The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [51]
A week had passed since Winston brought back the new deeds from Miami. Fred knew he had to go to the bank to deposit them with the rest of his paperwork, but it seemed an eternity, forty minutes each way on the treacherous Jamaican country roads. Plus, there would be Winston, chatting and singing and generally being annoying.
“I can go tomorrow,” he said, and propped his feet on his desk.
It was eleven o’clock and there was no one on the beach. He hadn’t seen Sarah since the day she stood him up and enough time had passed, he figured, to know that she wasn’t interested.
He closed his eyes and imagined her. “You look stunning,” he said. “Beyond words you are beautiful, Sarah.”
Get to work, you flabby prick. Go to the bank.
“Shut up! Sarah, excuse him. He is a rude, rude man. Where were we? Oh yes, you look stunning. That silk hangs so well on you. Versace? Oh yes, it was made for you, dear, made for you.”
You sound like a faggot, Fred.
“I am not a faggot.”
You like men, Fred. You are a faggot.
“Sarah, please, don’t go. I can make him stop. Security! Sarah! Don’t believe him!”
Faggot.
“You’re the faggot,” Fred said, pouting.
It was 11:05 and there was no one on the beach but Rusty, making paw prints in the wet sand and watching them disappear with the tide.
Winston knocked on the office door and called to him.
Fred didn’t move from the chair, just laid his head back and feigned sleep. He heard the door open and then close again, gently. “You’re the faggot,” he whispered.
He got up and walked to his bedroom. He dressed in khaki shorts and a white dress shirt and put on a white pair of sport socks, but then peeled them off again and arrived back in the office ten minutes later in a pair of fungicide-dusted tartan slippers. It was 11:15 and no one was on the beach. It was June, for Christ’s sake. Where was everyone?
Fred sat down at his desk, which was still covered in planning maps and property deeds, and wondered if 1990 would be the year the worst would finally happen. He had a plan for it, at least—he would sell the Florida land first, back to the Yank at a grotesque profit, and then move there himself. That way he wouldn’t have to be in Billy’s Bay when the stuffy Europeans showed up to view their holiday resort sites and found nothing but vegetation and an empty, rocky beach. He had nothing to worry about, really. They couldn’t sue him. He would always have money.
You won’t if you keep giving it to that Jamaican poof, he told himself.
“I pay him fairly.”
For what?
“For working for me.”
Is that what you call it?
“You’re the faggot.”
It was 11:30 and the beach was still empty. Fred picked up his telescope and scanned the surface of the sea. Far out, there were two enormous shipping vessels and to the west, there were the usual three or so glass-bottomed boats for snorkeling day trips from the tourist village two miles away. Closer still was the small fleet of local fishermen heading out to empty their pots, which they’d laid out at midnight the night before. And then she appeared.
She was blurred at first, before he had time to focus the telescope and catch up with her moving through the foreground. Immediately, he could sense that she was something special. She was walking fast, and his hand was too shaky to follow her, balanced only on the arm of his chair. He pushed himself up, rolled over to the glass table, and steadied his elbows. He could tell she was young; her small, firm breasts barely bounced at all. Her legs were as slim as any he’d ever seen. Her ass was exquisite, and she didn’t let it fall from side to side like older women. She had no hips to swing as of yet.
“And too young to be married,” he mumbled.
And too young to ever notice you, you blubbery ponce.
“You’re the ponce.”
Why do you do this to yourself, man? You would never actually do anything with that little girl out there.
“I’ve just been waiting for the right moment.”
Like your moment with Sarah last week? Like that moment?
“She’s a prick tease. I don’t know how that husband of hers can