by Maria Geraci
“Oh yeah,” Pilar said. “He heard all right.”
Kitty groaned. Would there be no end to tonight’s humiliation? Apparently not, she thought, walking into the living room to face a man dressed as a cop.
“Are you Kitty Burke?” the “cop” asked. His serious tone implied she was in big trouble.
“Oh no, Mr. Policeman, what has Kitty done now?” Pilar asked dramatically.
A couple of the Babes started to twitter.
The man took off his hat. His wavy blond locks were pulled back in a ponytail. He was good-looking, Kitty supposed, in that obvious Fabio sort of way. Still, she couldn’t help but feel disappointed as the image of a gangster in a fedora hat flashed in front of her.
Maybe she could sneak off and no one would notice.
“Yup,” Shea said, pointing to her. “That’s Kitty.”
So much for sneaking off.
The man pulled a set of handcuffs from what appeared to be a belt, but in reality was a black shiny plastic strip glued over his dark blue pants. The sides of the pants had an obvious seam. No doubt, that seam was nothing more than a strip of Velcro designed for a fast takeoff.
“I’m Officer Bob, and I’ve been receiving reports you’ve been a bad girl, Kitty.”
Someone pushed her into a chair, and before she knew it, “Officer Bob” had her hands cuffed behind the seat.
Just keep smiling, Kit. “Um, Officer Bob? Do you think we could lose the cuffs?”
“Sorry. But the interrogation is done best if the suspect can’t escape.”
Shouts and raucous laughter flew around her. The Jack Johnson CD playing in the background was replaced by something she didn’t recognize. Something loud with a fast techno beat. She was going to kill Shea and Pilar.
No, first she would torture them. Then she would kill them.
Off came Officer Bob’s shirt. Lorraine grabbed it and started swirling it over her head in time to the music. Shea and Pilar stood at her side, clapping and laughing. Even Liz Shultz, the shyest member of the Babes, was dancing behind Officer Bob’s back, a frozen margarita in her hand.
“Take it all off!” Liz shouted.
Everyone appeared to be having a great time, including Officer Bob, who was pulling off clothes faster than Kitty could blink. But all she could think about was her clogged-up toilet. And the man who was fixing it.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted him. Steve the Plumber was carrying a thin silver apparatus, which must be the mini-snake. He gave her a curt, sympathetic smile before disappearing down the hall.
Please, God, don’t let it be a tampon stopping up my toilet.
With that hideous thought, she turned her attention back to the stripper, who was now down to nothing but a G-string and a pair of black ankle boots. Officer Bob obviously waxed, because there wasn’t a speck of hair on him anywhere she could see.
Ouch.
“Kitty, you bad puss, Officer Bob needs to teach you a lesson.” He turned around, placed his hands behind his head, and began to frantically pump his hips back and forth for the crowd. “What say, ladies, should Kitty be punished?”
“I’ve been bad too!” Pilar cried. “Are you going to punish me?”
“Sorry, but Officer Bob can only handle one bad girl at a time. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait your turn.”
The Babes moaned in disappointment.
Officer Bob shook his very firm butt in front of Kitty. “You can look, but you can’t touch.”
Well, obviously, wankerhead, since you’ve got my hands cuffed. “Oh please, uncuff me so I can touch,” Kitty wailed with as much drama as she could produce to satisfy her screaming friends.
This must have been the encouragement Officer Bob had been waiting for. He smiled and tried to wedge himself between her legs.
Kitty felt a sudden rush of air between her thighs. Shit. She’d forgotten she wasn’t wearing underwear. This was definitely no time to be going alfresco.
She clamped her knees together, making Officer Bob frown. “C’mon, darlin, don’t make this any harder than it has to be.” He leaned over, braced his hands on the back of the chair, and pushed her knees apart, bringing his well-oiled, hairless body next to her. He then began to gyrate his groin inches from her face.
4
“I don’t want to break up the fun, but I need Ms. Burke’s signature on my work form.”
Thirteen heads swung in the direction of the kitchen where Steve the Plumber stood in the doorway.
“Can we make this quick?” he asked. “I’m on overtime.”
“I’ll sign it,” Pilar said, already halfway across the living room.
“Sorry, but only Ms. Burke’s signature will do.”
Officer Bob shot Steve a dirty look as he slithered around the chair to unlock the handcuffs. “Hurry back, Kitty. Officer Bob isn’t letting you off the hook this easily,” he purred in his bad-boy-stripper voice.
Kitty jumped from the chair and ran to the kitchen. Her hand shook as she signed the bottom of the work invoice. “You don’t happen to have a cigarette, do you?”
“Sorry, I don’t smoke,” Steve said.
“Neither do I,” she muttered.
One side of his mouth twitched up. She met his gaze and they both laughed.
“So, how much do I owe you?”
“Forget it. It’s on the house.”
“But I thought—”
The shouting in the living room reached an all-time high. Kitty turned and stuck her head through the doorway. Pilar was handcuffed in the chair while Officer Bob danced in front of her. The Babes had resumed their good-natured ribbing, and from the expression on Bob’s face, one strip recipient was as good as another.
“Guess Officer Bob’s found a new civilian to harass,” a deep male voice said from behind.
Kitty spun around to find Steve standing only inches away. She raised her eyes to meet his gaze, only this time there was no amusement. Instead he looked at her curiously as if trying to figure something out. “Guess so,” she said, feeling her newly regained composure start to slip. She hadn’t been this attracted to a man in ages. She stole a glance at his left hand in what she hoped was a discreet wedding-ring checkout.
No ring.
Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t married. Some men didn’t wear wedding bands. Especially if they did manual labor. Still, it was a good sign.
Steve stepped back, widening the space between them. Damn. He was moving in the wrong direction.
“Tomorrow’s my birthday. That’s the reason for the stripper. My friends got him as a present. In case you were wondering or anything,” she added quickly.
He nodded, as if making house calls where a woman was handcuffed to a chair while a nearly naked man danced in front of her was an everyday occurrence. “If you have any more problems, call Gus.”
“Wait.” She opened a kitchen drawer. “Let me find my checkbook.”
“I told you, there’s no charge.” He made a motion to leave.
Without thinking, she reached out and grabbed his wrist. “You’re not going anywhere until I pay you.”
He glanced down at her hand over his skin, his voice suddenly husky. “What are you going to do? Handcuff me?”
Now there was an idea.
For a few seconds, neither of them moved. Then he tipped his head in the direction of the living room. “That was a joke.” But there was nothing funny about the smoky look in his eyes.
She’d never found the whole bondage thing particularly appealing, but she wouldn’t mind being handcuffed by Steve the Plumber. She reluctantly let go of his arm.
“Gus told me to tell you there’s no charge. He says you’re one of his best customers.”
“You lied about the signature on the work order?”
“Not exactly.”
“But it didn’t have to be my signature, did it? Pilar could have been the one to sign it. Right?” she asked, holding her breath. Not that it meant anything really. Except th
at he was a nice guy. Or that he wanted to talk to her again before he left. That last thought made her heart speed up a bit.
He shrugged. “I figured you could use a break in the interrogation,” he admitted.
She couldn’t help but smile. “So you discovered my ultimate secret. I have . . . stripperphobia.”
He laughed again, making her insides go mushy. One of Pilar’s made-up words had finally come in handy.
“I’m in your debt. First for the toilet fix and then for saving me from Officer Bob. Pilar was right. You really are my knight in shining armor.”
Instead of smiling or flirting back like she expected, he picked up the work order and tucked it into his shirt pocket. The smoky look in his eyes was gone.
Had she said something wrong?
She cleared her throat. “Joey says you’re here visiting?”
“Yeah, I plan to be in town for a couple of weeks. I’m sort of in between jobs right now.” With one hand on the back door, he turned, hesitating only briefly before saying, “Make sure your friends give Officer Bob a good tip. My first wife was a stripper. It’s not as glamorous as it looks.”
5
“Well, that was fun,” Pilar said, flopping down on the living room sofa. She kicked off her pumps and propped her stock inged feet onto the walnut coffee table. “Was it as good for you as it was for me?”
“Why am I sensing sarcasm here?” Kitty moved the throw pillows off to the side so she could sit next to her. “Does it feel hot? I swear, if my air conditioner is going—”
“Don’t do that,” Pilar warned.
“Do what?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Yeah,” Shea said on her way to the kitchen with the last of the glasses. The rest of the Babes had left, but Shea and Pilar had stayed to help clean. Or rather, Shea was cleaning. House-work wasn’t one of Pilar’s strengths. “We got the stripper for you, not us.”
“Exotic dancer!” Pilar shouted. “Get it straight.” She flipped her dark hair off her neck and laid her head on the top of the sofa. “You spent more time in the kitchen with the plumber than you did in the living room with Robert. Not that I blame you,” she said, wagging her brows up and down.
“Robert?”
“The exotic dancer. He only goes by Officer Bob when he’s working.”
Shea reappeared in the kitchen doorway. “Guess what I found in the trash?” she asked, holding up a Bull Durham DVD in her hand. “It must have fallen in when you were straightening up the kitchen.”
Kitty sniffed. “I tossed it on purpose.”
Pilar’s head shot off the sofa. “What?”
Shea sat next to Kitty, a stunned expression on her face. “On purpose?”
“In about one hour, I’m going to turn thirty-five. Don’t you think it’s time I outgrew that little obsession?”
“But you love Crash!” Shea said, clutching the DVD to her chest.
“Crash has a receding hairline now,” Kitty said.
“Kevin Costner has a receding hairline. Not Crash. Crash is immortal,” Shea added.
“Crash is a fahottie,” Kitty said, warming up to the word. She looked to Pilar, who nodded in approval. “He was great when we were in college, but I’m not a kid anymore. I’m totally over him.”
“I’m glad to see you’ve come to your senses. But Crash isn’t the reason you’re still single,” Pilar said.
She shouldn’t encourage her, but Kitty couldn’t help wanting to find out Pilar’s latest theory on Kitty’s marital status. Or rather, lack of. “So tell me, Great One, why am I still single?”
“You say you want a guy like Crash, but you never go after him. You always go for the nice, safe guy. And when he doesn’t live up to your expectations, you drop him.”
“Are you saying I’m overly picky?”
“What about Jeff?” Pilar said. “He was a nice guy. Good-looking, great job—”
“Wasn’t he the one who liked to spank you?” Shea asked Kitty. “Or did he like being spanked? I can’t remember which way it was.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” Pilar said, frowning. “Well, he seemed normal in the office.”
“Jeff was a perfectly nice guy. And he did not like to be spanked,” Kitty said, glaring at Shea. “There was just that one time he tapped me on the butt. Maybe he did tap a little too hard, but after I told him I didn’t like it, he never did it again. In the end it didn’t work out because—”
“Because there wasn’t any excitement,” finished Pilar.
“Because I wasn’t in love with him,” Kitty said.
“Because he wasn’t Crash. Plus, there was that weird butt-tapping thing,” Shea added.
“Remind me never to fix Jeff up with anyone again,” Pilar said.
“Face it, Kit. The only exciting guy you’ve ever dated was Joey Pappas,” Shea said, humor etched in her light blue eyes. “I wonder why it didn’t work out?”
Pilar giggled.
Kitty giggled too. She didn’t mind going along with their little game. Sometimes. “I broke up with Joey Pappas when he told everyone we had French-kissed behind the cafeteria. Remember? You said I had to, or everyone would think I was a ho.”
“I never said that,” Shea protested. “I never even heard the word ‘ho’ till we got to high school.”
“What about his cousin? Now there’s excitement. At least he looks exciting,” Pilar said.
Shea narrowed her eyes. “What was going on between you two in the kitchen?”
“Nothing. Much,” she said, trying to sound casual. Should she tell them about her humiliation by the azalea bushes? No. She’d keep that little tidbit to herself. At least for tonight. But she definitely wanted to know what Shea and Pilar thought of Steve the Plumber.
“Is he going to start working with Gus and Joey?” Pilar asked.
“Plumbers make great money,” Shea said.
“He told me he’s in between jobs.” Kitty hesitated a second. “And he’s only planning to be in town for a couple of weeks. Plus, he might be married.”
“Did you check out his ring finger?” Pilar asked.
“Of course I did. He wasn’t wearing one. But that doesn’t mean he’s not married.” She thought about Steve’s parting remark and frowned. “I think he’s been married and divorced at least twice.”
“He told you that?” Shea asked.
“He told me his first wife was a stripper.”
Pilar swung her legs off the coffee table to sit straight up. “What kind of man marries a stripper?”
“The kind who likes big boobs and easy sex,” Kitty said. “The first one I don’t have, and the second one I don’t do.”
“You’re such a stereotyper,” Pilar said. “Just because a woman is a stripper doesn’t mean she’s easy.”
“It doesn’t make her Mother Teresa either.”
“What about the second wife?” Shea asked.
“That was a deduction on my part. He used the term ‘first wife’ when he talked about the stripper. That means he’s given them a number. If she had been his only divorce, he would have said ‘ex-wife.’ Which probably means he’s been married and divorced at least twice.”
“Wow. Very sleuthful of you,” Pilar said, looking impressed.
Kitty smiled. “Isn’t it?”
Shea sighed. “So, he’s out of work and he’s been married at least twice.”
“I bet he’s got a truckload of kids and child-support payments out the ass,” Pilar said.
Kitty’s smile evaporated. “I thought he was interested, so I tried to flirt a little, but I think I scared him away because he took off pretty fast.”
Shea rolled her eyes in disgust. “Loser.”
“Yeah,” added Pilar. “Any guy who’s not interested in you needs his head examined.”
Kitty was about to protest, but what did it matter? She was probably never going to see Steve again anyway. Time to redirect the conversation. She got up to inspect the wall thermo
stat. “Something’s not right with my air conditioner.”
“You’re changing the subject again,” Pilar said.
“I think she’s right,” Shea said, following Kitty to peer over her shoulder. “It is hot. What does the thermostat say?”
“Shit! It’s eighty degrees in here. But I have the setting at seventy-four.”
“Maybe it’s not totally broken,” Pilar offered. “Maybe the unit is just working too hard. Mine’s on practically all the time these days. But what can you expect? It’s global warming.”
Shea glared at Pilar. “Global warming is a myth.”
“No. Santa Claus living at the North Pole is a myth. I can’t believe how duped you are by the right-wing media.”
Kitty silently moaned.
“Al Gore is an alarmist,” Shea said.
“Al Gore is a genius,” Pilar retorted.
“Don’t let your mother hear you say that,” Kitty said to Pilar. “She thinks Al Gore’s a communist. She told me so last Christmas at your house.”
“My mother thinks everyone who’s not a Republican is a communist. And getting back to the subject,” she said, glaring at Kitty, “the reason you haven’t found Mr. Right is because we live in the middle of Bumfuck, Egypt. Half the men in this town are retirees, and the other half are either already married or still wearing braces. You need to go somewhere big. Somewhere there’s a lot of eligible men. Like Atlanta or Miami.”
“Now you sound like my mother,” Kitty said.
“Miami?” Shea echoed in horror.
“What’s wrong with Miami?” Pilar asked.
“Your own parents left Miami because it was too crowded,” Shea said. “All that traffic and crime, and—”
“And the theater and all that great shopping, not to mention all the jobs and all the hot guys,” Pilar said. “You can’t compare Isabel and Antonio leaving Miami to come here. They were already married and had four kids. Besides, they both came from small towns in Cuba. They weren’t used to that big-city stuff. You and I are stuck here,” she said to Shea. “But Kitty can go anywhere.”
“Are you serious?” asked Shea.
