"I... I don't know." She stretched on the lounge, giving him an inspiring view of her long, nylon-clad legs in the gloom. They were lovely in daylight; in the soft mystery of near darkness they became twin patterns of exciting curves. She knew he was looking at them dreamily over his brandy snifter. Let him — she knew they were good In fact she knew they were excellent — she often compared them with the supposedly perfect ones in The York Times Magazine ads on Sundays. The sleek models had become standards of perfection in Texas, although most women in the know kept their Times hidden and pretended they loyally read only the local papers.
She studied him with a sidelong glance. He gave you the darnedest warm feeling. Comfortable, she decided. He was very comfortable to be with. She remembered their contacts on the plane that first night. Whoo! All man. She had been so sure he was a snoopy nothing that she load misplayed her hand — that was why he had gone with Ruth after that first dinner. She had turned him away, now she had him back, and he was worth having. She saw him as several men in one — friend, adviser, confidant. She slid over father, lover. You knew you could depend on him. Pieter van Prez had found that out. She felt a glow of pride at the impression he had made. The glow spread up to the back of her neck and down to the base of her spine.
She felt his hand on her breast and suddenly he fingered the right spot and she had to catch her breath to keep from jumping. He was so gentle. Did that mean a terrible lot of practice? No, he was naturally gifted with a delicate touch, he moved like a trained dancer at times. She sighed and put her lips to his. Hmmm. She was falling deliciously through space, but with the ability to fly when she wanted to just by putting out a hand like a wing. She closed her eyes tightly and did a slow loop that jumbled the warmth in her stomach the way the looping machine did at the Santone amusement park. His mouth was so pliable — should you say that a man had wonderfully kissable lips?
Her blouse was off and her skirt unzipped. She raised her hips to make it easier for him and finished unbuttoning his while shirt. She pulled up his undershirt and found the soft fluff of hair on his chest with her fingers, smoothing it this way and that the way you would groom a dog's tufts. He smelled so entrancingly male. His nipples reacted to her tongue and she giggled inwardly, pleased that she wasn't the only one to be stimulated by the right touch. Once his spine arched and he breathed a pleased, humming sound. She sucked the hardened cones of flesh slowly, capturing them again instantly as they popped from her lips, delighted at the way his shoulders squared with reflexive pleasure at each loss and recapture. Her bra was gone. Let him discover that she was better built than Ruth.
She felt positively burning — with delight, not pain. No, not burning, vibration. Warm vibration, that was it, as if one of those throbby massage machines was all over her body at once.
She felt his mouth descend to her breasts, kissing her with narrowing circles of damp warmth. Ooh! a very good man. She felt him ease her garter belt down and unfasten the tabs from one stocking. Then they were rolled down — gone. She extended her long legs, feeling the tension leave her muscles to be replaced by a delicious relaxed warmth. Oh yes, she thought — in for a penny in for a pound, is that what they would say in Rhodesia?
The back of her hand brushed his belt buckle and almost without thought she turned her hand over and unbuckled him. A soft thud — she supposed that was his pants and shorts hitting the floor. She opened her eyes to the half-light. True. Ah — She swallowed and felt deliciously smothered as he kissed her and rubbed her back and rump.
She blended herself against him and tried to lengthen her breaths, they were so short and gusty it was embarrassing. He would know she was actually panting for him. His fingertips caressed her thighs and she gasped and her self-criticism flew away. Her spine was a column of warm, sweet oil and her mind a pressure boiler of assent. After all, when two people really enjoyed and cared...
She kissed his body, responding to a forward tug and push of her libido that broke her last cords of conditioned restraint It's perfectly all right, I need it, this is so — good. A perfect contact made her tense. She stiffened for an instant, then relaxed like an opening flower in a slow-motion nature film. Oh-h. The column of warm oil came to a near-boil in her belly, churned and throbbed deliciously around her heart, flowed through her flexing lungs until they felt hotly awash. She swallowed again. Shivery shafts like glowing pellets of neon arced from her loins to her scalp. She imagined her golden hair standing straight out and up, flooded with static electricity. Of course it wasn't, it just felt that way.
He left her for an instant and turned her. She remained utterly pliant, only the quick rise and fall of her generous breasts and the quick beat of her breath showing she was alive. He's going to take me, she thought, as he should. A girl likes — in the last analysis — to be taken. Oh-h. A gasp and a sigh. A long breath and a murmur, "Oh yes."
She felt herself receive deliciously, not once, but over and over. Layer after layer of warm depth spread and welcome and fall away and make room for the next advance. She felt as though she were built like an artichoke with delicate leaves inside and every one was possessed and taken. She writhed and worked with him to speed the harvest Her cheek was wet and she supposed some tears were flowing with the shocking delight of it but they didn't matter. She did not realize that her nails dug into his flesh like the flexing claws of an ecstatic cat. He eased his loins forward until their pelvic bones locked as tightly as a closed fist, feeling her reach avidly with her body for his steady lunge.
"Darling," he murmured, "you're so damn beautiful you scare me. I meant to tell you before..."
"Tell... me... now," she gasped.
Judas, before he called himself Mike Bor, had found Stash Foster in Bombay, where Foster was a dealer in humanity in die many vicious ways that arise when there are uncounted, unwanted, gross masses of it Engaged by Judas to bring three minor wholesalers of dope aboard Judas' Portuguese motor-sailer, Foster fell right into the middle of one of Judas' small problems. Judas wanted the good-quality cocaine they carried, and he did not care to pay for it, especially since he wanted the two men and the woman out of the way because their operation fitted nicely into his developing organization.
The three were tied up as soon as the vessel was out of sight of land, plowing through the hot-looking Arabian Sea, bound south for Colombo. In his lavishly furnished cabin Judas said thoughtfully to Heinrich Muller, while Foster listened, "Best thing for them is overboard."
"Ja," Muller agreed.
Foster decided they were testing him. He would pass the test, because Bombay was a lousy place for a Pole to make a living even if he was always six jumps ahead of the local banditti. The language problem was just too much, and you were so damn conspicuous. This Judas was building a big operation and he had real money.
"Want me to dump 'em?" he had asked.
"If you would be so kind," Judas purred.
Foster took them up on deck with their hands tied, one by one, the woman first He slit their throats, severed the heads completely from the bodies, and stripped the corpses before dropping the bodies into the greasy-looking sea. He made a weighted bundle of the clothes and dropped it over. When he was done there was only a yard-across puddle of blood on the deck, forming a red, liquid tray for the three heads, eyes-adroop.