THE WORLD AND WORK OF THE PROFESSIONAL prostitute has provided an irresistible appeal to the literary craftsman for centuries. Ancient classics from both the Oriental and Occidental worlds attest to the fascination that harlotry exerts on mankind's imagination. Such literary classics as Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare, Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, and The Revolt of Mamie Stover by William Bradford Huie are but three works in a long and honored tradition which deal with the whore and the work she performs for society.
Just why so many people for such a long time should be so interested in prostitutes and prostitution is, of course, conjectural. Is it that the whore most fully exploits the strongest and most instinctive of our drives? Is it that we are all subconsciously prostitutes and that we "allow" the fictional whores to act out our deepest inner natures? Or is it that all of us have a strong Puritanical streak and we thus relish the knowledge that there are others in this world far more evil than we, far more worthy of punishment?
As insightful and important those questions might be, however, they pale against the truth of another reality: most humans like to hear a good story, well-told, which smacks of reality and gives us increased knowledge of modern life. Such a story is Counterfeit Whore by Robert Moore.
All good stories begin with fascinating characters, and this novel is replete with them. We have Gwen, nineteen, five feet two inches, voluptuous and gorgeous. Gwen is a budding journalist who will do anything to get a story -- and the story she gets leads her far deeper into an awareness of herself and sexual experience than she ever planned to go. We have Dan, big and brawny, a young cop, who discovers in himself a love of Gwen so overpowering that it leads him to heights of heroism and to depths of human understanding. We have the shadowy Mr. Mason, a Las Vegas racketeer, whose shadow grows blacker and more vile with each succeeding revelation of his character. And then we have Cliff, a giant of a man who proves to have a gentle heart; Claudia, a whorehouse madame and a sadistic lesbian; and Bob, Gwen's understanding and intelligent journalistic employer.
And the story these characters tell us convinces us of its own incredible truth. That much of the Las Vegas scene is gangster-controlled is an obvious truism. But the extent to which these mobsters control other human beings, in fact are capable of enslaving other human beings, is not so well known. In an atmosphere and an environment of amorality, what does one do for kicks once he controls all the money that he can use? Mason provides us with at least one answer: he wants to control people, body and soul. Mason succeeds in breaking Gwen, in turning her into a sniveling, perverted shell of the once strong, beautiful girl she was, and he does so merely to provide himself with the pleasure that money no longer can buy him.
But Mason miscalculates, as do most monsters. He discounts love as a force, as a meaningful human possibility. In a final scene as brutal yet believable as anything in contemporary literature, the ultimate power of love, the ability of two people to believe in each other and to forgive each other for being human, is beautifully conveyed. Love, too, is a four letter word, and, as this novel shows, it is even more powerful than the others.
The big car turned the corner and moved smoothly down the street, its headlights reaching forward with feelers of light, fingering the manicured lawns and comely homes that lined the streets.
This is it, Gwen thought. This is where you pick up the bill, girl.
Mason laid a hand lightly on her nylon clad knee and squeezed with gentle assurance. Gwen turned her face toward him and tried to smile. She was glad the car's interior was dark.
As though by preference, the headlights selected the largest house, the most spacious lawn, and pulled the vehicle into the stone studded driveway. The chauffeur opened his door and hopped out of the car, then trotted back the length of the limousine and held the door open for Gwen. She stepped out of the car, tugging at her short skirt to keep it from riding up too high. As though that would make any difference, she thought. Mason got out behind her.
"Good night, Smyth," he said in his deep, pleasant voice, and the chauffeur touched the brim of his cap and moved back to his place in the car. Gwen heard it move toward the garage as she followed Mason toward the front door of the house.
He produced a key and pushed the door open on silent hinges. Gwen entered. The door clicked shut behind them.
"Would you like a nightcap?" Mason asked, gesturing toward a large double door to her left.
"Yes. Yes, I would." Mentally, she called herself a coward. Anything to put off the inevitable. Well, she had asked for it, and with her eyes open. Out of pique she had allowed this man to strike up a conversation with her on the plane, had accepted his offer of dinner and a night on the Las Vegas strip. And now it was time to pay him back for it.
Mason led her through the big doors into a library, the walls lined with books well worn with use. He went to a wet bar on the other side of the room.
Pay your debts, she told herself. You got yourself into this, little Gwendolyn. You've accepted what this man offered you. You owe him something in return. So pay it.
She had always been a moral girl. No saint, perhaps, but not many men had enjoyed the pleasures of her body. She knew she wasn't going to like herself very much for what she was about to do. But she'd like herself even less if she backed out now.
Besides, Mr. William Mason didn't look like the kind of man who would settle for less than value received.
There was a huge mirror on the near wall of the room, and she studied herself in it. She looked older than her nineteen years. Fuller, more voluptuous than a girl had a right to look when still a year away from her twenties. She knew she was beautiful. She had tried to keep from becoming conceited about her looks, but it was hard when men walked into lamp posts staring at her on the street. It was hard when she had been a Miss California semi-finalist at seventeen, and had had to drop out only from lack of funds.
Men desired her, she knew, with a kind of blind, staggering lust, a drunkenness of want that left them helpless in her presence. She pushed back a loose strand of black hair.
All except Dan. He hadn't appreciated the gift of her body. So she had decided to show him. And here she was. Scared, reluctant, sorry she had ever started out on this stupid binge of revenge. She was getting revenge, she realized, on no one but herself.
Mason handed her a half filled glass of whiskey. She took it, trying to keep her hand from trembling. The ice cubes rattled against the sides of the glass. Gwen took a sip of the whiskey. She wasn't used to this stuff, and she had already had too much liquor tonight. But it felt warm in her body, and it relaxed her a little. She downed the drink in a long pull. Mason took the glass from her hand and placed both glasses on his desk blotter. When he turned back, to her, his hands closed on her tiny waist and pulled her trembling body against his. He felt strong and competent, and she was glad to let her sudden weakness find a refuge in his strength. She tilted her head back and accepted his kiss. His tongue slid across hers, sending a thrill through her body. Gwen's legs went weak as her arms moved about his neck, and they kissed again. Mason's hands slid around to the small of her back. One of them moved downward to her buttocks, and she felt him inching her brief skirt upward until it cleared the top of her panties. The hand, strong and warm and pleasantly callused, slid down under the elastic and into the depths of the undergarment, stroking the softness of her cheeks and pressing her body against his. She felt the hardness of his thighs against hers, felt the stiff bulging of his prick through both their clothes, and suddenly the fear was gone, and she felt desire, a fierce, surging desire that blotted out everything else. Mason's hand stroked her cheeks again, then slid around toward the front. It was an awkward position, but she felt his fingers move into the tangled brush of her pubic hair, and a fresh bolt of pleasurable desire ran through her, stronger than before.
"Shall we go upstairs?" he whispered in her ear. Gwen couldn't even nod. She could only allow herself to be led toward the staircase. Mason's hand remained inside her panties, pressing, guiding her, as they climbed the long, spiral staircase.
It was cooler upstairs, even a little chilly. Distantly, Gwen heard an air conditioning unit whispering. Mason stopped at the head of the stairs and drew her close, kissing her again. His hand petted her fanny gently, luxuriously, and she felt her desire flow out of her again in a sweet warmth of pleasure. He kissed her cheeks, her forehead, her nose, her ears, her neck and throat. Then he moved her forward again, pressing her gently as before, toward a door down the hall.
It was a very large bedroom, with walls and ceiling of black. Thick pile red carpeting covered the floor. The bed was huge and round, covered with a black spread which was turned down, revealing red silk sheets. Dim, subtle light shone from concealed fixtures behind the bed's head, streaking the wall with white shadows that moved a little, hypnotically.
The room seemed to have been prepared for them.
The door closed behind them with a scarcely audible click. Mason kissed her again, a deep, wet kiss that sent a fresh thrill through her. Dimly, she thought that Mason was a man who knew how to get a girl from the library to the bedroom without giving her a chance to cool off. She was grateful for his skill. A few minutes ago she had been scared to death, not too sure she could go through with this act of fornication with a middle aged man. Now her body cried out for him. She knew she would have no difficulty in fucking him.
Mason was undressing quickly, and Gwen sat on the edge of the bed. She unsnapped her garter belt and pushed it down the length of her legs, pulling the stockings off with it, not bothering to unsnap her garters. Her shoes struck the red carpeting with a muffled sound and stockings and belt fell over them. Her panties were already half off, the result of Mason's roving hand. She stood and pushed them the rest of the way over her hips. They glided down the length of her legs and she stepped out of them. She unzipped her skirt and allowed it to drop to the floor and she was naked from the waist down. She saw Mason's eyes focused on her cunt, and was amazed at her lack of embarrassment. She opened the buttons down the front of her blouse and shrugged it off. She knew the effect her breasts had on men. They were huge for a girl her size. Really too large, she had always thought, for a girl only five feet-two. And they jiggled when she moved, unless tightly constricted by a bra. The bra she had chosen tonight had been selected in a kind of unconscious self defense, when she was already beginning to get cold feet. It held her breasts in a vise-like grip that allowed practically no movement. Gwen stretched her arms behind her and struggled with the tiny snaps that held the garment in place.
Mason, naked now, stepped to her quickly, moving behind her. His hands brushed hers away and began to work the snaps expertly. They opened, and Gwen felt some vestigial fear, some shred of embarrassment that made her start a bit, move her hands upward as though to keep the bra from falling away. But it was too late. The bra fell to the floor, and Mason's arms came around her body and his hands cupped her breasts. Gwen felt her nipples come to attention under his touch. His mouth closed over the juncture of her neck and shoulder and her body twisted slightly in a chill of pleasure. She could feel the juices of her body moving, lubricating her, making her ready for Mason's stiff cock.
One of Mason's hands slid down from her breast, over her belly and down into the damp mass of her pubic hair. Gwen's thighs moved apart, making room, accommodating his hand. The hand flexed and squeezed, moving over her cunt with familiarity. Somewhere, from a distance, Gwen heard a moan, a low, animal sound, and she realized that she had made that sound. She could feel Mason's prick, stiff and hard, pressing against her buttocks.
He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. He laid her down gently on the bright red sheet and lay by her side. His body radiated heat, and she could hear his breathing coming in ragged patches, like her own. The dim light, radiated from behind the bed and reflected from the dark wall, made him an obscure white patch against the darkness. But then his hand closed over her breast and squeezed gently, and she moaned once more with pleasure. His other hand closed over the inner side of her thigh, about halfway up, and moved slowly, sensuously, upward until the upper edge of it rested against her crotch.
Wave after fresh wave of pleasure ran warmly up through her belly and into her breasts, and she knew that if her life, her salvation itself depended on stopping him from going on, she would be unable even to try.
He took both her thighs in his hands and spread them apart, opening her body. She felt the bed shift under his weight, and then he was over her, his massive, hard body hovering like a hawk over hers. He came down onto her, and she felt his prick nudge against her abdomen as he groped in the darkness for the door to her womb. His hands found it, his thumbs spread her cunt lips wider, and she felt her own arms move around his neck. His cock penetrated her, entered her belly, pushed her open, filled her with his flesh and his possession of her.
Her body grew rigid with sudden pleasure, pleasure so violent it made all that had gone before seem faint by comparison. His body began to move, and hers joined with it, striking a rhythm as her legs locked about his waist. She was covered with sweat but she hardly noticed it. Her ears filled with a humming, droning, moving upward in pitch toward an explosion, and then the explosion filled her brain as she reached her climax.
They lay side by side, sucking oxygen into their bodies as their hearts slowed back to normal. Gwen wondered idly how many women he had entertained here, in this bed. She was cold as the perspiration evaporated from her body. She heard a drawer open on the other side of the bed, heard a tapping of some sort, then a lighter blazed, filling her eyes with glare, and Mason lay back, drawing on the cigarette. He knew she didn't smoke. She'd told him that at dinner. No words passed between them. Mason lay smoking until the cigarette was exhausted, then stubbed it out in the ashtray on his bedside table. He turned toward her and his hands moved over her body again. She wanted to turn away from him, but the instant his hand touched her she felt the thrill again, not as powerful as before perhaps, but strong enough to make her shiver with delight. His mouth closed over her breast, his tongue tasted her nipple, teasing it into erectness. Gwen's thighs spread wide for him and he mounted her again. It was quieter this time, less frantic, as their desire was less frantic. But her helplessness before this overwhelming wave of pleasure was as complete, and the humming and buzzing and roar still filled her ears and her brain, and she was covered with cold perspiration again. His hands moved slickly over her body as his weight rested in the sweet warm couch of her pelvis, and their bodies once more found their rhythm, their dance of desire and fulfillment.
Mason seemed insatiable. She lost count of how many times he fucked her that night, but she knew that he was able to kindle a new fire in her each time he needed one.
Sometime during the frantic, delirious night, she fell asleep, and when she woke, the sun was up and Mason was gone. She dressed in the clothes she had worn the previous evening, but when she looked for her purse to put on some makeup she realized that she had left it in Mason's car. She felt crummy in these clothes, even though she had showered in a bathroom adjoining the bedroom.
She saw a butler on the ground floor, and steeling herself, she approached him.
"Is Mr. Mason out? she asked.
"Mr. Mason is in his study, Miss. If you would like to wait, perhaps --"
"Never mind. Just call me a cab, please. And my purse --"
"A cab will not be necessary, Miss. Mr. Mason instructed the chauffeur to drive you wherever you chose to go. I believe your purse is in the back seat. Will that be all?"
Gwen felt like kicking him in the shins, but she kept her voice as cool as his.
"Yes, that will be all, thank you." She walked to the front door and let herself out. Things seemed to be happening backwards, she thought. She had expected to be humiliated last night and relieved this morning. Instead the humiliation had come with the sun. She didn't know what she had expected, but she had supposed that Mason would at least see her off himself, or ask her to have breakfast, or something. Gwen had never been treated like a cheap shack job before.
Maybe that's because you've never been a cheap shack job before.
The chauffeur held the door for her, though he seemed to stand a little less stiffly than he had for Mason the previous evening. And there was something in his eyes, as though he were wondering how long it would be before a particular piece of merchandise would be marked down into his price level.
"Never!" Gwen hissed into his face as she stepped into the car. His expression never flickered. He shut the door with an expensive sounding thunk and moved quickly around to the driver's side.
Her purse lay on the seat next to her, and she picked it up gratefully. The car purred into life and started to move around the circular driveway. A little makeup would go a long way toward restoring her outlook. She opened the purse. Everything was there as it had been the previous evening. There was also a plain, flat, white envelope. She opened it. It contained two crisp new hundred dollar bills.
"Stop!" she shrieked. "Stop this God damned thing!"
The car skidded to a sudden halt, and before the bewildered chauffeur could move, Gwen threw open the door and leaped out. She ran back to the entrance of the house. The door was unlocked. She stomped inside and moved toward the library where she and Mason had had their nightcap the night before. She hoped that was what the butler had meant by referring to Mason's study. If not, she'd find him wherever he was.
The big door slammed against the wall and bounced back toward her, but she was already inside and it slammed shut from the force of its movement.
Mason sat at his desk, alone in the big room, reading a book. He looked up, astonished, then rose without thinking as Gwen strode toward him.
"All right!" she stormed. "I let you pick me up. I let you start a conversation with me in that plane, and I agreed to go out with you, and I knew at the time that we'd wind up in bed together, and I did it anyway. I let you wine me and dine me all over Las Vegas in the full knowledge of what I was expected to give you in return. And I went through with it. It was a cheap, dirty thing to do, but it would have been cheaper and dirtier to back out at the last moment. I let myself get in too because I -- well, never mind that. I did. And I gave you everything you had a right to expect under the circumstances. But I am not a whore! Do you hear me?" She shook the envelope, crumpled and wrinkled now from her grip, under his nose. "I am not a whore!" Gwen tore the envelope and the bills it contained in two and flung them in Mason's face. She spun on her heel and headed for the door almost at a run. She knew there were tears running down her face, and she felt more outraged at this than anything else. She heard Mason calling behind her.
"Wait. Miss, uh, Gwen, wait. Please." He caught her at the door, his hands closing over her shoulders. She turned and tried to kick him, but he jumped back. He was trying to hold back laughter. Gwen kicked at him again.
"Now wait a minute. Please. You're right. You're absolutely right."
She stopped and looked at him. His hands moved away from her shoulders, tentatively at first, then dropping to his sides.
"The fault is entirely mine, Gwen. When you've lived in this glittery town long enough you come to look at everything as though it were covered with spangles. When you've pushed over enough expensive chorus girls, you come to put women in two classes. Those who are hookers and those who aren't pretty enough to be hookers. You certainly don't fall into the second category. Now, the mistake was mine. It was stupid of me. I should have known better just by looking at you. I'm sorry. I apologize. All right?"
"Well, all right." Gwen was beginning to cool off. She took her handkerchief from her purse and began to dab at the tears. "Will you please call me a cab?"
"Must you leave right away?"
"What?"
"It's almost eleven. Would you do me the honor of having an early lunch with me? And then my chauffeur will take you wherever you wish to go."
"That's not necessary, Mr. Mason. You don't have to put up with me at your table. I just don't want to be treated like a tramp, that's all."
"Please. I said I was sorry."
Gwen looked up into his face. His craggy, middle-aged, handsome face was bent into an honest smile, something she hadn't seen there before. Tremulously, she smiled back.
"Well, all right. Thank you. I'd like to stay."
William Mason's idea of lunch was a two pound steak and an immense pile of french fried potatoes.
"I always skip breakfast," he told Gwen as he held her chair for her. They were on an open patio surrounded by shrubbery. "Then I make up for it at lunch time. Eat what you can. I know it isn't exactly complimentary to serve a tiny thing like you the same size serving I have myself, but the steaks are already cut when they're delivered. I order them sent, frozen, from a special house in Chicago."
Gwen did better on the steak than she had expected, and even the french fries were almost gone when she finally pushed back her plate. Mason asked her if she minded cigar smoke.
"Let's see, now, do I know about you?" he asked through a cloud of expensive blue smoke. "Besides the fact that you are a very beautiful young lady with a very strong feeling of personal pride, I mean." Gwen waited for him to answer his own question.
"I know you're a newspaperwoman," he continued after a while. "And you work for a newspaper in some small town near Los Angeles. Correct?"
"Well, it's not really a small town. It has a population of over a hundred thousand."
"Of course. There really aren't any small towns near Los Angeles, are there? All right, then, you're employed by a newspaper in a medium sized city near Los Angeles. And you've come to Las Vegas to cover the fashion show. Right?"
"You have a good memory. I didn't know you were paying any attention to what I was saying last night."
"I always pay attention to what people say, my dear. Most people don't, and the difference gives me a real advantage. Tell me, are you a newspaperwoman because that's what you want to be, or simply because when you got out of school there was a job open in the newspaper and you have worked your way up from there?"
"Well, I don't know exactly what you mean. I did get the job that way, as it happens. Copy girl. And I have worked my way up from there. But I think you'd call me a dedicated newspaperwoman. I want to be as good at it as I can. Why do you ask?"
"Because I want to do something for you. To make up for that faux pas I pulled this morning.-And if your profession means that much to you, then I think I know how I can go about it."
"That's not necessary, Mr. Mason."
"I disagree. I think it is necessary." He thought a moment, as though trying to come to a decision. He puffed on his cigar, knocked the ash into an ash tray, then fastened his gaze on her. "How would you like a scoop? Something that would make you a celebrity overnight? Have publishing syndicates and television networks bidding against each other for your time?"
Gwen laughed.
"How would I like eternal youth? I'd love to have what you offer. What girl wouldn't?"
"The difference, my dear, is that you can have it. If you're willing to muck around a bit to get it, that is."
"How?"
Mason thought a while again, and Gwen could feel the curiosity mounting in her till she thought she would explode.
"Gwen, have you ever heard of a place called The Pharaoh's Tomb? No, of course you haven't. Very few people have." He looked straight at her. "It's a whorehouse." He seemed to be sizing her up, gauging the extent of her shock at his use of direct language. Gwen took a sip of coffee and returned his gaze. Mason chuckled.
"Very good. But it's an exclusive whorehouse. It caters to a special clientele. I don't just mean a rich clientele. When I say exclusive, I mean you have to be a very important person to get in. I personally know of at least twenty-five Senators who have visited that place in the last twenty years. And I know that the number must be several times that. God knows how many Congressmen have let down their trousers there. A few cabinet members have been there. A few, very few, generals and admirals have been allowed there. Some corporation presidents. Even foreign diplomats and rulers, when they could get out of the public eye long enough. The price is high. A thousand dollars a night."
"Really? The girls must be very skillful."
"They are, of course. As good as any I've ever known, and I'm no novice at the bedroom game. But they're really no better than girls in any other first class house. No, what the Tomb offers is something very hard for such men to find: privacy. Or security, if you prefer. This is a place where a Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare can get laid and know for sure that no one will ever know he was there. No one except others who can't afford to have it known that they were there, too."
"I see. Two questions come to my mind, Mr. Mason. First, how did it ever come to have that kind of name, and second, how is it that you're familiar with it? I know you're a wealthy and important man, but are you really as important as the kind of men you've been describing to me?"
"In answer to your first question, my dear, it came to be called The Pharaoh's Tomb as a joke at first. It refers to the fact that when the ancient Pharaohs were interred all the pleasures known to man were placed with them, including their wives and concubines. And of course the sealed tomb is a symbol of secrecy and discretion. As to your second question, I am familiar with the place because I'm part owner of it."
He laughed at her visible reaction.
"But if that's so, then why --?"
"I said part owner. Actually, the part I own is very small. I have practically no control over what happens there. When I invested in the place originally, it sounded like a good deal. A money maker for sure. And as far as the morality is concerned, well, I thought it would probably be good for society if there were a place for men to go, men who couldn't ordinarily indulge in the kind of vices that others take for granted. The girls would be regular pros, the better class of course. That doesn't sound too bad, does it?"
"Of course not. I'm inclined to agree with you. A place like that is probably good for society."
"Yes. But recently things have been different. I've seen signs, heard rumors. I believe girls who wanted to quit have been threatened with physical violence. No one has really been hurt. I don't believe my business associates would be foolish enough actually to carry out their threats. But the fact that the threats have been made appalls me. I'm no saint, mind you. I work on the shady side of the law, of course. And I'm not averse to hurting someone, providing he is trying to hurt me. But I don't like threatening innocent girls, and I don't like holding them against their will.
"There have been other things, too. I think some of the girls who have been recruited for the place have been, shall we say, reluctant? Oh, I don't mean they've taken to abducting innocents. But if a girl with a slightly shady reputation is picked up on some charge or other, perhaps she is given her choice by the local sheriff of spending six months in the county jail while her trial is put back, and then maybe a year in the State Pen on a trumped up prostitution charge, or working in the Tomb for a year. If she chooses the Tomb, as they usually do, she draws the regular commission, the arrest record is destroyed, and the sheriff deposits five hundred or a thousand dollars in his private account a week or so later. That may not seem hard on the girl, but it is a kind of abduction, and I don't like the idea of being one of those responsible for turning a girl who is just a bit warm in the drawers into an outright hooker."
"So you've decided to bring the whole house of cards tumbling down? Why do you need me? Surely, the best way would be to go to the FBI."
"I don't want my associates to know I had anything to do with their apprehension. Gang revenge is a strange thing, Gwen. These men would come after me for turning them in, because I'm one of them. But if you, an outsider, blew the whistle on them, they would never consider trying to get back at you."
"All right. Suppose I went back and told my editor all about The Pharaoh's Tomb? And suppose we published the whole thing? Who would believe us?"
"No one. Unless you were able to come up with facts. The kind of facts that can't be faked. Names, dates, amounts spent, a hint of the acts performed."
"And you intend giving me those facts?"
"No. If I did, the facts would be traceable to me. My associates would be able to figure out the fact that it was I who betrayed them.
"Then what do you suggest I do?"
"Gather your facts yourself. Go to the Tomb. Get a job there."
It took a moment for the meaning of his words to sink in.
"A job? You mean as a whore? Gwen's eyes narrowed. "I thought we had that straightened out --"
"Now, wait a minute, Gwen. Calm down. Relax. Now you know you're not a whore and I know it. I'm not suggesting that you be a whore. I'm only suggesting that you pretend to be one."
"And just how does a girl pretend to be a whore in a whorehouse? Sooner or later she has to put out, and probably sooner."
"All right. So you put out. What's wrong with that? Now wait a minute before you fly off the handle. The girls who work in the Tomb do what they do for a living. It's their only means of livelihood. That makes them whores. You would be doing it to gather facts. Facts that might eventually destroy an octopus that corrupts girls and does God knows what else. That's the difference."
"Pardon me, Mr. Mason, but it's just not enough of a difference. I just can't stand the idea of going to bed with a lot of flabby old men and letting them paw me just because they have the money to pay and they happen to take a fancy to me instead of some other girl on a particular night."
Mason drew on his cigar and looked down into his coffee cup for a long moment. When he looked at Gwen again, his eyes were earnest.
"Gwen, I'm not an old man, but I'm considerably older than you. I'm forty-eight. I suppose that makes me twice your age. At least I'd guess your age at about twenty-four. Am I right?"
She smiled.
"I'm nineteen."
"Well, you could have fooled me. Anyway, my point is that I've been around enough more years than you to be able to tell you a few things. Morality is an important thing, Gwen. I'd never deny that. If nothing else, it makes a girl much more attractive than she would be without it. But morality depends on the circumstances. When it's in your power to remedy an existing wrong, do you think it's really more moral to refuse, just so that you can keep your body inviolate? No, let me finish. Some day you're going to meet a man, Gwen. The man. I don't blame you for wanting to remain reasonably pure for him. But it's purity of the spirit that counts. Purity of the body is only a reflection of it. And this man, if he is a man, isn't going to hold something like this against you. On the contrary, he'll admire you for it. And if it's public censure you're worried about, well, put that out of your mind. We live in an enlightened age. The public won't hate you for this, Gwen. They'll call you a heroine. I know. I'm no stranger to the public. And I know what pleases them. I have to. I make my living at it."
Gwen thought. What Mason said made a lot of very tempting sense. Spending a few weeks in that place, letting a lot of old men crawl on top of her could buy her a ticket on a skyrocket to the top of her profession. It could make her rich and famous. But the jarring thought hit her: What about Dan? If there were even a chance of repairing the rift between them...
"I'm sorry, Mr. Mason. I don't think so. But I do thank you. Really."
Mason sighed.
"Well, if that's your final word on the matter, Gwen, I guess I'll have to accept it. In a way I can't help respecting you for giving up a chance like this because of your convictions. Even though I think the convictions are a little silly. Now, I really do have some work to do. My chauffeur is yours for the rest of the day. He'll take you to your hotel for the fashion show, and whenever you like he'll take you to the airport." He rose, and Gwen came to her feet automatically. "Goodbye, Gwen. If you change your mind, call me. My unlisted number is on this." And he handed her a card.
The three engine jet screamed and lifted itself into the air. Gwen sat back in her seat and thought about what had occurred this weekend. This was the first time she had ever gone to bed with a man she had known for less than a day. She knew she should feel cheap and dirty about it, but Mason had been so nice to her that none of it seemed wrong. It hadn't been like it was with Dan, of course, but there had never been another man like Dan. She had never been in love with a man before Dan had walked in that day, big and powerful and a little ungainly looking in his new uniform, with the Highway Patrol badge still shining with its original gloss.
He had come in for an interview, something to do with the recruiting program of the Patrol.
The Daily Call had offered to run a series of articles and interviews with new men and old timers. Dan was the third Patrolman to come in for one of the interviews, and the moment she saw him Gwen felt something go flip flop inside her. She had always thought that love at first sight was something that existed only in popular songs of the thirties and forties, but what she experienced with Dan, if not love at first sight, was at least a very strong interest at first sight, and love soon after.
She jumped up from her desk and introduced herself to him, saying that she was scheduled to interview him. It wasn't quite true, but Mrs. Rowe, who was supposed to do the interview smiled and nodded slightly.
Before the afternoon was over, Gwen had not only managed to get a pretty good interview, but had also managed to get Dan to ask her for a date. That part of it hadn't been easy, because this big cop was either very shy or completely uninterested in her.
He took her to a movie and then out to dinner. In the car on the way home, she had sat very close to him, giving him a strong sample of the heavy and provocative perfume she was wearing. He sat driving stolidly. When he took her to her door he didn't even try to kiss her. He told her that he hoped that she had enjoyed herself. For a moment she actually thought he was going to shake hands with her. But then he turned and walked away, leaving her to fish for her key and let herself in.
The next day was Saturday, and he called her and asked her if she was busy that evening. She knew that she should tell him that she was busy and suggest that he give her more warning next time. But she told him no, she wasn't busy, and yes, she would love to go out with him. Yes, a movie would be fine.
That night he opened the door for her at least. But he still didn't try for a good night kiss, much less an invitation inside.
She pitched and tossed all night, her loins and thighs burning with frustration. If this was a technique he was using on her, she had to admit it was a good one, because after two dates he had her panting after him like a bitch in heat.
On Sunday morning he called her and asked her if she would like to go to Marineland with him. She said yes and then wondered whether she had said it a little too eagerly.
On the way there she could feel the heat of his body beside her in the car. When he helped her out she felt a spark as their hands touched. Dan seemed unaware of it.
All through the afternoon she stayed as close to him as she could. When they walked, she clung to his arm as though afraid they might be separated. When they sat to watch the show, she pressed her hip against his. Whenever she spoke to him she leaned close, so that her breast touched his arm. But he failed to reciprocate. Once his hand brushed against her capri-clad thigh, but it was obviously an accident. It didn't happen again.
"Wouldn't you like to come in?" she asked desperately, back at her apartment. "I have plenty of beer in the refrigerator."
"All right," he said, as though he couldn't care less.
He sat next to her on the couch, sipping his beer and talking about his job and asked her some make-talk questions about hers. Through it all Gwen sat as close to him as she could get. She had gotten herself a beer too, and she kept leaning forward and picking it up again. Finally, when she had just put it down, she leaned back and turned to him and found his face less than an inch from her own. Probably without knowing he was doing it, Dan leaned forward the tiny space and kissed her. It started out as a small, quick kiss, but Gwen wound her arm tight around his neck and clamped their mouths together, and then she felt his powerful arms going around her. They made her feel tiny and feminine and completely safe, as though nothing could ever reach her while those arms were there.
They broke off the kiss eventually and she sighed deeply.
"God," she said. "I thought you'd never do that."
"You -- you mean you wanted me to? How long have you wanted me to?"
"Since about thirty seconds before we first spoke to each other. When I saw you walk into the office."
"I've been holding back because, well, I didn't think you could really be interested in me, a rookie State cop. I mean you're so beautiful and all. I didn't want to do anything to hurt whatever chances I had."
Gwen sat looking up into his big brown eyes, as open and sincere as his body was tough and masculine, and suddenly he put his arms around her again and kissed her. It was a deep kiss this time. His tongue slid across hers and sent a hot thrill through her body. Her tiny hands moved over his cheeks and down to his neck, and her arms coiled around him, drawing him close. Their bodies pressed together. She felt her breasts flatten against his chest and his arms tightened around her. When they broke this time, their faces were bright red. She pulled away from him, straightened her sweater and stood up. You'd better leave now. She knew that was what she should say to him. Call me, darling. If you stay now, I'm liable to lose my head, and I don't want you to think bad of me. These were the words she decided on. Simple, definite, telling him to leave now, but still leaving the door wide open for him at a later time. The words leapt into her mind as she rose from the couch. She framed them, arranged them, polished them, admired the perfection with which they made her position clear. She congratulated herself, in the brief second it took her to turn toward him, on the coolness with which she had been able to select her words under this kind of stress. She looked down at him and opened her mouth to speak.
"Come on," she said in a deep, husky voice. "Let's do this thing right." She marveled at her own foolishness, her own stupidity. She cursed herself for her lack of character as she led him to the bedroom, unbuttoning her sweater. She dropped it to the floor just inside the bedroom door. She let her shoes drop from her feet and unzipped her capris and pushed them down over her hips. Dan stared at her, fascinated, then began to undress. Gwen un-snapped her bra and let it slide down her arms and drop to the floor. She could hear Dan's sudden intake of breath clear across the room. She turned toward him, proud of the big, firm breasts that jutted before her, proud of them as she had never been before. She had only her panties now, and she hooked her thumbs under the elastic and slipped them down over her hips, letting them slide down the length of her thighs. She stepped out of them, as out of a pool of light pink bubble bath. Dan was stripped down to his shorts now, and she could see his prick stiffening under the thin cotton.
Gwen walked to the bed and turned it down. She was glad she had put fresh linen on it that morning. She never put fresh linen on the bed on Sunday. She wondered whether she had unconsciously expected this consummation of their desire for each other.
She lay on the expanse of white sheet, her limbs akimbo, the black patch of hair on her cunt pitching with her ragged breathing. Dan sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at her. There was a look of reverence in his eyes.
"My God," he breathed. "You're so beautiful. So beautiful. More than I thought..."
"Shhhhhh." Gwen felt tears forming in her eyes. She had never known it could be like this. The two men who had known her body during her life had been nice enough, but not -- not like this. She took his hand and pressed it against her breast. Her nipples stiffened. She took the hand away and moved it down to her cunt. She could feel her pubic hair growing damp with desire. "Shhhhhhhh. Don't talk. This isn't a time to talk."
Dan loomed over her hugely. His massive chest and shoulders blanked out the light from the other room, and he was a big, male-smelling silhouette. His hands were moving over her now, moving of their own will, without the prompting she had given them. His breath was harsh and ragged, and she could smell beer and tobacco in it. The smell was masculine and it excited her more. His hands moved over her rib cage and slid under her back and lifted her and moved her to the center of the double bed. He lay down beside her, the bristliness of his chest scratching her arm and her breast. She could feel the stiffness of his prick against her hip and she thought with urgency that she must have that hot column of flesh in her cunt this moment, or she would explode. She took it in her hands and caressed it, and it grew harder and larger, throbbing with a life of its own. It was damp and slick, ready to penetrate her. Dan made a little groan of pleasure and moved above her, mounting her. Gwen spread her legs wide, making room for him and opening her body as wide as she could. His hands groped for her moist slit, and she took his cock into her hands again and maneuvered it into her. It was huge, wonderfully huge and hard, and it filled her, plunging deep into her womb, and she cried out in an agony of pleasure as her legs twined about his small hard waist and locked themselves there.
Two bodies moved as one, a mass of flesh and bone striking a single rhythm as though one brain, one nervous system, controlled all of it.
Gwen knew only feeling, only sensation. All other senses were lost to her, sight and hearing and taste and smell, all away now, making way for this overwhelming feeling, this wonderful agony of pure joy as he pumped and surged in her and spewed his hot come into her belly, and her thighs moved against his waist, the friction increasing the pleasure. And then the feeling was too great to be borne any longer, the pleasure too great, too intense, too massive to be released by screams or shrieks of joy, and then it all came together in her head and exploded there like a million skyrockets going off at once, and she felt herself falling, falling back to earth and reality.
He lay beside her, his huge body heaving with spent air, and they touched slightly, the hairs of his arm tickling her pleasantly. He moved, sliding his arm under her shoulders and pulling her close. She nestled against him, safe and happy. They lay for a long while, and then Gwen felt desire stirring in her again, and she could tell by Dan's movement, by the touch of him against her, that he was feeling it too. His hand moved between her legs and she spread them for him again, and he moved over her again, mounted her again, fucked her again, and the skyrockets went off again, and it was over again.
Dan fucked Gwen two more times after that, and she didn't know how quickly the time was passing, and she didn't care, and when she finally noticed the clock on her bedside table it was past eleven. They rose and went into the kitchen and took some sandwich steaks out of the freezer and she made sandwiches and coffee for them, and they ate and looked at each other, and enjoyed their presence, and then, without a word returned to the bedroom and made love again. She had never been so pleased with her body as she was now with its ability to give him pleasure.
He finally left her at four A.M. and went home to get ready for work. Gwen made a mental note to buy a razor and some shorts and T-shirts so he could do some cleaning up before he left her. She would ask him to bring some of his uniforms over and hang them in her closet. She flushed with pleasure as she thought of how they would look hanging there next to her dresses and skirts.
She kissed him at the door and asked when she would see him again, and he promised to call her at work that day and to see her again that night. She set her clock and went back to the bed, still smelling of him, and slept the two-and-a-half hours till she had to get ready for work.
She had never been so happy. On the two other occasions she had gone to bed with a man, she had felt some doubt about it, but not this time. This time she was sure. It had been right. She was engaged, she thought. She loved him and he loved her, and they would marry and have seventeen children and live together forever.
He didn't call that morning. She had assumed he would be as anxious to speak to her as she was to speak to him. But the morning wore on and she didn't hear from him. She postponed going to lunch, waiting for his call. She rearranged her filing and got new paper from the supply room and put a fresh ribbon in her typewriter, and still he didn't call. It was past one o'clock when she finally decided to go to lunch. She carefully left word with the switchboard girl, telling her with great precision where she could be reached if there were any calls. But there were none. By three o'clock she was really worried, wondering whether he had been hurt. She remembered stories that had come in on the wire services of police being killed by some desperate criminal they had been unfortunate enough to stop for a minor traffic violation. She had a picture of him lying on some road with his body full of bullets.
Finally she called the office that dispatched him. She would tell him to meet her at such-and-such a time for dinner in her apartment. That would be her excuse for calling.
A man answered the telephone and gave his name, which she couldn't have repeated back to him.
"I'd like to speak to Patrolman Wesson," she said, trying to sound casual.
"Patrolman Wesson is in his car, Ma'am. We can reach him by radio, if it's an emergency."
"No. No, it's not an emergency."
"Would you like to leave a message?"
"No, that's all right. Thank you."
Somehow she got through the day, and went home. She showered and put on a pair of silk lounging pajamas. She cooked a steak dinner and put a bottle of wine in the refrigerator to chill. The steaks got cold. She ate hers. At nine o'clock the door buzzed.
He was in a sport shirt and a pair of light gray slacks, and he looked as though he had been drinking. He swayed above her for a moment, then stepped inside. He said, "Hello, sweety," and kissed her. His breath was heavy with bourbon. She kissed him back, then took his hand and led him to the couch. He put his hands on her rib cage, under her pajama tops, and drew her close. They kissed again.
Gwen drew away from him, trying to keep from sounding like a hurt female.
"Why didn't you call me today?" She hoped her voice was casual.
"Call? Gee, I don't know. Should I have called?"
"Well, you said you were going to."
"Sorry. I forgot."
"I waited all day."
"I said I was sorry. Now, come here."
She pushed his hands away and came to her feet.
"Just a minute. I want to know where I stand with you. Do you care about me at all? Or am I just something warm to fuck after work?"
"I don't like crude talk from a woman. It's cheap."
"Well, answer my question. Just what am I to you?"
"You're a beautiful, passionate girl, that's what you are."
"That's a very nice way of saying that I'm a nice looking pushover, something convenient that you were lucky enough to find right in your lap."
"That's not what I mean."
"Then tell me what you do mean."
He came up off the couch and stalked across the room, pacing like a suddenly tense animal.
"God damn it, what is this ? I didn't sign anything last night, did I? Because I'd swear you sound just like a God damn wife. Do you get this bitchy with every guy who puts his prick between your legs and gives you a good screwing?"
His words washed over her like a bucket of cold water.
"What do you mean, every guy? Just how many do you think there have been?"
"I haven't the slightest idea. It never occurred to me that it was any of my business. But you certainly do an easy job of falling, don't you?"
"You bastard! Just because I fall for you, and lose my head over you, you think I'm some kind of easy lay?"
"Well, aren't you? You certainly came off that way with me. Now, if I recall correctly, the bedroom is that way, isn't it?"
"It's a matter of no further concern to you where my bedroom is, you louse! Get out of my apartment. Now. Or I'll call the manager and have him throw you out. He's not as young as you, and not as big, but he used to be a professional boxer, and one of the main reasons I moved in here was that I was sure that he could take care of any troublesome drunks who might barge in."
"You don't have to make with the threats," Dan said, starting for the door. "I don't hang around where I'm not wanted. Last night I got the feeling that I was welcome."
There was a heavy clear glass ash tray on the coffee table, and she threw it at him. She had never thrown better in her life. He ducked, but too slowly, the alcohol slowing down his reactions. The ashtray hit him on the left side of the forehead and cut him slightly. He started across the room toward her, and for a moment Gwen thought he was going to beat her. But he stopped six feet from her and looked at her for a long moment. Then he turned and stalked out.
The next day she called in sick. She had cried most of the night, finally falling asleep some time after four-thirty, and she just didn't feel up to working. She walked around the apartment all day sniffing and rubbing at reddened eyes.
The day after that was Wednesday. She showed up for work ten minutes late and heard two girls discussing a fashion show that was to be held in Las Vegas the following weekend. She had heard about it before, but the girls were saying that the Call had decided to send a reporter to cover it.
She went in to speak to the managing editor.
"It's about the fashion show in Vegas, Bob."
"What about it?"
"I'd like to cover it. That is if the scuttlebutt is correct and the paper really is going to send someone out on it."
"Sure. It's yours."
"That means I'll be on the travel Friday night and Saturday night. How about some compensating time off?"
"Sure. Two days." He looked at her more closely. "Make that two-and-a-half days. And from now until noon we'll give you lunch time. Go home."
"That's not necessary. I can work."
"Sure you can work. You can also slash your wrists with a letter opener. But why should you?" I don't know what has happened to you, Gwen, but it's obvious that this isn't the happiest day of your life. Now go home, for Christ's sake. We'll have someone deliver your plane tickets to you."
And here she was, on a three engine jet heading back toward California. She had hoped the little change of scene might help her get over her brief affair with Dan. Instead she had missed him the whole time. She thought about what she had done with Mason, and felt cheap and dirty. She decided to try to see Dan again. She was still convinced that he had been at least as wrong as she had, but what was the difference? She loved him. She wanted him back, and if the loss of a little self respect was what it would cost her, then she would do without self respect. It was obvious that he didn't love her as she loved him. But that wasn't what mattered. If he didn't want to marry her, if he just wanted a girl to date, a girl to fuck every so often, then that's what she would be. She would give him a key to her apartment. She would become his -- she forced herself to think the word --.his mistress. It wasn't what she wanted, but if it was the best she could do, then she'd settle.
It wasn't what he wanted, Dan Wesson thought, but if it was the best he could do, he'd settle. The first time he had seen Gwen Lee there in the office of the Daily Call he had known that this was the girl he wanted for his wife, the mother of his children. He imagined that beauty, that exquisite body, waiting for him every night. He pictured her keeping his home, making the bed they both slept in and washing the dishes they ate from, and the picture sent a thrill through his massive body. But she had been so beautiful she had frightened the life out of him. It was all he could do to ask her for a date, after she had mentioned sometime during the interview that she was single.
That was what he wanted from her; all she had to give. Everything she could give a man for the rest of her life. But apparently she wasn't prepared to give him that. She was a modern girl, a swinger, a beauty who found his big, clumsy awkwardness amusing, and who liked him in bed because he was young and vigorous. No doubt she had other men on the string too, and while that made him fume with jealousy, he realized that he really didn't have any right to be jealous of her. She hadn't promised a thing. He was the one who had taken things too seriously. And when he had been too nervous to try to kiss her good night even, she had taken the lead and almost literally taken him by the hand and led him to bed. She had probably been thrown by his lack of insistence. No doubt she was accustomed to going out with men far more sophisticated than he, men who would think nothing of making a pass at a girl on their first date, and would feel put upon if she didn't come through. Well, he just wasn't built that way. But if that was what she wanted, just to keep him around for the amusement he afforded her, for his value as a stud, then he would be her stud, and would content himself with that role.
He looked at his watch. The plane was late. He was sorry he had come. He knew that she wasn't going to want to have anything to do with him any more. Not after the stuffy way he had treated her, the old-time-revival-meeting morality he had displayed, after having enjoyed her body in bed all night.
Well, he just wasn't used to a girl being that easy to screw. Not a nice girl anyway, a refined, well brought up girl. And that was what Gwen had seemed to him. After that fervid night in her bed, he had deliberately neglected to call her the next day because he had been so disappointed, after the heat of his loins had died down, and he had gotten past the first flush of joy at the delights of her body, so disappointed that she had been so easy to lay, so casual about the whole thing. After work he had gone to a bar and gotten drunk, swilling down the booze until he had begun to think, well, why not? If that's what the lady wants, why not give it to her? Any guy he knew would think he was crazy for passing up a sweet deal like that. Hell, it was better than a sweet deal, it was the kind of thing that only happened in traveling salesman stories.
So he had gone to her apartment, finally, and then they had had that bout, and he had almost hit her before he had stomped out of the place like a stuffy buffoon.
The P.A. speaker told him that the flight from Vegas was about to disgorge its passengers at gate three. He straightened his tie and headed in that direction. The flowers in his hand were wilted, because it was Sunday morning and the florist stand had probably had them since Friday. He felt miserable. He had treated Gwen so badly, had practically called her a hooker, and now he expected a bunch of wilted posies to make up for it. She'd spit in his eye and walk right past him. And he deserved it. He couldn't think of any man who deserved it more. He had traded shifts with another patrolman to meet this plane, and he'd have to work two shifts with only a six hour break in between, but it was worth it if there was any chance, any at all, of showing Gwen how sorry he was.
She was coming up the ramp now.
Once when Dan and his partner had stopped a dangerous suspect on the road, the man had come out of his car with a .45 automatic in his hand, the hammer eared back like an angry dog. The gun had been aimed straight at Dan's partner and Dan, who was much closer to the suspect, had grabbed it and twisted it aside, arcing the muzzle past his own belly, very much aware that the bullet could turn his belly to mush in the split second it was aimed at him. The courage required by that act had been nothing compared to the courage required by what he was about to do.
He stepped out into the center of the ramp, where Gwen couldn't help seeing him.
But she was carrying a small suitcase and looking down at the ground, and when she did look up, her eyes slid past him as though un-noticing, and he thought well, that's it.
But then the eyes came back and looked at his face again. Her face changed slightly, a subtle shift in the shape of the mouth, and he couldn't make out the meaning of the expression. She slowed her steps slightly and kept coming forward, looking straight at his eyes, and then, when she was three steps away she suddenly dropped the suitcase and her handbag and rushed forward. Her arms went up around his neck. He was never sure how she managed to reach it, but her feet were free of the ground and her face was pressed against his, and then she kissed him hotly, passionately, her tongue moving through his mouth like something wild. She felt warm and soft and supple in his arms. She was fragrant of some kind of bath oil or something, and she was trembling sweetly in his arms. People around them were looking on amusedly as they passed. They kissed again after getting some air, and then he put her down. "Darling --" he started to say, and "Darling --" she started to say at the same time, and then they laughed. He held the flowers toward her. They had become crushed and disreputable during the embrace. She looked at them and they both laughed again, idiotically.
Dan picked up the suitcase and Gwen picked up her handbag and they both started forward, his arm around her shoulders.
She had taken a cab to the airport and didn't have a car there. Dan drove her to her apartment and carried the suitcase up the stairs and took her key and let them in. Gwen started toward the bedroom, unbuttoning her blouse as she went. She dropped the blouse to the floor and unzipped her skirt and let it fall where she stood. Dan began to undress. She was wearing a slip, a black one with a fringe of lace around the bottom, and she pulled it off over her head impatiently. She was so beautiful, like a tiny perfect jewel. She pushed her panties off and then wrestled out of her bra, then turned and gave him the full force of the sight of her body all at once.
It knocked the breath out of him. Her breasts were rosy red with excitement, as though his fingers had already begun to stroke them. Dan shucked his shorts and walked toward her, naked, as ready as she for love, and more obviously so. She looked down at his erect prick and laughed a little, a laugh mixed from excitement and a touch of embarrassment.
Dan lifted her in his arms and held her like a precious bundle, like something priceless and irreplaceable. He bent his neck forward and covered one breast with his mouth. Her arms tightened around his neck.
He laid her gently on the middle of the bed and lay down beside her. His hands made a playground of her body, moving here and there, stroking and fondling and squeezing as he wished. Her breathing grew rapid and shallow and her own hands began to move over him, sliding over his legs and back and buttocks, and coming finally to his cock. He felt a powerful thrill shoot through him as she touched him there, felt his prick grow stiffer and larger and heavier and more full of the juices of love, and he knew he had better put that hot column of flesh where it belonged soon or lose everything. He moved her legs apart lovingly and mounted her. Her body was soft and hot and exquisite under him. Her silken skin quivered deliciously in anticipation. Her legs spread wider of their own volition.
He moved his hands down her belly and over her abdomen and pulled her cunt lips wider with his thumbs, his hands working through the dampness of her pubic hair, bringing out of her body more of the juices of lovemaking. His cock was so hard now it was painful, swollen by excitement, and her hands took it, her tiny, smooth hands, and it grew still more and he grunted in a mixture of endurable pain and unendurable pleasure. She guided him into her, pulling him, welcoming him insistently into her most intimate part, and then their bodies began to rock and move in unison, a rhythm and a single movement, locked together, synchronized to each other, flesh of one flesh, and he lost awareness of all that was happening outside of their little world of the bed, and then even that was gone and it was just the two of them, or the one of them, because they were one person now, one tangled mass of flesh and blood and pleasure, and he dimly heard her cries of ecstasy mixing with his own grunts, and things became unendurable, and then her legs, locked about his waist, tightened until he could hardly breathe, and he knew she was having her climax, and then he found himself in the middle of his own, and lights seemed to explode behind his eyes, and his body went rigid with pleasure-pain, and it was all over.
He lay limp, his hand stroking her thigh luxuriously, and he could feel her breathing, feel the soft pulsations of her sweet body.
She stirred; rose and walked into the bathroom. He heard water running briefly and then she came back and around to her side of the bed again. But she stopped, stepped to his side and knelt by the bed. There were tears in her eyes.
"I've said this once before," she told him. "But I was only a girl then and didn't really know what it meant. So it doesn't count. Now I'm a woman, and I do know. I love you, Dan. I love you very, very much."
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and looked down into her face. Emotion welled up in him and he tried to answer her, but he couldn't trust his voice. And then something he would not have thought possible happened between them. She was kneeling before him, his knees bracketing her torso, and without any warning at all she raised her hands and took his prick in them. It came awake instantly, jutting forward like a switchblade knife, and she pushed the outer skin back gently, lovingly, and came forward slowly, as though relishing the moment.
Dan's hands gripped the sweat dampened sheet, clutching tightly as things began to move around, then lifting and swaying with his sudden passion. Gwen kissed the tip of his cock then let her lips slide over the head of it. He could feel the soft sting of her teeth moving over the tender flesh, and his body quivered in a sudden shot of uncontrollable joy.
Her mouth moved higher, her tongue fondling and tasting and relishing him, and suddenly he couldn't remain passive any longer, it was too much, too strong, and his legs came up and locked around her head, and his hands left the sheet and clutched at her head, his fingers winding in her hair and gripping, dragging her face tighter into the humid recess of his crotch. His belly turned to stone, contracting with sudden ecstasy. His body stiffened and arched and he bent forward, feeling her head rub against his chest, and he grunted and then cried out in agony and pleasure. And his come spilled into her mouth, and he went wild with the ecstasy of it, thrashing and clutching at her and then it went off all at once in his head as before. And then it was over again and he lay on his back, and Gwen pulled herself onto the bed and lay beside him.
After a while she got up and went into the bathroom and he heard the tap run and heard her gargle, and then she came back out.
"How about something to eat," she said. She slid open the door of a wardrobe and started to reach for a robe.
"Don't," he said. "I just love to look at you. You're perfect."
She smiled, pleased, and walked toward the kitchen, still naked and beautiful. Dan followed her.
She made fried egg sandwiches, laughing and complaining about how uncomfortable it was to have hot grease spatter on her naked skin. She asked if he would mind if she put on a little apron, and he said yes he would mind, and she said well then she wouldn't do it, because she would never deliberately do anything he minded. He sat at the table and looked at her, watching the marvelous precision of muscle under skin as she bent and stooped and reached.
She put the sandwiches on plates and brought them to the little table, setting them on opposite sides. She poured them coffee and then came back and started to sit down, and then grinned at him and said she could always stand up and eat if he wanted to keep looking at it. He blushed and told her 'F'crissakes, sit down.'
"Darling," she said when their sandwiches were devoured and they were drinking a second cup of coffee and starting to look forward to the next round in the bedroom. "Darling, guess what? While I was in Vegas I was offered a job."
"Dancing in the chorus line or shilling for the house?"
"Worse. Working in a whorehouse." Her voice was playful, bantering. He tried to match it.
"Well, I'll have to admit you have the talent to draw the money clients. Who made you this fabulous offer?"
"Oh, a man I met."
"A man you met?" He put down his coffee. "You mean some drunk in the casino, or what?"
"No, as a matter of fact he was very nice. He bought me dinner."
"Some guy you didn't even know bought you dinner?"
Her face went red and she suddenly became nervous.
"Well, I met him on the plane. He was a perfect gentleman."
"Oh, sure. That's why he offered you a job in a hook shop, huh?"
"I'm sure he was joking." The way she said it made Dan sure he hadn't been. "His name's William Mason. He's some kind of big shot in Vegas, with a big house on..." She stopped, having gone too far.
"Go on," Dan said. His voice was quiet and controlled. "Did he offer you this job at dinner, or later, in his big house?"
"Darling, it was nothing like that, really. You're making something out of nothing. He knew I was a reporter and he took a liking to me and he told me about this place. He said it was doing some rather strange and definitely illegal things, and he thought I might be interested in going there for a little while to work and gather a story. That's all."
"You said before that he was joking. Now suddenly he was offering you a job because you're a reporter."
"Well, I don't know, it sounded like a joke, but --"
He came around the table and grabbed her arm in a steel grip that made her wince. He yanked her to her feet.
"Don't lie to me, bitch. What happened in Vegas?"
"All right!" She yanked her arm free of his grip. Her eyes were fiery. "I let him fuck me. I was angry and hurt and miserable and lonely, and I let him fuck me because he was a lot nicer to me than any other man I had known for a while. Oh, honey, it had nothing to do with my feeling for you. I thought we were through. The way you stomped out of here last week and all. And I was so miserable."
"Did you suck him off? Like you did for me?"
She fell back a step, horrified."
"No! My God, no! I've never done that for any other man. I didn't even know I was going to do it for you until I was in the middle of it."
"Bullshit!" He shouldered her aside and headed toward the bedroom. She followed, trotting to keep up with his longer strides. He pulled on his pants, shrugged into his sport shirt.
"Darling, please talk it out with me," she begged, but he hardly heard her. He pulled his wallet from his pocket and pulled out a ten dollar bill -- "That's for the piece of ass, honey." And a twenty -- "And that's for the blow job." He moved to the doorway, but she blocked his way.
"Darling, please don't leave me again. If you do, it's for good this time, because I can't take any more of this."
He looked down at her. He made his voice hard and cold.
"Get out of my way, cocksucker."
She stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending, and then fresh tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over. She fell to her knees and bent double, hugging her belly as though in actual, physical pain.
"Oh, God," she cried. "God help me."
Dan brushed past her and stamped out of the apartment. He slammed the door behind him.
After Dan left Gwen stayed kneeling on the floor for a moment, then rolled onto her side. She felt the roughness of the carpet under her nakedness. She lay there for a long time and wept quietly, then got up and went into the bedroom again. Dan's shorts and T-shirts lay on the floor where he had left them. She picked them up absently and tossed them into a chair. They smelled of him, masculine.
The thirty dollars he had thrown on the floor lay there still, crumpled and wrinkled. She picked up the two bills and started to tear them in half. Then she thought better of it. What was the use? She had torn bigger money than this in half this weekend and what had it done for her? She would mail the money back to Dan.
She couldn't really blame him, she supposed. No man could have taken in stride the kind of revelation she had just given him. Why had she done what she had? And having done it, why couldn't she have kept her mouth shut?
She had been so happy, so relaxed, and the too-cute story of Mason's "offer" had tripped past her lips innocently. Well, that was that. There was no hope now. If Dan had thought she was a tramp before, he must be sure of it now. She had nothing left now but her career. Her job with the paper. She would have to fill her life with that until she could forget Dan. If she could ever forget him. She started to put the thirty dollars on the bureau. She stopped, looking at it.
Her job. Reporter. Something to help her forget Dan, to drive him out of her mind. Dan thought she was a whore.
All right.
She walked to the phone, picked it up, then put it down again and went looking for her purse. It was on the bedroom floor. She took out her wallet, pulled out the card Mason had given her. She went back to the phone, got the area code for Las Vegas from the little blue book she kept under it and dialed.
Mason himself answered.
"Mr. Mason? This is Gwen."
"Who?"
"Gwendolyn Lee. The girl who slept with you last night."
"Oh, Gwen! I'm sorry. I've been so busy here. What can I do for you?"
"It's about that job you offered me. Does the offer still hold?"
"Ye-e-e-s. Do you think you could carry out the duties, ah, wholeheartedly?"
"I'm sure I could. In fact I have it on very good authority."
He was silent for a long moment.
"Gwen, is something wrong?"
"Of course not. I've just come to my senses, that's all. Everything you said to me about morality makes sense. I want the job. When can I start?"
"In a couple of days. You'd better fly back here first. I'll make the necessary arrangements. Can you come back tomorrow?"
"I think there's a plane tonight. Can your driver meet me at the airport?"
"I'll meet you myself. You certainly are in a hurry."
"I want to get started, now that the decision has been made. Shall I bring any -- special clothes?"
"No, they'll furnish all your, ah, uniforms. Just bring your toothbrush and enough clothes for a couple of days. Something comfortable. It'll take a day or two to set things up. Shall I reserve you a hotel room?"
She hesitated a moment.
"Under the circumstances, why bother?"
"Yes. Why, indeed." There was an excitement in his voice, a tightness, and it made Gwen feel a surge of triumph.
The station wagon moved carefully along the mountain road. It was dark, and the driver was cautious. He wasn't Mason's usual chauffeur, but another man, with a vivid red face and a pushed-in nose. He spoke little. They had stopped twice to eat, and he had sat on his side of the booth and munched quietly at his food, withdrawn, the servant forced this once to eat at the table with his employer's friend. Gwen wondered whether he knew what she would be doing here, and if not, whether he would treat her with such diffidence if she told him.
It had taken Mason four days, not the "day or two" he had mentioned, to make the arrangements. She suspected that he had stalled a bit. She had lived with him for those four days. She had give him what he wanted, the free and unhindered use of her body. Night and day she had held herself ready for his convenience -- for his cock. She thought of it as practice, training for the new trade she would briefly hold. She experimented, trying new positions and methods of exciting him. She wanted to be proficient at her job.
The one thing she refused to do was perform any "specialties," such as the one she had so innocently done for Dan. No matter how insistently Mason asked her to suck his cock or tongue his asshole, she would refuse, quietly but adamantly. "That's one thing I won't do for anyone."
She also refused to give him any reason for her change of mind about the job, insisting that it had simply occurred to her that she was being foolishly Victorian.
The car stopped. Gwen looked around stupidly, searching for some building, some sign of habitation.
"This is the place, lady," the driver said. "Mr. Mason said to tell you to take the middle path."
He knew. She was sure of it now. The knowledge grinned apelike from his eyes. There was a footpath on the other side of the road. The side to the right of the car dropped off sheerly, a cliff. Gwen got out of the car and lifted her little overnight bag from the back. She started to voice some automatic thanks to the driver, but the car was already in motion. She watched it make its way around a curve. Then she walked across the road, the bag banging at her hip uncomfortably with each step. The middle path, he had said, and Gwen saw what he had meant when she stepped inside the thick growth. The single path split into three. She wondered whether it had always been that way, or if the owners of the Tomb had made two false paths to provide them with an added protection against outsiders.
She walked up the path. It became dark as the trees closed over her head, blotting out the star strewn sky. The path was wide enough for a car, for two cars to pass each other. She wondered why the driver hadn't brought her inside. Maybe Mason was afraid if they saw her arrive in a car of his they would connect her with him when her articles began to appear. The reason it had taken him four days to arrange things, he told her, was that he had done it by a circuitous route, getting people who owed him favors to get other people who owed them favors to make the arrangements, so that his senior partners wouldn't know that he was involved in her hiring.
There was a light ahead. She caught glimpses of it as she walked. Her new home.
She wondered what her managing editor thought. The letter she had slipped under the door last Sunday had been ambiguous. It had been a kind of request-f or-leave-of-absence-if--he-was-willing-to-grant-it-or-a-resignation-if-not.
She shivered from the chill and from something else. Mason had told her that women had been threatened here. He was sure the threats would never be carried out. But she wasn't. It had seemed a reasonable risk to take at the time she had decided to come here. But now she found it difficult to look at things quite so objectively. She was glad she had brought her gun. A .25 automatic, she had bought it for protection a year ago. She knew they might search her luggage, and so she had considered hiding the gun in her bra. It was small enough. But that was no good. They might have her change clothes or something while someone was with her.
So she had had Mason buy her a fall while they were in Vegas together. She had put it on that morning, with the gun hidden underneath it, held in place by an elaborate arrangement of bobby pins and a plastic comb she had bought. The gun was loaded. It held seven shots.
She saw light through the trees more often now, and then she turned a curve and there it was, not fifty feet away.
It was a very large house. A ranch style brick. There was a fence around it, a high one of Cyclone construction. A man stood at the gate next to a kind of sentry house. Somewhere she heard the muffled barking of large dogs. She wondered what she had gotten herself into.
"You must be the new girl," the man at the gate said. He was older, in his sixties she guessed, and he didn't appear to be armed. "God damn, you're a pretty one." He squinted at her in the light from the house. Gwen felt herself blush.
The old man took a ring of keys from the shelter, opened the gate and took her suitcase. He shut the gate and it clicked locked again. He put the keys in the shelter and led the way to the house.
"Watch your step. The ground's kind of uneven here. And the light's not the best I ever seen." She was glad she had worn capris and flats.
He knocked on the door. Someone opened a peephole and looked at them. Gwen heard a bolt rumble and the door opened.
The man who opened it was big, bigger than Dan by a country mile. Frighteningly big. The old gatekeeper handed her suitcase to him and turned and left. The big man motioned Gwen inside. With the air of someone jumping into an ice cold pool, she took the step into the whorehouse.
He led her wordlessly into the depths of the house, carrying the bag that had been such a burden to her as she would have carried a paper bag full of cotton. He must be at least six feet, six, she thought. Most big men were very gentle, she reminded herself, and he was probably no exception.
They came to a door and he knocked on it.
"Yes?" The voice on the other side of the door was deep-feminine, the voice of a woman in her thirties or forties. The man opened the door and held it for Gwen. She walked into the dim office. The only light that was burning was on the desk across from the door. A woman sat at the desk, an attractive woman, tall and sophisticated looking. She wore a very plain blouse. It buttoned down the front like a man's shirt. Gwen guessed she was thirty-five.
"Well, you must be Gwen. It is Gwen, isn't it?" She looked at Gwen with courteous attention.
"That's right."
"Thank you, Cliff. That will be all." The woman nodded past Gwen. The big man put down the suitcase and left the room, closing it behind him. "I'm Claudia," the woman said. "I sort of run things for the owners. I guess you could call me a madame, if you like that kind of dramatic wording. Personally, I just consider myself a sort of administrator and a friend and advisor to the girls."
"I see." There was a chair facing the desk. Gwen wondered whether she should sit. She hadn't been asked.
"You come to us highly recommended," Claudia said. "We expect great things of you, dear. I must say my first impression, based on your appearance, is that the recommendation was too conservative if anything. You are lovely."
"Thank you."
"However, you understand that our customers are people who are accustomed to getting perfection, or as near as possible to perfection, for their money."
"Of course."
"So I like to look each girl over before she's allowed to work for us. Would you mind disrobing, dear?"
Gwen started a bit.
"Here?"
"Goodness, are we modest?"
"No. No, of course not." She unbuttoned the white blouse while the older woman looked on. She hung it across the back of the nearby chair, then stepped out of her shoes and lowered the zipper at the side of her capris. The button gave her a little trouble, but she finally managed to get it open. She peeled the tight garment down the length of her legs and pulled it off of one foot at a time. She tossed the capris in a heap on the chair. She unsnapped the bra with surprisingly little trouble, then pushed the practical pink panties down over her hips. They fell in a puddle around her feet.
"Would you mind stepping around to this side of the desk, where I can see you, dear?"
Gwen hesitated a moment, then stepped around to the back of the desk. Claudia adjusted the lamp so that it shone directly at her. Gwen couldn't see anything but the glare of the lamp. She felt large clear eyes roving over her.
"Would you mind turning around slowly, Gwen?"
Gwen turned the way she had learned when her mother had made her take modeling lessons. She felt a little absurd, and more than a little obscene.
"Yes, yes, that's very nice. You'll do nicely, dear. If you're even half as talented as you are pretty, you'll do more than nicely."
The door opened and a dumpy middle aged woman came in. Gwen suddenly felt more embarrassed than before.
"You rang, ma'am?"
"Yes, Clara. Will you take Miss Lee's bag to her room, please? I think number nine."
Without a word, and with only a cursory nod, the woman picked up the little bag and left the room. Gwen wondered whether she would search the bag. Probably. She was glad she had been clever about the gun.
She was suddenly aware that Claudia had moved next to her. A slender hand moved over one of her breasts.
"My, they're so firm. Have you had anything done to them, dear? Surgically, I mean."
"Why, no. They're just the way Nature grew them." She drew away from the hand and moved toward her clothing.
"Come, dear," Claudia said, when Gwen was dressed. "I'll introduce you to the other girls. I'm sure you'll be very popular with them, as well as with the customers, which is what counts."
They walked down a hallway to a high, double door. Claudia took one of Gwen's hands and squeezed it reassuringly.
It was a large room, and there were quite a few girls in it. Gwen guessed the number at twenty. They were pretty to beautiful, and seemed to range from about eighteen to mid twenties. They were all dressed in evening dresses.
Claudia took her around and told her the names of the various girls, none of which stuck in her mind. Except one.
She was a woman of twenty-four or--five, a striking blonde about five feet nine, with creamy smooth breasts running over the top of her gown. Shapely calves showed, nylon sheathed, beneath her hemline.
"This is Sandra," Claudia said. "Another newcomer. She's only been with us a month or so."
"Hello, Sandra," Gwen said.
"Call me Sandy," Sandra said with a casual wave. There was a dreamy look about her, as though she weren't completely with them.
"Sandy is your neighbor," Claudia said. "She lives in number ten, just across the hall from you."
"How nice."
She was taken to her room next. It was actually sumptuous. It had a huge canopy bed and drapery and carpeting that must have cost a fortune. There was a private tile bath.
They had come down two flights of stairs to reach the room, and Gwen surmised that they must be underground.
"Now, this is your sleeping room," Claudia told her. "You'll have another room upstairs for entertaining. That will be number nine also. It avoids confusion if a girl has the same number on both rooms."
"It's gorgeous," Gwen said, really impressed. She was beginning to wonder whether Mason's fears were justified. Would they really have to use threats to keep girls here? "And to think I get two of them. It's too much."
"We think it keeps up the girls' morale if they don't have to live in the same room in which they entertain. And we want our girls to be happy. For a thousand dollars the least we can offer our customers is a happy girl."
Gwen opened a wardrobe. Her clothes hung there, neatly spaced, along with several formal gowns of various colors. She looked at Claudia quizzically.
"Clara unpacked your things for you, dear. I hope you don't mind. The other things are from a supply we keep on hand in assorted sizes to outfit our employees. Clara matches the sizes of the things she finds in a girl's bag. You'll find lingerie in the drawers over there. I think that green gown looks nice. Hurry and shower, dear. The customers will be arriving at eight o'clock and it's after seven now."
Something in Gwen's stomach went thump.
They expected her to start tonight. She didn't know why, but she had expected to have at least one night to get used to the situation.
"Where do we meet them? That room upstairs where the other girls are?"
"That's right, dear. Don't delay, now. Ta ta." Claudia gave a little wave and left the room. Gwen looked about her. This room would be home for a while. She seemed surrounded by mirrors, as though she were in some kind of amusement park fun house. A fun house for adults, she thought wryly. Well, whorehouses were supposed to be full of mirrors, she told herself. But this room was all mirror, even the ceiling.
She stripped quickly, removed the fall and hid the little gun under the mattress. Time enough to find a better hiding place later. She showered in a bathroom that was as mirror studded as the bedroom. She supposed she would be required to shower with the customers too, if they wanted.
Well, you asked for it.
She inspected herself minutely. She couldn't see anything that needed doing. Her underarms were smooth. So were her legs. She dried herself with a huge thick towel, then went back into the bedroom. She took a pair of black lace panties from the huge built-in chest of drawers and a matching bra from the drawer below. She looked at herself in the mirror that lined the wall over the chest as she stepped into the panties.
"Hello, whore," she said aloud. She hammocked her breasts into the bra's cups, then found a garter belt in another drawer. She pulled on some dark nylons and fixed them in place with the garters. They made an exciting contrast with the white flesh above. The sparkling green gown fit her perfectly. She had always found it difficult to find clothes that fit her. They must have all sizes here, she decided.
She made her face up with makeup at the vanity. All the shades were perfect. Clara must be a miracle woman.
Gwen stood, adjusted her hair one last time, then said "Here we go," under her breath, and headed for the big room upstairs.
The other girls looked at her appraisingly, as a fellow professional and as a competitor. A wet bar at one end of the room had been supplied with ice from a freezer set in the wall behind it. The big man, Cliff, stood behind the bar in a tuxedo. He looked like a gorilla someone had dressed in formal attire. Sandy still sat on the couch, and Gwen took a place beside her and began to talk.
The girl was twenty-four and a college graduate. She had been a school teacher at one time. When Gwen expressed wonder at the girl becoming a prostitute, she looked flustered for a moment, then shrugged and said that Gwen should try living on an elementary school teacher's salary some time.
The door suddenly opened and Claudia came in, leading a group of men. Claudia was dressed in black stretch pants and a ruffled white blouse.
The men were mostly middle aged or older, in expensive suits and shoes, but looking a little the worse for drink at the moment. One or two of them weren't really bad looking, and Gwen hoped that one of these would select her. Then she felt ashamed of the thought. You don't mind being a whore, she told herself. You just want good looking clients.
Naturally the worst looking one of the bunch spied her from across the hall. He had a belly that hung slackly over his belt, and jowls that seemed to have been made from suet. His eyes were red-shot and the whites were yellowed. He looked as though he must be at least seventy years old, but of course he couldn't be that old, Gwen thought, or he wouldn't have any reason to be in a place like this. The man came across the floor at a surprisingly good clip for a man his age. Gwen made herself smile.
"Hi, there, little girl," he said. His voice was as rheumy as his eyes. He had a New England accent.
"Hi, yourself," Gwen said, hoping her voice sounded as steady to him as it did to her. She patted the couch next to her and he sat down, falling onto the cushions with a grunt. He had a strong talc smell about him, and an odor of expensive whiskey, but the two odors together still didn't cover the old man smell. He rested a hand on Gwen's knee and squeezed slightly. It was like having a spider crawl over her leg, but somehow she managed to smile.
He leaned forward and looked at the front of her gown.
"No badge?"
"Badge?"
"I thought all you girls wore name badges," he said, indicating the other girls. Gwen looked around at them. Sure enough, they were all sporting badges that said "Hi! My name is --," followed by a first name in ink.
"It's my first night," she said. "I guess they forgot to give me one. My name is Gwen."
"Well, now, fancy that. If I had come here last night I'd have missed you."
A big stereo in the corner began to play. The bartender was busily handing out drinks. A couple of girls began to dance with the men who had selected them.
"Would you like a drink?" Gwen asked.
"Think I've had enough, sweety. Any more and I won't be worth a damn to you."
"In that case, you can't have any," Gwen said with a broad wink. She was beginning to enjoy herself. Once in her single semester in junior college she had played the part of a prostitute in a play. This was no different.
The old man's hand slid up her leg a little, pushing her skirt back slightly. Gwen pretended not to notice.
"I suppose you have a room for us," he said. "So why don't we just go on in? I can't see any reason to waste our time, can you?"
"Not a bit." Gwen's heart began to race. She rose to her feet and walked with the care of a drunk toward the door. Claudia was mixing with the customers, and Gwen found out from her the location of her "entertaining" room. As she led the old man down the hall, she could feel perspiration forming under her arms. Well, there was no time now to take the worry out of being close. In that college play she and the boy who had played the part of her customer had walked off stage together at the close of the first act and then had parted. That, Gwen thought, was the difference.
They turned a corner and found number nine. Gwen turned the knob and pushed the door open. It was similar to her room downstairs, but different enough so that there could be no mistaking. The spread and canopy of the bed were different colors, and so was the carpeting.
The customer began to undress, pulling his tie loose with a tug and unbuttoning his shirt. Gwen unzipped her gown and let it fall to the floor. Her fingers were slick and she had a little trouble with her garters, but not enough so that it showed. She hoped she looked nonchalant. Her stomach was tied in a large, painful knot.
The customer was down to a T-shirt and cotton shorts. The T-shirt had large perspiration rings under the arms. He peeled it off and used it to dry each arm pit, then unsnapped the shorts and let them fall to the floor. Gwen took off her bra and panties.
He fell onto the bed and lay there, breathing heavily.
"Don't you want me to turn it down, honey?" There was a quaver in Gwen's voice. But he seemed not to notice. He waved a hand, indicating that he wanted her to come to him. His eyes were closed, and he almost seemed asleep. Gwen lowered herself to the bed. It was like jumping into a cold swimming pool. It took all the courage she could muster.
He began to move his hands over her, caressing her. Gwen returned his caresses. She felt revulsion for him. She had been silly enough to think that just because she could fuck Mason with so little trouble it would be equally easy with another man. But Mason had been an expert in the art of fucking. And he hadn't been old. Older than she, yes, but still a young man. Not like this jellied prune who lay next to her, his hands moving over her like two wrinkled lizards.
He fastened one hand on her left breast and moved the other to her cunt. Gwen waited for some thrill, some tiny spark of response in her body to make the situation more bearable. She felt nothing but loathing.
He took her hand and moved it to his prick. It was soft as cooked spaghetti. She began to work it, trying to coax some life into it. There was no response from it, though his breathing came a trifle faster. She ran her hand over his flaccid abdomen and there was a ripple through it, a shiver of response. She thought she felt some stiffening in his cock, but she wasn't sure.
"You have to baby it, honey," he said. "Otherwise it just won't stand up. You can't blame it. It's old enough to be your grandfather, and it's fucked more women than you could count."
"We'll wake it up, honey," Gwen said with more conviction than she felt. She pushed the veined foreskin back and began to work directly on the limp piece of meat beneath. He jerked a bit, his body rippling like a bowl of Jello, and the prick stirred yawningly. Gwen could feel beads of perspiration on her forehead. She held the stubbornly flaccid cock between her palms and worked it like a dice thrower. It stirred again, but only slightly.
"French me, honey," he said. "That always stirs it up some."
"That won't be necessary, honey," Gwen said. She continued to fiddle with his prick, working it, squeezing it, fondling it. She handled his balls too, her tiny hands manipulating them caressingly. She let her hands move over the insides of his thighs, soothing, tickling. His breathing increased more. And his prick began to stir, to rise and harden. Gwen pulled his heavy thighs apart and moved between them. She sat spraddled, her legs draped over his, her cunt open. At the touch of her hairy pussy the prick stiffened a bit more, lengthened. She slid forward and guided the old man's cock into her. For a weird moment she thought it wasn't going to hold, but then it stiffened again and she slid forward, devouring it with her open belly.
She split her legs wide and pulled them around behind her. She lay on his body, her taut belly and firm breasts pressing against his soft belly and flabby chest. Even the presence of the prick in her cunt wasn't enough to chase all the revulsion away.
But he wasn't feeling revulsion, that was for sure. His body was slicked in sweat. His hands gripped her silken flanks, jamming her closer to him, as he grunted and cried out in ecstasy.
Keep the customer happy, Gwen thought. She moved her hands down to his crotch and played them over his groin, teasing and milking his genitals on to a greater effort. With each touch, with each thrust of her body over his, he cried out, until for a moment Gwen thought he must be having some kind of attack. But when she tried to pull away from him, his arms closed around her with surprising strength, pulling her tight against him. Their bodies rocked in unison for a while as he continued to grunt and wheeze, and then his joints seemed to lock and Gwen knew he must be reaching his climax. He gave one last, loud cry, and then lay limp, his breath coming in short, harsh gasps.
The quick rate and shallowness of his breathing frightened Gwen. She wondered whether he might be about to die of a heart attack or stroke.
But he stirred finally, looked at her with half closed eyes, murmured "Tha' was wunnerful, honey, that was jus' great," and fell asleep. His breathing was steady and deep. Gwen felt a strong sense of relief.
She turned off the lamp by the bed and went into the bathroom to shower. The hot water felt good and stinging and cleansing.
Well, she thought, I've done it. I've graduated. I'm a whore.
She pushed the thought from her mind.
Something told her that the longer she waited to think about that, the less painful it would be.
She stepped out of the shower and began drying herself with a huge towel. The walls of the bathroom stared back at her, a score of Gwen's drying themselves with towels.
The thought of getting back into bed with the customer was repugnant to her. But what if he woke up and reached for her? She didn't want to have a complaint lodged against her on her first night. For a thousand dollars he had a right to expect her to stay the night with him.
As she was walking through the darkened bedroom she saw his pants lying on the carpet. She stopped cold, her heart pumping like crazy. What she was thinking of doing was crazily dangerous. If he should wake up... But she had come here for a story, for facts and figures, names and dates, and if she hadn't the guts to go through with it, then she had let that old man stick his dick in her for nothing. She picked up the pants. Some change in the pockets jingled, and she stopped suddenly, every muscle in her body taut. She was just going to hang them over the back of the chair. That was what she would tell him if he woke.
But he snored gently.
She found an expensive alligator wallet in the back pocket and opened it quickly. She flipped through a number of credit cards until she came to a kind of identification card she had never seen before. She held it up to get a good look at it in the little stream of light from the bathroom.
It had the customer's picture on it, and a thumbprint, and a printed legend stating that he was a member of the Congress of the United States. Gwen's heart pounded so hard she thought he must hear it. She felt sweat forming under her arms, the cold sweat of fear. She held the card a moment, memorizing his name and district and State, then carefully placed the wallet back in the pocket and laid the pants back on the floor where she had found them. She tiptoed silently back to the bed and lay down next to the customer.
It was a long time before she fell asleep.
The next day Claudia asked Gwen to come to her office.
"Your customer last night was quite pleased, dear."
"Good. I like satisfied customers."
"There's just one thing. He did say that he asked you to french him and you put him off."
"Did he?"
"We're here to satisfy the customer, Gwen. If a man pays a thousand dollars and wants to be frenched, our girls french him. If he wants to be kissed in the left arm pit, we do it. Our girls don't ask questions and they don't get finicky."
"The other girls, maybe. Not me."
Claudia's well shaped eyebrows went up.
"Pardon me. I didn't know you were something special, Gwen."
"I'm not saying I'm something special. I just won't french anyone, that's all."
"Well, I've heard of whores with strong moral codes, but this is the first time I've ever met one."
"Let's just say I have a weak stomach. I can subordinate it to a great enough degree to allow me to go to bed with these old men, but that's as far as it goes. No specialties."
"And if I tell you that you have to perform 'specialties' to continue to work here?" There was an edge in her voice.
"I'll have my things packed and be out of here in a half hour."
"Now wait a minute. I didn't say it, I just asked you what your reaction would be if I did say it. Calm down, will you?"
Gwen had started to leave. She stopped and turned back.
"All right, you didn't say it. What are you saying?"
Claudia's eyes fell to her desk.
"The Cong -- The customer was very pleased. He even said that he thought it was refreshing to meet a girl who could go to bed with a man and still be a lady about it." She looked up at Gwen again. Gwen said nothing. "As long as the customers are happy, that's all that matters."
"Good."
"But if we start getting complaints..."
"If you start getting complaints, I'll leave."
"All right." Claudia opened a drawer of her desk. She handed Gwen a plain white envelope.
"This is your earnings for last night. Do you want me to keep it in the safe? Most of the girls prefer that. Or are you the distrustful type?"
"I'm the distrustful type." Gwen took the envelope and thrust it into a large patch pocket on her dress.
"There's an extra two hundred in there. The customer left it as a tip. He was really very pleased."
Gwen went down to her room and lay on the bed. She felt like vomiting. She had stood up for her virtue, all right. She'd screw for anyone who had the thousand dollars, but she wouldn't take any cocks in her mouth. She hated herself. How had she gotten into this mess? She remembered what Mason had told her about morality being relative. At the time it had seemed to make sense. It had seemed very modern and enlightened. But now it didn't seem to matter. What mattered was the fact that she was going to bed with men she didn't even like, men she didn't know, men for whom she hadn't the slightest feeling of attraction. She counted the days to her next period, when she would be allowed a few nights off. It was two weeks away. That meant fourteen nights. Fourteen flabby, odorous old men to coax into a semblance of passion. She didn't know what she was being paid, but it wasn't enough.
She tore open the envelope Claudia had given her. It contained four one hundred dollar bills and a fifty. Claudia had told her that she had been tipped two hundred. So her commission was twenty-five per cent. Two hundred and fifty dollars for every thousand dollar customer. She began to understand why women stayed in this profession. Once you became accustomed to it, she thought, money like this could be habit forming.
She wondered what her customer for tonight would look like.
The parlor was full of girls again, and the bartender, Cliff, was mixing up some drinks in advance. When the door opened and Claudia strode in, wearing gold stretch pants and a white blouse, the girls looked in that direction expectantly. They weren't disappointed. Claudia came in at the head of a group of men. As the night before, they were mostly old. There was one young one, though. He was good looking, in a sharp, hawk featured kind of way. He wore a continental suit and black, high polished shoes. He had an air of arrogance about him. He moved toward Gwen with quickstep purposefulness. She rose from the couch when he asked her to dance and they came together, nestling into each other's arms comfortably. He smelled of expensive cologne and expensive whiskey. Despite herself Gwen found herself enjoying the feel of his hard, slender body against her soft curves. He was only about five-eight, and she was able to lay her head against his chest comfortably. It was a slow, suggestive dance.
"You're new here, aren't you ?" His voice was pleasantly masculine.
"That's right, honey."
"Well, you're a real looker. There's no one here who outdoes you in that department."
"I'll bet you say that to every girl you meet."
"There couldn't possibly be any reason to say it to a girl if it weren't true."
His hands moved up her back to the bare skin above her gown. Gwen smiled up at him. It wasn't hard. The touch was pleasant, especially after the previous night's customer. But then he started to push his hand down inside the dress. Gwen pulled away slightly.
"Not here, all right, honey? Here we dance. If you want to do that, we'll go to a room. All right?"
He smiled.
"That's right. They warned me about you. A perfect lady at all times. You don't furnish any little specialties, either, do you?"
"No one can be a whore and a perfect lady too. It's just that I don't go in for any of those little specialties. It's not my bag, as they say. Any of the other girls here will be glad to do them for you."
"But I don't want any of the other girls. I want you. What'll you bet when we get alone I can talk you into doing something special for me?"
"Don't try, honey. Please. If you choose me because you're planning on doing that, you'll just end up blowing your whole night. I mean it. You're extremely attractive, and I'd certainly rather spend the night with you than with any of your friends. But I don't do the things you want. If I did, I'd rather do them for you than anyone else here. All right?"
He grinned.
"All right. So we'll do without the specialties tonight."
"Are you sure?"
"I've got the hots for you, honey. I'm sure."
He took her in his arms and they began to dance again. But at that moment the record changed to a twist number. Some of the girls started doing the twist while their overage partners stood and grinned. Gwen's partner made a wry face at the music.
"What do you say we go some place where it's quiet, honey?"
Gwen's heart quickened. Not as strongly as the previous night, but it was still a feeling of panic that flooded through her as she nodded and started toward the door with him.
As soon as they had closed the door of number nine behind them, he took her in his arms and kissed her long and deep. His right hand moved down to her buttocks, stroking them through the gown. His other hand slid up to the bare skin of her back and down into the top of her dress, as it had done in the parlor. This time Gwen made no protest. His kiss was sweet and pleasant, and his hands moved over her with the kind of familiarity and confidence that stems from long and frequent practice at making love. He pulled down the zipper of her dress and peeled the top of the garment forward off her shoulders. Gwen stood docile while he stepped back to allow the cloth to slide away and hang loosely from her waist. His hands moved over the smoothness of her waist and ribs, and Gwen felt the warmth ooze through her. He moved behind her and she felt his fingers working with expertness at the clasp of her bra. It too fell away, landing on the carpet at her feet with a soft whisper of muffled impact. His arms circled her body and his hands closed with luxurious gentleness over her breasts.
He stroked them and squeezed them, and she felt the nipples come to attention as the warmth in her loins grew stronger and spread down into her thighs and up into her belly. He bent forward and kissed her ear, sending a shower of sparks through her nerves. Her breathing quickened and she felt a film of perspiration forming on her upper lip. His lips moved down her neck to her shoulder, while his hands continued to play with her breasts, his thumbs and fingers working the nipples.
Suddenly Gwen twisted from his grasp, turning to him and pressing the front of her body against his. She kissed him with passion as his hands slid over the silky texture of her back. He pushed the gown past her hips and it fell heavily to the floor. She was clad only in high heeled pumps, dark nylon stockings and a garter belt, and panties.
She had put the garter belt on under the panties and now his hand moved the black lace garment down her nylon sheathed legs until it fell to her feet. He stepped back a little and opened the snap to her garter belt, letting her stockings shrivel down the length of her legs, and she was naked. He picked her up and carried her to the bed, laying her on it gently and sitting beside her. He began to undress himself, pausing every once in a while to kiss her, to move his hands luxuriously over the insides of her thighs and up into the sweet damp tangle of her pubic hair.
Gwen kept reaching up to him, trying to drag him down to her, wishing he would hurry and undress. She was in a fit of passion such as she hadn't felt since her last night with Mason.
Finally he was next to her, his naked body pressed full length against her own. His hands went over her time and again, each time building her up to a higher pitch of excitement and desire, until she began to moan her need with each petting stroke of his hands. He laughed, a thick, passion filled laugh that sounded loud, amplified, because his mouth was next to her ear. His mouth pressed against hers, his tongue pushing between her lips and moving over her tongue and teeth and gums, the salt taste of him turning her skin to a mass of gooseflesh.
She could feel his prick pressing against her hip, hard and stiff and big for her, and her moans became louder, almost a shriek. She felt her legs open to make room for him in her belly, and then he was mounting her. She had a dim impression of his face, contorted with desire and pleasure, and then he was too close to be more than a giant shadow, a shadow that covered the world.
He pulled her cunt open by her pubic hair, and the sudden pain caused a fresh wave of desire to move over her. Then he was coming down, onto and into her, filling her loins with a rod of flesh, throbbing his life and vitality into her, and she screamed with joy until her mouth closed over his shoulder and she tasted the salt of his skin, and the stronger salt of blood.
He was moving on top of her, pumping and surging and plowing deeper into her and withdrawing, and she felt her body moving too, catching his rhythm, obeying his flesh as a puppet obeys the hand of its master. And then his boiling come spilled into her and she heard him cry out with a sudden burst of pleasure too great to be held in, and the lights went off in her head, blinding her to everything, everything outside of her not in her, making the world a huge flame that seared her senses and left her, sweaty, exhausted, regathering her wits, on a damp bedspread.
He lay beside her, his breath a heavy, whispering tide.
"Christ," he said finally. "You are good. Tell me, how do you manage to keep up your enthusiasm night after night?"
"Oh, well, I don't. Only when I'm with a man as attractive as you."
He grinned, obviously willing to believe her. He had an inflated idea of his own attractiveness, she thought. Although he was attractive, and no doubt about that. And he certainly had turned her on. She wondered if she was just a natural born whore. She had always thought that a nice girl, among whose company she had counted herself, couldn't enjoy sex unless it was with a man for whom she felt at least some affection. Yet here was a man she didn't even know. A man she had disliked at first meeting, but a man who had been able to awaken emotions in her such as she had thought herself capable of feeling only with Dan. Of course there had been Mason. But tonight she had been even more frantic than she had been with Mason. She supposed it was due to the fact that this man was younger and more potent than Mason. And nearly as practiced and expert.
Her reflections were disturbed by the touch of a hand on her cunt, a soft stroking that sent a thrill through her again.
She felt a momentary pang of guilt at enjoying the touch of a man she didn't know, but the hand moved down into her crotch and began stroking the soft, full flesh there, and the guilt was overwhelmed by urgency. Her own hands went to his genitals and began stroking his prick, bringing it instantly to life. It straightened in her hand, stiffened, became a rod, a sword of flesh. He turned over on his side and began to kiss her, his mouth moving over her skin, along her face, down her neck, and over her breasts. Gwen's legs opened themselves, making room for him, accommodating him, making her pelvis a soft sweet touch for him. His cock rubbed against her cunt as he sought entry into her, then it was inside her again and his body began to bob and pulse and surge, and her own answered it. Gwen's arms wound about his neck tightly, hugging him close. She could feel the harshness of his beard against her cheek. It was a discomfort, a mild pain, that sent her higher into the throes of sexual passion. His iron hard chest, covered with masculine wool, flattened her breasts, pressing them against her rib cage painfully, and she reveled in the pain as she did in the pleasure that he was visiting upon her lower anatomy. The skin of his back was smooth and warm to her hands, and her nails dug into it, breaking it, destroying the smoothness there and sending him into fits of grunting, wheezing desire that couldn't be slaked, and spurring his body to fresh exertions.
They reached their climax together this time, and Gwen's body went rigid with pleasure too great to bear. And then she was lying as before, on a bedspread not damp any more, but soaked, with her perspiration and with his. His hand moved along her thigh, stroking it pleasantly. He got out of bed and took a pack of cigarettes and a gold lighter from his pants. He hung the pants carefully over the back of a chair and came back to the bed. He leaned over Gwen and kissed her lightly on the lips, then offered her a cigarette. She shook her head.
"No vices, huh?" he said with a grin as he took one for himself. Gwen smiled, then burst into laughter. He was a difficult person to dislike, for all his self admiration. He lit the cigarette and put the pack and lighter on the bedside table. He lay next to her and slid his arm under her shoulders. Gwen turned to him, snuggling her nakedness against his. It was warm and safe feeling against his body. It reminded her of Dan. But she mustn't think of that. Dan was over. Dan was part of the past. He had walked out on her over a one evening affair with Mason. He would certainly never have anything to do with her after her story was published. Well, so be it. She'd get over him. When she was famous and rich there would be men, grown up men, with their prejudices left behind them, who would be panting to marry her.
But not Dan. Never Dan.
"Hey, what is it, honey?" The customer's voice was tender, solicitous, and she realized that she had been crying for several seconds. The tears ran down her cheek to mingle with the thick mat of hair on his chest. He held her tight, rocking their bodies slightly and stroking her back with strong, gentle hands. Gwen choked off the crying. This wouldn't do. The customers didn't pay all that money to see a girl bawl. She tried a smile. It was crooked and unsteady.
"I'm sorry. It was just something I remembered from a long time ago."
"You want to tell me about it? Sometimes that helps."
"No. No, really. It's nothing. I'm sorry. I don't want to spoil your night."
"Now, how could you spoil my night? You are my night. If you don't want to tell me what's wrong, that's fine. It's none of my business. I didn't mean to pry. Poor little sweety.
It must have been something rough." He kept stroking her back and rocking her, and Gwen felt a hard knot of distrust begin to dissolve in her. He cared about her. As a person, someone with feelings who had been hurt. She had misjudged him; had misjudged, she supposed, all men. Since that last scene with Dan, she had supposed that men were all alike, wanting just one thing from a woman, and then despising her for giving it to them as her gift of love.
Well, this man didn't love her, but he didn't despise her, either. The knot of suspicion dissolved in her and she turned herself over to him gratefully. This was what a woman was supposed to do, she thought, give herself into a man's charge. Be taken care of by him. He pressed her face against his chest gently, his hand at, the back of her head, stroking gently, relaxing her. It had a hypnotic effect on her, sending waves of pleasantness through her body and lulling her senses. She could feel the skin of his chest moving over her face, the harshness of the hair in contrast to the gentleness of his movements. He stroked her head and her neck and her shoulders, and she felt herself, not dozing exactly, but half dozing, drifting into a kind of euphoria. She felt gratitude to him, and affection, and dependence. Maybe she loved him, she thought, for now anyway.
The feel and smell of his body changed subtly, and she opened her eyes. She saw his groin, big and close to her face. He had realigned their bodies. Well, she thought, why not? Why not give him what he wanted? He was better than most men, better than she had any right to expect in this place. She had done this for Dan, and this man was surely more understanding than Dan had been. She took the prick in her hands. It was already stiff and big and heavy with come. She held it for a moment, then pressed her lips against the tip of it. She heard him cry out with pleasure. The sound penetrated the fog that had surrounded her brain for several minutes. She remembered something, a sentence she had heard.
"What'll you bet when we get alone I can talk you into doing something special for me?"
She pulled away from his grip and leaped up from the bed.
"No! I told you no, you bastard!" She turned her back on him and started across the room to her clothes. But he was out of the bed and on top of her before she could take two steps. He pulled her arm up behind her in a half nelson and cramped it painfully. Gwen cried out in pain.
"You little cunt! Who do you think you are? A whore who doesn't suck pricks. That's really funny. Now I tried to get you to do it the nice way. But you weren't having any. Okay. So now I'll tell you how it's going to be. You have a choice. You can suck me off right now or I can beat the piss out of you and then you can do it. Now which is it going to be?"
"Go to hell, you son of a bitch! You can break my God damned arm and I won't do that. Not for you. I'd rather do it for a syphilitic Mongoloid idiot!"
"Oh, would you now? Well, I'll see if I can't reason with you." He bent her arm up behind her until she grew faint with pain. She started to scream, and he slapped her face hard. She screamed again. He pulled the arm up tighter until she was sure it would break.
The door burst open and Cliff came in, all magnificent six feet, six inches of him. He was still in his tuxedo, and he looked strange, bizarre even, in this room of nakedness.
The customer let Gwen's arm go and stood gaping as Cliff moved toward him. Two strides and Cliff grabbed his arm, twisting it up behind him as easily as he had done with Gwen's. Cliff's other arm locked about the man's neck, pulling him up straight and lifting his feet clear of the floor. He tried kicking at Cliff's shins, but his bare feet had no effect.
Cliff bent backward, getting leverage as the man's weight pressed against his stomach, and walked sideways to the door. The customer tried to run with him, his toes barely skimming the floor. Cliff hauled him to the door and threw him against the wall across the hall. The customer fell to the floor, then scrambled back to his feet.
"You can't get away with this, you big gorilla. Do you know who I am?"
"I don't give a fuck if you're the king of Siam. We don't allow any rough stuff here. We've told you that before. Now beat it." He stepped back into the room, picked up the customer's clothes and threw them in his face.
"My money. I want my money back. She didn't..."
"You already got your money's worth, prick. Now get out of here before I decide to get ugly."
The smaller man hugged his clothes to his body and ran down the hall, calling back threats to Cliff. Cliff turned back into the room.
"You all right, Gwen?"
"Yes. I think so." She was rubbing her arm.
"That asshole has roughed girls up before. He promised to behave himself, so we let him in again. He won't be back, though. I promise you that."
"Thank you, Cliff. I think you may have saved me a broken bone or two."
"Yeah, maybe. But you don't have to thank me. It's what I get paid for."
"Money doesn't pay for the kind of thing you just got me out of. I just want you to know I appreciate it and I won't forget it."
"Really?" His tone was half bantering. "Just how much do you appreciate it?"
Gwen looked at him for a moment. Why not? What difference could it possibly make after what she had done the last two nights? She walked over to the door, closed and locked it.
"I'm all grimy right now, Cliff. But if you'll give me a few minutes to shower, I'll show you how grateful I am."
He walked to her and stood towering over her. He was more than a foot taller than she. He picked her up under the arms like a child and set her on the bed in a kneeling position.
He kissed her, and she returned the kiss with deliberate sexuality.
"I have to get back on the floor right now, kid. But if you really meant that offer... ?"
"I mean it. Any time I'm not busy with a customer. Perhaps some morning or afternoon you'd like to come to my other room."
"That's not for entertaining. That's your private room."
"You're welcome to come in."
"Well, you think things over. When that arm quits hurting, you may not feel so grateful."
"Yes I will."
"Okay. But I won't come in there until you invite me."
He turned to her at the door, looked up and down her naked body and gave an approving shake of his head.
"See you."
Dan Wesson stood outside the office of the Daily Call's editor, thumping his crash helmet against one thigh. The girl at the desk looked up at him and smiled in a kind of friendly shyness, but he didn't smile back. His eyes were red rimmed from lack of sleep and too much drink. He sat on a hard wooden bench next to the office door, started to light a cigarette, remembered that he was still in uniform, then lighted it anyway.
"Mr. Watson will see you now, sir," the girl at the desk said, and he noticed that she was putting down a telephone, evidently connected to the office intercom. The girl showed him a lot of teeth, very white.
"Thank you." Dan stubbed the still young cigarette out in a tray full of sand and moved to his feet and through the office door in one motion.
It was a small, cramped office. The man behind the scarred, high school principal desk was short and cherubic, and Dan decided that he was younger than he looked. The plate on the desk said Robert Watson.
"What can I do for you, officer, uh ..."
"Wesson, sir. Dan Wesson. I've come to ask whether you know where Gwen Lee is."
Watson puffed on a short pipe.
"I see. Is this in the nature of an official question?"
"Why, no, sir. I'm off duty. Just going home, as a matter of fact. It's in the nature of a personal question."
"Mind if I ask why you want to know?"
"Well, I know her. And I've been looking for her for the past week. She seems to have dropped out of sight. Her landlord doesn't know where she is. He says her rent is paid up until the middle of next month, and that's all he knows."
Watson rapped the pipe against the side of a metal ashtray.
"Have you been sleeping with her?"
"Now, look, I don't think that's..."
"... any of my business, quite right. But you want to know where she is, and maybe I can tell you that."
Dan leaned forward.
"Do you know?"
"An answer for an answer, Wesson."
"All right, damn it, yes. I've been sleeping with her."
"I thought so. Something has been disturbing her lately. What did you do to her?"
"You said an answer for an answer."
"Well, I've changed my mind. I don't know whether you should have the information you want."
"Now, look here." Dan loomed over the desk and the man. But Watson didn't shrink back. He looked up at Dan coldly.
"Siddown, Wesson! Your size doesn't scare me a God damned bit! I said siddown! There's a chair behind you."
Dan looked down at him for a moment, then moved back into the corner in which the metal straight chair was crammed. He perched uncomfortably on it. It was too low. His knees were cramped.
"That's better," Wesson said. "Now, I want to know what happened between you and Gwen. I'm rather fond of Gwen. I knew her parents and I got her her job here, and I don't intend to help her fall into the arms of some big, dumbheaded lunk. So you don't hear one word from me until you tell me something to convince me that you're not one. Now, something has happened to make Gwen miserable. And I want to know what it is."
"Well, we had a fight."
"About what?"
"Now, listen..."
"All right, forget it. Get out of here."
"All right, all right. Don't get so damned excited, Watson. We fought because she told me she had had an affair, I guess you'd call it, with a man in Las Vegas."
"That's nonsense. She's only been in Las Vegas once that I know of, and then only for a night."
"That's when it happened. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word affair. It isn't easy to find a word for it that doesn't sound ugly."
"Are you asking me to believe that Gwen Lee fell into bed with a man she didn't even know?"
"I'm not asking you to believe a God damned thing. I'm just telling you what she told me."
"Well, did she happen to mention why she did it?"
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Because we'd had a fight."
"You're a pretty feisty character."
"I guess I seem that way."
"What did you fight about? The first time?"
"Is that important?"
"I want to know."
"Well, I accused her of being..."
Watson leaned forward.
"Of being what?"
"Well, cheap, I guess."
"Cheap, you guess."
"All right, that was it."
"And just what made you think she was cheap?"
"Well, she seemed easy."
"Go on."
"Well, Christ, what would you think if a girl practically raped you on the third date?"
"If it was a girl like Gwen, I'd think I was pretty God damned lucky. Is that what happened?"
"Yeah. I was afraid to try anything. It took all my nerve to kiss her. I guess I was petrified of her. She was so beautiful, and I felt like such a clumsy oaf around her."
"And?"
"And, she sort of took the lead.- I mean she actually took me by the hand and led me into her bedroom."
Watson sat looking across the tiny room at Dan for a full ten seconds before he spoke.
"You dumb son of a bitch. You lamebrained fucking cop. You ignorant cocksucker!"
Dan shrank back into the chair. No man had ever spoken to him like this and stayed off his back for more than a second afterwards. But this time he took it.
"Don't you know a lady when you see one?" Watson said, digging the knife deeper. "I mean a lady. A bottled in bond, one hundred proof, triple distilled lady. Are you too God damned stupid to know one when you see one? Or have you hung around whores and chippies so much you can't see the difference?"
"All right..."
"Don't all right me. I know this girl. I saw her grow up, and I know what she's like. Most guys would give their left nut for one like her. But to you she's cheap and easy. You slob. If she fell into that bed that quickly with you, you can bet one thing. It was because she loved you. Loved you like crazy. Why, I don't know. But she must have thought she saw something in you. To be given that kind of gift, by that kind of girl, and then throw it back in her face, you've got to be seven different kinds of a stupid son of a bitch."
"Look, I'm not going to take much more of..."
"You're going to take as much as I feel like handing you. For one reason, because you want to know something from me, and for another because for all that you're stupid, I think you're man enough to take what you know you have coming."
"Yeah. You're right."
Watson looked at Dan for a long moment, measuringly. Finally he grunted and pulled open a drawer. He tossed an envelope across the desk to Dan. Dan leaned forward and opened it with shaking fingers. It was short and sweet:
Bob. I'm writing this on my way to the airport. I'm going out of town to cover a story. It's secret and rather shady, and it could prove embarrassing and/or dangerous. I'd rather not involve the Call until I know for sure whether it's going to work out. Keep my chair warm for me as long as you can. Hope to see you soon. Gwen.
Dan looked at Watson.
"She didn't dare come to me with this, because if it's dangerous she knew I'd try to stop her."
"Oh, Christ!"
"You know what she meant?"
"Huh? Oh, no. But it doesn't sound good."
Watson looked at him narrowly.
"Well, if you think of something, it might be a good idea to share it. I think we could do her a lot more good working together than separately."
"Sure." Dan handed the note back to Watson. He heaved himself to his feet. "This is all you know, huh?"
"That's all."
"Thanks. I've got to think things over. I'll see you later, maybe."
At home in his apartment, Dan took off his uniform and dropped it in a heap on the floor. He sat down at the kitchen table in his shorts and T-shirt, with a beer and his revolver and a cleaning kit and began to dismantle the gun. He liked to keep his hands busy while he did his thinking, and this was one time that definitely called for thought -- clear, objective thought. Gwen was in trouble. He was sure of that. Gwen -- his Gwen -- had gotten herself into one hell of a mess, and it was more than a little his fault.
He dipped his cleaning brush in Hoppe's number 9 and began to scrub the chamber in the cylinder. If only he hadn't been such an insufferable prick. That note Gwen had sent him had been fairly cryptic, but he knew now, knew what he'd been trying to keep from believing all along. He could still see the note, could recite it by heart.
Dan, I guess you'll never believe that I'm not what you think I am, and I really can't blame you. No one else matters much to me, so I guess if that's what you think I am, then I may as well take a crack at it. I've kept myself pretty decent all my life for a man, and I guess I thought that when that man came along, we'd know each other instinctively. Well, I did, but the man didn't, so there really isn't any reason to go on with the decency business. I don't suppose I'll ever see you again. I'm sorry it didn't work out the other way, the way I thought it would. Goodbye, my darling. I wish... I wish...
He'd told himself time and again that it didn't mean anything, that she was just mad, and was going away for a while to cool off, and that she was thinking of finding someone to have an affair with, and maybe she'd even go through with it, and when she came back he'd get down on his knees and beg her to forgive him for being such an asshole about things, and they'd get back together again, and all would be well. He'd told himself enough times so that he had almost begun to believe it. Almost...
But that note Watson had shown him today had made the situation pretty clear. She had loved him. More than he had thought possible, more than he had dared hope, and he had driven her to the wall emotionally. And now she had gone to this Mason character. Not for a simple affair this time. She meant to enter that whorehouse. He might as well face the fact. She could already be there.
The thought sent a flood of cold through his body. He put down the cylinder, dipped the brush again and began to scrub out the revolver's bore.
So now what? Now he had to get after her. Tomorrow he'd have to go into the office and put in for leave. He had some coming. They had to give it to him. Otherwise he'd resign. He was going to find Gwen. Wherever she was. And if she happened to be in that place, he was going to get her out. Even if he had to kill a few people to do it.
On Saturday morning there was a knock on the door and it was Sandy. She was dressed in her gym clothes and a robe, and asked Gwen if she would like to join her in a workout.
They went down into the sub basement below the private rooms where the gym was located and went through a vigorous workout. It was something of an unwritten law that the girls work out occasionally to keep from getting flabby. Since they never left the meager grounds, and weren't encouraged to leave the building, it was the only exercise they got.
After the workout Gwen headed for the dining room for lunch. Sandy didn't feel like eating and went to her room to finish a book she had been reading.
Cliff was in the dining room, halfway-through his meal, and Gwen sat down at his table, across from him. In the four days since she had made her offer to him, Cliff had never even spoken to her, except in the line of business. True to his word, he hadn't taken advantage of the offer. Gwen was surprised at his integrity. She wasn't used to seeing such rectitude in a man who worked as a bouncer in a whorehouse. She felt no overwhelming desire for Cliff. He was too big, too rough looking to be really attractive, though she had to admit that neither was he wholly unattractive. But she had made him a promise, and she couldn't really see any reason not to back it up, considering the manner in which she spent her nights. And he had been nice to her.
He looked up when she sat down, and Gwen thought she saw something in his face, a sudden tightness around the mouth, and knew he remembered what she had offered him, and that he wanted her. She had begun to wonder about that.
"Hi there, bodyguard," she said cheerfully.
"Hi, yourself. You're looking chipper."
"I just had a workout. The old circulation is whipped up. Do I look attractively healthy?"
"Are you kidding? The worst I've ever seen you is a couple of notches better than attractively healthy. Right now you're radiant."
"Why, thank you!" Gwen felt a flush creep into her cheeks. She turned to her food.
Cliff pushed his plate away and lit a cigarette.
"You've become very popular around the place," he said. "With the girls, I mean. With the customers too, of course, but that was to be expected."
"I guess I'm the friendly type. Like a dog."
"Seems like every time I see you you're gabbing with one of the girls."
"What else is there to do around here during the day?"
"Not a whole hell of a lot, I guess."
"Speaking of being friendly, you haven't come to visit me."
The tightness was there again, stronger this time.
"I didn't know whether I was welcome."
"I told you you were. Any time."
"And I told you I wouldn't come until I had a specific invitation."
Gwen pushed her plate away and stood.
"Do you have anything to do right now?"
His whole body twitched with sudden desire. His words came out a little slurred.
"Yeah, but I'm not going to be stuffy about it."
"Fine. I'm going down to my room to take a shower. You finish your cigarette, Cliff. I'll leave the door unlocked."
She showered with care and then stepped out of the shower-tub combination and picked up a heavy towel. She padded into the bedroom, still wet. Cliff sat in the room's one chair, looking at her. She felt a momentary tinge of embarrassment, then thought how silly it was to be embarrassed at this point in her life. She faced him fully.
"Like what you see?"
"I'd have to be either blind or a eunuch not to like it."
She laughed.
"Well, wait till I dry myself, and I'll be right with you."
"Why wait?" He came out of the chair with cat litheness and moved to her in a single stride. He took the towel from her hand and dropped it to the floor. His hands closed about her waist and lifted her with the ease of a man lifting a pillow. His grip was hard, and she felt a ring on his right hand dig into her flesh. He pulled her against him and kissed her gently. Gwen's arms went around his neck.
"You like me wet?" she whispered when the kiss was over. He still held her, easily. He shifted one arm under her buttocks and held her like a child.
"I'd like you if you were dipped in pig fat," he said, and she chuckled at the phrase. He carried her to the bed and laid her on it with gentle strength. She reached up and peeled off her bathing cap, spilling her hair over the pillow. His breath caught, and she smiled up at him.
"I love to show myself to you," she said. "I get results."
"The biggest result you can't even see. Yet."
"Well, get with it, lover. Let's see what you have for me."
He undressed swiftly, leaving his clothes in a heap where he stood, and lay down beside her. His body was brick hard. The strength in his hands was a real thing, something that could be felt at the merest touch. And when Gwen moved her own tiny hands over him, it was like petting a cat; the quiet, compact strength of him, the litheness of his muscles was obvious even when he was relaxed. And as her hands awoke passion in him, she could feel those superb muscles come alive, reacting to her touch with a superb tone, just as his manhood came alive to her.
His breathing quickened and Gwen knew that her own was coming in shorter, quicker gasps as his body whispered its love message to hers.
His hands slid over the smoothness of her skin, moving down her back to her buttocks and kneading the soft flesh there luxuriously. She could feel his prick, huge and hard, press against her. His hands moved around to her cunt, petting it into life, and Gwen cried out with pleasure and need. Cliff took one of her breasts in his hand and caressed it, working it softly between his fingers until her skin became a mass of gooseflesh, and the warmth of pleasure filled her.
He kissed her, long and deep, his tongue probing her mouth, tasting of her own tongue, and slipping over her teeth. A shot of desire went through her, and she felt an answer in the sudden twist of his own frame. She moved her hand down his side, slipping over each muscle sheathed rib, down over his hard waist, to nestle in his crotch, her fingers moving lightly over his prick.
Cliff jerked and grunted at the touch, and pulled away slightly, reflexively. Then he came back to her, and she fondled his cock freely, bringing it throbbing to life, until she knew he was working desperately to keep it from spilling and wasting his seed, and then he moved over her, mounted her, covered her, and she felt him coming down onto her, and she guided him into her cunt, her legs stiffening with pleasure as he filled her, stretched her, as her flesh devoured his prick, sated with his flesh, and the pleasure became too great to bear and she shrieked it out in joy as they struck a rhythm and their bodies danced the love dance, their skin plastered together, their sweat mingling, his body's juices filling hers, spewing into her hotly, and she felt the climax coming, and then everything exploded in her head at once, and she lost touch of him on her and in her, the overwhelming pleasure in her, and the mild pain of his hands digging into her flesh, as her nails dug into his.
Then it was over, and they lay side by side on the bed. Cliff moved his hand lightly over her thigh, his huge palm covering the front of it, his fingers grazing the inside. Gwen smiled and rolled onto her side, facing him. Her hand rested on his heavy bristled chest.
"Now, aren't you glad you came to visit me?"
"Quit fishing. You're a good piece of tail, if that's what you mean. A real pro."
"Gee, thanks. You really know how to build a girl up."
"What did you want me to say? That I love you and want to live with you forever?"
"You're right. It was silly of me. I'm glad you enjoyed our little encounter. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Enjoying it?"
"That's what it's all about."
"Want to do it again?"
"Not any more than I want to keep breathing. But I have things to do." Cliff sat up, then stood and began to dress. Gwen lay watching. He moved with surprising grace for such a big man. She wondered whether he had ever been an athlete. When he was dressed, he leaned over Gwen and kissed her lingeringly.
"So long for now. Invite me back sometime."
"Drop in whenever you like."
"I'll do that." He kissed her again.
After Cliff left her room, Gwen paid her daily visit to the doctor, a seedy looking man who lived on the premises and inspected each of the girls once a day to see that they hadn't contracted a venereal disease. Gwen didn't like the doctor. She didn't like undressing for him. He seemed to enjoy it too much. And his fingers roamed over her body a little more than necessary. She made no complaint. After all, he was the doctor, and it was his job to inspect the girls.
When she left his little examining room it was after four o'clock, so she went to the dining room for dinner. She was just finishing her meal, reading a book, when someone sat down opposite her. She looked up. Claudia was unloading a tray of food onto the table.
"Mind if I share your table, Gwen?"
"Why, no, of course not." Gwen hoped she sounded convincing. She didn't like Claudia any more than the doctor. Something about the woman made her flesh crawl.
Claudia adjusted her chair under the table, her tight pants stretching across her thighs.
"You've really been doing well, haven't you, Gwen? You've only been here a week and customers are already asking for you by name. You've been picking up some tips, too. How much do you have by now?"
"I don't know, exactly." Gwen hoped she had managed to keep the annoyance out of her voice. It was none of Claudia's business how much she had saved.
"I know it's none of my business, darling. I was just making conversation." Gwen's hand rested on the table, and Claudia reached across and squeezed it. Something scuttled up Gwen's spine at the touch. "I can't really blame the guys for liking you, honey. You're really a very attractive young thing." Claudia's foot slid forward under the table and petted the side of Gwen's calf. Gwen drew away.
"Claudia," she said, working hard to keep her voice friendly. "You're a very attractive woman, too. In fact you're beautiful."
Claudia preened at the compliment.
"And," Gwen went on, "if I were interested in women, I'd welcome any advance from you with open arms. Only I'm not interested in women. Not at all. I like men. Understand me. I'm not making any moral judgments. To each his own. Only that's just not my style. Okay?"
Claudia flushed in sudden anger. But she forced herself to smile again.
"Okay," she said in a tight whisper. "You can't blame a gal for trying, can you?"
"Not a bit. Well, it's almost six, and I think I'd better go clean up and get into my work clothes. Ta ta."
"Ta, darling."
All the way to the door, Gwen could feel Claudia's eyes on her.
Her customer that night was a middle aged man with a pot belly. He smoked cigars that smelled as though they had just died, and he spoke with a midwestern accent. He wasn't the least bit interested in drinking or dancing or conversation. He didn't even sit down in the parlor. He just asked Gwen to take him to a room right away.
She took him to number nine and undressed for him with all the ceremony she had learned in the past week, feeling his eyes pop out at her emerging loveliness, hearing his breath quicken. She turned down the bed while he was undressing and lay down, her hair fanning out on the pillow. The customer lay down next to her and began to move his hands over her body, stoking up desire in himself. Gwen felt nothing, no desire and no revulsion. She had become accustomed to this situation with surprising speed. She simulated desire, moaning and crying a need she didn't feel, and when he mounted her, she twined her silken legs around his flaccid waist and locked him into her crotch, milking his prick until he struck his climax and rolled off of her. He fell asleep, snoring gently while Gwen lay beside him, wide awake and bored. He woke three times, reached for her and was received with the same counterfeit passion each time. Gwen stayed with him all night, and when he finally left at about four-thirty, he seemed entirely satisfied with the night.
She went to her private room and showered and put on her robe. She had brought a book with her when she came here, a small one that she had bought for a dime. She had been using it to record the names and vital facts about the customers. She kept it taped to the back of a picture that hung on one wall of her room. She started toward it now, to make her nightly entry, then remembered suddenly that she hadn't thought to gather any information on her customer. She'd had plenty of opportunity, too. He had slept through most of the night.
"Damn," she breathed, and walked to the bed and turned it down. She dropped the robe to the floor and got into the bed, drawing the sheets up close under her chin. It was good to lie there, in her private bed, with no sweating, wheezing man next to her. She thought about the book, which would have no entry tonight. How stupid of her!
She rolled over on her stomach and waited for sleep to overtake her. But the longer she lay, the more she thought about the book, and the entry she couldn't make, and what had seemed a minor annoyance at first began to take on a different hue.
She had forgotten to take down the man's name. Why? Because she had been intent on her job. Not her job as a reporter. Her job as a whore. Please the customer. Keep the John happy. That's all she had thought about.
What had Cliff called her today? A real pro. Was she? Was she a real pro? Had she changed that much in only a week? Or was there really much of a change involved? She wondered whether she had always had the seeds of whoredom in her, and this sojourn in a bawdy house just brought them to fruit? No. She wouldn't believe that. She didn't dare. So there was only one other thing to believe. It was impossible to do what she had been doing without changing inside.
She was becoming a whore! She had already been one, or very nearly so, and she had been here only a week.
She remembered the nonchalant manner in which she had fucked her customer tonight. It had been easy, and now she realized that it had been getting easier every night. Even her little affair with Cliff was revealing. She could never have been so free with her body before she came here. She had told herself that it couldn't matter if she spent some of her afternoons in bed with Cliff when she had been spending every night in bed with someone she didn't even know. And there had been a time when that crude little advance by Claudia would have shocked her into a real state. Today she hadn't even blushed. She had congratulated herself at the time on maintaining her composure. Now she wondered whether that was anything to be proud of. In another month she might accept Claudia's overtures, just out of boredom and curiosity.
Another month.
She wouldn't be the same person in another month.
She got out of the bed and went to the closet and took down the capris and sweater she had worn the night she had come here. She took some lingerie out of the drawer and dressed quietly in the darkness. She took the book down from behind the picture, took her money which she had taped there also. In the week she had been there she had managed to put together fifteen hundred dollars in commission and tips, not counting whatever Claudia had picked up for her tonight.
She went into the bathroom and lifted the top from the toilet tank. She reached inside and pulled out the tiny plastic bag that was taped to the side of it. The little gun was bone dry. She stuck it into the top of her capris and pulled the sweater down over it.
The hallway was lighted, as always, but deserted. Gwen walked down the thick carpeted length of it and climbed the stairs to the ground floor. All was darkness and silence, except for a dim strip of light beneath Claudia's door.
Gwen wondered why she didn't simply go to Claudia and say she had decided to quit. But she remembered what Mason had said. Girls had been threatened here.
She edged past Claudia's door and walked with swift, silent steps to the front door of the house. There was no watchman between three o'clock A.M. and sometime in midmorning.
Gwen walked to the gate. It was locked, of course. She took hold of it with her fingers, threading them through the openings in the cyclone fencing. She pulled herself up and tried to climb upward, using her toes and fingers. She had done this many times as a little girl, but now it wasn't as easy as she remembered.
On the fifth try she reached the top, and managed to hook her left knee over the fence. She could feel sweat on her forehead and running through her armpits. She clung to the fence with all her strength, then managed to pull her body all the way up and even with her leg. She leaned toward the other side of the fence and let herself slip over, clinging with her fingers. Her capris tore down the inside of her thigh, and she felt a sudden pain as her skin scraped along the wire ends of the fence top. Her weight jerked painfully at her shoulders and elbows as her arms pulled her up short, stopping her fall. She pulled her feet to one side to be sure she wouldn't turn an ankle, and let herself drop to the ground.
She pulled herself to her feet. Her thigh was bleeding a little, and her joints hurt, and she had bruised her hip in the fall.
But she was out. She was out of the horrible place. From here it was just a walk to the road and then another walk to the nearest roadside diner or truck stop where she could get to a telephone. She looked back at the house one last time. It squatted in the hillside, malignant. Well, it wouldn't be there much longer. Not in its present capacity, at least. She had her facts. She had her names. Not as many as she had wished, of course, but enough. Enough to make a very interesting article, maybe even two or three articles if she stretched it out a bit.
Enough, anyway. Enough.
Dan was dreaming when the telephone rang. In the dream he was looking across a bedroom at a huge bed. Gwen was lying spread-eagle on the bed, her cunt exposed and spread open, while a ring of men stood around her and threw nickels into it and masturbated. He wanted to go to her, to pull the men away and break their necks, but there seemed to be something between him and the bed. It was a thin, gossamer cloth, like a woman's negligee, and it hung from the ceiling, and he thought, this is ridiculous, surely I can get past a barrier this flimsy. And then he noticed that it wasn't a bed on which she was lying, it was a casket, a big, ornate casket, and he knew somehow that he had helped to build it, and the men had no faces, only blank skin where faces should have been. Their pricks were huge, though, ridiculously, grotesquely huge, the size of rolling pins, and then Dan thought of his gun, and he drew it and took careful aim at one of the pricks and fired, but the pricks must have been made of metal, because the bullet ricocheted off of it and hit another, and then it began to ricochet from one to the other, at an incredible speed, and each time it hit one of them it made a loud, metallic ringing sound, and then he woke, sitting bolt upright in bed, and realized that the ringing sound was the phone. He reached for it gratefully.
"Hello?"
"Wesson? This is Bob Watson. I thought you'd like to know that I've just heard from Gwen."
Dan sat frozen for a moment, unable to speak. He managed, finally.
"Is she all right?"
"That depends on what you mean by all right. She's okay physically, I guess, except for a few minor bruises. She just called me from a truck stop up near the State line. I'm about to drive up there. You interested?"
"Shall I come there or will you pick me up?"
"I'll be there in twenty minutes. I'll blow my horn once, and if you're not ready, forget it."
"Do you need directions?" But Watson had already hung up.
By the time they reached the truck stop the sun was up, and traffic was beginning to move. Dan had shaved on the way up, with his cordless electric razor, but he hadn't had time to shower before Watson picked him up, and he felt crummy.
Gwen was standing next to the door of the service station, in a pool of shadow, as though she were afraid she might vanish in the sunshine. Dan glanced across the car seat at Watson, and saw his face lighted with relief more intense than Dan had ever seen, except once, when he had returned a lost child to its mother. He suddenly felt a very strong liking for the man.
Gwen spotted the car and came across the gravelled ground at a trot, her face almost, but not quite, smiling. She was heading for the right side of the vehicle, and Dan opened the door and stepped out to help her in. She stopped cold, staring at him for a moment, then slid into the car.
"Why'd you have to bring him along?" she asked Watson when the car was moving down the road. Watson was too happy to notice the tone of her voice.
"Well, hell, you never know when you might need a cop," he babbled delightedly.
"We don't need one now."
"Gwen --" Dan began, and she looked at him levelly.
"Shut up," she said, and he shut up.
She wouldn't tell them anything during the trip home. When Watson insisted on asking questions, she put him off, promising that he would have the story the next day. Right now, she said, she just wanted to go home and be alone.
Watson pulled up before her apartment house and mashed the emergency brake with his foot and started to get out. Gwen put a hand on his arm.
"That's all right, Bob. You don't have to see me to my door."
"Well, I'd like to, if you don't mind." The holiday spirit in which he had first seen her at the truck stop had ebbed now, before the stony silence that had possessed her during the drive.
"Well, as a matter of fact I do mind, Bob. I told you, you'll have the story --"
"The hell with the story! I don't want to know what's happened to you because it's a story. I want to know because..."
"I know, Bob. And it's sweet of you. But I don't want to talk about it right now. Please."
Watson looked at her for a long moment, then shrugged. Dan got out of the car and held the door for her. She got out without the aid of the hand he offered. Dan shut the car door. Gwen looked at him.
"Listen, flat foot, if I won't talk to him, I sure as hell don't want to talk to you."
"Well, that's too bad, Gwen. Because you're going to."
She looked at Watson, still sitting in the car.
"Bob, will you make this gorilla leave?"
Watson leaned across the car and looked up at Dan.
"You sure you're doing the right thing, Wesson?"
"No."
Watson looked at him for a moment, then a smile tugged at the corners of the man's mouth. He shifted his gaze to Gwen.
"Sorry, sweety. He's bigger than I am."
"You're not as smart as I thought you were, Bob," Gwen said. "All right," she said to Dan. "We may as well have it out, I guess."
Her apartment had become a bit dusty in her absence. Otherwise it looked much the same as the two previous times Dan had seen it.
Gwen dropped her purse on the couch and sat. She looked at Dan for a moment before speaking.
"I guess you figured where I've been? And what I've been doing?"
"Not until yesterday. Or last night, to be exact. I was going to take a leave and go looking for you."
"Sure."
"That's the truth, Gwen. So help me."
"I'm almost sorry I left that place. Maybe you would have come looking for me. Now, I'll never know."
"I'm glad you're out of it. It must have been a hell of an experience."
"Do you really think so? I thought you were of the opinion that I was the kind of girl who got along well in such a place."
"Gwen, I --"
"Look, this isn't getting us anywhere. Whatever we had, if anything, it's gone now. I'm not blaming you. It's my fault, too. I've acted like an idiot. Let's just forget the whole thing."
"Can you forget it? I can't."
"That's your misfortune. I can forget it quite easily. That's one advantage of the kind of experience I've had. It acts as a narcotic for the emotions. Nothing hurts quite so much as it used to."
"That sounds a little like death."
"What did you come up here for, Dan?"
"For a chance to beg."
"Oh, come off it."
"That's the truth. I'm begging you, Gwen. The way a thirsty man begs for water."
"That's really too bad. Because I don't have the water to give you."
"Then let me give it to you. If you can't feel the way you once did, all right, I'll accept that. Just let me spend the next fifty or sixty years trying to make you feel that way."
"You'd be wasting your time, Dan. Don't you understand? There's nothing here any more." She tapped her breasts. "It's all burned out. I can go to bed with a man, any man, and not feel a thing except maybe a little bored. Go find yourself some sweet young thing. I'm not one any more. Not sweet and not young."
"Damn it, no one changes that much in one week. I don't care what happens."
She looked at him, a long, narrow look.
"Do you want to see what I'm like, Dan? Really like? All right. Come on."
She rose from the chair and walked into the bedroom. Dan followed her. In the bedroom she undressed slowly, ceremoniously, dropping each garment in a different place. Dan watched the loveliness of her body emerging from the cocoon of cloth, and when she was naked she approached him and stood on tiptoes and put her arms around his neck.
"Come, darling. Come to bed, now." She kissed him lingeringly. Dan felt a mixture of tenderness and desire. He picked Gwen up in his arms and carried her to the bed. He laid her on it and undressed while she lay looking up at him, her loveliness an open book.
When he was as naked as she, he came to her, lying beside her on the bed and stroking her body gently but insistently, his hands moving over the ridged smoothness of her rib cage to squeeze and play in the soft, luxurious firmness of her breasts. He felt her hands moving over him, too, moving with a sureness, a knowledge and expertness she had never had before. His breath caught as the tiny hands moved to his prick and balls and caressed them, played with them, whipped them into life. He was aware of her legs moving under him, their silken length brushing against him. The insides of her thighs were incredibly smooth and incredibly soft. Their mouths met and devoured each other as Gwen's tongue, not waiting for his, thrust itself into his mouth, tasting him, sliding hungrily over his tongue and teeth.
Dan's prick was rock hard now, painfully hard, and he mounted her. There was no clumsiness in the act for once. Gwen seemed to know just how to shift her body to accommodate him, to receive him. Her legs were spread wide, her cunt open to his cock, and her hands guided him into her with ease and expertness. Then her legs twined around his waist, locking him to her, and almost before the movement of their bodies began he was spilling his come into her, flooding her with it, and the tingly-prickly feeling filled his loins, and he knew his climax was coming, and then he was in the grip of it, and he heard his own voice as from a great distance, crying out in pleasure too great to bear.
Then it was past, and he lay beside her, satisfied for the moment, waiting for his strength to return, his body filled with well being. He looked at Gwen and smiled, and started to slide his arm under her, but she rolled away from him and sat up on the edge of the bed. She rose and went to the wardrobe and took out a robe. She put the robe on and tied the sash and walked into the living room. Dan rose and put on his underwear and slacks and followed her.
She went into the kitchen and came back a moment later with a bottle of wine.
"This is the only thing in the house, if you'd like some." He shook his head dumbly. "Well, will you open it for me?"
Dan gripped the bottle cap in the crotch of his thumb and forefinger and twisted. The seal broke and the cap turned in his hand. He handed it back to Gwen. She went back into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a water glass half full of wine. She sat on the couch, and her robe fell open below the sash, revealing her cunt. She seemed unaware of it. Dan sat in the arm chair that faced the couch. Gwen took a drink of the wine.
"Well," she said, "that's that."
"What are you talking about? It was great. Just like always."
"It wasn't just like always, Dan. Didn't you notice any differences?"
"All right, yes. I noticed that you're more practiced than you were. More expert. So what?"
"That wasn't the only difference."
"What else?"
"I didn't feel anything. That's what else." Her voice was cool and well controlled. She was just reciting a fact for him. Dan looked at her for a long moment.
"I don't believe it," he said finally.
"Oh, the physical part, sure. You're a very attractive man, Dan. And I'm not a dead woman. But the rest of it. The thing I felt for you before. That's gone. I told you, it's burned out. You seemed intent on trying, so I decided to give you your crack at me. Well, it didn't work. I can't love you any more, Dan. I can't love any man. Not for now, anyway. Maybe someday I'll be able to feel something for a man, some day a long, long time from now."
"I'm not giving up that easily, Gwen."
She came to her feet, drained the glass and placed it on an end table.
"Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to, darling. I'm not seeing you any more. If you bother me, I'll call the Highway Patrol office and tell them that you're annoying me and won't stop."
"That won't stop me, Gwen. You mean more to me than..."
"Give it up, Dan. It isn't going to do you any good. You see, I may be able to love a man some day, as I said. But it won't be you. It would never be you."
"I see. Well, I guess that's plain enough."
"I can make it even plainer. It may be unfair, Dan, in fact I'm sure of it, but, you see, I can't escape the feeling that you put me in that place. That you tied me to that bed and stood by while those men crawled all over me."
Gwen's words went through him like an electric shock. There was something in what she said, something in the imagery, that reminded him of ... of what? He couldn't remember. Something he had thought, or dreamed. He stood.
"All right, Gwen. I guess that's not as unfair as you think. I won't bother you any more." He went into the bedroom and put on the rest of his clothes.
When he came out, she was standing in the same place, her arms drawn across the front of her body, her shoulders hunched. Even standing that way, she was so beautiful she took his breath away. His vision blurred with tears, and his voice broke.
"Good-bye, Gwen. I hope you find this guy you can love, and when you do, I hope he loves you as much as I do. And I hope it doesn't take as long as you think."
When Dan had left, Gwen sat down again. She wished she had another drink, something stronger than wine. But she wasn't up to putting on her clothes and going out to buy it. Anyway, they might ask her for an I.D. card.
She was too young. That was really funny. She was too young to drink. This was no good. If she kept moping around like this, she'd find herself in tears in a moment, and then it would all be over. Why had Dan shown up? She was feeling pretty good before she saw him. She was free of that place, and she had felt wonderful about it. But was she free of it? Would she ever be free of it now? It hadn't been the way Mason had told her it would be. What she had done was immoral, no matter how you looked at it, and no matter what her reason for doing it. It had marked her. She had gone into that place a young girl, loving life, saddened at the loss of the man she loved, but with the ability to bounce back in the long run. Now she was an eighteen year old woman, worn into an early middle age, with no feeling for love or life.
She went to her desk in the corner of the room, pulled the cover off of her typewriter and sat down. She ran in a sheet of paper and began to write.
I WAS A COUNTERFEIT WHORE by Gwen Lee
For the past week I have been employed in a bawdy house. It was no ordinary bawdy house. I serviced congressmen, senators and Federal judges.
In the course of my work I met other girls, all young in age, all beautiful, and all old in experience.
One, a twenty-one-year-old girl named Sandra, had been a school teacher, before she met and fell in love with a man. The man took dope, and before long had Sandy taking it, too. When she found herself with a habit she couldn't feed on a teacher's pay, she began to go on dates with men she didn't know, and to take little gifts of cash from them. Now, Sandy is a professional prostitute, a girl who will do anything a man wishes, provided the price is right. They have a saying in the business. They say that junkies are the best hookers, from the customer's view, because of the desperation in which they live. They depend on the money their customers give them not only for such luxuries as food and shelter, but for a real necessity as well. The firm for which Sandy works, and for which I worked, supplies her with heroin, which she pays for from the commissions she earns by servicing the pillars of society.
There was another, a stunning blonde named Kay, who isn't old enough to vote, but who knows all the corrupt, degenerate ways to please a man that Salome knew. Unlike Sandy, Kay wasn't raised as what is generally referred to as a "nice girl." But she seemed nice enough to me. She was arrested on a half trumped charge by some small town sheriff, who gave her her choice between eighteen months in a girl's prison, and a criminal record for the rest of her life, or six months in the whorehouse. That was two years ago, and she's still in the whorehouse. No one knows just how much the sheriff was paid for her. Maybe as much as two thousand dollars, some say. She's a beautiful girl, and very popular with the guardians of the public morals, who didn't bother to ask her age when they began crawling into her bed two years ago. That makes them guilty of statutory rape in this State. She was only seventeen...
She went on with it, purging herself, letting it roll out through her typewriter onto the paper like a stain that spread and covered everything in sight. It was like taking a strong physic. She wrote for two hours without pause, and when she was finished, she read what she had written, and saw that it was strong stuff, the kind of thing that would indeed make her famous. Tomorrow she'd send the story in to Bob. And if he wouldn't run it, then she'd take it to someone who would. It needed to be told.
By the second day following the publication of her article, Bob had to give Gwen a private office. Too many nuts were coming into the place for no other reason than to see her. They would pretend to have business, a complaint about a paper not having been delivered or some such thing, but they would stand and stare at Gwen as though looking for the scarlet letter on her.
The new office had a telephone, which had rung constantly until Gwen asked the switchboard operator to stop putting calls through to her.
Some of the calls were legitimate: offers for syndication for her complete story, a ghost writer who wanted to help her write an autobiography, offers for lecture tours, TV appearances, even one publisher who wanted to put out a comic strip about her.
But too many of the calls were cruel pranks, dirty minded men who wanted to make "appointments" with her in the evenings, or girls titteringly asking how they might get into the business on the same terms she had.
Even the legitimate calls bothered her. She hadn't known that notoriety could sting like this. She turned down all the offers, partly to give herself time to think, partly because she knew that if she waited a while the offers would get better.
The other employees tried to be friendly, though it was a strained kind of friendliness. The women stared at her enviously, as news of the offers she was getting seeped through the office. The men just stared at her. They always had, of course, but now there was a boldness in their look as they insolently undressed her with their eyes.
Two of them had already tried their luck, catching her alone somewhere. She had left the first one with a stinging face and watery eyes. With the second she wasn't so gentle. She kicked him in the balls, and left him standing just outside the ladies' room heaving and trying not to scream like a woman.
She had just about decided to take another job, something in New York, just as far from her old friends as she could get. There had been plenty of offers, including one from a very prominent ladies' magazine which wanted her to take over a department as editor, at five hundred dollars a week. Gwen was sure they wanted her only for her name, since they had taken pains to assure her that she would have a staff of assistants, and the job wouldn't be demanding. She would have all the time in the world, they told her, to pursue other financial interests, such as lecturing and TV work.
Gwen had just about decided to take the offer, though she intended to work at the job, make it really hers, not just something she would hold while her name had some public interest.
In the meantime, she had taken to coming in to work early and leaving late. It lessened the chances of meeting someone she knew. Bob had given her a key to the building's back door.
It was a week after the publication of her piece, that it happened. Gwen got up from her desk at eight P.M. and locked the drawer, then put the autobiographical article she had been writing into her file and locked that, too. She picked up her purse and headed out the back of the building, toward the parking lot. The country had just gone off daylight savings time, and it was pitch black outside.
There was a ramp leading from the landing in back of the building to the ground, and Gwen walked down it, her eyes straight ahead, her mind a blank, as she had learned to keep it lately.
She became aware of someone behind her, and she started to turn, just as something clamped her ankles together and she fell forward. Her mouth opened to scream, but something damp clamped over it, and over her nose too, and someone had hold of her shoulders, holding her up. She took a quick, reflexive breath and her mind swam under the poisonous flood of chloroform. She raised her hands to the cloth, tried to claw the man's grip away, but he was incredibly strong, and he wore gloves, thick leather ones, and she felt one of her nails break, and then she saw a man coming up the ramp toward her with quick, purposeful strides, and he bent and took her knees in his arms and lifted her legs free of the ground, free of the grip that had been steel firm on her ankles, and she had held her breath for as long as she could, and she inhaled, and then everything went far, far away, and the last thing she thought was that they were very good, these men, very, very good at their jobs.
Dan found Bob Watson standing in front of his apartment door when he got home that evening. Watson looked at him strangely and asked if he could come in.
"What is it?" Dan asked when they were inside.
"I think maybe you'd better sit down, Wesson."
"Never mind the crap. What do you want?"
"Well, it's about Gwen."
"I figured it was about Gwen. I can't do anything about her, Watson. She told me point blank that she blames me for everything."
"I know you can't do anything. But I'm not here to discuss what you think."
"Oh? Well, what then?"
"She's dead."
Dan stood looking at him for a moment, while the word soaked in. Something cold was spreading through his veins, paralyzing him.
"Dead?" he said finally. He tried to laugh. "You're crazy. I saw her just a week ago. She was fine."
"It only takes a second to get dead. She was killed in an automobile crash in the mountains sometime last night. One of those crazy hairpin turns with no guard railing. Not that a guard railing would have done any good. Looks like she was going at a pretty clip. The car dropped fifty feet, and caught fire. Funny no one noticed the fire, but then it's kind of protected, that spot. Hard to see from anywhere except right over it, where the deputy was when he spotted the wreck today. Both the doors had flown, but she wasn't thrown clear because she was wearing her seat belt. Funny. That's the first time I ever knew her to wear it. I used to chide her about it. I guess maybe I did it once too often."
"Where is she?"
"In the county morgue."
"I want to see her."
"Dan, no."
"I want to see her!"
"It won't do any good. The body's burned to a cinder. Impossible to tell who she is, even."
"Then how do they know?"
"It was her car," Watson said patiently. "Her dress had some metal buttons on it, and they were still recognizable. And her purse was thrown clear. It had her driver's license and her press card, credit cards, everything. It was her, all right."
"Christ!" Dan drove his fist against the wall with such force that the plaster crumbled under the blow. He drew it back and hit again. "Christ! Christ! Christ!"
Watson grappled with him, drew him off balance and pulled him away from the wall.
"Stop it, Dan! That's not going to do any good!"
"Nothing is going to do any good. Nothing's going to be any good ever again." Dan realized that he was crying, and he didn't care. Watson led him to the couch and seated him.
"Whiskey," Watson said.
"Kitchen. Under the sink."
He was back in a few minutes with a tumbler half full of whiskey. He handed it to Dan.
"Drink up."
"I don't want..."
"Drink it." Dan took a healthy swig from the glass. He coughed violently, almost spilling the rest, but it felt good going down, and he drank some more when he was able. He put the glass on the table next to the couch.
"Bob, do you think she... ?" He looked at the man, unable to go on.
"Do I think she killed herself? I don't know. I've tried to ask myself that question and be honest about it. But I just don't know. I don't think so, though. Gwen wasn't the type. I don't care what that place had done to her. We found an autobiographical article in her filing cabinet, half finished. And why would she fasten her seat belt, if she wanted to kill herself? Besides, Gwen was very proud of her good looks."
"She had good reason to be."
"I know. But a girl who feels like that doesn't kill herself in this way. Poison, maybe. Or sleeping pills. And she usually gets all dolled up first. But not like this. Never like this."
"Thanks, Bob."
"I mean it."
"Sure. I know you do, Bob."
She was aware of sounds, first. Voices, above her. Some men, and once in a while a woman. Only sometimes they weren't above her, they were somewhere else in the room, different places, and they conversed. Sometimes they would all laugh. She knew she was waking up and going back to sleep, and hearing them at different times. And she was content to drift off again, because she knew that something was happening, something had already happened, and it was something she didn't want to know...
But awareness thrust itself on her, finally. There was a light shining in her eyes, a brilliant light, and she turned away, but there was another one on her other side. Even with her eyes closed, the light was painfully brilliant. She was deathly sick, a nausea that she remembered feeling only once before, when, as a little girl she had had her appendix out, and they had given her ether.
"Hey, boss, she's awake." The voice was directly above her, and she looked up and saw shadow somewhere behind the light, moving away. Another shadow took its place.
"Well, hello there," a familiar voice said. "I was beginning to think you were going to sleep for the rest of your life."
Gwen tried to look past the light, but she couldn't. Then she remembered the voice.
"Mason? Mister Mason?"
"That's right. How do you feel?"
"Sick. Where am I? How did I get here?"
"Whoa," he laughed. "One question at a time."
"Please, do I have to have these lights in my face?"
"Oh, of course not." Someone flipped a switch, and the lights went off. Everything was blurs and shadows for a few moments, then she saw Mason, smiling and handsome in a three hundred dollar suit. "The light was just to try to wake you a little sooner, Gwen."
"Where are we?"
"A little place of mine. The exact whereabouts isn't important."
"How did I get here?"
"Why, some of my men brought you. Don't you remember?"
"Men? The men! They..."
"Now, calm down, Gwen. It won't do any good to get all excited."
"But what do you want with me?"
"Why, nothing so sinister, Gwen. Just to give you a job."
"Job?"
"That's right. The same kind you had when you worked for me before."
"Worked for you? You mean you and your partners?"
"Funny thing about me, Gwen. I hate partners. A fellow can get into trouble depending on partners. I do everything alone. The Pharaoh's Tomb belonged to me. It's closed, now. Thanks to you. Too risky. You were bound to get a subpoena from Congress sooner or later."
"But why did you hire me in the first place?"
"To teach you a little lesson. Remember that day you came running into my study and threw that money in my face?" His voice was as friendly as before, completely at variance with his words. "People just don't do things like that to me, Gwen. Especially whores."
"But I wasn't a whore!"
"Well, an easy lay, then. Same difference. Not that I figured you as a particularly bad person. You just had delusions about yourself. Didn't know what you were. I figured a little stint in the Tomb would show you your own personality in a truer light. And make me a little money at the same time. To make up for the way you talked to me.
"And then, when you knew what you were, you could have gone on working there for years, Gwen. With no trouble. But then you got conscience. Instead of seeing yourself for what you were you must have thought the Tomb was corrupting you. So you ran out on us without even saying good-bye. I have to hand it to you there. You really caught us napping. But then we didn't think you'd dress in the dark. Did you have suspicions about the mirrors ?"
"Mirrors?"
"All those mirrors in your room. They were one way glass. We had closed circuit television cameras stationed at strategic points. And someone watching you at all times. But we couldn't see you in the dark. You really fooled us there, honey. Taught us a lesson. Not to get too cocky. We thought that just because we had you under surveillance, and had taken the firing pin out of that silly little gun of yours, that we had it made. But you won't get away from us again." He reached forward and ruffled her hair playfully.
"Mr. Mason, please let me go."
"Let you go? Oh, no, honey. I couldn't do that. Not after all the trouble and expense I went to to get you back. I sent four of my best men after you. And you have to admit, they did a wonderful job. They really outdid themselves. I'm going to give them a reward. I mean in addition to the bonus I'd normally pay them for a job like this."
"You can't keep me here forever. I'm known now. They'll be looking for me."
"Looking for you? Oh, I don't think they'll be looking for you, Gwen. Because, you see, they've already found you." He lifted a newspaper and showed it to her. Gwen's picture was prominently displayed on the front page, under a glaring headline: "COUNTERFEIT WHORE" KILLED.
There was another picture, too. A mangled car in a ravine. Gwen thought she recognized it. She lay back on the pillow, tiredly.
"Who was in the car?" she asked.
"No one. Just a cheap little whore. About your age and size. She wanted to quit, too, Gwen. So we decided to let her. No one will miss her."
"What are you going to do to me?"
"It's interesting that you should ask, Gwen. You see, I really didn't harbor much of a grudge against you before. As I said, I just wanted to teach you a lesson. Teach you who and what you were. But now, well, you've really done me dirty, you know. Forced me to close down a very profitable business. Oh, I'll open it up again, in a year or so, somewhere else, but the expense is something to think about, you know. So now I've decided that you should have a rough time of it. A really rough time. I'm going to let you earn back some of what you've cost me."
"You said the Tomb was closed."
"The Tomb wasn't the only whorehouse I owned. Gwen. It's a very large part of my enterprise, prostitution. This is another little place of mine. Not quite as posh as the Tomb, but basically the same kind of establishment. This house caters to the lower class clientele. The ten and fifteen-dollar tricks. But what we lose in the size of the fees we partially make up for in the volume of business each girl handles. And make up the rest, and more, in the number of girls. You're young and beautiful, and you'll be the star in this place. We'll start you out on the twenty-dollar trade. Even so, your expenses are going to be high, baby. To make us a little money, you'll have to take on fifteen, twenty men a night. Minimum."
"No!" Gwen sat bolt upright in the bed. The covers fell to her waist, and she realized for the first time that she was naked. She grabbed the covers and pulled them up to her chin. Mason chuckled, and the other men laughed. A woman laughed, too, and Gwen noticed that Claudia was in the room, sitting in a chair against the wall.
"We needed your clothes for the young lady who took your place in your car, Gwen. Anyway, you won't need clothes here. They'd just get in the way. We don't have a parlor here, as we had in the Tomb. Your customers will come to you, here in your room." He looked at his watch. "Well, I really must be running along. I probably won't be seeing you again for a while, Gwen. But I will drop by from time to time to see how you're getting along. I want to be certain they're treating you right here. As I said, I want you to have it rough. And I'm trusting Claudia to see to it." He rose and walked to the door.
"Oh, yes. I told you that I had promised these gentlemen an extra reward for doing such an efficient job of getting you here. They decided that what they would like most of all is to enjoy your favors while you're still new here, and not worn out. There really didn't seem any reason to refuse them." He smiled, then looked at the four men, who were standing in a group near the door. "Enjoy yourselves, boys. Just don't bruise her up. Remember, she's still a valuable piece of property." He smiled at Gwen again. "Good-bye, Gwen. I'll see you in a couple of weeks. I imagine you'll be quite changed, by then." With a little laugh, he opened the door and left.
One of the men closed the door, and then they all began to undress. Claudia sat back in her chair comfortably, ready to enjoy the show.
Gwen hugged the blankets tightly against her body. Her heart was pounding furiously. She knew she would fight them with all the strength she had. She would probably lose, but at least she might be able to hurt them a little, make them pay something for their fun. She tried to roll her body into an impenetrable ball, and realized with horror that her legs had been spread while she was unconscious and each of her ankles tied to one of the bed posts. One of the men looked at her and grinned, as though he had read her thoughts. He was a brutish man, with thick hair all over his body, and a vivid scar running the length of one cheek. His prick was already erect as he approached her.
He tore the bedclothes from her hand and threw them over the foot of the bed in one casual gesture. Gwen saw her body exposed in the room's dim light, her legs wide, her cunt exposed. Reflexively, she tried to pull her legs together. They were tied with bed sheets, and didn't even budge them.
The man placed one knee on the side of the bed and started to mount Gwen. She brought her hand up in a swift arc, the fingers bent into claws, reaching for his face. He caught the hand easily, chuckling. He twisted her arm so hard and so quickly the pain seared up into her shoulder and breasts, and she twisted her body to slacken the cramped position. The man pulled the arm up behind her back and bent it upward until Gwen heard the joints pop. She screamed and bent forward, and he pulled the arm higher and higher, forcing her to bend farther forward until her head touched the bed between her legs. He took her other arm and bent it back too. She was too overcome by pain to resist. He pinned the wrists together.
"Tie 'em," he said curtly. One of the other men came forward and stripped one of the pillows. Gwen felt him twisting the pillow case around her wrists and knotting it tightly. Then the first man pushed her back onto the bed again. She cried out as her weight fell onto the bound arms.
"Now, then, Gwen," the hairy one said. "Oh, I may call you Gwen, huh?" They all laughed. "Now, Gwen, we're going to fuck you for a while. With your permission, of course. If you want us to stop, you can let us know in one of two ways. You can either raise your hand, or cross your legs."
They laughed again. The hairy one started to mount her. Apparently he was the leader of the foursome, because no one challenged his right to fuck her first.
He placed one knee on the bed and moved between her open thighs. He looked at her body with a kind of obscene reverence.
"Man, that's what I call first class fuckin'," he said.
Gwen tried to pull her arms loose from their bonds, but it was useless. She only succeeded in increasing the pain in the arm he had twisted. She began to cry, tears blurring her vision. Her weeping seemed to excite him all the more, and his laughter took on a nervous kind of excitement now.
Gwen felt his hands close on her breasts, his fingers digging painfully into her flesh. She cried out, and he laughed again, and came down on her, his mouth closing over hers. He moved his lips over her face, slowly, savoring her taste and smell, and his hands slipped down to her waist and hips, his fingers mingled in the tangle of her pubic hair. Gwen struggled as best she could, trying to move her hips, to avoid him, and he put his full weight on them, pinning her fanny to the bed.
"Wiggle away, baby," he said. "That makes it real nice." He hoisted himself above her and came down onto and into her, his prick driving into her, taking her cold, ripping into her painfully. She screamed, and heard nervous, excited laughter from across the room.
His weight came down hard, driving him deeper into her loins. His upper torso jammed her down into the bed, twisting her arms painfully, and jamming them into her back. His body began to bob over hers, pumping and surging in a dance of self-fulfilling lust. She felt him tightening, growing rigid, as he reached his climax. His cock spilled hotly into her body. Gwen felt her own muscles tighten painfully, the sheets on her ankles going slack as her legs locked rigidly straight.
Then it was over, and he lay beside her for a moment, sucking air into his lungs. Gwen lay slack, feeling cheaper, more prostituted than she had thought possible. One of the other men claimed "seconds" and came forward and tapped the first man on the back. With an annoyed growl, he raised himself from the bed, and the other man took his place, moving between Gwen's spread thighs and placing his hands on her waist. She saw his prick, stiff and erect, and already shimmering with fluid, bigger than the man who had just left her. She tried to close her eyes, to block out what was happening at least partially by not seeing it, but it was too fascinating, like a mouse before a cobra, and she couldn't drag her gaze from that huge, shining prick. The man moved his hands up over her rib cage and dug his fingers into her breasts. She cried out as the fingers squeezed the tender flesh, and he moved his fingers to her nipples, pinching them tightly, sending an overwhelming wave of pain through her chest. She shrieked in agony, and he seemed to grow more excited. His prick began to ejaculate, the come striking her thighs and the bed, and he hurriedly moved his hands down to her hips and guided himself into her. His body jogged and surged, and his seed sprayed into her body. His hands slipped down to her thighs and gripped her tightly, painfully, and she cried out again and again in agony, as he reached his climax with a loud grunt and moved off of her.
Then it was the third one. It took him a little longer to get going. Apparently the sight of the other two emptying themselves of seed into her had turned him off somewhat. But he wasn't too sensitive to overcome his disgust. Soon his cock was as stiff and as hard as the others, and he shoved it into Gwen's open cunt, grunting with pleasure as his flesh slid into hers.
By now Gwen was beyond the feeble struggles her bonds permitted her. She lay supine, flaccid, under the sweating fevered body atop her. The man cried out as his come surged into her, and then he left her. The fourth was already waiting.
He wasn't as squeamish as his predecessor. His prick was already stiff and huge with desire, and he breathed in great, ragged chunks of air as he mounted the bed, and then began fucking Gwen.
Gwen's body was a mass of pain and soreness now. Her shoulders were numb from the tension in which they had been tied. Her belly was red and raw from the slapping of so many sweaty bodies against it. Her cunt was sore and burning. She wept quietly, in pain and humiliation beyond anything she had dreamed possible.
Number four grunted and rolled away from her. He rose and walked away. The first one walked back to the bed.
"I've got nothing against second helpings, baby. Like I said, now, any time you want us to stop, you just raise your hand or cross your legs. No? Okay, then, I'll have some more."
He came down onto her again, pushed himself into her, spewed his come into her once again and left her. Number two approached the bed...
She didn't know how many hours had elapsed, or how many times they had enjoyed the use of her body, but she was very tired and very sore when they left. They didn't bother to untie her hands. They just made a few dirty jokes, thanked her with mock solemnity for being such an accommodating girl, and left.
Gwen opened her eyes and saw Claudia standing over the bed. She was wearing dark stretch pants and a red sweater. She untied the sheets from Gwen's legs. As her legs were released Gwen cried out from the soreness of the muscles. Claudia sat on the bed and took Gwen in her arms, holding her close.
"Poor dear," she said. "That was really rough, wasn't it?"
Gwen looked up at the older woman in surprise. Claudia smiled at her.
"What's the matter, Gwen? Did you think I hated you too? That's silly, dear. Now, Mr. Mason wants me to be rough on you, but that won't be necessary. What he doesn't know won't hurt him. I'll be nice to you, Gwen. I'll steer most of the customers away and give you credit for some of the other girls' Johns."
"Why -- thank you, Claudia."
"Don't mention it, dear. You and I are going to be friends. Great friends. I'll be nice to you, and you can be nice to me." Claudia shifted the position of her body, and Gwen saw that the woman had unzipped her pants and now pushed them down to reveal her cunt. She placed a long, slender hand at the back of Gwen's head and began to press it toward the patch of hair. Gwen twisted her head and pulled away. Her hands were still bound, but she drew away, rolled to the other side of the bed.
"No! No! I haven't sunk that low! Not yet!"
Claudia blazed.
"Oh, you haven't? Maybe you thought that little game I just spent the last three hours watching makes you some kind of girl scout. You little hooker! Soon, very soon, you're going to come to me begging for a chance to kiss my snatch, and if I decide to let you do it, you'll bubble over with thanks."
"That's one thing you'll never see."
Claudia smiled coldly. She pulled her stretch pants into place, zipped them tight. She walked to the door and opened it.
"Okay, Doc," she said. "She's ready."
The doctor, the one who had worked at the Tomb, walked through the door. He had a little black bag in one hand. He set it down on the bedside table and opened it. He removed a hypodermic case, took out the needle and assembled it, then took a small bottle with a rubber cap stretched over it and thrust the needle into the cap. He drew the liquid from the bottle.
"Remember when Mr. Mason said your expenses would be high, dear? This is what he was talking about. A user always has high expenses."
"User? What...?"
"You know what they say, dear. What good, cooperative whores junkies make."
"Junky?" Gwen went white. "No! Oh, God, no, please, Claudia, no, I'll do anything you say, please. Please!"
"It's really not in my hands, sweety. Orders from Mr. Mason. 'Make her a junky,' he said. 'I want her carrying a seventy-five dollar monkey the next time I see her.' Now, he might be back in two weeks. That's not much time to build up a seventy-five dollar habit, sweety. We have to get with it."
The doctor leaned down over her, the needle in his hand. Gwen rolled away from him, but Claudia was there, and planted a knee on her breast.
"Get this thing off her wrists," the doctor said. "If Mason wants her brought along that fast we're going to have to start her right off on mainline."
Claudia turned her over and worked the pillow case loose. Gwen tried to move her freed arms, but they were paralyzed, dead from lack of circulation. Claudia flipped her onto her back again and planted the knee on her. Gwen begged and wept and looked down in horror as the needle slipped painlessly into her sleeping, unresisting flesh, into her vein. The plunger was pressed home and the deadly fluid shot into her arm.
Gwen lay staring at the ceiling as the doctor took the hypodermic apart and returned it to the case. Her own heartbeat was spreading the stuff now, she thought, pumping it all through her body. Already, she could feel the lethargy overtaking her.
"How long before you can give her another shot?" Claudia asked.
The doctor shrugged.
"That's a heavy dosage, especially for someone who isn't used to it. And she's a small girl. She'll be out for a good twelve hours."
"I didn't ask you how long she'd be out. I asked how long before you can give her another shot. Safely."
"Maybe four hours."
"Do it. And keep it up. Increase the dosage as quickly as you can without danger. I want her hooked when she wakes up. Hooked solid."
"Don't worry. By this time the day after tomorrow I can have a thirty-five dollar monkey in the saddle. After that we'll have to go more slowly. But meeting Mr. Mason's deadline will be a snap."
"Then we'll exceed it. The more hopelessly hooked she is, the better."
Everything was starting to recede now, voices getting more and more vague, vision swimming. Claudia reached down at her from a great distance and patted her cheek.
"So long, junky. Sleep tight. Remember what I said, and dream about it. You'll beg me. And consider it a real favor if I say yes."
Just before Gwen went into a deep, dreamless sleep, she felt a kind of dull horror at Claudia's words, a horror she hadn't felt the first time the woman had said them.
Because now she knew they were true.
Doctor Muller was adamant. A tiny man who had to stand on a raised platform to get at his patients' mouths, he looked like a bantam rooster standing before the county coroner and the chief of police, but a bantam rooster who had been bred for cock fighting.
"I don't give a whit for her identification papers. I'm telling you, gentlemen, that body is not Gwendolyn Lee."
The chief sighed and threw a glance at Dan.
"How can you be so sure, Doctor?"
"Chief Bates, do you question a fingerprint expert? Do you ask him how he can be so sure?"
"No."
"Fine. Then apply the same credulity to me, please. I too, am an expert in my field, and as a doctor of dental science, I can tell you that no two teeth are exactly alike. The teeth you gave me do not match the X-rays I have of Miss Lee's teeth."
"But isn't it possible for someone's teeth to change? Perhaps in the car wreck, or in the fire..."
"Certainly. But please allow me to be the judge of the manner in which they can change. The differences of which I'm speaking could not possibly be due to the passage of time, or a car wreck, or a fire. They are the teeth of another person. If you don't believe me, then I'd suggest that you get someone else, an expert of your own. I'll be glad to make my X-rays available to him for study."
"Thank you, doctor." The chief sounded tired, a little disgusted. Doctor Muller turned and left. The coroner left with him. The chief looked from Watson to Dan. "All right!" he said. "So you were right. So you're a couple of geniuses."
"Not me," Watson said, in a happier tone than Dan had heard him use in weeks. "I didn't believe it either, really. Patrolman Wesson was the one who kept maintaining that the girl in the car wasn't Gwen. I just went along with him."
"All right, Wesson. How did you know?"
"I told you. It was a number of things. Just the fact of where she was found, to begin with. Gwen had no reason to be driving around up there."
"She could have just gone for a ride, to think things out, you know. People do that."
"Then there was the wreck itself," Dan continued. "There was no reason for that car to go off the embankment, unless it was going ninety miles an hour, and Gwen didn't drive that way. And there weren't any skid marks. Her neck was broken. Not another bone in her body. Just her neck."
"That kind of freak accident happens."
"Besides that, it was too perfect. The body was burned beyond recognition. Yet her purse, with her identification in it, was conveniently thrown clear of the car. But Gwen was held in because she was wearing her seat belt, which was something she never did, apparently because she had a morbid fear of being held in. And despite the fact that she was wearing that belt, her neck was broken in the roll down the embankment. Well, I don't think it was. I think that girl's neck was broken before she was put in the car. And the way the car was burned didn't fit. The front of it was burned worse than the back, and it shouldn't have burned that much anyway. I checked at the service station where Gwen buys all her gas. She hadn't filled the tank in three days. Yet that car looked as though it had been burned in a fire that must have taken twenty gallons of gasoline."
"She could have filled the tank somewhere else."
"Yeah. But she didn't."
"All right. Thank you very much for the help. My regards to the Highway Patrol."
"Where does it go from here?"
"Where do you think? We put out a bulletin on her, keep our eyes peeled for sight of her. That's all we can do."
"Pardon me, chief, but I think that's the one sure way to get her killed."
"What makes you think she's not already dead?"
"Would they go to all this trouble to fake a killing if they were going to kill her anyway? Why not just leave her in that car instead of putting another girl in her place?"
"To have time to question her. Find out if she'd been subpoenaed by a congressional committee or something. Then kill her later, at their leisure."
"Maybe. But we don't know that, do we? I don't think she's dead."
"Let me get this straight. You think whoever has her is the guy who owned the hook shop?"
"That's right."
"What possible reason could he have to keep her alive?"
"I think he's a psychopath. I think he hates Gwen for what she did to him, and he wants to punish her."
"By not killing her?"
"By killing her a little at a time."
"You mean torture?"
"You could call it that. Let me put it this way. Do you have a teenage daughter?"
"Yeah."
"What's the worst thing that could happen to her? What would you consider worst? Death? Or something else?"
"I see what you mean. You figure he's got her in another hook shop somewhere and he's making her do the less pleasant duties."
"Right."
"All right, then, what can we do? We don't even know who this guy is. We sure don't know where his hook shops are located. We can't raid every whorehouse in the State of California, assuming she is in California. Even if we knew where they all are..."
"That won't be necessary. I do know who has her. At least I think I do."
The chief looked at him sharply.
"Who?"
"A man named Mason. He lives in Nevada."
"We'll contact the local police there and have them hold him."
"No! Now, that's the one thing we can't do. I don't have any evidence that Mason is the one. Even if I did, how could we get him to tell us where she is? When it hits the news that he'd been picked up, that would be a signal for whoever is running that whorehouse to kill Gwen."
"All right, then, what the hell are you suggesting."
"Sit on it."
"What? Are you out of your gourd, man? You're the one who's been bugging us to keep it open. You're the one who kept us from burying that girl these two weeks, who got us to have her dentist examine those teeth. You and Mr. Watson. Now you say sit on it?"
"Look, I'm sure Mason is the one we want. I can't prove it, but I'm so sure of it, I'd bet my life."
"Will you bet her life?"
Dan looked down at the man behind the desk for a moment.
"I'll have to," he said.
"What do you want to do?"
"I've been granted thirty days leave beginning tomorrow morning. I want to take a little vacation in Las Vegas."
"Are you nuts! That's out of the question. In Nevada you're just private citizen number one million. If they catch you messing in police work there they'll lock you up."
"But I won't be messing in police work. I'll just be on vacation. Of course, if I happen to cross the State line the same day as Mason, and if I happen to follow him to a whorehouse, and if I happen to find Gwen there, there's nothing stopping me from making an off duty arrest for abduction, is there?"
"I can't have it, Wesson. If you fuck up, it'll raise a stink like this town never saw before. This kind of thing calls for the F.B.I., if this guy is carrying girls across State lines."
Dan leaned across the desk.
"Chief, let me do this. I'm telling you, Gwen's alive. I know it. And I can find her. If you'll leave me alone. If I fail, no one will ever know you had anything to do with it. The police department doesn't know a thing about it."
"You're God damned right it doesn't."
"Then you'll do it?"
"I must be out of my mind," the chief said. "But then, I keep thinking about that girl, and what could happen to her if we handled this in a routine way and those people found out about it. Well, what the hell, I guess I'll go home now. Tomorrow is Saturday. Maybe I'll go fishing this weekend. Monday I'll have to get that bulletin out. If I don't forget. And even if I do remember, you'd be surprised how inefficient the staff can be around here. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the report got lost behind a filing cabinet somewhere. Might stay there for three or four weeks."
"Thanks, chief. You won't regret this."
"I just hope you won't."
"What do you mean?"
"Wesson, if you do find this girl, have you given any thought to what they may have made of her by then?"
The twenty-third man put a twenty dollar bill on the bedside table, said "G'night, Blondie," and left, staggering a little.
A least she thought he was the twenty-third. She knew he was at least the twentieth, but she had lost count somewhere around number twelve. Gwen opened the drawer of the bedside table and dropped the bill in with the others.
She got out of the bed and walked into the bathroom. Her face in the mirror stared back at her like a stranger. Mason had told them to bleach her hair to cut down the chances of anyone recognizing her. They hadn't done too good a job. The hair was supposed to be platinum, but it was brassy yellow. Her face was beginning to gather some lines, though she knew that it looked particularly bad right now because she was exhausted. Her eyes were dull and lifeless and her skin was beginning to turn sallow. She had lost fifteen pounds in the two weeks she had been here.
She douched herself and padded tiredly back to the bed and lay down. The sheets were clammy and limp, but she hardly noticed it. She wished she could sleep, but she didn't dare. She didn't know what time it was, and they might have some more customers for her. It was Friday night, the night when the construction men came in. At least she thought they were construction men. Her customers didn't tell her much about themselves. They weren't with her that long.
She hadn't been out of the room since her arrival here except to go to the doctor's office once in a while for an examination.
The doctor was a lot freer now than he had been with her at the Tomb. After all, he had something she needed. Well, what difference did it make? She had no idea how many men had fucked her in the last two weeks. Hundreds. So, if old Doc wanted to screw her now and then, it was a small price to keep him happy with her.
And Claudia. The first time she had given in to Claudia she had thought the shame and humiliation would kill her, but now it wasn't so bad. She just thought about something else. She wondered how long it would be before Claudia grew tired of her. She knew there were other girls here more attractive than she was. Especially now, after these two weeks, two weeks in which she had aged ten years. But of course Claudia enjoyed her because she had spurned her before and now she would go to the older woman's bed eagerly, and perform any act Claudia could think up. That was what Claudia liked, of course. Power. And revenge.
She would need a fix soon. Within an hour she'd be feeling it, and pretty soon after that she'd be in real trouble.
Claudia had let her go without her fix once, because she had gotten out of line. One of her customers wanted her to suck him, and she had refused. I don't do that, she had told the man. That was a laugh. An hour into her with-drawl, and she had been ready to french a syphilitic idiot. Anything. But Claudia had taught her a lesson. She had made her go without the fix for four hours. By that time Gwen was a sodden, limp mass of flesh, wallowing in her own vomit, sweating and shivering on her bed, doubled up with cramps so painful she thought she would break in two.
She had never said no to anyone or to anything again. They had broken her, like they'd break a horse. She knew who owned her now, and she didn't give them any trouble. She suspected they steered the known "specialists" to her, the ones who liked to be sucked, or who liked to go in the back door. She seemed to get a lot of them, anyway. But it didn't matter. She smiled at them and did what they wanted, and thanked them and asked them to come back and favor her again. If Claudia wanted to cut her tongue out, she'd open her mouth and tilt her head back. After she got Claudia the knife.
She heard someone at the door, and she sat up, ready to smile and welcome her next customer. Mason came in, looking immaculate in a three hundred dollar herringbone suit. Claudia and the doctor were with him.
Gwen sat stock still for a moment, paralyzed with fear. Then she jumped to her feet.
Mason walked up to her and stood looking her up and down for a long moment, obviously enjoying what he saw.
"Hi, junky," he said finally, in a kind of friendly-contemptuous voice.
"G-good evening, Mr. Mason." Gwen's belly was tied in knots. She felt like a child called into the office of the principal, only a thousand times worse. She knew she was looking at her owner, her master.
"You look lousy," he said in the same cheerful tone. Gwen lowered her gaze to the floor, and tried to think of something to say. "Haven't you been feeding this girl?" he asked Claudia.
"She won't eat, Mr. Mason."
"I-I'm not very hungry, lately, Mr. Mason."
"Well, that may be, Gwen, but you have to take care of yourself. You know, you're a valuable piece of livestock. We make money off of you. As long as you stay attractive."
"Yes, sir."
"Come here."
Gwen looked at him fearfully. She felt rooted to the floor.
"What's the matter, junky? Is the H affecting your hearing? I said come here." He didn't raise his voice. He knew he didn't have to. Gwen went to him at a trot.
He ran his hand over her body as he would over a horse he owned.
"You're ribs are beginning to show. Other than that, your shape isn't bad. But your skin! Your eyes!"
"I'm sorry. I'll do better, sir."
He patted her cheek. "I know you will, junky. Doc, from now on if she doesn't eat her dinner she doesn't get her dessert. Understand?"
"Of course, Mr. Mason."
"Have you been getting any complaints about charging top money for her?" Mason asked Claudia.
"Just one."
"What did you do about it?"
"Gave him his choice of a ten dollar rebate or a blow job from her. In addition to the regular service "
"Which did he select?"
"The blow job."
"No kidding? So, you're sucking cocks now, eh, junky?"
"Yes, sir. Anything the customer wants. That's what I'm here for."
"That's right, honey. That's what keeps you in horse."
He sat on the room's one chair and patted his knee. Gwen perched on it nervously. Mason's hand rested easily on her thigh, high near the crotch. With his other hand he felt her dry, bleached hair.
"You know, Claudia, I think, in the interest of customer relations, we'd better de-elevate this little girl to the ten dollar quickie trade."
"Yes, sir." Claudia smiled with cold pleasure.
"You know what that means, junky?"
"Well, I, uh --"
"It means you're going to have to work harder to earn your keep. After all, you're carrying a seventy-five dollar monkey, Gwen. Under the circumstances, you can't afford to lose any time from your work, don't you agree?"
"Yes, sir. Of course."
"Well, now, look at all the time you'll be losing during your period. You just can't afford it, honey."
"Well, I don't..."
"Now, I think I'll just have Doc here perform a little operation on you. Nothing serious. You'll be back to work before you know it. Just leave a little scar, about this big." He drew an imaginary line on her abdomen with his thumb. "No ill effects at all. And you'll never have to worry about menstruating again, and what's more, you won't have to use contraceptives. That'll save you a little money, too."
Gwen stared at him in quiet horror for a moment. She had thought her ability to feel horror had been rooted out, but this was something fresh.
"No. Oh, no, Mr. Mason, please. I'll fuck harder than any of the other girls, I promise. I'll earn my keep, honest. I'll make you money, Mr. Mason, I swear it." Mason sat looking at her with a slight smile on his lips, enjoying her begging. "Mr. Mason, please, for God's sake, sir, give me a break. I'm only nineteen." Gwen's forehead was covered with sweat, and she knew it was more than just her horror at Mason's words. She needed a fix.
"Really?" Mason asked. "Only nineteen? Fancy that. You look thirty-five." "Please, please, Mr. Mason. Please, I --" "I'm starting to get bored," Mason said. He signalled Doc, who came over and pulled Gwen from his lap. "Give the junky her fix, Doc. Then have a couple of the boys haul her in where you can operate. And you be careful, you understand? Make sure your equipment is sterilized. I don't want her dying. Not yet. She's got some living to do." He came close to Gwen, hanging limp now in Doc's hands. "When you get too shopworn for the ten dollar trade, I'm going to ship you to a little place in Mexico. Run by a couple of business associates of mine. They ship me fresh, young addicts, whom I buy from them, and they take the worn out ones off my hands. Their place is really bad. Rats running around. Dirty floors. Bare mattresses, no bedsheets, and the mattresses have been there long enough to vote in the elections. You can't be there for five minutes without getting the crud. They get like a dollar for a piece of tail, the same for a blow job. You have to work about eighteen hours a day just to make something for the house, if you're on horse. Of course you pick up a dose every few weeks working that kind of trade, which isn't too good for the health, but then your health will be shot by then anyway. But don't worry about it, Gwen. You won't have to go down there for a long time. If you take care of yourself, it may even be a couple of years. Hell, you'll be old enough to vote." He patted her cheek, harder than before, almost a slap. "G'bye, animal. I'll see you in another couple of weeks."
Dan arrived in Las Vegas on Saturday morning. Mason wasn't listed in the phone book, but it wasn't hard to find out where he lived. The man was well known in the city, and well liked. He had a reputation as a big spender, a man who could always be depended on for a few dollars if you needed it. Dan wondered what everyone would think when they found out what he was really like. Probably, they wouldn't believe it.
He rented a car and parked it on a corner near Mason's house and watched. He couldn't stay in one place too long because he knew if he did he'd be spotted by some citizen and the police called. He couldn't afford that. He was carrying a concealed weapon, and wasn't sure he had a legal right to do so under Nevada law. So he drove his car up and down the block, and got out and walked. It wasn't any good. He knew he couldn't keep that up forever.
Then he noticed a hill behind Mason's house. It was about fifty yards away from the back of the place, and a couple of hundred feet high.
He drove around until he found the way to the other side of the hill. He parked his car and climbed to the top. His view of the house was perfect. He could see all of Mason's house, all of the back yard, and all but the part of the front yard closest to the house itself. He wished he had brought his binoculars, fine German ones he used for hunting and at sporting events. But they were back in California, packed away with his hunting gear.
He memorized the shortest route between the hill and the street where Mason lived, selected several cross streets in each direction from the house, where he would be able to intercept Mason if need be, and bought a pair of Japanese binoculars at a sporting goods store.
Every day he went up to the hill with enough food for two meals. He stayed for sixteen hours a day. He had a motel cabin nearby where he slept. He knew Mason might leave while he slept, but that was the chance he had to take. He was only one man, and he couldn't stay there twenty-four hours a day. Besides, the possibility of Mason setting out on a business trip at night was slight. He kept telling himself.
Saturday and Sunday he didn't see Mason. He was sure he would recognize him when he saw him. The owner of the house had to look different from the servants.
He came home Monday night, driving his own car, a Rolls-Royce convertible. The chauffeur met him outside and drove the car into the garage with the other Rolls-Royce Dan had seen there, and the two other cars, a Jeep and an XK-E.
Mason was a big man, not tall, but squat and powerfully built. He carried a briefcase and wore a suit that would have cost Dan half a month's salary. He wasn't more than an eighth of a mile from Dan's position, and the seven power binoculars brought him into close-up proportions. Dan could see that he was handsome, in a middle-aged, competent way. Grey at the temples. The movies would have cast him as a successful businessman.
A man met him, a huge bodyguard type Dan had seen around the place before. They walked into the house.
It was obvious that Mason had been away on business. He had probably been to where-ever he was keeping Gwen, and that meant Dan had a long wait before he went there again. Well, he'd wait. As long as necessary.
It was Wednesday, about five P.M., and Dan was lying on his belly scanning the house with his binoculars when he felt something hit his back, hard, and when he tried to roll over to get his feet under him, a voice above him said, "Just take it easy, pal," and he knew the thing on his back was a foot. The man leaned forward and grazed the back of his neck with something cold and hard, and he lay very still.
"What are you doing here, friend," the man asked. His voice was gruff and powerful.
"Just getting a view of the town. I'm on vacation."
"You been looking at that view for an awfully long time. I noticed you up here two days ago."
Dan said nothing.
"You better start talking, pal. I'm getting a little nervous, and this thing has a hair trigger."
"You go around shooting people who don't talk to you?"
"You're on private property, friend. This hill belongs to Mr. Mason, and he doesn't like people up here."
"Then he ought to post it. I thought it was city land. Anyway, you can't shoot someone for simple trespass."
"Mr. Mason can. And I work for Mr. Mason." The foot left Dan's back. "Get up. And don't get any wise ideas, friend. I can blow you a fresh asshole before you can scratch your balls."
Dan climbed to his feet. The man was huge. The one he had seen greet Mason the previous Sunday. But he was even bigger than Dan had thought. Apparently Mason was taller than Dan had surmised. He had looked short next to this fellow, because this one was about six feet six. He must weigh two hundred forty pounds. He held his gun low and close to his body. It was a Colt Commander model .45 automatic. He motioned with it.
"Let's go, buddy."
"Where are we going?"
"To see Mr. Mason. I think he'd like to know about you."
"You mean he doesn't know about me now?"
"I don't like to bother him until I'm sure there's something up. Let's go."
Dan had picked the binoculars up by the leather neck thong, and now they swung heavily at his side. As the man gave the order, he motioned with the gun again, extending it slightly in front of him, and his eyes moved with the gesture. They were off of Dan for a fraction of a second, and Dan took a terrible chance. He swung the binoculars like a mace and chain, aimed straight at the gun. The light was bad, and a horrible moment he thought he had missed, but then he felt the solid connection, and the weapon spilled out of the man's hand and tumbled into the tall weeds. Dan moved in on the balls of his feet and hit him twice, as hard as he could. He felt the shock clear up to his shoulder as his fist connected with the man's chin, but he only fell back, dazed but not done for.
Dan realized later that he missed his chance to end the fight right then when he didn't follow up on the blows immediately, while his opponent was still dazed. But he had never hit a man so solidly before and failed to down him. The punches would have put an ordinary man out for a half hour. By the time he realized what had happened, that the man had absorbed the blows and remained standing, his opponent had regained his wits and was moving in like a charging bull.
Dan avoided a swift blow and landed one alongside the guy's left ear, but as the big man went past he landed one of his own in Dan's solar plexus. Dan bent double, paralyzed for a moment, then dropped to his side to avoid a foot aimed at his groin. He rolled away and came up on his feet.
The other man closed again, throwing a grazing blow along the side of his face, and Dan hammered at him again, two hard punches in succession. Then something hit Dan's face and sent him sprawling, dazed.
Dan had a gun, a snub nosed .38 which he wore in a holster under a loose flowing shirt, but he didn't want to use it. He didn't want to tip the man off to his identity, and the fact that he was armed might do just that. But now, as he fell, he saw something gleam in the last vestiges of sunlight, and he reached for it, hoping it wasn't just an empty beer can. His hand closed over the barrel housing of the .45, and he rolled away, avoiding a kick from his opponent as he adjusted his grip on the gun. He leveled it straight at the man.
"That's close enough, friend."
The man stopped, looked at the gun and shrugged, disgusted with himself.
"Your position is a little different from mine, friend. You shoot me and you're going to have a lot of explaining to do."
"You won't be around to enjoy it."
"You're a tough son of a bitch, aren't you?"
"That's right. Now I want some information. Where was Mason last weekend?"
"Ask him."
Dan flicked the safety off. It made a loud click in the evening air. The other man looked at the gun warily. But he didn't start talking, as Dan had hoped he would. Obviously he was no coward. Dan was very glad he had found the gun. In a fight to the finish, he wasn't too sure he could come out on top against someone this tough.
"On your knees," he ordered.
"Why?" The question was wary.
"Because I told you to, and I have the gun. Now, get on your knees, or I'll blow them into a couple of sacks of gravel. And I mean it."
The man knelt on the rocky ground.
"Put your hands in your pockets. No. Wait a minute. Put them in your pants. Down under the belt. That's right. Just like you're jackin' off. That's a good boy. Now, I'm asking you again politely. Where did Mason go last weekend?"
"And I'm telling you again, ask --"
Dan stepped forward and brought the barrel housing of the gun across the man's face, hard. It left an abrasion and a bad bruise.
"Brave son of a bitch," he whispered. He started to raise one of his hands to his wounded cheek.
"Keep 'em in your pants. If you want a fair fight I'll be glad to oblige you some other time. Right now I'm after information, and I want it the fastest way. You care to answer my question now, or shall I continue your massage?"
"I don't know where he went. That's the truth, damn it! He owns a lot of business establishments in California, and every couple of weeks he likes to go through them, so the people who work for him don't rob him blind."
"You talking about his whorehouses?"
The man looked surprised.
"Yeah, that's right. His whorehouses. You a cop?"
"I'm asking, you're telling. How many has he got?"
"I don't know, fifteen, twenty in California, maybe half a dozen in other states. I just work for him."
"I'm interested in just one of those whorehouses, buddy. The one where he had Gwendolyn Lee."
"Huh? Are you out of your fuckin' head? Gwen's dead. It was in the papers."
The use of Gwen's first name startled Dan. He leveled the gun at the center of the man's face and tightened his finger on the trigger, taking up the slack. The man saw his knuckle whiten, and went pale.
"Hey. Chrissake!"
"Don't try to gull me, Floyd. You're just a flick away from hell right now, and if you don't start coming up with some useful answers, you're going there. Then I'll go down and have a talk with your boss. Now, which whorehouse did he visit last weekend?"
"Wait a minute, are you trying to tell me Gwen's alive?"
"Which house? I'm starting to get bored with the conversation."
"I don't know, two or three of them. Wait a minute. He did mention one specifically. A temporary one. Yeah, he's got some temporary ones. He ships girls there from his regular places to someplace where there are a lot of men at the moment. Right now there's a big construction job going on in Northern California, and he's got about thirty girls down there. He visited some other places, too, but if he's really got Gwen, I think that's where he'd keep her. The quickie trade. No one knows anyone else. A lot of guys from all over the State, some from out of the State. She's not as likely to be recognized there."
"You're very cooperative all of a sudden, friend."
"You're damned right I am. And you can put the gun away. If Gwen's really alive, I want to help her as much as you do."
"You wouldn't shit your old buddy, would you?"
"Cut it out! I knew Gwen. I worked at the same place she did. We got to be friends."
"Just friends?"
"That's right, just friends. I laid her once, if that's what you mean, but there wasn't really anything between us. She was lonely, and she liked me, I think, and she was grateful to me for helping her out of a nasty situation with one of the customers, and that's all. Now, how about letting me up? This is a hell of a position."
"Maybe I'm not just bursting with trustful feeling for you, pal."
"Yeah? Well, I think you'd better trust me, if you want to find Gwen. You don't have much choice."
"Now, how do you figure that?"
"Simple. You shoot me and you're going to blow the whole wienie. Put Mason on his guard. So you're just going to have to let me go and trust me to be on your side."
Dan looked down at him for a moment. Finally, he pulled the magazine from the gun and tossed it away. He worked the slide smartly, throwing the chambered round clear.
"Get up." He handed the empty gun to the man. "By the way, what's your name?"
"Cliff."
"Cliff what?"
"Cliff will do to fetch me."
Dan smiled.
"Okay, Cliff. So I'm trusting you. Now what?"
"To begin with, you stop playing James Bond up on the hill. You stay someplace where I can reach you. When Mason takes off on another business trip, I'll let you know, and we'll both follow him. I want to be sure you're really out to help Gwen, not just to get Mason. I can't figure out why he'd want to kidnap her anyway."
"Revenge. I think he hates her for what she did, and he wants to make her pay."
"Yeah. I think he'd be capable of something like that. Mr. Mason knows how to carry a grudge, and how to make people wish they'd never heard of him."
"Then he ought to be interested in the reverse procedure."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm going to make him wish he'd never heard of her."
The man grunted and spewed his come into Gwen's body. He grunted again, cried out, and went limp, his weight squeezing the breath out of her.
He raised himself from her and stood. Gwen made herself smile up at him. She was tired, and her body was sore and the bed sheet felt filthy under her. The customer sat down on the edge of the bed and laid a hand on one of her breasts.
"You're a good lay, sweety." He was drunk, and his speech was thick.
"Thanks, honey. On your way out would you tell the next fellow I'll be ready for him in a few minutes?"
"Hell, baby, I don't have to leave right away, do I? I like you."
"I like you too, sweety, but you know how it is. I have to turn a profit for the house."
He got up and went to the chair over which he had hung his pants. The room was smaller than the one she had formerly occupied. All the rooms, she supposed, in the cheaper section of the house, the "quickie" section, as it was called, were smaller.
He came back to her and threw a crumpled ten dollar bill in her face."
"Eat me."
Gwen smoothed the bill, examined it in the room's dim light, and put it in the drawer of the bedside table with the rest of the day's take. She moved over to the side of the bed against the wall and moved lower. The man got in and lay on his back. His prick was growing stiff again.
Gwen took it in her hands and stroked it gently, expertly, until it was hard as a brick.
Then she kissed it, touching the tip with her tongue. The man jerked reflexively with the sudden sensation. She opened her mouth and took the cock into it, running her tongue over it, moving her lips back and forth over the tender skin, taking more into her mouth with each stroke.
The customer's hands tangled in her hair and dragged her head down hard against his hair covered abdomen. She gagged as the prick was rammed up against the back of her mouth, but fought down the sensation. His come was already spurting through her mouth, filling it and overflowing, running down her chin. She worked at him until he arched his back and called out his agony of pleasure and went limp. His cock went limp too, and she withdrew her mouth from it.
She climbed over the foot of the bed and padded into the bathroom, where she gargled and douched herself. When she came back he was zipping his pants. He looked at her with contempt and stalked out the door. He'd be back. He had been here before. Several times.
She had seen the next one before too, but only once. He was a middle aged man with three fingers missing from his left hand. Gwen wondered whether he had ever bathed. His jaw worked manfully at a wad of chewing tobacco. She lay on the bed and smiled.
While he lay atop her, his body pumping his come into her, she thought about other things. She had found that it helped to pass the nights, the rough ones, when everything seemed too real, too sordid. Those nights were becoming more and more scarce, lately, and she was glad. Usually she could get through a night without loathing herself consciously. It was getting to be just a job. An unpleasant job, but a job. One she could do, and live through, if it meant that she could get her next fix on time.
Doc always gave her her fix right after work. He was still increasing the dosage, though he said he would have to stop soon, because they were nearing the danger point. She thought about the fix. It would be nice, and dreamy when he gave her that. She could sleep, then, and be dead for a little while, and not know what she was, what had become of her, what Mason and the others had made of her.
As the customer bobbed atop her, his two fingered hand squeezing her breast, she wondered idly whether it was really just the dope that made things matter so little. She knew that her feeling of detachment had increased since the night Doc had performed the hysterectomy on her. Nothing seemed to matter as much after that. They had robbed her of everything, even her femaleness, or at least the part of it that carried the greatest dignity, the life creating part. Her body was a toy, now, where it had been a machine, a machine to procreate. She was a barren field, where men could drop their seed without fear that it might take root, and grow.
The little man cried out and clutched her, the stubs of his fingers digging painfully into the softness of her breast. He rolled off her and began putting on his clothes. He had paid her before fucking her.
"Honey, will you tell the next customer I'm all ready for him?" She wouldn't bother to douche herself this time. She was tired. What did they expect for ten bucks?
"Ain't no more."
"Oh? Really?"
"Christ, whadda ya 'spect? It's after four A.M."
"Oh, is it?"
He looked at her oddly, as though disturbed by her lethargy, her distance from reality.
"Well, I'll see you next time I need my ashes hauled, Goldilocks." He zipped his pants hurriedly and almost ran out the door.
Gwen lay on the bed for a few moments, and then sat up on the edge of it. She should go in and take a shower. She was tired, and she wanted to sleep, and being dirty didn't seem to matter to her any more. But then she thought of that place down in Mexico, with the rats and the dirt floors and the dose every few weeks. Mr. Mason had told her that the length of time before she was sent there depended on how well she kept herself up. So she would bathe. Tired or not. She stood and started for the bathroom, when the door opened. She looked up and smiled automatically, thinking that another customer had come in after all. Then her eyes went wide and her face more pale than it had been.
"Oh, I -- g-good evening, Mr. Mason."
Dan parked his car a half mile past the place and got out and headed back on foot. He left the hood up, to give the impression that the car had broken down on the road. He put the earplug in his ear, cutting off the loudspeaker on the walkie-talkie, silencing it to all ears but his...
Mason sat on the chair and patted his knee. Gwen perched on it as she had done on the previous visit. She wondered why he enjoyed this ritual. He rested his hand high on her leg, and she quickly spread her knees, giving his access to the inside of the thigh.
He looked about the cramped, shabby room.
"Well, now, this place looks more befitting your station in life, doesn't it?"
"Yes, sir. It's fine."
"From what they tell me, you're turning into a real pig. Taking on all comers as fast as they can come. Right?"
"Yes, sir." She kept her eyes on the floor. A good position, she thought, for a slave.
"I always knew I could turn you into a pig, Gwen. That was easy. But I want to turn you into a dog, too. You know the difference?"
She shook her head in silence.
"A pig is a tramp. Like you." He reinforced his point by poking her lightly in the abdomen with his finger. "A dog is a girl who isn't attractive. Now, you're still attractive, in a cheap, jaded sort of way. But give us a year or two of making you fuck twelve or fourteen hours a day seven days a week, and we'll wear that attractiveness down. That's the last thing you'll have to lose, Gwen. You won't have anything left, then. Nothing at all. That's when I'll ship you off to Mexico. In that place, you'll just be a pussy, a hole with hair around it for those guys to stick their cocks into. Guys who can't afford anything better."
Gwen couldn't think of anything to say.
"Hey, you know, it's a good thing you don't have a lot of clothes to pack. Because you're moving. Tonight."
"What?" Gwen looked up in horror. "No, Mr. Mason, please, you said a couple of years, you said --" She trailed off. Mason smiled at her mockingly. She was so afraid of him, a frown, the twitch of an eyebrow could fill her with panic. She knew he enjoyed this fear in her, knew that she was playing into his hands, but she couldn't help it. The fear was just too great. Mason laughed at her.
"You misunderstand, junky. I'm not sending you down to Mexico yet. I wouldn't dream of it. There's still plenty of use left in you. Besides, I don't want to give up these little visits. I really look forward to them. It's so much fun to check on your progress every couple of weeks. It makes me feel ten feet tall to know I made you what you are today."
He stood up suddenly, sending Gwen bouncing to the floor. He laughed, and she tried to laugh with him. There was a film of sweat on her body, and she knew it wasn't just from nervousness. She was in need of a fix. Pretty soon it would be bad. She wondered whether Mason came here when she needed it purposely, because he enjoyed seeing her that way. Probably. She started to climb to her feet.
"Stay there," Mason said. "It's becoming to you." He walked to the bedside stand, opened the drawer and took out the pile of money. He stacked it neatly in his hands, then counted it.
"Three hundred and fifty bucks. Any blow jobs?"
"Yes, sir. Three. Or four. I'm not --"
"About thirty guys, right?"
"Yes, sir."
He weighed the money in his hand.
"Remember how much you used to make at the Tomb, junky? For taking on just one guy?"
"Yes, sir."
"Wish you were back there? Huh?"
"Yes, sir," Gwen murmured.
"What's that? I didn't hear you."
"Yes, sir," she said more loudly. "I wish I were back there."
Dan moved quietly through the bushes to a point near the door. He stopped there, watching as the last customers made their departure. Something came over the earplug every once in a while, Cliff's voice or someone else's, more distant, speaking to Cliff. But nothing that meant anything to him. He crouched in the darkness and waited.
Mason dropped the money to the floor and kicked most of it under the bed.
"You can pick it up later, junky. Oh, by the way, speaking of the Tomb, guess what? There's an old friend of yours from there waiting to see you. Of course, he doesn't know it. He just got bored and wanted to drive me on this trip, and I told him sure. Since I closed the Tomb, I've been using him as a bodyguard. But I'm sure he'll be happy to see you."
"I don't -- who --?"
"Cliff. You remember Cliff, don't you? I understand you and he got to be real friends. In fact, he fucked you once, didn't he? Hey, maybe he'd like to do it again. Well, no, I don't suppose he would. But maybe he wouldn't mind shaking hands."
"Oh, no, please, don't let --" Gwen stopped. She had slipped again, let him know her fear, another way to hurt her. She had added another weapon to his arsenal of weapons against her. There was no use pleading. If he wanted to humiliate her before Cliff, he'd do it.
"Surely you want to say good-bye to your old sack partner. I told you, you're going on a trip tonight. You see, this place is only temporary, because of the construction project. But that ends this week. By next weekend it'll be all over. We have to keep you whores where the money is. Don't we?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why, sure. You have to make money, junky. You have a big monkey to feed. Doc tells me it's up to ninety bucks now. I told him to stretch it a little further and take it up to a nice round hundred. But anyway, as I was saying, since you're going away in a few hours, you sure want to say good-bye to your old friend. I'll send for him." He went to the door, opened it and said something to someone on the other side. Gwen started to pull herself off of the floor again.
"A lady doesn't rise when a man enters the room, Gwen. Of course I realize you're just about as far from being a lady as a woman can get, but we'll pretend. Stay on the floor. As I told you, it's becoming. It's where you belong."
There was a knock at the door, and Mason said "Come in," in a cheerful voice. The door opened and Cliff entered. It took him a moment to look down and see her sitting on the floor. Her body was covered with sweat, now, and she was starting to feel chills and nausea.
"Hello, Cliff," she said quietly, looking away from him.
"Hello, Gwen," he said in a voice that seemed louder than necessary.
That was enough for Dan. He moved in on the door swiftly. He pulled the gun from his belt and carried it in his hand, concealed under his jacket. He still had the snub nosed job he had carried in Vegas in his hip pocket. The one in his hand was his service revolver, a six inch barreled Magnum. Loaded with his own hollow point hand loads it was almost enough gun to blow a man in two.
He pounded on the door with the flat of his hand until a little hatch in the middle of it opened and a face looked out at him.
"What the hell's going on?" a gruff voice demanded.
"Wanna peesh," Dan said in thick, drunk sounding tones. "Wanna peesh of ash."
"Christ sakes, buddy, it's almost five A.M. Go on home. We'll sell you a piece of ass tomorrow night." The little hatch closed. Dan pounded on the door again, and kicked it as hard as he could. He heard a muffled curse from inside, then someone started to unlock the door. He took the gun from under his coat and when the door started to open he threw himself against it, sending the man inside sprawling. Before he could get up, Dan poked the gun under his nose.
"One sound, bastard, one lousy, fucking peep, and you'll be carrying your skull in a plastic bag." The man looked cross-eyed at the muzzle of the gun. He didn't make a sound.
"Where's Mason?"
"Who?"
"I get impatient real easy, friend. Where is he?"
"Down the hall. Second door from the far end." His eyes never left the muzzle of the gun. Dan reached under the man's coat and found a gun, a small automatic. He put it in his jacket pocket and motioned the man to his feet.
It was an old house, with a kind of foyer right inside the front door, and a staircase to the right. A hallway extended the length of the place, next to the stairway. To the left was a large room, apparently a parlor or living room in more respectable days. Dan pulled the man to his feet and motioned him into the parlor.
"Look, buddy, I --"
"Shut up." Dan pushed the man through the door, then stepped in close and slugged him with the Magnum. He brought it down from the ceiling, with all his strength. The man fell like a poleaxed steer. Dan wondered whether he had given him a concussion.
He moved down the hall, listening to Cliff talk to someone every once in a while, listening to muffled, unintelligible voices in the background. The walkie-talkie grew louder as he went, a sign that the man had given him the right directions.
He stopped in front of the door, took a deep breath, and stepped back. He brought his foot up and kicked the door open, shattering the jamb and sending it bouncing from the wall.
He came in through the opening fast. Gwen was sitting in the middle of the floor, naked. He almost didn't recognize her at first. They had changed her. Mason was sitting in an old wing back chair, looking down at her. Cliff was on the bed, sitting with his hands in his pockets talking to Gwen.
Mason came up out of the chair with a start, moving toward Gwen, either instinctively or with the thought of using her as a shield. Dan cocked the Magnum. In the quiet of the room, the sound was enough to stop Mason cold.
"Gwen," Dan said quietly, "come here."
She stared at him in the dimness, scrutinizing him for long seconds before recognition lighted her face. She rolled herself into a ball as though trying to hide herself from him.
"Dan! Oh, God! I didn't want you to --"
"Gwen! Come here!" His voice was sharp this time, his words bitten off short. She climbed to her feet and came to him. There was no gladness in her movement. She was simply obeying him. Apparently they had taught her to be very obedient. He put an arm around her and pulled her to him. She pressed the length of her body against his, as though it were second nature. She was slick with sweat, and she was trembling.
"Where are her clothes?" Dan asked Mason.
"She hasn't got any."
"Don't be cute, boy."
"I'm telling you, she hasn't got any. We left them on someone else. We brought her here in a box. She didn't need any clothes, and she hasn't needed them since."
"You'd better watch your mouth, Mason. You're about one millisecond from a two piece spine." Gwen's body began to twitch and jerk, as though she were close to convulsions. "What's the matter with her? Is she sick?"
"Not yet," Mason said. "But she will be, soon."
"What are you talking about?"
"She's a junky. She needs a fix."
"You did that? Why, you filthy --" He raised the gun slightly, within an inch of killing the man. Mason looked wildly at Cliff.
"For Christ's sake, Cliff, what's the matter with you? You just going to sit there?"
"I don't see what else I can do, Mr. Mason. He's got a gun."
"You've got a gun!"
"Yeah, but his is out. Besides, Mr. Mason, I've never been mixed up in a kidnapping and a murder before. I don't think I like it."
Mason looked from one of them to the other.
"So that's it," he said quietly. "It's the two of you. You're in this together."
"Hey, you're pretty smart, Mr. Mason. You figured it all out. You see, Mr. Mason, I have a walkie-talkie hidden under my coat. Wesson waited outside until I said 'Hello, Gwen.' That was his signal to come on in like gangbusters. That meant I was sure you were keeping her here. All you had to do was keep me outside cooling my heels and you might have skated clean. I guess you got a little too greedy. You had to push things too far."
"You're a dead man, Cliff. You know that, don't you?"
"Oh, I'll take my chances. If you had partners to come after me, I might worry. But you always work alone, don't you? And you aren't going to be maintaining any kind of an organization where you're going. You see, I'm going to testify against you, Mr. Mason. I'm going to get on the stand and spill my guts. I know a lot about you. I've been going through your papers every chance the last two weeks."
Mason's face turned beet red. He seemed on the verge of a fit of apoplexy.
"All right," Dan said. "Enough talk. We need some clothes for the lady. Your pants and coat will do, Mason."
"Listen, you don't think you can --"
"I'm getting tired of talking to you, fella. Drop your pants!"
"Who you kidding? You're not going to fire that thing. It'd bring --"
Dan squeezed one off. He moved the muzzle a little beside Mason and put one an inch by him. The roar of the Magnum was really incredible in the tiny room. The bullet went through the wall, scattering plaster over the floor. Gwen jerked convulsively, her body sucking in a great gulp of air at the blast. Mason leaped to the side and did a little dance to keep his balance. Cliff came to his feet instantly, his gun in his hand. He went to the door and stood beside it, covering it with the .45.
"You want to drop them now, Mason ? A bullet hole in the back of the coat won't hurt a thing, as far as I'm concerned."
Mason took off the coat and dropped it into the chair. He loosed his belt and opened his pants and dropped them to the floor, then stepped out of them. He looked ridiculous in his shorts and shirt and tie, with his shoes and socks completing the ensemble.
"Give them to the lady." Mason picked the pants up, then the coat, and started to toss them. "I said give them to her. Hand them to her nicely." He brought the clothes forward and handed them to Gwen. She started to put them on.
Dan heard something behind him and almost turned before he heard Cliff say, "Come on in, Claudia. Make yourself at home. Move over there, next to your boss. The one with the hairy legs."
A woman in a blue robe moved next to Mason. She was tall, with reddish hair, beautiful he supposed, in a cold way. Right now she looked a little flustered.
"Where's Doc?" Cliff asked.
"He went the other way when we heard the shot. I think he's hiding somewhere outside."
"There goes your chance, junky," Mason said.
"Shut up." Dan motioned with the gun.
"Give up," Mason sneered. "Doc has to give this little user her fix or she'll be puking her guts out before you know it. She's about fifteen minutes from withdrawals right now."
"You can show me where the stuff is kept."
"Sure I can. You know how to use a hypodermic? I don't. Claudia doesn't. I don't think Cliff does. It's damn sure the junky doesn't."
"Come on," Dan said. "We're all leaving."
"No!" Gwen shouted. "No, I can't! I need a fix!"
"Gwen, I'll take you to a hospital. They'll help you there. It won't be long."
"No, I can't! Don't you understand? I need a fix!"
The coat had fallen open, revealing her breasts. She seemed unaware of it.
"There you are, hero. The lady doesn't want to be saved. So I'll tell you what. You go ahead out of here. You and your buddy. When Doc sees you leave, he'll wait a few minutes and come on in. And the junky will have her fix. But don't you try to come back in. Because we'll have ways to keep you out this time. Now, beat it."
"Yes," Gwen said, "please leave, Dan."
"Gwen, like it or not, you're coming with me."
"What are you going to do," Mason chuckled. "Drag her out of here kicking and screaming? That makes three of us you've got to fight now. The odds are getting pretty long, aren't they?"
"We could sure cut those odds down, Mr. Mason. In a big fat hurry."
"By killing us? Sure. If you want to face murder charges. Why don't you give up?"
"Listen, Gwen. You've got to..."
When he started to talk to Gwen, Dan had turned to look at her, too, instinctively. Something screamed at him inside, and he turned just in time to see the gun come out of Claudia's robe pocket. It was a small automatic, a .32 or .380, and when it came level it went off, making a funny, tinny bang after the Magnum's roar. Cliff doubled over in sudden pain. Claudia turned the little gun toward Dan, but Cliff moved to her in one stride. He grabbed her hand and jerked it up behind her, and there was the unmistakable sound of snapping bone.
Claudia screamed shortly and fell in a faint. Cliff turned toward Mason, but Mason stepped away quickly.
"Cliff!" Dan shouted, but Cliff couldn't hear him. Cliff fell forward and landed on his face without raising a hand to protect himself from the fall.
Cliff would never hear anything again.
"Well, now," Mason said. "The odds are two to one, aren't they? The junky and me against you. Funny, isn't it? You come here to save her, and she turns out to be the decisive fact against you."
"I can kill you right now, Mason."
"Sure, you can. But what good will that do? Don't you get it yet? She doesn't want to be saved. She doesn't want it! She doesn't like herself, and she doesn't want to go back to trying to be a decent human being, because that takes effort. All she wants is a fix and a filthy sack to fall into, and you know something, friend? I think that's more than you can give her. She's carrying a ninety buck monkey right now. Can you feed it?"
Dan looked at the man for a long moment, then looked at Gwen. She stood staring at the floor, hugging the too big clothes about her. She was shaking violently now, and sweating heavily. Dan stuck the gun into his belt.
"Gwen," he said. She turned away from him. He took her neck in his hand and pulled her toward him sharply. "Gwen! Listen to me. I'm leaving. If you want to come with me, fine. And we'll take Mason with us, and make sure he doesn't hurt anyone else ever again. But if you want to stay here, I'll leave you with him. Because I just don't give a damn."
Her body twisted in his grasp.
"No, I can't, I -- I need a --"
"Will you shut up about that!" He twisted her around, shoving her sweat soaked face toward the floor, where Cliff lay. "Look! Look at Cliff!"
"Cliff? No, I don't want Cliff to see me, I --"
"He's dead. Gwen, Cliff is dead!"
"Dead? Cliff is --"
"He died to give you a chance, Gwen. A chance to get out of here. But you have to want that chance. You have to want it, or it's no good. Now what's it going to be, honey? Are you going to come with me, or are you going to stay here with this animal and get your fix?"
Her head twisted back and forth, and she moaned.
"...don't understand what it's like, you don't..." And then her eyes fell on Mason, sitting on the edge of the bed, now, grinning smugly, totally sure of what she would say. She looked at him for a moment, as though slowly digesting the sight. Then she shook herself a little and looked down at the still form of Cliff. Dan felt her spine straighten a little, and when she spoke her voice was firmer than it had been. There was still a quaver in it, and it was still harsh and rasping, but there was strength in it, too. She looked at Mason first, and then up at Dan.
"I'm going with you," she said.
She had a private room, and a full time nurse around the clock, because they thought she might need protection. At first they had stationed a policeman outside the door, too, but after a while they took him off.
The tapering off process was hard. Painful and unpleasant. But she got through it, and one morning she woke to find that the pain and the sickness were gone.
She had been isolated up until then, but the day after she came out of withdrawal, Dan came to visit her. He looked drawn and tired and a little nervous. He had flowers in his hand, and a book for her. The nurse put the flowers in a vase and left them alone.
"Dan," she said, "I want to thank you for getting me out of that place. I can never repay you for that."
"It was partly my fault that you were there in the first place."
"No. That's not true. You treated me pretty roughly, but that was no excuse for what I did."
"That's true. But then there was no excuse for the way I treated you, either. But that's all past. The important thing now is to get you well. The doctor tells me you're fifteen pounds underweight. We can't have that. I like a girl with meat on her bones."
"Look, Dan..."
"I talked to Watson yesterday. He says your old job is waiting for you any time you want a full time job, but if that's what you want it's it. I told him that was up to you. I don't particularly like the idea of my wife holding down a full time job, but if that's what you want it's okay with me. But not until you're well again."
"Dan, you don't have to marry me. I told you, there's no reason for you to feel guilty..."
"Of course, I realize a girl doesn't like these things to be taken for granted. She likes to be asked. So I'm asking. Will you marry me, Gwen?"
"No, I won't." There was a break in her voice as she said it.
"Mind if I ask why not?"
"Because I don't love you for one thing."
"I know you don't. But I think you will, in time. You did once, didn't you?"
"For another thing, you deserve something a lot better than me."
"There isn't anyone better than you." He took her hand in his. Gwen tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip, and she relaxed.
"Dan, I told you when I came out of the Tomb that I was incapable of loving any man. But that I hoped that in time I'd be able to love someone. Now, even that hope is gone."
"Stop talking like that." There was a sharpness in his voice that caught her off guard. "You're just pitying yourself. I don't blame you, really. You've been through more misery in the last couple of months than any person has a right to go through. You have a right to a little self pity if anyone has. But sooner or later you have to get over it and start living again."
"Why? Living for what?"
"For yourself. For me. I love you, Gwen."
"Dan, you don't love me. You don't even know me. I'm not the girl you knew. I'm not even the girl who came out of the Tomb. The girl you know is..."
"...still there. That's right. That girl is still there. Every once in a while I see her looking at me out of your eyes, and it makes my heart leap when I do."
"Dan, don't. You only see what you want to see. I'm nothing, don't you understand? I'm a tramp. Mason said he'd turned me into a pig, and he was right!"
"He couldn't turn you into that if he had a million years to try. Gwen, there's something wonderful in you, something strong and fine. I've seen it too often to be wrong. I saw it the night you walked out of that place with me. Pale and shaking and sweaty, and heaving your belly dry and leaning on me because your legs were too rubbery to hold you up, but you walked out. Jesus, I've never been so proud of anything in my life as I was of you at that moment!" There were tears in his eyes, and Gwen felt them forming in her own.
"Dan, don't! I won't marry you."
"Yes, you will."
"What?"
"If you won't do it for your own sake, then do it because you owe me something."
"Dan, what are you saying?"
"I risked my life to get you out of that place, Gwen, I figure you owe me for that. I figure you're going to have to do as I say for a long time to come to square the debt."
"Dan, that isn't fair!"
"I'm not trying to be fair. I want you for my wife, Gwen, and I'm willing to play any kind of dirty trick necessary to get you. Now, what do you say? Are you going to pay your debts, or are you going to welch?"
Gwen looked down at the bed covers for a long moment. She felt very, very tired.
"All right, Dan. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll live with you. You're right, I owe you more than I can ever repay. So I'll live with you wherever you like, and I'll do whatever you say. I don't know why you want me now, but if I can give you some pleasure, I'll do so, and gladly. And when you get tired of me, all you have to do is say so, and I'll leave, quietly."
"That's not good enough."
"What?" She looked up at him, amazed.
"You heard me. That's not good enough. I want you to be my wife, Gwen, and I won't settle for anything less. I want you to be a good wife, and a decent person. That takes effort. It isn't as easy as just being someone's mistress."
She looked straight into his eyes for a long moment.
"Do you know," she asked levelly, "that I can't ever give you any children?"
He nodded silently. His hand tightened.
"Dan, please leave me. Walk out right now. I'm trying to do what's best for you, believe me. But I'm tired now, and weak, and the temptation is great just to turn myself over to you and say, 'You take over, you decide what's best for me, you tell me what to do."
"Well, that's just what I want you to do, honey. For now. I know that in time you'll stay with me because you know for yourself that you belong to me. But for now, just do it because I say so. I love you, Gwen. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life making you forget what's happened to you."
"All right." She was looking down at the bedclothes again. "All right, I'll marry you, darling. If that's what you want."
"It's what I want, all right. And Gwen, as for children, we'll adopt some."
She broke, then, crying hard sobs, with tears that rolled down her cheeks and fell to the blanket. Dan took her in his arms and held her close to him, stroking her back.
"Darling, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that, I shouldn't have brought that up."
"It's not that, you boob," she said into his shoulder, "It's you. You're so good, Dan. So good." The words jumped to her lips, and she felt a sense of wonder that she could say them so soon, and mean them in every way, and she knew she did mean them, and would always mean them.
"I love you, darling. I love you very, very much."
