Beware of the Beast Read Online Free PDF

unknown to her. Oh, she had listened to the girls in the school dormitory at night whispering about their experiences. She had attended biology' classes and had the whole sexual act explained to her in detail. But what was the spoken or written word when compared to actual ex perience? The whole thing seemed vastly overrated, and although she had had boy-friends and indulged in kissing and a little mild petting, she had never felt any urge to explore further. The very idea seemed slightly indecent to her. To imagine this man, this stranger, seeing her without her clothes. ... She shrank a .little further into her corner. If it did come to that, and she supposed that one day it would have to, she would make sure she was adequately clothed in pyjamas or a nightdress, and safely under the bedcovers.
    Alex's apartment temporarily allayed her fears in a surge of pure admiration. The rooms at the house in Glebe Square had not been small but these rooms were enormous - wide and spacious, with expanses of soft carpet where one could stretch at will. The lounge had long windows, with slatted blinds, there were soft velvet couches in shades of blue and green, modern Swedish-style furniture cheek-by-jowl with what were obviously antiques and silky off-white carpeting.
    An elderly man greeted them. Alex introduced him as Potter and it soon became apparent that Potter was a resident at the apartment, catering for his employer should it be necessary, although there was an excellent service restaurant on the ground floor of the block, and caretaking in his absence. Alex introduced her to the old man as his fiancée, much to Charlotte's dismay, and it was Potter who suggested that she might like to see all the apartment.
    To her relief, Alex said he had some telephone calls to make and disappeared into a room which Potter explained was his study. Then they went on a tour of inspection.
    Charlotte had never seen such luxury. There were three bedrooms, all with colour televisions and hi-fi equipment as well as the usual fitted units. There was a panelled dining room with a long table capable of seating more than a dozen people in the soft, velvet-seated chairs. The kitchen, too, contained eating facilities, and was sleek and modern.
    Charlotte asked, half reluctantly, which room Alex used, but Potter seemed to find nothing strange in this. Indeed, he had taken her arrival in his stride, and she wondered whether he found anything odd in his employer producing as his fiancée a girl he had never seen before.
    "This is Mr. Faulkner's room," he said, indicating the second largest bedroom, a room designed in shades of coffee and cream, with thick apricot satin curtains at the window. All the rooms had bathrooms adjoining, and Charlotte looked into Alex's bathroom with a certain desperation. What had she expected to find here? she wondered, looking at the coffee- coloured bath and basin, the cream tiled shower cubicle. No man could imprint his personality on somewhere h e used so fleetingly. The whole apartment was beautiful, but that was all it was. A shell - which only occasionally housed its occupant.
    She entered the lounge again alone, Potter having excused himself to go to the kitchen, and found Alex lounging com fortably on one of the velvet couches examining some papers he had taken from a briefcase beside him. He looked up at her entrance, however, and thrusting the papers aside, got to his feet.
    "I have ordered lunch to be sent up," he told her smoothly. "I hope you like roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. I always eat English food when I'm in England. It never tastes the same elsewhere."         
    "I don't think I could eat a thing," Charlotte retorted tautly.
    ''Nonsense." He shrugged his broad shoulders. "Food can be a delight as well as a necessity, and the restaurant here can be recommended. Your clothes reveal that you've lost weight. Perhaps we should do something about them this afternoon."
    "What's wrong with what I'm