Power Play

"You got fires raging in you?" she asked.

"All the time. But I suppress them," Muckley said. He slid his hands toward both sides of her back. Only eight inches more each and he would have those beautiful breasts in his hands.

She leaned forward suddenly, pulling away, lowering her breasts' into the red satin top. "You shouldn't suppress them," she said casually. "It'll give you pimples." She straightened up, her hands behind her on the two bra straps. "Clip that, Rev, will you?" He clipped the bra closed.

She stepped away from him and turned around, her breasts jutting toward him, two mounds of pleasure and beauty. He had not thought of his bible in a long time, but the Song of Solomon forced its way into his head. Something about breasts.

"How's that?" she said.

"Beautiful," he said, staring at her bosom. "Excruciatingly beautiful."

"Me or it?" she asked. She put her hands under her breasts and lifted them, arranging them inside the bra top.

"You forget, I'm just a man," he said.

"There," she said as she finished adjusting herself. "Now what do you think?"

He looked at her bosom through the red satin. "Just a moment," he said. "There's a wrinkle there." He reached forward and touched the underside of her right breast with his fingers as he adjusted the thin piece of satin.

He let his fingers stay there.

"Okay now?" she asked.

"Fine," he said, still not moving his fingers.

"All right," she said. "I'll slip on the bottoms and then I'll get some breakfast before the press conference."

Muckley looked glum.

"And then," she said.

"And then?" he asked.

She leaned forward and whispered in his ear. He let his hands slide down her back to the round mounds of her buttocks. He kneaded them as Flamma told him in detail, full, glorious colorful detail exactly what she had in mind for the two of them after the press conference was over.

"Praise God," said Rev. Higbe Muckley.

The reporters were bored when Muckley appeared.

They had been assigned to the Pruiss story for two days, most of them, and with the exception of the small picketing at the country club, which ended before they got there, there had been nothing. No groundswell of opinion in the farm country against the porn publisher; no sense of impending violence, no bomb threats, no death threats, no sign of the person or persons who had put the knife in Pruiss's back.

They were prepared to let Muckley die on his feet so they could get to the booze. Furlong County was the dullest place in the world anyway.

But they came to attention when Flamma arrived, stepping out on the small stage next to Muckley and wearing her belly dancer costume. She told them that Pruiss had pla

They wanted to know about that first motion picture.

"It's called Animal Instincts," she said.

"What's it about?"

"About a man and his wife who find happiness in nature. She has her collie. He has her, a goat, three girlfriends and me. I'm the lead, because I bring them together again. All at once."

"Goats and dogs?" one reporter asked.

"Yes," she said haltingly. She covered her face with her hands as if crying. "There is no limit to the degradation of Wesley Pruiss and the perverts who are close to him and how he gets people to do his dirty work for him. Thank heavens I have been spared."

Some reporters tried to get her to dance for them, but Flamma demurely said no. Near the end of the press meeting, one reporter asked her for her future plans. They don't include anything with you, Flamma thought, when she found out that the man represented a small Indiana paper.

She took a deep breath, which never failed to draw the reporters' attention, "I plan to pick up the pieces of my life," she said slowly. "Perhaps go back to dancing school. Unless, of course, something else comes up. I think I can entertain people and bring them happiness in a good clean way and that is God's work too." She winked at the reporter for the National Star. A two-page color spread in the Star and she'd be on her way.

Higbe Muckley finished the press conference by a

"We march on Pruiss this afternoon," Muckley yelled and jumped from the platform to follow Flamma before anybody else got his hooks into her.

The local television stations rushed the interview onto the tube and Theodosia saw it with Remo and Chiun inside Pruiss's room. He was awake and he growled when he saw Flamma telling of his iniquities.

"That bitch," he said.

"She always was," Theodosia said. "And now those oil people have their hooks in her, she's liable to say or do anything."

"If you see her, you tell her," said Pruiss, "that she's through. I'm getting somebody else to pose with the Mako shark."

"Good," said Chiun. "The best revenge is living well."

"Try that when you're a cripple," Pruiss said.

"You live well," Chiun said, "by doing those things you are able to do. You can still print things. You can print great work. You can bring beautiful art to thousands of people. Have you ever heard Ung poetry?"

"I don't like much poetry," Pruiss said.

"You will like this," Chiun promised. He began to talk in Korean, a clacking series of throbs and gutturals that only occasionally rhymed.

Pruiss looked in desperation at Remo who shrugged. Chiun was gently waving his hands in front of his body now, one hand opening and closing, the other fluttering back and forth.

"This is the good part," Remo said. "A report on weather conditions in Korea, day by day, for two centuries."

Chiun kept chattering. There was a swelling noise from downstairs and Remo went to the window to watch. The Reverend Muckley was back, but this time leading a mob of more than two hundred people, chanting and carrying signs.

"What's that?" Pruiss said nervously. "What's that?"

Theodosia stood alongside Remo at the window, looking down as the crowd swerved off the main road and advanced on the country club. There were a dozen newsmen and TV cameramen with them.

"What is it?" Pruiss shouted.

"Pickets," Theodosia said. "I'm going to call our police to make sure they don't cause any trouble."

"Are you listening to this?" Chiun asked Pruiss.

Chiun turned to Remo.

"Will you please see that they keep things quiet down there?" he asked.

"Yes, Little Father," Remo said.

Higbe Muckley took up a position in front of the main door. The crowd swelled around him. He waited until the cameramen had positioned themselves on the steps of the house and then he raised a bullhorn at his side and invoked God's blessing on Wesley Pruiss.

"Damn you, evil one," he called. "Damn you. Are you listening, evil one?"

The house was silent.

"'Are you listening?" Muckley shouted into the amplifier.

Chiun went to the window and called out, "He's trying to listen to me. Will you be quiet, fat person?" He turned to Remo. "Remo, will you take care of them, please, before I have to go do it myself." Chiun went back and sat alongside Pruiss's bed and said, "I'll start over, so you don't miss any of it."

Pruiss's eyes flashed from side to side, the eyes of a trapped animal. They grew even more desperate as Remo walked toward the door of the room.