“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Archie observed as he squinted down the front of the gaping bathrobe. “I think you compete like crazy.”
“It’s very nice of you to say so,” she sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. “I want you to know that you’ve made an old lady very happy.”
“You’re not an old lady. And given half a chance, I'll bet I could make both of us much happier.”
“Take half a chance,” she whispered. “Take a whole chance.” Her lips were very close to his now.
Archie wasn’t obtuse. He didn’t hesitate. He kissed her. All of a sudden it was as if he’d grabbed hold of a cement mixer in high gear, a cement mixer running on all eight cylinders, a cement mixer gone berserk.
Dixie held his face to hers by grabbing onto both his ears. Using them for leverage, she slid farther down on the couch and pulled Archie with her. Her tongue was a darting flame between his lips, and she was writhing against him like an impassioned snake caught up in an uncontrollable reflex to some primitive rhythm.
“Wow!” Archie exclaimed when she finally released his lips. “No post-puberty chick ever kissed me like that!"
“A little bit of experience does come with age,” Dixie sighed. “And a little bit of experience can go a long way.” She slid her hand inside his shirt and trailed her fingers over his bare chest.
“That it does!" Archie agreed fervently. He returned the caress, slipping his hand under the rough wool of her bathrobe and stroking her breast.
Dixie pulled the bathrobe away so that one breast was completely bared. It shimmered, and the nipple tautened under Archie’s stare. The pink roseate around the purplish tip seemed to widen as if issuing an invitation. She dug her hands into the back of Archie’s neck and pulled his face toward her until his lips were fastened over the breast-tip. Then she moaned low in her throat and twisted from sidle to side as if this latest stimulation was all but unbearable.
After a moment, she pushed him away. “Take off your clothes,” she said breathlessly. “Hurry, darling! Hurry!” Archie hurried.
She'd shrugged out of the bathrobe now and was lying on top of it on the floor, her arms outstretched to Archie, her hips twitching eagerly. He looked down at her, took a deep breath, and sank to his knees. Trembling female limbs enveloped him, and he sprawled over her. That’s when he heard the sounds of footsteps from the bedroom.
“What’s that?” Archie’s head shot up.
“What’s what?”
“That noise.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“You sure it’s not your husband?"
“It can’t be.” Dixie giggled. “He’s overseas.”
“I thought you said he was only working.”
“He is.” She giggled again. “I just couldn’t resist the line. Sense memory, you know?”
“Oh.” Archie embraced her again.
This time the sound which interrupted them was unmistakable. It was the sound of a door being opened. Archie looked up in time to see two children in pajamas coming toward them. The little girl was about five years old, the boy about seven. They quickly took up a position beside them and stared. The boy stretched out an arm and pointed a finger straight at Archie’s naked groin. The girl blinked her eyes until two large tears started slowly rolling down her cheeks. They froze that way, as if they were part of some carefully rehearsed tableau.
Archie was just retrieving his jaw from the floor where it had fallen when the flashbulb went off. He was struggling to his feet when it happened a second time. The third shot caught him diving for his pants.
“Archie, I’d like for you to meet my husband, Howard.” Dixie spoke from the floor. She hadn’t moved a muscle except to turn her face so that her best profile was to the camera. “Howard, this is Archimedes Jones, stepson of J. P. Jones, ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’.”
“Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Jones.” Howard held out his hand. The camera was secure in his other hand, carefully out of Archie’s reach. “These are our children, Seymour and Samantha. Say hello to Mr. Jones, children.”
“How do you do, Mr. Jones?” the children chorused in unison. Samantha curtsied politely and Seymour bowed from the waist.
“What the hell-—?” Archie found his voice and lost it again.
“No need to be concerned, Mr. Jones. Strictly business. A family business, you might say.” Howard chuckled “Portrait photography, that’s my line. Candid group portrait photography. Now, about the prints —
“He’ll take half a dozen wallet-size, and I’m sure his stepfather will want at least three eight-by-tens, Dixie interjected. “And perhaps his mother would like the same.”
“Well, let’s see now-—” Howard held a finger to his cheek thoughtfully. “At five thousand a piece, that’s thirty Gs for the wallet-size, and the eight-by-tens are ten apiece, so that makes a total of ninety thousand. Still, he is buying in bulk. Let’s give him a discount and call it a nice round seventy-five thou. How does that strike you, Mr. Jones?”
“Like blackmail! Like the oldest badger game in the world! Who the hell do you think you’re conning here?”
“Why, the stepson of J. P. Jones," Howard told him softly. “That’s who! Now, about the negatives-—”
“He didn’t say ‘cheese’,” the little girl piped up. “You took the picture, Daddy, and he didn’t say ‘cheese’. Now you’ll have to take it again.”
Howard raised the camera tentatively. Archie hastily pulled his pants up. But he didn’t say ‘cheese’. He didn’t smile at all.
He just didn’t feel like smiling!
CHAPTER FIVE
“. . . and so this gay-mother swishes his wrist and goes ‘POUF!’ and poor, downtrodden, exploited Saturnalia turns into a real chunk of ogle-bait. Like she can’t believe it; like she blinked her eyes on a goofball. I mean, she sprouts boobies out to here and her legs get all depilatorized and her frizz turns into a twenty-dollar perm you could hive a drove of bees in and she’s wearin’ the kind of rags say the War on Poverty is over and she’s won. Also, she’s got wheels. Caddy wheels with a rat-faced driver on account of he was a mouse before the fairy-Mums limp-wristed him into a chauffeur. Saturnalia slips into the wheels and the fruity witch hollers she should be sure to come back to the hovel by midnight ’cause if she don’t she’s gonna change back to a dog anyways and her bra ’ll be flappin’ in the breeze with nothin’ inside it and her nose ’ll beak like always and the Caddy ’ll turn back into a garbage truck and her little lace hanky ’ll be a smutty dust-rag like it was before. So the mother yells this after her even though he isn’t a Jewish mother, and Saturnalia tosses him a promise like yeah, man, she’ll hobble from hop to hovel by midnight for sure.”
Archie took a deep breath. Samantha and Seymour, curled up on the floor at his feet, looked up at him expectantly and waited for him to continue. But for the moment Archie was off the track. He was wondering about the conference going on between Howard and Dixie in the next room. Looking disappointed and injured, they’d excused themselves when Archie had refused to arrange for the payment of one red cent in exchange for the photos Howard had taken.
“So this is what you pulled on Professor Beaumarchais!” Archie had guessed. “That’s why you were so sure he’d contacted your husband,” he said accusingly to Dixie. “You were blackmailing him! That’s it, isn’t it?”
The way Dixie and Howard had looked at each other and shrugged told Archie he’d hit the nail on the head. That’s when he’d told them there would be no more extortion money from the professor because the professor was dead. That’s when he’d told them they could plaster the pictures they’d taken of him all over the subways for all he cared, but neither his stepfather, his mother, nor he himself would cough up one plugged nickel to suppress the photos. And that’s when they’d gone into a huddle in the bedroom, leaving Archie with their two offspring who'd immediately badgered him into telling them a story.