“Hello?” came a voice. Marian looked up to see young Kevin and a girl standing hand in hand a little way off. She supposed the girl was Sylvie, Kevin’s new girlfriend. Kevin was looking recently showered, spruced up and proud of himself, though momentarily puzzled. Marian saw his eyes skip down over her exposed, wet legs. The two of them were wearing matching red-and-white-striped polo shirts. Marian made a quick attempt to pull her dress down and over some of the sex toys next to her. She began watering the tulips with little flips of the showerhead, as if she were conducting a Sousa march.
“Hi,” she said. “Pardon me, I was just doing a little watering. Come over. Let me turn this off. I had a plumber rig it up for me. Are you Sylvie?”
“Yes, hi,” said Sylvie. Sylvie leaned and shook Marian’s hand. She was a petite, perky, small-breasted girl with long light-brown hair and a pleasant sly sharp-nosed face. Marian liked her immediately.
Kevin said, “My mom told me you called, so we thought we’d come over and say hello.”
“I just wanted you to see all these tulips,” said Marian. “They turned out well, I think. Thank you for helping me with them.”
Kevin nodded. “I like the crinkly ones.” He turned to Sylvie. “Last fall I helped her plant all these.”
“They’re really really pretty,” Sylvie agreed. There was an awkward silence. From a distant part of the yard there came an odd hissing sound. Kevin’s gray cat appeared from behind one of the mock oranges. A huge golden chewn-eared stray was on top of her. Kevin’s cat crept forward a few inches and then stopped, and the gold cat, holding Kevin’s cat down and biting her neck quite hard, made tiny jerks of its hindquarters, holding its tail low and fluffed. The two animals, who didn’t seem to like each other much, stared at nothing at all while they fucked.
“Oh jeepers,” said Kevin.
“You really should have taken her to the vet, Kevin,” said Marian, though she said it gently.
“I was planning to.”
“I can take a kitten if there are some,” said Sylvie brightly, thinking ahead. “Maybe even two.”
Marian smiled at her. “That’s solved, then. Well!” It was time for them to be off. “I’m really glad you two dropped by. It’s very nice to meet you, Sylvie.”
“Nice to meet you. But can I ask you something?” said Sylvie. “What are all those?” She pointed to the sex toys laid out on the white linen napkin. Marian’s dress didn’t really hide them effectively.
“I don’t know that we should get into that,” said Marian.
“Okay, sorry,” said Sylvie. “I kind of know what they are anyway — I mean, it’s obvious, but I just want to know what you’re doing with them out here. Are you planning on burying them or planting them or something?”
Kevin’s ears were changing color. He was readjusting his notion of his employer. Sylvie just looked friendly and sly and curious.
Marian said, “No, I’m not burying them. I just thought it would be exciting to try out a few of them outdoors, and I wasn’t sure which ones I would want. It seemed like such a nice setting, my own back yard, with the new parrot tulips.”
“Can I look at one?” said Sylvie.
Marian passed her the most decorous dildo — a medium-sized clear Lucite thick-veined figurine that the catalog called the Ice Princess. Sylvie handled it carefully, using her fingertips, not, it seemed, out of repugnance, but out of politeness for another’s treasures.
“Sylvie,” said Kevin in an undertone. “I think she probably wants us to go.”
“She’s welcome to take a look if she wants,” said Marian casually. The Klockhammer deep in her ane was now beginning to reassert itself; it was silencing any objections she might otherwise have had to showing two teenagers wearing matching striped shirts her fuckable toys.
“Can I see that really long one, with the two ends?” said Sylvie.
“Ah yes — this is my Royal Welsh Fusilier. Here.”
“Wowsers!” Sylvie held the two dick-ends together, jerking on them so that the movable foreskins wrinkled and stretched in tandem. She offered one end to Kevin, who inspected it with fascination in spite of himself.
“I don’t exactly get why you would need something this long with two ends,” he said.
Marian hesitated. “Any number of reasons.”
“One of which is,” said Sylvie to Kevin, “if you misbehave with Karen in any way ever again, I’ll put one end right up your fanny and make you jump in your next meet with it in.”
“Karen is over,” said Kevin. Deferentially he thanked Marian, handing his end directly back to her. “Where did you purchase all these things?” he asked, with an air of serious inquiry.
“Oh, from a place in San Francisco,” said Marian. She was using every ounce of willpower she had to keep from announcing to the two of them that she had a massive dildungs-roman installed in her butt.
“Maybe sometime you could give us the address,” said Kevin, still very serious, very grown up. “We might want to order something or other. Right, Syl?”
“You never know,” said Sylvie.
Marian looked at them both and laughed happily. “God it’s nice to see young love,” she said. “Are you two lovers, then?”
They both nodded. “We’ve made love thirty-two times in two months,” said Sylvie proudly. “In fact,” she continued, putting a fond arm around Kevin’s waist, “we were just going out for a little ‘drive,’ because Kevin’s mother doesn’t like us going up to his room anymore — which I can understand.”
“Ah, a little ‘drive,’ ” said Marian. She looked at Kevin with amused surprise — the employer surprised at the precocity of the employee.
“Yeah,” Kevin agreed, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the road. “We’ll probably go on over to the fish hatchery.”
“Well, terrific,” Marian said. “Have a glorious glorious time, you two. I wish I could … I mean, I wish you well.” She shifted a little on the brass tray and felt the thick steadfast dilderstatesman issuing official pleasure-briefings down her legs and up to the warm unforgotten Fijis of her nipples. It was so fucking hard—so hard to keep from saying the things she wanted to say with it deep in there: she wanted to yank up her wet dress for them and say, “Go on and fuck each other silly! Take a good look at this monster cock jammed up my butt! I want you to look right at my asshole crammed with this big fat dick and then go out and fuck and suck each other and slam your bodies together!” Her skin prickled with the almost irresistible wish to be obscene. But all she said was, “I must say, I envy you both a little. I’m just sorry I can’t get up and see you off …”