Chapter 8

"I have to guard my reputation every waking a minute." Nat Collins said to Carol across the dim-lit booth in the Pirate Cove bar. "With a man in my position, you see, where money is involved, there cannot be a breath of scandal."

Carol gave him an adoring look. All the girls in our department idolize you." she said. "They all think you're so distinguished, and so correct in everything you do. They think you're wonderful."

He touched at his small mustache with his fingertips, smiling faintly. "Do they, my dear? And what do you think of me?"

She lowered her eyes, afraid he might read in them that she really thought he was a dirty old man hiding behind a facade of dignity. She said in a low tone, "What do I know, a young girl like me?"

"You're old enough to know your own emotions, my dear."

She drew a deep breath, then and spoke with faked but warm-sounding sincerity. "I think you're one of the handsomest, most distinguished looking men I've ever seen. I wish my own father had looked like you."

"Thank you, my dear," Collins said, but she could see he was disappointed that she had equated him with her father. She thought bitterly that her father wouldn't even be as old as Nat if he had survived that long-ago trucking accident.

"I know that you could never do anything to jeopardize the wonderful reputation you've built up," she said. "I'm so proud to be working with you, instead of with that Mr. Jemson who was caught in that hotel room by his wife."

She bit back a smile, knowing that not even an executive vice president of the mortgage and loan company would know that she had been the girl with Jemson. He had not even returned to the office the next day, and his letter of resignation had been accepted. Carol had revealed her true age to Myra's lawyer and this grateful man, given additional ammunition to use against John Jemson in the divorce suit, had insisted that her identity be kept secret for the present because of her age. When the pictures were shown at the trial of Jemson vs. Jemson if they ever were her identity would be revealed, but until then she was quite safe in her job with National Mortgage and Loan.

"Poor Jemson," Nat said smugly. "But I'm afraid he asked for his troubles. He was very careless with his reputation. He ran after girls. I'm certainly glad, my dear, that you were never involved with him."

"Oh, so am I," she breathed. "The girls at the office warned me about him. They told me what a wolf he was, and the way he cheated on his poor wife. You'd never do that, I know."

"My wife has been dead many years, poor dear," Nat said. "But I assure you, if I had been tempted to step out of line as John was, I'd have been very discreet. No whisper of it would ever have reached our company or anyone else, I assure you."

"A wonderful man like you," Carol said. "I can't understand how you were not caught by some other woman a long time ago."

"After my wife passed on, another right one never came along," he said. "Oh, I've met many lovely women--t never quite the right one. That is, until lately...."

He did not finish this, though he gave her a warm smile and touched at his mustache with his fingertips. She did not say anything, but lowered her eyes demurely.

"A woman would be fortunate to have you for a husband," she said at last. "Just as a girl would be blessed to have you for a father."

Nat had just been reaching out to cover her fingers on the tablecloth. At the mention of his role as a father, he hesitated, reminded forcibly again of the irreconcilable difference in their ages.

"Perhaps I had better take you home, my dear," he said stiffly. "I realize you must be bored being with a man as old as I."

"Why, Nat!" she cried out impulsively. She spoke so abruptly and loudly that people at nearby tables turned to stare. She had never called him by his given name before, and she saw that he noticed, pleasurably. She caught both his hands in hers. You're not old. You're one of the most exciting men I've ever known why, you're young in every way that counts."

"Yes? Thank you." He was flustered because people were staring, and he always felt as though he wore a name plate on his jacket Executive Vice President, National Mortgage & Loan. "I appreciate your warmth, but let's not calloo much attention to ourselves, shall we?"

She looked as if she would cry. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I wouldn't do anything to compromise you, or distress you."

Now he did take her hands in his. "Of course I must guard against anything scandalous, but there's nothing scandalous about being in the company of a young and lovely girl like you, is there?"

Nat planned to say goodnight to her in the lobby of the Embers Hotel, but the lobby was deserted when they entered it. Even the desk clerk was in an inner office. Through a door to the right they could hear laughter and subdued talk from the hotel cocktail lounge. He got into the elevator with her.

Carol yawned sleepily, and he smiled because she looked like a drowsy child to him. He felt protective, and then his gaze butted head-on against the maturity of her breasts and he felt something else, too. He swallowed hard, thinking he had to be careful. A thing like this could get completely out of control. It would be too easy to throw over a lifetime of caution for something as lovely as this young girl.

The elevator stopped at the fifth floor. The corridor was gloomily lit and deserted. Carol leaned against Nat as they walked toward her room. He put his arm about her tentatively, feeling the charge of excitement that rose from her fragrant young body.

"I wish you lived in an apartment house," he said.

"Why?"

"I don't know. There is something about a hotel like this. A young girl alone. Have you lived here long?"

Carol did not answer this because she had no intention of revealing that the Embers was the third hotel in which she'd stayed since her arrival in Blue-town. She said, "I'm looking for a nice apartment, but I've been here such a short while, I don't know anything about which are the respectable sections of town."

"Perhaps I could find something for you," he suggested.

"Oh, would you? I know you could find just what I want."

"I'd love to do it, if you'd let me. I'll make some inquiries tomorrow. Perhaps by tomorrow night we'll have some places we can look at."

She caught both his hands, stopping outside her door. She kissed his cheek impulsively, and then withdrew, as if suddenly shy. "I don't know what you must think of me, Nat."

"I think you're a wonderful girl. The most wonderful I ever met."

"I wish you were my daddy,' she said in that same impulsive way.

He stiffened, withdrawing slightly. If she had one fault which annoyed him, it was her persistent way of reminding him at illogical moments that he could well be her parent.

"Good night," he said.

Her head came up and her widened eyes fixed on him in an artless way. "Aren't you coming in?"

He smiled, pleased that she'd invited him. "I think not, dear. We'd better be more discreet than this both of us."

Her face showed her disappointment. Then she brightened. "But after I find an apartment, you'll come and visit with me, won't you?"

He drew a deep breath, his heart pounding wildly in his hot anticipation. "I look forward to it, Carol, my dear."

"So do I." She squeezed his hands and then stood on her toes, giving him a chaste kiss.

In that moment he almost weakened, thinking perhaps he might go inside her hotel room for just a brief visit. But she whispered, "Good night, Daddy sweet Daddy Nat."

Something collapsed inside him, and he turned away. He walked briskly along the corridor.

Carol stood there, playing the little-girl role she knew he expected of her until he entered the elevator and was gone. Then her face relaxed into a sour smile. She went into her room, kicking off her shoes.

Alone in this casually furnished crib, she prowled from window to door, to bathroom, to bed, and back to the window again. She told herself she did not know why she should feel as she did, but it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to stay alone, in a room by herself.

Alone, she would think, and thinking caused her to remember, and remembering hurt her.

She prowled faster, not wanting to think, as if she could escape herself. She thought about Nat Collins and his twenty-five years of impeccable reputation in financial circles. A man had to be so careful. He was careful, and she couldn't help thinking that he was phony worse in his way than Johnny Jemson, who at least was honest enough to admit to his insatiable urge for females. She suddenly despised Nat Collins because he hid behind a false mask of dignity. The devil only knew what women he had debased in secret.

She shook her head, refusing to think about him any more.

She saw the newspaper laid out on the table beside her bed and she frowned. She had not bought a paper, or ordered one. She decided that a chambermaid had left it there by mistake, or else a bellhop had made a delivery to the wrong room.

She walked toward it, and stared down as the picture of Brad Livingston leaped out at her.

Her stomach churned. "RAPIST GOES ON TRIAL."

She shook her head, staring at the headline, at the picture of Brad.

She began to shake all over. She looked around wildly, knowing she could not stay here alone. She ran across to where she'd kicked off her shoes. She pushed her feet into them, found her pocketbook, hurried from the room.

She was still trembling as she waited for the elevator. It was as if it were more than Brad's picture in that room back there, more as if it were Brad himself. Brad's eyes, accusing, blaming, hating her.

And there was no lust in Brad's eyes now nothing to remind her of Herb or of Mort.

Carol had been sitting at the bar in the Embers Hotel cocktail lounge only a few moments when a man moved over to the stool beside her.

"Buy you a drink, honey?"

She turned and looked at him. He was in his thirties, and he'd already had enough to drink so that he had few inhibitions remaining. But when he smiled, she winced, because his smile reminded her of Brad. She had to get Brad out of her mind or she'd go insane.

"Why not?" she said.

He smiled again. "Why not, indeed?" He signaled the bartender. He didn't wait for the drinks to start telling her how lovely she was, how he hadn't been able to keep his eyes off her from the moment she walked in. But he said he knew she was a lady, real lady, and this was what he liked about her. His knee moved against her leg.

He kept talking and Carol sat drinking, barely listening. As young as she was, his story had a stale old ring to it. A wife that didn't understand the way men were, what a man needed, who pushed him away and then she got sore when he went out and had a few drinks.

"A man needs to feel like he's wanted," he said.

"A girl needs that, too," she said.

He bought them another round of drinks. "A girl like you could have any man she wanted," he said.

Carol turned her head slowly and looked at him. She said, "Would you want me?" But inside she was adding the rest of it, would he want her if he had any inkling what it was going to cost him?

"Would I?" He grinned.

She was watching his face and when he smiled like that, something turned over in her stomach because he looked so much like Brad. Suddenly she was breathless, feeling as if she would suffocate in here.

"Where can we go, honey?" he said.

"Nowhere." She stood up suddenly.

He jumped up, too. "What's the idea?"

"I'm getting out, that's all."

He stared at her. What's with you? You lead me on like this and then walk out?"

She gazed at him coldly. "Be glad I did," she said. "Maybe it's the biggest favor anyone ever did you."

The next morning at ten o'clock Carol was summoned into Nat Collins's private office. Dolly looked up, smiling. "You're spending most of your time in there. What is it you've got that the rest of us don't have?"

Carol only shrugged and gave her an enigmatic smile. She knew the other girls were becoming jealous of the attention Nat showed her. She carried her shorthand pad and pencils, walking past their desks, knowing they were watching her covertly. She couldn't care less. The assaults on her by Herb and Mort had completely alienated her, from herself and from those around her. She could not love any more. She could only hate.

She stepped inside Nat's door and closed it behind her.

"Hello, my dear," he said, "Come on in."

She came across the room, feeling the impact of his gaze on her breasts, her thighs. She felt as if she were so much fresh meat being inspected. It made her hate him more than ever. But the more rage she felt against him, the easier it was for her to smile.

"You have such a lovely smile," Nat said, standing up. "I'd like to see you smile all the time."

"Don't I?" She was only a few feet from him now, and she saw he wanted to reach for her, to caress her breasts and massage her buttocks, but he did nothing except stand there with that phony smile lighting his flushed face.

"I think you will smile when I tell you the good news I have for you."

She smiled again. "You're so good to me. You always have good news for me. You're always doing something for me."

Now he did take a step nearer her, as if there were some irresistible pull of magnetism in her for him. "I want to, my dear. I'd like to do everything for you."

"I know you would, Daddy Nat."

He winced slightly at that title she insisted upon giving him, but said, "I've found just exactly the right apartment for you."

"Oh, Daddy Nat!" She threw her arms around him, kissing him impulsively, flattening her breasts against him, clinging to him even when she felt him trying to withdraw.

Finally he did disengage himself and step back. "My dear!" he said breathlessly. "We must be more careful! Don't think I didn't appreciate your enthusiasm and gratitude, but what if someone came in?"

She said contritely, "Oh, I'm so sorry, Daddy Nat. But you do make me so happy and there's so little I can do for you." She laughed. "I don't care. You've been careful long enough!"

"My dear, what are you saying?"

She laughed in a little girl way and ran across the room to the door. "I'll lock this door," she said. "Then no one can come in here not until we want them to."

He protested weakly. "We are on office hours, and this is a business office, my dear."

She held her hand on the key a moment and jiggled it, but did not turn it in the lock. She moved away from it, but she saw that Nat believed she had locked the door. She did not say anything to disenchant him.

He waited until she returned to where he stood beside his desk. He put his hand on her upper arm, his thumb resting against the rounded out-thrust of her breast as if he could not resist touching her in some small way.

"We must be more careful," he said, but she saw that he hoped she would not be.

She laid her steno pad and pencils on his desk, seeing she would not be needing them. She looked up at him adoringly. "Where is the apartment you found for me, Daddy Nat?"

He bit his lip but managed to smile. "We'll go over there after work. I thought maybe we'd have dinner together ... "

"Oh, you're so sweet!" She threw her arms around him and kissed him again. This time he did not protest. When she drew away, his hands were still under her arms, braced against the swollen ripeness of her breasts. She did not pull away from him.

. . then, after we've had dinner, we can go over and look at your new place. I was so sure it was exactly what you'd want that I signed a lease for it."

"Oh, Daddy Nat!" Again she kissed him, and this time she parted her legs just slightly and lifted herself so she was pressed hard against him. She moved her hips in the faintest undulation, rotating them, and yet doing it so discreetly that he might almost believe it was not movement at all, but the spinning of his own heated imagination.

Nat was unable to disentangle himself this time. There was the delicious heat of her thighs upon him, the faint suggestion of movement that puzzled and confused him even while it delighted him? Was she really moving herself against him? Did she realize what she was doing?"

He had restrained himself as long as he could from touching those luscious breasts. His hands closed on them, and he felt the room wheel and skid under his feet. She was so young! So lovely! It was as if some kindly fate were repaying him for a long life of having done some good where he could. Surely this was repayment of some kind! He hoped he deserved it, because for the moment he could not endure the thought of its being taken away from him.

"Oh, Daddy Nat," she whispered against his face, her lips parted, lax upon his cheeks. "We mustn't....."

Nat straightened slightly, reacting to long years of rigorous, habitual self-control. "No, my dear, you're right."

She smiled up at him uncertainly. "Oh, you get me so excited, Daddy Nat. I hardly know what I'm doing."

"You're a lovely child." His throat ached with her loveliness. It was difficult for him to talk at all.

"Tell me about my apartment," she pleaded. She moved to him again, pressing her hips inward as if it were an unconscious, involuntary movement.

He pretended not to notice how she had fitted herself on him as if she were some delicate butterfly that might dart away on gossamer wings if he reached for her.

"Tell me about it," she pleaded.

"Well, it's in the very best neighborhood, and yet not too expensive. Less per month than you are making here a week, and that's good yardstick in renting, my dear. No more per month than one makes per week." His hands moved to the small of her back, holding her in place on him.

"Oh, you're so clever I"

"I'm not a clever man at all," he said. "I begin to see how cheated I have been, not to have had a girl as lovely as you all these years."

"It's too bad you didn't have a daughter."

"Yes." He sighed because obviously this wasn't what he had meant. Still, he enjoyed her artless simplicity and innocence. He was thinking there was so much he could teach her. What you did was, you got them young and you taught them ... "Well, it is small, only a living room-dining room, a small sunny kitchen with a little nook for eating alone when you must!" He laughed when he said that, but his laugher had phony ring. "And a bright and airy bedroom."

"It sounds lovely." Now he was certain that she unmistakably moved herself in that tantalizing circular motion upon him. His hands instinctively slid lower on her buttocks and he enclosed each sweet, tormenting globe in his eager palms.

"Oh, Daddy Nat," she whispered, and Nat was unsure whether this response was elicited by what he was doing to her with his hands on her bottom or by her gratitude over the apartment he had found for her.

His fingers pressed inward on the delightful crease between the cheeks of her behind. Lovely! The fingers of his right hand pushed lower, probing, seeking. She squirmed as if in some ecstasy of anticipation.

"There is one little matter," he said, smiling at her.

She gazed up at him. "What's that, Daddy Nat?"

He drew a deep breath. "Now, you must not misunderstand this. I want to do something for you. A little gift. I paid your first month's rent. I had to make a deposit on the lease, so I paid that. I hope you don't mind."

"Mind! Oh, Daddy Nat!" She kissed him again, this time full on his mouth, her own lips parted and her tongue pushing between his teeth.

Going wild with need, his inhibitions melted from him, Nat pushed his fingers harder into her and she moaned in a delight of sweet agony. He was certain she liked that and he probed one finger harder, deeper.

"Oh, Daddy Nat," she said. "You do so much for me, and I can't do anything for you. I just feel terrible. I feel so selfish, taking everything and not giving anything in return. Isn't there anything I can do for you?"

"You are doing it," he whispered breathlessly. "Letting me be near you, letting me hold you like this!" He thrust his finger deeper into the sweetness of her bottom and she pressed closer upon him.

"But that's not enough! I kissed you because I wanted to. Isn't there anything you want from me, Daddy Nat? Anything?"

He drew a deep breath, held it. Then he kissed her mouth, pressed his lips against her throat. "I'd like to look at you," he whispered.

"What did you say, Daddy Nat?"

"Look at you," he was hoarse. "You are so young! So beautiful! Your body. Nude. like a sculpture by some old master, or a classical painting. Oh, if I could just look at you! I know we mustn't! I know how old I am, that this is a business office, that I'm insane holding you like this; but that's what I want."

"Oh, and I want you to have that, Daddy Nat," she whispered. "I know I'm just a young girl. I'm nobody, really. Just me. But if that's what you want to look at-I couldn't deny you, Daddy Nat! I couldn't!"

He was gasping for breath. "Then don't deny me," he whispered. He tottered back against the desk, drawing her with him.

"Do you really want me to strip?" she whispered in a conspiratorial tone, like a little girl who knows she is being naughty and might be punished.

"Yes! I do want you to do it! Now! God knows, I do! I don't care. I have denied myself too many things, I won't miss the chance to have this. Go ahead, darling girl, undress for me."

"All right, Daddy Nat."

She stepped away from him, seeing that he was rigid with excitement, his face flushed and sweated, his gray eyes tormented.

She tilted her head, but then didn't quite meet his gaze, as if she were too demure; and then slowly she began to undress for him. Her blouse went first, unbuttoned, slipped off her golden shoulders, folded and placed on his desk while he simmered in an agony of impatience. His anticipation was heightened by the fact that her breasts were swollen provocatively over her bra.

She removed her skirt next, and he saw how lovely her upper legs were, beautifully proportioned like slender pillars of gold. Her skin was tinted with that gold and smoother than any rich fabric.

With the skirt finally folded over the back of a chair, she stood before him in shoes, panties and bra. With a sick sense of frustration, he was fearful that this was as far as she would go. But it could not be. He had to see it all. She had to go all the way now.

She looked at him.

"Is this what you want, Daddy Nat?"

He shook his head, whispering, "Couldn't you take them all off, darling? I need to see you. All of you. You have such a lovely body. It's a shame to cover it even with the flimsy fabric of lingerie. I want to see you in your rich, lovely nudity."

She frowned as if faintly troubled, but she nodded, agreeing to comply with his wishes.

She hesitated when she touched the hooks of her bra.

"Please!" he whispered at her, nearly going wild.

She loosened the bra, tugged it away in her hands.

He gazed, eyes distended, at the high-rise perfection of her firm young breasts and the innocent pink of her nipples. They were still like little-girl nipples on those magnificent breasts. Rather than deter Nat in his need, they drove him wilder with desire.

She seemed frightened and shamed by her nakedness, but this only added to his pleasure and sense of power. He was getting what he had dreamed of, but had never dared to hope for. And this was only the beginning. This luscious little body would be installed in that apartment where he would keep her feeling gratitude and a need to return the favors he would pile upon her. He saw how it would be. He would keep her there! He would keep her very well!

He wanted to laugh because he did not know what had happened to his long habit of caution. This girl had burned it out of him, destroyed it, along with all the other false values that he had paid homage to all his life. He would keep her as discreetly as possible, but to hell with the rest of the world. She was worth losing everything else for. In that moment he was sure of this.

She rolled her panties down her legs, let them drop to the floor. She stepped out of them. Then she turned, showing him what he wanted to see, standing with her hands at her sides, her head back and her eyes closed, and she was like some blonde Venus.

He stared for a long time, feasting his hungry eyes on the delights stacked before him. She was going to be his! She was his!

"Come here," he whispered.

She nodded and walked slowly toward him. He retreated until he was seated in the leather chair behind his desk.

She sat down on his knees, facing him. He nodded because this was what he wanted. He got himself ready. He heard her faint moan of protest, but she did not withdraw, and he told himself this was just her natural modesty asserting itself in a lost cause. He was going to have her now. His hands caught her on each buttock and he drew her up to him.

"Oh," she cried, the sound wailing out of her in a prolonged sigh.

"That's right, baby. That's the way. Oh, that's perfect!"

He drew her closer, and she put her arms around his neck. He lifted her hips in his hands and let her glide downward again. Then she lifted herself and came down upon him in a way that made him bite his lip to keep from yelling out his ecstasy.

"More!" he told her. "More, baby! Faster!

Faster."

He went wild, grabbing her to him, the chair hobbling, rolling on the carpeting. He sank his teeth into her throat, his arms closing on her.

When she screamed the first time he did not even hear it, though of course everybody else on that floor did. She screamed again and a third time before he cooled off enough to be able to hear anything, to know what was going on. What in hell was the matter? Her voice poured out of her, in wild screams of terror. He stared at her, his mouth open. He grabbed her and shook her but she only screamed louder than ever.

His head jerked up at the sounds of outrage and shock that struck him from across the room.

It was too late to move. Nat just sat there, stunned. It raced through his mind that she had not even locked the door. The room was full of people, clients and employees!

He still heard her screaming, but all he could think of was that she had not even locked his door. She had done all this deliberately!

His mind could not contain anything else for the moment.

She went on yelling, but it was some seconds before he could comprehend what she was shouting at the top of her lungs:

"I thought he was like a father to me! I thought he wanted to be a father to me!"