"And I guarantee you'll never be the same again,"
Turrin added quickly, chuckling, and removing the wonder from Bolan's mind.
"I can hardly wait," he replied, staring into warm, violet eyes. He felt a shiver at his spine, and hoped it was not observable from the outside. He had never known that women such as this one were to be found in the oldest profession.
"You'll have to," Turrin said, still chuckling. "Remember what I told you. All eyes, no hands." He moved his head closer. "Look, Sarge, Rheeda and I have business together. You're on station right here. Understand? Right here."
Bolan nodded soberly. "I'm on station, Captain."
Turrin winked and clapped Bolan on the shoulder. "God damn, I'm glad we found you, Sarge," he said warmly. Then he turned back to his redhead and together they left, going out the back archway and up padded stairs, the woman clinging in lock-step and giggling delightedly over something Turrin was saying to her.
Bolan shrugged his shoulders and paced about the big room, gazing at the paintings adorning the walls and wondering idly who had posed for the nude studies hanging everywhere. He decided that if the models were also residents of Pinechester then there was quite a world of prostitution he'd never been exposed to. The clubroom itself was sumptuous. He wondered if the bedrooms were equally lavish in devotion to the details of animal comforts-and decided that they probably were. The place reeked of luxurious flesh-pampering, which meant money with a capital "M," and Bolan wondered how much it did cost the monied American aristocracy for a night's indulgence in the pleasure palace. He could almost appreciate the grim satisfaction of a Sicilian "Matthew" peasant who had risen to the proprietorship of such a magnificent "cunt castle," as Turrin had referred to it, and who could so gladsomely relieve the rich of some of their riches and pass them on to some of the nouveau riche now luxuriating in the twenty-karat comfort of the suburban estate. Bolan pulled himself out of the thoughts, shaking them off, telling himself that Turrin was a hood, purely and simply a hood, a conscienceless goon who seduced little girls into prostitution and squeezed hard-working family men into desperate acts of violence.
Such were his thoughts when the blonde appeared, and she jarred every trickle of sanity from his suddenly shrieking synapses. She was fully as tall as Rheeda and made up in vibrant youth and oozing sex what Rheeda took from her in poise and beauty. The golden hair fell in a torrential sheen to below the creamy shoulders, reappearing in a loosely braided effect with the tail draped casually across the back of the neck and down onto the throat in a light curl. The eyes were widely spaced and sparkling blue, the nose and chin delicately chiseled, the jawline soft and barely defined. The richly sensuous mouth was provocatively ajar, the pink top of a tongue thoughtfully extended onto the upper lip.
"Who the heck are you?" she inquired in a soft voice.
"I'm waiting for Mr. Turrin," Mack told her. It seemed an idiot thing to say but, under the circumstances, it seemed also quite apropos. The golden goddess was, for all practical effects, unclothed. A transparent gauzelike stole was draped across her shoulders and in a free fall down the front of her, crossing at the arch of her thighs and drawn under, back, and around and tied loosely at the hips. The effect was altogether casual and altogether revealing and, in the altogether, stunning to male awareness. Huge globular breasts with strongly defined areolae surged restlessly beneath the gauzy film, scarlet tips only emphasized by the luminously white material. The soft midsection and soaring hips dramatically back-dropped the obviously darker shading of the swollen Mount of Venus, hardly more than accented by the transparent bow overlacing. The legs and thighs seemed to explode upwards with no loss of continuity between that below and that above, and Bolan found himself nervously wetting his lips like a schoolboy at his first strip show.
The blonde was regarding him studiously, getting his measure, and obviously approving of what she saw. She hooked curled fingers of both hands into the vee formed by the crisscross of material and slowly tracked the upward route, enlarging the open area of fleshy display. Bolan the unshakeable lost command of his eyes as the rubied tips jerked free and bounded toward him.
"You may as well wait upstairs with me," the blonde said, obviously sure of her effect on the straining male consciousness. "You may as well," she repeated coaxingly, in a husky voice. "Leo always takes about an hour. C'mon. Well get a drink and take it upstairs."
"I'm sorry," Bolan said, already wondering about the genuineness of the encounter. "He told me to wait right here."
She moved against him then, and the delicate scents of her edged stronger into the male of him. His hands automatically moved onto the soft roundness behind her, then twitched away as the magic of chemistry had its way. She tossed her hips in a recognition signal, her lips nuzzling toward his ear, and whispered, "He always takes at least an hour. I'll bet it wouldn't take us five minutes."
Bolan politely but firmly pushed her away. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.
She gazed at him for a moment, reading the message of his eyes. Her own eyes flashed, then, and she asked, "Who do you think you're kidding?" Her nostrils were flaring angrily. "That's a roaring monster you've got there and you're just dying to bury it in me!"
"You are absolutely right," he replied agreeably.
The girl gave a short, nervous laugh, wriggled her hips, and threw a vicious bump in his direction. "Picture it buried in that!" she cried.
"I got the picture," Bolan said. He grinned feebly. "Take it easy, blondie. This may be the place, but it just isn't the time. Now you haul that hot ass away from here and leave a working man alone."
Her eyes softened and she gazed at him with new respect. She said, "Well-l-l..." in a voice tinged with indecision, then simply smiled at him.
An electronic squeal and then a hum broke the silence, followed swiftly by the voice of Leo Turrin, obviously issuing from a concealed speaker somewhere in the clubroom. "Okay, Sarge," it said. "Another point for you. Hey, what are you? A goddamn iron man? Huh? I wonder if I could pass that test!" Turrin was enjoying himself and the moment hugely. "Hey-hey-grab that hot blonde and drag her delectable ass up the stairs. You hear me? Go on and enjoy yourself!"
"I hear you, Leo," Bolan said softly. He was looking for the speaker.
"Hey, it's closed-circuit TV. I'll show it to you later. Mitzi-you take good care of my friend-you hear me?"
The girl was smiling good-humoredly. "Sure, I hear you, Leo," she replied.
"And that makes another piece you owe me on the house!" He laughed uproariously. The speaker squealed, then was silent.
"See what your devotion to duty cost me?" the blonde said, now smiling ruefully at Bolan. She snared one of his hands and tugged at him. "Well, c'mon, let's go find some place to bury that bone. Or are you still saying it's not the time?"
"It's the time," Bolan agreed, moving in-tow toward the carpeted stairway. Bolan the goddamn iron man knew very well he could pass the next test-over, and over, and over again. He followed the blonde seductress up the curving sweep of stairs, along a wide, beautifully decorated hall, and into a large bedroom. It was a sumptuous affair, complete with canopied bed, deep carpeting, and lavish furnishings. Bolan emitted a soft whistle.
"Nice, eh," the blonde said, turning to him with a warm smile. Her gaze angled down to his loins, one hand moving spontaneously with the eyes. "What's your druthers?" she asked, lashes lowering demurely.
"What?" Bolan said, one hand toying with a soft shoulder.
"Do you prefer it sitting, standing, laying down, all-fours, belly-to-belly, or oral-genital?"
Bolan merely grinned, pushed her an arm's length away, and carefully untied the bow at her hips, thoughtfully disentangled the stole from the warm flesh of the thighs, drew it over her head, and dropped it to the floor, then stood gazing at her, one hand raised contemplatively to his chin. She smiled and did a slow pirouette, arms raised gracefully, concluding with a repetition of the bump-and-grind she had shown him downstairs.