On the Line (12 page)

He put her on the broadloom that covered the floor of her dining room, and stood over her, breath shooting from his nostrils like a chimney belching bituminous waste. He settled himself on her belly and prepared to be selfish, but one look from her rid him of the idea and he became her willing servant. Eight hours later, when he thought she'd fallen asleep, he attempted to crawl out of her bedroom, but she stopped him, flipped the weakened man over on his back, climbed on him and rocked him mercilessly.

“Why don't you just kill me?” he asked her. “I have to go home to my wife, and she'll want two or three rounds from me. I can't stand it.”

“You wouldn't be so tired if you hadn't spent half of last night cheating on your wife.”

“I know, and I'm never going to have sex with anybody again. I don't want anybody to mention sex to me.”

“My nipple itches. I want you to soothe it.”

Dorothy Faye's latest victim folded his six-foot frame into a fetal position and cried uncontrollably.

Three hours later, she managed to get him out of her apartment, into a taxi and to send him home to his wife. However, the upshot of that encounter was the certainty—from the looks and behavior of the doormen the next day—that she needed privacy. She needed the sex, and she intended to get it.

Boy, this is fun. Imagine, getting all I want whenever I want it, and without taking a chance that the guy will be a dud. Tomorrow, I'm going to get an agent to sell this apartment and find me a house well enough separated from other houses so that I'll have as much privacy as I need. I'm young. So why shouldn't I have all the good sex I want. Until I got my special powers, I didn't know what an orgasm was, and almost half a dozen men had gotten their kicks at my expense. But not anymore. From now on, I call the shots, and I'll get it when I want it and how I want it. Not a man can resist me. And if one tries,
as poor Orin did tonight, I'll wear him out. Boy, was that guy putting it down!

 

After a careful search in the telephone directory, Dorothy Faye settled on the Hamilton Real Estate Agency and requested an appointment. She concentrated intensely in order to “see” whether she was making the right move, got no negative vibes and dialed Lance Hamilton's number.

“Hello. This is Lance Hamilton.”

“Mr. Hamilton, I'm Dorothy Faye Hodge. I want to sell my condominium and buy a house in an upper middle-class neighborhood where houses are widely separated, and I want to move as soon as possible.”

“I see.” His voice, deep and sonorous, scattered her nerves so badly that she couldn't sit still, but began to pace the floor. She thought of a cat on the prowl and immediately began to feel like one. “Any special reason for the rush?” he asked her. “Or would you rather not say?”

“There's a reason, and I'd rather not say.” Ever since she had discovered her other self, she'd had an almost demonic drive to tell the truth, and the urge seemed to come from somewhere beyond her. She told herself that Lance Hamilton didn't need to have personal information about her, and that she should button up her mouth.

“Can you be here in an hour, Ms. Hodge?”

“Make it an hour and fifteen minutes. I'll be there.”

She hung up, canceled appointments with her afternoon students and changed her clothes. She left her apartment dressed in red, from her bikini panties to the silk-jersey wrap dress the length of which suggested a shortage of fabric. Her spike-heel shoes made her long legs look longer, and from her perfume one would guess that she was very wealthy, had a rich lover or was a clever shoplifter.

She tripped up the walk to the one-story brick building at 227 Lofton Street, eager to meet the man who would be her next victim and, in case any of Hamilton's associates walked behind her, she wiggled with all the agility she could muster. To her mind, image was everything. If Hamilton wore out, there would be another one close at hand. Shivers of delight and wild anticipation flushed through her body. Seconds before she rang the bell, she told herself to concentrate. This man was a humdinger, the kingpin of all studs, and she meant to enjoy him, to get everything he had to offer, if it took a week.

She rang the bell and waited as an eerie sensation, a feeling that she ventured toward uncharted waters, settled over her. Guessing that a full minute had passed, she glanced at her watch, noted that she was within the hour and fifteen minutes, and assumed that he hadn't left his office. Never a patient person, she shifted from one foot to the other, and as she extended her finger to ring the bell again, this time harder and persistently, the door opened and the unsettling gaze of the most handsome man she'd ever seen stared down at her.

“Come in, Ms. Hodge. I've been waiting for you.”

The words
Then what took you so long to open the door?
came to her lips, but what she said was, “How do you do, Mr. Hamilton. Who works here with you?”

“Follow me, Ms. Hodge. Several people work here with me, but in case you forgot, this is Memorial Day, a holiday.” He pointed to an open door that led to an office. “We'll talk in here.”

But Dorothy Faye's interest in selling her condominium and buying a house was now on the back burner of her mind. “Yes,” she said. “I forgot about the holiday.” He pointed to a chair beside a mahogany desk, massive and masculine, and she eased into it, crossed her knees and began to swing one of her long and shapely legs.

He sat behind his desk, relaxed, composed and in command. Just the kind of man she liked, a man who knew what to do and how to do it. “What price house are you looking for?” She licked her lips in anticipation of her feast, for she meant to have him in every way a woman could have a man. She imagined herself starting with his sleepy, grayish-brown, long-lashed eyes and kissing her way down his long, six-foot-four-inch frame, toying with his navel, kissing and licking the insides of his thighs until he begged for mercy and then slipping him into her mouth and torturing him until he was hers and hers alone.

A smile engaged his mouth but didn't reach his eyes. “How much do you plan to pay for the house?”

“We can deal with that later.” She leaned back in the chair. “Come here.”

He raised one eyebrow and wrote something on a lined yellow writing tablet. Then, he crossed his legs and grinned, and her heart took off in a wild gallop. If that weren't enough, every muscle in her body seemed to pulsate with anticipation. She told herself that he'd be hard to handle, but she meant to have him if it took a week. She closed her eyes and concentrated in an effort to take his willpower from him, and when she opened her eyes, his mesmerizing face, his entire bearing seemed to her the epitome of seduction.

“No,” he said. “You come over here to me.” She didn't move, unable to believe that she hadn't captured his energy and self-control. “I said, come here!” It was a command.

Suddenly she had the sensation of him moving inside her, giving her all the thrill of a genuine orgasm. She gripped the arm of the chair, closed her eyes and gave in to it.

“Now, come here to me,” he commanded when the sensation died away. She walked over to him and stood in front of him.

“Sit in my lap.”

“I won't do it. Who are you that you should tell me what to do?”

“If you think you can twist me around your finger and make me your lackey, babe, you're way off. You want me, and you want me badly enough to fight for me, but if I get inside of you, it will be on my terms. What will it be? Wouldn't you love to know what it's like to have a man who knows his business take you around the work, giving it to you until you think you've died and gone to heaven? Huh?”

“Who do you think you are? You can't make me do a thing I don't want to do?” she said, although she hardly believed her own words. Try to concentrate, she told herself and, although she tried, she knew she'd failed when he grinned at her and winked.

“I told you to sit on my lap and if you don't, I'm not going to touch you.”

Where was the blue-eyed blonde who had alerted her to her powers? She wanted Lance Hamilton, and she wanted him not on his terms but on hers. She stared at him for a second. Then, her gaze slowly drifted to his thighs and, as if propelled on a Ouija board, she slowly lowered herself to his lap.

“Nice, isn't it?” He eased one of his big hands into her blouse, released her left breast, lowered his head and pulled her nipple into his mouth. She thought she'd die from the thrill of his sucking and biting, but when he parted her legs and began to massage her, she went limp in his arms.

“What do you want now?” he asked her, but she didn't fool herself. She knew that it was he who controlled the game.

“Why do you ask me?” she managed to whisper. “I want everything you can give me. Everything. I want you to make me feel every way that a woman can feel.”

“Wait a minute. You don't mean that, Dorothy Faye. You want me to make you feel
good.
Right?”

“You know what I mean,” she said, and began to twist her body, anxious for sexual fulfillment. “Stop playing with me. Get into me. Now.” She began to unbutton her blouse. He finished the job, unhooked her bra and bared her breasts. She offered herself, and he obliged, sucking and twirling his tongue, heating her to boiling point.

“Come on,” she panted. “Finish it. I need it.”

He released her breast, fastened her bra and buttoned her blouse, stood and lowered her feet to the floor. “I don't think so, Dorothy Faye. My self-pride won't allow me to use my body as if I'm a rutting deer. If you really want to sell your apartment and buy a house, call this number tomorrow morning. Matt will be glad to have your business.”

Still in sexual overdrive, and frustrated as she'd never been before, she found her way out of the building and walked down Lofton Street not thinking or caring where it would lead. What had happened? She knew that she still had her special powers, but he had overpowered her, and then the man had mercilessly reduced her to putty and heated her until she'd responded with an orgasm that felt as if he'd been storming inside of her.

She walked until she reached the Monocacy River, stopped and took a deep breath, relieved, of what she didn't know.

Sitting on a boulder facing the river, she picked up small stones and threw them into the stream.

“What have you been doing?”

At the sound of that voice, Dorothy Faye whipped around. “Who are you? I've asked you twice already, and all you tell me is that I'm one of you. And then this thing grips me, and I see a man I know is a stud and become a nymphomaniac. I don't understand this psychic behavior or this craving for sex. I never liked sex because my few experiences with it left me unsatisfied. Why have you done this to me?”

The blonde stood behind her, but when she turned back toward the river, the blonde then stood before her. Wherever she turned, she saw the woman. “Please leave me alone.”

“Why are you irritated? As long as you could victimize any man you wanted, you showed no mercy. You met one who denied you, and you're beside yourself. Don't you recognize justice when you see it?”

“I don't know. I've never done an immoral thing when I've been my normal self.”

“I know that,” the blonde said. “That's why I stopped you.”

Dorothy Faye didn't like to beg, and she'd never been flush with respect for beggars who were not in dire need, but she prepared to get on her knees, if necessary, and beg the blonde.

“May I please be my old self again?” she asked. “I don't want any special powers, and I don't want to control men. I just want to be my old self again. Please!”

The blonde shook her head so sadly that fear raced through Dorothy Faye. I'm sorry, Dorothy Faye, but that isn't possible. You can't return to you former self any more than Superman can return to Krypton.”

“But—”

The blonde looked into the distance. “None of us can. I am sentenced to counsel all of us, and so I roam the world. You, at least, can lead a normal life. We belong to the ancient Celtic tribe of Wufferts, who have walked this earth since before the Druids, four thousand years before the birth of Christ. Every two or three hundred years, some of us appear somewhere on the earth. We begin life as normal people, but eventually we find our heritage. We are scattered all over the world. You will encounter us in every race and culture.”

“But if you're here to counsel us, why can't you help me get rid of this, this—”

The blonde seemed to lose patience and interrupted Dorothy Faye. “Have you not heard a word I said? You are a sister of the occult, a Wuffert. You need sex, as all we Wufferts do. But you must learn to keep it between the lines. You are out of control.”

“I couldn't help it.”

“Oh, yes, you could have. Now, you're hot after Lance Hamilton. I wish you luck.”

“I couldn't control him. He refused to let me bend his will, and he left me hot and hungry.”

“Because you deserved it.”