Chapter 1
The office building in the mid-forties of Manhattan, cornering Fifth Avenue and a crosstown street, was neither the oldest nor the newest of its type. A mere twenty-seven stories high, it fell somewhere between the extremes to be found in that section of the city, and its architecture could be roughly classified as a "Thirties Modern." It was a good building, well-maintained, with a fairly impressive scale of rents, but you would take no special note of it unless you happened to be a tourist taking special note of buildings in general. It was quite a bit less than, say, the green glass house that is the Lever building and quite a bit more than the worst of the stone monstrosities that hailed the skyscraper boom in the mid-twenties.
It was just an office building, but to the lovely red-headed young women who disembarked gracefully into the light rain from the rear seat of a cab drawn up in front of it, the building appeared more than a trifle awesome.
Everything is relative. Perhaps thousands of people had passed the address that day without even looking up or glancing into the windows of the fashionable bookstore, clothing shop, and lunchroom housed therein at street level.
To Marsha Kinsted, it represented a possible future.
To look at Marsha Kinsted you wouldn't think the matter of a future would concern her in the least. She was more than just a pretty girl in a city teeming with pretty girls; she was a beautiful woman, fashionable and tastefully dressed in a plum-colored two-piece suit, sheer nylons and high spike heels. Getting out of the cab, she presented another small spectacle in a city designed for the spectacular, and more than one male passer-by turned to take the spectacle in.
Naturally. The spectacle goes on all the time, but this one was a bit better than most. She had lovely legs with smoothly bunched legs, and in the tight skirt the outlines of them, at which the length gave a generous peek, were enough to make even the hardened cabbie lean across the seat with an appreciative smile on his face.
"Should have worn a coat, Miss," he said, just because he felt like saying something. "Looks like the weather's doing a quick change."
"Yes. Thank you," Marsha said distractedly, handing him his fare plus a fifty cent tip. She could hardly afford the fifty cent tip at the moment, but on the other hand you didn't dress like this and have your hair done like this and give out anything less than a fifty cent tip.
That was New York.
She hurried cross the sidewalk to the lobby entrance, fretting over the fact that the unexpected rain might spoil her hairdo or the freshness of her appearance. She was going for an interview-not the first one in her life, but a very important one to her. Looks, appearance, poise-these things were uppermost in her mind at the moment. The first impression counted, always. You had to be a bit more than just whistle-bait in this world. You had to have that extra something.
It was four-thirty; the express elevator to the fourteenth floor was not crowded. A handful of people already inside, made room for her deferentially. She got in, the doors slid shut, and the car shot upward like a cork released underwater, not stopping till the tenth floor.
She got off at the fourteenth. The building directory below had told her the number of the particular office she was looking for, but she was momentarily confused by the profusion of doors and the labyrinth of corridors that confronted her. There on the same floor was a diamond importing concern, a literary agency, a manufacturing outlet for women's clothing, a national detective agency-and lastly, around a corner near the end of the hallway, the door she was looking for. Frosted glass, with neat, efficient looking black lettering which said:
MARC FERRIS ENTERPRISES, Inc. She paused before it to straighten her already straight skirt, bending to run her hands quickly over her nylons, then patted her immaculate, brushed back upswirl coiffure-and then she opened the door and walked in.
She found herself in a moderately-sized, tastefully furnished outer office, a waiting room lined with deep, comfortably upholstered beige leather chairs against either wall. The cocoa-tan carpet between led up to a gate behind which sat a female receptionist at a metal desk and switchboard.
The receptionist, a pale, prim-looking woman in a high-collared plain black dress, looked over the rims of her spectacles at Marsha.
"I'm Miss Kinsted," Marsha said, walking up to the gate. "I've an appointment to see Mr. Ferris."
The receptionist frowned, examining her appointment book with a thin index finger, as if reading braille.
"Oh yes. Please have a seat, Miss Kinsted. I'll tell Mr. Ferris you're here."
Marsha seated herself in one of the chairs near the gate while the receptionist spoke briefly over the intercom with her employer.
"It will be about twenty minutes," she informed Marsha, and then turned her back, burying her face in the book she had been reading before Marsha walked in.
The waiting room was empty except for herself. Marsha picked up a copy of the Atlantic from a magazine rack and began to thumb through the pages to pass the time, but actually she was going over in her mind the things she would say during the interview; rehearsing, as it were. But she had no idea what kind of questions would be asked for an interview like this, and since it was impossible really to anticipate them, she gave the whole thing up and began to study the original modern abstracts hanging in expensive frames on the pastel walls of the room. She was feeling edgy and slightly sick from the pill she had taken that noon to stave off her appetite. But she charged this feeling to nerves more than anything.
At last there was a buzz over the intercom and the receptionist looked up and told her she could go in now.
Marsha got up and went through the gate, past the receptionist's desk to the door indicated. A plain, cherry-wood veneer door with the name Marc Ferris on it, in white plastic script letters this time.
"Go right in," the receptionist said, and Marsha went right in.
Marc Ferris sat behind a big kidney-shaped desk, his back to a spacious window that ran nearly the length of the far wall. The Venetian blinds were opened so that the slanting rays of the sun came through, setting fire to the silver streaks of his dark hair at each temple, and the effect was so startling that she paused midway in her considerable trip across the deep plushy rose carpet-it seemed for a minute as though he had no face at all.
But the effect was dispelled as he turned his head slightly and indicated with his hand the upholstered chair on the other side of the desk.
"Please sit down," he said in a strong baritone voice, a smile playing about his thinnish lips.
The smile quickly faded as she took the seat, replacing itself with a brow-furrowing frown as he brushed his temple distractedly and stared down at an open Manila folder on the desk in front of him.
Marsha leaned forward uneasily, perched on the edge of the chair, studying the man in the long minute of silence that followed. He was extremely handsome in a fortyish way. He could have been the head of an English department in a good women's college-or the president of a swank modeling agency. He was neither of these things, of course.
She was relieved when he finally looked up from the folder containing her resume. She was also totally unprepared for the question that followed:
"What makes you think you want to be a call girl, Miss Kinsted?"
Marsha opened her mouth before she had words for it to utter. How on earth did you answer a question like that? And yet, it was a normal kind of question when you thought about it-he was asking her what motives lay behind her choice of a career, a vocation.
She closed her mouth and then opened it again.
"The money," she said, her voice assured.
The trace of a smile reappeared. "Of course, the money. You've heard, no doubt, that graduates of the Ferris School command a better price and better working conditions than any of their free-lance competitors, and you wish to begin at the top."
"That's right," Marsha nodded. didn't come to the city to waste my time."
Mr. Ferris looked down at the folder again. "I see that you know of us through a Miss Leighton." A faraway look momentarily came to his keen gray eyes. "Yes; I remember her well-one of our quicker students." He cleared his throat, the faraway look disappearing immediately.
"Well, let's get down to basic things, Miss Kinsted. We don't wish to waste your time-or ours. Have you ever been a practicing professional?"
"No," Marsha admitted.
"There was no indication in your resume that you had, but it's always better to ask the client personally. Do you mind such personal questions, Miss Kinsted?
"No, of course not."
"I see that you're not married. Three years of college, withdrew under academic probation. A year and a half of part-time modeling, plus a brief stint at being a private secretary for a firm in Cleveland."
"Yes, that's right, after I left school."
"What about your parents?"
"Foster parents, Mr. Ferris. I stopped having anything to do with them the day I won my scholarship and left for college. They never wrote me a letter-for which I was quite thankful."
Marc Ferris snapped the folder shut suddenly and stood up, walking around the desk to her side.
"Are you sure you've never been a professional, Miss Kinsted?" he asked, facing her.
Marsha smiled this time, showing her beautifully-formed white teeth.
"Why would I try to hide that?" she said as pleasantly as she could.
"Women are funny, especially about their pasts. We retain a reputable detective agency to check on such things if we have cause for suspicion, but naturally we prefer not to be bothered with that. You see, Miss Kinsted, the Ferris School takes pride in its products. With a few exceptions, we never hire known pros. Our girls have poise, charm and taste-as well as absolute amorous knowledge-ability. If you have a record anywhere, we will find out about it, I assure you."
"I don't!" Marsha said defensively.
"Good," Mr. Ferris grinned. "Now stand up please, so I can take a good look at you."
Marsha stood up and moved several feet away from the desk, assuming a pose she had learned during her brief experience as a garment manufacturer's model.
She was very conscious of Marc Ferris's eyes roving over her as he walked slowly around the spot where she stood, taking in everything with a practiced eye. She was on the tallish side, a shade over five-ten, and this effect was accentuated by the cream-colored spike heels she wore. Her hair was a deep red, almost chestnut, and had a sheen to it like that of a well-groomed thoroughbred's coat. Her eyes were hazel-green and set in a face with lovely contours, slightly prominent cheekbones and slightly hollow cheeks, a full red swath of a mouth, a strongish but quite feminine chin. Her skin was exceptionally good for a redhead; very pale but flawless in texture.
Her figure was something else.
"Very nice," he said, sounding very much like an appraiser of fine jewelry. He stopped walking when he was in front of her again and stood facing her.
"Quite nice, in fact-exterior-wise. Now let's see what we have underneath?"
"I beg your pardon?
A small frown of annoyance crossed his brow. "In other words, please remove your clothing, Miss Kinsted."
"All right."
She began doing so. He made her feel extremely self-conscious, standing there and staring at her with that frank, faintly impatient look on his face, and she hurried, fearing to seem prim or square in front of him. This was part of the interview too, then. She unbuttoned the jacket and took it off, laying it over the back of the chair neatly, and then the heels and the skirt.
As she worked she saw him go over to his desk and take out a tape measure.
When she was down to her bra, panties and silk stockings, she hesitated.
"All the way please," he said.
It occurred to her that this was normal procedure then; the fact that she had made it this far was a good sign-only she found herself blushing slightly nevertheless, as she unhooked her bra and removed it, and then her garter studs, after which she bent forward to roll down her stockings.
When she straightened, she felt his hands reaching under her arms from behind and the tape measure going around her bust. It gave her skin an eerie, prickly sensation that was not altogether unpleasant. She quietly sucked in air to make her chest expand to the full, an almost automatic gesture. She had good breasts and she was proud of them-and an extra inch or so might couttt.
"You don't have to do that," he said from behind her. "They're fine, exceptional even. I just want to record your statistics for our records.
She relaxed, feeling a bit guilty and foolish. There was so much she didn't know, attitudes and information and things she had to absorb in a hurry ... She relaxed while he adjusted the tape, but the tips of her breasts stayed swollen nevertheless-only now she didn't care.
He slid his arms down then and measured her waist. It was a smoothly trim waist, slipping in from beneath the firm, heavy, big nippled breasts in a smooth in-sweep of flesh, then out again over her lovely hips. He jotted these statistics down on a pad atop the desk, and then he returned to her, behind her again.
"Move your feet apart a bit further, please."
She moved her feet apart a bit further. She had long, lovely legs, the kind of legs that seemed to be in motion even at rest, long gently supple curves of smooth flawless white flesh; tense curves that would excite the eye of anyone.
But he seemed to be perfectly controlled as he slid his hand over her leg to measure that, too.
The sensation electrified her. It was so perfectly still, so quiet in his office, not even sounds from the street reaching up here through the closed windows, that she seemed suspended for one electric moment in another world, a delicately sensuous world of hands and tape measures and soft carpets. The delicate scent of bright yellow jonquils from a vase on his desk reached out to caress her.
And then his hand moved a little and she started with another, quite localized sensation. "Oh!"
"Did that bother you? I'm sorry, but you have an amazingly beautiful posterior, Marsha."
"Thank you."
He rose, coming around and facing her. If she had excited him, that didn't show in his face-or perhaps just a bit in the eyes.
"You're a very lovely girl. You could probably be successful in a lot of other professions. Have you considered that fact carefully?"
"I want to be a call girl, Mr. Ferris."
The smile returned to his lips, faintly sarcastic this time. He put his hand inside his gray sharkskin jacket and withdrew a handsome black leather billfold.
From it he picked a fifty dollar bill, held it up for her to see-and then released it. It fluttered down to the carpet by her feet.
"Prove that," he said.
"I don't understand-"
"Your first trick," he smiled. "Now. You can do one of two things, Miss Kinsted. You can follow the fifty down-or you can get dressed and walk out the door. I have no intention of raping you."
He turned and began undressing, laying his jacket oat on the desk top and loosening his tie.
Marsha looked at him.
Then she looked down at the fifty dollar bill.
She was naturally angry. Her first reaction was that this was a crude advance-he could have made love to her without that. But an instant later she saw that it wasn't. In a sense, that was really quite tactful. He was simply being realistic-forcing her to see the reality of what she was doing.
A cold cash kind of reality-the realest reality there is, in some ways.
He could have raped her or he could have lied to her, sweet-talked her into making love with him on promises or just by using the masculine magnetism of which he seemed to have plenty in reserve. But now she suddenly felt that everything he had said so far had been quite on the level: the fact that he might appreciate her personally as a woman was secondary to the reasons she had come here and for which he was interviewing her. And this was his way of telling her so, of making things quite clear right at the start.
Well, I'm going to get loved, she thought, feeling a little bit giddy and like laughing. She had never been stimulated by such brief, casual and rather disinterested touches from a male before.
And she had to admit that she was rather stimulated now.
Quite a bit, in fact.
And she had to admit that she needed the fifty dollar bill.
A whole lot, in fact.
The carpet was as soft against her as it had looked while she was standing. Very soft.
There was a leather couch in the room, but he had said the floor, and a student follows directions.
Always, if she is to be a successful student. And Marsha Kinsted was not a girl without ambition.
He was neither hurried nor slow in his undressing. His clothes were expensively tailored and he seemed commensurately mindful of that. He had an almost feline grace about him. He was built on the lean side, with practically none of the paunchiness a lot of men his age would already be displaying. Certainly there was nothing disgusting about him as she watched from her position on the floor, his back turned to her. She grew very curious about him, about what kind of man he was, what he did when he wasn't directing this high-class school for call girls, his habits, his women, his outlook on life.
He came over to her, standing by her a minute and smiling as his eyes roved over the white expanse of her prone body.
Admiringly, she thought. And something in his studied glance made her feel very schoolgirlish indeed.
Like a college girl about to be had by one of her instructors. Like a panting, heaving freshman girl with her skirts over her head in the upstairs room of a fraternity house during a wild party, ready to give her everything to the handsome young assistant professor who was supposed to be the chaperone.
Actually, his manner was very business-like, and this should have put her off. He acted as though he were only allotting a certain anount of time for this, too; he was a busy man making room for her in his busy schedule. No lavish caresses or soul kisses; practically none of the expected foreplay at all.
And this only served to turn her on more.
It wasn't that he was without passion-he had plenty. But he was brisk, efficient, business-like. He ran his hand over the slopes and contours formed by her voluptuously spreading breasts; he kissed her briefly, cupping one gorgeous globe-
And then he took her.
"Ohhh!"
That was such a sure, strong action, so deft and quick and exact, that he overwhelmed her; she found her own briefly kindled passion coming to the fore.
She wondered if this was wrong, if she shouldn't respond like that.
She tried to control herself, to go over in her mind everything she had read about call girls, about the way they made love-professionally, with professionally feigned passion, withholding themselves while pretending to be excited over the advances of a John. And here she was acting like a hick, a pushover just out of the woods who got excited at the sight of a man undoing his belt.
"Ohhh!" she said again.
He was doing things to her, amazing things with that precise, scientific manner of his. And she was liking them.
He gained momentum, worked faster and faster, rocking her body with passion that felt like searing coals.
"Ohhh!"
He acted and lurched; he grabbed her by the boobs and squeezed the hell out of them; he sent her on a quick trip to somewhere else with his practiced lovemaking.
Faster and faster and faster.
She bit her lips to keep from crying out, from revealing how much she was enjoying that; she tried to move woodenly, mechanically-but her body caught fire and soon she was moving like a snake on a fiery pavement, struggling to let the expanding balloon of passion burst. She seemed to be swelling, expanding, getting bigger and bigger.
Bigger still.
"OH! Oh! Ohhh!"
And then the balloon burst. Shamelessly, completely, the balloon of passion burst, and then there was nothing but the long slow winding down of passion and the return to the silence of the soundproofed office.
She hardly knew when he got up.
That did it, she thought. Now he knows how inexperienced I am; that cuts the whole thing.
Sitting up, she felt like weeping. He was dressing, his back to her again, acting as though she weren't even in the room. Her fingers reached out for the fifty dollar bill.
Her first fee for her first trick. She got up then and went to get her clothes.
"Is there a ladies' room around here?" she said loudly, forcing his attention. She stood by the desk, holding her clothing in her hands, wearing only her high heels.
He turned. "Yes, through that door over there you'll find one."
"How was I?" she said stubbornly as he began to turn his attention to his shoelaces again.
Marc Ferris broke out into a superb grin this time.
"You were superb, baby. Go get your things on and I'll take you to dinner."
This sudden thaw was just as startling as his technique of lovemaking. It took a few minutes for words to reach her mind, and when he straightened, dressed now, she was still standing there with her clothes in her hand.
"Well?" he said, looking at her quizzically.
"You mean-I made the grade?"
His laughter was strong and deep, like his voice.
"I'm not going to flatter you, Miss Kinsted, but I'll say this--you're not frigid."
"Oh, fine! That's a compliment-I guess."
"That's a lot. Call girls are traditionally frigid, disturbed women who aren't really able to get much out of love. Our school doesn't operate under the the idea that that's a necessary concept. You'd be surprised-if a girl likes love, she can save herself a lot of expense that goes into a psychoanalyst's till." He came over to Marsha and caressed her warmly. "And you, my dear, are capable of having a beautiful time."
"I think I better get dressed," Marsha said weakly, feeling the magnetic spell of his eyes on her.
"Yes," he nodded, removing his hand and becoming business-like once again. "I'm taking you to dinner for a purpose, you know. There are a few more things I'd like to find out about you before you're officially enrolled-and then, of course, you'll want to ask me some questions, I suppose."
"I certainly will, Mr. Ferris."
She turned then and went through the side door into the wash room.
The pale rose ceramic tile, matching wall-to-wall carpeting, solid gold fixtures and spacious mirrors of that place made it look less like a washroom than a rather swank boudoir. There was a dressing table, a clothes closet, a tub and a shower, and the place smelled of women's perfume. She laid her things out on the vanity, and before dressing she looked at herself in the mirror.
It was a far different person she saw now, a different Marsha Kinsted than the one who had come from Cleveland to New York with a lot of vague notions and ideas about who she was and what she wanted to be.
She gave a smile to Marsha Kinsted, professional call girl.
Almost. She had turned a trick, and that made her a pro, technically at least. But she was still a novice, she had much yet to learn-but she was on the way. Enrolled. Enrolled in the fantastic school for high-class pros, or "female entertainers" if you wanted to call them by a nicer name.
She would make a lot of money as a call girl. Marc Ferris had said that, and so had her old school friend, Janice Leighton, who had started much earlier, at the age of eighteen instead of twenty-two, and was now nearly financially independent and thinking of marrying a guy who owned his own business out on the West Coast.
It was a funny world. Marsha had cause to wonder what had been the decisive factor in making this decision. There seemed to be a vast number of things and not any one thing, but she knew that somewhere alone the way there must have been the decisive factor which had tipped the scales.
Weil, she thought, time to think about that later. Now, she had to get ready to be taken to dinner by the director of this highly unusual school of charm. It was very flattering, and that was the way to take it.
She dressed quickly after using the sink to clean herself a bit, and then she examined herself in the mirror.
On the surface, she was the same Marsha Kinsted who had gotten out of the taxi about an hour earlier.
Beneath the surface, she was different.
Committed, she thought.
Then she noticed a toothbrush rack beside the sink, from which hung not one, but three different colored toothbrushes.
Very interesting, she thought. It brought her ego down a shade, as far as Mr. Ferris was concerned.. Obviously she wasn't the first and only girl to be honored by the director's personal attentions.
Obviously.
But it would have been silly to think otherwise, she realized. Could she actually be getting a crush on him? But that was too funny, if it were true! It simply wasn't the way you fell in love, either in story books, pictures, or anywhere else. He was simply one of the most fascinating men she had ever met, a completely unusual type-you felt like putty in his hands after a few minutes, with him. He was graceful, intelligent, poised, well-mannered, outrageously good looking-and one hell of a lover. And she was just another woman to him-just another piece of material which would soon have a price tag.
Two hundred dollars a night.
That was what Janice had said in her letter. The "Ivy League" call girl-that was the way she had jokingly put it, in her inimitably frank, straightforward manner.
Only that didn't seem like that much of a joke now, from what she had seen herself. There was certainly nothing cheap about this operation-they even retained a detective agency. Which could only mean that-they had a clientele consisting of very important people, men in high positions in the world who couldn't afford risky involvements in their extracurricular love lives.
Which was all very fine. A way to meet interesting people quickly and easily-and get paid for it.
She finished adjusting her hairdo, then picked up her leather purse and left the "washroom."
Marc Ferris was waiting for her in the outer office, giving his receptionist, who was about to leave, some instructions in the meantime. Marsha felt a trifle embarrassed in the presence of the receptionist, who looked so frightfully prim and antiseptic, so out-of-place in this situation-more like a dorm mother than a receptionist for a call girl school-and who certainly must have known everything that took place inside her employer's office.
But the woman soon left, and then there was just Marsha and Mr. Ferris.
"There's a place on Lexington which serves the best steaks in town," he smiled. "Go for one?"
"Oh, absolutely-I'm famished!"
He ushered her to the door, taking her by the elbow.
They took the elevator down to the lobby and then they were out in the street. It had stopped raining; the air seemed fresh and clean as a just-washed baby's face, and laden with adventure.
She watched him step to the curb and hail a cab, admiring his assured movements. Even the little things he did, like hailing a cab, seemed to command respect. An orange and green cab pulled up, and another couple who had been waiting for one deferentially held back while he stepped out and opened the door for her.
"Lexington and Thirty-fourth," he told the cabbie, and they lumbered off into the heavy midtown rush-hour traffic