He told himself it wasn’t Mildred. It couldn’t be Mildred. He backed across the cabin until his shoulders hit the thick metal rim of the porthole, and he saw Mildred slowly closing the door behind her. Then he watched the way she adjusted her hands to the full roundness of her tightly skirted hips and bounced lightly, brazenly on one leg as she looked him up and down.
He was trying to pull away from the shock and dismay of the long, shattering moment. He blinked several times and opened his mouth and closed it and then just stood there looking at Mildred.
She was glancing around the ship’s cabin. There was a small mariner’s ornament dangling on the wall, a brass anchor, and she walked over to it and flipped it a few times and said quietly, “Just where do you think you’re going?”
She had
