Chapter 11
Becky Prell's blonde hair was several shades darker than Ellen's. Baby-faced, she was inclined to plumpishness, with the appearance of lush ripeness relished by some men. Alicia Ronlander and Marianne King both had beautiful skin, and soft, brown hair, Celine Disque was the establishment's redhead, and Connie Margheim the brunette. Ellen supposed that Duboisson saw to it that his largely Spanish clientele had the lighter skins they would normally prefer, since the Venezuelans were vastly brunette themselves, with swarthy skin. Assembled for lunch in the huge kitchen, the girls were seated at a long table made of some kind of exotic wood. They were all strikingly handsome, with Ellen easily the best looking of the lot. She sat on one side of the table next to Marianne. Alicia, first in seniority, sat at the head. Celine, next in line, sat at the opposite end, and across the table, Beck and Connie, with Becky telling of an experience just before she got back from the beauty-shop.
"I just stepped out the door," she said brightly," and bumped into this dude. You wouldn't believe how stuck-up he was. Moustache, long coat, everything. And he musta been about Henri's age, only he was grayer. Anyhow, he picked up my magazine for me, and said how sorry he was in Spanish, and I see this tail-light coming in his eyes, so I rub the inside of my leg, up high enough to make it interesting for him, and tell him I think I bruised it. Right away that moustache got to working up and down, and he said something else, like maybe he wanted to rub it for me." Becky laughed recklessly. "So I let him, right there in front of the shop, and he gave me his card." She held it up, then read laboriously, "Raoul de Velazquez, Palacio del Congreso, Buenos Aires, What does it mean, Alicia?"
"It means he's a big shot in the government in Argentina."
Becky laughed again. "When I read it, I told him I lived in a kind of palace too, the Palacia Granada, and I gave him our address. Wouldn't that be some thin if a senator from Argentina came here and give me a hit?"
"Funnier things have happened," put in Celine. "When I first came here, I had this regular that came every Wednesday night around nine, and it turned out he was from the American office here in Caracas. I won't tell his name because Henri doesn't like for us to, but he was a mighty big shot." Celine giggled. "He told me all about his wife, what a nut she was. Boy! The mess some of those guys get themselves into, just to get in line for an important job. His father-in-law got him this one, he told me."
"Would Henri charge this senator or whatever he is the same price as anybody else?" Becky wanted to know.
"More, probably," guessed Marianne. "He'd make the old duffer think there had to be the best kind of privacy. Special room and the works. He'd work him for at least a hundred American."
"Golly!" squealed Becky. "Think of that! Me getting a hundred a crack again, like when I first put it on the line. Old times has done come back!"
"You'd better wait until the old gent shows," warned Celine. "Some of those officials get pretty stand-offish when they finally decide it's a real house. Lots of them can't be seen out on the town. They lose their reputation. Their bosses figure if a whore can get to them, what can a beautiful foreign agent do."
"That's what I'd like to be," Becky said enthusiastically. "A special foreign-agent. If any dude I could get next to had any important secrets, believe me I'd get them out of him!"
"How?" Marianne wanted to know.
"Why, just like you get anything else you want," she giggled helplessly. "Get it nice and hard and in the right place, they'll tell you anything."
This, and other equally meaningless talk went on through the rest of the meat Ellen listened intently, evaluating the conversation with the girl, trying to find out all she could in the shortest possible time. Becky, she decided, was fully as juvenile as she seemed to be. Thoughtless, empty-headed, she needed guidance worse than any of the rest. Alicia and Celine were both inclined to arrogance, probably because they had inferiority complexes, and pretended to be regally superior only to cover up their true emotions. Marianne and Connie were both somewhat alike in naivety, believing the best of everything possible. They needed a guiding hand too. Ellen had no doubt they were both very much attached to Henri Duboisson, that they leaned on him constantly for moral support. She wondered how she fit into the picture, and found out more about this shortly after lunch, when Melissa, the colored girl-Friday came to her room and told her Mr. Duboisson wanted to see her right away.
"In a hurry, is he?" Ellen asked, pulling her robe together because the girl was staring.
The dark head nodded emphatically. "Mistah Duboisson he say come quick," she reiterated.
The native girl sat reluctantly and never took her eyes off Ellen's blue ones. "Most a yeah now. Long's I do right, Mistah Duboisson say I c'n stay long's I like."
This was Ellen's first chance to hear the girl talk. In the kitchen, she replied to questions only in monosyllables. Already, she heard overtones of the American South in the colored girl's tongue. "You were born here in Caracas?" she asked casually.
Melissa's smile gleamed in her dark, fine-featured face. "Nineteen long yeah's ago, Miss Ellen. I got no folks. Mistah Duboisson took me in, give me this heah' good job in this nice house. He's the onliest white man evah' treated me faih."
There was no doubt in Ellen's mind now. The girl was about as native to Venezuela as July Fourth. Now, she wondered how long ago Henri had importer her ... and why. Probably as a spy. Melissa listened, then later on, repeated everything she heard. In return, Henri would give her the physical loving she craved, plus whatever he paid her.
Ellen said, "The others all say he's a nice fellow too, so I'm sure I'll like him." She got up to go and watched the colored girl's pink tongue glide sensuously over full lips when her robe parted. Ellen filled the undue interest away for future use. The girl obviously didn't know yet what she liked best, men or women.
Melissa knocked on Duboisson's door, then opened it when his voice answered, then stepped aside so Ellen could go in. She didn't come in, but Ellen knew she stood outside the door, listening. Duboisson was sitting at his desk and settled comfortably in his chair to regard his newest asset. "You look as if you're feeling well, Miss Carver," he commented heavily.
She smiled prettily. "I felt a little rocky when I woke up, but I'm okay now. Dinner was delicious. I think if I can get in a nap, I'll be my old self again."
Heavy-lidded and thoughtful, he nodded. "I'm surprised at your placid reaction. I expected you to have something abusive to say to me."
Ellen shrugged. "It's part of the game. I was out to beat you. I got beat. It's that simple. I've looked the house over and decided it's a nice place to live. The girls say you treat everyone well, put money in the bank for them, then let them go after a year if they want to. I'm young enough a year won't hurt me, so why not?"
Duboisson nodded impassively. "An excellent attitude. Celine will soon be leaving us, and with a nice little nest-egg to take along with her, I might add. All my girls prosper here because I offer the finest and most select clientele possible. Only the upper crus come here. The others can't afford to, and it all pays off in the long run. In working with fewer men, you make much more money. I was thinking of starting you tonight, if you feel up to it," he said objectively.
Ellen realized that to voice a refusal would negate the passive attitude she'd presented up to then, and put Duboisson very much on guard. So she smiled brightly. "Of course I do!" she exclaimed. "Being a whore is my business, so why wouldn't I? The only thing, I don't know a word of Spanish, and I'll feel terrible if I offend someone important without knowing I'm doing it. How does one keep from making mistakes?"
Duboisson smiled condescendingly. "They nearly all speak a few words of English in these times," he said informatively. "English is the universal language. They'll know enough the two of you can get by, don't worry about that."
"Do I do anything special in the line-up," she asked, as if very anxious to do her best.
Henri nodded, stroking the forming wattle under his chin. "I get your robes special made for a special reason. When my customers pick one of you, I want him to know he's choosing from the finest figures available anywhere. You've seen the others. They're all perfect," he said boastfully, as if he alone were responsible.
Ellen let her robe gape, "Like this."
Duboisson nodded, looking closely. "Like that."
She waited during the short time it would have taken him to crook his finger, or motion with his head, or eyes, or merely tell her to come closer. But he evidently had other plans. He merely said, "That's all for now. You'll be bathed and in make-up by seven this evening. I'll have Diego take you out for a hair-do in about an hour, when he gets back from another errand."
Ellen smiled. "Thank you, Henri. May I call you that?"
He smiled too, evidently convinced Ellen wouldn't present any problem. "Please do, Ellen. I'll be in to see you myself occasionally."
Coquettishly, she fluttered her eyelids. "That drink in Miami didn't make me forget what went on before. You can come any time, Henri." She saw him swell importantly just before she turned away, and knew the man reacted well to flattery. Ellen wasn't surprised when Melissa waited outside in the corridor, and followed her to her room.
When they were alone, Ellen threw off her robe, stretched out on the bed, and extender her arms. "Come on, Melissa. I'm curious about you, too."
Smiling widely, the colored girl hurriedly stripped and came eagerly to Ellen, who was only doing what her instincts dictated she should do. Melissa wouldn't be won over by force. Only by guile. She found the full lips surprisingly cool, the mouth warmly gentle, but demanding, and for the next ten or fifteen minutes, gasped with genuine passion until the colored girl finally pierced her goal with an expertly flying tongue and brought Ellen to a keen, harmonious climax, her first ever with a lesbian. When Melissa held her tightly afterwards and stroked her hair softly, Ellen knew that after only another experience or two, the girl would be hers entirely.
"Will you help me tonight?" she whispered, as if the prospect were more than she could bear.
The arm around her shoulders tightened. "You jus' say when, Miss Ellen!" came the fierce response.
"I'll make some sign to you when I leave with the man," Ellen promised. "That means I'll want your help just as soon as you can slip away and get here."
She felt the cheek move against her head in an assenting movement, and Ellen's eyes gradually closed as the drowsy feeling grew. .When she awoke, it was with Melissa shaking her shoulder gently. The maid-cook was dressed, smiling fondly. "It's Diego. He say Mistah Duboisson say you go get yoah haih fixed."
As she sat up, it seemed to Ellen that Melissa's speech had taken on an even heavier Southern accent, as if she preferred it to the stilted, sometimes precise rhetoric that Duboisson spoke. As she dressed, Ellen thought this was a good sign, and patted Melissa's hips fondly as she went out the door.
Diego Mendez, reed-like and slender with a dense shock of heavily brilliantined hair, wore whipcord breeches and riding boots with his open-necked sports shirt and chauffeur's cap. He smiled appreciatively when he saw Ellen, fully dressed now with her restored wardrobe. But he said nothing. Henri had probably warned him repeatedly about being familiar with the girls. Ellen kept a steady silence too and followed him outside the Palacia Granada to a 1961 Chrysler Imperial parked against the curbing. She felt distinctly waited-upon as Diego held the door open for her. She settled back in the cushion and watched the urban landscape pass by as the whorehouse handyman drove in a Westerly direction.
Everything was behind walls. There were no open yards, no visible lawns. And the walls were high, as if everyone built protectively against invasion, revolution, and theft. The streets broadened, though, and as they approached the metropolitan area, the architecture became more and more exposed and visible. She saw some unbelievably beautiful gardens, rank with gorgeous flowers of a kind she didn't recognize. The grass was the same as outside her window back at the house. And the buildings ranged between distinctly Spanish design and modern. She was disappointed when Diego turned to a side street and into a less-recently developed business section. Except for the operators, who were all native, the beauty shop Diego sent her into could have been in the United States. The furniture and equipment, even the cosmetics and hair preparations, were all American-made. Ellen shrugged helplessly when the squat, friendly South American girl rattled off a tirade of questions, but she pointed to a ratted style of hairdo in a series of pictures above the big mirror, and the girl evidently had her question answered there. She smiled widely and put a plastic cape around Ellen's neck.
At seven that night, her body bathed and perfumed, she sat waiting in her room for her first experience as a South American prostitute, and it came when Melissa rapped on her door. With her robe gathered with one hand, Ellen Carver went to join the others.