I nodded truthfully. “She’s lovely. But then, you all are. After all, you’re identical triplets.”
“Not completely identical.” I could see her smile in the semidarkness. She put her champagne glass down and slid over on the chaise, nestling her body next to mine. I could feel the warmth of her flesh through her gown. The exotic scent of her perfume stirred my loins. I slipped a finger under the strap of her gown, then paused.
“Helga,” I said.
“H’mm?”
“This fellow, Kolchak or Vladdy, as you called him — did you see much of him recently?”
She misunderstood my question. “You don’t have to be jealous of him, Dumplink.” She wiggled her body closer to mine so our thighs touched.
“No, but I’m curious,” I persisted. “Did he visit you or your family often in the past few weeks?”
She shrugged, still pressed against me. “Vladdy was one of those people who was always around, or always seemed to be around, among my friends. You noticed him when he was there, you didn’t miss him when he was absent.” She stirred impatiently. “But that’s the past — this is the present The present is always more important.”
I knew that was all she was going to say. Perhaps she wanted to conceal something, or perhaps she truly had nothing more to say about Kolchak. At any rate, I felt I had fulfilled the responsibilities of my assignment for the moment.
Now I had a responsibility to myself not to let this opportunity slip between my fingers. I used those fingers to ease the strap of Helga’s dress. She slid both straps down her arms, and the soft, white cloth fell to her waist.
She wore no bra. As she leaned back, her full, shapely breasts tilted up, pink-tipped nipples erect She squirmed forward to meet my face so that my mouth was filled with one and then another of the melonlike mounds. Her body quivered violently as I caressed her nipples with the tip of my tongue until finally, with a shuddering gasp, she took my head between her two hands and lifted my lips to hers. As we kissed, she ran the fingers of one hand down the length of my thigh until they encountered the evidence of my arousal. Her hand lingered there momentarily.
“Lovely, Dumplink, lovely,” she whispered breathlessly, moving her lips to my ear.
I lifted her and carried her across the living-room, through the foyer, and into the bedroom. An enormous round bed stood in the center of the room. I lowered her onto it, and she peeled off her dress, hose, and lace bikini panties. Lying on the satin sheets, she reached impatient hands up to help me strip off my clothes.
I could feel my blood race as my eyes devoured her spectacular body. She was an exact duplicate of her sister Maria, from the perfectly-formed, thrusting breasts and gently curving hips to the small golden triangle at the center of her body. She pulled me to her, and when our bodies touched, she turned her head to one side and said softly, “Look, Dumplink, everywhere you turn you see us make love.”
Until then I hadn’t noticed that three walls of the room, at the head of the bed and on both sides, were completely mirrored. As Helga’s body coiled and uncoiled with mine, like some perfectly programmed yet delicate instrument of sensuality, the mirrors reflected the sensuous movements as if we were in the midst of a huge orgy where we were the entire group of participants.
And I found, as Helga had told me, that she and her sister Maria weren’t completely identical. There was a big difference in the way they made love. Both women made love with infinite imagination and tremendous, open pleasure. But there the similarity ended. While Maria had been silent and intense, her movements exquisitely subtle, Helga was wild and abandoned, her hands, hips, and mouth constantly exploring my body, exchanging pleasurable sensations for each one she received. Her whole being was continually writhing, quivering, and stimulating me to greater and greater heights of ecstasy. It was as if — and the mirrored walls heightened the effect — I was making love to a dozen different women, each with a different approach and reaction. Finally, she gave a high cry of pure pleasure and fell back on the bed.
After a moment she leaned over me. “I make you happy?” she asked, covering my face with kisses.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, you make me happy.”
“I’m happy, too,” she said. “You are the man I thought you were.”
I pulled her gently toward me so she lay on top of me, our bodies pressed together from head to toe. We lay motionless, neither of us speaking. After a moment she gave me the small gasp of surprise I was expecting.
“Shh,” I whispered to her.
She was silent again, but not for long. “Oh!” she cried. “Oh! Oh, Dumplink! OH!” Her body shook convulsively again until, with a long, low moan of rapture, she rolled over on her back and shut her eyes.
My regular programs of body and mind exercises had come in handy once again, enabling me to give Helga a final gift of pleasure she hadn’t expected.
Five
Helga opened her eyes and smiled softly up at me as I bent my head over hers. “It was lovely, lovely, lovely,” she whispered. She rolled over and climbed out of bed. “You rest, Dumplink,” she said, kissing me and leaving the room.
In a moment she returned with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. She filled one of die glasses and handed it to me. “This,” she said, “will keep you occupied while I take a shower.” She kissed me again and went into the bathroom, humming happily. As I stretched out luxuriously on the bed, I could hear her running the shower.
I took a sip of the chilled Dom Perignon. Outside the wind had risen. The fourth wall of the room had drapes across it, and I knew that behind the drapes were doors to the penthouse’s garden that ran around all four sides of the apartment. Behind the door something was banging. I set my glass of champagne down next to the bed, pulled on my trousers, and went over to the door. When I pulled a section of the drapes aside, I saw that one of the doors was ajar and swinging in the wind. I pulled the door shut and latched it.
I was halfway back across the room when that infallible sixth sense, a subconscious warning of impending danger, sent me its message. Without knowing why, I instinctively flung both hands up in front of my throat I’d acted none too soon. At the same instant, a thin wire noose was being tossed over my head and settled around my shoulders. The wire, which would have been embedded in my throat, was, instead, cutting deep into the flesh of my out-flung hands.
There was a heavy grunt from my assailant and a savage jerk on the noose. I ducked and rammed backwards with my shoulder. I still couldn’t see who was behind me, but in that sudden lunge, I did catch a fleeting glimpse of two struggling images in Helga’s wall of mirrors. I looked again and saw myself and the man behind me reflected there. The man was Z1!
His face was contorted with the effort of his assault, but there could be no mistaking his identity. It was the same man I’d played handball with at the athletic club that afternoon.
It was impossible to try to figure out why he was trying to kill me now. All I could do was defend myself. And it was an eerie, unsettling sensation to be watching someone trying to murder me in the very same mirrors where only a short time before I had seen myself and Helga intensely enjoying sex.
He still hadn’t noticed the mirrored wall and didn’t know I was watching him in it. He started to raise his leg to jam his knee in my back. I kicked out savagely with my left foot and caught him in the kneecap, smashing it. He gasped in pain and started to fall, pulling me down with him. I tried to squirm out of the wire noose, twisting my head around as I fell. He held doggedly to the noose, still trying to strangle me. I could see his face clearly now. His eyes were glazed — as if he were hypnotized or drugged.