Men of Men - Smith Wilbur - Страница 47

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"I like a big spending gent." She flashed the little diamond in her front tooth at him and nodded to the barman. He would pour from her special bottle labelled Booth's Gin but filled with rain water from the galvanized tank beside the backdoor.

Suddenly she realized that the boy was bonny, with a strong jaw and good white teeth. Now that his blush had subsided, his skin was clear and smooth as her own, and his eyes a penetrating emerald green. And the eagerness and freshness that he exuded was so different from that of the hairy diggers, caked with red dirt and smelling like goats, that formed her usual clientele.

Let the boy pay for his round of drinks, and there would be time to get rid of him after that. In the meantime his transparent adoration. was amusing and flattering.

"Lill, me darling." Barry Lennox leaned across the counter and she did not flinch from his breath. "Give me your pearl-like little ear."

Smiling her bright smile she held her ear to his lips, and cupped her hand in an exaggerated pantomime of secrecy.

"Are you working tonight, Lill? "I'm always ready for a quick rattle of the dice with YOU, my sweet. You want to go right now or finish your drink?"

"No, darling, not me. How would you like to be first to put the saddle on an unbroken colt?"

Her eyes flicked to Ralph's face again, and her hard bright smile softened thoughtfully. He was a lovely boy, and for the first time since her cavalryman had left her in Cape Town she felt the prickle of her loins and bitter sweet catch in her throat, so that she did not trust her voice entirely.

"It's still early, Lil, and business isn't good this time on Sunday, Lil dearie." Barry Lennox wheedled and chuckled beerily at the same time. "He is a pretty boy, and I should charge you for the pleasure, but I'll just let you make me a special price instead."

Lil's throat cleared instantly and the languid expression disappeared. Her reply was crisp.

"I'll not charge you school fees, Barry Lennox, just the usual ten guineas."

Lennox shook his head. "You are a hard one, Lil. I'll send him to you, love. But just one thing, make it good, make it something that he will remember if he lives a hundred years."

"I don't teach you to dig diamonds, Barry Lennox," she said, and without looking back swept from the canteen.

They heard the door of her bedroom bang, and Ralph stared after her in dismay, but Barry Lennox put an arm around his shoulders and as he talked quietly, punctuating each sentence with a throaty lewd chuckle, all the colour fled from Ralph's face.

"Come in." Her voice reminded Ralph of the gentle contented cooing that the plump wild pigeons made at sunset in the top branch of the camel-thorn tree above Zouga's camp.

With his hand on the brass doorknob, he lifted his feet one at a time and polished the toe-cap of his boots against the back of his trouser leg. He had doused his head under the tap of the rainwater tank and combed his hair while it was still wet, sleeking it away from his forehead, and the droplets had run down his neck, turning the dust on his darned shirt collar into damp red mud.

He glanced down at his hand on the doorknob, saw the black rinds under his finger nails and lifted it quickly to his mouth, trying desperately to pick out the dirt with his eye tooth.

"Come in!" The command was repeated; but this time there was no cooing of pigeons, but a sharp imperious command, and Ralph lunged for the door handle. There was no resistance, the door flew open, and Ralph went with it. He entered Diamond Lil's boudoir like a cavalry charge, tripped on the frayed edge of a cheap oriental carpet and sprawled headlong across the brass bed.

There was a Chinese lacquer screen across one corner of the small violently furnished room, and over the top of it rose Diamond Lil's magnificently sculptured blond coiffure.

"Oh," she said sweetly, the sharp slanted eyes widening with amusement. "Are you going to start without me then darling?"

Ralph scrambled untidily to his feet like a puppy with oversized paws and stood to attention in the middle of the floor, holding his cloth cap to his stomach with both hands.

From behind the screen came the most evocative sounds he had ever heard. The rustle of lace and cloth, the clink of china and the gurgle of water poured from a The lacquer screen was ornamented with oriental lug figures, women bathing in a willow-screened pool with a waterfall in the background. The women were all naked, and the artist had lingered on their physical charms. Ralph felt his ears and neck heating again, and hated himself for it.

He wished he had kept the cigar, as a proof of his manhood. He wished that he had worn a fresh shirt, he wished, but then there was no further time for wishing.

Lil stepped out from behind the screen. She was barefooted, and her toes were chubby and rosy pink like those of a little girl.

"I have seen you on the street, mister Ballantyne," Lil told him quietly. And I have admired your manly disposition. I am so glad we have had an opportunity to meet."

The words worked a miracle. Ralph felt himself growing in stature, the trembling in his legs stilled and they felt strong and sure under him.

"Do you like my robe?" Lil asked, and took the long skirts in her hands, turning to make them flare.

Ralph nodded dumbly, his new-found strength had not yet reached his tongue, but his eyes were wide and feverish.

She came to him and without her heels she stood only as high as his shoulder. "Let me help you with your coat."

And when he was in his shirtsleeves, she said, "Come and sit on the sofa." She took his hand and led him across the room.

"Do you like me, mister Ballantyne?"

At last he could speak, "Oh yes. Oh yes!"

"May I call you Ralph? I feel I know you so well."

Very early one January morning long ago she had left the Mayfair house, and reached the deserted park where it had snowed during the night. The snow lay white and smooth and unmarked. She left the gravelled path, and the snow crumbled like sugar under her feet. When she looked back her tiny footprints were strung out across the unblemished snow, as though she were the first and only woman in the world. It gave her an extraordinary feeling of her own importance. Now as she lay on the wide bedstead beside the lad, she experienced that same feeling.

He was not a lad, but she thought of him as that. His body was fully matured, but his innocence made him as vulnerable as an unweaned infant, and his body was like the snow which no other feet had trodden.

The sun had stained his throat in a deep V down onto his chest, but the skin of his chest and flat belly were the lustrous white of watered marble or of freshly fallen snow. She touched it with her lips and when his little dusty rose nipples puckered and started her own skin crawling deliciously, she took his hands. His palms were rough and callused from work on the stagings and in the pit. The fingernails were torn and cracked, with ingrained dirt beneath them. But it was honest dirt, and the hands were shapely, long and graceful. She had learned to judge men by the shape of their hands, and now she lifted Ralph's to her lips and kissed them lightly, watching his eyes as she did so.

Then slowly she took his hands down and cupped them over her own soft breasts. She felt the rough skin rasp her own nipples, and they popped out like full moons, pale pink and tense.

"You like that, Ralph?" She asked that same question five times, and the last time was when the room was almost dark and he was convulsed and shaking within the circle of her arms and her pliant thighs, drenched with his own sweet young sweat, and breathing in little choking sobs.

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