Chuck Adams looked at the pale pink envelope and wrinkled his nose. Scented notepaper-in this day and age? And even when perfumed letters were in vogue it was un-likely that any of them were being mailed to private inquiry agents on Forty-seventh Street and Sixth Avenue.
He held the envelope to his nose and sniffed. He was by no means an authority on such matters yet he felt certain that this was no run of the mill perfume. Somewhere behind the unusual piece of mail he detected another odor: the smell of money.
"Well, well, well!"
He looked up quickly. Zoe Knox, his assistant, stood beside his chair and regarded him with eyebrows delicately raised. "Another conquest?" She glanced at the pink envelope and sniffed faintly.
Chuck grinned. Zoe had been with him too long for him to stand on dignity.
"It does happen, you know!" He leered theatrically at her. She moved promptly to the front of his desk, away from the sunlit window. Summer dresses could stand just so much background illumination. She must remember to be more careful.
"You were discussing your conquests," she said lightly. She had cut off his view-there had been no mistaking his sidelong glance-but she had no desire to snub him. All men were instinctively explorative and Chuck Adams was no exception to the rule. At least he was reasonably discrete about it. She wondered, though, how much, exactly, did show through her flimsy white minidress? Her legs?
He was saying: "Uh, uh! You raised the interesting question of conquests. J was merely looking...."
Her cheeks reddened instantly. Quickly she said, "I'll go and fix your coffee."
"... looking for the postmark." He waved the envelope.
"Oh!"
He noticed her deepening blush. "Why?" he asked, frowning. "What did you think I meant?"
Zoe shook her head. Shoulder-length blonde hair mercifully hid her cheeks. "I'll get your coffee."
She was gone.
He wondered what had made her blush all of a sudden, and sent her scuttling out of the room. Had she noticed him looking through her dress? That was un-likely, he told himself. He was not the kind to ogle girls in an obvious manner. His appraisal had, in fact, been quite accidental. He hadn't heard her come over to his chair. Only when she spoke to him did he look up, and in doing so he couldn't help seeing....
The picture leaped vividly to mind. She had been standing barely a foot away, her hips on a level with his eyes. The early morning sun had angled in through the window right behind her and sliced away her clothes like a sharp knife peeling an apple. He had seen everything. Dark-haired girls were more provocative at a distance; their black triangles gave one a pudendal focal point. But seen close up, blondes were infinitely more revealing. Even through light clothing Zoe's delicate blonde hairs could not conceal the suggestive contours between her legs.
She had been standing with her feet a little apart, her pelvis thrust slightly forward and offering him a startling glimpse of soft shapes that always reminded him of slender, miniature buttocks. Her pudenda had the same twin cheeks; there was the same long cleft that deepened below, became shallow above, blending eventually with smooth body skin.
It was not the first time he had seen her this way but as usual just the thought of it was enough to make him restless. He pushed aside the unopened morning mail. Even the mysterious scented envelope would have to wait. He walked up and down for a few moments; he disliked sitting behind a desk, anyway. He preferred physical activity; his body, straight as an arrow, was tanned a rich golden brown from head to toe-quite literally. Since his Marine Corps days he had kept his head shaved; its smooth brown coloring matched the rest of his athletic body.
Still pondering his reactions to Zoe he left his office and headed for the men's room. As he stood in front of the urinal he glanced idly out of the partly open window. The rear of the old Hotel d'Annunzio faced him across the narrow courtyard. Whatever the hotel may have been in the past it was now in the wrong place being anything but what it was: a hangout for public welfare clients, prostitutes, pimps and shady promoters.
Most of the windows were open. There was no air conditioning in the rooms. Even the blinds and drapes had vanished, and the management was evidently not going to replace them. In New York City the price of privacy comes higher than room rates at hotels like the d'Annunzio. There were no doubt blinds for the windows that faced the street, but the rear windows looked out on the bleak wall of Chuck's office building. Only the occasional toilet window, anonymous with its frosted glass, interrupted the faded facade of red brick. That may have helped to account for the casual displays of nudity in the d'Annunzio's dingy rooms. The stiffling heat in the well-like court was no doubt another reason for the open windows and the informality of the guests. Chuck saw men and women in various stages of undress lying on beds and lounging in chairs.
A movement caught his eye. A pale body, punctuated in the middle by the unmistakable black triangle of naked females, moved into the center of the room and stopped near the window. She did not as much as glance across the courtyard; what was there for her to see?
She was young, probably not more than twenty, Chuck thought. Her body looked flawless, unlike most of the weary forms that trudged in and out of the disreputable hotel. This girl was, he now saw, truly beautiful even though her posture reflected the artlessness of a girl who has yet to discover her full womanhood. She would learn-she looked the kind of girl who is willing to please-but Chuck sensed that she needed to be told how.
It would be interesting, he reflected, to be the one to teach her. He watched her move over to her dressing table. Her hips rolled with just the right amount of tilt; there was none of the exaggerated "bump and grind" flamboyance in her walk. She didn't need it, not with her fine hips and incredibly small waist.
She stepped across to a little sink. He watched her soap her hands, then swing one slender leg onto a chair and proceed to wash the furry nest of her sex. Her breasts swung with taut delicacy; she looked as though she had no need to wear bras.
The girl soaped herself, rinsed, and patted her luxuriant pudenda and tender inner folds with a small towel. Throughout, she wore the preoccupied look of one whose movements are spontaneously automatic. It was easy to tell that she was fastidious by habit.
She suddenly looked up and smiled. Chuck blinked; for a moment he thought the girl had seen him. Her eyes appeared to be meeting his own. But then she turned her head and he saw her lips move. She had not been looking at him at all, obviously could not even see him behind the narrow window aperture. She was smiling and talking to someone in the faded green room.
Chuck had been about to leave. Now he waited and was surprised to see a middle-aged man come into view. He had on a business suit and he was carrying a camera. Despite the heat he appeared to be coolly comfortable. "They must have a fan going," Chuck thought absently, his eyes focused intently on the oddly unmatched couple.
The man motioned for the girl to lift her foot back onto the chair. The movement seemed to split her pubic triangle into two halves; now that her hands were no longer in the way, Chuck could make out the neat divide of her sex, the brownish pink line that a moment before had been completely hidden by the curly cushion of hair.
The room lit up vividly for a split second, then darkened again. In the light of the flashgun Chuck saw the girl as clearly as if he were in the same room. He blinked.
Recovered from the glare he looked again. Now the young girl was climbing onto the dressing table. The man with the camera was crouching with his back to the window. He pointed to something and Chuck saw the girl pick up a soda bottle. She frowned and shook her head. The man must have said something because she gave a shrug and lay back on the dressing table, her feet pointing toward the window. Chuck saw her spread her slender thighs and pick up the bottle.
The photographer didn't move. For a long moment the girl was also motionless, her eyes fixed wonderingly on the bottle in her hand. Then, very slowly, she lowered it between her legs. The glass sparkled in the light. She wriggled a little and the stem of the bottle disappeared inside her.
Still the man made no move. The girl drew up her knees and spread them farther apart. The bottle seemed to grow shorter. The man shook his head and walked across to the girl.
Chuck couldn't see what the man was doing, but he could guess. He waited for him to get back behind his camera. When he did so the soda bottle had all but disappeared. Only an inch or so of thick, greenish grass showed between the widespread hairs. Chuck's eyes slid over her belly and past her firm young breasts to her face. To his amazement she was smiling. Could it be that she was actually enjoying this performance?
He watched thoughtfully as the flashgun exploded again. The girl was not at all like the usual run of d'Annunzio professionals. It was not so much her obvious youth as the equally obvious air of intelligent innocence that surrounded her even as she assumed the starkly erotic poses. She seemed to be performing without a trace of the hard-bitten boredom that showed so plainly in every gesture of the more experienced hustlers.
Perhaps the young brunette was posing for kicks. Stranger things could happen, Chuck thought. He was about to return to his office when something else caught his eye.
A second body had appeared beside the dark-haired girl. A black body, totally nude and very obviously male. Chuck watched the girl move close to the tall young Negro and reach for his sex.
Her action was so spontaneous that Chuck became increasingly convinced that here was a girl who got herself into sexual encounters because she enjoyed doing so.
The man at the window was shaking his head. Chuck saw him point at the black man. The girl nodded and quickly, almost eagerly dropped to her knees and opened her mouth.
The black man looked questioningly across at the photographer and made to slide his member into the girl's waiting mouth. The man at the window held up his hands and hurried over to the young couple. Evidently he was explaining what he wanted.
When he got behind his camera again Chuck saw the startling pose. The young Negro stood with one hand on his hip, the other holding the girl's head by the hair as though anxious to keep her from moving. His thick, erect penis rested on her outstretched tongue.
Another flash.
The photographer crept closer and the purple knob slid between the girl's lips.
And another flash. The action was getting faster. The camera moved nearer and in the next flash Chuck saw the girl's cheek begin to bulge as her partner thrust himself deeper into her mouth. His movements quickened and the camera flashed several times in rapid succession.
Suddenly the white man held his hand up again. The young couple stopped and looked at him. The Negro withdrew his penis, letting it slide between the fingers of the girl's outstretched hand. The photographer must have said something because the girl nodded and began to masturbate her partner. Her slender white fingers made an erotic contrast with the man's thick dark brown organ. He held it barely an inch away from her parted lips and her protruding tongue rested against the undersurface of the swollen purple knob.
When at last the man climaxed in the bright flare of the flash his juice spurted in a sparkling arc over her pink tongue and into her mouth.
Chuck let out a low whistle of astonishment. That photographer certainly went in for detail. There was nothing casual about the way he set about his hobby. Chuck wondered how the man managed to find such cooperative and natural-seeming models. Neither of them looked the least bit professional. They seemed more like students in search of kicks. How did a man go about finding such people? As a detective Chuck knew how hard it could be to find anyone, let alone men and women with habits that they wished to keep secret.
He returned to his office and picked up the pink envelope. It bore a midtown postmark. As he slit it open Zoe came in with coffee.
"Sorry I took so long, but the phone's been going continually."
"Anything new?"
She brought him up to date and set out the coffee cups. Chuck was looking at the pleasant-smelling letter. The letterhead made his eyes widen, surprised.
"Zoe? You know where this is from? The Weekly I"
"You have to be kidding!"
The Weekly, as the name implied, was a weekly newsmagazine. It was also among the half-dozen biggest circulation magazines in the country, if not the world.
"Here! Read it for yourself."
He handed her the letter and reached for his coffee.
THE WEEKLY
Mr. Charles Adams 1 September 1969
President Adams Investigations, Inc. Treadway House
Sixth Avenue at Forty-seventh Street New York, N.Y.
Dear Mr. Adams,
You and your assistant, Miss Zoe Knox, have been recommended to me by several persons whose opinions I have no reason to question. I have been led to understand that you are both exceptionally well qualified to handle assignments of the most confidential and intimate kind.
I am currently planning a forthcoming cover story on a topic that will require a considerable amount of tactful research into new trends in the private lives of typical (and not so typical) Americans.
I anticipate several weeks of investigation for which our proposed reimbursement will be appropriate to the exacting and unusual nature of this assignment.
I would appreciate a telephone call from you in order that we might discuss this matter further.
Yours truly,
VANESSA HAZARD
Features Editor
Zoe handed back the letter. "She says a lot and she says a little."
Chuck nodded. "A woman who knows what she wants, wouldn't you say?"
Zoe smiled. "A lot of women do!"
"And you? Do you know what you want?"
Zoe answered promptly: "Yes."
Surprised, he asked, "You do? Tell me about it, or is it a secret?"
"No secret. I'd like to know what you intend to do about this." She pointed to the pink letter.
"O.K. So we get back to work!" He leaned back and stared up at the ceiling. "The fee should be good. That much is pretty certain. The Weekly was never afraid to spend a dollar." He changed the subject abruptly. "How come one of their editors uses such fancy stationery?"
"Oh, it's probably one of the privileges of rank." Zoe had been on a magazine before coming to work for Chuck. "Some of the senior women fill their office with potted plants. Others put in sofas and little coffee tables. This one digs exotic stationery." She glanced curiously at Chuck, and gave a sly little smile. "It doesn't necessarily mean she's a sex bomb!"
He flushed slightly. "I didn't assume she was."
"No?"
Her bantering tone forced him out of hiding. "Well," he said, "you must admit she comes on pretty strong. And...." He paused and looked once more at the letter.
"And that cover story of hers has to do with sex. Is that what you were thinking?"
He looked at her, surprised. Zoe smiled placidly. "Well?"
"Well, yes," he admitted with a shrug. "In fact, I'm willing to bet it has something or other to do with the sex revolution or whatever it is they call it nowadays."
Zoe finished her coffee, stood up and smoothed her dress over her hips.
"Shall I get her on the phone now?"
Chuck regarded her thoughtfully. "Sure you don't mind another...."
She shook her head. "Not as long as it's in the line of duty."
He drew a deep breath. "In that case, Zoe, we'll give her a call." He watched her leave and for the thousandth time wondered what made her tick. He had never known a girl quite like her, and he doubted if he ever would. She must, he reflected, surely be unique. He pulled out her file and looked to see how long it had been since her last raise. Three months, almost to the day. Well, that fitted quite nicely. If this assignment came through he'd be happy to raise her again. She'd have earned it, he thought, and his mind went back to some of the earlier cases she had helped him with.
The twenty-four-year-old girl's work pleased him beyond words; her skill, efficiency and general with-itness had electrified him from the start.
So had she. Her figure was as perfectly organized as her files, and infinitely more exciting to study. Her clothes were as adroitly chosen as the words in her excellent memos-and almost as revealing. As a woman she had been exciting him more or less continuously for-he hastened through some mental arithmetic-for eight hundred and some days. That was how long she had worked for him, a little over two years.
In all that time she had never made mistakes, never been late, never left a task unfinished. He had yet to hear her complain, sulk or criticize.
Nor could she by any stretch of the imagination be called narrow minded. If there existed any form of erotic activity that Zoe wouldn't cheerfully enter into, Chuck had yet to hear of it. And there was little or nothing in the way of eroticism that Chuck hadn't heard about.
In short, the perfect assistant. Or almost perfect. There was only one drawback. While there was nothing she would not do "in the line of duty" as she put it, there was nothing she would do at any other time. "I'm not ready," she would remind him from time to time "to become involved."
He recalled the first time she had warned him about her fear of "involvements." It was shortly after she had started to work for him. After a particularly long and boring day in the office he had asked her out to dinner. Later that night he taxied her to her apartment in the Murray Hill area-The converted browftstone on Thirty-third, just off Lexington, looked warm and inviting that cold night and he had been pleasantly surprised when she invited him in for the traditional "nightcap." It was their first date, if one could call it that, and he had expected her to bid him a polite farewell on the doorstep.
Actually he had been particularly grateful for the chance to sound her out on a matter that he had somehow failed to raise during dinner.
She had mixed two drinks and joined him on the large, comfortable sofa that faced one of those rare luxuries in up-to-date Manhattan-a real fireplace. Hickory logs and kindling wood lay adroitly stacked on a bed of crumpled papers. Zoe set a match to them and within minutes little flames threw dancing shadows around the softly lighted old room. Chuck had felt at home from the moment he came in; now he leaned back and wondered how to broach the delicate subject that had been on his mind for several days.
"We've some big cases coming up next week." he began.
Zoe nodded. "So I gather."
"They involve some rather unconventional situations and people...." He paused to see how she was reacting. She looked calm enough.
"You mean the orgies, and things?"
"Yes. Do such things shock you?"
She thought for a moment. "No. Violent crime shocks me. Murder shocks me. Cruelty to children revolts me. But...." She smiled faintly. "Actions between consenting adults don't shock me. Blackmail does."
He was looking at her with a mingled surprise and admiration. He had not expected her to be quite so unassumingly matter-of-fact.
"A lot of our business comes from blackmail victims."
"I know. I've studied the files."
"In which case you've also seen...." He stopped and shrugged delicately.
"The pictures?" she asked bluntly. "Yes, I saw them. Why?"
Chuck had shifted uneasily in his seat. "Some girls might feel a little offended by such things."
She laughed a little. "Well, pictures of that kind aren't particularly attractive, of course. But that's neither here nor there. I take it we're not in the art business! It's not our job to pass judgement, is it?"
"No." He looked at her speculatively, trying to decide how much to tell her. "Identifying these blackmailers and getting suitable evidence against them isn't always easy. In fact, it's never easy."
"I realize that. As I said, I've been through the files."
Chuck lit a cigarette and stared into his glass. "In that case," he began slowly, "you know how we sometimes have to set about these things."
"Yes."
"Does that side of things disturb you?" She did not answer him immediately. She stood up and took his empty glass. He watched her walk into the tiny kitchen and mix two more Scotches. When she returned she handed him his glass, then, still standing, she said: "Mr. Adams, perhaps I should make something clear to you."
Her unexpected formality made him sit up and look at her solemnly. "Yes?"
"You told me before I took the job that many of your cases involved-what was the word you used?-infiltrating. You also told me that you handled a great many blackmail cases and that nearly all of these cases involved sexual things. Well, I put two and two together and figured things out. Since most kinds of sex games call for two or more players you needed a partner to accompany you on assignments of these kinds."
Chuck looked at her curiously. A remarkable girl, he thought. "Well?"
She smiled. "I took the job, didn't I?"
"I'm very glad you did."
Her eyes became wary. "I very nearly didn't accept it," she confessed.
"Oh?"
"You weren't completely frank with me, you know." Before he could protest she had laughed. "But I can't complain. I wasn't completely frank with you, either. You didn't tell me exactly what kinds of situations I might be getting into. I had to figure a lot of things out for myself."
His curiosity was thoroughly aroused. "And what didn't you tell me?
"That I'll accompany you on assignments, no matter how offbeat they might turn out to be. But off duty there will be no involvements."
He had looked at her for a long time before replying to this declaration of rules. He had already become more than just interested in this beautiful girl. Was she now telling him that there would be no more dates? She might have been reading his mind. "You mustn't take this the wrong way, Chuck, but there can't be any more get-togethers of this kind." She waved her hand to indicate the cozy drawing room in particular and other private rooms in general. Seeing him frown she added quickly: "I can't masquerade as your wife, or lover or pick-up one minute, and be personally involved with you the next. Showgirls face the same problem. They can take their clothes off in a crowded nightclub and still feel awkward about doing so in the owner's office."
It had been more than a hint. He had finished his drink and departed. He had missed out on a possible love affair, but he had gained a unique assistant.
CHAPTER TWO
Next morning they had checked into a New England motel. Chuck had registered them as man and wife and Zoe had not shown the slightest trace of embarrassment. With complete unconcern she had stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shower. Only when he jumped out of his own clothes and tried to join her did she remind of her "line of duty" rule.
"You'll have plenty of opportunities when the time comes," she assured him. "But please don't try to make out when we're alone. It's too much of a strain."
They were trying to discover the identity of a blackmailer who belonged to a group of suburban wife swappers. It comprised twenty couples, several of whom had been receiving threatening letters containing some highly incriminating photographs. The husbands all worked for big corporations that would have no compunction about firing them at the first hint of scandal.
Chuck and Zoe had infiltrated the group by posing as old friends of one of the couples that had been victimized by the blackmailer. The couple, George and Mary Webb, had picked them up at the motel....
* * *
The car was a Lincoln Continental and looked brand new. George jumped out and held out his hand. "Hi there, Chuck. Glad you could make it." He was a stocky, balding man and dressed in expensive-looking sports clothes. He looked at Zoe and licked his lips. "Let's go," he said "Chuck, you sit in back. Your, er, wife, can ride in front with me."
Chuck said, "Zoe, meet George. And...."He led her to the rear window. "This is Mary."
Mary Webb was thirty-two but looked younger. She gave Zoe a polite smile. "Hello there." Zoe smiled back. "I love your dress," she said.
"Why, thank you!" Mary Webb sounded genuinely pleased. Her hands went automatically to her hips and thighs, smoothing the floral patterned silk. "I picked it up in Bermuda, would you believe?" Her voice was softly melodious, almost muted in the plush interior of the car. Chuck, looking over Zoe's shoulder, admired the woman's generous swell of suntanned breasts. There was no brassiere under the low-cut silk dress. Her hair was red and fell in smooth waves. She was eyeing Zoe with mounting interest. "George," she said, not taking her eyes away from Zoe's face, "Why don't you and Chuck ride together in front? In the circumstances I think there are things he'll need to know about."
That made sense, Chuck realized. His one and only meeting with George and Mary Webb had been brief. But he also knew that the woman in the silk dress had her own reason for wanting Zoe beside her. He caught his assistant's eye and raised his eyebrows questioningly. She gave him a sweet smile and climbed into the back of the car.
The car slid silently out of the motor court and swung east along the highway. George launched into detailed biographies of the members of the wife-swapping group. He was sales manager for a major appliance manufacturer and he had the born salesman's gift for remembering faces, facts and idiosyncracies. Chuck listened with interest but couldn't help hearing the whispers in the back of the car. He shifted sideways on the wide seat and glanced back. Zoe and Mary were sitting very close, their legs and thighs touching. Their skirts had ridden up and he could see Mary's bare curves of thigh above her stockings and a shimmering glow of white silk at her crotch. He listened to George with half an ear while his penis swelled urgently against his cashmere pants. Did the redhead like to make it with men, too, or was her marriage merely a front and a necessary security?
That she was partial to girls was no longer open to doubt. Chuck saw her slide a hand between Zoe's thighs and move it purposefully all the way to the nylon-covered vee that Chuck had eyed so longingly only a half hour earlier.
Mary looked up suddenly and met his eyes. To his surprise she smiled an openly conspiratorial smile. Still looking at him, she began to caress the soft skin of Zoe's groin. Chuck's heart began to pound against his chest. He felt an almost uncontrollable urge to lean over and let his hands join in the sensual play.
Zoe was leaning back, her eyes closed, a slow, contented smile moving gently over her lips. Either she was enjoying this, or she was an incomparable actress. Chuck wondered which it was, but when she suddenly spread her thighs wide and pulled aside the slender nylon crotch his uncertainty evaporated. Zoe was unquestionably susceptible to women. There could hardly be any doubt on that score.
It remained to be seen how she would respond to men.
George continued to give rundowns on his fellow club members. He was obviously trying to be impartial; his descriptions were factual and if he suspected anyone he was keeping it to himself. It suddenly occurred to Chuck that his client seemed to be remarkably unconcerned. The thought prompted him to ask, "How much have you paid this character?"
"Ooooh ... around six or seven grand, I guess. Something like that."
Chuck looked at him curiously. The man was rich, of course, but his casualness would have struck a discordant note even in a billionaire. In Chuck's experience, the rich were no less reluctant to be taken than anyone else.
"What was that about six or seven grand, George?"
Chuck turned to Mary Webb. "We were talking about the money you've been paying the blackmailer."
"Ah, yes. Of course." She had straightened her dress and was fluffing her long red hair. Zoe was sitting up primly, a warm flush on her cheeks. George looked at the two women and felt vaguely irritated. They had clearly satisfied one another quickly and efficiently without any help from anyone. His glance strayed involuntarily to George's carefree profile and back to Mary's complacently self-satisfied smile. She lifted her eyebrows and her smile turned gently ironic; the silent gestures said plainly: "There's no need to look so shocked. My husband enjoys watching my little escapades."
Chuck had to admit to himself that he, too, had been aroused by their intimate explorations. He felt a momentary twinge of envy; sex appeared to be so easy for two such girls. A brief encounter, some educated caresses, a tremor of limbs-and moments later, both of them sitting up, neat as pins as though nothing had happened.
If the Webbs were so unconcerned and unself-conscious about their sex lives, why had they bothered to pay the blackmailer? Why, in fact go to the trouble and expense of hiring a detective?
Aloud he said, "I understand he sent you some photographs."
For a moment the only sound was the soft crunch of tires on fine gravel. They had left the highway and were entering the lush domain of high-priced suburban homes.
Mary Webb was the first to speak.
"Yes, there were pictures." She chuckled, and Chuck noticed that George's face had turned red. The man said quickly, "The pictures are unimportant. Just the usual run of Peeping Tom stuff."
His wife gave a laugh. "That's a lot of money for the usual run of pictures, don't you think; Six or seven thousand dollars?"
"Forget it!" George snapped.
Mary Webb opened her purse. "Here, Zoe. These might interest you." She handed the girl an envelope.
"Goddammit, Mary ... "The big car almost went off the road.
"George." Mary Webb spoke in a new and lower voice. Her husband slowed down and remained silent. Chuck caught Zoe's eye and she nodded. Without a word she held out a bunch of photographs. They confirmed his hunch immediately. One glance was sufficient to explain why Mary Webb was able to quell her husband with just one quietly spoken word.
The photographs depicted the sales executive in attitudes of utter submission. There were eight pictures in all, and in each one his hands and feet were tied and his mouth was gagged. The rubber gag distorted his mouth and the long blonde wig concealed most of his face but there was no mistaking him. He was wearing a padded brassiere, a tightly pulled garter belt and long, black nylons. His shoes were black patent leather pumps with very high heels.
His buttocks were bare, and so was Mary Webb. She stood over him as he crouched, obviously unable to move, across a low coffee table. In her hand was a plaited whip of shiny black leather.
The pictures were arranged in sequence. In the first one, George's buttocks were smooth and unblemished; his wife held the whip raised but she had yet to strike him. This was no mere theatrical pose, Chuck realized. The naked woman had a look of intense satisfaction as every muscle in her perfectly formed body flexed for the task ahead.
The second picture must have been taken soon after the first. A red weal flashed across the Kodachrome print, in the third picture it was turning purple, and two more weals had been added. The last photograph made Chuck blink; George Webb's buttocks were almost unrecognizable. It was impossible to tell just how many lashes Mary had given him. His backside was one mass of red and blue and purple patches; here and there Chuck could see little trickles of blood.
The color prints also told him something else; Mary Webb was a natural redhead. Her pubic triangle glowed like burnished copper.
He stacked the pictures and returned them to Mary. As he did so he noticed Zoe staring thoughtfully at George Webb, and smiling to herself. Mary intercepted his glance. "I think," she announced, loud enough for her husband to hear, "that we've found someone to help me keep George in line."
George remained silent. It was hard to tell whether he was pleased or embarrassed. "No wonder he's been paying off," thought Chuck. "With those pictures floating around his company he'd be washed up for good."
The car came to a stop outside a big, split-level ranch house that spelled out its price as neatly as the sign over the mailbox: FORBES ROBERTSON. Chuck gazed admiringly at the hundred thousand dollar spread.
It was Zoe who finally caught up with the blackmailer. She did it alone-and stork naked, while making love with two suburban husbands and two suburban wives. Just whose wives they were was something Chuck never did discover. All he could remember was the sight of them taking turns squatting astride Zoe's seemingly tireless mouth and tongue. Even in his imagination Chuck had never encountered a girl with such an unlimited appetite. Every husband at the party-there were six of them-had of course moved in on her the moment she stepped into the house. A new and exceptionally attractive girl would be welcome anywhere, even among freewheeling wife swappers with more than enough women to choose from already. The wives might easily have become peeved at the sight of their menfolk rushing to make it with the willing stranger, and for a while Chuck had been a little apprehensive.
But for every husband that approached her she had bestowed compliments-and caresses-on two wives. Within minutes Zoe had captivated males and females alike.
Watching her now, Chuck wondered about her background. Only through the ever-open windows of the Hotel d'Annunzio had he witnessed such versatile abandon, yet never so much apparent enthusiasm. Had she been a call girl? Or was she just naturally uninhibited? He watched the two housewives change places; one rolled off Zoe's face and the other, a brunette with shiny black hair gathered in a pony tail quickly straddled the girl's wet mouth. One of the husbands had been copulating with her for several minutes. He kneeled between her spread thighs and supported her buttocks with his hands, pulling her grinding pelvis up and against his thrusting loins. Suddenly he withdrew. Chuck thought the man had climaxed but saw that his penis was still active. Why had he stopped?
Chuck moved closer as the man prepared to reenter her, only this time he aimed lower. Zoe must have realized instantly what he wanted for she drew back her legs until her knees pressed against the slender back of the girl sitting astride her mouth. Zoe's anus swung into view and the kneeling man took careful aim with his penis. He entered her with ease that told Chuck more than a thousand words could have done: Zoe was no stranger to anal eroticism.
He shook his head wonderingly and went over to the sofa. So this was the girl who only last night had told him that "off-duty sex" was out of the question! Well, he just hoped that there would be plenty more opportunities for sex on the job. He decided to take each and every case involving a sex angle no matter how small the fee; it would be worth it just for the chance to get close to her.
"Hmmmm. The scenery seems to be getting to you!"
A young woman came and sat beside him and began to stroke his mounting erection. Like everyone else in the spacious drawing room he had stripped off his clothes. His overall sun tan (he sunbathed nude on his little sailboat whenever he could find the time) had entranced the women, especially the one who was now holding his penis and rubbing it suggestively, her eyes darting questioningly from its swollen knob to his face. The tip of her pink tongue circled perfect lips. "Like so, perhaps?"
He really wanted Zoe but she was, quite literally, fully occupied. Even her hands now held penises; a good-looking youngish man with short red hair was squatting on her right. On her other side lay a middle-aged man with thinning gray hair and a paunch. He sat on the floor with her cooperative fingers busy between his legs and, with his head tilted to one side, he peered closely at her tongue as it moved around between the pudendal folds of the girl who still straddled her. Chuck gave up hope of getting at Zoe-for the present. He nodded to his dark-haired companion.
She didn't hesitate. Her head dove to his lap and he felt her lips close round him. Her caress was gently firm, very wet and expertly timed; her mouth pumped him with a perfect rhythm.
He climaxed quickly, almost too quickly. He would have preferred to prolong the pleasurable act. Perhaps if he caressed the girl for a while she would repeat her performance. He reached for her breasts but jumped out of reach, laughing.
"No, thanks, not right now. I must find another one."
Chuck was amazed to see her hurry over to one of the men who were standing round Zoe and her sensual collaborators. She went calmly on her knees in front of him and brushed away his hand. "I've a better way," she told him cheerfully and promptly took him into her mouth. From a distance her short hair parted like a schoolboy's and almost made Chuck think he was witnessing two youths. She seemed to have the easy going promiscuity of homosexual males.
Chuck stiffled a yawn and felt mildly surprised. He would never have thought it possible to become bored at an orgy. He was not, it seemed, the only one to think so. Mary Webb sank onto the cushions by his side. She too, yawned. "Sometimes I wonder why we bother to come to these things. I really do."
She crossed her legs and leaned back. Her ginger pubis shrank to a triangle the size of a postage stamp. For the umpteenth time Chuck marveled at theingenious anatomy of females. There was so much going on between their legs, yet when they sat down all one could see was a tiny patch of hair; crossed legs made it shrink to almost nothing.
"You're looking very thoughtful," she remarked, opening her pocketbook. The black leather bag in her hands made her look more naked, somehow. Chuck looked up and tried not to stare at her breasts. They were tanned all over, like the rest of her; evidently she also sunbathed in the nude.
"Penny for them!" she said and lit a cigarette. Her silver lighter, or was it white gold, gleamed expensively in her long slender fingers. It matched her silvery pearl nail polish.
"I was wondering about the obvious," he replied. "About the identity of the blackmailer."
"Yes, of course," she murmured absently, blowing a perfect smoke ring. A stunningly beautiful woman, he thought to himself, yet somehow not particularly feminine. She radiated immense self-control. He found himself wondering what it would be like to make love to her.
She glanced casually at the signs of returning lust in his lap. "There's no need to sit here and be polite to me," she said. "If you want to find someone to play with...." She broke off and rubbed her arm. "I must be getting old," she muttered. "It feels stiff."
Chuck made sympathetic sounds. "Maybe there's a draft?"
Mary George laughed. "Nonsense! It's like an oven in here." She flexed her arm a few times, then rested it in her lap again. "I just got through beating George again. You've no idea how tiring it is."
Chuck flushed guiltily. He had completely forgotten about his client. He looked round the room for him.
Mary said, "He's in the den. Downstairs."
"Oh? Why doesn't he come up?"
"He's still tied up," Mary said smoothly. "Good grief! Don't they ever get tired!"
The members on the floor had regrouped themselves. A tall, thin man was lying flat on his back. His penis pointed stiffly up at the ceiling. Zoe stepped astride him, facing the sofa where Chuck and Mary were sitting. She smiled unconcernedly and lowered herself into a squatting position. A matronly nude housewife with an elaborate hairdo went on her knees and hastened to guide the man's penis into Zoe's open vagina. Zoe shook her head and motioned for the woman to place the man's organ further back.
Mary Webb turned to Chuck and smiled. "Your girl comes on like a bitch in heat." It was meant as a compliment though he would have preferred a less blunt description.
"It's just a part of the job," he explained ponderously, and immediately felt foolish. When Mary retorted, "Rubbish! The girl's a natural-born exhibitionist!" he realized with a shock that the woman was in all probability quite correct. He regarded Zoe out of the comer of his eye. She was staring at him, obviously trying to catch his attention as the plump housewife guided the penis into her anus. Zoe, her eyes still on Chuck, lowered herself slowly onto the man's shaft. The woman with the fancy hairstyle climbed to her feet and thrust her pelvis against Zoe's upturned face. Chuck could not see what was going on-the woman had her back to him now-but he could guess.
Mary looked on indifferently and blew more smoke rings. Suddenly she tensed and stared at two men who were talking together by the piano. One was in his late twenties and had the tall, spare figure of an athlete. The other man was older, perhaps about thirty-six or thereabouts, and heavy. set. He was sitting on the piano stool and stared intently at the younger man's long, erect penis. Chuck saw the young man's lips move and the next moment, as though obeying a command, the seated man leaned forward. The young man stepped closer and thrust his penis into his partner's open mouth.
Mary Webb reached for her cigarette lighter.
"You already lit it," observed Chuck.
She looked at her burning cigarette. "How stupid of me!" she exclaimed, flicking her lighter nervously. At that moment Zoe suddenly extricated herself from her tangled web of sexual partners and walked briskly across to the sofa.
"Hi!" she said, smiling brightly. "What a lovely lighter!" She leaned over. "Do let me look at it," she pleaded, taking it from Mary's hand.
The redhead was too stunned to move. Then her hand shot out with the swiftness of a snake. "Give it back!" she hissed. Zoe backed away and clutched the lighter tightly in her fist. "Chuck? Do you think Mrs. Webb would prefer to discuss this somewhere more private?"
"A camera?" he said, pointing at her hand. Zoe nodded.
"Good work, Zoe." He turned to Mary Webb. "Your husband doesn't know, of course."
She shook her head. "Of course not."
"And the others? Why did you try to put the bite on them? It's not as if you're strapped for cash."
She glared at him.
"You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
She glanced down at herself. "Would you mind if we put some clothes on, first? Suddenly, I feel very naked."
"Of course," Zoe assured her at once.
Later, dressed once more, and sitting together in the dining room, they talked. Mary Webb explained: "I had nothing when I married him. Since then I've had to depend on him for every penny. Somehow, that just doesn't sit well with me." She stared at them, her eyes very bright. Chuck wondered if she was completely sane. "Go on," he said quietly.
"I had to have some money of my own," Mary Webb said simply. "I had to!"
"We'll have to tell your husband, you know." He spoke gently.
Her face crumpled. "Must you?"
"He retained me," Chuck reminded her. "He's the client." He stood up. "Let's go."
George Webb was tied across a table. His buttocks bore a fresh collection of bruises and welts. He was groaning quietly behind his gag.
"Untie him," Chuck said. He was reluctant to go near the prostrate man.
Mary Webb hesitated. "I haven't finished with him yet...." She looked at Zoe. "He wanted you to beat him, also."
"For chrissakes," shouted Chuck. "This is no time for fooling around ... "
"Please, Chuck. Why not? He's due for a shock ... when he finds out...." She was whispering in his ear. "Why deprive him of his kicks?"
Chuck's eyes went wide with astonishment.
"You have to be kidding?"
Zoe shook her head. "No. I'm perfectly serious. Anyway, we were hired to find the blackmailer. Not to deprive the client of his pleasures."
Chuck stared at his mutilated client and shook his head in disbelief. "His pleasures? He hasn't had enough?"
Mary Webb handed Zoe the whip. The girl hefted it with easy confidence and flicked it smartly in the air. Chuck eyed her suspiciously. "You want to do this?"
She gave him a wry smile. "Wouldn't you like to know?" She approached the captive executive and raised the whip.
"One minute, dear!"
Zoe turned. Mary Webb pointed to her clothes. Zoe smiled. "Of course. I forgot."
Very calmly she proceeded to removed her clothes, standing where George Webb could watch her every move. His eyes were dark with both fear and longing.
"I'll wait outside," Chuck said.
He had seen several erotic beatings in the course of his varied and unconventional career, but something told him that Zoe's performance was going to be too dramatic even for his case hardened stomach.
He was right.
The sounds that came out to him from the den were terrifying to hear. When at last she rejoined him she was flushed and out of breath.
"He won't be able to drive," she announced calmly.
"That I can believe. Did you tell him about his wife?"
"She did. She confessed all."
"How did he take it?"
"Very well," Zoe laughed. "He had only one worry.
"Oh? What was that?"
"That she would quit beating him."
"He really digs it, huh?"
"That's for sure."
Chuck threw her a sidelong glance. "And you? Do you dig that scene, too?"
Zoe produced her lipstick and vanity mirror.
"The case is solved now, Mr. Adams," she said, applying fresh lipstick.
"In other words, you're off duty. Is that it?"
"Exactly."
Mary Webb drove them back to the motel. When she let her hand rest tentatively on Zoe's thigh the girl removed it gently yet firmly. Chuck smiled inwardly. When Zoe said no off-duty sex she evidently meant just that. No men, and apparently no women, either.
CHAPTER THREE
Vanessa Hazard obviously ranked high in the pecking order at The Weekly. Not only did she do business on scented pink notepaper; she also had potted plants in great profusion and a collection of armchairs, sofas, occasional tables that would have done justice to a salon in an elegant townhouse. In fact, Chuck found it hard to believe that he was in an editor's office in one of Manhattan's newest towers of glass and aluminum.
He introduced himself. "And this is Miss Zoe Knox, my assistant," he added.
Vanessa Hazard smiled at them. She was much younger than Chuck had expected her to be. She was also beautiful. Her eyes were oval and shone with a violet gleam from under long, long black lashes that he assumed to be false until she came close to him, carrying a glass of Scotch in each of her graceful hands. The eyelashes were her own. She had on a simple black dress that accentuated her figure without making a display of it. Her voice was soft and well modulated and she moved with a delicately sensuous grace that carried no trace of affectation. She handed out drinks, offered cigarettes, smiled gently, distributed ashtrays, floated gracefully onto a chair, crossed her flawlessly stockinged legs with unobtrusive modesty and got straight to the point.
"Mary Webb tells me that you two will do anything with anybody."
Chuck almost choked on his drink. Zoe blushed.
She forced out a small laugh. "Any recommendation is better than none, I guess!"
Vanessa Hazard smiled politely. "She spoke very highly of you," she said and let her eyes wander thoughtfully from the tips of Zoe's shoes to the crown of her blonde hair. "You dress well."
The editor glanced at her watch. "Let me explain very briefly what I have in mind. There is much more sexual freedom nowadays. People are doing more things, more often, with more people and in more places." She shrugged, as though suddenly bored with her own remarks. "But that's already old hat. What is relatively new is what one might call automated sex. You know, computerized rating services. Now, that little comer of our technological revolution rates a cover story."
Chuck set down his drink and cleared his throat.
"Miss Hazard, perhaps I should explain. I run a detective agency. Your project sounds like pure research. I don't see how we would be qualified to help you."
"Do detectives only detect crimes, Mr. Adams?"
He frowned. "Meaning?"
"Meaning simply this. Why not detect non-crimes? Detect unusual activities that happen to be becoming more and more usual? For example. Not so many years ago, lesbianism...." Miss Hazard glanced narrowly at Zoe, and back at Chuck. "Lesbianism was a crime, and men in your profession were paid to track down girls who practiced it. Today such activities are not the target of detectives. But that is no reason why you can't detect such things, is it?"
Chuck blinked. In an odd sort of way the woman was making sense.
"Well, I see what you're driving at," he said uncertainly.
"Good," Miss Hazard responded briskly. "I'm sure you'll find the assignment interesting." Her smile was pure innocence but there was a speculative glint in her eye. He watched her leg swing negligently before his eys; the movement sent ripples way up her stockinged thigh. He couldn't resist the impulse to undress her in his mind. She would have a very small waist, even narrower than Zoe's, and her pubic area would be sharply defined, a crisp triangle of ebony black curly hairs. He heard her say, "I know I'm looking forward to it!"
He gave a start.
"You?"
"But of course. I've no patience with editors who never move from their offices. I always participate in the research end when we run cover stories."
That settled it. Chuck said, "If I read you correctly, the idea is for all three of us to go on dates arranged through those new computer dating services. Is that right?"
Vanessa Hazard nodded.
"Precisely."
Zoe leaned forward and smoothed her dress against her upper thighs. "Miss Hazard, what exactly is the goal of this research?" The editor regarded her with interest. "It goes beyond the usual level of reportage. We want to find out just how efficient the computer services can be. For instance, suppose a man wants to meet a girl who enjoys-well, a certain unusual kind of sex. The chances of finding such a girl are pretty remote-ordinarily. After all, none of us finds it easy to reveal our secret desires." She smiled. "And we all have them, Don't we?"
Her frankness was disarming. Chuck said, "But would we find it any easier to tell them to a computer?"
Miss Hazard shrugged. "Well, what about you, Mr. Adam? Would you be willing to provide such information? Or would you be afraid to?"
"I guess it would depend who had access to the information."
"Would you mind if I did?" Vanessa Hazard's look was frankly provocative. Chuck hesitated. If he became defensive now he would probably lose the assignment. The beautiful editor was bound to demand full access to every scrap of available information. He took a deep breath. "No, Miss Hazard. I wouldn't mind."
"Good." Vanessa Hazard rose to her feet. "Well start tonight. Come to my apartment. I've collected a pile of application forms from different dating agencies. They're questionnaires, really. We'll fill them out and mail them tonight." She handed Chuck her card. "See you at seven. I'll have dinner ready."
She escorted them to the elevators. "By the way, I ran into George Webb the other day," Miss Hazard said. "He still remembers you, Zoe-you don't mind if I call you that, do you?"
Zoe shook her head. "No, not at all."
Chuck asked, "You know the Webbs well?"
The dark-haired woman looked amused. "You should know, Chuck." She laughed at his surprised expression. "And you, too, Zoe."
They stared at her. "Your hair...." Zoe exclaimed.
"Yes, I was wearing it short then."
"You were on the sofa with Mr.-with Chuck."
Now he recognized her. The woman with the little-boy haircut. The woman who had pleasured him with her mouth and then rushed off to repeat the performance with every other male in the room. He felt himself reddening.
Miss Hazard looked at him without the slightest trace of embarrassment. "As I said, we all have our secret desires, don't we?"
The elevator doors opened. Chuck followed Zoe into the car.
Miss Hazard watched them depart and smiled contentedly. This was one cover story that she was really going to enjoy.
CHAPTER FOUR
Zoe surveyed the half-empty restaurant disgustedly.
"Computer dates may be terribly efficient," she observed, "but the rendezvous are ghastly."
"I guess automats are more anonymous," Chuck suggested, thinking uncomfortably of the role he was supposed to be playing.
They were waiting to meet their third "computer date." Previously Chuck had been a voyeur who wanted to watch his wife-Zoe-make out with other men. That had been the first assignment and Zoe had performed with her customary vigor. Next, he had been a husband with an urge to watch his wife make out with other women. Zoe had had no difficulty with that one, either.
Now they were supposed to be a "submissive couple" in need of "very strict domination." Vanessa Hazard had helped them to fill out the forms on this one; she seemed to know a lot about such things.
Chuck stared distastefully at the clumsy coffee cup in front of him. The china was thick and looked half a century old. He fidgeted with a battered spoon and glanced secretly at his assistant. Come to think of it, she also knew a lot about "discipline." He recalled the beating she had administered to George Webb, and he shuddered. Were they now about to receive that kind of treatment?
"Zoe, what exactly are we supposed to be doing, this time?"
She smiled. "Nervous?"
"No," he said. "That is, yes. I'm very nervous."
"That's good," she informed him calmly. "One is supposed to be apprehensive."
His anxiety deepened. "You seem to know a lot about it," he said, faintly accusing. She didn't reply. She never did reply to questions about herself. Chuck realized that he knew next to nothing about this strange girl.
She turned and looked at him. "You seemed more than interested when Vanessa was setting up this date." It was Zoe's turn to sound accusing.
He grinned sheepishly. "Well, she is rather a persuasive character."
Zoe smiled thinly. "Very. George Webb thinks so, too."
Chuck stiffened. "You mean she digs that scene?"
"But of course. Didn't you know?" Zoe sounded genuinely surprised. He was shocked. "How did you know?"
Zoe became evasive. "Oh, I don't know. It's just something one senses."
"O.K., Zoe, let's hear it. There's something you aren't telling me."
She bit her lip. "Well, all right. I hadn't meant to tell you this, but...." She looked at him speculatively. "I've been seeing George Webb," she blurted. He was speechless. So there was at least one kind of sex that Zoe would pursue "outside the line of duty." Or was she getting paid. He asked her bluntly: "How much?"
She was not offended. "No money, Chuck. But he did help me to get a controlled apartment. Rent control," she added unnecessarily.
Chuck's first reaction was anger. The girl had no moral scruples whatsoever; she was no better than a call girl. But even as she gave him a quizzical, slightly ironic little smile, his mood softened. After all, he wasn't exactly leading a conventional life himself.
"Did you enjoy it?" he asked her, his voice casual. He didn't expect her to answer; the question was probably too personal. Surprisingly, she said, "Sometimes. Mostly I can take it or leave it." She threw him a quick, knowing look. "Like you."
"Huh?"
"I've seen you do a lot of things that aren't normally a part of your scene."
He was spared the need to answer that one; a voice at his elbow asked, "Mr. Watkins?"
Chuck nodded and got to his feet. "Mrs. Davenport?"
The woman inclined her head. "Gloria Davenport."
Chuck pointed to a chair. "Please sit down, Mrs. Davenport."
The woman remained standing and stared pointedly at the empty chair. Zoe kicked Chuck's ankle. He hurried round the table and pulled out a chair for the newcomer. "You're poorly trained," Mrs. Davenport said in a pleasant voice.
Chuck flushed, feeling self-conscious. He peered at the woman curiously. She didn't look like a sadist, he reflected. She was about thirty years old, he guessed, though her conservative dress made her appear older. She wore a plain sheath dress of dark green wool, and a mink coat. Her hair was a dark brown and she wore it short.
"How long have you two been married?"
"Two years-two years and three months," Zoe replied promptly.
"Active or passive?" inquired Mrs. Davenport conversationally.
Zoe replied easily "Mostly passive. We can be...."
Mrs. Davenport looked a trifle annoyed. "We're not interested in active types. I thought we made that quite clear on the forms." She looked at them doubtfully. "How much experience have you had?"
Chuck shifted uneasily in his seat. "How much experience can you provide?" he countered, not feeling the least bit passive.
Gloria Davenport's eyes narrowed.
"More than enough for you, young man," she said with evident relish.
"Can I get you a coffee, or something?" Zoe asked her politely.
"No, thank you. And don't slouch. I see I shall have to teach you proper deportment. My husband is very particular about such things." Mrs. Davenport produced pencil and paper and started writing.
"Here is our address. We live quite near here. Come at eight o'clock sharp. We insist on punctuality."
She made to rise and Chuck hurried round to pull out her chair. She headed for the door, stopped suddenly and came back to the table. "By the way, we shall want to tie you up. For your whippings, I mean. You won't mind that, I take it?"
Chuck looked at Zoe who merely smiled and shook her head.
"No, we don't mind."
"Good." Mrs. Davenport turned on her heels and walked smartly out of the restaurant.
"To hell with that!" Chuck muttered. "We're not going!"
"Afraid?"
He pressed his lips tight together and stared broodily across the battered marble tabletops.
"No," he said at last.
"She's really quite beautiful to look at," Zoe said reflectively.
She was right, thought Chuck. The woman was good looking, and in spite of the unadventurous clothes he could tell that her figure was excellent. That much he felt sure of. But as for the woman's intentions....
"I wonder what I should wear," Zoe said, thinking aloud.
"I thought I told you. We're not going!"
"Oh? You plan to walk out on an assignment for The Weekly?"
There was a long, thoughtful silence.
"You win," Chuck said.
* * *
At a little after seven o'clock on that same Tuesday evening, Zoe had finished her dinner and was dawdling over her coffee, alone at a table for two in the Lafayette Restaurant. She lit a cigarette and sat, her shoulders hunched, elbow in her palm, her face dulled, looking at nothing, thinking, this is where I came in.
Without looking at her watch she knew that the time was seven-fifteen, that in forty-five minutes she would be presenting herself at Mrs. Davenport's door ready to surrender herself to the "strict discipline" described in meticulous detail in the notes assembled by Vanessa Hazard. Zoe shivered involuntarily, half fearful, half thrilled, and remembered another forty-five minute period of tantalizing expectancy at another time and in another city.
It had happened in Wisconsin. Set amid the wide, innocently rural acres of the Badger State was a picturesque brick house less than a mile from the university campus yet secluded behind high dense hedges and clusters of leafy trees. The Richardson residence. Dianne Richardson was a photographer and Zoe had answered her advertisement for a model. Paul Richardson wrote travel books and was away from home a great deal of the time. Sometimes his wife accompanied him on his trips, taking pictures for his books. Zoe had been modeling for Dianne for about six months when Paul suggested that the three of them travel to Europe. School was out-it was summertime-and the Richardsons offered to pay all expenses. It was the chance of lifetime, Zoe had told herself even as every instinct warned her against spending any time in the company of Paul Richardson. For Zoe had been violently attracted to the man from the moment she first set eyes on him. When she stripped in front of Dianne's camera she had posed with almost lascivious abandon knowing that Paul would see the finished pictures. Zoe had felt both ashamed and defiant about her strategy of indirect provocation. Sometimes she had wondered whether Dianne was aware of her feelings but if the blonde photographer suspected anything her tranquil blue eyes gave no indication.
"You don't mind Paul seeing them, do you?" she had asked Zoe.
"No, of course not," Zoe had replied, her voice as coolly sophisticated as her twenty years would allow. But her cheeks had burned hotly.
"He has a roving eye, you know." Dianne had sounded as though she wanted to warn Zoe. Or had it been an invitation? Zoe had not been sure. Dianne's words had cut her deeply. A roving eye? Did he also have a roving body? Were there other women in his life? Those trips of his would certainly provide unlimited opportunities.
As though reading Zoe's thoughts, Dianne had made an unexpected announcement. "Paul would never do anything without my knowing about it."
Zoe had responded with a comment on the desirability of couples being honest with one another. "You mean he tells you everything?"
Dianne's smile had been dry. "Not exactly. He doesn't tell. He simply makes sure that I'll find out."
Zoe had sensed that there lay hidden meanings in Dianne's remarks but she had not pursued them. And by the time they were in Venice, two weeks later, and Paul crept softly into her bedroom in the middle of the night, she had forgotten all about her strange conversations with Dianne.
He had been naked under his robe and fully erect. Zoe saw the pale green silk shine in the moonlight as it hung from his penis. He stood motionless beside her high brass bed and a soft Mediterannean breeze floated across the terrace and into the villa, making his robe drift open.
"I'm not protected," she had whispered. In the half-light his eyes had searched her own, then dropped to his erect member. Zoe had understood. She would have preferred to have him lie on top of her and penetrate her with his manhood but at that moment she would have done anything to please him, anything at all. Propping herself up on one elbow she had opened her mouth and in a spirit of ecstatic surrender she had felt his throbbing organ slide between her lips. She had never caressed a man this way before but she knew instinctively that the gesture was as old as life itself and that Paul's flesh would continue to pump her mouth until his passion was spent.
Why had neither of them been surprised when Dianne walked into the room and calmly seated herself on the edge of Zoe's bed? Paul had withdraw hurriedly from her mouth, and she felt her face burn with violent shame and guilt. And yet there had been an air of innevitability about the situation.
"Well, I did warn you, didn't I Zoe?"
And then Zoe had remembered Dianne's cryptic remark. "He simply makes sure that I'll find out."
Dianne was smiling. In the moonlight Zoe thought the blonde girl looked pleased, almost excited.
"Paul, take off your robe."
"Please, Dianne. Not now...." He had glanced sheepishly in Zoe's direction, then pleadingly at his wife.
"No arguments now. I want her to see your derriere."
Zoe had heard him sigh as he let the robe fall to the floor. When he turned she had let out a gasp. A movement of Dianne's hand caught her eye. The girl was holding what looked like a thin belt. When the moon appeared from behind a cloud Zoe saw that Dianne held a whip.
"You'll both have to be punished, of course." Dianne spoke with a self-satisfied calmness that had made Zoe's spine tingle. She had heard of men and women deriving sexual thrills from whipping and being whipped, but this was the first time she had met such people. Her first reaction had been one of shock. Then, as she saw Paul's penis rise again like the masthead on a ship she had found herself becoming unaccountably excited. A small part of her mind tried to flash a warning: that she was on the brink of becoming involved in dangerous games.
But all traces of self-consciousness seemed to have melted away. When Dianne unconcernedly stood up and slipped off her negligee Zoe found herself staring at the naked blonde with feelings that she tried to suppress, but could not. Something about the bizarre situation had triggered longings that she dared not name yet stirred her passions with a violence that swept her from head to toe. When Dianne pulled away her bedclothes she made no move to cover herself. As though in a trance she had let Dianne help her out of her nightdress, then stark naked she had drawn up her legs and opened her thighs.
With a little nudge from Dianne, and her quietly spoken "You know what to do, Paul," the dark-haired man had moved to the foot of the bed and leaning down had begun to explore Zoe's clitoris with his tongue. The touch of him had sent her far beyond the reaches of shame. So great was her excitement that she was at first scarcely aware of the whip hissing against his bare buttocks as he sucked her. Only when his groans blew hot breath into her vagina did Dianne's ferocious attack penetrate her consciousness. By that time Zoe was so agonizingly close to her orgasm that she heard herself crying, "Don't stop. Go on! Don't stop now!"
She was on the very edge of climaxing when Dianne, with precise feminine intuition, cut Paul's caresses short. "Stop, Paul," she commanded him as she began pulling him away from Zoe's squirming pelvis. When she motioned for Zoe to change places with him he had thrown himself onto the bed. Zoe, too distraught to resist, had let herself be led to the foot of the bed, and at a sign from Dianne she had lowered her head and taken Paul's near-ready organ into her unprotesting mouth.
"And now, my dear, you can finish what you started," Dianne had said. "And the sooner you make him come the sooner your whipping will be over."
The whip had been less painful than Zoe had expected it to be. Nevertheless she had sucked Paul with voluptuous haste, eager to escape the burning streaks of flame as soon as possible.
Not until afterwards did she begin to experience an inexplicable feeling of disappointment that the ordeal had been over quite so quickly. Lying on the bed, the taste of Paul's juices fresh on her lips, she had felt deft fingers-whether Paul's or Dianne's she was not sure-and moments later she had heard herself scream as one orgasm after another had wracked her body.
At breakfast the following morning the Richardson's had acted as though nothing had happened. For three days they had explored Venice, Dianne taking innumerable pictures while Paul made notes and Zoe toured the museums and art galleries.
On the afternoon of the fourth day it rained in torrents. Paul was sitting by the window overlooking the terrace and listlessly shuffling through his notes, his eyes straying restlessly to Zoe's thighs as she sat cross-legged on the sofa, polishing her nails. Dianne paced up and down the large living room, smoking one cigarette after another.
"My God, what weather" she cried, staring out at the gray skies. "It looks as though it is going to rain forever!"
She had been grumbling about the rain since the first drops fell at breakfast time but Zoe sensed that Dianne had other things on her mind. The blonde lit another cigarette, sat down, then jumped abruptly to her feet again.
"I want you two in the bedroom," she snapped and headed for the door. Zoe watched her with mingled fear and relief.
Paul licked his lips nervously. When Zoe met his eyes he looked away. At first she thought it was guilt that made him avert his face; glancing secretly at him as they entered the bedroom she saw that he was smiling and that his brown eyes shone like amber with excitement.
Dianne was taking off her clothes. Zoe was startled to see that she had shaved her pudenda; the smooth swell of her Mount of Venus and the rounded curves of her hairless labia made her look like a large child. Zoe squinted sideways at Paul and noticed that his eyes had widened expectantly. Keeping his eyes riveted on his wife's sex he undressed hurriedly and approached the bed. Zoe thought his penis looked even larger than when she first saw it that night in her bedroom. Jealousy darted venomously through her; the couple, was, she told herself, merely using her for their own games. She realized unhappily that she was just one of many girls recruited to add extra zest to the Richardsons domestic adventures. There must be any number of girls, she thought miserably, with sufficient lack of pride or shame to lend themselves to these activities.
But was it really nothing more than promiscuity that led these girls (and herself) to participate? Of course, everything that she had been taught since childhood was rigorously opposed to anything that even bordered on the promiscuous. But then, she had also been taught that "sex before marriage" was sinful while within that respectable institution, oral sex was a dubious delight at best and a nasty perversion at worst.
And yet it had taken only a wave of Dianne's hand to bring her over to the bed, and a whispered command to bring her to her knees in front of Paul. Without having to be told Zoe had suddenly understood the reason for Dianne's scrupulously shaved pudenda. Dianne's murmured "Make him nice and wet for me" had been quite unnecessary; Zoe knew that the whole purpose of this encounter was to have her witness the act between Paul and his wife.
She had wondered, even as she dutifully annointed his penis with saliva, why she was allowing herself to be used so blatantly, and then the answer had leaped fully formed into her mind. She wanted to be called into service, not only by Paul but also by Dianne.
As Paul inserted his penis into his wife's vagina she caught Zoe's eye and smiled wrily. "There's a touch of the exhibitionist in all of us, don't you think?" She pulled Zoe closer and added, "And exhibitionists need an audience."
Zoe watched Paul's long, thick penis slide in and out of Dianne's moist, hairless nest. It was her first view of the act and she marveled at the capacity of the female vagina. Paul was well built, larger than average, Zoe suspected; yet the liquid ease of his pumping made her realize that Dianne could have taken an organ twice the size.
Paul was quickening his stroke, arching his back, eyes closed now, and beads of sweat running down his forehead. Zoe watched them splatter against Dianne's bare breasts. The air was humid with the smell of sweat and sex. A sudden impulse made her fingers move to the buttons on the front of her dress.
"Yes, Zoe. Take it off and lie down beside me. I'm not protected and...."
Paul had suddenly pulled away from Dianne. Zoe stared at her, not sure what was expected.
"Your mouth, Zoe. Quick! He's ready!" She gave Zoe's head a little push in the direction of Paul's dripping penis. Zoe opened her mouth and accommodated him obediently. Above her the couple embraced; she could hear them kissing, felt their arms move as he toyed with her breasts and she fondled the root of his penis, her fingers brushing against Zoe's wet lips.
He must have remained celibate for the past three days, Zoe had reflected. His orgasm was so overwhelming that his receding penis filled her mouth to overflowing before he finally withdrew. Swallowing hard she stared resentfully at his fast shrinking member. She felt Dianne looking at her.
"You were sort of left out...." Dianne said. Fingering her own sex she added. "We both were." She turned to Paul. "In the top drawer over there...."
Zoe held her breath and gripped Dianne's arm tightly.
"Are you going to...." Zoe broke off, startled, at the sight of the enormous, pink penis in Paul's hand. "This must be a dildo," she thought. She had read about artificial phalluses but this was the first time she had seen one.
"Allright, Paul. Stuff it up her," Dianne said coarsely.
Zoe stared round-eyed at the outsize rubber object, unable to move. Dianne seized her by the shoulders and pushed her back onto the bed. "Allright, Paul. Wow."
Zoe felt her thighs being forced apart. The next moment a large, rubbery hard knob forced its way past her soft inner lips and plunged deep into her vagina. She had given a cry of pain-and yet her hand had moved automatically to Paul's wrist, urging him to penetrate her even more. Dianne had watched closely, a little smile of quiet satisfaction on her smooth, beautiful face. The next moment she had slid a hand over Zoe's belly and started to fondle her clitoris.
Zoe had climaxed with such a wave of violent tremors that her body ached for hours afterwards.
And the following night she had been so restless, so hungry for sex that she had tiptoed into the Richardson's bedroom and begged them to make love to her.
Now, sitting over her coffee in the LaFayette Restaurant, Zoe blushed at the memory of that night. She had actually begged them. And from then on that had become the pattern. Dianne would make her beg for sex, beg on her knees and promise to obey the young blonde wife, obey her unconditionally. For Zoe had by then realized that this had been Dianne's ambition from the start: to have the younger girl quite literally enslaved. Dianne's demands became progressively more frequent and more outlandish. She would have Paul bring her to the brink of orgasm-and then stop, leaving Zoe suspended in an agony of desire and ready to promise anything if only she could find relief. At all other times, Dianne was kindness itself, but on these occasions her cruelties often knew no bounds. Zoe quickly learned not only to tolerate the whip, but actually to desire it. For deep in her heart she knew that Dianne's peculiar needs had awakened dark longings in herself. Longings that became so acute that Dianne could bring her to unbearable degrees of desire merely by keeping her waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the inevitable punishments that she dreaded as much as she yearned for them.
Only when Paul introduced yet another girl to their games did Zoe find the strength to rebel. The newcomer, a pretty girl with black hair and an olive skin, had appeared one morning at the breakfast table. Zoe guessed that she had spent the night with either Paul or Dianne or, more likely, with both of them. Jealousy had quickly turned to shock and disgust when the Richardsons' settled themselves comfortably on the sofa and told Zoe to undress the stranger-and go down on her. Even then, Zoe had been unable to rebel openly. Pretending another and more urgent need she had excused herself to go to the bathroom. It had taken her less than five minutes to pack her suitcase and steal softly out the back door of the villa and run down the hill to the village.
CHAPTER FIVE
And now, here Zoe was, waiting for another scene of the kind that had so fascinated her even as it repelled her. She reached for her purse and took out the copies that Vanessa Hazard had made of the Davenport's application for membership in COMPUSEX. Zoe glanced at her watch. Seven-thirty. There was still time to pull out. Chuck would surely understand; he had not seemed at all anxious to submit to Mrs. Davenport's whims, himself. Zoe recalled the way he had stiffened at the woman's arrogant authoritarianism.
"Would Ma'amselle care for some more coffee?"
Zoe looked up, startled. Madame d'Epinay, the owner of the small and inexpensive neighborhood restaurant, gestured with the familiar enameled orange coffee pot that she kept for her "regulars." With traditional Gallic thriftiness she did not believe in encouraging her customers to expect one with more than they actually paid for. But Zoe was from the neighborhood-from the "quartier" as she put it-and she had been coming to the little restaurant for several years. Most important in Madame d'Epinay's stolidly bourgoise eyes, Zoe was a respectable girl with visible (and respectable) means of support. A secretary who worked hard, dressed with modest elegance and never got drunk. For such customers the widowed restauranteur was prepared to provide a second, and on rare occasions even a third cup of coffee at no extra charge. It was the mark of acceptance by the owner of the restaurant which despite its modest prices and out-of-the-way location was known to gourmets from coast to coast.
Madame d'Epinay refilled Zoe's cup, her shrewd, vacant yet all-seeing restauranteur's eye taking in every detail of the girl's expensively simple black dress, neatly brushed hair and subtly understated makeup.
"Tres chic. You are going to a party?"
Zoe was irritated to feel herself blushing. To a party? Well, that was one way of putting it. She regretted having come to the Lafayette in the little black dress with the showlace-thin shoulder straps. Most men would have noticed only the swell of breasts above the low neckline and the faithful molding of her hips and waist. But Madame d'Epinay was French, a woman and had an eye for clothes. She had not changed her own style of longsleeved black dresses in a quarter of a century but she could tell to within a month and a dollar the fashionableness and price of every stitch worn by her customers.
"We're meeting some people," Zoe explained, a trifle awkwardly.
At the "we" Madame glanced meaningfully at the empty chair.
"A cognac after the dinner-or would Ma'amselle prefer to wait, perhaps?"
"I'll wait," Zoe replied, glancing in the direction of the door. "She's fishing," she thought and wished she were less touchy this evening. Madame d'Epinay smiled.
"Ma'amselle is so industrious."
Zoe thought she detected a hint of disapproval behind the gently bantering tone. Perhaps her stack of papers did look out of place amid the gleaming silver and floral table ornaments. Zoe reached for the Xeroxed forms. Madame d'Epinay was standing very still. Glancing up, Zoe saw the woman look at the uppermost COMPUSEX form, then quickly avert her gaze.
"Excuse me." Madame d'Epinay smiled stiffly and hurried away to distribute her special coffee among the favored guests. When the woman's back was turned Zoe checked the paper lying uppermost on the pile in front of her. Had the Frenchwoman recognized the name Davenport? To Zoe's surprise the only visible name on the paper was Vanessa Hazard, written in a large, sprawling hand with a red felt pen.
"Hi!"
Zoe jumped. She had not noticed Chuck come in. He sat down and regarded her curiously, a slight frown on his suntanned forehead.
"What's the trouble, Zoe? You look ... well, on edge."
She was stuffing the papers back in her purse. "Would Monsieur care for something to drink?"
Madame d'Epinay had reappeared silently. Chuck smiled at her. "Well, that might be a good idea. Perhaps a...."
"A cognac, Monsieur?" suggested Madame. Few of her customers knew it, but she disapproved of mixed drinks; they clashed with her concept of the classic French cuisine. Chuck gave a good-natured shrug.
"That sounds fine."
"And for Mademoiselle?" Madame asked. She avoided looking at Zoe. Chuck saw his secretary give a little nod. "Yes," he said. "Make it two, please."
A waitress set down two large balloon snifters. She looked embarrassed; Madame d'Epinay had always served Zoe's brandy herself.
"What goes on here?" Chuck asked when the girl had gone.
Zoe told him about the name written on the top of Mrs. Davenport's application form. Chuck shrugged indifferently.
"So she's heard of Vanessa Hazard. I guess a lot of people have. After all, she's got a big job with a big magazine."
Zoe remained uneasy.
"There has to be more to it. Madame d'Epinay froze right off. And I mean froze."
"Hm. You say she just saw Vanessa's name? Nothing else?"
"No. Except the printed title. COMPUSEX Application Form. The way the paper was folded she could have seen that, too."
Chuck laughed but it sounded a shade forced.
"Maybe the old girl is also a member!"
"For God's sake, Chuck. Her? Why, she must be the most respectable female in the entire city."
"Appearances can be deceptive." He stole a glance at the middle-aged Frenchwoman as she leaned over a nearby table to smoothe a wrinkle in the tablecloth. "She's quite a handsome woman when you took closely at her."
Zoe followed his look.
"I suppose so. If you happen to fancy the more mature female," she observed pointedly.
"A lot of men do, you know."
Zoe lifted her eyebrows.
"You among them, perhaps?" Before he could reply she added, "Or don't you have any ... any little peculiarities?"
Chuck lit a cigarette and shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
"Depends what you mean by peculiarities," he countered evasively, "What about you?" Zoe stiffened. She looked at her watch. "It's a quarter of eight, but...."
"But you don't want to go through with this thing? Is that it?" She sighed. "Well, Zoe?"
"Well, you were pretty reluctant yourself. Weren't you?" He nodded.
"True. But a deal is a deal." He signaled a waitress for the check. He seemed unwilling to talk. Zoe pressed him harder. "Chuck, it's unlike you to have taken this assignment in the first place."
"Why?" he retorted quickly, a flush of anger showing through his tan. "We've handled similar cases before."
Zoe shook her head. Chuck's defensiveness had given her courage to be blunt.
"You're overlooking one thing," she began. "And it's this. In all our other cases there was a clear-cut reason for getting involved. Someone was being blackmailed, for instance. But in this particular case-well, just what are we supposed to be looking for?"
"You know perfectly well. Material for Vanessa's cover story." His voice was firm enough but Zoe noticed that he avoided her eyes.
The waitress had returned with his change on a little dish. He pocketed some of the money, leaving two dollars and some silver. Getting to his feet he said, "Let's go, honey. We've got exactly enough time if we hurry."
Zoe eyed him uncertainly, then slid out from behind the table.
"That cover story angle made sense to me when she told us about it. But don't you see, Chuck? She can't possibly use any of the experiences we've been having. Not in a family magazine. Not in a million years."
He led her firmly out of the LaFayette and waved down a cab.
"I've already come to the same conclusion," he explained as they bounced along the bumpy crosstown street. "Jesus Christ! These streets! You'd think the city would do something."
"So you already figured that one out? Then why are we going through with the program?" Zoe wished she could be sure whether she was disappointed or relieved.
"Vanessa is using the cover story pitch as a cover for something else ... excuse the pun!"
"Go on."
"I don't know any more than that. Unless ... no, that would be just too crazy."
"No, Chuck. Tell me, anyway."
"Well, it occurred to me that she is one of those people who simply have to snoop. You know. The kind who gets her kicks at second hand."
"And suppose she is? That would be a perfect reason for quitting right now, wouldn't it?"
He placed a hand on Zoe's knee.
"Yes, it would. But only if we knew that she had no other motive. We're still not sure. And if she does have other reasons for wanting information I'm willing to bet that they add up to something that isn't altogether legal."
CHAPTER SIX
The reception clerk glanced covertly at the plainly dressed woman carrying a simple overnight case. Simple yet unmistakably good quality. Charles Tate had an eye for such things. Quietly expensive-looking women had always fascinated him; they were in fact the only kind that could arouse his fifty-year-old penis, had been ever since he could remember.
The other kind, the flashy ones that were in and out of the Hotel d'Annunzio at all hours, held no interest for him whatever. Even the best-looking hustlers, and some of them were beautiful, really beautiful, left Charlie Tate as limp as the sloppy string tie that drooped from his slightly soiled white collar. It was impossible to shock a hustler.
Besides, what would be the pleasure in that, even were it possible? Prostitutes and run-of-the-mill women lacked the breeding and refinement of manner to respond with subtlety when confronted with something new and bizarre. When they came across a man exhibiting himself they either giggled stupidly, or snapped their lips together with demonstrative middle-class self-righteous indignation, or else flew into hysterical paroxysms of rage, darting this way and that in search of policemen.
The well-bred lady came on altogether differently. Like the socialite riding beside him on the plane to Florida last winter. She belonged in the First Class section; one look at her simple, well-cut clothes and the solid elegance of her alligator luggage had been enough to tell him that much. The captain, flanked by respectfully solemn hostesses, had escorted the woman to the tourist cabin and deposited her in the only empty seat on the plane. She had been gracious about the matter; it was the height of the season; mistakes do happen, even in the best-run reservations systems. No, it was quite all right. She did not mind in the least....
Every inch the lady, Charlie Tate had thought to himself, and his flesh had begun to tingle, making him hold his breath in tense expectation of what was to come. For he had had no choice, no choice at all. He would have to do it. A woman as beautiful and as chic as this one was not destined to enter his life more than once or twice.
She had crossed her legs with a nonchalant hiss of nylon and flash of knee and thigh that set her far apart from the usual run of fidgety skirt tugging and obscurely defensive women. He had waited until the plane was airborne and the plastic dinner trays circulated and retrieved before draping his raincoat across his lap. Even then he had not done anything until after the movie started. Fortunately, the film had been neither good nor bad. The woman did not become too absorbed in it; at the same time the show was not so bad as to make her irritable. Charlie Tate's hand had crept under the raincoat and slipped open his fly.
The woman had responded beautifully. First the mildly curious glance at what might, just might have been a movement of the coat on his lap. The signal for him to accelerate the rhythm, increase the length of the stroke on his rapidly expanding penis. Now her eyebrows had gone up a barely revealing fraction; the tell-tale frown of wary curiosity had appeared between her fastidiously arched brows. Suspicion, but still no more than that. She was not yet certain.
That was always the critical period, the time between a woman's premonition of what he was up to and her realization. During this uncertain stage it was imperative to act as though he had no idea that he was being observed. Not until the woman made it clear that she knew could he proceed to the second stage.
He had continued to stare at the miniature overhead screen with a look of innocent preoccupation while masturbating with a controlled, steady rhythm. Watching the screen gave him an important advantage: from out of the comer of his eye he could see every fleeting expression on the woman's face, waiting for the inevitable look of recognition.
When it came it was unmistakable-and perfect. Her expression of mingled shock, astonishment and curiosity had very nearly precipitated his climax right then and there. It had required all of his will power to hold back for the third and best stage.
The woman knew he was masturbating; she had clearly picked up the discrete yet unmistakable movements in his lap. She knew, but she had not moved, had not made angry, contemptuous gestures, let alone tried to find the hostess. So far so good. Now came the difficult part.
His hand quickened its pumping action, making his coat bounce in a way that could not be misunderstood. Still watching the screen he noticed that the woman's eyes were straying more often in his direction. After another minute her gaze had settled on his raincoat.
Keeping his eyes on the screen, he had fumbled with his free hand for cigarettes and matches, all the time maintaining the masturbatory rhythm with his right hand. To light his cigarette he had needed both hands. Making certain that she was watching he raised his right hand, saw her eyes dilate as his penis flashed briefly in the open, then, smoke curling round his head he had leaned back, closed his eyes and sent his hand back under the coat to resume its delicious task.
He no longer pretended to follow the movie; he had not even attempted to stifle the violent breathing that heralded the rapid onset of his climax. With a deep sigh he had ejaculated against his busy fingers. Then a trifle out of breath, he had brought his hand out into the open and rested it negligently on the armrest that he shared with the beautiful watcher. He could smell the musky odor of his juice-and his head was farther away from his hand than hers. He had darted her a sidelong glance and seen her wrinkle her nose.
And now another perfect woman had come into his life. He glanced down at the registration card. Mrs. George Davenport. A midtown address on the East Side.
"I have a reservation ... I telephoned a few days ago."
Her voice was distinctly British upper class. Charlie Tate's hand trembled as he searched among the little file cards on the marble counter. The fingers of his other hand were already flicking his penis out of his open fly. There was a cool superiority about a certain kind of English voice that had always intrigued. With one eye appraising Mrs. Davenport's simple yet expensive costume, the other dawdling deliberately over the file cards, he masturbated with unabashed vigor.
It was a dangerous game but he was past caring about the risk. In any case he had only gotten into trouble once, then the judge had let him off with a warning. The lawyer had helped by trotting out the old saw about exhibitionists being impotent and altogether harmless. Charlie Tate had smiled to himself as he always did when he heard the intellectuals repeat that particular myth. As though all men did not have the occasional urge to show off their erections and have a woman witness their manipulations.
"Ahh...." moaned Charlie Tate. "Six-oh-nine ... Mrs. Davenport. Yes...."
He spoke with difficulty. Any second now and he would be ejaculating.
"Let me ring for the ... the ... bb-bell bb-oy...."
Charlie Tate shuddered visibly and felt warm, viscous semen coat his fingers. Relinquishing his penis he reached for a small card.
"This, Madam, is our room service menu." He thrust the card in front of Mrs. Davenport's face and saw her wrinkle her nose just like the woman on the Florida bound plane.
"Room service? You have room service?"
Charlie Tate stroked his upper lip with fingertips that were still sticky, and flushed. "Well, not room service in the usual sense. The bell boy runs out to the comer delicatessen."
"Really?" Mrs. Davenport was looking at his hand.
"Yes, Madam," said Charlie Tate. "Would you be requiring anything, perhaps?"
"I hardly think so."
Her coolness was making him apprehensive. Hurriedly he reached for the room key and held it out. The woman kept her gloved hands at her sides.
"Your key, Madam," he said.
"I prefer not to touch it," She glanced meaningfully at his hand, then met his nervous eyes with a level stare. "You will be good enough to open the door for me."
Charlie Tate looked sullen.
"I'll ring for the bell boy...."
"That will not be necessary...." Mrs.
Davenport noticed the name plate on the counter. "Mr. Tate. I want you to show me to my room."
The clerk's sallow face became quite flushed with embarrassment. With a feeble attempt at judiciousness he muttered, "The desk. I have my job to ... "
"You won't have a job at all," said Mrs. Davenport shortly, "unless you show me to my room this instant."
Charlie Tate sighed. He had never seen the woman before, nor heard of her, and yet he found himself coming out from behind the counter and escorting her deferentially to the elevator, the room key dangling from one hand, her leather case clutched in his other hand. An intuition that he could not define told him that something, he knew not what, was going to happen when they entered Room 609. He had detected the faintest traces of a smile at the comers of her mouth. She reminded him of a cat that has just discovered a saucer of cream.
Mrs. Davenport did not appear to be at all interested in the room. When Charlie Tate was about to embark on the usual bell-boy routine of checking windows, towels, and faucets the woman snapped, "Close the door and lock it."
Charlie Tate stared, too astonished to move. The woman did not look either angry or sexy. Her manner was, in fact, calm to the point of nonchalance. He watched her unlock the leather suitcase.
"Don't just stand there, Tate," she said, not looking at him. "Lock the door."
"The desk, Madam...."
"I've warned you once. I shall not warn you again."
Obeying her authoritative tone rather than the words, he locked the door and turned to look at her. She had removed her coat and he was surprised to see that the figure under the clinging knit dress was more like that of a young girl than a woman close to forty.
She did not mince words.
"Why were you masturbating in front of me, Tate?"
Her bluntness reduced him to shuddering embarrassment.
"Madam!" He blustered. "I wasn't doing ... "
"Don't try to he to me or I shall have to take this matter up with Mr. Langusta." Mrs. Davenport's blue gray eyes glinted with sardonic amusement.
So the bitch knew his boss, the irrascible owner of the d'Annunzio and God knows what else. He might have guessed that Mrs. Davenport was not coming on so strong without an ace up her sleeve. What could he say?
"I didn't mean to offend...."
Mrs. Davenport gave him a tight, self-satisfied smile.
"You didn't exactly offend me, Tate. Let us rather say that you provided an opportunity-a very interesting opportunity."
"An opportunity?"
"Yes, Tate. You have to be punished."
Mrs. Davenport was placing whips on the bedside table. Handcrafted from fine leathers, they had about them the same air of quality that had first attracted Charlie Tate to the self-assured woman with the figure of a girl and deep, wise eyes. He stared at the whips and swallowed hard. Why, had it never occurred to him that Mrs. Davenport was a flagellant. There had to be a reason for a woman of her class to come to a dump like the d'Annunzio. Now mat he thought about it she had the unmistakable aura of tightly controlled emotion that he had noticed among all the other disciplinarians who liked to use the thick-walled rooms in the old-fashioned hotel. Charlie Tate had often heard the muted sounds of leather striking flesh, the muffled cries of the victims from behind the heavy bedroom doors. Sometimes he stooped to watch through keyholes....
"I'm sure you understand about such things, Tate."
Mrs. Davenport ran the flexible shaft of a glistening riding whip through her hands. She still wore her gloves. They were of leather that matched the rich brown of the whip and reached almost to the elbows. Charlie Tate thought they looked both erotic and frighteningly business-like as though she needed them to perform heavy physical work.
He shivered with fright. Perhaps that was exactly what she intended.
"I've never been.,." he began nervously. For some reason he could not bring himself to complete the sentence. Mrs. Davenport did so for him.
"Never been whipped, eh?" She smiled grimly. "So much the better. I much prefer to break in beginners myself." She pointed at the floor in front of her high-heeled shoes.
"I want you on your knees-but naked, Stark naked. Not even a wrist watch on you!"
The man stared down miserably at his feet.
"The desk, Madam ... I have to...." He stopped abruptly. Without looking at the woman's face he could sense a terrible threat. From under downcast lashes he saw her feet take a step toward him.
"Tate! Unless you obey me this instant I am going to lash your face with this whip and go on lashing it until you lose consciousness. And then I shall...."
Charlie Tate saw her arm move and cried out, "Don't, don't! I'll do it...." His fingers were tearing at his tie.
"Then you'd better be quick about it, my man!"
Without relaxing her hold on the whip Mrs. Davenport watched him narrowly as he stripped off his clothes. Not until he was stripped down to his shorts did he hesitate. She laughed unpleasantly.
"You filthy little exhibitionists are all the same, aren't you? Always trying to show off that stupid thing between your legs-until a woman tells you to reveal it. Hm! Then you turn revoltingly coy ... off with them, now. Or do I have to...."
Sick with shame Charlie Tate pulled down his shabby boxer shorts and sank hurriedly to his knees, letting his penis hide between his pale thighs.
"Oh no, you don't! Show it to me, Tate. Go on, take it in your hand and rub it the way you rubbed it downstairs."
Charlie Tate went brick red and hung his head.
"Please, Madam, don't make me...." He broke off with a scream of pain. Mrs. Davenport's whip streaked across his upper arm.
"Stop that snivelling and masturbate, you filthy swine!"
Mrs. Davenport's nostrils flared angrily and she lifted the whip again. Charlie Tate's fingers darted to his flaccid penis and tried desperately to put some life into it. Abject fear had banished all traces of desire. "I don't think I can...." i, "I couldn't care less about that. I'm not interested in that part of you. That's your problem. I'm interested in other parts of you. Like your backside. Do you know why I'm interested in your backside, Tate?"
He knew but for the life of him he could not find words to tell her so.
"Well, Tate? Answer me. Do you know why I'm interested in your buttocks? Your thighs? Do you know what they're for?"
"Yes, Madam."
"You do? You know they are for me to whip?"
"Yes, Madam."
"You realize, do you, that it gives me pleasure to whip you?"
Charlie Tate managed to choke out a barely audible "Yes, Madam."
"And you wouldn't want to deprive me of my pleasure, would you, Tate?"
"No, Madam," he muttered with evident reluctance. The next moment he was writhing on the floor and screaming.
"I don't ... like ... your attitude...." Mrs. Davenport was striking him repeatedly. Ugly red weals sprang up across his arms, shoulders, back and hips. "You are not servile enough." She walked calmly around him, lashing out spitefully at his naked flesh. "I want a slave, not an argumentative whimpering fool. Tell me you need the whip ... I want to hear you beg for it ... do you hear me, swine? Beg for it!"
"Please, Madam, I...."
Charlie Tate collapsed in a huddled heap and began to weep. "For pity's sake, Madam...."
His pleading seemed to inspire greater fury in her. The blows turned fierce and for one terrifying moment he thought he was going to pass out. Dimly he realized that if he did not please her she might easily end up by killing him.
"Whip me ... Whip me ... "he blurted.
The rain of blows ceased at once.
"You want to be whipped, Tate?" Mrs. Davenport sounded suspicious. Quickly he assured her. "Yes, Madam."
"Hm. That's a little better. Do you think you can remember in the future?"
"Remember, Madam?"
"The next time you see me. Will you remember to ask for a beating? Without having to be reminded?"
Charlie Tate sighed with relief. This was a little better. Next time? There would be no next time, that was for sure. He would make sure that the other clerk was on the desk if and when this bitch ever set foot in the hotel again.
"Oh, yes, Madam," he promised her easily.
"We shall see. I hope for your sake that you do remember."
Charlie Tate started to climb to his feet.
"Tate? What on earth are you doing?"
He froze. He did not dare to tell her that he thought she was through with him.
"I'm also interested in your mouth and tongue, Tate."
There was a long silence while she let her calm statement sink in. Charlie Tate's pulse quickened and faint stirrings made him conscious of his penis.
"Do we understand one another, Tate?"
Not daring to look at her he murmured, "Yes, Madam."
"Then tell me exactly what you think I mean?"
With difficulty he answered, "I ... you ... er, kiss you ... well, kiss you down there...."
Mrs. Davenport gave a gesture of irritation and flicked his shoulder with the tip of her whip. "Kiss me down there!" she mimiced contemptuously. "You make it sound romantic, you stupid oaf. I like to be licked. I insist on it, in fact. You must learn to lick me like a dog ... but not until I'm good and ready for you to do so."
"Yes, Madam."
"And, Tate, do you know what makes me good and ready?"
He nodded dumbly, too frightened and humiliated to speak.
"Answer me, you swine."
Before she could raise her arm again he cried, "The whip. Using the whip...."
"Precisely. The whip. Whipping you will excite me." Mrs. Davenport laughed unexpectedly lightly. "We all have our little ways, don't we, Tate. You get your thrills by playing with yourself when there are girls around. I like to use people in a somewhat different way ... beating them and making them pleasure me with their mouths. So, we should get along very well together ... we both need to use people, don't we?"
Charlie Tate had never looked at his peculiarity in quite this light; he was not a man much given to analyzing his motives. Mrs. Davenport's impersonal candor made him vaguely uneasy.
"Well, let's get on, shall we?" she said, reverting to her former efficient manner. "You had your little satisfaction downstairs. Now you must service me." She peeled down a glove and looked at her watch. "We'll have to hurry. I have a ... another subject coming to see me in a few minutes."
She pointed to the armchair that stood in a comer of the faded room. "I want that in the middle of the floor."
Charlie Tate dragged the shabby club chair onto the rug.
"Like this?"
"Round a little more ... that will do. I want you over the arm ... go on ... no, not like that. You must put your hands between your legs ... hold your privates ... you should enjoy that part, I dare say ... lift your backside a little higher ... that's it ... now listen to me very carefully ... I'm going to whip you until I'm ready for your tongue. When I say the word you will crawl-crawl on hands and knees, you understand?-very fast-over to the bed and ... Well, I don't suppose I have to tell you what to do then. But before we begin there is one thing I have to impress upon you. And that is silence. Under no circumstances must you utter a word or cry while I whip you. Even if you have to bit your tongue out, do you understand?"
Charlie Tate, his head buried in the depths of the club chair mumbled, "Yes, Madam, but...."
"No buts, Tate. You must behave exactly as I say, or the whole thing is ruined for me-I won't get satisfaction, and you will be out of a job the moment I pick up that telephone and tell Mr. Langusta that I don't like you. That's all I have to say to him. Just that I don't like you."
Charlie Tate drew a deep breath in the dusty confines of the chair, a breath of hopeless surrender. His muscles tensed as he steeled himself for the coming ordeal. He heard a rustle of material somewhere behind his doubled-up body; the woman must be taking off her clothes. The thought excited him and he strained his ears hoping to identify each movement, each sound. He sensed a light thump on the floor, then another: she was stepping out of her panties. Despite his fear he could feel his penis begin to swell. Would she let him "do" anything about that? Suppose he let her see his erection when he crawled over to suck her? No, that would be too risky. A premonition warned him to wait until after she had been satisfied. Then he would straighten up and her eyes would fall on his erect penis. The thought made him tremble with excitement. His imagination began to run riot. Suppose he masturbated discretly while sucking her-timed his strokes so that he ejaculated just as he raised himself up. Jesus! If only he could come right in front of her eyes. Have her actually see it squirt out of him!
Charlie Tate was so excited by now that his erection remained steady even as Mrs. Davenport began to wield the whip. She aimed carefully; he could tell by the way the strokes landed on alternate buttocks with a slow, steady rhythm. The pain was excruciating yet the prospect of climaxing in front of her was giving him the powers of endurance that astonished him. It was as if the whiplashes were landing on a body that belonged to someone else.
After a great many strokes it occurred to him that he had not troubled to count them. Idly he began to keep score. One, two, three, four ... he heard her breathing quicken. Did that mean she was becoming tired-or worked up? He forgot to count as he visualized her lying in front of him, spread open with her pussy on show and staring wide-eyed at his throbbing prick projecting smack onto her bare thighs. That would be the place, all right! He had never come that way but he had dreamed of it often enough, picturing the woman's shocked expression when she looked down at herself and saw his juice, his juice, dripping down the soft inner reaches of her thighs.
"Now!"
Had she called him? "Tate! Now!"
He was down on his hands and knees in a flash and crawling over the threadbare rug. She was lying back on the bed, legs spread wide. At first he thought she was wearing pantyhose. He crawled between her legs and saw that she had on stockings that reached to her crotch, and ran in a smooth arch over her hips.
With a thrill he recognized the paired hose that he had seen advertised in newspapers. Hiplets, they called them. Two stockings held together by a thin elastic ribbon that encircled the waist, leaving the crotch completely bare.
She was very hairy. Her pussy was not immediately visible in the dark brown thicket that flourished over her pubis and trailed luxuriantly into each groin.
"Hurry," she murmured huskily.
Charlie Tate licked his lips and explored her with his tongue. She was certainly ready for him! The juices coated his chin; her clitoris felt like a tiny rubber ball floating in oil. Masturbating himself with stealthy movements of his right hand he sucked Mrs. Davenport the way he had been taught by a succession of women of every age from fourteen to sixty.
If only he had not climaxed such a short while ago. Now that he was on the brink of coming again he regretted not having more semen available. A really massive ejaculation would have been just perfect for this situation. He continued to pump his prick, wishing that Mrs. Davenport would hurry up and reach her own climax. She seemed to be in no hurry at all.
And then she started.
At first she just moved her hips very slightly; then he heard her groan. Her movements quickened....
"Don't stop, you rotten swine ... lick me harder ... filthy cuntlapper ... cocksucker ... pervert ... you dirty, rotten pile of shit ... suck me, suck me ... ahhhh...."
Her foot moved to his chest and pushed him back.
"That's enough, Tate. Just put on your clothes and get out!"
Charlie Tate gave his penis a few final, rapid flicks and straightened up. Still kneeling he saw the semen dart from the purple knob and land on the carpet between his thighs. It was a long way from her thighs and crotch; Mrs. Davenport was not even aware of what had happened to him.
"Get dressed," she repeated, pulling down her dress. Without as much as a glance in his direction she crossed over to the dressing table and started fixing her hair. She had been wearing it long, almost to her shoulders. Now she gathered it up into a bun at the back, giving her face a more severe expression. Charlie Tate thought she looked a little like a schoolteacher.
"You were quite good," she told him grudgingly. "Quite good. You must have gone on your knees to a lot of women in your time."
The way she spoke he could tell she was not trying to compliment him. "Well...." he began uncertainly.
"I'm not surprised," Mrs. Davenport remarked in an offhand manner. "It's the kind of thing your kind would be good at! After all, it's not as you're much use for anything else. I can't imagine any woman wanting to have intercourse with a repulsive-looking creature like you. In fact, that's what attracted me in the first place. Your sallow face and your furtive manner. You're the kind that just cries out to be trodden on ... you don't mind me being perfectly frank, do you?"
The question took him aback. "I...." What was he supposed to say?
"Not that it matters," Mrs. Davenport remarked indifferently. "After all, you're nothing but an unattractive servant in a squalid menial position in a fourth-rate hotel." She turned and flashed him a smile of liquid contempt. "Does that thought ever strike you, Tate?"
Charlie Tate clenched his fists and scowled at the floor. The Goddamn stuck-up bitch! She obviously was the kind who liked to rub it in! He wondered longingly if there might not be some way of getting even with her. His welts were really hurting now. Damm the bitch! It would be weeks before he could take off his clothes in front of a woman....
There was a knock at the door.
"Open it, Tate!"
Mrs. Davenport had removed her modern knit dress and as Charlie Tate turned to open the door he was surprised to glimpse a white bodice that reminded him of pictures from Civil War days. Quickly she pulled on a pair of long drawers with antique lace at the legs.
"Don't leave just yet, Tate!"
"Huh?" Charlie Tate was staring at the girl in the corridor. She was tall, slender and eyecatchingly beautiful in a quiet, understated way. "A debutante type," he thought to himself, noting the long Alice in Wonderland style hair, the unmadeup face. She looked questioningly at Charlie Tate, then past him into the room. "Mrs. Davenport? I had an appomtment...."
Mrs. Davenport called out, "Don't just stand there, you stupid girl! Come in and help me!"
Charlie Tate blinked. Was this good-looking and obviously well-heeled young lady going to stand for Mrs. Davenport's arrogant ways? He peered curiously at the visitor's face. To his astonishment she looked pleased, almost sensually aroused. Breathing "Yes, Madam. Right away," she floated past him as though in a trance and at once began to fasten the long row of buttons on the front of Mrs. Davenport's dress.
Charlie Tate had been too busy staring at the visitor to notice the older woman's dress. Like the white cotton underwear it was a relic of a century ago. It fitted very tightly at the waist and flared out in long billows of ivory satin reaching to the floor.
"What a lovely dress," whispered the young girl.
"I just adore these styles," observed Mrs. Davenport. "I feel at home in them,"
"You look so ... so regal...."
Mrs. Davenport gave a faint smile.
"I hope you appreciate the full implication of that remark." Mrs. Davenport's eyes flickered in the direction of the whip that lay near her on the bed. The girl blushed. "Yes," she whispered.
"Well, your letter was very satisfactory, I must admit...." Mrs. Davenport beckoned to Charlie Tate. "Come here, Tate. I want my new servant to see how I discipline my work people."
The man reddened, not daring to look at the young girl who was measuring him with hotly curious eyes. But even as he considered a refusal he dismissed the idea. He dared not risk his job. Turning his back on the two women he slowly lowered his pants. He felt Mrs. Davenport lift up his shirt tail.
"Well," she said. "Do you still want to stay?" The young girl murmured, "Yes, Madam."
"I warn you I shall be even more strict with you. Are you sure you can take it?"
"Yes, Madam."
"For six months?"
This time the girl's answer did not come as quickly.
"Six months? I don't understand ... "
"I never engage a-servant-for less than half a year. Never."
"I ... I don't see how I could stay that long. I have a job and...."
Mrs. Davenport waved a hand airily. "Job? A stupid office job paying a few miserable dollars a week? Really!"
"It may not be much, but I need the money and...."
"Please! I do not wish to hear about such things. I will pay you three times as much. And you will get your board and keep. The wages will be paid to you in one lump sum at the end of the six months. Think. You will have a nice little nest egg. Well?"
"I ... Could I have time to think it over?"
"No. You must decide now."
Charlie Tate had pulled up his pants and was edging towards the door. Mrs. Davenport turned. "Get out, Tate! I don't need you any more. Out!"
He slipped out into the corridor and ran for the stairs. Better to take the elevator from the floor below than hang around. The woman might change her mind and call him back. Of course, if she wanted to triple his salary ... Aware of the flaming welts under his clothes he wondered if it would be worth the pain and humiliation. He would not mind sucking her again; he had always enjoyed going down on women. But he also liked to shoot his semen in front of them. Better still, all over their bare flesh. If only he could do it to that new girl in the office. Sandra Williams. She was no society type, just an ordinary working girl. But she was dammed good looking and he liked her sullen, stuck-up manner. It would be exciting to watch her face when he jerked himself off right under her eyes and let the juice squirt on her breasts and belly and thighs. She wouldn't be so all fired stuck up after that!
CHAPTER SEVEN
A distant churchbell pealed the hour as the cab pulled up in front of the Davenport's brownstone. Zoe was impressed.
"She didn't strike me as being all that rich."
"These places are mostly broken up into apartments," Chuck observed. Zoe shook her head. "Not this one. The curtains all match." At eight o'clock there was still enough summer lighting to reveal a unified facade of mellow brownstone and neatly arranged drapes.
"I guess you're right," Chuck said. "There's only one bell push."
The massive front door swung open almost immediately. A maid looked at them questioningly. She wore a black uniform with long sleeves and a skirt that reached to the tips of pointed black patent boots; when she moved Zoe could see a row of mother of pearl buttons. The girl sported a crisply starched white cap and spotless white cuffs. A white apron, tied in a large bow, completed her old-fashioned outfit.
"My name's Adams," Chuck announced. "Mrs. Davenport is expecting us."
The maid relaxed her formal manner and looked disdainfully at them.
"Come in," she said curtly. She led them across a spacious tiled hall and through a narrow door set in a recess under the staircase. Chuck and Zoe followed her into a dingy bed sitting room.
"Your uniforms are in there." The maid pointed to a shabby closet. "You better get changed fast. The mistress doesn't like to be kept waiting."
Zoe had opened the closet. A jumble of clothing lay on the floor. "What on earth...."
The maid gave her an unpleasant smile.
"The blue dress is for you. The overalls are for him." She nodded her head contemptuously in Chuck's direction. Zoe picked up the blue uniform and examined it with distaste.
"There are some stockings in there, too," the maid told her. "And some shoes."
"You mean I'm supposed to wear this rag?" Zoe gave the girl a disbelieving stare.
"It's good enough for you." The maid snickered. "It'll be up over your head most of the time, anyway." She went to the door. "You've got five minutes."
She was gone.
Chuck was inspecting the overalls. They were made of faded blue denim and had been patched several times. He glanced round the dimly lighted room.
"Loojc," he said, pointing to the flickering wall lamp. "Gaslight!"
"Yes. And look at this newspaper. For crying out loud!" Chuck peered at the copy of the Times that lay on the marble-topped dressing table.
"Well, I'll be Goddamed. July seventeenth, eighteen sixty-nine!"
"And this dress must date from the same period. It's the kind of thing kitchen maids use to wear ... and good grief. Just look at these!" Zoe held up a pair of black woollen stockings and faded pink garters. She hunted around inside the closet. "There's no underwear. I'll have to wear what I have on."
The door flew open.
"Oh, no you won't. You wear what's provided for you and nothing else. That's the mistress's orders."
The maid departed again.
"Chuck, I'm scared."
He gave her arm a friendly squeeze.
"Don't worry. The Davenports are obviously hung up on antiques. They like to act out scenes from the past. That kind of thing."
Zoe looked doubtfully around her.
"What a ghastly room!" She sat gingerly on the edge of the narrow brass bed. It creaked agonizingly. The sheets were clean but coarse as canvas, and the pillows felt hard as rocks to her soft hands. Zoe's fear mounted but at the same time a strange, restless curiosity began to creep over her. Slowly, she unzipped her dress. She was pulling on the black stockings when the maid returned.
"The mistress is waiting." The girl sounded genuinely perturbed. Chuck, looking like a farmhand in his overalls, snorted with impatience.
"What's the hurry, anyway. A minute or two either way...."
The maid gave him a dirty look.
"It's the way she wants it. And it's her house." The girl swept Chuck and Zoe with contemptuous eyes. "Besides. You wouldn't be here if you weren't...." She bit her lip.
"If we weren't what?" Chuck put in quickly, his voice threatening.
The maid hesitated, her eyes gleaming maliciously.
"Perverts!" she spat out. "Perverts! That's what!" She flicked up Zoe's skirt. "And take them panties off."
Zoe clenched her fists. Her cheeks flamed angrily; at the same time the old, nagging erotic restlessness flooded through her. Her heart pounding, she turned her back on the maid and slipped the panties from under her shabby kitchenmaid's dress.
"Before I take you upstairs there's some things you have to know." The maid spoke with faint traces of a Cockney accent. Zoe wondered whether she, too, had come on the scene via COMPUSEX or was she really a maid? If the movies were any indication the British were still turning out Victorian-type servants. Zoe found herself asking the girl how long she had been with the Davenports.
"Ask no questions and you'll be told no lies," the girl replied pertly. She might have stepped intact from the pages of an old novel. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted ... They don't allow any talking. Understand?"
Chuck frowned. "They?"
"The master and mistress, stupid! You just do exactly what you're told to do. But no talking. Just, Yes, ma'am," and "Yes, sir. That's all.
As she spoke, the maid gathered up Zoe's possessions and stuffed them into a laundry bag. "Put your things in here, too," she instructed Chuck. He hesitated, then reached into his jacket pocket and removed his billfold.
"You won't need that," the maid snapped. "Just put everything in this bag." When Chuck still held back she stamped her foot. "Don't take all day about it. No one's going to steal your precious money. Not in this house. They got more money than they know what to do with."
"I wasn't worried about the Davenports," Chuck said pointedly.
The silence was ominous. The maid's eyes narrowed to slits. She watched Chuck drop his clothes into the linen bag. The maid snatched it and hurried from the room.
Chuck gave a low whistle. "Phew! Where in hell did they findfter?"
Zoe looked at him and suddenly giggled.
"If only you could see yourself, Chuck. You look like a farmhand in a cartoon!"
"I'd hate to tell you what I feel like," he said unsmilingly. "If you want my opinion, I think the Davenports are crazy. And I mean crazy. They must be...."
"Davenport. Davenport? Davenport...."
"What are you talking about?"
Zoe wrinkled her brow.
"Do you think that's their real name? Davenport?"
"Probably. Why not?" Chuck thought a moment. "It said Davenport on the little brass plate on the front door." He gave Zoe an anxious look. "Why? Has something occurred to you?"
"I don't know, Chuck. It's just a feeling, I guess. One thing, though. That dress of hers. The maid's. It's almost identical to the one Madame d'Epinay wears all the time."
"Madame who?"
"d'Epinay. The old lady who owns the Lafayette. And she acted very strangely when she saw Vanessa's name. Remember I told you about that?"
"I don't see what any of that has to do with the name Davenport."
"It's strange though. Madame d'Epinay sort of lives in the past. Her clothes are fifty years out of date, they really are. Yet she's not dowdy. She keeps herself well. And she uses good perfume. It's not as though she's let herself go. And now there's this house. Also living in the past. And we're in it ... and Madame d'Epinay knows something about someone who knows about us and the Davenports and...." Zoe gestured helplessly.
"I know it sounds sort of mixed up, but can't you see-feel-that there's something ... something very peculiar about the whole setup?"
Chuck was looking round the room.
"Christ! I could use a cigarette...."
"I have some in my pocketbook ... oh, my God. She took it with her ... and it has all those forms. The Davenports' forms and...."
"Shit! That does it!" Chuck strode across to the window. "We have to get out of here,Zoe." She moved beside him and stared at the iron bars.
"We can't leave, anyway. Not in these outfits."
The door opened. The maid looked at them suspiciously.
"What are you up to?" she asked.
"Just waiting," Zoe replied sweetly. "I would like my pocketbook," she added pleasantly. "Im just dying for a cigarette."
"Then you'll just have to die, won't you? The mistress doesn't allow smoking. Not for servants. And certainly not for female staff. She...." The maid stopped suddenly. She closed the door softly. Pulling up her long skirt she revealed a well-shaped leg. Tucked into the scarlet garter round her stocking top were a slim packet of cigarettes and some old-fashioned matches.
"Here!" she whispered, offering the packet. Chuck looked at it curiously. The wrapper, with its fancy lettering and engraved portraits of bearded dignitaries, must have dated back to the eighteen-sixties. To his surprise the cigarette felt and tasted perfectly fresh. He puffed appreciatively.
"Very good. Thank you."
Zoe nodded agreement. "They're good. Thanks."
The maid shrugged. "So they should be. The master buys nothing but the best."
"He gave them to you?" Chuck asked with studied casualness. The maid reddened.
"Not bloody likely!" She puffed greedily. "If he knew I took them, he'd have me whipped." Chuck laughed. "You're kidding, of course." The girl stared at him.
"You'll soon find out," she said tersely. "And you too," she added with a meaning glance at Zoe. "For some reason he's a lot more strict with us girls-especially when we don't well, please him right, if you know what I mean?"
Zoe felt herself redden. The maid gave a vulgar chuckle. "The lord and master, that's what he is. And he's got some very funny ways, believe me. For instance.
A bell clanged in the distance. The maid snuffed out her cigarette. "Put yours out and save them...." She held out the quaint wrapper. Chuck watched her replaced it in her garter and glimpsed dark curly hairs above the girl's black stocking. Evidently she wore no underpants, either.
"None of us do," the girl said in response to his wide-eyed stare. "It's one of his rules." She held open the door.
"Don't forget what I told you," she cautioned them, reverting back to her brusque manner. "No talking. Just 'Yes, sir, Yes, ma'am,' Understand?"
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mrs. Davenport flung down her whip and sank exhausted onto the bed. "Marvelous," she murmured dreamily. "Just marvelous. You take it beautifully!" She crooked a finger. "Come over here and let me look at you."
The girl walked stiffly across the shabby carpet and posed shyly beside the bed. She had no clothes on and her platinum blonde hair made her look more naked than any girl Mrs. Davenport had ever seen. The growth between her legs was so fine and pale that her pubis looked like a soft padded triangle of fat with every fold of the lips of her pussy clearly visible. Mrs. Davenport stared at her and sighed happily.
"You much prefer women, don't you, Jenny?"
The girl's body turned a soft shade of pink.
"Yes, Madam."
"Mmm. You will make the most divine slave. You obviously adore the whip...." Mrs. Davenport ran appreciative fingers along the girl's thighs and savored the thick welts that rose in thick, red coils from the hips to just above the dimpled knees. "Marvelous! And you've no shame, either. No shame or self-respect whatsoever. Nothing is too outlandish or revolting for you, is it, my little slut?"
The girl lowered her eyes and shifted awkwardly on her bare feet. Mrs. Davenport's praises made her feel embarrassed and excited at the same time.
"You would even do things with a man if I told you to. Wouldn't you, Jenny?"
"A man?" Jenny's eyes went round with surprise. Mrs. Davenport had said nothing about men in the letter forwarded by COMPUSEX. "A man?" she repeated, a hint of fear in her voice.
"My husband. You'll be serving him, too," said Mrs. Davenport simply. "He has rather unpleasant tastes, I'm afraid," she added casually.
"Oh?"
Mrs. Davenport pulled up her dress and loosened a ribbon round the waist of her vintage drawers. A dark brown bush of hair appeared between her thighs. "Suck me again, Jenny. I like to feel a tongue inside me while I talk ... Yes, like that. Keep your tongue in there while I tell you what my husband will be doing with you."
She settled her pelvis comfortably, swinging herself up against Jenny's obedient mouth. "That's good! Now, as I was saying. My husband. He's more or less impotent, you see. He can't perform intercourse. That doesn't worry me, of course. We have plenty of lusty males to cope with that side of life, and I should tell you I do like a man inside me now and then. And I like to watch a man doing it to a girl ... I shall enjoy watching you being ... being fucked, Jenny." Mrs. Davenport uttered the classic word with a relish that made the young girl shudder with apprehension. "No, Jenny! Don't stop sucking me. I know you don't want to be fucked-as the men like to call it. It's such an earthy word, I always think. Makes one think of violent lusts ... and hot flesh being forced into a girl's openings."
The girl trembled between her thighs, Mrs. Davenport smiled to herself. "Yes, Jenny. Openings. In the plural. I know it conjures up simply revolting images, but I'm afraid one has no choice. Men do like to penetrate us and that's all there is to it. So ... Jenny, I did not tell you to stop...."
Jenny had raised up her face and was staring across Mrs. Davenport's belly and over the top of her rumpled dress trying to catch her eye.
"Please, Madam! No men...."
"Rubbish, child. Of course you must take on men. I thought I explained to you. My husband has his tastes and they must be satisfied. Surely you can see that, you stupid girl?"
But Jenny really did feel stupid at this point and she was more than willing if not only to herself but to anyone else who would listen to her. But she wasn't sure in her mind that Mrs. Davenport would even listen-because she knew that the woman already had made up her mind that Jenny was just about as ignorant as any one person could possibly be, and the admission to her would just be a lot of wasted words.
"What will they do to me?"
Mrs. Davenport pushed the girl's head back between her thighs. "Suck me properly and I'll tell you ... right. As I was saying. My husband and I both like to watch. We shall be watching you, Jenny. You will be called into a special room we have and there you will have to take off your clothes. My husband and I will be there, watching you, and so will three of our male servants. Three big, strong men with well-developed penises. They will all penetrate you at the same time. One will use your mouth. Another will fuck you from the front. And the third will stuff his penis up your derriere. My husband just adores that kind of spectacle. He loves to masturbate while these things are going on-then come on the girl's breasts...."
Mrs. Davenport broke off and laughed.
"In fact, he's rather like that revolting manager downstairs. Tate. He also likes to show off his silly little penis-and I could tell he was just aching to come all over me. That's why I whipped him ... I can't whip my husband. He just doesn't enjoy that kind of thing. He much prefers to watch spectacles-and he loves putting things inside girls. Fingers, dildoes, candles ... it's unbelievable the things he can think of putting up a girl's you know what. And up her backside."
Mrs. Davenport looked at her watch and suddenly became business-like. "I have to get back to the house." She swung a leg across Jenny's head and jumped off the bed. "Hurry up and get dressed. We must be home by eight. A new couple are arriving and I'm dying to see how they work out."
"We, Madam?" Jenny's eyes were anxious. "You mean I should come with you now?"
"But of course. Didn't we agree that you should be my slave for six months-at a very handsome wage, if I may say so myself?"
"Yes, Madam. Only-well, you never told me about the men-and your husband and...."
Mrs. Davenport leaned down and slapped Jenny's face with the flat of her hand. "Shut your mouth, slut! Your job is to do what I tell you-and nothing else! You'll spread your legs for a horse if I order you to and afterwards beg for more of the same-if that's what I want you to do. Do you understand me, Jenny?"
"Yes, Madam, but...."
Mrs. Davenport's hand sailed through the air and Jenny's other cheek burst into flame. "Get dressed, you hear me?"
"Yes, Madam," Jenny sobbed, her eyes flooded with tears.
"You don't want me to be weak with you, do you, Jenny?"
"No, Madam."
"Then we understand one another."
* * *
They mounted a wide, carpeted staircase, and preceded along a corridor lined with sofas, elegant china cabinets and paintings. Chuck thought he recognized a Rembrandt; other pictures also looked vaguely familiar. Of course, they could have been copies, but somehow Chuck doubted this. There was an aura of wealth; the house seemed to reek of it. "It's all just a game," he told himself, but by the time the maid had brought them to a halt in front of large, double doors he had the curious feeling that he had somehow moved back in time; that this quiet, opulent and solemn household was where he really belonged. "But that's ridiculous!" he thought, and shook himself.
The maid tapped on the door and a woman called "Come in!"
If Mrs. Davenport recognized them she gave no sign. She looked up from her magazine and inspected Chuck and Zoe with lukewarm curiosity. She was sitting on a brocade silk sofa and had on a floor-length green silk dress with puffed sleeves and a lot of lace at the neck and wrists. Her hair was swept up in an Edwardian style and she was wearing glasses with thin gold frames. Chuck glanced at the magazine by her side: The Ladies' Home Companion. The engraved cover showed a wasp-waisted young woman dressed in a crinoline.
"They've no previous experience, I suppose?"
"No, ma'am."
Mrs. Davenport sighed wearily. "Well, you'll just have to break them in, Pamela."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Mrs. Davenport looked Zoe up and down, and her face hardened.
"Pamela! Is this little slut wearing makeup?"
The maid flushed. "No, Ma'am. That is, I...." Mrs. Davenport peered hard at Zoe's face. "Pamela! Take this creature away and see that she scrubs. Nowl"
"Yes, ma'am."
Pamela gave Zoe a nudge. "Come along," she whispered.
Mrs. Davenport was studying Chuck's well-developed figure with covetous eyes. "Wait until I send for you, Pamela," she said, not taking her eyes off Chuck.
"Yes, ma'am."
Chuck watched the girls leave and made to follow them.
"No! You stay here!" Mrs. Davenport cupped an elbow in one hand and regarded him thoughtfully, her head tilted, the tip of her tongue darting to her full lips.
"You're new to domestic service, aren't you?" she asked.
"Well...."
"And so is your wife, I take it?"
"I guess ... "
"The work is quite hard but if you behave yourselves you'll have nothing to worry about. Are you strong?"
Chuck gave a modest shrug. He didn't know whether to laugh or be annoyed. He wondered how long Mrs. Davenport would want to keep up this ridiculous masquerade.
"You should be strong. That's why I selected you." Mrs. Davenport's proprietary self-assurance surprised him.
"How did you know...." he began. The woman interrupted him curtly. "Stop chattering, young man." She squinted at his broad shoulders and powerful arms, then let her eyes wander brazenly across his chest and down to his groin.
"You should be strong," she repeated absently. "I had you very carefully checked, you know."
Seeing his look of astonishment she smiled thinly. "I have my methods, young man. I have my methods. Let me see your hands. "
"Thumbs tell me a lot about a man," said Mrs. Davenport smoothly. "But it's easy to see that you've not worked with your hands."
"Well...."
"Never mind. After you've worked here for a while...." She darted him a quick look. "You've no bad habits, I hope?"
Chuck flushed angrily, and was about to make a scathing retort. A growing sense of awareness of this "living theater" restrained him. He managed to stay within his role of humble servant. "No, ma'am," he muttered.
"I hope not," said Mrs. Davenport firmly. "One can't be too careful, you know. I've had fine-looking servants come here only to find that they abused themselves." She flashed Chuck a stern glance. "I hope you don't do that?"
Chuck blushed.
"If you mean what I think you mean...."
"You know perfectly well what I'm referring to, young man. And self-abuse is one habit I simply will not tolerate among my servants. It saps their energies." Her eyes narrowed shrewdly. "And let me warn you, young man. I can always tell."
"Oh?" Chuck's curiosity was aroused. "You can?"
Mrs. Davenport smirked self-righteously. "Yes, indeed. I have ways of finding out," she said, staring hard at Chuck's crotch.
"She's not at all bad looking," he thought, aware that he was becoming uncomfortably aware of her as a woman. Obviously her role was that of the rich housewife who amuses herself with the male help. Well, if that was what she wanted....
"And I'm afraid I can't allow you to sleep with your wife," Mrs. Davenport announced.
Chuck stared at her, open mouthed. Did employers really treat their workers like this? He tried to recall what he had read about life a century or so back. Mrs. Davenport was saying, "Perhaps if you're very good I'll let you go to her on Saturday nights. But only if you're very, very good indeed. Do you understand?"
His heart missed a beat. Did she say Saturdays? How long did she suppose that he and Zoe were staying, anyway. His eyes strayed involuntarily to the windows, the door....
"I know what you're thinking," Mrs. Davenport informed him complacently. "Well, the answer is straightforward enough. You will both remain here until I decide to get rid of you."
Chuck's face was expressionless. This was all just part of the script. Any moment now and Mrs. Davenport would let her hair down and they would have sex. After that the party would be over and he and Zoe would leave....
The woman's next words took him completely by surprise.
"The cellar floor needs scrubbing. And the kitchen, too. Pamela will show you what to do. And where to sleep." She pointed to a tasselled bell rope next to the fireplace. "Ring for her!"
"Where's Zoe?" he blurted out.
Mrs. Davenport frowned. "Zoe? Zoe? Oh, you mean your wife?"
"Yes."
"The whereabouts of my servants is hardly any concern of yours, young man. Now ring for Pamela, and keep your mouth shut."
Chuck strode across the room and tugged angrily at the silk rope. "Now listen to me...." he began.
Mrs. Davenport held up a slim white hand.
"No! You listen to me, young man. This happens to be my house and for as long as you're here you will do as I say. And that, I might add, goes for your wife, also."
Mrs. Davenport spoke quietly but the undertone of threat was unmistakable.
"If anything happens to her-" Chuck began.
"Your wife, as you call her, is well used to ... to our way of doing things. She's not entirely inexperienced, I can assure you."
"I don't know what you mean...."
"I dare say you don't. But I know what I mean, and that's what counts. I ... oh, there you are Pamela. I want you to take the new man down to the cellar and have him scrub the floors. Then he can do the kitchens."
The maid stared down at her shoes. "I was just wondering, ma'am. About her dinner ... "
"Dinner? Dinner? After coming in here all painted up like a hussy?" Mrs. Davenport shook her head. "Oh, no. She'll have to wait until tomorrow morning. After she's had her punishment."
"Yes, ma'am."
"You may go now, Pamela."
Chuck followed the girl out of the room The moment the door was closed behind them he turned and grabbed her arm. "Where's Zoe? And what's all this about punishment?"
Pamela shook off his hand.
"None of your business," she snapped. Her eyes were hard. He strained to hear the sound of Zoe's voice but the carpeted mansion was utterly silent. A thought struck him.
"Where is Mr. Davenport?"
"Mr. who? Oh, you mean the Master?"
Zoe's hunch may have been right. Chuck said casually. "Do you see much of him?"
"Enough!"
"He gives you a hard time, huh?"
Pamela was leading the way down to the cellars. She had pulled up her dress and extracted another match from her garter. Chuck watched her light a gas jet mounted on a stone pillar.
"Don't you have any electricity here?"
Pamela shook her head.
"They don't believe in it. Nor telephones."
"How about television. Don't you miss that?"
"Television? What's that?"
Chuck started to explain and the girl giggled.
"You're as stupid as all the others," she snorted. "With your tall stories. Pictures through the air indeed." She pointed to a stone sink. "There. You'll find a bucket and scrub brush in that cupboard over there. And there's a stick of soap in the sink."
Chuck gazed disconsolately around the underground room.
"It's big, isn't it?" he observed.
"Big? This is only part of it. You've got six other rooms to do, besides this one."
"It sounds like a week's work."
"What difference does it make? You've nothing else to do, have you?"
Chuck glanced curiously at her, wondering how far he could take her into his confidence. He decided against telling her anything. She must have guessed what was in his mind because she looked back over her shoulder, then lowered her voice to a whisper.
"You're not really a servant, are you?" The question sounded more like a statement of fact.
"Well, not exactly," Chuck replied cautiously.
The girl nodded solemnly.
"I thought not. I could tell from your hands. Anyway, you don't look like the others."
"The others? What others?"
"You didn't think you were the first, did you? Well, just look at this place. Who do you suppose keeps it clean? Me?"
"Then who does?"
"Oh, they come and go. Mostly they don't stay long. She works them too hard, and she ... well, you'll find out soon enough."
"What happens to them? Does she fire them?"
Pamela edged away from him. He thought he saw fear in her eyes. "What happens to them?" he persisted.
"I don't know. Sometimes they become ill." Chuck felt a cold chill run down his spine. "But you, Pamela? She won't fire you, will she?"
The girl brightened.
"Oh, no. I've been here all my life. She wouldn't fire me. I was born here." The girl spoke proudly.
"And do you have days off? Go out?" Pamela shook her head.
"Of course not. What should I want to go out for?"
Chuck stared at her in amazement. "You mean you've never set foot outside this house?"
But Pamela had retreated back into her shell. Her face closed up again and her eyes darkened.
"You'd better get on with that floor. She'll be down to check on you later. And if she's not satisfied she'll have you punished."
"Punished? How?"
"She'll have you whipped. That's how."
"She will? And who does the whipping?"
Pamela gave him an enigmatic smile.
"I do. She taught me how to do it the way she likes to have it done. I've been doing it since I was little."
"Do you like doing it, Pamela? Giving whippings, I mean?" The girl nodded.
"Oh, yes. When I do it well she gives me a reward."
"What kind of reward, Pamela?"
The maid gave him a smug little smile.
"She gives me chocolates."
Chuck shivered with horror. The girl was obviously quite mad. And the Davenports were clearly exploiting her; were quite possibly responsible for her madness in the first place. If the girl had lived incarcerated in this somber house from birth she was surely more a product of the Davenports' weird imaginations than a person in her own right.
'How old are you, Pamela?" he asked her.
"I'm seventeen."
"And where's the lady who came here with me?" he added quickly.
"In there." Pamela pointed to a door in the far comer of the cellar, then froze. "You won't tell the mistress I told you?" she pleaded.
"Don't worry. I won't tell-not if you're nice to her. To Zoe, that is."
"I'll be nice to her, I promise." Pamela stepped close to him. "I'll be nice to you if you like," she whispered. Her fingers strayed to his crotch and flicked suggestively at the penis lurking beneath the blue denim. From her deft movements he could tell that Pamela was no novice. He struggled against the temptation to let the mad girl continue her caresses.
"You're big," she whispered, tracing his erection through the material of his pants. "She likes that."
"The mistress?"
Pamela, her head now touching his, gave a little nod, and he felt her breasts bounce against his chest. There flashed through his mind the old saying: "A stiff prick has no conscience." Not entirely without guilt he slid his hand along the concave line of Pamela's waist, up to the pendulous curve of her breast, down across the flare of her hip and across her thigh to the soft depression under the flat, young belly. Her pubic hairs grated enticingly under the soft, black material of her dress.
As always, this was the best moment. The first exploration, the first step along the way of erotic exploration and discovery. Even as his finger became bolder, more precise, and the soft pad of her sex revealed its intimate contours, the keen edge of novelty became a little blunted. He had been there so many times before. His erection continued to pulse, but its pressure was steady, almost gentle under the girl's wandering fingertips.
"I can take it or leave it," he told himself.
And then her voice stole huskily into his ear. "She taught me how to do things." Chuck's mouth went dry. "Oh?"
"Yes. She showed me pictures. Did you know there were pictures of men and girls doing things?"
Chuck managed to mutter, "No? You mean they have pictures?" The girl was nuts but he could not resist the temptation to play along with her. The conversation was banishing every last shred of restraint. "What kind of pictures, Pamela."
"Carnal pictures," she whispered throatily, bringing him right back to the long distant era of their game.
"People fornicating?" he asked her, entering into the spirit of the thing.
Completely at a loss for words, Chuck murmured, "Ah. I see."
As though relieved to see that he understood her Pamela nodded sagely. "Yes. They defile her mouth. And they violate the opening that Nature never intended for such bestial acts."
Chuck translated the girl's archaic descriptions and pictured himself having oral and anal intercourse with the handsomely elegant Mrs. Davenport. His penis twitched against Pamela's attentive hand. The idea of doing these things with "The Mistress" under Pamela's hot-eyed gaze did nothing to diminish his lust.
"You mean she lets the men do these things to her?"
The dark-haired head shook vigorously against his cheek. "Oh, no. They force their loathsome attentions on her."
"They do?" Chuck sounded unbelieving. "Oh, yes. They force her to submit to their depraved lusts. That's why they have to be whipped."
Chuck saw the pattern begin to emerge. Mrs. Davenport maintained this elaborate facade of mansion, servants and trappings from the past in order to act out her fantasies of being raped by male servants. Rough male servants; Chuck recalled her preoccupation with hands. They had to be work roughened.
He remembered his floor-scrubbing assignment and glanced down at the spotless surface. He wondered how many hours had been spent by how many men kneeling with brush in hand on this stone floor.
"They do?" He prodded her gently.
Her cheek hot against his own she murmured, "Yes. And sometimes she lets me watch."
Chuck instantly felt curiosity sprouting through his lust.
"She does? What does she let you watch?"
Pamela giggled. The sound reminded him uncomfortably of her insanity. For a moment he was tempted to push her away from him.
"The servants. I watch her with the men when they do things to her." Pamela snuggled closer and Chuck felt his heart pound heavily against her breasts. "What do they do to her, Pamela?"
"They make her perform unnatural acts."
Chuck blinked. The girl's language, with its odd mixture of spontaneous and formal phrases, confused him. How much did she really understand about what she was saying?
"What do you mean, unnatural acts?"
Pamela pulled her head back and looked at him cautiously.
"Perhaps these things are not for your ears," she remarked in tones reminiscent of a spinster aunt. Chuck suppressed a laugh. Earnestly he said, "You can tell me, Pamela."
She tilted her head on one side and looked quizzically at him. The gesture reminded him of Mrs. Davenport, her way of inspecting people from her haughty pose on the brocade sofa.
"It means," Pamela began primly, "it means very obscene acts. Not what nature intended," she added sententiously.
The girl talked like a character out of an historical novel. Her blend of puritanism and sly prurience was too intriguing for Chuck to resist. "Tell me, Pamela. What do they do?" His voice was husky. He ran a hand along the small of her back, and when she did not appear to object he let it slide over her buttock. "Tell me what you've seen?"
Her cheek was close to his; her breath was hot in the hollow of his neck. "It's not proper to talk about such things."
"Were they dressed?"
"Of course they were. That is...." Pamela giggled. "Well, not completely."
"What was the Mistress wearing?"
"Her dress, of course."
"She was? How could she be doing-doing unnatural things if she had her dress on?"
"There's different ways of wearing dresses," Pamela replied archly. Chuck thought, "Was this how they flirted a hundred years ago?" The game fascinated him. He pulled the girl closer and felt his stiff prick thrust against her groin. Even through her cumbersome skirts she would surely be able to feel him. He made his penis twitch violently and the girl gave a barely audible gasp. "How was she wearing her dress," he asked quickly.
"Wouldn't you like to know!"
Chuck mustered up every ounce of patience.
"Why don't you show me, Pamela?"
She stiffened in his arms. "Show you? You must be mad! That would be sinful."
"The Mistress wasn't being sinful, was she?"
"Well ... With her it's different. She's the Mistress, isn't she? She can do what she likes."
"Can't you, Pamela? Do what you like?"
"Of course I can't, silly."
Trying to keep the irritation out of his voice he said, "But it's allright for you to show me what she did, isn't it?"
Pamela hesitated a moment. Then, "I suppose so. But you mustn't look!"
Chuck restrained a laugh. "All right. I won't look."
"Promise?"
To hell with it! "I promise."
The girl lifted delicate fingertips to his eyes. "You have to keep them shut. Promise?"
His eyes tightly closed, he nodded vigorously. "Promise."
Pamela stepped back and he heard a rustle of material. Squinting discretely through his lashes he saw her legs appear. They were long and perfectly shaped. She was wearing black stockings that ended halfway up her thigh where they were held in place by old-fashioned garters. She had on white cotton drawers with little ribbons tied in bows at the waist and legs. He closed his eyes quickly and heard the girl's dress and petticoats slide down again.
"You didn't peek, did you?" she asked suspiciously.
"Of course not!" Chuck looked solemn. "Tell me, Pamela. What was the Mistress wearing under her dress?"
"Her un mentionables, of course."
"Her what?"
"Un mentionables-what ladies wear under their dresses."
Chuck wrinkled his brow, then suddenly recalled the Victorian euphemism for panties. Keeping a straight face he continued to play the girl's strange game. He pulled her tight against his chest and whispered in her ear. "Are you wearing un mentionables?"
The girl's cheek burned him. She nodded shyly. Chuck cupped her buttocks in his hands. "How could the Mistress do things if she was wearing her un mentionables?"
"Ah! Wouldn't you like to know!"
Pamela tried to pull away from him.
"There's no need to snap at me," she pouted.
Chuck tightened his grip on her; his middle finger probed the cleft between her buttocks. Through the thin cotton he could feel the warmth of her crevice. She pulled close to him and murmured, "They undo, you know."
He remembered the little ribbons.
"Show me, Pamela."
"Well."
Guessing what was coming next he put in, "I won't look."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
She stepped back again and he listened tensely for the sounds of exposure. When he stole a cautious glance Pamela was untying a bow at her waist. The front of her "un mentionables" fell down, revealing a dense triangle of hair. He moved against her and whispered urgently. "Don't be afraid, Pamela. I won't look." Her pubic hairs grated against his denim overalls. "What were the men wearing, Pamela?"
"Same as you."
"Then they couldn't do much, could they?"
"Depends what they wanted to do, doesn't it?"
"Even if they were all covered up?" Pamela giggled in his ear. "Their fingers weren't covered, were they?"
"And what did they do with their fingers, Pamela?"
"Rude things."
"How? Show me." The girl laughed.
"How can I? I'm not one of the men, am I?"
Chuck seized her hand. "Pretend you're the Mistress-and this is one of the men's hands. Now show me what happened."
"You won't ... "
"I won't look."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Pamela took his hand and selected one of his fingers. He felt it being pulled into her hairy bush; the tip slid against something soft and moist. Very moist. "Jesus," he thought. "She really is worked up!" He was glad that he had had the patience to go along with her playacting. Or was it an act? Maybe this strange girl really did think she was living in the last century.
She was using his finger to masturbate herself; there could be no doubt about it. Her movements were quite deliberate and specific. "Did the Mistress like the men to do this?"
Pamela nodded.
"To begin with, yes."
"To begin with?"
"Well, they don't go on doing this forever, you know." Pamela sounded like a schoolmistress addressing a backward pupil. "Let her teach me," Chuck laughed to himself. "That suits me just fine." Aloud he asked, "The men couldn't do much else-not with their clothes on."
"Clothes don't cover everything, do they?"
"What else don't they cover, then?"
The girl did not answer immediately. Then she touched his cheek lightly with the tip of her tongue. "They can do that with their clothes on, can't they?"
Chuck caught his breath. Did Pamela want him to go down on her?
"Show me," he said.
"Will you keep your eyes closed?"
"Of course."
"I can't show you if you're standing up."
"Why not?"
"Cause you have to ... you have to be further down."
"How do I do that, Pamela?"
"Well, you could kneel down, couldn't you?"
He lowered himself to the floor. When he squinted at her pussy it was partly obscured by her small white hands. "Are your eyes closed?"
"Yes, of course."
She pulled away her hands. Crisp hairs tickled his nose.
"Now what?" he asked perversely. He wanted to hear her say it.
"They put their tongues out."
He did so; the tip barely touched a strand of pubic hair.
"Like this?" he asked and put out his tongue again.
"They put it inside."
"Inside where?" He was curious to know what she called it.
"Inside her private parts."
He ran the tip of his tongue lightly along the furrow in the center of her hairy nest. "I can't get it in," he complained. Pamela spread her legs a little. "Now you can."
She was right. His tongue slid smoothly between the folds of her flesh. They were hot and swollen with desire and her juice coated his tongue and chin. With stealthy movements he unbuttoned his fly and let his erect prick loose in the cool air of the cellar. When he stood up he would....
"She makes them move their tongues around," Pamela said primly. Chuck probed her lasciviously and felt her pelvis begin to undulate. She was breathing with quick, shallow gasps and after a few moments he heard her begin to moan softly.
He cupped her ass in his hands and pulled her crotch tight against his mouth. Locating her clitoris with the tip of his tongue he pursed his lips and sucked it. Her moans became louder. Giving her sensitive organ a few more sucks he readied himself for his next move. Pamela groaned with pleasure.
When he rose quickly to his feet his prick landed firmly between her soft thighs. "Your mouth isn't covered, either," he told her in a husky whisper, and with his hands on her shoulders he motioned for her to kneel. To his surprise the girl did not argue. She sank obediently before him and when he guided his prick to her lips she opened her mouth and began to suck him with the wet hunger of a baby at its mother's breast. The girl must have been sucking men since infancy, Chuck decided. The skill with which she flicked her tongue round the knob of his prick while maintaining an uninterrupted sucking rhythm could not have been acquired overnight. Even as he felt his climax coming on fast a part of his mind speculated about the sources of her astonishing virtuosity.
"What about the Master?" he asked. "Does he get angry when the men do those things to her. To the Mistress?"
Pamela's fingers stopped their intimate touring of Chuck's crotch.
"He doesn't come here very often. He has to look after his servants in the other house. A very big house."
"Where's that, Pamela?"
The girl shrugged.
"I'm not sure. It's not far. You can see the top of it from my window. It has letters on it and they shine at night."
Chuck pulled her tight against him. He stroked her hair and caressed her shoulder. Reassuringly he asked her softly, "The letters, Pamela. What do they say?"
"Oh, nothing much. Sometimes they tell you what time it is, and about the weather. And about people and the war."
Chuck tried to remember how many Manhattan skyscrapers carried illuminated news and weather signals. There was one on Times Square and another on Madison-on top of the building where Vanessa Hazard worked.
Vanessa Hazard. It was strange how her name kept cropping up. Would the name mean anything to Pamela? He was tempted to find out but thought better of it. Instead he guided the girl back to the subject of the Master.
"You were telling me about him," he prodded her, using the term that seemed to fit the girl's own speech pattern.
Surprisingly, she laughed a little.
"He's small. Like you are now," she whispered, giving Chuck's shrunken penis a playful flick with her fingertip.
"It's not always big, you know."
"His is always small."
"Does he know what the men do to the Mistress?"
"Oh, yes."
"He does? Does he watch, too?" Pamela's body trembled with indignation.
"Of course not!" Her voice lapsed into its recitation rhythm again. "He is outraged by the wanton behavior of those scoundrels."
"I see. And does he watch when you whip men?"
"No. Never."
"Why not, Pamela?"
"The punishments are a necessary evil, he says. What must be done must be done. But he doesn't want to see me do it."
"What does he do when you whip the men?"
"He waits in the next room."
"And afterwards? What happens afterwards, Pamela?"
"I go into his room and tell him all about it."
"And then what happens?"
"I show him what the men did to her."
"How can you do that, Pamela? Do you have men in there when you talk to the Master?"
"Of course not. He puts things inside me."
"Things? His thing?" Pamela laughed.
"Of course not, silly. He's very small. He puts other things inside me. Big pink things that look like men. They feel nice."
"And you don't mind it when he does things like that?"
"Of course not, silly. It's a woman's lot to have men put things inside her.
Chuck squinted at her. Was she putting him on? Her face radiated innocence. There was not any trace of duplicity, nor of the coarse harshness that had radiated from her when she had been ordering him and Zoe about less than an house before. The word "schizoid" appeared in a comer of his mind.
"But it's wrong when the men put things inside the Mistress?" he suggested.
"They aren't gentlemen!" she replied simply. "A gentleman may have his way with a maid.
Ladies cannot tolerate the advances of servants."
Chuck sighed heavily. In her insane way this girl was a whole society in microcosm. Every variety of class prejudice and social rationalization flowed blandly from her lips. He smiled ironically. "Tell me, Pamela. Am I a gentleman?"
It was a mistake.
The question shocked her back to alien reality. She pulled away from him and stared at him with horror stricken eyes.
"You vile beast!" she cried. "Get on with your work." Her voice rose to a scream. "She'll have you whipped for this, just you wait and see!"
Chuck stared open mouthed at the girl's sudden transformation, watched her gather up her long dress and scamper across the stone floor and up the wooden staircase.
When her footsteps had died away he hurried over to the door in the comer and tried the handle. The door was locked. He called her name and rapped his knuckles against the solid oak. There was no answer.
"Why aren't you working?"
He jumped. Mrs. Davenport's voice floated across the cellar with a cool arrogance that made him tense with anger despite his knowledge that the two of them were merely actors in a carefully contrived melodrama.
She was standing at the foot of the stairs. The flickering gaslight sent voluptuous shimmers along the folds of her green silk gown.
"Come here!" she ordered him.
He glanced at the locked door by his side.
"What about ... "
Mrs. Davenport smiled dangerously.
"If you care for her at all," she said evenly, "I suggest you do as you're told." The smile vanished. "I said come here!"
CHAPTER NINE
Zoe pulled the coarse blue dress over her head and stepped gingerly into the quaint metal tub. Pamela had watched her fill her half a dozen jugs with hot water and empty them into the antique bath that stood in the middle of the room. The girl had handed her a bar of strong-smelling soap that looked as though it had been cut from a larger block. If they made soap in this fashion any more, Zoe was unaware of it.
She had tried to talk to the dark-haired maid but the girl had maintained an unbroken flow of sullen orders and abuse. Now, as Zoe squatted in the tin bath she found herself wondering why the maid's persistent unpleasantnesses had actually upset her very little. It was, Zoe began to realize, as if the girl's posture was more of an obligation than the expression of any feelings of her own.
Was it an act? Zoe tried to accept the idea that it was but the maid's manner did not fit the image of an actress. Her movements, her diction, her generally erratic behavior could not have been assumed.
Nor, on the other hand, did her rudeness seem to be genuine. For reasons that Zoe could not explain she felt sure that the girl bore her no real malice. As she rinsed soap off her breasts with the small washcloth that Pamela had tossed to her, she suddenly caught her breath.
The maid was insane.
Of course. There could be no other explanation. Thinking back it occurred to Zoe that the girl seemed to know of no other life than the one she was living so strangely in this strange household. A mad girl working as a maid for a mad mistress. What could be more natural? Zoe smiled ironically at the bizarre propriety of the arrangement.
That Mrs. Davenport was mad she no longer doubted for an instant. The ludicrous scene with Chuck, herself and Pamela was so divorced from reality that Zoe shivered in her hot tub at the memory. She wondered what had happened after Pamela had taken her out of Mrs. Davenport's drawing room and into this equally old-fashioned bedroom with its hand-embroidered Victorian curtains and antique floral wallpaper. Was it Mrs. Davenport's eccentric little whim to "engage in dalliance with the hired help"? Already Zoe was beginning to think in the genteel language of the outmoded past.
It was surprisingly easy, she thought as her wandering eye encountered a porcelain chamber pot under the high brass bed. The glazed pattern matched the water jug she had used for filling the tub; on the marble-topped rosewood dressing table stood the third member of the set, a shallow wash basin with a scalloped edge. Zoe had a fondness for antiques and her collector's intuition told her that these pieces were both genuine and costly.
"Even the soap belongs to the past," she said to herself and looked around the room in search of even the smallest of clues to the present. She found none.
For the first time since arriving in the old brownstone Zoe began to feel frightened. The antique setting was just too perfect. She remembered the old newspaper in the shabby room under the staircase. An old newspaper, dated 1869-and yet it had not looked old. It had lain there, fresh and crisply folded as though it had been delivered only this morning. And Pamela's cigarettes from the old-fashioned packet. They, too, had looked and tasted perfectly fresh though they had not tasted like any cigarette that Zoe had ever tasted before. Where on earth did the Davenports manage to find century-old newspapers, cigarettes, wallpapers and other period items-all in brand-new condition?
Zoe leaned back against the high, sloping edge of the metal tub and pondered the question. As she did so she wondered for a fleeting instant if she really was living in 1869. Was she the mad inhabitant of this house? The only member of the household who imagined herself living in another age? Closing her eyes and inhaling the harsh chemical odors of the coarse pink soap she felt her head reel and her body relax into a floating listlessness....
"Cleanliness is next to Godliness!"
Zoe sat up with a startled cry and crossed her arms over her breasts. A tall, bearded man was watching her from the doorway. He wore a dark suit of a herringbone tweed, brown boots with pointed toes. Across his vest hung a thick, gold chain; his white, stiff collar rose high, disappearing under the ginger, square-trimmed beard. The eyes were brown and set wide under a broad high forehead that was unusually smooth for a grown man. The only visible line was an S-shaped scar running vertically from his right eyebrow to the fringes of his reddish brown hair which he wore parted in the middle and slicked back with brilliantine. As he strolled unconcernedly over to the tub, Zoe could smell the sweetish scent of lilac.
"Cleanliness is next to Godliness," he repeated, pulling up a chair and sitting down beside the tub. Zoe sat hunched up and stared at him, too startled to speak.
"So you're the new girl, eh? Well, it's no good being nervous, you know! Just do your work properly and everything will go well with you."
His voice was warmly pleasant with just a trace of pedantry. It made Zoe think of schoolmasters in movies about old English schools. He took a towel off the bed and handed it to her.
"Dry yourself, my dear. You'll wrinkle like a prune if you sit too long in the tub, you know."
Zoe coyly extended a few fingers and took the towel.
"Thank you, Mr...."
But the man was not about to reveal his name.
"You might as well just say 'sir' when you speak to me," He suggested offhandedly. "That's what all the others do."
"All the others-sir?" Zoe's detective instincts were coming to her rescue and she began to find her confidence returning.
"Out of that tub now!" said the man, ignoring her attempt to question him. "Stand up so I can get a good look at you!"
Zoe shrugged inwardly. "It's all in a day's work," she assured herself, and holding the towel adroitly in front of her she rose to her feet. The man watched indifferently as she tried to dry herself without revealing any intimate views.
His laugh was pleasant enough.
"You girls are all the same! Shy as blushing brides when you first arrive." He stood up. "Don't worry, my dear. You'll soon get over it. No harm will come to you in this house. Not as long as you do as you're told."
Zoe gave him a quick look. This was the first hint of a threat.
"What will I have to do?" She asked nervously.
He smiled but Zoe noticed that his eyes had hardened a little.
"Well, you can remember to say 'sir,' for a start." His eyes softened again. "That's not too difficult for you to remember, is it?" Without waiting for her to reply he picked up the blue dress and handed it to her. Gratefully she took it from him and slipped it quickly over her head. He had walked over to the window. Standing With his back to her he said, "You've been interviewed by my wife, of course?"
"Yes, sir."
The man was silent for a few moments. Zoe looked around for a comb and found one on the dressing table, an amber-colored affair with a mother-of-pearl handle. She ran it through her hair.
"You didn't displease her, I hope?"
He was watching her in the mirror.
"No, sir. That is...."
The man stepped closer. She could feel his warmth.
"Tell me what happened," he insisted gently.
Zoe told him about Mrs. Davenport's anger at seeing makeup on her face. The man shook his head sadly.
"Tsk, tsk!" He patted Zoe on the shoulder. "An inauspicious beginning, I'm afraid. My wife is very strict about such matters. Very strick indeed."
"But I wasn't to know that, was I?" complained Zoe, falling into her role of ignorant servant girl with an ease that took her by surprise.
"No, my dear. But I'm afraid that ignorance of the law is no defense. Not in my wife's court." He lowered his voice confidentially. "She's rather old-fashioned, you know."
"Oh?"
The man nodded solemnly. "Yes. She believes in corporal punishment." Zoe didn't know whether to laugh or feel afraid. She felt the man's eyes on her. Turning she saw that he was looking at her with mingled curiosity and compassion.
"She'll have you punished, of course," he said. "I dare say she told you that."
Zoe made a noncommittal sound. The man stroked his beard thoughtfully and looked her up and down.
"But then, you're accustomed to the whip, aren't you my dear?"
An icy trickle of apprehension ran down Zoe's spine. Was this man's tacit assumption a part of the act-or did he know something about her past? Not daring to meet his eyes she asked, "What makes you say that-sir?"
"Come, come, my dear. Girls in your situation are used to being punished. Otherwise you wouldn't be here, would you?" When Zoe stared blankly at him he added, "You don't imagine we take on girls without checking them out first?"
Evading the question, Zoe asked, "If you don't approve of these punishments why do you recruit girls who have-who you think have experienced them?"
"Isn't it better that way, my dear? After all, the management of the household is in my wife's hands. And since it is in her nature to be strict, why bring in girls who are unused to being punished for their misdeeds?" The bearded man smiled reasonably; his eyes challenged Zoe to refute the logic of his argument.
"You could put a stop to it all if you wanted to," she insisted stubbornly.
He shook his head sadly.
"No, my dear. That would be like asking a president to stop a cruel war. He might want to do so, but...." The man shrugged philosophically. "But issues are never quite that simple, are they? Consider your own presence here in this house.
You did not have to come here, did you? You could have stayed away. And yet you came. You came because it was your destiny to come here. Had the fates wished it otherwise you would have done something else. And had the fates ordained other things for my wife, well, perhaps none of us would be here...." His voice trailed off and Zoe became aware of his hand moving gently up her thigh.
She glanced pointedly at the rising hem of her dress.
"And is this part of my destiny, too?"
"You're here, aren't you?" he countered simply. "So?"
"Then our destinies are entwined, aren't they?"
Intrigued in spite of herself Zoe could not help trying to provoke him a little further. With a coquettish smile she asked, "And your destiny? What is your destiny-sir?"
His hand had travelled to the vee of her thighs; fingers moved with almost feminine delicacy amid the strands of her pubic hair.
"There is no need to be sarcastic, my dear," he said softly, his fingers never ceasing in their gentle exploration. "My destiny?" He sighed. "My destiny is to be impotent."
"Oh!"
The man's candor disarmed Zoe utterly. She heard herself ask, "Then why are you...." She gestured with her hand in the direction of the bulge in her dress.
"I still have my needs," the man explained. "My urges are the same as always. And, of course, I have my memories."
"That's not much to go on," Zoe retorted cuttingly.
The man jabbed his thumb into her vagina, making her gasp. "And you," he said harshly. "You have your special urges, too. And your memories of strange practices that you're ashamed to admit, even to me."
Zoe flushed brightly.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" she said angrily. "And please stop touching me like that!"
She tried to pull away the man's hand but he rammed his thumb hard into her. With his free hand he grabbed her shoulder and flung her across the bed.
"It's easier if you don't struggle," he advised her calmly. He had obviously done this kind of thing many times, Zoe thought. She let her body go limp. Better to let him get it over with. As he had pointed out, no harm could come to her. Not with an impotent old man.
Still holding her impaled on his thumb he reached over her head and opened the top drawer of the dressing table. Zoe saw him take out a large pinkish object. She blinked, surprised. Only once before had she seen such a thing. She remembered the massive dildo that Paul and Dianne had used.
This one was much larger. She began to struggle.
"No! No! Not that, please."
"Don't be frightened, my dear." The man had withdrawn his thumb and was directing the oversized phallus between the small, inner lips of her sex. "It only hurts a little at the beginning," he whispered. She felt the tip, blunt and distressingly cold, bulge against her vaginal opening. Pain welled up inside her.
"Oh, no!" She heard her own scream as though from a great distance. Then a burst of flame streaked through her pelvis as the man thrust hard on the dildo. The next moment he had it into her, its knob past the sphincter of her vagina and the foot-long thick shaft sliding in, in and still further in until she felt the tip nuzzling her cervix.
Hate for the man raged through her as she struggled desperately to free herself. She was screaming now, and tears streamed down her cheeks. Her hands searched for his face, nails poised to scratch his eyes out.
Not for several minutes did she notice that the enormous dildo was being pumped up and down her vagina with a steady, sensual rhythm, and lubricated with an ever-increasing flow of her juices.
"It's no longer hurting," she realized. With a shock she also realized that she was enjoying the sensation. Her cries subsided to a soft whimper. When the man's beard brushed her cheeks and chin and his tongue slid soft and wet across her lips she opened them and received his tongue against her own.
Her pelvis began to swing in rhythm with the tempo of the dildo as she felt the first distinct signals of her impending orgasm. Her fingers wandered to her clitoris sending wild currents down her thighs. When the man reached once more into the drawer she was only vaguely aware of what he was doing. Still pumping her with the dildo he eased her onto her side. She caught a brief glimpse of another pink shaft, then felt a soft fingertip probing in the region of her anus.
A cool faintly scented cream was being rubbed against her anal cleft.
"What are you doing?" she cried.
"Relax, my dear," the man urged her.
A rubbery hard knob pressed against her anal sphincter. It was cold and slippery. "He's putting something inside me," she thought, then groaned as the dildo in her vagina quickened its rhythm, bringing her to the very edge of climax. She groaned loudly and was scarcely aware of the sudden thrust at her anal opening. The dildo in her front passage had stopped its pumping.
"Don't stop," she cried. Then, "Stop, stop, stop. For God's sake stop!" she screamed as the man rammed the second dildo up her backside.
The man resumed his movements with the vaginal dildo, and simultaneously continued to insert the other one into her rectum. Zoe wriggled and moaned. "Stop. No, don't stop. Please. Oh, God, you're torturing me...."
And then she was once again free from pain. Her orgasm was approaching fast. The man released his hold on the anal dildo and quickly unbuttoned his fly. Zoe watched through half closed eyes as he withdrew a small but fully erect penis. When he lay across the bed with his little organ aimed at her mouth Zoe understood immediately how this encounter was going to end. Even as his hands returned to the dildoes she thrust her head forward and took his member in her mouth.
"Beautiful!" the man murmured. "Beautiful. There's nothing more beautiful on earth than the sight of woman with all her openings filled."
He began to pump both her apertures with increasing speed and force, and thrusting his penis in and out of her mouth.
"All her openings filled," he cried happily and climaxed in a thin but unmistakable male stream. Zoe felt the dildoes as giant penises and suddenly her body was swamped by tremors.
She had climaxed with such force that she fell back exhausted and did not even noticed the bearded man slide off the bed and steal softly from the room.
CHAPTER TEN
Vanessa Hazard stepped glistening from under the shower and wrapped herself in a scarlet bath towel that contrasted exotically with her ivory skin and ebony black hair. She padded softly from her carpeted bathroom to her bedroom, her toes curling luxuriously against the long white stands of the imported rug that had cost her more money than she cared to think about.
She turned up the air conditioning and, letting the towel fall to the floor, she turned languorously in this direction and that, letting the cool air dry her perfect body while she admired herself in the mirror. Her eyes wandered to the gold carriage clock on her dressing table. A quarter of eight.
That gave her fifteen minutes in which to dress. She opened a crystal powder bowl and puffed fine scented whiteness on her breasts, her flat stomach, against her inner thighs and finally sprinkled her black pubic triangle so that it looked like a frosted candy. Smoothing the patches of white powder with her fingertips until her skin turned to satin she pondered what to wear.
She looked out of the window and up at the deep purple Manhattan sky. There were a few stars, enough to suggest a warm, dry evening. She was about to turn away when she noticed a shadow moving in the dimly lighted apartment across the street. So he was at it again! With an air of assumed nonchalance Vanessa stretched voluptuously and stared up at the sky again. Then, scratching idly at her black triangle, she wandered over to the clothes closet. She reached into a small plastic bag and took out her diaphragm.
Returning to the middle of the room she squatted on the white rug in full view of the curious eyes lurking across the street.
"Let him look all he wants," she said to herself. "He'll never get any closer than he is now."
She knew all about the Peeping Tom. One night, many months ago, she had sneaked behind the curtains and inspected his apartment through a pair of binoculars; seen the voyeur clearly enough to recognize the bald head and small, cupid bow mouth of Elmer Carraway. Far from being angry, Vanessa had been delighted to discover that her curious neighbor was the man who stood between the chairman of the board of The Weekly and its enormous staff. Parker Treadway was notoriously difficult to reach; the publishing tycoon was incredibly well informed about the details of his sprawling empire, thanks in large part to the inquisitiveness of his detail-minded confidential secretary, Elmer Carraway, who also protected the chairman from the curiosity of others.
When Vanessa found out that Elmer Carraway was spying on her she decided to throw a party. Her guests, mostly fellow editors, were surprised to see Elmer arrive. He had never been known to attend a gathering that had been organized at any level lower than the board of directors. But Vanessa had felt certain that the voyeur would have been unable to resist the temptation to explore the stage of his daily drama at close quarters.
"You have a delightful apartment," he had observed, his eyes darting around as he tried to reconstruct the patterns of her domestic life.
"Thank you," Vanessa had replied modestly. "But I've been thinking of having the whole place redone, you know!"
"Oh?"
She had led him to her bedroom. His own apartment waited darkly across the street. "This room, for instance," Vanessa said offhandedly. "It would make a marvelous study, don't you think?"
"Well, I suppose so ... But where do you sleep?"
"In here," she had responded brightly and taken him into a tiny bedroom at the other end of the apartment. The window over looked the blank facade of the neighboring apartment house.
"Rather small, isn't it?" he had commented.
"It is ... you're quite right. But after all, I would only use it for sleeping ... and changing."
"Of course. But the lighting ... isn't it a little, well, unsparkling, if you know what I mean?"
"Mm. The other room is brighter...."
"Yes. And more spacious! One does need room to ... to move about, don't you think?"
"I think you've persuaded me ... Maybe I should think about it some more ... perhaps we could discuss it again some time?"
"I'd be happy to. Between you and me, I've always been interested in interior designs...."
"You know, I always suspected that."
"Really? How on earth...."
"Your office ... Mr. Treadway's ... Well, it is an open secret that you had ... well, something to do with their design."
Her arch-flattery had obviously struck home.
"Between you and me," he whispered in a coyly conspiratorial manner, "I did have-shall we say?-a little influence on The Suite."
That was the common name for the penthouse eyrie reserved for Parker Treadway and his secretary-assistant. Even the president of The Weekly had to have a proposal worthy of the chairman's attention to get past Elmer Carraway.
Elmer was saying, "You see, Vanessa, the secret is lighting!"
She had been reading the man with an ease that was almost clairvoyant. Leading him back to her bedroom she had asked, "And what would you suggest for this room?"
He had had the answer on the tip of his tongue, that much she had sensed immediately. But her expression had remained innocently awed while he pretended to deliberate with great care. "In The Suite," he announced at last, "we have used spots to very good effect."
"Oh? What a wonderful idea."
"This area, for instance," Elmer had said judiciously, pointing to the circular white rug in the center of her bedroom. "This area would be infinitely more dramatic and at the same time more subtly feminine ... with a spotlight."
"And," Vanessa had thought, "a thousand times more visible from across the street." Aloud she said wonderingly, "A spotlight? I thought they only used those on stages."
"No, no, no! They have special wall fixtures and ... "
"I can't seem to visualize...."
"I'll tell you what. Come up to The Suite ... let me see....tomorrow at ten?"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Thus had Vanessa achieved an ambition that had smoldered like a fire in her soul. She had heard rumors, they amounted to no more than that, of "bizzarre tastes" on the part of the multimillionaire chairman of The Weekly. Vanessa was convinced that her only hope of high-level promotion was to "reach" Parker Treadway. And there was, of course, no hope of her doing so through regular channels. She had already come as far as a woman could come up the ladder of Treadway's organization. There had never been a woman on the board of directors, nor had one ever been made a vice-president.
Her first visit to The Suite had been unfruitful. She had been shown an array of Ugh ting systems but had failed to discover any clues to chairman's personal habits. She would have to come back again; sooner or later she was bound to hear a confidential word, see a piece of paper, and be on a good trail.
So she had installed spotlights in her bedroom and dressed and undressed always with her concealed spectator in mind. By a series of adroit approaches she had managed to involve Elmer in more and more of her private affairs. Did he like the color scheme in her bedroom? He had been happy to suggest a combination of tints that she had suspected (and later confirmed) were inspired more by the technicalities of photography than by Elmer's concern for the esthetics of interior decoration. For Vanessa had quickly discovered that he was aiming a telephoto lens at her brilliantly illuminated circular stage of white bearskin.
That he was also very happy to have her come up to The Suite was obvious, and for a reason that became clear to her the second time she had visited him. He had organized the furniture in such a way that no matter which way she turned there was always a light shining from behind her. When she was not being illuminated from the back by the sunlight from the windows artfully arranged lamps on low tables turned her skirts to glass. From that time on Vanessa always removed her slip before riding up to the penthouse; sometimes she also took off her panties. Soon he was calling her on pretexts that became more and more contrived. She picked up a few "Penthouse dresses" as she called them; simple sheaths that looked almost conservative to the casual eye, but which she knew to be near-transparent when suitably illuminated.
She was never at a loss for topics that would interest him. On one occasion she had asked his advice about reducing. Did he believe in exercises? He certainly did. He had given her a book, profusely illustrated with photographs of a girl performing a variety of acrobatics on the floor and with the aid of a chair. The model had of course worn tights; Vanessa decided to do her own exercising in the nude. Her figure had in fact benefited, especially after she had taken to wearing a clear plastic sweat suit for an hour or two before her Sunday morning bout of exercise. Asking his advice about that suit had been particularly helpful; from his air of supressed excitement she had realized at once that she had touched a responsive chord in his inventory of fetishes. Vanessa resolved to learn more about them.
A chance discovery provided her with the means to do so. She had been hurrying along Sixth Avenue on her way to The Weekly building when she noticed a familiar figure at a comer newsstand.
Coming closer she had been in time to see Elmer Carraway slipping a pink-colored tabloid into his brief case. Vanessa had waited for him to stride up the crowded avenue, then purchased a copy for herself.
After a careful study of the hundreds of sex-oriented ads she had composed the bait: EXCEPTIONALLY BROAD MINDED LADY, 32 , AND CONSIDERED ATTRACTIVE, WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM MEN INTERESTED IN VOYEURISM AND LONG DISTANCE PHOTOGRAPHY. HAS INTERESTING PICTURES FOR EXCHANGE.
She had, of course, no pictures of herself, nor any intention of having them made. She had, however, seen numerous advertisements offering photographs of girls in all stages of undress. Vanessa had written away for prints, enclosing money orders, and using an accommodation address.
Her own advertisement had brought a small avalanche of replies. Some were so obscene that she had blushed as she read them in the privacy of her living room Several correspondents asked her to check into certain hotels-they even specified the room numbers-at specified times. Presumably the writers and offices, apartments or hotel rooms of their own that overlooked the suggested rendezvous. Did these extraordinary really imagine that she would take a hotel room and undress in front of the open window, knowing that she was being observed? Would any woman want to do such a peculiar thing? One respondent evidently shared her doubts; his letter had included a fifty-dollar bill and the promise of another immediately after she had stripped in room 609 of the Hotel Polk, positioned herself on the bed with her legs facing the window, and masturbated for ten minutes....
Vanessa had not known whether to laugh or be outraged. The fifty dollars had helped. The contributor had written, " ... and I am therefore sending this advance in good faith, knowing that you will not wish to keep it if, for any reason, you are unable to go to the hotel...."
Well, if he was fool enough to expect his money back ... Vanessa opened the rest of the envelopes that she had picked up at the West Side cigar store that functioned as a mail drop for readers of the National Swinger's pink pages. Elmer Carraway had not responded.
Vanessa had shrugged, reminding herself that it had been a long shot, anyway. Nevertheless, she had let the advertisement run for two more weeks, and continued to pick up her mail under the speculative eyes of the sallow-faced proprietor of "Rosen's Cigars, Candies, Books & Periodicals" ... and, according to the hand-lettered sign above the display of tabloids, "Adult Magazines Ask at Counter."
One Friday evening there had been a package among the letters. Vanessa had recognized Elmer's spidery print at once. Back in her apartment she had ripped open the rectangular parcel.
He had, according to his lengthy typewritten letter, " ... taken the liberty of purchasing for you the enclosed pair of rubber panties since this type of indisputably superior slimming device is not readily obtainable in ordinary stores...."He hoped that she would give them a trial and let him know how it felt to wear them. For best results, he had explained, it was necessary to wear them all day, and preferably for twenty-four hours at a time. "They are, admittedly, a trifle noisy, producing a sound not unlike that of stiff tafetta petticoats ... If, however, you wear them underneath your regular panties, you will find that the sound of the rubber will be somewhat diminished ... "
He would greatly appreciate a photograph of herself wearing the beige-colored rubber panties, preferably while also wearing high-heeled shoes.
Enclosed with the panties was a leather strap, " ... to improve your circulation...."He had gone on to explain that ideally a friend should apply the "instrument" to her buttocks and thighs, but if she did not know anyone well enough to "participate in so intimate a treatment, then self-administration would be perfectly in order."
Would she please write a "detailed" account of her experiences with the panties and the strap? He had sighed himself "Edward Carter"-Vanessa noted the use of initials belonging to his real name-and when she had checked the address on Third Avenue she had found a little comer store similar to Rosen's Cigars....
She had let two weeks elapse. Then, one Monday morning she had pulled on the rubber panties-they were really bloomers-and gone to visit Elmer in The Suite. She had needed only the briefest, secret glance at him to see that he had picked up the sound of her rubber underwear. He was self-evidently excited and not, she saw at once, in the least suspicious.
"You're looking well, Vanessa," he had said with a carefully polite smile, his smooth cheeks a shade pinker than usual.
"I feel marvelous," she had replied. "I found the most wonderful book on reducing techniques-and would you believe, they really work?"
He had been unable to restrain his curiosity. "Do tell me, Vanessa! What are these techniques?"
But she had merely given him an enigmatic smile and shaken her head. "Ah, Mr. Carraway, feminine secrets, I'm afraid. Feminine secrets!"
That evening she had paraded for him in her bedroom in her bloomers while still wearing her garter belt, stockings and high-heeled shoes.
Before going to bed she had faced the window and slowly pulled down the panties. Her lower half glistening with sweat, she had performed the most revealing of her reducing exercises, lingering an extra-long time over the one that called for lying on one side and raising her extended leg high in the air. It was a movement that never failed to open her sex wide like an enormous, bewhiskered, hungry mouth.
The next morning he had nearly given himself away.
"Why aren't you...." he had begun, then hastily corrected himself. "How are the new techniques going?"
He had noticed, of course, that she was not wearing the rubber panties. The only sounds from under her dress were the faintest of hisses when her nyloned thighs scissored as she walked or crossed her legs.
"They're going fine," she had told him, adding, "But I have to be careful. Maybe my circulation isn't too good." She had run her palms over her hips and down her thighs. "I get little chills...."
"Ah! You need to stimulate the circulation!"
"But how? By exercise?"
"That helps a little ... but the best way is to do what they do to newborn babies...."
"A few slaps?" she had asked innocently.
He had looked relieved to find her catching on so quickly. "Yes, a few slaps. Actually, as many as possible, and as hard as you can stand them."
It had required all of her will power to maintain her mask of naive innocence. She knew well that Elmer Carraway was both shrewd and sophisticated and not at all an easy man to fool. Otherwise Parker Treadway would not have hired him to screen the highly articulate and plausible-sounding schemes of The Weekly's top brass. "But," thought Vanessa, "when it comes to a man's sexual foibles he somehow suspends his critical faculties and gets to believe whatever he would like to believe." It had occurred to her that Elmer Carraway, who lived so close to power, had never risen above the level of confidential secretary for perhaps just that reason: however acute and critical he could be on someone else's account he became startlingly gullible when it came to handling his own affairs.
That evening she had stripped and slapped herself with the flat of her hand. No wonder Elmer sent his would be correspondents heavy leather straps! Trying to spank oneself was strenuous and not particularly effective. The following night she had put on her display using a little belt from one of her dresses. Later, in the privacy of her living room, she had painted the leather strap with bright red nail polish. She would use his "instrument," provided there was no risk of his recognizing it.
It had proved to be quite painful. Even moderately hard blows had produced livid blushes on her thighs and, as she had seen when she twisted to inspect herself in the mirror, on her buttocks. Elmer Carraway had been right about one thing: The "instrument" did improve the circulation. Her skin had tingled for the rest of the evening.
A few days later she had composed a long letter to "Mr. Edward Carter."
My dear Mr. Carter, Thank you so much for your letter and your interesting gifts. I really do believe that the panties have helped me to lose at least three pounds in just under one week, and by frequent applications of your very effective instrument I have greatly benefited my circulation.
I am sending you a picture of myself; I would be most interested to see what other women look like while "training" as you put it.
By the way, wearing the special panties and using the instrument tend to give me sensations that have nothing to do with reducing. Is this usual?
Please write soon.
Yours truly (Daphna Rutherford)
Vanessa had flown to Miami to mail the letter, and enclosed a not-too-clear photograph of an English girl posing in rubber bloomers, black stockings and heels. It was a long way to travel just to mail a letter but she had no intention of encouraging a match between Elmer Carraway and "Daphna Rutherford." Vanessa had had entirely different plans.
Elmer had replied promptly. When she opened the bulky envelope she had found a long letter folded neatly around a bunch of color photos. It had taken her a full twenty minutes and two stiff drinks to regain her poise and look once more at the shatteringly clear record of her acrobatic exercises, promenades in rubber bloomers and contortions with the strap. Elmer Carraway, she had admitted ruefully, could have made a good living as a photographer. Vanessa knew enough about picture-taking to appreciate the difficulty of obtaining clear prints under awkward conditions. Yet despite the distance and the artificial lighting in her room, the photographs vibrated with realistic detail. Every curve, dimple and smallest freckle on her body had been faithfully repeated and the views of her private parts would have done justice to a textbook of gynecology; she could even recognize the clitoris and its small arch of pink folds glowing in the recess formed by her darker, hairy outer labia. "That," she said to herself, thinking of the piles of photographs that her money orders had brought her, "That is what they all want to see!" A woman will look at a man once-is he large or small?-and her curiosity is satisfied. Men, apparently, need to go on looking, and looking, and looking....
Was that all Elmer Carraway wanted? To look? She would have to inspire him to take the initiative.
My Dear Mr. Carter, Thank you for your wonderful letter and the fascinating pictures. What a very attractive model you have! She obviously takes her "training" very seriously, or as seriously as anyone can-alone. Seeing her try to use the instrument I can appreciate how she must have felt! It is practically impossible to do things like that to oneself, you know. A partner is a virtual necessity I am beginning to realize.
You say you know this lovely person. Surely it would be possible for you to establish a more intimate relationship with her. She is obviously very sensual-well, just look at the way she does her exercises, and the aware smile on her face. No woman prefers to explore her sensual life entirely on her own. I can assure you that females invariably need a partner for such things. Then again, doesn't the same apply to you?
You asked me to relate some of my experiences. There is one that might be highly relevant to your own situation. The photo that I sent you was taken by a neighbor-without my knowledge, needless to say. I had vaguely suspected that someone across the way was peeking at me and one part of me would urge me to draw the blinds; another part (the little exhibitionist side that all women have lurking in them) led me to dress and undress regardless of who might be watching me.
Then a letter arrived. It was a very polite letter though it was also terribly frank. The watcher said that he was very excited by me and would I please meet him? With the letter was a photograph-the one I sent to you. Let's face it; if I had been so afraid of people seeing me I would not have left the window exposed all the time. Anyway I did show up at the place he suggested. I had no idea what the man looked like, and he hadn't signed his letter. I guess he was afraid to take such chances and I can't say I altogether blamed him. But when I arrived at the meeting place he came up to me and I knew him right away. A man I had seen from time to time in the local supermarket, and once or twice at parties in the neighborhood.
We wound up having an affair-not a love affair, or anything with entanglements-and he taught me a great many fascinating things.
Speaking as a woman I would strongly recommend that you approach the attractive young lady by sending her a perfectly straightforward letter. Don't beat about the bush? women simply don't appreciate that one bit, no matter what men may believe to the contrary. Tell her exactly what you would like the two of you to do together, and for heaven's sake tell her in plain English. Most girls aren't familiar with all the double meanings and little key phrases that men use, and this girl is probably no exception. If your letter is in the least bit vague she is much more likely to become frightened than interested.
As for the meeting, why not suggest a place that both of you know? A cocktail lounge, for instance, in which it would be perfectly plausible for you to bump into one another quite by chance. That way you need not commit yourself unless she responds favorably to your cues and hints.
Do try! Reading between the lines of your lovely letter I can tell how anxious you are to meet this girl who is so obviously "made for you." After all, she is already doing so many of the things that you and I have explored and talked about. Right?
I am keeping my fingers crossed for you!
Affectionately, (Daphna)
"If that hard sell doesn't move him, nothing will!" Vanessa decided. At the weekend she had flown to Miami and mailed the bait that would lure Elmer Carraway into her perfumed trap.
CHAPTER TWELVE
He must have fallen into it at once. She had mailed her suggestions late Friday night; his were waiting for her at Rosen's Cigars when she came in on Tuesday evening. The following morning she had gone to Grand Central and made two copies of his letter on one of the coin-operated photocopiers in the Grand Concourse. She had left the station, walked over to Fifth Avenue and into her bank. With the original letter and one copy safely tucked away in her safety deposit box, she had continued up the Avenue to Saks and bought a couple of pairs of sheer black nylons. She rarely wore black stockings but Elmer's letter had been most explicit on this point. They were to be part of her outfit when they met at the Riviera Lounge on East 55th. Vanessa bought one pair in her own size, and another in size 11, tall. He had not told her why he wanted her to do this; presumably he intended to wear them himself.
From the stocking counter she had gone to the lingerie and girdle department for something to nip in her waist. " ... as tight as you can possibly bear it...." he had written. And it had to be black. Vanessa had rummaged among the stacks of underthings and found just the thing he probably had in mind. An hourglass-shaped affair with long, ruffled satin garters. A salesgirl floated over to her side and peered critically at Vanessa's waist. "Perhaps a size bigger, madam?"
"No. I'll take this one," Vanessa said curtly, adding, "It's for a friend." The salesgirl shrugged with ill-concealed disbelief and wandered off to wrap the black waist cinch. "Damm him," Vanessa muttered. "He's going to regret the day he put me in this ridiculous situation...."
Meanwhile there had been more of his demands to meet. She was to wear tight-fitting white pettipants. White! With black stockings, black shoes and black dress? Black pants were the logical choice-but white ones would show up every time she moved her legs. To make certain he had prescribed pettypants with lace around the legs. Vanessa had visualized herself as other women would see her in such an inappropriate combination, and flushed with irritation.
What else did he want?
She had taken out the copy of his letter. She was to wear a snake bracelet. " ... the kind that winds round the upper arm...." he had explained, and added helpfully, "Best's have an inexpensive version of just the kind I mean...."
"Inexpensive" had meant thirty dollars and change. But then, Elmer knew how much she was earning. He was no doubt also aware that she had charge accounts at Best's, Saks and other stores. Information of that kind was probably in her employee file. She had watched the clerk wrap the exotic arm bracelet and was on the point of charging it when she changed her mind. Why leave a record of her compliance? She had paid cash and gone in search of the perfume Elmer wanted her to wear.
She had gold hoop earrings at home, there had been no need to buy a pair of those. Running a hand through her long, black hair she decided against going to the hairdresser. The long, flowing look that Elmer had described could be achieved with a comb in two seconds. Vanessa, an hour late for work, headed for The Weekly building and began to rehearse in her mind the proper moves for her date with Elmer the following day.
She would have to be extremely careful. She must not, for instance, use phrases or words that she had learned from his letters to "Daphna Rutherford." Oh yes, and she would have to throw away that strap. Even with the nail polish he would be sure to recognize it. If he asked whether she owned a strap, as he might, having seen her use it, she would tell him that ... yes, that it was too awkward for her to use, so she had tossed it out.
And then, as these thoughts passed through her mind, another emerged. The barest hint of an intuition to begin with, it grew clearer until it dawned on her that Elmer might not want to use the strap on her at all. Late as she was, she had stopped in at Schrafft's, and over a coffee at a secluded table, reread his letter. Behind the detailed explicitness of his instructions Vanessa now detected an unmistakable tone of humility. While he had not described his desires as candidly as "Daphna" had urged him to he had let fall any number of clues. "Madam: Please allow me to respectfully submit the following message...."
He had ended with, "Your humble servant." Vanessa had recollected some of her own esoteric adventures and kicked herself for being too obtuse to recognize the signs that were now suddenly apparent in Elmer Carraway.
He would want her to beat him. She had cheered up at the thought. It would be a pleasure to make him suffer a little-why not a lot?-for the endless trouble she had been put to.
Early the next morning she had made two telephone calls. One to her secretary to explain that she would not be coming in to the office. The second call put her in touch with a freelance photographer. She had listened to him for twenty minutes, making copious notes on the scratch pad that she kept on her bedside table. Then she had dressed and left her apartment.
When she returned she had unwrapped her small but expensive purchases: two miniature Swiss cameras and a long release cable. One of the cameras had a built-in delayed action release operated by a clockwork mechanism. This camera she had concealed inside an old pocketbook, cutting a tiny hole in the silvery fabric to expose the lens.
The second camera had fitted nicely inside an openwork silver box that she used for storing costume jewelry. She positioned the precision instrument, then locked the antique box and tucked the key away in her bureau drawer. The camera lens was almost impossible to detect between the ornate silver leaves and twigs of the old heirloom treasure chest. She had "aimed it" at her round bearskin rug and run the cable release down behind the bedside table and under the bed. It would be easy to reach.
She had dressed carefully. Following Elmer Carraway's instructions to the letter she had applied the special perfume to the cleft between her buttocks, to the hollows of her groin, under each breast and armpit. Automatically she had gone on to dab her wrists, and stopped herself just in time. He had not wanted her to use the scent in any of the "conventional" locations, " ... and when you radiate the fragrance of Persian Leather I shall know that the sources are precisely those that I have enumerated ... "
He was leaving nothing to chance, Vanessa had thought to herself with ironic amusement as she pulled on the rubber bloomers over her stockings and overly tight waist cinch. The white pettypants had fitted snugly enough over the rubber and when she moved the whispers were quite unmistakable.
For a moment she had hesitated. By going to the Riviera Lounge dressed and perfumed to Elmer Carraway's specifications, she would be laying herself wide open. Suppose he refused to be drawn when the time came? Suppose he merely observed her, and then passed her by? She would then remain completely exposed-she thought of the photographs he had taken of her, and shivered-while he would remain well beyond her reach. His letters had been typewritten and unsigned-the "Edward Carter" had been typed. The only handwritten scrap she owned was the paper that had been wrapped around that box. It proved nothing.
There were the pictures, of course. It would be simplicity itself to prove that they must have been taken from across the street, and possibly from Elmer Carraway's apartment. But in order to prove her point she would have to exhibit those embarrassing pictures, making it obvious at the same time that she performed rather peculiar acts in front of an open window!
She had to follow through with her plan; she had already gone too far to withdraw. No longer hesitant she had finished dressing. High-heeled shoes, black dress and the snake arm bracelet. No brassiere; he preferred what he called the "natural look," meaning, no doubt, that he wanted her to go as far out on the proverbial limb as was humanly possible in a public place. Elmer Carraway was clearly not about to reveal his true ambitions until he had made sure that Vanessa was prepared to meet him a lot further than half way along the erotic path.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mrs. Davenport looked at herself in the mirror and carefully tucked away a stray hair. She was a woman who liked everything to be neat. Flicking a speck of dust off the glass-topped dressing table, she took a final glance round her bedroom. It was immaculate.
Crossing over to the fireplace she tried to decide who should rape her today. Giles or Thomas? She always had this problem. Thomas was the more muscular of the two and his penis was somewhat larger. Giles, however, was much harder, and he was far and away the best actor. That, too, had to be taken into account. Mrs. Davenport did not like to think too much about the acting side of her games, she even tried to forget that they were games at all. Nevertheless she reminded herself that were it not for infinitely careful planning, none of her desires would ever be fulfilled. Even in the throes of her wildest orgies her practical turn of mind never ceased completely to assert itself.
And today there would be a new witness. Jenny. Mrs. Davenport recalled the quietly beautiful girl that had been so wonderfully submissive in the Hotel d'Annunzio. Mrs. Davenport shivered with a thrill of anticipation. The young girl was so obviously well bred. That was most important. A less refined girl simply would not react with the proper show of horror and disgust when Thomas-or Giles....
Mrs. Davenport reached for the bell cord and rang twice, the signal for Giles to come to her room. It would have to be Giles today. Mrs. Davenport wanted this session to be perfect "You rang, madam?"
Giles, in his overalls, lowered his eyes respectfully. As usual, he gave not the slightest indication of being anything but a domestic servant. Mrs. Davenport's blue eyes flicked over his dark good looks and lingered momentarily on the loose-fitting crotch of his denim work clothes. Something was stirring down there; she was sure that she could see the first signs of an erection. Though his head was bowed she knew that he was eyeing her hips and the gentle swell of her belly under her thin cotton robe.
She drew herself up and said in her haughtiest manner, "Fetch the new girl-Jenny. I want her here immediately."
Giles bowed.
"Yes, madam."
Mrs. Davenport watched him leave the room. Her heart was beating furiously now and she was shatteringly aware of the moisture between her legs. The dark-haired servant had looked right through her gown. She was sure of it. As she projected herself into her role the anger became real. The filthy swine! If he as much as dared to look at her that way again, she would have him horsewhipped. Let him fool all he wanted to with the sluts in the kitchen....
Mrs. Davenport pictured Giles making his obscene demands of Jenny and that other girl-what was her name again? Fucking them! That's what he called it, what they all called it in their crude, vulgar way. Those bitches even took the men into their mouths. Let the semen shoot over their tongues and down their throats. They actually liked it!
Mrs. Davenport nearly fainted with excited rage. Alone in her bedroom she blushed. She grabbed a handkerchief and quickly wiped herself; it would not do to look as though she wanted to....
Giles' knock sounded faintly from the other side of the room. Mrs. Davenport tucked her handkerchief out of sight and called out, "Yes. Come in."
Giles entered, followed by Jenny. She was wearing an old-fashioned gingham dress that made her look virginal. The blue material reached to her ankles; her black wool stockings barely showed at her slim ankles. Her hair was gathered in a bun behind her small perfectly proportioned head. Mrs. Davenport looked at her freshly scrubbed face and gave a sigh of pleasure.
"Come here, Jenny. I will explain your duties to you." Mrs. Davenport sat down on her dressing table stool and inspected the young girl critically.
"You're not wearing fancy undergarments, I hope? You know I don't allow that. They just get the men too-well, let's say, too uninterested in their work. Do you understand me, Jenny?"
Jenny nodded silently.
"Lift your dress, Jenny. I have to make quite sure ... Giles? What are you doing? Get out this minute, do you hear me?"
The man in the overalls was standing close to Jenny and staring with undisguised interest as she pulled up her dress. His left hand hung negligently in the region of his crotch, but Mrs. Davenport caught the movement of one of his fingers as it brushed suggestively against taut fabric. "Get out!" she repeated angrily.
Giles remained standing and shifted his glowering gaze to Mrs. Davenport's slippers. She felt his eyes devouring her, first the ankles, then slowly along her calves, making them feel red hot under the cool cotton. "Giles!" she cried hoarsely.
He took a step forward.
"You got nice legs, madam," he muttered. "They're long." He came closer. Mrs. Davenport saw him lick his lips and stare hard at her lap. Instinctively she pulled her robe tight. "Giles! If you come any nearer, I shall scream."
The man reached her with one long stride and clamped a big, hairy hand over her mouth. His other hand grabbed the neck of her gown and pulled hard; it tore open and her breasts spilled out.
"Hey, you!" he said hoarsely with a quick glance at Jenny. "Unbutton my fly and take it out, you hear?"
Jenny stared open-mouthed at him, too terrified to move. Her eyes sought Mrs. Davenport's. Giles shouted. "Do as I tell you or I'll strangle the old cow. Go on, do my fly!"
Mrs. Davenport peered at Jenny from over the edge of Giles' hand and gave a barely perceptible nod. Trembling violently the young girl approached Giles and reached timidly for the front of his overalls. She fumbled ineffectually with the stiff material.
"Use both hands, you stupid bitch," Giles breathed angrily, his own hand digging into Mrs. Davenport's breast. Jenny struggled with his metal buttons and managed to expose the hairy nest between his muscular thighs. His penis felt hard as a broomstick and she had difficulty getting it out into the open.
Giles gave a grunt of satisfaction. With the swiftness of snakes, his hands moved to the sides of Mrs. Davenport's head and seized hold of her ears. Tears sprang to her eyes.
"Now suck me, you hear? Suck me." He thrust his pelvis forward and his stiff prick bounced against the woman's tightly compressed lips. "Suck me, or I swear to God I'll pull your ears clean off your head." He gave them a little twist and Mrs. Davenport gave a yelp of pain. Her lips had no sooner parted when Giles rammed his prick into her mouth. He turned to Jenny. "Jerk me off," he ordered her. "Jerk me off-now." The girl looked puzzled.
"I don't understand. What do you want me to...."
Giles uttered a groan of exasperation.
"You dumb bitch! Put your fingers round my prick and rub it. For God's sake ... Yes. Like that. Only do it backwards and forwards-not from side to side, you dumb cow!"
Mrs. Davenport was nearly chocking on his well-developed penis. When he tweaked her ears meaningfully she promptly began to use her tongue, making it circle his knob. His testicles bounced against her chin and his coarse pubic hairs scraped her nose. She felt his knee insinuate itself between her thighs.
Suddenly he pulled out of her mouth.
"Please, no more," Mrs. Davenport begged him, and tried to pull the torn robe across her breasts. Giles snorted and grabbed her around the waist. With a powerful heave he lifted her off the stool and flung her across the bed. The woman struggled violently, her nails clawing frantically at his face, his hands, his hair....
She screamed.
Giles had slapped her face with the flat of his hand.
"Shut your mouth, you dumb whore! You know what I want, so the quicker you give in the easier it'll be for you."
Pinning Mrs. Davenport to the bed with one hand on her chest and a knee pressed brutally against her pubic bone, Giles turned to Jenny.
"You there! Get down on your knees behind me. I like my ass licked while I fuck."
When the girl just stared at him with wide-eyed loathing he laughed coarsely.
"Don't try that innocent babe-in-the-woods act on me, you dirty-minded bitch. I know your kind! Do anything. That's you! Do anything-provided it's degrading enough." He reached for her arm and twisted viciously. Jenny cried out with pain and sank to the floor. "All right!" she whispered. "Only please don't hurt me!"
"Just put out your tongue and stop talking so much!"
Giles slipped off his overalls in a flash and pushed Mrs. Davenport's thighs apart. The next instant he had rammed his erect prick deep inside her. Mrs. Davenport whimpered with mingled pain and pleasure. "I'll have you whipped for this, you mark my words. Whipped black and blue...."
Her threats seemed only to inflame Giles' lust. He pumped the defenseless woman with fast-mounting vigor until Mrs. Davenport sensed his approaching climax. She could always tell from the way his back arched and the deep grunts that seemed to come from deep inside his chest. This was the moment she had waited for, the moment when she would be defiled by her brute of a servant. A million currents began to vibrate in her loins....
And then he was no longer within her. He had pulled away hurriedly and turned to face the kneeling girl behind him.
"I saved it for you," he muttered. Taking a fistful of her hair he pulled her head back and plunged his penis into her open mouth. "Finish me off, big mouth!"
Jenny tried to pull away from him but his grip on her hair was excruciatingly tight. When he came in a series of thick, liquid jets she had no choice but to receive him as though hungry for his musky offering.
Would Mrs. Davenport beat her for letting the man have his own way with the two of them? "It's what I deserve," Jenny told herself, not sure whether she was glad or sorry.
Giles was climbing into his overalls. Before Mrs. Davenport was fully aware what he was doing he had grabbed Jenny by the shoulder and pushed her toward the woman on the bed. "Go on, kiss her-on the mouth. I want to see you with your mouth on hers-so she can taste it. Kiss her!"
To Jenny's surprise, Mrs. Davenport clutched her passionately and glued her lips to her own. She felt the older woman's tongue lapping hungrily inside her mouth as though to taste the very last dregs of the bitter cup of humiliation.
When the women finally broke apart, Giles had gone. Mrs. Davenport's blue eyes darkened dangerously. He had deprived her of her long-awaited climax. This time the whipping would be no theatrical gesture. Tonight his ordeal would be something very special. Mrs. Davenport gathered the shreds of her gown around her battered body and smiled.
"Jenny? Did you ever see a real whipping. I mean one that draws blood?"
The young girl frowned.
"No, I ... I don't think I would like to...."
Mrs. Davenport chuckled.
"Well, you're going to. Tonight...."
Jenny bit her lip and for the first time wondered whether she had been wise to accept Mrs. Davenport's invitation. Six more months of scenes like this one? And bloodthirsty whippings? She wondered if she could stand it. And what if this strange woman were to take it into her head to beat her to the point where the blood flowed? Jenny shuddered.
She was not to know that Mrs. Davenport had never actually gone as far as she so often threatened to go.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Elmer had stipulated five-thirty, and he would undoubtedly be on time. Vanessa knew Elmer was a stickler for the little details. She decided to arrive at five-forty. Not for anything, not even the prospect of a vice-president slot at The Weekly would she play a sitting duck for Elmer Carraway.
At five-forty-two precisely she had wandered into the Riviera Lounge, and looking neither left nor right, approached a waiter and asked him where she could find a telephone. Elmer would have to be the first to speak in this "chance" encounter. As she entered the phone booth at the far end of the dimly lighted room she had spotted him out of the comer of her eye. To occupy the moment she had dialed 936-1212 and listened to the recorded weather report.
He had been waiting for her when she stepped from the booth.
"Vanessa! I thought it looked like you!"
"I just came in to make a phone call...."
"I don't suppose you have time for a drink?"
"Well...."
"Please do."
"All right ... I guess I have time...."
He had eyed her discretely as she slid demurely into a chair, not crossing her legs. He had observed the black stockings but he would have to keep guessing about the white underwear.
He had been painfully slow to get to the point. Not until they were well into a second drink had he begun to venture timidly into the secret arena.
"I like your perfume. May ask what kind?"
"It's called ... oh, what is the name again...."
Let him identify it, damn him!
He had reached for her hand and made to smell her wrist.
"I don't use it there!"
He had actually blushed. "I'm going to have to prod him a little," Vanessa had concluded. "I use it only on my body," she had announced boldly. His blush had deepened.
"It's a very unusual fragrance," Elmer had remarked.
"Yes. But some men recognize it."
"Like a signal, perhaps?" At last he had begun to enter into the game.
"Perhaps." Vanessa had picked up her purse.
"You aren't leaving, are you?"
"I have an appointment."
"Hence the perfume."
"Yes. Hence the perfume."
She had pulled on her gloves. Elmer had sniffed. "Let me think! Yes, I have it. Persian Leather? Is that it?"
Vanessa had groaned inwardly. "Oh my, God! Who does he think he's kidding?" Aloud she replied, "You should know such things!" She had adopted the hard tone of an impatient schoolmistress. Elmer had bitten his lip, instantly contrite. "I'm sorry."
It was now or never, she had decided. He still lurked inside his shell. She would have to force him out into the open. With an elegantly haughty show of indifference she had leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. She saw his adam's apple jump violently when he saw the tightly stretched white of her pettypants. She had picked up a packet of matches and made a show of studying the red and blue lettering: The Riveria Lounge. He had watched her curiously. "A rather nice design, don't you think?" She had pointedly ignored his feeble attempt at small talk and deliberately let the matches fall to the floor at her feet.
"I seem to have dropped them."
Understanding had flooded his face with a violent blush.
"Well?" Vanessa had made her voice cold as ice.
Slowly he had leaned forward in his chair and reached down a hand. She watched his fingertips almost touch the book matches, then moved them delicately away with the tip of her shoe. Now he had to drop to one knee. When he reached again for the matches she had prodded the back of his hand with the heel of her shoe. The gesture had been just precise enough for him to realize that it was no accident. He had winced but he had made no sound, uttered no word of complaint. Vanessa smiled inwardly. This was going to be easier than she had expected.
"Would you care for some dinner?" he had asked her.
"Yes."
"What about your appointment?"
"He will just have to wait."
"Are you sure he won't mind?"
They had both known that the other "appointment" was a fiction. But Vanessa played out the act nonetheless; it provided a means of communicating about the "training" that he was so interested in.
"It makes no difference to me whether he minds or not!"
Elmer had swallowed hard. "Where were you going to meet him?"
"At my apartment. He comes whenever I summon him."
"You sound very strict," Elmer had murmured shyly, now fully into the vernacular of his game, the byplay between mistress and slave. Vanessa had caught the scent of his servility like a tigress sniffing a victim. She had moved with swift ferocity.
"You know where I live," she had snapped. "Be there at eight, and not one minute later."
Before he could open his mouth to speak she had sailed out of the room and hailed a cab. She was going to need a few more drinks before coping with the strange confidential secretary to the chairman of the world's largest magazine empire. The taste of power was already sweet on Vanessa's tongue.
Elmer had rung her bell at five of eight. "I'm not late, I hope," he had said, smiling fatuously.
"I said eight, not five of," she had reminded him, and slammed the front door in his face. "This is playing dangerously," she had reflected. "But if I'm to become a potent influence in this man's life I have to be 'for real.'"
She had waited until the Westminster chimes rang eight o'clock from the old English timepiece on her desk. Then she had flung open the door and ordered him to enter. To get into conversation with him at this stage would, she had sensed, have killed everything. So she had told him to go straight to her bedroom and strip. He had obeyed her at once, almost tearing off his clothes. Not until he was naked except for his shirt had he suddenly shown signs of bashfulness.
On a hunch she had flicked up his shirttail and seen the pink garters dangling from the belt around his waist. She had tossed him the size 11 black stockings.
"Put them on! And take off that shirt!"
He had brought an attache case with him. Without a word she had taken it to her bed and opened it.
"And these," she had told him, tossing his high-heeled pumps onto the rug. She had removed a heavy leather strap and a fierce-looking whip from the case.
"The strap first, I take it?" she had asked brusquely.
"Yes, madam But...." He had broken off, obviously ill at ease.
"Yes?" she had asked in a gender tone. She might as well learn exactly what he wanted; a disatisfied slave would be less likely to jump when she commanded him to reveal Parker Treadway's secrets.
Elmer had pointed timidly to her dress. She had understood at once. "Take it off!"
She had stood imperiously erect while he pulled the long zipper at her back and eased the dress up her body and over her head. Moist-lipped, he had stared at her wasp waist and sleek white pettypants, their lace contrasting dramatically with the shiny black curves of her legs. Her bare breasts thrust proudly out at him. She watched him get down on his knees. The gesture was a clear invitation for her to command him further. "My shoes need cleaning." His eyes had darted round the room as though he were looking for a cloth. "No," Vanessa had murmured. "No cloth. Your mouth."
With rapidly mounting distaste she had looked down at him while he licked her high-heeled shoes with an eagerness that repulsed her at first, then slowly began to feed an ugly fire in her breast. "I'll make him crawl, all right," she promised herself. "And now the soles."
He had balked at that. When she had raised her foot and presented him with the debris of streets and gutters he had shrunk back.
"Do as I tell you!" she had shouted, reaching for the whip.
He had obeyed her and in the excitement of the moment he did not hear the faint clicks of Vanessa's little cameras.
She had recruited his oral tributes into service on her pettypants, demanding his tongue against the crotch for so long that his jaws began to ache. Whenever his energies flagged she had "trained" him with the leather strap.
"And now you will do the same to the rubber panties."
Through the thin material his tongue had managed to penetrate between the folds of her buttocks and the lips of her sex. She had kept him at it for a full fifteen minutes watching with malicious pleasure how his penis rose up hopefully stiff, then sagged when she chose to ignore him by lighting a cigarette and talking about the weather, the dinner menu ... "I can turn him on and off, just like that," she thought with quiet satisfaction. She had pushed him away with a thrust of her foot, and risen from where she had been lying across the bed.
"Take them off!"
With trembling hands Elmer had removed her rubber bloomers and stared at the damp triangle of sex.
"I stink of rubber," she had complained angrily. "You will kiss me and go on kissing me until every last trace of that smell is gone. Even if it takes you all night."
She had made him lick her until his tongue was raw. Finally, in exasperation, she had seized the whip and made him kneel across the side of her bed.
She had beaten him until he slid off the bed and crawled at her feet, sobbing with pain. She had ignored his pleas for mercy, continuing to lash out at him, the whip landing on his back, his arms, and up and down his legs and thighs. She had pursued his writhing body until she had him trapped, cringing and screaming in the comer of the bedroom.
"Are you going to do as I' tell you?" she had asked him in a coldly menacing tone that had terrified him more than any shouted question would have done.
"Yes, yes, yes. Please! No more. I can't take any more."
"You'll take whatever I give you!" she had snapped back at him and struck him a vicious blow across his shoulders.
"Now crawl over to the middle of that rug-and not one word out of you!"
He had hurried to obey her, too distraught to even guess why she had wanted him posed in the middle of the room. And his moans had drowned out the sounds of the little cameras that clicked away rapidly as she walked around his derelict frame, discretely moving the silvered pocket book this way and that.
"And now let me see you smile like the obedient bitchdog you are!" she had finally commanded him, the photographic pocketbook poised on the bedside table, her fingers resting negligently on the little camera inside.
This, she had said to herself, would be the picture. The slave in his pathetic uniform, nylons, heels and absurd frilly garter belt, his entire body crisscrossed with raw, ugly welts-and smiling.
That smile was going to be her passport to the inner sanctum of the Suite. Elmer Carraway's smile of invitation, here, on the floor of her bedroom, would be her invitation-her permanent invitation-to the innermost secret reaches of The Weekly this time she thought she had seen a glimmer of fear in his moist, blue eyes. He had started to struggle to his feet. "Stay where you are!"
She had picked up the whip and, too tired and beaten to dare to resist her, he had dropped back on hands and knees.
"Now crawl into these!" she had said, throwing him the rubber bloomers. It had been an inspired move on her part. His erection had risen to new heights; his expression of utter ecstasy was too good to leave unrecorded. Shouting, "Masturbate in those!" to cover the sound of the camera shutter, she had caught him in the act of grasping his erect penis the instant before it slid under cover of the bloomers.
Still naked except for her stockings and waist cinch she had watched him masturbate his rubber-covered penis until the tell-tale patches appeared against the beige material. The moment he was finished she had made him crawl into the bathroom. She had gathered up his clothes and thrown them after him.
"Get dressed!"
She had hurriedly put on a robe and gone into the living room. She would not throw him out, not yet. First she would make him talk. She had concealed her tape recorder inside the cocktail cabinet that stood behind the sofa. When Elmer reappeared, neatly dressed as ever, she had smiled a welcoming smile.
"Have a drink, dear."
He had been agreeably surprised. Vanessa had filled two glasses, switched on the tape recorder, and seated herself cozily beside him on the sofa.
"Now tell me about it. All your feelings-the things I did to you ... the things you would like me to do next time ... tell me every thing, darling."
He had done so. With a minimum of prompting he had revealed erotic urges so bizarre that Vanessa's ears had burned. When at last she switched off the machine she had said, "One more for the road, darling. And let's arrange our next session."
"You really want to do it again?"
"Want to, darling? I insist on it." She had handed him his glass. "Here's to regular training sessions, and many of them."
And she had meant it.
For a whole month she had explored every nook and cranny of Elmer Carraway's erotic fantasies in the course of the lengthy and uninhibited meetings that had taken place three times a week. Her collection of pictures had grown; thanks to her commercial photographer friend the prints were crystal clear. She had edited the tapes and in addition she had made him get down on his knees and write confessions and requests for obscene tortures on pieces of notepaper, all of which she had kept.
Throughout this period she had never once referred to his habit of spying on her from his apartment. She had continued to dress in front of the open window as if completely unaware of his peeking. She had been perfectly content to let him have things his own way-for the time being.
Every day she visited him in The Suite, her manner invariably correct and business-like. When he found that their private orgies remained private and their secrets unspoken during business hours his confidence in her had become complete. This was a discrete and trustworthy woman; Vanessa could see this judgment reflected in his eyes and she had congratulated herself on her shrewd and patient strategy.
As she had expected, Elmer had begun to let fall little hints about the chairman of the board. To her comment that Parker Treadway must be something of a square Elmer had replied, "To most of the world, yes-but he has his little hideaway."
"A pretty chorus girl in a snug nest someplace?"
The suggestion that Parker Treadway could conceivably stray in so conventional a manner had undermined Elmer's habitual reticence.
"He's no run of the mill executive with a chippy on the side! He has an entire mansion with males, females ... slaves ... the whole bit, my dear."
Elmer had been ruinously indiscrete and Vanessa had realized it even before the secretary had caught his breath and turned white with fear. When she had merely shrugged indifferently, murmuring, "Really? Well, I suppose that with his money...." Elmer had recovered sufficiently to invite her to lunch.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Nevertheless Elmer had remained ill at ease during the meal. While sipping coffee he had said, "About this evening. I don't think...."
"You're due at eight o'clock, Elmer!"
"I know, but...."
"No buts, my dear. You will be there."
"Vanessa! Please believe me, I'd love to come, only...."
"Shut your mouth and listen to me! You will be at my apartment at eight sharp, or you'll regret it till the day you die. Is that clear, Elmer?"
"Yes, but ... "
"Is it clear?"
Vanessa's voice had risen and one or two heads had turned.
"I'll be there."
He had arrived punctually at eight, and she had sensed his nervousness at once.
"Put down your case, Elmer. You won't be needing it tonight."
He had stared at her, his eyes almost opaque with fear.
"Come and sit down, my dear." She had eased him over to the sofa and given him a playful push. "I'll fix you a drink."
"Er ... thank you. I...."
Vanessa poured generous portions of Scotch and set the glasses on the low table in front of the sofa. She had walked across to her desk and picked up a large, leather bound book.
"I'm a sentimentalist at heart, Elmer, so I've been keeping a little scrapbook on our exciting times together. Two books, in fact. This one is for you, darling. They're only photocopies, I'm afraid, but they'll serve to refresh your memory, I'm sure."
While his trembling hands turned the pages she had taken a bulky envelope from her desk drawer.
"These are also for you, darling."
He had stared at her. Vanessa had smiled sweetly. "Tapes, darling."
"Oh, my God! Tapes of you and me?"
"No darling. Just you."
Seating herself beside him she had said conversationally, "I'd love to hear more about that sexy mansion. You know the one with the slaves and so forth."
"You know I can't talk about that, Vanessa!"
"Can't? Can't? I'm sorry, Elmer but that just isn't one of our words, is it?"
"Now, can is an entirely different story! I can send a copy of this exciting album to you know who. I can send him those lovely tapes. And I can send him some of those revolting pictures you took of me from your apartment window. Then again, you can start talking right now." She had stood up gracefully. "Let me freshen up your drink, darling."
Eventually he had given in.
"They use the name Davenport. His wife-she's way younger than he is-is in on the whole thing. I believe she really digs the same crazy things that he goes in for...."
"Crazier than your games, Elmer?"
"All right, all right. Anyway, they maintain this enormous house-it's a brownstone-and act out all kinds of fantasies."
"And how do they find the partners for all this? Surely a man in his position can't just hang out in bars, or write to the tabloids?"
"Uh, uh! He has an agency. A computerised dating service. COMPUSEX. They advertise all over the country and sift thousands of replies. Those who are selected have no idea who they are meeting when they go to the brownstone."
"Don't they recognize Parker Treadway?"
"No, of course not. He wears a beard, well, a touch here and a touch here. You know. The master of disguise bit!"
"But what about his wife? You say she's in on this. Does she sport a beard, too?"
"Very funny! Come now. You're a woman. A wig, glasses, a different shaped mouth-with lipstick that's no problem, I dare say-and there you are!"
"Mmm. You say no one has ever recognized either of them?"
"No." Elmer had assured her. But she had noticed the slight hesitation, and pounced. "Who was it, Elmer? Who recognized him?"
"No one, I tell you. I ... "
"Elmer. We've only two sets of pictures. One for you, one for me. It would be a pity to part with such exciting souvenirs, don't you think. So why not tell me...."
"It was the housekeeper. A Frenchwoman who ran the brownstone and prepared all the meals. I don't know the details except that she wound up with a restaurant of her own. A small place but I believe she does very well for herself."
"The chairman bought it for her?"
Elmer had nodded. "That's right. And her son...." He stopped and stared miserably at his feet, aware that he had been about to volunteer information that Vanessa would never have guessed at. She had understood. "Don't worry about it, Elmer. You might as well tell me the whole story."
"Actually there isn't much more to tell," he began in a tone that she had known was sincere. "The son worked with a computer outfit. He's very bright, I gather. The mother got him into COMPUSEX-somewhere near the top. It was still a small operation at that time. Now he's president."
"And he knows the secret of the brownstone, I suppose?"
"Maybe. I wouldn't know."
"But surely, if his mother...."
"I know. But I have a hunch that she never told him-or anyone else. After all, telling her son would have meant telling about herself-about having worked in that orgy house."
Vanessa had prepared two more drinks and let the silence hang for several minutes.
"How come you know so much, Elmer?"
The abrupt question had startled him.
"That is confidential," he had answered with a return to his pompous manner.
"I'm sure it is," Vanessa had agreed in a dry tone. "And it will remain confidential after you tell me." She was standing in the middle of the living room and had started to remove her dress. Elmer's eyes went round with surprise. Vanessa had shed her dress and was unhooking her brassiere. "You found a way into his files or something?"
Her guess must have been close to the mark because Elmer's face had turned brick red. "Elmer, come and take my panties off."
He had been only too happy to change the subject.
"Now I want you to put them on," she had told him. Watching him strip she had thought to herself that it might be foolish to discontinue her games with him. If she could keep him reasonably happy she would have infinitely less trouble finding out more about the man who ran The Weekly. If she could get Elmer into the habit of depending on her completely she would have a permanent ally in The Suite. Besides, should it ever be necessary to use the photographs Elmer might well suffer-but she would be as far away from promotion as before. In fact she would very probably lose her job; few corporations were sympathetic to executives who figured in "problem situations" be they innocent or guilty. It was easier to get rid of all concerned and start again from scratch; kill the gossip before it had time to take root....
Elmer was ready. She had looked down at him as he knelt in front her, naked except for a pair of pale blue nylon panties. What should she do with him? He stared fascinated at her crotch. Well, if that was what he wanted.
Vanessa had swung one leg onto the coffee table.
"Go down on me! Get your tongue right in there!"
He had responded with an eagerness that was both repulsive and intriguing. Idly she had considered using him for her own pleasure; more precisely, using his mouth and tongue. Elmer Carraway, the man, did not interest her in the least, but she did enjoy clitoral stimulation-provided it was applied with understanding and finesse. Elmer's frantic tongue was much too clumsy.
"Come into the bedroom, Elmer!"
She had relaxed across her bed.
"Kneel there ... between my legs. Now, Elmer, I'm going to teach how to pleasure me, as the saying goes. You must do exactly as I tell you, understand? I want you to learn how to bring me to a climax. If you don't manage to make me come, I shall whip you...." She had broken off with a little laugh. "No, that would be silly, wouldn't it? You like the whip ... you'd never make me come. So here's how it is going to be. The sooner you make me come, the sooner we get around to dealing with you. No orgasm for me ... no orgasm or anything else for you!"
It had worked. Elmer Carraway had rarely been more highly motivated to succeed at any task. He had quickly learned to respond to Vanessa's little signals and managed to bring her clitoris to such a state that her whole body trembled with excitement. Elmer's only contribution was a well-trained tongue-and utter silence. For one word from him would have broken the spell. Vanessa reached the heights by projecting herself into a fantasy of dazzling success. She was a senior vice-president at The Weekly. A virile man, wealthy beyond all dreams of avarice, succumbed to her charms; together they made beautiful, violent love. She yielded yet remained forever elusive, mysterious; her magnificent lover knew her body but he could never possess her, not completely ... she was a queen, a goddess....
Mortal once again, and exhausted by her orgasm and dream, she would pull herself together and vent her irritation on Elmer's compliant body. Watch him wriggle and masturbate inside the water proof panties, then send him packing. This had become her routine while she planned her assault on Parker Treadway's secret life.
She had enrolled with COMPUSEX. For want of a better pseudonym she had used the one that had served her so well with Elmer: Daphna Rutherford. She had completed the lengthy questionnaire, slanting her answers in ways that she hoped would make her acceptable to Parker Treadway, alias "Mr. Davenport." The COMPUSEX agency had fixed her up with numerous dates, all of them distinctly bizarre, and she had followed through on each and every one of them. She had surmised that the route to the Davenport brownstone was un-likely to be direct; potential candidates for such a sensitive situation would almost certainly be "tested" by one or more persons. There had, of course, been no way of her knowing who among her strange dates might be evaluating her qualifications for service in Mr. Davenport's exotic household.
Many of her dates demanded intercourse and Vanessa had acquired the habit of wearing a diaphragm. She inserted it in her bedroom, immediately after her shower. Too late, she had realized that Elmer had probably seen her squatting on the bearskin rug and slipping the folded rubber cup into her vagina. He had no doubt become curious; he had never ceased to watch her from across the street. Would he now put two and two together? Connect her interest in Parker Treadway's affairs with the information Elmer had given her about COMPUSEX? She regretted having used the name Daphna Rutherford; Elmer would recognize it at once. And if some member of the "in-group" were to mention that name....
How close was Elmer to the Davenport game? She would have to learn more about him. Did he, for instance, know any of the participants? Aside, that was, from the chairman and his wife?
That was something she could not investigate by herself. The risk of discovery was too great. She had picked up the telephone and dialed a number.
"The Adams Detective Agency?"
A girl had answered. Could she be of assistance?
"Perhaps. I just wanted to make sure that I had the name and address right. I will be sending you a letter."
Vanessa had reached for her pink, scented notepaper. It was ostentatious, and a shade vulgar, she knew, but it always received attention.
"Dear Mr. Adams...."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Now, several weeks later, she was inserting her diaphram. With a long finger she flicked the rubber ring snugly over her cervix and straightened up. She wondered if Elmer had taken any pictures of her performing this particular chore. Probably! Such a starkly intimate scene would be irresistible to the bald-headed voyeur. She would ask him about tonight when he came for his "training." It was time she talked to him about his spying, anyway. His habits were beginning to get on her nerves and her pandering to them did not seem to be getting her any closer to that damned brownstone.
The detectives, Chuck Adams and Zoe Knox, were not doing to well, either. Like Vanessa, they had found no shortage of dates but none of them had led to anything. She had read their reports, listened to their accounts with pretended interest to keep up the friction of a cover story on sex that she had no intention of writing. The detectives did not know it, but Vanessa was paying them out of her own pocket. If they did not come up with a lead within the week....
She glanced at her watch. Six-fifteen. She had barely forty-five minutes to dress and get to the hotel for her latest date at six-forty-five. She picked out matching panties and bra and a clinging knit dress with a front zipper. Sheer pantyhose would be fine, she decided. She had not met her new COMPUSEX partner but he had sounded straightforward enough on the telephone. Most of the men she had been meeting had wanted her to wear elaborate underpinnings-tight corsets, garter belts, plastic panties. One elderly gentleman insisted that she wear boy's jockey shorts and a shirt with collar and tie. In the study of his cluttered West Side apartment he had called her "Robert" and taken her to task for doing "rude things with the other boys." By means of an inquisition loaded with leading questions he had led her to confess to having "played with Charley's thing," and letting "Tom put his thing in my mouth while George had his pushed up inside my bottom." Unwilling to believe that such monstrous things could have happened to "innocent little Robert," the man had obliged Vanessa to illustrate her confession with all the appropriate actions. He had produced a thin, flexible cane and thrashed her soundly on her bare buttocks, then had her masturbate him, suck him, and finally, offer her anus to his eager erection.
Another man had greeted dressed from head to toe as an old lady. They had chatted about nothing in particular and drunk innumerable cups of tea until Vanessa had had to go to the bathroom.
When she had emerged the "old lady" had been right outside the door with cheeks aflame under the makeup.
Vanessa had been quickly ushered out of the luxurious East Side apartment with a vague invitation buzzing in her ears, "Do come again ... someday!"
She wondered what tonight would bring.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mrs. Davenport surveyed the empty cellar, then fixed Chuck with a look of contempt.
"Surely you realized that she's not quite right in the head?"
Chuck met her ice-cold stare.
"Who is?" he asked pointedly.
The woman's nostrils flared white with anger. "You know perfectly well who J mean! It's one thing to have, well, shall we say, certain tastes. To be perfectly potty in the head is quite another matter!"
Her accent, and her language, made him think of England; the American undertones were faint. Chuck guessed that she had spent several years in this country, but that her style had remained largely unchanged. "London?" he murmured.
"That's none of your business!" Mrs. Davenport snapped. "I want to know what you mean by trying to seduce a girl who is quite obviously helpless!"
Chuck was becoming angry himself.
"Not capable? You have to be kidding! Why, that little bitch has been pushing us around ever since we arrived!"
"That's her job. It's all she knows how to do. But she doesn't really understand what's going on around her."
Chuck gave a shrug. "I'm not surprised! I'm pretty confused myself!"
Mrs. Davenport raised her eyebrows. "You are? I fail to see why." She took a step toward him and peered into his face. "You are a pervert, aren't you?"
His mouth dropped open, and he felt his cheeks burn.
"I'm a what?"
"Well, you wouldn't be here if you were normal, now would you? My husband had you all checked very carefully, you know, so its no use trying to put on any airs with me. In fact...."
The woman stopped talking and examined him again, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. "It's the funniest thing, but I have the feeling that I've seen you before...."
"At a party, perhaps?" Chuck put in hurriedly.
Mrs. Davenport shook her head.
"No. It wasn't a party ... Tell me, when did you join up with COMPUSEX?"
"A little while back," Chuck replied vaguely, stalling for time. He was beginning to feel apprehensive for some reason. Was Mrs. Davenport still in her "game" or was this the real Mrs. Davenport? Talking with her was like being with Pamela; it was difficult to know how to react.
Mrs. Davenport let out a little sigh. "I was doubtful about you two from the start," she remarked thoughtfully. "You said you were passive, but I'm beginning to wonder...."
Chuck watched her carefully. This was no time to argue. If he let her go on talking she might give him a clue to Zoe's whereabouts.
"I wonder," repeated Mrs. Davenport. "Well, there's only one way to find out!" She flashed him a quizzical smile. "Right?"
"Oh?"
"I'm not so worried about the girl. She's not as masochistic as I would have liked. But she took it pretty well, I'll say that for her."
Chuck tensed instantly. "What did you do to her? Where is she? If you've...." He caught Mrs. Davenport's eye and clenched his fists. "Shit! Now I've blown it!" he told himself.
There was no doubt about it. Mrs. Davenport was regarding him with undisguised suspicion. "You're no masochist," she said curtly, and turned on her heel.
Chuck caught up with her in one stride and grabbed her arm. "Tell me where she is, or I'll...."
Before she could reply a man's voice had come from the staircase.
"Or you will do what-Mister Adams?"
Chuck wheeled. A bearded man in a tweed suit was descending the stairs. He looked like a figure in a turn of the century engraving. Two men in overalls lumbered down after him. They, too, wore beards. When they stepped onto the cellar floor Chuck felt the sweat run cold along his spine. The men were well over six feet and must have weighed two hundred and thirty pounds a piece.
"Please leave us, my dear," said the man in the tweed suit.
Without a word Mrs. Davenport hitched up her Victorian robe and hurried up the wooden stairs with a clatter of heels.
"And now, young man, perhaps you will be good enough to explain why you presumed to threaten my wife."
So this was Mr. Davenport. Chuck thought quickly. If he antagonized the man in the tweed suit the two heavyweights would jump him. There was a look in their eyes, a set to their impassive faces, that warned Chuck to use all his resources of tact. The Davenports were either stark, raving mad, or else they were merely acting out an elaborate fantasy. Very possibly this bizarre situation reflected a little of each: a touch of insanity propelling them through their theatrical games. Either way Chuck sensed the need for diplomacy.
"We came here in good faith, Mr. Davenport," he explained, carefully keeping his voice neutral, noncommittal. Mr. Davenport could take it any way he chose.
The master of the house was evidently not quite sure what to think. He frowned.
"We? I take it that you refer to the young slut that accompanied you here?"
Chuck's anger began to flare at this description of Zoe. Then he realized that the man was probably still clinging to the threatrical ground rules of the game.
"Yes, sir," Chuck replied with a straight face. "The serving wench."
Mr. Davenport's eyes flickered with annoyance. "This," he stated pompously, "is no time for facetiousness, Mr. Adams."
"Excuse me, but why do you keep calling me Adams, sir? Is that part of the game?"
Mr. Davenport had been goaded too far.
"Men! I want this scoundrel strung up."
The next moment Chuck was facing the circular stone pillar in the middle of the cellar. The men in overalls dragged his arms round the coarse stone and tied his wrists with a length of cord. He saw one of them pull a coiled whip from his pocket. His partner stepped behind Chuck and with one powerful sweep of the hand ripped his overalls open from the neck to his buttocks.
Mr. Davenport gave a self-deprecating cough. "Forgive me, Mr. Adams, if this question is embarrassingly reminiscent of melodramatic clichees ... but who sent you? I want to know who sent you to my house?"
"The usual way ... I was, that is, we were invited. By you, I assumed." Chuck tired to keep his voice calmly controlled.
"Giles!"
The man with the whip moved behind Chuck.
"Yes, Master."
"Just six to begin with, I think."
"Yes, Master."
The first stroke tore into Chuck's right buttock, across his hip, and finished with a fiery sting in his upper thigh. It was all he could do to keep from screaming. Giles moved slowly to the other side and delivered a mirror image of the first blow.
"Mr. Davenport," Chuck cried. "Why can't we talk this over!"
The master of the house chuckled.
"Such clichees, Mr. Adams. It really is amazing how stress does seem to bring them out, isn't it ... Go ahead, Giles."
Giles appeared to be working his way up Chuck's body. The second pair caught him in the small of the back, the last two strokes sent piercing flames into his shoulder blades.
"Who sent you, Mr. Adams?"
Why not tell him? Chuck wondered what had made him so secretive. Davenport must surely know about COMPUSEX; his wife had arranged that meeting in the Automat after the agency had sent her their names. What name had they used? Chuck's mind had suddenly gone blank. Well, it no longer mattered. The weird man in the tweed suit knew his real name, anyway. How had he found out?
"I know your name, Mr. Adams. I know that you used a different name when trying to get into this house. And I know that you are a private detective. All I want to find out now is who sent you. Who knows that you are here."
"Nobody."
"Please, Mr. Adams! Don't try my patience any further. Somebody must know that you're here."
"I suppose the people at the agency, COMPUSEX, know who were put in touch with. But they can't know which introductions led to dates...."
"Mister Adams! Please don't take up my time with elementary reasoning that I am perfectly capable of pursuing for myself. Tell me instead why you faked names and interests in order to meet persons whose tastes you obviously do not share. Just tell me that."
Was it worth being beaten half to death in order to preserve Vanessa Hazard's plans for a cover story in a magazine? Chuck was on the point of telling Mr. Davenport the truth when a premonition of danger sounded a faint but sure warning.
Why was the odd Mr. Davenport willing to go to such lengths to find out about him? The man was obviously rich; to judge from this vast establishment, very rich indeed. And rich men had, quite literally, much to lose if their secret quirks became public knowledge. With a quiver of apprehension Chuck sensed that there was more at stake here than just the question of his own identity. Mr. Davenport did not consider himself to be threatened by Chuck, but by the person who sent him.
Vanessa Hazard.
"Oh, sir! Is he going to be whipped some more? Can I have a turn, sir?"
Chuck recognized Pamela's voice. "He tried to make indecent advances, sir."
"Shush, Pamela. Later, perhaps."
"He besmirched my good name. Can I have a candy? A green one?"
"Yes, yes. Go and tell the cook to give you one, Pamela."
"I counted up to three hundred and seven today."
"Very good, Pamela. Very good. Now run along, will ... "
"I had to stop at three hundred and seven because they started whispering again. Can I watch Giles whip him?"
"Later, later. Thomas! Take Pamela into the kitchen and see that she gets a big, green candy ... let her have two!"
Chuck heard footsteps on the stairs, then there was silence.
Mr. Davenport said, "She's a schizophrenic. I dare say you realized that, hm?"
"I must admit, she did seem, well, a little odd...."
"And yet you fooled with her," Davenport put in quickly. The idiomatic "fooled with her" sounded oddly out of place after so much stilted language. "Knowing that the child was abnormal you still fooled around with her."
"I didn't know...."
"You're quibbling, young man!" Mr. Davenport sounded impatient. "Knew or suspected, it was improper behavior. And you don't strike me as the kind of young man who would stoop so low ... unless you were snooping. But we're wasting time, Mr. Adams. Since you won't talk we shall have to resort to a little more persuasion. Giles!"
Chuck twisted his head round and caught Mr. Davenport's eye. "All right! Call off your gorilla. I'll put you in the picture."
"Very well, Mr. Adams. Let's hear what you have to say."
"On two conditions, sir. First, you untie me. Second, I want to see my partner."
Mr. Davenport thought for a moment. "Are you in a position to make conditions?"
"Are you in the position to kill me?"
"Mm. Very well! Giles. Release him."
The man untied Chuck's hands with rough, angry movements. He appeared to be disappointed. Chuck wondered whether this was another COMPUSEX contact-a genuine one who loves his role.
"Shall I fetch the girl, sir?" Giles asked.
Davenport pursed his lips thoughtfully and stroked his rich beard. With a faintly malevolent sidelong glance at Chuck he said, "No, Giles. We'll go into the cells."
He led the way across the cellar and stopped in front of the door in the far comer. Taking a bunch of keys from his pocket he explained, "In Europe they speak of prisons; here we use the terms penitentiary and department of correction. Our terms are more appropriate."
Davenport fitted a large iron key into an antique lock. He swung open the heavy door and motioned for Chuck to enter a tiled room containing nothing but a table and four upright chairs.
"Sit down, Mr. Adams. There are one or two things I must explain before we go in to visit your ... your colleague? Would that be the word?"
Chuck pulled up a chair and sat down. "It'll do."
"Very well." Davenport seated himself across the table from Chuck. "As I was saying. Correction. It stands to reason that when a person behaves incorrectly efforts should be made to correct him-or her. Merely incarcerating wrongdoers for long periods serves no useful purpose at all. One must try to correct the malefactor, don't you agree?"
"It's a big question. In general I agree."
"Of course! You're an intelligent man. You could hardly disagree with so obvious a point of view. However, some persons are simply not amenable to correction. They actively resist what is right. They are opposed to correction. They reject what is good, which, of course, is another way of saying that they are wicked."
Mr. Davenport paused and stared earnestly into Chuck's eyes.
"I surely do not have to tell you that the wicked must do penance? That they must be punished until they are ready to do penance? And go on doing so for as long as may appear necessary?"
Chuck licked his lips nervously. This man was even more dangerous than he had suspected. Very calmly he asked, "But who decides what is right? What is good? What needs correcting?"
Mr. Davenport smiled through his whiskers.
"A good question, young man. A good question." His head bobbed up and down. "I shall answer your question. It is all a question of geography!"
Chuck looked at him, startled. He had expected to hear a sermon on the eternal verities. Mr. Davenport smiled contentedly.
"You are surpirsed! You thought I was going to ramble on about the Ten Commandments and so forth. I do not intend to. We all believe in them, I presume, but they have no bearing on what I am about to say. Which is this. Correct behavior is correct behavior for no other reason than that someone says it is. Among Eskimos it is correct to rub noses, or so I am told. Among certain tropical peoples it is correct for girls to walk around naked from the waist up. In some countries it is correct to hang murderers; elsewhere they may be electrocuted, or gassed, or imprisoned. It all depends what somebody happens to have said about such things."
Mr. Davenport cleared his throat and continued. "Here-in this house-the somebody is, of course, me. If I say that a particular form of behavior is correct, than it is correct." The man's hand came up quickly. "I know what you're going to say. You're thinking that I'm arrogant-mad, perhaps-for believing that I can make rules ... that I can decide what is correct and what is not. But consider this, Mr. Adams. Am I not a man? And are not all rules made by various and sundry men who are bound to be more or less the same as I am? Their rules, their notions of right and wrong may not always agree with mine. But what of that? Every state in the union has different views on practically everything from every other state. And as for countries ... well, I ask you? Did you ever hear of two countries that have identical laws, identical criminal codes, identical philosophies of life? Of course not!"
Chuck had glanced around the room. The brown tiles, stone floor and plain furniture comprised a perfect replica of the interrogation room to be found in police stations and prisons around the world. Davenport must have had it built with this in mind. Thomas was standing with his back to the door through which they had entered. On Chuck's right was an authentic prison door made of steel bars. Through them he could see a row of cells.
Davenport had intercepted his curious glance.
"In a moment, Mr. Adams. In a moment. First let me conclude my remarks. Here we have our own rules and regulations and our own concepts of society. In most respects it differs little if at all from other societies. We have a ruling class-comprising my wife, myself and whoever we elect to be our guests. We are, you might say, the state. We govern, and we employ the other members of the society-the workers. As for these workers, they have one function, and one only."
"To work, I suppose."
"No. Not exactly. To be sure, they must work if there is work to be done. That goes without saying. But their primary function is to be useful!"
Chuck detected an undertone" that made him shiver.
"Useful?" he asked suspiciously.
"A much misunderstood word, I fear. It is commonly said that prisoners should be made to perform useful work-meaning that they should sew mailbags, or pick okra or whatever. The implication being that such tasks yield useful end results. That is to say, products that everyone can readily identify, mailbags for carrying the mail, food for people to eat, and so on. But this is an overly restricted interpretation of the word useful. A man picking okra is only useful when there is someone else who wants okra. A girl is of use when she sews mailbags only when someone needs such bags for transporting mail."
Davenport braced his shoulders and fixed Chuck with a piercing look. "I heartily dislike okra, and I am not a mail carrier. I do not need mailbags." He took out a cigar and a gold cutter. Chuck watched him snip the end of the long, thin cigar with deft movements of his well-cared for hands. Davenport reached into a pocket and produced an old-fashioned box of matches.
"I like good cigars, for example. I like beautiful young women ... and I need them to be cooperative in certain ways that I will not go into at this moment. My wife, on the other hand, likes to have a plentiful supply of servants and she needs them to be subservient. The independent breed of servant is of no use to Mrs. Davenport. That kind gives her no pleasure whatsoever. She prefers to have servants who are completely subservient, men and women who will do whatever they are told to do."
Davenport broke off and chuckled.
"You look shocked, young man! You are like all the rest of them. The wooly-minded middle classes. Completely muddle-headed and inconsistent. You admire the private soldier for his blind obedience, his strutting up and down in elaborate and utterly senseless uniforms, his utter disregard for life and limb in battles he does not comprehend in countries he could not locate on a map if you offered him a million dollars. Pah! And the men who command these trained dogs become field marshalls and generals and have statues made of themselves, streets named after them. Hm!"
The bearded man laughed sarcastically.
"But if a non-general demands blind obedience from a non-soldier everybody automatically assumes that the former is stark raving mad and the latter a poor, victimized fool! Well, young man, in this house the soldiers, so to speak, serve, not the flag but my own particular whims and abstractions. And I, as the field marshall, if I may pursue the metaphor, seek not foreign lands or military glory, but a comfortable life and sexual gratification."
Chuck could not suppress the flicker of a smile. Mr. Davenport, for all his lecture room rhetoric, did not mince words. He had noticed Chuck's amused expression, and smiled unself-consciously back at him.
"Have I been reasonably candid with you, Mr. Adams?"
"Yes ... "
"In that case I am sure you will wish to return the compliment. We were talking about your reasons for coming here...."
Chuck nodded in the direction of the cells.
"I thought we were going to...." Davenport rose to his feet. "But of course! Forgive me! I had forgotten. Let us go."
The man's elaborate courtesy only served to make Chuck more anxious. Davenport had not forgotten about the visit to the cells, that much Chuck assumed without question. But why the elaborate pretense? Why the theatrical casualness? "It must be part of the buildup," Chuck decided. "To put me at ease-then shock me out of my skin when I...." He gasped.
Davenport had stopped in front of one of the cells. Inside, Zoe was kneeling on the stone floor. She was stark naked and a man's penis was pumping slowly into her mouth. It thrust at her from the open fly of a pair of blue overalls. Glancing up Chuck saw Giles' smiling face.
"You're taking much too long!"
The voice, Mrs. Davenport's voice, came from the other side of the cell. Chuck turned and saw her sitting on a stool. She was watching Zoe's efforts at fellatio with tense excitement.
Davenport took Chuck firmly by the arm and pulled him away.
"As you see, she's perfectly all right."
Chuck tried to twist free but the older man's grip was surprisingly strong. "Mr. Adams, there is nothing to be gained by disturbing them. Let us go away and talk...."
Thomas had moved in close to them, a threatening look in his eyes. Chuck protested. "All right, you say. She is not all right! Your wife has a whip in her hand, for Chrissakes. I saw it...."
"Mr. Adams'. You are making a fool of yourself. Miss Knox is not used to such scenes, you know. She is accustomed to the whip. She has had interesting experiences with friends of ours ... long before you met her. She is...."
"Mr. Davenport, how did you find out who I am?"
Chuck had thrown out the question more from anger than in expectation of a straight answer. Davenport's reply floored him.
"Madame d'Epinay."
"Madame who?"
"D'Epinay. She owns the Lafayette Restaurant. She called to warn me after you left her place. Unfortunately, the message did not reach me immediately. When I finally received it you had been here for some time. It was too late to just ease quietly off the premises...."
"How did she know we were coming here?"
"That is something we might discuss at another time. I am still waiting for you to honor your agreement, Mr. Adams."
Chuck sighed loudly.
"O.K., Mr. Davenport. I'll begin at the beginning. A little over two weeks ago I got a letter, a crazy-looking affair on perfumed pink paper, and...."
"Thank you, Mr. Adams. You have said enough. There is no need to continue. Thomas. Fetch Mr. Adams' clothes."
Chuck stared open-mouthed at the man with the beard.
"You don't want to hear any more?"
"I don't need to." Davenport's eyes glinted dangerously. He led Chuck back to the "interrogation room" and unlocked the door to the cellar. "If you will be good enough to wait out there, Thomas will bring you your clothes."
Chuck shrugged.
"O.K. If that's the way you want it. I'll just get dressed and leave."
"Get dressed by all means, Mr. Adams. But do not leave."
"I see no point in...."
"I prefer that you stay, Mr. Adams. In fact, I shall have to insist."
"In order to correct me, Mr. Davenport?" Chuck asked with the crooked smile.
Davenport looked at him somberly. "Yes, you could say that." The door closed slowly in Chuck's face. From a distance he heard the slick crack of a whip, and Zoe's voice crying, "Yes, madam, yes, madam...."
She did not sound worried in the least.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Vanessa Hazard arrived at the Hotel Polk exactly on time. The Polk was one of those solid hotels that are neither new nor old, fashionable nor disreputable, expensive nor cheap. While it was not the hotel that Vanessa would have chosen to stay at, nor was it a place she would have been embarrassed to run into anyone she knew.
Nevertheless, she was relieved to find no familiar faces as she crossed the carpeted lobby to the reception desk. She was still old-fashioned enough to associate hotels with "sin." Even when traveling for The Weekly she would have the feeling that her fellow hotel guests looked at her and wondered....
"Can I help you?" the reception clerk asked her. He was middle-aged and had the waxen pallor of the permanent hotel worker.
"Do you have a message for Haz ... Rutherford?"
The man shuffled through a little pile of notes.
"Ralston ... Rathbone ... Rutherford. Miss Daphna Rutherford?"
"Thank you." She held out her hand. "May I have it?"
But the clerk had tossed the paper into a trash basket.
"It just said six-oh-nine." His tone was supercilious.
Vanessa felt herself flush with anger. "He takes me for a call girl," she thought bitterly, then turned quickly on her heel, knowing that she was looking guilty. She walked with quick steps to the elevators, aware of the clerk watching her out of the comer of his eye. She saw him beckon with his hand. A young woman appeared from behind the frosted glass window of the cash desk. The clerk whispered something to her and she looked over at Vanessa, her lips set in a knowing smirk. If the elevator door had not slid open at that moment, Vanessa would have bolted out of the hotel. "One thing's for sure. I'll never set foot in this place again!" Her mind was fully made up on that score.
She was still angry when she reached the sixth floor and followed the signs to room 609. Not until she had tapped on the door did she remember where she had seen that room number before. In the letter from the crazy man who had enclosed the fifty-dollar bill. And he had chosen the Polk, also. Vanessa's heart began to pound uncomfortably, and once again she was tempted to run.
It was too late.
"Come in!"
A well-dressed man held the door open for her, closed it gently behind her and waved in the direction of a club chair.
"Do sit down, Miss Rutherford."
"Thank you."
"Can I offer you a drink?"
"No ... well, yes perhaps I will have one."
The man smiled with his lips; his eyes looked cold.
"Do you usually have difficulty making up your mind?"
Vanessa sat up straight, her nerves alert.
"What do you mean?" she asked suspiciously.
"All I have is Scotch." He handed her a tumbler filled almost to the brim. Vanessa looked at it doubtfully.
"That's rather a lot."
"Better drink it, my dear. You're going to need it," said the man in an offhand manner that made Vanessa's skin crawl. She rose from the chair, set her glass down firmly on the dressing table.
"Thank you. I'm leaving," she told him and headed for the door. He made no move to stop her.
"Leave? But you've only just got here, Vanessa."
"I just don't want to stay, that's ... what did you call me?"
Not that it really mattered, but then it was an opening gambit to keep the conversation moving. And at the moment, keeping the talk flowing did seem important.
"Why not sit down again, and have that drink?"
Why not? Vanessa returned to her chair and looked at the man properly for the first time. His letter had said " ... I'm tall, dark, average-looking, and 36. I prefer women who've outgrown their puppyfat, philosophising about life and posturing. Let's say, 26 and over. Blondes can be fine but with only one life to live, I'd rather live it among girls with black, black hair, and the more vivacious the better. Clinging vines and yes-girls turn me off...."
"Average-looking" was an understatement. Vanessa grudgingly admitted that he was startlingly handsome. She tried to guess what he did for a living, where he came from, but his clothes were expensively anonymous and his accent placed him in any educated community from Virginia Beach to the Canadian border.
A self-assured Easterner who knew who she was.
"How did you know who I was?"
"Does it matter?" he parried lightly, handing her back her glass of Scotch.
"I think I'm entitled to know."
"Had dinner yet?"
"No. Would you mind telling me...."
"Good. We'll eat afterwards. I know an excellent little...."
"Dammit! Who are you? Since you know...."
"Shush, my dear. We can talk afterwards." The man swallowed the last of his Scotch and started to undress. "Better get your things off, don't you think?"
Vanessa leaned back in her chair and glared at him.
"I don't think I care to...."
"That's a little beside the point, isn't it? You didn't come here to sit around and chat, did you?"
"Perhaps not, but...."
"Then why not get your clothes off?" he asked her pleasantly. In the same unruffled tone he added, "Or do you prefer to have them ripped off?"
"I beg your pardon?" Vanessa's eyes flashed lividly. The man remained unperturbed. "It's up to you, my dear. Some like it that way, some don't."
He had hung up his jacket and removed his shoes and socks. He unhooked his belt. "Perhaps I ought to warn you. I have an unusually large penis."
"I couldn't care less what you ... "
"And I prefer to fuck all three ways," the man continued implacably. He pulled off his shirt and let his pants fall. When he stepped out of his shorts Vanessa almost dropped her glass.
The size of him horrified her and at the same time she experienced a thrill of anticipation. She was going to resist this man with the enormous erection; she would never give herself to him. But he would take her. There was no alternative.
He walked over to her and took the glass from her trembling hand. His fingers closed around her arm and she felt herself pulled to her feet. Too stunned to move she stood still while he unzipped the front of her dress with one bold sweep. As though in a trance she stepped out of it and let herself be led to the side of the club chair. His hands reached around to her back. She heard a snap and saw her brassiere fall away from her breasts. He turned her around, pushed her across the arm of the chair. Vanessa felt her panties and pantyhose come down.
"Please! The window...."
"Don't worry about it."
"Do we have to do it right in front of the window? Everybody can see right in here!"
He pulled her upright, spun her around, made her sit on the chair arm. Reaching down, he dragged her underwear along her legs and over her feet. Spreading her thighs, he moved close. His penis-Vanessa thought it looked a foot long and as thick as her wrist-brushed against her lips.
"Stop talking and suck!"
She felt his knob pushing against her parted lips. With a final, worried glance at the wide open window, and the lighted windows of the hotel across the street, Vanessa opened her mouth to protest. His penis pushed into her at once.
She thought she was going to choke.
"Use your tongue a little," the man said calmly, and began to ease himself further into her mouth. She tried to move her tongue but every comer seemed to be filled with his flesh.
"Make some saliva!"
Vanessa worked her cheek muscles and to her surprise thin streams of saliva ran from the comers of her mouth and she could feel his knob become slippery against her tongue.
"Very good. Very good," the man said, pumping more vigorously. The action seemed to make him even bigger and Vanessa's jaws started to ache. She was breathing laboriously through her nose and little groans came and died somewhere deep down in her throat.
"That's fine," he said, still pumping her with a steady stroke. "Now listen. The instant I pull out I want you to turn over ... while I'm still wet. But be quick or I'll have to be sucked all over again. It's easier for you, too if I'm wet, so the quicker you move, the better it'll be for both of us ... now!"
Vanessa wriggled quick as a salmon and positioned herself ready for him. Anything to facilitate the entry of his outsize penis....
She screamed. "This," she thought distractedly, "is what it must be like to give birth!" She thought he must have entered her with his full length in one brutal thrust; she felt as if her entire belly was filled with him.
But as he continued to push further and further into her vagina she realized that only his knob had entered her with that initial thrust.
By the time she was fully impaled on his gigantic shaft the pain had lessened. Despite the man's cold-blooded efficiency Vanessa began to experience the beginnings of passion. As he pumped her, the strokes becoming faster and more powerful, a familiar tingling sensation made her moan with pleasure. She was fast approaching her orgasm.
It came. It came in wave after wave of almost unbearable sensation and she heard herself scream again, this time in lower, huskier key.
"Oh, my God! Don't stop! Don't stop!"
He continued with increasing force until his thrust made her bounce like a storm-tossed raft. Suddenly she screamed once more. He had pulled out his penis, leaving an aching void between her legs. Her hands slid past her belly and into her crotch and searched blindly for his hot organ.
Then she tensed.
Something was pressing hard against her; she could feel the rubbery hard pressure of his penis as it searched for the little wrinkled rosebud of her anus.
Was he going to try to do that without using a lubricant? Vanessa tried to struggle from under him but he pinned her down with a firm hand in the small of her back.
"Bear down," he advised her, a little out of breath. "Bear down, and everything will go smoothly."
She had the good sense to follow his advice. Clamping her lips tight shut she strained at her pelvic muscles trying with all her might to make herself wide open for him.
"Now," he cried and the next moment Vanessa felt a million hot flames shoot through her body from the orifice of her rectum to her scalp. She uttered a long, strangled cry of pain, and then it was over. He was moving deeper and deeper into her with a smooth, irresistible force that made her shiver with mingled fear, hate and excitement.
"Damn you!" she muttered. "Damn you ... Oh!"
He had slipped one hand under his penis and slid his thumb into her vagina. In a moment she felt the double rhythm of his double penetration. His penis and thumb slid to and fro inside her two intimate orifices. She tried to resist his callous lovemaking with her mind but her body responded with blind voluptuousness. She did not want to cooperate with him yet her pelvis was rotating provocatively in time with his pumping. Her vaginal muscles tightened ecstatically around his thumb; her anal sphincter closed round the root of his penis and began to milk it with steady, sensual contractions.
She climaxed with a terrifying shudder and at that moment she heard him grunt with pleasure. His juice spurted inside her and as he withdrew she could feel it running out of her and trickling into the hairy crevices of her sex.
For several moments she remained lying face down across the arm of the chair, moaning softly to herself as the receding waves of her orgasm made her body twitch convulsively. By the time she was able to get to her feet he was in the shower. Vanessa staggered across to the dresser and poured some more Scotch.
The man had been right. She did need a stiff drink.
"Good idea! Pour me one, too, will you?"
He had returned from the bathroom and was drying himself with one of the skimpy hotel towels. It looked absurdly small against his big frame.
"There's no hurry," he said cheerfully. "If you want to take a shower...."
"All right."
Vanessa picked up her clothes and headed unsteadily for the bathroom.
He was on the telephone when she came back. She heard him say, " ... You think they'll come out all right? Fine. No, I don't think she'll make any trouble ... she's no fool, that's obvious ... Don't worry about it. She'll see reason when the time comes ... See you!"
He turned and saw her standing in the doorway. "We were talking about you."
"We? Who were you talking to?" Vanessa looked past him, out the window and across the street. She gasped. "You weren't talking to anyone over there, were you?"
"Sure! Why not?" His manner was easy. He was getting dressed; he went about it methodically, moving with the assurance of a man in no particular hurry, and with no problems on his mind. His calmness drove Vanessa wild with exasperation. Clutching the damp towel to her bosom, she ran to the window and peered across the street. Among the nondescript lighted windows a dark one met her anxious eye. Was it an empty room, or a vantage point?
"Why not get your clothes on, Vanessa. Then we can eat."
It was on the tip of her tongue to snap, "Then why the hell don't you go?" Instead she answered meekly, "I won't be a minute," and gathered up her clothes.
Vulnerable now in the uncertain aftermath of passion she could not dress under his coolly incurious gaze. She hurried into the bathroom, and closed the door. She washed carefully and pulled on her pantyhose, forcing her nervous hands to be careful. She would have to go with him and there was no sense in getting runs in her stockings. Vanessa was going to need every little psychological advantage that she could muster if she was to survive this evening's encounter.
He was ready to leave when she emerged from the bathroom.
"You look very nice," he remarked. Vanessa thought she detected a hint of surprise in his tone, as though he had expected her to bear signs of having been ravaged. She blushed a little and murmured, "Thank you," and to herself, "Damn him. Damn him!" His elusiveness infuriated her; somehow it was impossible for her to seize the initiative. Vanessa disliked taking second place to anyone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The restaurant was only a block away. The man made small talk while they walked through the evening crowds, saying nothing that Vanessa could use to place him. When they reached the end of the block and he took her arm and steered her to the right she guessed where he was taking her. The Lafayette.
Her spirits rose a little. Since he had recommended the place he must have been there before, in which case Madame d'Epinay might know something about him, if only his name.
"It looks very nice," Vanessa observed politely when he stopped in front of the restaurant and gave her a questioning glance.
"Then let's go in!" He held the door open for her. She saw Madam d'Epinay look up from her cash register and smile broadly. Vanessa regretted her fatuous remark-"It looks very, very nice." She should have guessed that the man had not chosen the Lafayette at random; that coincidences of this kind were too rare to be taken for granted.
"Ah, mademoiselle! It is a pleasure to see you again."
Vanessa took the restauranteur's hand and shook it weakly.
"Good evening, madame."
Madame d'Epinay had turned to the man.
"Monsieur wishes a table for dinner?" she asked, looking at him as though she had never seen him before. Vanessa felt a tight knot of sick dread in the pit of her stomach. Why were they pretending? Madame d'Epinay was one of those women who never forgot a face. If he had been here before....
"Certainly," he said cheerfully. "I have heard such good things about your cuisine."
Madame d'Epinay bowed her head modestly.
"From mademoiselle, no doubt?"
The man smiled. "No. From your son, madame."
Vanessa thought she was going to faint.
"Let me show you to a table," said madame. Her expression had changed. No longer the conventionally smiling hostess, she now regarded them with a look of thoughtful preoccupation. She saw them into their seats and said, "I am at monsieur's service."
Vanessa had never seen her treat a customer with so much unqualified respect. The man said, "Thank you, madame. Suppose we begin with two sherries. Gonsalez Bias Tio Pepe?"
"At once, monsieur."
Vanessa thought fast. The man obviously knew the president of COMPUSEX, the son for whom Madame d'Epinay had secured favors from Parker Treadway. So her "Daphna Rutherford" file was literally an open book.
"I see the wheels spinning!"
Vanessa flushed. "What do you mean?"
"COMPUSEX. Daphna Rutherford. Elmer Carraway. Chuck Adams. Zoe Knox. You...." The man laughed quietly. "And me. That's a lot of wheels to spin in one's head ... and it shows, my dear."
Vanessa fumbled for a cigarette. The man's hand appeared in front of her, steady as a rock, and holding a gold lighter.
"Thank you," she murmured automatically and blew out short, nervous puffs of smoke.
There was silence while Madam d'Epinay set down their drinks and departed without a word.
"It would never have worked, you know."
Vanessa squared her shoulders defiantly. "I don't know what you're talking about...."
"You see, Vanessa, rich men often have their foibles ... just like the rest of us ... and some of them are admittedly vulnerable in spite of the protection that money can sometimes buy. But the Old Man? My dear girl, you must have been out of your mind. With his money and power nobody can squeeze him into a comer-certainly not one of his employees." The man smiled to soften the impact of that last remark. He patted Vanessa's hand. "The question now is: what are we going to do about you?"
"Do ... about me...." Vanessa looked at him, her eyes wide with fear. "Who are you, anyway?"
"Oh, I don't know. Part lawyer, part stockholder, part friend. I've known Tread-Parker Treadway-for some years."
His offhand modesty did not fool her for one minute. This man was up there, right at the top of The Weekly's pecking order.
"How did you ... what made you...." Vanessa could not get the words out.
"How did we get on to you?" the man asked bluntly. "Just the inevitable bits and pieces that always seem to spill here and there. One of the research girls overhears you talking about a cover story on sex. Naturally her ears grow a foot long. She knows The Weekly would never handle a theme like that. One of the junior editors sees your two detectives in an elevator. He recognized them. Somebody-probably a staff member-sends in an anonymous letter. Elmer Carraway has been seen going in and out of your apartment. Your detective friends come in here carrying COMPUSEX application forms. One of them has your name on it. Madame's eagle eye spots it right away and she makes a phone call. We check your files-the COMPUSEX files, it comes to the same thing, really-and the things you say about Daphna Rutherford don't really describe you. Which also confirms the suspicion that you're snooping ... Well, things like that."
Vanessa stared miserably into her glass.
"He'll fire me, I suppose."
"It's a strong possibility, I must admit. But by no means a certainty. Shall we order? I'm hungry as a horse."
"I couldn't eat a thing."
"Don't be silly. Have the coq au vin. I hear it's excellent."
"All right," Vanessa replied dully.
She would be fired, of course she would. The bastard sitting next to her was just playing games. Stringing her along so that he could ram that disgusting thing of his into her again. She half hoped he would. If only he would put it into her mouth right this minute; she would bite his knob right off. Castrate the swine....
He was ordering the coq au vin and a bottle of wine, his voice as urbanely poised as ever. Vanessa wanted to scream. Her hands made tight fists in her lip, the nails digging into her palms until she thought the skin would break. If she bit down hard on him he would bleed to death. It would be wonderful to see him die like that....
Or would it?
He said, "It's not as though you managed to find out very much. All you know is that he has a place somewhere, and that he used it for fun and games. In short, you only know as much as Carraway told you. Which is very little, especially in view of the extraordinary lengths you went in order...."
"He told you?"
"Of course. Don't be hard on him, Vanessa. What choice did he have? Come to that, what choice have you got?"
"Choice? I don't understand."
"Well, we have to come to some kind of agreement, don't we. Make a deal."
"Why? You just said I didn't know anything of importance."
"True, my dear. But unfortunately your detective friends were more successful. They wound up inside the Old Man's secret hideaway."
Only a few hours ago Vanessa had been cursing them for not making enough progress; now she hated them for succeeding. She said quickly, "They will keep their information confidential. After all, that's part of their job."
"Possibly. But it will be difficult to guarantee anything in that area. We've checked them out and I must admit they shaped up one hundred percent."
"In that case I don't see why anyone need worry."
The man looked at her closely.
"It's you we're worried about, my dear. Zoe Knox appears to have quite a penchant for the bizarre. This we know. But we also know that she's learned to live with her foibles or whatever you want to call them. As for Adams', he's pretty straight all around. There's no record of his ever having gone off the deep end. Maybe it's his marine corps background. But you, Vanessa, are something else again. You're unstable, and you're untrustworthy...." The man seized her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Don't be upset by my frankness. I'm not saying anything you don't already know. After all, you were planning to blackmail your boss. And that's a pretty bad strike against you in any language. And you did some very strange things in order to achieve your goal. Tell me, Vanessa. Why did you want to put the screws on the chairman of the board?"
Vanessa had been fighting back tears. Now they came in a hapless torrent. "It was the only way I could think of to get promoted."
The man sighed.
"I had guessed as much. You poor fool. Don't you realized that the Old Man would sooner have you killed-or killed himself-than give in to that kind of pressure?"
"He did things for Madame d'Epinay," Vanessa argued between sobs.
"Is that how Elmer told it? You're both nuts. Tread was in love with Madame. I've no idea what went on between them, or how and why they broke up. But she wasn't blackmailing him. At least not more than any woman does!" He laughed. "All's fair in love and war, as they say. But in your case there was no love-and believe me, you were in no position to declare war!"
He had been eating throughout the conversation; Vanessa's food was practically untouched.
"Better eat something," he urged her. "Or Madame will be offended."
Vanessa groaned. Now he was worrying about Madame. As if she was on the edge of ruin and disgrace.
"Stop pouting, Vanessa!" He sounded like a reproving father. "The world isn't coming to an end, you know."
She managed to eat enough to satisfy the man's irritating preoccupation with the convention. God, how she hated him. Biting into a piece of chicken she wished that it was his penis. She could almost hear his wild screams, see him writhing on the floor....
"It's lucky that chicken is already dead!"
Vanessa gave a start. He was looking at her with quiet amusement. "You look ready to kill someone. Me, I guess." He laughed. "But that would be very stupid."
"Really?" Vanessa said tightly.
"Really! I'm in your comer, Vanessa. Though I can understand you're rinding that a little difficult to believe-at present."
Vanessa stared at him sullenly, then turned to her wine. Maybe if she could get drunk this nightmare would go away.
"Would you care for some desert?" he asked her.
"No, I would not," Vanessa snapped with a return of spirit. "And if that breaks poor Madame's heart it will be just too bad."
"That's better! You're coming back to life again."
The man signalled for the check and took out some money. "I'm taking you home now," he told her.
They took a cab. The man said very little during the short ride to Vanessa's apartment house. When he accompanied her into the elevator she was not surprised. "He intends to take me again," she told herself bitterly. "Then when he's gotten what he wants he'll vanish and the next thing I know I'll be fired...."
Inside the apartment she asked coldly if he would like a drink.
"No thanks," he answered, and settled himself on the sofa. He patted the cushion next to him. "Come. Sit down. I want to talk to you ... but draw the curtains, will you please. We don't need Brother Carraway for this scene, do we?"
Vanessa was furious with herself for blushing brick red. Scowling, she flounced over to the window and swung the drapes closed. "Well?" she demanded trucculently. "Sit down and relax."
She perched on the edge of the sofa. "Well?"
"The Old Man doesn't know about you as yet."
So that was the game. Do my bidding and I won't snitch on you. She looked at her unwelcome guest with contempt. He merely smiled back at her.
"You have a habit of oversimplifying things, my dear." The man gave her a quizzical look. "What I am going to say to you now may well be the most important thing anyone has ever said to you. A turning point in your life, so to speak."
Vanessa relaxed just a little. She was interested in spite of her hostility. "Oh?"
"Yes. I am not going to blackmail you ... no, don't say anything! I know what you were thinking just now. Your face gives you away more than I think you know. No, it's not blackmail. It's a question of restoring the delicate balance. Let me explain. You have been scheming to do something pretty bad, let's face it. And that leaves you looking even worse. Well, does it or doesn't it?"
Vanessa lowered her eyes. "Yes, I guess it does."
"Right. Of course it does. Very well. The obvious answer is for you to do something that leaves you looking good."
"If you think sleeping with you will make me look good, then...."
"There you go again! Will you listen? I'm talking about you. You and your needs. Not mine. So tell me, what are your needs?"
Vanessa replied promptly. "A good job."
"Mm. I thought you'd say something like that."
"So? It happens to be the truth."
The man looked at her and smiled. "Is there anyone in this whole world who needs you, Vanessa?" he asked softly.
Vanessa felt suddenly faint. Why did that question frighten her?
"There isn't is there, Vanessa?"
She was in tears.
The man put an arm around her. "Vanessa, I want you to do something for someone else. I want you to give for the first time in your life."
"Give myself to you?"
"No, Vanessa. Not yet. I want you to give yourself to Parker Treadway. Do that and you will earn your promotion."
Vanessa pulled herself free of the man's arms and turned to stare at him. "Do you mean that he will promote me if I ... "
The man took her arm. "No, Vanessa. You don't understand. He will never know what you did for him. You have to serve him anonymously...."
"You must be crazy! What on earth would be the point of that?"
"What is the point of any gift?"
There was a long silence.
"What would I have to do?"
"There is a big brownstone not far from here. From the outside it looks like any other lavish townhouse. But the moment you step inside you feel as though you walked a hundred years back into the past. Nothing in that mansion was made later than eighteen sixty-nine. Even the clothes are authentic period pieces....
"What about the food?" Vanessa asked practically.
"The packaging is authentic. And the processing. Where the food is processed and packed even I don't know. But for all practical purposes you enter a different century when you go into that house. And the lifestyle of the period, also. Servants, for example, are servants, and treated the way such people were treated in the strictest households a century ago."
Vanessa felt a little tremor of fear. She knew intuitively what the man was leading up to. "You mean they get punished ... beaten and so forth?"
"Yes."
"And that is why COMPUSEX was organized? To ensure a supply of people who don't mind being beaten?"
"Correct."
"And Madame? Was she one of his servants?"
"In a way. She was his mistress and housekeeper at the brownstone. That was before he remarried. Tread married a young Englishwoman not so long ago. I dare say you've heard about it?"
"Yes. I've never seen her, though."
"Few people have. She lives in the brownstone. It's very much her scene."
Vanessa eyed him curiously. "Is she mad, or something?" He shrugged. "Who's to say? She enjoys her household. So does the Old Man. And it's their money. Most people are intrigued by the past-look at all the historical novels, movies, plays ... The chairman and his wife simply go a few steps further and actually live the past."
He gazed up at the ceiling, deep in thought. Then: "One more thing. Madame had two children. A boy who became president of COMPUSEX. She also had a daughter who is a schizophrenic. Maybe it was growing up in that strange house that turned her head. Maybe she was just born that way. Who knows? What matters is that eighteen-sixty-nine is the only word she knows. They tried putting her in an institution and she deteriorated at once. Well, what else would you expect? Outside of her own century so to speak, she can find no familiar objects. The people dress strangely, everything comes in odd-looking packages. The furnishings are unfamiliar. Even the language...."
Vanessa was listening wide-eyed.
"You mean they keep up that house for her?"
"It has almost gotten to that point. Pamela-that's her name-certainly can't survive anywhere else. Mind you, the family has a stake in the place too. They still groove on their scene, as the kids would probably put it. Except Pamela, of course. She talks like a nineteenth-century novel."
"Is Parker Treadway the father?"
"Yes, Vanessa."
"I see."
"This information is all highly confidential. You understand that, of course?"
"Yes. What I don't understand is why you told me."
"I want you to go there, Vanessa."
"To the brownstone? What for?"
"They need a scullery maid-that shows you how old-fashioned the place is. I'm not even sure what a scullery maid does...."
"Yes, something like that. Anyway, they need one."
"You must be out of your mind. Why on earth would I want to do something like that? I'd sooner starve."
"I don't think so, Vanessa."
"And if I don't volunteer for this scullery maid job, I suppose you'll have me fired!"
"No, Vanessa. You won't lose your job. At least not through me."
"What do you mean by that remark?" The man stood up.
"What do I mean? Just this. Sooner or later you'll get into a new situation and screw things up for good. That's all."
"You sound very sure of that."
"I am. You still haven't found yourself, as they say. You're overly ambitious-and in all the wrong ways."
He took out his wallet and extracted a card.
"Call me if you change your mind." He strode briskly across to the front door. "I hope you do change your mind. You could be a very wonderful person, you know."
She had not moved from the sofa. She watched him open the door.
"One minute," she called. "How long would it be for?"
"Six months."
"But he'd recognize me."
"In a blonde wig, tattered clothes, different makeup? A scullery maid? Not in a million years. Think it over."
He was gone.
Vanessa looked at the card in her hand.
JOHN H. SMITH Herkomer Hall Newport Rhode Island
A John Smith? He had to be kidding. Vanessa remembered the jokes about Smiths and hotel clerks. For the first time in many months she giggled.
Mr. Davenport looked up from the papers on his desk. An enormous grandfather clock ticked solemnly in the comer of his wood-pannelled study.
"You must forgive me for detaining you overnight, but there were many matters to be attended to."
Chuck and Zoe, seated on upright chairs in front of the large Napoleon desk, waited silently for him to continue.
"I have drawn up a document which I would like you to read, and then sign." Mr. Davenport held out two copies. "It is quite short," he explained. "You can read it now."
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: We, the undersigned, hereby admit to entering the premises located at 238 East Thirty-third Street for the purpose of having illicit sexual relations with a number of persons including one who was known to us to be mentally incompetent and incapable of resistance. We entered the same premises under false pretenses and did so intending to sell accounts of our experiences to one Vanessa Hazard, an editor of a weekly publication.
Signed
Signed
In the presence of....
"This is blackmail!" Chuck exclaimed.
The bearded man smiled. "That is one name for it. Though the word does sit well on your lips, I think. Let me rather say this document nicely balances my privacy against your license to operate as a detective in the city of New York or anywhere else in the United States." He handed Chuck a quill pen.
"You have nothing to lose by signing. A career to lose if you do not. There is ink in the silver well in front of you, sir."
Chuck looked at Zoe. She nodded.
He dipped the old-fashioned writing instrument delicately in the little pool of black ink....
CHAPTER TWENTY
"I counted to five hundred and seven this morning."
The blonde scullery maid looked up from the floor.
"Very good, Pamela"
"I would have gone on only the voices started up again. They whispered things. Rude things."
"You mustn't let them worry you, Pamela."
"They were talking about you, Daphna."
"Oh?"
"They said you do rude things with Giles."
"Oh?"
"They said you touch him ... between his legs ... and that you let him put it in your mouth...."
"You shouldn't listen to those voices, Pamela."
"Giles does that to me, too."
"Do the voices tell you that, too?"
"No, you silly goose. He really does it."
"You shouldn't let him do things like that, Pamela. The mistress would be angry with you."
"No, she wouldn't. She never punishes me. She gives me green candies."
"Not if you let Giles do rude things...."
"Then she would punish Giles. She would whip him."
"Not if you stop him from doing...."
"Pamela? Do you like to whip people?"
"It's all right, I suppose. I like candies better...."
"Then why do you always want to give whippings?"
"The mistress says I can. She gives me candies when I do it. And pretty dresses. One time she let me have a cigarette!"
"Oh, my God, Pamela, don't you...."
"Scrub the floor, Daphna, or I'll tell the mistress what you've been doing with Giles. She'll whip you...."
"Pamela, please don't...."
"See? Now you're afraid. You're afraid. You're afraid. You're just a disreputable slut. You're a fallen woman. The mistress says that sluts like you ... "
The kitchen door flew open.
"That will do, Pamela dear. I will attend to this young woman!"
"Yes, ma'am. Can I have a candy?"
"Perhaps. If you're good. Wait outside a minute, there's a good girl."
Mrs. Davenport waited until Pamela had left the room, then closed the door. She turned the key in the lock.
"I think it's time we had another little talk, Daphna."
"Yes, madam."
Mrs. Davenport rested elegantly on a kitchen chair and looked disdainfully around the room.
"Disgusting! You are the most slovenly servant I've ever had the misfortune to meet!"
"How long have you been here, now?"
"Five months, madam."
"Five months! And you still haven't learned how to clean? I see I've been much too lenient with you!"
"Please, madam...."
"Hold your tongue. Perhaps I should have Giles and Thomas whip you more often. I don't seem to be strong enough." Mrs. Davenport sounded bored.
She glanced down at her long, flowing skirts and looked faintly surprised. Suddenly she pulled up her dress and inspected her legs. "Oh, what's the use!" She let her skirts fall and sighed. "I should never have let Mr. Smith talk me into having you here. He's a very agreeable gentleman, but he isn't really one of us. Not really. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to get rid of you. He said he would take you back any time ... and well, the time has come."
Mrs. Davenport rose to her feet. "I'll have Giles bring your clothes." At the door she turned. "One thing I will say for you. You were very good with Pamela. Very patient. She will miss you."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"Welcome back, Miss Hazard!" Vanessa smiled awkwardly at the young assistant editor. "Thank you."
"How was the tour? It must be wonderful to travel around the world!"
"The world? Oh, yes. Most interesting." The young editor looked at her curiously. "Aren't you feeling well, Miss Hazard?"
"Yes ... Deirdre ... I...."
"I'm Jennifer."
"Oh, yes, of course. Stupid of me...." Vanessa was looking at the memo on her desk.
The Board of Directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Miss Vanessa Hazard as Vice-President in charge of feature stories. Miss Hazard has been with The Weekly since....
The editor called Jennifer was saying, "Miss Hazard, there's a gentleman called Smith to see you. A Mr. John Smith. Will you see him?"
"Yes, Jennifer, I'll see him."
* * *
"Does it hurt, Vanessa?"
"A little ... but I don't mind."
"Think you could get used to it?"
"Yep!" She giggled in the darkness of her bedroom. "Is your name really Smith?"
"Afraid so. Will you mind?"
"I don't think so, John." The roar of city traffic ebbed under the darkening night sky. Vanessa gazed out the window and up at the stars, savoring the touch of his fingers as they circled the nipple of her right breast. For reasons that she had never been able to fathom that nipple was infinitely more sensitive than its mate despite the fact that both her breasts were identical.
" He caressed her delicately and yet firmly; she sensed that his next move, and the move after that, and again and again after that would inevitably plunge her further and further along the road to fulfillment. And as this realization came to her she became aware of another sensation; the desire to give herself, to please.
With an abandon that was utterly new to her yet oddly imperative as though stemming from a lifetime of loving, she threw aside the bedcovers and crawled down the length of his lean muscular body. She untied the silk cord that held his pajama pants loosely round his waist and plunged her head between his thighs. Her tongue slithered avidly into the recesses of his groin; her lips and teeth nuzzled the root of his prick. Suddenly she ceased to caress him and lay back.
"Use me, darling," she whispered urgently. "Use me. Do anything you want. Anything."
He was astride her face in an instant. She felt his prick plunge against her lips, then thrust into her mouth. Sucking in her cheeks and squirting saliva from every salivary gland, she fashioned for him a tight, pulsating oral vagina that brought him to a climax with a speed that astounded him. When he made to withdraw she dug her long nails into his buttocks and pulled his penis so far into her mouth that she almost choked. Still she would not release him, sucking his shrinking organ until every last trace of his semen had been swallowed and its residual musky flavor diluted with saliva to the point where his presence was only a memory.
She was shivering from top to toe. Alarmed, he started to pull blankets over her naked body. To her surprise she was not cold at all; she was in the throes of an orgasm such as she had never before experienced.
And yet he had touched only one of her nipples before using her mouth. Was it conceivable that she could climax without as much as the touch of a fingertip to her clitoris or inside her vagina?
"You made me come-wonderfully," she breathed excitedly in his ear when he moved beside her again.
"Why stop at one?" he asked.
Her body gave a violent spasm. He had plunged his thumb purposefully inside her. Holding it in place he motioned for her to turn over onto her back. She tried not to picture the obvious result of that suggestive maneuver.
Something that felt exactly like a stiff but cool prick was pushing at her anus. It couldn't be his penis; she could see that in the moonlight, close to her breast as he crouched beside her. A dildo. Of course. That was what he was using in her vulnerable anus. A sudden flame of pain and it had entered her. She could feel the tip meeting his thumb through the thin wall lining the back of her vagina.
The next moment he had swung astride her face again. This time his prick was only moderately hard. She pushed out her tongue and scooped the knob into her mouth. To her delight it began to harden again almost immediately.
She surrendered to his triple pumping of her orifices. The dildo and thumb moved in unison to the to and fro swing of his prick in her mouth. She uttered a choking groan as her orgasm came over her, reaching its peak at the same moment that his penis squirted another, though much smaller, load of semen into her ever-hungry mouth.
"It was never like this before," she sighed.
"Of course not."
She turned and peered at him in the semidarkness. Was he merely being arrogant? A flicker of her old defensiveness signaled warningly. Instead of arguing she restricted herself with an effort to a quiet "Oh?"
"Sure," her new husband replied easily. "You spent your whole life using other people. That can be fun some of the time. But not all the time."
Vanessa thought for a moment.
"Is that why you were so anxious for me to spend time in the Davenport mansion?"
"Of course."
"Do you think they're happy?"
"I doubt it. They've gone too far in the other direction. They use people much more than they ever let themselves be used. I mean, they don't give out much of themselves. And their particular scene inevitably becomes a more or less full-time pursuit. Life has to contain something else besides sex...."
"Oh? What, for instance?"
He chuckled warmly in the hollow of her neck.
"Let's say we talk about that some other time."
Vanessa gasped in mock surprise. "Why, really! You're not trying to pretend that you can come three times in a row, are you?" He laughed.
"No. Not in such a short time. But there are other interesting things to do...."
"Such as?" Vanessa asked quickly, a note of apprehension clear in her voice.
Once again he turned her over. Vanessa knew intuitively what was coming.
"You wouldn't dare," she hissed."
"No?"
"Darling, I positively forbid you to lay a hand on me...."
"You would prefer my belt, maybe?"
Vanessa tried to wriggle loose from his tight grip "I warn you ... ah!"
He spanked her plump buttocks with lusty force. At first she felt only a mild tingling sensation. Then her skin began to feel hot. Eventually the pain started.
"Please, no more ... oh, darling, no ... no ... yes, no, ye-yes ... Oh, for God's sake don't stop!"
He didn't.
Much later she whispered a question into his sleepy ear.
