EXTRACT FOR
Club Girl
(Argus)

Chapter One

      

      Kristen smiled graciously as she strolled through the big double doors on Michael's arm. Men looked on, licking their lips as she passed, their eyes following her as her body swayed seductively in the tissue thin dress.

      She ignored them as Michael basked in their jealousy and headed her over to the far end of the gallery to his newest acquisition.

      "This is it?" she asked.

      "Yes."

      "Lovely, Wonderful coloring."

      "I thought it would go well with the Rembrandt in the study."

      "Yes, it will set off the blue well."

      A man walked up to them, like Michael in his early sixties, taller, but thinner. On his arm was a beautiful blonde who looked at Jordan doubtfully. 

      The blonde was short, slender, but with large breasts that were barely restrained by the thin, low cut top of her green gown. Her cleavage was more than ample to draw the eyes of whatever men weren't watching Kristen.

      She was, Kristen knew, the man's trophy wife, young, gorgeous and reasonably smart, a lawyer, if she recalled correctly, though not one willing to put in the long years of drudgery normally required to become successful in New York's competitive legal world.

      Kristen gave her a tolerant smile as the two men talked, and the girl glared briefly before resuming her mask of unconcern. Kristen had little respect for trophy wives. 

      If they were going to sell themselves to a rich man, she thought, they ought to do it for something better than the right to live in his house and wear his clothes for as long as he tolerated them.

      If they were going to be a whore...they ought to be a whore...like her.

      Kristen had been selling herself to men since her sixteenth birthday, when she'd let her rich uncle take her cherry in exchange for a hundred dollars. 

      Since then her remarkable beauty had drawn men from everywhere, all eager to lay gold at her feet for the chance to lay there hands upon her precious body.

      Tonight, the tall, statuesque brunette, her hair spilling over her lovely shoulders in cascading ringlets of silk, her firm, full body wrapped in a loose, but incredibly thin gown of deepest red from throat to ankle, could have sold herself highly indeed.

      But she was long past the point where she needed to sell herself. Now it was the men who tried to buy her, to rent her, fought with one another for the honor of giving her money.

      Her pouty mouth turned into a sweet smile as Michael led her up to another man and introduced her. She curtsied gracefully...as she did everything. Kristen's grace and self-confidence were among the reasons he blended so easily into the highest levels of the upper crust.

      "Oh God, here's that bore, Santangelo," he sighed as a small, swarthy man hurried up to them, smiling ingratiatingly.

      "The one who's always talking about his new sculpture?"

      "Yes."

      "Michael," the man cried.

      "Pierre!" Michael cried, greeting him warmly.

      They shook hands and smiled at each other, but Kristen sensed there wasn't a lot of affection there.

      "Have you seen my Benini?"

      "Ah..."

      "You must see it! You must! It's the most glorious sight, Michael! Come! Come!"

      He all but seized his arm and dragged him across the floor to a door guarded by a security guard. He led them inside. The lights were off, but he flicked on a switch, and a small beam of light came down from the ceiling and lit up a statue in the middle of the floor.

      It was a green marble statue of a woman, and Santangelo moved over to it, running his hands over it in adoration.

      "Have you ever seen anything so utterly beautiful, so graceful and flowing, so...perfect an example of feminine beauty in all of your life?" he sighed.

      Michael looked at Kristen, and his lips quirked upwards in a grin of amusement. She gave him a droll look which he ignored as he reached behind her back and caressed the back of her neck.

      "As a matter of fact, Pierre, I have."

      "Eh? What?" the little man said, blinking his eyes in shock.

      Michael flicked the clip at the back of Kristen's gown, and the front abruptly fell down to her waist, baring her breasts.

      She did not scream and try to cover herself. There was little in the way of modesty left in her at this point. Besides, Michael obviously wanted the little man to see her, and what Michael wanted, Michael got...within reason...tonight.

      Santangelo's eyes bulged as he saw her breasts, and Kristen smiled tolerantly. Her breasts were very full, very round, and so firm the pink nipples actually tilted upwards a bit. With a small shake of her hip the light gown slipped over her hips and dropped to her ankles.

      She was nude beneath, and stood there unmoving, holding a glass of champagne as Santangelo stared at her, his mouth gaping.

      "Now then, Pierre, tell me that your silly statue can compare to this as an ideal of feminine beauty," Michael said.

      Santangelo's mouth opened and shut several times, not unlike a fish, then he turned and hurried out of the room.

      "You really are a wicked man," she said as he laughed in delight.

      "Ah, the little queer stepped over the line trying to tell me about feminine beauty."

      His eyes moved up and down her body.

      "Nothing shames you, does it," he smiled.

      "Should I be ashamed? When I'm the ideal of feminine beauty?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

      He laughed in delight and shook his head.

      Put your dress on my girl and we'll go back out and scandalize a few more of the city's more pompous windbags.

      She gave him her drink to hold, then squatted and gripped her dress, sliding it up her body like a loose curtain and clipping it together behind her neck.

      "Shameless how...naked you are beneath that little thing," he sighed.

      "Shameless," she agreed, taking her drink back.