The Erection Set

he never left the base anyway.”

“I had more fun in the revetments with duty personnel while you were boozing it up in London,” I reminded him.

Rose sidled up, took my arm to escort me into the living room, Lee behind us carrying my bag. “Like always,” he said, “one lousy suitcase filled with trade goods for the natives, the only clothes the ones he wears on his back and he still needs a shave.”

“I had a half-day layover in Shannon, kid. We got socked in right down the coast. Shannon was the only place open.”

“So you grabbed a bottle and a broad and hit for the hills?”

“I grabbed a book and a beer and hit the lounge.” I stopped at the end of the foyer and let my eyes sweep around his apartment. It was a wild place, this; big, bachelorized, with all the junk professional seducers could ask for and ready for takeoff at the first scramble horn. “Nice,” I said. “Why the hell didn’t you ever get married?”

Rose squeezed my arm and let out that laugh again. “Kids never get married. They just want to play.”

“A pretty expensive playground.” I looked at Lee. “What are you up to now?”

He picked an ice cube out of his drink and popped it into his mouth. “I’m an arranger, old buddy.” He caught my frown and grinned even bigger. “Not that kind, you nut. I dumped advertising and busted into show biz. What I arrange is hard-to-get properties or people for the theatrical trade. It pays for the playground.”

“Who pays for the playmates?”

Lee reached out and tugged the black satin cord at Rose’s waist and it came loose in his fingers. Somehow it was like undraping a nude. Suddenly she was really naked and the effect was startling. I shook my head and took a sip of my drink.

“Friends are for fun,” he said.

Rose tipped her head and her hair swirled down around her shoulders. “Dog,” she said, “you should be staring. You’re not. Why?”

“I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself so early in our meeting. You won’t be forgotten so easily, so don’t worry.” She finished her drink and put the empty glass down on the table. “Why don’t I leave you two retreads to get your old-timer talk out of the way and when you both sober up I’ll get another girl and we can plow this city up a little.”

I said, “Look, Lee ...”

But he stopped me right there with a wave of his hand and gave a handful of her hair an affectionate tug. “You get to be more of a woman every day, sugar. She’s right, Dog. We got a lot of time to make up for in a hurry.” He gave her fanny a tender pat. “Better not go out looking like that.” He handed her the satin cord and she knotted it around her wrist. “That’s more like it,” Lee told her.

I shook my head and laughed. I thought a scene like this had died with the war. We both watched her deliberate burlesque-stage walk toward the bedroom with sheer appreciation, fascinated by the way the muscles of her thighs and back rippled in the light. At the door she turned and looked over her shoulder. “Dog,” she said, “what’s your right name?”

“Dogeron. It’s an old Irish name.”

“I like Dog better. Do you bite?”

“Only in the heat of passion,” I said.

REFLECTIONS ROSE PORTER, SINGLE, AGE 28.

Three years in whoredom and no married woman can match my knowledge. Except the answer to why to have a man. One push from a forty-five-year-old fat grocer and my virginity became history with two boxes of Shredded Wheat and a candy bar for silence.

Linebacker for Bailey High thinks he’s a rape artist specializing in virgins and, because I was tight, figures up another notch on his scorecard. For a while, I was real popular with the team. Maybe I should have looked in the mirror. I was one of the lucky ones. No acne, big tits and sour-apple fresh with a pussy aching to be filled.

Hal said I was a bitch in heat ... but he was a crazy, comic-book artist and the first tender man I had met. Wild, but soft and sweet and tender. He liked to kiss before screwing and laughed when the excitement got me wet. Some nights he didn’t even bother screwing. He laughed and kissed and ... then one night he told me how very much he loved me, but he had leukemia and wanted to die somewhere on the slopes of the Florida Keys. He gave me twelve thousand dollars in treasury bonds, told me to take the pill, not get the clap and to have fun.

I bought a college education and became a whore. No man could fool me, trap me or fake me out. That’s what I thought. Two years ago I lost count of all the lays. Anyway, all johns look alike. No scars, either. A few bite marks, maybe, but no scars, no needles and I’m top cat in the trade. The blow-job pro, that’s me. Anal intercourse? A pleasure, mister. Simple screwing? Must be an odd nut to pay for the unfancy.

But they all respond. They dig the long hair, the smooth, long legs.

Oh, they love it, all right, all but this big slob of a Dog. He looks at me naked and says hello. He appreciates, nods his approval, shakes my hand and couldn’t care less. Shekky Monroe gave me five hundred just to run his fingers across my snatch one night. This dirty Dog says hello and smiles.

That’s the bad part. He really smiled. The bastard is for real. They’re all going to take him wrong and somebody will hurt.

Me, I’m lucky. I can’t be hurt anymore. Now I’m curious. Especially about that smile. The louse knew me inside and out like he knew everybody else.

Okay, Dog, now let me read you. Clothes good, but old. Perhaps fifty bucks in your jeans. I made more between cocktails and dinner last night. I had felt his arm and it scared me a little bit because I knew about how old he was and the arm was a little too big and too hard. Poseur? Some do it. A cheap barber had chopped his hair, but it was all there and would be grown back in another week. Gray spotted it and a little white streak tufted up in front. He looked heavy, but there was no fat and he walked funny, one hand always hanging loose, and whatever those green eyes looked at, they saw and understood.

I wanted to screw him, only it wouldn’t be any use trying. Tomcats pick their own time and place.

Time. The clock said three minutes after five. I had known the Dog exactly eight minutes.

The empty Pabst beer cans made odd splotches of color around the room, their big blue ribbon seals decorating every piece of furniture in the bedroom, including two that I had balanced delicately on the headboard of the bed directly over my face. A couple of soggy towels lay on the floor, sopping up the beer that Lee had spilled and I lay there listening to him sound off just like he used to. Only in those days he didn’t wear a LOVE button on his shorts.

“Just quit being a silly bastard,” he said. “And don’t tell me staying here is an imposition. Shit, man, why spend loot on a hotel room? You can’t even find a decent apartment in this town anymore unless you’re loaded with cash or have a couple months to poke around in.”

I popped open another beer. “Can it, Lee. You lover types need privacy.”

“Balls. I got two bedrooms right now. If it gets crowded, so we have an audience. I lost all my modesty twenty years ago.”

“Look ...”

“Forget it,” Lee said. “You’re staying here. We shared everything during the war, we do it again. Besides, you’re going to need more than a pad, buddy. I’m damn glad we’re both the same size. I got three closets full of clothes and we’re both about the same height. You take your pick of the rack, I’ll get them let out a little in the chest and shoulders and you can look like nowadays.”

I went to say something and he shut me up again. “I get them wholesale, Dog. I do big favors for a guy who heads up a chain and he pays off in threads. What the hell do I need? I change twice a day and it would take me a