SEVEN
David fortified himself with a quick double-vodka when he left the office that afternoon. Then he telephoned Linda and said he'd have, to work late that night on a special assignment. If she were the suspicious type she might telephone the office later to make sure he was really there. But David was convinced that she was much too trusting a creature-of-habit to check up on him. At least, not at this early stage in his campaign.
However, he was not prepared for the oddly deflated tone of her voice when he spoke to her that day. "Perhaps it's just as well, dear," she said. "I've got a terrible headache, so I don't think I'd have joined you at dinner anyway. I'll just see that the children get fed, and then I'll call it a night early."
She sounded so limp and lethargic, David felt a sudden pang of guilt. And then fear: had Brad been talking to her already? "Linda, are you sure you'll be all right? Maybe I'd better come right home, or… or call a doctor for you…"
"No, David, really, it's nothing serious. Just… woman-stuff, that's all. I'll be as good as new in the morning…"
Relieved to hear that her malaise involved endocrines rather than emotions, David told her to get a good night's rest, and hung up.
In the cab on his way to the Hilton, David hoped to hell that Linda wasn't pregnant again. She'd just had little Jaimie ten months ago, and he was taking it for granted she slapped in her trusty diaphragm every Sunday night after Mission Impossible, because Jesus!.. having four children would be kind of cumbersome for a guy who was just learning the facts of life!
Then, after he reached the Hilton and a page-boy led him to his fresh quarry a few minutes later, all the airs of home were blown from David's mind in a single, eye-filling gasp-for Hazel turned out to be the most dazzling-looking creature he'd ever laid eyes on. Good God, she must be some kind of showgirl-queen from Vegas or Reno, he thought, dismissing the page-boy with a few bills. The girl hadn't seen his approach, so he was able to drink her in for a few seconds, his heart racing and pounding as he fiercely tried to render her topless with his eyes. Man, what pointed thrust-out boobs for such a chic and slim-Jane hunk of pastry! She was a glittering and stately honey-blonde, with a superbly proportioned figure for someone as tall as she. Everything about her was dramatic and spectacular; elaborate bouffant hairdo, white leather mini-trench-coat and knee-boots. Her eyes were vividly made up, but her lips, thankfully, were done in natural flesh-tones of softest coral.
A real stunner, thought David, and one more example of a perfectly desirable woman who prefers the safer, more discreet methods of choosing a lover. No bars, movies or dark corners for this one; she wants to know exactly what she's getting, and unn!.. so do I…! She turned and saw him then, and the smile she gave him was so full-lipped and vivacious, David got a lost, sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach. Hazel's most provocative feature was an unusually large and sensuous mouth. Indeed, everything about this striking girl seemed larger-than-life. Enormous brown eyes, magnificent facial bones, almost Grecian… as were her shoulders and lithe, supple body… breasts that were ample and pouting beneath her bodice. She looked something like a very young Katharine Hepburn, thought David; but with the body of Raquel Welch.
Approaching her, he extended his hand and warmly returned her smile of greeting. "Hi, I'm David Thorn-dike."
Her eyes toured languorously up and down his body, and the slumbering head of his strapped-in penis began to stir itself. "Hazel Crainer, David; and I think I'd know you anywhere. I find that blond, fair-skinned men inevitably possess hidden depths-and your voice on the phone sounded just as muted and smoldering as you look…"
David ran a nervous tongue across his lips and reminded himself that the kind of guy he'd pretended to be on that questionnaire certainly appealed to the most aggressive-type females. "Do you live alone, Hazel?" he said, proving that when he put his mind to it, he could be just as bold and brazen as any woman.
"You've guessed my guilty secret, David Thorndike," she took his hand in hers and squeezed it, accelerating fresh tremors in his briefs. "I live in a rather sumptuous bachelor-girl cocoon. Care to come over and turn on some of my jazz? Records, I mean. Dizzy Gillespie, and…like that!"
"Now that would be out-of-sight!" said David, encouraged by the slang-sound of his own voice. "I mean… like man, this is wild, because I blow a French Horn!"
"Ooh… groovy!" her big luscious mouth curving in another grin. "When was your last gig?"
This word stumped him, but he refused to capitulate. "Well, like… I've been layin' off for awhile…"
"Really? What happened, doll… did you hurt your lip?" she asked, winking and licking hers.
David gazed deeply into those wide, expressive eyes, but could only nod and gulp a little.
"How?" she asked, and David felt crazy little chills prickling at his nuts as he watched how roundly she opened her mouth over this word.
"It's a pretty long story," he said.
"Promises, promises," she chuckled, her eyes grazing downwards at his packed response. Then she led him through the lobby and out onto the street. "I have a cunning little Porsche parked just around the corner. Care to come home to Russian Hill with me and let down your… uh… hair?"
David gave her a sunny grin, and if he'd known how, he would have wagged his tail. "Honey, for you I'll let down whatever comes to mind," he said rakishly, thinking how wildly luxurious it felt to speak as vulgarly as he chose without being unduly castigated by a saintly, bible-smitten wife. And later, when he had this randy-looking Amazon all to himself, maybe he'd even use those verboten gutter-phrases, ahh yes!.. the insidious poison-pen obscenities, the sleazy graffiti that were forever reappearing on the policed walls of his psyche.
The girl's apartment was a rambling, one-room studio concoction with an array of low-slung arty furniture, grotesque mobiles and several Tolouse-Lautrec posters on the walls. Typical pad of a showgirl on furlough, thought David, and he could just see this big mama-doll parading her superstructure at the Sahara or the Sands; although he wasn't going to be so gauche as to ask her occupation. Hell no, he didn't care what she did for a living; it was her hobbies that interested him at the moment.
After slipping off her coat and revealing a skin-tight psychedelic mini-sheath, she put a stack of jazz-records on the stereo, but kept the volume low. After which she led him to the windows for a brief glance at her high-rise view. "On a clear day you can see Sausalito… and all the Fags-At-Bay. But the fog's coming in, David, so don't look now. Come over here and sit down, and look at me instead."
He let her lead him to the divan, and then she excused herself and went to the refrigerator for something to drink.
In another instant she was seated close to him, her modified mini-skirt slipping high up her slim thighs, as David noticed that she wore no stockings under her modish white boots, her skin deeply tanned by the sun. He wondered if the sun were her sole camouflage all the way up… ummm… ultra-violet panties, how tawny can you get? He glanced at the outline of her firm and pointed breasts which seemed almost too perfect to be true… How full and huddled-together they looked… collectors' items, surely! He took a quick sip from the drink she'd handed him and let his eyes travel higher up her bodice until, at last, he gazed longingly at the flaring opulence of her mouth… in full repose and so damnably inviting. A woman's mouth is a sexual organ when it looks like that, he thought, and felt a chilling tremor, as if he'd made some vast new discovery. Mouths as voluptuous as that should be veiled, like the rest of her intimacies… breasts, nipples, mount of Venus. Not out in plain view like this… so nude and taunting.