Dick Canidy and Sue-Ellen Chambers were in the master bed, naked as j aybirds, Sue-Ellen on top, straddling Canidy, playing with her breasts as she moved up and down on him. The look on her face was absolutely wanton.
In turmoil-angry and confused-he went back up the stairs onto the lawn, and then up the lawn to the house. There were lights over the veranda, and the foyer lights were on, but the playroom was dark. Everybody else had apparently gone to bed.
He looked at his watch. It was quarter past twelve. Had he been gone that long with Sarah? Time seemed to have simply vanished.
He entered the playroom the way he had left it, by the screen door to its Tear. There was a light switch by the door, but he remembered another light switch under the bar. Ed went over and turned it on, picked up a bottle of whiskey and a few ice cubes, and made himself a stiff drink. He took a large swallow and put the glass down. Supporting himself with both hands on the bar, he bent his head over between them.
What to do about Sue-Ellen and that god damned Canidy?
His cousin’s wife was a whore and an unfaithful wife and a sexual degenerate, and his “friend” was faithless. A gentleman would not dishonor… “Is it that much of a problem for you?” Sarah Child asked.
“What are you doing here?”
“I watched out the window,” Sarah said. “Until I saw you come back from the river.”
“Oh,” he said. Sarah was wearing a bathrobe. He sensed frorn her movement that she wasn’t wearing much under it.
“If you’re worrying about me, don’t,” Sarah said. “You’re not obligated to me.”
“To tell the truth,” he said, “I was thinking about somethin else.”
“China?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied. That should close that subject. He thought of what Canidy had told him about lying. Like screwing, it got easier with practice.
“Come on,” he said to Sarah. “Let’s get out of here before we wake everybody up.”
She smiled and nodded. He turned out the light under the bar and then guided her through the darkened playroom, through the dining room into the foyer, and then up the stairs.
He had no idea where her room was, of course, but he was surprised when she followed him down the west wing corridor. He would have thought that Aunt Jenny would have put the girls in the east wing and the boys in the west wing. He came to his door. Jesus, it would be nice to get her in there!
An insane idea!
“Good night, Sarah,” he said, and leaned over to kiss her.
She avoided his mouth, but wrapped her arms around him. He was confused. And then, after a moment, she said:
“Hung for a wolf as a sheep.”
“Jesus!
She just smiled-a sweet, trusting smile.
He opened the door and she followed him through it. He turned around and fastened the latch. He turned to face her.
“Jesus Christ, you’re beautiful!”
“I’m glad you think so,” Sarah Child said. She met his eyes and then she pulled the cord of her bathrobe open and let it fall off her shoulders.
That, she thought, was easier to do than I thought it would be.
THE LAST MERGES so I was right, he thought, when I thought she wasn’t wearing rnuch under the bathrobe. She had worn nothing under it.
,s arah, I…” he began. She shut him off.
“Let’s not either of us say anything we might not feel like re-peating in the morning Sarah said. She turned around and walked to the bed and slid under the sheets.
: Transient officers” Onarters Anac0stia Naval Air Station Washington, D.C.
1645 flours 16 June 1941
At 0815 that morning the admiral’s aide had handed Lieutenants (j.g.) Edwin Bitter and Richard Canidy an envelope containing tickets on the Pennsylvania Railroad from Washington, D.C., to New York, and a slip of paper on which two addresses were typed:
Commander G. H. Porter Special Actions Section BUPERS Room 213 Temp. Building G-34
CAMCO Suite 1745
Rockefeller Center 1230 Sixth Avenue New York, New York Then he drove them, in the admiral’s car, to Base Operations, where he waited to make sure nothing unforeseen would keep them from getting seats on the courier plane, an R4-D, the Navy version of the new Douglas DC-3 twin-engine airliner, which made an every-other-day round-robin flight from Washington to Key West, with stops at points of naval interest, including Pensacola, in between.