He turned right when she remembered to point, used the turn to stall. "In case you didn't notice, Donna," Andy said softly, "I'm a little guy. A real little guy."

"Around that corner, the third apartment on your left," she said. Her face turned to him and he caught a glimpse of it thanks to a streetlight. Seen that way, without considering her height, she was definitely prettya"and feminine. "I suppose you are, Mr. Chalminski. I don't understand the connection."

He had it now, and her! "We're two of a kinda"and make it 'Andy,' awright? We're birds of a feather, Ms. Callaghan. Don't you get it?" He pulled into a s.p.a.ce at the curb in front of her brown-brick building, switched off the ignition.

"Not wholly," she confessed. She opened her door but made no move to get out.

"I'm the freak here," he explained, "'cause the whole world wants guys who are six feet tall, six fivea"and showers goodies on them, honey; didn't you know that?" To his surprise, he heard emotion creeping into his voicea"that, and a ring of honesty he hadn't heard in it for a long while. "All my life I've had t'be smarter and quicker-thinkinga"bettera"than other guys, because I sure as h.e.l.l can't lick 'em!"

Donna actually laughed. And it was pretty to hear; it gave him hope she might look okay under those loose-fitting clothes. "I never thought of it that way."

"See, we're like two peas in the same pod, just at different ends." He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the brown bag with the champagne Eddie Burgess had left on the seat. "You think of yourself as too tall for anyone to like, right? And I've thought of ways t'make people give me what I got a right to, 'cause I feel the same way." Boldly he put out a hand to touch her knee. It quavered but didn't pull away. "I got things t'teach you, Donna. Listen to me and you'll have half the men in the world on their knees to you!"

"I always thought I'd like men who aren't tall, like me," Donna confessed. Then, though, she was uncurling out onto the sidewalk and leading the way to her apartment.

Once inside the place and seated in a comfortable chair, Chalminski tried to remember all the polite things guests were supposed to do in a nice girl's home. When nothing much came to his mind, he studied her as covertly as possible and tried to form an opinion about her attractiveness. Meaning, by and (very) large, her body.

Through the open doorway to the kitchen he was able to detect a rising bosom as Donna brought down two ordinary water gla.s.ses; and when her back, briefly, was to Andy, her sweat-suit-concealed tush looked sort of cute. But then he was strangely relieved to be uncorking the champagne bottle and pouring out bubbly even if she had brought a meaty file folder along that doubtlessly contained her ma.n.u.script. As she carried it and her gla.s.s to her chair, Andy tried to understand why he'd begun to perspire a lot. h.e.l.l, the heat was on her, not him!

Yet it dawned on him when she was seated, crossing her impossibly long legs and sipping champagne, that he was oozing sweat for three d.a.m.n good reasons: First, Callaghan was the real thing, not on the make, and it might prove harder than he'd imagined to get her out of the ugly clothes and eyeball her the way his audience would. Second, if her bod truly was in perfect proportion, the way he wanted to advertise it, Donna might not represent merely his last chance at another moneymaker, she could just earn him a f.u.c.king mint! And third, the primary reason for his sweating like a pig in heat, the biggest woman he had ever put it to was maybe five nine, and she'd been one of the squeezes in a flick he'd produced.

He sneaked out a handkerchief, blotted his forehead. While Donna went through a line of chatter meant to set the scene for reading her ma.n.u.script to hima"it was obvious she wanted to do it, more obvious he wouldn't be conscious when she'd finished a"Chalminski faced the total truth about his state of mind: Until this true midwestern woman was bare-a.s.s in a position where no one was ever taller than anybody else, Callaghan was nothing more nor less than a possible gigantic hopea"and the most intimidating broad one Andrew Chalminski would ever meet! She had shyly kicked off her shoes, and he decided he actually liked her, but that was not, could not conceivably be, the point.

Just as it had always been for a tough little pink-faced shrimp of a guy from Oceanside, it was up to him to twist Lady Luck like a gawd.a.m.n pretzel until she handed over the destiny he had in mind for himself. No way he wanted to hurt this sweet-tempered freak of a dame, and he'd take the responsibility to check out the health of every actor or actress who ever f.u.c.ked her, but this was ol' Andy's livelihood on the line. Anyone who didn't know enough to cover their own a.s.s was just too ignorant to survive these days anyhow, and it was only a question of time till somebody screwed 'em!

"We're interested in high concept, Donna," he broke into what she was saying.

Donna lowered her ma.n.u.script, lashes blinking behind the heavy gla.s.ses. "Sir?"

"It's a film term," Andy said grandly, waving. He fixed a squint on the ceiling. "Like, can a motion picture be summed up in no more than two sentences. Those are the pictures that sell." He took the champagne over to her, refilled her gla.s.s, smiled when she drank most of it immediately. "Movie people, at the buying and optioning level, don't read scripts or novels, y'see. Writers and agents come in and explain that concept I mentioned. If it strikes us as a bankable idea, we tell 'em to explain more of the concept to us." He shrugged very, very faintly before retreating to his chair. "Books are for publishers, readers."

"But I thought y-you wanted to know my story." She removed the gla.s.ses, rested them on a coffee table. Her blue eyes looked damp and quite pretty. "Why else would you comea"?"

"Ms. Callaghan," Andy interrupted, standing as he refilled his gla.s.s, "we were discussing the concept for your movie while we drove here. And it's a very high one, indeed," he added, retracing his steps to pour more bubbly into Donna's gla.s.s. "I got t'tell you, I was very impressed." Instead of smiling, he looked as earnest as humanly possible. He straightened to his full height to appear at least slightly taller than she was sitting. "Once some other matters are cleared away, I'm prepared to write into your contract an authorization for you to do the novelization of your life story."

"A movie tie-in book?" she asked in a small, shocked, did-she-dare-hope-for-this tone of voice.

"Imagine the reader potential for a book based on a real-life filma"starring the author herself!" Andy let that one sink in, then adopted an expression of concern. "Our gifted mutual pal Edward did mention that possibility, didn't he?"

Donna gulped champagne and nodded simultaneously, getting the tip of her nose wet and evoking an excited, embarra.s.sed giggle. "He dida"but I'm no actress, Mr. Chalminski, and Edward is the only one who's said my wr-writing is good enough for a book."

Andy patted her shoulder, smelled a pleasant perfume lofting to his nose. "You ever hear of editors, Donna? And I insist, I'm Andy." He put his gla.s.s next to hers, refilled each of them. "Of course, even with the finest acting coaches, there are some questions I must answer before we can go to the next step."

"I'd try to answer them, Andy," she said quickly, drying her nose.

Chalminski inhaled, shook his head slightly. "Donnaa"I don't even know what you look like!" He decided to let himself look as troubled as he really was. "We can use ten-year-old girls t'play you when you were five. But what about the later scenes?"

"B-b-but this is how I look!" she blurted. Whether she realized she was starting to slur words occasionally or not was hard to tell because she was so swept up in their discussion. Again she reached for her gla.s.s, sipped from it. "I don't understanda"Andy."

He took two quick steps away, patted his own face to dry it of sweat before turning back. It was time to move forward swiftly, surely, like a basketball point guard taking charge of a close game. "Donna dear, how many motion picture actresses under the age of fifty do you see in sweat suits? Not t'be rude, but I can't even see what your legs look like! It ain't necessarily a case of s.e.x appeal; but men go to movies, rent videotapes, and they like to see actresses who looka"do forgive me for thisa"as attractive and as, well, female as possible." He edged another inch toward the goal, cautious as h.e.l.l about how he worded it. "I think you may be prettya"but even as much as an admirer of feminism as I am, I got to have a gander at how you look."

She hesitated for such a long period of time, Chalminski nearly forgot to breathe. At last, nodding, she got to her feet, her proximitya"and heighta"once more amazing him. "I have other clothes," Donna said shortly. She went on nodding as she headed toward a hallway of the apartment. "I do see what you mean. I guess it's only fair and reasonable."

He watched her leave, noticed she staggered just a little despite the effort she put into walking with dignity. Chalminski's heart leaped with joya"

Until she added, possibly speaking as much to herself as to him, "I have a nice sweater and some hiking shorts. 'Scuse me." A door banged against a wall seconds later.

Andy clapped his forehead with his hand. A sweater? Hiking shorts? Whata"a sweater large enough for a baby rhino, and shorts that went down to calf-length socks? Gawd, every other broad he'd ever given that speech to had gotten the drift immediately, and half of 'em had started stripping on the spot!

He gulped down the rest of the champagne in his gla.s.s and Donna's too. At least she'd swilled it away pretty good; that would help!

Without hesitation, he strode down the carpeted hallway to her bedroom and threw the door open.

Donna Callaghan, no more than six feet away, was the most naked human being Andy Chalminski had ever seen. His eyes, his mind, and his glands described her that way to him and couldn't have listened to any quibbling about degrees of nudity if Andy's life had depended on it. There was just so much more of Donna than of any other woman he had even heard about that the sight of her simultaneously supercharged all his senses and threatened to short-circuit thema"and the almost seven-foot giantess certainly fulfilled the little Chalminski's fondest hopes of being well-proportioned for her size. Gaping up at Donna, he discovered fat only where fat was supposed to be, and he was reminded of old Playboy pictures he'd seen of Jayne Mansfielda"except Mansfield probably hadn't broken the tape bustwise in the low to middle fifties!

"I was lookin' for the b-bathroom," Andy stammered.

"I was trying to d-decide," Donna said, waving an arm longer than some women's legs at a sweater and pair of shorts on her bed, "whether to put these on. Or n-not to wear anything." Her words were still slurring on her, but she was definitely aware she was naked even if she made no move to cover herself. Instead she was taking a somewhat off-balance step forward, standing at the foot of the bed, raising her arms to Andy. She wasn't remotely crude about the way she added, "I definitely do like men who aren't as tall."

This was the producer's cue to produce, Chalminski knewa"the time any man worth spit encircled the bare-a.s.s girl with his arms and kissed her lips. But there was no way possible for him to wrap his arms around the part of Callaghan facing him, anda"

Donna caught the small-man's hands in her enormous ones, fell back on her bed and took Chalminski along with her. One of his wide-open eyes wound up staring into her navel, and the incredibly generous b.r.e.a.s.t.s above him, standing straight up without a bra, made it impossible for him to see her distant face. He thought for a moment she'd pa.s.sed out. That, combined with his total awareness of where his hands had fallen when they landed hard on the reinforced and ultra-king-sized beda"between her beautiful and impossibly long legsa"finally directed a completely uncluttered message to Andy's brain and his body.

He got out of his clothes in record time thanks to the easy way one b.u.t.ton on his sport jacket and two on his shirt popped away, and he didn't look down again at the warmly furry place where his hands had been. If she was virginal and everything he had read about feminine parts proved to be wrong, he might have to be Superman to help Donna Callaghan complete the rest of her audition.

After climbing her and resting with a blend of near overawe and definite readiness on Donna's impressive bosom, Andy craned his neck in order to kiss her and also learn if she was conscious. Her eyes were closed, but when he pressed his lips to hers, her tongue shot out of her mouth like a projectile at the identical instant her heavy-thighed legs ascended from the bed and crossed Andy's a.s.s. She may be a virgin, Chalminski thought, mouth full of exploring female tongue that might become the most famous one in the world, but her instincts work like a f.u.c.kin' computera"

But he also realized he was what seemed like three miles too far north to do what she suddenly wanted him to do!

"Andy, Andy," she moaned, opening her marvelous blue eyes and staring myopically at the way he was pinned to the upper half of her body like a teddy bear in some little girl's dream of tomorrow, "go ahead! Do it! Do it to me!"

The circulation in Andy's a.s.s, legs, and other parts was being shut off, and the pa.s.sion that had let him overcome his initial sense of inferiority was slipping out of him like air from a balloon, but Chalminski was game. "I'm willing, babe," he managed, struggling against her gorgeous and powerful legs, "but you're gonna have to let go of me a minute."

Instantly helpful, Donna dropped her legs and also wriggled quietly out from undera"throwing Andy heavily to the mattress on his backa"and sat up straight above him, straddling his body but not touching him. She cupped her ideally proportioned b.r.e.a.s.t.s in hands that could palm basketb.a.l.l.s and threw her head back as she licked her lips. They weren't yet in any contact, but Donna's girlishly pink nipples seemed nearly the size of erect boys' p.e.n.i.ses. Chalminski's organ promptly showed signs of life but primarily in the sensations he began experiencing in his mind. Callaghan's body tapered to a waist that was trim for her if wider than Andy's, and the hips swept out to the sides just as suitably and meatily matching the rest of her as he had hoped. Best of all, the s.e.xual center of the lady giant was detectable in a modest, moist tangle of attractive light brown pubic hair and unmistakably female of nature.

"Am I pretty at all?" she asked softly, breathily. Her eyelids blinked and he wondered how drunk she was. "No one has ever seen me this way. Please, Mr. Chalminskia"do you approve of what I look like?"

She was squinting down at hima"at his facea"in the nearsighted manner she had without her gla.s.ses, and he felt himself stiffen enough to know he was almost ready again. Andy wondered if she even knew what that long tongue of hers could do to a man, and decided that this amazing squeeze who was soon to become a money train with him playing engineer even while he rode in her caboose was definitely cherry. "Well, Donna," he grunted, reaching down to make them both ready and help her ease it down sweetly on him, "I'll know for sure in just a few minutes."

Donna rose up from the bed a good foot and a halfa"more than enough distance to triple what Chalminski had to offera"and powered herself down at him with the equivalent force of a locomotive crashing through a barricade of Swiss cheese. Andy had just enough time to wonder if his wrist had been the first thing to be crushed, and to know that one or more parts of his body would never function normally again.

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Donna said, rearing away from the producer a second time and thrusting herself down on him againa"and again, till the groans she heard gave way completely to the bubbling of blood dribbling quietly from the corner of Andy's motionless mouth and onto the sheets beneath him. "Everything Edward said about you was right." She turned her head to see Eddie Burgess, video camera in hand exactly as they had planned, walking in from the bathroom with a smile. "After the ghastly life this little pipsqueak lured you into in your innocent youth, darling, it's a wonder you were able to make such pure, sweet love to me these marvelous weeks we've had together."

Eddie wrapped his arms around her from behind. It was a reach, but he did it with tenderness. He'd left the camera on her dresser. "If our Andrew had listened to what I said about your story being interesting enough to tell straight, we wouldn't have had to send him to the Big Set in the Skya"or of course, if he'd had a big set himself."

Donna giggled and let Burgess kiss her neck, then help her off the heap. "You got it all on videotape?"

"Yep, in tight close-up just like the b.a.s.t.a.r.d would have wanted it. If anyone ever figures out what killed Andrew, and whom, we have a record of his seduction a"and your self-defense, if any prosecutor ever had the b.a.l.l.s to bring such a graphic case to trial!" And I, Eddie thought, more or less holding Donna close, have the makings of a really different snuff film if our own collaboration doesn't fly.

Donna began pulling on a sweater and shorts. "He talked so many young people into turning the act of lovea"like oursa"into cheap entertainment fora"for losers like him."

"Yes, but you have to admit s.e.x can be pretty entertaining," Eddie remarked, motioning for Donna to help him bundle the mess on the bed into the several sheets they had thoughtfully added early this morning. Together, they tied them at the top rather like a Hershey's Kiss.

"You're right," she agreed, pausing to lean over, down, and kiss him. Then she slung the improvised sack over one shoulder, and with Eddie opening doors for her, carried the trash out to the apartment Dumpster. "And you're right that times are changing. We'll still find somebody to produce my story, and you will play a true-life role opposite mea"in the script we've written together!"

He took her hand as the heavy Dumpster lid clanged shut and squeezed it. He realized she might well fulfill the dream he'd placed in her head, and he hoped she would. He truly did. But if not, there was always the videotape with the close-up of old out-of-date Andy Chalminski's agonized expression at the very end. People today wanted a higher concept than a little guy making it with a big girl. "How many units did you say have access to this Dumpster?" he asked, casually glancing around.

Donna laughed then because her Edward did, and they used his car to drive over to his place for the night. The trash pickup was in the morning.

JUST A PHONE CALL AWAY.

John F. D. Taff.

Home seemed foreign to Cynthia on a weekday morning, a place she wasn't supposed to be. The small apartment wore the air of a person awakened too soon, groggy and grumpy and put upon.

"Get used to it," she mumbled, shivering in her underwear at the kitchen table. She took another sip from the heavy ceramic mug that said "Don't Ask Me, I Just Work Here," a memento of her recently ex-job.

Cynthia was going on forty. Her long brown hair was worn pulled back, showing off a handsome, if somewhat heavy, face. She wore the best clothes she could afford, but they were old and too tight in some places, too loose in others.

All told, Cynthia was not the type of person one would normally choose for an office romance. She wasn't the self-a.s.sured, tight young college graduate, the naive, even younger secretary, or the older, but still s.e.xy, vice president with the failing marriage.

She may not have had the body, the age, or the power to attract lovers, but Cynthia had the voice.

And she had learned long ago that her voice was as s.e.xual as any breast or b.u.t.t or leg.

It was deep, but not too much so. Raspy, but not grating or harsh on the ear. It was a tingling, vibrating, resonant, breathy voice, reminiscent of Lauren Bacall or Kathleen Turner.

Without a doubt, it turned men on in ways her body alone never could.

It had been what had attracted her boss, what had kept him in her bed for eight months.

It couldn't, however, save her from being fired by him.

That had thrown her for a loop. Cynthia was so accustomed to maintaining the upper hand in her relationships that this single act by her boss left her feeling powerless and bereft, not knowing quite what to do with herself.

So with a couple weeks' severance, a last lunch with the girls, and a parting, bad-dog-eyed good-bye from her ex, she left, with no prospects and fewer ideas of what to do next.

Another punishing draft of hot coffee, and she flipped the newspaper open, scanned the want ads. Down the columns, through administrative a.s.sistants, receptionists, secretaries. She circled those that appealed to her; there weren't many.

Her eyes drifted down to "Topless Dancers Wanted," and she snorted, almost gagging on her coffee. She remembered fondly what Ralph in Accounting had told her on her last date.

"Well, Cynthia," he'd laughed, his voice dropping. "With your talent, I think you'd be able to find a great job in the phone s.e.x business. You'd make a fortune. h.e.l.l, I'd call and let you talk dirty to me for two dollars a minute!"

"Ralph!" she'd protested, half-gamely, half-flattered.

Suddenly, cold and depressed and in her underwear on a Monday morning, Ralph's idea didn't seem so ridiculous. With the phone company contacts she had gained through being a receptionist with a large company, a little research, and a little money borrowed from her retirement fund, she might be able to swing this.

Then something at the back of her mind whispered to her what she was really thinking of doing.

Talking dirty to men on the phone. And not just dirty, but explicit and definitely X-rated.

Are you really going to be able to do this? the voice asked.

There was only one way to tell.

It amazed Cynthia how quickly it all came together.

She secured a business license, got a tax number, made the necessary arrangements with the phone company. Her liaisons there were more than eager to help her in getting a "900" line installed in her apartment.

While she waited, she visited the newsstand outside her building. There, under the silently amazed eyes of the old newsman, she self-consciously bought a few of the seedier men's magazines.

Back in her apartment, she sat in the little s.p.a.ce she'd cleared for her office and flipped through the magazines, intending to go straight for the cla.s.sified ads. Her curiosity, though, demanded that she scrutinize the first several carefully, until the photos all took on a surreal look, with their tangled limbs and close-ups of genitalia so tightly focused, she was sure even a gynecologist would have trouble identifying what he was seeing.

She was able to cobble together pieces of the ads she liked into a small ad for her new service. Several phone calls and overnight packages later, her little ad was scheduled to run in several of the men's magazines she'd reviewed, as well as a couple of local alternative newspapers.

Before she could sit back and wait for the phone calls, though, she needed practice.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Ralph? Hi, this is Cynthia."

"Cynthia?" he said, lowering his voice. "Cynthia Johnson?"

"Yes, Ralph," she purred into the receiver. "And do you know what? I'm sitting here totally nude . . ."

Here she paused, hitched in a deep breath as her stomach fluttered.

". . . and I'm really wet."

There was a stunned silence on the other end. Cynthia heard the tinny sound of a television somewhere on Ralph's end. She almost laughed then, imagining him standing in his living room listening to her. Here she sat in a T-shirt and jeans with no makeup.

Not nude and decidedly not wet.

"My wife is here, for chrissakes!" he whispered.

"Ralph," she moaned so low that her own phone vibrated in her ear. "Oh, Ralph. I've been thinking about you, imagining you. Touching myself. I've been very naughty."

"Dear Lord," came a hoa.r.s.e voice.

"I took your advice to start a phone s.e.x business. You're my first customer. But don't worry," she said with a throaty giggle. "This one's on the house."

"Can I call you back?" he whined.

"No, Ralph. We've got to finish . . . right here, right now."