to just turn about and swing around the end of the row and double back to the stern of First Draw, where there was a ladder.
“Great!” said Norman. He turned the cigarette boat about and started off with a big ROAR of the engines, quickly cut back to a growl growl growl growl. “As long as they saw you on TV, you’ve got an aura,” said Norman. He was very happy with Dr. Norman Lewis. “Memory tends to decay rapidly, but I knew I’d have a little mojo left—and I was right.” He paused a moment. “Of course, it didn’t hurt to have the mighty Hypomanic. They love cigarette boats, all these kids. Cigarette boats have… water cred! I knew revving up those thousand horses would get their attention. And you, kid”—he stuck out his lips as if he were about to give her a big comic kiss—“you didn’t hurt, either! Did you see them? They were eating you up alive with their eyes! Didn’t you love that I would business? I would! I would! I would! There’s nobody on that boat who’s even in your league. Face it. You’re gorgeous, kid.”
With that he put his hand on the inside of her thigh.
“Norman!” At the same time, she didn’t object to his interpretation of the catcalls.
His other hand was on the wheel. Intently he stared straight ahead, as if there were nothing on his mind other than steering this growling cigarette boat around the bend.
“Norman! Stop it!”
So he removed his hand from her thigh—by sliding it up toward her hip… and then walking his fingers down her lower abdomen and under the band of her bikini bottom.
“Stop it, Norman! Are you insane?!” She grabbed his wrist and jerked his hand up. “Damn it, Norman—”
She suddenly fell silent. His fingers creeping under her pants, in plain view of everyone—so gross! And so juvenile! Such a plunge into naughty-boy exhibitionism! All that, on top of his open admission that he, Dr. Norman Lewis, nationally known psychiatrist, had trolled a whole line of boats in a humiliating, self-debasing way calculated to achieve such a small, retarded goal… crashing the deck party of a bunch of kids—a bunch of kids! A bunch of boys still speaking in teenage slang, a bunch of girls scampering naked over boat decks with thongs cutting their bottoms into two fresh melons and disappearing into God knew what—and yet it excited her. She could feel… the onset of a heedless bacchanal starring her own gorgeous body. A stirring in her loins… until she regretted not wearing a thong. Was this black bikini where Norman went exploring small enough to consummate the concupiscent urge to… abandon… every conscious thought that held her back? But Conscious Thought was tougher than she imagined. It hoisted her up erect. ::::::Stop it… and now!::::::
“Stop it, Norman!” she said. “Everyone can see us!”
But she had allowed his hand to remain there for a beat too long, and her Stop it had no moral strength, merely social decorum. By the way Norman was eyeing her, with a little smile playing on parted lips, she knew that he had detected every neuron of her conflicted feelings and realized what a weak and vulnerable state she was in.
When the Hypomanic reached the stern of the First Draw, there was quite a contingent of gawkers waiting at the top of the ladder. Magdalena climbed up first, to another chorus of “I would!” “I would!” “I would!” “I would!” She could feel their eyes cupping her breasts and massaging her lower abdomen, which was bare all the way down to her mons pubis and swelled out ever so slightly, just enough to give it a little curve. They couldn’t take their eyes off her!
“I would!”
“I would!”
“I would!”
It was hard to hear even that much. Here on the boat itself the BEAT the BEAT the BEAT came POUNDING POUNDING POUNDING POUNDING out of the speakers. She could see girls on the deck up front, dancing with one another… next thing to naked. A whole flock of G-string girls!… with thongs disappearing into their buttocks’ clefts… They rode their pelvic saddles bareback, they jerked their heads and sent their blond manes flying—blond americanas!—suddenly she felt trapped… in a vulgar horde of aliens…
Now young guys in bathing trunks… their skin that looked like custard, like flan… Latin guys had muscles you could see—but she realized she was thinking about Nestor—so she dropped that subject. A guy, maybe what?—twenty-five years old?—a guy with skin