Chapter 9
Laurie was still naked when she opened her eyes and discovered that she was locked inside the outer office with Vince. Now that her passion was dissipated and her fear had been replaced with dread and partial resignation to her undeserved fate, she could see how the trap had been laid and how she'd fallen into it. She felt thoroughly soiled and absolutely unworthy of any decent man as she realized the incredible passion which had consumed her in Joe Lovato's office, but her mind was back to normal and Laurie knew she could never actually accept the degrading life of a whore.
With only a glimmer of hope that he might have mercy on her, Laurie struggled to a sitting position on the floor and looked up pleadingly at Vince, who was leaning back in the chair beside the door, guarding her, and she asked for her life. "Let me go, Vince. Take me out of here. I'll kill myself the first chance I get if you don't."
"I believe you mean that," Vince gulped.
Laurie nodded. "I won't be a whore."
"Sure, you will, baby," he said, trying to laugh off her suicide threat. "Another sex session or two, and you'll forget about killing yourself. Hell, Laurie, you'll make a great whore, baby. You're a natural for it. I could see that when I signed you on the crew."
The outer office also had a window, which Laurie looked at longingly before she shuddered and decided that death was too permanent. There had to be another way out of her dilemma, and she was determined to bide her time until she found it. She wouldn't be a whore, at least for any longer than she could help, but she just couldn't force herself to jump through that appealing window. Besides, there were several questions she wanted answered first. There didn't seem to be any great rush. She could hear Joe Lovato and his hired stud talking in his private office, discussing her and where in their evil business to put her, she supposed, although she could make out little of their conversation.
"How many innocent girls have you trapped and sold into white slavery, you sonovabitch?" Laurie asked.
"Watch your tongue, Laurie!"
"Why should I, bastard? What else can you do to me?"
Vince shrugged and grinned sickly. "That's life, baby."
"For snakes, maybe. Dogs are above it."
"Lay off, Laurie! It's over . . . done with!"
"For you, you mean," she groaned. "It's barely begun for me. How many girls have you sold into this living hell, Vince? I want to know!"
"Several," he admitted. "Twenty-five . . . twenty-six, maybe."
"Do you always hire them to sell magazines, first?" .
"Yeah. It's a slick setup. If you hadn't been so smart, it would have gone better for you. By the end of the summer, you'd have been ready and willing. You've got the makings of a great whore, Laurie. I just wish I'd had time to cultivate you. Forget that slave shit Joe was spouting. He was just using it to break you to harness. Once you start cooperating, you'll get paid and paid plenty. You'll have lots of freedom, too. With your looks, you'll be able to pick and choose your customers, honey, and you'll wind up loaded with dough when you retire in your mid-thirties. It's a great life, Laurie! You'll like it once you get into it."
"How would you know? You're a man."
"Sue's not a man. She worked ten years for Joe before we got married, and loved it."
Laurie thought that bit of information over. "Does Sue really go for young boys, like you said, or... "
"Both." Vince grinned. "She likes young cock, all right, but I put her up to laying your boy friend, figuring you'd do just what you did, honey. How can a girl as smart as you be so naive?" he asked, and laughed.
"My mother never knew any men like you," Laurie replied sweetly. "So she couldn't warn me about the kinds of things that crawl out from under rocks."
"Are you gonna shut that up, or do I have to knock the shit out of you?"
Laurie could see that it was no idle threat, so she decided she'd better watch her tongue. She didn't feel like being knocked about, and there still were some answers she wanted. "You put Tony up to trying to seduce me that first day?"
"Sure . .. and if you'd let him, you wouldn't have been raped."
"Speaking of that, who was the other man? I know Tony was one of them, but I haven't been able to figure out who the other was. Do I know him? Have I met him?"
Vince pointed his thumb at his chest and grinned.
"I should have known," Laurie groaned. "Oh, Jesus .. . and I ran right to you for help!"
"Yeah. Funny, isn't it?"
"Hilarious," Laurie said dryly. "What about the two old ladies? I know that was the house."
"It was the house .. . with things changed just like you thought," Vince admitted. "The old ladies used to run cathouses for the guy Joe took over from. They were hookers in their prime. They're both retired now. They live there. It's really their house."
"And of course you helped Tom along in his doubt that I had been raped."
"Had to," Vince said. "Had to kill his love for you or kill Tom. He would've loused up the whole deal. Wouldn't you rather have him alive and despising you rather than dead because he loved you and got in the way?"
"Poor Tom. Yes, I'd much rather have him alive . .. even hating me . . . like he must now."
"Anything else you want to know, baby?"
"Yes, that house you sent me to this afternoon. They told me a fantastic tale about it being a swingers' club. It was a lie, wasn't it?"
"Nope, they leveled with you there, but the swingers only come out at night. Angie is a prostitute. I recruited her more than a year ago. As for the rape, Frankie, he's a hood owned by Joe. I hear you really went for the orgy bit right off," Vince said with a sly "wink. "How'd you like sucking Angie's twat? How would you like to team up with her and play the stags sixty-nining?"
"I didn't know what I was doing at the time," Laurie said honestly. "I was out of my head, I guess. No, I have no desire to do that again. Did they put something in the drink I had?"
Vince nodded. "A little something. Not much, honey. Mostly you were high on plain old lust."
Satisfied that she now knew how she'd been had but not having the foggiest notion what she could do about her horrible predicament short of the suicide she'd already rejected, Laurie lapsed into a sullen silence and began pondering her future chances of escape.
"The girl I recruited for Joe last month was a cute little doll," Laurie heard Vince saying without really listening to him. "Melba was her name. Stood only four-foot-ten and didn't weigh more than a hundred pounds dripping wet, but, God, was she cute! I had time to develop her before I delivered her to Joe. You know, get her over her sexual hang-ups. She was ready. Made her debut into prostitution in a stag show. Christ, that was something to see! That Saint Bernard must have weighed twice what she did, but I'm damned if she didn't fuck that big dog down to a frazzle."
Laurie couldn't help but listen then. The bestial act Vince was so vividly describing struck Laurie as just too horrendous for words, but she couldn't help perking up and paying attention to the sordid tale. It made her skin crawl and her spine tingle, but she could almost picture the small girl and the big dog coupled together, and it was fascinating in an obscene sort of way.
"That dog's cock was as big around as mine back close to his body, and I swear it must have been as long as my forearm, with a pointed tip at the end of that long, fiery red mutha. I thought those yokels were gonna crap in their drawers when little Melba got down on all fours and started lickin' the dog's tapering prick.
"Damned if she didn't get carried away and suck the animal off all the way before she could quit eating its dick. You know what she said to the audience? Big as you please, she licked the cum off her lips and smacked real loud, then said, 'If my daddy could only see me now, he'd be kicking his own ass for not fucking me when I was twelve. He had the end of his dick in my cunt before he chickened out and begged me not to tell Mother.' Those were her exact words, Laurie. Then she went back to performing by making the dog lick the juice out of her cunt.
"The guys nearly went wild. They really appreciated Melba's lack of restraint. I had to pat myself on the back for training her so well."
"When did the dog fuck her?" Laurie startled herself by asking.
"I didn't think you were listening, baby," Vince said with a lewd grin.
"I was listening," Laurie admitted.
"Couldn't help it, huh? Does it turn you on to hear about a girl and a dog?"
"I'm curious, is all," Laurie said.
"You want to hear the rest of it?"
Laurie nodded.
"Well, the dog's dick never did go soft, what with the knot in it and all. They slip their nuts when they come, you know."
"No, I didn't."
"Yeah. Hangs 'em up in a bitch dog, but that knot can give a woman a real thrill if she makes good use of it. Melba made damned good use of it. You could've heard a pin drop when she got on all fours again and reached back to help the dog get it in her. Jesus, that was something. . . watching that tiny girl with that big Saint Bernard reared up on her and fumbling to find her puss.
"Melba solved that problem quick enough. She wrapped her hot little hand right around that slick red rod and aimed it at her slit. She was nearly as red on the inside as the dog, because they'd been playing around for a good while and both of 'em were panting something fierce.
"You should've seen those goggle-eyed clods in the front row when Melba guided the dog's pecker into her and let go with half of it already out of sight. The hound let out a yelp and socked the rest of it to her. There was at least nine inches of beet-red pecker up her cunt, maybe ten. I don't know how in the hell such a small girl managed to take it all. Could be the tip was pointed enough so that it penetrated right on into her- womb. If it didn't, it must've curled around inside her or jabbed clear up to her dangling tits.
"Wherever it went, Melba started to shake all over when the animal shoved the last part of it into her. It was easy to see she was coming right off, even before she started throwing her head about and making those funny noises way down in her throat. That dog cock must've really been something to give Melba her jollies so quick, because I had her tolerance to fucking built up to where she could take on all six guys in her sales crew in a row and let every one of 'em come back for seconds if they were able after she got through with them the first time around. It took a lot of doing to get Melba that far along, since when I got her as raw material she was the youngest daughter of a hellfire preacher.
"I've learned those preachers' daughters make the best whores in the long run, though, once you get them to give up their God-shouting and direct their energies toward cock. But you wanted to hear about the fucking, not the girl, didn't you, Laurie?"
"I th-think I've h-heard enough."
"Are you getting hot from all this talk, honey?"
"No," Laurie lied.
Vince stuck his hand between her legs and felt her juice-oozing box. "Don't try to snow me, honey--you're turning on!"
"All right! Maybe I am. So what?"
"You wanna try some dog cock, honey?" he taunted. "Would you like me to fix you up a date with a Saint Bernard?"
"No! For God's sake, Vince!"
"I guess not," Vince said, smirking. "You're bigger than Melba. The dog probably wouldn't do as much for you as it did for her. How about a horse, Laurie? Jesus, I'll bet you'd love having a horse's cock rammed into you, wouldn't you?"
Laurie started to tell him to go to hell, but the elevator jerked and started down, causing them both to forget the obscene conversation and listen, Vince with worry and Laurie with unfounded hope.
The freight elevator stopped at the bottom, then started grinding back up. It stopped on the third floor again, and running footsteps sounded before there was a frantic knock on the door followed by a hushed, "Vince! Vince, are you in there?"
"Sue?"
"Yes, damn it! Who were you expecting! Open up! Let me in! I've got to talk to you!"
Vince unlocked and opened the door for his breathless wife, and Sue burst into the outer office in a very disheveled condition. She had an ugly bruise on her left cheek. Her hair was a tangled mess. All the buttons were missing from her blouse, and it was ripped. Her face was tear-stained and her lower lip was bleeding. She looked as if she'd been beaten by the ghost she'd seen, because her face was ashen and she was obviously scared out of her wits.
"Good God, what happened to you?" Vince asked.
"Tom came to the room," she panted. "You'd barely left. He demanded to see Laurie. I told him you'd taken her to the Chicago police . . . but he wasn't dumb enough to buy it. He started batting me around, Vince! Jesus! He knocked it out of me!"
"Oh, my God! You told him?"
"Only that you were taking Laurie to the company's main office. I didn't say anything more ... only that you were bringing her to see Joe and ..."
"And?"
"I don't think he bought it, Vince. He wanted me to bring him over... and when I wouldn't... he really roughed me up!"
"So what are you doing here, Sue?" Vince snapped.
"He made me bring him, goddamn it! That's what I've been trying to tell you!"
"Christ! You stupid bitch! Where is he, downstairs?"
"Fuck off with that!" Sue hissed. "Do you think I'm stupid enough to bring him here?"
"Then where the shit is he?" Vince demanded.
"I dunno. I let him out a few blocks from here. At another warehouse on the edge of the district. I saw lights on in one and I stopped. I told him you had Laurie in there, and he jumped out to go in after her. When he did, I got out of there fast!"
"Sonovabitch! He didn't follow you, did he?"
"I don't think so, Vince. I didn't give him time! There were a couple of kids parked up the street, necking, but I don't think Tom saw their car, and as far as I could tell there was no one else around. I did the best I could, Vince! The bastard would've killed me! I had to get him off my back! What should I have done? Taken him to the Evanston police?!"
"No," Vince said, calming himself by pacing back and forth. "You did the only thing you could've done, I guess. Do you think Barringer knows?"
"He doesn't know where the warehouse is, honey," Sue insisted. "I didn't bring him near it."
"I mean, does he know why I brought Laurie here!"
"I don't know, Vince. He must be suspicious! He has to know something, otherwise he wouldn't have waded in on me like he did!"
"God love a duck!" Vince groaned. "There goes our whole setup! Mine and yours. With the magazine gimmick. Barringer is bound to run to the cops now! We can be traced through the sales organization, Sue. We've got to find that boy. Goddamn, I wish you had brought him here!"
"You wish I'd brought him here!" Sue wailed.
"If we don't kill Tom Barringer, honey, Joe Lovato is going to kill us!"
Sue had to sit down when the truth of her husband's statement sank in.
"Do you think you can find the spot where you let him out, Sue?"
She nodded dumbly. "I think so. Jesus, I'd better find it. . . and he'd better still be around there!"
"Is my thirty-eight in the car?"
Sue nodded again. "I reached under the seat and unsnapped the holster while I was driving over . .. just in case I couldn't dump Tom."
"I wish you'd used it and then dumped him."
"So do I now," Sue said with a shudder.
Laurie, who'd been sitting unobtrusively and taking in everything the Caldwells had been saying, let her hopes begin to rise. She inched toward the window and peered down into the street, but nothing was there except the Caldwells' bus and car.
"Get the hell away from that window!" Sue cried. "Vince, get her away from there! She's naked! What if she's spotted by a police cruiser?"
"That's just what we need," Vince groaned. "Laurie! Get your ass back over here and sit down!"
"Piss on you!" Laurie yelled, and she tried to open the window and scream for help, but it was locked and by the time she'd figured out how to open it, it was too late. Vince had her by the arm and was dragging her back out of sight, slapping her to warn her she'd better not try anything else.
Sobbing, Laurie huddled in a corner and buried her face in her hands.