Chapter 3

At five o'clock the next afternoon, Jill Duncan was striding toward home down a tree-lined path in the Kongens Have, a large public park beside Rosenborg Castle. In spite of the heavy pile of parcels she carried, there was a determined set to her shoulders and a self- congratulatory smile upon her pretty face. The large park wasn't really the most direct route back to her apartment, but the strong-willed young law student had resolved to exhaust herself both mentally and physically so that there'd be no chance of a recurrence of last night's shameful events. So far today, she'd been one hundred percent successful--not a single lewd tingling sensation had plagued her lush young body.

"Idle hands are the tools of the Devil," Mrs. Duncan had often admonished her only child, and the twenty-two year old girl had never forgotten her mother's advice. She'd thought of this proverb that very morning, after she'd awakened to find that disgusting plastic vibrator and a pile of vile pornographic magazines scattered across the floor beside her bed. For a moment, she'd been overcome with guilt and inertia, tempted to crawl back under the covers and cry. But then she realized that the only way she could regain her self-respect was by forgetting her despicable weakness from the night before and planning her day so that there wasn't a moment free in which she might be troubled by the memories of her depraved act. The first thing the voluptuous redhead had done was take the pink artificial penis and the offending photographs and lock them into an empty suitcase, which she'd pushed to the far corner of the cupboard. (She would have liked to have thrown the whole mess into the garbage pail but was afraid that someone might see them.) Then she'd dressed in her most conservative outfit and had gone off to the university to meet with two professors.

The meetings had gone very well, she thought to herself now, as she hurried through the park. One of the professors had arranged for her to visit various institutions--a prison, a criminal court, and a rehabilitation farm for heroin addicts. The other professor, a Mr. Jorgensen, had stressed the importance of personal observation, urging her to begin Danish language classes at once and reminding her to keep a detached scientific attitude at all times.

Detached scientific attitude... this seemed to Jill to be the most useful bit of advice she'd received in a long time. Last night she had let her personal emotions overcome her, and she must guard against letting such a thing happen again.

After the meetings, she'd gone to the library to obtain a card and check out several heavy volumes on sample law cases, historical precedents, and modern reforms. Then, still fired up with energetic good intentions, she'd bought material to sew curtains so that the lights of the city would provide her with no excuse for any future cases of insomnia.

Jill had purchased a lot of household goods as well, cleaning products and food. This was the first time the auburn-haired student had had an opportunity to live in a flat of her own, and she was pleased by the privacy and independence this afforded her. The fact that it might be lonely living all by herself occurred to her, but she swept the thought from her mind. All the more time to study, she reminded herself.

Preoccupied with her own thoughts, Jill had been almost oblivious to the beauty of the park and the other people out strolling or sunbathing in the warm late-afternoon sun. Suddenly, however, something caught her eye and so shocked the naive young girl that she stopped dead in her tracks to stare in disbelief. Three young girls were lying on a sunny patch of grass not more than three yards from the path, and they were naked! Well, not completely naked, for tiny bikini panties did partially cover their full round buttocks... but nothing at all hid their youthful sun-bronzed breasts. It was absolutely incredible! And perhaps the most amazing thing of all was that none of the other people in the park seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary about these girls, as though it were perfectly acceptable to lie half-naked in a public place in full view of men, women and children!

Regaining her composure at last, Jill forced herself to walk on, although she could not refrain from glancing back over her shoulder to make certain that her eyes hadn't been playing tricks on her. One of the teenagers had stood up and was languidly stretching her arms up in the air, her ripe young breasts, with their rose-tipped nipples, fully visible to everyone in the park as she did so. Good Cod! the embarrassed American thought. She doesn't care who sees her like that! Much to her discomfort, she felt the first twinges of lewd titillation in her belly as she speculated on how it would feel to stand among the trees with a little breeze wafting over her own freely uplifted naked breasts.

Detached scientific attitude! Jill sternly reminded herself. And, with that comforting axiom ringing in her ears, she quickened her pace and left the Kongens Have as fast as she could without once glancing to the right or the left of the gravel path.

By the time she reached the narrow cobblestone street and climbed the five flights of steep stairs, the slender young graduate student's arms were aching and her feet felt hot and swollen from the unaccustomed amount of exercise. She was grateful to be home, to be able to rest and relax. But, strangely enough, after five minutes, the silence in the little flat began to feel oppressive. Jill had always before come home to a roommate or her parents, to someone with whom she could talk about the day's events and share a meal before settling down to her books. Now, although she refused to acknowledge it to herself, she felt lonely and almost homesick. It was exciting being here in Denmark, of course, but it was also very confusing, for the people here didn't seem to believe in the things that she'd been taught all her life. It would be easier if she had someone to talk to. Why hadn't she heard from Erik?

For a few minutes the shapely redhead slumped on the one chair in the tiny room, tears of self-pity brimming in her green eyes. Then a determined expression hardened her lovely face and she Jumped to her feet. How could she possibly have heard from Erik when there was no telephone in the flat? And what did it matter anyway? She had so many things to do that she wouldn't have had time to be with him even if he did come by. Quickly, she began unwrapping her purchases, putting things away and making herself a cheese omelet and a fresh salad. After she had eaten, it was still only seven o'clock, so she washed the dishes and scrubbed all the cupboards in the kitchen. Then, as the church bells rang out eight o'clock, she began to cut out the bright red patterned material she'd bought to make curtains.

There was no traffic on the side street beneath Jill's apartment, and only the occasional sounds of pedestrians and the church bells broke the silence. The stillness seemed unnatural. Tomorrow I'll buy a secondhand radio, Jill promised herself as she began to sew the hem of the first curtain. Then a sudden loud banging on the door of the flat so startled the nervous young girl that she spilled pins and needles all over the floor as she leapt to her feet.

It must be Erik! she thought, surprising herself by the intensity of her joyful relief. She knew she shouldn't want to see him after the terrible thing he'd done in giving her that obscene battery-powered vibrator, but he probably hadn't thought anything of it. In a country where people could lie around half-naked in public, it was impossible to know what was going on- in anyone's mind. And d had been so very kind to her, finding her this flat and all...

Jill pulled open the front door, a welcoming smile on her pretty face. But it wasn't Erik after all--it was a total stranger, a long- haired, very thin young man dressed in purple velvet pants and an exotically embroidered Moroccan shirt. His face was handsome enough, but there was a strange look in his brown eyes.

"Hi," he said in English, but with a slight accent. "I heard noises in here and thought Pout and Helle had come back from the country. Who are you?" His dark eyes ran insolently over her body, and Jill found herself wishing that she'd changed into something other than these tight jeans and shrunken T-shirt.

"I-I'm Jill Duncan," she stammered. "I just moved in yesterday. I think the people who lived here before are staying in the country."

"Oh yeah?" he said, his gaze never leaving the straining mounds of her breasts. "Yeah, they said they might do that. Well, I'm Dizzy, I live down the hall. Ya wanna come over and meet us?"

Jill hesitated, not quite knowing how to reply. There was something about him that made her feel uneasy, and, even though she had had absolutely no experience with drugs, she immediately suspected that he was high on something.

"We just got hold of some out-of-sight shit," he added persuasively.

So, her guess had been right! "Shit" was obviously some sort of illegal narcotic. The innocent law student's first impulse was to slam the door in his face, but then she thought better of it. Here, after all, was the perfect opportunity to personally investigate the attitudes of an alternative lifestyle. What was it that Professor Jorgensen had said this morning? Something about the fact that drug crimes are preventable only when the mass of humanity understands the underlying causes for their use- --well, what better way to understand their use than through personal observation?

Jill forced a smile. "Sure, Dizzy, I'd like to meet your friends."

Dizzy's flat was the same shape and size as the redhead's own apartment, but the similarity ended there. There was a great clutter of brightly colored objects covering every inch of the small room. Posters lined the walls and ceiling, some of the same ones that Jill had seen in the sex shop. Numerous record albums were scattered on the uncarpeted floor, and the stereo was blaring out rock music at full volume. A strange mixture of odors filled the stuffy air, smoke, incense, and a smell that the young law student couldn't quite identify. Although it was still light out on the street below, the windows were covered with exotic Indian cloth so that it was completely dark inside, except for two homemade candles burning on a low table. Around the table, slumped on foam rubber mattresses, lay three bodies.

"Sit down, if you want," Dizzy said, gesturing vaguely toward one of the mats and then turning to address one of the reclining bodies. "Did ya bring the stuff, Amed?"

Jill gingerly lowered herself onto the low mattress, feeling more uneasy than ever. She knew that she must not let her own emotional reactions interfere with her objective observation, but it was impossible to ignore the odd aura of sinister enchantment that this room exuded. The bewildered young redhead had a sudden instinctive feeling that, if she were to fall asleep in this place, she'd awake in some other world, where the atmosphere imposed a kind of bizarre stupefication.

"Do I not always bring the hashish when I say I do?" Amed replied to Dizzy's question in a heavily accented voice. Jill thought that he was probably not Danish, for his accent was different, and his swarthy, dark- haired appearance was not at all Scandinavian.

"Yeah, man, but you don't always bring it for the price you said you would," Dizzy countered. "It's still seven a gram?"

Amed answered in some language Jill didn't understand, something similar to Danish that she supposed must be German. They haggled about the price for several moments, and then Dizzy brought out a little postage scale and weighed a large slab of dark brown colored stuff. At last money changed hands, and Dizzy began to grind up a little piece of the "shit," blend it with crushed tobacco from a mangled cigarette and stuff the mixture into a little clay pipe.

Jill squirmed nervously on the foam rubber mat, trying to think of a graceful way to leave immediately. She'd never smoked dope before, and she didn't want to start smoking it now. Yet she knew that no one in the room would understand her conservative point of view.

The two bodies on the other side of the low table slowly rose to a sitting position as Dizzy lit the small pipe. In the dim light the uneasy American girl couldn't quite make out whether or not they were male or female, as both had hair as long as her own. Then one of the figures stood up and started to move somewhat unsteadily in the direction of the kitchen. A sheer Indian-cotton robe immediately marked her as a girl with a very thin body but well-rounded breasts.

Dizzy handed the little clay pipe to Amed, who sucked the heavy smoke deep into his lungs while Jill watched curiously. She half-expected him to immediately start babbling like an insane person, or perhaps keel over in a dead faint, but all he actually did was stare at her in a way that made her hastily shift her glance away.

Amed passed the pipe to the man seated on the opposite mat, who inhaled deeply and then stood up to hand the ceramic object to Jill.

"No thanks, I don't smoke," she said somewhat defensively.

"Why not?" the tall handsome youth asked, sounding just as amazed as if she'd told him that she didn't breathe.

"Because it's against the law, for one thing..." Jill began.

"Oh, you don't have to be paranoid here," he laughed. "Smoking isn't illegal - only selling."

"Sure, Tommy's right, he oughta know, he did time in England," Dizzy said, moving over to sit uncomfortably close to her on the mattress. "Here, do it like this."

Jill hesitated, not quite knowing what she ought to do. If it really was legal, then she ought to try it so that she would understand the effects of this popular narcotic. Besides, it seemed so much easier to accept the pipe than to attempt to argue with these strange people. She'd just take in a little smoke, not enough to make her really high, but just so that she could test the general effect. Taking hold of the clay pipe between stiff, awkward fingers, she inhaled the pungent smoke as Dizzy had demonstrated. It felt hot and rough on her throat, and immediately the young redhead began to cough.

"Come on, try it again. Take it easy--inhale a little smoke and hold it down as long as you can," the long-haired "hippie" advised.

Jill tried it once more, and this time was able to control her coughing. Much to her relief, she felt no reaction at all from the strange smelling smoke, and the blonde student decided that now that she'd satisfied her scientific curiosity, she'd leave at the first possible opportunity.

The thin girl with the large breasts came in from the kitchen carrying a pot of tea and an assortment of chipped cups. As she moved across the room, every detail of her slim adolescent body was outlined through the gauzy robe she wore, and the young American student wondered how she could act so unselfconscious when she was as good as naked in a room full of people.

"That's Lisa," Dizzy said to Jill. "And that's Tommy, he's from London. And over there's Amed--he's from Algeria. Lisa and me are from Copenhagen."

Jill stared at him, unable to think of any reply. The pipe had made the round of the table, and Dizzy was again handing it to her. Well, why not, the naive redhead thought, since it doesn't affect me anyway. She took a deep drag on the hashish-filled pipe, at the same time drawing a few inches away from Dizzy.

For several minutes there was no sound in the dim room except the urgent rhythm of the stereo and the scratching of matches as the pipe was re-lit. Jill wondered if she ought to try to talk to someone, but she really couldn't think of a thing to say. It was very strange, yet, in a way, the silence seemed peaceful and quite natural. The room no longer appeared shabby, either; as the garish colors softened and blended before her eyes and the flickering candlelight cast mysterious shadows, the atmosphere began to seem sensuous and exciting. It reminded her more than anything else of the illustrations in the Arabian Nights book she'd read as a child.

Yet, in spite of the soothing atmosphere, the shapely redhead found it hard to really relax. She squirmed her buttocks against the foam mattress as unobtrusively as possible, searching in vain for a position that would relieve the straining pressure of her tight jeans against her sensitive pussy. The more she twisted and turned, the more embarrassing the throbbing sensation between her legs became. Her whole vagina felt as though it were pulsating in time to the strong beat of the rock album.