by Noelle Vella
Ricki’s voice had always been calming. She had the kind of voice that could put a man’s mind at ease after a long, hard day’s work. Calling me Swiper was her play on the fact that Dora, the kiddy cartoon character on Nickelodeon, had a cousin named Diego. Now, I didn’t know what Swiper the Fox had to do with Dora’s cousin Diego, but I let Ricki get away with it. Simple things made her happy.
“Ricki, it’s almost five in the morning. Why so damn lively?” I asked, my New York accent lagging with a bit of a drawl because I was still sleepy.
I grabbed the travel toothbrush Gabby had given me between the two rounds of sex we’d had. I found it comical that she knew I would be there long enough to have to use it. Regardless of all the talk she had done about not being a fan of one-night stands, she’d stopped at a store, purchased condoms, and a toothbrush. Women were funny like that. You didn’t choose them; they chose you. I had yet to meet a woman who claimed to not do one-night stands and actually not participate in one. I didn’t normally have to do or say too much. And not that I was bragging, but no woman I’d ever set my sights on had turned me down.
“Because I get my promotion today,” she quipped.
I nodded as I remembered. “Ah, that’s right. Lead pharmacy tech.”
“That’s right,” she squealed with excitement. “You remembered! I worked so hard for this. I can help Mama with her bills more now.”
“I put money in your account for that.”
“I know, but I don’t want to depend on you for my issues. I got it.”
“Ricki,” I said to her after I spit toothpaste in the sink, “I give you more than enough to handle her bills each month.”
“So, it ain’t your responsibility—”
“It’s not yours either.”
“She’s my mother.”
“And that means what—”
“So, how’s your trip going, Swiper?”
She cut me off. It was her way of telling me she didn’t want to talk about her mother’s issues. Ricki had always taken care of her. While I didn’t think she owed her mother anything, the woman had used guilt to get Ricki to do what she wanted. Telling your child she’s the reason you had to drop out of high school to work in a shipyard so she could eat was a low blow. Ricki’s mom had gotten sick while working there, and she loved to remind Ricki of it. On a few of the occasions that I’d taken her out, she had told me about it. Had even shed a few tears because of it.
“Going well.”
“You did your booth thingy yet?”
“Booth thingy?”
She giggled. “Yeah, you know, the thing you’re sponsoring.”
“In a few hours.”
“I miss you.”
I looked into the mirror, then grabbed a clean towel to wipe my face. “Ricki.”
She knew why I was calling her name. I didn’t have to tell her to cut all that sappy, I miss you shit, at the pass. I examined my shoulders and saw the scratches where Gabby had dipped her nails into my skin.
Ricki backtracked. “I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the sentiment, but the last thing I wanted to do was have her expecting the same in return. No expressions of affection and she wouldn’t have to worry about getting her feelings hurt when I didn’t express the same feelings back to her. She knew the rules. I could tell by how quiet she’d gotten that I’d hurt her feelings. I could hear her Jillian Michaels DVD playing in the background. Ricki wasn’t a fitness nut, but she did enough cardio and core training to keep her body in shape.
“So how’s your trip going? You on your way out?” she asked before I could change the subject.
I grabbed a white towel and wet it with hot water. Washed my face. “Not right now. Chilling with a friend.”
“Who, Carl?”
“No.”
Just as I answered Ricki, a knock came on the bathroom door. I cracked it open to see Gabby standing there. Although she looked tired, she was still beautiful. She looked like a walking piece of art. Long locs cascaded down her back. Brown skin glowing. Thick, plush lips begging to be kissed again.
“Are you almost done?” Gabby asked me. “I need to use the bathroom.”
I nodded and moved out of her way. I couldn’t help but watch her ass jiggle in the little thin thigh-high gown she’d put on. I imagined what it would be like to slip back between those petite thighs. I grunted low in my throat when I remembered the pain she’d experienced upon first entrance. Couldn’t believe she actually hadn’t had sex in over a year. Pussy was tight and gushy. Warm and inviting.
“So is this a friend you just met or one you took with you?” Ricki asked out of the blue, throwing my thought process off.
I didn’t doubt that she’d heard Gabby’s voice, and her question was a way of trying to figure out who I was with and how much she meant to me.
I sighed, walked out of the bathroom, then closed the door behind me. “What the hell, Ricki?” I asked in a deep voice. “What’re you playing at right now?”
“Sorry. Just making conversation.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. Just asking stuff is all.”
I grabbed my boxer briefs and pulled them on. Then I snatched my pants from the ottoman and made sure my wallet and the keys to my rental were still in there. A man could never be too careful.
“Then stop asking stuff that you know will get you hung up on.”
She sighed, did that little sucking sound through her teeth. Gabby turned the water on in the bathroom; I could hear her humming to herself.
“I just wanted to call you and tell you about my promotion since you asked me to,” Ricki said.
“I know what I asked you.”
“Okay. When will you be back?”
“Monday.”
“Will I see you?”
“If I’m in the mood.”
She was silent for a moment. Gabby walked out of the bathroom toward the bed, then stopped to look at me. There was a smile on her face and a challenge in her eyes. She was hard to read. Asked a lot of questions, but shut down when I asked her the same questions in return. I didn’t really think we needed the twenty-one question game anyway. Figured she was only using them to make up her mind about having a one-night stand. I couldn’t say I blamed her. She didn’t come across as a woman who had sex with every random man she met.
“You’re mad at me now, aren’t you?” Ricki asked.
“No, I’m not.”
“We normally see each other on Mondays.”
“I’m normally not coming back from a business trip either,” I said as I pulled my pants on.
I held the phone between my ear and shoulder as I adjusted my belt, then buckled it.
“Okay. I know I shouldn’t have said I missed you or asked about who you were with. I know your rules. I don’t do this all the time.”
“Yeah, but you do it enough to where I can remember each time you have done it.”
“I won’t do it again.”
I hated when she did this shit. Hated when she got into her emotions and started to push them off on me. I hated when her feelings were hurt because she made me start to feel like the asshole I knew I was. During the three years we’d been doing this, I could count on one hand the times she’d lost herself and tried to show her emotional attachment. Each time it had been easy to make her remember why I kept her around. As long as she kept to the rules, she’d be okay.
“I know. Just like the first five times, right?” I finally answered her. “I’ll call you back.”
Ricki didn’t say anything. She just hung up the phone. I shook my head, then clipped my phone to the case on my hip.
“The only way I’m going to have a problem with you being on the phone with another woman in my presence is if that was your wife,” Gabby said. “Not that I have a right to say anything, anyway, but I don’t want to be helping a married man cheat on his wife.”
I cast a glance in her direction, gave a lazy smile,
then quirked a brow. “Thought we had this discussion already.”
“We did,” she said as she pulled the gown over her head.
I couldn’t help the fact that my eyes mapped her body. Everything was right where it was supposed to be. At close to forty, she put a lot of younger women’s bodies to shame. I had a thing for slim women with toned waists and thick behinds, especially if they were dark skinned with natural hair. Gabby’s thighs held a gap that made my mouth water.
“I told you I’m not married. I have no woman. No girlfriend. Not that it would matter at this point if I did anyway because you’ve already done the deed,” I said, then chuckled.
“Touché.”
She studied me for a moment, head tilted to the side. She stood there like she wasn’t ass naked. Like it meant nothing that I drank in the sight of her as if I was parched.
“You smile a lot, but it never reaches your eyes. Do you know that?” she asked.
I turned my lips down and shrugged. “Never thought about it.”
“You’re smiling, but your eyes say something different.”
“So you’re a doctor of the mind now? Thought you were into sports medicine.”
She laughed. It coated my insides. Traveled down to my stomach and settled in my dick. It jumped against my will.
“I can read people better than most of those head shrinks. Just trying to figure out the man behind the façade. You come off like you have it all figured out, but I watch people. And you have a lot more beneath the surface.”
I didn’t know how much I liked the fact that she was trying to read me. Didn’t see why it was so important to her one way or the other. After this was all said and done, I would move on, and so would she. I was surprised when she closed the gap between us. I chuckled. I knew she was short, but seeing her out of heels proved just how much shorter than me she really was. With her hands on her minimal hips, she gazed up at me. Ran her hand up my abs like I belonged to her.
“What you see is what you get,” I told her.
“That’s a lie.”
“Why do you care? Last night will be all we had.”
“Either you’re telling me my sex was trash, or you’re saying that if I invited you back here tonight you wouldn’t accept.”
I thumbed my nose, then reached out to massage her perfect breasts. I’d never been a fan of big breasts. I didn’t need all those D cups overflowing.
“I can assure you, your sex wasn’t trash.”
“So then you’re saying tonight you won’t be coming back,” she said more as a statement than a question.
“Are you asking me to?”
I tugged at her locs. Sat down on the ottoman behind me so I could have better leverage. I knew I should have been on my way back to Hilton Head since I had to be back on Tybee by noon, but what man would have been able to turn down temptation ripe for the picking? I sucked her right nipple into my mouth while my hands found her small waist. Something about the way a woman rubbed my head and ears always got to me. Most women didn’t know those two things increased my arousal.
I released a low growl while I palmed her ass. Her moans and hisses worked my nerve endings. Had me rising to the occasion again when all I’d intended to do was get up and leave. I lifted her up so she could straddle my lap, my mouth never leaving her breasts while she worked my belt buckle. Thankfully, the condoms were within reach behind me on the dresser. I reached back and grabbed one and gave it to her. My eyes rolled in the back of my head a bit when she massaged my head with her fingers. While I kissed on her breasts, I let my tongue travel up to her neck and ears.
Gabby was stroking me with her hand. I could feel my preexcitement leak out. She was moving her hips like she was already riding me. But I remembered how uncomfortable my length and girth had been for her last night. So I moved one hand from her locs, then slipped two fingers inside of her and stroked her with that come here motion to get her juices flowing again. She was already so wet. Like she had been thinking about fucking me the whole time.
She threw her head back and moaned . . . sighed like my fingers were what she had been waiting for. She rocked her hips against my hand while our breathing synchronized.
“You should come back tonight,” she whispered heatedly.
“Put the condom on,” I answered.
She did. Took my dick in her hand, then guided me into her. Gabby took her time. Took me in at her pace. Took the time to get adjusted, then started to move her body like a snake. She was going so painfully slow that my hand fisted the skin on her back. Yeah, she knew what she was doing. And while I may have been in control last night, this morning, she was proving that she could give as good as she can take.
* * *
I waited in the car for Carl. After Gabby and I had done our final dance of carnal pleasure, I got dressed. She headed to the shower. Neither one of us pretended to be more than what we were to each other, which was two grownups who had provided each other with sexual satisfaction. That was all there was to it.
I watched as Carl paused, then toss something in the trash as he walked out the front door. Shell locked the door behind him. She waved at me through the closed glass door, then rushed back up the stairs. Carl casually strolled out the front door like he hadn’t just helped a woman to cheat on her husband. His locs swung around his shoulders. His shirt was wrinkled and untucked, and his suit jacket was in his hand while he texted on his cell.
“You look pissed,” I said to him once he got into the car. “Pussy that bad?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Dalisay texting me with her bullshit.”
“You still talking to her?”
“She’s still my wife, and unfortunately, she’s trying to contest this divorce.”
I nodded and took one last look at the beach house, remembering the woman inside before I pulled off.
“How did things go with you and Shell?” I asked him.
“She’s cool. Feeling her out. What about you and her friend?”
“Just good sex.”
“Nothing else, huh?”
I glanced at him before putting my eyes back on the road. “Nope. Wasn’t looking for there to be.”
Carl chuckled, then let his seat back. I drove the rest of the way to Hilton Head in silence.
Chapter 12
Carl
It was a quiet ride back to Hilton Head, South Carolina. Diego didn’t say anything more on the eighty-minute drive because he was being his usual elusive self; nothing new when it came to women. I had a feeling Shell’s friend would end up being yet another casualty in a long line of what I called “hit-it-and-quit-it chicks.” My friend was famous for meeting a woman, sexing her, and cutting her off at the drop of a hat, especially if she seemed to start catching feelings. This had been a pattern with Diego throughout all the years I’d known him; he always kept women at arm’s length, and when they seemed to get too close, poof, they were gone like yesterday’s trash.
I guess that’s why the arrangement between Diego and his old standby, Ricki, had worked out so well for him; he was in complete control. Ricki was young; young enough, in fact, to be Diego’s daughter. And he had her trained like a child. Or better yet, a puppy. He said jump and didn’t have to say how high because she already knew. At times, I actually felt sorry for her, because although Diego was my best friend, ole boy was clearly taking advantage of her. I wanted to chalk it up to her being young and dumb, but then again, he was breaking her off with money and other gifts. Maybe the situation worked for her too.
Ricki’s dilemma made me think of the young lady that I recently shared a bed with. Shell also appeared to be in a situation that she had no control over; a cheating husband who had apparently moved on with another woman, and yet she had no means to escape the marriage. Yeah, she had a temporary furlough for the weekend, but from what I gathered, that motherfucker could potentially make her life a living hell once she got back.
During the silence on the ride to Hilton Head, I thought back
to the few minutes I spent with Shell before Diego and I left.
Shell was asleep wearing nothing but an Atlanta Falcons football jersey. I hadn’t been with another woman in almost twenty years, seventeen of those married. But now that I no longer considered myself married, all bets were off. I had to admit, I didn’t feel one ounce of guilt whatsoever over what happened with Shell. Betrayal will do that to you. And the fact that that was some good-ass pussy made it all the better. Tight, juicy, sweet. Damn. My mouth was watering just from thinking about it.
I’m a man who’s used to getting what I want, and I wanted another taste of Shell. Even though she was asleep, I didn’t think she would mind if I helped myself. I moved closer to her, sliding my hand between her legs, gently massaging her clit. She began to moan softly, her legs parting as if inviting me in. One finger entered her moist folds, while my thumb continued to stimulate her clit. I saw her briefly open her eyes, then close them again as they rolled back in her head.
I only had about an hour’s sleep, and I needed a pick-me-up. Usually that was coffee, but Shell’s juicy pussy would work just fine. Sliding my head between her legs, my tongue teased her clit.
“What are you doing to me, Carl?”
I grabbed her meaty thighs, placing them on my shoulders. My tongue found its way into her sweet, pink pussy as I tongue fucked her, my nose rubbing up against her sensitive clit.
As I moved my tongue and face in concentric circles, Shell let me know how much she appreciated my attention.
“Damn, Carl, that shit feels so good,” she said, as she moved to match my movements. “Suck my pussy.”
I loved it when a woman knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to say so. I grabbed her waist, my face burying even deeper. Her legs began to shake while she held my head in place. For a minute, I felt as if I was going to suffocate. Fuck it. If I died right then and there, at least I’d die happy. Besides, wouldn’t that be a bitch if Dalisay got a call from the cops telling her how I died? “Ma’am, your husband died with his head between another woman’s legs.” It’d be poetic justice if you asked me.
