by Ted Mark
The first "genuine French postcard" was a picture of the Eiffel Tower. The second turned out to be a shot of a blast furnace in a Montmartre factory. The third was a close-up of a French organ all right – a church organ!
"Sorry. Wrong folder." Prudence Highman took it back from me. "We gave these people a clean bill of health," she explained as she replaced it. "From the ad we thought they might be peddling pornography, but we were wrong."
"I can see how you might be misled," I told her.
"Yes. Ah, here we are. This is the genuin article." She pulled out another folder and rejoined me on the couch. She openend this one herself.
I found myself looking at a picture of a fully clothed girl. Prudence turned the page and the girl was still fully clothed except that her gloves were removed. When the next page was turned, the photo showed the girl with her shoes off. Now Prudence stopped turning the pages and began riffling them. The pictures dissolved one into the other to show a rapid strip tease. When all her clothes were off, the girl was stretched out nude on a bed.
But that wasn't the end of the sequence. Far from it. Prudence continued turning the pages slowly again, and with each new picture the girl was caressing her naked body more and more intimately. Then Prudence riffled the pages again and the effect was of the girl having an erotic ball all by her lonesome.
The model played with her large breasts until the roseates widened and the nipples distended. The riffling pictures gave the impression of her breasts heaving rapidly as, with eyes half closed, she caressed her lower body. The photos blended into a series of close-ups of this area as she manipulated various objects and the flesh began pulsating as if with a life of its own. Then they blended back into the full view to show her body writhing as her hand disappeared almost to the wrist. The grand finale showed her jackknifing with a double-jointed display that was pretty amazing.
"Isn't that disgusting?" Prudence said, gazing over my shoulder and breathing a little rapidly herself.
"Disgusting!" I granted. "And I wouldn't have thought it possible, either."
"It's not. These pictures have been doctored."
"How can you tell for sure?"
"They had to be. What she's doing is impossible. I checked to make sure of that."
"How did you check?"
"I tried it. For position only, of course. I'm in pretty good shape, you know. Physically, I mean. So I did my duty and attempted it. Believe me, it's an anatomical impossibility."
"You certainly do take your work seriously," I complimented her. "Not many people in your position would be willing to make such sacrifices."
"I believe in what I'm doing," Prudence said. "And it's necessary to know exactly what we're up against. That's why I devote so much time to this filth. Most of the people in my chapter of S.M.U.T. have never even seen this sort of thing. They have no idea of the real nature of the evil they're fighting. By taking the burden on myself, I save them from ever having to confront it. I am strong enough to do this while someone like Peter, say, might be overwhelmed by it. But," she added, "you haven't seen anything yet, Mr. Victor. Here, take a look at this." She brought me another folder.
This one contained printed matter. It was a booklet called The Naughty Nympho. I opened it at random and started reading. Prudence read right along with me. I could feel one of her breasts rising and falling as it pressed against my arm.
"… Dolly was burning with lust as she looked at the stripling lad," I read. "No older than she, he had not her experience and so trembled under her insinuating gaze. Dolly wasted no time on words. She pulled off her clothing until she stood before him clad only in her shift. Then she kissed him, her body clinging to his, feeling the rock of his burning manhood through the flimsy material covering her soft belly. When the kiss was over, he tore off his own clothing, so aroused that his shyness was forgotten. Dolly gasped with admiration at the magnificent length of his passion. She made haste to caress it, and her eyes opened wide as it swelled in her grasp. He had pushed the shift down to her waist now, and his face was buried in the creamy roundness of her wondrous white bosom like a greedy little tom-kitten lapping up a saucer of milk. Wild with desire, but fearful at what she might have unloosed, Dolly pulled off her shift altogether and mounted him. Before settling herself, she paused to look once again at his mighty machine. Almost, she changed her mind at the sight of it. Surely it would split her asunder! Surely she would never survive such an impalement! But his hands clasped the hot flesh of her round buttocks and forced her to complete the motion she had started. Pain and pleasure mingled as the hot poker of his manhood pierced her, and then…"
"Turn the page! What are you waiting for? Turn the page!" Prudence was taut with impatience beside me.
"I'm just resting my eyes," I told her. "This print is so fine, and the light's kind of dim here."
"Oh. Well, we can fix that." She clapped her hands twice, and the room was plunged into darkness. "Oh, dear!" she exclaimed. "There must be a short circuit somewhere." She calpped her hands once, and the lights came back on the way they'd been before. Then she reached over her head and clapped again. A reading light beamed down from the wall behind us. "Do you want to go on?" she asked. "Or would you rather look at something different?"
"I think I get the idea of this one," I told her. "But I'm afraid I don't understand why you're showing me these things."
"I want you to appreciate the full scope of what S.M.U.T. is up against," she told me. "It's necessary if you're to play a major role in our activities. Here, just look at these! Aren't they appalling?"
She took a small box from one of the filing cabinets and handed it to me. I opened it to find a dozen or so wood-carvings inside. They were quite intricate, obviously done by a master, and highly detailed. Each one featured a man and a woman, both naked, in very sophisticated sexual positions.
"These come from India," she told me, removing one of the little wooden sculptings and holding it in the palm of her hand. "There are few cultures so depraved as the one from which these items come." Her fingers trailed delicately over the wooden sex organs. "Notice that the erotic titillation is accomplished by surpassing reality," she said, her eyes glittering as she stared at the sculpture, a fine film of perspiration glistening on her brow.
"Surpassing reality?" I shrugged. "I don't think so, the position is unusual, I'll grant, but quite within the realm of possibility."
"Do you really think so? Do you really think it's possible for a man and woman to have sexual congress in such a manner?" I noticed that she was surreptitiously clenching and unclenching her thighs as she asked the question.
"Yes," I told her, and then momentarily changed the subject. "The erotic titillation you mentioned before? Doesn't it ever effect you? I mean, being forced to spend so much time with the kind of material you've shown me, don't you find yourself responding to it despite yourself?"
"I'm afraid I do," she admitted, lowering her eyes. "But I struggle against it. My body struggles against it."
"And you're struggling right now," I guessed, aware that the little, secret, rhythmic movements of her hips were making the couch move under us.
"I am. But I always win my struggle, Mr. Victor. In the end my body always finds the contentment of virtue. I always conquer my lust."
I saw that she was serious. And I realized that she wasn't even aware that when she "conquered her lust" she was actually releasing it. She didn't admit to her orgasms; she merely had them and told herself they were triumphs over passion. Well, to each his own, I told myself.
"Surely you're mistaken, Mr. Victor," she was saying now. "Surely this particular position is unattainable." She continued bouncing on the couch, seemingly unaware of what she was doing.
"I say it is attainable."
"Then prove it." Her tongue darted between her lips as if obeying some inspiration apart from her, an inspiration all its own.
"What do you mean?"
"Prove it. With me. Show me how it's possible."
"Do you mean -?"
"Certainly not, Mr. Victor!" She actually looked shocked. "I simply mean that we should assume the position. With our clothes on, of course. Just to see if it really is possible."
"Okay," I agreed. "If that's what you want." I took the wood sculpture from her and studied it for a moment. Then I set it down on the table in front of the couch. "Let's go," I told her.
Prudence stretched out on the couch. I grasped her ankles, and she bent at the waist. I forced her ankles back until they were touching her shoulders. Then I crossed her arms so that she had a hand gripping each ankle and locking it in place.
"Just a minute," she panted.
I couldn't tell whether she was breathing hard from exertion or excitement. "What is it?" I asked.
"My suit jacket's in the way," she said. "Let me take it off."
"Okay." I released her.
She doffed the jacket. The blouse she was wearing under it was very sheer. She must have been wearing a halfslip, because the flesh of her waist was clearly visible. Also, the bra she was wearing was surprisingly frivolous and only doing half the job for which it was intended. For the first time I was able to appreciate that Prudence Highman did indeed have a voluptuous figure. The waist was small, but the bosom was more than ample and firmly molded into exciting twin peaks that quivered and strained with her breathing.
I manipulated her into position once again. Now her skirt was tight over her derriere, which was outlined clearly through the material. I turned around and slipped my ankles into the wedge created by her ankles and wrists. She tightened her grip, and now my ankles were also locked securely in place. Then I sort of folded myself around her, bending at the waist with outstretched arms and slipping beneath her until my fingers were clenching her shoulders from underneath. My nose was buried somewhere in the middle of her back and my voice was muffled when I managed to speak.
"You see," I told her, "It is possible. Not the most comfortable position, but it does provide tremendous pressure just where it's needed." To demonstrate, I moved against her.
I was getting pretty excited myself, and I guess she couldn't help feeling this as I proved my point. But she chose to remain unconvinced. "I still don't believe that penetration is possible this way," she huffed. "Wait a minute and let me pull my skirt up. Then we can get a clearer idea."
She hoisted her skirt and half-slip over her waist. She had good legs, shapely, with fleshy thighs that were pink from having been rubbed together. I caught a brief glimpse of flimsy, transparent white panties before we resumed the position once again.
"Would you mind unbuttoning your trousers, Mr. Victor?" she asked in a voice that didn't quite manage to remain above it all. "Then we can be really sure."
I obliged. Then I wrapped myself around her once again. Only those skimpy panties were between us now. Our flesh burned hungrily as the position we were in mashed it together. And then I felt her eager desire clutching at my manhood as if trying to draw it deeper. I took my hands from her shoulders and pulled off her panties from underneath.
"What are you doing, Mr. Victor?" she asked, half moaning.
"I just want the experiment to be accurate in every detail," I assured her as I once again grasped her shoulders for leverage.
"Very well. We'll see it through in the interests of research. But there must be no passion, Mr. Victor. Please remember that. We are not making love."
"Oh, absolutely not," I assured her, sliding against her ever so gently.
"You must under no circumstances lose control of yourself and allow your lust to be released."
"Under no circumstances!" I rammed with all my strength.
Her body was writhing now as if possessed by a demon. Her first explosion came so quickly that it took me by surprise. It was followed by half a dozen more in rapid succession. She screamed aloud with the last one, and I joined her in a long drawn- out moment of ecstatic release. Then we fell apart, momentarily exhausted.
"Mr. Victor," she said finally, her voice chiding, "you broke your word. You had sexual congress with me."
"It takes two," I reminded her.
"Nothing could have been further from my actions," she told me seriously. "While you were giving in to your carnal impulses, I was conquering mine."
"Again and again," I mused.
"And what is that supposed to mean?" she asked frostily.
"Look, let's not fight," I told her. Suddenly I was feeling tender toward her, kookie as she was. In her own perverse way, she had given me great pleasure. I was seized with a sudden desire to show my appreciation. Also, I was feeling a little playful.
I suppose that's why I clapped my hands twice so that the lights went out, made a grab for her, and kissed her soundly. She slapped me in the face – hard! – and the lights popped on again.
"Mr. Victor!" she was truly outraged. "How dare you take such liberties with me?"
"But after what we just did -" I said confusedly.
"That has nothing to do with it. That was merely an experiment. Nothing more. And it certainly gives you no right to think you can take advantage of the situation to indulge in libertine osculation. Why, I don't even allow my husband to kiss me the way you just did. I shall have to wash my mouth out thoroughly."
"Gargle away." I shrugged and zipped up my fly. The motion made me conscious of a sudden need which would make it necessary to zip it down again. "Is there a bathroom around here?" I asked her.
"Just down the hall. And please see that you return in a frame of mind more suitable to S.M.U.T." She blew her soundless whistle at the door and it swung open.
It closed behind me and I heard the lock click as I started down the hall. It was still solidly shut when I returned from the bathroom. I knocked at the door. There was no answer. I knocked louder. Same result. I pounded.
"Is there some difficulty, Mr. Victor?"
I turned around to find Peter Highman standing behind me. "I seem to have locked myself out," I told him.
"Well, it won't do you any good to knock. The room is completely soundproof. Prudence insisted on that. She's so easily distracted from her work, poor dear."
"I can see how she would be," I told him, feeling half sarcastic and half guilty. "But then how do I let her know I want to come back inside?"
"There is a pushbutton on the wall." He pointed it out to me. "Prudence should have told you about it."
"Oh, well, now I know." I pushed the button.
He stood there with me for a moment, hovering, as I waited. Nothing happened. The door remained staunchly shut. I stuck my finger on the pushbutton and held it there.
"That will annoy her," Peter Highman remonstrated mildly.
I took my finger off the button. Still there was no response. "Why doesn't she answer?" I asked him.
"I can't imagine. Do you suppose she's all right?" He was starting to look genuinely concerned.
"She was all right when I left her just a couple of minutes ago," I assured him. "Perhaps the bell is short-circuited or something."
"Then the door would be out of order, too," he said positively. "It's on the same circuit. And if that's the case, she can't get out."
"Do you think we should break it down?" I asked.
"I'm afraid it's the only way, Mr. Victor. Will you help me?"
We put our shoulders to it. It took some doing, but we finally broke the lock and forced it open. I went hurtling into the room first. I stopped short at what I saw, knowing that my jaw was hanging open but unable to summon up the will to close it. All I could do was stare in horrified fascination.
Prudence Highman lay in the middle of the floor, completely nude. Her clothing, in shreds and tatters, was strewn all over the room as if it had been forcibly ripped from her body and violently thrown every which way. Her body was horribly twisted as if it had been rung by some gigantic mangling machine. Her hands were pressed tightly to her ears as if trying to hold her skull together. Her features were contorted as though by a sudden
cerebral stroke. I didn't have to look twice to know that she was dead.
But how? I knelt beside her. Despite the way every muscle in her body was twisted, there wasn't a mark on her. For a crazy instant it occurred to me that perhaps she had strangled herself. But her neck, although broken, didn't have a mark on it. There were no wounds of any kind on her.
Yet Prudence Highman had met violent death in a locked room. All by herself, she had been killed. Yes, she had told me herself that she had the only key to the door – or, rather, the only whistle pitched to open it. But then how had she died? What had killed her? And why?
Most of all, why?
CHAPTER THREE
Why?
And then something happened to make me think I saw the answer. I looked up from Prudence Highman's sorry corpse and found myself staring into the yawning barrel of a.45. Peter Highman's eyes didn't look so timid any more as they gazed at me from behind it.
"Stay just as you are, Mr. Victor," he advised. "Ad do just as I say."
"Shoot," I said. "Strike that!" I added hurriedly. "I mean tell me what you want me to do."
"Put your hands around Prudence's neck, Mr. Victor. Let your fingertips sink into her flesh."
It was the conclusion of an instant then that he had killed her and was now trying to frame me by getting my fingerprints on her throat. Right on top of the conclusion, I guessed that as soon as I did what he wanted, he'd pull the trigger of the.45. That way he'd have a nice, neat package to present to the police. It would look like he'd caught me as I finished murdering his wife, not soon enough to save the unfortunate victim, but just in time to blow her killer's brains all over the decor.