Marty reckoned Danver's as a bitch. Not in the way that term is usually applied, but in his own way the old guy was a bigger bitch than his son Eric. Sure, it had been Eric that put out for him, but Danver's showed a special kind of bitchiness. He hadn't accepted lightly an employee interfering with his kin and had thrown him out of a job.
Marty should have known better of course. He was wise enough to foresee the risk he was taking the moment his boss's son appeared on the scene - a cute fella getting experience in daddy's business while on a break from college - but Marty was never one to let want go to waste, and the moment the horny teen started to roll his sweet young butt around the office he'd taken an interest.
It hadn't required a lot of effort. Whatever it took to attract a guy Marty had in spades, and he couldn't resist making use of it. A little friendly banter by the water-cooler and a couple of near-the-knuckle remarks over a sandwich, and Eric was his.
By the end of the first day the college boys trousers were drooped around his ankles and Marty was giving his beautiful fundament the benefit of seven inches of solid meat over his daddy's desk. His dick had been moving like the piston-rod in a steam engine and the juice was flowing when old Danver's burst in.
That was the end of a nice well-paid job in accountancy for Marty, and although the old guy was too feeble to beat him up on the spot he threatened to have a couple of professional thugs with iron bars make a visit to break his bones. And Danver's meant what he said. He was that kind of a bitch.
Marty had taken plenty of risks in the past and got clear away, but this time the cards hadn't fallen right for him and he decided he should get out of town. That's what anxiety does, it persuades a person to get out of uncomfortable situations fast. Leopards, big spiders, ugly guys coming across the river with spears, and vicious hoodlums wielding iron bars. All need be avoided if possible.
Things looked dismal. Gone were his job and his Company car, and there was no redundancy payoff. He had no supportive friendships, and although he had a brother and sister in Ohio he'd insulted them years ago and they'd both disowned him. Luckily while he was panicking about what to do next he'd received a wire from his Aunt Matilda inviting him to take a trip south.
Great-aunt Matilda had invited him to spend a vacation at Pitterpeetee Grove, which was the name of her home in Florida. He'd never met the woman and he didn't know an awful lot about her except for a fractured mixture of hearsay and myth that had circulated among relatives since he was a boy. He only knew she was the distant, wealthy end of the family who had never courted close contact with anyone in the past, so it was a surprise to be asked to spend time with her.
He wondered, why an invite out of the blue right now? Then he recalled being told that she'd been a widow for years and all her own kids had died off, and since she was getting old herself maybe she was scanning round to find some other relative to lay her fortune on.
The thought of receiving a present in the form of a large legacy of unearned income had him licking his lips, but the flight down country gave him a chance to mull a few things over and talk some sense to himself. It was vital to be acceptable. Old women could be hostile to folk who didn't fit with their own ideas of a respectable life, and any hint of an alternative sexual preference to the man-woman thing could be lethal to maintaining an old dears goodwill.
That was reason enough to make a resolution, and he decided he wouldn't try to lay anyone while he was staying with his aunt. He was twenty-eight, handsome, in good shape and with a commendable prod, and it was a shame to deprive all the randy young bucks in the world of his assets for any length of time. But it would be unwise to act the loose goose while he was there, and it was probably wise to hold off with his inclinations for a while. In fact a few days of celibacy would probably do his soul good.
He did the final stretch of the journey by rail, which was a mistake. Just a single track led to the dead-end town of Unction, south of Lake Okeechobee, and only three trains a day went in and out of the place. The day was long and irksome and there was nothing much to see when he arrived. The low roofed station building summed it all up. A concrete box surrounded by a clutter of palm trees that gave it the appearance of a desert outpost abandoned by the French Foreign Legion.
He was the only passenger to climb down from the train when it ground to a halt, so there was no chance of going unobserved and he was greeted by an old, lean, white-haired negro called Abraham whom his aunt had sent to meet him. The crumpled black suit the fella wore looked as old as the ancient Ford convertible he was driving.
"Aunt Matilda not here with you?" Marty asked. The negro shook his head as he loaded bags into the back of the car. "Nah, Missy Matilda don't travel these days, but you'll meet her as soon as we git to the house." They missed out the town, which Abraham said offered no more than two drug stores and three saloons, and they were soon driving down a long, straight dirt road.
The landscape on each side was flat, with wide stretches of land bearing pine trees and scrub oak, then when the car steered off along a side road a delicious perfume filled the air and Abraham grinned when he noticed Marty breathing deep.
"You can smell the oranges Mr Martin. Sweet ain't it? That honey-scent wafts on the breeze around here long before pickin' time."
"I heard Aunt Matilda did some business with oranges."
"She sure does. Got the biggest plantation here-a-bouts. It'll be her fruit yu sniffin'."
Big plantation! mused Marty, quickly interpreting that into dollar bills. Big property of any kind meant big money. There was no sign of orange trees before they reached their destination, instead the scrub woodland thickened and they seemed to enter a jungle of oak trees hung with dripping moss that were so densely packed they shut out most of the daylight. Then at the end of a rising path appeared the front porch of the house called Pitterpeetee Grove. It was big but it wasn't the kind of old colonial mansion he'd imagined. It was built of wood which had been painted white and was lifted up on stone piers.
Sitting bolt upright under an awning set above a long, wide verandah sat his Great-Aunt Matilda, a rangy woman, very old, with features that would be best described as embattled. He was expecting to meet someone old for sure, maybe wrapped in rugs and perhaps wearing carpet slippers. She was dressed head to foot in white, except for a flat wide-brimmed straw-coloured hat with a low crown.
The way she wore her grey hair pinned back behind her head gave her a sort of 19th Century appearance and made her look even older than he'd expected, but although she was running to seed she was still elegant and she still transmitted the fiery, tangled sort of fecundity she'd always had a reputation for. A lace frilled sunshade lay unopened in her hand and she was gripping its handle like a cudgel. "So, you're Martin'. How long will you stay?" she asked at once.
"I thought maybe a week." Marty replied.
The old woman sniffed. "A week! That's preposterous. No one comes here just a week. I expect you to stay for a month at least. Abraham will show you to your room. Dinner's at seven. I'll see you again then."
"Best wear a jacket an' tie at dinner, sur," the old retainer whispered as he led the way into the house, "Missy Matilda's a bit old fashioned an' fussy about that kind o' thing. She likes to keep up values." He chuckled. "Them's her words, not mine."
The inside of the house was big and had an air of long-faded grandeur, with curtains of red damask hanging in ornate pleads around the windows. But the carpet inside the door looked grimed with decades of dust, and although the owner was doubtlessly wealthy, Marty reckoned no money had been spent on undating facilities for visitors since the time it was built. His room was small and the furniture all old wooden stuff; a bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers and a little wash stand that held a tin bowl and a white enamel jug.
"There's a bathroom at the end o' the landin', sur," Abraham told him as he dropped bags on the end of the bed, "If'n yur needing anything in yer room, press the bell-button on the wall an' someone'll come-a-runnin'."
Marty smiled whimsically. A bell-button! Well at least the house was wired for electricity.
