Chapter 4
THE ROAR AND SHRIEK OF A FIRE ENGINE SPEEDING down the street roused Francie from her sleep. She came awake cursing the fire, the fire department, the fire engine, its air horn, its bell, and its siren.
She was startled and her heart thudded in her chest. For the first fraction of a second she was disoriented. Then, when her brain identified the sound, she slumped back to the pillow and began mumbling her curses.
It wasn't bad enough, she thought, that she had to be awakened that way. What made it worse was that the sounds still echoed inside her skull. The actual wail and roar and gong faded off into the distance but they were still as loud as ever inside her head.
She opened one eye, then quickly closed it again when the light sent a lance of pain through her brain. Keeping her eyes closed she threw back the sheet and swung her legs over the side of the bed. When she tried to stand up a wave of vertigo washed over her and she wavered for a moment. Then, hands outstretched and eyes still closed, she stumbled the three steps to the wall and felt along it until she came to the window. She found the cord on the Venetian blind and jerked the slats closed with a painful clatter.
Still there was too much light. Even through her closed eyelids she could tell that. She slid one hand along the wall until she came to the corner of the room and found the draw rope of the drapes.
That was much better.
She squinted open her eyes in the dimness for a second, then opened them all the way. The bedroom was a real mess. The satin spread of the huge circular bed was crumpled on the floor. Every article of furniture was adorned with underclothing. A bra on the chair. A stocking on the vanity table. A second stocking hanging down over the mirror. A pair of panties on top of a lamp. A garter belt peeking out from beneath the bottom of the drapes. There were two blouses lying in soiled heaps on the floor and two pair of slacks and a skirt across the back of the chair.
To make matters worse she was sick!
Nausea bubbled in her stomach and sent a bad taste all the way up her throat to the back of her mouth.
Her head ached so badly the roots of the individual strands of her hair seemed to hurt. Her mouth tasted like cotton that had been soaked in alum and then left in the sun to dry.
She stumbled back to the bed and eased herself down on it. The dial of the clock radio told her it was ten o'clock. It had to be ten a.m. because the sun was shining.
The last clear memory she had was of four o'clock in the morning, and it must have been later than that before she got to sleep, because at four in the morning she'd still been at the party.
She closed her eyes again and for a little while it was better that way. But her nausea grew worse, forcing her off the bed and into the bathroom on the run. She made it just in time, dropping to her knees before the bowl and retching up the foul contents of her stomach.
The vile odor made her sick all over again and she heaved and heaved even though her stomach was already empty. The vomiting drained what little strength she had and when the heaves passed she couldn't even rise from the floor.
She eased herself down and stretched out on her back, thanking God she'd decided to carpet the bathroom floor. At that moment the feel of cold tile against her skin would have been sheerest agony. Her breathing was rapid and shallow and painful.
She knew she couldn't remain where she was. The odor was getting to her again. Through sheer force of will she managed to get to her knees and find the flush handle of the toilet. The rushing gurgle of water was terrible but at least the smell was gone. She pulled down the lid and sat down, resting her elbows on her knees and holding her head, almost afraid it would drop from her shoulders.
Her mind seemed filled with molasses. She couldn't seem to think clearly at all. Nor could she make her limbs work properly.
Get up, she told her body. Get upl
But nothing happened.
After ten minutes she managed to get to her feet and cross the bathroom to the shower. The glass and metal of the enclosure was cold against her naked body as she leaned against it and reached inside to turn on the water.
The first faucet was hot and she turned it off again. Then she got the cold water running. It was there. Just inside. Only two steps away. But she couldn't bring herself to go into the shower stall and bear the shock of the coldness.
Francie compromised.
She reached in again and added hot water to the mixture until the temperature was tepid. Then she went in. Very slowly, she reduced the amount of hot water in the mixture and increased the amount of cold. She stood with her back to the spray, letting it hit her at shoulder level. When her teeth were chattering and her body was covered with gooseflesh she stepped back one pace so the spray could hit the top of her head.
That was a mistake.
Somehow it was colder that way, too cold. The shock made her dizzy and doubled the pain in her head. She gasped and trembled, clenching her teeth against the impulse to scream and against the urge to get out from under the water.
After a while she felt better. She turned off the water and stood shivering with the droplets running down her body. When she stepped out of the shower it was right into a puddle of cold wetness and she realized she hadn't closed the shower door.
Well, the carpeting would absorb most of the water.
She found a towel, dried her face and arms and legs, then her torso. But the water from her wet hair still dripped coldly down her back and she was still trembling. She wrapped the towel around her head, wincing against the pain, and dried her hair as best she could.
The towel dropped to the floor of the bathroom when she stepped back out into the bedroom. She made it back to the circular bed and eased herself down gently.
The nausea was gone, leaving an empty, hungry feeling and the world's worst headache. Staying in bed would do no good. She needed food and black coffee and tons of aspirin.
Hell, she needed medical attention!
Preparing anything was absolutely out of the question. She had the shakes already and standing upright for more than fifteen or twenty seconds would bring dizziness. A fumbling hand found the receiver of the telephone. The dial tone made her headache worse and for a moment she couldn't remember the number of the restaurant on the corner. Then she dialed the number and it was terrible agony to listen to the ring at the other end of the line.
Finally, after eight or nine rings in her condition who could count? someone at the restaurant answered and she placed an order for a full breakfast and a quart of coffee. And she asked the man to have the delivery boy stop off at the drug store and bring her a bottle of aspirin the large, economy size, naturally.
The man at the restaurant promised to have the order there in less than ten minutes. It wasn't the first time she'd had meals sent up and it wasn't the first time for the hangover breakfast, either. In the last two months there had been quite a number of hangovers.
After she hung up she fumbled around for a cigarette and managed to get it lit. But the first puff made her gas. The first one was always lousy, yet she always lit that cigarette. The second puff was easier to take. The third one didn't bother her at all.
But the cigarette didn't help the foul taste in her mouth, either. When it was smoked down to a short stub she crushed it out and went into the bathroom. Brushing her teeth was too much of an ordeal, her head was so bad. Even her teeth hurt. So, she settled for several swishes of mouthwash.
At last she was beginning to feel more human. But she didn't yet dare turn on the light in the bathroom and look at herself in the mirror there. Besides the pain of the light she was afraid of what she would see.
When she was crawling back into bed she heard the knock at the front door. She tried to yell for the delivery boy to come in but couldn't raise her voice enough to carry that far. So she padded out into the living room and opened the door herself.
Standing in the corridor was a young Negro boy, about fifteen, with a big paper bag in his arms and an apron around hie waist. His eyes went wide, hie jaw sagged, and he almost dropped the bag.
That was when she knew she'd forgotten to put on a robe. She started to turn away, then changed her mind.
"The hell with it," she mumbled to the boy. "Come on in."
He licked his lips nervously and stared with eyes so wide they threatened to pop right out of their sockets. It was too much trouble to go scampering for a robe. In the last two months Francie had become accustomed to the idea of her own nakedness and felt not the slightest shame or embarrassment. With a figure like hers there was nothing in the world to be ashamed of.
The boy came in and she closed the door.
"Take the stuff in there," she said, flinging a careless hand in the direction of the kitchen.
He jumped at the sound of her voice and she looked around for her purse. It lay on the floor in front of the imagine, three-piece, curved sectional sofa. She walked to it, started to bend down to pick it up, then thought better of the idea. That was all she needed. To bend over when she felt this badly was to fall flat on her face.
"Hey!" she called. "Come in here."
The delivery boy came back into the living room.
"Pick this up for me, will you? I'm afraid to bend over. I'll kill myself."
The boy edged nervously toward her.
"Come on, come on," she hurried him.
He couldn't take his eyes off her lush nakedness.
"What are you staring for?" she snapped. "Don't you know what a woman looks like?"
"Yes ma'am. I know."
"Hurry up then."
He picked up the purse and handed it to her, keeping as far away as possible. She opened the purse and found her wallet.
"How much?"
"Tuh ... Tuh ... Two dollars, ma'am."
The smallest she had was a five dollar bill. She took one out of her wallet, thrust it at him, and dropped both wallet and purse onto the sofa.
"Go on, keep the change," she told him. "Stay here ten seconds longer and you'll go blind staring that way."
"Thank you, ma'am," the boy said.
He literally ran out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
Francie winced at the sound and went into the kitchen. She clenched her teeth against the rattle of paper as she tore the bag open. There were two containers, one large and one small; two aluminum pie tins with cardboard covers, and a large bottle of aspirin.
She opened the smaller container and washed away the taste of the mouthwash with a swallow of orange juice. Then she opened the aspirin bottle, shook out five of the little white tablets, and swallowed them with the rest of the juice.
The plastic of the kitchen chair was cold against her naked bottom when she sat down. She opened the larger container and poured steaming black coffee into a cup. Half a dozen sips seemed to work wonders. Now she could face the prospect of regular food.
She removed the lids from the two aluminum pie tins. In one was a mess of bacon and scrambled eggs. In the other there were two buttered and toasted English muffins and two small plastic containers of jelly. She opened the jelly and smeared it thickly over the four muffin halves. She ate one half while she finished that first cup of coffee.
The bacon and eggs and the three remaining muffin halves disappeared in short order along with two more cups of black coffee. By then the aspirin was really doing its work and she felt remarkably well considering how sick she'd been before. She felt well enough, in fact, to get up and walk into the bedroom to get a cigarette to have with the remaining cup of coffee.
When she was finished she dumped the papers and containers and tins into the garbage, and set the coffee cup and utensils into the sink. Now she hardly minded the clatter of metal and glass against porcelain.
On her way back to the bedroom she stopped at the front door and retrieved the morning newspaper that had been delivered about five o'clock. In the bedroom she plumped up her pillows, stretched out, and read slowly through the paper in order to give the food and coffee and aspirin a chance to do all their work.
When she finished, having skimmed the headlines and looked at the pictures, she tossed the paper away, closed her eyes, and let her mind run over the events of the night before.
That had been quite a party.
The only reason she'd gone was because Jim had had to work. The only person she knew there was Marge, the girl who threw the blast. Marge Francie didn't remember ever having heard her last name also worked for Schiller and the two girls had met in his studio. Francie had been early for a session and Marge was just ending one. Schiller had introduced them and they talked, one undressing and the other slipping into her clothes.
That had been a few weeks ago. Since then they'd crossed paths coming and going a couple of times. And once, when Schiller got some kind of phone call and had to postpone a session, they'd gone out for a cup of coffee.
Marge had been in the business for more than a year and filled Francie in on a lot of little things. They seemed to strike it off pretty well, so when Marge threw her party it was natural she should invite Francie.
There had been liquor. Lots and lots of liquor. There had been music and dancing. There'd been lots of people, too. Marge's small apartment was jammed with people. By midnight everyone was bombed.
Some joker got the bright idea of having a beauty contest. And, since the girls didn't have bathing suits, the contest was held in the nude. All the males were judges and no one single girl won the contest. The girls had paraded back and forth for a while, giggling and showing themselves off. The men couldn't decide who was the most beautiful girl.
They argued back and forth for a while and settled the argument by awarding prizes for the best individual parts. In order to do that, of course, they had to touch and squeeze a little. And all the girls, Francie included, were a little too drunk to mind. Prizes were awarded or the best breasts, the best nipples there was one official tester the best rear, the best legs, the best knees. There were so many categories every girl was a winner.
When the contest was over some of the girls had gotten dressed again and some of them hadn't bothered. Francie seemed to remember dressing, but she couldn't be a hundred per cent sure.
There were more drinks; many, many more drinks. Francie remembered a succession of darkened corners and hands squeezing and caressing her body. She remembered also seeing some pretty wild things going on right there in the room with all the others.
But she didn't remember doing anything herself.
And she wasn't sure if she'd come home alone, or with company. If she'd come home with company, that was a sure bet she'd made love. The way she felt then she couldn't tell for sure. She looked down at her body and saw a few bruises on her breasts and legs, but they might well have been from overzealous hands early in the evening.
Anyway, she promised to watch herself more carefully at the next party. What bothered her was that she didn't know whether or not she'd made love, but that she didn't remember that. There was no use having the pleasure if she couldn't remember.
Today was a kind of anniversary.
It was exactly three months since that day she'd walked into Schiller's studio. She remembered the naive kid she'd been then and laughed at herself. That following Monday Schiller had taken his first set of pictures of her. He'd paid her and sent her home to wait for his call. He'd promised to call as soon as he got some kind of report on the way her pictures were selling.
That took almost two weeks and she nearly went out of her mind with boredom and worry. Then, finally, he'd called and given her the good news. She'd rushed right down to his studio to sign the contracts and had been too excited to read the damned things. All she could think of then was all that money that was waiting for her.
It turned out there wasn't quite as much as he photographer had promised. Oh, his figures were correct, bnt her cut was a lot smaller than he'd hinted at. When she raised the subject he'd told her the facts of life. He wasn't in business alone. He had partners who took the biggest slice right off the top.
Still, once she'd really gotten started, the smallest week she'd had was five hundred dollars. That wasn't exactly coolie wages for the few hours of work, either.
And she spent the money almost as fast as it came in. There were so many things she wanted and needed.
First, and most important, had been new clothes. Scads of expensive, under things, evening gowns, cocktail dresses. And none of it bargain basement stuff, either. She bought in the most exclusive and expensive shops in town.
Then, of course, the old apartment wasn't anywhere near good enough. Jim had been a help there. By then she was seeing him on an average of twice a week. Sometimes they went out to imagine restaurants and night clubs, other times they stayed home and made love all night.
Jim helped her find a good, three room apartment down here in the Village. It was much closer to Schiller's studio and closer to Jim's own apartment. She'd been in his place only once. It was a two bedroom affair, with one of the bedrooms fitted out as an office. That, he said, was where he did his work.
But there was something a little peculiar about Jim. It wasn't anything specific, more a feeling she had when she got to know him better. Several times she'd phoned him when he'd said he'd be working and there hadn't been any answer. He always had a plausible excuse, though.
In the three months of working for Schiller Francie had learned some important facts of life. One was that the popularity of the average model lasted about six months. After that the men who bought the pictures were looking for fresh flesh and new faces. That was kind of a shock. It meant Francie only had about three months left in which to make her pile. And so far she hadn't managed to save a dime. Every time she turned around there was something else. A two-hundred-dollar-a-month apartment on a two-year lease, furniture, carpeting, more clothes.
Every time she looked at the balance in her checkbook she swore to cut down on spending. But she never quite managed that. Anyway, the six month's life span wasn't necessarily everything. There were other angles to the modeling racket, though none she knew of were quite so lucrative. Still, a picture spread in a men's magazine every couple of months would more than pay her expenses.
And Marge had a nice little gimmick working for her. The other girl had ads placed in several of the magazines. Those ad were worded so they promised the utmost in pictures of the undressed female. They invited the reader to write, telling exactly the kinds of pictures he wanted. For the small sum of two dollars the reader could receive a sample set of photos.
The ads didn't bring in a fortune. But Marge swore there was a steady seventy or eighty dollars a week in the angle. The letters came in; addressed to a post office box number, and Marge sent back regular Schiller sets, regardless of the requests for specific poses. Some of the letters were real howlers, too. It seemed that the average American male had some pretty weird tastes, occasionally.
One thing though, was still the same as when she'd started. Posing for Schiller's camera got her so damned excited she wanted to scream sometimes. They were doing two sets a week. A set took about two and a half hours. By the end of a session Francie was so excited she was climbing the walls. And Schiller, damn him to hell, wasn't interested. At least not so far.
The clock-radio beside the bed came on and Francie came out of the depths of her thoughts. It was noon now. She had a one-thirty appointment at the studio. All but a few twinges of the hangover were gone. She got out of bed once again, took a hot shower, and spent twenty minutes fixing her hair.
It took quite a bit of makeup to cover the circles under her eyes and she wondered what the old man wculd say about the bruises. She rummaged through her drawers in search of clean underwear and came up with only a pair of panties. All her bras were dirty. She'd have to do a wash this evening. Hell, the whole apartment could use a thorough cleaning.
Francie slipped on the sheer silk panties and paused to look at her reflection in the mirror. The high life may have put a few lines in her face but it certainly hadn't done any damage to her body. If anything, her figure was better than ever. The wispy cloth of the panties fit snugly across her hips. The panties were very brief, cut high on the sides and riding low on her hips. They hugged the double-swelled curves of her buttocks. In front, the elastic of the waistband rode below the shadowed hollow of her navel and the sheer cloth emphasized her other charms.
Francie searched through the drawers again for a bra and still did not find one In the end she. decided to go without one. She'd only have to take it off when she got to the studio, anyway. She found a pair of stretch pants and pulled them on. They fit like a second skin, showing even the line of her panties beneath.
And for the upper half of her body she selected a striped jersey pullover with three-quarter sleeves. She slipped it on, tucked in the tails, and checked herself in the mirror. The soft clinging material seemed glued to her breasts. The jersey rubbed against the sensitive nipples, making them plainly visible.
She took a couple of steps toward the mirror and saw that the movement beneath the pullover was almost wicked. Dressed like that she'd have half the men in New York drooling from the mouth by the time she arrived at the studio.
Things were even worse than that. So bad, in fact, that after only two blocks she found it necessary to take a cab. In that short distance there were three men already following her and she'd nearly been the cause of at least one automobile accident.
Things were only slightly better in the cab. The driver divided his time unequally between looking at her through the mirror and watching the road, with more of the time spent looking in the mirror. They had several close calls on the short ride.
Schiller was in the darkroom when she got to the studio. Through the intercom he told her to get ready. She stripped and smoked through two cigarettes before the photographer came out.
The session went quite rapidly. He posed her on a sofa against a dark backdrop. There were several stuffed animals for props. He took one head-on shot with her sitting on the sofa. Her knees were pressed tightly together and there was a large rabbit on her lap. She leaned forward far enough so that even her breasts were hidden from the eye of the camera.
There was more.
In one shot she was facing the camera, sitting on one of those tremendous stuffed lions, her knees bent, her hands lifting her huge breasts toward the camera with her fingertips covering her nipples. In another shot, this one a side view, she lay on her back on the sofa, her face turned toward the camera and smiling wildly. A stuffed dog stood on her stomach, its black nose reaching out to a breast tip.
By the time the last shot was taken Francie could feel the familiar excitement coursing through her veins. Schiller turned off the floodlights, came over, and sat down beside her on the sofa. He gave her a cigarette and lit it for her, then another for himself.
"I've got a couple of ideas for some art studies," he said. "The kind of thing I used to do before I got into this racket. But I need a model. Want to help me by being my model for them for a while? The job doesn't pay anything."
"It depends on when you want to do them," she told him.
"Well, if you have time now I suppose we could get right to work. All I have to do is change to black and white film. I want to shoot against a plain white backdrop.
"How long will they take? I've got a couple of hours I can give you."
"I don't know how long. The time depends on how quickly I can get the lights set up. I've got some ideas for the use of shadows and silhouettes but it might take a while to set things just as I see them in my mind. I hope you won't mind a slight delay."
"Well, let's start. If we run out of time we'll do more next week."
"Good," he said, rising from the sofa. "You stay here and relax. I'll set up across the room."
Francie smoked her cigarette and watched him drape the white sheet and set up the lights. He put a high stool a few feet in front of the sheet and climbed up and down his ladder for ten minutes before he had the lights the way he wanted them.
He marked the spot where the stool had been and called her over.
"Stand there," he said, pointing to the marked place.
"How do you want me?" she asked.
"No way, yet," he told her, stepping out of the light. "I've got to get the camera focused first. And then I'll tell you how to pose."
This kind of posing was different from the other. The lights were hot and blinding and she had the sensation of being all alone in a very special world. From out in the darkness she could hear Schiller moving and talking, but his presence was unreal. It was as though he were a disembodied spirit and the only reality existed within the lighted area. It was as though she were the only human being alive.
"All right, I've got it," he called. "Now, face straight out. Put your feet close together ... that's right. Uh, can you let down your hair?"
"Yes."
"Okay, do that."
She pulled the pins out and let her hair down.
"Fine," he said. "Pull your hair in front of your shoulders and let that hang down over your breasts." She divided the sheaf of her hair into two parts and pulled one part across each shoulder.
"No. That won't work Try all of that across one shoulder. Let one breast show."
She rearranged her hair as he ordered.
"That's good. That's much better. Now, let your hands hang down at your sides. No, clasp them together in front of you. But let them hang down all the way. Yes, yes. Hold that while I change the lights!"
It took more than ten minutes and her muscles began to stiffen up. But Schiller seemed very excited. His excitement showed in the tone of his voice. He worked as quickly as he could, shifting the lights so that streaks of shadow fell across her bared body. Then he was back at the camera and talking again.
"Okay now, drop your head forward until your chin touches your breast. That's right. Good. And kind of hunch your shoulders forward. Let them droop. Yes, yes. Hold that just like that."
She heard the shutter click twice, then the scrape of the legs of the tripod as he moved the camera. Two more clicks and he moved again. Then two clicks more.
"Okay, relax."
She dropped out of the pose and worked her shoulders to ease the ache.
"Hey," she called out to the darkness. "That's hard work."
He laughed. "All art is hard work. Take it easy while I change the lights a little bit. The spot is marked. You don't have to stand there."
Gratefully she moved out of the glare of the lights and watched him work. He made adjustments that seemed almost infinitesimal and sent her back to the spot.
He took three more poses, each succeeding one more difficult to hold. He took each pose from at least three angles and he snapped two shots of each angle. The extra posing wasn't easing Francie's excitement any. The all-seeing eye of the camera seemed to pierce the very core of her being and lust bubbled in the pit of her stomach. Tendrils of desire spread through her limbs. She was exhausted.
"Tired?" he asked after the fourth pose. "Want to quit?"
"A little. But I can go on for a while if you want me to."
"All right, then. Let's try for one more. They've all been great until now. Let's make this one really perfect."
But that was difficult. He directed her from the shadows. She got the general lines of the pose but couldn't seem to get the details and the exact mood he was looking for.
"Point your right foot out," he told her. "No! Too much. Turn it back a little."
She turned her foot back.
"No, no!" he screamed. "Here, let me show you."
He came walking out into the lighted area and dropped to one knee before her.
"Just like this," he said, moving her foot. "This will give me the line of the entire leg. Now just keep that there."
He rocked back on his heels and looked up at her thoughtfully for a moment. Then he reached out and put his hands on her hips, his thumbs pressing into the softness of her waist and his long fingers pressing into the small of her back. Slowly he began turning her gently to one side.
"Hold your hips at this angle," he said, shifting her body. "That makes a whole series of planes and hollows for the shadows."
She heard him only barely through the roar of her excitement. In all the months they'd worked together this was the first time he'd ever touched her. He was on his heels, with his face only inches away from her legs, and this was the closest he'd ever been to her. That made her very excited.
His touch added fuel to the fire of her desire.
Then he was standing up. She was holding her arms across her torso. He lifted one arm away from her body a few inches and tucked her breast behind the arm. Then he pushed the arm back against the breast so that the soft flesh bulged out on either side.
Her knees almost gave way.
She fought the urge to fall to the floor and drag him down to her. He turned his back and walked out into the shadows once more.
"Hold that!" he shouted. "That's almost perfect. Lift your chin just a fraction of an inch to give me some more of that neck. That's good. Ten seconds and we'll be finished."
It was more than ten seconds. It was almost ten minutes. But finally the last shot was snapped.
"Relax," he called. "We're finished."
She let her body slump and walked back to the couch on the other side of the room. He turned off the floodlights and joined her a few moments later, a happy grin on his lined and wrinkled face.
He lit a cigarette for her and brought a towel so she could dry the sweat from her body.
"That was really hard work," she said. "I had no idea that would be like that." Her voice was tense and high-pitched from the desire coursing through her.
"Hard work? Nonsense! That other stuff we do, that's hard work. This is only pleasure."
He dropped down to the seat beside her.
"Pleasure for you, maybe," she told him. "But you're behind the camera giving orders, not out in front taking them."
"I suppose there is a difference. But you know what that's like for me? That's like having a woman."
Talking about that, she thought, wasn't going to make things any easier.
He took another drag on his cigarette and turned toward her. "You know," he said in an amazed tone. "You're really a very beautiful woman. I never noticed before."
"If anyone should know, you should. You've seen me without clothes more times than even my mother, I guess."
"I don't mean that," he said. "That's not beauty. It's been such a long time since I worked like that I almost forgot how. I'm grateful to you, really I am."
He was looking at her again and there was a new light in his eyes. There was the kind of look she'd seen before in the eyes of other men, but never in his. He seemed to be seeing her for the first time as something more than merely an object of certain dimensions and shapes to be seen through the view finder of his camera to be photographed.
Their eyes met and locked and he put his hand on her bare leg. There was no need for words but she spoke anyway.
"Yes," she whispered softly. "Oh yes."
His hand tightened on her leg and his head came forward. His lips, dry and cool at first, pressed against the side curve of her breast. Then his lips grew warmer.
They fluttered over her white skin to the coral tip of that breast. They tormented the swollen and aching nipple, brought leaping flame to that sensitive bud of flesh.
She sighed and squeezed her eyes shut tight.
His lips traveled slowly to the other breast and she reached to pull his head tighter against her, nearly smothering him against the smooth, sweet, softness of her flesh. Then he was kissing the valley of her breasts. And once there he traveled along that valley toward the gently rolling countryside of her middle.
Fireworks were going off inside her skull and she'd lost control of her limbs. Her arms and legs twitched and jerked spasmodically. Her nostrils flared. Her lungs burned.
Her hands were still holding his head but there was no strength in her arms. His lips caressed her navel and she was only dimly aware that he'd moved from beside her on the sofa to before her on the floor. His touch was doing wild things to her. And moving, always moving.
His beard prickled her tender skin where he brushed against her. Then he was twisting his head rapidly from side to side to drop tiny kisses on her, tiny kisses that turned her into a blazing inferno of passion.
She screamed with lust as his lips kept working. Her hands tightened to fists in his hair and yanked hard. Her arms locked and squeezed him as tightly as they could.
There wasn't one finish; there were an entire series of peak moments.
One, two, three, four. One right after another with no rest between. Each one stronger than the preceding one. Until, finally, she was consumed by the white blaze of ecstasy.
When her senses returned, Schiller was looking at her face and smiling softly.
"My God!" she breathed. "That was ... That was . .
"I know."
Her expression clouded. "But what about you? There was no ... You didn't ... I mean . .
He continued to smile. "That was for me, too."
"That's what you were talking about that first day when you explained that you were different?"
He nodded. "Didn't you know what I meant?"
"I only heard about this once before. I was a kid in high school and two older girls were whispering after gym class. I didn't know what they were talking about either."
"This was the first time anyone has ever done that for you."
"Yes."
"I'm glad, in a way."
She began to laugh.
"I said something funny?"
"No, no. It's me I'm laughing at. Posing does funny things to me. Posing makes me very excited."
"I know. I could tell."
"For three months I've been climbing the wall after each session and cursing you because there was nothing you could do for me. And all the time you could. You could do this. Oh, my God!"
He turned his face slightly and his lips pressed against her for a moment. That was long enough for the warmth to begin to rise for her again. When he looked at her face he saw, and smiled.
"You won't have to climb any more walls. This I promise."
"I'm going to hold you to that," she answered, her voice rising as his lips sought her again. Torturing her!
Rushing her to heights of total ecstasy that Francie had not ever even imagined for herself before this brash revelation brought on by Schiller.
Faster and faster.
Reaching closer, every passing moment, to that one illusive pinnacle of passion toward which Francie beat her own path.
There!
Now, Francie opened her mouth and allowed her scream of tortured happiness to shatter the shrouded gloom of the loft-studio.
Schiller relaxed, too, gasping and smiling, pleased with himself and with the fact that he had, so obviously, been capable of bringing Francie to such exalted heights of passion.
"Thank you," Francie gasped, reaching one delicate hand out to touch him tentatively. "You'll never know how happy vou've made me."
"Think nothing of it, my dear," Schiller said, still gasping himself. "The pleasure was almost totally mine, you know . . ."