He said, "Mr. Paul is very reluctant to part with the young lady – he mentioned something about an anniversary. However, for a fee of two hundred dollars, he says, you might be allowed an hour alone with her."
Two hundred dollars. This was all Mike had in his secret emergency fund. And for only one hour! What Mike wanted to do with this girl would take much longer than an hour – he could fuck her all night long, all week long, all the rest… No, he thought. It was too much money for too little reward. Besides, there were other things to think about: Lisa for example, and his job. He was here he reminded himself, to nail Jay Snyder, not to go off amusing himself with one of his whores.
Mike turned to the butler. "No," he said, "it's too much."
"Are you sure?" said the butler. "Look." He nodded in the direction of the girl.
She was standing still now, moving her pelvis in and out, thrusting her cunt, it seemed, directly into Mike's face. Her hand reached for the clasp on her hip, undid it, and the thin skirt joined the veil on the floor. She was completely naked, and far more beautiful that way than she had been when fully clothed, or even half-clothed. Mike's longing for her returned in a flash, causing his prick to beat madly against his pants.
The redhead ran her fingers slowly along her smooth, glorious thighs, beckoning Mike to do the same. She had caught his eye, was looking straight at him now, asking him, enticing him, begging him to fuck her as she'd never been fucked before. Her eyes paralyzed him, seemed to strip him of everything except his desire for her, his awareness of this throbbing prick.
Now she did a backbend, arching her trembling body so that her head and her feet touched the floor. Her cunt was pointed directly at Mike; it seemed to vibrate, driven by a power all its own. Her crawling fingers moved further and further up her thighs until they finally came in contact with her beautiful pussy. Then she spread the red pubic hairs, spread her cunt-lips wide to reveal the rigid little mound of her clitoris. Slowly she began to finger herself, treating herself gently, manipulating her hardened clitoris with the gentlest of touches – all over the room her movements were echoed by fingers, by tongues, by exposed cocks and pussies.
Mike could hardly stand it. Now there was no Lisa, no emergency fund, no cop and no vice squad, no Jay Snyder – there was only the burning in his body, the lustful squirmings of his prick, the tingling in his balls. He had to have her; there was no longer any doubt. If he never did another thing in his life, he had to have this incredible woman.
He turned to the butler. "All right," he said. "Sold."
"Fine," said the butler: "Now if you'll just wait a few minutes, I'll make the necessary arrangements."
Mike nodded, turned back to watch the girl as the butler disappeared from his side. She was reaching the climax of her dance, the climax of her body; shaking and moaning as she rubbed her clitoris faster and faster, harder and harder. Finally she screamed: "Ahhhhhh! Oh, Jesus. ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!" and collapsed on the floor, exhausted and sweating.
That's right, thought Mike as he rubbed his aching cock, rest. Rest your body, because I'm going to make that orgasm you just had seem like a popgun against a hydrogen bomb. Rest, he thought, just rest. I'll be with you soon.
"Hi," she said, smiling at him. "My name's Cindy."
"Gus," said Mike. "Gus Johnson. Can we get out of here?" He was anxious to leave the crowd in the penthouse, anxious particularly to get away from Steve Paul, who was watching them like a hawk.
"Got something on your mind?" she said, laughing. "I saw you while I was dancing. Yeah, I'd say you definitely had something on your mind."
"Let's just go," said Mike. "I don't want to stand around here talking all night."
She looked at Mike, saw the desire in his eyes, felt her own passion returning. "Where would you like to go?" she said softly.
"Your place," Mike said.
"That'll cost you more," she said.
"OK, OK." Money meant nothing now – he could always get a loan from his mother. "Let's just get out of here, quick."
Cindy had a small house, high in the Hollywood Hills, overlooking the San Fernando Valley. The lights of downtown Burbank winked up at them as they sat on the sofa, smiling at one another. Since they had arrived at the house, Cindy's whole manner had changed: she had dropped her tough-girl front, had become coy and even a little shy, and somehow this pleased Mike almost as much as her wild, orgiastic dancing. At least, he thought, she's a person, a woman, and not just a whore. That makes it better.
"How old are you?" Mike asked, suddenly curious.
Her eyes narrowed a bit. "You wouldn't be a cop, would you?"
At the mention of the word "cop", Mike's heart skipped a beat. Did she know, or was this just a guess, just a suspicion? He couldn't afford to have her know – she might tell Snyder and then his whole gambit would be ruined; his effectiveness as a whole might even be undermined. He laughed. "Hardly," he said.
"Good, I hate cops." Her voice was harsh and bitter.
Mike wondered at the bitterness in such a young girl. "Why do you hate cops so much?"
"It's a long story."
"That's OK. We've got plenty of time."
She looked at him. This guy is strange, she thought. Back at the party he was practically drooling on his shirt, and now that he's got me he says we have plenty of time. Maybe, she thought, maybe he's not like the rest of them. He seems nice enough; maybe I can trust him. "Sure you want to hear?" she said.
"Positive," Mike said, smiling.
He was so warm, so gentle and understanding, that Cindy decided to tell him the story. She began in a soft, almost blank voice, telling him about her brother and the cop who had framed him on a marijuana charge, planting an ounce of dope in his glove compartment and then arresting him. Their family couldn't afford a lawyer and the public defender had been too busy to care, so Cindy's brother had been sentenced to two years in the state penitentiary at Tehachapi. When she mentioned the prison, Cindy broke down in sobs. "He doesn't belong in jail," she wept. "He never did anything bad in his whole life."
Mike listened to her story with growing anger. If there was anything he hated more than gangsters and pimps like Jay Snyder, it was crooked cops. They gave the whole force a bad name, detracted attention from the vast majority of cops who were honest and dedicated to their jobs, created in the public a sense of insecurity and outrage. Mike would be just as happy to put a bad cop behind bars as a gangster, maybe even happier.
An idea formed as he tried to console Cindy, who had collapsed in his arms in a paroxysm of weeping. Perhaps they could help one another, he thought. Even if he wasn't able to get that lousy cop jailed or fired from the force, he could at least pressure him to get that kid out of jail on a mistrial. In turn, Cindy could help him bag Jay Snyder. He wasn't sure, but he had a feeling that she didn't work for Snyder willingly, that her liaison with Steve Paul was something she had been forced into.
He tested his idea. "Cindy," he said, "tell me about Steve Paul. What's he to you?" She stopped crying, made an ugly face.
"That bastard," she said. "He's nothing to me, in fact, I hate his guts. But when my brother went to jail, he offered to help me – I was a dancer at one of his clubs – to give me money so that I could hire a good lawyer. He talked me into working for him, like this, like you saw me at the party, and then when I asked him for the money he refused to pay, said he'd tell my parents what I did for a living. He trapped me, him and that other bastard."