“When I was nine.” Fletch pointed out a pockmark on his left elbow. “I’m better now, thank you.”
The woman sighed. She pressed a button on the desk intercom. “Cindy? Someone’s here to see you.”
“Ah, Cindy!” exclaimed Fletch. “I was hoping for a Cindy. Nobody wants a Zza-zza, Queenie, or Bobo this hour of the day.”
“I’ve seen you somewhere before,” the woman said, almost to herself. “Recently.”
“I’m around town,” Fletch said breezily. “A bit of a
“Oh, Cindy,” said the woman. “This is Fletcher Jaffe.”
In the door stood a woman in her early twenties. She was dressed only in well-cut nylon gym shorts, sneakers, and footies. Her shoulders were lightly muscled. Her perky breasts were tanned in the round identically with the rest of her body. Muscles were visible in her stomach. Her black hair and wide-set eyes matched perfectly and had the same sparkle.
Looking at Fletch, she wrinkled her nose.
“Good morning, Cindy.” Fletch again swallowed hard. “Glad you came to work early today.”
Through the street door came another young woman. She was wearing white jeans and a loose red shirt. She had fly-away blond hair.
Approaching the desk, she openly studied the scene: Fletch standing in the middle of the small reception room; Cindy presenting herself in the doorway.
“Marta!” she whimpered to the woman at the desk.
“I can’t help it, Carla,” Marta answered.
“You told me I should sleep in, this morning!”
“I also told you,” Marta said forcefully, “never to wear that color red. It doesn’t go with your hair coloring.”
“I know.” Carla giggled. “It makes men in the street look away.”
In the interior doorway, Cindy tossed her head. Fletch followed her.
He followed her down a paneled, carpeted corridor.
“You a cop?” she asked.
“No.”
“I hope you are,” Cindy muttered. “Time this place got busted.” She slowed her walk. “Do me a favor, though, will you?”
“Anything.”
“Bust this place if you want. See where it will get you. But don’t bust me personally, okay?”
“What makes you think I’m a cop?”
“I’m splitting the end of this week. I swear to you. I don’t want the hassle.”
“If I’m a cop, you’re ugly.”
Even in the dark corridor, her skin had a lovely sheen.
She smiled at the compliment.
She opened a heavy drawer built into the wall, and pulled out another pair of well-cut nylon shorts. “These about right? Waist thirty?”
She tossed them to him.
“Sure.”
She led him into a brightly lit room to the left off the corridor.
In the room was a single-frame exercise rig.
The walls were covered with mirrors. Mirrors hung from the ceiling. At one place there was even a mirror on the floor, inset into the carpet.
Fletch stood on the floor mirror and looked up and around. Through the angled ceiling mirrors he saw himself from directions he had never seen himself before. In the mirrors on the four walls he saw his body replicated to infinity.
Cindy closed the door to the corridor. “Where did you get your tan?”
“On my face.”
“Anywhere else?” She crossed the room, went through a door to a bathroom, came back immediately, and tossed him a towel.
Standing on the mirror, looking around at himself everywhere, Fletch said, “Me, me, me.”
“You got it, honey.”
He held the towel and the shorts in his hand.
“Take a shower,” she said. “Use the soap. Change into just the shorts, and come back.”
Fletch held the shorts up. “These shorts ain’t got nothin’ in them.”
“They will have,” she said. “I expect.”
The shower soap stung.
When he reentered the room, Cindy was at a small, recessed bar mixing a drink.
She glanced at him. “I thought so.”
“You thought what?”
She was bringing him the drink. “What vitamins do you take?”
“P.”
“Never heard of it.”
“All the best beers have it.”
She handed him the drink. Her other hand dropped five stuffed olives into his hand.
He sniffed the drink. “What’s in it?”
“Orange juice.”
“Okay.” He munched the olives.
“Some protein powder.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“A little yeast.”
“Sounds explosive.”
“And some ground elk’s horn.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
“An aphrodisiac, you know?”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Specialty of the house?”
“Drink it, honey. Perfectly safe.”
He sipped it. “Yummy.”
“Chug-a-lug,” she said.
“Really,” he said, choking a little. “You thought of marketing this stuff?” Even while drinking it, his throat felt dusty. “Elixir of Ben Franklyn.”
“Come on.” She took the empty glass from him and put it on the recessed bar.
Then she took his hand and led him to the exercise machine.
“You know how to use these things? Of course you do. Lie down on your back. You’re going to do bench presses. I have it set for one hundred and twenty pounds. That about right?”
“We’ll see.”
He lay down on his back on the bench. His knees were bent, his feet on the floor.
Looking up, he saw himself and the top of Cindy’s head, and her shoulders, in the mirror.
“Lift,” she said.
He lifted.
“That’s about right,” she said. “Feel good?”
“Like ice cream on a hot summer’s day.”
“Do eight in a row, slowly.”
She sat on him, straddling his thighs. She spread her hands on his lower stomach, thumbs touching.
As he lifted, she pressed her hands into his stomach muscles.
He felt a sensation such as he had never felt before.
