Where Is Janice Gantry? Read Free Page B

readiness. We were both husky vital people, and there was always time for laughter and for bawdy foolish jokes about our capacities for this joyful, single-minded game. We padded about in a comfortable nudity, cooking and devouring huge meals. As she lived with her family, she felt she had to spend a portion of each night in her own bed. But more often than not I would be awakened in the morning by Sis, arriving, stripping, lunging into my bed to snuffle and giggle into my throat, with busy hands and busy lips.
    I do not know exactly why it ended. I think it began partly because she wanted to cure me of Judy, as one more segment of her project to bring me back into the human race.
    Perhaps it ended because she was not content to stop there. She wanted more. Maybe she wanted marriage. It was never mentioned. But she began to prod me. The first thing she wanted me to do was all too obvious. I was settling too snugly into a small occupation, and it was clear to her that I wanted to keep it small. I had long since given up the luxury of ambition. I wanted something that would support me and not make too many demands.
    By luck I had found just what I wanted. A batch of major automobile insurance companies employed me on a fee basis. Insurance adjustors and lawyers would handle the liability aspects of each accident. It was my job to appraise the physical damage to the vehicles so that claims could be equitably adjusted. I had to keep the greedy claimant fromgetting a complete body job out of one dented fender, but I also tried to make certain the insurance company involved paid for all the damage arising out of the particular accident where their policy holder was at fault. The more fair, impartial and objective I could be, the better I could do my job.
    During each tourist season I worked long rugged hours. That was when the folks from Ohio and Indiana and Michigan were down, leaping at each other with a great clashing of tail fins and gnashing of grill work. I could pile up enough in those months to see me nicely through the reduced income and lazy hours of the rest of the year.
    But Sis kept working on me. I should go out and dig for more business. Maybe I should get into more adjusting. Line up more client companies. Hire another man when it got to be more than I could handle. Expand, grow, become important. Pile up the profit and re-invest it in land.
    As the bedroom extravagances began to slow to a less lurid pace, she became more insistent on guiding my Future. But I had exactly what I wanted, and all I wanted. I had food, shelter, clothing, tobacco and liquor sufficient to my needs. I had time off to catch snook, hunt wild turkey, walk on the beach. I was content to ride with just what I had for all the rest of the distance. I couldn’t make her see that.
    The other thing she wanted was less obvious. I am not certain she could have put it into words. But she wanted more emotional response from me. She wanted the words and looks and actions of immortal love. And it just wasn’t there to give to anybody. I had given it once, to Judy. She had walked away with it. So I could only use Sis. I could take my pleasure in the ultimate use of that sturdy eager body, and find my rationalization in those gasps and archings and moanings that told me the pleasure I was giving equalled what I was taking, but I could not go beyond that specific and obvious act into my area or faked area of love undying,even though I sensed that that was what she needed and wanted.
    For a period of weeks I was able to endure the nagging, direct and indirect, for the sake of the bounty of having her in my bed, but after a time the balance shifted and it was no longer worth it. I made a few clumsy excuses and she stopped arriving unannounced. I asked her out to the cottage a few more times, and she came willingly, but something indefinable had gone out of it, some aspect of joy and freedom. We went through the motions and assured each other it was all just