Chapter 3
Shortly after dawn, as the blood-red ball of June sun was breaking through the scarlet and magenta cloudbank hovering on the horizon, Mrs. Denise Aronson awakened with a start. For a moment or two she lay staring through her bedroom window at the crimson sunrise streaked away into a glaring expanse of cobalt-blue sky, wondering why she felt a gnawing sense of guilt in the pit of her belly on a sunny Monday when she had a million things to do. Why this lingering inertia, this vague unease and irritable dissatisfaction...?
"Red sky at morning, Sailors take warning. Red sky at night, Sailors delight."
Her grandfather, Aage Aronson, who'd built this frame farmhouse where she now lived with her daughters, had sworn by the old sailors' saying, and Gramps had been a shrewd old fellow who knew what he was talking about or kept quiet. Denise didn't doubt that there'd be a summer storm before the day was out, but that certainly didn't begin to explain her peculiar mood. For all she cared it could pour down cats and dogs all day long; she'd no intention of gadding around in one of those imagine pleasure-boats the summer folks kept moored in Charlevoix and Horton Bay and right here in Birch Bay-she was a working woman and the draft for her next Female and Free article was due before the end of the week.
"Must just be a dream that's giving me this funny feeling," she concluded, and hopped out of bed. "Nothing worth wasting valuable time lying around in bed worrying..."
But when she was vigorously soaping her ripely feminine figure in the shower, the touch of the terry-cloth washcloth against her rose-tipped breasts and sparsely curling pussy "vee" ignited a humiliating flood of memories. Oh, God. She'd been weak again and let her flesh overpower her intellect. . . and the worst of it was that masturbation generally left her feeling almost more frustrated and tense than before.
"No use brooding about curdled milk-make it into cottage cheese, instead."
That had been another of Gramps' axioms, one which the young divorcee considered very wise indeed.
Action was the best cure for the blues, and moody, fretful females only gave their sex a bad name. Denise had been raised by her Danish-born grandparent and was always pleased when people said she took after him, for he'd been a strong man who could do many things and do them well.
Strong, really masculine men like that were few and far between, she reflected as she whistled to the golden retrievers, Carlos and Conchita and took them for a brisk walk through the dew-dampened fields surrounding their out-of-town house. The exercise made her feel more like herself, and as she weeded her biodynamic vegetable beds before breakfast she decided that she wouldn't expend energy in worrying about men when she had so many things to do.
Her mother was sipping black coffee and distractedly staring at a few scribbles on a pad of lined yellow legal-size paper when her daughter entered the kitchen about an hour later, and the girl sighed with relief to see her working. When Mom was in the midst of writing, she wasn't-likely to ask how late she'd come in last night; or notice the embarrassing red mark which Robbie's over-ardent kisses had left on her slender neck, the circles under her eyes, the scratch on her thigh from the rocks.
"Morning, darling," Denise mumbled to her eldest daughter without looking up from her notepad. "Sleep well?"
"Um-hmm." But how to explain those dark circles, or the way she was sure to yawn over the supper table after a day of job hunting? "Except it was awfully hot, and this darn mosquito kept buzzing 'round my pillow and waking me up."
The pretty blonde plopped down on the bench and helped herself to a brimming mug of coffee from the giant-size thermos which always rested at Mom's elbow while she was working. Usually the teenager preferred juice for breakfast, but after only a few hours of fitful slumber she felt in need of a good dose of caffeine to keep going. No doubt she'd be trudging all around town today to apply at the last few local spots she hadn't tried yet ... and maybe even driving Mom's derelict old Rambler into Charlevoix or Boyne City.
Denise simultaneously poured more black coffee, lit another camel filter, and chewed ferociously on the blue plastic top of her Bic. Somehow her ideas just weren't flowing the way they ought this morning, and she decided that a short break would perhaps refurbish the creative centers of her brain. Laying down her ballpoint, she smiled vaguely across the table at her daughter.
"I know, this dreadful heat wave." At last, a fine excuse for her inability to concentrate on her work ... though unfortunately not the sort of alibi which appealed to the sympathies of editors. "But it'll break after the storm this afternoon."
"Hope so..."
Diverted from her own depression by the listless droop in her daughter's voice, the mother shot her a sharp glance, then frowned slightly as she watched her staring pensively into her steaming cup, nose wrinkling as she swallowed the strong brew. Carefully applied cosmetics and a crisp, ruffled blouse-feminine frivolities which she herself scorned-couldn't quite disguise a wan complexion and slumping shoulders. Something was definitely bothering her little girl.
Little girl? Not any more, Denise thought with a guilty pang. While she'd had her nose buried in a manuscript, her eldest child had suddenly metamorphosed from a clumsy, coltish kid with pigtails and braces into a budding beauty with the body of a young woman.
"You don't look well, dear," she said with uncommon maternal solicitude. "Have something to eat-there's Muslei and yogurt on the table, and fresh strawberries and eggs in the fridge."
Tracey turned to the bowl of homemade yogurt and felt her stomach turn upside-down as a thousand butterflies began swarming inside it. Suddenly her naked thighs were once again spattered with thick, cream-white sperm, and she was seeing Mimi Sweeney's cheeks contorting in obscene greed as she gulped down her boyfriend's spurting seed. Two burning spots of scarlet flamed on her cheeks.
"I-I'm not very hungry this morning."
"But you know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that if you don't eat now you'll get hungry later and grab some commercial trash with no nutritional value." Why were the girl's eyes sparkling in that odd way? For some reason that she couldn't quite put her finger on, Mrs. Aronson felt uneasy. "Are you sure you're feeling all right? Not brooding about that Bobbie boy going off for the summer, I hope?"
"Robbie. No, Mom. Just worried about finding a summer job, I guess." Then, to avoid further argument, she added, "And I suppose you're right about breakfast-I'll boil myself an egg."
Thank goodness she'd not put on Robbie Runions' class ring-it was much too big, she needed to put some wax inside it or something-for that would surely have been another subject of controversy. Why did Mom always have to be so smug, so certain that her opinions were the only right ones?
Denise watched her pretty eldest daughter trudge lackadaisically toward the stove, and her frown deepened as she noted the short skirt, smoothly waxed legs, and trendy wedge heel espadrilles. It was a source of constant amazement to her that both her offspring were so-so conventional, so different from herself.
"What sort of job are you looking into today," she inquired sarcastically. "Modeling work, maybe? That's certainly the way you're dressed. Honestly, Tracey. All that make up, and shoes you can't possibly walk in, and that silly scarf around your neck on a sweltering day like this. Any employer worth working for is interested in your qualifications and abilities-not your appearance."
The sixteen year-old almost dropped her egg as irritation temporarily dispersed the persistent memory of last night's forbidden escapades, but then she bit her lip and silently counted to ten. By nature she was docile and peace-loving, and it always seemed easier to keep out of arguments with her strong-willed parent. However, lately the continual criticism of her clothes and hairdos and makeup was grating on her nerves, and she often was tempted to snap at Mom, saying that she'd look years younger and prettier if she took as much interest in beauty hints in Glamour as she did in her dull Female and Free Magazine.
But what was the use? Mom wouldn't so much as dream of wasting time and money on her appearance. Too bad, because she could be a far more attractive woman than most of her friend's fat, blowsy mothers.
"First I'm going back to Peerless Department Store to see about the job I applied for in the accounts department," she said. "But I don't have my hopes up, 'cause Candie Wolfe applied, too, and her aunt works there. That leaves nothing but the Dog 'n Suds-so could I borrow the Rambler to drive out to Harbor
Point or Charlevoix?"
"Take it. I'm working all day, anyway. But what about that 'help wanted' sign in the window of the new boathouse? There's a job where you'd learn while you earn, and get some healthy exercise, too."
"No go. I tried there Saturday, soon as I saw the sign. I'm kind of sorry-it'd be nice to work outside instead of in a hot stuffy office or a smelly restaurant full of noisy summer people."
"I should think so. What was the matter-had Ted Comfort found someone already?"
"No. But he said he was only interested in hiring a guy."
"WHAT? Did you tell him you've grown up around boats and certainly know as much about them as any boy in town? What did he have to say to that?"
"Well..." The teenager looked uncomfortable and toyed with her egg, meticulously removing the shell and sprinkling on salt grain by grain to postpone meeting her mother's flashing eyes. "Well, I really didn't get a chance to talk to him. He sort of, uh, slammed the door in my face."
"Of all the nerve. How dare he," sputtered Denise furiously. "Well, he was a stuck-up bully, even when he was a kid-he grew up in my neighborhood before he ran away to sea, you know."
". . . ran away to sea?" Tracey tried to divert her mother's attention before she really got on the warpath, but her ploy went unnoticed.
"Hey, b-boss?"
The tall man behind the desk swiveled his leonine head to glower at the boy who'd barged into Bay Boat Works, Inc.'s small showroom, then drained the rest of his second glass of Alka-Seltzer. In his thirty-eight years Ted Comfort had survived many a Monday morning hangover, but this one was a real winner and he was not in any mood for Toby Turetsky, the stupider and uglier of his two deckhands.
"What's the matter now, Toby? I thought I told you guys to get to work on Colin Highsmith's speedboat and not bug me while I'm going over these damn accounts."
When Toby got excited his chinless, flabby-jowled face twitched and he stuttered. "B-boss, there's someone to s-see ya. A lady."
"Well, tell her to come back tomorrow or something. I'm busy right now. You get the hell out of here, too, and don't come back till you and Rufus have that motor out. Got that?"
Turetsky's gangly bulk vanished, only to reappear seconds later with an even more sheepish expression on his face beneath the greasy strings of long dun-colored hair. "She w-won't go 'way, boss. They, I mean. I mean, there's two of 'em."
"What's the bitch's name?" He slammed the accounting pad back into his drawer with a bang, deciding that if it were some ex-girlfriend he'd cure his hangover with a quick screw. Down in the stateroom of the senior Colin Highsmith's Motor Yacht would be an appropriate seduction setting, and borrowing the king-sized master bed seemed justifiable in view of the fact that his pounding head and queasy stomach were the direct result of an evening entertaining his new clients. He'd already noted the built-in bar ... the stereo and speakers installed in the headboard ... the springy mattress and-
"Aronson, she s-said her name was," Toby's stutter shattered the boathouse owner's erotic reverie. "D-Denise Aronson."
Denise Aronson? It rang a bell, but he couldn't attach a face or body to the nametag. But what the hell difference did it make, really? He'd been around the world twice and lived and loved in all its important ports, and it was his unqualified opinion that all broads were the same: tell them they're beautiful and that you love them, and their cunts start creaming and their thighs open wide for you. Only thing was to be sure not to get hooked into marrying one of them, for after the honeymoon they abruptly became frigid, nagging bitches. At the age of twenty-two he'd made that mistake, but he'd been smart enough to get out of that ball-breaking domestic dungeon in a hurry, and had no intention of falling into the same trap twice.
"Missus Aronson 'n her friend are two d-damn sexy chicks, boss..."
Comfort's ruggedly handsome face relaxed into a grin. Already, his hangover was drastically improved. "Okay, kid. Go tell them to come on in here."
A threesome, perhaps? Fine with him. It had been ages since he'd enjoyed the supreme pleasure of fucking two beautiful girls simultaneously, for Midwestern women had a tendancy to label anything except the missionary position "perverted". Things had been far more loose over in Europe, he reflected dreamily, remembering a beach orgy in Saint Tropez ... a midnight sun party outside Stockholm...
Aronson sounded like a Scandinavian name. Could this possibly be the long-legged girl with flaxen pigtails who'd drunk so much Aquavit at the crayfish-eating orgy that she'd poured a glass of the potent stuff right down inside her pussy and invited him to lap it up? His testicles tingled at the very memory of that amazing night. He'd thought that blonde honey-pot had been called Inga-Lisa, but he'd consumed so much
Aquavit himself that he couldn't be sure of much of anything. "Mr. Comfort?"
A tall, full-bodied young woman strode toward him, her attractive features overpowered by a thundercloud of rage and her ripe curves hidden by jeans and a loose-fitting Mexican peasant blouse. She wasn't blonde, and in no other way, shape or form bore resemblance to the Swedish girl he'd been daydreaming about. In fact, her strident tone reminded him, so much of a commanding officer that he couldn't help smiling.
"Aye, aye, sir," he said, saluting smartly.
"Very funny, Mr. Comfort. Very funny, indeed."
There had always been two sorts of women Tom loathed: whiney, helpless females with medicine cabinets crammed full of pills for every conceivable imagined illness and perfumed lap-dogs which they paraded on rhinestone leashes-like his mother; and frozen, fortune-hunting bitches-like his ex-wife. Lately a third type had been added to his lust, the ardent and aggressive Women's Liberation advocate who denied her femininity and considered all members of the opposite sex enemies. The woman standing arms akimbo before him was a perfect example of this third category of undesirable dames, and his hangover reappeared as abruptly as it had vanished. Potential client or not, he wasn't about to let this obnoxious intruder get the upper hand.
"Yeah," he shrugged nonchalantly, and ran undressing eyes up and down her statuesque figure in a way that was calculated to antagonize her. "People always said I had one helluva good sense of humor."
"Well, perhaps you'll stop laughing long enough to listen to what I have to tell you, Mr. Comfort."
"You've got something to tell me, Mrs. Aronson? Go on, tell, 'cause I've got a lot of work to do this morning."
"Ms. Aronson, please." Denise squared her shoulders, an action which had the unintended result of jutting her ripe cantaloupe breasts against the thin cotton of her smock-style shirt. Comfort's eyes glued themselves to" the taut little tips of her nipples, correctly concluding that she wore no brassiere.
"Oh, what the hell, a foul ball's a foul ball, no matter what you call it. Go on, speak your piece. I told you I've got important matters to attend to."
"You'll think this is important enough when you find yourself with a lawsuit on your hands, I imagine."
"What the hell--? "
Denise smiled, feeling in control of this conversation at last. "A lawsuit, I said, yes. Uh, I believe my daughter paid you a visit day before yesterday to apply for a job."
Ted blinked blearily as her shapely, but un-manicured and ink-stained hand gestured toward a figure behind her whom he'd not noticed before. Oh yeah, that cute chick in the mini-skirt-he remembered now. And he also remembered something else as he stared at the teenager's embarrassment-flushed face.
"Hey, you're Denise Aronson!" he exclaimed.
She glared at him. "I told you my name. Men! You never listen to anything."
"Denise Aronson ... all grown up! Christ, you were a skinny-legged high school freshman last time I saw you. No, wait, that's not so ... I came home for Christmas a few years later, when I was working trawlers on the Great Lakes. You were just about the same age as your cute little gal is now, and we went out dancing, if I remember right."
Denise paled beneath her golden tan. She'd successfully blocked out that embarrassing incident ever since hearing that Comfort had moved back to Michigan, and wasn't at all pleased to have it dragged back up into her consciousness-particularly not in front of innocent her daughter. What a naive ninny she'd been with her ridiculous infatuation for the four year-older neighbor boy!
"We did indeed," she replied in her iciest tone, for the faint smirk on his face told her he was recalling the degrading details of that date quite as vividly as she was. "But I prefer not to dredge up unpleasant memories. As you keep saying, we've got important matters to attend to."
His smile broadened as he surveyed the woman before him and mentally compared her richly mature female curves with the lithe Lolita-like body of the girl he'd come so close to deflowering that long-ago night. Defiantly unprovocative attire could not disguise the fact that she was one of those fortunate women who came into their prime in their thirties. At seventeen she'd been pretty: today, she was sensuous, alluring ... if she'd make a slight effort, she could be beautiful.
"Can't imagine why I didn't recognize you straight off ... you sure don't look much older than back inlet's see, must've been '56. Jeez, you were about the cutest chick in town, with your ponytail and bobby socks and all. Weren't you the Apple Harvest Princess one year?"
"No-you're thinking of the Regatta Mascot Crown Contest. But I didn't come here to chat about that old nonsense, Mr. Comfort-and I warn you, flattery will get you nowhere. This matter of sex discrimination in hiring policies is a very serious-"
"Aww, Denni, c'mon down off your high horse." The boat yard owner rose from behind his desk, displaying six-foot-two of solid, sun-bronzed muscle, to set up two folding chairs. "Sit down, girls. Great to see you again after all these years! But what's this Mr. Comfort shit! Seems to me that after we've played kick-the-can together-not to mention kissy-face-we ought to be on a first name basis."
The mother glared down at the metal folding chairs. "No, thanks. I prefer to stand, since this'll only take a minute. Anyway, I'm no fragile flower-if I want a chair, I can fetch one for myself."
Finally her aggressiveness was getting to Ted Comfort, and he, too, started to lose his temper. He tried to control himself, though, for the memory of that long-ago date, Mrs. Aronson's voluptuous figure, and the paucity of plausible female partners in this neck of the woods had made him determined to start an intrigue with her.
"I always say there's nothing like old friends," he grinned. "Would've looked you up when I first moved back here, but I'd heard all that talk about you running off with some artist fellow, so I figured you'd be living in New York or 'Frisco or Europe. You divorced?"
"It so happens I am, but what's it to you?" Her voice fairly crackled with fury-there was nothing more infuriating than being in the mood for a good fight and finding your opponent determinedly cheerful and friendly. "Now, as far as my Tracey's qualifications for your job as a deckhand..."
Throughout this interchange Tracey remained silent and inconspicuous behind her mother. The new high hells had begun pinching her feet, and she stole glances at the empty folding chairs out of the corners of wide fawn's eyes as she shifted her weight from one shapely leg to the other. Well, Mom had been right about the shoes, maybe, but the rude way she was treating nice Mr. Comfort certainly wasn't right, and she was so uncomfortable at being the cause of all this trouble that she was momentarily tempted to bolt out the showroom door. There were, however, certain interesting aspects of the adults' conversation which she didn't want to miss.
Who would ever have guessed that Mother, authoress of a damning invective entitled, "Ban the Barbarous Beauty Contest" had once won the annual Regatta Mascot Contest? Wearing the Mascot Garland was the supreme honor a girl could achieve here in Birch Bay ... better than being Prom Queen or Homecoming Queen or Apple Harvest Princess, since competition was limited to the exclusive elite whose families belonged to the yacht and sporting club. In theory Tracey was eligible since Gramps had been a charter member, but it had never crossed her mind that she might be the one wearing the silver filigree wreath and opening the Gala with doddering Colin Highsmith I, founding father. Besides, everyone knew that the old boy's granddaughter, Cressida, would win this year. She'd returned from boarding school back east looking stunningly lovely instead of simply cute ... thanks, snide tongues whispered, to the best dermatologists, plastic surgeons, orthodontists, hairdressers and dressmakers money could buy.
". . . sailing in competition and winning trophies ever since she was old enough to enter, and she helped crew on her uncle's forty-two foot ketch and helped with deck chores, too, until he moved to California two years ago. She's got her Red Cross..."
The teenager tuned out her mother's belligerent recital of her qualifications and recalled Uncle Norman, who'd looked a good deal like Ted Comfort except he'd had a mustache. She'd been fond of extroverted, jovial Norm, and Mom had liked her cousin a lot too, though she seldom wrote to him or mentioned him since he married "that cheap, gold-digging slut", Verna, who'd been working as a barmaid in one of the area's more swinging nightclubs. Come to think of it, that had been about the time Mother got so obsessed with this femininist stuff. . . though for as long as her daughter could remember she'd resented any male who wanted to date her. It just didn't make sense. Now here she was alienating handsome Mr. Comfort, who'd been right on the verge of asking her out and renewing what sounded like a very exciting old friendship."
". . . as any fool with half a brain can see," Mom was concluding, "my daughter's as well qualified as any male in town. And I've raised her to believe in honesty and hard work, which is more than most parents can say these days. A look at her Birch Bay High records will verify that if you don't want to take my word for it, Mr. Comfort."
She paused for breath, and there was a moment's silence as Tracey squirmed in acute embarrassment and Comfort threw up his large, capable hands in irritation. For another instant Denise's loud, angry voice seemed to reverberate through the showroom, and then its echo died away and they heard gulls screaming out on the piers and a tinny transistor playing out where the two assistants were working. "Blue Velvet" ... the same song she'd danced to with Robbie last night. Although it was overly warm in Comfort's stuffy cubicle, the adolescent shivered as visions of erect, ejaculating penises, wavered before her mind's eye, and before she realized what she was doing she found herself gazing curiously at the sandy-haired boathouse owner's crotch.
Thank God nobody was paying the least bit of attention to her. Mother and the man were still glaring at one another in mutual anger-like a lion and a tiger stalking each other, thought the girl.
"Look here, Denise, I'm sure you're kid knows something about sailboats-but that does not mean she'd work out for the job I'm advertising for. Hell, this is heavy labor, men's work, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna pay some dainty schoolgirl this equal wage you keep blabbering about to stand around and powder her nose and distract the boys so they don't do a decent day's work, either. This is my business, and I'm running it to make it the best boat yard this side of Lake Michigan, not to do people favors ... not even old girl friends."
"Old girl friends, nothing, you conceited fool." Mom looked mad enough to hit him over the head with her briefcase. "My daughter is strong and healthy and she can do the job-can't you. Tracey."
She nodded miserably. "I-I sure would do my best."
"Her best-hah."
"Let me finish, Ted Comfort. What I've been trying to beat into your thick skull for twenty minutes is that it's illegal for you not at least to hire her and give her a chance to prove herself. I'll send you copies of the laws, since you're so uninformed about current events. Women aren't men's helpless slaves any longer. We have rights, and I for one intend to fight for those rights. I meant it about the law suit. And what's more, I'll write to every publication in the country using names and telling about you."
"Good God, woman, shut up. Okay, okay, I know about equal pay for equal work laws-but this is insane. I'll take the girl on-on two-week trial-but I guarantee you'll be sorry you pushed my hand this way. Good and sorry."
Denise smiled sweetly. "Thank you, Ted. I'm so glad you came round to my way of thinking. . . it'll save us both a lot of unnecessary trouble. When shall Tracey report for work?"
"Right this fucking minute," he snapped, then glanced at the flushed-cheeked teen and made an impatient gesture. "Hell, go home and change into working clothes, girl. And get back here on the double!"
"Yes, sir."
"And now both you dames get the hell outta my office."
Denise turned on her heel, took her daughter's arm and hurried to the door, unaware that Comfort was staring rather intently at her indignantly twitching ass-cheeks. "Thank you again for being so understanding, and I'm sure everything's going to work out beautifully."
She slammed the door behind her so hard that papers rose in a cloud from the furious man's desk and the bottle of Alka-Seltzer bounced onto the tile floor and smashed into smithereens. Comfort cursed at the top of his lungs, swearing to get revenge on the vindictive bitch if it were the last thing he ever did.
"Ram this right between that tight, saucy ass of hers," he raged, stroking his semi-erected stiffness. "Show her what a man's got that a dame hasn't. Hear her begging for it. . . "