Chapter 18
Gwen came in a moment later with the tea tray. "Isn't this fun?" she said, dimpling with pleasure. "It's real Chinese tea, and I even have a special set of tea-cups for it. See Mother, aren't they nice-they were on sale at Mimby's."
She put the dray down on the coffee-table. Lily picked up one of the fragile pink cups, without a handle, and turned it over in her fingers.
"But these are really lovely, Gwen dear," she said. "You can almost see through them-undoubtedly a good china. When was the sale-is it over?"
"I don't know," responded her daughter. "I got them last week, but it might still be on. We could go down tomorrow and see, if you like."
"Yes, let's do that, by all means, dear. Now, shall I pour?"
Hippies were sometimes amazingly like real people, mused Lageule to himself, as he struggled to glance his fragile, handleless cup on his knobby-knead lap. Then Gwen passed around napkins and cookies, and he had such difficulty maneuvering all three items that he gave up thinking altogether for a time.
"No, it was sort of a Burmese silk, I think-or maybe from Thailand ... " Lily was saying, her forehead wrinkled up in intense concentration.
"You mean the drapes, or the bedspread-or both?" queried her daughter, and there followed a prolonged and serious discussion of the drapes and spread in question.
Lageule let his mind wander. Time had stood still for so long now that he had no idea of what day it was, let alone what hour of the day-or night.
He carefully put his cup, napkin, and half-eaten cookie down on the coffee-table, and went to look out the window. It was dark, but there was a faint bluish tinge to the sky. Early dawn? He wondered idly about work tomorrow-today? He was supposed to be on the job at seven. Should he bother to phone in sick?
Did they have phones in Hippie pads? He certainly couldn't be bothered to go outside to a pay booth.
He knew only one thing for certain-he could not possibly go to work at seven-perhaps he could never go to work again. He was suffused with a lazy contentment, he was bound in a spell of lassitude, and it was the most glorious feeling of contentment that he had ever experienced. It was too precious to lose-it would spoil everything to leave now, and go to work! Besides, visions of a marvelous, never-before-experienced orgy of the flesh with mother and daughter together were carousing through his head. He certainly wasn't about to miss that!
He wondered vaguely if Gwen could get him a job at her boutique, if he quit the force for good ... the guys on the force would laugh at him, of course ... still, they had no idea of what Hippies were really like....
He smiled to himself at the thought of what Hippies were really like; and then, sighing and stretching contentedly, he turned over the record, re-crossed the room, and finished his cookie. He finished up his cup of tea, shaking his head at Lily's gesture toward the pot.
"And as for Gernreheim, I don't know, I think his styles rather appalling, don't you?" Lily was saying earnestly to her daughter.
Lageule chuckled indulgently-so like women! But you could put up with their frivolities, he decided, when they had so much else to offer!
Lily, at his chuckle, interrupted herself. Turning to Lageule, she said politely, "You must excuse us, Young Man-I mean Henri-but you see my daughter and I see so little of one another, really ... "
She turned back to Gwen. "Now, as for Cardovan, that's another story altogether."
And then they were in rapt conversation again.
Henri Lageule stretched again, lazily and contentedly.
He had a right to be tired, he thought happily, mentally patting himself on the back, he had had a pretty busy time of it in the last few hours!
He wandered around, idly fingering objects, studying the loud op-art posters until he felt slightly dizzy, and then finally stretched himself, in virile Gallic fashion, on his back on a mattress that lay on the floor in a corner. He was conscious of his hairy, well-muscled chest, of his long, limber legs, and the provocative length of his cock, resting loosely on his manly thighs, with the twin sacs of his balls sprawled comfortably beside it ... Give them something to look at when they're finished talking, he thought happily to himself as he drifted off to sleep.