“Oh, it’ll be a struggle, I suppose, but I think I can manage.”
“Not too cold and hard a relationship for you?”
“A fellow needs all sorts of relationships. Why don’t we try it and see how it goes?”
“I’d love that, but you have to understand, I don’t get involved. My life is too complicated for anything beyond sex.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Keep this in mind, too: there isn’t anything you can do to me, excepting violence, that I won’t enjoy, and there’s nothing you could want that I wouldn’t love doing to you. All my life I’ve had a voracious sexual appetite, and I love doing to just as well as being done to. Am I beginning to sound like the perfect woman?”
“Just about.”
She laughed. “I’m not jealous, either; you can fuck whomever you like, and it won’t bother me. But please understand: discretion must be absolute. Nobody knows we’re together or where we are, and that’s the way I want to keep it.”
“Not even Martha?”
“Not even Martha. With this scandal sheet thing happening I must be very, very careful. We can fuck at my apartment or at your house or here, but only when we’re absolutely alone, agreed?”
“Agreed.”
She was kneading his penis, then she swallowed it for a moment and stopped. “Do you particularly like this?” she asked.
“Particularly,” he managed to reply.
She found an orifice with a finger. “And this?”
“Oh, yes.”
She returned to his penis, but did not remove her finger.
Stone found her buttocks with his hand and returned the favor. For the next several minutes they used only lips and fingers until both came again. When they had exhausted their orgasms, Amanda left for a couple of minutes and came back with a basket of hot towels. Slowly, they sponged the sweat and fluids from each other’s body; then they stretched out again onto the sheepskin and relaxed.
“I wish we could stay the night,” Amanda said, “but I have to be back in the city this evening for an important engagement.”
“It’s all right,” Stone replied. “If we stayed the night I might be dead by morning.”
She giggled. “But you’ll be ready again when we’ve dozed for a while, won’t you?” She took a light hold on his penis and squeezed.
“I am entirely in your hands,” Stone breathed.
She laughed. “Easy now; rest for a little while.”
“Amanda, I’ve never met anyone quite like you,” he said.
“My darling, you have no idea, as yet, just how true that is. But you will.”
Somehow, he knew she was right.
Chapter 17
Stone was home by dark; he came into the house at dusk, feeling oddly empty inside. Drained might be a better word, he thought, reminding himself of how he had spent the afternoon. He switched on the living room lights and walked to the study, sinking into a leather wing chair.
Stone had always thought of himself as having a large appetite for sex, but he had never before met anyone as voracious as Amanda Dart. He remembered, in a high school science class, seeing a captive black widow spider as it came upon a fly in its web and watching as the spider had sucked the life out of the fly. Now he thought he knew how the fly felt.
He was about to go upstairs when a red light on the telephone beside him began to flash. It was the fax machine in his office, and he wondered who could be faxing him on a Saturday evening. He walked downstairs, switched on the office lights, and went to the machine. It was just spitting out a sheet of paper, and he picked it up.
Oh, God, he thought, what now?
DIRT
Greetings, earthlings! Fabulous dinner party at dear Amanda Dart’s last evening, just fabulous! A roster from the A-list, distinguished one and all. There was Richard A. Hickock, dear Amanda’s publisher, whose nineteen-year-old mistress, one Tiffany Potts (no kidding) was, somehow, not invited. Tiffany resides in nineties splendor in a lovely brownstone apartment not a condom’s throw from Dickie’s own digs on Fifth Avenue, and she is not trotted out on such occasions. Though top-heavy, Tiffany’s tits are her own, not the gift of a quack, and we are reliably informed that they are what keeps Dickie coming back for more. The publisher’s mammary complex is well known-what’s the matter, Dickie, didn’t Mommy do right by you as a baby?
The gorgeous Vance Calder was there, too, sporting one of the lovelies he hopes will keep folks from asking too many questions about his erotic preferences. This one is said to have a brain, too!
Finally, there was the handsome lawyer-cum-gumshoe, Stone Barrington, who Amanda has retained to uncover little old us. Watch out, Stone, even though Amanda has just turned fifty, she’s as horny as ever she was. The former Ida Louise Erenheim, who hails from the downscale side of some small-town Georgia tracks, has bounced from bed to bed for thirty-odd years, improving her station with each hop. She’s discreet, we’ll give her that, but keep your fly zipped, Stone, or dear Amanda will be on you like a bunny rabbit!
Stone’s ears reddened as he read the sheet. The phone rang, and he picked it up. “Hello?”
“Stone, it’s Amanda. Another of those horrible faxes just came in, and I’ve got the number from the Caller ID box attached to my fax machine.”
“Give it to me.” She dictated the number, and Stone wrote it down. “I’ll check it out and get back to you,” he said.
“I’ll be out all evening, but you can get me first thing in the morning.”
“Right.” He hung up and switched on his computer. From a box on his desktop he selected a CD-ROM disk and inserted it into the computer. A few keystrokes later a window appeared on the screen. “Name or phone?” it asked.
He selected PHONE and typed in the number Amanda had just given him. “Searching,” the screen said. A few seconds later a name and address appeared on the screen. EDDIE’S MAILBOXES. The address was on Lexington Avenue in the upper seventies. Stone wrote it down, left the house through his office door, and hailed a cab. Less than ten minutes from when the fax had come in he was walking into Eddie’s Mailboxes. A young man stood behind the counter.
“Evening,” Stone said.
“Yeah,” the young man said. “Help you with something?”
Stone put the scandal sheet on the counter. “This was faxed to me a few minutes ago; can you tell me who brought it in here?”
“Well, the way I look at it,” the young man said, “that’s kind of confidential information.”
Stone put a twenty on the counter. “Describe the person.”
The twenty disappeared. “Hispanic, late teens, on the short side.”
“Male or female?”
“Male.”
“How long ago?”
“About forty-five minutes. He gave me the sheet and a list of numbers. The machine is still faxing them.”
“Can I see the list of numbers?”
“Well…”
Stone produced another twenty.
The young man produced a sheet of papers with around fifty numbers on it. Some were in New York, some in L.A.
“This Hispanic teenager; he ever been in here before?”
“I never seen him.”
“You ever fax something like this before?”
“First time. Entertaining, ain’t it?”
“Thanks,” Stone said, and turned to go.
“I’ll tell you this for free,” the young man said.
Stone stopped and turned. “Yes?”
“I think somebody gave the kid a few bucks to bring it in here, you know?”
Stone nodded and left, tucking the list of phone numbers into his pocket. He got a cab home, went back to his study, and poured himself a bourbon. The message light was flashing on his answering machine. Probably Amanda, he thought, pressing a button. The machine rewound quickly; only one message.