Spinelli lingered over dessert and coffee, and he finished the meal off
with cognac. It was now well over two hours since they had entered the
restaurant. When he was ready to leave, he put a five-dollar bill on
the table and they departed without waiting for a check. Probably they
simply sent him a monthly bill, Laura decided. She wondered how much
the meal had cost. Twenty or thirty dollars, probably.
The limousine was waiting. Spinelli looked at her inquiringly.
"Shall I take you home, Laura?"
She smiled. "I'd rather continue the discussion," she said.
He looked gratified. He helped her into the car and it drove off,
eastward to a towering apartment building in the mid-Sixties,
overlooking the river. Spinelli dismissed the chauffeur and escorted
Laura into the glittering lobby. They rode up, up endlessly it seemed,
getting out finally on the twentieth floor. The elevator opened right
into a foyer of an enormous apartment. As they walked in, a massive man
came out of a room off to the left, bearing a sheaf of papers.
Spinelli nodded. "Laura Haynes, this is George Skalkottis, my personal
secretary. Say hello to Miss Haynes, George."
"Hello," the big man said. Laura recognized it as the voice of the man
who had answered the phone earlier that day. Skalkottis looked like
nothing so much as a well-dressed ape. She shivered imperceptibly,
realizing that the "personal secretary" was probably really a bodyguard
and hired killer. Spinelli's urbane charm had almost made her forget
the fact that he was a criminal.
"Save the messages for later, George," Spinelli said airily. "Miss
Haynes and I have business to discuss. See that we're not disturbed for
at least an hour."
"Yes, sir."
"Come, Laura."
Spinelli led her through a series of breathtakingly beautiful rooms,
into one final room at least forty feet long and twenty wide, which
opened out onto a terrace that gave a magnificent view of the river
and of Queens beyond it. The big room was lavishly furnished, with a
big hi-fi set, an enormous bar, and a vast divan big enough to sleep
two. Laura noticed that Spinelli clicked the door shut behind him. He
moved gracefully to the controls of the hi-fi set and flicked a knob,
and soft string music filtered into the room from what seemed like
every direction.
"Another cognac?" Spinelli suggested.
Laura took the drink from him. They stood together at the terrace,
admiring the view, sipping the drinks. Laura waited tensely, knowing
what was coming. It would be a personal test of her abilities, she
thought.
Spinelli's hand rested lightly on her shoulders. Suddenly, putting the
drink down, he spun her around and bent to kiss her breasts just above
the neckline of her dress. His hands left her shoulders, travelling
down her sides and trailing lightly over her buttocks.
Without a word, Spinelli began to undress her. She tried to remain
calm as he unzipped her dress and drew it off, removed her slip, and
unhooked the tight bra that thrust her breasts upward. Despite his
silence, she could see the obvious pleasure in his eyes at the sight of
her full round breasts bare before him. Continuing, he knelt to unhook
her garters, and delicately rolled her stockings off. His hands moved
with a surgeon's finesse. The panties and garter-belt followed, and
she stood naked before him, feeling the color mount to her throat and
breasts under his intense appraising gaze. She put her hands on her
hips and stood with her legs slightly apart while he looked her over.
Then he removed his own clothes, just as silently. His body had an
athlete's lean symmetry, with wide, muscular shoulders and a deep
chest, tapering to narrow hips and thickly-muscled but narrowing legs.
He was tanned an even golden-brown over every part of his body.
Smiling, but still silently, he came toward her, took her by the hand,
led her toward the divan. He folded his arms around her, and she felt
the flat muscles of his chest tight against her breasts, and, gently,
he drew her down on the divan.
He was an expert lover. He played on her body as though it were a fine
musical instrument, and every motion was a graceful, unhurried one.
Desperately, because of her lack of experience, Laura tried to play the
part of an experienced woman. She took her cues from him. He seemed
to sense that she had never made love in a fully willing way before,
because every touch was one of tenderness. His fingertips lightly
caressed her nipples until they became hard and erect. His lips darted
like a butterfly's wings over her entire body. His hands brought gasps
of pleasure to her.
At last he decided that they could complete the act. Laura was clinging
to him, eager and aroused, and he seemed magically to float above her,
until she began to feel the rippling waves of ecstacy and she could no
longer keep her eyes open.
She closed them, and her lips parted to admit his tongue, and she felt
warmth rise up and surround her, soft soothing warmth like the loving
embrace of the womb, and with every motion new pleasure inflamed her.
Her breath was coming in irregular bursts now, and whenever she opened
her eyes she saw Spinelli smiling above her, always calm, always
silent.
She cried out, a moaning wordless cry of delight, and felt her
muscles contract and her skin grow cold, and she moved feverishly
in her ecstacy, subsiding after a moment with throbbing heart.
Spinelli was still with her, though, carrying her along from one
height to the next, smiling, bending his head now to kiss her breasts
or to nibble thrillingly at the fleshy part of her. Her breath was
coming in irregular bursts now, until finally--it seemed like hours
later--Spinelli's grasp tightened on her shoulders, and he quivered and
she cried out one last time, and then all was still. She wrapped her
arms around him and held him tight against her.
For some time they remained that way. Then Spinelli rose from her and
walked to the window. Naked, he stood with his back to her, looking out
over the islands of the East River.
He spoke, at last, for the first time since it had begun.
"You're very beautiful," he said. His voice was deeper, harsher than it
had been before.
Laura said nothing. Her body still throbbed from the afterglow of their
sensual encounter.
"I want you to work for me," Spinelli said, turning around. "You're
magnificent. For a novice, you're tremendous. I'll guarantee you $500 a
week, and you can have a month's salary in advance before you walk out
of this apartment today. What do you say?"
"I'll take it," Laura said in a voice she hardly recognized.
_CHAPTER SEVEN_
The twenty hundred-dollar bills new and crisp, made a neat little
stack. Spinelli toyed with them, tapping them together, shuffling and
reshuffling them. It was half an hour since they had made love. They
had donned their clothing once again.
Spinelli said, "This will be four weeks' advance against your earnings.
I'll expect you to buy some fine clothing--if you need help picking
anything, one of my other girls will help you. You'll move across
town as soon as possible, into an apartment that more nearly reflects
your economic status. It probably won't often be necessary for you to
receive clients in your home, but I want you to live well anyway. When
you travel, you'll travel by taxi. When you eat, you'll eat only at the
best places. You're not a Kansas farm-girl any more, remember. You're a
sophisticated Manhattanite, and I want you to live the part twenty-four
hours a day."
"It shouldn't be too hard," Laura said.
"As for your working day: I'll have to insist that you be within
telephone range from three o'clock on, every day. When possible, I'll
try to line up your assignments in advance. The general arrangement is
that you meet the client for dinner, attend a show with him, and go to
his hotel. Most of your clients will be out-of-towners, executives.
You'll be eating at the best places in town, so I suggest you keep an
eye on your weight. You cease to be valuable when you begin to get
bloated." Spinelli smiled smoothly. "There'll be various special
assignments for you--trips out of town, parties at conventions, things
like that. You'll be notified well in advance when possible. Some of my
clients have--ah--unusual tastes in sexual practices. In the beginning,
I'll keep you away from the really oddball ones. I have specialist
girls for them, anyway."
"And you'll pay me a regular salary, is that it?" Laura asked.
Spinelli nodded. "Five hundred a week, payable every Wednesday in cash.
My messenger will drop the money off at your apartment, and you'll give
him a receipt for it. Aside from the base salary, you may receive gifts
from your clients. Anything they give you is yours--but you must report
it to me, even if it's only a few dollars. Is that clear? I insist on
knowing what they give you."
"Fair enough," Laura said. "How will they pay for my services?"
"I bill them. No money will change hands through you, except what they
choose to give you for yourself. I refuse to let my girls be forced to
act as collection agents for me. You render services: I worry about
collecting the fee for them."
Laura crossed her legs. "Just as a matter of curiosity, could you tell
me how much you'd collect for my night's services?"
Spinelli showed even white teeth in a flickering smile. "The answer to
that is no. All you need to know is that my operations show a profit
despite the basic overhead of the girl's salary. Incidentally, you'll
have six days off each month. You can generally pick these yourself,
but you'll have to give me a couple of days' notice. On the days when
you're unable for--ah--personal reasons to give complete services,
you'll be assigned to less intimate social events." Spinelli stood up
and pushed the little sheaf of hundred-dollar bills toward her. "Are
there any questions?"
"Yes," Laura said. "I've got a friend, a girl I'm rooming with. Is it
all right if I let her share my new apartment?"
"Absolutely not."
"But--"
Spinelli's face grew stern. "I don't want any complications. None of my
girls are allowed to share their apartments, even with other girls of
the staff. If you think this friend of yours is interested in this sort
of work, I'll be happy to interview her--but you can't go on living
with her."
Laura shook her head. "She's--not very pretty," she said in a low
voice. "I don't think you'd be able to use her. But--I wish I didn't
have to split up with her--"
"I don't believe in making exceptions," Spinelli said coolly.
"Understood?"