Chapter 1

Jill Duncan shifted restlessly in her reclining airline seat, the blanket that the stewardess had given her in New York slipping in a tangled heap down her long shapely legs. For a moment she hovered between sleeping and waking, then fell back into her dream. The loud whirr of the jet engines became the excited buzz of spectators in a crowded courtroom, and she herself was sitting in the defense attorney's chair staring at the prosecutor in front of her. He was shouting, "True or false? True or false? Tea or coffee?" And when she didn't answer he began shaking her arm, repeating, "Tea or coffee?"

Jill groaned, not understanding his question, and then the courtroom abruptly faded as she opened her eyes to stare around the jet in confusion. A well-dressed man seated beside her was gently shaking her and speaking the words she'd heard in her dream, and a wide-awake and smiling stewardess was standing in the aisle with two steaming silver pots and a cart full of cups and saucers.

"Coffee," she muttered, rubbing her eyes and pushing her tousled red hair out of her face. Groggily accepting the plastic tray containing a cup of coffee, a glass of orange juice, and a sweet roll, Jill turned to smile at the man beside her.

"Gosh, I was really dead to the world. Thanks for waking me up."

"Well, I thought you might be hungry if you missed breakfast. You fell asleep before they served dinner last night."

Jill gulped down the hot coffee and began to feel fully awake. She glanced at the man out of the corner of her eye, noting that he was handsome with curly blond hair and blue eyes. His English was perfect, but a slight foreign accent prevented him from sounding like an American. He must be Scandinavian, she decided, and maybe he'd be able to tell her some interesting things about northern Europe. This excited the young redhead much more than his rugged good looks, for she prided herself on being scholarly rather than silly and romantic.

"Excuse me, but are you Scandinavian?" she asked him politely.

"You can tell by my accent?" he said with a little laugh. "I have studied the English language for ten years in school, but still I have an accent."

Jill was afraid she had insulted him. "Oh, no, you speak very good English," she reassured him. "I just wondered if you knew anything about Denmark. I'm going there to live for a year, you see."

"Let me welcome you to our little land," he smiled. I'm glad she's not just another tourist, he was thinking to himself. This girl's built like a bomb, and I'd like to know her better... much better. "Will you be staying in Copenhagen?"

"Yes, I'll be working with the university there," Jill replied.

"I'm also from Copenhagen--I've lived there all my life. By the way, my name's Erik Mortensen."

"I'm Jill Duncan," the curvaceous redhead said, dimpling and then smiling. "Please tell me about Copenhagen!"

Erik stared at her intently, taking particular note of the way her tailored blouse had become unbuttoned in her sleep to reveal two perfectly shaped breasts, their full white mounds thrusting up proudly from the tight-fitting white cotton brassiere. "First I will teach you the most important word in Danish," he smiled, raising his plastic cup of orange juice toward her.

"Skal!"

"Skal?" Diligent student that she was, Jill Duncan had bought Danish records and a language book when she learned that she had received a fellowship to study law in Copenhagen. But that word hadn't been in the lessons.

"Yes, it means 'cheers', and you must hold up your glass, touch it to mine, and look into my eyes," Erik instructed, staring deeply into the young girl's green eyes as she repeated, "Skal!"

"Attention please, ladies and gentlemen. We are now beginning our descent and in a few minutes we will be landing in Copenhagen. Please fasten your seatbelts and refrain from smoking as soon as the sign in front of you is lighted up."

Jill Duncan, surprised that the flight was already nearly over, turned to stare out of the window on her right. A few streaks of pink sunrise lingered on the horizon, but the rest of the sky was clear and blue and promised perfect early summer weather. Far below, she saw the deeper blue ocean with its whitecaps bobbing up and down like small silver-white sailboats.

"The flight seemed so short!" she exclaimed to the friendly young man beside her, obediently fastening her seatbelt as she spoke.

"No wonder!" he laughed. "You've been sleeping like a baby ever since we left New York."

"Well, I didn't want to be dead on my feet when I got to Copenhagen, so I took two sleeping pills," Jill explained. "I want to be able to get right to work."

"To work? I thought you were a student?" Mortensen asked.

"I am, I'm researching criminal law, and I received a grant to study crime in Denmark," the voluptuous redhead replied somewhat proudly. "I consider that work."

"It sounds very interesting. But wouldn't you be better off studying crime in New York? I just spent two weeks there on business, and it seemed much more dangerous to me than peaceful Copenhagen."

"That's just the point!" Jill exclaimed, her voice taking on the tone of a university lecturer as she began to speak of her scholastic studies. "I want to observe just how and why your society is so much less violent than American society, and what effect Danish laws have had on the criminal mentality in your country. The recorded facts show, for example, that when Denmark repealed the laws against pornography, your sexual crimes decreased a statistically significant degree, and..." She broke off in sudden confusion as she realized that her blouse was undone, and that this handsome young Danish man was staring intently at the cleavage of her shamelessly revealed breasts. "Exexcuse me," the curvaceous student stammered in embarrassment. "I think I'll just run back to the ladies' room and freshen up a bit." Her cheeks flaming, she squeezed awkwardly past him, more perturbed than ever as she felt his knees intently pressing against her firm young thighs.

Erik Mortensen smiled quietly to himself as he stared with unabashed interest at her gently swaying buttocks which were undulating in unconscious provocation beneath her short skirt as she hurried down the aisle. Like so many of the American girls he'd met during his frequent trips to the United States, she seemed ashamed and fearful of her own sexuality. Well, she'd change her ideas soon enough in Denmark, he was certain of that. And he was also sure that he'd do his utmost to help instigate that change!

In the tiny toilet cubicle at the rear of the airliner, Jill stared at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were still burning at the thought of what Mr. Mortensen must think of her--he would certainly imagine that she was one of those cheap girls who believed in displaying their bodies to attract men. Then she tossed her long auburn hair proudly. Well, she wasn't one of those girls, and she would continue to act serious and polite to prove that fact to him. Working slowly so that she'd have plenty of time to regain her composure, the attractive twenty-two year old carefully cleansed her smooth fair skin and applied a light touch of lipstick to her full sensuous lips. Sometimes Jill wished that she hadn't been so generously endowed with good looks, for it only made things more difficult for her. Most men simply couldn't believe that a lovely young girl like herself could be more interested in her scholastic career than in their persistent attention. They invariably tended to stare at her long shapely legs, gently flaring buttocks, and proud high-set breasts when she was trying to discuss something serious with them, and she'd learned to steel herself against feeling flustered and confused by their not-so-very-well-disguised interest in her body. As far as Jill Duncan was concerned, her classically molded face and voluptuous body were merely handicaps to the intellectual development of her mind.

By the time she returned to her seat, refusing to react to Erik's tight-pressing knee as she squeezed past him, the red "No Smoking" sign was flashing. The excited young redhead peered eagerly out the window, surprised to see how very different the Danish countryside looked from the New England scenery she had grown up with. Instead of neat rows of white frame houses separated by white picket fences, that were so characteristic of American countryside, the Danish houses were painted in bright shades of gold and blue, and all the roofs seemed to be made of a red tile that gleamed in the bright sunlight.

"Oh, I'm so excited!" she exclaimed.

"Me, too," he agreed. "I'm always glad to come home. Traveling is all right, but I'm happiest here in Copenhagen."

Now they were flying over low red brick apartment houses, and the airplane was steadily falling lower and lower.

"Where are you staying?" Erik asked. "Some friends delivered my car to the airport parking lot, and I'd be glad to give you a lift into town."

"Oh, I don't have anything planned," Jill answered. "I didn't want to waste money on a hotel, so I thought I'd start to look for an apartment of my own right away."

"I'm afraid that's not going to be very easy," the blond man warned her. "It's almost impossible to find flats in the center of town, especially if you don't know anyone. And if you go to an agency for help, you'll pay a lot more than you would have at a cheap hotel. But it's too late to think of that now, I guess. All the hotels are full this time of the year. Why, you'll find kids sleeping in all the parks."

"Oh no!" Jill exclaimed, a worried frown creasing her pretty face. She had just enough money to rent a cheap apartment, to eat, and to buy the necessary books and supplies for her studies. If she had to hand over a lot of money to an agency, she might have to give up eating until next month's check arrived. "Is it really that bad?" she asked in a sober voice.

"I'm afraid so. It's hard enough to find a place to live even during the winter, but in June the city's flooded with tourists." Erik Mortensen enjoyed watching the independent girl's self-composed mask crumble to pieces and delighted in her new found vulnerability. "But maybe I can do something for you..."

"Oh, Mr. Mortensen, I wouldn't want you to go to any trouble," she protested weakly.

"No trouble at all! I was just thinking of the building where I lived when I was a student. The landlady's an old friend of my family's, and if there's anything available I'm sure she'd let you have it if I come around with you. It's nothing fancy, but it's only three hundred kroner a month and ten minutes walk from the university." He paused, then grinned, "And please don't call me 'Mr. Mortensen'--it makes me feel like an old man!"

"Okay, Erik," Jill smiled thankfully. "It sounds just perfect! I'm so grateful to you."

There was a sudden slight bump as the plane landed, causing the young girl's heart to leap in a joyous thrill of anticipation. She was about to set foot for the first time on European soil, about to start a new life!

In a daze of excitement she followed Erik out of the plane and down a confusing maze of corridors to the baggage and customs area. Though she didn't like to admit it to herself, the usually self-reliant girl realized that she would have felt lost without the handsome blond man there to lead the way and carry her heavy book-laden suitcase. As she listened to the voices around her babbling in strange-sounding Danish, she knew that her language records with their slow, well-pronounced phrases had been of very little real use. Jill turned in bewilderment to the helpful English- speaking Dane waiting beside her in the quick-moving customs line.

Just as they were approaching the custom booth, the line came to a standstill.

"A couple damn Arabs," Erik said, peering toward the head of the line. "Probably carrying dope."

Jill watched curiously as, after a long conversation in Danish and Turkish, two dark-complexioned men were led away by uniformed officials. Though she had, of course, read about the drug problem, the attractive student had never actually encountered anything except a little marijuana smoking in her quiet New England college, and the thought of smuggling narcotics all seemed fascinatingly wicked to the innocent young girl.

"Anything to declare?" the man behind the booth asked Erik, startling Jill out of her reverie. The custom official's eyes focused with obvious interest on her long slender legs, and she was annoyed to feel herself blushing.

"One bottle of whiskey and one carton of cigarettes," the well-built blond man answered smoothly.

Turning quickly to Jill, the official looked at the one-year student visa stamped in her brand new passport and smiled. "Have a good stay in Denmark!" he said, waving them on.

And then, after another tangle of corridors, they found themselves standing in the warm sunshine, climbing into Erik's little car, and driving down the highway toward Copenhagen.

"Got away with three bottles of whiskey and four cartons of cigarettes!" Erik boasted. "But that's against the law!" Jill gasped.

"Well, here in Denmark there's a 100% tax on alcohol and cigarettes, so we don't quite take that law quite so seriously," he said.

The auburn-haired law student supposed that she ought to be shocked; after all, telling a lie to a custom's official was a crime. But the handsome Dane was grinning at her with such infectious glee that she had to smile back.

"Wow! If I'd known that, I'd have bought some duty-free cigarettes at Kennedy International. I guess I'll have to give up smoking."

"Take one of my cartons," he offered. "And one of the bottles of whiskey too."

"Oh, I couldn't do that!"

"Please. I'm going to Munich in two weeks, so I'll be able to get some more. Besides, I owe you a favor That customs official might have opened my bags if he hadn't been so busy staring at your legs."

Although this was just the sort of remark that Jill resented, and in spite of her reservations about accepting smuggled goods, she didn't quite know how to refuse his offer. He was being so very kind to her, and she didn't want to seem rude.

"Thank you," she murmured at last, thinking to herself as she spoke: Just this once--this will be the first and last time I ever break a law.

It seemed no time at all before they reached the center of Copenhagen with its copper-spired townhall and crowded square. A few blocks farther on, past a little park with a small lake filled with ducks and swans, Erik turned onto a winding cobblestone side street.

"Here we are," he said. "It's good to be back in Copenhagen after New York's traffic. Let's go meet Fru Larsen and see if she's got a Rat for you."

Fru Larsen, a plump, gray-haired woman with a cheerful smile, did indeed have an empty apartment in the old five-story building. "The couple that lived there went on a holiday to the country last week," she explained, "and just two days ago they wrote me a letter and said that they had decided to stay there. Isn't that lucky for you!"

The three of theta made their way up a dark narrow flight of wooden steps to the top floor where the landlady fitted a key into one of the three doors in the hallway. The flat was tiny and sparsely furnished, but it was scrupulously clean. Sunshine streamed in through the large windows of the single room, making it seem cheerful in spite of the threadbare carpet and shabby bedspread. Beyond this room there was a miniature kitchen and a tiny room containing the toilet.

"A toilet, that's great!" Erik exclaimed. "There weren't any toilets when I lived here."

"We put them in two years ago. And I'm afraid the rent went up, too, it's four hundred kroner a month now," the landlady apologized.

"This is just perfect!" Jill said happily. She was so grateful to find a place to live without any trouble that another hundred kroner didn't bother her at all. -Quickly figuring in her head, she realized that the rent was only about $75, which she could easily manage. "Can I move in right away?"

"Of course, dear. And if you have any questions about anything, just ask me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some cakes in the oven."

As the older woman's heavy footsteps echoed down the stairs, Erik turned to the excited redhead. "Well, do you like it?" he asked.

"Oh, I love it!" Jill cried. "I, I can't thank you enough, Mr... uh... Erik."

"My pleasure," he said, thinking that when he managed to get into her hot little pussy he'd be amply repaid for all his efforts. But not too fast! he cautioned himself. I'll wait until she wants it, and that shouldn't be very long if I'm clever about it. His restlessly stirring penis gave a little lurch, creating a noticeable bulge in his tight- fitting trousers. Somehow this voluptuous yet naive young American girl whom he planned to seduce excited him much more than his many Danish girl friends, all of whom were more than willing to go to bed with him whenever he pleased.

"Now how about seeing something of the town? We can have lunch, and then I'll show you one of those porno shops you mentioned."

Jill only hesitated for an instant, then nodded. "Okay, but just let me get out of these clothes, I feel all dirty and rumpled. I'll just be a moment."

Quickly tugging open the small suitcase which Erik had lugged up the stairs for her, the attractive young redhead pulled out a clean skirt and underwear and hurried into the kitchen. She stood naked before the sink, waiting for the water to run hot and listening to the foreign sounds of three youngsters yelling to one another in Danish from the courtyard below. How strange everything was! She didn't feel at all like her usual self. Just the very idea of visiting a pornography shop with a near- stranger would have been unthinkable to hear back in New England--though, of course, it was necessary now for her research, and she was grateful not to have to go into a shop alone.

Even stranger was the fact that she was allowing herself to undress in an apartment with a man just beyond the door. She'd never thought she'd do that again, not after what had happened to her the last time, but somehow she felt so differently here in Denmark that even this seemed all right.

That other time... that other time>.O the thought reverberated in her mind and she felt herself drifting backward in time...

It had happened two months ago, at the little college in New England that now seemed so far away that Jill wasn't quite sure it really existed. She'd come home late from her gymnastics class, and had just finished her shower when Jeff, her ex-boyfriend, arrived for their date to hear a lecture being given by a visiting Supreme Court judge.

Unthinkingly, she answered the door in her robe, and immediately realized it was a bad mistake when Jeff grabbed at her with unaccustomed ardor and kissed her on the lips.

"Wow!" he whistled. "You ought to answer the door like this more often!"

"I'll be ready in a moment," Jill replied coolly, attempting to pull away from his strong embrace and escape to the bathroom.

"Don't rush, baby, I like you fine just like this!" he leered. "Jeff! What's the matter with you tonight?"

"What's the matter? You're the matter, Jill. You're so goddamn sexy sometimes that it drives me insane not to be able to touch you!"

"We've discussed this matter before, Jeff," she said sternly, still trying to pull away from him.

"Yeah, sure we have, but I still don't hear any satisfactory answers," the frustrated young law student retorted. "Are you going to marry me or not? If you are, then what are we waiting for? Honestly, Jill, I can't take this frustration much longer..."