The deal was Jenny would drop Conrad off at the golf course, drive on into town, and pick him up five hours later, unless he called first. (That way she wouldn’t feel stranded out at the beach house.) The trouble was there wasn’t much to do in town. There was a gas station, several real estate agencies, a Piggly Wiggly and a McDonalds, a Family Dollar, a Dollar General, a lawyer’s office, a post office, and two pest control businesses. Bugs were big business down here inFlorida. There were four churches, so God was doing okay, a run down hotel, and a few other buildings, most of which were boarded up. The day had started out gloomy, but now the sun was out, so after dropping Conrad off, Jenny drove back out to the beach house and spent the afternoon on the beach. The waves made that sweet swollen sound as they churned into the shore, and the sun was nice and hot. She read for a little and she napped for a little and she oiled herself three or four times an hour. It was nicer when Conrad oiled her, but one couldn’t have everything. Usually she thought she was lucky to have Conrad. No question he was crazy about her. He loved her more than anything but maybe golf. He’d been her English teacher in college, and he came down here to the Gulf Coast every summer to work on his novel and improve his game. This was her first time.

By three o’clock Conrad hadn’t called, so Jenny padded through the sand to the beach house, shrugged off her bra, stepped out of her bikini panties, slipped into shorts and a tee shirt, and set off to fetch him. She hoped she wouldn’t have to wait too long at the course. The men were mostly old, even older than Conrad, and they tended to leer at her.

Conrad called while she was on route. “I’m on my way,” she told him, finally having mastered the Bluetooth hands-free. “Fifteen minutes should do it.”

But then there was a snag. The little rural road that ran along the coast was under construction, so it was one lane for a couple of miles. If the timing was wrong, that meant sitting on the highway in front of the flagman for several minutes until the traffic from the other side passed by. Today it was more than several minutes. She looked at the guy manning the stop sign. He was a kid, really, with scruffy red hair. Kind of cute. He was holding some kind of walkie-talkie. He grinned at her. She grinned back. After a minute or two he left his stop sign post and came over to the car.

“Sorra, Ma’am,” he said. “They’s havin’ some trouble with d’equipmens. Should’n be morn’a couple a mints.”

The guy was sweating, poor kid. He was wearing a luminescent lime green vest but no shirt. His arms were red. His face was red. “Mus’ be awful hot out here,” Jenny said, using two syllables for here. His talk was catchy.

“Yes, Ma’am, it is. I thought it was s’pose to be cloudy all day. I shoulda knowed.”

“Would you like to wait in the car? Get you out of the sun?”

“I couldn’t do that, Ma’am. Much as I’d like to.” ‘Lahk,’ he’d said, his eyes showing sincerity as they lifted from the soft swell and pointed tips of her breasts. He smiled. A cute smile. A sweaty hank of red hair dripped across his brow. He wiped it back.

“I know. My husband has this old slicker. He’s golfing and he left it off this morning. He always brings it along but he hardly ever takes it with.” Jenny picked up the silvery nylon windbreaker from the passenger seat to show him. “You could wear it. Might keep the sun off.”

“I guess it could,” the boy agreed. “But yer sure?”

“Sure, no problem. Go ahead.” She bundled the windbreaker through the window.

“Light, huh?” the boy said. He glanced back down the road, then set the walkie-talkie on the roof of the car, quickly removed his vest, slipped into the slicker, zipped it up, and retrieved the walkie-talkie. “Fits real good,” he said. He grinned. “Me an your husband must be ‘bout the same size.”

“At least,” Jenny said. Once again Jenny couldn’t help grinning back at him. “You been working here long?”

“Oh sure, all summer, if I’m lucky. Only trouble’s home’s puddy fah. Ahm a stayin at one of the hotel cabins. It gets puddy lonely, you know?”

“I know.”

The walkie-talkie cackled.

Jenny couldn’t make out the words. “It won’t be long now,” the boy said. “Nother couple mints.”

A pickup truck pulled up behind Jenny. The boy smiled at her and went back to his stop sign. They smiled at each other for several more minutes, and then a stream of cars came by from the other direction, and after the last one passed, the boy talked into his walkie-talkie, swiveled the sign from stop to slow, and waved Jenny on her way.

A couple of miles down the road she passed the flagman at the other end. This one was a woman. Fat. Really fat. No way would Conrad’s windbreaker fit her. She chuckled, imagining the woman’s breasts bursting the windbreaker’s zipper. Maybe Conrad would like her more if she had breasts like that. Well, the boy seemed to like her breasts just fine, to judge from the way he’d had to struggle to keep his eyes from dipping. Jenny remembered the boy’s nipples. Tight like tiny pebbles. A droplet of sweat dripping down his chest. She saw herself tasting that droplet of sweat. She saw herself nipping those tiny nipples. Her own nipples tingled at these thoughts. She thought about the boy’s cock. Probably poking up strong and proud out of a nice nest of soft red hair. The tingles intensified and shot straight to her clit. Oh, Lordy, she thought, Conrad’s gonna get a good hard fucking tonight.

He was waiting on a bench out front of the golf shop.

“How’d you do, honey?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know about this game. I think I hate it.”

“Why’d you do it then?”

Again he shook his head. “I’ll do better tomorrow. How come you’re so late?”

“Road construction.”