3. 'Barneymugging'

Barneymugging, verb: 1. Contraction of terms for 'scandal' and 'kissing,' 2. Lovemaking.

"Half of Newport is here," Ella commented, looking between the busy tables to some of the more active social climbers, flitting from group to group like hummingbirds extracting a taste of nectar before buzzing off to the next flower. The small bar had filled up even further with people as the night wore on, and the population had become considerably more diverse. "Is that Jean Edmunton?" she asked in disbelief.

"Holy cow," Louise muttered, mouth open, "get a load of those rocks."

"How did a plain jane turn into a showcase like that?" Reggie asked, and they unsubtly stared at the woman with the dirty blonde hair and the pounds of jewelry.

They had all been content to sit out the last few dances, the girls feeling rather down after the chemical high had faded. So they stayed at the table and gossiped about people they saw. The people-watching was highly amusing, rivaled only by some of the characters Mary and Richard had observed during their two weeks in New York. But now everyone was starting to finally perk up again – Mary thought this was aided by another trip to the washroom for Ella and Louise– and she herself would have felt almost completely back to normal by that point, if it weren't for the gimlets the waiter kept bringing.

"They can't be real," Mary said, watching the sparkle of an emerald next to a diamond in the woman's necklace. "In a place like this?"

"Don't be so sure…" Louise said disparagingly from across the table. "It would be just like her to rub our noses in it. She used to be this demure little thing; no guts. And just look at her now! Through some miracle she married this Cuban sugar baron who's really got the sugar, if you know what I mean."

"Money," Ella helpfully translated.

"And if you're wondering why half of Newport is here, Ella dear," she said, turning her attention back to the girl in all black, "it is probably because you told them to come."

"I did no such thing."

"You wrote in City Life that the most happening place in Newport this summer is actually a roadhouse off a highway in Connecticut. What did you think would happen?"

"I never said which highway in Connecticut," she said defensively.

"I think they figured it out, considering there's only one road to town." The brunette widened her eyes to highlight the obviousness of it all, in an expression that for the briefest moment reminded Mary of her mother. "And now our hidden place is ruined, and it's all your fault." Louise watched with unconcealed aversion as Jean Edmunton accepted a polite request to dance from a doddering elderly gentleman and they moved to the center of the room in an old-fashioned step. "Ruined!"

"City Life?" Richard asked, offering Ella a way out of the conversation of blame, "that's a Hearst publication, isn't it?"

"Yes," she replied, seizing the topic gratefully. "I write a nightlife column for them. Nothing much but it pays the bills."

Richard regarded her for a moment. "Stilts," he said knowingly, pointing a finger in her direction.

"That's me!" she exclaimed, her sweet smile beaming at her minor celebrity. "I don't know why I use a pseudonym," she confided, "everyone knows I write it."

"Sometimes thinking you can hide behind a penname is more important than whether people believe you or not," he posited. "I find you can write more daringly if you pretend you are writing anonymously."

"That, and if Father ever found out he would stop the hush money or have a heart attack," she joked. "Or both!"

"And do you let them read what you write?" Mary asked, indicating Reggie and Louise.

"Let us?" Reggie asked incredulously. "Seeing as we're practically her main characters, she can't really stop us, can she?"

"One would think," Mary commented pointedly in Richard's direction.

"You can read them when we get home!" he replied in an aggravated tone that indicated he was repeating himself.

"Richard is turning our honeymoon into a column for his newspaper," she explained to the group, "and he won't let me read a word of it."

"Until we get back," he amended.

"Once it's too late to censor you?"

"Once it's too late to censor myself, based on your reaction."

"Oh, applesauce," Mary said glibly, seizing on one of Reggie's trivializing terms. "You just don't want me to discover all of our secrets that you are revealing to the British public. But I've made it my mission to find out."

"You're not the only one with objections. My office did forward me a rather amusing complaint letter about the column, suggesting it was unsporting of me to turn our honeymoon into a spectacle."

"I imagine you receive quite a few letters to that effect."

"The peculiar thing was," Richard continued, "that it was signed by one 'Violet C.,' from Yorkshire." At this both Mary and Louise burst out laughing, to the puzzlement of the others at the table unfamiliar with the withering criticism the Dowager Countess was apt to dispense. "I wrote her back and offered to cancel her complimentary subscription if she truly objected…"

"You can hardly expect Granny to keep clippings for her scrapbook," Mary replied when she caught her breath. "Especially if you plan to write about crumbling Connecticut roadhouses and gin…" she added, fishing for a clue as to this week's topic.

"I'll never tell," he replied, catching her in the act with one of his most charming smiles.

"You couldn't possibly!" Louise said with worried eyes. "Ella's already told the whole East Coast, and now you'll let England know about our little spot too? You must promise," she insisted.

"I solemnly swear," he replied with a journalist's practiced deflection, "that there will be no British invasion of this roadhouse." And Mary smiled to herself that she did have a clue what he was going to write, and that it most certainly would include the shabby inn they currently occupied.

"Such moralists, all the sudden," Ella said to Louise and Reggie, coming to her own defense about spilling the beans, "you two don't mind when I write all about your antics. You just don't want me to tell people where they occur!"

"We deserve to have our antics written about," Reggie proclaimed, his phony accent less pronounced after a few drinks, "I always felt my personality should be committed to posterity."

"Oh you ought to be committed, alright," the vamp replied.

"Besides, what fun would it be if everyone were able to know about our haunts? We don't want any publicity-seekers crashing our good time."

"Yes, you don't want any competition in that area," Ella replied in one of her better retorts of the night.

"Does it affect your actions," Richard interjected to Louise, curious, "knowing your adventures are being recorded for posterity for all of New York to read?"

"Hardly," Louise replied with a huff, "I'm not going to repress my instincts just because half the city will read about it the next morning."

"I meant the other way around," he clarified with a laugh. "That if someone is bothering to write about you, you better give them a good story?" Reggie nodded briskly in humorous confirmation, but Louise pondered the question; the idea had clearly not occurred to her before.

She paused for a long moment. "I think I want to give myself a good story," she concluded finally, with great seriousness. The brunette indicated their surroundings, the beautifully-dressed Newport characters mixing with the local population in work clothes, the giggling and shaking of heads in mock horror and the come hither smiles and the playful pats on the back, the dancing and the trails of smoke from cigarettes and the liquor sloshed on the floor. "After all, that's what all of this is, isn't it?"


"That's the problem!" Ella cried several drinks later, slamming her empty glass upside down on the dirty table. "What do you wear for motoring excursions? I mean look at us, we're all in day clothes! In the evening!"

"Vogue says coral is an especially good choice," Mary replied, numerous empty glasses in front of her too. "And lavender is not." She underlined the word with an emphatic shake of her head.

"Then you and I are right in style," said Louise, indicating her pink dress and Mary's coral ensemble. "Ella, you've got no excuse, with your black on black on black."

"Not true," the pale woman objected with a thrust of her chin, "In black, I am always prepared."

"As I am, dear, though I don't mean clothing," Louise said with a giggle, glancing across to the men at the table. Reggie and Richard, bored of the lengthy talk of fashion, had been huddled together talking about something or other – phrases like 'transportation sector' and 'public offering' occasionally wandered over – and continued their discussion.

Mary knew what Louise was talking about, though she was surprised that these two single women did. "You mean, you…?" she asked, not quite speaking it aloud.

"Obviously!" Louise exclaimed. "Why do you think we're here?"

Ella interjected at Mary's puzzled expression: "This is the best place for barneymugging between here and Newport. You think Louise can carry on with Reggie like that at the Aunt and Uncle Fire Extinguisher's house? Everyone stops here for some fun before a month with the uptight relatives."

"Goodness," she said, the liquor making it difficult to adopt her usual air of sophistication. "That explains why it is difficult to get a room." She glanced over to find Ella trying to contain a titter at her naiveté.

"I wish I was married like you though," Louise sighed. "In spite of my fear of the m-word. It would be so liberating."

Mary almost choked on her sip of gin. "Liberating?"

"Absolutely! The folks get off your back, you can do whatever you want. Everyone shuts up about all that morality jazz and you can be on your way!" Mary had to admit that she had never thought of it like that. "I already know who I would take as my first post-nuptial lover," Louise continued matter-of-factly.

"Who?" Ella enquired.

"Nick Cooper."

"Ooh, good choice. He's a bit of a potato, but I wouldn't say no to mugging with him…"

"You mean you haven't said no to mugging with him," Louise interrupted.

"Well yes," the girl confessed with a sideways glance. "But I'll take him again when you're done if you don't mind."

"Potato?" Mary asked.

"A young man shy of brains," Louise explained. "Though that doesn't mean shy in other areas."

These women were as compulsive about their boyfriends as Mary's fellow debutants had been about finding husbands, she realized, though she did wonder to what degree they were exaggerating. Not much, she learned, as Ella leaned over to whisper in her ear a detailed description of Mr. Cooper's most distinguishing physical feature.

"Why wait?" Ella asked Louise when she was finished.

"He's married," the brunette replied with a flippant sweep of her hand. "You may not believe in equality, but I do: if I'm going to be the other woman, then he darn well better be the other man."

"And what if your husband objects to you taking a lover?" Mary asked of this Louise's theoretical marriage.

"I'll let him take his own, of course! Who cares, as long as we're even?"

Mary glanced over to her own husband, quite certain he would not agree with this particular leveling of the playing field. "Our worlds are very different," was the only comment she could muster.

"Don't be a killjoy, cousin Mary! When I get married, I'll let you borrow mine if I can borrow yours," Louise said, biting her lower lip in a gesture expressing her appetite, and it was Mary's turn to object to the idea of sharing. Over her dead body, she thought to herself, believing this girl utterly unworthy of her newspaperman. Fortunately she was about one drink shy of saying this out loud.

"'Bank's closed,' I believe would be the phrase in your vernacular," she replied instead, her gaze momentarily steady despite the copious amounts of liquor coursing through her system.

Richard, oblivious to the rest of their conversation, nevertheless perked up at the word 'bank.' "Has the fashion talk finally ceased?" he asked her side of the table.

"Oh yes," Mary said, catching his eye, "and I'm about to expire with it." The endless heat and drink and dancing had finally gotten the better of her, the artificial energy borrowed from the many gimlets and other substances she had imbibed finally reaching its inevitable crash.

"In that case we'll say goodnight," Richard said, rising.

"Oh, I couldn't possibly go to bed now," Ella said, also rising to pull Reggie onto the dance floor. He and Richard shook hands as he passed, and Ella gave a little wave as she spun off into the thinning crowd.

"I can't believe you're giving me the air," Louise pouted across the table as Mary stood up rather precariously.

"And it's only four a.m." the older girl commiserated facetiously.


Mary plopped inelegantly down on the iron-posted bed with a yawn, her fingers skimming the stitching on the homey quilt she knew it was too hot to utilize that evening. "Is it wrong to hope Bif takes his time with the Isotta?" she asked, staring up at the dirty-beige ceiling that seemed to twirl before her very eyes. "I am in no shape for Newport tomorrow."

"You mean today," Richard said as he propped an arm across her stretched-out form, his lips brushing over hers.

"That too," she murmured against his mouth, her hand grasping the back of his neck to hold him to her. Not that he was trying to pull back.

A trail of clothes led from the door of the small room to the bed they currently occupied, discarded not so much in passion but exhaustion and carelessness. Despite the breeze crossing between the two windows at the corner, the room was stiflingly hot for such an early hour of the morning, and as soon as she had secured the door closed, Mary had an acute need to shed her outer garments when she felt the alcohol prickle up as perspiration on her skin. Actually it had been almost all she could do to make it up the stairs to the third floor and then across the room to the bed, and she resolved that gin could possibly be the death of her.

Richard wasn't much better off, she realized as he rolled over beside her onto his back and rubbed his eyes. "How many did you have?" she asked, her limbs suddenly so heavy.

"I lost count, though the bill Reggie conspicuously left to me will probably illuminate that information. And you?"

"Too many," she sighed, wanting to embrace him but not quite able to turn over. "They just kept arriving. Were you ordering them?" He shook his head. "I don't think anyone was, the waiter just kept coming back with more," she said in a dazed, faraway voice. "And the rest all seem rather more adept than I at the sport of inebriation…"

"I gather they've had a lot of experience," he commented, his voice rough from shouting over the jazz band all evening.

"They have a lot of experience in a lot of areas," she said, thinking again how different their conduct was compared to what English society permitted, at least before the war.

Richard reached to turn off the bedside lamp, and they were enveloped in a lovely darkness that Mary found so seductive. "You mean the fact that they all use this place for one last rendezvous before heading off to grandmother's house?"

"Always the investigative journalist," she mused, her breaths coming in deeper, slower pants in rhythm to the chirping of the crickets outside.

"Don't knock it," he said, his eyes closed, "it serves me well."

"You could have a field day here."

"Not very useful information, unfortunately – none of these people have any power; I doubt anyone would care very much about their exploits. They're rather like children playing at being wild."

"I wasn't sure if they were young pretending to be wild, or wild pretending to be young…" she trailed off, the stillness and quiet of the room starting to overwhelm her already fragile consciousness. She finally found the energy to roll on her stomach, throwing her arm over Richard's bare chest and resting her head on his shoulder.

His arm came around her to toy idly with the thin strap of her slip, though she could tell the gesture was more for its own purpose than because he wanted to rip it off her immediately. "Probably a bit of both."

"I almost feel old-fashioned by comparison," she mumbled as she slipped deeper into a half sleep. "Do you think we're letting the roadhouse down? From what I gather, this place was built for the sole purpose of barneymugging."

"Of what?"

"Their word for lovemaking," she said by way of explanation, too tired to go into the etymology of the term.

"How wretched." Richard replied.

"You'll thank me for translating when you decide to write an entire column on the vocabulary of the young."

His chuckle echoed in the room pleasantly. "If you have to refer to sex in euphemisms, then you're not doing it right."

"You gotta get with the lingo, kid," Mary murmured as she drifted off, sleep finally claiming her.


She awoke in midday heat to a slight throbbing in the back of her head and the feel of cotton wool in her mouth. Her legs ached, either from the four mile walk down the highway, or the dancing, or other early-morning activities. They were much in the same position they had collapsed in earlier, with Mary on her back while Richard lay beside her on his stomach, his arm thrown over her possessively. It was not how they had fallen asleep at four a.m. – no, that respite had been interrupted.

Mary had opened her eyes with a flash earlier; she did not know when, exactly, but the dawn light pouring in through the cheap net curtains told her it was the early start to a fresh day. The temperature had dropped sharply in the couple of hours she had been asleep, and the breeze that crossed the room could almost be described as pleasant. She had gotten up for a glass of water and returned to bed content to observe the stillness of the morning, idle in that wonderful twilight between being far too drunk and the inevitable hangover; that hour when everything was static and white noise and empty.

Richard seemed slightly beyond that stage as she caught him moving out of the corner of her eye; her own movements must have woken him. A large hand came up to shield his face from the sunlight and he groaned; she caught the words "demon rum" muttered from his lips.

"We were drinking gin," she reminded him gently, her state of perfect balance with the universe making her feel compassionate to all living creatures.

"Right," he said hoarsely. "Was it fun?"

Mary leaned down over him to kiss his earlobe. "The frog's eyebrows."

"The duck's quack," he murmured in response when she moved to kiss his temple, avoiding his lips for the moment.

"The kitten's ankles," she said as she kissed his cheekbone.

"The cat's pajamas," he said as she kissed the corner of his mouth and he turned to catch her lips fully.

"The goat's whiskers," she said as she shied away with a giggle and kissed his jaw instead.

"The bee's knees." Mary had been wondering how long he would put up with her evasion tactics, and as Richard uttered the last colloquialism, he fisted his hand in her hair and pulled her down to kiss him properly.

She raked her nails down his arm as his tongue invaded her mouth, her teasing having inflamed both their passions despite his hangover. He used his free hand to brush the straps of her pale pink slip down over her shoulders, and Mary tried to wriggle out of it with a bit of difficulty as he would not let her break the kiss, though judging from the low moan against her mouth he did not mind her twisting efforts to undress. Finally managing to shed the garment, she went to work on his shorts, wanting to feel the entirety of his bare skin against hers as his hand stroked over her backside and crept between her legs.

Richard, one hand still clenched in her hair, turned her head to the side and began to kiss down her neck, and she realized he was intent on teasing her as she had teased him. The magic of his fingers, utterly captivating as it was, never quite got to exactly where she desperately wanted it, nor did his lips return to hers anytime soon, so Mary had to content herself with kissing his collarbone as her fingers traced light patterns down his body and she tried to contain the moans his skilled hand was eliciting.

Her breath came in heavier pants as she writhed against him, his ministrations arousing an almost unbearable need. "Please," she whispered, nipping at the sensitive skin at the hollow of his throat with her teeth in an effort to coax him into giving her what she wanted, "Richard." Of course he relented after her plea and his fingers moved the merest centimeter lower and sped up; she couldn't help but move with him as she twisted the sheets within her reach in ever-increasing knots until she came apart and shuddered against him, his name still on her lips.

The hand that was still warped in her hair released her and moved lower to stroke her back, and Mary closed her eyes and kissed his chest as she tried to steady her breathing, her fingers running over the sculpted lines of his torso in a fascinated haze until her heartbeat returned to normal. When she finally came back to earth, she tilted her chin up to kiss his lips, and Richard moved to turn them over so he was on top but she stopped him with a hand pressed to his chest and a shake of her head. He laughed low in his throat and gestured in a shrug, his grin telling her to do as she pleased.

Mary kissed down his chest as she moved to straddle his hips, positioning herself over his arousal. Richard was watching her intently as she threw her other leg to the outside of his hip, and in response to his gaze she bit her lip in an imitation of Louise's look of desire as she imagined the blissful fullness she was about to feel, that completion she had been craving all night as they had danced and petted. "My darling," he cautioned with a squeeze to her hip and she paused, sighing deeply in impatience.

"Right," she replied, leaning over to reach for her cosmetic bag on the nightstand. She pulled out a tin and handed it to her husband. Like her flapper friends, she was always prepared, though she had not been fortunate enough to learn of such things until after she was married. Well, maybe a few weeks before, she thought, recalling their exploits in the servants' quarters of Haxby in the time leading up to their wedding with a blush.

Thank goodness for liberation, she found herself thinking as he slipped on the condom. They had decided early on that neither wanted children any time soon, Mary uncertain she had any maternal instinct whatsoever and Richard declaring he wanted her all to himself for the foreseeable future; just one more instance when their mutual interests aligned so perfectly.

They always aligned so perfectly, she realized as she again hovered above him, slowly lowering down as his fingers dug into her hips. She heard his groan, though she didn't see his expression as her head was thrown back in pleasure by the time he was fully inside her. The static of her state of mind and the jumping of her nerve endings in response to their coupling was a potent combination, far headier than anything they had consumed that evening, and she had to wait a moment to absorb the disorder – for the first time that night, despite whatever had occurred, she felt truly in the moment. Then Richard called her name gruffly and she started to move, setting a slow, indulgent rhythm that seemed appropriate to this tranquil dawn.

They kept this decadent pace as long as either could stand, the slightest movement eliciting a deep twinge, the smallest caress a dramatic shudder, in what seemed like an eternity of tender passion. But eventually Richard tightened his grip on her hips and began to guide her movements, not so much urging her to speed up as demanding it. Mary had no objection to complying, bracing on his shoulders for leverage, and he moved to cup one of her breasts in his palm, tweaking his thumb over the peak. She whimpered in response, either to his attentions or the friction building between them, and at the sound she saw his control snap. Abruptly he rolled them over without breaking their connection, and Mary found herself on her back as he pounded her unremittingly into the mattress. She weaved her fingers through his hair and pulled him down to kiss her, sensing the approach of another peak and wanting to feel as much of him as she could. Crumbling beneath him, she screamed against his mouth without the slightest thought to the neighbors at such an early hour as he joined her in ecstasy.