Chapter 11

James Brewster Atwood worked with the conscientious endeavor of an artist, preparing his prints and sliding them into one of the leather-bound photo albums-as he did for those special customers of his highly specialized photography. And all the while a little sick, a little nauseated. With once in a while a truly cold cramp in his guts.

He had been a fool and knew it. Peggy was only a child. How old? He'd make a guess at- well, not more than fourteen. And developed!

Not over developed like some of these overblown cows he saw on the street, those for whom it was claimed were "going through a phase" and that was just baby fat. Looking at their mothers, Jim Atwood was certain it was either heredity or consistent overfeeding. Possibly both.

Peggy was slim, her body a masterpiece of symmetry-a true nymph, a miniature woman. And behaving, as he had said, with the knowledge and instincts of Eve, the eternal woman.

Damn! And double damn with applesauce on it! What a fool he had been! He should have sent her on her way the moment he saw that phony act on the stairs. But there had been something so appealing about her, even though he knew it was an act... and then he had been caught up in the femaleness of her.

She was Eve. She was complete temptation, a nymphet rounding into womanhood.

Of course, that didn't excuse him. "I should have been carrying my folding ten-foot pole not to touch her with. Instead, I carried my prick right into bed with her. And did touch her. Touch her, bud, you rammed her. You reamed her. But good. And damn it, she liked it. She wanted it, and wanted more." He glared at his reflection in the mirror. "And right now you will swear off Peggy, with mighty oaths and the very best of intentions-until she comes around tomorrow. And you will be a spineless jellyfish-one enormous cock attached to what used to be a man. And go for that kid again.... And what a weird notion: it's only posing. It's not fucking for real. I wish I could rationalize it that way. But I know damn well I'm a dirty old man-all right, a dirty young man-who will screw a kid because she's just too damn female for me to throw out."

He frowned at the reflection. "And James Brewster Atwood, not only will you screw her again, you'll go peddle these products of your initial seduction to a dirty old man who will huddle with them until they're tattered and grimy, looking, looking-and jacking off. Because he pays well. And because you lost your integrity years ago... so let's wrap it up."

He didn't mean the leather-bound book. He didn't wrap that. Just tucked it casually under his arm. He looked once more at his reflection. "James Brewster Atwood, you're a schnook! You're worse than a schnook..." For a moment Jim studied his reflection, frowning, trying to think of a stronger word, yet one that wouldn't offend him mortally. He finally flapped a hand at his reflection and stalked out.

Ken Robertson wasn't a dirty old man. He was remarkably clean, impeccably clean. And he wasn't so old. But very rich. With a penchant for dirty art pictures, both real art and photographs such as James Brewster Atwood specialized in. Some of the paintings that hung in his private gallery were masterpieces: two Rubens, one of the lesser known Fragonards and a Goya that may have been genuine but was certainly a nude, a voluptuous nude, and a single Lucovici of a very young Samoan girl. All nudes, of course. And all quite explicit.

His collection of photographs was growing -and some of them were overly explicit. But he liked them. He lived for them, never having married. He had a passionate desire for women and one great hindrance. He was scared to death of them.

Part of it was a domineering mother who had all but stifled him for thirty-five years-until she obligingly died and thus let go the purse strings her husband had unwisely handed her. The rest of it Ken Robertson had never admitted to anyone, except his physician. Ken Robertson was ashamed of his penis.

He wasn't impotent. He could get an erection -and did during every session with his photographs or paintings-and masturbate. But his penis was so small!

Actually, his penis was not so unusually small. Not large. Not aggressive. But neither was it small. When he was a young boy, just growing into manhood and therefore likely to slip away from his mother's tyranny, she discovered his secret. He thought his prick too small. And used it viciously as a weapon to bind him to her. He wasn't but half a man. No woman would want him. He couldn't go out into the world, face up to other men, knowing he was only half there. Only half alive. A mere half a man.

And that, just as he might have learned that he was a man! That might not have affected other men with more sense of assurance, with a bit broader knowledge of the world. But his mother had ruled and regulated all his contacts, carefully screening out any who might divert an iota of attention from her.

It was moral incest, because she hugged him to a mythical motherly bosom where, she assured him, he would never find criticism, just because he was only half a man.

Ken Robertson knew, intellectually, that he wasn't half a man. He even knew, factually, that his penis was not unduly small. But knowing it factually and throwing off the fixation of years were two different things. So he still bought packets of "special" photographs and gloated over them.

So he welcomed James Brewster Atwood, one of his better suppliers, with open arms. Well, not quite. But he did put down the book he was reading, a new translation of Queen Marguerite d'Angloueme de Valoir de Navarre's scandalous Heptameron which he found much more raunchy than Boccaccio's Decameron, probably because it was written by a woman, and a queen at that. He smiled cordially, waving Jim Atwood to a chair, but eyeing the leather-bound portfolio with avid interest. He even made a hesitant motion toward reaching for it and restrained himself.

"You have something new for me? Posed as I -er-suggested?"

Jim Atwood laid the portfolio on his knees and shook his head. "Not quite, Ken. That model didn't show up. But..." Jim could read the disappointment already clouding Ken Robertson's eagerness... "I think this series might interest you. Frankly, I never expected to get anything like it. It's-well-I'd say it's- unique." He still laid a hand on the book, studying Ken Robertson, assaying his disappointment. "I'm not trying to sell you this with a big buildup. If you don't want it, I know where I can place it."

Jim held out the leather-bound book. "Just take a look."

Ken Robertson, his slim, elegant hand reaching, betrayed little interest. Someone was always trying to sell him something unique and interesting. As if sadism were new! Why he knew a source in Paris...

He opened the book. And blinked. He flipped through several pages and then came back and went through it slowly, licking this patrician lips. Finally he closed the book over a finger, presumably at a picture he intended to study more closely at leisure, frowning at Jim.

"That is you in these pictures." He smiled tiredly. "I have seen enough pictures of you to recognize you even without a head. I am an expert on pictures. So you know the girl." One finger tapped the book as he tucked in a quiet smile. "That much is self-evident." He referred again to the book, studying the crisp delineation of Peggy's nymphet figure, and glanced up at Jim. "She is-available?" And tapped the book hurriedly. "For more photographs?"

Jim appeared to consider this and finally nodded. "I think so."

"Like these?"

"Reasonably. If you mean naked and fucking." Once he had his sucker hooked, Jim Atwood believed in being brash, with a touch of shock. It was his way of aerating this business he was in. "What had you in mind?"

Ken Robertson once again consulted the pictures, a white line of tautness around his mouth. "She is a child. A very charmingly developed child." His tongue whisked out, across his lips and withdrew. "A nymphet, I believe they're called. After Nabokov's creation."

"She's all of that. And Eve in the bargain."

Ken stroked the book with one slim, manicured hand. "She does this'-willingly? You don't-er-use pressure?"

Jim grinned. Ken's line was becoming clear, a line he had never suspected the man capable of. "No pressure. No blackmail. Except..." and Jim held that for a long, torturous moment... "she doesn't fuck."

"But..." Ken flipped the book open, whipping out a magnifying glass. He studied the pictures and finally shook his head. "They're not fakes. Not combos. Not double exposures. Or, if they are any of those, you deserve to rank with Matthew Brady as a photographer. And faker. He did some beauts."

"I've heard. No, those are not double exposures. Not combo. Not fakes. What you see is what happened. What you don't see is what happens in the torturous mind of a nymphet. She is not screwing for real. She is posing."

"But..." Ken Robertson began a protest and then sat back, smiling. "Not screwing for real? Just posing? A mental strategem worthy of my late mother, who could twist her thinking into pretzel shape to use as a measuring stick." Ken sat very still for a long time, working his thin lips. And finally nodded. "One thousand for this portfolio. Provided you guarantee me there are no other prints. And..." Ken held up a hand, taking a deep, shuddering breath, "another two thousand-if she will-er-pose with me."

Although he had seen it coming, the cold proposition was a shock to Jim Atwood. And a stumper. Would Peggy "pose" with anyone else? He started to get up. "I honestly don't know, Ken. I can ask her. I will ask her. Tomorrow."

Ken Robertson almost furtively peered into his newest treasure and shut it up again. "If she is posing, she wouldn't laugh at my-deficiency."

"Deficiency?" Jim started to say he didn't realize the guy had one... He took a deep breath. Whole hog or nothing, with not even jello for dessert. "Frankly, Ken, I rather thought you- couldn't. I figured you were one of those unfortunate guys who were-impotent."

Ken smiled bitterly. "My mother would have liked that. She would have arranged it if she could. Even having you suspect it must have her chuckling in her grave." Ken blinked. "I suppose there are a great many people-like you- who believe that of me. Yes, I can see how they would. No. I'm not impotent. I just happen to have a rather small organ. But my real deficiency, I think, is that I'm a virgin. Which my mother DID arrange."