He watched her get up and cross the room, his mouth hanging open. He said, “Well, yes. Of course, I like chicken. Of course, there’s something I like much better.”
She turned at the kitchen door and smiled at him. “But you’re not going to have that.”
“Would you just as soon I left?”
“Oh, no. No, you can’t leave. Not after I’ve gone to all this trouble.”
“But, what is going to happen? We’re going to eat supper, but then what?”
She gave him a very impish smile with her full-lipped mouth. “I’m going to show you what will be waiting for you when you come back safely from your dangerous mission. Perhaps then you will view me in a different light and think of me more seriously.” With those words she pushed open the swinging kitchen door and disappeared.
He sat there very thoughtfully. He poured himself out another drink of the bourbon and sipped at it. He knew where the misunderstanding was between himself and Shirley Dunn. She wanted him to understand that she was the marrying kind and not just some toy to be played with at his leisure. He couldn’t blame her for that, not in the slightest. And he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to become involved with a man who was indeed in a dangerous profession. if one husband had died violently, she wouldn’t want to be involved with another who ran the same risk. He had no answer to those questions. One thing he could have told her, but hadn’t, was that he was not interested in getting married. It didn’t make him feel guilty given the circumstances, but he decided it was going to be very definitely an unusual night.
Just how unusual he didn’t realize until she called from the kitchen, “Go and wash your hands. I’ll be putting supper on the table in just a very few moments. There is a little washroom just on the back porch straight down the hall in front of you.”
He did as she directed, pumping water into a basin, washing his face and hands with soap, and drying them on a big fluffy towel. After that, he walked back into the dining room area and looked at the table. It was set for two. He noticed she had particularly fine china and crystal. Her husband must have been a pretty good gambler, he thought to himself.
He was just about to take a seat, when the kitchen door came open and she backed through carrying a small tray in each hand. As she turned around and came around the door, his mouth fell open. She was wearing nothing but a small half apron, a chintzy little affair that was rounded and only went halfway down her thighs and was tied just below her navel. His first amazement was at the size of her breasts. She was one of those little women who have much bigger breasts than you expect. They were easily the size of half cantaloupes. They looked firm and uplifted. The nipples were big and the rosettes were pink and round as silver dollars. He stood there staring. She smiled at him as she set the platters on the table. She said, “Why Marshal, haven’t you ever seen fried chicken before?”
He swallowed, the words that had been about to come out sticking in his throat. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve seen fried chicken before. I just never seen it dressed quite so nicely.”
She smiled again. “Well, let me get one more thing and then we’ll be ready to eat. You go ahead and sit down.”
But he didn’t. He just stared as she turned. From the back she was completely naked. And he stood there enjoying the sight until she had disappeared through the swinging door of the kitchen. Then he finally did sit down. To the best of his knowledge he had never had supper, or any other meal for that matter, with a naked or nearly naked woman. Maybe he’d sat in bed with one and gnawed on a steak bone or had a piece of cake on a saucer, but he’d never sat down at the table with a lady dressed, or undressed, as she was. He was not at all certain he would be able to eat.
And then she came back through the kitchen door carrying a pitcher of iced tea. She sat down and gave him a bright smile while he stared at her. She said, “Now Marshal, don’t be bashful. Just help yourself.”
In a husky voice he said, “Ma’am, I sure wish you meant that the way I want it to be meant.”
She smiled and started piling his plate with fried chicken. “Well, you just come back from your mission knowing what you have waiting for you, and then we’ll have a talk and maybe you can have anything you want for supper.”
He said, his voice still hoarse, “Shirley, you got any idea what you’re doing to me?”
She was putting coleslaw on his plate. She said, “Of course I have an idea of what I am doing to you. I was a married woman, remember?”
“Then more the shame for you,” he said.
“Bah … I know what your plans are, mister. They just didn’t work out the way you wanted them to. I have my own plans. You’re a very appealing man, Marshal Long. You have a good future. You have a good job. You’re just the kind of man that I could set my cap for if there wasn’t so much danger in your job. But I think that you’ve got enough time in the marshal service that you could have some of that danger taken out of your life.”
He didn’t like that. “Shirley, I don’t come with conditions. There ain’t no lead ropes on me. You don’t see any halter around my head.”
She leaned over until her breasts were almost touching her own empty plate. She said, “I’m open to compromise. Like I say, when you come back we’ll talk about it. Now eat your supper.”
it was undoubtedly the strangest meal that Longarm had ever tried to eat. The food was wonderful but he couldn’t taste it. It seemed that all of his senses were concentrated in his eyes, which were glued to Shirley Dunn’s beautiful breasts. He ate mechanically, never taking his eyes off her. He never knew if he had a mouthful of coleslaw, or mashed potatoes, or fried chicken. She served peach cobbler for dessert and asked him if he wanted cream on top. He didn’t know his answer, and he didn’t know if he had cream on top or not. When the meal was mercifully over they sat back down on the couch, which was even worse. For now he had a full view of her slender shapely legs. And every now and then a brief glimpse of the silken patch that was hidden by the crinkly apron. She had kept on her green slippers, and they even added to the seductiveness of the figure she cast. He had two more drinks, barely conscious of what he was doing. They talked. She asked him questions about the marshal service and his job. He answered. Sometimes he knew what he was saying, but most times he didn’t. When the clock struck ten he got up and put on his hat. She walked him only partway to the door, then put her mouth up to be kissed. He kissed her long and lingeringly, but he kept his hands strictly on the smooth creamy skin of her back.
As he started to the door she said, “Just remember, I’ll be waiting when you get back.”
He said, “I’m gonna be remembering that you said that I could have anything for supper I wanted.”
She smiled sweetly. “Under certain conditions.”
He nodded. He had an idea what those conditions were and already his mind was scheming, thinking of a way around them, around whatever barriers she might put up, that would allow him to get to that luscious body.
He went out the door backwards, making sure that he had a good full vision of her to carry him all the way to San Angelo, Texas, and back.
Once out into the night air, he shook his head and said to himself, “I feel like I’ve been whipped with a wagon tongue and then dragged about ten miles.” In truth, part of his body was convinced that another part had ceased functioning. He walked straight to his nearest favorite saloon and contented himself with a game of poker and more whiskey. But try as he would he couldn’t keep his mind on the game, and ended up losing forty dollars—an almost unheard-of occurrence for him in such a low-stakes game.
But walking back to his boardinghouse that night, he got to thinking his situation over, and after a time he began to laugh. The woman had neatly turned the tables on him. He had gone there with one thing and one thing only on his mind. She had known it and what she had done was call his hand and raise the ante, letting him have just enough of a peek at his hole card to make him want to continue the game even more.