 "After
Hours"
by William Lawrence
Belmont Books, 1963
The back cover reads:
"The Executive Suite and the executive's sweetie...
CEREMONY OF EROS
"Please," Vince breathed, "don't speak. You'll
break the spell. You're Venus de Milo, but with arms. You're Lida. You're
Aphrodite. You're all things of beauty since time began. An Angel from
heaven. A dark goddess from hell. Tilt your head back. There...don't move."
He stepped out of the room and returned quickly
with a brush, a white urn, and a tufted, pale blue rug. Joan followed his
terse instructions after that. Escape. This, at last, was escape.
Now Vince was ready. "I'm going to paint you,"
he whispered," not like the masters painted, with oils. I'm going to paint
you the DiPattos way. With brush and chocolate...
This novel is an "insider's" expose of the
high-fashion business. It is written for adults."
It's good to see a back
cover that uses the best part of the book. The chocolate painting scene,
even though it has very little to do with the rest of the story, is one
of those wonderful, surreal scene where you know the author was getting
some real kink of his out into the open. The rest of the story is about
a high-priced department store in New York and the tawdry lives of the
people employed there in. The main story revolves around one top executive
and his secretary (the one who later gets painted with chocolate by a different
man!) and their boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-finds-girl standard
plot. Beyond that, there are some great swinging supporting characters:
wolfs on the prowl, spoiled bosses son making time with the family maid,
suburban swingers (complete with blue movies), and, of course, our chocolate
painting artist Vince.
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