She had coaxed him out of his controlled facade, turned him, made him so hot he forgot to stifle his inhibitions, reached down into his darkest corner and pulled the wild and nasty and twisted Warren out of there. Made him sit up and beg for it and roll over and be her puppy — Jeezus, who's kidding here, she was his slave? He was hers. He'd do anything for this beautiful, kinky bitch lover.
"I'm Daddy's girl," she said, putting on, playing little nympho Lolita, doing what some beautiful women do so well, so achingly well, so organically, naturally, enticingly, heartbreakingly well, and she smiled coquettishly; she pouted, preened, posed, played like she was a fast, fuckable fourteenybopper, and she touched him like a man touches a woman, controlling, manipulating him, her incredible cover-girl face, movie-queen bananorama face, seductive stiffener of a tanned, young, Ipanema-beach-bossa-nova face that said let me eat your lips and suck on your delicious ice cream cone of a mouth — a mouth opening and a tongue coming out and touching him just so.
"Mmmmmmmm," he moaned.
"Daddy?"
"What. Jeezus! What?"
"Daddy, will you do anything your little girl wants?" she asked, pouting with her mouth still there.
"Yes."
"Tell Daddy's girl."
"Anything."
"Make-believe things for his little girl?" He wasn't sure what she said, but he answered again — his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"Yeah. Anything, baby."
"Here's what I want Daddy to do," she whispered, and she told him awful, weirded-out, mondo bizarro things, and he did them for her, letting her enslave him, and when it was all enough for her — finally — she kissed him softly, and he held her and cherished her face and tried to tell her so, but a long and hot and delicious tongue was inside his mouth and spearing his soul, the pink and wet tongue of this movie star piercing into him and inflaming his desire, and within the next couple of minutes of Fucking Standard Savings Time, which is when time compresses in on itself and ceases to tick within those unaccountable sweeps of the second hand, there was an eruption, and he felt her hand on him and the volcanic surging lava from his loins was spurting uncontrollably all over them, splashing on the pretty flowered sheets and getting them all gooey and sticky, and the heat of her hand on him was causing his exploding fluid to shoot out prematurely, and she moved the hand up and down quickly and each move threatened to tear his guts out of his body, and each move killed him a little, and each movement of her small, fragile-boned hand pumped out another couple of c.c.s of the hot, cloudy, milky jism, and each movement got him off again and he'd never come like this and, ohmygod, he was afraid she'd opened some physiological door with her beautiful body and face and tongue, and now this and what if he could never stop coming and he'd die like this, the first man to break through the come barrier, the test pilot for the Mach 4 Jack Off, the pioneer of a brave new world of spermshooting where, like a worker drone in the hands of the queen bee, you bop till you drop and, yes, he could go this way any moment, in fact he was on death's door and, yes, don't stop, it's to die for, you're killing me, and seismic was the word that came to mind, and he felt the earth move, and his heart shuddered as the tremor split the world in half and the last drops of his life force shot into the room and covered them in yech nasty hot sticky stuff and, spent, he gave up the ghost.
"You're sweet, you know that?" she said after a minute or so of snuggling. She had the wisdom of silences. He made no noise or movement. She smiled and he could feel his dead body starting to warm again, just at the shape of that luscious, edible mouth of hers. What a face.
She got up and went back into the bathroom. He could hear her running water. She came back out wearing his silk bathrobe, even managing to look sexy and cute in that, and the sleeves were rolled back, and she was carrying a damp cloth, and she began cleaning up the mess he'd made in the bed, and he made his first noise as the wet cloth touched him:
"Nnnnn." Just a soft whimper escaped from his lifeless, inert body. Dead on the bed.
"Don't worry, honey," she purred to him as she leaned over, "Jackie's gonna kiss it and make it well."
"NNNNNNN," he moaned in agony/ecstasy, and she laughed.
"But next time we're going to take our time, aren't we?" she chided, as she laughed into his mouth.
"Mmm."
"Three, four minutes, anyway. No more of the old thirty-second Vesuvius," she teased him. "Deal?"
"Three or four minutes?"
"Yeah," she said.
And somewhere in all of that he decided that she'd given him the secret of life. This was what it was all about.
He thought about her, hard and hot now, and had to fight to yank his mind back to the present and calm down enough so that he could hit his approach shot to the green.
In a few minutes they'd reached the clubhouse, he'd bid a hasty goodbye to the guys, changed into some mocs, and was on his way to the burbs.
Warren Childress parked and tipped the parking attendant, Pedro, who always gave him special attention.
"I might be a while," Childress said.
"Hokay," the small man said in a downbeat, meek voice. He was usually a bubbling little bantam kind of guy and Childress looked at him as he moved toward the elevator.
"You doing all right, Pedro?" Conversational. Just asking.
"I don't think Missy up there now."
"You don't think Missy —? Oh. Did Miss Jordan go out?"
"Missy gone," he said.
"How long has she been gone — do you know?" Misunderstanding him.
"Leave yesterday. Missy gone."
"What the hell are you talking about, Pedro, my man? Talk to me."
"I don't know nothing," Pedro said, shrugging and moving to the expensive car. "Luis say Missy go. She move out." His eyes were downcast as if he was ashamed for the way Childress had treated this lovely lady to make her leave. What the hell was this shit?
"You're mistaken, I'm sure," Childress said, but his thumb was on the elevator button.
He rode to three and got off, striding briskly down the hall, the thick carpet muffling his footsteps.
Room 305. Right side of the hall. He slipped his key into the lock, felt the familiar turn of the mechanism, the give of the metal, the door opening. The furniture he'd picked out for the apartment looked just the same as always.
"Jackie? You here, doll?" His voice loud and metallic in the apartment, the silence of no response even louder. He walked through the room and opened the bedroom door. The bed was stripped of linens, a bare mattress, his first stab of shock. He flung open the clothes closet. Empty. Drawers. Nothing. Into the bathroom. Bare. Only a few used containers scattered about and in the medicine cabinet. The apartment screamed at him and he was suddenly very afraid.
He went over to the phone to call the apartment house management whom he paid directly, but the telephone was dead. She'd had it disconnected. He looked in the kitchen. Some food in the fridge, a few things in the cabinets. She'd left in a hurry. He was getting frantic. He went through the whole place looking for a note — something. Not a word. What in the hell was going on? Jackie would never leave like this.
Warren got the car and drove over to the management complex. Yes, Miss Jordan left yesterday. She had turned in her apartment key. Said we could go ahead and rent it out for the first of the month — she was leaving. She didn't leave a forwarding address — said she'd be in touch when she was relocated. No — there was no message of any kind for you.
He phoned the doorman and the garage attendant who'd been on duty when she left. Had she left in a taxi? No — took her car. Some luggage. That was it. She had been vague about her destination. She hadn't responded when they'd told her how sorry they were to see her go — she just smiled, Luis the garage man told him. Smiled? He had to get out of there. He couldn't breathe.