Chapter 10

Tess took the holiday and the following day off with her family, and I hung with mine over in Raleigh, but early on the morning of the 6^th, I met with her back at the same old stand -- her parents' country club in Chapel Hill.

She played all day. Thirty-six holes -- 18 on each of the two courses -- plus two hours of practice, chipping and putting, and a short stint pulverizing golf balls on the club's driving range.

Exhausted, we both showered at the club and drove -- in our separate cars -- to a familiar Chinese restaurant in Chapel Hill for an early dinner.

"I shot lousy today," she said.

"Didn't seem all that bad, to me."

"Drives were a little off, and the putting was awful."

"Well. It was your first time out for -- what? -- four days?"

"I'm gonna have to practice every day until we leave here on Monday," she said.

"OK."

"Do you still have your apartment?"

"It's not exactly an apartment. It's two rooms, a bath, and access to the owner's kitchen," I said. "But, yes, I still have it, through this month."

"We gotta have someplace to go, to be -- together," she said.

"Well, my place is pretty cramped, and I've never, ahh, had a girl there."

"Would your landlord object?"

I laughed. "Are you kidding? He's a dirty old man with a porno DVD collection you wouldn't believe! If I brought you there, he'd probably have his ear to the door, listening to us the whole time."

"You must be a terrible disappointment to him, as a tenant, if you've never taken a girl there."

"No doubt. Although he's never actually complained."

"Well, we've gotta have somewhere to go. Thanks to your brilliant energy-saving suggestion, the RV is in Ohio. We can't go there."

"How about your pool house?"

"No. It wouldn't be the same, hanging out with you there, now that you're not an actual overnight guest."

"I guess I can understand that distinction."

"I don't mind if your landlord listens at the door. It sounds like kinda fun."

"You'll have to be a little noisy, make it worth his while."

That got her evilest smile. "I don't think that will be a problem."

So that became our pattern during the next four days. One round, sometimes two, at a variety of courses selected by Tess within a 40-mile radius. Then, hours more of practice on the club driving ranges and putting greens, and back to my rooms for late-afternoon gonzo sex. After that, it was much-needed rest for me, while Tess headed back to her parents' home for the night.

She was back to pick me up again each following morning. My landlord was almost overflowing with newfound admiration for me. For the first time, he informed me that he "hated it" that I was moving out for good at the end of the month. He was also disappointed that I would be gone for most of July, anyway, off to golf tournaments with Tess.

"What a babe!" he said, that first night, after he had been introduced to Tess (and had, no doubt, listened to us make love from the other side of my bedroom's thin wall). "What a fucking babe! You lucky bastard! I never knew you had it in you! Goddamn!"

I don't think he even watched any of his DVDs that week; at least, not while Tess and I were around. Jerking off to the sounds of The Real Thing was evidently far more stimulating.

I actually checked -- with some care -- for signs that the old pervert might have drilled a hole in the wall of my bedroom. I didn't find anything, but I reminded myself to check again, after every significant period of time away from the apartment.

Tess, on her second visit, noticed my checking the walls and asked me why. When I explained, she just felt sorry for the old bastard. "What would it matter," she wanted to know, "if he got a look at us, doing it?"

"We're entitled to a modicum of privacy," I said. "I mean, God, I'm proud of you! I'd like to do you, up on the roof, out on the front side where everybody could see! But I thought we ought to do what we could not to just encourage the old fart to spy on you."

"On me?" she said. "Sweetie, I don't mind. Actually, I'm kind of a show-off, with these things. I learned, pretty early-on, that my Girls could make a man's jaw drop. I learned, too, that a lot of my female so-called friends halfway-hated me, for having them. Well, the way I looked at it, neither the admiration nor the hatred was something I had earned, or deserved. But I could enjoy the admiration, and I could ignore the hatred. So I did. Both."

"Do you ever like -- y'know -- just flaunt it?" I asked her. "Do you -- y'know -- wear bikinis to the pool, and stuff?"

"At home, I do," she said, "unless my folks are having strait-laced company over, or something. And on vacations -- Florida or the Bahamas, say -- oh, I let it all hang out then! --But never at school, or in a public gathering place, close to home. I do have some standards."

"God, I'd really like to see that!" I said.

"Why, for God's sake? You've seen it all, sonny! I parade around here with you with nothing on at all."

"I know, I know -- and I'm grateful, God knows! But you know what I mean. Seeing you, out in public, or even at your pool at home, in a really-brief bikini! That's gotta be wet-dream stuff!"

"You men are incredible," she said, but she was smiling. "But, yeah, I hear what you're saying. Sometimes, less is more, I guess."

"Or, in this case, wouldn't that be, 'more is less?'" I asked her. "Maybe you can model the bikini for me, sometime, in the RV. Or maybe you could wear it, at one of the pools we run into, while we're on the road."

"Are you prepared to defend my honor?" she asked me. "I warn you, my little red one can be pretty damned -- stimulating."

"I don't doubt it for a minute!" I said. "But that's for later. For poolside, somewhere where nobody knows us. For right now, here in this shabby little bedroom of mine, I want you nekkid, woman! Take it alllllll off!"