We held it all the way. My tongue entwined with hers. One of my hands cradling a panting breast with its hard, hot, quivering nipple, my other hand toying with her rigid, long, vibrating clitty, my bottom moving a full foot off the bed as I thrust still deeper inside her, I barely managed to restrain myself until the tremors that swept over her body told me she was reaching an orgasm. Then we went the route together, hanging in mid-air, straining and releasing and straining and releasing, unaware as we rolled from the bed to the floor and halfway across the darkened stateroom, first one of us on top, and then the other, a long, drawn-out, mutually ecstatic release of passion that ended with us lying a little apart, both spent and exhausted.
There was a long silence. Blaze broke it. “I wonder what happened to Henry,” she said. “Do you suppose he got into the wrong stateroom? I told him Seventeen B. But he’s so regretful.”
“This is Seventeen D,” I informed her again.
“It is? Oh, dear! And he’s probably waiting in Seventeen B. I’d really better huddle up there!” She turned on the light and started picking up her clothes.
I blinked at the sudden glare. Then my eyes adjusted and I got my first look at Blaze Buxbocks. I blinked again.
Did you ever daydream that one morning you’d wake up to find a beautiful redhead in bed with you? A redhead with long, tapered legs, strong, tanned thighs, and a fanny as resilient as untoasted marshmallows? A redhead with plump, ball-bearing hips, firm, jutting breasts like twin large mounds of clear, well-jelled aspic, and a high, plump mons veneris like a deeply bisected cue-ball of flesh surrounded by a velvet triangle of soft, red curls? A redhead with a face like a sunrise, cinnamon eyes, a classic nose, cheeks dusted ever so lightly with freckles--a soft rash of passion sneaking to the surface of delicate ivory skin—- and a mouth that even today might be banned in Boston?
That was Blaze Buxbocks! My daydream in the succulent flesh! It was too good to be true. There had to be a catch.
“Is Henry your husband?” I asked suspiciously.
No. He’s just a good friend. I’m not married or anything like that.”
That was good news!
“Henry’s the Army. He got a leave of abstinence to see me off.” She pulled on her body-stocking.
“No point to that,” I decided.
Blaze pulled on a miniskirt and blouse, smoothed out her hair and started for the door. “Still, since he went to all that trouble, I really have to go find him so he can wish me Bun Voyage.” Blaze waved casually and exited.
“Bun Voyage,” I called after her. “Bun Voyage!”
CHAPTER FOUR
“SAIL AT YOUR OWN RISK! THE LASCIVIA HAS V.D. PLAGUE! BEWARE! SHE MAY LOOK CLEAN, BUT . . .”
Copies of the hand-printed note had been received by virtually every male passenger and crew member soon after boarding the ocean liner. So Chief Purser Yenta informed me when I came on deck shortly past noon and showed him the one I’d found in the pocket of my slacks. They added to the general harassment that was his lot during the chaos of this day of sailing.
Yenta had stationed himself alongside the gangplank where he was welcoming passengers aboard and checking their credentials against his list. Each passenger seemed to be accompanied by umpteen guests come to bid farewell. The confusion was compounded by the wild parties getting underway in various staterooms, the brass band playing on the dock in competition with the ship’s orchestra blaring on the afterdeck, the horseplay and flying objects between the people at the rail and the people waving to them from the pier, the luggage piling up in front of cabin doors all over the deck, the quarrels, the drunkenness, and the various pets that had gotten loose and were tripping up passengers and crew alike.
“What does Dr. Quotabusta think about this threat of venereal disease?” I asked Yenta during a slight lull in the chaos.
“He probably isn’t thinking about it at all. Dr. Quotabusta has been occupied with a serious emergency.”
“What happened?”
“Early this morning, a newlywed couple slipped on board, went directly to their cabin, locked themselves in, and went about what it is that newlyweds go about on the first day of their honeymoon.” Yenta paused to pluck a small, sliding child from the handrail of the gangplank, saving him from a plunge into the water between the ship and the dock.
“And?” I prodded him to continue.
“Someone had put glue in the Vaseline jar.”
“You mean—?”
“Exactly.” Yenta nodded. “The bride—amazing as it may seem in this day and age—was still a virgin. I don’t wish to be indelicate, but she was—umm—tight, shall we say. The groom considerately applied the Vaseline, which was really a particularly strong variety of quick-drying cement. He took the plunge as it were, and. . . .”
“They’re stuck?”
“Like a bear in a beartrap!”
“What’s Dr. Quotabusta doing about it?”
“Well, he’s decided not to amputate.”
“Arnputate!”
“The bride, understandably hysterical, demanded it. The groom, however, refused to sign the necessary consent papers for the operation.”
“Who could blame him?” I shuddered. “Has Quotabusta managed to find an alternative?”
“He’s consulting with Chief Engineer Gorilla as to the efficacy of various solvents. The problem is that the ones that might work have a high acid content which burns away the skin while acting on the glue.”
“Sounds like one hell of a medical problem for a ship’s doctor.”
“Dr. Quotabusta says it’s a real challenge.”
“That’s the old Hippocratic spirit . . . By the way,” I changed the subject, “the Captain said you’d fill me in on the passengers.”
“Those are my orders, Mr. Victor. What do you want to know?”
“Anything offbeat or particularly interesting about any of them, I guess.”
“There’s something offbeat about each and every one of them. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Start there.” I pointed to a tall blonde wearing hot pants and a see-through blouse of some sort of net-like material. Snared in the net were two of the most imposing eye-catchers I’d ever ogled. The rest of her was built to match. With her was a well-dressed man in his late thirties, perhaps ten or twelve years her senior. He was hassling with one of the stewards over their baggage while she was brazenly sizing up the men among her fellow passengers.
“Binny Stanford.” The Chief Purser identified her. “Mrs.,” he added. “That’s her husband with her. Ogden Stanford.” Yenta leafed through the papers on his clipboard until he’d found their dossier. “Both American. He’s a self-made millionaire. A detergent manufacturer. She’s a former showgirl. Las Vegas. Never got out of the chorus. They’ve been married three years. But now," he added, “the lady has put in a request to the Captain to divorce them at sea.”
“Can he do that?”
“I suppose so. The Captain is empowered to marry people at sea. It seems logical that he’d have the authority to divorce them.”
“Why does she want a divorce?”
“The reason she put in the application to the Captain is ‘Mental Incompatibility.’ ”
“Everybody says that when they want a divorce.”
“In their case,” Yenta mused, studying the dossier, “it may be the truth. It seems that Mrs. Stanford is a member of MENSA, while Mr. Stanford failed to qualify to join.”
MENSA, I recalled, is an international organization whose main requirement for membership is that an applicant score 98 percent higher than the general population on a standard intelligence test. In the United States, this means having an IQ of 140 or over. The vast majority of people that smart are too smart to join MENSA. But for a few, MENSA is to the intellectual what the Chamber of Commerce was to Babbitt.