We kissed. Her body was soapy and slippery and warm. Her lips were moist, her teeth sharp, her tongue a darting flame. The soap slipped from my fingers and slithered down the length of Misty’s body. She turned around and bent over to pick it up, her legs wide-spaced for balance. The target, framed in soapsuds, was too tempting to resist. My hands closed over her breasts from behind and I lunged home.
“Ahhhh!” It was a long, drawn-out shudder that made her whole body quiver. She braced her hands against the wall of the stall shower and peered at me over her shoulder. Her eyes smoldered and her hips rotated wildly now. I braced my own feet, and our bodies worked in rhythm like oiled pistons, the length of our soapy skins slipping and sliding and yet managing to cling together. After a moment she cried out, then pushed me away and quickly turned around, her back arched, her legs next to mine and her feet braced against the wall opposite her. I slid my hands under her and once again lunged straight to the target. She leaped a little as I struck home, and now her feet weren’t on the shower floor any more; her legs were around my hips, ankles locked, facing me and pounding hard, on my thighs, slamming down for the thrill of maximum contact, her eyes closed, her hair flowing over me, keening like a banshee.
And now I was caught up in the mounting ecstasy of our love-making. The tiles of the shower blurred before my eyes and my teeth were buried in her neck. My nails dug into her buttocks, urging her to harder and faster and harder and faster movements. It was going to be now! But --
Suddenly Misty relinquished her perch and bounced to her feet. “The telephone,” she said. “It’s ringing.”
“I don't hear anything!” My voice ached with the suddenness of my frustration.
“I do. It’s the phone, darling. I’m sorry. But it could be important. I’m expecting my agent to call. I won't be a minute.” And she stepped out of the stall shower, soapsuds and all.
As she did so, her elbow must have hit one of the faucets. Still stunned by her sudden exit, it was a moment or so before I noticed. But when I did, I noticed with a vengeance. Scalding hot water came pouring down on me!
Instinctively, I tried to leap out of the shower. But the door was jammed. I couldn’t budge it. Frantically, I reached for the cold water faucet. There was just a rod sticking out of the wall. The handle had come off and was on the floor of the shower. I was really being scalded now. I reached down hastily, retrieved the handle and tried to fit it on the rod. I couldn’t make it turn. A screw or something was missing. I grabbed for the hot water faucet to turn it off. The handle came off in my hand. I couldn’t get that one back on, either. The water seemed to get hotter, much hotter. The stall shower was thick with steam now. I began to appreciate what a lobster must feel; I knew I’d never order live broiled lobster again!
I put my shoulder against the thick glass door. No use. I still couldn’t budge it. The cascade of water felt as if it was boiling now; my skin felt like it was peeling off, and the layers of flesh underneath along with it. My feet . . . With horror, I looked down and saw that the drain had become stopped up. The water was rising in the stall. It was over my ankles already. If I wasn’t boiled alive, I'd soon drown!
“Misty!” I yelled as loud as I could. “Help!”
No sign of an answer. I thought I could smell the stench of my own flesh burning. Steamed and scalded, and all the time the water rising. At my knees now! And the heat excruciating! I realized it was only a matter of a moment or two before I succumbed to the scalding steam. Already my lungs were raw with the effort to breathe.
I looked around the small area wildly for something with which to break the glass door. It was too thick to break with my hands, or body. At first I saw nothing; Then my panic gave way to desperate inspiration.
I reached up to the source of the scalding water. I could feel blisters sprouting on my hands as I managed to unscrew and then wrench the shower spray-head from the lead-in pipe. The spray of steam and water changed to a heavy torrent beating at my back as I hammered at the glass door with the shower-head. Finally it cracked. Another few blows—where I got the strength, I’ll never know —and the glass began to splinter and shatter. Finally there was a hole big enough for me to reach through the door and release the jammed catch from the other side. I leaped from the torture-chamber and sprawled on the bathroom floor, hugging the cool tiles, stretching out and turning this way and that so I could feel their blessed coolness on the whole length of my burned, agonized body.
II stayed on the floor a long time. Finally I managed to drag myself to my feet. I opened Misty’s medicine cabinet. I still had a little luck left. There was an unopened jar of Noxzema among the clutter on the shelves. I opened it and spread it over my skin liberally. I used up the entire bottle.
Only then did I go into the other room in search of Misty. She wasn’t there. But there was a note propped up on the bureau: “Darling, I'm desolate. My agent on the phone . . . A new contract . . . Very important . . . Maybe a million involved . . . Shouldn’t be long . . . Please wait . . . Finish your shower . . . Take a nap . . . I’ll wake you when I come in and we'll pick up where we left off” It was signed “Love, Misty”.
So here it was again. Was it just the usual lousy plumbing and jammed door one came to expect at the Beverly Topless? Or had Misty set me up for the scalding? If she had, then why? Why should she want to kill me? Why should anybody want to kill me? A fleeting and creepy thought of cannibals invading Beverly Hills crossed my mind. I dismissed it and started to dress.
I had no intention of “picking up where we left off.” I wasn’t even sure there was enough skin left on my bones to pick. In any case, my passion had been burned out of me for this night at least. Besides, there was something I wanted to check.
When I’d finished working my clothes on over my parboiled body, I left Misty’s room and went down the corridor and through the lobby to check it. An aromatic cloud of Noxzema preceded and trailed after me. I ignored the sniffs in my wake and went out the front entrance of the hotel and up to one of the topless parking attendants standing with the doorman there.
“Miss Milo?" I asked. “Has she left the hotel?” I didn't know what the answer might prove, but it seemed to be one of the pieces I’d eventually have to fit into the jigsaw puzzle if I was going to figure out Misty’s part in what had been happening.
“Search me.” The topless attendant chucked my chin, her bosom bobbling agreeably. “She usually parks in Section G-3. Why don’t you ask the attendant there? She’ll know if Miss Milo’s car was brought around.” She pointed a finger and a breast, and I set out in the indicated direction.
It didn't take me long to find the topless titian in charge of Parking Field C-3. I repeated my question to her. Yes, she replied, Miss Milo had taken her car about twenty minutes ago and said she’d be right back. No, the attendant had no idea where she’d gone, or even which way she’d headed when she pulled out of the parking field.
Crossing back through the parking fields, I halted and stood to one side as a particularly bosomy topless blonde directed a Jag that was backing out of a space. The Jag roared backward and suddenly changed direction, the driver ignoring the frantically bobbing flashlight beam of the attendant guiding him. I was just thinking what a maniac the driver must be when the Jag, in reverse, backed straight toward me at top speed.