her hands on the black curly hair. 'Mmm… I love my men hairy. Gets me itchin’somethin’ awful.'
Harley was nearly at the bursting point already. 'Honey, I ain’t made of money, you know.'
She bit his nipple, then tugged it until he yelped and jerked back, nursing it. She gazed into his eyes, her face feigning innocence as she gyrated against him. 'I bet your wife’s got one o’ them electric fans already, hasn’t she, Harley?'
'Come on, Lula, let’s go to bed. I’m hurtin’, honey.'
'What about that fan?'
'Maybe next payday.'
She pouted her vermilion lips and ran one finger down her damp cleavage. 'Next payday’s too late. Why, it’s been so hot, I just can’t hardly sleep nights at all.' She wiped her collected sweat beneath his nose.
'Lula, be reasonable. I already give you that Frigidaire and the Philco and had that closet made into a bathroom for you. I had to do some fancy explainin’ to Mae about where the extra money went.'
Abruptly she gave him a shove and flounced away from him, throwing her hands in the air. 'Mae, Mae, Mae! I swear that’s all I hear from you, Harley Overmire! Well, if you won’t get me that electric fan, I know somebody who will. Why, just today Orlan Nettles was in the cafe and all I’da had to do was crook my little finger and it woulda been him here tonight instead of you. I’ll bet you five dollars Orlan never did it the way I had in mind to do it with you tonight.'
'You thought of a new way?' Harley was pure miserable by this time.
With her back turned, she inspected her painted nails. 'It was a good one, too.'
The music on the Philco had changed to 'Paper Doll.' It continued blasting as he came up behind her and clamped his teeth on her neck, reached around front and started convincing her again. But Lula had coercion down to an art. She dipped her knees and got the most out of Harley’s strokes, but she could remain unyielding till she got what she wanted, and it was always more than just an orgasm. If she was going to live the rest of her life in this little jerkwater town, she’d live it in luxury, by God. The fan and the bathroom and the Philco were just the beginning. She intended to have a Ford, and a carpeted front room and an R.C.A. Victor phonograph before this was over.
Behind her, Harley was breathing like a winded horse. What he had inside his pants felt like it belonged to a horse, too. She reached back to help Harley make his decision.
He groaned against her neck and said, 'Okay, Lula-honey, I’ll get you the fan.'
'Tomorrow, Harleykins?' she purred.
'Tomorrow. I’ll think of somethin’ I got to run down to Atlanta for.'
Lula didn’t expect something for nothing. The change in her was immediate and inspired. She swung around and began removing Harley’s clothes, licking his chest, fondling him while backing him toward the kitchen.
'What’s your favorite kind of sandwich, Harleykins?'
He stumbled over a pantleg and laughed. 'Roast beef and mustard.'
'Mmm… roast beef and mustard. You like mustard, do you, Harley?' She knew he liked mustard. She knew everything about Harley Overmire and used every scrap of knowledge to best advantage.
'Damn right, and Mae, she’s always forgettin’ to put it on.'
'That’s the trouble with Mae,' Lula purred, pushing his boxer shorts to the floor. 'Mae doesn’t know what a man likes. But I do.' Harley chuckled, thinking he’d get Lula the biggest damn fan in the city of Atlanta. 'And where should a man eat his roast beef and mustard sandwich, Harleykins?' She stroked him till he felt hard and pulsing as a jackhammer.
'At the kitchen table?'
'That’s right, honey-lamb. I got cold roast beef in my new Frigidaire, just waitin’ for you, and all the mustard you want, and I’m gonna serve ’em both to you on the kitchen table, and afterwards you and me’re gonna climb in that beautiful new bathtub and run some of that luscious hot water from my brand-new water heater, and we’re gonna put some Dreft in there and get lost in the bubbles, and everytime you open your lunch pail up at the mill and see a roast beef sandwich without mustard, you’re gonna remember who it is that treats you right-aren’t you, Harleykins?'
They spent forty minutes on the kitchen table, and the things Lula did with that mustard would have sold millions of bottles, had the manufacturer had the ingenuity to suggest such uses.
Later, in Lula’s shiny new porcelain tub, she ran her bare toes up Harley’s hairy chest. His eyes were closed and his beefy arms rested on the wide edge.
'Harley?'
'Hm?'
'A stranger came into the cafe today.'
'Hm.' He sounded disinterested.
Two minutes passed in silence while Lula patiently rested with her eyes closed. She was bright enough to know that if she asked, she’d arouse his suspicion. But if Harley thought he alone could scratch her itch, he was sadly mistaken.
'Don’t get many strangers through here,' she murmured in due time, as if half asleep.
Harley lifted his head. 'Tall guy? Wiry? Wearin’ a battered cowboy hat?'
'Yeah, that’s the one,' she replied dreamily, following with a throaty chuckle. 'Hey, Harley, how come you always know everything before I can tell you?'
He chortled and laid his head back. 'You got to get up pretty early in the mornin’ to put one over on old Harley.'
'He just read the paper and moved on.'
'Prob’ly lookin’ at the want ads. I fired him from the mill today.'
'What’d he do wrong?'
'Done five years in Huntsville State Pen for killin’ a whore in some whorehouse down there.'
Lula’s foot hit the water with a splash as she sat bolt upright. 'My God, Harley, he didn’t!' Her blood ran fast at the mere idea of being in the same room with a man like that. 'Lord, we women won’t be safe on the streets.'
'That’s what I told him. Parker, I said, we don’t want your kind around here. Pick up your pay and git.'
So his name was Parker.
'Good for you, Harley.' She lay back and stroked his genitals with her heel. Beneath the bubbly water they were sleek. She began growing aroused again, touching Harley, but picturing the tall, tacit cowboy who’d said so little and had hidden beneath the brim of his hat. Still waters, she thought, and felt her heart begin to race. Going to bed with a man like that would be the ultimate excitement; she imagined it in vivid detail-the danger, the challenge, the sexual drive behind a man who’d been cut off from women for five years. Lord a-mighty, it would be one she’d never forget.
'Bet I know somethin’ you don’t know, Harley.' She let her toes climb his chest like an inchworm.
'What?'
'He went up to see crazy Elly Dinsmore about that ad she run.'
'What!' The water slopped over the edge of the tub as Overmire shot up.
'I know damn well he did ’cause first he asked to see the paper, then he sat and read it, then he asked how to find Rock Creek Road, and when I told him he headed off in that direction. What else would he be goin’up there for?'
Overmire roared with laughter and fell back in the water. 'Wait’ll I tell the boys about this. Jesus, will they laugh. Crazy Elly Dinsmore… ha, ha, ha!'
'She really is crazy, isn’t she?'
'As a bedbug. Advertisin’ for a husband. Christ.'
'Course, what could you expect after she was locked up in that house all her life?' Lula shivered.
'I went to school with her mother, you know. Course, that was before she dropped her whelp and they locked her up.'
'You did?' Lula sat up and reached over the edge of the tub for a towel. She stood and began drying herself. Harley did the same.
'She stared at the wall a lot, and drew pictures all the time. Once she drew a picture of a naked man on a windowshade. The teacher didn’t know it was there and when she pulled it down the class went crazy. Course, they
