She paused for a mere moment to allow Rick to blink his eyes.
Then she continued. "What I cannot abide, or excuse, is your lying to me. I cannot abide a liar. I have no time to waste on a liar."
"Why do you… " Rick could not finish the sentence. It seemed to him that his tongue was filling his throat.
She said, "You looked very handsome in your white silk breechcloth."
Rick felt weak from his knees to his chin.
"You performed very well. My hostess informed me that the four of you performed for only ten dollars apiece. Is that true?"
Rick raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and hopelessness. He thought he still might be able to bluff it through. "It wasn't really what I wanted to do last night, but I got talked into it."
"It shouldn't have taken much talking. The girls were very young and exceptionally beautiful. And I must say it was exciting to watch the twins perform, though I confess I watched you most of the time."
"I'm sorry I lied to you."
"So am I. I'm also sorry you did not appear last night. You were to have been my guest "
"It would have been a good show," Rick said bravely, "but they'd have been short one actor, wouldn't they."
"I doubt if they would have had trouble finding someone to take your place. The streets are full of summer kids who would perform like that, or try to, for ten dollars."
Rick realized his case was nearly hopeless. He said again, "Well, I am sorry I lied."
"So am I," she said, "as I said before. It seems we are covering ground we have already covered." Her voice was cold.
Rick looked at her body. She wore the same light-weight silk robe she had worn the first time he had come to her house. He thought again how pleasant she was in bed, how grateful, how experienced. He desired her, he thought with surprise. She stood silently before him, until he asked, "What would you like me to do?"
"Get out. Don't come back."
He blinked. "Do you mean that?"
"I have never said anything I did not mean." She pressed a hidden button under the leaf of the frail antique French desk.
Marie came inside from where she obviously had been waiting just the other side of the door, waiting to aid in the expulsion.
Rick held out his hand to Mrs. Witherdine, but she did not accept it. "Good-bye," he said.
"Good-bye," she said.
Marie showed Rick down the back stairs. He followed without a complaint.
In the kitchen, he said, "You were right, Marie. She is pissed off beyond belief. It was my problem."
Marie stopped him at the back door. "The only mistake you made was lying to her. She actually got a kick out of watching you fuck them little girls, once she thought about it."
"How can you be in this business, Marie, and not lie?"
"You can't, so maybe you ought to get out of the business." She stood near him. "You remember you once said you might have something for me? Well, let me see what it might have been."
Rick decided what the hell. He might as well let the maid have it, now that he was finished forever with the mistress. He unhappily thought of all the others he would have to deal with: Mrs. Simpson and her bath tub, all the other crazy ones. Mrs. Witherdine had been the only one who liked her screwing straight and Rick had envisioned hundreds more just like her waiting along the shores of the finest oceans in the world.
He stood still as Marie worked down his zipper. Her eyes were ready to feast on all his equipment, her heavy lips parted, and the red tip of her tongue slid between them. Rick remembered the black girl on the campus lawn and how grateful she had been to be allowed to suck on his white cock and later stuff it up what she claimed was her virgin cunt. Marie reached inside his pants with expert fingers and fished out his penis.
It flopped outside, hung down long but not hard as if ashamed to show its head.
Marie stroked it, pulled on it. Nothing happened to it. She said, "I haven't seen a nice white one like that for a long time. And I bet it's real nice when it's standing up, but it doesn't look like it's going to get up today."
Rick thought Mrs. Witherdine had really done it for him. He thought he might never get another hard-on again. His balls felt shrivelled.
Marie smiled and patted his cock on its soft head. She began stuffing it back into his pants but could not get it in right so Rick did it for her.
She said, "It looks like it would be very fine, but not for me today. Probably not ever. And I don't feel like trying to get it up. Man," she sighed, "what destruction that would do to my ego if I tried and it didn't work" She patted Rick's crotch, felt his cock stuffed inside, and gave it a tender squeeze. "Best not to even try. You better just keep it stuffed in there for a few days, take care of it. I heard what happened and it might take you a while to get over it. You listen to old Marie, I know. You've had a hard blow to your little solar plexus. Or somewhere down there, down around the balls. And now you better just take it slow and easy till you get it all back. The Missus has only let a few of her boys go like she did you, and from what I heard of them after-wards they did not make much of themselves. You take it easy awhile. I liked you and so did she, but you lied to her and she can't take that. You take it easy and get your head screwed on straight. You're too young and good looking to be selling yourself so cheap."
Rick was nearly out the back door, but he turned to ask, "What do you mean?"
"I mean let the middle-aged creeps have these old dames like the Missus. Do I have to spell it out for you? She does all right with them. Don't feel you're the only cock that can make her happy. You're still young and full of fuck. You get yourself some young ones now while you still can. You get all the young ones now because when you're old like me, and like the Missus, you don't get a hell of a lot of choice. You listening to me?"
Rick nodded. "Yes, I am. I like young ones, too."
Marie nodded swiftly as if that settled that. "Then by damn you just hang onto them. You get them and make them happy. Making them happy will make you happy. Now you scoot along and eat your cookies."
She shooed him out the door and shut it after him. The heavy door swinging shut, closing solidly behind him, was like an era of his life ending.
He got back, to the resort about an hour before his class was scheduled to begin.
He walked the deserted dock. He watched a solitary boy fishing off the end without a care in the world except whether or not a fish would bite. Rick decided to take one of the Sailfish out into open water, by himself, and clear his head.
He stepped down into the small rowboat used to transport people from the dock to anchored sailboats and rowed the twenty yards to where the nearest small sailboat bobbed in the water.
Once aboard, he secured the rowboat to the stern, upped the anchor and began rigging the sail. He was nearly ready to hoist the mainsail when he realized that someone was calling his name.
He looked toward the dock and saw a cleancut figure of a girl waving to him. She wore a white T-shirt and blue shorts. He waved back, thinking she was waving good-bye.
She called, "Rick! You going out?"
He recognized her voice, then her body. It was Jenny Roman.
He called back, curtly, "I'm going out." He turned back to finish hoisting the sail.
It was luffing over his arm when he glanced back to the dock and saw that she had dived into the bay and was swimming toward his boat. He did not want to talk to her. He was sure she knew he had been fired by Auntie, and that Marie had told her why. He did not want to have to share his morning with anybody who looked like Jenny Roman.
But he knew, as he listened to the smooth calm strokes of her swimming, that he would have to take her on board. He could not leave her floundering in the bay, sail off like an insulted lover.