Chapter 7
Ellen set her sights about as high as she dared when she first began looking for a job. Want-ads referring to waitresses, sample-distributions, those obviously non-professional, she studiously avoided. She did find the going tough in the conventional secretarial vacancies, but only because she couldn't type. Several male interviewers hated to see her walk out unhired, and some went so far as to encourage her to go to night-school and learn to type, then come back. They'd make room. Her first real offer came from a heavy equipment firm named Harper and Bowles.
With her farm background, Ellen recognized a few of the various kinds of machines they handled, and the man who interviewed her, the deadpan-dead calm exterior with a flaming, ulcer-prone interior, was delighted to find that this bold-breasted mini-skirted beauty knew the difference between Caterpillar and John Deere. His name was Joe McGowan, he was office coordinator, and he hired her on the spot as a girl-Friday to distribute mail and inter-office traffic, do routine filing, learn the information desk and the call-director system. He also found her exciting to look at.
Ellen caught on overnight with the predominantly male staff, as any girl of her appearance naturally would have. Another of her jobs had to do with servicing the coffee urn, and she always had a good turnout, particularly when she wore anything close to a revealing neckline. There were several salesmen around, and they took to gathering around the front office, instead of at the service department in back. All the single guys, and some of the married ones, propositioned Ellen the moment their introductions came. Because she couldn't accept them all, she accepted none, under the smiling pretense that she wasn't really settled yet. Actually, when she took the job there, Ellen hadn't planned on staying any longer than it took to get a recommendation to something better, and until she did learn type at night-school where she enrolled.
Wilcoxon brought her a spare manual typewriter they had at the office, so she could practice at home. Ellen carefully assembled a business-girl's wardrobe so she could appear in almost any circumstance very tastefully dressed. When she could do forty words a minute, consistently, she took a day off from Harper and Bowles to go job hunting. She applied for and got the receptionist's job at the advertising firm of Brelsford, Oakes, and Spaatz, and almost entirely on the strength of her appearance. As Bradley Spaatz put it to Bill Templar as she walked out, she could do more for the firm in a tight sweater and skirt than all the others put together. Ellen gave Joe McGowan her two week's notice.
It was then everyone realized that she had been around almost ten weeks, and a close canvas revealed that no one had even dated her, let alone put her to the make, and a few of the guys tried to get her out with the auld Lang syne approach, but Ellen didn't buy it Already, she'd noticed a vast difference in the overall appearance of the men at the two companies. At the advertising office, everyone wore a suit and tie. They looked as if they had either been somewhere, or were going. The follows at Harper and Bowles were a congenial bunch of slobs, and they all chipped in and bought a farewell cake for the coffee on the last day. Ellen cried a little and enjoyed it immensely. She kissed everyone on the cheek except Joe McGowan. Because he gave her a very good recommendation, probably better than she deserved, Ellen took Joe back in the parts room and let him kiss her on the mouth and feel all he wanted to. He was burning up with passion when Ellen finally tore loose to go repair her face. When his erection went down, Joe went back to his desk and worked the rest of the afternoon without looking up. That night, he called her. He didn't seem particularly disturbed when Ellen told him what she had to have, and said he'd be right over, just as soon as he got a check cashed.
Close on forty, Joe was more durable than daring in bed, but he did manage to make his presence felt to the extent that Ellen had an enjoyable time too. When there wasn't any doubt that McGowan was finished for the night, he decided to spend the rest of it in his own apartment, so he could get up next morning and go to work as he always had, without disturbing his routine. As he dressed, Ellen watched from the bed, feeling relaxed and glad she was alive. "I'm almost sorry because I charged you, Joe," she admitted nostalgically, "but I've already done it for fun too many times. A girl has to think about the future."
McGowan was at complete peace with the world. For the rest of his life, he would re-live the moments of the most fluent sexual dispensations he had ever been privileged to receive. "Forget it, Doll Baby," he advised. "Next week, next month, I'll never miss it, and I'D remember you forever. Besides, things are high all over. We're coming out with a three percent increase the first of the month, parts and new machinery alike. Why couldn't pussy cost money like everything else?"
"Well, you were pretty good to me, Joe. I want you to know I appreciate it. Maybe sometime I'll be in a better position and can give you one on the house."
"Any time, Ellen," he remarked cheerfully. "In the meantime, I can't afford to come around very often, but give me another month and I'll see you again." He came over to stand by the bed. "Could I see you naked just one more time?"
Ellen kicked the sheet down, and McGowan stood feasting his eyes, stuffing his memory with the details of her physical loveliness. He turned away and let himself out the door without saying another word.
She had plenty of chances to go out at Brelsford, Oakes, and Spaatz, especially with the junior executives who considered every unattached girl as collective company property, hired for their express amusements at any time they chose to avail themselves of the opportunity. Ellen refused to play around, because, at the end of her second month on the job, she was doing a thriving business as a hundred-dollar-a-night call-girl on the side, and enjoying every minute of it. This was what she wanted, what she had promised herself when she left home. And she had more business than she could reasonably accommodate.
Booking was simply done. The advertising firm was situated on the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth floors in the Exeter Building, so that when one stepped out of the elevator, he was standing in a room perhaps fifteen feet across and thirty feet long, very tastefully decorated, furnished, and paneled with the firm's greatest triumphs in advertising. Ellen's desk was center and toward the rear. Next to it was a long, luxurious curved divan upholstered in off-white matlisse. The call-director system stood in the far left corner behind some dwarf ochobarro that gave the reception area a comforting atmosphere, like a desert oasis, so that the operator was almost hidden. Ellen remained the center of attraction, and never quite released the male caller's attention. She was impossible to overlook.
While Ellen never really discussed her private business on company time, she didn't really have to. Those who accosted her, and gave the impression they had money and imagination, got her telephone number on a plain white piece of paper. Nothing more. And those interested enough to pursue that interest invariably learned that she was dated two weeks ahead. The dedicated ones got on the waiting list. It was that simple. She entertained her clients in her apartment, bought the Wall Street Journal at the newsstand, and began investing her money. Ellen Carver might have stayed on at Brelsford, Oakes, and Spaatz for a long, long time, and built up a well-balanced portfolio from her whoring proceeds, but for the interest she found in an older man she knew only as Magnus Opus.
She made him repeat the name when he introduced himself, a tall, erect, soldierly man with a brush moustache and penetrating gray eyes. When he stepped off the elevator with his attaché case, he impressed her as a chairman-of-the-board late for his meeting. But whatever interest he had behind the reception room faded the moment he saw her. He presented himself at her desk, bowed courteously, and said, "I'm Magnus Opus, a Roman wine-grower," he said gravely. "Who are you?"
Ellen frowned. "Would you repeat that, please?"
He did, distinctly.
She smiled then. "I'm Maid Marian of Sherwood Forest. Whom did you wish to see, Mr. Opus?" she asked professionally.
Opus fingered his moustache. "You. Is this possible?"
"Anything is possible," she said demurely, and penciled her telephone number on a slip of white paper.
Opus seemed to understand her situation, and looked quizzically into guileless blue eyes. "I'll confess to some surprise," he finally admitted. "Not astonishment, because I've learned to expect almost anything at any time. But a call-girl working the front desk in Nick Brelsford's plant! Does Nick know this?" Opus had folded the paper and stuck it in his vest pocket.
"If he does, he hasn't objected yet. I doubt that he does. Are you going to tell him?"
"God forbid! You admit it, then?"
Ellen smiled prettily. "Why not? If they hear about me inside and let me go, I'll get another job another place."
Opus nodded approvingly. "Of course you would. If I had an office that needed a receptionist, I'd hire you in a minute ... with the provision you do all your screwing on my desk. When can I see you, Miss Marian?"
"Next week, Thursday night?"
Opus shook his head. It was Tuesday, November sixteenth. "That's nine days away. I don't wait well."
Ellen tipped her lower lip with a well-formed finger. "Not many men are willing to do this because they feel I'D call them at their homes, but if I had your number, I could let you know something by eight this evening. A fellow I know is supposed to come over, but I heard he had to make a rush trip to Lisbon. If he doesn't show on time, I could you."
Opus found what Ellen thought could be a gold ballpoint and recorder a number imprecise lettering on the reverse side of the paper in his vest pocket, and returned it to her. "This isn't my number, but I'll get the message. If you don't call, I won't be needing your number for next week."
Ellen knew the game pretty well by now. "You don't impress me as an impetuous, anxious man," she mused. "I'm worth waiting for, believe me."
"According to the vast majority of a hundred doctors interviewed," he finished cynically, "I'll boast some. I'm rich enough I don't have to wait, regardless of how good you are, Miss Marian."
She laughed, amused by a self-esteem that probably surpassed her own. "I got it pretty straight this fellow flew to Portugal, but I have to make sure first."
Opus nodded, his eyes warm and glowing. He was beginning to get the feel of her. "I understand. What are your specialties?"
By half-closing her eyes and letting her mouth drop open slightly, as if she difficulty breathing, Ellen could look as if she had to be taken on the spot, or she'd begin moaning. "Cooperation!" she breathed, and because the girl at the switchboard couldn't see, Ellen rubbed her breast sensuously.
The gray-haired man's lips pursed in a silent, admiring whistle. He turned abruptly and marched to the elevator. As the door closed on him, he saluted Ellen in an expression of appreciative reverence.
That evening, when her date failed to show or call, she sent word to Opus, and got into one of her many diaphanous gowns, this one a filmy, transparent pink that complimented her flawless skin and hair. A half-hour later he was at the door, dressed in a tux, smelling of the cold outdoors and something like expensive after shave lotion. He'd had something to drink, too.
Opus took her hands familiarly, stepped away so he could take in everything revealed by the near-transparent wrappings, and by his expression let her know he liked it all. He released her hands abruptly and got out of his coat. "I don't often get so carried away," he confessed softly, "but I've had you on my mind all afternoon. You've become an obsession."
It was obvious he was undressing. And the further he went, it became increasingly more obvious he took very good physical care of himself. He looked lean and hard to her appraising eye. Tanned, too. His erection, released when he hurriedly stripped off his trousers, shot straight out beneath the roomy liberty of some especially florid boxer shorts. Strangely enough, the sight of him in physical need for her made Ellen hot, a thing that now occurred rarely during her incessant prostitution. Eagerly, she got naked, waited with him, and pressed a finger inside her genital crease as if she had to have immediate relief there. Opus groaned aloud when he saw this and rushed her toward the bedroom.
It was a brusque, sudden, and very satisfying intercourse for them both. Ellen felt a burning hotness at the penetration, as if he had a latent heat more profound than any other man. Or perhaps it was because she was ripe, and wanting it. But one of her superb orgasm hovered promisingly on the horizon, and she rushed forward to meet it with long, hungry pulls of her supple thighs. Opus, caught up by the sheer grandeur of what would always be their very best moment, raced with her, plowing and prodding with all the vigor of a healthy young man on his wedding night. They lunged in unison, groaned from their matchless glories, and came almost together, in less than a minute after Magnus Opus had shoved his penis up her vaginal well. It was then Ellen remembered she had violated the first, cardinal rule of every whore. Get the money first!
Tiredly, she pulled away from Opus, who was gasping his way through the most pleasurable of all relapses. "No! Not yet!" he panted.
"My money! I want my money!" insisted Ellen, fighting him.
"The hell with money! I'll pay you in a minute! Lie still!" Opus wanted his dying erection soaking up the blissful healing qualities of her cunt.
Something about his voice made her believe him. She relaxed with him and let the delicious torpor permeate her body. Finally, when his penis had shrunk back to size and had all but slipped out, Ellen worked her hips in a half-joking way, thinking Opus had undoubtedly had his moment for some time to come, and was pleasantly astonished to feel the member again crowding her vagina. In the space of five minutes after climax, Opus was getting another hardon.
He was astonished too. "I don't believe it!" he exclaimed incredulously. "This hasn't happened to me in over ten years!"
But it was, and Ellen waited until they both knew it was real, then quickly and adroitly slipped her body away from him. "I'm a whore," was her smiling reminder. "You still owe for the first round."
"You inhuman bitch!" he muttered, without meaning it. Naked, his reddened, flare-headed prick waving wetly, Opus ran for his coat, got his wallet from an inside pocket, pressed a wad of bills into her waiting hand, then slipped the cooling penis back into the comforting warmth of her cunt. He groaned pleasurably. "Cold outside!"
Ellen wrapped her legs protectively around his waist and gave him the little added fraction of an inch to penetrate. Gustily, Opus swung at the unrestricted offering with his eyes tightly closed, thinking he'd never sampled flesh like hers before. He was ready to decide he wanted her always. While he labored, Opus talked in panting bursts. "Ever been to ... Florida?"
She hadn't. And while she was enjoying the intercourse, Ellen also kept her emotions under the mild restraint necessary to preserve her physical energies, a thing she was able to do better and better as time went on. But Opus didn't know this. When he came again, so would she ... or he would think so, at least. "No, Darling!" she gasped.
"Want ... to?"
"Oh ... yes ... Lover!"
"To ... morrow!" Even under heavy passion, Opus made it sound the most final thing in the world.
He elaborated later on, between yawns. He was terribly tired and contented. "I've been wanting to lie in the sun, get some warmth on my balls," he explained. "I want you to go along, be with me night and day. Between you and the sunshine, I'll be screwing like a high school boy again." He covered his mouth for another prodigious yawn.
Without him knowing, Ellen had been counting the money he pressed into her hand earlier. A hundred and eighty dollars, probably all he brought with him. "How much do I get, Mags?" she asked familiarly. With her right foot, she played a footsie game with his left. It was his idea.
"How much would you have to have?" he asked idly, not really caring.
"Well, I'll lose my job at Brelsford's. When you get rid of me, I'll have to start out all over again because my regulars won't be around anymore. I want two-hundred dollars a day and expenses."
"Okay," he yawned, and so easily Ellen wished she'd asked for some new clothes in the bargain. She decided she'd work on him later for those, and then proceeded to show her gratitude by turning to face his side, put her breast against his shoulder, her padded mound against his hip-bone, and worked her body hungrily back and forth. "Mama need it again!" she whispered silkily.
"Mama can go to hell for tonight," decided Opus, and turned away from her. "Get up and turn out the light, would you, Doll?" he asked sleepily.
While she waited for his kind of drugged slumber to overcome her, Ellen tried to visualize what Florida would be like. She decided it would at least be warm. For the moment, at least, this was enough. Somewhere between palm trees and the brilliance of oranges she fell asleep.