poor thing,” Veronica ignored her sister while regarding her freshly frocked form in the full-length mirror. “Somehow it seems so cosmically wrong that you were the one to get spanked. Do you think this intuitive person has more than one spanking in him, or did you use it all up?”
“Are you kidding? He was getting off on it. I could feel!” Virginia asserted, leaning out the windowsill and gazing down on cobble-stoned Revere Street below. “In a big way too,” Virginia added.
About an hour later in the Charles Street Pub, Sgt. Flagg wondered what it was about him that day that suddenly pretty young women were flirting with him on first sight. First there had been the blonde brat with her peace sign, insolently baiting him until he had no choice but to turn her over his knee, which event had been remarkably enhanced by being witnessed by ten rowdily enthusiastic onlookers pouring out of this bar. Now, here was a delectable brunette in the shortest skirt he’d ever seen, perched on a stool not five steps away and looking straight into his eyes in a way that could not be misinterpreted.
On the way over to talk to the girl in the white dress and high-heeled sandals, the sergeant was stopped to have his hand shaken vigorously by two different imbibers, in two different states of inebriation.
“What was that all about?” Veronica asked him as he slid onto the vacant stool beside her.
“Oh, they’re just wise guys,” said the weather-beaten marine, extending his rough hand to shake her small, well manicured one. “Doug Flagg,” he said.
“Veronica Grady,” she replied, allowing him to squeeze her hand briefly.
“What are you drinking?”
“Cosmopolitans,” she replied.
“What the hell are those?”
“Martinis.”
“May I join you?” he asked politely.
“Of course. I’ve been trying to catch your eye.”
“Why’s that?” he asked, hailing the bartender to ask for another tequila and beer chaser for himself and a second Cosmo for the girl.
“I can’t resist a uniform.”
After that the conversation flowed rapidly back and forth with all the ease of confident flirtation. Veronica’s long legs were tanned and bare and her toenails painted dark red to match her fingernails and lips. Whenever she shook back her hair it fell into place perfectly. Her teeth were very white and she smiled a good deal. She seemed to get drunk fast and laughed at all his jokes accordingly. The looser she became, the less the wise Doug drank, leaving his last tequila on the bar before they emerged onto Charles Street in the heavy, humid dusk of evening.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “Because I live very close by and I have an ice box full of food.”
“Are you inviting me to dinner?” he asked, startled to make this sort of impression on such a fresh, pretty, well dressed and well spoken young lady.
“Pot luck,” she explained with a grin, “but I think you’ll be satisfied.”
They walked the two blocks to Revere Street and then upstairs to the flat in the old brick building. Veronica sat Doug down at the small round table in the tiny kitchen and quickly laid out a spread of cold lamb sandwiches on crusty Italian bread, homemade potato salad and coleslaw, cranberry relish and a good red wine. Her guest was overwhelmed but immediately did justice to the simple repast thinking how much more pleasant this was than waiting for a table in a crowded restaurant on a busy Saturday night.
Even with two fans blowing directly on them, it was oppressively hot in the small apartment, especially after eating and drinking. Veronica encouraged him to loosen his collar and even take off his stiff white shirt. Stripped to his pants and sleeveless tee, the Viet Nam veteran was impressively lean and muscular and his hostess admired his ripped abs and tablet pecs accordingly.
They took their wine and crawled out the kitchen window onto the roof from which many assorted vistas and rooftops were visible including a sliver of the Charles in the dark. A nearby radio was blasting Take It As It Comes and Veronica made him get up and dance with her. They held hands and twisted to the music.
“This song makes me want to have sex,” Veronica confided. Doug looked at her and marveled at how much girls had changed in the few years he’d been out of the country. For example, favors one had to practically stand on one’s head and beg for in the early sixties were now apparently bestowed as a matter of course on the most casual acquaintance. And then of course the immense innovations of the mini skirt and noticeably absent brassiere had done even more to slide the pedestal out from under the modern American girl.
The next thing Veronica knew, she was being pulled back into the apartment, where she presently found herself sitting on his lap, with her arms wound around his neck and his tongue exploring her mouth. Under her trim, firm bottom she could feel his excitement swell and she did not scruple to make matters worse by wriggling against and bouncing up and down on the truncheon like form through their clothes. Then she was being carried into her small bedroom, carefully undressed and thoroughly made love to in three or four positions until the leathery soldier finally allowed himself to expire in her embrace.
“You didn’t come,” he accused a few minutes later, as they put themselves back together and went out into the kitchen, their appetites stimulated by their exertions.
“It takes more than fortitude to make me come,” she explained, setting the plate of brownies on the table beside a jug of milk.
“What does it take?” he asked, consuming the first brownie in a few bites and washing it down with milk.
“Maybe I’ll tell you later,” she said, pulling on a pair of short denim shorts and a dark red halter-top with a pair of denim espadrilles that laced to the ankle.
Sitting down to her milk, Veronica took her first bite of brownie as Doug demolished his second cake and reached for a third. Chewing thoughtfully she said, “Uh oh. I just realized something. Don’t finish that,” she said, an instant too late.
“Why not? I don’t usually eat sweets, but these are great.”
“You don’t want to eat too much on a hot night,” she said, sweeping the plate back into the refrigerator. “Listen, why don’t we go out for a walk in the public gardens?”
“Sure!” he said agreeably and went to put on his clothes.
Walking through the small parlor en route to the bedroom he paused to look at some of the framed photos on the bookshelves.
“Ronnie, who is this girl with you?” Doug demanded, bringing one of the photos back into the kitchen with him. Veronica turned from the sink where she was quickly washing and drying their plates to regard the photo of herself and Virginia that he was brandishing before her.
“Oh, that’s my sister, Virginia. Isn’t she pretty?”
“You’re not going to believe this, but I had a run in with her today at the recruitment office,” he admitted.
“Really? What kind of run in?” Veronica affected amazement.
“Let’s just get out of here before she gets home,” he recommended.
Once
