“It’s a deal,” Archie agreed. “But don’t you think you should tell me where the papers are so I’ll be able to guard them, too?”
“No, I don’t think that. I don't think that at all. As a matter of fact, what I think is that it would be pretty damn stupid to tell you.”
“I dig.” Archie grinned. “You trust me, but only to a point. Right? ”
“Right.”
“Okay.” Archie saw no alternative to playing it the way it was being dealt him. “I’ll be just outside playing watchdog if you want me." He started for the door.
“Oh, no! ” Her voice was firm and it stopped him.
“No? Why not?”
“Two reasons. The first is that you’re probably just looking for a chance to ransack the rest of the apartment. And the second is that if I’m gonna have protection, it’s gonna be right here beside me where it’ll do some good.” She patted the bed.
“You mean you want me to sleep with you?
“Gun and all!” she insisted. “What’s the matter? Am I so hard to take?”
“No.” Archie looked at her naked body as she once again stretched herself out on the bed. It was a slender body with small, firm, high, pointy breasts and smooth hips. A faint flush of pink suffused the ivory flesh tints, giving Dixie’s torso an aura of warmth which was enhanced by the red hair streaming down over her shoulders to her breasts. Under Archie’s stare the nipples of her breasts widened and grew longer until they seemed to beckon from between the tendrils of hair like dark red rubies glittering in a bed of orange-red blossoms. “No,” Archie repeated. “You’re not so hard to take.”
“Then come on over here and protect me.” Her voice was sultry, and she stretched her arms out to him. “You’re a bodyguard. Well, do your duty and take care of my body.”
Archie crossed over to the bed and perched next to her.
“If you’re going to guard it, you should really get to know it,” Dixie murmured, running her hands up her hips to her bosom and then holding her breasts out to Archie almost as if she was offering him some fruit.
Archie reached out and touched one of her breasts with one hand. Immediately Dixie put her arms around his neck and pulled his face down to hers. The breast-tip burned against his palm. Her lips were moist and eager, her tongue searching. Archie put his free arm around her and she pulled away suddenly. “That damn gun is pretty cold against my bare back,” she complained.
“Sorry. I’ll try to be more careful.”
“Why don't you put it down?”
“That would make me derelict in my duties as a bodyguard,” he pointed out.
“Oh, all right. But at least get undressed.”
“Turn the light off,” Archie said.
“My god! You act like you’re a virgin or something.”
She turned off the bedlamp and the room was plunged into darkness.
“I am,” Archie told her as he stood up in the dark and took off his clothes.
“Oh, sure. So am I,” Dixie said sarcastically.
“But I really am,” Archie insisted. “You should know that. So if I seem inexperienced, you'll know why.”
“Quit putting me on."
Why is the world so full of doubters? Archie wondered. Any sin, any crime is believable. But innocence? Unthinkable! People will forgive you anything except the sins you haven’t committed, he reflected. Archie sighed. “Honest, I’ve come close, but I’ve never really been with a woman before,” he insisted.
“Really?” Dixie’s voice said she was beginning to believe him. “Well, then, we’re just going to have to make this something really special!” She reached out her hand and determined that Archie had stripped. Then she rolled over and caressed him intimately with her lips. “Yes,” she decided, “it certainly feels like you’ve been saving it for a long time. Come on!” Her voice said the idea of his virginity excited her. “You’re going to have your first lesson from a master! ”
“You mean a mistress,” Archie corrected her.
“Don’t be presumptuous. A single drink doesn’t mean you own the reservoir. Still, we’ll see. Come on! Lie down.” She tugged at his manhood.
“Just a minute,” Archie said. “I want to go to the bathroom.”
“Well, hurry up.”
“I won’t be a minute.” Archie felt his way through the darkness to the bathroom door, closed it behind him, and turned on the light. He set the gun down on the washstand and did what he had to do. Then he picked up the gun, turned off the light, and went back into the pitch-black bedroom. He found his way to the be and stretched out alongside Dixie. Her body was still warm and pliable as he put his arms around it.
He kissed her on the lips. Her mouth was warm, but strangely unresponsive. He caressed her breasts. They seemed to tremble under his touch, but otherwise she didn't move. “Come on. Give me my first lesson!” Archie murmured in her ear. His hand trailed down her belly and worked its way between her thighs. Still she lay still. Archie reached around and ran his fingers up her plump buttocks, urging her to him. Higher his fingers went, and then-—
Archie shot up in bed, the gun held ready in one hand, and turned on the light. His sudden fear was confirmed. There was a trickle of still-warm blood from Dixie’s back to her derriere. Just above it, at the source, there was a dagger sticking out of her back.
Archie scrambled away from her. She fell on her back on the bed, her head dangling loosely from her neck. Her eyes stared grotesquely. She didn't look sexy any more. She didn’t look vibrant and full of life. What she looked was what she was-
Dead!
CHAPTER NINE
“Very traumatic, of course.” That’s what the shrink would say on Archie’s next visit, and Archie, naturally, would agree. “To have one’s early attempts at sexual experience aborted by death,” the shrink would continue, musing, “might leave a lifelong scar on the psyche, a scar affecting one’s lifetime attitude toward the love act.” Archie would nod seriously. “To stem this effect before it has a chance to rigidify into a subconscious viewpoint,” the shrink would suggest, “we must take a long, hard look at the emotional reaction at the very moment of trauma. Now, what was your first response when you found that the woman you were caressing, the woman you were about to make love to, was dead?” Archie would think and he would remember and he would relive the moment. And once again he would utter the phrase that sprang to his lips when he realized that Dixie was dead.
“EEK!” Archie would tell the shrink.
“EEK!” he shrieked now as Dixie’s dead eyes continued to stare at him.
“Regardless of the circumstances,” the shrink would continue, “to your subconscious mind it must have seemed that the female preferred dropping dead to having intercourse with you. This might be termed the ultimate rejection. Think now, how did you feel at the moment?”
“Rejected,” Archie would tell the shrink. “Rejected like crazy!”
“Why did you have to go and get yourself killed before I had a chance to make love to you?” Now Archie’s mind framed the bitter question and directed it at the corpse lying on the bed.
“The emotionally adolescent level of consciousness would of course he stunned by the impact of death at such a moment,” the shrink would persist. “But at some point rationality must have taken over and you must have rejected the dead ‘thing’ which had seemingly rejected you. Now just how did you react to that realization?"