He gets in behind the wheel, his body lean and sexy, like it's the cockpit of one of the jets he used to fly, his neatly trimmed beard outlining the face of the lion, determined but playful. The car starts and I am thundering in anticipation. I don't even wait for him to start. I am wet. Cool fingers between my lips, I part for him, I suckle his finger gently, between my legs I ache with emptiness, I open my thighs, they go wide and wider. Now I must wait on him, on his pleasure, on his gauging of my pleasure.
Once we start, there will be no stopping. I will pull up my skirt, my panties, if I'm still wearing them by the time we get to the car, have to come off, before we get to the expressway, where the big trucks are that sit high up.
"Thomas, what if they see?” I gasp the very first time.
"Then they will enjoy the view. Truckers work hard. Don't they deserve some grade A pussy like anyone else?"
Grade A pussy. My beloved pussy, on display as he plays with me. I can't interfere, I can't use my hands, I have to come, that's all that matters because he won't stop, won't slow down, won't get off the road until I do and it has to be a good one, explosive and hot and I have to call out his name, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.
No sweeter sight in the world than Daddy, afterwards, licking baby girl's juices off his fingers. “I wish I could lick you and drive, baby girl."
"I know I wouldn't be driving if you did that,” I rasp and we both laugh because I don't even know what I just said.
We are all over each at the grove. He pulls onto a sandy access road, ostensibly to look at property, a future site for driveways, schools and playgrounds.
"Daddy, what are you going to do to me?” I giggled.
"Take a guess,” he bent me over, slipping out of character as he slips up my skirt and moves to slip in his cock. My shoe flipped off, somewhere out of sight, into some brambles, he was so excited he came on my ass and my skirt and even my hair, and god, aren't we a sight, just a couple of kids now, me trying to look for my shoe, how far could it have gone? I check the car, I'm bending over and this fifty five year old man is hard again already, it's a surprise, but a pleasant one as he penetrates.
"I can't help myself."
"Don't … I mean do."
We end up with burrs all over us, the shoe is in the bushes, don't even know how it got there, an hour later, trying to act serious in the bank lobby, I'm trying to pick burrs out of his hair, dark brown, the color of earth, the feel of man silk to run my fingers through.
I blink and I'm outside again.
In limbo.
It's colder, or is it just me?
I debate going back in, and then I see Brian walk through the lobby to the elevators. Fuck that. I call Monica from my car. Old Betsy. Thomas always threatens to buy me a new one so I'll be a kept woman but I'm pretty strict about that. He pays for meals, hotels and sex toys, beyond that all I take is twelve dollars an hour contract fee for keeping his books balanced and generally sorting out the vast piles of papers he is capable of accumulating.
After we met at the Alcoholic's Meeting and started our relationship it took him three months to convince me to work for him.
"I can't get anyone else, they all quit."
Two desks, drawers full of receipts, bills, invoices, contracts. That was after we excavated the blizzard of blueprints and schematics for all the projects he had dreamed up.
He is good at making money, mostly for other people. When it comes to collecting-rents from his own office tenants, stakes in consortiums-he sucks.
"I'll get Phil to look over the Lake West contracts,” I tell Monica. Phil is the lawyer. He's generally happy to hear from us, as opposed to the accountant.
"They want to write off what?"
"What do you mean all they have for 2003 is a single page of receipts?"
"Thank you, Caroline."
"Sure. Get some rest, Monica, okay?"
"I will."
She's barely left the hospital since this whole thing happened. Last night she stayed in the room, they wheeled in a cot for her. She went home long enough to change and came back. Talk about exposed, all her careful preparations to face the world reduced to the barest of prison essentials, cold water splashed on the face, just a little lipstick.
Before Thomas came along I wouldn't have been able to say something like that with a straight face, but Thomas has taught me to be more forbearing of my sisters.
Even the blonde ones whose worlds rise and set on hair curlers and eyebrow pencils.
"Monica can't rough it,” Thomas once told me. “She's much too fragile and insecure. She knows she can't compete with women like you, so they fight too hard, for men's attention."
I never fight for Thomas. “You're not the other woman,” he tells me. It's kind of a joke, but true. “You never feel second best where the man is concerned."
I'm not the only woman who notices this. He has this affect on all females. From our sixty five year old janitor to the granddaughter of the woman who works for the investment business down the hall, they're all smitten. He finds some piece of himself to give-a part ninety nine percent of men won't find for even one woman.
But there's a price for that.
Fuck … I was worried about him. He put on a show. But the last couple of weeks, he wasn't himself. Said it was a cold, said it was business, said it was Monica's calls, he said it was a lot of things.
I should have known.
My breakdown happens over the steering wheel. In the god damn parking garage. There's a knocking on the window. I roll it down, who knows how long he's been out there.
"You're not driving yourself home,” says Brian. “Open the door and slide over."
I pull the button and do as he says. I can't fight anymore, I haven't the strength.
"Where do you live?” he gets behind the wheel.
"Off University. Do you know where that is?"
"Yea, I lived in Orlando for a few years."
"What day is it?” I ask.
"Tuesday."
"The heart attack was Monday."
"Uh huh."
"Seems like a century."
"You must be beat."
"Not really.” He has the Air Force jacket on. It smells like Thomas. “Do you want to get a burger, Brian?"
You don't know how close I just came to saying beer. A beer as in five, six, seven or eight. Not serious drinking mind you, just fun, a little unwinding, who could blame me? It's under control, see? Otherwise I'd be thinking about my wine. Or my vodka. Now there's the serious shit.
Christ, I'm desperate. Brian scares the shit out of me, but the alternative is my own company and we all know how much that sucks.
We find a chain diner. Just two other couples besides us, both older. The waitress is about his age, blonde, she flirts with him. Is it that obvious we're not a couple or does the little wench not care at all?
I want to bite her head off, honest to god. Little twits. Why did Thomas up and marry one? I'd go back in time and give him a dumb slap if I could. We could have married each other otherwise, or at least lived together. Okay, maybe I am leery of living with men anymore, but they sure as hell don't need to be with blondes or checking them out.
"Here's the thing,” I tell him after the diet colas arrive. “I don't give a damn about my own reputation…"