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Show 28, Jeffries, Islamorada [Section 4] Perhaps the final chauvanist ploy of the seventies. But not without a certain sense of fairness, he could hope that in a queer sort of way they might be fond of each other, and get some idea of what amused him, and be flattered and learn what they'd needed to learn-that a marriage would be a curious, sororate wedding to the three of them. Parking out at the beach and pacing, so as to be late, and the back entrance to the Holiday Inn, and trying to sprawl, carefree, in the front lounge, and "The bachelorettes," the bellman began, but he looked at the gravity in Dorian Clayton's face and corrected himself, "the young ladies are expecting you." Split decision, Dory thought, charitably, and he wondered if he'd blurt out something callously funny like 'photo finish' or 'our first runner-up will be'- and he wondered if the proud one would be there, and as he began to turn the knob he could feel their catlike rage and sexuality leap like some animal against the door; well, one would be mollified. The one girl was thinking Dory Clayton, you're looking smug as a county-fair baking judge; he peeked in at them, a classic triumvirate, the brain, the body, and moneybags, and--two toneless faces--he fumbled at a ring for the fairest, and he felt a silly rumbling in his groin that seemed to carry on down through recorded human history to anarchy, for the children |
