The World's Last Bachelor

by Pamela Browning

  “As the new spokesperson for Dr. Feelgood’s Herbal Teas, tell me, Dorian, which tea is your favorite?” asked the smiling host of the program.

  Dorian, who had more on-camera charm than any woman he’d ever seen on television, gazed thoughtfully into the camera. “It depends on my mood. When I’ve had a hectic day, nothing is more relaxing than a cup of Angel Dew. On the other hand, to start the day out right, a busy morning calls for a cup of Cherished Beginnings.”

  Or making love, Deke added mentally, wondering what the householders of America would think if the spokesperson for Dr. Feelgood’s Herbal Teas blurted that into five million houses at eight o’clock in the morning. He wondered if any other man on earth felt the same joy that he did when the woman of his dreams reached for him at sunrise before either of them was fully awake, fitting her body to his with a sigh and a murmur and an easy, uninhibited rhythm that seemed to flow naturally up out of the depths of their shared sleep.

  He made himself focus on the TV screen again as the host was bidding Dorian goodbye.

  “We’ll look forward to seeing more of those clever commercials of yours, and we certainly thank you for being with us this morning, Dorian Carr,” said the host, and Dorian smiled graciously as theme music began to play.

  Dorian flew home from New York that afternoon. That night she knocked herself out putting together a wonderful dinner for him. Intoxicated with being together, not to mention consuming most of a bottle of Mo;auet & Chandon cham-pagne, they kept thinking up silly toasts to each other and to the mythical Dr. Feelgood.

  “There’s only one regrettable thing about Dr. Feelgood’s tea, Deke,” Dorian said. “It doesn’t do what champagne does.” She hiccuped.

  “I’m not about to invent a tea with bubbles,” Deke said indignantly.

  “Nope, you shouldn’t. Bubbles belong in gum, baths, soapsuds—”

  “Bubbleheads,” Deke added.

  “Bubble-top limousines,” said Dorian.

  “Bubble tanks,” said Deke, and when Dorian looked askance, he said, “You know, for scuba diving.”

  “Bubbles belong in dishwashers,” Dorian said, getting up from her chair. “Let’s clear the table.”

  Deke followed her into the kitchen and stacked dishes in the kitchen sink. He couldn’t resist drawing her into his arms as she started to open the dishwasher door.

  “Let’s leave the dishes for the maid,” he said, kissing her on her left eyebrow.

  “Dreamer,” she scoffed. “There isn’t a maid.”

  “Then we’ll have to get one, won’t we?” he asked, kissing her other eyebrow.

  She kissed him then, seeking his tongue with hers, abandoning it to nibble gently at his lower lip, then titillating him by sliding her hands inside his shirt. Her kisses tasted like champagne, which was still singing so softly in his veins.

  “I want you,” he whispered in her ear, and then he kissed her.

  “The dishes,” she murmured when he released her lips. He was dizzy with desire; he couldn’t believe that she really cared about anything as mundane as dirty dishes.

  “The mouth,” he said, his lips lingering on the corner of hers. “The neck,” he continued, nuzzling his way down its side. “The breasts,” he said, cupping them in his hands and molding his fingers to their voluptuous contours.

  “The bed,” she said, all but gasping.

  “If we don’t hurry up, it’s going to be `the floor,’” he said, pulling her along. Before they reached the bedroom, they had shed several articles of clothing.

  The small lamp near the bed cast their shadows on the wall, and Deke whirled her around so they could see their shadow-selves dancing, then spun her away. She laughed and wiggled her hands to make a yapping dog’s head, which nearly devoured Deke’s. His hands turned into rabbits that hopped across the wall.

  Suddenly, sharply, he pulled her to him, their shared goofiness dispelled by passion. Their shadows slowly became one, the full lengths of their bodies touching. Deke looked down into her face, overwhelmed with gratitude for the set of circumstances that had made her his. He had almost missed knowing her; she might have slipped away from him in the early days. His heart caught in his throat at the thought.

  His hands caressed small circles on her buttocks. “I love making love with you,” he said, saying the words slowly. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever known who knew how to make it fun.”

  “You’re the only man who has ever said that to me,” she breathed.

  “It took a great effort to say it,” he said, the corners of his mouth quirking upward. “There are things I’d much rather be doing.”

  “Like what?” The words were no more than a murmur against his chest.

  “Like this,” he said, demonstrating. “And this, and this.”

  “I know how to make it a lot more fun than that,” she said. Her lips slowly traced a path downward, across his chest, working their way down the flat, hard muscles of his abdomen.

  “Oh, my love,” he said. “Oh...”

  And then he said no more for a very long time.

  * * *

  DORIAN, HER PALE, FLOWING hair stirred by the breeze of an overhead fan, made her way through the crowd in the bar in Casablanca. Through a fog of cigarette smoke she spied a Humphrey Bogart lookalike leaning on a piano and staring moodily into space.

  The piano player tinkled out a melancholy tune, and Humphrey swirled his drink around in his glass.

  “It’s like thish, Sam,” he said. “You love a woman, you always lose. And thish is what’s left—a tune, a drink, a couple of people who don’t treat you too bad. I tell you, Sam, since she left on that plane I feel terrible.”

  Dorian sauntered up to the piano. She opened her medical bag and removed a rattan-wrapped teapot with two matching cups.

  “No need to feel terrible when you can feel better with a cup of Dr. Feelgood’s Herbal Tea,” she said, looking deep into his eyes.

  “Tea?” asked Humphrey, clearly caught off guard.

  “Sure,” Dorian said, sipping from her own cup, her steady gaze never leaving his face.

  Humphrey tossed the whiskey glass away and picked up the cup. He took a sip of tea and rolled it around in his mouth, savoring the flavor before swallowing.

  “Not bad,” he said, insinuating his body closer to hers. “It reminds me of shomething—shomething—”

  Dorian moved closer so that her shoulder brushed his. “Sure it does. It reminds me of something, too. You must remember this,” she said, then kissed him slowly and lingeringly.

  The music rose to a crescendo, and as the scene closed, Humphrey was saying, “Did I meet you in Marrakech? Hong Kong? Lishbon? I know it wasn’t Parish....”

  Dorian and Deke watched the first airing of this commercial in bed in her apartment. Dorian switched the television set off and looked to Deke for his reaction.

  Deke stretched and smiled. “That was terrific, Dorian. Really great.” He reached over and slid a companionable arm around her shoulders. He adopted a jocular attitude.

  “Where did you meet that Humphrey Bogart guy, anyway? Was it Shingapore? London? How about Gstaad?” he asked, and he nipped at the side of her neck.

  Dorian pushed him away. “I haven’t been meeting anyone. I haven’t had time.”

  “You know, you’ve been so busy lately that I hardly see you anymore,” Deke said. “In fact, you have a short vacation coming up in a couple of weeks. Why don’t we do something interesting and fun? Where would you like to go?”

  “Someplace exotic,” she said, curling up on her side with her head pillowed on her hands.

  “Casablanca?”

  She looked up at him, fluttering her eyelids outrageously. “Paris,” she said in a throaty whisper, knowing full well that whenever Deke got a chance, he ran back to Blue Lake in Rabun County, and that if they managed to go any-where for rest and relaxation, that was where it would be.

  “Parish, eh?” Deke said, back to his Bogart imitation. “
Whatsh happening in Parish?”

  “Nothing—until you and I arrive,” Dorian said.

  “Maybe you could wear that rose silk dress of yours and give those Parisians an Eiffel,” Deke said with a leer. “Some of them might even fall in Louvre with you.”

  “Fat chance.”

  He dropped his bogus Bogart act. “Someday we will go to Paris, Dorian,” he said, smoothing her hair back from her face.

  “Not as long as I’m doing Dr. Feelgood’s promotions. I’m too busy. Anyway, I can’t imagine you with your knees telescoped under your chin for the full six hours it takes to fly there in an airplane seat that even a sardine would find uncomfortable. Why would you commit yourself to that?”

  He lapsed into his Humphrey Bogart imitation again. “Becaush, baby, a kiss is still a kiss,” he said giving her a big smack on the lips. “And besides, maybe we could hire a Learjet.”

  “I hear what you’re Seine,” she said, laughing helplessly and drawing his body down on top of hers.

  * * *

  THE DOORBELL RANG on Wednesday of the next week as Dorian was pulling her dress over her head in preparation for meeting Jill and Sandra for lunch.

  As she struggled to poke her head through the unwieldy knit tube that was giving her so much trouble, she wondered who could possibly be at the door. Deke had gone to a meeting with his brother, and the doorman hadn’t informed her of any package delivery this morning.

  Finally she managed to get both neck and arms through their respective openings, but she still had to hold the gaping zipper of her dress together with one hand while she rushed for the door.

  “Just a minute,” she called out, and when she threw the door open, she was surprised to find a bedraggled wisp of a woman standing there and clutching a paper bag.

  “I’m Lou,” the woman said, as if that would explain everything.

  Caught entirely by surprise, Dorian could do nothing but stare. Seeing her blank expression, the woman said sullenly, “Mr. Donald Kirby Washburn sent me. You could at least invite me in.” With that she sailed past Dorian and re-garded the spotless parquet of the foyer floor with an expression that could only be described as grim.

  “Needs wax,” she said, toeing one of the tiles with a worn sandal.

  “Would you mind telling me why Deke sent you?” Dorian asked. “He never mentioned it to me.”

  Lou eyed her balefully. “He sent me to clean the place up, that’s why. He said you needed somebody.” She forged her way through the living and dining rooms and into the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator and slung her paper bag inside.

  “I’m managing just fine,” Dorian said, resenting the slur on her housekeeping.

  “Mr. Washburn said I was to do whatever you tell me. But I told him already that I am not hanging out over the street to wash windows.” Lou crossed her arms across her chest and glared at Dorian.

  “Well, I have no intention of being a burden,” Dorian replied.

  This softened Lou’s expression slightly. She shook colorless bangs out of her eyes. “Oh, the people I work for are ‘most always that,” she said. “Your place looks better than some. The refrigerator’s pretty nearly clean, after all.”

  “Thank you,” Dorian said, feeling humbled.

  “I’ll take no more’n half a hour to eat my lunch. And I watch the soaps while I iron, you oughta know that. I iron faster watching TV than not watching TV, and you probably don’t believe me, but it’s not as if I care. Now, will you show me where to find the mops and the brooms and the vacuum cleaner, or do you want me to snoop around myself until I find them?”

  “You know,” Dorian said, recovering somewhat, “I don’t really need anyone to help me with the cleaning. I think you should take your lunch out of my refrigerator and go home. I’ll pay you whatever you say.”

  Lou unfolded her puny arms. “You didn’t hire me, so you sure can’t fire me. Mr. Washburn told me you’d say something like that, but he made it clear that he’s paying my salary. So I reckon it don’t matter what you want. I’m following orders.”

  “Well, Lou, you’d better just stand there and don’t do anything until I get back,” Dorian said briskly. “I think I’d better have a word with Mr. Washburn.”

  Lou rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Hurry up,” she called as Dorian fled the kitchen for the privacy of the bedroom phone. “I only got so much time to waste.”

  As Dorian dialed Deke’s private number at his office, she gave up on trying to hold her dress together and let it fall off her shoulders in disarray. Really, this development took the cake. What was Deke up to now?

  His phone rang and rang until finally Bob’s assistant answered it.

  “No, Mr. Washburn hasn’t come back from the meeting,” she said. “May I take a message and ask him to call you later?”

  “It’s Dorian Carr. I’m sure that he said he’d be at the office before lunch,” she said impatiently.

  “No, Ms. Carr. We haven’t seen him. I’ll certainly tell him that you called, if you like.”

  “Please do,” said Dorian, and she slowly replaced the receiver in its cradle.

  Trying to shrug back into her dress, she returned to the kitchen, where Lou had found the spray cleaner under the sink and was energetically wiping off the kitchen counters.

  “I didn’t tell you to do that,” Dorian said.

  “This is what I get paid to do,” Lou said in annoyance. “Now, if I were you, I’d just run along and have me a good time and leave me alone. Because I am going to do what I am supposed to do whether you like it or not.” For one small woman, Lou could certainly project a lot of disdain.

  “Well,” Dorian said, glancing at the clock on the range and realizing that she was not going to be on time to meet Jill and Sandra.

  Lou gave the edge of the counter one last swipe. “Is there anything special you want me to do if I have time? Clean under the refrigerator? Maybe wipe down the outdoor furniture?”

  Dorian gave up. “Right now, I’d be very pleased if you could zip my dress,” she said.

  Lou did, and went on talking.

  “Another thing. I’m supposed to come next week, too. Would you mind listening for the doorbell? I had to ring three times before you answered,” she said.

  It was with a sense of relief that Dorian finally escaped from the apartment, but she made up her mind that when she caught up with Deke, he would certainly have some explaining to do.

  And this time, whatever he was up to, she was determined that she would prevail.

  * * *

  “WELL, IT’S LIKE THIS, Dorian,” said Deke. “Lou has three kids and no husband, and Larissa told me that she needed a job. But I didn’t hire Lou because of Larissa. I did it for you. Didn’t you say you’d have to get a maid?”

  “No, you did. And I don’t want help with the cleaning. It’s a very small apartment.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, darlin’. The other day we didn’t go somewhere or other because you were cleaning the shower or some fool thing. And you wouldn’t want poor little Lou’s three fatherless children to go hungry, would you? You wouldn’t want Lou to be unemployed? Especially since you’ve felt the pinch of unemployment yourself,” he added craftily.

  “I like cleaning the shower,” Dorian said. “For so long Jill and I had to make do with cracked tile and mildew oozing out of the grout, and now it seems like heaven to have a modern shower with a glass door and a massaging shower head with a choice of five sprays. I find great joy in polishing the gold fixtures until I can see my face in them and in changing the towels from the ones with the satin-embroidered swans to the ones with the soft, fluffy loops.”

  “I’d rather feel your satin-embroidered skin,” he said, reaching for her. “I’d rather bury my face in the soft, fluffy loops of your gorgeous blond hair.”

  Dorian decided that arguing was hopeless. But later, when she thought about Lou, the little woman seemed like an impassive barrier around whom she and Deke would hav
e to negotiate. Yet, because she could sympathize with Lou, Dorian was reluctant to bring the subject up again.

  Besides, Deke thought up another use for Lou, this time putting her to work for himself.

  “I want the penthouse to be spotless,” Deke told Dorian enthusiastically one morning as they breakfasted on her balcony. “Larissa’s going to throw a big housewarming party to celebrate my moving into the penthouse. I’ll invite my friends—”

  “The STUDs?” Dorian was curious about these male friends of Deke’s who seemed to have had such an influence over his life.

  “Sure, if any of them want to come, but now that they’re all married, they’re not free to pick up and go like they used to be,” he pointed out.

  “Who else will you invite?”

  “Bob and Larissa, of course, and some people from Rabun County—I’ll put them all up somewhere for the night—and Jill and her new roommate and a lot of other people. Lou can turn the penthouse inside out getting ready for it,” he said, brimming over with enthusiasm and the ebullient energy that Dorian had learned was his most dominant personality trait.

  Over the next few days, she watched as Deke produced a guest list and delivered it to Larissa, who was in charge of issuing invitations. And Dorian listened as he made telephone calls all over the country, urging friends to come.

  “I’ve got someone I want you to meet,” she overheard him telling someone one night when she tiptoed into the penthouse. He was in the kitchen, holding forth expansively on the phone. His eyes lit up when he saw her, and he cut the conversation short. After he hung up, he took her hands and led her to the island in the middle of the kitchen where he had been sitting on a stool.

  “Who was that on the phone?” she asked as they sat down across from each other.

  “Oh, that was Steve in San Francisco,” he said dismissively. He picked up a peach from a bowl on the counter and began to peel it with a paring knife.

  “One of the STUDs?” she asked.

  He handed her a wedge of the peach and took one for himself. “Yeah. He can’t come to the housewarming because Gwen has something important going on that weekend. You’d like him, though. Gwen, too.”