The Eiger Sanction

'Oh, for Christ's sake, Cherry! I ought to spank your ass.'

She was instantly up on one elbow, speaking with serious concern. 'I never suspected you were a sadist, Jonathan. But I guess it's the duty of a woman in love to satisfy the sexual peculiarities of her man.'

'You're not a woman in love. You're a woman in heat. But all right! You win! I'm getting up. Why don't you go down and make me a cup of coffee.'

'It's right there beside you, impetuous lover. I made it before I came up.' There was a tray with a coffee pot and two cups on the bedside table. She arranged his pillows as he pulled himself to a sitting position, then she poured out his coffee and passed him the cup, which he had to struggle to balance when she climbed back into bed and sat beside him, their shoulders and hips touching, her leg over his. Jonathan sensed that the major league sex play was over for the moment, but she was still nude to the navel and her bikini tan gave her white breasts the advantage of contrast against the soft copper of the rest of her.

'Hey, Jonathan?' she said earnestly, as she looked into the bottom of her coffee cup, 'let me ask you something. It's true, isn't it, that the early morning would be about the best time for me to get at you. It's true, isn't it, that men often wake up with erections.'

'That usually means they have to piss,' he growled into his cup.

She digested this bit of information in silence. 'Nature is wasteful,' she commented sadly. Then her spirits bounced back. 'But never mind! Sooner or later, I'll catch you at an unguarded moment. Then bam!'

'Bam?'

'Not very onomatopoetic, I guess.'

'Let's hope not.'

She was withdrawn for a moment, then she turned to him and asked, 'It isn't me, is it? I mean, if I weren't a virgin you'd take me, wouldn't you?'

He locked his fingers behind his head and stretched all the way to his pointed toes. 'Certainly. In an instant. Bam.'

'Because,' she pursued, 'I'm really fairly pretty, and I'm filthy rich, and my bod's not bad.' She paused for a complimentary comment. 'Hey! We were talking about my bod!' Again she paused. 'Well, at least my breasts are nice, aren't they?'

He did not look over. 'Certainly. They're great.'

'Now cut it out! Look at them. They're a little small by current standards, but they're firm and cute, don't you think?'

He cradled one in his palm and inspected it with professional myopia. 'Very fine,' he vouched. 'And two in number, which is especially reassuring.'

'Then why don't you break down and make love to me?'

'Because you are self-consciously cute. Furthermore, you are a virgin. I could forgive the cuteness on the assumption that you'll outgrow it. But the virginity—never. Now why don't you put your blouse back on.'

'No-o. I don't think so. Who knows? You might suddenly get a normal impulse and—ta-da!'

'Ta-da?'

'It's better than bam. Here, let me give you more coffee.' She refilled his cup then carried her own to the edge of the loft, where she leaned against the railing, looking out over the nave musingly.

Cherry was Jonathan's nearest neighbor, occupying with her domestic staff a rambling mansion a quarter of a mile down the road. They shared the cost of maintaining the artificial sand beach that connected their properties. Her late father, the corporation lawyer James Mathew Pitt, had bought the estate shortly before his death, and Cherry enjoyed managing the property. During trips, Jonathan entrusted her with the care of his home and the payment of his local bills. Of necessity, she had a key, and she drifted in and out to use his library and to borrow champagne for her parties. He never attended these parties, not caring to meet the liberated young people of her circle. Needless to say, Cherry knew nothing about him, save that he was a teacher and art critic and that, so far as she knew, he was independently well off. She had never been invited to descend into the private gallery in the basement.

Little by little, their sex play had developed into a pattern of epic enticements and stoic refusals, the whole thing based on their mutual understanding that it was Jonathan's role to fend her off. She would have been at a loss, had he ever failed to do so. The battle was never totally without charm because it was fought with humor on both sides. And there was the spice of distant possibility to keep a tang in their relationship.

After a longish silence, Cherry spoke without turning to him. 'Do you realize that I am the only twenty-four- year-old virgin on Long Island—discounting paraplegics and some nuns? And it's all your fault. You owe it to mankind to get me started.'

Jonathan swung out of bed. 'Avoiding virgins is not only a matter of ethics with me. It's also a matter of mechanics. Virgins are hard on older men.'

'O.K. Punish yourself. Deny yourself the delights of the flesh. See if I care.' She followed him into the bathroom where she had to raise her voice to be heard over the roar of water into his Roman pool. 'I really do care, you know. After all, someone's got to get me started.'

He called from the toilet beyond. 'Someone's got to collect the garbage too. But not me.' He punctuated with a flush.

'Nice analogy!'

He returned to the bathroom and lowered himself into the hot water. 'Why don't you get dressed and go make us a little breakfast.'

'I want to be your lover, not your wife.' But she returned reluctantly to the bedroom.

'And put your shirt on before you go down,' he called after her. 'You might meet Mr. Monk down there.' Mr. Monk was the groundsman.

'I wonder if he'd be willing to relieve me of this disgraceful chastity?'

'Not on what I pay him,' Jonathan mumbled to himself.

'I assume you want your eggs raw,' she called as she left.

After breakfast, she wandered about in the greenhouse garden while he brought the morning mail into the library, where he intended to do a touch of work. He was surprised and disturbed not to find the usual blue envelope from CII containing his cash payment. By routine, it was always placed by hand in his mailbox during the night after his return from a sanction. He was sure this was no oversight. Dragon was up to something. But there was nothing he could do but wait, so he went over his accounts and discovered that, after he had spent the ten thousand for the new Pissarro and paid his groundsman in advance for the summer, he would have very little left. There would be no lavish living this season, but he would get by. His major concern was that he had promised the underground art dealer in Brooklyn that he would have the money today. He decided to telephone and persuade him to hold the painting for an extra day.

'...so when can you pick it up, Jonathan?' the dealer asked, his voice crisp with the overarticulated consonants of the Near East.

'Tomorrow, I imagine. Or the next day.'

'Make it the next day. Tomorrow I take the family to Jones Beach. And you will have the twelve thousand we agreed on?'

'I will have the ten thousand we agreed on.'

'It was only ten?' the dealer asked, his voice laden with grief.

'It was only ten.'

'Jonathan, what am I doing? I am allowing my friendship for you to threaten the future of my children. But—a deal is a deal. I am philosophic. I can lose with grace. But make sure you bring the money before noon. It is dangerous for me to keep the item here. And also, I have another prospective buyer.'

'You're lying, of course.'

'I don't lie. I steal. There is another buyer. For twelve thousand. He contacted me today. So, if you don't want to lose the painting, be prompt. You understand?'

'I understand.'

'Good. So! How is the family?'

'I'm not married. We go through this every time. You always ask me how the family is, and I always remind