Chapter Twenty-Two

They were almost too late to get lunch back at the hotel, but not quite. Chris and Rita were just leaving the dining room as they came through the archway.

"Missed you at the beach this morning," Rita said.

"We went exploring," Lynn told her. "And found a fine little bar, without tourists, that's just perfect for morning drinking. And I saw the place where Curt will be living over here. It's a beachcomber's dream."

Rita reacted the way Lynn had known she would: with a long, knowing look.

"I trust you christened it," she said softly, so only Lynn could hear. But Chris heard, and once again, he was the diplomat.

"Like to see the place," be said, all Babbitty heartiness.

"Sure," Curt said. "Any time. But the best time will be the housewarming. I'll be throwing one next week."

"If we're still here," Chris said. "We can only stay for one week. I've got to get. back and work on a campaign for a new account the agency has the hots for. It'll be part of their presentation. You know about presentations."

"I know," Curt said. "But I'm trying to forget."

"See you at the beach?" Rita asked. She glanced at Curt briefly when she said it. Bright and perceptive as she was, Lynn thought, Rita could be pretty obvious. But she didn't mind, now. Fun and games with Rita and Chris would be fine now. She and Curt had a good thing going, a remarkably good thing, and it was completely mutual. She didn't feel that she had anything to lose now, exposing Curt to Rita. Exposing him? She almost laughed out loud. She'd like to see Rita's face, with Curt's equipment exposed to her. She really would.

"Sure, we'll be down at the beach. A little later. We have to eat first."

"Bad habit," Chris said, "but go ahead. We'll see you later." They ambled off, while Curt and Lynn found a table and sat down.

"There's something about that Rita," Curt said, after they'd ordered. "She's very intense. I keep getting vibrations from her, like she's trying to tell me something."

'You know damned well what she's trying to tell you.'

"What?"

"Don't you know?"

"No. I really don't."

"You're putting me on. She has the hots for you, is all. It's as simple as that."

"How do you know that? Did she tell you?"

"She didn't have to tell me."

"Well, that's pretty goddamned flattering, but no thanks. You're all any man in his right mind could ever want."

Lynn liked that. She was quiet for a minute, thinking.

"She's a very attractive girl, Rita," she said finally.

"Very." He agreed too easily. It annoyed her, for just a moment.

"And Chris is a very attractive man," she said. "Not to me, he isn't."

"I'm glad of that."

"What's that supposed to mean? And what are you getting at, anyway?"

"It's not what I'm getting at. It's what they'll be getting at, before long."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"I think Rita and Chris go in for games. Swapping games, and I don't mean horse trading."

"That's interesting," Curt said. "How do you know? Did they talk to you about it?"

"In an oblique sort of way." Oblique. Good God. Curt should know.

It was Curt's turn to be quiet.

"I never got involved in that swapping business," Curt said, after a while. "Not that I have anything against it. But I had a wife with archaic ideas. Brought up in Ohio."

"I imagine they do some swapping in Ohio," Lynn said. "There's probably not an awful lot of other things for people to do there."

"There's something in that."

"Well," Lynn said, "if and when the subject comes up with Chris and Rita, I'll play it by ear. Whatever you want to do, I'll do."

Curt rested his gaze on her for several long, slow heartbeats--it was a level, studying look--before he spoke.

"You're a good girl, Lynn,' he said. "And you know that fun is where you find it. As long as you don't take it seriously, or take it for something else."

"I know," she said. "And above all, never feel guilty."

"You've got the idea," he said.

Chris and Rita appeared to be asleep in the shade of one of the beach umbrellas by the time Curt and Lynn made it to the beach, but they'd had the beach boy set up a pair of extra divans beside them. Curt and Lynn anointed themselves, carefully smearing each other's backs with oil and affection, and stretched out in the dizzying brightness. Chris and Rita had all the shade in that particular spot.

Chris opened one eye.

"Don't you two go to sleep in that sun," he said. "I don't like to see deep-fried friends."

"In about twenty minutes," Curt said, raising one wrist and pointing at his watch, "we're getting out of the sun and going in for a swim. I've set my mental alarm clock."

"I'll stay awake,' Chris said. "In case your clock doesn't work."

"No need. There's no danger of my going to sleep."

"You talk too much . . . all of you," Rita said, opening both eyes. "How's a girl going to get any rest?"

"All you've done is sleep since we got here," Chris said.

"Is that all I've done?" Rita said lazily, looking at him. "Where've you been?"

"I'm going to get us some drinks." Chris rose in sections and walked over toward the roofed-over bar.

"Now you're making sense," Rita said, to his de-parting back.

He came back with four of the tall wine coolers.

"These things are getting to be habit-forming," Lynn said, sitting up and sipping. "Like salted peanuts."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

They switched to rum drinks on the next round, and the rum drinks were habit-forming that afternoon. They all had two more before they went in for a swim, and two more afterward. Lynn could feel the drinks very strongly, but she didn't care. She had a pretty good idea of how they'd all wind up, and she was downright eager for the action.

But it seemed to her to be a long time coming. It was Rita, as she'd known it would be, who broke the ice.

"I've had enough booze in this heat," Rita said, putting her empty glass down in the sand. "Let's all go up to our nice air-conditioned room and do our drinking there."

"Good idea," Chris said, as if he hadn't been nursing the same idea himself, right along.

"Suits me," Curt said. "Lynn?"

"Sure. I've had all the sun I can stand for one day." Casual. Oh boy. She was getting good at this.

Curt collected the empty glasses and took them back to the bar, and they made their way to the Coombs's room, constantly shifting their formation like drunken birds in slow-motion flight.

When they got to the room, Chris went into the big bathroom with its handy service counter. Soon there was the sound of ice dropped into glasses, and Lynn thought it was probably the most heart warming, homey sound she'd ever heard.

It was very cool in the room, after the heat of the beach. Lynn and Curt were sitting in the two arm-chairs, Rita stretched out on one of the double beds, her head propped up against the bunched pillows, when Chris came back into the room with his hands surrounding four tall drinks.

Lynn carefully separated one of the glasses from the cluster and sipped. It was a fairly close approximation of the rum drinks on the beach. Not as good, but it didn't matter. Soon, Lynn was sure, there would be other pleasures to occupy them. Chris stretched out on the empty bed and looked over at Rita. She didn't waste any more time.

"I think I'll take a shower," she said. "Anybody like to join me?"

Slowly, she reached behind her and loosened a zipper down her back, then shrugged. Her straps fell down and her swimsuit slipped to her waist. Her breasts, in, snowy contrast to the rest of her torso, jiggled into view, the tips pouting.

The pink jutting nipples seemed to wink. Toward Curt. He looked over at Lynn, and she smiled a Mona Lisa smile and nodded, ever so slightly.

"I could use a shower," Curt said amiably. "Get some of this salt off me."

He started to get to his feet.

"Me, too," Lynn said, standing up abruptly.

"I'm sure there's room for four," Chris said, swinging his feet to the floor. "It's a pretty big shower space."

It was, too--a big, tiled, oblong space that looked as if the architect simply hadn't known what to do with the area at the end away from the shower.

But it wasn't such a roomy space with the four of them in it, all naked.

The men both had semi-erections, Lynn noticed. Hard-ons at half-mast. But the swelling and lifting process was still going on, and she watched, fascinated, while Rita adjusted the spray.

"Let me soap your back," she said to Curt, holding up a cake of soap, and Curt turned around obediently under the lukewarm stream, bumping into all of them in the process. He couldn't help himself. There really wasn't much room at all, and when Curt and Chris had full erections, Lynn thought insanely, there wouldn't be room even to turn around.

Curt was grinning at her crookedly as Chris stepped out and came back with another cake of soap. He started working his way down Lynn's wet back, soaping with exquisite care.

"Thank you, Chris," she said, and then his soapy hands were cupping her breasts, soaping them too, and she felt her nipples tightening, rising. Some-thing else was rising, too, touching into the crevice of her ass, between the slippery, soapy white mounds. Chris's stiffened prick.

"Why, Chris," she said, over her shoulder. "I didn't know you cared."

He squeezed her slippery breasts with great fondness.

"You know now," he said.

Rita had turned Curt around to soap his chest and belly, and with what seemed like one great pulsing leap, his hard-on was complete. Rita, looking down, stopped her soaping motion.

"Good God in Heaven," she said. "Why girls leave home."

Chris looked, too.

"You're going to ruin everything for me, Curt," he said sadly.

"I've been told it isn't the size," Curt said. "It's the way you use it that counts.'

Neither girl said anything. Rita skipped the entire area of Curt's flat lower belly and started soaping his huge, stiff cock, starting at the head and working her way back.

"I've got plenty of soap on me now," Lynn said to Chris, who was now soaping her inner thighs and the outer lips of her cunt with the most reverent care. The spearhead that kept sliding up between her buttocks made her uneasy. "Let me soap you, now."

She took the slippery cake from his reluctant hands and soaped him quickly, efficiently, saving his proud, erect prick for last, then soaping it with a few swift up-and-down motions of her loosened fist. Chris was rolling his eyes upward when she stopped.

"Rinse time, scouts," Curt said, gently removing his rigid cock from Rita's possession. "Then I think it's everybody-out-of-the-pool time."

They rinsed themselves independently, took towels, and dried quickly, without help. Everybody seemed to be in a hurry all of a sudden, Lynn thought.

They moved out into the room in a cluster, their hands roaming over each other.

"Lie down on your back on the bed, Curt," Rita said. "I'd like to get better acquainted with you, be-fore we do anything rash."

Curt smiled at her, then at Lynn, but he . said nothing as he stretched out on one side of the nearest double bed. Rita pushed his legs apart and knelt between them, then leaned over slowly toward his awesome dork, rigid and immobile except for a small pulse visible at the base.

Lynn watched, transfixed, as Rita opened her mouth wide and took in the top part of the swollen, purple head. She'll have to unhinge her jaws, Lynn thought, like a snake swallowing a frog.

But then the whole head of Curt's cock, as well as part of the shaft, went out of sight in the tall girl's eager, gulping mouth.

"Why don't you come over and get acquainted too, Lynn?" Chris said carelessly, stretching out on the other side of the wide bed.

The "get acquainted" .got to Rita's ears, busy as she was. She raised her head and used her mouth to utter one word.

"Ho," she said, and bent down again.

Lynn was glad that was all she said. Just one little "ho" didn't have to mean anything to Curt.

Lynn assumed the same position as Rita, between Chris's legs, and leaned forward to take his rigid cock into her mouth, holding it lightly around the base with one hand. As she started to slide her mouth up and down, she felt a hand pressing against her outside hip, and rolled her eyes to see where it came from.

It was Curt's hand. He had moved around on the bed, his head toward her, and was urging her to move her lower body toward his mouth.

She let her knees walk her around and lay on her side, her upper leg raised, without interrupting her mouth's activity with Chris.

Curt's head cushioned itself on her lower thigh, and his tongue sought her cunt, first tenderly, then insistently. Aah. Now. It was doubly exciting, having Curt licking and sucking her cunt while she had Chris's thrusting cock between her own lips, responding to her own busy tongue, her sucking mouth.

She felt the mattress sink, as Rita made a major adjustment. Lynn rolled her eyes again, in time to see Rita making a slow descent with her hips. Curt's hard thrusting cock disappeared, completely now, in the open pink mouth of Rita's cunt, framed by damp dark hair.

Lynn shifted her gaze to Chris's face. He had his hands behind his head and was watching the whole scene with an expression of serene contentment. Lynn speeded up her fluttering tongue; her mouth resumed its sucking, with new enthusiasm.

Beside her, the mattress began to bounce wildly, as Rita's joyride on Curt's cock took on a manic violence.

"Too much," she was gasping. "Too much."

But judging from the sounds, Lynn thought, it wasn't too much at all. Only seconds later, Rita reached her climax, shuddering and moaning, and apparently the sight did something to Chris. He came, too, his warm juices spurting into Lynn's throat.

After a long moment, she took her mouth away, and looked up at Curt. His tongue made one last loving trip along her slit, and he raised his head and smiled at her, a wide wet shining smile.

"Come over here, dear," he said, and she got to her knees and straddled his still-stiff cock. Rita-had moved drunkenly to a chair and sprawled out, her heels on the carpet, her eyes closed.

Lynn let herself down and welcomed Curt's huge hard dork into the tight, warm, slippery embrace of her steaming cunt. She felt whole, entire, complete.

"Oooh," she said, to cover her emotion. "Rita has the right idea. I like it this way."

"It's a good way,, " Curt said, pumping his cock upward. "But there are other good ways."

"Shall we practice," she asked, starting her up-and-down horse-riding motion, "the other ways?"

"Day and night," he said.

She. thought she'd never heard such a good idea. By the time she reached her shuddering, pounding orgasm, she'd forgotten that there was anyone else in the room.

So had Curt.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

In the morning, on her way through the lobby after having breakfast alone, Lynn remembered her volunteer chore for the hotel manager, Rico Clemente. She changed course, and tapped lightly on his door.

When he opened it for her, she noticed right away that his appearance contrasted sharply with the way he'd looked yesterday, when he'd been more formally dressed in a suit with a white shirt and .a subdued tie. Yesterday he'd looked very much like a hotel manager, an exceptionally good-looking hotel manager. Today he was wearing a black knit sport shirt, open at the neck, and he just looked like a very attractive man, never mind hotel manager. Even his tan looked deeper.

He smiled broadly as she entered the little office, and his eyes held hers.

"I'm delighted to see you," he said. 'Even if you don't feel like giving me a drop of help with my English."

A "drop" of help, she thought, smiling, but not laughing at him. Maybe he did need a little help with his English. With his colloquial American, any-way.

"I'm glad to be able to give you any help I can," she said. "I can't just lie on a beach all day long."

As if all she'd been doing was lying on a beach. Rico Clemente should know what went on in his hotel. But then, he probably did. He was over seven.

She looked at him closely, at the trim waist, the unlined, somewhat craggy face. About Curt's age, she decided. Curt was thirty-four.

"I have just one letter to get out today," he said. "One letter in English, that is. The others are easy. There is the typewriter."

It was a big, standard American machine, not electric, she was glad to see.

"Do you work as a secretary?" he asked as she set herself in a chair in front of the typewriter.

"No. I'm a librarian, or was."

"The good Lord sent you," he said, with some-thing like reverence. "You've come to the right place."

He handed her the letter to be answered, and told her what he wanted to say. She was finished in ten minutes, but found that she was in no hurry to leave.

They talked, in a random sort of way, for more than half an hour. He was manifestly a lonely man, handsome as he was and surrounded though he was by people.

"They come and they go," he said sadly. "You get to know them a little, and to like them, and then they go. And you never see them again."

She found out quite a lot about him, in the short time that first morning. He'd been managing the hotel for a year, since his wife had died in childbirth.

"Will you have lunch with me?" he asked, as she was leaving.

"Why," she hesitated, "yes, I'd love to."

She hadn't made any specific date with Curt, or with anyone else.

There was plenty of time for Curt, later. After dark. Especially after dark.

Curt came into the dining room while they were having lunch, and started toward the table when he saw her, then stopped when he saw Rico Clemente. Rico saw her looking and turned his head.

"A friend of yours?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Please ask him over."

Curt came to the table when she smiled and motioned to him. Rico stood, and the men shook hands as she introduced them.

"Won't you join us?" Rico asked.

"Thanks, I can't today," Curt said. "I promised some friends. .

He smiled and left, and she saw him sitting down a moment later at a table with Larry and the three girls from the original breakfast.

But later, at the beach, Curt showed no sign of pique at her having had lunch with Rico Clemente. She brought up the subject herself, just to clear the air.

"He's a nice man, that hotel manager," she said, while Curt was devoting himself to his agreeable chore of smearing her back with suntan oil. "Also, he's a very lonely man."

"So am I," Curt said.

"So are you what? A nice man or a lonely man?"

"Both. Haven't you noticed?"

'Nice, yes," she said, twisting her head around to look at him. "But lonely? Hah."

"I am, though. Or will be, I'm afraid. I've been thinking about it lately. For a long time, I thought it would be impossible for me ever to be lonely, and then gradually I began to believe, even if I ever were, so what? Loneliness ' is the human condition. But right now, I'm not so sure I can always be philosophical about it. Not at night, in that desolate cottage, with the sound of waves on the beach. Days, it won't be bad. I'll be working. But the nights may be something else."

He was through with her back, and she rolled over and looked at him for a long moment. But she didn't say anything. She knew she was thinking the same thing he was thinking, but she'd die before she'd articulate the thought. Let him, if he wanted to.

But Curt didn't say anything, either. He got up and came back with two drinks instead.

Booze seemed to fill a lot of pregnant silences over here, Lynn thought Sometimes it was a good thing. Sometimes not.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Three days later, on the morning of the day he was to move to his cottage, Curt tapped on the door to Rico Clemente's office, casually opening it as he knocked.

Usually, his actions would not have been any breach of manners. But on this particular morning, when he casually pushed open the door, Curt opened it on the middle of a tender love scene. The hotel manager was kissing Lynn for the first time.

Lynn had thought Curt unflappable, but his embarrassment at that moment was so acute, it embarrassed Lynn.

"I beg your pardon," he said, and backed out woodenly, carefully closing the door behind him.

The kiss itself had been as big a surprise to Lynn as the opening door. Nervously, she tried to be cool about it "Beautiful piece of timing that was," she said, not looking at Rico.

"Do not let that unfortunate intrusion disturb you," he said. He was holding her shoulders and looking into her face. She had to look back at--him, into the warm Spanish eyes. "I want you to marry me."

Lynn backed away from him and sat down abruptly, in the armless swivel chair by the typewriter. This was a little harder to play cool, but she tried.

"Things seem to happen very fast in this sunny climate," she said.

"What kind of an answer is that?" Rico's colloquial English was getting better already.

"It's so . . . sudden."

"Not so sudden for me. I've been thinking about it since the first time I talked to you."

"I just don't know what to say," Lynn said, feeling foolish. "I have to pull myself together. I have to think." She got to her feet, a little shakily, and Rico put his arms around her tenderly, and kissed her on the forehead.

"Of course you do," he said, and led her to the door, his arm around her shoulders. "Will I see you tomorrow morning?"

"At the latest," she said, and managed a smile be-fore she got up on her toes and kissed him swiftly on the mouth.

She was out the door before he could make an-other move.

She headed straight for the beach, but Curt wasn't there. Neither were Chris or Rita. Larry was there, with the holy trinity from Boston, and a couple of other men.

"Get your clothes off and join us," Larry said. "You ought to spread yourself around more, distribute the riches of your presence."

"Maybe later," she said, and headed for her room. She didn't feel much like making bad jokes with Larry.

Back in her room, she busied herself washing out a few things, then tried writing a few letters, but they didn't come out very well, and she decided against mailing them. Her mind kept jumping around. She tried to read out on the balcony, but that wasn't any good either. By then it was time for lunch.

She entered the big dining room eagerly, sweeping the room with her gaze, looking for Curt, but he wasn't there.

"Over here," Larry said, from a big table in a corner of the room. He had the same group around him that he'd had at the beach. She went over and sat down with them. It was better than eating alone. And if Curt did come, he'd settle at this table.

"Curt checked out half an hour ago," Larry said. "Took his luggage over to the cottage he rented."

"Did he say anything about swimming this after-noon?" Lynn asked, knowing she was giving herself away to this group, and not caring.

"No. He said something about looking for a piano this afternoon. Where would you go to look for a piano in the south of Spain?"

"In a whorehouse?" one of the girls suggested. "That's the classic place to find a piano."

"A whorehouse in Fuengirola would go out of business in a week," Larry said. "My Cod, talk about coals to Newcastle."

"Oh, shut up," the girl said.

Lynn got through lunch somehow.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

She spent the afternoon on the beach with Rita and Chris, not drinking at all, talking very little, and thinking a great deal. Late in the atfernoon when they went up to their room and Chris suggested that she join them, she declined with thanlrs, but agreed to meet them for dinner. There had been no sign of Curt.

There was no sign of him at dinner, either. Rita found it impossible to contain her curiosity any longer. 'Where has your piano-laying friend been all day?" she asked. "He seemed so devoted to you."

"Looking for a piano," Lynn said. 'lie's just moved into his cottage. Checked out of the hotel this morning!'

'What does he need a piano for?'" Chris asked. "He's got that great big upright organ."

"Oh, stop it, Chris," Rita said. She sensed that Lynn was in no mood for bad jokes, and she was right. Lynn was grateful to her. She felt at that moment that Rita and Chris were the only friends she had in the world.

"I'll tell you what's wrong," Lynn said. She had to confide in somebody, and Rita would understand. "You know about my helping the hotel manager with his letter writing? Well, Curt happened to walk into the office this morning just when Rico Clemente was kissing me."

"That's all?" Chris said, looking stunned.

"That's all."

"I'll be a son of a bitch. He saw you doing a lot more worthwhile things with me and he didn't seem to mind at all."

"Shut up," Rita said. "That's different."

"It's something else, all right," Lynn agreed. "I thought of that, too, Chris. This must have looked sort of wholesome, in a sneaky sort of way, and Curt apparently can't stand that."

"Being sneaky, you mean?" Chris asked.

"No," Lynn said. "Wholesome."

"He's just jealous, is all," Rita said. "He'll get over it. But there's no sense losing any sleep over it, like a kid. Just take the bull by the horns, is my motto. That bull, anyway. He's worth taking by the horn." Lynn looked at Chris, but he didn't notice that Rita had dropped the 's'.

"How?"

"Go see him. Tonight. Right after dinner."

"Show us the way," Chris said, "and we'll drive you over."

Lynn hesitated, but only for a moment. "All right," she said. "Maybe it's a good idea."

"I know it's a good idea," Rita said.

"You women," Chris said, shaking his bead. "The poor horny son of a bitch hasn't got a chance."

They let her out of the car where the road passed within two hundred feet of the cottage, and she walked over a couple of sandy rises, her feet sinking soundlessly in the sand. She lost sight of the rear of the cottage, then regained it again. As she rounded the front and stepped up on the porch to knock, she had a chilling thought. Suppose he had a woman with him? just out of spite?

But it was too late to go back. He was opening the door.

"Did you find a piano?" she asked. It was the first thing that popped into her mind.

"I looked at one," he said, opening the door wide for her, but not smiling. "It had about six dead keys and hadn't been tuned in twenty years. I wouldn't play it at a Lions' Club picnic."

She stepped inside. No one else was there.

"Is that the only available piano in the south of Spain?"

"I've got two more to look at around here."

"You could try Malaga. More people there, and probably more pianos."

"That'll be my next move, I guess. Why don't you sit down?" She was standing stiffly in the middle of the room. "Would you like a drink?"

"Yes," she said, and sat.

Curt was back in--a minute, carrying two tall Scotches. He handed one to her without speaking.

"I didn't really come here to talk about pianos," Lynn said, sipping.

"I know that."

"I want to know why you're angry."

"Who says I'm angry?"

"Come off it."

"All right, I'm angry."

"But why?"

"It shook me up, seeing you kissing that big Spaniard."

"He was kissing me."

"You weren't putting up much of a fight."

"He took me by surprise.'

"Sure, he did."

"Well, what's so wrong about letting a man kiss me? He's very nice, and quite proper. He was kissing me out of gratitude."

"That's a good name for it," Curt said.

"What's got you so shook up? You saw me doing a lot more than kiss someone while you were living it up with Rita, and you didn't seem to mind one damned bit."

"That's different," Out said. "Excuse me a minute. I was drinking a lot of beer earlier."

He turned and went through the open door into the bedroom, whch led to the bathroom. She followed him through the door and sat down on the edge of the bed.

The door to the bathroom was ajar. She heard the sound of the seat bumping back against the flush box, then a strong sibilant sound of a thin stream of water running under pressure into still water. Sounded to Lynn exactly like her stepfather's pissing, when he was in too much of a hurry to be polite and aim for the sides of the toilet bowl.

"What's so different?" Lynn asked, talking loudly enough to be heard over the liquid static.

"He's so goddamned respectable, that hotel manager," Curt said loudly. Angrily. "It's sneaky. Slimy. Underhanded."

Lynn's hands moved very fast as she took things off.

"Its not underhanded at all," she said. "He asked me to marry him."

"What?"

Curt's voice was close to a scream.

"You heard me."

"The son of a bitch."

The toilet seat slammed down, water flushed into the bowl "How could anybody be so underhanded? Don't you see how sneaky he is? The slimy bastard has honorable intentions, for Christ's sake."

When he came back into the bedroom his shouting stopped. Abruptly. Lynn was lying on her back on the bed, stark naked, her head propped against the pillows, her knees elevated and apart.

She let one knee swing back and forth slowly, opening and closing the pink furred lips of her for-giving pussy. She hoped it appeared to be smiling at him.

"Shut up," she said.

"I'm all shut up," he said, in a choked whisper. He was almost as fast as Lynn had been, getting out of his clothes.

Moments later, as what Chris had called 'that great big upright organ' slid deep inside her and she was humping her hips to take it all in, she had one more thing to say.

"Let's not talk about it again, ever," Lynn said.

"Not ever," Curt said, with the tip of his tongue in her ear and his cock sliding deep in her cunt. 'Who needs talking, anyway?'

They did very little talking that night.

Lynn thought it was the greatest night she'd ever known.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It was bright morning when Curt drove her back to the hotel, but not yet hot. The breeze was strong, and white wisps of clouds scudded across the deep blue sky.

He didn't drive her to the lobby entrance, but in-stead took a driveway that led to the wing where Lynn had her room. No matter what he'd said about Rico Clemente, Curt evidently had considerations for his feelings. He didn't want to wound the man. .

"It's silly, your staying on at the hotel," Curt said, "when I have all that room. That big bed. Just being practical, think of the expense of the hotel"

"Just being practical," Lynn said, getting out of the Seat, "the hotel manager said there would be no bill for me, on account of my invaluable services with his correspondence."

"Oh, shit," Curt said. "The evil, sneaky bastard."

'I said I wouldn't think of it, and he said, how was I going to pay a bill if I didn't get one? So what am I supposed to do?'

"You could stop helping him with his English."

"I hadn't thought of that."

"Listen, hon," Curt said, reaching for her hand. 'Come stay with me. Let's just play it by ear for a while.'

Lynn disengaged her hand.

"I have to think awhile," she said.

"All right. My housewarming's tonight. Tell Chris and Rita"

"I'll do that." She waved two fingers and turned and walked toward the ramp leading to the walk-way to her room, hearing Curt's rented Seat bumping away over the gravel.

Chris and Rita were on their way to breakfast when she got to her door.

"You've had breakfast so early?" Chris asked. Rita looked sideways at him, then back at Lynn. She was pressing her lips together to suppress a smile.

"Yes," Lynn said. "Just coming back."

"See you at the beach?' Rita asked.

"Certainly. Oh, Curt's housewarming is tonight. He wanted me to tell you."

"That's too bad," Chris said. "We have to leave to-day. Four-thirty plane out of Malaga'

'That's a shame," Lynn said. "I'd forgotten it was so soon. Can I drive you out, in your car? I'll return it to the rental place afterward."

"That would be wonderful," Rita said.

Lynn opened her door and stretched out on the bed. She hadn't slept much during the night. There had been too much else to do.

After she awoke there was time for a fast swim and a fast drink at the beach with Rita and Chris. After lunching with them, she knocked on Rico's office door, but there was no answer.

"He went to Malaga today," the girl behind the desk told her. "Some kind of business for the hotel."

She asked the girl for paper and an envelope, and wrote him a note.

Dear Rico, Stopped by your office after lunch instead of the usual time, heard that duty calls you else-where. I'll be busy tonight, but see you tomorrow. Still stunned, but trying hard to think.

Lynn.

She sealed the envelope and slipped it under his office door, first trying the knob to make sure it was locked. How noncommittal can you get, she wondered. Oh, well. Something about Spain made you casual about practically everything. The opposite pole from uptight Vermont.

On the way out to the airport in Malaga, Chris drove. Lynn had a sudden thought. Any time she felt anywhere near as good as she felt now, she was full of sudden ideas. Some of them were good ideas.

"When I. take your car back to the rental place,' she said, "I think I'll transfer the rental to my name and keep it for a few days."

"What are you going to do about your two men?" Rita asked, looking at her sideways.

'I don't know yet." It was none of Rita's business, anyway.

"String them both along?"

"I just don't know.'

"Well," Rita said. "It looks like nice stringing." Chris sighed, very audibly.

"What's wrong with your Rita asked him.

"I was just thinking of the cab ride to Fuengirola from Malaga. This is so different"

"Haven't you had enough fucking for a while?'

"I'm well rested," Chris said. "If you girls would like to, we could stop in some deserted, picturesque spot, for a sort of farewell.... " He took his foot off the accelerator.

"You're out of your gourd," Lynn said.

"Yes,' Rita said. "Shame on you.'

"It was worth a try."

He put his foot back on the accelerator. "I'm going to miss you both,' Lynn said. She would, too. Not that she'd be lonely. Not for a minute.

"Will you visit us?' Rita asked, "whenever you're in New York?"

"Absolutely,' Lynn said. "Whether I'm alone or otherwise.'

"We'll keep a candle in the window.'

Chris grinned cheerfully.

So did Rita.