“What you need,” he told Marty when they were both awash with drink, “what you need is a good woman. No-” he giggled, “-no, no, no. What you need is a bad woman.”
Marty nodded; his head felt unstable on his neck. “You got it in one,” he said.
“Let’s go find us a lady, eh? Shall we do that?”
“Suits me.”
“I mean, you need company, man, and so do I. And I do a bit of that on the side, you know? I’ve got a few ladies available. I’ll see you all right.”
Marty was too drunk to argue. Besides the thought of a woman-bought or seduced, what the hell did it matter?-was the best idea he’d heard in a long while. Flynn went away, made a telephone call, and came back leering.
“No trouble,” he said. “No trouble at all. One more drink, then we’ll hit the road.”
Lamblike, Marty followed his lead. They had one more drink together, then staggered out of The Eclipse and around the corner to Flynn’s car, a Volvo that had seen better days. They drove for five minutes to a house on the estate. The door was opened by a good-looking black woman.
“Ursula, this is my friend Marty. Marty, say hello to Ursula.”
“Hello, Ursula.”
“Where’s the glasses, honey? Daddy bought a bottle.”
They drank some more together, and then went upstairs; it was only then that Marty realized Flynn wasn’t going to leave. This was intended to be ménage à trois, like the old days. His initial disquiet vanished when the girl began to undress for them. The drink had taken the edge off his inhibitions, and he sat on the bed encouraging her in her strip, dimly aware that Flynn was probably as much entertained by his evident craving as he was by the girl. Let him watch, Marty thought, it’s his party.
In the small, badly lit bedroom Ursula’s body looked sculpted from black butter. In between her full breasts a small gold cross lay, glistening. Her skin glistened too; each pore was marked with a pinprick of sweat. Flynn had started to undress as well, and Marty followed suit, stumbling as he pulled off his jeans, unwilling to relinquish the sight of the girl as she sat up on the bed and put her hands to her groin.
What followed was a swift reeducation in the craft of sex. Like a swimmer who returns to water after years of absence, he soon remembered the strokes. In the next two hours he gathered fistfuls of memories to take back with him: looking around from Ursula’s amused face to see Flynn kneeling at the bottom of the bed sucking her toes; Ursula cooing like a black dove over his erection before devouring it to the root; Flynn licking his hands and grinning, and licking and grinning. And finally the two of them sharing Ursula, Flynn buried in her backside, making true what, as an eleven-year-old, he had claimed you did with women.
Afterward, they dozed together. Sometime in the middle of the night Marty stirred to see Flynn dressing, and shrinking away. Home presumably; wherever home was these days and nights.
24
He woke just before dawn, disoriented for several seconds until he heard Ursula’s steady exhalations at his side. He said goodbye to her as she dozed, and found a cab to take him back to his car. He was back at the Sanctuary by eight-thirty. Exhaustion would hit him eventually, and a hangover too, but he knew his body clock well. There’d be a few hours grace before the debt had to be paid.
Pearl was in the kitchen tidying up after breakfast. They exchanged a few pleasantries, and he sat down to drink three cups of black coffee, one after the other. His mouth tasted foul, and Ursula’s perfume, which had smelled ambrosial the previous night, was oversweet this morning. It lingered on his hands and in his hair.
“Good night?” Pearl asked. He nodded without answering. “You’d better get a good breakfast inside you; I won’t be able to get you any lunch today.”
“Why not?”
“Too busy with the dinner party.”
“What dinner party?”