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“I figured.”
“I thought you might. You’re smart. Me, I quit school when I left home, middle of tenth grade. I’m an idiot.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I know so. Anyway, when the customers get tired of the nun act, I’ll work up something else, and I’ll probably change my name to fit the new act. I’m playing with an idea. What to hear it?”
“Love to.”
“I thought I could maybe be a mermaid? You know, I’d have this tail that was all pearly and shimmery. I’d wear a long, flowing wig that came down to my ass. Maybe even to my knees.”
“You’d be a knockout. You could call yourself Lorelei.”
“Lorelei?”
“Like the siren. In mythology.” She stared back at him with misapprehension. “She had a beautiful singing voice,” he explained. “She used it to lure sailors into the rocks where they would shipwreck.”
“No shit? I gotta remember that.”
“I can write it down for you so you won’t forget.”
She propped herself up on her elbow and regarded him with patent admiration. “See? You’re so fuckin’ smart.”
He laughed, and she laughed, and then they looked at one another seriously for a long moment, and then she said, “You can play with them if you want to.”
Immediately his eyes dropped to her chest. She raised the hem of her T-shirt up over her breasts. The objects of his affection and fantasies, what he had admired from afar, were inches from his eyes, his fingertips, his lips. She was giving them to him. A gift.
But when he extended his hand, it was to lower her T-shirt back into place.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “I can’t screw tonight, but I could blow you.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“You think I’d be doing it just for you? Think again.” She slid her hand down to his crotch and took his penis in her hand. “I’ve been wondering what you packed. Starlight’s a lying bitch, but I can tell she was telling the truth about you.” She squeezed him, and he caught his breath. Blood rushed to the pressure point made by each of her fingers.
But he moved her hand away from him. “I’d be taking advantage of the situation.”
“So?”
“I wouldn’t feel right about it, Sheila.”
“Jesus, most guys would kill for an offer like this. Are you for real?”
“I’m real, all right. I’ll be cursing myself in the morning.”
“Well, you can jerk off in the shower while you watch us sunbathe.” She giggled at his astonishment. “We’re not that ignorant, Roark. Why else would y’all take so many showers? And at the same time we’re sunbathing?”
She smiled and lay back down, snuggling against him again. “Truth is, I couldn’t have given you my best tonight. I really do feel like shit, you know?”
“Go to sleep, Sheila. When you wake up, this’ll seem like a bad dream.”
“You’re sweet.”
“So are you.”
He stroked her back, and caressed her hair, and continued to hold her even after she had fallen asleep. When he returned to his apartment the following morning, Todd was already up and pecking away at his keyboard. “Where’ve you been?”
“Walking on the beach.”
