The Burnt Orange Heresy

How she knew this I don't know, but the gimmick worked. As Berenice whipped her head back and forth, stinging first my chest and then my stomach with her long hair, my doubts disappeared. And because this unseen woman became any woman, and was no longer a problem named Berenice Hollis, I became rigid with the pain of need, and mounted her savagely. Savagely for me, because I am usually methodical in sexual relations, knowing what I like and dislike. Being flagellated with long hair was a new experience for me as well, and I favored Berenice with the best ride she had ever had. She climaxed as I entered, then twice, and we made the final one together. She bit my shoulder so hard to keep from mewing (knowing how irritated I get when she makes animal noises) she left the marks of her teeth in my skin.

Euphoric, my tenseness dissipated, the thought of sending this big, marvelous woman back to Minnesota became intolerable. She turned on the floorlamp and rummaged around in her suitcase for douching equipment.

"Hang up that yellow linen suit of yours, baby," I told her, "so the wrinkles will shake out."

"Why?" she asked, doing as she was told. "It isn't wrinkled."

"Because I want you to wear it tomorrow. I'm taking you with me."

"Where are we going?' Are we going to have fun?"

"To call on M. Debierue." I sighed. "I'll try to explain it again tomorrow-in one-syllable words." With the light on, Berenice Hollis was a problem again.

"We'll have fun, though, won't we?"

"Sure," I replied glumly. "Fun, fun, fun."

I closed my eyes as she went into the bathroom. I remember dimly being washed with a warm washrag, but I was sound asleep before she finished.

The apartment looked terrible, as if a small whirlwind had been turned loose for a few minutes, but Berenice, in her lemon linen suit, with its skimpy microskirt, was beautiful. At my request she wore stockings, sheer enough to enhance the sienna brown of her deeply tanned legs. The skirt was so short, when she sat or leaned over, the white metal snaps that held up her stockings were exposed slyly enough to make her as sexy as a Varga drawing.

Instead of a blouse she wore a filmy blue-and-red scarf around her neck. The two loose ends of the scarf were tucked crosswise beneath the lapels of the square-cut double-breasted jacket. Very few women would dare to wear such a severely cut suit, but the square straight lines of the jacket exaggerated the roundness of Berenice's lush figure. With the supplement of a rat she had put up her hair, and the ample mound of tawny hair, sun-tinged with yellow streaks, piled on top of her head, together with her childish features, gave her an angelic expression.

There was, I think, too much orange in her lipstick, but perhaps this slight imperfection was the single needed touch that made her so lovely as a whole.

I had shaved and showered before Berenice took over the bathroom for an hour, and I had trimmed my Spanish Don sideburns neatly with scissors. Nevertheless, I looked incongruously raunchy beside Berenice in my faded blue denim, short-sleeved jumpsuit, especially when she slipped on a pair of white gloves. It was too hot outside for a jacket, and I needed the multiple pockets in the jumpsuit to carry all my paraphernalia.

I had three pens, a notebook, my wallet and keys, a handkerchief, two packs of Kools, and my ribbed-model Dunhill lighter (one of the few luxuries I had treated myself to when I had a regular teaching salary coming in), a tiny Kodak Bantam in my right trousers pocket, some loose change, a pocket magnifying glass in a leather case, fingernail clippers, and a two-inch piece of clammy jade, with indentations for a finger grip. Except for the well-concealed Kodak Bantam, loaded with color film, I carried too much crap around with me, but I had gotten used to carrying it and could hardly do without it.

We had slept late and had a leisurely breakfast. After getting dressed, I had jotted down a few questions in my notebook. I would not refer to the questions, but the act of writing them down had set them in my mind. This was an old reporter's trick that worked, and I always took my Polaroid camera along, loaded with black-and-white, and extra film. Professionals sneer at Dr. Edwin H. Land's Polaroids, but I was an expert with them and rarely snapped more than two shots before getting what I wanted. I had learned, too, that people wifi okay without argument almost any picture that they have seen, but wifi refuse to allow photos to be published when they haven't seen everything on the roll.