Bob seemed pleased at what he saw, smiled, and then busied himself at the lavatory, washing his hands and face, then searching through the medicine cabinet for a razor and shaving cream.
“You made me feel rather like an ass,” I told him with a weak laugh, “and this isn't exactly my idea of a place… or situation… in which to get acquainted.”
“You'll get over those remaining inhibitions,” he said casually, shooting pressurized cream on his face and smoothing it around. “I've decided take you under my wing and make a real woman of you. These parties will be off limits from now on. You are single, aren't you?”
“I am divorced,” I stated, absolutely fascinated by his amazing self-assurance and domination, yet determined to put up an expected protest. “I am divorced… but my 14-year-old daughter is spending the summer with me. She stays with me every summer…”
“Do you have a picture of her?”
“Yes… in my purse there, but…”
“Will you show it to me, please?” Bob asked, and there was no element of doubt in voice but that I would comply.
I felt peculiar, but in a wonderful way. Of course, I am odd, and my whole being at that time was completely unorthodox. But in looking back on this, even I am shocked at myself. There I was taking a douche in the bathroom with almost a total stranger who, as he was shaving, announced that he was going to “take over” my life, and I cut off the flow in the douche bag to retrieve a picture of Kathy from my purse.
“Very nice…,” he commented upon looking it the wallet-size, junior-high picture Kathy had it me last year. “She has a sensual face. Is she a virgin?”
“I should hope so!” I said with a note of protest. “She… well, had a tendency to be a bit wild and stay out late… God knows where she meets some of these creeps she shows up with, but… you ask the damnedest questions…”
“You both need a male influence in the home,” Bob observed sharply, turning his attention back to his shaving. “I've been staying at the Riverside Motel since I came back to the States. I think it would be best if I moved in with you tomorrow.”
“Oh, wait a minute now!” I exploded, angered by his presumptuousness as I stood up and wiped myself off, “You're clever enough to know that I like you… that I think you're sexy as hell… if I got down there and tried to lick you and that girl. But this is ridiculous. Just because you're some CIA character…”
“Who told you that?” he literally screamed at me, dropping his razor in the hot water and grabbing me by the neck, “Who told you that?”
“Ow… awk… you're hurting me!” I objected, fruitlessly struggling against his iron grip, “I… I was just told that you were… used to be in military intelligence or something…”
“That's all they told you?” he demanded, relaxing his grip just enough to let me know that those strong hands could strangle me to death in an instant if he so desired.
“They… said you still spooked or something… it was very vague…”
“All right,” he said, letting me go and returning to his shaving as if nothing had happened. “It's no secret that I was an intelligence officer. I still travel occasionally on classified work. I may be gone sometimes for indefinite periods. You must not question this. Now, what size quarters do you have?”
“Look… if you think you're going to move in on me,” I started again as he splashed water over his face and toweled it off, ”… you've got another guess coming…
“You need a man. You need constant companionship. The presence of a man is essential to your physical and mental well-being,” he rattled off at me, turning to face me and gathered me in his arms with those strong hands, “If you allow yourself to keep going to these parties, having boyfriends and girlfriends all over the place, you'll become much more of a tramp than you are now. Think of yourself ten years from now. Think of your daughter.”
“I… I am thinking of my daughter,” I told him nervously, overawed by the strength of his presence, the hypnotic influence he seemed to be wielding over me, “I've never had a man in the house… except as a very proper visitor… while she's at home.”
“Do you have an extra bedroom?”
“Yes… we use it as a den downstairs…”
“Don't you think I could take care of your physical needs?”
“Yes… but…”
Bob pressed his massive body to me and I think I must have succumbed totally, body and soul. It was as if I was no longer capable of self control. I had become weak and lifeless, dependent upon him for strength, for sustenance. I was no longer my own master.
Ridiculous? Yes, in looking back on it all. But when we looked in the bathroom mirror at ourselves then, Bob in only his shorts and I mother naked, I felt that it was the most thrilling moment of my life. I was electric with excitement. Nor was the excitement totally a thing of passion, as I had been thoroughly satisfied from a physical standpoint by so many others that night. This was something very different, very personal. I had the distinct feeling that I needed this man, that he could protect me. But from what?
“My name is Bob Morgan. You probably know that already,” he announced after a very warm and free kiss that I enjoyed thoroughly, “What's yours?”
Bob and I went out to breakfast at his motel. It was a beautiful place way out at the edge of town with an open dining patio that looked down to a valley below, It seemed strange that I felt so inordinately relaxed, so tranquil, so at peace with the world. I had turned over everything to Bob. I no longer had responsibilities and, consequently, no fears or worries. At least that was the way I felt at that moment.
Over coffee, we discussed a plan for explaining his presence in the house to Kathy. We discarded any attempt to explain our relationship as platonic, because a 14-year-old girl would be too observant to believe it. Since I was a free agent and obviously did have romantic affairs, it was decided that I would simply tell Kathy that Bob was a very old and dear friend who had been overseas for a while and just come back rather unexpectedly. We would imply that we were close to a point of becoming engaged, picking up our serious romance at the point it had left off.
So far as the neighbors were concerned, the fact that Bob would become a member of the household while Kathy was there would give the situation an air of legitimacy. We even discussed how in casual conversation with the neighbors we would slip in mentions of “his room downstairs.”
It was nine in the morning, when I was in Bob's room at the motel helping him pack, that I decided to call Kathy and prepare her. At the same time, of course, I had to explain my all-night absence, since I usually sneaked in just before dawn from parties and she never knew the difference… I thought.
“Darling! The most wonderful thing has happened!” I told her with bubbling enthusiasm. “When Bill took me out last night, he told me he had a surprise for me-Bill and I are just good friends, you know-and the party was a surprise celebration and reunion for Bob and me. Who is Bob? Oh, goodness, I must have told you about Bob! He's mother's really very dearest friend, but he's been overseas so long I almost thought he would never come back. Well, dear, Bob is coming to stay with us for a while… until they send him back overseas or somewhere. Oh, Kathy, we danced all night and had the most wonderful reunion…”
Bob had three suitcases of clothes and papers. The rest of his belongings were in a huge trunk at the express office and he telephoned them to deliver it to the house. I was feeling the most wonderful I had felt in years as I handed him over the keys to my car and we breezed along the freeway out to the suburbs on the other side of town.
I had a man of my own, a powerful and strong man, yet one who was on my same level of emotional complications. Perhaps, really, we needed each other. Bob would be my tower of strength, but I could also provide him, the wandering global secret agent, with an element of much needed stability. Perhaps… we might really get married? Some day.
And yet, as soon as we walked in the door of my house and Kathy strolled out in the living room from the den to meet us, I knew instinctively that Bob was not all mine. I tried to deny it to myself, and I succeeded for the time being. I deluded myself into not seeing it just as deliberately as Kathy had chosen to wear a fantastically sheer set of yellow baby-dolls to meet her mother's boyfriend.
I blushed when I saw the budding young breasts and the tiny nipples peeping right through the gauzy fabric, and I scolded her about coming out half-nude like that. Bob's clever eyes took in each detail of her lovely young
