“Well, I sort of take it for granted. I mean, you are a virgin, aren’t you?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” She undulated her body teasingly. Her bare breasts swung provocatively. One of the hard little nipples just grazed my cheekbone.
“Then I’ll find out,” I decided. I pulled her to her feet in front of me and pulled her skirt down over her hips. I performed the maneuver so that her panties slid down to her ankles with it. Then I peered closely at the red triangle of curls quivering under my nose. “I guess you’d better lie back down,” I told her.
“All right.” Ingrid stretched out on the couch and I knelt between her thighs to examine her again.
“Are all men like doctors at times like this?” she asked.
“Well, no,” I granted. “It’s just that I’m trying to find out . . .”
“I didn’t think it would be so clinical the first time,” Ingrid complained. “I mean, you don’t even seem excited.”
“I don’t? Look again!”
“Oh! Yes! Can I touch it?”
“Be my guest.”
“If you want the answer to your question, wouldn’t it be better to use this instead of your hands?” She stroked it awkwardly.
“Well, yes, but if you’re a virgin--”
“If you’re going to keep throwing that up in my face, I’m not going to let you find out at all!” Ingrid crossed her legs firmly and pushed me away. “Either you do it the right way, or not at all!”
“But—! Oh, all right.” I figured that if I was very careful and proceeded very slowly, I could just find out what I wanted to know without destroying the evidence.
I climbed carefully on top of her. Ingrid locked her knees under my arms and reached forward to dig her nails into my buttocks. Very slowly—tenth-of-an-inch by tenth-of-an-inch—-I set about investigating the status of her virginity.
Ahh! Ingrid was indeed a virgin! I poked very gently at the evidence.
That was a mistake. Ingrid reacted. She gouged at my bottom, and her lower body was seized by a spasm that propelled it upwards.
Oo-oops!
Ingrid wasn’t a virgin any more!
Damn! Damn! Damn! I cursed her. I cursed myself. Three days—you should pardon the expression -- down the drain!
Oh, well. What was done was done. No use crying over spilt . . . I spent the rest of that night and half the next morning satisfying Ingrid’s quest for experience. I figured I owed her that.
I gave her that afternoon and evening off. She went to bed. Alone. I sat up and brooded. I was right back where I started. I still had to find a Danish virgin for Sheikh Ali Khat. But even if I found one, how could I make sure without destroying the proof in the process?
I’d just have to cross that bridge again when I came to it. Meanwhile, time was running out. For lack of a better idea, I went to Tivoli Park later that night.
Tivoli Park is a cross between Coney Island and the Bronx Botanical Gardens with lots of Greenwich Village-style strip joints thrown in for spice. Like the Via Veneto in Rome, the Tivoli is world famous as a place to pick up girls. It wouldn’t be hard to meet a redhead there. But a virgin?
Trial and error? That hadn’t worked so well with Ingrid. But what other course was open to me? I brooded about it as I strolled along the crowded, noisy, brightly lit midway of the amusement park.
“Hello.” Deep blue eyes looked into mine invitingly. A smile . . . a smashing figure . . . and red hair!
“Hello.” I stopped so quickly I almost tripped over my feet.
“Looking for a girl?” Long lashes fluttered coquettishly.
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
“Will I do?”
“Well, now you just might do very nicely.”
“ Then come on.” She slipped her arm through mine. My place is close by. Ten dollars American. All right?”
“All wrong!” I sighed and disengaged her arm.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t suppose this is your first night, is it?” I asked hopefully.
“Of course not. Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’m no amateur.”
“I was afraid of that. You see, I require a virgin.”
“What! What do you want for ten dollars?”
“Sorry.” I walked away from her.
“Cheapskate American!” Her voice trailed me across the midway.
About ten feet away from me I spotted another redhead. From the rear she was terrific. She was wearing stretch pants and a ski jacket. The way the pants stretched over her derriere and hips, her shape was a dazzling study of female curves tapering down to long, slender legs. She was a tall girl and I wondered if her proportions were as impressive in other ways. I walked a wide circle until I had a clear view of her from the side. I still couldn’t make out her face, but her ski jacket was opened and the way her sweater was stretching over her breasts was an eye-filling compliment to their shape and size.
But what about her face? Did she look as good from the front? From the neck up? I completed the circle to see for myself.
She did. She looked just great. She would have been a perfect candidate, except-
Except she was Senorita Nina Procura, agent for Senhor Di Arrea, the Brazilian toilet manufacturer!
I reversed my field before she could see me. Then, staying well behind, I followed her. An idea was beginning to shape up in my mind.
Nina, if I’d pegged her right when we met on Paradise Island, was a Lesbian. That gave her a certain advantage in our current quest. She might be able to latch onto a redhead and determine her chastity without erasing it in the process. If she did, and I could somehow get the virgin away from her . . .
Unethical? Maybe. But hadn’t Cass Nova stolen my hippie chick right out from under my nose? Hadn’t Archibald Snoopleigh grabbed off my French fille in similar underhanded fashion? The Russians had tried to grab my Pygmy princess, and Hauksho had horned in on my sabra. So if that’s the way the game was being played, who was I to be tied down to Marquis of Queensberry rules? Answer: Hol’ onto youah groins, evahbody! Heah come de Victor!
So I followed Nina. I followed her that night. I followed her for the next few days. I followed her through six redheads.
One after another she discarded them. Like myself, Nina was finding it no easy task to locate a Danish virgin. And time was growing short for both of us; the New Year’s Eve deadline was coming awfully close!
Just before noon on December thirty-first, I peeked around a corner inside the Thorvaldsen Museum and watched Nina striking up a conversation with a seventh redhead. I tailed the two girls out of the museum and observed them as Nina bought the Danish redhead drinks in a swanky cocktail lounge. At about three in the afternoon, with the Danish chick pretty well swizzled, I trailed along as Nina took her up to her hotel room.
I was ready for that. When I’d decided to stake all my chips on Nina, I’d spread some of Randolph Austin’s money around among the staff of the hotel at which she was staying. It bought me the room next to hers, a tap on her phone, and a strategically placed hole in the wall of her room, through which I could see everything that happened there. Now I stationed myself at the peephole and watched.
“Why don’t we both get into something more comfortable?” Nina suggested as she ushered the Danish girl into the room. “I’ll lend you something of mine,” she added.
“Aw righ’.” The Danish girl was pretty drunk by now.
“What did you say your name was, dear?” Nina asked as she rummaged in the clothes closet.
“Karen Nodjetbjangg.”
“These Scandinavian names!” Nina shook her head. “Well, I’ll call you Karen and you call me Nina. Here” —- she handed Karen a particularly flimsy negligee-—“you’ll be more comfortable in this.”
“Aw righ’.” Karen took the negligee into the bathroom.
Nina took off her clothes and hung them in the closet. She paused a moment to admire her naked body in the mirror. I admired it too. So much so that I almost got my eyeball wedged in the peephole. Then she slipped into a black silk nightgown, a shortie with a V-neck.