Chapter 13
Ellen got up at noon, feeling well-rested and refreshed. After a leisurely, soaking bath, she dressed in street clothes, just to avoid the infuriating uselessness of a robe that wouldn't stay closed. All the girls except Celine were seated around the table, smoking and dwaddling over coffee. Melissa was her usual cheerful, smiling self, and was genuinely pleased when Ellen came in and gave her a touch of familiar hip at the stove while Melissa poured her coffee. While lesbianism wasn't a part of Ellen's nature, it was a part of her plan. She whispered to the Negress so the others couldn't hear. "My room. One o'clock."
Melissa gasped audibly, then her delighted smile got even wider and she touched Ellen's breast reverently before they moved away from the stove. The others were indulging in the same kind of idle gossip as the day before, recounting little meaningless, everyday occurrences, about the dress they might buy, and how the new girl at Madelon's Beauty Shop was an absolute pig who couldn't shampoo even a wig correctly. Ellen listened with half an ear as she ate two of Melissa's feathery biscuits with peach jam, and drank her coffee. She went back to her room afterwards. Henri, they said, had gone out somewhere with Diego, and would be back too late for lunch, probably around three. Ellen stretched out on the bed, deep in thought, until the hour hand finally got around to one, then she got up and undressed. She was in bed with the sheet up around her chin when Melissa knocked softly on the door. Ellen said, "Come in."
The colored girl seemed very sure of herself, and winked knowingly as she walked to the bath. Water ran for several minutes. Ellen kept her eyes closed as the door opened and a wave of hot, humid air came across the room. The sheet lifted beside her and there was another stir of perfumed scent that closed in tightly as Melissa went at her again, panting hungrily.
Ellen felt a genuine exhilaration from the girl's eager advances. For one thing, she could remain passive, do nothing but soak up the adulation of a girl who knew only one way to make herself wanted. She worked busily and diligently at this one thing. Her tongue flew across Ellen's breasts, dusting the nipples, malting them stand wanting more. Then, the full lips darted over the flat, lean belly with growing eagerness, and when Melissa buried her head between Ellen's thighs, the panting blonde reached low to finger the colored-girl's thick-lipped cunt. The results were explosive.
Melissa keened like a tortured animal, and without moving her busy tongue from Ellen's thighs, twisted to make herself closer, then bucked savagely at the penetrating finger. It was too bitingly stimulating, too overpowering to sustain for long, with femininity working at parallel purposes. Both sexually hungry, experienced, and uninhibited, they knew precisely how and when to apply the most piquantly thrilling caresses, and it was over almost the moment it began Melissa held Ellen as if she were the most prized possession on earth, and the blonde knew the grateful colored girl would somehow do what was needed of her.
"Have you slept with Henri very much?" she asked, after the starlight and languor had drifted away.
"Not as much as I wished I had," Melissa admitted. "You know how white guys talk, about taking on a colored gal to change their luck. That's about the way with Henri. Once every two months, maybe, and I don't think he really likes me then."
"Have you ever looked around his room at all, like in that big desk?" Ellen knew a spare door key hung in the kitchen.
Melissa got suddenly wary in spite of their recent sexual rapport, and was also very Negro. "Whyfo ya'll ask dat?"
Ellen decided to go for broke. "I've got a plan to get us all out of here, so we can go back to the United States. We'll set up one of the finest houses you ever dreamed about," she said enthusiastically. "All of us will share alike in a kind of company, maybe take in two or three new girls if we find some we all agree on. Just think about it, Melissa," she said excitedly. "You'll wear the finest clothes. No more cooking in a hot kitchen. You can be somebody, take your tricks with the rest of us. We'll make loads of money and live like longs!"
Melissa's eyes had gone round and faraway with longing. "You'd really see I got in?"
Ellen grasped her hand tightly to convey a deep sense of sincerity. "I'd need you just as badly as I'd need Celine, Alicia, and others. White guys really go for a good-looking colored girl like you. We're already a unit. All we have to do keep all the money ourselves is get away from Henri and Caracas!"
The coloring girl's eyes rolled as she Uncle Tommed again. "Ah doan know, Miss Ellen. You talk about gittin away from Henri, them guhls is mighty stuck on that man. He got that charrnin' rod tween his laigs, an he dragged ever one here an made them stay. Ah doan see de guhls leavin Henri just cause you say so."
"Just leave that part of it to me," Ellen said positively. "After they find out what he really is, they'll want to leave. But before anything can happen, Henri has to be put out of the way."
"How do you mean that?" Melissa asked fearfully, almost forgetting her affected accent.
Ellen patted her hand convincingly. "I wouldn't hurt a hair on his head. What I was thinking was, he doped every one of us to get us here, so he's bound to have the stuff around somewhere. I think it's probably in his desk. All we to do is find it, and you slip him a dose in his afternoon coffee. While he's out cold, we can take a cab to the airport and be gone before he wakes up. Then, it'll be too late for Henri to do anything about it. We'll be free, have a good time playing on the beach for a few days while we decide where we go in business. Won't that be a kick, Melissa?" she asked vibrantly.
The colored girl looked into Ellen's eyes for a long moment, then they hugged impulsively. "I'll do it!" Melissa cried happily, and jumped up to dress. Ellen was through first, and finished a zipper as she craned her neck inside the bath. "Hurry! Henri might come back early!"
Ellen waited while the cook ran to the kitchen for her keys, then they hurried down the carpeted hallway to Henri's room. Melissa unlocked the door, and the two thieves stepped cautiously inside. "You stay at the door!" whispered Ellen. "Henri always yells at Diego when they come in, Connie told me. You can hear better from there."
Melissa made the whites of her eyes big and nodded. Ellen approached the old-fashioned roll top desk, convinced that anything valuable Henri owned that wasn't in the wall-safe would be in his desk. She glanced at the collection on top. The girl's bank account books were there. Henri must have been doctoring them up to date. He had a new one with Ellen's name printed in neat, block lettering on the face. There was an official-looking rubber stamp and a pad with blue ink that he used on their dummy deposit slips. Ellen put everything back in place, then began on the many pigeon-hole drawers, about a dozen on each side. One at a time, she opened and shut them after seeing they contained nothing she wanted. One bank of four on the right side had miniature locks, but they proved just as old-fashioned as the desk. Ellen bent the end of a straightened paper-clip to a short ell, and picked them open. One contained jewelry she suspected must be false, because he would have had it in the safe otherwise. There were two empty billfolds in another. She didn't bother to look for papers in them. When the third drawer yielded, she saw the wicked gleam of glass and a steel needle.
"It's here!" she whispered impulsively, thinking of the hypodermic Henri must have used on her. There were eleven samples with red-rubber corks, the kind one punctures to load the needle. And two vials of white tablets, smaller than aspirin, one full and one half full.
Calmly, Ellen took two of the white tablets, returned the bottle to the drawer with the printing on the label indelible imprinted on her mind. Uno, it said. The dosage was one. Ellen kept her paperclip and hurried over to the door where Melissa waited anxiously. "I got it!" she whispered excitedly, and showed the apprehensive colored maid the matched tablets in her palm. "Go put the keys back, then meet me in my room!" she hissed.
Ellen put the door on latch, and the scheming continued with them sitting close together on the bed, whispering. "One of these, in his coffee. And be sure it's dissolved. You say he always has coffee at three?"
Melissa, mercurial, capricious, and sacred all over again, rolled her eyes and sought refuge in her darky accent. "Ah c'd most set mah watch by it, he's that close!"
Encouragingly, Ellen squeezed her waist, then patted her hand. "I think you'd try alright, but you're going to need help. I'll be with you in the kitchen when he rings his little bell. I'll fix the coffee. All you've got to do is carry to him. You can do that, can't you, Melissa?" she asked reassuringly. Ellen saw Melissa trembling, staring in hypnotic superstition at the coffee when she placed it on Henri's desk, then wilting in hysterical surrender under the whore-master's relentless interrogation.
Dumbly, Melissa nodded, and went back to the kitchen.
Ellen stood with the door on a crack, listening intently, and heard Henri's angry voice scolding Diego for scraping the Chrysler's white side walls when he parked too close to the curbing. Then, Duboisson's heavy footsteps went up the stairway.
Two forty eight. Seventeen minutes went by like snails marching. Ellen in the kitchen with wide-eyed Melissa, waiting on Henri's signal. Both girls jerked involuntarily when the little bell above them moved, then clamored. While Melissa put a roll on a saucer, Ellen dropped one of the tablets in a cup, and with steady hands, poured the coffee. The drug was immediately soluble. She felt nothing with the spoon. But Melissa shook like a leaf when she picked up the tray. Ellen took it from her, set it aside, and placed both hands against the girl's hard, tight breasts. "You want the men doing this to you, don't you Melissa?" she asked softly.
Unconsciously, the cook again retreated to her best known defense, her mantle of pretended ignorance. "Deed ah do, Miss Ellen! Deed ah do!"
"Then shape up!" admonished Ellen, and put a bold hand under the brief skirt and cuddled the black girl's hypersensitive cunt. Like a captive elephant, chained at the legs, Melissa swayed back and forth, dreamy-eyed and relishing the manipulation. It was as if she'd never been touched before. Ellen marveled at her sexual vigor because it even surpassed her own. "Okay," she soothed, "pick up the tray and take it to Henri. When you get through, hurry to my room and we'll really have a good time!" She made it sound so exciting.
Her eyes glazed with longing, Melissa hurried away with the tray Ellen was positive now she had impetus enough to finish her job because of the promise of more sexual play. Unquestionably single minded, Melissa liked sex to the exclusion of everything else.
Diego was in his room at the opposite end of the corridor from Henri's. He was comfortably stripped down to jockey shorts, on his bed, thumbing through a South American version of an illicit girlie magazine. The pictures were pornographic, girls posed in the nude, their genitals displayed to the best position advantage. Diego glanced up, ignoring the fact Ellen wasn't supposed to be there. "Hi," he said conversationally, and turned a page.
Ellen sat on the edge of the bed. "I heard the boss chewing your ass when you came in."
Diego grinned easily. "So what! He gotta chew somebody."
"Does't it get old, though?"
He put the magazine aside, nodded. "Sometimes. When he hit me, I don't like this."
"Would you like to hit him back someday?" she asked mysteriously.
Diego's face went blank. "Hey! You better shut your godam mouth that kinda talk!" he advised sharply.
This told Ellen that the chauffeur handy-man disliked his employer, but he was also very much afraid of him. As long as Henri lived, the boy would be loyal to him through fear. Carelessly, she said, "I've beens waiting for you to come in and see me, but you never have. Don't you like me?" she asked silkily.
Diego's white teeth gleamed in a wolfish smile. "Godam right! I like all you gorls. But Henri tell me he cut my balls out with dull knife if I touch anyone, so what I gonna do?" He spread his hands in a helpless gesture.
Ellen leaned closer, whispered, "How about the cook, Melissa? Could you go for her?"
Diego's eyes went almost shut with happiness as he rubbed sensuously at the bulge of his penis. "Godam right! That one I could eat! I get one on ever time I walk by, she's so godam hot!"
Ellen was hearing Melissa's light, vibrant steps far down the corridor, and dug Diego's penis out of his shorts. "Then get it up, because she'll be here in a minute."
Diego shot upright in bed. "Oh, yeah? You think I gonna lose these balls you godam crazy. That Melissa don't come in here! "
But Ellen kept him quiet in a way he couldn't refuse. She milked his penis in long, sensuous strokes. "Henri's asleep," she soothed. "He'll never know. And Melissa is so hot for you." His prick was like iron. Ellen put her finger to her lips and walked quickly to the door while Diego was up on his knees in bed, his hand doing what Ellen's had been doing, his hopefully desperate grin frozen in place.
Melissa saw Ellen appear in the corridor and ran to her. Ellen caught the shaking girl in her arms, whispered fiercely, "Did you do it?"
The colored girl couldn't talk. She only rolled her eyes and nodded. Ellen led her to Diego's door and pushed her inside. "Then there's your reward! Go collect it! "
Melissa had seen, and approached the bed in a trance, drawn irresistibly by the chauffer's surprisingly long penis in full and dripping erection. Diego kept on jacking slowly as she approached. Then, as if by some unconscious signal, Melissa threw herself on him, straddled his legs, hoisted her skirt out of the way, and pointed the passionate boy's prick into her meaty cunt lips. She pushed down and Diego pushed up, both wide a throat cry. When Ellen closed the door on them, they were copulating like mad, with Melissa's dark-skinned ass bouncing up and down like a piston.
She wanted to remember the lapse of time between her first taste of the drink in Miami, and the time she got so sleepy, but the image was too vague. And it seemed weeks ago, instead of a little less than three days. Ellen returned to the kitchen to wait, because there was nothing else she could do.
Becky and Celine were there, helping themselves, with Becky grousing as she poured her own coffee. "That Melissa better stay on the ball," she threatened darkly. "She's supposed to be here to serve us at three. Where in hell do you suppose she is!"
"I haven't seen her." Ellen lied glibly, loading a tray with two cups and two saucers. "I just now came out of my room."
"What are you doing to do with that?" Celine asked curiously, meaning the service for two.
"I'm taking it to my room. Alicia and I are having coffee together." Ellen dropped the second tablet in the cup on her right, poured, and left the kitchen before Alicia could show up. She opened Diego's door without knocking, went in smiling benevolently at the tired but happy couple who had evidently just finished their spirited intercourse. "I brought you two lovebirds some refreshment because I knew you'd be too tired to get out of bed."
Melissa was all but purring as she took the cup and saucer Ellen offered. Diego was in high spirits too, lifting the cup with exaggerated daintiness, his little finger extended straight. He sipped noisily, several times, put the cup down half empty. "Hot! Muy caliente. Jus like Melissa cunt. Hottest damn piece I ever had, an for once I don't give shit if Henri walk in right now!" Disdainfully, filled with false bravado, he snapped his fingers. "He come in, I tell him go fuck himself!" Diego was feeling wonderful. He'd been at the top of the universe and back. He attacked the coffee again, then looked at Ellen curiously. "How come you waitin round? We gonna fuck some more. You wanna watch?"
Ellen shook her head. "I was waiting for your empty cup." she explained. "I'll leave then."
Quickly, the chauffeur drained what was left, took Melissa's from her, and gave both to Ellen. "Vamos!" he ordered curtly, and went to Melissa's wanting breasts with a heavy sigh, yawning. "Godam!" he murmured. "Don't get sleepy now, you Spanish sonofabitch, not with this pussy!"
But gradually, and much to Melissa's dismay, he did. Once, he tried to shift his mouth to her other nipple, but his head was too tired, and in seconds he was snoring with big tears forming in Melissa's eyes. She looked beseechingly at Ellen. "Why?"
"He's too loyal to Henri. He'd be in the way now. You can have him all night tonight, after he wakes up."
The maid-cook was covering Diego tenderly with a sheet as Ellen hurried out the door, on her way to Henri Duboisson's room.