Especially when faced with a guy both bigger and stronger than me, facts made obvious by his standing there in swim trunks and towel, the latter flung casually over a classically muscular shoulder.

“Well, are you coming in or aren’t you?” I asked.

He pushed the door shut. His teeth were showing. He wasn’t smiling. But he was too confused to be violent. At the moment.

“I don’t know you,” he said.

“If I knew you,” I said, “would I be asking your goddamn name every couple seconds?”

His eyebrows were as light a blond as the hair on his head. His nose was small, almost feminine. He really was prettier-looking than the dragon lady. But nowhere near as interesting.

“You got a reason for being in Glenna’s room?” he said. His voice was medium-range, flat, uninteresting.

“Sure. Do you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. I live here.”

“The hell you say.” I knew he did, of course, had seen the men’s clothing in the closet and in dresser drawers, and knew of the female domination of the place which meant any man here was living with whatever woman he served. What I didn’t know was how fast this asshole was, that he’d pull a wham/bam/thank-you-ma’am on that female counterpart of himself he’d gone off into the shadows with. I mean, even at the Beach Shore you spent the night with whoever you banged. Sometimes you stayed the month.

“Hey,” he said, sitting in a chair across from me, a glass coffee table separating us. “Hey, I’ve seen you someplace. You staying here with somebody? Have I seen you down by the pool?”

“I’m staying here. You might have seen me.”

“But we haven’t met.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m Norm Morrow.”

“Burt Thompson.”

We didn’t shake hands, by the way.