Understrike by John Gardner Page B

from Mr Fleming’s novels—right down to the strip of hygienic paper sealing the lavatory seat, and the impregnated tissue for polishing shoes.
    “ Big man should be here ‘bout noon,” said Henniger from the doorway. “If ya want anythin’ just ring. We’ll be along when he needs ya. OK?”
    “ Fine. Thank you,” said Boysie. The door closed on them.
    “ Well?” Boysie smiled.
    “ Well my arse,” said Chicory, not unpleasantly.
    ‘ What?”
    “ You weren’t going to do a thing about it, were you?”
    “ About what?”
    “ About anything. I had to put my foot down. What the heck? What gives with those guys? They own you or something, Boysie? Gee, did you make me mad. Letting them tell me what to do? Couldn’t you have said something?”
    “ Look, Chicory darling. Honestly, I’m sorry.” Boysie was floundering. “I’m in a very tricky position. I’m supposed to do what these people tell me. Under orders.”
    “ Orders! I suppose you’ll get chewed up for sharing this room with me then?” She was piqued.
    Boysie grinned. “Oh definitely,” he said, putting on his county drawl. “Be booted out of the hunt; blackballed from every decent club; put on the undesirable list by the debs’ mums; won’t even be allowed to exhibit at Cruft’s…”
    “ What the hell are you talking about, you crazy Englishman? Is that Limey humour or something?”
    “ Indubitably.” He laughed, then stopped, his face grave. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking up at him with those great almond eyes glittering a kind of violence. They stayed there, staring at each other: taking in long draughts of the emotion which leaped between them. Boysie moved over to the bed as she put up her arms, stretching forward in invitation, with head back and the tight orbs of her breasts standing out inside her sweater as though straining to break through and encompass him. He felt her close, her lips on his, and the same spiral intertwining they had experienced in New York. She was running her hands over him as they rocked back on to the bed. They rolled over once: then, together, they were clawing at each other’s clothes, stripping one another, hurling garments from them in a frenzy of need.
    This was wholly animal—as he knew it would be with Chicory. All hunger and the desire for a complete uninhibited satisfying of the sensual appetite. They thrust at each other, and bit, and scratched, hanging on as though this was a wild struggle for possession, not the free mutual granting of their bodies. Sweat poured from them, between them, adding fuel to the physical momentum of the act. When it was finished, and they had both stopped shivering from the long ecstatic shudder that was their peak, Chicory continued to run her hands expertly and smoothly over his body. A long time later, she spoke:
    “ Aren’t bodies wonderful, Boysie? Aren’t they just wonderful things?”
    “ Be lost without ‘em.” He couldn’t resist it. She chuckled, grateful that he had broken the tension, and kissed him on the nose.
    “ May I tell you,” she said, “that you are now on my highly recommended list.”
    “ You get the full four-star treatment and a whole chapter to yourself in my autobiography.”
    “ That won’t be an autobiography, honey; that’ll be a standard work of reference.” She looked at him, her eyes doing a complicated tango. “You’ve been around, haven’t you, Boysie baby?”
    “ I have, as they say, had my moments.” He bent over her again, but she gently pushed him away.
    “ Not now, darling. We’ll have tonight. I need a shower.”
    They took the shower together. like children playing at water carnivals; rubbed each other down, and rummaged in their cases for clean clothes.
    “ I feel great.” Chicory was standing in the middle of the room, legs apart, hands on her hips, dressed only in tight white briefs and bra. “How about some coffee?”
    “ All right, but get some of those clothes on first. If the