Chapter 10
Alice woke with a monumental hangover and, lying abed with the throbbing pain, her thoughts began anew to worry the cause of her unease. Coupled with the distress of her alcohol-induced distress, the combination was near-maddening.
She forced herself out of bed, noticing by the bedside clock it was after ten, and dropped her gown to the floor as she moved unsteadily toward the bathroom. While she adjusted the water temperature, she eyed her reflection in the mirrored wall, taking some comfort from the excellence of her body at the same time she felt a renewal of anger at her husband. Why had he turned to other women? She was no witch.
Then, she speculated, it was probably in search of something new. Just as she had succumbed to the renewed excitement of Carl Denver's caresss.
But, she assured herself with complete falsity, she'd have never returned to Carl's embrace if John hadn't been playing with a long succession of easy women which went through the club! And to top them all, there was Terry Anson. Alice stiffened in rage, knowing the urge to kill-knowing it clearly and keenly.
As she soaped her body, the touch of her hands on her breasts brought Carl Denver and his love-making into the forefront of her mind and she dwelt awhile on the pleasure of her erotic recollections as she finished her bath.
As Alice put on her robe, the front doorbell rang and she moved to answer it, wondering who....
It was John she opened the door to-John standing uncertainly and attempting to smile at the strained features of his wife. The attempt died as Alice demanded:
"What are you doing here?"
"I live here, or I thought I did," he returned, annoyed at her brusqueness.
"For five, unfaithful years you slept here. Now, I don't care where you live."
"Alice, you'd better get your facts straight," John said, his face grim and bitter. "I never lied to you. Five unfaithful years, like hell. I never touched another woman, from the time we were married, until you went back to Carl Denver. I've had it-and so have you."
"You know where you stand with Carl Denver!" she cried, paying no attention to his words, "I...."
"Then I suggest you go stand with Carl Denver. Nobody in his right mind could take this. I tell you the truth and you call me a liar. You justify what you're doing by something I haven't done." His stony eyes held her silent. "As I've said to you once before ... I've had it with you ... we're through!" he whirled on his heel and left, the door slamming with a violence that rocked through Alice's aching head like a blow.
When Alice returned to reality her body was aching from the long time she'd reclined on the floor. Evidently she'd dropped there when John turned his back on her. She didn't recall falling, the only thing which remained clear was a long series of mental pictures of her husband, involved in a fantasy of heated and perverted sexual activity with girls Alice remembered playing the club. He was a beast and she hated him.
Another period of fuzziness brought on another series of erotic imagery and, when she emerged again, she found herself sitting at the breakfast table, a bottle of whiskey before her and an empty glass in her hands. Perhaps the alcohol had cleared her head. At least, now she was back to her one track sequence of John's unfaithfulness and his false accusation that she'd been unfaithful to him. There had to be a way to make him admit the truth but she couldn't formulate a plan. As she sat, the thought formed that it would come to her ... whatever she must do ... it would come to her....
John, sitting in his office, rejected the thought of a drink for the third time and, realizing it was evening, pressed the intercom key to talk to the barman and ask him to send out for a rare steak. Shortly afterward, there was a rap at his door and, surprised at the swiftness of the service, he called out an invitation to enter.
It wasn't his dinner. It was Frankie Robbins, and she moved to his desk, lush hips thrust forward to come to a halt when the desk edge met them. She was wearing the under-costume for her Goddess act-skintight, red bra and bikini panties; as Frankie placed her hands on the emphasis of her hips, they'd pulled the robe open to reveal her near-nude body.
"Well, what can I do for you?" John automatically asked.
"What can I do for you?" she countered. Sex oozed through her speech and John detected that she was a little high.
"Been boozing?" he asked, looking at his watch.
"Only a belt before I came in," she answered with a small shake of her shoulders which sent the big breasts dancing. "I only have about a half-hour before the first show. How about a drink?"
"Sure you need one?" John countered. Frankie moved to sit on the corner of the desk.
"Look, baby-I hear you're on the loose. You could loosen up all my tensions," she smiled down at him.
"How about it?" she asked.
John felt the reaction build, his eyes recording the flat abdomen with its small navel and the lush curves of thigh and hip which rested on the desk.
"Could we make it later?" he asked, thinking of the food he'd ordered and his famished condition. He felt Frankie freeze and his eyes met hers as she moved her thigh off the desk.
"That's what you told me before-but later never comes. Look, Boss, I'm just a healthy girl, making an honest pass and there's nothing wrong with that. But, believe me Boss, I won't push it again...." Frankie's voice sounded hurt as she turned a little, to leave. John reached out to touch her bare body lightly with his fingertips. The contact stopped her. He could feel it inside him. This was pure sex-something he'd never tried before, except with Terry Anson, and then he'd been so confused he hadn't been able to sort out his impressions. He wondered if he'd really enjoyed it-he really couldn't remember.
"Frankie-later. I mean it," he said, his voice urgent.
She swung to him again, a sudden light hot in her eyes.
"When?" she demanded.
"You have an hour between shows-the first and second-haven't you?" he pointed out.
"Yeah," she nodded, "about an hour...."
"We'll pull you off the second show. Can't be asking the talent to work double-time now, can I?" The levity was wasted on Frankie. She undulated to the door and stopped there, turning to stare back at him, a puzzled expression on her features. She gave a small shake of her head as she opened the door and left, letting John remain with his muscles half-flexed to rise and leaving him with a vaguely uncomfortable feeling which, he recognized with a flash of irritation, seemed to be with him constantly of late.
It wasn't long after the door closed on Frankie that a knock sounded against the panel and John, drink in hand, called out:
"Come in."
"Hlyah, John-got your favorite-sirloin rare, with fries and mixed salad." It was Chuck, one of the bar staff, who looked after feeding John. He had an 'in' with the Chef of L'Aiglon, across the street, and used it.
"Chuck, it looks and smells wonderful, thank you. I'm starved," John said exhaling in appreciation and lifting his drink in thanks.
"Jean's best," Chuck grinned, ducking out the door.
John felt much better after he'd eaten and poured himself another Scotch on the rocks. His spirits lifted, fortified with food and bannered by the application of good whiskey; and he turned his thoughts to speculation on what his forthcoming appointment with Frankie Robbins might be like. After a moment, with a wry grin, he gave it up and decided that he could better spend the time watching the statuesque blonde in her act. Knowing Frankie, he knew watching her would be stimulating; especially in view of the 'main event' the two of them had arranged for later, in his office.
Frankie stood in the wings as the MC wound up his short routine and a burst of laughter applauded his last gag. She felt a flutter in her middle, wondering if she might have had a little too much to drink but rejecting the possibility at once. The flutter was due to John Carrol-and a hunger for him which had flared the afternoon she'd walked into his office. The almost somber precision of John's mien and the effortless control he seemed to exercise over his own actions and emotions had raked across the tendrils of Frankie's consciousness like a thumb-nail over harp strings. She hadn't lost a bit of the desire which had, alternately, smoldered and flared deep inside her. Frankie shrugged, compulsively, remembering that this was always the way it had been with her. One man would fix himself in her erotic focus-often through no volition nor conscious action on his part-and once he'd given Frankie 'the hots' (as she always phrased it to herself) that was that. She had to make it happen with that man and it was nobody else until she'd made it with him. Between these fixations, Frankie was normally selective of her men, but, while she was hung up on the occasional man, nothing did her any good until she could either have him, or failing that, find enough fault with him (by conscious effort) to get herself untangled. It was a queer thing, she sighed to herself, recognizing it for that, but there seemed to be nothing that she could do about it....
It had started, with Frankie, when she was sixteen years old. At that age, precocious in her physical development, she was the erotic target of most of the boys in her school. Not that she had encountered this situation overnight ... Frankie's body had been the focus of many a pair of hot, male eyes from the time she presented the nearly-complete conformation of a mature woman, which had come at about age thirteen.
Frankie knew lots about sex, first-hand; her mother had a big thing about it and with it. The adolescent Frankie had inherited the voluptuousness of body which characterized her mother, but she hadn't, despite the atmosphere in which she lived, adopted her mother's attitude toward sex. Some reticence, deep within the youngster, made her hold back-some unformed and unexpressed feeling that this was something which was her mother's province, alone, and not for her ignorant exploration or participation-made her stay aloof from the numerous attempts boys and men made to get to her.
The small flat in which Frankie and her mother lived was far from comfortable and their life, most often, was just a half step behind hand-to-mouth. But sex was her mother's recreation and escape and exercise and justification for living, all rolled into one. The jerry-built walls of the flat absorbed none of the sounds which came from the room of the young girl's mother; the number of men who visited the cramped flat was legion. At first, the panting, gasping moans and grunts and cries had frightened Frankie; then she became inured to them and, at length, she began to assess them with an experienced ear. She regarded, in big-eyed speculation, those visitors who evoked the most unbridled response in her mother, wondering what mysterious thing it was they did to her mother which delighted her so that, at times, she squalled like a tabby cat engaged in copulation.
Oddly enough, despite the fact that their abode was in the city, Frankie's first inkling of sex came from the animals in the neighborhood. The initial step in her education was the contemplation, in shocked wonder, of the coupling of the next-door neighbor's tabby and a wandering tom-cat. The noise had first drawn her attention from the arithmetic book; the action and the climactic sounds had held her enthralled until the torn released his victim and made his escape over the high board fence.
As Frankie lay back on her lumpy mattress, breathless and mysteriously excited, she reasoned that her mother wouldn't enjoy the grip of teeth in her neck (besides she'd never exhibited any such marks) so there must be something more to the activity than discomfort to produce the vocal response with which, by this time, she was quite familiar. So, she waited for the inevitable rite of Saturday night when a smiling, often awkwardly uncomfortable caller would spend a few moments in their mean living room, observing a show of the amenities before Frankie was dismissed to her room and the visitor and her mother began their mysterious games.
Quite often, there was a gift from these male callers. Frankie's mother did not consider herself a prostitute-she doubled as a dance-hall girl and stripper to scratch out a difficult livelihood-but the gifts were always welcome; were the only touches of luxury in the hardscrabble existence of the two females. Frankie reflected that her mother was never very good, on stage, straightening with pride in the knowledge that she, Frankie, was just the opposite. She had acquired a visual familiarity with the business of stripping, sneaking peeps from concealment while supposedly waiting for her mother in the dressing quarters, and had gone on to expand and refine her knowledge of the art. She was one of the best-and she knew she was good.
Finally the girl's curiosity had forced her to the keyhole of her mother's bedroom on several Saturday nights when the light had been left on ... and Frankie knew more of the picture. This evoked a normal response of sympathetic excitement, but still left much to be learned. One of Frankie's acquaintances, goaded by the girl's activity on the playground equipment one late afternoon provided further enlightenment. Frankie, just half-past thirteen, hadn't yet exhausted her hoydenish urge which persisted from earlier years. As she swung down from the ladder, her dress dropped to cover the tight panties which the eyes of her lone male companion had traversed with each exposure above his head.
"What's wrong?" Frankie demanded, noticing his bent posture as she resumed her feet. His face flushed and Frankie's eyes fixed on the fly of his dusty trousers to note the displacement there. She sat down and indicated that she wanted him to sit next to her. He did so, trying to cover his excited state with his arms, but Frankie would have none of it, pulling his arms away. At this manifestation of interest, the boy relaxed a little. Frankie was handy with her fists and he wanted none of them.
"Got a rail on," he explained, huskily.
"Why?" Frankie again demanded. The boy nodded toward the ladder overhead.
"Your dress fell back," he admitted, hesitantly, his eyes falling.
"So-what's that?" she demanded, scornfully. "All you saw was my pants." The boy shrugged, poising for flight, but Frankie's eyes, checking to area to find they were alone and concealed from adjacent residences by the playground equipment, decided to investigate farther.
"I-well, I don't know. I just saw 'em an'...." the lad's voice trailed off. He'd noticed Frankie's surreptitious survey and the innate lure of secretiveness held him.
"You ever seen a-a girl's?" Frankie demanded fiercely.
The lad shook his head. He had-peeping at his sisters through the bathroom keyhole-but he wasn't about to admit it to the formidable Frankie. A sudden instinct made him bold.
"You ever seen a boy's?" he probed, and Frankie was neatly trapped. She opened her mouth then closed it, recognizing if her answer were negative, he'd be one up on her. If she said 'yes,' his next demand would be a scornful challenge to prove it by identifying its owner and this got into the taboo area of adult country. So, Frankie, reluctantly, admitted ignorance.
"Wanta see?" he asked, his boldness expanding. Frankie, with another look around, reluctantly nodded her head, her eyes riveted on the object of her curiosity, projecting against the boy's pants.
"Al-alright," she said, clearing her throat.
"You first," he said, working at the fastening of his fly.
"You think I'm gonna take my pants off?" Frankie's ire flared.
"Naw," it was the lad's turn to be scornful. "Just pull 'em to one side, a little. No-I can't see-the other side."
"Oh, alright," Frankie grumbled complying, "there it is. Come on, now-take yours out." The excited lad hastened to do so. Frankie looked, wide-eyes at the display, then frowned as the boy stopped.
"Alright, where's the rest?" she demanded. Her companion snickered.
"Thought you said you'd never seen one," he jibed, reaching down....
The one thing which remained in Frankie's mind was that sex was littered with pitfalls ... mental and physical. The experience in the playground confirmed her belief. The mutual, tactile exploration which proceeded from their exposure, made small impression on Frankie, save for satisfying the burning curiosity which itched in her fingertips. The boy's hand was painful and disgusting in its touch....
Dodging, constantly, surreptitious caresses from her contemporaries, and guilelessly-mounted attempts by adults to get her alone, secretly, Frankie was dubious at the offer of a job her sixteenth summer, between school terms. One of her mother's callers owned an appliance repair business a short distance from their flat. His helper had been drafted and, deciding not to replace him for the summer to enhance his profits, he needed someone in the office when he was out on service calls.
However, it was a legitimate-Mr. Grissom was interested in sex at Mrs. Robbins only to the extent of one visit with Frankie's mother-and he felt, in Frankie, he could hire an intelligent youngster for a reasonable figure. He suggested the employment, not to Frankie, but to her mother. This gambit succeeded; her mother voted affirmatively for her taking the job, knowing it wasn't offered as a means of Frankie's seduction. The money, to the maternal parent's credit, was secondary in importance, badly as it was needed.
Mr. Grissom was patient in teaching the girl her duties: answering the phone and doing it pleasantly and intelligently; noting service calls accurately; memorizing the questions to ask callers. Frankie absorbed it and did it well. Her employer taught her one thing at a time and, before the first month was out, she was making his bookkeeping entries and writing out, in her precise schoolgirl hand, the few invoices his business required. Mostly, Mr. Grissom dealt in cash. As time passed, and Frankie recognized that the intentions of the employer were not what she'd feared, a mutual liking grew between the two of them. It existed because Mr. Grissom never came back to the apartment after his initial visit. Few of her mother's visitors made more than a second visit, but Frankie could not have condoned liking Mr. Grissom had he continued relations with her mother....
At the end of a month, then, Frankie was competent, handling her duties easily, and, quite often, finding time hanging heavy. One afternoon, about three-usually a dull hour for calls-she had gone to the restroom and, curiously, peeked through one of the holes scratched in the paint which opaqued the window. She was surprised to see into the stockroom of the Variety store, next door, which extended some distance back of the appliance repair location. A young man was talking to a young girl near the desk and, as Frankie noted their interest in each other seemed to be teasingly erotic, the phone interrupted her and she hustled out to answer it. After she recorded the call, she moved to the window in the back wall, around the corner of the restroom partition, and, applying an eye close to the almost-closed Venetian blind, she got almost a full length view of the couple at the desk. Evidently the girl was new at the job, since the fellow seemed to be explaining forms and indicating the location of merchandise to her. Frankie could tell at a glance that the girl's interest was almost equally divided between his explanations and him. The girl didn't flaunt it, but females have a sixth sense about such things and the signs seemed plain to Frankie.
Thereafter, she spent a good deal of time watching them, sensing that something was developing; her curiosity heightening and her excitement peaking as the days passed and isolated instances showed the intimacy between the two was growing. Evidently the girl worked elsewhere in the store part of her day, since Frankie rarely detected her presence in the stockroom before two-thirty or three in the afternoon. By mid-morning, the young man had finished stocking counters; by a little after four, he had locked up and vanished, most days.
By mid-July, the heat was oppressive in the afternoons and they were a drag. Frankie could have spent most-or all-of her time at her exciting observation post, but checked only to make sure that her familiar actors were present. By this time, the young man was freely touching his companion, albeit, he confined his teasing contacts to ticklish areas, such as her ribs or drawing a finger-nail up her straight spine, or, perhaps, tickling an ear with a paper spill. Frankie noted, with a smile, that the girl's reaction was always full; she gave him his money's worth, taking it big ... and keeping him coming back for more.
The character of their by-play then began to change, subtly. If the girl were seated on the high stool at the stand up desk when he tickled her spine, she kicked her legs a little higher and pulled her dress down a shade slower than before. More often, standing at the desk, she'd move to stand against him for an instant. Sometimes, when he'd tickle her, she'd grab his hand in such a manner that it brushed her breast or her buttocks.
Frankie, like an inveterate serial reader, was avid for the next installment in the pantomime and watched them every day. One drowsy afternoon, the streets were almost deserted in the heat and time seemed to be stewing in its own juice, so to speak. She went to the window, to note a shipment of merchandise just delivered as the truck pulled noisily away from the loading dock. The big cartons, containing soft goods, by their markings, had been stacked next to the door which led from the stock room into the store and Frankie noted the young man eyeing the stack dubiously, and testing its stability with his hand. Shrugging he went back to the desk with a sheaf of papers as the door opened and the gaily saucy girl in the piece swung in, hands clasped behind her buttocks, breasts out-thrust in her tight, brief dress. Frankie couldn't hear their conversation but knew it had to do with the girl's appearance as she pirouetted and posed, smiling and pleased.
Laughing the young man moved to stand at the desk and go to work on the papers, while the girl perched on the stool, pert legs crossed, the brief dress pulled several inches above her knees. Frankie noted the full curves of the legs and a thrill of anticipation went through her as she noted the young man's eyes kept coming back to the display. The girl, evidently, was in a mischievous mood this day. As she sat on the stool, hands clasped over her knees, she occasionally stretched a toe of her pump to touch her co-worker's leg, the act always bringing his eyes to the display of taut, nylon-covered limbs. As he turned away from the desk toward her peep-slot, Frankie noted, with a leap of her pulses, that the young man was exhibiting a clearly discernable masculine response to the provocative presence of the girl. As she rocked, laughed and talked on the stool, the dress hem moved a little higher and the young man's obsession with the exposure of her provocative limbs intensified. At some sally, he made, the girl either lost-or pretended to lose-her balance. Frankie heard her squeal, her legs flying apart to reveal the white of her panties as the young man shot out a quick hand, swinging her back by grabbing an out-flung arm, the action ending as the stool toppled and the girl fell against the young man, legs spread, dress to her hips, and safely cradled tight against him in his muscular arms. For the space of a few heartbeats, they froze together, the girl's face upturned. Frankie could see the muscles of his arms swell as he increased the pressure of her body against his. Then his mouth descended and the girl's exposed legs, bent then stiffened as his mouth covered hers. She attempted to struggle but, Frankie could tell, not too hard, as the kiss persisted. When they broke their embrace, both were panting, the girl's bodice fairly dancing with her respiratory effort, her hands making fumbling gestures to pull the brief dress down. As the young man bent and turned to retrieve the stool, Frankie noted the extreme distension of his slacks, saw the girl's eyes dart downward too, as she fussed and patted at her hair.
As the man, in his excitement, attempted to right the high stool, it skittered, out of balance, from his grasp, bouncing against the recently stacked cartons of merchandise. They tottered and fell, and, as the two turned to watch the collapse, Frankie noted that the caroming cartons jammed into a barricade before the door which opened into the stock room. Throwing up both hands in pretended disgust, the man righted the stool at the desk and waved the stack away from consideration. The girl, laughing, finished with her hair and started to mount the stool again but was balked as the young man's arms again captured her waist and he pulled her tight against him and resumed kissing her. His hands slipped downward to her buttocks as his back arched and he pushed, tentatively, against her, Frankie noticing, breathlessly, the girl's hands clenching and unclenching on his back.
Her own heart pounding and her breath hanging in her throat, Frankie uttered a muffled "damn!" as the phone ran. She tore away from her peeping to answer it and was relieved that it was a wrong number. By the time she glued her eye to the slot again, the young woman's hands were pulling, listlessly, at the embrace in which the aroused man held her. His head moved ceaselessly as he kissed her and Frankie, grinning nervously, noted the trembling of the girl's unsteady legs. As her resistance ceased, and her arms and hands fluttered for a place to rest, the young man lowered one hand beneath her pert buttocks and began to work the tight dress upwards. Twisting in an attempt to balk his move, she could not break his ardent kiss and, as Frankie's thumping heart threatened to escape her ribs, she saw the slow, purposeful rise of the brief dress as he pulled it above the swell of her buttocks, to reveal the tight panties clinging to her hips without a wrinkle.
Then their kiss broke for a moment as the girl, eyes half closed, gasped and panted, evidently pleading with him to stop; but he shook his head and, lifting her onto the stool as he might a life-sized doll, he moved between the struggling thighs and resumed his kissing. As the girl's legs waved and searched for the rungs of the stool, he began to work the tight, clinging panties down over her hips. Now Frankie could see the girl's lower lip caught in her teeth as she felt the man's hands baring her but he completed the task, deftly, still holding her with one tight arm, lifting her, then drawing the garment down her thighs. He moved from between her shaking limbs for just long enough to draw the garment down, over her feet and, wadding them, to stuff them into his side pocket. Frankie could see the perspiration running, glistening down his cheeks; his shirt wet with it. Breaking his kiss and his embrace, he turned, staying between the girl's parted thighs and Frankie gasped as she clearly saw the shadowed target between them. His hands were fumbling with his slacks and, with difficulty, he tugged and writhed as he struggled to prepare himself to make his next move. Frankie's eyes blurred; she batted them furiously, wiping at them with the back of her hand to clear her vision.
She succeeded as the man extracted the object of his effort and her mouth dropped open in a gasp as she got a clear view of the aroused, upward curving appendage. Its tip swollen and its length jerking, it seemed enormous to her inexperienced eyes. As he worked all of himself free, Frankie could feel the pinwheels of sensation rowelling through her bosoms, her pelvis ... every part of her body. She thought she'd never get another breath as the young man turned the girl on the stool so her back was steadied against the desk. Then, both their heads inclined downward, watching, Frankie saw his knees bend and his feet shuffle as one hand moved to guide himself and he possessed the girl with a slow lift of his hips as her legs alternately kicked and froze in her excitement....
Frankie sagged against the window, the echoes of shocking waves of sensation pulsing along her nerves, receding, delicious, unknown to her previously. The actors in the dumb-show she had witnessed in every detail had provided her with an education she could not have otherwise come by except through perilous involvement of her person. Now, through the demonstration-and her own reaction-she had pierced the veil of mystery about the cries from her mother's room; the efforts of unwary school boys to 'cop feels'; the attempts of repulsive, grown men who, drooling, tried to entice her on street corners ... and these she could sweep out of her mind as undesirable. But the paralyzing, shuddering ecstasy which the pantomime had triggered in her own, hyper-excited nervous system, explained the 'why.' She didn't, Frankie considered-with instinctive wisdom, know it all but, with what she knew, her mind was like a bee-hive, piecing together a lot of what had gathered in it, as unrelated bits and fragments, to fill in a growing jig-saw puzzle of understanding....
She braved her mother's disapproval to ask her some very direct questions and, after the older woman's embarrassment wore off, they had their first (and last) mother-to-daughter dialogue concerning the subject of sex in which Frankie persisted until she found out what she wanted to know-how to do it without having babies. It was a long and gruelling time for both of them, but the last week Frankie worked for Mr. Grissom, before school opened, she raised the window one afternoon, as the young man locked the stock-room door and started down the alley for home.
"Hi," Frankie said and his head snapped around, a pleased grin coming to his lips as he saw Frankie's lush body....
Frankie heard her cue and her body went into action as she moved onto the stage in the hot glare of lights, music and applause beating at her ears. She caught sight of John, watching outside his office, and bumped her hips at him, in the joyful abandon she assumed on stage. Her performance was an erotic masterpiece and she took three legitimate bows. As the applause started to run down, and the MC prepared to go into the next routine on the bill, she gathered her robe snugly about her voluptuous body and strode through the darkened club, along the wall, to John Carrol's office.
When John re-entered his office, Frankie was again sitting on the edge of his desk, robe thrown aside, the only covering on her the tiny, narrow g-string the law required. John's eyes sought the great breasts, feasting on the big nipples. John knew the girl was a hell of an asset and would keep the customers coming for months. He was still shaking in reaction from her act.
"What would you like to drink?" he asked.
"Just booze," she answered, unsmiling.
John poured them both straight Scotch, and she nodded her thanks as he gave her the glass.
"How'd you like the show?" she asked as she lifted her drink.
"Just one little degree hotter and we'd be neck-deep in cops," he complimented her. "Great!" Standing close to her he could feel the erotic stab of reaction at her nearness-you couldn't help it, John felt-but suddenly something was lacking. Frankie sensed the subtle change in the atmosphere, looking at him with thoughtful eyes. She reached back and suddenly the g-string disappeared as, completely naked, she stood before him, her gaze never wavering. As she moved to walk to the sofa, John started to follow, but Frankie stopped him with a hand on his chest.
"No," she said in a low voice, "not yet. I'll give you a show in a little while. You watch it from behind your desk ... then we'll see if I don't get your batteries charged." He looked at her a moment then went back to his desk. After a while, he re-filled their drinks, conscious now that he had an aversion to the entire idea; feeling the awkwardness of the situation grow. He was uncomfortable and Frankie was waiting for him to unbend.
Finally, she got up and began her show, moving her body in sensual patterns which increased in intensity as the moments passed.
Watching, John realized, he felt nothing.
"Turn on, baby," Frankie whispered, breaking her silence. "Come on big for Frankie and it'll be the best lay that ever happened to you ... I really mean it...."
Her words vanished in the explosion of the office door bursting open and slamming shut. Startled, they jerked their eyes to the intruder. Alice was standing, her back against the door, a revolver levelled at Frankie.
"So, you don't play around!" she gritted. Her voice made cold chills dance on John's spine. He sensed, immediately, that Alice was out of herself. The cold began to gather in his belly as he slowly started to his feet.
"Don't move, John!" her voice slashed at him.
"How much have you had to drink, Alice?" he asked quietly.
"Nothing for several hours, Johnny. I don't need liquor for this. I just sat and thought about the women you've been banging in here and I swore to myself I'd pay you for it. In full."
John stood helpless and the naked Frankie was frozen in place. John frantically tried to think this was a nightmare but knew it wasn't.
"I'm going to kill both of you," Alice said in a harsh, flat voice....