Part 28 (1/2)
The voice on the right: ”Look at him go! Good, good boy!”
The voice on the left: ”Don't lick him there, Nergie! Lick him down there!”
”What a dirty dog!”
This is no dream! Collier's mind stormed, and he lurched up, shoved his hands through the dark, and pushed two unseen forms off the bed. His legs mulekicked outward, and his heels shot something lean and hairy off the mattress. After a thump! he heard a dog yelp.
He snapped on the bed lamp- The room stood empty, but...
Bulls.h.i.+t!
The door was ajar.
”I know I locked that!” he stated to no one. He got up uncaring that he was naked, and he closed the door and locked it. ”I'm positive I locked it...”
But was he really?
d.a.m.n it. He sat on the bed's edge. He felt his face and chest and, of course, there was no trace of wetness. I gotta get out of this house...
Collier wished he smoked just then, because it seemed the perfect time for a cigarette. Should I leave? Should I just pack my bags right now and get out of here? But he'd barely written anything on the book. And where would he go at this hour? He'd have to pay his bill.
tap, tap tap...
His eyes shot wide. He looked at the door but- tap, tap tap...
The tiny tapping sound came from the other side of the room.
What in the h.e.l.l is going on now?
tap, tap tap...
It was coming from the wall. Low on the wall.
Even with the lights on, he could just make out the peephole.
He switched off the lamp and found himself kneeling at the wall. Now the hole was lit.
He looked in.
He could tell at once that the sleek physique sitting in the hip bath belonged to Lottie. The circle encompa.s.sed her spread thighs, belly, and tight peach-size b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Oh, Jesus...
The strange girl's hips writhed in the bathwater, her hand frenetically plying her s.e.x.
Collier's teeth chattered; he watched for many minutes, even as he thought, She's knows I'm watching. She WANTS me to watch...
His hand inched toward his own crotch. Not this again, he thought, wincing, but then his face blanked when he imagined what Dominique would think if she knew he was doing this, on the verge of masturbating while peeping on a whack-job exhibitionist.
She'd think I was sc.u.m.
He pulled away from the hole and sighed. Madhouse, he thought. A house full of s.e.xual weirdos...But did this solve his most current dilemma? Did Lottie enter his room with a master key and feel him up before slipping away to the washroom? It made perfect sense, except...
There were FOUR hands on me...
And what could explain the final observation, what could only have been a dog lapping his face and chest and, very nearly, lower?
He remained there on his knees for several minutes, and through the wall heard Lottie's obvious climax, then the hip bath being emptied, then the door click shut. A few moments later, and not much of a surprise...
tap, tap, tap...
It was from his door now.
”Gimme a break, Lottie,” he hefted his voice. ”Go to bed.”
tap, tap, tap...
Don't answer it.
He felt absurd sitting on the floor, in the dark. He was hiding in his own room. But he knew what would happen if he let her in.
A few more taps and evidently she got the message. He heard her footsteps pad away.
You really are Man of the Year, huh? his id voice complained. What kind of MAN says no to a h.o.r.n.y woman?
Collier didn't answer the voice.
thunk!
Collier's head jerked upright. The sound he'd just heard...had come from the other side of the wall. The bath closet.
Had Lottie returned, to tempt him further with more exhibitions of her body?
And the next sound? A rapid gurgling...
Collier looked back to the peephole.
A dark blur crossed his pinpoint field of vision. The gurgling sound continued, heightened, then stopped. When the blur moved off again, Collier blinked, and in the s.p.a.ce of the blink thought he saw a man...with his head in the hip bath...
Impossible! he yelled at himself.
Another blink, and then he heard a vicious gnawing sound.
Collier jerked his eye back from the hole. He took repeated deep breaths, staring into the dark. Then he jumped up, pulled on his robe, and bound out of the room and over to the bath-closet door.
He paused, hand on the k.n.o.b.
I know that when I open this door, no one will be inside.
He opened the door and found the small room unoccupied.
Madhouse, he thought again.