The second target – ‘victim’ would be a misstatement; he was paying for the honor of momentarily starring before an audience of his peers and powerful foreigners – came out with a second bill, raised one in either hand, and was rewarded with a hip thrust, front and center, and a kiss on the forehead which, not coincidentally, shot Gisela’s crotch away from him as soon as he had inserted the money between the briefs and her pubic hair. You could get a lot more sex for a couple hundred dollars, but it would be hard to beat what Gisela had just provided the man in the way of thrills and public recognition.
When the dancer swayed from that table, her bra cups, pubic wedge, and the crack of her buttocks had all spouted 10,000 lire bills. The engraved visage of Kemal Atatiirk waved against the sweat-glistening flesh, and Kelly doubted that the hard-drinking old hero disapproved. Gisela left the crotch and tail pieces in place as encouragement for later tables as she continued her rounds.
The attendant with the recorder had swapped sides on his ninety-minute tape, and the blond dancer had been in motion from the time she entered the room. Kelly unconsciously caught a roll of flesh above his own beltline between thumb and forefinger. It wasn’t flab, but it sure as hellwasn’t muscle tone like that which Gisela was demonstrating. He hadn’t been in shape like that when he was nineteen and humping nearly a hundred pounds of gear, rations, and ammo across a series of thirty-klick days. . . .
The woman swayed closer. The table Kelly shared with the Posners was, by chance or intent, almost the last on her circuit of the room. Commander Posner reached toward his breast pocket. His wife straightened with an expression of blank horror that would have suited her own impalement.
“Well, I don’t know what the etiquette is,” the naval officer muttered with a nervous smile. “This is the wrong sort of entertainment for a – for a diplomatic gathering, you see.”
“Don’t worry, sir,” said Kelly dryly. “I’ll sacrifice myself to uphold the honor of the flag.”
He had two bank notes ready: thousands. The amount was a compromise between avoiding notoriety for a huge offering and the need to make reasonable the query on the scrap of paper between the two bills: Later? The three sheets were fanned slightly so that the note’s white edge was visible between the engraved expanses of currency.
Gisela hip-jerked to the table, turning a full 360 degrees as she left the guests she had just milked and – by switching her pivot foot – striding six feet without appearing to have abandoned them. Those men would not feel plucked and foolish when they went home tonight. It was nice watching a pro work, thought Kelly; and it was not only the woman’s dancing which was of professional quality.
She swung around, facing first toward Commander Posner, and did a slow belly roll with her arms twined above her. Posner clapped lightly in embarrassment but did not reach again for his wallet.
Close up, the two attendents looked as out of place as Kelly himself would have felt doing their jobs. There was quite a lot of similarity between what he saw behind their eyes and what he felt behind his own. . . . Both men could well be Germans, though the smaller one was as swarthy as Kelly and the taller one had certainly not been a ‘Nordic blond’ before his hair went gray. They were armed – there were flat bulges beneath cither’s left armpit.
Gisela blew a kiss at Posner, tinkled her finger cymbals toward Mrs. Posner (who winced) and switched to Kelly.
She was tired, the veteran could see, and her midriff glittered where sweat jeweled the tiny blond hairs which would otherwise have been invisible. She began a hip sway; and, as the taped music quickened to an accompaniment of chords clashed on the guitar, the sway sped into a shimmy.
“My wife could have done that,” Kelly said in German, enunciating precisely so that he did not have to shout to be understood. “But belly muscles like yours I have never seen, fraulein.”