Chapter 2
The ringing of his doorbell brought Alan Kal awake. He was still in the bedroom of his Long Beach apartment, and Linda, the lovely, blonde, eminently fuckable call girl, was still fast asleep beside him in the large, circular bed.
The doorbell rang again, making him notice the morning sunlight as it came slanting through the 'venetian blinds of the window to the right of his bed. A clock radio on the nearby night table told him it was ten thirty, and he wondered who, in their right minds, was awake so early in the morning.
Sliding out of bed, he went to the closet with the sliding doors and took out a full length purple satin robe. Purple, the royal color, fascinated him. His carpeting in both his bedroom and living room (which doubled as his office) was purple. The draperies, bedcovers, and shirts, socks, and underwear were all different shades of purple. His family had come from a long line of gypsy nobility. He even had a cousin Bert, who, like himself was a private eye, who had most of the family money. Hell! Cousin Bert was a multi-millionaire. Alan Kal wasn't even considered a true Kal, because his mother had never married, and had allowed herself to be seduced one night at a party. For that, she was given enough money to live on the rest of her life, and was then ostracised from the Kal family. Cousin Bert had been an all right guy, seeing to it Alan had enough money with which to live until he'd gotten settled in the business in which he now made his living. At that point, Alan had refused to take any more money from Bert, though he'd agreed to live in this particular apartment house, owned and lived in by Cousin Bert, as well. Bert had insisted he live there rent-free. Alan Kal had agreed, but had refused any additional money Cousin Bert would have forced on him.
Oddly enough, Bert got the dull cases while he, Alan, got the really swinging ones. Once in a while Bert got something interesting, but not nearly as often as Alan.
The doorbell rang again. Alan Kal pulled on his purple slippers, and after tying the robe about him, crossed the living room and answered the door.
One look, and Alan Kal, the perennial bachelor, the man who only the night before had fucked himself into unconsciousness, suddenly fell in love. His long, black hair, frizzy from being messed up, seemed to stand straight up and then fall into place all by itself. His scraggly mustache twisted neatly into place, and his dull eyes took on a flashy glitter.
She was less than five feet tall, but she was fully grown. She had soft brown hair, wavey but not curly. Her milk-white skin was clearer than a blue sky on a summer day. Her brown eyes were pools of tinted water, swallowing him up, helplessly.
What a glorious way to die, he thought to himself, staring at the neat, svelte figure under the lavender suit she wore. She had good taste in choosing her colors.
Her bosom wasn't the huge balloon-sized thing Linda had, but rather a petite bust, swelling beneath a light, hand-tailored lilac blouse. She had nice hips, and a tiny, pinched waist.
"Mr. Kal?" she asked, staring, not quite ready to believe the way his hair had suddenly seemed to fall into place.
"Yes," he answered, his heart pounding in his body, ready to break out. "I'm Mr. Kal."
"Mr. Kal the private investigator?" she asked.
"That's me," he nodded.
"May I come in?"
"Huh? Oh, sure, please, yes, by all means come on in," he invited, leading her in by taking her arm, then shutting the door behind her.
He brought her into his lavishly furnished living room, with the lavender sofa, the purple armchairs, and the indigo floor tile around the edges of the purple carpeting. In the center of the room was a huge wooden desk covered over with purple contact paper. Behind it was a plush swivel chair upholstered in lilac, as was the straight-backed chair in front of the desk.
Ushering the young lady to the latter chair, he sat her down and almost fell into his swivel chair. Lord, but she was lovely.
"Miss...." he began.
"Enders," she finished. "Laura Enders."
"Yes, well Miss Enders, what may I do for you?" he wanted to know, noting the ermine wrap around her shoulders also had a purplish cast to it. Yes, she had good taste all right.
"Do you believe in family curses, Mr. Kal?" she wanted to know.
Now there was one helluva question to ask of a man descended from gypsies. He sure as hell believed in them. Hadn't there been a werewolf curse in Cousin Bert's family? That had been before Bert had been a private eye. It was because of the investigator who finally helped break the curse that Cousin Bert had eventually decided to become a private detective. Jesus I Cousin Bert sure knew a lot of interesting people.
"I certainly don't disbelieve in family curses," he told the young woman. "Why?"
"Because it makes what I'm about to tell you much easier," she said.
"I'm all ears," he responded, his heart skipping beats as he stared at her petite body.
"I know this will sound crazy, but my family is under a sex curse. Please don't interrupt. It was hard enough for me to get up my courage to come here. Now that I'm here, let me tell my story before I run away.
"Five hundred years ago, in England, one of my ancestors, Sir Lawrence Enders, raped a young witch. She was a truly beautiful woman, or so I've been told, and Sir Lawrence was unable to resist the lure of her. But after the rape, when she insisted he marry her, he ordered her burned at the stake for practicing witchcraft. As the flames consumed her screaming body, she called on the Devil to bring destruction to at least one member in every generation of the Enders family. And since Sir Lawrence's crime was sexual, she made the curse incestuous. Once in every generation, a dead, ancestral member of the Enders family would rise up and attack a descendant. And when the person who was raped died, he or she would, a generation later, rise up and rape another great, great grandchild. Now the only person in my family known to have been raped for certain was my father. Yes, he was raped, or seduced if you wish, by a beautiful young woman one wintry night, who was eventually discovered to be a female ancestor. My father was attacked while still a young man, on his twenty-first birthday. And today is the twenty-first birthday of my twin sister Myrna, and myself."
"You mean there are two of you?" Kal asked.
"Myrna is a fraternal twin," Laura Enders explained. "She doesn't look at all like me."
"That's quite a story," Kal acknowledged.
"That's not the worst of it," Laura told him. "You see, incest is considered a crime against everything holy. Therefore, once the one who is raped eventually dies, and in turn commits rape, that person's soul is doomed to everlasting purgatory. Now sometime before midnight, one of my dead male ancestors will rise up and attempt to rape either Myrna or myself. We both need protection. We're willing to pay five hundred dollars for one night's work, provided you prevent the attack on either of us."
"Sure," Kal nodded.
"One more thing," Laura told him opening her purple purse and taking out an envelope. "Whichever ancestor it will be, and no one knows for certain since there are more than a hundred ancestors in the family vault, he will not be content with a single attempt. He will get in practice, as it were, by attacking and molesting a few females in the surrounding area who are not members of the family."
"Well hell!" Kal told her. "The only way to stop whichever ancestor it is, is to sit in the family crypt and see who it is that comes out of his coffin."
"That won't work either," Laura told him. "You see, whoever it is has certain mystical powers. He can, if necessary, actually cause his body and his clothing to dissolve into dust, and then completely reintegrate at a place of his choosing. The Devil will do whatever is necessary to cause my ancestor to commit that rape."
"How is it you don't know which other members of your ancestry committed, or I should say were raped?"
"Because the rape is done in such a way, the one being raped thoroughly enjoys it. Afterward, the rape is completely erased from that person's mind. The reason we learned of my father was, he was discovered while in the act of copulation. For as long as he lives, there's nothing to fear, but when he dies, he will have to be cremated. But because we know it was he who was attacked, we also know the next attack has to be against a female member of the family. And my sister and I are the only female members of the Enders family left in this generation."
"Interesting," Kal muttered.
"Will you take the case?" Laura asked, still holding the envelope containing the money.
"Oh, sure, you bet," Kal agreed. "Just let me get dressed and I'll go with you wherever you wish."
He noticed Laura's bosom was rising and falling swiftly, and knew from the way she looked at him that she liked him, too. God! She was wonderful to look at. She was so wonderful it gave him a full erection, and that would make standing a bit embarrassing, since he had absolutely nothing on under the robe. But there was no way around it. In order for him to reach the bedroom, he had to get to his feet.
Taking a deep breath, he stood up. He noticed her eyes dropping to cock-level almost immediately. How could he help it?
"Did I do that?" she asked as he reddened.
"Uh ... yeah," was all he could think to answer, and turned away from her.
"Don't be embarrassed," she told him, which only caused his stiff staff to become even more erect. "You have a similar effect on me. Luckily it doesn't show on me."
"Hell, we just met. I shouldn't be reacting this way."
"It's all right, it's all right. I'm glad I affect you like that. We can talk to each other more easily now that we understand how each of us affects the other. I'll wait out here while you dress."
Rushing into his bedroom, Kal shut the door, and seeing Linda waking up, took out his heat on her. He had to.