"Right - I'm out-fucking-side now, and not setting one goddamned foot further!"
Trixie could never understand why, with a stove that smoked like the devil's own arse from the miserable wood Johnny tried to feed it, Jewel should even care whenever a body lit a cigarette in her kitchen; but she had shooed and blustered, a dishrag clutched in one hand, until the other woman had been forced into the doorway to the outside; where she had turned to snap:
"I pity the man who marries you!"
"Well, I pity the man who marries you!" Who the fuck were they kidding, Trixie thought. They would die whores in this running sore on the face of the wilderness. The thin curl from her cigarette stung her eyes of a sudden - she must have shown it, because Jewel's face crumpled in concern and she laid a hand on her friend's arm:
"I didn't mean a thing. Sol Starr'd be a lucky man to have you. He is a lucky man to have you." Blinking, Trixie smiled and chucked her under the chin.
"You're just a sentimental quiz, ain't you, when all's said and done?" Leaning against the doorpost opposite, the little cook smiled slyly, yet seemed to hesitate.
"I fancy someone, too," she said at last.
"Who? Dan?" Trixie took a draw on her cigarette and laughed smoke.
"No!"
"Al? I knew it! You were secretly burning with jealousy the whole time I was fucking him!"
"Stop teasing!" Jewel shoved her, playfully, as Trixie dropped the fag end of her cigarette and ground it out under her boot heel.
"Well? Don't leave me to expire of curiosity, you goddamn imp." Jewel leant back against the doorpost again, and folded her arms across her small bosom, or perhaps she was merely cold in the breeze from outside.
"I like the doc. What?!" she added, as Trixie raised an eyebrow but said nothing, "You were the one who said he was all right. Anyways, I like dancing with him."
"Sure, and he's the reason you can dance at all. But it's no good, trying to get a medical man to join giblets - they already know too much about it, there's no mystery for them."
"Seems to me a man who knows his way around down there might have the advantage over the average, when it comes to that."
Trixie closed her eyes and tried, but failed, to summon an image of Doc in that capacity. To be honest, her trust in the man had started with the absence in him of lust for any woman in his care -- which was to say, any female in the camp at all. Part of her wondered if he was incapable that way, not in body perhaps, but in mind. She knew a man with bad memories when she saw one, and knew when not to ask about it, too. Out loud she said,
"You might as well fuck a clock."
"Well a clock does need to be wound up, every so often." Gimp had a comeback for everything.
"But not to be tinkered with. Clock's a reliable but frail bit of machinery, and you don't fuck with what ain't broken." As though the doctor wasn't broken. As though any of them weren't.
"You think that's what I want to do?" Jewel's feathers were getting ruffled now, her face flushing pink. "It's seldom enough I find one who suits me."
True enough. It wasn't just her leg - some men were desperate enough not to care -- hell, some liked it; but Jewel was picky, and Al, with all his faults -- well, he made it so she could afford to be. If she thought Doc was the right sort for her, she meant it. Trixie still wondered if there was a right sort for him, or if he was willing to let there be.
Jewel had an instinct for generosity, give her that. She could slip a choice, a little bit more, to the proudest and most stubborn spirits. Well, Doc sure fit that category. Trouble was, Trixie was fond of 'em both, and didn't want to think of the consequences to either one if Jewel made an offer only to have it rebuffed - or more likely, missed completely, for the doctor could be blind to the fucking obvious sometimes, particularly where his own interests were concerned. She sighed, and made her choice:
"Come to think of it, maybe I should just lock the two of you in a room together with nothing but a bed and let things sort themselves out." It was Jewel's turn to be soothed, and she smiled wryly.
"Let me try my own feminine wiles first."