Seeds Of Fear (7 page)

After climbing her and resting with a blend of near overawe and definite readiness on Donna's impressive bosom, Andy craned his neck in order to kiss her and also learn if she was conscious. Her eyes were closed, but when he pressed his lips to hers, her tongue shot out of her mouth like a projectile at the identical instant her heavy-thighed legs ascended from the bed and crossed Andy's ass.
She may be a virgin,
Chalminski thought, mouth full of exploring female tongue that might become the most famous one in the world,
but her instincts work like a fuckin' computer
—

But he also realized he was what seemed like three miles too far north to do what she suddenly wanted him to do!

"Andy, Andy," she moaned, opening her marvelous blue eyes and staring myopically at the way he was pinned to the upper half of her body like a teddy bear in some little girl's dream of tomorrow, "go ahead! Do it!
Do
it to me!"

The circulation in Andy's ass, legs, and other parts was being shut off, and the passion that had let him overcome his initial sense of inferiority was slipping out of him like air from a balloon, but Chalminski was game. "I'm willing, babe," he managed, struggling against her gorgeous and powerful legs, "but you're gonna have to let
go
of me a minute."

Instantly helpful, Donna dropped her legs and also wriggled quietly out from under—throwing Andy heavily to the mattress on his back—and sat up straight above him, straddling his body but not touching him. She cupped her ideally proportioned breasts in hands that could palm basketballs and threw her head back as she licked her lips. They weren't yet in any contact, but Donna's girlishly pink nipples seemed nearly the size of erect boys' penises. Chalminski's organ promptly showed signs of life but primarily in the sensations he began experiencing in his mind. Callaghan's body tapered to a waist that was trim for her if wider than Andy's, and the hips swept out to the sides just as suitably and meatily matching the rest of her as he had hoped. Best of all, the sexual center of the lady giant was detectable in a modest, moist tangle of attractive light brown pubic hair and unmistakably female of nature.

"Am I pretty at all?" she asked softly, breathily. Her eyelids blinked and he wondered how drunk she was. "No one has ever seen me this way. Please, Mr. Chalminski—do you approve of what I look like?"

She was squinting down at him—at his face—in the nearsighted manner she had without her glasses, and he felt himself stiffen enough to know he was almost ready again. Andy wondered if she even knew what that long tongue of hers could do to a man, and decided that this amazing squeeze who was soon to become a money train with him playing engineer even while he rode in her caboose was definitely cherry. "Well, Donna," he grunted, reaching down to make them both ready and help her ease it down sweetly on him, "I'll know for sure in just a few minutes."

Donna rose up from the bed a good foot and a half—more than enough distance to triple what Chalminski had to offer—and powered herself down at him with the equivalent force of a locomotive crashing through a barricade of Swiss cheese. Andy had just enough time to wonder if his wrist had been the first thing to be crushed, and to know that one or more parts of his body would never function normally again.

"You bastard!" Donna said, rearing away from the producer a second time and thrusting herself down on him again—and
again,
till the groans she heard gave way completely to the bubbling of blood dribbling quietly from the corner of Andy's motionless mouth and onto the sheets beneath him. "Everything Edward said about you was right." She turned her head to see Eddie Burgess, video camera in hand exactly as they had planned, walking in from the bathroom with a smile. "After the ghastly life this little pipsqueak lured you into in your innocent youth, darling, it's a wonder you were able to make such pure, sweet love to me these marvelous weeks we've had together."

Eddie wrapped his arms around her from behind. It was a reach, but he did it with tenderness. He'd left the camera on her dresser. "If our Andrew had listened to what I said about your story being interesting enough to tell straight, we wouldn't have had to send him to the Big Set in the Sky—or of course, if
he'd
had a big set himself."

Donna giggled and let Burgess kiss her neck, then help her off the heap. "You got it all on videotape?"

"Yep, in tight close-up just like the bastard would have wanted it. If anyone ever figures out what killed Andrew, and whom, we have a record of his seduction —and your self-defense, if any prosecutor ever had the balls to bring such a
graphic
case to trial!"
And I,
Eddie thought, more or less holding Donna close,
have the makings of a really
different
snuff film if our own collaboration doesn't fly.

Donna began pulling on a sweater and shorts. "He talked so many young people into turning the act of love—like ours—into cheap entertainment for—for losers like him."

"Yes, but you have to admit sex can be pretty entertaining," Eddie remarked, motioning for Donna to help him bundle the mess on the bed into the several sheets they had thoughtfully added early this morning. Together, they tied them at the top rather like a Hershey's Kiss.

"You're right," she agreed, pausing to lean over, down, and kiss him. Then she slung the improvised sack over one shoulder, and with Eddie opening doors for her, carried the trash out to the apartment Dumpster. "And you're right that times are changing. We'll still find somebody to produce my story, and you will play a true-life role opposite me—in the script we've written together!"

He took her hand as the heavy Dumpster lid clanged shut and squeezed it. He realized she might well fulfill the dream he'd placed in her head, and he hoped she would. He truly did. But if not, there was always the videotape with the close-up of old out-of-date Andy Chalminski's agonized expression at the very end. People today wanted a higher concept than a little guy making it with a big girl. "How many units did you say have access to this Dumpster?" he asked, casually glancing around.

Donna laughed then because her Edward did, and they used his car to drive over to his place for the night. The t
rash pickup was in the morning.

Home seemed foreign to Cynthia on a weekday morning, a place she wasn't supposed to be. The small apartment wore the air of a person awakened too soon, groggy and grumpy and put upon.

"Get used to it," she mumbled, shivering in her underwear at the kitchen table. She took another sip from the heavy ceramic mug that said "Don't Ask Me, I Just Work Here," a memento of her recently ex-job.

Cynthia was going on forty. Her long brown hair was worn pulled back, showing off a handsome, if somewhat heavy, face. She wore the best clothes she could afford, but they were old and too tight in some places, too loose in others.

All told, Cynthia was not the type of person one would normally choose for an office romance. She wasn't the self-assured, tight young college graduate, the naive, even younger secretary, or the older, but still sexy, vice president with the failing marriage.

She may not have had the body, the age, or the power to attract lovers, but Cynthia had the voice.

And she had learned long ago that her voice was as sexual as any breast or butt or leg.

It was deep, but not too much so. Raspy, but not grating or harsh on the ear. It was a tingling, vibrating, resonant, breathy voice, reminiscent of Lauren Bacall or Kathleen Turner.

Without a doubt, it turned men on in ways her body alone never could.

It had been what had attracted her boss, what had kept him in her bed for eight months.

It couldn't, however, save her from being fired by him.

That had thrown her for a loop. Cynthia was so accustomed to maintaining the upper hand in her relationships that this single act by her boss left her feeling powerless and bereft, not knowing quite what to do with herself.

So with a couple weeks' severance, a last lunch with the girls, and a parting, bad-dog-eyed good-bye from her ex, she left, with no prospects and fewer ideas of what to do next.

Another punishing draft of hot coffee, and she flipped the newspaper open, scanned the want ads. Down the columns, through administrative assistants, receptionists, secretaries. She circled those that appealed to her; there weren't many.

Her eyes drifted down to "Topless Dancers Wanted," and she snorted, almost gagging on her coffee. She remembered fondly what Ralph in Accounting had told her on her last date.

"Well, Cynthia," he'd laughed, his voice dropping. "With your talent, I think you'd be able to find a great job in the phone sex business. You'd make a fortune. Hell, I'd call and let you talk dirty to me for two dollars a minute!"

"Ralph!" she'd protested, half-gamely, half-flattered.

Suddenly, cold and depressed and in her underwear on a Monday morning, Ralph's idea didn't seem so ridiculous. With the phone company contacts she had gained through being a receptionist with a large company, a little research, and a little money borrowed from her retirement fund, she might be able to swing this.

Then something at the back of her mind whispered to her what she was really thinking of doing.

Talking dirty to men on the phone. And not just dirty, but explicit and definitely X-rated.

Are you really going to be able to do this?
the voice asked.

There was only one way to tell.

It amazed Cynthia how quickly it all came together.

She secured a business license, got a tax number, made the necessary arrangements with the phone company. Her liaisons there were more than eager to help her in getting a "900" line installed in her apartment.

While she waited, she visited the newsstand outside her building. There, under the silently amazed eyes of the old newsman, she self-consciously bought a few of the seedier men's magazines.

Back in her apartment, she sat in the little space she'd cleared for her office and flipped through the magazines, intending to go straight for the classified ads. Her curiosity, though, demanded that she scrutinize the first several carefully, until the photos all took on a surreal look, with their tangled limbs and close-ups of genitalia so tightly focused, she was sure even a gynecologist would have trouble identifying what he was seeing.

She was able to cobble together pieces of the ads she liked into a small ad for her new service. Several phone calls and overnight packages later, her little ad was scheduled to run in several of the men's magazines she'd reviewed, as well as a couple of local alternative newspapers.

Before she could sit back and wait for the phone calls, though, she needed practice.

"Hello?"

"Ralph? Hi, this is Cynthia."

"Cynthia?" he said, lowering his voice. "Cynthia Johnson?"

"Yes, Ralph," she purred into the receiver. "And do you know what? I'm sitting here totally nude . . ."

Here she paused, hitched in a deep breath as her stomach fluttered.

". . . and I'm really wet."

There was a stunned silence on the other end. Cynthia heard the tinny sound of a television somewhere on Ralph's end. She almost laughed then, imagining him standing in his living room listening to her. Here she sat in a T-shirt and jeans with no makeup.

Not nude and decidedly not wet.

"My wife is here, for chrissakes!" he whispered.

"Ralph," she moaned so low that her own phone vibrated in her ear. "Oh, Ralph. I've been thinking about you, imagining you. Touching myself. I've been very naughty."

"Dear Lord," came a hoarse voice.

"I took your advice to start a phone sex business. You're my first customer. But don't worry," she said with a throaty giggle. "This one's on the house."

"Can I call you back?" he whined.

"No, Ralph. We've got to finish . . . right here, right now."

He did.

After that, Ralph became her first paying customer,
too.

The phone rang at 3 A.M.

Cynthia didn't bother to turn the lights on as she picked her way to the chair by the phone. In the three months she'd operated the service, she'd walked the path many times in the dark, often more asleep than not.

The men who called at this hour were more lonely than horny, a bit more sincere, sweeter, and a little more desperate for simple human contact. Cynthia found that she could talk to these men about things other than sex—their jobs, hobbies, problems. Sometimes these callers even became so engrossed in their conversations that they never made it to the sex part.

Cynthia plopped into the chair near the phone, answered it without clearing her throat, knowing that these men wanted to rouse her from bed, wanted to hear her raspy, sleep-filled voice. It lent an air of intimacy to what they did, as if they had merely rolled over and awakened a lover curled in bed next to them.

"Hello, honey. This better be good."

"Hello," came the man's voice, rough and hoarse and whisper-quick.

Cynthia knew from experience that he would say nothing more, only respond to questions or ask short, wheezing queries. In this situation, very few men wanted to take the lead.

She preferred it that way.

"Does your mommy know you're waking me up? 'Cause if she doesn't, you go tell her it's two ninety-nine per minute."

"My mommy's not here," he growled.

"Good thing. Mine's not here either."

"What are you wearing?"

"Nothing, honey." Actually, she was wearing a pair of panties, but otherwise this was accurate.

"I always sleep naked," she continued. "You never know when the opportunity may . . . arise. What are you wearing?"

"I'm not wearing anything either."

"And I bet you've got quite a handful."

"You could say that," he laughed, and it raised goose bumps on her arms, for it was a disturbing laugh, confidential and low, like a rusty engine slowly turning over. She heard a sound, distant, maybe the squeaking of bedsprings, the rustle of covers.

"Tell me about yourself."

"Down to details. My kind of man. I'm five eight, a hundred twenty pounds, brown hair and eyes. Thirty-eight, twenty-six, thirty-four. Like to fuck. How about you?"

"What do you like?" he breathed, ignoring her question. "I mean specifically."

"I like it all."

"You haven't been doing this long, have you?" he dismissed, changing his tone as if he were an actor stepping outside character. "That's the easy answer. What do you really like to do—more than anything else?"

Cynthia rolled her eyes. Obviously the guy was looking to talk with someone who liked the same things he did. But what?

"I like to be spanked," she finally said, and that was a safe answer. Kinky enough to satisfy wilder men, not so perverse as to disgust the milder ones.

"You do?" he whispered after a moment, lapsing back into his previous hushed tone.

"Yeah," she said, relaxing again. "Do you?"

"Yeah, sure," he responded, a bit distractedly. "Sure."

There was a moment of silence.

"You like pain?" he asked from its depths.

"That depends on who, what, and how much," she said, fumbling for her cigarettes and sensing that control was coming back to her.

"I like pain."

"Great," she said, inhaling. "You like to be spanked? Whipped? Bitten?"

"Cut," said the voice, quivering in anticipation. "I like to be cut,"

Here, Cynthia hesitated.

"Cut?" she asked, crushing her cigarette out. "How?"

A deep, rattling sigh from the other end.

"A sharp knife. A razor. A piece of glass. It doesn't matter."

If that litany was not unsettling enough, he did something then that almost made her drop the phone in horror.

He moaned, soft as a caress.

"What are you doing?" She swallowed, hoping to change the subject.

"Stroking myself."

"Are you hard?"

"Yes. And so is it."

"Is what?"

"My knife."

"Knife? What are you doing with a knife?" she asked, covering herself with a blanket, sliding her feet up underneath her.

"Cutting myself," he said, and his voice was rapturous. "Little lines across my chest, my abdomen. Around my nipples . . . Ohhh!"

And she felt the shudder in his voice.

"Keep talking to me. I like your voice," he said.

"Are you going to keep doing that?" she asked, her stomach folding in on itself.

"Oh, yessss! OHHHH!"

"Doesn't it hurt?" she moaned, biting a finger.

"No! Yes!"

"Stop!" she screamed, leaping up, the blanket falling forgotten around her feet. "Please stop!"

"Jesus! OH! OH MY GOD!" he yelled, his wavering screams descending into a series of broken sobs.

Cynthia stood shaking, her hand cupped over her mouth.

Neither said anything for a minute.

But neither hung up.

"Are you OK?" Cynthia asked, her hand still not far from her mouth.

"I cut off my nipple."

"Oh my God," she whispered, her eyes fluttering back in her head.

"I've got to go now. I've got quite a mess here. But you were wonderful. I'll call again."

With another moan and a creaking of bedsprings, the receiver clunked into place.