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                                  White Slave
                                   Chapter 7

      The stereo ground out an old Beatle's tune, slowing now and then with the
power failures typical of poorly wired urban apartment buildings.  It may have
been two high school girls dressing for their first dates, judging from the
excitement and expectations, matching lipstick and nail polish, changing
stockings and shoes.

      "It all went well last night then?" asked Sandy, stroking the hair brush
through her long, thick locks.

      "Perfect.  Just perfect!  In fact," confessed Chris poking an earring
through her pierced ear, "he was a real doll.  Very mature and dignified and he
didn't even try to kiss me!  God, maybe I have bad breath or something," she
chuckled, never loosing sight of her profile in the dressing mirror.

      "That could almost get to be a drag," mused Sandy, with raised eyebrows.
"That has never happened to me, so I wouldn't know. "

      Chris snapped the earring shut.  "Tell me about it, Sandy." she said
light-heartedly, but with a sting of sarcasm.

      "Come on.  I can't help it if I like to make love.  It's the neatest
thing in the world.  Can you think of anything that feels any better?"

      Chris laughed.  "Its been so long I couldn't say..."

      Sandy turned from her girlfriend and searched through her big leather bag
until she found the foil-wrapped packet she had stashed there for emergencies.
Actually, it was Roger's idea, but she had to agree it was a good one.  "Chris,
come on, this will get you in a party mood."

      Chris looked up, saw that Sandy was holding a lighted cigarette in her
hand.  She held the lighted stick of marijuana in offering and Chris accepted
it, though reluctantly.  Too many times she'd let herself loose control while
stoned; it was a vice she had grown wary of.

      "I'm no sure..."

      "Don't be such a prude!" chided Sandy, taking a deep puff herself. "Here,
smoke a little.  C'mon."  She held the hand-rolled cigarette to Chris's lips;
first the blonde turned away, but then when it was obvious that Sandy would
persist, she reluctantly took one tiny puff.  A tingle of warmth followed the
sweet-smelling smoke down her throat and along the nerve channels of her body;
just the one puff was enough to bring a wave of relaxation to her excited body.
She felt her mind loosen as if obeying some secret command; another, deeper
drag followed, then still another...

      Soon, in minutes, or in hours, they had finished the joint and Sandy had
produced another from her tin foil packet.  Chris didn't hesitate this time;
the nerve-soothing drug seemed to answer a deep inner need, and the inbred
instinct to resist it had been destroyed.

      "There, you feel more like partyin' now without getting goose bumps?"
Sandy asked her shy friend.

      Chris nodded.  "Yes, thanks.  I feel a lot... a lot better now."  Her
words were beginning to blur together, and she hesitated at places that needed
no pause.

      "Now about tonight.  We're getting paid one hundred dollars each since
this is a private party that Roger is giving for some business friends.  Is
that cool with you?" asked the brunette watching her friends eyes sparkle with
dollar signs.

      "That sounds okay to me!" burst Sandy, stepping into her platform shoes.
She always waited 'til the last minute to put them on out of consideration for
the neighbors below who had to listen to the heavy clump, clump of her wooden
heels.  Bending over to secure the straps and buckle the tiny metal fastener at
her slim ankle, Chris lost her balance and fell on her buttocks, with a groan.

      Sandy looked down at her stoned friend.  "For god's sakes, Chris, get
your act together.  We're supposed to be calm and sophisticated debutantes,
remember?  Not a couple of burned out hippies."

      "All right, all right," snapped Chris defensively before bursting into
giggles.

      Sandy headed toward the living room and called over her shoulder to
Chris, still in her bedroom.  "Why don't you make yourself a cup of coffee! I'm
going down to see if everything is cool with Roger."  The door slammed behind
her and Chris, kicking off her uncomfortable shoes, padded in her level bare
feet to the kitchen.

      "Roger!"  Sandy knocked on the door and was greeted on the second knock,
but she didn't step in; there wasn't time.

      "Howdy, Sandy.  Everything set?"

      "Just like you said.  A few pulls on the grass and she's ready for
anything.  Grass does that to her."  Sandy leaned against the door jam and
stared at a scrawled note that lay on the doormat.  Stooping over, she picked
it up and handed it to Roger. "Looks like this is for you.  Must have blown off
the door."

      "Thanks," said the landlord, scanning the pencil-written note.  His eyes
narrowed disconcertedly, a gesture Sandy did not fail to notice.

      "What's the matter?  Somebody's tub overflow?" she giggled.

      "Naw.  It's from Margaret... she lives upstairs from me. Christ, I wish
she would stop nagging me.  Goddamn women, can't leave me alone," he chuckled
egocentrically.  "Ah," he sneered. "She's just a dumb immigrant from the old
country," he said, mimicking Margaret's Swedish accent.

      "Anyway, I came down to see if everything's okay.  I'm sure I can handle
those friends of yours, but I'm not too sure about Chris.  She's pretty shy,
you know."

      "Just keep gettin' her loaded.  She'll be okay."

      He kissed her on the forehead and she sauntered down the musty smelling
hallway, passing by door after door, hearing muffled sounds of the evening
news, mixed with low conversation and the heady smell of dinner wafting out
from under closed doors. Sandy had one hand on the railing when something
behind her made her jump.

      Appearing from nowhere -- she had to be hiding in the hall to go
unnoticed -- Sandy spied a blonde haired woman, mature and buxom in her tight
fitting cotton dress.  Smiling, Sandy turned to greet her, to say hello, but
the woman stiffened and brushed on by, her mouth turned down in a hateful
grimace at the sight of the young black haired girl who'd replaced her in
Roger's life.

      Margaret's low-heeled shoes pounded rhythmically on the threadbare
carpeting of the steps, then silenced as she reached the hallway above and
charged for the quiet of her modest apartment.  The tears she's struggled to
hold within burst free and she collapsed on her bed.

      She'd heard it all.  So that's what Roger thought of her?  A stupid Swede
from the old country.  Margaret took one loving glance at Sandor's photograph
and plotted her revenge.  And, she the goods on him, she mused with a sudden
taste for retaliation. In the last three days that she'd been following him,
she learned enough about him to make a complaint to somebody.  Who, she wasn't
certain of, but there had to be laws against pandering women and reading other
people's mail as she'd seen him do through the window of his living room where
she'd stood on the fire escape.

