by Troy Conway
On the beach, I walked beside her to a big maroon beach towel spread out on the sand. She sat down gracefully, making room on the blanket for me.
“There’s nobody around, as you can see for yourself,” murmured the woman, “so why not tell me why I owe you a hundred thousand dollars?”
“I killed a woman for you.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Did you?”
“Well, I shot her. Unfortunately, she was wearing a kind of protective vest and I didn’t do much more than wound her.”
“What’s that?” she rasped, sitting up and staring at me.
I smiled at her. “I can always do it again. Relax. So you wanted Wanda Weaver Yule dead and Midge couldn’t do it. I stepped in and pulled the trigger.”
She was damn near choking. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Sure you do, honey. The Yule woman, remember? Her husband was your partner in some sort of scientific experiment before he died. Midge told me a little about it. Where is Midge, by the way?”
Beatrice Howard was torn between fear and fury. She tried to speak three times before she could twist her tongue around a few syllables. “Midge is—on a job,” she managed to say.
“Good for her. She tried to do the job, you know—kill that Yule dame, I mean—but she just doesn’t have the killer instinct. I had to do it for her. She promised you’d pay me a hundred thousand for it. I’m here to collect.”
“I—paid—Midge,” she snarled.
“You’re putting me on,” I exclaimed in seeming disbelief.
“I’m not in the habit of telling lies, Mr. Damon!”
I lifted my hands, palms toward her, placatingly. “Take it easy. Don’t get mad. If Midge is trying to do me one, I’ll take care of the matter myself.” I hesitated, then said, “The trouble is, our victim is still alive, I’m afraid. Midge beat it before we were sure. I guess she wanted to collect that fee and lose herself. But she won’t get away from me.”
Doctor Howard had calmed down a little by this time. Her slim black brows rose inquiringly. “She won’t get away? She has gotten away. Some scuba diver rescued her from—”
I laughed and slapped my thigh. “Is that how you play the game, doctor? Give your killers the payoff—then kill them? Naughty, naughty. I don’t like dishonest people.”
She never turned a hair. “Midge was untrustworthy. You yourself told me she blabbed what she knew about me and—and my experiments.”
“You didn’t know that when you tried to get rid of her.”
Her hand went down to the sand, which she began sifting through her fingers. “How much did she tell you about my work?”
“You kidding? How do you think I was able to shoot Wanda Weaver Yule through the window of her hotel suite thirty stories above the ground, unless I was wearing one of those gravity belts?”
Her eyes ran over my muscular body. “It shouldn’t have worked with you. It wasn’t strong enough.”
“It was a mite slow getting me back to my own room in the Waldorf. But it did the job. Oh, I tested it beforehand, to be on the safe side.”
Her eyes were very direct. “Even granting all that, what do you want from me now? You said yourself this Wanda Weaver Yule is still alive.”
“Yeah, she is. And she’s being damn well guarded by a bunch of smart cookies. It won’t be as easy to do her in next time.”
“But you have an idea?”
“Right the first time. I’m going to kill her in a way that will look like an accident. Don’t worry. You can leave it to me. If you’re still interested in her death, that is.”
“I am. I admit it.”
“Tell you what, Doctor. I’ll throw in Midge Priest for the price of killing the Yule woman. How does that strike you? Not only will I kill Midge, but I’ll turn over the money Midge stole from you by telling you those lies.”
“How come? You don’t strike me as the generous type.”
I studied the way her breasts bulged into nakedness above her scanty bikini cups, at the slightly pouching belly above the tiny triangle of nylon hiding her mons veneris. I smiled into her black eyes.
“You need a man, Doctor.”
She flushed, and her eyes flickered. “I consider that an insult,” she breathed, and started to get to her feet.
I reached out, caught her arm, drew her bouncing back onto the beach towel. She landed with a thump on her soft rump and her breasts jumped clear out of the nylon cups. Her brown nipples were thickly swollen. She gave a little cry and tried to cover those big white mounds with her palms.
“You need a man that way, too, honey—but what I was referring to was a man to do your dirty jobs. You know, like killing Wanda Weaver Yule and Midge Priest. Like protecting you if anybody sticks his nose into your affairs the way I’m doing right now.”
“You bastard!” she whispered.
“Sure, sure. But you need me. You know you do. A woman can’t go it alone in this world of ours without a tough man to side her. Midge said you employed very few men, and those are mostly all the brainy types. You don’t have a hard-hitter in the bunch. And, lady, you really need a hard-hitter.”
Her red mouth sneered at me. “I suppose you think you’re tough! You’re nothing but a windbag. Filled with hot air. Now get out of my sight.”
“You aren’t thinking, lady. I know too much, but I wouldn’t run to the fuzz. I have bigger plans than that.”
She had her hands up in front of her breasts, replacing the nylon cups. She was breathing harshly, making her task a difficult one because her breasts kept jumping up and down, in and out of the cups.
“What sort of plans?” she panted.
“Plans that include you as the boss. I couldn’t carry out your experiments, you ought to know that. I’m just your insurance against trouble. Your partner, let’s say.”
“You’re just nothing,” she snapped. Her head tilted to one side as she sneered, “I don’t think you’re tough enough to be my partner.”
She rose to her feet, one grand specimen of a female, almost naked in the Bahaman sunlight. “Let’s go get cool. Then we can talk about how tough you are.”
Her back was soft between the thongs of her bikini top and the straps of her bottom, as she turned away from me and began walking toward the sea. I got up and went after her, following her dive into the cold water.
She swam well, quite strongly for a woman. Once she turned her head and called, “Race you to the buoy!” I guess she figured she would be testing my toughness that way.
The buoy was a hundred yards out. I passed her in fifteen strokes and built a big lead into twenty full yards by the time she reached the black and white marker. I was hanging to it with a hand when she came stroking up, so I reached out to catch her and bring her closer.
Her soft body bumped into my male strength.
She tried to push free, but my arm around her waist held her right there in front of me. Her face was wet and her eyes were stormy.
“Let me go, damn you! I’m not one of your floozies.”
I tightened my hold, making sure her loins rubbed mine while her breasts mashed on my chest. I grinned down at her. “Honey, you’re going to be mine. You don’t realize it, but you’re dying to wrap your legs about my hips and start playing.”
She tried to slap me, but I held her arms tight against her sides so she could only pant and wriggle in my embrace. “I’ll kill you, I swear to God I’ll put a bullet in you!”
“Go on—fight. I like a girl who doesn’t know what she wants. She’s always so grateful when I show her.”
She snarled at me, but she did not struggle any more. She let her softness move against my hardness to the lift and swell of the waves, she stared coldly past my left shoulder as her waist gave to my arm that held her against me.
“This is the cold shoulder treatment.” I smiled down into her angry face. “I can always predict it.”
“Can you also predict what will happen to you when I get my hands
on a gun?”
“You won’t shoot. You’re enjoying this too much.”
I let her go after a time. We couldn’t stay out here like this forever. She turned and swam away without a single glance at me. I began to worry that I’d overplayed my hand. The worry was with me all the way back to the beach.
Beatrice Howard stalked up the sand and toward her house. Not feeling like sitting out in the sun as a target for gunfire, I trailed her jiggling behind into the house. She walked to the buffet table and opened a drawer. She reached into it.
Her hand lifted out a Colt revolver, .32 calibre.
A .32 can kill a man just as dead as a .45. She looked at me with the gun in her steady hand and sneered, “You’re so tough. Beg me not to shoot you. Let’s see how really tough you are, buster.”
I was maybe ten feet away. I spread my hands and smiled at her. “You won’t shoot me, honey. You’re still too curious about me. Dead, I can’t tell you what you want to know—like how come I know Midge Priest and whether I’ve left any papers that will incriminate you and your organization in case you shoot me dead.”
I was moving forward slowly as I talked, waving my hands for greater emphasis. She was looking me right in the eye; somebody probably told her at one time that you can see a warning signal in your opponent’s eye before he makes a move against you.
You can, of course. But not if he guards against it. My eyes were calm and untroubled as I went on arguing. My hands talked for me, too, waving around like signal flags.
I got her used to my hands flapping like that, so she paid them no nevermind. When I got close to her I let her have my left hand across the inside of her wrist, taking her by surprise. The gun flew wide. My right hand swung, grabbed her gun-hand and held on. She fought, her bare foot thudding into my ankle. She scratched my arm and bent her head to try and bite me.
I hit her wrist against the edge of the buffet.
She cried out in pain and let go of the gun. I kicked it across the room with a bare foot. I was jammed up into her soft female body with my loins flat against her loins. I let myself rub against her there until she felt the telltale bulge in my swimsuit that told her I was more man than enemy.
“I’m going to show you how tough I am,” I smiled.
“Go to hell!”
“Tsk, tsk, for shame.”
I held her pressed back into the buffet with the front of my body. My hands bent her arms around behind her so I could catch her wrists in the fingers of my left hand and hold them. She fought fiercely to get free but when I jammed my loins into her, driving her wrists back into the buffet, she lost a little of her truculence.
“Admit it, honey,” I wheedled. “You want loving.”
Her reply was unprintable. I bent and kissed her soft throat, making sure my earlobe was out of reach of her white teeth. She snarled and struggled, but my strength was a little too much for her.
With my teeth, I got a grip on the nylon cup that shielded the nipple of her left breast. I tugged and the cup came away, her breast bulging outward over its wired rim. I caressed the nipple with my tongue, lazily, tauntingly.
“Stop,” she wailed. “Please, stop!”
“I know you better than you know yourself, Doctor,” I whispered into her swollen breastflesh. “You’re going to thank me for this, a little later.”
She sobbed above my head as I paid lip service to her nipple. The female breast is a mass of nerves that respond with erotic eagerness to kisses and tongue-bathings. The nipple will swell from one to one and a half centimeters, and will increase its diameter at the base from one-half to one centimeter. The areolas, that broad circle of color about the nipples, will puff up, engorging with blood. The breast itself will swell from a fifth to one quarter more than its normal size.
Beatrice Howard was no exception to the rule. Her nipples were damn near an inch long in their excited condition, and her breasts had grown bloated, hard as marble. She was moaning low in her throat, turning her flushed face from side to side.
I whispered to her saliva-wet nipple, “Promise to be a good girl?”
She nodded, muttering, “Yes, just let me go.”
I released her wrists, stepped back.
She brought her hands out from behind her and leaped for me, fingers curved like claws. I half expected this. I dodged. I slapped the back of my hand against her left cheek. She let out a yell and flew sideways, banging into the dining room wall.
I gave her no chance to get her breath. I stepped behind her, catching both her wrists and bending them up behind her almost naked back.
“So,” I breathed into her ear. “You can be trusted about as far as I can throw an elephant. Well, it fits in with what Midge said about you. What did you plan to do with Midge, anyhow? Kill her? And then take back your hundred grand? I wouldn’t put it past you.”
She was choking and sputtering in the sheer violence of her rage. She tried to kick back with her heels at my shins. I bent both her arms up behind her back while her forehead was pressed into the wall. She screamed.
“I don’t think I want you as a partner, after all,” I told her pink ear under its spill of long black hair. “I wouldn’t have a minute’s peace with you, not knowing how and when you were going to cheat me.”
She was quivering, weeping silently. My manhood was pressed into her soft, bulging buttocks. I nudged her there in a gentle side-to-side rhythm. She felt how aroused I had become. Unless my senses were deceiving me, she was returning my pressure, rubbing back against me with her all but naked behind.
I am certain she would have denied it, but the fact was irrefutable. Her body was betraying her mind, proof positive that I was absolutely right about Doctor Beatrice Howard. She wanted it, but bad.
“You’re only good for one thing,” I snapped. “You figure out what it is.”
I held both her wrists with my left hand. With my right, I unfastened her halter. Her heavy breasts fell into view, reflected in the buffet mirror. The brown nipples were swollen, enlarged.
With my free hand, I toyed with those breasts, tugging and pulling on the stiffened nipples, caressing the sleek skin with my palm. I whispered little love words into her ear, and paused from time to time to bite her soft throat
I was getting to her, there was no doubt about that, but she still wanted to fight. Some women are like that. They have a guilt feeling about sex and like a man to take the decision out of their hands. They have to be raped to enjoy it, then they have the excuse to salve their consciences.
So I clawed at her bikini bottoms, tearing the thin straps in getting them off her hips. She was naked now, bent before me, sobbing deep in her throat.
I let her go, shoving her forward. She slipped and fell to the floor on her hands and knees. I freed my loins of my swimsuit.
Beatrice Howard was not moving; she still posed like that, with her palms flat on the carpet, knees pressing into the rug. There seemed to be an acceptance of the inevitable in her flesh. Until I dropped on her from behind, that is.
“No!” she screamed thickly, diving to one side. “No, goddam you! I say you won’t get anything out of me.”
She slid sideways, turning to drive a bare foot at my manhood. I took the foot on my thigh. I caught the hands that clawed at my face. I let my weight drop on her naked body. The wind whooshed out of her lungs. She writhed sideways, head going back and forth.
Her lips spewed profanity, backdrawn to expose her teeth.
I used my weight and my muscles to flatten her spine on the rug as my hand went to her soft thighs, forcing her to widen them. All this time I stared down into her blazing eyes. There were no tears in those eyes; she was not weeping. Instead, there was a red rage defying me to overcome her. If I was to enjoy her body, I must conquer her flesh.
“You want to know how tough I am?” I grinned down into her snarling features. “I’m tough enough to rape you and make you like it.”
“You never could!” she sobbed.
“Watch and se
e, Doctor. I have no pity for a dame like you, who doesn’t know she’s burning up for a man. But maybe you’re the best kind, after all. You’re so eager for it, you can hardly wait.”
I stared down between her wide white thighs. She was ready for me, all right. Her business end was literally swimming. Doctor Howard moaned, half in shame, half in sheer want. Her tanned thighs were yawning in welcome, she had not the will nor the strength to close them.
I slid forward into place, laughing softly.
Forgotten were the niceties of love-making. This woman wanted no part of them, she wanted only the brutal taking, the escape from guilt, the decision taken out of her hands. I drove into her.
Her head rocked back, her throat strutted with the unvoiced cry of delight. She was no virgin, but she was no roundheels either. It had been a long time for Beatrice Howard but her glands had been on my side, even if her brain and will were not. She was moist, ready as any female to take a man. She and her struggles were liars.
When I was deep within her flesh, she abandoned those struggles. Her arms and her legs embraced me. She gyrated and swung beneath me like a machine, panting out words in my ear.
“Damn you for doing this to me! Damn you! I thought I’d gotten beyond this sort of thing. You raped me, damn you for a bastard! You raped me. You didn’t get me to accept this sort of thing.”
“You want me to stop?” I asked brutally.
Her arms and legs tightened. Against my chest her breasts were big white rocks, solid marble in her rut. She moaned. “No, no, no. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop. You don’t know how many nights I’ve lain awake dreaming about something like this. In my laboratories I’m a coldly reasoning scientist but sometimes when the sun goes down I ache from the need for this.
“I walk my bedroom floor; I tell myself I’m a slut, an easy lay, that I’m no better than a whore. Well, god-damnit, I can’t help it. Do you dig me, man? I just can’t help myself.”
Her hips were rocking me back and forth and from side to side. Beatrice Howard was living out her nighttime fantasies with my body. I might as well be headless and speechless, as far as she was concerned. To her I was an amorous automaton, no more. And then resentment to this anonymity began to build in me.
