“No thank you.”
“You don’t understand.” Irving’s voice was deliberately cold, clipped, impersonal. “This is business. You’re not just a receptionist here. You’re a symbol of Nymph magazine.”
Llona didn’t know whether to believe him or not. She might have called Irving’s bluff and gone in to consult Raunch Rammer about whether or not this was legitimately included in her duties. But she and the publisher had been avoiding each other since she’d inadvertently been let in on the secret of his baldness. Llona preferred to keep it that way. And there was no one else who ranked I. M. Zihnzeehr in the office hierachy.
“All right,” she agreed reluctantly. “If it’s really business.”
“It is.” Irving told her where to go and when to be there.
His cursory manner assuaged Llona’s suspicions—just as he’d intended it should. She was annoyed, rather than apprehensive, when she arrived at the address that fateful evening. She descended a flight of stairs and knocked at the door of the basement apartment. Irving answered the door and admitted her. The party was already in full swing;
With Llona’s arrival, there were five couples present. Irving introduced the other girls with a wave of his hand that was practically an admission that they were doxies hired for the occasion. He took more pains with the men. They were presented to Llona as Lou, Andy, George and Herb respectively.
Lou and George were the out-of-town distributors Irving had mentioned. They were big, paunchy men in their late forties, or early fifties. Both of them were loud, boisterous, well on their way to becoming quite drunk, and very free with their hands on the girls, none of whom seemed to mind.
Herb was the head of an ad agency which Nymph sometimes used on special promotional campaigns. He was a small, dapper man, sort of a pint-sized version of I. M. Zihnzeehr. Like Irving, he seemed more humanoid than human, more like a product turned out on an antiseptic assembly line and packaged to sell itself than like a man born of woman’s womb.
The fourth man, Andy, was a cheesecake photographer whom Irving knew professionally. He was younger than the others and had a barbell body with knots of muscle sticking out from it like clumps of dough deposited at ran- dom. He was the one who had arranged for the other four girls. Now he stood and talked to Llona while Irving went to mix her a drink.
“I’m a commercial photographer,” Andy told her, his small, somewhat beady eyes looking right through the skimpy black cocktail dress she was wearing and appraising the body under it. “You ever done any cheese?”
“No.”
“If you’re interested, look me up some time.” He handed her a card.
“All right.” Llona didn’t think she’d be interested, but she took the card anyway.
“I also do artistic stuff, just for my own satisfaction,” he told her. “You want to see?”
“Sure.” Llona wasn’t exactly bubbling over with enthusiasm.
“Just a second.” He strode over to the other side of the room and returned immediately with a portfolio. “This is what I do just for the sake of my own creativity,” he told Llona. He opened the portfolio with a flourish.
Llona found herself staring at a twelve by eighteen blowup of Andy himself. He was completely naked in the picture and his knotty body was smeared with some kind of grease that made it glisten. He had a truly impressive erection and there was a smirk of satisfaction on his face.
Llona looked from the face in the picture to Andy’s face staring at her as if trying to gauge her reaction to the photo. There was a smirk on his visage now too, a smirk to match the one in the photo. Llona looked at him coolly and her voice was without emotion when she spoke. “So what?” she said.
“Don’t you think it’s an interesting picture?”
“Not particularly.”
“I mean artistically interesting.”
“So do I,” Llona’s voice stayed flat.
“Maybe you think it’s obscene?”
“No.”
“Do you find it offensive?”
“No.”
“Well, what then? I mean, you must have some reaction to it.”
“Oh, I do.”
“Well, what is it?” Andy wanted to know. “What’s your reaction?”
“Indifference.” Llona shrugged. “Sheer indifference.”
“Everybody’s apathetic!” Andy snarled. “That’s what's wrong with the world. Everybody’s apathetic!”
“I’m not apathetic, Andy, honey.” A small blond with a cuddle-body and a voice like tinkling costume jewelry came over and wound herself around the photographer. She looked at the picture. “Why, Andy! Naughty!” She giggled and kept on staring at the photo while Andy tested the resiliency of her left breast with his right hand.
Llona moved away from them. A moment later Irving rejoined her and handed her a “Did Andy desert you?” he asked conversationally.
“He found an art lover. I guess they have more in common.”
“Oh? What did he do? Show you that lewd poster of himself?”
Llona nodded.
“I’m sorry.” Irving apologized. “Andy isn’t noted for his soft sell.”
“Yikes!” Llona jumped as Lou, dancing by with an Amazon brunette in tow, squeezed her derriere as he passed. ‘
“Fly now, play later.” Irving chuckled. “You’d better stand here with your back against the wall.” He guided her to a dimly lit corner. “Now all you’ve got to guard is your front,” he told her.
“This party’s getting rough,” Llona. observed.
It was an accurate evaluation. Andy and the petite blond were huddled in the corner looking at his more “arty” photos; her hand was stroking his thigh; his wrist protruded from the bodice of her dress. Lou and the giant-size brunette were dancing on a dime, the lower parts of their bodies grinding out the change. Herb was on the sofa, all but lost to view in the embrace of a leggy, braless, and thoroughly uninhibited redhead. The fourth girl, very slender and very young with long, straight brown hair, was sitting on George’s lap, giggling and bouncing up and down as she stuck maraschino cherries between his lips and removed them with her teeth.
“Visiting firemen.” Irving shrugged. “There’s no obligation to buy,” he assured Llona.
Such was the campaign Irving had mapped out. It was predicated on what he knew about human nature, female nature in particular, his evaluation of Llona specifically. The product was sex, and she was the potential consumer, even if she didn’t know it. The four chicks were swingers; along with the low lights, the music and the champagne, they were part of the packaging preplanned to build eroticism. The sales approach was to create a desire for the product by subtly witholding it from Llona whilst the others were enjoying it. Irving didn’t know the specifics of Llona’s sales resistance, but he calculated that while a head-on approach might only stiffen it, exposure to the product without pressure would break it down to the point where she would sell herself. A girl as sexy as Llona just had to be in the market if the pitch was handled right.
Still, at first, Llona did stay aloof from it. When she realized that Irving wasn’t going to make a pass, she relaxed and watched the others. What else was there to do?
The party showed signs of turning into an orgy. The small blond had teased Andy about enlarging a specific aspect of his self-portraits, and he had responded to the challenge by revealing the original and allowing her to fondle it. The tall brunette was standing against the wall now, Lou seated between her feet, her skirt covering his head, her teeth gnawing at the knuckles of one hand. Herb and the redhead writhed full-length on the sofa; one of her breasts was exposed, the tip glistening redly in the dim light. The thin girl was dropping maraschino cherries down the front of her low-cut dress and George was retrieving them with his thick tongue.