better not cost much less than twenty) was good only for the time it was brought. Something worth fifty was worth a couple of visits and so on up the line. Dolly didn't keep books on the presents brought her but she had a good memory and always knew who was due to bring something and who wasn't. She didn't have her rules printed and posted on the inside of her door, as rules and prices are posted inside hotel room doors, but the men who came to see her soon got the idea and could figure it the same way Dolly did. No, Ray probably wouldn't bring anything tonight and she didn't expect him to. A case of whisky, the brand he'd brought, was worth at least fifty dollars. He would have paid less, of course, since he'd have been able to get it at wholesale, but Dolly didn't care about that; it was still worth at least fifty to her.

She was in the bathroom almost exactly the three minutes she'd predicted. Two minutes under the shower and one with the bath towel; she didn't dry herself too thoroughly because Mack liked her with her skin a trifle moist. And during the minute of toweling she had time to admire her body in the full-length mirror on the inside of the bathroom door.

Her breasts were especially beautiful, she thought, and why shouldn't she think so when she knew they drove men crazy. Already their shell-pink, tip-tilted nipples were hardening in anticipation.

Naked and glowing she walked through the bedroom and into the living room. Mack was sitting on the sofa; two freshly made highballs, strong ones, were on the coffee table in front of it.

Naked she ran lightly across the room and sat in his lap, kissed him. His arms went around her, one of his hands cupping one of her breasts, a perfect fit.

He pulled back to break the kiss, groaned softly.

"Little bitch," he said. "How can a man enjoy a drink with you like this. The drinks will have to wait."

He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. She laughed; this was what she'd wanted, to have to wait for her drink until afterward.

8:24 P.M.

He stood outside a living room window of the little three-room cottage looking in, watching her. By moving from one side of the window to the other he could see almost all of the room, and she, even if she looked toward the window, would not be able to see him. There was a net curtain inside the window. From the outer darkness he could see 

 Prev. P 41/125 next