Chapter 4

Checking into the hotel, I noticed that Sally Gervais seemed apprehensive and more than a little cowed by the activity all around her. I had anticipated some of this.

I guided her through the formalities at the desk and we followed a bellhop up to our eighth floor oceanfront rooms. The young man opened the double doors between the two rooms, handed each of us separate computerized "keys," thanked me for his handsome tip and departed.

"This is your room," I explained to Sally. I hung up her sparse wardrobe of new clothes. "I will be in the adjoining room -- there. I will leave the door unlocked so that you can call on me at any time."

"I am very hungry," Sally said.

"Yes. Yes, so am I. We've gone a long time without food. But we both should clean up before we go out to eat."

"I am afraid," she said.

"Afraid?"

"Going out again. The downstairs, there — the big room."

"The lobby?"

"Yes. The people — everywhere. It is as you said on the plane. The noise. The people ... frightening."

"It will quickly become easier for you, I am sure," I said. "But if you like, we can eat our dinner tonight right here in the room."

"Here?"

"Yes. Let's get cleaned up. Then I'll call Room Service."

"All right."

I was in the shower in my own room, soaped up thoroughly and enjoying the rinsing of the salt water deposits from my neglected body when I heard Sally call. The call came from very nearby.

I turned off the water, pulled the shower curtain to one side and -- there she was. She was beautiful, tanned all over to a golden brown, and as completely naked as a twenty-year-old woman can get.

"I cannot cause the shower-thing to come on," she said.

I grabbed a big towel to wrap around my rapidly hardening penis, took one more long, longing look at her fantastic nude body, and said, "Come along and I'll help you."

Well, the shower mechanism was, indeed, unusual and somewhat complex. I remembered times when, in strange hotels and motels, I had experienced long minutes of frustration trying to make unfamiliar bathroom fixtures function appropriately. And this young woman had been on a desert island for the greater part of her life. It was understandable.

Sally, unembarrassed about her nakedness, patiently waited while I twisted and adjusted the mechanism until it worked. Then, after I understood it myself, I explained its peculiarities to her, showed her how to adjust the water temperature and how to turn the whole thing off when she was through. At last I prepared to take my leave.

"It's big," she said.

I thought she was commenting on my personal equipment. "It's pretty ordinary," I said. But, secretly, I was quite pleased at her comment.

"It's big enough for two," she said.

Oh. It was the size of the shower that she had been observing. That was something of a letdown. Then again, the other half of her comment: "big enough for two."

That was, to say the least, intriguing.

"Take your shower," I said at last. "Then we'll discuss it."

With enormous regret, I went back to my own bathroom and my own unfinished shower.

Sally seemed to enjoy some of the advantages of civilization just fine. She stayed in the shower for approximately forever. I was cleaned up, dressed and back in her room perusing the room service menu long before she emerged from her bathroom.

Still stone naked. Oh, Jesus!

"Sally. You need to put on some clothes," I said.

"Yes. Of course. There are conventions. It is difficult to adjust."

"There are indeed conventions," I agreed. "You must understand. Your nudity doesn't ... offend me. Not at all! It is ... exciting and, ahh ... stimulating. But we must, um, adhere to convention."

"On the island," Sally said, "we often wore no clothing at all."

"Yes. Well."

"I'm sorry if it was -- wrong of me," she said.

"Sally. My God! You are extremely attractive! But you mustn't forget, you're a grown-up woman now. It's not like when you left civilization. You and I: We're ... adults."

"Yes. I understand. It was thoughtless of me."

All this time, all the time this conversation was going on, Sally had remained standing there, at the entrance to her room's bath.