Chapter 4
The flight from New York had seemed endless after the evening Jennifer had gone through with her fiance and she had to fight back tears when she got off the plane at Santa Barbara, which was only a small trunk-line stopover from L.A. to San Francisco terminal. Then, in addition to all else, she found that there was no one at all there to meet her. Naturally she hadn't expected the famous Carlyle Henderson to come for her in person but he had promised to send someone.
She opened her purse, drew out a wrinkled envelope and for the nth time that week reread the disappointingly brief and rather egotistical reply she had received when she had written asking for permission to come out to California and do the photographic article on him.
"Dear Jennifer," the letter began, "I am indeed delighted by your interest in doing a photographic article on me for my immense public following. It will, therefore, be with the greatest pleasure that I will receive you at my home in Santa Barbara to discuss your assignment with you. Shall we say on Saturday, March 5th? I hope you will be able to stay over the weekend or perhaps longer."
The letter ended with a promise that someone would meet her at the airport stop on March 5th at 4:00 P.M. There couldn't be any mistake about the time and date, so Mr. Henderson must have forgotten, Jennifer reasoned. As the time drew nearer for her to actually meet the famous director she had stopped referring to him in her mind as Carlyle. To tell the truth, she was scared stiff and had been worrying for weeks about the impression she would make on him.
Jennifer's heart sank as she looked around her. The California heat rose in glassy waves from the outside parking lot in front of the small air terminal building. She was about to ask a lazy-looking customs clerk if she could use his phone to call Mr. Henderson when a large dark-looking man emerged from the men's restroom buttoning up his fly. He was dressed in a black suit and black tie and looked just like a Hollywood film-type gangster. He grinned at her, and rubbed his hand suggestively over the front of his pants, and jerked his head at her in a beckoning gesture.
With her full lips compressed in a prim line Of disapproval, Jennifer angrily shouldered her purse, picked up her nylon suitcase which contained a week's change of clothing and her camera and marched off in the opposite direction toward the airline desk. Except for the three of them, the terminal was now deserted. She was wearing a dark blue blouse somewhat soiled by her long plane ride and a wrinkled knee-length light blue linen skirt. Between the straps of her purse was slung a linen jacket matching the skirt. That day she had parted her soft brown hair in the middle, letting it coil around her slender, swan-like neck. It wasn't the coolest or most attractive hair style she could have chosen, but it was simple and she thought it would please Mr. Henderson.
She arrived at the airline check-in desk but the clerk had disappeared into the back room. Angrily she swung around, thinking perhaps she could find a taxi outside in front of the terminal.
"Ohhhh!" she gasped, dropping her suitcase and taking a startled leap backward.
The swarthy man who had made the obscene gesture to her was blocking her way. Because of the brilliant sunlight behind him she couldn't actually see his face but she recognized his menacing slump-shouldered silhouette. He began to move slowly toward her. For one terrified instant Jennifer considered turning and making a break for the door behind the deserted airline counter. But suppose nobody was there. Then she would really be trapped! Instinctively, she took another lithe step backwards to give herself room to dodge past the man if he tried to grab her.
"Uuuh ... miss ... uuuh ... Post?"
The voice was low and guttural, almost bestial, but at the sound of her name Jennifer could have wept with relief. Quickly, as the man moved closer to her, she tried to compose herself. He stooped to pick up her suitcase and his strong white teeth gleamed at her through the murky light.
"Mr. Henderson sent me to getcha," he grunted. "I got duh car parked inna shade." He turned and headed for the door.
"Oh, thank you!" Jennifer exclaimed, trying to make her voice sound casual and hurrying to catch up with him. "I was just going to telephone. I thought perhaps he'd forgotten."
"I'm s-s-sorry, it-" the stocky man stuttered in a thick Eastern accent. "I was inna can ... I mean, duh toilet, whenna plane come. I gotta go to duh ... duh toilet a lot," he added apologetically.
"Oh, that's perfectly all right," Jennifer assured him, blushing furiously nevertheless at this intimate detail. As they stepped outside toward the car in front, she furtively studied the strange man's profile. His thick bushy black hair almost touched his beetling eyebrows, so that he seemed to have no forehead at all. His eyes were slanted, she noted, almost mongoloid and his general expression was totally moronic. The poor man was obviously retarded and wasn't really responsible for what he did. She felt ashamed of the way she had misinterpreted his meaning when he jerked his head at her upon his coming out of the restroom, but God, any girl would have reacted the same way. And suppose Mr. Henderson hadn't sent him, she added to herself, stealing a glance at his burly hair-covered forearms and powerful hands that swung ape-like almost to his knees. He looked like he was capable of anything!
They approached a sleek little Porsche 6000 sports car parked under the shade of a redwood tree. The squat man tossed her suitcase carelessly into the space in back of the two bucket seats and climbed in behind the wheel. As an afterthought he reached over and pushed open the right hand door. Sitting down beside him, Jennifer noticed the thick black grime under his fingernails and the strong odor of male sweat he exuded. And his white shirt really had ring around the collar!
"Are you Mr. Henderson's chauffeur?" she asked, trying to keep her voice calm but actually she was getting nervous again. She couldn't really see the distinguished, sensitive Carlyle Henderson she had skated for as a child and grown to know and love through his sensitive films employing such an uncouth creature.
"Nah. I'm duh bodyguard and handyman and valet," the swarthy man grunted. "Duh chauffeur, he quit." He sat there for a minute, staring at the dashboard with puzzled concentration as if trying to remember what to do next, then heaved himself out of the car, "Be right back," he muttered, heading toward the air terminal.
A bodyguard! Well, that explained it. Jennifer reproached herself for her suspicions. No doubt, Mr. Henderson employed him out of pity. That would be perfectly consistent with the idea she had formed of the great film director. Reassured, she leaned back and looked around her. The Santa Barbara countryside with its great stands of giant redwoods back in the mountains was truly beautiful and so utterly tranquil. She hadn't seen a single car pull into the parking lot since the plane had landed. No wonder the desk clerk in the terminal could goof off the way he did. The distant sound of the toilet flushing told her that her strange companion would soon be returning. She just hoped he could remember how to drive the car.
"Hadda go to the can, again," the ape-like man announced cheerfully as he clambered back behind the wheel. He grinned imbecilically at her with those strong white teeth that looked as if they were meant to tear bloody chunks of flesh from the still warm carcasses of his prey and added, "I'm Guido!"
He extended a huge paw to Jennifer, who reluctantly shook it. "I'm duh bodyguard and handyman and valet," he went on, evidently forgetting that he had already mentioned that fact. "Gotta big fist, see." He jammed it under her nose proudly. "Duh boss don' lemme drive the car much."
It took Jennifer about two seconds to realize that the last statement wasn't as irrelevant as it seemed. Guido gunned the car backwards around the single tree in front of the small terminal, shifted forward, zoomed out of the parking lot and across the highway onto a narrow dirt road, making fifty miles an hour before she could catch her breath. The acceleration flattened her against the black leather upholstery of the bucket seat and the wind slashing through the side vents blurred her eyes. For awhile the road angled in a fairly straight line across the green meadow but then it swerved into a forest and began to zigzag down a steep slope in a series of one-hundred-and-eighty degree hairpin turns.
Jennifer saw the first curve whipping toward her and shut her eyes. She didn't even have time to be scared. She just knew there was no way the madman at the wheel could hold the car on the road at that speed and resigned herself to dying. It seemed stupid, that was all, just when she was about to realize her dream of seeing and photographing Carlyle Henderson again after all these years.
Guido DiStefano hit the brakes at the last split-second, kicked the gutsy little Porsche around the curve in a neat four-wheel skid and poured on the gas. He was driving his own car down a road he knew like the palm his hand and Henderson had said to scare the shit out the girl, so ... vroom! So far everything had gone exactly as planned. He had timed his exit from the restroom perfectly and, just as he had hoped, Jennifer had crossed over to where the desk clerk was playing with himself in 'the back room as usual. And brother, she had jumped three feet when she saw him standing in front of her.
About the ultimate success of the little scenario which he and Henderson and Valerie had been polishing up to fuck the young girl silly, he wasn't so sure. He'd been so busy playing the role of the idiot bodyguard, handyman and valet, that he hadn't had a chance to really examine the girl. Jennifer was voluptuous enough, and had huge tits, but seemed very awkward and uptight in the way she held herself and moved. Except that one time when he had frightened her in the deserted air terminal and she had leaped backwards....
When the road straightened out for a bit, running along the side of the mountain with a perpendicular cliff on one side and a sheer drop down to the sea on the other, he glanced over at her. She was sitting with both hands pressed against the dashboard, her face deathly white. Sit and suffer, Miss Prim-and-Proper, he chuckled to himself. He hadn't missed the haughty way she had turned away when he beckoned to her from the restroom and it was obvious that she regarded Guido, the dumb bodyguard-cum-whatever-else, with the utmost distaste. Who the hell did she think she was, huh? Guido DiStefano was beginning to identify wholeheartedly with his role and couldn't wait to bring this stuck-up bitch down a few pegs with his heavily throbbing cock. If everything went according to plan, she'd be begging him to fuck the shit out of her snooty little cunt before the night was over.
After another series of sharp curves they reached the turn-off to Henderson's private estate and the huge man pulled over to the side of the road.
"Gotta go again," he grunted.
Not quite believing she was still alive, Jennifer heaved a deep sigh and opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the distant facade of a large white Spanish-style hacienda blazing in the afternoon sun. It sat on a high cliff above the glittering Pacific Ocean below, like a movie set. It was just the sort of house she had always imagined Carlyle Henderson would live in and the knowledge that soon she would be face to face with the great man again sent a thrill of nervous anticipation tingling through her body. Then she heard the lewd puddling sound of a man doing peepee in the bushes behind the car. It went on forever.
Guido came back, wiping his hands on his pants, and pointed up the coast. "That's the house," he said.
When he climbed in behind the wheel, Jennifer noticed he had forgotten to button up his pants. Before she could avert her eyes she caught a glimpse of dense black pubic hairs curling around the expanse of a long thick cock. Quickly she jerked her head away and looked longingly toward the house. Guido smiled and eased the little Porsche into first. As the road from there on was fairly straight along the cliff and in good repair, he managed to hit a hundred before slowing for the last turn up into the driveway.
Her hair ruffled uncontrollably by the wind, Jennifer was on the verge of tears again. She stared dumbfounded at the tall slender blonde young woman who had greeted her when they finally reached the house after the insane ride. When she had stepped shakily from the car and seen the beautiful face of the blonde, Jennifer had recognized her immediately as Henderson's famous movie actress wife. The voluptuous woman had introduced herself in a rather flippant manner and said she was sorry but her husband wasn't at home just then.
"What do you mean, Mr. Henderson isn't at home?" Jennifer almost sobbed. "He invited me to come today."
"I know, Miss Post," Valerie replied politely. "But Mr. Henderson is-uh-slightly eccentric. When he has an inspiration for a film, he simply disappears to think it over. As an admirer of his great work, I should think you could understand that."
"But when will he be back?" Jennifer wailed hopelessly. "Where did he go?"
"We never know when he'll be back," Valerie explained evasively. "It depends on how long his inspiration lasts. Sometimes it's only a day or so. Sometimes longer. As for where he went, since none of the cars are missing, he's probably out there somewhere." She nodded toward the broad expanse of the Pacific reaching ominously into the distance in front-of the house. "That's where he usually goes in his small sailboat," she added with a mournful undertone of bitterness in her low voice. "He stays out there for weeks just living off fish without letting us know whether he's dead or alive. One of these days he won't come back at all. I just know it."
"Ohhhhh, Godddd!" The impulsive cry of distress and frustration escaped Jennifer before she could check it.
"I didn't mean to alarm you, Miss Post," the blonde said kindly, laying her hand comfortingly on the young brunette's arm. "I assure you, Mr. Henderson is still in excellent health and well able to look after himself. He left a note concerning you. He said that Guido should drive you down to L.A. for a direct flight to New York if you wish, or that you could stay until he returns from meditating on his next film."
"Really!" Jennifer exclaimed joyfully. "Oh, that's wonderful! Of course, I'll stay!" A becoming flush tinged her heart-shaped face which was still pale from the hectic ride. What a choice! she thought to herself, glancing over at the ape-like man who was still waiting patiently by the car. Drive all the way down to Los Angeles with that crazy man? Goddd! Then her flush deepened as she again glimpsed the thickly dangling tube of dark cock flesh through his open fly.
"Good!" Valerie approved wholeheartedly. "I've already prepared a room for you. Guido, take Miss Post's suitcase up to her room. Guido!" she snapped suddenly. "Button yourself up!"
"Huh?" A bewildered look passed across the swarthy man's moronic face, then he turned quickly away like a guilty schoolboy. "Sorry, Miss Valerie," he mumbled apologetically.
"Come, dear, I'll show you your room," the blonde suggested warmly. In a lower voice, as they crossed a cool tiled hall toward a curving staircase, she added, "Don't pay any attention to poor Guido. He doesn't know any better. I've suggested to Mr. Henderson that we let him go but he won't hear of it. Of course, it's true that Guido would end up in an institution in no time at all."
Then why is he allowed to drive a car!?
The question flashed like lightning through Jennifer's mind but she immediately buried it under a reasonable explanation. The chauffeur had recently quit and probably there was no one else available, and Mrs. Henderson had the house to look after ... Though she certainly didn't look much like the sharp women she always played on the silver screen, the young brown-haired girl reflected, as she followed the blonde's shapely figure up the curving Spanish stairs and along another hall. It occurred to her that the voluptuous sexy woman was a little too flashy and sexy for her image of what Carlyle Henderson's wife should be and she felt a sense of shock because she had never associated the sensitive director with hot physical love. Then she felt a violent twinge of jealousy which she immediately told herself was idiotic. A man as famous and charming as Carlyle was was bound to be a rugged, sexually needful male.
Valerie opened the door to a large airy room charmingly furnished with antique Spanish furniture. The bed was a huge old four-poster, its spiraled well-waxed columns gleaming darkly in the subdued light filtering through the door-length shutters which were a regular feature of the house. Through them, Jennifer could see that she had her own private little balcony, complete with boxes of bright red and white geraniums. Quickly, she crossed the room and pulled open the shutters. The spectacular view of the Pacific and Channel Islands spread out in front of the house almost took her breath away.
"Oh, it's beautiful!" she exclaimed. "Simply beautiful. I've never seen anything like it before."
"I think you'll be comfortable here." Valerie smiled pleasantly. "Here is your bath. You'll probably want to freshen up before dinner." She opened another door, revealing a modern, completely equipped bathroom which was easily half-again as large as the small dormer-windowed room in the upper New York house where Jennifer had passed her childhood and most of her adolescence.
"I feel like a queen!" the young girl exclaimed impulsively, and the older blonde-haired woman smiled warmly back at her. Just then Guido rambled in with a stupid look, deposited Jennifer's suitcase on the bed and walked out without a word.
"He's ashamed about leaving his pants open, poor thing," Valerie said pityingly. "It's too bad he has this-uh-trouble because he's really marvelous working around the house, and keeping unwanted visitors out. Did you notice the size of his fists as you drove in from the airport?"
"Yes...." Jennifer replied vaguely. Again she was tempted to mention Guido's driving also but decided against it. It was none of her business but one thing was absolutely certain. She would never get in an automobile with that maniac again. If Henderson hadn't returned before she had to leave and if Mrs. Henderson couldn't drive her for some reason, well then she would walk, even if it took a whole day.
"What does Mr. Henderson eat while he's out there?" she asked, glancing up at the beautiful but forbidding ocean and islands outside her window.
"Oh, fish in the sea and wild pig when he stops in on an island or anything else he can find," Valerie answered. "That is, when he remembers to eat. Sometimes he's so weak when he gets back here he can hardly walk. But there I go again," she added quickly. "I don't want to worry you. He'll be all right."
"Golly, I hope so!" Jennifer breathed fervently. She suddenly felt like a small child dwarfed by the majesty of the huge expanse of water before her. The idea that the great Carlyle Henderson was sailing around out there somewhere on that immense sea, living off what nature provided while contemplating his next screen masterpiece frightened her and made her feel very humble.
"We'll have cocktails on the terrace before dinner, about 7:00," Valerie said. "Mr. Henderson will be there and you can talk with him."
"Mr. Henderson...?" Jennifer repeated blankly. "I-I thought.:."
"Yes, Mr. Larry Henderson," Valerie explained smoothly. "Mr. Carlyle Henderson's brother and business agent. Of course, it won't be the same as talking to the Mr. Henderson, but I'm sure Larry will be able to give you some helpful suggestions for your photographic layout."
"Oh, I didn't know Carlyle ... I mean, Mr. Henderson, had a brother," Jennifer said.
"Oh, four of them!" Valerie laughed. "But he's always been closest to Larry. They're closest in age and even look enough a-like to be twins."
"Oh ... How long has he been working for Mr. Henderson?" Jennifer asked curiously. Of course, she had read everything she. could get her hands on about Carlyle Henderson, but as he was very public shy, she really knew very little about his private life. It had never occurred to her that he would have a business agent, but now that she thought of it, she realized he would probably have to ... to do the tedious handling of all the money he made directing films.
"Oh, only about a year," Valerie replied casually. "Larry had a-uh-a business reverse. In fact, he lost all his money and Carlyle took him in. To earn his keep, Larry started to help with the business end of things, and now Carlyle says he doesn't know how he got along without him before. It's a very satisfactory relationship. Well, I'll leave you now, dear," Valerie, her eyes wandering over the girl's supple young tits, finished graciously. "I have dinner to attend to. Don't forget. Drinks on the terrace at 7:00."
She quietly left the room, leaving Jennifer staring pensively out at the savage Pacific Ocean that the afternoon breeze was beginning to stir up into white caps, as the sun sank slowly toward its far distant rim ... She felt a slight chill of foreboding ripple through her breasts and up through her thighs as she stripped away her clothes for a much needed bath. Oh Lord, she shuddered, she had the strangest feeling that invisible eyes were devouring her nakedness and quickly drew a robe around her as she glanced furtively around the room, and headed for the safety of the bathroom.