Diana went to the bedroom to check while Gretchen filtered through the magazine bucket. Louise tapped her foot, breathing hard and righteously through fleering nostrils. Warlock noted that her trousers were pulled up so tightly they revealed her strangely ample labia majora. She flashed a crooked, feral smile as Diana returned with a puzzled look.

“They’re gone. And so is the vibrator.”

“Touché,” he said moving to the kitchen. “I’ve got some work to bone up on.”

“I know he does it. They all do. They unconsciously tweak at their weenies when they read the paper or drive a car. I had Fred do it in front of me to get a little oxygen into our sex life,” Louise continued in a snit.

“Johnny, could you make some popcorn?” Gretchen called.

By the time he served the popcorn the girls were in a good mood. Tom had finished talking to Earl Weaver, switched gears, and was full steam with Nancy on masturbation. Louise caught him blushing as he handed her a double-buttered bowl.

“He’s blushing,” she howled.

“Listen!” Diana and Gretchen were hanging on Nancy’s words.

“I leave you charming clam floggers to your program,” he said, but they weren’t listening.

At the kitchen table Warlock continued to stare into his briefcase while eating a small bowl of popcorn. There was only an empty Chablis bottle, a four day old Detroit Free Press, and David Halberstam’s book about power. You can’t knock power, Warlock thought. He had obviously turned the corner with Hudley through the prudent use of power. The contents of his briefcase, however, didn’t reveal a man of power. Those three insouciant girls swam out of the surf and into his brain. Think of them, say … in a bathhouse, or in the loft of a cottage, or in a large California-style bathroom. They are beginning to peel off their wet suits when Warlock enters, quite by mistake. No, stay, they say in unison. Dry our backs! They gently strip him and they all hop into the shower. (All his fantasies included a shower to avoid the natural but rather gamy exudate of bodies.) Half the bathroom was carpeted. They said one-potato or eenie-meenie-mynie-moe to see who would go first. Warlock lay down and hoisted one onto his chops while the other slammed down on his rude rouser. There was a knock. No there wasn’t. These gratuitous interruptions the mind throws up. He dandled the third with a spare hand. A chorus of moans. He humped all three until they couldn’t walk, talk, crawl. Each had exactly seventy-seven orgasms, his lucky number. There was an award banquet.

The program was over and he heard them approach the kitchen chattering. He wedged his hard dick-head under his belt and closed the briefcase with a snap.

“You didn’t really miss anything,” Louise said. “They pulled their punches.”

“Great popcorn.” Gretchen quickly finished Warlock’s bowl.