by Lass Small
She said quite clearly, “You’re old enough to control such conduct.”
How disgustingly mature of her.
She went on, “You’re old enough to have a—mature, I believe you labeled yourself, fourteen-year-old of your own.”
He pulled back to look at her bland face in some disgust.
She shrugged. “You said you were mature at fourteen. It wouldn’t be unheard of for you to have fathered a child at twenty-two.”
“I was just graduated from Illinois.”
“The state or the university?”
He leaned back a little to regard the mouthy neophyte. He set her straight. “The university.”
“What was your major?”
“Business.”
“That probably helped you considerably.” Then she took her hand from his shoulder and covered her mouth. “I’d forgotten you are a rent collector.”
“You have a very nasty way of talking to a man who is buying your supper.”
“Here, at this elegant place, it’s dinner.”
“Yeah. Behave or you split the check.”
“I can handle half of it. We’ll split it.”
There isn’t anything more irritating to a controlling man than a freewheeling woman. So he said, “Okay, we’ll split it.”
“Actually…” She studied him with some discarding. “I owe you for funding my gambling. I’ll pay the bill.”
“Not this time, baby. It was my idea to come here.”
She understood the “baby” was not an endearment. She inquired politely, “Are we quarreling?”
“You’re so stiff-necked that you’re just about impossible.”
With mature kindness she corrected him gently. “Not ‘just about’ but completely. Shall we go back to the table and finish up? I have an early morning tomorrow.”
He continued dancing. Well, he didn’t let her go and leave the dance floor. He asked, “How could you be on any schedule?”
Without hesitation, she retorted, “I have working hours, just like anyone else.”
He laughed. He closed his lips and smothered and bit at the laughter. He couldn’t stop and his eyes sparkled and the lights in them danced.
Such laughter is contagious. She grinned.
His arm pulled her closer, and they danced easily without saying anything else. When the set was finished, they went back to their table.
Their waiter inquired, “Dessert?”
And they studied the choices on the menu. It was a tearing choice. They decided on three. They’d share.
Their tolerant waiter whisked on the extra small plates, each with its own fresh dessert fork or spoon. And he served their choices. He lingered and glanced at them and anticipated their delight.
They were delighted. The meringue was sinful. The cookie/ice cream/nut one was outrageously marvelous, and the whipped cream/fruit was wicked.
Neither of the two actually licked their plates. They agreed that showed they were grown-ups. Not licking plates proved their upper echelon of maturity.
And they decided being mature was a real pain.
It took his credit card to cover the cost. He didn’t say anything and his tip was just a tad more than expected.
Their car was ready for them at the door. Obviously the waiter had contacted the car jockey. While Ed eased Marcia into her seat, the car jockey held the driver door at ready. And he took his tip slyly and it disappeared quickly into his pocket without his even peeking at it. He was very smooth.
Ed drove his replacement car with easy skill. He headed down toward the river. It was late and the traffic was still busy.
She asked, “You’ve been…mature…longer. Does it ever get easier?”
“Before I respond to your question, let me wipe the whipped cream from my flowing, gray beard.” He looked over at her with amused patience.
She lifted her eyebrows and told him, “I realize that will take a while. You’ve been a graybeard for so long. Will you kindly repeat my question at the beginning of your response? By then, I just may not remember what I asked of you.”
Making his voice wobbly and cracked, Ed replied, “There’s nothing worse than a snippy youngster. Hush, child. Your momma won’t be pleased with my report on you. You did say this was your first evening out without a chaperone?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Hollingsworth.” Then she looked over at him and said, “That is an elegant name. What was your original last name? The one before this one.”
“So. You don’t think I’m elegant?”
She replied thoughtfully, “Rather basic, to my scant knowledge. You do know how to bone a fish the neatest I’ve ever witnessed.”
He inquired with curiosity, “Then why did you cut it crossways?”
“I wanted to see what you’d say. You were very brave and quite mature in keeping your shock to yourself.”
“Then you do realize a fish is filleted?”
“Honey, we’ve lived on the Illinois River for a long, long time.”
He nodded, accepting that premise, and replied, “We’re probably blood kin, if you go back far enough.”
“That would certainly shock my mother.”
“She doesn’t even know me! What have you said about me to her?”
“Nothing!” Marcia was indignant. “If we turned out to be kin, you would want to home in on our family, and you would shock my mother.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re wicked.”
His face went blank and his lips parted just a bit in shock as he glanced over at Marcia. “I’ve been a perfect gentleman!” Indignation is an excellent barrier. And how could she have read his mind and found out otherwise?
“I’ve been aware of the sly movements. You’ve touched me about everywhere…by accident.”
“They all were accidental!”
“So you’re aware you’ve been brushing around on me?”
“I have not! I’m a gentleman!”
“Who says so?”
“My mother.”
“A blind woman?”
“No! She’s a hovering buzzard of a mother. She watches us like a hawk! You wouldn’t believe what a weasel she is in questioning our conduct!”
“Hmmm.” She narrowed her eyes. “A hawk, a weasel and a buzzard? Genetically, you’re an interesting combination. What influence did your father contribute?”
“He showed us that it’s never worth the time to argue. Any man who argues with a woman only gets in deeper. All a guy can do is to just do everything her way and leave the house as soon as he can.”
“One of those.”
“Dad taught us that a guy can go back again. Just to wait long enough for her to calm down and miss him.”
“I believe that is a very stupid thing to do. While she’s trying to communicate, you ought to listen to her. You just might learn something. If you keep walking out until the quarrel blows over, you won’t really know what’s wrong. The quarrel might heal over, but it’ll fester and it could burst into a real problem.”
He looked over at her. “How’d you get that smart?”
“I’m a woman.”
He was silent. He coughed once. He licked his lips. Then he finally glanced over at her. She was sitting in a serene manner, looking out of her window. She had spoken.
He coughed another time or two.
She turned her head slowly and asked with a false concern, “Swallow a bone?”
He laughed as he said, “Probably.”
She suggested, “Stop the car and I’ll whack you on the back.”
“I hesitate to ask on the back…of what?”
“How many backs do you have?”
“There’s the back of my head, the back of my knees, the back of—”
Prissily, she instructed, “When one chokes, one swats the chokee on the back of his chest.”
“Oh.”
In a disbelieving tone, she inquired, “You’ve never done that before?”
“Nobody I know chokes.”<
br />
“You probably reply differently to those you know well.”
“Different…from what?”
“Friends who aren’t women. My telling you I knew because I am a woman caused you to choke. What have you thought I was? I’m told I do look female.”
With some seriousness, he allowed her the tribute. “You think like a man.”
“No. I think like a human.”
“Do you think men think like…humans?”
“Very few. Mostly they just go along thinking like men do.”
“In…what way?”
“Basics.”
Ed thought about that as he drove along with exceptional skill. “Yeah. You got it right. Men do that. On occasion we talk to women just to see how their minds work. It is always a remarkable insight. Women are different.”
“I know.”
“My place?”
She moved her head in a slow, discarding motion and her mouth was about to form the word no.
Ed saw that and said, “I have a good friend who was recently a victim of company downsizing. I need to check in with him.”
“It’s almost eleven o’clock.”
“He’s always been a night owl. He’ll be up another hour. He gets to sleep later in the mornings.”
“Kids?”
“Yeah.”
“And his wife works?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s feeling abandoned.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay. But you could just drop me off.”
“If I did that, I’d be too late in getting to Charlie.”
“Why…too late?”
“Well, I spent a lot of money on you to—”
“I’ll pay my half.”
“—and we need to share the savoring of the various things we ate and discuss them so it was worth-while to do all that eating. What do you remember especially? No…don’t start. I have to call Charlie, first.”
“You can call from my apartment.”
“Which one?”
“The one I’ll be living in.”
“Well, I really think it would be better to call Charlie from my place. He’s going to want to talk too long, and I can tell him I’ve got to get you home at a reasonable time.”
That sounded logical. Which just proves how sly men can be.
She commented, “As I recall, the apartment house is closest, and you can drop me there first and go on home and let Charlie take his time. He probably needs to get rid of all the distress…like women who need to talk to their husbands.”
Ed blinked. Was she teaching him to be a husband? Him? No way. He said, “The call’ll only be ten minutes, and we’ll have the opportunity to discuss the skill of the chef before it all fades from our palates.”
Actually, her nod acknowledged his slyness. Well, what did she expect of a man who was sly and thirty-seven?
Ed drove back to his place. When he came around the car to open her door, the door was locked but she said, “Since it won’t take you long, I’ll just wait here.”
He took his car key out and unlocked her door quite smoothly. He smiled and said, “I don’t want to leave you out here alone. You’ll be safer inside.”
She looked around the calm compound. She slid her eyes over to the probable Mr. Hyde person waiting to take her arm and help her from the shelter of his car.
Inside, she smiled. She was expert in karate. She exited the car. He was past due in finding out about real women.
They entered his dark apartment. She observed mildly, “You ought to have small lights in a socket in each room. Then you wouldn’t break a toe or be surprised.”
He smiled and reached for her but missed as she moved to a lamp. He got to watch as it turned on. She wasn’t that young! Well, he’d teach her.
He went to the phone and dialed Charlie’s number. Supposedly. He actually dialed the police desk. It was always busy. He got a cop. He said, “Sorry,” and redialed Charlie’s number.
And it was busy!
So he put down the phone and said, “It might take a minute or two.” He indicated the sofa and said, “Sit over there by the lamp. The light on your hair is so pretty.”
She chose a chair instead. She picked up Field and Stream and flipped through it with some casual interest.
He watched her. He knew she would look up eventually and get up out of that chair and come to him, her body starving for his. She’d wrap herself around him like a two-legged boa constrictor. He’d struggle like his mother had always warned, but she would conquer him.
She went on reading.
He knew that she lusted for him but she was being stern with her libido. She hungered for his body. He considered. He hadn’t had thoughts like that since he was about…fifteen. What was it about her?
He realized she was controlling herself.
Her breathing was slow and calm. How rude of her.
He tried Charlie again. Charlie’s phone was still busy. Ed wondered whose shoulder was wet by then? Who was Charlie’s other contact? Well, that did make it easier on Ed if Charlie had found another ear to bend with all his problems.
He looked over at the twenty-three-year-old innocent. She was still reading the magazine. How many women read Field and Stream? Probably more than he’d ever realized.
He said, “Find something else interesting?”
He expected her to put down the magazine and laugh, but she apparently finished the paragraph and then looked up as she kept her place with one finger. She inquired, “Ready?”
That set off all his idle cells, but then she said, “This is an old issue, you’ve probably already read it. Do you mind if I borrow it for a couple of days? This article on bass fishing is especially good.”
He gave up.
He said, “Charlie’s line’s busy. I might just as well take you home.”
She was already rising from the chair as he talked. No romance in her. She was a dud. Zero.
He deliberately took his car keys from his pocket as if to obey her immediately. He did so in such a manner that she would think he’d brought her there just for the phone call.
Then, as if it had just hit him, he said, “I have a really good liqueur. It will touch your palate so gently that you’ll smile.”
“Not this time.”
How could any woman already twenty-three years old be so dumb?
8
As is only right, Ed told Marcia, “I took you out, fed you and I’m committed to getting you back to— one of your apartments safe and sound. I get a kiss.”
She tilted her head back and looked at him soberly from the sides of her eyes and from behind those lashes. She asked, “If I took you out, fed you and used my own car, would I be given a kiss?”
He added, “If you behaved right.”
“Have you?”
“Have I—what.”
She explained, “Have you behaved properly?”
“Haven’t I?”
Since he was standing there, waiting for her to go to his car, he got to see her chest as she shrugged and replied, “So far.”
Ed glanced aside discreetly. He’d been taught young by his older brother not to stare at females. Ed growled, “What do you mean ‘so far’ when you’re practically back home again?”
She turned her head as she looked aside. “I’m still in your apartment and not yet home.”
He was predictably indignant “Don’t you trust me?” That old hack.
“So far.”
He was earnest. “You could be naked, in bed with me and I’d not touch you if you didn’t want it.”
She picked up her bulky shoulder purse. “Has that worked very often?”
“No.” He said, “Quit being so snooty. You are going home.”
Walking toward the door, she questioned kindly, “Have I behaved properly?” She had the gall to ask that of him.
“No.”
That did surprise her. She laughed.
He complained, “You haven’t flirted or
wiggled or brushed against me or leaned over to whisper to me or—”
“Whisper?”
“—salaciously,” he seriously instructed the neophyte. Then he continued on in listing her faults. “You didn’t convulse over my jokes.” In a mature voice he explained, “A slight smile doesn’t do it. You need to practice. The next guy won’t be as tolerant as I am.”
“You’re…tolerant?”
He nodded emphatically. “Killingly.” He was sure. “Come on, get in the car, you’re almost home, Goldilocks.”
“My hair is brown. I live in an apartment.”
He instructed her with mature knowledge, “You’re too young being off on your own this way. You ought to go back home before some really lecherous guy finds you.”
She was so shocked that she put her hand on her uneven chest and gasped, “You’re a gentleman?”
“Yeah. Thank your guardian angel that I am.”
For some reason, she then tried her damnedest to muffle her spurt of giggles.
He knew that maturity would finally smooth her, but it would be long after he’d left for California. He wouldn’t be witness to her metamorphosis. Some other guy would be the luc—the victim.
Ed opened the front door of his place and waited as she took her own sweet time in walking past him and out to the parked car. She carried the magazine as if she was just a friend and would see him again to give it back. Well, he’d finished reading it anyway.
She had the gall to wait until he opened the car door. It was locked. He unlocked it. He watched as she moved and slid her legs and body gracefully into his car.
She could slide under him that same way. She ought to wear fewer clothes. She was probably a virgin. She was any man’s nightmare.
Thinking that, he closed her door with just the strength of his hands pressing firmly. Men never realize how much strength they use so casually.
Sitting safely inside his car, she flicked down the lock on the door between them. He was outside. She was safely in his car.
He had the key.
He walked around, unlocked the driver’s door and got in. He closed the door, and they were isolated from the rest of the world. She was with him.
Why did he feel so possessive of her? He looked over at her, and she was just a woman.
A frail woman who needed a strong man to protect her…to lead her through the beginnings of adulthood. She needed him. He looked over at her and smiled a little.
