LaVyrle Spencer - Spring Fancy

"I like sleeping with you." He lifted both arms above his head and posed like Charles Atlas, everything bulging and quivering from chin to waist.

"That's because I don't snore."

"Did I?"

"Just a little."

His arms hauled her close. "Mmm… I'll have to make up for it some way, won't I?"

"And also for the extra charge on my light bill." He glanced back over his shoulder. "Oh, did we leave it on?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"You just wanted to check and make sure it was me with you if you woke up in the middle of the night with your hand on anything important."

"Yup!" she agreed, and they both laughed as he rolled her beneath him and braced up on both elbows.

"Come with me today," he urged.

"Where we goin'?"

"To the auction in Bemidji."

"Ohh, the auction. I'd forgotten."

He smiled into her eyes. "Will you come?"

She twisted one of his curls around her finger and smiled up at him very naughtily, then purred, "Try me, big boy."

"Oh, for shame!" he teased.

She looped her arms around his neck. "Well, you can't blame a girl for getting to like it, can you?"

"Winnifred Gardner, I'm shocked."

"Yeah, I can feel the shock absolutely growing on you."

"Oh, that. Well, you can't blame a boy for responding to the off-color innuendo of a fiery little sexpot who-"

"Fiery little sexpot!"

"Fiery little sexpot who keeps a cup in her kitchen with the nickname Killer on it."

"You take that back, Jo-Jo Duggan, or I'll make you sorry!" She yanked the curl.

"Ow! Watch it, Killer, you're askin' for it!" He got her by both wrists and showed her who was master here.

"Yes, Mr. Duggan, I am," she simpered.

He kissed her finally with a mock show of uncontrolled passion, writhing around as if he were swimming on top of her. She was laughing beneath his mouth, and her words came out muffled.

"Are you going to ravish me?"

"You bet, and you're going to love it."

"Am I supposed to fight you or cooperate?"

He mellowed. His squirming turned to undulation. He was assaulting her mouth, chin, throat, then breasts with breathtaking tenderness. "I never did care much for unwilling females."

"Have you had many… unwilling ones?"

His stubbled jaw was like a steel brush against her tender breast, and she loved it. "None."

"And what about the other kind? How many of them?"

He reared up, meeting her eyes. "My share. Does it bother you?"

She had a flippant remark on the tip of her tongue, but instead she cupped his face in both hands and spoke earnestly. "Oh, yes, Joseph Duggan, I hate every one of them for having you before I did. And I have no right."

"You have every right. After last night."

Tears sprang into her eyes, and her soft lips parted on a quick indrawn breath, not quite a sob, not quite a sigh. It had to be said. Feelings this strong simply must be voiced.

"God help me, Joseph, I love you."

"Then God help both of us, not just you."

This time when his body slipped inside hers, it was with great tenderness. Their coupling was totally different from the first time. It was rich with slowness, unfrenzied, almost studious. They watched each other, both faces and bodies, and loved with eyes, as well as the physical parts that joined. They neither spoke nor called out, for their union was not meant to ease, but to blend their spirits. And so it did. Only Joseph reached a climax, but it mattered little to Winn. This she could give, yet be the grateful one when it was over.

And this physical union, for all its simpleness-wholesomeness almost-was shattering.

"I love you," he vowed when it ended.

"And I love you," she answered. Then she cried.

They made a pact afterward that those would be the last tears of the day, that they'd be carefree, happy, and speak of no other people but themselves.

They spent the day going to Bemidji in Joseph's 1954 Cadillac pickup, a funereal gray monstrosity twenty-two feet long, with all its coffin rollers intact and sporting four doors, velour upholstery sumptuous enough to be used in any coffin and a roomy three feet of space behind the seat, from which the name "flower car" had been derived: the space for carrying the funeral flowers.

But the vehicle was luxurious to a fault. During much of the five-hour ride, Winn lay sprawled across the seat with the soles of her feet hanging out the window and her head snuggled in Joseph's lap.

Five miles outside of Bemidji they followed directions on the auction-sale billboard and parked the Caddy beside the narrow gravel road lined with cars on both sides for a quarter mile in either direction. They spent the day meandering the farmyard amid farmers wearing bib overalls and wives with their pin curls tied up in blue handkerchiefs knotted above their foreheads.

Joseph and Winn kept their promise. They forgot about all the outside forces working against them and enjoyed only each other, holding hands, laughing, occasionally dipping behind a large piece of machinery to exchange kisses. The '41 Ford was a rusted, wheelless heap that wasn't worth bidding on in Joseph's estimation, but they loved listening to the silver-tongued auctioneer calling the sale with mercurial glibness.

"Heep – hayy – o – what – am – I – bid – for – this – little – beauty – of – an – automobile – do – I – hear – five – hundred – to – start – five – hundred – five – hundred – do – I – hear – five – hundred – hayy – oo – take – the – safety – pins – off – your – pockets – folks – do – I – hear – four – fifty – she's – a – racy – little – number – just – needs – a – little – dip – in – penetrating – oil – do – I – hear – four – fifty – they – don't – make – 'em – like – this – anymore – four – fifty – four – fifty – do – I – hear – four – fifty – to – start – all – right – we'll – do – this – the – hard – way – do – I – hear – four – hundred – to – start – f our – hundred – what – am – I – bid – fooooour – fooooour…"

Jo-Jo laughed. Winn joined him. It was utterly refreshing, holding hands in the sunshine, listening to the red-faced potbellied auctioneer plying his trade. Dogs and children scampered through the crowd, while housewives from neighboring farms poked and prodded amid the housewares on display, gleaning bits of the personal lives of those holding the sale from the oddments strewn across the yard: chairs, books, tables, pot-bellied stoves, doilies, pickling pots, carpet sweepers, bales of twine, dishes, hog feeders, treadle sewing machines, hay balers, scrolls of music from a roller piano and a claw-footed swivel organ stool with four amber marbles clutched in its feet.

"Imagine what we'll have strewn all over our yard when we're seventy years old and having an auction sale," Winn mused.

She and Joseph sauntered along between a line of blossoming honeysuckle bushes and a set of eight oak spoke chairs. He swung their hands between them. "Are we going to be seventy years old and having an auction sale?" He grinned down at her and kicked his feet out idly with each step.

"I said imagine."

"Oh… imagine. Okay, let's see. There'll be a whole truckload of old beat-up tennis shoes and an even bigger one of rackets, and ragbags full of grungy sweat pants and sweat shirts with the arms cut off."

"And the bellies," she put in.

"And the bellies," he seconded. "And what else?"

"And a yard full of your vintage cars, Joseph, all in mint condition, and we'll get rich, rich, rich from them and spend our eighties cruising oceans in the height of luxury."

"And there'll be a shed full of white plastic containers and white fluffy powder puffs."