"Sorry, Daddy," she said, closing her parted legs. "It's just that I felt sorry for them. They looked so – pitiful there."

"Well, let them find some cheap tramp to sink their meat in," he said. "You're Sherry Trent and don't forget it!"

"Yes, Daddy." Her father's awareness regarding the presence of other males often amazed Sherry. When it came to other males he seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, an eerie intuition.

Connie, a cocktail girl from the lounge, came over in a few minutes and said, "Hi." Sherry had chatted with her briefly a few times during intermissions and they had struck up something of a friendship. Victor didn't object to her being friendly with females. In fact, he often encouraged her being nice to the "little people" wherever she worked, particularly if they were female or married men who didn't seem to pose any threat to her relationship with Daddy. It was good for her image, he said. Good public relations. In fact, she often caught her father feasting his eyes on the more sexy girls.

With long, straight black hair, large breasts, and enormous blue eyes, Connie was very sexy. Without invitation, she spread her towel on the sundeck next to Sherry and began chatting in her smooth, purring voice. She struck Sherry as something of a social-climber – the kind of girl who liked to hob-nob with celebrities and semi-celebrities and might be on the look-out for an affluent husband. She certainly had the manner and looks for it.

The three of them sat there baking lathe sun for perhaps twenty minutes when Gil Turner came over wearing a very flowery pair of swimming trunks. "Hi, gang," his deep voice boomed. "Mind if I join the sweat brigade?" he asked.

"Not at all," Sherry said.

"Hello, Gil," Victor said, squinting at him. Gil held a tall drink in his hand, his inevitable prop. Ice tinkled in the glass as he sat down cross-legged on his towel next to Connie.