put up a shack made of driftwood and pull a Robinson Crusoe bit.” I rolled on my side and looked up at her. “One year I did just that. They sent Al and Dennie to some fancy camp while the rest went to Newport for the social season and my mother and I camped out here for six days. That was when she told me about marrying my father.”
“You never knew him, did you?”
“Only through her. He was some hell raiser. She sure loved him though.”
“Why wouldn’t they accept him?”
“Come off it, baby. You know the drill on that bit. If there was no money there was no position, ergo, no marriage into the Barrin family. They never thought my old lady would tell them to go toss it and get herself knocked up outside the family circle. Trouble was, when my father died she lost all the spunk she had. They squeezed her until there was nothing left. The old man had her yanked out of the apartment they were living in while she was alone and dragged her back to Grand Sita. She didn’t even know she was pregnant then. He hired guards to keep my father away, got him fired from his job, had him rousted out of the state and kept my mother incommunicado until after I was born. One day the old man showed up, beat the hell out of four of the guards and took off with my mother and married her. A week later he was dead and she was back in exile again in the old man’s little Siberia. I don’t think she ever left it except to come here on rare occasions. When she did I was just a kid and it was all over so fast I can hardly remember it. She was dead in the morning, in the coffin by noon and buried before nightfall. I threw some rocks through the old man’s greenhouse, spit in his decanter of fine booze and opened the sluicegate on the pond behind the house and drained his imported goldfish into the creek. I think the gardener covered for me and he never noticed anything wrong with his booze. The next day Alfie and Dennie knocked the shit out of me for something or other and I hit Dennie over the head with a rake. For that I got a week alone in my room and had time to think.” I stopped for a minute and looked at the ocean. “They never should have left me in that room,” I said.
“Why?”
“I thought too much,” I told her.
Down the beach something disturbed the gulls and they set up a screeching racket for a minute. A wisp of cloud ran across the moon and snaked away, letting the brightness come back again. The wind was soft and warm, a tail end of summer feel to it, just strong enough to stir the soft sand into easy motion.
Sharon’s hand ran over the back of mine and she tossed her head so her hair made ripples in the yellow light. “Dog ... it’s a shame to waste this whole ocean.”
“Who’s wasting it?”
“We are. We should go use it.”
“Now?”
“Uh-huh. Right now.” She uncurled from the blanket, stood up and stretched luxuriously against the sky. Then her hands came down and did something at the back of her dress. Soundlessly, it slithered to a heap at her feet. She found the hooks of her bra and undid them. tossed that beside her, then with a single, fluid movement seemed to slide out of the tiny flowered bikini pants that were left She turned and looked at me, the night shadows flowing around tanned shoulders, reflecting off the silken whiteness of magnificent breasts that swept up and out in a daring gesture before molding into the tanned flatness of a stomach that was navel dimpled before contrasting with the bathing-suit whiteness around her hips. In the moonlight the hair of her loins was a tantalizing vee of auburn, her legs firm and softly muscular. She let me look at her a long minute, standing there with her hands on her hips, pelvis pushed forward provocatively.
Finally she said, “Coming?”
“If you don’t get the hell out of here I will,” I told her.
She laughed, turned and ran toward the surf, her stride loose and boyish. I heard her laugh again and her body splash into the water. Then I got up and took off my own clothes. I was going to leave my shorts on but that wouldn’t help matters at all, so I shrugged, took them off too and walked down to where she was waiting.
We were pleasantly exhausted when we got back to the blanket. The wind smiled and let its warm breath dry us off, and we lay on our backs staring up at the cloudless sky. I closed my eyes, wondering just how the hell this ever happened, feeling like some kind of an idiot for messing around with a nonprofessional kid. Then my eyes snapped open because the gentle touch of her fingers were on my stomach, moving slowly downward until they held me, and Sharon was leaning over me, her mouth inches from mine.
“You are beautiful, Dog,” she said.
Her mouth came closer and closer until it was a soft, warmly moist thing tasting mine with the strangest kind of touch I had ever known. My own hands ran down her naked back over the rise of her buttocks, pushed her away so I could cradle the firm thrust of her breasts, then began to explore all those lovely parts of her.
Sharon’s breath caught in her throat sharply. She smiled, kissed me again, then let her smile widen when she felt the pressure of my palms holding her away from me. “I told you I really was a virgin.”
“Damn, kid,” was all I could say.
“Does it make a difference, Dog?”
I turned on my side and let the heat ease out of me slowly. It was easier now and I felt like an even bigger idiot. “Look you,” I said, “you’re an engaged girl.”
“Woman,” she corrected.
“Okay, a woman. You got yourself a guy and you think enough of that thing to save it for him, so don’t go tossing it away.”
“Isn’t the choice mine?”
“Not with me, kid. This time it’s my choice. Just keep it safe between your legs until he gets it, hear?”
“You’re mean.”
“Just sometimes. Right now I feel damn moral. Old Hunter should be here to see this performance. He’d never believe it.”
“I’ll tease you.”
“Try it, Sharon, and you’ll be an unsatisfied, neurotic wreck in one hour. I’m too damn old not to know every gimmick there is to turn you women-children inside out.”
Her laugh tinkled in my ears and she tossed her hair again. “All right. I’ve managed this long, so I guess I can hang on a little while longer.”
“Who is he, Sharon?”
“A very nice guy. We grew up together.”
“Would he appreciate this little picture?”
“I don’t think he’d mind at all. Not really.”
“You don’t know men very well.”
“But I do. I truly do.”
She touched the side of my face, leaned down again and kissed me lightly, the tip of her tongue barely brushing my lips. My arms went around her and I laid her down beside me. Around our heads the grass rustled in the wind. I reached over her and pulled the blanket , over us both. Beside me her body was snuggled into the curve of mine, warm and naked. The moon watched us and another wisp of cloud passing its face made it seem like it winked at me.
Then the early sun woke us both and we looked at each other and kissed. Her hair was tousled and full of sand, but she didn’t care at all. We brushed each other off, got dressed, folded up the blanket and walked back to where we had left the car.
And this time we had company.
The black sedan and the patrol car flanked the limousine and the uniformed cop was peering through the window at the interior. The big beefy guy in the sports shirt and slacks was inspecting the wreckage of the padlock on the gate and neither of them heard us coming.
I said, “You fellows want something?”
The heavy-set guy turned and looked at me, his face set in a nasty scowl. “You do this?”
“That’s right.”
He dropped the lock and started toward me, but I was coming to meet him too and he didn’t like what he saw. The cop edged between us watching me, another hard-looking character with a broken nose and cold, flat
