“God knows I’ve had plenty of experience.”
Ivan took Neal’s droll comment as concession. He picked up the society section of The Post and Courier from Charleston, which he’d been reading when Neal came in. He thrust it at Neal. The first page was covered with photos of young ladies in frilly white dresses.
“This season’s crop of debutantes,” Ivan said tersely. “Choose one.”
* * *
Marla Sue Pickens was perfect: blond, blue-eyed, and Baptist. Her mother’s pedigree was impeccable. Her daddy and his business partner had stockpiled a fortune by making pipe from scrap metal. Ivan liked the blend of gentility and crass commercialism in her background.
Marla Sue was the third child and only daughter. Her elder brother was heir apparent to the metal-pipe business. The other brother was a physician, practicing in Charleston.
As for Marla Sue herself, she was an even-tempered young woman who took for granted her family’s affluence and her natural prettiness. She was currently enrolled in Bryn Mawr, but she had no ambitions beyond making a good marriage, being a gracious hostess, and breeding another generation of South Carolinians as flawless as herself.
This blueprint for her future was derived not so much from vanity as naïveté, because, for all her pseudo-sophistication, Marla Sue wasn’t very bright. Ivan regarded this, too, as an asset. He heartily approved Neal’s choice, which had been based solely upon physical appearance. Marla Sue unwittingly cooperated by falling in love with Neal the night they met.
A socially prominent acquaintance in Charleston owed Ivan a favor. “I’ll consider the debt canceled if you can finagle an invitation for me and my boy to one of those debutante shindigs.”
For the first half of the evening the Patchetts observed from the sidelines. Marla Sue wasn’t difficult to pick out. She shone like the strand of diamonds around her slender, aristocratic neck. Feeling high on champagne and optimism, Ivan clapped Neal on the back as they watched Marla Sue waltz past with her current partner. “Well, boy, what do you think?”
Neal gave the girl the heavy-lidded once-over that had melted scruples previously frozen solid. “She’s got zero tits.”
“Hell, boy! As soon as she says, ‘I do,’ you can buy her a set of big ones.”
Neal asked Marla Sue to dance and exercised the charm he was famous for. She fell for every calculated syllable of flattery. She simpered and blushed and believed him whole-heartedly when he humbly said, “I’d love to call you sometime, but I know you’re probably too busy to talk to a hick from Palmetto like me.”
“Oh, no, I’m not!” she declared with breathless sincerity. Then, lowering her eyes and softening her voice until it was scarcely audible, she added, “I mean, if you want to, I’d love to hear from you sometime, Neal.”
“I’m too old for you.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Not at all. Ten years is nothing.”
The next day she
received two dozen white roses, followed up by a telephone call. They made a date for lunch. After the lunch date, he didn’t call her for a week. “All a part of the program,” he reassured Ivan, who was impatient over the calculated delay.
Neal’s strategy proved effective. Marla Sue was tearfully glad finally to hear from him and invited him to have Sunday dinner in Charleston with her family. Neal was on his best behavior, responding deferentially to her father’s questions. He flattered Marla Sue’s mother and sisters-in-law until they were putty in his hands.
It was all he could do to keep a straight face. His old man was right—there was nothing quite as satisfying as manipulating people. Except possibly sex, and he was getting none of that from Marla Sue.
Ivan had ordered him not to lay an improper hand on her. “That girl’s got her cherry sure as hell. You leave it alone until the wedding night.”
“Do you think I’m dense?” Neal asked resentfully. “She believes I respect her too much to bed her before we’re married. It makes her giddy to think she exercises that kind of control over me.”
To relieve the tension the courtship was placing on his sex life, he turned to a woman in Palmetto who had an insatiable sexual appetite and a husband whose job required him to travel.
Neal saw Marla Sue as much as her schooling allowed. His long-distance telephone bill was atrocious, and he spent a fortune on flowers. The investments paid off, however. He was invited to spend a whole weekend in Charleston with her. Armed with a three-carat diamond and an unassuming demeanor, he asked her to honor him by becoming his wife. As expected, she said yes immediately.
The wedding was predicted to be the social event of the year. One thing Neal couldn’t manipulate was the mother of the bride, who wanted to do everything according to Emily Post. By the time the wedding weekend arrived, he was ready to be done with the whole affair and get on with his life.
He and Ivan moved to a Charleston hotel for the duration of the nuptial festivities, which commenced on Friday at a luncheon given in honor of the bride and groom at the home of the bride’s maternal grandparents.
“Just think,” Marla Sue whispered in his ear, “tomorrow night it’ll just be us. Alone.”
Neal groaned and embraced her. “Don’t talk about it, darling, or I’ll get a hard-on right here in your grandma’s parlor.” Despite her conservative upbringing, she loved it when he talked that way.
He pulled her into his arms and hugged her close. It was then that he caught sight of the other young woman standing across the room. She was giving him a cool, bold look that he instantly recognized as an invitation. As he watched, she dipped her finger into her wine cooler, then poked it into her mouth and drew it out slowly. He got hard.
“Neal!” Marla Sue softly squealed, blushing prettily. “Behave yourself.”