“Hey!” Llona came up sputtering. “Not so rough! You want me to choke?”
“Don’t stop!” In his frenzy, Herbert grabbed her by the ears.
“Now cut that out! Stop, I tell you! If you don’t take it easy, I’ll bite! I’m warning you! I’ll bite!” She nipped gently to show him she meant it.
“Ouch! All right. I’m sorry. Just go ahead. I won’t get rough. I promise you.”
Llona resumed, but as soon as he showed signs of being ready to culminate matters, she paused again.
“What’s the matter?” Herbert demanded.
“Not this way,” she told him. “I’m damned if I’ll settle for this. I want to be made love to. I’m not going to let you leave me all hung up.”
“I won’t,” Herbert promised. “I’ll see that you get yours.” He began moving his fingers rapidly to show her he meant it.
“Not that way.” She pushed his hand away. “I want you to make love to me. I want you to make love to me with your— Well, you know what I mean.”
“Yes,” Herbert said. “Okay.” He scrambled over her.
“Now! At last! After all these years!”
“A will of iron,” Llona murmured and giggled.
“The hell with that noise. I’ve waited too long to stop now.”
“I’ve waited all my life,” Llona sighed. “Do it!” she urged him. “Do it now! Now-now-now!”
Herbert rose up in the air and poised for an instant, savoring her eagerness before he plunged downward, savoring her passion before their bodies became one. Then he moved, starting the swooping stab, aiming truly for the quivering, waiting mark.
But it was too late. He shouldn’t have hesitated. Just as Herbert moved to finalize their love-making, there was aloud banging at the door to the room.
“Oh, no!” Herbert agonized. “Not again!”
“Damn!” Llona groaned. “Damn-damn-damn!”
“Open up in there!” It was the voice of the house detective. “I know she’s there! I know she came back. Come on! Open up!”
“I’ve got to get out of here,” Llona said, pushing Herbert off her.
“But how? He’s got us trapped this time.”
“Through the bathroom,” Llona suggested desperately.
“That would never work. He’s wise to it from the last time. It’s the first place he’d look, and he’d catch you before you got out the other door.”
“Come on! I can hear you. I’ve got you this time. Open up!” The pounding on the door grew louder.
“The closet!” Herbert suggested. “Maybe you can hide in the closet.”
“That worked once,” Llona said. “But I don’t think he’d fall for it again.”
“Come on! I’ve got you! I’ll teach you to run around this hotel naked.” He was hitting the door so hard now that it sounded as if he might well cave it in.
“Oh, what am I going to do?” Llona wailed. She ran around the room frantically, finally stopping to look out the window. “That’s it!” she said.
“What’s what?” Herbert asked, distraught.
“There’s a fire escape out here. It’s the only way. Quick, hand me my clothes.”
Herbert did as Llona suggested. Quickly, she climbed over the windowsill and out onto the fire escape. There was a ladder running down from it. Llona quickly climbed down it. She kept climbing until she’d reached the floor just above street level.
Here she paused to catch her breath. She put down the clothes she was carrying and perched on the fire escape for a moment. She was just congratulating herself on making her escape when the voices reached her from below.
“Hey, what’s that?” the first voice asked.
“I’ll be damned. It’s a dame,” a second voice replied.
“She’s naked,” the first voice observed.
“A naked dame‘? Where?” It was a third voice, male.
“Up there on the fire escape.”
“Oh. Yeah. Wow!”
“Disgraceful!” A female voice had joined the chorus.
“Yeah, ain’t it?” The new male voice didn’t sound as if its owner thought it was disgraceful at all.
“Someone should call the police!”
Llona looked down at the mounting crowd. Their staring faces seemed to immobilize her. It was as if in the spotlight of their gazes the events of the night crowded in on her and rendered her incapable of movement.
So she simply stood there, naked, unable to move, and stared down as the crowd grew larger.
Chapter Twelve
A SIREN sounded in the distance. The hubbub of the crowd grew louder. Suddenly, added to it, there was the distinct sound of a shout from the facade of the building above Llona.
“There she is. I’m going after her.”
It was the hotel detective. He clamored and clambered out onto the fire escape and started down. He kept shouting as he came.
The sound of his voice, familiar and dreaded, spurred Llona out of her trance. Quickly, she pulled on her clothes. The siren was closer now. So was the hotel detective. And the shout from the crowd was a mingling of disappointment and approval as Llona covered her nudity.
She scrambled down the last ladder to the ground. The crowd surged toward her. A police car screeched to a halt a short distance away. Two policemen sprang out and ran toward Llona. The hotel detective was half sliding down the rungs of the fire escape in his hurry to catch her.
Llona glanced around frantically. There was an alley entrance a few steps to her left. She dived into it and kept running. Behind her, the crowd converged on the alley, blocking the way of the policemen and the hotel detective. By the time they’d made their way through the crowd, Llona had run out the other end of the alley.
She ran a little farther, turned into a main street, slowed down, and lost herself in the late night throng. After a while, she stopped panting, sure now that she'd thrown off her pursuers. But what now?
Llona wandered a long time as she tried to figure a course of action. Finally, she came to a conclusion. She just wasn’t cut out for this kind of life. Herbert Lansing had been right, but not for the reason he’d propounded, not because Llona’s virginity was something to be treasured and protected. No, it was simply that Llona’s nerves couldn’t take it. The life of a professional call girl was simply too rough for this simple lass from the hinterlands.
Having decided, Llona went into an all-night drug store, found an empty phone booth and called Mrs. Cartwright to inform her of her decision. “Mrs. Cartwright,” she said when she had her on the other end of the wire, “this is Llona Mayper. I’m calling to tell you that I’m very sorry, but I’m going to have to leave your employ.”
“What’s the matter? Did something go wrong tonight?”
“Did something go right?” Llona countered.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Yes,” Llona told her. “Something went wrong. Everything went wrong.”
“Well, don’t do anything hasty,” Mrs. Cartwright said soothingly. “Tell me about it.”
Llona told her about it. In detail. Her tale of woe was punctuated by the periodic clink of nickels being dropped into the coin box to comply with the nasal request of the operator. When she was finally finished, Mrs. Cartwright had one immediate question.
“Did you collect from the client?” she wanted to know. She asked the question in a crisp, businesslike tone of voice.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?” Mrs. Cartwright’s voice was very hard now.
“Because I didn’t do anything to collect for.”
“Nonsense. You always collect first. That’s a cardinal rule of this business. Collect first. That way, if something goes wrong, as it did tonight, you’re ahead of the game. After all, you can always give the client a raincheck.”
“Well, I didn’t know,” Llona said. “So I didn’t collect.”
“I see. Then you’ll have to learn from the experience. Experience is, I suppose, the best teacher. Tonight’s fee will be deducted from your future wages.”