Mirror Image

she knew was crotch-teasing. It promised a wicked good time.
    “I’ll be there at seven o’clock sharp,” she had said in her huskiest drawl. “I’ll bring the doughnuts, you bring the rubbers.” While she exercised no more morals than an alley cat, she was too smart and too selfish to risk catching a fatal disease for a mere roll in the hay.
    Buck hadn’t been a disappointment. What he lacked in finesse he made up for with stamina. He’d been so potent and eager to please that she’d pretended not to notice the pimples on his ass. Overall, he had a pretty good body. That’s why she’d slept with him six times since that first morning.
    They’d spent tonight, his night off, in the tacky apartment he was so proud of, eating bad Mexican TV dinners, drinking cheap wine, smoking expensive grass—Fancy’s contribution to the evening’s entertainment—and screwing on the carpet because it had looked marginally cleaner to her than the sheets on the bed.
    Buck was sweet. He was earnest. He was horny. He told her often that he loved her. He was okay. Nobody was perfect.
    Except Eddy.
    She sighed now, expanding the cotton sweater across her braless breasts. Much to the disapproval of her grandmother, Zee, Fancy didn’t believe in the restraints imposed by brassieres any more than those imposed by seat belts.
    Eddy was beautiful. He was always perfectly groomed, and he dressed like a man, not a boy. The local louts, mostly shit-kickers and rednecks, wore cowboy clothes. God! Western wear was okay in its place. Hadn’t she worn the gaudiest outfit she could find the year she was rodeo queen? But it belonged exclusively in the rodeo arena, as far as she was concerned.
    Eddy wore dark three-piece suits and silk shirts and Italian leather shoes. He always smelled like he’d just stepped out of the shower. Thinking about him in the shower made her cream. She lived for the day she could touch his naked body, kiss it, lick him all over. She just knew he would taste good.
    She squirmed with pleasure at the thought, but a frown of consternation soon replaced her expression of bliss. First she had to cure him of his hang-up over the gap in their ages. Then she’d have to help him get over the fact that she was his best friend’s niece. Eddy hadn’t come right out and said that’s why he was resistant, but Fancy couldn’t think of any other reason he would avoid the blatant invitation in her eyes every time she looked at him.
    Everybody in the family had been tickled to death when she had volunteered to work at campaign headquarters. Grandpa had given her a hug that had nearly wrung the breath out of her. Grandma had smiled that vapid, ladylike smile Fancy detested and said in her soft, tepid voice, “How wonderful, dear.” Daddy had stammered his surprised approval. Mama had even sobered up long enough to tell her she was glad she was doing something useful for a change.
    Fancy had hoped Eddy’s response would be equally as enthusiastic, but he had only appeared amused. All he had said was, “We need all the help down there we can get. By the way, can you type?”
    Screw you,
she had wanted to say. She didn’t because her grandparents would have gone into cardiac arrest and because Eddy probably knew that’s exactly what she was dying to say and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her rattled.
    So she had looked up at him with proper respect and said earnestly, “I do my best at whatever I undertake, Eddy.”
    The high-performance Mustang convertible sent up a cloud of dust as she wheeled up to the front door of the ranch house and cut the engine. She had hoped to get to the wing she shared with her parents without encountering anyone, but no such luck. As soon as she closed the door, her grandfather called out from the living room. “Who’s that?”
    “It’s me, Grandpa.”
    He intercepted her in the hallway. “Hi, baby.” He bent down to kiss her cheek. Fancy knew that he was sneakily checking her breath for alcohol. In preparation for that, she had consumed three breath mints on the way home to cover the smell of the cheap wine and strong pot.
    He pulled away, satisfied. “Where’d you go tonight?”
    “To the movies,” she lied blithely. “How’s Aunt Carole? Did the surgery go okay?”
    “The doctor says it went fine. It’ll be hard to tell for a week or so.”
    “God, it’s just awful what happened to her face, isn’t it?” Fancy pulled her own lovely face into a