Caveat Emptor and Other Stories Read Online Free Page A

realized what she had arranged for the lovebirds?
    â€œI should arrest all of you,” he said, scowling as his eyes flitted around the room. “Run you in, book you, and take you to a cold, dark cell. Fling you across the cot and interrogate you until you beg for mercy. Is that what you want me to do?”
    â€œNo,” screamed a voice from the crowd. “Take it off!”
    His mouth softened; dimples appeared in his cheeks. “Is that what you want me to do?” he demanded of the crowd.
    â€œTake it off!”
    Like a prairie dog, the emcee popped up on the platform at the back of the stage. “Do you want Policeman Dick to take it off? You’ll have to tell him what you want!”
    â€œTake it off!” the crowd howled in unified frenzy.
    The music began to pulsate as the young man toyed with the top button of his shirt, his hips synchronized with the beat. The crowd roared their approval. Sylvia leaned forward and said, “You turned absolutely white, Anne. Did you think he was a real cop?”
    Anne kept her eyes on the man in the middle of the stage. “Don’t be absurd, Sylvia. I don’t have a guilty conscience,” she said distractedly. The first button was undone, and the graceful fingers had moved down one tantalizing inch. A few curly chest hairs were visible now; she felt a sudden urge to dash onto the stage and brush her hand across them. “Is he going to take it all off?”
    â€œI can’t believe you said that,” Bitsy sniffed. “I think this is disgusting.”
    Anne had expected to feel the same way, but now, with the darling young blond man who looked so wholesome, so boyish and innocent and pleased with the response from the crowd—it wasn’t disgusting. It was very, very interesting.
    Marjorie put her cup down, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly agape. “I don’t think it’s disgusting,” she said in a hollow voice.
    Bitsy leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms. “The three of you are slobbering like dogs.”
    Anne barely heard the condemnation from across the table. Policeman Dick was easing out of his shirt, letting each sleeve slide down his arm so slowly she could feel the ripple of his biceps, the hard turn of his elbows, the soft skin of his forearm, the mounded base of his hand, the long, delicate fingers. She heard herself exhale as the khaki shirt fell to the floor.
    His hips still moving with the music, the man flexed his arms and turned slowly so the women could appreciate his flat stomach and broad shoulders. He swaggered across the stage to Anne’s table and curled his hands behind Sylvia’s neck.
    â€œUnbuckle my belt or I’ll run you in,” he said, smiling to take the menace from his facetious threat. He noticed Anne’s stunned expression and winked at her, sharing the joke in an oddly private message.
    â€œYou can run me in anytime you want!” Sylvia smirked as she fumbled with the buckle of his belt. Beside her, Bitsy was almost invisible below the table. Her face was stony, and her mouth a pinched ring of scandalized disapproval.
    When the buckle was freed, the man backed away to tease the crowd with his jutting pelvis and bare chest. His trousers began to slide down his hips. Again Anne could feel his skin, now so taut with smooth, muscular slopes. It’s been such a long time, she thought, panicked by the intensity of her reaction. If only Paul hadn’t lost interest when he began the affair with Sylvia … It was his fault she was responding like a silly, breathless, hormone-driven adolescent.
    The uniform was off now; only a small triangle of khaki fabric acknowledged the limits of legality. The young man, Policeman Dick, she amended with a faint smile—began to dance with increased insistence, turning often so that all the women could have an equal opportunity to admire that which deserved admiration. The colored lights flashed across