FACED WITH DEPRAVITY AND DEATH, SHE MADE HER LOVELY BODY A SACRIFICE
DARIO RIZZOLI made fast cars and fast women his forte until his fame and money made him a kidnapping victim.
LISA RAINIER made Christina jealous of her unbelievable bosom.
ROLF HARRISON was overwhelmed by the breasts and bravado of Lisa and became the victim of a plot he could not even comprehend.
ROMEO XVII slashed off Christina's golden hair in a sexual frenzy only to have his most private parts masticated by his victim.
NUNZIO OF ABRUZZI she thought she could trust him until he ravished her and then denied her.
ROSA MERCURI the lesbian Communist who subjected her subordinates, and Christina as well, to orgiastic excesses.
ALAIN CHAMBORD alternately gentle and brutal, he ruled his ship and his men with an iron hand until Christina finally found his melting point. for Oral so aptly named with love
CHAPTER ONE
Quite frankly, I am bored.
Three whole months of nothing but wine, women/men and song. I've been underneath, atop and in between so many bodies of both genders I feel like the main ingredient of human sandwiches. And the way I've been devoured at least confirms that I am a tasty piece of meat. Indestructible, too. Eaten over and over again and still intact! There would never be a food shortage if Christina van Bell were the entree.
Small consolation. I think of myself this way only to hide my deeper discontent. Thank god for champagne and Quaaludes, cocaine and pot, or life would really become unbearable. All the handsome men and stunning women with their marvelous physiques and sexual prowess merge into one huge, grotesque phallic symbol when I attempt to separate them in my recollections. Is my life just one perpetual Dionysian festival, devoted entirely to celebrating and satisfying lust? At times I begin to think so. The parade of tongues and cocks, dildos and fingers, marching through the portals of my vagina seems never to stop. What durable material God conceived with which to construct a cunt!
Laugh if you like, but the person who develops a material to duplicate it will be the world's next multibillionaire. Even now as I toy with it, striving for one more climax to distract me from my darker thoughts, I marvel at its combination of flexibility and durability. It is so sleek and pliable, so sensitive and yet ruggedly durable, it could upholster castles and pave roadways, cover stadiums and clothe nations-if only it could be extracted from between the legs of the world's females.
As if you did not know already, I am higher than high at this very moment, unable to come down from my most recent party either yesterday or the day before. Who knows the difference between days anymore? I have been spinning in and out of bed like a wanton gyroscope, somehow magically regaining my balance despite the mixture of drugs I have been pouring into my system. Perhaps if I could pass out like so many of the others I would find it easier to extricate myself from this eternal orgy known as my life. But no, I am doomed to awakeness and awareness no matter how much I overindulge. It must be the curse of the van Bells exercising its spell on me-the last in a long line of libertines.
Let me try to focus myself. Where am I? I mean first of all, in what country? I have been moving from one continent to another with such frequency, surrounded by so many of the same people, it's difficult to keep track of my whereabouts. Parties, orgies, vary little from one nation to the other. And everyone I know is multilingual, that is when they stop long enough to use their tongues for speech, so language is hardly a clue. The last I remember I was at my town house in London. But this room is like none in my home there. Besides, the sun is too bright to be anywhere over England. Perhaps it's Majorca or even Acapulco. But wouldn't I remember a flight of that distance? I should hope so. Otherwise I am even more spaced out than I imagine.
My finger is on my clit-at least that is a geographic point for me. By rubbing it, like Aladdin's lamp, I can transport myself anywhere. But honestly it still doesn't pinpoint my location. I am on a bed in a beautiful room, naked and alone, without the slightest idea of my placement on a map of the world. What a party it must have been! But where is everybody? It's so quiet I can almost hear the sun slipping through the drapes.
Champagne in a silver bucket-I didn't even notice it until now. The ice is still solid so someone must have been in here checking on me-someone who knows how much I like champagne for breakfast. It's not easy getting myself to move from the comfort of this bed, but I simply have to get up and look out the window. If that doesn't do it for me, then I'm lost. Or maybe even a captive. But they don't make prisons as plush as this-king-sized bed, silk brocaded sheets, blue velvet upholstery, a bathroom of gold and white marble, Pissarro paintings on the walls. I'll have to rule out imprisonment. Maybe Pm in a palace or in an assigned place in some oil sheik's harem. How romantic. Also how idiotic. The booze and pills are really starting to get to you, Christina girl! My next stop had better be at a drying-out spa. But first a toast with the champagne.
How nice-the cork has been loosened. Otherwise I might be forced to resort to breaking the neck of the bottle. I was never too adept at popping corks-other than my own, of course. Ah, chilled glasses, too. How thoughtful. It looks so beautiful bubbling into the glass, doesn't it? Almost a shame to run it through my liver only to convert it into urine. But here goes: "To my dearest Christina, whoever you are, wherever you arec'est la vie!"
The gardens outside the windows are lovely. But gardens are gardens and hardly clues to the locale. I've seen orchids and cactus as readily in London as in Hawaii. All it takes is a skillful gardener to make any piece of earth like another piece of earth elsewhere. The fountains are reminiscent of Rome, but it could also be Madrid or Santiago-even Brooklyn.
What I can't understand is why my doors are locked. The knobs on them are gorgeous-palatial antiques I would imagine-but I would prefer them to be less ornate and to turn when I try to turn them. And the carpeting and draperies are so thick my shouts would be muffled before they got through the doors. Also, why no telephone? Maybe I've died and this is my room in heaven. Who am I kidding? Christina van Bell was scratched off the guest list to heaven years ago. And if this is hell, where's the orgy?
In the midst of my musing I heard the faint sound of a key being inserted into one of the doors. A sign of life at last! To brace myself, I gulped down the last of the champagne and awaited my fate.
"Guten tag, fraulein," a plump, cheerful-faced little woman greeted me.
"Good morning," I responded with some hesitation. A German maid? I found it difficult to believe I could be in Germany, a country I seldom visited since being sadistically tortured over a long weekend in Hamburg by a group of neo-Nazis. That was more than three years ago and my body still bore a few minute scars from that horrifying experience.
"You slept veil?" she inquired, her cheeks still tucking up a friendly smile.
I hit the side of my head with the butt of one hand to indicate that all my marbles were not precisely in place. "I'm a trifle confused," I confessed.
"Oh?" she responded solicitously, dropping her smile. She reverted to her native language. "Was ist los?"
"Nothing serious," I assured her. "Do you know what a hangover is?"
Up went the comers of her mouth again, forming a knowing grin. "Effry Sonntag," she admitted. "I like to go dancing on Saturday nacht."
Her mixing of German and English was charming in its naturalness. And she provided just enough clues to supply the interpretation for words I did not know.
"Then maybe you'll appreciate my problem," I confided, my voice dropping to a whisper. "I don't know where I am or how I got here."
"Ach!" she exclaimed, her hands shooting up to clutch her face. "So beautiful you are to not know. This is Wien-right by the side of the Wienerwald."
Vienna? By the Vienna Woods? I could not disguise my bafflement.
"I am in Vienna, Austria?" I asked, struggling to impress the obvious upon myself. "But how? The last I remember-at least that I think I remember-I was in Rome."
"That is not far," she consoled me. "Not when you fly with Dario Rizzoli."
Slowly, like clouds assembling into a pattern, the specter of my past few days was dimly taking on the shape of reality. Of course I knew Dario Rizzoli. He was absolutely fabulous in every male category one could imagine or desire, viz., looks, wealth, charm, talent, daring, vitality, intelligence, lovemaking-and on and on. He was also heir to the Rizzoli racing car fortune and an internationally respected competitor in Grand Prix racing. It was an invitation to a fantastic party celebrating the development of a new high-speed Formula One car by his engineers that had brought me from Paris to Rome. But that still left the matter of my presence in Vienna a mystery.
"Is Mr. Rizzoli anywhere about?" I inquired hesitantly.
The maid was enjoying my dilemma, not out of any sense of viciousness but apparently because it amused her that I could be so perplexed.
"But of course." She chuckled. "He vould not be so foolish as to leave such a beauty avay from him."
"Thank you," I mumbled, "but I hardly look or feel anything near beautiful this morning. Would you be so kind as to tell him that I am up and around. He may be surprised to hear I'm even still alive."
"Oh, no!" She laughed. "He peeked in on you before he left. He vill be back for lunch mit you."
I lit a cigarette and drew deeply upon it. "Excuse me for continuing to pump you for information, but I'm really still not straight on all the details of how I got here-and why."
"It is very simple," she said, having become almost a friend over the course of our brief dialogue. "Herr Rizzoli brought you in his jet to Schwechat Airport. This is vun of the homes he keeps, I am told-this vun because he is descended from Prince Eugene of Savoy or something. Also because he attends classes at the Spanish Riding School at the Hofburg."
I nodded, trying to digest it all. "That is here in Vienna?" I asked.
"Oh, yes. In the old Imperial Palace. Surely you have heard of our famous white Lipizzaner stallions?"
"Of course," I lied. I knew Dario liked horsepower in cars, but I had never heard him speak of any white stallions. But then, most of the time we spent together was in some form of sexual embrace, hardly the position for discussing horses.
"He is very interested in eff'rything, is Herr Rizzoli," she observed.
"Even more than I had imagined," I said.
The maid introduced herself as Hilda Becker. She had seen me in a number of Italian picture magazines, she admitted. "The kind I hide from my Fritz," she confided.
"Does Dario come here often?" I asked, still curious about this unexpected Austrian connection.
"Vunce, sometimes tvice, a month," she told me. "But never long. A day, two days, no longer. He says Wien is too dead for him."
"Is it?" I teased, catching the sparkle in her eyes.
She blushed slightly. "Not ven you know vere to go," she said.
I doubted that. I had a friend who flew to London every weekend from his Vienna job with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries because he claimed there was absolutely no nightlife in the capital of Austria. Which made it all the more mysterious why Dario Rizzoli of all playboys would choose to keep a palatial home there.
Knowing that he planned to meet me for lunch, I busied myself trying to whip my ravaged features into some form of acceptability. It was a time-consuming task, but with Hilda bantering to me in the background, I rather enjoyed it for a change. Dario was remarkable in one other respect beyond what I mentioned earlier-despite his flamboyant lifestyle, he was strikingly punctual for any appointments, business or social. It must have been ingrained in his character by his father, who had founded the Rizzoli automobile empire.
He laughed when he entered the room almost two hours later. "You're a magician! Sleeping beauty-golden goddess! What a quick transformation!"
"You lie class," I noted. He was all over me in an instant, smothering me with his liquid kisses, angling his lean body suggestively into my crotch.
"Did you rest well?" he asked, releasing me suddenly.
"I was out of it, Dario-completely out of it. You know that. I must have been dead weight all the way from Rome."
"On the contrary, you were the life of the party aboard the plane. I never realized you were such an acrobat."
I narrowed my eyes and stared at him. "You're teasing me, aren't you?" I challenged. "You know I was wiped out, shot down, crash landed, whatever term you want to use."
His smile was ambiguous. "You were merely lovely, charming, vivacious and--"
"And?"
"Sexy as hell," he completed his sentence.
My head swiveled in an arc from one shoulder to the other. '"None of this adds up right, Dario," I accused. "There are too many pieces of the puzzle missing."
His hand came out and pretzeled into mine, the fingers intertwining. "Come," he said, "let's go to lunch."
I hesitated. "Where's Lisa?" I demanded.
"Lisa?"
"The girl who came with me from London," I reminded him. "The one you almost devoured onstage at the show."
He pretended to be perplexed. "I saw and desired only you," he cooed. "But, yes, now I do recall your traveling companion. She was quite attractive, you're right. But she should never be in your company. The comparison erases whatever attributes she might have."
"No wonder Nicoli calls you 'The Wizard of Ooze,' " I said. "But you still haven't answered my question." He scratched his head and furrowed his brow. "Thinking is dangerous to the complexion," he said. "Ripples the skin tone."
"Why are you being evasive with me?" I asked. "It's only prolonging my starvation."
His face ignited with a grin. "Perhaps it is because I don't really know. The last I saw of her she was in the cockpit of a Rizzoli racer performing fellatio upon a defrocked priest who is now in our public relations department."
"Dario, you're incorrigible!"
"Innocent!" he protested.
"Incorrigible!" I repeated as he tickled me below the breasts and forced me to giggle.
"She is at the villa in Rome," he assured me, stilling his fingers.
"Bastard!" I spat at him. "You could have told me that at the beginning."
"But then I wouldn't have any cause to argue with you and then fight with you and then feel the contours of your lovely body." He laughed.
It was impossible not to be mesmerized by him. He was so totally engaging when he chose to be that even a statue would have to respond. I may have been stoned on many occasions, but I'm far from being a stone!
"No more," I ordered, putting my finger across his lips. "I've had enough of your baloney."
"Salami," he corrected, mock-biting my finger. "I'm Italian."
"Put the two together," I countered, "and you've got b.s."
He threw his head back and laughed, rippling that marvelously sleek throat of his. From it hung a gold piece depicting a gigantic phallus-right next to a religious medallion. That was Dario-holy but also horny.
He became abruptly serious. "Where would you like to go to eat?"
"How about Rome?" I joked.
"Are you serious? We could, you know. My Lear's ready for takeoff."
"I'm much too hungry for that," I responded quickly. "Did I eat at all in the last few days?"
"You ate," he said with a suggestive leer, "but not many calories."
I got the implication immediately. "No one can survive solely on hollandaise sauce," I said.
"Vienna's not exactly the gourmet capital of the world," he noted. "Lots of schnitzel and dumplings."
"Apfelstrudel?" I kidded.
"Up to your noodle in apfelstrudel," he replied.
"Anywhere is okay-my head'll float away if it doesn't get anchored with some solid grub soon."
He meditated a moment. Then he snapped his fingers. "Drei Husaren. That's where we'll go."
We took off in one of the Rizzolis he kept garaged in Vienna. It was, like all of his cars, custom-built to his specifications. And foremost among his specifications was speed. We whipped down a wide boulevard labeled Hotteldorfer Strasse like Mario Andretti in a special edition of the Grand Prix.
Lunch was heavy but good. I was in the mood for hearty fare, a highly unusual state for me. Dario had less of an appetite but he seemed to enjoy watching me gorge myself on a fancy goulash, hot potato salad and sauerkraut-dishes I ate so seldom I had forgotten what they tasted like. Salads were my usual forte.
"You've got to have apfelstrudel," he insisted when I declared myself totally and forever stuffed to capacity.
"I can't," I begged off.
"With brandy in the coffee?" he added.
"I'll try." I laughed. We had sipped our way through two bottles of Austrian wine during the meal. With that and the food added to my earlier bottle of champagne, I was beginning to return to some semblance of normalcy.
We toasted the new models in the Rizzoli line with our brandy. The cheapest of them was tentatively priced at thirty-seven thousand dollars, and the pseudo-racing model, patterned after the company's world championship cars, was priced at seventy-five thousand.
"We've already got more orders than we can handle," Dario confided.
"Then why advertise?" I asked. "Why throw such a lavish party?"
He smiled patiently.' "It's what Americans call image," he said. "The Rizzoli image is important to maintain."
"Does that apply to the Rizzoli men as well?" I suggested slyly.
"Absolutely," he said. "That's why we're going back to the house before we go to the airport." His wink was so cute I felt like throwing myself upon him and treating the oh-so-formal and proper diners around us to an uninhibited exhibition of sincere sex. But public fucking was one of the few taboos in my code of conduct. It would have to wait until we got back-just as dining had had to wait until we got to the restaurant. Perhaps there was not necessarily a time for everything, but definitely a place.
Racing along a boulevard whose name I could not catch because of our speed, a thought occurred to me. "Dario," I shouted over the rush of wind, directly into his ear, "did you by any chance take advantage of me while I was passed out?"
"Me?" He took one hand off the wheel and pointed to himself. "Me, Dario Rizzoli, do such a terrible thing?"
I shook my head like a neighing horse, my hair falling in my eyes. "Yes, you!" I leveled an accusing finger.
Suddenly, giving me no warning of any kind, he pulled the wheel sharply to his left. The car screeched like a mortally wounded animal as it spun wildly on the broad avenue. Round and round we went, the landscape blurred, my body pinned against the door, the car like a giant pinwheel spinning out of control. After what seemed like hours of the approaching end of life, but in reality was probably less than a minute, the car finally veered back on course. My eyes, which fright had forced to close, opened cautiously.
I couldn't believe what I saw then! Dario was as nonchalant as if he had been paddling a rowboat on a park lake. When he read the utter panic in my face "being erased with relief, he burst into laughter.
"You sonofabitch!" I screamed at him. "You did that on purpose!"
"A road test." He shrugged.
In one angry leap, I pounced on him and began beating his body with my fists. The car was still moving at a reasonably high speed but he looked away from the road unconcerned to watch me pummel him. I began to cry then, fear having given way to frustration.
"Here," he said, pulling at my tresses. Only then did I notice he had freed his cock from his pants. It stood up like an organic gearshift, the knob a gleaming burgundy. The danger had been an erotic tease to him, I realized all at once.
"Suck me off!" he commanded, surging the car forward with an abrupt pressure on the accelerator.
I did as I was told. Strangely, I felt a rush of adrenalin to my libido as well. Hungrily, considering how full I already was, I devoured his smooth prick. The roar of the powerful engine, the wind fingering up my thighs, were suddenly more sensual than fearsome. I sucked forcefully, even letting the edge of my teeth scrape the flesh of his cock, wanting to compete with the speeding car for his attention and respect.
He came as though the head of his cock had been severed, gushing huge globs of cum into my mouth, over my face and onto my tits. His plum-like balls, so hairy black they resembled eggs in a nest, dropped into their sac exhausted from the super effort.
I fell back against the door and lifted one leg onto the dash, bracing the other against the base of the gearshift. As Dario watched from the comer of his eye, I lifted my dress, pulled down my panties and proceeded to finger myself. The onrushing wind lifted my hair out of the car and waved it like a banner as I stroked my eager clit. How absolutely ethereal it felt-the car licking away at the smooth highway, the wind tearing at the very roots of my hair like a crazed lover, my own hands parting the lips of my labia and exposing the flower of my cunt.
I closed my eyes and came-not once, not twice, but at least half a dozen times in rapid succession, the cascade interrupted only by the sudden slamming of brakes as the car skidded to a halt. Dario, his cock still hanging free of his slacks, threw himself across the low instrument console.
"I've got to eat you!" he declared as he buried his face in the wet delta of my thighs.
We were like maniacs when we finally arrived back at his house near the woods. The startled maid Hilda retreated immediately when she saw us-him with his cock bobbing loosely about, still semi-erect, me with both tits pulled over my bodice, my dress soaked in the triangle of the crotch, my lipstick emphatically announcing its recent involvement in fellatio.
"You're a fucking speed freak, too," Dario said hoarsely but with undisguised pleasure. "You turn on like a Rizzoli Formula One."
"Let's get upstairs," I urged. "My motor's still running hot."
We did not get to Schwechat Airport that day as he had planned. Instead we watched a mix of pornographic and racing films the entire afternoon and evening, indulging in so many different positions in performing sexual accompaniment to them that I could barely untangle myself the following morning.
"Pit stop," Dario said at breakfast. "We'll never get back to Rome if we don't cool it today."
"How about letting me drive?" I suggested. "That way it's guaranteed."
"You're on." He smiled. "The first female on the Rizzoli Racing Team."
"I don't know if I'm safe with you in the air, though."
"I'm taking a pilot," he said. "Even a Rizzoli has to be spelled once in a while."
"Next time, let's stick to one of those stallions you came here to ride," I said.
"The Lipizzaners?" His smile expanded into a grin. "You'd like them," he said. "They're really hung."
I went along with the gag, but with feigned seriousness.
"That's an idea," I mused. "Maybe you're right."
It kept Dario subdued the entire trip back to Rome.
CHAPTER TWO
Lisa Rainier was not in Rome when we arrived. Dario's estate manager reported that she had taken off for Venice with a Hemingway aficionado whose dream was to get drunk at every place in the world where the celebrated author himself had imbibed.
"He say then he could write like him," the manager explained.
Dario was amused. "She's lucky he doesn't idolize Casanova," he joked.
Personally I was annoyed at her. She had been more or less entrusted to my custody by her father, a member of my London law firm. Granted that was his mistake in the first place. Christina van Bell a chaperone? God forbid! I needed one myself. But that was not the point. She had simply taken off with some starry-eyed, would-be novelist without so much as a note of explanation or apology left for me.
"Dario," I said emphatically, "take me to Venice. I want to spank her for her impudence."
"It would be my pleasure." He chuckled.
"To take me there-or spank her ass?" I inquired.
"Both," he said.
His eagerness set me back a bit. I knew that he had been intrigued by her from the first moment they were introduced. In fact, he had dubbed her with a nickname only moments later. "I'm calling you 'Sucky,' " he told her right in front of me, "because you're so succulent."
Lisa had thought that the cutest thing she had ever been called, forty-inch bust and all. I cornered Dario near the bandstand later.
"If she's Sucky, then what am I?" I demanded.
With his most beguiling smile, he had leaned over and whispered in my ear. "That's obvious, darling," he purred. "You're 'Fucky.' "
Fucky and Sucky.
"That's so cutesy-pooh," I snapped back, "that if I didn't know better I'd think you were the gayest little swish on the Continent."
Never one to be outdone, he reacted by pursing his lips, sucking in his cheeks and placing one of his hands effeminately on his protruded hip. "Thay," he lisped, "ith about time you learned the truth."
Maybe I was crazy to encourage the relationship by chasing after Lisa. But then, what of it? No one was going to move in on the Rizzoli empire solely on the strength of an impressive bosom. Dario could road test his cars in a field of equally sizable tits if he-so desired.
I was mad at myself for being even momentarily jealous.
"I want to bathe first," I told him. "Will we fly or drive?"
Dario eyed me strangely. "You must be kidding," he said.
"I'm not."
"We're flying, of course," he . said, the cryptic look still etched on his face. I continued to think about it even after I had lowered myself into the pleasantly swirling waters of the bathtub-which was actually more like a small swimming pool. A perfectly adorable young Sicilian girl stood at the side of the tub with a long-handled brush, ready to scrub my back whenever I desired. She was naked except for a pair of leather sandals, the nipples of her small but beautifully proportioned young breasts like pink strawberries against her butterscotch complexion. She had only a fringe of dark pubic hair sprouting from the lips of her delicate vagina.
It was a picture appealing enough to make me temporarily forget Dario's cloudy expression a short time before.
"Would you just sit at the edge of the tub?" I asked her, motioning toward the marble shelf surrounding the sunken bath. I simply had to examine the pretty intricacy of that labyrinth between her legs from a closer vantage point.
"Like this?" she smilingly inquired, dipping her legs into the water as she spread them enticingly. I knew in an instant that I had not been the first to admire her pussy, so much like a rose with its blush-hued petals.
"That's beautiful," I said before kissing each tender ridge. She leaned back, propping herself on her arms, her palms flattened against the cool marble.
"You like my pussy?" she asked as I licked the surface furrows before beginning the tonguing of her clit.
"Mmmmm," I purred, not wanting to interrupt the sensation to form a word.
"I am twelve," she recited as if by rote. "I was first kissed there when I was five and first fucked when I was eight."
The words, the message, were provocative, just as I knew she had intended them to be. Child sex was taboo enough-wicked enough-to be an exciting fantasy. I bored into her cunt as deeply as I could, stretching my tongue to its outer limit in an effort to reach the farthest wall. Failing that, I pulled out until the tip was positioned just right to flick the tiny finger of clitoris above. She writhed and moaned so ecstatically I was driven to fingering myself as I pursued her with my tongue.
With her lithe thighs wrapped around my head, she came so violently that the force of the climax propelled both of us-me backward and she forward-until we were submerged in a tangle of thrashing limbs. Her laughter when she finally surfaced was child-like and musical, as though we had been playing a schoolyard game. I felt strangely maternal toward her, looking into those dark, flashing eyes, so aware and yet so innocent.
"Will you do something else for me, Gina?" I asked as she pretended to be trying to escape my grasp.
She nodded agreement, standing in water up to her navel.
"Here," I grasped one of my breasts in both hands. "Come and suck just as if you were my baby."
She moved through the water like a graceful sea nymph and looped her arms about my back. The help of the water made it a simple matter to cradle her in my arms.
"Mama," she almost gurgled as her soft lips settled on the hard peak of my nipple. I felt different than I had ever felt before under similar conditions. Slowly, tenderly, my hand sought the crevice from which I had so recently withdrawn myself. I wanted to fondle her as she suckled my breast.
"Play with my cunt, too, honey," I whispered to her. Her slender arm reached down my body and went immediately to my clit. The deft fingers of her hand played expertly there. I could feel a surge of climax mounting inside me, gathering force like a tidal wave.
Her mouth drew upon my nipple like a bee drawing nectar from a flower, the smooth press of her lips massaging the peak until I felt certain I could give milk. My middle finger dug into the mossy cave until the second knuckle prevented it from probing any deeper.
"Fuck me, baby!" I gasped as she strummed my clitoris with such speed it seemed to hum within me. My cunt was like a gaping mouth wanting to devour first her fingers, then her hand, then her arm-and finally all of her.
I erupted like an underground volcano, literally sending bubbles to the water's surface. My body shook with emotion as one wave of orgasm piled upon another. Gina continued to suck my breasts, alternating now between the two of them. It was such a blissful feeling that I made no effort to stop her. I had come beautifully and the sensation of having a child at my bosom now was more peaceful than erotic.
Dario surprised us in that embrace, his attitude one of nonchalance.
"You missed your calling," he said flippantly. "You should have been a wet nurse."
Gina stopped at the sight of him, a trifle startled but not embarrassed or afraid.
"We've got to get on our way," he said with a quick glance at his watch. "There's plenty of water in Venice so you can leave this behind."
"I scrub her fast," Gina said, energetically soaping me amidst the bubbles of lilac fragrance.
"Just watch where you put the soap," Dario cautioned with a smirk. "Fucky gets turned on faster than a faucet."
"You Fucky?" Gina giggled, pointing at me.
"Everybody Fucky," I responded, joining in the hijinks.
"This place is beginning to sound like a Chinese laundry," Dario complained. "I'll wait for you in the drawing room."
"He funny sometimes," Gina said, still giggling.
"Sometimes," I agreed. She could not know that her employer still wore that sharp edged but nevertheless vague look he had thrown at me earlier despite his surface banter. Something was wrong, I felt certain now.
"Venice anyone?" Dario asked as he made his landing approach. His worldwide travels had kept him well versed in the humor and contemporary sayings of many nations other than his own. He could even make plays on words in a nonnative tongue-as he just had. But I was still convinced something was troubling him. His normally devil-may-care mood appeared more forced than real, at least in my ever-suspicious appraisal.
"Those mountains we flew over," I reminded him, "did they recall anybody to you?"
"Only Sucky." He grinned back.
"Only?" I challenged. "Is that how you think of her?"
"I barely know her."
"Wait till you know her barely," I retorted.
"My, we're being clever these days," he said without taking his eyes oil the instrument panel.
"Might as well," I said. "You're holding out on me anyway."
"Now what does that mean?" he snapped, his eyes ricocheting off me in annoyance.
"How long have I known you, Dario?" I asked.
"A few years, I guess. What does that have to do with it?"
"It's more like six years," I told him. "You were in the Monacan Grand Prix before I bought my place on the Riviera. That's five years ago."
He put his hand to his chin in contemplation. "You're right," he agreed. "I met you at the roulette table in Monte Carlo. Is it really that long ago?"
"I don't like remembering it any more than you do. But that's not the point. I understand you, Dario. You can't hide deep concern behind that mask of perpetual charm."
"Me? I don't have a worry in the world!" he exclaimed with a forced laugh. "Don't tell me after all these years you're turning into one of those amateur psychoanalysts? They're worse bores than Jesus freaks."
"What is it, Dario?" I insisted, fixing my gaze on his intent profile.
"Your imagination," he said. "Chris, this shit will have to wait. I'm getting landing instructions from the tower."
Convenient timing, I thought. "It'll wait till we're on the ground," I promised.
We both stayed quiet as the radio crackled with a crossfire of conversations between the tower and planes landing and taking off. Dario's reserve pilot was in the back, fast asleep. He had been out drinking for several hours before learning that we would be using the plane again in such an unexpectedly brief time span. Dario was patient with that type of behavior. Punctuality and availability were more important to him than occasional physical disability. Besides, as Dario often repeated, the man was the best pilot he had ever encountered outside of the military. That was high praise coming from an admitted speed freak and accomplished racer himself.
The wheels touched the runway so evenly the landing did not cause our slumbering aerial chauffeur to stir. I waited patiently while Dario went through the various procedures required for registering his flight and parking his plane. The conversations were all in Italian, which left me with only a word here and there as clues to the content. But it was obvious that I was not being overlooked in the dialogue. There were hand gestures outlining female contours, smackings of lips and some of the least subtle leers I had ever encountered anywhere. Dario certainly ranked head and shoulders above all of them, not only in looks but in manners as well. I commented on that when he was finally free, ready to track down Lisa Rainier and her novelist-in-flight.
"You should be flattered," he dismissed my complaint. "To them, nothing is rude in showing admiration for a female short of taking out their cocks and jerking off in her honor."
"They'd get arrested in America," I noted.
"That's what's wrong with America, then," he retorted.
I thought it over as we walked, accompanied by enough male whistles to signal an ocean liner pulling out from a pier. "Maybe you're right," I admitted. "They're just letting off steam."
"The rape statistics prove it," he said.
I began smiling back at my anonymous admirers, which only added to the volume. "Has there ever been such a thing as an impotent Italian?" I wondered.
Dario grinned. "I never met one yet," he said. "Frigid women, maybe, but no impotent men." He seemed pleased by this summation.
"Where do you think we should start looking for Lisa?" I asked to change the subject.
"The most obvious place would be Harry's American Bar," he said. "Hemingway used to drink there when he was working on Across the River and Into the Trees."
"Perfect," I said. "That would be a sure stop for her aspiring little artist."
"How do you know he's little and how do you know he's an artist?" Dario quizzed.
"I said aspiring," I reminded him. "And the little was just a touch of whimsy. As far as I know, Lisa tends to like the jumbo models, tall on the vertical and long on the horizontal."
"She's a big cock addict?" he asked in mock surprise.
"Whimsy again. Any kind of cock would be more like it."
"That's better," he said, petting his crotch gently.
I stopped abruptly, grasping Dario by the hand. "Tell me now, Dario. What's bothering you?" I asked sympathetically.
"Christina!" he said with exasperation. "Stop this nonsense!"
"But it's not nonsense and that's why I won't stop," I informed him.
He threw his arms out as if trying to dispose of his hands. "We're here to look for your girlfriend," he reminded me, jutting his face into my own. "I don't want to hear any more of this bullshit about me!"
"I'm only looking out for you," I said. "I'm not trying to be nosy."
"I don't need looking out for," he replied, straining to stay cool. "I have a multimillion-dollar business and thousands of employees to watch over me. I'm quite capable of taking care of myself!"
"I know that," I said softly. "But I mean a real, personal, deep-down interest. No company or employees can offer that to you."
He shook his head, discouraged at his inability to sway me. Little did he know that the more he argued with me, the more convinced I became that I was on to something.
"I'll make a deal with you," he said finally. "If when we get to Harry's, Lisa isn't there, I'll sit still for half an hour and answer any questions you ask me about myself."
I stuck out my hand. "You got a deal," I said.
"But if she is there," he added, "the interrogation is off."
"That's not fair," I pouted. "You probably know she's there already."
He made the sign of the cross. "I swear I don't," he said, "on the name of Mary, mother of God."
I looked at him and decided he was sincere. "Okay," I agreed.
Dario looked relieved. His arm shot out to hail a motor launch plying down the nearest canal. The man at the wheel could have qualified as a taxi driver anywhere. He abruptly cut off another launch and two gondolas in his haste to pursue a promising fare.
We got to Harry's American Bar near the Prefect's Palace with no further hazardous segues by our pilot.
"My father was a friend of Salvatore Cipriani," Dario said as we entered the crowded downstairs of the restaurant.
"At the risk of sounding ignorant," I replied, "who is that?"
Dario feigned a look of pain at my lack of knowledge. "It was Salvatore who originated Harry's," he explained like a guide to a tourist. "The idea's been copied all over the Continent."
"Ah, trivia," I sighed.
"He is a legend," Dario defended his countryman. "He is responsible for some of the finest cuisine in Italy."
"And that's why Hemingway came here?" I continued baiting him.
"Papa liked to eat," he said, "but mostly he liked the bar."
"Then that's where we should look first. Lisa's friend would naturally be most attracted to what attracted Hemingway."
"Naturally," he agreed.
We slipped onto a pair of stools just vacated by a couple who were obviously honeymooners, spellbound by the realization that the great writer had quaffed many a shot of booze in that very room.
"I think they both had orgasms," I noted as I watched them disappear into the dining room.
"If they didn't," Dario observed, "they will. His pants were sticking out like he had a compound fracture of the crotch."
"Dario, sometimes you're so gauche," I sniffed. "Can't you see they're on their honeymoon?"
He shook his head in disbelief. "You bring up the subect-and I'm the one who gets labeled gauche. Christina, you're utterly impossible."
"Try me," I teased.
The bartender had arrived before us, swirling his damp cloth over the bar to remove the last traces of the previous occupants of our seats. Dario greeted him in Italian and then switched to English, which seemed appropriate in view of the name of the place.
"Do you recall seeing a stunning young woman with dark hair, brown eyes--" I began my description.
"And a forty-inch bush," Dario injected, cupping his hands in front of his chest to indicate its thrust. "That would be the clue first noticed by a man. Even you should know that, Christina."
The bartender laughed jovially. "First, I make you drink. Then I answer questions," he said without dropping the smile from his round face.
"Oh, yes," Dario reacted. "What'll you have, Chris?"
"Something light. It may be a long hunt."
"Campari and soda?" the bartender suggested. "Excellent," I agreed.
"Make it two," Dario said, holding up his index and middle fingers.
"It looks just like the Harry's on the Via Veneto," I noted while we were waiting.
"Do you suppose it could be because the one in Rome was copied from this one?" he toyed with me.
I drew myself upward into a haughty posture, looking down my nose at him. "As they say in New York's Little Italy," I stated dramatically, "ala fungoo!"
The bartender pretended not to hear my joking retort as he placed first two napkins and then two glasses before us. "Now," he said, "I am ready for what they call grilling."
Dario's eyes were distracting to me, playing about the room as though he were expecting someone to join us.
"Dario," I said, "the gentleman is talking to you."
"What?" he replied vaguely. "Oh well, you can tell him better than I. After all, she's your friend."
I tried not to look irritated. He had seemed to be over his wary mood for a brief time, yet now he was behaving strangely again. I turned back to the bartender and forced a smile.
"The man she was with, I'm told, bears a little resemblance to Ernest Hemingway-at least as far as the beard's concerned," I told him. The description widened his eyes in remembrance.
"Oh, yes. Very pretty girl. The man was little bit older. Graying in the beard, no?"
"Perhaps," I said. "I never saw him-as far as I know."
"That has to be them," Dario said. "Are they inside?"
"No," the bartender reported. "They go to Gritti Palace bar."
Dario frowned, abruptly resuming interest in the conversation with his eyes as well as his ears. "You're sure of that?" he questioned.
I, too, thought it unusual that he had some difficulty at first recalling them, yet knew immediately their destination.
"Why would they go there?" I asked. "This is where Hemingway hung out, isn't it?"
"Yes," the bartender said quickly, glancing up the long bar to make certain he was not neglecting any of the other customers. "But the gentleman wanted to talk to the man who served Ernesto. That would be Giuseppe Fantana. He work now at the Gritti's hotel bar."
Dario compressed his lips into a thin line. He had lost his gamble with me and it annoyed him.
"Come on," he said, "let's go. It's only a short boat ride from here."
"Uhuh," I said stubbornly. "Not until you make good on your promise."
"Christina," he responded impatiently, "don't be impossible again."
"A deal is a deal," I insisted.
His gaze swept upward to the ceiling, as though appealing for divine intervention. "I can't tell you here," he said.
"You couldn't tell me at the house and now you can't tell me here," I said snippily. "I'm not budging until you open up to me."
"I didn't say I couldn't tell you at the villa-I said I wouldn't. But this is a public place. Too dangerous."
I looked at him in disbelief. "I really think you're starting to crack up all of a sudden. My god, what do you have-some scandal about the Pope or something? You're behaving like a fugitive."
He began swinging back and forth in small arcs to convey his anxiety to leave.
"Dario," I said sternly, "sit down. You're making me nervous dancing in place like that. Besides, I don't like to be rushed."
"We'll never catch up with them if we dillydally like this," he replied.
"Right now trying to catch up with you-the inner you-is more important to me than Lisa. I can't stand to be left out in the cold on something important enough to make you paranoid all of a sudden."
"Paranoid?" He laughed emptily. "I don't think you've recovered from the trip to Vienna yet."
The bartender returned to us. "Would you like another?"
"Yes," I said before Dario could object. "Only make it something stronger."
"A martini?" he asked.
"Good," I said.
Dario drummed the bar with his fingers. "How did I let you talk me into making this wild goose chase?" he asked.
"Because you'd like to goose the wild one," I joked but only halfheartedly.
"All right," he said reluctantly, "I'll have a brandy. But we're sure to lose them now."
"Don't worry," I consoled him. "If Lisa's got her literary lover in a hotel, the bar is just the first stage of a long night. We'll be out of here just as soon as you stop playing Sphinx."
Dario inserted the stem of the snifter between his fingers and swirled it gently under his nose, inhaling the fragrance. "Here's to Hemingway," he said before taking the first shallow sip.
"Here's to Dario Rizzoli," I countered, wetting my lips with the strong potion of gin and vermouth.
The bar had become crowded and noisy as dinner hour approached. Somehow the activity and the din seemed to pacify Dario. He had told me a number of times that he sometimes enjoyed being lost in a crowd, passing time quietly and anonymously without the constant recognition of the Via Veneto and other society gathering places. As one of Italy's handsomest and wealthiest young tycoons, he was as desirable and popular as any of the movie idols of Europe. I could sympathize with him, having often suffered from the same kind of unsought and unwanted attention. That was probably why I was so concerned about his uncharacteristic brooding and touchiness.
I waited for him to begin. I had prodded him enough and he knew I was sitting there waiting for his explanation.
"Christina," he began slowly in a low voice, "you're forcing me to tell you something I would rather keep to myself...."
"I'm not a gossip," I assured him. "I can keep a secret-when necessary."
"It's necessary," he responded immediately. "No one must know of this."
I leaned forward, not knowing what to expect. Dario had always been so open-never mysterious. That quality had made him as popular with men as with women, no small achievement considering his overall looks and physical perfection.
"My board of directors," he began in a hushed tone, "has learned of a plot to kidnap me for ransom."
My body pitched backward in shock, my hand going automatically to my mouth. "That's terrible," I said, feeling my eyes expand into an expression of horror. "Are you sure?"
He nodded, his lower lip protruding in a kind of resignation. "The source is good," he confirmed. "I am one of several on a guerrilla hit list."
"But why you?" I asked, trying hard not to gasp. "You're not in politics."
His answering smile was rueful. "I am in money," he said. "That is capitalism, which is anathema to certain political groups."
"You mean terrorists?" I suggested.
"Exactly. How do you think they fund their operations?"
I closed my eyes to let this unexpected and rather frightening information seep through my mind. In our setting, filled with chattering people whose main concern was what to order from the menu, it was difficult to fully relate to the seriousness of what he had confided to me. Maybe it was all just a joke, a crude prank engineered by some jealous subordinate or competitor.
"There have been many kidnappings lately," he told me, adding another note of authenticity to the threat. "Do you remember when they cut off the ear of that comedian's son a few years ago? It's even worse now. There have been murders since. And body mutilations." My arm shot out and touched his. "Stop it, Dario," I ordered. "You're starting to frighten me."
He shrugged. "You insisted on hearing it," he reminded me.
"But I never thought it was anything like that," I said. "Fucky," he whispered in my ear, "when you start digging, you never know what you'll come up with."
I turned away. "I wish now you hadn't told me," I confessed. "I won't be able to sleep at all."
He laughed without amusement. "Don't you worry," he said. "I'll have you and Sucky back on the plane to England tomorrow."
"You expect me to just run away and leave you to those jackals?" I challenged him.
"But of course." He smiled coolly. "It's none of your concern."
"But you're my friend," I reminded him. "That's why I was able to get it out of you."
"Thanks," he responded, petting my outstretched arm. "It's very sweet of you. I value that friendship and that's why you're getting on that plane as soon as we get back to Rome."
"I won't go."
"Now you're being juvenile," he dismissed my declaration. "Come, let's get the girl with the golden tits."
Sliding off the bar stool, I felt weak and the slightest bit giddy. But not from drinking. There were times when just words could have an equally devastating effect.
"You will find them at Gritti Palace," the bartender called out after us, obviously pleased by the large tip Dario had left for him.
"Merci, monsieur," Dario replied, enhancing his Continental image."
We found a motor launch immediately. Now I, too, was studying the driver, evaluating his character. If Dario indeed was getting paranoid, then it was contagious.
After docking at the hotel's front door, we went immediately to the bar. For some reason, I had not seen them sitting at a table on the adjacent porch, probably because they were merged into a single mass of writhing flesh. That Lisa! She had never shown any great amount of self-restraint in public.
"I think they're getting it on right over the Grand Canal," Dario said laughingly the moment he spotted them.
"Hemingway would have been more discreet, I'm sure," I noted.
"Let's stay inside here and see how long it takes them to notice us," he suggested.
"Good idea," I agreed. "After what you told me, I need a drink."
"Plural," he corrected.
"Drinks," I acquiesced.
Giuseppe, the Hemingway bartender, insisted we try the new concoction that had won him the city's annual mixologists' drink-creating contest.
"If I had thought," he apologized to Dario, "I would have named it in honor of your late father. Instead it is called the Vivaldi. You know him, of course-Antonio Vivaldi, the great Venetian composer of the eighteenth century?"
"Of course," we both agreed, having been kindly supplied the needed information within the question.
His eyes traveled out to the porch now and then, along with ours and those of the other patrons of the tiny bar. Lisa and her pseudo-Hemingway were still at it, tonguing one another unashamedly, as though they were alone on an island.
"Too many Vivaldis for them." Giuseppe smiled as he poured first mine and then Dario's intp chilled glasses.
"Were they here for long?" Dario inquired.
The bartender held up two fingers. "Two hours," he said. "Ten drinks."
"Each?" I gasped.
Giuseppe smiled. "No," he replied. "Together. You taste, please, and tell me if anybody could drink ten."
"Not even Hemingway?" Dario asked.
"Papa no," came the immediate response. "He like his booze straight."
I sipped from the rim of my glass. "Ooh," I said. "That's good-but a little strong."
Dario tried his. "Excellent," he pronounced. "Now tell us how it's made."
"Dario," I interrupted, "it's probably Giuseppe's secret."
"No secret," he said with a wave of his hand. "All the papers print it." He wheeled about and grabbed the bottles that contained the drink's ingredients.
"First," he explained animatedly, "you pour in about half an inch of Campari. Then about the same amount of light rum. And finally, you fill up the rest of the glass with white wine. Simple, no?"
"Ingenious," Dario complimented him.
"For Americans, I put it over ice," he added.
Mine was cold but iceless. Christina the internationalist had again succeeded in not being identified as an American. For some odd reason that pleased me now, as it always had. I preferred to be a woman of the world, with no national identity whatsoever.
The lesson in cocktail-making had been a temporary distraction but my mind kept returning to what Dario had revealed to me. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more serious it became.
"Let's break in on them," I said after a third Vivaldi.
"They should be charged for the bridal suite," Dario said with more humor than his situation warranted. But he did seem more relaxed since I had pried the facts from him. Sharing the danger somehow had diminished it-at least for the moment.
Both of Lisa's breasts were out of their barely sufficient halter, the silver-dollar-sized nipples like twin bull's-eyes on cream-colored targets. A regal-looking older woman sat near the two of them, gaping disdainfully, the other chairs at her table occupied by shopping bags.
"I hope she's not an undercover vice cop," I kidded Dario.
Dario smiled and shook his head.
"Don't you know who that is?" he questioned. "That's Queen Alexandra of Yugoslavia. She's been around here since the Communists knocked her off her throne."
I took another, closer look. "But what's in those bags?" I inquired.
"No one knows," Dario replied, "but the guess is they're her royal jewels."
"How come the terrorists don't go after her then?" I wondered. "She's got her ransom with her."
"She never goes anywhere," he explained. "Just over the. bridge once in a while to the Europa Hotel or the Danieli. They'd have a hell of a time getting out of Venice anyhow. The waterways can be sealed off too fast."
"The way she's staring at Lisa, I think she might want to add those nipples of hers to her collection," I said.
"They are a set of jewels," Dario commented. "Let's go over and play lapidary with her."
"I wondered how long it would take before your tongue took control of your radar," I said.
"Milk is one of nature's most nearly perfect foods," he reminded me.
"Your interest is in the containers," I accused him. Actually I was pleased that his mind was temporarily off the threat to his freedom and possibly his life.
I nodded to the Queen as we swiveled past her table. But she looked through me as though I were transparent. As for Lisa, I had requested an ice cube from the bartender. All I had to do was touch it against one of her nipples to get her immediate attention.
"Chris, for crissake!" she protested drunkenly, her lipstick and mascara streaked on her face. I realized now that we were upon them that neither of them was capable of completing a normal sex act. Despite all the titillation, if you will pardon the expression, her writer friend was as limp as cooked linguini in the area where the male must flower.
She somehow remembered to introduce him. "Thish ish Rolf."
"Harrison," he added, his enunciation remarkable in view of his condition. And he did bear a kind of dissolute, ravaged resemblance to Ernest Hemingway. In fact, Dario noted later that he suggested the way the famous novelist might have looked if he had fallen to Skid Row. What a voluptuous young girl like Lisa Rainier saw in him neither of us could figure out.
"Lisa," Dario said with authority despite the erection visible in his pants, "we have to get you and Chris back to London immediately."
"Why?" Harrison demanded indignantly. "She's going on my Hemingway tour with me."
"I am," Lisa said emphatically.
"Oh, no," I protested. "You're going back to London with me. Whenever I decide to go, you're going to be right there beside me. Your father would kill me otherwise."
"Fuck Father," she muttered. "I'll do what I want!"
"Listen, you little bitch," I said angrily, "don't think I enjoy playing chaperone to a two-legged Holstein with a Grand Canyon open to the public-but when I give my word, I make good on it."
"I won't go," she snapped, pushing my pointing finger away from her.
"You've got to," Dario insisted.
"She'll go!" I screamed as I leaped atop her, clawing at her with the fury of a wildcat. As we collapsed to the deck, Harrison stood up and threw a random punch at Dario. He was down on the deck beside us an instant later, felled by one telling blow from Dario's trained fists. Lisa wailed like a banshee as I continued to wrestle with her in an effort to quiet her. Most of her clothes were off by now, either ripped away or shredded from the pushing and pulling in which we were engaged. Dario settled it once and for all by grasping her with full strength around her ample tits while I tied her ankles together with the belt from her outfit.
The police arrived seconds later, their patrol launch's siren whining up the canal. Dario Rizzoli's renown as a racing driver more than his wealth stood him in good stead with the police. We were allowed to go free, provided all four of us left Venice immediately.
With a police escort to the airport to ensure compliance, we headed back to Rome in Dario's plane, a reluctant Rolf Harrison among our passengers. He protested loudly for a time until I assured him that he could continue on to London with Lisa and me. Whatever happened beyond that point was up to Rainier, Sr.
As they both, drifted into intoxicated slumber, Dario looked back at her nearly naked body several times. "I've got to have that at least once before you go," he said.
"Why not now?" I suggested. "You've got a spare pilot aboard."
The glint in his eye indicated that I had voiced his inner thoughts.
"Care to join me?" he asked.
"I'll watch," I said.
He summoned his pilot over the intercom. The moment he was in control, we both retreated to the rear cabin and sealed the door to the cockpit.
"I hope she comes to a little," he remarked as he stripped. "Comatose cunt is not exactly my bag."
"She'll respond," I assured him, "even if she's legally dead."
He bent down and spread the lips of her pussy with his fingers, then nibbled at the tender pink flesh before lapping it with his full tongue. It took only a few teasings with his adder-like tongue to set her into motion. As he accelerated his tempo, she began slithering about the carpeted floor of the plane like a snake in mating.
I slipped my hand into my bikini panties and separated my clit from the flesh around it. Observing the scene before me had begun to excite me even though I had thought myself in a totally nonsexual mood. My earlier jealousy was gone now, too-replaced by simple passion.
"What a handful of fuck meat," Dario commented as he slid upward upon her, his face silvered with her juices and showing his hunger to enter her with his cock. "There must be a pound of raw prime meat there."
I felt generous toward him. As a marked man, I wanted him to enjoy every moment.
"Enjoy her cunt," I said.
"How about sucking her tits?" he requested.
"After I check out Hemingway's cock," I said. There was no sense calling him Harrison when all he ever talked about was Ernest Hemingway.
Lisa seemed to automatically throw her body into humping gear as Dario torpedoed himself in and out of her meaty pussy. It seemed that whoever had endowed her with super-large tits had also been generous with lip flesh for her vagina. It stood out from her crotch as though outlined in bas-relief.
Dario resembled the oil rigs I had seen on Middle Eastern deserts, pumping away at Lisa's wet cunt like a hydraulic piston, his head bent downward so that he could observe himself in action. Watching his total absorption was a definite turn-on for me. I could feel my pussy contract like the leaves of an artichoke around my plunging finger, simulating the feeling Lisa was experiencing as the recipient of Dario's sleek cock. Without missing a stroke, I leaned over and zipped down the fly of Rolf Harrison's slacks. He was completely immobilized, his beard like shrubbery growing over the body of someone deceased and abandoned. Fishing inside, my fist tightened around a stem that led to a helmet-like crest-a long mushroom of prickled flesh. I pulled it out and it it flop across my thigh.
"Look at the size of his prick!" I called out to Dario. He glanced over his shoulder and stopped fucking Lisa momentarily.
"Holy Moses!" he exclaimed. "No wonder she developed an interest in writing!"
I was bringing on a climax even without the visual adrenalin of seeing such an oversized tool. Dario's astonishment forced me over the edge, the inner layers of my cunt clutching my finger in desperation as the waves of orgasm pounded like surf inside me. I fell backward, breathing heavily, awaiting recovery. Only seconds later Dario pulled out of Lisa and let his cum spurt over the mountains of her chest, the pearly white semen frosting her nipples like snow on mountain peaks.
She continued to move, lifting her pussy upward as though seeking further contact with the shaft of pleasure. But her eyes were still sealed and for all intents and purposes she was still out of it all. Dario might just as well have been fucking one of those inflatable rubber dolls for all the conscious effect or impression he had made upon her.
"Let me see you suck that salami on our writer friend," Dario encouraged me as he wiped the last pearl of cum from the head of his cock. "I want to see that sucker when it's hard."
"He's completely out of it," I protested. "The only way it'll go up is if you insert a steel rod in it."
"Try it," he urged. "His subconscious will notify his cock it's being blown by a. beautiful girl. Men get hard-ons when they're sleeping. There's no reason why it won't work when he's passed out."
"I'll choke to death if it stiffens all of a sudden," I joked.
"Do it," he repeated in all seriousness. He was fondling himself into a renewed erection as he fixed his gaze on my actions.
I knelt down gingerly next to the sprawled idolater of Hemingway. His cock was at least nine inches long with a head the size of a tulip. It was all I could do to stretch my mouth wide enough to envelope it. But mouths have the elasticity of vaginas, and with a little effort I got all of it inside, filling me right up to the palate. There was scarcely room to maneuver my tongue, but again, desire and determination triumphed. Like an eel, I slid my crimson licking tool over the smooth surface until it contacted the slit atop the head. With little pinpoint flicks of my tongue tip, I entered the tender cock mouth and toyed with its delicate lining.
"Squeeze his balls," Dario suggested.
With both hands I clutched the sac of testicles hanging loosely from the base of his cock. An abrupt spasm rippled his body when I tightened my grip, but his heavy breathing resumed immediately after an exclamatory grunt.
"It's starting to rise," Dario told me. Out of the comer of my eyes I could see that he had jerked himself into a full erection, obviously intent on contributing to any cum that might be awarded my face if I did manage to get Rolf Harrison to ejaculate.
I left one hand toying in his nest of balls as the cock shaft did indeed start to solidify. With the other I took a firm grip, as on a tennis racquet, on the handle of his prick, stroking it in a fierce counter-rhythm to the para-diddling of my tongue. His cock flattened as though being stuffed with forcemeat under the triple assault of both hands and mouth.
"That bastard should be arrested," Dario remarked, "for carrying a concealed weapon. Look at that sucker-it's going to stretch out the length of a ruler any second!"
Perspiration was dripping from my brow as I worked feverishly to bring the giant cock to climax. I felt my mouth tearing at the corners in an effort to deep-throat the monster. Dario crouched over me, strumming his cock like a musical instrument, obviously striving to hold back an imminent orgasm in order to be part of the Harrison explosion.
There was a low moan from Rolf as I literally bit him off with a sudden ring of pressure under the circumference of his cock rim. I swore I could feel the surge of semen in his balls as they marshaled together for the long trip up the shaft. Abruptly they were all there, swelling the head to the size of an apple a split second before the eruption.
Cum, hot and tapioca-like, splashed all over my mouth, foaming from every crevice created by my lips, dripping from my cheeks and chin. I gagged on the excess-just as another shower of milky pearls struck my forehead, my eyes and nose, frosting me like a piece of cake-or was it piece of ass? Dario forced every last drop of juice from his prick as he stood over me, grinning fiendishly at my distress. I was awash in gelatinous cum from two swollen fountains-the most I had ever taken in my face from just a pair of sources.
"Lick them dry," Dario said, touching his cock to the head of the other. Both were well lubricated with their own semen.
"Dario, I can't," I protested. "I almost choked to death on that load."
He grasped Rolf's still formidably hard prick like the handle of a baseball bat and pushed my head down to it. "Lick it," he repeated.
Had it not been for my knowledge of what Dario faced back in Rome, I might have resisted. But to please him I did a feline job of lapping up the cum that clung to Rolf's cock and then did the same to his own. He seemed contented when the chore was completed.
"Better get one of the flight jackets over there in the cabinet," he said after we had zipped Rolf up and stuffed Lisa back into her panties. "I don't want my pilot involved in aerial rape."
"I'll still smell like sex," I said.
"Then wash up first. You know where the lavatory is."
I did as he suggested, leaving him to return to the cockpit to launch some sort of covering chatter. As if we could fool a pilot who had been with him for years! He had probably had the plane on automatic pilot and had watched the whole spectacle through a peephole of some kind.
The remainder of the flight was uncomfortably solemn. Sex can only temporarily erase reality. The moment it was over, all prior problems return to haunt the escapee. I stayed forward watching the blinking control panels briefly before deciding to devote my time to rousing our passed-out passengers. It was no small task.
Harrison was quite obviously accustomed to this derelict state-he showed all the signs of an alcoholic going downward rather than up. I figured he had maybe a year-two at the most-before his looks would be destroyed by booze. What a shame to see a cock like that pickling in formaldehyde! But Lisa was another story altogether. She was still salvageable. This adventure with an older Bohemian artist type was just a phase she was going through. In no way was I going to stand by and see those tits in the formaldehyde jar next to his phallus.
It took the old ice-cubes-in-cunt remedy to bring her back to life. When she began stirring and fluttering her eyelids, I applied a cool wet towel to her forehead and lifted her into sitting position. Gradually, mumbling incoherently at first, she assimilated the scene around her. She recognized me. "Chris, I feel sick."
"You'll be all right," I assured her. "I know exactly how you feel."
Her head slumped again. "You couldn't," she insisted. "I'm gonna die."
"You're probably going to vomit," I corrected. "You won't be so lucky as to die."
She suddenly stiffened. "Where's Rolf?"
"There." I pointed. "That pile of rumpled clothes is your misbegotten son of Ernest Hemingway."
"Is he alive?" she wondered.
"About as much as you," I said.
"But he won't even feel sick." She belched. "He'll just have a shot and start all over again. I know."
"I know, too," I told her. "That's his problem."
"I love him," she said. Then, as if her body were commenting on her declaration, she vomited, the sickly green slush splashing over the creamy mounds of her fits and into her lap.
"Playing nurse is not my cup of tea," I told her. "You'd better go into the lavatory and clean yourself up, baby doll. I'll get you a flight outfit you can wear until we get to the villa."
"I'm gonna die," she mumbled as she staggered into the small lavatory at the rear of the jet. I heard her spilling her guts twice more before she remembered to bolt the door.
Harrison came to as we landed. Just as predicted, his first words were "I need a drink." His second words were "Where the fuck am I?"
I held out a silver flask of Scotch. "We've just landed in Rome," I said.
"Rome? I thought that's where I was in the first place."
"You don't remember Venice?"
"Venice?" he scratched his head after several healthy swigs from the flash. "You mean the Venice of 'Across the River and Into the Trees?"
"That's the one."
His grin was sheepish. "I did wanna go there," he confessed. "In fact I promised what's-her-name-the gal from Titsburgh-I'd take her there."
"You kept your promise," I informed him.
"You're shitting me?" he insisted, returning to the flask.
"This plane has just arrived from Venice, Italy, and Lisa Rainier and Rolf Harrison almost got all of us locked up there at the Gritti Palace."
"It's hard to believe," he said, wonderment in his voice.
"I'll let Dario give you the details. Right now we have to get ready to get off."
I could see by the quizzical expression on his face that he did not know who Dario was either. As if in response to the unasked question, Dario opened the door separating the main cabin from the cockpit.
"They're both up?" he observed. "Good. I don't want to hang around the airport for long."
"Don't get off without me," I told him.
"I won't," he promised. "They're meeting us on the landing strip anyhow."
"Who?"
"My chauffeur," he said in a voice turned suddenly husky, "and my bodyguards."
I turned away and gulped. It wasn't a fantasy. The chill of reality plunged into my heart like an icicle.
"I'm ready any time you are," I said, almost in a whisper.
"Roger," he replied, winking to hide the concern in his eyes.
CHAPTER THREE
A black Mercedes limousine drew up to our plane as it stood waiting at the edge of the runway. Prior to its arrival an armed guard had boarded and instructed us to remain inside until he gave the signal. Dario sat impassively in the cockpit, but I could tell he did not like the new restrictions placed upon his life and movements-at least in Italy.
"Why not a Rizzoli limousine?" I inquired, trying to lighten the heavy mood.
"We make sport cars and racing cars," he replied without smiling.
"I don't see why we can't get off," Lisa protested, color gradually returning to her face. "I don't have anything to do with any of this."
"It's for your own protection," the guard told her. "You might be spotted leaving the plane and followed. After we get to the villa, you will be free to go wherever you please."
"Which means back to London," Dario said.
"I don't want to go back yet," she fired back. "Christina goes and you go with her," he said emphatically.
"I want to stay with Rolf," she insisted.
Annoyance took over Dario's face. "I thought you had her straightened out on that," he said to me.
"They don't even remember being in Venice," I replied, "let alone recall commitments made there."
"Take him with you, damnit!" Dario snapped at her. He was edgy over the state of things, which was understandable.
"I don't get any of it," Harrison said, "and I'm supposed to be a writer."
"'Supposed to be' is just about the size of it," Dario said caustically. "You don't even have a pen on you."
"I'm assembling thoughts," the lanky American responded.
Dario did not waste any of his fabled charm on Harrison. His presence only complicated matters for him at a time when they were complex enough to defy the stability of any man.
The limo had received special permission from airport authorities to drive onto an operative air strip. After all, Dario Rizzoli was one of the most celebrated and successful men in the country and even a hint of threat to his life warranted extraordinary precautions.
Our guard descended first, followed by Lisa, Harrison, the pilot, me and finally Dario. Nothing even remotely suspicious took place as we edged our way past the airport terminal, dropping off the pilot en route. Outside the main complex a sedan filled with four men pulled up behind us. I could see rifles and machine guns cradled in their arms.
"They're with us," Dario assured me. "It's a follow-up team."
"I feel like the ruler of a country," Lisa said.
Dario could not resist the opportunity. "You're not even the ruler of a cunt," he said.
"What is that supposed to mean, Mr. Millionaire?" she lashed back at him.
"Your writer friend should know," he responded. "It was too natural a line to pass up."
"Well, I don't like it," Lisa protested. "And I don't like riding in this goddamned funeral car either." She made a move to unlock the door beside her but was held back by the guard.
"Get your fuckin' hands off me!" she snarled at him. How profane she had gotten since I had last gone away with her a year ago! I remembered her as the epitome of the English finishing school graduate-a debutante with impeccable manners. No wonder her father was concerned about her and anxious that she be chaperoned.
We veered off the main highway after leaving the airport, turning onto a country road.
"It's longer this way," apologized the driver, "but safer."
Dario just stared ahead, neither protesting nor agreeing. I read his attitude not as fear but irritation. They would have a tough time getting him to abide by restrictive rules.
A stray dog forced the driver to slam on the brakes. In the confusion that followed, Lisa managed to crack the door and jump out.
"Get back here, you idiot!" Dario shouted. The guard swung himself out onto the mud road, uncertain whether to chase after her or to stay with his charge. A second later the four men in the trailing car solved his dilemma by fanning out into the wooded area to retrieve her. It all happened so fast, no one noticed the approach of another car from the opposite direction. Before anyone could conceive what was occurring, we were surrounded by a quartet of heavily armed men with black stocking masks pulled over their faces.
Their commands were in Italian, but it was clear to everyone what they were saying. Unbelievable though it seemed, we had been ambushed! Lisa inadvertently returned to membership in the kidnap party, eluding the bodyguards who were still searching for her by stumbling back into our midst.
"What-?" she gasped when she realized what was happening. One of the men hit her with the butt of his rifle and pushed her with his foot toward the car.
"Get in there!" he ordered in accented English.
Our driver was already beaten to the ground. His automatic was removed from his belt. The guard lay dead, sprawled on the raw earth, blood oozing from his head. I had not even heard a shot in the melee. The attackers squeezed into the limousine with us, one of them taking the wheel as gunfire crackled from the woods-the bodyguards finally returning to duty. But too late! The tires of the car screamed as though wounded as dust clouds obscured us from the staccato gunfire of the startled guards. By the time they were able to get under way in pursuit, we were miles down the road, a sequence of hairpin turns and abrupt cutoffs making our trail all but impossible to follow.
I could not encompass it all with my eyes, much less comprehend it with my mind. The sequences had been so swift, so frantic, I had difficulty even breathing. I saw now that Dario had been gagged and bound, which answered my question why he had done nothing to thwart his captors. Harrison was gagged also and there were red blotches over his face, indicating he had been struck sometime during the mayhem. Lisa could only sob uncontrollably at this stage. I myself was rendered mute by fear, utterly helpless to react in any way whatsoever.
Never before had I realized how fast a large car could travel. Our speed, considering the condition of the back roads, was awesome. I was actually more frightened of crashing at that moment than I was of what might lie in store for us wherever we were being taken.
Without warning my mouth was stuffed with a ball of cloth and a napkin tied around my face to hold it there. A pair of muscular arms locked mine behind my back and I felt a cord being tied around my ankles. The same thing was happening to Lisa simultaneously. I heard her whimper through the gag but then she grew suddenly silent and motionless. It was the last I remembered until I awakened drowsily in an almost bare room with an earthen floor. The lone window was above my head and barred, like a prison cell. I hadn't the faintest idea where I was or what had happened to the others. But my most recent similar experience-in Vienna-was hardly comparable. That had been a plush awakening, a pleasant confusion. This time my appointments were only a cot with a straw mattress, a table with a pitcher of warm water and a glass on it, and a porcelain pot that I was to discover to my horror was the sum total of toilet facilities for me.
It was hours before the door opened, revealing a short, swarthy man with a thick black mustache. "I am Emilio," he said with a grin that bordered on a leer. "Your name?"
"Christina," I stammered. "Ch-Christina van Bell."
"A bell-like in church?" he inquired.
"The spelling is the same, yes."
"You slept long," he noted. "Longer than the other woman."
"I ... I don't understand why...."
"The doctors know of it. How you say-soda ... no, sodium pen something ... for knock people out ... "
"Sodium pentothal?" I suggested.
"That's it," he confirmed with a point of his thick index finger.
"That's an anesthetic," I said, taken aback by the realization we had all been drugged.
The full horror of what had taken place-the killing of the guard, the brutal beating of the chauffeur, seeped back into my memory. This man, despite his effort at amiability, was a vicious terrorist, I reminded myself.
"Whatever you say, lovely lady," he said with deceptive nonchalance.
"Can you tell me where the others are?" I asked as casually as my new timidity would permit.
"They are all here," he replied cryptically.
Where was here? "Is this Rome?" I asked, swallowing hard to quiet my nervousness.
"Not Rome," he said. He did not volunteer any details.
"Why am I being held?" I asked.
"You are with him," he said matter-of-factly.
I wondered if they knew who I was. All of a sudden I realized I should not have given my real name. They might discover that I, too, represented a sizable fortune. The thought of it brought additional concern to my already tortured psyche.
"Have they done anything to Dario?" I asked hesitantly.
Emilio grinned. "One does not tamper with the treasure," he said. "He is worth ten million dollars alive. Nothing dead."
"Then you are only holding him for ransom-not any sort of revenge?"
Now he scowled. "He is a capitalist pig," he almost spat out, "but his carcass is worthless to us."
It was not difficult to figure out that we were the captives of some political action group, probably Communist in origin.
"Will I be allowed to visit with my friends?" I inquired. There was no sense in being devious with him. He was not the type for subtlety.
"Perhaps. After the ransom note is answered. But not before."
"Could this be Naples?" I probed, recalling the slightest trace of a provincial accent in one of the voices outside the window.
"It is where it is," he said gruffly, reopening the door to leave. "Your meals will be brought to you as long as you remain quiet."
"I'll go crazy locked up in one room!" I declared.
"Then go," he said, slamming the door behind him.
I had never been one to amuse myself for long. My resources for self-entertainment were extremely limited since I had never been required to depend upon them. I had always been around as many people as I chose to have with me, relying upon them to keep me active and amused. The walls began almost immediately to compress upon me, like a vise crushing me in its grip. It was a suffocating feeling, so frustrating I began to pound on them to halt their ominous movement.
The door reopened. Emilio stood there with a fierce look upon his face, his fists clenched.
"Halt," he snapped, "or you will be punished." His fists unclenched as his hand moved to unfasten his heavy belt, studded with metal decorations.
I fell into a comer, whimpering. "You can't do this to me," I cried. "I can't stand being alone like this."
The belt slid through its loops and fell to the floor.
"You are not alone," he uttered hoarsely, his eyes gleaming. Without the belt, his pants began to slide over his rounded stomach, catching finally on the hook-like angle of a blunt erection. Oh, god, I thought in a terrible flash, this oily creature with the blood-soaked hands intends to rape me!
Instinctively, I locked my legs and clutched my breasts under the flight jacket I still wore like a captured pilot. Hunched over as he was now, he resembled some carnivorous animal with fangs and claws. I wanted to scream but all sound was imprisoned in my throat.
"I fuck you!" he said with great emphasis on each syllable. A trickle of saliva ran from the comer of his mouth. He seemed to be frothing between his lips, gurgling in anticipation. With a bearish posture, he plodded over to me, exhibiting a cock almost as thick as it was long. I drew myself into fetal position, burying my face in my knees, dreading the inevitable. He stank of garlic and cheap wine now that he was next to me and I could see from the stains of perspiration darkening his armpits that he had not changed clothes in days. His hands as they touched me were rough and awkward-a peasant's hands that had probably never encountered anything as fragile as my flesh. They quickly found their way to my thighs. He separated them with the ease of a man opening shears despite all the pressure I could muster to prevent it. With grunts approximating those of a pig, he lifted my buttocks and literally impaled me on his bulging cock. It felt for a moment as if he had expanded forever the coveted tightness of my cunt as he occupied every millimeter of its circumference, but inwardly I knew its resiliency.
"You move!" he instructed me. Having no other choice, I fell into a bobbing squat, riding up and down on the thick stump of his prick. The action brought the needed lubrication. I slipped easily on the perpendicular after that, closing my eyes so that I did not have to face my captor. With the aid of a fantasy or two, I might even be able to get off with this smelly ruffian.
"You fuck good," he growled, his body taut with anticipation.
I acknowledged his coarse compliment. "It's my art."
"I gonna fill you with cum," he promised-or was it threatened? The thick spurts of his cock came immediately after his boast, raining against the walls of my vagina like globs of heavy cream. I pretended they had come from the elegant prick of Dario Rizzoli and succeeded in bringing myself to a cluster of lukewarm climaxes-better than nothing, considering the conditions.
Emilio surprised me by pulling my body to his face, slipping his nose and mouth into my cunt as though donning a mask. He was sucking out his own cum! It was one of the few times I had been douched by the very man who had dirtied my pussy. And this was a man I would have bet a night at Monte Carlo regarded cunnilingus as effeminate, restricted to eunuchs, weaklings and fags!
"Delicious," he declared when he finally withdrew his wet face, his tongue curling about his lips to make certain he had consumed every available drop.
I took advantage of his contented state. "Get me some liquor, Emilio, will you please?"
"Not allowed," he said at first. But then, after grabbing a handful of my pussy, he whispered hoarsely, "I get you some. You fuck good."
He returned a half hour later with not one but half a dozen bottles of varied liquors. In addition, he brought a gallon of local wine and several sticks of marijuana.
"You get high and sleep good," he said with a gruff kind of satisfaction. "We fuck again later."
I was grateful to my pussy for coming to my aid again. "Sure," I said, agreeable to anything that would help me get through the night. The hard reality was that I would be fucking somebody somewhere anyhow, so why not utilize the equipment temporarily as a means of survival?
I got gloriously high in my cell-like quarters, sampling a bit of everything, laughing idiotically as I pissed in the portable pot. It was morning, a watery sun filtering through the bars of the window, before I returned to awareness that I was a prisoner somewhere in Italy. I fought the temptation to begin all over again-settling for a stick of pot as my morning cigarette. It was essential that I keep at least a reasonable degree of sanity. I couldn't let myself forget that my captors had killed a man and would not hesitate to add another victim to their roster.
Emilio was still in the same filthy clothes when he showed up in midmorning.
"You slept?" he asked, a knowing look softening his hard features.
"Stoned," I said. "Wiped out."
"Fucking good with hangover," he declared. With that he whipped his semi-hard cock from his pants and guided it to my face. "Suck," he ordered.
My mouth experienced the same difficulty as had my cunt the night before in embracing the diameter of his cock. But that natural elasticity that characterized both orifices allowed me once again to take the measure of the man and satisfy his craving. His climax came swiftly-mornings I had found were always men's peak performance times-sloshing my mouth with a breakfast that resembled lumpy cream of wheat. Surprisingly, he offered me his only slightly used handkerchief to blot the cum from my lips.
"Today we have a meeting with my partners," he announced, as though nothing sexual or otherwise had taken place.
"Will Dario be there?" I asked eagerly, cheered just to have any kind of activity taking place.
"We will see," he replied. "There is fruit in the box." It 'was the first I had noticed that he had placed a carton the size of a shoebox on the table next to the water.
"I've already had breakfast," I joked, slightly high from the joint and the news of a meeting being scheduled. Emilio did not smile. If he got what I meant, he kept it to himself.
"I come back for you in one hour," he said. Then he walked over and looked into the chamber pot. "Christina champagne," he said wryly. The bastard did have a trace of humor, I thought. That alone was encouraging. But I had not yet had an opportunity to size up his partners in this conspiracy. They might not share Emilio's offhanded method of disciplining captives. To brace myself, I poured a tumbler of red wine and dug out a Quaalude I had secreted in my jacket. The hangover that had pounded at me from within disappeared quickly after that. There was no mirror in the room, but I was certain that I felt better than I must look. That was an uncalled for cruelty-locking a woman in a room without a mirror! I decided then and there to make it a point of protest when I confronted our kidnappers.
With no sense of time other than that afforded by the sun, it seemed to me that Emilio was back more quickly than he had said he would be. He stared at me from the doorway and then strode over and slapped me sharply on the face.
"Bitch!" he snarled. "You ruin everything if they see you high."
"I ... I'm okay," I stammered.
Angrily, he stalked over to the chamber pot, lifted it and poured from its contents into-the tumbler. Then he thrust the urine in my face. "Drink this!" he commanded.
"I won't!" I protested. "Not even pigs do that!"
His free hand shot around to the back of my neck and tightened around its tendons. Then he pulled my hair until it ached, forcing my lips and teeth apart with his other hand. Using his own fingers as a wedge, he reached for the glass again and poured it down my throat. I vomited almost immediately into the pot, which he had grabbed and placed before me in anticipation.
"Now you will be ready to go," he said with disdain.
The thought of what I had consumed-my own urine-played havoc with my stomach as he led me along a darkened passageway. We were in some sort of apartment complex as far as I could gather. I could hear street noises in the distance and caught an occasional glimpse of sky and trees through slotted gates along the way. Then as we prepared to mount a narrow stairway, I saw briefly the identifying clue to my whereabouts. It was the peak of Mount Vesuvius! I had been right. We were somewhere in Naples.
"In here," he directed as we came to a heavy wooden door without a window. Emilio knocked in a sort of Morse code staccato that led to a gradual opening of the door.
"Ahead of me," he motioned, his rifle serving as a kind of prod.
There was so little light, despite the early hour, that I had difficulty making out anything other than the white of the walls. But gradually my pupils became adjusted to the silty atmosphere. No one else was present as yet. A bare wooden table stood at the head of the room, four chairs placed evenly behind it. I thought of it immediately as a courtroom since there were only benches without backs facing the head table. I lowered myself onto one of them hesitantly, feeling somewhat as if I were in church. But these men were satanic, not holy. How I hoped that I would see Dario, Lisa and even Rolf. It seemed like forever since we had been separated. They had probably not been as fortunate as I in the matter of tools for mental escape. At least I had been lucky enough to be high a good portion of the time we had been hostages-although at a terrible price.
Emilio was silent, peering through a crack in the door, and shuffled his feet impatiently as the minutes passed. Now and then he muttered an oath as the wait grew longer. My mouth was dry from the vomiting and so I spent my time churning up saliva to lubricate it, apparently to his annoyance.
"Shut up!" he snapped at me. "A cow does that-not a woman!"
I was not accustomed to being insulted, especially by a man of his low breeding, but I realized this was not the palace at Versailles. Rather than risk a slap across the face, I bit my lip and stayed quiet.
"Finally, there was the sound of footsteps coming down the passageway. They were welcome no matter to whom they belonged. I was ready to greet Attila the Hun just to see a face other than that of lascivious Emilio.
"Nino!" Emilio called out, the most cheerful I had seen him during our brief acquaintance.
"Ciao, Emilio," came the response. But I heard the shuffle of more than just two feet.
Rolf Harrison was in handcuffs-an indignity I did not have to suffer. When he saw me, he gave a faint smile. It was clear to me that he did not wish to risk greeting me without permission from his guard.
I could afford to be bolder in view of my relationship with Emilio-or so I thought. "May we speak?" I asked, noticing for the first time how scratchy my voice had become.
"No talking!" he snarled, accompanying his directive with a stinging slap to my face. I cringed more from surprise than from pain, disturbed by the approving smile this fellow Nino gave to Emilio. Rolf winced when he saw him strike me, but he had already learned the lesson of silence. I studied him more thoroughly as he took a seat near me. There were welts on his face and his forehead was bruised in a way that suggested his head had been pounded against something.
Was it Hemingwayesque stoicism that made him sit there as though in a trance, or had they mentally damaged him in the course of two days?
"Get your fucking hands off me!" I heard the voice of Lisa approaching. She came through the door propelled by a shove, dressed in something that resembled a potato sack with armholes. Her hands were not cuffed but they were tied with a strand of rope. The broken fingernails indicated she had put up a fight against whoever had been guarding her-and more than likely molesting her. Even in the sack dress, her tits showed remarkable thrust.
"She a bad pussy!" Her guard--another of the kidnappers if I recalled correctly-laughed as he butted her several feet with the flat of his boot.
"I'll bite your cock off!" she threatened, raising her arms over her head as if they formed an ax. I could almost see the fingerprints on her, signs of the hunger of our captors for her outsized bosom.
She ignored the order to be still, shouting greetings to both Rolf and me. But a sharp jab to the nipple of one breast doubled her up with a shriek of pain.
"Bastards!" she spat out.
"Speak only when you're spoken to!" her special guard ordered, posturing above her in what I could only regard as a coward's stance. What would they be without their guns, I thought to myself. They did not have the real courage of Dario Rizzoli-only the false courage that guns and drink give to immature men with brutal tendencies.
Lisa continued whimpering, her head buried in her arms. If only we had flown out from Venice without attempting to return to Rome! But that was easy to think in retrospect. After all, I had been the one to insist on standing by Dario and not returning to London. If that was loyal and courageous, it was also quite foolish. Why should three others be held when none of us figured in the ransom demand and actually were unknown to Dario's board of directors?
An inner door opened and the fourth member of the kidnap quartet, sans stocking mask, took a seat alone at the table. Both of his hips carried .45 revolvers and a belt full of bullets hung loosely around his army styled fatigues. He was quite young but older-appearing because of a thick black beard and a pudgy figure. Unlike Emilio, however, he was neat and clean, his uniform freshly laundered, though unpressed. The eyes above the beard were lively, inquisitive but cold nevertheless. It was easy to assess him as the ringleader of the group even without his position of command at the table.
"Ladies and gentlemen-no, how you say only one-gentleman?" he began with a slight smile. There was hope after all, I thought. This man showed signs of having a sense of humor, however sublimated his occupation required it to be. "On behalf of the Tenth of November Communist League, welcome to our temporary headquarters...." He looked about for a reaction, but none was forthcoming from either prisoners or guards. Shrugging, he continued. "We have made contact with the capitalist conspirators headed by Dario Rizzoli and negotiations are under way. As soon as satisfactory arrangements can be made, you will be released. Unharmed...."
Unharmed? That was a laugh. But it was one it would not get, at least from me. I glanced over at Rolf, who continued staring straight ahead with a vacant expression on his face. Lisa had not removed her face from her hands since the punch to her breast. Our guards stood in a cluster at the only door that might provide escape. They merely listened' and watched as the man they called Romeo-an intriguing name, I had to admit-delivered his spiel.
"Any questions?" he interrupted himself abruptly. "May we speak?" I asked hesitantly.
"But of course," Romeo oozed.
"Why isn't Dario here?" I wondered. "How do we know he is all right?"
The leader of the group pushed himself back from the table. "When one possesses a treasure," he replied slowly, "one does not flaunt it. He is well. You will be reunited with him when the timing is appropriate."
"I want to go home-now!" Lisa cried out.
Romeo smiled thinly. "That is understandable," he said, "but not possible just now."
He looked over at Rolf. "The gentleman"-he pointed--"does he have any questions?"
"None, sir," Rolf replied from his fixed state.
"Well, then," the man called Romeo said as he rose, "let us all return to our quarters-each with a change of guard."
Dreadful as he was in many ways, I was not elated at getting a substitute for Emilio. At least I could cope with him-and he did supply me with goodies. My uneasiness turned almost instantly to fear when I saw that I was to be assigned to Nino, the man who apparently had inflicted the wounds on Rolf. "Come," he instructed me. "I am Nino. Emilio has told me already that you are a good prisoner. As such, we will have no difficulty."
That night we were served pasta with a thick tomato sauce, not bad fare for the kind of establishment we occupied. Nino had left me the bottles Emilio had brought to me and had not come inside the room the entire day. Outside, I heard the now familiar voice of Emilio chattering in Italian with his cohort. They laughed now and then, a refreshing sound to my haunted ears. It made me think that all of us were close together, around a small courtyard or something. Once in a while the voice of another of the guards could be heard communicating with them. Though more distant, it was still close enough to make the courtyard theory plausible.
I had one stick of pot left and I used it to prepare myself for the inevitable. There had been just enough familiar words to indicate to me that Emilio had detailed some of his involvement with me to Nino. He was thinner and more sullen even than Emilio, but there was a kind of guerrilla attractiveness to him. My only hope was that he was not sadistic-a slim one in view of the appearance of Rolf Harrison.
"I wasn't certain where our kidnapper-guards slept normally since Emilio had spent a good part of the night chasing me around my room. But it seemed likely they were all together in a spot where all our rooms were visible, enabling three of them to rest while one was left to make certain no escape attempts were made.
To my surprise, the man who entered after a quick knock was not Nino but the group leader Romeo. His eyes swept the room furtively, searching for God knows what. It was probably just the standard suspiciousness of a man engaged in nefarious pursuits. At any rate, he stood there momentarily without speaking, looking me up and down.
"You are a beautiful young lady," he said finally. "You belong in a palace and not a room such as this."
I shrugged, my mood lighthearted from the marijuana I had just finished smoking.
"It's better than a brothel," I said.
"That would be a waste." He grinned, displaying a missing tooth on the right side of his mouth.
I slumped against the wall next to my cot, loosely draped over the mattress, my legs dangling over the edge. It was a provocative posture and I struck it deliberately. If there was any chance at all to maneuver my way out of confinement, I suspected it lay with Romeo.
"Why are we in Naples?" I asked nonchalantly. The question appeared to startle him.
"Who told you that is where you are?" he demanded. "A volcano," I said. "I saw Mount Vesuvius out of one of the windows."
He glanced upward, peering through the small window of my room. "Not from here," he said.
I nodded agreement. "On my way to meeting you earlier," I explained.
He shook his head slowly. "It will not be for long," he told me. "If the ransom demand is not met by tomorrow midnight, we will move on."
"You won't drug us again, will you?" I leaned forward to plead.
"Sodium pentothal is pleasant enough." He smiled, his lips taking a cruel turn at the corners. "It makes transport of the unwilling so much simpler."
"I'm sure they will meet your demands," I said, more to assure myself than please him.
"We will know presently," he said indifferently. "Come here in the meantime. Sit in this chair."
"Why?"
His eyes darkened with anger. "Sit in this chair," he repeated, emphasizing each word. I decided it was in my best interests to obey. When I was next to him, he added, "First remove your clothing."
It was only then that I noticed the strips of leather hanging from his gun belt. Leather it seemed to me always held a special fascination for the sadistic. Involuntarily my hands began to tremble as I slipped out of my clothing. To stall for time, I folded each item neatly and placed it in a small pile on the table. He watched me without comment, making no effort to accelerate the disrobing. When I was totally naked, he pointed to the chair. I sat down.
"Don't be afraid," he said without conviction as he knelt before me. The leather strips were in his hands now. He took one of them and knotted it tightly around one of my ankles and a leg of the chair. Then he did the same with the other. Silently, he bent both of my arms behind me and fastened them together at the wrists.
Out of his pocket came a large red handkerchief, which he pulled through my mouth so swiftly and unexpectedly I did not have a chance to cry out in protest. Not that it would have helped. The kerchief was knotted behind my head tightly enough to make anything more than a grunt impossible.
The euphoria of the pot wore off more quickly than usual under my stress. I could actually feel the beads of perspiration emerging on my face. My Adam's apple rode up and down like an elevator inside my throat as I swallowed repeatedly, hoping for the best and yet fearing the worst. No fellatio was expected, obviously, with my mouth sealed off. I would almost rather face that prospect than the uncertainty of something more abnormal or drastic.
"I'm told you suffer from the disease of nymphomania," he said with feigned amusement. "An itching of the vagina."
I writhed and grunted in denial. But the movement made the leather strips cut into my ankles and so I stopped. Tears were forming in my eyes. Why had I been chosen by fate to be in this terrible situation? At this very moment I might easily have been at a grand party on the Riviera or dancing in the moonlight at Acapulco. Instead I was bound and gagged in a tenement in Naples, facing the prospect of being tortured for the pleasure of heartless terrorists.
Romeo, Romeo, what for art thou. Romeo, I thought to myself in half a daze from mounting fright. He had begun stripping off his clothes, piece by piece, removing everything but his gun belt. It might have looked like a ridiculous X-rated satire of bandit movies under more normal conditions, but as things stood, nothing amused me or made even a fringe appeal to my sense of humor. I did notice his unavoidable cock, angling out from a thick nest of dark pubic hair, its head like a burgundy helmet resting on a stump. His entire body was unbelievably hirsute, even his shoulders and neck were covered with springy black hair. It was all the more memorable in view of what followed.
"You have the body of a highly paid prostitute." He began berating me, slapping my face with his swollen prick. "As we all know, prostitutes are the products of a capitalistic society where the acquisition of money for personal pleasure is an all-consuming evil...."
I shook my head violently in protest. What he was saying made no sense at all to me. Besides, it was totally false. My first impression of Romeo was being rapidly shattered. They were all of a kind, no one of them any more humane than the other. I shuddered with the realization that we were in the hands of desperate, single-minded men who believed in furthering their cause without regard to tolerance or mercy.
Without warning, he straddled his legs over me and began urinating all over my face and tits. It ran down my body in streams, hot and foul smelling.
"I piss on all such as you," he declared as he lashed me with the force of his discharge. "Especially those with the added fortune of beauty."
A few moments later he began masturbating himself savagely, flogging my tits in the process as well. When he came, he erupted like a model of Vesuvius, his congealed juice splashing onto my face and dripping like spilled paint onto my body below.
"Whore cunt!" he shouted triumphantly. "Capitalist cunt!"
My tears began mixing with the combination of semen and urine on my face. A terrifying thought crossed my mind. Perhaps they had discovered through the press or otherwise that I was in the same financial league as Dario Rizzoli. Who knew what they might plan for me if that had happened? I felt nauseated again, just as I had earlier with Emilio. These men were pigs and animals, lavishing in urine and excrement! I would have to try to escape no matter what the consequences.
"Nino!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. A moment later my newly assigned guard was at his side, glancing only peripherally at my naked body.
"Yes, Captain," he said briskly.
"Bring me the tools," Romeo ordered.
I felt my eyes fill with fright. Tools? What could they possibly have in mind for me? The thought of sterilization was the first that sprang to mind. The Nazis, I recalled reading, had resorted to that for many Jewish women in World War II. I jerked forward violently enough to upset my chair and send us both crashing to the floor.
"This bitch needs to be taught obedience," Romeo said angrily. Nino lifted me with the chair and returned it to an upright position.
"It would be a shame to brand such a body," he noted in my behalf.
"It's a matter of respect," the leader said sharply.
"On the foot then," the man called Nino suggested.
"You like her?" Romeo accused him with a snarl.
"I am a man," he said in his own defense.
"Then you will do it to her," he said, "while I am fucking her."
I almost gagged, literally choking off my breath, in an all-out effort to scream. But all that emerged from me was a thin moan-the most sound I could generate through the gag in my mouth.
The challenge excited Romeo into a steel-hard erection. While Nino disappeared, leaving the door ajar, the group leader slipped his hand under my buttocks and raised them high enough to allow his cock to find its way into me. The more I tried to resist, the more my ankles and wrists ached.
"Squirm all you want." Romeo laughed menacingly. "It makes for better fucking." He sunk himself deeply into my womb, letting my movements work their effect upon his aroused cock. I was not conscious of the return of Nino until I felt a searingly sharp pain on the ball of my foot. The rush of pain made me faint for several moments. It still stabbed through my body as Romeo climbed off me, his cock dripping with strings of elastic cum. He had shot off in me simultaneously with the impact of pain and now stood over me pulling off the last drops of his climax. The pain turned gradually to an aching kind of numbness.
"That was good," Romeo informed him. "Let me see the results."
Nino held up my foot for Romeo's examination. "Ugly but good," he pronounced. "Maybe it needs a little salt." He laughed at the suggestion.
"It will heal in a day or two," Nino said casually. Then he put his face close to mine and informed me, "You are now identified with the Tenth of November movement whether you like it or not."
"A branded cow," Romeo said with amusement. He began pulling his clothes on, whistling some obscure melody. I had just been violated with a painful etching on raw flesh and this man was nonchalantly whistling, not only undisturbed but actually pleased! In my heart I vowed that if I ever got away from these criminals I would donate a sizable share of my fortune to having these vicious hoodlums tracked down and either imprisoned or eliminated-preferably after being tortured.
The degradation of Christina van Bell was not yet over for the evening, I soon learned. Hairy Romeo left briefly but returned with a kit of some sort or other.
"She is bleeding." Nino pointed to my ankles.
"Be glad it's not from the pussy." Romeo laughed. "Have you fucked her yet?"
Nino shook his head. "I want to have her when you make her into a baby," he said.
"My father was a barber," Romeo told him as he removed a straight-edged razor from the case and some form of lather in a jar, "and my grandfather was a barber."
"But never a barber like you," Nino commented.
There was no doubt in my mind that he intended to shave my pussy-for whatever reason. I kept it fairly trim myself in order to wear the tiniest bikinis, so the prospect of losing the remaining pubic hair was not that alarming to me-not compared to being branded with a red-hot iron.
"First it should be kissed," Romeo said, pursing his lips as he knelt before me. His tongue carried what seemed like a cup of saliva to my cunt. He sloshed it about over the lips and then rubbed in the shaving cream with his fingers.
"Don't move," he warned me, "or you'll be circumcised."
Nino laughed as T braced myself for the ordeal. With an exaggerated flourish. Romeo swung the razor over his head and then approached my vagina with mock concentration. I could see that Nino was aroused by the exhibition, undoubtedly anticipating the prospect of fucking my naked organ.
The hairs came off swiftly. Shave your own ugly body, I thought to myself. The abundance of hair all over him had been revolting to me even before his first assault established what a monster he was.
"A work of art," he said, standing back to admire his handiwork.
"It's a beautiful pussy," Nino agreed. "I like it hairless."
"You're a child molester at heart," Romeo said. "Anything over fifteen is old for you."
"I like them pink," Nino admitted.
"You want a piece of this one, though, don't you?" he taunted him. I felt like a side of beef being appraised by two butchers.
"Between her legs she now is eleven years old," Nino said.
"Then fuck her before I continue," the leader said to him.
Continue? What did he mean by that? The question ran back and forth in my mind as Nino rammed his eager cock full length into my bald cunt.
"Good?" Romeo asked as he stood by watching. Even sex seemed cold and joyless to these terrorists.
"Tight," he responded, "and juicy."
"Get it over with," he was told. "There is a meeting soon."
"I think of fucking my sister's daughter," he reported, "and already I'm set to come."
"The ten-year-old?" Romeo asked. "Little Sophia?"
The mention of her name triggered him. He groaned with brief pleasure as his cock fired-once, twice, five times in all, filling my cunt with warm semen.
"There is more to be had later," Romeo hurried him. "I must finish quickly and get to the meeting."
"If you like," Nino volunteered, wiping himself with the tail of his shirt, "I will do it for you."
Romeo sneered. "You are weak with women," he scoffed. "I would have branded her right over her cunt where the movement would always be seen by all who enter her."
"She has no blemishes," Nino said. "Her body is like a painting."
Romeo shoved him away. "Art has no place in the revolution," he reminded him. "That is for the Church and the capitalists."
Angrily, he dug into the case and took out a large pair of shears. I recoiled in horror. Did he intend to cut off my crown of gold? The agony was far worse than the pain that lingered in my foot. I squirmed mightily as he slashed at my tresses, chopping away at them as though they were little more than weeds. Tears streamed down my face as the cutting continued at an accelerated pace.
"Save the cuttings," my maniacal barber instructed. "We may need them as proof in further ransom demands."
I was convulsed with sobs at the thought of what I now looked like. It would be weeks-months-before my hair would return to its former glory. I would have to hide in shame until I could arrange for a wig.
He shaved me clean-until I was as hairless as he was hairy. To torment me further, he held up a mirror for me to view myself. I refused, squeezing my eyes as tightly shut as was humanly possible.
"Beautiful job!" Romeo congratulated himself. "If women only knew how good they look with absolutely nothing on!"
"You forgot her eyebrows," Nino said.
"Oh, no," he was told. "I save those for last-after I check her asshole."
"She has no hair there," Nino said after feeling under me. The entire experience was so utterly humiliating I was in a state of shock. It no longer mattered what else they did to me. They had robbed me of everything-my hair, my body, my freedom. I could think now only of suicide. Escape in this condition did not appeal to me as strongly as the prospect of self-destruction.
They left me alone, finally, after both gleefully masturbated onto my bald head, leaving me with cum dripping down upon my face and ears.
"Fertilizer to make it grow," Romeo said with a chuckle.
They untied me before they left. But I was too ill, too weak, to even scream.
"You filthy, rotten bastards," I muttered as they slammed the door and barricaded it.
"Play with yourself," one of them called out. "We shall return!"
I drank everything that remained in the bottles Emilio had brought me. It was my wish to die, but I achieved only unconsciousness. It was another day when I finally came to a wretched awareness that I had been transferred to brighter surroundings. If I had not felt so dreadful, I might have noticed that across the passageway was another room similar to mine. From the single nail in the wall hung the familiar flight jacket of Dario Rizzoli.
Instinctively I grasped my head to hide it. How could I ever allow him to see me this way? I learned later that he had already been subjected to a viewing of my sodden body while I was passed out. It was intended to be a warning to him that they would stop at nothing to gain the ransom sought from his company.
"I wept for you, Christina," he told me when he was delivered to the room across the way. "They have done the same to Lisa."
Oddly, I felt just the slightest bit better knowing that I was not the only shorn female in the group. But still I continued to cower out of sight of Dario as he talked, a piece of cloth triangled over my hairless head as a makeshift babushka.
"I don't want to live," I cried out to him.
"Please, Chris," he pleaded. "Don't talk like that. I feel so terribly responsible for all this as it is."
"It's not your fault," I replied, sobbing uncontrollably. "Those men are animals!"
"I can imagine what they've done to both of you," he said with deep concern in his voice. "The sooner we get out of here, the better."
"We'll never get out," I prophesied.
"They've made contact," he assured me. "That's why they took me away just now. They wanted to photograph me to prove to my men that I was indeed alive and their captive."
"But what good will that do?" I moaned.
"My board will arrange for the money immediately," he said. "I instructed them to comply in the note accompanying the photo."
"It will be days," I continued pessimistically. "I can't survive that long. Do you know that they forced me to drink my own urine?"
"That's dreadful-but it won't kill you," he informed me. "I told them after I saw you that if they didn't upgrade the conditions under which you're being held, I would foil their whole damned plan by killing myself."
"Thanks," I said with resignation that bordered on sarcasm.
"I don't expect gratitude-not after getting you into this," he responded. "But you do have plumbing now, as you probably noticed."
"No," I said. "I haven't looked at anything. I'm afraid I might see my own reflection somewhere. Then I would die of fright."
"You're beautiful under all possible circumstances. There is no way they could affect your looks short of mutilating you."
"I've been branded," I told him.
"We all have," he said sadly.
"They are sick," I declared. "Sexual psychopaths."
"I think you've found the right designation," he agreed.
Surprisingly, none of the guards attempted to interrupt our first dialogue since our capture-not even when we discussed them in derogatory terms.
"What have they done to you?" I wondered.
"Surprisingly little short of mental torture," he reported. "They threatened to cut off one of my testicles and send it to Rizzoli headquarters if the money was not forthcoming. But I've had none of the mauling around you girls have."
"You're their prize," I noted.
"Some prize," he said.
Despite the agony of a severe hangover, I was hungry for details of anything involving our situation. Misery truly did love company. Together we were wallowing in it.
"Did you know we're in Naples?" I asked.
"I had guessed it by the accents outside," he replied. "It's not the city it once was. There are many who call it 'the Calcutta of Italy.' It festers with types like our captors."
"The photo-when will it get to your headquarters?" I wondered, slowly trying to revive some measure of hope.
"Today," he said crisply, as though reassuring himself as well as me. "There is an intermediary serving as messenger. He should be in Rome by midday."
"Does that mean there's a chance we'll be released today?" I asked hopefully.
"Of course," his voice came back with a touch of his old confidence. "We just might have you in Raphael's salon before sundown being fitted with the most gorgeous wig ever created for a gorgeous woman."
"I hate wigs," I said.
"It will only be a brief time," he responded. "You're young and healthy-your hair will be back in no time, probably more beautiful than ever."
"They shaved my entrance, too," I informed him.
"That I would like to see," he said with a faint laugh. "I often wondered what you looked like as a young girl."
"In that area," I replied with just a bit more enthusiasm than before, "I was like a pink rose."
"And just as fragrant," he said in his most charming baritone.
"Pungent," I corrected.
"I'm glad to hear you haven't totally lost your sense of fun," he said.
"It will be a long time coming back," I reverted to gloom.
"I'll do anything for you the moment we're released," he pledged. "Take you anywhere, buy you anything, make love to you around the clock ... "
"Bald heads turn you on?" I asked, trying my best not to sink further into self-pity.
"They have nothing to do with the voluptuous creature below," he replied.
I changed the subject. "What happened to Harrison?"
"Him I haven't seen since he tried to escape. I think they have him in the cellar-a kind of dungeon."
"He'll have plenty to write about after this," I said. "If he survives."
"We all will," Dario assured me.
"What about the dead guard? And your chauffeur?" I reminded him.
"That was deplorable," he responded. "But neither of them was a principal. It's just too tragic, Christina-all of this just because I happen to have money."
A sudden fear swept me. "Shhhhh," I whispered, hoping he would understand. He did.
"I read you," he said. They would most certainly up the ransom if they knew of my financial status. Dario was a playboy, but a shrewd one perceptive enough to combine business and pleasure-with emphasis on the latter.
Footsteps approached loudly from the right and stopped between us. "You're enjoying your reunion?" the voice of Romeo inquired.
Neither of us replied. The mere sound of his voice was now repulsive to me.
"The chatterboxes have stopped chattering," he sneered. "Must there be another obedience demonstration so soon?"
Again I reminded myself of how totally I had misjudged this particular man on first impression. He was easily the worse of them all.
"You," he said through my barred window, "the one with the lovely pink head-I should like to propose something to you."
"What is it?" T asked reluctantly.
"How would you like to have a roommate-someone much like yourself?" he inquired. "Except perhaps about the chest."
"Lisa?" I tried not to sound eager. Any form of companionship would be welcome-aside from the kidnappers, of course.
"You would like that?" he urged me to confirm. "We don't always get along," I said, hoping my reluctance would inspire him to force her upon me.
"I like to see two women together," he continued. "Many games can be played with that arrangement."
It was immediately obvious what he intended. He expected us to satisfy his lust for bisexual performances. Under other circumstances, with a man like Dario, for example, that would likely have appealed to my erotic senses. But the thought of this hirsute gorilla using Lisa and myself for his personal pleasure was totally revolting to me. As if that made any difference.
"She will be brought here this afternoon," he announced. "And I will join you this evening for cocktails." His hyena-like laughter was sickening to my ears.
"Did you hear that?" I called out to Dario when he had gone.
"I wanted to vomit," he replied.
I lapsed into depression after that. Dario withdrew temporarily from our conversation. The implication .was clear. There would be no release that night. The closest possible chance was postponed until the following day.
Emilio, grim-faced and edgy, delivered Lisa to my room sometime after noon. Neither of us could bear to look at the other. Instead we simply fell into each other's arms and wept.
"I'll make it up to you both," Dario repeated his earlier promise to me, including Lisa this time. But it was small compensation for a barren pate.
Later, when I was finally able to converse with her without bursting into tears, I questioned Lisa.
"Did he shave you down below, too?" I asked.
She nodded and pulled up her skirt to show me her hairless vagina. "I feel naked even with a dress on," she said. "I always loved to run my fingers through my pussy hair."
"So did I," I agreed.
"At least it'll grow back faster than on top," she noted.
"Let's do something to him when he comes around later," I suggested.
"I'd like to bite the head of his cock off," Lisa said bitterly, "but I'm afraid I might swallow it and poison myself."
Somehow we both managed to laugh, if only ruefully.
"Maybe we could both bite him at the same time," I mused, "somewhere where it'll be noticed by the others."
"How about an earlobe?" she suggested.
"Are you serious?"
"Why not? Van Gogh cut his whole ear off."
"He'll bleed like a pig," I predicted, not without a hint of sadistic delight.
"Good."
"Let me just nibble around your lobe and see how much pressure it would take," I said.
"Help yourself," Lisa replied, lifting her makeshift kerchief just enough to expose one ear.
We experimented on each other and decided against the lobes. "It would hurt him more in the genitals," I said. "His balls or his cock."
"But nobody would see it," she pointed out.
"The wound would be in his face," I explained. "They'd know something was wrong with him."
"You're right. And we could execute it together while he thinks we're collaborating on sucking him off."
"You're thinking like I'm thinking," I congratulated her.
"Now we have to decide whether to go for the balls or the prick itself," she said with a seriousness befitting a discussion between surgeons.
"I'd choose the nuts, personally," I told her. "From what men have told me, that's where the pain is the sharpest."
"Then balls it is!" she said in the most spirited exchange we had enjoyed since our tragic sheerings.
There was no way to communicate our plan to Dario without tipping it off to the guards. His first awareness of it would probably come with the screams of Romeo. Strangely, neither Lisa nor I cared one iota about the possible consequences of our revenge act. He had literally stripped us of our femininity and dignity. No punishment could be too drastic as far as we were concerned.
The Ape, as we had decided to refer to him in the future because of his hairiness and animal nature, arrived in festive spirits sometime around sundown. In his arms he carried bottles of liquor and several porcelain mugs.
"Don't ever say that Romeo XVII is mistreating you," he said with a laugh more sinister than sincere. It was the first time he had mentioned any identification beyond a first name. The movement apparently dropped surnames and substituted numerals instead. I wondered vaguely if it was intended as some sort of disrespect toward the Vatican's policy of designating Popes. These men, and Romeo XVII in particular, appeared to honor nothing except money for their cause.
We both gulped eagerly from the cups filled with what appeared to be vodka. It was almost tasteless but I felt myself getting an instant rush from its undiluted strength.
"I think it would be nice if we all sat about as naked as your scalps," he suggested after a second mug eased the strain of sex with the Ape. His laugh was hollow and singular. He obviously derived great satisfaction from what he had done to us and could not resist gloating over his dubious achievement.
"I have practically nothing on as it is," Lisa said.
"Remove the rest nevertheless." he instructed. He was getting drunk in a hurry-much more quickly than either of us. As we took off our clothes, he fished out his cock and fondled it. "My pride and my joy," he addressed it.
I glanced at Lisa to make certain she remembered the steps in our attack. We were to undress him jointly, then begin to lick down his body. The first stop would be at his nipples, then his navel and then!-his balls. He would be in a state of blissful anticipation by then, awaiting the caress of our lips on his cock. But no such euphoria would come to him this time. I had only to touch the palm of Lisa's hand to signal the moment of vendetta.
"Relax, Romeo," I said with calculated sensuality.
"Allow us, your passionate slaves, to prepare you for ecstasy."
His eyes fluttered and he leaned hack, taking the bait like a killer shark. I slipped one hand under his leather vest and unbuttoned it with the other. His hands rested lightly on his guns, and for a fleeting moment. I thought of grasping for them. But he was much too powerful to make that a sensible move. I caught Lisa's eyes in the process and noted that she, too, had flirted with a similar plan. She shook her head negatively, however, and I nodded agreement. The Ape actually had his eyes closed as we both pawed over his torso and then unbuttoned his pants. The gun belt remained about his . waist as we pulled off the dusty boots and the pants tucked into them. His cock was still limber, its solidity threatened by the strong liquor riding his bloodstream. He would need all the blood pressure he could muster to overcome the alcohol and raise a respectable hardon. That fitted in perfectly with our plan. There would be nothing at all suspicious about both of us dedicating our hands and tongues to his balls and cock in an effort to achieve a full erection.
"Good, good, good," he mumbled as we slid our tongues down his hairy body, flicking his flat nipples before joining at his navel. There we flared out and downward on intersecting paths to his testicles.
I could feel my heart begin to pick up tempo as the key moment approached. The rapid flutter of my tongue betrayed my nervousness, but only to me. To him it was simply a confirmation of my expertise as a cocksucker.
My gaze locked with Lisa's as we sucked in unison. His cock responded strongly to our ministrations and we were eyeball to eyeball at its base when I reached for her palm. The time had come!
I sunk my teeth into the loose, hairy flesh of his scrotum and clamped down savagely until they struck the denser meat of a testicle. Blood spurted into my mouth instantly and the shriek of pain from Romeo XVII could probably be heard all the way to Rome. He doubled over and rolled on the floor, his hands clasping his entire sexual apparatus, his cries diminishing from piercing screams to low moans of utter agony. Lisa had done her job well, too, having duplicated my attack on his other ball.
Emilio, Nino and several others burst in almost immediately, breathless from their mad dashes to the rescue. "What is it? What has happened?" they all seemed to ask at once. Blood was everywhere but nowhere more apparent than on the faces and bodies of Lisa and myself.
"Your leader has been wounded in action," I told them, spitting a mouthful of sickening blood and saliva on his heaving figure. There was no question that I was about to vomit. One of the men shoved me away just in time to avoid being splattered by the murky slime dredged up from my stomach. When Lisa saw my reaction, she almost instantly reenacted my scene. The room was a foul mess, rife with blood and vomit, as several of the men struggled to carry their leader from the room. He cursed at his pain and at them for failing to curb it.
"You will pay dearly for this!" Nino threatened as he left, though he was still not certain precisely what had taken place. The Ape was in no condition to go into details. Perhaps he might even choose not to reveal them at all.
"Fuck him," Lisa exclaimed exhaustedly when they were gone.
"Good show, baby," I complimented her.
"Let's get drunk enough to pass out," she suggested. It was the only way we would be able to tolerate the stench and condition of our cell.
"You've got yourself a partner," I pledged.
Neither of us was aware that in the midst of the upheaval, other men had arrived to hustle Dario away.
By the time it occurred to me to check, I was so intoxicated I could not think at all rationally.
My last thought before oblivion was that Lisa's tits had somehow grown even larger during captivity. I was in bad shape.
CHAPTER FOUR
I felt as though I had returned from the dead. Nothing familiar was anywhere about me-no people, no objects, no clothes. The flight jacket T had been wearing-as my main piece of apparel was missing. Someone had pulled a plain cotton shift over me and a pair of sandals stood at the side of my wooden cot. Once again there was no bathroom, only a chamber pot. Outside I could see the sun, red and swollen, burning down on a parched landscape. What had happened to Naples? And to Romeo XVII, Emilio, Nino and the others of the Tenth of November brigade?
It was uncomfortably hot in the barred room where I found myself. We had been taken south, if the heat and landscape were any indication. But how could I assume the plural? Maybe I alone had been spirited away-exiled as punishment for instigating the attack on the League leader.
Faintly, like a dim specter emerging from a fog, I recalled the white-suited figure of a man who might have been a doctor murmuring something to the effect that "there are more bacteria in a human's mouth than in a dog's." Why could I recall that and little else? Then I remembered also that one of the terrorists had admitted using sodium pentothal to keep us anesthetized after our seizure. Very likely it was a doctor, or a paramedic of some kind, who had treated Romeo XVII for the bites Lisa and I had inflicted on him and then shot us with the anesthetic in preparation for transferring us elsewhere.
Admittedly it was hazy logic, but I had no answers and little else to occupy my mind. It seemed that I had been numb for days, scarcely able to cope with any form of reality. All of it had been terribly exhausting and fraught with inner tensions. My prior life of parties and perpetual pursuit of pleasure seemed remote enough to me at this stage to be considered within the realm of fantasy. Would I ever be part of it again-or had it all taken place within a mirage?
"Food!" a voice startled me. It was followed by a dark hand reaching a bowl of something hot through the bars of the window. With great effort, I pulled myself upward and off the cot and hurried to the window-not for the soup or whatever it was so much as for the chance to converse with someone. Anyone.
A man with a gaunt, sun-blackened face stood outside staring at me with dark, emotionless eyes. He flicked his wrist impatiently, indicating that I should take the bowl and spoon from him-probably before he let it drop to splatter over the hard dirt floor.
"Thank you," I said hoarsely. I took the bowl and placed it on the single table beside my cot, moving hastily so that he would still be there when I returned. "Can you tell me where I am?"
"Siracusa," he said indifferently, turning to leave.
"Please don't go," I pleaded.
"Why?" he questioned.
"You can't believe what is happening to me," I confessed to him in desperation. "You say I'm in Syracuse? Do you mean I'm all the way down in Sicily?"
He looked at me blankly and nodded.
"Am I alone?" I pressed on.
To this he simply shrugged. "I know nothing," he said, resuming his shuffle away from the hut-like cell I occupied.
"Do you know my name?" I called out.
"Christina," he responded. No amount of shouting from me could make him turn around.
I went to the food he had brought. It was a thick paste of a soup containing pasta and beans but no meat. I found it not particularly flavorful but not inedible either. My stomach cried out for something-anything-to fill the void. I choked it down hurriedly, my mind whirling over the revelation that I was in, of all places, the breeding place of banditry, Sicily.
After completing the simple meal-I even licked the bowl-I went to the window and surveyed the landscape in more detail. At least I had a view, even if it was of next to nothing. There was little on the horizon except a few stone outcroppings that represented buildings similar to the one in which I was being held. The land was arid, parched dry by the relentless sun, and only the sturdiest kind of vegetation appeared able to survive. The few trees visible were like the handful of-men who walked about out of range of my voice-short and dark, almost lifeless in the windless heat.
I decided that I had been exiled from the Tenth of November movement. They had probably contracted with professional bandits in Sicily to hide me away until Dario Rizzoli's ransom was paid. Perhaps I had proved too difficult for them to contain.
Dusk descended finally, first filtering and finally eliminating the oppressive rays of the sun. Aside from the brief exchange with the man who had brought me what I had decided to call "my porridge." I had not spoken to anyone since recovering consciousness. I felt certain I would go totally crazy in a matter of days if no one explained anything to me. I longed for Dario, Lisa and Rolf as though we were members of a long-standing, closely-knit family. The others T had known and loved throughout the world were too remote for me to include in my yearnings.
The night was frightening with no lights in the room and nothing but blackness beyond it. I stumbled about in search of some flicker of light and life outside, but aside from a faint star here and there in the dark sky, there was nothing. There was no alternative but to go to bed and be entertained by the grim forebodings, of my imagination. I was living a nightmare without a solution, without even a sense of climax, however horrible it might be.
A wedge of sun, like a piece of Cheddar cut from a wheel of cheese, roused me from a restless, erratic slumber. It was so warm and bright in contrast to the terrors of the night that I felt momentarily alive again. Before I admitted painful reality back into my psyche, I closed my eyes and slipped my hands under my loose shift. My fingers walked down my thighs and surrounded the lips of my labia. I parted them as one does the petals of a rose and tenderly caressed my eager clitoris. It seemed to reach out for my finger in its desire to be fondled. With the forefinger of my other hand, I dug into the main cavity, double-fucking myself. The dual action brought on a quick, rich spurt of sexual juices, followed shortly after by a series of abrupt orgasms that lifted me momentarily off the cot.
"You play well with yourself," a voice startled me, an amused chuckle following in its wake. Truthfully, I was beyond embarrassment. I had been so abused in recent days by my captors that being watched masturbating was of little concern to me. It was the element of surprise that upset me-the prospect of confronting my situation head-on. I dreaded knowing the truth, and yet I felt compelled to demand it.
"There's no privacy anywhere," I said.
"When you are a prisoner," he added as I struggled' to my feet and went to the window.
"Your hair," the man asked, "is it beginning to return?" I still wore a kerchief tied under my chin at all times, even when I slept.
"A bit," I answered, studying him through the bars. He was taller and younger than the man who had brought my only meal of the day before, but dark and sullen-eyed like the other. Except for a black mustache riding his upper lip, there was nothing particularly distinctive about him. Apparently the dashing Sicilians of films and legend did not engage in the kidnapping business.
"They are worse there on the mainland," he noted. "Yet we in Sicily bear the reputation for brutality."
"Are you with the movement?" I dared to ask.
He looked at me coldly. "That is not a question for a prisoner to make," he advised me. "At least not of a man such as I."
"Am I alone here?" I tried again.
"You cannot be alone and be with Vincento XXII-7," he said, a thin smile playing on his lips.
"I meant my friends," I explained.
"I could be your friend," he proposed. "I could get you wine and brandy."
Captivity had made me something of a scavenger. I was finding it easier and easier to compromise myself for even small selfish gains.
"It all depends on what your definition of friendship is," I responded, remembering to look as provocative as I could under the circumstances.
"To be good to one another," he stated, "to share what is good."
"But I have nothing," I tested him.
"Yourself," he replied quickly, "your body."
We reached agreement on those terms rather rapidly. He hurried off to get wine and brandy from a cellar he said was only a few blocks away. I would pump him for more detailed information when he returned.
There was a little more activity outside this morning than there had been the previous day. I even saw a woman, shriveled by the sun, with a large black shawl over her head. Somehow I had managed to retain a few gold coins, and with these as bait, I called out to her. At first she was reluctant to approach, but something in the feminine code must have motivated her to risk conversing with a female in distress. I got the shawl from her and felt better with its thick texture covering my barren head-now in the peach fuzz state.
"Vicaro," she told me when I pressed her for the name of the small village. I had never heard of it before, of course, but at least if a miracle happened and I was able to get a message to the outside world, I would know where to pinpoint my location.
Vincento came back with the wine, which looked almost black, and two bottles of unlabeled brandy. For a moment he seemed more like a suitor than a guard, so pleased was he at presenting a woman with a gift. Then he apologized for not being able to stay.
"I have work to do," he explained. "I will return later."
I played my game. "Vincento, is anyone ever going to tell me what is happening-or am I just to wither away here?"
He looked at me suspiciously but when I smiled, his features softened. From the few faces I had observed in this remote spot, I could tell it was a hard life for all of them. He was perhaps about twenty-nine or thirty and looked at least fifteen years older.
"You are here only briefly," he said with some hesitation. "That is why we must make the best of it."
He could not know how capable I was of diminishing liquor in a hurry. By the time he was able to return, entering my room for the first time, I was more than a little intoxicated. I had spread myself on the cot, my shift pulled up to my waist, my pussy like a cluster of coral on a deserted beach. He stood over me as he undressed, his instant erection swinging over me like the limb of a tree.
"You are my Rudolph Valentino," I told him as he plunged eagerly into my cunt. "Do you know of him?"
"No," he grunted, intent on his effort.
"Are there many women here?" I questioned him, moving my ass upward to meet the thrust of his elongated cock.
"None like you," he said huskily. "All old, dried up."
I liked dialogue while fucking and so continued to question him.
"Who do you fuck then?" I asked.
"The whores in Siracusa," he said in staccato breaths that indicated he was getting ready to climax.
"Are they pretty?" I quizzed.
"They fuck," he gasped. The words were followed by a rush of hot cum that frosted my naked cunt lips and dripped on the single sheet of the bed. I made no attempt to climax myself, assuming the role of a prostitute seeking satisfaction only for her patron. In my usual world, this Vincento XXII-7 would not get within a kilometer's distance of my cunt. But now I had wine and brandy and if I played my cards right, I might even devise an escape or figure a way to get a message out.
He rested and came back for two more assaults on my vagina, both with his cock and both in missionary position. Any other way was not sacred, he explained, and to lick a cunt was a mortal sin. But what of kidnapping, I asked while he was in repose. That was necessary and acceptable under certain circumstances, he said.
"When it is for the good of the majority," he elaborated. I knew at that moment that he was indeed a subscriber if not a full-fledged member of the Tenth of November League.
Gradually, through indirect questioning, I learned that Lisa was elsewhere in Sicily, probably not far away. As for Dario, he knew little except that he was the most highly prized. Rolf Harrison he had not heard of at all. Perhaps he was really a member of the movement, he suggested. It was the first time I had ever entertained any such suspicion about the man we called Hemingway.
Vincento was careful not to get too drunk. Wine had a way of loosening tongues, he kept reminding himself aloud.
"Ask your questions of Roberto," he finally cut me off.
"Roberto?"
"He is our leader here," he explained.
"I've seen no one but you," I reminded him.
"They are all aware of your presence," he said flatly. "It would be impossible for you to be unnoticed here. There are no fair-skinned women in the villageand certainly no bald-headed women. They are all black on their heads and black between their legs." He laughed somewhat drunkenly at his observation. Perhaps I could still persuade him to drink more, despite his determination not to.
"I know you've told me you're against men going down on women," I said, "but what about the reverse situation?"
His eyes were watery but still wary of a trap. "Do you do such things?" he asked.
"Why not?"
"In Italy, that is done only by prostitutes," he replied.
"Then in some countries-America, for example-almost all women are prostitutes," I informed him.
He laughed at my statistic. "A husband expects that from his wife?" he inquired with interest.
"Yes," I said casually, "and the wife expects it from her husband, too."
"You are joking?" he insisted, lurching forward slightly, bottle in hand.
"I'm serious."
"They are sick there," he decided, taking another swig from the brandy.
I crawled over to him and lifted his serpentine cock from its resting place on his abdomen. "Watch this snake come alive when it is kissed," I said to him.
"You want to suck it?" he asked, eyes aglow with anticipation. It prompted another large swallow from the contents of the bottle.
"The evening would be incomplete without it," I lied.
My lips sealed the crown inside my mouth. I attacked it with my tongue, flickingly at first, and then with blunt, stabbing thrusts. The entire cock rose like an artillery cannon being lofted for firing. Vincento lay back in ecstasy, the bottle held in his mouth like milk for a baby. It actually sounded as though he were gurgling as I added a strong stroke over the shaft of his prick to accompany the actions of my mouth. The veins of it stood out as though ready to burst. I could feel them like hard worms against the palm of my hand.
Despite his total involvement, physically and mentally, I was devoting only a small percentage of myself to die act of fellatio. My thoughts were elsewhere, sorting out questions I might use to subtly interrogate him after his climax. He would be drunk not only from liquor but from the aftermath of oral orgasm-a strong combination in any female's repertoire of tricks.
As he moaned, his head falling back limply, I stepped up the tempo of both tongue and fist, assaulting his raw cock as savagely as long experience dictated. He had come three times already, yet his relative youth dug deeply into his semen supply and mined another massive load of cum. My mouth filled up so rapidly I was forced to spit globules of the sticky sex juice onto his balls to prevent myself from choking to death.
He appeared mesmerized by the experience, his eyes glassy, a benign smile looking strangely out of place on his cruel mouth. I might even be able to grab his gun, I thought to myself. But what good would it do me in Vicaro, Sicily, where women of my complexion were as rare as diamonds? I would be recaptured immediately and probably subjected to worse tortures than I could imagine. No, I had to use this opportunity to try to pry useful information from him. His heavy breathing began to worry me-and with good reason. A few moments later he was snoring with such force it seemed the entire room shook. Damn! How could I communicate with a man who was temporarily closer to death than life?
"Vincento!" I shouted into his ear. But even my maximum decibels did not disturb him. He continued to make the sounds of a lumberjack sawing down forest timber. I felt like crying over my lost opportunity.
"Christina, you blew it!" I said aloud to myself. And I was in no frame of mind to find humor in the double entendre of my statement. I had lowered myself to sucking off this wretched animal and now the entire purpose had been lost. Futility had become my traveling companion. I was about to give up, to resign myself to joining my guard in drunken oblivion, when the thought struck me to search his clothing. There were some interesting compartments along his gun belt and I approached it with renewed hope.
The first item I found and decided to hide was the key to my cell. I tested it in the door, and then for the first time in many days I reveled in the delicious experience of momentary freedom-stepping outside my cell. It was accompanied by a very strong temptation to run, but once again common sense reminded me that there was nowhere to flee. Vicaro had no airport, no railroad station, no buses and so few motor vehicles I had seen only an ancient jeep and a motorcycle, once each, in my two days of consciousness. I was truly isolated from my world, and the realization saddened me to the point of tears.
I hid the key in what might not have been the safest place, but considering Vincento's mentality an un-likely one for him to discover-my cunt. It felt momentarily like a Ben Wa ball, but I was scarcely in the mood to be erotically titillated. The next item of interest to me was a map of the area with several X's marking certain spots. Rather than confiscate it, I made a crude duplicate of it with a pen he carried on a piece of sheet I tore from the edge of my bed. There was the glimmer of a chance that he might not notice the missing key before I had an opportunity to slip out and investigate the marked areas. Who knew-there could be some means of communication or escape hidden there.
He stirred now and then as I rolled his body, attempting to reach the rear pockets of both his belt and pants. What I found next made my blood run cold! There in a fairly recent clipping tom from a Rome newspaper was a picture of a smiling Dario Rizzoli being reunited with members of his family and business! The ransom had been paid, I was able to decipher from my limited knowledge of Italian (largely as a result of the Latin I had learned as a young girl).
If Dario was free, then why was I still being held? There was no mention of me or of Lisa and Rolf in the article accompanying the photo. Had Dario sacrificed us to gain his own release? I found that not difficult to believe-but impossible. One of his finer qualities was loyalty to his friends. That was why he had so many of them, even among men whose wives he had casually seduced.
My desperation mounted swiftly. The knowledge that Dario was free to roam the Via Veneto-laughing and drinking and philandering-while I rotted in the wastelands of Sicily was almost more than my psyche could tolerate. Now I was really tempted to take the guns from Vincento-the rifle and the pistol-and shoot my way out. Why should I be subjected to imprisonment when the ransom had been paid? My basic sense of democracy demanded that I be given a hearing, which would unquestionably result in my immediate release.
It was dark outside once more, the streets and houses as dead as the paths and stones of a cemetery. I took the flashlight from Vincento's belt and shone the beam all about. It lit nothing but emptiness and an occasional scurrying night animal. There was no more time to waste, I decided.
Emboldening myself with a stiff swallow of brandy, I took the easier of the two weapons to carry-the pistol-and set out through the unlocked door to confront this man Roberto, whom Vincento had identified as his leader. Even with the flashlight, it was difficult finding my way. The village lay some distance ahead and the paths leading to it were rutted and made hazardous by various-sized stones. It was an eerie feeling stumbling along a strange pathway, totally alone and with no real sense of where I was headed. I might be in a lair of bandits who would probably shoot to kill if an unidentified person chanced across their path.
The fright of night, exaggerated by the wine and brandy I had imbibed, finally forced me to draw attention to myself. I began screaming there in the midst of nowhere, waving the flashlight wildly, shooting off the pistol at intervals like a crazed individual. The results were not immediate, but they were positive.
Several men swooped out of the darkness, easily disarming me and throwing me to the ground. There they wrapped me, head and all, in a coarse blanket and tied it with ropes. I felt myself being draped over the back of a horse or a burro and led away into the night. There was staccato dialogue among my latest captors, all in unintelligible local Italian.
It was late, very late, by the time we reached our destination. When the wraps were taken off me, I discovered I was inside a large cave, lighted by several dozen candles. There were several men staring at me, high-powered rifles at their sides. I could see no flicker of tenderness or mercy in any of them.
"Where am I, may I ask?"
Their expressions remained unchanged. None of their lips even started to move. I had apparently earned the silent treatment as a result of my escapade.
"I wasn't trying to escape," I tried to explain. "I just wanted to find out why I am still being held when Dario Rizzoli was freed."
Their eyes, like black coals, did not stir. They looked uniformly exhausted, as though they had been on a long, arduous mission prior to being awakened to capture me. That was how they remained, silent and motionless, until a brisk military-style man of more sallow complexion entered hurriedly. Then they snapped to attention, rifles at their sides, until he waved at them to relax.
"What have we here in the middle of the night?" he asked them, ignoring me.
"The report is on your desk," one of the men replied.
The man in charge swept it up quickly, scanning it in a matter of seconds. I had the feeling he already knew what it contained and was considerably annoyed at it.
"Vincento XXII-7 is to be confined until further notice," he ordered. One of the men, the last in line, peeled off the group and disappeared into the darkness to relay the command.
"Miss van Bell"-he turned to me without smiling." You seem to have upset the decorum of my brigade, whether deliberately or naturally. That is a serious matter in this organization. I would like your explanation of precisely what occurred earlier this evening."
I leaped at the opportunity to speak-to communicate with someone in authority. "It was a matter of desperation on my part," I told him earnestly. "I am being held for no valid reason. I was merely a traveling companion of Dario Rizzoli. Now I understand he is free, the ransom has been paid, and I continue to be a captive."
"Who told you that?" he asked sharply.
"I read it," I said.
"Vincento showed it to you?" he demanded, pinching his thin lips impatiently.
"Not exactly," I explained. "He, uh, drank a little too much and I found it in his clothing."
The commander glanced over at his men with a razor-like sweep of their heads. "No one is to carry any information-any identification-of any kind whatsoever on his person," he said emphatically. "Not ever-not under any circumstances."
The men nodded agreement but did not respond otherwise.
"Why should that be a secret from me?" I asked. "You've cut off my hair, you've brutalized my body, all because I had the misfortune of being in Rome with a certain man at a passing moment of my life. It's not right! It's not decent! I deserve more respect than that-even from a bunch of fanatical terrorists like you!" I burst into sobs as I ended my brief speech.
He reacted almost kindly. "Calm down. There are brutal factions in any movement as diverse as ours. Unfortunately, you have been subjected to some of the less desirable elements in the Tenth of November organization. I sincerely regret your experience with one of our own men earlier. It is why he has been exiled to such a remote outpost."
"I can't take it anymore!" I shouted. "I haven't done anything to any of you! What right have you to hold me?"
"We may have no right"-the answer came with a trace of a smile--"but we have a reason-a reason that developed only recently."
"You were after Dario Rizzoli," I said.
"Not him, of course. He is worthless to us as a person. But his money-that is where his true value lies."
"You got that," I reminded him. "What more do you want? Am I being sold into white slavery or something? Or am I being kept around for the amusement of your men?"
"You could have reason to think that way," he said with a cold sort of smoothness, "but that is not the case. You are undeniably a beautiful woman-even after what that insane Neapolitan did to your hair-but you are also something else we did not earlier realize ... He paused ominously, his eyes seeming to appraise me from an entirely different perspective.
"I don't understand," I said.
"Your similarity to Rizzoli," he announced with a dramatic flourish, a triumphant smile playing on his lips.
Ice congealed in my blood. I tried to play dumb.
"But he's a man."
He quickly dismissed my comment. "Gender is no factor in wealth."
I was horrified. They had discovered what I feared most-that I was as well off financially as Dario. My spirits sagged under the realization that I was now going to be regarded in a new role-one in which I normally exulted but now would have preferred to have kept hidden.
"I'm not wealthy," I bluffed. "Whatever you've been told is just social publicity."
"It has been verified by impeccable sources," he announced with satisfaction. "I, Roberto VTI-10, personally authorized the investigation and received the report. Those stupidos in Naples were not even vaguely aware that they had felled two prized birds with one stone."
He chuckled with pleasure in himself and looked about for the admiration and respect of his men.
"That a man so lacking in grace as Romeo XVII was in charge of a woman of your position and means is a disgrace to the Tenth of November movement," he continued.
It was not difficult to discern a play for power within the cause between this man I had just learned called himself Roberto VII-10 and my original abductor, Romeo XVII. My only slim hope now was that I could somehow utilize that to my advantage with this Roberto of Sicily.
"He made a criminal assault upon me," I cried. "When I am free, I will send an army after him to crucify him for what he did to me!"
To my amazement, Roberto applauded my theatrics. "You are right, Christina van Bell," he said. "I might even assist you in such a mission. My men are loyal to me because they know that I am firm but fair. Our Sicilian brigade, with the exception of that despicable Vincento XXII-7, is the most formidable in the entire movement."
There were traces of Mussolini in Roberto's rhetoric and swagger. Ambitious men were always the easiest to enlist in corruption, I remembered an industrialist friend of mine once telling me.
"But you cannot expect-" I began. He raised his hand to interrupt me.
"Excuse me just a moment, signorina," he said, "but I wish to tell you that you did right in retaliating against Romeo for what he did...."
"It was not me alone," I reminded him.
"I know," he replied. "That signorina was beaten before her release, simply for that. But that will not happen to you, I promise."
"She is free?" I reacted with a mixture of surprise and jealousy. "Vincento told me she was being held in Sicily."
His face soured. "Vincento? What does he know of the workings of the hierarchy? Signorina Rainier was released with Dario Rizzoli and another man named Harrison on the outskirts of Rome several days ago." Every tube and tendon, every vein and artery within me knotted. They were all free-free to roam, ironically in Rome-and I was the lone remaining captive. In a quick flash I could see Lisa with her big tits wallowing on the slim torso of Dario Rizzoli, laughing and drinking, alternating between fellatio and fucking, giving no thought at all to the plight of Christina van Bell. It was enough to make me sick all over again.
"You don't look well," Roberto said with a trace of concern.
"What does it matter if I die?" I replied.
"You are valuable to us alive," he answered instantly, "and worth nothing to us dead. We are as eager to set you free as you are to achieve freedom. Except for the vultures among us, it is no easy task or pleasure to be harboring a woman of your means and attractiveness. The possibility of discovery is multiplied a hundredfold because you are who you are and what you are."
"What am I worth?" I said, finally finishing the question I had started to ask earlier. "Surely you're not asking what you did for Dario?"
" "Why not?" he countered.
"I am not in that league," I lied. "I am not a businesswoman with factories and racing teams, with champion horses and Grand Prix cars...."
"You are quite an actress, Christina." He addressed me for the first time on a familiar basis. "Have you ever thought of going into the theater as a profession?"
"I am in a desperate situation, Roberto," I replied on a similarly personal level. "It is no time to be toying with me."
"I am serious," he said, smirking.
"Don't you realize that if you ask for an exorbitant amount I might never be ransomed? The lawyers in charge of what little I have enjoy a reputation for frugality."
He raised his eyebrows. "Villas on the Riviera and in Majorca, a hotel bungalow in Los Angeles, a penthouse in New York, a town house in London." he recited, pulling down a finger for each one he ticked off. "That is what you consider frugality? All for a woman who often occupies none of them as she races about the world...? Come now, Christina, I am beginning to think we have set too low a price upon your head."
I had to be careful, I suddenly realized. By pleading a degree of poverty, I might reopen the investigation into my resources. If they had contacts in Switzerland and the size of my bank accounts there became known to them, I might lose everything to gain only my release. Then I would be forced to become what I had often fantasized: an international prostitute. I did not relish the possibility of turning fantasy into reality in this case.
"They all give the illusion of wealth," I responded finally. "But most of it is facade. I am given many things at no charge as a reward for my presence. It is called in American lingo a 'publicity kickback' or a "freebie.' Do you understand that?"
His look was smug. "It is not necessary that I understand anything but the report. Your assets are considerable-well within the requested amount for return of you."
"You still haven't told me what that amount is," I replied in resignation.
"Ten million," he said matter-of-factly. "The same as for Rizzoli."
"Ten million!" I screamed. "If everything I ever owned or touched in my life was heaped together, I could never, never raise ten million."
Roberto VII-10 reared back in his chair and laughed uproariously. His men stared at him in disbelief, apparently unaccustomed to laughter from their leader.
"You are indeed an actress!" he proclaimed. "Ten million will be replaced within days by another ten million from interest and dividends on your investments."
"That's a lie!" I said, deciding to tough it out.
"I tell you this," he said curtly, abruptly serious as he pointed his finger at me, "if you continue this charade, this posture of poverty in the face of my records, which prove you are not telling the truth, I will go before the Tenth of November tribunal and personally advise that your ransom be set at twenty-five million instead of only ten."
His mercurial temperament frightened me. Just when I thought that underneath his posture of power there stood a man who could be subtly bent, he turned fierce and threatening. I was not dealing with a pussycat after all. I had to keep reminding myself that everyone I encountered in my captivity was a political zealot. The cause came before everything-even sex. I let my body slump and remained quiet.
Roberto sprang to his feet and the guards stiffened to attention. "You understand that, Christina?" he asked coldly.
I shook my bowed head without looking up.
"You will receive better rations with us," he added in slightly softer tones, "befitting your station in life. But there will be no repetitions of your escape attempt-just as I promise you there will be no further exhibitions of the kind staged by Vincento XXTT-7."
"Thank you," I mumbled. I heard his footsteps echo in the hollow of the cave. I looked up when they stopped suddenly. He had turned around.
"Oh, yes," he said to me, "I have taken it upon myself to have a wig fashioned for you until your own golden hair returns."
"That is nice of you, Roberto." I smiled faintly at him. He seemed embarrassed as he wheeled about and strode into the darkness, his bodyguard at his side. Was I supposed to be happy now, knowing that I would receive better food-and. of all things, a wig? I wept uncontrollably as they led me away, more tenderly than they had treated me on the trip to the cave. Now I was the only one being held. Was anyone trying to locate me or had the world simply written off its premier playgirl? I wondered vaguely what the papers were saying. Were they filled with accounts of my seizure and captivity, or was that story already dull and boring to the jet set who had once numbered me among their most sought after guests? It was too grim to contemplate. I was in every sense emotionally exhausted. I did not even care where I was anymore.
What did it matter? Even in the heart of Rome I would still be a prisoner. The realization brought on a fresh set of tears. It seemed that all I did of late was weep. Before in my life I seemed to do nothing but laugh. Perhaps my laughing days were over. Forever.
CHAPTER FIVE
Either I was getting more adjusted to captivity or conditions had improved enough to make it more tolerable. Under Roberto VII-1O's supervision, I was given considerably better accommodations and more humane treatment. He continued to be erratic in personality, almost friendly at times and then at others sternly aloof and uncompromising. Sometimes I was allowed alcohol and even marijuana when I requested it-at other times these were strictly prohibited. But I learned quickly how to stash away supplies during the good times to help me survive the bad. I was developing what I had heard termed a "prisoner mentality." How sad, I thought, even as I accepted it.
It was often difficult to determine whether certain privileges were extended to me as acts of moderate kindness or as sadistic torment. Particularly the introduction of newspapers and magazines dealing with my kidnapping. Crucial points were often scissored out-censored by Roberto. I was happy to have reading matter of any kind but my feelings were mixed and I was often taunted by the absence of relevant facts. He seemed to take special delight in pointing out the articles that indicated how far off the authorities were in their calculations of my whereabouts. And the pictures of Dario out dancing and nightclubbing merrily with Lisa Rainier were a very special form of torment. I reverted to tears frequently, even in my slightly upgraded emotional state. There was just no way for a woman who had lived as I had to fully adjust to confinement. Knowing that the daughter of one of my lawyers-a girl I had been kind enough to chaperone to Rome-was out cavorting with the incomparable Dario Rizzoli while I rotted away in a Sicilian prison was just about the limit of my tolerance.
Prison was not really the appropriate word for the place where I was now being held. That might have applied to Naples and to some extent to the place in Vicaro, but wherever I was now was a substantial improvement. It might even be called a bungalow for lack of a better term. It consisted of two rooms-thankfully with a bathroom-and I was free to wander about. There was even a small kitchen and the windows were not barred. However, three of Roberto's men hovered about day and night, rifles slung over their shoulders and pistols in their belts. To their credit-or thanks to Roberto's enlightened imprisonment philosophy-they tried their best to be as unobtrusive as possible. I saw them really only when I looked out of the windows onto the barren plains. I could avoid them by staying quiet within the house itself. In a sense, it was almost too good to' last-and of course it did not.
I was in a semi-stupor early in the evening of my third day under Roberto's jurisdiction when I heard a knock at my. door. That in itself was a change for the better. My previous captors had simply pushed their way in without warning whenever they chose to enter. I put down the bottle of wine from which I had been drinking in peasant fashion-without a glass, directly from the bottle.
"Who is it?" I asked in a slurred voice.
"Good evening, Christina," a now familiar voice said. "It is Roberto VII-10. May I come in?"
I was almost amused by his question. May the kidnapper in charge enter the cell of his captive? I wondered what his reaction would be if I said no, but I did not test it.
"Of course," I said lightly, considering the heaviness of my head. "I'm sure you must have a key."
He entered quickly, his alert eyes sizing up the situation in an instant.
"You must not abuse privileges," he reminded me. "It is not only you who could suffer but myself as well if matters got out of control."
"I was depressed," I explained.
"Wine itself is a depressant," he lectured me.
"I've been drinking almost all of my life," I said. "Booze is like mother's milk to me."
"It is insidious. No one controls it in the long run."
"You sound like one of my doctors," I responded.
"I had one year of medical school," he informed me. "I might have become one had the cause not intrigued me more than the medical profession."
"Aren't you sorry now?"
He bristled at the thought. "Never," he snapped. "The doctors of democracy are among the most flagrant capitalists. They dishonor their oath by their greed and selfishness."
I was in no mood for a party dissertation. "I get your point," I said in an effort to drop the subject.
"I knew you would. You are not only beautiful but intelligent as well."
He handed me a box he was carrying. It was crudely wrapped in ordinary brown paper but with a dried flower as decoration. I took it with a silly smile on my face. Roberto seemed slightly embarrassed, but he stood his ground.
"For you," he said, "as promised."
"Thank you," I replied, turning the smile into a more genuine one.
"You must see what is inside before you express thanks," he told me. Always the instructor, I thought to myself.
I tore off the paper easily, uncovering a white box with the inscription "Antonio of Catania" in one comer. It was my first clue to my present whereabouts. I knew little about Sicily, but I did recall from a long ago cruise of the Ionian Sea that Catania was somewhere on the eastern coast-in fact, not far from Siracusa, where I had been held earlier. I was more pleased by that discovery than by the prospect of the gift the box contained.
"Open it," Roberto said impatiently.
I lifted off the cover. There, like an oversized handful of comsilk, lay a lustrously golden wig.
"Oh, thank you, Roberto!" I exclaimed, hugging him with the wig in my hand. It was not exactly chic-in fact, it resembled the hair of some prostitutes I had seen in Rome-but anything would be better than nothing to hide my fuzzy head.
"Try it on," he instructed, a smile beaming on his face.
The hair fell halfway down my back, a pleasing length after having none at all for almost two weeks.
"How does it look?" I modeled for him, turning front, back and profile for his inspection.
"Magnificent!" he proclaimed.
That .was an exaggeration, of course, but I was pleased nevertheless. Strangely, the presentation had a sobering effect on me.
"I wish I had a mirror," T said. "T know you had them removed for fear of a suicide attempt, but I would never do it that way under any circumstances. I can't stand blood, especially my own. And I don't like being cut."
"There are metal mirrors," he informed me. "The .army has used them for a long time."
"May I have one?" I asked.
"Of course. It will be delivered to you tomorrow. In the meantime, you will simply have to accept my appraisal. You look absolutely more beautiful than ever."
"I'm delighted. You've made one of your prisoners happy," I said.
"I brought champagne to celebrate," he informed me, "but I'm not sure you are capable of any more alcohol."
"I'm fine now. The wig has sobered me. Can't you tell the difference?"
He eyed me carefully, suspiciously. "You are such an actress," he hedged, "I'm never sure what your real mood is."
"I swear to you the champagne will do no more than make me giddy." I said. "After all, it is a big occasion. It's not every day a bald-headed woman achieves an instant coiffure."
"You're right," he agreed. "I'll go to the truck and get it."
"Do you have a mirror in the truck?" I asked.
"Smart thinking," he replied. "I'll take it off and bring it to you. Not to keep, but to see yourself now."
He was much more sociable in a one-on-one situation such as ours at the moment than when his men were around. I assumed he felt it necessary to maintain the appearance of strength and self-control at all times before his subordinates. It was the old macho act with which I was familiar even in the world of high society.
Roberto returned with the mirror, which he had removed from his truck just so that I could see myself in my new look. I had not had a really good view of myself since capture, having to settle for reflections in windowpanes for the most part. But with no hair to comb and no makeup to apply, I really hadn't had much use for a mirror. I felt that I looked dreadful regardless of what men told me and I was convinced of it when I saw myself in the clarity of the mirror. I handed it back to him with an expression of disgust.
"I look horrible!" I almost shouted. "Like a witch!"
Roberto laughed. "Why do beautiful women always see themselves as ugly and ugly ones see themselves as beautiful?" he wondered.
"But it's true-I do look terrible!" I insisted.
"You don't like the wig?" he asked in a wounded voice.
"Oh, yes, I do, Roberto," I said emphatically. "It's my face I don't like." I did not tell him what I really thought-that the wig was just short of atrocious, but still better than nothing at all for the time being. The moment my hair was sufficiently long to fashion into even a very short coiffure, I planned to incinerate my new hairpiece so that no other female would be subjected to wearing it. Of course I did not mention that to my benefactor. He might have had me beheaded, wig and all.
"It looks beautiful on you," he assured me. "It took much effort to get it made. Blond hair is at a premium in Sicily."
"Maybe I should have gone black," I said. "It would be a good disguise."
"There is no need for disguise," he disagreed. "No one will find you here. Besides, you were meant to be a blonde. Look at that fair skin. It would be dirtied by black hair."
He had brought the champagne in along with the mirror and began opening it. Just the sight of it brought back memories of many happy days elsewhere.
"Is it true that dark-haired, dark-complexioned men like yourself are more attracted to fair-skinned, blond women than those of their own color?" I asked.
Roberto glanced up, amused by my question. "Why do you ask?"
"Curiosity," I replied.
"There is some truth to it," he said.
"I know that it works in reverse," I responded, watching as he pulled the cork from the bottle. A small cloud of gas puffed from the neck as the bubbles began dancing.
"That is good to hear," he said, looking up at me in a way he had not before.
"I have only metal cups," I told him as he glanced about. "Glass is suicidal, remember?"
"I have brought glasses," he said, pulling two from his fatigue-jacket pocket. "That is why I am the leader here. I think of everything."
"It's like a party," I said buoyantly.
"It is a party," he responded.
He poured until my glass was filled to the brim, then did the same with his own.
"To your gorgeous hair," he toasted.
"To my freedom," I offered in response. His eyes skimmed over the brim of his glass as he drank. But he said nothing about my toast.
"Why do you do this for me?" I questioned him after our second drink.
He looked at me intently. "There is romance even in the hearts of terrorists," he said.
I was afraid of that. But not surprised. Not in the least.
"You must have many women," I flattered him, "being a leader such as you are."
He laughed at the suggestion. "I am involved with nothing but men," he responded. "The Tenth of November organization is entirely male."
"Why?"
He started to answer and then stopped. After a thoughtful pause he began again. "To tell you the truth," he said, "I don't really know. I suppose it is because of the physical requirements of guerrilla activities-the danger as well."
"Women are capable of great endurance. And they hold up in the face of danger as well as most men-in fact, better than many."
"I have only to think of your retaliation against Romeo XVII to verify that." He laughed.
"Do you laugh often?" I was just high enough to dare ask.
"What kind of question is that?"
"Curiosity again," I replied. "You have a pleasing laugh. I just wondered if you used it often."
"I have little to laugh about," he said slowly. "This is a serious business."
"You laugh with me," I pointed out.
"Because I am off duty, enjoying myself," he explained.
"But I am one of your prisoners," I said. "In that sense, you are on duty when you are with me."
He thought it over before replying. "You are not a prisoner in the usual sense," he said. "You are a very special case, in fact. It's not as though you were a political opponent or an opposition terrorist."
"I'm still not free to leave my prison," I pointed out. "That doesn't seem very special to me."
"Perhaps when the heat cools down-when the police slacken in their search for you-I will be able to arrange for us to take a little trip here and there. That is, when I am certain I can trust you not to attempt escape."
"If I gave you my word, I would not," T pledged.
"It is not like me to say, but somehow I believe you. There is integrity in you for one so attractive. Extraordinary, at least in my experience."
"You flatter me, Roberto," I said in a come-hither voice. "If I didn't know of your iron discipline, I might even think you might try to make love to me."
He shifted uneasily in the chair in which he was sitting. "It crossed my mind," he admitted. To relieve his discomfort at the disclosure, he pulled out the newspaper he had stuffed into a rear pocket. He held it out to me.
"I don't feel like reading now," I said. "Tell me what is in it."
"They are convinced you are hidden in Positano." He laughed at their seeming ignorance. "Only because it befits your beauty and style. How illogical they are!"
"Maybe it's a ruse," I suggested, "to throw you off." He shook his head. "They could never find you here-not in a million years," he predicted.
"Forgive me, but I have, to hope you're wrong," I said only half in jest.
"Positano in the summer is filled with beauties and many characters in the Fellini style," he noted. "Maybe it is not such a bad theory at that. Someone like you would be less noticeable there than here in Sicily."
"I think that must be their point," I agreed.
He studied me through half-closed eyes. It was obvious that he was not accustomed to drinking in any quantity.
"There are moments when I hope those in charge of your fortune refuse to pay the ransom," he said in a low voice. My feminine instincts told me he was about to make his move. I took another fast drink and braced myself.
Surprisingly, his opening gambit was disarmingly gentle. He walked over to me silently, took my chin in the palms of his hand, and applied his lips slowly to mine.
"You are a most desirable prize, Christina," he whispered as softly as a voice accustomed to barking commands could be readily lowered.
"You've brought me a long way back with your gift," I purred, stroking the hair that had once adorned the heads of several other girls.
He nuzzled me, the stubble of beard like emery paper on my face. "You must not judge a man by his cohorts," he said hoarsely, attempting. Pm sure, to be throatily sexy. "Nor solely by his political convictions either."
I had to admit it was a different approach. How many dedicated Communist terrorists had asked me for forgiveness in order to gain permission to make love to me?
I sighed deliberately, flaring my nostrils as though all but overcome with passion. "I judge a man only by how he makes love," I whispered.
Roberto, with all his numerals, was temporarily my puppet. I had been mauled and maligned by his confederates, but this time I was determined to be in charge-if only to restore faith in myself and my lifelong ability to manipulate men. His resistance was surprisingly weak, considering the posture of self-control and positiveness he normally projected.
"Tell me," he said with heavy breath, "tell me what you want from me."
"Ravish me with kisses," I implored him, "from my lips all the way down my body." In a single motion, I pulled the loose-fitting shift over my head to reveal my naked body. A trickle of drool ran from the corner of Roberto's trembling mouth as he bent over to accede to my wishes. His hands moved, uncertainly at first, then with increasing authority, to fondle my tits and then my derriere. He really was quite amateurish, I thought to myself-but then, even amateurs learned quickly in the company of a willing female.
Roberto suckled my nipples like a hungry child-so long and so hard that I was forced to push his head downward. He lingered at my navel briefly, licking the coral whorl there as though it were a great delicacy.
"My cunt," I directed huskily, "suck my cunt!"
I could sense the hesitation within him. Without a word, I opened my legs wide, like a pair of scissors, and with a sudden thrust wrapped them tightly around his neck. For a moment it seemed that he might tear them apart like a wishbone as his strong hands dug into my calves.
"Eat me!" I insisted.
His grip relaxed and his hands moved to cup my buttocks. He parted the cheeks and dove into the canal the separation had opened, paddling furiously with his tongue. He had been in similar territory before I knew the moment he navigated himself to my clit and concentrated his efforts there.
"You like pussy, don't you?" I taunted him as he sought to prove his expertise to me. "You like sucking hot cunt, you bastard."
I had come several times already, charging myself up with my own dialogue, but I hadn't realized until that moment how my obscenities stimulated him. Calling him a bastard apparently had triggered his wildest passions.
"You cocksucker!" he shouted, ripping away furiously at his clothes until only his boots remained on him. "I am going to fuck you until you bleed!"
My legs were high in the air, providing maximum entry space as he aimed his large cock at the target of cunt. But whether deliberately or not, he missed the main landing strip and plunged instead into the tautness of my asshole. I cried out in pain from the sharp drilling effect as he forced at least half the length of his prick up my colon.
"I suck the front," he said savagely, "I fuck the back!"
Blood began to trickle from the tight hole. The sight of it disturbed me but inspired him. He pumped ferociously for a few moments more and then came in thick tapioca spurts, which felt almost soothing to my sore anus. I fell limp from the combination of exertion and physical stress-hardly ready for the offering he then dangled before me. Standing over me, his knees bent to lower himself sufficiently to make contact, he shoved his cum-and-blood-stained prick into my face.
"Now you suck me off," he ordered.
"Ugh!" I reacted to the ugly sight.
"Suck!" he repeated.
"Wash it first," I said, my face funneled in disdain.
Stars, comets, bolts of lightning, planets and streaks of flashing white danced suddenly before my eves in a kaleidoscopic display that obliterated everything else in the room. Then came the pain, dull and throbbing, along with the realization that he had struck me-fully, coldly, straight to the head. The wig would hide the r large bump his blow had created. When I looked up at him then, I saw the chill in his eyes and realized that I had not outsmarted him at all-that he had merely allowed me to play my game for his own satisfaction.
"Suck it," he said again, flopping his cock in the palm of his hand directly in front of my mouth. "And if you try anything similar to what you did to Romeo XVII, I will have a hot poker inserted into your cunt."
Still dizzy and confused from the hard punch, I slipped his slimy cock between my lips, letting the saliva run from the comers of my mouth to carry off as much of the blood and cum as possible. When he was ready to come, he pulled out of my mouth abruptly, letting his bullets of cum splatter onto my new wig.
"Now it is baptized," he announced. "Your crown now contains the seeds of Roberto VII-10." The laugh I had complimented him on before sounded sinister to me now. He was no different from the others, not much better than Romeo XVII, I now knew. It was only a difference in style. They were all of a kind-ruthless, single-minded, uncaring. I had to get away. I had to! Otherwise I felt sure I would go insane.
"Please leave me alone now," I begged.
His laugh was mocking. "Is that how one shows gratitude to one's benefactor?" he asked.
"I'm exhausted, Roberto," I said with resignation.
"It is the male who becomes exhausted first," he replied. "A cunt knows no limitations on use."
He felt my head, sliding his hand over it until he located the bump his blow had produced. "A souvenir from Roberto," he said.
I began to weep. "Please go," I repeated.
He stood swaggering over me, the complete opposite of the way he had entered. I did not look up at him.
"This time I will go as you request," he said. "Next time I will stay until I am ready to go."
I was still sobbing as he locked the door behind him.
Just when I had thought that things were getting better, they had turned worse. My head throbbed and my anus was like a raw wound. I had not prayed in a long time, but I prayed now.
For death.
CHAPTER SIX
Weeks went by and I had almost given up hope of ever being Christina van Bell, playgirl of the western world, again. I had become inwardly numb, both physically and mentally. My body seemed at times to be a trampoline on which select guerrillas performed sexual acrobatics. I had even given up trying to discover my whereabouts as I was shuttled, always bound and gagged, from place to place.
It was obvious that some mysterious individual or panel was in charge of my movements. The local leaders I encountered-Roberto VIT-10 and Romeo XVII-were just underlings in a larger conspiracy. I resented their intimations of greater power and authority than they possessed. At any rate, both of them seemed to have been spirited out of my life-at least for the time being.
I had spent more than a week in Positano, though not in the style I would have preferred. And this in spite of Roberto's sneering disdain for the authorities the newspapers said were searching the area for me. Obviously it was a strategic move-to go exactly where was predicted. Probably because it really had been a ruse on the part of the police. They might very well have been closing in on one of the Sicilian hideaways at that time. It was the only way I could account for my abrupt transfer from Roberto VII-1O's command.
In Positano I at least had the encouragement of realizing that my hair had begun to grow with increasing rapidity. I shed the ugly wig in favor of fashioning a very short but nevertheless attractive coiffure for myself. It helped my morale, but not sufficiently to erase the suicidal tendencies I was harboring. Looking from my barred window, high above the almost vertical village, I could see the sparkling azure sea where I had once been so carefree. It filled my heart with longing for the life I had led-the gay abandon of it all. I still wept almost daily. It was so incredibly lonely in confinement. My visitors came only when there was something official to discuss.
At least while I was there I could occupy myself with some activity outside my window. I spent hours watching cats chasing pigeons, butterflies exploring fruit trees, shadows dancing on the walls of the buildings opposite the one in which I was being held. Oddly, with all the romance of a seaside village to encourage it, I was not molested my entire time there. It was a lazy place and my mind seemed to atrophy. I thought if only they would allow me to lie in the sun, I could die slowly, shriveling up on the rooftop, alone except for a warm blue sky as my final coverlet.
The listlessness was like being drugged. For a time I no longer thought of escape. It was impossible anyhow with guards disguised as village workmen hovering everywhere about. Nor did I even inquire about the progress of ransom negotiations. The answer was coldly apparent in the fact that I was still a prisoner.
No newspapers had been offered, to me in Positano. It seemed that no one there, inside or outside, really cared what was happening elsewhere in the world. Donkeys dawdled about with the same attitude as the people I watched. At night I could see the flickering lights of the fishing boats, like stars just above the horizon. I might have enjoyed the calmness of it all from the outside. But from my vantage point, I was little more than a cadaver waiting to be buried.
The brief idyll ended abruptly one night when there were no visible stars. I had become accustomed to the routine: bound, gagged and injected with sodium pentothal. I was on my way again-to where god only knew.
There were trees everywhere about me when I awakened, dense enough to admit only slivers of sunlight. I was in a mountain cabin-a single room with a fireplace. My accommodations seemed to improve with each move. The place was comfortably furnished with plump cushions on wooden couches and a four-poster bed with a quilt at least a foot thick. If this was the Abruzzi region, which T guessed immediately, then the warm comforter would be most appreciated at night. I remembered from a previous visit, under far more enjoyable circumstances, of course, that it got chillingly cold in these mountains at night.
Another chilling thought was that I was now confined to an area that was literally impossible to track: a quarter of a million acres of wild life and woodland sprawling over difficult terrain. Of all my hiding places-Naples, Sicily, Positano-this was easily the most formidable challenge to searchers. They would never find me in these rocky forests-that is, if they were looking for me at all. I had the depressing feeling as the weeks dragged on that hope for my return had been abandoned. And what were my legal trust guardians doing about the ransom demands-sitting on their corporate asses bemoaning the fact that the price on my life had been placed too high to bargain with the terrorists? In this cooler clime I could feel my blood run hot at the thought that they were calmly carving up a beef Wellington at their club, drinking their whiskey neat, casually speculating on the whereabouts and fate of their poor, unfortunate client Christina van Bell.
"I'll fire the whole platoon of them!" I shouted aloud at the thought. It felt good to be angry. It set my body tingling and the blood coursing through my veins again. How long had it been now? Five, six, maybe even seven weeks. It was tantamount to life imprisonment. Why hadn't Dario Rizzoli done something substantial to rescue me? Was he too busy racing in the Grand Prix with his little Sucky. Lisa Rainier?
I let out a scream that echoed through the mountain canyons. It brought a quick response. The door opened and a fur-jacketed guard drew a direct bead on me with his rifle.
"Shut up," he ordered, "or I will shoot!"
"I demand to speak to whoever's in charge of this prison!" I yelled back at him. "I don't give a damn if you shoot or not! Where am T now and how much longer do I have to put up with this rotten treatment?" A second guard had ran un to back up his cohort. "Gag her," he instructed him. "She must learn to be as quiet as the wolves before we take it off."
"Fascists!" I screamed just before the fabric ball went into my mouth. I knew that was the most profane name I could call these Communists. The man who wrapped the kerchief across my face and tied my hands did so with added gruffness because of my name-calling.
"I thought she had been taught respect in Naples," the guard with the gun on me said to the other.
"If not there," came the response, "then at least with Roberto in Sicily."
"Perhaps she should not have been brought so close so soon," the first man speculated.
"To be close to Rome," explained the second. "The ransom talks are there."
So I definitely was in the Abrazzo park system. Parco Nazionale d'Abruzzo was its official Italian name, I recalled. Then we were only a few hours from the heart of Rome. Yet it seemed a million miles away, with wild animals cavorting all about and no sign of any human life beyond that of our small enclave. Two other cabins were visible nearby, which I assumed were the guard quarters and the office of the commander of whatever unit of the movement these men represented. The original planning had apparently been extensive-not for me, but for Dario, Now the zigzag tour was all mine.
The guards left me, bound and gagged, for several hours. When they returned, a man they called Nunzio arrived with them. He was by far the best-looking of the guerrillas I had yet encountered. Tall and clean shaven, he had piercing eyes and the square-cut profile of a movie he-man. I was glad that I now had my own hair, if only partially restored. It would have hurt my pride to have a man such as this Nunzio see me baldheaded.
"Welcome, signorina, to our mountain camp," he said quite charmingly. But I had learned by now that such friendly overtures were usually deceiving. They had all been educated alike-and true warmth had somehow been bred out of them. Yet I liked his smile and liked his face. I might even seduce this one myself, I thought as I studied his features and smiled in response.
"I wish that I could say I am happy to be here," I replied, "but I'm sure you understand why that is impossible."
"There are signs that it may not be long," he said. "The negotiations are improving."
"Thank god. I'd begun to think everybody gave up and just said good-bye to Christina."
"One can see in a glance why that would be impossible," he replied, sizing up my figure as he spoke.
"You're very flattering," I cooed. The two guards with him looked at each other in mock disgust.
"My men tell me they were forced to gag you earlier because of an outburst," he said with abrupt sternness. "That cannot be tolerated here."
I posed a question. "Have you ever been a prisoner with no hope for parole?"
He smiled ruefully. "I have spent much of my life in prisons," he confessed. "It is not easy to be a political activist in Italy."
"I'm frustrated. I'm a woman. I have to scream once in a while. I think it's necessary to keep the lungs functioning."
He laughed. "You have quite beautiful lungs," he said. "There must be something to your theory."
I noticed what I had noticed before in the other places I had been held, i.e., the individual unit commanders had absolute authority and control in their domains. The men under them never questioned a comment or a decision. Only Vincento had dared to defy Roberto-and that was probably because of the distance separating them. It had been a calculated risk on his part and he had lost.
I pushed my tits out farther simply by sucking in my abdomen and expanding my chest. His eyes riveted upon the nipples and I could tell that he was becoming aroused.
"Pay attention to the rules," he said, turning himself off, "and your stay here will be reasonably pleasant. I wouldn't advise any escape attempts either. There are four killer dogs at strategic locations surrounding your cabin. They have not lost a fight with a wolf or a wildcat yet."
"You are threatening me?" I challenged.
"I am warning you," he replied. "There is a difference."
"I would like to request a special favor of you," I said as sweetly as I could. "If you would ask the men to step outside for a moment."
He looked eager to please me. With his hands he waved the two gunmen away, muttering to them in Italian.
"Now tell me what it could be," he urged, leaning forward.
"That I be permitted liquor, even hashish if possible," I said with a sultry voice, "and the pleasure of your company on a cold night."
He tilted forward farther-enough to print his lips on mine. "That is not exactly protocol," he said after a long, wet kiss, "but you are not exactly the usual sort of prisoner. Let me see what I can arrange."
I put my hand on the cluster of his crotch and felt it swell instantly. "Don't be too long," I said. "I get very lonely here by myself."
He drew himself up reluctantly. "There are always the guard dogs," he reminded me.
"But I'm not into bestiality just yet," I kidded back. I surprised even myself with my reborn ability at lighthearted dialogue. There had been so little repartee with the others that I had almost forgotten how to banter with a man. I suppose it was because Nunzio most closely resembled the cosmopolitan types with whom I had dallied so long on the Continent. There were traces of suavity in his manners. I decided he had either been born in or had spent considerable time in Rome or some other large city. His air was sophisticated rather than backwoods as might have been expected in so remote a place.
"You behave," he instructed me with a wave of his finger as he left. "I will return shortly."
"Hurry," I said, feeling all at once-ridiculous as it may sound-as though I were being romanced. By a terrorist. By a kidnapper. By a fugitive from the law. I felt thrilled.
He returned after sundown. His manner was more furtive than it had been earlier. That was understandable when he opened his bulky jacket to reveal three bottles of booze and a cellophane sack that proved to contain four ounces of high-quality Turkish hash. I threw my arms around his neck in instant gratitude.
"You will not have to escape." He laughed. "You will simply float away."
"Nunzio, you're a doll," I enthused, the first time I had used that phrase since being captured.
"We will see," he responded.
I lit up as soon as I could. He declined in favor of pouring himself a shot from one of the bottles. "I can't afford to get-how you say it-stoned?" he explained.
"It's the only wav," I replied, getting a fast boost from the potent weed.
"Vodka is really the only drink of consequence," he said, "although being Italian, I am forced to include wine as well."
"But your movement is not Russian." I said.
He looked grave for a moment, then took another shot of the crystalline liquor. "All Communism in the western world is to some degree Russian," he said without further elaboration.
I was floating, feeling better than I had in weeks. "Are you Nunzio without numerals?" I asked. "Or have I just not been told your full title?"
"Not everyone carries numbers." he explained. "I am known simply as Nunzio of Abruzzi."
"That seems more practical." T said lightly. "You get name and location in one breath."
"It matters little," he said, too seriously to suit me. The conversation was getting off on the wrong tack.
"Are you married, Nunzio?" I inquired.
"Why?"
"Curiosity, that's all, I replied.
"I am married to the Tenth of November League," he said flatly.
"You can't make love to a cause." I responded.
"Not in the same way that T make love to you," he said, a smile returning to his face.
"I'm waiting," I challenged.
With that he stood up and flared his broad shoulders, wrestling off his heavy jacket and loosening his shirt at the neck. I was hot as well as high-my favorite mixture of emotions.
"You are like our Abruzzo chamois-so soft to the touch," he whispered as he gently bit the lobe of my ear.
"I'm also like the mink," I whispered back, "when its passions are aroused."
"Such as now?" His hot breath enveloped my ear.
"Exactly," I said just before his tongue slid into my mouth and interrupted my reply.
The hard press of his cock inside his pants dented my abdomen as we kissed. I pushed myself into it forcefully and he responded by pushing back. As our tongues intertwined, we fell into a slow cadence of copulation. It was what I remembered from my teenage years as "dry fucking." Now, as foreplay, it brought a flow of juices from my libido into the delta of my thighs. I was as ready as I had ever been to be stabbed by a throbbing prick.
"Fuck me," I whispered hoarsely into his ear.
"Take it out for me," he responded, open-mouthed.
My hands sped down his body and followed the contour of his cock to the fly. Buttons! A statue should be erected to the person who invented zippers by all the fornicators of the world! I fumbled about desperately trying to loosen all the buttons that held his eager cock a prisoner. "It quickly found its way through the first opening, virtually strangling itself in its effort to breathe free air. Nunzio added his strong hand to the project, ripping off the remaining buttons as he dug out not only the fullness of his cock but the large sac of balls that came with it. I could not close my fingers around the base of his erection. It was as thick as the trunk of a young tree.
"Fuck me!" I begged him again.
He moved up and down against the drenched lips of my cunt, his cock searching for ,the channel to my interior. I grabbed the pulsating head of it and rammed it into the keyhole. Heaven! "It slid in as though machine-tooled to fit into the sheath of my pussy.
"You are tight," he said in halting breaths. The slap of his balls against the base of my buttocks was like waves against a shore. The slurping suction created by the entry and withdrawal of his stiff prick was like music to my ears. I wrapped my legs around his taut ass and lifted myself upward until our stomachs collided.
"Don't stop," I pleaded, "don't ever stop!"
"I'll fuck you forever," he replied, throwing his whole body into the heaving action.
I swore I could feel the tip of his penis against the farthest wall of my vagina as he drove deeply inside me. I pulled at his head, providing resistance that made him fight me to maintain the torrid pace. Drops of perspiration fell from his body onto mine like passionate rain. With all the variations possible, there was still nothing really equal to the sheer physical pleasure of being soundly fucked by a hot, virile man!
"Tell me when you're coming." he gasped.
I arched my back and all but threw him off me in the heat of my response.
"Now!" I screamed.
His cock fattened even more within me, swelling with semen until it was ready to burst. I came in a shattering climax just as the hot bullets from his cock shot against the slippery walls of my vagina. My body collapsed under the pressure of it all, shuddering as I was struck by one orgasm after the other. Nunzio was groaning with pleasure as he pulled his cum-lacquered cock from its nesting place.
"Lick it off," he instructed as he crawled upward until his crotch was in my face. I took his juicy cock and stuffed it into my mouth all the way to the balls. It was like trying to eat an entire length of sausage in one bite. While my tongue swam about attacking the head, I reached for his testicles and fondled them. I had no desire to sink my teeth into them as I had with Romeo XVII. They felt so ripe and hard, like oversized walnuts in a chamois pouch.
"You like to eat it," he said. It was a statement, not a question. I sped up my sucking to confirm his observation.
."I am going to come again for you," he pledged as though he were making a personal sacrifice. Under other conditions, I would have laughed at his attitude. All men seemed to think they were presenting women a gift when they came in them. Pearls perhaps. Liquified pearls that left nothing but a flaky white residue if allowed to dry on the skin. Still I loved cum. I liked to see it spurt out of the head of a hot cock like a geyser or some other kind of fountain. I liked its sticky, gelatinous quality and the way it could suspend for several feet in a transparent necklace between two bodies or drip from the mouth of its source. Sometimes I even wished that I myself could ejaculate the juices of my libido the way a man does. It was not penis envy. It just seemed that it would be a visual pleasure to watch my orgasms take tangible form. Interior juices were fine, but they merely seeped into my-cunt. I would enjoy seeing them spurt out of me and splatter over a man's cock and balls-or even better, his face.
Nunzio pulled out of my mouth abruptly and fired at my lips with his rampant cock. It spit out another amazing load of pearly cum, some of it even shooting up my nostrils. I took the hot bath with pleasure, wishing once again that I could do the same to a man.
"I've made a shiny icon of your face," he said, spreading cum over my chin and cheeks, forehead and nose, with his long fingers.
"You come like the fountains of Rome," I said softly, my eyes closed under lids frosted with semen.
"I masturbate regularly to stay in condition," he said.
I opened my eyes slightly to see if he was putting me on. The look of contentment on his face was hard to interpret.
"Bullshit," I said.
He laughed at my response. "Why?" he wondered. "An athlete keeps in shape by simulating the real thing. Why not jacking off as a preparation for fucking?"
Now my eyes were fully open. "You wouldn't have so much cum for me if you did that," I said.
"Cum? I manufacture that by the gallons. A few drops here and there is hardly missed."
"Nunzio, you're teasing me," I accused him.
"Never would I tease one so beautiful, so hot, so desirable. It only takes a few hours to rebuild a full supply of cum. I could have beaten my friend, my cock, into lifelessness this morning and still have replenished all the supplies for you tonight."
I propped myself up on my elbows and looked at him over the peaks of my tits. "I've been with a few men in my life," I said, "and they all have told me they can fuck repeatedly, especially after brief rests, but as the day wears on, their orgasms will not produce as much actual cum as earlier."
"Is that a scientific survey?" he asked with the faint hint of a smirk.
"That is a Christina van Bell personally conducted poll," I threw back at him.
"Oh, well, then it must be accepted as fact," he responded.
"I could write a manual on sex," I claimed.
"With illustrations, I hope."
"Naturally."
He took his large cock in his hand and began stroking it. I watched the tendons of his forearms grow taut and the muscles of his biceps ripple as he played with himself.
"Let me see you masturbate," he said.
"Why?"
"Because I like it."
It sounded logical. I liked to watch men jerk themselves off, so it was entirely plausible that a man would enjoy seeing a woman do the same to herself. Yet I couldn't recall ever having performed upon myself to a specific request.
"Like this?" I asked, my right middle finger making tiny circles on the tip of my clitoris.
"Yes," he said, his eyes gleaming with fascination. "But spread the lips with your other hand. I like to see the pink meat inside."
I did as he asked, spreading the damp, hairless flesh of my inner cunt as wide as my hand breadth permitted. He bent down to observe it more closely, pulling furiously on the loose flesh of his cock below the head.
"Do you do that when you are alone?" he asked.
"Are you compiling a report?" I retorted.
"I'm serious," he snapped.
"Of course I do. Passion always requires an immediate response. If no one is around, it's up to the individual to provide the reaction."
"Good," he said, bending himself back like a bow about to release an arrow.
"You're going to come," I observed. The words were out of my mouth only a split second before the hot, milky rain showered over me. I leaned back and brought myself to a quick climax almost before the rain had stopped.
"Three times in an hour," I said to him. "You're a superman."
"I forget sometimes how much I like it," he confessed. "The Party wishes us to apply our sexual energies to working for the cause. But there is really no comparison."
"Is that a form of heresy?" I wondered.
"Maybe. But right now I don't care. Fucking you is more important."
I was pleased by his statement. A flicker of hope ignited inside me once again. It was what one of my past lovers had so aptly dubbed "the power of the cunt." Maybe, just maybe, I could influence this handsome guerrilla to release me.
After he left only shortly before dawn rinsed away the mountain darkness, I sat with the wine he had brought me and contemplated the possibilities. Suppose I offered him-him personally and not the Tenth of November League-a million dollars to get me safely out of Italy? There weren't many men I knew who would not be tempted by such an opportunity. And that would save my estate, my trusts, nine million dollars. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded to me. Nunzio was too dashing, too sophisticated, to remain in collusion with the hoodlum element with which he was associated. With a million dollars, he could become a successful businessman somewhere.
I drifted to sleep with visions of freedom dancing on the mental screen of my mind. It was my best sleep in what seemed like ages. I had been thoroughly and satisfactorily fucked-and then I had come up with the master plan that I was certain would gain me my freedom very soon. No wonder my dreams were so pleasant, going all the way back to my first sexual seduction at the age of nine. I woke up in late morning to the sound of insistent tapping on my door. Slowly, sleepily, I rubbed my eyes and struggled to my feet. From the window I saw that it was one of the guards with my noon meal.
"Too late for breakfast," he said, "so early for lunch."
"Brunch," I mumbled. He looked at me cryptically. "That is what it's called in America," I explained, "when you combine the two meals."
He nodded blankly and closed the door, locking it from the outside.
The meal was decent, consisting of lake trout and scamorza, a cow's milk cheese I had tasted once before when I had visited the region as a free person. There was also a large glass of Centerbe, which in Italian means a hundred herbs. I knew it was a hundred and fifty proof liqueur with a brutal taste, so I bypassed it in favor of wine. Food was secondary to me now. My mind raced with thoughts of freedom-to be gained, hopefully, under the sponsorship of Nunzio of Abruzzi.
With such a scheme playing at my patience, the afternoon seemed longer than usual. I felt certain Nunzio had enjoyed himself sufficiently the night before to ensure a repeat visit the following night. But dusk came, and then darkness, with no sign of him. I had all but given up hope when I heard the key being inserted. Only he would enter without knocking. My Abruzzi confinement was more respectful of my privacy than the previous prisons had been.
"Nunzio?" I called out softly.
"Yes," he confirmed.
"I thought you might be mad at me."
"Why would you think that? Particularly after last night."
He emerged from the shadows into the flickering light of an oil lamp.
"You look tired," I noted.
"I was summoned to Rome," he said. "It is a long trip back and forth in one day."
"I'd make it gladly-only just one way," I said as blithely as I could manage.
"It is a terrible city. Too crowded. I prefer the mountains."
My heart sank just a fraction at that. A man who preferred nature to the city might not be so readily tempted by money as another.
"They are too dead for someone as handsome as you," I told him.
He smiled faintly. "I said nothing about the girls in Rome. They are lovely."
"Reason enough to take the crowding," I responded, perhaps a little too eagerly.
He looked up at me from the chair in which he had slumped. "I have bad news for you," he said with hesitation.
I reached out and steadied myself on the table. I had been drinking all day but until now it had seemed to have no effect upon me.
"What is it?" I asked, a note of grimness entering my voice.
"They intend to move you again," he said. "Interpol has sent some kidnap specialists to aid the local police in the Rome area."
"Oh, Nunzio," I fell upon him, "I can't stand being a prisoner anymore. I've committed no crimes. Why should I be made to suffer like this?"
His arms moved across my back to comfort me. "I want you to know that I was in on the plan only to kidnap Rizzoli," he said quietly. "I would not have approved taking a woman for such purposes."
"Then you've got to help me," I said desperately. "I've thought about it all day. You're not made for this kind of life, Nunzio. You're too far above the others in your movement. You have looks and style and I think you also have heart."
He looked about furtively as though fearful of being watched or overheard. "Don't talk like that," he cautioned me. "I'll make certain that you're not mistreated wherever you're taken next."
I bolted upright, freeing myself from his grasp. "But I don't want to be anywhere but free of restraint-whether it's Rome or London or Paris or New York. I don't want to be a prisoner anymore, don't you understand?"
"Of course I understand," he said softly. "But that's not possible until the ransom is paid. They have refused that sum so far."
"I'll fire them all when I'm freed!" I swore.
"It's not a small amount by any means," he said. "Maybe they need time to get it. Maybe they don't have it."
I could not afford to reveal that it could be covered easily from my trust accounts. Any revelation of my real assets might lead to an increase in the demand.
"My life is at stake," I replied.
"And it is a precious one," he said with sincerity. "Nunzio, you've got to listen to me." I launched into my proposal. "You could help me escape...."
He shook his head slowly, regretfully. "Forget about that," he said.
"Let me finish," I begged. "I can get you-I promise you-a million dollars in cash if you get me out of Italy safely. I'll have it for you within a day anywhere you say."
He laughed softly. "You are a temptress in more ways than one," he said.
"I'll do anything for you," I continued. "You can have me wherever and whenever you like. No one will ever know anything. No one will know your identity or how I managed to escape. The money will be in cash-untraceable cash. Oh, please, Nunzio, please?"
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair with me still sitting atop him. His tired face looked even more worn after receiving my proposition. Abruptly he pushed me off and got to his feet.
"They'll be coming for you during the night," he said coldly, every ounce of warmth seemingly drained from his body.
I threw myself at him and raked into his clothes with my lingers. "A million dollars!" I almost screamed. "You've got to take it! You've got to help me!"
He grabbed me by the wrists and threw me away. I collapsed limply on my bed, sobbing out my distress, the bitter disappointment almost painful in its impact.
"I would not last a day if I followed your plan," he informed me. "The movement has a highly efficient way of dealing with traitors."
"And I thought you loved me." I wept.
"You are just another woman," he said as the door opened to his touch. "An unusually attractive one, yes, but still, just another woman."
"Another hole to stick your rotten cock into, is that it?" I shouted through my tears. He did not reply. The door closed and then locked behind him.
The dream had died almost as quickly as it had been born. I was beginning to hate all men. As anyone who knew me would know, that was a drastic change in the psyche of Christina van Bell.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Green army fatigues and combat boots! I looked at my reflection in the windowpane and thought back to the days when I would not even be alone in anything less than a St. Laurent or Givenchy outfit. For months now I had been hiding the figure of which I had always been so proud under baggy pants, loose cotton shifts, oversized blouses and an assortment of castoff clothing. But my latest raiment was the most asexual yet. Not one of my curves could find a stretch of fabric snug enough to outline it. My captors had finally neutralized me completely.
So what if I resembled a military Charlie Chaplin? I was so thoroughly disillusioned after my failure to strike a deal with Nunzio of Abruzzi that I no longer cared where I was or how I looked. That, I swore, would be my last all-out condescension to a male libido as long as I remained a prisoner. They could rape me if they wanted, but never again would I give one iota of honest erotic emotion to any of them. I intended to be the absolute ultimate in what I had heard men refer to as a dead lay.
I had been in the Abruzzi region the least amount of time of any of my captive locations. I couldn't determine whether it was the changes in climate or just my general idleness, but my hair had come back more rapidly with each passing day and now it was almost shoulder length again. It still had a long way to go to reach the upper range of my derriere, which is where it was before, but at least I felt comfortable once again with my coiffure. And down below the growth was luxuriant! I had never had such a full, rich crop of pussy hair in my life. I ran my lingers through it time and again, pleased by the thickness and quality of it. But these were small consolations in a grim existence. Once again there were no newspapers, no indications of any kind of how negotiations for my body were proceeding. I tried to remember that time passed so much more quickly in the busy world beyond me. The lawyers probably did not understand how desperate I was-how much I longed for them to sell off everything if necessary just to breathe one breath of free air again.
Wherever I was, I had been brought by the conventional Tenth of November method, viz., bound and gagged, then drugged into unconsciousness with sodium pentothal. I had been anesthetized so often I felt I had completed most of the preliminary requirements for death.
Nunzio, that cowardly sonofabitch, I thought to myself. Or was he merely another political fanatic? Any man who would not help a woman gain her freedom, especially with a million-dollar bonus attached, was not my kind of male-no matter how good-looking he was. I was beginning to doubt my old abilities as a temptress after my failure in the Abruzzi. I had gone all out for him, giving him the best my body had to offer. The whole business left a sour taste in my mouth as I reflected upon it.
All right, Christina, I said to myself-I had become all too accustomed to talking aloud to myself during my long, lonely captivity-let's try to figure out where we're at this time. I was back in a single room-a cell, to be more accurate, but with windows this time and some sort of mesh wire outside to thwart escape. The view was becoming familiar. It was a rather empty scene because, as I learned later, I was facing the wrong way. From another angle I would have been able to watch the volcanic Mount Etna. That meant I was back in Sicily-a depressing realization when I remembered that one of my captors had told me that no kidnap victims had ever been freed on the island. Or even found, for that matter.
My guard was dressed much the same as I. It took me two days to realize it was a woman!
"I was beginning to think there were no women in the movement at all," I told her after she finally decided it was safe to talk to me. Her hair was knotted into a bun, which was why I could not see it under her fatigue cap. She was a strong-featured woman-the kind of hearty stock I had seen in many backward countries still hand-plowing in the fields. There was no way to determine what kind of figure she had in the curve-destroying looseness of the outfit she wore. A gun belt rode rather high across her midriff, indicating there were some positive hips, supporting it underneath.
"There are not many," she admitted somewhat hesitantly. "This platoon in Taormina is the only all female one in Italy."
"I'm in Taormina?" I asked in surprise. "But where are the beaches?"
She drew back, apparently concerned that she had revealed something I had not known-and more importantly, perhaps, was not supposed to know.
"You cannot see them from here," she said, cutting off the brief conversation.
I longed to talk more to her. I had been to Taormina with an Italian count several years before-under much more romantic circumstances, of course. It was a lively resort high up in the mountains. Apparently I was ' aimed toward the back wall, which was probably appropriate for a woman in Sicily. I had noticed back then that Sicilian housewives when they sat outside always faced the walls of their homes. Only the men were allowed to stare out on the roadways and admire a passing wench. That was why I was all the more curious about my new guards. How did females get guns and power in this macho society?
The answer came in the person of the unit commander, Rosa Mercuri. She swept into my small quarters like a reigning queen. Her buxomness even overcame the figure-diminishing fatigues. With a bust like that, she reminded me of an opera diva-all tits and throat. But her voice was too strident to be artistic. Except for the empty coldness of her eyes, she was not really a bad-looking woman. A little makeup and the right coiffure and she might have been reasonably attractive.
"Sophia has confessed to informing you of your whereabouts," she said curtly after a routine inspection of my room to make sure I didn't harbor any smuggled weapons.
"I guessed it," I lied.
"Impossible," she snapped back. "But that's of no consequence. We run a very tight operation here."
"I've been to Taormina before," I informed her.
"Not this part," she replied immediately. "I would have remembered you if you had."
"I mean as a tourist," I explained.
Her response was a chill laugh. "This is not the best hotel in town," she said with calculated cynicism.
"Are the ransom talks progressing?" I asked, not knowing what to say or discuss with this briskly efficient woman.
"That's a matter for Rome," she replied. "I am merely holding you-not conducting negotiations."
"It's been months," I told her, not certain myself of time.
"I have your records," she said.
The thought of being so close to the gay life in the hotels and on the beaches made confinement all the more depressing to me.
"How long will I be here?" I asked halfheartedly.
"Hours, days, weeks ... she said matter-of-factly. "Who knows?"
"Might I be taken to the beach sometime?" I inquired naively.
Her laugh was almost masculine in its depth and strength. "Girl, you're a prisoner here, not a guest," she said.
"I haven't been outside for more than a few minutes in many weeks," I reported.
She ignored my comment. "Let me see how your hair is coming," she said, reaching for it. "Good. Then Romeo was right in his report claiming he had not done anything seriously wrong to you."
"He raped me," I said angrily.
Rosa Mercuri struck me with the back of her hand. "Shut up!" she ordered. "There is no such thing when . you are a captive. Your body belongs to the Tenth of November League to do with as it pleases."
"No!" I shouted defiantly back at her. "I am Christina van Bell and I have committed no crime!"
The next blow was with a fully clenched fist that sent me to my knees. I wept into the palms of my hands.
"No wine for three days," she declared. "And you will take your physical examination tomorrow before the entire platoon."
When she was gone I took the water pitcher and flung it full force against the window. The pane shattered, raining glass splinters all over the room. Rosa Mercuri was back in an instant with two square-faced women who seemed eager to dismember me.
"Clear up that glass before this bitch tries to slash her wrists!" she instructed. I cowered in a corner awaiting her physical reaction. "To make certain there are no more outbursts such as this, I will stand guard over her personally in my quarters tonight."
I imagined that she probably inhabited a torture chamber, complete with bone-stretching racks and beds of nails. The two women accompanying her cleared up the damages hurriedly, then grabbed me gruffly by the arms.
"You won't enjoy the company of Rosa Mercuri," they threatened under their breaths. "She will ravage you worse than any man."
I understood all too well that I was in the clutches of a band of lesbian Communists. It was the only reason they had been able to survive the rigors of guerrilla warfare and gain acceptance from the men in the organization. Apparently they had been isolated into a single unit for both control and compatibility purposes. It-was of no consolation to me to arrive at those conclusions. I did them as mental exercises to keep from going insane.
Rosa's quarters were anything but lavish. Spartan would be more like it. The emphasis throughout the organization, as far as I had observed, was on minimal material goods. I had to keep reminding myself that it was a cause, right or wrong, and not just a criminal bandit operation.
"Take off your clothes," Rosa Mercuri ordered as soon as she had dismissed her bodyguards.
"Why?" I dared to ask.
She looked menacingly at me. "Because I told you to," she said emphatically.
"And if I don't?" my natural impudence forced me to say.
She reacted instantly, tackling me to the floor and twisting one of my arms behind my back. By varying the leverage, she could bring me to my knees in pain. I had no choice but to follow her instructions.
"Get on the table," she motioned. The room we were in was centered by a large wooden table made from heavy planks and the trunks of trees. I crawled reluctantly onto it.
"Lie down," she said sharply, twisting my arm when I hesitated a brief moment.
"Ouch!" I objected. "That hurts!"
"Do as I say and you won't get hurt," she reminded me.
I stretched out on the rough surface of the table, imagining tiny splinters stabbing me all over my back.
"Arms over your head," she ordered, "legs spread wide apart." I spread-eagled my body to its limits. In quick succession she fastened both ankles and both wrists to the table legs with leather straps that must have been there all along. This was no ordinary dining or work table, I thought with foreboding.
"You have the body of Venus," she said, bending over my face, a strange leer on her own features. "The hair in the crotch has done even better than that on your head."
She reached down and toyed with it momentarily, sending shivers up my spine.
"What are you going to do to me?" I asked fearfully.
"Bring you joy," she said in a voice thick with lust. "The way only one woman can bring it to another."
I watched as she mounted the bench and then threw off her loose garments. Her tits looked like twin replicas of nearby Mount Etna as she towered over me. Slowly, carefully, she crawled over me, centering herself and then lowering herself upon me.
"I make love to my pet captives," she said in her husky voice. With both hands she focused one of her mammoth breasts onto the nipple of mine. Her own nipples were large enough to make ten of mine, but still she insisted on matching them. "There is a flow of milk through them," she said, "from one to another."
Being tied down made any physical reaction on my part virtually impossible. I simply lay still, my breath creating the only movement in my body.
"I kiss you, my love," she said, her heavy lips descending upon mine. She moved her body in the manner of a man having intercourse with a woman, but with no replacement for the penis except the lips of her labia. I decided to remain as passive as possible for fear of arousing more primitive instincts in her. What a tongue, I thought, as it penetrated the upper regions of my larynx. If she could only apply it to my lower mouth-my cunt, to be exact-I might even be able to relax enough to achieve a minor climax.
I must have transmitted my thoughts to her through the spit. She pulled away from my lips with an audible suction snap and awkwardly started down my body, stopping first at my nipples. These she drew in and out almost savagely, pulling them to their outer limit inside her mouth and then releasing them until they were as hard as granite. If I didn't move, the leather straps did not bother me too much. But when I attempted to writhe, I felt the pressure redden my skin and threaten to lacerate it.
"Your tongue," I decided to encourage her, "is like a snake. Let it loose in my cunt."
She was at my navel as I said it. My words made her dive immediately downward, face first into the depth of my pussy. At least no harm could come to me while she was occupied there-unless she decided to vindicate Romeo by doing something similar to me. That fear was quickly erased by the intensity of her sucking. She licked at me hungrily, like a thirsty animal at a newly discovered oasis.
"You're so good," I said breathlessly. "You're the best." They were accolades I had heard for myself and now I used them to benefit myself. Apparently they inspired the buxom Rosa. Her tongue seemed to penetrate and wind beyond my vagina all the way into my anus. Despite the bonds, I managed to raise myself so that I could submit my cunt to her as a challenge rather than as a lifeless target. I hadn't planned to allow myself to be aroused, but once the process began, once she managed to massage my clit sufficiently with her tongue, I was a Willing victim.
"I'm coming!" I announced dramatically. She flung her tongue at my cunt as though her life depended upon it. In an oblique glance I saw that she was fingering herself mercilessly while she sucked. Ail of it combined to make me climax-almost against my will. The counter play of emotions seemed only to heighten the reaction. I exploded within myself like a time capsule-a pop here and a pop there, then fireworks all over. It was terrible, I thought, to be so hot that anyone even someone of borderline acceptability-could force a come.
She emerged from the depths of me like a diver. Her face was silvered with my cum, her hair was curly and damp from the fever of her effort.
"Your pussy is sweet," she said with bated breath.
"You suck like a shark," I replied. After I said it, I wondered if sharks sucked at all.
"The trouble with you," she retorted, sprawled on her back and gasping, "is you're spoiled as hell. You've never learned that life isn't easy."
I struggled against my bonds. "Don't you think I've been tied up enough?" I asked.
Her smile was so crooked it might easily have been mistaken for a grimace. "You should be drawn and quartered, bottled and pickled," she said, "like sweet relish."
"Please untie me," I pleaded.
"When you have been punished sufficiently," she said.
I tried desperately to narrow myself, to shrink my bones so that I could slip the leather straps. But, of course, I succeeded only in hurting myself further.
"Rosa," I said in my lowest voice, "I don't deserve this. I'm not a slave. I shouldn't even be a prisoner. Why are you doing this to me?"
She struggled to her feet and put her face less than an inch above mine.
"You are shit, beautiful lady," she said. "I am in charge here. I shit on the likes of you."
"I've done nothing against you or the Tenth of November League," I pleaded again. "Why must I be punished?"
She picked herself up slowly, her huge tits giving centrifugal force to her rise. "You are too beautiful to be allowed freedom," she said. "You belong in captivity, like rare animals in a zoo-like priceless paintings in a museum. You must be appreciated by those who have an appreciation for art."
"That is a beautiful tribute," I said in an agonized voice, "but meanwhile you have me tied down to a table with no opportunity to express myself."
She seemed not to be listening. Her enormous tits jiggled as she paced about me like an animal figuring its next point of attack.
"I want to fuck you, Christina," she said with raw timbre in her voice. "I don't have a cock but I have a duplicate of one. I want you to love it."
I watched in semi horror as she dug into a deep drawer and pulled out a belt with a buckle behind her. I had been fucked, sucked, reamed and creamed, but until now not by a woman pretending to have a penis.
"Fuck me," I said for lack of anything else to say.
She looped the belt about her bulging buttocks with a fervor that was frightening it itself. I noticed the apparatus had an upward piece that penetrated her own pussy. Whatever effect the instrument would have on me, it would have on her as well.
"I love your pussy," she said as she organized herself upon me.
"I love yours, too," I lied.
She forced the plastic deeply into me. Dildos seemed always to be made to fantasy proportions. Reality was six, seven or eight inches, but dildo measure ran close to a foot. I could feel the harness so deeply it was almost painful.
"I could hump you for a week without stopping," she said in a breathless voice.
"I wish you would," I lied again.
She moaned and groaned as she penetrated me-worse than any man I could recall. Women when they are hot make men seem like icebergs, I reminded myself again.
"Tell me you love it," she gasped.
"Why?" I challenged her.
"Tell me you love it," she repeated. Her voice had that desperate quality preceding climax.
"I love it," I said.
She collapsed upon me, false cock and all, her huge tits escaping to either side. I could feel the climaxes wracking her body. I felt like a wooden bridge with a convoy of trucks passing over it as her entire physique gave itself to her passion. I felt that I had given my all to satisfy her, but in a few moments I realized that enough was never enough.
"What are you made of?" she asked when she had recovered from the fury of her orgasms.
"Poetically?" I asked. "A few bones, a hank of hair...."
"Stop the shit," she said.
"But I don't understand," I confessed.
"None of your kind do," she replied contemptuously. "But I do."
Without a further word, she put a large pillow under the small of my back. It made my body into an arch with only my head and toes still touching the table. She disappeared for a few moments, returning with a collection of strange objects in her hands.
"What else are you going to do to me?" I asked in a voice strained with potential for tears.
"Relax," she said calmly. "You will like it."
I heard water running. My body trembled with fear. What was this strange, over busted woman planning to do to me next?
The insertion was smooth and easy-almost sweet and gentle. I actually relaxed in anticipation as the stream of warm water rolled up my colon.
"Shit good, baby," I thought I heard her say. With one of her hands applying pressure to my abdomen, she bent over to watch what was happening with the smooth plastic device she had shoved up my rear.
"I'm going to piss!" I warned her just as a powerful stream of urine poured from my cunt. It actually achieved an arc, like the release from a man's cock-that's how forceful it was. But then came the frustrating desire to complete the whole body-cleansing routine.
"Do you have a bedpan?" I gasped as the feeling, the need, in fact, to defecate grew stronger.
"Just let it go," she ordered in a reedy voice, her face practically buried in the crack of my buttocks.
The warm water oozed up my ass and trickled down my legs. I had never felt more like a bowel movement in my life.
"I can't help myself," I pleaded. "I'm going to--"
"Shit!" she shouted.
It erupted from within me like lava from a volcano, a creamy brown mixture that resembled the frosting for a chocolate cake. Except for the unusual and disconcerting posturing, I felt marvelously relieved as it continued flowing from me. After I had depleted myself of my entire supply of feces, I became aware of a further sensation. Rosa, already urine-soaked by choice, was busily, hungrily, licking the excrement off my cheeks! At the same time her hands busied themselves applying the tobacco-colored mess to her torso with particular attention to her tits. She continued for many minutes, maybe as long as half an hour, slurping and groaning with pleasure-a glutton at a rare feast. I was revolted by it all but I kept those feelings to myself. It was trouble enough coping with the boss lesbian without alienating her with comments on her perversions.
"You came beautifully," she said finally, her face smeared with excrement. "One of the better enema subjects I've had lately."
"I feel like a bath," I said, hoping that would not offend her.
"Of course," she said with unexpected sweetness. "That will be my pleasure." But first she bent over to lick a bit more of the brown paste from my body.
Rosa gave me a thorough, sponge bath without untying me. The pail of warm water she used was changed several times during the course of the cleansing. In fact she was as meticulous in her cleanliness during the bathing as she had been filthy in wallowing in my eliminations a short time before.
"Purity of mind and body," she quoted as she gently washed my tits. "That is the fundamental principle of the Tenth of November League."
The hypocrisy of it was glaring. But like an atheist in church, I kept my feelings to myself. What would I have done during this entire stretch of captivity from Naples onward-without my body as a bartering device? Sex had actually saved my life, I was inclined to believe.
"You have a gorgeous cunt," Rosa observed, studying it in detail as she washed the anal track leading to it.
"Why don't you suck it?" I proposed.
"You must have read my mind," she replied. "But first I must finish with your bath."
Cunnilingus was easily the most acceptable form of assault as far as I was concerned. No tongue was truly dangerous-except perhaps when used in speech. But being licked off, whether by man, woman or beast, presented no real threat to my body. I could actually relax in the process and still satisfy my attacker.
Rosa did not speed up her sponging to take advantage of my offer. She knew that I could not escape, even that I could not deny her anything she chose to, take from me or do to me. Still, I could tell that she was pleased that I had requested the act. It added a sense of mutual participation to it, which in turn enhanced her pleasure. That I understood as a woman who has had her share of sexual experiences, both good and bad.
"I have not shown you the inner beauty of my own cunt," she said after squeezing out the last spongeful of water. For some reason she had worn a wide leather skirt or belt or whatever it was throughout the session thus far. It hung below her waist just sufficiently enough to obscure her pussy. I was not in any great need to see it, much less be faced with it, but she insisted that I watch as she removed the leather piece from her body.
Her cunt was exceptionally bushy, the triangle of pubic hair reaching halfway up her abdomen. "Like the Black Forest of Germany." She laughed as she dug into it to force the lips outward. They were thick and scarlet, like the mouth of a carnivorous beast-a man-eater, I decided.
"Like it?" she inquired, her eyes gleaming.
I had no options. "Yes," I said.
"After I have sucked you," she proposed just as I had feared, "you will do the same for me."
There was no need to reply. Her wish was tantamount to a command. I watched as she perfumed herself after wiping the last traces of my excrement from her skin. It was an odd paradox. First she was filthy with feces, now she insisted on being fresh and fragment as a flower.
"May I have a drink?" I felt I had a right to request one.
"We both will have a drink," she replied.
She emerged from her kitchen with a musty bottle with no label. "Some of the best brandy from the monastery," she said as she poured half a tumbler for me and the same for herself.
I sniffed it as she passed it under my nose. "It smells delicious," I said.
"I will untie one of your hands while we drink," she said, "but only for that time."
"But why, Rosa?" I pleaded. "Why must I stay tied up? I promise I won't try to escape."
"You are my prisoner," she responded sternly, "and as such you are my slave. Don't question me!"
"Yes, ma'am," I mumbled. "I mean, 'Yes, signorina.' " My wrist felt strangely light and disconnected when released from the leather bond. I thought if I waved it too hard my hand would fly off.
"To your lovely pussy," she toasted.
"To yours," I said and took a hard swallow.
The brandy must have been two hundred proof the way it took effect upon me. I was drunk after the first glass-and eager for the second. After that I didn't care whether I was tied down or not. I was floating in spite of it.
Rosa had begun pouring drops of the liquor on the lips of my pussy long before I had finished the second serving. She licked it off avidly, her tongue more pointed and delicate in Its pursuit of me than it had been earlier in lapping up my waste. With the hand she had released temporarily, I weighed one of her mammoth tits in my palm. It was the size of a large melon or pumpkin and must have weighed as much. It was a wonder she could walk around without toppling over, I laughed to myself. I was high and for a brief spell I did not feel so hopelessly imprisoned. To amuse myself further, I began writhing and groaning as though her sucking were transporting me into unbelievable ecstasy. Her tongue picked up tempo with each movement and moan, probing deeper and deeper into my cunt before returning to the surface to concentrate on the trigger of clitoris.
"Eat me!" I cried in a hoarse whisper. The brandy was taking away my voice with its potency.
She ate everything from my thighs to my asshole, salivating like a mad dog all the while. I knew I would be able to come with her. The expertise with pussy was undeniable, I believe she could force a climax from a woman awaiting hanging on the gallows only moments before the execution-that was how adeptly her tongue performed.
"Motherfucker!" I screamed when the avalanche struck. It was not a phrase common to my vocabulary, but I was desperate for the dirtiest, raunchiest obscenity I could spontaneously utter to enhance the mood of my involvement with this bitch. She almost tore away my thighs as I went spasmodic with multiple climaxes.
In the midst of this torrent of pleasure, she abruptly pulled her face from my cunt. I did not look at her-my eyes were sealed in an effort to contain the orgasms within me for as long as possible. That was the reason I was unaware of the whip in her hand. It cut across my abdomen with a searing pain that pulled my body taut against its bonds. She struck again and again as I shrieked in shock and pain.
"You filthy, rotten bitch!" she screamed at me. "I should cut the cunt from your body!"
Blood trickled from the thin stripes made by the whip. I sobbed in agony, stung by the sudden catapult from ecstasy to pain.
"Stop it!" I shouted with all the strength in my lungs.
"Whore! Cocksucker! Fucker of worthless males!" she ranted, striking me with each new accusation. Pain was universal by then. The new blows did little to add to the overall sensation.
"You're mad!" I accused her. "You're a sadistic monster!"
Her hair hung in her eyes and she danced about me like a savage in a voodoo ritual. Now and then she paused to lick at the blood of my wounds. The woman was a vampire! I swung at her with my free hand and she grabbed me by the wrist, twisting it until I blacked out.
When I awakened, I was untied and dressed. My wrist throbbed but my body seemed medicated. There was a wintergreen-like fragrance emerging from under my clothes. I lifted my jacket and noted that my wounds had been dressed and bandaged. There was no sign of Rosa and the table was empty, reeking of disinfectant. Glancing underneath, I saw that the leather straps that had held me were gone. Except for the evidence of my body, there was no sign that anything unusual had gone on in the room.
Still wobbly from the ordeal, I got up and searched for the bottle of brandy. It, too, was gone. I tried the doors, but all were locked. The spartanness of the quarters left me little to investigate as I awaited whatever lay in store for me next.
"Oh, Christina," I wept to myself, "God is punishing you for your past." But then I thought, what of them with their religious statues and icons, their prayer books and Bibles all about? Why aren't they being punished? My guilt dissolved and self-pity replaced it.
The two bodyguards who had brought me to the commandant's quarters reappeared, as silent and stoic as ever.
"That woman is insane," I told them. "She raped me and beat me...."
They stared straight ahead, their faces emotionless, as they escorted me out."
"She even shit on me," I cried, trying to evoke a response, "she ate my shit, she drank my urine...."
Nothing fazed them. I was led back to my room where the broken window had been replaced with hard metallic shutters. The door slammed behind me without a word. I was exhausted.
Nightmares more fiendish than my experiences haunted my restless sleep. It was dawn before it seemed that I had slept at all. The woman who brought me breakfast reminded me of a new ordeal I faced. "Today is your physical examination," she said without elaboration.
I vomited my breakfast. Then came the long wait. From our height, I could not even hear the reassuring sound of the sea. If only Mount Etna would erupt, I thought, and burn alive everybody in Taormina. Even me.
When they came for me finally, I was virtually catatonic. I made them support me like an invalid, refusing to move my legs or lighten their load in any way. They dragged me into what I gathered was their mess hall and sat me at a table that was the twin of the one in Rosa Mercuri's quarters.
"Don't move," I was told.
I glanced under the table and saw the fittings for straps. The sight chilled my blood. Even Romeo XVII had not resorted to such devices.
The members of Rosa Mercuri's lesbian platoon filed in slowly. They were an odd assortment of female rejects, none of them particularly pretty or even particularly feminine. I counted them as they entered-fourteen in all. That was excluding Rosa, who had not yet made her entrance. When she did, the women all jumped to their feet and stood at attention. All but me. I simply sat where I had been deposited, my body limp as wet linguini.
"Good afternoon, Signorina van Bell," she said as though we were meeting for the first time.
I did not look up or answer.
"Place her on the examination table," she directed in a harsher voice than she had used for her greeting.
I did not cooperate, remaining as deadweight as I could. Even at my light poundage, it took four of the woman to lift me up and stretch my body out on the wooden surface.
"No need for straps," I heard one of the voices say. Well, at least that was a relief! But it was followed almost immediately by the explanation. A pinprick in my buttock and I was out of it-anesthetized in the same way I had been for my shiftings in locale. The whole examination ritual and procedure was a blank to me. But I had reason to suspect many things. They had ravished my body while I was under sedation. That I knew for sure. My nipples were sore from having been excessively sucked and manipulated-and my pussy was almost raw from the siege it had undergone. If my calculations were right, every woman in that room had performed some orgiastic rite on my body. I had been fucked, sucked, sodomized, pissed upon and perhaps even defecated upon during the hour when I was allegedly being examined. My situation was becoming ever more hopeless.
I knew then that I was never going to come out. of my ordeal alive. It was not even worth wasting a prayer upon. Or another tear. I had wept myself dry.
That night I bled from my mouth, my vagina and my anus. These savage guerrillas had cannibalized me and I could not even find a tear left in my body to cry over it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Her face was violet with rage. "You must learn to behave," she said, her hands trembling and her voice quivering., "Kindness means nothing to a spoiled aristocrat like you!"
I cowered in the corner of my room, anticipating the worst. She was wearing her customary leather boots but also long rawhide gloves and a belt studded with sharp objects. It struck me as the uniform of a sadistic lesbian sadist at that. But for some reason she did not approach me or order me to genuflect before her. Perhaps it was because I had been obediently cooperative in satisfying her kinky perversions. There were nights when I felt like a sewage disposal plant as we exchanged defecations. Fortunately it did not happen too often. Rosa Mercuri, as her name implied, had a mercurial temperament and a libido to match. She lived in a spartan style and she could suppress her passions for long periods of time. However, when they raged out of control, they were monstrous.
It was because of her desire for me-and my faking of enjoyment of her attention-that I eventually persuaded her to allow me to go, under guard, to an isolated stretch of beach far down the steep mountainside where I was being held. Naturally I was heavily disguised-black wig, large sunglasses and a bathing suit that did little for my figure-but the brief sessions of freedom were tremendously exhilarating to me. For the few hours I was permitted to loll there, I felt a little like the old Christina lazing on the Riviera. My prison pallor had begun to disappear as the sun ripened my complexion to a butterscotch hue. Rosa had even expressed a stronger attraction to me as a result of the new shadings of my skin under my golden crown.
What had enraged her on this occasion was the fact that my two guards had been remiss in allowing me to get drunk on the beach. She felt that was extremely dangerous-that her own commanding position was jeopardized by the possibility that a passing stranger might chance to learn my identity. I was not allowed to talk to anyone except my guards-a situation no Sicilian would find unusual since women were not supposed to converse with strangers. I had persuaded the girls-they were no more than eighteen or nineteen even though they looked a decade older-to buy me a bottle of local brandy at one of the nearby hotels. Since they were on duty, they refused to have more than a few sips. So I drank most of it by myself and slept for two hours in the warm sun. Now they would both be reprimanded-probably whipped by Rosa. She went to the whip more often than a jockey with mounts in every race.
"How could you permit this?" she demanded of them as they hung their heads before her.
"She requested it, Signora," one of them said meekly.
"Requested it!" she screamed back. "And if she asked for a ticket to London, you would give her that, too?"
"No," they said in unison, almost inaudibly.
"Report to my office," Rosa Mercuri snapped. "I will deal with you shortly."
Her manner was gender once they were gone. She had developed a major crush on me since my arrival and it was difficult for her to be harsh with me. I recognized that and I intended to use it to my fullest advantage. It was the first break I had been able to nurture since my ill-fated attempt to bribe Nunzio of Abruzzi.
"Why do you make my job more difficult by doing something like this?" she asked .
"I've been confined so long," I said, "I just wanted to experience a little bit of what it's like to be free-like the tourists down the beach."
"Christina," she appealed, "promise me you will never do that again-or I will be forced to punish you severely and deprive you of all your privileges."
Going to bed with you is a privilege? I thought to myself. I would have preferred taking vows of celibacy in a convent if I had had a choice.
"I promise," I said softly. A hangover was beginning to intrude on the intoxicated state of my mind.
"You're so beautiful as you are," she told me, "why damage your appearance by drunkenness?"
"Will I be allowed to go again tomorrow?" I asked, taking advantage of her softened mood.
"Only on one condition," she replied. "That you tell me how you convinced your guards to violate my rules for you."
I hesitated at first. But then I remembered that they had not always treated me with kindness. In fact, there were times when they had been just short of brutal in their handling of me.
"I allowed them to make love to me in the water," I said.
The violet returned to her complexion and her eyes caught fire. "I will deal with them immediately," she said.
I heard the screams across the courtyard as they paid for their sins. If it made me wince, it was mostly because I realized that it might have been me. Captivity had made me totally selfish. Better them than me, I thought. I rubbed my hand gratefully over my pussy. It had been my savior once again. Without it, I might very well be dead.
"Commandant Mercuri orders that you not leave this sector of the beach for any reason whatsoever," one of my new guards notified me. I now had three instead of two-and they formed a triangle close to the sea. I was to remain within it except for occasional dips in the water. They had already determined that I was not much of a swimmer-I had spent much-of my life in bikinis but for aesthetic rather than athletic reasons-and so I was permitted to frolic in the water up to my waist so long as no one else was around.
Mount Etna towered in the distance and gave me a sense of deja vit. I had once stayed at the Atlantis Bay Hotel down the beach and woke up every morning to the sight of it from my terrace window. Then my problem had been warding off persistently romantic Sicilian men. How ironic that I should be back in the same waters with Sicilian women as my problem! I congratulated myself for still being able to see the bizarre humor in life even though I was steadfastly despondent.
The water was blue and warm and as I floated upon it, staring up at an equally cobalt sky, some of the pain of my condition was temporarily soothed. Luck apparently would not allow me to encounter someone from the hotel who might recognize me from the past. Even with the disguise, I must still be partially recognizable to a keen-eyed individual. But then we were so far down the strip of beach it would have required binoculars to get any clear image of me.
I damned Dario Rizzoli again for not conducting a worldwide search for me. When I thought of Lisa Rainier making love to him while I was a prisoner, my temporary serenity was ruffled. She would mature into a Rosa Mercuri, I decided, with tits sagging to her waist. The mental projection of that brought a smile to my lips.
They shouted at me from the shore. "Come in!" I heard them call. "Quickly!"
Before I could react, I was startled from another angle as a powerful speedboat knifed through the water aimed directly at me! Foam curled from both sides of its razor-like bow as it approached me so fast I was immobilized by fear.
The boat swung sharply to one side, creating a sudden wave that filled my mouth with salt water and blurred my vision. Two men jumped over the side and grabbed me with a rope net as though I were a fish. I was tossed inside on the deck so swiftly I did not hear the shots being fired from the shore until the boat was out of range of handguns. There was a frenzy of activity on board with no one paying particular heed to me, tangled helplessly in the strands of netting. Everything was concentrated on escape.
My heart beat wildly as thoughts and fears ricocheted crazily through my mind. Who were these men who had plucked me without warning from the sea-right in front of my trio of armed guards? Were they police? That seemed un-likely considering their methods. Had they been hired by Dario and, locating me at long last, decided to forgo capture of my kidnappers in favor of rescuing me intact?
There were four men aboard, all dressed in seamen's garb, blue knit caps pulled low on their foreheads. I could see diving equipment strewn about inside the small cabin. The smell of fish permeated the deck.
"You are sure it is her?" the man at the wheel questioned. He stared down at me as though I were little more than a gaffed fish being taken to market.
"The hair is there," one of the others said, pulling off the wig I had been forced to wear by Rosa Mercuri. My blond tresses spilled out on the deck like a cache of gold.
"Beautiful!" the wheelman said, a triumphant smile on his face.
"Ten million bucks' worth!" another exclaimed.
They were jubilant. "You never had a woman worth ten million bucks?" one jested.
The other laughed. "Twenty bucks for a piece is my limit."
They made no effort to question me or to talk directly to me.
"This is better than heroin," the man at the wheel commented. "Less danger, more money."
I had difficulty comprehending what they were up to as far as I was concerned. But one thing seemed certain. I was still not free. I had merely been transferred from one set of captors to another. Could it be possible that I had been kidnapped from my kidnappers? The more I listened to their conversation, the more that appeared to be the case.
Over the roar of the engine, I heard the sound of a whistle. Another whistle responded from a short distance away. Since I could not see over the side from my position on the deck, we were almost upon a larger ship before I knew what was happening. There was much scrambling about and scuffling of feet, accompanied by staccato shouts in both French and Italian, as the two vessels drew parallel to each other.
"Get her up!" someone ordered.
"Use the hoist!" another voice shouted.
"Hurry! The police may be coming!"
"Police? Never! They could not afford to call the police!"
They were all male voices-a change for me after weeks with the dykes of Taormina. But maybe they would prove to be more brutal, more repressive even than Rosa and her crew.
"Over here!" the man who had been piloting the boat instructed. I saw the boom of a loading rig swing over my head, a large hook dangling from its cable. Sure enough, they intended to load me like a piece of cargo, swinging me in my net over the water and into the hold of the trawler beside us. I saw a hand shoot up above me, signifying that the bundle that represented me was ready for transfer.
"Easy," one advised the rig operator. "That's expensive cargo you're taking aboard!"
The trip was short and breathtaking. I was suspended just over the deck of the trawler while two crewmen made certain I was not injured by too abrupt a landing. It was late afternoon with a hint of dusk on the horizon when we pulled away from the launch that had originally picked me out of the water. Only one man remained with it-the others scrambled aboard the trawler as we headed swiftly into the setting sun.
Finally someone came over and untangled me from the net. "So you are the famous Christina van Bell," he said with a marked French accent. I thought that was unusual, especially off the coast of Sicily. But then again, everything in my life in recent months had been unusual. Normalcy would seem bizarre to me by now.
"How do you know?" I asked, examining myself for bruises. I had been beaten, whipped and tossed around so much of late I wasn't even sure if and when I felt pain or injury.
"There could be no mistaking you," he replied. "Your picture is in every newspaper and magazine in Europe."
"Then why hasn't anyone spotted me?" I questioned. "Oh, but they have," he replied quickly. "How else would you be here now?"
I shook my head. "I don't know," I admitted.
"You were seen by the Mafia weeks ago," he reported. "It just took time to make the arrangements."
"Is that who has me now?" I asked in surprise. "You are not with the Tenth of November League?"
"They are crazy," he sneered. "We are not against the government there, or in France either."
"Why are you doing this then?" He had been joined by several other crewmen, who stood about appraising me as though I were up for auction.
The man laughed and turned to his comrades. "She wants to know why we are doing this," he said with a grin. They joined him in laughter.
"I don't understand," I said.
"Think." He pointed to his skull with his index finger. "Why did the Communists capture you?"
"Money."
"Aha!" he said, his eyes glistening. "Why should they have it instead of us?"
"You're not with any cause?" I asked.
"Our own," he replied. "We are in business for ourselves."
They all nodded in amused agreement.
"You're kidnappers-professional kidnappers?" I continued playing naive.
"Sometimes, yes," he admitted. "Today that is our specialty."
"And other times?"
"Whatever opportunity arises." He shrugged. "There is always heroin."
"This ship smells more like herring," I joked. It was such a relief to be treated like a woman again that for the time being I did not even mind the fact that I was in the hands of another band of criminals-drug smugglers, this time.
"We fish for bigger prizes than that," he said. "But come now, mademoiselle, we go to see the captain."
I got up hesitantly, a trifle shaky from the whole ordeal. The man with whom I had been having the dialogue clutched me by the arm.
"Careful," he said. "The decks are slippery in places."
""I'm a little wobbly," I told him.
"I have you," he assured me. "You will not fall."
He waited beneath me as I climbed the ladder to the wheelhouse. The ship resembled one of the large tugs in the major harbors of the world but with trimmer lines and much greater speed. When I reached the top, he scrambled hurriedly up behind me.
"This way," he pointed toward the rounded cabin in the center forefront of the upper deck.
"Christina van Bell!" I was greeted affably and enthusiastically as we entered the pilot cabin. "How glad we are to have you aboard!"
The captain turned out to be more youthful than I had expected, a square-featured man with dark hair lightly streaked with gray. He wore no identifying symbols of rank, only a cap with a single strand of gold braid circling its circumference. His uniform otherwise consisted of a heavy-knit blue turtleneck sweater, dark pants and hip boots rolled down to below his knees. There was a weathered look to his features and crinkles around his eyes resembling a quiver of arrows in each corner. When he smiled, the hardness of his features softened to give him a pleasant countenance. His hands, like those of most men of the sea, were scarred and toughened from hard use. Even under the bulky clothing, he gave off a sense of powerful muscles and rugged physique.
"I'm not sure if I should be flattered or fearful," I decided to admit.
"By all means be flattered," he said. "Right, Angelo?"
The man who had brought me in replied, "By all means." So he was Italian and not French. Perhaps he had worked among them so long he had acquired the trace of accent that had confused me at first.
"I hope you will relax during the time you are with us," the captain told me after checking the radar for compass position. Another man was at the wheel, and next to him still another stood with long binoculars pressed to his eyes.-Apparently they did not yet feel out of danger of pursuit. That was why most of the crew stood about scanning the horizon and ignoring me, I surmised.
"It won't be for long from all indications," the man he called Angelo said.
"Can you imagine how those filthy Communists feel?" The captain chuckled. "Their prize snatched right out from under them just as the ransom was to be paid!"
I looked up with a mixture of despair and astonishment. "Is that the truth?" I asked.
"The negotiations were on in Rome just yesterday," he informed me. "From what I understand, your solicitors had made all the arrangements to transfer ten million dollars to the Tenth of November League this very day!"
"That lesbian Rosa will have her bosom cut off!" Angelo said with glee. "Imagine how many wheels of cheese they'll be able to make from all that milk!"
I was in no mood to share their hilarity. If what they said was true, I might have been freed as early as tomorrow. Instead, I was in the hands of an entirely unrelated band of kidnappers. Negotiations would have to begin all over again!
"Are you absolutely certain of what you say?" I asked with apprehension.
"In our business, Christina," the captain replied, "our sources are by necessity impeccable. Otherwise we would all be in jail!"
He must have noticed the look of utter defeat weighing down my features.
"Don't be concerned," he said. "We deal much more swiftly than those political fanatics. Now that the money is secured, it will be only a matter of days before you will be released."
"I might have been home tomorrow," I cried. "Another few days will not be so terrible," he assured me. "We will see to it that you have everything you like. Marseilles is a very cosmopolitan city."
"Marseilles?" I questioned through my tears.
"That is where we are headed," he confirmed. Momentarily the prospect of returning to France, where I had experienced some of my happiest moments in Paris and on the Riviera, overcame the terrible news that I had missed freedom by only a matter of hours. And if Rosa Mercuri had not given in to my persuasive pleading to be allowed to return to the beach at Taormina, I would very likely have been on my way to Rome as the bounty in a ten-million-dollar sweepstakes. Fate, which had always been exceptionally kind to me, was dealing me a whole series of dirty blows. Captain Alain Chambord-he told me his full name before personally escorting me to my tiny stateroom-seemed genuinely perturbed by my distress.
"I will see to it that you have fresh lingerie and some fitting clothing when we reach our destination," he promised. "They have not been treating you at all properly-a lady of your distinction."
If only he knew what I had suffered in recent weeks! It was too humiliating, too degrading, to relate to almost anyone.
"I'd like some liquor if I may," I requested. Then I remembered what Angelo had said about their other businesses. "Or better yet, some cocaine or hashish-if that's possible."
He smiled warmly at me. "How about if I bring you a little of all three?" he asked.
It was almost too good to be true. Out of the evil clutches of Rosa, into the tender care of Alain Chambord. As always, I knew it couldn't last. But in the euphoria that followed delivery of my requested medications, I almost felt I might survive after all. That was a long way from how I had felt only a few days before.
I was awake and in a better frame of mind when we sailed into Marseilles the following day. No one had touched me or even attempted to-at least so far as I knew. When I thought about it, I wasn't sure that I liked it. Hadn't my face and figure inspired erotic thoughts in any of the men aboard, particularly Captain Chambord? It was not what I had come to expect from the underworld. But then, we were in flight and fugitive status did not exactly stimulate the libido.
Marseilles, with its hard white hills and bleak atmosphere, was not one of my favorite cities. I did know it was one of the key drug-trafficking centers in the world, which probably accounted for the expertise with which the captain ferreted our trawler through the maze of anchored ships, staggered piers and noisy activity. He knew precisely where to go to avoid the customs inspectors, something he had probably done hundreds of times in his career. I wondered if news of my second kidnapping had leaked to the media yet. If so, Interpol would probably be watching every seaport, railroad terminal and airport on the Continent for some sign of me. But if I knew that, then Chambord and his bunch surely knew it, too. They did not act unduly concerned, though they were cautious in the harbor and insisted that I stay below decks, locked in my cubicle. I stared out from a porthole, wondering what could possibly happen next.
They apologized a short time later for having to. bind and gag me while I was spirited off the ship. Two of the men carried me through a darkened, apparently unused pier warehouse where a car sat waiting at the far end. They pulled the rear curtains and eased me inside. Then one of them pulled open the huge sliding door while the other started the engine. In a moment we were just another car caught up in the hair-raisingly fast races between stoplights.
I could see nothing from my position on the rear floor, but I could hear the wild, insane screeching and honking of traffic on all sides of the car. As I remembered it, driving in Marseilles was nothing short of suicidal. I had attempted it only once and swore I would never try it again.
We drove for twenty minutes or half an hour before coming to a final halt.
"Is this it?" the man who sat in the back watching over me asked.
The air reeked of fish and the pungent smell of seawater.
"Quai des Beige," she replied. "They will never think to look in the fish market."
I recalled the area when I heard the name. I had come here once with a dashing French restaurateur who insisted on shopping for his own fresh fish daily. It was probably why he had once proudly claimed two Michelin stars for his tiny restaurant. I remembered how it teemed with buyers and sellers in the hours around dawn. Maybe I would have a chance to lose myself among them or slip a note to one of them. At any rate, I was grateful that I was not to be isolated in some faraway hovel in the surrounding hills.
"Get one of the barrels," the driver instructed.
His partner returned quickly with a large container normally used for transporting fish. They lifted me into it as gently as they could.
"Pew!" said one of them, holding his nose.
"Why, what's the matter?" The other one laughed. "It smells just like pussy."
"Your kind," came the retort. "My girls wash."
They were both laughing as they carried me like a load of fish into a nearby building. Once we were inside, they quickly removed me from my aromatic enclosure. But it smelled almost the same all about me anyway.
"Upstairs," one directed. We were inside a large warehouse with long cutting tables lining the walls and scales hanging from the ceiling. It appeared to be a place where fish were processed, probably filleted for packing. The stairs were raw wood, like everything else about.
"Be careful of splinters," the shorter of the two warned me as we climbed, me in the middle. A door opened from a small platform and led to a wooden walkway that crossed several rooftops. I could see parts of the harbor below but none of the market. The walk and its railings were rickety, but there was no place to fall except to a tarred rooftop, so I did not feel endangered-not by the walkway, at any rate.
"There is your new home," one of them jested, pointing to a frame shack about thirty feet ahead of us. It rested atop a building from which there apparently was no entrance.
"My penthouse," I replied. "Fit for a fishwife!"
But I was wrong in my snap judgment. Inside it proved to be comfortably furnished, even carpeted. Except for the steel mesh over the windows, it gave off a sense of coziness that immediately lifted my spirits. Also I could hear the noise of the city beyond, and that was reassuring in itself. It meant I was still alive and that the world still awaited my return.
"Captain Chambord will come to discuss matters with you as soon as the ship is safely moored," I was told. "In the meantime, you are to help yourself to anything here. There is a radio there on the table if you should want to keep abreast of the news."
"Merci," I said as they left to take their stations outside the shack. It was an easy place to guard with only one exit-over the long walkway.
I sank onto the couch and turned on the radio. I knew just enough French to understand the basic news. The only part of it that would matter was the mention of my name-and that I did not hear. Apparently the coup had been pulled off without a hitch. I had only to await the new ransom demands and hope for speedy results.
Captain Chambord arrived about eight.
He was disarmingly casual for someone in authority, even with his men. Considering their criminal status and likely backgrounds as such, the men under him were similarly informal and surprisingly devil-may-care. There was an air of rakishness about them, yet with me so far they had been quite respectful. It was all puzzlingly incongruous, but if I had learned anything in captivity, it was not to question the good-only the bad.
"I have brought you dinner from one of the local restaurants," was his announcement. It explained the steaming tray he carried in his hands like a butler or waiter.
"I'm beginning to like it here," I responded.
"No reason why captivity shouldn't be civilized," he said, spreading a linen cloth over the lone table in the room.
"All we need now are candles." I smiled at Mm as he uncovered one of the helmeted dishes.
"Coquilles Saint-Jdeques," he identified the parsleyed mixture in shiny scallop shells. "But first the wine-and the candles."
Sure enough he had thought of candles, pulling a pair of them from inside Ms shirt. There were no holders so he melted the bottoms of them and fastened them to the table with their own wax.
"You're spoiling me," I said as he poured me a goblet of chablis. "I haven't eaten like this since Rome-and that seems like years ago.
"It is your normal fare, Christina," he replied. "I'd rather think of you as my guest than my prisoner."
"I'd rather be that, Captain," I agreed.
He sipped from his wine and studied me. "You will call me Alain and not captain," he instructed.
"Alain," I repeated, holding up my glass in toast. Maybe I was being led astray again-maybe his rough courtliness was a cover-up for another sadistic personality-but I was eating in reasonable style for the first time in so long I had forgotten what fine cuisine represented. i
"The potage is watercress," he said as we both dug into our appetizers.
"I love it," I told him.
"And for the entree," he said with pleasure evident in his voice, "we have escalopes de veau milanaise."
"A touch of Italian." I smiled.
"In name only," he said. "Oh, and also I almost forgot the pate, a specialty of the chef-pate chaud ou froid de caneton."
"Duckling pate? I adore it," I said.
"By any chance, Christina, are you of French extraction?"
"Not extraction," I replied lightly, "but if you had said injection, I might be inclined to say yes."
"You like Frenchmen?" he inquired suggestively.
"I like all men," I said, dabbing the comers of my mouth with a napkin.
"More wine?" he asked.
"Of course," I replied. "I seldom say no in that department."
"How are you enjoying it?"
"Alain, it is like manna from heaven. I'd forgotten what good food tasted like."
"A pity," he said. "I almost hope they delay paying the ransom so that I can display some of my personal culinary artistry for you."
"I'd love that," I said, "but not at the price of freedom."
"No." He smiled. "No, of course not."
The veal was marvelously pale and tender. I ate slowly to savor every bite. "You seem like such a cosmopolitan, sophisticated man, Alain," I said later, "how did you ever wind up as you have?"
"That is simple," he said without hesitation. "A love of the good things in life-a lack of money to have them. Now I have both."
"But there's always the threat of imprisonment," I argued. "Is it worth it?"
"Is being free without a sou worth it?" he countered. "I don't know," I said. "I really don't know. It's not a situation I've ever had to face."
"You're among life's fortunates, Christina. For you to rob and steal would be criminal. For me it is merely necessity."
"I never thought of it that way," I admitted.
"Be glad you never had to," he said.
We ate in silence for a time after that, the candles painting dapples of orange on our faces, only to erase them in a breath and place them elsewhere. I looked at his gnarled hands, so out of keeping with his tastes and manner. But somehow the contrast was sensual, the macho man with his own special, rough-hewn brand of refinement.
"Did you try any of the things I had sent over to you?" he asked as he completed the last' of his entree.
"The coke and hash?" I asked. "No, not yet. I'm looking forward to it."
"Dangerous stuff," he commented. "I never use any of it."
"You just supply it." I laughed. But he did not smile at my observation.
"I am not a dealer," he clarified. "I'm merely a transporter."
"But you are part of what they call the Connection, isn't that true?" Perhaps I was getting too familiar, too inquisitive. But he had made me feel as relaxed as if I were his dinner companion for the evening and nothing more.
"That depends," he said, obviously not wishing to discuss it further. "What about dessert? And the coffee, of course."
"I don't think I can eat any more," I replied, touching my stomach to indicate its fullness.
"Oh, but this will not take up even a little finger of space," he said, uncovering another dish. "Fraises aux fruits d'or. Delicious!"
"It looks it," I agreed, peering into the dish of appetizingly arranged pineapples, bananas and strawberries. I'll try just a tiny bit."
With Kirsch and orange juice making the syrup, it really was uncommonly good.
"Brandy in the coffee, of course?" he suggested when I had licked off the last spoonful, of dessert.
"Remember what I told you earlier," I said.
"Of course," he said.
"Of course," I echoed.
I had begun to feel mellow there in my make-believe penthouse in the fish market of Marseilles. Alain was unbelievably attentive to me and I looked forward to the inevitable lovemaking ahead. No man of French heritage was that considerate of a woman he did not intend to seduce.
"What will you do with ten million dollars?" I asked nonchalantly as he lit a cigarette. He blew a nearly perfect ring of smoke and watched as it slowly disintegrated.
"First of all, I have partners," he explained, "so there is no ten million for Alain Chambord to begin with ..
"So, say three million...." I suggested.
"How about one-or maybe even less?"
"It's still a lot," I said.
He shrugged in the classic French style. "With today's prices," he said, "I could not even get a small villa on the Riviera for that."
"In other words," I persisted, looking up from my third cup of brandy with a touch of coffee, "you will have to continue what you've been doing regardless?"
"To live in any style, yes," he said.
"But when will it ever end, Alain? You will be on the run your entire life."
He smiled ruefully. "It is better than sitting still in any case," he said. It was time for his move if my intuition was right. Casually he put out his cigarette in a clay ashtray next to the couch. I could almost read the strategy in his eyes as he advanced toward me.
"It is not such a bad life when one winds up with a woman as beautiful as you," he said in his richest baritone. I placed my nearly empty cup and saucer on the table next to the ashtray in preparation for the expected attack.
"Make love to me, Alain." I accelerated his approach deliberately. It threw off his timing and in the process made him abruptly more aggressive.
"I will teach you what love is all about," he said, the timbre of his voice growing reedy with lust. I liked hearing that quality of desire in a man's voice prior to feeling his body against mine.
"Fuck me," I encouraged him further.
He had discarded his plan of romantic subtleties and gradual foreplay-at least it seemed that way to me. All at once he began tearing off his clothes, taking particular pride in peeling back the fabric surrounding his freshly-sprouted cock. It stood out with its mushroom cap of a head oozing the sticky, transparent oil of passion that invariably preceded the cloudy semen itself. His balls clung close to the base of it, nesting in a bristly patch of black hair.
I popped one of my tits out of the brassiere that had been among the new apparel he had sent to me earlier. The short gown I chose to wear was very revealing to begin with, but he ripped at it savagely until I was reduced to total nakedness like himself.
"I want to eat you before I fuck you," he whispered as his fingers dug into the meat of my vagina. There was a cursory kiss for each of my hardened nipples before his face disappeared into the valley of my thighs.
"Oh, Alain!" I groaned as he made his first contact with my eager clitoris. A moment later one of his fingers burrowed deeply into my anus in counterrhythm to the flicking of his tongue. "Don't stop!" I implored him, anticipating an earlier-than-usual opening climax.
My cunt felt like a rose reaching upward for the sun and rain, each lip like a petal seeking nutrients from the warm saliva of his tongue. I felt his fevered forehead pulsating against my abdomen as he drove himself like a champion seeking to outdo all competition with the reach and depth of his tonguing. Impulsively, I locked my legs about his broad shoulders, swallowing more of his face and head with the increased breadth of my cunt. He was like a man dying of thirst who had miraculously discovered a well of plenty, lapping the juices of my pussy as though his very life depended upon it.
I could feel my colon contract about his finger as orgasm neared, pulling taut all the arteries and veins and ligaments within me. My moan was continuous now, only the pitch varying from time to time as he contacted areas more sensitive than others. I wanted to silver his face with my cum, all but drown him' in an abundance of cunt juices. My body heaved when the moment came, my lips seeming to swallow his entire face as my legs clamped him even more tightly into the wet cave of my cunt. One climax followed another, punishing my body with pleasure. I shuddered with each, trembling so badly that I cried out in painful ecstasy. When he was finally able to unlock himself from the vise of my legs, his face and hair were wet with a mixture of perspiration and the fluids of my vagina.
"Now I fuck you," he said, fondling his rigid prick. It slid easily into the well-lubricated channel it sought. "Watch," he instructed me.
We both looked down at the spectacle of seeing ourselves fucking. The visual pleasure was undeniable and when accompanied by the tactile as well, it was unbeatable.
"You're sensational," I flattered him.
He pretended to ignore the compliment. "Look at my cock, how happy it is to find such a nice hole in which to hide," he said.
"I love to see myself being fucked," I agreed.
"When I come," he said without taking his eyes oS the action, "I will shoot it onto your belly."
"And then I'll rub it into my tits," I said.
"Tell me what you like best," he continued. "Tell me everything I like to hear."
"I like fucking very much-oooh, do I love fucking "
"Yes. And what else?" His cock began sliding in and out at an accelerated tempo as I talked.
"Sucking. Sucking is the best."
"Cock?" he asked.
"Cunt, too," I said.
"You suck cunt as well as cock?" he asked excitedly.
"I love cunt," I admitted.
"Will you suck a cunt for me while I am fucking her?"
"I'd love it."
His breathing grew deep and desperate. "Are you going to suck me next?" he asked in a strained voice.
"I will suck every last drop of cum from your balls," I told him.
He stabbed at me with all the length and strength he possessed. "Now I come!" he gasped, slipping his swollen prick from its pink sheath and aiming it across the flat of my stomach. It reared back momentarily-like an artillery cannon-and then fired. One, two, three, four-and then five with the aid of his determined fist-shots of thick gray-white cum splashed onto my skin, forming cloudy puddles that clung to my abdomen.
"On your tits," he reminded me.
I gathered the sexual mucus into the palms of my hands and rubbed it slowly into the flesh of my tits and onto the peaks of my nipples. Just knowing its source made it feel erotic and invigorating. Alain watched as I writhed under my own massage. A string of after-cum hung from the mouth of his penis like a strand of transparent silver. For a moment I might have been in a suite at the Ritz in Paris rather than the fish market of Marseilles. He was not only acceptable under the conditions, I knew that I would have allowed him to seduce me anywhere at any time.
"Bring me your cock," I told him, passing the tip of my tongue across the breadth of my lips. It flicked at my words and then began another rise, slower this time.
"Suck it hard," he said as he knelt over me and fed the meat of his cock into my mouth.
My cheeks puffed as I bent the entire length of it into the cavity of my mouth. It would find its own way out as it hardened to full size. With my fingers I tickled his hanging balls. He winced Once or twice at the sensation but did not object to my side play.
"The true measure of a woman is how well she performs fellatio," he said, his hands caressing my ears as I sucked.
I outdid myself in that performance, bringing him to a rich, rapid climax that filled my mouth with cum.
"Swallow it," he insisted, "it's good for your complexion."
I did as he requested, but not because I believed his theory. Nor for that matter did he. He laughed about it after he had washed himself.
"There was once a famous French chanteuse," he said as he opened a bottle of champagne, "who insisted that she could remain young-looking only if she applied the cum of young boys to her face and body. She spent a fortune to have the entire student bodies of a number of private academies for boys masturbate into jars and have it shipped to her."
I smiled at his story. "And how did she look?" I asked.
"She lived to be eighty-four," he replied. "And she looked ninety."
We shared a laugh over his tale, whether it was true or not. He insisted it was.
"I am not through with you yet," he warned me. "That was only the hors d'oeuvres. The entree and dessert come later."
"Just like dinner," I said.
"Not exactly," he corrected. "Dinner takes perhaps two hours. You I could dine upon forever."
"Your tongue would become muscle-bound," I retorted.
"It is already," he advised me mischievously.
"Can't prove it by me," I said.
Alain poured the champagne and sipped along with me. "Did you like the clothes?" he asked.
"Thank you," I said. "If they weren't exactly my size, they sure were an improvement over the rags I've been wearing."
"I read that you are one of the best-dressed women on the Continent," he said a trifle wistfully. "I'm sorry that we are not acquainted on a higher level."
I looked at him tenderly. "So am I," I said.
He began to change gradually as he drank-and not for the better. Traces of the criminal in him began to show under the facade of gentility. He was really, underneath it all, hostile and antisocial.
"There is something you must do for me," he said after brooding for a long while.
"Do I have a choice?" I asked.
"No," he said flatly.
"Then, of course, I'll do it-whatever it is."
"Can you understand something about a man that is probably totally foreign to you-something perhaps a little perverse in his sexual thinking?" He did not look at me as he asked.
"There's nothing perverse in sex as far as I'm concerned," I told him. "I can't think of anything I haven't done."
"You would never think of this," he said, "because it would do nothing for you. It does it for me-not you."
"Go ahead," I encouraged him. I was high enough by this time to accept just about anything.
"You asked earlier why a man of my abilities must be a criminal," he said. "Now I will tell you why. Because it excites me. It excites me like the cunt of a woman-only terribly, incredibly more. When I am in danger with the law, when I am being pursued, I experience a thousand orgasms. And when I elude my pursuers, when I am soaking with perspiration and trembling with fear, I enjoy two thousand more. Does that sound insane to you?"
"Unusual," I said, "but not insane."
"I love crime. I love running the drugs. I love right now, making love to someone I have kidnapped. I could not enjoy relations under normal conditions."
"No wonder you've never married." I laughed hollowly.
"You haven't either," he retaliated. "You are not a hundred percent normal and ordinary in your romantic requirements either."
"I've never thought about it," I confessed, "but I suppose you're right."
"Of course I'm right. That's why we did so well together."
"I have to admit I enjoyed it," I said.
"There will be more," he promised. "But it could never last for either of us. We're not just fucking each other-we are, in a sense, fucking society ... flouting convention. It works because of all that combined-not just one male and one female in bed together."
"You're quite a philosopher," I said.
"I read a lot," he admitted. "Especially when I'm in prison."
"But you accept that risk-that threat-and I can't. I never could."
"I have to accept it. I have no choice. It is my destiny."
"Alain, you're quite remarkable," I said with sincerity.
"And so are you," he said.
We clasped hands and remained silent a brief time. It was crazy, perhaps even bizarre, but all at once I felt sisterly toward him. Incestuously so, perhaps, but sisterly nevertheless. He was a thinking man at least, not just a ruthless, gun-in-the-ribs bandit.
"What is it that you want me to do?" I brought him back to the original premise.
"It's not easy for me to say," he said softly. "But once again, it is something that I must do for myself."
"I'm listening."
"You are to go with me-you and I alone-on a dangerous mission...."
"I'm not noted for my bravery," I said.
"You will go under threat of death," he said crisply.
I stared at him, confused. I had been drinking too much to really comprehend what he was saying, I decided.
"You wouldn't kill me!" I gasped. "You'd be out ten million dollars."
"You have to understand that money is a relative thing," he replied with remarkable calmness considering what he had just proposed. "If I don't get it through you, I will get it elsewhere. But what I can't duplicate is the sensation of having you along with me on this assignment."
"It is an erotic thing?" I asked.
"Definitely," he said. "We will make love after like you've never made love before."
"Suppose I'm recognized?" I stalled.
"That is one of the elements that makes it all the more fascinating," he replied.
I noticed that he had attained an enormous erection while discussing the matter. His eyes shone with anticipation-and it was not solely for me. In fact he seemed only secondarily interested in his hard-on and the prospect of inserting it in me once again.
"When will this take place?" I asked.
"The sooner the better," he said. "Perhaps even tonight."
"It's late already," I pointed out.
"The later the better," he amended his earlier comment.
I was uneasy again and the sisterly feeling was gone. "You're not going to let that beautiful hard-on go to waste?" I said, hoping to distract him.
"Jerk it off if you like," he said absently. "Right now it is interfering with my plans.
It took both my hands to do an effective job on the upright penis. Amazingly, Alain seemed to take no interest in the process. When it came, like a geyser spewing cream, he simply patted my head in acknowledgment of my services.
"Are you all right?" I asked softly when I had blotted away the residue of his ejaculation.
"I'm eager," he said. "That's the best word I can find to describe my feelings."
"Then let's do it," I suggested. "Let's get it over with."
He nodded. "I'll get you a disguise," he said, departing swiftly. All the dirty dishes and empty bottles were left behind.
The mere thought of being on the outside, walking the streets, was excitement in itself to me. I cared little about what crazy act he planned to involve me in. Nevertheless, to bolster my courage, I took a mansized snort of the cocaine he had supplied me. When it coursed through my system, ringing bells and shooting off rockets, I was ready for anything.
Alain reappeared in a black body suit that clung to every one of his abundant muscles. He resembled an overdeveloped apache dancer from some waterfront cafe. On his feet were rubber-soled shoes instead of the heavy boots he wore on the docks. He seemed tense but his voice was even and positive.
"Put these on," he said, handing me an outfit somewhat similar to his own-but with a dark wig included.
"It's a body stocking," I said, holding it up. "I'll need a skirt or something to go with it."
"There is one under the wrapping." He pointed.
He was right. A narrow miniskirt, deep purple in color, was under the tissue paper. I dressed quickly.
"I look like a prostitute," I said, sizing up my appearance in the mirror on the bathroom door.
"Nothing wrong with that," he said indifferently.
"Are you sure of what you're doing, Alain?" I questioned, forgetting once again my subservient role as a prisoner. He paid no attention, just as he hadn't earlier.
"I'm always sure," he answered cryptically, "but never certain."
There were no guards outside the shack as there usually were. Alain apparently had sent them off, taking full responsibility for my custody. "Don't try to run away," he said. He did not have to repeat his earlier warning. Despite all that had gone on between us, I had no doubt that he would kill me if it became necessary. It was, as he had explained, his business.
Our conversation as we descended into the warehouse was outwardly nonchalant. "Have you been listening to the radio?" he asked.
"Not since this afternoon," I said.
"Then you don't know that the Italian police staged a big roundup of Tenth of November terrorists, do you?"
"No, not at all."
"The bungled ransoming of you led to arrests in several places," he informed me. "A woman named Rosa in Sicily plus a man named Vincento, with numerals after his name...."
"XXII-7?" I asked.
"Perhaps. I wouldn't recall them even if I heard them."
"Just those two?" I inquired.
"No, about half a dozen in all," he replied. "One from Naples, if I remember correctly. It's hard when you only hear them recited over the air."
"Yes," I agreed. "Could it be Romeo XVII?"
"That sounds pretty much like it. The man was named Romeo."
"Then that's him. I hope he rots in prison."
Alain glanced at me in surprise. "I never heard you talk like that," he said.
"He is an ape," I replied in disgust. "He's not even human."
He shrugged as we passed to the outside. His manner changed immediately once we were out on the street. "You talk to no one but me," he said from the corner of his mouth. "I will answer any questions directed at you."
"How far are we going?" I inquired in a low voice. The area was frightening in the dark with the scurrying of river rats and the creaking of pilings adding an eerie backdrop to the silty blackness.
"Do you know Marseilles?" he asked.
"Only slightly," I admitted.
"Up La Canebiere," he said. "Or, as the English call it, the Can o' Beer."
"I've heard of it."
"We will walk it," he said. "It is not that far and even at night street traffic is atrocious."
"I'm happy to walk for a change," I said.
"Just don't run," he cautioned, adding after a pause, "away."
I shook my head no. "I want to live to be ransomed," I assured him.
The street with its wide sidewalks was teeming with activity even in the middle of the night. We were as anonymous as anyone could have wished in our waterfront costumes. I looked in the lighted shop windows and felt a tinge of regret. I had not shopped for anything in months and I missed it. It was good that the majority of the stores were closed.
I held Alain by the arm, as though he were my boyfriend. It was my own little touch of disguise and it seemed to please him.
"You're a good actress," he complimented me as his confidence in me grew, "and that's an important part of being a good criminal."
"I'll expect my diploma in the mail," I said. He laughed lightly but the tension still showed in his face. He himself was proving to be quite a credible actor.
We stopped at a dimly lit comer that was intersected by a darkened alleyway. He stopped me with his hand, which I could feel was trembling slightly.
"We turn here," he whispered. "Follow directly behind me."
He was trusting me to walk behind him! I really had gained his confidence. "Shhhh," he added, touching his index finger to his lips.
We crept along the alleyway, bodies pressed against the walls of the buildings that lined it. I caught a look at Alain's face in a fleeting shaft of light and it looked grotesque.
"This way," he said hoarsely, slipping into a doorway. A staircase loomed directly behind it.
My heart was pounding now, filled to bursting with apprehension and anticipation. One by one we mounted the rickety stairs until we finally reached a hallway at the top. Alain moved furtively past two doors and stopped at a third. His hands were cold and clammy as he grabbed mine to signal absolute silence. Then he took a long-barreled gun from his waistband.
The game was over as far as I was concerned. I wanted desperately to run, but of course that was impossible. Instead I shivered with fright as he knocked with his knuckles. The taps were light at first, but when there was no response he made them harder.
"Louis!" he called out in a raspy voice. "Louis!"
"Who's there?" a sleepy voice finally responded.
"Chambord," he said. "Just in."
"See me tomorrow," the voice muttered.
"No!" Alain insisted. "If you want the deal, it has to be now."
"Merde!" came the response. "You fuckin' sea captains are all alike."
I stepped back at Alain's pointed instructions so that I was not visible as the door opened. It inched at first, then swung wide.
"Cocksucker!" the man screamed as Alain shoved the gun into his belly and pumped the trigger four times. It made almost no sound but the man named Louis doubled over and fell like a toppled statue to the floor.
I wanted to scream but I did not dare.
"Quickly!" Alain pushed me ahead of him to the stairs. We ran down, barely maintaining our balances, and plunged back into the black night. Once we were back on the boulevard La Canebiere he cautioned me to slow down.
"You killed that man!" I gasped, out of breath.
"He deserved it," he said triumphantly. "He cheated me."
"Alain, you made me party to a murder!" I rasped.
He stopped and embraced me so hard I felt my spine crunch. My lips actually hurt from the savageness of his kiss.
"I will make you party to much more now," he said. "I am going to fuck you continuously for twelve hours or more!"
No one paid attention to our mad embrace. As far as they were concerned, we were either two impassioned drunks or else a hooker and a john coming to agreement.
Back at the shack, Chambord was like a sexual maniac, coming repeatedly almost in defiance of the laws of physiology. Without the stimulation of cocaine, I never could have survived the night.
When he finally left me alone, I was a physical and emotional wreck once again. My opinion of Alain Chambord had undergone a complete metamorphosis in the course of only twenty-four hours.
CHAPTER NINE
Alain avoided me for days. I understood. He had revealed more of himself to me than he had planned. And planning was his whole scheme of existence.
I didn't care. Why should I care? He had murdered a man in my presence and all but gloated over his achievement. I worried more about my possible implication in the crime.
When he came to me finally, it was on a different basis. He was no longer romantic toward me-nor did he appeal to me in a romantic sense. He seemed preoccupied, harassed.
"The negotiations depend upon some positive proof that we have you in custody," he said coldly. I could not believe he was the same man who had devoured me like a starved cannibal and then asked for more.
"Why not cut the cunt out of me and mail it to them?" I suggested in my most facetious manner.
"Don't tempt me," he replied.
Whatever else I had become in confinement, I was still a woman. No man could talk to me like that-even under the threat of death.
"You've disappointed me, Alain," I began slowly. "I really thought you were a real man."
He fidgeted momentarily and then pulled out a cigarette. I watched as he tapped it on its package, then put it to his lips. The match blossomed like a torch and then faded as he drew in the flame.
"Do you want me to beat you to prove my masculinity?" he asked sarcastically.
"If you like," I said.
He had begun pacing back and forth like a cougar in a cage. "I'm not a beater of women," he said.
"You're afraid of women," I accused him.
Froth came to his mouth and dribbled from its comers. His body shook for a moment and then grew rigid.
"Shut up," he said.
I could not really believe how frequently and horribly my personal condition had changed during captivity. They were all sick, I decided. Kindness, grace, concern-these were all facades they had developed to survive in normal society. Their real nature, from Romeo to Alain, was sustained in violence and rebellion.
"Let me go, Alain," I pleaded. "I guarantee you my ransom. I will deliver it to you personally anywhere you choose."
He spit onto the carpeting before me and ground it into the nap with his boot.
"I give your grand solicitors forty-eight hours to meet my demands," he said, "or there will be nothing left to barter."
"You're making a big mistake," I cried.
"I don't make mistakes," he said in reply. "I only make decisions."
He left me weeping. In my entire life I had not wept so much as I had since that terrible moment when the gunmen seized me along with Dario Rizzoli, Lisa Rainier and Rolf Harrison. Hemingway could not have plotted such a story, I told myself. Perhaps Harrison could after what had happened to all of us. I was, of course, the tragic figure. If he did not see that, then Hemingway's reputation as the greatest of twentieth century American writers was intact.
"Let me go, Alain," I begged. "Nothing will happen to you. I promise."
He sneered, his face full of scowls. "You don't set any terms," he told me. "That is my province."
The smell of the fish market turned to stench. Before I became nauseated by it, I fell back upon my traditional panaceas. Thank god, there was still booze and other drugs to ease the pain. My make-believe penthouse had turned into a prison quickly.
Chambord left, staggering. He had become quite drunk several times since his mission of murder. I watched him with mixed emotions-hatred and a sick kind of passion-as he closed the door behind him.
My heart ached for freedom now. I had tasted its sweetness ever so briefly on the sidewalks of La Canebiere. That had taught me it was worth any sacrifice to attain. I could not continue to be a passive prisoner-I had to take the risk no matter what the price. The more I sucked on my sticks of hashish, the more I believed I was totally capable of escaping my tormentors. Instead of wallowing in despondency and self-pity, I began directing all my thoughts to plotting a possible way out of my dilemma.
Chambord, however, had other plans. He returned with Angelo and five other members of his hoodlum band. They had all been drinking.
There was no gentlemanly knock on my door this time. It simply opened and Alain announced, "We're here for a party."
"I'm not in the mood for a party," I replied.
--"We'll put you in the mood. Right, men?" He looked around at the leering faces of his confederates. There was no need for them to reply. "Show them the beautiful lingerie I bought for you," he told me.
"It's in the drawer," I snapped.
"The stuff you're wearing," he said. "It looks like nothing unless it is on your body."
"Let's see it, Christina," Angelo prodded.
"Yeah," another agreed. "Take off that other garbage."
Their faces were a study in multiple lasciviousness. "I'm not a stripper," I informed them. "I take my clothes off for whom I please-not just for anybody."
Alain Chambord eyed me coldly. He joined the others in. taking a swig from a bottle they passed among themselves.
"Give some to her," he instructed, wiping his mouth with his jacket sleeve.
"I don't want any," I said.
"Give it to her," he repeated. "In her better mouth."
Gleefully, they pounced upon me, quickly tearing off the few clothes I was wearing. For all but Alain, it was their first look at my naked body.
"Look at those tits!" I heard one exclaim as I thrashed my legs in a futile attempt to escape.
"And the ass!" said another.
"Stick the bottle up her cunt," Chambord's voice instructed. I was pinned down so thoroughly the only part of me that I could move readily were my eyelids.
The neck of the bottle slid easily into my entrance. I was showered with kisses all over my anatomy, particularly around the suction hole of my vagina. Whether they were all French or not, they all believed in the French style of lovemaking.
One by one they began removing their clothes-all but Alain. It appeared that he was present in the role of voyeur-captain. He might drink with his men, but apparently he did net fuck with them. When he leaned over my face to study my reaction to what was happening-under his sponsorship-I spit all the saliva I could pool squarely into his arrogant face. His hand shot out and stung my cheek with its force.
"Pig!" he snarled.
"Hey, Captain," one of the naked crewmen said laughingly, "don't bruise the merchandise!"
"I thought you were not a beater of women," I said through clenched teeth.
"Gag her!" he ordered.
"I'll use my cock," another of my attackers jested.
"No," he responded. "She will bite it off. She is a sadistic animal!"
In that instant I hated him so thoroughly I could not find words to express myself. "You filthy bastard!" was all I managed to utter before a wad of fabric cut off my powers of speech. What had seemed for a brief time to be almost ideal imprisonment conditions had all at once become a nightmare.
The bottle was withdrawn in favor of their individual cocks. They passed it among themselves once again, licking my juices from the neck as they drank. "The pussy flavor is delicious," one said with a drunken smirk.
Alain was still seething. I could not bear to look directly at him after what he had done to me. I felt utterly betrayed.
"Each of you will fuck her in turn," he directed. "We'll decide the order of entry by the size of the cocks."
"No fair!" I heard one protest. "Charles is much larger than any of us. He will ruin it for the rest!"
"Then he will go last," Chambord declared. "The shortest will go first."
"That is Marcel," Angelo said.
"Fool!" Marcel protested. "That is only when I am soft. I challenge you to match my full erection!" Chambord continued his role as leader and therefore final arbiter. "We will go by natural size," he said, "in repose, so to speak."
"Soft, in other words?" Marcel said with disappointment in his voice.
"Correct," he was told.
"Why does he object?" the man called Charles inquired. "By being least, he becomes first."
They had become so embroiled in their discussion of the packing order that their original erections had diminished. But now that the argument was over, all eyes concentrated on me. I closed mine, determined to make the best of what amounted to a gang rape.
If I could employ a few of my stronger fantasies, I might even be able to enjoy part of it.
Marcel proved to be not small at all. I could feel the periphery of his fat cock on all sides of my vagina. He proved to be a fast comer-that most dreaded of all species of male fornicators. It was obvious that sex was a perfunctory operation to him even under such perverted conditions.
The next was Angelo, who took-time at least to suckle my nipples and rub the head of his cock into the hairy folds of my cunt before plunging into it. I decided to try for orgasm with him. With my changed view of Alain Chambord, he was now the best of a bad lot in my estimation.
He seemed to sense my participation. I manipulated the inner muscles of my vagina so that it caught and released the swollen head of his prick, my buttocks so taut the crack between them could only be penetrated with a knife.
"You fuck good, Christina," he said in a semi-whisper, trying to be intimate despite the crowd of horny onlookers.
"She is giving you more than she gave Marcel," Alain shrewdly observed. I felt like a live cadaver being dissected in a medical school clinic.
"Why is that?" Marcel inquired.
"Because you are too short," Charles scoffed.
"Quality over quantity," he retorted, "you big prick."
They scuffled playfully as Angelo reached orgasm. Unlike his predecessor, he pulled out at the crucial moment and spit his pasty cum over my navel and into the valley of my tits. It lay there like liquified oysters, with no effort made by anyone to wipe it away.
"I am next," said a hairy short man whom I had not seen before.
"No, Robert," the man next to him objected. "I am the shorter of us two."
"The lesser of two evils," joked a contented Angelo.
"Captain, you be the judge," Robert suggested.
"It was already decided," Chambord said. "You are both too hard to measure now."
"Let them go limp," Angelo said gleefully.
"Impossible with that creature spread before us," the second man contended. He looked at me and pulled on his cock several times, sending it upward at an even sharper angle than before.
"Robert goes," Chambord decided, "and then you, Yves, followed by Jean and Charles."
"What about you?" Robert wondered.
"I am abstaining," he said:
That angered me. I struggled to free my arms so that I could rip the gag from my mouth and tell his men how he had murdered a man and then almost satanically ravaged me for hours, reveling in lascivious pleasure over his act and the use of my body in celebrating it.
"She is a wildcat," Robert remarked with apparent delight as he poked his slender, apple-headed' phallus into the wet drain of my crotch.
"Spill your balls, Bobby boy!" one of them encouraged him in mock British accent.
"I wish my wife had a pussy like this," he said. I'd've had two dozen children to support me now."
"He goes like a rabbit," Marcel observed, playing with himself as he watched.
"Why doesn't somebody suck a little tit while she's getting fucked?" suggested the one called Jean.
"Later," I heard Angelo comment, "when we go for seconds." But someone did take the advice nevertheless. A pair of firm lips drew succulently first on one nipple and then the other.
I had been unable to achieve more than a pseudo-orgasm, which meant that I felt almost on the brink several times but somehow failed to plunge over the edge. My body was being pummeled like veal and there was no romance to the situation. I had fantasized taking on entire football teams or the student body of a boys' academy, but somehow I could not relate those make believe situations to my very real one.
"Put it in her ear, Robert," someone suggested.
He was breathing laboriously by then, concentrating on achieving climax. "Why," he asked with bated breath, "when such a hot pussy is available?"
The cum pumped into my cunt like warm lotion from a squeeze bottle. He moaned as it left him, as though part of his inner body had been torn from him.
"How was it?" Yves asked as he stood waiting to follow him.
"You'll soon find out," came the reply. "It's the closest thing to heaven you'll find on this fucking earth."
It seemed that hardly a stroke was missed as Yves substituted his rigid tool for that of the depleted Robert. I decided to keep my eyes closed for the remainder of the session and to contribute no more effort to satisfying such a band of hoodlums.
There was nothing memorable about the performance of this man they addressed as Yves, nor about the Jean who followed him. With Charles it was different. He really was tremendously endowed. I winced even after all the lubrication provided by the five others before him. His cock felt to be eleven or twelve inches long and as round as a baseball bat. The missionary position was not the best for coping with a man of his size. I reached for his cock and motioned for him to stop.
"She's cutting you off, Charlie," one of the men noted.
"No, no," he disagreed. He saw that I was repositioning myself, turning face down and lifting my ass into position before him. "She wants it dog-fashion."
Chambord had left the room for some reason and so the sense of abandon among the men increased.
"Take the gag out and let her suck you off!" Marcel suggested to Jean, who was lying naked before me.
"The captain says no," he replied.
"Fuck the captain," he responded drunkenly.
"You tell him that," Angelo said.
"Why should I?" the whisky-emboldened Marcel retorted. "You will do it anyhow."
"You're calling me a squealer?" Angelo asked angrily. "I'll tear your little prick off, you cocksucker!"
They dove at one another, arms and legs flailing madly, as Charles continued impaling me on his enormous cock. My eyes were wide open now-wider than they had been all evening. The two men were fighting in earnest, both drawing blood from the other. I had never seen naked men fighting before and it was a strange spectacle. They grabbed at one another's genitals repeatedly. It was obviously a more effective and quicker way to victory than throwing punches.
No one made a move to enter the dispute, until Marcel lurched for his pants.
"Don't let him get his knife!" a suddenly aroused Jean shouted.
"I'll cut his greasy Italian balls off!" Marcel screamed. A dull thud followed and I could see that Angelo had kicked him fully in his crotch, doubling him over in pain.
As the action heightened, Charles seemed to grow more excited. He rammed his cock, more like a fist and forearm than merely a penis, in and out of me until I imagined that I, too, was bleeding from assault.
The door swung open abruptly. Chambord had returned.
"That's it!" he shouted fiercely. Whether it was shock or fright or simply the moment of resolution, Charles emptied an incredibly massive load of spurting semen into my cunt at the instant Alain issued his cutoff command. He was still coming when an enraged Chambord leaped at him and tore him away from me.
"Do you hear my order?" he shrieked. "This party is over. Go to your quarters!"
Some of Charles' cum was on his captain's hands as he scrambled to obey. "Bring me your face!" Chambord screamed at him. A bewildered Charles returned with his clothes in his hand. "Here," he held out his hands, "lick your miserable semen from my hands."
He did as he was told, following the others out like a chastised child. When all of them were gone, Chambord turned smugly to me. "Did any one of them violate your mouth?" he asked.
I shook my head.
"Then you will take me between your lips," he said.
"Haven't you degraded me enough?" I cried, exhausted by it all.
He drew an ivory-handled revolver from his waistband. With a flick of the lock, he put it directly against my forehead.
"Suck it," he said quietly.
He did not remove the gun until the last drop of his cum had been devoured by my mouth.
"That's why I had you gagged," he said. "Not to keep you quiet but to keep you pure for me."
"It wasn't necessary," I said with resignation.
"Tell me, Christina," he said as he stood by the door ready to leave, "do you still believe I could have made it in your world?"
I looked at him and saw the strong lines I had seen at first converge into a crooked maze.
"No," I said softly, "you belong where you are."
"Thank you," he replied and disappeared into the darkness.
CHAPTER TEN
Below me I could hear the shouts and bickering of the Quai des Beiges. The fishmongers argued with the fish buyers only hours after the fishermen themselves had done the same with the dealers. The only real losers in the transactions were the fish themselves.
I had begun to think of myself as a fish. I had been netted and now I was at the mercy of those who dealt in my flesh. The vagina is a remarkably resilient organ and I had reason to be grateful for that. But the same is not true of the mind. The abuses I had suffered were all but unbelievable. I could not bear to recall them all for fear of going mad.
Chambord had been away for days. From what little I could gather from the others-all of whom seemed gruffly contrite over their drunken orgy behavior-he was probably off on a drug-smuggling run. After all, business was business. No one knew anything of the ransom negotiations. That was the province of Chambord, from what I understood.
The entire summer had passed without my presence on the Riviera. Lazing there in the sun, selecting which party to attend with which lover, I had never dreamed that such an underworld as I now inhabited existed.
It never occurred to me that there might be reprisals from the Tenth of November League against Chambord and his crew. But when I heard on a shortwave broadcast that members of the movement were engaged in an international manhunt not just for me but for my second kidnappers, it did make a kind of convoluted sense. They had been robbed of ten million dollars and suffered losses in personnel as well. Even I, the victim, could understand their desire for revenge.
I stayed high much of the time to avoid facing reality. It did not seem to matter to my guards. They were stuck with boring duty anyhow. What did it matter if the animal in the cage was tame or wild, docile or deranged? There was no apparent way for me to break free or to make contact with the outside. And so the thinking was-let her rant and rave, sleep or dance, be drunk or sober inside her cell. As long as I was that-inside-nothing else was of any immediate concern.
There had been many times since the night of the murder when I had cursed myself for not dropping some clue to my identity along the streets of Marseilles. At least I would have stood a remote chance of being located. The police surely had publicized my case enough for a metropolis like Marseilles to be aware of it. But hindsight was equivalent to blindness. It had not been done, so why brood over it?"
In idle moments I thought of scratching out notes and throwing them to the wind. Or of luring one of the pigeons outside the shack to serve as a carrier of my plea for aid. Both of which ideas demonstrated how illogically I was thinking. The windows were sealed, first of all, and there was nothing to write upon or with. Added to that, the pigeons were just stupid scavengers and not trained birds. They would probably build a nest with my notes, which would then be burned by sanitation crews out to destroy their breeding grounds.
Alain Chambord had not maintained the gourmet cuisine of the first night but the food was adequate. I couldn't really complain except for the amount of starches. Without a scale it was hard to tell if I had gained weight. But anguish served to counterbalance the excess calories, and from what I could tell, I had maintained pretty much my regular weight despite confinement.
Also I had worked out a set regimen of massage and exercise for myself, most of it directed at keeping my sexuality in peak condition. Before arising every day, I spent fifteen or twenty minutes giving circular massages to my breasts, using the nipples as the axis for my fingers. Then I reached behind myself and squeezed my buttocks, giving each cheek a thorough rubdown. Through it all I kept my torso in slow motion, writhing and undulating with the caressing. I teased it by denying it for as long as I could, letting the lips silently cry out like the petals of a flower for rain. Masturbation-the ability of people to satisfy their own sexual hunger-surely must be the salvation of all captive and isolated people everywhere. I unashamedly indulged in it daily, often five or six times during particularly horny stretches.
But in spite of it all, the pall or gloom hung over me with increasing density. I watched the watery September sun gradually become a full autumn moon so many nights it became boring. The ritual had become drearily prison-like, monotonous in its repetition. By now I knew all of my guards by name-after all, they had all sampled me-yet they conversed less and less with me. I assumed it was on orders from Chambord. I could read the lust in their eyes at times, but they made no overt gestures toward me. The sexual prize they had shared was now strictly a random prize to be shared later.
Chambord was back-from Paris-I overheard Jean confide to Angelo outside my door late one evening. They must have assumed I was asleep in the darkness for they never discussed anything more important than the weather within earshot of me. I lay there staring at the ceiling, wondering and hoping he had been in Paris to conclude the negotiations.
"This whole business is getting sticky," Jean said in a low voice. "I hope Alain is not stretching luck too far."
"He is cunning," Angelo assured him.
"Yes, but Marseilles is bristling with police-especially undercover men."
"I would prefer to get out of here myself," Angelo admitted. "Too many mercenaries about."
"So right, Angelo. If they knew what we have here, we would be besieged."
"Ten million for one would attract many," he agreed.
I was again being discussed as a commodity, a package of goods. It bruised my ego, but then, it was already badly wounded. All that mattered was when and how I would get out of here.
"The Church has begun to put on pressure, I hear," Jean whispered. I dared not move for fear of alerting them to the fact I was awake and able to overhear them. A light shone in my eyes as they made a flashlight check on me through one of the windows. Fortunately at that moment my eyes were closed.
"That worries Chambord more than the police," Angelo said. "He hates any negotiations involving the Church of Rome."
"Don't you, too?"
"It no longer matters. I have been excommunicated for years."
"Then you should be conducting the negotiations," Jean suggested.
Angelo laughed. "God does not speak to the devil," he said.
There was nothing but the sound of footsteps and the occasional call of night birds for several minutes. They were making their hourly rounds, I assumed, double-checking the locks and scouring the rooftops for possible accomplices of mine. If only such individuals existed, I thought. It was wishful thinking on my part and just plain paranoia on theirs.
"Why is it we cannot have her anymore?" Jean asked when they rejoined.
"The captain is fickle," he was told.
"Is he in love with her?"
"Who wouldn't be? I am in love with her myself."
They both chuckled in agreement. "I have never felt such fuckable flesh," Jean confessed.
"If I thought she would stay with me," Angelo confided, "I would consider running off with her myself."
"Don't let Chambord hear you say that," Jean warned.
"I'm only joking," Angelo replied. But he did not sound convincing.
My mind at night, stimulated further by drugs, was hyperactive. The control of Alain Chambord over his men did not appear to be quite so complete as it looked on the surface. Hadn't Angelo and Marcel gotten into a bitter argument right before my eyes-an argument that might have become fatal to one of them except for the return of the captain at the opportune moment? And now, wasn't I listening to the faintest intimations of heresy toward their autocratic captain? I mulled over all I had witnessed and heard since my seizure in Sicily. What had seemed to be an unusually tightly knit and dedicated band of criminals, operating under a firm but benign captain, had gradually unraveled into a group with all the jealousies and dissensions one would expect among men whose only common bond was greed. How could I play that to my advantage? Who would be most susceptible to an overture from me? I had tried once before and failed. If I tried again this time, I risked the ruthless animosity of Chambord.
It took me hours to achieve sleep, even after I had drunk more than half a bottle of local brandy. Once again, I had caught escape fever. There had to be a way. Somehow, some way.
In the morning Chambord was there to greet me. He looked tired but his manner was back to the original style. "Sleep well, Christina?" he inquired.
"I don't sleep," I responded acidy, "I rot."
"One doesn't rot until one is ride," he said with a a smile. "You are so young you are not even fully ripe yet."
"Don't waste any more of your charm on me, Captain," I snapped, irritated by the overnight arrival of menses.
"At any rate, I have news for you," he said.
"You've found a burial plot for me?" I said sarcastically.
He laughed briefly. "You're on edge today," he noted. "Even more than usual."
"I'm bleeding," I confessed.
His lower lip slid over the top one as he nodded understanding. "In that case, you're forgiven," he said.
I could not understand him. Whenever he left his cohorts for a time and was exposed to outside society, he seemed to return civilized, only to become savage again later. It was a chameleon quality, I supposed, which helped him survive in all environments.
"What have you to tell me?" I asked.
"I spoke to someone who arranged the ransom with the Communists," he said. "A man named Rainier."
My heart skipped. "From London?" I asked, momentarily alive with hope.
"He was in Paris, but yes, he is with your law firm in London, I'm told."
My hands locked on my bosom. "You've made arrangements?" I questioned eagerly.
"Not so fast," Chambord held up his hands to deflect my onrushing enthusiasm. "They are still trying to get the ten million back out of Italy."
"But why? It's mine!"
"The Italian government is very strict about moving monies in and out of the country. That's probably why it took so long to make a deal with the Communists. Your crowd just couldn't get that much cash okayed until it went all the way up to the top level in government."
My balloon was deflated almost before it had become filled. "And now the whole thing starts all over again in France," I said sadly.
"Maybe not. We don't know yet."
I began to weep softly. "I'll never be free again," I mourned.
"Look," Alain said with a flip of his hands, "we want the ten million-not you."
"When will you contact him again?" I managed to ask through my tears.
"Tomorrow. We can't afford to wait much longer either."
My head bobbed from its overload of despair. "At least it's something," I tried to. console myself. "It's better than hearing nothing."
"He sent his affection to you, I forgot to add."
"Thank you," I mumbled, breaking into full sobs.
Chambord closed the door behind him. The lock clicked, sounding like a death knell to me. I wasn't certain how to react. The news was both good and bad. But I was inclined to think the bad far outweighed the good-at least insofar as my early release was concerned. The eternal optimist had become without question the adamant pessimist.
Later that day the captain returned with two of his men-Yves and Charles.
"We must leave Marseilles tonight," he said. "It'll be necessary that you be carried out in a steamer trunk. You won't be harmed, I assure you."
"But where now?" I cried in desperation.
"Be ready by sundown," he said crisply.
An hour later the two men brought the trunk and tried it on me for size.
"Too bad there isn't room for me, too, in there," Charles kidded.
"For you?" Yves laughed. "There isn't even room for your cock."
I couldn't help but resent them for being so cheerful in the face of my wretchedness.
"I'll scream if you lock me in there!" I warned them. It was an impulsive mistake. When the time for departure arrived, I was quickly drugged into oblivion and then bound hand and foot and gagged.
When I returned to consciousness, we were many miles at sea. And not on the same trawler either. This ship was more of a pleasure craft, with mahogany railings and fairly luxurious accessories. It was not new, but it had been well maintained. I had seen many ships like it in the marinas of Europe and America.
"Take her to her cabin now," Alain instructed when he saw me stir. I had been resting on a cushioned banquette in the main cabin near the steering wheel.
"Where are we?" I inquired drowsily.
"At sea," he replied.
I left without further questioning, following Marcel as he led me to my quarters. He had spoken little to anyone since the incident with Angelo and he said nothing now.
"In there." He pointed to a small but comfortable cabin. There were blue curtains over the single porthole and blue blankets on the two bunks inside.
"Not bad for steerage," I said without smiling. It brought no response.
"You will not be locked in-on captain's orders-as long as you behave," he informed me. Then he left as though he were a total stranger to me and my body.
The sea was calm the entire night and I slept without once awakening. My senses were so dulled by drugs and the melancholia of continuing flight and captivity, I found it difficult to organize my thoughts. The vivid escape plans I had made only the day before had vanished. I did not even know where I was, although a peek through the porthole at the azure water and sunny sky assured me that it was somewhere on the Mediterranean.
Robert was the first to greet me. He knocked tentatively on the door and then opened it before I could respond.
"You are up, Christina van Bell?" he asked.
"I'm up," I replied.
"I'm always up in the morning, too," he said, eyeing me slyly.
"That is a strictly male disorder you're suffering from," I decided to kid back. I had to do something to wrest myself from my renewed despondency.
"Breakfast is in the galley," he said. "The captain said to tell you we all eat together on this ship."
"I don't eat breakfast," I replied.
He shrugged. "So you have nothing to do then," he said.
"Do you know where we are and where we're going?" I asked.
"We are off the coast of Spain," he said. "Where we are going only the captain knows."
"Why did we leave so suddenly?" I wondered. "Maybe it was sudden for you," he said, "but we knew we were soon to go."
"You move all the time?"
"Naturally," he said with a thin smile. "We don't like to overstay our welcome anywhere."
"Could we be going to LeHavre by any chance?" I asked.
"On this? No, I hardly think so. Perhaps Algiersor Tangier. But those are only guesses."
"But why so far?"
"It isn't far at all-a day's journey by sea."
"I mean why so far away from where the negotiations are taking place?"
"Mademoiselle, don't ask me, ask the captain."
He seemed annoyed at my continued questioning and left rather hastily after explaining the location of the galley. After I thought about it, I seemed to recall that many criminals and terrorists found refuge in Algeria. It had extradition treaties with very few nations. Yet that did not seem entirely plausible either. The money apparently was still in Italy, my lawyers in Paris, and now we were possibly headed for Algiers. It was a riddle I was in no condition to solve.
By nightfall a necklace of lights had become visible along some distant shoreline. I had not been allowed to speak to Chambord all day. He had kept himself locked in the radio compartment, making contact with whoever it was he was dealing with at the moment. Then the thought occurred to me: he had taken me on a murder mission; perhaps now I was being included in a smuggling operation.
The crew reflected the mood of the captain. They avoided me except to make an occasional suggestive gesture such as clutching the cluster of their crotches as I passed. But few words were exchanged, obviously on orders from on high.
I went out on deck to inhale whatever breeze there might be on a warm night. No one noticed me at first in the darkness. I had learned over the period of my captivity to make good use of shadows to avoid as much contact with my kidnappers as possible. Probably because they were unaware of my presence, the crew went about its business without any attempt at subterfuge. They were unusually active for such a late hour it seemed to me. But then, I was usually asleep and unaware at this time of night. It would have been difficult to hear them at any rate, since they padded about on rubber-soled shoes like so many cats on the prowl. What caught my attention almost immediately was the middeck presence of two men in rubber diving suits, their feet outfitted with large webbed paddles resembling oversized duck feet. They moved about restlessly, peering toward the glittering shoreline.
A few moments later the blackness between ship and shore was slashed by a powerful searchlight. I looked up and saw Chambord atop the pilot cabin, operating the shutters that enabled him to cut the light at will.
He was sending some form of message, I gathered, but having no knowledge of Morse code-or any other code, for that matter-I had no idea of what he was communicating. No one spoke during all of this. The only sound was the lapping of water against the shipV hull.
Abruptly all the enormous candlepower of the light was focused on me. I was totally blinded by the white glare and threw my hands over my face to try to escape it.
"Get that bitch below!" the captain screamed angrily. "Who let her up here?"
His response was in action as three men-Angelo, Robert and Yves-raced over and seized me.
"Get to your cabin, you fool!" Angelo snarled. He shoved me toward the nearest passageway while the others pulled at my arms.
"I'm going, damnit!" I snapped back. "Get your hands off me!"
I stumbled down the few steps to the lower level and ran to my cabin. The porthole was a blank, its storm cover locked in place so that I could see nothing.
"Bastards!" I yelped, more, in disappointment than anything else. Captivity was drab enough; now when it afforded the promise of a little excitement, I was denied even that.
I knew they were all occupied with whatever mission they were engaged in, leaving me pretty much on my own for the time being. Stealthily, I crept back into the passageway and looked for another exit. What could they possibly do to me that they hadn't done already? It was worth the risk just to be witness to the action.
I located a ventilation opening in the forward sector that looked large enough to allow me to squirm through it onto the deck. The crew, except for Chambord, was concentrated at mid ship and so would not be likely to stumble across me in the bow section.
The cover was held down by four large turn screws.
They were a little resistant at first, having been painted over a number of times. But once I was able to get them started, the threads cleared of paint with each new twist. It took me ten or fifteen minutes and hurt my fingers from the pressure, but I was determined. I was glad I was not Lisa Rainier as I pulled myself upward onto the darkened deck. Her tits would never have cleared the opening.
Chambord was hunched over the rail, staring into the night with long telescopic binoculars. Even in the uneven light I could see that he was tense and preoccupied. Minutes passed slowly as everyone aboard waited expectantly. I saw Alain glance at his watch several times and paw the deck with his foot like a nervous colt. He did not look once in my direction and probably could not have seen me from his position. At least I hoped not.
"Ecoutez!" he shouted abruptly. His body stiffened and the glasses returned swiftly to his eyes. "Regardez!" Listen, then look. I did both but heard nothing and saw nothing at first. But then gradually came the sound of powerful engines churning the water. Shortly after I could see even in the darkness the lacy curls of water peeling from the bow of an approaching boat.
Chambord had gone back to the searchlight for a quick confirmation by code. The vessel responded immediately, sending him scrambling down to join the others at mid ship. There was an air of tense expectation in all of their faces as they stared in unison at the enlarging silhouette of a ship.
"Jean!" I heard the captain call. "Marcel! Get over the side and wait."
The two of them in diving suits climbed over the rail and lowered themselves silently into the calm water. The other ship was approaching rapidly now and timing had apparently become all-important. Chambord was gesturing to the others on deck but I could no longer hear him over the roar of the oncoming launch's powerful engines.
It swept no closer than thirty feet from us. Men with rifles stood along its rail, ready, I imagined, to take on any authorities who might pursue them. A large yellow canister fell from its port side, bobbing in the waves created by the ship. No sooner was it dropped than Jean and Marcel emerged from the choppy water to claim it. At their wave of recovery, the delivery ship roared off into the night, stirring up an impressive wake. Our ship rocked for minutes in the foamy turbulence it created.
Eager hands reached over the rail to pull the two divers back aboard. The canister came first, however, and it was carried immediately to the captain's quarters. Chambord congratulated Jean and Marcel as though they had just won a Distinguished Service Cross. Then he retired hastily to his quarters, undoubtedly to check the merchandise. I had no reason to doubt the canister contained a cache of extremely valuable drugs. Why else all the secrecy and security?
"What are you doing here, Christina?" Angelo startled me. I had been crouched all the while behind a storage box containing fire-fighting equipment. Until now, all the crew had been visible to me. But with the recovery of the canister, they had dispersed quickly, leaving me no chance to return to my cabin undetected.
"Angelo!" I gasped in surprise.
A strong hand shot out and clamped on my upper arm. "Come with me," he ordered, forcing me to literally skip along.
"Not to Alain!" I pleaded. "I didn't do anything!"
"To the captain, of course," he responded angrily. "Your orders were to remain in your cabin."
"Please, I'll do anything for you. Come visit me later."
He sneered. "You women are all alike," he said contemptuously, "relying always on your cunts to get you out of everything."
We were at Chambord's door. Angelo knocked as I stood there whimpering.
"Who is it?" the captain's voice asked testily. "Captain, I found the woman spying on the foredeck," he repeated.
The door swung open. Chambord was bare to the waist, holding a small scale in his hand.
"Tell me about it, Christina," he said with measured coolness.
"I just went out for some air," I stammered.
"The air is very polluted tonight," he responded. "It is not healthy for young ladies."
He slapped me sharply across my face. I whined with pain as a trickle of blood ran from my nose.
"You were told to remain in your cabin," he reminded me. "Leave her here, Angelo. I will deal with her more completely later."
"Yes, sir."
He left, closing the door behind him.
"You have seen everything else," Chambord said, "you may as well see the prize, too."
The canister had been thrown aside after removal of its contents. They looked like three large packages of baking dough sealed in soft plastic, already kneaded and ready to be shaped into loaves.
"Gold," he pointed to them. "Even better than gold." I was still trembling from the shock of discovery and the blow he had dealt me. But I knew he wanted me to talk. I struggled to speak without quivering.
"Wha ... what is it?" I asked.
"You don't know what that is? A wealthy woman such as you does not recognize one of the most valuable commodities on earth? Christina, I'm ashamed of you."
"It looks like dough to me," I confessed.
He forced a fake laugh. "That is close," he said. "It does represent a whole lot of what Americans call dough."
He took my hand and rubbed it across one of the packets. It felt pliable and pleasant to my touch. "I'd guess from what you told me your business was," I ventured, "that it's some form of narcotics."
"Oh?" He raised an eyebrow. "That is a rather dangerous conjecture, don't you think? You are implying that you witnessed a drug transaction, aren't you?"
"No," I said nervously, "not necessarily. After all, I'm only guessing. I know nothing about such things." He looked at me strangely. "Suppose I told you that on the table there is worth three times your ransom demand in street-sale value?"
"I'd have to be impressed," I said.
He took all three of the transparent bags in his hands and clutched them to his bare chest. "I embrace these with true love," he said, kissing each of them in turn. "You do the same," he instructed me.
The bags 'were heavier than they looked as he loaded them into my outstretched arms. I kissed them as he requested.
"Now I want to fuck you like that-just as you are-holding thirty million dollars in your ten-million dollar embrace." With that he pushed me against the long desk strewn with navigational charts and other matter, lifted my skirt and shoved his stiffly angled cock into my surprised pussy.
"That is opium, baby, pure opium," he said proudly as he rammed excitedly in and out of me.
"It's getting heavy, Alain," I told him. "I could do better for you without it."
"Hold them until I tell you to put them down," he ordered. His body trembled as he heaved me upward with the sheer force of his driving strokes. Before long I had been lifted onto the edge of the desk, my buttocks finding a tenuous resting place on the brink of it. "Spread your ass," he urged me when he had managed to move me far enough back to support my full weight. I felt like I had five tits as I struggled to hold the packets of raw opium in my bosom.
"I need my arms, Alain," I said with difficulty, "to spread my legs wider."
He looked at me with glazed eyes, that almost maniacal glint that extremely sexual men get when they are totally aroused. "I'll hold the stuff against you," he said.
With his arms looping me, pressing the fat packets against my abdomen and breasts, I utilized mine to pull my legs apart like a wishbone. It literally unpleated my cunt, opening a gap that absorbed his whole cock and most of his balls. He was on his tiptoes by then, slamming away at me with a fury that shook my whole body.
"I'm going to come," I gasped, sensing the imminence of his own orgasm.
"You fucking cunt!" he groaned, triggering himself. His cock throbbed like a Roman candle as it fired successive shots of his congealed love juice into the farthest reaches of my pulsating pussy. He fell upon me and his cache of drugs with the dead weight of a spent man, knocking me against the bookcases lining the cabin wall behind the desk.
My own climaxes had been like an avalanche, one tumbling down upon the other. With the addition of his, so full and rich, a new slide was launched. We both shuddered from the exertion.
"Danger is your catalyst," I analyzed after we had partially recovered. "You thrive on risk."
He stared at me blankly for several moments. "What difference does it make?" he demanded.
"For you, it's the difference between routine and ecstasy," I stated.
He clawed at the packages until he had a good grip on them, and carried them to an open safe on the other side of the cabin. The door closed with a thud and he spun the dial clockwise and counterclockwise several times to ensure scrambling the code. I noticed for the first time a scar on his abdomen. It was neat enough to be surgical.
"Appendicitis?" I asked, pointing to it.
"No," he said, "some bitch's husband tried to cut my cock off. Luckily he missed."
I looked at him for some sign of kidding, but his face was a mask of seriousness. "He missed by quite a bit," I noted.
"Not really," he replied, "I was hard at the time."
I had the definite feeling I was being put on, but once again, he maintained his air of sincerity. If he was being facetious, it troubled me that he was such a good actor-especially with me as his audience.
"You say that stuff in the safe is worth thirty million," I said after a few moments of silence. "Then why do you bother with me? It's so much easier dealing with something inanimate like that, isn't it?"
"I said it was worth thirty million street value," ,he emphasized. "It is not worth thirty million to me-nor anywhere near that."
"My street value is higher?" I suggested.
"You could clean up on the streets," he said, again with no indication of humor.
"You think of me that way?" I asked. "Like a prostitute?"
"I think of you as what you are," he replied without hesitation. "A beautiful, sophisticated woman with a hot cunt."
I laughed almost involuntarily. "That's a pretty good capsule critique," I said.
He stared at my crotch momentarily, seeming undecided about making another attack upon it. Abruptly, he turned away.
"You can go," he said. "I have to work on delivery details."
I dressed hurriedly. "Have you been in touch with Rainier?" I forced myself to ask before departing.
"Rainier?" He looked up cryptically. "Oh, the lawyer. No, not since we left Marseilles."
My disappointment must have shown.
"First thing after we put back in port," he promised.
On my way back to my cabin, I encountered Charles and Angelo. "Can we see you for a minute?" Angelo asked.
"I'm not going anywhere," I replied.
"Not here," he said. "In your cabin."
I shrugged and led the way. Once inside, I turned to them. "Okay, what's it all about?" I asked.
"Was the captain bad to you?" Angelo asked.
"No worse than usual," I replied.
"He did not punish you?" Charles inquired.
"Not in the way you think, no."
"But he fucked, huh?" Angelo guessed with a smirk.
"You men know him better than I do," I said.
"Not in the same way, however. He keeps his sex life to himself," Charles volunteered.
"Not even that day with everybody," Angelo recalled. "He kept his clothes on."
"Maybe he feels inadequate," I suggested. "Especially around somebody like Charles." I had never been on a cruise before where I knew the anatomical dimensions of every man on board. It was an odd kind of intimate knowledge to possess. And quite useless as well.
"Him feel less?" Angelo scoffed. "Never!"
"He is number one in everything," Charles sort of agreed. "Even in the things in which he is not number one."
"It is good to be the captain."
"But it's not just being captain of the ship," I probed. "He's also the leader of all your operations, isn't he?"
They both suddenly clammed.
"We are here to ask you a favor," Angelo said, dismissing the prior subject.
"Do I have a choice?" I asked.
"It would be nice if you do it for us," he said. "Nobody gets hurt. Everybody gets happy."
"That sounds like one of the better deals I've been offered lately," I replied.
"See," Charles took over, "it's like this. The captain has forbidden us to touch you-sexually, that is-for some reason or other."
"He got very jealous that day we all got to know you, Christina," Angelo injected.
"Jealous or not," Charles resumed, "he said no more screwing of the lady. Do you know what it is for us to have such a delectable woman aboard, a passionate woman at that, and not be allowed to make love with her?"
"And to see you walking about with next to nothing on all the time," Angelo said.
"The point of it is what?" I inquired.
Charles handed me a bottle of brandy they had smuggled in against orders. Chambord had taken away my liquor and drugs on this trip for reasons of his own.
"Here," he said, "have a drink."
Beware of hoodlums bearing gifts, I thought to myself. . But my thirst overcame my reservations. As a prisoner, it would make little difference anyhow. They might be reprimanded by the captain, but then so would I in one form or another no matter what my involvement.
"It's good," I said after a long swallow from the bottle. "Have some."
"Oh, no," Angelo responded. "The worst of all is for the captain to smell liquor on our breaths while at sea."
"It's for you anyhow," Charles said.
I took another drink and then confronted them again. "You still haven't told me anything," I said.
"Drink some more," Angelo urged. If I had gotten to know much about them during my imprisonment, they also had learned a good deal about me as well.
Another healthy swig and I was beginning to feel the warm glow. "I'm ready for anything now," I said to them.
"Since we are not allowed to touch you, but we are permitted to look at you," Charles began, "we would like to suggest a compromise."
"We want to watch you masturbate while naked," Angelo blurted out, "and we will do the same."
I laughed at the idea. "We did that in the second grade," I said.
"It's still fun," Charles said. "I jerk off every day-sometimes three or four times."
"As does everybody at sea," Angelo verified.
I eased my legs apart slowly, tantalizingly, and ran the flat of my palms along my thighs in the direction of my cunt. Just that movement alone sent their jeans into motion as both cocks began to rise.
"With your clothes off so we can enjoy your lovely body," Charles requested.
"Anything you say," I responded throatily, injecting a sensual timbre into my voice. Like a snake shedding its skin, I slithered and writhed on my bunk, squirming out of first one piece of apparel and then another. There was not much to remove since I had come from Chambord's cabin only partially redressed.
The two men had dug their pricks from their pants before starting to take off the rest of their uniforms-dungarees, blue shirts, black sweaters and white sailor caps. In Charles' case it was like freeing a python as his long cock bobbed from the anchor of his balls.
Angelo began beating his shorter but still ample organ the moment it was free of restraint. He pulled at his clothes without missing a stroke. When they were both naked except for their socks and shoes they positioned themselves in front of me, eyes magnetized by my quivering pussy.
"Spread it apart," Charles said, "like a flower."
"That is one gorgeous cunt," Angelo said in admiration.
"Anybody who says if you've seen one, you've seen them all hasn't seen this one," Charles agreed.
Their masturbating was rapid and forceful enough to be audible in the cabin. I watched them just as they were watching me. I had always enjoyed seeing grown men jack off-they looked so much like little boys getting away with something naughty or forbidden.
With my two index fingers, I parted the innermost folds of flesh to reveal the raw entrance to my cunt. It seemed to fascinate them like some mysterious passageway.
"I could suck that for a week," Charles confessed.
"If it was air-conditioned," Angelo said, "I'd live in it."
I moved one hand up to play with one of my tits as I started to manipulate my clit in earnest. "You boys want to see me come, don't you?" I asked.
"I wish women squirted like men," Charles said. "That cum is pretty-just like snow."
"We come internally," I advised him. "No mess that way."
"That kind o' mess I don't mind," Angelo said.
They were both in a rhythmic pattern, both in unison as they pulled the flesh up the shaft of their cocks to the circumcised heads. The caps were gleaming with the early juices from within.
"Look at her asshole twitch," Charles said.
"I'd like to fuck her up the ass," Angelo replied to him, addressing him as if I couldn't hear.
"Keep talking like that and I'm gonna come," Charles warned.
"My balls are full," came the response. "I can shoot a gallon."
"Do it on my prick," Charles said in a husky voice, "and I'll do it on yours."
The impromptu directions came just in time as both men went off almost simultaneously, Charles perhaps a split second ahead of Angelo. I ate up the scene with my eyes as the intersecting fountains of cum arced in the air and landed on opposite cocks, dripping to the deck and into the nests of pubic hair at their bases. It was a simple matter for me to induce orgasm in myself, especially with such a performance taking place in front of me.
"That was no gallon," Charles told Angelo, "but it was a helluva heavy load."
"I gotta bigger balls than you," Angelo replied. "All you got is cock."
"Of the two, I'll stick with what I got," Charles said. "What do you think, Christina?" Angelo asked as he groped about for his clothing.
"I'm neutral," I said.
"You're pure pussy," Charles corrected me. "I never saw such a beautiful cunt."
"If I had a camera," Angelo said, "I'd take a picture of it. That way we could jack off in honor of it anytime we wanted."
"Good idea, amigo," Charles responded enthusiastically. "The captain's got half a dozen of them up above."
Angelo shook his head. "Don't mess with-them, Charlie," he advised. "He uses them in business."
"What can it hurt to take a picture with one?" he retorted. "It won't break anything."
"I wouldn't do it without asking-and I wouldn't ask him. Not for what you want to use it for."
Charles was not convinced. "I'll think of a way," he said.
"While you're thinking," Angelo said, "think of a way to outswim the sharks when he throws you overboard."
"He wouldn't," Charles responded. "I'm the best diver he's got."
Angelo shook his head and pushed the door open. "Don't expect him back with a camera," he said to me.
Charles looked over his shoulder at me, lying naked on the bunk, the brandy beside me. "Man, how I would love to suck that," he said.
I taunted him by opening it up again with my fingers. "That's sadistic," he said, closing the door behind him. I laughed as I slipped the neck of the bottle between my lips and committed fellatio on the brandy. The unexpected interlude had distracted me from my real concerns. I needed the brandy to ensure that they would not return full strength until tomorrow.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It would be Algiers, I had convinced myself. And at first when I saw the coastline forming on the horizon, I imagined that it was. But as the ship drew closer and the squares and dots and lines began assembling into structures of varied shapes and sizes, I knew immediately it was not any part of the African coast. We were returning to Europe.
On deck, all the men now carried guns-some in their belts, others slung long-range rifles and telescopic sights casually from their shoulders. They went about the preparations for landing with the brisk efficiency of professionals accustomed to the regimen. I could not imagine that we would risk entering any harbor in daylight-not with the contraband we were carrying. That assumption proved right a few hours later when we anchored offshore, several miles from any land. But we had drawn close enough for me to see a sparkling white adobe village rising from the sides of hills that appeared to touch the very edge of the sea. It was a quiet scene-we had to be many miles from any major city from the looks of the visible horizon.
Alain Chambord brushed past me as I stood gazing shoreward. We had not spoken since the previous night. I wondered if he had learned of the bottle and of the antics of his two crewmen in my cabin. I assumed not since he was unusually buoyant and cheerful.
"You are always trying to determine our destinations," he said to me in passing. "Tell me now where we are."
"Will you tell me if I'm right?" I challenged.
"Of course," he said. "We have no secrets around here."
I looked at him, registering my disbelief. "I would say from the looks of the hills and the general terrain that it is somewhere along the coast of Spain," I said.
"Congratulations." He bowed. "You should be a tour guide."
"It's a long coast," I reminded him. "I have no idea in what part we are."
"You know the Costa Blanca, I'm sure?" he said.
"Yes."
"And the Costa del Sol, of course," he added.
"I have a villa in Majorca," I replied.
"Well, it is neither of those. But it is in between the two of them. Can you picture the area?"
"Not really. Are we near Malaga?"
"Closer to Granada," he said.
"That's inland," I pointed out.
"I am speaking kilometers," he replied.
"That looks like a small village there in the hills," I pointed with my finger.
"The reason is that it is a small village in the hills," he said with unexpected openness. "It is called Agua Amarga."
"Bitter water," I translated.
"The lady is not only beautiful and geographic, but fluent as well," he said with just a slight trace of sarcasm. "Now tell me that you have been there, too."
"No, never."
"You wouldn't like it," he advised. "Too dead."
"Then why are we here?" I asked.
"Cemeteries are a favorite place to do business," he informed me. With that, he went on, moving swiftly up the ladder to the pilot house.
There was no particular significance in where we were biding time. But I would have preferred it to be off the coast of France where at least I knew my negotiators waited. Still, it was not beyond the realm of possibility that they had flown to Spain for a meeting in a remote and ostensibly safe location.
The day, which had begun so beautifully-an orange sun gilding the blue water throughout-turned abruptly cloudy and then black. Torrential rains began drumming the decks, making mad puddles on the taut tarpaulins covering the hatches. It was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead of us-yet Alain was jubilant. "Perfect!" he cried out as the crew sprung into action, all of them drenched to their skins. The engines sputtered momentarily and then turned into a roar that overpowered the storm. We were moving, despite all the potential marine hazards. The ship did not even sound its fog horns as we aimed diagonally for the invisible shore.
"He's absolutely mad!" I yelled into the downpour. "We'll all be killed!" No one heard me, of course. It was just another of my exercises in futility.
As dusk blended with the rain and clouds, visibility became even murkier. I had difficulty making out the aft end of the ship-and it was only fifty feet or so away. The engines had been reduced but we were still proceeding forward.
"He has radar to guide him," Angelo assured me as he hurried past carrying an electric torch.
I went back to my cabin and finished what little brandy remained in the bottle. The ship in weather such as this became more claustrophobic than ever. I dreaded being confined to such a small area. It was one reason I had always been reluctant to join my friends on yacht cruises of more than a day's duration.
Although no horns were employed, Chambord did begin sounding a bell as we came within a mile or so of the rain-curtained coastline. The order that had impressed me before now seemed to turn to chaos with crewmen running back and forth vainly peering into the almost opaque gloom, shouting at one another about real or imagined sightings in the water around us. It seemed apparent that we were attempting to connect with another ship on this end, just as we had on the receiving end. If that was the case, we would probably not be going into port at all. Now I understood why Chambord had been so willing to reveal our whereabouts. It was of absolutely no use to me if we never set foot there.
I was depressed again, my brief resurrection of hope over. The weather did nothing to instill optimism either. It was dismal, uncomfortably humid in addition to its bleakness. I fell asleep lamenting my fate once again, oblivious to any transaction that might have taken place. When I awakened, the skies had cleared. The air seemed to have been rinsed clean by the downpour, giving remarkable clarity to the atmosphere. We were under way once more and it seemed that I could see for miles in every direction. But where to now? Was I going to spend the rest of my miserable life at sea, speculating on the next port of call?
"The captain wants to see you," Yves notified me. I had slept naked and he stood in the doorway, intrigued by what he saw.
"I'll be there as soon as I'm dressed," I said, shutting the door in his face. I still had some rights, I insisted, minimal as they were.
Alain looked at me with more concern than usual. "Now that that matter is concluded," he said immediately upon my entering, "I intend to resolve the problem of you."
"I'm no problem," I said. "Everybody else is a problem."
"Why don't they come up with the money?" he asked. "Why do they have to wait for it to be released from Italy?"
"Can you get a message to Rainier from me?" I asked.
He looked dubious. "Such as what?"
"Demanding that he sell off whatever stocks or bonds necessary to free me immediately, that's what!" I said emphatically. "This whole mess has gone too far. They sit there in their upholstered libraries or in some plush hotel suite bargaining away the days of my life! I won't stand for it any longer! I have the money. Why isn't it being utilized to free me?"
"I should make a recording of that speech," he reacted.
"They are too staid for that," I responded on the assumption that he was serious. "They would believe that my voice had been faked by an actress."
"Wouldn't they doubt handwriting then, too? That's probably even more easily forged."
"No," I said. "Their whole concept of communication is involved in the written word-signatures, in particular. They'd believe a note from me was authentic."
He paused to consider it. "All right," he said after a brief turning over in his mind, "go ahead and do it."
I found it difficult to write at first. I had not had a pen in my hand for months. For a moment, I could not even recall how certain letters were formed.
"Take your time," Alain said. "We are more than a day away from our destination."
"Dear Rainier," I began, using only his last name to indicate that his position was to serve me and not his own whims, "this will be necessarily brief. I am being held-for months now-under unbelievable conditions. Liquidate whatever is necessary to raise the requested ransom immediately. Italian recovery can wait. Freedom is my emotional necessity! I demand your swiftest compliance. Yours most fervently, Christina."
"Eloquent," Chambord said. "I'll accompany it with a demand note of my own." "
"And what will it say" I asked boldly, strengthened by my own strong words.
"That you will be killed within forty-eight hours if the ransom is not paid," he replied.
I sunbathed in the stern of the ship, talking to the gulls who alighted there briefly. Such graceful scavengers they were, I observed, as I had so often in the past. Somehow Chambord's threat of murder did not faze me. I suppose I had been around him too long to be mortally afraid of him. I had no doubt that he was capable of doing it. But I did have doubt that he would do it. He was shrewd enough to know that I would eventually be ransomed. The trick was in knowing how far the authorities had gotten in their search for me. I believed that Rainier was acting on instructions from the police. There were too many delaying tactics to believe otherwise. After what had happened to his daughter Lisa, I knew he would, if left to his own instincts and devices, come forward immediately to deliver the money and set me free. But I no longer cared about cooperating with anyone-police or criminal. I only wanted the right to come and go as I pleased-to make my own decisions regarding my welfare.
Alain was more mysterious than ever after his threat. If he was not apologetic, he was at least partially contrite. Even temporarily diffident. And he avoided me as much as possible.
I took it upon myself to confront him as we neared a new port of call.
"Alain," I said as dramatically as I could, "I want to know exactly what's going, on. I'm fed up with being used, abused and confused. I deserve better treatment and you know it."
He looked away from me, his gaze as oblique as his reply. "It won't be long now," he said.
I felt like screaming. My frustration was complete. "You've lied to me from the beginning," I accused him. "I don't believe you ever contacted anyone regarding me!"
His response was the most belligerent look I remember receiving from anyone. "Shut up," he said, his face frozen to reduce any further output of words.
"I don't care what you do to me," I continued defiantly. "You and your men have reduced me to nothing-you've made me a slave, a whore. I won't put up with it any longer-not even if you threaten to kill me like you did that man in Marseilles."
I expected him to retaliate. I braced myself for his punch. But instead he ground his fist into the palm of his other hand and remained silent.
"This has got to be resolved," I pressed on. "I refuse to remain a captive any longer. I'll do anything to get away."
"Tomorrow," he said after a long silence. "Tomorrow I will do my last for you."
I watched him as he moved. The stealthiness I had more or less admired since our first meeting had turned into nervousness almost overnight.
"What's wrong?" I confronted him. I did it with compassion and he seemed to recognize my gesture.
"They're after me," he said without elaboration.
The changes in him were erratic enough to be frightening. No ordinary human being ranged over such a spectrum-certainly not within twenty-four hours.
"You can't hold me any longer, Alain," I emphasized. "I'll throw myself overboard if you don't release me. You must know me well enough by now to know that I mean it."
"I'll kill you first," he said. It was an idle threat, I decided.
"You wouldn't shoot a BB into me," I challenged him.
He turned and looked off toward the horizon.
"Be ready to move tonight," he said with a strange softness. It left me with mixed emotions. I was incapable any longer of feeling optimistic, of entertaining hope. It had been too long. But I was glad I had taken a stand with him at last. His response had been more promising than I had expected.
He disappeared into the radio compartment where he had been spending more and more of his time. It was probably there that he had heard whatever news made him feel he was being tracked. Or it could have been that he was simply suffering the major disease of criminals on the run: paranoia.
I had nothing to get ready except my attitude. My wardrobe consisted of only a few items-my seagoing togs and the few feminine luxuries he had bought me in Marseilles. A large purse would have held the whole of it. How ironic! In London I had an entire airconditioned storage room filled with my furs. The entirety of my wardrobe would fill a large town house from top to bottom.
"You are looking delicious today." Yves winked as he passed me at the railing. "As usual."
I took advantage of his admiration. "You're looking handsome today as well," I lied. "As usual." He stopped to savor the compliment.
"When this is all over," he said, "I will look you up one day."
"Is that a promise?" I played along.
"It is an oath," he replied.
"Yves," I leaned closer to him, "tell me where we are heading. It won't hurt anything for me to know."
He glanced about furtively. "Nice, Cannes, perhaps Monaco. Somewhere on the Riviera."
I though my heart would leap out of my body. "You're teasing me," I accused.
"No," he said, pressing his hand to his chest to verify the truth of what he had revealed. "The captain's a daredevil. With money like he has now, he would put on a mustache and attend a police convention."
It seemed possible, knowing what I did about Alain's taste for dangerous situations. His jaded temperament required flirting with high-risk combinations. Jeopardy was his aphrodisiac.
But the Riviera! It was almost too good to be true! On any list of places around the world where I was likely to be recognized, it would probably rank first. Perhaps that was precisely why he was choosing it-to torment me with hope and riddle me with temptation. He was never without a gun, which meant that at the very worst, if everything backfired, he could shoot me just as I was on the verge of being rescued and freed.
I was beginning to think like him, I accused myself. I was becoming as sick as him if I could follow such devious patterns of logic. But I comforted myself with the rationale that police were required to think that way, too, in order to cope with the criminal mind.
Alain was in and out of the radio room more in one afternoon than he had been on the entire voyage prior to this day. Now and then he climbed to the small bridge and peered through his long binoculars at the thin coastline far to the northwest. He looked at me only fleetingly despite the fact that I was sunbathing braless and with a bikini bottom the size of an eye patch only a few yards below him. The crew reluctantly avoided me because of his erratic comings and goings-except for Marcel, Who was at the wheel. He licked his lips lasciviously whenever Chambord was closeted in the radio room.
It was twilight before we were within easy range of the shoreline. Lights were beginning to twinkle in the fairy-tale towns that clung to the Mediterranean in that magic strip of France. I watched with mounting excitement as my old stamping grounds passed in review. Saint-Tropez. Frejus. Saint-Raphael. Cannes. Antibes. Nice. Monaco. How marvelous they sounded. How delicious they felt as words in my mouth.
"You're ready?" Alain startled me in my reverie.
"Of course." I said.
"You know where we are," he said. "I can see it in your eyes."
"It's my favorite place in the world," I told him breathlessly.
"Wear your deck shoes," he advised. "We're going over the side to another boat."
"Just us?" I asked.
"Isn't that enough?" he responded.
I had more questions but they were best left unasked. Alain did not enjoy being interrogated. I would never forgive myself if I did something to upset him and cause him to cancel our adventure.
"Will we go ashore?" I did decide to ask.
"Of course," he snapped. "There is nothing special about the water of the Riviera."
I had not felt so exhilarated since the night of Dario Rizzoli's party in Rome. But I restrained myself. I feared that if I showed too much enjoyment, he might take pleasure in denying it all to me.
He left to get the single piece of luggage that traveled everywhere with him. I assumed it contained money rather than any wardrobe items. And perhaps additional firearms.
"You're taking no extra clothes?" I inquired when he returned.
"Clothes? They can be purchased anywhere," he said.
Travel light was his philosophy, I gathered. But he did add later, "There will be wardrobes for us both on the cruiser."
He was a meticulous organizer. I was sure that at least some of his time in the radio room had been spent making arrangements for the unusual junket we were about to take. My skin tingled with expectation as he pointed out an approaching boat.
"There it is," he said in a voice that hinted of his own excited anticipation.
The crew was strangely out of sight during this interlude. It puzzled me because they had always been on deck, every one of them, whenever any vessel came anywhere near us. Now there was only Jean, standing at a distance.
Alain exchanged waves with the man piloting the oncoming cruiser. It appeared that he was the only one aboard despite the craft's fairly good size. I had seen many similar boats moored at the marinas of the Riviera-not yachts but quite luxurious nevertheless. When it was close enough, I read the name painted on it in gold-leaf letters: Minuit. Midnight. An unusual name, I thought.
"How goes it, Alain?" the man shouted over the growl of his engines. Our own engines had been cut and we bobbed lightly in the wake of the Minuit.
"Tres bien," he said despite what he had told me about being pursued.
"Do you have buffers?" he asked. "If so, I can pull up directly alongside."
Alain turned. "Jean," he called out, "the tires!"
Jean sprang into action, lugging several oversized tires affixed to heavy ropes. He hung them over the side of our ship and signaled the man to make an approach.
"It is good it is calm tonight, Captain," he said. He never looked at me at all.
"Make the pass!" Alain shouted to the cruiser pilot.
With an expert angling of his boat, the pilot brought it directly abreast of us.
"You first," Alain said to me as he and Jean took me by the arms and lifted me over the rail. "Be careful. Don't be afraid."
I made it in one quick leap.
"Good!" Alain congratulated me. His own transfer was swift and graceful.
"Au revoir, Jean!" he saluted his crewman.
"Au revoir, Captain," came the response.
I waved but he had already turned his back, dragging the bumpers behind him.
Alain watched briefly as the distance between the two vessels quickly widened. Both ships were under full power and it did not take long to make the gap a sizable one.
"They aren't waiting for us?" I asked Alain in surprise.
"No," he said. "That is the last you will see of them." I could not hide my puzzlement. "Why?" I asked. "Why didn't any of them say good-bye to me then?"
"To say good-bye to a woman at sea means forever." He smiled. "They all hope to see you again one day."
"I suppose I should be flattered," I responded, "but instead I'm disappointed."
"You've grown to like what the media call 'the criminal element'?" he teased.
"They weren't really bad to me," I said. "I was with them a long time."
"I have been with them for many years," he noted, "and I miss them not at all."
I knew it would be no use probing further for an explanation of why we were doing what we were doing while they sailed off for points unknown-to me at least. It seemed more and more probable that my original analysis was right. Alain looked eager, almost hungry for the challenge he had set for himself.
"Val," he addressed the man at the wheel, "is everything aboard that I requested?"
"Of course, Alain. You know my reputation."
"The wigs-male and female?"
The man he had just affixed the name of Val to shot him a look of annoyance. "I said everything," he told him. "They are the finest, just as you ordered. From Jacques Dulac in Paris."
Jacques Dulac! I had been there so many times for hair styling. Little did Jacques dream that he was making a wig for one of his most celebrated patrons, Christina van Bell!
"Excellent," Alain said, pursing his lips in nervous anticipation.
"Have you decided whether you prefer to go first to Nice or directly to Monte Carlo?" Val asked.
"Is there a car for me in Nice?"
"Alain," he cried out in exasperation, "I told you that everything-everything!-has been arranged! Even those things that were only listed as possibilities."
"Forgive me, Valery," he said, "but I must be extremely cautious. You understand that?"
He shrugged. "I understand that with others," he replied, "but not with me. Have I ever failed you?"
"Not yet," Alain responded. Skepticism was his stock in trade. It was obvious that he fully trusted no one-not even himself. "Come, Christina"-he pulled at me--"let's go check on the thoroughness of my friend Valery."
"If there is even one button missing," he called out after us, "I will charge you nothing for the entire operation!"
"You have a bet!" Alain laughed.
I realized again what a strange man he was-so moody, at once charming and menacing once one got to know him. Inside the cabin he threw open the doors to the wardrobe closet and quickly ran his fingers over the clothes on the hangers. What a demanding man he would be to work for, I thought. No wonder the crew hid from him as often as possible.
"Look at this." He held up a stunning black gown with a St. Laurent label. "You will be dazzling in this."
"What color will my hair be?" I asked.
"What would you like to be?" he responded.
"I'd like to be myself," I said, "but I suppose that's impossible."
"Oh, but that would make it too easy for them," he said, "After all these months they should be made to work for victory."
I began to understand his game. He enjoyed taunting the authorities, outwitting them. Who would dream that my kidnappers would dare, take me into one of my favorite haunts such as Monte Carlo? It defied all reason. It made no sense. Except to Alain Chambord.
"Then I would choose titian," I said. "Red hair goes well with my complexion, too."
"What a coincidence!" he said almost jubilantly. "That is exactly the color I had made for you!"
He looked about the long, leather-banqueted cabin until his eyes came upon a large box with the familiar scrawl of Jacques Dulac on the cover. "Open it," he said, handing me the box.
From the filmy layers of tissue paper I pulled a gorgeous wig that was more coppery in tone than red. But it was striking, done in a style no one would identify with me.
"Let me see you in it," he requested. I pulled it onto my head and adjusted it by touch. "Splendid!" he said, already adopting his more elite conversational style in preparation for the night ahead.
"Is there a mirror?" I wondered.
"In the lavatory." He pointed. "Go take a look at yourself."
After months as little more than a rag doll tossed from one place to another, I could not believe how quickly I adapted to a return to society-even if it proved to be only temporary.
"It's quite attractive," I understated my true reaction.
"It's beautiful," he enthused.
I turned around several times to survey myself from different angles. The fit was perfect and it seemed to have been color-toned precisely with me in mind.
"Now look at me," he called out from the cabin. I emerged from the lavatory to face a handsomely graying stranger with , artistically long hair. Had I not known it was Alain, I might have passed him by without recognizing him.
"You should wear that all the time," I said. "It makes you look very distinguished."
"My men would abandon ship," he replied, but I noticed that he spent more than a little amount of time viewing himself in the mirror. "Val did his usual good job in arranging matters," he said when he returned to the main cabin.
"What would stop me from pulling this off in the casino and revealing who I really am?" I questioned.
"Only this," he said, flipping out a small but dangerous-looking revolver. "Before I would let you escape, I would kill you-even if it meant my own death on the spot."
"You understand that I was only kidding," I hastened to inform him.
"I know that," he replied, returning the gun to its shoulder holster under his jacket. "You're too bright to do a stupid thing like that."
"Can we have a drink?" I requested to change the subject.
"Certainly," he said, switching on his gracious button.
The liquor cabinet was fully stocked with the best of whiskeys, liquors and brandies. I asked for cognac. "It's good for my nerves," I explained.
As we sipped our drinks and watched the play of lights along the shore, Alain underwent the transformation I had observed in him before. He was really two people-one a ruthless criminal, the other a suave and sophisticated gentleman. There were times when the two intermingled, but in general they were quite separate and individual. I realized once more that while I feared him, he held a sort of animal fascination for me. He was unlike any other man I had ever met.
"Tell me, Christina"-he honed the edges of his rougher sea diction--"what is between you and this playboy Rizzoli?"
It was the first time I could recall him mentioning Dario and it surprised me. "There's nothing to tell, really," I said. "He's one of my many friends on the Continent, that's all."
"You are in love with him?"
"No," I scoffed. "I don't make a habit of falling in love."
"You went to bed with him?"
"Why do you ask such an obvious question, Alain?"
"I want to hear the answer from your mouth," he said.
"Of course I went to bed with him. What else does one do at the end of a gay night?"
"You make yourself available to any man who accompanies you?" he persisted.
"I don't go out with any men I wouldn't go to bed with-let's put it that way."
"Why Rizzoli, who has many women-who uses them for his own pleasure?"
"He's very sweet. I never felt used by him."
"He knew he was being set up for kidnapping," he said. "Why was it necessary to involve you?"
"I don't believe he did it intentionally," I defended Dario. "He tried to get us out of Rome before it happened."
"It doesn't make sense," Alain said, staring into the distance. "His type is always cowardly. They're afraid to face danger alone."
"He drives racing cars," I pointed out.
"That's suicidal-not brave," Alain scoffed. "There is a difference."
"Why are you suddenly so upset about Dario?" I asked.
"Those stupid Communists," he continued without heeding my question, "they didn't even realize you were an even greater prize."
"Unfortunately, they did eventually," I noted.
"It was a bungled job. I had to kidnap you from them because of my disgust with their methods," he confessed for the first time.
I looked at him in mild shock. "Not for the money?" I asked.
"The money, of course. But the money was secondary. I am not basically in the kidnapping business, as you've probably discovered for yourself."
"You wanted to embarrass the Tenth of November League," I said.
"They degrade the criminal profession," he replied. I was uncertain if he was serious, as I had been so often in past weeks.
"They made ten million on Dario," I reminded him. "And they lost as much on you," he said.
"Alain, if you are concerned about Dario now, why did you permit your men to have me? They're certainly not anywhere near the caliber of Dario Rizzoli."
"You think not?" he snapped sharply at me. "I wouldn't trade one of them for six of his kind!"
"That still doesn't explain what I asked you," I said. "Perhaps I wanted to humiliate you," he suggested. "Perhaps I wanted to knock you off your pedestal."
"But for what reason? I'm just a source of money to you. There is no romance between us."
He looked at me mysteriously, his eyes shining in the semidarkness. "That night in Marseilles," he almost chanted, "was so memorable I may never duplicate it."
"Is that what you hope to do tonight?" I guessed aloud.
"It will be an experience, Christina," he confirmed by the excitement in his voice, "that I guarantee you."
"For you it is also dangerous," I said.
"Yes," he replied. "Very."
Before we entered the glutted part of the shore, he insisted that I look over an album of recent newspaper clippings. All of them celebrated Alain Chambord as
"the master criminal" of Europe, the most artful and ingenious of all the crooks at large on the Continent.
"You see I have a reputation to maintain, just as you," he said with satisfaction. "After we have gambled at Monte Carlo-after we are safely aboard the Minuit-I will notify the police that we were in attendance at the gaming tables. My calling card will be there in a secret place I will reveal to them-along with a lock of your hair."
"They will flood the area with police," I said.
"Let them," he stated. "They will never catch me--and they will not have you until the ransom is paid."
He was definitely diabolical, I was more than ever convinced. It was absolutely essential that I escape tonight. There would never be a greater opportunity.
"You're something of a genius, Alain," I flattered him. "I never met a more remarkable man."
"When it is over, I will make love to you for an entire day," he pledged. "The adrenalin will make me potent and virile beyond belief."
"I can hardly wait," I lied as he poured another cognac into my glass.
The moment the engines were cut, Alain jumped up and stuck his head through the hatchway. "How much time do we have, Val?" he asked.
"Five, maybe ten minutes," came the reply.
He drew himself back until his head just cleared the passageway. "Let's get ready," he said. "All your clothes and your shoes are in the closet."
"It won't take me long," I promised.
"It mustn't," he said.
Valery moored the boat at an isolated pier that contained six or seven other yachts and cruisers, all locked and covered while their owners cavorted elsewhere in the world. He was gone by the time we emerged, leaving behind only a set of keys.
"The car is at the end of the pier," Alain said. I looked at him intently to make certain I could recognize him in a crowd.
We walked swiftly, arm in arm, to a low-slung Citroen sedan parked just west of the pier. "Rizzoli should make a car like this," he said as we swung into it. "A French body with a Maserati engine-even a woman would be fast with such a combination."
The car purred onto the highway linking Nice with Monaco. Alain was a speedster like Dario, but I wisely did not mention the similarity.
We stopped somewhere midway and dined at a cozy country restaurant. There were some stares, but the maitre d' assured Alain the other patrons were merely enchanted at the sight of such an attractive couple. Nevertheless, he ate more hurriedly than usual and forced me to do the same.
Alain tipped the valet parking attendant lavishly at the casino to assure having our car situated so that it was available on a moment's notice. I could see the tension building in him, and I felt very uptight myself.
As we swept through the main entrance, the doorman seemed to recognize me for an instant. But it was only wishful thinking on my part. When I glanced back, he was casually engaged in conversation with an elderly couple awaiting their car. My imagination was playing tricks on me after such a long absence.
We went immediately to the roulette table nearest the exit. There Alain bought ten thousand dollars worth of chips and calmly placed small piles of them on various numbers.
"Here," he said, handing me a stack, "try your luck as well."
"I feel very lucky tonight," I whispered to him.
"So do I," he said, darting his eyes about the table. No one cared about anyone else, it was obvious. The entire concentration was on the wheel.
He had warned me about drinking. One drink an hour was the limit, he dictated. And he kept so close to my side I had no opportunity to violate his rule.
As his winnings mounted, he became concerned over the attention his luck was getting. "Come," he said, sweeping up his chips into a velvet bag provided by the casino, "let's go to blackjack."
"You won," I said to him, "and I lost."
A sly smile rippled his face. "Isn't that the way it should be?" he asked.
His involvement in the action made him lose track of time to some extent. We were drinking more frequently than once an hour and he did not question it. It was obvious he was elated by the success of his adventure thus far. We were circulating among all sorts of luminaries and anonymously wealthy people without question. I faintly remembered some of the faces, but unfortunately they did not remember mine. I got only the usual surveillance accorded a sensuous woman by horny men and jealous women.
Alain literally bounced as he walked, enjoying his caper to the fullest. I could only imagine how stimulated his libido was by it all. As the victim in waiting, I had a right to dread it. Yet when he behaved as he had so far this evening, I could feel a genuine erotic attraction to him.
We did not tarry long at any one table. Alain was too jumpy for that. But he held my hand constantly to ensure I stayed at his side. Occasionally my arm brushed against the hard metallic object under his shoulder. It was a convincing reminder that I was not really free, no matter how I felt at the moment.
"Alain," I whispered to him after several hours, "I have a problem."
"What is it?" he questioned in a testy voice. His luck had changed-and even with his source of supply, he apparently did not enjoy losing.
"I must go to the powder room," I said. "My bladder is full."
"Can't it wait?" he demanded. I could tell he was angry at himself for not having thought of how to cope with such a natural problem.
"Not for long," I told him. "I've been holding it for hours already."
He looked about, appraising the situation. "All right," he said, "but I will go part way in with you-close enough to listen. You are to talk to no one. No one! Do you understand?"
-I shook my head in agreement.
"Which way is it?" he asked. I led him by the hand. Most men stopped at the entrance to the small lobby that was located just before the makeup mirrors and commodes. But Alain proceeded past it, all the way to the tiled area. A female attendant stepped up to him and politely advised him that it was not customary for gentlemen to enter that area, not even the lobby adjacent.
"My wife is having a urinary problem," he apologized. "I must remain close to her in the event of a relapse." It worked. They let him virtually monitor all the sounds in the toilet area, mine included. Inside the small closet, my mind raced even faster than my urine. It was now or never. Frantically, I took the lipstick from my purse and scrawled on the wall next to the bidet: "Christina van Bell here. Call police!" It was all I had time for. Hastily, I pulled up my panties and stepped out to where Alain could see me. He smiled and motioned for haste.
"Did everything come out all right?" he asked as the attendant smiled at us.
"What a relief," I said, pretending to still be drying my trembling hands with a tissue.
"I don't know how much longer I want to stay," he said, "with my luck turning sour."
My heart sank. If my note was to have any possible . effect, we had to remain at least an hour more.
"Oh, please, Alain," I pleaded. "I've just begun to feel lucky myself."
"Maybe it's a reversal," he commented. "First I was lucky, and now you."
"Let's try it."
He glanced at his watch and about the room. The crowd was thinning somewhat since it was after four a.m.
"All right," he agreed, "one more hour, come hell or high water."
I kissed him on the forehead. "You won't regret it," I promised.
Four tall piles of chips stood before me as a bleary-eyed Alain pointed to his watch. "Five o'clock," he said. "Let's wrap it up."
The croupier looked at me questioningly. "One more bet?" he asked.
My spirits were too low to register on a scale of zero to ten. Apparently no one had taken the message seriously-or even paid attention to it.
"All right," Alain spoke for me, "just one more." The words were barely out of his mouth when two men stepped up behind him and locked his arms so tightly he could not even budge his shoulders.
"Alain Chambord," one of them said in crisp French, "you are under arrest for the kidnapping of Christina van Bell and sundry other crimes to be detailed later." Handcuffs went over his wrists and clicked behind him. He looked up at me with the forlorn yet defiant eyes of a captured wild animal.
"You have not seen the last of me, Christina," he said as more undercover agents moved in to surround him. They led him away quietly, scarcely disturbing the intense play at the tables beyond ours.
I was utterly speechless. It was too much like a dream to be real. Yet there I was being attended to by a whole squadron of plainclothes police, the badges pinned to the lapels of their dinner jackets the only clue to their identity.
"It's been a long ordeal for you, mademoiselle," the senior officer consoled me. "Axe you up to making an immediate flight to Paris?"
"To Paris!" I sprang to my feet "As tired as I am, I could fly there on my own this morning!"
The officer smiled. "Perhaps you would like to get rid of that red wig first," he suggested. "The photographers will want to see you as you really are."
I tore it from my head, laughing hysterically. "I'm free!" I shouted. "Free! Free! Free!"
It would be many days, however, before I would be able to convince myself that it was really, irrevocably true.
My terrible nightmare was over. I would never take my liberty for granted again, I pledged to myself.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Life, which had been like a scrambled television picture, quickly came back into focus. It had never seemed that clear before, but all at once it seemed to possess crystalline clarity. I spent a week in a private hospital outside Paris at the insistence of virtually everyone I knew. Then came Dario with our pre-kidnap entourage to stage the biggest party Paris had entertained in years.
The media had seized upon my story like gluttons at an orgy. There were interviews and photographs and stories ad infinitum about my "courageous" struggle to survive. In retrospect it seemed increasingly less courageous, but I enjoyed the celebration of myself as a person. They no longer referred to me as the "spoiled darling of the aristocracy" or the "princess of debauchery." I had become a legend-a symbol of the inherent strength of the wealthy in a free society. In a nation still in awe of Charles de Gaulle and his individualistic, chauvinistic philosophy, I was hailed as a heroine. There were some who even compared me to Joan of Arc.
I drank and smoked a lot to cope with it all. I still knew who I was and what I was. Nobody could ever change me. My ordeal had made me surer of myself than I had ever been in my life.
"They have the others," I was told while I was still hospitalized. "The boat was seized in Marseilles."
I ran the names through my head like a roll call from the past. It had not been long ago at all, and yet it seemed ages had passed. Marcel. Angelo. Charles.
Robert. Yves. Jean. They had once held my life in their hands and now they were nothing to me.
"Chambord will get life," I was also told. Alain Chambord, so sure of himself, so confident of his invincibility. I tried hard to feel sorry for him but somehow I could not. He had been arrogant and merciless as often as he had been considerate and gentle. I was convinced he was a sick man but I could find no honest pity for him within me.
"Your life is what counts, Christina," Rainier told me at our first meeting. He had seemed so earnest and concerned that I found it difficult to accuse him of neglect. "For whatever it's worth, we've saved ten million dollars by your bravery and stamina."
What good would it do to tell him of the tortures, the agonizing degradations I had endured when I would gladly have given ten million to avoid just one? He was a genteel man, caught up in the hypocrisies of his profession and his life. Now that I was free again, I felt more tolerant than ever toward my fellow man. I just wanted to return to living-living life to its fullest.
Dario called from Rome as soon as he was able to get through. "I am planning the greatest party of all time to celebrate your return!" he announced jubilantly. "Oh, Christina, we have so much to talk about-so much to be grateful for!"
I seemed to be high all the time, with or without assistance. Letters, telegrams, flowers, cables poured in from all over the world hailing me as a heroine. There were editorials published lauding my virtues as an example to youth and an inspiration to all mankind. It eventually got so excessive I was actually embarrassed.
"I didn't do anything but survive," I confided to Rainier. But even he had enlisted in my army of admirers, refusing to accept my "noble modesty."
It took Dario's party to help both me and the world regain perspective on Christina van Bell.
Dario arranged to take over a three-star restaurant on the outskirts of Paris-one that included a lovely country estate as part of its grounds-for an entire week. It was his intention to keep the party going continuously with never-ending food, drink and entertainment. The adjacent inn would provide lodging for celebrants who overindulged or just plain collapsed from exhaustion. Limousines would shuttle entertainers and celebrity guests back and forth from Paris. A dozen of Paris's most desirable courtesans would circulate among the throngs, providing their inimitable services to any and all who desired them. In other words, he intended it to be the most lavish and libertine celebration since the days of the Roman emperors.
We wept in each other's arms for fully fifteen minutes when we were reunited at last. Any doubts I had had about the depth and sincerity of his efforts to have me located, ransomed and set free vanished in the warmth and genuineness of his embrace.
"Someday you must tell me about it all, Christina," he said through his tears, "but now just let me savor the sweetness of your being-the warmth of your body and your incredible beauty."
He entered me first in the hospital after discreetly closing the door to my suite and advising the nurses on duty that we were not to be disturbed for half an hour. The thrust of his fine cock was like a royal scepter after so many months of forced compromises. When he came it was like something holy anointing me, forgiving me any sins I might have committed and washing them away in the pearly beauty of his cum.
"I missed you so, Dario," I whispered. "All the lonely hours I thought of you and the friends I might never see again."
"You were on the minds of all of us always," he replied. "I don't even want to withdraw from you now for fear you might disappear again."
"Fuck me once more," I pleaded. "I feel as though your injections are bringing me back to life."
He visited me twice daily until my release, shuttling between the sanitarium and the caterers organizing his party. Each time he began our meetings by performing cunnilingus upon me and then climbing into bed to fuck me. There could be no oral reciprocation just yet, he warned. I was simply to relax and let him do all the physical work required. It was sweet of him to be so concerned.
Lisa Rainier did not appear until the eve of the great party. She had put on a few pounds since I had last seen her, but few men or women noticed anything about her except her still enormous tits.
"My darling baby Christina!" she screamed when she first saw me. And then an avalanche of succulent flesh struck me as she threw herself upon me in a demonstration of teary affection. We had never been emotionally close before, but I accepted her compassion as genuine. I was in a forgiving mood to begin with-so elated to be back in my element, a free and whole woman.
"Lisa love!" I shouted back and once again dipped into my supply of tears.
"Oh, what they must have done to you, poor baby," She cried. "I know what they did to me in the short time I was a hostage. For you it was months longer."
"I can't talk about it, honey," I confessed. My statement caused her to burst into sobs.
"I'm so sorry for you, baby," she muttered, burying her face in my bosom.
"What happened to Hemingway?" I asked to change the subject.
She put her delicate fists in her eyes to stem the flow of tears. "He's coming to the party," she said between crying spasms. "He's been in Cuba and Africa for weeks visiting Hemingway hangouts."
"Has he written anything?" I asked.
"Not yet," she shook her head. "He says it will come to him eventually by osmosis if be keeps in a pure Hemingway environment."
"It's a good thing his father is rich," I laughed. It brought a smile to her face finally, too.
"I'm glad the party's in Paris," she said, "or he might not have come."
"That's right," I recalled. "Paris was a Hemingway favorite."
"Rolf uses that as his excuse to come here all the time," Lisa responded. "I say it's because he likes the Parisian hookers."
"They all do," I noted with feminine insight. "I don't know what it is about them-but they do have a special way with men."
She was out of her melancholia now. "Dario's having a bunch of them at the party," she said brightly. "Let's see if we can figure out what it is."
"Okay," I laughed. "I'm game."
Dario burst in upon us like sunshine, beaming with pleasure over his reunion party. "Now I have you both again," he said. "Fucky and Sucky reunited."
We all laughed together. "It sounds like an obscene comedy team," I noted.
"A heavenly one," Dario corrected. "I just feel like shouting and singing all day long-that's how happy I am that everyone looks and feels so tremendous!"
"What are you on, Dario?" Lisa inquired.
"Yes," I agreed, "tell us what you're taking to maintain this marvelous high."
His smile erupted into a grin. "I'm high on two of the most gorgeous creatures on earth-high on celebrating the renewal of life!"
"You could start your own religion," Lisa teased him. "I'm a convert already," I said.
"You girls are sensational," he continued bubbling. "I'd like to have you on both sides of me forever-like my personal bookends!"
"We wouldn't be a matching pair," I kidded.
"I don't see why not," Lisa played along. "We'll just turn around backwards."
"Cheek to cheek?" I asked.
Dario watched us with amusement, his eyes twinkling. "Maybe we'll do that at the party," he mused. "Dario and his bitchy bookends."
"Bitchy!" we both protested in unison. The simultaneous exclamation set us both to laughing again.
"This is going from sexy to silly." He pretended to be annoyed. "It's time for me to get out of here." I knew inwardly he was very pleased, however. The entire climate around me since my rescue had been one of unrelenting happiness and optimism. What tears were shed were tears of joy, not sorrow.
Dario went with me to the salons of Paris's leading couturiers to select my wardrobe for the party, which by now was the talk of international society. Only those close to me had seen me in person since my return, so the party was being heralded as my debut on a new plateau of my life.
I chose for the opening night a gown so revealing it left only the hair count of my pubes open to speculation. It was black but so sheer that the contours of my navel were as visible as they would have been naked in early twilight. Dario smacked his lips when he saw me in it.
"Luscious," he declared.
He insisted upon paying for an entire week's change of dress. I doubted that I could last through that much revelry, but it was best to be prepared.
"You won't need anything for the final night," he confided. "It's to be a naked festival."
"Are you using the proper word?" I teased him, tickling the end of his handsome nose.
"All right, orgy." He laughed.
"Will anyone still be able to function by then?" I questioned.
"I know that I will," he boasted. "All I have to do is look at you and I'll be reactivated."
"Flatterer," I said.
Lisa came along on the second day of shopping. Her outsized bosom presented problems in high fashion since most designers tailored their ultimate creations for women of less than average breast dimensions.
"Just let them hang out," Dario suggested after several hours of frustration.
Eventually we found a silver lame gown with decolletage plunging far below the navel that looked absolutely stunning on her-I almost wished her not to have it. But I continued to feel generous toward my fellow man-and that extended even to my fellow woman, bountiful tits and all.
"You'll be the belle of the ball in that," I enthused.
"I don't think I should allow you out of my sight," Dario said.
Lisa turned and turned in the mirrors, studying every angle of her body in the clinging gown.
"You do like it, don't you?" I questioned her.
"I think I'd like to fuck myself," she said.
We celebrated our fashion victory in a nearby hotel restaurant with both Dario and I sucking on Lisa's tits while we dined. Fortunately our table was in an isolated part of the dining room, out of sight of the paparazzi who had resumed trailing me as they always had in the past.
It was my first post-rescue experience in getting wildly intoxicated. I returned to the hospital for a full day of recuperation prior to the party, receiving no visitors and accepting no phone calls. I realized all at once that I was like an athlete who was out of training. It would take some time before I could fully resume my former lifestyle.
Lisa brought Rolf Harrison to greet me before we all left together for the party in Dario's Mercedes limousine. He looked more gaunt than I remembered him and his perpetually glazed eyes were more haunted than before. I wondered again what a beautiful girl like Lisa saw in him-other than his long cock, I mean.
"Beautiful lady," he said to me, "going to kidnap us." What an odd greeting, I thought. I looked at him with a puzzled expression.
"Bill said that in The Sun Also Rises," he explained. "But it doesn't make sense saying that to Christina," Lisa protested.
"Please"-Rolf held up his hand to stop her--"never say that anything Ernest wrote doesn't make sense. I find that offensive."
I did not want any arguments or disagreements on the brink of a festive party.
"I think it's pretty," I said. "Anyway, I'm so glad to see you again, Rolf."
"Likewise," he said, still wounded by Lisa's remark. Dario had gone ahead of us to supervise the last minute details and host a pre-party cocktail affair for the international media gathered for the event. Our driver pulled away the moment the last of us, Rolf Harrison, was seated.
"Are you happy to be back in Paris?" I asked, making small talk to soothe Rolfs ruffled feelings.
"I was a fool to go away," he recited as if by rote. "One's an ass to leave Paris."
"That sounds all too Hemingwayish to me," Lisa commented.
"It isn't, though, is it, Rolf?" I asked.
"Ah, but it is," he said, eyes flashing. "Also from The Sun Also Rises. Brett said it on the terrace of the Lilas."
"Oh, for god's sake, Rolf, come off it!" Lisa wailed. "It doesn't harm anyone," I defended him. "Maybe we'll become a little more literary by infusion."
"Just like he's going to become a Hemingway by osmosis," Lisa scoffed.
"I'll bet nobody in any of his books has breasts to top yours, right, Rolf?" I wanted so much to keep everything light. This was a night for fun and not hostility. Rolf had been gone for some time without even communicating with Lisa, from what she had told him. "They are magnificent specimens," he said.
"How would you know?" she challenged. "You haven't been near them in months."
"They're quite obvious," he said coolly, his eyes falling into the deep crevice between them.
"I wish there was some way I could have a transplant from you, Lisa," I babbled on to keep them apart. "Not an entire one-just what you could spare without losing any of your beautiful thrust."
"There's nothing wrong with your structure," Rolf said to me.
"Is that Hemingway, too?" Lisa pouted.
"No," he said, "pure Harrison."
Acting as intermediary throughout the hour-long ride kept me so occupied I had no time to get nervous over the confrontations that lay ahead. I was aware of the large press turnout. They would all want pictures and interviews. There were even some book publishers' representatives arriving from New York and London seeking rights to my life story, which had suddenly taken a commercially adventurous turn. Yet all I wanted to do was let my hair down and have fun-to get drunk and dance and fuck as in the merry days before.
Dario had arranged for me to. be secreted until the official opening of the party to end all parties. The hiding place was a tent behind the band stage. I was left there with only a lone security guard, but even the sight of him disturbed me.
"Please wait outside," I told him. Unlike during my kidnapping I found myself obeyed.
Whoever had planned the opening arrangements made a mistake in utilizing my hideaway tent as a storage area for extra liquor supplies. I went to work on the champagne immediately, drinking rapidly to assuage my nervousness and hyper excitement. When Dario finally returned for me, I was already on the verge of being gloriously intoxicated.
"Christina!" he reacted in horror. "How could you do this at such a time!"
"It was easy," I laughed. "I just opened the bottles and emptied them down my throat."
My explanation amused me even if it did nothing for him. I giggled incessantly as he paced around the tent tearing at his hair.
"There are all kinds of dignitaries, celebrities, newspaper and television people waiting for me to introduce you to them," he cried out in exasperation. "Your whole new image as a valiant heroine will be ruined!"
"Dario," I addressed him with the excessive solemnity of someone drunk struggling to appear sober, "I never was and I never will be anybody's heroine. I'm just me-Christina van Bell, a gal for all seasons. I don't want to be looked up to any more than I want to be looked down upon. I didn't do anything noble-I fucked and sucked when necessary to get extra favors or to make my life easier. It's ridiculous to try to make me something I'm not! You always used to say that what you loved about me was my total naturalness-no phoniness, no tricks and illusions, no pretenses. I love a good time, and I intend now more than ever to have one. That's what I'm going to tell them out there when you introduce me. I'll say, 'Here I am, Christina van Bell, still in one piece and a helluva piece it is!' and then set this party into motion as the greatest, wildest fling of all time!"
Dario stood looking at me, first in disbelief, then in growing admiration.
"Do you know something?" he said, taking me in his arms. "You're just about the greatest fucking broad who ever lived on this planet!"
I kissed him mightily, letting my lips swim in and out of his. "Come on." I broke off the embrace. "Let's go do it!"
The applause for me was as tumultuous as a crowd of several hundred could generate. I felt almost naked in a dress that had cost Dario seven thousand dollars, and I told the crowd so.
"I think I look better in my bare skin!" I shouted. There were whistles and shouts of agreement.
"Do you know something, dear friends," I said with sudden seriousness, "I'm so goddamned happy to be alive and free I want you all to meet the greatest friend I ever had-the one who saved my life and the one upon whom I'll depend for the rest of my life to sustain me and give me pleasure?...."
All eyes turned to Dario Rizzoli, standing near me onstage.
"My wonderful, sweet, adorable...."-the band struck a dramatic flourish as I ripped off my gown and arched my back, my hands parting my crotch--"indestructible pusssseeee!"
It was like a thousand New Year's Eves, a million Mardi Gras after that! Bedlam broke loose. Everybody in attendance went wild!
And I was back to proudly and passionately reclaim my title, not as the stoic heroine of a tragedy but as what I really was-wild, irrepressible Christina van Bell, Playgirl of the Western World!
