Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

'You're Margot Hunter. You're an account executive for Rutter Blane Rutter. I've seen you many times before, Margot. I made a point of finding out.'

'Oh, yes?' Margot snapped. 'And who the hell are you?'

'James Blascoe.'

'Is that it? James Blascoe? And what do you do, James Blascoe? And what right do you think you have to check up on me, and then to stare at me?'

James Blascoe raised both hands in apologetic surrender. 'I don't really do anything. Some people, like you, are the doers. Other people, like me, are the watchers. You do, I watch. That's all, it's as simple as that.'

'Well, do you mind going someplace else to do your watching, Mr. Blascoe?' Margot demanded. 'Someplace where you won't scare people?'

'Your point is well taken,' James Blascoe told her, and he bowed his head once again and walked off across the plaza. Margot watched him go and was both relieved and disturbed. He had been remarkably attractive, and he was obviously rich. As he reached Bowling Green on the far side of the plaza a long midnight-blue Lincoln stretch- limo appeared and drew up to the curb. He climbed into it and closed the door and didn't look back once.

Margot returned to her office. Ray was waiting for her, with a whole sheaf of messy notes and layouts spread all over her normally pristine desk.

'You look like you saw a ghost,' said Ray.

Margot gave him a quick, distracted smile. 'Do I? I'm okay.'

'You want to look at these new ideas? Kenny did the drawings. They're not exactly right yet, but I think you'll understand where we're coming from.'

'All right.' Margot nodded. She shuffled through the layouts, still thinking about James Blascoe. Other people, like me, are the watchers.

'Neat pin,' Ray remarked, as she lifted up another layout.

'I beg your pardon?'

'Your pin, your brooch, whatever it is. Where'd you get it? Bloomingdale's?'

Margot looked down at her fawn linen business suit, and there it was, sparkling brightly in the exact center of her lapel. The tiny jinn-flower embedded in glass.

'Now how the hell did he do that?' she demanded. Then, indignantly, to Ray, she said, 'This isn't Bloomingdale's. This is just about the rarest brooch in the whole darn universe! A real flower, handmade glass.'

Ray took off his spectacles and peered at it more closely. 'Really?' he said, giving Margot the most peculiar look that she had ever seen.

He was waiting for her the next morning when she arrived at the office. He was standing by the revolving doors in the bright eight o'clock sunshine — immaculately dressed, as yesterday, in gray. He stepped toward her with both hands held out, as if to say, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to impose on your life yesterday, I don't mean to impose on your life today.

'You're angry with me,' he told her, before she could say anything. She had to step out of the way to avoid the hurrying crowds of office workers.

'I'm not angry with you,' she retorted. 'It's just that I can't accept your gift.'

'I don't understand,' he replied. For the first time, in the morning light, she saw the small crescent-shaped scar on his left cheekbone.

'It's too much. It's too valuable. Mr. Blascoe, I don't even know you.'

'What difference does that make? I wanted you to have it.'

'In return for what?'

He shook his head as if she had amazed him. 'In return for your pleasure, that's all! Do you think I'm some kind of Romeo?'

'But why me? Look at all these pretty girls! Why choose me?'

James Blascoe looked serious for a moment. 'Do you always have to know the reason for everything? There's a pattern in the world, that's all. A symmetry. Blessed are those who have, and cursed are those who don't. You're one of the haves.'

'Well, I'm flattered, Mr. Blascoe, but I really can't —»

'Keep the brooch, please. Don't break my heart. And, please… accept this, too.'

He held out a small purse of pale blue moire silk, tied with a gold cord.

Margot laughed in disbelief. 'You can't keep on giving me gifts like this!'

'Please,' he begged her. There was a look in his eyes which made it oddly difficult for her to resist him. The look in his eyes didn't match his voice at all: It wasn't a begging look. It was level and imperative. A look that said, You will, whether you like it or not. Before Margot had time to analyze what she was doing, and the implications of what she was doing, she had taken the silk purse, and she held it up, and said, 'All right, then. Thank you.'

James Blascoe said, 'It's an ounce of perfume created by Isabey, of the Faubourg St. Honore, in Paris, in 1925. It was specially blended for the Polish baroness Krystyna Waclacz, and there is no more left but this one bottle.'

'Why give it to me?' Margot asked him. For some reason, she felt frightened rather than pleased.

James Blascoe shrugged. 'What will happen to it, if you don't wear it? Wear it tonight. Wear it every night.'

'Hi, Margot!' called her secretary, Denise, as she passed close by. 'Don't forget the Perry meeting, eight- thirty on the button!'

Margot looked up at James Blascoe, but he was standing against the sun and his face was masked in shadow. She hesitated for a moment, and then she said, 'I'd better go,' and pushed her way through the revolving door, leaving James Blascoe standing outside, watching her intently, his features distorted by the curved glass.

In the elevator, she felt as if she were being compressed. Breathless, squashed, tightly surrounded by people who were determined to press the life out of her. By the time the chime rang for the thirty-sixth floor, she was shivering, as if she had contracted the flu, and when she reached her office she stood with her back pressed to the door, taking deep breaths, wondering if she were terrified or aroused, or both.

That night she was taken to see Les Misirables by Dominic Bross, the record producer, whom she had met while working on the Bross Records account. Dominic was fifty-five, gray-haired, handsome, talkative, opinionated, and Margot wouldn't have dreamed of going to bed with him in a million years. However, she always enjoyed his company, and he always behaved like a perfect gentleman.

Halfway through the second act, Dominic leaned over to Margot and whispered, 'Do you smell something?'

Margot sniffed. All she could smell was the musky Isabey perfume which James Blascoe had given her. Once it had warmed on her skin, it had started to give off the deepest, most sensuous fragrance that she had ever experienced. Maybe it had been wrong of her to accept it, but it was something erotic and very special, something that made her head spin.

'I don't know,' Dominic complained. 'It smells like something died.'

James Blascoe was waiting by her apartment door when she returned from her dinner with Dominic. She was tired and quite angry. For some reason Dominic had been unusually hurried and offhand, and he hadn't even accepted her invitation to come up for coffee. Finding James Blascoe at her door didn't make her feel very much better.

'Well, well,' she said, taking out her key. 'I'm surprised Leland let you in to the building.'

'Oh, you know me.' James Blascoe smiled. 'Bribery and corruption are second nature to me.'

'I'm not going to invite you in,' Margot told him. 'I've had a totally terrible evening, and all I'm going to do is take a bath and get some sleep.'

'I'm sorry,' James Blascoe told her. 'I quite understand, and I won't intrude. But I wanted to give you this.'