For a split second as she entered the suite, Sylvia felt a deep sense of disappointment because Shelton wasn’t there to greet her. Then she heard him singing off-key in the shower. The edges of her mouth turned up in a small impish smile of delight, and the first zephyrs of anticipation were already blowing through her belly when she tipped the admiring bellboy five dollars.

God, she thought, I’m acting like nothing but a bitch in heat. She wanted Shelton, she wanted him now, right now! There was a vast loneliness aching down there between her legs. There really was only one question to be answered: should she play hard to get and act coy, or take the initiative?

She strode across the room and gazed out the window toward the harbor where half a hundred boats rode at anchor. They bobbed gently up and down; the motion was a completely sexual one, and the masts looked like thin eager penises jamming the womb of the sky.

And now her hands had begun to shake and her knees felt rubbery; the moment for action or non-action had arrived. She could still turn back. Her face dimpled in sudden decision, and then she was almost frantically removing shoes, yanking down panty hose, stepping out of her expensive, blue Italian knit skirt, and taking off blouse and bra. She wanted to be naked before he finished his shower.