“Thanks, Heavenly. I appreciate your not blowing the whistle on me.”
“But you can’t stay here. It’d mean my neck, too, if she found ya. You gotta get dressed an’ clear out.”
“I don’t have any clothes,” I confessed.
“Well, gimme some dough an’ I’ll hop out an’ buy some duds for ya.”
“I haven’t got any money either.”
“My luck!” Heavenly shook her head sadly. “Okay. I’ll go bail. Just stay put ’til I get back.”
She left. Fifteen minutes went by and then she returned. She was loaded down with a head-to-toe wardrobe for me. “This is pretty nice of you,” I told her as I started putting on the clothes.
“Don’t get the idea I do this for ev’ry Joe comes through the door. I ain’t usually such a patsy.”
“I take that as a compliment. Why me?”
“You turn me on,” Heavenly told me frankly. “Been a long time since any man could do that. To be real honest about it, I’m hung up on ya.”
“I like you, too, Heavenly,” I told her truthfully. “I guess it’s because you look so innocent and act so devilish.”
“You haven’t even seen the beginning of how dev’lish I can act. But you will,” she promised me. “Here. Take this.” She thrust some money into my hand. “Go over to the Rex Hotel on K Street and tell them I sent you. I’ll be over there as soon as I can. Meanwhile, you rest up, Steve. You’re going to need all your energy.”
Heavenly was as good as her word—better! About two hours after I checked into the Rex, she sailed into my room and locked the door behind her. What followed was a seminar in the Arts of the Courtesan.
It lasted for about eight fantastic hours. Then Heavenly left to go to work. Talk about a busman’s holiday! Yet she was as full of energy as when she’d arrived, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind but that she’d do her job superlatively that evening. As for me, I fell into an exhausted sleep.
That’s the way it went for the next eight days. She’d arrive in the morning and we’d make love all day long. Then she’d leave to work at making love all night long and I’d go to sleep. For sheer go-go-go, Heavenly was amazing. As for me, I never slept so soundly in my life.
Meanwhile, the political situation was up tight. All the votes were pledged save that of Ross of Kansas, the Senator who’d scotched impeachment the last time around. He was the only one who refused to announce in advance how he was going to vote. There were rumors that the Radical Republicans had bribed him to switch sides and other gossip that he’d been paid off by the Johnson Democrats to vote for acquittal.
His one vote was crucial. Any one vote was crucial. Aware of that, my thoughts turned back to the fat Senator. I decided I had to give my blackmail scheme one more try. I owed it to posterity.
I spent the afternoon of May 25th with Heavenly as usual. When it was over, she got dressed to leave for work—as usual. I was pooped—as usual.
Somehow though, I summoned up the reserve of energy I’d need for the evening that lay ahead. It was imperative that I get certain basic information from Heavenly before she left. Like what was the name and address of the fat Senator I was out to blackmail.
“Heavenly,” I said. “What’s the name and address of that fat Senator?”
“Fat Senator? What fat Senator? All Senators are fat.”
“The one I bunked with that first night. What’s his name? It’s slipped my mind.”
“Whadda ya wanna know for?”
“He’s a chess player. He said I should come over and play chess with him some night,” I lied. “I thought I might drop by there tonight. After all, I need some recreation.”
“Recreation!” Heavenly was insulted. “Whadda ya call What we been doin’ for the past eight days?”
“I call it the greatest,” I soothed her. “But my brains need some activity once in a while, too. Come on, Heavenly. What’s his name? Where does he live?”
“Oh, all right.” She shrugged and told me his name and address. “Just don’t stay up all night and tire yourself out,” she cautioned me. “I want you in shape for tomorrow.”
She kissed me goodbye and left.
As soon as she was gone, I got dressed. For the first time since I’d checked in, I left the hotel. Twenty minutes later I was at the door of the Senator’s house.
Posh. Very posh. A butler confronted me like a haughty iceberg. The Senator, he informed me, was not at home. Would I care to leave my card? I would gladly have dealt him the whole deck, but, as it happened, I didn’t have as much as a lowly deuce with me. So I hung my head and confessed I was cardless. His nose twitched, consigning me to the hoi polloi, and he started to close the door in my face.
“Who is at the door?” a female voice called out from behind him and the door stopped in mid-motion.
“A gentleman”-—-his tone said he doubted it-—“to see the Senator. I have informed him that the Senator is not at home. He has declined to leave a card.” Such disapproval! It couldn’t have been more pronounced if I’d defecated on the front stoop.
“The Senator should be home soon.” The lady was at the door now, looking me over. “Would you like to come in and wait for him?” Evidently, she wasn’t as harsh a judge as the butler.
“Yes, thank you.” I stepped under the butler’s nose and through the doorway.
“I’m the Senator’s wife.” She held out her hand.
I was floored. I mean, the Senator was a tub of geriatric lard, a bald-headed disaster area. Furthermore, he’d presented his wife as a frigid shrew. From the way he’d talked, I’d pictured a hatchet-faced, moustache-y matron in her middle years with a voice like the whining roar of cannon shot.
Instead, as I told her my name, I found myself stammering in the face of unexpected youth, charm and beauty. The Senator’s wife was in her mid-twenties, an impeccably groomed girl with an aristocratic, vivacious face and a tall, slender, voluptuous figure. She also had the kind of warmth and humor that puts a man at his ease immediately. While she might have been cold towards her husband, I would have bet my bottom buck that she wasn’t by nature a frigid woman. And as for the jealous rages he’d attributed to her, I simply couldn’t see her bothering to give a damn.
Still, one should never make hasty judgments about other people’s marital situations. The combination of jealousy and frigidity the Senator had described might well have been part of the wifely game she played to keep her husband in line. Putting him off balance might have been her way of keeping his mind off her own extramarital activities. Such activities were only a guess on my part, but the way her deep brown eyes had appraised me and the way her body moved under her clothes told me that this girl would never cut herself off from the pleasures of the flesh as completely as the Senator had implied.
When we’d sat down in the living room and she’d arranged for drinks to be brought, she immediately put the conversation on a light, flirtatious basis. “Now what was it you wanted to see the Senator about, Mr. Victor?” she asked.
“It’s a political matter,” I told her.
“Political? Really? I am disappointed. An attractive man like you shouldn’t be bothering with politics. It will put lines in your face and make you old before your time. You’ll become grouchy. You’ll lose your good looks and your charm and that would be an unfair deprivation to the ladies.”
“It’s kind of you to be concerned.” I grinned at her.
“There are few enough attractive men in Washington. We ladies have to cherish them.”
“You’re making me blush, ma’am.”
“Call me Olivia. That’s my name. And I shall call you Steve. It’s more friendly that way. And I just know we’re going to be friends. Very good friends.” Her tongue peeped out from between her lips like an innuendo.