Free Passing Through the Flame by Norman Spinrad

in bad taste,” said Jango Beck. “You’d better leave for tonight. You can come back when you figure out what good orgy manners are. Interesting little problem, don’t you think?”
    To Velva’s amazement, Roger Adrian seemed to shrivel like a punctured balloon. “Maybe I’ve had a little too much to drink...”he said lamely.
    “Then apologize to the lady and have a very quick cup of coffee on your way out.”
    “I’m sorry, miss,” Adrian mumbled, and then the big network executive slunk off like any other sad, lumpy fat man. Star quality! This Jango Beck really had it. Who was he? What—
    Yancy took her head in his hands and thrust his cock back into her mouth. Velva choked and spluttered and pulled herself away.
    “I think I’ve seen enough crude shit for one night,” Beck said. “And I think the lady has had enough of the pleasure of your company. Isn’t that right, miss...?”
    “Velva. Velva Leecock.”
    Jango Beck took her hand, pulled her lightly to her feet, while at the same time giving her a strange, hooded Laurence Harvey smile. “Come have a drink with me and wash some of this bad taste out of your mouth,” he said.
    And he led her by the hand out of the big room, down the hallway, and into a small bedroom. There was a big round water bed in the center of the room, a little bar, a couch, two chairs. Everything but the synthetic leopardskin rug was done in brass and black leather: the bed, the bar, the couch, even the walls and ceiling. There were no windows.
    “This is my black leather room,” said Beck. “I don’t get black leather urges that often, but when I do, I don’t want to have to stop halfway. I never stop halfway.” He smiled a strange half-smile, went to the bar, and poured out two snifters of brandy. Velva was not exactly terrified, but she did have visions of whips ; chains, and manacles hidden behind secret panels in the black leather walls.
    Beck handed her a snifter, took a sip of his own brandy, said, “Are you afraid of me? Why would anyone be afraid of me?”
    Velva took a large gulp of brandy. “You’ve got to admit you’re a little weird, I mean, this room.. ..”
    “A whim,” Beck said. “I hardly ever use it. In fact, I hardly ever come to Valhalla. As you’ve seen, the clientele are a pretentious bunch of low-life nerds. The black leather trip keeps them a little freaked out, which is the way I want them.”
    “I don’t understand... you don’t seem the type to come to a place like this at all....”
    Beck laughed, and downed half of his brandy. “Jeez, do you think I would come to a meatball heaven like this for a sex scene ? I own the joint, or anyway I control it. Don’t you know who I am?”
    “You seem like someone important,” Velva said.
    Beck flopped back on the water bed, leaned his back up against a pillow, sipped at his brandy, and stared at Velva. His deep brown eyes seemed to be laughing at her, but there didn’t seem to be anything nasty about it; his smile was warm and teasingly friendly.
     “You really don’t know who I am?” he said. “This is beautiful!”
    Velva smiled at him, straightened her posture so as to display her breasts to best possible advantage. Jango Beck has to be someone really big, not just a pimp running this place, she thought. To have all these important TV people shitfing in their pants.
    “Why don’t you tell me about yourself... Jango?”
    In a lithe, catlike motion, Beck was up off the water bed, standing before her. “Delighted,” he said. “You’ve guessed my favorite subject.”
    “To begin with,” he said, pulling off his right boot and the black sock beneath it, “I own this grease palace. Good for spare change and lots of leverage.” He took off his other boot and sock, flung the boots grandly away, undid his red velvet sash. “I also own the Den in San Francisco and a couple of other clubs here and there for old times’ sake,” he said, whipping off the sash and tossing it over