"I don"t know. It just happened."

"Does it happen often like this with you?"

"I wouldn"t say so."

"You want I should help you? Here, let me help you."

"No, honey. Let"s just wait."

"Wait for what? Violins?"

"Let"s just take it easy. That"s all."

"That"s easy for you to say. What about me? You don"t give a d.a.m.n how I feel, do you?"

"Sorry about all this."

"It was going to be really great."

"Next time."

She made a sound of exasperation and moved away from all contact with me. From time to time she sighed. Then she got up and went across to the smaller stateroom and slammed the door, leaving behind a faint effluvium of perfume, exertion, and secretions, leaving behind some bedding for me to untangle, leaving behind that strange male guilt and shame impotence creates. The female and the male are both victims of the male s.e.xual mythology. If I do not achieve, or if I prematurely lose that engorgement which creates the stiffness required for penetration, then my manhood is suspect. My virility is a fiction. I have been unable to give or receive satisfaction. The act has not been carried to its compulsory conclusion. Once any element of doubt enters the equation, then the male erection, that font of aggression and mastery, becomes as vulnerable, as delicate, as easily lost as a snowflake over a campfire.

She left me there alone, full of self-pity and yet with a sense of relief. There was just too d.a.m.ned bouncing rubbery much of her, and nothing anywhere that one mere hand could cup. I had all the self-derision of the suddenly gelded stud. I would auction off the Flush Flush to some Burt Reynolds type and pursue the quiet life. Some gardening. Gourmet cooking. And a little philately. Or some numismatics, for a change of pace. to some Burt Reynolds type and pursue the quiet life. Some gardening. Gourmet cooking. And a little philately. Or some numismatics, for a change of pace.

I thought of paying a call upon her, but instead I went to sleep. I was more apprehensive than curious.

Now, forced to recall how miserably I had disappointed the lady, I wondered if I might find a clue to a repet.i.tion of failure if I were to look upon her and try to summon erotic dreams of glory and see if I could detect the promise of some small physiological response.

Now, in the blazing shimmer and the white needles that came sparking up off every ripple, I looked sidelong and quickly at her sitting there and felt awe and a little stirring of alarm. There was so b.l.o.o.d.y much of her, all so firm and fit. A yard and a half of great legs, b.o.o.bs like two halves of a prize honeydew, a mouth from here over to there, hands and feet almost as big as mine, a powerful-looking neck full of strings and cables and muscles which moved into a different and visible pattern each time she changed the position of her head. I was aware of all her hidden engines, all working away, from the slow hard kuh-dup of her heart to all the other hidden things, absorbing, nourishing, fractionating, eliminating.

"If you don"t mind too much," she said. She made a nimble reaching flexing motion and dropped a damp wad of salmon-colored fabric onto the deck. "This is a monokini," she said. She stood up, peeled the rest of it down her hips and down her legs and stepped out of it. "And this is a nokini at all. And automatic pilot or no automatic pilot, this is not invitational. It"s to keep from dying."

I pointed to the thunderhead building in the southeast, lifting into the sky. "With any luck," I said.

"Can you drive over that way and get under it?"

"If you look over in that direction, like two hundred yards, you will see some birds walking. Never drive the boat toward where the birds are walking. First rule of navigation."

"Oh, great!"

"Whether we get it or not, it"ll change the wind."

"How soon?"

"Maybe an hour."

"Why do I bother to ask anything at all? Why Why can"t you use the air conditioning while you"re running?" can"t you use the air conditioning while you"re running?"

"It has to run off the generator. There"s something wrong with the wiring. There"s some kind of crossfeed somewhere. If I start the generator, everything will be fine until I cut in the air conditioning. Then it blows about seven fuses, and we"re dead in the water until I replace them. On every boat everywhere, dear, something is always wrong with the wiring."

"Why does it have to be the air conditioning?"

"Because G.o.d hates us both."

"Don"t say that!"

"Offends you?"

"Just don"t say it. Okay? It isn"t something to be funny about. That"s all. It doesn"t offend me. It just makes me feel strange. Crawly."

The Flush Flush waddled along, the long V of her wash fad-tag into the hot ripply dance of the big bay. The lady stood up between the pilot seats, brace legged, letting her black hair down and rewinding it to bind up the strands which had escaped. Sweat made oiled highlights on the long curves of her body. waddled along, the long V of her wash fad-tag into the hot ripply dance of the big bay. The lady stood up between the pilot seats, brace legged, letting her black hair down and rewinding it to bind up the strands which had escaped. Sweat made oiled highlights on the long curves of her body.

My concealed amus.e.m.e.nt at myself had a very acid flavor. Here was the libertine"s dream of glory, the realization of all the night thoughts of adolescence: a handsome, lithe, healthy superabundance of naked lady in her prime, alone with our hero aboard his crafty craft, stocked for weeks of cruising about, a lady as infinitely available as the very next breath or the very next cold beer or hot coffee, and our hero was wishing she had stood on the other side of her chair because he found her overheated towering closeness oppressive, yea even approaching the vulgar. It made me remember the time I went to the performance of a Spanish dance troupe, hoping there was a ticket left at the box office. There was, way way down front. It was so close I could smell the dust they banged up out of the stage. I could see soiled places on the costumes. I could smell the fresh sweat of effort mingled with the stale sweat of prior engagements, trapped in gaudy fabric, released by heat. I could hear the dancing girls grunt and pant. I could see dirty knuckles, grubby ankles, and soiled throats. They were very very good. Ten rows back the illusion must have been perfect. But I was too d.a.m.ned close to the machinery, and it killed the magic.

Okay, hero. You are a sentimentalist, a romanticist. A throwback. You want all those tricks of a bygone culture -the shy and flirtatious female, the obligation for pursuit, retreat, and ultimate capture. Pretty chauvinistic, buddy. This is the new casual world of equality. You are both made of the same order of meat. Should she have a yen for a beer, she can go get it and open it. Should she have a yen for an interlude of fricative pleasure, she can turn and swing astride you as you sit, and you can keep an eye on the channel ahead over her shoulder. Contact and excitation create a natural physical release. It is no big wondrous emotional complicated thing. The new message is that s.e.xual mystery causes terrible hangups which create neuroses which destroy lives.

It all made me want to move to a small town in Indiana and start a little factory where I could make buggy whips, stereopticons, and hoop skirts, and sit in the glider on the porch on the summer evenings and hear the children at play and finally go inside and, by gas light, read that Admiral Dewey had been placed in command of the fleet.

A world I never knew. Maybe the worlds you never knew are always better than the ones you do.

She sat again and swung her feet up. "Won"t this thing go any faster than this?"

"Not enough to matter. It"s a displacement hull. It has to push the water out of the way. I could get three more knots out of her and use twice the fuel I"m using now."

"It"s a real crock."

"But it"s my real crock."

She shrugged and was silent. I tried to put my finger on what it was about her that was battling me and irritating me. It seemed excessively childish for her to complain so constantly about being mildly uncomfortable aboard a houseboat taking her away from something that really terrified her.

Children lack empathy about how the adults around them feel. Children have a tendency toward self-involvement which makes them give too much weight to trivia, too little weight to significant things. If the house burns down, the charred sister and the charred kitten are equally mourned.

I had believed her empathetic, sensitive, responsive. I had enjoyed being with her. This female person did not seem at all responsive in the same way. I went back over the relationship. A cartoon light bulb went on in the air over my head. At all prior times, up to last night and now, my involvement had been in exactly the same track as her self-involvement. So of course she had been responsive, in the way a mirror is responsive.

If you go to a play which is concerned with a dramatic relationship you have experienced, you are deeply moved. The actress will speak the lines in a way best designed to move you. But take the lovely, talented thing to dinner, and she will bury you in the debris of her tepid little mind, rotten reviews in London, the inferior dressing room on the Coast, the pansy hairdresser"s revenge, her manager"s idiot wife, the trouble with talk shows, and who has stopped or started, sleeping with whom or with what.

I had listened to drama and believed it. And now I could not believe that this was the actress.

I saw the squall riffle approaching way off the port bow, making a busier calligraphy on the water. It covered so large an area it could not miss us. I told her to prepare for sudden comfort. While she was looking at me with blank incomprehension, the rain breeze swept us, a coolness with a smell of rain and ozone. She made a glad cry and stood to face it, arms out in pleasurable crucifixion. It died away, and she said "Nooooooo" in a long descending mournful minor.

"More on the way and rain behind it."

It was more than I expected. The strong gusts threatened to whip the tarp away, and I took it down, folding it with difficulty, stowing it under the instrument panel. Electricity winked and bammed around us as the rain came in silvery, wind-whipped sheets, heeling us to starboard, obscuring the far markers. The rain was unseasonably cold, and abruptly it turned to hail, the size of puffed rice, whipping and stinging us, so that she yelped with pain and surprise and ducked down below the rail on the port side, behind me, for shelter. Then more rain came, heavier but with less wind. I had backed the Flush Flush off to almost dead slow, so that if we wandered from the channel we would nudge the shallows instead of sticking fast. Mary Alice gloried in the rain, upturning her face to it, laughing at the pleasure of it streaming down her body. Her hair was soaked and flattened. The deck ran with water. She picked up her bikini parts, wrung them momentarily dry and put them back on. But we had both started to shiver. I was going to switch to the pilot house controls when suddenly the rain ceased, and I could hear it steaming on across the bay toward the mainland. The depth finder was reading eleven feet, and I had to move easterly about fifty feet to get the distant markers lined up. off to almost dead slow, so that if we wandered from the channel we would nudge the shallows instead of sticking fast. Mary Alice gloried in the rain, upturning her face to it, laughing at the pleasure of it streaming down her body. Her hair was soaked and flattened. The deck ran with water. She picked up her bikini parts, wrung them momentarily dry and put them back on. But we had both started to shiver. I was going to switch to the pilot house controls when suddenly the rain ceased, and I could hear it steaming on across the bay toward the mainland. The depth finder was reading eleven feet, and I had to move easterly about fifty feet to get the distant markers lined up.

Cloud cover moved west, and soon we were in hot sunlight that made the deck steam as it dried.

She toweled her hair half-dry, flung it back, and said, "I"m starving starving, darling. I really am. After I eat, I"m going to chop my hair short."

"What?"

"It"s too much of a d.a.m.ned nuisance on a boat ride. You could probably cut it better, huh? How about when we get to the place you said? Will you?"

"Reluctantly."

"Why reluctantly? Oh, could it help you turn on, if it"s long?"

"I think long hair is becoming to the shape of your face."

She frowned. "I mean chop it off to only about here, not like when it was all shaved-"

"All shaved off? Why?"

"It was sort of like an initiation."

"Sounds like a very unusual club."

"I"ll tell you all about it sometime, honey."

"We"ve got nothing else to do right now. Why not tell me?"

"Right now I"ve got to fix something to eat. You want to eat now too. Samwiches?"

After we ate, I said, "Okay. The story of the shaved head."

"I don"t feel like telling it now."

"But I feel like listening to it now."

She stared at me. "Are you going to be like that? I don"t like like to be pushed around, Travis. I"ve had enough of it all my life. If you muscle me, I can"t feel loving toward you. You understand what I"m saying?" to be pushed around, Travis. I"ve had enough of it all my life. If you muscle me, I can"t feel loving toward you. You understand what I"m saying?"

"I don"t think I could ever adjust to a reward and punishment system of lovemaking."

"I have news for you. You"re going to have to."

"Really?"

"When I"m happy, I"m the best thing that ever happened to you, and when you make me unhappy, I"m just no good at all. Sorry, but that"s the way I am."

"I wasn"t trying to muscle you."

"I accept your apology."

"I just wanted to know if you were in a home or a prison when they shaved your head."

"Oh, you are such a smart b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You just cut off the supply, friend."

"Prison then?"

"No, G.o.dd.a.m.n you to h.e.l.l! It was a school for girls."

That was the forlorn tipoff. The ones which are attended voluntarily are called girls" schools. I asked no questions. I could feel the radiations of her anger. At last she sighed. "They caught me and a boyfriend with the whole trunk of the car full of radios he"d taken out of parked cars. We"d both been in trouble before. I was fourteen, and he was twenty. I was in a foster home, and those people didn"t give a s.h.i.t about anything except the sixty-two fifty a month they got for letting me sleep there. At the school we were in cottages. Twenty girls in a cottage. A matron was supposed to run the cottage, but ours was a wino, so two butch girls ran it. I wouldn"t let them into my bed at night, so one of them stole a gold locket from one of the black girls and hid it on the underside of my bed with tape. They found it in a shakedown looking for some missing table forks, and so then they all jumped me and shaved my head. It took a lot of doing. I tore them up pretty good. Afterwards I used to jump the ones who did it, one at a time. They locked me up alone a few times, but I kept going until I got every last one. I guess I"ll keep my hair long the way it is. It isn"t all that much trouble."

"When did you get out?"

"This isn"t the confession hour. Some day I"ll tell you all that stuff. When I feel like it. Right now I"m going downstairs. You just drive the boat, huh?"

Her voice was weary rather than angry. It seemed quite pleasant being alone. I put the sun tarp back up. I took a beer out of the cooler. A ray leapt high and came down, slapping his wings hard against the water to stun enough minnows for an afternoon snack. Over to my right, in the shallows near a mangrove island, a mullet made three leaps. Mullet come out gracefully enough, then land flat out, on belly or side. They are vegetarians. They graze the undersea meadows where parasites fasten to their skins, and so the mullet leap and knock them loose and go back to grazing. Flying fish leap to glide away from the teeth of the predator fish. Dolphins leap for the pleasure of it. Sailfish leap to shake free of the steel hook.

So why, after the five quiet years in the depths, did my bikinied creature leap free? To knock away the parasites, to stun something she wanted to feed on. To escape the predator or the hook. Or for the pleasure of it.

I shuffled all the square pieces and put the puzzle together again. The trouble with square pieces is that there is no way to know if any are missing or how many are missing. Or how many pieces do not belong in the puzzle at all.

I checked the next marker number against my Waterway chart and found we were making better time than I had estimated. We would be there in time for me to monitor the Miami Marine Operator frequency for Meyer"s call.

Chapter Seventeen.

There are long expanses of tidewater flats north of the main channel through the eastern part of Florida Bay. Once long ago, when it had been imperative to find a safe place to stash The Busted Flush The Busted Flush, a friend, now dead, had gone ahead in the dinghy, using a boat hook to take the soundings, while I followed at dead slow, taking bearings on other islands, marking down the coordinates. There were several false turns, but at last he found a way around an island about a hundred feet long, forty feet wide, shaped like a lima bean, where by great fortune there was good water close in to the muddy sh.o.r.e. Then he and Meyer and I worked like madmen, hacking mangrove branches and wateroak branches, trying to cover the bulk of the Flush Flush. We were not more than half done when we heard the little red airplane coming and had to dive for cover. They should have seen it from the air, but they missed it.

I got out the chart to refresh my memory of the old channel. I had hiked it in. It looked like a lumpy, runover snake. I had enough tide to make it, and the slant of the sunlight helped me read the water ahead. Even so I nudged the mud several times where the turns were sharp, where I had to back and fill, like a tractor trailer truck threading a Mexican alley.

I laid the Flush Flush close in, close enough to spit into the mangroves, killed the engines, and threw over a bow hook and a stern hook, planning to go over the side and walk them into better position and make them firm, but something changed my mind quickly. Three somethings. A sky-darkening cloud of ravenous mosquitoes, sand flies and stinging gnats. As I bounded down the ladderway, Mary Alice came out onto the stern deck, knuckling a sleepy eye. Then suddenly she began dancing, hollering, flailing her arms and slapping herself heartily. We both tried to get through the doorway at once. We got in, and I slammed it and went looking for any open, unscreened port. They were coming into the galley. I slid that screening across and got out the bug spray and gave them a taste of civilization. close in, close enough to spit into the mangroves, killed the engines, and threw over a bow hook and a stern hook, planning to go over the side and walk them into better position and make them firm, but something changed my mind quickly. Three somethings. A sky-darkening cloud of ravenous mosquitoes, sand flies and stinging gnats. As I bounded down the ladderway, Mary Alice came out onto the stern deck, knuckling a sleepy eye. Then suddenly she began dancing, hollering, flailing her arms and slapping herself heartily. We both tried to get through the doorway at once. We got in, and I slammed it and went looking for any open, unscreened port. They were coming into the galley. I slid that screening across and got out the bug spray and gave them a taste of civilization.

"This is your G.o.dd.a.m.n paradise?" Mary Alice yawped. " is your G.o.dd.a.m.n paradise?" Mary Alice yawped. "This is where we are supposed to wait for good weather?" She looked down and whacked herself on the thigh. "You are some kind of dummy, you know that?" is where we are supposed to wait for good weather?" She looked down and whacked herself on the thigh. "You are some kind of dummy, you know that?"

There were little ones coming through the screening. I told her to shut up and close all the ports while I started the air-conditioning. Soon, after we had killed off the last of the invaders and the moving air began to feel cool, it began to seem better to her. I told her we were lucky there were no dive bombers, a kind of fly half as big as a mouse that folds its wings on high and comes arrowing down to take an actual piece of flesh out of your body, leaving a hole and a trickle of blood. He takes it away with him and sits in a tree and eats it like an apple. She wanted to believe I was kidding. I was, but only by about ten percent.

I explained to her that the wind had died, and when it came up again, it would be out of the north, and we could go out on deck without being dragged away and eaten. But for now I was going to a.s.sume the anchors did not need moving and the Muequita Muequita did not need attention. I was not going out there. No. did not need attention. I was not going out there. No.

Her disposition began to show considerable improvement, and suddenly it was time to gear up and listen for Meyer. She followed me into the pilot house, asking too many questions.

"Okay," she said, "so what good does it do if you know that somebody has come around looking for you?"

"Or you. Wouldn"t you want to know who?"

"Knowing why is all I need to know. Anyway, what makes you think you can trust that hairy son of a b.i.t.c.h?"

"I don"t think about it. I just trust him."

"If you"ve got somebody under the hammer, you can trust him. Otherwise, forget it."