Anonumous
The prodigal virgin
Chapter 1
“Life is very difficult, isn’t it, Stanley?” sighed the gray-eyed, pensive girl in the blue bathing suit.
The husky youth who sat Buddha-fashion by her side suppressed the smile which might have offended his sister-in-law in her present essay at a philosophical mood. “It’s no cinch,” he agreed gravely. “It’s nothing to rave about. The best thing is to follow the path of least resistance: to do what you want as nearly as possible and to let the codes and customs of the majority-composed entirely of asses-hamper one very little at most.”
“But surely,” she objected, turning for an instant a pink and pretty face, her forehead puckered with thought, upon him. “Surely that is cynicism-and one is not made happy by becoming cynical. Down through the generations mankind must have been making some progress in regulating itself wisely and so the rules which men have evolved should be followed as the nearest approach to wisdom in conduct which is available.”
In her earnestness-and the pleasure at finding herself in communion for the first time with a very likeable brother by marriage-who had heretofore shown her only a frivolous side-Marion Stone ceased to regard the blue waters so near at hand and turned upon an elbow to gaze at him. In the process of moving, she extended at full length a pair of unusually charming and quite naked legs. Dimples hovered distractingly just about the knees, vague suggestions of rose in skin which was otherwise of a tender, immaculate whiteness. Her thighs sloped gradually upward into soft fullness just below the tight blue trunks. The round calves sloped downward to the symmetry of her ankles which the man’s five fingers could easily have surrounded. Her slender bare feet were as white as milk, except for the ten polished pink gems of the nails.
Marion stirred uneasily as she noted what seemed the ardent attention of his gaze upon the nude limbs, which she was now for the first time showing him so fully. She laid a semi-shielding and equally well-molded arm along a thigh.
Since Stanley Cochrane noted a wee moue of apparent regret that he should seem to be paying attention to matters, other than her words, and since a slow flush arose in the face of the pretty Marion, his brown eyes became immediately profound, as if, though fixed upon her person, they were in reality just the windows of the pondering mind which she had aroused by her reflections.
“Er-I was thinking, Maro-“ he began.
“Maro,” she murmured pleased. “No one else calls me that. I think I rather like it.”
“A rich thing and mine own,” he observed modestly. “I feel that I must have my own copyrighted cognomens for those of whom I am especially fond.”
“Very dear and very flattering of you,” said the girl, jerking her pretty head in a pseudo-curtesy restricted by her posture.