“Jenny-”
“I’d like to taste it.”
As she spoke the soft center of him swelled and grew hard.
“Defeated by biology,” she said. “You’re a minx.”
She laughed and started to sit up. He pushed her back.
“I want to taste it,” she said. “Later.”
“Now.”
“I want to get you off first.” “And do you always get your way?” “I will this time. I’m bigger than you.” “Male chauvinist.”
“If you say so.” He kissed her nipples, shoulders, hands, her
navel and thighs. He rubbed his nose gently back and forth in the crinkled hair at the base of her belly.
A shiver passed through her. She said, “You’re right. A woman should have her pleasure first.”
He lifted his head and smiled at her. He had a charming, almost boyish smile. His eyes were so clear, so blue, and so warm that she felt as if she were being absorbed by them.
What a delightful man you are, she thought as the voices of the mountain faded away and her heartbeat replaced them. So beautiful, so desirable, so tender for a man. So very tender.
The house was on Union Road, one block from the town square. A white frame bungalow. Nicely kept. Windows trimmed in green with matching shutters. Railed front porch with bench swing and glider and bright green floor. Latticework festooned with ivy at one end of the porch, a wall of lilac bushes at the other end. Brick walkway with borders of marigolds on each side. A white ceramic birdbath ringed with petunias. According to the sign that hung on a decorative lamppost at the end of the walk, the house belonged to “The Macklins.”
At one o’clock that afternoon, Salsbury climbed the three steps to the porch. He was carrying a clipboard with a dozen sheets of paper fixed to it. He rang the bell.
Bees hummed in the lilac leaves.
The woman who opened the door surprised him. Perhaps because of the flowers that had been planted everywhere and because of the pristine condition of the property that seemed the work of a singularly fussy person, he had expected the Macklins to be an elderly couple. A skinny pair who liked to putter in their gardens, who had no grandchildren to spend their time with, who would stare suspiciously at him over the rims of their bifocals. However, the woman who answered the bell was in her middle twenties, a slender blonde with the kind of face that looked good in magazine advertisements for cosmetics. She was tall, five eight or nine, not delicate but feminine, as leggy as a chorus girl. She was wearing dark blue shorts and a blue-and- white polka-dot halter top. Even through the screen door, he could see that her body was well proportioned, firm, resilient, better than any he had ever touched.
As usual, confronted with a woman like one of those who had peopled his fantasies all of his adult life, he was unsettled. He stared at her and licked his lips and couldn’t think of a damned thing to say.
“Can I help you?”
He cleared his throat. “My name’s-Albert Deighton. I’ve been in town since last Friday. I don’t know if you heard .
I’m doing some research. Sociological research. I’ve been talking to people-”
“I know,” she said. “You were next door at the Solomans’ yesterday afternoon.”
“That’s right.” Although the sun was hot and the air heavy, he hadn’t perspired during any of the first three interviews of the day; but now he felt beads of sweat spring up on his forehead. “I’d like to talk with you and Mr. Mackin, if you can spare me the time. Half an hour ought to be enough. There are about a hundred questions-”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “My husband isn’t home. He works up at the mill on the day shift. He won’t be home till five thirty.”
He looked at his clipboard for something to do. “I can always catch him some other time. If I could interview you and the children now, get that out of the way-”
“Oh, we’ve only been married a year. We haven’t any kids.”
“Newlyweds.”
“Just about.” She smiled. She had dimples.