The Erection Set

I sprawled out next to her. “It’s about the only thing the old man owned that I used to want. I figured I could put up a shack made of driftwood and pull a Robinson Crusoe bit.” I rolled on my side and looked up at her. “One year I did just that. They sent Al and Dennie to some fancy camp while the rest went to Newport for the social season and my mother and I camped out here for six days. That was when she told me about marrying my father.”

“You never knew him, did you?”

“Only through her. He was some hell raiser. She sure loved him though.”

“Why wouldn’t they accept him?”

“Come off it, baby. You know the drill on that bit. If there was no money there was no position, ergo, no marriage into the Barrin family. They never thought my old lady would tell them to go toss it and get herself knocked up outside the family circle. Trouble was, when my father died she lost all the spunk she had. They squeezed her until there was nothing left. The old man had her yanked out of the apartment they were living in while she was alone and dragged her back to Grand Sita. She didn’t even know she was pregnant then. He hired guards to keep my father away, got him fired from his job, had him rousted out of the state and kept my mother incommunicado until after I was born. One day the old man showed up, beat the hell out of four of the guards and took off with my mother and married her. A week later he was dead and she was back in exile again in the old man’s little Siberia. I don’t think she ever left it except to come here on rare occasions. When she did I was just a kid and it was all over so fast I can hardly remember it. She was dead in the morning, in the coffin by noon and buried before nightfall. I threw some rocks through the old man’s greenhouse, spit in his decanter of fine booze and opened the sluicegate on the pond behind the house and drained his imported goldfish into the creek. I think the gardener covered for me and he never noticed anything wrong with his booze. The next day Alfie and Dennie knocked the shit out of me for something or other and I hit Dennie over the head with a rake. For that I got a week alone in my room and had time to think.” I stopped for a minute and looked at the ocean. “They never should have left me in that room,” I said.

“Why?”

“I thought too much,” I told her.

Down the beach something disturbed the gulls and they set up a screeching racket for a minute. A wisp of cloud ran across the moon and snaked away, letting the brightness come back again. The wind was soft and warm, a tail end of summer feel to it, just strong enough to stir the soft sand into easy motion.

Sharon’s hand ran over the back of mine and she tossed her head so her hair made ripples in the yellow light. “Dog ... it’s a shame to waste this whole ocean.”

“Who’s wasting it?”

“We are. We should go use it.”

“Now?”

“Uh-huh. Right now.” She uncurled from the blanket, stood up and stretched luxuriously against the sky. Then her hands came down and did something at the back of her dress. Soundlessly, it slithered to a heap at her feet. She found the hooks of her bra and undid them. tossed that beside her, then with a single, fluid movement seemed to slide out of the tiny flowered bikini pants that were left She turned and looked at me, the night shadows flowing around tanned shoulders, reflecting off the silken whiteness of magnificent breasts that swept up and out in a daring gesture before molding into the tanned flatness of a stomach that was navel dimpled before contrasting with the bathing-suit whiteness around her hips. In the moonlight the hair of her loins was a tantalizing vee of auburn, her legs firm and softly muscular. She let me look at her a long minute, standing there with her hands on her hips, pelvis pushed forward provocatively.

Finally she said, “Coming?”

“If you don’t get the hell out of here I will,” I told her.

She laughed, turned and ran toward the surf, her stride loose and boyish. I heard her laugh again and her body splash into the water. Then I got up and took off my own clothes. I was going to leave my shorts on but that wouldn’t help matters at all, so I shrugged, took them off too and walked down to where she was waiting.

We were pleasantly exhausted when we got back to the blanket. The wind smiled and let its warm breath dry us off, and we lay on our backs staring up at the cloudless sky. I closed my eyes, wondering just how the hell this ever happened, feeling like some kind of an idiot for messing around with a nonprofessional kid. Then my eyes snapped open because the gentle touch of her fingers were on my stomach, moving slowly downward until they held me, and Sharon was leaning over me, her mouth inches from mine.

“You are beautiful, Dog,” she said.