by Alison Tyler
My hands stroked up to his shoulders. “When Skye was little, I often dreamed of her being happy with a partner,” I whispered, “just as I’m happy with you. Our child’s happiness, isn’t that what every parent wants? So why do I feel so sad?”
Jonas raised up on his hands so that he could better see my face. “One part of our lives is over. It’s been a great part, raising Skye, but she’s flying free now. We’ll still be parents, but it’s different.”
We lay there entwined, and thoughts of our daughter wove through my head. With a sigh and a mental shake, I came back to the here and now. I started to kiss Jonas again, a longer deeper kiss, a demanding kiss, rife with the sort of desperation I had felt in our early days as lovers, when we were proving something to ourselves as well as each other. I wriggled, breaking the kiss, and guided his mouth down to my nipples.
He’s always said he loves my breasts. Too small, I’ve thought, but Jonas said he loves their size, their pertness, their sensitivity. For a moment, I remembered Skye’s wispy head at my breast, but then Jonas bit gently and Skye’s image vanished. I stroked my way down between Jonas’s legs, teasing with knowing fingers, spreading moisture and fluid, running my fingers around where we joined. He started a thrusting, pounding rhythm, fierce and needy.
I climaxed in a soundless clench around him. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut in concentration, but I saw the moisture in the corners. And he came as well, deep inside me. We held each other afterward and I knew that Skye still held our hearts, but maybe they were now just a little emptier.
I kissed Jonas softly. “I love you so much,” I told him.
He knew, of course. How many thousands of times had we said those words during our three decades together? He laid his palm against the side of my face, and I could see love—and relief—in his eyes. “I’m glad you’re able to let her go.”
“Of course. I’m not a clinging mother. It’s what I’ve always wanted for her—that she chooses her own path in life. And that’s what she’s done, proudly and confidently. She’ll be okay. She and Owen will be fine.”
He smiled. “And we’ll be okay, too. We still have the love. It’s there, woven through our life together. I love you. You love me.”
“I do,” I said, and my words were almost like a vow.
I Married a Gigolo
Jax Baynard
We had a heat wave in February. There was definitely a Mark Twain thing going on—the hottest summer I ever had was a winter in Plum. There was some debate about whether this was caused by global warming or natural climate fluctuation, the kind of debate no one can win because no one really knows the answer. You say tomato, I say fuck you. Whichever it was, it was hot and people were a little confused about the season. Plum winters are not what you’d call cruel, but it does go down to freezing on occasion, and sometimes below, so the 78 degree temperature was out of the ordinary.
I live in a small town. I think it must be the habit of humans everywhere to name their places after what they destroyed in order to live there. In our case it was plum trees. The valley was full of them for a time, but there aren’t many to speak of now—just the old, ragged trees in people’s yards that bear small, bitter fruit. The kids pelt each other with them in the summertime, and the passing cars of the tourists, driving too fast. We have tourists. The town is too picturesque not to. The buildings are from the turn of the century and look like livery stables and general stores because they used to be livery stables and general stores. Now they hold shiny things for people to buy.
I’m a field biologist for the National Park Service, an expert in native grasses. Try to make small talk out of that one. There’s a fifteen-acre field behind my house and it’s like my own private laboratory. I don’t own it. The guy in the white ranch house next to me owns it. George thinks I’m crazy, but he likes me, so he lets me poke around in the field. We met one night when he sauntered out to ask, 1) why was I in his field, and 2) had I lost something? Because I was walking around with my head bent down. I was counting grasses. There are more than thirty species in my field, although only about three of them are native. That’s the state of things in the world. I watch them battle each other for acreage. People think grass just sits there and grows, but there’s a lot more going on than that. It’s really kind of exciting. The only one I really hate is the tarweed (nonnative variety). Everyone has a bane plant—not henbane, but bane-of-your-existence—the plant that makes you want to pour Round-Up all over it, even though you know Round-Up is poison and Monsanto is a corporate terrorist.
I go to George’s house for tea occasionally. It’s decorated from the Sears & Roebuck Catalog circa 1952. The wallpaper in the living room has ducks flying over the marsh. I’m not even going to describe the paper in the bathroom. The other reason he came out was because of the way I look. You know the famous painting of the woman standing in the clamshell? That’s not me. That is my hair, however. People cannot get over it. Also I’m pushing six feet tall and everything else is in the right place, so there’s always someone looking. It’s never true love, though.
Speaking of which, I met Tom at New Year’s. Strictly speaking, I met him when he moved to town. We were introduced and then proceeded to ignore one another for a year and a half. I don’t know what happened at New Year’s, but somehow his big, sexy pillow lips were all over mine and I had no objections at all.
There was alcohol involved.
When I sobered up, I still thought it was a fine idea, but Mr. CPA had anxiety written all over him even before our first date—which never actually happened, because he panicked and canceled it. So there I was, hormones in full bloom, and if I wore panties, they’d be in a twist. Mr. CPA, by the way, is not my usual type. I tend to like sturdy, dark, amusing men, and he is tall, lanky, blond and hairy all over. He walks like a man who was a bear in his previous life, and whose previous life occurred recently. I just couldn’t get over the way he kissed, and the battling grasses were being edged out by fantasies of exactly where on my body those lips would feel best. His name is actually Tom Doe. There have been plenty of jokes about that. His full name is Thomas Haymore Doe III, which sounds impressive, but then he came west and here he’s just Tom Doe. He has family money somewhere behind him. His grandfather owned a factory that made buckle tongues. Not buckles, just the little tongue piece that goes in them. Who knew there was money in that? He’s six foot six, wears size 15 shoes and his cock is enormous. Go ahead, ask me how I know.
Even through the hormone haze I could see that there wasn’t going to be a relationship—there wasn’t even going to be a date. That left one thing: steamy, casual sex. Since he clearly wasn’t going to invite me to his house, that left his office. It’s not an easy prospect, being a corner office with one door and two windows situated between the environmental consultant’s and the herb shop. That’s not a lot of privacy. I did have one or two things in my favor: February is tough for the tax guys, because they’re already swamped, and he’d been sleeping alone for a while. Like I said, it’s a small town. So one afternoon during the heat wave I put on a cleavage-enhancing sundress and meandered over there. He looked happy to see me. He always looks happy to see me—for about two minutes. Then he gets nervous. So I figured I had a two-minute window to get some action going. Not a lot of time for a girl to work, so I just walked in and sat down on his lap and nuzzled up to him in a friendly way. Ever since we evolved our big brains we like to use them all the time. But sometimes language is only a hindrance. I kissed his neck and licked inside his ear, and he laughed like he does when he’s nervous and doesn’t know what to say. But I rolled my hips and wiggled my ass against his cock, and he stopped laughing.
I had just decided I was going to have to suck on his ear all day when he turned his head and—finally!—gave me his mouth. You would not believe the way this man kisses. It’s better than ice cream and chocolate and heroin and crack all put together in one big Happy Meal, and at the first slide of his tongue against mine, I went
wet and ready. He seemed to have come to a decision, surging against me and pressing himself tightly to my ass. I would have done him right there in the chair, but he jumped up to lock the door. The shades were down, barring the afternoon sunlight. On his way back to me, he stopped, a comically horrified expression on his face, and slapped his palm to his forehead. “I have an appointment in twenty minutes with the head of Sustainable Land Use Today.”
I stayed right where I was, splayed out in his chair, dress hiked up, the slick shine of my cunt clearly visible. At least I assume it was, because he looked down and licked his lips and forgot all about his appointment. The phone rang. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered, looking like a man harassed beyond all endurance.
“Let the machine pick it up,” I suggested, and lay back on his desk with my thighs spread wide. “Come over here and kiss me again.” He did, saying he wanted to have his lips on every part of my body. So thoughtful of him. But I recommended he start with my clit. I was worried about the time. When I wouldn’t stop groaning, he moved his face from my crotch and covered my mouth with his. The thick, hard slide of his cock shut me up. It felt large and perfect and he was naturally good with it. He fucked like he kissed: with a lot of enthusiasm and exuberance and natural talent. It made me want to smile, except that I was so close to coming I couldn’t. Just at the end he let me take all his weight. He had one hand behind my head and his tongue in my mouth and his hand on my hip, holding me down to take it. There was a lot of it to take. I couldn’t breathe, but who cared? He let my mouth go at the last moment, when he felt me clenching around the wet length of him inside me. “Come. Come. Come,” he whispered in my ear, and I did, arching my back and jerking my hips as close to him as I could get. There was the wet gust of the two of us combined, and later I would think about his paperwork, and how much of it got ruined. But right then I was limp with satisfaction. It passes even faster than the orgasm, but that feeling of utter peacefulness after coming is stronger in a different way, and with him it was very strong.
But he was already standing up and straightening his clothes and looking at his watch again. He helped me stand and straighten my clothes. He combed my hair back from my forehead, running his fingers from the scalp all the way to the ends, and kissed my forehead and was sweet, but I knew he wouldn’t call, later or ever, and I felt sad. I didn’t say anything, just unlocked the door and let myself out. I passed his two o’clock appointment outside. “Is he ready for me?” he asked, and looked perplexed when I burst out laughing.
“I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “I think I may have worn him out.”
I should have let it go then. You chalk it up to experience and move on. But I just couldn’t do it. I woke in the middle of the night from a dream in which he was saying my name, certain that if I just knew the secret, he would accept me. In the daylight, we passed on the street and I smiled and pretended nothing had happened, because he did. I got tired of feeling bad. It occurred to me that I was way too available, way too willing. A man like him did better with someone to chase, someone to convince. I got a little obsessed with the CPA, I will admit. Then I did something inadvisable.
I didn’t mean to hire a gigolo.
I was surfing online for someone else to date, and I somehow ended up in the gigolo area. I don’t know how that happened. His looks were the clincher. Tall, blond and handsomely sculpted in a Greek god kind of way. He looked perfect for making Mr. CPA jealous. He would be the one thing Tom wasn’t: totally obsessed with me, and the fact that I was paying him to be obsessed was a fact that would hopefully never come to light.
After an intriguing phone call, I drove to San Francisco to meet him. Honestly, I liked Val right away. He was funny, for one thing. When I explained my requirements, he perked right up and said, “I love it when I get to act.” He gave me a break on the fee, as well, reasoning that he wasn’t actually going to fuck me, just parade me around town and look like he’d be fucking me later. And he paid for the coffee. He’s one of those people who stops traffic, but he himself seems to view his looks as an asset for his job and nothing more. In forty-five minutes, four people tried to pick him up, and I was right there the entire time.
His coffee cup arrived with the barista’s number on it. In stead of being pleased when he noticed it, he merely seemed pained. Poor guy, I thought, he must get it all the time. I put on my best suit of indignation. “Excuse me!” I hollered at the girl, who was, I have to admit, pretty fetching. “Please stop trying to pick up my boyfriend!” She turned bright red and a general titter ran around the room. “Sorry,” I said cheerfully to Val. “My tongue gets away from me.”
He wasn’t perturbed. “Wingman,” he said approvingly. “I like it.”
The taxi driver chatted him up and then refused to take the money, which is unheard of. “He is bi,” I told him, “but we don’t have an open marriage.”
“Now we’re married?” Val asked, smiling, once we’d reached the sidewalk.
“Anything to help out,” I said magnanimously. The salesclerk at Saks (Val needed a tie for dinner) slipped him her number on the receipt. “I’ll take that,” I snapped. There was a ring right on her finger. “Can I have your husband’s number so I can call him?”
This one didn’t even blush. “He’s busy,” she said dismissively. “He won’t miss me.”
“Jesus Christ,” I said outside. “Is this your life?”
“More or less.” Val shrugged fatalistically. “You get used to it.”
“I wouldn’t,” I said flatly.
He looked at me thoughtfully. “With that hair, you must have.”
I was still staring at him in startled amazement when the traffic cop handed him a blank ticket with her number on it.
My friend Clyde thought the whole thing was crazy—not euphemistically crazy, really crazy. You can tell how far out you are by the reactions of your friends, and from Clyde’s reaction, I could tell I was pretty far out. I trust Clyde. I tried to explain. “I’m not done with Tom yet.”
“No problem, crazy lady,” Clyde said, and ordered another beer. The thing about Clyde is that he can say horrible things that don’t sting at all. Clyde started a glassblowing studio in the old livery stable. When I ask him how he is, he says, “If I have to make another unicorn, I’m going to swallow the gather.” The gather is the molten ball of glass you pick up on the rod before you blow it into something—in Clyde’s case, a unicorn. Or a paperweight. They’re big with the tourists. When he drinks too much, he gets morose and compares himself pejoratively to Dale Chihuly, and I point out that Dale Chihuly only has one eye (therefore no depth perception) and hasn’t blown his own stuff in years. We have a good time.
“Bound for trouble,” Clyde said. “Can I hang out with you guys? I’ve never met a gigolo before.” I assured him he could. I was looking forward to that rumor—me, Clyde and the gigolo in a three-way. That was going to disgust a few people and make a few people really jealous. Clyde and I amused ourselves for a while designating who was going to be which.
By the time Valentine showed up, a few days later, the heat wave had ended. It was winter again. I don’t think Valentine is his birth name; he swears it is. In my opinion, it’s much more Miami Vice to parade around with your gigolo in the sunshine, but the best laid plans of mice, men, desperate women, and so forth. Sunshine is also preferable for hanging out behind the recycling Dumpsters waiting for the CPA to come out of his office for lunch so you can prominently be tongue kissing the guy you hope he thinks is your new squeeze. “Your lips are turning blue,” I said to Val. “Should we leave?”
“All in a day’s work,” he replied easily. We chatted desultorily through stiff lips. He told me about his date. “She liked the tie, thank you.” (He let me pick it out. I chose one with leaping frogs on it.) “Sometimes they want dinner first. Sometimes they just want fucking.”
“Anything kinky?” I asked hopefully.
His eyebrows went up. “Are you kidding me? It’s all kink
y.” He sighed. “I’d be thrilled with missionary.”
“Ever take it up the ass?”
“Man, woman or object?” He sounded a little bored. I guess it was shop talk to him.
I pressed on. “Any of the above.”
“Nope. I’m a top.”
“You’re laughing at me,” I accused, and he agreed by laughing some more. It’s hard to give a guy a hard time when he’s trying not to shiver. I tucked his hands into my armpits, under my coat.
His eyes closed. “Thank you, Lord.”
I jumped. “Oh, shit. There he is.”
“Action,” Val murmured, and took my hand in his. “Which way?”
My guess was the diner, so we headed in that direction, keeping Mr. CPA in sight. Maybe Val’s little prayer had some effect, because just before the diner someone flagged Tom and he stopped about twenty paces in front of us. Val put his tongue in my ear, a not unpleasant but so unexpected sensation that I yelped.
“Hussy,” he growled. “You love it.” Then he dipped me and put his tongue down my throat in what I will have to say was a very genteel manner. It is a small town. Right then, the ridiculousness of the situation—a situation entirely of my own making—struck me. Here I was, on a public street, making out with the gigolo I hired to make the CPA I made out with jealous. Clyde was right. I was crazy. Tom didn’t give a damn. If he did, he would have been with me, and I’d spent a chunk of my small savings on a bad idea. I was hard put not to throw up my hands and cry uncle. On the other hand, it takes a lot of man to dip a woman my size and hold her there and kiss the piss out of her, so I put some effort into kissing Val back. The CPA saw. Everyone in the diner saw, which meant it would be all over town well before dark.
