Chapter 8
It was a few days after the country expedition that the gang met again at the hideout. The French girls had already begun to get established and were proving popular enough to make life very cheerful for Francie and his boys. But there was one thing that was worrying Francie. One of the earlier girls in his "business" appeared to have more money than her cut guaranteed. She seemed to be living too high.
This, as far as Francie was concerned, meant one thing: that she was overcharging the clients and pocketing the extra. That annoyed him. It not only meant that the girl was doing a bit of double-crossing - flouting his authority - it meant also that she was either going to lose customers because her price was too high or else she was disregarding the contract with Francie which assured her protection for a large percentage of her takings.
It was how to check on her that had baffled him for a while until the obvious course had occurred to him: to send one of the gang under the guise of a client. And the obvious choice for the job was Hartnell, who was much more the type of man she would expect as a client and whom she was hardly likely to have seen in connection with the gang in view of his comparatively recent arrival.
He explained his plan while, as usual, they drank whiskey, lazing on the beds and in the chairs. Gracie had managed to keep away from these meetings which would have been a strain for herself and Hartnell.
"Rosie's been a good girl up to now," he sneered. "And after I've finished with her if she's been up to monkey business, she'll start being a good girl again."
He sipped his drink and his eyes had taken on the hard, callous look which was most common with him.
"Now, the sort of clients that Rosie 'as don't ask how much it is until afterwards. It doesn't matter to 'em. So they ring up 'Ilda and she makes the appointment for 'em. Afterwards they're supposed to give Rosie 20 nicker. Now it wouldn't surprise me if she'd been chargin' 30, or perhaps even 40 nicker and keeping back the odds for herself."
His lips twisted at the thought.
"The best way to find out without making her suspect what we think is for old Roger, here, to go and have a pennyworth. After 'is little dabble he can fin out just how much she wants and then let me know. 'Ow does that strike you gentlemen?"
"It doesn't appeal to me," Hartnell said.
"Oh, and why not? Found a new girl friend since you cleared out of Dora's? Want to be faithful and true?" Francie chuckled and Hartnell was slightly shocked at the way the news got around. He wondered if Francie had any way of finding out about him and Gracie.
"I don't go for that sort of women," Hartnell said. "It would be better if somebody else went."
"Oh, you shouldn't be like that about Rosie," Francie said, with a grin. "She knows her stuff and as I said before she's a nice girl - 'as been. Anyway bell marked 'Miss Rose Franklin.' I'm saying that you gotta go because she won't know you and you're the best one to pass as a pukka client."
Hartnell's teeth gritted. Was he to do everything this thug said just because he'd got in so deep with him that it was difficult to get out? But then the spasm of anger passed as the thought occurred to him that he might be able to save the girl from unpleasant consequences if it was true that she was double-dealing.
"All right," he said. "I suppose I must do what you say."
"That's right, Roger, me boy. You'll probably find it so good you'll become a regular client yourself." Francie chortled at his joke and the others guffawed.
"We'll make the date for tomorrow night," he went on. "That should give you time to start getting excited about the idea."
It occurred to him that he had had more sex in the past few weeks than he'd had for a year before.
The lift took Hartnell up to the fourth floor of the block of luxurious flats and he got out and rang the bell.
After a few seconds the door was opened by a slim, arty-looking girl in a close-fitting pair of tartan trousers and a Spanish-looking blouse with beautiful handwoven embroidery. She was wearing sandals and her blonde hair was pulled up on the back of her head in a small bun. Her eyes were rather heavily mascaraed. Otherwise the makeup on her small, delicate face with the large mouth which dominated it, was not noticeable.
"John Delaney," he announced, using the name which had been alloted him for the visit.
"I'm Rosie," she said with a smile. "Please come in."
She was rather charming, he thought, and she spoke nicely. Why didn't this sort of girl try and get in films or the stage or do modeling or ... but where would they get the same money for the same amount of leisure time? Perhaps they were right.
She led him into a small, pleasantly furnished lounge overlooking the street. It reminded him for a moment of Dora's place and he wondered if Dora had ever done a spot of this business.
"Would you like a Scotch?" she asked.
Francie really made these places worthwhile for the visitor, he decided, as he accepted.
They chatted pleasantly for an hour or so. There was no hurry and this was all part of the technique - to avoid the atmosphere of prostitution. To get to know each other a little, to flirt almost, before going to bed.
He passed himself off as a gentleman of leisure who dabbled in the arts and he was astonished when she took him up seriously and knowledgeably on the topics involved. She actually rummaged in a drawer and produced some quite fair poetry which she had written.
It was love poetry and as he read it softly, lounging on a divan, she drew her feet up under her beside him and nestled her blonde head against his shoulder.
"You read it beautifully," she said, when he'd finished. "You have a very nice voice."
He looked down at her and she was staring up at him with her lips apart.
So this is how the ball starts rolling, he thought.
He bent and kissed her and the large mouth seemed to envelop him like an octopus, drawing him into her, spiriting his tongue into her mouth as if by magic. Her hands closed on his face, tightly holding him, while her plump breasts jutted into him through the blouse.
Gently she uncurled as their tongues battled for possession of mouths, and pushed him back on the divan, coming over on top of him, half lying along him.
He thought once again of Gracie and how unimportant all this was compared with her, of how, after each woman his love for her increased in comparing them with her. And then he gave himself over to the present moment.
She was lying on him, wriggling her hips gently against his, kissing him, putting her wet, little tongue in his ear.
He reached over her and put his hands on her behind, feeling it warm and fleshy under the tight stretch of the trousers. He put his hands on her waist and it was so slim that for a moment he thought his hands might join.
"Oh, how delicious," she breathed in his ear as she stretched her legs on either side of him and rubbed her crotch against his loins. She spoke with the air of someone eating an oft-tried dish which is nonetheless exquisite.
He felt the hollowed curve of her leg junction rocking and rolling gently on the hump which his erection had formed. He dug his fingers between her buttocks, pushing the cloth of the trousers before him and she jiggled her behind so that his hand brushed over the two mounds.
"Oh, we must have it here, now," she whispered urgently. "The bed can wait."
With her crotch crushing his penis, he managed to think, in passing, that if any of this was simulated, it was so well done as to be equal to the real thing.
She certainly seemed to be thoroughly immersed in her sexual needs. Her big mouth fastened on his neck like a vampire and then she was feeling for the zip of her trousers and wriggling them down her hips and thighs.
He helped her, pushing them off her bottom. A thrill coursed through him at the contrast between the heavy material and the cool flimsiness of her briefs. The briefs slipped on her bottom and he could caress the buttocks, feeling the texture of the skin through the silk.
She unbuttoned the blouse and when it was off he undid the brassiere, pulling apart the hooks at the back and she leaned up to let him whisk it away and drop it on the floor.
He pulled her up to him and opened his mouth wide over a hard nipple, engulfing it and the hard point of her breast within his lips. He sucked hard the point of her breast within his lips. He sucked hard and she breathed quickly and excitedly through her nostrils, still rubbing her crotch on him, letting a leg fall limply on either side.
When he could no longer breathe from the smothering pressure of her soft breasts around him, he levered her down and pushed her briefs off her behind.
He stroked her buttocks, rubbing the palms gently and then hard across the skin, feeling it give way and then ooze back. He explored the crease between each fleshy globe, pushing them apart, exploring the tender skin around the anus, brushing against a little bed of down around it.
He rubbed his hand down over the buttocks, let it slip underneath the provocative curve, through a little jungle of hair and then he had found the long wet slit, opened it with his fingers and pushed in.
"Oh, oh. How beautiful," she murmured spreading her legs wide to make it easier for him to reach and rub her clitoris. The clitoris was hard and erect under his fingertips and it excited him that she was so excited. He had half expected a sort of lethargy on her part.
Suddenly she leaned up from him and began to untie his tie, working feverishly, jumping occasionally as he continued to masturbate her.
She got the tie off with considerable dexterity. He helped her get coat, shirt and vest off and then she caressed his hard chest admiringly before fiddling with the buttons of his trousers.
"You'll have to stop a minute or you'll drive me crazy," she whispered. "I can't even keep my fingers on these buttons."
He removed his fingers and contented himself with playing with her breasts, swinging above him like two ripe pears, while she flicked the buttons undone and pulled his trousers off.
His penis flipped starkly out as she removed his shorts and she bent and kissed it quickly before starting to caress it with her fingers, letting it ride up the front of her hips as she sat astride him.
His fingers trickled along her thighs, under them and then up again to the long fleshy ravine.
She threw back her head. Her eyes were tightly closed, her mouth hanging open. She looked as if she were saying a prayer to some pagan deity.
The changing expressions of passion on her face sent a chill down his spine, a chill which seemed to shoot straight to the tip of his penis where she fingered it.
His fingertips worked furiously on her clitoris which became more and more pronounced until suddenly she leaned up on her knees, grabbed his organ and tried to stuff it into the deep well in the ravine.
"Quick, stuff me with it, quick, oh, quick!" she gasped.
He caught hold of her waist, directed her up above his great, reaching stalk with its fiery mushroom head and then pulled her down with it.
She sank onto it with a low, joyful moan and he shot up into her like a jet of water with an equally exulting groan.
Flattening her knees out on either side of him so that they pressed against his hips on the divan, she sank lower and lower on the spear, moaning all the way as if he were killing her. Then she rose up on her knees so that his penis, moist from her vagina, came whitely into view. Up she rose until the rim of the knob was out of her and then with a soul-tearing gasp she sank down again, flattening her crotch onto his, containing the whole of his penis inside her up to the cervix.
He pressed his legs together and jerked his hips rhythmically up as she descended so that their bodies crashed together at the sexual junction, bringing a regular pattern of gasps and groans from their throats.
Most of the time she kept her eyes closed, but sometimes she opened them and looked at him with a deep, agonized look of passion as she screwed herself down with an extra twist, her breasts quivering to the points of the nipples.
He kept his eyes open, watching her dropping mouth, flared nostrils, creased brows, gaining extra pleasure from the sight of her abandonment.
Every time his prick rode firmly up into her, it felt so sensitive along its whole length that he felt he wanted to leave it there forever. She would squirm for a moment with it right in her to its utmost and then rise again bringing that same sensitivity along the thick tube of flesh.
He squeezed her thighs, smooth and slim on either side of him. He played with the hair on her abdomen running his fingers down so that he could touch the flanges of flesh on each side of the spot where his penis ran tightly into her.
She swayed on the end of his rod and he thought for a moment she would flop uncontrollably off the divan in her blind passion, but then like a bucking horse she had righted herself and with ever-increasing groaning was running up and down on his thrusting leg of sex.
Her knees dug into him ever tighter and tighter and he sensed that she was coming to a climax.
Every time she sank down on his loins, now, she gave a little shudder which quivered her breasts and the soft flesh of her belly.
"Oh, oh I want to die. It's too much ... too much," she said between gritted teeth.
She began to rise and fall more and more quickly, gasping and grunting, her head swaying from side to side as if only slightly attached to her neck.
He flexed his hips at her at the last moment with every descent she made and it seemed to knock the breath out of her body every time.
Her knees pressed tighter and tighter against his sides, shuffled, tightened, shuffled again. He knew he wasn't ready yet, but she was on the brink. Her breath rose almost to a scream, her head tensed back on her neck so that a vein and the tendons stood out. Her body was twirling like someone on the gallows in the wind and then with a sudden desperate convulsion which thrust her breasts forward in a magnificent projection she released a flood of liquid from her vagina and a flow of agonized "Aaaahs" from her mouth.
She collapsed on him for a moment, falling forward with her lips to his neck, but only for a second or two. Then she righted herself with a smile at him and began to work up and down, slowly on his aching organ.
The sight of her abandoned climax had filled him with an almost sadistic desire. He caught her hips just below the waist, digging his fingers fiercely, cruelly into the soft flesh and began to ram her up and down, directing her strongly down as he thrust up.
She spread her legs to allow him full entry and now her passage was a little tighter after her climax - which made penetration all the more exquisitely anguishing for him.
"Come darling, come, come," she said softly, entreating him to enjoy himself as she had.
His prick felt as if the skin was being chafed off it. It was excruciating - and delirious. If life could stay at this one point of ecstasy it would be beautiful to live every minute of it, he thought wildly.
She watched him now, watched his passion in the taut wrinkles of his face, the twist of his mouth, the agony in his eyes, the cruel strength with which he held her naked hips as if he would crush them through his own body.
The rigid member in her seemed immense, as if it would break some organ in her. She rode up and down feeling it huge inside her, imagining she felt it expand. She felt him suddenly cannon up into her vagina with an even fiercer barrage of thrusts, felt his hands clasp her with the strength of the death-grip, heard the breath spurt from between his clenched teeth, felt the convulsive heave as if he would throw her off him, forced herself down against his push and then felt the hot flood of fluid gushing inside her in a long series of spurts until he gradually calmed and lay quiet under her and she flopped down on him.
Later they moved to the bedroom and he found her so eager that he lost count of the number of times they made furious love during the night.
It was late in the morning that they got up. They had managed, at last, to have a few hours sleep.
She cooked bacon and eggs, wearing a dressing gown, while he had a shower and dressed. The time for the test was approaching.
The food tasted excellent and it was while they were eating he said:
"You're really so delightful, that it seems ridiculous to think that money's involved, but you have to live - so what little present can I leave . . ."
"It was very enjoyable," she said, smiling. "But the money is laid down - I'm not the only one involved. It's thirty pounds."
He looked at her steadily. So she was taking an extra cut. He wondered just what Francie would do to that delicate face, that excellent body if he knew. Well Francie wasn't going to have any fun through his information.
"Francie sent me," he said simply.
The girl stared at him and the color slowly left her face. She knew why he'd come and she knew he'd learned just what he'd come to learn.
He saved her the embarrassment of having to try and talk her way out of an impossible situation. He put his hands on hers and went on quickly:
"Francie thought you were overcharging, but it's a good thing for you that he sent me to find out. I got mixed up in Francie's affairs without realizing just what those affairs are. I don't like him and I don't intend to tell him what you've been doing. But I'd advise you to take advantage of the break and charge the right price in the future."
The girl had listened to his words as if she couldn't believe her ears. Now her eyes searched his to see if this was just the beginning of the torture, the false hope.
"Do you mean that?" There was a break in her voice. "You wouldn't kid about a thing like that."
"Certainly, I mean it," he said. "As far as I'm concerned you asked me for twenty. But you'd better cut down on your high living. That was what made Francie suspicious."
Her eyes suddenly filled with tears and they flowed down over her cheeks. Her head sank to the table.
He came round the table and held her head against him, stroking her hair with his hand.
After a while she calmed down and looked up at him. Seeing his eyes, concerned and sympathetic, she smiled through the dregs of tears.
"I - I can't believe it," she said. "It - it's too fantastic."
"What do you mean?"
"That Francie should have sent someone to find out about me - and that that person should turn out to be you - and that you're not going to tell him."
He bent and kissed her head.
"I can't understand how someone like you came to be mixed up with Francie," she said.
"Well, it's a long story," he said. "But I don't want to stay mixed up with him much longer."
He moved away and picked up his coat.
"I'll leave the twenty just for appearances," he said. "And don't forget to be careful."
She got up, came to him and kissed him.
"I shan't forget you," she said. "And any time you care to, come round during the day. I would like you to because I think you're so nice - and it would be a pleasure that wouldn't involve money."
"That's very sweet of you," Hartnell said. He patted her behind just for the pleasure of it. She kissed him once again and then he left.
"I can't understand it," Francie said to Smiler. "I was convinced Rosie was cheating. Can't understand how she could run that car otherwise. Yet Hartnell says she only charged him twenty."
"Maybe he fell for her," Smiler said.
Francie considered this silently with more seriousness than Smiler had meant.
"You know, Smiler," he said, at last, "there may even be something in what you say. There are times when the old school tie thinks it has the right to tell a false'ood."
He thought for a little longer.
"Get me Ronnie on the phone," he said. "I've got a job for him."