Chapter 3

Carmel has one of the loveliest beaches in the world. Its sand manages to stay a virgin white and the beach front runs for two curving miles from the Pebble Beach golf course to what residents call "The Frank Lloyd Wright house" which is an imposing home built on the rocks, right above the ocean, by that famous architect.

The beach, in all its vastness, seems to absorb people as a sponge does water. It would take a large assembly to seem crowded. It looks crowded really only twice a year: on the Fourth of July, and during the Great Sandcastle Building Contest. On other days, people sunbathe, children play, surfers surf, brave ones swim, people ride horseback, and dogs race--tongue lolling, barking, after the seagulls. An occasional Sea Lion swims along just beyond the surf, old men fish, joggers jog and others simply stroll. All this happens and the beach doesn't seem crowded. Each person has a feeling of privacy.

People use the beach from morning until night when flickering orange bonfires warm groups of picnickers. At sundown, people are invariably seen walking or parked along Scenic Drive or simply sitting on benches along the road or seen standing, alone and quiet. Sunset in Carmel is a quiet time and people talk in hushed voices and lovers stroll hand in hand. Sunsets in Carmel are always dramatic and always different and always something seen on a postcard and cannot believe because they're too pretty, too colorful and too dramatic.

It certainly isn't thought unusual to see people with binoculars on the beach or sitting in parked cars along Scenic Drive. There are all sorts of wildlife to observe: gulls, terns, pelicans, seals, sea lions, sea otters, and, in season, the California Gray Whale in migratory herds. At times, the Killer Whales are seen, their dorsal fins cleaving the water of the bay in search of prey.

There was nothing unusual in the Mercedes-Benz that parked along Scenic day after day. Nor was there anything odd in the occupants--a man and a woman--watching the beach through powerful binoculars. They were attractive and well dressed and looked as if they belonged to the Carmel scene. The girl was young and extremely attractive with a dress that was just a little too colorful and low cut. Her cleavage showed, disappearing down into a soft shimmering shadow of warm flesh. Her black hair was long and swept across her forehead, and her smile was a dazzling white. Her nose was provocatively tilted on the end. The man, the driver, was older and his face was thin and spartan, aristocratic, and his black hair was sprinkled and streaked with gray. He wore gray. He was dressed in gray slacks, gray shirt, and gray cashmere sweater.

They were watching a solitary stroller who walked by herself down by the water's edge. They had been watching her for days. She walked the beach twice a day: in the early morning and at sunset. She walked to and from the beach to her house, a cottage, that was three short, tree-lined blocks to the ocean.

She drove into town once a day, going to the post office to mail letters and pick mail up. She shopped in the mouth of the Carmel Valley at the Safeway and Long's discount drug store. She only shopped once a week. She stayed home every night, watching television then retiring early. Only once since they had been watching her, had she gone out in the evening, going to an early movie alone.

The occupants of the car were Web Hardman and Nichole Parker. The person they were watching was Kim. Web focused his binoculars on her as she walked the beach, and he slowly brought her voluptuous young figure into a shimmering detail. He inspected details of her sensual, finely shaped body with a scientist's detachment and passion for detail. She wore little makeup. Her nose was so perfect, so delicate, that he was sure it had been bobbed. Yet, as he inspected it through the glasses, he knew it wasn't. There was a purple bruise mark on her neck that was almost concealed by a silk scarf; the bruise interested him. Her attitude interested him. Generally, her face was preoccupied, serious, and, at times, little sad. She was very definitely alone. A glint and flash of light on the fingers of her left hand told him she was married.

Her body was a pleasure for him to watch as she walked along in the loose sand. She always wore tight slacks that allowed him to see and imagine her long, firmly shaped thighs and tapered legs, her sensually petulant buttocks that twitched and ground with every step. And her breasts--always under sweaters or heavy sweat shirts that were too big for her (undoubtedly her husband's)--shook free, bouncing with a sprightly rhythm when she sometimes ran to avoid the last flat surge of a wave. Her body was strong, and the wind blew her flame red hair wild and ruffled around her face, giving her regal queen-like features a certain Irish bawdiness in appearance.

Web slowly lowered the glasses and stared off, seeing Kim nothing more than a distant silhouette on the beach. He didn't want to show too much pleasure in Nichole's choice. It was a policy with him never to flatter her too much. Always let her be a little hungry. Yet, he was pleased with her choice. He was more than pleased! For the first time in a long while, he was sexually excited... He was aroused. Kim Stewart was a magnificent specimen and provided an interesting challenge. He looked at Nichole, smiling slightly. Since he had forced her to admit she would betray a friend, would betray them sexually, and then help him in the seduction, even Nichole had taken on a new sexual interest. It was mild, but an arousement nonetheless. He had become even more interested after he heard the name, Kim Stewart. He had her investigated by his bodyguard who was trained and very adept about such things. Be came back with a report on her. Married, living in a cottage in Carmel, her husband was an engineer and was away for six months in South America. Kim Stewart was alone, seldom went out other than for routines of living, and didn't see anyone. Her husband's parents, the Stewarts, lived in Pebble Beach. Apparently Kim had no communication or visits with them. A snapshot, taken by the bodyguard, showing Kim walking near the post office in tight white slacks, sneakers, and a loose red wool sweater, was enough to interest him more.

He watched her for days, his careful intelligence not missing a detail. Finally, he turned to Nichole. "I think she'll do."

Nichole broke into a dazzling smile of relief. She laughed and relaxed, leaning back, jutting out her young breasts provocatively and swinging them back and forth. Since he knew her for what she was, Nichole could afford a lewd grin, a look of utter depravity, to come over her face. She licked her lips, looking at Kim through the glasses once more. It was going to be fun to trick the trusting young wife, to lead her into depravity, to orgies, to wild moments when she would go a little insane and behave in a lewd and lascivious way. It would be wildly interesting and sexually exciting to see Kim come under the influence of Web, to see him break her to his will, to see her perform the way she did, to see her eager for a sexual perversion. If Kim could be led to act that way, it would make her feel better. Besides, it would please Web.

"I think she's definitely unhappy. Over what, I'm not so sure," the gray dressed man said to Nichole. "At first, I thought it was because her husband had left her. I thought she missed him."

"That's possible. She hasn't been married very long."

Web wagged a finger. "There's something more. I'm only guessing, but she had a bruise mark on her neck, a bruise that she was at pains to conceal. I saw it through the glasses when the wind blew it. Why would you conceal a bruise."

Nichole again gave a lewd grin, "When I was afraid they'd be too revealing."

"Exactly. Her husband goes away and she's concealing a bruise. Perhaps several bruises. And she's sad. Why? Because she misses her husband? Or does she miss being bruised?"

Nichole arched a cool eyebrow. "If she does, she'll be easy to bring around."

"No," Web said, shaking his head, "if she just missed the bruises, that would tell us a lot about her right away." His face bent into a superior smile. "What would you do if your husband was far away for six months, and you liked having him bruise you, you liked being bruised, pushed around?"

Nichole was unashamed, brazen. "I'd go out and find me someone."

"Exactly. A woman who enjoys being manhandled, who likes it rough, is a fairly free and sensual person. No, this Kim Stewart stays by herself and looks sad."

"Meaning what?" Nichole couldn't follow his thought.

"Meaning, her husband got a lithe physical with her and she didn't like it. Klaus, good bodyguard and informant that he is, told me they were drinking at The Red Lion and El Matador the night before he left. From all that Klaus could find out, her husband Henry had quite a bit to drink."

Nichole felt a familiar shudder and masochistic thrill go through her body at the mention of the bodyguard's name. Klaus was strong and hung like a bull, and he ready knew how to fuck, and she had done a lot of things with Klaus, things she had watched on film afterwards. Klaus, and Ernie, the chauffeur, were sometimes teamed with her when Web wanted to watch or wanted to entertain his guests. She tried not to think of Klaus and concentrated on Kim. She frowned. "If that's true, if he got rough and she didn't like it, she's going to be tough. Maybe it won't be possible." She bit her lower lip and looked beseechingly at Web.

Web allowed himself a weary look of polite disgust. He sighed. The trouble with Nichole was--she had no real imagination, no real understanding of carnality. She loved it, wallowed in it, but didn't ready understand it. She had no genius for it. Left to her own devices, she would never land Kim. He saw he was going to have to supervise Nichole's every move, carefully school her on what to say. "You leap to the obvious fact and your practical, greedy, earthbound imagination is content to rest there. A bruise, a beating, a husband leaving. She did not like being beat up, right?"

"Right."

"Wrong. That is the most obvious thing. And it's stupid, for it completely rules out what I tell you exists in every woman. Supposing she is troubled because she did like it?"

Nichole tilted her head, suddenly seeing what he was hinting at. "Possible."

"Not only possible, it's probable. Supposing she enjoyed it more than she ever suspected? Supposing, for the first time in her life, she was sexually excited?" He leaned close to her, smiling. "Remember how guilty you felt at first?"

Nichole's nostrils flared with a quick passion at his nearness. It was true. Still, at times, she felt guilty.

Web started the car up and they pulled away. "We're gong home and make plans. We're going to make them carefully, from your first reunion with her up until the time she stands in front of me."

Nichole felt a surge of lewd passion at the idea; there definitely was something wonderfully obscene, sexual, and horny in plotting the humiliation of Kim Stewart. She squirmed her fishy young buttocks against the leather seat. "Tell me what you'll do to her," she said in a breathy voice.

Web chuckled. "I'll do better than that. I'll practice them on you."

Nichole sat with her eyes almost closed, her lips red and pouting and trembled, the nostrils of her pert nose wickedly flaring in unconcealed excitement. She felt her suddenly tingling nipples growing taut, and she crossed her legs and squeezed her thighs tight. Her sensual little body trembled in fine spasms and lewd excitement as she felt her wetly trembling cunt swell and become moist with a hot itching that was sweetly maddening. She needed relief from that itching. She needed to feel on fire and be naked and lewd. She needed to be fucked! She needed her body fucked and defiled. She wanted to be fucked again and again, not just once. She wanted to be fucked by more than one man at the same time. She wanted to be naked in front of Web and have him tell her all the horribly exciting, wicked things that he was going to do to her friend, Kim. She wanted him to practice sex on her.

She said nothing for the rest of the drive through Carmel and through the Pebble Beach gate all the way to the house. She sat trying to calm her breathing and the flaming animal passion that coursed through her body. Web would call her and she would be ready. She gritted her teeth. He knew how to turn her on, he knew how to excite her. Just a few words and he had her feeling hopelessly aroused and ready to fuck anyone or anything. He had her trained, and she clenched her fists and hoped--she couldn't pray--that he would use her... use her body... until she was a screaming, wildly writhing naked mass of wantonness...

Web Hardman didn't know how right he was. It was his genius to detect traces of sexuality or lewdness in a person's make up. Once, in a rare mood, he had bragged that he could talk to a person ten minutes, merely passing the time of day or making polite cocktail chatter, and be able to tell if that person was sensual or not. He prided himself on his knowledge of human nature and his powers of observation. He knew, after watching Kim for a few days, from watching her walk, toss her head, from the way she looked out to sea, the way she held her shoulders and contained her hips, he knew that she was deeply sensual... and ashamed of it!

But he had guessed right about Hank Stewart's wife. She had been brutalized and had, after it was all over, after Hank was long asleep, learned just how much she enjoyed his rough treatment. She had played with her breasts, hurting them, stinging and tingling her nipples and then getting up from the bed, fleeing in a guilty way to the closet where she put on a heavy terry-cloth robe and ran to the bathroom.