Read Online Chocolates for Breakfast by Pamela Moore - Free Book Online

these Peter Pans who are frightened to be alone with themselves in the dark—so I told him he could sleep on the couch.”
    There was a sudden and demanding knock on the door. Courtney got up to answer it. Framed against the late morning brightness stood Patrick Cavanaugh, a New Yorker writer and one of the guests of the evening before. In his hands was a silver tray with four Bloody Marys. Courtney grinned and took the tray.
    â€œPatrick, you darling !” Sondra Farrell rushed to him and threw her arms about him.
    â€œWake up that freeloader Cabot,” he said.
    Barry put his face into the couch and muttered something incoherent.
    â€œWe’ve got a Bloody Mary for you, Cabot,” said Patrick.
    Reluctantly awake, he sat up.
    â€œMay I have one, too, Mummy?”
    â€œI brought one for you,” said Patrick.
    â€œNo, Courtney, not vodka at eleven in the morning. If your father knew, he would have an asthma attack.”
    â€œLet the kid have a drink,” said Barry.
    â€œWell, you may have a quarter of a glass,” her mother relented.
    Patrick raised his glass solemnly.
    â€œTo Courtney,” he said. “May she always rise late to find a drink awaiting her.”
    â€œAnd amusing men around her,” her mother added.
    â€œDaddy would flip,” Courtney said, but she liked the toast, and she was pleased to find that the Bloody Mary tasted like tomato juice with tabasco.
    Her mother ordered breakfast brought for all of them in the villa, with more Bloody Marys and a great deal of black coffee. Courtney wasn’t allowed to have another Bloody Mary, but she was hungry anyway and she wanted to finish breakfast and go for a swim.
    She put on her black strapless bathing suit, and looked at herself in the mirror while they talked in the living room. She had a good body, and she was very aware of it. Her legs were firmly muscled, like a dancer’s from years of athletics. She was slim and athletic, her shoulders were broad and the collarbone and the molding of her upper body was smoothly distinct beneath her warmly tanned skin. Her breasts were firm and full, even at fifteen. She had a woman’s body, curved, firm and sensual, and this did not pass without notice. The ease and assurance with which she used her body even in such simple actions as walking, her perpetual consciousness of her body, the vitality and challenge in her green eyes—all these things spoke clearly of passion. She was not yet sixteen, but she was ready for love. Men were aware of it, although her mother could not be and Courtney sensed it only vaguely. She had never kissed a man, she had never indulged in any of the byplay of love-making as Janet had, but her passions ran high and her need for love was great.
    When she came to the pool, she was surprised to see three young boys there, about her age. Somehow the couples that lived at the Garden seemed incapable of breeding children, and the youthful laughter as the boys ducked one another in the pool seemed to startle the sun bathers and disturb the haze of fantasy and self-delusion that hung about the lotus-shaped pool. She was not pleased to see the boys there; they were intruders from the harshly bright, barbarian world of youth invading the soft untrodden sands of disappointment.
    Al Leone, mahogany-tanned, had come over from his apartment across the street and was doing push-ups on his deck chair.
    â€œHi, doll,” he greeted her amiably. “What time did you go to bed?”
    â€œAbout two, I guess.”
    â€œWhere’s your mother?”
    â€œSome people came by the villa and they’re all drinking Bloody Marys. So I left, because I wanted to swim.”
    â€œBarry Cabot there?”
    â€œYes, he slept on the couch.”
    â€œI thought so. What do you think of him?”
    â€œI like him. He kind of interests me.”
    â€œChrist, I was afraid of that. Look, baby doll, watch out for that faggot. He is worth