Read Online Making Love by Norman Bogner - Free Book Online

 
    â€œDid I ever make you happy?” she asked.  
    He took the key from her, kissed her on the forehead and she held onto his hand.  
    â€œYes, you did. But not often enough.”  
    Â 
    * * * *
    Â 
    It was the kind of party that Mel liked best. Fellow brokers and wheeler-dealers from other over-the-counter brokerage houses, sprinkled with pretty secretaries drinking on empty stomachs who, for the price of dinner, would be happy to accommodate any of the out-of-town businessmen. Mel's guest list was as large as his credit would permit.  
    The guest of honor was already on the road to insolvency; Mel had taken the Health Company of America public that afternoon. A few points had been tacked on the price, and Al Salkind was walking around like he owned America. He was chairman of the board and chief executive officer; his wife, Sylvia, was vice-president; his brother-in-law, Hy, treasurer; and his sister-in-law, Mildred, secretary. All in all, a family affair, everybody counting money they didn't have, planning cruises (outside cabins this time), and flirting with a future that included Riva speedboats, Europe, ringside tables at Caesar's Palace when Sinatra headlined, and headwaiters who wrapped an arm around them and called them by their first names. Al even had delusions of having his nonentity enshrined in a gossip column: “Which wealthy healthy tycoon was seen at Le Club with Broadway's newest chestiest singing star?” He'd have to find out the address of Le Club for openers if he was supposed to be dancing there. Sylvia could accuse him all she liked, the column hadn't identified him.  
    Neatly but, unfortunately, not inconspicuously tucked in a corner with a group of secretaries passionately discussing the ever-uninspired topic of their bosses’ advances, Jane stood quietly by, mysterious and sensual like the inside of a melon, thinking of Charles Luckmunn—who, as many before him, represented the exquisite frivolity of Nancy's despair. In Nancy's hands, lovemaking took on the uncertainty of medieval torture. The solution to her problem simply a divorce....  
    Mel stormed through the girls and someone spilled a drink on one of them, an occasion for general laughter. He led a reeling Al Salkind along with him. They stopped in front of Jane. Salkind had the physique of a buffalo, humped shoulders, and a peeling red face from an overdose of sun-ray lamp. Jane reluctantly extended her hand. There seemed no way, short of jumping from the window behind her, to avoid an introduction.  
    â€œThe pleasure is mine,” Al said.  
    â€œI haven't met her either,” the eagle-eyed Sylvia announced, thrusting herself between them. Despite her title of vice-president, she had nonvoting stock, and after twenty years with Al she wasn't going to let him gallivant off with a pisher with big tits. “I'm Sylvia Salkind,” she said, because Al was holding Jane's hand that dangerous second too long.  
    â€œHello,” Jane replied, wondering what she was doing there in the first place.  
    At cocktail parties, Sylvia flew low, a human U-2, scanning all cleavages in the room to be sure that her husband's hand was not playfully located in any of them.  
    Drinks were offered by a brawny man who carried a tray with a somewhat uncertain tilt, and Mel took the opportunity to whisper to Al:  
    â€œHer family is Invictor and Jane's the biggest stockholder.”  
    â€œInvictor from the big board?” asked the startled chairman.  
    â€œIs there any other?”  
    â€œThat's big numbers,” Al said, adjusting his ascot.  
    â€œWhat do you think, I have nobodies at my place?” Mel demanded.  
    Jane drifted away from them and looked around for Conlon, a haven, when she saw Al stumble past his wife, in a perfectly executed cocktail-party draw play. Jane pushed herself into a corner of the bar.  
    The waiter informed her that she was