Rapture

CHAPTER EIGHT

It was a little after eleven-thirty when Jeff got back to the hotel. Still early, as far as he was concerned. He felt wide awake, and he didn't want to sit around in his room. He had stayed in the night before, planning, drinking beer, and watching the X-rated cable channel the Mortlake Motel provided for its guests (he'd seen Debbie Does Dallas for the third time). But the Hilton offered no such distractions. He went to the bar and ordered a beer.

He seemed to be full of nervous energy, and this might help him to settle down, collect himself. The big event, dinner with the Corcorans, had passed. Ordeal, challenge, opportunity. He thought it had gone well enough, generally. There had been no awkwardness, no unpleasantness. Sean was a drag, but it could have been worse. And if one door had finally shut, perhaps another had opened....

There were quite a few people in the bar, most of them businessmen. Unmistakable, Jeff thought. Then he wondered if he looked like one of them. Was he just as obvious? It was a forlorn thought.

He glanced down the length of the bar. A few seats away, a young woman sat alone. He had noticed her when he came in, and he'd thought she was with someone. Now she looked at him and smiled, stirring her drink with deliberate slowness. She had dark hair and wore a metallic blue dress with a wrapped front. It wouldn't have reached her knees when she was standing, and it didn't come close as she sat. He turned to stare at his beer. A moment later the girl took the seat next to him.

"Hi," she said, all throaty.

"Hi."

"Nice night, isn't it?"

"Not bad."

"Could be better, right?" she said. "I know what you mean...."

Jeff turned to face her. She wasn't bad. Her hair was a little too dark, and her manner, of course, was completely wrong, but he had time to kill.

"Are you a working girl?"

"Ha, ha, that depends."

Jeff noticed that the bartender was hovering a few yards away, projecting an air of watchful neutrality. He lowered his voice, but still spoke bluntly.

"How much?"

The woman's eyebrows arched slightly and she smiled, studying Jeff for a few moments before responding.

"Are you a cop?"

"No." He laughed. "Why would you think that?"

"They're no good at small talk either."

"At least it's not my clothes."

"No, you don't dress like a cop," she conceded, becoming friendly again. "But I like to ask."

"I understand."

"Want some company?"

"Not really."

"Just a drink, then. Hm? Why not? It's pretty quiet now," she added, as if to explain.

Jeff looked around and discovered that the crowd had all but vanished. A group on its way to a party, perhaps, he thought. Or, more likely, good little businessmen off to bed so that they would be fresh for their business breakfasts. They reminded Jeff of himself and the way he'd lived and worked for so many years-with the single-mindedness of a mole, pushing ahead stupidly and seeing nothing. Maybe now, this special night, was the time to admit to himself that he didn't like it, that he was tired of it all, and that there would have to be some serious changes made. A new beginning.

"I'll have another beer," he said to the woman. "What would you like?"

"White wine spritzer, thanks," she replied at once, smiling. She shifted slightly on her seat so that Jeff would be treated to an extra measure of thigh, should he care to look that way.

The bartender brought the drinks, added the charge to Jeffs bill, and then wandered away, no longer interested.

"I'm Lorna," the woman said, raising her glass.

"I'm Sean," Jeff said, raising his.

"Sean-that's nice. I like that."

"Were you ever busted?"

The woman gave a short laugh, but she wasn't surprised. She had Jeff sized up as just another bored, jaded businessman. If they weren't nervous as hell, they drove you up the wall with lousy jokes you had to laugh at convincingly. She hadn't met one yet who was any good at small talk.

"Once," she replied. "Not here. It was just a case of beginner's bad luck."

"What was it like?"

"A drag. A nuisance, that's all. Why?"

"Oh, I was just thinking," Jeff said. "Suppose a woman knocked on a hotel-room door and went in, and the guy turned out to be a cop. He'd be in a pretty good position, wouldn't he? I mean, with the girl."

Loma smiled. Another one who thinks he's clever. If they only knew how alike all these silly routines really are. But their imaginations are firmly stuck back in adolescence.

"He could be," she admitted. She didn't tell him that any girl who worked that way deserved whatever happened to her, because that wasn't what this man wanted to hear. No, Sean was interested in the game. So Lorna said, "Yeah, it could be an interesting situation ... exciting."

Jeff looked frankly at her, his eyes surveying her body. He sipped the beer. Soon he reached into his pants pocket and took out his room key. He held it in the palm of his hand, below the bar, displaying the piece of sturdy plastic that identified the hotel and his room number. Then he finished the rest of his beer and stood up to pay the bar tab.

"Guess I'll go watch some TV," he said. "Be seeing you, Lorna."

"Sure. Thanks for the drink, Sean."

"Anytime."

Upstairs in his room, Jeff switched on the television set but turned the volume all the way down. He left the room lights off. The place was cast in a gray-green light, pale and ghostly, that flickered and changed. He stripped to his underwear and took five bills from his wallet and set them on the corner of the bed nearest the door. After locking the wallet in his suitcase, he sat leaning against the pillows, staring at the silent television.

She tapped lightly on the door a few minutes later. Jeff let her in. She stayed by him while he locked the door, and when he turned, she pressed herself expertly against his body, her fingers dancing on his arms.

"I'm alone, honey," she whispered like a little girl. "Can I be with you for a while?"

They swayed together briefly, and Jeff ran his hands down her back. He led her into the room and sat on the bed as she stood and looked around. She noticed the money at once. Jeff nodded, and she put the cash in her pocketbook, which she then set on a side table.

"Spooky," she said in a hushed voice. "It's so spooky in here." But she smiled to show she liked it.

"Take off your shoes," Jeff said. "Are your legs bare?"

Lorna removed her open-toed high heels. The wrap dress, cinched around her waist, parted easily as she took off her tights and tossed them onto her pocket book. Then she fumbled with the front of the dress, as if to rearrange it, carefully flashing more of her legs. She contrived to open it more above, too, revealing cleavage and a sheer bra.

Jeff held one hand out, low, almost at knee level. She stepped forward so that her leg filled his grip. He touched her for a few seconds, then let go and stood up.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm a cop."

"Oh, no."

"I'm going to have to arrest you."

"I knew it. Oh, please."

"Hands up, against the wall, spread your legs."

She did as he said.

"Oh, please," she whimpered effectively. "I'll do whatever you want ... anything."

"Sorry

He went up close behind the young woman and searched her, running his hands down her arms even though her dress was sleeveless. Down along her sides to her hips. Then up her legs, the backs of her thighs, slowly under the dress. Lorna made her body tremble and began to breathe quickly through her mouth, so that he could hear it. She let her head hang down between her upraised arms. Her buttocks tensed as his hands slid under the flimsy panties she wore and snaked around to the front. He leaned over her, his knees up against the backs of hers, and she gasped as he probed between her legs. She was open, moist, ready. He kept one hand there and brought the other up to the top of her dress, testing the texture of that silky excuse for a bra, pulling it down, and ex posing her breasts. She made little cries in her throat. Her whole body moved to his touch.

"Please ... anything ..."

Cries of pain and pleasure. Her hips rocked on one of his hands, her breasts thrust against the other. He was almost ready, and he slipped off his underpants. Then he pulled her dress up over her ass and removed her panties.

"Please, please," she begged.

"I have to arrest you."

"No, no, sir ... just teach me a lesson."

Jeff grabbed her hair, firmly but not roughly, and turned her around. She kept her eyes tightly shut, knowing that's how he would want them. He opened her dress completely and sucked one breast, then the other, and he held the nipple between his teeth, biting it carefully to make her moan. Finally, he brought her to her knees, so that she could take him the rest of the way.

"I'll have to remember that," Lorna said later, as she was about to leave. "It's different, and fun."

Jeffs face tightened. He said nothing, but he was annoyed. She had to open her mouth and blab something like that. He should have carried it through all the way, showing her out the door with a gruff warning, like a stern cop, before she got around to talking. But he hadn't, and now she'd gone and ruined the whole thing, destroying the illusion.

"I'll be around tomorrow night, if you are," she said.

"So long." Jeff rolled over on the bed, away from her, like a child sulking and wanting to be left alone.

"Yeah, okay, so long." Lorna made a face, turned, and walked out of the room, thinking, They're not all assholes; it only seems that way.

When the door clicked shut, Jeff lit a cigarette. He turned up the volume on the television and sat for a while at the foot of the bed, watching David Letterman and Jamie Lee Curtis talk about her body.

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