Harold Robbins Thriller Collection

by Harold Robbins

  “Patrick’s okay,” Janette answered. “He’s bright and up and likes to have fun.”

  “He said he was in love with you once and wanted to marry you,” Lauren said.

  Janette laughed. “He was either stoned or drunk or being silly, and I think the only reason he asked me was because he was sure that I would never do it.” Then she saw the expression on Lauren’s face. “Is he making a problem for you?”

  Lauren shook her head. “Not really.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Lauren looked into her eyes. “Are you in love with him?”

  Janette laughed. “Patrick? Never. He’s a nice boy but I can’t see myself with him.”

  A kind of relief came into Lauren’s eyes. “That makes me feel better.”

  “Why?” And then even before Lauren answered, Janette knew. “Are you in love with him?”

  “Yes,” Lauren answered, dropping her eyes for a moment, then raising them again. “And he says he’s in love with me and wants to marry me. But I didn’t want to give him an answer until I knew just where you stood. I didn’t want to come between you.”

  “There’s nothing between Patrick and me for you to upset,” Janette said quickly. She reached for Lauren’s hand. “But you’re still a child, you’re only seventeen. Are you sure you know about yourself, how you really feel?”

  “I know how I feel about him,” Lauren said. “I do love him. But I told him I wouldn’t marry him right now. Not until I was eighteen.”

  “And what did he say?” Janette asked.

  “He said that would be okay. But he wants to announce our engagement right away.”

  Janette was silent for a moment. “Have you made love with him?”

  “Not yet,” Lauren said. “I didn’t want to until I knew exactly where I stood.”

  “What happened to his two friends?” Janette asked.

  “They left the boat the day after we got to Sardinia,” Lauren answered. “Patrick told me that he was through with all that. He was thinking seriously about going back into business as his father had wanted him to.”

  Janette dragged on the joint again, then gave it back to Lauren. She smiled slowly. “He must be serious about you then,” she said. “Because for him to even think about going to work is one of the major miracles of all time.”

  “He really does know a lot about business,” Lauren said quickly. “It was only that his father was so important that he ran away from it. But his father is dead now.”

  Janette nodded. She could understand that. She bent over and kissed Lauren’s cheek. “It will have to be your decision, darling,” she said. “Whatever that is, you can count on me to support you in it.”

  Impulsively Lauren hugged her. “I’m glad. Mother and Dad will go through the roof when I tell them.”

  “I’m sure we can make them see the light,” Janette said. She nodded toward the staircase. “Does he know anything about it?”

  Lauren shook her head. “No. I didn’t want to say anything to anyone until I had spoken to you. Now I can tell him.”

  “It can wait until morning,” Janette said. “He’ll be upset. He’s in love with you.”

  “Harvey?” Lauren’s voice was happily unbelieving. “You don’t really know about us. We’ve been pals for years. He won’t be upset at all.”

  She said it. But then the moment the words left her lips she knew it wouldn’t be like that at all.

  The light was on in his room. It spilled under the closed door into the hall as she walked past it. She hesitated a moment, then knocked softly. She heard him moving around but there was no answer. She knocked again. Louder this time. “Harvey.”

  His voice was muffled. “Yes.”

  “Are you going to bed?” Her voice echoed in the hall.

  After a moment, he opened the door and stood there. “What do you want?” he asked. His voice was hoarse.

  “I want to talk to you,” she said.

  He stood silently looking at her, then stepped back abruptly. “Okay.”

  His valise lay open on the bed, his clothing next to it. She turned to him as he closed the door. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  He walked past her to the open valise and picked up a stack of T-shirts and dumped them into the valise. “What does it look like I’m doing?” he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m going home tomorrow.”

  She watched him silently as he placed some shirts in the bag. “There’s no reason for you to go,” she said.

  He turned and looked at her. The hurt in his voice matched his eyes. “No? I’m not that stupid. You must think I’m a fool.”

  “I don’t think you’re a fool, Harvey,” she said softly.

  He turned his face away from her. He didn’t want her to see the mist that was blurring his vision. His voice was strained and tight. “I didn’t give a damn about coming to Europe. I came here to be with you.”

  “You can still be here with me,” she said.

  He looked into her eyes. “You know that I can’t. And I know that I can’t. So who are you trying to kid?” She didn’t answer and he continued. “Do you think I didn’t see what was happening? What was going on between you and Patrick?”

  “Nothing happened,” she said.

  “No?” he asked with a sarcasm that he himself never knew he had. “I could have gotten off the boat with those two girls and you never would have known that I was gone.”

  “Harvey, Harvey,” she said softly, going to him. She put her hands on his arms. “We’re friends. I always want us to be friends.”

  He looked down into her face and then couldn’t stop the rush of tears to his eyes. His arms went around her and he pulled her head tightly against his chest. “Look, Lauren,” he said huskily. “I knew that we were both kids. But I always knew that I loved you. But kids don’t talk about love. That’s for grownups and I always thought there was time for that. Maybe I was wrong, but I never figured that you’d go for an old man.”

  Lauren was crying too. “He’s not an old man,” she snuffled against his chest. “He’s not going to be thirty until next year.”

  “He’s still twelve years older than you are. That’s a lot.”

  “That’s not much,” she said. “My father is sixteen years older than my mother.”

  “And he talks funny,” Harvey said. “I never can even understand a word he says. Half the time I have to guess at what he means. Why can’t he talk English like the rest of us?”

  “Because he is English,” she said. “And they talk different than Americans.”

  “I bet there are a lot of things they do different than Americans,” he said.

  She placed a gentle finger on his lips to keep him from speaking and looked up into his face. “Harvey, I’m going to marry him.”

  She felt his jaw go slack against her finger and his mouth drop open as he pushed her away from him. He looked down at her in amazement. “Holy cats! Your folks’ll kill you!”

  “No they won’t,” she said.

  He was still staring at her. “That’s real serious,” he said.

  “I know. A little scary too.”

  “Yeah,” he said. He thought for a moment. “Are you sure you’re not overdoing it?”

  “I’m sure,” she said. “I’m in love with him.”

  “Oh, brother!” he exclaimed. “That’s a real mind-blower. Getting married and all that. That’s lifetime stuff.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  He turned back to his valise and came up with a small vial. “This is the last I’ve got of number thirteen. I’ve been saving it for an emergency like this.”

  “What does it do?” she asked as he began to roll the joint.

  “Gives you confidence,” he said. “Makes you feel there’s nothing in the world that you can’t handle.”

  The Valium had put him away and he was aware of nothing until the leather strap slashed across his back, jolting him awake. “What the hell?” he mumbled, rolling across hi
s bed to turn on the cabin lights.

  “Jesus!” he yelled as the strap caught him again just as the lights went on. He stared up at Janette, standing at the side of his bed, her breasts heaving under her sheer black see-through blouse delineated by the cross-straps of her micro-mini leather skirt. She raised the belt in her hand and he caught a glimpse of her strong white thighs under the skirt as they fell into her almost hip-length black leather boots. He tried to roll away from the blow and caught it on his arms. “Are you crazy?” he yelled.

  “You slimy son of a bitch!” she said in a calm, cold voice. “You said you like beatings? Well, you’re going to get the beating of your life!”

  The strap came down again and he jumped with pain. “Stop!” he yelled. He leaped naked from the bed and ran for the bathroom. Relentlessly she followed him, the strap slashing and cutting at him. He turned his face into a corner of the cabin, leaving only his naked back exposed to the stinging leather strap. After a moment he began to cry, then his legs trembled, and he sank to the floor, covering his face with his hands.

  “Please,” he said in a little boy’s voice. “Don’t punish me anymore. I’ll be good. I’ll do anything you say.”

  Her voice was still cold. “Lick my boots, you little bastard!”

  “Yes, yes,” he said, still crying and crawling toward her on his hands and knees. He put his face against the nearest boot and began to lick it.

  The strap slashed across his back. “Now the other.”

  “Yes,” he said, moving to the other foot. “Let me be your slave.”

  The belt came down on his back again. “Is that all you want to be?”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Your slave. That’s all.”

  She slapped him across the face. “Eat my cunt,” she ordered, raising the front of her leather skirt.

  He rose on his knees and buried his face between her legs. She placed a hand on the back of his head, pressing him into her. “Lick it faster,” she commanded.

  Frantically he began to move his head against her, his hand going down to his erection and masturbating himself. Suddenly her knee came up, catching him under the chin and flinging him backward on the floor.

  She brought the strap down across his arm. “I didn’t give my slave permission to play with his little prick,” she said coldly and walked across the cabin and sat in a small armchair, looking at him.

  He pushed his back against a wall and, raising his knees to his chest, sat there staring at her, the tears running silently down his cheeks. She lit a cigarette and for a long time neither of them spoke.

  Finally, it was he who broke the silence. “You’re angry with me.”

  “I don’t get angry with my slaves,” she said. “Just disappointed.”

  He didn’t speak.

  “You’re not even man enough to get yourself a real woman, you have to pick on a child.” She ground the cigarette out under her boot in the carpet of the cabin. “Did you tell her what you really are like? That you like being a slave, that you love being a voyeur? And that is all that really turns you on?”

  He was still silent.

  “How do you think she is going to feel about you when she finds out? Then do you think that she’ll believe your stories that you love her, that you’re going to work and be a man like your father?”

  “But I mean it,” he cried. “I do love her. And I already sent a cable to the office that I’m coming in to work.”

  She laughed. “How long is that going to last? A month, maybe two. And then you’re going to want to be a slave again.”

  The tears began to flood down his cheeks. He crawled toward her and knelt prayerfully, his hands clasped in front of her chair. “Don’t tell her,” he begged. “Please don’t tell her.”

  She looked down at him without answering.

  “I promise I’ll be good,” he said. “She’s the only chance I have left.”

  “You said you were going to work?” she said.

  “Yes,” he said. “I am.”

  She took a deep breath. “Then I may give you a chance. But you’ll have to prove yourself to me first.”

  “I’ll do it,” he said. “Just give me the chance.”

  “It involves your company,” she said.

  “I don’t care,” he said. “Just don’t tell her.”

  She got to her feet and slowly began to undress. Finally she stood naked over him, except for her hip-length black boots. She raised the belt over her head and brought it whistling down on his back. The welts began to rise on his shin as she hit him again and again until finally he was cringing before her in full erection. Then she stopped, her breast heaving with exertion. “Would you like to see me fuck with your African?” she asked coldly.

  “Yes, yes,” he said, beginning to masturbate himself violently.

  She hit him again with the strap. “Then stop playing with your little prick until I give you permission, slave, and get him in here.”

  He looked up at her. “You won’t tell Lauren?”

  “Not if you do as I tell you, slave,” she said contemptuously. “Now, get him in here.”

  She watched him pick up the phone. When he put it down she began to laugh. “What are you laughing at?” he asked.

  “All of us,” she said. “The whole world is crazy. We’re all getting exactly what we want.”

  It was seven o’clock in the morning and the golden sun promised another day of unrelenting August heat as she drove into the courtyard of the villa and got out of the car. Wearily she went into the house, walking on heavy, lead-like legs. The African had been everything Patrick said he was. He wasn’t human. He was nothing but a fuck machine. Her loins and anus felt swollen and aching and the sheer animal savagery of his pounding body had literally coerced her into a frenzied series of uncontrollable orgasms. Now all she wanted to do was sink into a hot tub, relax and then go to sleep. And she didn’t care if she slept away the balance of the weekend. There was nothing more she could do than she had done last night.

  She heard the footsteps on the staircase as she came into the living room and looked up. Harvey was coming down the steps, his single valise at his side. They stood there for a moment, each a little surprised at seeing the other.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  He reached the bottom of the steps and put down his valise. There was embarrassment in his voice. “Good morning. I didn’t expect to find anyone up.”

  “I’m just coming in,” she said.

  “Yes.” He looked at her. “It must have been a hell of a party.”

  “It was,” she said. She smiled. “I could use one of your high-quality toots.”

  “Of course,” he said quickly. He fished in his jacket pocket and came out with a vial. He handed it to her with a small plastic straw. “The coke’s already sifted,” he said. “Just stick some in the end of the straw and snort.”

  She nodded and did as he said. The coke seemed to shoot back into her brain and explode. “Mon dieu!” she exclaimed. “I feel as if the top of my head just came off.”

  He took the vial back from her with a half smile. “You had a good hit but you’ll be okay in a minute.”

  He was right. Suddenly her weariness was gone. She looked down at his valise. “Does Lauren know you’re leaving?”

  He shook his head.

  “Don’t you think you ought to tell her?”

  “I tried to last night but she only insisted that I stay.”

  “Why don’t you then?” she asked.

  She could see the hurt deep in his eyes. “What difference would it make? Really. She’s into her own thing now.”

  “She’ll feel bad if you just go like this.”

  “She’ll get over it,” he said. “Can I call for a taxi?”

  “You could,” she answered. “But you won’t get an answer. It’s too early in the morning and besides they have to come from Sainte-Maxime.”

  “What if I walked into Saint-Tro?”

  “No taxis there
. But you can get the ferry to the mainland. There will be taxis there.”

  “Okay,” he said, picking up his bag. “Thanks for everything, Janette.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “What shall I tell Lauren?”

  “Tell her I’ll see her when she gets home,” he said, starting for the door.

  “Would you like me to run you into town?”

  He shook his head. “No, thanks. You’re tired. And the walk will do me good.”

  “Harvey,” she said.

  He looked at her. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “How do I get in touch with you? I don’t even know your last name or your address.”

  “Lauren can give it to you,” he said. Then he thought for a moment. “Why would you want to get in touch with me?”

  “One never knows.” There was no point in telling him that the clay he had given her seemed to work and that at this very moment the chemists at the fragrance company laboratory were trying to analyze it. “I might be in California sometime and need a date.”

  A sudden grin cracked his face. “You can call me for that anytime.” He put down his bag and took a pencil and a piece of Zig Zag cigarette paper from his kit and scrawled on it, then handed it to her. “Just in case,” he said. “Goodbye, Janette.”

  “Not that way,” she said, taking the piece of paper. “The French way.”

  “How’s that?” he asked.

  She kissed him on both cheeks. “That’s how.” She smiled. “Au revoir, Harvey.”

  She went up to her room and turned on the water in the tub. While it was filling she went back into the bedroom and began to undress. In a moment she was nude. She turned and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were glowing and her face showed no signs of the night. She half smiled to herself as she went to the window to draw the draperies against the light. There was nothing like a good fuck for making a woman look beautiful. Only one thing was missing. The warmth and tenderness you could get only from a woman. Stéphane should have been there. Then it would have been perfect.

  From the window, she saw Harvey walking down the road, carrying his valise. For a brief moment she felt sorry for him and thought of calling him back. Then she decided against it and snapped the draperies closed. It was just as well he was gone. He could have only complicated matters by remaining. This way Lauren would have no one else to share her confidences. Everything would be easier.