"Maybe later," I told her, tensing my muscles for the same reason I was biting my lip. "Go on with your story. What was Highman doing on a Hungarian farm in the first place?"
"Working for S.M.U.T."
Now, that was interesting! I had thought Highman's connection with S.M.U.T. was only because his wife headed up a chapter. Now it seemed that he was much more deeply involved. Not just in New York – which I'd guessed after seeing him with Ilona at the airport – but internationally. "How does an outfit like S.M.U.T. operate in an Iron Curtain country like Hungary?" I wondered aloud, still rocking right along with Ilona.
"Undergrond," she told me. "But with a lot of infiltration in the government, too. The Commies are notoriously moralistic, you know. That makes it easy for S.M.U.T. For instance, Highman had been sent to Hungary because the illegitimate birth rate had dropped. I don't understand that even now. I mean, you'd think S.M.U.T. would be pleased by that. But they weren't. Highman said they weren't because the reason was that more birth-control devices were being used, and while there were fewer illicit conceptions, there was lots more immoral love-making." Ilona wriggled tantalizingly, as if to demonstrate her point. "Anyway, Highman was sent to my district to organize small watchdog groups that would put a stop to it and punish the people involved. Highman spoke perfect Hungarian; you couldn't tell him from a native. And in the hinterlands where we were, party control is kind of loose, so he didn't have any trouble getting things organized. I guess the neighbors must have told him I had a sort of reputation as a wild kid in the area, and so he led a bunch of them down to give me a lesson in morality. As I said, they caught me in the act." She contracted expertly, as if to show me that it had been, and still was, quite an act.
I bit through my lip and somehow managed to hold back the release of my passion. "Go on," I said through clenched teeth.
"Well, when they caught me that day, they insisted that my father give me a strapping in front of the whole bunch of them. I was already pretty sore from the pitchfork, but tht didn't stop dear old Dad. He pulled up my skirt and pulled down my panties and beat me with his belt while the whole bunch of them watched. I'll never forget their faces. They may have been spouting morals, but there wasn't a man there who wasn't itching to lay hands on my bare and twitching derriere." Her derriere was just as bare and just as twitching under the poncho now.
"Including Highman?" I asked, unable to stop myself from thrusting upward in response to her tight-clutching movements.
"Yes! Yes! Yes! Including Highman-Highman-Highman!" She was off again, her body shaken by one tremor after another of release.
It was much harder now – more difficult, I mean – not to join her. A sudden cramp in my leg was the only thing that enabled me to control myself. It was agonizing, and I concentrated on the pain, purposely prolonging it to reduce the boiling point of my lust.
"Highman, yes." She subsided, not through, but merely resting a moment between explosions. "He tried to look stern while my father was beating me, but I caught him licking his lips. And I wasn't surprised when he came to see me a few days later. Still, I was pretty young and naive. I believed him when he said he only wanted to help me fight my own evil passions."
"Evidently he wasn't too successful," I observed, made conscious of the fact that her oven of love was starting to rekindle itself.
"Surprisingly enough, at first he was. I bought the reform bit hook line and sinker. He almost had me shouting Hungarian hallelujahs!"
"Hallelujah!" I echoed, pounding the exclamation point home.
"Did you call, Mr. Victor?" Lagula asked.
"No. Just keep driving."
"You too," Ilona instructed me, her enthusiasm mounting again. "So anyway," she continued, "Highman converted me to the S.M.U.T. cause. And just about the time he had me really convinced, something must have exploded inside him because he raped me."
"That's hard to swallow."
"Goodness, you're not supposed to!" She pulled her breast from my lips in alarm.
"I meant your being raped."
"Oh. Well, he did. One night in the parlor after my folks had gone to bed. He was explaining to me how evil sex is, and he went into detail. The more detail he went into, the more excited he got. Then he told me he was going to show me exactly what he meant so I wouldn't forget it, and he raped me."
"Why didn't you scream if your parents were home?"
"Because I liked it," she admitted frankly. "And I still do. Don't you?" She was galloping frantically now.
"Yes." I felt like I was being raped myself. Fortunately, the cramp in my leg had gotten worse.
"He liked it, too," Ilona went on. "He liked it so much that he took me with him when he went back to New York. He arranged for forged papers for me and everything. And when we got there, he got me into S.M.U.T. so we'd have a legitimate excuse to see each other. It was sort of a cover-up for our affair. He was married, you see. I didn't know that until after we got to New York. He didn't tell me until then. But unless he's a bigger liar than I think, he and his wife didn't have much of a sex relationship. If they did, my hat's off to him, because he was insatiable when it came to making love to me."
"He was telling the truth," I assured her. "But just where does he stand with S.M.U.T?"
"Very high. He was the one who gave the orders in New York. Only one or two people in S.M.U.T. knew that. His wife wasn't one of them, either. He played the henpecked cipher with her. But he arranged things through S.M.U.T. so that she was always kept busy when he wanted to be with me. And he wanted to be with me a lot."
"I can understand that," I panted, realizing that I couldn't possibly hold out much longer.
"I was crazy about him, and I thought he was crazy about me. But after that bomb today, I am beginning to wonder. And then there was that business with him having S.M.U.T. send me to that brothel. He said that it would be good experience, that I'd learn some new innovations there. But I didn't learn anything I didn't already know. And I think I know enough to get by all right. Don't you?"
"Yeah," I gasked. "Did Highman assign the other two girls to the brothel, too?"
"The order came down from him."
"Did you know the oher two?"
"Not before we went to the brothel. But I didn't get to know them there, either. We were kept too busy."
"Do you know if one of them was Russian?"
"Russian? Search me." She relaxed her muscles to expedite the search. "All I know is," she admitted bitterly, "that Highman must have been getting tired of me. I wasn't willing to face it until today. See, I was really hung up on him. But looking back, it's clear. First the brothel, then sending me here to get rid of me. And that cock-and-bull story he told me at the airport about how he was doing it for my own good because my life was in danger in New York. Oh, he promised to join me here all right, but he sure didn't mention anything about having somebody throw a bomb at me."
"Are you sure he was behind that?"
"If your pinky pal is right, he was. He's pretty high up in S.M.U.T. – more than just running the New York operation. So if S.M.U.T. was behind that bomb, I'm pretty damn sure Highman must have known about it. I guess I'm expendable, all right," she added bitterly. "Well, I'll just show him!"
She was going like a Mixmaster again. Her laugh announced the beginning of a new series of joyous releases. This time I couldn't stop myself from joining her. Some six laughs later I slammed up so hard that she cried out, and we went off the deep end together in a burst of cataclysmic ecstasy.
"We have arrived," Lagula announced, pulling the car into the curb.
"I'll say we have!" I agreed, still up on Cloud Nine.