On his way to Birdie Winslow's condo, David Rathbone stopped at a florist on Atlantic Boulevard. The place was crowded, with two clerks trimming and wrapping flowers at a back counter.
Just inside the door was a display of lavender mums. They were bunched by the dozen with maidenhair, each bouquet held by a rubber band. The sign read: $20 per dozen. Glancing at the busy clerks to make certain he was unobserved, Rathbone selected a bouquet, then slipped a single mum from another bunch and added it to his selection. He took the thirteen flowers to the desk, had them wrapped in green tissue, paid the $20 plus tax, and was on his way.
Mrs. Winslow met him at the door of her apartment clad in a paisley muumuu that hid her lumpish body. David proffered his bouquet.
"A dozen mums!" she cried. "How divineV
"Baker's dozen," he said, smiling. "About an eight-point-four percent return on investment."
"What?" she said, puzzled. "Well, they're lovely, and I thank you for them. But you've been a naughty, naughty boy. You haven't called me once, and I thought you had just forgotten little old me."
"No chance of that," he said, touching her cheek.
"But I've been to Europe since I saw you last and came home to a deskful of work."
She motioned toward the couch, then took the mums into the kitchen. She returned with the flowers in a crystal vase half-filled with water.
"Don't they look divine?" she said. "Lavender is one of my favorite colors. Now where shall I put them?"
He glanced around. He couldn't blame her for the way the apartment was furnished since it was a rented condo, but the decoration was really horrendous, the upholstery and wallpaper all fuchsia poppies and bilious green palm fronds.
"Perhaps on top of the TV set," he suggested.
She placed the vase there and stood back to admire the effect. "Sooo pretty," she murmured. Then: "I made a pitcher of your favorite-vodka gimlets."
"Just what I was hoping for."
She brought him a warm drink in a small glass with one lone ice cube. He sipped and decided it had to be the worst vodka gimlet he had ever tasted, so limey that it puckered his lips.
"Delicious," he said. "Aren't you having any?"
"A diet cola for me," she caroled. "I've been trying so hard to lose weight."
"Oh Birdie," he said, "you're not too heavy. You're like my gimlet-just right."
"Thank you, kind sir," she simpered, brought her drink and sat close to him on the couch.
He lifted his glass in a toast. "Here's to health and wealth," he said.
"And love," Mrs. Winslow said, looking at him through her false lashes. "Don't forget love."
He set his drink on the glass-topped cocktail table.
"Birdie, I hope you've been getting your statements regularly."
"Yes, I have, and that's something I want to talk to you about."
"Is anything wrong?"
"Well, my next-door neighbor has an account with Merrill Lynch, and he says that every time he buys something or sells something he gets a confirmation slip. Should I be getting confirmation slips, David?"
"None of my clients ask for them, but you can certainly have them if you wish. I just didn't want to flood you with a lot of unnecessary paper. After all, the purchases and sales I make on your behalf show up every month on your statement."
"That's true. So you don't think I need confirmations?"
"Not really. Just more paper to file away and forget."
"I suppose you're right. I can't tell you how pleased I am with the way my money has grown."
"And it's going to do even better," he said. "Why, just this morning I got a tip from a friend on Wall Street about a new commodity trading fund that's being organized. If we get in on the ground floor, I can practically guarantee a fifty-percent return."
"Oh David, that is exciting!"
He finished his drink manfully. But it did him no good; she brought him another.
"Now let's forget about business for a while," she said, "and just relax. It's been so long since we've been together. I hope you don't have to rush off."
"Not immediately," he said. "But I do have an appointment in about an hour."
"Plenty of time," she assured him. She rose, held her hand out to him. "I bought a new clock-radio for the bedroom," she said. "Would you like to see it?"
She was naked under the muumuu and smelled of patchouli. But in situations like this-and he had experienced many-he resolutely closed his mind to physical stimuli, or the absence thereof, and concentrated only on the profits this suppliant woman represented. Then he was able to perform competently, his mind detached and calculating.
He left her lolling on the rumpled sheets. He dressed swiftly, kissed her cheek, and murmured, "Divine!" Then he drove home, windows open, gulping the salty sea air. Back in the town house, he gargled, brushed his teeth, and showered. He hoped he merely imagined that the scent of patchouli still clung to him.
He mixed a decent vodka gimlet, a double in a tall tumbler with plenty of ice and fresh lime. He carried it upstairs to the terrace. It was a warm day but cloudy, with rumblings of thunder westward. He hoped for a driving rain that might wash everything clean and leave the world shining.
He was still on the terrace, a few fat drops beginning to splatter, when Rita returned.
"You're going to get soaked," she warned. "It was pouring at the Pompano Mall."
"I won't melt," he said. "Did you ever walk through puddles when you were a kid?"
"No, and I never toasted marshmallows. I had a deprived childhood. I'm going to take a shower."
"I'll mix us drinks and bring them to your bedroom."
"That's a good boy," she said.
When he brought the drinks up from the kitchen she was still in her bathroom, the shower running. He sat on the edge of her bed, sipped his gimlet. He knew that in a few moments he would be the supplicant, a reversal of the roles he and Mrs. Winslow had played, and he wondered idly if love might be a lose-lose game.
Rita came out of the bathroom dripping, wiping her shoulders and arms. She handed him the towel and turned. Obediently he dried her back, with long, slow strokes.
"Guess what," she said. "I was wandering through the Mall, just looking around, and I bumped into an old girlfriend I haven't seen in years. Claire McDonald. We used to party together in Tallahassee. We had lunch together and talked over old times."
She took the damp towel from his hand and tossed it onto the floor. Then she sat down next to him on the bed, picked up her drink, took a sip.
"Claire looked like she had won the lottery: dressed to kill, her fingers covered with rocks. The real stuff, too. She told me this older guy was sponsoring her. 'Sponsoring.' I never heard it called that, did you?"
"Never did," Rathbone said, smiling.
"Anyway, her guy owns two restaurants in the Orlando area, so I guess he's got mucho dinero. They drove down to scout a location in Lauderdale for a new restaurant. She says he put her on the payroll of his company as a secretary; the corporation pays her salary. So the money he gives her doesn't come out of his pocket, it just reduces his corporate income tax. David, could you do that? Make me a secretary in your company? That way you wouldn't have to give me your own money. It would just be a business expense."
"Well, that's one way of looking at it," Rathbone said. "But by paying her a salary, he's also reducing
his corporation's after-tax income. So one way or another, she's costing him."
"So you don't want to hire me as your private secretary?"
"Afraid not," he said, laughing. "But I'm willing to sponsor you."
They put their drinks aside. He took off his robe and they slid into bed. The thunder was closer, then overhead, then dwindling away. But it was raining heavily, streaming down the windows. The room was filled with a faint ocher light, dim and secret.
She let him do all the things that she knew pleasured him. She lay almost indolent, staring at the fogged windows, until her body roused. Then she closed her eyes, listened to the rain and the sounds he was making. Finally she heard nothing but the thump of her own heart, and cried out. But he would not stop, or could not, and she suffered him gladly.
At last he emerged panting from under the sheet, his hair tousled, a wild, frightened look in his eyes.
"Are you all right?" he asked anxiously.
She smiled, took his face in her hands, kissed his smeared lips.
"Let's do it again, lover," she said.
He managed a small smile, then got out of bed and stalked naked about the darkened room, hands on his hips.
"I thought I might die," he said.
"Die? From what?"
^It was too much. I couldn't stop."
"No one dies from too much love."
"I was afraid I was hurting you."
"You didn't. I'm a tough girl."
"I know. Do you need anything?" "Like what?"
"Kleenex? A washcloth?"
"Nope. I like the way I feel. Now, stop pacing and come over here."
He stood alongside the bed. She leaned to him.
"Now it's my turn," she said.
Within minutes he was shuddering and sobbing. She was tender-cruel and would not let him move away until he surrendered, his mouth open in a silent scream. Then he collapsed facedown across the bed.
"I died and I was born again," he said. "And then I died and was born again."
"That's the way to do it," she said. "Don't ever stop halfway."
He reached under the sheet, grasped her left foot, pulled it to his lips, kissed the instep. Then he looked up at her. "Don't ever leave me, Rita."
"Why should I do that? It's hard to find a sponsor like you." She saw the focus in his eyes change. "Why are you looking at me like that? A penny for your thoughts."
"They're worth more than that. I just had a great idea. I don't want to put you on my payroll, but I know how you can make a steady salary."
"Pushing your queer checks?"
"No, that seam's on hold. But the Palace gang and I are starting a new business, and we'll need a secretary."
"Yeah? What kind of business?"
"It's an investment company. Ellen St. Martin is looking for office space for us. We'll need someone to answer the phone and type a few letters. You can type, can't you?"
"Oh sure. Hunt and peck." "Good enough. How about it? Would you like an office job?"
"Does it mean I'll have to sit behind a desk eight hours a day?"
"Nah. We'll get you an answering machine, so you can come and go as you please."
"Sounds good," she said.
"To me, too. Because your salary won't be coming out of my pocket; just one-fifth of it."
"You think the other guys will go for it? Hiring me, I mean."
"Sure they will. We'll have an office and a secretary; everything on the up-and-up."
"What's this new business called?"
"The Fort Knox Commodity Trading Fund. Like it?"
"Love it," she said.