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Show THE UPSTAIRS PEOPLE-54 That night she lay between them and John held her while Schilly went round and round on her breasts with her tongue. Then he stroked her hair, traced her chin with his fingers, put them into her mouth. She flicked her tongue around the moon-curves of his fingernails, sucked. The Agency man came to the upstairs door the next morning. She wheeled to him, wearing the white bathrobe. He helped her down the porch steps to the back yard. " I've got some money for your trays," he said, smiling with his whole face so that the wrinkles were deep around his eyes. "It's good to see you again, I've missed you." She followed him down to the apartment door, unlocked it, let him go in ahead of her. "I can't give you as much as I'd like, but I'll buy them all from you for a quarter each. Besides, now we can keep your other checks coming too." "They take me at least two hours to do," she said, struggling to maneuvre her chair past him, into the kitchen of her little apartment. "Maybe so, but people don't buy things the way they used to, and it's my money I've got to risk, not the Agency's. There aren't so many tourists now, just the summer people, you know, like those folks upstairs." "Summer people? What do you know?" He leaned forward on his cane, so that his eyes looked directly into hers. "They'll be gone come fall. I would like to be your friend." She was silent. He raised his cane towards her in a mock-salute gesture. "You're special, you know." |