1 comments/ 5485 views/ 0 favorites So Respectable By: RetMarut By 1980 Ian Abercrombie had parlayed chance, talent, hard work into a perch from which he soared. He yoked himself to the school newspaper just long enough to synthesize the three major reporting manual styles. (Chicago. Times. AP.) Quickly frustrated with school editors whose "lazy white man" allegiances outweighed merit, he eventually bluffed his way into column inches on T-town's morning paper, The Territorial. While locals who'd made their journo bones ably staffed the periodical, its masthead ran top-heavy with diminished hacks who'd migrated to the cheap and easy less demanding West. Dubious bona fides aside, experience in any Top Five market clouded publishers' judgment and carpeted many an undeserved path in rose petals. Deficient as he knew his college clips were, Abercrombie's brashness exceeded his proof. Maybe those doing the vetting hazily recognized in him who they'd been yesterday. Or had believed themselves to have been yesterday. Regardless he made the initial sale. Once the fresh stringer figured the paper's lay, Abercrombie connived off the usual newsprint stations of the cross. Collecting/distributing copy, tacking on inspired additions directly slurred from last calls, faking being regaled by that big story from '61, he left to narrowbacks or mousy chicks speeding towards social dysfunction. He used every chance possible to hit the bricks. Perhaps owing to his decided outsider status, Abercrombie noticed how vast segments of the community suffered neglected reportage. If it weren't for sports, entertainment or crime, few would've known blacks, Indians and Mexicans resided in T-town. And forget pop culture. Despite his large ego -- a necessity -- Abercrombie did not see himself as a savior. Just an opportunist. Far less hidebound than any Eastern newsroom, the Territorial staff looked upon his impetuousness amused. Their consensus was "who cared about marginal people?" And fast fading fads? Pffft! Nonetheless it was the West. Risk while evading recklessness had tamed the region. Those it didn't kill, thrived. Or were sent packing. Abercrombie received one generous coil of rope. Night of the reception for Professor Downs' bestseller buddy, Abercrombie hadn't gone as a reporter but as an invitee. However, should the guest of honor drop an epigram or two, preferably pithy and vermouth dry, dispense some brilliance, well, pad out and pen scribbling. Downs himself had extended the invitation. Several of Abercrombie's fellow low-rung strivers attended along with those few less self-absorbed graduates doggedly pursuing MFAs. Unlike Abercrombie, the venue, the crowd therein, discomforted them. He imagined they preferred confinement in student hovels seen as scribes' dens. Something about suffering for "craft." Right. There where dirty plates and laundry piled, these someday serious writers opened metaphoric veins. Anemic writing aptly demonstrated their thin understanding of the world. At times, Abercrombie wished for an older adult's humility. But then he reasoned false modesty worse than arrogance. English department professors and their spouses, or, a-hem, that semester's sweet young assistant, larded the guest list. Distinguished department supporters augmented them. Given the evening's magnitude, Abercrombie broke out blazer and slacks, a button-down shirt and a badly-knotted tie. Standing easily in freshly-polished Oxfords, he felt overdressed though extremely presentable. Guests made do on shrimp, an open bar and futile attempts at clever conversation. The generous circulation of older women, which at his age, 21, relative, struck him oddly. Those piquing him weren't crones or haggard. Women throughout their 30s and 40s fluttered around Duff Scharlach's gallery. Working on some antsy schedule, these women frequently landed, nervously burbled, then flew. He assumed most were faculty wives. Their flightiness seized his eye. Not regal but many encroaching upon that attribute, one whiffed former easy attraction yielding to future labored allure. Most he could imagine younger. His age. Still very callow, Abercrombie somehow intuited beyond their self-enforced postures, pert appearances, they struggled against a kind of diminishment. Something behind their piercing eyes betrayed an awareness of insidious irrelevance. Of a shift. From getting by on raw sexual magnetism towards honing wiles. That night he saw and grasped but never fully comprehended until his own 30s. Later among his age-set females lingering and loss clarified themselves in his male outlook. The man of the hour demeaned the process feting him. Abercrombie wondered how many of his temporary admirers heard honesty and courage in the author's contrariness, and whether the rest suspected drunkenness lubricated his erstwhile confessions. 'Lear or Mailer?' Abercrombie thought. Downs gestured for him. He made introductions. Abercrombie recognized the stately female figure beside Downs. Across the last three years he'd seen her waiting on lines at the Valley National Bank campus branch. Usually she dressed down, as if during some heavy-duty masonry repairs she suddenly decided a deposit or withdrawal was urgent. The department chairman introduced him to Clare Chetwynd. Abercrombie placed Mrs. Chetwynd in her late 50s, early 60s. Tonight despite wearing what passed as Western couture and understated jewelry that clearly indicated one robust financial background, Mrs. Chetwynd didn't have a society woman's handshake. The matron's firm grip increased her substance. The blue-eyed ramrod gauging him retained shape around a bosom he doubted plunged much when unfettered. Her face hadn't broken much, while rinse thwarted gray throughout her auburn sweep. Abercrombie needn't dial back far to see a younger Mrs. Chetwynd as mantrap attractive -- without taking the last step where vanity stumbled into ridicule. "Ian is the fellow I told you about, Clare," Downs said. Proud nearly parental inflection rode his voice. Abercrombie swallowed a grin. She replied with an easy seductive purr. "Good. This country can't have too many competent talented men." Her compliment impelled an already straightened Abercrombie to stand taller. Peripherally he noticed Downs further square his own shoulders. Mrs. Chetwynd pointed her comments at the younger man. "Bobby, oh, Professor Downs, gave us a sheaf of your writing. Your newspaper work is engrossing. It almost embarrasses me to realize how ignorant I am about our city. And I've lived here nearly 40 years!" "A lot of my stuff comes from the margins," Abercrombie said. "That is if people can be so safely described. Usually awareness of them is sufficient. Is it enough to know then ignore what's underfoot? What I've tried doing, and what The Territorial generally allows, is basing articles on one premise: these are also your neighbors. A lot of subscribers find that disturbing, I hear." Probably hearing untimely precocity, Downs redirected focus. "But Ian's fiction is much more artful. The, er, immaturity is giving way to twisty ambiguity." He turned to Abercrombie. "Ian, there are times when we amuse ourselves with your purported fiction pieces. Sometimes none of us can determine whether you've presented disguised facts or facts lacquered under fictionalization." Mrs. Chetwynd and Downs chuckled. Abercrombie kept mum. He knew silence heightened mystery, which would increase attraction, and therefore interest. A female fourth voice opined. "Sounds like the entire modern literature canon since 1950. Should anyone be commending any practitioner of such facile skills?" Naturally the newcomer drew their attention. That voice belonged to a woman Abercrombie guessed in her late 20s. She'd teased the chestnut mane framing her heart-shaped face into a luxuriant hive. A poison green wrap dress bound on pleasant chest and faithfully adhered along her fine womanly curves. Clogs shod her feet, shoes Abercrombie bet she wore for convenience rather than comfort. Had she been a contemporary, he would've dismissed her "wise ass" nature. Since she wasn't, he settled on superior. Obviously some relation to Mrs. Chetwynd, the woman had quite a distance to go before reaching distinguished. Intuitively he knew she'd eventually claim that status. Though not without resistance. Instead, for now, she'd wend through velvet contrariness. Blue eyes leapt from her tanned features. Upon her lips she'd applied a deep berry tint rather than some unnatural red. Only Mrs. Chetwynd introducing them kept her from pulling one unalterable moue. "This is my daughter Margot." The benefactress beamed at her issue. Margot extended a fine hand. Between rings glinting off every finger and bracelets clanking around both wrists, Abercrombie wondered whether the Chetwynd daughter could be any more encumbered. Her powerful grip, its duration, how her eyes challenged, favorably stacked Abercrombie's estimation. His little grin became hers. Mrs. Chetwynd recognized what transpired. Where motherly reproach might've been expected, she confounded Abercrombie through a slight approving nod. Downs looked on fascinated, his comprehension incomplete. Margot broke the trance and time resumed. She mixed accusation with suggestiveness. "So you're the man who's going to make everything all right." Roberta Flack's "Poetry Man" resounded through her statement. Downs' clarification was unwelcome cold water. "Indeed. We saw Ian as a perfect fit for what the project required. And everything dovetails so nicely, too." The department chairman reveled in how randomness created one small ordered circle. "Everything" consisted of Abercrombie getting summer part-timer status at The Territorial; sharing adequate in-town housing until August; then spending the eighth month domiciled in a dedicated university residence as recognition for his writing skills. The cottage, if one could imagine a flat-roofed adobe dwelling as such, usually hosted three graduate students for individual one-month stays from June to August. Stipends further sweetened the award. Peace and quiet, 30 days respite from monetary worry, ought have provided conditions perfect for creation. Stories. Novel chapters. Poems. Essays. Didn't matter. Just conjure from desert air, beseech Erato, write. Or some such purple claptrap. "I sure could use another drink," Margot drawled. "Me too," Abercrombie said. "When you go, get me one." Surprise flickered across Margot's face. Color rose in her cheeks, her eyes heated. She extinguished both quickly, a higher sense of regard their residue. Abercrombie saw fleeting approval from Mrs. Chetwynd. Maybe Downs understood their exchange to have been about cocktails. Abercrombie's summer circumstances would demand more than deadlines and summer daydreaming. Added to his seasonal labor, any frolics derived, he'd also been enlisted for the "Chetwynd bequeath." Before money, Dexter and Clare Chetwynd had worked. Post-war into the 60s they'd operated a photography business which glorified all aspects Arizona. Good chunks of their effort achieved iconic status. These became the visual staples which lured Eastern masses into western voids. The couple also had foresight. Great desert tracts purchased for pennies during the early 50s were coveted by developers a decade later. That dirt became expensive. Wealth amassed, prestige bought and secured, Dexter Chetwynd sought a legacy more meaningful than subdivisions suffixed by Estates, Gardens or Meadows. Merely endowing a chair at the university failed his grandiosity. However, the family did possess tens of thousands of negatives and prints chronicling Arizona before blacktop and urbanization. That was the long-ago country Dexter and Clare entered. It deserved remembrance. Already sizable university contributors, donation of the Chetwynd photography collection in the late 70s encountered zero opposition. Naturally a companion volume would supplement the exhibition. And Chetwynd was specific about the writer or writers assigned: no natives, no one raised in the Southwest. He wanted an Easterner or Easterners who'd migrated West much like he (Philadelphia) and his wife (Cleveland). The task required fresh perspectives. Despite lucrative potential, this job neither excited nor attracted any experienced department hands fitting the contributor's criteria. Among themselves that summer were pros who saw scant upside in what many regarded as a vanity project. Furthermore, previous and guaranteed future piles of money to the university aside, much of the English and Journalism faculties considered Dexter Chetwynd a right-winger in the Barry Goldwater mold. Given his politics, they detested him. Certainly the text would clearly center on the pictures and their times. Yet there was widespread sneaking suspicion conversations might likely drift into the country's post-war amble. Chetwynd was renown for decrying, if not despairing, America's gradual social fragmentation since the absolute unity of its bravest hours. Moreover, what sane person wanted to stay in T-town over summer break, rummaging through dusty cartons while Chetwynd gassed about scrap drives and Victory Gardens!? No. Leave that task to someone young, hungry, and without a houseboat on Lake Havasu or beachfront rental somewhere along the Baja coast. "I hear you're an exceptional athlete," Margot said. Her insinuation robbed the statement of all innocence. She and Abercrombie smirked. Downs replied. "Why, yes, Ian's on our track team. Shot put and discus, isn't it?" "And javelin," Abercrombie added. Margot cooed. "Oooh, you're soooo classic." "Antique expressions form our here and now, Margot. They must be revived and revered, yes?" Mrs. Chetwynd cocked an eyebrow skeptically. Downs remained below their rarefied air. He got dragged further when his buddy the bestselling author crashed their clutch. The guest of honor had been making one loud declamatory circuit throughout the gallery. He was drunk, all right, but not on anything brewed or distilled. He was intoxicated by the strongest ambrosia of all -- indiscriminate reception of others' fawning adulation. Downs bathed in the spillover and basked in his friend's glare. Suddenly the attendants trailing the author interested themselves in Downs, a man they'd shown indifference shortly after this evening's initial greetings. Both Chetwynds spun away from the new mass. Margot momentarily occupied Abercrombie's mind. He compared her confident sauciness to the blatant unformed charms of females his age. Margot's allure bore a maturity none of those contemporaries yet managed. Though she toyed with him, her intent hadn't been to injure. More of a flirty sounding out. That she'd determined him worthy of such bestowal buffed Abercrombie's already immense self-esteem. Nonetheless rather than snuffle after Margot, Abercrombie remained among the newly-formed cluster. Behavior alone pegged Downs' buddy as an ass. Abercrombie only continued to observe the man because should talent or dumb luck ever strike, he wanted to avoid his boorishness. After thoroughly spreading verbal manure on that spot, the guest of honor spied another vista in Scharlach's gallery requiring aggrandizement. His. He moved and admirers trailed him. Abercrombie wondered if his retinue resembled less enlightened eras' royal caravans. He didn't ponder long. Margot materialized with the ebbing furor. In the interim she'd imbibed more than one cocktail. By her appearance those hadn't been tippled in any lady-like manner. She verged on tipsiness. Her mouth had loosened and bleariness along with disappointment rimmed her blue eyes. Had she been a fellow student, Abercrombie would've feared an outbreak of slurred, loud invective. Rather, she nudged him. Margot kept her voice low but made her intent clear. "I don't usually need to ask. Don't play dumb, goddamit! You know what I mean." Undisguised satisfaction crossed his face. Smart enough to recognize the upper hand, Abercrombie was still unschooled in its effective subtle application. He chortled. Margot's funk deepened. "Don't be smarmy, you prick." Voice never rising above undertone, Abercrombie said, "Good thing I'm an English major or I wouldn't know what 'smarmy' meant. What do you need from me?" Margot smiled despite herself. " 'Need'? Okay. I 'need' to understand how a boy barely into real manhood is putting me through paces." "You'd be surprised and gratified at what they're teaching in schools today." "Maybe not as surprised as you hope," Margot said. "Maybe not as grateful as you expect. I 'need' to get something outside. Come with me." Little noticed, they left the gallery. Dim as these were, downtown streetlights obscured all but the brightest stars. Margot led them into night's uninhabited portions. Soon both walked past vacant storefronts. Flanking Margot, he appraised her behind. The clingy dress certainly enhanced that ass. Determined strides kindly shuddered all that rear musculature. Spying it, rudely thinking about it, started stiffening his cock. So much so he adjusted the tool swelling in his pants. Margot halted their march at an alleyway. They squinted into semi-darkness. Nothing except a wall-hugging car, several strewn dumpsters and view of the next street. Here served her purpose. She turned, faced him. Wordlessly Margot backed into shadow. After quick glances up and down the sidewalk he followed. Margot unfastened her dress. Her garment didn't billow as much as he expected. Her nipples and sex stained those sheer fabrics covering them. The car grill ended her retreat. There, she hopped atop the hood. Clogs slapped pavement. Her bare heels rested on the fender. Hands beckoned him forward. Their convergence became instinctive synchronicity. Abercrombie's mouth swapped wet heat with hers. While one arm encircled her waist, the fingers of his other fondled either succulent hanging off her chest. Margot scooted towards Abercrombie and wedged him between strong thighs. After unfastening his slacks, she unbuttoned his shirt, The top pip cinching his collar remained untouched -- his tie knot dissuaded her. She freed Abercrombie's shirt tails then clawed up his torso. When fingernails scraped his nipples, Margot pulled her mouth off his and rubbed moist lips against Abercrombie's broad hairy chest. One crown chosen, she licked the nib then nipped it. Her bite startled him. Before he could express dismay or displeasure, Margot clasped pants and boxers and jammed them down his thick thighs. Gravity draped two kinds of fabric over his shoes. Abercrombie's cock was lively and heavy in her palm. She couldn't decide whether to hold it like a lever or a club. Margot's other hand traveled down his shaft. She found his balls already ribbed tightly. Fingernails skating along those scrotal ridges were mildly excruciating. In a good way. He flinched. His sharp air intake accompanied that response. She chuckled with soft malice. Using him as support, Margot dropped her panties. She didn't remove them but let that scrap dangle off an ankle. Bare now, she angled Abercrombie and shifted her hips. Lust notwithstanding Margot was dry and tight. His first poke came through teeth-gritting effort. Margot gripped what she could of Abercrombie's dense back and ass. She seemingly willed him into her cranny. He'd never screwed a woman as dry as Margot. Each thrust marbled thigh muscles, stressed hamstrings and tendons, then kept him lunging on the balls of his feet. These repetitions absurdly reminded Abercrombie of high school football drills, of firing off the line. Tonight's below waist jolts nearly equaled that ferocity. Her poor wetness removed all grace and pleasure from their sex. He rammed rather than stroked. Abercrombie needed to gather himself, refocus really, before pumping again. Margot's head didn't merely recoil through his force. It jarred. She clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut during penetration. On withdrawal Margot's lids fluttered and mouth flapped. So Respectable Abercrombie believed their grinding must've lengthened time. Only towards climax, his, did Margot's cunt offer generosity. When he spurted deeper joy emerged from easier movement than ejaculatory rapture. He stumbled backwards, his dick trailing out of her crevice's reluctant release. Margot momentarily lay immobile while he repaired his own dishevelment. Some inscrutable woman thought shaded her face. The instant passed and she sat upright. Margot's expression, shielded by murk, told him nothing. Reporter's inquisitiveness overcame decency and discretion. "Is it always that difficult for you?" His brazenness popped a smile across her mouth. "You are young, aren't you? But since you've rutted around down there -- very well I might add -- and have asked a pertinent question, uncouth, but legitimate, ah, sometimes. For your information, I'm 32. Almost. Oh! I wish I could see the utter shock on your face. No one 20 ever sees themselves at 30. I sure never did! Anyway, mocking my fondness for deserved delirium through spontaneous screwing, my body occasionally refuses to cooperate. Especially after enough social drinking beforehand. I figure by 40 I'll be bone arid down there. Sort of like Arizona and its pretty deserts." "Isn't foreplay an answer?" Abercrombie asked. "No," she said. "Foreplay is a godsend. Lube is the answer. And what do you know about adult games?" "Like I said, you'd be surprised at what they teach in schools nowadays," he said. "I'm a diligent student." "Extra credit and all that." "When I grow up, Margot, I hope to do droll like you." She conceded his point through a slight nod. Panties still dangled off her ankle. Margot reached down, slid her other foot into the empty loop, then sought her clogs. Abercrombie kindly aligned her footwear. She eased into them and stood. After shimmying the undergarment around her hips, Margot re-belted the wrap dress. They shuffled out of the alley onto lighted pavement. Abercrombie noticed dust coating her back. He roughly brushed off what filth he could. Returning towards the gallery they came upon and stopped at a grimy shop window. Behind it a mirror flashed. Telltale mussed hair raised alarms. Several comb passes restored Abercrombie's image. Margot's hive needed brushing but his rake sufficed and considerably lessened most traces of her just-fucked look. Somewhat presentable again, they reentered Scharlach's gallery. If their absence had been noted, their return went unmentioned. Under better gallery light, such as it was, Abercrombie saw blush on Margot's cheeks fading. Nonetheless her eyes' brightness still strongly lingered. Mutual self-consciousness surpassed prior harried intimacy. Both sought and immediately found interests elsewhere in which to commingle. By chance the space's opposite corners provided suddenly necessary refuges. For the remainder of what became one booze-sodden evening neither Abercrombie nor Margot saw another. It was sufficient to detect the other's proximity and tack accordingly. How strange then what occurred weeks later during summer break. The season quickly settled into routine. The Territorial enslaved him daily from late afternoons into evenings with alternating weekends off. Before his newspaper shifts he joined interns accruing credits in sorting through and culling what would enter the Photography Center's "Chetwynd Collection." Countless nights Abercrombie partied at the apartment-cum-jungle camp shared with three summer session football players. June and July enrollments eased their fall class loads. Fewer first semester obligations reduced practice/syllabus clashes and let them sleep longer in season. In August when they reported to camp and he gained possession of the writer's cottage, Abercrombie missed their around-the-pool keggers. Once the photo trove had been separated into themes (Indians, Mexicans, cacti, rock formations, vivid lightning strikes, etc.), Dexter Chetwynd summoned Abercrombie up to the Big House. Back then Chetwynds mansion blazed into what was considered T-town's remote east. Lengthy miles after sidewalks ended several working ranches still lined the road. The wind right, horse apples and cow flop offended sensitive nostrils. Belying his reputation, Chetwynd was not a frothing, machine-gunning, blast-them-into-the-Stone Age martinet. Short, gray haired, trim, gregarious, he was a gracious host who never suggested carpet bombing as the sole solution to all problems. Chetwynd took his Scotch on the rocks, enjoyed his drinks in shady fan-cooled rooms, and feigned immeasurable offense if guests declined joining him in either. Retired, he'd apparently bought every remaining Truman Hawaiian shirt extant then matched them against the most garish pants available. Unless it were a black tie affair, blindingly white shoes shod his feet. An Army Air Corps fighter pilot, Chetwynd had flown Mustangs over Europe. After the war, he migrated west bearing vague notions. His wingman, best buddy, and later co-founder of what became Western Panoramic Pictures, Cliff Yurish, also shared Chetwynd's indefinable affliction. If it hadn't been for the war it's unlikely the two would've met. Before induction Yurish called Buffalo home. "Then you didn't have the easy mobility like today," Chetwynd told Abercrombie in 1980. "Now people just up and go without thinking twice. I know it's considered a cliché but in those days most folks really did spend their lives in one place." Along with Lugers and two of Hitler's and Goering's 10,000,000 personal battle standards, their war booty also included that era's finest German cameras. As civilians before the war, each man had been a photo nut. They settled in T-town because years spent enduring imminent sudden death had left them restless. After dueling Messerschmitts and dodging flack, a brokerage career (Chetwynd) or some steel mill desk job (Yurish) simply promised boredom. Earlier Saturday afternoons watching Ken Maynard and Hopalong Cassidy movie shorts formed their idea of the West. Reality was better. And in color. Both had trained at the T-town Army Air Corps aerodrome. Poky as Arizona was, its alien nature grew on them. The region's strange ways, its stranger beauty, proved irresistible. Each swore if he ever survived ... Among the trove's earliest excavations Yurish figured prominently. He was a recurring character along with Chetwynd and the then Clare Mathers. In that era's parlance she'd been "a dish." Even mugging before the lens (getting handles on lariats, moving stubborn pack mules, Anglos wearing sombreros and serapes), Yurish and Chetwynd seldom forfeited their dignity. But Yurish, the swarthier, slighter, taller of that handsome pair, struck Abercrombie as borderline furtive. He hid his opinion from Chetwynd. A good thing. Seeing Yurish disappear after 1947, Abercrombie suspected they'd suffered a rift. One that ceded Panoramic to Chetwynd. Thoroughness necessitated he get the whole story, painful as it might've been. Abercrombie hoped Yurish hadn't been unscrupulous, ruptured trust demanding his exile. Instead mishap claimed him. Chetwynd was frank. "Cliff Yurish got killed in a plane crash. Just over by Corner Mountain. It was tough. A man makes it through the war without a scratch, starts something he likes, then buys it in civilian life. I guess you call that irony. Or maybe it's a mystery meant to keep us human beings humble. I don't know. It's always been too hard for me to figure." Chetwynd simply didn't dismiss his friend that afternoon. Abercrombie was sure during the immediate aftermath Chetwynd had mourned. Then again combat casualties still so fresh, he doubted 1947's Dexter Chetwynd had grieved effusively. Abercrombie based that assumption from observing his own father, another World War II veteran. Stoic, little complaining, less confessional, often single-mindedly driven. The son wondered whether his father had acted in such regimented manner throughout his life, but stopped when he realized nearly every acknowledged WWII vet duplicated the same traits. But 33 years later who had Cliff Yurish been? And who might he have become? Fondly remembered, after a fashion, though not honored. A key component whose initial vital contributions diminished into nothing after decades. He left behind pretty pictures and vanishing footprints. Chetwynd commemorated his friend with platitudes. Or perhaps such generic description resulted from memories fuzzed by decades of absence. Chetwynd's responses bothered Abercrombie at the end of that late June interview. Muscle memory guided him outside onto the veranda. By chance he encountered Margot ascending steps. Sunglasses concealed their mutual surprise. Desert appropriate casual wear shielded her trunk and exposed limbs. Broad-brimmed hat tamped down hair. She kicked sand in faded Western boots. Only a few rings decorated her hands this blistering afternoon. Coolness tempered both voices. Each greeted the other with detachment. Banal cordialities batted back and forth. Margot commended him on his work thus far. "Dad loves dredging up old days," she said. "We all can tell when you've yapped because he stays so animated afterwards." "Yeah?" Abercrombie said. "I think because he's an older man looking back. Now he sees how it was all done. When he was busy doing it he didn't have any time or perspective." Margot nodded. "That going to be your text's theme? Wonderment?" He shrugged, repeated her last word, enhanced it. "If you're an outsider -- which I am -- you see twisted beauty. I mean when he talks I get it completely. Their pictures will form the story. My words just may be good enough to garnish them." She tilted her head. He recognized the gesture. However she'd expected him to present ancient Panoramic days, his modesty changed altogether. Margot thawed. She suggested they meet for a drink. "You're at the Colony, aren't you?" Not waiting for his confirmation, Margot continued. "Ugh! Is it still hedonism over there every night?" "We try. I gather you're familiar with the premises." "Buddy, I know Sodom from angles and altered states of minds you've probably barely explored. Often, if not nightly." "Well, then," he said, "let's limit your flashbacks. How about daiquiris at The Solarium?" Margot smiled broadly, bobbed her head, and drawled, "Ah liiike, ah liiike!" T-town's coolest, most shadowy parlor, The Solarium intended dipping patrons into red velvet approximations of decadence. Ripe plush seating threatened swallowing more diminutive patrons while small low tables forced intimacy onto any conversation. Music Abercrombie vaguely heard as North African caressed the room's steady murmur. Known for its fruity alcohol laden concoctions, Abercrombie had no clue whether this establishment deserved local accolades. What satisfied him and every other man who shelled out above accepted T-town prices was how it impressed women. Otherwise cheaper rounds of beers and shooters elsewhere didn't require cleanliness, suitable dress, or shined footwear. Liberated through several adult elixirs, Margot and Abercrombie chatted upon his summer's varied diversions. They touched on how her parents' lives had diverged. Children grown, wifely and motherly duties now minimal, Clare preferred "city life." She spent weekdays in a townhouse near the university, downtown, and her cove of longtime friends. "City life" no longer interested Dexter Chetwynd. If he wasn't rattling around the remote house, he golfed or swapped bigger lies over cards and drinks with cronies at his club. He'd finished hustling and bustling, suffered more than his fair share of fools, amassed plenty of "fuck you money." Weekends Margot's parents reunited. Sunday the whole family, brothers, sisters, spouses, grandchildren, coalesced under the distant address' eaves. Margot's days were as freeform as Abercrombie's were scheduled. She ran Chetwynd business affairs. Although he accepted the hierarchal line Abercrombie nonetheless wondered whether her brothers resented being their sister's subordinates. Men deferring to women? Especially in the West!? That was uncommon! Did her brothers chafe at the reversal? Margot laughed. "Virtue of birth. I was first. The oldest. Having balls alone wasn't enough for dad to pass me over. Mom saw to that. Besides, I've more than proven myself. Early on it was tough getting respect. I worked harder than a Mexican." "Like initiation into a club whose membership really doesn't want you?" he asked. "Exactly!" Margot said. "And about my brothers, they're guys but they're not too stupid. Both know thanks to me their lives are and will be cozy. We don't have a lot of water out here, but they know enough not to rock the boat." Their date could've ended awkwardly. Unlike their previous meeting, the pair had gotten acquainted with another. Now something deeper surpassed their earlier and easily acted upon lust. Revealed as fuller people, they craved moments offering far more than harsh, aimless, rushed frenzy. That meant The Colony was out. Margot had outgrown being possibly embarrassed by his loud, marauding, gawking, drunken behemoth roommates. Tonight the Tubs failed enticing her. No way she'd venture into true desert wearing high-heeled open-toed shoes. And it would be too crowded at the Falls. Not necessarily with humans either. Cover of darkness was a fine time for wildlife to drink its fill. Since the evening precluded any camp fires and neither carried weapons, no gamboling beneath the cold tumult nor stretching along winter runoff's green banks. Margot forbade using her own condominium out of hand. Spacious, comfortable, private, she needed it to remain special. Their prior fucking aside, her home was sacrosanct. Close as they'd been, and would get, an incalculable amount of time together was required before so yet casual a suitor entered her safest spot. Whether through grace or horniness Abercrombie said he understood. Moteling it never crossed his mind. As last resort he suggested "Skyline?" Margot's rude laughter shook The Solarium's decorum. She doubled over. Hurriedly wiped away tears glistened the corners of her eyes. Truly guileless, Abercrombie asked what he'd said. Merriment subsiding, Margot straightened, a big grin fattening her face. "Skyline. I haven't been up there since high school. Some guy, some wrestler I had silly teen-age kid hots for, punched my 'girl, you're a woman now' ticket there. He gave me a personal invitation to watch the submarine races." She rolled her eyes so wildly Abercrombie snickered. Margot continued. "I was so cherry I missed the obvious. That said, no submarines -- but plenty of fireworks!" From the northern foothills Skyline Drive gazed far across T-town's vast winking grid. Night hung on a descending crescent moon. City glow hazily outlined Margot and Abercrombie. In those days, he drove a light-duty pickup. Not that he ever used it for hauling hay or posts or supplies. Arriving at and departing from desert parties demanded dependable off-road suspensions. In town, the cargo bed provided fine platform for several lawn chairs and ice-encased pony kegs. He and other cineastes attended plenty of drive-in movies. Even watched a few too. Then there were the kind of nights with girls, women, like Margot. Offering more room than any car backseat, blankets and pillows conveniently stuffed under and behind the bench converted the hold into one mobile passion pit. On Skyline Drive parked equidistant from other curbed couples enjoying inspirational throes, Margot marveled at the male dick's ingenuity. As an afterthought she lamented they carried nothing to drink. Finishing his truck bed conversion, Abercrombie again rummaged through the cab. He yanked a mini-cooler from beneath the bench seat. Container set inside the bed, and opened, revealed a bottle of cold duck resting in chilled mushy water. It remained uncorked from some recent Tubs excursion; he'd iced down the cooler shortly before retrieving Margot. "Shit!" Margot yelped. "You stash a pool boy in there, too!? Whatever kind of Boy Scout you were, you must've been a damned good one." "Their motto is 'Be prepared.' Mine is 'You never know.' Now let's get naked." The comfort created in his pickup bed always surprised women. They expected a hard and demeaning metal sheet. Fabric and head rests calmed them. Handy cold booze didn't hurt either. The earlier gallery encounter aside, Abercrombie and Margot treated this night as their first. Both used real time to explore the other. She was a coiled, powerful woman, one who somewhat sober and focused, kissed with intent. After fondling firm breasts enough to stipple her crowns, he tongued and sucked both into rigid peaks. More than once Margot crushed his face against her warm chest. She sighed, swallowing amid heartbeats. Relaxed and given time, Abercrombie fingered Margot. On this night her sex yielded. Margot's folds not only blossomed, they also moistened. Her mild scent was a fine mixture of refined animal; not very chemical, tamed just enough. Margot's fingers and palms roamed over Abercrombie's torso. His masses enthralled her. Thorough hands conveyed unspoken astonishment. Wet and panting from his fingers, Abercrombie shifted their bodies into position. He fit himself between her thighs, then drove. Tonight Margot's slit was far more accepting of his cock. Her sex enveloped his rampant member in pliant welcome. After several opening pokes, he kept his speed funereal. Margot's breathy responses made inches sound as if his pole were feet. Abercrombie's slow beat so good, jagged gasps of "Oh fuck!" ripped from her mouth. When he pushed, their pelvises mashed and pubic hair ground together. Abercrombie's lengthy withdrawals barely left his knob touching her hidden folds. He stretched out their good aches. The tempo had been for her pleasure. Now he challenged himself. How long could he last before his erection flagged? How soon until stimulation forced ejaculation? Margot, a buzzing nerve mass bundled around his manhood, was so otherworldly she never noticed Abercrombie checking his watch. After 20 trembling minutes in pussy that treated him right, restraint burst. Measured paces lost against mindless pounding. Margot's tits were round enough to bounce, but nowhere loose enough to wobble. His fresh urgency jolted her into hissing sharp vulgarities. She demanded, Abercrombie replied -- he fucked her hard. Abercrombie fucked Margot hard throughout the summer. Never again on Skyline Drive, but given sufficient time and preparation at the Tubs or in one of the hourly motels lining Aviation Highway. Only when molten August flowed did their sexing discard its harried aspects. The writers cottage bestowed privacy and a queen-sized bed. Joining ages of casual lovers, both reveled behind walls letting them romp freely. August was one 31-day bare-ass fuck festival. Inside that address clothes were quickly shorn. Since tall narrow slatted fences shielded the plot's sides and rear, Abercrombie only curtained the street-facing windows. Naturally when Margot visited the front door remained locked shut. That month Abercrombie learned to enjoy getting blow jobs in the living room's wing-back chair while she kneeled before him. Even better as Margot serviced him he deciphered those blue designs the black white TV screen threw from ass crack to shoulders. On the other hand, Abercrombie determined screwing on kitchen tables an overrated kink. Their natural states rewarded childish urges. Bong hits stoked their giggles, mellowed the mood. They existed in the artificial construct between drawing innocence from ignorance and intentionally flouting convention. Taut spotless flesh enhanced bodily attributes prudish American society reflexively criminally sexualized. A penis should've been admired, breasts needed exaltation, and shame only ought have been brought upon all horrified by either or both. So Respectable August delivered what Arizonans termed "monsoon rains." These sticky intense downpours commonly wreaked havoc before irrigating the desert. The sudden humidity always discomforted Margot. Triple digits in the shade didn't phase her; dew points that wouldn't register back east -- agony. On such occasions the cottage swamp cooler failed easing her distress. The machine hummed correctly but only issued rumored relief. Abercrombie soon learned to have extra ice available. He piled the excess cubes in bowls which were then placed before fans directed on them. Licking condensation off her skin also helped. Margot certainly reacted well. Work limited most of their skylarking to evenings. Daylight rarely brightened the pair's sexual shenanigans, Abercrombie noticed how summer sun had graded Margot's body. Her limbs were dark, face and midriff less so. Bikini tops had left breasts milky, the bottoms cut pale paths which spanned around into a modest front patch. Boots and shoes defended her feet against the sun. An idea of Margot as a multi-toned flesh pop stayed with him long afterwards. Twenty-eight years later, 28 years older, he again drove towards Chetwynds. Residential development now extended into former ranchland. Grand structures spaced for aloofness sat back from the road. A few surviving working ranches appeared as interlopers rather than the other way around. However, an occasional spec house or misplaced mansion did acknowledge the land's prior purpose. Sometimes cattle guards still stretched before cut stone driveway entrances. These days, in this T-town quadrant, Abercrombie knew "Dusty" was meant as an adjective, not a nickname. Margot, a matriarch now known as Mrs. Brett Ross, had invited him. Over the last year Abercrombie had completed a "history" she'd commissioned. He could've just accepted the check and delivered a manuscript reflective of a patroness' urges for Medici-like recognition. It was more complicated than that. The recent literary market had been glutted with what Margot called "pioneer woman sagas." Perhaps contemporary writers hoped channeling Willa Cather. Many simply produced puerile versions of "My Antonia." "All that gingham, resolute piety, noble suffering -- Gawd save us!" Margot had said. "Ours is a new time. Who can relate to buckboards? Living in sod houses? Worming livestock? Time to move up the past. Make it relevant." The assignment contracted had been personal, intimate, startling, and among the juiciest in his career. He'd mailed early drafts from New York. Abercrombie hoped re-immersion in the subjects' environment as well as thumbing through local archival sources might surrender information which would plane the story's last pesky rough edges. Moreover, in T-town again, maybe Margot held some vague memories that could be teased, clarified and used. Despite disenchantment with journalism, Abercrombie never lost taste for conducting interviews. It would've been poignant had he remembered his first assault on those steps onto Chetwynds veranda. But memory failed him. At the front screen door a Mexican maid sized up the big sweaty visitor. She regarded his salt-stained baseball cap, damp white short-sleeved shirt and khakis before admitting him. Abercrombie, wiping his shitkickers on the welcome mat, didn't impress her. Taking his cap off inside the house did. He cooled his jets while the maid fetched Mrs. Ross. Margot breezed in alone. Thoroughly gray now she wore her hair pinned up. Children and passing years had padded her curves. She dressed simply, matronly. A single strand of pearls, silver-rimmed turquoise earrings and vulgar wedding ring offset her white blouse, roomy blue shorts and flip-flops. Margot's eyes remained clear, her face retaining great vitality. At an age when gravity tugged harder, she, much as her mother had, stood poker straight. No slumping or slouching for the Chetwynd women. Good. He wondered how she saw him. She smiled wanly. Each sounded unsure speaking the other's name. Christmas cards between them, his sending two bereavement arrangements notwithstanding, the pair hadn't maintained any real contact since that summer. Since then they'd only met once. During his biennial return to T-town sometime in the early 1990s, at an alumni or department mixer maybe, one spied the other across the gossipers. More from social obligation than residual attraction those two actors in a long-dormant fling reunited. They exchanged antiseptic cheek pecks, then volleyed happy banalities. Two months after summer ended and real life resumed with him in his senior year, Margot married. He didn't think about her nuptials timing until many years later. His vague questions produced weak urgency which dissipated completely. Abercrombie found refuge in likely having been the unbridled bride's last opportunistic fuck before betrothal. As a man, he quite understood Margot's impulse. "On the ride over I fretted about calling you 'Mrs. Ross.'" Margot closed the space between them. "I'm glad you didn't insult me, Mr. Abercrombie." They hugged, kissed more as old friends and less as past lovers. No dead embers sparked. Nothing revived, disinterest let both part without any pangs of remorse. Margot led them into the sitting room. Mountains boxing that portion of town filled north and east looking windows. In 1980 Abercrombie never imagined the expanse between this house and those barriers could ever be parceled, developed, then settled. Were he able to view the future 10 years hence, Abercrombie expected a vista dominated by bad "Southwestern influenced styles" and waves of Spanish tile roofs. Margot, shorn of footwear, sat legs curled under her on a couch. A leather chair supported Abercrombie. The low ebony table between them gleamed. Atop it beside a dull pewter bowl, one stained stuffed manila file. He knew what it contained. Via recent emails she'd informed him of the contents. Curious, yes, Abercrombie was in no hurry to inspect. It would just confirm his work on her behalf. Through them speculation would become certainty. Which meant a tighter manuscript. Margot called the maid. His hostess offered refreshment. Had theirs been straight business, he would've sipped a cocktail. Since they shared a past, Abercrombie felt comfortable requesting beer. Margot added Scotch and water to the maid's order. Alone again, Margot complimented him on his work thus far. "I worried you'd make it salacious. That somehow you'd turn romance into something grubby. Commonplace." "Maybe if your mother had been a current celebrity, say, some starlet known for thrashing on her back than emoting standing up, well, yeah. But your ma was a class act." "When she was alive I thought 'This woman has no secrets.'" Margot laughed. "After finding that journal, reading and re-reading her hotter entries so often I'm surprised those pages didn't wear out, the question is: 'Did I ever really know mom?'" "She loved your father --" Margot interrupted. "Loved? Yes. Without a doubt. But there wasn't passion. Her lover coaxed, got that." Two years prior Clare Chetwynd died. Widowed three years, the 85-year-old left innumerable barely consoled survivors. Forgotten in deep storage, Clare Mathers also left journals. This discovery consisted of notebooks crammed with details in secretarial school cursive spanning the years 1942-47. She wrote of leaving Cleveland for arms industry work in T-town, an eye-opening number of casual encounters with transiting servicemen (their fates little considered), immediate postwar elation, and lingering unease about "the modern world." Far more fevered was Clare Mathers' involvement with the two men who'd punctuated her life. Drinks brought, maid gone, Margot asked Abercrombie if he wondered how Cliff Yurish sounded. "His voice. You think it was seductive? I like to think so. I like to think my mom abandoned herself to -- eyes closed -- someone who came across as Randolph Scott, not Andy Devine." Abercrombie nearly spilt his beer. "I guess both of us watched a lot of westerns on KZAZ, huh. Anyway, uh, we'll give him that benefit of the doubt. No one will know. The few still alive who knew him have probably lost Cliff Yurish to dementia. We have ideas about how he loved. But how he lived ..." Demobilized in winter 1945, Cliff Yurish and Dex Chetwynd didn't return stateside until next spring. As officers both explored educational opportunities at Cambridge. But prospects in austerity England dissuaded them. While Paris offered entertainments unavailable at home, France's gratitude for its saviors had already worn thin. And after contributing to Hitler's defeat, who could really return to Philadelphia or Buffalo? During their T-town flight training they'd become aware of a greater America. Nothing neither man could put into words. Any eloquence the two buddies possessed before combat, the war surely muted temporarily. Shared life and death experiences allowed wordless communication. "Southern Arizona restored their humanity," Abercrombie said. "Looking through notes I took with your dad, I heard how the desert transformed him. Then I was sorry I couldn't fully incorporate them in the companion book." "Now you can," Margot said. "Now I can take artistic license," he responded. Settled in T-town, Chetwynd and Yurish scraped for purpose. Shuttered war industries swelled the number of seekers. Both scrambled. They bought two surplus training or spotter planes for next to nothing. Exploiting tenuous contacts and their veterans status, the pilots hauled rush mail and small packages as well as ferried passengers too impatient for the Southwest Chief. Cameras accompanied them wherever they flew. A sideline emerged from their photography. These compositions quickly gained the attentions of influential Easterners wintering away at the region's dude ranches. Pictures fomented ideas; ideas properly marketed produced money. "He loved the dances," Margot said. "Yes," Abercrombie said. "He met your mother at one." She corrected him. "She met dad and Cliff at the same hop." Abercrombie wondered when Friday and Saturday night dances lost their importance as social staples. What forced their end? Or did the practice expire with its greatest practitioners? Grist for another book. Cliff Yurish fancied Clare Mathers first. Dex Chetwynd only horned in later. She didn't immediately fall in love with Cliff. Her own wartime exigencies and uncertainties taught Clare how to give her body but check affections. Such separation made sex a much less guilt-inducing pleasure. Yurish danced thoughtfully. He led easily and didn't mash her. Darkly handsome, his black eyes swallowing light, Clare fantasized him a man who reserved worthwhile mysteries. As she discovered later Yurish brooded. Whether that could've been attributed to some anguish or then present-day concerns the journals' author never exhumed. Which made him all the more attractive. Graciousness and loquacity were Dex' advantages. He pressed them ruthlessly. Fair-haired, twinkle-eyed, good-looking but nowhere near hubba-hubba material, Dex loosened facile chatter on her. His torrent should've disqualified him. However, his sheer persistence overwhelmed. Besides, Dex made Clare laugh. He forever put her at ease. On the other hand, Cliff exacted contemplation. Dex was all surface, all the time. A girl couldn't scratch Cliff deep enough to really get at him. Clare never decided if he were a puzzle or a riddle. Through 1946 into '47 the trio, or as Clare labeled them, "divergent duos," entered same direction/different tracks relations. Although Dex bedded her first, Cliff sated her better. "When I read that I gasped," Margot said. "For a minute I thought my dad, um, came up short. You know. Where it counts." "No," Abercrombie said. "What you thought was your mother gauged men by their tool size. I never would've taken you as a hose queen. Good thing you read on." Dex Chetwynd's honest energy struggled against Cliff Yurish's moody persuasion. Nevertheless Clare found it impossible to settle on just one man. She smartly confided in Cliff about Dex. Since Cliff the more remote of her two lovers, she figured him less susceptible to jealousy. No need to hurt Dex. Then. If ever. Sharing Clare's apprehensions, though to far lesser degrees, Cliff agreed. Their subterfuge so effective, Dex believed and behaved as if he were her sole sweetheart. Clare never revealed whether their trickery pained Cliff. Neither did she indicate how he faired through his "rival's" ignorance. Or did he just postpone what must've seemed inevitable? "You think Cliff saw your dad as the marrying type? I mean the kind of man women ought to marry?" "Much as Cliff loved mom, he must've seen her chances at happiness, real sustained happiness, better alongside my dad. I know Dex Chetwynd worked every moment of every day to bind them closer. Reading about Cliff, he would've loved her until he didn't anymore." Skeptical, Abercrombie asked, "You picked that up from what she wrote?" Laughingly, Margot answered, "I know men. Something my mother taught me." 1947 promised much. The shutterbug sideline, now christened Western Panoramic Pictures, impinged on their haulage business. The West of Saturday afternoon shoot 'em up serials, the haunting place of its aboriginals, their mystical customs, the land's forever harsh charms, did better than attract -- all fired imaginations, gave birth to yearnings beyond the desert. Upgrades came rapidly. Dex and Cliff had been processing pictures out of a makeshift darkroom at the latter's bungalow. Industry outgrew such small quarters. Clare, then a title office stenographer, not only helped them find affordable commercial premises but also sluiced Realtor action their way. They formed a strange trio. As 1947 progressed, Dex became more possessive, more loving of Clare, who accepted both tributes as her due. In response entwinement with Cliff gradually steeped into tension. These late rendezvous were fraught. Cliff's lovemaking thrilled her so Clare often tingled after his last kisses. When congregating together or among other friends, Clare feared guilt would somehow reveal itself and them. Or maybe Cliff's coolness might crack just enough to tip Dex. Never happened. Clare Mathers actually quoted Milton about "the mind making a hell of heaven, a heaven of hell." Should Dex have suspected, he didn't tumble. Perhaps he knew he'd won before the other players realized the game over. In the brilliant spring of 1947 Dexter Chetwynd proposed to Clare Mathers. Unworthiness and other inadequate feelings aside, she gave no thought to rebuffing him. Nor of giving any air-clearing confessions. They set an October date more for heat intolerant greenhorn relatives than any selfish notions. Naturally Cliff served as best man. One month later he would be dead. Margot signaled Abercrombie to pick up the folder. While he did, she glanced away. The thing was heavy in his hands. He imagined it heavier in her own. Peeling manila, black and white scenes faded silver and gray unfolded before him. Snapped along a bank downstream of the Falls, the pictures featured a startlingly lovely Clare Mathers with Cliff Yurish as stalwart swain. Each was impossibly bold and smugly nude. An Indian blanket formed their parquet. By the minimal shadowing Abercrombie reckoned they had posed near either side of noon. No doubt Cliff had used his device's timer. "I found the pictures recently," Margot said. "She left a lot behind and I've been rummaging slowly. I struggled through those pictures, Ian. We have this image of our parents. Despite having lived, married, my own children, I'm still a daughter. Pretty and sweet in pink. No matter. The power parents exert ... benign power. When they were alive I still deferred to them." After recovering from initial discovery, Margot wasn't disillusioned. Shocked? Stunned? Flabbergasted? Absolutely! Her own earlier promiscuity aside, her mother's own sexuality troubled Margot. Not its explicit nature so much as being forced to re-jigger every held notion concerning Clare Mathers Chetwynd. Until those pictures she'd been venerated and set in stone. Then Margot reread Clare's journals with bolstered knowledge. It clarified the cryptic and enriched both women. Clare Mathers, affianced to Dexter Chetwynd, lover of his best buddy Cliff Yurish, was 24 in 1947. She felt spinsterhood approaching. In certain respects she was emancipated. In others she needed a husband's validation for self-completion. Before the loving straits of marital fidelity, Cliff Yurish served as her last occasional man. He extinguished her "irresponsibility." Vibrant and single, hair cascading in short waves, Clare exhibited a figure and cheekiness Abercrombie thought only pinup artists drew. Before vows, incandescent smiles disarmed suspicions built on otherwise penetrating gazes. Round scoops for a tush and pert breasts blessed her luscious contours. Toned legs slid into thin ankles. Cliff retained much, if not all, his service fitness. Developed though not chiseled, he reposed in shameless ease with Clare. His uncut member reminded of a badly rolled cigar. Abercrombie left that observation unsaid. He placed these recorded visions of freedom and vigor during the latest days of Arizona's lingering summer. Both had browned flesh that likely shimmered when the images were crisp. Long casual days under the sun had burnished them. Abercrombie wondered had they gone to the Falls intending these frames as finales. (There were keepsakes and then there were mementos like these which flummoxed!) This session marked complete sunder. Abercrombie understood Margot's turmoil. Any "child" would've been flustered staring at a parent or parents sexually engaged. And what hadn't Clare and Cliff seared on film? She fellated him. He munched well trimmed carpet. Scrumptious joy settled on both faces while being orally serviced. In one frame, Clare exaggerated his tool's heft and length crowding her mouth. The google eyes which resulted were funny in a Fanny Brice/Baby Snooks way until the viewer tried reconciling Clare Mathers with Mrs. Dexter Chetwynd. Cliff took her, or she let herself be taken, in numerous positions. Missionary and spooning did nothing for Abercrombie. Clare merely came across as a good sport doing it doggy style. Clearly they preferred loving face-to-face, two sets of eyes locked as if desire alone could fix forever these dwindling intimacies. She straddled Cliff. They attempted constructing a sequence. The effort was crude, ragged, and nakedly honest. Clare settled on him; mouth slightly agape, half-lidded attention above his head; eyes closed, her face happily caught between this world and dreams; Cliff's hands cupping her breasts, Clare's own slim fingers covering his; their sight aligned, Clare's back bowing as she impaled herself on Cliff. Many remaining scenes saw Clare flat on her back. She'd slung one leg or the other over Cliff's shoulder while he drove hard enough to bury knees and toes in the blanket. In several she'd launched her legs into 180° splits. Their torsos either pressed or were apart demonstrating leverage. The set's final picture left Clare planted on Cliff's lap, her legs wrapping his waist. Her arms draped around his shoulders. Cliff's hands gently gripped Clare's sides. Their profiles were inches apart. If Abercrombie read their expressions correctly, this frozen instance acknowledged and delayed rupture. He suspected that closure began after that last shutter click. Maybe one more waning summer swim together, then quick almost guilty toweling off. Mundane things would've followed: dressing, packing up the camera, folding the blanket. Abercrombie believed Cliff would've found Clare's hand as he led them back to his jalopy.