Shop Talk by Carolyn Haines

to the shops for larger sizes. The plus shops, as they were now called. He could still hear the burning shame, the anguish in their voices as they spoke about such shopping episodes.
    Sometimes the women used his bedroom to change clothes, and they offered him candy and short, intense hugs, otherwise ignoring him as they lifted their heavy arms out of their clothes. Instead of stepping out of a dress, they invariable pulled the dresses over their heads, revealing yards of tricot. Large women wore slips–it was a fact. And those slips held each woman’s peculiar odor. Not odor as in unpleasant, but odor as in distinctive. The essence of the women could be discovered in the heavy tricot of their slips. Sometimes they would leave their slips pooled on the carpet of his bedroom, and he would creep out of bed and pick them up oh, so carefully, and lift them to his nose and inhale the essence of some big woman whose hug had been like a cocoon of warmth, her breath a sweep of peppermint.
    He loved those women. He loved their poofy little sighs as they climbed the stairs to his room. They came upstairs to change, then back down to view themselves in the extra-large mirrors. If the house was really quiet, or the woman extremely pleased, he could hear her little exclamation of pleasure as she saw herself in her new dress. At that exact moment, if he held her old slip and inhaled sharply, he felt he had captured the totality of her being inside him. In his lungs and brain. And he would hold his breath until he thought he would burst.
    The whir of the computer brought him back to the present and the job at hand. The Internet was a wasteland of forlorn souls who spent their lonely evening hours making contact with others as pitiful as themselves. Driskell knew the scene well; he’d scanned the numerous bulletin boards and chat groups. In fact, he had been one of those cyber-people until he had taken the initiative and begun to shape his fate. Exercise became part of his daily regime. He’d overcome his fears and insecurities, unshackled himself from Dr. Rudd and the constant analysis that had been his primary human contact, and decided to live the adventure. No more John LeCarré. No more Ian Fleming. No more Anne Rice. No more
books.
Action was required. He was a man with a destiny.
    Biloxi and the Hares were the first step toward that goal.
    His CIA assignment from Roger, his commander and contact in the web of bureaucracy that regarded the Hares as important, had ordered him to the Gulf Coast to establish a link with the Hares. Step one of his mission was complete. He’d been employed in Bo’s Electronics for three days. His entreé had been astoundingly easy. He was in the bosom of the Hare family. Further instructions were needed.
    He found them in his E-mailbox.
    “Observe subjects closely. Note any unusual behavior.
Any
peculiar traits shared by siblings. Use extreme caution, the Hares are potentially hazardous to security of the nation. Do whatever is necessary to cement your place in the household. Roger.”
    Driskell read the instructions three times before he deleted them. He was new at the spy game, but the Hares seemed no more dangerous than most of the residents in south Mississippi. Lucille was obsessed with writing. Driskell found a unique freshness to her prose. Even if she was dreadful, there were lots of bad writers in America, and they weren’t a threat to national security.
    He pondered the woman who had so eagerly given him access to her family. Certainly, she was a striking physical specimen. Tall, pale, hair dyed a shade of red that contrasted with her pallor like a car wreck. Her eyes were wide with the sexy look of someone near-sighted who refused to wear glasses. A touch of vanity was good in a woman. It made her feminine.
    His thoughts traveled to Bo, a tall man, and the more intelligent of the two by a big margin. He had a certain flair for electronics, as if he could lay hands on a television and