Chapter 6
Jonah Sands stared out the window at the vast urban metropolis below, and let out a long, gratifying belch.
"You're disgusting," said a voice from behind him.
He turned around and said, "Yeah ... well I'll tell you what. You see this view from my window here?"
She hopped off the couch and sidled up next to him, wrapping her arm around him and said, "Yeah, ain't it beautiful?"
He said, "Damn fucking straight it is. All the more so because I own it. You follow me on that?"
She said, "Yeah ... I know."
She was still giggling.
He said, "Doll ... you think I'm kidding, don't you?"
"Oh ... no, Jonah, I don't."
He said, "Maybe not, but you don't know what I'm talking about anyway."
She looked back out the window.
They were twenty floors above Fifth Avenue, looking out across Central Park.
On the other side of the vast patch of darkness the apartments along Central Part West glittered like cliffs studded with a multiplicity of precious gems.
He said, "How many cocks you sucked in your career?"
She jerked away.
"What kind of a question is that?"
He stared her down, hard.
She averted her gaze. He said, "It's a question I want answered. You've been here for three days now. You haven't gotten used to the procedures ... but you will."
She said, "Okay ... okay ... I dunno how many. A bunch."
"Six hundred?"
She shrugged. "Maybe."
"If you'd been paid ten million apiece, you wouldn't have a fraction of what I'm worth, and that's just liquid assets."
She gazed blankly at him.
Of course she was blank. The slut didn't understand numbers past what she could count on her fingers, obviously.
He said, "So ... take a look at the view."
She did. He said, "When I tell you that all this can be yours if you play your cards right, it's not just an empty boast. You follow me?"
She started to get tense. He felt it in her biceps, in the way her back straightened a little more erect. "What DO you mean, then?"
He said, "You clear what ... five bills a week?"
"Yeah ... if I work for it."
"Well ... you're worth a lot more."
She turned and faced him. "You really mean it?"
Even in his silk smoking jacket there was nothing she could do to hide the sweeping curves of her body.
She was a study in extremes.
A waist you could slip a wedding ring around, tits you couldn't carry in a couple of buckets.
Long slender legs ...
Beautiful full lips, high cheek bones ...
A brain with all the depth of an egg-shell, true, but he didn't hold that against her. No point to it. No profit. Sluts like her existed on earth for one reason alone ... and that was to fuck, and fuck all the time, and keep on fucking.
She said, "Why don't we talk business, if you mean to talk business, that is."
He said, "I mean for you to open my robe. I have a short memory. I keep wanting to remember what you look like.
She unfastened the knot and let the robe fall open. She pulled the edges of the material aside and said, "Like this?"
Then she said, "Does this refresh your memory a little?" as her big mammaries jutted straight out at him.
He let himself sink into the soft cushioned arm chair and study her.
There was a lot to see.
"Drop it," he told her.
She peeled the silk back over her shoulders, letting him take her in first in that pose with her shoulders bared and her tits the most prominent thing on her body.
"Lord God, you're something impressive," he said to her. "You're just about the most gorgeous thing I've ever laid eyes on, you want to know the truth."
She held her arms out from her body a ways and said, "I know."
Voice soft and sultry like smoke.
The silk robe dropped now to the floor.
Her fingers moved around the edge of her pussy, down between her legs, with such natural ease one could easily believe she wasn't really trying to entice.
Nonsense.
She knew exactly what she was doing. She knew precisely the effect every part of her body had on her. She could get dead man hard using her little toe.
She leaned against the edge of his couch, slowly spread her legs (almost without moving, it looked like) and opened her pussy to him. She said, "What was it you had in mind."
He said, "You like me?"
She smiled.
"I've been here for three days, haven't I?"
He said, "You didn't answer my question, did you?"
"Okay. Yeah ... I like you."
"How much?"
"You're paying ... I like you."
"Wonderful! You state your position, you don't make any bones about it. I'm impressed."
He lit a cigarette, letting her wait. That was always an interesting test, trying to see how people would behave when they weren't sure what was expected of them.
For the past three days, he'd asked nothing of her other than that she fuck him when he felt like fucking. He'd laid a sufficiently large wad of bills in front of her when they'd first met that she wasn't in a mood, three days later, to get impatient yet.
He stared at her, said, "Turn around," and she did so.
Fine buttocks. Delicious. "You go in for spanking?"
There was a trace of a ripple moving over those fine buttocks now.
Kind of beautiful, really. He liked that.
"Like how do you mean?" she asked.
He loved the accent. That was the one flaw. Somewhere in the same vicinity as having a gaping hole in her mouth, that only showed up when she smiled.
She wanted to be an actress. They all did. They thought that all they needed was a set of tits and a pair of legs that were spread wide, and they could get anything.
"Like how the fuck do you think I mean?"
"I don't know. That's why I was asking you. I don't know what you mean."
She turned back around, was looking him straight on.
He took his time, puffed on his cigarette. She waited, calmly. Not caring. He liked that. Patience. To the patience would go the world, because the rest would get tired of waiting.
Should he out wait her? Nah. He knew he could. Why press it?
"You do submissive sessions. I know, because I specifically requested it before you were even sent to me."
"Okay ... so what about it? You want a business arrangement, we negotiate."
"I've already paid."
"Not for submissive work."
"So ... quote me a price."
She did.
He wanted to laugh in her face. They all give it away. That was the thing they didn't understand. They were giving it away.
He walked to one wall and removed a portrait of his oldest daughter, dear sweet Tanya who, most likely, was already plying the same trade as this delightful bimbo here ... turned the numbered knob beneath a few times and opened the safe.
He removed several bills and laid fully twice the amount she'd quoted in front of her on the table.
"How's that look?"
She said, "That's not what I said ... but ... "
He said, "I don't like to have to renegotiate arrangements when I'm right in the middle of something."
She stared a moment at the money, then said, "What did you have in mind, sport?"
"I dunno yet," he said. "That's why I want to make sure there's no problems."
She was on the line now and she knew it. He would learn a lot about her in the next minute or two. People were never themselves unless you could force them past the carefully controlled scripted roles they worked out for themselves, the stepping-stones they used to get them through the swamp of daily life.
Right now he was going to find out if she could swim or not.
"There are certain limits," she said.
"Fine. Let's hear them.
She told him. They were reasonable. "Come on," he said, hold up his hands in protest, "I'm not butcher. You should know that by now."
"I didn't think you were ... but you're asking some weird questions ... I gotta figure you could have anything at all up there in your head."
"You're right. I got a lot up here. I want you as a test, you see ... and you don't get an answer from me, because I don't know how far the test is going to go."
She scooped up the bills and stuffed them in her purse, with the other wad of money he'd already given her. "Fine. Like I said, no razors, no blades ... "
"Am I a Nazi? I swear, you girls, you're all so mistrustful. This is a test for someone else, doll, but you too. You come through this, I might want to work something out with you on a permanent basis."
"Such as?"
"Such as you stop fucking other guys ... you stop worrying about piece work ... you come along with me. I won't dump you ... I'll take good care of you, in fact."
"That's nice ... now tell me about this 'test' you got in mind."
"Some punk wants my money. I wanna see if he's worth it."
"And I'm the test?"
"Yeah."
She said, "Can I have one of your cigarettes?"
Dexter Carmody was nervous. He'd been summoned to Jonah Sands' penthouse on Fifth Avenue after having convinced himself that there was no way he was going to get to see the man.
He'd waited most of the afternoon out at his house, finally leaving word that he had to go, and then he'd departed in anger.
And confusion. He couldn't get that girl out of his mind. Tanya, her name was.
She'd been a killer. Hotter than anything he'd ever stuck his cock into.
She'd also been like a vision, one that appeared, then vanished, never to be seen again.
By now, two days later, he was convinced that the whole thing had been an hallucination.
Never happened. That sort of thing didn't happen to people, not in the real world at least. Who was he kidding?"
He suddenly had an image of Jonah Sands saying to him, "Boy, what's this I hear about you fucking my little angel ... ?" as he lowered a shotgun on Dexter's middle.
Not sweet. Not pleasant.
He gave his name to the doorman, who disappeared behind a partition to check it out. Then when he re-emerged he said, "This way, sir," and led him down a hallway away from the main elevators.
"This will take you straight up, sir," said the doorman, looking him up and down, as if to say 'You don't belong there, boy, and you're gonna regret ever going up,' or was that just Dexter's imagination running away with him again?
He thanked the man, and stepped into the elevator.
It was solid mahogany. Opulent. It rose swiftly, noiselessly.
And when the doors opened, he found himself looking into the most luxurious room he'd ever seen in his life.
Across from the elevator a large picture window faced Central Park.
The sun was setting, the sky in the west all orange with the fiery glow of pollution.
He stepped into a room and heard a voice.
"Well well ... glad to meet you my boy, glad to meet you. I've heard stories about you ... heard you're someone with ideas ... someone I'd like to meet. So let me shake your hand."
Jonah Sands was much smaller than Dexter had expected, but there was an unmistakable air of power about him.
He was dressed casually - jeans, cotton shirt open at the neck.
He shook Dexter's hand and his grip was warm and firm, but not so solid that he seemed to be trying to impress with his strength.
When you lived in a penthouse like this, you didn't need strength to impress people.
"Come in ... come in ... I'm interested in hearing about this idea of yours. Paul tells me that you might be just the man to fit into a gap that I've got in the organization."
"Well, I certainly hope so," said Dexter. He mixed a couple of drinks, without bothering to ask Dexter what he preferred, and found, not to his surprise, that the drink was precisely what he would have requested.
A vodka martini.
Done with the perfect ratios.
The guy had done his research.
They talked. Dexter gave Jonah his presentation.
"You really think it's possible, eh?" said Jonah.
"Absolutely," said Dexter, pulling out his charts and demographic profiles. "The whole industry's changing, and the person who changes first with it is going to make a killing."
Jonah said "Son, you're talking about fucking. You're talking about shoving hard-core fucking down the throats of middle-class America. You honestly think they're up for it?"
"They've been sucking up dirty movies on tape for the past five years, sir, and the latest studies prove that we're not even close to peaking yet. It's shifting. Inside. Where they don't have to be open about it."
"Ah ha! That's the point, my boy, you got these people inside their houses with their tape machines and their video monitors and they can watch anything they want and there's no chance anyone's ever gonna see 'em. Makes a big difference, I say."
"Of course ... because where are they going to go now?"
"Don't follow you?"
"You can't expect people like that to wander down Forty-second street. It's just not realistic."
"So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying, sir that the whole profile of the market is changing. It's a given among sociologists that the actual mood of any population system is roughly three years ahead of mass awareness of that mood."
Jonah smoked his cigarette. Dexter felt sweat on his palms. He had a feeling that he hadn't told this man a thing yet that he didn't already know.
"Go on," the man said.
"Well ... my contention is that just as the upscale group is already sucking up the hard-core film product, so now it can be done in a 'respectable' setting, they'd be interested in an upscale version of what you have down on Forty-second Street ... but the emphasis is on upscale."
"I still don't follow you."
He did. But he was being stubborn, Dexter decided.
"I'm talking about a cross between a scum palace, a Playboy Club and Lutece."
Jonah's left eyebrow arched. "Go on."
"There's a market out there, sir. I'm telling you. Everybody likes sex. What they don't like is Forty-second Street and what they don't want is for it to become mundane and common-place. They want it forbidden. Taboo. That means you've got to hide it away, make it hard to get to ... make it hurt a little to get in ... and then you have to give it in a full dose."
"You're talking in smoke signals, boy. Put it into words."
Dexter realized that he'd been waiting a long time for this moment.
He was at the threshold. This, his idea, his baby, ready to be put into words.
How many times had he rehearsed this speech?
"I'm talking about the best food. I'm talking about women who are so gorgeous, you have to pinch yourself to believe they're real, and you're not dreaming. I'm talking about sex. Real, honest to God taboo sex. Not clinical ... not healthy ... not humanistic ... I'm talking about it being dirty, but classy."
Jonah puffed and nodded.
"You ever see the story of 'O'? Dress 'em up like that, some of 'em, maybe. You let them walk around showing what they have, but you do with kind of a naughty, peek-a-boo attitude. You know, now you see it, now you don't. You put some broads in leather and have them leading others around on chains ... but I'm talking high class. Elegant. Nothing like what people associate with sex shows now. No peep booths, you have dining tables against walls with windows ... you get to look inside and see the show going on. And I'm talking here, like, a real show. Not just some floppy-titted scag queen playing games with a Spic dog ... that stuff ... I mean a real high-class no-holds-barred show."
"Yeah ... go on," said Jonah. He wasn't saying much else.
Dexter talked on. Told him all his ideas. The way to walk a line between brothel and club ... the way to cater to women as well as men ... the way to make it an atmosphere that would appeal to couples ...
"You got your Plato's Retreat, all these swing clubs now," said Jonah, "so why don't all these people you're talking about go there and have their jollies?"
"You ever been to Plato's? I mean, would you want to go to a place where they got cum in the pool? Where there's nothing but hookers running around? That's not the point. This is elegance I'm talking about."
"I hear you ... I hear you ... and I'll tell you what. I don't picture it in my mind yet, but the way you're talking about it, it appeals to me. It really does. Things are getting ready to shake, and I'm interested in this idea of yours. I don't know that it's gonna work ... might be more trouble than it's worth ... but I'm interested."
He sat back, puffed on his cigarette, let another and puffed on it ...
"Tell me something ... what's your experience with this shit?"
"I know clubs ... restaurants ... that sort of thing. As for the rest ... I know what I've got in mind."
"What about the broads?"
"What about them?"
"Where are you going to get them?"
"That will be the least of the problems."
He nodded. "What are you going to do with them after you got them?"
Dexter said, "I don't understand."
"You ever run a bunch of girls like that? I assume you're just talking girls, I didn't hear anything about guys."
"Yeah ... girls, that's what I'm talking about."
"You ever been involved in a situation like this? You ever had to run a bunch of women, keep them in line, make them perform? You're talking a pain-in-the-ass situation, my boy, and I don't mean maybe."
Dexter said, "There are ways to manage any situation, Mr. Sands ... "
"Jonah. As long as we're talking about you getting my money and me trusting you with it, we should be friendly about it, right?"
"Sure ... if you say so."
"I do."
"Okay ... Jonah. As I said, I think that's the least of the problems."
"It is, huh? Well, let me tell you something, Dexter ... or is it Speedy? I seem to remember that nickname being mentioned."
Wow. The man really did know everything there was to know about him.
"Sure ... that's fine."
"Okay, Speedy. I want you to know something. It takes a special temperament to control a bunch of women, particularly when they're using their bodies like that, when they're selling sex. You might not believe me, but it's true. You gotta be hard. Otherwise, you don't stand a chance."
Dexter just sat there, listening.
"You wanna show me how tough you can be?"
"Well ... "
"No ... seriously ... I want to find out."
"I don't understand ... "
"That's all right. There's a lot of things you won't understand if you work for me. You'll have to do them. No matter what. How's that sound to you?"
"Well ... "
"Let me clue you in, boy, on the ramifications of this discussion. I'm interested in your project. I wouldn't have had you up here if I wasn't interested, and that's a fact. I don't have any intentions of getting involved in this thing, however, unless I know for certain that you have what it takes. Because, you see, I don't need it myself. I don't particularly want it, except that I think you might be right about the time being ripe for. something totally new, and I wouldn't mind being in on the ground floor of that."
He had his eyes fixed directly on Dexter now, homing in with relentless precision.
"You following me?"
"Yes sir," said Dexter.
"I don't have the faintest interest in getting involved with someone who's got a weak stomach when it comes to women, because there's going to come a time, in an establishment like you're talking about, when you're just gonna have to kick ass, and if you start telling yourself you can't kick a woman's ass, you're going to be in deep trouble. You follow?"
Dexter nodded, wondering where all this was leading.
"Okay. So ... what I'm wondering, are you up to it?"
"Well ... I can only say that I ... "
"No ... I want an answer."
"Yes sir. I'm up to it," said Dexter. Hell, what the fuck else was he supposed to say?
"Good. That's what I wanted to hear. Which gets me back to my original idea. I want a demonstration."
He was beaming now, like a demented gnome.
"Such as?" asked Dexter in a small voice.
"Such as follow me, boy," said Jonah, and then he stood up and walked into the next room.
There he discovered the lady with whom the man was going to test him.
And he started to feel a little squeamish.