magnificent orgasm.
I retreated to the porch. Louder splashing resumed. After a minute the water shut off. Abby called to ask for the towel. I dangled it over the shower door and again retreated. A minute later, with her hair slicked back, the towel around her waist, she walked onto the porch, picked up her clothing and her fresh drink, and glided past me into the living room.
“Feel better?” I immediately regretted my choice of words.
She turned to look back and said, “The wind makes the palm fronds sound like waves hitting a beach.” She wadded her bra and stuffed it into her purse. Her breasts were classically lovely, the right one slightly larger, her nipples puckered from the coolness under the fans. “I know. I sound like I live on the mainland.” She stuck her arms into her blouse, pulled her bracelet onto her wrist, and, still facing me, dropped the towel so she
could pull on her panties. She had trimmed her dark, coppertinged pubic hair to a rectangle the size of a pack of matches. She knotted the blouse’s loose hem corners, folded her shorts, and laid them across the top of a chair. “Also,” she added, “I’m a fool for pulsating shower heads on flexible hoses.” For a moment she gave in to melancholy, then flashed a quick smile. “The price one pays for being attracted to men who are already taken.” She peered into the kitchen. “I didn’t finish my dinner. Can I stick those plates in the microwave?”
I tried to answer but slurred my first two or three words. I’d attained the state Sam’s fishing friend Norman Wood called “drunk, sexy, and harmless.” Not that I had been invited to partake. Not that I would try. She had said that her romance with Zack was history; I knew that history has a way of doubling back on us. It was his affair, not mine. Somehow, Abby and I had silently agreed on traditional hot-tub rules: see all, think what you want, but touch not. Her manner invited observation, nothing more. That was fine with me.
She punched the microwave buttons. “I love your place. It makes me miss my cats. That motel room I’m in smells like fifteen years’ worth of roach spray and Lemon Pledge.” She opened the oven and stuck her finger into the food to assess temperature. “Do you have a futon?”
“The frame fell apart. You’ll have to use it on the floor.”
Her eyes locked onto mine. “Will you help me find him?”
“He could be on a Greyhound Bus in Orlando by now.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. I don’t know why I feel so compelled to help the bastard …” She smiled wistfully and looked away, then turned and held out her hand. “Team?”
I shook it. “Team.”
She asked how to unlock my bicycle in case she woke early and felt like a ride. I opened a fresh toothbrush for her before she took her shift in the bathroom. Later I heard her rustling around in the kitchen, getting a glass of water, then moving
around in the living room. I fell asleep before she hit the futon.
In the middle of the night I got up to use the john. In the glow of outside illumination—a neighbor’s crime light and a street lamp over on Fleming—I saw Abby Womack with the top sheet pushed off the futon, my old Full Moon Saloon T-shirt hiked up to expose her smooth pale belly, her right hand inside her underpants, comforting more than five percent of her loneliness.
5
G ray light hung behind slits in the blinds the next time I got up. Distant lightning launched a roll of growling thunder. I needed to get my tail in gear. I didn’t know what time Duffy Lee Hall might arrive in his darkroom. I wanted to connect as early as possible. I half-expected Cahill to call with a bizarre tale or booze-logic explanation.
Abby Womack had stacked the rolled-up futon and folded T-shirt on the rocking chair. For some reason the house smelled of cinnamon. I checked at the kitchen window. She had borrowed the Cannondale. Low clouds hovered, more violet than gray. Shrub leaves reflected
I retreated to the porch. Louder splashing resumed. After a minute the water shut off. Abby called to ask for the towel. I dangled it over the shower door and again retreated. A minute later, with her hair slicked back, the towel around her waist, she walked onto the porch, picked up her clothing and her fresh drink, and glided past me into the living room.
“Feel better?” I immediately regretted my choice of words.
She turned to look back and said, “The wind makes the palm fronds sound like waves hitting a beach.” She wadded her bra and stuffed it into her purse. Her breasts were classically lovely, the right one slightly larger, her nipples puckered from the coolness under the fans. “I know. I sound like I live on the mainland.” She stuck her arms into her blouse, pulled her bracelet onto her wrist, and, still facing me, dropped the towel so she
could pull on her panties. She had trimmed her dark, coppertinged pubic hair to a rectangle the size of a pack of matches. She knotted the blouse’s loose hem corners, folded her shorts, and laid them across the top of a chair. “Also,” she added, “I’m a fool for pulsating shower heads on flexible hoses.” For a moment she gave in to melancholy, then flashed a quick smile. “The price one pays for being attracted to men who are already taken.” She peered into the kitchen. “I didn’t finish my dinner. Can I stick those plates in the microwave?”
I tried to answer but slurred my first two or three words. I’d attained the state Sam’s fishing friend Norman Wood called “drunk, sexy, and harmless.” Not that I had been invited to partake. Not that I would try. She had said that her romance with Zack was history; I knew that history has a way of doubling back on us. It was his affair, not mine. Somehow, Abby and I had silently agreed on traditional hot-tub rules: see all, think what you want, but touch not. Her manner invited observation, nothing more. That was fine with me.
She punched the microwave buttons. “I love your place. It makes me miss my cats. That motel room I’m in smells like fifteen years’ worth of roach spray and Lemon Pledge.” She opened the oven and stuck her finger into the food to assess temperature. “Do you have a futon?”
“The frame fell apart. You’ll have to use it on the floor.”
Her eyes locked onto mine. “Will you help me find him?”
“He could be on a Greyhound Bus in Orlando by now.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. I don’t know why I feel so compelled to help the bastard …” She smiled wistfully and looked away, then turned and held out her hand. “Team?”
I shook it. “Team.”
She asked how to unlock my bicycle in case she woke early and felt like a ride. I opened a fresh toothbrush for her before she took her shift in the bathroom. Later I heard her rustling around in the kitchen, getting a glass of water, then moving
around in the living room. I fell asleep before she hit the futon.
In the middle of the night I got up to use the john. In the glow of outside illumination—a neighbor’s crime light and a street lamp over on Fleming—I saw Abby Womack with the top sheet pushed off the futon, my old Full Moon Saloon T-shirt hiked up to expose her smooth pale belly, her right hand inside her underpants, comforting more than five percent of her loneliness.
5
G ray light hung behind slits in the blinds the next time I got up. Distant lightning launched a roll of growling thunder. I needed to get my tail in gear. I didn’t know what time Duffy Lee Hall might arrive in his darkroom. I wanted to connect as early as possible. I half-expected Cahill to call with a bizarre tale or booze-logic explanation.
Abby Womack had stacked the rolled-up futon and folded T-shirt on the rocking chair. For some reason the house smelled of cinnamon. I checked at the kitchen window. She had borrowed the Cannondale. Low clouds hovered, more violet than gray. Shrub leaves reflected
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