Carl Hiaasen by Nature Girl

couch.”
    “How about the bed?”
    “It’s broken. Don’t ask.” Eugenie nudged him out the door, removed the pearl stud from her tongue and dashed cold water on her face. She peeled down to her underwear, but that was as far as she could go.
    When she came out, Sacco was obediently stationed on the sofa. He had folded the towel triangularly across his lap, a quaint act of modesty that Eugenie might have found charming under other circumstances.
    “I cannot believe you haven’t got a PC,” he remarked. “Don’t you feel totally lost and out of touch?”
    “You have no idea.”
    Sacco flinched when she jerked the towel away.
    “How tall are you, anyway?” he asked.
    “Six feet even, but don’t be intimidated,” she said, hoping just the opposite.
    Sacco said, “You wanna hear something weird? I’m the exact same height as Gates.”
    “Cool. Are your cocks the same size, too?”
    Sacco looked down at himself in a clinical way, pondering the possibility. Eugenie Fonda was alarmed to think that she’d once regarded this man as intriguing. He was simply fucked-up, and not in a particularly interesting way.
    “It’s getting late,” she repeated, hoping he’d pick up on her lack of enthusiasm.
    “Then let’s get busy. I’m ready,” Sacco said.
    “You are?”
    He patted the tops of his spidery-haired legs, inviting her to hop aboard.
    “I don’t want to hurt you,” Eugenie said.
    “You can’t hurt me. I’m beyond pain.”
    Just my luck, Eugenie thought. She placed herself on Sacco’s lap, facing away. He made a growling sound and said they should pretend they were riding a Harley.
    “More like a Lark scooter,” she muttered.
    “What’d you say?”
    Miraculously the doorbell rang. Eugenie briskly unsaddled and snatched up the towel, covering herself as she hurried to the foyer. Through the peephole she saw him.
    “Boyd?”
    “Please, Genie.”
    She opened the door and whispered, “What’s all this?”
    He had shown up in flip-flops, baggy surfer shorts and a loose citrus-colored shirt with palm trees all over it.
    “Can I come in?” he asked.
    “Absolutely not.” She stepped outside into a cold drizzle, shutting the door behind her.
    “You just get out of the shower?”
    “No, Boyd, I’m dancing in the Dallas ballet. What are you doing here?”
    Nervously he ran his tongue across his teeth. “I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night. About me being so…”
    “Dull?” Eugenie Fonda said.
    “Predictable. And you’re completely right.”
    “It’s forty-eight degrees out here, Boyd, and I’m wearing a towel. Could you get to the goddamn point?”
    “Here’s the point: I’ll change.”
    “Sure you will.”
    “Give me a chance,” Shreave said. “Just look at me!”
    Eugenie was certain she heard breathing on the other side of the door—her hot date, eavesdropping. She couldn’t decide which sight was more comical, Sacco ranting in the nude or Boyd Shreave dressed up like one of the Beach Boys and freezing his ass off.
    “Genie, close your eyes and hold out your hand.”
    “Oh for Christ’s sake.”
    “Please,” Shreave said.
    Eugenie did what he asked, thinking: If he gives me a ring, I’ll throttle him.
    “There. You can look now,” he said.
    In her palm was a ticket envelope bearing the red-and-blue logo of American Airlines.
    “Where to?” she asked warily.
    “Florida. You and me are going kayaking through the Ten Thousand Islands,” Shreave announced in his platinum voice, “where the weather today is seventy-four degrees Fahrenheit under clear and sunny skies.”
    Eugenie Fonda felt her heart begin to hammer. She shivered and blinked the chilly raindrops from her eyelashes. Inside the apartment, Sacco was lurking like some randy underfed ape, and Eugenie felt appalled that she’d come so close to seducing him. Boyd Shreave was a lump and also married, but at least he wasn’t a paranoid geek.
    And Florida was Florida, especially in the