“How can I get rid of her?” I asked reasonably.
“That’s your problem.” She pulled the hoop up over her head and removed it. Discarded amongst the petticoats, it looked like the framework for a bomb shelter. Now Olivia bent over and grasped one of the bedposts with both hands. Her ruffled derrière stuck out provocatively. “You’ll have to help me with this,” she said, her brown eyes smoldering over her shoulder.
I went over to her and started fumbling with the laces of the corselet. “How the hell does this work?” I wondered aloud.
“You have to pull it tighter first and then release it.”
“Impossible,” I decided. “If I pull it any tighter, you’ll burst a lung.”
“Wait. I’ll take a deep breath, then pull on both strings so you can untie the knot.”
I did as she asked. Even after that it was still quite a job unlacing the damn thing. “There’s no end to it,” I muttered.
“It’s coming. Ahh! You’ve almost got it now. Oh, I can t tell you how good that feels. Now you’ve got it. Ahh! I can breathe again.” She stepped away and left me holding the steel-ribbed torture device.
I threw it on a chair. “What next?” I wondered.
“These.” Olivia pulled off the ruffled stockings. Now she was wearing only bloomers reaching halfway to her knees and some sort of combination shift and bra on top.
“What’s under that?” I asked suspiciously.
“Nothing.” She laughed. “See?” She wriggled free of the final garments and stood before me naked.
“Considering what you have to go through just to reach this point, I can understand why there’s no overpopulation problem in this day and age,” I remarked. “A guy could die of old age before a girl is through undressing.”
“I’m through now,” she murmured. “Are you just going to stand there making irrelevant philosophical observations? Don’t you like the way I look?”
I liked it. Who wouldn’t have? Olivia, with the layers removed, was a nudie sensation. A mane of long, auburn hair trailed over ivory shoulders and high, jutting breasts. Deep cleavage separated them and pointed the way to a flat, firm belly. Her hips were slender, her buttocks small, but pertly shaped. Long, graceful legs met modestly at a curly, auburn V which concealed her womanhood. Now she shifted her legs and the V parted slightly to reveal a high, round mons veneris, deeply cleft and quivering.
“Take me,” she said without much originality.
I walked over and put my arms around her. We fell to the bed together. It was like embracing a flaming torch. And the Senator had called Olivia frigid!
She fairly sizzled under my caresses. The nipples of her breasts were like hot coals against my chest. Her flesh was liquid fire. Her arms and legs were bands of molten steel around my body. Even her lips and mouth and tongue were afire with desire. Frenziedly, she urged me to stoke the kiln of her passion.
The kiln, alas, remained unstoked. The poker was just about to breach the fiery doorway when another sort of door was flung open—the door to my hotel room. And another sort of fire came blazing through it—the flame of enraged jealousy—Heavenly!
“You dirty, double-crossing, lousy, faithless, bastardly, lecherous . . .” Derogatory adjectives rattled out of Heavenly’s mouth like slugs from a Gatling gun. Along about the second round, she started backing them up with flying objects.
Ashtrays, a vase, a lamp, etc., started flying across the room. Olivia and I sought sanctuary behind the bed, ducking our heads to avoid the barrage.
“My, she certainly is emotional, isn’t she?” Olivia observed.
“I tried to warn you,” I reminded her.
“Aren’t you overplaying this scene a bit?” Olivia called to Heavenly.
“I know you!” There was a pause in the fusillade.
“You’re the Senator’s wife!” Heavenly fairly crackled with anticipated revenge. “Well, I’ll fix you! I’ll teach you to stick to your own husband and leave my man alone. I’m going to tell him right now!” Heavenly wheeled on her heels and started out.
“Stop her!” Olivia cried. “If she tells my husband, he’ll kill me!”
“Worse!” I grabbed up some clothes and started putting them on as I headed for the door. “If he finds out you’ve been unfaithful with me, he’ll vote against impeachment.”
“Wait!” Olivia called, pleading. “Don’t leave me alone here like this. I’ll never be able to get dressed alone!”
“Sorry. No time.”
“After all this,” she wailed, “and you didn’t even make love to me!”
“Woman’s lot is never an easy one,” I called back over my shoulder. “Blame it on the fashions of the day.”
Still buttoning my clothes, I ran down the stairs, through the hotel lobby and out onto the street. Just as I emerged, I saw Heavenly closing the door of a horse-drawn cab. It pulled away before I could reach it. I spotted another horse-cab down the block and hailed it.
“Follow that cab!” I told the driver breathlessly.
“That’s an original phrase,” the driver replied. “Did you just think of it?”
“What’s the difference? Just hurry up and follow that cab!”
“It’s important to me,” the driver confided. “You see, I’m not really a cab driver. I just do this for bread. What I really am is a writer. You know what I mean?”
“Will you please hurry up before you lose him?”
“What I mean is, being a writer, I’ve always got my ear out for the well-turned phrase. A writer has to listen to how people talk.”
“Keep your eye on him! He’s turning!”
“Now what you just said—-‘Follow that cab!’-that’s a good example. It’s got all kinds of dramatic implications. Sort of sets up a suspense situation in just three little words. See what I mean?”
“Watch out! Don’t let that wagon cut you off or you’ll lose him!”
“Yessir! ‘Follow that cab!’ It sets up a whole action sequence. Right away the reader gets sucked into wondering if the hackie has what it takes to keep up with the other cub.”
“They’re pulling over at the curb there. Pull in right behind them.”
“Yep. In those three words you’ve got just the device to keep a plot moving along.”
“Here.” As he pulled in at the curb, I thrust some money at him.
“Just a minute.” The driver pulled out a notebook and a stub of pencil. “I want to jot it down before I forget it. Let’s see now— ‘Follow that cab!’ That was it, wasn’t it? . . . Hey! Wait a minute! You got change coming.”
“Keep the change!”
“ ‘Keep the change!’ That’s a pretty good one too. Delineates character right away. Shows a sort of sporty attitude. Yessir, I can use it. You got any more like that?”
I didn’t answer him. I was too busy trying to spot Heavenly. She’d gotten out of her cab in front of the Senate Building and plunged into the crowd gathered there. Finally I spied her and started elbowing in her direction.
l got within earshot of Heavenly, but couldn’t quite reach her. “You’d better let me through,” she was saying to one of the policemen holding back the crowd.
“Now, Heavenly, I can’t do that,” he answered. “I’ve got my duty to perform.”
“Suppose I was to tell your missus how you performed your duty with Gertie the other night,” Heavenly suggested sweetly. “Or would you rather let me through?”
“Clear a path there!” the cop shouted. “Can’t you see the lady’s trying to get through?”
Heavenly was passed through the barricades and went up the steps and into the Senate building. It wasn’t that easy for me. It took all the money Heavenly had given me to bribe my way into the gallery. When I finally got there, I peered around frantically, trying to find Heavenly.
Looking out over the floor of the Senate, I spotted Olivia’s husband. He seemed calm enough as the voting on the impeachment charges commenced. The chamber, despite the crowd of onlookers in the gallery, was very still as the votes were cast.