Here's your O.R.G.Y.

A group of TV network personnel was also gathered there. They were a little high, and some of them were singing “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Your Mace,” as a parting tribute to Chicago. A few executives were talking about retitling programs for the coming season. Possibilities under discussion were Mace the Nation, and Beat the Press.

Just before boarding the plane, I took one last look over my shoulder. The final irony was missing. The banner which had greeted us upon our arrival had been taken down.

Yet as the plane took off, I could still see those words hanging in the sky over the horizon of the city:

MAYOR RICHARD J. DALEY WELCOMES YOU TO CHICAGO!

Like a lot of people, I’d never forget them!

CHAPTER SEVEN

“A Frenchwoman of noble rank. A neglected wife married at least two years. Between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-nine. Petite, but well endowed and with good physical proportions. Wears bikinis and is experienced in skin diving.”

This was the second assignment. Leila delivered it to me at the Miami airport. She’d met us there for that express purpose—and to take custody of Norma. We had time for a quick cup of coffee together before her seaplane left for Paradise Island.

“How am I doing?” I asked her.

“Not well,” Leila told me frankly. “You are the last one to complete the first assignment.”

“Damn!” Austin was unhappy.

“I am sorry to tell you this,” Leila added, “but two of your competitors have already completed the second assignment as well.”

“Which two?” Austin wanted to know.

Cass Nova for Mr. Rustwater, and Mr. Hauksho, the representative of Mr. Ugotago.”

“I told you Hauksho would bear watching,” Austin reminded me. And there must be more to that Nova than meets the eye.”

“No.” Leila corrected him. “It’s precisely what meets the eye. But you are not a woman, Mr. Austin, and so you don’t appreciate the appeal of Mr. Nova.”

“What’s with the skin-diving bit?” I asked Leila.

“His Highness Sheikh Ali Khat wishes to make love under water, and therefore requires a suitable partner.”

“Always a clinker,” I sighed. “Just to make it harder.”

“I suppose so. Well, good luck to you, Mr. Victor. Here is the number for you to contact upon completion of this assignment.” Leila handed me a slip of paper with a Paris phone number written on it.

At least I wouldn’t have to return to the States to make the next delivery. “Will you be the one I see in Paris?” I asked Leila.

“Yes.” She left then, taking Norma with her.

“Well, I guess it’s next stop France,” I told Austin when we were alone.

“I won’t be able to come with you,” he replied.

“There’s a hassle over some facilities my firm installed in a government project in Houston. I have to fly out there and straighten it out.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “But that’s how it is in the toilet business. There are times when you’ve got to take a lot of crap.”

“I guess so.”

“Will you be heading for Paris from here?” Austin asked.

“I think not. Ali Khat specified a Frenchwoman of noble birth. The best place to find one would be the Cote d’Azur. And I think I know just the hotel on the French Riviera to connect up with such a lady. If I’m right, this might be our chance to catch up.”

“I hope so.”

Austin went with me to the ticket counter, where I booked a flight to New York and made arrangements for a connecting flight to Cannes. I was lucky. There was space on a plane which was leaving immediately. And I’d only have an hour between planes in New York. So, less than twenty-four hours after I said goodbye to Austin in Miami, I was checking into the Grand Palais Hotel on the French Riviera.

The Grand Palais was the creme de la creme of resort hotels on the Cote d’Azur. Located in the hills overlooking a secluded cove of beach, the Grand Palais boasted its own casino, eighteen-hole golf course, and yacht basin. The servants wore livery, and the service was designed to cater to every whim of the hotel’s ultrawealthy clientele. It was the most exclusive hotel on the French Riviera, and I knew from previous experience that it attracted the most patrician members of what was left of the French nobility.

Shortly after I registered, I had a long and private talk with the manager. A certain amount of money changed hands, and in return for it, I was able to study the guest list and to get a rundown on some of the names I found of interest. These boiled down to three titled French ladies—-two countesses and a baroness. There were other noblewomen on the premises, but they were ruled out for reasons of age, marital status, or nationality.

Digesting this information, I went up to my room and showered and shaved. As I was dressing for dinner, the phone rang. It was the hotel switchboard. There was a message for me to call Operator Nineteen, Miami.

I decided not to call. I just didn’t have time to play telephone Scrabble with Mother. Still, I felt a twinge of guilt. It settled in my right buttock—-doubtless waiting to be lanced.

Instead, I finished dressing and went down to the hotel patio. There was still more than an hour to kill before dinner would be served, and for a while I strolled through the gardens aimlessly. Finally I wandered back to the patio. Two men were seated there, playing chess. Being addicted to the game myself, I couldn’t resist sitting within eyeshot and silently kibitzing their moves.

A few moments passed, and then an extremely attractive girl strode up to the table and stood there, waiting for one of the men to notice her. She wasn’t too patient about it. She tapped her foot, drummed her fingers on the table, cleared her throat—-to no avail; she was ignored. She wasn’t the sort of girl most men would choose to ignore. Dressed in a maroon cocktail gown that was almost but not quite mini and cut low enough in the bodice to display the well-rounded top halves of two tanned breasts, she was the sort of small but compact package of female curves and vivacity to make most males look twice. But chess players are a breed apart. The tossing of her long black hair and the fire shooting from her deep green eyes as she became more annoyed was no competition for the knight’s gambit under consideration.

When she finally spoke, her annoyance was plain in her tone. “Armand, I am ready for us to have our cocktail now.” She spoke English with just the faintest hint of a French accent—-more a lilt, really.

The man playing white, a distinguished-looking fellow with gray hair who was perhaps fifteen years or so older than she, looked up, straight at her, straight through her, and then down at the board again.

“Just how long will this game go on?” she asked, a decided edge to her voice.

“In a few moments, my dear.” He spoke directly to the black bishop.

“Chess!” she hissed. “Chess! Always chess! I might as well be a widow!”

“Pawn to queen five,” her husband mused.

“I said I might as well be a widow!”

“Yes. You sit by the window. I’ll be in directly.”

“Oh!” She stamped her foot, turned on her heel, and marched off toward the cocktail lounge.

On a hunch, after a moment I followed her. I sat down at the far end of the bar and motioned to the bartender. “That lady?” I inquired.

“The Countess La Roche?”

“Ah. Yes. I thought that’s who it was. We met two seasons ago . . .” I let the sentence trail off. “Bring me a very dry vodka martini with an olive,” I told him.

The Countess La Roche, Christian name Denise, was one of the three possibilities I’d uncovered before. I decided to be blatant about my approach. When the barkeep brought my drink, I got up, strode down the length of the bar, and sat down right next to her.

“Why, hello there,” I greeted her like a long-lost friend. She stared at me haughtily and made no reply.

I pretended I hadn’t noticed the ice that was forming. “And where’s Armand?” I inquired. “Playing chess, I suppose, as always.”

That struck a responsive chord, and the ice melted a bit. “Of course,” she replied. It came out bitter. “Have we met before?” she remembered to add.

“I’m devastated.” I tried to look devastated. “You don’t remember. . . ?”

“I’m sorry . . .” I’d succeeded in flustering her. “You do look familiar, but . . .”

“It was right here, Countess. Two years ago.” I gambled.

“I’m sorry, M’sieur. You must be mistaken. This is our first visit to the Grand Palais.”

“I meant here on the Riviera.” I tried for a recovery.

“I’m afraid not.” The frost was creeping back into her voice.

“Surely you’re mistaken. You are the Countess Denise La Roche, are you not?”

“Oui, but—”

“And your husband is the Count Armand La Roche, who is an inveterate chess player?”

“It is an obsession with him; that is true.”

“Well, then!” I spread my hands as if I’d successfully completed an equation in logic.

"But who are you?” Her eyes were dancing now. She’d gone the full route. She knew damn well that I was trying to pick her up, she’d paid lip service to her station, and now she was allowing herself to be intrigued.

“Steve Victor. Now do you remember?”

“Not in the slightest.” A mischievous smile softened her lips.

“It’s the story of my life,” I sighed. “The Reader’s Digest will doubtless run it under the heading ‘The Most Forgettable Character I Ever Met.’ ”

“Surely you exaggerate. If we had met before, I’m sure I’d remember.”

“You’re merely being polite,” I said morosely. “You’ve forgotten me. But I could never forget you. Such a lovely lady forsaken by a husband who would rather play chess.”

“It is a sickness with him.” Now that she’d found a sympathetic ear, she let the question of our former acquaintanceship go by the board. She was working on her second stinger, and that also helped. “There are times when I wonder why he married me. He should have married Bobby Fisher. He’d rather play chess than--than— than, well, anything!”

“Anything?” I shot her my most insinuating look.

“Yes! Anything! You’ve no idea, Mr. . . .”

“Victor.” I repeated the name. “But I’d like it if you’d call me Steve. And I’ll call you Denise, if that’s not too presumptuous.”

“I suppose not— Steve. Anyway, the nights I lie in bed all alone because Armand would rather play chess than…”

“The man is insane!” I sympathized. “But surely if he is so blind, there must be other alternatives open to a woman as attractive as yourself.”

“You move very quickly, and you are frank, aren’t you, Steve?”

“Your charms have made me impetuous, I fear.”

“Ahh! It’s been a long time since I’ve been paid compliments like that. Three years, to be exact. Since I married Armand. Ever since then it’s been nothing but talk of ploys and gambits and mating.”

“Mating?”

“Checkmating. Of the other kind, there has been a dearth.” She sighed and motioned to the bartender for another drink.

“I don’t play chess.” I looked deep into her eyes. I sensed that she was nibbling at the bait, and there seemed no reason not to push it. Hell, time was of the essence. Once I’d scored with her myself, I figured I’d be in a good position to lead up to the matter of Ali Khat and his harem. “But I do play other games. The mating game for instance . . .”

“I like a man who comes right out and says what’s on his mind.” She took my hand in hers and held it warmly. Her cheeks were flushed and the liquor working on her.

“If I could trust you to be discreet . . .”

“Steve Victor!”

A hand like a T-beam landed on my shoulder and spun me around on the barstool. I found myself looking up at the craggy, browned face of the Australian competition, Archibald Snoopleigh. “Oh, hello, Archie.” I returned his greeting with something less than enthusiasm. His timing was lousy-—-lousy for me, that is. He couldn’t have picked a worse moment to interrupt. I wondered if he’d been eavesdropping and done it deliberately. “What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“Same as you, bucko. Blimey, doesn’t that say we’re both pros though? We know what streams to fish, rain-right! Well, come on now, Steve. Mind your manners. Introduce me to the lady.”

There was no avoiding it. I performed the introductions. And that killed my game. Archie stuck it out until dinner, and there was no chance to pursue the amorous line I’d struck with the Countess.

When her husband finally tore himself away from the chess game and fetched her for dinner, Archie excused himself and I was left to eat by myself. I sat across the dining room from the Count and Countess. But neither of them paid any attention to me. I decided I’d just have to bide my time until Armand got caught up in another chess game. Then, perhaps I could get Denise alone and pick up where we’d left off before.

But, as it turned out, that wasn’t necessary. As I was having my coffee and dessert, the waiter came up to my table and discreetly handed me an envelope with a note inside it. I slipped it under the table, removed the note, and read it surreptitiously.

It was from the Countess Denise. It was frankly amorous and contained explicit directions. Her husband would be playing chess all evening. There was an unused summer cottage about fifteen miles away which could be reached by a dirt road, although the last mile would have to be walked. It was very secluded and we could be alone there. She would be waiting for me there with trembling eagerness.

I gazed across the dining room at her and nodded. She pretended not to notice. I admired her coolness. If a lady is planning to cuckold her husband, there’s no sense advertising it.

I finished my coffee and went out to the front desk where I arranged to rent a car. The liaison was for eleven o’clock, which left me time for a short after-dinner nap before I had to set out. I didn’t want to get involved with Snoopleigh, and it was undoubtedly smarter to stay away from Denise until we were alone. So I slept, and awoke feeling refreshed and eager to keep my appointment and perhaps push on to the ultimate business I was contemplating with Denise.

That dirt road was murder! It was as rutty as a cross-plowed field! The drive took me twice as long as I’d anticipated. And when I got out of the car, I discovered that the path leading up to the cottage was a sheer forty-five-degree angle of slimy mud. I arrived at the darkened cottage feeling somewhat less than sparkling clean. Where mud had failed to blemish my clothes, sweat had succeeded. And I was panting more from exertion than passion.

The front door was open. I entered the cottage and called out, “Denise?”

“In here.” The answer came from the back of the place.

I stumbled through a dark hallway until I came to an equally pitch-black room. “Denise?” I called again.

“I’m waiting, lover.”

“Isn’t there any light here?” I asked.

“The electricity has been turned off.”

“How about a candle?”

“There are none.”

“Well, wait a minute. I’ll light a match.”

“Please don’t!” Her voice came quickly. “I’m shy,” she explained, “embarrassed. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Now don’t you worry,” I soothed her. “Everything will be all right”.

“But no lights! Please!” she insisted.

“All right,” I agreed. “But listen, Denise, is there some place I could wash up? I’m awfully grimy from that climb.”

“Through that doorway. To your right. There’s a shower.”

There was no hot water. There was no soap. I shivered under a dribble of ice water and scraped the mud off my carcass with my fingernails. Then, ever mindful of the etiquette of lovemaking, I bit off my fingernails.

“Is there a towel?” Dripping, I stood in the doorway to the bedroom and peered vainly into the darkness.

“Oh, dear me, I’m afraid not.”

Grumbling to myself, I went back into the bathroom. I found a box of kleenex there. It took the whole box, but I finally managed to pat myself fairly dry. I took a look at the toilet where I’d dumped the used kleenex and decided against flushing it. Then I went back into the bedroom again.

“Where are you?” I crooned into the darkness.

“I’m right here, lover,” came the singsong reply.

I groped my way to the bed. My hands closed over a pile of sheet. I lowered myself and crawled under it. Tenderly, I kissed her. My tooth snagged on one of her toenails. She could have cut them!

“You’re upside-down.” The words came with a giggle from the other end of the bed.

“Then I’ll just have to work my way up.” One of the things my years with O. R. G. Y. have taught me is that no matter what happens, a lover must never lose his savoir-faire.

I kissed her ankle, and then her calf. Surprise! A patch of unexpected hair tickled my lips. I would have expected more in the way of personal hygiene from a noblewoman.

She was wearing a shorty nightgown. Now my hand slid under it and up her thigh. It was a very cold thigh, and a lot thicker than what I’d seen of her legs earlier would have led me to expect.

“Ahh!” She sighed and wiggled. “You excite me!”

Well, I supposed that was good to know. I slid my hands up the sides of her legs and kneaded her hips. They needed kneading. There was a lot more flab there than the dress she’d been wearing that afternoon had betrayed.

I slid upwards and bestowed a kiss on her belly. It was so ample and soft that for a moment I thought I’d stuck my head in the pillow by mistake. Hastily, I pushed onward and upward, my lips seeking the tip of her breast. I found it much lower than I’d expected. I groped for the other breast with my hand. Somehow I got under it, and when I raised my hand, it flopped over and rested on her shoulder.

I groped to return it to its former position. But it wasn’t easy to relocate. It was pitch-black in the room. There wasn’t the slightest bit of night light coming through the window. Heavy clouds had obscured the moon and stars. And now there was the rumbling of thunder and the first sounds of rain falling outside.

Going by my sense of touch, I continued up the tricky escarpment of her body. Like a bloodhound, I nuzzled from navel to cleavage to neck to ear. She certainly had large ears! I supposed I hadn’t noticed before because her hair had hidden them.

Her hair! Where was it? Kissing her on the lips, my hands holding either side of her head, I suddenly realized that my touch had encountered no sign of the long tresses. Then the kiss itself distracted me from the consideration. My tongue was fighting a losing battle with teeth that seemed cemented together. Testing, I probed a bit higher. Ahh! There was a space here for the dip of passion.

As I took advantage of it, however, another realization dawned on me. My tongue had not penetrated between two sets of teeth; it had dipped between an upper plate and her gum! The teeth were false! She was wearing a plate! And the upper denture had fallen down!

That did it! Something was definitely limburger in the State of Denmark. Nothing added up to the picture of the Countess which my eyes had committed to memory before. I hopped out of bed and headed back to the bathroom where I’d left my clothes.

“Where are you going?”

“Call of nature,” I lied. “I’ll be right back.”

And I did come right back. With me I brought a pack of matches from my pants pocket. I stood directly over her and lit one. The light flared up, and before it was extinguished, I got a good look at her face.

It was not the Countess Denise La Roche! It was not the face of anyone that any man, except the most deprived and undiscriminating satyr, would willingly take to pillow and mattress. It was a face to drive a man to everlasting continence!

With my second match I lit a candle on the nightstand beside the bed. I confronted the scabrous old crone revealed by the candlelight. “Now what the hell’s the big idea?” I demanded. “Who are you?”

“A lady of the night,” she told me in a geriatric voice.

“You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Come on, chéri. Get back into bed.” She batted her rheumy eyes at me.

I ignored the suggestion. “What are you doing here?” I asked angrily.

“Plying my trade.” She held up one breast and waved it at me. It looked like a dead, one-eyed fish.

“At your age?” Man from O. R. G. Y. or no, I was shocked.

“That’s no way to talk,” she whined. “Haven’t we had enough of employment discrimination against those over forty?”

“Over forty!” I exploded. “Over sixty would be more like it!”

“So what? Is that any reason why I should be kept from working? A person isn’t an orange. You can’t eat the fruit and throw the rind away!”

“Maybe.” I tried my best to be placating. “But when fruit is overripe—”

“How do you know until you taste it?” She arched a varicose leg at me and wriggled.

“And if there’s blight?” I had noticed certain suspicious scabs on her body.

“Don’t be nervous, boy. In these days of sulfa drugs, it’s no worse than a bad cold.”

“I’m allergic to sulfa drugs,” I told her. “And I always avoid catching colds when I can. Now tell me, who put you up to this?”

“I don’t know his name,” she shrugged. “But he was a real gentleman and he paid very well for your pleasure. He must be a very good friend of yours.”

“Yeah,” I told her drily. “There isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for me --including undermining the whole local campaign to stamp out VD. Was he a tall, sunburned fellow with a face like moon craters and an Australian accent?”

“Australian, or English, or American—I couldn’t tell for sure. But that sounds like him.”

Snoopleigh! That bastard! I might have known! I headed back to the bathroom and scrambled into my clothes.

“Where are you going?” she whined. “You can’t just leave me here like this! Don’t you have any consideration for age?”

“Too much to desecrate it with lust,” I told her, closing the door behind me.

Snoopleigh! Who else but he would have pulled a stunt like this! A venereal old whore! It was dirty pool, all right. I cursed him all the way down that muddy hill to the road where I’d left my car.

That climb down was even worse than the trip up had been. It was raining buckets by now, and when I wasn’t knee-deep in slime, it was because I’d tripped and buried my nostrils in it. Even so, it wasn’t until I reached the road itself that I appreciated the full extent of Snoopleigh’s perfidy. The air had been let out of all four tires on the car I’d rented!

I had no choice but to start slogging down the road on foot. If wishes were horses, then Snoopleigh would have spent the rest of his days riding on one mangled testicle. Even the hitch I eventually caught didn’t diminish the tortures I vowed to inflict upon him if I ever got the chance.

When I finally got back to the Grand Palais, though, I learned that my revenge would have to be delayed. Snoopleigh had checked out. He’d left, and the Countess Denise La Roche had gone with him.

It was almost dawn now, but the night staff of the hotel was buzzing with gossip about what had happened. Count La Roche, it seems, had been playing chess when his wife and Snoopleigh cut out. On her instructions, a note had been handed to him about an hour after they left. However, engrossed in his game, he had opened it only a few moments before my return. He’d been so upset by the news that his wife was leaving him to join a harem that he’d forgotten to guard his king’s bishop’s pawn and had been mated in three.

I went up to my room. The sun was up now. I decided that what I needed to wash away the grime of my ordeal was an early morning dip. I put on bathing trunks, threw a robe over them, and headed for the beach.

En route, I walked across the hotel patio. Count La Roche was sitting there playing chess with the same man he’d been playing with the day before. An auburn-haired girl wearing an evening gown was sitting at the table with them. Her eyes were tired and she looked bored, but there was something about the way she held her small, shapely body that bespoke an excess of energy and vivacity. She rose to intercept me as I walked past.

“Pardon, M’sieur, but you are going swimming, no?”

“Why, yes. I am.”

“We have not been introduced.” She stood barring my path. “I am the Baroness Corinne de Lorraine, and this is my husband.” She indicated the man playing chess with Count La Roche.

“How do you do. I’m Steve Victor.” I identified myself.

“It is a pleasure to know you, Mr. Victor.” The Baroness took my hand. Her husband grunted something by way of acknowledging the introduction and sniffed aristocratically as La Roche removed his queen’s knight from the board.

He was younger than La Roche, closer to his wife’s age, which must have been somewhere in the mid-twenties. He paid no attention to her, however, as she explained her reason for accosting me.

“I would like to take a swim now, while it’s still early,” she explained. “But I am hesitant to go by myself. It’s silly, I know, but I’m nervous to swim alone. Would it be a terrible imposition if I were to accompany you, Mr. Victor?”

I assured her that I’d be honored. She went to her room to change, and I agreed to wait for her on the beach. As I sat there soaking up the early morning sun, I congratulated myself on the fact that not all of my luck was bad. The Baroness Corinne de Lorraine was another of the three possibilities I’d staked out on my arrival. If, like the Countess La Roche, she was a chess widow, then I might yet even up the advantage Snoopleigh had attained.

But the situation wasn’t quite the same. I found that out when she joined me on the beach. Watching her approach, I wondered how her husband could so casually agree to her going off alone to swim with a strange man.

Her bikini was a knockout! Nothing frilly or fancy, just two wisps of white silk that concealed about as much as a pair of kleenex tissues. They were lost in a sea of golden tan. Short-cropped brownish-red hair and blue eyes topped a body that was small, but perfectly proportioned. All the parts moved smoothly as she strolled toward me. It was like watching a perfectly synchronized and highly erotic clockworks. Slender legs, smoothly swaying hips, flat belly, small, high breasts rippling deliciously over the top of the bikini—it was a welcome change from the picture which had confronted me by candlelight a few hours before.

“My compliments.” I greeted her. “That’s a very becoming swimsuit.”

“Thank you.” She didn’t blush. Her blue eyes looked at me directly. They said she knew damn well I’d been ad- miring her body. “Shall we have a cigarette before we go in?” She sat down beside me.

“Of course.” I gave her a light and then lit up myself.

“Your husband is addicted to chess?” I asked idly.

“Not really. Why do you think so?”

“Well, if I were he, I should prefer to be here swimming with you,” I told her boldly.

“My husband doesn’t swim. He has a very severe heart condition. He must avoid all undue exertion.”

“All?” I lifted an eyebrow.

“All!” The Baroness said it in a way that left no doubt that sex was included.

“How sad for him.” I clucked sympathetically. “And for you,” I added.

“Also,” she explained, “he is playing chess at this particular time because he has a very strict code of behavior-—his aristocratic background, I suppose. You see, he felt he won by unfair advantage earlier. You’ve heard about the distressing news received by the Count La Roche?”

“Yes.”

“Well, my husband insisted on giving him a return game because he felt that in his distress the Count made foolish moves he would not otherwise have made. It is a special situation. As a rule, my husband does not neglect me for chess.”

“Still, his heart condition . . .” I pushed the point.

“That can’t be helped. But my husband is not a selfish man. He would never stoop to jealousy. He recognizes that I am a young woman with certain biological necessities. If circumstances force him to neglect me in the matter of his marital duties, then still, for the five years we have been married, he has never interfered with my fulfilling these needs.” She stood up and stretched voluptuously. Then she looked down at me as if to make sure I hadn’t missed the point. “Let’s swim out to the float,” she said.

The Baroness was an excellent swimmer. I told her so when I joined her on the float.

“Oh, I am completely at home in the water,” she replied. “I do a lot of skin diving, you know. Denise—the Countess La Roche—-and I used to explore the underwater reefs every day. I shall miss her.”

Skin diving! It was looking better and better! The red-haired Baroness Corinne de Lorraine fit every one of Ali Khat’s specifications to perfection!

“I like to get tanned evenly all over,” she informed me. “Will it bother you if I take off my bikini?”

“It won’t bother me, but it sure will excite me,” I told her frankly.

“We shall see.” She laughed. Then she stood up, reached behind her, pulled a string, and lowered the top of the bikini provocatively. She stretched deliberately, making sure that I got an eyeful of her small perfectly formed breasts. They were high and pointy, with delicate pink nipples surrounded by aureoles of the same shade that looked soft as butter. Then she pulled another string at her hip and the bottom of the bikini fell away. Her plump mound of Venus was clearly visible under the light triangle of auburn hair beneath her flat belly.

I didn’t bother to hide my arousal.

“You were right.” She stretched out beside me. “I have excited you. But surely that wet bathing suit must be uncomfortable. It looks so very tight under the circumstances. Why don’t you remove it?”

I removed it. The early morning sun was unexpectedly warm on my naked genitals. I reacted even more to the heat.

“You Americans.” There was both teasing and awe in the way she said it. “Really, Steve! You are shameless!”

“You French!” I echoed her. “Really, Corinne! You are desirable!”

I kissed her, cutting off any reply she might have made. Her lips were warm, soft, sensually active. Her sun-warmed flesh undulated at my touch, hips rotating, breasts filling with air and grinding against my chest. As our tongues entwined, she gave a little gasp and her hand groped up the back of my leg and then between my thighs until it found what it was seeking. She grasped me, then released me and let her fingers scramble wildly all over the sensitive area until I thought the tickling sensation would drive me mad.

Gently I caught one of her breasts between my teeth and my tongue dueled with the nipple. Then I encompassed as much of the warm flesh as I could with my mouth. She moaned and wrapped her legs around me. They were still wet and a little slippery from our swim, but the warmth had turned to heat and I felt the mound of her femininity burn against the tip of my manhood.

I scrambled over her. In her passion, she flung her legs up onto my shoulders and locked the ankles around my neck. I lunged and the core of her passion seemed to rise up inside her to meet the thrust. Her nails dug into my buttocks, holding me there, making me maintain the contact while her plump bottom revolved faster and faster in at series of mounting orgasms.

Finally she altered the rhythm, and her body rose and fell away from me. I fell in with this new cadence and pounded faster and faster, slamming hard and withdrawing and slamming again. And all the while, deep inside her, muscles were contracting and expanding, gripping the length of me and letting go and gripping again.

In this fashion she embarked on another long series of orgasms. At the height of them, I could hold back no longer. I penetrated with all my strength, pulling her up by the buttocks to meet the thrust, and holding her there, immobile, while our explosions mingled for an impossibly long moment. Finally, we fell away from each other, both exhausted.

We shared a cigarette in silence. It wasn’t until I’d lit a second one that she finally spoke. “You Americans!” she murmured.

“We can’t hold a candle to the Arabs.” I’d recovered enough to seek an opening and take advantage of it.

“The Arabs?” Corinne looked puzzled.

I explained. Smoothly, I led from the casual reference to the specifics of my quest for Ali Khat. Far from being shocked, the Baroness was bemused by the situation. Seeing this, I came right out and asked her if she’d consider joining the Sheikh’s harem.

She didn’t answer for a moment or two. The sun was well up in the sky by now, and people were starting to drift down to the beach across from where the float was anchored. Corinne nodded toward them and slipped back into her bikini. I pulled on my trunks. Then she spoke.

“I tell you frankly that because of my husband’s condition I am bored beyond belief,” Corinne said. “Your offer is very attractive to me. I would like to live before I die, to experience something besides being the wife of a perpetual invalid. But there are other considerations. Quite honestly, I knew about my husband’s condition before I married him. I went through with it for two reasons: money and social position. The latter is no longer of great concern to me. But the former-—well, I must look out for my future.”

“I am authorized to offer you five thousand American dollars.”

“There was a time when that would have appeared a fortune to me. But my husband’s fortune runs into the millions. When he dies, it will be mine. But if I ran off to a harem, I might never see a penny of it. I wish there was some way, but—”

She broke off abruptly as a girl in a skindiving outfit pulled herself up on the float. “Oh, hello there.” The girl greeted Corinne. “Will you be diving today?”

“Perhaps later on,” Corinne told her. As the girl showed no sign of leaving the float, Corinne introduced us. “Steve Victor, may I present the Countess Simone Mauriac.”

Acknowledging the introduction, I took the opportunity to size up the Countess Mauriac. She was the third of the possibilities on the list I kept in mind. With shoulder-length jet-black hair, a face that belonged on a cameo, a body as petite as Corinne’s but somewhat fuller in the hips and bosom, the Countess Simone Mauriac was a fitting candidate for the harem of Sheikh Ali Khat.

However, I could only handle one at a time. At the moment I was occupied with Corinne. After exchanging a few pleasantries with the Countess Mauriac, Corinne and I swam back to the beach together.

As we started walking back to the hotel, Corinne made an odd comment about the Countess. “Poor girl,” she said. “I feel so sorry for her.”

“Why? What’s there to feel sorry about?”

“She lives the life of a prisoner. Her husband is extremely jealous. She can’t make a move without his checking up on her. See. There he is.” Corinne pointed to a figure crouched behind a dune farther up the beach. The face was a blur, but we could see that he was peering through binoculars at the girl stretched out on the float.

“Well, she is attractive.”

“Very.” Corinne granted it freely. “But on the other hand, he neglects her greatly at times. He is obsessed with his business and leaves her alone for long periods. But always there are private detectives watching her every move. Yes. She is a prisoner, poor Simone. But then,” she sighed, “I suppose that I am really no less a prisoner than she. My husband isn’t jealous, but I am tied to him by his money nevertheless. I wonder . . .” Corinne paused. It was obvious that she’d just had an idea. “My situation is not really fair, is it?” she asked me, the words coming out very slowly and thoughtfully.

“No, it’s not,” I agreed.

“One has a responsibility to oneself, wouldn’t you say?”

“Of course.”

“If one is able to free oneself, then one should—no matter what the cost,” she mused. “Isn’t that right?”

“That’s right.” I thought she was considering giving up her husband’s fortune in favor of my offer. I was wrong. The Baroness Corinne de Lorraine was formulating quite a different plan.

I didn’t learn what it was until the following day. By then it was too late. If she’d taken me into her confidence, I certainly would have counseled against it. First of all, her plan was self-defeating. And secondly, I’m squeamish about murder!

Oh, legally the Baroness was in the clear. But morally, that’s what it was. Murder! No more, no less! Murder!

Having her cake and eating it too was the motive. The Baroness wanted to be sure her husband didn’t cut her off from his money. At the same time, she wished to be free of him, to sample harem life, to judge for herself the Arab lovemaking prowess I’d been huckstering.

So, quite simply, and fairly easily, she drove her husband to his death. That night, while I was catching up on my sleep, Corinne set about seducing the Baron, well aware that sexual activity would be the final blow to his weak heart. He died in her arms, and the bellhop who came with the doctor who was summoned confided to me later that the Baron perished with a smile of supreme bliss on his face. Having sampled Corinne’s sexual talents myself, I could well believe it.

That same bellhop brought me the first news of the tragedy the following morning. Shortly after he left, my phone rang. It was Corinne. Playing the bereaved widow to the hilt, she asked me to drop by her room to pay my condolences.

When I got there, she was alone. Immediately, she dropped her pretext of grief and let me know she was available for the proposition I’d made her the day before on the float. But when I replied, genuine grief replaced her crocodile tears.

I didn’t bother to hide the fact that I was appalled by what she’d done. Even if the Baron had died happy, she left me with no doubts that she’d deliberately contrived his death. So, a proxy, I delivered the Baron’s revenge.

“You’re ineligible,” I told her bluntly. “The Sheikh specified a married woman. You’re a widow now. By eliminating your husband, you also eliminated your chance to enroll in the harem.”

There was satisfaction in telling her this, but there was also frustration for me. Time was going by, and I was no closer to completing my second assignment than I’d been when I arrived at the Grand Palais. There was only one possible candidate left on the premises, the Countess Simone Mauriac, and the constant surveillance over her would be no easy obstacle to overcome.

I decided that the only thing to do was to watch her myself and wait for an opportunity to catch her alone. It was a frustrating procedure. For two days I followed her at a distance, and always her husband was either with her, or observing her. Even when she went skindiving, he was always hovering around the area in a motor boat.

Finally, late in the evening of the second day, an opening presented itself. I’d been sitting in the cocktail lounge in an inconspicuous corner that afforded me a view of the table at which the Count and Countess Mauriac were seated. A waiter walked up to the Count with a message that he was wanted on the long-distance telephone, a business call. The Count asked to have a phone brought to the table, but when his wife made a moue signifying her displeasure, he canceled the order and excused himself to take the call in the hotel manager’s office. That left the Countess Simone alone.

I didn’t waste any time. I walked over to the table and greeted her. “We were introduced by the Baroness de Lorraine on the float the other day,” I reminded her.

“Of course.” She was flustered. But when I continued standing there, etiquette left her no choice. She invited me to sit down.

I ignored the chair opposite her and squeezed into the booth beside her where her husband had been sitting. There was no time to work up an approach. I launched a direct attack. “Forgive my bluntness,” I said, “but I am very much attracted to you.”

“Please, m’sieur!” She drew back in confusion and alarm. However, the booth was so constructed that by drawing the upper part of her body away from me, the lower part was thrust against me. The calf of her silk-stockinged leg was warm and cozy against me. And the flare skirt of the white voile dress she was wearing over-flowed out from under her to cover my right leg without being aware of it.

“Simone”-—I leaped to the familiar—“I have only been waiting for an opportunity to see you alone so that I might declare my feelings. Our time is short. Please don’t waste it. Tell me where and when we can arrange to meet.”

“M’sieur! You go too far. My husband is an extremely jealous man. He would kill you! He would kill me! Indeed, if he should come back and discern the ardor you display, it might go badly for both of us. He has already fought two duels over me—for less reason than this-—and won them both, I might add. I beg you! Leave before he returns.”

“My feelings leave no room for considerations of personal safety.” Hell, I really hadn’t had time to polish the dialogue.

“Then out of consideration for me -” She was quite frantic by now to be rid of me.

Flatly rejected, and pressed for time, I resorted to a ploy. Continuing to beg her for a liaison, I reached under the table with my left hand, slipped it beneath the drift of her skirt to the waistband of my trousers, and deliberately opened the zipper of my fly.

“All right,” I told her finally. '“I’ll leave.” She breathed a sigh of relief as I stood up. But I sat right down again.

“What’s the matter?” Her nervousness built up again.

“I am mortified,” I told her, “but I cannot leave.”

“Why not?”

“The zipper to my pants has come undone.”

“What! But if my husband should return and see. I beg you, m’sieur! Close it quickly.”

“Very well.” I reached down and pulled up the zipper. Deliberately, I caught a generous portion of the voile skirt in it. Then I proceeded to struggle with it.

“For God’s sake, m’sieur! What is the delay?”

“Your skirt. It’s caught in my zipper. I can’t pull it all the way up, and I can’t seem to get it down either.”

“Mon Dieu! If my husband should see this—-your fly open! My skirt pulled up and caught there! Mon Dieu!”

“There’s only one thing to do,” I told her. “We’ll have to walk out of here together so that nobody notices. Then we can go up to my room and get untangled.”

“But I can’t go to your room. My husband— The scandal--”

“Have you an alternate suggestion?” I asked.

“No. Oui! If we must go together, then we must. But we will go to my room, not yours.”

I’d rather she’d agreed to my proposal, but it was still progress. We stood up together and it became apparent that it was the back skirt of the dress that was caught. By walking in step and keeping right on her heels, I was able to maneuver us out of the cocktail lounge and into the elevator without anybody taking notice.

Then we were alone in her room and the first step in my blitzkrieg campaign was accomplished. The next step was to get us both out of our clothes. Step Three was seduction, and Step Four was to convince her to leave her husband for the harem. I led up to them by convincing her that it was necessary to sit on my lap in order for me to be able to work the material loose from the zipper.

This necessitated pulling her skirt up in back so that only the flimsiest of panties were between me and her enticing derriere. I let my hands rove freely over it under the pretext of manipulating the zipper.

“Is that necessary?” she protested, wriggling in a way that modified the protest.

“Yes, and also pleasurable,” I confessed.

“Are you getting anywhere?”

“Uh-huh!”

“I mean with the zipper.”

“No. I’m afraid not. I can’t seem to budge it.”

“I have scissors,” she said. “But how will I ever explain it to my husband if I cut up the gown?”

“If you’ll take it off, and I take off the pants, then it will be easier to manipulate the zipper and I can get it loose in no time.”

“M’sieur!”

“Please. Your husband will start missing you. We don’t have much time. It’s the only way.”

“All right then.” Distraught, she undid the buttons to her dress and stepped out of it. She stood before me in bra and panties. Both were transparent.

My eyes drank their fill as I took off my pants. The jockey shorts I wore were inadequate to the task of hiding my response to her transparent charms.

“M’sieur! You are too bold.” She tried to avert her eyes, but didn’t quite succeed.

“I told you that you attract me powerfully.” I moved towards her.

She backed away. “You don’t understand, m’sieur. It is not just that my husband is jealous. It is also that I could never be unfaithful to him. I am too afraid. He would know. My conscience would give me away. I beg you-—”

She had backed onto a small rug in the center of the floor. I stumbled as I approached her. The rug went out from under her and she landed in a pratfall. Her legs tangled in mine, and I fell on top of her.

It was just then that the door opened. The Count Mauriac stood there for a moment taking in the scene. Then, quite calmly, he closed the door behind him. Without comment, he crossed the room to a writing desk on the other side. He opened the desk drawer. When he turned around to face us again, there was a pistol in his hand.

“Please, André . . .” Simone was too terrified to continue her explanation.

“Can’t we be adult about this?” I suggested.

“There has never been a smirch on the Mauriac honor.” The Count spoke with a lecture hall detachment. “This honor demands that a faithless wife pay with her life. The penalty for the cuckold is also fatal.”

“But I have been faithful!” Simone walled truthfully.

“Honest she has, fella . . .” I told him sincerely.

“Please. The situation is distressing enough without insulting my intelligence.” He flicked back the safety catch of the pistol with a loud click.

“It was an accident!” Simone sobbed. “My skirt caught in his pants zipper.”

“And what was his pants zipper doing open?” the Count asked coolly.

“Gaposis?” I suggested.

“I’m sorry.” The Count dismissed our explanations. “I must kill you both.”

“André!”

“Look, fella, aren’t you being sort of overly judgmental about this? I mean, hell, you’re losing your perspective. You’re blowing your cool,” I babbled, somehow hoping that by continuing to talk I might increase my life expectancy.

“You must die!” He was firm now. He aimed the pistol carefully until it was lined up with a spot just below the plumpness of Simone’s left breast.

I watched carefully as his finger started to squeeze the trigger. Then I made my move. I shoved Simone out of the way and dived for his feet as the gun went off. As he went down, I delivered a karate chop to the wrist of the hand holding the gun. There was a crash of glass as it flew out the window.

We rolled around for a few moments. The Count was a lot stronger than he looked. It was the wiry kind of strength that moves fast and hits hard. I don’t know how long we would have gone on wrestling and slugging if Simone hadn’t picked up a lamp and conked him over the head with it.

He was out like a light, but still breathing. We didn’t waste any time. I yanked the dress loose from the zipper and scrambled into my pants. Denise grabbed a dress from the closet and pulled it over her head. The Count was beginning to moan his way back to consciousness as we left, on the run, down the hall and out of the hotel. The piece of voile still hanging from my half-open fly whipped out between my legs and flared behind me like an ostrich’s tailfeather riding the wind.

It took a few moments for me to locate a cab outside the hotel. By the time Simone and I were inside it, the Count had appeared, wild-eyed and breathless, at the entrance to the hotel. From somewhere, he’d come up with another gun.

“Go! Go!” I pounded the driver on the shoulder.

“Where to, m’sieur?”

“The airfield. And hurry.”

A shot pinged off the hood of the car and the driver didn’t ask any further questions. We shot down the driveway and out onto the main road. A few moments later as we sped down the highway, the driver informed us that we were being followed.

Simone craned her head. “It’s him,” she told me. “I recognize his Ferrari.”

A moment later another gunshot confirmed her statement.

“Can’t you step on it?” I urged the driver.

“My foot is on the floorboard, m’sieur.”

“We’ll never outrun the Ferrari in this,” Simone moaned.

The driver was shaking like a neurotic leaf. He reached in the glove compartment and came up with a bottle. He took a deep swig from it.

“This is a hell of a time to get plastered," I observed.

“All this excitement makes me very nervous, m’sieur. Would you believe that I haven’t had a drink in six years? You see, I used to be an alcoholic. I only keep the bottle with me as a matter of will power.”

“Then allow me to save you from yourself.” I took the bottle from him and took a deep swig.

“He’s gaining!” Simone was twisted on the seat and looking out the back window.

Two more shots sounded.

I took a last pull from the bottle and then wrapped it in a rag I’d spotted on the seat beside the driver. Holding it carefully that way, I smashed it against the back of the front seat.

“What are you doing?” Simone asked.

“It’s an outside chance, but it’s worth trying. Watch.” I opened the side window and selected a nice-sized fragment of the broken bottle. Carefully, I dropped it as close to our right wheels as I could. I repeated the action until I’d disposed of all the pieces of the bottle.

It worked! Just when I’d given up on the ploy, there was a loud sound from behind us that we at first mistook for another gunshot. Then the Count’s car swerved back and forth on the road and skidded to a halt. I’d succeeded in causing a blowout to one of his front tires..

We were in luck when we reached the airport. There was space on a plane leaving for Paris immediately. Once we were in the air, I was able to devote myself to consoling Simone. .

She had two concerns. First, she was afraid that the Count would find her and kill her. Second, she had no idea how she would get along without him. She had no other family; she’d never worked for a living; she didn’t dare go to friends for help because they might inform on her to the Count.

I had the solution to her problems. The Count would never find her in Ali Khat’s harem. She would be looked after, and she would receive five thousand dollars to start a new life after she left the harem.

Simone wasn’t too hard to convince. After all, what choice did she have? By the time we set down in Paris, she had agreed fully. My second assignment was successfully completed.

What next?

CHAPTER EIGHT

What next?

Would you believe:

An African Pygmy princess with a Ph.D. in psychology from Oxford?

A tie-line between Miami Operator Nineteen of Bell Telephone and an African jungle tom-tom?

A fee-splitting arrangement involving a cannibal witch doctor and my mother?

Me, Steve Victor, the man from O.R.G.Y., tied naked to a stake while the question of my Blue Cross coverage was settled?

A discussion about the medical techniques of lancing a boil and boiling a lance?

A tribe of savages so humanitarian (or sanitary) that they treated the macka on my behind before consigning me to the casserole?

Hard to swallow? I agree. I could only hope, spitefully, that sautéed Victor would prove as hard on the gullet as my plight on your gullibility. It had all happened so suddenly that -- like you—I felt like I’d fallen head-first into the credibility gap.

Just a few short weeks before, I’d been sitting in a swanky hotel in Paris having cocktails with Leila, my luscious liaison with Sheikh Ali Khat. Leila was about to leave with Simone for the Skeikh’s harem. Before going, she was giving me my next assignment and filling me in on the standings in the contest.

What Leila told me wasn’t exactly reassuring. I was in a tie for last place with the Russians. The other competitors had all completed the third assignment and started on the fourth. The third assignment, my next, was as follows:

“A bona fide Pygmy princess under four feet eight inches tall.”

That was all. It was enough. Pygmies are rare in the world. Pygmies of royal blood are even more rare. I asked Leila how the competition had attained their successes.

“Your Australian counterpart, Archibald Snoopleigh, delivered the third lady only three days after the second,” Leila told me. “She was a Pygmy princess from New Guinea.”

“Sure,” I grumbled, remembering that I owed Snoopleigh revenge. “It figures. That fink did a sex survey in New Guinea just a year ago. He must have known just where to look.”

“It’s within the rules,” Leila reminded me with a shrug. “I don’t know whether I should tell you this,” she added, “but Mr. Snoopleigh’s employer, John Rank Privy, is so sure of success that he has already submitted plumbing blueprints to the Sheikh. So, too, has Mr. Rustwater.”

I made a mental note to send a telegram to Austin advising him to do the same. “So that ham actor of Rustwater’s delivered on the Pygmy princess too,” I mused.

“Yes. Cass Nova was most ingenious,” Leila commented. “He obtained a genuine African Pygmy princess from Central Casting in Hollywood.”

“Foul!” I snarled.

“Not at all. It’s permissible. The Brazilians, after all, delivered a Pygmy princess from a tribe on the Amazon riverbank in their homeland.”

“And I suppose the Japanese came up with a Japanese Pygmy,” I muttered.

“No. They obtained an Aëtas princess from the Philippine Islands. She’s the smallest so far. Only four feet tall.”

“Among them, they pretty much covered all the possibilities except Africa,” I decided. “So I guess that's where I’ll head. There’s a tribe of Niger Pygmies in Equatorial Africa that I’ve heard about. Where do I contact you if I succeed?” I asked Leila.

She gave me an address and phone number in Cairo. Then she left, wishing me good luck. I’d sure need it, I decided as I packed to catch a plane to Lagos, Nigeria.

Lagos was the closest I could get by air to the village of the Pygmy tribe I was seeking. The situation in Nigeria being what it is, I anticipated I’d have rough going when I got there. But my troubles started before that, when I boarded my flight at Orly Airport outside Paris.

The seats in the plane were three across. I had the window seat. As I was strapping myself in, the two other seats were filled. I did a double take.

Next to me was Natasha Jambonski, the statuesque Russian blonde I’d last seen on Paradise Island. And beside her, in the aisle seat, was Krapinadytch, the Commie commissar charged with landing the toilet deal for his country. They both smiled greetings at me. Krapinadytch’s upper plate wobbled with his smile, but aside from that minor comic effect, he still had the austere and inhumane look of Cossack aristocracy planning a pogrom, rather than Commie proletariat distributing welfare-state sunshine. Natasha, on the other hand, smiled to the strains of balalaika music, conjured up visions of the quiet-flowing Don and the slow, dignified bounce of an imperial feather bed.

So much for appearances. I did not smile back. What the hell were they doing there anyway? Following me?

“What the hell are you doing here anyway?” I asked. “Following me?”

“Of course not,” Natasha reassured me.

“Why would we follow you?” Krapinadytch wondered.

“We have no reason to follow you,” Natasha told me when we disembarked from the plane in Lagos.

“Simply because our business has brought us to the same general locale is no reason to jump to conclusions,” Krapinadytch insisted as they checked into the same hotel I was registered at.

“Coincidences are coincidences, and one should not attempt to make a pattern of them,” they both insisted when their safari party arrived at the same jungle campsite my guide had selected for our first stop.

“And we should look to closer relations between our two countries,” Natasha called to me as her party forded the river a bit upstream from where my party was fording the river.

Two weeks into the interior, with the light of their campfire flickering a short distance away, I reviewed their protestations. I tried to be fair about it. But the conclusion was inescapable. The Russians were so following me! Obviously they were stymied at the task of signing up a Pygmy princess for Sheikh Ali Khat’s harem. So they must have decided that their best bet was to let me find one for them. Then, I had no doubt, they’d improvise some means of getting me out of the way and grabbing off the princess for themselves. Implicit in all this was their conviction that I was on the trail of something.

I was. Back in Lagos I’d managed to shake my Russian tail just long enough to establish contact with Josef Dorembi, the man who was now serving as my guide.

Josef was an Ibo—in other words, a member of the leading tribe of Biafra, and therefore a rebel liable to the death penalty if the Nigerian government caught him in Lagos. The supposition would be that his presence this deep in federal territory must be for purposes of espionage. The supposition in the case of Josef Dorembi was correct.

I had learned about Josef inadvertently. After I checked into my hotel, my first stop in Lagos had been the Explorers’ Club. Here, a remnant from the days of white colonial rule, a small and aging group of Britishers and Dutchmen congregated to lie to each other about their past adventures in darkest Africa. With the Russians observing me from a table, I stood at a bar and bought drinks for a few of these creaky explorers and milked them for information about the Niger Pygmies.

“They’re an offshoot of the Batwas, a large Pygmy tribe that originated in the great bend of the Congo,” I was told by one knowledgeable and venerable anthropologist.

“How do I go about locating them?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re not hard to locate,” a onetime wildlife expert cackled. “They’re right smack in the middle of where the fighting’s going on right now. All you’ve got to do is get past the Nigerian troops, avoid the Ibo guerillas, look out for the cannibal tribe—about the only remaining cannibal tribe in Africa, by the way—that lives in that general area, steer clear of lions and poisonous snakes, manipulate a river filled with crocodiles, and survive the tsetse flies.”

“A snap,” I observed dryly. “Could you recommend a guide?”

“Negative,” a former safari organizer told me. “The government has forbidden all guides to take parties into that part of the country. Even if they hadn’t, though, you’d be hard put to find a guide who’d take you there. None of the white hunters would chance it. In the past maybe an Ibo guide might have chanced it. But today there are no Ibos in Lagos.”

I kept fishing with no results. Finally I paid my check—-man, how those old b.s. artists could drink! When the black bartender handed me my change, there was a slip of paper between two of the bills. There was an address on it. That was all.

The next day I ducked out of my hotel by the servants’ entrance, made sure I wasn’t being followed, and went to the address. The man I met there asked more questions than he answered. But it was through him that I arranged for a safari to take me into Ibo country. Two days out on the trail, Josef Dorembi joined us as I’d been promised he would.

Josef was a tall and extremely good-looking Ibo who had been educated in Germany. In his late twenties, he’d been a safari guide before the Biafran revolution had brought down slaughter on all Ibos caught in northern Nigeria. He’d gone underground and engaged in espionage for the last two years. Now, with a price on his head, with his small band of rebels decimated by a series of government crackdowns, with his communications to Biafra effectively cut and supplies to carry on his activities shut off, Josef had decided the only thing to do was to make his way back to Biafra and join his fellow tribesmen fighting Nigerian genocide there. This was his only reason for agreeing to be my guide. Alone he would never be able to make it through the jungle. With the armed porters it had been arranged for me to hire, there was a chance. In exchange for that chance, he’d put me in contact with the tribe of Niger Pygmies I sought. He was acquainted with the tribe from previous expeditions into the area.

Josef was as good as his word. Sixteen and a half days out of Lagos we made contact with bombs dropped by European mercenary pilots employed by the Nigerian government, with Biafran artillery, with Nigerian infantry, with cannibal spearmen, with poison darts from the blowguns of the Pygmies, and with the suddenly revealed hostility of the Russians breathing down our necks.

It all happened so fast! Let me see if I can unravel the sequence. It was morning when we entered the Pygmy village. Josef was known there, and our greeting was friendly. We were taken to the hut of the Chief—the King, really, as regarded this domain. Josef and the Chief embraced. I was introduced, and then we got down to business.

“My friend here,” Josef told the Chief, translating for me as he went along, “would like to acquire one of your daughters. He is willing to pay a handsome dowry.”

“You wish to marry one of my daughters?” the Chief asked me through Josef.

Josef smiled, shook his head, and explained the proposition to the Chief quite honestly. I would pay five thousand dollars in gold to the Chief for the privilege of enlisting one of his daughters in the harem of Sheikh Ali Khat. The Chief’s brow furrowed, and at first he didn’t reply.

“We haven’t offended him, have we?” I asked Josef anxiously.

“Not at all,” he assured me. “It’s quite customary that he arrange his daughters’ marriages and that he be paid a large dowry for them.”

“Well—umm-—this isn’t exactly a marriage.”

“Perhaps not by your standards.” Josef shrugged. “But that’s a fine distinction, a Western world distinction. He doesn’t require a marriage license for his daughter. Nor does he care that she will be one of many in the service of the Sheikh.”

“Then what is bothering him?”

“I suspect he’s mulling over the matter of intermarriage. Pygmies are a proud people, and traditionally they like their women to couple only with other Pygmies. This is especially true in the case of a Pygmy girl of royal blood.”

At this point the Chief once again spoke. He talked slowly and earnestly, pausing frequently so that Josef might translate for me. His honesty was refreshing.

He had several daughters, he said, all beautiful and of the blood royal. All had the agreeable temperaments so desirable in a female—all but one. This one, the eldest, was the only one he was willing to part with. The reason, he stated frankly, was that she had become a great burden and trouble to himself and to the tribe.

“What sort of trouble?” I was leery.

It seems the Pygmy princess in question, Aleka, the Chief s daughter, had been taken to England by a white missionary while she was in her teens. Here she had been educated for several years and then, by her own choice, had returned to her people. With her she had brought a Ph.D. in psychology from Oxford! I couldn’t understand the Chief’s words when he told Josef this, but I didn’t miss the emotional tone of what he was saying. It was a combination of pride and rue.

“Do you understand what a Napoleonic complex is?” the Chief asked me through Josef.

I said I did.

“She accuses all the men of our tribe, particularly me, her father, the Chief, of having this because of our size,” the Chief sighed.

“A little knowledge . . .” I shrugged.

“Not a little. A lot. We are happy with our customs and traditions, and now she comes back and tells us we’re all neurotic, that she must express hostility to me, her father, the Chief, because she’s working through her Electra complex. And she encourages all the children to be disrespectful to their parents; she says it is necessary to their growth. She convinced one young man that his fear of the black inamba was nothing but a Laocoon complex, and he perished of snakebite. The entire tribe has been in a turmoil since she came back from England. What sort of land is it, anyway? The Western world must live in constant fear of its young people!”

“Tell him that’s absolutely correct,” I told Josef. “Tell him he’s fortunate she hasn’t organized a local chapter of SDS³¹ . Tell him that nevertheless I accept his offer and will be glad to take his daughter off his hands.”

After a bit more palaver back and forth, Aleka was summoned. Shrink Diahann Carroll³² down to just under four feet tall, and that was Aleka. With the honey-brown skin typical of the Negrillo, lighter in color than most full-size Africans, a thirty-four inch bosom that stood out from her tiny figure like twin missiles dwarfing their launching pad, the face of a mischievous Mona Lisa, Aleka was a pint-sized package of vivacious pulchritude. Despite the childlike proportions of her body, she was all woman in her curves, her demeanor, and her personality. She wore the colorful one-piece straight-line frock affected by the women of her tribe. Large golden earrings dangled from her earlobes. Horn-rimmed glasses that magnified her large brown eyes were the only jarring note in the overall picture.

Aleka spoke English perfectly. I expected her to give us trouble when the situation was explained to her, but she didn’t. “The psychological manifestations of a harem situation sound most intriguing,” she opined. “I’m sure I shall garner information for a most interesting paper which will further my reputation among my colleagues in Gestalt psychology.”

The Chief breathed a sigh of relief. Like myself, he’d expected his daughter to create obstacles. Her passive acceptance was a relief. However, as it turned out, it wasn’t quite that easy.

I’d forgotten about the Russians. Now they saw to it that they were remembered. While we were all busy finalizing the arrangements, they quietly strolled into the Pygmy village-—nodding and smiling to the inhabitants who nodded and smiled back-entered the Chiefs hut, pointed guns at the lot of us, and took Aleka prisoner. They were about halfway across the village compound, well on their way to escape with her, when the bombs started to fall on the village.

The bombs were being dropped by mercenary pilots flying planes leased by the Nigerian government. The reason they were being dropped was that a Biafran artillery unit had evidently dug in somewhere in the immediate vicinity. We became aware of that when they started firing shells over the village. The artillery fire rousted out a company of Nigerian infantry who had evidently been encamped on the other side of the village. Also, inadvertently, either the bombs or the shells -- I never did determine for sure which it was—-had landed in the midst of a native hunting party. Later we would learn that they were cannibals. Now, the hunter-warriors came smack up against the Nigerian infantry in the Pygmy village and the battle was joined.

Everything clear?

Well, not to me!

Crouching in the Chief’s hut, all I could see from the entrance was a fantastic release of hostilities that seemed to have neither rhyme nor reason. The planes were sweeping in over the village and dropping their bombs and strafing indiscriminately. Most of the shells passed overhead, but occasionally one fell short and exploded among the huts. The Nigerian infantry, in uniform, had formed an old-fashioned British square and were firing their rifles in unison, shooting down Pygmies, cannibals, and anybody else who got in their way. The cannibals were charging them with spears from one side. The Pygmies were sniping at them with poison darts from blowguns.

The party of Russians, now with Aleka in tow, had been trapped in the middle of all this. Now they were in a hut where they had set up a machinegun. They strafed Pygmies bent on rescuing their Princess, cannibals throwing spears at anything that moved, retreating Nigerian infantrymen, and the Chief’s hut in which my party was seeking refuge. Fortunately their bullets fell just short of the hut.

Beside me, as I observed the Russians, Josef Dorembi was pumping his rifle at the retreating square of Nigerian infantry. Of all of us, he seemed the only one with a clear idea of who the enemy was. He was an Ibo, and the Nigerians had been slaughtering his people; that was enough for him. He kept up a constant fire which did at least as much to decimate the Nigerian ranks as the spears of the cannibals, the darts of the Pygmies, or the machinegun of the Russians.

“There’s altogether too much violence in the world today!” The Chief’s words were translated for me by Josef as he continued killing Nigerians.

I could only nod agreement.

It seemed to go on for hours. Finally, though, the planes flew away and the Biafran artillery stopped its barrage. The few Nigerian troops left fled into the jungle. The Pygmies and the cannibal tribe seemed to have reached an unspoken—if somewhat wary—truce. They kept their distance from each other, spears and blowguns at the ready, but refrained from battling. Only the Russian machinegun occasionally shattered the dusk with a volley aimed at anyone who came too close to their haven.

It was getting darker now. I figured that under cover of night the Russians would probably try to slip away with my Pygmy princess in tow. I discussed this possibility with Josef and the Chief.

The upshot of our discussion was that while the sun was still setting, the three of us plus half a dozen hand-picked Pygmy warriors set out to storm the Russians’ hut. We crawled toward it on our bellies, Josef and I cradling rifles in our arms, the Pygmies equipped with their blowguns.

We’d almost reached the hut when the Russians started out. Josef gave a shout and we charged them. Darkness was upon us now, and the action which followed was at least as confused as that which preceded it.

The Russians chose to run rather than to stand and fight. We followed, crashing through the jungle, bumping into things, catching occasional glimpses of them, and then losing them again in the underbrush. Finally they must have reached a chunk of impassable jungle, because we were on them before we realized it and our two groups were fighting hand-to-hand in the blackness.

My first awareness of this came in the form of Krapinadytch falling out of a tree and landing on my back. “Ambush!” I yelled. Then I quickly sank my teeth into his wrist before he could stick the knife he was wielding into my throat. He dropped the knife—still straddling my back—wrapped his hands around my neck, and squeezed as if I were an orange and he were fanatically anti-citrus.

Meanwhile, the lovely Natasha had sprung out of the bushes, picked up the knife, and was now circling us, waiting for me to stand still long enough for her to stab me. “Unethical business procedures!” I snarled at her. “Would you kill a competitor over a few lousy toilets?”

By way of answer she stabbed at me and almost separated my genitalia from their moorings. My pants fell down. They tripped me up, and that probably saved my life. As I fell I slammed Krapinadytch’s head against a low-hanging branch, and he toppled off my back and lay on the ground like a felled Russian tree. It was nice to be able to swallow again. I was able to appreciate it for about one gulp when Natasha fell on top of me with the knife.

I held the hand clutching it away from my gizzard, and with my other hand I twisted her breast as hard as I could. Violence, danger, and all, the defensive maneuver wasn’t without its enjoyable aspects. But my quick glimmer of sex-and-sadism was shattered by an unexpected development. The shaft of a spear slammed down on Natasha’s hand and knocked the knife out of her grasp. I was just looking up to say “Thanks” when the same spear shaft came crashing down on my skull. It was very dark in there inside my head for a long, long time. . . .

I woke up. There were lots of stars. I opened my eyes. The stars vanished. As I looked up, it was pitch black. But as I lowered my eyes and they adjusted, I was slowly able to comprehend my situation by the flickering light of a nearby campfire.

I was tied to a stake at the edge of a clearing. Beside me, tethered to a smaller stake, was Aleka. Across the clearing, on the other side of the campfire, Natasha and Krapinadytch were similarly staked out. Around us were members of the cannibal hunting party, some sleeping, some standing guard, some engaging in activities which I couldn’t make out.

Did I mention that I was naked? No? Well, I was. And so were my fellow prisoners.

Natasha, her body straining against the jungle vines that held it to the stake, looked damned good without clothes. Her statuesque body looked even more statuesque-—the magnificent breasts pointing large and firm at the starless sky, the curve of her hips jutting one way and then the other as she wriggled against her bonds, her long, symmetrical legs tensing to relieve the strain and thrusting the high mound of her womanhood into erotic prominence. Yet even as her torso writhed and performed an occasional bump and grind, there was an unimpeachable dignity to her nakedness.

Krapinadytch was another matter. His muscle tone had gone to flab. Without the camouflage of clothing, his von Stroheim mien had deteriorated into bureaucratic sag. His belly provided a modest shield to conceal his privates.

I opted for Natasha as the more esthetic sight. Staring at her took my mind off a predicament I didn’t yet fully understand. It also abetted a certain tumescence which frequently affects me in crisis situations.

“I see you are affected by a certain tumescence in crisis situations,” Aleka observed in a detached voice suitable to an Oxford lecture platform.

I had to crane my neck to look at her. Our stakes were tied very close together, but parallel, and of course her face was far below mine. I didn’t respond to her observation. What was there to say about it? “Where are the others?” I asked instead, meaning Josef, her father, and the other Pygmies in our party.

“Most of them managed to get away,” she told me. “Jung would have found this fascinating,” she added, peering up at me over her horn-rimmed glasses.

“No doubt. . . . What’s going to happen?” I wondered aloud.

“They are cannibals.” Aleka remained calm. “I imagine they intend to eat us.”

“Guess who’s coming to dinner!” I groaned. “You know, this is really going to set the integration movement back,” I added.

“That is a typical white-power-structure frame of reference,” Aleka lectured me. “Western man drops the Hiroshima bomb, slaughters millions in his gas ovens, bums out whole Vietnamese villages with Dow napalm, and yet still he can express shock at the battle traditions of what he terms savages. That’s hypocrisy!”

“Yep.” I didn’t deny it. “But right now it’s also self-preservation.”

“If that’s what you’re interested in, then I suggest we terminate this academic discussion and turn to a more practical approach of escaping.”

“Such as?”

“Try wiggling around the stake so that you’re facing me,” Aleka suggested. “I’ll do the same.”

I rubbed quite a bit of skin off my bare back and buttocks in the process, but finally I was facing Aleka. She too had managed to maneuver, and was facing me. “Now What?” I inquired.

“By leaning forward, I think I can just reach the vine around your thighs with my teeth. The way it’s tied, if I can chew through it, it should create enough slack in back for you to free yourself. Anyway, it’s worth a try.”

Bracing herself against the stake, Aleka thrust her head forward toward my lower body. “Ouch!” She pulled back. One of her eyes was tearing badly.

“What's the “matter?” I asked.

“You poked me in the eye!” She was indignant. “Can’t you do anything about—?” She nodded toward my offending member.

“It has a mind of its own.” I was embarrassed.

“It has no mind! No conscience! And no sense of self-preservation!” Aleka attempted to bypass the sentinel once again.

It was no use. No matter which way her mouth darted to attack my bonds, it was blocked by my rigid manhood. Frustrated, she finally leaned back and considered the situation.

“All right,” she said finally. “So then we will treat the symptom rather than the neurosis itself. Once it is removed, then perhaps . . .”

Her mouth formed an O and came to grips with the problem. It was one hell of a sensation! Unable to control myself, I bounced until I was sliding up and down on the stake.

“American capitalist degenerate pig!” Krapinadytch shouted indignantly across the compound.

“How can you at a time like this?” Natasha demanded.

But how could I not?

“Yankee imperialism is dragging you down into the mire!” Krapinadytch shouted to Aleka.

“Va-va-va-rooooom!” I damned near pulled the stake over as Aleka accomplished her objective.

Quickly then, while the situation remained limp, she bypassed my manhood and attacked the vines with her teeth. While she was gnawing at them, I became aware of the sound of jungle tom-toms. At first the sound was very distant. Then, by degrees, it seemed to come closer and closer.

Aleka severed the vine. It didn’t free me, but it did create enough slack for me to attack the knot holding the vines together at the base of my spine with my hands. It was while I was painstakingly picking at that knot that one of our captors, a young, tall warrior, approached me.

I was lucky. He didn’t discern what Aleka had accomplished, nor what I was trying to do. Perhaps it was because he was bemused by another matter entirely.

“Is your name Steve Victor?” he asked me.

“You speak English!” I was surprised.

“I went to the missionary school in Lagos,” he in- formed me.

“And you came back to the jungle?”

“I didn’t like the food there!” He grinned. “I prefer the diet of my people.”

A cannibal with a sense of humor! Just what I needed! “Yes, I’m Steve Victor. How did you know?”

“An educated guess. There’s a telephone call for you.”

“There’s a what?”

“A telephone call. Operator Nineteen, Miami. It's being relayed by jungle tom-tom.”

“It’s my mother.” Tears sprang to my eyes. “Well, at least I’ll be able to say goodbye to her.”

“Perhaps. The trouble is it’s collect. And our Chief isn’t willing to accept the charges.”

“I’ll accept the charges.”

“I’m afraid you’re not in any position to do that, Mr. Victor.”

“Then tell my mother to pay the charges herself,” I wailed.

The fine young cannibal summoned another tribesman with a tom-tom. He said something to the jungle telegrapher in their native tongue and the drumbeater beat his drum. When he stopped, another drum picked up the beat in the distance. Then another, and another. After this, the process was reversed. The drumbeater said something to the other cannibal and he turned to me to interpret.

“Operator Nineteen says it’s against telephone company policy to relay any messages as you request.”

“Ask her if I can mail the money in stamps,” I said desperately.

The process was repeated.

“No,” I was told finally. “The telephone company has a regulation against that too.”

“But they’re always telling me they’ll refund my money in stamps!” I wailed. “It’s not fair.”

“Wait a minute. Something else is coming over.” More drumbeating, another exchange between the two cannibals, and then he turned to me again. “Operator Nineteen says she can charge it to your home telephone if that will be satisfactory.”

“Yes.”

“All right, your mother’s on the wire.” That was the word after another short wait.

“Hello, Mama?”

“What do you do with your money, you couldn’t even pay for a phone call?” the cannibal translated.

“Mama! I’m being held prisoner by cannibals! They're going to eat me!”

“Oy! Vey! Heartburn and indigestion they should get for the rest of their lives from such a diet and the kind of son you are, Stevie, and you could be sure they’ll get an ulcer just like you give to your mother. . . . There’s a doctor there?”

“We have a tribal witch doctor,” the young cannibal added in an aside to me.

“So tell her.”

“I can see you’ve never resolved your Oedipal conflicts,” Aleka observed.

“She wants to talk to the witch doctor. Okay?”

“Why not?”

“This is going to be a pretty expensive call,” the cannibal reminded me.

“You can’t take it with you,” I told him philosophically.

The witch doctor was summoned. I watched as the tom-tom operator relayed my mother’s message to him. Then the English-speaking cannibal explained the conversation to me.

“Your mother wants to know if he’ll lance a macka on your behind, and he says he will.”

“Considering what you’ve got in store for me, what’s the point?” I wondered.

“Just because we’re cannibals doesn’t mean we can’t be humanitarian,” my interpreter told me stiffly. “Your mother wants to know if you’ve got your Blue Cross card with you,” he added.

“It’s in my pants -- wherever they are. Which reminds me, why did you take all our clothes anyway?”

“Would you cook a chicken with the feathers still on it?”

I was sorry I’d asked.

My pants were produced and my Blue Cross card was taken out of the wallet in the back pocket. Meanwhile there was a discussion going on via the tom-tom between my mother and the witch doctor. As translated, it had to do with the witch doctor’s inexperience in the matter of lancing mackas. Evidently my mother was giving him explicit instructions how to sterilize the lance by boiling and how to approach the lancing of the boil itself. The witch doctor was professionally admiring. He sent back a message that he insisted on splitting his fee with my mother because of her engaging in consultation with him. liter much polite drumbeating, my mother accepted the offer.

“Your mother wants to talk to you,” the interpreter told me. “She says that now she can sleep nights knowing that at last your heinie will be macka-free.

“Ask her for her recipe for parboiled son,” I replied bitterly.

“She says it’s for your own good and you don’t own stock in Bell Telephone, so she’s hanging up now.”

“Sometimes,” I observed to no one in particular as the tom-tom operator left, “my mother is a pain in the ass!”

“You’ve taken the first step in confronting parental authority,” Aleka assured me.

Before I could reply, the witch doctor approached. He was holding a spear. The tip was red-hot. He beamed and bobbed his head at me as if to acknowledge what a truly remarkable woman my mother was. Then he walked around to the back of the stake. I craned my head over my shoulder and saw him drawing a bead on the macka.

“The AMA is going to hear about this,” I told him. “If I ever get out of here, I’m going to sue you for malpractice. As a matter of fact, I may even sue my mother!”

I watched him carefully. When his arm shot forward with the lance, I gauged the motion carefully and jumped. It worked. Instead of searing my tooshie, the red-hot spear point struck the knot securing the vines holding me to the stake. I was free!

I threw my body to one side, kicking out with one foot, and managed to trip up the witch doctor. He was so surprised he made no outcry, and none of the other cannibals noticed what was happening. Before he could think twice, I flattened him with a right to the jaw.

I grabbed up the spear and slashed Aleka’s bonds to shreds. Just as she threw them off, the young cannibal who spoke English came into view, saw what had happened, and let out a yell. Then he grabbed up a spear and hurled it at us. We ducked it successfully, falling back into the underbrush. I threw the spear I’d taken from the witch doctor back at him.

It also missed. But its flight carried it right past where Krapinadytch and Natasha were tied to their respective stakes. Krapinadytch grabbed the shaft as it went past. The last I saw of them, he was slashing away at the vines holding Natasha, taking advantage of the fact that the cannibals’ attention was on us.

Aleka and I went crashing through the jungle, the sounds of pursuit behind us. But we had an advantage in the fact that Aleka knew the area rather well. She guided me by a circuitous route until she was sure we’d shaken our pursuers. Then she led me back to her native village. It was dawn when we got there. The place was in turmoil. It seems a party of Pygmy warriors led by the Chief and Josef Dorembi had set out during the night to try to rescue us. They still hadn’t returned. However, just before we’d arrived, Kapinadytch and Natasha, both naked, had stolen into the unguarded village and kidnapped one of Aleka’s sisters. They’d been spotted leaving with her, but they’d gotten away.

I cursed. Now the Russians also had a Pygmy princess for Sheikh Ali Khat. All they had to do was get out of the jungle alive and deliver her. That could be no mean feat. But then I faced precisely the same problem.

However, mine was solved with surprising ease later that day when the Pygmy rescue party returned. The cannibals had evidently pulled up stakes and left, the Chief told me. While they were looking for them -- and us, Josef Dorembi added -- they had made contact with a Biafran artillery unit. When Dorembi told them he had intelligence information from Lagos, they had agreed to give him an escort to Biafran headquarters far behind the lines. He’d arranged for Aleka and me to go with him.

Three days later we were able to hitch a ride on a UN observer plane leaving Biafra. Josef bade us goodbye at the airport. As we took off, Aleka expressed some concern about her future.

“I hope I’m not too short for the Sheikh,” she said. “You’re just the right height,” I assured her, remembering, “Just the right height!”

CHAPTER NINE

“A genuine sabra³³ . . .”

Three little words. They were my next assignment. Simple! All I had to do was convince a Hagganah³⁴ maiden to join an Arab harem. What could be simpler?

Oy! Vey! And like I keep telling my mother, I’m not even Jewish!

Well, you don’t have to go to Sweden for a Swedish massage. You don’t have to go to France for a French kiss. And you don’t have to go to Spain for Spanish Fly. But for a sabra? Let’s face it: you’ve got to go to Israel.

So that’s what I did. I went to Israel. To Jerusalem, which turned out to! be a wrong guess.

There was trouble in Israel. Many of the Hagganah girls normally based in Jerusalem were off in the desert with their units fighting border skirmishes. Those who were left were kept on active duty in the Israeli-occupied Jordanian sector of the city. Trying to meet one of them was something like trying to make a date with a Marine in the middle of a beachhead landing.

Given the situation, I decided the best way to meet a sabra was to go to a kibbutz³⁵ . The Hagganah girls stationed at the border kibbutzim might be easier to get to know -- at least if I could catch one between Arab commando raids. These sabras doubled as farm workers, and when they weren’t militarily occupied, they might be inclined to relieve the tedium of picking vegetables by talking with an American visitor.

So here I was, three days after my arrival in Israel, picking peas in the hot sunlight blazing down on the fields of a kibbutz near the Jordanian border. Have you ever picked peas? Agricultural workers in the U.S. end up in the shape of a permanent question mark after a few years of such activity. After just one day I would have matched my aching back against the most arthritic spine in the geriatric ward of any major hospital. It was agonizing!

The reason for my pea-picking position was named Naomi ben Shik-Zah. Naomi was a genuine sabra, Israeli-born, a sergeant in the Hagganah currently detached from her unit for the dual purpose of helping in the harvesting of the crops and guarding this particular kibbutz against Arab commando attacks. She filled twenty-four hours a day with a maximum of pea-picking, a night-time stint at sentry duty, and a minimum of sleep. If I wanted to get to know her, the best way was to stoop-labor it beside her in the fields.

I’d settled on Naomi as the most likely prospect because she was extremely good looking-—a Junoesque brunette, strong, bursting with health, tanned to a deep, golden brown with white teeth and laughing eyes, full-breasted, round of hip, long-legged with slightly heavy thighs because of the muscles she’d developed there from her agrarian labors, and a sensual face with high cheek-bones and a firm jawline—and because she was one of the few girls at the kibbutz who was both unmarried and eligible for discharge from the army at her own request. I didn’t want to bring Ali Khat a sabra with a charge of desertion hanging over her head. Naomi had completed her term of service in the Hagganah and was staying on at the kibbutz on a voluntary basis.

Trying to keep up with her demon speed in gathering the peas, I gasped my way through a get-acquainted conversation with Naomi. I learned that she was twenty-one years old and had been born in Tel Aviv. She was extremely patriotic, dedicated to the mystique of Israel, and was violently anti-Arab.

“Have you ever heard of an Arab sheikh named Ali Khat?” I asked her casually, huffing the words as I stoop- walked beside her.

“I know of him. He’s an independent ruler-—not directly involved in the Arab government’s plot to wipe Israel off the map. Even so, he is very wealthy and his tacit support of the Arab position is taken for granted.” Her words flowed easily. She wasn’t out of breath at all—despite the fact that she was picking two bushels of peas to my one. “However,” Naomi added thoughtfully, '“he’s something of an enigma. He could have an important influence on events. Quite frankly, our intelligence on him hasn’t been too good.”

I filed that point away in the back of my mind. The rest of that day I spent cementing my relationship with Naomi and fusing my vertebrae. The next morning I had to go to the kibbutz infirmary, where a knowledgeable young chiropractor cracked them apart again.

The sun was well up in the sky when I went out to the fields to join Naomi. She wasn’t alone. Somebody new had taken my place in the row of peas beside her. They were talking as I approached. When I came close enough to make out the face of the newcomer, I did a double take and cursed to myself. It was Hauksho, the Japanese private detective employed by Venugotago Ugotago. The fat Jap (whatever happened to Spiro Agnew, anyway?) seemed to be explaining something very earnestly to Naomi. As I came within earshot, she was answering him.

“Really? But you don’t look Jewish,” she said.

“Ah, so?” Hauksho wasn’t worried about ethnic type-casting. He was inscrutable as hell.

“Of course, Jews have come from all over the world to help in the development of Israel,” Naomi said. “So why not from Japan?”

“Why not indeed?” Hauksho agreed.

“Are you Orthodox or Conservative or Reformed?” Naomi asked.

“I’m Zen-oriented. It’s an Oriental branch that’s rather hard to define by Western terms.”

“Oh. . . . Hello, Steve.” Naomi greeted me.

“Hi.” I turned to Hauksho. “You’re working in my pea patch,” I told him coldly.

“We meet again, Mr. Victor.” He was equally cold.

“Go find your own row to hoe,” I snarled.

“Pick.” Naomi corrected me.

“Your pardon.” Hauksho stood his ground. “I was here first. I shall stay here.”

“The hell you were! I was pea-picking this patch yesterday!”

“That was a different row. Over there.” Naomi pointed. “We finished it.”

“Well, they all look the same,” I grumbled. “Anyway, I was picking with you.”

“But you weren’t able to keep up with me the way Mr. Hauksho does.” Naomi delivered the coup de grace.

“You’d better go over there with the children.” She pointed again.

“Remember Pearl Harbor!” I snarled at Hauksho nastily as I slunk away, defeated.

For the next couple of days I didn’t have much chance to talk to Naomi. She seemed always to be with Hauksho. I was beginning to despair, to think about moving on and seeking my sabra elsewhere. Then something happened that made that impossible. The kibbutz was attacked!

It was the middle of the night when the alarm was sounded. I found myself, half asleep, grabbing my pants and following the crowd to the makeshift wall of sandbags which had been set up around the area of the central compound of the kibbutz. At first it seemed a little late to hold that line. Arab commandos had already infiltrated, and most of the fighting was hand to hand inside the compound.

In the confusion, I found myself back to back with Hauksho. “I’m neutral!” he was trying to explain to an Arab diving at him with a bayonet. “I’m not involved. I’m just observing.” The Arab kept coming.

With a sigh, the pudgy Oriental stopped talking and sprang into action. He moved with amazing speed for a man of his weight. He deflected the bayonet with a karate chop to the riflebarrel and quickly followed it another to the side of the Arab’s neck. The attacker hit the ground like a felled tree and stayed there.

After that I lost track of Hauksho, save for the reassuring feel of his back pressed against mine. I was propelled into a game of catch with an Arab crouched behind a pile of sandbags. He threw a hand grenade at me, and I fielded it right-handed and tossed it right back to him. He scooped it up like a beanbag and it zinged into my hands again. Once more I returned it. This time he held onto it. He examined it with a disgusted look, then just dropped it. Evidently he’d concluded it was a dud and there was no percentage in throwing it back to me again. Fortunately for me, he was wrong. Seconds after he discarded it, the grenade exploded, and pieces of surprised Arab rained over the area.

As they were settling, a group of eight or ten commandos sprang up in their wake, leaped the barricades, and started charging across the compound. They all looked like they were headed straight for me. Their bayonets shone in the moonlight like hungry spits -- and I was seconds away from being a shish kebob!

Suddenly from my right there was a prolonged burst from a machinegun. It mowed the line of attacking Arabs down like so much grass. I looked toward the source of the bullets. Naomi was firing the machinegun.

“That’s one I owe you,” I called.

She smiled her answer. She was still smiling when another Arab dived on her from the rear and wrenched her away from the machinegun. Only her quick reflexes kept her from having her throat cut. Now he was trying again, wielding a long knife and trying to pin her to the ground so he could use it. I hustled over there and bashed in his skull with the butt of a rifle I’d picked up in the confusion.

By the time I’d helped Naomi to her feet, it was over. As suddenly as they’d come, the Arabs withdrew. We stood there, catching our breath, and watched them go.

“I guess we’ve driven them off,” I panted.

“No.” Naomi pointed. “Look.”

I looked. The Arabs had regrouped about a hundred yards from the compound, and they seemed to be setting up camp there. “What are they up to?” I wondered aloud.

“A siege.” Naomi was very sure. “From there they control the road. They’re going to cut off our supplies and try to starve us out. Also, they’ll keep us out of the fields and the crops will rot.”

“Will they attack again?”

“Probably they’re waiting for reinforcements. When they get here, they will.”

“And meanwhile. . . ?”

“Meanwhile,” Naomi told me, “I hope you like peas. You’re going to be eating a lot of them.”

She was right. During the next few days I ate peas till they were coming out of my - yeah, well, my ears too. During that time, I cemented relations with Naomi. I’d saved her life, and she was grateful, and that gave me an edge over Hauksho. I maintained the edge by sticking as close to Naomi as possible.

Naturally, she thought my interest was romantic. Under the circumstances, however, romance was no easy matter. The first night I kissed her, for instance, our grenade belts got hooked together and we damn near blew ourselves up disentangling them. And it seemed like every time we got into a clinch that looked like it might be going places, some strategic call to duty intruded and put an end to it. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have suspected Hauksho of manipulating these frustrations.

Still, things were warm between us and getting warmer. They were particularly warm the night the Arabs staged their second attack.

Naomi had gone into one of the storehouses to check the medical supplies. We’d received word that a caravan was on the way; but there was only a fifty-fifty chance it would get through the Arab blockade, and Naomi was trying to figure out how to ration such items as morphine among the wounded we already had if help didn’t reach us. I’d followed her into the storehouse, and she’d taken a break from her duties to snatch a few moments medium-torrid necking. I’d just removed her bra and inserted my head under her khaki shirt when the alarm sounded.

Emerging from the storehouse on the run, Naomi at my side and buttoning her blouse over her naked breasts as we sprinted, I could appreciate how Custer must have felt. I never saw so many howling Arabs! The reinforcements they’d been waiting for must have arrived all right.

Hordes of them-—it seemed-—were charging down on the compound on horseback. Behind them there was troop of cavalry on camelback. And behind them there were still more foot soldiers.

This was no mere commando attack. It looked more like a full scale invasion!

Naomi and I joined the kibbutz fighters at the well. They were a pitifully small band, and it was obvious that their valiant efforts would have to be in vain. Within a matter of moments half of them were dead and the rest had dispersed, either running into the desert, where the Arabs mercilessly rode them down, or trying to hide in various places around the compound.

Hopeless as it was, I practically had to drag Naomi away from the action. It was obvious that the Arabs were just mopping up, and I didn’t want us to be mopped. Exit Naomi was all for becoming a martyr. She came damn close to achieving her objective before I prevailed on her to run.

By that time the Arabs had the compound surrounded. It was useless to try to escape to the desert. We found a clump of palm trees and crouched down in the sand between their bases.

It wasn’t really a very good spot. It looked even less likely when some of the camel riders decided to tether their mounts to the trunks of the trees. With the beasts pawing around us, Naomi and I dug a hole in the soft sand with our bare hands, slipped into it side-by-side, and scooped sand over our bodies to keep from being detected. By the time we were through, only our noses and mouths protruded above the dune.

Our bodies were pressed closely together in our makeshift foxhole. Naomi’s braless breasts dug into one side of my chest and titillated me in spite of our predicament. Responding, my manhood burned against her thigh.

Our attention was distracted -- but our physical reactions didn’t wane -- when some Arabs set up a small table with an oil lamp on top of it a short distance from where we had buried ourselves. Then a chair was brought, and a tall Arab who seemed to be in command sat down at the makeshift desk. We had a nice clear view of him between the legs of the camels tied to the palm trees.

One after another, various Israeli prisoners were led up to him. He disposed of them quickly, consigning them to a guarded area where the prisoners were being collected. My guess was that he was hoping to discover an Israeli of higher rank from whom he might extract some intelligence information. The first time he seemed to show more than cursory interest in any of the captives was when Hauksho was led up to him.

“You don’t look Jewish,” he observed.

“I’m not,” Hauksho told him.

“He lied to me!” Naomi whispered in my ear. The whisper rode on warm breath which sent a tingle down my body. I patted her plump bottom by way of calming her.

“Then what are you doing here?” the Arab commander asked reasonably.

“I’m an international observer.” Hauksho was very smooth. “Here are my papers.” He handed them to the Arab.

The Arab studied them. “You are a Japanese national?” he said finally.

“Yes.”

“How do the Japanese feel about the Jews?”

“Some of my best friends--”

“The hypocrite!” Naomi bit my ear in her anger. I kissed her to silence her.

“Then your government supports the Israeli aggressors?” the Arab commander was asking.

“My government is neutral, and so am I.”

“Yet you were fighting with the Jews.”

“I was merely defending myself.”

“I see.” The Arab drummed his fingers on the table. He looked like he was mulling over the international ramifications of holding Hauksho prisoner. Finally he reached a conclusion. “You will be free to leave as soon as transportation is available,” he told Hauksho.

“And my fiancee?” Hauksho asked blandly.

“Your fiancee?” the Arab asked.

“His fiancee?” Naomi muttered.

“You are holding her prisoner over there.” Hauksho pointed to the area where the guards were holding the Israeli captives.

“You mean you’re engaged to an Israeli?” The Arab commander looked confused.

“That is correct.” Hauksho was brazen.

“Well, I can’t do anything about that. She is an enemy and a prisoner.”

“What’s he up to?” Naomi whispered.

“I think I know,” I told her. “But it’s a long story.” I stroked her breast companionably.

“Now look.” Hauksho reasoned with the Arab. “You have it in your power to do the Arab countries a great service: to improve their image among all of the neutral nations, to portray your cause as one administered by men who are merciful, humane, civilized.”

“Explain yourself.”

“Love makes the world go round,” Hauksho told him cryptically. “And all the world loves a lover. More, all the world loves those who help lovers. Allow my fiancee to leave with me, and I will see to it that word of Arab humanitarianism is spread throughout Japan and Asia.”

“Hmm.” The Arab mulled it over. “Which one is she?” he asked finally.

“Come. I will point her out.”

The Arab commander accompanied Hauksho over to where the prisoners were gathered. Hauksho studied them carefully and finally pointed out a girl. They came back to the outdoor table, and a moment later an Arab guard brought the girl to them.

“Your name?” the Arab commander asked the girl.

“Rebecca Wisitsky.”

“She is your fiancee?” the commander asked the Japanese.

“Yes.” Hauksho turned to the girl. “Rebecca, my darling.” He kissed her.

“You’ve got wet lips,” she complained.

“My little pigeon; at last we will be able to marry.”

“The first thing I’m going to do is put you on a diet,” Rebecca assured him.

“All right,” the Arab commander told them. “You’re free to leave. Transportation will be provided for you in the morning.”

The happy couple walked right past us as they left. “Do I really have to marry you?” Rebecca whispered, whining.

“Would you rather be a prisoner of war?”

“I guess not.”

“Well, don’t worry. My intentions are not honorable. I have other plans for you besides marriage. Have you ever thought of what it might be like to join a harem?”

They passed out of earshot.

“Well, at least he saved one sabra,” Naomi observed.

“Yeah. He’s pretty slick all right,” I grumbled.

“Oh! Oh! Look!” Naomi panicked and clutched at me. I looked. One of the camels had strolled over to where we’d buried ourselves and was now standing directly over us. I vibrated—mostly in response to Naomi’s quivering against me.

“Suppose he decides to lie down here?” Naomi’s voice was shaking.

"‘Don’t think about it.”

“He’ll squash us!”

“Don’t think about it.”

“We’ll be buried in the sand!”

“Don’t think about it.”

“We’ll suffocate!”

“Don’t think about it.”

“Will you stop saying that! How can I not think about it with that great humped beast hanging over our heads? What am I supposed to think about?”

“Try thinking about this.” I ground my body against hers by way of taking her mind off the camel.

The sand shifted slightly, and I was engulfed in the warmth of Naomi’s thighs opening to my prodding. Her hand closed over the back of my hand and pressed it to the naked breast inside her blouse. I kissed her and she closed her eyes. Our tingling tongues blotted out the ominous presence of the camel above us.

I maneuvered my other hand down the length of her body. It located the belt to the pants. she was wearing, opened it, unzippered the pants and pushed them slowly down her thighs. She moaned in my ear as my fingers located the pulsating front of her womanhood. I brushed away some sand and dipped into the downy triangle covering it. The sand ran back over my fingers.

Naomi fumbled at my trousers with both her hands. She succeeded in pulling them down, but a cascade of sand quickly settled over the area she was trying to reach. She dug through it until she’d relocated her target.

“Ouch!” The fist enclosing me was unexpectedly rough and grainy.

“Damn sand!” she panted.

I grunted agreement. With one hand I continued to stroke her warm, moist womanhood. With the other I kept brushing away the encroaching sand. Her hands were busy with me in similar fashion. The camel stood still, but swaying, over us.

Naomi let go. She shifted her body and dug her nails into my buttocks. I clambered over her, pierced a three-inch sand blanket, and finally established contact. Squirming, I firmed the contact, and we began moving with the rhythms of passion.

How can I describe it? It was both exciting and painful. The sand clinging to our organs was both a stimulant and an abrasive to the erogenous zones involved. But the pleasure had a slight edge over the pain, and we galloped onward, oblivious to the scraping the tender skin of our private parts was taking.

“Ahhhhh!” Mutually, we stifled the outcry of our release. Slowly, our bodies relaxed. Immediately, I became aware of the fiery rawness down below.

“Ooohh!” So had Naomi.

It was then that the camel moved. Just a few steps. Forward. He half-kneeled. Squatted? His hind-quarters were directly over our faces.

“Ohmigod!” Naomi exclaimed. “He’s going to-” It was too late. He did. He hadn’t sat on us. He’d shat on us!

Before I could stop her, Naomi screamed. The camel bolted away, half finished. Several Arabs came up on the run as we pulled ourselves up out of the mess of sand and dung. We both clutched our pants at our waists, trying to fasten them, as the Arabs marched us over to where the commander was still sitting at the table with the oil lamp on it.

“Phew!” He greeted us. “Would you mind not standing to windward?”

The Arabs pushed us around to the other side of the table.

“Now, who might you be?” the commander asked, holding a kerchief to his face.

“My name is Steve Victor, and I’m a representative of the Sheikh Ali Khat,” I replied.

“You are? And why, may I ask, is a representative of the Sheikh Ali Khat rolling around in camel dung with a sabra?”

“That’s a long story. But this young lady isn’t a sabra. She’s a member of the Sheikh’s harem.”

“Really?” The commander sniffed. “Well, every sheikh gets his kicks different ways. Still, camel dung . . .”

“That was an accident.”

“If she’s a harem girl, why is she dressed like a sabra?"

“Her clothes were lost in the confusion,” I told him. “You can see for yourself she hasn’t even had time to get these on properly.” I pointed toward where Naomi was clutching the pants to her waist.

“I don’t see why she’s trying to put them on at all. I should think she wouldn’t be able to wait to get out of them and have them fumigated.”

“If you’d be so good as to provide other clothing . . .”

I suggested arrogantly. “Out of respect to the Sheikh,” I added.

“Well, all right.” The commander agreed reluctantly. It was obvious that he had doubts about my story, but he wasn’t about to take the chance of offending Ali Khat. “You can bathe and put on some clean clothes while I radio to higher authority,” he decided.

Never had a shower been so welcome! Never had clean clothes felt so good. Just as I was finishing dressing, a messenger came, and the Arab guarding me was instructed to bring me back to the commander. Naomi was already there, looking clean and fresh and feminine, when I arrived.

“Your story has been checked out,” the commander told me. “I’ve been instructed to arrange for the two of you to be delivered to Sheikh Ali Khat by helicopter in the morning. I don’t understand any of this,” he added.

“War is hell,” I told him sympathetically.

He was still shaking his head, however, when he saw us off the following morning. When the copter was in the air, Naomi turned to me and confessed that she was just as confused as the Arab commander had been. “But I’m grateful,” she added. “It’s good to be free.”

“You’re not quite free,” I told her. “You’re going to have to join the harem of Sheikh Ali Khat. Otherwise, he’ll simply return you into Arab custody.”

“Never!” Naomi was indignant. “Do you think I’ll consent to be an Arab’s concubine? I’d sooner die!”

“And I thought you were a patriot,” I told her.

“I am! What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you tell me yourself that the Israelis are unable to get decent intelligence reports on Ali Khat and his involvement with the Arabs fighting against you?”

“That’s right. So what?”

“Well, here’s your chance. What better place to get such information than inside the Sheikh’s private harem?”

“Oh! You mean I should be a spy!”

“Why not?”

“But won’t I have to make love with him?”

“We all have to make sacrifices for our country.”

“All right. But I won’t enjoy it.”

“You don’t have to. As long as he does.”

“I’ll do it,” Naomi decided. “But it’s one hell of a fate for a sabra!”

I sympathized. But all the same I was feeling smug about it. Four down and one to go. I wondered how the competition was doing. Four down and one to go.

Who would that one be?

CHAPTER TEN

"Excuse me, Miss, are you a virgin?”

Walk up to an American girl on the street, ask the question, and she’ll deny the accusation vehement1y—-even if she is one. Try it on an English girl and she’ll slap your face—-even if she isn’t! A French girl will wink and leave you guessing. And a Scandinavian girl? A Scandinavian girl will just shrug the question off as irrelevant.

That was my problem. Most Scandinavian girls just won’t be bothered keeping track of such things. It’s not that they’re more promiscuous than other girls; it’s just that they’re less hypocritical. The whole attitude is different.

To come to grips with that attitude, I had traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark. I arrived there a few days before Christmas. I was carrying around the details of my last assignment in my head.

“A Danish redhead, unmarried, over twenty-one, a virgin."

A virgin!

“That won’t be too easy.” Leila, having swapped me the final assignment for Naomi ben Shik-Zah, took the time to be sympathetic. “And time is running short for you,” she added. “Don’t forget, all entries must be submitted no later than midnight, December thirty-first.”

“Yeah. I know,” I sighed. “But at least the competition has the same problem ”

“Not exactly. Four of them have already completed all, the assignments. Hauksho just came in this morning.”

“How the hell did he manage that?” I wondered. “He was only a step ahead of me in Israel.”

“He delivered the sabra and the Danish virgin together,” Leila told me. “It seems he met her in Jordan. She’s the daughter of a UN observer.”

“The lucky so-and-so. So who’s left? Me and the Russians?”

“No. The Russians are also finished.”

“Too bad. I figured maybe they never got out of the jungle. But if it’s not them, who is it?”

“Senhor Di Arrea, the Brazilian. His agent, Nina Procura, is tied with you for last place. You both have until New Year’s Eve to finish the last assignment.”

So, with Leila’s words ringing in my ears, I’d hopped a plane to Copenhagen. Now here I was, two days later, going through the yellow pages of the Copenhagen telephone directory and calling gynecologists. I simply didn’t have any better ideas!

“Hello, Dr. Kuntkvetzch, my name is Steve Victor. I’m an American and I’m doing a survey for the Organization for the Rational Guidance for Youth, and I wonder if I could impose on you for your professional cooperation? . . . Thank you, Doctor. It’s really very simple. I’d just like the answers to some questions which may strike you as odd, but which are intrinsic to the study on which I’m working. . . . First, do you have any unmarried female patients between the ages of twenty-one and-—oh, say twenty-nine? . . . You do? Good. Now, in this group, are there any with red hair? . . . Fine. Fine. Now, and this is crucial, are any of these redheads virgins? . . . Yes, Doctor, I know this is Copenhagen, but— No, it’s not some kind of American joke, it’s— If I’m looking for a virgin in Copenhagen I should check pediatricians instead of gynecologists? Thanks a whole bunch!”

I hung up, dialed again, introduced myself, and then asked the crucial question. “Now tell me, Dr. Qvimzdredj, do you have any redheaded virgins among your patients? . . . What’s so damn funny, Doctor? . . . Doctor, will you please stop laughing? . . . No, I don’t want to hear the one about the traveling salesman and the reindeer’s daughter!”

I slammed down the phone, called the next gynecologist, went through my intro again, and then got down to cases. “I’m looking for a young redheaded virgin. . . . No, not that young! Over twenty-one. . . . No, I haven’t tried the Home for Hopeless Female Paraplegics! I want a healthy virgin! . . . Damn it, no! I haven’t discussed this hang-up with my analyst! And it’s not a hang-up! There’s nothing personal in this! . . . What? I should try a convent! What kind of a--? . . . Oh. I see. On Christmas Eve? Yes, I know that’s tonight. Well, thanks very much, Doctor. That may turn out to be very helpful indeed.”

I put down the telephone slowly, thoughtfully. What had at first seemed like sarcasm on the part of the doctor now appeared to be the first bit of hopeful advice I’d received. A convent girl! And on Christmas Eve, he’d told me, the young ladies of the Ohlpühr Convent School, one of the strictest such establishments in the vicinity of Copenhagen, were brought to Frederikskirke, the famous domed marble church, to take part in the worship service.

So I went to church on Christmas Eve to look for a virgin. No sacrilege intended, but what better place?

The service was beautiful. However, I couldn’t really enjoy it. I was too busy trying to pick out a redhead among the girls of the Ohlpühr Convent School.

I’d seated myself at the very back of the huge church. The girls were all seated in a group about halfway to the pulpit. Wouldn’t you know it! Their heads were all covered by the cowls of the school capes they were wearing.

After the service they gathered in small groups on the wide steps in front of the Frederikskirke and stood chattering. I passed among them and eavesdropped. I learned that they were just about to start their once-a-year vacation. Most of them were waiting to be picked up by parents.

I spotted one girl standing alone. There was an undecided air about her. I moved closer to her. Her cowl had slipped back. She was a redhead!

“Merry Christmas,” I greeted her.

“Merry Christmas.” She smiled.

I m from America and you’re the first Danish girl I’ve ever wished a Merry Christmas to,” I told her.

“You’re the first American I’ve ever had wish me a Merry Christmas.” There were light freckles on her cheeks, and now they disappeared into deep dimples. “Indeed, she added, you re the first American with whom I’ve ever spoken.”

There was a lazy snow falling. I looked up at it, and then back at the redhead. “It’s snowing,” I remarked.

_“Are all Americans so observant?” Her green eyes twinkled.

“Are you waiting for someone?” I took the bull by the horns.

“Alas, no.” She sighed. “Every Christmas my uncle used to meet me. But last year he died.”

“I’m sorry.”

‘“I’ll probably just go back to Ohlpühr and spend the holidays at the school.” She sighed again.

“That doesn’t sound very satisfying. Do you have to?”

“No. I don’t have to. But I have no place else to go.”

Why not spend the holidays in Copenhagen?” I suggested.

“I’d love to, but . . .”

“Is the problem financial?” I asked delicately.

“I’m afraid it is.”

“Suppose you had a job?” I tiptoed up to my gambit.

“What kind of job?”

“Say as guide to an American tourist for the next few days.

“Are you serious?”

“I am. I’ll provide room, board, and seventy-five American dollars for the week.”

She thought it over a moment. “Accepted!” she decided finally. “I’m at your service, Mr.-—?”

“Victor. Steve Victor. And you can call me Steve.”

“My name is Ingrid Eriksenn.”

“Merry Christmas, Ingrid.”

“Merry Christmas . . . Steve.”

I took her arm and we went down the church steps together. We went back to the hotel and I got her a room there. I said good night to her at the door. Hell, you can’t rush things with a girl fresh from the convent school.

Bright and early the next morning, Christmas Day, we met for breakfast. She’d worked out an itinerary for the day. Since most other places were closed, it was an itinerary of Copenhagen churches. We spent the entire day going from one Christmas service to the next. By the time Christmas Night was over, I was ready to shoot the next choir boy I heard caroling “Silent Night” in Danish.

The next day we toured the museums. The day after that it was art galleries. And still I was no closer to luring Ingrid to the harem of Sheikh Ali Khat.

That night I decided I’d have to push it. I told her I wanted to see some of the Copenhagen night life. I was afraid she might disapprove, but on the contrary, she was eager for the experience.

“The girls at the school used to whisper about what goes on in the Copenhagen night clubs,” she told me. “But I never thought I’d have the chance to really find out for myself.”

So Ingrid and I went bar-hopping. By the time we’d settled down to watch the spicy floor show in the third joint on our itinerary, I realized something about Ingrid. She wasn’t used to drinking. Liquor made her talkative. It also made her dizzy. I stopped ordering drinks for her. I didn’t want her to get sick. She pouted, but she was too excited and happy about our nitery excursion to spoil it by staying mad. Soon she was bubbling with conversation again.

“Do you know this is the first time I’ve ever seen a naked woman,” she told me, pointing at the stripper just finishing her routine.

“Really? But I thought you went to an all-girls’ school.”

“Yes. But it’s very strict and very proper. We’re not allowed to undress in front of each other. . . . Oh, it’s so damn dull there! I hate it.”

“Then why do you stay there? I mean, you told me before that you’re over twenty-one. Surely you’re free to leave if you want to.”

“You don’t understand. I’ve been there since I was six years old. That’s when my parents died, and my uncle, who was my guardian, sent me there then. It’s the only life I’ve ever known. Even though I could have left any time this past year, I was afraid to. But after this week, I shan’t be afraid any more. Now that I see what life can be like, I’m never going back.”

“You’d better be careful,” I advised her hypocritically. “After all, you haven’t had very much experience with men.”

“Very much experience!” Ingrid echoed. I haven t had any experience! None at all! At my age! Isn’t that awful? But what can I do about it?”

“I’ll see if I can’t think of something,” I murmured.

I thought of something. Much later that night, when we returned to the hotel, I suggested that we have a nightcap in my room. Ingrid readily agreed.

I held it down to one drink. After our night of carousing, I was none too sober myself. And Ingrid was still decidedly tiddly.

“I’ve never been alone in a man’s room before,” she told me.

“Well, you’ve led a sheltered life.”

“I suppose so. But we did used to talk at school. I mean, I’m not all that innocent. I can guess what’s going to happen next.”

“You can?”

“Of course. You’re going to kiss me.”

“I am?”

“Aren’t you?” She sounded worried.

“Sure thing.” I kissed her.

“Would you believe that’s the first time I’ve been kissed—I mean, really kissed?” Ingrid sighed.

“Yep.”

“Was I that bad?”

“Nope.” I kissed her again.

“You didn’t do it!” she exclaimed when the second kiss was over.

“Do what?”

“With the second kiss you’re supposed to stroke my breast. That’s what the boys all do, according to the girls at school. And with the next kiss you slip your hand inside my blouse.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.” I kissed Ingrid again and slipped my hand inside her blouse. It was so well filled that there wasn’t really room for my hand, and so I started unbuttoning it.

“You’re not supposed to do that until a little later,” she told me. “Oh, but I forgot,” she added. “You’re an American. And American men always rush things.”

“It’s part of our national heritage.” I undid her bra and stroked both her breasts simultaneously. There was a light sprinkling of freckles in the wide cleavage between them. Ingrid’s red hair tickled my ears as she kissed the back of my neck when I bent to press my lips to one of the bright red nipples.

“Ahh,” she moaned. “This was really worth waiting for.”

“About this new life you’re contemplating,” I murmured, remembering my mission. “Have you ever thought of traveling? To the Middle East, say?”

“Don’t talk now,” she said. “Your lips tickle when you talk. What’s that?” The lower half of her body pulled back as she felt me pressing against her.

“Well, that’s . . . umm . . .”

“Oh, I know!” Ingrid clapped her hands. “The girls used to talk about men having that. Only they were so vague. Something about when a man gets excited it gets bigger and . . . uh . . . Oh, they must have been putting me on.”

“No, they weren’t,” I assured her.

“Could I—-could I-could I see it?” She blushed prettily.

“All right.” I unzipped my pants.

“Oh, my! I never dreamed it would be so—- And are you really supposed to put that—- But how-—?”

“Nature arranges things,” I told her reassuringly. “One of these days you’ll find out for yourself.”

“One of these days?” She was gasping and her plump young breasts were rising and falling quickly. “Why not right now?”

“Well, you’re a virgin, and I don’t want to—”

“Oh.” She thought about that a moment. “How do you know I’m a virgin?” she asked finally.

“Well, I sort of take it for granted. I mean, you are a virgin, aren’t you?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” She undulated her body teasingly. Her bare breasts swung provocatively. One of the hard little nipples just grazed my cheekbone.

“Then I’ll find out,” I decided. I pulled her to her feet in front of me and pulled her skirt down over her hips. I performed the maneuver so that her panties slid down to her ankles with it. Then I peered closely at the red triangle of curls quivering under my nose. “I guess you’d better lie back down,” I told her.

“All right.” Ingrid stretched out on the couch and I knelt between her thighs to examine her again.

“Are all men like doctors at times like this?” she asked.

“Well, no,” I granted. “It’s just that I’m trying to find out . . .”

“I didn’t think it would be so clinical the first time,” Ingrid complained. “I mean, you don’t even seem excited.”

“I don’t? Look again!”

“Oh! Yes! Can I touch it?”

“Be my guest.”

“If you want the answer to your question, wouldn’t it be better to use this instead of your hands?” She stroked it awkwardly.

“Well, yes, but if you’re a virgin--”

“If you’re going to keep throwing that up in my face, I’m not going to let you find out at all!” Ingrid crossed her legs firmly and pushed me away. “Either you do it the right way, or not at all!”

“But—! Oh, all right.” I figured that if I was very careful and proceeded very slowly, I could just find out what I wanted to know without destroying the evidence.

I climbed carefully on top of her. Ingrid locked her knees under my arms and reached forward to dig her nails into my buttocks. Very slowly—tenth-of-an-inch by tenth-of-an-inch—-I set about investigating the status of her virginity.

Ahh! Ingrid was indeed a virgin! I poked very gently at the evidence.

That was a mistake. Ingrid reacted. She gouged at my bottom, and her lower body was seized by a spasm that propelled it upwards.

Oo-oops!

Ingrid wasn’t a virgin any more!

Damn! Damn! Damn! I cursed her. I cursed myself. Three days—you should pardon the expression -- down the drain!

Oh, well. What was done was done. No use crying over spilt . . . I spent the rest of that night and half the next morning satisfying Ingrid’s quest for experience. I figured I owed her that.

I gave her that afternoon and evening off. She went to bed. Alone. I sat up and brooded. I was right back where I started. I still had to find a Danish virgin for Sheikh Ali Khat. But even if I found one, how could I make sure without destroying the proof in the process?

I’d just have to cross that bridge again when I came to it. Meanwhile, time was running out. For lack of a better idea, I went to Tivoli Park later that night.

Tivoli Park is a cross between Coney Island and the Bronx Botanical Gardens with lots of Greenwich Village-style strip joints thrown in for spice. Like the Via Veneto in Rome, the Tivoli is world famous as a place to pick up girls. It wouldn’t be hard to meet a redhead there. But a virgin?

Trial and error? That hadn’t worked so well with Ingrid. But what other course was open to me? I brooded about it as I strolled along the crowded, noisy, brightly lit midway of the amusement park.

“Hello.” Deep blue eyes looked into mine invitingly. A smile . . . a smashing figure . . . and red hair!

“Hello.” I stopped so quickly I almost tripped over my feet.

“Looking for a girl?” Long lashes fluttered coquettishly.

“As a matter of fact, I am.”

“Will I do?”

“Well, now you just might do very nicely.”

“ Then come on.” She slipped her arm through mine. My place is close by. Ten dollars American. All right?”

“All wrong!” I sighed and disengaged her arm.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t suppose this is your first night, is it?” I asked hopefully.

“Of course not. Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’m no amateur.”

“I was afraid of that. You see, I require a virgin.”

“What! What do you want for ten dollars?”

“Sorry.” I walked away from her.

“Cheapskate American!” Her voice trailed me across the midway.

About ten feet away from me I spotted another redhead. From the rear she was terrific. She was wearing stretch pants and a ski jacket. The way the pants stretched over her derriere and hips, her shape was a dazzling study of female curves tapering down to long, slender legs. She was a tall girl and I wondered if her proportions were as impressive in other ways. I walked a wide circle until I had a clear view of her from the side. I still couldn’t make out her face, but her ski jacket was opened and the way her sweater was stretching over her breasts was an eye-filling compliment to their shape and size.

But what about her face? Did she look as good from the front? From the neck up? I completed the circle to see for myself.

She did. She looked just great. She would have been a perfect candidate, except-

Except she was Senorita Nina Procura, agent for Senhor Di Arrea, the Brazilian toilet manufacturer!

I reversed my field before she could see me. Then, staying well behind, I followed her. An idea was beginning to shape up in my mind.

Nina, if I’d pegged her right when we met on Paradise Island, was a Lesbian. That gave her a certain advantage in our current quest. She might be able to latch onto a redhead and determine her chastity without erasing it in the process. If she did, and I could somehow get the virgin away from her . . .

Unethical? Maybe. But hadn’t Cass Nova stolen my hippie chick right out from under my nose? Hadn’t Archibald Snoopleigh grabbed off my French fille in similar underhanded fashion? The Russians had tried to grab my Pygmy princess, and Hauksho had horned in on my sabra. So if that’s the way the game was being played, who was I to be tied down to Marquis of Queensberry rules? Answer: Hol’ onto youah groins, evahbody! Heah come de Victor!

So I followed Nina. I followed her that night. I followed her for the next few days. I followed her through six redheads.

One after another she discarded them. Like myself, Nina was finding it no easy task to locate a Danish virgin. And time was growing short for both of us; the New Year’s Eve deadline was coming awfully close!

Just before noon on December thirty-first, I peeked around a corner inside the Thorvaldsen Museum and watched Nina striking up a conversation with a seventh redhead. I tailed the two girls out of the museum and observed them as Nina bought the Danish redhead drinks in a swanky cocktail lounge. At about three in the afternoon, with the Danish chick pretty well swizzled, I trailed along as Nina took her up to her hotel room.

I was ready for that. When I’d decided to stake all my chips on Nina, I’d spread some of Randolph Austin’s money around among the staff of the hotel at which she was staying. It bought me the room next to hers, a tap on her phone, and a strategically placed hole in the wall of her room, through which I could see everything that happened there. Now I stationed myself at the peephole and watched.

“Why don’t we both get into something more comfortable?” Nina suggested as she ushered the Danish girl into the room. “I’ll lend you something of mine,” she added.

“Aw righ’.” The Danish girl was pretty drunk by now.

“What did you say your name was, dear?” Nina asked as she rummaged in the clothes closet.

“Karen Nodjetbjangg.”

“These Scandinavian names!” Nina shook her head. “Well, I’ll call you Karen and you call me Nina. Here” —- she handed Karen a particularly flimsy negligee-—“you’ll be more comfortable in this.”

“Aw righ’.” Karen took the negligee into the bathroom.

Nina took off her clothes and hung them in the closet. She paused a moment to admire her naked body in the mirror. I admired it too. So much so that I almost got my eyeball wedged in the peephole. Then she slipped into a black silk nightgown, a shortie with a V-neck.

“What you told me before. Was that really true?” Nina called to Karen in the bathroom. “You’ve really never had a man?”

“Uh-huh. I never even was off the farm until this week. My papa was very strict. That’s why I ran away. Bu’ I sure am going to make up for los’ time now that I’m in Copenhagen.” Karen emerged from the bathroom.

The negligee was transparent. It was easy to see why Papa Nodjetbjangg had kept Karen on a short rein. She was built for speed and bursting with sex.

“But are you over twenty-one?” Nina persisted.

“Sure. You want to see my birth certificate? I brought it along so I wouldn’t have any trouble getting a job as a topless waitress.”

“I’d love to see it.”

Karen produced the document from her pocketbook and handed it to Nina. The South American pimpess studied it for a moment, nodded to herself, satisfied, and handed it back. “You promise me another drink,” Karen reminded her.

“Of course.” Nina poured two drinks and handed one to Karen. “Let’s get comfortable.” She stretched out on the bed, propped herself up on the pillows, and patted the space alongside her. Karen shrugged, took a long sip of her drink, and then stretched out beside Nina. “You have such pretty hair,” Nina told her.

“It’s the same color as yours.”

“We’re always attracted to that which reflects our own good points,” Nina murmured, stroking Karen’s hair.

“Wha’ are you doing?”

“Just relax. I’m giving you a Swedish massage.”

“I thought you were South American.”

“I am. Hush now. Just relax.” Nina stroked her way down Karen’s body.

The negligee fell away from Nina’s hands. The Danish redhead was virtually nude now. Her body arched as Nina kneaded her milky, fluttering breasts. Her flat stomach rippled under the expert touch. The wisp of red curls below her navel undulated as Nina’s fingers explored the muscles of her inner thighs.

“Tha’ makes me feel all tingly,” Karen sighed.

“It’s supposed to.” Nina was crouching over Karen now. The shortie nightgown had ridden up over Nina’s haunches. Her high bottom, naked, protruded impudently. Suddenly Nina swooped down, lips pursed.

“Why are you doing that?” Karen gasped.

“Doesn’t it feel nice?” Nina’s voice was muffled. Her red hair splashed over Karen’s ivory thighs.

“Uh-huh!” Karen closed her eyes and bit her lips. Her hands grasped involuntarily at Nina’s head. Her body writhed under the Lesbian’s ministrations. “Whee-ee! It’s like going down on a roller coaster! Whee-ee!” Karen exclaimed after a couple of minutes. “Oh! Ahh! Oh! Whee-ee-ee-ee!”

As the last exclamation trailed off into a high-pitched scream of satisfaction, Nina’s head shot up, the moist lips still quivering, her tongue peeping out from behind them.

“You really are a virgin!” she exulted. “You really are!”

“I told you.” Karen sank back on the pillow, momentarily exhausted.

“You said you wanted a job. Is that right?” Nina asked. “Uh-huh.”

“Is there any reason why you have to stay in Denmark?”

“No.”

“How would you like to go to the Middle East?”

“I’d like it fine. But what are you talking about?”

“I have a job for you in a harem,” Nina told her.

“In a harem?” Karen thought about it. '“That sounds interesting,” she said finally. “What does it pay?”

“Room and board and five thousand dollars.”

“Five thou—-I’ll take it!”

“All right. You just stay right there and rest. I’ve got to make a phone call.” Nina walked across the bedroom to where the phone was. She dialed a number and spoke very softly into the mouthpiece.

It didn’t matter. All I had to do was pick up my own phone and I was cut right into her conversation. I listened with interest. Nina had chartered a jet plane to fly her to Paradise Island. Now she was telling the pilot to get ready, that they’d be leaving in about an hour.

Nina hung up and so did I. I’d have to work fast; that was obvious. Somehow I had to separate Karen from Nina. But how?

I was lucky. The problem was taken out of my hands. Nina herself solved it for me.

“You get dressed quickly,” she told Karen. “We’re leaving for Nassau right away.” As she was talking she was slipping out of her nightie and into a simple shift dress. “I’ll go downstairs and check out,” she added as she pulled on her shoes. “Meet me in the lobby as soon as you’re ready. And hurry.”

I almost applauded as the door closed behind Nina. I watched for a moment as Karen drunkenly shucked off the negligee and struggled into her clothes. When she finished pulling on her panty hose, I darted from my room and knocked on the door to Nina’s. I didn’t wait for an answer; I walked right on in.

“Who are you?” Karen looked up surprised.

“Nina sent me,” I told her. “You’re to come with me.”

“But she said to meet her in the lobby.”

“Something came up. She had to go on ahead. She asked me to bring you to the airport.”

“Oh. Aw righ’.” Docile, Karen followed me from the room to the elevator.

When we boarded it, I punched the button for the basement.

“Why are we going out this way?” Karen wondered when we got off the elevator.

“To avoid the crowd in the lobby,” I told her cryptically. I didn’t add that the crowd I wanted most to avoid consisted of only one person—Nina!

My luck held. A cab was just discharging a passenger as we emerged on the street. I hustled Karen into it. “The airport! And hurry!” I told the driver.

“Did Nina mean it when she said she’d get me a job in a harem?” Karen asked me as we sped toward the airport.

“What she meant was that she’d arrange for me to interview you about the job,” I improvised. “You see, I have the final say.”

“Oh. Well, what do you say?”

“Do you agree of your own free will to join a harem?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And do you acknowledge that I am the one procuring you for this employment?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“It’s important that you realize you’re not being hired by Nina, but by me. Is that all right?”

“Sure. Why not? I like you better anyway. I dig men.” Karen snuggled up against me.

“Just wait until you meet the Sheikh,” I advised her. “You’ll really dig him.”

“I can’t wait.”

The cab pulled into the airport. I hustled over to the Information counter. The girl there made a call for me and directed me to the runway where the private jet Nina had chartered was waiting. The pilot didn’t blink an eyelash when we boarded the small cabin plane. He’d been told to expect two passengers, and that was all he’d been told. We were cleared for take-off, and moments later we were in the air, on our way to Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

We’d been up about an hour when the pilot’s voice sounded over the p.a. in the cabin. “I just thought you’d like to know it’s midnight,” he said. “Happy New Year!”

“Happy New Year!” Karen flung herself on top of me and kissed me.

“Happy New Year,” I answered automatically when I’d pried her loose. “Happy New Year . . .” But my heart wasn’t in it. It was midnight, December thirty-first. That was the deadline. And we were still four or five hours from our destination. I hadn’t made it. I’d lost, and so had Austin.

Happy New Year? What was happy about it?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Happy New Year.” I pronounced the words glumly and ironically as I alighted from the plane at Nassau.

“Hurry up! Hurry up!” Randolph P. Austin greeted me. I’d had the pilot radio our ETA ahead to him. Now he grabbed me by the aim with one hand and Karen with the other and led us across the airstrip at a trot toward a waiting copter.

“What’s the hurry. We’ve lost,” I protested.

“Lost? Lost? What do you mean, lost?” He pushed us aboard the chopper and was still pulling the hatch door shut as it started to rise.

“I mean it’s too late. New Year’s Eve has come and gone.”

“The hell it has!” Austin glanced at his watch.

I aped his gesture and looked at my watch. “It’s five-thirty in the ayem, January first,” I told him.

“It’s eleven-thirty p.m., December thirty-first,” he told me. “You must still be on Copenhagen time. Nassau is six hours behind. We’ve still got a half-hour to deliver the last girl.”

“Happy New Year!” I yelled. “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” I grabbed Karen and kissed her. “HA-A-A-APY NEWWWW YE-E-E-EAR!”

“It won’t be so damn happy if that pilot doesn’t move this crate. We’ve still got to make the delivery before midnight.” Austin was nervous.

He had reason to be. Even after the whirlybird landed, we had to trek across the grounds of the Sheikh’s Paradise Island estate to the main house before we could deliver Karen to one of his representatives. We made it with only seconds to spare. Just as our final candidate was acknowledged, a siren went off, horns were tooted and strains of “Auld Lang Syne” were heard ushering in the new year.

“Phew!” That’s how Austin greeted it. “We just made it.”

“What happens now?” I asked.

“In one hour we’re all to meet in the main ballroom downstairs. All of the toilet manufacturers and their representatives will be there, as well as all of the girls submitted for the Sheikh’s harem. The final judgment will take place then and the results will be announced.”

“That’ll just give me time to freshen up,” I told Austin. “I’ll see you later.” I left him and went up to my room.

As soon as I stepped into the shower, the telephone rang. Cause and effect! I dripped my way into the bedroom and answered it.

“Mr. Victor, I have some messages here for you.” It was one of the Sheikh’s staff. “Over the past two days there are eight messages for you to call Operator Nineteen, Miami, as soon as you come in. It’s urgent.”

My mother! Was she ill? My stomach tied itself into a Portnoy knot. “Will you get me Operator Nineteen right away?” I requested.

“In a moment, sir. There is also a ninth message.”

“Never mind that! Get me Operator Nineteen!” A heart attack, maybe? An accident? And I’d always neglected her! I was filled with guilt.

“But the ninth message is to ignore the first eight messages, sir. It’s from your mother.

“Oh! What did she say?”

“She says not to call Operator Nineteen, Miami. She says she’s been in touch with your doctor in Africa—that man really knows his business, why are you so foolish?—and found out you didn’t have the macka lanced. She says if that’s how you don’t take care of yourself, what else can a mother do but come herself and look after her son even if he doesn’t care about her. She says she’s on her way to Paradise Island, you should stay put, only for you would she set foot in the house of some Arab, he must be an anti-Semite, they all are. . . . That’s the message as close as I could get it all down, sir.”

“All right,” I said. “Thanks.” I hung up the phone and dripped my way back to the shower.

I was still brooding over my needless panic at Mama’s “urgent” phone calls when I went downstairs and joined the others in the main ballroom. They were all there: Rustwater and Cass Nova, John Rank Privy and Archibald Snoopleigh, Venugotago Ugotago and Hauksho, Krapinadytch and Natasha Jambonski, Senhor Di Arrea and Nina Procura, who had just arrived with fire in her eyes. Also present were all the hippie chicks, French skin-diving wives, Pygmy princesses, sabras, and Danish virgins gathered by the competition and myself. A few moments passed and then Sheikh Ali Khat arrived.

He had his entourage with him. Four of these gentlemen in turbans flanked him when he sat down at a long table on a dais at the front of the ballroom. He didn’t have to rap for order. With his appearance, there was immediate silence. It was a silence fraught with anticipation. The Sheikh introduced the four men at the table as the “preliminary judges” in the contest. He held up a sheaf of papers which he identified as their reports and added that he was now ready to come to a final judgment. “If you are all agreeable, we will proceed,” he informed us.

“Excuse me, Your Highness.” The speaker was Senhor Di Arrea. “Is this the proper time to file a claim asking for a rival’s disqualification on grounds of unethical procedure.”

“I suppose so. We might as well get all such claims out of the way now.” The Sheikh spoke patiently.

“Will you hear my agent, Senhorita Nina Procura?” the Brazilian asked politely.

“Very well.”

Nina was quivering when she stood up. Her arm was quivering as it stretched out. The finger pointing accusingly at me was quivering. “Senor Victor stole my virgin!” she snarled in a loud, shrill and— naturally—quivering voice.

“So what? The Aussies stole my French countess!” I retorted.

"‘And the Russians stole my sabra!” Archibald Snoopleigh protested.

“The Japanese kidnapped our American hippie!” Krapinadytch yelled.

“And the Brazilians made off with my Parisian noblewoman!” Cass Nova joined in.

“Wait.” Ali Khat held up his hand, and silence immediately replaced the accusations and counteraccusations. “There is nothing in the rules which says that one contestant could not appropriate another contestant’s candidate for the harem. Only final delivery counts. Whatever chicanery took place among you is no concern of mine. All such actions fall within the rules.” he decided.

There was some grumbling, most of it from Di Arrea and Nina, but for the most part the decision was accepted easily. I guessed that nobody’s hands were really clean. I watched as Di Arrea approached the Sheikh and they spoke in low voices. Finally Ali Khat shook his head firmly, and Di Arrea, looking defeated, left the room with Nina trailing after him.

“Since Senhor Di Arrea is the only one who did not complete the assigned tasks, he has been ruled out of the competition,” the Sheikh announced.

That left five of us. The Sheikh studied the reports of the preliminary judges a moment, and then asked that the Pygmy princesses line up for his appraisal. He strolled back and forth in front of them, and then told the one supplied by Cass Nova via Central Casting to step aside. A moment later he waved the New Guinea Pygmy and the Japanese candidate from the Philippines off the platform. Since all of Di Arrea’s candidates had followed him out, that left only Aleka and her sister--the Russian entry—up there.

Ali Khat took his time surveying both girls. Finally he told Aleka to step down. My heart sank. It seemed obvious that he preferred Aleka’s sister to Aleka and that this preference gave the Russians an edge.

“Wait!” Little Aleka stood defiantly in front of Ali Khat and addressed “Don’t take my sister. Take me!”

“I’m sorry,” the Sheikh told her. “But on points-—-”

“Points? What about us? Don’t we count?” Aleka demanded indignantly. “Have you considered the possible psychological harm you might inflict on a young girl by forcing her to participate in the sex life of a harem?”

“Forcing?” Ali Khat asked. “Who is forcing her? It is my understanding that she is here of her own free will.”

“That is not so. She was kidnapped. I am here of my own free will. My sister was brought here by force!”

“Is this true?” The Sheikh frowned. “Well.” He turned his wrath toward the Russians.

“Well, not exactly, Your Highness,” Krapinadytch hemmed and hawed. “You see, there were these cannibals and we didn’t have time to explain all of the details to the young lady in question. But--”

“Disqualified!” The Sheikh thundered. “Take your girls and leave. And return this princess to her people with my personal apologies.”

The Russians slunk out, defeated. The field was narrowing down. There were only four of us left in the running now. And with her sister out of the contest, I figured maybe I had an edge with Aleka.

But my edge was cut down almost immediately. The Sheikh lined up the blonde American hippie chicks, and the very first one he waved away was Norma Wilson, our candidate. There’s no accounting for taste. I would have picked Norma over at least two of the three remaining blondes.

Finally he did rule out two of the other three, and only the Japanese contestant was left on the platform. She was a high school girl they’d found in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury section. She looked younger than any of the other contestants, and maybe that’s what influenced the Sheikh.

Ali Khat jotted down some numbers on the score card he was keeping, and then motioned to the hippie Lolita to step down. Before she could comply, however, Archibald Snoopleigh was on his feet. “Excuse me, Your Highness,” he called out, “but I wonder if you would ask the young lady to remove her shoes?”

“Her shoes? But why?” Ali Khat looked puzzled.

“I happened to observe her sunbathing earlier today, and there’s something I’d like to show you,” Snoopleigh told him.

“Very well.” The Sheikh shrugged. “Please.” He nodded to the girl.

She took off her shoes, and Snoopleigh strode up to the dais. “Will you please sit down,” he told the girl. When she complied, he lifted one of her feet, held it up, and indicated that the Sheikh should come over and look at the evidence. “These are not the feet of a young girl!” Snoopleigh announced triumphantly.

The Sheikh peered at them. Then he took the girl’s hands in his and studied them. “But I don’t understand,” he said. “Her hands are the hands of a teenager!”

“But her feet!” Snoopleigh insisted.

“You’re right.” The Sheikh agreed. “You’re disqualified,” he told her.

“Good. Then I can go back to my husband and four children.” .

“But you aren’t supposed to be married,” Hauksho wailed.

“I fooled you! I’m a thirty-eight-year-old housewife. But I passed as a teenager. And even my hands didn’t give me away. And you know why?”

“No. Why?” Venugotago Ugotago asked philosophically.

“Because I use Ivory Liquid!”

“American culture wins again,” Hauksho sighed. “You just can’t beat Madison Avenue.”

“That’s all right. Even the kids’ pusher was fooled,” the girl consoled him. “That Ivory Liquid . . .” The rest of what she way saying was lost as she followed the disqualified Japanese from the room.

Ugotago, however, paused in the doorway. “Why could she not have used it on her feet as well?” he wondered aloud. He exited.

So we were still in there pitching when Ali Khat lined up the three redheaded Danish virgins for his perusal. But things didn’t look quite so good when he waved away two of them almost immediately. Karen was one of the two.

This time I couldn’t fault his judgment. The Rustwater candidate delivered by Cass Nova really did have it over the other two. Karen and the Aussie’s offering looked puny by comparison. This girl was a large, magnificently sculpted hunk of pulchritude. Well, I consoled myself, I really hadn’t had time to be choosy.

On the basis of her beauty alone, I was almost ready to throw in the towel. But not so Randolph P. Austin. My Texas buddy had an ace up his sleeve. Now he played it.

“Excuse me, Your Highness,” he said calmly, “but I must ask that the Rustwater candidate also be disqualified.”

“On what grounds?” Rustwater was on his feet with fire in his eye. However, beside him, Cass Nova had the look of a kid caught with jam on his face.

“Because she is not a she,” Austin announced. “She’s a he.”

“What the hell do you mean?” Rustwater demanded.

“Ask your boy there.” Austin pointed at Cass. “Ask him where he found her . . . him . . . it.”

“He found her in Stockholm. But she’s Danish. She was just there on holiday,” Rustwater insisted. “Isn’t that so?” he demanded of Cass.

“Oh yes. That’s so. That’s so.”

“I’m not questioning that,” Austin said smoothly. “But ask him where in Stockholm.”

“Well? Where?” Rustwater snarled at Cass.

“At the Institute for Gender Alterations,” Cass said in a whisper.

“What’s that? I can’t hear you!” Rustwater cupped his hand to his ear.

“At the Institute for Gender Alterations,” Nova said in a louder voice that quavered.

“I rest my case.” Austin sat down.

“Are you some kind of Commie degenerate or something?” Rustwater demanded of Cass. “That’s it!” He answered his own question. “You’re an infiltrator working for the Reds, and you did this deliberately just to screw me!”

“No. No!” Cass pleaded. “It’s just that time was running short and I wanted you to win, and besides, there’s nothing in the rules that says the virgin couldn’t have once been a man. Virgins are very hard to find in Scandinavia, Mr. Rustwater. I did the best I could.”

He’s right.” Rustwater shot Cass a withering look, then reversed himself and decided to keep on trying, “There is nothing in the rules about the virgin being a former man, Your Highness,” he pointed out to Ali Khat.

“There is now,” the Sheikh told him firmly. “I don’t-—as you Americans say—swing that way. You’re disqualified.”

“I’ll have you barred from every lot in Hollywood, you Bolshevik ninny!” Rustwater hissed at Cass Nova as they withdrew.

Now the Noah’s Ark of luscious ladies had been reduced to two of a kind. Only John Rank Privy was left as competition for Austin. He and Austin, Snoopleigh and myself, sat silently, with baited breath as Ali Khat went over all of the girls a second time. He revised his score card, consulted with the recommendations of his preliminary judges, then held a whispered conversation with the Judges themselves.

“Damn it! Privy’s got the edge,” Austin whispered to me.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because if it’s as close as it looks, he’ll win.”

“Why should he?”

“I found out before that he’s been so busy brownnosing that if Ali Khat stopped short, Privy’d have a busted snout. You know what he did? That Aussie bastard! He made the Sheikh a gift of an all-new bathroom. Completely modernized! Installed it right here in this house at his own expense! Why the hell didn’t I think of that? It could make all the difference.”

“Gentlemen.” As Sheikh Ali Khat spoke, Austin shut up and leaned forward on his seat. “I must tell you that it’s so close as to almost constitute a draw,” the Arab announced. “Only by the most careful scrutiny have I finally arrived at my decision. The winner is—” Ali Khat took a deep breath and left it hanging dramatically for a moment. — “John Rank Privy of Australia!” He finally dropped the axe.

“Damn! I knew it,” Austin groaned.

“However,” the Sheikh continued, “I do wish to congratulate you, Mr. Austin, and your representative, Mr. Victor, on the excellent quality of the young ladies you have provided. If there is no objection on your part I intend to ask them to join my harem even though they were not the winning team.”

“There’s no objection.” Austin tried gamely to conceal his disappointment. “It’s my pleasure that they please you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Austin. And I hope that you and Mr. Victor will remain here as my guests just as long as your business permits. We shall do our utmost to insure your comfort.”

His “utmost” turned out to be Leila. She was waiting for me, wrapped in flimsy gauze, perfumed and panting, when I went back up to my room. I took one look at her and decided that the Sheikh’s utmost was fine with me. There were a couple of erogenous zones I hadn’t explored yet with Leila, and I welcomed the opportunity to fill in the blanks.

“Well, you’re a great consolation prize,” I greeted her.

“I hope I will give satisfaction once again, Mr. Victor.”

The veil billowed lightly in the breath from her lips. A moment later I was inhaling it myself as I kissed her. Those large breasts with the hard rosebud tips pressed into my chest as we clinched. When the kiss was over, she took me by the hand and led me to the bed. The covers had been turned back.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she undressed me. When I was naked, she indicated that I should stretch out and relax. She stuck a cartridge in a stereo set on the other side of the room, and then she began to dance for me. The music was atonal, typically Arabian, slow and sensual. Lei1a’s movements were the same. What muscular control she had! Under the semi-transparent harem-girl costume she was wearing, each section of her anatomy seemed to move independently of the whole.

Her left breast rotated all by itself until the flimsy covering had slipped slowly from one shoulder and bared it to my view. The cherry-red nipple glistened as the breast, stationary now, stood out firm and proud.

Her right hip undulated into action now. By some intricacy of garb, the material slid away from it until first the hip and then the golden-tan buttock cheek was also bared. Over the top of the face-veil her dark eyes moved insinuatingly over my body and flashed with amusement at the reaction the dance had provoked.

It went on a while longer until Leila was left with only one piece of gauze knotted at the waist and hanging down in front to her ankles. Lightly, she leaped up on the bed and danced around me. The end of the long, wispy 1oincloth—if that’s what you call it-—tickled me maddeningly as she moved over me. Then for a finale, she swayed enticingly up my body, drawing the material up the inner surface of my thighs, over my groin and stomach and chest until she reached my face.

The electric material brushed my lips until they parted. My teeth fastened automatically over it. Leila pulled back, sinking down on her haunches as the dance came to an end. I raised my head, then set it down again. The result was that I pulled her toward me.

Leila nodded. That’s what she wanted. Using my teeth, I worked my way up the length of gauzy material until I’d reached the knot at the waist. It was loosely tied and opened easily. The last piece of cloth fell away from her body. The taut, scarlet evidence of her aroused womanhood was right over my chin. I slid down a little and teased it with my tongue. Leila’s nails dug into the back of my neck for a moment. Then she shifted position abruptly and impaled herself on me, falling forward so that the tips of her breasts grazed my chest. She buried her teeth in the muscle where my shoulder and neck met, and we began moving rhythmically together.

The things Leila could do with just that one part of her body! It was a tight-fitting glove-—-with a hand in it that clenched and unclenched! It was a vacuum cleaner nozzle with terrific rhythmic suction! It was a fluttering feather teasing the length of my manhood. And then it was a grinding, demanding animal force building mutual pleasure toward the mutual release of the juices of pleasure. The pressure mounted, until—

There was a bloodcurdling scream!

Startled, Leila lost her perch and fell backwards. A moment later we were both on our feet. I grabbed up my pants, pulled them on, and raced into the hall. Other people were coming out of their rooms in response to the shriek. Austin fell in beside me. Further down the hall I saw Privy and Snoopleigh coming toward us.

From the other end of the hall, another yell sounded. Everybody headed in the direction from which it had come. Before we reached it, a door was flung open and Sheikh Ali Khat emerged like a charging bull.

His face was purple with rage. The top of his body was naked. The cord which held his pantaloons around his waist was untied. He held the billowing trousers in place at his waist with one hand while he shook the other fist in the air.

“Where is that Leila?” he thundered.

“She is entertaining Mr. Victor,” an aide told him in a shaky voice. “What is the trouble, Your Highness?” he added.

“Was it not Leila who was privileged to spend last night in my bed?” the Sheikh demanded.

“It was, Your Highness.”

“I thought so. Leila!” The Sheikh took a deep, angry breath and then pronounced sentence. “Have her destroyed!” he intoned with finality.

“Destroyed? But Your Highness—”

“Have her destroyed!” he boomed. “She has given me some dread disease. Yesterday I was fine. Tonight, after having made love to her, I am a sick Sheikh.”

“What hurts you, Your Highness?” The Sheikh’s physician approached and spoke to Ali Khat in a soothing tone of voice.

“Nothing hurts me! But I have contracted some awful malaise, and only Leila can be to blame!”

“What are the symptoms, Highness?”

“My urine has turned green!

“Green?” The doctor scratched his head.

“Green! Have that venereal slut destroyed!”

“A moment, Your Highness.” Austin spoke up. There was a strange glint in his eye. I noticed that John Rank Privy looked suddenly discomfited. “When did you notice this?” Austin asked.

“Just now when I urinated.”

“Forgive my impertinence, Your Highness,” Austin continued, “but did you happen to flush the toilet before you relieved your bladder?”

“Why, yes. I did. You see, it was just installed by Mr. Privy, and I wanted to see if it really flushed silently as he said it did.”

“And did it?” Austin persisted.

“Yes. But what has that got to do with-—”

“Excuse me, Your Highness.” There was exultation in Austin’s voice now. “But the young lady has not given you a disease. And there is nothing wrong with you.”

“Of course not,” the Sheikh sneered sarcastically. “Doesn’t everybody pee green?”

“Anybody who uses that toilet might think he had,” Austin told him. “Isn’t that right, John?” He turned to Privy and asked the question sweetly.

Privy didn’t answer. His face just turned even redder.

“I demand to know what you mean!” the Sheikh ordered Austin.

“Of course, Your Highness. You see, Mr. Privy has a device built into his toilets so that when they’re flushed, a deodorant is automatically squirted into the bowls. This deodorant is colorless until it’s mixed with uremic acid—-urine—-and then it turns green.”

“Is this true?” the Sheikh demanded of Privy.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Privy admitted in a low voice.

“It’s just to avoid scares of this sort,” Austin continued smoothly, “that in the toilets we make the deodorant is chemically treated so that it won’t change color no matter what it’s mixed with.”

“I see.” The Sheikh shot Privy a distasteful look. “Is it not a good thing that I have not yet signed any contracts,” he told him. “You might have started a panic among all my people if I’d let you install toilets like this one. The deal is off, Mr. Privy. I hereby award the contract to Mr. Austin!” The Sheikh turned on his heel and vanished inside his room, slamming the door with finality behind him.

“Well, Steve, we’ve won!” Austin grinned from ear to ear.

“In that case, I guess I’ve earned some diversion,” I replied. “And it’s waiting for me right now.” I bade him good night and went back to my room.

Leila was waiting impatiently. She was stretched out on her back, and she held her arms up to me as I entered. I sprawled over her eagerly.

The glove of flesh vibrated! The suction drew me up . . . up . . . up . . . The feather tickled me maddeningly! And then the soft machine of Leila’s womanhood went into high gear, and we raced together toward that ultimate pinnacle of passion. But just as we reached it— The door to the bedroom burst open, and my mother came hurtling in like an Indian who’s just spotted General Custer himself in the heat of battle. “Stop what you’re doing when I’m talking to you!” She stood right beside the bed with her hands on her hips.

I looked at her over my shoulder. “Don’t you ever knock, Mama?” I asked.

“If you weren’t always doing such dirty things—-my son the sex maniac -- it wouldn’t matter if I knocked.” She looked around the room and raised her eyebrows, obviously impressed by the elaborate decor. Then she turned her attention to Leila, who was looking up at her in astonishment. “So what’s a bad girl like you doing in a nice place like this?” my mother demanded.

“She belongs here,” I answered for Leila.

“Shut up, you bum!” Mama bent over and peered into Leila’s face. “She doesn’t look Jewish,” she decided. She straightened up and stared down at my naked backside. “Still you didn’t lance the macka? No more stalling! Personally I’m going to take care of that right now!” She reached into her purse and came up with the icepick she’d taken from my kitchen back in New York. Then she lit a match and held it to the tip of the icepick until it started to turn red.

“She’s not Jewish!” Desperately, I tried to divert her back to her first concern. “She’s an Arab!”

“An Arab! AAAIIIEEE!” Mama stabbed with the icepick, and it hit right on target.

“OWWWWWW!” I screamed.

“OOOOOHHHH!” Leila echoed. Pulling away from the searing prick of the icepick, I’d slammed downward, and the movement had finished (for Leila, anyway) what I’d started before. Her whole body shook with tremor after tremor as her lust was released.

Between the pain of my lanced macka and the arousal brought about by Leila’s thrashing body, I was in an emotional turmoil. Not to mention the fact that my mother’s presence was bringing up all kinds of Oedipal guilt feelings. “Mama, what are you doing here anyway?” I asked when I could finally speak.

“When my son is in pain, where else should a Jewish mother be?”

“You’re not a Jewish mother! And you’re leaving!” I fought down all my guilt feelings. I stood up, wrapped a sheet around my lower body, and escorted my mother firmly and forcibly to the door.

“Where did I go wrong?” she groaned as I closed the door firmly behind her and locked it.

“You look tired,” Leila decided. “Lie down.” She stood up and motioned for me to stretch out on the bed. Then she lay down beside me with her head at my feet. Slowly, one by one, she began manipulating my toes.

“What do you call this?” I asked. .

“Where I come from,” Leila murmured, “they call it ‘Around the World.’ ”

“I’ve just been,” I told her. “More or less.”

“You don’t understand,” Leila told me, running her gauze-covered lips lightly up the inside of my leg.

“What don’t I understand?” My entire body was starting to tingle.

“ ‘Around the World’ is not a trip!” she explained. . . .

Notes

[←1 ]

The Tet Offensive by North Vietnam and the NLF (National Liberation Front), was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, launched on January 30, 1968, by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the United States Armed Forces, and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam. The name of the offensive comes from the Tết holiday, the Vietnamese New Year, when the first major attacks took place.

[←2 ]

Make love, not war is an anti-war slogan commonly associated with the American counterculture of the 1960s. It was used primarily by those who were opposed to the Vietnam War, but has been invoked in other anti-war contexts since. The "make love" part of the slogan often referred to the practice of free love that was growing among the American youth who denounced marriage as a tool for those who supported war and favored the traditional capitalist culture

[←3 ]

Ngô Đình Nhu (7 October 1910 – 2 November 1963) was a Vietnamese politician. He was the younger brother and chief political advisor of South Vietnam's first president, Ngô Đình Diệm. Although he held no formal executive position, he wielded immense unofficial power, exercising personal command of both the ARVN Special Forces (a paramilitary unit which served as the Ngô family's de facto private army) and the Cần Lao political apparatus (also known as the Personalist Labor Party) which served as the regime's de facto secret police

[←4 ]

Nguyễn Cao Kỳ (8 September 1930 – 23 July 2011) served as the chief of the Republic of Vietnam Air Force in the 1960s, before leading the nation as the prime minister of South Vietnam in a military junta from 1965 to 1967. Then, until his retirement from politics in 1971, he served as vice president to bitter rival General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, in a nominally civilian administration.

[←5 ]

Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (5 April 1923 – 29 September 2001) was the president of South Vietnam from 1965 to 1975. He was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), became head of a military junta, and then president after winning a scheduled election. He established rule over South Vietnam until he resigned and left the nation a few days before the fall of Saigon and the ultimate North Vietnamese victory.

[←6 ]

Hồ Chí Minh (19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969) was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader who was Chairman and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam. He was also Prime Minister (1945–1955) and President (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 as well as the People's Army of Vietnam and the Việt Cộng during the Vietnam War.

[←7 ]

Parodic reference to the Captain Marvel comics hero, created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan in Marvel Super-Heroes #12 (December 1967)

[←8 ]

Spiro Theodore "Ted" Agnew (November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) was the 39th Vice President of the United States, serving from 1969 to his resignation in 1973. He was the second and most recent vice president to resign the office, after John C. Calhoun in 1832.

[←9 ]

Richard Joseph Daley (May 15, 1902 – December 20, 1976) was an American politician who served as the 38th Mayor of Chicago for a total of 21 years beginning on April 20, 1955, until his death on December 20, 1976. In August, the 1968 Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago. Intended to showcase Daley's achievements to national Democrats and the news media, the proceedings during the convention instead garnered notoriety for the mayor and city, descending into verbal outbursts on the part of politicians, and a circus for the media. With the nation divided by the Vietnam War and with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy earlier that year serving as backdrop, the city became a battleground for anti-Vietnam war protesters who vowed to shut down the convention. Confrontations between protesters and police turned violent, with images of this violence broadcast on national television. During his speech nominating George McGovern, Abraham A. Ribicoff , went off-script, saying, "And with George McGovern as President of the United States, we wouldn’t have to have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago." Ribicoff also tried to introduce a motion to shut down the convention and move it to another city. Many conventioneers applauded Ribicoff's remarks but an indignant Mayor Daley tried to shout down the speaker. As television cameras focused on Daley, lip-readers throughout America claimed to have observed him shouting, "Fuck you, you Jew son of a bitch."

[←10 ]

Haight-Ashbury is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. The neighborhood is known for its history of, and being the origin of, hippie counterculture.

[←11 ]

Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916 – December 10, 2005) was an American politician, poet, and a long-time Congressman from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. McCarthy sought the Democratic nomination in the 1968 presidential election, challenging incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson on an anti-Vietnam War platform. McCarthy would unsuccessfully seek the presidency five times.

[←12 ]

Lester Garfield Maddox Sr. (September 30, 1915 – June 25, 2003) was an American politician who served as the 75th Governor of the U.S. state of Georgia from 1967 to 1971. A populist Democrat, Maddox came to prominence as a staunch segregationist when he refused to serve black customers in his Atlanta restaurant, in defiance of the Civil Rights Act. In 1968, Maddox endorsed George Wallace, the then pro-segregation American Independent Party candidate in the 1968 presidential election.

[←13 ]

Eugene McCarthy.

[←14 ]

William Frank Buckley Jr. (November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded National Review magazine in 1955, which had a major impact in stimulating the conservative movement; hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line (1966–1999) In the late 1960s, Buckley disagreed strenuously with segregationist George Wallace, who ran in Democratic primaries (1964 and 1972) and made an independent run for president in 1968, and debated passionately against Wallace's segregationist platform in a broadcast on Firing Line.

[←15 ]

Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American politician who served as the 38th Vice President of the United States from 1965 to 1969. He twice served in the United States Senate, representing Minnesota from 1949 to 1964 and 1971 to 1978. He was the Democratic Party's nominee in the 1968 presidential election, losing to Republican nominee Richard Nixon.

[←16 ]

Abbot Howard Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist, anarchist, and revolutionary who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies"). Hoffman was arrested and tried for conspiracy and inciting to riot as a result of his role in protests that led to violent confrontations with police during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, along with Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale. The group was known collectively as the "Chicago Eight”. While the defendants were initially convicted of intent to incite a riot, the verdicts were overturned on appeal. Hoffman continued his activism into the 1970s, and remains an icon of the anti-war movement and the counterculture era. He died of an intentional phenobarbital overdose in 1989

[←17 ]

The Youth International Party, whose members were commonly called Yippies, was an American radically youth-oriented and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the 1960s. It was founded on December 31, 1967. They employed theatrical gestures, such as advancing a pig ("Pigasus the Immortal") as a candidate for President in 1968, to mock the social status quo. They have been described as a highly theatrical, anti-authoritarian and anarchist youth movement of "symbolic politics"

[←18 ]

Horace Julian Bond (January 14, 1940 – August 15, 2015) was an American social activist and leader in the Civil Rights Movement, politician, professor and writer. While a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the early 1960s, he helped to establish the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

[←19 ]

Irwin Allen Ginsberg (June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet, philosopher, writer, and activist. He is considered to be one of the leading figures of both the Beat Generation during the 1950s and the counterculture that soon followed. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism and sexual repression and was known as embodying various aspects of this counterculture, such as his views on drugs, hostility to bureaucracy and openness to Eastern religions.

[←20 ]

Peter Paul O'Dwyer (June 29, 1907 – June 23, 1998) was an Irish-born American politician and lawyer and the younger brother of Mayor William O'Dwyer and father to New York City lawyer Brian O'Dwyer.

[←21 ]

Unit Rule in politics: a rule under which a delegation to a national political convention casts its entire vote as a unit as determined by a majority vote.

[←22 ]

Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and writer known for advocating the exploration of the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs under controlled conditions. Leary was fired from Harvard University in May 1963. After leaving Harvard, he continued to publicly promote the use of psychedelic drugs and became a well-known figure of the counterculture of the 1960s. He popularized catchphrases that promoted his philosophy, such as "turn on, tune in, drop out", "set and setting", and "think for yourself and question authority". During the 1960s and 1970s, he was arrested often enough to see the inside of 36 different prisons worldwide.

[←23 ]

Richard Claxton Gregory (October 12, 1932 – August 19, 2017) was an African-American comedian, civil rights activist, social critic, writer, entrepreneur, conspiracy theorist, and occasional actor. During the turbulent 1960s, Gregory became a pioneer in stand-up comedy for his "no-holds-barred" sets, in which he mocked bigotry and racism. He performed primarily to black audiences at segregated clubs until 1961, when he became the first black comedian to successfully cross over to white audiences, appearing on television and putting out comedy record albums.

[←24 ]

Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American businessman, magazine publisher, and playboy. He was the founder of Playboy and editor-in-chief of the magazine, which he founded in 1953. He was also the chief creative officer of Playboy Enterprises, which is the publishing group that operates the magazine. An advocate of sexual liberation and freedom of expression, Hefner was a political activist and philanthropist in several other causes and public issues. Playboy is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine. Notable for its centerfolds of nude and semi-nude models (Playmates), Playboy played an important role in the sexual revolution.

[←25 ]

Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969, assuming the office after having served as the 37th Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963. He was a Democrat from Texas.

[←26 ]

This is Prague in the period of Soviet domination.

[←27 ]

Peter, Paul and Mary was an American folk group formed in New York City in 1961, during the American folk music revival phenomenon. The trio was composed of tenor Peter Yarrow, baritone Noel Paul Stookey and alto Mary Travers.

[←28 ]

Raquel Welch (September 5, 1940) is an American actress and singer. She acted in the film One Million Years B.C. (1966). Images of her in the doe-skin bikini which she wore became best-selling posters that turned her into a celebrity sex symbol. Welch's unique persona on film made her into an icon of the 1960s and 1970s. She carved out a place in movie history portraying strong female characters and breaking the mold of the submissive sex symbol.

[←29 ]

Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American politician who served in the United States Senate from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. He was the youngest brother of John F. Kennedy—the 35th President of the United States—and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, both victims of assassination.

[←30 ]

Pierre Emil George Salinger (June 14, 1925 – October 16, 2004) was an American journalist, author and politician. He had served as White House Press Secretary for U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Salinger served as a United States Senator in 1964 and as campaign manager for the 1968 Robert F. Kennedy presidential campaign.

[←31 ]

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main representations of the New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969.

[←32 ]

Diahann Carroll (July 17, 1935) is an Afro-American television and stage actress, singer and model known for her performances in some of the earliest major studio films to feature black casts, including Carmen Jones (1954) and Porgy and Bess (1959) as well as on Broadway. By the time Diahann Carroll was 15, she was modeling for Ebony (a monthly life-style magazine for the African-American market.). She was tall, with a lean model's build

[←33 ]

A Sabra is an informal-turned-formal term that refers to any Jew born on Israeli territory. The term first appeared in the 1930s to refer to a Jew who had been born in the land of Israel. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Israelis have used the word to refer to a Jewish person born anywhere in Israel.

[←34 ]

Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in the British Mandate of Palestine (1921–48), which became the core of the Israel Defense Forces, i.e. the Israel Army.

[←35 ]

A kibbutz (plural kibbutzim‬) is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Kibbutzim also play an outsize role in Israel's defence apparatus. In the 1950s and 1960s many kibbutzim were in fact founded by Israel Defense Forces. Many of these 1950s and 1960s kibbutzim were founded on the precarious and porous borders of the state. In the Six-Day War, when Israel lost 800 soldiers, 200 of them were from kibbutzim.

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