Chapter 12

The flight out was marvelous . . . like one long, screaming orgasm as the engines roared and the phallic jet tore through the vaginal tenderness of the sky.

Laura sat near the back of the plane, outfitted in a new, coral-tinted suit, a small white hat, and very large sunglasses. Her luggage was new, too-and everything inside the suitcases. Not only had she left her old self behind, she had left almost every reminder of the past.

The only lingering hint of homesickness-if that was indeed how the hollow feeling of her cunt could be described-was the fact that she would no longer have Mike Barton to while away her hours with.

A small, careless grin turned up the corners of her mouth beneath the huge sunglasses. She and Mike really had nothing to regret about the night before. There was nothing they had denied each other-and once the madness of total debauchery had seized Mike's youthful brain, it had been all she could do to satisfy his fancy. Perhaps the craziest note of the evening had been struck when he poured honey in her cunt, then fucked her vigorously, saying that he wanted to screw the sweetest pussy in town. Then, at high heat, he had pulled out his throbbing, honey-smeared cock and made her lick it while he shot a torrent of sperm wildly against her lips and cheek.

Darling Mike-the all-American boy, with a honey-coated hard-on!

But it really was better that she was leaving him far behind. Otherwise, she might find herself becoming too fond of one dick and one pair of balls, and that would never do. She wanted to be like Bev, at least for a while. In short, she had a hell of a lot of fucking to catch up on.

As such randy, lewd thoughts were running through her mind, Laura happened once to turn and catch a reflection of her face in the seat window beside her. She barely recognized the round, plain face behind the giant, phonily sophisticated glasses. A nervous chill ran through her spine-as if the lost voice of her anguished mother were calling to her from the grave.

Laura listened for a moment, hearing the echoes of a past that could never be recaptured. Then she turned her head away and settled down deeper into the comfortable seat, listening instead to the promising drum of the jet engines which were carrying her closer each second to a new life.

She was met at LA International by C. Phillip Conner, the Claude of Bev's letters. He was right there as she traversed the bright patch of sunlight from ramp to gate. She was both disappointed and pleased by his appearance as he came toward her, one hand outstretched, his crisply shaven face wreathed in smiles.

"You're Laura," he said, in a voice almost brightly effeminate. "Bev has shown me a thousand snaps of you, so I can't be mistaken. I'm Claude . . ."

She took his hand, at the same time staring at him, impressed by him, and yet vaguely disappointed. He was much older than she had imagined. He had deep lines imprinted around his mouth and edges of his eyes. He was tanned a deep brown, and the thick white of his temples and sideburns made a rather startling contrast. His eyes were the clearest and bluest she had ever seen-blue as tropical seawater-and they twinkled with a kind of tired innocence.

He was as fashionably dressed as possible, with a camel-gold, twill country suit, an open-collared shirt and one of those flowing ring-ties of raw silk.

"Where is Bev?" she asked.

"On the yacht, my dear, waiting for us. Actually, she's supervising a little welcome-aboard party we've prepared for you . . . guests arriving, and all-so she sent me on the happy errand of escorting you."

Laura took a scanty breath. "A party? But I thought-"

"That we were still playing out the little game of deception? We are, in a way. The yacht is anchored in a private cove, so nobody has a hint we're here. For all the newspapers know, your sister is still lost at sea." He smiled charmingly over the last phrase. "Beveraly is anything but lost at sea, eh?"

On impulse, Laura blurted the facts of her life at him. "I quit a perfectly good job to come out here, Mr. Conner. I moved out of my apartment, and-"

"And you did exactly what Bev and I wanted you to do. It's time you got out of the midwest. Bev has worried her pretty head off about you. That was precisely the reason for all those long and boring letters she wrote."

'They weren't boring. Not at all."

"Bev will be relieved to hear that. At any rate, let me repeat that you did exactly the right thing to chuck your past behind you. When we get back from the little pleasure cruise that Bev and I have planned, then I'll see to it that you get another job, if that's what you want. My mother founded one of the largest, privately endowed libraries on the West Coast. I can get you a nice, fat, comfortable position there if you find too much idle time on your hands. Everybody should work at something, I suppose."

Laura smiled. "Do you work at something?"

He returned her smile, the suntanned skin of his face crinkling with pleasure. "Yes, Laura. I work at keeping myself amused. And believe me, that's a monumental task at times. Shall we go?"

As they sped down the freeway in Claude's custom-built Ferrari, Laura began to draw together in her head the notes of a not-yet-sung melody. The information which Bev had communicated to her in one of the letters concerning Claude was the primary motif of the little tune: He wants to fuck you.

They drove through a thickly wooded area that was completely shut off from the highway which had carried them off the freeway. At one point, an iron gate momentarily blocked their way before the electric eye operated, and allowed them through. They drove for several hundred yards, stopping at an elegant marina where a bright-red launch was waiting. A man in a white uniform and nautical cap immediately stepped forward to take Laura's bags from the car. The launch was already purring, ready to whisk them away.

Claude escorted her aboard and into the small cabin; the uniformed man took the controls.

"Care for a drink, my dear-something to give you your sea legs properly?" Claude smiled. He produced two crystal goblets and turned a bottle of champagne a few times in a large, silver bucket.

Laura had never had a drink in her life-if one discounted that wild encounter in the cheap hotel where Jack had forced liquor down her before she was raped.

"Just a taste," she said.

Claude dutifully poured a small amount into Laura's goblet and handed it to her. He touched his own glass to hers, making a musical tinkle above the hum of the launch.

They sipped the champagne, and Laura settled back into her comfortable seat, with Claude sitting opposite. Despite herself, Laura glanced down at the V of his crotch. She had not forgotten Beverly's elaborate description of her lover's sexual equipment. She was a bit disappointed to see nothing-not even the outline of a prick. She couldn't keep from thinking how different it would have been if Mike Barton had been sprawled opposite her. He was always showing the long, husky proof of his maleness under his tight jeans.

Suddenly she heard a small, intemperate chuckle from her host. Her eyes went to his face, and she flushed. He had seen the whole thing, and he was smiling.

"I told your sister she was making a mistake, writing all those delicious lies to you in the letters."

She waited, the champagne glass frozen in her grip

"Oh, don't be alarmed, Laura. Not everything Bev said in the letters was a lie. By no means. Most of it, in fact, was quite true, I suppose. It's simply that she is prone to hyperbole-to sexual exaggeration.

I'm not at all the bull she pictured me to be, and as for all that nonsense of satisfying her sexually, I'm afraid that would be quite out of the question. I'm impotent where females are concerned."

He said the last words with such an off-handed bravado that Laura wondered if he were telling the truth either!

"I-I don't understand," she breathed.

He chuckled again. "Don't you, my sweet? It means that I'm incapable of performing all those miracles of heterosexual daring she pictured to you in the letters. But even if I were, it wouldn't be for the charm of a woman's pleasure."

She understood that remark even less!

And then the ridiculous-and faintly disgusting-truth of what he was saying came home to her.

"You don't like females at all?" she insisted, softly.

His blue eyes sparkled. "Oh, my, I wouldn't put it all that grimly. Of course, I like women. I love to have them around. They usually amuse me and I find them quite often clever and attractive and immensely decorative, like flowers and pieces of nice furniture. But as for sex ... I'd as soon make love to a codfish."

"But Bev-"

"She lied to you disgracefully on that point. I suppose it's unfair of me to spill the beans, and all that. Maybe the poor dear would have preferred to tell you herself. Or maybe she wouldn't have, on second thought. At any rate, the truth is out. I'm a homosexual, Laura. I prefer men to women. It's a simple-and quite ancient-facet of human life. There have always been males of my sexual persuasion. But don't let any of this spoil your-ah-vacation. There's always plenty of variety aboard my PEACOCK. If it's a crazy fuck you're after, then I have lots of virile males in my employ who love nothing better. They'll service your spicy cunt until hell won't have you."

He took a long, thoughtful sip of his champagne. His lips were glistening and wet when they came away from the rim of the glass, and twisted into the sardonic smile of a spoiled child.

"Frankly, my dearest Laura, I envy you. It would be a rare treat, I think, for me to experience the joy of a hole between my legs. I'd feed it hordes of sailors and football players and the like, and especially my lovely Eduardo." He paused, thoughtfully. "That reminds me. There is one rule which I always invoke against my female guests, and some of them find it quite distressing. But I suppose I am entitled to my little eccentricities, too. It's a rule that I never allow to be broken."

She heard her voice coming up in a mouse-like whisper.

"And what is that rule?"

"It concerns my young Mexican friend, Eduardo. Under no circumstances is he allowed to touch any of my guests, male or female. He's mine, strictly. Of course, Eduardo would never dream of desiring a male, but I know how desperately he often yearns to put his remarkable talents to use inside the thighs of a female. It makes the total possession of him just that much more enchanting-for me."

Laura remembered her sister's tale about the young Mexican fucking some aging Duchess for hours, and Bev's cynical promise that the same rogue would take her maidenhead, if she wished. It had all been a lie, then.

She couldn't help but wonder what else were equivocations-and for the first time since arriving, she felt a sudden apprehension in the vibrations of the launch that was carrying her out to sea . . .

"You know," her host mused, abruptly, "you remind me of someone, Laura. But for the life of me, I can't recall who. Isn't that tiresome of me! More champagne, darling?"

The PEACOCK was anchored quite far out in the bay, but the minute Laura saw it, she knew how her sister-or any woman-could have been so easily hypnotized into loving it. It was a floating, pink castle with twin cabins and a powerful diesel engine. A dozen or so launches floated around the side of it, like small piglets sucking at the tits of the larger ship.

"I'm sure the party is already underway," Claude breathed, as the engine of their own launch was cut and the foam drifted away to the sides. "Your sister has the irresistible urge to get things underway as soon as possible."

Laura and her host climbed the ladder that had been let down for them, and at the top, smiling and holding a glass of bubbling champagne, stood Beverly.

The sight of her almost took Laura's breath away. She had certainly never looked lovelier!

"Darling Laura-my dearest sweets!"

They enfolded each other into their arms while an amused and curious gaggle of guests clustered around them. Laura had no time to study the new faces. She had eyes only for Bev-and then Laura remembered the letters, and knew that Bev was a living, cheap lie.

From her new, more realistic viewpoint, Laura began to pick her sister's appearance to pieces. Bev was not pretty, she told herself, she was merely flashy, like a painted china doll with a hollow head. Eyelashes, lipstick, rouge-all coming together in a sort of garish blur. If anything, Bev looked haggard and unhappy under all the paint.

Somebody shoved another glass of champagne at Laura, and even before she could protest, she found herself being propelled through the guests aboard the yacht. She was suddenly the center of the gay harlequinade.

There were both males and females aboard-some of them very young, and some of them the age of Claude Conner. They were all elegantly, fashionably dressed, all sipping the champagne, all talking, laughing, watching . . .

And it was nut until Laura's head began to cloud with shadows from the tangy, odd-tasting champagne that she realized they were all really watching her.

And waiting, it seemed, for something very special to happen.