Twelve Nights (2 page)

“No,” she protested.

Angel watched as the man walked toward his briefcase. Thank
God. Just pay me and let me leave. But what did he want with the condom?
Visions of sadistic sex toys shriveled the breath in her chest. But the man
withdrew only a wad of cash. He peeled off three bills and waved them at Angel.

“Three hundred dollars, girlie,” he sneered. “You didn’t
last long.”

Just let me out of here, Angel thought, but her voice
protested, “You said a thousand dollars.”

“You don’t have any stamina, bitch. Be glad I’m paying you
at all.”

He rolled the bills tightly and pushed them to the bottom of
the uncoiled condom as Angel watched in growing horror.

“Back in position, girlie,” the man directed.

“No,” Angel refused.

“I can make you,” the man reminded her.

“I don’t want the money. Just let me leave.”

The man raised his hand to slap Angel’s face.

“Get in position.”

Angel stood and bent over the chair.

“Say ‘yes, sir, Captain,’” he ordered.

“Yes, sir, Captain.”

“Beg me to give you your money.”

Angel was silent until she felt warm breath against her
buttock. As the teeth pressed slowly into her bruised flesh, she whispered,
“Please give me my money.”

“Say, ‘Please put the money up my ass.’”

Again the words resisted in Angel’s chest until she forced
them through her teeth.

“Please put the money up my ass.”

She felt the fingers as they separated her buttocks and then
the slim greasy rod as it slid inside. Not too far, she silently begged. The
man pulled her buttocks further open and slid two fingers in behind the
condom-wrapped bills. He pushed and the rod scraped as it moved deep inside
her. He withdrew his fingers, then inserted one again as he tucked the loose
ends of the condom deep inside her.

“You can shit your money, bitch.”

Angel barely contained the gorge that rose in her throat.

“Can I go now?” she whispered.

“Put on your clothes.”

“Could you undo the handcuff?” Angel asked. “Please.”

“Put on your clothes first.”

The man lay back on the bed. Angel struggled to pull the
slip dress over her body. The bodice, sticky with blood from her wrist, stuck
to the side of her breast in a foul wet kiss. She sat down and pulled on her
panties. The small packet in her rear was a barely felt reminder of further
indignities to come. Last she attempted the macramé skimmer, but could not get
it over her unbound shoulder. She looked at the man.

“Will you undo the handcuff, please? Captain, sir.”

The man unlocked the cuff and Angel stood and reached for
the macramé covering.

“Leave it,” the man ordered.

I’m too bare, Angel thought. I don’t want to leave you a
souvenir. But she dropped the skimmer without protest and walked awkwardly to
the door. The little obscene packet shifted in her bottom and she clenched her
buttocks. A moment later she took a deep breath as the elevator door closed
behind her. Never, she vowed. She would never sell herself again. She turned
her eyes away from the elevator mirror.

Outside, Angel took in great gulp of New York’s smoggy
downtown air. Then she took a cab to an all night medical clinic. The nurse
cleaned her cut lip, bound up her still bleeding wrist and gave her a tetanus
shot. Angel found at the last moment that she could not ask the woman to remove
the condom and money from her ass. Later. She would deal with it later.

The next morning Angel left her apartment early. The captain
wouldn’t have recognized her in her morning persona. Her hair was swept back in
a loose pony tail. Her eyes were their true color, an indiscriminate
gray/hazel/blue that assumed the tint of whatever she wore. Today her
sweatshirt was a faded gray and so were her eyes. Still her cheekbones rose
gracefully high and her nose, now red tipped, was slim and straight. Her lips
had lost their carefully applied pout and met the world battered but unadorned.

Turning out of her apartment doorway, Angel strode off
briskly down the sidewalk, swinging her arms to keep warm and stretching her
legs to ease the ache in her buttocks. She rounded the first corner and stepped
into an ornate doorway. She dropped three hundred dollars in the collection box
of the open church, though she didn’t stop to kneel or pray. Her stomach
rumbled and she decided to walk to a diner for a bagel and coffee. On the
corner before the diner was a familiar newsstand.

“Angel!” the proprietor greeted her. “You’re up early
today.”

Angel shrugged and reached for a New York Times.

“Hey, check out the personals, Angel,” her friend advised.
“Some nut case is offering a hundred twenty thousand dollars for a twelve-night
stand. Takes all kinds, huh?”

Angel smiled and handed him sixty cents.

“I’ll take a look,” she promised.

Inside the diner, Angel carried her bagel and coffee to a
sunny table by a window. She sipped the coffee slowly, wincing when the hot
ceramic touched her bruised lip. She slathered the bagel with butter and cream
cheese. Then she opened the newspaper to the personals and lifted the dripping
pastry to her lips.

Sun streamed through the window behind the desk,
backlighting the occupant and throwing his visitor into stark relief. A ray
glinted off the younger man’s tie clip and danced across the bare desktop.

“So?” the voice behind the desk growled a challenge. He
tossed a folded newspaper to his employee. “Sit down.”

He waved the young man toward a deep leather chair. Cool
blue eyes skimmed the circled ad.

“Yours?” he asked.

The older man nodded.

“Your legal liability on this would be through the roof,”
the lawyer spoke apologetically. “I’m sorry, Jimmy, but you can’t do it.”

“Your job is to figure out how I
can
, Richard. Write a contract or something.”

“Jimmy, be reasonable.”

“I’m forty-two in two months. What have I got?”

“Close to half a billion dollars,” the younger man offered.

“A little over,” Jimmy shrugged. “What did you do last
night, Richard?”

“Me?” The lawyer hesitated then continued. “I left the
office at about nine. I went home and watched the news and went to bed.”

“Exactly. What did you eat for dinner?”

“Stouffer’s lasagna,” Richard grinned.

“We’re too solitary, Richard. When was the last time you had
a date?”

“I don’t date.”

Jimmy observed the flush that ruddied his lawyer’s cheeks
and remembered the quagmire from which he had plucked his most valuable
employee.

“But we’re not talking about me, Jimmy,” Richard continued.
“You date.”

“I don’t date, Richard, I liaise. Social climbers and
sycophants, those are the women I meet.”

“You have a niece and a nephew.”

“Twice removed and living in Toronto,” Jimmy huffed.

“You have your brother Danny.”

“That’s true. You’re right. I have a brother. Don’t you ever
want your own woman, Richard?”

“Jimmy,” the lawyer ignored the question, then hesitated.

“It’s okay. Spit it out.”

“You can get any woman you want, Jimmy. Just crook your
finger.”

“I don’t meet nice normal women, Richard. I want a woman who
won’t particularly care about the money.”

“An ad in the paper won’t get you somebody you’re going to
want, Jimmy.”

“So, give me a choice.”

“Go to church.”

Jimmy snorted. “You know what they say about rich men and
camels. The nuns wrecked me for good, Richard. I’m not going to church.”

“You can’t kidnap a woman for twelve nights.”

“How is it kidnapping if I pay her $120,000?”

“I don’t think you can ‘buy’ a normal woman like you want,
Jimmy.”

“I buy every woman that I meet. You don’t date a guy with
half a billion dollars unless you want to be bought.”

“I don’t see how this ad is going to help.”

“Maybe it won’t,” Jimmy admitted. “You want to know the
truth?”

Richard nodded.

“I got drunk last night and I phoned the New York fucking
Times. I just made up the ad on the phone to the girl.”

“And…”

“So, I’m gonna do it. You figure out how to protect me,
protect my money.”

“Okay.” The younger man lifted his hands in defeat. “Let’s
look at some logistics.”

“Now we’re talking.” Jimmy rubbed his hands on the knees of
his pants. “Get that legal brain in gear.”

“I figure at least a thousand responses.”

“Ten thousand.”

Richard’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the circulation of the New
York Times?”

“Ask Danny.” Jimmy pushed a button on his phone. “Find
Danny.”

“How do you want to narrow it down to a reasonable number? I
assume you want to interview, what, ten?”

“Make it twenty. Hire a firm to read the letters. No, you
read them.”

Richard grimaced.

“I don’t pay you $300 an hour to make faces, Richard.” He
looked across as the door to the office swung inward on silent hinges. “Come on
in, Danny.”

Richard stood and offered his chair to Jimmy’s brother.
Danny looked ten years younger than his thirty-two years. If Jimmy had
inherited the brains of the family, Danny had gotten the looks. He was tall and
firmly built, with lean muscles that filled out his hand-tailored suit. A
single lock of dark blonde hair fell strategically across his forehead. He
ignored the lawyer and sat on the corner of Jimmy’s desk. Richard reclaimed his
chair.

“Circulation of the New York Times, Danny,” Jimmy stated
rather than asked.

“One million twenty-nine thousand two hundred eighty-seven
on Monday through Saturday. One million six…”

“How the hell did you know that, Danny?” Richard
interrupted. Jimmy smiled.

“Read an article in
Newsweek
,”
Danny replied, his words clipped and precise. “Total is accurate as of
September 30, 1996.”

He picked up the folded section of the
New York Times
from Jimmy’s desktop.

“What do you think of …” Richard’s words petered out as he
caught the frantic silencing motion of Jimmy’s hand. Danny watched the by-play
impassively.

“Can’t wave me off, Jimmy,” he told his brother. “Have to
know the rest of the sentence.”

“I put an ad in the paper,” Jimmy explained. “Nothing
serious.”

“‘Rich man wants companion for 12 nights.’” Danny quoted.
“‘Attractive normal female. Never married. No children. Over thirty years old.
No prostitutes.’”

Richard chuckled and shook his head.

“How did you know…” Jimmy began, his face red.

“Just knew,” Danny shrugged. “If one out of every two
readers is a woman, and one out of every 100 women answers the ad, you will get
5146 responses.”

“Jesus,” Jimmy shook his head. “Maybe only one in a thousand
will answer. Richard, you can fly to New York and pick out the best ones.”

“I’ll arrange for the responses to be shipped here to
Vancouver,” Richard amended, “and I’ll work with the secretaries…”

“No,” Jimmy interrupted. His voice was calm but edged in
iron. “No one outside this room.”

“I’ll help you, Richard,” Danny offered.

The lawyer’s eyes rolled. He caught Jimmy’s glare and
adjusted his expression to bland acceptance. Jimmy sat for a moment in silence.

“Good,” he decided. “Richard, you skim out the crazies. Give
any possibles to Danny.”

“But…” Richard ventured tentatively.

Jimmy shook his head.

“Going now,” Danny announced and walked quickly out the
door, closing it precisely behind him.

“Do you think it’s a good idea to let Danny get involved in
this?” Richard’s voice was low even though the door had shut with a solid thud.

“He’s not the brightest tack on the board,” Jimmy admitted,
“but he has a real sixth sense. You remember the Borden merger?”

“One hundred twenty-three million and change in three
months.”

“Danny’s idea.”

“What?”

Jimmy nodded. “Besides, he has total recall. He can recite
back any letters I want to hear.”

“He’s your brother,” Richard gave in. “Does he ever …”

“Show interest in women?” Jimmy finished the sentence.
“Yeah. Keep your eye out for someone for him. Yourself too.”

“Ha,” Richard snorted, then reddened.

“Suit yourself,” Jimmy waved off Richard’s half-apology.
“Just write me up an iron-clad contract, and weed the list down to twenty or
so.”

“About the contract,” Richard cleared his throat and
continued. “I’ll need to know pretty specifically what you’ll expect the young
woman to do.”

“Just put in that she won’t get damaged.” Jimmy’s face was
as red as Richard’s.

Richard shook his head. “Kramer versus Johnson. Ohio, 1994.
You want to get her to agree specifically in writing to everything you want to
do. Otherwise she can sue.”

“Put them all in then,” Jimmy blustered. “How the hell do I
know now what I’ll feel like doing then?”

“Vaginal intercourse?” Richard’s voice was clinical and
impersonal. He might have been making a grocery list.

Jimmy nodded.

“Discipline?”

“You sound like a fucking machine, Richard. Ha, was that a
pun?” Jimmy swiveled to look out over the water toward Jericho Beach. “Put it
in.”

“Just a lawyer. What about bondage?”

Jimmy waved assent with his hand, then cleared his throat.

“Add sodomy.” His voice was a croak. “Shit. Screw the
contract. Screw the whole thing.”

Richard ignored his eruption.

“Artificial stimulation?”

“You mean dildos? I guess.”

“Group sex?”

“What the heck.” Jimmy swung back to face his lawyer and his
eye caught Richard’s hand adjusting the bulge in his trousers. He laughed and
barked, “Put in every God-damned thing you ever heard of. Just don’t ask me any
more questions.”