On the opposite wall was an heroic, larger-than-life-size portrait of Orberg himself, standing hands on hips, accentuating the taut,' sinewy hardness of his body. He wore a suede leather shirt laced loosely up the front, a wide belt to define his lean middle, and jeans which fitted him with near skintightness. The outline of his groin was clearly visible. The photograph radiated a fierce pride of masculinity, a restlessness, an unsuppressed urge for action, the knowledge of conquest achieved while most others of his own age had barely seized hold of their graduation diplomas.
Off the spectacular living room there was a dimly lighted alcove with an elaborately-carved Chinese bar. Close to it was the seldom closed door of the single bedroom, the electric blue carpet defining its twenty-five-foot-square area. The two walls opposite the doorway were almost entirely of glass, giving a spectacular view of the city spread out below. The bed itself was circular, almost ten feet in diameter, and set on a slightly raised dais where another concealed spotlight bathed it in deep violet light when the shades were drawn. Several pieces of striking abstract art dramatized one wall; on the fourth a huge sumi-emural suggested romance and courtship in ancient Japan. The entire effect was sybaritically luxurious with a strong sense of detachment from any other world that might exist elsewhere.
Marc Orberg had had it designed and executed exactly as he wanted it for two specific purposes: to satisfy his own incessant craving for the exotic and to offer an unparalleled setting for a continual variety of sexual experiences.
Although he was only twenty-six, he had been enjoying the pleasures of women for more than a decade. With the great surge in his popularity he had discovered that conquests became absurdly easy; he had only to make an announced personal appearance and hundreds of females would fight for the right to be closest to him when he emerged from the stage door. Through his narrowframed, uniformly successful business manager, Nat Friedman, he had seen to it that the word got out how any girl who wanted to could bring herself to his attention. All she had to do was to write her name, age, and telephone number on a small slip of paper and fold it to less than an inch square. Whenever Orberg made his way from a theater or concert hall to his waiting car, he would hold out his hands and accept the slips of paper placed in them. When his hands were filled, he would stuff the results into the pockets of his jacket and collect more. When he was asked the purpose of this, he always replied that it was so he could send them Christmas cards.
Only Nat knew that in this midst of plenty Orberg had a method for marking the slips he chose to select; as he gathered them in he would press the edge of his thumbnail into the offering of any face that caught his eye, or any figure that triggered his imagination.
Once he had erred; Nat had phoned a twenty-two-year-old (or so she had described herself) where the indentation had been particularly deep, made in all probability by the girl herself while she had been desperately waiting for the opportunity to offer herself. Marc had said, “Get me a woman,” which differed from his more usual request for a girl; following instructions Nat had chosen the twenty-two-year-old who properly answered the description. The usual tactful phone call had as almost always been successful and within an hour the subject presented herself. She proved to be plain, somewhat overweight, and adorned with practical glasses. Orberg was at first in a concealed rage of frustration, but when the girl had gotten her clothes off, her body had been riper than he had expected and the resulting experience far beyond his expectations. For some time he had avoided repeating himself, but for this particular person he had broken his rule not once, but four separate times. There was no form of sexual gratification that she was not prepared to offer to her idol, and that in itself was a considerable improvement over the often frightened, tightly thrilled youngsters who had described themselves in writing as eighteen and who were hesitantly willing to be laid, but nothing more. After a while these little virgins began to annoy him and he looked for more capable companionship.
The conquest of the United States he did not expect to hurt his popularity in the least. If the people who had taken over knew anything at all about the country, they would know what he had been doing for them. They had talked together often enough in Cuba, Hanoi, and Moscow; they had praised his good work and had promised him that when the day came he would not be forgotten. That was all right as far as it went; he would decide later on whether he wanted to cooperate with them or not. He had done the TV stint for them simply as an exercise in virtuosity; after building an enormous reputation as a dynamic leader of violent protest, after becoming the number one law-defying rebel symbol of the hard left, it had given him great satisfaction to put on the character of the inherently wholesome-after-all young man and con the whole damn country into believing in him. He could do anything to them that he wanted to, he had proven that; and they couldn’t do anything to him. They had been trying for years but his popularity in his own generation was too great.
For the lack of anything else to do he picked up a guitar, checked that it was reasonably in tune, and then turned on a tape recorder. He had several of them built in so that when he wanted one it would be available. The concealed one in the bedroom had produced some rare moments of interesting listening, but that did not concern him now. He was about to turn on what had been described once by a reviewer as his “outstanding talents as a composer.”
He seated himself on the edge of the zebra-striped lounge and picked purposelessly at the strings. He let his fingers do as they liked, searching for a possible bit of novel rhythm. He was only a rudimentary musician; his great talent lay in his way of manipulating audiences. His singing voice was only passable, but with it he could do remarkable bits of histrionics whenever he liked.
He decided to concentrate on what he was doing; he did not feel like composing very often and if he got something good right now, it could be another million-copy record. With no more income tax to pay, that would be a sweet addition to the considerable fortune Nat had already managed to stash away for him. He would never have to work again as long as he lived, which suited him precisely. He had never worked at all in the strict sense of the word; his personal appearances were only fun to him. The lack of experience in this area did not trouble him.
He had it! Somehow his fingers had traced out a little rhythmic pattern, first slowly, then faster, which had a beat to it. He leaned forward and plucked it out again: ti — da — de — dum; ti-da-di-dum. Ti — da — di — dum; ti-da-di-dum. He had a vague feeling that he might have heard it before someplace, but so what. He began to seek out words in his mind, then a pawky idea hit him. It would be a simple song about the farm on which he had grown up. Or so the song would say. He would be homesick for the farm. For the wind-polished twin hills to the north, for the little triangle of woods down in the hollow by the stream. And the old well in the yard. The old well — that would make the navel. How long, he wondered, would it be before the saps woke up to what he was really singing about.
An hour later he had it down on tape. When the pieces were all assembled, and he had added several other little touches to his liking, he started the tape once more and did the whole thing straight through. It took him two minutes and twenty-five seconds, enough for a forty-five single, or if he had to, he could add another verse.
When he had finished, he stretched out on his back, his arms thrown high, letting his head roll slowly from side to side in an exercise of pure animal delight. Inaction was beginning to weigh on him and he craved some of the excitement on which he thrived. He had promised to be the first to greet and welcome the invaders on American soil; he wondered if he should do something about that. He could go and call on that clown Zalinsky in Washington, but it might be better just to let him wait.