“What is it, Joe? What’s in the closet that’s so fascinating?”
Dazed, Joe simply threw the door open wider by way of answer. Alice saw her then.
“Eek!” she screamed. “There’s a naked woman in our closet!”
“I know,” Joe replied.
“Well, don’t just stand there! Do something about it!”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know! Just do something!”
“I know what I’d like to do,” Joe reflected, staring at Llona’s naked breasts.
“Joe! You stop talking like that!”
“All right! I’ll be quiet.” And he was, but he still kept looking.
“And you stop looking like that, too!”
“Like what?”
“Like you were sorry you’re a married man, that’s what! Joe, do you hear me?”
“I hear you. I hear you.”
“Joe! You make that woman leave.”
“I can’t leave,” Llona interjected. “I don’t have any clothes.”
“She can't leave," Joe pointed out to Alice. “She doesn’t have any clothes.”
“Then call the manager!” Alice shrilled.
“Why should I‘? What did the manager ever do for me?”
“Call the house detective!”
“No!” Llona pleaded. “Please don’t do that.”
“She doesn’t want us to do that,” Joe told Alice.
“I don’t care what she wants. You’ve got to get rid of her. If there’s one thing I don’t need around on my wedding night, it’s a naked woman who looks like that!”
“Oh, I don’t know. I sort of like having a naked woman around on my wedding night. Particularly when she looks like that.”
“Joe!” Alice wailed.
“All right. All right. I’m sorry.” He turned to Llona. “I think my wife wants you to leave,” he said politely.
“But how can I?” She spread her arms to display the totality of her nudeness. “Like this?”
“Oh, boy,” Joe groaned. “Why is it things like this never happened to me when I was single?”
“Joe!” Alice cried. “You sound like you’re sorry you got married.”
“And how!” Joe said under his breath, but loudly enough for Llona to hear.
“That’s life,” she told him softly, batting her eyelids at him.
“It’s my life, all right. This couldn’t have happened two days ago, or even one. Oh, no! Only to me could it happen on my wedding night.”
“Joe! What are you whispering about to that naked hussy?”
“I’m telling her the story of my life.” He didn’t even bother turning around to answer Alice. “The only thing I ever found in a hotel closet before I was married,” he continued to Llona, “was bedbugs. And now, at the worst possible time, something sensational like you turns up. If it was raining money, I’d be out with a fork!”
“I’ve had enough of this!” Alice hopped out of bed, no longer caring that her nightgown was transparent and revealed the most intimate parts of her body. She ran over to the closet and shook Joe by the shoulder. “You tell this woman to go away and come on back to bed!” she sobbed.
“In a minute, Alice. In a minute.” He didn’t give her a glance.
“Maybe you’d better do what your wife wants,” Llona suggested.
“Just once before I settle down to being a married man,” Joe sighed, “I’d like to do what I want.”
“It’s too late now,” Llona told him. ’
“That’s right! It is!” Alice agreed. “Now you come on back to bed where you belong.”
“I’m coming Alice. Just a second.”
“Joe?” she wheedled. “Look. Isn’t this sexy? Look, you can see my naked breasts and everything. Joe! Will you please look at me when I’m talking to you? Please, Joe! Honey, would you like me to take it off? Would you like that? Would you like me to do a little dance for you in the nude or something? Wouldn’t you like that, Joe?”
“I don’t think he heard you,” Llona said politely.
“That’s enough from you. Now you get out of here! Right now!” Alice reached around Joe and grabbed Llona. She began pulling her out of the closet.
“For gosh sake, Alice, be careful!” Joe protested as his wife yanked at Llona’s naked breasts.
“Yes!” Llona said. “Be careful. You pull any harder and I’ll end up looking like you!”
“Well of all the—! You get out of here, you-—!”
“I was just leaving,” Llona said haughtily, wrenching free of Alice’s grasp, drawing herself up to her full height and marching toward the door. “ ’Bye now, sweetie.” She chucked Joe under the chin as she passed him.
“So long for now.” He simpered.
“Joe!”
Llona closed the door quietly behind her. Once more she was naked in the hallway with no place to go. It was a hell of a predicament.
But then it had been one hell of a night for the virgin doxie!
Chapter Six
AND THE night was far from over yet. Llona stood outside the door of the room she’d just left and tried to decide what to do next. She couldn’t just stand there. Sooner or later somebody was bound to come along and spot her naked figure. She had to make a move. But where to?
She decided to take a chance on returning to Lansing’s room for her clothes. Surely the house detective would have left by now. She darted across the hallway to the stairwell and raced up the stairs to the next floor. Just as she started through the exit there, a room service waiter started for the door from the hallway side. Llona saw him before he saw her and plunged back into the stairwell. As she heard him open the door, she raced up the next flight of stairs.
She paused at the top and listened. There was the sound of slow footsteps coming up behind her. She pushed open the door to the sixth floor hallway and went through the entry before the footsteps could round the bend in the stairs.
Halfway down the hall a door opened. There was the sound of loud music and raucous laughter coming from the other side of it. A man’s head popped out of the door. He took a long look at Laura. His torso followed the head as he stepped out into the hall. The torso was encased immaculately in soup-and-fish.
The formal wear didn’t go with the face. It was a craggy visage with a flat nose, cauliflower ears and an overlay of scar tissue down both cheeks. There was a ridge of indentations—-as if from some long ago working-over with brass knuckles—down one side of the long jaw. He looked like a prizefighter; a loser, a plug-ugly past his prime and on the skids. One of his bloodshot eyes twitched drunkenly as he peered at Llona.
She stared back. She didn’t know what else to do. He took a few more lurching steps toward her, and she saw that he was very drunk.
“Hey,” he called as he approached. “Yer late.”
“Late?” Llona couldn’t make up her mind whether to bolt or not.
“Yeah. An’ whatta ya doin’ out here? Whadja, forget the room number or something?”
“No,” Llona said cautiously. “I didn’t forget the room number."
“Then come on in.” He was beside her now, and he took her arm to lead her back to the room from whence he’d come. “All the boys is waitin’ an’ they’re gettin’ impatient.” '
“Waiting for what?” Llona allowed him to pull her along toward the open door.
“Fer you. Tha’s what. Yeah. You’ll do fine. Jus’ fine. But wait a sec. Wait a sec! Where’s the cake?”
“The cake? What cake?”
“Your cake. Where is it? We paid for a cake wit’ a broad an’ whatta we get? A broad an’ no cake! What kinda service do ya call that?”
“I’m sorry,” Llona said, playing it by ear. “Nobody told me.”
“Told ya? Wha’d they have ta tell ya for? All they hadda do was stick ya in the cake an’ when ya hear the rooty-too-toot, ya jump out. Ain’t that simple enough? I tell ya, I dunno what’s come over people these days. Ya jus’ can’t get no satisfaction noplace.” He paused now and was standing in front of Llona waving his arms around with a sort of drunken petulance. “Ya order a cake wit’ a broad an’ ya get a broad wit’ no cake. Is it onna way, ya think? Or do I gotta call ’em again?”