Adam And Eve E-Book

Marcus van Heller

• Herausgeber: Olympia Press
• Kategorie: Erotik
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Marcus van Heller's (John Stevenson), account of a boy and a girl, innocent and in Eve's case somewhat frigid, who flee the countryside for London, him to be a painter, her an actress. Along the way, she trades her innocence for a career, with sometimes disastrous results, he gets caught up in the ecstatic arts scene, the two part, until finally reuniting in an earth-shattering conclusion.

Leseprobe

Adam And Eve

Marcus van Heller

This page copyright © 2003 Olympia-Ebooks.

CHAPTER ONE

The lawyer sat on his desk, gently swinging one leg. He spoke with a slow American drawl, with no trace left of his Italian accent, measuring his words, carrying in them the weight of a weary, resigned philosophy...

“There are times when you want to spread an alarm, but nothing has happened. I knew, I knew then and there — I could have finished the whole story that afternoon...” His voice droned on relentlessly “It wasn't as though there was a mystery to unravel. I could see every step coming, step after step, like a dark figure walking down a hall toward a certain door...” The voice went on speaking out into the dark auditorium from its spotlighted aura on the stage. It was dead quiet in the theater. You could have heard a piece of confetti drop.

Sitting up in the gallery, which they called the dress circle though it was really only a backward extension of it, the girl sat hunched forward with her arms on the gold-painted handrail. Her buttocks ached a little from sitting for so long without moving on the thin velvet of the seat, but she kept absolutely still so as not to miss a word, the least nuance. The lights went out on Alfieri, the lawyer, and rose on the Sicilian slum apartment near Brooklyn Bridge with Beatrice and Catherine clearing the table.

The girl reached down into her lap with a long, slender, well-manicured hand and drew the little pair of opera glasses up to her eyes. She trained them on Beatrice. This was her goddess: Lady Celia Duncan, the finest actress in Britain. She moved them over the girl, Catherine, otherwise Greta Plowman. She was good, very good, but not in quite the same category as Lady Celia. She shifted her gaze to Eddie Carbone — Sir George Duncan, the other half of the husband and wife team. He was superb. It gave her a sharp thrill in her stomach just to listen to his voice. But it was Celia Duncan with whom she identified. One day she wanted to occupy Celia Duncan's place.

The voices came up to her from the stage; Eddie's, Beatrice's, Catherine's, Rodolpho's, Marco's. She absorbed them with her whole being, living their glories with them while the gripping story of consuming, possessive passion unfolded itself with the unyielding quality of Greek tragedy. She was aware of nothing else, nobody else at all in the dark theater around her, which breathed and rustled occasionally, like an animal twitching in its sleep.

She kept the opera glasses clamped to her eyes, ranging them from one actor to another, her own face tightening in sympathy with theirs, smiling with theirs, frowning with theirs, her breathing increasing and slowing with theirs. She watched, her entrails twisted tight like a wrung-out sheet while Marco, straining smoothly, raised the chair above his head and looked down at Eddie with a glint of menace. And she went on staring as the curtain fell and even after that, when the safety curtain followed it down and the lights went up all around.

“I can see those adverts without a magnifying glass.” The girl sighed, smiled and turned to her companion.

“Aren't they wonderful?” she said.

“They're pretty hot.”

He was a handsome boy of about nineteen, a year older than she was. He wore a turtle-necked sweater and a pair of smart, tight, Italian trousers. His long, thin face with its rather prominent nose above finely delineated lips carried with it a suggestion of superiority over men of more common clay. His long, dark eyes, which at first glance looked liquid and soft, deepened into a hint of ruthlessness the longer you looked at them.

“Let's have a drink,” he said.

“Can we afford it?”

“Of course not. Let's go.”

“Just a minute, Adam.”

The girl looked around the theater with a smile of sheer pleasure. It was crowded with people, many of whom were pushing along the aisles towards the bars. The theater had an air of opulence about it, from the flamboyant gold carving around the boxes to the magnificent cascading chandelier. It was not difficult to imagine the earlier days of Nell Gwynne when the audiences got rather rowdy. The girl could just see the front rows. From them filed fat women laden with furs and jewels who had come to see the play because it was the proper thing to do and because it was becoming absolutely essential that one know the work of Arthur Miller.

She stood up and began to edge along the aisle, followed by the boy. Her name was Eve Patten. It was rather odd that their names should be Adam and Eve and, though they laughed about it, they were both rather embarrassed when people found out and made jokes. She was a secretary, and a very efficient one, in a provincial town in the middle of the south of England. She was a secretary to everyone else, but to herself she was a great actress. Even though amateur productions had been her only outlet so far, she was a great actress. There was really no other point to her life, so that if to the rest of the world she did not seem like an actress, she was to herself and, for the time being, that was enough. She was like the writer who carries the developing book around in his mind year after year after year, going through the motions of jobs, social contacts, and empty conversations, but never being anything other than a writer, even though he might never write the book.

All she needed, like everyone, was a start. For this she had not only enthusiasm and talent, but beauty as well. She had been the beauty queen of her city two years running since she left school. “You ought to be in films with your looks,” people told her, and that had strengthened her belief that there was a great public waiting for a great actress. She was tall, almost as tall as her companion, with a well-developed body and eye-catching legs. Her hair was the color of champagne, her blue eyes had a slightly luminous quality like the sun on a very blue sea, and her delicate, youthful skin was firmly set over fine bones, which had a trace of the oriental in their small, hard prominence.

She was smartly, fashionably dressed; indeed both she and her companion might easily have been taken for two smart young aristocrats from Mayfair.

The bar was crowded, but Adam pushed his way through, leaving the girl studying the program near the door. She was the focus of several men's attention. They systematically undressed her in their minds, imagining her body warmly cushioning theirs in a bed to match her elegance.

She exhausted the program and let the images of the play flood back into her head. A View from the Bridge was one of the most moving plays she'd seen in some time, though she and Adam had been making this trip to London on weekends for more than a year. Oh, for a chance to be cast in it! She thought of Mr. Grampion, the one theatrical agent who hadn't told her, “Not a hope, Miss, all the theaters are booked for a year or more, all the casts set. And in any case, looks aren't enough these days. You've got to have talent, a lot of experience, and the right moment to help you.”

Mr. Grampion had said instead, “I might be able to do something for you, but you'll have to sleep with me first.”

Just like that. No frills, no beating about the bush. They weren't necessary. The market was all his. Mr. Grampion was middle-aged and ugly. The thought would have horrified her, even if she hadn't been a virgin.

But that had been months and months ago and now she was used to hearing the repeated offer as she made the weary regular rounds. Nothing else, absolutely nothing, had come up. But she was still frightened. She couldn't even allow herself to start to picture the actual event — the room, the bed, the undressing, the sight of him undressed, the contact between the sheets, the Ugh!

The back of Adam's head came into her conscious thoughts as he leaned over the bar, taking up the glasses. With Adam, it couldn't happen. Oh, she had nothing against it, but real opportunities were rare and also something told her, some instinctive sixth sense, that his attitude would change towards her immediately if their relationship changed in that way.

They'd come very close to it, of course, foolish though she knew it was to play with fire and hope not to get burned. But always she read something in his eyes, something in that ruthlessness that was suddenly so apparent that she wondered why she didn't see it all the time. And that drove her from his embrace. It had nothing to do with the fear that he wouldn't respect her once he'd had her. It was just that she had a particular understanding of Adam's character — she knew her Adam. He was very much like her.

He came weaving back towards her, a bottle of tonic and a gin in one hand, a glass of brown ale in the other. She smiled and raised an eyebrow.

“A beer would have done, Adam. We won't have the fare to get to Aunt Beatie's if you throw it around like that.”

He grinned.

“I won a sweepstake at the office,” he said. “Shilling in, twenty out — have another.”

Adam worked for the biggest firm of solicitors in their town. He was one of the clerks. Both he and Eve were misfits, which was almost certainly why they kept each other's company. Adam was a fine painter, at least a lot of local people thought he was a fine painter, including Mr. Grant, his art master at school and now his tutor at the evening classes to which he went for the sake of the cheaper paint and canvases. But if it was difficult to get on the stage, it was even more difficult to get an exhibition. Local ones weren't worth having and London — well that seemed impossible. While she made the round of the agents, Adam made the round of the galleries: pleading, cajoling, looking at the work on view, frequently wondering exactly what made the paintings better than his.

Like Eve, he had one overwhelming disadvantage. He didn't know anyone. Not the right people anyway. Not even one of the off-right people. Not a soul who mattered, except for his art master who, in spite of a cosmopolitan history, had for years been buried away in the provincial town leading a very quiet life.

The couple stood in the bar sipping their drinks and talking about the play. Adam was particularly impressed with the scenery, which combined two views in one, so that you could see the interior of the apartment on the left hand and the dockside, simply and vividly evoked with a black silhouette of scaffolding, on the right.

“As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind doing a bit of stage designing,” he said. “But it's not worth much, unless you have a big name.”

The bell sounded for the second act. The interval was, as usual, much too short to enable you to have a drink in comfort. They tipped back their glasses and pushed back up the stairs to the dress-circle-cum-gallery, with the lights already going dim.

During the second act, the girl sat breathless on the edge of her not very comfortable seat, letting the play swamp her, the words lulling her into a trancelike state.

Alfieri: “You won't have a friend in the world, Eddie! Even those who understand you will turn against you...” Catherine: “I'm gonna get married, Eddie. So if you wanna come, the wedding be on Saturday...” Beatrice: “She loves him, Eddie. Why don't you give her a good word?” the Immigration Officers the seizure of the illegal immigrants the fight Eddie's death. And Alfieri at the end: “Most of the time we settle for half and I like it better. But the truth is holy, and even as I know how wrong he was, and his death useless, I tremble, for I confess that something perversely pure calls to me from his memory — not purely good — but himself purely...” She repeated the words which seemed to have meaning for her in her mind “not purely good, but himself purely.”

The curtain came down. There was a long moment's pause and then a rapture of applause. The applause thrilled her like blood coursing through her veins, setting all her flesh a-tingle, making her head suddenly hot. She pictured the applause as being for her, saw her own figure on the brightly lit stage as Lady Celia and Sir George joined hands and moved forward, away from the rest of the cast to a sudden increase in the volume of applause. And then Lady Celia drew back and Sir George stepped forward a couple of paces alone to another lift in the acclamation. Eve clapped until her hands stung. Of course, it should have been the other way around to please her, with Lady Celia alone on the stage, but Eddie Carbone was the major character in the play. The curtain fell, rose, fell and rose again until at last it came down with that air of finality that quelled even the most ardent fans. The clapping petered out and the audience began making its way to the exits, a swell of animated chatter and shuffling feet rising through the auditorium like hot air.

Eve glanced at Adam and they stood up and began to move towards the steps of the aisle. She looked at the tightly packed people without seeing them. She had made a decision. It was the last sight of Eddie dying in the arms of Beatrice. It had called to her like a saint, or a devil, calling to men to follow him. She needed to be on that stage. It meant more than mere life, and transcended her disgust for Mr. Grampion. She would sleep with him and he would get her a part. That was how it would begin. And then, if necessary, she would sleep with him again, or with anyone else who could push her on.

She glanced back at Adam's handsome face and he looked at her quizzically. She would have liked the first time to have been with Adam. But one had to work these things out or one never got anywhere. She thought of all the girls back at the office, their total lack of ambition. All they wanted, it seemed, was to own a house and a vacuum cleaner of their own after marrying their boyfriends in big, showy weddings with spotty, featureless photographs appearing in the local papers. Not one of them used any real charm or wits to make more interesting lives for themselves. She sometimes wondered if they thought of their boyfriends in the same way as they thought of a refrigerator. And sometimes, when one of them slept with the boy, having given way to pressure, she was surprised when his ardor cooled afterwards. It was all a game, after all, and you had to play it as such. Eve understood that.

CHAPTER TWO

Eve hated the long, long tube journey out to her aunt's house in the suburbs. It was one of those typically semi-detached doll's houses with tiny rooms and a neat garden, three up and two down as regards the rooms. Everything was spotless, for her aunt cleaned and cleaned until one was almost afraid to put one foot in front of another in case something got stepped on, or knocked over. The area was the sort that working class people strove for when they wanted to better themselves: neat, green, uniform, “good,” and characterless as a tailor's dummy. Her aunt had devoted her whole life to getting it, dragging her husband along with her. Everything else had been sacrificed. She had made no effort to develop taste, intellect, or enjoyment of life. Now her aunt suffered from an enormous sense of inadequacy, lightly covered with a veneer of snobbery, which all such people who have made material betterment their highest ideal are prey to.

Eve knew that her aunt regarded her with a mixture of adoration and disapproval. She adored her for her appearance and general presence, which blinded people to her origins, and, too, for her ambition and determination to succeed. She disapproved of her desire to succeed in such an uncertain, unknown, weird world as that of the stage rather than stay with her good job in the office. She didn't really approve of Adam either. She didn't understand what he was talking about most of the time and she felt, quite correctly, that he disliked her and looked down on her values.

“If I lived in London, I wouldn't dream of living out so far,” she said as the train swayed through the dark tunnel. “Might just as well live at home.”

“Doesn't make any difference to your aunt,” Adam said. “The metropolis hasn't got anything to offer her. She doesn't want theater, restaurants, art galleries, museums, the color of people. As long as she can make an occasional trip in to the sales so that she can imagine she's getting something for next to nothing, she's happy.”

“You sound like the appreciative guest should,” Eve said.

“You know I'd just as soon sleep on the Embankment.”

Eve shivered. “Give me a warm bed every time,” she said. “Even if it does mean playing the hypocrite to get it.”

The train thundered on and they fell into silence. She glanced slyly at his face. Their relationship had rather peculiar ups and downs due to her refusal to sleep with him. Now was one of the down times when they were merely polite to one another and he sounded cynical and bitter. Tomorrow, or in an hour, it would be quite different.

Her thoughts went back to their last tender episode, after dusk in a field on the outskirts of the town. Her heart missed a beat at the thought of it. They had lain in the dark shadow of a bus and she'd been able to feel in his pants the hard bulge that revealed his desire. Their kissing had reached a level of extreme sexuality, their desire rising to the point where kissing no longer compensated for the real thing. She remembered his hand on her breasts, over the brassiere, the way she'd made no attempt to stop him from undoing the catch, thinking that would be all right; the tender tingling of his fingers over the hot, bare flesh of her breast; the way he pinched her nipple suddenly, making her squeal and pant so that she hadn't stopped his hand as it stole up her leg with one smooth, unhesitating movement and went straight under the thin strip of her briefs to the moist lips of her cunt. Her mouth went dry now to think of how near they'd come. She'd been almost beside herself as he massaged her clitoris and reached his fingers deep into the hot passage between her legs. He'd tried to take off her briefs; the night air had been cold on her completely bared thighs. But she'd made a huge effort and stopped him. He'd argued, threatened, pleaded and finally he'd gotten up in disgust and lit a cigarette. They'd both sat smoking silently in the darkness. She'd pretended she was merely frightened, rather than admit that she wouldn't risk losing him. He had bitterly reproached her, showing her the packet of condoms, which would make it safe, he'd said. She had said nothing was 100 per cent safe. So they had remained with their passions cooling and the uncomfortable wetness between her legs growing colder and colder until bad temper had worn itself out and he'd seen her home and left. He hadn't yet recovered from her refusal.

She stole another glance at his handsome, slightly bitter profile. What a handsome couple we make , she suddenly thought.

They reached the distant suburb and caught the last bus for the short journey to her aunt's house. Everything was in darkness. All the joyless people who lived there had gone to bed ages ago, to bed from one day that was just like the next. Everything they did was just like the thing they'd done before and would do again next time. I wouldn't be my aunt for ten thousand pounds , she thought.

Aunt Beatie let them in, kissed Eve, and shook hands with Adam. She was pleased and nervous, as she always was when she had to organize anything, such as a late supper for two people. She puttered about the kitchen while they made themselves at home. Uncle Den had gone to bed.

“How was the play, dear?”

“Wonderful, Auntie.”

“What did you say it was?”

“ A View from the Bridge — Arthur Miller.”

“Arthur Miller. Oh yes, dear, that would be good. He's been on television. I forget what it was called — all about a salesman who treated his wife badly.”

Eve sighed and Adam grinned at her furtively.

The aunt asked no more questions about the play. She'd made all the conversation on that subject that she was capable of making. While she prepared their rather unimaginative cold salad with cups of tea, she talked about the sales and what she'd bought — all useless things she'd wear once and never again. She also talked about some of her friends whom Adam and Eve hardly knew, and she talked about the weather. She would have liked to mention something harmless about the Aldermaston protest, whose stupidity, as she thought about it, fascinated her in some perverse way. But she was vaguely afraid there might be some subtlety about it and its motives that she didn't understand and that either Adam or Eve — particularly Adam — might make her feel an utter imbecile with her ignorance.

Eve washed up after they ate, and the aunt indicated their beds, which were made up with clinically clean sheets. Eve would sleep in the back bedroom, Adam in the box-room. They all said goodnight.

Eve undressed slowly, studying herself in the mirror. She had no superfluous flesh; her skin was creamy smooth. She had taut, high breasts and gentle, sloped shoulders. She mouthed a few lines from the play, bringing tears to her eyes with her silent passion. She didn't put on her pajamas. Instead, she pulled back the curtains and looked out into the neat, tidy, moonlit garden. Oh, for a blade of grass out of place , she thought. Why doesn't my aunt realize this garden and this house don't reflect life at all — that's what makes them so artificial . But then, her aunt didn't realize her life was artificial either?

She thought again of Mr. Grampion. It was to him her thoughts kept coming, even though she tried to think of other things. She smoothed her hands over her body and shuddered. Even though the thought of him doing that had no reality, she shuddered. She sat on the clean coverlet of the bed and looked down at the soft, silky hair at the V of her loins. To imagine him putting his thing up inside there was just impossible. She went suddenly hot — a strange mixture of revulsion and desire.

Her door opened gently and she swung around. Adam slid into the moonlit room, wearing only his tight, Y-front pants.

“Adam!” she hissed. “You must be mad!”

He came over towards her with his slim, muscular body, which the moon turned silver. There was a heavy sag in the front of his pants and a big protuberance pointing at her through the cloth.

“Adam,” she said again with soft intensity. “Auntie'll hear you. You mustn't stay.”

But he came at her and pulled her up into his arms, naked as she was. He kissed her with fury, splaying her lips so that she automatically moved her tongue into his mouth. She felt frightened and hollow in the pit of her stomach and she fell back under his pressure so that they were both stretched out on top of the bed. His hands began to rake her body, smoothing over the swell of the breasts. He bit her nipple and she checked with difficulty the cry that came into her throat.

“No, Adam, no!” she whispered furiously, sensing the danger.

But his hand roamed at large, over her ribs and belly, stroking the soft pubic hair so that she wanted to part her legs to have him stroke further, to have him touch the moistening, intimate folds of her sex. Instead, she squirmed away. But his hand came after her and splayed the lips of her vagina apart. The feeling of his warm, rough fingers on her flesh rushed through her and she thought she'd faint in the agonizing pleasure of it. She gasped, unable to choke the sound. She squirmed on his fingers, partly to move away and partly to feel more wholly the igniting pressure of his hand.

“Adam, Adam,” she whispered into his face, “this is madness. Not here, not here!”

He slipped out of his pants. She heard him groan from the feeling of his own nakedness. She felt the huge, hot throbbing of his penis against her hip. His fingers thrust into her passage, delving deeper and deeper into it. Her neck arched and she moved her face from side to side, gritting her teeth, the word “No” thundering in her head.

Adam took her hand and placed it on his prick. She let it rest there, lightly wrapping her fingers around it. He put his hand over hers and squeezed hard, the hot, melting feeling of it coursing through him. His cock was enormous. She'd never realized they were so big. Instinctively, she began to stroke it and then to massage it, rubbing the skin back and forth. She remembered what a friend of hers had once told her and felt down for his balls. Their hairiness and texture surprised her. She'd heard how vulnerable they were and stroked them gently, holding them in her palm. Adam was grinding his teeth and deep moans escaped from his throat. She felt a light moisture cold on her thigh. She wondered if he'd come, but his prick was still as stiff as a ramrod. She felt the tip of his cock with her finger. There was a small bead of liquid there and instinctively she spread it around the smooth tip, her finger sliding easily around in the silky slickness of the liquid against his flesh.

“Eve, Eve — I want you, I must, must, must!” he whispered frenziedly.

“No, Adam, no!”

She mustn't let him, she told herself through her longing. But she couldn't stop him if he really tried. She was losing the fight with herself.

“Eve, Eve!”

He rolled on top of her suddenly.

“No, Adam, no.”

She jackknifed her legs in front of her and felt his penis caught, hard and long between her thighs. She pressed her thighs together. Adam moaned and panted, fighting to lift his penis up and into her cunt. She resisted desperately, feeling his prick coming nearer, jerking and thrusting between her legs.

Suddenly, Adam let out a hoarse cry. She felt his prick expand and contract against the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs. He gasped and gasped and gasped again. She felt hot fluid running all over her thighs, dripping down between them as his cock pulsated against her soft flesh.

Adam collapsed on her body, panting, almost sobbing.

She stroked his head. My God , she thought, what a racket . And as if prompted by her thought, there was movement on the landing outside and her aunt's voice cried out anxiously.

“Are you all right, dear?”

Eve went rigid.

“Quick, under the bed in case she comes in!” she whispered.

Adam slid reluctantly off her and disappeared.

Eve tried to still her heavy breathing and called out.

“I'm all right, Aunty, what's up?”

“I thought I heard you call out.”

“Just a cough, aunt.”

“Would you like some cough mixture, dear? There's some in the bathroom. Shall I get it for you?”

“No, no, Aunty. It's nothing at all. Just got something in my throat. I'm all right, really.”

“All right then, dear. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Eve waited until she heard her aunt's door close and then she got off the bed and switched on the light. Adam was lying on the rug. He looked exhausted and hadn't bothered to hide under the bed. In any case, he'd left his pants on the coverlet and, worse than that, there was a trail of heavy, glue-colored sperm all across the clean, peach coverlet.

Eve pushed back her hair from her face. All her nerves were jangling. She went to Adam and caught his shoulder. He drew himself up on his knees and she pulled him to her and kissed him. They held each other for a minute or two.

“We'd better clean up,” she whispered.

She slipped out of his arms, found her handkerchief and wiped her legs. She began to wipe the coverlet, but, though the sperm came off, it left a thick, greasy mark, which was clearly going to show.

“Good God,” she said. “Aunt will never get over this.”

“It's all right,” Adam said, behind her. “She'll never guess in a million years what it is.”

She turned around to see his sardonic grin. She looked at the whole of him, standing there in the full light with his deflated penis dripping moisture down onto her aunt's clean rug. She grinned back and began to laugh. They both laughed. It became almost uncontrollable. She could tell now that this was one of the up times.

CHAPTER THREE

Eve saw Adam off at Waterloo the next morning. He had to go back to their hometown because his art master wanted him to meet an old friend who had some influence in the art world and might be able to help him. Mr. Grant had been rather vague about the person, but very insistent on the meeting. No chance of help could ever be turned down.

Eve, in the meantime, would continue to see agents in the hope of getting something. This, at least was her story.

They kissed au revoir on the train steps in the great, dim cavern of the station, with steam gushing and whistles blowing and people scurrying to and fro shouting their farewells and calling for porters.

“I wish I didn't have to go back,” Adam said. “Perhaps we could finish what we started.”

“I thought we did,” Eve said. “Anyway we certainly finished Aunt Beatie's coverlet. It was stiff as a board this morning. I made the bed and left it. Perhaps she'll think I had a celestial visitation.”

“She'll be envious,” Adam said.

The whistle blew, the green flag was waved, the last door slammed and the train strained slowly away out of the station. Eve went back through the barrier and caught a bus over Waterloo Bridge to the West End.

In a little street in Soho, near the film offices, she walked past a narrow doorway with a bronze tablet at its side. The tablet said: J. Grampion Ltd., Theatrical Agent. Eve walked past the doorway half a dozen times. Finally, she went into a bar, ignoring the stares of the clientele. She bought herself a gin with her meager resources, knocked it back straight and went out again without looking at anyone. The liquor warmed her inside. It didn't amount to much, but it was a help.

She went up the stairs from the doorway. Instead of carpet, the steps were covered with rubber pads. At the top of the stairs was a landing, dark and gloomy, and halfway along a sign hanging over a door said “Inquiries.” She went along to the door, stood there still for twenty seconds fighting to control her breath, her fast beating heart, and then went in.

An automatic bell jangled and the well-known secretary looked up from her typewriter. She was a supercilious young woman, rather plain, but making the best of herself. She had extraordinarily large breasts. Eve had sometimes wondered how many inches over 40 they were. She had also wondered if, to keep her job, she had to lie on her back for Mr. Grampion once in a while. With breasts like that, she could be able to keep him at arm's length in an emergency , Eve thought.

The secretary raised her eyebrows and said in an ultra-refined voice, the vowel sounds of which you'd never find in a dictionary, “Mr. Grampion's rawthah busy. Caaan you wait?”

“All right,” Eve said.

The woman motioned her to the familiar and admittedly comfortable leather chair. She made no effort to communicate with her employer, which irritated Eve, feeling as she did that the waiting was as often due to the secretary's whim as to Grampion's availability.

After about five minutes, the secretary picked up a phone extension and said into it, “Miss Patten to see you, Mr. Grampion. Are you busy or shall I tell her to come in?”

She listened, replaced the receiver and resumed her typing without looking at Eve. Eve sighed. There was no point in [...]