The Sex Machine Read online

  “Your place or mine?” she bubbled.

  “Mine,” I growled darkly. I wanted to sleep in my own bed tonight. Besides, I wanted the comfort of familiar surrounding.

  “Shall we stop for food?” she asked, maneuvering the roadster in and out of traffic. She was wearing some expensive perfume I think was Chantilly. As she moved her leg, I saw the mini-skirt slip back to show a bare, dusky thigh. I looked away, remembering my pooped psyche.

  “I can cook well.”

  That was the greatest, what happened today,” she went on, shifting gears and hitting the accelerator to avoid an oncoming truck. I sat speechless in the suicide seat, waiting for the crash.

  The Mustang eased by the huge Mack. I got my breath back and began living again. She was barreling along the highway now, hitting sixty, nudging up toward seventy.

  Gaily she said, “You’ll make a fortune, honest. I’ve done some publicity for authors before, but you’re way off by yourself. I read your book, I found it fascinating, although—” Her voice trailed off dubiously. My authorial instincts aroused, I muttered, “Although—what? You seem to have some doubts about what I wrote. Be more specific.”

  “We-ell, that part about impotence and frigidity being only in the mind. You say it’s just a psychosis based on environmental factors. I’m not so sure of that.”

  “It’s true, all the same. Most men and women suffer from a personal guilt complex—their own or others—which prevents them from enjoying the genital goodies of life. I call it the prohibitive psyche.”

  “I remember that. Yes. But you go on to suggest that the reader can overcome this prohibitive psyche by concentrating on it. Is that really, really true? Not just some gimmick to sell books? The flyleaf says any reader of your book, and practitioner of your advice, can make himself into a perfect Casanova, If it’s a female, she can be a regular Messalina, no matter what her feelings toward sex now are.”

  “Correct. One can very easily psyche himself herself into becoming a lady-killer or a red-hot mamma.”

  “I don’t believe it,” she mid flatly.

  Sure, I took the bait. I turned in my neat and stared at her profile. She was a Spanish girl, with the sultry features and lips of those who possess Castilian blood in their veins. Her body was lush, with quite generous breasts bloating out the bodice of the plain brown A-line dress she was wearing, and even her light topcoat. Her legs were fleshy, very shapely, and her hips rounded out her skirt with sensuous honesty.

  “You could be a regular Cleopatra,” I muttered.

  She flashed me a big smile, but shook her head. “No. I’m too prim. I was brought up by strict parents and went to a school where I was taught by nuns. The lesson I was taught have scarred my psyche too thoroughly. I believe that sex is something a woman should have only with her husband, and then only to get children.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said dazedly. “Does anybody still feel like that these days?”

  “I do.”

  “You don’t think sex is fun?”

  She shook her head. Her lip pursed almost primly as she and, “That exhibition you put on with-with that lady in the room at the store was disgusting.”

  “But you were fascinated by it,” I accused.

  “Well, yes. But only because it was quite unbelievable.” She turned her head and looked at me contritely. “Please don’t think there’s anything personal in this. It’s just that I’m quarreling with your ideas, not with you And please don’t tell my bosses about this discussion. You might get me fired.”

  “I’ll consider you one of my pupils in my League for sexual Dynamics classes. I get all kinds in there, even girls like you.” I smiled at her, feeling somewhat better. “They’re afflicted with puritanism too, with the doctrines handed down by sex-haters like Saint Paul.”

  She parked the Mustang, pulling it to one side of the road in front of a luxury food shop. “I really am curious. I’d give anything to be convinced that you’re right. But I know you aren’t. However, we can’t argue on empty stomachs, so I’m going to make you some of my paella y sangria.”

  I followed her into the food market and reached for my wallet as she bought pork loin and chicken breasts, veal and sausage, livers and scallops, dive oil, pimentos, shrimps, mushrooms and e o n powder. There were a couple of other ingredients, but I don’t remember them.

  The bill came to twenty dollars.

  “This better be good,” I muttered.

  Her bright smile flashed. “It will be. I always think better over food and drink. And I want you to explain your theories to me quite thoroughly.”

  As we were moving down the road to my pad, which is in a remote little corner of the university town —it’s a swank condominium, I must admit—Angela Montosores began to speak. Her voice was low and controlled, but I did detect an undercurrent of anxiety, maybe even worry.

  “You see,” she began, “I’m a married woman living apart from her husband. To be honest about it, we’re getting a divorce. Mike and I never really hit it off big—in bed. I—I was a timid virgin when he married me. I’m still timid, even if I’m no longer a virgin.”

  Her face was very brave; she was fighting tears.

  “The first night we bad relations, he was very considerate. I was frozen up inside. I was terrified of sex I thought it was disgusting and indecent. I’ve been to school with nuns as teachers, and some of their beliefs rubbed off on me, rather much. I loved Mike, and maybe I still do. I don’t know. But when he got into bed with me naked, something tightened up all inside me. It was all I could do to open my legs. Physically, I mean.”

  “Frigidity. It isn’t uncommon,” I murmured.

  “I d-don’t blame Mike, you understand,” she added hastily.

  The white Camaro I had seen outside the department store was behind us again, moving at our pace. Up ahead there was a woods, the road cutting between the trees and along a rocky gorge. I began to feel prickles down my neck In my role as a special investigator for the Thaddeus X Coxe Foundation, I get hunches every so often.

  Angela was talking again. “I tried to be a good wife to him; I really did. I wanted to be good in bed for him. I just couldn’t. That’s why I’m so anxious to hear you discuss your views hoping you can convince me”

  The Camaro was making its move. It was coming up fast on the outside lane, as if to pass us. There was no reason to suspect the two men seated in the bucket seats. They were well-dressed and appeared to be no more than businessmen on their way home from work.

  “Angela—that car,” I said.

  “I see it. It’s just passing. I’ll give it mom room.”

  She pulled the Mustang to the right. The Camaro, followed it, almost scraping fenders The Spanish girl cried out harshly in vexation.

  “What’s the matter with them? They’re—ohhh!”

  The fender grated. It was obvious even to Angela Montosores that the Camaro, was forcing her off the road. She fought the wheel as the tires bumped on the rough edge of the road Then the Mustang was tilting, sliding into a ditch, making for the trees flanking this corner of the highway.

  “Professor! Rod—what are they doing?”

  I didn’t know, but it was for red. I caught a glimpse of two hard faces and the flash of light on the barrel of a revolver. As a Coxeman, I sometimes go armed, but I was just Professor Rod Damon at the moment, so I was as clean of hardware as a priest. I bounced around on the suicide seat and cursed under my breath. “You got any enemies?” I grated.

  “None! Have—”

  Her last word was lost as her neck bounced when she applied the brakes. The car bumper stopped inches from a big tree looming up in the headlights. I reached for the door handle and was out of the Mustang and standing in the underbrush seconds later.

  I wasn’t fast enough. One of the two men of the Camaro ahead of me, aiming his gun in my direction. He was a big, bulky man with muscled arm and shoulders that strained the cloth of his big-checked sports jacket.

  �
�Easy, Professor. Just don’t move.”

  I stood waiting, my every muscle tensed. Apparently he was not out to murder me, because he had a clear shot at me. mere was less than twenty feet between us and he had the look of a man used to firing guns.

  Tell your lady friend to stay here until we’ve gone,” he rasped.

  I did like he told me, not being a complete idiot. Then his gun barrel waggled and I walked toward him slowly. I came to a stop before him. His ham-like hand ran over my pockets, patting them lightly to make sure I was not carrying a gun.

  “Into the car. The rear seat.

  I got into the Camaro, squeezing into the narrow back seat. I was looking at Angela Montosores, seeing her stricken face paring at me. I made my lips smile encouragement at her, so as not to frighten her more than she was already frightened. Then I slid down into the back seat.

  My thigh touched something soft. I turned and saw a girl smiling at me. She was a blonde, with long golden hair done up in a knot on top of her head. Her features were damn near perfect, and her mouth was a red fruit, slightly pouting. She wore a cashmere sweater with nothing but herself under it, and a plaid mini-skirt that gave me a look at all of her stockinged legs.

  “Hello,” she said with a sultry undertone.

  “Hello yourself,” I greeted her. “Who are you and what’s this all about?”

  The man with the revolver slammed the door shut and turned to me, letting me see the Savage .38. “Just be good, Professor, and you’ll enjoy what’s going to happen to you.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  The girl giggled. The man said, “You’re going to make love to Cassie there until she gets tired of it—or until you die of exhaustion.”

  It was the nicest death sentence I’d ever heard.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Camaro pulled away from the Mustang where Angela Montosores was still sitting, making no dart to start her stalled engine. I glanced back at her though the rearview mirror, seeing her face white and pinched in the cold moonlight.

  The snow had stopped; it had never been much more than flurries, but the ground on either side of the road was white, and the trees were rimmed in what appeared to be white enamel. Wintertime is a cold, cruel time of year, and I felt its bite as I sat beside the blonde babe, wondering why I had been selected to do the honors.

  “Was it because of my book?” I asked suddenly.

  “What book?” asked the blonde.

  “Don’t talk, Cassie. Just sit there,” said the driver.

  The gunman chuckled. “Sort of, Professor. You’ve added to your reputation with that Sex Machine. Up until now, you’ve kind of been unknown—except to some of us in the spy game—but now you’ve gone and made yourself world famous.”

  “I’m regretting it already,” I said honestly.

  “Sorry about taking you away from your lady friend, but Cassie there will make you forget her. Cassie is a sexpot, Professor.”

  I turned to her, aware that the car was turning off the main road and moving up a slight hill onto a private drive that lead back to the heights of Mountain View. There was only one habitation up here, resort summer resort called Sheffield Inn. The inn was closed for the winter, but in summertime it boasted a pod, a nine-hole golf course, and a view of the surrounding countryside that was worth the thirty dollars a day you paid for a room. There was local talk that the owners were considering turning the Sheffield into a ski resort, but then had been no action on the project

  “There’s nothing up this way? I pointed out.

  “Stop fretting, Professor. We rented the Sheffield. It has heat, you know, and very spacious accomodations for a party of four.”

  “I hope one of the party can cook,” I hinted.

  “No food, no drink. Just love.”

  The gunman gave an evil chuckle.

  “But why?” I wondered.

  “Just look on it as a compliment to your reputation.”

  I mulled that over. To my reputation as a cocksman—or a Coxeman? They were too radically different, ideas though one often went hand in hand with the other on my assignment. I decided the man was right. I would worry when it came time to worry, Right now I might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.

  The Camaro braked to a stop in the otherwise empty parking lot, close by the fieldstone and glass walls of the inn lobby. Dim lights were on behind the thick glass panes. I could see the registry desk, the carpeted floor, the potted plants and the modernistic furniture. There was a huge stone fireplace, where a fire had been built against the wintertime cold.

  The gunmen got out first. His gun wagged and I followed suit. The blonde came after me. Her hand slipped into mine. Her flesh was surprisingly warm. Well, the man had hinted that she was a hot number. Her fingernail tickled the palm of my hand. I gripped her finger in the accepted answer to such an invitation and squeezed it. She beamed.

  The driver went ahead of us, unlocking the glass doors and holding them open so we auld enter. The blonde slipped past me, brushing my chest with her sweatered breasts and affording me a fine view of her shifting buttocks under the plaid mini-skirt.

  At any other time and under different circumstance, I could hardly have waited to get this pussycat between the sheets. She was a real joy wagon. She exuded sexuality as she did her female perfumes. Her lovely face turned to flash me a smile aver her shoulder, and there was challenge and invitation in her blue eyes.

  “Room one, Professor—the bridal suite,” said the gunman.

  The Sheffield Inn was built outward on three sides from the immense stone and glass lobby, in plush rooms radiating outward from the lobby. There was a cocktail lounge, a rather large dining room, a small reading room, and a row of small shops where the guests could buy expensive little items like French, or Jensen crystal, Gorham silver, books, magazines and assorted candies. These stores were dark now.

  The bridal suite was at the end of the main corridor, separated from the other rooms by a breezeway, I suppose for the purpose of giving any newlyweds who might inhabit it a sensation of aloneness. I followed the twitching buttocks of my blonde bedmate down the carpeted hall. I did not intend -to go through with this kidnap knee trembler caper. I like my loving, but I like also to pick and choose my partners. This doll I was following was eminently erotic, but I wanted none of her.

  The only trouble was, I didn’t I didn’t know how to get out of it. My mind raced like a Challenger going down the Utah salt flats, but it couldn’t kick up any escape ideas And time was running short. The gunman was right at my heels, his Savage ready in his hand.

  Once I was inside the bridal suite, he would post himself outside the door, probably on a chair, to stand guard. Inside the roam I would be forced to perform for the enjoyment of the blonde. I gathered that if her embraces didn’t kill me, the man would. He would lock me into the rooms When he unlocked that door, only one of us was supposed to come out, and it wouldn’t be me.

  Now understand me. I was not afraid of a blanket horn pipe with thin Cassie. My priapism would not let me be defeated by a woman in the love lists. I have jousted with too many females not to know this. Once I went into that room with the blonde, I would overcome her apparent nymphomania and knock her cold with exhaustion. But this wasn’t enough. She was supped to kill me with erotic kindness, and it just couldn’t be done.

  So then the gunman would shoot me.

  He flashed a grin as the blonde opened the door. “So long, Professor,” he chuckled. “What a way to go!”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Cassie was lifting the sweater up over her head, arms crossed in front of her. Her naked pink back was perfect, soft and shapely.

  The gunman let his eyes slide to all that flesh

  My right hand moved, blurring. The edge of my hand hit his gun-wrist, driving it sideways. At the m e moment my right knee came up between his legs, hard. He opened his mouth and his eyes glazed a moment. It was all the time I needed. My left hand chopped at his throat, ramming into
his Adam’s apple. His head went back.

  I tore the gun from his lax fingers, drove the barrel into his solar plexus. As the wind went out of him, I pulled the trigger.

  Cassie was staring at me from the bedroom, naked above the belt of her plaid mini-skirt. My subconscious registered the fact that she had gorgeous breasts. My subconscious .mind was not on breasts at the moment, but on the driver of the Camaro.

  I whirled. The driver was yelling, coming down the hall at me. The Savage bucked in my hand and the driver crumpled, dropping to the carpeted hallway and sliding into the wall. He was dead when his body stopped moving, my bullet had caught him smack in the mouth.

  I swung on the girl She was still standing then, without any expression on her lovely face other than that mile of challenge and invitation. As I watched, she undid her belt and, bending forward, slid her mini-skirt downward. She must have seen me shoot her two companions, but she acted as if all she had on her mind was the bit of belly bumping I was supposed to perform with her.

  I said brightly, “Honey, go get into the sheets.”

  She nodded happily, straightening and dropping the miniskirt to a nearby chair. She was really something in her beige stockings and white garterbelt. Her mound was shaven clean of hair so that her feminine dimple was very obvious. At another time—

  I pulled myself together. I was going to have to report this caper to Walrus-moustache, my chief in the Coxe Foundation. He was going to have to get me out of a homicide charge. I could beat the rap, I had been kidnapped; but I wanted reassurance.

  My hand pulled the bridal suite door toward me. There was a key in the lock, with which the gunman. intended to lock me in with my doom date. I turned the lock and withdrew the key, putting it into my pocket.

  Then I ran.

  The ignition key was still in the Camaro. I turned it, revved the motor, backed up and wheeled the car down the long, winding driveway. I wanted back with Angela Montosores, and then I wanted home to the safety of my pad.