“Forget about your wife,” she purred now, moving from the armchair in which she’d seated herself to the edge of the bed in which Amos was lying.
“I wish I could,” Amos moaned, “but—”
“You can!” Llona interrupted. “Believe me, Sugar, you can.” Her breasts were swaying enticingly only a few inches from his eyes now.
“You don't understand. She-—-” Amos was trying to push her away, but he slipped and his hand closed inadvertently over one of her breasts for support.
“Oh, I understand,” Llona murmured. “Believe me, I understand.” Her face moved down now, the lips hovering and pursed to meet his. Is this timid soul going to be my first lover? she thought to herself with a sigh. Well, if that’s the way it has to be, then so be it! She kissed him.
Momentarily, the kiss blotted out Amos’ fears. With a handful of Llona-bosom and a mouth being neatly crimsoned with Revlon’s finest, he forgot all about his wife and allowed himself to be carried away. A small tent began to take shape under the blankets, and he squirmed as his fondest fantasies took shape in his mind. However, with the end of the kiss reality intruded, and he began to be afraid once again that his wife might return before he got rid of Llona. He tried to frame this fear in words that Llona would understand. But they came out as an incoherent expression of his mounting panic.
“You’ve got to go,” he stammered. “Y-you’ve got to g-get out of here before-— I can’t afford—”
“No charge for you, lover-boy,” Llona assured him. She was still desperately playing for time. “Just for love. Because you’re so irresistible. Did anybody ever tell you that you were irresistible before?”
“No. But— Do you really think--? What am I--? N- now, you’ve-got to go before-——ummppf!”
The grunt cutting off his words was the result of Llona’s kissing him again. “The only thing is that you talk too much, lover,” she said when this kiss had ended. “Less talk and more action, hey?” She wrapped her arms around his neck and tried to tug him toward her.
At the same moment, Amos made another effort to push her away. The result was that they both lost their balance and fell to the floor in a tangle of bedsheets and blankets. Amos landed atop her with his pajama pants half pulled off in the scuffle.’
“Well!”
The voice sounded from the doorway like the blast of a trumpet sounding the call to arms. “Well!” There was a note of imminent retribution in it as well. “Well!” It was Agatha Tweedlebert standing in the doorway and looking down at them like some avenging angel of doom. “Well!”
“Hello Agatha,” Amos said stupidly, experiencing difficulty in angling his eyes past Llona’s naked derriere to focus on his wife.
“Well!”
“I can explain!’
“Who is that woman!” An arm shot out with a finger like a bayonet at the end of it. The point of the bayonet aimed straight at Llona’s bare rump.
“Lona Mayper. She—- Llona, this is my wife, Agatha. My wife, Mrs. Tweedlebert. Uhh, Agatha, this is Llona Mayper. Llona, this is my—”
“You already said that,” Llona observed. “You’re repeating yourself.”
“Uhh, quite. You see, Agatha, Llona just dropped by from next door—” Desperation provided Amos with inspiration. “To borrow something. That’s it. She wanted to borrow—”
“A husband!” Agatha’s voice boomed. “That’s what she wanted to borrow. A husband. My husband! And you, you insignificant little worm, you were all too eager to be borrowed!” her rage was mounting. “You hotel-room Casanova, you! I turn my back for a minute——! You spineless Romeo! How long has this been going on? How long have you been carrying on with this hussy?‘ How did you get word to her what room you’d be in? Don't just sit there with your mouth hanging open, you miserable litfle nincompoop! I want to know everything! I want the truth.”
“The truth is,” Llona interjected, “that your husband and I never met before tonight.” .
“Shut up, you Jezebel! I want to hear about his adulteries from his own lips. I've guessed about them for years, of course. But now I want to hear him tell it. Come on, Amos, invent some more lies for me!”
“My dear,” Amos began, “things aren’t what they appear to be. All that happened was—”
“Shut up! Did I give you permission to speak, you spineless philanderer? You’ll speak when I tell you to, and not before!”
“Look,” Llona said, “you’re jumping to a bunch of wrong conclusions.”
“Wrong conclusions! You sit there with your naked mammaries hanging out and have the effrontery to say I’m jumping to wrong conclusions? I find my husband sprawled all over you with his pajama pants off and I’m jumping to conclusions? I find the two of you rolling around on the floor like a pair of sex-mad hound dogs and you try to imply that I’m too suspicious? Is that what you’re trying to tell me? What do you take me for, anyway?”
“Not much,” Llona muttered.
“What! What did you say?”
“Nothing. I’m just trying to explain that it was all perfectly innocent.”
“Yes! Yes,” Amos chimed in. “Perfectly innocent.”
“Shut up and button up your pajama pants, you bedroom Romeo. I haven’t even begun to make you pay for this yet. And speaking of pay, just how much did he give you to come here tonight?” she asked Llona.
“Just what doyou think I am?” Llona snapped indignantly, forgetting what she was.
“I think you’re a whore. And I think you must want plenty to let a miserable specimen like Amos here sleep with you.”
“The hell you say!” Llona was angry now. “I did it out of sympathy. I took one look at you and I never felt so sorry for any man before in my life.”
“What? What did you say to me? Amos, did you hear that?”
“She’s got a point,” Amos couldn’t help saying to himself. Bu-t he said it too loudly and Agatha heard the words.
“That’s too much!” she exploded. She grabbed up the water glass from the nightstand and flung it at Amos.
It just missed his ear, and that seemed to infuriate her even more. She flung the pitcher after the glass, and it bounced off his shoulder. An ashtray followed, then a picture torn from the wall, then a lamp. The barrage grew more furious without showing any signs of abating. Llona and Amos crouched behind the bed together, dodging the flying objects.
“Your wife seems to be in a bad mood,” Llona observed.
“She has a terrible temper,” Amos said morosely. “But I’ve never seen her quite as upset as this before.”
“Her aim isn’t bad, either,” Llona remarked as an ashtray bounced off Amos’ head.
“Agatha, stop it!” Amos yelped. “That hurt!” Another ashtray whizzed past his nose by way of answer.
“I think it might be best,” Llona said, “if I left.” She started crawling toward the door.
“But you can’t go now!” Amos objected. “You have to stay and explain to her!” .
“Some other time, perhaps. When she’s in a more receptive frame of mind.”
“But you can’t just leave me here alone with her!”
“That’s right, you slut!” Agatha screamed. “Get out of here before I kill you! Husband stealer!” She fired a vanity case at Llona’s retreating rump.
It connected. “Oh, yes I can!” Llona yelled to Amos. And then she was through the door. Another object bounced off it as she closed it behind her.
She found herself in the hotel corridor. She saw a pair of figures rounding the corner of the hallway and starting toward her. Desperately, she turned the knob of the door behind her and edged the door open a bit.
“. . . do you think you are? Richard Burton? Rubirosa? Taking my money and spending it on a . . .”
“But, Agatha . . .”