He turned away and decided, hell, to make the tea after all. He put a kettle of water on the burner and rummaged through the cupboard, finding and deciding upon a jar of instant coffee.
"No tea, just coffee," he called in to the blonde.
She was bent over the wash basin, now, splashing water on her face and gasping with the coldness of it. "Is it organic?" she called back.
Bolan muttered to himself, "How the hell would I know?"
She strode into the room, sans blanket and patting at her face with a small handtowel.
Bolan, what the hell, looked her over and liked what he was looking at. Any man would. She had those flowing lines and flawless skin that a guy associates with erotic fantasies, large swollen breasts with the pinkest nipples Bolan had seen anywhere, firm and erect as any plastics job could assure — one of those ripple-soft bellies plunging into velvet thighs and belled hips, a swooped rear-deck with the soft overhang visible even from the front.
Sure. She had it all, right where it belonged and in ideal portions.
"If it isn't organic I wouldn't touch it," she was telling him.
Again Bolan turned away from her and fiddled with the stove. He didn't know about the coffee crystals, but Bolan himself was sure as hell organic, one hundred percent male organic, and it was no time for delectable female pastries to be flaunting themselves at his maleness.
"Honesty," she was saying in that old-young girl's voice. "That's what this sick world needs the most. No deceits, no additives or deductives, just pure organic honesty."
He said, "Yeah, with all the chemicals left out." He could have done without a few male type chemicals himself, at the moment.
When he looked again the towel was lying on the floor of the bathroom and the girl and the blanket had returned to the couch.
She was lying there on her side, an elbow in supporting position and the blonde head elevated and resting on an honest palm. The blanket was riding loosely amidships and not providing much in the way of warmth or security. Just honesty.
He told her, "It's plain old mountain grown Folgers, and if it's good enough for Mrs. Olsen, then it ought to be good enough for anybody. Do you want some or don't you?"
She suggested, "Why don't you come over here and ball me awhile first."
He said, "What?"
"Ball. You know."
Bolan poured the steaming water into his cup and growled, "Thanks, not now."
The girl shrugged and said, "Square."
He said, "Sane."
She giggled.
He growled, "Putting me on, weren't you."
"Not all the way. I wouldn't mind if you really wanted to. I mean, what's the hassle? Person to person, that's what life is. Right?"
He said, "I guess so."
"I mean, if you want to slurp and hunch awhile, and if that'll make you happy, then why not? Right?"
He said, "Pure organic honesty, eh?"
"Right. I mean, why get turned off by a shot of honesty? That's what you did. Right? You turned off the minute I started laying it out. I mean, it's natural for girls to pee, you know. All of us do. So why do it behind closed doors? Right?"
"I guess it's a matter of conditioning," he told her.
"But it turned you off. Can you admit that?"
He smiled. "Maybe."
"Male chauvinist pig," she said lightly. It didn't sound as though she meant it.
He fixed her coffee and took it to her. Her eyes thanked him and she asked him, "What's the gig with the weapons of destruction?"
He told her, "I kill people."
She squealed with genuine delight and cried, "Now you're getting with the honesty bag. You don't liberate enslaved peoples, you don't uphold law'n order, you just flat out, honestly, straight from the gut kill people. Now I like that."
He showed her a wry smile and said, "Sure. It's a bloody gas."
Her eyes widened suddenly and, in an awed tone, she declared, "Far out. I know who... you're that executioner dude. You're..."
He said, "I told the China doll I'd wait for an hour. When that hour is up, I'll be leaving. Until then, let's you and I just cool it. I'm not going to hurt you, so just..."
"Far out! I was down in the desert last year when you — I saw your picture I guess a hundred times, on television and everything. Hey, I was at that commune down by Twenty Nine Palms. You know the one?"
He shook his head. "No, I..."
The blonde had thrown herself half off the couch to reach the sleeping girl, and she was tugging at her blanket and trying to arouse her. "Hey, Panda... Panda — wake up!"
She won the battle for the blanket and jerked it clear, flinging it across the room.
The other girl was as organically honest — and as esthetically pleasing — as her buddy, but not quite as willing to face the new day. She curled her nudity into a tight ball, hugging her knees and moaning, "Don't, don't, that's not fair, Cynthey, don't do that."
Bolan went over and got the blanket and arranged it over the girl, and he told the other one, "Let her sleep."
She sniffed and said, That's Panda Bare. Not her real name of course, but it's honest enough for the squares that watch us do our thing. We're actresses. I'm Cynthia. Believe it or not, I'm a star, a real live movie star."
Bolan said, "Congratulations."
"You don't believe me. Have you ever seen Midsummer Night's Wetdream?"
He smiled and shook his head in a negative reply.
"How about Hotpants Honeypot? Three On A Mattress?"
Bolan said, "No, I guess not."
"They're porno movies, skin flicks. Haven't you ever seen any?"
"I guess not."
"I co-starred with Panda in Three On A Mattress. She's a lez."
Bolan said, "Do tell."
"Well I'm not. Hey! Did you come here to talk to me?"
He asked her, "Why would I?"
"Am I working for the fucking Mafia? Is that what you're saying?"
Bolan smiled. "Did I say that?"
"You didn't have to. I've suspected it for a long time now. They're Italians. Everybody in the fucking company is an Italian."
He told her, "So are some of the finest citizens this country has ever produced. A name doesn't mean anything."
The girl smiled and actually dropped her eyes. In a small voice, she said, "I've really turned you all the way off, haven't I."
He said, "Yeah, all the way."
"Well what else can you expect? I mean, that's the kind of broad I am. Right?"
He told her, "I hope not."
"Well... not deep down. I mean, not down where it really counts. I guess I just got turned off on myself, huh? I mean, when you ball six or seven hours a day on scummy sheets under bright lights with the whole world watching you... well I guess you sort of get turned off on yourself."
Bolan said, "I guess you could."
"We only do it when we need the bread. We — Panda and me — we live over in Sausalito. Us and a bunch of other lads. On a houseboat."
He said, "Okay."
"I haven't had a good ballin' since I started this crummy business. I guess I'm just turned all the way down."
"Too much honesty, maybe," Bolan quietly suggested.
"Huh?"
"Romance is a system of tender deceits. Right? Even the beasts of the field go through courtship rituals. You know?"
She said, "Right, right, I know."
Bolan ended an embarrassed silence with, "Uh, Mary Ching is bringing some people over here in a little while. Maybe you girls would rather not be around during that. It just could get rough."