She and Roy had married when she was eighteen in '60, their nothing association lasting three years and two abortions. Sidney Bartell, the British star had been next, the perfect arrangement, she'd thought. Poor Sid, such a beautiful man and an unconvertible homo who needed a wife for his box-office image. How could she miss? Five years of free-wheeling on both their parts, numerous unimportant roles for her, as she began to appear in nudies with the new permissive approach, and finally Robert's death in an auto accident in Mexico which had brought that episode to a profitable end. She had inherited Cliffside here in Big Sur country and close to a half-million dollars in cold cash after taxes, boosting her bank-account well into the security range. The promiscuous little farm girl from Nebraska had made it after all… but at what cost? The last few months, she had pondered that question too often…

It weigh bitterly on her mind at the very moment as she floated about the pool, the prevailing breezes moving her, haphazardly, a great deal like her very existence, she rancourously thought, the tears of earlier grief beginning to pass. Of course, those tears would subside and go away forever, she knew from experience. It was just the immediate heartache, the egotistical loss of a lover she hadn't personally shed… but… but he had never been a lover like any of the others, had he?

There had been nothing suave or sweet smelling about Bo-Bo when she'd met him at The Haven, a small bar adjacent to the village's leading hotel in the nearby corners of Cala Mar. She'd been shopping for a handbag, had bought a snake-skinned one in fact, which she was quite pleased with and had gone into the lounge for a gin-tonic to examine it. He'd stood at the bar, down at the far corner as if he were not permitted to enter into the center of things, drinking beer from a bottle. Somehow, and she would never remember how that had happened, she had looked up to stare right into his leveled, perceptive eyes.