Can't Get Enough (18 page)

Interview? With me?

And this is when the idea came to me, like that moment when they finally plug the damn Christmas tree into the wall and the whole fucking thing goes up in a wall of orange and green flame.

Fire in my eyes, I looked at him. Those baby blues, like I'd said, a narrow suit, a king's ransom of curly dark hair the likes of which I'd only ever seen on children. Any woman would have liked him, provided she liked them naïve, with big fuck-me eyes and a body like an ice-cream cone, made to be licked from the top down.

My tongue was itching to do that job. I looked at him again. He fidgeted and looked down at that junk resume.

I stood, and was light-headed in the sudden breeze that came off the recollection of my sins. My bare knees buckled only slightly. I leaned against the desk, and those electric-blue antennae on the surface of my skin were reaching out and brushing the black cilia on the arm of his suit, creating some serious friction. I crossed my legs at the ankle.

I said, voice like honey poured over a scarf of silk, voice like a lick of cool air on a hot day, voice like a tongue in the private forbidden zone of the Devil, “So you want to work for me?”

“Uh”—a moment of confusion, a fast recovery. “I thought
the listing was by a Mr. Martinez.”

And here I scooched my little butt up on the desk a bit. I pretended to think about it. Then I shook my head.

“No, it was mine.” Half mine, in the eyes of the law. Which meant half of this sweet morsel belonged to me too. I already knew which half I wanted.

“Oh.” He was trying to look at his hands. I let him try. I let him fail. He had working hands, and I wondered where he got his calluses. Weight lifting? It could very well be. These Harvard boys were crazy about their bodies. Did I say Harvard? I meant, Hawford Community College. In Southern California. They called it the Harvard of Highway 63. Truckers' learning. The Ivy League of hard knocks. You get it. Life.

“You're going to have to demonstrate some of these skills to
me
, Mr. York,” I said, and I suspended his resume like a condemned man, a foot above the bin. The wind in the room sighed. The resume went down into the bin on the errant thermal. “Now it's just you and me. The way I like it.”

His eyes gaped like Bambi's, right before the forest fire, as I came over and sat down slowly, deliberately, in his gray pinstriped lap.

Let me tell you a little something about me so you can appreciate what that kid might be feeling. My soon-to-be ex-husband was once a Marine, then a small-scale politician. Neither career lasted long. The Marines discharged him for disorderly conduct, and he hired a spin man to cover it up just long enough that he could win election to city council. Then the whole sordid saga came out. His first wife, a TV anchor who realized she'd hitched her wagon to a star about to go nova, left him.

And that's how he met me, Wanda. Wiggling Wanda, Wet and Wild Wanda, Wonder Wanda. I had a three-part act at a joint right out of town. They said that when I was on stage, you
could hear beer being poured ten miles away.

Buster came into the bar like Dick Hapless, fresh from his resignation hearings, the sad steam of failure rising off him like fog. In those days he still looked a little bit like a younger Clint Eastwood, rather than an older Dick Cheney.

By the end of Act One he'd given me a thousand dollars. By Act Two, he'd promised me a house on Cape Cod. After Act Three he came backstage and proposed.

What makes a girl say yes? The promise of immortal love? A brilliant wit? A nice ass? I wanted the house. I married Buster because after years of working the shittiest job I knew about, I was ready for the easy life. Now that wish had bitten me in the ass. Turns out there is no easy life.

But I still had what it took to make a sweet young thing like this forget his Mama, his school and the god he grew up fearing. I hoped.

I sat down and thought, it was now or never.

I wish I could describe what it felt like to kiss him, but it got lost in what came after. Yes, he was a bit rough around the edges, but nothing like the college boys when I was young. Compared to that, these girls nowadays got it lucky.

I eyed the desk, which in my mind wasn't just a workplace but a set. I got a wicked idea. I backed up, sat my ass down on that erection of polished wood, and winked.

“Let's do it here,” I said.

“Do it here?” squeaked Hawford. His tie hung around his neck like a loose lasso. On that last word his voice rose like a nervous girl's. You would have thought it was the first time he'd done this. Hell, maybe it was.

“Oh yeah,” I said, tapping the desk for emphasis. “Right here. Pretend it's the end of a long day, and I need you to help me…unwind.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said. He went in like a diver, like a man prospecting for gold. I let my loose legs just open up and swallow his entire head. His tongue was like quicksilver, like a fish slithering in and out of a hidden cove. I pulled his head forward into my lap like I'd never done with Buster; I leaned back and let my hair dangle like a wild woman's.

“You ride that pussy, cowboy,” I hollered, for emphasis, banging one heel against the desk. His face was glistening with tears when he came up. Like he'd had a revelation down there.

“Take your pants off,” I whispered into his disbelieving face.

“Yes ma'am,” he whispered, unable to speak fully. I watched as his hands struggled with the belt, the clasp, the zip.

“Forget it,” I whispered, pulling him closer. I rolled up the edge of my skirt and let the pillar of his penis get at me.

We might have been a high-school couple kissing on the desk, but any close observer would have seen the join. I pulsed around him, hot with fiendish blood. His kisses were like little dots of fire on my face and neck. I held him close, kneading the tight dough of muscles of his ass, savoring the fullness, the power of it. I was the boss. My tissues breathed him in and out like water.

“Breathe with me,” I whispered, letting our breath together set the rhythm for our movement. “That's right.” The snake slithered in the garden; I shook like an arrow cocked in a bow.

“That's right, kid,” I said. And with an internal boom like a cannon gone off, I came.

I slithered back against the desk. Watched as he picked up his pants. His bare ass was a work of art. I'd never wanted to see Italy, and now I'd never need to.

“I hope you'll consider my application,” he said over his shoulder.

“Oh yes,” I said, without even the barest flash of guilt. I watched him walk out the door, hips swinging. Sally watched him go too, then turned and raised her eyebrows at me. I shrugged.

It wasn't two minutes before Buster came in. The girl had been all over him. He'd been crying his eyes out too, I could tell. Like the comedy mask to his tragedy, I grinned from ear to ear.

“Kara—” he began, all the fight going out of him in a rush. For a powerful man, Buster sure didn't have much stamina.

“I forgive you,” I said, all smiles. He stopped and sagged against the door frame like a man who'd been shot.

“Sure,” I said, licking my lips and running my fingers over the whorls of polished wood carved into the edge of the desk. “We all get one mistake.”

“It was a mistake,” he said.

“It was,” I agreed. He shook his head.

“You're too good to me,” he whispered. “I don't deserve you. I never have.”

I let him marinate a bit longer in his self-loathing and gratitude. Then I stood up and adjusted my skirt. Too late, I saw my panties were lying in the middle of the floor like a wilted flower.

“You know,” I said, shifting my hips just enough to set his dreams on fire, “that when I came in here I was thinking naughty thoughts?”

“You were?” he said. God, men are too easy.

“Sure. You just get me all worked up.” Hope dawned in his beady eyes.

“I don't deserve you,” he said again.

And then, hammering the nail into the coffin: “You should hire a new secretary. But this time, hire a guy. A kid just
dropped off his resume. Here it is. Must have fallen in the trash by mistake.”

“Sure, sure,” he said, his eyes still gleaming like polished beer bottles.

I hoisted the resume like a white flag.

“After all, if you hired a man, it would make me feel a bit more confident that you wouldn't be, you know, tempted.”

THE FIGHT

Hilary Keyes

T
he cultural differences between a Western woman and a Japanese man were not always the easiest thing in the world to overcome. They had both struggled to get time off together; their respective work schedules seldom syncing up for enough time to do anything other than have a takeaway and see a movie. But this weekend was different: four days entirely to themselves. For the first time in as many months, there would be plenty of opportunity to explore the world and each other.

Of course it had to begin with a fight; he had been late to pick her up, she was freezing in her kimono and bitter that he had broken his promise and worn jeans instead, as he said it was impractical to wear “that getup” in the car, and so forth. Her feelings were hurt and he, whether through communication issues or simply thinking that he couldn't imagine any of his guy friends acting like this, had made it much worse. The rest of the car ride after their fight had been tense: he had been silent, jaw locked in determination just to get through the long weekend;
she, bleary eyed and silently fuming until they reached their destination.

“We're here,” he called as the car pulled into the drive. She murmured in sleepy confusion at being dragged from her gray and tired thoughts and looked out the window at the huge green mountains that surrounded them. The ancient set of wooden cabins before them formed the image of a resort with its own private hot spring, located deep in the countryside, hours away from civilization and the perfect place to reconnect. He got out and popped the trunk and grabbed their bags; she smiled hesitantly when he caught her eye. After all, it wasn't the first time they'd had to agree to disagree to make things work.

“That's a beautiful kimono,” said the silver-haired innkeeper admiringly, stepping out from behind the counter to compare it with her own. The kindly old woman had snorted at the blush on the young couple's cheeks and leaned over conspiratorially. “They never do want to get dressed up, do they?” And she'd agreed and he had smiled and slowly they'd begun to thaw. It was meant to be a weekend to relax and enjoy each other's company, though now it seemed one to sort out their differences as well.

“Everything all right?” she asked as they came to the entrance of their private cabin. He paused, apparently wanting to say something, before he thought better of it and disappeared inside to toe off his sneakers. She made a beeline for the bathroom and had just gotten her hair down when he called her name. There, across from the battered old TV he patted the legless sofa against the back wall and handed her a dinner menu. The familiar way he asked, “Can you eat this?” at every turn, as though she'd never had raw fish in her life, was endearing enough to get her through, and with every tiny agreement they reached together the final vestiges of their fight disappeared into a soon-to-be forgotten past. The teamwork it required reminded them of why
they'd gone there in the first place; the naughty twinkle he'd gotten in his eye as he finally eyed her kimono properly didn't hurt either.

In the corner of the front hall sat their two suitcases, dropped haphazardly; the main door was shut tight and a D
O
N
OT
D
ISTURB
notice had been added in case the hint was not taken. Her
geta
and his shoes were lined up neatly along the highly polished wood tile floor, but a trail of various cords, a wrinkled
obi
,
kimono
and finally some very Western, very expensive undergarments were scattered across the floor from the hall to the doorway of the
tatami
-floored room. A hastily cast off pair of jeans, boxer-briefs and a sweater sat inside the door frame. In the middle of the room lay a double-width futon, pillows on the floor and assorted blankets crumpled at the bottom of the bed—a bed which had formerly sat nicely against the opposite wall overlooking a private terrace and garden. The reason for the bed's movement was apparent: the young lovers had, in the haste of their make-up sex, thoroughly fucked it across the room and were now sprawled rather indelicately over its remains, sleeping like two contented cats in the winter sunbeams.

The woman was the first to awaken, her bare breasts covered in goose bumps as she rolled over to face her still sleeping partner. He was completely nude and exposed and ever so quietly snoring. The woman allowed her eyes to run over him then, drinking in the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the narrow flute of his lip, the long sharp drop from his strong chin to the deeply muscled valleys of his collarbones. His chest rose in steady, even breaths; the tawny brown of his nipples had been discolored by her lipstick. She could follow the trail she had made quite easily, the smudged lines of burgundy down his stomach and over his hips and, rather tellingly, a perfect ring about the base
of his cock. The color and the feeling of drinking him in, of keeping him in rapture with only her mouth made the woman both proud and wet.