Chapter 1

He had never had an adventure before. He was a man who didn't take chances, but he sometimes got bored with that. Like today. It was Halloween, and he felt different. All day he had felt strange, like he was all of a sudden bored with his predictable, conventional life. His Accounting job, that had once seemed so good because it was so safe, now seemed suffocating.

He met her in the subway on the way home from work. She was dressed in black satin, a wide brimmed hat and gloves and a figure hugging dress. What the hell, it's Halloween, he thought. She must be some eccentric lady who's going to a Halloween party.

Then she looked at him. Her eyes were green under long black lashes, and she stared right at him. She was sitting across from him in the subway car, and she smiled lasciviously at him. She was like a tiger that was looking at its supper, like she was going to open her mouth and devour him. He felt his cock get hard, and at the same time he shivered with fear.

He had never been with a woman who looked like that. His girlfriend Penny was waiting for him at home, probably with a dinner of meat loaf and mashed potatoes. Little round Penny who liked to babble on about nothing, about the color of drapes she saw at her girlfriend's house, or what book she was reading for her book club. She suddenly seemed boring and pedestrian and he dreaded going home to her.

The woman across from him kept smiling, and then, as the train slowed down coming in to a station, she mouthed the words, "Come with me."

The train screeched to a stop, and she got up and winked at him. She sauntered toward the door, her hips moving with an arrogant flip to them, and before he knew it he was following her off the train.

On the platform she didn't stop, she just kept walking, her heels clicking along the cement. He couldn't take his eyes off the rotation of her hips. She walked up the stairs ahead of him, and it was a sight to behold the way her hips swayed in slow motion going up each step.

At the top of the steps she moved among the crowd of people as if in a bubble, never touching anyone and never moving aside, simply going her way as if she were the only person walking on the street. He followed her in awe, conscious of a strange power she had. She walked two blocks along the crowded street, then turned right and went down a side street, never looking back at him, simply going along her way as if nothing unusual was going on. She made a few more turns, and finally they were on a street that was strangely quiet, with no cars going down it and no people around anywhere.

The houses on the street were ancient, with big porches and pointy roofs and gables, and ornate woodwork everywhere. She turned at a house in the middle of the block and went up the wide steps, then stopped and turned to look at him for the first time since the train.

He was about fifty yards behind her, and the sight of her standing there looking at him, those green eyes glittering in the fading rays of the sunset, took his breath away. He had never had a woman who looked like that pay attention to him.

She smiled, that same ironic half smile, and then she curled her finger and beckoned him. She turned and went in the house, leaving him dumbstruck on the street.

What do I do? he thought. This is crazy. I just followed a strange woman from the subway to an odd looking house, and now she's inviting me in. This could be some kind of a trap, and she could have guys inside just waiting to hit me over the head with a baseball bat and steal all my money. Who knows what could happen in there? I'd be crazy to go in, wouldn't I?