The Desert Rose by Larry McMurtry

steak for her and they sat and watched the stars come out, another nice thing about Mel was that he didn’t pry, he didn’t just ask her to tell him every secret thing. He sort of listened to what she felt like telling him and then he might give a little advice.
    When she told him about Bonventre’s offer he said right away take it, which was a surprise, they hadn’t even settled the question of whether she was going to marry him. Shewondered if maybe it had been a joke about marrying him, after all nothing that had happened between them had been very normal, maybe he just got a turn-on from asking or something.
    “Why do you think I should take it?” she asked.
    “Oh, because it means you’d stay here,” Mel said.
    “Yeah, but I wasn’t going anywhere,” she said.
    Mel just smiled, as if he knew things about her that she didn’t know.
    “I have a confession to make,” he said. “Jackie Bonventre is an old friend of mine. I showed him a little bit of one of the films. The one where you’re in the blue bra.”
    That was definitely a surprise, she didn’t know if she liked it or not.
    “He was extremely impressed, and he’s hard to impress,” Mel said. “He said you were more beautiful than your mother.”
    She couldn’t help smiling at that one, after having heard ten thousand times that her mother was the most beautiful woman in Las Vegas. Pepper couldn’t see it, her mother was very good-looking but the horrible way she dressed sort of spoiled it, all those loud blouses and shiny pants.
    “I don’t know about the job,” Pepper said. “He’s supposed to be mean.”
    “He is mean, but he wouldn’t be to you, since he knows I like you,” Mel said. “For one thing, we’re friends, though he says terrible things to me too. For another, I have money in all his shows.”
    “Why, are you a gangster?” Pepper asked. That thought kept occurring to her, maybe he was a gangster, just one of the gentlemanly kind—there were supposed to be some.
    “Sorry to disappoint you,” Mel said with a grin, he thought that one was funny. “I just happen to be rich.”
    Once she had eaten the steak Pepper felt fine, things had certainly stopped being boring, at least. Instead of just trying to decide who she could go out with if she broke upwith Buddy, right away she had a rich guy who wanted to marry her and a weirdo producer who wanted to star her. She felt a little excited just having it all to consider—she asked Mel if he wanted some coke and he said sure. One of the Japs brought some out. What she would have liked was maybe to hit a disco but it was hard to imagine Mel wanting to do that, in fact it was hard to imagine him going out of his house at all, it was definitely his world.
    Then, to show what a perceptive man he was, he cocked his head at her and said Pepper, would you like to dance. It was a surprise, though of course he had a great sound system and thousands of records, which seemed to appear as if by magic. Often when she first came in there would be a new pile in the study and she would check them out before she got undressed, he had all the right ones immediately, which was pretty amazing.
    Also he was nice to dance with, better than Buddy although Buddy thought he was John Travolta II or something. Mel wasn’t flamboyant but he was okay, mainly it was an excuse to watch her, he definitely loved watching her move. They hadn’t really discussed his proposal yet, and she hadn’t mentioned it to Buddy yet either, there was no telling what kind of a freak-out it would have produced.
    They danced until they were pretty sweaty, Pepper said how about a swim, of course Mel was agreeable. “I think I’ve got a suit for you,” he said, but Pepper said forget the suit, she just went out to the pool and shucked and dove in, wondering if he would go naked with her or if that would upset him. In fact he did go naked with her, she had been beginning to wonder if he had something missing physically,