A Seduction in Silk (Xcite Romance)

by Constance Munday

  Imogen laughed. Meier had power in the Berlin entertainments industry. He scouted clubs such as her one, and recruited women for his special photographic sessions. He was well known for his daring photography, which some said verged on the pornographic, but being daring got his models noticed. Some had become stars and even ended up in the movie industry in Hollywood, a fact which Hermann had made plain to Imogen. Sure, he could make her a star too. She didn’t need to think about it twice though and she’d turned him down. A public profile didn’t suit her and the fear welled up like a volcano, but Meier never gave up, he knew something special when he saw it. Meier, who was also obsessed by her legs, was staring at her stockings and looking her up and down.

  ‘Thought I’d find you here, why the shit do you still come into this sleazy joint?’ Imogen shrugged, she had a very good reason. How could she tell Meier, indeed, how could she tell anyone, about the fear which constantly licked at her heels and nibbled away at the fringes of her tattered nerves? The fear that, one evening, that shadow would come closer and she would go home and find another plain brown envelope pushed under her door. It was bad enough having to go home at all, to face the cold apartment which was really little more than a single room and where the wind whistled between the cracks. She hated it, with its smell of cabbage and the constant thump of Frieda the whore as she pounded the floor above her. Her only escape was thinking of Anni, Anni wrapped up in her snug little room at Helga Streiber’s.

  ‘You realise I could still make you that huge star, cookie? Just think about it, a fraction of the work and 50 times more dough. I’m determined I can wear you down and you’ll see sense.’

  Imogen’s attention snapped back to the present. ‘Don’t I know it, Hermann and you know the answer to that.’ She was distracted: she still had her eye on Michael, who was watching her quizzically

  Imogen felt warm drenching feelings of sexual arousal start as Michael stared at the silk stockings. She hoped Michael was dreaming of placing his finger on the cool silk and rubbing it between his fingertips, because for once she thought she’d like that rather a lot.

  ‘What’s the matter with you? You look goddamned distracted. You got a boyfriend?’

  ‘Hermann, when would I have the time for a boyfriend? Besides, you know I don’t date.’

  ‘Sure, sure I do. Cold fish ain’t you?’ He stroked her cheek and Imogen smiled, she was fizzing from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair and her heart was beating like an African tribal drum. She wanted to tantalise Michael, she thought as she darted a glance at his bowed head. For the first time in ages she wanted to feel his finger coming up her exquisitely shaped thigh and she wanted to feel herself contracting her strong thigh muscles around his hand as he sunk his fingers inside her and they built up some skin on skin friction. Then she fantasised over how she’d drive him crazy in bed, dressed only in the silk stockings and how the abrasive friction provided by her stockings against his legs and cock – as he pumped in and out of her warm woman’s glove – would make him roar like a lion.

  Hermann put his hand on her thigh. For some reason when he put his hand there she never felt it was offensive. Naturally, he wanted to stroke her legs in her expensive silk stockings, all guys did. In fact, the legs and the stockings created a scene of such erotic perfection the need to do it was overpowering.

  ‘Shit, there’s no other woman on the planet who can make a pair of silk stockings look like you do, you take a man to jerk off heaven. You know, babe, I’ve puzzled and puzzled over it. I mean a lot of dames look good in hose, and, hell, I’ve seen a million dames in silk stockings, but you, God it’s weird and I still can’t figure out that weird alchemical magic you got going. Those goddamn stockings cling to your legs as if it’s all one thing and made to go together, you know like strawberries and cream or, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Now, babe, if you got that kind of magic, why don’t you milk it, why don’t you make a million from it? That’s what I can’t understand!’

  ‘I told you, I got my reasons.’

  Hermann nodded. ‘You got balls of steel, you know that. Whatever it is that drives you, honey, I’d sure like to know what it is? I’ll be seeing you, babe.’

  ‘Sure, Hermann.’

  ‘And, I’m gonna break you down, babe.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  Hermann left and Michael, seeing his opportunity, pulled his stool even closer to the irresistible silk force, while Imogen studied him cautiously out of the corner of her eye.

  He had a gentle smooth face and his long, brushed back hair folded carelessly around the collar of his shirt. She felt a wave of lust, a hot shafting pulse of desire.

  ‘Hi,’ Michael said, without looking at her. ‘You seem to have been waiting here a long time. Can I buy you another drink?’

  The warm jolt fizzed through her like electricity; she liked to be engaged in the thought of love.

  ‘I’m not a whore, you know!’ There was more than a hint of sarcasm added as a final drop of poison to her words. ‘I’m a respectable girl, in case you wondered. If you want a whore you can go to some other place, Berlin’s full of them.’

  Her voice possessed a mellifluous quality embellished with a husky undertone; she had a thick German accent but spoke fluid English, her mother having insisted on it. Her mother had wanted Imogen to have every advantage. She’d had a nice apartment and sent Imogen to a good school.

  Michael’s fingers moved tirelessly, stroking his fine wool pants as, occasionally, he glanced at her legs. Yes, he had that strange affliction most men had, she thought with amusement, he was determined to pursue his quest of touching the silk stockings and he was wondering how close he could get.

  She twisted around a little on the bar stool and flexing her foot she rested it back on the footrest. She was deliberately teasing him. Beneath the silk she wore a small silver bracelet around her slim little ankle. She knew it looked tacky and gave her the appearance of a whore, but Jake had given it to her and she liked to be a little bit wicked after all. She wanted to see how hard men would stare at the silk stockings as they imagined peeling down the silk to look at her bare legs.

  ‘You seem to be waiting for someone?’ Michael commented.

  ‘What if I am? It’s nothing to do with you, is it? Can’t a girl sit quietly and listen to some music and have a nice drink without being continually bothered.’

  ‘Yes, they can,’ Michael replied. ‘But not if they’re a girl in a pair of silk stockings.’ He evidently thought this was funny because he was smiling. ‘You have to see it from a guy’s point of view. A beautiful woman sitting alone is bound to arouse speculation.’

  ‘Maybe I’ve been stood up.’

  ‘Maybe, you have.’

  She ran her finger through a pile of sugar on the counter before touching it to her lips. ‘Or, possibly I’m lying to you and I really am a whore after all, and I’m waiting for a punter. You don’t know a fuck about me!’ Running her tongue over her full painted lips she hitched herself further onto the stool and as she did so, she crossed and uncrossed her legs with the delicious hissing crackle of static electricity. It would be possible for a pair of sexy legs to issue an electrical spark.

  Her gaze roamed over him and something stirred which was very exciting

  Beneath the nicely tailored pair of pants which fit like a glove and said money, money, money, his cock was thick and ropey and she could see it rising up, straining for attention.

  ‘I used to act tough like you,’ he said expectantly, while he sipped his scotch and waited for a verbal counter attack from her – a wild spray of her angry words like rogue bullets. ‘But, it wasted too much energy. It’s better to channel that energy into something useful, like solving the reason why you’re so shit angry at the world in the first place.’

  Imogen pushed her packet of cigarettes around the bar top, then she glanced at her watch. ‘Who the fuck said I was angry at the world?’

  ‘You didn
’t have to, it’s written all over your face.’ His voice was soft and kind and maybe concerned. ‘It’s either that or you’re scared shitless of something.’

  Imogen bit her lip. He was astute and his eyes seemed to look deep inside her, she sat back on her stool and uncrossed her legs.

  ‘Whoever this guy is, who’s causing so much hassle, it looks like he’s not showing,’ Michael said jokingly. Then his gaze drifted to her legs. ‘You remind me of my mother. She had great legs like yours, all the guys looked at her legs. My father thought legs were ten times more erotic than breasts.’

  ‘Is that the only reason you came over to talk to me? Because my sexy silk stocking legs reminded you of your mother and made you horny?’ Imogen stated acerbically.

  ‘No, no,’ Michael stuttered. ‘Of course not. Shit, I always put my foot in it with ladies.’

  ‘Cut to the chase,’ she said, spurred on by the wicked sex devil inside her. ‘You want to fuck me, so say so. Why don’t we go outside and I’ll take off these damn silk stockings and you’ll see these legs are not as perfect and so much of a wet dream as you think. Perhaps you fancy fucking me up against the wall?’

  Imogen couldn’t help herself; she was being deliberately provocative for some reason. The tender stirring, the need for physical comfort was making her run off at the mouth. It wasn’t like her, not like her at all. ‘Perhaps, you want to watch me pull them on and off very slowly and then fuck me in them. Is that it, huh? Or, maybe you’d like to see me stripped naked and just dressed in the hose? It’s hardly surprising since I make my living from these fucking legs.’

  Michael grinned at her. ‘Boy, hold on a moment. Who rattled your cage?’

  Imogen was about to say, “You did! You walked too close and you put your face right up to the bars and despite the fact I fluttered my wings a little in warning, you persisted and now I’ve struck out and pecked you with my sharp beak”. Instead, she sipped her drink without tasting it and a warm fizz began between her legs as she stared at his sensitive cunt-sucking mouth.

  ‘Let me get you another?’ Michael raised his finger and Larry, like magic, placed another cocktail in front of her. ‘I just offered to buy you a drink. Nothing more, I didn’t want to pick you up and I sure as hell don’t care a shit what you’re doing here.’

  Imogen glanced at his Rolex watch and his fine pair of opal cufflinks and then glanced away; she’d done with being impressed. She’d grown up around affluence and when her mother had made it big she’d seen many fine things. Once a week her mother had taken her to the Ritz and they’d dined in sumptuous luxury eating off small plates with tiny forks while a quartet played in the corner. That was one of the things she had liked about Louis, she had been easily impressed then and Louis had the best of everything. He may have come from the slums in Chicago, but when he made it big in steel he’d indulged himself in every possible way: fine wine and restaurants; clothes and fancy shoes. It didn’t take her long, though, to find out that money couldn’t buy love.

  She supposed she was becoming the perfect facsimile of what her mother had once been. What was it Mama’s lover, Herr Cleef, had said about Marianne? It had been like looking at a flawless diamond. Outwardly, it was scintillating and perfect, but examine it closely enough and you saw a glimmer of something fascinatingly dirty. Not the kind of dirt which marred the exterior to any great degree. But, just the slightest trace, rendering the overall effect more exciting. Yes, Mama had possessed classical sophistication, however, despite what she wanted you to believe, she had the innate air of a whore about her in the way she prostituted the legs and the silk stockings and Imogen knew you couldn’t shake breeding off. You could pretend to be anything you wanted to be, but class clung to you and when she got down to it, all her mother’s good breeding and instruction could not change what she was. You couldn’t paint over the small flaw, the black spot of sex which made you behave in a certain way and got you in trouble. Her mother had craved sex and prostituted her legs and got in trouble because of it and now Imogen did the same thing.

  For an instant she thought of sex, and she felt herself become juicy and fluid and perhaps a little reckless in how she was thinking. Suddenly, she was craving the touch of a hand and finger, but more than that she craved a voice which said, ‘I love you.’

  Tomorrow, as soon as she got up, she would go down to the studio and she’d practice her dance exercises in front of the bar and the large mirror and work some of this dangerous energy out of her before she did something stupid. Twice a week she went to a dance class, run to Nazi perfection by Karl, an instructor of the old regime – the regime of sweat and hard work – who made the dance girls struggle so hard to keep limber they were mentally and physically exhausted afterwards. Karl was tough and he looked tough, he had very short blond hair and a face like a crunched up paper bag. The girls said he never spoke to them and if he did he could be gruff and frightening, but he liked Imogen because he could tell she hid a dark secret and the secret made her work harder than most. With his slightly sadistic smile he strolled back and forth shouting his orders, but it was always with a teasing look. ‘Come along, Imogen, too much butterkuchen makes you lazy.’

  ‘I’m not trying to pick you up,’ Michael said, challenging her with his dark gaze. ‘I realise what you’re thinking. You think I’m a sleaze bucket and I’m trying to come on to you, but I’m not. I want to talk to you and get beneath that prickly skin of yours.’

  ‘You’re too close.’ Imogen laughed, pushing him away gently with her hand. ‘So close, you’re seducing my legs. Do you generally get this personal with a woman you don’t know?’

  ‘No,’ Michael said shrewdly. ‘Of course not. What kind of a man, do you think I am?’

  ‘Well you’re a man and that’s enough.’ She kept rippling her fingers up and down the stem of her glass. ‘And you keep staring at me. In particular you insist on staring at my legs? Do you see anything there to interest you?’

  ‘Oh, I can see I’m going to have to be honest. Yes, I do. I never saw such a fabulous pair of legs and I’ve seen a few in my time. Your legs are pure fantasy but I bet millions of guys tell you that?’

  ‘These legs are certainly not fantasy. They’re a very real pair of legs. Jesus, you’re just the same as other men, aren’t you? Always staring at the legs or the tits. What is it with guys?’

  ‘You prostitute them. That’s why,’ Michael commented. ‘It’s hard not to stare when a woman with an outstanding sexual attribute’s thrusting it in your face. You must realise you have something there? Some tool of sexual seduction. Hell, it’s worse than a bare breast. A pair of silk stockings is far more sexual than a bare breast could ever be.’

  Imogen gave a snort of laugher. ‘You know that’s just what someone else once said to me and he was a bastard.’ This was a dangerous conversation so it was convenient that at that precise moment a man entered the bar and Imogen experienced a pulse of alarm. Her whole body stiffened and her lips began to tremble. Today, she speculated, had not been a good day at all and now it was going to be made a whole lot worse by Gunter.

  Michael peered first at Imogen and next at the man who he could see had created a flutter around her and a discernible disturbance in the quiet pool of her reflection. Michael watched her lips tighten. She blinked once or twice and then she muttered under her breath, ‘Shit, here comes trouble again.’

  Gunter was like a missile in the way he homed in on Imogen. He was a large bear of a man with a pock-marked face and a small scar above his top lip. He possessed a savage, twisted expression as if he was extremely angry. Imogen didn’t shrink back, but she turned very pale and began fiddling with the clip on her purse. Gunter’s arm came out and, grabbing Imogen by the wrist, he tried to pull her off her stool. ‘You little whore, Imogen. I’ve been searching everywhere for you, do you think I have time for this? I guess I should have looked here first. Found the vixen in her lair.’

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ Imogen said, trying to p
ull her arm away. But, Gunter had locked on to it like a bull terrier and he was not about to let go.

  ‘I ought to smack you. You cunt broad,’ he said, raising his hand to slap her as his eyes flashed maliciously. ‘You can’t simply walk out like that. I booked you for a private party and you let me down. You made me look a real dickhead.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Imogen retorted tightly. Her heart was pounding and she felt giddy. ‘You don’t own me. I just agreed to dance for your shitty little party, that’s all. But you didn’t warn me, huh. You didn’t warn me about the arsehole with the wandering hands. The slimeball went and put his hand on my cunt and I’d had enough.’

  ‘What do you expect? You’re nothing but a two-bit whore and you do nothing but provoke.’

  Immediately, Michael was on his feet. With one hand he gripped Gunter by the scruff of the neck and with the other he twisted the man’s arm up between his shoulder blades. ‘Whoa, hold on a minute, buster. Didn’t anyone ever tell you? You never raise a hand to a lady.’

  ‘And who do you think you are?’ Gunter replied, his lips parting in a watery grin. ‘You want me to knock your block off, because I will!’

  ‘You’re welcome to try,’ Michael said. ‘But you’ll be hearing from my attorney if you do. Do you know who I am? I’m Michael Levenstein?’ Michael rarely pulled rank but he felt a glow of satisfaction as he watched the man fold like a stack of cards.

  ‘Well OK, buster. Perhaps I overreacted a little. But Imogen, she ain’t no lady, and the both of us had an agreement. I paid her a small fortune for a private dance after her show.’

  Reaching in his wallet, Michael extracted a wad of German marks and he pushed them into Gunter’s jacket pocket. ‘Here’s what she owes you plus a bit of interest on the investment. Now you can go out and buy a more accommodating whore.’

  Gunter stared uncertainly at Michael, his eyes roving over him, from the tips of his two tone shoes to the top of his head, and then he shrugged. ‘Well, all I can say is good luck, buster. ’Cause you’re gonna need it.’