Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (132 page)

Daliah leaned toward the black woman and blinked her
own eyes in disbelief. Her voice was just as incredulous. 'Miss
Cleopatra, honey?' she asked softly. 'Is that you?'

Cleo's wide mouth curved into a huge white grin. 'Well, I'll
be damned!'

And then they were both laughing happily and flew into
each other's arms, embracing warmly. After a minute they
drew back, each holding the other at arm's length.

'Jesus, it's been years!' Cleo exclaimed, laughing and crying
at the same time.

'Seven years, to be exact.'

'Wrong. Six years, ten months, and let me see . . . twenty-
four days.' Then they hugged each other again. 'Jesus! After
we lost touch Ah never thought I'd see you again. What are
you doin' here?'

'Haven't you heard?' Daliah said. 'I'm the star of Jerome's
movie.'

Hearing his name, Jerome cleared his throat noisily and
both Daliah and Cleo looked at him. Only now were they
aware of the perplexed looks the others were giving them.

'I take it you two know each other?' Jerome said at last.

'Shore do.' Cleo nodded happily. 'I was an exchange student
in my sophomore year, and Ah spent it in Israel. Then we
sorta got out of touch.' She turned to Daliah. 'Well, we ain't
gonna let that happen again, are we?'

Daliah shook her head. Her eyes were shining.

'What I want to know,' Cleo asked Jerome succinctly, 'is how the hell did you ever talk her into starring in this shoe
string movie, anyway?'

'I asked her. Why?'

'Don't you know she could be in anything she wanted?'

Now it was Jerome's turn to be puzzled. For once he looked
out of his depth. 'I don't understand.'

Cleo shook her head in disbelief. 'White Bwana,' she
declared, placing her hands on her hips and arching her back,
'you mean you don't know who she is?'

He looked at her blankly and then peered at Daliah closely.
'No. Should I?'

' 'Course you should.' Cleo placed an affectionate arm
around Daliah's shoulders. 'This here is the daughter of one of the movie greats of all time. Just so you find it out sooner
instead o' later, her mother happens to be your number-one
screen idol!'

He stared at Daliah. 'You mean—'

'Thas right.' Cleo nodded. 'White Woman here, she the
daughter of the one and only Tamara. But what
Ah
wanna
know is, what's she doin' in an amateur production like ours!'

Daliah heard the key turning in the lock, and then the door of
the suite opened and shut. Still in her Ishagiatsu pressure-
point pose, she opened her eyes and twisted her head around.
Jerome was standing just inside the door. His wire-rims
reflected a shaft of sunlight, and he was holding a bottle of
Cristal champagne by the neck in each hand. A crystal champagne glass was tucked under each of his armpits. He grinned
wickedly.
She lowered her arms from her head and wrenched her
knees together. Now that he was back, the calm the Ishagiatsu
had inspired was all for nothing. Just seeing him made her temper return in force. 'Welcome back, stranger,' she said sarcastically. 'What's the matter? The party finally over?'

Ignoring her, he strutted wordlessly over to the desk by the window. He set the bottles and glasses down and with a flour
ish began peeling the foil off one of the bottles.

She climbed to her feet and thumped over to him. Angrily she grabbed his forearm just as he popped the cork. It went
flying across the room.

'Don't ignore me, dammit!' she yelled, pulling him around
to face her. 'Where were you all this time while the sharks
were having me for breakfast?'

One corner of his mouth twisted into a grin. 'While the
sharks were having you for breakfast,' he said, maddeningly
unfazed by her outburst, 'I was out shaking the money tree,
chérie. And guess what fell?'

'Obviously something hard and near-lethal, but not hard enough to kill you, which is what you deserve and what I'm going to do to you in a second! You are a skunk and a prick
and a dildo and a piece of scum! Eat shit and die!'

'Said like a true lady,' he said with a good-humoured bow.
'How does seventeen-million-five sound to you?' He waved the bottle in front of her. 'Care to celebrate?'

She was suddenly speechless and all she could do was stare.
Seventeen million, five hundred thousand dollars was the
exact amount of money he'd budgeted as necessary for their
next film!

'Well?' he said slowly, leaning into her face. 'Has the cat
got your tongue? Meow? Meeeowww?'

She couldn't trust herself to speak. 'You . . . you mean to
say you managed to raise it
all
?' she said shakily. 'Already?
On the very first day?'

'Every penny. Every last shekel and shilling and yen and
sou. Every buck and pound and beautiful drachma. My name
isn't skunk and prick and dildo for nothing. Now all we have
to do is push the foreign sales of
Red Satin,
and then we're
flying!' He rubbed her with his nose and leered at her. 'I don't
have to meet with the backers until lunch. What do you say
we kill a couple of hours in bed?'

'Did you think you had to ask?' she said seductively, and
with one fluid movement snatched up the unopened bottle and
walked into the bedroom.

Chapter 2

Jerome hung the
do not disturb
sign outside the door, took
the phone off the hook, and shut out the world behind closed
windows and thick, heavy curtains. The noise from the traffic
jam was muted now, and the room was a dim, sensuous womb.
Bright slivers of sunlight leaked through the chinks between
the curtains, each beam a spotlight alive with dust motes danc
ing suspended in the air. Leontyne Price warbled Samuel Barber's
Knoxville: Summer of 1915
on the big portable tape deck. The second bottle of champagne was half-empty on the
nightstand, and the air smelled pungently of marijuana.

They were lying side by side on the big double bed, looking
dreamily up at the ceiling as they passed a joint back and forth.
After a few more puffs, Jerome pinched it out and placed it
carefully in the ashtray. Then he slid around, got to his knees,
and looked down at her.

Her arms were streched lazily above her head, the pillow
entirely hidden by the glossy blanket of her fanned-out hair.
She had one knee casually bent, and the other leg stretched
out straight, her toes languorously playing with the corner of
a sheet. Even in a languid pose, there was something of the
jungle cat about her, at once tauntingly feline, yet almost
virilely powerful. Naked, she always looked charged, ready for sex. Her brownish nipples jutted like small hard cones
from the dusty-rose areolae of her conical breasts, and her
lean, hard body looked ready to pounce. There wasn't an
ounce of superfluous flesh on her. From her neat lattice of ribs
down to her forward-thrusting pelvic bones and sleek, coltish
legs, her entire body seemed as streamlined as a Deco statue.
Her smooth, muscular belly dipped smoothly inward, so that
her hairless mound seemed to rise aggressively outward, a firm
pink hill.

As always, the mere sight of her nakedness and the mellow
high of the pot had aroused him. His swollen penis was slender and pink, and swooped upward at a rakish curve. His testicles
were two tight little fists taut against their nest of dark pubic
hair. His eyes gleamed devilishly.

She looked up at him in anticipation, her lips slightly parted,
the tip of her pink tongue visible between her straight glossy
white teeth.

Slowly he reached down and strummed his fingertips back
and forth across her nipples so that each fingertip brushed
them ever so slightly. The ticklish sensation made her catch
her breath, and she began to grind her pelvis obscenely into
the sheet. From the heavy way she breathed, he could tell that
she was ready.

But for him it was too soon. The game had barely begun.

He dipped two fingers into the open jar of Vick's Vap-O-
Rub he had handy on the nightstand and scooped some out.
Deftly he smeared a little dab on each of her nipples and slowly
worked it in. Instantly she could smell the eucalyptus and, as
the menthol made her nipples start to tingle, they jutted out
more aggressively than before. Cruelly he slid a glob of Vick's
inside her vagina and another up her anus. In a moment her back arched in such a spasm of agony that her pelvis lifted up
off the bed and she seemed to levitate. He probed some more and she squeezed her eyes shut and thrashed her head back and forth in ecstasy. Suddenly he slid his fingers back out,
kneaded her nipples, and squeezed. She went crazy, the burning and tingling inside and out making her writhe like a cat in
heat.

It was exactly how he wanted her.

'You thirsty?' he asked.

She nodded.

Grabbing the champagne, he swigged straight from the bot
tle, filling his mouth. Then he held her face between his hands and pressed his lips against hers. She parted them, and slowly he fed her little spurts of champagne from his mouth. At first she looked surprised and then her throat worked hungrily. It
tasted warm and tingly.

He drew his head back and watched, pleased by the way she
licked her lips lewdly. Then he lowered himself gently atop her. A moment later she could feel his penis sliding between
her warm, wet thighs. She braced herself, squirming into posi
tion, parting her legs wide and relaxing her muscles to make
the entry easier. Little by little he prodded himself into her.
When his hardness filled her completely, she felt impaled.
'Oh, God, God!' she cried out at the exquisite sensation. With
grim determination she scissored her legs tightly around his
waist and clutched him close.