," Angela said. "You must have forgotten it last night."
"Yes, dear," Vivian said. "Now I'd like some coffee, please."
Angela went off to get her some things for a late breakfast and she moved in her bed and felt the aches and twinges. She was just too shattered to get up and cope with business and the day.
Angela handled the phone for her and she tried to make herself comfortable in the bed. When Angela brought some fresh coffee in to her she noticed that the pretty brunette was wearing a peignoir that was diaphanous and she could see the pert young breasts, the shaved pubis, the delicately fashioned little cleft of sweet young cunt and she was not at all interested or impressed. When Angela turned and carried the tray off she watched the lovely young buttocks moving entrancingly beneath the long gossamer robe. Angela's legs were glorious seen from front or back and she would one day delight some young man, perhaps. And that was what she should be doing.
This type of thinking amazed Vivian. She remembered the lovely times that she and Angela had had together and she felt a sense of loss. Somehow, she just didn't think that things would ever be the same for her again.
Peter Prentice had taken her in anger, in desperation, perhaps, and she could not help but think of what it might be like to be used or made love to by him when he was not enraged. That was a wonderful thought and she nourished it, kept it alive in her mind for a long time.
Then she had to deal with an upset client on the phone and her romantic notions went haywire and left her for the day. Angela handled things beautifully and she rested, luxuriating in bed, trying to calm her nerves and her mind, and she knew that there were too many times of trembling and shaking and weakness and lassitudes. She suspected that she was malingering, really, deliberately using her experiences with Peter Prentice as an excuse to get some very badly needed rest.
She stayed in bed for three days.
She read the papers, especially Peter Prentice's column. She wondered if he would have something new to say about her. Most columnists had to keep a week ahead, she knew, and she supposed that he was no different, but he could always substitute a hot copy column if he wanted to do it. But, then, what could he say? She half expected to read that he had scored. Like, "Well, faithful readers, that silly son of a bitch, Vivian, she of the golden hair and great beauty, came to me the other night and I fucked her twice. I fucked that bitch silly, readers. I really, really did. And I beat the hell out of her, too. So there."
She was crying when she thought such thoughts and she was trying to read his column and it was nothing like what she was thinking. He didn't even mention her. Maybe that was worse.
After three days in bed she had enough. She got up and went back to work, and if Angela had any questions for her she kept them to herself. She knew that the girl would expect that they would engage in some sexual fun, but she only wanted to be let alone. She actually rebuffed Angela the first time the girl tried to kiss her on the mouth. Seeing Angela's tears made her contrite and she told her that she just didn't feel like fooling around.
"I don't think you love me any more," Angela said quietly. "You have changed, somehow, and I don't know why."
"I know why, dear," Vivian said, smiling. "And it has nothing to do with you at all. Now, run along, dear, and let me rest some more."
Angela let her alone after that and she was appalled by her sudden lack of interest in fun and games. That wasn't like her at all. Did sex with a man do that to her? Could a door be shut so firmly in a human psyche? She knew that it could. Easily.
Abby James came in to see her the first morning that she was back at her desk in the institute. He had much to report, and he was very glad to tell her that Harold Farmer was very pleased with her.
"He likes you very much, Vivian," Abby said. "What he likes most is that you are so sure of yourself, so positive. That he likes."
She made a face at him. "I thought he liked me because I am so pretty."
Abby James laughed. "His life is cluttered with the world's most beautiful women, and while you certainly qualify as one of them, your value to him is what you can tell him."
She sighed. "All right, Abby, dear. Now what kind of bad news have you brought me this morning?"
He had brought good news. He had been busy straightening out the affairs of Wally Barlow and now she owned the health spas outright. They were all managed and operated by competent people and he would keep an eye on things for her. For a fee, of course. A big fee.
She liked Abby James. She had known him for a long time now. He was a dear friend, a good lawyer, and a very good-looking man. He was not tall, barely a few inches more than five feet, but he had an excellent brain and he was quick and alert and the type who liked you or didn't like you. He was very definite about everything.
He was married to a very beautiful young girl, many years his junior, and they were idyll-ically happy. He adored his young wife and spoiled her shamelessly.
When their preliminary talk was done she told Abby that she would like him to keep an eye on Sam Benson.
"I have great hopes for Sam," she said. "If he can get Fred's clinic running the way I want it to run, he just might be able to take over and run everything."
Abby nodded. His big gray eyes were shrewd and thoughtful as he stared at her.
"Sam could be trouble, Vivian," he said. "I'm sure you know about his sex clinic and what he has people do up there. That place makes the Masters and Johnson clinic look like a Bible school. Sam is a real wild one. I saw him last night and he introduced me to two very lovely youngsters. The girl was supposed to be his niece and the boy his nephew, but I don't believe it. I know Sam, and I know what's going on around town, too. I have a hunch that Sam bought those kids."
"Oh, Abby," she said, exasperated, "you talk like a square. Those kids will live good with Sam. Forget about it, won't you?"
Abby gave her a rather speculative stare.
"Oh, for God's sake, Abby," she said. "That sort of thing is common now. Where the hell have you been?"
He smiled. "I guess I live a very narrow life."
"I guess you do."
Abby had a cup of coffee with her, and then he went on his way. He reported good news, but still she found the acquisition of Wally Barlow's enterprise a rather sorry bit of business. She wished that Wally was still alive and able to enjoy the success that his spas would now have. She was an investor in several public relations firms, and she would give one of them the task of making the health spas enormously successful and fruitful to their investors.
She found herself wondering about the young couple that Sam Benson was showing off. That had been quick. She had called the woman who knew the brokers and they had moved fast.
That, too, was a dreary business, she supposed. But the hippie movement had caused many excessively young people to run away from homes they would never return to, and it was only to be expected that they would have to find homes for themselves. Many of the youngsters wanted to return to school and finish their educations. Most of them were utterly uninhibited sexually and they were well taught in the hard school of experience. They could brighten up the existence of those who gave them affection and a chance at the good life.
She knew that many of her clients were swingers and swappers, and some were members of the more advanced sex clubs, and she thought it was their business. She was not able to be that casual about sex, but she knew that many people were nowadays. She knew, too, that many who got involved in the swinging groups inevitably included their own kids in their outlandish sexual activities. Many families prospered under such permissiveness. One client told her that he was glad that his girls and the boy could learn all about sex at home with people who really and truly loved them. She remembered that she had shuddered when she heard that.
Too, she had a handsome young man for a client, an Aries, who was now a very successful engineer. He had been raised in a home where he and his sister had been sexually exploited in every possible way, but he didn't feel exploited.
The people who had taken him and his sister in had given them a fine home and good clothes. They went to school and then college. They were still very fend of their foster parents, and when they married they chose partners who were also sexual liberals. Thinking about the young man and the things that had undoubtedly happened to him, Vivian was just a bit envious. She wished that she could be like that.
Then she remembered Angela and the life that they lived, and she had to realize that the sexual conservatism or squareness was all on her side. Angela would gladly do anything that she might ask of her. So how was she different from the others? She stopped thinking about such things mainly because Lonnie walked in on her with some calls that had to be dealt with. Then Minnie, the skinny girl who ran the horoscope department, came in to pick up the changes that would be made in outgoing horoscopes. This was a daily procedure and she always enjoyed Minnie's visits. The girl was dedicated, absolutely convinced that astrology was an exact science and a blessing that mankind was only now discovering. Vivian liked to hear that kind of talk.
Minnie stayed and had some coffee, and it was nearly noon by the time Vivian got her desk cleared and her brain cleared, too. She decided to call Sam Benson and have lunch with him if he was free. Maybe he would show her what he was doing. Her curiosity was aroused.
A sweet young voice answered the phone at his place and that surprised her, but it should not have. Sam had said that he would get a brand-new secretary, one with good looks and a nice personality. She thought it would be nice to have a look at the girl.
"I'd like to speak to Sam Benson, please," she said.
The girl was affronted by her direct approach.
"Doctor Benson is not available at the moment," the girl said stiffly. "He is with a client and cannot be disturbed."
Vivian chuckled. "This is Vivian, Sam's boss," she said. "Now, honey, you put me through to him right now or I'll have another girl in your chair in an hour."
"Yes, ma'am," the girl said hurriedly. "Yes, ma'am."
A moment later she was talking to Sam.
He snickered. "You shouldn't scare the kid, Vivian," he said. "She's an absolute doll, pretty, efficient. I am very happy with her."
"Is she a good lay, Sam?"
"No way," he said. "I wouldn't fuck around here. If I wanted the girl that bad I would take her out of the office, set her up in a nice pad and have my fun. I don't believe in mixing business and pleasure."
She knew that he was lying through his teeth, but it was nice to hear, anyway.
"You keep it like that, Sam, and we'll get along. Now, what about lunch? I'd like to take a look and see what yoU are doing with Fred's place. Can do?"
"Sure. Shall I pick you up or would you like to run over here and snoop around while I finish up? I have two more clients to see this morning."
"I'll run over, Sam. You'll find me somewhere around the place."
"Okay, Just don't spook Evelyn any more. She's scary enough as it is."
"You must have tried her, Sam. I just can't figure you letting anything get away."
"This one time, give me a gold star. Wait till you meet the girl. You'll see what I mean."
She laughed at him and he hung up.
She had the convertible and it was a warm, sunny day and she was well rested. She was about to leave the office when Lonnie brought the paper to her. She smiled at the girl and quickly found Peter Prentice's column.
It had been written after his night of fun and games with her but there was no mention of her at all. He had not mentioned her in his column since that night. She wondered if he was saving things up to blast her all at once.
She drove over to see Sam and took her time getting there.
The seat was hot and she sort of liked the warmth on her bottom. It gave her a nice feeling. She drove slowly, rubbernecking, watching the new buildings going up, watching the traffic that was all around her.
She was very much alert to her surroundings, very much alive and thriving. A sense of near-euphoria touched her and made her feel happy.
She didn't know what was going on within her silly head, but she liked it. She worried about Peter Prentice. He was not behaving as usual. That worried her more than she cared to admit.
She parked the car behind the building and went upstairs to see Sam. The cute little girl at the outer desk stood up and came to greet her.
"You're Evelyn," Vivian said.
"Yes, ma'am," the girl said. She seemed to be very unsure of herself, very nervous.
She was a short brunette with a tight dress and good legs. Her breasts were large and pointed and she would keep Sam on his toes and fully erect any time she was around him.
The telephone rang and Vivian smiled at the girl.
"You can go back to your desk, dear," she said. "I will be all right. I'm Vivian."
"Yes, ma'am," the girl said, awed. "I'd recognized you anywhere. I'm sorry about this morning. Sam tells me what to say."
"Just don't let him tell you what to do," Vivian said.
The girl didn't understand her. She smiled, and Evelyn went back to her desk and picked up the phone. Vivian went on to the main office. There were people busily at work, tearing out partitions, laying out new ones. She found Sam easily. He was free and finished for the morning.
They talked for a time and he showed her what he was having done and she was quite impressed. He was making more consultation rooms by diminishing the size of the ones that existed. He had hired several psychologists, and as Doctor Sam Benson he would head up the entire project.
"This is a penny ante deal, sweetie," he said, grinning. "I'd like to get on to bigger and better things."
"You do a good job here, Sam," she said, her eyes practically adoring him, "and you will go far. You fuck up and you hit the bricks."
Sam sighed and sat back in his chair. "You talk so nice, Boss Lady," he said. "You really choke me up sometimes."
She let him light a cigarette for her.
"I hear you have your niece and nephew staying with you now. I am so glad that you will be well taken care of."
He stared at her and his smile sparkled.
"I never even imagined that life could be so grand. Those two kids have done things for me that you wouldn't believe."
She smiled, too. "I am getting so I believe anything, Sam. I am just glad that you will be happy. Now take me to lunch and we will talk some more."
They walked to a restaurant in the neighborhood. She felt a momentary twinge when the headwaiter greeted her. She and Fred had often eaten in the place and she was missing him for the moment. In spite of their platonic marriage, he had been a good friend, a person that she could feel at ease with, and she knew, always, that he adored her. That was all that he had ever asked of her, just the privilege of adoring her. She felt a warm, moist feeling in her throat and then the sting of tears, and she smiled at the headwaiter and moved quickly to sit down at the banquette he was assigning to them.
Sam ordered drinks and he gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. She was afraid that he was going to give her a detailed account of his experiences with the two young people who now lived with him, and she was sure that her appetite could not survive that. She sipped her drink and began asking him about the business, and that kept him busy through lunch.
The hypnosis institute was in good hands and he could look in on things from time to time, he said.
"Vivian," he said, when their lunch was over and they were dawdling over coffee and cigarettes, "I've been doing a lot of thinking. You need somebody to run the whole shebang. What's wrong with me?"
"We will see, Sam. You are a real fuckup and that's too bad, because I was hoping that you could grow into that kind of an associate. I really was."
He stared at her. "Well, what's wrong? Why can't I make it?"
She crushed her cigarette out in the ashtray and she was unnecessarily vicious about it, she supposed. Sam watched and winced.
"You'd have to drop that phony doctorate, Sam," she said. "You'd have to get rid of your sex clinic, too."
He shook his head. "You must have spies working for you day and night. Right around the clock."
"Oh, Sam, you damned fool," she said, annoyed with him. "Lonnie works for me. You didn't think that you could monkey around with her and keep it quiet, did you? She won't let anyone fool around with her plumbing. I just didn't think that she was the type."
Sam flicked ash from his cigarette. He sat back in his seat and avoided looking at her.
"Everybody is the type, Boss Lady," he said. "If it doesn't go well in the bed, nothing else matters. Money, success, cars, trips, nothing else is that important."
She stifled a smart aleck answer. "I never thought of it quite that way, Sam," she said mildly, "but perhaps you are right."
"I know I'm right," Sam said. "And my little clinic does a lot of good, otherwise people wouldn't come there and let us teach them how to enjoy their own sexuality."
"I still think that it is not an asset to what I have in mind. Get rid of it."
"If I do, does that mean that I can look forward to running things after a while?"
Her smile could have blinded him with its brilliance.
"Not necessarily, Sam," she said. "It means that you have a choice, get rid of it or get fired."
Sam stared at her. He was furious but he was also prudent.
"Just as you say, Boss Lady," he said.
They left the restaurant soon then and she got into the convertible and drove it home. The day was gloriously warm and she persuaded Angela to swim with her in the pool for a while.
They swam naked and she found that she could enjoy looking at Angela's lovely young body. She was growing hornier by the minute, and when Angela moved close to her in the water she smiled at her and they kissed, briefly, almost chastely.
There was pain and hurt in Angela's eyes, and Vivian realized then that she had kept the girl away from her for some time and that was hurting Angela more than anything else that she might do to her. She pulled her into a tight embrace and kissed her with great warmth and real ardor.
"I am so horny, dear," she said. "I can't imagine why. Can you?"
Angela smiled. She shook her head.
"No," she said. "I'm just so glad that you still like me. I was very worried. You have been distant and remote lately. I just could not understand."
They were standing in the shallow end of the pool and Vivian saw the tiny tears on Angela's face and she shivered. The girl's anguish always affected her, turning her on fiercely, and she knew that that was a facet of her own perverse needs and inclinations.
She had never tried the lesbian bit as an aggressor and she wondered if that was what was bothering her. Did she yearn to taste the girl's sexual juices, to go down on her and really enjoy her? Or did she abstain because that simply was not what it took to satisfy her? Thinking about such things aroused her to an intensity she could not ignore. She smiled at Angela and then she took the girl's hand. It was time to do something about the flames and blazes that were alive and bursting within her.
Angela took her hand and they went out of the pool and began walking toward the closed room just beyond the bedroom.
It was going to be a lovely afternoon.
CHAPTER SIX
They swam in the pool in the sauna room and that rid their skin of any traces of chlorine or other impurities. Vivian trembled as Angela began the elaborate preparations for a long time of great bliss.
She settled down upon the table so that Angela could rub the lotions into her agitated skin, and as soon as she began to seethe and squirm with an excess of sexual ferocity Angela bent down to kiss her hot, swollen lips.
"Please, dear," Angela whispered against her lips, "please let me kiss you where it counts most. Please."
She wanted to say something affectionate and encouraging to Angela but she was too excited to speak. She nodded her head and then Angela was kissing her lips, then her breasts, and she could feel the rich, tingling sensations in her skin and in her crotch, especially, and she was suddenly on fire with sexual agitations, too stimulated, too excited to contain herself.
And then Angela's sweet, clinging mouth was covering the inflamed flesh of her sex and she was writhing and squirming in the throes of extreme and devastating spasms that rewarded Angela's eager, flickering tongue. She could not be still, she could not make her mind work, and she slid into a deep and appealing time of great nothingness and pure bliss.
She had to stop Angela herself. The girl was absolutely insatiable, artful and expert. In time the delicate tongue and sucking mouth inflamed her sensitive flesh and she could not stand any more direct stimulation for a while. She put her hand down and pushed Angela's pretty head away from her sore crotch. The girl lifted her face and gazed at her, and she could see that Angela's eyes were like marbles*shining and vacant and incapable of focussing. Angela straightened up and she could see the hard little nipples, the streaks of sexual juices sliding down the sleek white thighs, and she knew that Angela had enjoyed herself quite fully.
She lit a cigarette and gave it to her. Angela's eyes straightened out then and they grinned at each other. They sat and smoked cigarettes, and then Vivian was ready for the machine. She let Angela help her get settled on the couch, and when Angela got the machine ready for action she suggested that they use the electrified dildoes. They would give her even greater stimulation and she felt a need for every possible source of excitement. This was a new thing with her, a need for the ultimate in sensations.
She could not help thinking of Peter Prentice. She could experience moments of relative calm and intellectual clarity, and while her loins boiled and spilled she thought of the excruciating ecstasies she had experienced with him and she wondered if the element of rape was going to be necessary if she was to experience the same kind of bliss again.
Angela spent hours with her, and when they finally wore themselves out she was conscious of need, an unfulfilled sensation that she could do nothing about. That surprised her. They had been eager and anxious and the mechanical responses of loins and glands had been truly splendid, but there was something missing and she felt that she had dined sumptuously at the festive board and had to forego dessert.
She slept and dreamed of Peter Prentice. He was handling her harshly again, raping her, tearing and ruining the delicate structures of too-sensitive flesh and she was glad. She woke in the middle of the night, drenched with sweat, uncovered. She realized after a while that she was shaking violently.
A cigarette helped to calm her and she got a sleeping pill and then she was able to sleep.
She slept late and she was awakened by a wide-eyed Angela.
"There are a lot of news people at the front door," she said nervously. "I had to let some of them in because they are your friends. They all want to talk to you."
Vivian sat up and lit a cigarette. She was in no shape to talk to anybody. She could not imagine what, had happened to make the news-people interested in her suddenly.
Angela told her. "There was a great earthquake during the night," she said. "It happened in Peru and many thousands are dead, the whole area is in ruins. Great office buildings collapsed and cracked up, crushing all of the people inside. It is awful. It is on the radio and the TV."
"You predicted it and that's why the newspeo-ple are here."
Vivian shivered with a touch of intense cold.
"Tell the newspaper people that I have just gotten up and I will hold a press conference here in an hour. If they want to stay and wait, send out and have some breakfast served as quickly as possible. Will you do that for me, dear?"
"Of course," Angela said.
The girl turned and went out of the bedroom, and it seemed to Vivian that Angela had a brand new respect for her shining in her pretty eyes.
She showered and dressed in a blouse and tailored slacks, and when she went out to greet the people who had come to see her she found most of them eating at tables that had been provided by the caterer. She sat down and began eating, too. She was hungry.
They told her about the earthquake. It was a massive temblor and a great disaster. Angela's prediction had been quite accurate. She listened at first and then she tried to deal with their questions.
How had she known that there was going to be an earthquake in South America? She didn't know. She had seen it all in her head. That was the only way she could describe her visions.
They were decidedly respectful, many of them very much in awe of her, and she relished that state of affairs. She kept looking for Peter Prentice among the crowd but he was not there.
One of the newshens, a fat girl with thick glasses and bad breath, asked about Peter Prentice.
"He's been very unkind where you and your work are concerned," the girl said. "I wonder what he thinks now. Has he made any effort to contact you at all?"
It was a personal question, really, and she would" have been within her rights if she accused the woman of rudeness and crudeness, too. She did not do it.
She smiled. "I have not heard from him," she said. "I don't really expect to. He is an unbeliever and nothing I might say or predict would influence him, I'm sure. I'm sorry that he feels the way he does, but I cannot comment on his attitudes."
The press conference lasted for hours, much longer than ordinarily because new people came as the ones who had already asked their questions left.
' It was a hectic day, a very busy day, and she was asked to do the Morry Akins show and several other talk shows. One of them was going to be on live and she accepted the invitation to do that one. She knew that she was hot and she had to try to explain to people that she was not an oracle or a prophet. They seemed to think that she was and she was very anxious to get rid of that impression.
There were crowds at the Institute of Applied Astrology and they were straining for a glimpse of her, she knew. She was already famous, perhaps she was the country's foremost astrologist, but now she was famous as a seer. The newspapers were extremely cordial, and people who had never thought much about astrology's ability to be a force in guiding people in their daily lives suddenly became converts.
She was being asked all sorts of questions: where was Judge Crater, would the year ahead be a time for prosperity, would Uncle John get a job this year, would the baby be born healthy and all right, where was Judge Crater? Whatever happened to him? She parried questions good-naturedly but she did grow tired very quickly, and she was glad when Lonnie told everyone who had jammed into her office that Vivian was exhausted and could not give them any more time.
She fled and drove home, wondering if she would be bothered there, too. She was becoming somewhat frightened. The details of the disaster had been coming in all day and there were pictures on the front pages of the newspapers and on the early evening newscasts, too.
She dressed and got ready to go on the talk show. She took Angela with her and she tried to explain that she was not a prophetess, but instead a very hard-working astrologer. And once in a while she would see things and they did seem to happen with an accuracy that was becoming a bit frightening.
She enjoyed the atmosphere of interest and respect that she was able to sense in the studio, and there were many in the audience who had questions. She decided that the first person who asked her about Judge Crater would get a nasty answer, but no one asked her silly questions.
She was exhausted when she finally got off camera and the show was over. She and Angela left the studio and Angela drove them to a quiet restaurant and they had a late supper.
Angela offered to make bedtime interesting and very pleasant, but Vivian refused the offer. She just wanted to sleep and rest. She soaked in a hot tub for a while and then went to bed.
Peter Prentice wandered through her dreams, and she was able to enjoy a walk with him in a strange place and she was very pleased because he was not at all unkind and he admitted that maybe she did have something. Maybe she wasn't a heartless fake, milking people dry with her idiotic predictions.
And then her dreams became filled with scenes of devastation and disaster and her mind's eye showed her a melange of disconnected and unrelated scenes, some of them dealing with disaster, some dealing with happier things. She saw a wedding of great pomp and grandeur and crowds of people and she had no idea what that could mean.
Her mind seemed to clear and shift, and then she was sitting in his living room in the Malibu beach house and Peter Prentice was talking to her. He was pleading with her to come to him and give him a chance to explain things to her. He had meant only to send her away from him. He had not intended anything else.
She woke soon afterwards and it was morning and Angela had some coffee ready for them. There was toast, too, and then the security patrol people called on the house phone to tell her that they were trying to hold the crowds back. Her place was already beseiged by long lines of people. They all wanted answers to their questions. The security people had erected some barricades but the crowds were getting out of hand. Would she come out and talk to them? She stared at Angela and she was suddenly frightened. She was willing to talk to the people who seemed to think that she was something special, but she knew that she could not spend much time answering questions. She would not know the answers, anyway. She was an overnight celebrity now, and a very important person.
"We are going to have to go outside and talk to people," she said. "I wish I had never made that prediction about the earthquake. I should have kept still."
The telephone rang again, and it was the private line. Everything else had been shut off by Angela. Lonnie was calling to tell her that there were lines of people waiting to see her at the institute. She was going to have to do something drastic. People were beginning to pour into the area and the police were having problems trying to control the crowds.
When Angela hung up the house phone rang again and it was a captain in charge of the security patrol people.
"This is just too much, ma'am," the captain said. "People are piling up out here like this place was a shrine or something. You better not come out. This crowd could be dangerous. They could hurt you, not meaning to, you understand, just by bulk if they tried to get close to you."
Vivian could feel her heart pounding. "What would you suggest I do?"
"How many of you are in the house?"
"Just me and my secretary."
"Well, we have a 'copter upstairs. I'll tell him to land as close to your back door as he can get. You pack in a hurry and he will take you away from here. Just be as quick as you can. The 'copter will set you down wherever you want him to. If I were you, I'd spread the word that you have left the country. Go to India, maybe, visit a guru or one of them wise guys they have there or something. I'm sure-you don't need me to do your thinking for you."
"Of course not, captain," she said, crisply. "Thank you. We will get ready right away."
She had switched the call onto the audio system and Angela had heard it all. She was already moving around the rooms, packing the things that they would need.
"Just emergency things, dear," Vivian said. "We can buy what we need for a while."
"Yes, dear," Angela said.
They began working together then, packing, and a few moments later there was a knock at the back door. When she called out to find out who was there, it was the helicopter pilot. He was waiting for them.
He didn't have to wait long.
She and Angela handed their bags to the nice-looking young man who stood on the back porch, smiling, happy in the bright sunshine. He carried their luggage to the small aircraft that was gasping and wheezing in an orderly cadence as its blades loafed in a circular motion.
They got in and the young man did something to one of his controls and they started climbing straight up into the air. They could look down and see the vast crowds in front of the house, and Vivian shivered as she realized that they were lucky to escape. She glanced around her at the metal bars and chipped gray paint and broad glass that made up the machine she was riding in. Romantically, she thought of a flying carpet and using something like that for an escape arrangement, but she had to sigh and realize that the helicopter was much more practical. A lot more dependable, too.
The pilot took them to Century City, the new development to tall hotels and high-rise office buildings. They got a bungalow at one of the hotels and she had Angela tell Lonnie where they were. She helped Angela to unpack and then she tried to work, but she was just too excited to get anything accomplished.
She had the papers brought in, and the amount of space that was being given to her was shocking. She read that the film company that had taken over the musical that Harold Farmer had dropped was now having some second thoughts about doing the show. After all, Vivian, the astrologer, had predicted that three girls in that show would die and Vivian was just too accurate in her predictions to be ignored. The film people were having second thoughts, but the board of directors would make the decision.
Vivian found herself hoping that they would abandon the project. She was sure that death and accidents and disasters of one kind or another would plague that musical.
In spite of the fact that they were very much dislocated, the day was a busy one. Lonnie had the hotel set up a temporary telephone bank and she had five lines coming into the bungalow.
Sam called her and offered to help her in any way that he could, and all of her people were especially helpful, but there was nothing that anyone could do. In time she would have to stop hiding and cope with the hordes of people who were trying to reach her now.
They took a rest period during the late afternoon and she read the papers. She read every word in Peter Prentice's column and was a bit disappointed when she saw that he had made no mention of her.
Somehow, after she had read his column, he stuck in her mind. She found his behavior very unnerving, incomprehensible, actually. He could at least say that she was a lucky fake, that a fluke in time and actuality had given her substance that she didn't really deserve. He could say something, anything.
He said nothing. That really bothered her.
"Angela," she said, "will you rent us a car? A fairly good one? The hotel will help you. I want to go out tonight."
She had decided that she was going to look in on Peter Prentice again. She had to find out the reason for his silence. She wanted to see him again, alone. She did not know why she had such a compulsion to see him again, she just knew that she had no choice. . Angela went off to do what she had been asked to do and Vivian got back to work. She had brought her own typewriter and the tape recorder. She began taping some of the letters that Angela would type up for her and get into the mail.
She did some horoscopes that would remain on the tapes to be sent to the clients. She answered some important letters from clients, and then it was time for them to have dinner sent in.
Angela had been able to rent a Buick Riviera and it was parked outside the bungalow. She called a bellhop and he got her five hundred in cash and the hotel accepted her check for it. She had arranged with the hotel people for secrecy and she knew that she would read that she and her secretary had taken a private chartered flight that would take them to India and that she would be visiting a guru for a time of meditation.
The public relations people were handling that for her. They would let it slip out that the accuracy and timing of her earthquake prediction had frightened Vivian and she was now seeking counsel from those who were well used to predictions of great accuracy, the gurus of India. That should take some of the pressure off.
That should send the crowds home again. She shivered as she thought of what could have happened that morning.
They had a delicious dinner, and while they were eating she explained to Angela that she was going out by herself and she would not be gone for very long. Angela didn't ask any questions and she was glad of that.
Lonnie came over with some of the day's work that had come to the institute for her. Too many of her clients now wanted personal interviews. They wanted their futures brought up to date. Each had questions that she would answer as best she could when she resumed her work again.
She showered and dressed carefully for her visit to Peter Prentice's house. Remembering the ease with which she had become available to him during her previous visit she decided to wear slacks, a tight bra and a heavy sweater. She brushed her hair and fixed her lips and her eyes and she was not too surprised when Angela told her that she looked particularly beautiful.
"It has to be a guy," Angela said, a bit enviously. "I sure, hope you get what you are going after."
She smiled at Angela. She was looking at her reflection in the mirror in front of her and she could see a look of sadness in Angela's eyes. She wished suddenly that the girl could find a nice guy, a young man who could be all that she required in the way of a lover and a husband, perhaps, to make her happy.
Maybe Sam Benson could help. He certainly ran into a lot of young people and he just might be able to send someone to meet Angela and take her out and show her a good time now and then.
She gave her appearance one final check and then she said goodbye to Angela and went out and got into the rented Buick. She was a little nervous about driving a car with which she was unfamiliar but the car handled beautifully and in moments she was very much at ease behind the wheel.
It was a warm night and she put the radio on for the long drive out to Malibu. She selected her favorite station and listened to music for a long time. And then it was newstime and they were still talking about the earthquake in Peru and the great devastation, the need for help and all sorts of supplies.
"One of the least important developments of the great disaster," the announcer said, "is that Vivian, The Astrologer, the beautiful young girl who publicly predicted the disaster, has had to leave town because of the great and sudden demand that hordes of people are making upon her. No one seems to know where she is at the moment, but it is said that the accuracy of her prediction brought her a sense of great fear and she has gone to India to seek counsel from one of the world-famous gurus, or to take time for meditation. She is said to be a very frightened young woman as a result of her clairvoyance.
"This announcer has known Vivian personally for a long time and she is a very earnest, dedicated astrologer and her record for accuracy has always been very high. It is our sincere hope that this latest development in an already illustrious career does not bring unhappiness to a very wonderful girl.
"Wherever you are, Vivian, dear, we wish you luck and the very best of good fortune for yourself. You've brought so much of it to others. God bless you."
She could feel tears on her cheeks and she was trembling.
"Why, Bernie," she said "aloud, "how nice of you. How very, nice of you."
Bernie had been a client for a long time, and when he got the chance to go with the station he was with now he had come to her and asked her advice and she had checked his chart and done a little spade work among his stars and planets and she was able to tell him to take the job. He would do very well at it. She had been quite right about it.
She listened to some more news and then the music was on again and she drove along the coast highway slowly, thinking. Her willingness to send Angela off into the arms of a lover was something new with her. She seemed to be changing in a subtle way, and in a way that was really not so subtle. She didn't want to do too much thinking about the trip she was taking now. There would be time later.
Sensibly, the one thing she did not want to do was visit Peter Prentice in his lair again. She was looking for trouble, and in the darkness of the car's interior she could face truths and she didn't want to face truths. She just wanted to drift along and deal with things as the developed.
She had it all worked out in her head. She would ring the bell at Peter Prentice's house, and when he answered the door she would smile and say something bright and brittle and clever. Like maybe she'd say, "Hi. I thought I'd better come by and talk to you."
"You silly son of a bitch," she said aloud. "Then what the hell do you do?"
The radio told her that it was nearly nine o'clock. She wondered if she should stop off and have a couple of drinks somewhere. Maybe that would make her feel a bit more at ease.
She remembered the experiences she had had when she stopped at the place where Bertie tended bar. She would never stop there again.
She saw a well-lighted bar in the distance and there was a curved drive in front and a place to leave her car. She parked and went into the place and it was a very quiet cocktail bar. A pretty blonde girl with bare breasts and a tiny bikini at her crotch took her order and brought her drink to her.
There were several nearly naked girls in the place and she had to admit that the girls who were serving the drinks had gorgeous breasts, pertly small and-bullet-shaped. The tiny triangle of cloth that covered each sexual slit was a G-string, actually, and their bare buttocks were powdered and plump and quite alluring, she supposed.
She had four drinks and then it was time for her to go and do what she knew she had to do. She paid the girl who had served her and then she went out and got into the rented car. She was a bit surprised because the drinks didn't seem to be affecting her at all. Maybe she should have had another one.
She found the lonely, dark street where Peter Prentice had his house, and she parked the Buick in the same place where she had left her Rolls. She got out and made sure that the car was locked.
There were lights on inside Peter Prentice's house, she saw, and just before she rang his bell a sense of timidity swept over her and she almost ran away again.
He opened the door and then he was looking at her, his eyes sort of glad, and his twisted lips sort of sorry.
She said, "Hi."
He didn't say anything.
She stood on the front landing, gazing at him, her stare examining his face intently, inventorying every feature, every line, every little wrinkle.
He said nothing. He just stood there, watching her. He was tall and slender and in his shirtsleeves. He was wearing a pair of shorts. They ended just above his knee and she could see the big bulge at his crotch, and when she glanced at that region she shivered and she hoped that he would not notice.
"I did want to speak to you," she said. "I think that it is important. I would like to come in. Or do we have to talk out here in front of God and everybody?"
She was smiling, but he didn't seem to be affected by her or her smile. She was sure that she had surprised the hell out of him by showing up on his doorstep again in the middle of the night. She supposed that he thought her kind of crazy.
He was not going to smile at her at all, it seemed.
"I have come to get raped again," she said. She wanted to shock him. She wanted to jar him out of his catatonic stance.
He stepped back and held the door for her.
"Come in, please," he said. "Do come in."
She glanced upward, expecting to see the inevitable sign etched above the doorway, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."
There was nothing. She walked into the house and he made room for her in the doorway.
He closed the door behind her.
He locked it, too.
CHAPTER SEVEN
He had been hard at work, it seemed. The typewriter was still running and the bright light above his desk was shining down on a pile of papers that had already been typed.
He sat down in his working chair and she settled down on a small black leather-covered couch that was close to where he worked.
She gazed at his face for a time. He looked to be very tired, very unhappy.
"I'm sorry if I came at a bad time."
"Why did you come? There is nothing here for you." ' "I think I wanted to ask why you have stopped writing things about me. I just couldn't understand why you would be so vicious in your steady attacks upon my good name and then suddenly quit. After you fuck a girl you stop trying to hurt her; is that the way it is with you?"
She wasn't really bothering him and he was not at all impressed or shocked by her language. She wanted to bother him, she wanted to shock him, she wanted to change his air of calm and serenity and harried eagerness to return to his work.
"They won't let me work," she said. "There are crowds at my home and at the institute, too. They seem to think that I just might be a very good astrologer."
He lit a cigarette and did not offer the pack to her.
"You have just had a very lucky break. The forces of coincidence and natural phenomena have worked for you. What was thought to be a very careless and irresponsible prediction from a well-known astrologer turns out to be a fact in the minds of millions. So, now you can go ahead and reap a harvest of dollars, telling people any kind of nonsense that pops into your head and they will believe it. But that's all that it will be. Nonsense. You know and I know that no one can predict the future. You make a vicious racket out of trading on ignorant people's willingness to believe that there are those who can."
She was very calm and unruffled as she tried to argue with him. She sat forward on the edge of her seat and she was very patient with him.
"Some of my clients are the world's most brilliant people," she said. "Surely you would not say that they are stupid."
He put his cigarette out in the ashtray and then sat back, his arms folded across his chest.
"The world is filled with educated fools," he said. "Some of the most brilliant intellects have weak spots, and those who accept nonsense that you spread around as dependable fact are bound to be the world's worst fools. Idiots."
She felt a sense of utter futility and a conviction that she had wasted valuable time in coming to see him. She stood up and he did, too. He was watching her closely, expecting something from her that she did not seem able to do or say.
"You are incredibly stupid," she said. "The whole world is out of step. Everyone is wrong but Peter Prentice, a small, insignificant little newspaper writer who is just too stupid to open his eyes to the world around him. A stupid, stupid fool."
She was very close to tears, very close to hysteria, and she could not understand why that should be so. She could not understand why he seemed able to make her furious. No one else seemed able to do that to her. Just Peter Prentice.
His face looked like something carved from white granite.
She was very close to him and her mouth was a thin angry line. She had more to say to him, much more. She chose her words carefully.
"You print one more line about me and my foolish clients," she said, "and I'll make you wish you had never been born. This I can promise you."
"Go," he said dully," just go. I didn't ask you here. I don't want you here. Just get the hell out."
She was not yet ready to leave. There were still things she had to say to him.
"The last time you tried to make me go I wound up getting hurt and getting raped right here. Is that what you are threatening me with again?"
He almost smiled. "Could be," he said. "Now, just be a good little girl and get the hell out of here before I do something I will feel sorry for tomorrow."
"You wouldn't dare," she said.
"Wouldn't I?" he said. He took a step closer and then he pulled her into his embrace and she raised her hands and began drumming them fiercely upon his chest. She was panting, gasping for breath and trying to hurt him, using fists and claws and bright red nails, and then he was swaying and she was still locked in his embrace. They fell and he clutched her to him as harshly as any animal might have. Her slacks did not deter him, nor did her shoes. She was wrestling with him, crying, sobbing, her breathing making whistling, screeching sounds in her nostrils and her throat. She could feel his hands tearing her slacks and she realized that she had made a tactical error. She remembered that she had paid one hundred and fifty dollars for the slacks. And now they were rags.
He was using his hands to hurt her. She felt his big fingers sliding into her flesh and she was very wet and that was a shocking realization for her.
Her heavy sweater didn't last at all. They were twisting and turning as they battled, and his hands tore her sweater and it became shreds. His hands cupped her warm breasts and she felt his touch and wondered what had happened to her bra. She wept, helplessly, filled with rage, determined to hurt him any way that she could. His hands were careless with her person, and she realized that she was naked. He was feeling her breasts and squeezing them, licking them, sucking fiercely at her nipples, and she was a seething, squirming, leaking creature, her loins spilling her juices with a wild eagerness. She could feel the hardness of his cock against her body and it was bare meat, hard as rock, leaking and wetting her belly as it touched the sleekness and warmth of her skin. That was an insult to her, somehow.
There was a new quality in their wrestling suddenly. They were intent upon hurting and maiming each other, and when he put his hands into her hair and began pulling it out of her scalp, she screamed. Then he hit her. His palm struck her cheek and her head began to spin.
She felt the wet tip of his cock against her lips and she knew what he was trying to make her do for him. She refused, in spite of the way his hands were hurting her head. And then the pain was blinding and she was just too cowed to resist any more. She opened her mouth and then his organ was sliding back and forth on her tongue and his whole body was shaking and she could taste him and that was doing something absolutely horrid to her and she ached with a quickening thirst, a sudden, frenzied eagerness to devour him. He was sliding himself in and out, the tempo of his motions picked up, became swift, and then he rammed his organ deep into her mouth and his product was spilling into her mouth, spattering her throat, and he was twisting his hands in her hair. She was alive with bursting, blinding furies and she was swallowing him, unable to do anything else, and she was conscious of the hot, spilling juices in her loins, the quick, fierce orgasms that occurred to her with unceasing spasms that seemed to be pure bliss.
He relaxed his grip on her hair and she went limp. He was still hard and vibrant in her mouth, but she had drained him for the time being. He was still holding her tight with the bulk of his weight, still using his hands on her outraged breasts and too-tender sexual flesh. He was sliding his big fat finger in and out of her vagina and he was kissing her then, his lips wet and eager and ardent upon her mouth. Her lips were crushed and smeared and she was shaking violently, turned on cruelly by what was being done to her.
She was weak and unable to fight him any more. Her person was throbbing and seething, responding to sexual stimuli and she was just too ardent and eager to enjoy more to put up any resistance at all. She knew that he was practically naked, too, and she knew that his organ was still in her mouth, her tongue was busy with it automatically. He was twisted in a way that put his mouth against her hairless crotch. He was licking and kissing the smoothnesses of inner thighs and silky pubis, and when his tongue slid into the depths of her inflamed crevice she began moving her hips up and down in an involuntary eagerness for an end to sensations too intense to endure. She was coming steadily, she knew, and she could feel the sweet agony and ecstasy of clenching flesh and quick, bursting drenchings. She could feel his hot tongue sliding in and out, probing the depths of her sexual cavity, and each time he made her come a fresh batch of his own nectars spilled from the throbbing tip of his organ and slid down her throat.
She was shaking violently, her legs were bouncing up and down on the carpeting, and she lost control of herself. She knew that she was spilling hot, burning urine all over the floor and no one seemed to care. She was avid and eager for his cock and she was conscious of a sudden sense of triumph and great joy when she made him come and the steam of juices flooded her mouth and her throat and she swallowed him as casually as any expert cocksucker. His eager mouth and expert tongue wrung her out and there came an orgasm that was a prolonged time of great spendings, and then she was done for a time and they both knew it.
His cock shrivelled up in her mouth and she got away from him. She sat up, her back against the wall, her legs stretched out in front of her. She was trembling and shaking and her body was caked with dried sweat. She could smell herself and she could smell him, too. That didn't upset her too much. After all, she had tasted him, too. Twice.
Here is Vivian,. See the pretty girl. See Vivian. That is her name. Vivian is a cocksucker. That's what we know about Vivian. She sucks cock.
She was weeping, quietly, hopelessly. He lit a cigarette and placed it in her mouth. That was shocking to her, somehow. Maybe he was the kind that had scruples. You know, treat your cocksucker good because you never know when you might want your cock sucked again. He knelt in front of her. He was looking into her face and he touched her cheek with his fingertip. He lifted a tear on his fingertip and looked at it. He patted her cheek and then he kissed her soft, puffy mouth. It was dry and swollen and hot, she knew.
"You are beautiful," he said, almost whispering. "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. You really are."
She opened her eyes so that she could look at him. He meant it. She could see that. She began a brand-new surge of weeping, complete with sobs and tears and great shuddering breaths. He moved somehow and then he had her in his arms. He picked her up and carried her to a room beyond the front room. There was a light burning beside the bed, and when he laid her down on the smooth covers she shivered. He was not anywhere near finished making love to her. She knew that and she was glad. There was something wild and elemental in their ways with each other. His hands were hurting and harsh and savage with her most sensitive flesh and she liked that. His palms caressed her buttocks and then his fingers dug deep into soft flesh and she gasped and she could feel the quivers in her vagina, the little burning trickles that were her reaction to his hands. His mouth was eager and brutal with her nipples. He sucked them so hard she could see that they were almost bursting with rawness when he let them go for a time. His mouth opened wide to capture the undersides of her breasts and suck them deep into his wide maw, and then his tongue teased sensitive flesh and skin and she writhed and squirmed in the throes of pure sexual bliss. He would kiss and lick every inch of her body, she knew, and she let him do it. She was too wrought up, too sexually excited to do anything excpet enjoy the lovely excesses he treated her to. He used his hands to turn her over and she was limp, spent, and he did as he pleased with her.
His mouth slid across the plumpness of her buttocks and found the drenched valley below, and then he was kissing and licking her flesh and she was writhing and vibrating with new and greater surges of passion.
He got onto the bed with her and she felt his fingers at her slippery portal, and then his massive cock was sliding into her and she could feel every centimeter of its length as he pushed his way into her depths. She began to move her hips in frenzied thrustings and she could feel an intense itching sensation deep within her loins. He was panting and gasping as he plunged into her, and she was helping him, working together with him like a well-oiled machine, and they crested and broke together and he rammed his cock up to her tonsils when he spent. Then he collapsed against her, as his loins and his body gave up the last of his strengths.
She was a long time in calming, then she eased her body away from his own. She got off the bed and she Was dripping as she made her way into the bathroom. He had a walk-in shower and she used it, cupping her hands between her legs and trying to splash water into her vagina. She wished that she could find something that would help her to rinse herself clean, but there wasn't anything around.
When she went into the bedroom she found that Peter Prentice was sound asleep. She thought of waking him and quickly gave up the idea. She went into the kitchen and found a six-pack of cola sitting on the floor beside the refrigerator. She smiled as she opened one, took a sip. She carried it back to the shower with her. She went inside and squatted slightly so that she could rinse herself out adequately. She shook the bottle with her thumb closing the opening. Then she put the bottle against her vaginal opening. When she removed her thumb the liquid bubbled up inside and rinsed her inner depths clean. It was a trick that was very popular with the kids, she knew. And it did seem to work.
When she was clean and dry she examined the tattered remnants of her clothes. She borrowed a pair of his shorts and a shirt and put her shoes on, and she was fairly well dressed. Her purse was in the pocket of her slacks. She got it and fixed her mouth in front of the bathroom mirror.
She used the lipstick to write a little message upon the glass. Perhaps it would brighten his day when he woke.
Rape is a crime punishable by life imprisonment or worse.
She ran out of lipstick before she could write any more and perhaps it was just as well. She gathered up her torn clothing as she started on her way out. She was glad to see that her slacks had been ripped in their seams and could easily be repaired. Her sweater just wasn't that valuable anyway, so she didn't care about that.
She put all of the lights out and locked the door behind her. She started walking up the street toward the rented Buick, smoking a cigarette, walking slowly, suddenly at peace with the whole world.
And she was humming.
There were messages for her when she got back to the bungalow. Angela was asleep and the messages were all unimportant at the moment.
When she slid into her bed she noticed the faint smell of cola emanating from her crotch and she wondered if Peter Prentice was the type who could sip it from a girl's cunt. She shook her head in the darkness. Champagne, maybe. Cola, no.
She woke early and crackling with good nature and euphoric ambitions. She had never felt better in her entire life and she was sure that she had learned a most important lesson. Sex had to be shared to be really effective. She liked sharing. She really did.
Memories of the night's events flashed on in her head and she recalled that she had sucked Peter Prentice's cock for him and she had not gagged and she had not been revolted. Maybe she was changing in many surprising ways.
The telephone began ringing before she was finished in the bathroom. Angela awoke and took care of it. She padded into the bathroom to stare, not too alert.
"They know where we are," Angela said. "That was the hotel manager. He says we'd better go. It seems that one of the help wanted to make a few bucks."
Vivian sighed. "Now, what?" she said.
The hotel was able to promise reasonable security. They were pretty well-staffed with security people, but they could make no guarantees and didn't really feel that they should have to guard anyone. They preferred that she find quarters elsewhere.
The manager was very earnest, eager to make her understand that they adored her and were glad to have her as a guest.
"Your eager fans would ruin shrubbery and tear the place up and we would have to bill you for damage. You know how it is."
"I'm finding out," Vivian said bleakly.
She called Sam Benson and asked him to come to the hotel.
"You are getting your spurs, Sam," she said. "Angela and I are going on a trip. I want you to take over. You get over here and I will set it up for you to run things."
"Yes, ma'am," Sam said.
She called Abby James and he promised to come over right away. She made some other calls and Angela packed them up again. There were thousands of people lined up outside the hotel, hoping to see Vivian. She called a helicopter company and arranged for a whirlybird to drop down and pick her and Angela up.
"Where are we going?" Angela asked.
"London," Vivian said. "Rome. Athens. Anywhere."
Angela sighed. She smiled, too. That meant that someone else would have to update the passports and arrange for whatever paperwork was needed for them to get out of America for a while.
"Do we really have to go?" Angela asked.
"We'd better," Vivian said. "For a while, there will be crowds any place we go. After a while, it will all die out and people will forget all about me as a dependable seer."
"Maybe," Angela said gloomily. "Maybe not, too."
"We can go right to the airport from here," Vivian said, thinking out loud. "Lonnie and her gals can pack the things that we will want and ship them to us. The room that we like so much is locked up and no one will even suspect that it exists until we get home again and open it up for our own enjoyment. So there is no need for us to worry about a thing. Except the mobs that we will run into when we get to New York. We won't even be able to get off of the plane, I'll bet."
The hotel promised to keep everything under control for a period of five hours. After that time they would not guarantee that she would not be bothered by hordes of eager fans.
Abby James and Sam Benson arrived practically together and she got Abby to set things up so that Sam could take over and run everything. It was really not much of a risk because she was pretty well managed and controlled by accountants and efficiency people and, finally, the computers. But putting Sam at the head of things practically guaranteed that she and Angela could go away for a while and enjoy themselves in distant lands where her fame had not yet reached.
They used the helicopter to get to the airport, and there were people there with her passport and money and she and Angela went aboard one of the new behemoths of the air. While she hoped for a pleasant flight to New York, it didn't turn out that way. Once it became known that she was on board the passengers wanted her to answer questions for them. She did the best she could, and she was glad that the airline had arranged for security for her and Angela when they got to New York.
There was a waiting period of several hours before they could get aboard the jet that was going to take them to Europe. That flight was relatively calm and they were undisturbed, probably because the people on board were foreigners for the most part and they had other things on their minds.
There were people waiting for her at the airport in London, people who worked for one or the other of her firms. Astrology was big business in Europe, too, and many of the rich people who haunted the Mediterranean watering places used her European services. She was international in scope and she was glad that there were those concerned about her comfort and well-being while she was in London.
There were,three young people at the airport, a smashingly pretty young girl whose name was Arline and two handsome young men. They were all from the London branch of Vivian's operations.
The two young men were very much impressed with Angela and it surprised her to notice that Angela was quite attracted to Noel, one of the young men. Arthur, the other young man, was very good about the luggage and getting a taxi and arranging for their quarters. They settled into a suite in one of the very posh hotels, and the hundred dollars a day was paid by the London branch of the institute.
Three days after they arrived in London, the crowds began queuing up outside the hotel, hoping for a glimpse of Vivian. That distressed her because she had hoped that her earthquake prediction would be forgotten. Maybe Peter Prentice was right about her, and coincidence and natural phenomena had made her seem to be greater than she actually was.
She was being given a great deal of space in the newspapers, and she wished that they would just ignore her. That was not very easy to do, however. Everyone seemed to want to know how their lives would turn out, and there was the prevelant conviction that if you just asked Vivian she could tell you.
Her nights became times of great distress. She was doing a lot of dreaming and most if it was disconnected and unsetting.
She watched a lot of television for a few days while she and Angela stayed in the suite, but then Noel, the nice young man who seemed very interested in Angela, began asking her out.
"Go, dear," Vivian told her. "Have some fun. I will stay here and work. You go along with Noel. He likes you."
She was always to wonder if she did the right thing in pushing Noel and Angela together. They took full advantage of the situation. Three weeks after their first meeting, Angela and Noel got married.
Vivian attended the wedding, and the police held the crowds back in front of the church. When the bride and groom went on their way, Vivian stood alone on the church steps and tried to explain to the crowd that she was not an oracle. She just had an occasional lucky vision of sorts and she could only report what she had seen.
They bellowed at her, asking what she could tell about the future. What could she tell them about unemployment in the months that were ahead? She just shook her head and wept because she could not say anything to them. The police made a path for her to her car and she went back to the hotel and wept again.
She was glad that Angela would be happy, of course, but she was horribly alone, dreadfully so, and she decided that she was going to go home again. She talked to Lonnie, and her secretary reported that much of the initial excitement and interest in Vivian and her predictions had died down.
Lonnie suggested that she take a few weeks off and try shopping in Paris, and then she could look in on the Rome office and some of the others. Lonnie said that Sam Benson was running everything beautifully and there was no real need for her to hurry home.
She did go to Paris and she shopped. She spent a lot of money on pretty clothes, lush perfumes and shoes. Lots and lots of shoes. She sent her purchases home, and then she toured the big cities of Europe and dropped in on people who were supposed to be working for her.
Weeks went by and she was beginning to lose some of her restlessness. She was alone most of the time, but she found that a decided pleasure. She liked to be alone. It gave her a chance to think, to ponder, to wonder about things.
She was in Madrid the night she first dreamed about Peter Prentice's death. She could see it clearly. He was in an army helicopter, presumably somewhere in Indochina, and there was a burst of gunfire from the ground and the helicopter was hit. It exploded in midair and fell to the ground, and those who had been riding in it were dead when they hit the earth.
She woke, filled with terror, shaking, worried stiff about Peter Prentice's safety. She wished that she could sit down and talk with him and have a drink with him.
"Who the hell are you kidding?" she said aloud. "You are in love with that rotten bastard and you're scared silly that the damned fool will get hurt or killed before you can tell him how much you love him."
She was sitting up in her bed, shaking and trying to calm herself by smoking a cigarette. She frequently talked to herself, especially when some of her thinking crystallized and she was finally sure of herself. She envied Angela now.
Lonnie was getting steady reports from Angela. She and her brand-new husband were traveling around the world and the Institute of Applied Astrology was paying for the trip. It was the least that she could do for Angela.
She could not get back to sleep after her dream of Peter Prentice's death in an army helicopter. She got up and sat in one of the big chairs in her hotel suite, trying to imagine a set of circumstances that would put Peter Prentice in an army whirlybird in the war-torn Orient. She could not imagine how he could ever wind up in such a situation, and after she was sure that she had simply had a bad dream she settled herself more comfortably in the big chair.
She fell asleep in it.
She left Spain a few days later and flew back to London. The same young people met her at the airport, and they had some news for her. The biggest talk show on London's television network wanted her on for a guest shot. They would like her to show up at four the following afternoon. There would be tea and some talk and then they would tape the show. She was glad to accept. She asked Arline and Arthur what they heard from Angela and Noel, and they said that Angela wrote that they were very happy and would soon be home.
Angela would be living in London once her trip was done, Vivian knew. She was lost to her forever and maybe that was just as well.
She showed up at the newsdealer's every day and read the Los Angeles papers. She liked to read Peter Prentice's columns every day, wondering if he would mention her. He never did.
She enjoyed doing the taped show. It was all very British, and she was asked many questions about the future and did she have any general predictions for the public? It was a wonderful chance for her to explain that she was not always right. That she was not an oracle. She just seemed able to talk about some things that she saw in her mind's eye.
The television host didn't seem to want to accept that.
"You have been right so many times," he said. "The prediction that you made about the earthquake in Peru was very dramatic, but you have made many others and they have all worked out just as you said they would."
She tried to deprecate her value as a prophetess.
"Oh," she said, "I am wrong lots of times. I see many things that never do happen."
"You were certainly right about the troubles that would happen on the musical Casey's Castle," the host said.
Vivian shivered and could feel her skin prickling.
"I didn't know," she said. "No one told me. What happened?"
The snow's host gazed at her a bit uncertainly.
"The script girl fell from a scaffold the first day the shooting started. She died of a fractured skull. Right after that the film company closed the show down until they could make certain that every possible safety hazard was removed.
"About a week after shooting was resumed, the girl who was starring in the picture went riding with her boyfriend on his motorcycle. There was an accident and the girl was killed. The film company shut down again. They have since shelved the picture. They know that you predicted one more girl will be killed on that picture. They are hoping that they can save one life, at least."
She was shivering, and she could not imagine why her own people had not told her about the film and its unfortunate happenings. She knew that they had tried to shield her from further unhappinesses. She wished that they would not do that.
She could not wait to get off of the talk show and talk to Lonnie in Los Angeles. She would really give her holy hell. When they finally let her go she took a cab to her hotel and sent out for the Los Angeles papers. She wanted to see what was being written about her now.
The papers were two days old but she didn't care. She had been reading Peter Prentice exclusively and much of what was in the papers about other things had escaped her notice. The other columnists had much to say about Vivian and the awesome accuracy of her predictions. The two girls had died just as she had said that they would. The company had shelved the film permanently. That made her feel a little better.
She could not resist taking the time to read the latest column that Peter Prentice had turned out for the papers that she had. She liked reading his material. He had a nice way with words and his stuff moved.
He did not mention anything about the girls who had died during the preliminary work on Casey's Castle. He was usually writing about a personality, or he would vary his column with gossip and jokes and trivial chaff.
The column that she began reading was nothing like any of the others. He wrote that he was going to take a vacation of sorts. Several congressmen from California were going to make an inspection trip to Indochina. He had been invited to go with them and write a syndicated series. He would be leaving within a week.
Vivian felt the heavy lurch of her heart, and was suddenly terrified. When she called the airline for a reservation on the first flight to New York she knew that she was incoherent.
She was scared half out of her wits.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Vivian seethed every moment that the giant jetliner was in the air. She landed in New York and called Lonnie from there. She could have visited the New York office of any one of her enterprises but she did not. She boarded the first jetliner west that she could get. Lonnie was contrite and a bit ashamed about not telling her about the girls dying on the picture, but she was afraid that she would have ruined Vivian's trip, and the girls were already dead. No one could help them.
It was nearly one in the morning when Vivian's plane landed in California. She had a taxi take her to her home, and she walked in the familiar rooms and wished that Angela could be with her. When she opened the door to the concealed playroom she found that everything was in perfect condition. The pool was inviting and she got out of her clothes quickly and dove into the warm waters. She swam for a while, missing Angela deeply. The playroom and its sinful pleasures were not much fun when she was alone. She got out of the pool and decided that it was not too late to have something to eat.
She wondered if Peter Prentice was still at his house in Malibu. That was easily established. She dialed his number, and when he answered she disconnected with her fingertip.
She went to bed exhausted. Her night was filled with terrible dreams and she could see Peter Prentice and the congressmen falling out of the skies, and she had difficulty sleeping after that. She got up and took two sleeping pills that put her away for the balance of the night.
The rat race began again in the morning. Lonnie called, Sam Benson called, and she promised to have lunch with both of them. Lonnie sent some work over to her and Abby James called for an appointment right after lunch. He had some papers for her to sign, he said.
It was good to be able to live in her own home again. The crowds were gone and she hoped that they would stay away from her for the rest of her life.
As soon as she could, she got the Rolls out and drove out to Malibu. It was a little after ten when she pulled up in front of Peter Prentice's house. She got out and rang his bell, trying to put the right words together so that she could talk to him without alienating him. She was afraid for his life and for her own, too. While she waited for him to open the front door she wondered if she could provoke him into raping her again. She sighed as she realized that there would not be time for that She had luncheon dates and they were very important again.
She glanced up and he was standing in front of her. He looked at her with his solemn, worried face, and she wished that she could rise up on her toes and kiss him and say things to him. She wished that she could say, "I love you, Peter Prentice, and I don't want you to go to Indochina because I have had another of my famous visions and I saw you in a helicopter that was shot out of the sky and you got killed. I don't want that to happen. Don't go to Indochina, Peter. Please don't go."
He said, "It's you again. I thought you were in Europe."
She said, "I was. I just got home again last night."
He turned and went back inside the house and she followed him. She closed the door behind her. He got his cigarettes from his work table. He held the pack out to her. She took one and he lit it for her. That was progress, she thought.
"How have you been?"
"I have been fine. Why have you come to see me?" he asked somewhat abruptly.
She sat down in a rickety-looking chair. She drew some smoke into her lungs and was sure that it helped her to be much calmer.
"I had a dream and I saw you falling out of a helicopter in Indochina. I have come to ask to, to beg you, to please stay home. Let someone else go to Indochina. I don't want you kihed."
"You'll do it yourself, eh?" he said.
"I don't know what the hell that means," she said. "I don't want anything to happen to you. I want you home here safe and sound and I think it is perfectly reasonable of me to ask you to please do as I ask."
He sat and looked at her for sometime.
"You know," he said, finally, "I honestly think you are crazy. Absolutely out of your mind."
She was ready to give up. Somehow, she had run out of steam and she just couldn't quarrel with him. She was to happy to see him alive and well.
"Cant' you just believe that there is a chance I could be right?"
"Okay," he said, "so there is just a chance that you might know what you are talking about. So you have come to warn me. Why? Because you love me so much?"
He was bitter and she was, too.
"Of course," she said angrily. "Why in hell else would I do it?"
"You are in love with me?"
"Good God almighty," she said, quickly, furious with him for his density, "you mean you don't know? You really don't know?"
She could see that he was astounded. His face seemed to fall apart and then he was crying. The tears were big and they slid down his cheeks. His eyes were ghastly. She had said the wrong thing to him, obviously. She got to her feet, aware that she was shaking. She was a bit unhinged when she faced him again.
"I'm too upset to talk sensibly to you right now," she said, "but you stay right where you are. You make any move toward Indochina and I'll cripple you. Or something. Some of my clients are really big wigs in the Senate and in Congress and the Pentagon. I'll fix you but good if you try to fuck up now."
She turned away from him and slammed the door behind her as she left. He was still weeping and obviously too stupid to even comprehend the things that she had said to him.
She sat for a time in her car and she was crying, too. Why in hell did it always have to hurt so deeply and so badly when you found that someone else was important to you? She wished she could figure that one out.
Maybe she could make him stay the hell out of Indochina, but then what would she do with him? He was a mean, nasty rotten son of a bitch and she wished that she could erase all knowledge of him from her mind like they do in the science-fiction movies. That would be great if only she could manage it.
She got herself under control and got the car started. She drove herself home so that she could fix her face and make herself pretty for her luncheon date with Lonnie and Sam Benson. She wondered how Sam was doing these days, and she hoped that Abby James would have good things to say about Sam.
In a way, she supposed that she hated having to join Lohnie and Sam for lunch. She would so much rather stay with Peter Prentice and use all of her powers of persuasion on him. She was very sure that she had grown to love him very sincerely and she wanted to make sure that nothing happened to him.
She got into different clothes for her lunch date and she was the early one. She was sitting in the booth, glancing over the morning paper, when Lonnie arrived. She was full of smiles and happy tidings. Business was fine, life was glorious, and she was thinking of getting married soon.
"You, too?" Vivian said plaintively. "First Angela runs off and leaves me. Then you."
"Oh, I have no intention of leaving you," Lonnie said, laughing. "I'm going with a Libra and he is quite willing to let me continue with my job. That is, if it's all right with you."
"Of course," Vivian said, relieved. "I need you. The institute needs you. But I am glad that you are going to get married and be very happy. I am very happy for you."
Sam Benson arrived then and that put an end to their conversation. He had been running things for three months, she remembered, and she wondered how it was all working out. Sam was very optimistic about the future and he talked continually about the many changes he had made in his setup.
The other places were sending in a different class of people and he was giving sound advice and his marriage counseling clinic was making a great deal of money. When she asked him how his niece and nephew were making out, he grinned and said that they were doing just fine.
They ate and for a time it was all business. Lonnie was the first to leave. She had work to do and people coming in to see her, so she simply could not linger for too long.
Sam lit a cigarette and smiled at her as he sipped at his coffee. He put the cup down and a waitress promptly filled it again. She went on her way and they were alone.
"I am seeing Abby James this afternoon, Sam," Vivian said. "Abby sort of keeps an eye on things for me and I'm sure that he will have great things to say about you. You seem to be doing very well."
"You've got a great thing going, Vivian," Sam said. "It is really a conglomerate, but the way you have it set up it practically runs itself. I don't have to do much of anything except run my own operation."
"That is the best way to run things, Sam.
Now, run along and get on with your work. I am going to run, too. I may drop in on you tomorrow. I'd like to see the new offices."
"Do that, Boss Lady. You might like them. We do, I know."
Their waiter brought the check and Sam signed for it. He helped her with her jacket and they went out into the bright sunshine of the day. She stood for a moment saying goodbye to Sam and then she got into her car and went home.
She fixed a pot of coffee and then she went to work. Her desk was piled high with correspondence, and some of her most important clients had called asking for consultations. She wished that Angela was with her to help straighten things out.
Lonnie had promised to send her a girl to do the work, but she would have to get it lined up for the girl. She was very much immersed in her work when Abby James arrived. She let him in and saw that he was carrying a brown-wrapped package and wondered if Abby was bringing gifts to her. He accepted some coffee from her and they settled down in her office in the front part of the building.
Abby looked solemn and unhappy.
"What's bothering you, Abby?" she asked. "You look like we have problems."
"You are going to have to get rid of Sam Benson," Abby said. "You can't have that bastard around any more."
She took a very deep breath and then let it out slowly.
She was not too surprised. There had been something not quite right about her visit with Sam at lunch. Something in the way he looked at her, or didn't look at her when he would ordinarily do so.
"I guess you'd better tell me, Abby."
"I can show you, too. I brought you some films. They are pretty raw, but you're a big girl now. Sam is a busy guy and he likes to do things his way. You know all about his clinic. Well, that is still going strong."
"I told him to get rid of it," Vivian said.
"He did, theoretically. He just shifted title to someone else, but he runs it and he is taking the people who come to him at the marriage counseling service and using them in his sex clinic. There are some, of course, who would not go for that kind of a deal, and then there are others who will. He sets up these sensitivity sessions which turn out to be orgies and then he has a guy behind a two-way mirror taking pictures. That is what you are going to look at, if you want to."
"How did you get the pictures?" she asked.
"The cameraman got busted on another job and he was willing to be cooperative when I began to inquire into things."
Abby was silent for a moment, and she sat and looked at him, grateful for his friendship.
"You are a good person, Vivian," Abby said.
"You have a big operation and there are too many rat holes you just can't watch. I know you are looking for someone to help you run things. Sam Benson isn't the man. He is a bum and he is dangerous. Get rid of him."
"All right, Abby," she said. "Will do. I can put a good psychologist into Sam's job at the counseling clinic. And the hypnosis institute is running smoothly. I think we can manage quite easily without Sam."
They talked for a while longer, and then Abby had to go.
"I hope you won't find those films too offensive," he said. "Maybe I should not have brought them. They could embarrass a nice girl like you."
She shook her head at him.
"I don't embarrass that easily," she said. "Now you run along and take care of things for me.
They walked out to the front door and Abby went on his way. She was suddenly excited sexually, eager to look at the films that Abby had brought to her.
She locked up and carried the package of films back to her bedroom. She unlocked the playroom and carried the package of films to the projector. When she unwrapped the package she saw that there were three reels. She put the first one on and got undressed. She lay down on the couch and pressed buttons to position the mechanical dildoes. A moment later she was beginning to enjoy the slow motions of the machine.
The films were about what she would expect. There were three young girls and four guys in the first group. The camera picked them up as they began undressing in a large room that had lots of pillows on the thick pile carpeting. The girls were all pretty and the guys were all well-hung. There was a great deal of experimental touching of breasts and penises and then the thing became an orgy. A girl would suck cock while another guy screwed her from behind, and then there was a great deal of homosexual activity, men and men and girls and girls, and she found it all very stimulating and the machines furnished her with many orgasms. She watched the first reel, and when it was done she watched another one.
The second reel dealt with a very pretty blonde girl who was about twenty. Her husband was a bit older. The dialogue established that they were married, their sex life was becoming dull, and they wondered what they could do about making it more exciting. The husband suggested that they rent a couple of handsome young kids to have fun with. He explained that there were places that would provide youngsters who were sexpots anyway and they could have a ball with the kids.
She suspected that Sam used the kids that she knew about to brighten up the lives of the jaded pair. The kids arrived in the film and got out of their clothes. The blonde girl was exquisite, the boy handsome and quite eager to please. They got into business in a hurry and both youngsters were bi-sexuals and there was nothing that they wouldn't do.
After a while, Vivian shut that one off. It repelled her somehow. Too, she was not having any fun. The machine was not nearly as entertaining as it had once been. She bathed and used the bidet spray to rinse her inner person clean. She got dressed and closed up the room. She wondered if she would ever open it again. She supposed that she would, but it just was not the great thing that it had been before Peter Prentice.
She wondered if he was still going to go to Indochina. He was a Leo, she knew, and it was almost impossible to make such people obey. They did as they pleased.
There was no question about it, she would have to get rid of Sam. She might as well do that right away and get it over with. When that was done she would visit Peter Prentice again and try once more to persuade him to remain at home. If she failed she would break his leg or do something equally drastic. She was not going to lose Peter. Prentice now. She had waited too long for someone to love.
Lonnie was not expecting her to drop in at the institute, but she was glad to see her. Vivian sat behind her desk, gazing unhappily at the piles of work stacked there, and she grinned at Lonnie when the girl set a cup of coffee in front of her.
"I'm sorry now that I came home. All this work."
"I'll help you," Lonnie said. "It will go fast once we tackle it together."
"Yes," she said. She lit a cigarette and put the lighter back on her desk. "Lonnie, dear," she said, "what about you and Sam Benson?"
Lonnie looked mystified. "Nothing. I know Sam. I tried his crazy touch and fool-around program, but that's all. I'm sort of sorry now that I even tried it. I wouldn't want to tell my guy about it. But, that's all. I don't really like Sam that much if that's what you are trying to find out."
"I'm on my way over to Sam's place. I think you'd better come along with me and take over until I get somebody up there to run things. I am going to fire Sam."
"Thank goodness," Lonnie said fervently. "I would love to see his face when you do it."
Vivian grinned. "You can. You can be there and take notes."
They left the institute shortly thereafter. It was after three in the afternoon when they got to the marriage counseling clinic. The same girl was in the outer office, but she smiled and seemed glad to see Vivian and Lonnie.
"Where is Sam?" Vivian asked.
"He is busy with a client," the girl said. "I think he is in the main counseling room right now."
"When he gets finished, would you tell him that we are waiting to see him in his office?"
The girl nodded. Vivian and Lonnie looked around at the beautifully furnished offices and reception rooms and Lonnie shook her head sadly.
"He is so foolish," she said. "He had a real gold mine here. He just couldn't do it on the level. He has to fool around and risk trouble for all of us."
"Some men are like that," Vivian said.
Sam's private office was beautifully done in walnut paneling with lots of books and shelves, and Vivian was quite sure that it was one of the prettiest offices she had ever seen.
Sam got rid of his client rather swiftly, she thought. His receptionist must have alerted him to the fact that Vivian was waiting for him. She was sitting in his chair when he came bounding into the room. He saw Lonnie and grinned. He didn't try for his chair. He sat down in front of the desk.
"Now, what's up?" he asked. "Didn't we just have lunch?"
"You're fired, Sam," Vivian said.
She watched his face as the effect of her words sank into his consciousness. He got red and then white, and then his eyes became cold and furious.
"You can't fire me," he said. "That's nonsense. I'm not some penny ante employee that you can pick up and rop at will. I am Sam Benson and a lot of people respect my name and my abilities. Who the hell do you think you're talking to?"
"Sam," she said, patiently, "let it go. You can't change anything. I gave you a wonderful chance here and you booted it."
"How the hell did I boot it?" He was almost shouting.
"I told you to get rid of that sex clinic. You didn't. Oh, you changed the name of the registered owner, but that is a device that anyone can see through. And I've just finished looking at three reels of pictures. Your cameraman got into trouble and he asked Abby to help him get out. He talked quite freely to Abby. Now, you want to fight me, I'll send you to prison. You want it that way?"
"You won't send anybody to prison for what you saw on those reels. That kind of stuff is common these days."
Vivian lit a cigarette and put the lighter down very carefully.
"I was thinking embezzlement, Sam," she said. "I know you. You always have to steal a little. I didn't mind too much because you could have earned what you steal, but, if I have to, I can send you away. So do be a good boy, get it all together and get the hell out of here. Lonnie is taking over here."
Sam didn't argue further. He just nodded.
"All right, Boss Lady," he said. "I'll be out of here by morning. That the way you want it?"
"No, Sam, that isn't the way I want it. You know how I wanted it. But it just can't be. I'm sorry for you, Sam. If you weren't such a fuckup you would have it made."
"Ain't it the truth?" Sam said.
She stood, and he went behind his desk and began emptying the drawers. He picked up the desk set and told someone to get him some empty cartons. He had some packing to do.
In the car, Lonnie said. "It wasn't the big kick I thought it would be. I feel sorry for Sam."
"Feel sorry for all the people he could help and won't because he just can't help lousing everything up. That's the kind of a mutt he is."
Vivian dropped Lonnie off at the institute, and then she drove out to Malibu. She was hoping that she could talk things out with Peter Prentice. She could tell him how she felt about him. Surely that was worth something.
She parked the car and ran up to his door. She rang the bell and there was no answer. The newspaper was rolled up on the porch. For some reason, she bent and opened it.
He was right on the front page. There was a picture of Peter Prentice and one of the group of senators and congressmen who were leaving that night for Indochina on an inspection tour of the war zones.
Peter was meeting the others in Washington later in the day. She stopped ringing his doorbell. She knew now where he was.
CHAPTER NINE
She tried to occupy every waking moment with work, and when it was time to sleep she used pills to make sure that she would not be able to dream.
There were pieces in the newspapers about Peter Prentice and the senate group and she was frightened each time she woke up and failed to hear any news of his death.
She began seeing clients again, working with them and trying to help as much as she could. She read in the trade papers that Harold Farmer was doing marvelous things with the picture he was just completing. He was certain to get an Academy Award nomination and could conceivably win. He came in to see her and they talked for a long time. She checked his chart for the immediate future and felt that she could guarantee him his Oscar. She did it. She closed her eyes for a moment while she tried to concentrate and see if she could be more positive. Nothing happened. She told the producer that she could tell from his chart that he was to accomplish greatly in the very near future and that should mean an Oscar for him.
That night she slept fitfully and dreamed of Angela. She could see her so plainly. She was in the hospital and had just given birth to a baby boy, and she and her husband were overjoyed. When she woke in the morning, Vivian was overjoyed, too. It was nice to envision pleasant and happy things.
She wondered if she should call Angela and tell her that her first-born was to be a boy. Lonnie could get a telephone number for Angela easily. Perhaps there would be something from her in the stacks of personal mail that she had not yet gotten to.
The first chance that she got she would talk to Angela, she decided, and they could decide about Angela working. If she wanted to work she could easily fit into the London office. Her husband would find a place for her with little difficulty.
Working with the radio on all the time became a nuisance, but she was afraid to turn it off. She was listening constantly, waiting to hear that Peter Prentice had died in an exploding helicopter in Indochina. She did not hear any such bulletin and began to hope that she was quite wrong about it all. Too, maybe she had not actually seen his corpse flying through the air. It could have been any body, not his, especially.
Lonnie called her the next morning to tell her that she was booked to appear on the Morry Akins talk show that afternoon. She thanked Lonnie, and then got on the phone to some people who could take over the Operation of the marriage clinic. She was very pleased to find that a Ph.D. she knew from U.C.L.A. would just love the job. She was a good-looking girl with a fine brain and a strong administrative sense. When she told Lonnie about the girl she had hired, Lonnie agreed that they were lucky to get the girl.
She spent most of the morning at Sam's place, getting the new boss girl acquainted with the way things worked. Sam's pretty little receptionist was delighted when she was told that Sam's leaving had no effect upon her job.
San called her at her house that afternoon. He wanted to come in and have a talk with her.
"All right, Sam," she said, "if you think that we have anything to talk about."
He promised he would show up in an hour and she went on with her work. She had clients coming in after three, so she could not let Sam waste much of her time. She wished that Sam could be different. He was a good man in his field, but nothing was ever enough and he was always doing things that were the wrong things for him or anyone else to do.
That was what he wanted to talk to her about.
He rang the bell promptly an hour later, and she let him come into the house. He seemed to be very worried, very much upset. He sat down in the client's chair in front of her desk and then he just stared at her with a foolish look on his face.
"You know," he said, "I think you are the most beautiful girl I've ever known. I can't get over the way you just look at a guy and you shrivel him all to hell. I just can't let you get away with the stuff you are doing to me. I can't let you do it" She leaned back in her chair and her pretty breasts were sticking straight out under her sweater. Sam was staring at them. She saw him lick his lips and she sat forward quickly. She didn't want to excite Sam. She had enough troubles with him already.
"What did you have in mind, Sam?" she said quietly. "I am very busy today. I had you come" in because you sounded like you need help."
"I do," he said.
He got to his feet and walked around the desk. He was standing close to her, and he made a quick move with his hands and his fingers were in her hair, twisting it, and she yelped in quick pain. Sam pulled her up onto her feet and she could see madness and lust in his eyes.
"You son of a bitch," he said, his lips thin, glis|ening with his spittle, "you are going to get it. I been meaning to stick my cock into you for a long time. Now you are going to get it every way I can think up. When I'm done with you you won't be so goddamned high and mighty. Maybe you won't be so damned good-looking, either."
He flung her away from him and she fell in a corner of the office. He was on top of her then and his hands were everywhere, but she was squirming and twisting and turning. She pushed him off her, feeling his hands digging cruelly into the soft flesh of her breasts. He was careless, certain that he would have her all to himself and that no one would bother them.
She managed to elude him for a moment and then he was on his feet and she was, too. He lunged at her and she kicked him in the shins. He howled in pain and bent to rub the pain from his legs. She hit him then with a bookend, not too hard, not too gently. He went down like a stunned animal. He sprawled on her carpeting and she could see blood oozing from his scalp.
When she knelt to check him and make certain that she had not killed him, she saw that he was all right, barely stunned.
A moment later he stirred. She went back to her desk and sat down. Her clothes were damaged and her hair was a mess but she was all right otherwise. She opened the middle drawer of her desk and saw the small handgun lying there. She left the drawer open. Sam stood up and looked at her, and it took a while for his eyes to focus. He looked ashamed then.
"Boss, Lady," he said, "I am sorry. I don't know what the hell got into me. I just don't know."
She was wary with him. "Are you all right, Sam?"
"I am now. I am so sorry. You want to do anything about it? I mean, call the cops or anything?"
She shook her head.
"Okay, then. I'll get the hell out of here. I won't ever bother you again. I guess my cock ran away with my brains. You are just so damn beautiful. So very pretty."
"Goodbye, Sam," she said.
He nodded. He turned and went out. A moment later she heard his car starting up out in the front driveway. She shivered then.
When she went into her bathroom she was sure that she was going to be ill. Sam was all right in many ways but he obviously carried the seeds of paranoia. She was sure that there had been a moment when he might have killed her.
She was all cleaned up, her good nature restored, when her first client of the afternoon showed up. She spent the rest of the day working. At four she got ready for the talk show, and when she saw Morry Akins he hugged her and kissed her.
"Vivian," he said expansively, "you look absolutely gorgeous. You really do. I hear you've been quite busy and that you've been traveling. I'm glad that things are going well for you. I really am happy for you."
They were in his office, and he gave her a drink and they sat for a time talking.
"You were sure right about Casey's Castle," he said.
"I'm so glad that they abandoned that show. The vision I had showed that there were three girls who would die on that show. This way one of them, at least, will live and be safe."
He was staring at her in a way that gave her gooseflesh.
"Rita Loman got killed the other day," he said. "She was also one of the girls who worked on Casey's Castle. She was working on another picture, true, but she got killed anyway."
Vivian was afraid to ask how the girl had died. She finally did ask.
"A big light, what they call a senior, got loose in the hole they stick them into. It fell on top of Rita as she was walking under the catwalk. It killed her instantly."
Vivian felt faint Morry got her a glass of cold water and she felt better after that.
"You didn't know?" he said. "Don't you read the trades? Even the regular papers carried that story."
"I didn't know," she said. "I was busy." She made him agree not to ask her anything about the girl's death when they went on the air.
He was very good about keeping his word. They taped the show with a minimum of fuss and bother. The crowd got a bit unruly and many of them called out questions they would like her to answer, but they always did that to her. Sometimes when they did that to her she could answer, but most of the time it was all a waste of time.
She worked when she got home. She fixed some sandwiches for herself and carried them to her desk. When it was time for her to go to bed she carried the small handgun into the rear apartment with her. She put the television on so that she could watch the late news. She was still scared that any broadcast would tell her of Peter Prentice's death.
Sleep came to her easily, probably because she had worked so hard that day. But she was not to sleep for very long. The front doorbell began ringing and she awoke. She turned on the sound system and asked who it was. She got no answer.
She did not open the front door with the mechanism on her control panel. She was sure that Sam had had a relapse and was again going to attempt to rape her or kill her. The doorbell kept on ringing and she was tempted to call the police. She decided that she didn't want all of that excitement around the house. She realized that she was holding the handgun in her fist. She could go out and chase Sam. He might be very erotic and eager to assault her but he was not too brave about guns, she was sure.
The doorbell was still ringing when she opened it. She was terrified, worried that Sam might rush her before he saw the gun in her fist.
It was not Sam.
It was Peter Prentice. He saw the gun in her hand and just stood very still, waiting for her to shoot him or ask him to come in. His expression suggested that either would be all right. She was so glad to see him, so relieved, she nearly fainted.
"You lousy son of a bitch," she said. "You've got a lot of nerve ringing my doorbell at this hour of the night."
"I just got home," he said. "I had to come and see you."
"Sure you did," she said.
"Can I come in or are you going to shoot me?"
She looked at the gun in her hand and she put it into her robe's pocket. He walked into the house and closed the door behind him. They stood facing each other. He was very white, very much upset.
"I love you," he said. "I have loved you for such a long time. I had to tell you."
"I know that," she said. "I've known that for a long time, too. That's why you had to destroy me. That's why you had to discredit me. You just couldn't meet a woman, like her, grow to love her like guys usually do. For you it had to be different."
"I hate astrologers. They are all fakes. I hate them," he exclaimed vehemently.
"There has got to be a reason," she said. "Tell me."
He didn't answer her. He looked at the carpeting and she reached out and lifted his chin with her palm.
"You tell me, goddamn it," she said. "I'm no child. I have a right to know. You know I'm not a fake. You know that I am not a fraud. But you want to believe that of me. Why?"
"A long time ago I loved a girl. She was a very wonderful girl, young and gay and beautiful. She became ill and she went to see an astrologer and the astrologer told her that she did not have long to live. She was dangerously ill and could not ever get better. She went home and killed herself. There was nothing wrong with her except a touch of flu. We found it all out afterwards. I have never been able to love anyone since,."
"Except me," Vivian said.
"Except you," he said.
She walked into his arms and he hugged her with a fierce strength. She lifted her mouth up so that they could kiss, and when she felt the warmth of his mouth on her own she began to shake and squirm.
"Have you come to rape me?" she asked.
He laughed at that, and it was the first time she had ever heard him laugh. She tilted her head back so that she could look at him.
"When a lady asks me nicely," he said, "I an always glad to rape her."
"That's what I like," she said. "A gentleman."
She kissed him again and then she realized that he wasn't dead in Indochina as she had envisioned. He was here in her foyer, in her arms, or she was in his arms. It was all very much mixed up. She had to know what had happened.
"You didn't go to Indochina," she said.
"Of course I went to Indochina. I just didn't get into a helicopter. That was all that I had to worry about. I made sure that I didn't run risks that could get me killed. I remembered that you had said that you love me. Naturally, I didn't really believe that, but I had to make sure."
She took his arm and they began putting the lights out in the front part of the house. He was surprised when she ushered him into her private apartment. He sat down and she offered him a drink. He was looking at her in a way that told her that he was very much aware of her beauty and the way that her robe showed it off.
She fixed drinks for both of them, and then she sat beside him on the couch. When he put his arms around her, she shivered. He kissed her gently and then not so gently. His hands began working at the fastenings of her robe and she ached with the urge to help him. His hands were doing very nicely and when she felt his touch on her breasts she began squirming and she wished that he would hurry and do things about her exceedingly eager ambitions. And then he was pushing his fingers into wet and slippery depths and she could wait for him no longer. She slid to the floor and he came down with her and her hands began getting at what she wanted most right then. They began writhing and squirming and panting and then he was sliding his big cock into her and she was squealing and arching her body and thrusting her hips at him with ferocious zeal. They were too wrought up to last for very long. She felt the world shuddering and sliding away from her, and then she was bursting and he was bursting too and they clung to each other and shook violently while pent-up strengths and juices spilled and brought them a brief time of peace.
She recovered first. She held his face in her palms and her mouth covered his lips with kisses. He was so dear, such a damned fool, so wonderful. There was much that she could not comprehend about what had happened to her but she was not going to analyze. Not just then.
He stirred, and then he picked her up in his arms and he was carrying her to the bedroom. She was glad of that. The floor was all right in times of extreme excitement but it would be nice to make love in bed.
He put her down on the bed and she quickly got herself naked. She waited while he got out of his clothes, too, and then she was in. his arms, her legs slid up around his waist and she felt his stiff organ sliding into her again and she whimpered with soft, eager little sounds of bliss.
There was warmth and affection and love in their excited efforts and she was utterly wanton, completely abandoned and eager for sexual stimulations and the quick, pulsing reliefs that their frenzied orgasms afforded them.
They spent and collapsed and then his arms were around her and he was kissing her with a tenderness that thrilled her more than anything else she had ever experienced. She was weeping, and that was silly. For the first time in her life she was completely happy, and she was sure that she could keep Peter Prentice for her very own for always.
They sat up, and it was the middle of the night. They were naked and warm and they talked and smoked cigarettes. She had to make a trip to the bathroom so that she could stop leaking, and when she returned tn him she stood for a moment, letting him look at her nakedness! glorying in his admiration for her. Then she melted with love and warmth and she bounded onto the bed so that she could kiss him and hug him.
"We'll probably fight like hell all of the time," she said.
"That's the kind of people we are. I know you're a big deal and like that. I am quite a guy, too, you know."
"Oh, yes," she said, smiling at him. "I sure do know."
He was trying to talk to her seriously, but she was on her knees between his thighs and holding his stiff cock in her hand. Her hand was moving slowly up and down and she knew that he just wasn't going to be able to talk sensibly to her for very long.
Oh, well, they could always talk.
They began to make love all over again and she knew that there would be no sleep for them that night. They would talk in the morning and she could ask him to help her to get everything straightened out so that they could enjoy each other and take good care of their love. Her head filled with pictures and she sighed.
He reached for her, his mouth found hers, and they kissed. His body was tightly pressed against her own, and her mind skidded off into a deep place of great beauty and intense pleasures and she closed her eyes. She didn't want to think of anything except love and happiness.
