“Such good friends you brought him a little gift.”
“A gift?”
“One husky, sunburned young archeologist.”
“Of course, ducks! We are frightfully nasty degenerates who go about handing our discards to our chums. And I imagine that quite puts you off, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know enough about it. Or about you.”
“Me? I am just a wicked old woman with a ravenous appetite for strong young men. They are generally sweet and touching and grateful. But this chap was… out of focus somehow. He fancies himself as some sort of overwhelming stud. But he has that talent for little bits of brutality that betrays him for what he really is. I had begun to suspect him, and then he told me a horrid little story about beating up homosexuals and taking their money when he was at school. Such chaps are usually hiding their own tendencies from themselves. I had decided to cut him loose because he is really dull. He has no sense of fun. But I had described him to Bruce, and Bruce said that were I to bring him around, he could quickly tell me if my suspicion was correct. After ten minutes Bruce knew and let me know. So… it might be rather nice for Bruce after such a fiasco with that Rockland person. Bruce is quite lonely this year. The chap who used to stay with him drowned last year in the surf at Acapulco when they were down visiting friends. It was a terrible shock to Bruce. Do I sound as if I were pleading for forgiveness and understanding? Hardly! After all, I did not exactly bash him upon the head and gift wrap him and put him on the doorstep did I?”
“What did happen with Rockland?”
“My dear, you are very, very nice. But, my word, you are tiresome at times! Here we are, quite alone, both of us with that marvelous knowledge that we would be awfully, awfully good in bed together, and all you seem to want from me is a long tiresome story-far too long to tell here. I know you respond to me. We’re becoming quite deliciously aware of each other. Shouldn’t you be trying to bundle me off into my lonely bed instead of leaving the advances to me? I am quite sick of the young, young men. They are in endless supply, and unlike poor David, they are terribly sweet and earnest and dear. But too sweet. Like endless desserts. They cloy. But one accepts, because the mature ones with any style and presence are usually married. And I have a rule about that. It is too much like theft.”
“But what about my wife and five kids?”
“You lie, sir! A woman leaves her mark, her scent, her shape upon what is hers, whether it is her furs, her underthings, or her man. You are not married, and I doubt you ever have been. Though I was once, several centuries ago.”
“Here I come again, tiresome as ever. How do I find out about Rockland?”
“Why, I should imagine that you would have to sit down with Bruce and have him tell you, dearie.”
“Correction. How do I find out about Rockland from you?”
“Let me see now. You are asking me to betray a confidence. That means that I would have to have some good reason for breaking faith. I should have to know exactly why you wish to know all this, and understand your motives. And, of course, I would have to believe you. That is the tricky part, because you lie so much. And you lie so well! No woman ever knows a man, or ever really trusts him until they have made love. Then, of course, she often discovers she has trusted some absolute scoundrel. But then it would be too late, would it not?”
“Let me see. You picked me off the sidewalk in front of this place. You have not had enough booze to cloud the mind of a mouse. You are damned attractive, Becky. And I am sitting here on a fag’s patio in lovely Oaxaca letting you put a ring in my nose so you can lead me off to the sack. Such things don’t happen.”
“Such a horrid, suspicious, nasty little mind. You are a towering chap, showing signs of rough use, and I find you monstrously attractive. Your pale eyes and your big hands and the way your lips are made and the way your voice sounds; all these things have just made me terribly randy. So I choose not to blush and simper and flirt, because men are horribly anxious to protect their pride and quite often never make the attempt for fear of failure. And life is awfully short, and each day it is Khorter by one day. And there is something else about me which I might or might not tell you later. It depends.”
“All right. Such things happen.”
“But in case you feel overwhelmed or anything, we don’t have to make it definite, not at this moment. I can provide a nightcap and we can cast ballots or something. But let’s find those two dear boys and say goodnight.”
When we were halfway across the patio, David and Bruce appeared in the corridor, walking toward us. Bruce had hold of David’s arm. David Saunders was staggering, mumbling, making sweeping gestures, tripping on the irregularities of the tiles. “Whas’m never’n standa menshunenny.”
He peered at us, feet planted wide, and wrenched his arm out of Bruce’s grasp. He started to say something incomprehensible and made another big gesture which swung him off balance. He melted down onto the tile and sagged over onto his back and began to snore.
“I think he drank a little too much,” Bruce said. “Would it be too much of an imposition for you to put him up for the night, dear?”
“Gracious, no!”
“Want me to help you with him?” I asked.
“Thanks, I can manage. Becky, the gate is on the latch. When you shut it, give it a try to be sure it’s locked, will you?”
“Of course,” she said. We thanked him for the dinner. He acknowledged it in absentminded fashion. He sat on his heels, worked one arm under David’s shoulders, another under his thighs, poised for a moment, and then came up smartly with the slack meaty burden. The head lolled and an arm swung limply. In sleep the sullenness was gone. David was a large dreaming child. His burned features looked more delicate. Bruce’s feat had been impressive and I suspected it had been done for my benefit. He could indeed feel quite able to take care of himself.
We went in her Lotus. She said my rented car would be quite safe where it was parked. She drove through the dark streets alertly and competently, sitting tall, chin up, hands solid on the wheel, through the rush of wind, past dark buildings.
She said her place was in La Colonia. Wider streets. High walls. Gates. She swung in and stopped, the headlights shining on an iron gate. She gave me the keys, indicating the one for the gate. I unlocked it and swung it open. She drove in and waited while I closed and locked the gate. Then along a curving drive paved with white gravel. Night lights on in the house. Left the car in front. Went through large formal rooms and out into a walled area in back. She turned on lights, little spots and floods and the lights below the water level of a large curved pool.
“I know,” she said. “It left rather a bad taste. But Brucey will not be sordid about it. He’ll undress poor David and tuck him into a big bed and leave him quite alone. In the morning he’ll be tearful and terribly upset and accuse poor David of all manner of amorous aggression, and claim he is going to register a bitter complaint with me. Poor David will he beside himself with shock and fright and shame. And sometime tomorrow they will kiss and forgive, and I expect that after the weekend David will be moving in, and in a few months he will have rather a pretty little lisp. He might become a much nicer person, actually. Just stop looking so broody and accusing about it, darling. Open that cupboard door and you’ll find ice and all kinds of liquor. Cheer up, dammit!”
So I made my drink. She refused one. She sat be side me for some silent moments, then got up from the chaise and walked to the far end of the pool. Without posing, posturing, or artifice, she kicked her shoes off, pulled the mini-dress off, floated a wisp of brassiere onto the pile, stepped out of sheer pants, hooked her bare toes over the curbing. Her figure was riper than I would have guessed, but solid, smooth and firm as that of a circus girl, tumbler, or ballerina.