Chapter 1

The reputation of a pimp travels before him. His girls are his public relations staff and his image is dependent upon their feelings. They talk about him. Brag about him. Exaggerate his power and his success. They speak lovingly of his nastiness or they curse him out. If they are not convinced that he is the most virile pimp in the business, they will leave him. Ironically, it is not necessary for a pimp to sleep with his stable for the girls to believe that there is no lover superior in prowess.

I was twenty-two and living in the penthouse apartment of a small brownstone off Park Avenue when Florida found me. Business was rolling and I didn't need her really, but I had learned to keep a reserve of women, a variety of types, and Florida, even at first sight, struck me as having most unusual possibilities.

It was a December morning, the end of a long snowy week. Cars buried under mountains of white, clogged the streets. No buses could run. I had gone out for a newspaper and some air. The crisp weather appealed to me and because the day was windless, I felt I could walk for hours.

Many people toiled with shovels to clear a path, to dig out cars, to clear off stoops. I paid little attention to them and perhaps would have walked on past Florida, too, except that she swung her shovel with such ease and exhilaration in the exercise that I had to pause in admiration for her sheer animal pleasure in physical activity.

She wore a black sealskin jacket that twinkled with flakes of snow blown onto the shoulders. She had no hat on. Her hair, a flame red, made a sear of fire that seemed to lick back and forth as it swung. From where I stood diagonally across the street, I could not see her face immediately. I found myself pausing to enjoy the spectacle of an energetic woman.

I had to wait quite a while before she rested her shovel and looked up at the sky for signs of sun or more snow.

My expectations were fulfilled. A great aesthetic satisfaction filled me as I surveyed the sharp outlines of her large face. Obviously she came from peasant stock that had been refined through generations. The feminine quality of her strength implied that she was not accustomed to work, that she enjoyed pleasure and bodily movement for its own sake. As she rested one forearm on he handle of the shovel, I began to consider what this woman would be like in bed; this person who could so easily have paid a boy to clear her car but who had chosen, instead, to do it herself.

I suppose she felt me looking at her for certainly I didn't think to hide my interest. Or perhaps she just happened to glance across the street as people do. At any rate she met my gaze and I smiled at her.

Her expression of pleasure in the day and in her activity changed to something remote. Instantly I realized that she didn't want me looking at her but preferred being alone with herself and with whatever thoughts suffered her imagination.

I had not been accustomed to women pushing me off with Florida's special kind of self-sufficiency. I began to wonder what those thoughts were which could make her so happy to remain alone with them. I asked myself if she might be demonstrating a new kind of flirtatious pursuit yet at the same time I knew that with Florida, I was up against a strong manifestation of sincerity. She really wanted to be left alone.

The challenge of her nature intrigued me. Something in my own nature, the drive to understand as much as possible about women, moved me to cross the street and strike up a conversation despite her obvious lack of desire to participate.

"Good morning," I said as though we'd been neighbors for years. "Looks like a nice car you've got hidden under there. A Jaguar?"

Florida didn't give me the courtesy of a smile. Her lips moved into the upward formation of a smile but her clear rust-colored eyes remained cool.

"No, it's a Mercedes," she replied with an undercurrent of contempt for my lack of recognition.

"Ah, yes, I should have noticed."

Because I stood there with no obvious intention of passing on, she began again to shovel.

I felt no inclination to offer assistance. She wouldn't have wanted it anyway. I simply remained standing with the newspaper rolled under my arm, watching her toil and waiting for her to tire again.

Stone-gray fenders gradually appeared through the encrusted snow. She moved the shovel with care and I sensed that she loved her car dearly. It seemed to be more than a car to her? a pet or a companion. I could imagine her taking long drives alone through the countryside, content with her own company and pleased by the smooth machine responding to her control.

A woman with this independent temperament could never be a whore, could never submit to the demands of another. Despite her apparent coldness to me, I understood that she lived for the personal touch in all things.

"You'll pardon me for interrupting you," I said after a while, "but there seems to be a beer can cutting into your back tire."

Florida's disposition changed. Her head swiveled round to me to determine where I was looking. Her gaze then followed my own.

"Oh, God," she breathed, as though suddenly faced with a catastrophe.

I understood what troubled her. It was a snow tire and not readily replaceable on short notice.

"Well, maybe it didn't slash through," I said, bending to the tire. "Let's see."

We examined it together, investigating, feeling, testing.

"Seems all right," she concluded. "What do you think?"

"I don't know. You ought to take it into a garage anyhow so you won't get stuck someplace where you can't get help."

"Yes, you're right."

Offhandedly I took the shovel from her and cleared a path around the tires so that she could drive out of the space. With great difficulty, ricking and skidding, she maneuvered out into the piled up street.

I was still standing with the shovel and felt confident that she couldn't drive off and leave me even if she could manage it through the snow.

Some ten feet further on, the car came to a halt. Florida put her head out through the window and looked back.

"I'm not going to be able to make it," she said.

"Oh, nonsense, of course you can."

I took my cue and went to the car, opening the door on the driver's side.

She slid over from behind the wheel. I laid the shovel on the floor in the rear, got in and began to rock the car gradually onward toward Madison Avenue where the plows had gone through.

By the time we got to a gas station and had the tire checked out, it was one-thirty. I had been so much of a help to Florida that she had decided to forget her aloof stance temporarily and join me in recouping energy at a local steakhouse.

The talk between us was of the most casual nature, yet I began to feel something in Florida reaching out toward me and the more she reached, the more seemingly passive I became. She spoke about cars for a while, of course. Then I found out she had just come back from Greece after two years there painting on the islands. It seemed to me that she must be either very wealthy herself or kept by someone quite generous. I could not immediately understand why it struck me that there was something very important missing from Florida's life.

We spent a leisurely couple of hours in conversation, with relaxed spaces between as we watched people and cars toiling along the avenue. But, inevitably, it came time for us to part. The evening was coming on and I had connections to make. Business first.

I paid the check and offered to walk back with her to her house, where I expected we would part.

When we reached the front door, she leaned against the side of the doorway and said, "Must you go?" Her voice was unexpectedly soft, almost shy.

I really didn't expect this reversed of her disposition and attitude toward me. Perhaps I had made a mistake. Perhaps Florida wasn't the serene, self-sufficient cookie I thought I had seen.

"Unfortunately, yes," I answered gently. "I work at night, you see."

"Oh?" she said, in an effort to prolong the conversation. "What do you do?"

I smiled. I felt like telling her right out, but I didn't. "I'm a personnel manager," I answered with a crooked, private laugh at the peculiar truth of this description.

She wrinkled her high forehead. "What kind of personnel manager works after five?"

I let a silence fall between us. "Some do," I answered noncommittally.

I could see that she was intrigued now, as I had been originally with her. Perhaps she was accustomed to men trying to pick her up and pursuing their interest unabatedly. I, on the other hand, had made the overture but was now ready to withdraw. Probably this was something quite novel in her life.

I began to play with the notion of Florida, conjecturing what her reaction would be if and when she saw exactly what I did do for a living. Why not? I really had nothing to hide. I was quite proud of my accomplishments.

"If you'd like to know what I do," I said, "you might come home with me."

Maybe there was something ominous in my voice or something irresistibly mysterious.

"I wouldn't mind," she said.

I took her arm then and we began to walk toward Park Avenue. My personal interest in Florida flagging, my business interest rose in inverse proportion. After all, she was and must be like every other woman to whom I was attracted, a person of profound inner loneliness.

My apartment was empty when we arrived, but I knew it would not be so for long. I was expecting a particular client from Madrid, a man of unusual tastes, for whom until now I had been able to supply the kind of woman who would satisfy his particular requirements. I had devoted some of the early morning hours to considering which girl I might supply for him this night. Now it seemed to me that he just might enjoy Florida's ability to appear independent.

I got her a scotch and water and settled her down in the large, comfortable living room that served as my office. I began telling her bits and pieces about my expected visitor to see if I could find a way of pinching her curiosity. First of all I let her know that Mr. F. was in the ship-building business and watched carefully to see if she could be lured by this implication of money.

She rather took it in stride and I tried again by telling her that Mr. F. had a deep interest in athletics and sports, particularly horses.

"Racing or riding them?" she asked.

Immediately I sensed that I was close to pay dirt. "Riding," I said. "Do you like riding?"

She stretched out her legs and crossed them at the ankles. Her elasticized slacks emphasized the line of her calf and thigh. "I do," she said, "very much."

"Well, in that case," I sipped at my drink with an offhand gesture, "you and Mr. F. will get on quite we'll. He keeps a fine stable in Argentina and I know hell be delighted to have someone to talk to about it all."

"I have some horses myself," she said, "in Pennsylvania. I should be there now, instead of New York," she mused, looking out at the whitening sky which again threatened more snow.

"He's a friend of yours, is he?" Florida continued after apparently having thought about the situation in some private way.

It was a time to step in a little closer to the truth. I refilled her glass and my own. Then, standing over her, I said, "Not exactly a friend, Florida. A client."

"Oh? In what business?"

She sounded innocent. I wondered if she were being purposely obtuse or whether she simply could not bring herself to connect all the bits and pieces of information I had been feeding her obliquely.

"I match men and women of similar tastes." My gaze slanted down upon her steadily.

"You don't look like the head of a lonely hearts club." She made an effort to smile.

"I'm not. My approach to this matter of love is much more direct, Florida."

She didn't answer me but while she kept looking up into my face, I saw the high color drain from her cheeks and knew that she had finally caught my meaning exactly.

"Do you want to leave?" I asked.

She wet her lips, took another long drink from the glass and shook her head, no.

I still couldn't be certain that Florida intended to cooperate or participate in any way. Perhaps she was just curious and wanted to test the water a little to see what it was like to be in the company of a man out to purchase her body for the night. Obviously, if she gave in to it, it would be a novel experience. Maybe she wanted to do it for kicks. Maybe she had nothing better to spen her time on tonight. I couldn't really feel secure as to what Florida was feeling or thinking. All I knew was that, for reasons of her own, she wanted to participate.

Good enough, I thought. We'll see what happens. I was betting on the fact that if she were predisposed to staying around, she would submit eventually to Mr. F's personal predictions, or at least experiment.

A half hour later Mr. F. arrived in energetic good shape. He was, to my mind, not an unattractive man. Small, wiry, quick moving. One had from him the sensation of exuberant life and an appreciation for the finer pleasures of living.

He had come in bundled up against the cold in a black Russian style, fur hat and bulky coat with matching Persian fur lapels. He began immediately to talk with Florida as I took his things and I couldn't help being amused at Mr. F.'s thundering enthusiasm that rolled toward her with complete confidence.

After a few introductory remarks, I maneuvered the conversation around to the subject of horses, knowing that my client had more than a normal interest in such a discussion. As he and Florida became engrossed in talk about saddles and trails and the comparative enjoyments from different breeds, I watched Mr. F. warm to the girl. I could not have provided him with a better companion, and he glanced at me once, just once, to inform me of my absolute genius for satisfying his particular taste.

I knew what he wanted. It would take Florida not a little while to find out.

Gradually Florida and Mr. F. began to overlook me in their conversation and I helped matters along in this way by going off to the kitchen for more ice cubes. From there I listened, not so much to their words as to the underlying tone of their voices. I felt confident that very soon I would absent myself from the apartment altogether, leaving them to their growing intimacy and companionship. For special clients, such as Mr. F., I was in the habit of making my apartment available as a convenience. Then the couple would have the option of either staying and making themselves comfortable, or moving on according to their own tastes.

I therefore felt surprised to see Florida standing in the doorway of the kitchen, with Mr. F. directly behind her, both of them, it seemed, reluctant to let me go.

Glancing from face to face, I assured myself that all was working smoothly between them. Both people wore congenial smiles and I felt a certain tell-tale exhilaration glowing which meant that all had progressed thus far smoothly. What, then, did they want of me?

I could only imagine that as yet Florida had not gotten the complete message, that Mr. F. was letting her take the bit in her teeth, so to speak, or that in some ways yet unknown to me my participation was required.

"It's just begun to snow again," Florida said.

"Oh, has it?" I went along with the irrelevancy.

"I suppose I ought to be getting home soon," she continued. "Or I might be stuck here for the night and have to help you dig your car out in the morning."

"I was suggesting to Florida," Mr. F. said, "that we all go to my place now while we can still get out."

"Fine," I said, in a relaxed way. "Let's go, then."

We all proceeded to put on our heavy clothes and went down to where Mr. F.'s car was double-parked.

I took up my usual position of vantage in the back seat, while Florida sat up front with him.

I knew that he kept a place in the city but, instead of going home, he headed the car toward the East River Drive. Traffic on the highway was still light and we made reasonably good time through the slush and progressed at a slow but steady rate northward, in the direction of Connecticut.

The conversation became desultory. No one felt the pressure to remain vocally sociable. There was a comfortable, easy going atmosphere in the car and my expectations for an agreeable night increased with each passing moment.

After some couple of hours of driving, Mr. F. pulled the car off the main highway and proceeded underneath arbors of snow-burdened trees to his private estate. My nerve ends were most attentive to Florida's changing reactions. She seemed to be looking forward to a new atmosphere and my original conjecture was confirmed that somewhere, deep in the core of her being, she was a lonely girl.

But we didn't go to the house. Mr. F. pulled the car around and parked behind the stable. The smell of horses was pungent on the clean, crisp air. We trekked from the car through a bright plattering of snowflakes into the tack room.

The atmosphere, one of leather and hay, seemed to excite Florida. Her eyes, which had been so calm when I first met her, took on an intensity and depth as she walked about fingering saddles and boots and reins, neatly arrayed from pegs on the wall and on dummy horses.

"It would be good to go for a ride," she said.

"I agree," Mr. F. murmured softly. "It is so beautiful to ride in the snow."

"Shall we go?" she said suddenly, whipping her head toward me. "Would you like to ride, Joe?"

"Why not? It's up to you both.

"We will have to change into our riding clothes right here," Mr. F. said, without apology.

Not waiting for an answer, he opened the door to a makeshift closet and brought out three pairs of black pants'. "You will have to find your own size boots," he said.

I glanced at Florida and saw her already beginning to undress, without any pretense of needing privacy. In the back of my mind I commended her for this straightforward attitude and youth. She was truly a child of nature though, perhaps, in some perverted way I had yet to discover.

I caught more than a glimpse of her legs. My original opinion of her body was confirmed by the sigh of tight muscles, gracefully, compactly aligned.

Mr. F. openly looked at her nakedness and I saw on his face the same expression of appreciative judgment as I myself, felt.

It amused me to observe how Florida took in our admiring glances and did not make an effort to turn from us as she pulled the pants up over her neat hips. Apparently she liked her body and enjoyed showing it off, an attitude with which I heartily agreed. Mr. F. had also provided her with a bulky sweater and soon I saw the top of her body contoured of a white sateen bra.

Her tits were fuller than I might have imagined, somewhat oval. I could not see all that the flesh of her cleavage was so smooth and inviting that I knew she must be as beautiful and exciting as any woman could be. Particularly because of that aura of vitality which she exuded.

Florida had sufficient good taste and knowledge of seduction not to draw out her process of dressing. I sensed that she was well aware that a glimpse was better at this stage of the game than it would have been to present me with, just yet, a total offering. And I gave her credit for having some good knowledge of the psychology of the male sex.

She looked, somehow, like a book cover standing there with one hand on her ass, her legs in a graceful wide stance. There was something provocative, somehow, in the black silhouette, so feminine, yet so strong, her high boots emphasizing the neat line of what was obviously an excellent horsewoman.

And Mr. F. didn't look so bad himself, springy and energetic, fitting easily into his clothes and obviously enjoying the prospect of our ride.

As for myself, I looked forward to following the progress of events, knowing from her on in that whatever happened, I really had nothing to lose. Obviously Mr. F. was already excited and Florida, whether she knew it or not, played into the projection of his sexual needs simply by being herself. It was a perfect match.

I stood there, taking in the sight of that horsey pair and I heard, not far off from the stable, a snorting sound as though the horses themselves already sensed that they were going to be let out in the clean, wild countryside.

Yes, there was an undercurrent of wildness, even there in Weston, Connecticut. For we had gone beyond the fringe of civilization, somehow, I felt, and were going to ride even further from it.

At that time in my life I knew only the most superficial details concerning bestiality and fetishism in combination. Now I better understand how Florida was drawn by the sense of herself in her riding clothes. I understood the strength of the magnetism that drew her to the dark chestnut horse with which she seemed almost immediately to fall in love, stroking its nose, feeling into his lips to the strong, yellow teeth and talking to him in a nuzzling way, almost as one might address a lover of long standing.

Mr. F. supervised the operation of saddling our mounts and soon we were each astride and heading single file across the rolling tract of land which led to a snow-covered trail some half mile distant.

It was all Mr. F.'s property and the trail had been laid out most scenically between trees and along the edges of a lake. The lake tonight was frozen over. One could see shadows of small animals upon it, lit by a pinkish haze from a lowering sky that glowed luminously. The sound of horses hooves made a muffled counterpoint through the encrusted snow. Their breath made small clouds that rose to dissolve in the air. They seemed to prance, each one of them, shaking their heads and moving their ears about alertly for night sounds. I saw Florida lean over the side of her horse's neck, stroke him on the jawbone and whisper something. I could not tell what, but I had the eerie feeling they were words of love. Yes, I had chosen well for Mr. F.

He took the lead and soon the horses had moved from a walk into a trot and then, as the ground flattened out, Florida used her heel and sped ahead of him on her own cantering mount, her hair flying behind her just as the horses tail did. They seemed to be a single creature.

Mr. F. looked behind him at me and said, "Come along, then."

Now we both cantered, catching up with Florida easily, for she was not trying to out-distance us. The rocking motion of my hips in the saddle indicated to me what Florida must be feeling. I saw how she pressed her thighs into the side of the horse and clung to him and knew how that rocking motion massaged her pussy, stimulated nerve ends and consequent sexual feelings. I could imagine her riding naked in the summertime, needing nothing and no one other than the horse beneath her, her cunt riding bare against the leather saddle.

We were very soon far from the house and sight of any other dwelling. Only the trees and the occasional sound of owls animated the countryside. Without being aware of it, we all began to give our horses rein. The wind, a pale stirring, began to whip up heat in my cheeks.

Mr. F. urged his horse forward. I saw him approach Florida and come so close to her that the flanks of their horses grazed each other momentarily, then glanced away in reaction.

Mr. F. pulled his horse's head to the left and again brought his steed in close, too close to Florida. But she didn't try to evade him in any way.

Their horses whinnied in a high, undulating sound that cut through the night silence. Mr. F. continued to edge his horse in toward Florida and, eventually, he himself leaned across and grasped her around the waist, lifted her from her mount.

He couldn't have done it if she had not cooperated. I saw that she was helping him in every way possible and that somehow between them, in a fashion I could not really determine, Florida was lifted off her horse and onto his. It seemed almost like a circus trick because it went so smoothly.

Neither of them felt any compunction about leaving a riderless animal and the horse itself simply trailed along.

Florida, riding behind Mr. F., clasped her hands around his waist, bringing herself in close to him, shoving her cunt into the back of his ass. I wondered if they were saying anything to each other, but this I could not tell. What I knew, however, was that their bodies were touching in an intimate way.