Clandestine

started to sniff my trouser legs.

'It's a nice apartment, Maggie. You've obviously taken a lot of care with it.'

Maggie beamed, then took my hand and led me to a plush overstuffed sofa. 'Sit, Bill, and tell me what you'd like to drink.'

'Cognac, neat,' I said.

'One minute.'

While Maggie was in the kitchen I transferred my gun and cuffs from my belt to my coat pocket. She returned a moment later with two snifter glasses each containing a solid three ounces. She sat next to me on the sofa. We toasted silently. As the brandy hit my system I realized that I had little to say. There was nothing I could impart to this woman—who was probably ten years my senior—that she didn't already know.

Maggie took the matter out of my hands. She finished her brandy and placed her glass on the coffee table. The cat scampered up to us and I playfully lunged at his tail. Maggie reached down to pet him and our shoulders brushed together. We looked at each other for a split second, then I grabbed her and we fell to the floor. She giggled, and I took my cue. I barked like some breed of gentle dog and covered her shoulders with gentle dog bites, barely pinching her skin beneath the fabric.

Maggie laughed and laughed. She tightened her arms around me. 'Oh, Bill. Oh, Bill. Oh, Bill,' she squeaked between laughing fits.

I dog-nipped my way down her back, turning and looking every few seconds at her tear-stained face. I lifted the hem of her skirt and bit my way down her legs to her ankles, trying not to snag her nylons. Her hand was stroking and mussing my hair. I pulled off her shoes and bit her toes, one at a time, barking 'Woof! Woof!' between each bite. Maggie was shrieking now, her whole body wracked with uncontrollable laughter.

Now that I knew what I had come to give, I rolled her over onto her side and elbowed myself up until we were face to face. We had a long interim where Maggie held me tightly and I stroked her hair. Just as her laughter would subside, I would 'woof, woof' tenderly into her ear and kiss her neck until she cracked up again.

Finally Maggie took her head from my chest and looked at me. 'Woof, Bill Thornhill,' she said.

'Woof, fair Maggie Cadwallader,' I said.

Maggie's lipstick was gone, mashed into my lapels and shirtfront. Her mouth was completely guileless as I bent in slow motion to kiss it. Maggie's lips parted and her eyes closed as she sensed my intention. Our lips and tongues met and played in perfect, experienced unison. We rolled together as we kissed, kicking over the coffee table, sending magazines and artificial flowers to the floor. We broke our long kiss, and Maggie made small noises as my hands fumbled at the clasp at the back of her dress.

'The bathroom first, Bill, please.' As I released her, she leaped out of my embrace and stumbled to her feet, making more small noises as she moved to the bathroom.

I got to my feet and took off my clothes, laying them neatly on the sofa. Wearing only undershorts, I walked softly to the bathroom. The door was slightly ajar and the light was on. I could hear Maggie rummaging in the medicine cabinet. There was a ritual going on that I had long wanted to observe.

I pushed open the door. Maggie was starting to insert her diaphragm when she saw me. She jumped, startled and angry, into the bathtub, where she covered herself with the shower curtain.

'Bill,' she said, flushed. 'Please, goddamnit, I'll just be a minute. Wait in the bedroom, honey. Please. I'll be right there.'

'I just wanted to watch you, sweetheart,' I said. 'I wanted to help you with it.'

Maggie said nervously, 'It's a private thing, Bill. A woman's thing. If you don't see me do it, then you don't really know it's there. It's better for you. Believe me, honey.'

'I believe you, but I want to see. Show me, please.'

'No.'

'Please?'

I lowered my head and nudged Maggie back against the shower wall. She started to giggle. I pulled her away from the bathtub, hoisted her into the air, spun her around and set her down in the same posture she had been in when I had pushed open the bathroom door.

'Do you ever lose at anything, Bill?'

'No.'

'How old are you?'

'I'll be twenty-seven next week.'

'I'm thirty-six.'

'You're beautiful. I want to love you so much.'

'You're very handsome. You've never seen a woman put in her diaphragm?'

'No.'

'Then I'll show you.'

She did. 'You're a strange, curious young man, Bill.'

'Intimate things like that mean a lot to me.'

'I believe you. Now make love to me.'

Maggie led me to her bedroom. She left the light off. She unbuttoned her blouse, unhooked her bra and let the garments fall to the floor. I stepped out of my undershorts. We lay on the bed and held each other for a long time. I stroked Maggie's hair. She cooed into my chest. I grew tired of it, and tried to bring her chin up so I could kiss her, but she resisted, pushing her head harder against me. After a while her grip loosened and I was able to cover her neck with kisses. Maggie sighed, and I began to suck her breasts. I felt her hand between my legs, urging me toward her. She positioned herself beneath me and guided me in. I began to move. Maggie didn't respond. I tried slow, exploratory thrusts, then hard insistent ones. Maggie just lay there, motionless. I propped myself up on my hands, the better to look at her face. Maggie looked up at me, smiling. She reached up and framed my face with her hands, her smile more beatific as my thrusts multiplied in their urgency. I came very hard. I groaned, shuddered and collapsed on top of her. She never said a word. When I finally managed to look at her she was still smiling; and I realized I had been thinking of Lorna Weinberg.

Maggie had seemed to change during our lovemaking. She had gotten what she wanted, and it wasn't love, or sex. Her smile and post-lovemaking ritual of bringing in brandy and snifters on a tray seemed to be saying, 'Now that we have gotten that over with, we can get down to the real business of our meeting.'

We sat in bed and sipped brandy, both of us nude. I liked Maggie's body: pale, freckled skin, gently rounded shoulders, soft stomach, and small soft breasts with large dark red nipples. I liked her openness in showing it to me even more, and had no desire to leave. The brandy was good, but I watched my intake. Maggie was sipping steadily, and would soon be pie-eyed. Maggie beamed at me as I shifted postures. I waggled my eyebrows a la Wacky Walker. Maggie beamed some more. I told her some lies about the insurance racket. She still beamed.

Finally she said, 'Bill, let's go into the living room, okay?' She dug two terry cloth robes out of her bedroom closet, then led me into the living room, gave me a big kiss on the cheek, and sat me down on the couch like a loving mother or schoolteacher. She went back into the bedroom and returned with a large leatherbound scrapbook.

She sat down between me and my piled-up clothes and poured herself more brandy. My robe was well worn and smelled fresh. As Maggie arranged the scrapbook on the coffee table I adjusted her robe to show off a fair amount of cleavage. She reacted with a prim kiss on my cheek. I disliked her for it. The ten-year gap in our ages was beginning to show.

'Memory lane, Bill,' Maggie said. 'Would you like to take a little trip down memory lane with old Maggie?'

'You're not old.'

'In some ways I am.'

'You're in your prime.'

'Flatterer.'

She opened the scrapbook. On the first page were photographs of a tall, light-haired man in a World War I doughboy's uniform. He stood alone in most of the sepia-tinted photos, and in a preeminent spot in the group shots.

'That's my daddy,' Maggie said. 'Mama used to get exasperated with him sometimes, and say bad things about him. When I was a little girl I asked her once, 'If Daddy was so mean, why did you marry him?' and she said,