She sighed with some drama. “You’re groping me again.”
That shocked him for her lack of understanding. “No, no, no! I’m keeping them from jiggling!”
“How kind.” Then she told her husband, “I can’t think of anything else to do with him.” She didn’t even have to say the name of Andrew Parsons.
So her husband solved everything. “Let’s take him back out on the tableland and just dump him. We could shoot a horse to put on top of him.”
“Not any of our horses.”
He accused, “You’re picky.”
She moved her mouth around as if she was searching out food caught in her teeth, then she sighed impatiently, “He’s human.”
“No! Really?”
And they were then silent. He relished her body and neck. She went on winding up every damned little curl.
She mentioned, “Your parents will be here in about three more days.”
Her husband chuckled in his throat.
“Why do you laugh?”
“How young they are. My daddy’s just barely twenty years older. My momma is only twenty-one years older than you. They really hurried. I was born exactly nine months after they were married!”
“—and your daddy was in Europe, fighting in that awful war.”
“Yeah. He didn’t think he’d get back.”
“I’m glad he did.”
“Me, too.” Then he looked at her in the mirror, and they smiled at each other. But he told her, “I have only one eye.”
She was patient He did that all the time. She told him, “Move your head over to your right. You will see that you have two eyes.”
He did that and exclaimed in lousy surprise, “Glory be!”
He continued sitting astraddle her hips, and he gently moved his evening beard on her shoulder giving her erotic goose bumps. But he was very diligently holding her breasts to keep them from wiggling.
When she finally finished winding her hair and had captured all of the curls on her head, he asked, “Ready?”
“For what?”
“Me.”
“Don’t joggle my hair.”
He chided, “I never have! The hair on your head isn’t one of your sexual lures.”
“I’ll take out the pins.”
“Naw. I’d never notice.”
“You just like my body.”
“I like you, your body, your essence, the way you laugh, and that sneaky little smile when you want me.”
She was indignant. “I have never wanted you. I’m just a used sex slave.”
“Wow.” He laughed. “How come you clutch me and writhe and move around and gasp.”
“Endurance.” But she licked her smile with a naughty tongue and her eyes were wicked.
So two days later JoAnn Murray drove up to the Keepers’ door with two suitcases, which she judiciously left in her car. She was redheaded. That meant that she was independent. Redheads always are.
Redheaded people had to endure a lot of discussion about the color of body hair, and teasing. That sort of thing solidifies their character. They’re unique and they live as they damn well choose.
After greeting Mrs. Keeper, JoAnn said, “Mother ruthlessly sent me here to cope with your obvious problem and get rid of him. I am skilled in getting rid of males. Mother loves you. This will clear her books with your kindness in helping her. She underlined that. You are to agree with her clean record now, before I do anything about this leech you’ve acquired.”
Mrs. Keeper replied, “Well, hello, JoAnn. How is your dear mother?”
“Dramatically relieved you’ve asked me to do this and not asked her. She says she’s too old to deal with young men anymore. She only watches them in the Soaps.”
“Your mother is dear to me.”
JoAnn was tolerant. She advised in a mature manner, “We all have our moments. Tell me about this male burden who made you send out an S.O.S. for the first time since mama’s known you in college. She is so curious.”
As the two women of different ages talked, they entered the house and went into a side room downstairs. There, they were served tea as Mrs. Keeper had directed the kitchen crew before JoAnn’s arrival.
JoAnn sipped some, then more and closed her eyes as she tilted her head and smiled. “Ahhh. It’s perfect... as usual.”
Mrs. Keeper didn’t make tea. She slept with Mr. Keeper and that was about all she did. Of course, the crew was her choosing.
If someone had made lousy tea, Mrs. Keeper would have isolated them with their cook until the newcomer knew exactly how to make tea. No one was ever fired. They were turned over to the head cook, or the head butler or the head gardener, and on occasion to her and was instructed more widely.
Educating and adjusting newcomers was the same with everybody who was on the Keeper place. It included everyone who was around, involved in crooking, housecleaning, barns, animals, plowing, flying, whatever.
So the tea was perfect. The servers had hesitated on the other side of the door and watched. Mrs. Keeper sipped the tea and looked at it and she smiled. That was like a pat on the head for the watchers and they went back to the kitchen.
Mrs. Keeper inquired, “Are those in your family all well?”
“Fine. This tea is perfect.”
“We have a wonderful crew.”
See? Mrs. Keeper was kind. So she then said, “What are we to do about this Andrew Parsons?”
“Don’t worry. I’m here. I’ll get rid of him for you.”
“Well,” hesitated Mrs. Keeper, “I really think he needs to be...uh...restructured. It would be unkind for us to just pitch him onto a sand dune. Isolated again. He needs to fit into some portion of society better.”
JoAnn was thoughtful. “I don’t believe I’ve ever done anything like that. I believe you’ve contacted the wrong person for this. I’m a rejecter.” JoAnn then smiled kindly to soften the blow for Mrs. Keeper. People tended to be thataway with Mrs. Keeper. She appeared to be quite fragile.
Mrs. Keeper tasted the word, “Re-ject-er. Push away. Discard.”
“Yep.”
“I shall have to find someone else.” She sighed in a fragile manner. “But in the time that will take, could you begin by teaching Mr. Parsons that he will very soon be in the twenty-first century? He needs to realize that he is at the very end of the twentieth?”
“Well...”
Mrs. Keeper elaborated to explain herself. “Andrew needs to look forward to stepping over into the next century. He hasn’t even been in this one. He’s of another time.”
She sighed gently before she went on: “He believes that his adventures are all a surprise for the rest of us. Either actually telling of where he’s been, or being on TV, that time, or writing of it in books. He does not realize that we have mostly already looked all around this planet, the moon, and now Mars. There is no new place for Andrew on this entire earth. On horseback, he is a throwback.”
Mrs.