Her eyes shifted to mine and she began shooting code that could only mean one thing. She wanted to get me alone and play a game other than bridge and, despite my earlier exercise with Alice and Trudy, I found my dork beginning to weave like an awakened cobra.
Sighing like a steam engine at ease in a roundhouse, I dropped my cards on the table. “I don't have a thing, including any desire to go on with the game. I'm sorry, kids, but it's not my night to be good company.”
“You've been a charmer,” Alice replied, shaking her head in denial. “A regular little gentleman.”
“Stick around,” Sam muttered. “I promise not to talk shop.”
Amy was already getting to her feet, smoothing her short skirt over her thighs, but Alice joined in her husband's protest. “Come on, maybe we can play swap, or something.”
Amy froze, as though someone were pointing a forty-five at her tummy. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” the dark woman replied with a giggle that seemed frantic. “Just making zee small joke, you know?”
“So small I can hardly find it,” my wife went on. “We do not make jokes about swapping, Alice honey. There's too much of it going on among our friends to treat it lightly.”
Glances were exchanged around the card table, like someone had picked up a red hot coal and, unable to drop it on the carpet, tossed it to the next man and so forth. All of us, it seemed, had our own dark thoughts about mate-swapping and I could almost hear the wheels grinding inside the other three heads.
True, I had toyed with Alice in the kitchen on more than one occasion, but while I knew she'd be a comfortable lay, I had never quite reached that level. Besides, Trudy seemed infinitely more exciting at the moment and my crotch was still a-tingle with memories of our recent excursion before the television set.
“Come on,” Amy muttered, taking my arm and breaking the dark and dangerous spell. “Alexander's probably having puppies in the garage by now.”
Alice's eyes darted like a ferret's. “Alexander? Come on, gang, no secrets.”
“Alexander's our German shepherd.” I explained. “Sam, didn't I mention him at the office?”
“Sure. I just forgot. Didn't you say something about him being chicken? You had to get a sitter.”
Amy tossed her head. “She's costing a fortune for every minute we stand here and waste time,” she said, her voice rising in impatience. Shoving herself against me, she let her thigh rub across mine. “Come on, honey, let's go. Really, it's getting late and nobody wants to play bridge.”
Alice chuckled in a damnably familiar way she had. “Look at them, Sam. They can hardly wait to jump into bed together. Why don't you turn me on like that?”
“Because you're never plugged in, cold heart,” her husband grumbled. “We'll see you, kids. Get out of here before we try to rent you the spare bedroom.”
Amy and I headed for the door and I thought about the brimming highball glasses and my two quarts of booze in the kitchen. I didn't think for long, because I knew it wasn't worth as much as my wife when she was possessed with one of her torrid moods-like now.
I got the car in gear and we zipped out of there. Luckily, we were pointed the wrong way from our house so that I had to go around the block and miss going past the brightly lighted liquor store.
“Honey?” The word fell on my ears like a hot towel during a blizzard, but she managed to stay on the far end of the seat, her back against the door, her feet tucked under her bottom.
“Hm?”
“Let's not go straight home.”
“The motel?” We had this thing about once in a while going to a nearby motel to shack up, so we could pretend we were still single and making out behind Amy's parents' back. It was more exciting that way, especially when we got tired of our same old bed at home.
“Head for the beach.”
I did, running boulevard stops along the way before pulling up in front of the sea wall, cutting the lights and engine in the same split second. Then I turned, arms out, ready to let her fall into my arms-except that she wasn't falling, she was still sitting with her back against the wall.
Her teeth made a white line in the darkness. “Let's talk, huh?”
I sighed. “Not about new curtains for the guest bath or the part of the front lawn that ought to be reseeded, please.”
“All right, darling, then we'll discuss where you really were for an hour this evening.” She could sound sweet as strawberry jam while machine-gunning an entire column of refugees.
“I told you…”
“I know what you told me, and the Champions, and I'll bet they didn't believe you, either. They're probably trying to guess whether you were out robbing a bank or swimming in the buff with a beautiful maiden.”
I must have jerked as though one of her wild slugs had caught me in the small of the back, for she leaned forward, her eyes glittering like Charlie Chan's number one son sniffing out a clue.
“Hit close to home, I dare say.”
“Look, I was shopping for bourbon. What the hell else would I be doing?”
Her head shook like a ticking clock. “I know that Jim Beam came from our liquor cabinet as well as you. Do you want me to look when we get home?”
I started to reach for her, but she slapped my hands away. I reached again, catching her shoulder and pulling her halfway across the seat. “Can it, cutie, and we'll do what we do best together.”
“All right, so I'll check and find out if you've been lying.”
“You said you already knew.” I spread my hands, slapping my thighs. “Okay, kill me, but I went to our house to check on that damned dog.”
Amy glared, looking like a native queen daring me to try to swipe the jewel in her navel, and I wanted to dig for it in the worst way. “Please don't ask me to believe you're suddenly fond of that dog.”
“I am,” I said truthfully, for I'd already figured out that Alexander had brought me a piece of ass already. “But I was afraid he might be raising hell. After all, he'd never been left alone by either of us until tonight and-who knows? — he might have eaten that kid of a sitter for dinner. I just wanted to check out the house, pick up the booze and hurry back to the side of my ever-trusting wife.”
“You could have made better time in an ox cart.”
I batted my eyes. “You missed me so much that the time dragged. It tends to do that when lovers are apart.”
“Crap.” She looked out to sea, turning her back on me.
“Such language for a native queen to use. Turn around and I'll pluck the jewel from your belly button.”
Amy turned, all right, staring. “Sometimes I think you're crazy, and maybe crazy like a fox. I don't know whether to believe you or not, especially when you admit you were alone with that Trudy Pipp person.”
“Alone for five minutes,” I pleaded, “spending the time discussing Alexander and whether Trudy-Miss Pipp- should get a round dollar fifty for the final fraction of an hour she's at the house.”
Amy got out of the car, hugging her arms as a cool night breeze whispered in over the beach and swirled behind the wall. I hopped out, coming after her and draping my coat around her shoulders. I gave her a little squeeze.
“Why would I be so hot and bothered just being near you if I'd already had a… if I'd already made love to someone else tonight?” I whispered through her brown wisps of hair into her ear. When I was in high school I could drive them wild by whispering into their ears. In fact, that's how I got my first cherry, out in back of the football grandstand.
She turned toward me, leaning her back against the concrete of the wall. “Oh, Don, I'm not sure of anything these days. Why do you think I got that silly dog? He's just something to do… some company while you're away. I guess a woman who's worried behaves like a suspicious fool.”
Inside me something sighed with relief and sat back to relax. I suppose it was my rotten conscience, which was strictly an invertebrate when it came to having a stiff spine. I leaned close to her, resting my hand on the wall, which was still warm from the last sun of the day.
“You're worried about having a baby… or not having a baby? We can always try once again to solve that problem, sweetheart. Right here and now.” My voice was husky and it wasn't all acting.
“You're a nut,” she whispered, turning her face up to mine and not behaving as though she thought I was a nut at all. “A complete idiot. Suppose the cop on the beat were to come along?”
