by Matt Tims
“Got it!” she yelled while rushing toward the door.
“Jen.”
She froze.
Just say you’re in a hurry and that you have to go!
She attempted to step forward, but couldn’t. It was like his voice had a hold on her. She slowly turned her head and looked the fifteen or so feet into the kitchen, making sure to keep her shoulders parallel with the front door that was just feet away.
“Where was it?”
“Where was what?” she asked.
“Your bracelet,” he specified.
“Um…on-on…um…on the floor,” she spit out, her words hectic and messy.
He nodded again before taking a sip of water from his spot at the table. “What’s in your hand, Jen?”
“Huh?”
“Your left hand,” he said. “What’s in it?”
She clenched her left hand that she’d thought was hidden from his view. “Nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing to me,” he spoke, his tone cool and calculated.
You’re so pathetic.
She took a deep gulp but only felt dryness in her mouth and throat. This was mortifying. “I uh…I…”
Ryan calmly took another sip of water.
She dropped her head in shame while exposing her hand. This would most likely go down as the most embarrassing moment of her life. She wasn’t a teenager. She was forty-four years old! She had a family and bills to worry about!
“What are you doing with that?” he asked.
She closed her eyes and tried to think. How could she explain attempting to steal one of his dirty dress shirts without coming off as crazy? She wasn’t sure there was a way.
“Come over here and take a seat,” he instructed.
She dejectedly shuffled into the kitchen and sat in the chair next to Ryan. As disgraced as she was, her priorities remained in tact, and that was evident by her left hand still clenching the red dress shirt that was now draped across her lap.
“I love that shirt.”
She peered up at his gorgeous face. That strong nose, his amazing jaw, and those dazzling blue eyes were more than enough to destroy her marriage. She was helpless in his presence.
“What?” she asked.
“That shirt,” Ryan reiterated with a smirk. “I love it.”
“You-you do?” she stuttered, tense and nervous.
His smirk morphed into a warm smile. “Good things always happen whenever I wear it.”
She was desperate to discover every detail. “Like what?”
“I wore that shirt to a meeting with a client earlier this week,” he said. “Well, a potential client. We’ve been trying to get this guy for a while. Things went well, and I accepted his invite to join him at a bar. I noticed this blonde a few tables away who kept looking at me while we were there. I would guess she was in her early twenties. She’s blonde, fit, and your stereotypical little gym bunny. So, after my guy decides to call it a night, I go over to this girl’s table.”
Jen intensively listened to her neighbor reminisce about his night at the bar while she continued to hold onto his shirt. The soft cotton that tangled with her fingers had easily trimmed twenty years off her life. Somehow, she’d been transformed into that cute blonde at the bar. She was the girl on Ryan’s mind.
“We get to talking, and thirty minutes later, I’m pulling into my driveway with her in the passenger seat,” he said.
“Just like that?” she asked.
“Just like that,” Ryan confidently repeated. “You see, Jen, there are four types of guys in the world. The first type of guy is all physicality. I’m sure you’ve run into these types at the gym. They’re usually brash, confident, and almost arrogant at times. This guy believes he can get any woman he wants, because he has the body he wants. He thinks he can fuck a girl into wanting more. And do you want to know something? Sometimes he can, but she’ll eventually walk.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Well, that leads us to guy number two,” he continued. “Now, guy number two is a self-proclaimed ladies’ man. He has hundreds and maybe even thousands of lines and witty comebacks for every situation. He’s what most people refer to as a ‘PUA.’”
She inquired, “A PUA?”
“A pickup artist,” Ryan explained. “He thinks he can get into a woman’s head and control her mentally, but he can’t. It’s an act. Most of these guys come from a history of failure with the opposite sex, so they read a bunch of books and watch some videos; and suddenly, they think they possess a magical spell that they can just cast onto women.”
She was very familiar with guy number two from her single days. There was a day and night difference between real and manufactured confidence. What she was currently listening to was the words of a genuinely confident man.
“These guys can usually keep a women around for a while, but they always see past the act and bolt, because it’s not natural,” he said. “Now, guy number three doesn’t have either of those qualities. He just exists. He’s never going to wow a girl, he’s never going to fuck her properly, and he sure as shit isn’t going to get into her head. He’s just…there.”
Ryan had described Tom to a tee.
“What about guy number four?” she asked, strongly squeezing the shirt in her grasp.
Ryan took a long sip of water before setting his now empty glass down on the table. “There aren’t a lot of number fours out there, Jen. Guy number four has the physical prowess to fuck a girl the right way: when she’s trying to look up but her eyes just roll into the back of her head, when she’s attempting to speak but coherent words aren’t coming out of her mouth, when she wouldn’t be able to pick her own mother out of a lineup because she feels like she’s about to be broken in half, and when she tries to walk to the bathroom after you’re done with her but she can’t because her legs are weak. Newborn baby deer legs…” he added with a chuckle.
She opened her mouth to add her thoughts, but Ryan wasn’t done.
“But sex is only ten percent physical.”
“Ten percent?” she questioned, surprised.
“Ten percent,” he repeated. “You see, sex is ninety percent mental. A guy who can get into a woman’s head, can do things a guy who’s all brute force can’t dream of, but no woman will be completely satisfied unless she’s being stimulated on both a physical and mental level. I always laugh when I hear men talk about how their wives or girlfriends just lost interest in them out of nowhere. They’ll reference the expensive jewelry they bought or the exotic vacations they took them on, but that stuff is meaningless. Women don’t want gifts.”
“Most women do,” Jen disagreed.
“No, they don’t,” he firmly told her. “Women may think they want material things; but deep down, they don’t. If a woman isn’t with a man she truly craves, then she’ll settle for what he has to offer; and in most cases, that’s jewelry and gifts. He works twenty hours to make five hundred dollars, and then he goes and buys her a five hundred dollar necklace. That’s his way of showing his value, right? ‘I love you twenty hours worth.’ But what does that really mean? Is a necklace, or a ring, or a bracelet going to stimulate her on any level? Is she going to go to bed dreaming of waking up to see her man, or her necklace? For most women, the answer is her necklace; and for those men, she was long gone before they ever had her.”
“Most women still like gifts,” she said. The one under her turtleneck was a perfect example.
“Show me how many guys are getting laid on Valentine’s Day with a five dollar bouquet of flowers,” he said. “Do you want to know the few who are?”
“Who?” she inquired.
“The ones who stimulate their woman’s minds,” he disclosed. “You see, Jen, real men are gifts. Every day around them is special. A truly happy woman doesn’t care about material things, because her man can’t be replaced like a flashy piece of jewelry. If she loses that man, then she’s losing that stimulating part of her life; and sure, she’ll attempt
to replace it with some average Joe who’ll pay her bills, but she’ll never get that stimulation back. Take a guess at how much that collar you’re wearing cost me.”
She couldn’t believe he’d just said that.
“I know it’s under there,” he grinned while pointing at her turtleneck which showed through her unzipped coat. “Ten bucks.”
“Ten bucks?” she asked, surprised.
“Ten dollars,” he nodded. “And I guarantee that ten dollar collar means more to you than a ten thousand dollar necklace from your husband would.”
Her hand slid under the neck of her sweater to play with her present. He was right. She wouldn’t trade her collar for anything in the world—a ten thousand dollar necklace included.
“It’s the same reason I didn’t offer to buy that blonde a drink at the bar the other night,” he went on. “Because I didn’t need to. You never truly have a girl if you can’t take her home without buying her a drink. You’re simply renting her for the night. And before I fucked her physically in my bed, I fucked her mentally in that bar.”
So many different emotions consumed her being. She was enamored, stunned, and captivated, but the biggest surprise was how intrigued she felt. She was desperate to find out more. “How?”
“I gave her what she needed,” Ryan explained. “Girls who are physically deprived are easy to spot, but girls who are mentally deprived stick out like sore thumbs. I’m sure she had some college jock boyfriend who was fucking her right, but he wasn’t in her mind. If he was, then she wouldn’t have been in that bar, she wouldn’t have looked in my direction all night, she wouldn’t have smiled when I sat down at her table, and she certainly wouldn’t had been making me breakfast when I walked into my kitchen the next morning. I gave her what she needed. I connected with her mentally and carried that into the bedroom. Before I ever fucked her, I’d already marked her mind. She was mine. I could’ve given her the worst lay of her life and she still would’ve loved it, but I didn’t. I fucked her brains out. And you know what? I ruined her for her boyfriend.”
“But what about if things just get stale?” she asked brazenly. “Like, in a long marriage.”
“Relationships shouldn’t be work,” he said. “They shouldn’t be stressful. It should be effortless if two people truly desire each other. The problem is people settle for partners who they aren’t devoted to; and when year two or three rolls around, they’re sitting there wondering why they don’t want to fuck their husband or wife anymore. They don’t understand why the sight of their spouse makes them sick. It’s because their disdain for that person was hidden by naiveness. You need to look past a person’s outer shell and see who they really are. Do you know what I saw the day you introduced yourself at my front door?”
Jen curiously gazed at her neighbor. “What did you see?”
“A woman who deserved more,” Ryan answered.
“More?”
“It was your body language,” he expounded. “Your shoulders were slumped, your eyes appeared tired, and you just appeared to be defeated. And a woman like you with a beautiful daughter and a nice house; in theory, should never look that way, but you did. And the reason you did is because there isn’t a man in your life—a real man anyway.”
She was baffled. Not so much with his words, but rather in his ability to correctly assess every part of her life. “You got all that from me standing there?”
“And it was really evident when you came over to give your daughter her phone,” Ryan continued without answering her question. “The way you lost your shit at me, the way you tried to show your dominance, and the way you took it out on Ashley when you felt helpless. Jen, you were lost. You’re lost because you don’t have anyone to rely on. It’s just you and you alone. You have a daughter, but she’s a young woman, and women need strong men to be there for them. To guide them. To make them better. So, go ahead and keep that shirt, because you need it a lot more than I do.”
Chapter 11 – A Little Convincing
One Week Later. 8:03 PM.
Jen had spent the previous week wearing her neighbor’s dress shirt to bed. She made no attempts in hiding her new choice in wardrobe either. There most likely would’ve been one hell of an awkward conversation if Tom had decided to come upstairs instead of sleeping in the basement, but she didn’t care anymore. It was time to look in the mirror and realize what she was dealing with. She was finally ready to accept her situation.
Tom would never be the man she needed.
The past few weeks had resulted in numerous near slip-ups, and her already dwindling self-control was now at an all-time low. But what if she went next door and Ryan wasn’t what she’d expected? What if he was all talk? Was there a chance that he could actually be timid and shy when they got down to business? Then what? She would be a cheater for nothing. Her sexual needs wouldn’t be met, her vows would be broken, and she would be right back at square one.
The idea of giving Anthony a shot was a possibility, but what Ryan told her at his kitchen table last week was true: she needed a guy who she looked up to. She didn’t admire to Anthony. He was just some college punk with a good body and a big dick. Sure, she’d participated in some crazy stuff in that video she’d sent him, but he hadn’t actually stimulated her mind on any real level. She could replace Anthony with a dozen other guys from the gym, but Ryan was different. Ryan was special.
But something felt desperate and pathetic about constantly throwing herself at her neighbor the way she was. She’d originally gone next door to chew him out over his part in Ashley dressing like a slutty maid; and in the end, she wore that exact same outfit while cleaning his house. And then trying to steal one of his dress shirts? And actually accepting it after he’d busted her? Or what about the blowjob she’d almost given him? Who was she kidding? She still wanted to suck his dick.
She needed to make a decision. It was time to either go next door and get it over with, or to stop fantasizing about Ryan. The constant inner-struggle was beginning to take its toll on her. This past week had been the first good night’s sleep she’d gotten in weeks—all thanks to that shirt—but everything else felt off. She was sloppy at work, she constantly felt distant and distracted, and even her cooking wasn’t as sharp as usual. She was just drained. Well, until she put on that dress shirt and went to bed. That simple piece of cotton brought her joy like nothing else. It was heaven.
She found herself alone in bed on this bitterly cold November night. Ashley worked on a paper in her bedroom while Tom was at his job. Normally, she would be reading or asking her daughter for a movie recommendation on an evening like this. The house was clean, the bills were paid, and she was relatively bored, but her she couldn’t get one thing off her mind. The sight of another small manila envelope in the mailbox after arriving home from work earlier was enough to stop her heart for what felt like a lifetime. Part of her was relieved that she’d found it this time instead of Ashley. Too many suspicious packages might start raising some questions, but a bigger part of her was debating if she should just throw it in the garbage.
It was obviously from Ryan. The package was identical to the one her collar had arrived in; and while her neighbor had been constantly on her mind over the past seven days, she hadn’t actually seen him. She’d skipped her weekly cleaning gig and tried her best to not find a reason not to see him, but that was becoming a more difficult task by the hour. And opening this package would only make her crave him that much more.
Every part of her knew what a mistake looking inside that envelope would be, and it was time to finally start behaving like an adult. She was done tempting herself. That package would be buried in the bottom of the garbage can thirty seconds from now. Her days of fantasizing about the mysterious stud next door were about to be in the past.
Jen opened the envelope anyway.
A smile quickly grew on her face. Thick, black, firm leather flowed along her hand as the sensation of cold metal trickled against her fingers. She continued to unwind
her new present before eventually resting it on top of the satin bed sheets.
It was a dog leash. A dog leash that had the word “Jen” stitched into the leather with white linen thread. She pulled her collar out of her nightstand and hurried to put it on. That tight, tense, controlled sensation was back, and it made her feel alive. She raised the leashes’ steel buckle to her neck, and clipped it around the metal loop which hung from the middle of her collar, snapping it shut.
A tingle shot through her body. How did Ryan know she wanted this? Not only the collar, but the leash. Was he that perfect? Was he that far inside her head? She had all the supplies to play out her fantasy, but there was still a key component missing: a man.
Tom certainly didn’t fit the bill. He wouldn’t be on board anyway; but even if he was, the idea of him dictating the situation repulsed her. She needed someone she desired and lusted after. She needed someone who was strong and wouldn’t hesitate. She needed Ryan.
She rushed downstairs and wrapped herself in her winter jacket. Her new leash found its way into her pocket as her collar remained around her neck. Her feet carried her across the snow covered grass and to her neighbor’s completely dark house. The lack of light certainly wasn’t a good sign, but she rang the doorbell anyway.
Nothing.
She rang it again.
Nothing.
Feverish pounds on the door replaced the sound of the bell as she desperately attempted to will Ryan to answer. There was no use. He obviously wasn’t home. She sulked back across the yard, more frustrated than ever. Here she was, finally ready to confront the giant elephant in the room; but of course, he wasn’t there.
Desperate times called for desperate measures, and her immense destitute resulted in her acting very out of character. She’d never had a conversation with Ashley like the one she planned on having. Either she’d completely lost her mind, or this was her one chance at gaining some sort of sanity. She walked upstairs and opened her daughter’s door.
The teen had her headphones in as she worked on her computer, oblivious to the fact that her distraught mother stood behind her. A gentle tap on her shoulder caused her to spin around and let out a surprised yell.
