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CLAUDETTE BROUGHT STANLEY his beer and went to do something at the other end of the bar. Stanley took a sip and looked at the woman sitting by herself at a table at the far end of the bar. She wore a white shirt under a denim jacket, and although Stanley couldn’t see them, he figured she wore denim jeans, and they were tight.
“Not bad, isn’t she?”
Stanley snapped his head about. The man Sydney from last night was sitting beside him.
“I didn’t see you come in,” Stanley said.
“Because you were too busy ogling the dyed blonde over there. Stop it.”
“Why?”
“Because it’ll be obvious you like her. You’re lucky she hasn’t noticed you looking.”
“Why?”
“Because then you’ll have to approach her. You have five seconds from the moment the girl notices you looking at her to walk up and say something to her. The problem with that right now is, you don’t know what to say. So for now, keep your eyes on me.”
Stanley shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m even talking with you,” he muttered.
“Have you thought about my proposition?” Sydney asked.
Stanley sipped his beer, ignoring the question.
“You can’t doubt my worth as a teacher after what you witnessed last night.”
“I don’t think I—”
“Don’t give me an answer just yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because whatever answer you give me will be final, with no turning back. If you say yes, then it will be yes. If you say no, then I have to leave, and you’ll never have an opportunity like this again.”
“Opportunity like what?”
“How would you like to be able to fuck almost any woman you desire? It won’t be everyone, but if you miss out on one, you’ll just find another.”
Stanley looked into his beer and shook his head.
“You saw those two last night. I could tell you what a threesome is like with two women like that but it’s something you have to experience for yourself, and you can.”
“You reckon you can teach me?”
Sydney nodded.
“What’s in it for you?”
“You’re a French. Your family owns this town. I need somewhere I can set up an academy, someplace where I can bring guys, like you, and teach them the ways of seducing women. We can go to Meerton, or Stoneville, to hunt, but I’ll need someplace I can set up, and I’ll need a partner I can trust.”
“Partner?”
“Each group we teach will consist of ten to twelve men who’ll pay two to three thousand crown tokens for five days of intensive teaching.”
Stanley sipped his beer. “Why here?”
“I’ve been run out of the last three towns I’ve set up in. I’m tired of it. I believe I can set up here and make some money with the skills I’ve acquired and am willing to share. Wouldn’t you like to share a bed with women as fine as the ones you saw me with last night?”
“About those two,” Stanley said. “The barmaid wasn’t a regular barmaid. She looked like one who was there twenty years ago, and so did the blonde, but they couldn’t be. If the barmaid wasn’t a real barmaid, I’m thinking you might have set them up. I’m thinking you didn’t fuck either of them, or if you did, you either paid them or—”
“The dyed blonde over there. She looks like she’s feeling down over a man. She also looks like she’s sober, that drink she’s holding she’s been holding the whole time. I reckon you should go over there and ask her name and—”
“Kasey Winkle. She works at the plantation site office.”
“Does she know you?”
Stanley nodded. “Some.”
“But not well?”
“She knows who my father is.”
“Pity.” Sydney looked around. “Well, there’s nobody else. Would you like to fuck her?”
Stanley shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Start up a conversation,” Sydney said. “You want a woman’s advice because you like another woman and you’re wondering how to go about getting her. Would it be best if you were direct about it, or...”
“Or what?” Stanley asked.
“Leave it open for her to fill in, and let her talk. Don’t let her go on about the man she’s pining about. If she starts going on about that, just say, ‘I’m not him’. Keep asking questions until she tells you how she wants to be seduced, then seduce her that way.”
“Look, this is completely stupid. I’m not going to be able to screw even Kasey Winkle with—”
“Do you want to get laid tonight?”
Stanley shrugged.
“The answer is yes or no.”
“Alright, yes.”
“So you’d like me to teach you?”
“I’ll give it a go.”
“No, you want to get laid, right?”
Stanley sighed.
“If you want to get laid, then say yes.”
“Alright then.”
“Not, alright then. Say yes, I want to get laid.”
“Yes, I want to get laid.”
“Right, she’s looking this way. Look at her, keep eye contact and let’s go.”
***
THE REST OF THE EVENING was like a dream. Stanley and Sydney sat with Kasey and the conversation took off by itself. At first she was suspicious, wanting to know who Stanley was interested in. Someone you don’t know from Stoneville was the only answer Stanley would give her. When she’d resigned herself to the idea she’d have to speak about “what a girl likes” in general terms, that was when she started to light up and Stanley started to notice what Sydney had said. She started to tell him how she wanted to be seduced.
Somewhere in the course of the conversation Sydney disappeared. It didn’t matter. Stanley and Kasey developed a deep sense of rapport. She was upset, like Sydney said, and it was about a man. For some reason, Stanley suggested it wasn’t worth getting drunk over. She looked at her half-empty glass and told him she wasn’t going to.
He walked her home. She asked him in. They made love. It was better than a dream.
She stayed on the bed while Stanley dressed. Her naked body was so beautiful. Stanley felt a rush of affection mixed with desire.
“Any man who wouldn’t kill to be with you isn’t a man,” Stanley said.
Where did that come from? It wasn’t something he’d say.
He looked at Kasey. She didn’t react so maybe he didn’t say it out loud.
“I’d like to see you again,” he said. “I feel that we have something special between us. Do you feel it?”
She shrugged.
“You tired?”
“Yeah, that’s it.” Her voice was monotone. “I’m too tired.”
“I’ll let you rest,” he whispered. He leaned over her and kissed the back of her neck, lingering a while to lose himself in the smell of her hair. “This was special,” he said as he left.
As he walked up the street, his mind went to Sydney. Stanley found what he wanted in Kasey. She was someone he felt comfortable with, someone he liked being with, someone he could have sex with for the rest of his life. It was something he didn’t want to jeopardise, and being affiliated with his how-to-get-laid academy, like Sydney described, was sure to put that relationship in danger.
“Well, you must have moved quick.”
Stanley jumped. Sydney was right there beside him.
“Where the fuck did you come from?” Stanley asked.
“I had a little distraction up this street,” Sydney said. “I saw you in the street light, your awkward gait gives you away. That’s something we’re going to have to fix. I was near so I came to see how you went.”
“Went alright,” Stanley said.
“Worked well for you, did it?”
“Yeah.” Stanley didn’t want to talk about Kasey to Sydney from fear it would defile the memory of the night.
“You must have moved a little too fast,” Sydney said.
“Yeah,” Stanley said emotionlessly.
“Did you take her anywhere after you spoke at the Federal Hotel?”
“No.”
Sydney took a deep breath. “Well, you fucked up there, didn’t you?”
“I don’t think so,” Stanley started walking a little faster.
“So you didn’t fuck her?” Sydney said. “Please say you didn’t.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes. Why?”
“Because if you didn’t, there’d be hope. She won’t see you again now.”
Stanley stopped. “What makes you so sure of that?”
“You don’t understand, do you?” Sydney shook his head. “You meet a woman in a bar, you take her home and you fuck her and it’s just the one night. She won’t want to see you again because that’s the way things work. She feels slutty enough as it is to be picked up in a bar, she’s not going to make that mistake again.”
“Kasey doesn’t feel—”
“How do you know what she feels. Did you have a good, long talk afterward? Was there deep sharing between the two of you that makes her feel there could be more to it than just a casual fuck?”
Stanley shook his head, not knowing what to say.
“Listen. If she’s taken home from the place you met her, then she’s just been picked up like a cheap slut and used for sex. Did she at least come?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“So she didn’t. That wouldn’t matter if... well, she’d more likely have climaxed if the arrangement was more romantic in her mind than this sounds like it was. If she came, then you’d be in again. It doesn’t matter. If you’d taken her to that other pub... the Timber Getters is it? Well then she met a man at the Federal and went on a date with him at the Timber Getters. Then one thing led to another and...”
“I don’t think it works like that.”
“Listen my boy, it’s so fucking important to them that they’re not behaving like sluts they’re willing to accuse a man of raping them to keep them away. Especially if they didn’t come.”
“Kasey’s not like that!” Stanley strode away.
“You’re cunt-struck!” Sydney snapped.
Stanley stopped and turned to him. “I’m what?”
“Cunt-struck,” Sydney answered. “You’ve heard the term moon-struck?”
Stanley shook his head.
“It’s when something good happens that it affects your thinking, like a full moon affects a lunatic. Well, it’s the same thing, except there’s a vagina involved.”
“She’s special,” Stanley said. “I’d feel this way whether we made love or not.”
“Made Love? Oh, that’s bad.”
“What’s bad?”
“You had sex, or more accurately, you fucked. That’s all it was. Don’t get all womanly about it. Making love is what a woman does while a man is fucking her. Look, you moved too fast and we’re in damage control now. Play it cool, be nice, and find somebody else. She’s not who you wanted anyway, was she?”
“She’s who I want now.”
“Forget her. It was the blonde who’s likely to have the blonde pubic hairs you were really interested in, isn’t it? Not this one with the blonde head and the brunette vulva.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, and I don’t think I need anything else from you. I found what I want in a woman, and—”
“Sleep on it,” Sydney said. “You still need to agree to me teaching you.”
“I don’t—”
“I said sleep on it,” Sydney snapped. “Give me your answer once you’ve spoken with your beloved.”
“My answer’s not going to change.”
“Don’t be sure of that. And get yourself a car. You’re going to need one. I can’t have a pupil of mine walking the streets. It’s not... just get a fucking car. Tell your dad you need one to get a quality woman.”
Sydney strode off into the night.