by John Locke
A quick scan shows no recent hits. But most of my alerts are updated every twenty-four hours, so I go to Google and type the word cherrystones.
167,000 entries.
I scan the first dozen pages, as always, but can’t find what I want. I narrow the search by typing Are your nipples like cherrystones?
That phrase turns up 19,200 entries, but none on the first dozen pages contain the exact wording. So I try nipples like cherrystones.
And get 11,100,000 entries.
Crazy, right?
But as I scan the first dozen pages of this search, I find two references. One on a dating site, another in a chat room.
The dating site would be an uncharacteristic departure for my target, but my pulse quickens, as it always does, whenever these (or similar) words are typed in a chat room that underage girls are likely to frequent. I copy the link into my browser, click it, and learn it requires an annual credit card payment of nineteen dollars.
I sigh.
That brings my total to fourteen paid sites and forty-seven free ones. That’s sixty-one sites if my math skills haven’t deserted me. I check each of these sites at least once a week. Do I have that much time to spare?
No. But what am I going to do?
I’m obsessed.
I create a new email account and sign up with a unique name and password, and record the information in my notebook. Most chat room sites are so simple to navigate it only takes a minute to catch the groove, and this one’s no different.
The boy/man/pervert? who made the reference is listed as ShawnInPain, and his current status is Offline. There’s no photo, but his avatar—consisting of the words Bad Boy scrawled in black ink with red blood dripping down the letters—is twisted enough to attract the twelve to fifteen-year-old female demographic my target seeks: those who think they want a brooding, dangerous, slightly-older guy.
I click his profile and roll my eyes. He claims to be from Everywhere. His age is described as Old Soul. His likes are Let’s just say you couldn’t handle it! His dislikes are Whiny girls who run to mommy.
A cold chill runs through my body. ShawnInPain is a prime candidate!
I scroll his recent posts till I find the reference, written nineteen hours ago: I saw my sister naked in the shower just now. Her breasts are small, the exact size of the silicone inserts I found in her underwear drawer last week. On the box they claim to increase your bra size by 1.5 cups. But if you lay them on a table, they’re pretty damn flat. Sorry guys. My sister’s tits are flat and unattractive. But her nipples are hard, like cherrystones. More on this soon.
Asshole.
Not because he sneaks in the bathroom to spy on his sister, and not because he reports her nudity to the world. Sure, spying on your sister is over-the-top creepy, and this little shit has obviously got twenty-to-life issues.
But that’s not what makes him an asshole.
What makes him an asshole is he cost me nineteen bucks and he’s not the guy. ShawnInPain is someone else’s pervert. He’s my guy ten years ago. But my pervert is older. Late twenties, I think. Used to call himself ManChild. When he writes the phrase in a chat room, it won’t be an eye-witness report on his sister’s cleavage. It’ll be a question, asked by a grown man to a teenage girl between the ages of twelve and fifteen. And what he’ll ask is, Are your nipples like cherrystones? Are they hard and firm? Are they as hard and firm as the erection in my pants?
There’s more, of course, but I’ll spare you the details. Just thinking about it makes me want to take a shower.
VICKY STRINGFELLOW AND I greet each other the way we’ve been socially conditioned to greet other women: by raising our voices an octave, gushing with fake enthusiasm, and finding something about the other to compliment. She chooses my figure, I choose her eyes. Since I called the meeting, social etiquette requires me to throw in an extra compliment, so I say, “Vicky, where on earth did you find that killer top?”
She smiles. “You really like it?”
“I love it!”
“Believe it or not, I found it at Leversons.”
We chitchat about where Leversons is located, and who I should ask for when I check it out. As we talk, we appraise each other the way we’ve been conditioned all our lives to appraise other women: by noting their flaws.
I’m well aware of mine, but if you want that information you’ll have to ask Vicky. As for hers, I’m not overly critical, and I want very much to like her, so I’ll just say she’s a little overweight, and could use some help with hair and makeup. On the other hand, she’s intelligent, pleasant, and available.
“How long have you been divorced?” I say.
I didn’t just blurt that out, we’re actually twenty minutes into the conversation at this point, and the waiter has just brought our salads, and fussed over us with offers of fresh-ground pepper and hand-grated cheese.
Vicky tells me what I need to know about her and Charles: they broke up two years ago, no kids, she teaches fourth grade at a private school, and has her own townhome in Willoughby Commons. She’s dated several men, but nothing clicked because she wasn’t ready to begin a new relationship.
Till now.
As she talks, I mentally tick each item with a checkmark on my list. Vicky’s not bitter or needy. She’s independent, self-sustaining, and ready to move on with her life.
“So…” she says, and I know we’ve come to the tricky part.
“Yes?”
“Tell me about this professor you’ve found for me.”
“He teaches at Clifton State.”
She arches her eyebrows. In a good way. But waits for me to continue.
“His name’s Ben Davis,” I say. “He’s thirty-six.”
She lifts her chin slightly, purses her lips. I know what she’s thinking.
Vicky Davis.
Her eyes widen the slightest bit. I wouldn’t have noticed had I not been studying her so closely. But her eyes tell me Vicky likes the sound of her name with Ben’s, a critical issue, since she’s still using her married name.
“How long have you known Ben?” she asks.
“Seven years.”
“And you still think he’s a good guy?”
She laughs.
I laugh.
“He’s a great guy,” I say. “A true gentleman. The smartest man I know.”
She frowns. “If he’s that great, why aren’t you dating him?”
I bite my bottom lip. “I’m married.”
She instinctively looks at my left hand.
“You’re not wearing a ring.”
“It’s complicated.”
Vicky nods, slowly. She wants to pursue the conversation, but doesn’t want to intrude, or appear too nosey this early in our relationship. Steering the conversation back to Ben, she says, “How many times has the good professor been married?”
“Twice.”
“Oh,” she says, suddenly deflated. She frowns.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I say.
“Tell me why.”
“Well, he’s only been divorced once.”
She cocks her head. “One of his wives passed away?”
My turn to frown. I have to word this carefully. This is the part where I always lose them. I rehearsed it in my head ten times, but it should have been twenty, because the right words aren’t coming.
Vicky says, “Did one of his wives die?”
“Not exactly.”
She frowns again. At the pace she’s frowning, I wonder how long it’ll take her face to develop worry lines.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Vicky says. “He’s been married twice, divorced once, and one of his wives hasn’t passed away. Is this a riddle?”
“It can be.”
“Excuse me?”
“Here’s the thing. He’s still married.”
“What?” She jumps to her feet.
“Wait. It’s not what you think. Please. Sit down.”
She frowns again. Vicky’s
quite angry, but we’re in a public place and people are staring at us. Common courtesy dictates she at least offer to split the check. She knows this, and starts fumbling around in her purse.
“Vicky,” I say, “please. Let me explain.”
She sighs, and reclaims her seat.
“I don’t appreciate your wasting my time like this,” she says. “You can’t possibly think I’d be interested in dating a married man.”
I hold up my hand. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t. But this guy’s special. You can get to know him on Mondays and Tuesdays.”
“He’s married, Dani. That’s a deal-breaker.”
“Here’s the thing,” I say.
“Yes?”
“He’s married to me.”
“What?”
“Ben’s my husband. And I swear, he’s a wonderful man.”
She looks around. “Are there cameras in here? Am I being punked?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then…what? Are you insane?”
“Not clinically. I don’t think. Well, maybe.”
Vicky places a twenty on the table by her untouched salad. “This should more than cover my lunch,” she says. She stands, walks about twenty feet, turns, and comes back to the table.
“Does Ben know you’re shopping him around?”
“No. It would kill him if he found out.”
Her eyes become slits. “Are you telling me he doesn’t even know you’re planning to leave him?”
I look down at my salad.
She says, “How long have you been cheating on him?”
I say nothing, though I’ve never cheated on Ben.
“When are you planning to tell him?”
“I won’t leave him till I know he’s got a better woman than me in his life.”
She frowns for a record fifth time. “No offense,” she says, “but I don’t think it’ll take much of a woman to be an improvement.”
I flash a hopeful smile. “Does that mean you’re willing to meet him?”
She spins around and starts walking away, swiftly.
I holler, “We could have you over for dinner!”
I’M HOME NOW, meaning I’m in the two-story townhome I share with my husband, Ben Davis. Ben’s not home yet. It’s Thursday, and he’s got a class from four to five. I’m in the kitchen, putting up the groceries I just unloaded from the car. Ben occupies the bedroom on the first floor, I sleep upstairs.
Ben’s a wonderful man. Anyone will tell you that. What they won’t tell you is I don’t deserve him.
But it’s true, I don’t.
He treats me like a princess, I treat him like a friend. I’ve thought about leaving him many times, but love him far too much to let him be alone. Also, I don’t want him to go through a second bad divorce. I keep thinking if I can get him involved with a nice woman who’ll put out for him regularly, Ben might fall in love with her and ask me for a divorce. Barring that, if I can get him infatuated with another woman, we could sit down and have a divorce discussion. Of course I could always hire a woman to do what I do: lure Ben to her motel room, catch him cheating, throw a fit and demand a divorce.
But I would never do that to Ben. Sure, I do it all the time for other women, divorce attorneys, private investigators, free-lance journalists, and political strategists. But that’s my job.
I know what you’re thinking: calling it my job doesn’t make it right.
True.
But a job’s a job, and this one pays the bills. You see, I pay my own way in the marriage, which means half the mortgage, half the utilities, half the groceries, and so forth. I make my own car payment, buy my own clothes. I even kick in some extra money to help with Ben’s son. I do this because I don’t have the heart to take, take, take from Ben, while giving nothing in return.
By “nothing,” I mean sex.
When I stopped being sexually available for him, we had a discussion. It took me a bucket of tears and lots of prodding on his part before I finally admitted I didn’t find him attractive “in that way” anymore. I begged him to forgive me for that. He did, instantly, and asked me to stay with him anyway. I told him it wouldn’t be right. I’d make him miserable. Told him he deserved better. He said he’d rather be miserable with me than happy with someone else.
He meant it better than it sounds. Although Ben’s a professor, and words are his tools, communication isn’t his strong suit. He often says meaningful things that get lost in the translation. It’s a Ben thing. You wouldn’t understand. Unless you knew him better.
At any rate, when he asked me to stay with him I said, “The least I can do is pay half the expenses.”
He wouldn’t hear of it, but I insisted.
“Any other demands?” he said.
“I want two nights a week for myself.”
“Excuse me?”
“Two nights to myself. Each week.”
“What, you want me to stay in a hotel?”
“No. I want to leave the house, leave this life, two nights a week.”
“Sounds like you’ve thought this all out.”
“Actually, it just now came to me.”
“There’s another man,” he said.
“No.”
“No?”
“I promise.”
“What will you do every week on these two nights?”
“Different things. But the other five nights I’ll be available for you.”
“But not sexually available.”
“Not sexually, no.”
“Define available,” he said.
“When I’m not working a case I’ll buy groceries, cook dinner, go out with you to your functions and fund-raisers, or to dinner, plays, movies, whatever. I’ll run errands, help you entertain friends and colleagues. I’ll help you grade papers. I’ll—”
“I get the point,” he said. “And I assume on these two nights a week you’ll be available to have sex with other men?”
I looked him in the eyes. “Ben, I’m not looking for another man.”
“But if one happens to show up? One you can’t resist?”
“If that happens, we’ll have another discussion.”
“Before you date him?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“I won’t cheat on you. I promise.”
Ben didn’t know about my decoy work back then and still doesn’t know I occasionally get paid to lure strange men to hotel rooms. Ben might consider this dating, but I have no problem separating my decoy work from my social life.
“Which nights?” Ben said.
“You pick.”
“Monday and Tuesday. That gives us the weekends.”
“Done.”
He said, “I believe you.”
“Thank you.”
“If you wanted the weekends, I’d know you had someone else.”
“Because someone else would demand my weekends?”
“Exactly.”
“You can live like this? Having me as a roommate instead of a wife?”
“I’ll manage.”
“How?”
“After the third year of marriage, twenty-five percent of married couples sleep in separate bedrooms.”
“They keep statistics on those sorts of things?”
“They do. And most wives want less sex with their husbands every year, especially after they’ve had kids. Eventually, sexual frequency for married couples is statistically nonexistent.”
“But for us it’s already nonexistent.”
“But we get along great,” he said. “And you gave me three wonderful years of sexual memories.”
I smiled. “Those were fun times. But, the two nights I’m gone every week from now on?”
“What about them?”
“I don’t want to talk about them.”
He pauses.
“Fine,” he says.
“Really?”
