The next picture featured the same girl sans candle. This shot had been taken from the side to show a narrow-shouldered young man standing in front of the girl. The man, seen only from the neck down, was extremely naked, which is to say that he was so well endowed and in such an obvious state of excitation that his nudity verged on surrealism. Both the girl’s hands gripped his member, but its size was such that they didn’t begin to conceal it. Her tongue was sticking out impudently.
Picture number three had been taken from a different angle. Imposing genitals showed between the man’s hairless haunches. The girl’s large breasts were also viewed from this vantage point. She was squeezing them together with her hands and the tip of his manhood was just visible, peeping out from the top of the cleavage where it was buried.
Archer didn’t really have time to study the next picture because Stella reentered the room with their drinks just as he turned to it. The quick glimpse he got, however, did reveal that the blonde’s legs were locked around the man’s neck while his body had angled forward to aim his manhood at the more usual target. Part of it had been accommodated, but it didn’t seem any more possible that the rest could be accommodated than it had in the case of the candle. Still, the eager lust written on the girl’s face said that she was doing her damnedest to accomplish the feat.
“Very interesting.” Archer took his drink from Stella and reluctantly put the pictures aside.
“Yes, aren’t they?” Stella glanced down at the photo he’d left on the top of the heap. “Oh, yes.” She smiled. “That was a very interesting case. The girl was a prostitute. The man was in town for a convention. His wife had hired Sammy to get the goods on him.”
“Well, he certainly seems to have succeeded.”
“But he didn’t. If you’ll notice, you don’t see the man’s face in any of the photos. There was no proof.”
Archer glanced at the picture on top again. “But surely there were other identifying features. It strikes me that his-—umm—equipment alone would be enough to establish who he is.”
“Typically enough-considering how Sammy always managed to foul up-it wasn’t. The man’s wife categorically refused to believe that the ‘equipment’—as you so euphernistically call it—belonged to her husband. As a matter of fact, she insisted that in his best days her husband could never summon up that much ‘equipment.’ She accused Sammy of trying to perpetrate a fraud and refused to pay him.”
“But why didn’t he make sure he got a picture of the guy’s face?” '
“Because he was so damn horny. Like I told you before. He just got carried away and shot what interested him.”
“Did he only handle adultery cases?”
“No. But he did specialize in sex cases. For two reasons. First because he was so sex obsessed. Second because when you’re a lousy private eye, at the bottom of your profession, that’s the sort of case you’re most likely to get.”
“Still, if he took his work home with him, he must have been one helluva husband where it counted.” The com-bination of the pictures and the scotch were making Archer bold.
“Well, he was eager. Active, too. But Sammy was a born klutz, to be honest about it. We lived a full sex life, I suppose, but Sammy was so damn accident-prone that there were times when I felt like I was trapped in a Marx brothers movie.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, look—-I’ll show you.” Stella rummaged through the pictures until she found the one she sought. She showed it to Archer.
The picture showed a balding, middle-aged man and a rather plump brunette girl in her twenties. Both were naked. The man supported the girl’s calves under his arms. She had braced herself with her hands on the floor, head and breasts hanging down, looking at him from this up-from-under position. His loins were straining against her derriere, his member buried deep and lost from sight.
“Ve-ry in-ter-es-ting.” Archer scrutinized the photo.
“Another one of Sammy’s flubs. He was hidden in the closet, but it was the wrong room. He found that out right away, but he got so interested he just kept taking pictures anyway. He got caught and it damn near lost him his license. Seems the gent was the brother of the local Chief of Police. And the girl--believe it or not—-turned out to be his legal wife!”
“I see what you mean about Sammy having been a klutz.”
“That wasn’t the worst of it. When it was all over, nothing would do Sammy but to show me the picture and have us try it. So we tried it.”
“And?”
“Sammy tripped over our dog—-a cooker spaniel. When everything was untangled, I ended up with the cooker spaniel and Sammy ended up with a hernia.”
“That’s a shame.”
“You’re damn right. You’ve no idea how aggressive a cocker spaniel can be when he’s aroused."
“I meant about Sammy’s hernia.”
“Don’t waste any sympathy on him. All the time he was convalescing he kept trying to take pictures of me and that damn dog!”
“Well, at least the hernia must have slowed him down.”
“Only temporarily. He came back twice as horny.”
“What did you do?”
“I had him destroyed.”
“Your husband?”
“No. The cooker spaniel. It was him or Sammy. I wasn’t strong enough to keep fending off both of them.”
“Oh. Well, that’s too bad.”
“Yeah. I should have kept the dog and gotten rid of Sammy.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“The hell I don’t! The cocker spaniel may have had one or two accidents on the living-room rug, but Sammy had accidents all the time. Everytime he touched me. Have you got any idea what it’s like being married to an accident-prone lecher?”
“Well, no. I don’t,” Archer confessed.
“It’s enough to sour a woman on sex.”
“Oh?”
“Well, maybe not quite.” Stella stretched her body suggestively. “Would you like to see the piece de resistance?” she asked.
“Beg your pardon!” Archer was startled. He hadn't expected anything quite so overt.
“I mean Sammy’s piece de résistance.” Stella corrected herself. When Archer still looked confused, she laughed and excused herself. When she returned, she was carrying a small movie camera. She set it down, plugged it in, and set up a small, portable screen across the room from it. The film was evidently already in the camera. She turned off the lights, started the camera, and sat down next to Archer on the couch. She sat very close to him and he was very much aware of the proximity of her body and the heady aroma of her perfume.
“What? No popcorn?” Archer wisecracked to cover his reaction.
“A wife whose husband suspected she was having an affair hired Sammy to get the goods on her,” Stella explained as the picture started. “The hubby plunked down a whopping retainer which Sammy promptly blew on movie equipment. He tried to tell me it was a legitimate expense, but he was like a depraved kid with a new toy. He was a damn sight more interested in making movies for himself than he was in the case. And, as usual, he goofed it.”
“How?” Archer wanted to know.
“See the red-headed girl there?”
“Yeah. Technicolor.” Archer was impressed.
“Sammy didn’t stint. Anyway, she was the wife. Sammy followed her to this beach cottage one night. He took these pictures with a telephoto lens.”
“They’re remarkably clear.” Archer’s eyes were glued to the screen as the redhead undressed. “She really is a redhead,” he remarked.
“Now you’ll see how Sammy blew it.”