SMARTS!

by Jay Lawrence

  "–and I ended up spending the night next to someone's garden shed."

  At that, Jack laughed, then frowned at the condition of Susan's feet. He ran her a deep hot bath in an Art Deco bathroom with a fan-shaped mirror on the wall above the hand-basin. It looked and felt like Paradise. The hypnotist sat on a low stool by the tub and soaped the young woman's body as if she were a child. She felt so relieved that tears of gratitude welled up in her gritty sleep-starved eyes. Reassured, she decided to confront him with her knowledge.

  "I know what you're going to do with me, Jack. I heard you talking with Louise."

  The hypnotist was lathering her breasts and she gasped as his fingers found her nipples beneath the creamy layer of soap. He looked innocent.

  "Oh?"

  "You're going to sell me to Lord Kilgraston."

  Jack rinsed the scented foam from Susan's body and bent to kiss her glistening nipples.

  "And if I did, would that be so terribly bad? Perhaps you'd rather return to sleeping rough and getting nasty chilblains on your pretty feet?"

  Susan flushed. She couldn't resist the hypnotist's little ploys. At one level, she knew exactly what he was doing, yet she could not refuse him. It was beyond mere mesmerism for she wanted to do what he told her. Why was that? Had she fallen in love with her captor?

  The hypnotist delved in the milky water of the tub and pulled out the plug.

  "That's settled then. There's no point in fighting me, April, for you want this life. It's a thousand times better than the one you left behind. Isn't it? Just think of the opportunities. We'll ignore the little hiccup last night and continue your training in earnest. Just remember this. If I say 'watch my lips', you keep your eyes firmly fixed on my mouth. I know what you were doing, by the way."

  Susan blushed even deeper, her pale skin stained an unbecoming beet-root shade. She sat in the empty tub, her fingers straying unconsciously towards her crotch. Suddenly, she felt desperately aroused again. With a swift, sharp movement, the hypnotist caught the young woman's hands and held them up above her head.

  "No you don't, young lady. Not until I say you may. Never until I say you may."

  * * * *

  The train whistled as it rushed into a tunnel, bright summer sunshine segueing into a temporary gloom. Susan sat, very upright and proper, in a first class compartment of the Inverness Express. Six months had passed since that terrible night at the mannequin factory. During that time, the young woman had entered a stringent and deeply rewarding period of training. The hypnotist had kept her at his house in Norwood, with occasional outings to watch him perform on stage. Most of his winter engagements had been in the London area but the warmer months called for travel further afield. Jack was very pleased with April. In very little time she had learned to beg like a lap dog, yet she hadn't lost her cool Grace Kelly-like demeanor. The combination of servility and detachment made her the perfect sex slave for a member of the aristocracy. Kilgraston was to pay the hypnotist four thousand pounds. It was a personal record and a source of pride.

  "May I ask about my new master, Jack?"

  Susan's hands were neatly folded in her lap as she spoke. The hypnotist looked at his protégé with pride. Her manners were impeccable. The train left the tunnel, dazzling June sunlight bathing the young woman's face in a golden glow, so that she resembled an angel. It would be hard to give her away. Jack stared at the rippling fields of wheat beyond the carriage window.

  "Well, Lord Kilgraston is, of course, very rich, with an estate covering hundreds of acres. He likes to fish for salmon and trout, I believe. He's fond of his dogs–"

  A wry smile curved Susan's delicately painted lips. They were passing through the south of Scotland, not far from Edinburgh. The train would continue, pushing north as the day wore on, across the great red iron structure of the Forth rail bridge. It would be bitterly cold in the winter months but she had her furs.

  "Tell me what happened to Yvette and Jacqueline."

  The hypnotist's gaze returned to Susan in surprise. He placed his hands palms down on the little table between their seats, as if about to spread a deck of cards. Finally, he murmured: "You have no need to know, April. That's not knowledge for a slave."

  He looked at Susan longingly. Louise had maintained the silvery tone of her platinum blonde hair color and her eyes looked very blue, the shade of the sky above the wide fields of wheat. She was perfect in a cool crisp linen dress of pale green. Four thousand pounds and worth every penny. Kilgraston was a lucky man.

  The young woman's lips parted, revealing the tips of her pearly white teeth.

  "Did you murder them? Would you have killed me if I hadn't complied?"

  The hypnotist glanced uncomfortably towards the other occupants of the carriage, before hushing her like an insolent child.

  "Don't be silly, April."

  Susan laughed. She had learned to be a kind of box over the previous months, she thought to herself. Everything tucked neatly inside, tidily stowed behind a shining exterior. It hadn't been hard for her to achieve after years of keeping her feelings concealed. She raised one immaculately groomed eyebrow.

  "Did you turn them into mannequins for the old man to sell?"

  It was the hypnotist's turn to laugh.

  "Oh, you goose. Michel is a relative of Louise, although she doesn't like to admit it. She doesn't care for her roots to show. I think he's her uncle. She helped him out when he had fallen on hard times and he in turn aided Louise when she had to mortgage her Knightsbridge salon. She lives in the flat above the showroom. Our business interests are restoring her fortunes."

  Susan held her ground, fully aware that several pairs of ears were trying to listen to their conversation.

  "Please, Jack. Yvette and Jacqueline. I have to know."

  The hypnotist sighed. The train was slowing down, entering the suburbs of Edinburgh. He leaned forward and whispered into Susan's ear.

  "We sold them to a brothel. That is all. Neither of them quite made the grade as sex slaves but they were still very attractive girls. Occasionally, I make a mistake."

  The young woman relaxed and sank back against the velveteen seat. Vast granite buildings loomed against the summer sky as the train rumbled towards Waverley station.

  "I thought you were murderers..."

  Jack gave a wry smile.

  "April, my sins are no doubt severe enough. It has been our little joke to name the mannequins after the girls we've trained."

  "So there will be an April, with bobbed platinum hair and a label attached to her leg?"

  The hypnotist grinned.

  "Absolutely. Just think. You'll be walking down the High Street in Inverness with your Lord and there you'll be in a ladies' outfitter's window. Which will he prefer, do you think? The real version or the wax replica?"

  Susan frowned.

  "But how did you get my image?"

  Jack looked slightly sheepish.

  "When Louise chloroformed you. I really wish she hadn't done that. It was necessary the first time, of course, to get you out of the theater and onto the sleeping car. Have you any idea how tricky it is to conceal a doped-up body? We had to pretend you had passed out cold with drink..."

  Susan looked into Jack's brown eyes.

  "It was never necessary to drug me, Jack. All I have to do is watch your lips."

  The hypnotist smiled. They had pulled into the station, noisy and smoky beneath its vast glass roof. There were sounds of doors slamming and whistles blowing and a disembodied voice announced the arrival of their train.

  "The train now arriving at platform one is the Inverness Express, stopping at Haymarket, South Queensferry, Inverkeithing..."

  "You know the benefit now of paying attention, don't you, April?"

  Susan nodded. She realized, once committed to her training, that watching the hypnotist's lips bestowed greater erotic satisfaction upon her than trying to please herself. It was hard to describe, but she felt bound to the man with an invisible silken cor
d. She was a puppet, moved by his hands, but the strings weren't seen. She'd never known such happiness, such satisfaction. And now she was moving on, passing into another phase of her weird and wonderful life, leaving behind the man who had molded her to his desire. She knew what she had to do but, still, tears welled up in her cornflower eyes. If she were a box, it seemed that the lid was loosening and her feelings were compelled to spill out.

  "I love you."

  A single tear ran down the young woman's perfectly powdered cheek. She reached into her handbag for a handkerchief.

  The hypnotist simply nodded, as if acknowledging a compliment, and stared very fixedly out of the window. On the platform outside, a young lad was selling copies of "The Evening News" and he thought of buying one to distract him from the persistent idea that was beginning to torment his mind.

  Four thousand pounds.

  It was a fortune, the price of a good London house. And he couldn't let Kilgraston down.

  Susan was sobbing quietly into her dainty lace-edged handkerchief, her face turned away from the other occupants of the carriage. Jack groaned, then reached for the young woman's hands.

  "Will you stay with me and be my assistant?"

  Susan looked up at him, her eyes wet and reddened. At first she could barely comprehend what he was saying, then it was as if the sun had come out in the gloomy light of the Victorian station.

  "Yes! Gladly!"

  Four thousand pounds could never be enough.

  The hypnotist gazed into Susan's eyes.

  "Now, watch my lips."

  The young woman laughed in joy as he mouthed 'I love you too'.

  LECHEROUS LIAISONS

  In Chinatown

  The blonde glanced over her shoulder as she left the underground station, her small, slender body melting into the milling crowds on Wardour Street. 'It'd be a crime to lose her in more ways than one' thought Dixon Frost, as he followed her, his presence as unremarkable as the steady rain that issued from the gray London sky. He was a nondescript forty-something man in a brown suit and tortoiseshell glasses, interchangeable with a million others. His plainness suited his task. A mere hour before, he had been assigned a monumental mission. Catch a dangerous informant, a woman whose careless talk was costing lives and nourishing deadly Nazi plans.

  Why are spies so alluring?

  The thought caught him off guard. Veronica Blow. At five foot two, she was positively short, but what she lacked in stature, she made up for with a reputation for sex that could rival Moll Flanders. Carter of MI5 had warned Frost about Miss Blow's sultry charms. 'She's like a snake, old man. Let her wrap her glittering coils about you and you've had it. You'll depart with the business end of a Luger nestled under your ribs.'

  But she's only a woman.

  Frost moved through the crowd, his eyes fixed on the sensuous, dangerous back of Miss Blow. They were in Chinatown. Some of the buildings were brightly painted, embellished with gold and red and green. Signs in indecipherable Cantonese advertised restaurants and shops and clubs. The hordes thinned, became largely oriental, rapidly exposing the young white woman in the tight gray suit. Miss Blow was as fearless as her record suggested. Tipping her little veiled hat with a neatly gloved hand, she smiled at Frost and swiftly disappeared into a basement guarded by a gilded dragon.

  Very nicely done, my dear. What's your encore?

  The gleaming reptile defended a stout green door. A menu in a glass case showed the establishment was the Golden Dragon Restaurant. Original. Every fiber of his being primed for action, Frost pushed open the heavy door. Inside, an elderly Chinese man in an elaborate costume stood behind a desk in a small, dimly lit foyer.

  "For one, sir?"

  The detective nodded. His horn-rimmed spectacles began to mist up in the moist heat of the noodle house. A sullen-looking girl in a pink cheongsam appeared at the imperious wave of the old man's wizened hand.

  "May will show you to a booth. Might I suggest the Peking Duck."

  Frost followed the waitress, through a clicking bead curtain and into a narrow windowless room. The place had the feel of a cheap bordello, with garish wallpaper and an atmosphere that was warm and thick with the smell of cooking oil and tobacco smoke. The girl gestured to a corner booth, furthest away from the door to the street, then retreated, her lithe hips squirming beneath the tight satin dress. As he'd expected, a small figure waited on the crimson banquette. A pair of amused blue eyes looked up at him from behind a fine cloud of net.

  "Nice arse on that girl. I'm Veronica Blow."

  Her voice was sibilant and soft, like the gentle rush of water over smooth, cool stones. Frost caught his breath. He'd expected a harsh, mocking harpy. Cautiously, he slid onto the opposite seat. Veronica Blow wore two long feathers in her natty hat. Mandarin duck.

  "I'm afraid you are under arrest, Miss Blow. For crimes against this country and His Majesty -"

  "Yes, yes," the young woman murmured impatiently, glancing towards the waitress, who returned bearing the menus. "I do quite understand. I've been a naughty girl again. It seems to happen on a regular basis. I'll have the Peking Duck, by the way. And a gin and lime."

  The waitress nodded and waited expectantly for Frost to order, her black slanting eyes enigmatic slits in her pretty oriental face. Something stirred beneath the scarlet-draped table, a slender knee brushed against his own. Miss Blow winked.

  "Why don't we make that Peking Duck for two? And a whisky and soda for Mr. Frost."

  Frost stared. He'd been warned about the vixen's ruthless, evil traits; that she'd sell what was left of her damned soul to betray the land that had adopted her. Her real name was Russian and unpronounceable. He sharply retracted his knee from contact with the girl's and watched her pout theatrically.

  "If you're taking me straight to Holloway, I'm having a decent meal before we go."

  "Prison's too good for the likes of you. You'll hang, you know."

  He couldn't help himself. There was something intensely infuriating about Veronica Blow, her audacious cool when literally cornered and faced with his authority. He wasn't used to being treated like an equal by his prey and he didn't like it one bit. The spy retrieved a flat silver box from her purse and slid it across the scarlet tablecloth.

  "Light me a cigarette, darling."

  "Light one yourself. And don't call me darling."

  "My, don't we just sound like an old married couple?"

  Shrugging, Miss Blow extracted a cigarette and lit it with a matching lighter. With a deep sensual sigh, she took a lengthy draw, then blew a trail of smoke into Frost's eyes.

  "Did you ever wonder why they call me Blow?"

  "I can't imagine."

  The waitress returned with their drinks. The spy raised her glass in a mocking toast.

  "Well, here's to His Majesty. God save the King."

  White hot fury seethed through every particle of Frost's body. The arrogant little bitch! Through gritted teeth, he muttered, "You'd better come quietly..."

  "Au contraire, I tend to be a rather noisy minx. When I come, that is. Do you come quietly, Mr. Frost?"

  Miss Blow moistened her crimson painted lips with the tip of her tongue. Despite his anger, Frost's member stirred in his trousers. With one swift movement, he slipped his handcuffs out of his jacket pocket and onto her dainty wrist. To his extreme annoyance, the young woman's eyes didn't register a flicker of dismay. Indeed, she shivered and wriggled gently, as if the experience had aroused her. Frost stared at the gorgeous blonde whom he now held captive. Her eyes were a soft violet blue, long-lashed and expressionless.

  "Well, now that we are, shall we say, attached, we might as well get acquainted. Do you like to eat pussy, Mr. Frost? Do you like to fuck a girl from behind? Do you like to spank a helpless, squirming bare bottom? What's your taste in the pleasures of the flesh?"

  Frost held his breath. The Chinese girl was approaching with their lunch, so he tossed a napkin over the cuffs to avert a riot. Miss Blow smiled, revealing t
wo rows of small and perfect teeth. The expression did not reach her eyes. When Tiger Lily had retreated again, leaving several steaming bowls and pots, the spy laughed quietly.

  "I think you're a disciplinarian. Wouldn't you love to have that little girl's delicious arse across your knees? Her buttocks must be like a fresh ripe peach."

  How did she know? He'd never told anyone his secret fantasy. Miss Blow's wrist felt cool and smooth and somehow electric against his own. A subtle yet potent frisson was making the hairs on his arm stand up. And that wasn't all. His cock was like an iron rod.

  The spy downed her gin and lime juice in one thirsty gulp. Frost watched her throat pulse as she swallowed, imagined her sucking his swollen member dry.

  "Would you spank me, Mr. Frost? If I asked very nicely?"

  Miss Blow picked up her chopsticks left-handed and deftly scooped a succulent morsel of duck. Frost watched her eat, his own mouth as dry as dust. It felt as if every available drop of moisture in his body had rushed to his crotch, which throbbed as steadily as if his penis had a heart. His brain told him to remain silent, cold and unresponsive, not to allow the over-sexed fiend a gateway into his mind. He would not taste the duck, he would not touch the drink. He would be an unyielding rock face for Miss Blow to slide impotently off of and away into the gutter where she belonged.

  "My panties are soaking, Mr. Frost. It's the thought of lying across your sturdy knees, my bottom twitching and frisking under the hard palm of your hand. Scarlet buttocks. Hot and stingy. Oh..."

  Miss Blow closed her eyes and gasped, as if experiencing ecstasy. Her wrist grew warmer, the current of sexual chemistry between them surged. Frost ground his teeth and stared at the bowl of steaming savory duck. It smelled divine. Adam could not have been more tempted in the Garden of Eden.

  Little snake.

  The spy continued to eat the fragrant meat and tease Frost mercilessly between mouthfuls. He found himself recalling teenage fantasies of tugging down nubile girls' knickers and tanning their lily white wobbling backsides. He remembered Miss Vetch, his history teacher, whose marvelous round plump arse was tightly encased in a prim tweed skirt. He'd had fantasies of bending her bare-bummed over her desk and taking a ruler to those blissful orbs, as she teetered on high-heels, one randy hand straying to her luscious crotch ...