I shook my head. `Nary a bit, my love; Father has watched me unceasingly – he thinks
I’m an immoral woman who sleeps with other men.’
‘What a canard! You never let them sleep. Never. I’ll tell him.’
‘Don’t bother; Father made up his mind about me before you and I ever met. How are
the Plattsburg pussies? Tasty? Affectionate?’
‘Hepzibah, I hate to admit this but… Well, the fact is.. . I didn’t get any. Not
any.’
`Why, Clarence!’
`Honey, girl, they worked my tail off. Field instruction and drills and lectures in
the daytime, six days a week – and surprise drills on Sundays. More lectures in the
evenings and always more book work than we could possibly handle. Stagger to bed
around midnight, reveille at six. Feel my ribs; I’m skinny. Hey! That’s not a rib!’
`So it isn’t; it’s not a bone of any sort. Hubert, I’m going to keep you in bed
until we get you fatted up and stronger; your story has touched my heart.’
`It’s a tragic ore, I know. But what’s your excuse? Justin would have offered you a
little gentle exercise, I’m certain.’
`Dearest man, I did have Justin and Eleanor over for dinner, yes. But with a house
full of youngsters and Father a notorious night owl I didn’t even get my bottom
patted. Nothing but a few gallant indecencies whispered into my horrified ear.’
‘Your what? You should have gone over there.’
`But they live so far away.’ It was a far piece even by automobile, an interminable
distance by streetcar. We had first met the Weatherals at our new church, the
Linwood Methodist, when we moved into our home on Benton Boulevard. But that same
year, after we got on friendly but not intimate terms with the Weatherals, they
moved far out south into the new J.C. Nichols subdivision, the Country Club
district, and there they switched to an Episcopalian church near their new Nome,
which put them clear out of our orbit.
Briney and I had discussed them – they both smelled good – but they had moved too
far away for much socialising, and they were older than we and clearly quite well to
do. All these factors left me a bit intimidated, so I had moved the Weatherals to
the inactive file.
Then Brian ran into them again when Justin tried to get accepted for Plattsburg;
Justin had given Brian as a reference, which flattered him. Justin was turned down
for officer candidate training – a damaged foot, an accident that had maimed him
before he learned to walk. He limped but it was hardly noticeable. Brian wrote a
letter, urging a waiver; it was not granted. But as a consequence Eleanor had
invited us to dinner in January, a week before Brian left for Plattsburg.
A fine big house and even more children than we had – Justin had incorporated into
the house design an elegant but expensive idea; Justin and Eleanor occupied not just
a master bedroom but the entire upper floor of ore wing, a master suite consisting
of a sitting-room (in addition to a formal parlour and a family sitting-room
downstairs), a huge bedroom with a pantry and wine safe in ore corner, a bath broken
into units; a tub, a shower, and two closets, ore of the latter having in addition
to its WC a fixture I had heard of but never seen before: a fountain bidet.
Eleanor helped me try out the latter and I was delighted! Just what Maureen, with
her give-away body odour, needed. I told her so, and told her why.
‘I think your natural fragrance is delightful,’ Eleanor told me seriously, ‘and so
does Justin.’
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‘Justin said that about me?’
Eleanor took my face between her hands and kissed me, softly and gently, her mouth
slack-not a tongue kiss but not totally dry. ‘Justin said that. He said considerably
more than that. Dear, he feels enormous attraction to you’ – I knew that – ‘and so
do I. And so I do for your husband. Brian affects me all through. If by any chance
you two share our feelings… Justin and I are willing and eager to realise our