Chapter 7

WILD IN THE HAY....

After Laura and her mother left, Jeri was all over me with questions, wanting to know what had happened down at the guest house. I avoided giving her any direct answers.

"All right, don't tell me," Jeri said. I'll find out from Ruby tomorrow. But what a conquest! You had both the mother and daughter falling all over you, Casanova. And that's one of our richest families."

Jeri led me back to the bar for a drink. The party had lost some of its formality and was settling down to a real social brawl. Having left the party with the hostess and then for a questionable length of time with a Senator's daughter, I sensed that I was the central topic of conversation.

"You know, darling," Jeri projected, "you remind me of that joke about a 900 pound gorilla."

"What about the gorilla?"

"Do you know where a 900 pound gorilla sleeps?" she asked me.

"No, where does one sleep?" I cued her for the punch line.

"Any where it damn well wants to," Jeri said, bursting into laughter.

"I fail to see the comparison, Jeri."

"You, with what you got going for you, can damn well sleep where ever you want ... and with whom you want. In a way, you're like the gorilla. You're to be feared, Archer."

I glanced at her quizzically, not quite sure how she meant that. I knew she was sore about Laura, and I reasoned she was just getting back at me. "Do you fear me, Jeri?"

She gave me her famous husky, throaty laugh. "Of course, darling. That's why I'm on your side. Come on, I have a lot of twitching females for you to connect with. They're all potential customers."

During the course of the evening I made quite a few important contacts, and succeeded in getting phone numbers promises to call. I made a good start at the party that night. Several days later I invited about a dozen handpicked installers over to my pad for a few drinks and put my proposition to them. They were the best looking of the lot and all unmarried. I was pretty sure these guys would be more than eager to go along with my offer, so I put it to them straight. After all they had nothing to lose by it, and if one or two of them did fink to the phone company and endanger my job, I reasoned it did not matter. I was convinced that a stud service in San Francisco could be a big moneymaking business and a full time career in its own.

To the last man, the boys bragged they were ready, eager and able. I know then I had not made any mistakes on the men I had selected for the initial start of this project. I had no ideals about marriage, but I reasoned that married men could present complications that could spell trouble when my service really started rolling.

The next step was just the formality of phone calls to the contacts I had made at Jeri's party and to some of my old clientele, setting up a time and place for meetings. The first time out I always went along with one of my boys, to make the proper introductions. I generally stayed long enough to have one drink so as not to be obvious about things and then found a reasonable excuse to leave my boy alone with the customer. In the first two weeks I really had my hands full, trying to handle my work in the office and running all over town, into one bar after another, meeting the customer and introducing her to one of my boys.

For the first month I had twelve boys, who on an average serviced one woman a day at fifty bucks a throw. I took a fifteen percent cut, which meant that I was pocketing ninety dollars a day or six hundred thirty bucks a week for doing nothing more than setting up the initial meetings. This did not include the women I serviced myself each evening after office hours and my weekly pay check. For awhile there I was earning about fifteen hundred a week, tax free.

After the first month, four of my boys quit their jobs as installers for the phone company and were able to service as many as three customers a day. The boys were young and bright and they caught on quickly to the romantic crap they had to dish out to feed the egos of these broads.

When I started seeing more and more of Laura and spending less time making contacts and servicing women myself, is when things began downhill. For awhile there I even convinced myself that I was falling in love with Laura and was foolish enough to think that this might develop into something permanent. Once a stud, always a stud. There's no room for real romantic involvements. That's where I made my mistake.

I had never known a girl like Laura before. She had looks, youths breeding and an overwhelming sexual appetite. On top of this, she had really fallen madly in love with me. It was one of those too-good-to-be-true situations that only work out in the movies. If I had been smart and had any sense, I would have given Laura the brush after two dates, but this was one chick I could not bring myself to hurting.

Laura and I managed to get together about once a week, generally on the week-ends. About a month went by in which we were steady-dating before I became aware that I was being followed. At first I suspected that the phone company had gotten wind of my sideline operation and was having me investigated. Then one evening as I left the office, a strange man I had not seen before approached me in the parking lot.

"Are you Archer Nelson?" he asked.

"Yes. What can I do for you?"

"It's not what you can do for me," the stranger corected. "It's what you can do for yourself, if you know what's good for you."

"Who are you," I demanded. "And what's this all about?"

"It's about Miss Laura D.-. Stop seeing her, hustler, or you're not going to be in any shape to conduct your business. In fact you won't have any business to conduct any business. Get me? This is just a warning. It's the first and the last."

He turned his heels and walked away, disappearing around the side of a building. He really set me back on my ass. I knew Laura's father was powerful. He had undoubtedly had me followed, had checked me out and found me to be thoroughly disreputable, and sent his messenger boy to serve his warning. When you had the Senator's kind of power, you could do anything. It was like the joke Jeri had told me. When you're a 900 pound gorilla, you can sleep any damn place you want to. I wasn't 900 pounds worth of power yet and I knew it. But I didn't want them to think that I could be frightened off that easily.

Then late one evening Laura showed up at my apartment with a suitcase. She said she said she had had a terrible argument with her father, who had forbidden her to see me againn. She had refused and moved out of her home.

Now I knew I was in for trouble. The only thing in my favor was that she had come to me instead of me going to her. The old man now knew he had his daughter to deal with as well as me. Knowing how serious Laura felt about me, presented him with complications that were going to take some careful handling, if he wanted to maintain his daughter's love.

I waited for the old boy to make the next move, and while I waited I made sure I didn't walk up any dark alleys.

Laura and I spent the entire week-end in my apartment. We didn't even go out for a package of cigarettes. It was wild and wonderful, and I found myself growing more and more attached to her. I began to doubt that I could give her up, if I had to. Monday morning Laura returned to school. Just before the lunch hour, I received a mysterious phone call in my office.

It was a woman's voice. "Mr. Nelson, meet me in the parking lot in fifteen minutes. I'll be waiting in your car." Before I could answer I heard the click of the receiver.

Not knowing what to expect, I went to the parking lot with trepidations. Lo and behold who do you think I discovered waiting for me in my car. It was Ruby D.-, herself, in the flesh.

"Well," I managed to say as I slid in behind the wheel of my car, "this is a surprise."

"First, let me put you straight, Mr. Nelson," Ruby began. "I'm not here on behalf of my husband. Seeing you myself is strictly my idea."

I smiled charmingly." And what do you hope can be accomplished by this meeing?"

"Us! I think you and I can accomplish something that will be beneficial to both of us."

"And what might that be?"

"Would it be possible for us to go to some cozy little secluded place for a drink and I'll tell you."

"I'm at your service, Mrs. D.-"

Ruby rolled her eyes and glaced at me flirtatiously. "That's exactly what I had in mind."

A half hour later found us seated at a corner table in a cocktail lounge of some fancy motel out on the highway. The chances of our being seen out there were remote.

"I think my husband's a fool," Ruby was admitting over a Brantly Alexander, "the way he's gone about handling this situation. Forbidding Laura and threatening you is perfectly ridiculous. I told him so. Then I saw the detective's report on you, Mr. Nelson, and I was fascinated. I never had any idea you were involved in such interesting work."

"Okay, Mrs. D.-, you know, and now I know that you know. Does Laura know yet?"

"No," she confessed. "We would like to keep it from her, if at all possible. She's doing so well at Stamford. Something like this could be shattering to a girl her age."

"So where do we go from here," I asked.

"I offer you money," Ruby smiled sweetly "Lots of money."

"How much?" If I was going to be bought off, the price was going to be high.

"Well," Ruby hemmed and hawed, "that's something we'll discuss later."

"How much later?"

"After I've availed myself of your services."

I looked at her placid, smiling, unlined face. She was a thoroughly wicked woman in the framework of a respectable, dignified matron. "Does your husband know about this?"

"I told him I was going to try things my way," Ruby explained. "He knows that I'm seeing you today ... and that I 'm going to offer to buy you off. That way everything I do is open and aboveboard, and I have no excuses to make to my husband. Having a little fun while I'm at it, is my idea, Mr. Nelson."

"I didn't think it was the Senator's. But aren't you forgetting about the detective."

"No, I thought of that too. I insisted that my husband dispense with him. You haven't been followed today, have you?"

Suddenly I realized I hadn't seen my shadow that day, and what she said was probably true. "It seems that you have thought of everything, Mrs. D.-."

"I always do," she replied. She was very sure of herself. I detest women like that. "Shall we have another drink and then retire to one of the little motel cabins in back, Mr. Nelson?"

I stiffened. "You do that, Mrs. D., I'll phone one of my boys to come over and service you."

"No, that won't do," she insisted. "I'm making this scene with you or nobody."

"Why me?"

"Simple! You're a very attractive male, and I want you. My instincts tells me you must be a holy terror in bed."

"For your information, Mrs. D.-, I am, I'm also not stupid. My instincts tell me this is some sort of a trick."

"It's no trick, I assure you. I have more to lose by doing something like this than you do. But I have in my purse a check made out to you for ten thousand dollars." With that she opened her purse, withdrew a check and held it up for me to see. It was made out to me for the amount she said and signed personnally by the Senator. "It's yours on the condition that you discontinue seeing Laura. That's my husband's condition. Mine is that we spend a pleasant afternoon together."

Your husband doesn't know of your personal condition?"

Rudy laughed. "Good God, no, My husband's a very stuffy man."

"What if I refuse. Mrs. D.-, or haven't you considered that aspect?"

"Oh, yes, I have. If you refuse me, I will simply tell my husband we could not make a deal, and you'll be out ten thousand."

"But what if I agree not to see Laura again."

"I will still tell my husband, we were not able to make a deal. Then it would give me great pleasure to see him destroy you, Mr. Nelson. Don't underestimate the Senator. He can do it. You would lose your job with the phone company. You wouldn't be able to work any place in this town ... and the police would harass you so much, you'd have to get out."

I let all she had said penetrate for awhile. Ruby might have been a hypocrite and a phony, but she wasn't hard to take. I'd been to bed with older women who were dogs in comparison to Ruby. I recalled that Laura had mentioned that her mother was no saint, which probably meant she was wild in the hay. Why not, I said to myself-for ten thousand dollars! Why not. I'd never be permitted to marry Laura. It would never work. I'm the kind of guy who can never settle down with one woman. I've got a sickness and I can't do anything about it. So I figured that the time was right to break off relationship with Laura. There was ten thousand reasons why the time was right.

"Okay, Mrs. D.-. I'm your boy. I'll give you one helluva workout."

"You agreed no to see Laura again?"

"Yes." I said flaty.

"And this afternoon will be strictly between us? I mean I would not want you mentioning anything to Jeri and Corey."

"I understand, Mrs. D.-. Discretion is the policy of our service." My fingertips were itching to touch that check for ten thousand. "Should I arrange for a cabin," I asked somewhat patroniziingly, "or have you taken care of that too?"

"No," she replied. "Those details I leave to you."

I rose from my chair, crossed around in back of her chair to help her to get up from the table. "After you, Mrs. D.-." I'm quite convincing when I play the part of a gentleman.

The cabin room was neat, clean and comfortably furnished in the economical Swedish-Modern. The moment after we had entered the room and I had closed and chained the door, Ruby transferred from one personality into another. It was unbelievable! From the shrewd, calculating, cunning, society-yeary female that she was, she transformed into a virtuous, naive, swoon-prone heroine in peril. I had heard about woman like this, who had to assume another character, who actually got their rocks off by stepping into another role. In Ruby's case, she became the young girl, who was always being taken advantage of and had to fight for her honor. Fighitng off men heightened the thrill.

No sooner had I snapped the lock and chained the door, then she reeled about to face me and demanded to know, "What are you doing?"

"Locking the door," I explained. "What else?"

"No," she objected dramatically. "Leave the door opened."

"Are you crazy?" I said.

She bolted toward the door and took the chain off before I thought to stop her. "No, let me out of here. I've changed my mind." She was in a state of panic. At first I thought she was putting on an act ... and she was ... except that later I realized she was not aware of it.

"Look, honey, we're here now," I pointed out. "It's too late to back out. I've accepted your offer."

She stared at me pleadingly. "No, please, let me out of here," she said, pulling on the door, but not bothering to unlock it.

"Oh, come off it," I laughed. "Who do you think you're kidding." Impulsively, and somewhat angered, I grabbed her and viciously pulled her away from the door. Ruby began to slap me, and this only made me sore. I was determined to screw her now, regardless. Something about her rocked me. What it was, I couldn't figure out. It was a strange mixture of confusion and emotions. She had led me on, blackmailed me into this situation and I was damn sure she wasn't going to back out now. I grabbed her roughly, blindly, and pulled her forcibly against me.

"Come here," I ordered. "And shut up. I never knew a woman who needed it more than you, honey."

"Let go of me," she snapped. "If you don't, I'll scream. I will. I swear it."

I only laughed at her. Go ahead. Who cares? Scream your goddamn head off."

"How dare you," she cried indignantly, raking my face with her nails.

I took about two seconds of that before I seized her by the wrist. With brute force, grasping her head with my free hand, I smothered her mouth with my own. Ruby struggled and pushed against me. She grasped for breath, struggling and biting, but she soon realized she could not overpower me. Slowly, then abruptly her arms moved up and entwined around my neck.

"That's more like it," I sighed. At first I thought she was responding. I eased up on her and when I did, she suddenly wrenched free of my grasp and tore loose, making a beeline for the door. I went after her, caught her at the door, picked her up bodily and dumped her on the bed.

My violent actions only served to inflame her desires. She leaped up and slashed out at me with her long nails. Each blow she struck only served to whet her appetite and increase her sexual hunger. With a movement that was more exasperation than violent anger, I pushed her in the face and she tumbled back down on the bed. Desperately she tried to escape by rolling over to the other side. I lunged for her, however, and held her fast to the mattress. A couple of the buttons on her dress popped and I discovered she was completely naked underneath. This broad really came prepared.

Now I knew she was putting on an act and I decided to play up to her. I ripped her dress open leering down at the surging mounds of her flat, flabby breasts. My fingers twitched at her nipples. In one violent motion I ripped the garment off of her. She shrieked in a frenzy, kicking and clawing at me. The violence also served to work me up. The naked sight of her spurred me on with reckless abandon. The more I mistreated and manhandled her, the more it drove Ruby berserk.

Although she continued to defy me, she made no effort to conceal her nakedness. For a long while, I stood above her, glaring down, breathless from the excitement and the effort of the struggle.

Unexpectedly, Ruby tried once again to make a beeline for the door. She didn't have a stitch on and this time I didn't try to stop her. I thought it would be fun to see how far she would go with this act. She got the door unlocked. That's as far as the bitch got, before hesitating and turning back to me. Knowing full well she would not venture out of the room naked, I fumbled with my own clothing, undoing my belt and zipper. The moment I dropped my pants, Ruby was all eyes. Breathless from exertion, her breasts rising and falling quickly, she stared at me. Her hair which was dyed black like Laura's, was twisted and tangled about her face and neck. It gave her the look of a wild woman.

It was so ridiculous. When I didn't touch her, she was all right. Every time I grabbed her, she tried desperately to escape. I've told you how sick I am, but this broad was a whole lot sicker. I had to hold her fast by the wrists, forcing her arms behind her back. Shoving her back down upon the bed, I accidentally fell on top of her. This did it for me. Two naked bodies pressed together and I was gone. Ruby threw her head from side to side to avoid my clavering mouth, which was seeking the soft, pliant globes of her flesh.

Then suddenly, thank God, she was still. She was limp and expended. I had to look up from the tips of her breasts, where I had been chewing, before I recognized the fire in her eyes. No longer was her mouth compressed. What a kookie broad she was. I chuckled and then covered the coral tipped center of one breast with my mouth. Ruby trembled all over and cried out as if she was helpless. In a pig's ass, she was helpless. She was as strong as I was.

But her cry, I recognized was of pleasure and desire, not of anger or pain. Now I could relax my grip on her, and not be worried that she might hit me or struggled to free herself. Instead I felt her long nails clawing at my head, running through my hair.

"You son of a bitch," she murmured, kissing me savagely, her tongue darting, her body arching up, her flesh lashing against mine. "You don't want me, I know, but I can't resist you. I'm helpless in your arms."

I couldn't help laughing. I thought she could produce a better line than something as corny as that-I'm helpless in your arms.

"Please, don't hurt me any more," she begged. "I'll give in to you."

Who was she kidding. I had roughed her up a bit but I hadn't hurt her. She was really a nut. Once I convinced myself of this fact, I knelt above gazed down at her sleek thighs and heavy breasts. She lay struggling, squirming on the mattress, awaiting me in anticipation of my invasion. As I lowered myself, she leeched on to the wet, sweaty muscles of my shoulders. The more I forced, the more she wanted me. Caught up now, I could only think of the urgency of my own need for release. Is I grew more aware of her gentle, feminine scent, my senses became inflamed with desire. I could feel the soft, clinging, raking, clutching of her hands upon my back. No more playing games, I told myself. It was time to get down to business and earn that ten thousand dollars.

I knew what she liked now, so I provoked her, using vile erotic words-all four letter words-which I whispered into her ear. Ruby cursed me, but nevertheless she clung to me with her surging thighs and savage kisses, "You adorable bastard," she sobbed. It was a cry of shameless lust. I tried to hold back, to prolond the torment, but the urgency of the moment drove us both into a frenzied state.

She continued to curse me over and over, beating me off with one hand, holding to me with the other. Suddenly we rushed on together toward our final fulfillment. Ruby became rigid. She screamed at the top of her voice, clawing at me, driving her body against mine like a demanding madwoman. And then, finally, at the pulsating, shattering instant, at the summit, we collapsed.

I continued to hold her in my arms. I've got to admit, Ruby was a good lay. She ranked with the best of them. She gave intercourse a dash of dramatic shownmanship. Slowly I became conscious of the final sighs accompanying the tremors of her passion as it subsided.

Ruby gently pressed herself to my side, wiggled a bit, then moved to the edge of the bed. She sat up and reached toward my cigarettes that had dropped to the floor while I was undressing. She lighted the cigarette, took several puffs on it and then turned it over to me. I was watching her closely through half-opened eyes. I knew now that the session was over, I was going to have to fight to get that check off her and then rush to the Senator's bank before three o'clock to cash it. I was on to the old trick of giving a check and then calling the bank and canceling it.

Just at that moment, to my surprise as well as Ruby's, the door opened-the door that I had forgotten to lock again after Rubv had dramatically opened it-and my old friend the detective stepped into the room with a flash camera.

"Hold it," he ordered, as he snapped a picture of Ruby and me sprawled across the bed naked. "Thank you," he said as he backed out of the door and closed it behind him.

Ruby started screaming. "Damn! Damn! Damn him. That bastard. That stuffy ass-hole."

"Who?" I queried.

"My husband. He promised to call off the detective today, but he tricked me."

I've been involved in so many situations that backfire, I can smell the smoke before somebody strikes the match. I got up off the bed, angled around to the chair in which Ruby had dropped her purse.

"Did you stop to consider that maybe the detective did this on his own?" I pointed out to distract her. "Maybe he did it in hopes of getting a bonus from the Senator."

"But how would he know about the situation between us?" Ruby turned away from me and nervously reached for another cigarette. As she did so, I reached for her purse and quickly withdrew the check made out to me.

"Quickly, lock that door," I ordered." Ruby obeyed and this gave me time to shut her purse and place it back on the seat of the chair. With my arms behind my back, I carefully folded the cucck, tuen Dent over for my shirt on the floor. As I picked it up, I stuffed the check in my shirt pocket.

We dressed quickly. Ruby was as anxious to separate as I was. "I'll leave first," I suggested. "That way there's no chance of that bum getting another shot of us together."

"What difference would it make?" Ruby whined. "Just one picture is enough."

"It might be out of focus ... or overexposed. Who knows?"

"Archer, please don't be angry, but I can't give you that check now. I've got to wait and see."

"I understand," I said, as I headed for the door.

"I hope you do. There's just a chance the detective might contact me first for a shakedown."

"Hurry, honey. Get out of here as quickly as possible. So long. I enjoyed the ride." With a salute to her, I flew out the door, got in my car and drove off. All the way to the bank I held my breath, hoping that Ruby would be in such a hurry to get home that she might not check her purse. If she did, and discovered that I had taken the check, one call from a public phone booth to the bank and the check was no good.

Forty-five minutes later I walked out of the bank with a roll of bills amounting to ten thousand dollars bulging in my pocket. I felt like the cock of the walk. I had outsmarted a Senator ... or had I? Two days later all hell broke loose.