Cockfighter - Charles Ray Willeford [43]
Bernice whispered softly into my ear, “The bedroom's the first door on the right.”
The first time was for me. As nervous as Bernice was, at least at first, it could hardly have gone any other way. But I was gentle with her, and providing me with satisfaction apparently gave her the reassurance she needed. There was none of that foolishness about wanting to turn off the bedside lamps, for example, and when she returned from the bathroom, she still had her clothes off.
I had propped myself up on both pillows, and I smoked and watched her as she poured two small snifters of brandy. The cut-glass decanter was on a side table, beside a comfortable wing chair. It was unusual, I thought, to keep a decanter of cognac in a bedroom, but having a drink afterward was probably a post-coital ritual that she and her late husband had practiced.
Although Bernice was a trifle on the chunky side, she had a good figure. Her heavy breasts had prolapsed slightly, but the prominent nipples were as pink as a roseate spoonbill. Her slim waist emphasized the beautiful swelling lines of her full hips, and her skin, except for a scattering of freckles on her shoulders, was as white as a peeled almond. With her thick black hair unloosened, and trailing down her back, Bernice was a very beautiful woman. To top it off, she had a sense of style. I wanted to talk to her so badly I could almost taste the words in my mouth, and it was all I could do to hold back the torrent that would become a flood if I ever let them go.
After Bernice handed me my glass, she sat cross-legged on the bed, facing me, swirling her brandy in the snifter she held with cupped hands. Her face was flushed slightly with excitement. She peered intently into her brandy glass, refusing to meet my level stare.
“I want to tell you something, Frank,” she said in a soft contralto, “something important. I'm not promiscuous.”
She said this so primly I wanted to laugh. Instead, I grinned, wet a forefinger in my brandy and rubbed the nipple of her right breast.
“And no matter what you may think, you're the first man I've let make love to me since my husband died.”
I didn't believe her, of course, not for an instant. But that is the way women are. They always feel that a man will think less of them if they act like human beings. What did it matter to me whether she had slept with anyone or not for the last five years? What possible difference could it make at this moment? Now was now, and the past and the future were unimportant.
As the nipple gradually hardened beneath my circling finger she laughed, an abrupt, angry little laugh, and tossed off the remainder of her brandy. I took her glass, put both of them aside, pulled her down beside me, and kissed her.
The second time was better and lasted much longer. Although I was handicapped by being unable to issue instructions, Bernice was experienced, cooperative and so eager to please me that she anticipated practically everything I wanted to do. And at last, when I didn't believe I could hold out for another moment, she climaxed. I remained on my back, with Bernice on top of me, and she nibbled on my shoulder.
“I could fall in love with you, Frank Mansfield,” she said softly. “If there were only some way I could prove it to you!”
Suddenly she got out of bed, grabbed my undershirt and shorts from the winged chaiz and entered the bathroom. I raised myself on my elbows, and watched her through the open door as she washed my underwear in the washbowl. She hummed happily as she scrubbed away. My underwear wasn't dirty. I had put it on clean after a shower at the hotel before reporting in at the Chez Vernon at eight thirty that evening. Women, sometimes, have a peculiar way of demonstrating their affection.
Five