"No. A particular woman."
"Dare I ask why? Here, let me help." She scooped grain into a feed bucket while Lucky rubbed down the gelding she'd been riding. "Tell me about the woman."
His hands, one holding a currycomb, worked efficiently and smoothly over the animal's flesh. "She had a stupefying body, and showed it off to the yokels like us. Got her kicks wearing tight sweaters without a bra. That kind of thing."
They moved to the next stall and began working together on the horse Lucky had been riding. "What happened?" Devon asked as she positioned the feed bucket where the animal could reach it.
"I guess I wanted to prove that I was as much a stud as the rest of them even though I was younger. So I approached her and struck up a conversation."
"About what?"
"My father, who had been falsely accused of being a spy and was imprisoned somewhere behind the Iron Curtain."
Devon's hands fell still. She laughed with disbelief. "And she bought it?"
"I guess so. I never knew. Maybe she was just tired of the bowling alley. Anyway, when I told her I was collecting aluminum cans to recycle so I could raise the money to buy his way out of a Communist country, she invited me to her house and said I could have all the cans I could find."
Devon followed him to a deep utility sink at the back of the building where they washed their hands, sharing a bar of soap. "Meanwhile, Chase and his friends don't know what you're telling her," Devon said as she shook water off her hands before pulling a towel from the rack.
"Right. They thought she was taking me to her house for prurient purposes." He bobbed his eyebrows. "Behind her back, I was giving them the high sign, fanning my face, stuff like that, which would indicate that she was hot for me and vice versa."
"I've got the picture."
"So I rode with her to her house. I felt like a damn fool fishing soda cans out of her trash and placing them in the grocery sack she had provided. Although the scenery was good."
"Scenery?"
"The body."
"Oh yes, the body."
"She was an adolescent boy's dream. From an adult point of view—my taste has been considerably refined," he said, raking his eyes down Devon's slender shapeliness, "I realize she was a little overblown. Back then, though, I thought she was something.
"So, with my eyes glued to her bosom, I'm riffling through her garbage looking for cans, and she's chattering about how admirable it is of me to undertake this dangerous mission and how terrible it must be to be imprisoned in a foreign land. She had a ten-plus body, but a single-digit IQ."
"The type who causes the feminist movement to nosedive."
"Exactly. She was a prototype."
He led Devon into a small room at the back of the stable. In it were a couple of chairs, a double bed with an iron headboard, which at some point in its long life had been painted china blue, and a compact refrigerator.
He pulled the string dangling from the ceiling fan, and it began to hum as it circulated the warm, still air. He took two canned drinks from the refrigerator and handed one to Devon, opening the other for himself.
"She never made a move on you?"
He shook his head with chagrin. "In retrospect I scolded myself for laying it on so thick. I finally worked up enough nerve to embrace her, and
she comforted me! Saying things like 'Poor baby.'
"In her eyes I was too damn noble to be corruptible, much less horny. When it came time for me to go—when there were no more cans in the house—I told her I'd go out the back. See, I knew Chase and the others would have followed us and were watching her house.
"With this rattling sack of cans in my arms, I went out her back door and hid in the bushes. It was an hour longer before the other guys started honking the car horn for me. I had taken off my shirt, given myself a few scratches across the chest and belly, messed up my hair, all to give the general impression that I'd just been laid by a she-cat."
Devon's expression was a mix of incredulity and hilarity. Groping behind her for the edge of the bed, she sat down. The ancient springs creaked. "I can't believe this. Proving your manhood was that important to you?"
"At that point in time I guess it was. Anyhow, the guys fell for it. By the time I got finished with my breathless, lurid account, they thought she'd taken me to bed and that I had experienced what they'd only dreamed about. That's when they started calling me Lucky. To this day, they don't know any different."
"Not even Chase?"