Free The Three Sirens by Irving Wallace Page A

strings. Of course, that wasn’t really shocking, considering how men dressed on the beach every summer. Still, just those little bags and nothing else. Yet, they were natives and that made it decent, almost clinical. She had seen hundreds of pictures of natives, some of them without even pubic bags, and it had seemed quite natural for them.
    The thought occurred to her, standing as she was now in the middle of the bathroom without a stitch on, that this was the way she might be expected to appear in public on The Three Sirens. No, that could not be quite true. Easterday had written: the women wore short grass skirts “without any undergarment” and with breasts bare. But heavens, that was next to naked.
    Claire swung around to face the full-length mirror on the door. She tried to imagine how she would look, this way, naked, to the natives on The Three Sirens. She was five feet four and weighed 112 pounds on the scale this morning. Her hair was dark and shiny, cut short, with the ends clustering against her cheeks. Her almond eyes were of a vague Far Eastern cast, evoking the submissive and demure girls of ancient Cathay, and yet the effect was contradicted by their color, smoke blue, “sexy,” Marc had once said. Her nose was small, with overdelicate nostrils, her lips deep red and her mouth generous, too generous. From the slope of her shoulders and chest, her breasts developed gradually. Her breasts were large—how she had hated that in adolescence—but still high and young, which was a source of gratification in her twenty-fifth year. Her ribs showed somewhat—what would the natives think?
    —but her abdomen was almost flat, only slightly rounded, and the proportions of her thighs and slender legs were not too bad, not really. Still, you could not tell what other people in other cultures would feel—the Polynesians might consider her skinny, except for her bosom.
    Then she remembered the grass skirt. Twelve inches. She could see that twelve inches permitted only four inches of extra modesty. Forgetting any breeze—My God—what happened when you bent over or lifted your leg to ascend a step, or, for that matter, how did you sit down? She determined to discuss the whole business of dress with Maud. In fact, since this was her first field trip, she must ask Maud what would be required of her on The Three Sirens.
    As she dried, she saw herself in the mirror once more. How would she look when she was pregnant? Her belly was so small, really. Where would there be room for another person, her child? Well, there always was, and nature had its way, but it seemed absolutely impossible at this moment. Thinking of the child she would have, but did not have, her brow automatically creased. From the first she had spoken wistfully, later practically, of bearing a child, and from the first Marc had been against it. That is, he was against it for the time, he always said. His reasons seemed important when he stated them to her, but when she was alone, and free to think, they always seemed puny. They must adjust to marriage first, he once said. They must have some free years together, without added responsibilities, he said another time. And lately, it had been that they must get Maud settled, apart from them, and be on their own, before having a family.
    Now, rubbing the towel along her legs, she wondered if any of these reasons was honest, let alone valid, or if they concealed the truth: that Marc did not want a child, dreaded having one, because he was still a child himself, a grown child who was too dependent to take on responsibility. She did not like the momentary suspicion, and determined not to speculate further.
    There was a rap on the door behind the mirror. “Claire?” It was Marc’s voice. She started with surprise, and felt guilty with her thoughts now that Marc was so near.
    “Good morning!” she called out, cheerfully.
    “Did you have breakfast yet?”
    “Not yet. I’m just dressing.”
    “I’ll wait for