“Good. Then I shall leave you now. I suggest that you prepare for bed. Help yourself to anything that appeals to you.” He gestured toward the wardrobe closet. “Just relax and enjoy yourself,” Von Koerner advised politely, and then he left.
Feeling like a guppie in a goldfish bowl, I strode over to the wardrobe. I selected some black silk pajamas; they were conservative compared to most of the other items available. I took off my clothes and donned them. Then I stretched out on the bed and tried to follow Von Koerner’s advice and relax.
A few moments later a girl entered. I recognized her immediately. It was five years since I’d last seen her, but Carrie Cromwell wasn’t the kind of female I’d forget.
She was wearing a starched white blouse and a demure black skirt which was very full and not at all tight. Her brown hair was still in bangs and tied at the back in the manner of an old-fashioned schoolgirl. A touch of subdued lipstick was the only makeup she wore. Also, she still had that air of untouchable virtue about her—an air made paradoxical by a figure which wouldn’t have been out of place coming down the runway at Minsky’s16 .
“Hello, Mr. Victor.” She greeted me calmly. “How nice to see you again.”
“How nice that you remember me,” I replied.
“And you me,” she ping-pongecl back.
“You’re much more memorable than I am.” I cleared the net. “But perhaps this isn’t the time and place to talk over old times. We have more immediate matters to discuss.”
“Yes. But first I have to prepare myself for the experiment. You’re ahead of me.” Her lips curved in appreciation of the pajamas I’d selected. “Won’t you help me decide?” She nodded toward the wardrobe closet.
“If you like.”
“This one?” She took out an apricot-colored nightgown of rippling silk and held it up in front of her. “Or perhaps this?” She held up some light blue Baby Dolls. “Or do you think this might be more exciting?” She showed me a sheer black organdy, low-cut and ending just above the knee.
“They all look great to me. I guess I could never pick among them,” I confessed. “You’d better decide yourself.”
“All right.” She took out a dark green number and lay it over the back of a chair. Then she stood up very straight and stretched. Her large breasts strained against the starched white blouse and two clear outlines marked the material over their tips.
Now Carrie lowered her arms. One of her hands went to the nape of her neck and released the clasp holding her hair in place there. She tossed her head and the copper-brown curls shimmered over her shoulders and formed a cloud framing her heart-shaped face. Her deep brown eyes, serious and intent, stared at me as she started to unbutton the blouse.
When the buttons were undone, she pulled the blouse free of the skirt and let it fall to the floor. She was wearing a full white slip with no bra under it. Her large breasts rippled against the silk, the full mounds of the upper portion of her bosom revealed above the top of the slip, a dark, intriguing shadow of deep cleavage separating them, the outline of the extended nipples and the deep red of their roseates barely discernible under the white silk.
I’d been so intent on her bosom that I hadn’t noticed Carrie’s hand undoing the zipper at her hip. The black skirt fell away in a wide swirl and settled to the floor. Her hands slid slowly and insinuatingly down her hips, calling my attention to the rest of her body.
It deserved all the attention I gave it. There was a subdued light coming from behind her and it made the lower part of the white slip semi-transparent. I had a sort of ‘now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t’ view of her legs, which were long and shapely and just a little fleshy at the thighs, a touch of voluptuousness which was appealing because it seemed a subtle confirmation of her desire.
The slip hung straight from her hips, so that I could make out their shape clearly. They were wide without being bony, and their flesh trembled a little under my glance. Carrie met that glance, giggled just a bit nervously, and pirouetted once. I caught a quick flash of rosiness as the light bounced off her white silk-covered derriere. It was high and round and plump—everything that portion of a woman ought to be.
Now Carrie was facing me again. The light from behind her revealed just the barest suggestion of the brown triangle under her flat belly. I sensed more than saw the prickling of the soft down there.
Carrie picked up the green nightie and held it in front of her as a sort of teasing shield. She pulled it over her head and held it at her shoulders without letting it fall. She moved one of her shoulders in a voluptuous gesture and the slip strap fell away from it. She repeated the movement and the second strap was released. I caught a quick glimpse of quivering maroon nipples as the green garment replaced the white slip falling to her waist. I also caught the merest blink of that pulsating triangle as the slip fell to the floor and the green nightie descended to just above Carrie’s knees.
She stood before me in the nightgown now. It was quite a garment that she had selected. Made of nylon, it had wide straps which reached from her shoulders to her waist. The straps slanted inward and almost met where they ended. They had been cut away at the sides so that all but the tips of her breasts could be clearly seen. Below the waist, the center part had been cut away on either side so that the skirt was a sort of narrow triangle of cloth which revealed most of her belly—although not the navel -—and left her thighs naked. In the back the straps descended even farther, to a midway point on her buttocks, so that their plumpness shimmered above the green material. Then the straps also merged to form a single triangular piece of material dangling enticingly between the backs of her thighs.
She undulated over to the bed and I grabbed for her. Hell, I’m human! But Carrie quickly danced out of reach with a little laugh. “We have to wait,” she informed me.
“Wait? What for?”
“You’ll see.”
So I waited. It was only a few moments, but I took advantage of them to ask Carrie a few questions. My first question wasn’t exactly original.
“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” I asked.
“That’s too long a story to go into now,” she replied. “Let’s just say I’m here in the interests of science—and of keeping my husband alive.”
“Then Von Koerner does have your husband?”
“Yes. He said it was all right for me to speak frankly with you. He is holding Anthony prisoner.”
“Where? Here?”
“I don’t know that. I doubt if he’s here. That would be too risky for Von Koerner.”
“Look, Carrie, I want to help you. Anthony, too. Do you believe that? ”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then tell me everything that happened. From the beginning. Go as far as you can before they interrupt us.”
“All right. Anthony invented a mousetrap. We came to Washington so that he could patent it.”
“I know about the mousetrap. The question is, how did Von Koerner find out about it?”
“I don’t know that.”
“All right. Go on. How did you get involved with Von Koerner?”
“That was really Anthony’s doing. You know he’s always been on a sort of personal crusade of his own against vice.”
“I remember.”
“Yes. Well, he happened to pick up this fantastic little newspaper off a newsstand. It made him see red. The whole thing was devoted to sex. Anyway, the thing that got him more than anything was the personal ads in the paper. The way he saw it, they provided a sort of carte blanche communication system for members of the sex underground. He thought there might be a chance of cracking down on them because they were using the U. S. mails. But he needed proof of their activities. That’s where I came in.”