Six
Rolf tapped impatiently on the baize table. Trixie, in a clinging floor-length black velvet gown, limped into the card room leaning on Penny, who wore a scoop-neck crocheted top and a circular felt skirt. Rolf stood to greet them. Andrew followed him to his feet.
‘How’s your ankle?’ Rolf asked.
‘I saw the hotel’s doctor. He says it’ll be fine but I should stay off it as much as possible for the next couple of days and try to keep it elevated.’ Trixie sank onto the chair that Rolf was holding for her. ‘I’d hate to miss our game.’
‘I could organise something, a footstool perhaps?’
‘No, I’ll be fine.’ She grimaced and looked down at her ankle. ‘Would it be all right if I rested my foot on your knee, Rolf?’ She kicked her left shoe off.
‘It’d be my pleasure.’ He took his seat and stooped under the table to take Trixie’s stockinged calf in a cupped hand and raise it to rest her heel on his knee. As her foot came up, a slit in her dress opened from its hem to her thigh. ‘How’s that?’ he asked.
‘Much better. I guess we’re playing girls against boys, then.’
A waiter came in bearing a frosty flask and four martini glasses.
‘I ordered the drinkies,’ Trixie explained. ‘It’ll help me with the pain.’
Rolf signed for the drinks and cut the cards for first deal. Penny’s queen of hearts won. She dealt and opened the bidding with a spade. Andrew passed.
Trixie bid, ‘Two spades. Or should I bid clubs?’
Rolf passed and very quickly, so did Penny. Somehow her elbow nudged the second deck and it cascaded to the floor. ‘I’ll get it.’
To collect the spilled cards, Penny was leaning way down from her chair, to Rolf’s left. Her top’s neckline was deep and wide, and it was a little loose on her slender frame. As she stooped, the fabric sagged away from her. From the corner of his eye, Rolf could see one young breast quiver in the shadows and caught a glimpse of a delicate pink nipple. It occurred to him that her breast would fit into a martini glass, perfectly.
He snatched his eyes back to his cards, feeling guilty.
Trixie asked, ‘So, where do you and your son live, Rolf?’
‘New York – Manhattan.’
Trixie clapped her hands with glee. ‘Lovely, us too, or will be. We’re in the process of buying into a co-op a few blocks off Park Avenue.’
‘That can be complicated, buying a co-op,’ Rolf said.
‘I hope not. My heart is set on it.’
Andrew led a small heart. Trixie fumbled dummy down. She had six clubs to the ace, queen, jack, but only two spades, the ten and the trey. If they’d bid it, they’d have had a sure game in clubs. By taking two risky finesses, Penny kept their losses down to a single trick.
Somehow, Trixie’s heel had moved to midway up Rolf’s thigh. As if absently, he caressed the nylon-sheathed sole of her foot.
‘You’re not trying to lose, are you, Mom?’ Penny accused.
‘Of course not. Why would you think such a thing?’
‘You often used to, when you played against Dad. We aren’t playing for a kiss a point, like you and he used to.’
Rolf grinned. ‘Sounds like an idea to me. What do you say, son?’
‘Dad!’
‘My Mom’s been known to lose by tens of thousands of points,’ Penny told him.
‘That sounds like a lot of slams, to me.’
‘Oh no,’ Trixie said matter-of-factly. ‘We had special forfeits for slams. If he made a small slam against me, I had to . . .’
Penny growled, ‘Mother!’
Rolf gently squeezed Trixie’s foot, which had made its way up his leg until her toes just touched the seam of his pants at the base of his fly.
She licked her lips and stage-whispered, ‘Maybe I’ll tell you later, Rolf, when there are no children around.’
Rolf jerked his chair closer to the card-table to conceal the progress of Trixie’s foot, the ball of which was now pressing rhythmically just above his scrotum.
Penny said, ‘Mom, you’re incorrigible!’
Trixie gave a solemn nod. ‘True. So don’t try to correct me, my darling daughter.’
Andrew, red faced, perhaps because the toes of Penny’s left foot were probing up under the cuff of his pants, finished dealing. Rolf picked up his cards, distracted by the way Trixie’s foot was moving on the base of his shaft. He put his hand on her ankle, thinking to move her foot to a more decorous position before either of the youngsters noticed what was going on.
Trixie stopped him with, ‘Thank you, Rolf. A nice gentle massage would help the swelling go down.’
‘I don’t see any swelling. Your ankle looks absolutely perfect, to me.’
‘Why thank you, kind Sir. Massage it anyway, please?’
Even though the ladies were making it difficult for them to concentrate, Rolf and Andrew were up by over eighteen thousand points by six p.m. ‘That’s a lot of kisses you owe us,’ Rolf joked, half hoping he’d be taken seriously.
‘And three slams that you bid and made,’ Trixie added. ‘Two small, one grand.’
‘Don’t start that again, Mother,’ Penny warned.
‘She’s only teasing,’ Rolf said.
Trixie grinned wickedly at her daughter. ‘Am I, Penny?’
Penny stood abruptly. ‘I’m going up to get changed,’ she announced.
Trixie sighed. ‘Then it’s game over. You only need two to tango but it takes four to play bridge.’ She gingerly lifted her foot from Rolf’s lap. ‘I don’t think I should come down for dinner with this ankle.’ She looked pointedly at Rolf, as if waiting for him to say something.
‘I’ll have room service bring something to your suite.’
‘I hate to eat alone, Rolf.’
‘I’ll order us something,’ he corrected himself. ‘The kids won’t mind dining and dancing without us, I’m sure.’
‘That’s very generous of you, Rolf. Eight o’clock? Oh, and Rolf, in case you were thinking of plying me with champagne, I’m more susceptible to martinis.’