Archer really dug the way her cheeks burned red against the ivory skin. Also, that “young and virile” hadn‘t been lost on him. This girl really did make him feel virile again. There was something about her that dispelled his self-doubts about his sexual prowess. It had to do with her appearance, which was blatantly alluring. And it had to do with her manner, which all along had been conveying what she had just put into words: She found Archer attractive.
“Now, now. Don’t be embarrassed." Archer took her hand in his and squeezed it reassuringly. “Look on me as a friend.”
“Can a man really be a friend to a woman?” Marguerita asked, wide-eyed.
“Yes.”
“Just a friend?” She squeezed his hand.
The squeeze zipped right along Archer's erotic ganglia and caused a reassuring muscle spasm in his groin. “Tell me about your problem,” Archer said, moving just the fraction of an inch necessary to graze her thigh with his.
“I just don’t know how,” she murmured, her eyes soft and pleading as they gazed into his.
“Start at the beginning.” Archer flexed the muscle of his leg and felt an answering pressure. There was a sudden gratifying movement in his jockey shorts.
“Well,” Marguerita took a deep breath. “I suppose I’m very ignorant compared to the average American girl --”
“Ignorant?”
“About things between men and women, I mean.”
“I see.”
“Yes. Andalusians are very puritanical, you know. Young girls are kept in a state of strict innocence until they marry. All the years I traveled and did what some might consider erotic dances for audiences, I never even thought about the possibility of not remaining pure,” Marguerita lied.
“Traveled? Dances? I’m sorry, but I don’t quite -”
“I’m a professional flamenco dancer. I thought Olivia told you.”
“No. She neglected to mention it.”
“Well, I am. Do you like flamenco dancing?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve only seen Jose Dreko in the movies.”
“Then you haven’t really seen flamenco dancing. I will dance for you sometime if you’d like.”
“I’d like.”
“Soon,” Marguerita promised. “Anyway, I remained virginal well into my twenties. Until just recently, to be quite candid about it. That’s when I met Kevin.” Marguerita paused, sipped at her drink, and swallowed hard. She seemed to have difficulty in continuing.
“Go on.” Archer put a sympathetic arm around her and squeezed her shoulders. “What about Kevin?”
“He had been studying for the priesthood. But he had no real call. He faced that before he took his vows and dropped out. So you see, when I met him, he was just as virginal as I was. He had no experience. In matters having to do with men and women he was probably the most innocent twenty-odd-year-old man you could find.”
“What happened?”
“We fell in love,” Marguerite? told him simply. “We still are in love.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Sex.” Marguerite nibbled on her grape-tinted lips, conveying more embarrassment.
“Ahh yes.” Archer pulled her head to his shoulder and stroked her hair reassuringly. “You can tell me about it,” he crooned, a younger Bing Crosby playing the sympathetic friend.
“I have to tell you about it. You’re the only one with the -- what do they call it?—expertise-—with the expertise to advise me.”
“I am?” Archer didn’t quite understand that.
“Yes. Because of your business.”
“My business?”
“Yes. Your cousin told me that you are involved with—with—with—you know, those things men use to—to--to--for making sure the girl doesn’t get pregnant.” Marguerita blurted the last phrase out and then hid her face in her hands.
“Now you mustn’t upset yourself,” Archer soothed her. “There’s nothing wrong with talking about these things. It’s true my work is concerned with male contraceptive devices. What is it that concerns you about them?”
“Kevin doesn’t seem to know how to--how to—-”
“How to use them?”
“Yes. It’s terrible. It’s destroying his confidence in himself. It’s ruining sex for us.”
“What exactly seems to be the trouble?”
“Kevin thinks he’s built too small. Abnormally small.”
“Is he?”
“I have no basis for judgment. I don’t care if he is. I love him.”
“Many men are concerned about being too small when they’re really quite average.”
“I don’t know. I think maybe he is small. But if he is, then I am too. What I mean is that we seem to — umm — to—to fit all right together.”
“Then why worry?”
“The contraceptive . . . that’s what worries us. Kevin can’t put it on. It doesn’t fit all the way."
“Oh! I see!” Archer stifled a chuckle. “You mean he's been trying to unroll it to its full size and then put it on?”
“Yes. Isn’t that right?”
“No. It’s simply supposed to unroll to the size of his organ. And it’s not supposed to be unrolled first and then put on. It’s supposed to be unrolled right onto the organ itself.”
“Oh, dear. It sounds awfully confusing. And we're so afraid. You see, when we make love, it always seems to come off. We find it in the damnedest places. I can’t tell you--” Marguerita was positively squirming with embarrassment now.
“You lose it because Kevin isn’t putting it on the right way and probably isn’t using it right after it’s on.”
“What do you mean?”
“It isn’t something I can really explain,” Archer told her. “I’d have to demonstrate it.” His mind had been racing up to this point. He’d thought of raising the question of alternative methods of contraception—diaphragm, the pill, etc.-—but he really didn’t want to solve Marguerita’s problem too easily. He certainly didn’t want to solve it in a way that would hinder his own chance of seducing her.
Marguerita recognized exactly where he was at. Her face didn’t reveal it, but the smile she was smiling at herself was smug and sadistic. So far everything was working out exactly according to the plan she’d outlined to Olivia. And now it was time to move into phase two of that plan. “Demonstrate it?” she asked with feigned innocence. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I’d have to show you how to use it properly.”
“You mean you’d show Kevin and me? That’s terribly nice of you!” Marguerita really enjoyed watching him squirm at her having brought Kevin into the picture.
“Well—-Uh—that’s not exactly—-You see, I feel that you and I have this rapport and so while I wouldn’t mind--” Archer took a deep breath and composed himself. “The truth is I’d rather Kevin wasn’t present. I’d feel like some kind of an exhibitionist, a pervert, see what I mean? But I wouldn’t mind showing you, and then you could show Kevin. How would that be?”
“I think that would be terribly, terribly kind of you. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Shucks.” — It was a word Archer had picked up from Shirley Simpell. -- “I’ll be glad to be of service."
They arranged for Archer to come to Marguerita’s hotel that evening for the “demonstration.” They finished their lunch, talking of other things, and then Archer paid the check. They parted in front of the restaurant and Archer watched Marguerita walking down the street, drawing stares with her fabulous legs and delectable derriere jiggling under her miniskirt. Man! He could hardly wait. He just knew that this time it was going to work and that would be just the treatment the doctor ordered!
When she’d rounded the corner and was out of sight of Archer, Marguerita sought out the first telephone booth and called Olivia. She told Olivia that everything was proceeding according to plan and outlined once again what was going to happen that evening. When Marguerita hung up, Olivia called Llona and reiterated what Marguerita had told her.