"Shall it be a divine thing of moonlight and roses, passionate wooing, or shall it be short and sharp, like an arrow?" he declaimed, hand on heart. She laughed. "Really, Arthur! I hope it's long and sharp, myself. But no moonlight and roses, please. My stomach's not built for passionate wooing." He stared at her a little sadly, shook his head. "Oh, Justine! Everyone's stomach is built for passionate wooing-even yours, you cold-blooded young vestal. One day, you wait and see. You'll long for it."
"Pooh!" She got up. "Come on, Arthur, let's get the deed over and done with before I change my mind."
"Now? Tonight?" .
"Why on earth not? I've got plenty of money for a hotel room, if you're short."
The Hotel Metropole wasn't far away; they walked through the drowsing streets with her arm tucked cozily in his, laughing. It was too late for diners and too early for the theaters to be out, so there were few people around, just knots of American sailors off a visiting task force, and groups of young girls window-shopping with an eye to sailors. No one took any notice of them, which suited Arthur fine. He popped into a chemist shop while Justine waited outside, emerged beaming happily.
"Now we're all set, my love."
"What did you buy? French letters?"
He grimaced. "I should hope not. A French letter ,ness like coming wrapped in a page of the Reader's Digest -condensed tackiness. No, I got you some jelly. How do you know about French letters, anyway?"
"After seven years in a Catholic boarding school? What do you think we did? Prayed?" She grinned. "I admit we didn't do much, but we talked about every- thing."
Mr. and Mrs. Smith surveyed their kingdom, which wasn't bad for a Sydney hotel room of that era. The days of the Hilton were still to come. It was very large, and had superb views of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. There was no bathroom, of course, but there was a basin and ewer on a marble-topped stand, a fitting accompaniment to the enormous Victorian relics of furniture. "Well, what do I do now?" she asked, pulling the curtains back. "It's a beautiful view, isn't it?"
"Yes. As to what you do now, you take your pants off, of course." "Anything else?" she asked mischievously.
He sighed. "Take it all off, Justine! If you don't feel skin with skin it isn't nearly so good."
Neatly and briskly she got out of her clothes, not a scrap coyly, clambered up on the bed and spread her legs apart. "Is this right, Arthur?" "Good Lord!" he said, folding his trousers carefully; his wife always looked to see if they were crushed.
"What? What's the matter?"
"You really are a redhead, aren't you?"
"What did you expect, purple feathers?"
"Facetiousness doesn't set the right mood, darling, so stop it this instant." He sucked in his belly, turned, strutted to the bed and climbed onto it, began dropping expert little kisses down the side of her face, her neck, over her left breast. "Mmmmmm, you're nice." His arms went around her. "There! Isn't this nice?"
"I suppose so. Yes, it is quite nice."
Silence fell, broken only by the sound of kisses, occasional murmurs. There was a huge old dressing table at the far end of the bed, its mirror still tilted to reflect love's arena by some erotically minded previous tenant. "Put out the light, Arthur."
"Darling, no! Lesson number one. There's no aspect of love which won't bear the light."
Having done the preparatory work with his fingers and deposited the jelly where it was supposed to be, Arthur managed to get himself between Justine's legs. A bit sore but quite comfortable, if not lifted into ecstasy at least feeling rather motherly, Justine looked over Arthur's shoulder and straight down the bed into the mirror.
Foreshortened, their legs looked weird with his darkly matted ones sandwiched between her smooth defreckled ones; however, the bulk of the image in the mirror consisted of Arthur's buttocks, and as he maneuvered they spread and contracted, hopped up and down, with two quiffs of yellow hair like Dagwood's just poking above the twin globes and waving at her cheerfully.
Justine looked; looked again. She stuffed her fist against her mouth wildly, gurgling and moaning.
"There, there, my darling, it's all right! I've broken you already, so it can't hurt too much," he whispered.
Her chest began to heave; he wrapped his arms closer about her and murmured inarticulate endearments.
Suddenly her head went back, her mouth opened in a long, agonized wail, and became peal after peal of uproarious laughter. And the more limply furious he got, the harder she laughed, pointing her finger helplessly toward the foot of the bed, tears streaming down her face. Her whole body was convulsed, but not quite in the manner poor Arthur had envisioned.
In many ways Justine was a lot closer to Dane than their mother was, and what they felt for Mum belonged to Mum. It didn't impinge upon or clash with what they felt for each other. That had been forged very early, and had grown rather than diminished. By the time Mum was freed from her Drogheda bondage they were old enough to be at Mrs. Smith's kitchen table, doing their correspondence lessons; the habit of finding solace in each other had been established for all time.