He said, “Well, Mrs. Dunn, this is certainly mighty obliging of you, having me over for supper.” He could feel himself stammering and searching for something to say that didn’t make him sound like he was a complete idiot, but he was having difficulty because he couldn’t take his eyes off her and the way that the dress clung. Never before had he seen her dressed that way.
She sensed him staring at her and she smiled. “It’s Chinese,” she said, “I bought it a few years back in San Francisco when I lived there with my husband. I haven’t had a chance to wear it since then, so I thought it would be nice to wear it now. It has a name, but I’m not sure what you would call it—I knew at one time but I’ve forgotten.”
He said, “Well, it’s mighty fetching, ma’am.”
She said, “Custis, you look all confused. Sit down and let me get you something to drink.”
She disappeared. He was expecting her to reappear with a pitcher of lemonade. Instead, he was shocked to see her coming back with a tray on which rested a little pitcher of water, two glasses, and a bottle of very respectable bourbon whiskey. He would have bet that not only had whiskey never passed her lips, but it had never passed her threshold either.
She set the tray down on a little table in front of the divan he was sitting on. Then she came around the table and sat next to him.
“Shall I pour for you, Custis?”
“Well, yes, ma’am. I would be much obliged if you would.” He was still trying desperately to recover from the shock that she had given him, first by the way she had fixed her hair, then by the dress she wore, and now by the way she fixed his whiskey.
She poured him a good solid tumbler. She said, “I’ve got a feeling that you are the kind of man who takes his drink neat.”
“Well, you’d be right about that, Mrs. Dunn.”
She said, “Do you really feel obliged to call me Mrs. Dunn? Can’t you just call me Shirley?”
He stammered a little bit and said, “Of course, Shirley. There, that came out all right, didn’t it?”
She laughed. When she did, she looked much younger than the mid-thirties he had originally figured her for. She said, “I have to take a little bit of water in mine. Too much spirits make me ardent, or is that why they call them ardent spirits?”
He almost blushed. “Well, I … I reckon that I never put the two of them together. Ardent spirits? That’s a pretty good joke, Mrs.-I mean, Shirley.”
She mixed her drink half and half, pouring water out of the pitcher, and then held her glass up for a toast. He raised his and they clinked.
He said, “To luck.”
She said, “To love.”
It was one more shock in the continuing series of surprises she was throwing at him. He downed his drink in one quick swallow, shuddering a little at the hard bite of the bourbon. As soon as he set it back down on the tray, she quickly poured it full for him again.
She said, arching a brow at him, “Are you always so quick, Custis?”
He took up his glass and drank half of it. He said, “Shirley, have you got a twin sister?”
She laughed. “No, not that I know of. Why do you ask?”
He looked around. “It’s just that I have the feeling that either I am in the wrong house or that you are.”
She laughed again. “You think that I have to be the same person all the time? Can’t a girl have a little fun once in a while?”
He took a quick gulp from his glass. He said, his throat getting thick, “Oh, I am all for that, Shirley. I am really all for that. Yes, ma’am, indeed I am.”
She was sitting very close to him and he was very aware of her body. He could smell the scent of her perfume, the power of the musk—a feminine musk that emanated from her. He let his right arm, which had been along the back of the divan, casually fall around her shoulders. Effortlessly, she came to him, her breasts pressing against his chest, her face uptilted. He set his glass down with his left hand while he looked into her eyes. Then he bent his head and kissed her, gently at first, and then with growing passion. He felt her hand slide around to the back of his neck. She was twisting herself so that the whole front of her body was up against him. For a second, he pulled back. His breathing was coming hard and labored. He looked down at her face—her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. He began to kiss her again. As he did, he let his left hand go to her back and then come around the silken cloth until he touched the side of her breasts. He could tell that she was wearing nothing underneath the Chinese dress. He could feel her breasts growing and swelling under his hand. He could feel the nipples hardening.
She was probing his mouth, and his heart was pounding, his jeans getting very tight. He was searching for a way to get his hand inside her dress, but there didn’t seem to be any opening. He dropped his hand down along her thigh, trying to find the hem. The dress had ridden up on her until it was just below her knees. He put his hand inside, touching her cool, smooth flesh. At the very instant that he started to move his hand up the inside of her thigh, she broke the kiss off and moved backward immediately. She said, “Why, Marshal Long. Whatever do you think you are doing?”
He said, stammering a little, “I thought you knew what we were doing. Wasn’t just me, Shirley.”
She said, “Custis, I think that you are being a little presumptive. You told me that you were leaving on a long trip.”
He said, “Well, I don’t know how long it’s gonna be … it could be a week, could be two weeks, maybe a little longer.”
“But you are going on law work, aren’t you?”
He said, “Well, uh … yes. Yes.”
“That’s dangerous.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if it were a statement that needed to be out in the open.
He was so taken aback that he was still fumbling for words. He said, “I suppose that one could consider it that, yes, I suppose so. Shirley, what is going on here?”
Very primly she sat on the couch and inched away from him, smoothing down the skirt of her silken dress. “Well, Marshal. A girl has got to look after herself. No one else is going to protect the future of a widowed young woman. Here you would come around and take advantage of me, and you going off on some sort of dangerous job. My husband was a man in a dangerous career—he was a gambler at cards, at horse racing, and now I end up a dressmaker. No, thank you.”
He sat there stunned. He didn’t know what to say. Finally, a few words tumbled out. “Shirley, you can’t just lead a man on like this. I mean … it’s not healthy. Good heavens, you’ve got me all worked up here. I’m as lathered up as a horse … a horse that has been run three miles.”
She said primly, “Well, that’s not my doing, is it?”
He looked around. “Well, I’ll be damned if I see any other woman in the room.”
“And I suppose you didn’t have something in mind yourself? I suppose I planted the idea in your mind?”
He said, motioning, “Well, the way you’ve got yourself up and the way you received me, if I hadn’t had something on my mind before, I damn sure would have five minutes after I got here.”
She said, “Why don’t you have another drink while I go and see to supper? It’s chicken. I hope you like chicken.”