Chapter 10 of Lay Me Odds - Book #2 of the Lady from L.U.S.T.

Genre: Vintage Sleaze / Lady Spies / Sexpionage

ASSIGNMENT: LOVE THE ENEMY TO DEATH

LAY ME ODDS — if you have the guts. My name is Eve Drum. I'm THE LADY FROM L.U.S.T. — the wildest, nuttiest secret agent who ever drove the Kremlin out of its vodka-guzzling skull. They aren't kidding when they call me the sexiest spy in the world. As Agent Double Oh Sex I take on the kind of assignments Jimmy Bond can't handle. All hell breaks loose when I go into action against the sinister forces of H.A.T.E. Don't tangle with me because I'll love you to death. I have a license to kill and I don't care whether I use my body — or a bullet. Sex is my deadliest weapon, but I'm just as good with a knife. Don't tell me about Judo or fast cars or brainwashing because I know it all. I'm good and you know it. Watch me use exotic Eastern sex techniques to turn H.A.T.E.'s villainous spy-masters into helpless blobs of desire. Swing along with me as I bump and grind through London strip clubs in pursuit of missing microfilm. Join the fun as I mix business with pleasure, martinis with molotov cocktails. With a Beretta in my bra I'm an updated Fanny Hill, a tastier brand of Candy, a lethal Lolita. My crazy life is just filled with bloodshed, bedrooms and belly laughs.

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CHAPTER TEN

Helmut Sagged against the door of my hotel room as it closed behind him. There was a film of Sweat on his forehead and a muscle spasm caused the skin of his jaw to quiver. His blue eyes were bright with an emotion I could not identify as I dropped down into an easy chair.

"Well, we got it," I murmured in exhaustion. "The microfilm is safe, Willi Vogel is on the lam. We broke the back of his little rebel army.”

"You did it,” Helmut said slowly. “I did nothing—except that I did not betray you.”

"I'm grateful for that, really I am. Especially since Willi got away. If he'd followed us here, there's no telling what he might or might not do."

I let a little shiver run down my spine. Helmut came across the room and stood before me. "I must admit I was not thinking of you, Miss Drum, when I told Vogel I did not know where you were." His hand moved across his eyes, rubbing his flesh as if to ward off a headache. "I—I was very confused at the time. I kept thinking—it was my mother I was saving by not talking.”

"I know, Helmut,” I smiled. “But I'm still grateful.”

“You know? I don't understand."

"You've seen me as your dead mother ever since we spent those few hours in Herr von Horstmann’s cellar. It’s how you think of me." I sat up straighter. I was getting an idea. "But now you know the truth. You know I'm not your mother. When did it happen? Think, Helmut."

He stared down at me, flushed. His blue eyes were very bright. I'm not sure what you're getting at. All of a sudden, I knew."

“When you were on the torture table?” He frowned thoughtfully, then shook his head, "Yes. No. After that, I think. You see, I was tensed up to suffer any pain—anything they did to me I would bear—if it would mean helping my mother. Stupid of me. My mother's been dead for years."

"Not in your mind, Helmut," I said gently. His cheeks reddened even more. "What must you think of me? I am a freak, like someone you read about in those medical volumes under case histories."

"Hell, nobody's perfect. We all have our phobias.”

"Not you,” he smiled. "Even me." I nodded. Helmut kicked a hassock closer with his ski boot. He sat down, folded his arms on his knees. "Tell me," he urged. "Please? I think I would find it most helpful.”

But I shook my head. I had a different angle of attack planned. “Another time, some other place. Right now I want to concentrate on you. Helmut, tell me the truth. Can you enjoy a woman without first being whipped?"

"No. Always I have to be whipped.”

"And you fantasy your mother as the whipper?"

"Yes, that is so.” I drew a deep breath. This was the moment when I would either make or break my big blonde Teuton. His eyes were touching my corduroy jumpsuit, that showed off the shapes of my breasts and the tiny bulge of belly, with more than passing interest. It was a good sign, I thought.

"Don't think you paid her back tonight for all the pleasure she gave you?" I asked softly.

He looked startled. His eyes came up from the vee where my thighs met as the jump suit made a little fold, to stare at me. There was curiosity in his look. I smiled at him brightly.

"You've always felt guilt associations where your mother was concerned, Helmut. That is why you had to be whipped first, before you could enjoy sex.”

Me, girl psychiatrist. I honestly did not know whether I was putting my finger on the pulse of the trouble. I hoped so. I like to help people. I remembered the way I had helped Martin Sloane on my first L.U.S.T. assignment. I would dearly love to help Helmut Fleischel. After all, he had helped me get the microfilm.

Besides, Abraham Lincoln had freed the slaves. I watched his face turn white, then come back to its normal suntan color. He was thinking furiously, seated on the hassock. At last he nodded his head.

“What you say may be so. Yes, it could be. I am not a stupid man, you know. I know you read a lot. Well, I read very much, myself. I have made a study of myself, but everything I learned was no help." His hands spread wide. “I could explain the whys and wherefores of my conduct. I simply could not overcome them."

“Because you never had the chance to expiate your guilt fully. Well, you expiated it tonight, on that torture table.

“But there was no torture. It never began.”

“It was there, ready to begin. You had already made up your mind to suffer for the mother you felt guilty about.”

"Ja, that is true."

“And had the torture been applied—had those flaying knives peeled the skin from your body if I hadn't shown up—would you have told where Willi Vogel might find your 'mother'?”

"Never!” he growled. "No matter what they did.”

“Well, then?" I laughed, spreading my hands. Helmut drew air into his lungs. There was sudden hope on his face. “You think I am maybe cured? That I will not need the whip to want a woman? To enjoy her?”

I told myself I was an idiot to linger here in this hotel room when I should be on my way to the Munich airport, with that microfilm tucked away safely for delivery to David Anderjanian. Yet I am no ingrate. I would never have laid hands on the microfilm were it not for Helmut Fleischel.

If I could leave him a normal man, with the desires of a normal man for a woman, without the need for a whipping. I would feel a lot better about things. It would sort of round the corners off.

“Why don't we find out?" I murmured. He leaned forward. I met his lips with my mouth and we kissed, gently and without desire for a little time. His lips were soft, they quivered against me, and I sensed the faint stirrings in his flesh. His hand touched my hair, slid down to my throat, stroked me.

"Take off your clothes. Please, Eve.”

“You don't want to do it?"

"No. Suddenly I want to sit back and—and just watch. The way any—any normal man might want to see his girl getting ready to go to bed with him.”

This was a good sign, I thought. Ordinarily, he would be wanting to unhook me, push down garments, abase himself like a menial. Now he was sitting back on the hassock, smiling at me. I slipped my arms free of the trench coat, making my breasts bounce around inside the jumpsuit.

I was wearing no brassiere. My girl-girl attributes shook loosely but firmly, back and forth, up and down. Jiggling. I made them jiggle even more by doing a mild shimmy while I wrestled out of the trench coat sleeves.

Helmut laughed softly, proudly. "You see?” he asked. I saw, when he stood up before me. There was a pronounced arousal of his male equipment. He grinned, "You didn't slap me, you didn't have to beat me. Eve, do you think . . . ?

His voice trailed off. I said soberly, reaching behind me to the snaps of the jumpsuit, "You've been excited without being whipped, before. Remember the movie we saw? And when you bathed me in Herr von Horstmann's bathtub?”

"Ah, but at the cinema bleu. I watched a young man pleasure a woman as if he were her slave. And in the tub well, what was I going to do but act the slave role by bathing you?”

I got my jump suit down my arms, I drew off the sleeves. I let it sag away from my hardening breasts. Helmut gulped, staring, seeing the rigid brown nipples, the pallid rounded flesh quivering to the motion of my arms.

"You are the slave,” he said suddenly. "You are my slave-woman. I have just purchased you in the slave market, as they used to do in Rome.”

His eyes were hard, his face like marble. This was not the Helmut Fleischel I had known. This man was a stranger. I felt a chill ripple down my spine. Was I a better doctor than I knew? Could I have cured him of his problem so soon? I wished I knew more about psychiatry.

"That's the idea," I muttered weakly. "You're doing fine. Keep up the good work."

I got to my feet. The corduroy bodice was hanging below my navel, held at my hips only by its elasticity. Helmut lifted his palms, put them under my breasts. He shook my breasts very gently, bouncing them on his palms.

"My slave,” he breathed. “My slave who must do everything I tell her. Is it not so?"

"Yes, Helmut," I nodded. “Man, do you ever like games.” His hand made a little gesture. "Take the rest of the suit off. Then go get me a cigarette.”

I bent down, I slipped the jumpsuit off. I had to kick my feet out of my boots to get free of it. Helmut just stood there, looking on. There was no tenderness in his face, only a grim hardness. I thought, I'm better than a faith healer. Maybe I'm in the wrong line.

He told me to put some shoes on. I did what he said. The high-heeled shoes made my legs look more graceful as I walked naked across the room to pick up a pack of Old Golds. I saw myself in the mirror of the closet door. I looked like Sexy Mimi from Miami.

I walked back to him, I put a cigarette between his lips. I lighted it. He drew in smoke, let it out slowly.

“Now you undress me,” he said softly. I knew my way around a man. I had his tie undone and off, his shirt unbuttoned and was drawing it down his arms when he snapped. “Hurry it up, hurry it up!" I hurried.

I knelt to pull his trousers down, to draw off his shorts, I gulped, seeing how much of a man he was. His fingers tangled in my golden locks as he urged my face closer.

"Uh—uh," I said. His fingers twisted. I yelled. His fingers let go. Next thing I knew his palm was belting me across the side of the face. He put so much force into the blow, I went backwards to sprawl full length on the carpet.

"Helmut," I protested, a bit dazed. "What the hell's the idea?" My head was swimming around and around like on a merry-go-round.

"You have cured me," he told me. He came naked to stand over me. He smiled down at me coldly. “Do I have to hit you again, my dear?"

"You know it, man, I breathed. His smile seemed painted on. "I just want to prove I am the master, not the servant. If you will not do that, will you—just to show you are my slave—give me the microfilm you took from Otto Karpf this afternoon?"

I looked sideways at the jar of hand cream in which I had embedded the tiny capsule. I said, "Stop playing games, Helmut. Here, give me a hand up."

I lifted my fingers. Helmut caught my hand, yanked me up against him. His bare body against mine, his manhood nudged me in my most nudgable spot. His arms went around me.

He kissed like there was no tomorrow. His tongue was deep between my lips, his hands were fondling my soft buttocks. I started to moan.

"Do you think I am cured, teacher?" he paused to ask. "Oh, yes, Helmut," I panted, snuggling up for more. He lifted my girl-girl body with his hands in my shaven armpits. His lips touched my nipples, kissed them. He spent some time with my breasts before he lifted me even higher so that his mouth was on a level with my golden privacy.

"You see, my dear? I have no shame where you are concerned."

His lips and tongue were fires stoking steam in my boiler. I moaned. I tried to close my thighs but his head was in the way. Then he started walking, still working on me, until I was begging him to be good to me. He let me sink down on the bed. Helmut moved between my thighs. He teased me some more, until I was just a mass of wanting woman. I could hear my voice begging him to get with it, that I had had my fill of teasing.

"First you must show you are my slave-woman,” he panted. Helmut was hurting too, but he was more concerned with my slavery than his sex.

"All right, you bastard," I screamed, rolling out from under him. "I'll get the goddamn microfilm."

I ran across the room, heedless of how much my breasts flopped or my backside joggled. I grabbed up the hand cream jar. I tossed it at Helmut where he sat on the edge of the bed.

"There it is. Now do what I want, damn you." He caught the jar, he unscrewed the top. He looked in. Then he looked at me, advancing naked on him. "This is a new jar. It has not been disturbed."

"Oh, Helmut—what the hell difference does it make? I hocussed the damn thing. Now come on, boy."

"How could you do that?” he wondered. "I stuck the capsule down inside. I siphoned off some of the cream, I melted the top layer of cream back into place with my hair dryer."

Helmut laughed and shook his head. "You are a remarkable woman, Eve Drum. It would have fooled anyone, I think."

He put the jar on the night table, then he reached for me. I went willingly into his embrace. I was eager, I admit it. Just the sight of his own naked eagerness was enough to set my female instincts stirring. What he had done to me had melted me right down to my toes.

He slid me down on my back. My thighs went up and outward. Helmut slid forward. I moaned and clutched him. I rode him hungrily, back and forth and in a circle of jouncing hips. Helmut stayed right with me. He even added a few movements of his own.

I was shuddering into my third orgasm when I felt his fingers closing around my throat. I thought it was a caress, at first. Then his thumbs went into my windpipe, and I could not breathe.

I writhed. I twisted. I bounced us across the bed. My hands clawed at his wrists, my eyes bulged up into his hard face. If he did not relax his finger-hold, I was a dead dame.

“Helmut,” I croaked as best I could. "Stop it.” He shook his head, grinning down at me. "Foolish little Eve Drum. Foolish, foolish girl. I fooled you good, eh? You see—I am H.A.T.E., too.”

My surprise must have been ludicrous because he began to laugh. His fingers eased up just enough so I could breathe. I felt strangled, but I was still alive.

"Von Horstmann was not the only man we duplicated, back at the Pleasure Dome. The real Helmut Fleischel is dead. Unfortunately, the real von Horstmann would not tell us where to meet his contact—or how—no matter how much he was tortured. We knew the rendezvous was at a special rock jut, for we had seen these meetings at a distance, through powerful field glasses. But we dared not keep the rendezvous, knowing the contact would demand some sort of password, as proof we came from the real von Horstmann.

“It was not until the rebel H.A.T.E. members raided the Pleasure Dome—and you and I fled—that I learned it was a limerick which served as a password between von Horstmann and Karpf. I did not know who the contact was until that moment, either."

He was quite proud of himself, was Helmut Fleischel. He had not even bothered to notify his bosses at H.A.T.E. headquarters what he was doing. The rebels knew him for a H.A.T.E. man. This was why one of them attempted to kill him on the ski lift. I guess they figured I knew where to meet Otto Karpf, that I did not need Helmut Fleischel any longer.

"You really f—fooled me." I whispered. His hands had eased enough for me to talk, just a little. Every man likes to hear himself praised. My blonde Teuton was no exception.

So I added, “You were smarter than I was. I give you that. But you could have got rid of me at so many different opportunities. Why didn't you?”

"I needed you to get the microfilm, silly one. I tried to learn the limerick which von Horstmann was telling you. I could not. You knew it but I did not dare arouse your suspicions by asking you what it was.

"This is the first opportunity I've had since you got the microfilm to take it away from you."

"But Willi Vogel—was about to torture you!”

"Ah, yes. The rebel leader. Too bad you didn't get him with the others, my dear. He really would have used that knife on me. However, I assure you, I'd have told him all about this hotel and your room number, before a single one of those knives had so much as spilled a drop of my blood."

I tried to smile. My arms were flung wide, my right wrist was jammed into the edge of the night table. I felt utterly helpless.

"Then the bit about your mother was a lie?" Helmut laughed. "My mother lives in Dresden in East Germany. And—I have no sisters.” His naked shoulders shrugged. "So you see, it was a pack of lies I fed you, which you swallowed like the fish the bait. It was very much fun while it lasted. Even the whipping I did not mind—too much. It was something I had to put up with, so I could get the microfilm.

"We honest H.A.T.E. agents do not want it to fall into Willi Vogel's hands. He would turn it over to the West just as you would do, were it not for me, Helmut Fleischel.”

"If Willi were going to turn it over to the West anyhow, why was he fighting me?”

"Actually he wanted to take you alive as proof that he would make a better H.A.T.E. leader than our present one. Also, it was a matter of pride with him whether H.A.T.E. or L.U.S.T. turned over the capsule to Washington.”

"I'm surprised you've let Willi Vogel live so long.”

“He will not live much longer. You helped flush him out into the open. I am grateful for this—but it is not enough to save your life. You have been fun in a way, Eve Drum—but the fun time is over."

My throat felt his thumbs tighten just as my right hand felt the hand cream jar on the night table. My right arm swung up, swiftly and savagely.

The base of the jar thudded into his temple. I saw his eyes roll back into his skull as his body went limp. His fingers loosed their grip. I slid out from under him as he flopped face down on the bed.

I reached for a pillow.

It would be easy to smother him, inert as he was. When he was dead I would leave him here while I got dressed and grabbed a taxi for the Munich airport. All I would take with me was the dress I was wearing, a coat and shoes.

Plus the jar of hand cream, natch.

I pressed his face into the pillow.

Hard.

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