Chapter 9

Laddie Jones and I went down to the dock and got the canoe she had rented. She paddled a lot better than I had expected her to, and I told her so.

"I'm not absolutely helpless," she told me. "I suppose that it would be a surprise to you if I said that I sometimes brush my own teeth in the morning."

"Your ancestors were old pioneer stock, I suppose," I said.

"Officers in the Revolutionary War," she said.

"Mine were just buck privates."

We were well away from the shore line and we let the canoe drift then. She turned around so that she could face me and not have to shout over her shoulder. When she saw me looking her up and down she smiled.

"I don't know why I should be out here in a canoe with you," she said.

"I don't know either. You came up here to tell me that we won some money together. I'm glad to hear it, and I wish that I had owned the whole ticket. I guess that's all there is to say. You can leave anytime the party gets dull."

"Why don't you like me?" she said.

"I don't know."

"Because I have money? That's why a lot of people don't like me. Or because I'm so trivial. I know that I am, you see."

"I can't think about it much right now. All I can think about is that money."

"I don't think that you're so much of a strong character either, if you want to know."

"I'm sorry, sweetie, but it doesn't matter very much. If I don't like you I guess it's because you're not my kind of people."

We sat quietly for a few minutes.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"Nothing. Everything. It wasn't anything important.

"Were you thinking about what you intend to do with the money?"

"Partly. Don't you ever sit still without thinking about anything?"

"Not very often. Tell me, what are you going to do?"

"I'm one of those awful people in the news-reels. I don't know. I never had any money before. But there's a lot of this country that I haven't seen yet. I think I'll do that first."

"And in a year you won't have any of it left. That's what always happens."

"Oh, I don't know. Anyway, it's just money. It came easily."

We were drifting close to two men who were fishing from a boat. I turned the canoe and drove it away from them.

"I was thinking when I was out on the lake before," she said, "that if you were the right sort of person I could have had a lot of fun out of this. But I can see that you're not."

"What do you mean, fun? Don't you have fun? What about the Milk Fund?"

"No, I'm sure that you're not the right person. You probably won't understand any part of this. But I had a weird idea. There was a party, you see, and it was awfully dull, and someone suggested that we leave and go slumming. That's how I happened to be in that dreadful place, and buy part of that ticket. And I thought when I had won that it would be fun to meet the person who held the other half. That I might find myself in the midst of something that would be marvelously thrilling. But all you want to do with your share is to go about looking at bridges and mountains and canyons."

"We'd better start back. I have another set to play," I said. "I don't want to get fired."

I was pretty tired of that broad at that moment, even if she did have nice tits and a big ass. I didn't feel sorry for her, as she evidently wanted me to. That was the first time I had ever run into the species, and the only thing I felt was a pain in my asshole.

We docked the canoe.

"I'll probably see you again. There's probably a lot of red tape connected with collecting on that ticket." I said.

"Yes. I'll see you again."

So I left her and went into the place as the boys were all setting up again. They wanted to know about her, and Hope wanted to know who she was.

"I'll tell you all about it later," I told Hope. "It's funny."

But I didn't get a chance to tell her about it that night, because at two, just after we had finished playing, Laddie Jones turned up again. She came to the stand with two drinks, one of which she was just finishing.

"I had an idea after I left you. I thought that if I bought you a drink we might be better friends," she said.

I asked one of the boys to take my instruments up to the cottage and I took the drink and went outside with her. I thought, this dame has hot pants for me, or something...

"There's something I want to talk to you about. And I think it would be a good idea if we went up to the lodge now," she said.

"The lodge?"

"We have a shack about thirty miles from here. There isn't anyone there now."

"There isn't anyone there?"

"Not now. Do you want to drive up with me? It wouldn't take us long."

I hadn't been expecting anything like that. But, surprise or no, there was only on answer. I said it was all right with me and my cock got half-hard again promptly.

"The car's over here," she said.

She was driving a yellow and black Cadillac convertible that really looked like the money. She opened the door and asked me to get in first.

"You'd better drive. I feel a little tight," she said.

I got behind the wheel and worked the car out of there and onto the road that went around the lake.

"That's strange. You knew exactly where the starter was," she said.

"I used to work in a garage. That's how people like me find out those things. Which way?"

"You turn left on the highway and drive until I say stop. That won't be for about twenty-five miles."

She didn't say anything more until we were out on the highway. It was a fine night, and the only traffic consisted of an occasional truck, and it was pretty good to be driving along in a car like that with the top down and a good looking broad in the seat, knowing that you had just come into some easy money. I felt fine. I turned the radio on.

"You're happy, aren't you?" she asked. Questions like that embarrass me. "I think I am. Why shouldn't I be?"

"I was just wishing that I were."

"Well, why aren't you? You just get into a car and start for someplace and there you have it."

"Everything is all right with you. Now that you have a little money you can have fun.

I wish it would be that simple for me."

I decided that right there was where I would begin to take it easy. I didn't want her to get weepy about her troubles and spoil my night. I kept still.

"I'm bored" she said. "I'm bored and sick. I want something to happen to me."

"It just did. You just won a lot of money. That's enough to make me happy. But I have simple tastes."

"That's the trouble. Things happen to me the wrong way. You're happy because you've won a lottery. The same thing can't mean anything to me because I don't need the money. You're happy in thinking about traveling across the country, while I'm dreading starting off to Europe again in a couple of weeks."

She was really busting my balls with that line. The big car purred smoothly along with the tires singing.

"You don't have to go, do you? Will something awful happen if you don't?"

"No. Nothing awful would ever happen to me. That's what I've been thinking about tonight. I'm not going to go on being like this."

"What are you going to do?"

"I've started already by asking you to come up to the lodge. That's the sort of thing I've never done."

"What's the idea?" I said, my prick stiffening to a full hard-on.

"I don't know. I just want something to happen to me. And I've been thinking of something else, too."

I asked her about that, and then she told me about a marvelous idea she had for going into business. But it was a business she couldn't go alone. That was where I came in. Someone she knew had a big country place that they wanted to get rid of because the new highway had cut too close to it, and it was her idea that the place could be converted into a country club that would be something special in the way of country clubs. It was also her idea that we should pool the money we had just won and go into partnership. I didn't think much of the idea at first, but she kept talking about what a grand old house it was and the location and the trade we would get, and after she had talked for about ten minutes without stopping I began to get interested.

And that was the biggest mistake I had made to date.

"How much would all of this cost?" I asked her.

She didn't know about that, but she thought it would cost almost as much as we had coming to us to do it right.

"But we would have the money back in no time," she said.

Then she told me what prices the trade we were going to have would be willing to pay. It sounded to me as though one good week would bring back everything we had to lay out.

We kept talking about it, and then she said to take the next turn to the right and we went down a road for a few miles and then turned off onto one that was smaller and then turned into a little road that was marked private.

She had said that the place was a lodge, and I stopped the car just to look at it. It was finished with split logs, and I suppose that made it all right to call it a lodge, but it seemed big enough to be a hotel.

"We can leave the car right here," she said.

I followed her to the door and she got a handful of keys and we went in.

"I'll fix you a drink," she said.

I needed a drink. My guess, at looking around at the inside of that place, was that my share of the money would just about furnish it.

"Is this where you rough it?" I said, watching her shapely body when she came back with the drink.

"I hope this place hasn't made you afraid of me. I thought we could be alone here. And I'm depending on you, you know," She said.

She was sloshing the drink from side to side in the glass, swaying her shoulders a little with the movement, so that her teats shook slightly—she knew how to give a guy hot nuts.

"This place is empty most of the year, and I've always wanted to bring a man here. I almost did, one time, but I lost my nerve."

I kept looking at her legs. She was a tall girl, and the low chair she was sitting in made them seem very long and graceful.

"I'm a bit tight," she said. "But for what I want to happen, I guess I should be very tight."

"I guess you ought to be. Are you sure that you're not trying to kid me?"

"Why would I want to do that?"

"I don't know. But haven't you ever been jazzed?"

She wasn't used to the word, and she looked shocked.

"You're just as crude and direct as I thought you'd be. It's marvelous."

"Later for that. Have you ever had it?" I asked again.

"I didn't expect to be cross-examined. But I suppose you have a right to know what you're getting. The answer is yes. But I've never heard the term you just used."

"You look as though you'd be good cunt," I said.

She really did, but that wasn't the reason that I said so. I just wanted to see what the word would do to her. It made her blush fiery red.

"Thank you," she said. "Will you have another drink?"

"Bring the things in here. Let's make it convenient," I said.

She brought the bottles and things in on a pewter tray and set them on a kind of coffee table that I finally recognized as an old fashioned cobbler's bench, and when she had fixed two more drinks, I asked her to sit on the couch with me. She finished her drink very quickly and poured herself another.

"I want to get as tight as possible. I'm afraid I'll lose my nerve if I don't. "How about you?"

I told her no. I didn't have any reason to drink much more, and I knew a lot of pretty good reasons for not drinking much more. I put my hand on her leg and squeezed it. The muscles in her leg tensed and she stopped with her glass halfway to her mouth and stared at my hand. I sipped my drink and stroked her leg and she watched that a while and then she relaxed. She laid her head against my shoulders and put one arm around me and rubbed her fingers up and down my side, from my armpit to my hip.

I stroked up her legs, still without going under her dress. I slid my hands across her belly and up to her titties. She was wearing a brassiere that made them feel tight and hard, but I had an idea that without it they would be quite soft, because they were very big.

I looked at her and she did not say anything. I reached behind her and felt for the hook of her bra. I unfastened it through the dress, finding the snaps and opening them by the feel. It must have been very tight, because it popped apart like a broken rubber band, and when I touched her teats again they were hanging very full and loose inside her blouse. They were a luscious pair of breasts.