Chapter 8
Four days went quickly.
Daphne had relatively little to do, since most politicians were caught up in the swirling final days of the Congressional session, and had little time to spend cavorting at their exclusive playhouse. She was visited by clients only three times, and never with another of the girls. All three were older men, who took only minutes to climax, and then she was rid of them. She learned nothing during the first three days.
She spent time with Gloria, talking about their past experiences in business, Daphne winging it from talks she had had with Greg Stafford. But they spoke of other things as well, such as home, old friends, school, other jobs ... and Daphne, under her assumed name, was able to be candid and honest with her new friend about these things.
She did feel soiled, used, sleazy. She found herself often wishing she had stayed home altogether, never to be involved with Congressmen who only hire you if you fuck them, or others who unwittingly divulge top secret information because they cannot control their lust. Mostly, she wished she had never started using her body as a means of obtaining information. She was a smart girl, with a college degree, and she was humiliated at the way things had turned out. Certainly, now she could never go home.
Unless your by-line appears with Greg's, she told herself. Then, nobody has to know how you learned what you did. All they need to know is that you did.
It did her little good, particularly during those hours she spent with clients, dancing and performing for them, then spreading her legs and taking their half-limp cocks up her worn pussy, letting them stroke her for a few minutes until they spilled a pitiful few drops of milky cum, dressed and left for their old, overweight wives. One of them came in her hand, and was satisfied with that. She felt deathly ill that night, and slept poorly, harassed by dark, frightful dreams.
But she did not quit. She knew, in the back of her mind, that she could leave any time, just tell Jennifer to stuff it and walk out. It wasn't as though Jennifer thought she knew something, that she might bring the police or a Senate investigating committee back with her. As far as Jennifer was concerned, she was just another working girl, trying to make a buck and live a comfortable life.
She stayed, praying that at the next moment she would unravel the entire mystery and thus once and for all establish her credibility in Washington circles. Minutes turned into hours, hours into days, days into nights, and nothing happened.
Depression racked her, made worse by the fact that she had to act rather happy and satisfied with her life at the house.
She dreaded the arrival of Tuesday. If she didn't learn something today, she would have to report to Greg with only one bit of information-that there was no doubt the house was connected with the leaks. Which was no news at all, really, since Greg's newshound instincts had already decided that to be a fact. What he wanted was hard, solid evidence.
She worried about Greg in other respects. She had not seen him since they gone over her cover, on Thursday. She was supposed to check in with him on Friday night, but of course that had been impossible.
"If they want you to stay, don't sweat it, but don't call me from one of their phones under any circumstances, you understand? Under any circumstances at all!" he had told her, so she knew he was simply waiting for her contact, and possibly digging into other possibilities, poking up other avenues.
"You got a man?" Gloria asked while they were in the waiting room Tuesday morning. They had both already modeled their assets in the display room for Jennifer and some older-middle-aged Senator, and they were chatting as they waited for the other girls to parade through and for the Senator to make his selection.
She started to say no, but it occurred to her that a girl who made her living by the expert use of her body would most certainly have a regular boyfriend. A woman who spent her life satisfying others must have a man on hand to satisfy her. So she said, "Yes, don't you?"
"A couple," Gloria laughed. "One black and one white. Lady, can they take my mind off my woes. Especially both together. Ever have two men?"
"I've always played it pretty straight," Daphne said.
"Oh, girl, you don't know what you've been missing. No question about it, ain't no feeling like the feeling of two cocks. One up the ol' hole, other in the mouth." She affected her sophisticated air. "My dear, you really must try it."
Daphne was saved from having to answer by the return of the last girl, and then the interminable wait to see who was selected. The client was a Congressman in his late fifties, a quiet man whose name the public never heard. Not terribly good looking but in good shape, strong, virile. Jennifer finally made her entrance and selected Dawn, to Dawn's delight. Daphne had learned in her three days there that Dawn loved to fuck more than anything else in the world. "Isn't it terrific?" Dawn told Daphne at breakfast one morning. "I'm one of the lucky few who really likes what I do for a living."
Dawn skipped out of the room, and the rest of the girls meandered slowly to various places; some to their rooms, others to the study or den.
Gloria suggested they catch some sun outside, and Daphne agreed, and they left the house. The rays of the sun felt like warm, caressing fingers on their naked bodies. They had been soaking it in for nearly an hour when Daphne sensed somebody's presence looming above her.
She opened her eyes, and shielded them from the sun. All she saw was a shapely silhouette, but she knew it was Jennifer. Her heart leapt into her throat. Had she been caught?
"Candy, I'd like to speak with you for a moment? You don't mind, do you, Gloria?"
"Course not," Gloria said. She slipped back into her gown and her high heels clicked against the pavement as she walked back into the house. Jennifer's eyes watched her long, lean figure appreciatively, until she had disappeared inside.
"She's one of our best girls," Jennifer said then. "She's loyal, she works hard and satisfies all the time. She does her bit, and stays loose and cool. That's important here, Candy."
"That's important everywhere," Daphne retorted.
Jennifer seemed impressed with her answer. "Do you like it here?"
"Very much," Daphne said. "I could get very, very comfortable here."
Jennifer looked down, as though there was something on her mind. "You could, Candy. You could have a very good life here among us. Your salary now is only a fraction of what it could be."
"Oh yeah?" Daphne said, affecting her dumb-California girl accent. "How?"
"This city is a city of games, Candy," Jennifer said. Daphne felt her heartbeat accelerate, and she prayed her excitement did not show in her-face. "Everybody plays games here. They play games with taxpayers dollars, and with men's lives. They play games with each other and each other's wives. Everybody thinks in terms of moves and countermoves, and how to come out on top. The bottom line is all that counts. All you have to do is play our game."
"What are the rules?"
"Occasionally one of your clients will be somebody we need to ... talk to. All you have to do is make sure he drinks something-anything from a glass of water to a cola to a double scotch on the rocks. And you add a little pill."
She had it, by God! Now she just had to play it smooth until she could talk to Greg tomorrow. "Isn't that illegal?" she asked.
"Prostitution isn't?" Jennifer said. "Besides, if it were legal it wouldn't pay as well as it does."
"Is this anti-American, or something?"
"Not at all. I guarantee everybody involved is a loyal American. This is strictly a profit operation, from the house to this ... activity. Nothing would ever be done to endanger national security."
Daphne looked ashamed. "I'm sorry. I suppose I sound funny, a whore worried about all that patriotic bullshit."
"Not at all," Jennifer said. "You're not the first girl who has asked those questions. Then you'll do it?"
"It pays how much?"
"A thousand a week," Jennifer said.
Daphne's voice caught in her throat. "Good God," she said in something that sounded like a croak. "How can you afford that?"
"We do very well," Jennifer said. "And we invest our profits in legitimate enterprises. Some of it even goes into the stock market."
Daphne laughed. "You're putting me on."
"Our employers believe in making money, any way they can possibly make it. It's a giant cycle. The money from the investments goes into upgrading the house and its operations, the money from the operations goes into the market. They feed on each other, and just grow larger."
"Quite a setup. Is Gloria in on this?"
"Of course," Jennifer said. "All of them are. I find I'm a fair judge of character, and it doesn't take me long to make up my mind about a girl."
"Just out of curiosity, what would have happened if I hadn't passed your test."
"You'd be looking for a new job." Daphne nodded. "Okay. Count me in."
"I already have," Jennifer said.
"Fantastic!"
Greg hunched forward in his seat in the coffee shop booth. Daphne had taken her car on her day off to an obscure intersection, then took a cab, then changed cabs, then walked six blocks through alleyways that cars could not negotiate to wind up at the prearranged coffee shop. Greg had not told her to do that; when she had realized the depth of the operation, she had decided it was best to be safe. She feared with a deep, honest terror what would happen to her if they found out she was exchanging information with a newspaperman. And she was new enough that they may want to follow her her first time out, just to make sure.
Along the way, she had thought about Gloria. It had disturbed her to know that somebody as friendly and nice as Gloria could be involved in something as vile as that. Was she so alone as she felt? Did so few people care about the country as much as she did, that she wanted to make a mark on Washington politics by being straight and honest and upfront?
"We've got to see it happen," Greg said, bringing her out of her reverie. "You've got to wait until they ask you to do that."
"Wait? You mean you want me to go back?"
"Yeah, of course. You've got to slip a politician a mickey and see them haul him off. Then we wait for something damaging about him to come out. If nothing comes out, we check him over, see if he's made any big withdrawals, see if we can catch him making payoffs. Keep an eye on his behavior. One way or the other, we'll nail them."
"Greg, you don't understand what I have to do while I'm there."
Greg eyed her. "Okay, forget it. I've got the lead I need. I'll just follow up. It'll take me a little longer on my own, but I never liked sharing a by-line anyway."
He had said just the right thing to catch her. "All right," she said. "I'll go. But by God, they'd better get me to knock one out soon. I can't keep living like this."
"I understand." It was then she noticed his eyes, focused on her ample cleavage.
"Don't I get enough of that at my job?" she said cynically.
"Sorry," he grinned sheepishly. "I don't mean anything ... it's just that you're so goddam sexy."
Daphne looked at her watch. "I'd better go."
"So soon? Can't I take you someplace, maybe buy you a drink?"
"I don't think so. I'll meet you here, same day next week."
"I'll be here. Bring me good news." She returned to the house, after picking up some items from her apartment. Nobody at the house acted as though they suspected her of anything. Jennifer asked why she was back so soon, and she said she had decided to just take the remainder of her time off at the house. "Why?"
"I was in the city, and it just seemed so ... I don't know, so crowded and awful. My boyfriend is out of town, so I just decided to come back. Any objection?"
"No," Jennifer said, "but I have a question. Who's your boyfriend?"
"Greg," she blurted inadvertently, then added, "Rothman," after her ex-fianc‚. "He's a bouncer."
"How tasteful," Jennifer said cynically. "You won't tell him anything at all about our operation. Yes?"
"Of course not," Daphne said.
Jennifer patted her on the cheek and went off to attend to whatever business she had. Daphne sighed, the relief overwhelming her. No, she had not been followed. Good grief, Daph, she told herself. You're getting paranoid.
Gloria found her and they went outside; a servant brought them tall, cool drinks and they lay naked in the sun, that having become their favorite way to pass time. Now, though, Daphne felt a little strange being with Gloria. She was part of it.
Part of what? Was she really aware of what she was doing? Probably not, Daphne realized. She's a hooker, a girl who's had to stoop pretty low to make a dollar, and all of a sudden she's given the opportunity to clean up, four thousand a month-forty-eight grand a year for servicing politicians and occasionally putting one under.
When you're faced with that kind of change, you don't ask why. You just do it.
The bell sounded. "Cattle call," Gloria said, and they rose, leaving their half-finished drinks behind. The servant emerged from his hiding place and scooped the drinks onto a tray and wiped the poolside table clean. The house was always immaculate.
The girls took their turns modeling their luscious bodies for a cabinet secretary, in charge of the defense department. He was tall and muscular and stern, and he appraised each of the girls with a highly critical eye. During Daphne's short walk in the display room, she could see no pleasure in the man's face, made harsh by jagged angles of his crew cut.
Still, even during her brief employment at the house, Daphne had come to appreciate the stronger, younger men over the old, feeble ones. There was something more pleasurable about a good, solid man, doing what a man should be able to do. The old ones, they were a joke. They came to pretend they could still get it up, still hump like in the old days. They came to relive old memories, not create new ones.
Jennifer came back into the waiting room and pointed at Daphne. Good, she thought. If one of those old geezers comes in, I'll be busy with this one.
But selecting her was not all Jennifer had in mind. When the other girls had left (Gloria swatting her playfully on the ass), she maneuvered Daphne into a corner and whispered, 'This gentleman is one of those special cases we discussed earlier."
"I see," Daphne said.
"The pills are in an unmarked pharmacy bottle in the top drawer of the bedside table. Make sure he drinks something with it. It takes about fifteen minutes to work, but I'm certain you can keep him occupied until then."
Daphne smiled. "Of course."
"Good girl," Jennifer said. "When he's out, just wait with him. Somebody will be up for him shortly."
Daphne went into the waiting room and took the Secretary by the hand. The critical look had left him, and now he looked boyish in his anticipation of indulging in Daphne's body. She felt him shiver when she merely took his hand.
"I'm Candy," she said. "I'm so honored to meet you. You're my first Secretary, you know."
"It's my pleasure, Candy," the Secretary said with a shaking in his voice. He's not one for a lot of sex, Daphne thought. It occurred to her that a man like that might come too quickly, and try to leave before the drug had a chance to take effect.
Well, you'll just have to make him last, she thought to herself. She smiled inside. I think I have the experience to do that.
She opened the door to her room, closed it, turned on him and kissed him, a long, fragile kiss that allowed him to taste the flavor of her lips and the delicate seasoning of the tip of her tongue. He quivered from the kiss, and she ran her finger lightly along his spine, and he quivered again.
When she drew her lips from his, she asked, "Can I get you a drink? You feel all wound up, like you need to relax."
"I do need to relax," he said. "That's why I came here."
"Well, you want it to be good, don't you? You're so tense." She rubbed his shoulders, and they did indeed feel like bricks. He winced, and she knew the tightness in his muscles hurt him. He seemed like a nice guy. She hated what she knew she had to do.
"I suppose one wouldn't hurt. Vodka rocks," he said.
Daphne went to the bedside table, on top of which was a selection of fine-quality liquors. She selected a bottle of vodka and poured it into a glass, then opened the top drawer, making sure he wasn't watching, and found the pills. She hastily dropped one in the drink and watched it dissolve almost immediately. She went to the refrigerator-a small bar type-and took some ice to add to the drink, then handed it to him.
"Here's looking at you," he said, trying to be suave. He was actually looking at her; more like leering at her. She tilted her head in a coquettish manner, and lifted her sheer, ankle-length nightgown over her head.
"Why don't you come take me?" she said, when she saw he had drained his drink.
He grinned, and the liquor gave him courage and machismo. He almost leapt at her, running his hands up and down her smooth, soft back, until he held her fleshy cheeks in both hands, and ground his hips against hers. The fabric of his trousers rubbed against her bare pussy, pulling and tugging at the delicate, frenzied lips of her cunt.
Wanton arousal filled him, and she felt herself gaining sexual intensity as well, and she moaned when he poked his finger up her asshole, and brought his thumb up underneath to pry between her anxious pussy lips and inside her dark, wet vagina.
"Ohhh," she moaned in his ear. "Take off your pants, and let me have your cock."
Both fingers came out of her in a hurry, and he fumbled with his pants until he stood before her, naked from the waist down. He still wore his coat, tie, shirt. But his penis was erect, pointing up at her, throbbing and wiggling. She grabbed it and led him to the bed by it, feeling its warmth as his agitated blood coursed through the length of his shaft.
He pushed her backward onto the bed, and straddled her. The tip of his cock toyed with her erect, stiff nipples, and she held her breast upright for him. He held his cock by the base so he could rub it over her beautiful tits, and then he eased it between the two alabaster orbs.
Daphne held her two breasts together with her hands, pressing them tight and squeezing his thick, meaty penis between them. The Secretary began the first of many long, slow strokes, his prick sliding almost out of the grip of her breasts, then between them and up to her throat.
She moaned throatily as he reached behind and dug a finger between her cuntal walls, and began to vibrate it, jerking it hard and expertly against her stiffened clitoris. She kneaded her breasts, changing the amount of pressure against his cock, and his speed increases, his thrusts between her breasts as rapid and uncontrolled as any man's cock in her sweet, hot pussy.
She climaxed before him, his finger jabbing her clitoris until it could contain itself no longer. It burst, and she arched her back in throes of her orgasm, squeezing her breasts together hard against his cock. He came immediately afterward, spurting his sticky white load onto her breasts and her chin, and some of it into her silky blonde hair.
She sat up, exhausted and satisfied, and looked affectionately at the secretary. Cum capped the head of his deflating penis, and he slumbered peacefully, his head on the pillow and his knees tucked up under his chest, in the fetal position.
Daphne used a towel to clean herself and, for his sake, she wiped his cock clean, too. Then she put on a robe and waited for whatever would happen.
A minute later the door opened without a knock, and Paul and another huge, muscular man-black as night-entered. Without a word to Daphne they grabbed him, Paul taking his arms and the black man taking his feet, and they carried him from the room.
"Where you taking him?" Daphne said.
"No questions," the black man said in a deep, thick voice. "You done your job."
"Don't you need his pants?"
The black man looked at her angrily, then bent and grabbed the Secretary's trousers and dumped them unceremoniously on his stomach. Then they were gone, the door closed behind them.
She had her evidence; all she would ever be able to get. And it was a full week before her next day off. She couldn't wait. She had to let Greg know.
But how?