Christmas shopping. Harry slid down in his chair, as if attempting to render himself invisible. Not an easy task for a chap built on White Star Line proportions. My large friend hissed and drew a frond of potted fern across his face.
'It's the Black Widow!'
I looked skeptical.
'Sweet cakes, you're doing a very good impression of the Green Man. Did you know he is an ancient fertility symbol?'
I was just about to launch into a rather erudite discourse on pagan lore, a perennial interest, when the lady in pink squealed like a pig with its nose in a bucket of boiling swill.
'Harry!!! Ooh, it is Harry Neptune, it really is! Oh, darling Nep-toodles, what are you doing here in the Empress? I can't believe it! This is wonderful! What a delight! Oh! Oh!'
A steady stream of burbling emitted from the woman's lips, liberally punctuated with audible exclamation marks. I imagined that five minutes of the Black Widow's company would be tiring, a whole day of it might induce one to book oneself into a spa for a rest cure. Smiling grimly, I extended one suede-gloved hand towards the gushing lady, as Harry extricated himself from the vegetation, a sheepish and somewhat fatalistic expression on his face.
'Gloria, this is Miss Jay Lawrence. Jay, allow me to present Mrs. Gloria Goldfinkel.'
'But do call me Gigi! Are you here to take tea? Are you staying at the Empress? I have a wonderful suite in the west wing, simply divine. Oh! Oh! You must come up to my suite and take tea. You will, won't you, Harry darling? Oh, you simply must. Don't forget Tittitata Lodge!'
Harry looked grim. I recalled his terse recounting of his first liaison with the Black Widow, a lady of independent and considerable means, whose wealthy sixth husband had expired on the last leg of a round the world cruise. I suspect my friend had been considering an auxiliary career as a shipboard roue and cad-about-port, but Gigi's terminally effusive manner had brought him back to dry land with a bump. Poor dear. Gigi finally paused to draw breath and I grasped Harry's elbow and propelled him towards the nearest door.
'Lovely to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Finkelstein! Just remembered Harry's doctor's appointment! It's his old trouble again, I'm afraid. Arrividerce!'
'But! But! Oh!'
We left the vision in pink pouting by the potted palms and careered out into the dampish day. The uniformed doorman gave us a very disapproving look as we scuttled down the gravel drive and I giggled at last.
'Tittitata Lodge, eh?'
Harry shuddered.
'You don't want to know. Believe me. You don't want to know. If I say fuchsia marabou trimmed peignoir that should give you more than enough information. Now, what about our tea, you little monster? I'm parched.'
I took Harry's arm.
'I know a place. Not as fancy as the Empress, of course, but it has a certain rustic charm.'
'Don't we all, dear!'
'Tittitata Lodge indeed. What next, Mr. Neptune? What next?!'
Jay's little legs positively twinkled as we fled from the Empress and the occupant of its west wing suite – the Presidential Suite, I had no doubt. She clung to my arm as I ran through the old familiar lose-the-tail routine. As we ducked and dived I wondered idly about planting a notice in the newspaper that my old trouble had proven terminal.
'Slow down – we've lost her!'
My breath returned to something like normal as I let Jay take over the navigation.
Jay's 'rustic charm' amounted to Tillie's Tea Shoppe, an inside outside place tucked away between the main shopping street and the harbour. We battled our way through the Christmas hordes and plonked ourselves down at an outside table. The weather was unseasonably warm, despite Jay trying to influence it with her fancy gloves and a scarf she could have corralled horses with. There was an open fire built into one wall of the outside bit, and various decorations dangling from the more vertical surfaces. All jolly seasonal.
'Tittitata Lodge? Come on, Neptune, spill the beans!'
'Mrs. Goldfinkel has been married six times, you know. The first…'
'Tittitata Lodge!!'
'… was her childhood sweetheart, a football player. His insurance company made her first fortune when a faulty helmet allowed a Hoboken linebacker's boot to impact with both sides of his brain at once. The second…'
'Harry!'
My little friend had one of her determined looks on.
'… was an elderly gentleman who made his loot out of a chain of clothing stores. He lasted one night of bliss with his busty blonde bimbo bride and succumbed with the traditional smile on his lips. The third…'
The next word in the narrative would normally be 'Ouch!', but I knew Miss Lawrence well enough to judge the moment at which to move my ankles a strategic couple of feet away.
'… the third…'
'Hi, I'm Sugar! What can I get for you today?'
The thread was broken with a vengeance. Sugar wore her hair in a pony tail, exposing ears I can only call pixie-like. They were pointed at the top and stuck out at a delicate angle. She had the fresh face of a fourteen year old. That's as far as the pixie look went.
She had managed to spill some tea or coffee on her white top. It clung damply to what I can only call one of the most magnificent pairs of breasts it has ever been my pleasure to drool over. They were round and full, uplifted by the bra whose outline gave texture to the top. If the Venus de Milo had had arms she would have made a grab for her own boobs in embarrassment at their inadequacy. They broke the mould when these titties came out.
The rest of Sugar was partly encased in a short plaid skirt and ended in shapely thighs and calves. The contrast between innocence from the neck up and voluptuousness southward was enough to make a bishop doubt his vocation.
'Tea and crumpets, please. Real butter.'
Miss Lawrence tried womanfully to meet Sugar's eyes from her sitting position, but I could see that mammary gravity was winning.
'And two mince pies,' I added.
'On the way! It's nice and warm here by the fire.' Sugar turned and swayed away between the tables like a viola on acid.
'Hell fire,' murmured the shaken Miss L. 'If I hadn't seen them with my own eyes…'
'Remarkable indeed. The way they are pointed at the top. Not Spock-like but positively pixilated. I bet she has Irish blood.'
'Pillock,' said Miss L calmly as she regained her composure. 'Now – Tittitata Lodge.'
'The third was an oil man. One of his derricks fell on him in an earthquake. The fourth…'
'@*% amp; the fourth! Tittitata Lodge!'
'Miss Lawrence! I never did hear such language. And in the festive season too, with merriment all around. The fourth inherited his money from daddy. He was an adventurer who disappeared in the Gobi Desert while attempting to set a round the world skiing record. By now the Black Widow had entered her second half century. The fifth…'
Miss Lawrence sat back and folded her arms. Her expression was grim.
'… was a lusty young gardener she spied through the bedroom window one morning as she stepped out of the shower. She immediately fell in lust, ran downstairs in dripping nakedness, and ravished him in the petunias. He had enough brains to know when he was on to a good thing and soon traipsed up the aisle with her.'
I looked hopefully around for Sugar. She was not in sight so I completed my fascinating tale.
'The gardener started to cart valuables away from the house in his wheelbarrow, and made free of the
